Half of the time was spent closeted inside a conference room defining future strategies and the rest was spent in the wilderness.

On our third day, we went for picnic…outdoors food, a walk down the river bed (I forget the name of the river)…and pre and post lunch entertainment sessions.

As part of the pre-lunch entertainment, I ended up dancing like a Ladakh artist. But not before, I had collected Rs 141 from my company’s top brains – even my Chief Financial Officer gave me Rs 10! Here is the video –

Call4Free is a service that allows you to call, sms or leave a voice mail for your friend absolutely free. Yes! You read it right….absolutely free! To use Call4Free the only condition is that both you and your friends need to be registered members of ibibo. Sign Up Rightaway

I know you have loads of question on how Call4Free is possible, and how to go about calling for free….and that’s why I am reproducing the Call4Free FAQs as is:

What is Call for Free?

Call for Free links your phone to your ibibo account, so you can start calls - or hear from callers - all over India while keeping your existing phone number private. The service also enables you to send and receive SMSs and voicemail.

Who can call, SMS or leave voicemail for me?

Only your ibibo friends can do any of those. (Your ibibo friends are those whom you have added as friends, or whose friendship requested you have accepted, on ibibo.com.) If you don’t want to receive calls, SMSs or vociemail from a specific person, please ensure they are not on your friends’ list.

How much does it cost?

All calls, SMSs and voicemail are completely free for both sender and receiver. You start with a limit of 5 calls you can make per calendar month. Each call can last up to 2 minutes. You can add more calls by inviting new people to join Call for Free. For each person who accepts, you will get 1 extra call.

However, if you send a SMS directly from your phone you will be billed for the SMS according to the rate charged by your mobile service operator for value-added services.

Do I have to listen to advertisements?

Yes. In order to keep Call for Free completely free, ibibo will serve three forms of advertising to you when you make a call, send or receive voicemail, and receive SMSs. These are: an advertisement you can listen to; an advertisement you can see on your computer screen; and an SMS offer.

Can I choose not to receive calls or SMSs at specific times?

Sure. You can choose the ‘Not taking calls’ and/or “Not taking SMS’ option, and no one can call you or SMS while they stay on. When you’re ready to take calls and/or SMSs again, you can choose the ‘Taking calls’ and/or ‘taking SMS’ option.

Please note:
* All mobile numbers will be kept completely private! ibibo will never ever share them with anyone.
* SMS charges applicable as per operator VAS SMS rates.
* Enrolling for these services means ‘opting in’ for receiving calls and SMSs.

Join ibibo now and Call4Free

It has been more than two years since we broke open our earthen Piggy Bank to pay for the Rs 24,000 automatic treadmill. In the last 30 months I would have used it not more than 100 times – and that’s just a running distance of 100+ kilometers, for I never lasted more than 10 minutes.

Till mid 2006 the treadmill was a major point of our conversation. Guests, relatives and friends asked about. The adventurous, even tried it. By late 2006, the Rs 24,000 treadmill was being used to hang wet towels and stick post-it notes. By mid 2007, it was time to move to Gurgaon and when the Agarwal Movers and Packers asked me where they should keep the treadmill, I asked: “Why don’t you see if there is space in the store room?”

That was the last I remember about the treadmill.

Rekha did mention once that she heard a rat running in the store room. But since I didn’t suspect the rat to be using the treadmill, I dismissed her suggestion.

Eight months and four-inches-around-the-waist later….our treadmill was discussed again. Four girls in my office – Uma, Sunandini, Dia and Sonali – were sharing their dinning table with me and one of them ended up commenting on my well-rounded tummy.

“I bet you are carrying a baby girl in there,” one of them commented, pointing generally in the direction of my tummy.

“Baby girls? You better be careful….I carry whole women inside.” I retorted. But everybody saw through that the aggression was that of a wounded man. A man hardened by years of exercise, but now caught up in the task of community building. Hell has no fury like a woman scorned, they say….but I think that can be said of men too. For that very moment I decided to gain Shah Rukh Khan like six-packs and show these girls what I was made of (flesh, of course!).

