The wonders of Google!

In early November 2007, I had traveled in an Air Deccan flight from Chennai to Delhi. As always happens with me (and compulsively so!) I wrote a funny piece of my experiences on the flight – and my fantasies with Air Deccan Air Hostess Poornima and Kavita – titled My Flight Back to Gurgaon, alone. As part of the article, I also wrote about First Officer Brinder Singh of Air Deccan.

jammy, the culprit

Brinder, in case you want to know how I look

The article was a good hit and a lot of discussion happened around it.

Now, five months after the post was written and forgotten…the First Officer himself stumbled upon the blog post, courtesy Google. Not only that…he also left a long yet sportive comment.

To read the article I had written, Click Here
To read the comment First Officer Brinder Singh wrote today at 9.12 p.m., Click Here

Brinder, thanks for turning out to be a sport. My blog is a funny take on my life and more often than not I am (or my family is) the butt end of my jokes. Sometimes…and only sometimes…others end up being a part of the joke. But this is the first time that somebody came, read the post written on them, left a comment and then conquered my heart. But why should you bother….I am no pretty girl in red. 😉

*And yes, Poornima did return my money. The line in the article was supposed to be a joke.

Bathing a baby girl

Giving bath to a baby isn`t as easy as it is made out to be. More so, when two pair of watchful eyes are prying over your shoulder. Yesterday, Rekha and I ran into each other at home and the final verdict was that I wasn`t contributing much to our baby daughter`s upkeep.

Arguing that all the clothes she wore came from my money, didn`t hold water. Apparently, in a relationship providing money alone isn`t enough. One also needs to give time and I wasn`t giving that. Maybe, that`s why when it was time to bathe our baby daughter, the over-enthusiastic me blurted out: “Do you mind if I bathe her today?”

An ear-to-ear grin was accompanied by a “Sure, why not?” The promptness with which the approval came made me wonder if I had just walked into a trap. Only because we Rajans aren`t used to backing out did I stay put and decided to go ahead with the plan.

Bathing a baby Girl

The only time when I smiled

As we all do these days, I did a quick Google search on ‘How to bath a baby` and didn`t find much. There were articles on BabyCentre.com etc, but how much can text convey? A search for ‘How to bath a baby` in Youtube.com (for videos of course) yielded 8260 results….but not a single baby taking bath was an Indian, so I didn`t gather much there as well.

Swallowing my pride, I asked Rekha: “Where is the instructional manual that came with the baby?”

“Do you remember half of our relatives telling us that Rhea looks like a Chinese doll?”

“Yes, I remember. What about that?” I was a tad irritated.

“Then, you probably also remember that Chinese versions don`t come with instructional manuals. They are imitations.”

With nothing to follow, I decided to take the plunge. After removing Rhea`s clothes, I gently rubbed Johnson & Johnson Baby Oil on her Nandita Das like skin (now don`t ask me how I know how Nandita`s skin feels).

In a way, babies are also like machines….a well oiled baby works well. As soon as the oiling was done, Rhea pissed and soiled my t-shirt and shorts. Since I was anyway going to take bath after bathing my daughter, the higher authorities in my house decided to let me stay with a urea-drenched T-shirt and shorts.

After about ten minutes, I eased the baby into a small bath tub filled with really hot water. She splashed around for a while…but when she realized that the person bathing her was a novice, she started crying. The yellow duck in the small tub didn`t help. Neither did a promise of a visit to the zoo – perhaps, because she is just one year old and doesn`t understand a zoo.

Bathing a baby Girl

Rhea looks up to see it isn’t the mom this time

The problem with bathing a kid is that, they keep on moving. It is like competing in a best handwriting contest when your pen is tied to the leg of a hen. I tried my best, but couldn`t save the soap water from entering her eyes – after which Rhea cried as if it were my fault. She definitely gets her anger from the mother.

Midway through, I was about to give up.

“Can you take over please? I am finding it difficult.” I pleaded.

“Would you find it as difficult if she wasn`t your daughter and she was at least 25 years older?” Rekha asked.

