Chapter 9: Jeevan Deep Co-Operative housing Society.

It was a second life to me, beginning from scratch, new locality, new school and new subjects.

The building was great; as a matter of fact great would be an understatement. Agreed that it was a chawl, and chawls in Mumbai are considered to be hideouts of notorious criminals, this was unique, we had eight rooms in a row and of eight five were occupied by ppl speaking different languages.

I was brought up amidst Bhaiyyas from UP, Gujrathis, Maharashtrians, Malayalis and Mohammedans. So it was a communal harmony in a sense and we ended up celebrating every single festival from Ramzan, Chhat puja, Dandiya, Makar sankrant and Onam.

My dad never used to mix with people and kept his distance, that was his upbringing, but I never missed out a chance to enjoy shirkurma or for that matter karonji and puttu, my dad used to object at my sociability, but my mom would always pacify him.

Holi was one festival that I never got a chance to enjoy until I started working and was free from my dads supervision. This was one festival where he took his stand, and never let me get my face colored. As for the rationale behind it I never really knew, but just that he used to be amused with the people throwing colors on each other at the same time marinating a clean stand.

My mother used to tutor the kids in our building for one third the fees that was demanded by the qualified teachers, agreed that my mother was not qualified enough to teach higher class students, but she did start off on the kindergarten up to the fifth standard and was revered by the others in the building. For the only reason I am still given a royal treatment when ever I grace my presence to the building.

My dad was feared by others and he did derive a kick out of frightening children if they don’t study and the likes, overall, the people at the building considered him as a sergeant, strict to the core when needed and friendly otherwise. Much to the ire of my mother and me, My dad also used to derive his own kicks by pouring ice cold water on a winters day over the society dog… he used to be amused at the way it used to bark. He is one Sagittarian who seldom shows love to animals. (He has toned down now, but I know that he would never miss a chance to frighten a cat, or stone a dog).

Another amusing (amusing for the people but the dog involved did not find it funny) incident that happened during my stay at Chembur was that my neighbor got some petrol out from his bike and poured it on Moti’s (the society dog) nuts. It irritated the dog so much that it spent the entire day scratching its nuts on tarred pavements. Don’t believe me, try it out on your dog if you own one and let me know its reactions. The neighbor became my dads best friend, we actually sold our flat at a 10 % discount to the same guy before we vacated the place.

Yes there is one more move, but in the near future…

Would like to shift the focus on my academics next….

Chapter 8: Sibling Update

My cousin sister had the reputation of being known as an all time scholar whom no one could beat (at studies that is, physically she was frail then and would cry at being touched), she had the impeccable performance of scoring straight A’s throughout her school education.

No only was she talented in her studies but she also used to dance and sing well. She was one favorite cousin of mine, probably because of the fact that we spent most of our childhood together.

My cousin brother bettered my cousin sister, but his problem was that he was forced to study, he had a strict dad. His dad was my dads younger brother who was of the idea that you cannot achieve anything without studies and even went to the extent of putting ideas into my dads head. A result of which was whip lashing me with a belt if I failed to score ranks.

At least my dad was reasonable, he would belt me only if I did not get a rank (which seldom happened until I reached my 5^th standard) on the other hand my cousin would face the belt if he scored any rank below 1^st. Such was the ordeal that he had to face. So getting the first rank for my cousin brother was a matter of survival, whereas my sister did it out of her love for studies.

I am being so forthright about my cousins because I never made it to the premier ranks after I joined FHS, the reason was partly that the new building that I moved into had many children belonging to the same age group as mine and my inner child woke up and wanted to do things that it never did get a chance to, and partly because the teachers in this new school were all grumpy, no one bothered to find out if you really did understand something, they were all of the types “copy from the board and ask ur parents for help… and if you are rich enough hire a tutor”, there were a few exceptions to these, but I am classifying the vast majority.

Now my parents were of the idea that if you are smart and intelligent you should not be going to tuitions, the T-word was dreaded in my family and was regarded to as a shame equivalent to getting ones daughter gang raped. The fact that the teaching abilities of the teachers should be taken into account before drawing a conclusion never crossed their minds once, and my ranks took a beating. They forever believed that teacher is an all knowing guru who thinks its his prime responsibility to impart knowledge and shape tender minds, it is what a teacher should ideally be, but the naïve minds of my parents fails to accept the reality over idealism, and they still think the same.

My ranks did take a dip in FHS, and I was never the same person again personally. I had immatured (I know that this is not a word), people mature with time, but for once I immatured and enjoyed every single moment. Now that I look back at it I realize that I have had the best life to my siblings envy.

I will take this up in detail in my concluding chapters, for now its my Chembur residence that gets the spotlight.

Rain Check.

Had a query from one of my friends after reading yesterdays blog whether i still indulge myself in Panty Peeking, so to set the records straight, i do NOT.

There is a reason for the same, we used to indulge in it for the pure sense of adventure , thrill and the danger involved, (which some ppl derive out of hunting) but girls now-a-days readily flash theirs in full view that we end up with zero achievement factor whatsoever.

Its akin to a herd of tigers armed with AK-47's approaching a hunter and committing mass suicide. Wheres the fun for the hunter in that...

Disclaimer: My series is called "My researches with Legitimacy", so there has to be a fair amount of truth involved.

Chapter 7: Nayi Dishaayein… Nayi Aashayein…

I am in the first standard now; my life has just started to move.

I made a new friend called Rakesh, he was the boy of an industrialist and was the one who always had fancy rubber caps for his pencils. He always used to carry fresh new pencils every other day and used to show it off. He was popular with the guys and the chicks alike for his flamboyance whereas I was better off know to the class as the ‘Topper’.

Rakesh managed to get to me too, he was a nice person to know, his interests included apart from showing off expensive eraser tips, drawing, cricket and an occasional indulgence called Panty peeking (if the name isn’t suggestive enough, it was supposedly a game in which he used to take a sneak peek at the girls unmentionables without them getting to notice him) how he had inculcated such a refined art at such a tender age I don’t know. I for once tried it at his instigation and that was partly a reason for us to shift the second time.

I was a good student when in the first standard, reason being that I used to stay at my grammys and there were no children of my age to play with, so most of my days would be spent at school or doing homework or tending to roses and chatting up my grammy. That gave me a certificate of a scholar in the making and no one complained.

My grampa expired during the time I was at my grammys, it was a sad day. Don’t remember much, as I chose to forget it. But soon after my dad decided it was time to take a flat and to move on…

My dad bought a flat in Chembur, with the finances that were put together by his savings and a little help from his brother. We officially owned a home. We moved into the new home during my summer vacations.

My results were declared and I stood first in SIWS and passed on the second standard. Now that we were in Chembur, there was no way I could continue going to SIWS, so we started to look out for good schools around the area, and this was when I entered into Fatima. The school was called “Fatima High School” was set up in Vidyavihar and was a Prime catholic school, well renowned for its capacity to churn out state merit list holders, and it naturally became a choice for my parents to try for my admission there.

We filled the forms and I was groomed by my elder cousin who used to go to the same school for an interview. When my name was announced we went in hoping for a good grilling session with the “Father” of the school (Principal in school equivalent to Father in Catholic schools). The then reigning father was Rev. Oscar, he took one look at my results and asked my parents to pay my fees and get me admitted. Never before was admission such a breeze.

