Sholey Revisited - Once Again

Let us start from where we left off last time and continue to make Sholey’s plot a little more contemporary. 

Scene: Kaaliya and 2 other “extras” come to Ramgadh to get their monthly supply of food

Kaalia: Dhaulia, what have you brought today?

Dhaulia: Some wheat, sir.

Kaalia: Only this much? Have you kept the rest for the wedding party of your daughter’s wedding?

Dhaulia: Sir, what do I tell you about my daughter’s marriage plans? Where do I even start? So, she was dating this dude from Haripur she met at a dating website last year. He was a cool kid who would bring chocolates, cauliflowers, water melons etc. on dates. Then they broke up because he got hooked up with another chick from Meerapur. And the crazy part was that he broke up with her with a text message. Then my daughter started dating Ahmed but my wife hated the inter-faith hookup….

Kaalia: Stop, stop, stop. That is enough. Oh God! Why did I even ask the stupid question? So, Seetaram, what have you brought?

Seetram: Oatmeal, sir.

Kaalia: WTF. What is this oatmeal?

Seetaram: Sir, this is a good breakfast food…full of fiber and nutrients.

Kaalia: Why do you think we need fiber? Do we look constipated, you SOB?

Seetaram: No, Sir. But that is what I have.

Thankur (with his both hands tied tightly in the back to give the impression that he has no arms) enters the scene:

Thakur: Stop Dhaulia!!! Tell these dogs that they can no longer take food like this.

Kaaliya:  What do you mean we cannot take this food? From now on, are you going to FedEx our monthly supplies? If you do, make sure you use the next-day delivery option. Do not skimp on shipping charges otherwise Gabbar won’t be happy.

Thakur: Kaalia, raise your head and see the death standing at the top of the water tank. Leave now!!!

Scene: Gabbar pacing back and forth, whereas, Kaaliya and 2 other “extras” stand in front of him with their heads hung in shame:

Gabbar: How many of them were there?

Kaalia: Two, Sir.

Gabbar: Two… and you were three, even then you came back….. empty headed? Why were you so scared? Did you see Bahwa chicks – Kiddo and Kanya?

Kaalia: No, Sir. Luckily, Kiddo was out of town to visit a newly-opened beauty parlor in the neighboring village. And Kanya was out on a date with a guy named Pappu who she met at Shaadi.com.

Gabbar: Interesting….that Kiddo girl can never get enough of beauty parlor visits. Anyway, so no Bahwa girls but you were still scared. Arrey Oh Sambha!! What is the government’s reward on my head?

Sambha: Sir, 50 lakh rupees.

Gabbar: Did you hear that, Kaalia? 50 lakh rupees. Do you know why? It is because in a 50 mile radius from here, whenever kids wake up at night, their mother gives them an iPad to play angry birds on it until the kid goes back to sleep again.

Kaalia: Angry birds on iPad? But then what does that have to do with the 50 lakh rupees reward on your head?

Gabbar: Did I say that there would be a correlation between the two? Who do you think I am? A correlation algorithm writer for Google? Don’t you know that my entire education background consists of trying to read my own tattoos? In any case, you need to be punished. Let us play some Russian roulette.

Kaalia: Wow, are we going to Las Vegas?

Gabbar: No, you idiot. Arrey oh Sambha!!! Give me your gun!!!

Sambha hands over his big-ass automatic gun to Gabbar.

Gabbar: Wow, this is a monster gun. Where did you get it from?

Sambha: Amazon.com, Sir.

Gabbar: Oh, they sell guns now? May be I should check them out.

Sambha: Yes, they have added guns to their burgeoning portfolio. In fact, they are now adding pantry items also in order to go after Costco’s business.

Gabbar: They are becoming as omnipresent as Google. I think these two will take over the world soon.

Sambhar: Sir, how about punshing Kaalia and the other 2 idiots.

Gabbar (sheepishly): Oh yeah yeah. I forgot….I get distracted pretty easily. So, how many bullets does it have?

Sambha: Each magazine has 3500 bullets each, Sir.

Gabbar: Humm. 3500 bullets and 3 men. That is not fair. So have many extra bullets does it have? Damn! I cannot do that kind of math in my head. There goes my plan of playing my version of Russian roulette with these bastards….

Director Ramesh Sippy: Cut, Cut, Cut!!

As always, my final thought on the outcome of the Delhi elections: At the best of times, democracy is a seesaw between a tolerable confusion and complete chaos.

A (Kind of) Tribute to Bollywood

Lately, my US-born sons have started to watch some Bollywood flicks. And I am not particularly proud to report that the movies they have really liked so far belong to the Hindi movie category I call “do not dare use your brain…..at all” kind of movies. Examples include, “Bol Bachchan”, “Son of Sardar”, “Himmatwala” (new one), “Om Shanti Om”, etc.  So, last weekend I convinced my older son to watch the all time classic, “Sholey” so that he knows that there are also some great Hindi movies out there. After watching “Sholey”, he and I started to wonder how the movie will change if we touch up the plot in today’s environment. If some of it (or all of it) appears to be contrived…well, that was the intention anyway.

For example, this is how the first scene may pan out…

Scene: Jailor comes to visit Thakur at his home:

Jailor: Thakur Sahib, as soon as I received your e-mail, I took the next flight out. Is there something urgent that you wanted to discuss in person and not in an e-mail or over the phone?

Thankur: Yes Jailor Sahib. I wanted to see you in person because this is an extremely important assignment.

Jailor: We could have done a video call on Skype or Facebook. By the way, I have an iPhone now so you can always try Facetime with me.

Thakur: Alright, I get it. Anyway, I need you to find these 2 people (throws pictures of Jai and Veeru on the table).

Jailor: Oh, I know these petty criminals. They are Jai and Veeru.

Thakur: I know. I tried to find their Facebook profiles but they do not have any.

Jailor: Thakur Sahib, as you know, they spend most of their time in jail where WiFi is pretty patchy at best and hence updating their profiles would be almost impossible. That may explain why they do not have any FB profiles. Did you try to Google them or try to find them using other social media?

Thakur: Who do you think I am? Kanya Bahwa?

Jailor: Who is Kanya Bahwa?

Thakur: Some e-commerce enthusiast in New Delhi.

Jailor: Hmmm. One thing I do not understand is what kind of assignment you have that only these 2 can do for you? You know very well that they are criminals and good for nothing.

Thakur: Several years ago, this dacoit, Gabbar Singh killed my entire family. I have been living quietly after that… minding my own business. Now, I want to take revenge.

Jailor: Why suddenly now? After all these years??

Thakur: Well, if I do not take revenge, what will be the plot of this movie then? You do realize that you are in a movie as an extra, don’t you?

Jailor: Cool. By the way, in order to find Gabbar, you can also set up a website “FindGabbar.com” and post his pictures to raise awareness.

Thakur: What if the website keeps crashing like the Obamacare website? And who do you think can set up the website for me?

Jailor: Try this guy Skanda S. Balas. He is some kind of software architect. Also, you should write a blog to tell your story.

Thakur: I do not consider myself as a qualified person to write a blog.

Jailor: What do you mean you are not qualified??? Have you read some of the blogs these days? You should read “A Column About Nothing”… then you will know what I am talking about. People paddle all kind of BS in their blogs these days.

Thakur: Are you really a dimwit? Rather than suggesting this and that, can you focus on the script here? I want these 2 guys as soon as possible.

Jailor: ok, ok. Let me see what I can do. Lemme go and send some tweets to other jailors.

Scene: Thakur explains the assignment to  Jai and Veeru:

Veeru: So we have to catch Gabbar and that too alive?

Thakur: Yes.

Veeru: Thakur Sahib. Gabbar is not like the mayor of Toronto who passes out after a dose of crack cocaine and you go and catch him.

Thakur: I get it. That is why I am paying you this much money.

Jai: Thakur Sahib, let me ask you this. In your opinion, we are also crooks and criminals so why did you pick us for this task?

Thakur: Who else would you suggest?

Jai: Why not Rajnikant? Heard he can do anything.

Veeru: He even knows Victoria’s Secret.

Thakur: Have you heard the saying, “Iron cuts iron”?

Jai: No, I have not but it sounds pretty cheesy.

Thakur: You bet it does. But that is what it says in the script. Salim and Javed must be partying with Mayor Rob Ford of Toronto when they wrote such cheesy dialogues. So, apparently, iron cuts iron and that’s why you two are the right people to catch Gabbar for me.

Jai: Whatever rocks your boat, dude. You pony up the cash and we will do it for you.