I just gave her a wry smile and continued to bathe my daughter.

The whole exercise took ten minutes….and only for about 30 seconds was Rhea at peace. Considering the slight temperature increase in the water, I suspect she was reliving herself at that point of time.

Anyway, I emerged out of the biggest challenge fatherhood could throw at me – besides, removing soiled diapers, washing soiled baby undies, and cleaning the beanbag after the baby pukes – victorious.

If you have a baby and plan to bathe him/her…or are pregnant and might end up bathing a baby soon enough, here is a video that could be useful. 🙂

Other such funny reads

# Communicating a baby`s birth to the World
# Come to me baby!
# The baby-mother bonding
# The initial months of pregnancy

Is my daughter a super hero?

When my daughter Rhea was born on March 29, 2007…one of my nephews was waiting in the corridor with me. He wasn`t moving up and down the corridor as I was…but was staring at the sky looking for the stork to bring in the baby.

As soon as the nurse brought Rhea wrapped in a clean, white cloth, my nephew asked: “I didn`t see any stork coming…how did the baby come?”

My mother in law who I am told was brought up on a high dosage of super heroes said: “She came from another planet…some place called Krypton. You know Superman also came from there.”

Superhero Spider Girl

My daughter might end up wearing these clothes!

Back then, I thought my mother in law was only trying to answer a curious 9-year-old. But considering the developments in the last few months, I have a feeling that my daughter probably is a superhero.

Our suspicion was triggered when we realized she enjoyed spending time in the balcony – isn`t that the favourite spot of all our super heroes? Have you ever seen a super hero use the door to leave or enter the house? They always use the balcony!

As if that wasn`t enough, she has got amazing eyesight. She is capable of spotting even the smallest of dirt – something that average people like you and me wouldn`t even spot on the floor. I have a feeling, she is honing this skill of hers…because everyday we are forced to remove at least 5-6 small items that she puts in her mouth.

Rhea can also crawl into any space – even the six inch space between our treadmill and the wall – and come out unscathed. When I tried to do the same, I got stuck and we had to call the fire fighters.

Now that she is learning to stand by herself, she spends a lot of time standing against walls…trying to feel the surface. She probably wants to scale them….and is feeling the texture of the wall. She is also seen licking the surface…guess that`s how the superheroes decide on which trick to use to scale a wall.

When we try and play with her, she keeps waving her hands up and down…and then looks at her palm…as if something that was to come out of her palms…wasn`t coming. A web, perhaps. When she isn`t looking at her palms, she enjoys making strands of her saliva and playing with them.

After seeing all these activities, we have confirmed that she is indeed a superhero in the making….and now are debating which superhero she would grow up to be. We couldn`t arrive at a decision till late last night….and that`s when we spotted a spider biting her on her exposed thighs.

Now, it is confirmed…she is going to be Spiderwoman!

Other Funny Reads

# Conversation: Osama vs Batman
# Super heros comics on toilet papers
# Two things that are never bought at the same time
# I love traveling second class….
# The letter my wife wrote to me

Father makes a video on son, hopes for movie offers

Not many in the same family are talented. God has his way of distributing talent, and for proof one just needs to look around one`s own family. But then, there are certain exceptions to the rule. Like my friend Shivkumar Parthasarathy, who works for a competitor BigAdda, while I work for ibibo. One boring afternoon, he spent three hours with his son and discovered that his son was a talented actor. End Result: A good video on Youtube.

The talent was spotted a little too late for his son to participate in ibibo MTV iSuperstar contest but great going anyway.

Check out this video if you don`t believe me:

Flashback: My days in London

Year 1997 was a watershed in my life. I was adjudged Tamil Nadu`s second best Naval NCC Cadet (don`t ask me why I wasn`t the first – even my father didn`t dare ask), I spent seven days in UK and three months in Canada. We will leave my Canadian sojourn for now and focus only on my British experiences, in this blog post.

Even when I was a kid my father taught me my first history lesson. He said that the ‘sun never set on the English Empire`. My father turned out to be a big liar. In the seven days I was in London, the sun didn`t even come out. My shirt, trousers and the umbrella were always drenched.