When I threw the challenge at the girls, they readily accepted it. Dia even went to the extent of saying that if I managed six packs in three months time – the cut off date being May 18 – she would erect a cut out of mine at her desk.

This happened two days back, and since then the treadmill has been dusted and used at least once (and this time it wasn’t to hang wet towels). While I am working on my six packs….I wonder how my cut out would look on Dia’s desk. Something like the image given above?

Note: If you know of any short cuts to get six packs in three months, please let me know in the comment box.

Other Funny Posts

# Tackling Sympathetic Obesity Syndrome
# Looking for smiling joggers
# I think I am pregnant

I wouldn’t reveal the candidate’s name, but you should know that she had an awesome resume. From the resume, I could also make out that she had been active in the blogging scene since 2003 – the year I had started blogging.

After introducing myself as JV Rajan , I asked her: “You have been an active blogger since 2003….do you have any favourites amongst the top Indian bloggers?”

This is what I would call ‘The Sperm Insult’

“I love Amit Agarwal, Rashmi Bhansal & Amit Varma.” The lady knew her subject.

Not one to give up so soon, I insisted: “Any humor blogger you like?”

“Hmmm…I love Great Bong and Point Blank. Not to mention Swadeshe of Rahul Razdan, who I heard works for your company.”

I was shocked. I was under the impression everybody in this universe read Ouchmytoe and loved it. Here was a girl – a pretty one at that - who didn’t even mention Ouchmytoe in the top three.”

I persisted: “Have you heard of this humor blog called www.ouchmytoe.com?”

“What is the name of the guy?” She enquired.

“Some guy called Jammy.” I tried to control myself. In moments like this, it didn’t help to knit your brow and give the game away.

“Nah…never heard of it.”

I lost all interest in conducting the interview and went thro’ the motions as a corpse in the Hollywood movie ‘Return of the Zombies’.

After 30 torturous minutes, we called it quits and went our own ways. I was able to manage myself because this definitely wasn’t the first time I was being insulted.

The last time, I remember was during lunch. Three of the people reporting into me (when I was with Satyam Computers, Chennai) were in a discussion. I just happened to over hear them because I was sitting at the next table…with my back to them.

Reportee 1: I think it isn’t Jammy’s mistake. His father shouldn’t have told his mother that night that he was feeling excited.

Reportee 2: ha ha ha…agree with you. You know, he is good….so good that when we manage to hang him, I would like a piece of the black cloth we put around his face.

Reportee 3: I would also like a piece then. I could frame and hang it on my drawing room wall.

Reportee 2: You know, I treasure every moment he isn’t in office.

Reportee 1: Me too. In fact, I think he should go to a mind-reader everyday and save us the trouble of seeing him in office daily.

Reportee 3: And for all we know…the mind-reader might only charge half the price.

Reportee 2: Man…I hate him so much …I wish I could flush him down.

Reportee 1: You mean, like a used toilet paper?

Reportee 2: No…like shit! That’s what he is full of anyways.

My sincere apologies, I an unable to re-produce the whole conversation here because I couldn’t sit there listening to all this talk. But then I am not alone – anybody would find the lunch revolting if the discussion bordered around shit!

Equally Funny Shit

# When somebody stole my show
# When I was no longer ‘cute’ for the women
# Platonic relationships
# The tonsuring & ear piercing ceremony
# Flirting with an air hostess with a baby in hand
# Introducing: Sleeping beauty Rhea Rajan

Recently, I got a mail from my boss saying that I was being made Head of the Product Group, responsible for ibibo blogs, ibibo Sawaal, ibibo Locals, ibibo Opinions & ibibo Polls. Phew! I agree…that’s a long list of products to handle if you are just 165 cms tall.

Don’t believe me? Let me re-produce the conversation I and my girlfriend (the 7th one) had before she walked away from me.

“Jammy, you have a big ego.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. You can never think beyond yourself. I don’t think I can marry a man with such a big ego.”

“So, are you leaving the awesome me?”

“See, you are the only person who addresses himself as ‘awesome’.

“Well…anyway, will you be sharing this ‘ego’ bit with your friends?”

“And you are only worried about what my girl friends would think of you.”

“Can’t you think of some other reason to give for the separation?”

