Ghonchu's nephew - Vedu

Ghonchu's two year old nephew, Vedu had come to stay for a few days. Some snippets of his stay.

Scene one :

The moment Ghonchu's sister and Vedu came over, Ghonchu welcomed him with open arms. As Vedu was perched safely in his mother's lap, Ghonchu was ignored. However, when Vedu was eventually transferred to Ghonchu, Vedu opened his mouth to make the first sound of the day - 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. Vedu went back to his mother. Ghonchu went back to welcoming Vedu from a distance.

Scene two :

Over a few days, Vedu had now got used to Ghonchu's presence. One afternoon, he was sitting next to Ghonchu, feeling bored. Looking around, he found a new play thing. He smiled, went upto Ghonchu's face. Ghonchu, delighted at this gesture of affection, put his face forward. Snatch, went Ghonchu's spectacles. Alarmed, Ghonchu looked to see what Vedu did next. Vedu looked at the specs thoughtfully wondering in what manner to crush it. Ghonchu now decided to play tug of war with Vedu for the specs. Being (slightly) bigger, Ghonchu won the battle. The next audible sound was 'aaainnnnnnnnnnnnnn'. From the other room, his sister's voice came, "Ghonchu, why are you troubling Vedu?" Back went the specs to Vedu, and all sounds stopped. Ghonchu consoled himself with the thought that he could claim spectacle expenses as part of his company's medical reimbursement policy.

Scene three :

Ghonchu was watching IPL with intensity on television. Also sitting on his stomach was Vedu. Playing horse-horse. Sachin hit a straight drive boundary and Ghonchu exclaimed "ooooohhh" with delight. Vedu jumped on Ghonchu's stomach and Ghonchu again screamed "ooooohhh", this time because he was winded. Ghonchu looked angrily at Vedu who looked delighted with the soft flabby thing he had found. Ghonchu became engrossed in watching the match again and Vedu had to remind him of his presence by jumping again, this time a little lower. Ghonchu lay there unable to speak or move with a look of resignation.

Scene four :

"Ghonchu, I am going out for some work. Take Vedu for a walk in the park," requested Ghonchu's sister.
"Sure", said Ghonchu.
"Make sure he wears a diaper and also take his ball".
"Ok".
Ghonchu began day-dreaming of all the girls in the park who would be impressed on seeing him taking care of Vedu.

In the evening, Ghonchu took Vedu to the park in the evening and set him down on the grass to play with his ball. He himself sat on the bench and looked around to see who all were observing him admiringly. Sadly, the total count was zero. Ghonchu in his quest to look for admirers soon forgot about Vedu.

Soon, however a woman came up to Ghonchu and said, "Hi".
"Hi", replied Ghonchu delighted (He said "bingo" in his mind).
"You don't mind my son playing with your son's ball", she said pointing to where another little boy was now playing with Vedu and his ball.
"Eh!", said Ghonchu blankly.
The woman repeated her statement.
"He is not my son. He is my nephew", Ghonchu managed to stutter with a mortified expression.
"Oh".
"And no, your son can't play with mine because we are leaving now".
"Oh", she said and turned away.
"I meant my nephew", screamed Ghonchu at her back.

Ghonchu looked at Vedu who came up to him and clambered on his lap. Just as Ghonchu got up to leave before other people got the same impression as the woman, he felt something.

That something was something wet on his trousers. He had forgotten to put the diaper on Vedu. With an expression of 'the-worst-has-happened', Ghonchu looked down at Vedu's black shorts which remained of the same dark colour, and at his own white trousers which now looked a pale shade of grey in an area where one wouldn't want it to look grey.

                               A picture of my nephew - Vedant

Ghonchu learns cooking (Part 2)

Now emboldened with the fact that he had learnt the basics of cooking, Ghonchu decided that he should make a supreme dish. Such a dish, that everyone would appreciate and say "Wow! Ghonchu, you are a wonder." After a lot of thought, Ghonchu decided to make Maggi - every bachelor's bread and butter.

