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Our visit to the gynecologist

The fun things in life even out after marriage. Perhaps it is the commitment. Some call it baggage.

Last evening…Rekha and I visited a gynecologist. It was quite an experience.

She has been asking me to take her to a gynecologist for a month. I was postponing the meeting…perhaps because I couldn`t find a male gynecologist in the whole of Chennai. I wouldn`t have really minded a lady gynecologist…but one of my married friends scared me by saying they also take semen samples.

A visit to the gynecologist is one of those things where the lady takes the lead. I felt I was walking right into a marriage. Didn`t Rekha take the lead at all marriages too? Clad in her pattu saree with jasmine flowers adorning her dyed hair, jewelry decorating her long but old neck. As in marriage, here also I walked behind Rekha.

The receptionist was a lady and I can swear she gave me a smirk. Rekha says it was my imagination. Though my wife had fixed the appointment at 8 pm, we had to wait till 8.30 pm before we saw the gynecologist.

The waiting period was most fun. The room was filled with wanting to be pregnant women and pregnant women. Everybody was asking the other questions like – “So, how many months?”, “When is it due?”, “Is the child healthy?”.

Thanks to my eagerness to mingle with the ladies (to impress Rekha, of course)…I almost landed in trouble. I ended up asking a 7-month pregnant lady: “So who is the father?”. I suggest, if you are a small man like me…never ask such questions. It could land you in trouble especially if the lady`s husband is like a testosterone-driven hulk I encountered last night.

Some of the ladies had a baby on their bosom and another in their stomach (not medically, of course). Wonder why the hurry…I have heard of film-makers hurrying their releases…but even parents? Talking of movies…can we do a ‘releasing at the theatre near you` on the babies too? Releasing at an operating theatre near you….

The men were a busy lot too….exchanging cards, for they knew they would be encountering each other for the next nine months or so. A few men were heard whispering about a sob-and-let-it-out club called ‘The Expectant Fathers Group` near the Central Railway station.

Even as we entered, the gynecologist gave me a look. I knew she wanted to say: “Is this guy your husband? No wonder…you had to meet to me!” Rekha says the gynecologist gave no such look and it was all my imagination.

The gynecologist spoke to us for five minutes and said that both of us were stressed out. I couldn`t ask the gynecologist but ask you: You marry off two totally different people and ask them to make compromises and then ask them not to be stressed out? Not fair.

As for why we went to the gynecologist… I just wanted to check if I needed to change my glasses.

What happens when the World gets quirkier?

Simple. You get to read Quirky News.

Postmen taught dog psychology
German postmen are being dog-trained. Not the throw-the-bone-and-ask-to-go-fetch kind…but the kind which will help them reduce the number of dog bites while on duty. After being taught how dogs think, postmen (and postwomen) have reported lesser dog bites. In India, it is not a must to be a postman to be bitten by a dog.

Woman walks to hospital with bullet in head
Trust Rio de Janeiro (in Brazil) to do this to you when you are peacefully watching TV on Christmas eve. A 60-year old lady was doing what we all do day-in-and-day-out when a bullet hit her near her left ear. She didn`t call the ambulance but walked to the hospital to get admitted.

Einstein’s theory of boarding aeroplanes
What is the most efficient way for passengers to board an aeroplane? I wouldn`t know because my recent-memory cells die the moment I gain altitude. Why do you think I am not doing that well professionally. A recent study has suggested that the time honoured method of boarding by seat numbers is a waste of time. The researcher has suggested that all airlines follow the example of low-cost carriers who let passengers sit where they like.

Art expert fooled by chimp’s painting
I am not surprised at all. Those that know well practice. Those that know little become critics…and those that know nothing become admirers.

Site of the Day: http://www.milliondollarhomepage.com/
[This website’s home page is made up of 10,000 tiny advert boxes…and the owner (a 20 something student) has become a millionaire in just four months]

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Gambling – a not so wise vice

One of the greatest gamblers of our time died on 26th Dec 2005. Kerry Packer – the Aussie cricket-lover, businessman and billionaire, who gambled with the way cricket was played, is no more.

Some 20-25 years ago when cricket was still played in whites, Kerry Packer intervened and changed the way cricket would be played.

Even BBC thinks Kerry Packer was a compulsive gambler. Read Profile
| Wikipedia on Kerry Packer |

The Aussie got English cricket captain Tony Grieg to recruit talented “rebel” cricketers who were willing to dump their country. The day-night matches – to ensure more eye-balls – were telecast on Packer’s TV Channel. Viewer-ship sky-rocketed because of his innovative telecast which involved a shorter version of the game, colored clothing, drinks breaks with modified trolleys, white balls, and floodlights…not to mention top talents from West Indies, South Africa, England and Australia.