“Hmm…I can. How about I say we separated due to religious reasons?”

“Religious reasons? How would you justify that, Madhuri?”

“I will say, you thought you were God…but I didn’t.”

That was the first time somebody had told me that I had a big ego. To take my mind off myself, I took to blogging…but now (thanks to your comments appreciating my funny articles) I am more in love with myself.

My love for myself is so high that if I had been born before Copernicus, I would have suggested a Jammy-centric model of the Universe. In case, you didn’t get the joke you probably need to know that Copernicus suggested a helio-centric model of the Universe, where everything revolved around the Sun.

My fav ‘Ego cartoon’ (US backing of Pak in Bangla liberation war)

Maybe my childhood was deprived. Maybe, I suffer from a major sense of inferiority and that’s why I always have to be the center of attraction.

While attending a marriage, I want to be the bridegroom (once, I did manage to dislodge the bridegroom and snap a picture with his wife!). When I am in the church attending a baby’s baptism, I so much want to be the baby. I didn’t think this ‘disease’ was much to worry about till I attended a funeral – I wanted to be the corpse. It is another thing that people had surrounded the corpse, and didn’t give me any chance to creep under the white bed-sheet.

Believe me or not…but when I am alone…I crack a joke, laugh at it and then pat on my back myself. Sometimes, I do sprain my right arm while patting my back.

“What happened to your hand,” Rekha would ask. I would just say: “Nothing!” and walk past. But one day, she spotted love bites on the bathroom mirror and found out that I was in love with myself. Thankfully, I was able to hide the few cuts on my voluptuous lips.
Warning: It is dangerous to practice love bites on the mirror, at home.

Now, it is an open secret.

Other Must Reads

# Saving your skin in North India
# The Kingfisher Class – Part 1
# The Kingfisher Class – Part 2
# When I was a famous jockey

The team behind ibibo’s first commercial is the one that came up with the famous (and funny) Naukri commercial. Remember the ‘H-A-R-I S-A-D-U commercial?

Just in case, you haven’t yet spotted the ibibo commercial on TV…

Having problems viewing the commercial on this page? Why don’t you click here: http://www.ibibo.com/commercial/

Not just Shashwat, other photographers also have a great time. The other day I was waiting for my passport photograph to be taken at a studio, and I heard a boy and a girl speak inside the darkroom. This is how the conversation went:

“We start out negative,” the boy said.

“That’s exactly what I do… at first it is always negative,” the girl responded. I got curious and inched closer to the door so that I could hear them nice and clear.

“Shall I enlarge now?” It was the boy. My heart skipped a beat. Being a gentleman, I couldn’t keep my ears to the door any longer and went back to the mirror and started putting on the make up.

After ten minutes and boy (who eventually turned out to be the guy who took my snap) and girl emerged out of the dark room. They were sweating. To ease into the scenario, I said: “You are sweating.”

The boy just smiled, and said: “Yes, darkrooms are not supposed to have fans.”

I couldn’t get a good glimpse of the girl…but I am sure she was smiling too.

Maybe my deep respect for photographers came from the fact that for long I thought God was a photographer. Whenever there was lightening, I would rush to the balcony, look towards the sky and smile.

While I have immense respect for photographers, I also have empathy for them. They work day and night, and yet are never left with any photographs of themselves. They shoot at weddings…yet not many girls are ready to marry them. Don’t believe me…take stock of the married photographers you know.

There was a time in my life – when I was young – when I wanted to become a photographer. I even got a chance to make it to the National Geographic magazine…but the ghost that I was supposed to take a picture of and send…backed off at the last minute because my flash wasn’t working. One could say that the spirit was willing but the flash was weak!

Even after reading all this, if you think photographers don’t have fun at work…take a look at pictures of Umed Singh Bisht (my ibibo Sawaal team mate ) presented below. And if you think the photographer didn’t have fun clicking these pictures…you must be over-exposed:

The pictures shown above are also an attempt at showcasing Umed’s talent at displaying true-blue expressions. He is open to movies and advertisements, so if you have an offer… please get in touch with him at: umed.bisht@gmail.com.