No wonder wherever I went, natives asked: “Nice weather eh?” So much so, I thought British TV channels should stop having the weather report – why make such a big fuss over the weather when we know it is going to rain.

Those of you who have never had the privilege of taking an Air India flight to Canada that developed a technical snag and had to be grounded for a week in UK….let me tell you that it`s a very damp country.

I think it was the first day of our stay and we decided to visit the Piccadilly Circus. Since my childhood days, I have had a thing for the Russian girl acrobats, and thus loved trips to the circus. Some of the popular ones I remember are the Royal Circus, The Russian Circus & The Jumbo Circus. If you have been to many such circuses you have probably noticed that the poor circuses employ Malayali girls with shaven legs.

Anyway, as I was saying…Piccadilly Circus was a total rip-off. There were no Russian acrobats and no wild animals and no clowns. That day I decided not to trust the British. Anyway, who would want to trust a country that was once run by a Prime Minister who carried his Army Rank behind his name – John Major!

While people like you and me dress down for dinner (that`s getting into our pyjamas and lungis)…the British dress up for dinner. Imagine, shouting back, “Momma, I am ironing my suit,” when she called you for dinner?

During my stay there, I also went to Stratford-on-Avon – the place where Shakespeare was born. You wouldn`t believe it…but there was no place to break coconuts, no place to do an aarti, and no place buy garlands. How was I to show my respects to the man? Literary alright…but what kind of a pilgrimage would that be?

This brings us to the question that begs to be answered, “which country would take its ‘plays` so seriously?”

I also happened to pass over the London Bridge. It was amazing sight. I was reminded of the childhood days when we would sing: ‘London Bridge is falling down`. Later, I would come to know that the rhyme was written as a tribute to the number of times the bridge had fallen only to be put back in shape again. By those standards, we should have had nursery rhymes for our cricket team:

Our cricketing standards are falling down,
falling down, falling down,
Our cricketing standards are falling down.
My fair lady.

Build it up with Dhoni & Sachin,
Dhoni & Sachin, Dhoni & Sachin,
Build it up with Dhoni & Sachin,
My fair lady.

Dhoni & Sachin will retire away,
Retire away, Retire away,
Dhoni & Sachin will retire away,
My fair lady.

(The rhyme is actually a 12 stanza piece, that`s difficult to memorize)

By the time the technical snag in our airplane was set right, I had realized one thing…London is a boring place. Especially because living there was like living in Punjab still ruled by the Britishers!

Other Funny Reads

# When I became a cockroach
# Accepting gifts from relatives
# Dangers of Short Messaging Service (SMS)
# To be a father or not to be
# Communicating a baby`s birth to the World

Please use the Import function provided below to invite your friends / relatives to read Ouchmytoe.com.

From where are you looking at it?

An English teacher known to be a strong lady, wrote these words on the blackboard: “woman without her man is nothing”.

She then turned towards the students and asked them to punctuate the words correctly.

The boy students wrote: “Woman, without her man, is nothing.”

The girl students wrote: “Woman! Without her, man is nothing.”

There you go…

Gift a Laugh – Tell your friend about Ouchmytoe

We at ibibo always try to implement virals in all our products. While it helped us provide the best for the ibibo user, it has also helped us grow into one of India`s top social networking site.

This got me thinking…why haven`t I tried any of that on Ouchmytoe? So here it is – a quick viral, which, if you please, can increase the number of people who read Ouchmytoe.com.

Why should I introduce Ouchmytoe.com to my friends/relatives?

If you have been reading Ouchmytoe.com for a while now and feel the need to come daily, chances are your friends / relatives are going to love it to0. After all, laughter is an intense emotion which needs to be shared…gifted.

Here is the mail that goes out to the people you have invited:

Importing Contacts

Please use the Import function provided below to invite your friends / relatives to read Ouchmytoe.com.

