Saturday

Blog 5401: Love's in the Hair

Ah, so its already been 3 months since my last post :P
Anyhoo, lemme move right on and post a new one.
This one's a speech I gave for a competition at IIMB... but its worthy of appearing here as a blog post too.
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For the love of hair

A man’s life is full of endless frustrations, fights, struggles, disappointments, ideas, strategies and remedies until the day he gains enlightenment and gives up. The day he realizes that do what he may, he will go bald.

The express purpose of this post, here, today, is to help you reach this conclusion. Allow me to show you that everything in a man’s life is designed to make him go bald. I speak from first hand experience.

I’ll follow the advice that the king gave to the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland. Begin at the beginning and go on till you reach the end.

Now, right from the time we’re born, we are encouraged to go out and play or sit down and study hard. Playing, you must understand, entails going out in the sun, having the wind ruffle your hair and having dirt fly around and settle on your scalp – all of which have been medically proven and constitutionally decried as being detrimental to the proper growth and well being of hair. And when you have the sun, wind and earth coming together to take your hair away, there’s little you can do to stop them.

I would have said ‘Hence proved’ but I see you’re not convinced.

Okay. Take studying. Why do we study? To take exams. What do exams do? They cause stress. What does stress do? It makes you lose hair.

I would have said “Hence proved” but I can see you’re still not convinced.

So consider love. As long as a guy is single, he worries himself no end trying to find a girl. Worrying, of course, does to your hair what George Bush did to the US – ruins it. Now there are three standard techniques that guys use when they’re in this phase of emotional development: a) they buy a bike b) try building muscles; and c) in any case, they spend a lot of money on girls. Now I can show you that each of these three activities is specifically designed to make you go bald. Riding bikes puts your hair at the mercy of the wind. Please refer to my theory on wind and hair propounded a while ago. Building muscles leads to excess male hormone secretion which causes male pattern balding. And spending too much money on girls who don’t finally turn into girlfriends has been known to induce a mature emotion called “I feel like tearing my hair out” which, as the name suggests, is not the best thing to happen to a man’s hair.

I would have said "Hence Proved" but some of you are... well...

So, if indeed the girl converts to girlfriend, things quickly move into marriage and parenthood territory. Both of those are positions of responsibility that a. don’t give you resume points and b. cause stress. Hence, more hair lost.

This phase of life also corresponds to a thing called work life. Governments around the world have asked tobacco companies to put the picture of a skull and write “Statutory Warning: Cigarette smoking is injurious to health” on cigarette packets. There shall come a day when such things will also have to be put on job appointment letters. Work is something that comes with a cloud around it that has “stress, stress, stress” written all over. First you have to study hard to get a good job. Then you have to work hard to retain the good job. If you don’t work hard, your boss will fire you. If you work too hard and stay long hours in office, your wife will leave you. Both events are known to cause stress. Stress is known to cause hair loss.

I hope I have made it adequately clear to you how playing, studying, love, marriage and work – all of them – will make you go bald. I’d wish, but my theory isn’t all just a conjecture I’ve dreamed up. Its backed up by solid observations from my own life. I personally have shown a lot of loyalty to my hair. Unfortunately, its been one way traffic for quite a while now. I f you really want to know how bad things are, then here's a story: a few days ago, a friend of mine put up a status message “Bad hair day”. I replied back with a status message of my own that read – ‘bad hair life’.

I would have said "I think you're not convinced yet", but I think I'll just say, "Hence Proved!"

Sunday

Blog 5102: An update

This pic!


This pic symbolizes exactly what I described in the post http://sunnyblogs.blogspot.com/2009/02/blog-4801-dream-on.html

Thanks Sandy... got it from your comment on Kadir's status on Facebook!

Saturday

Blog 5101: A normal day in the life of Suite-16

5.58 pm
Cell phone shows "Shailu Calling".
Shailu:"Sunny, tu office mein hai?"
Me: "Yups... ssup?"
Shailu: "Oh good, IRCTC ki site khol".

Sunny, though, is busy playing Pathwords on Facebook.

Me: "Haan yaar... (while I make another pathword)... khol raha hoon... umm... ek sec"
1.43 mins left on this game.
I realise it wasn't going so well.
Game kaata.

Flashback.
Abhinav Somani is getting married this Tuesday.
The first of the inhabitants of Suite-16 to get married.
:-)
I'm unable to go coz of a misalignment of the planets in the Solar System.
Shailu decided on Thursday that he's going.
Booked tickets.
Azad Hind Express for today, Saturday, on waiting list.
Spicejet for Tuesday morning confirmed.

