Chronicles of Weekend 2

Last few days were really gloomy. Don't remember much except for work. Even last weekend was blur. I expected this weekend to be the same too. But it was different.

It started Friday evening. I got to annoy the HR. And suddenly everything was great with the world. We all had a gala of time pissing him off. For an HR he is not dumber. Just dumb(Dev my man, if you are reading this please understand that I respect you. But don't expect me to give it to you. You will always be my verbal punching bag).

In the evening while I was waiting for my friend to pick me up, I heard this AIDS awareness ad. Jawan hoon, nadaan nahi. Targeting the youth. This ad campaign usually ends telling that 33% of AIDS affects are youth. That's why this ad is targeted towards the young. Now I have a question. What about the rest 57%? (It's 57 right? or 87? or 39? Being weak in maths is hereditary) Why target the 33%? What about the not-young-but-still-have-AIDS people? A campaign should run targeting them too. Budha hoon aur nadaan bhi hoon.

Afterwards me and friend went to Kobe's and emptied their kitchen. Then we just hanged out till the time when we had no choice but to return to home. Meanwhile I called up my Mom and convinced her that I was working late and will grab a bite on my way back.

Saturday I had to attend a 50th wedding anniversary function. Two of my grand dads were married on the same day. A small recreation took place. One of the "grooms" cracked some inappropriate jokes in a way only he can. Inappropriate but funny as hell. At dinner time I had to curb my vicious natural tendencies and restrict myself to only one scoop of ice cream. That was not funny. Not funny at all.

Sunday's highlight was my yet another futile attempt to find a converter for PS2. I am this close(put your index finger and thumb so close that only a thread can pass) to permanently damage my TV so that Dad will have to get a new one which can support NTSC. But I fear that he will see through my plan and the consequences will be rather unpleasant for me. In the evening there was another function at my uncle's place. But being a health conscious person I did not eat anything.

As a result I was awarded with a reduction of 2 kilos this morning.

One can also say that I eat 2 kilos worth of food at one go.

P.S. This is something I forgot to add before. At the anniversary function there was a photo of all the then kids including me. I must have been a 10 year old. I showed that pic to my sister and told her that my teeth don't look too big and out of the place now as they used to all those years back. Her response was that in all those year I have taken efforts to make my body size match my teeth. That's why they don't look out of the place now.
After she gets married I'm going to use her cupboard to store all my stinking socks and wet towels as a revenge.

Things That Should Not Be Given As Gifts

I buy the worst gifts in the world. Well...not in the world but among all the people I know, have heard or seen in my life. And actually I am the second in the line of buying the worst gifts. Want to know who's number one? Read on.

For years I have bought same thing for my sister. I always gifted her nail-paint. That too in shade of red. Always. Whenever I used to go shopping for her birthday, I somehow always used to end up picking red nail-paint. Now I am wiser. I don't gift her anything anymore.

Once I gifted my cousin a mouth organ. What the hell was I thinking? He couldn't even whistle. I don't think he can whistle now either. But a mouth organ? I just went into a shop. Mouth organ was the first thing I saw. Bought it. Gift wrapped it. Presented it.

