Meeting Offline

Couple of days back on Twitter a friend DMed me “I am in Pune. Would you like to meet on Tuesday, around 5?” The person who had sent me the DM is someone who regularly gives me feedback on my blogs which can be summed up as ‘You write ok but drink too much.”

I felt this is an opportunity to tell her i am not an alcoholic so i DMed back, “Sure. Barista. Aurora Towers. Ok?” She replied ok and i went back to watching a movie on my laptop.

Half an hour later i realized i have no idea how she looks and the only way she will be able to find me in Barista will be by approaching the fattest guy sitting in the café and asking, “Are you Abhishek?” So i DMed her my cell number and told her to call me when she reaches Barista. She replied with her cell number and an ok.

I reached in front of Barista and called her. She told me she is on the way. I thought for a while about entering in Barista and decided it is cheaper to walk on MG Road than having a good overpriced coffee.

Few minutes later i got a call from her saying she is standing in front of Barista and i told her to wait there. I reached Barista, we both greeted each other and then she pointing towards the door of Barista said, “Shall we go in?” and i replied, “Actually the coffee in there costs too much.”

Yes. I said to a girl whom i had met for the first time that let’s not have a coffee in Barista because it costs too much. This is one of those moments which my friends will always use to point out why you are single. It is also one of the moments where my Marwadi dad would be extremely proud of himself. This moment is the proof that he has successfully passed on all the essential Marwadi traits to his only son.

I am quite sure when my twitter friend heard no Barista because it costs too much she would have gone ‘What the hell’ in her mind but instead of that she replied , ”Then where do we sit?” I wanted to say, “You know it’s Pune. There must be same place nearby where we can have a cup of tea and vadapav.” I didn’t. Instead i said, “Let’s walk. It is MG Road. It has some very famous eateries.”

We found an old restaurant where we ordered something that might have cost 0.75 times of coffee in Barista and started talking. She told me about her work and i told her i feel looking at the tables that we are sitting in a very old restaurant.

Finally, it was time to part and i said to her i have seen an autorickshaw stand nearby. As we walked towards the auto stand she told to me, “You know there is one thing that i really wanted to ask you. I have seen a lot of your tweets on marriage or rather i must say anti-marriage tweets.” I told her i am a Marwadi Maheshwari and it is customary in our caste to get married within one year after post-graduation. She started giggling, then laughing and then laughing out loud. She stopped for a second and said, “As a Marwadi Maheshwari with such a personality it will be impossible for you to find a lifemate” and started laughing again. I wanted to say, “Thanks. I am doing my best to keep things that way” but i didn’t. I never got a chance to say it. She just wouldn’t stop laughing.

Luckily she saw an auto, waved her hand and the auto stopped. We both said goodbye and she left. I started walking towards Aurora towers and stopped in front of Barista. It has been a long time since i had a good cappuccino. Before i entered into Barista i remembered i had seen one of my favorite delicacies at the old restaurant in which we were sitting. I rushed back their, reached the counter and said, “One chocolate softy please.”

Diary of a Beer-a-holic

I think it all started during the first month of my first year in college. I was sitting in my room, playing Mortal Kombat (or Counter Strike or NFS, i don’t really remember). A guy in my hostel came to me and said, “You know what we are doing tonight?”

“Probably working on some stupid project”, i replied.

“No dude, not tonight. Tonight we all are partying on the terrace. Drinks, non-veg, everything.” He said.

I said cool and went back to the virtual world where i was beating the shit out of half-clad women or killing terrorists or killing cops or driving a Lamborghini. Totally dependent on the game i was playing.

My hostelmate waited for few seconds expecting i would say something after cool and realized i was more interested in PC games than him. So he blurted out the reason of his visit. He said,” Would you like to join us?”

I thought for a moment. Few days back we had got an Airtel Broadband connection in our room and since i was sharing room with another guy i never got a chance to test its speed. By saying no i would finally get some privacy and an opportunity to test the broadband’s speed by browsing through some of the popular video websites.

