April Fool's Pranks

Dilbert creator Scott Adams has mentioned some of his favorite April Fool's Pranks in his recent blog. Pretty neat, I say. Reminded me of some of my own pranks. Now, I'm someone who'd go to quite some lengths to play pranks on friends and may I add I have quite some reputation as a prankster. So, here I present my favorite one. It's the biggest prank I pulled off and an act of total brilliance, I say with all the modesty.

I was working as a software engineer with a name big enough to provide me with an SMS gateway, although an US one, but using it I could send SMS to Indian numbers. So one fine day, I sent an SMS to couple of my friends saying - "Congratulations! You are our customer of the month. You winning number is XXXXXXX. Please wait as we'll contact you again to tell you more about your prize. In case of any clarification, please feel free to contact us at ZZZZZZ." The contact number given was my office desk's number. Within minutes, Thakur called in. In fact his call caught me off guard as I hadn't planned it all by then. However, to make it look genuine, I asked his confirmation number & phone number and in my most call-centerish voice I exclaimed - "Oh! You must be Mr. Thakur, our customer of the month!" Thinking on my feet, I gave him two options to choose from, 1) A Laxmi Juicer-mixer-grinder & 2) Rs. 2000/- worth of talktime. He told he'll confirm later. After this call, I dropped emails to his roomies, explaining the situation to them. They chipped in, asking Thakur to go for the mixer.

Next day, I sent him another SMS saying - "As per your instructions, we're giving you the Laxmi Juicer-mixer-grinder. Please collect the same from our office on coming Sunday. Please do not forget to get you previous month's bill." As expected, I received another call from him on the "call-center" number. This time I made one female friend of mine to attend the call, to make it look more genuine. Clearly, Thakur was distressed about the choice forced on him. We asked him to come to the office to sort it out.

The fateful Sunday, I was present at their house. Since the Airtel office was towards my side of the town, I offered to accompany Thakur to the office. Pankaj also came with us. By now Thakur had got the printout of the last month's bill and the congratulatory SMS ready to flash. We reached the office. Pankaj and me stayed out, Thakur went in. The attendant present couldn't comprehend what Thakur was saying and took his mobile to show the SMS to her superiors. Now, I went inside to burst Thakur's bubble.

Priceless! The look on his face said it all!

Withdrawal Symptoms

Ever tried getting down a running bus? Yup, the inertia funda. Physics, class XI, CBSE.

My prolonged stay at home, after the months spent at IIMC, has put me in that kind of situation. When I was always chasing deadlines at IIMC, I would have laughed at someone had he suggested that nothingness can bore you. And yet here I am, toppled into the abyss of deep boredom. Despite the long sleeping hours, longer hours spent in front of the TV, the days just don't get over.

And the mercury is rising too! Its tough to imagine that the day I arrived here I slept in a rajayi. Now its almost imbearable to be out in the sun. The ceiling fan is no longer adequate to beat the heat. Glad that I won't be here to face the worst.

All's not lost tho', all the cricket happening about half the globe away keeps me company. The idleness compels me to listen to the pre-match chat show too, not that it makes me any wiser or happier. Tut-tut, India's out; but still the arena is wide open! My predictions: Semifinalists - Aus, SA, SL and NZ & Dream Final - Aus vs SA with SA claiming the cup. Long way to that though.

And I'm reading again. A lot, by my own standards. Some recommendations -

• A Corner of a Foreign Field - Amazing work about mostly pre-independence history of cricket in India. Even if the WC debacle left a bitter taste in mouth, don't miss this masterpiece, for the love of the game. Hat's off to Guha for doing all the hard work in researching the anecdotes and stories to present in such lucid form! (and if cricket still fancies you, pick Pundits from Pakistan also!)
  
• Above Average - Doesn't dwell too much on the IIT connection. Very interesting, very piquant. Very nostalgic for any IITian, more so for IITD junta (I guess). Its characters reminded me of many lost faces from my IIT days.
• Spy Princess: The Life of Noor Inayat Khan - The story is definitely very thrilling & impressive, though the narration lacks punch. It's told just like a chronological record of facts. Bit drab in parts, still quite enjoyable as a whole.
• Being John Mcenroe - Rather than being just descriptive, this book tries to analyze the reasons behind & effects of John Mcenroe on Tennis. Great insights about the genius and his times.
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Masterpiece! Absolute masterpiece! Would appeal to anyone with slightest bend of mind towards Science & tiniest tinge of curiosity towards Nature. Simply unputdownable.
  
