Unity in diversity

“Who said India is a secular country. Unity in diversity is nonsense. Everyone is fighting for their own religion. Mahatma Gandhi used to say “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Only God can save our country.”- Mom was murmuring in the kitchen

Doesn’t the name Gurjar Singh ring any bells? Well, why would it? Its not that I am very famous not it has any inbuilt sound making mechanism. I just tried to get some limelight associating myself with the Gujjar agitation sometime back just because my name “sounds” similar to Gujjar. Coming back to me, even though I was raised by the Hindu community and everyone in my family wears the saffron colored robes, I was never forced to wear one. I liked the colour and was proud that its one of the colours of our national flag and that’s the only reason I wore them. . I was a down to earth person. Infact I can better it by saying I was more under-the-earth person. I was in Malleshwaram the day this incident took place. And it was on that unfortunate day I met my other friends.

Being born in the coastal area of Karnataka, I was raised as a proud white guy. My father being a Christian had nothing to do with me having a special liking for wearing sparkling white clothes and green cap. I always felt the same pride as an Aussie would, wearing the baggy green cap and playing in the national test team. I don’t even remember why I was named Raphanus but I liked it though. I, along with my friends and relatives had a great time growing up in this country. Just like my friend Gurjar Singh, I too was a down to earth person. Just 2 days back we had come to Bangalore. Since my guardian was not quite rich, we had to come in a lorry of one of his friends. It was here I met my friends Gurjar Singh and …

The other friend Raphanus met was Mr. Bean and that’s me. Though I have a complicated name, due to my appearance people like to call me Mr. Bean. I was OK with that, but my Islamic Baba was not. He felt that Mr. Bean was not from his religion. It was last night when I was creeping over the police station wall that I was pulled out and brought to Malleshwaram and that’s where I met U-know-who-all.

And then it happened.

Just as we were discussing about the bad state of our country under the shade of some shop , a person came on a vehicle , talked to the shop keeper, supposedly bribed him and then all of a sudden put us and some of our relatives on his vehicle and …

It was pitch dark inside and we are not sure where we were being taken. We not only prayed to our respective God but for the first time prayed to each others too.

“Who said India is a secular country. Unity in diversity is nonsense. Everyone is fighting for their own religion. Mahatma Gandhi used to say “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” Only God can save our country.”- Mom was murmuring in the kitchen. Saying this she put chopped carrots ,radish, and beans to the vessel to prepare a mouth watering curry. At least here Unity in diversity made sense.

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Bhavnaawonko samjho

This is a story of how I saved very precious internet bandwidth, and, more importantly ,my precious time.

In the earlier scenario (the one which wasted a lot of both bandwidth and time), the google chat goes as follows :)

Mowgli: Abey, marriage photo dekha hai maine!

Praveen: Kiska?

Mowgli: Mujhe kya pata?

Praveen: ??

Mowgli: Woh chod. Wo ladki kaun hai tere baaju mein?

Praveen: Woh?? My ex-team mate's friend.

Mowgli: What’s her name?

Praveen: Abhistashobita Prasannakshi

Mowgli: Nice name

Praveen: Yes

Mowgli: She is pretty too.

Praveen: Yes

Mowgli: Works in your team?

Praveen: No

Mowgli: Your company?

Praveen: Yes

Mowgli: Have you talked to her?

Praveen: No.

Mowgli: Why not?

Praveen: Coz I don’t know her.

Mowgli: But does your colleague know her?

Praveen: Yes

Mowgli: Then?

Praveen: She knows her,I dont. Not in my team. Not on my floor. Not in my cab, and many more nots…

Mowgli: Single?

Praveen: Who? Me?

Mowgli: Grr

Praveen: Oh she? No, she's married.

Mowgli: Oh!

Praveen: ??

Mowgli: Nothing...wazzup man what else?

(Characters spent on this chat : 836 )

Then came another Yamla Pagla Deewana.