On why I hate this 12-month-old girl

Only recently, Darsheel Safary (the child actor in Taare Zameen Par) got nominated in the Filmfare 2007 Best Actor category and gave Shah Rukh Khan a run for his money. Thankfully, King Khan managed to win the award….but I am sure SRK hates the kid`s guts.

As it happens in all super heroes` lives…..this Saturday my life was also affected by a 12 month old girl – no, not my daughter. This baby girl stays in our apartment and celebrated her birthday on 1st March. Here is why I hate her.

Having had a bit of wine on Friday night, I got up Saturday with a mild hangover. The innocent lady that my wife is, she said: “You seem to be having regular headaches. Shouldn`t we check with an optician if your glasses are fine?”

I didn`t want to tell her that my glasses were fine…and it was what I poured into them that was the issue. Anyway, the point is….I didn`t have a great beginning to the weekend.

While sitting at my dinning table with my head in my hands, the door bell rang. When opened, I saw a handsome couple with an invitation card.

Their daughter was celebrating her first birthday and they were throwing a lavish party….and we were being invited. It has been eight months since anybody invited us anywhere.

Rekha and I were startled, and didn`t know how to react. We grabbed the invitation and before uttering customary statements like “Ohhh! That`s so sweet…so how old is she?” “That`s neat…what is her name?” “Has she started walking….ours hasn`t.”….we slammed the door shut.

It was faint, so can`t be sure if I heard it right….but I think I heard somebody say: ‘Bunch of assholes` the moment I slammed the door.

I immediately called a domestic conference…where it was decided to do a tele- conference with our parents in Tamil Nadu and Kerala and seek advice on what to do. Their response was simple…buy a gift, wear glitzy clothes (apparently, that`s what Northies do at parties), wear some traditional ornaments to attract eyeballs….and be at the venue one hour late.

With a head that was singing praises of wine, we had to visit the nearest shopping mall to buy a gift. Reaching there was only 10% of the trouble….the rest was in buying a gift. Have you ever tried buying a gift for a 12-months-old? Especially, when you end up seeing the 12-month-old`s parents daily on morning walks?

“Can we buy this?” I asked pointing at a good, big package.

Baby Walker Gift

Baby Walker: This is the gift we bought

“That`s a video game to be played on game consoles.” Rekha rubbished me.

“Can we buy this?” I asked pointing at Monopoly.

“Twelve-month-olds don`t play Monopoly.” She rubbished me again.

After two disappointments, I didn`t suggest anything. If you have been in a mall looking for something for a 12-month-old…you probably understand my situation. After two hours and a hundred shops we found what a purist would describe as a “Train Baby Walker” for the simple reason that this baby walker had a train in the front that would create music (like AR Rahman) when the child tried to walk (Suggestive Image Given).

The Train Baby Walker cost us Rs 800 (ok, it cost us Rs 600 only, but it sounded cheap!) and after gift wrapping it we came back home.

Living in a city where you only have colleagues (and a few scattered friends here and there) has its drawbacks – one doesn`t get invited often. And when suddenly an invitation lands on your lap…the whole weekend goes for a toss.

Scared of being in a crowd of strangers, I decided not to dress up. While Rekha looked at silk sarees and ornaments from traditional Kerela jewelers, I opted to hold the baby.

“Why aren`t you dressing up? This is your chance to wear that shiny black shirt you paid two thousand for,” Rekha said.

“You know…if I don`t dress up I can pass off as the caterer and so wouldn`t have to strike conversations with strangers.” My wife seemed convinced and didn`t argue.

Though we were asked to be there at seven, we graced the occasion only at eight. The girl`s father walked up to us, turned towards Rekha and asked: “What happened…your husband didn`t come?”

And before Rekha could respond, he turned towards me and said: ‘Guests have started eating, why don`t you ensure the desserts are displayed now itself? Come on…don`t waste your time here.”

Like I said, I hate that 12-month-old girl.

Other Funny Reads

# Why do pretty girls don`t propose anymore?
# Babies alone don’t have teething Issues
# The tonsuring & ear piercing ceremony
# Flirting with an air hostess with a baby in hand

Try out other such funny articles from the Ouchmytoe Archives