Have a nice day!

Dear Aircel

2010-02-11T11:58:00.001+05:30

Dear Aircel Guys

Please stop playing with the emotions of the people. You don't give a fuck about tigers or lions or lemurs. If you did, you would have done something more than creating "awareness". Let's see what you have done. You have put up a website asking PEOPLE to create awareness & what not. You made a television commercial. You booked hoardings & press ads, not to mention give your advertising team a huge pay for this.

All this would have cost you atleast about 5 crores. In that money, you could have donated 15 new patrol jeeps, enabled forestry department to hire experts forest rangers and equip them with the basic stuff like walkie-talkies and GPS systems to keep a better track of these animals. That would have saved a few lives.

But I guess it is easier to just make an ad with a tiger cub saying "it is scared and doesn't know if its mother will return" or some shit. You guys suck. Please shove your innovative social marketing shit up your big, broad conference room asses. Will you stop thinking that we are stupid?

Please just sell your sim cards and begone.

Rot in hell.

PS: That goes double for you Idea guys and your "save paper, go green, unisex Abhishek Bacchann tree" and TOI with your "Aman ki Asha and Phir mile sur". Fucking assholes. Hope you choke!

It's official: Iam Obese!

2009-02-09T12:26:00.003+05:30

I had a full body check up done on Saturday after I developed yet another exotic disease. This one is called episcleritis. It basically means my eye hurts because my back hurts. Yeah, I thought it sounds weird too. So anyways, Mom freaked out and I had to get the check-up done.

In case you have never had a full body check-up done and have no clue what it feels like, let me give you a clue. You basically try to run around from one department to the other all day. It was fine and I even went along with a 'dental' exam till I saw the last stop on my checklist...

'The Dietitian'.

That's not even a valid department I protested but I was shoved in anyways. And I guess I made her day. It is for people like me she gets paid her salary. She started by saying that I am obese.

Obese!

30 kgs over-weight!

WTF! 30! Yes, she said. Your system looks fine but soon you will have sugar, thyroid and pressure problems. I gulped. I could see KFC zingers and Azad Hind biriyanis slipping away from me. Her alarmist propaganda continued. And I sat in horror as she spelt out in crude details what my life was going to become.

She started spelling out my 'daily calorie intake' and my 'ideal diet'. I swear I have never felt so physically ill in my life as I did at that moment. I thought I would bury my face in my hands and cry. But she wouldn't stop. She handed me a 'vanilla flavoured' diet mix and a handout with 'foods to avoid' and 'foods to eat'.

Let me summarise the leaflet by the two pictures on each page. The first was a plate of pastries, chocolates, burgers, fries and meat. The second was grass on plate. I felt something die inside me. Nothing made sense anymore and I just shut the world out. She kept talking but I couldn't hear the words.

Finally the ordeal ended and I walked out of the horrible, horrible place. I went straight for a confectionery store and dug into two scrumptious chocolate pastries.

Then I smiled for the first time on that horrible day.

In the memory of the man who ate the world!

2009-01-28T15:01:00.002+05:30

Jan 26th, 09:

2.30 PM: Lunch

One large bowl of rice.
Three bowls of dal.
One whole brinjal, fried.
Five potatoes mashed.

3.45 PM: Restaurant with friends

One bowl of rice.
Two portions of mutton curry.
One portion of malai-curry prawns.
Two colas.
One portion of mango yoghurt.

5 PM: KFC

One Zinger burger.
Two pieces of fried chicken [Hot & Spicy]
Large fries.
Large cola.
Chicken strips.

7.15 PM: Barista

One large Hazelnut hot chocolate. [It sucks by the way!]
One muffin.

8.30 PM: Dinner at Home

Four chappatis.
Three bowls of dal/chana preparation.
One whole onion.

1.30 AM: Midnight snack [27th Jan, 09]

Four slices of bread.
Half a pack of good-day biscuits.
One Ferrero Rocher chocolate.

