Wallet

“Of all the things that I’ve lost, I miss my wallet the most” – Pradeep

Well, technically I did not lose it, I just forgot it at home. The bottom-line being that I was left without any cash. So I had to borrow money for breakfast ( Rs.17) , then again for lunch (Rs.100, of which I ate for Rs.60. And , yes, our caterer rips us off !! ).

All this is fine, except for the fact that I had a call till late that night (My theory is that the later the hour of the call, lower the likelihood of something useful happening !!) , which left me very hungry .

Now normally this is not a problem as I can stop by at any of the restaurants nearby and hog. Unfortunately, just as I was about to pull into a restaurant , I was reminded of the bare-bones financial situation sans the wallet. 40 Rs would not even buy me a glass of lime-soda there :-(

Sadly the master chef reversed out of the parking and headed home hungrily, the MasterCard ad inspired verses, swirled in his head

“One liter of juice - 85 Rs
One tandoori chicken – 150Rs
Meal for one at Chilli and Pepper – 600Rs
Carrying your wallet when you are hungry – Priceless”

On stories and names

Inspired by the fake IPL blogger, let me also come out with names of characters that may appear in my blog in the near future.

Disclaimer : Any resemblance to any one living or dead is purely co-incidental. These are purely fictitious characters

Disaster, Daya, Lion, Senior, Windy, HBP(High Blood Pressure) , Senior, No-logic, Cucumber, Fat-drip and Chatter-box

Let us say No-Logic, Cucumber and Chatter box are of the fairer sex and Fat-drip is in the U.S :-).

So last weekend, Disaster, Daya, Lion and myself decided to have a bachelor cookout.

Bachelor ???, you might ask 

Well Daya and myself are not exactly bachelors, but for all practical purposes we can be assumed to be that for the next couple of weeks. Chatter-box was invited, but was busy with something or the other and No-Logic went on the usual weekend escapade to home. Windy was not yet a bachelor and so was not invited.

Intense discussions on menu followed for several days. Finally clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities was done. I would make Appam and Chicken Tikka, Daya would make fish fry, Lion would make egg curry and Disaster would make Dal. Saturday evening would be the time, and venue would be my house.

Saturday started off for me with purchase of chicken ( bone-less of course, bones are for dogs !! ) and appam mix. Kept the chicken marinated in a mix of lemon juice, curd and various top secret masalas for close to 6-7 hours :). Daya & disaster arrived with marinated fish and Lion too made his presence felt soon there after.

We were all set to start. The evening started with a magnificient display of chicken tikka by yours truly ( Hey, my blog, I will write whatever I want) .

Lion started with Egg curry and immediately started demanding ingredients which I did not have. Fresh green chillies, tomatoes etc .. A deep dive into fridge revealed some mildly rotten tomatoes and wilted green chillies. Lion was shaking his head as if he were the main chef of The Taj. After some severe sledging, he proceeded to reluctantly use the available ingredients and start cooking. Intense pressure was heaped up on him , with sarcastic comments flying thick and fast. Showing true Lion like qualities, he delivered under pressure with a very nice egg curry.

Daya proceeded to fry the fish in Goan style, and ended up eating half of the first fish to make sure the frying and masalas were in order ;). He also tried to use some un-named powder in my kitchen thinking it was rice powder, luckily we caught him in nick of time. BTW,  I still don’t know what that white powder is ……….

Disaster meanwhile just wanted to boil dal with salt ( and sugar !!! ) and add nothing else. After some not-so-gentle coaxing, he came around to making a version of dal that us normal human beings could consume. I must add here that Disaster has zero threshold for spices, show him a green chilly and he will start sweating like a pig !

There was nothing to say about the appam, except that the master chef’s stamp of class was clear in the soft fluffy creations ;)

Overall cookout v1 was declared as a grand success by all parties involved. Cookout v2 was also planned tentatively for the next Saturday, details of that to follow soon !!

Power woes

2-1-2-1-2-1-2-1 …..

No, this is not a new mathematical series that I invented, nor is this my bank account number

2 hours of power –1 hour of no power. The timings so precise, that you can almost set your clock based on it. The electricity company is again trying to push people to insanity.

This pattern continues on into the night also. 2 am in the night I wake up with mosquitoes almost airlifting me off the bed !! Tried Odomos repellant cream, it was simply not rated for this many mosquitoes . Finally I had to burn a mosquito coil just to get some shut-eye.

Of course the fumes from my coil triggered my asthma now :(, but still after a while I was able to fall asleep. Have slept less than 4-5 hours per day for the past several days due to this power situation and other things.