Umed, if you are reading this remember that I deserve a 10% Agent’s commission.

It was quite a learning experience, because there never can be a ‘right way’ when you one is dealing with Lakhs of users, who log into the social networking platform daily.

The Chak De Girls application on ibibo is pretty simple. If you have an ibibo account, you can install this application and interact with the four girls, who enthralled both men and women with their attitude in the SRK movie Chak De. To install Chak De Girls Application on ibibo, Click Here.

If you are a girl studying in a college, school…you stand to gain more than the others. Spread the word about this ibibo application, get more people from your institute to sign up at ibibo and make Sagarika, Vidya, Shilpa & Chitrashi their friends. If your institute has the maximum number of registrations on ibibo…you and your friends will host the four Chak De girls at your institute for one whole day. Can you beat that?

So, what are you waiting for? Sign Up Now!

In the last five days I have realized the sleep is an important part of man’s life. Perhaps that’s why I am home today and its just 10 p.m.. Those that work in the IT sector would understand…the others can start counting the sheep till they get some sleep.

Rekha is back from Kerala on December 2, and I hope by that time I (and my boss!) is done with the tight schedule. Coz, I don’t want my daughter to grow up and wonder: “Who is that dark skinned man, who visits mom every night?”

Till it started getting tough at ibibo.com, I had made it a habit of sleeping at 10 p.m. because my favorite dream started at 10.30 p.m. sharp. My favorite dream involved me eating a giant, white, creamy cake…and then burping. Well…to be honest with you, that was my favorite dream only till Rekha told me that we overshot the monthly budget because we had to buy 30 pillows last month!

While on the topic of sleeping, I have to tell you what my strict Armyman father did to wake me up early in the morning.

He thought that sleep was Satan’s doing and shouldn’t be indulged in. Perhaps, that’s why he would sit with us (me and my two sisters) and give us dictation till it was 10 p.m.. If only there was Fashion TV in the 80s, me and my sisters would have slept early.

While going to bed, all three would place a soap wrapper (Lyril, in our case) under our pillow because Ikroop Singh – my 5th standard classmate – had made an accidental discovery and wanted all of us to reap the benefits. Apparently, if you kept a soap wrapper (without the soap, of course) under your pillow while going to sleep…one tends to get up early. There is no proof, but it seemed to work. I would get up every day at 5.30 a.m. to see if the wrapper was there and it hadn’t moved from under the pillow.

My mother and my father had different approaches to my sleep habits. Coincidentally, both involved water.

My mother thought that if I drank loads of water in the night, I would get up at 5.30 a.m. to visit the loo and thus get into a habit of getting up early. The arrogant kid that I was, I didn’t go according to my mother’s plan. I pissed in the bed around 2.30-3.00 a.m. and spent sleepless two hours or so because of damp clothes, and then sleep heavy at 5.30 a.m.. When I continued to piss in bed even in the ninth standard (which was exposed to the whole World when we went on a Scouts expedition) my mother gave up her trials.

My father’s rules were simple if one doesn’t obey orders make his/her life miserable. After 5.35 a.m. he would stop giving orders, and instead dip his hand in water and sprinkle it on our face. Believe me, as a child early morning sleep is the best because you are dreaming of chocolates, toys, and cakes…and for it to be dampened by a spray of water is bad. This would be followed by a handful of water and if I still managed to stay in bed, a mug full of water would be on its way.

If you have been woken up like this by your parents, I am sure you still nurture that grudge. Perhaps, you might want to join the SPRAY (Society for Parent’s Real Abuse of You) or STEEP (Society Towards ‘Enema-ing’ Erring Parents) to take revenge.

But if you are 45 plus and have a kid who might be joining either SPRAY or STEEP, you might want to ensure your safety by enrolling at SPRINKLE (Society of Parents in India with Naughty Kids, Lambs and Eels).

Now, for some sleep….zzzzz

Give OneFamily a shot (You will need an ibibo ID)

While a big team worked on OneFamily off the rails, I am linking only the ones who have blogs - my fav sketcher Soo, Dhimant and Ruban Phukan

Instead of asking –

“Do people in your country fart a lot?”

