Ginger & Cardamom

Lessons
When you look back towards the years spent one finds the life, that there have been series of practical lessons people who have been important at some point in life. I here jot down some of friends who have made me learnt some very important lessons in my life.
•Shantanu- Always stand by your friend, no matter what!
• Ankit- Live every moment to its maximum
•Prince- When you are aspiring for the best, its hard work that makes the difference not the talent
•Shubhajeet- My will I can.
•Wagas- Sometimes it just matters that someone is there doing nothing, but still there for you.
•Sripati Sah- Do everything in life but never loose focus.
•Ravi Mishra- Lust and Liquor can outweigh closest friendships
•Rohan- Sometimes it is better to let go things than to cling on them
•Priya- To trust someone is the fist step to getting betrayed
•Aditya Shekhar- Some people remain beyond the purview of rationale & logic
•Anupam Pathak- No situation in life so worse that you can’t laugh at it
•Shubhadeep Sarkar – How to be a perfect diplomat
•Namit Srivastava- Attitude does count a lot
•Deepti- There can be another line of thought apart from my own
•Somendra Chaubey- The best time to have faith on people is when they are loosing it on themselves
•Reena- Never take a stand but still communicate what I want
•Sumeet- Being ethical
•Sumit- How to do what you think is right.
•Vishay- Being professional and leading from front
•Vikram- How to be nice yet truthful always
•Praveen- Focus Focus & Focus.
•Neha- Sometimes its just a few lines and a smile which can win friends for a lifetime
•Ruchi – Being practical and emotional at the same time
•Mahashweta- Being happy go lucky might win you friends but also lead you to ultimate chaos
•Arindam – Playing Squash
•Vikash, Anoop, Sid, Balli, Saurabh, Rahul – Sometimes a lot of things can happen over silly little nothings
•Nikhil Narayanan – Blogging and Standing up to take the onus to bring changes about things which are not justified.

To everyone who has contributed beautifully to my life. Thanks a lot. And here I tag Vinni & Nik.

Equity Linked Honeymoon Scheme

What happens when people start investing in a stock market with an objective to sponsor something from the gain? One of my friends suggested an interesting case study when we were discussing about how to plan honeymoons by investing in equity markets. This is how his story

Any takers for the scheme…….. ?????

10 Reasons to Avoid Marriage

As you would already know from here that my family, extended family and the further extensions of my extended family is all set for the herculean task of getting me married. Interestingly every one I seem to meet has a piece of advice about how should I choose my spouse. The most discussed topic in the purview of my marriage is to take a call between a homemaker and working wife. So here I present a brief extract I got from the discussions happening around me-
5 Reasons not to marry a Homemaker
1- How will she manage to mingle with your circle of professional friends as your friends are blood sucking corporate honchos and they will eat her alive.
2- She would be financially dependent upon you increasing your burden which is actually true as I feel that I am a burden on myself courtesy P.Chidambram for ever increasing inflation and my company’s compensation & benefits team for a meager hike.
3- She would sit back in the house whole day and will watch the KKapoors Saas Bahu Serials and when you come back home the only thing you will get to hear is “Aaj Tulsi ne Mihir ke liye Chole Chawal Banaye”
4- The major discussion would revolve around the Super Woman aka Kaam Wali Bai (Housemaid) about which you would have no interest to hear until you have something like Rakhi Sawant kneeling to clean the floor.
5- The kitty parties which would become a common event would haunt you with new jewelry demands and with ever increasing commodity prices might lead you to act bearish in the bullish markets.

5 Reasons not to marry a working woman-
1- She will be very driven towards her career, will not take care of you and she will spend all of her time in office. Yeah absolutely right she will be off to her office at 6’o clock well before I wake up (well any time she would go would actually be before I wake up) and will come only after 2 in the night when I would have slept.
2- She will bore you all day (whatever part of it she is in the house) with her office gossip. You know things like aaj mere office main peon ki Billi mar gayi and his boss sang this song for him, there is something fishy between them I am so sure.
3- She would have male friends which would be a source of trouble; when I always though that her female friends might cause greater troubles making me play Ross Geller.
4- She would time share you laptop to check important mails and you will have to bow to thy request and will also consume the bandwidth you use to play online games and watching you tube videos
5- She would interrupt you in buying gadgets & cars for indulging in Buy & hold positions for depreciating assets in the bullish markets.