On a side note, there is quite a bit of talk in the US now about Smart Grids and Demand Response programs. Folks, learn about these from KPTCL, who surely have one the best load shedding programs in the world !!

There is no way you will end up complaining about your electricity bill, because the power is almost never there when you need it :-) And due to the scant availability of power, you are pushed to use it smartly ;).

KPCTL should be a pioneer in Smart Grids !!

Sport as mood elevator

Nothing lifts your mood like when one of your favorite teams pulls of an amazing victory.

I was watching Manchester United Vs Aston Villa on ESPN . For the most part of 80 mins, it looked like ManU will slip to their 3rd consecutive defeat.

They were trailing 2-1, their makeshift defensive line getting torn up time and again by a pacy and crafty Villa forward line, injuries and suspensions had caused at least 5 first team players to miss out. With Liverpool going above them in the table yesterday, the ManU title challenge seemed to be headed towards disaster.

That is till two pieces of brilliance turns the match on their head. Cristiano Ronaldo had been a passenger for most of the match after his early strike. He latches onto the ball outside the penalty area and lashes in a low drive to the corner of the net. 2-2

Then in injury time, 17 year old Federico Macheda makes a stunning turn and curls in an unstoppable short. GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL and 3-2

This is surely how Premierships are won.

Liverpool is playing some stunning football, sets up a fascinating final few matches. This season has been one of the best that I have watched

Will to survive

Have you ever felt like losing your will to survive ? [ Now don’t panic, this is not about losing will to live. That one is a different kettle of fish altogether, I have no time for that nonsense !!]

Was reading Paulo Coelho’s Manual of the Warrior of light again, when some lines jumped out at me. These are verses picked out at random from different chapters.

When the warrior of light watches a sunset and feels no joy, then something is wrong …… A warrior of light makes use of solitude , but is not used by it

The warrior of light does not always have faith. There are moments when he believes in absolutely nothing. And he asks his heart ‘Is all this effort really worth it?’ But his heart remains silent . And the warrior has to decide for himself.

The warrior of light has learned that God uses solitude to teach us how to live with other people.

W32 Vitro Virus strikes

Don’t know how this virus got in.

I use Avast Antivirus Free edition and Zone Alarm Firewall.

Avast caught this virus, but was unable to clean it, only option is to delete the file. The pain was that the virus infects windows system files, so if you try to delete the files, you end up with an un-usable OS pretty soon.

Ended up re-formatting the hard disk and re-installing windows !! Pretty bad, I need to be more careful in future.

Some of the things you could try include

• Re-building the windows installation as described here. Please read the discussion at the link carefully, may not work for you depending on the installation CD you have !! Also there are folks complaining that this did not really solve the problem. Worth a shot if you catch the virus really early, I guess
• Trying to download and install some other anti-virus. I tried this and the moment I tried to launch the installer, the virus corrupted it :(
• Sophos anti-virus seems to indicate they can clean this virus, I am not sure how true this is
• Copy your personal data ( don’t copy any exes !!) to an external USB hard disk ( quite cheap these days) , reformat and re-install windows. As mentioned above, this was the only thing that worked for me
• If you are not in a tearing hurry, you could try waiting for a couple of weeks before someone comes up with a fix for this. Unlikely you can wait that long though :)
  

Read more at the following links

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=42709.0

http://www.tech-linkblog.com/2009/02/polymorphic-win32vitro-most-virulnt-virus.html/

http://dcs-tech-corner.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-virus-warning-w32vitro.html

What kind of a book shopper are you ?

I often wonder if it is possible to predict what kind of a person you are by analyzing your book shopping habits. Some types of shoppers I have seen are listed below

• The confident shopper : They come in looking for a specific book. If that is not there, they would probably leave not even bothering to browse
• The perennial browser : The kind who spends couple of hours browsing, in the end does not buy any book. Most of them tortured and lost souls :)
• The superfast shopper : Before you blink he / she has 3-4 books under their shoulder and ready to check out. Not a common species, I must say
• The iterative shopper : Scan the book shelves multiple times, often going over the same section more than once before making final choice. Often slow to pick up books.

I am more of an iterative shopper. I usually put down mental markers on which ones I want to buy while browsing, but I don’t pick them up till I am fairly close to checkout. Average shopping time is around an hour and maximum I buy at a time is no more than 4 books.

And I hate store staff lurking near me while I am browsing. I hate crowded bookshops also. I boycott the Gangaram’s in MG road for these very reasons. This is also why I love Crosswords.