Scene: Jai and Veeru get out of Ramgarh train station where Basanti is waiting with her tanga:

Basanti: Wasssup, guys. Would you like a ride? What are you looking at? Have you not seen a tanga before?

Veeru: Er….Er…

Basanti: Oh! So you must be wondering how come a girl is driving a tanga. Don’t chicks drive cars in cities?

Veeru: Of course they do. Not only that, even Kiddo Bahwa drives a car now. And you should see how she drives. When Kiddo is on the road, all rickshaw-pullers, street vendors, cyclists etc. flee the roads and take shelter in tornado-proof buildings. When she drives her Hyundai, she generates hurricane-level winds approaching 280 miles per hour, which knock down trees, electricity cables (and all the clothes which are hung to dry on those cables) or anything else that comes in Kiddo’s way.

Jai: Hey dude, isn’t Basanti supposed to do all the talking per the script?

Veeru: What are you talking about? When it comes to talking, Basanti is nothing compared to Kiddo Bahwa.

Jai: That I agree. Heard that Kiddo Bahwa can talk non-stop for hours. Isn’t she in Guinness Book of World Records already?

Veeru: You bet she is. She currently holds two records – the most dangerous driver on the streets of Delhi and the non-stop talker.

Basanti: Guys, guys, focus on the script here.

Director Ramesh Sippy: Cut Cut Cut!!!!!

To be continued…...

And as always, my final thought: “Roses are red, violets are blue, I am a schizophrenic and so am I” – Bill Murray in “What about Bob?”

Travel Titbits – A Few More Bits

So my last post regarding some of my travel experiences was greeted with rave reviews by critics all over the globe. Here are some of the samples (in the order I received them):

“A Masterpiece by Bobby Arora……he shows how you can travel all over the world but still do not learn a thing and stay dumb – Bob Soprano, New Jersey Times (wannabe New York Times)”

“Reading Bobby’s blogs is as painful as waxing but at least something good comes out when you are done with waxing – Kiddo Bahwa, a volunteer Beauty and Fashion Advisor to homeless women and a proud Candy Crusher, New Delhi, India”

“A humorist is a comedian who does not necessarily make you laugh. Mr. Arora is definitely a humorist because after reading his blog 23 times, I still did not find any reason even to smile….forget about a laugh. And what is his problem with Sandwich Artists, anyway? – Joseph Subway Hussain, North American Society of Sandwich Artists”

“Bobby Arora believes that there should always be a beginning, a middle, and an end in every story but not necessarily in that order. I rearranged all of his paragraphs multiple times but still could not get any order and could not make any sense – Kanya Bahwa, a self-proclaimed literary artist, who by the way is looking for a life partner who is intelligent, tall, handsome, sensitive, highly-educated, loving, and with a good sense of humor (Hmmmm….but the issue is that the Indian law does not allow a girl to marry 7 different guys)

“Being a Math genius, I did some quick math and realized that I have wasted 48 minutes 30 seconds of my life in the last one year reading 19 blogs by Bobby Arora (19 blogs x 2.5 min/blog + 1 minute to write this review). I could have utilized this time to play Wordament or watch reruns of Kohli’s innings against Australia – Skanda S. Balas, Software Architect (innovating at the speed of light), Math Genius, and a fierce critic of A Column About Nothing”

“Nice One – Deepa D.” (Enough said)

“Raanjhanaa is a wonderful movie. I have seen it 17 times already (16 of which in the opening weekend itself). Wait….what was the question again? What am I critiquing here? – Pallavi, a day time marketing executive and a night time Raanjhanaa watcher”

“There was a time when I used to look forward to Anshu’s e-mails announcing a new post on Bobby’s blog….. so that I could delete the e-mail right away. Now, I have set it up to automatically send these e-mails to the “junk/spam” folder – Maneet M. (last name withheld so that she does not end up in the witness protection program), President, Women Against Drunk Driving and Bobby’s Blog”

“I understand West Virgina’s per capita IQ is very low but where else can you find such abundance of natural beauty? – Meenu C./P. (Maiden/Married), a life-long WV supporter, when asked about her reaction to the rising prices of onions in India

“Rohit Sharma rocks and A Column About Nothing socks (I wanted to say “sucks” but that does not rhyme with rocks) – Rohit Sharma, on completing his century in his very first test innings against West Indies”

Obviously, after all these roaring reviews, it made perfect sense to write some more about my travel observations. Last week I was in Vancouver and visited a university. These days, with young kids doing all kinds of crazy stuff, universities all over North America have to provide mental health assistance. Nice idea but I was surprised about the execution. There were posters all over the campus asking questions, such as, “Are you depressed? Can you not focus on your studies? Do you suffer from an anxiety disorder?” and then the posters advised that the help was just one phone call away. The number to call? 1-800-SUICIDE. Really? Was it necessary to be so explicit? So, when a depressed soul may not even be thinking about suicide, the number will definitely spur the thought and may facilitate the process.

And I still laugh every time Air Canada invites me to “pre-board” as an elite member when they start the boarding process. What exactly is pre-boarding? Am I getting on the plane before I am getting on? On the way back from Vancouver, I ended up watching “White House Down” because it was a long flight and I had seen all other movies on previous flights. Throughout the movie, I kept thinking that even though it was an English movie, why did it have all kinds of unbelievable and illogical nonsense just like we see in most of the Bollywood flicks? (I said “most”, not all, before some Bollywood lover gets upset and sends me some mail bombs). And finally I got the answer when the movie ended with “A movie by Rohit Shetty”. That explains it.

The previous week in Quebec City, we ended up in a restaurant where they did not have any English menus. And since my colleagues traveling with me knew that I had taken French lessons last year, I did not want to admit that I did not understand anything on the menu and needed help. When the waitress was taking drink orders, I just pointed to the last line on the Vin au verre list (which I figured must be ‘wine by the glass’ based on some of descriptions) because it was one of the most expensive wines (so must be really good). The waitress started laughing and said, “Joking, right?” I was perplexed so my French-speaking colleague looked at what I had pointed at and said, “Hey, this says “sales tax included” in French”. Needless to say, I was in no mood to drink any wine anymore and managed with my glass of water.

And as always, my final thought, this time by Al Gore, “Airline travel is nature’s way of making you look like your passport picture”.

Travel titbits

My job takes me to all kinds of interesting places on earth. Recently, I traveled to 4 “happening” places in Canada in 4 days – Saskatoon, Calgary, Edmonton, and Winnipeg. Together, they belong to the cluster of cities where the slogan should be, “Welcome to ---- (insert the name of the city here), where fun comes to die.” I guess my trip would be equivalent to my lovely sister-in-law-cum-a-world-traveler-wannabe, Kanya Bahwa (a typical Delhite) visiting 4 super cool places – Bhubaneswar (Orissa), Allahabad (UP), Jabalpur (MP), and Guntur (AP) in India, which, by the way, will be a feat itself if she can logistically manage to get to all 4 of them in 4 days.

They say that you learn a great deal just by traveling. I, on the other hand, do not normally learn a thing…. I just observe. For example, in Saskatoon, since we had back-to-back meetings with clients throughout the day, the only lunch we could grab was a quick Subway sandwich. When I entered the store, I saw a sign publicizing their party catering services. At the bottom of the promotion, it said, “For details, please see one of your Subway Sandwich Artists®.”  Really? Sandwich Artist®? There was a time in the history of humanity when people, such as Picasso, Leonardo da Vinci etc. were known as artists. Never in their wildest dreams could these artists have imagined that someday down the road, a high school dropout from a sandwich joint will also be known as an “artist”. What is next? The guy collecting toll at NJ Turnpike will now be known as a “toll artist”? I have already started calling the janitor in our building a “cleanliness artist”. She does smile every time I say that to her.

Since I have “paid my dues” with a significant amount of travel in the last 9 years, the airlines now at least treat me with upgrades and nicer seats. However, it was not this way when I started traveling in 2004 with my consulting job.  Since I did not have any “status” with United Airlines, I used to fly coach every week.  I remember once when I was checking-in on an EasyCheckIn® kiosk for a Chicago-LA flight, a message popped up on the screen asking me if I wanted to upgrade to the Economy Plus for $30 which would give me 5 extra inches of legroom.  I was in a hurry to get the boarding pass and get through security so I did not buy that option.  While waiting to board, I thought some more about the option and realized that I could definitely use a couple of extra inches of legroom because it was a long flight. So, I went to the counter at the gate and had the following conversation with the friendly lady behind the counter (who was not that friendly by the time I was done with the conversation):

Lady: How may I help you, Sir?