Unfortunately before i could say no to him another thought came to my mind. Whenever i watched old movies on TV there was one thing which i always felt fake. So i said yes, gave the contri and waited for the night where i will finally find out whether drunk people really talk like Keshto Mukherjee or not.

As i now remember it was one the best nights of my life. I ate non-veg for the first time, Chicken Biryani of which i only ate rice; had my first beer, Kingfisher; had my first whiskey, Royal Stag; had my first cigarette, choti Goldflake. The only thing i don’t remember is seeing my roommate during the party. Lucky Bastard guy. 


That night was beginning of a love affair. A love affair between me and beer. Ever since that night whenever i get a chance i drop into a bar and pick up a beer or two.

Looking at my past relationships i won't say i have been a nice guy. I have always been flirtatious by nature. I started with Kingfisher, had few one-night stands with Castle and Tuborg, fell to the charms of Foster, had a good time with Budweiser until some drunken guy told me Chutiye stop flushing your money down the loo, enjoyed my evenings with Haywards until i was seduced by Carlsberg. 

Life is so unpredictable. I thought i had found my soul-mate in Carlsberg when suddenly Kingfisher Ultra appeared in my life. The thing that people call as infatuation happened.  

I am in complete awe of those guys who can date two girls at one time. One thing they make shows like Emotional Atyachar possible and in my case i was having a tough time deciding whether i must dump Carlsberg or say to KF Ultra that i like you but i am in a serious relationship with someone else. 

Every time i visited a restro-bar with my friends, they started with checking out the chicks while i was going Carlsberg…..KF Ultra…… Carlsberg….KF Ultra in my mind. Damn. Life is so complicated. The only solution i could come up was to toss a coin. Head Carlsberg, tails KF Ultra.

Here, i would like to thank the govt of Maharashtra for helping me out. It increased the duty on beer by 100% at one stroke. The duty hike converted me into a dedicated family man and returned me to my first and real love of my life. Kingfisher Strong. 

I still remember the first sip i had after the duty hike. Kingfisher Strong behaved like an ideal bahu in Ekta Kapoor’s serials who wears sindoor, saree and feels naked until she have not adorned herself with at least 10 kgs of gold jewelry. She told me, “I know for the last few years you have been a complete asshole and i forgive you.” Thank you KF Strong. I love you too. I promise i will always remain faithful to you or until i move out of the State of Maharashtra.

Here is a trivia for the people that like and can still afford Carlsberg in Maharashtra. After the Second World War Winston Churchill was considered as a hero by the Dutch people because he had freed them from the Nazi rule. When he visited Copenhagen the Dutch decided to brew a special beer as a tribute to him. Yes, the Dutch send two crates of a lager to a man who smoked cigars and drank his scotch neat as a mark of respect and thanks.

If you know any beer trivia please tell me. There is a comment box at the end of this blog.

Cut to the present: I am sitting in a sonography clinic. There are 20 women, 4 men and uncountable number of children in the room. The women are sitting patiently for their turn, the men are sitting patiently for their turn, i am playing Blackjack on my mobile and the children are wreaking havoc.

I just don’t understand kids. What is their problem? This is a hospital and not a park. Please don’t turn it into a playground. I know children are angles on earth but sometime they do things which make you wish to send them back to heaven.

There was one interesting observation i made while sitting in the clinic for more than two hours. You remember Scorpion in Mortal Kombat. The guy who throws spear and says ‘Get over here’ to his opponents. Indian mother’s have the same ability.

Indian mother’s wherever they sit draw an imaginary Lakshman Rekha which their kids are not allowed to cross. Every time a kid reaches near the Lakshman Rekha, his/her mom shouts ‘Get over here’ and the child immediately returns back to his/her mother. Who would have thought Scorpion, one of the super-cool assassins, a total badass in the Mortal Kombat universe was inspired from the relationship between Indian mothers’ and their children.