Being jobless

2009-01-20T01:36:00.001+05:30

A few days ago I was being jobless as usual, when Frodo buzzed me on gtalk. He was getting bored and was telling me that he too was... jobless. I instantly replied that he couldn't be more jobless than me. He obviously felt offended and before I knew it he challenged me to a showdown.

Frodo: I bet I am more jobless than you right now.

Venting-Macha: Haha, dream on!

Frodo: Alright you asked for it. Tell me what you are doing right now.

VM: Ok, since you asked... you know how wikipedia has a "featured article of the day" section?

Frodo: Ya.

VM: Well, today's featured article was "Neptune". Now the strange thing is I felt that I have seen "Neptune" as the featured article sometime ago. Could Wikipedia have repeated an article? Wow. So I have been searching through the archives of the last four years, going day by day, in search of the date when the said article had been previously posted.

Frodo: How long have you been doing this?

VM: For a few hours.

Frodo: Well, sorry to break your heart but that's not being jobless. You are investigating.

VM: Fuck you. What have you got?

Frodo: Ever used Google Chrome?

VM: Ya.

Frodo: You know how when you open a blank tab, your favourite pages are shown on it. Well, I like them in a particular order and since it depends on the number of times you visit that page...

VM: Fuck you that's not being jobless either!

Frodo: Huh?

VM: You are customising!

PS: After having searched through half of the archives, it occured to me that I might have seen "Neptune" in the feature picture of the day section. So, I promptly started searching through the archives of that section too.
At the time of posting this, I have looked as far back as June, 2006. An ice-cream on offer to anybody who can finish the entire archive search and tell for sure whether "Neptune" had been previously posted or not.

PS #2: And you think you were jobless?

Veg vs Non Veg: The Man kicks Macha ass again!

2009-01-16T16:53:00.005+05:30

Yesterday at dinner, my parents were as usual cribbing about the amount of food I eat. Ma kept complaining about how fat I had become and how my brother-in-law had lost so much weight in the last few months. Why can't you make an effort, she pleaded even as I continued to keep stuffing my mouth. I was determined to eat my hearty meal and ignore the temptation to engage my parents in debate. I mean after all they have to live with the sight of an obese, lazy lump living in their house. But then my father, who henceforth shall be known as The Man, fired the first salvo.

The Man: Phoo, he's trying too hard if only he quit non-veg food he'd lose half his weight instantly.

At this point I must mention that The Man is a strict vegetarian. Of course as a self-respecting meat-eater I felt offended. I mean its meat! Its beautiful... it *sniff* makes me weep with joy sometimes in the middle of the night. I had to retort.

Venting-Macha: You mean to say vegetarians are not fat? Have ever seen those Marwari/Gujarati aunties?

The Man: Compare the comparables. They have a sedentary lifestyle. Amongst active people with similar lifestyles non-vegetarians seem to be fatter.

VM: [annoyed] How can you just randomly make statements like that? There is no study to conclusively prove all that. There is no data. What is the basis of such blanket statements?

The Man: The basis is my experience and observation.

VM: [even more annoyed] What! See it matters how a dish is cooked. A fried potato is probably just as harmful as fired chicken. Lean meat isn't fattening. It's the preparation that matters.

The Man: No! Meat is more fattening.

VM: But... but most seafood doesn't have fat!

The Man: [without blinking an eye] Which is why many coastal people don't consider fish and seafood to be non-veg!

VM: [stunned into silence]

I quickly finished my dinner and beat a hasty retreat. No, I hadn't satiated my hunger. I left for a night-out soon after that and promptly dug into a biriyani dinner at a dhaba.

The Man rocks!

Venting Macha takes on Bollywood!

2009-01-14T18:10:00.011+05:30

Ok, I got too much time on my hands and damn it my photoshop skills suck. But you got to admit, these films would have been much more tolerable if only they had cast the Venting Macha!

Decide for yourself!

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi:

They said the film is about the 'comman' man, the 'loser'. Well if that is so, Venting Macha says there is no bigger loser than him around. I know Shah Rukh Khan gives tough competition to most people but when compared to the Macha, SRK is just not loserish enough. Do I see you shaking your head in a condescending smirk? Can't believe that there can be a bigger loser than SRK?