Me: I have already checked in at the kiosk but now I would like to upgrade.

Lady:  We have no upgrades to the first class available at this time because this flight is full.

Me:  No, I am not asking for the upgrade to the first class. I just need 3 extra inches of legroom. Here is the fee (I handed over exact change for $18).

Lady: Excuse me? What is this?

Me: I saw this message on the kiosk that I could buy 5” of extra legroom for $30 in Economy Plus but I need only 3” so I am paying $18.

Now not-so-friendly Lady: Can I see your boarding pass?

I handed her my boarding pass and she printed another one for me.

Me: Ma’m, my seat was 22C, now it says 37S. Economy Plus is in the front of the plane, not in the back. And, by the way, how many rows does this plane have?

Lady: 36

Me: What? Then what is 37S? And I have never seen an “S” in any seat number. Even on wide-body, dual-aisle planes, I have seen may be a “K” but never an “S”.

Lady: After row 36, outside the bathroom, we will give you a Stool (and hence the letter “S”) to sit on so you will get your extra 3 inches of leg room. In fact, you will get many more inches of space around you but I won’t charge you for that.

Needless to say, I pleaded her to put me back into my original seat 22C.

On another note, thank God that the US government is open for business once again after a 2 week shut down otherwise more and more government services would have got impacted. After shutting down all non-essential services, if the government still had not received any money from the US Congress (which, by the way, now has an approval rating of 5%.....if you can still call it an “approval” rating), it would have been forced to shut down some of the critical services. And I heard that the air traffic control was next on the list. Whenever that happens, all air traffic will then be controlled manually by all pilots…just like the road traffic in India is controlled by all drivers without any interference from any authorities (at least in smaller towns, such as my hometown, where in a town of 383,318 people (per 2011 census), there is only ONE traffic light, which everyone ignores most of the time).

Since my wife, Anshu was a little stressed out about a chance of me traveling to the US amid the potential air traffic control shutdown (when the air traffic would look like the road traffic in India), I had to get some statistics to put her mind at ease. When we started researching the internet, on the surface, it appeared that India had one of the worst fatalities rate in road accidents (100 deaths per year per 100,000 motor vehicles compared to 15 in the US and 13 in Canada). However, I had to remind her that the denominator here was “per 100,000 motor vehicles” and that is why the statistics looked offal. When you convert the same stats with a different denominator, for example, “per 100,000 moving objects (including but not limited to, cars, scooters, buses, trucks, Kiddo Bahwa’s car, cows, kids, rickshaws, bullock carts, 3-wheelers, horse carriages, dogs, auto-rickshaws, pigs, bulldozers, motor cycles, bicycles, tricycles etc. etc.)”, it does not look that bad. So she is quite comfortable now.

After walking through jet bridges hundreds of time in a typical year, I have memorized all slogans on HSBC billboards predicting the future of humanity. I always wonder how a commercial bank knows that, “Your DNA will be your data”, “Even the smallest businesses will be multinational”, “You will quench your thirst with salt water” etc. etc.  So the other day I called them just to see how good they are with their stuff. The conversation went something like this:

HSBC Rep: Thank you for calling the HSBC bank. How may I help you?

Me: Hi, I would like to know the gold price on Chicago Mercantile Exchange on 2^nd of October, 2014.

Rep: Excuse me?

Me: This is HSBC bank, right?

Rep: Yes Sir.

Me: You have these billboards at every airport in the world with slogans, such as, “Exports will not be transported but rather transmitted” and “Your education will be your best investment” etc., right?

Rep: Absolutely. We are proud of those, Sir.

Me: Great. So, it means that you have a freaking crystal ball in your office which tells you exactly how the world is going to shape up in the future. So why can’t you tell me the gold prices in the future? My wife’s crazy sister, Kiddo Bahwa, is a sucker for gold jewelry and buys gold on “special” occasions, such as 2^nd of October, 12^th of September etc. It will really help her if she can plan these purchases.

And suddenly I heard a dial tone. The phone had been disconnected. Go figure!

And as always, my final thought (this time a travel quote courtesy Henry Youngman, a great Philosopher): “Just got back from a pleasure trip: I dropped my mother-in-law at the airport”.

European Adventures - The Saga Continues

Well, before I get to the sequel of my previous blog on our European trip, I need to address some hate mail I received after publishing that post.  Many of the readers in US/Canada called me a liar saying that they have known my wife, Anshu, for a long time, and hence they know that she does not have a real sister, called Kiddo. Well, the only thing I will say is that, yes, you are “biologically” right……but I am also “technically” right. Now, the next logical question will be – so what does this mean? Does Anshu have a real sister with a slightly strange name Kiddo Bahwa or not? The only thing I am allowed (by Anshu and Kiddo) to say is that “it is complicated.”  Anshu and Kiddo were born in different families but for all practical purposes behave as twins, who are 3 years apart (Kiddo being 3 years older, even though she claims to be 3 years younger and behaves as if she were 16 years younger…and hence earned the name Kiddo). You ask, “How is that possible?”  Trust me, if I try to explain it, I will have to write so much that it will probably take around 5-10 zettabytes (ZB) of data. Just to put things in perspective – zetta is 10²¹ so 1 zettabyte is 1 billion terabytes.  And you thought that terabyte (which is 1000 GB) was a lot of data.

In fact, the only place on earth that is using this much data (around 5 ZB) is the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center in Utah. You obviously need that kind of data if you are listening to every single conversation 314 million Americans have every day. And if I look at the conversations Anshu and Kiddo have on a daily basis, I am sure they amount to almost to that level, give or take 1 ZB. Since access to this kind of server is not feasible for a mortal like me, I attempted to write a book on the intricacies of Anshu’s and Kiddo’s relationship but it turned out to be pretty impractical because by the time I was done with just the Volume 1, it looked a little thicker than a typical book (picture below). And hence I gave up the idea and surrendered to my fate that I will never be able to neither comprehend nor explain the relationship between Anshu and Kiddo.

Another reader from Baluchistan confronted me by saying that the suggestion of naming the royal baby Amar Akbar Anthony was ridiculous because those were 3 different people in the movie, not one single person. It is a different matter that in our conversation we moved quickly from the royal baby’s name to Baluchistan’s latest trends in women fashion. Turns out that Versace burqa has taken over as the most popular burqa in the province after dethroning Gucci.  In any case, I actually agree with this girl from Baluchistan that my friend Sami’s idea was, in fact, ridiculous. I have a better idea – how about John Jani Janardan? That for sure was one person’s name in the Hindi flick, Naseeb. If you like this name, great, thanks.  If you do not…it was actually my friend, Maneet’s idea.

Then my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-biggest-critic, Kanya Bahwa posts a comment on the previous blog accusing me of being insensitive to the women’s disease (Compulsive Buying Disorder). She also threatens me that the National Commission of Women is coming to get me.  Her accusations and threats are wrong at multiple levels. First of all, before anyone raises such a hue and cry about me being insensitive to CBD, she should think about how girls are insensitive to some of men’s serious diseases, such as ADD (no, not the Attention Deficit Disorder but Alcohol Desire Disorder), STD (no, not the regular STD but Sports Tenderness Disorder), and COPD (no, not Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder but Checking Out Princesses Disorder) etc.  If I start writing about how some girls do not commiserate with men’s disease, I will need another 4-5 ZB of data.

And, by the way, Kanya, I am not worried about the National Commission of Women going to come after me because it is the same organization, which during my trip to India last year honored me at their annual national convention at Delhi’s Centerstage Mall. They felicitated me as a crusader of women’s rights and bestowed upon me the introductory award for “the most knowledgeable guy in women fashion”.  On a related note, unfortunately, after the award function, there was a stampede in the mall when 523 women from the convention, with most of them suffering from the CBD, stormed the stores and crushed 23 store workers to serious injuries who came in their way.  Obviously, the credit for my unparalleled knowledge on the topics of mascara, eye-liners, nail paint, what is IN, what is OUT etc. goes to my enthusiastic participation in intense fashion discussions between Anshu and Kiddo (one of them actually lasted 4.5 hours on a video call). So during the ceremony, I did the right thing and dedicated my award to Anshu and Kiddo.  I am sure that there are many other guys who know this stuff but they are not as courageous as I am to come forward and admit it, making it pretty easy for me to win the award.