He also owned a casino…and 75% of all magazines in Australia.

Gambling paid for this man. Unfortunately, it doesn’t pay for me.

Now for what you actually came to this blog for – some humour!

The other day when, I was in Rekha`s favorite meat-shop buying a kilo of chicken, I befriended the butcher. To lighten things up…I tried entering into a bet with him but he refused to indulge saying “No sir, the steaks are too high.” I had to walk off.

The next week, I met the butcher again. This time, he had time on his hand and was friendlier. He started off saying he had been a compulsive gambler when young…had lost all his money at Las Vegas.

“Why? What happened?”

“I took my wife along and we tempted each other and before we could realize…it was all over,” he said.

“If you lost everything, how did you manage to start this meat-shop and cold storage business?” I was curious.

“We managed to leave Las Vegas with a small fortune.”

“You mean you won after all?”

“No…sir. We had entered Las Vegas with a bigger fortune.”

The butcher had tears in his eyes, and I decided to leave the ex-compulsive-gambler alone when he was upset. Especially since, he had a big butcher`s knife.

A few days back I was in a library, reading a book titled: “A brief History of the times when everything was going right and everybody was happy”

I wouldn`t have spotted this book in the reference rack if my eyes hadn`t rushed to this huge 600 page hard-bound titled “How to Hug”. Only after I took it out of the rack…did I realize it was the 7th volume of Encyclopedia, placed just before the 8th volume “Hut to Indigo”.

In the history aptly titled: “A brief History of the times when everything was going right and everybody was happy,” I read about a British archeologist who discovered Borra Caves in Andhra Pradesh. According to him…they are amazing, natural caves made 300 million years ago. It seems a few years after discovering the caves, the archeologist had also discovered a 6,000 year old skeleton between the rocks. In his Analysis Report he wrote: “We have definite proof that we have found the skeleton of a man who died of a heart attack 6,000 years back. Please find attached a gamblers receipt which says he placed 3,000 pearls on Goliath winning the David vs Goliath battle.”

Moral of the Story: No Gambler can be outstanding in his field. We all need to leave it to the farmer to be outstanding in his field.

Santa is a lucky old man

Sometimes I wonder if Santa is related to Santa (Bunta`s friend). But what if he is related…the old man in white would anyways visit only once a year.

I somehow like Santa`s idea of visiting all only once a year – keeps them yearning for more. The good thing is, Santa leaves before the presents are opened.

What I don`t understand is his entry through the chimney. Why not the front gate? What about all those houses that don`t have a chimney? Perhaps this is why, as a child I never got presents from the Santa…we used to live in an apartment in the 8th floor.

Did you know that Santa gifts us so much…but in his life has only had two pair of clothes? His first one was a brown overall…and now it is red. No connection with Coke, though there are some business stories that Coke was instrumental in give Santa the new red-and-white outfit.

New clothes or old…he is quite happy and gay. Perhaps that is why he has special interest in South Africa – the country where same-sex marriages were legalized ten years back. No, just kidding!

Maybe, he is a straight guy who has the addresses of all the bad girls in town …in his address book. With no wife to censure him…he would be having a roll. I have a feeling he keeps thinking of these bad girls….coz whenever I see him anywhere he goes: Ho! Ho! Ho!

A cousin of mine got a pet as a gift from Santa. Unfortunately…the Santa left it in one of my cousin`s dirty sox…and the pet died before it could be discovered. Now, my 10-year old cousin wants a pet lizard…just like the one Santa brought.

Santa didn`t come to my house. Wonder if I had been a bad boy the whole of last year….or there was some problem back home for Santa. But then…why would a bunch of elfs create problem…when they have to work only one day in a year? Elfs with low (s)elf-esteem!

Exploiting Taj Residency, Vishakhapatnam

Room service? Send up a larger room.
– Groucho Marx (Not Karl Marx`s brother)

I felt exactly like Groucho Marx. Not old and rickety but like Groucho`s, our room at Taj Residency was also small. OK…small for three people. The first time Anand, my room-mate, inserted the key to open the door…he broke the crystal show-piece on the table.

But I didn`t let that come in our way and exploited the available facilities at will.

There was only place where I got fooled. At the reception they told me that my company would be charged Rs 500 less as room-rent if I could make my own bed. I thought big deal…when I am at home..I make my own bed…and agreed to the receptionist`s proposition. As I walked away from the reception desk, the lady receptionist should “Sir, please collect the timber, nails and tools from the service room to the left.”

Boy! Making bed was never so difficult.

