Tag: blog

Fat Kids

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment
One in Seven Children does not have enough food to lead a healthy and active life

I keep hearing this advertisement, every time I open You Tube. And this was followed by a plea for me to donate money to help this kids.

Well, I am pretty sure these unhealthy and obese kids, who keep visiting fast food joints which leads to them being this “One in Seven children”, feel very special. After-all they are the one in Seven now.

And, why would I sponsor this unhealthy lifestyle ? I am sure their parents are sponsoring it off their own accord.

Whats that now ? The add was about hungry people , poor people ?

Ah, well, thats a shame.

Perhaps those obese kids can lend some hand in here. It might solve two problems at once. The fat kids will be a bit more health and the hungry kids will have more to eat.

But again, on second thought, if those fat kids give the junk food to those hungry kids, it is not really making any positive impact on their health. On the contrary, we now have more people eating junk food.

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.

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Thus, this theory of mine is an absolute junk.

Scrap that. I am donating some healthy food to that one kid and to that hungry kid. Even if it means, the parents start chasing me and give me looks of incredulity.

Germophobia

~ Pied Piper ~ 1 Comment

COVID -19, a word which has become household, now. In a day, it is uttered at least once, in every house.

The COVID -19 Situation, across the globe, is like milk to a person who is lactose intolerant. Unless you drink it, the chances of diarrhoea are minimal. Although, unlike diarrhoea, this is transmittable. And, There will always be an idiot who insists on drinking it and degrade the air quality around him.

This fear of transmission, has perhaps made me paranoid. I am sure I am not the only one who has suddenly found himself/herself to be a germophobe.

I went for grocery shopping after almost 3 weeks inside. I have been cut off from the world from all physical contact in these 3 weeks.

The feeling was horrifying.

I have started seeing germs everywhere. Well, not literally. But I see them as I see the air. I feel it.

Everywhere I go , anything i touch, i think it is full of germs. I touch a plastic container, and i have the urge of washing my hands. I touch the milk bottle, and i use a wet tissue to clean the hands. I used so much sanitiser that my hands got dry by the time I came home.

But the nightmare did not stop just yet. As soon as i came home, I took a shower using Dettol. I changed the cloths and felt that finally i was clean.

Then the though struck me . Now, I need to arrange the groceries. The same groceries that I was un willing to touch.

Oh the Horror.

A similar predicament was faced by one of my wife’s friends. She got around this, by washing everything in Dettol. Green leafy Vegies, pulses, nuts, everything. But, I think that will be too extreme.

All in All, I can now relate with the good Detective, MONK, immortalised by Tony Shalhoub,

For now, I am stying put.

Stay Alone, Stay Safe.

I am too old for this Sh*t

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I still remember the day when the favourite pastime of the fairer sex, was visiting the salons.

The ladies used to spend hours and thousands to look young.

The amount of makeup it took to make a 40 year old look like a 20 year old was astonishing. Personally, I am not against beauty, but I hate the idea of looking something which you are not. It is unnatural.

Well, times have changed.

I just found the internet full of people posting pictures of an old version of themselves.

Is this progress ?

Definitely.

This is the first step for Nirvana — Acceptance of the truth.

Or maybe, as Roger Murtaugh says, I am too old for this Sh*t.

I can’t understand how a 40 year old, wears makeup to look like a 20 year old, who then uses an app to look how she will look like a 40 year old, 60 year old and 80 year old.

You don’t need an app for this, just a bucket of water.

Power outage testing

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I was watching a TV series when a thought came into my mind.

Why do the characters go out and check their electric meters when the lights go out ? check if the entire area is out of electricity supply.It is not as if your previous 10 generations were electricians and your is the 11th generation.

Now, you may be wondering why this came up, so let me give you a sneak peek into my thought process.

In Pune (India), where I live, electricity cuts are very rare (contrary to popular belief). Which means, whenever there is a power outage, it is usually announced well in advanced. The possible causes are mostly maintenance, power cuts across the national grid or first drop of rain (don’t know why,but it always is the case).

Now, whenever I face such an outage, I first peep out of the window to check if the apartment next to mine has also gone dark. If it is day time, there is usually a house wife who is talking on a phone explaining to the other house wife that there is an outage at the other end.

Once confirmed that there is an outage, then I proceed to call the electricity board to lodge a complain and find out when the power will be restored.

