Suffer Vacations

Have you recently been on a vacation?

Probably not, eh?

Because if you had, by now I would have definitely known about it. Known about it in far more detail than I would have ever wanted to. 

I would have known exactly which place you went on which day though your Facebook Status Messages. I would have seen ALL the 237 pictures that you would have uploaded on the Facebook Albums by now, including those of  the (highly unimpressive) ‘spectacular’ scenery, a (random) ‘awesome’ car and an (obscure) ‘legendary’ restaurant that you went to which nobody outside that little town knows about. Even you didn’t. It’s only when you landed up there that you were informed by other enthusiasts (and travel-marketing agents) around you how legendary the place is. Most likely even Wikipedia doesn’t have a reliable stub to support its legendary claim.

That’s not it. Thanks to Facebook Mobile, I would have actually followed you on your trip including knowing important details such as in how much time your flight is taking off, how effective the air-conditioning is in your hotel (and hence whether you are currently freezing or comfortably settled) and how many times you burped after having that exotic dish.

It doesn’t end there. Because of the Comments facility on Facebook, by now I would have also made a data bank of all the people who have been to the exact same place that you uploaded your pictures from. So what if they went fifteen years back as toddlers, it’s important that they don’t miss out on informing the world now that they too have been there, done that.  Of course they’ll try to make it sound like the (lame) conversation below the photo is directed to you only and would vehemently deny any charges of showing off; but it doesn’t work. 

The trouble is that Facebook is a like a house with glass walls; you just can’t have sex in it even in your bedroom. And in case you do, I am not the one to derive pleasure from voyeurism.

Thanks anyway for a great world tour guys! I had an awesome time.

Prologue

The author was all set to go for a nice family vacation to the Himalayas last week with all the tickets and bookings in place. Hours before boarding the plane, a polite SMS from the carrier informed him that all flight services to his destination had been cancelled indefinitely. And there went his grand summer vacation for a toss.

This blog is an outcome of his unscheduled extended stay at home in the sweltering heat with little to keep himself entertained. The multiplex owners, film producers and the electricity utility companies are amongst those who should also take the blame. 

Jiski Trump uski Triumph/Jeet

In case any of you have ever made an attempt to call me, you would be well-aware that I have a Trump mobile connection. 

 Yes, there is no doubt it sucks. The signal vanishes every now and then, the calls get dropped quite often and the little conversation that does take place is so garbled that it feels like you are shouting at someone underwater.

 So, why did I get the rotten connection in the first place?

That is easy to answer - There was a time when Trump rocked. It was the cheapest connection by far and the SMS service was free. So, as first and second year students in DCE (yes, at that time there were multiple users of Trump, not just me. Those buggers deserted me later), we used to source all our humour for the day by sending ADU to 8888. Not that the jokes we received were extremely funny or extremely adult, but somehow the idea of exploiting a free service this way was rather exciting.

The network that time wasn’t that bad either. In fact, it was far better than some of the Hutch and Airtel guys who used to not visit those hostels in DCE facing the Haryana direction as each trip cost them a bomb. Their phones would involuntarily put them on roaming whenever they went that side and charge them Rs.50 for roaming. The SMSs too reached within 5 mins of sending it to anyone in those days, even on other networks. 

However, that was then. Now, there is no denying that from those days Trump has only become worse, but somehow I have still held on to the connection (much to the annoyance of anybody who has me in his phonebook).

Frequent problems with the service have meant that I have had to speak to their customer care guys almost once every week. All calls on their 1503 customer care helpline have sounded exactly the same all through five years – First, some bad music comes (Sorry, before that you get through to the helpline only in some ten attempts, then the bad music comes). Then, a computerised voice says press 0 for operator assistance and then a rude, bored, tired individual will introduce himself and ‘welcome’ you to Trump customer care, inform you his ‘position number’ and ask you ‘how he may help you’.  I have mechanically registered complaints so many times in the last five years without the hope of anything being resolved, but simply to do my karma as a distressed customer.

I have often been asked why I have put up with this for so long.