Ya I know the guy brought monopoly rights on the phrase 'Iam the best', put money in making films like 'One 2 ka 4' and 'Phir Bhi Dil hai Hindustani' and shamelessly admitted [repeatedly] on national television to being best-friends with Karan Johar & Farah Khan [eeks].

But consider this -

# The Venting Macha spent a whole afternoon looking through his old pics to find suitable ones for the purpose of this post.

# Learnt Photoshop.

# Googled SRK.

# Morphed pics! And finally uploaded it on the page.

There now do you believe me? Hah! Thought so too. Next up, is the film that has bulldozed into record books by simply making people 'forget' what a shit-fest it actually is. Yes, I am talking about that spicier than a South-Indian rasam, cooked by Mrs Murugadoss, revenge-adventure flick that has brought the Indian tatoo industry into the mainstream and all of course in a matter of 15 minutes. Lest of course you 'forget'...*poof* Where was I? What was I talking about? [Checks tatoo on chest which says 'Aamir Khan is a sellout bastard' and remembers again].

Driven by the marketing acumen of the obscene ball of muscles now known as Aamir Khan, it has been laying seige to our sensibilities courtesy plugged publicity in almost all mainstream Indian newspapers, news channels and of course websites.

The film is about... who-the-fuck-cares what's it about! Have you seen Aamir's body? Have you seen his 8-packs? Have you seen that killer intimidating look? Oh boy, he gives me the chills! I wouldn't want to cross him the wrong way in a dark alley!

Hmm. So, you think that's scary? Take a look at this and tell me frankly who would you rather piss off.

On the left, Aamir Khan strikes a sullen pose because he's been punished to sit in the corner for having ears as large as angola rabbits! However, on the right is Venting Macha showing you what it really means to look a pissed-off bad ass in the eye. Feel tingly shivers running down your spine, uneasy restlessness in your heart... well then... beat it punk, or I'll get up from the chair and scream in a ridiculously hilarious fashion.

Oh sorry, that last bit was Aamir again from Ghajini. Anyways point well made.

Finally coming to the one man who many consider to be 'The Man' as he simply defies logic and keeps giving hits inspite of having stupid-sounding titles for his films, inane plots, stupid directors, insipid music and a heroine who looks like a million bucks but can't speak Hindi to save her life! Akshay Kumar is next. Singh is 'Kinng' it seems, and he can't spell english correctly either.

This one was the most easy, really! A clean-shaven sardar? Sheesh! The Venting Macha has been there and done that when he was all but 2 years old! Don't believe it? See for yourself...

Check me out doing my version of fist-in-air, 'Singh is Kinng' dance circa 1986. So there. The scoreline reads... Venting Macha 3 - 0 Bollywood! I rule!

Moontwined

2008-07-17T19:44:00.003+05:30

... and waiting for the stars to fall. Feedback welcome...

Bad punctuation ....!!!!

2008-05-26T11:05:00.002+05:30

Bad punctuation pisses me off. Period. I hate it when people type like idiots while chatting or writing emails. I am old-fashioned in that way I guess, but I swear I coldly judge people who type things like -

"Heyaa... how are uuuuuuuuuuu?"

"Where have you been .........!!!"

That is a question, I have no clue what an exclamation mark is doing there. It's just so annoying to see people do that. You come to office, log into gtalk and you see an retard with a status-line with something similar. Pisses me off, sure as hell would want to kill someone at that point of time!

aaaaaaa ......!!!! - why not?

Of a late night flight, yesterday.

2008-05-20T11:48:00.003+05:30

As I sat by the window waiting for the aircraft to steady itself to land on the narrow strip of tarmac illuminated by hundreds of powerful lights like a giant target contrasted against the sea of random orange specs in a night of encompassing darkness, I felt happy.

There is something very human about feeling dwarfed that makes each of smile and be happy. We feel it when we stand and stare into vastness of the ocean from a little sandy beach wondering how big the sky really is. And we feel it when we stand in the midst of mountains, ancient and silent, cold from millenniums of solitude and aloneness.