Cut to one night before: I am lying on a table in a doctor’s clinic. The doctor has taken my blood pressure and is now busy punching my stomach.

“Does it hurt here?”

“Yes”

She gently punches few centimeters away from the last time and asks, “Does it hurt here?”

I want to say, “Dear Madam, let’s change places. I punch you and you tell me where it doesn’t hurt. I am an average fat Indian guy. I am not Superman, John Cena or the Great Khali although we both might weigh the same.” I don’t say it. I don’t think it is a good idea to cross the doctor who is gonna prescribe you medicines. 

Luckily the doctor is satisfied after 4-5 punches and we are now sitting across a table. She pulls out her prescription pad and start asking me questions.

Her first question is – “Do you drink?”

I wait for her to finish the question. Drink what madam? Water/ Tea/ Coffee/ Coke/ Pepsi/ Thumps Up/ Beer/ Whiskey/ Scotch/ Wine/ Piss/ Baba Ramdev ka Divya churn/ All of the above.

There is silence in the room for few seconds.

The doctor realizes i have not understood her question and asks, “Do you take hard drinks?”

“Only if you consider Beer as a hard drink”, I reply.

She says, “Hmm…..That explains a lot. Do you also eat a lot of Junk food?”

What type of question is this? I am a single guy living in a metro. I don’t eat fast food (junk as per her). I survive on it. 

I say yes.

She continues her interrogation and after every few questions scribbles something on her pad. What is this? Are we playing KBC? Do i win a pill for every question correctly answered?

The doctor hands me the prescription and as i pay her the consultation fees she says, “You know its nothing serious. But i will suggest you get a sonography done. Just as a precaution.”

Cut back to the present: Finally after waiting for more than two and a half hours the nurse opens the door and calls my name. I enter into the next room only to find i am now in a smaller room. What is this? Why i have been transferred from a spacious waiting room to a small, cramped one.

Why do doctors do such a thing? Is there some sort of a law which says before seeing the patient a doctor must transfer the patient into a smaller room? Was there some sort of a lottery for which patient the doctor will see next and i have won? Or is it the place where the nurses provide the patient some sort of counseling. You know the doctor is a nice guy. He really wants to help you. Hence, please don’t start crying or run away when you see the doctor tearing a pack of disposable syringes.

I am not scared of injections. The only thing that scares me is unrealistic deadlines at work. Bring on the injections. Bring on the Doctor. Now. Immediately. Please.

The nurse says the doctor will see you now and ushers me into a room where i see the doctor and a big machine with monitors. I want to ask the doctor what is an outdated mainframe computer doing here but i don’t. The rule Don’t-cross-the-doctor-who…….applies.

The doctor asks me to lie on a table behind a curtain, asks my name, then age, orders me to pull up my tshirt, loosen my jeans and turns up with a barcode scanner in hand.

The doctor presses me on the left side of my stomach with the barcode scanner and asks,”Does it pains here?” WTF. What is wrong with the whole medical profession? Why do you guys have to give me pain to know where i am experiencing pain?

The doctor tells me to turn on the left side and while hurting me with the barcode scanner asks what you do. I tell him my official designation in the organization and he asks me to turn on to the right side.

As he continues hurting me, he asks me whether the job is stressful. I want to say nowadays which thing is not stressful. I saw few kids in the waiting room and after two hours i wanted to perform Mortal Kombat Fatalities on each one of them. Imagine the stress their mothers who spend 24x7x365 with them have. I reply, “Little bit”.

The doctor says we are done and please wait outside for your report. I say thanks, collect my report and as i am walking out of the clinic i remember something i had read few months before on the back of a beer bottle. MRP Rs 110. For sale in Maharashtra State only. Consumption of Liquor is injurious to health.

Now only if the guys at United Breweries and SamMiller could tell us how much.

To sum up

As far as i know everybody nowadays lives a stressful life. The only person i know who lives a stress free life is my boss because i think he has got a PhD in Office Politics. 

