Project SadiSaath - The beginning!

Recently there has been a lot of GSB Konkani comedy videos on the web and my favourites are the ones by 420Prash which still keep on tickling my ribs after watching them for maybe fifty times or so. Konkani is a great language for comedy and this comedy can be broadly classified into two forms - the healthy "veg" comedy which is aimed towards people of all age groups or the "non-veg" bhand comedy for the mature people. :)

Inspired by creative people like 420Prash, we decided to make some videos and this led to the "formation" of SadiSaath ( meaning 7 and half in Konkani, a reference to the infamous number 7 that has been attributed to us GSBs from time immemorial).

As of now, three of us friends form this group and share the credits for the voicing over and script writing.

The three of us:

Myself as Gondu Poru
Chandru as Savai Budonthu
AND
Jagga as Mukkala Mharaga

We aim to write and enact healthy comedy intended towards audiences of all ages. The first video we released yesterday has been recieved by the audience quite positively and it seems to be a good start for us. We will be needing your support to improve the quality and content of the videos as well as to help these videos reach out to a lot of people.

This is our debut video titled - "Returning from Kodial Teru"



Non-Konkani viewers may not be able to make out most of the dialogues and here is a brief summary of the video:

After a heavy meal at the Car festival in Mangalore, three people - Maamu(voiced by Gondu Poru), Charko (Voiced by Savai Budonthu) and the Chelli (presumably Maamu's daughter) are on their way home back by car. Maamu supposedly has hogged a lot of food, especially the Dalithoi (Dal) which has resulted in a state of massive flatulence. As he keeps on talking, he relieves himself of all the rectal gases, while the other two can only wonder from where the odor has been emanating from.

Watch the video and let us know the feedback!

The timeline of Autoraja

Autoraja in 1982

Autoraja in 2005 (Autoshankar)

Autoraja in 2009 (Yezdi Pai)

Send him a message if u need a ride!

Power of the Pentatonic Scale

Thanks to Logik for sharing this link - Music lovers or otherwise, a must watch!!

World Science Festival 2009: Bobby McFerrin Demonstrates the Power of the Pentatonic Scale from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

Me, my(our) brain and Ghajini

The human brain is a very interesting entity. I am really intrigued by some of the things that happen to me regarding my memory. While I can remember some incidents that took place when I was in the kindergarten, All the electronics theory (h-parameters etc)I learnt as a part of being an engineer seems to be completey wiped off without a trace within a year of my graduation.

Technical literature can be a pain in the neck many times due to its extreme jargonish content but recently I happened to come across a series called HeadFirst, thanks to my friend-colleague-Java mentor KBK. Let me paraphrase what the HeadFirst has to say about the human brain and its memory power:

"If you really want to learn, and you want to learn more quickly and more deeply, pay attention to how you pay attention. Think about how you think. Learn how you learn. Most of us did not take courses on metacognition or learning theory when we were growing up. We were expected to learn, but rarely taught to learn.

To learn a concept quickly, all that we need to do is to "trick" our brain to tell it that this particular concept is really important. Otherwise, we are in for a constant battle. with our brain doing its best to keep the new content from sticking."

Its a wonderful series and I am currently reading HeadFirst Java in which Java is made to look so easier by the wonderful "user-friendly" presentation of the material.

Well, if you people were wondering what Ghajini has to do with all this:

Today morning I decided to get some grub, locked the door and went out into the street. Then I realized I had forgotten my wallet in the room and so I came back to my house and unlocked the door. After going inside, I was not sure for what reason I had come back. After a futile attempt to "recollect" the reason of coming back, I locked up the door again and went to Sneha Sagar, the wonderful eatery near my house. It was only when I finished my Idli-Vada that I came to know that the reason I had gone back was for my wallet.

Maybe this is the effect of being in the IT industry for sometime.

P.S: Tamil version of Ghajini is a zillion times better than A Khan's version.


Just for laughs: Check this out - My mood of Ghajini by Krishashok

The CET Counselling Experience!

