Month: January 2007

This post is dedicated to an ardent reader Himani Sahni of Gurgaon who will be celebrating her birthday on January 31.

Last year, she had mailed me requesting a funny post as a birthday gift. I obliged. Today – one year later – she proved history and women to be similar by repeating her request. I have not added or subtracted anything from her mail, primarily because my math is bad. I haven`t even changed the spelling mistakes and wrong grammar.

– – – – X – – – –

Hi Jammy,

Hope you are doin gud…..

Its my Birthday tomorrow and I would again like to request you to write something really hilarous and interesting just for ME:-)…..I know I am being over demanding but wanna open my eyes with a big smile!!!!

What has a big smile got to do with the eyes? One can have a big smile and not open the eyes at all!

Not too sure about your work schedule…so if things are tough at your end and you are time stressed then pls feel free to reject the request
I would not mind:-)

I am really held up at work, but am writing this post because of the Rs 20/- you had attached to your mail

You really made my day last year, cant thank u enough for the same.

Is that why you left 45,982 comments in my blog the whole of last year?

God Bless u always!!

Thanks & Regards
Himani

– – – – X – – – –

On seeing the mail, I felt really good. How often do bloggers get mails from five years olds wanting to celebrate their birthday with a funny post? Not often.

Blame it on Rekha`s absence or plain excitement, I picked up my landline and dialed Himani`s number.

The caller tune was “Humpty, Dumpty sat on the cake, Humpty Dumpty didn`t get any to take” – a popular nursery rhyme they taught in DAV & Doon schools before Shiv Sena protested saying Hump and Dump were against our culture and needed to be banned.

Anyway, Himani picked up the phone. I was surprised, she didn`t sound like a five year old. I began to sweat profusely. I am not much of a lady`s man…and to top that I knew the tortoise and the butterfly joke I had practiced so well would fall flat. It worked well only for six years and below.

“Hi, this is Jammy here. You had mailed me.”

“Yeah, I had. So, when is the furniture coming?”

“Furniture?” I inquired. What was she talking about, I wondered.

“Aren`t you Tammy from Tammy & Tummy Furnitures?” She sounded concerned now.

“No. I am Jammy, your favorite blogger.”

“I am sorry, I go by urls. What`s yours?” She was demanding.

I couldn`t control my tears and lest she heard me choking over the phone, I cut the line.

– – – – –

Dear Himani,

My best wishes on your birthday. Even if this post ends up being your best birthday gift don`t worry. Even if the only thing you have gained this birthday is another year, don`t worry. For there was a birthday in my life when my father gifted me a BSA SLR, my mother gifted me an air pistol, my two sisters gave me two big Perk chocolates and I was looking forward to a evening birthday party at the house…but lost my way from school and couldn`t be found till the next day afternoon. I spent the night with two beggers.

On a serious note…research has shown that some people develop heartburn on their birthdays, primarily because of eating the birthday cake. If you really want to avoid the heartburn, I would suggest you remove the candles first.

I know this post is not as good as last year`s but neither are you growing any younger!

To read what I wrote on Himani’s 53rd birthday (which was last year), Click Here

I have never taken any exercise except sleeping and resting.
– Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

Having been a fan of Mark Twain – who isn`t? – I agree to what he says. In fact, this is exactly what I was doing in the 28 months of my marriage with Rekha.

Now that she has left me (alas! for only six months) and the mirror in our house is free, I am shocked and appalled at myself. I have put on so much weight that I look like a US citizen with a Michelin & a Bridgestone tyre around my waist. Yes, this is the same Jammy who while participating in an “Improve the Society” Rally, held the placard: “Shoot all fat people”. Thinking back, I am glad that the police arrived at the last minute, killed a few protesters and dispelled the crowd. Else, my placard would have caught a Parliamentarian`s eye and would have been made a law….which means, I would have been shot by now.

Two days back I took my first step towards getting back to active physical life. I bought a pair of sneakers. The one I have now can`t be used coz it has not been used in the last year and half. I had bought it wanting to start jogging. I remember, the very next day the battery in our alarm clock had drained and before I could get a new battery, all interest in jogging had vanished.

If you are wondering if I will let this pair of sneakers face the same fate…you are wrong. I bought blue ones this time; they would go with my jeans too. I had never worn the white ones because it felt like wearing tube-lights on my feet.

As a precursor to starting jogging, I took a walk in the Jogger`s park yesterday morning. Nobody seemed happy while jogging. Not a single jogger was smiling. Some were panting, some were straining, a few were acting as if they didn`t really like jogging. Even when I tried smiling at them, they didn`t reciprocate.

I was about to give up when from afar I saw a jogger smiling at me. As he neared, I realized he was still smiling. “Good soul”, I told myself before smiling back….but he wasn`t looking at me. Next minute he was smiling at the flowers, then at the donkey which was tied to the tree, then at the single sneaker lying by the road side, then at the small boy from the slums who was reliving himself…the jogger smiled at everything.