The planning complete, like a true software engineer, Ghonchu moved to the implementation of this task. His prior investigations had taught him how to light the gas, so that hurdle could be easily overcome.

Ghonchu lit the gas, took a vessel, filled it with water, put maggi and the masala into it and looked satisfied. "I am a born cook", he thought. "This should be ready to eat in a couple of minutes, as the advertisement claims."

Ghonchu waited for a couple of minutes and looked into the vessel. It looked like the Ganga river with a lot of floating snakes in it. Perplexed and convinced that this isn't how maggi looked like, he decided to wait. After ten more minutes, he put his head over the vessel again. With steam coming out of the vessel, the maggi was fermenting and frothing and dancing like the Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

The volcanic steam also succeeded in disrupting the flow of air traffic in Ghonchu's nose (made him sneeze). In a state of panic, Ghonchu switched off the gas and decided to eat the ashes after it cooled down. After ten more minutes of waiting, Ghonchu brought out a plate to transfer the maggi from the vessel. However, he realized that still a lot of water remained in the vessel and hence decided to eat whatever had been prepared in the vessel itself.

Ghonchu dug a spoon into the vessel. All that came out was murky water which slipped back into the vessel. Changing tactics, Ghonchu tried to pour out the Ganga into the sink without disturbing the swimming snakes. All the masala drained out with the Ganges.

Ghonchu now sat back happily and ate the leftover bland sticky remains of what was once known as maggi.

Thanks...

The other day I went to watch the match between Bangalore and Bombay in IPL. There were a couple of low intensity bomb blasts nearby, outside the stadium while I was there along with my friends.

Later on, I came to know about how a few people (whom I wouldn't have expected) had tried calling me up, when they became aware of those incidents. As luck would have it, the networks were jammed and no one was able to reach me apart from my parents. This post is to thank all those people who tried to call me then; it feels nice to be cared for and I really appreciate such a gesture.

Ghonchu and the Lizard

Ghonchu walked briskly towards his house. Having played cricket, he felt sweaty and dirty and decided to take a bath.

He unrobed himself and moved towards the bathroom in a towel. Just as he was about to enter the bathroom, he saw an unexpected gate-keeper guarding the bathroom. An enormous lizard was hanging precariously on the half-open bathroom door. Two of Ghonchu’s favorite nightmares were, one where he would be trapped in a den of crocodiles, and the other where a lizard would fall out of nowhere on his shirt and go underneath it. In this case, the latter wasn’t possible because he wasn’t wearing anything other than his skin.

Ghonchu looked at the lizard. The lizard looked at Ghonchu. Both eyed each other with mutual respect which foes on a battlefield have for each other. Each waited for the other to make the first move.

Ghonchu enumerated the possibilities. He could try and drive the lizard away but that was fraught with danger. The lizard could go into the bathroom instead and then he wouldn’t be able to take a bath. He could go carefully into the bathroom without disturbing the lizard and take a bath with the door half-open. Or else, he could simply wait till the lizard decided where to go next.

Discarding option two, he decided to go with option three for some time before risking option one. Ghonchu waited 10 minutes for the gatekeeper to give way. While waiting, Ghonchu was standing on one leg with a towel robed around him in a ready position to make a dash for the bathroom should the gatekeeper gracefully give way. The gatekeeper refused to budge. Feeling itchy and sweaty, Ghonchu in a rash act of bravado decided to try ugly tactics and move to option one. He knew, if the gatekeeper went inside he would be stranded. It would be like Abhimanyu who went into a chakraview without knowing how to get out of it.

Ghonchu said “hooosh” to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper looked scornfully back as though it would lose the battle so easily. It remained undaunted and ready for Ghonchu’s next attack. Ghonchu’s next attack was “hoosh hoosh”. The gatekeeper started ignoring Ghonchu now thinking him to be an unworthy opponent.

Now, Ghonchu lost temper at being ignored and felt that’s enough. He started poking the gatekeeper with a newly-found stick. At first, the gatekeeper ignored him busy looking for dinner (mosquitoes). Suddenly, when the stick came quite close to it, realization struck the gatekeeper. Ghonchu had struck back with a vengeance. With a look of disdain, because the opponent had used a new weapon not originally mentioned in the battle rules; the gatekeeper quickly moved away.