I had avoided going through the CET counselling process five years ago as I managed to somehow sneak into NITK Surathkal by bagging a decent rank in AIEEE. But today I had to partake in that "rigorous" process as I accompanied my brother for his counselling.

On the way in the bus my brother met his friend who had bagged a rank of about 700 or 800. Normally such a rank would let him gain admission into the top colleges of the state but he had in turn chosen a not-so-great college in his hometown. The reason was the college was at a walkable distance from his residence. Somewhat seems to be a good reason but wait; I also came to know that he had spent a hell lot of money for "IIT Coaching" and something called as a "5-in-1" coaching (God only knows what that means). My question is why spend unnecessary on all these extra coachings when you are choosing a college that does not need a very good rank to get in? This guy had finished his counselling formalities 2 days back but he told me that he liked the city and had put up in his relatives place and was roaming around the city randomly by making use of the thirty bucks BMTC daily pass.

18th Cross, Sampige Road is where the CET Cell is located and to be on the safer side we arrived there well in advance. The road was littered with representatives of a few engineering colleges who were handing out cool multicolored pamphlets describing how great their college was and how great their labs were. Some of them are really funny - one image involves two people standing awkwardly in front of what looks like an circuit board and some wires sticking out of it and one wire from it is connected to an oscilloscope which apparenly shows nothing on the screen!! It must have been switched off. Those two guys spent a lot of time and energy trying to give a cool pose and must have forgotten to switch the poor oscilloscope on. If you people have seen photos of hunters posing with their kill - yeah, this one looks like that.

After wading through hordes of these people, I entered the building. A huge gathering had assembled in front of the hall. There was a huge screen displaying the seats available in the different colleges for the different categories - 1G, 3G, GMK, GMR, KKR etc. There is a
tall fence that encloses the building and there is a small gate at the far corner where 2 heavily armed guards stand watch. A loudspeaker which is not loud enough thanks to all the candidates and their parents chattering incessantly, keeps on announcing the "range" of ranks and if our ranks happen to fall in that number space, we are supposed to authenticate to the armed guards who open the gates so that we can get into the other side of the fence. Our turn arrived and we got in.

Here we are supposed to wait in another hall. A form was handed out to us which we were supposed to fill. There was a loudspeaker here too that announced the rank ranges and when our turn arrived, we were shifted to yet another hall where we had to wait for our turn to get our documents verified. It took quite some time to get over this process and when it was finally over, we were again moved to another waiting hall (thankfully this was the last one) where we were called by the counsellor after some time and luckily my brother happened to get the seat which he wanted.

Only one parent or guardian is supposed to accompany the candidate and somehow both the parents of a few candidates had managed to sneak in. The officials quickly found out this breach of rule and when the "extra" people were asked to leave, some did not like it, some thought that it was impolite and rude and some verbal exchanges happened. After paying the admission fees and recieving the admission order, we escaped out of the building.

All the students coming out of the CET cell after the formalities bore a happy and "energetic" expression on their face cuts unaware of what lay ahead and more than the students it was the parents who were proudly walking alongside. Because soon they can say -

"Ree, namm huduga Yanjineering madthavne. E yaand C. Hoon. Yelectraaniks yaand....Marthoythu. Aeno idhe aamele.."


My congratulations to all the candidates and also to their parents for providing them with guidance and support.

P.S: I have been extremely tired due to this long ordeal and I havent bothered to proof read and check for errors. Please forgive me if there are any errors.

And see this wonderful video by mindryin about CET counselling. 5 stars!!

Redundancy

Long time no post. This is about a small observation that I made on a plastic tub that was recently purchased in my house.

Close up pic of the label is below!

P.S: No comments.

She

Living alone, all by yourself has got its own plus points. First and foremost advantage is the privacy that you get. Then come many others, for example, if there is no one around to converse with, we tend to think and contemplate, which in turn enhances our cognitive skills. It is an effective method to appreciate the beauty of solipsism and to re-discover oneself.

