Mysorean

The evergreen DD commentators strike Gold [I can take this word without getting emotional about it anymore. Thanks Abhinav!] yet again! I am not going translate this into any other language. If you know Hindi you will understand why!

“bird’s nest jise chidiyon ka ghosla kaha jaata hai kal se itna bhara hua nahin rahega”

“yeh ek aitihasik olympics hai duniya ke liye kyonki india ne apna first gold medal jeeta hai individual category mein”

“olympic ki shama ab bujhne jaa rahi hai….aakhri baar yeh shama jwalit hai….isse dekhkar ek pankti yaad aa rahi hai….” you won’t believe what came next….he started singing “shama hai suhana suhana….” dont miss the play on the word “sama”

Thanks to a friend [Link] of a friend [Link] for capturing this though her orkut scraps! If anyone has captured it on video then please let me know. I missed it! No not the ceremony, the commentary! :)

A great speech at the NTU annual convocation that I found here. Adrian Tan gave this speech to the graduating class of 2008.
[via my colleague Deepak]

I must say thank you to the faculty and staff of the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information for inviting me to give your convocation address. It’s a wonderful honour and a privilege for me to speak here for ten minutes without fear of contradiction, defamation or retaliation. I say this as a Singaporean and more so as a husband.

My wife is a wonderful person and perfect in every way except one. She is the editor of a magazine. She corrects people for a living. She has honed her expert skills over a quarter of a century, mostly by practising at home during conversations between her and me.

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This is a true incident that happened with my friend. He told me about it and the first place I wanted to put it up was this blog!

1st June, 2008, Sunday, 4PM

Friend calls up BSNL Broadband helpline number 1800 424 1600. A tech support person by name ‘Hemanth’ picks the phone up.

Friend: Hello, my internet has been up only intermittently for the past 3 days. And even when it is up I am recieving speeds of 3 kbps.
Hemanth: Ok Sir. Please give me a minute. I will make a note of your complaint. May I put you on hold while I do this?
Friend: Yes.

After what seemed to be an eternity, a voice comes up on the other end.
Hemanth: Sir your complaint number is 1061280.
And he was about to disconnect apparently. My friend chipped in just in time.
Friend: By when can I have my internet up?
Hemanth: Within 24 hours we will have someone come to your house and set this right Sir. Thanks. Is there anything else I can help you with?
Friend: No, that’s it. Thanks.
Hemanth: Thanks for calling BSNL Broadband. Have a nice day.

3rd June, 2008, Tuesday, 10AM
No action. No ‘someone’ turned up at his house. Internet is still fluctuating between 0kbps and 3kbps. So he calls up again. This time he forgets the name of the technician once the conversation is over. Read on to find out why.

Friend: Hello, my complaint number is 1061280 and I was told that my internet would be up within 24 hours when I called on Sunday. Today is Tuesday. It has been over one and a half days now.
Tech Support: Sir BSNL works for 8 hours a day. And going by that you can only expect someone to come to your house before Wednesday 4PM because 8 X 3 = 24 hrs that means 3 days since….

Friend: #$%^&

A few of the sentences (those scrolling headlines) I came across while changing channels on TV:

This was on Headlines Today. It should be called Headless today!

First scroller:
SALMAN KHAN IS TRAVELING IN JET AIRWAYS 9W… IN SEAT NUMBER 3C

Second scroller:
OUR JOURNALIST IS SITTING NEXT TO HIM

Third scroller:
SALMAN IS SENDING MESSAGES TO HIS NEAR AND DEAR

Fourth scroller:
SALMAN APPEARS COOL AND COMPOSED

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We are planning to fly with our 4-month-old son. My wife is pretty nervous about the whole thing. I am not nervous because one: it is not going to be a very long journey, two: he (our son) is a patient kid and three: he has survived a 8 hour drive in a Toyota Qualis on really bad roads and didn’t create much fuss.

I was searching the net for some tips on flying with infants and found this incident that cracked me up totally:
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Pixie tagged me. Never been tagged for a long time. I am supposed to reveal 9 things about me that are unknown to the outside world out of which only 8 would be true. Here we go:

Your turn now. Tell me which one you think is not true!

Jone’s Motto:
Friends come and go, but enemies accumulate.

Terman’s Law of Innovation:
If you want a team to win the high jump, you find one person who can jump seven feet, not seven people who can jump one foot each.

O’brien’s Variation:
If you change queues, the one you have left will start to move faster than the one you are in now.

Conway’s Law:
In any organization there will always be one person who knows what is going on. This person must be fired.

The Peter Principle:
In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence. Work is accomplished by those employees who have not reached their level of incompetence.

H.L.Mencken’s Law:
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach.

Martin’s Extension:
Those who can’t teach, administer.

Belani’s Extrapolation:
Those who cannot even administer, become consultants.

Lieberman’s Law:
Everbody lies; but it doesn’t matter since nobody listens.

Kovac’s Conundrum:
When you dial a wrong number, you never get an engaged one.

Bell’s Theorem:
When the body is immersed in water, the telephone rings.

Ruby’s Principle of Close Encounters:
The probability of meeting someone you know increases when you are with someone you don’t want to be seen with.

Young’s Law:
Great discoveries are made by mistake.

Kin Hubbard’s Law:
A good listener is usually thinking about something else.

One Anonymous Great Seer’s Law:
Money can’t buy love, but it sure gets you a great bargaining position.

According to this news item:

The Lifebuoy Swastha Chetna City Meter has rated Chennai the cleanliest city among top six metros of the country. Bangalore and Kolkata have finished a close second and third respectively in the overall cleanliness perception ranking.

LOL!

And according to this:

The major determining factors of the study included greenery and plantations, clean roads, availability of dustbins in public places and efficiency of the garbage disposal system.

ROTFL!

Hadn’t laughed so much in quite sometime! Phew!
Btw, The Lifebuoy Swastha Chetna City Meter – who?

[via email from Chetan]
You might have seen most of them before too. Just for fun. My blog isn’t allowing me to post a comment on my previous post! So, let me get on with light-hearted stuff after a heavy-duty discussion. Here are ten of the timeless wonders of RK Laxman.

I am sure many interviews happen that go on like this. With English aka communication skills being the prime objective of interviews, these things can be quite common.

A common scene in the legislative assemblies as well as Parliament of India. Unfortunately holds true for generation over generation.

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Most elders I know cannot be practical for some reason that I cannot understand.

As long as things don’t affect me I am not bothered because those are their beliefs and they are entitled to have them. Like my friend Anand Balaji once said (A Voltairian quote), “I might not agree with what you have to say. But I will die for your right to say it”, I extend the same logic to “beliefs”. “I might not believe in what you believe. But I will die for your right to believe in what you want. Kindly keep those beliefs to yourself and don’t affect lives around you”

Here is a list of popular things I came across that clash with normal sensibility. And before I proceed, I must apologize to my friend Shastri, for once fighting with him on my sensible assumption that “there are a few of these things that actually have scientific basis”.    

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