Until today I didn’t really have a good enough answer to this except that as with everything sarkari, Trump also rewards loyalty; and I cherish that. They give me free talktime every now and then, have made calls on a few numbers completely free and charge me almost nothing for a cool GPRS surfing experience. This by the way is not an exaggeration. But, is it good enough? Can’t the zoozoos offer the same the thing?

Not really. 

I called up 1503 today to register a complaint for an exceptionally bad network failure even my Trump standards. The call got through in a single attempt and the sleazy-sounding music followed. The computerised voice asked me to press zero for operator assistance ‘at any time during the call’. I immediately did. A sweet sounding lady promptly picked up the phone on the other end and said –

Welcome to Trump customer care. I am in position number sixty-nine. How may I help you?

I blushed and hung up the phone. 

Gym-boree

A few months back I had caused a sort of flutter amongst my friends’ community through my post ‘Ballpark Figures’, which was a description of the different kinds of kids I saw while pursuing my pseudo-exercise routine everyday in the neighbourhood park. The excitement about the post wasn’t to do with the quality of writing or the keenness of observation exhibited in the post but almost entirely about reliability of the plot in the first place.

 

Somehow it is difficult to digest for any person who knows me well that I have also occasionally indulged in activities marginally inclined towards physical fitness. The interesting bit is that I don’t really blame them. A quarter of a century of excessive consumption (of not-so-healthy kind of food) and over-exploitation of a contraption called the bean bag is compelling enough evidence to confirm their doubts. But guys trust me, I wasn’t lying.

 

And now, here’s the latest....I’ve gone a step further....I go the gym now...Everyday...8.30 AM to 9.45 AM. Hell yeah!

 

Now that we’ve set the stage for some drama let me introduce the characters to you. In the following lines I intend to describe to you the amusing and interesting types of (fitness) freaks who I run into every morning. Needless to say, observing them is far more engaging than struggling with dumbbells and push-ups and embarrassing oneself in front of the local studs.

 

So, here we go...

 

Type 1: Mrs. Shalini Gupta (housewife)

Mrs. Shalini is the ideal sundar aur susheel grahini (the sundar bit is usually highly exaggerated) in her late-thirties who has just begun to explore possibilities of an outlet for herself outside the kitchen; a place which she has very masterfully run for over decade now (and in the process doubled her weight since the time she got married. This is her own confession, not my fancy). She has probably been introduced to the idea of a gym by Mrs.Sharma in her neighbourhood, who in turn got to know about gyms from her visiting NRI relatives (distant ones obviously) last summer.

 

Mrs.Gupta has spent significant time in making her sartorial choices, exclusively for the gym. Tight black slacks and a huge pink t-shirt (with big white polka dots) which reaches up to her knees is what you’d find her most commonly in. Unfortunately this selection of hep clothes accentuates her well-rounded personality much more than actually concealing it.

 

Mrs. Gupta obviously definitely doesn’t like her mini-Jayalalitha look but doesn’t realise that she needs to work a little harder to get rid of it; and simply smelling the air inside the gym won’t help. Alas, the temptation of exchanging notes on what’s happening in Balika Vadhu and what all she’s planning to arrange for her younger child’s upcoming birthday party with a like-minded colleague (gym kitty circle if you will) while sitting on an exercising-cycle is far stronger than the actual need to peddle the cycle for which she pays the gym guy. Even that, I presume is a very tiring activity as it is evident from the frequency with which she seems to wipe some imaginary sweat from her face using a small pink hand-towel fifteen times in as many minutes. Did I also mention the sips of water she takes from her own bottle every now and then which she religiously brings everyday from home? Obviously, the mineral water dispenser in the gym can’t be trusted as it doesn’t have the anti-swine flu upgrade patch.

 

(In case you are getting the idea that I am being a janani and eavesdropping on ladies’ conversation, then you’re wrong. The likes of Mrs.Gupta block any gym equipment which has a provision for seating for really long everyday and its unlikely that they’d budge unless you stood on her head and made a dirty face. In the process, you may inadvertently be exposed to the content of her conversation)

 

Type 2: Rajveer Yadav (pet name:  Sonu)

Actual name changed. Pet name also changed, for security reasons of the author not so much the subject. As a matter of fact, I don’t even know what this guy’s real name is but I am sure the aliases given here are not so off the mark.

