Thin

One advantage of being thin. You don’t have to say ‘excuse me’ while you can easily crawl through a crowd.

Farmville

I have also joined the Farmville mania on Facebook. Out of 50 different notifications received on Facebook, 75% and above are related to Farmville - someone earned the 'High roller' white ribbon (I too earned one today), a friend found hidden spring eggs or fuel or a Lonely bull or rare black mystery eggs... its very hard for one to comprehend what it all means... so I too decided to dig out what Farmville is all about. One thing I found out that you can buy virtual currency (Farm notes and coins) by spending real dollars!!! Now am looking out where I can convert virtual money into real dollars. Hopefully, the reverse exchange is applicable :-)


And the craze of this game has lost a counselor his job. Check this piece of news posted on Telegraph.co.uk.

Councillor voted out for playing Facebook game Farmville in meetings - A councillor in Bulgaria has been stripped of his post for milking virtual cows inFacebook game Farmville while in important meetings.... SO, before quiting (If you wonder when I started - right after I wrote this post originally. And now you might be wondering when I wrote this post originally. Ab only if you will follow the blog, you can keep abreast of it. got it now? ab follow karna regularly) I reached level 17 in this game. Want to share a few things:- 1). Like a real farm, you have to do manual labor. All that plowing, seeding and harvesting crops is not that easy. So many mouse clicks are annoying at times. 2). To earn money is still not easy. Although you can earn chillars (coins), its still very difficult to get you hands to Farm Notes. But if you really like, you can exchange your real world dollars for Farm Notes. (I mean, if you really like...) 3). Help neighbors. Not for the sake of humanity, but for the sake of XP (extra points) you can get each time you shoo away creepy animals from your neighbours/friends farms and each time you fertilize their crops. More XPs, more levels. 4). I learned one thing. In yesteryears, crops withered because of bad rains. Now crops wither because of a bad internet connection. :-) 5). Share you booty. It wont make you poor.

*** Clouds ** Aakashwani ** Clouds ***

After a long time (or after all the time I had been in Chennai), I saw a movie in a multiplex.

This time I am not carping about Chennai; no one has stopped me from watching movies in Chennai. I was in Delhi for nearly two weeks and had to fly back to Chennai. I got this bad news and since then till the day I came back to Delhi, I suffered from acidity, loss of appetite, sleepiness and dandruff.

Don’t give much thought to the dandruff talk; there is not much connection between it and Chennai. Read ahead.

I had this manager, Mr. X, in my previous company. He qualifies among those typical bosses who would like to disparage every effort of their subordinates but would take the credit themselves anytime a team member does something worth a good remark. Needless to say, such managers are not looked at with much respect and ways are found all the time to settle scores. Most of the time he could be seen walking around, glued to his mobile phone answering clients calls. Rest of the time he could be spotted at his desk, working silently without oozing out his ominous presence, except uttering out one or two monosyllables once in a while which reminds everyone around him of him (what an end of sentence construction?).

One fine summer afternoon, he relaxed in his chair, stretched himself, threw his hands in the air, yawned and called out loud, “kya karoon … !”

Someone in the office blared, “jiyo aur jeene do…” .

Everybody started laughing on the verity of this response. Our guy felt a little embarrassed and demanded who had raised his voice, ‘Kaun bola be… ?” .

A guy sitting behind me blurted out, “aakashwani hui thi… !”

Bachpan ke Confusion

(Stay away from three things)

Teen cheezon se khud ko door rakho:

· Kaam

· Krodh

· … (I don’t remember this third one, and it is not significant for the purpose of this post)

The first time I have read this graffiti on the wall of a British Raj school, I was very glad. I need not have mentioned what was the age of that school; that’s not important, but who said I write any important things on this blog? Anyways, someone supported me in staying away from work. So the next time my uncle asked me to bring something from market I recited him my new learned mantra. He looked at me in a strange way as all those about to be assaulted women in Bollywood flicks looked at Shakti Kapoor and Ranjeet. I thought he was amazed at my profound knowledge. I grinned at him and immediately got a kick on my butt. He had behaved really weird. A saying on a school wall is as sacred as hymns written on temple walls. Why was I rebuked for saying it took a long time for me to grasp. (for angrezi people; work is kaam in hindi, and in english kaam means seduction).