This time, I was ready to save the world from WWW (World Wide Wait) by wasting more internet space.

Junglee: Who is the girl standing next to you?

Junglee: In the marriage photo

Praveen: Wife of the person standing by her on the other side:)

Junglee: Oops !! Case closed. Don’t show him this message.

Junglee: status changed: In search of some other one than the one planned yesterday !!!

(Characters spent on this chat : 294 )

Saved: 542 chars of space !!!

Moral of the story : Bhavnaawonko samjho.Know thy friends !!!

(Predicting tommorrow's chat)

KirikMama : Maga ...read that Bhavnaawonko samjho.. yaaro aa bhaavna?? E&C alli odtidlalva avla?

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No matter how you hide... I'll find you if I'm wanting to

Time :

Melbourne : 11:30 PM

Bangalore : 07:00 PM

Meaning: Offically office hours are over in both the cities.

Still why take a risk.

Mobile kept in an "out of coverage area "

( The corner where the signal is really weak) : Done

Sent an status mail

( To communicate that my work of that day is over ) : Done

Log out of official chat : Done

Log out of gtalk : Done

Go to invisible mode in gmail chat wigdet : Done

Logout of skype (used to call my team in India) : Done

Check and close if I hv enabled yahoo messenger

(which I enable only to chat with my cousin) : Done

Now that I have closed all doors of communication, I can watch my favourite movie online !!! Without any disturbance.

Ting ..

Whats that

Oh facebook chat !!! Forgot to close that !!!

Oh Wait .. Its Radheshyam Chattopadhyaya,my harmless team mate. He will usually goes home at 5:45. Perhaps logged in from home to say hi.

RC: Hi wazzup

Me : Mast. U?

RC : Fine.Need some help, are U free now?

Me : Of course I am !! Anything for you !! I am a samaaj sevak you know !!

RC : Hi Praveen, Its XYZD here. There is bug #420 raised against you.Can you look into it

For your information, XYZD is my manager

Me : But I am onsite here, not even in office network.Cant anyone else look into it?

RC : (now XYZD ) No ,you have been working on the module all along.Its very critical.Please check it.It should be easy.

Me : But its 11:30 out here.

RC : (now XYZD ) I understand..but its kind of blocker here. If you do it ,it might be faster.Can you please help me out this time.I am counting on you.

Me : Hmm Ok ,I will login again and look into it.

RC : (now XYZD )Thanks a ton...In advance.Will be hoping for a positive mail tomm morning. Take care.

And now I am working on that bug at 11:45PM , 9000 kms away from where I should have actually be doing it, inspite of all

the meticulous planning, all thanks to the "Social Networking sites" !!!

And far in the background I hear someone sing : No matter how you hide... I'll find you if I'm wanting to

Disclaimer: The character and incidents portrayed and the names herein are fictional and any similarity to the name, character and history of any person, living ,in the team or otherwise is entirely co-incidental

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Desire is the root of all evil

It’s not everyday that you get invited to a party. So when my mailbox smiled with an invitation mail "You have been invited to the Gala Dinner this Friday evening”, I was ecstatic.

Wow!! I thought. What an opportunity to party around in a foreign land. That too at company's cost. Was it going to be better than this?

I printed out the invitation and left office early to spend some extra time preening myself .I opened my suitcase to bring out my special pair of jeans and t-shirt packed specifically for this type of events. Just to make sure the location and timings I glanced at the invitation and what I saw in fineprint burst my balloon of excitement.

It read: Dress code: Men -Lounge Suits"

WHAT??

A party in a 3 piece Suit?? And a tie?? Where was I going? To a Nobel prize award ceremony??

And to add to the woes. I did not have one :)

Now that my flight of excitement had made a crash landing, I crashed on my sofa giving up all hopes of going to the party. I remembered the fox and the crane story and secretly wished I invite some Australian to India for a party and make it mandatory to wear Sherwani.