So I started my crucial journey in a single room kitchen, chawl in Chembur, and trudged along my education at FHS.

Never did I realize I would learn a valuable lesson of life here.

Chapter 6: South Indian Welfare School (S.I.W.S) & BEST route 9.

This was the school that I attended from Pre Kindergarten (or Nursery as some ppl know it) to the first standard.

The nursery phase was the one that I remember very vaguely, I was a good student then, used to stand right beside my teacher while all other students used to sit in their benches, my POV, I used to find faults in every single classmate of mine and the faults ranged from downright ugly to noserunner to smellycats.

By the time I finished my nursery, I did manage to make an army of enemies of which some were pissed out at the fact that I called them noserunners and smellycats and they couldn’t do anything about it, others for the fact that I ruled when it came to exams, and the last ones had problems controlling the bladders, those were the one referred to as “hoseleaks” in my vocabulary.

But the teacher was impressed, and I ended up having excellent calves. Thanks to my standing beside the teacher all day long. I used to get the homework done on time cause I feared that my teacher might actually make me sit with the other students as punishment in case I did not, which she never did, those were the times when teachers used less force and more love to teach students.

So vanity did run high in my earlier years at school, but hey... I am accepting the fact and not burying the hatchet.

We used to walk to the nursery, which was actually close to my grammys place, my mother would comedown daily to drop me off and to pick me up from school. And during the walk we kinda bonded.

Starting on my first standard, I had to travel to Wadala, for which we used to catch bus number 9, Which used to go from Antop hill to somewhere close to Nehru Planetaium. We used to board the bus from the first stop, but there was a catch, the bus was the one that was in most demand and also the one that had the least frequency.

For the first few days we stood all the way to my school, later the conductor offered to allow me to enter the bus when it was parked for refueling and secure a seat for myself. I used to enjoy it, entire bus for myself and I can take any seat I wanted to, was never given such a royal treatment by anyone. My mother accompanied me for a few more days, and then I was on my own. My routine used to be somewhat like this:

Stand at the depot opposite to the bus stop where the bus usually stops for refuelling, get into the bus and select the seat that has the largest window, and have a nice trip to school. While returning back there was no way I could get a seat since the buses used to be packed to capacity but that was ok… it helped me level out my expectations.

So it was actually the driver and the conductor of the double decked route 9 bus that I actually made friendship with without the permission of my parents, for the same reason I still have a sympathetic corner towards BEST employees.

So amazed was I with the way the driver maneuvered the red mammoth across winding streets, that deep down I began to harbor the inclination to mahout my own. I was downright expressive about it too, so when asked about our professional streams, my siblings would generally choose between an engineer and a doctor, I preferred to be the Driver, the least popular profession amongst Iyengars, and the most embarrassing moment for my parents. I was never questioned about my “profession” at a social gathering… EVER.

Come First standard and the number of subjects in school increased manifold, at least for a child. My challenges have just begun…and it’s tiring already.

Chapter 5: chi(n)tty chi(n)tty bang bang…

Now that I have touched upon our family shifting to my grammys residence, I realize that there were quite a few incidents that took place in sector VII that weren’t touched upon, a majority of them are covered here and ill try to fit in everything at sector VII so that we don’t keep revisiting the nightmare.

I was brought up in a conservative manner, my parents both staunch iyengars harbored the belief that if a child mixes with children from other background (essentially meaning religion) it might sow seeds of imperfection in their religious lineage (they have toned down… but not entirely). So it was my parents who chose my friends for me. It felt real bad as the saying “God gives us our relatives… but we get to choose our friends” didn’t really fit me. Here I was stuck between money crazy fanatic paternal relatives who’d give a damn unless money was involved and they were at the receiving end, A friend chosen for me because he used to top his class, bore neutral grounds, ate whatever was given to him without making a fuss, looked so shoddy that grass never grew on the path the tread and my maternal relatives who were extremely giving, forever had a listening ear and wouldn’t think twice before taking a loan to help a friend in need.

So I grew up with a balance knob on my life, similar to the ones we have on radios that is used to control the output to either of the speakers, but the label on my lifes balance knob read:

Paternal relations --- Chosen Friend --- Maternal relations

As you might have observed my maternal relations were always rightJ. For most of the time (in my control) the knob would have been positioned either in the middle or at the far right. Wasn’t too fond of my friend but I had no other way to vent out my feelings, that and his dad used to be a professor and get cool gadgets home. As for my friend he was naïve enough to believe that my dad owned the gateway of India and the government of India would pay him handsomely if he collected and mailed 5000 different license plate numbers.

The last link that binds me with Sector VII is the accidents that I have had there; I was hospitalized thrice for a cut in the chin, and once for scraping my tongue. At all times I kept the knob at the far right as I knew that they were the ones who would truly care. I still remember my maternal uncle running with me bleeding from my freshly cut tongue around 5 kilometers to our family doctor… I still don’t know if I would ever be in a position to repay him. My parents seem to have forgotten the debt, but all that matters is that I haven’t.

I guess that wraps up all of my ties with the sector under consideration, will bring up a mention in case something pops up later. For now… I am schooling…

Chapter 4: Grammy…

The moving was not what was on the plates, it was what was on the plate that caused the moving.

My parents were embarrassed by the fact that their child had given a feedback so accurate that no mortal would be able to better it, even though many a people congratulated me on being so direct, my parents decided it was time to move on.

My action had only triggered the exodus of my family, the other reason as I was informed later was the actual one as I came to know, My uncle whose quarters we used to share had long before vacated the same to move to his own apartment in the happening western suburbs, the neighbor (a government servant himself) was involved in the department that tracks the empty houses and allots the same to the next officer in line for a home. Though the guy did not have a spine what he did have was “enough of shit” and my contribution to the existing pile triggered his defensive mechanism and he threatened my parents vacate the place.

So much for voicing your true opinion in a Gandhian nation.

So we moved, we did not have a home to own, we moved to my Grammys’ (Late maternal grandmother… lovingly referred to grammy) place, It was a swell house… again a government quarter but with good neighbors who were ever welcoming and never boasted about their culinary abilities. I guess they heard the story.

We changed sectors, moved from VII to V and close to a good area in Guru Teg Bahadur Nagar (aka GTB Nagar, Harbour line). It was here that I spent a major portion of childhood, and started off with my schooling (actually I was in school by the time we vacated sector VII, but the knowledge gained was not substantial in comparison with the ones that were parted with).

It was here at my grammys place that I was taught the values about respecting people, voicing unsolicited opinions and the likes, I was also given a crash course on gardening, I still know a trick or two about grafting and creating cross bred multi colored roses.

My grammy was the most influential person in my life, for she was the person who by her kindness touched me and made me see light. She would accept my lies knowingly and would wait for me to come and confess… which I eventually did. She was also pious and was the one who introduced me to praying.

Her contribution amounts for more than 30 % for the kind of person I am. I still miss her some days… as I do right now… she used to resolve all the conflicts that I used to have with my parents and make the wrong one see light, and I wasn’t always wrong.

With emotions running an all time high, its time to move on to the next phase of my life…

Chapter 3: Segmentation Fault… Core Dumped.