Coming back to our Europe trip, after Paris, our next stop was Switzerland. I liked everything about this country, except its vast train network. The biggest issue with this train system is that it is always on time. Growing up in India, I am not used to this kind of punctuality so on the first day we almost missed our train from Zurich to Luzern. As soon as all 4 of us got into the train, the doors closed and the train started moving. And I started thinking that if we had missed the train, it would have been our own version of the Hindi flick Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge (DDLJ) – except that in the movie, the hero and heroine were not married with two kids, and they were stuck in a tiny town with no more trains that day, (whereas, there is a train every 30 min from Zurich to Luzern), and the hero (Shahrukh Khan) was much better looking than I am….so on second thought, I guess if we had missed the train, it would NOT have been our own version of DDLJ….we would have simply taken the next train 30 minutes later.

The best part of Luzern was a trip to the top of Mt. Pilatus by the world’s highest and steepest cog train. This train system is a true engineering marvel and passes through some of the most scenic surroundings I have seen in my life. The view from the top was mesmerizing and standing at the top of the mountain, looking down, in one of those philosophical moments, I started wondering, “Why, in the world, Anshu and Kiddo prefer to eat pani poori  from a street vendor in New Delhi, rather than from a reputed joint such as Haldiram’s?”  I guess some critical questions in life remain unanswered.

And as always, my final thought: The most beautiful relationship is with someone who knows all of your insecurities and imperfections and still loves you the same…..as defined by Anshu and Kiddo.

European Adventures

This year out of several choices for our summer vacation, we picked Europe because we really wanted to help its struggling economy (yeah, right). And when it came to picking countries for our excursion, we decided on UK, France and Switzerland for a super important reason – my wife, Anshu, who last year was diagnosed with CBD (Compulsive Buying Disorder) wanted to shop in 3 different countries with 3 different currencies. Her specialist told us that it is normal for people suffering from CBD to have a strong urge to shop in multiple currencies so living in Canada and spending in just USD and CAD may not be enough for her. In case you are wondering about the seriousness of this disease, it is found in 5.8% of the US population (Source: Wikipedia) and approximately 80% of those affected are female (and who are these 20% idiots who are giving us men a bad name by being a part of this group).

Let me also caution readers that this disease is contagious so you need to be very careful when you are in the vicinity of a person suffering from the CBD. In fact, that is how Anshu got this disease. Last year for the first time in our married life she went to India for 5 weeks (because she always worked full time before so never had that much vacation) and out of those 5 weeks, she was there without me for more than 2 weeks. That is when she spent a lot of time with her darling sister, Kiddo Bahwa, who has been suffering from this disease for 4 years now and contracted it from her. Earlier this year in March, when Kiddo had a severe attack of CBD, her husband had to fly her all the way to Dubai so that she could shop in UAE Dirhams. Same way in 2011, Kiddo visited us in Chicago to satisfy her quench to spend in the USD. Many stores in the Woodfield Mall still have her picture on the wall to commemorate her as the biggest spender of the day when she visited them. (BTW, Wish you a very happy birthday, Kiddo Middo. May God bless you with all the happiness of this world!!!!)

Anyway, coming back to our Europe trip, when we landed in London (as in UK, not London, Ontario), there was a lot of excitement in the air about the royal baby. In fact, just a few days before we arrived there, the royals had announced the name of the baby – George Alexander Louis, which I found a very boring and an old-fashioned name. Come on Royals – this is 21^st century…GAL? Really? First of all, I do not understand why in the world someone needs 3 names??  Thank God this kid will not attend a regular elementary school otherwise I could visualize him receiving wedgies in the bathroom every other day just because his name is George Alexander Louis. And, in any case, we are living in a global, diverse, cosmopolitan world where a pure Anglo-Saxon, old-fashioned name does not cut it anymore. If they really wanted 3 names, my friend Sami had a great suggestion – why not call him Amar Akbar Anthony? What could be more diverse than that? As much as we wanted to see this baby (and I am sure Royals would have loved a visit by the Arora family as well), we simply could not fit him in our packed itinerary in London.

For my Harry Potter obsessed family, the highlight of the London trip was a visit to the Harry Potter museum, which, coincidently, was the lowlight of my trip. We took a special bus from the center city to travel to the Warners Bros. Studios. As much as I did not want to be seen to be doing anything related to Harry Potter, the bus itself was painted on both sides with large pictures of Harry Potter and other clowns in the Harry Potter saga. Thank God that it had tinted windows and the visibility was poor due to the London rain so no one on the street could see me in the bus.  The studio tour took a very long, four boring hours but thankfully they had free WiFi there so my iPad was my only savior.

After suffering through the first 90 minutes of the tour, we reached an area where you can buy snacks. I was relieved when I saw a sign for “butter beer” and ordered a large one. As soon as I took the first sip, I spit it out because of the horrible taste of whatever they were selling in the name of beer. I asked the guy what (the hell) that drink was and he said it was the butter beer. I said, “Dude, I can read the sign so I know that it is butter beer, but where (the hell) is beer in it? What is it made of anyway?”  He replied coolly, “Oh! Cream soda with whipped cream.”  “Whipped Cream??”, I yelled. I really wanted to whip his rear-end but Nyle was afraid that my aggression may result in us getting expelled from the museum (which would have been great for me but would have broken his heart) so I decided to simply drain this so called “butter beer” down the drain and file a claim for a refund. I am still waiting for my check (I guess it will be called a “cheque” if it comes from the UK).

Our next stop was Paris where we knew that language will be a hurdle in our dealings with the natives but I was counting on my son, Nyle to use his recently acquired French skills to communicate on our behalf. Some of you may remember that after moving to Canada last year, I did take private lessons in French for 6 months but then realized that learning a new language after turning 40 is as difficult as it is for the Bollywood director, Rohit Shetty to make any sensible movie.

That way I am glad that I did not go to watch Rohit Shetty’s latest flick, Chennai Express but I could not stop my family from making this blunder. They took advantage of my business travel to go and waste an afternoon on this idiotic movie. And they did it even though we are still waiting for our refund from last year’s “Bol Bachchan”. Not only I requested a refund of $57 that we spent on the movie (Kush will never watch a movie without a big tub of popcorn and a bucket size soda that they sell in theatres), I also filed a lawsuit for an undisclosed amount for my mental anguish after watching that movie. My next court hearing is on November 31^st. I will let you know how it went after my date with the judge (no, not that kind of date…I am happily married).

When I was discussing the ultra-low quality of Rohit’s movies with my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-movie-advisor, Kanya Bahwa, she reminded me that Rohit also made ‘Singham” which was not as ludicrous as the rest of his movies. In that case, let me rephrase my statement – After 6 months of French lessons, I realized that learning French when you are on the wrong side of 40 is as difficult as it was for Dada Kondke to make any sensible movies. And those of you Gen Yers and Gen Z++ers, who may not know who Dada Kondke was, just google him and you will know what I am talking about. And no, I did not watch any of his movies because of the interesting title names he picked.

Let us get back to Paris and French. One time we were very close to the Notre Dame church but still could not find it so I sent Nyle to ask a French gentleman and get directions. Nyle approached the guy and asked, “Où est Notre Dame?” in French, and the guy replied in English, “Oh, you just make a left at the next intersection, go a block and you will see it on your left.” So much for using Nyle’s French skills to communicate with the natives…

So what is common between the royal baby, Rohit Shetty, Harry Potter, Dada Kondke, and Europe – Nothing….. and that is why it is called a column about nothing!!

Coming Up: More stories from the Europe trip (especially Switzerland).

And as always, my final thought: Hats off to Bhasins for their gracious hospitality in London. Without you guys, we would have been lost in London (as we were in Switzerland and France).

Generation Z++

So when I wrote about the Millennials (aka Gen Y, aka the rotten generation) a few weeks ago, my lovely sis-in-law-cum-always-a-whiner, Kanya Bahwa, protested that I was singling out her generation to have some fun in my blog. Therefore, this time I have decided to highlight another generation – no, not my generation….there is nothing cool or funny about Gen X. The generation I am talking about is the next generation right after Millennials.  Logically, after Gen X and Gen Y, the next one should be named Gen Z but I think calling them just Z does not do any justice to this tech-savvy, super-smart, and hyper-active generation.

Talking about tech-savvy and super-smart… last year we were visiting our friends, Sunil/Pallavi in NYC and at that time their daughter, Cyra was only 1.5 years old but was very proficient with Pallavi’s iPhone.  One evening Pallavi was on her phone, and Cyra was crying hard to get the phone so I gave her my Blackberry to calm her down. She took it with a cute smile, swiped her tiny finger on the screen…and nothing happened. She tried again a couple of times thinking this dude seems slow so may be his phone is also not as fast as my Mamma’s phone. However, after a couple of trials, when she realized that nothing was happening, she returned the phone to me with a facial expression, which clearly said, “Here is your silly phone back to you. Now, tell me, Mr. Caveman, when is your tribe going to get some cool technology, such as my Mamma’s phone?” I hung my head in shame and could not face her the rest of the evening. Now I do carry an iPhone in addition to my blackberry just to avoid those kinds of embarrassing situations with Gen Z++ers.