I think as little ants in the giant ant-farm that swarms around us, we get into the habit of making ourselves the centres of our universe. Life becomes all about getting to work on time, socializing, bitching, binging, starving, partying, crying… we live, we die. Till every now and then, something happens and makes you realize you are just another spec of sand waiting to be washed away.

Then you smile, as the enormity of the world and life itself dawns upon you. And in that moment of being humbled, you feel tall and strong. You feel like a giant who smiles benevolently on all that has come to pass. You close your eyes for a moment to take that feeling in.

Then you breathe.

Untitled

2008-05-12T14:11:00.003+05:30

Two years ago, I remember writing a similar post before I left for my MBA. Having bummed around for two years I have managed to get the three most haloed letters in the desired choronological order on my CV, and in the process managed to get myself a job in what I am told is the leading media conglomerate in the country.

Hmm.

Last two weeks have been spent house-hunting in Mumbai, then jet-setting to Delhi and now wasting away silently on a borrowed desk in a forgotten corner. Work hasn't found me in the office, it's only a matter of time before it does and then innundates my life with its humdrum of presentations and meetings and awkward lunch hours. Before it does that, here are a few foot-notes I have gathered over the afore-mentioned two weeks.

Little nuggets of wisdom, snippets of life and a giant vacuole of a lonely space...

# Don't look for work. If it doesn't seek you out, then it's probably not important enough.

# All American Diner at the India Habitat Centre is cool place for a meal.

# Actor-Factor Theatre Company is over-rated. A good poster, robust hoarding and intellectual sounding brief can get people to pay Rs 300 for a show. Caution advised.

# You sometimes find friends in people you've let your eyes slip through for years.

# Mail Today is the most 'intelligently crafted' and cosmopolitan newspaper/tabloid I have seen in India.

# India TV aired a song called "Dhoni और Goni" to celebrate the phonetic similarity in the names of the Chennai IPL team-mates.

# The Great Khali says wrestling is not fixed. Liar.

# This is becoming a media analysis. Ugh!

# You know you've been labelled a adult when PAN number, tax returns, investment plans and insurance are not abstract concepts which your dad keeps himself busy with, and you have to figure them out.

# Sometimes talking to someone you miss can be an absolutely frustrating & draining exercise.

# Indifference hurts more than sarcasm.

Sometimes letting yourself drift with the flow can be a painfully exhausting and sapping endeavor, and the effort to dig your feet in and drop the anchor seems beyond your capacity. Sometimes I guess, it's just fair to leave random thoughts buzzing through your head, in bullet-points without sentences or paragraphs stiching some sense out of them.

It might even be considered therapeutic. Or well, maybe not... Hmm.

5 Easy Steps to become an Instant Politcal Dickhead

2008-05-04T18:59:00.008+05:30

Stupid fascists are at it again. The face is different, a different name... the war-cry the same and the so is the idea of politics. Exclusionism is an easy ticket to fame in the diverse mosaic that is India.

Get alarmed at the cold-shoulder that the national media is giving you. Now-now dahlings, just because we don't have six-pack abs or a size-zero frame, doesn't mean we don't like page-3! Phoo!

Identify a dormant majority community. You can make a quick game out of this too. Language, region, religion, culture... so many possible ways to pick this community. Ooh-ooh, so much fun!

Identify the 'outsider'. Oh joy, more fun! Caution: The excess joy might cause you to orgasm.

Shave those pubes (long-public rallies in the summer can leave you with itchy, sweaty patches... hardly unbecoming of a 'public-hero'.

Launch into a tirade of how the majority have been marginalised by the 'outsiders'. Use words like 'direct action', 'Jai *insert name*' and phrases which basically make a mockery of the constutution and the democracy of the country. When you pair these with thick-rimmed glasses (last seen on Preity Zinta) - you are bound to be taken seriously as a desperately stupid and parochial politician, which is more or less the effect you are gunning for anyways.

Now sit back and enjoy a pubes-free orgasm as the national media scurries to give you a prime-time spot and then roundly condemns you. You can of course use this 'negative mileage' to portray yourself as a victim of a national conspiracy to "marginalise the interest of the chosen-community".