The day after the birthday was back to normal, I had secretly wished that the partying would continue, but much to my dissatisfaction it did not… just when I was actually beginning to like all the publicity.

BTW I had forgotten to mention that I had started to run by the time I was 9 months old, was a gifted, hyperactive, “the ideal enemy’s neighbor” Kid. So to restrain me from leaving my home and causing mayhem at my neighbors, the society secretly ran a collection campaign and gifted what was called the “bloody door plank” (by me that is) and my naïve parents accepted and installed the gift graciously.

The “door plank” is actually a piece of timber that is about the same height as a year old baby and is installed at the door, it helps deter the baby from moving out of the door by blocking its way. Elders and grownups just jump over it as if it was just another day to day hurdle in their race and carry on with their life. It’s the baby that’s suffers the house arrest.

I had started to sprout my first tooth then, it was barely visible and the gums irritated like hell. I took to gnawing anything and every thing from metal chairs to cloth to newspapers.

I was totally into news papers from my 18^th month, not that I was fascinated by pictures, but because newsprint tasted swell, and it made my tongue go black which amused me a little, but none the less I got a thrashing when my father found out my kick. He wouldn’t have had I known how to recognize items of his interest.

I had accidentally derived my kick out of eating a small piece from the newspaper and was contented with it, however what I did not realize that the piece had the winning numbers of Maharashtra Rajya lottery that my dad had recently purchased to try his luck, which in turn ruined mine. I was given a verbal thrashing accompanied by hours of brushing and tongue cleaning and a domestic restraining order was imposed upon me which came into effect of me approaching within a 2 foot radius of any printed material.

That did deter me from getting close to news papers, and from that day have given up reading news papers, I don’t regret it entirely… the news that are carried now-a-days usually cater to political interests, and I keep myself restrained from politics. The only thing I really miss is “Hagar the horrible” “Garfield” and “Calvin and Hobbes”.

My neighbors’ wife was a swell cook, at least that’s what she portrayed herself to be.

And on her second daughters birthday (the first was the one that eloped) we were invited for the “Party” where she had made everything from the cake to the candles , without reading a book or attending a course or being taught by someone, “it came naturally to her” was her take on it. As for my take she was either multi talented or was having an affair with the local candle maker who wanted his involvement to be kept strictly under covers.

Juicy as it gets, I’ll get back to the party. The cake looked Ok, was a leper Mickey mouse with arthritis, and everybody sang “happy birthday to you… blah blah blah” and clapped to mark the end of the cake cutting ceremony. We were then made to sit with everyone on the table for the special meal that my neighbors’ multitalented wife had cooked.

I had one bite of the cake, and suddenly my body cried… segmentation fault… after which I coolly got upon the table walked to my neighbor who was eating without complaining (but by his face I could make out he wasn’t… if only he had a spine) and took a core dump in his plate… I couldn’t speak then, my vocabulary was limited to “Amma” and “Appa” the local equivalents for mummy and daddy, but this was a classic symbolic gesture that was supposed to mean…

“Eat this, for it might actually taste better”.

We moved out of Antop Hill.

Chapter 2: HOST Krishnaswamy DOMAIN IS alphamale ALIAS IS Anand.

The days went on…

Although an alpha male I was nowhere capable of doing what I was supposed to, i.e. eat solid food (bloody perverts … I was a baby) so I used to survive on semi solid food and amuse myself by beating the hell out of an empty tin of “Farex” , that drove some of my neighbors crazy and caused others to fail in their mid terms, but that did not deter my enthusiasm with the tin, until I realized I could create louder noise by running a spoon over the window bars, I guess deep down there was a musician in me… well the one who never grew up.

That did it; I got my first recorded thrashing. I did cry, was a bloody baby... and it hurt. Later I realized that, it was the neighbor who complained that his daughter wasn’t able to concentrate on her studies because of my affinity towards the window and the spoon. It hurt.

And two days later the neighbors’ daughter eloped. They found pictures of a guy inside her textbook and when her parents confronted her to reveal his identity she took to her heels, so I wasn’t entirely the reason for her flunking her midterms, true that I was a hindrance to her concentration, but the text in the book was not what she was concentrating upon. That leveled my tryst with my conscience.

I always trust my conscience, it never fails me, and I also believe to this day that education is one of the best gifts that could be given to mankind, and a gift that stays till u draw the last breath. So you would seldom see me selling off old books, I might donate them to library but never sell them, u see knowledge is to be given not sold. Some day when I am well off I might as well start a charitable education trust. A little that I could give back to the society.

Now its almost a year since I was born, as you might have rightly guessed there wasn’t much activity around me, just the general ones… my relatives smothering me with kisses, perverted neighbors running a hand down my tool and deriving a kick out of juggling my nuts, my parents getting me the best dresses, food and quality of life that they could afford without running a loan.

Soon before I could know it, it was the time when I was to be introduced to a ritual called “Birthday” which essentially was celebrating the day when you were born and to keep a tab on the number of years completed till date.

My dad got up early that day… and went to order a cake. As my families financial condition was not very great, he ordered a cake with a small diameter, actually a heart shaped one, and wanted my name to be written on the same.

But when spelled out on the cake, the name wasn’t legible leaving aside the fact that it completely filled the vanilla area of the cake to give it a chocolate monotone.

Now that was depressing, the vendor offered to shorten the name to “Krishna” (which reminded my dad of his arch enemy at office and was rejected) “KS” (which was plain unacceptable as it was a popular condom brand then too) “Swami” (my dad wasn’t a R.K.Narayan fan which he would have been if we had a TV back then). So with all the options run out, my dad was asked if I have an alias or as we know it back in India a “pet name” and out of nowhere sprung “Anand”.

As to why “Anand” was preferred over Ram, Allah, Jesus or for that matter Jhambuvant, is a secret guarded as closely as the Coke Formula, the fact being my dad forgot it long ago and is not open for retrieval.

So I was rechristened as Anand, but for all official purposes I still stick to the longer version of my name as that’s what my birth certificate reads J.

My birthday went fine, a few eyebrows were raised at the name written on the cake, including those of my mom, but after my dad narrated the incidence and his lifelong tribute to Hrishikesh Mukherjee (by naming me Anand that is), I was given green and the party ended.

Chapter 1: Identification Division.

21^st December 1980 : 0950 Hrs Matunga Mumbai.

That was when I first saw sunlight… (Well how is a newborn supposed to distinguish between halogen and sun any way?) and presumably made my parents happy.

There was a lot of celebration that day… my entire neighborhood feasted on sambhar rice and rasam flowed instead of water… (Well somehow my dad managed to fill the tanks of the building with rasam… much to the ire of my neighbors… who would have preferred whiskey instead). Some of them who survived the ordeal still swear that their sweat tastes like rasam… why they keep tasting their sweat… I don’t really know.

My parents used to live in a notorious neighborhood of Antop Hill, known for its cold blooded murders of senior citizens, dowry deaths and communal sensitivity. My dad worked for Morarjee mills and earned a meager salary just enough to take care of his new born son, wife and himself, and shared his brothers flat. (I would stick to my family for now, will introduce ppl as and when required).

My dads brother (now an Ex income tax additional commissioner) was provided a government quarters by the income tax department, that he was kind enough to share with my parents.