Shailu: "Ghar pe power cut hai. Site dekh ke bata ki meri ticket ka kya status hai".
I open IRCTC's website.
Shail gives me his login, password.
Says the train is for 6.25 pm.
Its 6 pm right now.
We're cool, Honeybunny.
We're cool.

He basically wants to ensure that he's still on the waiting list so that he can cancel his ticket.
But...
There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.
Site shows a change in ticket status.
Ticket confirmed, seat reserved.
Shail: "Oh!"
Shail: "Toh... should I go?!"
Adi from next room:"Ticket confirm?! Toh jaaa!"
Shail:"O teri... !"

First hiccup.
The e-ticket hasnt been printed yet.

25 mins.
To pack bags.
To print ticket.
To reach station.
To catch train.

Divide and conquer.
Adi goes to cyber cafe to print ticket.
Shail packs.
But...
There's many a slip betwixt the cup and the lip.
Power cuts everywhere.
Cyber cafe has no power.

I try calling Railway station to see if they allow passengers without printed ticket and just with valid ID card.
Its ringing.
No response.

6.10.
15 mins to go if the train's on time.
They're headed to the station on Adi's bike.
But...
There's many a slip...
Second hiccup.
Adi's bike has a UP registration number.
Traffic policeman stops them.
Asks for papers.
They dont have the papers on the spot.

Ragda+makhhan.
"Jaaane do sir"
"Train hai sir"
"Mere do bemaar bachhe hain us train mein sir"
Policeman: ?! ?!
"Zindagi aur maut ka sawaal hai sir. Jaane do. Upar waala aapka bhala karega"
The works.

The policeman tells them to submit the license and PUC papers and come back from the station with NOC to retrieve them.

Meanwhile, I narrate the story so far to Dot Lal on gchat.
Dot lal:Wanna bet?
Me: I think he's screwed
Dot lal: I think so too.
Me: We need to find someone who's willing to bet he ain't screwed.
Dot lal: That would be Shailu

6.25
I desist from calling Shail or Adi.
I expected them to be on the bike frantically trying to reach the station.

6.30.
Phone says "Shailu calling"
I fear for the worst.
Me: "Kya hua finally?!"
Shail: TRAIN MEIN HOON!"
And he tells me the whole story about printing the ticket and the traffic police guy.
Screw clothes, he also packed Shantaram and his lappy.

The only thing left now...
Shail: Ab yeh Spicejet cancel karna hai
:-)

Tuesday

Blog 4802: What's the Good Word?!

I've had an itch for a long time.
And I've decided its about time I scratched in public.

There's this word I've been trying to recollect for ages.
I knew it a few years ago.
Then Kgp happened.
As I started making space for Kgp lingo and other affiliated words, this particular word, along with lots of others, eloped from my memory.
Then one day, I came across a situation that illustrated this word and tried hard to recollect it.
Kuppa.
No search results found.

Just like all guys who've been after some girl who doesnt reciprocate, or appreciate, or understand, or (oh-fcuk) recognise, their feelings, I came to the conclusion that I was trying too hard.
I was giving this word more attention than I was getting from it.
I decided to take it easy.
Slowly.
To lay back.
The word will recognise how much I've craved it and it'll come to me.

Like many of the girls in the stories referred to above, it never did.

But time heals all wounds.
'Out of sight, out of mind.'
I got busy in other words.
Like anyhoo.
Life rolled along and I went with the flow.
Anyhoo.

Until yesterday.
Apro da's status message yesterday brought the past crashing back to haunt my present.
I realise I haven't told you much about the word yet.
So here goes.
His status message yesterday read: I dont want to jinx it... so I wont say that the weather is darned good.
This is an art.
This thing... where you say something while professing to not say it.

"I dont want to upset you and so I wont talk about what a fcukin bitch you are."
"I dont want to remind you of that incident where you embarassed yourself before the whole school that spring day, 7th March 2001, in junior high... so I wont talk about it"
You get the drift.
There's a word that describes this... (lemme repeat)... this saying something while professing to not say it.

The thing is, I can't recollect this word.
So here's a plea for search-and-rescue.
Do search for this word and rescue me from this itch.
And just in case you thought I was referring to some other itch/scratching in the beginning...

... I really want you to look for this word and so I will not talk about how crappy your thinking is.
:-P