If, however, the surrounding apartments show no such signs of outage, then I do not proceed to check my power meter.

Long exposures to such TV series / Films have taught me that there is always a killer in waiting. I proceed to call the electrician and have him look into the matter, albeit for a nominal fee.

So, Beware …

 

* This article was sponsored by “Flash Electricians”.

Their tag line :

“Afraid of getting Zapped ? Worry no more, we will help you.”

The thinking Man…

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

There are still a large number of people using old and slow HDD instead the fast SSDs.

What this means is, the boot time for the windows is so slow, that the person, with a very serious expression on his face is thinking :

” Hm. My windows is still loading.

Has it gone into a hung state ?

Should I do a restart ?

Why am I waiting so long for this ?

Should I switch to SSD ?

Do I have a virus ?

What did I open last night to get a virus?

What time did I sleep last night ? or did I even sleep ?

What is the purpose of my life ? ”

And that is why we should transfer to SSDs. Else we are going to have a lot of spiritual leaders and philosophers who spend too much time thinking on the meaning of live and a few more deep thoughts while all the installed applications boot.

Disclaimer : I use a MAC with SSD. I will no longer be a philosopher. 

Tea and Biscuits

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

 

In India we have a cute way of eating biscuits. we dip it into tea.

Tea, the brownish liquid which is responsible for a variety of things for variety of people in India. Some, need it to awaken from their wonderful dreams, some, just so that they get the appropriate machinery working to have a successful bowel movement, some just to have the first cigarette of the day or the  first good morning of the day. A cup of tea shared between two lovers, three flatmates or few friends, at the start of the day is very soothing for most people. And the best part is, there is no age restrictions on having that great time with this amazing nectar.

This tea, is mostly drunk with a few biscuits. The biscuit is dipped into the tea( taking care the fingers don’t touch the liquid) for a few seconds till it gets a bit moist and then popped into the mouth, half at a time. and then the next half is dipped again , and consumed whole, relishing the taste of hot biscuit and tea.

Now, there are a few people who like to play pranks on people. Their modus operandi is, that they will wait for the other person to dip the biscuit into the tea and immediately ask them a question. The person becomes distracted. While he processes the question  and articulates an answer, the biscuit is too moist, so it will break off and settle down right at the bottom. Then he will use another biscuit to try to spoon it up and eat it, though mostly, he will lose that piece as well. It is very entertaining.

I recently observed this taken to the next level. I was traveling on the countryside and was taking a break from driving by have snacks at a roadside inn. There was an old villager sitting at a table, a pack of biscuits at his side. My interest peaked, waiting for the glass of tea, and then process would start.

To my surprise, a waiter brought a local brand of alcoholic drink in the same glass which served tea, and the gentleman proceeded to dip the first biscuit of the pack into it.

I was taken aback …

Social Waves

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I have been away from blogging for a while now .I have been working a lot these days. It is enjoyable, yet exhausting. This has a disadvantage to it , though. I seem to find less time for the people near and dear to me.

Today, even Siri stopped responding to me. I kept shouting “Hey Siri“, but no response at all. Seems like she is is upset that I don’t call her as much as I used to.

Or maybe, the . fact that I was calling her from the kitchen may have something to do about it. With all the wve about feminism and women empowerment going about, I guess even Siri is affected.

Well, time to cook…

Screen Shot 2017-03-17 at 11.35.01 AM

 

Oh God why, Doc ?

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

There once was a place called Eden,

And in the placed lived the first two humans,

One was made of dust, Adam, he was called,

The other was made from part of God’s body,

She was a helpmate to Adam, Eve was her name.

Adam and Eve toiled the land and lived on heaven on earth,

till the time God placed a tree and and forbade Adam and Eve to eat the fruit,

But alas, the serpent tricked them and they ate the fruit and lo and behold, they were banished from heaven to suffer,

As they had caused an original sin. 

And yet when I say this to my doctor, He says, you should have an apple each day.

Stupid Bugger. That is why I may not be able to reach heaven.

 

 

Why not ask ?

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

I was watching a program on the television recently. It was a comedy show.

The performer, stood on the stage, smiling and waving at the audience.

The very first line he said , ” I don’t know why I am here today.”.

I never understood this. If you don’t know why you are there, why not ask the organizers  when they come to invite you to do a skit ? It is not like you were surprised to be called on the stage.