To kill time which was in plenty by now , I picked up the daily newspaper and on a whim opened to see the horoscope which could explain my bad state now. But it had a different message to tell

"Don’t let the fear of failure stop you from doing things you really want to do. Be inspired by this statement - I don’t regret a thing I have done. I only regret the things I didn’t do"

Wonderful I thought!! What a time to get this message. It was true that I really wanted to go to that party and was also true that I would regret not going to...To hell with blazers I thought. I wanted to go to the gala and come what may I would be going :)

The event was scheduled to start at 7 PM, so according to IST , I mentally made a note to reach at 7:30. And the punctuality king that I am, I reached sharp at 7:30 only to realize that I was late by half an hour. As scheduled the party had indeed started at 7:00.As I entered the room, I was greeted by a room full of Suit wearing impeccable “James Bonds" and I was the only odd man in the whole party not wearing a suit. It looked like I had entered a world of Matrix and surrounded by "Agent Smiths ".Not that any of them made me feel uncomfortable though.

But my woes had just started. I was informed that I had missed my starters as I was late. This was more irritating than I thought. Any party I attend is for the starters only. I relish them the most and what did they mean that I missed them just because I came late by just 30 minutes. My colleagues pushed the events of the day list to me. As a matter if fact the dinner night was a much planned affair.

1. Welcome drink

2. Welcome Speech

3. Starters

4. <>

5. Main course

6 <>

7 Dessert

8.

Grrrrreat, So I missed my much loved starters and am sitting in a room with complete strangers wearing odd dress for the event. What next??

By now, I had found out that nothing interesting would happen in the party given the formal arrangement made. No hungama was going to happen in midst of these well behaved gentlemen.

The event 1 started with a standup comedian .He was told to be the most loved face in Australian television for his comedy and there was a roar of applause when he entered.

Now I thought there was some life to the party only to realize I was really an odd person who did not understand any of the jokes due to his accent and the local context .I ended up giving fake laughs while others were laughing their hearts out. I knew when to laugh as he thankfully paused after each punch to give people like us some chance to mingle with the crowd.

That is it, I decided to go with the flow, just wait for the food, finish it and escape.

The other good reason I actually go to company parties is the variety of non-vegetation dishes they provide. So I got ready for the sumptuous meal that was on the way.

And it came. In front of me was a main course having Bread, French fries,,fish,shrimps,octopus,beef, ham etc etc

Hey wait a minute.

I could not eat any of these. Not even French fries with beef on the same plate.

Damn it!!! I asked for some chicken dishes but to my dismay the only other option was a vegetarian meal. With no other option I nodded my poor little sad faced head and out came a sad looking plate with I -don’t-know-what-it-was-but-tasted awful dish.

I started cursing the person who wrote that horoscope in that day's morning newspaper and indirectly was the reason for me being here L

Buddha smiled: “Desire is the root of all evil “

Now it was time for some rock and roll. There was still some hope left.

I remembered all out previous parties in India where this dance round was the most fun-filled event with almost everyone dancing to the heavy beat filled bollywood numbers ,each competing to invent the weirdest step that is bound to spread around with everyone in their own small group dancing the same step .Or at least die trying.

I did not expect the same here though and this time I had hit the bulls-eye this time.

It was not time for rock and roll but was time for some soft romantic music and couples started swaying to perform corporate party dance and I started reaching my breaking point.

Fortunately along came the desserts to put an end to that pathetic no drama dance event and to my trauma.

Just as I put the last bite of that exquisite pastry in my mouth, I got up to leave... to put an end to my serious of unfortunate incidents.....vowing never to attend a party which says --> Dress code: Men -Lounge Suits"

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With great responsibility comes great power

With great responsibility comes great power

Yes you read it right, in case you are wondering if it should have been the other way around.