I have bought some more books for reading this Friday, however the mind is not quite there yet ……..……

A long drive

Sunday nights are usually pretty boring for me, add to that the fact that power failed here. After around half hour , I could not take it any longer. Took my car and headed out aimlessly , just wanted to get away from my house for sometime. Anything to get rid of the dark clouds in my mind.

Ended up driving towards Hebbal, then took a turn towards Malleswaram, went under the Windsor Manor Bridge and on to Infantry road and then Cubbon Road. Sudden right turn towards brigade road, then further right on brigade road to Church Street. The place is jam packed at 9.30 pm on a Sunday night. A few twists and turns later I am back on Brigade road, this time headed towards Koramangala. Decided to stop for dinner at imperial and then headed back home through HSR layout and outer ring road. A touch under two hours,  was sufficiently tired and distracted by the time I was done.

Came back home to see Liverpool annihilate Aston Villa. Coupled with a miserable performance by Manchester United yesterday, that should set up a great finale for the English Premier League. I still think United will win.

Dark and brooding

One of these dark clouds has been hovering over my mind all of a sudden. Origin is again mysterious, just feel tense and down.

Maybe it will pass, maybe it won’t …………………..

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;

To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates

From its own wreck the thing it contemplates;

by Percy Bysshe Shelley in Prometheus Unbound

Let hope emerge from the wreck and we shall see.

Point to ponder

I was getting hopelessly behind in my ironing, so decided to outsource this to a local shop. Dumped a first batch of 12 clothes, got them back in perfect shape and was charged at the rate of Rs.2.50 per garment. Impressed by their speed, I gave them a second round of 15 garments. This time he told me the charge was  Rs.3 per garment !! I immediately told him about the last times rate and brought it down to 2.50 per piece. Happily I returned home, satisfied with my own alertness.

On the way back itself a sense of shame and guilt began to overpower me. I have no hesitation in blowing away hundreds of rupees whenever I visit a bookshop or a mall. Just recently I splurged couple of thousand on new shoes on goggles. Never ever thought of bargaining in those shops. Now here I am stealing away 50ps per cloth from a husband-wife combo who have a barebones existence, work tirelessly from morning to evening and have at least one kid to support. How insensitive can I get ?

But sadly it is not only me. Most of Bangalore (maybe India and the world too ) seems intent on following this same path. Sample behavior : Negotiate hard with your local vegetable guy for maybe a Rs.5 saving,then go to an AC restaurant and pay Rs.1500 for dinner without even a whimper of complaint.

Every time I stop at a traffic signal, some kid or the other will come begging for money. Almost always I turn them away. I know of some intellectuals who say that is the right thing to do as it will stop them from begging and look for other jobs. In an ideal world perhaps that is true. But in a practical world it is an extremely tough day to day existence for them. In spite of knowing all this I don’t know why I refuse to pay at times.

If at all a resolution made sense for me in 2009, it is possibly to be more sensitive to a fellow human being’s difficulties

More and more random thoughts

The use of a curry leaf is really interesting. You use it to provide flavor to a dish. Especially down here in South India, it is pretty much used in all dishes. However once the flavor part is done, it is mercilessly thrown out. No sympathy, no second thoughts, no word of thanks. Off to the trash you go !! I thought co-passenger duty was thankless, curry leaf wins that battle hands down :)

Finished Jeffrey Archer’s latest book, Paths Of Glory ,over the weekend. A decent read, nowhere near his best.

The true story behind the book continued to intrigue me after I finished the book. The books is based on the attempt by the legendary George Mallory to scale Mount Everest.

Though Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay are undoubtedly the first people to reach the peak and come back safely, it seems that considerable debate exists as to whether George Mallory had scaled the peak before them. No way to be sure of this because he died during that climb/descent.

The romantic in you wants to believe that somehow he had miraculously scaled the peak, though scientific wisdom and evidence may suggest otherwise. One particular fact adds fuel to this fire,  quoted from Wikipedia

“Mallory's daughter has always said that Mallory carried a photograph of his wife on his person with the intention of leaving it on the summit. This photo was not found on Mallory's body. Given the excellent preservation of the body and its garments, this points to the possibility that he may have reached the summit and deposited the photo there”

Intriguing. Guess only God and George Mallory might know what actually happened.