Obviously, the silver lining in this cloud was that in this whole phone exchange process, Cyra somehow forgot that she had been crying for her mamma’s phone.  For the next several hours, she had a very pensive, though somewhat amused, look. I am sure she was thinking that her problems were nothing compared to the issues people have in their lives. Her thought process probably was, ‘take this dude….on the surface, he appears to be alright from an IQ standpoint but look at his choice of technology. Wonder if he has monetary issues…. or what if he actually is nowhere close to as smart as he thinks he is.’ In any case, due to this all-encompassing pity, Cyra overcompensated me by letting me feed her all of her meals for the remainder of our stay…which is always the best part of visiting Sunil/Pallavi.

We have 2 sample of this generation at our home though it is only the younger one (my 8-year old son, Kush) who truly represents the characteristics of this generation. Just like Cyra, he is also quite a tech-savvy kid though he overuses his creativity and hence gets crazy results most of the times. Recently, he wanted to copy his elder brother, Nyle, and have his own e-mail address. I showed him the gmail website:

Me: So, Kush, for your e-mail account, you need to think about a user name and a password. Read the instructions carefully for a password because your password should be very secure so that no one can get into your account. First, can you think of a user name for you?

Kush: Of course. My user name should be Kush-is-king.

Me: Hey, that is not a humble user name.

Kush: Nowhere on these instructions they talk about the user name being humble.

Me: I guess you have a point. Anyway, read the instructions about the password and let me know what you want as a password.

Kush: I read them and my password should be rama-lakshamana-spiderman-sita-hanuman-delhi

Me: What?? Really? But why?

Kush: Dadda, it clearly says, your password should have 5 characters, including one special character, and a capital.

Me: Speechless.

When Kush was 6 years old in 1^st grade in Chicago, I had the following conversation with his teacher in one of his PTA meetings:

Me: So, how is Kush doing in his class?

Teacher: Well, Kush is Kush.

Me: What is that supposed to mean?

Teacher: He is a very different kid. Last week, I gave a writing assignment to all kids, which started as “How to make a…” and their job was to complete the paragraph describing something they know how to make.

Me: Ok, then what happened?

Teacher: So kids had a wide variety of responses describing how to make normal things, for example, “how to make a sandwich” or “how to make a paper-boat” or “how to make a nuclear bomb” (no, just kidding. First graders do not know how to make nuclear bombs…only second graders do).

Me: And what did Kush write?

Teacher: Here you go.

With that she handed me a sheet of paper where Kush described “how to make a”…yeah you accurately guessed it.. “Rainbow”.  It said, “First you collect 7 colors and you mix them, add some shine to them, spread them out, and throw them in the air and you will have a beautiful rainbow.” The problem is that the economic viability of such an enterprise, if Kush really wants to convert this “hobby” of making rainbows into an entrepreneurial adventure is not very good.

Though coming to think of it, I have seen some other weird entrepreneurial ideas…though not from Gen Z++ kids but from the students of the Kellogg School of Management. When I was at Chicago Booth, I was visiting one of my Kellogg friends and he told me that many students that week had just participated in a New Venture Challenge. When I looked at covers of some of the final reports, I was amused by their entrepreneurial ideas, such as “windshield wipers for submarines” or a “instant solar-powered flash light” that can help you navigate your way around during power cuts in Mansarovar Garden, Delhi (I found out that the Kellogg girl who came up with the idea was from Paschim Vihar, Delhi…wonder if there is any rivalry between these 2 places in Delhi).

If you need a few more crazy ideas like these, I do have a long list from the Kellogg report but I do not want to give away everything at one time.  My advice to those of you who actually are planning to start a company based on these Kellogg ideas is that you should not neglect the importance of raising capital for a new venture.  In that arena, I have a brilliant idea – get in touch with some of the rich, but not so financially savvy, Kellogg alumni (we all know about their lack of quantitative skills) and then all you have to do is to sell zero-coupon perpetuity bonds to them.  You will be able to raise a lot of money and they will never be able to figure out what hit them.

And, as always, my final thought: Congratulations Kanya Bahwa on starting a bidding war for you in the world of e-commerce (no pun intended). Told you before your interviews started that you would be a “hot” commodity (no pun intended) so now you see what I meant. Good luck with the new job!!

Muy Bien, Gracias….Cerveza?

These are the 4 words that get me quite far whenever I travel to Latin America. Invariably, the waitress at every restaurant starts the conversation with, “Hola, Como Estas?” and that is when I say, “Muy Bien, Gracias…Cerveza?” For Spanishly-challenged people, the conversation translates to, ‘Hello, How are you”, “I am well, Thanks…beer?” Even when they start the conversation with, “Buenos Dias (Good Morning), Como Estas?” my answer remains the same because a long time ago when I was in a primary school in India learning (or cramming) world geography and different time zones, I realized that there is always 5 o’clock somewhere in the world so there is no “wrong” time to drink a beer, especially when you are in a foreign country and do not know the language…..that is where beer does its magic – it eliminates all inhibitions and suddenly you start conducting meaningful, philosophical, intellectually-stimulating discussions with your host whose English is as good as your (insert the language of the country you are visiting here).

It is amazing to see how after a couple of drinks people from different cultures, nationalities, religions etc. etc. start bonding quite well despite the fact that sometimes they do not understand even a single word of what the other person is saying. More and more I think about it, more I am convinced that we should try alcohol as a facilitator during the peace talks all over the world. I cannot imagine any border dispute that Indian PM, Dr. Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Mr. Nawaz Sharif cannot resolve over a bottle of some nice red wine from Bangladesh. And it is possible that after the third bottle, they may sell both countries to China and in that case there won’t be any border left to have a dispute about.

Now, it is a different thing that until I set foot in the US around 20 years ago as a student, I was a complete teetotaler and a pure vegetarian (when people say they are “pure” vegetarians, I always wonder how an “impure” vegetarian will look like). But then this is what a great country, such as the United States of America does to you – it instills strong values all around and hence during the very first weekend after landing in the US, my friends took me to New York City, where they introduced me to an intriguing and wonderful world of beer and chicken….and as they say, the rest is history.

Coming back to my Latin America travels, I recently returned from a hectic trip to Santiago, Chile and Lima, Peru. My excellent Spanish speaking capability (those 4 words I mentioned above) definitely came in handy at every restaurant there, though in these 2 countries I always replace Cerveza with Pisco Sour (and in Brazil, I replace Cerveza with Caipirinha). At the last dinner before boarding the plane, I tried hard to jam up as many Pisco Sours as I could and since there was not enough time to finish one and order another one, I had to start ordering 3 at a time (picture below is worth 382 words…the picture was supposed to be worth 1000 words but after a few Pisco Sours the story got condensed to 382 words).

During one of the several trips to the bathroom that fateful evening, I recalled my very first travel to Venezuela in 1995 when at a restaurant; I went to use the restroom and looked at the signs at 2 doors – “M” and “H”. I was pretty sure that “M” is for men but I wondered what “H” stood for. Since at that time my Spanish was quite bad (I did not know those 4 words mentioned above) and I had already consumed a few beers, I simply assumed that “H” must stand for “her” or something. Therefore, I charged confidently into the bathroom marked “M” and as they say, the rest is history.

Only when the bilingual doctor at the hospital that night explained it to me, I understood (the hard way) that “M” was for Mujeres (Women) and “H” was for Hombres (Men). Thank God that the damage to my eardrums from the loud screams of girls in that bathroom marked “M” was not permanent – I did get my hearing back after a few months. And with therapy, I am sure some day the mental scars will go away as well.

Whenever I go to Latin America, I am amazed by the free-spirited, fun-loving people of that part of the world. On a regular week day, you can see people playing volleyball and soccer at midnight on the beautiful beaches of Recife in Brazil. And talking about soccer, I always wanted my sons to take an interest in the game and play it regularly. My older one never showed any interest in any sports but lately my 7-year old son, Kush, has been playing soccer regularly at school so the other day I wanted to check with him how he liked it…this is how our conversation transpired:

Me: Kush, so how is your soccer practice going?

Kush: Good. I play at school every day.

Me: That is great. In that case, why don’t we enroll you in a soccer class?

Kush: No, I do not need a class. I am very good at it. I already have so many other classes to go to.