The fact is : It is true in both the cases and here's how

One of the things I hate is to cross a busy street where there are no traffic signals. The drivers never tend to stop or slow down to allow us to cross the road. And it always happens that I really take my time crossing as I don’t wave my hands to make drivers slowdown and then get to middle of road and cross.

Once it happened that I was waiting to cross one such road and waiting patiently for the traffic to get thinner which I do not think it would. All of a sudden a pretty girl comes to me and says “I need to go to urgently but am not able to cross the road. Since you too are crossing, Can you please help me too?? "

The superhero inside me woke up!!!!

My vision become blurred... so I threw my specs and then it was clear!!

A light from heaven came and touched me.

It was time to take on the trafficosauras.

I told her to follow me... put my step on the road and signaling with my “Dhai kilo ka haat " and angry eyes ordered all the traffic to halt and thus help the damsel in distress to cross the road ...

Now do you accept: With great responsibility comes great power?

Oh if you want more proof, take this incident:

As a prologue, I would like to say I am absolutely scared of dogs. Be it puppies or a bulldog, it does not matter; I try to stay as far as possible. One day while I was walking to the bakery, I noticed that there were around 4-5 street dogs blocking my way. I saw them from far and so stopped walking thinking of various other methods I could reach the bakery circumventing the dogs. While I was thinking, I heard the dogs barking ferociously and noticed it was barking to 2 petrified children who wanted to go to school .They then ran to me and asked me to help them avoid the dogs...

The superhero inside me woke up!!!!

My vision become blurred...so I threw my specs and then it was clear!!

A light from heaven came and touched me.

It was time to take on the DoomDogs.

I held the hands of the trembling children and then signaling with my “Dhai kilo ka haat " and angry eyes as if I was throwing a stone made way through the path of hell and then came out victoriously.

The thankfulness was visible in the eyes of the children I had just saved!

With great responsibility comes great power

(The fact that I took another route to home while returning back need not be told here :)

There are many other incidents that I can go on explaining how I used to get superpowers in times of handling responsibility but I think I will stop here...

What do you think??

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The Legend of the Great Fielder

If you have read this :Cricketing genius ,then you might be wondering how the life of this cricketing genius must have been.Here is one of the life snippet of this great man.

The foundation of his career as a cricketer was laid down when he was young; Praveen learnt everything that his Foreign Coach Mr. Drown Acha Rya could teach him in fielding, attaining the status of "ಮಹಾ ಗದ್ದೆಗಾರ " or outstanding fielder. A well known story about Praveen exemplifies his powers of concentration during fielding Coach Mr. Drown decided to test his trainees in their skill of fielding. He took them to New Public School ground on saturday evening and then summoned his trainees.(FYI, Any ground in Bangalore ,small or big will be filled with at-least 15-20 separate teams having 6-15 members each,playing simultaneously on the same ground but different pitches and matches). He asked the first one to stand at long on. He then asked the trainee what he could see. The fielder replied that he could see whole ground,different teams,different batsmen etc. Mr Drown asked him to step aside and not field. He repeated the same process with a few other trainees. When it was Praveen's turn, Praveen told his Coach that the only thing he could see was only the ball which his team was bowling with. This satisfied the coach and he allowed Praveen to field. The lesson here is the power of unwavering focus this lad had at such a small age.Foreign Coach Mr. Drown then promised him that he would make him the greatest fielder of all times...
It was this great fielder who later joined the Indian National team and earned several world records to his name.All was well until IPL happened.When he went to field for the first time,Praveen just stopped near the boundary line.He was let down by the idea of being pitted again his own national level team mates.How could he stop runs being scored by his own team mates when he himself had encouraged them to score runs against other countries in the world. It was at this time that the team coach Krishh came up to him and gave him a 18 minute lecture on how it was his duty to play the match as he had been bought in auction by his bidders for crores of rupees.What would happen to team sponsors,the fans who had come to watch him field and bat.After all this discussion he finally entered the field and the match begun.