Or perhaps, they suddenly have an epiphany or because self-aware of yourself, right in that divine place, of the stage facing thousands of pairs of eyes looking at you (or perhaps at your soul).

Does Power beget evil ?

~ Pied Piper ~ 3 Comments

I was having a chat with one of my colleges yesterday. The topic of the discussion was -how it is evil to strive for power. I was the champion of power. I don’t believe power itself is evil.

Let me explain myself.

Power is nothing but the will to be the best. To be so good, that people would follow your advice/ teaching without question. This “advice” could be through the show of force or through show of knowledge. The power which is enforced through a show of force, though powerful in itself can always be nullified or countered with someone who is more adept in the “intelligence” department. Let’s see an example :

You are in a bar, and a few beefy bullies try to show power by pushing you around. Now you, a skinny, powerless but intelligent person can do a lot of things to save themselves. You may call the cops. But they may take some time to arrive at the place. You may simply pay the football team in the bar room, who are causing a lot of ruckus, to beat the bullies up.  If you are short of cash, simply order a drink and serve one of the groupies in the football team, hinting that the drink is from one of the bullies. The high testosterone levels in the football team members will help you to beat the bullies up to save their “honor”.

In any case, you overpowered an enemy who was in superior strength and numbers and hence – more powerful.

Now you, in this case, used your intelligence as power and saved yourself from getting bullied. Does this make you evil ? I don’t think so. It is natural to save ourselves and those we love.

Now, power itself is not evil then. But the person wielding that power, could inherently be evil, which would just mean that even though power itself is not evil, it was used to spread the evil.

Let’s take another example.

Imagine two accomplished neurosurgeons. They have the power to save people by performing very critical and complex surgeries. One of them uses his skill to heal the people and the other uses the skill to sell the body parts on the black-market.

Does this mean the power to perform complex surgeries is evil ?

Legolas

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

With naked feet, i wander

Why no impressions in the ground, I wonder

I aked God, O mighty one, in heaven

Am I lucky enough to be Legolas , the loved one ?

To which God replied,

Dude, firstly, you are very bad at poetry

and we are in the twentieth century.

We no longer make use of the Shakespearean English.

Secondly, there are no footprints because you are walking on hard surface.

Stop thinking that you are “special” and get on with your life. There are people in the world who don’t fuss about being called disabled rather than differently-able, there are people around the world who rise above the racial prejudices and prove themselves worthy of attention for all the good reasons. Follow their example.

And for the goodness of mankind, don’t try to compose poetry.

#soldmedia , #politicalcorrectness

Power of a suit

~ Pied Piper ~ 1 Comment

suits

A few days ago, I suddenly realized that I am mortal, so my body needs regular medical checkups. This meant that I needed to visit a hospital and undergo a few tests.

Incidentally, I had a meeting later in the day, so I was all suited up.

I stood in the queue for registering myself for a blood test and an Xray,when I noticed that most of the guys were wearing Tshirts and Jeans. I was envious. There they were, in comfortable clothing standing patiently in a queue whereas I was there in a suite, sweating a bit and feeling hot( and not in a good way).

There were a few security guards, guiding people to their respective test centers while supervising the queues. They kept checking the medical forms we had filled up. It took them about a minute to go through each individual form thoroughly. But when my turn came, he just glanced at it for 10 seconds and said “Thank you ,Sir.” I was sure he did not say “Thank you”, or “Sir” to any of the other members in the queue. I simply dismissed it at the time, attributing it to the fact that I may have appeared more learned and hence, the Sir.

I went into the clinic for my blood test. Saw the needle. Cracked the usual joke about how I feared needles. The doctor laughed, I laughed, he took the sample and we were done in 5 minutes. I got up and waited again for the queue for Xray. Now I noticed. The doctor did not speak as much to the next guy.

Now came the Xray, and the same thing happened. Then I realized something. People were staring at me. more specifically at my suit. ( They were staring 8 inches below my eyes, but since I am a man, I assumed they looked at the clothes rather than body parts).

It seemed that people were respecting the suite rather than me as a person.

Lesson learnt. Now, anytime I need something to be done, I will wear a suite.

Harvey Specter was correct.