Early episodes of epic serials have always roped in this belief that a certain God raises his hands and kids sprouted out of nothing. This was quite a simple process and it didn’t need any human effort. Later I heard of a certain story in which a lady traps a God into returning him her husband when the God had given her the blessing of a kid. Now my understanding was questioned and when I asked this question to the fellow pupils and friends, I was subjected to more confusion. It took a lot of time for all that confusion to wear off.

Finally, I came in high school and was introduced to the wonderful subject of biology. There I learned about reproduction and I remember it was the tenth chapter in the text book. I never read beyond it. I was not alone. The whole class refused to go any further. Even the most reticent students found themselves engaged in fierce discussion, debates and arguments. Everyone enjoyed the topic. One more thing; reproduction in botany was totally ignored. After all, we all were humans and to think about humans was our first duty. Although I have written the previous sentence in past tense, we still are humans and to think about humans is still our first priority, though today we have become a little gender biased. And yes, everyone has his own bias.

Yahan Wahan Ki

~ Nov 26, a news article in the sports section of a major south daily (I would have given the name of the news paper, but then I don’t want to be sued ;-)

“India to fight for the ninth position”

I mean, is it ? really? still FIGHTing ? for the NINTH position ? what an achievement would it be !! What a desperation to beat? If only there was this same enthusiasm towards a win …

~ I am desperately waiting for Himesh Reshamiya’s new movie – RADIO. After Ashutosh Gowarikar, one man is adamant after historic movies … in the times of LED, LCD, satellite TV, TATA Sky, Broadband, DISH TV, etc., Himesh’s RADIO feat! It is his tribute to the 10 something radio channels in Delhi and UP that kept blaring his songs since his appeareance.

~ day before yesterday – the day is really not that important, I just happen to remember – a friend wrote me a scrap. “Shilpa Shetty has not invited Akshay in her wedding”. I thanked that guy for providing me with such an important piece of information. So sad buddy, he is your favourite actor. Your heart must be aching on such an atrocity. I sympathize with you.

I realized - people really lend their ears to such gossip and then discuss it too.

~guess who has not felt recession? Bappi Lahiri – I still see him loaded with a bridefull of jewellery just around his neck. If he is to be kidnapped, they won’t ask for any ransom. His bridal garnishings would do just fine.

~a friend just asked me on chat – “offc main gals hai?”. Humne ek sher hi arz kar diya –

udasi ka sabab hi yahi hai
ki bandiyan nahin hain yahan ...
uspe saara din yahin rehna hai
jayein bhi to jayein kahan ...

~for the past whole week now I have been sleeping at 6:00 in the morning. Finally, I think, I can diagnose myself with insomnia. An imsomniac never gets any sleep. But did I mention that I keep pouring coffees inside my system to keep myself awake in the office. Why this whole cycle has went upside down? And it is also not that that whole night I keep awake to write blogs…

~feeling very very sleepy now … time for coffee with Karan … err … I mean Gaurav.

~ adding at 3:47min 20secs a.m. 10.5 milliseconds (how precise…)

At last I have find a society that can rescue my blogging career. Its true – there exists a bunch that call themselves – “Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Blogs”. How nice of them to even exist. You don’t know guys how grateful I am to you. Half of the posts I have written are just to cajole people into writing some comments on this blog.

~How addicted are you to blogging? find out your blogging quotient

Break-Up

Dilli ki jawaan sardiyon ki shaam ho,

Hamare haanthon main jaam ho,

Ho unka suroor,

Ishq main dono hi hon majboor …

Romantic verses. 1% mine. I mean hundred % mine. Zero key on my keyboard is not working.

That is how I have conjured my first date to be like. Pretty crazy though. Most of the girls look at me with suspicion when I suggest this. Candle light dinner, blue skies, deep blue ocean, far from the maddening crowd, on some weird island, a gentle breeze - is what they mostly expect. But I only expect her and expect that she will only expect me on a date. Amid a maze of expectations, love is lost.