For more snippets....SMS [praveen_genius] to 420 and get free heavenly updates

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Team Shayaris

This blog is dedicated to my wonderful team.I know that most of my non-team mates might not relate to them but its OK..at least 30 people in this world know what it is :))

PS: If you are my team mate and your name is not featured here,it means I could not think of some punch line for you or was just too lazy to compose one for you.So please excuse.Who knows I might just update this sometime later ......


-------------------------------------

Govt ne kaha "We shall eradicate illiteracy"
Govt ne kaha "We shall eradicate illiteracy"
Prem ne poocha "U ran it with or without policy?"

Paul ko hua mobile se pyaar
Paul ko hua mobile se pyaar
Suresh ne chillaya "WHAT IS THIS yaar ???"

Baagh mein khila ek sundar sa kali
Baagh mein khila ek sundar sa kali
Abhishek ne kaha "you should thank me actually"

Newton ne avishkaar kiya gurutwakarshan
Newton ne avishkaar kiya gurutwakarshan
Shinu ne kaha "Windows machines going for reinstallation"

Nagraj ko hua ek bike accident
Nagraj ko hua ek bike accident
Harish ne kaha "If no obligation is present SMS will not be sent"

Carlton towers mein phaila bhayankar sa aag
Carlton towers mein phaila bhayankar sa aag
Seema's mail: Plz update the sprint backlog

Sania ki shaadi ko mila lots of hype
Sania ki shaadi ko mila lots of hype
Aditya ne kaha "There are 500 customers in the pipe"

When Karthik resigned, team was stunned
When Karthik resigned, team was stunned
Nagraj calmly said ,This bug has been reopened

Mumbai attack mein 166 people dead
Mumbai attack mein 166 people dead
Kishore ka mail: "Disk Quota exceeded"

Yeh duniya hai kitna haseen
Yeh duniya hai kitna haseen
Aishwaryas mail :Please refrain from using this machine

Dulhan ki mathe ki shaan hai bindiya
Dulhan ki mathe ki shaan hai bindiya
Lokesh from Australia : "I want to come back to India"

Door se dekha to qutub minar
Door se dekha to qutub minar
Paas jaake dekha to Policy server

-----------------------------------------------------------------

(Special thanks to all the CID shayari SMS which inspired me to write these for myself)

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One man's poison is another man's food

It was evening snacks time.Myself and Vikram stood in a small queue , got our sandwiches and were looking for a place to sit...

Vikram (Pointing to a table occupied by 3 of our female colleagues) : Come , lets join them.

Me: Hey no!! All girls table means lots of gossip !! No need.Lets sit elsewhere.

Vikram: That's exactly the point!!! All girls table and lots of gossip !!

And for the first time in Indian history Vikram left the betaal and flew to reach the better story tellers :-)

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Ajab Vijnas ki Gajab kahani :)

Disclaimer: The character and incidents portrayed and the names herein are factual and any similarity to the name, character and history of any person, living , is entirely incidental and these are the same characters who are going to kill me once they read this blog.

I had read this somewhere on the net.
The fastest means of communication are:

• Telephone
• Television
• Tell-a-woman.

I was convinced about the first two but had some doubts on the third but last week's incident proved that the statement was indeed correct.

Let me explain you in stages:

The main characters:
------------------------
The experimental girl in question,say Aneev was the victim
Another peculiar character Vijnas was the pawn.
Ari, Ardnejar, Ayra-whsia,Hsirah and Yhtra are other team members.
Ainos and Ihturhs : Two females who unbelievably were able to hold a secret for more than 2 hrs.
And the innocent me :-) was the one who starts the ignition.