Most of my early days passed without me achieving much, not that I am accomplished in my field now… but it is much better now than what it used to be.

It was the day of my naming ceremony, I don’t remember the date though… the calendar was in English and this happened long before I started schooling. And as per South Indian rituals my ear would be pierced and I would be given a name… probably one that belonged to my ancestor who accomplished great tasks and was a delight to be remembered.

In my case the name that was chosen was that of my paternal grandfather, the real reason was never told to me, just a mention that he was the most influential figure in my fathers’ family and the name was open for taking. (The siblings that I had then, included just my cousin sister, my cousin brother was not yet born and I was the first alpha male amongst my “existing” siblings, so I guess it was all a matter of pride as to who get the fathers name).

I was named “Krishnaswamy” after the great “Krishnaswamy Iyengar”.

I could have retained the anonymity through out my blog, but there are many amusing incidents that would have been forsaken for they revolved around my name.

And nothings better than sharing a few laughs.

My researches with legitimacy…

By popular demand, here’s my autobiography…. I know it’s too soon to start on one... but I have nothing else to do on a perfect Saturday morning… and all my sportive colleagues have been accounted for already in the blog. So its time I penned down the parts of my life that were most amusing (to me that is… few of them embarrassed my parents so much that we ended up shifting thrice).

Following is a series of what I plan to call “My researches with legitimacy… “Well that might ring a bell, but I am not a very staunch supporter of Gandhian philosophies so what I term legitimacy he calls it truth.

The truth content in the write up is around 98%, so if you are not comfortable with reading my true opinions please feel free to log off. No compulsions what so ever.

Disclaimer: Not everything that has been mentioned in the passages that would follow are entirely factual, there is some amount of fiction involved. And the characters involved bear resemblances to people who might be dead or are still alive and kicking… This is my blog so I choose to include people who I feel are close to me and wouldn’t mind the exposure, however , if someone mentioned in the passages do feel uncomfortable feel free to let me know and ill rephrase passage, with all due respects.

Credits So Far: Everyone who managed to touch my life and have a line of mention in the passages that follow.

Without much ado… here goes nothing…

10 a. A typical bi airy mut told me (10,8,5)

We have passed the pre appraisal phase of the CMMi evaluation and have scored fairly bad , fairly bad is not the same as bad "Bad" but at the same time that not good either.

Subtly put the visible outcomes of the pre appraisal process were: We (read the team members) were correctly classified as having no interests whatsoever in maintaining meticulous documents detailing how we eventually managed to code something that passed all the unit tests but failed in PIT.

K-gyan: PIT acronym for Pre Installation testing, it is essentially the one that is done prior to install… duh…

We were also given an ultimatum to get the processes in shape, for which a regime that could put Vandana Luthra to shame was designed and implemented, and our manager saw to it that we stuck to the regime.

K-gyan: Vandana Luthra: owner of VLCC, the lady who lost has the golden system that could change an elephant to say an Ostrich… Why such a weird comparison, see it to know it.

We now begin the day by paying a tribute to Quality, the Q-factor that is responsible for many of the employees in our office getting paid; personally I know the names of 3 such people. They are so green that they go ahead and even write “Quality Pays” on the slides that they prepare and get away with it. I got into trouble for promoting an MLM in one such slide of mine and was given an hour long lecture on “Code of conducts”…

K-gyan: MLM acronym for Multi Level marketing: in simpler words, I join a system , u join under me, your friend joins under you, I take all of your money and u take your friends money… the last person to join the matrix is a fool.

So much for the visible effects, the lesser known effects metaphorically put is that our manager has now reduced the amount of cotton he used to put in his ears.

K-gyan: No K-gyan here… that would deter people with single digit I.Q’s from visiting my blog in future.

So now the team is fairly ready for the appraisal, but the decision still hangs in balance whether our project would be considered for appraisal or we would be shown the boot, what ever is the fate, we are ready for it.

I happened to look up the experience of the lead assessor who would be assessing our project. You can have a look at his resume here. I was impressed by his qualification, but I pity his wife. (Double digit IQ required… second level filter).

Post Reading Exercise:
Try guessing the topic of the writeup. Fairly simple.

Code Wars : Episode 8 (J /*+IEEE 802.11s*/)

Name: J /*+IEEE 802.11s*/ (Name changed to protect Identity).
Sex: Male Xdresser.
Age: Minor (I don’t do Minors… but Xdresser’s are exceptions).
Height: 5’ 10’’.
Brain:Body Mass = Can be categorically placed between Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals.

The first thing that would strike u when u meet this “jay” henceforth called (J) is the blouse that he wears… and if you are real lucky you would also find him wearing a blouse that has buttons on the Left.

K-gyan: For the under privileged… Girls blouses/shirts have buttons to the left where as the guys shirts have them sewn to the right... so its that time of the year again when u revisit the wardrobe and throw away the pink shirt that u had problems buttoning. In the case here it’s a black top. Don’t believe me… and think that the fact written is all BS?... read all about it here (http://www.marquise.de/en/themes/linksrechts.shtml)

Reality Check: Shepherd… we won and that too with a complete proof.

He is an ardent devotee of Govinda… a crappy Bollywood actor who has a wardrobe malfunction of the “G” kind in all of his movies (sadly I share my date of birth with his, but I guess you need to try real hard to be born under that fateful card…just for the heck of the rhyme) and keenly follows his gurus dressing sense to shame.

K-gyan: Wardrobe Malfunction: Wikipedia defines it as a euphemism used to describe the presumed accidental exposure, because of a defect attributed to an article or articles of clothing, of what would be considered an intimate part or parts of the body of their wearer. But what it fails to elaborate are the categories of wardrobe malfunctions, so I take over: Wardrobe malfunction falls into 4 broad categories viz: G, PG, 18 and R I will give a description of each in brief for the benefit of the denser readers who now readeth amongst us…
G- No intimate part exposed, just plain displeasing to the eye and prolonged exposure may cause cataract.
PG- Intimate parts exposed, but unrecognizable due to bad lighing/crappy direction or might be avoided due to plain distaste (a la ball scene in scary movie 3), prolonged exposure might actually prove that you are a freak.
18- Total tent pitching material, prolonged exposure causes wet dreams… and stiffness in some part of the body (I am just targeting guys here).
R- Gay Porn.

J is also a huge fan of “TH”… a footballer supposedly but was surprised as I later found out the identity … he has also dedicated his blog to the guy… but sadly for the footballer all that goes into his blog are how he screwed up cooking some ‘Halwa’ (http://th14.blogspot.com/2006/04/aruns-jalwa.html)

When approached for justification J cleared my misconception about what actually inspired him to name his blog thus, he justified that the th14 in his blog address actually stands for "Thirunelvelli Halva" which is meticulously prepared to perfection using 14 ingredients.… so much for the footballer… and now the article featured actually makes sense.

Any way, I was misled at the first go and looked up the footballer by the name Th14 and here’s what I found:
K-gyan : Thierry Daniel Henry (born August 17, 1977 in Les Ulis, Essonne, Paris) is a French football player and regarded as one of the top players in the world. He currently plays as a striker for the French national team, and for the English club Arsenal, where he is that club's all-time leading scorer in both league matches and all competitions.