Yeah, that’s true

My theory of dealing with new joinees is simple. It is – Don't tell them the truth, let them discover it. When I am introduced to a new joinee I put on a smile as big as that of the Joker in Batman and say - Welcome to the organization. The truth is I always want to say - Welcome to hell. When new joinees ask me for help I tell them I am busy right now. Okay. That's not a lie. I am always busy in office. I tweet a lot. So what I am not working. I am busy.

Last Monday a new joinee joined my team. Since the team leader was absent I had to spend few minutes telling him about the awesome work we do and the not so awesome he will be doing for us. I showed the new joinee our products which he appreciated and told him we do such great work because we are dedicated, hard working employees and expect him to become one. Okay. That's a lie. We are not model employees but I was just following my theory of not telling the truth to the new joinees. Also it won't be nice for the new joinee to discover on day one of his new job that the job sucks.

After I had given the orientation to the new joinee I gave him the path where various company manuals were saved and told him to read them thoroughly. As the writer of few manuals for the company I know how dense they are and the only thing a fresher can do with them is to read them till he gets bored and then tweet – First day of the job and it has already started to suck. #FML

Lunch time came and I asked the new joinee to join my group for lunch. My lunch group is like mini India. There is too much diversity but there is one thing that unites us all. The great thought that unites us is that we all think our work sucks.

My lunch group consists of people from the Marketing to the IT support dept. We have nothing in common and still like each other. There is also minority representation i.e. their is one guy from production dept which is me. I think the reason I like the people in my lunch group is because I don't work with them. Once we will start working together on a project, we will start exchanging emails and then I will start hating them and they will start hating me. The email theory of the more work emails you exchange with a person, the more you think that person does nothing all day except forwarding you emails with the addition FYI from his/her side.

We had lunch and most of the people in my lunch group left. Only four people were still sitting. One from the IT support, one from marketing and me and the new joinee from production. The marketing guy was finishing his dabba and he asked me, "Oh….I heard you have quit."

There was silence for a moment. The new joinee was sitting next to me. I couldn't have said the reasons I resigned in front of him. There are some things which are better if the new joinees discover them by their own reasoning instead of someone telling them in advance for example cubicle blues. So I said, "Yeah, that's true" and left the table.

To sum up

I have quit. I won't say I don't have any regrets because I have one. I should have done it much earlier.

Mind vs Heart

I don't hate Mondays. I only hate working on Mondays. I spend every Sunday watching movies, drinking beer and every Monday morning my mind spends few minutes convincing my heart that I am not sick and must attend office.

One of the biggest tragedies of my life is that every Monday morning I wake up and find myself not sick. I believe I have fever, common cold, body pain or any possible disease that will allow me take a sick leave and will disappear as soon as I call my boss and say, "I am not feeling well, Can't come, have a nice Monday. Bye Bye." 


Unfortunately, my mind knows that my heart is a coward and can easily be conquered with fear. The fear that my boss will catch my lie just because he too might have done the same on few Mondays when he was not a boss is good enough to make my heart surrender to my mind and take me to office. I know it is a long, stupid and grammatically  incorrect argument but it always works.

Every Monday my mind conquers my heart and takes me to the place which I hate the most, my office. Okay that's not true. The place I hate the most is Pakistan but my office is also full of terrorists. A Pakistani terrorist's job is to drop explosive bombs whereas an office terrorist's job is to drop email bombs. Bombs of Pakistani terrorists kill you whereas bombs of office terrorists make you wish that you were dead. Murder or encouragement for suicide. End result is the same. You die.

Today when I woke up my heart said don't go to office and my mind said go. Before my mind could use its dirty trick of terrorizing my heart, my heart said to my mind, "You know what the cricket score is? Sachin is going to score his 50th test century today. Instead of watching it you want to read this historical moment on cricinfo. I feel so sad to be part of a body that has a brain like you."

