Living a day without internet

Ask me what is the main goal of any website? Lots of people will say the main goal is to sell your personal info. I deny that. The main goal of every website is to make you addicted to that website. I realised this last night when I watched videos on youtube till 5 am. The videos were funny, educational and interesting but I didn’t sleep all night (although I did watch few videos on how to sleep early).

Now depending upon the amount of sleep deprivation a person’s mood next day could be groggy, grouchy or grumpy. Now being a normal person I had all the three moods during the day and sometimes at the same time. I am not a misanthrope but without my night sleep I become the guy who supports Hannibal Lecter for eating the people he despised. 

My attitude during the day was of a guy who overnight became a beggar from millionaire. Everywhere I looked I saw people reading, writing, forwarding, and deleting whatsapp messages. Everyone was happy except me who was exiled from the wonderland of social networking for not having any data credit to access internet. 

It’s now midnight. Thanks for reading my blog post. I have to go now. Youtube is waiting for me. I will go to sleep as soon as I have watched all the interesting videos on youtube. 

The haircut

I am an introvert. It doesn’t mean I hate people but only that I am not really good at conversations. I don’t talk much when I am with my friends and avoid talking with strangers assuming they all are Amway agents. I have always wished my barber to be an introvert like me and to me it seems it’s not love but haircutting where opposites attract. 

Today being a Sunday I decided to read few filmi magazines and hence visited a barber. When my turn came the barber asked me to sit on a chair and I told him I want a haircut and a shave. This should have been the end of discussion but unfortunately it seems ability to speak non-stop is an essential requirement for working in a Men Saloon. 

The barber half-way through the haircut asked me where you live sir. I wanted to say just do your job but the guy was giving me a haircut. Such a curt reply may lead the barber to shape my hair like David Beckham and I think I don’t have clothes to go with such a stylish hairdo. Unable to afford a new wardrobe I told the barber where I live and the barber told me he lives just 2 kms away from my home. In reply I said, “No wonder it’s such a nice locality”. 

The next question barber asked was what do you do Sir. I wanted to say currently I am working as a Gigolo. However, I was unsure if the barber understood this particular English word and I have no idea what a Gigolo is called in Hindi. So I told the barber about my work and the barber told me if the payment is good then it’s not a bad thing to do. 

The barber asked me few more questions and I dexterously replied all thereby ensuring I got a haircut appropriate for a guy who works in an office and not a rockstar. I left the barbershop hoping google will be able to answer one question which I have been asking myself ever since I started chatting with the barber and the question was how to cut one's own hair. 

My mother is addicted to TV serials

My mother is obsessed with the saas-bahu shows. For her the time between 7:30 pm to 10 pm is more sanctimonious then her pooja time. During this time she is glued to tv like you and me when Sachin Tendulkar is batting. With so much tv watching I have started fearing she will soon start weighing more than the sofa on which she sits. 

I remember when I was a child my mother told me money cannot buy happiness. She then proceeded to tell me stop watching cartoons on tv and study because no studies means no good marks which meant no good college which meant no good job which meant no good life and wife. I think I must tell her to stop watching tv but unfortunately she doesn’t have any homework to do. 

The reason I think I don’t like my mother watching so much tv is because I have slowly become jealous. Sometimes I think my mother cares more about Aanandi (of Balika Vadhu) than me. Her tv obsession makes me believe she is more interested in the life of people in Big Boss house than the people in her house; people who eat her cooking and wish they could order pizza instead of eating dal-roti-sabji every night. I think the only reason my mother watches so many cooking reality shows is to learn how to properly criticize my dear wife’s cooking. 

The biggest problem arises when India plays a day-night cricket match. We have two TVs in our house and she being the boss of the household orders me to watch the match on the smaller tv which I think my parents purchased when I was in school. It’s so old that I think it must be solely used to watch saas-bahu shows. Watching a cricket match on it is nothing short of a torture to me whereas in the next room my mother is learning tips on how to be a perfect monster-in-law. Things like this make me angry and motivate to write such blog posts. 

