Month: July 2007

On 19 July a contest titled “Can you put words into my mouth?” was announced on Ouchmytoe.com.

In spite of the measly prize money (Rs 500)…the responses have overshot the condition I had set by 40% and the post ended up with 42 comments. Makes me wonder if I should start contributing to the wealth of my readers (Ouchmytoe have been contributing to their health for a long time now – laughter is medicine, they said – remember?)

As promised I have made a list of top 13 sentences which could fit in as a good speech bubble for this picture (shown somewhere on this page)…now can you please give your vote?

The poll closes at 12 noon on 4 August, 2007. The sentence which leads in votes at that time will be announced winner. Thereafter, I will get in touch with the winner…get his or her address and courier the DD worth Rs 500. Phew!

Three days back I met a girl in Gurgaon. Needless to say, she was pretty.

I was smitten by her the moment I saw her – probably because I had spent six years in Chennai and was longing for somebody fair. If you are a Chennai woman you will have to excuse me…I am only echoing what fair, tall North Indian males think of south Indian women. I wish they get to meet all the fair Iyer and Iyengar girls we have in Chennai.

This lady was clad in a pink shirt and a black trouser. Sharp to look at and quick in her walk – what more does a married man need in a woman to fall in love with?

Even as I was staring at her, she looked at me and smiled. I looked behind – it always happens with me – and there was nobody!

Was she smiling at me? Oh my God! Gurgaon was the only city in India where I didn`t have a love interest and will she be able to fill in the blanks, I wondered.

“Excuse me, do they have an ATM here?” She asked.

My world came crashing down (and like Bush I couldn`t blame the Al Qaeda). So this girl wasn`t coming to propose to me. Gurgaon…is definitely strange.

I don`t know if you have noticed, but girls here have a way of getting their work done – they smile. The more dangerous of them use the word “Bhaiya” before asking for a favor from a man…that`s only if the guy isn`t handsome.

Thankfully when this girl asked me for the ATM, she didn`t use the word “Bhaiya”. Proof that I was handsome?

Even as I was nodding my head she jerked her head back, looked at me again and asked: “Hey! Are you Jammy?”

“Yeah, I am. Why?”

“Are you Jamshed…some Velayuda Rajan?” She was brushing aside my middle name but that was fine by me.

“Yes, I am.”

“The guy that blogs at www.ouchmytoe.com?” She sounded excited…and before I could say yes, she gave me a hug.

“Oh my God…I have been waiting to meet you for such a long time…and I never knew I would meet you like this…in front of a mall!” She definitely was excited and before I knew she was pulling me into a restaurant.

I did try to tell her that I was waiting for a guy friend of mine…but before the words escaped my lips…I had messaged my friend that I was caught up in office and couldn`t make it.

There are times in life when one has to take tough decisions…so it was between Pizza and Chinese. Since Pizza was easier to eat and didn`t require chop sticks…I told her that I loved Pizzas.

The next two hours were spent at the Pizza Hut and we even played a bit of footsie. I with the waiter and she with the handsome man across the table – she sure had long legs!

We struck a rapport which was hard to ignore – when she forked a bite of Pizza, I would end up opening my mouth.

We finished the pizza in an hour (how long does it take to eat a regular sized Pizza when you are dropping every second slice into your laptop bag? I was trying to save some breakfast money).

She wouldn`t let me go…when we ran out of topics…she invented more. And then, there was the usual: “Aur kaho?” (Which roughly translated to English means, ‘So, what else?`)

Soon enough it was time for me to ask, “Where next?” and she asked me to stay on for another 15 minutes.

Being a man who falls in love like a bowling pin falls in the valley…I readily agreed.

“Are you waiting for somebody?,” I asked.

“Yes, Vijay said he would be here any moment…I can`t see him though.” There was anticipation in her eyes.

“Who Vijay?” Who ever said men couldn`t be jealous was defiantly wrong.

She didn`t respond…she was looking at the car park. I stood still…wondering if I should have gone with my friend instead. Two minutes later a tall, handsome man walked in and shook hands with her. She then turned towards me and said: “Meet Vijay – our parents have met and agreed on our marriage and now we have to decide if we like each other or not.”

The pretty girl could have pierced a knife thro` my stomach – and pulled out all the Pizza.

I couldn`t see my girl walk away with another man…so called for my cab. As I was walking away…I wiped a tear.