So eventually I have 5 not so perfect reasons not to marry a home-maker and 5 not so perfect reasons for not to marry a working woman. Moms, Relatives & the jeevansaathi-dot-coms of the world you got any third types??? Bring it on ;-)

Google Ad(Non)Sense

This was the context sensitive add posted on my profile.
Yeah I know what you all are thinking Jeez U folks get a life. This is an ad link for some crappy movie site Yahoo-movies.net which apparently seems to have no connection with yahoo. How fair is to promote some site like this by Google which infringes someone else's brand name

Destroying a Man

Recently I watched a 1995 flick and a quote actually amazed me by their aptness and forced me to write on one of the most clichéd topics. The movie is called Before Sunrise and the quote is

“Jesse: Maybe there are some biological things at work here. If you had an island and there were 99 women on the island and only one man in a year you would have the possibility of 99 babies but if you have an island with 99 men and only one woman in a year you have a possibility of only one baby.

Celine: You know what? On this island I think there were only be 43 men left because they would have killed each other trying to fuck this poor woman. And on the other island there would be 99 women, 99 babies and no more men because they would have all gotten together and eaten him alive.

Jesse: See I think there is something to that...I think on some level I don't think women mind the idea of destroying a man.”

I know I am going to get a lot of feminism crap from some femin-is-it friends of mine. Here goes a list of men who got destroyed directly or indirectly for the great cause called women in chronological order.

Ravana - The mighty dude he fell for a dame, who was the wife of mythological Super-human hunk, and his downfall started with the diversification from regular administration & governing business to kidnapping. Fortunately for the BJP the business worked; the super-human hunk erected a bridge over the Indian Ocean and set Ravana’s Kingdom and backside on fire.

Duryodhan- he got the run for all his money because of his attempt to rip off the saree of his cousin sister in law. Result he was ripped of all his money, brothers, relatives and obviously out of the Kingship business.

Bill Clinton- Mr. President couldn’t keep control over his tongue and got into a habit of locking it at places with this dame called Lewinsky. Almost got impeached and slammed down brakes and passed over his entire career to another dame, Hilary for saving his backside.

Salman Khan & Vivek Oberoi- poor kids of the block got into cat fight for the damsel in distress. The damsel ran without stress for someone who had better press.

Phaneesh Murthy- The dude had an Infy-nite career opportunities but got stuck on dame led him self from Infy-nite from the exit iGATE.

Nicolas Sarkozy – Fell for the sweet voice and the sweeter looks. The dude wanted all of her the dame had things which were different on her mind. The man of public got his dame on the covers for the public. However her nude portrait is being sold at £45,000

Nitish Katara- The stud boy fell for a dame. Got chopped, sliced and got into grind. However the dame says she never had him in the mind.

So I totally believe with what Jesse said; from now no more girls for this guy. Well will apply this after this flight as the airhostess is so cute. Wait she is smiling back…..talk to u later…. :-)

Horse Trading

Was sitting with the Bossty- the Buffet Dude, J-Knee and Ru- the aerobics dudette over lunch and the discussion loomed over a sensitive topic very close to Ru’s heart. Anyways when the discussion is of female clothings (which are generally less of clothes and more of nothing these days, wonder why we call it clothing) Ru is over sensitive. However this time we were sitting on lunch discussing about the plight of a friend of ours who has reached close within the expiry date of his bachelorhood. He went for the Bridal shopping for what is currently his life (over the strong Hava, paani & Reliance network) and would soon become his wife. He told that he went to shop bridal lehenga to commemorate the occasion he would start a new phase of his life and they eventually settled on something on the tunes of 100000 INR. Yes there are no extra zeros in that figure I confirmed thrice.

So when we were discussing the relevance of the so called “Shaadi ka Lehenga” and its exorbitant price (however you can never explain this to a girl). Bossty cam up with an interesting business plan of renting the lehenga’s for marriages and saving money over that. Ru turned her head faster than Shane Warne would dream of turning the ball; and gave a look stamped “Escape; I turned into man-eater”. Scared as ever Bossty tried to fit in the logic that the attire is only meant for being worn once and it is such a waste of money and would be practical and logical to rent a lehenga. Ru’s gaze stopped her to getting into NPV & IRR of the proposition and long term returns. As evident Logic not being Ru’s major in graduation she brought in her area of expertise E-Motions. Marriage happens just for once; how can you wear a rented Lehenga on your own wedding no one would know it but you would know it. Its once in a life time chance to get married (though Bossty had a plan of keeping 4-5 wives and keep shuffling them on yearly basis) but he dared not to interrupt between Ru’s passionate speech.

For once I felt Ru scored over Bossty and the discussion goes to Ru’s passion over the subject. When Bossty asked a question collecting all his innocence which has long left with dreams of onsite –“If that’s the case every guy should buy a horse before the marriage after all it is one time use and marriage is once in a life time opportunity. Shall we ask Ru’s ********* to …........”.