My brain was totally dumbfounded. He just didn't know what to say. The heart had just pawned my brain with its awesome argument. My brain remained silent for few minutes and then replied, "STFU heart. Abhishek, get the beep out of bed before the beep heart beeps your beeping life." My heart asked doesn't beep means fuck and my mind replied, "Yes and you are the one who is to be blamed for all the beeping. It is you who instead of downloaded pirated movies made Abhishek watch Big Boss 4. Now suffer. Beep you heart and you lazy beep ass still in the bed, start getting ready for office. Beep Beep Beep. We are going to get a late mark today."

This was a complete role reversal situation for me. My heart was using logic to convince my mind and my mind was beeping to make my heart shut up. I knew my heart was right. I also knew my mind was asking me to do the right thing. Mind vs Heart. Cricket vs Work. It was simple decision. Cricket is what I love and work is what pays my bills. Money cannot buy happiness but……..as part of the great young Indian generation driven by consumerism I know one thing – No money, no happiness. So I got out of bed and reached office hoping Sachin won't mind one less fan cheering him today.

To sum up

Heart vs Mind = Cricket vs Work = Story of every Indian = Cricket rules my heart and work my mind.

One blog for the MBAs

One of my colleagues had coolest life ever. Since he graduated from a decent college, he got a decent job with a good pay. Not only that he also had a girlfriend. Decent job, good pay and a girlfriend, this guy was practically living my dream life. However, this guy thought, “Fuck…who needs all this…..I don’t want people to be jealous of me living their dream life so I must get married.”

I am not a misogamist which means I don’t hate marriages. In fact, I would like to put on record that I like marriages. I have spent a good deal of my life in hostel and I know the importance of good food. I love marriages for all the free good food they bring in my life.

Unfortunately for my colleague his marriage didn’t turn out as he had planned and he was still happy. So he decided to do the worst thing one could do to his life. He got himself enrolled for a part-time MBA course. Since he couldn’t become unhappy he decided to make others unhappy by becoming an MBA (Mean. Bastard. Arrogant).

Today during the tea-break I came to know his exams for the first sem of MBA had started. He told us that he appeared for a paper of MBA and was stunned to find people were filling supplements. I too was stunned. MBA means you must be able to speak crap at length without knowing a single thing about the topic and this future MBA couldn’t even write crap. I am scared to think one of my favorite colleagues is going to become an MBA which cannot talk crap. God knows who will hire such an MBA.

While talking about his exams he told us that something very stupid happened during the exam. The invigilator told the class that mobile phones are not allowed. I would say it was a smart move by the invigilator to stop cheating. You don’t think so. Go and watch Rajni Sir’s Robot now.

My colleague followed the invigilators instructions, switched off his mobile and kept it in his sack in a corner of the room. With fifteen minutes to go the mobile started ringing. My colleague full of embarrassment immediately submitted his paper and ran out of the classroom with his sack.  

I was relieved to hear this story. My colleague (who by the way is an engineer) by the end of first semester of MBA had become incompetent enough that he couldn’t even switch off his own mobile. I am sure by the end of his MBA course he would be competent enough to talk crap as if he was born to do so. This will ensure that as soon as he completes his MBA, he will be flooded with job offers. By the way I have one wish to make…….God help the engineers who will be working under a Team Leader that cannot switch off his own mobile phone.

To sum up

MBAs are the James Bonds of India. They have license to kill people with crappy talks.

FML

I think the reason deadlines are called deadlines is because they turn the people working on deadlines into Zombies. People working on deadlines have no social life. They don’t log in to facebook, don't read newspaper and come to office with a mood to kill their boss. The only thing on the mind of the people working on a deadline is work. This turns the employees working on a deadline temporarily into workaholics which is a good thing for the company and bad for the people interacting with the Zombies in office.