Ghonchu waited with baited breath to see where it would go. The gatekeeper moved away and out of the bathroom door. “Yippee”, screamed Ghonchu at having won the battle, albeit unfairly. The gatekeeper no longer was guarding the door, nor did it go inside.

But, Ghonchu though delighted at having won the minor skirmish, had not planned for the entire war. His opponent had another tactical masterstroke in hand. Just as Ghonchu got ready to enter the bathroom, he observed the lizard sticking a tongue at him before entering into the cupboard where he kept all his clothes.


____________________________________________________

As a response to this post, I received this wonderful anecdote in the form of a poem composed by Divya.

"Subah Subah - ek anchaha mehmaan "
Aaj yu hi jab darwaza khola wo saamne tapak gayi
bin bole bin pooche bas yu hi ander chali aayi
isse pehle ki main rokti kuch kehti wo meri table ke neeche jaake baith gayi
maine bulana chaha darwaze ki taraf ishara kiya
par wo wahi baithi mujhe tukur tukur dekhti rahi
use bhagaane ke liye maine jhoothi mooti safai ka natak kiya
jhaadoo leke uske aaspaas mandarayi
par wo to bas wahi usi jagah jaise chipak hi gayi
maine thoda aur zor se khule darwaze ke aur ishara jo kiya
to wo bhaag ke mere kamre me aur ander aa gayi
ye dekh mere muh se zor se aawaaz nikli nahiiiiiiii
fir shukar manaya ki mere padosi kabhi aise shor pe dhyaan nahi dete
ab jise ander aana tha aa gayi thi ye samajhke
maine us khule darwaaze ko band kar diya
socha ki kahin uske jaise aur ander na aa jaye
use daraane ki chah thi par khud hi darrti rahi
wo itni chup aur shaant thi is dauraan
ki thodi der me hi mere kamre ke ek samaan jaisi lagne lagi
itna ghulmil gayi wo mere kamre ki cheeso me
ki main uski maujundgi ko hi bhool gayi
kamre ko band karke aaraam se tehelne nikal gayi

ab jab wapas kamre me jana hai to lag raha hai ....

wo chipkali abhi bhi mere saamaano me kahin chupi hogi !

Ghonchu's machine hangs

(Thanks to Raunak for this story)
___________________________________________________

Ghonchu walked into his office humming a self-composed tune "Chahe jo bhi ho jaye; humein kuch nahi hoga". He climbed the lift and went to fourth floor towards his cubicle. He saw Ronku and Punu who were discussing something. They greeted him enthusiastically but Ghonchu swiftly moved ahead after greeting them cursorily; he was worried they might include him in their discussion and his total ignorance about everything would be revealed.

On reaching his cubicle, he felt something was wrong. After racking his brains for 2 minutes, it finally struck him. His machine was unlocked!!! Ghonchu mentally abused himself for committing such a stupid mistake. Here goes my 1000 Rs, he thought. There was an unwritten rule in his office that if someone left his machine unlocked; there would be a mail sent from his Outlook, "I am giving a treat at Barista today."

Ghonchu rushed to Ronku who was nearest and asked, "Tell me, am I giving a treat at Barista today?"
A nonplussed Ronku said, "We won't mind if you do. Why, what happened?"
"I left my machine unlocked."
"Oh", said Ronku, now smiling along with Punu.
They all went back to Ghonchu's machine. Punu suggested, "Just check your sent mail. If someone has fooled around, you will know."
"Good idea", Ghonchu appreciated his friends' help mentally.
However, when Ghonchu tried to open his mailbox, nothing happened on clicking Outlook on the task bar.

Ghonchu tried to open other items, and then to his consternation he realized even though the mouse was moving around, his desktop seemed to have hung. Nothing was opening. He even tried the keyboard, and then realized that keyboard too was not responding. The keyboard and mouse connection ports seemed to be fine.

"Damn Windows! Why can't these folks make a reliable product which doesn't crash?"

