Mayhem Unfurled Revisited

This is part of an earlier post on my other blog at WordPress on 14th November 2007. I am adding it here since it is one of those experiences which brings a smile and a touch of embarrassment on my face today. Though I am tempted to edit the post for grammatical correctness and to make it even more interesting, I would not really want to package it as old wine in a new bottle. Here is how it goes.......

"Alcohol reduces your brain activity"

I got a first hand experience of the adage a few days back...........

Me, Shishir and Rohit had gone to HHH bar for a few drinks on the weekend. Over there I saw Arjun getting drunk on just a shot...... This guy goes high by just smelling alcohol. Out there we drank till the bar closed down. How much I drank I will not specify lest I get classified as a novice or an expert drunkard. At 12:30 at night,we were making our way back. At the gates the security asked us to stop and enter our names in the security register. I entered mine as C.V. Raman, Rohit was Ramanujan and Shishir was Albert Einstein, so much so for the hallowed security. On the way back I could feel myself a lot light and was walking on thin air. Shishir had caught hold of junior and was giving him advices about the worldly ways. People always give advices and become caring about the world when they get drunk.

I guess drinks should come with the tag-line,

"We care about the world".

The junior was clearly having a bad time or one whale of a time.

Phase 1

In front of PGH or the girls hostel in our college I called up my girlfriend[let's call Miss X for the purpose of privacy :)] and told her to come to the balcony of her room which faces the road though a bit far off. I stood under a lamp-post and started blowing kisses at Miss X. Now how does the lamp-post come in. Well I did it so that she could see me in the dark. What did not hit me at that time was that I was visible to the teachers residence right opposite the hostel. At that time Laws of light were that only Miss X could see me. Well Miss X got afraid and told me to move from there. I only budged from there when I got Miss X to come to the portico at the other end of the hostel which is just opposite to the road.

Phase 2

When she was out at the portico Rohit had a sudden urge to talk to his girlfriend, I told Miss X to go wake her up. Miss X was reluctant but then sentimental blackmail forced her on her way. So when she was back I was shouting at Miss X at one corner and Rohit at the other end. Don't get me wrong. I was shouting because I felt I was speaking softly but actually according to decibel levels the whole hostel could hear me. I did not know how long I talked or what I talked. But soon I could see the watchman coming towards us. I caught Rohit's shoulder and we walked away like the 2 most decent souls in this world.

Phase 3

The next day morning I had to make 5 phone calls to Miss X just with explanations how I got drunk and why. Then the bombshells landed about what I had said. The sumarised words are as follows:

Excerpt 1:

"Your friend Miss Y had danced very well at Hillffair(the fest in our college) at the Hamirpur grounds but the basta** Hamirpur people were so much I could not watch properly." I also told her to call Miss Y whom I wanted to congratulate right then.

Discrepancies:

1. Hillffair is not held in Hamirpur grounds but in the College ground.

2. Hamirpur folks do not come to watch it.

3. If I could not watch properly how do I know.

4. Miss Y was sleeping and it was 1:30 at night.

5. I had never talked to Miss Y in my life before

Excerpt 2:

I was blowing Miss X kisses non stop for 5 minutes and told her "She was looking beautiful and I will break the wall, jump from the road and come to the balcony"

Discrepancies:

1. She was standing in the dark and I could not actually see her, that part of memory is dark.

2. I cannot break a wall.

3. The balcony and the road are at a distance of 15 metres and is separated by a fall of 2 storeys.

4. I am not Tarzan.

5. I did not have a watch.

Excerpt 3:

Miss X told me "The watchman might come". I replied valiantly and said "The watchman's ******* I will bash him up"

Discrepancies:

1. I was seeing multiple images so that meant my hands would fly all around.

2. The watchman had sticks and had accomplices.

3. I want to finish my degree.

Well the other excerpts are cut out as per Miss X's edit instructions. There is one great thing about getting drunk and talking to your girlfriend. You do not have to try to speak from your heart, you actually do speak from your heart. All the things that accumulate in your heart do come out. It's one whale of a time and worth having. It's about living life without inhibitions.

Knock knock, I am not drunk right now. So let's cut the crap. I came back to the hostel played imaginary football prevented Rohit from going to take a cold water bath at 2 o cloak at night and went to sleep.

It was mayhem and the next day hangover and explanation sessions to Miss X were even worse

Ciaooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

So that was the entire undiluted entry. It brings a smile on my face even today.

Dear Minister, my telephone is not working

The following is my attempt to get in touch with the honourable minister of telecommunication over an issue of my telephone not working. My eyes really popped out when I read the previous line again. Writing a letter to the minister of telecommunication over my telephone not working and imagining the letter to climb up the departmental and bureaucratic public ladder without even an assurance of multi billion infrastructure gains, sounds lame but then a cup of coffee and an inquisitive mind can be a a heady mixture.