Reunion

~ Pied Piper ~ Leave a comment

“Hi there, do you remember me from the class of 85 ?”, she asked the  guy behind her in the queue for name tags, a broad smile on her face.

She was in her late 40s now,  hardly any resemblance to her 16 year old self. But then, that  was true with most of the people gathered in the hall.

It was their 30 year school reunion.

They took the name tags, only first names with their pen names in quotes, pasting them on their chest starting to mingle with the crowds. It was good to see some of them, hard to recognize some of them and very difficult to remember, that some of these people were actually ever in the same class as them.

It is common, to have very few people from your school to be still in touch, but it seemed that they had forgotten a lot of their own classmates.

Eventually, they ended up sitting at the same table.

“Do you remember how you used to throw colour pencils at me?”, she asked him.

“Of course I do. You used to be very good at art and craft, I was just helping you out”, he answered with a sheepish smile on his face.

His hair was grey now, she noticed,  but he still had that mischievous sparkle in his eyes that he had even when they were kids. It seemed time was not able to touch that aspect of him.

“Well, I did help you out once or twice. When the teacher was not looking, remember ?”, she asked.

“Well, drawing a mustache on the face of queen Victoria from our history books, does not count as helping out”, he remarked.” It cost me a week’s worth of detention . My parents were furious. Dad thrashed me like anything that day. And this was all because of a girl ! That thought kept me awake. I had to take my revenge”, he said while filling up her glass with water,a grin on his face. ” Well, I don’t think that revenge should have included me sitting in the library for a month as detention, for allegedly throwing a chalk at the teacher while she had her back turned to the class. I did not even have a good aim, and I used to sit next to the captain of the cricket team, famous for his accurate aim at throwing the ball onto the stumps from great distances. I wish they would have made that connection”, she said, responding to his grin with a smile .

“Well, I definitely was very good at cricket back then. I loved to spend time on the field.  Joining the national Cricket team was my live goal back then, but life had other plans it seemed”, he said. Looking down at his bulging stomach. He missed playing cricket .

“You know, that was the day, I developed a small crush on you”, he confessed.”To be honest, I had a crush on you from that day as well. Maybe a teenage crush for a rebel, but a crush all the same.”, she admitted.” I wished I had proposed that day, but I was too scared and proud for it”, he confessed. ” When I was in the library, I spent most of the time day dreaming about how I could have spent time with the team captain”, she said and blushed. I was a long time since he had seen her blush. He missed it so much.

The conversation went on for hours, they did not notice that the other people on their table had a completely different conversation going on between them. It was as if they were immersed in their own world, they had traveled in the past, re-living their school days.

Now, the party was coming to an end, it was time to bid a goodbye to the batch of 85. The host called for an attention from everyone. Lightly banging the champagne glass with a spoon, he announced,”Ladies and Gentleman, fellow classmates, it has been 30 years since most of us saw each other. During this time, we have changed, we have grown, we now have separate lives which we share with loved ones. Some of us are still good friends, but some of us were less remembered by us. Some are just a memory and some, a missed call”

“However, most of us here still remember our “Head-boy” and “Head-girl” , who were always loved by all, during their school days. A strong example of how strong love is. Please welcome, Mrs and Mr… ”

She touched his shoulder and said,”Honey, I think they want us to go on that stage and give a speech. Think you can manage it ?”. “Sure”, he said” Just help me with the wheelchair.I see they have a ramp , just push me onto the stage, will you ?”. “You should have  a lot of practice by now darling. After all, it has been  31 years since the accident. ”

They started going towards the stage, accompanied by a thunderous applaud . The high school sweethearts remained so, even after being married for 28 years.

Thanks World !

~ Pied Piper ~ 4 Comments

Facebook, in all its wisdom, informs me that today is the day I complete one year as a blogger.

I did not realize that it already is a year since I though of started putting my quirky thoughts to words. More importantly, I am surprised to see that I was able to last this long, given that I have the attention span of a monkey.

I would like to thanks all my readers, who “liked” my posts and encouraged me to pen more entertaining and useful material. This is the main reason I was able to go on for this long.

I would also like to thanks a few people who were generous enough to donate money after reading my write-ups.

I would also like to thank my Mom, Dad, friends, colleges, office internet and the guy who keeps looking over my shoulder, just to see me struggle to get the typo right.

 

Thanks all.

Shalom, Namaste, Pip pip …