Lesson Learnt: If you have had the spicy Mexican Fireball …don`t take your fingers near your eyes.

Other Good Reads

Poem – The Sexy Mafia
Rekha and I visit Mocha, Chennai
Valentine`s Day is over. Phew!
Why should you marry the girl you love?
Ten reasons why you need a girl friend…

Vinod Ganesh is an interesting read, even when he is writing on a subject as below the ankle as football.

When asked to describe himself he said: “Well, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah… And oh, I forgot, blah blah blah.” Now, you know the kind of guy we are talking about.

He is based out of Chennai (and I am surprised we haven`t met yet) and looks to me like a software engineer. We are yet to lay our hands on his urine sample, to confirm our suspicion but don`t let that worry you because Ouchmytoe sleuths are following him 24/7 in the hope that one day or the other he WILL relieve himself on the road.

He has a solid fan following – it doesn`t take a Jammy`s brain to guess that because on an average he gets around 50 comments for every post.

Here is a sample sentence from this 26-year-old blogger:

Bangkok, though it sounds like someone with very limited command over the English language crudely telling you to engage in sexual intercourse, is an actual city situated in Thailand.

To read more of Vinod Ganesh, Click Here

Gizmoz is a super product that has the potential (and I am sure of that) to take the blogging World by storm.

Once in, the site allows you to upload your photograph, customize the way you want to look, give it some dialog, and then animate it as a flash file. After animating the photograph, blog and website owners can pick up the code and embed the widget.

Here is what I created (my animated photograph) in less than five minutes –

Get your own at Gizmoz.com

Sending off a friend on a short assignment out of town is a difficult task. More difficult if she is a 27-year-old pretty girl.

Today one of my girl colleagues left for Mumbai on an assignment. She would be away from office for close to a fortnight and we are all going to miss her.

You might doubt our intentions because she is pretty and had joined our company only a day earlier…but we are definitely going to miss her.

Being the most enterprising, during a casual coffee break I suggested that we give the girl – for convenience sake let us name her Harini – a quick farewell. The fact that the girl was pretty (and had a sexy voice!) had nothing to do with my suggestion.

Somehow, the other girls in the group weren`t very keen. “She will be back in a fortnight,” they frowned in unison. I wasn`t surprised because these were the same set of girls who only minutes earlier had said: ‘Sushmita Sen isn`t sexy!”

The other guys in the gang were willing to host the farewell – and I think her beauty & seductress-like voice had to do something with that. But when they learnt that they had to shell out Rs 300 each for the farewell, all backed out.

Being the gentleman that am, I couldn`t go back on my words…and told Harini that a farewell party had been arranged and she had to be at the Pizza Hut in Metropolitan mall by 7.30 p.m.. When I told her about the farewell party she was surprised by our magnanimity and team spirit…and like a train under Lalu`s rule, was on time.

Needless to say, nobody else turned up.

After waiting for half an hour (which I knew was waste of time) we decided to order. The true gentleman that I am, I ordered vegetarian – she was a vegetarian.

“So, where did you work before this Ibibo.com?” she asked me.

I began talking about my earlier company and finished when the waiter turned up to clear the soup bowls.

That`s when she made the mistake of asking: “Your first time in North India?”

When I finished answering the question, the waiter was waiting to clear our plates.

Being a smart girl, she didn`t ask any more questions.

I had kept staring at her even as I spoke. At this juncture, I would like to introduce what an astrologer friend of mine called Kennedi once told me: “Keep looking at a girl for more than an hour and she wouldn`t seem as pretty as you thought she was.”

Believe me guys…Kennedi is wrong. I kept staring at Harini and by the time the bill arrived I was in love with her. Perhaps that`s why I didn`t even look at the bill when it arrived. Being the angel she is…the 27-year-old beautiful girl footed the bill.

Wonder why…when we left the Pizza Corner, Harini gave me a warm hug. I would have held on…but she pulled herself apart and walked away towards her car without saying a bye.

Note: I have lost my wallet and if you find it please get in touch with me. We can meet at the Pizza Hut – the place where I lost it.

Other Flirty Reads

# Running away from noodles
# When the toe mattered…
# I think I am a Casanova
# A married man`s guide to safe and sound staring
# St. Valentine, I am looking for ya!