• The IITians - Just started this one. Starts on perhaps a bit too laudatory note, but is building up nicely. Should be a good read.
  

Apart from all this, I've also started reading blogs again. But my BSNL dial-up doesn't allow me to surf much. By the way, till very recent I wasn't aware that you can just put the BSNL phone cable in your laptop, do simple registration once and can start surfing @ ~40 kbps on totally on-use-basis rates! Check out Account free Internet dial up access based on CLI.

All my bags are not yet packed and I'm not yet ready to go, still another week left. But most of my shopping is done, barring some last minute items. Not yet thinking much about the upcoming internship, but I hope it would be interesting time. Reminds me of an ancient Chinese curse - "May you live in interesting times." Hmm, we'll see that.

Couple of things I have to do in London -

1. Watch a cricket match, county-shounty, anything!
2. Watch a soccer match. Some decent clubs whose names I know, hopefully.
3. Visit some typical Irish pubs (just to check out the atmo, Mom!)
4. Buy long-pending lenses for my camera and click loads of pictures.
5. Travel a bit. Bath, Oxford, some coastal towns, perhaps.

Time to hit the bed.

Film Review: Just Married

It seems a whole lot of Bollywood directors discovered Love Actually recently. The funda of having multiple parallel love-stories, capturing various shades and emotions, is literally beaten to death in last couple of months.

No "action" for Fardeen
No action for audience

In the race of duplicating ideas, its the laggards who lose worst. Thats why after Salaam-e-Ishq & Honeymoon Travels, its just impossible to digest Just Married.

And that's just first of the many MANY problems with the movie! The pace of the movie is another. The movie just drags and drones, without any point in sight. The story has loopholes of the size of India Gate where from Siddhu can pass with his tractor! I don't think there are still homes in uber-urban Delhi where US-return Marketing Heads would agree to marry some girl without even talking to her. And someone please tell me what actually was the issue in the film? Why was Isha Deol screaming - "Kya sex hi sab kuch hai aapke liye?" Because Fardeen touched his shoulder or because the cockroach touch her legs (eh.. talking to Fardeen or Cockroach)? Oh, and there were other couples too. Mostly artificial and boring. Faces from the TV serials, bringing the typical rude onslaught of emotions from the small screen. Waaaay over the top! See, the issue with the movie is - there is no story!!

Which is saddening, given the fact that it the debut movie of Meghna Gulzar, daughter of famous poet & lyricist Sampooran Singh aka Gulzar. Coming to that, the music of the film was another flop show. Only one song - "Gudgudee" - is worth noting.

Now the acting, Fardeen Khan gave yet another Man-Behind-The-Iron-Mask performance. He definitely beat Isha Deol in Look-I'm-So-Expressionless contest, but by a very narrow margin. I can imagine both set of celebarents (new term coined by me - celeb+parents!) scratching their heads (Firoz very delicately) about where to fit in their wards. Action didn't work, neither did emotion. No chance in romance and too young for bhabhi-bhaiya roles. Well, tough luck. But please move over and spare the poor audience.

And if you've read till here, you must be rewarded with my own PJ. The mention of cockroach brought it forth in my memory. So,

Q. What did the nephew roach call his uncle?
A. Kaka-roach! :-P

One year at Jokaland

The terms are done, exams taken & projects submitted. No matter how far it looked when I started, the end of the first year at IIM Calcutta came a little too soon. The year was more or less kind to me. Along with the usual stuff, I did many unusual things too. The campus band, JBS Baro-C, composed a song about the early days of students in IIMC ( http://music.cooltoad.com/music/song.php?id=296339 ). Song contains swearing/explicit lyrics! I made a video on the song along with some friends. Here it is -

The response to the video has been very encouraging. In the first 4 days at youtube, it gathered around 1200 hits! This encouragement has motivated us to make more videos under the banner of "Between the Lines" production.

However, the movie-making would have to wait, for the summers are here and all of us are to leave and join our respective organizations for the summer internships. I'm leaving for London on 9th April and would be back on 2nd June, good one week before the next term start.

One regret after the first year - I virtually abandoned this blog and my photography. Since this was something I really enjoyed, I'll try my best to revive my interests and devote more time to them.

That we'll see, for the time being, please check out the video and some feedback, may be?