Me: But if you are in a soccer class, Kush, you will learn many new techniques about playing soccer

Kush: No, dada, I told you I am the best in my school.

Me: Kush, I guess you should learn some modesty.

Kush: What is that? Does not matter whatever it is, because as I said, I am very good, so I do not need to learn any modesty in any class.

Me: (Speechless)

Kush: And, dada, I hate my Kumon class. That is too much work. Why did you lie to me that Kumon was a Japanese system?

Me: What do you mean? It IS Japanese. If you do not believe me, you can ask your Uncle Google. And why would you think it was not Japanese.

Kush: Nyle, can you google it for me? (Kush was born with a huge sense of entitlement and a strong desire that he should have people doing everything for him….alas, he was born in the US and not in India so he just has his brother to do everything for him).

Nyle: (after Googling on the iPad).. Hmm. Interesting. Kush, it does say it is Japanese.

Kush: Really? But looking at my Kumon workload, I am sure it was invented by some Indian parents living in Japan. No other parent in the world can be that cruel to their kids.

Me: (Speechless)

Nyle: Dada, now I have a question. Why does Google think that it is so smart when, in fact, it is so annoying?

Me: What did it do to you now?

Nyle: I hate it when I start typing a word and it starts guessing what I want. As I started typing kumon, it started asking me if I wanted “kumon books”, “kumon canada”, “kumon math”, “kumon ice cream” etc. etc.   Can it not wait for a second until I am done typing? And then it acted like a smarty-pants when I typed Kunon by mistake. It asked me, “did you mean: kumon” with such an attitude as if I am an idiot.

Me: (Speechless)

And as always, my final thought……… brought to you this time by my lovely sis-in-law-cum-recently-turned-amateur-philosopher, Kanya Bahwa – “It is extremely hard to forget your third love.” After completing her internship last Monday, Kanya had two choices – either to turn into an amateur philosopher and pen down some memorable quotes like the one above or play peek-a-boo all day long. And as they say, the rest is history.

Millennials – A Lost Generation

No, by no means I am saying that Millenials are a lost generation. That was just to grab your attention so that you read the whole article to figure out how I prove at the end that this generation “Y” is a lost generation. Other alternatives for the titles I considered were – “Millenials – a sex-crazed generation”, “Millenials – Are you out of your minds?”, and “Millenials – Wannabe Gen Xers” but I settled on the lost generation.

So my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-UOLO-girl, Kanya Bahwa (who is also a Millennial), is burning some midnight and weekend oil these days. No, she is not actually using a lantern to do her work because apparently they do have electricity in Mansarovar Garden, Delhi….she is just working insane hours during her internship at an export house. Unless you are on hallucinogenic drugs, your next logical question should be – what the hell is this UOLO? Well, apparently this is, and I quote from their website, “an enjoyable fashion for the social chic”. For more information, please visit http://uolo-stories.blogspot.in/ to see how Kanya is creating history single-handedly (ok, ok, she is using both hands but only one on her laptop….the other one to IM with me).

And after going through the UOLO stories, all I can say is – Thank God I do not live in New Delhi. It is clearly infested with chicks with a “smirky smile and a naughty streak”, who can take simpletons like me for a ride with their street-smart ways. These girls are dressed in Tie-Dye modern Safari shirts, which I believe (based on the description), are equipped with some radio-active material to annihilate any not-so-subtle man who “accidently” try to rub his shoulders with these chicks in Delhi Metro.

So the next question is – how did Kanya land such a great opportunity to work in this cool fashion environment? And based on what she told me right after her interview, I can confidently say that it was because of her creativity during the interview. So this is how she answered some of the questions.   

Interviewer: So Kanya Bahwa, and by the way, I know your real name is not Kanya but for your jiju’s blog, let us go with Kanya. Anyway, creativity is very important for this role but I am also looking for some superior analytical and problem solving skills. So, let me ask you this simple question – Assume that your jiju’s friend Skanda is helping him to shovel his driveway. If they both take 24 minutes together to clear the driveway, your jiju alone takes 32 minutes to shovel the same driveway, how long it will take for Skanda to shovel it if he was working alone?”

Kanya:  Why should I calculate how long it will take for Skanda (wow, that is a unique name…are you sure, it is Skanda and not Sikandar?) to shovel the driveway?  I will just go to Skanda and ask – Hey dude, how long will it take for you to shovel this damn driveway?

Interviewer: Hmmm. Interesting. This is pretty smart, Kanya. Ok, here comes the nest question – If you wanted to reach to your destination in 30 minutes but have driven only half the distance in 20 minutes, how much faster will you have to go in order to still make it in the next 10 minutes.

Kanya: I do not care how fast I need to go.  I will simply tell my chauffer, “Ramu Kaka, drive faster because I need to be there in 10 minutes.”

Interviewer: Oh, so you never drive yourself?

Kanya: Yes, I do.

Interviewer: Really? OK, so let me ask you a common sense traffic light question. What is the difference between a flashing yellow light and a flashing red light?

Kanya: Color. One is red, other is orange.

Interviewer: Again, you have a clever, if not slightly deranged, mind. Let me ask you one more question to test your analytical skills. If one tree grows at 3/5^th the rate of another tree…..”

Kanya: (interrupting the interviewer): Look, Deepak, I know your name is not Deepak but for my jiju’s blog, let us go with Deepak, If I had to watch the freaking trees grow, I would have moved to my cousin’s grandpa’s farm in Roorkee, UP, rather than working towards a Diploma in e-commerce.

Interviewer: When can you start, Kanya?

When Kanya was telling me about her interview experience, I remembered one of my own interview stories when I was at business school. For a second round interview for a finance job in California, I got there the evening before the interview. As soon as I checked into the hotel, my cell phone rang and it was my host who told me that he would take me out for dinner with a few other Finance colleagues.  He asked me if I had any preference for any kind of food or had any food restrictions.  Obviously, I did not want to make a big deal about my food preferences so I replied, “No, I like all kinds of foods so whatever you pick would be fine with me”. He said, “We were thinking of going to a topless place. Will that be okay with you?”

Now, I had a tough decision to make.  I was not comfortable at all going to a topless place the night before my interview.  But then I was not sure if I should say no to these people because it might be taken in the wrong context and I might be labeled as a non-team-player.  I did not want him to tell the HR the next day, “See, this is why I keep telling you that these Booth guys are not really team players.  We should recruit more at Kellogg and stop going to Booth.  I know Kellogg offers only one finance course in their MBA curriculum but then how many courses do you need to learn how to calculate the NBV or NPV, or whatever the hell that is”.  So I went ahead and said yes to him.

An hour later, he came to the hotel to pick me up with two more finance people. As soon as I settled down in the car, he asked me again, “So, are you sure you are okay with our pick?”  Now this was another opportunity for me to correct the situation. I thought if I was not comfortable going to a topless place, I should politely tell them and request them to go somewhere else.  But then I decided not to say anything.

On the way to the restaurant, I kept preparing myself by thinking that I would not “look around” in the restaurant and just focus on my food or my conversations with them etc etc. After 15 tense minutes, we pulled in front of the restaurant called, “Ole Ole Tapas, Restaurant and Bar”.  Oh!! So we were going to a “Tapas” place and not a “Topless” place, I realized.  That damn southern accent of my host on a Verizon phone with a lousy connection. I immediately switched to AT&T.

Coming back to Kanya, I guess, the best part of her job is the t-shirts she gets to wear at work. The other day, on Facetime, I saw her wearing a t-shirt saying, “Instant Human – Just Add Beer.”  She also has a t-shirt which says, “Designated Passenger”, which I am sure comes in handy at wild, booze parties after work.

And, as always, my final thought: You will never know what you cannot achieve, until you do not achieve it.

Happy Mother’s Day!!!!

Welcome to Canada - Kiddaan?

As Mahatma Gandhi famously said during the height of India’s independence movement, “If you have seen snow and freezing rain in April, you have seen everything in life.” Hmmmm…. When I re-read the preceding statement, it actually does not make much sense in Gandhi’s context. It is possible that Gandhi did not say this and I said those words to my lovely sis-in-law-cum-the-birthday-girl, Kanya Bahwa, who celebrated her 20-something birthday last Saturday when we, in Toronto, woke up to snow flurries.

Kanya is claiming that I said those words to her when I was doing Facetime with her on her birthday and I definitely do not remember saying anything remotely close to that… so the good news here is that at least one of us was drunk on her birthday. And based on my experience with Delhi chicks (other than my wife Anshu) I can bet that it was her, not me. She is also claiming that she discussed at length with me some unique attributes of her, now famous, yellow birthday dress and I know I normally have as much interest in discussing chicks’ dresses as Mahatma Gandhi had in wearing designer dhotis. Therefore, that settles the question about who was drunk on Kanya’s birthday.