Henry has been nominated twice for the FIFA World Player of the Year, both times finishing runner-up in 2003 and 2004. Also, he was named by Pelé as one of the top 125 greatest living footballers in March 2004.

Reality Check: Actually all texts that u see in the blog above, that are not in black font, are fillers, I know so little about this guy that I can put down in words that my repute of providing sustainable entertainment goes in for a toss.

J codes in Object oriented language… he feels that he can relate to objects better…and is extremely good at it; he also slogs to complete his work on time, primarily because he is one of the laziest guys in our team, but none the less manages to earn the appreciation from the manager in US for a job well done.

He has a typical Mallu Nariyalpani wala Hairstyle and looks ravishing in a lungi… his childlike curiosity sometimes lands him in a soup, like the time when he tried fabricating a lungi with a zip… And almost ended dry milling his nuts (in a subtle sense…).

For the ungyanned… k-gyan follows…get ready for a huge one

K-gyan: Wet Milling as opposed to dry milling mentioned above is the process of harvesting coir from cocoNUTS (Deliberate capitalization). Coir, the fibers present between the husk and the hollow are soaked in pits or in nets in a slow moving body of water to swell and soften them. The long bristle fibres are separated from the shorter mattress fibres underneath the skin of the nut, a process known as wet-milling eases out the coir without hurting the nut… Conversely… DRY MILLING HURTS.
If you still don’t get it go watch… “There’s something about Mary”… Ben Stiller had it easy there, if you still don’t get it… stop reading my blog.

Nariyalpani – Hindi for Coconut water,
Mallu – abbr for Malayali(ad) – a person speaking Malayalam.

J is also a great sport, but doesn’t know when to talk and when not to, his major problem is that he ends up playing his cards against the seasoned players and repents… as he would when he reads this blog… Well J u could have just played along with me… the challenging was all yours…

So here’s one on J, totally fabricated, Every part of the blog except the gyans are just figment of my imagination, I could have very well ended it without acknowledging this, but you see, I cannot sleep with a heavy heart… knowing that I have taken all my pleasure to screw this guy up.

Please give this mallu body builder… half a round of applause… you can save the other half for the day I actually profile him for the person he is….But for now he still owes me big time.

Code Wars : Episode 7 (Genesis 2:2)

shbiy`iy yowm 'elohiym kalah mla'kah `asah shabath shbiy`iy yowm mla'kah `asah.

Code Wars : Episode 6 (The Quick Gun… Murugan)

Name: B (Name changed to protect Identity)
Sex: Male
Age: Lieutenant General (The Second highest post in the Indian Army :))
Height: 5’ 10’’
Brain:Body Mass = A Tamilian.

K-gyan: To the ignorant, Tamilians (Thamizhians to be precise) are the most learned of all… we have the highest neuron density and can solve any problem in with the twinkle of an eye. P-earth featured in the blog earlier also belonged to this category and so does the author of the blog :).

I know for sure that writing a blog about my immediate superior at work, B , would not be getting me into a soup ( I might get loads of work… but no physical harm), for he is the greatest sport I have known.

Had he been a little more “sportier” he would be featuring in a sports blog instead of mine.

K-gyan: A sports blog (not to be confused with a sports bra), is a blog which has contents similar to one found here http://th14.blogspot.com and is generally maintained by a sports freak… who either follows the sport too closely and idolizes a sports person to be his god (as is the case here) or by news casters… they may also be owned by sports personalities themselves. (J-Ess u owe me big time for advertising your blog here…)

I know very little about my GL (Yes he is my GL, and is the same “GL” featured in the earlier blog) primarily because he is not very outgoing on his emotions, unless compelled or driven by passion for payback (which seldom is the case) and secondly because of a language barrier (reason being I don’t speak Tamil fluently and he doesn’t speak Hindi, and we are forced to converse in English, so its just work related conversation that takes place)

Personality wise he is a typical south Indian Don Juan, who is not afraid to make the first move, be it professional or personal and he generally comes thru without a mess. (To be taken literally… and in the broader sense)

For now, Ill stick to the professional side, Even though the personal front is much more interesting.

As already mentioned, he is our GL, and his responsibilities include but are not limited to (read on… you would understand the significance of this statement) managing a group , to keep them happy and once in a while elevating the alcohol content by Spiking water with Vodka.

But apart from the above mentioned sufficient conditions for a GL he also sees to it we, the team members, are knowledgeable in every possible project that our company has to offer, so that when the time comes, we can seamlessly replace any individual in any project irrespective of technology and business.

With a superior South Indian Brain this is very insignificant to comprehend, But in the course of action what he generally forgets is that he just has a handful of resources whose cranial capacity is working at his bus speed, and a large majority (I can count 1) reel under the stress and over clock their processors, and all that is left on the face is a priceless “Still Loading …..” expression.

K-gyan: Overclocking is the process of forcing a computer component (metaphorically referred to processors here) to run at a higher clock rate (Metaphor for “Think”) than designed or designated by the manufacturer (Metaphor for “GOD”). The major disadvantage arising out of it is that it has a risky potential to end in a failure ("heat death"). Most companies do not back up defunct units, which are a result of overclocking activities, in their warranties. (personally I love K-gyan… it lets me open up ).

His interests are varied and include Listening to SI music (SI = South Indian), Cooking, Partying, Vodka Drowning, Spiking Water, and the latest addition to the list Real Estates. This guy finances 50% of the properties, which are under development in the city; the other 50% are thru Banks and other financial institutions.

He is a great party animal and gels well with everyone in the team, He is a technical wizard who knows every single code that was ever written in our company, and can actually pinpoint the line number where you can find the required code snippet to reuse.

Having spent close to 5 years with the company, he also has a lot of friend’s world wide (there is not one place, where a sane visitor would travel, that he hasn’t got a friend…).

Justification: With my blogs being more popular with the denser crowd… I need to get into the minutest detail of everything… had I not written the line above, I would have definitely got a mail asking me if my GL has a friend in “Jhumritalaiya”.

He generally is fearless when it comes to getting a project for the team , generally gets it and sees it thru (With such a great team it is very difficult “not” to meet the schedule on time… and after shepherd’s departure… well it had stayed that way… no hard feelings sheph) . That is one of the reasons that our PM is so keen on having him with the project, that all of his onsite objectives have now been reset.

He is an ardent devotee of Super Star Rajanikanth, and he shares his fan base with 61.5 million + Thamizhians who watch in awe as the “Baasha” outruns a bullet to save his mother.

K-gyan: 61.5 million + : The actual population of Tamil-nadu as per google (www.google.com ) on 3rd July 2003, “+” accounts for all other fans not covered in the definition above.

Politically he has an inclination towards AIADMK and “amma” (We can’t blame him here… amma is so healthy… having feasted on long grained south Indian rice that half of Tamil nadu is Inclined towards Poes Garden.).

K-gyan: AIADMK: All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (Why they have the first 2 words in English… beats me…)
Poes Garden: Amma’s residence.

I thought that I did not have enuff knowledge about my GL but by the looks of this blog, I definitely know him a lot better than I had thought of earlier.

Please put your hands together for “The person who everyone would die to accompany for lunch… (Pi included :) )” (I am sorry B… couldn’t resist holding this back…)… The Most helpful and the most respected GL in the entire project … always to “B” ….