I was impressed with his attitude towards life. I so much wanted to talk to him. I called out: “Sir, I just have a quick question.”

He stopped jogging, but kept moving to his sides and up and down.

“Sorry to have stopped you. Looks like you have to visit the loo…please go ahead. I can always meet you here tomorrow.” I said with due respect.

“That`s fine. I am just warming down. Why did you stop me?” He was a tall, staggering man. He sounded as if he wanted me to have a very strong reason to stop him.

“Sir, you keep smiling while jogging. I suppose jogging gives you immense pleasure.”

“Why do you ask?” The man seemed to be stiff, in spite of all his exercises. Arthritis, perhaps.

For a while I wondered if I should explain the whole situation – from Rekha leaving the house, me seeing the mirror, finding out that I was fat, deciding to jog, buying sneakers, to searching for a smile on a jogger`s face – but really doubted his warm-down theory. Since, I didn`t want to be the reason behind an adult wetting his shorts….I came up with a short explanation: “Sir, before I met you, all the joggers I had seen were grimacing in pain. You are the only one smiling.”

“Ohh…that! That`s coz when I was a 19-year-old I had a bike accident and lost all my teeth. After an orthodontist and a plastic surgeon fixed my jaw, besides the bill, they also left this smile.”

I was stumped. Before I could gather my wits, the man continued: “This is not the first time I have run into trouble because of this smile. Last week my wife left for her maike and I couldn`t show her that I was upset. I kept smiling, throughout.”

P.S. I am yet to start jogging.

Other Must Reads

#Treadmill and its implications
#Getting a treadmill for the house…
#Women – somebody tell me what they want
#Buffet dinner with ex-colleagues…
#God exists…

Two and a half years back I had announced my marriage with Rekha on this blog. Today, I would like to announce that I am a bachelor again. No! Girls, wait! Not yet. Rekha is gone only for six months and when she is back I will have one more reason not to dump her – the Kerala chips she will bring for me. Just kidding.

Last Friday, Rekha renounced her kingdom and made me the king again. She will be in Kerala for six months and in her absence I will be ruling our house. Have already taken her sandals which I can keep on the TV and seek guidance. My only grudge is…I had to soak the sandal in surf water before keeping it on the TV.

She has come up with five pages of instructions on what needs to be done to maintain the house the way it is now. They have been labeled Daily, Weekly and Monthly. A surprise inclusion in the Daily column is me taking bath.

Of the tasks labeled weekly the one that made me sigh in relief was: Give fruits to the maid servant once in a while. Apparently, she is pregnant. I am so glad our maid servant is already pregnant….I can`t visualize Rekha`s reaction if I had to tell her after a few months that our maid was pregnant. It would have been too much of a coincidence.

Of the tasks labeled Monthly, nothing interests me. All of them are about paying back to banks, institutions etc. Didn`t somebody once say, “Life is all about giving.” How true.

We landed in Kerala on Saturday afternoon. Like Keralites, even their trains are laid back. Don`t ask me how I know…for on our way I saw 14 compartments of one of their trains lying on their backs in a paddy field. Not something one would appreciate. Especially, during the weekend when there is so much rush.

As usual Rekha`s father was at the station. Apparently, he had come to the railway station two days in advance….so that he didn`t get late for receiving us. I said: ‘Accha, you could have come in today afternoon…why come two days ago?”

“That`s fine Rajan….I didn`t buy any platform tickets. Whenever the railway police came, I hid under a gunny bag from which I had evicted a homeless child.”

One can`t really argue with a person like him so I opted for the lesser of the two devils. I started talking to Rekha again.

While leaving for Chennai again, I held back tears and told her as only a man can pretend: “So, you are on your home soil. Six month here and you will turn into the daughter of the soil again with a hibiscus flower in your wet, greasy hair topped by a pearl-colored saree.”

She didn`t reply…too choked perhaps. Sometimes love can hurt.

Why is Rekha going to Kerala? Read all about it here!
# Announcing – Pregnancy Diary
# The initial months of pregnancy
# Some of the anniversaries I have to remember
# The baby-mother bonding

By Dave Barry

Dave Barry is a humor columnist. For 25 years he was a syndicated columnist whose work appeared in more than 500 newspapers in the United States and abroad. In 1988 he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary. Many people are still trying to figure out how this happened. I wonder how many of Ouchmytoe.com readers will like this Dave Barry column (written in 1994) because unlike Ouchmytoe, this calls for a bit of intelligence too.

Back in 1954, when the Russians were evil and I was a first-grader at Wampus Elementary School in Armonk, N.Y., the school authorities regularly conducted emergency drills wherein we students practiced protecting ourselves from nuclear attack by crouching under our desks. We’d hunker down there until Mrs. Hart gave us the word that the nuclear war was over, then we’d crawl back out and resume reading about the fascinating adventures of Dick and Jane. (”Ha!” said Dick. ”Ha ha!” said Jane. ”Ha ha ha!” said Dick. ”Ha ha ha ha” … etc.)