If they can make me work…I too can make them work. I ate well….thus forcing them to cook many more dishes. Wonder if it was breakfast or break-record…for I had so much. The only thing I didn`t do was turn into a Princess Diana. If you didn`t know, the pretty princess was bulimic – a medical condition where the patient always feels hungry but as soon as he/she eats …he/she rushes to the washbasin to puke.

Lunch was no different. Plans were made to keep the larger part of the stomach for desserts. I would have been damned if I had deserted the desserts. Not that I was the only one exploiting the Taj…everybody I saw around me had gained two inches on day one itself. OK, that`s an exaggeration. They actually gained only one inch.

Dinner was the best. We started at 8.30 p.m. and by the time we reached the desserts it was 11 p.m.. The organizers were apologetic about the food getting cold…but tried to make amends by giving us a Chocolate drink with a box of matches when I asked for Hot Chocolate.

Getting up after having a hot chocolate drink in the night is not a great feeling. You have matchsticks sticking to your teeth. This is perhaps why I had to rush to the bathroom to brush my teeth….and found out our bathroom was so small I couldn`t brush my teeth sideways!

[If you are reading this and work with the Taj Residency, please don`t take it to heart and send me a legal notice. All this has been written in jest.]

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My trip to Vishakhapatnam – Part 2

Warning: Please read Part 1 published yesterday before you proceed.

When pretty girls are around,
It is difficult to keep me down.

Wow. That sure sounded like a poem.

The train was now in Andhra Pradesh. I could tell by the bright colored clothes worn by the locals, Chinranjeevi posters on walls, and YS Rajasekhar Reddy cut outs on buildings. As confirmation…eunuchs were all around. Perhaps, you didn`t know that in Andhra Pradesh, there is a new class called ‘professional eunuchs,` who are actually men dressed up like eunuchs. During the day they force people to part with ten rupee notes and in the evenings, dress up like men and …chase girls. They are so good at work that they have even managed to take their success story to Mumbai.

I brushed, washed and sat next to the same three girls. It looked as if my competitors – the other 20 odd men in the group – were at work even as I spelt. For everybody barring me was having a dialogue with them.

Having been cornered, I decided to shift focus. I took out the Newsweek I was carrying especially for such an occasion started reading. It was the same Newsweek, I had read during my trip to Madurai last month. Mind you, Newsweek is a weekly.

Breakfast involved a plate of two idlies and two vada bought at one of the stations. It took me a while to find out that it wasn`t good enough and I threw them the four pieces next to the railway track. As soon as the bad idlies and vada hit the ground, we saw a small boy rush to the spot, pick it up, brush away the soil and hand it over to the shop-keeper so that he could sell it again. Nice business sense. Being smart people, we immediately comprehended the situation and crushed the idlies and vada before we threw them – just how we would do to a Mineral water bottle to avoid reuse.

After breakfast, I decided to inform Rekha about the supposed landing of my flight the previous night itself. Since I couldn`t call her (she would have easily found out I was in a train…she has learnt tricks from the movie Trainspotting), I had to message her.

Here is the message: Dear Rekha, Landed in Vishakhapatnam last night 10.30 p.m.. Had to rush to the disco – this VP is a party freak. After late night dinner went to Taj Residency and crashed. When I got up in the morning, the VP was all dressed up waiting for me to get up. Our meeting with Microsoft was at 8 a.m.. Now in a meeting. Will call you later.

I got a reply: Good luck sweetie. Try and eat something. I have already watched four movies and spoke to my parents seven times in your absence.

I felt the guilt, but as they say ‘in love and war everything is legal`. It was a war of nerves between Rekha and I.

We landed in Vishakhapatnam around 3 p.m.. Tired, hungry and dirty. The travel had lasted 18 hours.

After a short bus journey, which lasted 20 minutes and during which our bus pulled down three overhead cables, we reached Taj Residency. The reception was great. Just that there was nobody to receive us with garlands etc.

Nobody messes with 30 tired, dirty and hungry well-built men and women…so as soon as we landed we were shown our rooms and asked to meet at the Harbour View restaurant for lunch. Wow…what lunch. Can you please excuse me now…I am going to eat for a while.

The next post will be published on Thursday (22nd Dec) and will be on how I exploited Taj Residency, Vishakhapatnam.

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My trip to Vishakhapatnam – Part 1

All companies don`t take their associates to far-flung places for team building exercises. Mine did, and I used it to the maximum.

The place was Vishakhapatnam, and about 30 of us were to travel to the place together. We were to travel by the Vizag Express train; in the 2nd class (my favorite). The same evening, I told my wife Rekha.

“I will be going to Vishakhapatnam.”

“Wow…finally you get to travel at work.” My wife sounded enthusiastic.

[Rekha has always thought that it is only the senior management that travels when at work]

“Yes. I begin traveling at work.” I reassured her.