Code Wars : Episode 5 (Pi – The Rationale)

Name: Pi (Name changed to protect Identity)

Sex: Male

Age: General (The highest post in the Indian ArmyJ)

Height: 6’ 1’’

Brain:Body Mass = Is an MBA. (Need I say more? help me out here… let ur imagination run wild)

I don’t really know into how much “hot water” this profile would be getting me into, but none the less I really feel that if I don’t profile this person, I would leave this blog wanting…

Pi as he is lovingly called (other variants are Paai – by southies including me , Piee – by Maharashtrian’s and “Phai” by himself during telecon’s, so the actual three lettered verbiage seldom makes an appearance) is the heart of the project ( I was about to write “Brain” and then realized that its us who do the coding… so gave him the most important part of the human viscera). Put in simple words… he sees to it that all of us are occupied with fruitful work that can be billed to the client and none of us takes up writing blogs for a living.

(Now that I think of it... I can actually call this blogging of mine “lighter vein Profiling” First coined by me on the 30^th of July 2006, and rake in some moolah all the while…Note to self: Take this up seriously).

Now for his hobbies, he is an avid reader an even avid borrower (of books… I am now certain that my book has been formally shredded, and mailed to my residence address…, that I have touched his frayed nerve ending… that’s what ppl refer to in Hindi as “dukhti rakht par pair rakhna”) , he is also into jokes, but he enjoys being on the listening end as opposed to the cracking, in which I find immense pleasure (immense doesn’t even come close…I actually mean immenserererer), so our lines never cross… he enjoys (or at least pretends to enjoy) the joke that I crack…(lest I make him the subject of the next joke…) what ever be the case, he pulls it off quite well.

He is an M.B.A professionally (Master of Business Administration) and personally (Married, But Available) and that is what knits us together as a team… we get to check out babes with our PM. (note to self: Remove this)

The subject that he “Mastered” in his masters was “The art of Motivation” , One might think that it a real good subject to do a masters in… but unfortunately for us, the book contained only a single chapter i.e. “The Carrot and stick approach”.

To the un-gyaaned: (wikipedia offers no solace here, so I have resorted to a different website: http://adtimes.nstp.com.my/jobstory/jun26a.htm)

K-gyan: A very widely known motivational concept is the “Carrot and Stick” approach. Many managers see motivation in terms of this notion and so their efforts to motivate is limited to asking the question; should I bribe people or simply threaten them? However, when put into practice, this concept is found to be more complicated than this…. More available at the website.

The classical approach is to hit with a “stick” when one falters and reward with a “carrot” on doing good work, but he has adapted to the situation quite well and has implemented the approach with the carrot tied to the end of the stick as shown in the image below…

The good thing in this approach is you actually get the carrot on performing well… and the bad thing…the “carrot” here is not a metaphor.

I have never felt so free with any of the PM’s that I have ever worked with, and neither have I had such strong opinions (read cared enuff) about them so as to pen it down.

The reason being all male PM (and prospective male PM’s… I am being specific so that some day if they do go thru the blog… they can identify themselves) in my earlier company were all… lets say “their mommy was a female dog”

After working for Pi, I would not even think of getting my project changed to something that is not managed by him, whatever is the incentive, and most of my team mates would be supportive of the fact, as they think on the same lines. (Note to readers: this is not a kiss up; will let you know when I am kissing up, and boods I am excusing you)

Overall he is a great sport (which you might have guessed by now… if you are reading this in my blog… if you have received this thru a mail… he is not such a great sport after allJ), he is a great listener… (gurls u will be impressed to meet this great guy… only thing that might bother you a little, is that he stuffs cotton into his ear… but that’s a personal choice… and I draw a line between personal and professional life… my blog, as u see, is strictly professional.) And is all ears and more importantly acts upon your opinions and suggestions. He is also defendant of his resources and lets no one lift a finger on us…

Now for the downside for the guy… he excels in all fields but at the same time cannot bear a hurt ego… he goes to the extent of purchasing a car to set his ego right… but this in no way impedes the relation ship the project shares with this guy, we don’t mind that… (by we I am collectively referring to the entire project members) all males have issues with ego and we are good as long as we don’t need to bear the financing of the car with part of our take home salary/bonus, plus we get additional free transportation for parties.

It’s well over 2 pages that I have started describing this guy, and I still have a lot to cover up before I finally end this.

You can discuss on any subject with this guy… from the “Birds and the bees” talk to “technical” to downright “financial”, he knows every subject there is to discuss… (He is quite talented u see… no sarcasms here)

The reason why he makes such a good “Boss” is that he is an opportunity seeker, always on a look out for better opportunities (both in-site and onsite) for every member of his team, well almost everyone (except for a few GL’s … to be dead precise.. 1 GL).

K-gyan: GL (Acronym for group leader): Is an Individual who manages a group… sheesh… how much denser do people get here.

As a man his age (I am in no way hinting that he is Old… no sarcasms here either) his dance moves can put a 20 year old to shame. And my… does he move…, he even has a trademark move called “The pelvic gyration a la Pi”, which is just plain awesome considering the fact that he is not a yoga instructor, well…not at least to our knowledge…

K-gyan: The pelvic gyration a la Pi: a classical dance step which when done with a girl “sans clothing” can guarantee u a kid in nine months J. Don’t even bother looking this up in Wikipedia…

K-gyan-addendum:

For the dense..er who walke’th amongst us the “sans clothing” in the gyan above is applicable to both the dancers and not just to the girl…and discounts for any infertility issues… just when you think that things couldn’t be any worse.

Finally to sum him up in four words:

“He is the best” … believe me (I need not even put this in words... cause my salary revision is all done…, but the truth prevails and this is it. Every one in our team would agree upon.. At least the people profiled…)

Well after reading all this I know what people would be wondering, at least my peers back in my office… and that would be… “Does this get me any vouchers…” to be frank… I really don’t know… but shoppers stop is real close to ma home… (Wink Wink)

Put ur hands together for this man with the “ratio(nale)” hidden in his name and who is always available for intelligent discussions (now I realize why he used to avoid me all the time) , give it up to π… and this closes the circle of my project… well almost.

Code Wars : Episode 4 (Ghauri – The nuke)

Name: Ghauri (G) (Name changed to protect Identity)
Sex: Lets say… has a torpedo in his pants…go figure out
Age: Major (But looks quite young for his age… )
Height: 5' 8"
Brain:Body Mass = Proportionate. (Do you know how much pain it is to come up with different ratios every single profile?.. you think that’s easy… come be my guest blogger.)

Ghauri…“The nuke” of the team has a very explosive personality, and you can actually hear the explosions if the environment is really conducive. (Conducive environment constitutes of a starved Ghauri, Black Chick peas in the cafeteria and a pin drop silence 1 hr after the lunch) even in case you miss the explosion (generally he attempts to implode it… but is unsuccessful most of the time) you would hear the lift off signal from him… the code word for lift off is “kaun tha?” with the surprised look on his innocent face.

But don’t be ever deceived by his looks and take him for granted, for if he expects the work to be completed by you, and if you slip the target… he would probably screw u so hard, you would end up with nappy rashes at places you would have least imagined. So steer clear of this individual when it comes to work.