Now let us come back to our main topic today: Welcome to Canada – where spring comes to die. It appears as if in this day and age of corporate cost cutting, God also decided to cancel Spring in Canada. In April, we have averaged day time temperature at around 4-5 deg C and night time close to the freezing point. I guess it is still better than some other parts in Canada. For example, I was visiting Calgary and Edmonton last week and they still have snow on the ground. Shown below is the picture I took from the plane and you can clearly see snow covering the landscape. Talking about planes, I travel a lot for work and there is something about flying that makes you feel your own mortality in a special way. Perhaps because everything looks so tiny from up there, perhaps the turbulence reminds you of the fragility of your life…though, I think, most likely it is because of a couple of glasses of red wine that make me so emotional while flying. And what else can explain what Anshu found in my bag when I reached home – an air sickness bag from the plane. I told her that I was thinking of using it to pack my lunch – it definitely will act as an appetite-suppressant… a good way for me to lose weight.

When we moved from the US last year, we assumed that Toronto would not be that much different than Chicago. However, even though the cultural shocks of moving to Canada were not as severe as those I had when I migrated from India to the US in the 90s, there have still been some mini-shocks. The first and foremost – the primary language in some parts of Canada appears to be Punjabi. For those of you wondering what ‘Kiddaan” means in the title of this post, it is the Punjabi version of “How are you?” We Punjabis are the laziest people on earth. I have been to all parts of the world and I have not come across any language where “how are you” can be asked in just one word but we Punjabis can do that.

And since we are surrounded by so many Indians in Canada, we have been encouraging our kids to talk more in Hindi at home. My 7-year-old son, Kush, does not like it because it is “extra work” for him. The other day this is how a conversation transpired between Anshu and Kush:

Anshu (in Hindi): So how was your school today, Kush? And remember, you can talk only in Hindi

Kush (in English): Awwwn, that is not fair. I do not want to speak in Hindi. It is hard.

Anshu (in Hindi): No, I told you before. You have to talk to us in Hindi.

Kush: Ok, how about just one sentence in English and then all Hindi?

Anshu: Ok, but remember, just one sentence.

Kush: Ok. First, we learned fractions, then we read a story, then we reviewed capitals of provinces, then we had our first recess where I played the walking dead game with my friends, then we had our music class where I "accidently" broke a guitar by using it as a baseball bat, then we had our second recess when I ate lunch, then we had our drama class where I winked at a girl so you may receive a phone call from her parents, and then we learned the Canadian history which appears to be quite different from the American history I used to learn in Chicago, and then it was time to come home.

Anshu: What??? That was one sentence??? Those were so many sentences.

Kush: No, that was one long sentence. There were no periods, those were all commas, Mamma.

Canada feels a lot like India in more than one ways – there are many Indian areas where if you speak only English, you will feel as foreign as Rama felt when as a UP’ite from Ayodhya, he had to go to Lanka for the fighting scenes of the climax of Ramayana. Having born and brought up in UP and having traveled to Tamilnadu dealing with a different language and buckets of sambhar, I can feel Rama’s pain. Also, we do not miss the Indian-style politicians here either…the mayor of Toronto was recently convicted of corruption in the public office. In my hometown in UP, we used to deal with monkeys almost every day at our roof tops. Guess what – they recently discovered a monkey living in an Ikea store in the Toronto area. The only difference is that while I used to chase monkeys with a stick jumping from roof tops to roof tops (yeah, just like the young Vito Corleone in my favorite movie, “The Godfather”), there was a huge debate in Toronto on how to “rehabilitate” this lost monkey.

 Before moving to Canada, I used to wonder why Canada is always a step behind the US even though at the surface, both countries look quite similar. And now I know why. In the US, productivity and progress-obsessed Americans “go the extra mile” to make their country as the number one country in the world. Canadians also try the same but since they use the metric system, they ‘go the extra kilometer” and hence end up going only 0.625 miles instead of the full mile.

Canadians also complain that whenever a U.S. retailer acquires a Canadian company, the same merchandise category eventually gets subsumed by the U.S. brand. Case in point – After the infamous “bra-suit” where Victoria’s Secret sued Le Senza’s of Canada for allegedly copying a VS bra, the parent company of VS, The Limited, ended up buying Le Senza. Even though they said that they would invest in both brands, ultimately, VS did get the favorite daughter preferential treatment and many under-performing Le Senza stores were shut down. This is despite protests from the Canadian management team who argued that Le Senza had  848,801 Facebook fans, a very large base for a Canadian-born brand. The rebuttal from the US leadership – Victoria’s Secret has 21.6 million fans. Any questions? Two notes here – the only reason I read all this is because I follow the business news very closely. And this also tells you that Canada is just like Orissa in India – where nothing interesting happens so this kind of stuff becomes the front page news here.

I can also explain why obesity is a bigger endemic in the US than in Canada. It is because of the “environment” at many mainstream restaurant chains in Canada. For example, Moxie’s, Jack Astor’s, The Cactus Club, Walker’s Fish Market etc. hire only young, beautiful girls as waitresses who wear really small, tight black dresses. That is something I never saw in the US. So, in the US, when there is nothing interesting to ‘see’ around you, men just focus on eating everything on their plate. Here, men (not me though) are so distracted, they never finish their food and hence do not put on extra pounds.

I am perplexed by another observation in Canada – there is no $1 bill, it is a coin. I know in the US, when people go to the strip clubs, they carry a wad of $1 bills for obvious reasons. I wonder what people do here when there is no $1 bills. Obviously, they cannot use coins. It is possible that the government eliminated the $1 bill due to strong lobbying by strip clubs who now receive $5 bills instead of $1 bills, resulting in a five-fold increase in a typical Canadian club’s revenue as compared to an American club’s revenue. Pretty smart, eh?

My final thought this time is brought to you by my dear friend Meena:

Some reasons make relationships precious but only precious relationships are made with no reasons! Keep these relations alive for life time.

Spring Break Adventures

So this is what the hostess told me – “Her name is Katrina. She will be here in a few minutes. She is very cute but definitely has an attitude. Sometimes she acts just like a diva. Remember, you can touch her anywhere on her body except on her face. But when you kiss her, make sure that you hold her chin with both hands. And finally, when you ride her, you need to hold her tight because her body is very slippery.”

Wait…wait. It is nothing like what you are thinking. Before your mind starts racing at 100 miles/hour (160 km/hr in India and Canada) imagining all kinds of R-rated, X-rated, “A”-rated (In India) scenarios, let me clarify the setting here. This is what happened at this amazing spot called, “Discovery Cove” in Orlando, Florida where we were vacationing during spring break…. snorkeling, sun-tanning, and swimming with dolphins….and Katrina in this case was a 6-year old ultra-cute dolphin who carried us around in the lake as a part of the package (though my 7-year old son Kush did slip a few times because apparently he was not holding her tight).  It is debatable at this stage whether he really slipped or if she was also trying to get away from him (if you are a regular reader of this blog AND have been taking your medication regularly, you will no doubt recall how mischievous Kush is …so may be even Katrina was trying to run for her life).

Even my lovely sis-in-law-cum-a-constant-character-in-my-blog-stories, Kanya Bahwa, agreed with my hypothesis that Katrina must be trying to run away from Kush. There you go, Kanya. I still somehow fit you in this blog. Honestly, this time with the vacation story line, it was as difficult to fit Kanya here as it would be to create a character for Johney Lever in the Bollywood movie “Black”. However, I still had to do it because if you are a regular reader of this blog AND have been taking your medication regularly, you will no doubt recall how bad it was that one time when I did not mention Kanya in my blog. The atma of that dismembered Barbie doll is still hovering somewhere in Mansarover Garden, Delhi area oscillating between Kanya’s house and my bro-in-law Dinks’ house searching for the meaning of after-life.

Anyway, with Kanya being taken care of in this blog, let us return to our main theme. So everything about the Discovery Cove was great – except the wet suits we had to wear all day. After a couple of hours of snorkeling, when the first time I went to the bathroom, I somehow managed to unzip the zipper on my back and relieved myself. However, when I tried to pull up this super-tight wet suit, the zipper won’t move at all. Well, it was a pretty awkward situation but thank God I never have to see that stranger again in my life who helped me with my suit. And after this incident I have developed a new respect for girls going to parties wearing shapewear under their dresses. And I always used to wonder why girls in a party go to the bathroom together….now I know.