What usually follows after a break-up? Apart from tears and pain, a few more important things, without which the once lovers won’t find it easy to move ahead in life -

~ first things first. All the sms are deleted from the mobile. In those non-techinal days, there were love letters which might had been brutally burnt during cold winter nights. The last warmth of the dying love!

And during the days of Akbar badshaah, the pigeons ferrying the love messages might had been cooked for dinner. Poor birds.

~ all the snaps are deleted. From email boxes, from mobile, from the computer. Would be in much trouble if it is found later by your next love interest. And yeah, you don’t forget to take the snaps out of your wallet, and to remove the ones hoarded between those thick books in which though there were no pictures, yet they had been treated as graphic novels.

~delete the phone numbers. This is solid confusion. Should delete or should not? Now this is the only connection left. What if you could not come out of this breakup shock and just want to hear her the last one time? Or you just feel that strong urge to message her. And along with her, there are 1, err ten more numbers of her girl friends. You find it hard to delete those numbers this easily. No way. You do one thing. You write them down in some sacred diary and hide it in some remote corner of your home. you can always look out for this diary later. and now you can easily delete the numbers from you phonebook.

~ she is added to your friends list on social networking sites. What are you going to do? Can’t delete even if you want to. Once in a while you would want to take a sneak peek into her life. The secret lover in you can’t let her go so easily.

~you tell all your friends that you had a break-up. No one should mention her again. Mention some other girl. You want to move ahead in life. Is it?

~anything else???

Bhot bakwaas likh di. An apple a day keeps doctor away. but a post a day, drives good thoughts away!

The use of drinks in those opening verse (opening verse !!, as if this is an Odyssey carrying many more compositions) is a perfect lie. The only alcohol I have tasted in my life is what comes in those cough syrups. I am 1% non-alcoholic. I mean hundred %.

Another post for post-production work

Midnight, night or early morning – 2:30 A.M. and salma aaga’s poignant voice filling up the room – ‘zindagi ek pyaas ban ke reh gayi …’ it’s a very depressing duo. I was on the verge of tears when someone gave me a ping on gtalk. - “bhai, free ho ke?”

This further irritated me. “abey free tu hoga. Main anmol hoon… :-X”

Oh. Why do they have to ask wrong questions in the most vulnerable mood. But how could he know? I tried to patch up. “just kidding buddy. I have written a new post. Why don’t u check it out?”

He again asked the wrong question, “okie, what’s the url?”.

Grrr … I have already given it to you three times man. Every time I have to plead and drag you to it. Get lost. Oh, but anyways no one visits this blog. I have to maintain some minimal readership, even if I have to bring them by the neck. Feels like after writing every post, I have to regularly do this post-production work they do when a movie is to be released. Writing up special invitaion cards and promotions.

I checked my temper, “ye leh … walker-writeups.blogspot.com and add it to your bookmarks and visit it everyday”.

I have added a counter and I will keep a check on you, I thought. what a pity? This guy could not have ever read beyond those little horny 2 rs blue books which the back benchers bring to the school classes. I will mentor his reading habits. I pledged.

Ten minutes gone. No reply. Slept or what? I tried to dig him out of his slumber. “hey, what happened?”.

“Yeah, just read it. Good one”.

Even if I had asked this question five minutes back or an hour later, he would still had just managed to read it. Trying to avoid any bad thoughts, I immediately refreshed my browser to see if he has put some comments. None. Useless guys, free main padh lete hain … abey kuch padha to kuch likh bhi deta … %^@#^*

It was enough, I craned up salma aaga’s neck and was about to log out when he further annoyed me, “dude, what if someone reads your post?”

What do you mean? I am not coaching for civil services here on this blog so that someone will be benifitted reading it. Read humour and have a good laugh, what else? I echoed him my thoughts.

“no, I mean what do you get when your post is read?”

Aaahhhh…. Money minded morons. I know you must be thinking if I am making some money writing these posts. And even if I am, the rate at which you visit this blog, yeah sure, I will earn a dollar for charity in a year or two.

“If people leave comments, I feel connected. Criticism motiviates and appreciation pleases. You play guitar for yourself. But if someone appreciates your chord play, you feel good, right?”.

He nodded.

Time to sleep.