The background.:
------------------------
Aneev was about to be in a deadlock..err wedlock in May 2010 and was obviously very excited about it.She would eavesdrop every conversation which had the catchwords "Marriage,Husband/Wife,Girlfriend/ Boyfriend, Love-story " and similar words. While having a normal chat during the "working" hours in the office , about her engagement, huge telephone bills after engagement, its after-effects and other junk talk , I casually remarked that Vijnas too gets huge mobile bills as he too has a girlfriend. Now the antennas of Aneev got extra receptive and she started enquiring about her.Taking the joke further I told that Vijnas has a long term girlfriend and is now his fiancee.They are planning to get married and the only problem is that she stays in a place called Assiro while he is in Bengaluru.This guy Vijnas acted shy as if the say whatever I told was true.(he obviously hoped that it would be true)

Background part II
----------------------------
Many weeks after the above scene, Vijnas went to a trek to some hill in Karnataka and to show off that wonderful(!?) effort put his pics in a social networking site Akhrot.

Back to the present:
---------------------------

As I told I will explain the story in stages or to make it more specific the explanation will be in the states of matter.

Solid State:
--------------
When the unsuspecting victim Aneev was going to drink water,I stopped her and told her that Vijnas had uploaded his fiancee's photo on the web. Before I could finish my sentence, this ever- curious girl goes to Vijnas

Aneev : Hey, I heard you have uploaded some special photos in the web?? Kya baat hai??

Vijnas(wondering why she was interested in his trek photos) : Err... Hmmm ...yes I have uploaded but am not sure whether they are special !!

Aneev: Choo chweet. Our big boy is soooooo shy !!! Can you share that link with me?

Vijnas: Of course ,I have a meeting now.. anyhow I don't concentrate there..will send you the link during that meeting..

Aneev: Hmm, I'll be waiting !!

And within 3 seconds she tells this info to another girl Ayra-whsia in the team
Now 2 people waiting for the link

Liquid State:
-----------------------
(Inside the meeting room)

Vijnas: Hey Praveen, I am liking this company I'm working in.

Me( very surprised) : Why???

Vijnas: In my previous company no one would care even if I would have conquered Mt.Everest,but here I climb some hill and team mates already are interested in the photos !!!

I do some reality check and then find it out that this was the effect of the fire I lit 30 min back ;-)
To avoid further miscommunication I promptly tell him the truth and burst his "I-am-liking-this-company" bubble with a "Ha-Ha-Gotcha" needle.

The story would stop if he sent Aneev his trek photos.
The story would stop if he had told her the truth.

But when Vijnas proposes Praveen disposes !!

I give him another blockbuster idea. " Send some random girl photo to her "

Now Ardnejar and Hsirah too join the fun. All the fantastic 4 of us do a quick search,brainstorm and zero down on one particular genuine looking photo and download it.

Vijnas promptly forwards it to Aneev with a subject " Please don't share with anyone"

This is the point where the 3rd fastest mode of communication "tell-a-woman" comes into play.
And the subject line " Please don't share with anyone" gets converted magically to "Plz tell it to everyone" when it reaches a girl's mailbox.

Gaseous state:
-------------------
We are still sitting in the meeting room working on the planning of the new feature oblivious of the fact that the simple mail sent to one team member had caused an explosive chain reaction outside the meeting room.

One small mail to Aneev, one giant leap to the rumor!!
The rumor mills had already started working !!!

Two girls Ainos and Ihturhs who were told this secret earlier now act as as a catalyst to the fire and pump more fire into Ari and Aneev's ignorance.

Within 45 seconds almost 77.3% of the team came to know about Vijnas girlfriend.
Within 58 seconds another girl Ari concluded that she might be just a time-pass girlfriend of Vijnas.
Within 67 seconds Ari's friend Amirag from another company,in no way related to our team, came to know about the news.
Within 83 seconds another team member Yhtra announced that she has deciphered some subtle hints and had doubted that he had a girlfriend long long ago ( she wanted to prove that she knew the news before others).She also pointed out that the sweets he got from hometown some time back was actually for this reason.
Within 90 seconds all members had reached a common conclusion " THEY MAKE SUCH A CUTE PAIR" with the common question "Will she shift to Bengaluru or will he move to Assiro"?