When we were at the Universal Studio next day, we stopped by a sandwich joint for lunch, which was also a bakery. At several places in that restaurant they had signs saying, “Food served here has been prepared in a facility where nuts may be present.”  Normally companies claim that employees are their best assets and it is all about people etc. etc. And here you have a company which is openly calling its employees nuts. Does not appear to be a great talent retention policy… and I wonder how many lawsuits they go through in a year.

Last time we went to Orlando was a few years ago when Kush was almost 4-years old.  At that time, my wife, Anshu, and I were considering various options (Vegas, Cancun, or Disney World) for our vacation. When we were talking about these options, Kush, who had been quietly listening to our conversation interrupted and said, “I want to go to Disney World for vacation”.  First I told him that we were also considering that option but then it struck me.  I said, “Wait a minute, buddy!  You want to go on a vacation?  You have not worked even a single day in your life.  What makes you think that you deserve a vacation?  The last I checked, your “work” consists of eating, playing, and sleeping.  And you say you need a vacation???  Now tell me what will be different in vacation other than eating, playing, and well, sleeping?”  I still doubt he ever comprehended my logic and structure of the argument.  It may work in a case interview, but not with a 4-year old.

In all respects, this vacation with universal Studios, Discovery Cove, SeaWorld etc, was much more fun compared to the time when my son Nyle forced us to visit Springfield, IL (he is a huge fan of Abraham Lincoln). That turned out to be one of the most boring vacations because there was not much to do other than visiting Lincoln’s house, Old Salem, and a couple of museums. While taking a tour of Lincon’s house from 1850s, I asked the tour guide, “I do not see any power outlets so where did Lincoln plug in his laptop?” Considering the stares I received, I do not think either tour guide or Nyle was amused by my question.

At the museum, reading about “All men are created equal” I was thinking that there definitely was no concept of political correctness at the time when this all was written. Otherwise, how could they forget about women?  Another explanation could be that women are inherently better than men and that’s why they were not included in this statement (All you chicks reading this article – pay attention here, I believe that I have scored some points with the preceding statement).  Also, if our forefathers writing the constitution were politically correct and were living in today’s society, they would write something like, “All men, whether White, Black, Asian, Hispanic, Native Indian, Indian American, American Indian, Physically Challenged, Intellectually Challenged, Electronically Challenged, Rajnikant, Heterosexual, Homosexual, Dinkar Kalra, Bisexual, Richard Branson, Asexual etc. etc. are created equal.”

And as always, my final thought:

When your life is all downhill, gravity is the one thing you can always count on – Madonna.

My Two Sons – A Millennium Apart – The Saga Continues

Sequels are in fashion these days…at least that is what my lovely sis-in-law-cum-my-sequel-advisor, Kanya Bahwa, has been telling me for a long time, who herself can’t wait to watch Hangover 3 this summer. Apparently, she has had her own version of the Hangover movies…..most recently this past week when she was covering a fashion show in Delhi from the side of that stage thingy where models walk wearing apparently fashionable clothes (do not know what that thingy is called because I have never been to a fashion show…it will be like President Bush going to a book club meeting).  It seems that after the show was over, she went to an after-show party but at this stage, all she remembers is waking up in her bedroom at 3 PM the next afternoon with lipstick marks on the dresser mirror, her favorite teddy bear hanging from the ceiling fan, and half of her hair straight and the other half curly. We will get to the bottom of that in the next blog so let us continue with the sequel thing.

So after the unprecedented success of my blog, “My Two Sons – A Millennium Apart”, which was published on Nov 19, 2012 (total page views = 548), it is time for a sequel. In any case, there are so many differences between my two sons that I may need another sequel to continue with the story. And, if I have the right script, I may publish a prequel also (obviously without the explicit details on how our boys came to this world).

When Nyle was born in the last century (in 1999), it was the height of the internet boom. We had our own party in the delivery room because in a small, friendly town like Charleston, WV, Anshu’s OB/GYN was pretty cool about who all can be present at the time of Nyle’s birth. Coming to think of it, I should have made it a ticketed event and should have earned some money for Nyle’s college fund…but I guess it is a little too late for that now….

 So even though we did not plan it this way, there were 7 of us in the room when Nyle came to this world. And within 90 seconds of his birth there were 15 other nurses from all over the hospital in our room who came to check out his thick, long, black hair because with a 98% white population, almost all babies in WV are born bald or with very little hair (and Meenu, for the record, I did not make fun of West Virginians in the preceding sentence). When one of the nurses asked me if we had decided on the name, I said, “It is clear that these days you have no future, if you are not involved with any kind of dot com and so we are going to name him Nyle.com”. However, the birth certificate office refused our request on some stupid “legal” grounds so he ended up with just “Nyle”. I tried this strategy again when Kush was born in 2005 in the middle of the world going crazy with Steve Jobs’ toys, such as iMac, iPod etc.  I wanted my second son to be named as iKush but they refused it again so we had to settle on Kush. 

As I wrote last time, Nyle was always a polite and well-mannered kid. When he turned 4, we enrolled him in a soccer league. In his first soccer match, at one point, he had full control of the ball when another kid from the rival team approached him. Nyle immediately gave the ball to him. Since I was surprised, I asked him after the game why he had given the ball to the other kid. His answer was, “But mamma says you are supposed to share, right?”  How could I counter that argument? I think it was still better than another kid who was running with the ball at full speed and was very close to the goal, when he suddenly stopped letting the rival team’s kid take the ball. The coach shouted, “Why did you stop?” He pointed towards the sky and said, “Look, airplane”.

Nyle also never needed any attention. He would keep himself busy most of the times and when he got bored of watching Barney or playing with his toys, he would play hide-and-seek alone for hours. Now, all of you chicks reading this article and going, “Awww, poor baby!!, I am just kidding…he never played hide-and-seek alone…he played it with his favorite toy Barney by hiding him under the bed, going out of the room and then coming back to seek him exactly from where he had hid him….kidding again. No, that is not true either. He did not have such a sad childhood.

And talking about hide-and-seek, I just remembered about a time when Kush was playing hide-and-seek in our basement with Nyle and their Sunil uncle (who both my kids treat as someone in their age group because he plays so well with them). After a few minutes, Kush came upstairs, turned on his Wii, and started playing some Mario game. I asked where Nyle and Sunil were and he said, “Downstairs”. Upon further investigation, I found out that while Nyle and Sunil were hiding downstairs waiting for him to find them, Kush decided to simply quit the game and play his video game. What can I say? With Nyle, the so-called “terrible two” phase came and went without any issues for us but with Kush it started more like “terrible one-and-a-half” and the phase is still going on. A few years ago, at our Christmas party, one of my European colleagues pointed at Nyle and Kush and asked, “So, these are your offspring?” I said, “Yes, Nyle is my offspring but Kush here is more like an “on-spring” than an offspring because I have never seen him still ever since he was born”.

The other day I thought that my kids should learn some more about the Indian history so we decided to watch “Gandhi” as a family. When the movie was over, I asked my kids how they liked it. Nyle, obviously liked it a lot because he is a history freak. On the other hand, Kush did not appear to be too impressed. When I asked why he did not like it, his response was, “If they knew that it was going to be such a boring movie, why didn’t they include an item song?”  I said, “An item song in Gandhi? How is it even possible? Gandhi was fighting for India’s independence. How could you fit an item song with Katrina Kaif in such a issue-based movie?” Kush replied, “Well, maybe not when Gandhi was awake but how about when he was sleeping? Katrina could come in his dreams and sing a song like ‘Indira ki Jawani’ to make it a somewhat interesting movie.” This resulted in me lecturing him on his lack of “Indian” values and too much focus on materialism, girls and all. Later on, I overheard Kush talking to Nyle in another room:

Kush: I am not happy with my owners. Can I change my owners?

Nyle: What do you mean? Who are your owners?

Kush: Mamma and Dadda, who else?

Nyle: Hey, they are our parents, not owners.

Kush: Whatever. But I still want American owners. They are a lot of fun. These Indian owners always lecture me on all kinds of stuff whereas my American friends get a lot of freedom in doing whatever they want to do.

And it was not just with the Gandhi movie. Kush has his own ideas about all Hindi movies. For example, after watching “Krishna and Kans”, he said, “I do not understand why they killed Kans at the end. That does not make any sense”. I said, “Kans was a bad guy so he got killed.” “But now the problem is that they cannot make a sequel”, was his smarty-pants response. I guess at the end of the day it still comes down to sequels.

And, as always, my final thought:

Silence is the ultimate weapon of power – Charles De Gaulle