This is of course if you don't orgasm yourself to exhaustion before that.

Goa... Goa... Muhaha!

2008-04-25T20:18:00.008+05:30

Hello. The same old. The same old. The pressures of blogging got to me so the Macha has run away to Goa for leetal holiday! Will be a little irregular for the next few days, so kindly bear with the same.

I leave with a few pictures shamelessly picked from the website of the resort I am stayng in. Palolem beach, South Goa... idyllic, slow and lazy unlike the North Goan commercial orgy. Feast your eyes -

PS: Ok now, a reality check. I confess I was sold on the pictures above, but this is for any future Goa travellers... a beach-shack means... well, a beach-shack and nothing else. No TV, no AC, no nothing (Did I mention it is the off-season & the mercury is defying gravity)

Also, immediately after this, the Venting Macha will be relocating himself to that filth-hole of the Great Indian Urban Dream - Mumbai! So keep watching this space for the macha to vent against local trains, sweaty shirts inside local trains, the monsoons and local trains, the long queues and local trains, the road-is-perpetually-jammed-you-can-only-travel by a local train and did I mention local trains?

Anyways, its beer and prawns for me now... cheers!

PPS: & drenched... I'll get around to the tag, first thing after this :)

Popular culture for easy mass consumption

2008-04-21T22:55:00.009+05:30

10 bucks says that most people reading this know squat about books, music and cinema
- they bastions of popular culture in my opinion. I am tired of people telling me that "But I don't know anything about books, so-and-so is so well read".

That is all but hogwash. If I just take books as a platform. Think about it, all the people you know who read, count the same people as their influences - Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkien, Salinger, Gabriel Marquez, O Henry, Hemingway, etc. I mean there is a list of about say 100 authors whose works we are familiar with. Even the more 'hardcore' reader will not take a name which a person with a decent IQ will not be familiar with.

There is a distinct reason for this. This is a slightly complicated argument, so bear with me. The idea is that most of us who read books purchase it from formatted stores such as Landmark or Crossword. Indeed, since these have come up very few book-lovers have consistently decided to stay away from it. Ever since, it is the selection-manager/team of Crosswords that decides the ambits of popular collection and fringe literature for all of us.

We are presented 2 shelves for say non-fiction, and the same is populated by about 500 titles. The person browsing the store thinks he has the choice to "pick" his book, but somebody in the back-office has already decided which 500 titles from say the 20,000 odd at his disposal should be displayed for selection. The same is true for music and cinema as well. Sure, you can order a book/CD/film if it's not available, but only a true aficionado would subscribe to something like that.

As a result, an increasing homogeneity of popular culture is coming to be. Our idea of cinema comes to limited to popular Hollywood/Bollywood titles of the 90s. You are branded an intellectual if you have seen the cinema of staples such as Satyajit Ray, Ghatak, Kurosawa, Almodovar, Kieslowski, etc. It is cool in an intelligent way to name Francis Coppola or Stanley Kubrick as your favourite film-makers, the same way it cool to have read Rushdie or Naipaul or Shelley, or claim superiority of Jethro Tull over Pink Floyd or The Doors over The Beatles.

When you pick up the giant omnibus of the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame, most rockaholics cannot even recognize even a single band for every 10-15 pages. The reason for that is our understanding of rock music floats in the universe of - Elvis, Buddy Holly, Dylan, The Beatles, Hendrix, The Doors, Pink Floyd, Stones, Dire Straits, Queen, Nirvana, etc. You know the usual suspects. The "cooler" ones may name The Ramones, Sex Pistols/The Clash & the punks, Velvet Underground, etc.

The idea is that even here you can easily compile a list of about 80-100 acts which would cover the "popular understanding" of rock music for about 99% of people. There is no diversity of thought. There really cannot be. There is nothing that encourages it, there is nothing that warrants it.

I am tired of our notion of popular culture being modified by marketing departments of mass retail chains and media houses running culture (read: films, music, etc) channels. I am not against Crosswords & its cousins, it has done a good job bringing culture-enthusiasts into the visible mainstream.