A ‘bet` is an interesting concept. For both Sachin fans and chiropterologists a ‘bat` might seem a better concept but for a gambler like me, ‘bet` is definitely ‘bet`ter. Now, you know why the word ‘better` is not spelt as ‘batter`.

My first bet in life was when my close friend and 7th standard classmate MN Devarajan (if you are MND, I have been looking for you for 15 years!) and I fought over who was Indira Gandhi`s father.

I was saying she was Mahatma Gandhi`s daughter while he stuck to Jawahar Lal Nehru. Like it always happens in a bet, there were indications that it will be a hands down win for me…after all why would Indira`s second name be Gandhi if she was Nehru`s daughter?

Today, people settle their bets in two seconds flat (that`s the time Google takes to throw up the results). Back then we didn`t have Google…so bets took a while to be settled. We went around asking our seniors in school. While they didn`t know the right answer, they started taking sides…soon enough everybody in the school was involved in the bet – each individual was siding with either Nehru or Gandhi.

With everybody in the school looking up to us to decide on who won, we were under tremendous pressure. With nothing else to do, MN Devarajan and I went to our History teacher and asked him: “Sir, who is Indira Gandhi`s father – Nehru or Mahatma Gandhi?”

“You came to the wrong place sons…you might want to ask her mother.”

After a week of questioning people, a man whom both of us thought was a CBI detective posing as a begger in front of our school told us that Indira was Nehru`s daughter. Apparently, Feroze Gandhy (Indira`s husband) changed his surname to ‘Gandhi` …probably to align himself closer to the Mahatma…just before his marriage.

Many years have passed by since my first bet. Just to recollect some of my statements which forced me to enter into a bet and lose –

• Viagra was invented & subsequently named by a guy who was traveling ‘via Agra`
• The Indian book with maximum number of pages is titled ‘List of things I can`t afford` and was written by Mukesh Ambani
• If you want to lose weight, always drink a ‘diet coke` with your chicken burger with extra cheese and large fries.

With years…experience has taught me that while agreeing on a bet, if it looks like you are going to win…chances are you are going to lose.

If you are a good actor like me, you can use the ‘art of betting` in office to turn things in your favor. I have many a times walked up to my boss and said: “I know for sure, this wouldn`t work.”

Obviously, it would work…and then I would walk up to him/her and say: “You were right…that was awesome foresight. How did you manage that? No wonder you are where you are!”

The boss will obviously go “blah blah blah” which you can ignore and once he gives you two seconds to sneak in a question, ask: “So, where do you want me to take you?”

Thus you get to spend some quality time with your boss, and impress him you`re your knowledge of the French wine.

With girls, the art of betting takes a totally different turn. I had a friend called Rohit Delhiwala who once got into a bet with a girl.

They had been going out for six months and had started spending hours on the phone – sometimes up to 5 a.m. in the morning. While I thought this was outrageous…my friend wouldn`t agree. He said, he enjoyed it and wouldn`t mind doing it each day.

One day, with nothing else to do…my friend and his girl friend decided on a bet. One Saturday, the two were not to speak to each other from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m.. The partner who called up the other first would lose the bet. The loser was to buy a gift of the winner`s choice the next weekend.

My friend called in at 10.45 p.m. and lost the bet. Today, they are a lot closer than you and I can imagine. My friend had lost the ‘bettle` but won the war!

You don’t want to miss these as well

# Places you visit before and after marriage
# Do platonic relationships really exist?
# Written in a train: Train-ed Romance
# The second Himani Sahni special

If you have come in from Samachar.com, you might want to read the below given funny posts – # A married man’s romance in Mangalore mail # Entering a new house – the fuss we Indians create # A guide for first time Indian fliers Or go to Ouchmytoe’s Home Page

Come on…give it a shot. Give me a line or two I can put in that speech bubble.

Too shy? Let me set the ball rolling –

From Jammy: “Hey guys, check out my Bugs Bunny teeth!”

Image Courtesy: Uma Iyer (check out her Ibibo office photographs – will help you decide between joining Ibibo now or joining it later 🙂

Update:

Thanks to Sooraj (who left a comment asking if there was a prize), there is a prize involved here! The amount is a measly Rs 500 (a DD will be sent to the winner’s residence).

There are some conditions though –

# I should get at least 30 comments to this post
# I should get at least 20 sentences for the speech bubble

The method of selection –

Out of the 20+ sentences Jammy will pick the top ten and readers of this blog will then vote for the best