It is a well known rule of management that for better management people must work in teams and for a cheerful atmosphere in office some people who are expert in giving unwanted, irrelevant and stupid comments must be hired and allowed to interact with other employees. The expert commentators being hired to reduce tension in office try to be funny by enlightening the Zombies with their expert comments. This leads to the situation where you will find someone laughing on his own jokes and the other person in the conversation with a look on his face that he wants to jump on the expert, bite him and turn the expert into a Zombie like himself. Don’t blame management for it. It is a well known problem associated with Zombies. They have no sense of humor.

I told you that working on deadlines is a bad thing. However, there is something which is worse that than working on a deadline. It is working on a deadline that doesn’t belong to your team.

For the last two days I am working on a deadline that doesn’t belong to my team. The deadline belongs to a team that is headed by a Very Senior Manager (VSM). The VSM being a Very Senior Manager is working on more than one project and has asked me to do some work that she is supposed to do. Since it is a request from a VSM I cannot say your deadline is not my problem and have to work on the deadline.

Today I received an email from VSM that she has been checking the work done by me. The email started with Hello Abhishek and told me that she is extremely impressed by my work. The quality of my work is awesome and I have done few things which she might have overlooked. I read the email, then read it again, decided that I am taking the print out of this email to my next appraisal meeting and then instead of replying to the email went back to work.

After lunch time I received an email from our COO.  The email was a reply to the email send by the VSM to me. The email didn’t start with Hello Abhishek. In fact, it didn’t even have a single line. It had just one word. The word was ‘Great’. I read the email by the COO and immediately checked the CC field. I found out that the email send by VSM to me was marked to few people in senior management.

If I had read the CC field before I would have replied to the email with a thanks you note, a smiley or just few lines like - it is is my pleasure to work with you and I am always ready to work on deadlines because I am a dedicated employee and also I love being a Zombie. However, now I am an arrogant employee who doesn't have the common courtesy of saying thanks when someone appreciates his work. Don’t blame it me. I am working on a deadline and hence turned into a Zombie and as you would have learnt by watching several Hollywood zombie movies, Zombies don’t reply to emails.

To sum up

Every dog has its day. I had my day and totally ruined it because I was not a dog on that day but a Zombie. Also that, I love the element of surprise in my life. Just when I think things cannot get any worse, I find out they can.

The two Abhisheks

I learnt about Dissociative personality disorder from movies. It is a situation where a guy has two personalities. Hyde and Jekyll type. One guy is like your colleague next cubicle and another is a killer. In the end the bad guy takes over, there is some maar-dhad and we all know what happens next. We all have been there. We all have walked into a cinema hall with a Pepsi and popcorn and came out with a splitting headache.

The two parts of my personality are visible at work and home. At work I am the good guy. I do my work, I give pravachan to people that this work sucks but you need to do it because it pays money with which after work you can buy cigarettes, beer and pizza. I also keep myself pretty nicely organized. I have maintained my MS Outlook in such a way that I once opened it front of one of my colleagues to show her an email and she said , “Abhishek, you are a genius. I have never seen such a well organized Outlook in the whole office.” Sometimes I feel so disappointed that my company doesn’t have a best organized inbox award.

At home the other Abhishek i.e. the awesome one takes over. There are clothes that are unclean and I intentionally keep them on floor so that I won’t wear to them to office by mistake. There are wrappers of biscuits and Maggie on floor which must be in dustbin but are not there because I stay miles away from my parents and hence not afraid of a surprise cleanliness inspection by my mom. The best part of Abhishek at home is the way he handles email.

At office when I receive an email I always mark it according to its importance, give a prompt reply and move it to the relevant folder. At home when I receive an email, I read it and then forget about it. I am always sure that the sender would have asked the same info from few more friends and some sucker would definitely reply. My philosophy about emails at work is don’t allow anyone to complain and at home is don’t reply until they complain.

To sum up

The biggest difference between office and home is that in office you do what you are supposed to do and at home you do what you want to do.