But where are the book-lover societies, the film-clubs that eagerly pursue cinema as a voracious passion rather than a retail-format driven lust of a "killer" collection or for that matter music buffs seeking the art of marginal music movements that feed their own notion of self and identity and by extension the music they are then inspired to create. In effect, the input is a giant mass of easy-to-consume-mashed-fruit-pulp for a population of a billion - therefore, the output can hardly be a 7-course spread of an exquisite spread.

And we still wonder why we have to see a "size-zero" (what does that even mean?) Kareena Kapoor gyrate in skimpy clothes while the sex-starved horny producer is busy getting through his routine of masturbating 10 times per day as he sees some desperate starlet lock-lips with a confused hero in a disaster-wreck of a plot in the name of a Rs 150 buck cinematic experience at the nearest INOX.

You really have to ask yourself then... was the 50 bucks you spent on a giant coke, really worth it?

IPL: Reasons why it annoys the shit out of me

2008-04-19T13:30:00.013+05:30

Yay! Look SRK... look Juhi Chawla and Gauri Khan... look-look SRK's kids... omigawd, SRK is dancing to the wicket that player whose name I am sure he doesn't know, just took. Oh, this is too much entertainment. I am exhausted by all that passion... I think I will faint.

That is roughly the delirium that unfolds around me as I try to duck under some rock till this garish explosion of the most perverse kind of intellectual bankruptcy blows over. There are so many reasons why I abhor it that unless I take a deep breath before I rant, I'll have a stroke and die.

(takes a deep breath)

Firstly, I hate the way the BCCI has flexed its muscles to bulldoze this shit into out lives. I mean has anybody ever wondered by IPL is getting headlines & prime-time slots and why the ICL made only a 2-inch column on the "Other News" in the Sports sections of most newspapers.

Not that ICL itself is martyr or anything (that's a different story altogether) but it just makes me sad that in a country where the media prides itself on its "neutrality" and "fairness" - they arbitrarily decide to boycott ICL for getting coverage rights for the IPL. Surely, a tournament which boasts of a "who's who" of cricket by itself deserves more attention in a cricket-crazy nation.

Secondly, it just makes my blood boil to see Preity Zinta selling IPL tickets for "her" team and field questions about women's equality and how she's holding her own in a "man's world" while in the background a 7-year old girl walks a tightrope and performs acrobatic feats to keep the IPL fans "entertained" while they wait for their ticket.

Btw, the tickets were being sold for Rs 8000 each, while the little girl was reportedly being paid a mere thousand bucks to risk her neck & spine for "entertaining" these people. Women's equality ambassador? Bullshit? Anyone?

I am all for libertarian economics, but there is a small sub-text of exploitation that runs through this whole jamboree that it makes rationalizing these things a little more of a difficult task.

Thirdly, the plain hypocrisy with which the BCCI says that they are "promoting cricket" in India is astounding. Here is a small list of extremely talented cricketers from India who in an ideal world should have seen more of the national team -

Abhishek Jhunjhunwala, Ambati Rayadu, Deep Dasgupta, Dinesh Mongia, Hemang Badani, Reetinder Singh Sodhi, Rohan Gavaskar, TP Singh, etc.

Anybody who has followed even a little bit of Ranji cricket, most names would ring familiar bells. Unfortunately they'll never be seen in the Indian national team... or the BCCI XI. A little known fact, the team we so unabashedly cheer for in the world cup, etc has nothing to do with the Indian nation.

In a landmark judgement by the supreme court a few years ago - the cricket team as fielded in these tournaments are the exclusive property of BCCI and not the Indian nation.

Fourthly, what does a knight rider even mean?

All the King's men...

Knight-Riders? Like "riders" of Knights? Is it me or does it sound like there is an innuendo of some twisted and extremely kinky medieval homosexual fantasy happening here? And then it says "All the King's men". To best of my knowledge Kolkata never had Knights and the last "King" to rule over it briefly was Siraj-ud-Daulah before Lord Clive re-took the city during the Battle of Plassey. Surely Kolkata with such a rich and proud heritage could have offered better symbols of nomenclature.