The nuke, unlike my other friends, is from Dehli, and any inappropriate comment on dehli babes is enuff to send this guy into a frenzy, and his dense mode takes over and he would go to any extent to defend the babes of his hometown.

He is probably the only guy who falls in love at the drop of a hat: All of his romantic escapades are described in brief.

Well you don’t expect to see them here do you?… go check out his brief collection… 1 per escapade… and my…. The first time i entered his house I thought he had brought me to some wholesale chhadi bazaar (there were so many varieties that Ms Lewinsky would have had the day of her life selecting a memento).
So you can take my word for it that this guy gets more action that he can take (and some ppl are blunt enuff to tell to his face that he got more than what he deserved, who said to whom is a huge secret)

Until the day I met him, I used to believe that the sight in “Love at first sight” is generally pleasing to the eye, but after the day I met his crush I realized that there is more to love than that meets the eye… this missile is definitely a heat seeker and take my word for it.

K-gyan: Wikipedia describes Heat seeker as follows: Anything which uses infra-red seeking are often referred to as "heat-seekers". Infra-red (IR) is just below the visible spectrum of light in frequency and is radiated strongly by hot bodies. Many objects such as vehicle engines and aircraft generate and retain heat, and as such, are especially visible in the infra-red wavelengths of light compared to objects in the background.

Now that I have taken pains to Bold and italize the word of utmost importance in the description above, you might very well imagine the amount of heat that the person in context used to generate, (Believe me, she used to generate enuff heat to fry off all the hair from my and boods body… if you are wondering who she was… trust me… she’s better un-known… for once known “sweet dreams” loses its meaning).

Only point that we used to agree on this specimen was, that we both used to think that she was “mirror cracking” material, Poor ghauri, to this day he thinks that its a metaphor for "good looking".

As for the technical front of this guy, he is the key resource in the project that he works on. He is versatile in most languages… except at times, in English… can’t blame him, he would have been good if we had been coding in English all the while.

His greatest fear comes from knowing that HS has a undisclosed soft corner for him. He is constantly picking upon Boods and ends up successfully running away proving the point that “a lean mean machine” can have many advantages other than the word (three letters beginning with S) that has been skipped in the phrase.

He is at the receiving end of all comments in the group and is intelligent enuff to accept them without being judgmental about it. In short “a great sport”.

He is the Second most helpful person when it comes to personal favors (I top).

One more peculiar habit of his, that can be attributed to his royal upbringing in delhi, is that he is intimately attached to his throne. Now that he is no longer in his kingdom, he yearns for a decent throne… that is one of his top criteria when looking out for a new home… the last place where he lived … if I remember correctly, did not have one… and that was the year when our company had a lot of issues with “core dumps”.

He has had his share of wonderful moments when he used to share his flat with a “lets say for pure phonetic pleasure” a Pun with a Bun (PWB henceforth). One night he actually came close losing his company (Now a "Sir Richard Branson" enterprise) to an UnBunned Pun… Since that day he sleeps alone in a locked room.

His varied interests range from oogling (extra “o” for extra pleasure) at girls, oogling at guys, oogling at his bai and (just for the rhyme of it... oogling at “the constant in the area of the circle”).
This is just the kind of guy who would give anyone the run for his money… (Take me seriously here, he picks u money and runs….)

Ladies and gentleman, please pucker up and plant a wet sloppy one on this guy… trust me… you wouldn’t be disappointed.

Code Wars : Episode 3 (The White Adder)

(Well it’s actually “The white ladder”)

Name: Her Shah (HS) (Name changed to protect Identity)
Sex: Female (Sex changed to accent name)
Age: Major (And if you account for the height… well… it stays the same… who ever said anything about age being dependant on size… geez… I am surrounded by morons.)
Height: 6' 3"
Brain:Body Mass = long int.

He is probably the quietest guy in our team, with a great attitude. He is the most calm and composed when it comes to coding, a great sport who does not feel shy exposing his legs once in a while for the gurls to oogle at.

HS is generally shy when if comes to the matter of the heart (comme moi et boods, c’est vrai, je parle et ecrit francais tres bien, merci … don’t even bother to understand this… its in French…) and keeps his friends to himself. We however do suspect that he does have a babe and the reason for the suspicion is the frequent flyer points that he has collected from traveling to Hyderabad.

HS generally follows the top down approach of analysing things and has a higher view of details , with 6’ of elevation; it’s difficult to view any thing base up. He generally refrains from commenting on anyone/anything while we go on a suicidal rampage (Note: suicidal for the person we are commenting on and rampage for us), but when he finally comments the outcome is so great that the person commented upon never looks back in the eye.

Though not obvious, this is one cool guy who drinks, smokes and makes hay while the sun shines. He has an undisclosed soft corner (What is undisclosed is the location of the soft corner) for “Ghauri – the nuke” (up next on ma blog… read all about him) and goes go-go on seeing ghauri sporting a Crock… (Intentionally abbreviated).

He has a passion for learning stringed musical instruments and is a quick reference when it comes to syntax in COBOL. As for the technical aspects of him... You need to send across a self-addressed stamped envelope at this address …(xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Address masked to protect identity).

We (as in me and HS) share a lot in common, one of the most distinct things is that we resemble each other, ppl generally mistake me for him and vice versa , even after taking into account the fact that he is a good 6 inches taller than me… well coding in COBOL makes people denser.. It’s an occupational hazard that we live thru.

The other thing that we share in common is that both of us have a “/dev/null” salary account. I never knew that they had such accounts at my bank ... that is until it was too late...

For the sake of the common man, here’s Wikipedia to the rescue:

K-gyan: In Unix-like operating systems, /dev/null or the null device is a special file that discards all data written to it, and provides no data to any process that reads from it (it returns EOF). In Unix programmer jargon, it may also be called the bit bucket or black hole.

The null device is typically used for disposing of unwanted output streams of a process, or as a convenient empty file for input streams. This is usually done by redirection.

In simpler terms, the account actually flushes out our salary before we could even catch a glimpse of it.

I don’t have much to write about this awesome guy…given the fact that he is not much of a prank player… so ppl put your hands together for this steadfast friend, Her Shah….

Code Wars : Episode 2 (The Flatulence Extempore)

Name: BoodBooda (also referred to as BurrBurra by the dehliyites.. Spelling errors intended)
Sex: Male
Age: Major (Qualifies to run for the post of the president… but "walks" actually.)
Height: 5' 10"
Brain:Body Mass = A large number (at all times other than 6:00 am/pm suffers from a classical case of semi-sardar-no-turbanisis, which causes his bell to ring at 6 instead of the predestined 12). His number is affected by 2 facts… 1. He does not sport a turb… due to which his projected brain size is reduced… and 2. He gulps beer by the gallon resulting in very distinctly projected Body mass.

There is not one party that goes by where he (hence forth called lovingly as boods) does not bring up the mention of booze, as u see 80% of his body mass is filled with the frothy golden liquid (and by frothy golden liquid i mean beer ... this explanation is for the ppl with narrow minds and even narrower attitude towards life).

Well boods is in no way narrow(mentally as well as physically)... you would have to redefine narrow to wide in order for him to fit the title (COBOL jargon... non techs please excuse).