Guide to married life

This is really a manipulation of some interesting quips on marriage, nothing original

• Before marriage you might feel incomplete, remember that after marriage you are finished
• You might think marriage interferes with romance and you would be correct. Your wife is bound to interfere any time you have a romance ;)
• In any argument there are two ways you can choose. Your wife’s way or the highway
• In any marriage there is lots of give and take. You better give it to your wife , else she is going to take it anyway
• Do you know of a faster way to transfer funds than electronic banking ? Sure, it is called marriage !!
• "I'll never let go Jack, I'll never let go." says Rose in Titanic. Several seconds later, poor little Jack sinks to the bottom of the Atlantic... [ I love this one :)) ]
• Your wife will work tirelessly to change you, then she will complain that you are the not the same person anymore
• Four most important words in marriage “I’ll do the dishes”. You can replace dishes with cooking , laundry or cleaning :)
• Your marriage is in trouble if your wife says, ‘You’re only interested in one thing,’ and you can’t remember what it is
• Research has conclusively proven that the biggest cause of divorce is marriage

Guide to living alone

Guides and manuals for living seem to be the “in” things on internet. So why not put together a Guide to living alone based on my experiences ?? So here it goes, valid only if you are married and staying away from your family

• Accept the fact that you have no life, peace follows thereafter :-))
• Stay in office as late as possible, immerse yourselves in work
• If you cannot do that, develop an alternate hobby. And no, TV does not work. Reading is ok, cooking is good, exercise is even better
• If you are stressed at work, that is the time you suffer the most as there is no real way to unwind when you come in to an empty dark home with no one to talk to. Vital to have some diversion like above in that case. Turn to blogging like I did :)
• Try to find interesting stuff to do on weekends. A bit of shopping, some volunteering, visiting a few friends, driving at breakneck speed etc…. If none of the above interest you the sleep all day like I often do :-) Though I can warn you that you will wake up towards the evening miserable and depressed
• Avoid any functions or events in which everyone else comes with their families, especially ones with kids. I have suffered silently on many such events. It just throws up a whole lot of emotions that you can rarely control. I often hide behind ill health to excuse myself from these events ;)
• Great to have couple of friends with which whom you can chat freely when you feel down and depressed. This alone has helped me the most. Make sure you don’t pile on your misery on them and get them depressed !! ;) And be sensitive, you are the one without a life, not them. So don’t impose yourselves on anyone
• Take good care of your health. Remember that if you fall sick, there is really no one to take care of you !!
• Use technology, connect with your family over Video chat. Nothing like seeing your family to burn the tension away
• Though hope is most deceptive of all emotions, continue to hope & dream. Things are rarely as bad as they seem.

Confusions of a sleep deprived mind

As is the case with most offices in Bangalore, our office is a no smoking zone.

So imagine my surprise when I was walking in office and I see cigarette smoke emerging from a cubicle. Enraged, I walk over to the guy and demand that he puts his cigarette out. The guy basically blows me off and tells me he can very well do whatever he wants and there is nothing I can do about it. Fuming with rage, I drag over my site safety leader to confront him. As I come back I am met with the bizarre sight of lot of my colleagues carrying boxes and boxes of medicines. I ask them what is going on, they tell me they have been asked to hide the boxes somewhere.

What the #$%* is going on here ????

And then I wake up in my bedroom

It felt so real that I was really in a foul and angry mood when I woke up. Checked the clock, only 7.30 pm, so I was able to catch just couple of hours of sleep after my early departure from office. As has been the case with past couple of days, I have no recollection of anything about the drive apart from the fact that I have parked my car in garage today, unlike yesterday when I left it on the road.

Felt really hungry, so decided to make Aloo paratha, this time with the variation of grating the boiled potato instead of mashing it (i had heard my friend mention this as an alternate way). Somehow tasted better, though I have very little logical explanation of why.

Orkut throws another googly as daily fortune : “The work will teach you how to do it”

Rarely has a statement made so little sense. Though in my current state, i can be no judge of sense :(

Deflated cakes and ego

Nothing deflates a master chef’s ego than a deflated cake :((

I was attempting another version of my marble cake when the typical Bangalore power failure happened. I tried to outguess the state electricity board by shifting my cooking time earlier, however the novice was deftly outmaneuvered by veterans in the state electricity board who effortlessly pre-poned the power cut to leave my cake in tatters

The center of the cake which was nicely rising up completely collapsed. Even the BSE SENSEX collapse in 2008 paled in comparison to the mammoth crater in the middle of the cake

But why should I suffer alone in this ???? Always better to spread the misery around :) So I took the cake to office today and was surprisingly well appreciated by my colleagues.

I guess the true talent of the cook lies in recovering a seemingly hopeless situation.

If talent came in cups, then “My cup runneth over”. Maybe I should try cup-cakes now :))