Without further ado, let me tell you a small story. There is a hotel at the end of the street where I live which goes by the name "Sneha Sagar" (which means Ocean of Friendship in Kannada). Me and Chandru were daily customers to this hotlu when we were staying together for sometime. This hotel is very small by dimensions, maybe as big as the hall of my tiny 1BHK apartment, but nevertheless, it caters to a large number of people ranging from IT professionals (like me!) to people of other walks of life like the ubiquitous real-estate dons of the locality, the head-constable and his subordinate, the hot-chips store guy etc. There aren't much items in the menu but the taste and quality is decent when compared to the other choices that are available.

I have my daily breakfast here at sharp 8:45 AM and I always ensure that I am present at the hotel at this time. Its not that I am a punctuality freak but it is because of an attractive young lady who comes there to have breakfast. Sometimes she is accompanied by her roommate(my guess) but generally she comes there alone. She usually dresses up is in a tee-shirt with her hair tied neatly into a bun. She will either order a set-dosa or idli-vada.I have garnered quite a lot of information regarding her eating habits. If she ordered set-dosa , then she orders coffee along with it and it is tea that she chooses to drink after having idli-vada. It is interesting the way she eats the dosa. What i do is pick a chunk of the dosa, dip it in chutney followed by a dip in sambar and then eat. But she first dips the dosa chunk into the chutney and takes a bite. Then she eats some sambar with a spoon. This ensures that sambar and the chutney do not mix on the plate. How smart!

As it is a very small hotel, I always happen to be seated in her vicinity. Our first acquaintance began with a very interesting incident. One day, she ordered a idli-vada and when the hotel guy turned to me asking for my order, I told "Same!".

"What?" he asked a bit confused and I replied "Whatever she ordered, Idli-vada.".

She turned towards me and there was a faint smile on her lips. Our eyes met for a fraction of a second. My heart was racing.

The hotel guy always utters some funny statements when he takes the order from the customers. A few examples:

"Ondu Plain dose. Olle paper.. paper iddhange irbeku.." (One plain dosa, should be like paper) ,

"Sir. Bere Aenbeku? Tea, coffee, badami haalu, whisky, brandy.." (Sir, what else do u need? Tea, Coffee, Badam Milk, Whisky, Brandy...) ,

"Ondu full bisi coffee.. Benki, benki iddhange" (One full hot coffee. Should be like fire).

She smiles to herself when he says all this and I infer from this that she must be a Kannadithi. But till date, I have not heard her speak in Kannada. Whenever she gets a phone call, she speaks in either English or Hindi. Sometimes, the chutney is a bit salty or the sambar is watery but all these not matter much as long as she is around.

A few days back I had been to the Pizza hut near my place and found a surprise waiting for me there. She was there along with a guy. By the way things looked, I guess that guy was her boyfriend. My appetite seemed to have vanished suddenly. She saw me and smiled as if saying hi. I tried to smile too but in a state of mixed emotions, feeling happy for she having recognized me and feeling sorrowful for the reason that she may already be having a boyfriend, So what? What if she was single? Would I have said hi to her someday in Sneha Sagar, get acquainted, go on a date, propose to her and marry - aargh, I guess thats just too much.

Nowadays,she never comes to Sneha Sagar. I feel like asking the hotel guy whether she comes at some other time but have decided against it as I dont want him to get any ideas. I guess some people like me are better off being single. Let me reiterate that catchy phrase which was once my Gtalk status message - solitude is bliss.

Grapes are sour? Whatever dude whatever.

P.S:

A Conversation between two famished software engineers whose 5 day wait for a weekend has finally ended. (Overheard in our canteen)

Engineer 1: Man what plans for weekends?
Engineer 2: Recession right? Therefore no plans.

Thanks to Facebook, people are coming up with some cool status messages. Here is one by Sheldon : "And on the seventh day, God gave his greatest gift to man - Weekends."

Smorgasbord

It has been a long period of more than two months since i updated this blog of mine and on this auspicious day of February 14, I have finally decided to write something here. And for the sake of avoiding any redundancy I have decided not to crib for my being single as I did last year on this day.

Our college convocation happened and finally I am a graduate. The ceremony was preceded by a wonderful lunch with those Ideal's slab ice-creams as the dessert (reminded me of the hostel mess). Stifled in that highly uncomfortable formal clothes, add to that the characteristic humid weather of the city, all of us successfully transitioned form graduands to graduates.