Comics

I grew up in a town. A place where the medium of instruction in English medium schools is Hindi. During my childhood there was no Cartoon Network in India. The only TV channel we had during those days was Doordarshan and the only cartoon show I got to watch was the one after the morning mythological TV serial. Today when I see children watching several cartoon channels in high definition TV, I feel jealous but still somehow I feel all these super cool cartoons are no match to the time I had reading Hindi comics.

When I was a child, Hindi comics were a very big industry. Today as far as I know only Diamond comics and Raj Comics are the two active Hindi comics publisher. I was fortunate enough to read comics by Manoj and Tulsi publications. Unlike today’s children who get to watch only funny cartoons, I got to read a whole genre of comics ranging from comedy to action to horror (Raj Comics once upon a time published few comics under the series Thrill-Action-Horror or sometime like that.)

Today when I walk into a bookstore I find all the big comics. From Calvin, Asterix, Tintin to Superman, Spiderman etc etc and I buy them. Unfortunately, all the big bookstores located in the big malls have no space for my beloved Hindi comics. The only reliable space where I find them is the railway station and there also I have been unable to get the latest set of Raj Comics (If also like me you grew up reading Hindi Comics then you know the meaning of set and the eagerness with which we waited for it every month of summer holidays.)

The library I have joined in Pune doesn’t store Hindi comics. It has got dedicated shelf space for English comics that must cost more than Rs 200 per copy but you won’t find a single Hindi comics that costs less Rs 50. I once asked my librarywala, ”Uncle why don’t you keep Hindi comics” and he replied ,”Bcoz there is no demand for them”. I wanted to tell him that is not true because I spend the summers of my childhood reading if not tons than kilos of Hindi comics but then as far as I know none of the children in my family know much about Nagraj, Dhruv, Parmanu or Doga. Their day starts with school, after that tuition and ends with doing homework. Forget reading comics it is wonder that they even get time to watch Cartoon Network. Unfortunately they know nothing about the great Indian comic book superheroes and since I do, I will end this blog by writing few lines in the memory of those I remember.

Chacha Chowdry: It will be wrong to call that the man more intelligent than supercomputer is the only hero of this series. It's not only him but his sidekicks Sabu, his wife and their dog Rocket are equal fun to read. The best comics of this series are those where Raka, the villain who couldn’t die appeared. Believe me even if you are not a comic enthusiast still buy those comics that have Raka. You will not regret that the money that you earned by slogging into an AC office got wasted.

Billo: His hairs were long enough to always cover his eyes. As a child I thought he had the coolest hairstyle and I still believe so.

Raman: I don’t think anyone remembers him. He was a middle-class middle-age guy with a family. His problems were the problems of our daily life. If there has ever been any character that could portrait the true life of an Indian then it was him. Another comics I remember like this was Shrimatij in which a housewife was the central character.  

Tosi: An action hero. He was actually an Ichadhair Nag. As far as content goes he was most genuine action hero I have ever read. This could be because it was written by Ved Prakash Sharma, Hindi’s bestselling author of thriller novels.

Nagraj: Hssss…..the Snakeman. He started off as a globetrotting warrior against terror but nowadays resides in Rajnagar and has a dual identity like Marvel comics characters. The transition from the traveler to one city man had destroyed the charm of Nagraj.

Super Commando Dhruv: My personal favorite. Dhruv’s initial comics were good enough to make hardcore sci-fi fans appreciate it. Personally I believe the stories of his first few comics such as Pratishodh ki jawla, Roman Hatara, Mahamanav are good enough to beat the western comics. Dhruv doesn’t have any superpower except being able to talk with animals but beats villains who are vicious, intelligent and loaded with superpowers with his common sense and athletic ability. Unfortunately all his new comics I have read during the last few years lack common sense and are complete crap.   

Parmanu: Mr. Superhero. Always fun to read.

Doga: If you want to read an action comics then read his. He is only the genuine action hero Indian comics have right now.