One of the most recent incident was really embarrassing. It was Diwali. And Bhau-beej. Someone had this great idea about family get-together. Now the Pangaonkar clan is beyond counting, but even our small close family gathering could mean dozens and dozens of people. It was a special occasion. So it was pretty overwhelming. I counted and as it turned out that there were going to be some 12-13 sisters expecting gifts from us(That means me and other unfortunate brothers). Personally I think that Raksha Bandhan and Bhau-Beej are both some kind of conspiracies. It's a bloody extortion. And we have to feel happy about it.
Now I was broke and low on budget as always. Besides it's girls we are talking about. I had to buy same thing for everyone. I finally found some real nice turkish hankies packed in an even nicer plastic bags, which by the way I suspect cost more than the hankies itself. It took me nearly 3-4 hours to gift wrap all of them. Because the process of gift wrapping has many sub processes like buying a wrapping paper, cutting the paper, wrapping the gift, finding that the paper size was small and you had to use lot of tape to hold it together, unwrapping the gift, cutting the paper again in right size, then again wrapping the gift, running out of wrapping paper, running to store to buy more paper and just because I am going then buying 1 kilo of potato and onion and other things, then finally having the finished product. Anyways. Then the big day arrived. As I was handing out the gifts, I could see the excitement on their faces. After opening the gifts, excitement was replaced by disappointment. But I chose not to see that. Now one really cute cousin of mine exclaimed that I gave her socks as a gift. She did not stop at that though. She went on telling everybody present there that I was giving socks as present. By the way has anyone noticed that cuter the kid, the more devil he/she is? She even nicknamed me as socks bhaiyya. That's probably the worst nickname I ever had. And I have had some nasty nicknames. Next time I visit her, I am buying her a dozen pairs of different kinds of socks and then explain to her the difference between a hankie and a sock.

I am always at the giving end of the bad gifts. To be on the receiving end is no less embarrassing. It was few years back. My college friends gave me some gifts for my birthday. A useless movie audio cassette that I never listened. A greeting card which was surprisingly good and I really liked it. I had it with me for many years. The last gift was a pack of condoms. Now why would they give me condoms? I kept thinking for a minute. Was there some kind of hidden meaning to it? Some kind of metaphorical gesture? Then I thought nah. These are MY friends. A complete absence of deep thinking and an awesome amount of shallow behavior was the basis of our friendship. A friendship that is still going strong thanks to that solid foundation which till date is intact. They just gave me that as a prank. Now they were expecting party from me. I opened the pack and handed them one condom each. When I ran out of stock, I went to nearby medical shop and bought more for remaining friends. As it turned out my dear friends had bought my gift from the same shop. A medical shop with large stock of condoms near a college. Now that's a gesture. After giving them the return gifts, I told them to do something which I can not write here. I bested my friends. I emerged victorious. But my happiness lasted for only one year.

On my next birthday, they gifted me a diaphragm.

Minting Money?

Is making money really this easy these days?
I would have answered negative, but with emergence of Google AdSense and other likewise thingies, it at least seems so. Of course for AdSense to work, one has to have those many hits on the site. And to have hits, the site should contain actual useful material rather than some random guy talking about his strange life stories(I think I know that guy).

Now the times have changed. Enter SMS advertising. Get ads on your mobile, read them and get paid. Check this out.

People have claimed that they actually have stated making money. But does it really happen?

Success is Sweet

Yesterday was a joyous day. A very special occasion. After the gym, I measured my weight again. I had lost over 1 kilo. In just one week. I was so happy that my friend was sure that I gained all that I had lost. One week of workout finally paid off. One week of control over eating habits. Tongue celibacy if you will. This part was more difficult than the workout itself. I don’t eat much junk food, but whatever I consume at home is sufficient to make up for it.

When I told mom about my achievement, she replied with a cynical tone “Darya mein khaskhas”. Any other day this comment would have doused my spirit. But no sir, not yesterday. The last time I lost weight when I was in 9^th grade. Because of jaundice. It was always ladder up after that. From what I heard people become half their size in jaundice. I had merely lost 2 kilos. And I was strictly eating only boiled vegetables and other all oil-free tasteless stuff. When my tuition class sir heard about this, he said that Bhushan was not suffering from jaundice but jaundice was suffering from Bhushan. In Marathi, his actual words were Kaavil la Bhushan jhala hota.

So you can probably imagine my happiness over losing my weight. It was time for celebration. And I celebrated it by eating nearly half of the fresh homemade mango ice-cream.