I was in Mangalore for some ten days and it was Car Festival time. For those who need to know more about the festival, please read this post which I wrote last year in my earlier blogging days. The Venkataramana Temple is located in a locality called Car Street in Mangalore and the street is named so because it is on this street where the procession of the deity in the car (ratha) happens. The famous Tajmahal hotel of Mangalore, Balli's Podi shop etc are based on this street.

Me and my friend walked all along this street towards the Bunder area (The old Mangalore port) and decided to have some cool drinks at a small shop there. We ordered for two 'JOY' cola drinks and were conversing in Konkani. The shop owner handed us our colas. Our conversation aroused his curiosity and he asked: "Aapka Gaanv kya hai?"

We were a bit puzzled by his query and I replied - "Mangloor"

He shook his head and said - "Nahin Nahin. Aapka Gaanv. Gaanv. Native place. Kidhar hai?"

By listening to our conversation in Konkani he must have assumed that we are from some other state. And that shop is a stone's throw away from Car Street which is the Konkani stronghold of Mangalore. My friend got irritated and he retorted in Tulu - "Enchinaye? Ora panda artha aapujja?" (What the hell. Can't you understand if told once?)

The shop keeper did not utter a word.


P.S:
Yesterday, when I was returning home after work, I happened to overhear this conversation:

X: Man, what plans for tomorrow?
Y: What plans?
X: Man! Tomorrow is Valentine's day. So planned anything?
Y: Dude, I am married!
X: So what? Can't you celebrate Valentine's with your wife?

No reply from Y.

Anyways, Happy Valentine's day to all.

Rediscovering amplification

I am the proud owner of a Marshall MG10CD 10W guitar amplifier. It is just the kind of amplifier for practice at home or jamming backstage and packs in quite a punch. One interesting feature of this is the distortion channel whose gain can be varied and not all amplifiers have this wonderful feature. And the most important thing is that it would fit into anyone's budget as you can own one for about 3.3 k.

For those who would like to know some technical specifications, here is some data:

Output(RMS): 10 W
Channels: 2
Footswitchable Channels: No
CD Input: Yes
Emulated Line Out: Yes
Emulated Line In: Yes
Spring Reverb: No
Digital FX: No
FDD( Frequency Dependent Damping) : Yes
Speaker: 1 X 6 1/2"
Dimensions(mm) : 256 X 310 X 190
Weight (kg) : 5

Check out more information about the amp at the Marshall homepage.

This is how the amp looks like:

As I mentioned in the technical specifications before, the amp has a CD Input which lets you connect to an external sound source in addition to the input from the guitar. This is perfect in case one needs to play along with some music track. The speakers on my laptop are bad and the I-ball headphones are not that great. So using a guitar cable and a jack, I directed my laptop's sound output to the CD Input of the Marshall Amplifier just to see how things would work and Voila! What brilliant sound! In addition to being loud enough, the sound was rich and clear.

So using this new setup, I began to play all my favorite songs in succession. Some of the songs that were played were: [ The list includes English, Kannada and Telugu numbers. ]

Lazarus - Porcupine Tree
Arriving somewhere but not here - Porcupine Tree
1000 People - Blackfield
Time Traveller - Vinnie Moore
Nee Amruthadhare - Amruthadhare
Baa Maleye Baa - Accident
Naa Pedavulu Nuvvaithey - Ready
Nenani Neevani - Kotha Bangaru Lokam

So far so good. I then played the Kannada song from the movie Aramane - [ "Kolle Nannane......" which translates to "Kill Meeeeeeee!" ]. Gurukiran began to wail in his high pitched voice - "Kolle Nannane..,," and within a few minutes someone was continuosly banging on my door. I opened my door apprehensively. An old person who lived in the adjacent building was standing there. He looked majorly pissed off and his droopy red eyes and disheveled hair clearly showed me that Mr. Marshall had wrecked his precious sleep.

He began to yell at me - "Are you out of your mind? At this time of the hour! Why the hell...."

