Blogger slyly slips in a post before the end of the year

I reckoned what better than to give the old readers a jolt by proclaiming my existence after a gap of four months!

The year 2008 was a very interesting year in many aspects for me. First, Mumbai was under siege twice in a span of just 28 days. I am, of course, talking about the 4-day siege of the IIT campus during the Mood-Indigo fest in December. The little terrorists were all home grown and came from all localities of Bombay. It was yet another security failure at IIT, as 17-yr old PYTs entered the main gate of IIT by uttering the magic password (psst, it is 'faculty'). Holding the residents at ransom, the young jihadis made their moods all shades of purple and red. Infact any color but indigo. They possessed sophisticated weapons, including wannabe attitudes and SMS lingo. And we all know that words like "wid" and "dere" can pierce any brain with a double digit IQ. My heart goes out to the 30-yr old anonymous unarmed civilian post-doc, who jumped at and single-handedly evicted seven of the intruders, without caring for his life. If that is not enough to get him a Padma Bhushan, then I don't want to live in this country anymore.

Now according to a totally untrustworthy "gender-indicator" site, this is a 52% heterosexual blog, so enough about gay colors like indigo. Another color that fell out of favor during this year was yellow, or as the Aussies call it, Baggy Green. Nothing gave me better joy than to see them drubbed by our chindi si Indian team in India, and then by South Africa in Australia. There is a god after all, and I strongly suspect that he has made 49.5% reservations in all matches played by India.

Then there were other things, whose memories have faded/blocked for now --- like The Dark Knight, the 5-0 whitewash of England and the seemingly endless PhD.

All in all, can't complain too much. Looking forward to crib in 2009.

Have a good one.

Local gambler claims he has a "system"

SAN JOSE (28 Aug): For the past few days, I have been afflicted with the gambler's syndrome. A syndrome where the wannabe gambler usually utters the phrase "I have a system" on the lines of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream". In my case, the phrase is "I have a dream to have a system".

In a recent trip to Las Vegas, presumably for a conference, I met up with an old friend, whom I had not met for years. Since he is a surgeon by profession, he thinks it is perfectly fine to apply his scalpel handling abilities to gambling. Little did I know that his scalpel would cut my wallet in half.

Armed with the knowledge of probabilities from the 10th grade, he persuaded me to try out a "system" that he had invented. After the 2nd beer, I agreed to listen to him. After 4th, I agreed that it is a fine system, and after 6th I agreed to try it myself.

With 200 dollars worth of chips in hand, we set out to the roulette table. I was singing songs of separation to the chips because I knew that I won't see them ever again. It was therefore pretty surprising that we won 50 bucks. Promptly disposing the sinful money to do some other sins that Vegas is famous for (no, not that), we decided to try the system again, this time at 5 in the morning. Lo and behold! another 40 bucks. By this time we had so many chips that I was forced to eat some of them with ketchup.

Ever suspicious, I went to my room and did a computer simulation of the system, which we had come to call our system. I was flabbergasted to see that the machine supported the surgeon.

Our greed grew, and so did our idiocy. We changed casinos the next day, and started another round. I promptly lost 60 bucks. Hmmm...interesting. Eager to recover the money, we went to our lucky table in our lucky casino. Lost bigtime. 200 bucks.

Since then, my catchphrase has become "I have a dream to take the scalpel and run it on my friend". Since then I have also found a flaw in my simulation.

Since then, I have also devised a new "improved" system. Next time, Vegas. I will get you next time.

Update from Suryanagar

SOUTH BAY AREA (3 Aug): Incase you are still wondering, Suryanagar is the slang for "Sunnyvale" aka the Indian ghetto in the Silicon Valley.

In local news, many charity runners in the San Francisco Marathon today failed at finding a cure for AIDS (see a funny Onion story here). Yours truly ran the half marathon, despite being completely out of shape and finished in a respectable 2 hrs 5 mins. The best part of the race was obviously the 4 miles going over and back on the super-awesome Golden Gate bridge. The race route was pretty scenic, along the Embarcadero road (which runs along the seafront), then the Golden Gate bridge over the ocean and some San Francisco residential neighborhoods. The notoriously steep San Francisco inclines were peppered throughout the course and they made sure that I never became complacent. But enough about the race.

My internship is wrapping up and I expect to be back in the filthy and disgusting city of Bombay in a month (I don't know how you Indians live there) ;-) And if I survive the ass-whooping I expect to get on this remark, I will resume my PhD, which has been under a moratorium for the past few months.

Local visitor has hard time giving sh*t about Clinton-Obama tussle

San Francisco (Jun 4): Recent reports have indicated that local tourist Rahul Gupta, who is visiting California for a 3-month internship, doesn't really give a damn about the boxing match between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. The 24x7 coverage of the issue on the news channels and the late night shows seem to have really pissed him off.

But what really gets his goat is that a majority of the "non-resident aliens" in US, who have no voting rights, seem to have invested a lot of time in forming their opinion. Even a FOB seems to have taken a stronger stand than the true blue Democrat citizens.

As this article was going to the press, news came in that Hillary is going to concede the nomination to Obama. Relieved, the local intern said that now he can finally watch high quality shows such as American Idol, Wife Swap, ElimiDate and Jerry Springer.

Team loses despite support from local fan

BOMBAY (5 May): In a surprising piece of news, visiting IPL team and favorites Delhi Daredevils lost to the bottom-ranked Mumbai Indians yesterday. What is even more surprising is that this happened despite the local Daredevils fan Rahul Gupta wearing a team cap. At a great risk to life and limb, he went to the stadium and wore the black and red cap amidst a sea of blue t-shirts unimaginatively titled "10-Tendulkar".

The cap was flown all the way from Delhi for the express purpose of pissing off the local crowd in this much anticipated cricket match between Delhi and Mumbai. Virender Sehwag, the captain of the Daredevils, however had different plans. Keeping in mind his goal of making the league interesting, he first ran one of the batsmen out and later gifted away his own wicket through the most childish of shots. Rubbing salt to the fan's wounds, Sehwag later uttered "thanks Mumbai" in an act of diplomatic wimpiness unbecoming of a Delhite.

Wimpiness, however, was not on display in the stands. Local nut-job Rahul Gupta once loudly proclaimed "do aur wickets maangta hai" after one of the Mumbai wickets fell. When one of the thousand odd nearby Mumbai supporters angrily enquired "abey kisko do aur wicket chahiye?", the Delhi fan pointed to the Daredevils icon on his cap and said with a serious face -- "isko chahiye!".

PS: I shall not wear the cap during the next Delhi game. Yes, I do believe in jinxes.

Pissing off Mumbaikars

BOMBAY (21 Apr) As much as I love this city, nothing beats annoying the hell out of its dyed-in-the-wool residents. Case in point --- IPL loyalties. Having spent 2.5 years in Mumbai, my cricket loyalties are torn apart in a 70:30 ratio between, yes you guessed it right, Delhi and Mohali.
Call me choosy, but I will select Preity Zinta over Nita Ambani any day. And lets face it, Mumbai "Indians" is the gayest team name ever, gayer than even Kolkata "Knight Riders".

I am now waiting for my Delhi Daredevils cap to arrive from Delhi. Sitting in a Mumbai college hostel and cheering against Sachin Tendulkar should be fun!!

Change in format

BOMBAY (21 Apr) Writing long posts is hard work for me and pure torture for the reader, so I have decided to finally ditch that format. From now on, expect "cat gives birth to a dog" kinda short posts in the future. You all can heave a sigh of relief now!