I ask –

“Is your country’s cuisine fart-friendly?”

Instead of saying –

“You spend a lot of time shopping and wasting money.”

I say –

“What all would your parents have bought for their house if we had given them the money we spent today?”

Instead of saying –

“I want to have sex and beer tonight.”

I say –

“You look pretty – is that the new lip gloss?”

If you have been as diplomatic, do leave a comment…after all there is no end to learning.

Other Must Reads

# To be a father or not to be
# A married man’s guide to safe and sound staring
# I think I am pregnant
# Our visit to the gynecologist….
# How NASA selected me for one of their programs

Yours sincerely would be very happy if you can take a look at the new ibibo Sawaal and leave your feedback, here.

I wasn’t so sure then…but after I read these three articles I wonder if my friend has a contact, deep inside the bowels of Yahoo.
Yahoo May Consider Letting Google Handle Paid Search
Yahoo, going through a rough patch, is leaving all possibilities on the table. Including, it seems, a deal with its arch-enemy. Reports are that Yahoo isn’t ruling out the possibility of offloading its paid search business (is that what they call Search Marketing?) to Google. Courtesy: Mashable.com

Would Yahoo Hand Over Its Paid Search Business To Google?
The company jettissoned CEO Terry Semel in favor of founder Jerry Yang, who’s now apparently considering all possible options. According to Kara Swisher, that includes giving up in paid search and partnering with Google again, though, this time for paid search and not just pure search. Courtesy: TechDirt.com

Yahoo Rumor Patrol: MySpace, Nope! Google? Maybe So.
No sacred cows, indeed. According to rumors circulating around the company, Yang and other executives at Yahoo are even considering something as massive as offloading some of its search monetization business to rival Google. I have suggested this option here in this column many times. Such a move, even if done in part, could instantly add a whole a lot of dollars to its bottom line, drastically cut tech costs and remove the focus on its constantly losing fight with Google as a tech leader. Courtesy: Allthingsd.com

Wonder how my good friends in Yahoo! India are reacting.

It only took me a few micro seconds to come up with a repartee (probably because I had used it earlier many a times). I said: “Hey! It is not just troubling me but is killing me. And I am not complaining!”

Sunandini looked at me for a while, and said, “Make sure you tell your wife where the insurance papers are,” and walked towards her desk.

I remember, the day had been hot and our discussion drifted towards weather. I was defending the Chennai weather while the gentlemen from Gurgaon defended what they thought was right.

“Does Chennai have winter?” One colleague asked sarcastically.

“It doesn’t. But Chennai does have spring.” I replied with a glint of pride in my eyes.

“Spring? Wow man…when does it start and when does it end?” The second colleague asked.

I didn’t want to lie to my friends…so told them the truth: “To be honest…when spring came, I was in a conference call and by the time I got out of it…it was over.”

When I couldn’t convince them that Chennai was a happening place, we moved on to recycling as a concept that’s been picking up.

“Recycling? Oh that’s a fad in Chennai,” I took the lead.

Nirav was a tough guy…he wouldn’t believe me. “Recycling?”

I said: ‘Yes!”

“In Chennai?” He questioned my integrity.

“Yes!”

“No way…the city is way too conservative to divide their waste into organic and inorganic.”

To give him an example of how motivated Chennaites are towards recycling…I narrated the story of one of my Yahoo! colleagues who wanted to re-use a man – she wanted to marry a man once married.

We discussed till we finished our smokes & crushed them under our feet and then threw the Frooti cartons over the wall.

On the way back to our desks, I met Sunandini again. I apologized for being rude.

“I am sorry mate. Can I get you flowers tomorrow?” I asked.

“Sure, I like roses,” she blurted out. She sure knew what she wanted.

You readers know me…I am not the type that goes around gardens killing plants and plucking flowers. So, I asked her: ‘There is a garden in my apartment…what time would be the best to pluck a rose?”

‘Well…the best time would be when nobody is looking!” She said but that hurt.

Tomorrow, I am going to have ten smokes…if there can be an eye for an eye….I am sure a lung for a lung also holds true.

Note: Flowers are actually prostitutes…what do you think the bees come for?