Another problem I have noticed is my mother is highly susceptible to ads. My home has every biscuit that is advertised on tv. I think we are the first people in the colony to try the exquisite new flavor of a biscuit that costs just one and a half times more than the regular one. It’s not that I have a problem with eating new variety of biscuits everyday but what I really want is some pizza chain to open shop near my home and start advertising heavily on tv. 

To sum up

TV was invented to pass time and not to ignore your family members. 

Sick Sunday

Yesterday was Sunday. When I woke up I found my mother making tea and my father with his nose burrowed in the newspaper. I wished my mother good morning and told my dad he needs to take me to a doctor. In reply my father moved from the editorial to the cartoon section and asked, “Why?”

I think my father is the coolest person on earth. But he also has one quirk. Sometimes without any intimation he shifts from The Cool Mode to The Homer Simpson Mode. In reply to my father’s why I wanted to say because there is a new doctor in town about whom all my friends say she is super hot. I think I must check her out. Speaking this would have made Homer Simpson strangle me like Bart Simpson. So instead of the wisecrack I said the truth. I said, “Because I am sick”.

My father took me to a more-than-a-clinic-but-not-yet-a-hospital type of place. The place had nameplates of four doctors on the door and I think they had enough degrees among themselves to cover all the alphabets of English language. Along with the nameplates there was a mention of when the medical representatives can meet the doctors and several posters about which I am sure were put up by medical representatives. The most interesting poster had a man standing behind bars with the caption ‘Doctor is not God. Beating the doctor is a criminal offence’. Not very confidence inspiring in the abilities of the doctors I must say.

Among the four doctors, the least educated one diagnosed me. He was so poorly educated that he had only four alphabets in his degree. And even among those four alphabets one was repeated. He was just an MBBS.  

When the doctor called me in, my father stood up and entered the doctor’s room. That’s my father in the Homer Simpson mode. He doesn’t appreciate the concept of physician-patient privilege. Physician-patient privilege aka client confidently means the doctor can ask me how many times you masturbate during a day and in reply I can say, “Look doc, I am a young man. I don’t have a girlfriend but I have super fast unlimited broadband connection.  You do the maths.” The doctor will never reveal this to anybody (There is some grey area. This concept might not work if the doctor decides to become a standup comedian). The doctor can tweet ‘Just met the weirdest/craziest patient of my life’ but my name will appear only in his DMs. 

The doctor did the check up and said you will have to change your lifestyle. My mind immediately went into red alert and started broadcasting at full volume the following message throughout my body ‘Do not listen to the doctor. Your browsing history is the proof that you are 100% straight. Stay that way. I repeat do not listen to the doctor’. I said okay to the doctor and collected the prescription. 

After the doctor me and my dad visited the chemist. The chemist had a look at my prescription and said, “Damn it. You should have consulted the MD.” WTF man. How serious I am that I need an MD. When did the druggists changed their profession from selling medicines to scaring the shit out of their customers. 

After collecting the medicines me and my father walked towards his bike. I said to my father there is one more thing we need to do. He asked what and gave me a look which I immediately decoded as ‘You donkey. You didn’t say yes when your mother said can you bring some vegetables’. 

I said I want to buy India Today.  My father took me to the nearest magazine vendor and I told the guy sitting at the counter to give me a copy of English India Today. In response the guy smiled and gave me a magazine which had a half nude model on the cover with the caption “Porn@home’. “WTF man” I asked myself. When did give me English India Today became a code for Debonair.  I smiled back at the guy on the bookstore counter and said, “You know ... I think I will read Business India this week’.

Yes. That’s my life. It’s full of surprises. Surprises which deeply embarrass me in front of my family. 

Why does electricity go off when it rains?

In school i was taught India has unity in diversity. When i grew up i found what was taught to me in school is correct. However, unfortunately, there is a difference between theory and practice; as i grew up i found India is one but not because of the reasons mentioned by my school teachers.