“When are you flying?”

“Flying?” I didn`t understand her question but then it struck me. She was thinking that my company was paying for an airplane ticket. “Ohh…yes, flying…I would be taking the 9 p.m. Jet Airways flight to Vishakhapatnam.”

[How could I let down my company. My wife works for my company`s competitor]

With Rekha convinced that I was traveling at work, I could rest assured that all my relatives (and hers) would come to know of my trip to Vishakhapatnam. Sure enough within two days I started receiving calls from grandmas, grandpas, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces wishing me Bon Voyage. I am glad nobody decided to send me off at the airport. Even if somebody did decide, I wouldn`t have known for I was at the Central station getting into a 2nd class compartment. More on this later.

Packing for the trip was quite an exercise. We had to dust the bag we hadn`t used since our honeymoon, 14 months back. Both of us took a day off and finished with the packing. For the record, among the 30 associates who traveled with me…my bag was the largest. Pssst…Rekha still doesn`t know 30 other associates traveled with me. She still thinks…there was a Vice-President and then there was I…and we had gone to Vishakhapatnam to broker a million dollar deal with Microsoft.

After a million parting kisses and hugs, I left for the station. Luckily, from our house, both the airport and railway station are in the same direction.

I reached the station half an hour earlier. The others started coming in too. They looked an enthusiastic bunch (mind you, I will meet them daily at work). For every ten young men, there were three girls. “Survival is going to be tough,” I told myself and sat on the bench as an observer. Meanwhile, I also called up Rekha and told her that I reached the airport. She did ask me about all that background noise…I had to convince her that with all the cheap airlines like Deccan and Spice Jet coming up, the airport was looking (and sounding) like a railway station.

I put a reminder to call Rekha in another half an hour and tell her that I was getting into the airplane. The second reminder was for calling her up after one and half hours and announcing that that I had landed in Vishakhapatnam. I have always believed that a well-planned lie, could end up be becoming the truth.

The train trip began on a good note. Even before the train started rolling (at 9 p.m.) I had strategically positioned myself next to three pretty girls. Unfortunately…a certain Mr Anand and a certain Mr Atanu also landed right next to me. Competition.

Thanks to this competition, when I went to sleep at midnight… I realized I had ignored the reminders I had set earlier…and Rekha had also given me six missed calls. A lot of explanation was pending. But first…some sleep.

Part 2 – Coming up on Wednesday

My brother-in-law is a lawyer

My brother-in-law. i.e., Rekha`s sister`s hubby is a layer…oops lawyer. And like all lawyers he is quite an interesting guy.

He and his family paid us a visit a few days ago. It is only ‘payment` they have made us. During an after-dinner conversation, I sought my brother-in-law`s advice regarding a case I was fighting against the Govt. of India. Here is how the conversation went –

Me: Just needed your advice.

Brother-in-law: Regarding?

Me: I am involved in a case against the Govt. of India.

Brother-in-law: Ok. And?

Me: I want to know if I should pursue the case or should ask for an out-of-the-court settlement. It is eating up my bank balance.

Brother-in-law: I think you should continue to defend yourself. According to IPC 420, any individual is guilty until proven broke.

[Now, I knew how he managed to buy me costly gifts whenever he came visiting]

Me: But, I spend quite a lot on lawyer fee. Can you bail me out by becoming my lawyer?

Brother-in-law: Sure. Why not?

Me: How much do you charge for one hour?

Brother-in-law: Discounting the 15 minutes we have already been speaking to each other, you should be paying me $78 per hour.

Me: Can I take it on the basis of questions? Can I pay per questions asked?

Brother-in-law: Sure. That would be one question answered. So what is your second question?

Me: God…are you this costly with everybody?

Brother-in-law: Yes. That would be two questions. Mind you, I charge $11 per question.

[He was costlier than my existing lawyer, so I decided to give him the pass]

Me: I guess I will stick to my existing lawyer. He always gives me his honest opinion.

Brother-in-law: I hope you are not getting ‘an honest opinion` while paying for ‘professional advice`. Both are two completely different things.

Me: Now that I know the difference, I will be careful with him.

Brother-in-law: Did you read about the airplane with 60 lawyers heading to a convention, being highjacked?

Me: Yeah. And they are threatening to release the lawyers one by one if the demands are not met! Scary shit!

Brother-in-law: What is so scary? Lawyers are also human being…aren`t they?

Me: They sure are. Just those lawyers don`t get caught for helping a criminal after the crime is committed. If you noticed, those who help the criminal while the crime is being committed get branded as accomplices!

[Guess my BIL didn`t have an answer. Or probably he remembered that I was the guy cooking his food…for he didn`t take any chances thereafter]