I understand this drill was conducted in many schools in the ’50s. Apparently the desks used in classrooms back then were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years, I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk. More

Other Interesting Reads

Sonia and Manmohan caught on tape
Oh No! Not Gandhi Jayanthi again
Bush vs Musharraf
Non-Resident Indians

By Melvin Durai

Melvin Durai is an India-born, North America-based humorist, writer and occasional stand-up comedian. His humor columns, acclaimed for being both funny and thought-provoking, are carried regularly by dozens of newspapers, magazines and websites in several countries, including the United States, India and Zambia. Melvin doesn’t know this yet, but he is a regular reader of Ouchmytoe.com.

Good evening ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Thank you for flying British Airways Flight 324 nonstop from London to New York. We are still awaiting our security clearance from U.S. authorities, but it’s safe to assume that we’ll land in New York sometime in the next month or so.

If you look to your left, you will see a landmark that attracts more than one million tourists every year. It’s called Heathrow Airport. Yes, we haven’t yet taken off, as a few astute passengers have noticed. Needless to say, we would rather wait on the ground than in the air — it’s so much easier to get a refill. You won’t believe how fast we go through our liquor cart. More

Other Interesting Reads

My first Interview
My trip to Vishakhapatnam – Part 1
My trip to Vishakhapatnam – Part 2
Exploiting Taj Residency, Vishakhapatnam

The two kids you will see in the video are Tristan and Nic Puehse – fraternal twins born on December 8, 1997. They began skating just after their 6th birthday. Their natural athletic ability and toughness, combined with a “no-fear” attitude have made them serious competitors. More about them at www.skateboardingtwins.com

And no…this is not an advertisement. The video was exciting enough for Ouchmytoe.com.

Yesterday I took my grandmother to a hospital nearby. She had been coughing the whole night and I thought if I could fix her a meeting with the 65-year-old general physician nearby, she would be happy.

My grandma had a ball of a time. The doctor held her hand (he said he was checking the pulse, but I don`t believe him) which made me turn my head away. When he continued his small talk beyond the customary ten minutes I had to excuse myself from the room.

While waiting outside, I realized the biggest truth of our times. Medicines are really costly and beyond the reach of the average IT professional who earns only INR 75,000 per month. I didn`t believe when my friends said drugs were costly but now I believe them.

Talking of drugs, I once tried sniffing coke. It managed it well for a while but couldn`t do anything once the straw stuck in my nose. Guess sniffing coke is no longer fashionable. But there was a time….a time when the world was normal and people took drugs to make it weird. Unfortunately, now the world is weird but people take anti-depressants to make it normal.

Coming back to drugs…I remember Art Buchwald writing in one of his columns that medicines in US were so costly that people had started storing them in their bank lockers.

While my thoughts were racing across the Atlantic ocean, I saw an investment banker walk into the pharmacy and ask: “What is the costliest tablet you have?”

While a confused Jammy looked at the investment banker, the pharmacist as a matter of fact replied: “You can either buy InvestiPill which costs INR 78,000 per tablet or go for CeleSave which costs INR 81,499.99 per tablet.”

I had never known that such pills existed. The tablets I ever bought – and I wonder whom I should thank for that …God because he ensured I wouldn`t need costly pills or our family doctor who never prescribed them – were Saridon, Anacin, Dart or at the max Strepcils. Mind you, they are very cheap pills costing INR 1 each.

I moved closer to the pharmacy counter and asked: “Sir, the gentleman who just paid you INR 2,34,000 and bought three Investipills never showed you a prescription.”

“Looks like you don`t invest,” the pharmacist said.

“No I don`t. In fact, that is one of the reasons why my wife and I fight over the morning coffee.” I shot back.

“Are you saying you are not aware of the increasing drug prices?”

I replied in the negative.

At my second consecutive reply in the negative the pharmacist didn`t reply. Perhaps he didn`t want to talk to me.

Even as I was leaving, I saw an old man walk towards the pharmacy. He had snow like white hair and was using a walking stick to balance himself. I took a step towards him and asked: “Sir, do you remember the good old times when medicines used to be cheaper?”

“I am sorry…I don`t know what you are talking about. BTW, does this pharmacy have tablets for Alzheimers?”

Other Must Reads

On why I hate old men in post offices with a postcard in their hand
Tale of a dead towel
I drink, therefore I am
Kissing – how it all began
On why I hate Nursery Rhymes

An indicator based on the theory that a consumer turns to less-expensive indulgences, such as lipstick, when she (or he) feels less than confident about the future. Therefore, lipstick sales tend to increase during times of economic uncertainty or a recession.

This term was coined by Leonard Lauder (chairman of Estee Lauder), who consistently found that during tough economic times, his lipstick sales went up. Believe it or not, the indicator has been quite a reliable signal of consumer attitudes over the years. For example, in the months following the Sept 11 terrorist attacks, lipstick sales doubled.

If this is too much for you to handle, check out the Skirt Length Theory