Similarly, the Rajasthan Royals, Kings XI Punjab. Chennai SuperKings. What Kings? What royalty? Where? Or better still, my personal favorite - Bangalore Royal Challengers. Bravo.

What is pissing off is that the owners have tried to create a branding maelstrom around their teams to create a "cult following". What follow are shamelessly blatant branding techniques done to death - music videos, PR appearances, blanket hoardings, TV bites and media spots. Sad bit is people are buying it.

Imagine seeing a Bangalore citizen and identifying yourself with an premium whiskey brand or being Kolkata guy and living with yourself as a "King's [SRK] man - a Knight rider".

Lastly, with IPL and ICL, the economics of the corporates firmly enters the domain of cricket - the last bastion of any kind of proud sporting prowess in our country. Pretty soon you'd be having Provogue presents "Kings XI Punjab Party Wear" or the Reliance "Mumbai Indians Credit Card" or something. With cricketers making unheard of salaries, nobody will be expected to take Ranji Trophy and all seriously.

Not to mention the hog that is BCCI, it will prevent the development of similar league experiments elsewhere and throttle the game itself. While it does so, hordes of twenty-somethings will sit in front of the television with their Pepsi/Coke in their hand and scream their lungs hoarse on some misplaced concept of identifying with a "tribe".

It took English soccer, a proper century to become the life, blood and passion of a people. The problem is we all envy it so much, that we are ready to make massive fools of ourselves for getting a part of that in our lives.

If only we looked in the right places more often.

JetLite? Right? Hello...

2008-04-18T00:09:00.003+05:30

Call-centers have a way to annoy me. When they are not inspiring tepid best-selling "literary masterpieces of modern Indian writing" with such hideously ugly blue covers that I had aneurysm; they mess with your everyday life.

I wanted to book a flight from Kolkata to Mumbai. I don't have a credit-card, so I wanted the address of any booking-centers so I could go get the booking done. This is what the JetLite website had to say -

FAQ 18. How to book a seat without a credit-card?

~ To book a seat without a credit card, you can buy the tickets at any of our ticketing/sales offices or through Jetlite appointed travel agents by paying cash. You could also block reservations at our call-center 1800-22-3020 or 30302020 and purchase the ticket from any of our Airport Offices within the time limit as set while making reservations on phone.

Sweet. So I call the number. I am greeted by a pre-recorded message.

Pre-Recorded Message: Welcome to JetLite, where you can get a flight [or some such inane rhyming thing... I kid you not]. If you want... ... reservations press 2... ... for other assistance stay on the line.

Me: Er, eh. Press 2.

PRM: Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme... ... Welcome to JetLite... Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme... [loop]

Me: I'll try again. [quick dialing...] Stay on the line.

PRM: Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme... ... Welcome to JetLite... Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme...

Me: Arghh! [Quick dial again] Press-2

PRM: Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme... ... Welcome to JetLite... Our Cosmos Frequent Flier Programme...

Me: [5 minutes 21 seconds according to phone-timer]... let's see who's blinks first.

JetLite: Hello you have reached JetLite

Me: Who was I with for so long?

JL: uh? Can I help you?

Me: Flight to Mumbai... Block the ticket, I don't have a credit-card.

JL: Can't do that Sir

Me: What shit? Your website says...

JL: Doesn't matter Sir. We cannot help you!

And that was that. I didn't know whether to bang my head on the phone or to go down to the Airport and punch the man at the counter. In the end I settled the matter by wolfing down a packet of chocolate-biscuits. Ah... pure magic, indeed.

All in a day's work I guess.

Whatte Wakau, I am

2008-04-16T21:19:00.001+05:30

I am fat, I am balding, I am 22 but I look 38 and I am blogging.

I am not disturbed or depressed. I am not funny, and the closest I have come to suffering from an exotic "disorder" like MPD or Bulimia was when I had malaria. I am just an average guy who lives an average life with average friends and an average family.

Welcome.