Angara: He was created by a scientist who gave him the strengths of several animals like skin that bullets cannot penetrate. He commanded a loyal army of wild animals. The antagonist of this action hero was a dwarf robot who got his energy from Sun.

Krukbond: James Bond ka chela. He and his sidekick Motu not only solved mystery but also made you laugh. He was the best comic action hero I have ever read.

Halwadar Bahadur: His comics were written in the language I spoke with my friends. Funny enough to make you sometimes stop reading the comics so that you catch a break from laughing.

Bakelal: Hehehehe…………….. even the mention of his name makes me laugh. Shivji has cursed him that all his schemes to do bad of someone will turn out to be good for that person. He works as a minister of Raja Vikram Singh and wants to become the King but due to the curse his every scheme to kill the King solves the problems faced by the King. His comics end with him explaining the King that what he did was pre-planned by him to help the King and the King with big moustache kissing him which he hates.

Fighter Tods: Very funny but I have always felt they are rip-off of Teenage Ninja Turtles

Gamraj: Son of Yumraj, the God of death. Munna Bhai of Indian comics. Reading the adventures of Gamraj, his bull Yamunda and his sidekick Shankalu who always made wrong predictions always made me laugh.

Yay!!! We won

I am an average Indian cricket fan. By average I mean I am not one of those guys whom you meet and they start talking non-stop about the latest Indian victory but if I ever meet such a guy I don’t ask him to shut up. Today I reached office with the determination that I will not type cricinfo.com in the address bar of my browser. I knew the score, I knew the score day before and thought a draw is bad for test cricket and after reading 55/4 felt a draw which is bad for test cricket is much better than India losing the match.

I reached office. Checked mails and went to cricinfo. Call me a person with weak willpower but I grew up in 1990s and for me as long as God is on the crease, there is hope. The God got out and my colleagues asked me would I like to join them for a cup of tea. The conversion during tea didn’t revolve around cricket, no one wanted to discuss it because we all had pretty much resigned to the fate that Australia were one-up in the series.

I came back, checked score, got the information that we were indeed going to lose and went back to work. After working for some time I logged onto to twitter. Twitter told me that Sachin is God but against Australia Laxman is the real devil. He always sinks the Australian ship and this time it was not gonna be any different.

I started tracking the match again on cricinfo and was happy to get ball by ball updates of what­ all the tomorrow’s edition of every Indian newspaper are going to call as the one of the best innings of Laxman and Ishant’s careers. India was on track to register a victory which every average Indian fan is going to remember for a long time and I was happy because thanks to my weak willpower I was watching history being made.

As the match progressed some more average Indian fans in my office opened cricinfo and then Ishant got out. Most of my colleagues considered it as the end of the Indian innings and went for lunch. Few asked me do I wish to join them and I wanted to throw paperweight at them but unfortunately the admin dept never issued me one. Lucky for my die-hard pessimist colleagues.

As India reached near victory cricinfo died. It was one of the moments in life when you wish you had plan B ready and I had one. I shifted to cricbuzz and it due to the heavy traffic from several average Indian cricket fans who crashed the cricinfo servers also died. This was the moment I wished I had a plan C ready but unfortunately I didn’t, so googled for cricket score, found few websites and settled for Yahoo cricket because it was still alive. 

At the end of the match there was some drama but it was nothing compared to what was happening at my desk. Me and one of my colleagues were refreshing the yahoo page again and again trying to get the latest score but even after refreshing it two to three times we were seeing the same number of balls being bowled. Either Australia was blowing in slow motion due to which each ball took 2 minutes to deliver or the commentary on yahoo was slow. 30 years back my father used to beat his radio to get the score and I felt I too needed to so the same. Unfortunately, my father owned the radio and I don’t own the office PC so I decided to check the score at cricinfo, cricbuzz, yahoo, rediff, indiatimes etc etc simultaneously only to hear a colleague shout Yaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy, WE WON.

To sum up

Every Indian loves cricket and loves it even more when India wins and for our love of the game cricinfo needs to buy few more servers.