Plasma state (for those who don't know, this is the fourth state of matter):
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CLIMAX

Vijnas comes out of the meeting room unaware of the wildfire about his impending marriage and gets summoned by the manager.
Manager: "Look Vijnas, we are going to take many features in the coming months.Please let me know you marriage plans ASAP so that I can plan accordingly !!!"


Vijnas faints.

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A fulfilling journey

Yes,we had finally decided to visit our relatives..after a long time.Its a very good habit to meet your relatives every now and then.
So we(I and two of my cousins ) set out to one of the most fulfilling journey of our lives.(You will know why it was so fulfilling in a few minutes.)

We landed at our first point.We thought since the time was 2:00 PM ,it was not right to visit someones house now ,as they would have just finished their lunch and we would land in an uncomfortable situation if they had to prepare one for us all over again.Thus the best idea was to have a food in some decent looking hotel.Now once you are in some temple of food ,its a sin to come out half empty.So we ate our hearts out and when we felt that the waiter was feeling that he now knew the reason for the famine in Somalia, we had to stop eating and leave.

Officially our first point started now.After the initial welcome talks we were offered lunch.We politely declined( and we had too..remember that famine in Somalia?) .So we were offered sprite (Oh what a respite !!) and chips.With whatever space we had in our digestive system we gulped down sprite with full spirit.We thanked them for their warm welcome and headed to destination-2.

Destination-2 had our grandfather waiting for us.Which meant that we had to give in to all the "respect your elders" sentiment and finish the Kesari bath in generous quantity served to us.Yes it did have that wonderful aroma ,beautiful colour and lots of cashew in that but then my belt was in the brink of giving up the fight of holding my stomach.
But yes ,we loved our elders and ate the Kesari bath like true warriors fighting for their country even though they are fatally wounded.
We had to get down the lift one by one as the lift would beep and never allow more than one of us to enter due to weight limitations.Stairs was never an option to us then :-)

We went to destination-3 on an auto who charged one and half of meter charge as he included extra charge for luggage.(yes he was pointing to our stomach).We were empty handed but yet felt pity on his auto which had to carry too much weight.

Destination -3 had a really caring aunty who thought we had become thinner than the last time she saw us and cursed our company for giving us so much work.Although we yearned for her curse against our company to come true ,we really had to ignore her former thought.But again ,we had a pre-committed sin.We had not met her for the last 2.5 yrs and the chances of you becoming thinner is proportional to the last time someone sees you and the only way to purify ourselves was to finish the chitranna she prepared with the tea.
This was the ultimate test of our never say die attitude.We realized why we were born in this planet.We had to eat it to save mankind from becoming thinner forever.Yes we did it...
The broken belt was dumped in the dustbin.

Just when we thought all was well we were caught by some friendly neighbourhood aunt of my aunt !!!! She said she had heard about from a long time but had not got a chance to see us ( we were now convinced about worth on this planet ).So as a mark of her happiness she offered each of us a 330ml of coke.Her logic was simple.We youngistaan guys would only eat pizzas and burgers and would never say no to soft drinks !!!Yes the logic was simple but this was cheating.Our contract never said that we had to respect some third party element's sentiments.Now somebody buys you a coke (without your consent) and is uncorked before you stop them you have to oblige.And as honorable citizens of India who abide by the culture of respecting each others sentiments, we started drinking that too...believe me this was the first time I hated a soft drink in my life...drop by drop we finished drinking it..

And I need not tell you after all this , I still had to return to my cousin's home and have some food as I had returned after a tiring round of meeting my relatives.

Moral of the story:
-------------------
1. Do not eat till you are stuffed before going to any relatives house.
2. Don't visit more than 2 relatives back to back and that too if you are visiting them after a long time.
and
3. My stomach is as big as my heart !!!!

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