Tiger Story

This is something that I heard from a friend this morning. Thought you should hear it too. It's about four friends and a tiger.
These four friends went for a camping trip in jungle. As they were setting up the tents, suddenly a tiger appeared out of nowhere. Friends started running for their dear life. With tiger after them, they didn't have much time to think. Suddenly they came across a square in the middle of the jungle. Friend number 1 took the left side road while number 4 went for the right road. Number 2 and number 3 went straight forward. Now tiger was smart. He could count. Two is better than one. So he too took the straight road and went after number 2 and 3. Seeing this both of them started sweating profusely. Number 2 could climb trees so he climbed the nearest tree. Now tiger could climb trees too but this tree was coconut tree. So he continued chasing number 3. Poor number 3. Now he was sure that he was going to be the snack of the king of the beasts. But suddenly he came across a diversion in road. A road going straight and one going left. He had an idea. He signaled the tiger by lifting his left hand showing that he was turning left but went on running straight. Tiger took the left hand side road and went there. Happy with his fast thinking number 3 kept on going. Incidentally four friends reunited in the next square, where number 3 boasted of his feat. As he finished his tale the tiger appeared there too. Now mad with anger for being fooled by these two-legged creatures. He had lost respect in his community and other creatures were soon going to hear about this incident. It was now matter of pride. With renewed vigor he started chasing those four. Again our protagonists started running. As luck would have it they again came across a square. This time number 1 took the road on the right side. Number 3 took the left side while number 2 and 4 went straight. Number 2 again climbed on the nearest coconut tree and tiger went after number 4. Number 4 now on the verge of wetting his pants -totally lucky- came across a diversion in the road. One going straight and one going left. Remembering what number 3 had told earlier, he too signaled with his left hand and went straight. But he under estimated the intelligence of the tiger. A fast leaner as he was, our chief antagonist was not fooled the second time and he too went straight. Seeing this number 4 just crossed the verge and wet his pants but kept on running. But again he came across a diversion. One straight and one going right. He took his chance and signaled the tiger with right hand and went on straight. Tiger fell for this one and took the road on the right side. Number 4 would have stopped to thank the heavens but fearing that if the tiger came back he would have to go to the heavens personally to thank, he kept on going.
Again those friends met on the next road crossing. There number 4 shared his experience. As he finished narrating, they all heard a deadly roar behind them. The return of the king. The tiger was now seething with fury. Enraged for being fooled two times in a row he was now determined to have at least one of those four for lunch.
As you can imagine, those four again started running. Again they came across a square. This time number 4 took the left road and number 3 went right. While number 2 and number 1 went straight. Number 2 again climbed the nearest coconut tree and the tiger went after number 1. Number 1 too came across a diversion with left side road. He tried the trick of number 3 but the tiger was not fooled. Afterwards he came to a diversion with a right hand road and a straight one. Hoping to repeat what number 4 did, he signaled with his right hand and went straight. But the tiger was not fooled this time either. In fact he became angrier(if that was possible) because number 1 thought that he was stupid and would fell for the same tricks second time. He roared and increased his speed. Now number 1 having lost all hope, did not have much strength left to run any more. To his dismay the road came to an abrupt end with cliff at the end. What was he going to do?
He decided to take his one last chance. He moved to the left side of the road and slowed his speed. And then signaled the tiger with overtake/go ahead sign. The tiger went running straight ahead, fell down and made his species even more endangered.

Moral of the Story. It doesn't matter if you are as stupid as number 2 to take same road again and again knowing the dangers, as long as you have a unique talent which can save your skin. Sometime three times in a row.

Alternate Moral of the Story. Be smart like number 2 and and always take the sure road when in the time of emergency. You may not be lucky like number 1, 2 and 3 who kept on experimenting and nearly lost their life. And every time your enemy may not be stupid like that tiger.

Another Alternate Moral of the Story. There is no moral you punk. All those management moral stories flying over the Internet and emails have made us think that everything in life teaches us something. But since you have taken the efforts to read through all this crap, I'll not disappoint you. Here's your lesson. When at the end of the road, slow down. Somethings in life are to be done just for fun. Raise your glasses of frosty beer and say cheers. Just like those friends did when they planned their next camping trip at a luxurious resort.