Over all he is one fun loving guy who potrays a general sense of dis satisfaction at the way the company treats him...always getting into trouble with "the constant in the calculation of the area of a circle" (project specific chipher... needs a double digit IQ to dechipher, if you are not a person from the same project as boods... dont even bother to check your IQ).

Technically he is a tester ( i wanted to name this episode "the testis done (Intentionally spelt without a space)" but then changed it to the thing that he more often indulges in...) but he spends more time drinking, oogling at babes, swimming, creating wave pools for the ppl in the swimming pool and his patented talent of creating a jaccuzzi in the bath tub... than the amount of time spent in testing.

The guy has the memory of at least 10TB (999Gb in his PC and the rest on his head) and he distinctly remembers all the data for the test cases and tests are done in a breeze.

He is shy when it comes to gurls... well as a matter of fact we both are... I some how think that he has a JAT gene somewhere.

For those of us who dont have a clue who Jats are, here’s Wikipedia to the rescue:
" The Jats/Jatts (Hindi: जाट,Punjabi: ਜੱਟ, Urdu: جاٹ) of Northern India and Pakistan, are descendants of Indo-Aryan tribes.
In India, they inhabit the states of Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Gujarat. In Pakistan, they are found in the provinces of Punjab and Sindh.
The Jats ,like most South Asians,are mostly farmers;however they are also found in many other professions. A large number of Jats serve in the Indian Army, including the Jat Regiment, Rajputana Rifles, Sikh Regiment and the Grenadiers, among others.
The Jat regions in India are among the most prosperous on a per-capita basis (Haryana, Punjab, and Gujarat are among the wealthiest of Indian states).”

Put in a subtle way they are dense individuals inhabiting the northern flange of the Indian subcontinent who also share the same problem of expressing their love for ppl. They are so dense that they kill each other over a girl and the girl does not even have the faintest idea that she is a WMD.

But our dear boods is not so fierce, as a matter of fact we had the crush on the same female in our company… aware of his “gene” I entered into a “graceful exit” treaty with him… saved my skin…

K-gyan: graceful exit: a concept highly beneficial in the “single Phool multiple maali” environments where the other maalis agree to throw down their Fawdas and walk away if the phool falls for a maali. (One note of caution: The Fawda remains as long as the phool remains in the tree)

If you are wondering abt who the girl fell for… she probably ran away with some one from her own batch… (Don’t worry boods, she doesn’t have a clue what she has missed ;), that is apart from the free Jacuzzi)

I guess I have covered all aspect of the flatulence extempore and provided the readers with some gyan in the process... ( i always give importance to the process of imparting gyan... for gyan is what makes the world go round, without gyan.. well ppl would make it go elliptical)

The reason why I was in a position to write a lot abt this person is because we share a lot of things in common (except for unmentionables , not that we are judgemental about it, but purely because of size constraints… his is too large for me and mine hardly fits him ;) )

Put your hands together for the round faced, beer guzzler…boodbooda.

Code Wars : Episode 1 (The Macro Flasher)

Before I begin to describe my friends, I would like to clarify that every one featured in the blog were asked to respond to a mail with the contents similar to the one below and on receiving a favorable reply they were included in the same.
The mail went somewhat like this

" I am kicking off a new topic in my blog and i need to know ur willingness to be a part of it. please reply back with "I don’t mind... go ahead and s**** me in your blog" in the subject line if you don’t mind being written about or "Why don’t you go to the loo… Pull down your pants and love yourself" as the subject if you do not wish to be written about... “(Contents might have been edited to suit all tastes).

I have received quite a few replies with the first option, so starting off without much ado... the Macro Flasher.

Name: P-earth (also Stars in one of the earlier topics)
Sex: Male
Age: Major (I don’t do minors ;) its against the law)
Height: 5' 10"
Brain:Body Mass = ∞

That is the class of this person... has an infinite brain to Body mass ratio, thanks to his body mass that is nearly equal to nothing.

Strengths: he can walk java, talk Java, laugh Java because Java is a very Funny language.. He is dangerous when he starts to talk java under the influence of kaapi, he also Flash’es (the macromedia variant)

Weaknesses: Apart from lack of physical strength (Aka Brawns ) we (including me) don’t have any weaknesses, subtly put we believe in "Brains better than brawns" and believe that all goons fit in the general Hindi movie goonda variety and are generally Fat and could easily be outrun. (That’s the reason for us maintaining a strict regime)
(Note to self: Write abt P-earth... )

What makes p-earth stand apart is his uncanny sense of inviting the axe to his foot. He unknowingly converts deadlines to unrealistic deadlines (as a matter of fact he corrects unrealistic deadlines of the good variety to the one that is actually bad)

Tech Info: Unrealistic deadlines (ud) come in 3 flavors viz: good, bad and ugly. The good ud is the one in which the time is planned to be in excess of the actual efforts required. the bad ud is one in which one needs to put in the max required work hrs every day for the planned period (in my company 9) and the ugly ud is the one in which ppl need to slog on saturdays and sundays to finish the task in the planned time frame.

In case of P-earth he amazingly convinces and belittles the task which to him (read java guroo) is a mere 5 min, sets the time frame accordingly and coolly quits the project and hands the task to a fresher who reels under ud of the ugly kind.

It’s kinda funny to us since we are not affected by it in any way and also because we are bold enuff to revisit and extend the deadline... poor fresher has no chance. (the fresher usu quits or resorts to medications of the "grass" variant)

With such a huge Brain to BM (body mass) ratio;ideas come naturally to him, java ideas are one thing but what makes the others dread him is that nothing is alien to his brain... he churns ideas in every field by the dozen... he probably has a lot of opposition at the "idea meets" but he generally comes thru and some scapegoat reels under the knife.

On the personal front he eats shoots and leaves (a true vegetarian) who reels at the mention of an egg (he may boast that he has had eggs in the past... he is not lying... actually he remembers his past birth quite vividly all due to the grace of his infinite (B:BM) ) he thrives well on vegetation of any kind, he sleeps well knowing that he has not harmed any living creature.

On a more personal front, he is a guy who writes poems on love but doesn’t accept the fact that someday he might find someone "jo uski dil ki ghanti bajayegi" (had to have this in Hindi for the pure phonetic pleasure).

We used to try convincing him otherwise, but he revealed to us the qualities that he expects his “would be” should possess and we were convinced that he is not going to fall in love for at least the next two births.

For our satisfaction we had an excel sheet filled with the information of prospective single girls and tried to apply P-filter on it: here’s the result. (The sheet originally contained 150 rows of hand picked data)

She must be a girl (ok… we never thought that u were straight) 100 rows selected. (Whoa there were guys in the sheet… I knew I shouldn’t have asked shepherd to fill in the selection)
She must be a Tamilian girl. 50 rows selected.
She must be an Iyer Tamilian girl 30 rows selected.
She must be a vegetarian. 20 rows selected.
She must know to cook South Indian food. 10 rows selected.
She must know to sing Tamil songs. 5 rows selected.
She must know all devotional songs sung by MS Subbalakshmi by heart. 1 row selected.
We were happy that we have found him a match. But we rejected her… reason: she was 80 years old.

What ever I might have written in this blog, one thing is for sure he never gets angry at any of the pranks that we pull on him… and he is only dangerous when he speaks caffeinated Java.

Put your hands together for the Macro Flasher (Macromedia + Flash + Coder).