He suddenly stopped and looked at the the amplifier and all the cables running from it and my sweet KORG AX3000G and the Ibanez axe lying nearby. With a puzzled expression on his face, he slowly walked away without a word.

E-mails in Chains

Off late some of our esteemed batchmates have been feeling extremely nostalgic and have been desperately trying to get in touch by resorting to all sorts of extreme activities. One of these people, a smart and shrewd wannabe entrepreneur decided to do something and he picked up his copy of Smriti, typed out the mail-IDs in a spreadsheet and supposedly created a database. Then he copy-pasted these names into the 'TO' field in Gmail. After this, he composed an e-mail embedded with emotions, hit the 'SEND' button and waited.

Lots of us who were fed up of leading a monotonous work life felt this as a welcome change but before we began to reply, interesting things happened. Unfortunately not all of us wanted to be a part of this "great" idea and so a few wanted to be off the list. I never even bothered to reply to the mail even though I did not miss reading each and every new addition to the chain.

Some nice dialogues from the chain are worthy to be noted. Most of them have been edited for brevity and none of the names have been mentioned here. Only the person responsible to initiate the chain has been referred here by the pseudonym "entrepreneur" as a token of respect for his splendid efforts.

This is just a refresher course to those who already have read the mails.

"I dunno anyone in this list. Please take me off!"

"I am not the person you want. Please take me off!" - Ha ha, the entrepreneur really "took it" big time.

"Its fun to watch the dynamics of this thread." - I guess there were a lot of people like me who enjoyed this free entertainment.

This particular conversation is one of my favourites:
X: I hate chain mails. This thing sucks.
Y: I second X. Please take me off the list.
Z: We are not here by choice man! (Z sounded as if he was stranded on some remote Pacific island)

The best one was Aadi's reply praising the entrepreneur for his great social networking skills. Then someone suggested the "Mute Conversation" feature of Gmail and some debate went on about it pros and cons.

But there were a lot who actually replied with a lot of warmth and hearily thanked the entrepreneur.

For example -

"Great work man. Keep it up. Let the thread continue , great to have the feel generated again of being from NITK..." - Unfortunately for him, not all liked to have that "feel generated" again.

All this has somehow made us revisit those good old memories and so I guess the entrepreneur deserves some credit for making an honest attempt for getting in touch again. At least people will now remember him for two reasons- one of them is of course, this chain mail and the other one is... Guess? Yeah right - its Eeeebiz.

:)

Tamizh Azhagi

One of my friends mentioned me a funny and weird incident which I would like to share with all you readers. This friend of mine (who prefers to stay anonymous) works for a prestigious MNC and the company has provided cabs to the employees for the daily commuting. So, one fine evening he finishes work , walks to the taxi and gets into the front seat. Two of his colleagues occupy the back seat and as soon as one more person enters, the cab is ready to leave.

A lady dressed in a red saree walks to the cab and checks out the scenario. Apparently the only seat she can occupy is along with the two people in the back seat. The calm and serene expression on her beautiful face suddenly vanishes. She makes an abrupt above turn and walks toward the cab driver who was enjoying a nice smoke just outside the company gates.

"Sir!" She screams and the poor cab driver drops the beedi , obviously startled by the shrill noise.

"Enna Sir Idh? ... " She begins to yell at the cab driver endlessly in Tamil who was actually not given a chance to utter even a single word.

People around are gathering to check out the issue but a few of them are warded off by the angry look on the lady's facecut. She then stares at the remaining onlookers, her eyes burning like coal embers and these people realise that they better escape from the scene rather than face the same fate as the poor cab driver.

The cab driver then tells something to her in Tamil and escorts her back to the car. The two people in the back seat who happened to be male are looking totaly perplexed without any idea of what is going on, and I am sure even you readers would not be aware of what was the reason the Tamizh Azhagi ( translates to English as Tamil Beauty ) was so pissed off. All this time my friend who was in the front seat of the cab was dozing off after a hard day's work . The cab driver gives him a slight shove that brings him back to reality.

He looks around and sees an angry tamil beauty, a cab driver smiling sheepishly and two confused colleagues.