Me - A Comic Relief

Usually in many serious movies there is a character which provides comic relief with his antics and stupidity. I am beginning to feel that I am one.
A public clown.

I provide lot of amusement to all the gymmers(is there such a word? It better be because I am going to use it). Especially my trainer. Begin your day with a laugh. I make everybody's day. When trainer arrives, he is usually is a serious mood. By the time my session is complete, he is in a very jovial and happy mood. Not just him but literally everyone in gym. Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine. I make people healthy. I should be the trainer at the gym.

Now the other gymmers are nice. So they don't stare at me and and laugh out loud. They just keep on doing their own stuff. But that does not mean that they don't look at me. Corner of their eyes are always towards me. And a stifled laugh. When I look at them, suddenly that laugh turns into a warm smile. Nice people. It won't be long before more and more people turn in for morning exercise and a good piece of entertainment.

Cardio exercises are no problem as long as machines are manually programmed except for ellipticals. Those are pain in thighs.

But the real fun is with the weight training and other stuff. For some strange reasons the dumbbells get heavier with every passing moment. "Come on..that's just eight. Give me seven more". Be happy with what you got moron. Eight should be enough. Why do you want more? Didn't your mama teach you not to be greedy? I think that he gets a real kick out of it.

But compared to what he makes me do next, dumbbells feel like wooden stick.
Back extensions!!!!
See that pic(That's not me!! Just a pic from the net). I am supposed to bend completely from my waist so that I can see my toes. Why would I want to see my toes? I don't come to the gym to see my own toes. I can see my toes anytime I want to see my toes. I just have to bend a little forward "while standing" and there they are. Just that my stupid tummy comes in the way. Otherwise I wouldn't even have to bend.
I have to bend completely anyway. No problem. And then I have to come up. With hands crossed over my chest. Now that's a problem. Again the dumbbell conversation is repeated. For even stranger reasons I seem to be stuck on number eight. This too I can do only for eight times before I bend down and stay in that position until I use my hands or someone pulls me up.

I also managed to pull off some antics while I was stretching on a sadistic looking machine. How did I do that is impossible to tell. Maybe you can stop by my gym sometime and see for yourself and you too can have a good laugh.

If only calorie burning was as easy, pleasurable, tasty, relaxing as calorie gaining.........

I am back.....I am back

I had a kind of eventful week. First I went to my Mama's place at Ahmednagar. It was after 3-4 years I guess. Grandma was nearly ecstatic to see me. I usually don't like to go there in summer time. It's hot like crazy and then there is power cut. Can't stay in home or can't go outside either. Besides grandma force fed me nearly every kind of sweet and cuisine she could prepare. Actually I liked that part. But I had to leave a day earlier than my original schedule as I had some other plans.

The first thing I did after arriving was to buy a PlayStation 2. Finally I gave in to my desire. After that I banged my head against the wall as it turned out that my TV supports only PAL and not NTSC. So 3 out of 4 games I bought are running in black and white(bang...bang....BANNNGGGG). Only The Godfather is running in color mode. Don Corleone did it again. Maybe he gave my TV an offer it couldn't refuse.

I don't mean any disrespect to Godfather, but I want to play God of War and San Andreas more than anything else. But my TV has to go all colorless at this point. Now I am looking for some kind of converter. According to some we don't get that converter in India. I don't see any reason for that. Probably they just tell me that because they don't have it. But I have faith in the guys at Lamington road. Those people can get any damn electronic contraption in the world. All you need to do is look for it. So either converter or the European version of the games would do.

The next thing I did was......ahm......joined the gym. I know many of you are either shaking your heads in disbelief or laughing. Many would find it impossible to believe that I, Bhushan Pangaonkar, would actually join a gym. But I did it. I am so proud of myself. It was long overdue.

Now the next thing I did was to actually go to the gym. Getting up at 5 in the morning is not fun. Surprisingly I haven't hit the maximum of the pain meter yet. It's not that I want it or that I am more fit than I think. But I think that the trainer is waiting for the right opportunity. I could sense it.

Let's see what happens.