 

Sonu is the quintessential Delhi gym guy with his roots in an adjoining state beginning with H. He’s tall, has a perfectly chiselled body replete with six-pack abs, rides a yellow motorbike and stinks. Only if he didn’t walk into the gym wearing a black vest and a red cap which has probably never been washed in the last decade then the transmission of the stink can be slightly subdued, but who amongst the lesser mortals has the balls to give him any advice.

 

Your average Sonu is a serious body-building enthusiast and from childhood his tongue is trained to pronounce the ‘body’ in ‘body-building’ the way you and I would pronounce bow-dee. (So to reiterate, he has a great bowdee not body.) All bowdee builders in the gym seem to follow a particular jargon unique only to them. They've invested so much time in building their bodies (sorry, bowdees) that they feel like hitting (maaro-ing) everyone and everything, including their own exercises and muscles. So you'd commonly hear our bowdee builder ask the trainer - Aaj mein biceps aur chest maar leta hun? phir bees double-fly maar lunga? Theek hai na bhai?

Another peculiar habit our bowdee builder here has is that of feeling up his chest in front of the mirror every five minutes and having a little conversation with his own reflection for a while. I reckon this is when he’s imagining standing in front of the Fash-P team of DCE and walking down the ramp topless amidst a roaring Bawana crowd going hysterical over his hoat bowdee (err...hot body).

 

This act of narcissism is usually followed by another one. That is, lifting of that black vest we talked about from his left hand and counting his abs with the index finger of the right. As you may have seen, any gym has mirrors on all four walls, so when this is happening you are surrounded by at least 20 images of Sonu and no less than 120 ab muscles (20 X 6 pack each). Believe me, it is not a pleasant site!

 

 

To be continued...

Still to come – Hunney Singh and his gym buddies

 

Old Nimbu Paani in a New Bottle

7'up did it, so why can't I? 

For a while now I had been contemplating changing the look and feel of this blog. In addition to the summer drying up new ideas for posts, I had increasingly started feeling a little embarassed and a little irritated about the way my blog looked. Hence, the new look! 

First and foremost, the previous version was designed so as to somehow maximise revenue from ad sense. It doesn't work. I mean it works, but it works at such a painfully slow pace that its not worth pursuing. Moreover, off late the main ad block on top was showing a 5cm x 5 cm image of L.K.Advani in that wierd about-to-go-to-potty pose, replicas of which are anyway spread across the city, and I was in no mood to aid the BJP in its campaign efforts. So I did away with it! 

Now the three vertical ad bars that you notice on the right are purely kept for cosmetic purpose so as to fill in the space in the right column with something colourful. You really needn't be nice to me any longer by clicking on them. I can live without those extra pennies, thanks. 

The bigger and the more important change is the background and colur scheme. I wonder what went through my mind when I first put it, about two years ago. For some weeks now, those green and yellow polka dots had been reminding me of a pattern off a baby's underwear....definitely not worth keeping any longer! 

I have also made some changes to the about me section, but those are rather minor, too hard for even the most ardent follower of this blog (if one exists) to notice. I realised I needed to be slightly more politically correct as I join work and hence the needful has been done. 

Besides, all this I don't think there anything different here. I am still the same, my sense of humour (or the lack of it) is still the same and the older posts on this blog are definitely still the same. 

So if you were getting excited about finding an all new avatar of of this blog (the gift?), then sorry to disappoint (the curse :P). 

UK not OK

On a recent visit to my blog (mostly to procrastinate academics since exams are so close) I was amused by the latest ad flashing on it. Right on top - by the UK Border Agency. 

This is the very agency which came into effect on 1st April last year all of a sudden and played havoc with a lot of student internship visas for MBA students just days or even hours before people were to board their flights to Heathrow. As was probably expected, I had landed up in the thick of all this drama that time and had even expressed my rants and rumblings on this very blog. 

Now, exactly one year later, these guys are actually advertising on my blog, almost as if to take my case on an old joke. 

DON'T click on that ad! I don't care about the adsense revenue I'll lose.   :-P