"What's the matter?" He asks the cab driver.

"Can u move to the back seat please? She would like to sit in the front seat." The cab driver requests looking at the Tamil lady.

"Why can't she sit in the back seat?" My friend retorts who is now majorly pissed off .

The Tamil lady intervenes and says - "I come from an orthodox family and I dont like sitting along with men in the cars. So move to the back seat so that I can sit alone here."

"What about the driver who will be driving here? Are you going to ask him to move to the back seat as well and drive the cab all "alone" by yourself?" My friend asks trying to stifle a smile.

"I don't want to waste my time arguing with you." She says and turns away.

My friend did not want to make a big issue out of this and so he calmly joined his two colleagues in the back seat. The lady entered the cab and slammed the door shut with a tremendous amount of force that the cab literally shook a bit. The cab driver promptly took his seat and gunned the engine. It seems not even a single soul uttered a word in the whole trip.

P.S: Tamil is a wonderful language and I am an ardent watcher of Tamil movies. The post is only a narration of a funny incident and it should not be misunderstood as a racist remark on the Tamil community.

Lawrence Of Arabia

I dont need to explain how ubiqutous outsourcing has become today. Without any digressions, let me explain the matter straight away.

An Arab recently pinged me on Gtalk. He had read my blog and supposedly wanted to write one too. But being busy with all his activities in the oil fields there, he wants me to write posts for him and he was offering 1k per month for my troubles.

WTF!!

I declined and he is now in search of someone else who will launch him into this hallowed blogosphere. Anyone reading this is free to help him out. :)

I also managed to get a pic of our Lawrence of Arabia. Here it is!




I think I have seen him somewhere! What do you people think? :)


P.S: Link to the Arab's Orkut profile

Image courtesy: The Arab's Orkut album

Ladies are smart?

A lot can happen over Gtalk? This is an excerpt of a chat which shows how smart these ladies are. Without much further ado, here it is:

Ms. X: Never criticise a gal's liking especially if the relation is a bit naughty, u know what i mean. ;)

Myself: No i dont :)

Ms. X: Awww u a nerd..?

Myself: why? Nerds dont understand all this? :)

Ms.X: All what..? :)

Myself: (Speechless) [After a few seconds] Can i blog this?

Ms.X: Hmmmm but dont mention my name ok. :D


P.S: Inspired by this post by White Noise. Long live vijaydreamz ! :)

A lot can happen over a coffee

It was about quarter past ten in the morning yesterday. I was preparing coffee and suddenly my cell phone began to beep. The screen read "1 message recieved" when I picked it up. Upon clicking the 'Show' button, the following text displayed on the screen:

[Exactly the same text. No editing has been done to retain the "flavor" of the scenario. All the smileys are also part of the text message]

Arbit phone number: Hey, hw u bn? Hws work? Sorry cudn reply 2 u d oder day.. 2 much work :( me taken an off on mon :) yippee.. Gt a lonnnng weekend.. Hehee :) coll was so much fun.

A very beautiful example of SMS English. Microsoft Word's spell check would crash if by chance this text was fed as input to it.

Just see how the change in emotions has been superbly illustrated in the string - 2 much work :( me taken an off on mon :) yippee.. Gt a lonnnng weekend.. Hehee :).

Lonnnng weekend- whoa! Surely he/she means it. It should definitely be a long weekend.

Okay cool. I thought this was one of my college mates who was feeling nostalgic and had changed his number as the number was not present in my contacts list.

So I replied:
Myself: May I know who is this?

Arbit phone number: Huh? Who are you?

What the..!

I replied back:
Myself: You are the one who messaged me about your long weekends and college days. I think it is better if you disclose yourself first.

I did not know what I actually meant by that but sometimes arbit dialogues work well. I got a reply.

Arbit phone number: Oh crap!! M really sorry.. Dis is Katrina.. Twas by mis.. Btw u don hv 2 b so rude.. Nyway sorry.