I don’t remember much of what was taught to me in school and it really doesn’t matter anymore because i have cleared my school exams and nobody is ever gonna bother me again with theoretical questions (except in a job interview where the interviewer has no clue of what i do). The truth is India has unity in diversity because whichever part of India you will visit you will find corrupt traffic cops, few anti-bachelor neighbors and an immediate power-cut whenever it will rain in your city.

Last night, just like every other average Indian guy, i was at  home, watching pirated downloaded movie on my laptop and waiting for my dabba. The dabbawalla came, knocked on my door, yelled ‘Sir, please eat your dabba. It’s raining’ and left. I yelled back, “Okay” and wondered, what is the relationship between rain and eating your dabba at 9 pm? Since i couldn’t figure it out i decided to take help from a higher authority and decided to google it. However, before i could google it  the internet connection stopped working.  Along with internet the tubelight and fan in my room also stopped working. The darkness in my room brought to  light the reason why my dabbawalla had asked me to immediately eat my dabba, but unfortunately it was too late. Also, since it rained all night in Pune electricity supply was not restored the entire night.  Somebody has rightly said “college education is no substitute for  street-smartness. “

In the morning i woke up to a rotating fan.  The power supply  was back and this  was a huge relief to me because now i could use google. I googled for relationship between rain and power cut. This google search led to the discovery of the second question of my life which even google couldn’t answer. (The first question being ‘What women what?’)  

Google’s failure meant i had to use my brain to figure out the relationship between rain and immediate power cuts. Although i am not as intelligent or resourceful as google i gave a serious thought to what co-relationship can exist between Variable A (Rain) and Variable B (Blackout). I think the reason our state electricity boards cut power when it rains is because they consider rain as a sign from God to enforce a blackout.

I know this might not be a perfect answer because it is from me and not from google but i still hope that you will agree with me. If you don’t then please kindly enlighten me with a better reason by typing in the comment box.

Boling water, burning fingers

Few days back i visited a doctor and was diagnosed with stomach infection. The doctor told me to drink boiled water and i told her that i drink only Bisleri and beer. She replied, “Still, drink only boiled water.” I waited for her to add ‘Also only boiled beer’ but she didn’t mention it.

The reason i order a 20 liter bottle of Bisleri every week is not because i am rich but because i am lazy. The drinking water tap of the house i stay is on the ground floor and i stay on the first floor. Thanks to the mall revolution in India the only mode of travelling within floors i am now comfortable is escalators and lifts. Hence, i find the task of walking one floor down just to fetch 2-3 bottles of water as tedious as sitting in a meeting doing small talks with my boss until other team-losers (members) show up or send a message that they are too busy to attending meetings.

Today i poured water in a cauldron and put it on the gas for boiling. After few minutes i spotted something in the cauldron and to remove it inserted my finger in water. Yeah, i know what you are thinking. I am in cooking what Ravindra Jadeja is in international cricket. Total abject miserable abysmal failure.

The first thing i did after inserting my figure into water which was about to reach boiling point was to remove it. The second thing was to run to the washbasin and pour some water on it. The third thing was to switch off the gas. The fourth thing was to address myself in the language which truly shows i am a huge fan of Delhi Belly.

I still don’t get it. How could i have been so stupid or in Delhi Belly version, “Itna bada cutiyaapa kaise ho gaya?” I am the guy who in the 12^th class solved every question correctly before anybody else in the coaching class. This thing made me extremely popular among my coaching class teachers and extremely unpopular among my peers. Today most of the girls in my 12^th coaching class can cook Indian, Chinese…etc etc (etc etc depending what do their husbands like) and i cannot even boil water.

I am unable to fathom this incident of my life. I know i am a man with average IQ and poor cooking skills. Still this doesn’t explain the phenomena of my IQ falling to a 3 years old in front of boiling water? I just don’t understand the logic. I mean why?...Why did God gave me the ability to memorize tables till 30 but no ability to boil water?