It's official: Iam Obese!

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.

Being jobless

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?

Untitled

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.

Goa... Goa... Muhaha!

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 :)

JetLite? Right? Hello...

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.