Don’t du count mich out!

While, the frequency of my blogs has been decreasing, this one is to announce that I am not completely out of it yet. A 3rd round exit in singles and doubles in the table tennis tournament, a trip to Kolkata and Mumbai, marred by viral fever, and a trip to my native Kasaragod for the Ganesh Chaturthi fest has been ‘all’ that has happened since my last blog. The highlight of the trip to Kolkata was another trip to the Gantok, the chinese border at Nathula pass and a walk into Nepal. I found a lot of things to write about, and some time too. The latter one is more important. There are no shortages of topic in this world for homo sapiens, especially for the ones dwelling in the sacred land for India. Even a person nearing 75 does a Rajanikanth by writing about Jinnah and his heroics. If some foreigner were to suddenly arrive in India and pick up newspapers, he is bound to believe that Jinnah is some kind of virus; for nothing other than H1N1 was being discussed with so much prominence in the past days! So despite the infinite number of topics I have short listed a select few on which I can apply the masala of humor.

Talking of H1N1, looks like the hype of it is slowly dying, although the virus is still alive. You got to give it to the media though. Top headlines on the front page of every newspaper would ensure that the fear of the virus replicates faster than the virus itself. They would suppress the fact that those who succumbed had other chronic illnesses which aggravated on the invasion of the virus and ultimately resulted in death. People started hunting for masks everywhere, in such large numbers that those masks with fancy names called N-95 were getting sold in black. I envy the personnel working in those mask companies; they would receive morale boosting increments and bonuses even in this age of a slowly recovering economic recession.

Next, let’s talk about the people wearing them. When one sees them, subconsciously the mind seeks to avoid them, thinking these are the victims rather than ‘precautionaries’. The day after the first victim died in Pune, the Mumbai airport was full of women wearing masks. Hats off to them too. They wanted to show that they were well prepared before we half asleep men. When you look at them, you can make out only eyes staring back at you, non-vocally wanting you to ask them the question “Aaj, mere paas, bungla hai, gaadi hai, tumhaare paas kya hai?”. And as if after millennia, their quest to prove themselves better than their masculine counterparts was finally a success, they would gleefully reply “Mere pass MASK hai”

Topic Change – I was finally a happy customer at a saloon in Mumbai last month. I got a smart haircut done for Rs 30; this meant that after a long period justice was done. Well, if you are confused lemme explain this one. I don’t think I have more than 30 hair on my head. And in Bangalore saloons, I have been paying 40 per haircut. To me this translates into more than a rupee per hair strand! And the frustration is, the cost is same for a person having two hundred thousand hair on his head. Not fair! The ‘slightly better’ saloons in Bangalore charge 50 bucks: they have an air conditioner which is never switched on, but the customer has to pay for that additional facility. The saloon closest to my house was charging 30 bucks when he set up his camp a few months back, but he was quick to make it 40. When asked the reason, he politely replied that he is paying a rent of 9000 for the saloon and that he has to find means of paying it back. I wonder if the rent was less than 9000 when initially his charge was 30 bucks. I call these guys ‘the initial setup cheats’. :-X

Meanwhile, at office our style of work has changed dramatically. We are following the increasingly popular ‘lean management’ or ‘scrum methodology’. Each project has a celebrity called The Scrum Master. Everyday the scrum master takes the status of the project: a micro management one- we have to state what we have accomplished the previous day and whether it is in line with the target set for that day. If we failed the target, then we have to ‘analyze’ and ‘explain’ why we failed, and ‘plan’ to make sure we do not fail again. And we then finish with what we plan to do till the next meeting. This crap methodology has ensured that we lose whatever flexibility we had earlier: earlier there were days when we used to work up to 18 hours a day and on other occasions days when we put in only 4; it was all up to us.. Now the per day divided work means we have to compulsorily put in 10 hours 42 minutes 36.538 seconds every day to ensure that we have some result to show for the next meeting!

Nothing more to pen down for the moment. Wifey is still waiting for her result, which speaks in itself for the quality of the paper evalutation process at the Bangalore University. I shall end this blog on a slightly serious note. A car is not an investment, it is in fact a significant expenditure. I came to know that one time servicing for my Ford Ikon costs Rs 3000/-. I have to give the car for servicing every 6 months; else I lose the warranty on it. In the first 6 months of my car, I drove 1800 km, which accounts to 170 liters of petrol (= Rs 8500/-) . So all in all, I have spent Rs 11500/- for traveling 1800 km in 6 months. After applying math, it boils down to Rs 64/- for 10km everyday. Food for thought!