Saturday, July 31, 2010

The phone blame game continues

My good friend Advay taught me to always put the blame about the telephone connection on the other person. Of course, do not do this to an unknown person, but say if the voice is unclear on the phone, even before the other person gets to say something, say something like, what’s wrong with your connection. It’s a very nice trick and always puts people on backfoot thinking what’s wrong with them.

A typical example is my conversation wit my mom. There are so many blame points when we can’t hear each other. Let me make a bulleted list:

Her end:

• Mom, I told you, the wretched place you stay, a total village. There is not even a good coverage there.
• Mom, change your service provider: BSNL, a total crappy service. Get into a private service, Airtel or Vodafone.
• Time to change your handset maa. It has been some 4-5 years now. How long will you use that same 3000 Rs handset?

Middle ground:
• Is anyone chewing the fiber optics cable?
• Is it raining in London?

My end:
• This stupid Reliance. Like all their crappy products, the relianceindiacall is also crappy quality but highly affordable making it hard to ignore.
• ATT service. The highest drop call rate service provider. Whats wrong wit them, can’t they do something
• And finally, soon there will be one more excuse. And that’s the purpose of writing the whole post. Mom will tell me, "What Tublu, you are a grownup now, do I still have to teach you how to hold the phone? Are you still covering the lower left corner?"

Pretty sure she will have the last laugh in the blame game :)

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Proud of embarrassments

I am not sure if everybody has this dilemma, but I have it all the time: To be a part of the stereotype or not. Though, it sounds cool that you are not a stereotype and different from the rest, being a stereotype is so easy and convenient that it is hard to not get sucked into it. And of course, you do not have to be non-stereotype for everything because that is a class of stereotypes in itself. I think the right way to do go about is to do what you like. Here I list down few things I really like but is against what a stereotypical guy of 27 should like:

1) I love going to beaches. Of course, going with your girlfriend will be cool, or more fun, but I equally love to go on my own as well. It may be considered uncool but I love it so much that I do not care. Every summer, since the last 3 years, Cape Cod beaches call me. I just love the variety there. The big beaches, the small ones, the crowded ones, the lonely ones, the sandy ones, the grainy ones: they have it all there. I am so looking forward to this summer’s trip.

2) Pride and Prejudice is my favorite book of all times. This is funny because till like some 2 years back, I really thought that proves how classy and well read I am, but then somebody said it’s a girl book. I mean come on, who cannot fall in love with Elizabeth Bennet? The inconsequential storyline is what attracts me towards Jane Austen’s books. You do not read a Jane Austen’s book for the sake of story. On face value, it does look girly: Emma is a girl who thinks she is a matchmaker. Pride and Prejudice is a love story where girl meets guy, have some fights and live happily ever after. But if that is one really gets out of the books, it’s a pity. It’s the lazy pace, the nothing dramatic happening all the time is what gives you time to look into other aspects. I think nobody explains women better than Jane does.

3) Harry Potter is my second favorite book and Ron is my favorite character. Well, I guess I am not really isolated here because the world is almost divided into 50-50 on Harry Potter. What I do not like about the stereotypes is when they consider HP as a children’s book or a magic book. Magic is just a tool in the book, a rather inconsequential thing I must say. Ron is my favorite character because he lacks the obvious characters of a hero. It’s precisely the reason that he is neither famous/brave like Harry or intelligent as Hermione, or funny like Weasley twins, weirdo like Luna or know-all like Dumbledore that I like Ron. I feel it’s very difficult to really stay a good friend of successful and famous. I had great difficulties in showing my excitement even when my best friends beat me in something but Ron does it so effortlessly. Though he faltered once, his genuine honesty and love for his friends is something I value very highly.

4) I am really proud of my blood unrelated sisters/ Munhboli behenein (I hate the term Rakhi sister because it is so grossly misused). I have 5-6 of really good munhboli bahans. Rakhi for me is just an annual ritual that like any other celebration is an occasion for get together or exchange calls/gifts. I really do not think that every girl that ever tied me a rakhi is my sister. Attaching so much importance to a string seems foolish to me. Rakhi is a result of a mutual feeling of brotherhood and sisterhood and not the other way round. The worst case is when people become brothers and sisters when the love just didn’t take off. Why can they not leave it at that? What is the need to create another relationship thereby trivializing it?