[I would not like to disclose the actual name of the lady because of the fear of any unwanted repercussions. So, when I was thinking of an alternative arbit name, Katrina was the first one that struck me. Well…]

I am about to reply back and suddenly a new message arrives:

Katrina: Why? U feeling sorry now?

What the… again!

I replied:
Myself: I was not trying to be rude. I am not feeling sorry either. Suppose someone messages you and asks "who are you" what would you say? And can you please tell me who you "really" are?

I thought that someone was trying to play a prank on me and thats why I suspected something fishy. So i wanted to confirm. And also there is a philosophical angle to this. We all do not know who we "really" are and what is the real "purpose" of life. Anyways, let me not delve on that now.

Katrina replies back:
Katrina: I asked u hu u r coz i din knw dat i sent u d msg.. Nt my mis either.. N wot do u mean, hu i realy m.. I told u my name.. Din i? N m also sorry.. U cud put across in a betta manner.. Nyway, chill scene.. M Katrina.

It would take some effort to understand the above dialogue but anyways, I called the number. No answer. This confirmed me that it was some jobless friend of mine who wanted to bug me. So I sent a message:

Myself: Is it that hard to recieve my call?

Then suddenly, my phone is ringing and it is Katrina who is calling!

I answer the phone and ask - "Hello, who is this?"

A lady in a 'yo' Bangalore accent (The typical accent that the ladies sauntering around in Brigade Road use) replies - "Dude. I told you. I am Katrina. Please do not make a big deal out of this. I sent that message to you by mistake. Sorry. Ok?"

I replied - "Ok. I thought someone was trying to play a prank on me. Cool. Bye."

By this time, my coffee was ready and I before I could take a sip, my phone beeps indicating a new SMS. Its her.

Katrina: It isn 2 hard 2 pick ur cal.. Jus dat i din c.. Or may b i wantd 2 save ur currency.. Lol ;) D hv a great day :)

I typed quickly and hit the 'SEND' button:

Myself: Hi lady. One rupee is not going to make me bankrupt. Anyways thanks for showing so much concern. :)

Katrina: You are welcome :)

Game over. I pick up the cup of hot coffee and take a sip.

It is rightly said, a lot can happen over a coffee. :)


P.S: I hate 'SMS English'.

P.P.S: A survey which I did recently among a few of my friends reveals that ladies use SMS English more than the men.

P.P.P.S: I hope the Cafe Coffee Day guys will not sue me for using their slogan as the title of the post.

P.P.P.P.S: Thanks to her anyways. I wanted something to write about and her message arrived like a silver lining.

'Phinal' P.S: Maybe I should call her back again? ;)

Froop!

Had been to Mangalore in the weekend. The city buses in Mangalore have this concessional rate for students (popularly known as C or CEE or C.R ) and generally the bus charge will be three rupees for any trip. I boarded a bus and handed three rupees to the conductor.
"State bank" I uttered. Its the last stop and it costs five rupees normally without any concessions.

The conductor eyed me from top to bottom and asked me with a smile: "Are you kidding me?"

"No. Seriously! I am a student, " I retaliated.

"Show me the froop man. Show me the damned froop that you are a student."
(Some of the people in my hometown pronounce proof as 'froop')

I always carry my outdated NITK college ID in my wallet and that proved to be of some assistance in this situation. I handed over it to him and he walked away without even bothering to read it. Victory!!

I was sitting in the seat at the back and there were two other 'genuine' students sitting near me. There were a lot of AIEEE and CET mock question papers spread out on their laps and by the looks of it, it seemed as if they were on the way to attend some CET mock test. I think one of them had read the name of the college on my ID when I showed it to the conductor.

"Sir, which branch are you from?. How many hours did you study per day?" he asked me.

I always wanted to masquerade as a mining engineer and wanted to know how it feels. (Honestly, no pun intended)

So, I told him - "Department of Mining Engineering. Well, you know. I used to read for about....."

The guy gave me a condescending look and turned away.

Damn.

P.S: Seriously I believe that its time all the pre-university students are given detailed knowledge about engineering education. Most of them have this preconceived notion that only an electronics or computer science B.Tech degree can help you to attain enlightenment which is clearly not the truth.