Now Ru & Bossty have a new venture known as “RuBo Lehenga & Horse Rentals”

Long live marriages, expensive lehengas, healthy horses & steady cashflows :-)

Hogging Spree

Out of all the Hyderabad which was tucked cosily in their beds and engulfed in deep sleep. Five brave musketeers went on for an attempt to enhance the food grain crisis in the world and support "The Global Bully's" (read president Bush) claim that "Indians are eating more food". Sob Sob!!! for all the poor Americans who were deprived of food because of 5 desi's. Don't worry folks we will return the favor, you know the guy who would fix your software yes yes the same low wage Indian guy, Will fix your softwares as cheap labors. Anyways getting US out of A this was how we proceeded for the glorious evening-

2030 hrs: Met Di & Ru
2040 hrs: Cafe Brio- Ordered Iced Mochachino & Cottage Cheese Croissant
2100 hrs: Cafe Brio folks threw all three out as they were about to close.
2110 hrs: Update call J-Knee, Bossty on the way
2130 hrs: J-Knee, Bossty, Ru-Di & Me out of McD deciding where to eat
2140 hrs: J-Knee gets McVeggie & Iced Tea for Ru-Di
2150 hrs: Operation Water started Di & J-Knee finish the Iced Tea
2200 hrs: J-Knee and yours truly add water to Ice Tea and pass it to Ru.
2215 hrs: Place still not decided and J-Knee & Ru buy more Ice Tea.
2230 hrs: Place decided Taj banjara.
2245 hrs: Reach Eat street to kill time for midnight buffet to start
2310 hrs: The guard starts the third degree whistling torture to throw the musketeers out
2320 hrs: The musketeers give up ride back to Taj Banjara
2335 hrs: Midnight Buffet menu pathetic everyone back to square one.
2336 hrs: Phone calls to Novotell, Hotel green park, consideration goes on.
2350 hrs: Ohri's suggested
2351 hrs: Di gives us a warning that she would talk about how Integral equations for complex number have a direct application in French Manicures & Padicures if Ohris was considered.
2355 hrs: Urs truly to save the disgrace on the likes of Integral Calculus pushes for Novotel
0000 hrs: Eureka happens Ru Calls Taj Deccan & Krishna
0010 hrs: the group settles for Taj deccan & ransacks Taj Deccan
0030 hrs: Buffet Starts
0035 hrs: Initial Prospecting Finish. Starters Start
0050 hrs: Starters phase 1 finsih
0100 hrs: Soup & Starters Phase 2 continues
0105 hrs: J-knee insists on the Taj guys to burn some bread for the soup.
0110 hrs: Urs Truly & J-Knee continued while Bossty &Ru-Di took a break
0115 hrs: Cute gang of Girls entered the hotel
0120 hrs: J-Knee went to check out them chicks on a pretext of walks
0125 hrs: Bossty follows and then Ru-Di ( I am not sure why)
0130 hrs: The girls happen to come to the Restaurant from their room to check out urs truly ( I know it happens with me quite often)
0130 hrs: Starters round 3 & Cut Fruits continued (all the while expert opinions from Bossty & Ru continued on how to eat more without filling the stomach, They have some weird logic abt the permutations and combinations of eating. Like eating watermelon would enhance the digestion cycle and would lead to more space in the stomach. I always thought it added to the roughage)
0150 hrs: Main Course Round starts
0155 hrs: Parallel Desrt processing start
0215 hrs: Desserts round 1 starts
0220 hrs: Dessert round 2 starts, manager ordered to refill the desert section of the buffet now looking like a ransacked battleground.
0220 hrs: urs truly emphasized on the caramel custard and Ru goes after the strawberry mousse ( which was strawberry mousse I am not sure, becaus ewaiter brought something out of the world when asked for the strawberry mouse)
0230 hrs: Manager comes back telling that we have gobbled everything that could be classified as caramel custard and offered some chocolate pastries instead.
0232 hrs: Pastries finished
0233 hrs: Everyone picked up fruits kept for display & decoration and started eating them.
0235 hrs: The terrified staff closed of the buffet and they have submitted a plea of mercy to the CEO of Taj group to stop the Buffets in all Taj Restaurants across the globe.

and the five musketeers struggled to lift their heavy bodies outside the hotel and our Hogging Spree came to an end.

Ps. Ru-Di have been hogging before I met them at Mochas savoring Dutch truffle Shakes & Club Wraps.

I knw Mr. president you are absolutely right!!!!