Dear Mr. Minister,

I Vivek Shah, am a citizen of the Republic of India currently residing in New Delhi and trying to sustain my existence by working as one of the innumerable IT workers. I am ordinary in every sense of the word. I am all of 24 years of age and have not seen or heard the world as much as you would have. If this letter is really being read by you, I think the politics of our country is in the right hands and the letter would have realised its goal. Since you have already taken some of your time to read till here, I might request you to read further.

I am one of those people who depend upon the telephone connection provided by MTNL for my basic sustenance. It is not because I can end up talking with my girlfriend for hours or discuss the latest happenings in Big Boss 3 with my friend. In fact the receiver on my end does not work. Its a one way traffic so that I can hear people talking about insurance policies on the other end or asking for a wrong person but I cannot just make them hear, "Just f*** off". I am not even complaining about. My most important requirement from the telephone whose receiver lies on the floor instead of the handset, is the broadband facility.

First of all, inspite of the tall complaints, I must congratulate you on the excellent broadband facility which is provided at such an affordable price. This broadband facility is one of the most urgent requirements of my white collar job. This facility ensures that my bosses can wake me up from my beautiful dreams at 1 AM at night and ask me to stare at a piece of file on a computer in Europe because of which a person in US is not being able to print a PDF. Its a small www world these days. So, when my broadband connection was not working yesterday on 30th January, I looked into my telephone bill and called up 011-2222-1504 to register the complaint. The person who picked up the telephone, sounded offended by the idea that I wanted to register the complaint. He did not tell me anything to suggest so, but the human mind can pick up the tones so either the person who answered my call was having a bad case of throat infection and stomach disorder or I am completely off my rocker here. Anyway, he did register my complaint and I got a 4 digit complaint number 3920 as proof of my achievement. I courteously asked him by when can I expect the connection to be fixed as it was particularly urgent to me. He replied, within 24 hours. I asked him if there was something I could do to speed up the process. He said, "Call on 197 and find out the Area Managers number". My first question lies here, since I was talking to this person for help and support(who is getting paid for it by people like me), he could have at least told me the corresponding area manager's number itself(which I am sure would have been searchable on his computer). If my telephone is not working, how can I call up 197 and find it?

Since India is a country of charming people, my charming neighbour came to my rescue and provided me the number of Janakpuri area manager. I reside in New Mahavir Nagar and my house is a 10 minute walk from the Janakpuri telephone exchange. I called up the Janakpuri area manager and mentioned my telephone number 011-2599-7227 and complaint number and asked him if he could do something in this matter. To this, he replied "This number does not fall in my area call up Dwarka area manager" and gave me another number. Perplexed, I called up the Dwarka area manager, who replied "This number does not fall in my area call up Rajouri Garden area manager" and gave me another number. Confused, I called up the Rajouri Garden area manager who replied "This number does not fall in my area, call up the the Janakpuri area manager" and gave me another number. By this time I had gone crazy. I had gone an entire full circle with each person giving me the same templated reply(which I hope you would have noticed). I was wondering, "In which area did my telephone number lie, is it in Pak Occupied Kashmir?". I called up the Janakpuri area manager and told him that I had gone a complete circle and what was this about. It looks to me, he was very busy and so he did not have the time to reply to such a stupid unnecessary question. So he took the shortest route possible, he just cut the call and never picked up my subsequent 6-7 calls.

Utterly dejected, I called up a linesman I knew, and he was working in the area nearby. A few kind words and requests later, the kind soul landed up in my area an hour later and fixed the problem. I can only say "Bless, his soul".

After reading all this Mr. Minister you might wonder what is the point ? The point is inspite of the excellent and thoughtful policies and people who/which have been placed to look after these kind of problems, the entire set up has fallen flat. I have lost a little bit of faith in the whole setup to which I looked upto in order to help me when I needed it most but I have regained a little bit of faith in human relations and what 2 people who want and can try to genuinely help out each other. I might be one of those cases where Murphy's law was true and I was the wrong person with the wrong person at the wrong place and the wrong time but I sincerely hope you don't get letters like these more often. This letter might not have to do with any of the multi billion dollar projects/decisions/investments but it has to do with the most important facet of governance, touching the lives of those who have chosen you to govern. If the governance is not worth it, the multi billion dollar investments/infrastructures just sound very hollow.

Thank you again for the time to read my letter. Thank you again for all the work.

Jai Hind.

Getting started

Its a difficult segregated world we are living in. So much so that I have to segregate the blogs I maintain. My original blog remains at WordPress, but since it is published in quite a few Planets(reads as RSS feeds), I am not planning to publish personal muses on that blog. People reading planets create a lot of noise over content not appropriate for planets. I plan to publish my personal notes here and my technical notes there. So much so for compartmentalisation. But why am I mentioning it here ? Well, the answer lies in my guilty conscience of maintaining and eating up blog spaces. A big sorry to anyone who wants to take up the space with bonivivek on blogspot. Uninteresting but true.

Please note: I am really pissed since I could not take up bonii.blogspot.com which is already occupied by someone who apparently is so busy that he is not doing anything on the blog for the past few years. Do me a favour mate, delete that blog.