However, soon he began to appreciate the fact that because Windows hung, no one was able to send a Barista mail. "Thanks to Windows errors, I escaped", Ghonchu exclaimed in happiness to Ronku and Punu.

"Yes, but what about your machine now?", asked Ronku.
"Oh, I will restart. All Windows problems go away with reboot", Ghonchu said confidently.
"But your keyboard isn't working. If you reboot, then you won't be able to login."

Now, Ghonchu got worried. He had to show something to his manager in an hour and hadn't done anything. "Ronku, can I remotely login from your machine to mine and check if it works that way."

"Ya, sure", said Ronku, all helpful as usual.
"Thanks a lot, man."

Ghonchu tried that approach but even then that didn't work. Now in panic, Ghonchu looked for inspiration at his two friends. "What should I do? Seriousu won't accept this as an excuse for not doing work." Seriousu was their manager.

Punu and Ronku listed down the possibilities. Ghonchu couldn't use this as an excuse so he somehow had to get his machine to work. Calling Facilities to change his keyboard would take some time, and he didn't have time.

"The only option left now for you is to fix your machine on your own somehow without restarting. Take 10-15 minutes to do so, then finish your work in 45 minutes", Ronku calmly concluded as though it was as easy as eating breakfast.

Ghonchu tried all he could think of, with various suggestions from Ronku and Punu. Still nothing. Now their expressions were as follows. Ghonchu, in a state of total panic looked like a cat trapped in a den of crocodiles. Ronku's expression showed concern while Punu was trying to restrain himself from laughing.

Ronku remonstrated with Punu for laughing, and Ghonchu also felt very bad and decided that Ronku was his only friend. However, Punu couldn't control himself any longer and started laughing in full flow. Then, Ronku also joined him and both of them just kept on laughing unable to stop.

Perplexed, Ghonchu looked at them with questioning eyes of a curious cat.

Ronku and Punu had taken advantage of the unlocked machine. They took a snapshot of the desktop, copied it in Paint and just opened it in full screen. The real desktop was hidden underneath. Also, a small piece of paper had been inserted in the keyboard port such that it was invisible to naked eye and was the cause of keyboard not working.

Of nostalgia and memories..

Two small incidents triggered this post..I just saw Yuvraj and Kaif batting together the other day. And then I suddenly yearned for one of those partnerships of yore, where they played together. And then sadly I was reminded of the realities of life, that this is now 2010 and not 2002 when Kaif got out after a miserable couple of hits.

The other incident that happened was Sachin hit a hook shot yesterday...after probably half a decade. I suddenly wanted those days back when hitting two boundaries an over were cherished and only classy people like Sachin were capable of it and not every Tom, Dick and Harry as is now the case.

I also saw a random advertisement the other day of some Max insurance where a child plays the fool with his parents about his marks and then recalled myself do something of that sort when I was around 10.

And then I stopped to think about it, and then remembered a lot more things which I suddenly missed. I missed the random nonsense shared with my BTech friends; the close ties, the fights, six people sitting on the corner-most table of 4 during meals with my IISc friends; the solving of intensely difficult Maths problems with my school friends and struggling hard preparing for IIT; all of which are now no longer possible.

Do I wish to turn the clock back to change anything? Probably not, those were great days with no major regrets. If anything, I would love to rewind it to the 2003 World Cup final, where Sachin would've played that recent innings of 200 and won the WC instead of miscuing a pull to McGrath in the first over.

Now things are just so dramatically different in office life, that all those days of school and college just mean nothing but memories. Not that office life isn't fun but still...the three earlier lives were great fun too while I was in those phases. Maybe one just has to move on, with nothing but all those memories left with you.

Visitor Count

Ghonchu opened Mozilla Firefox, pressed Ctrl+T and quickly wrote my-endless-ramblings.blogspot.com. He had told a girl named Sweetu in his office about his blog and had boasted that it had more than 1000 visits. The statistics on the right panel said 963 visitors. He wanted to quickly get it to 1000 visitors. His hard-work of opening the site three times daily in the last 321 days had successfully paid off. He was now only 37 short of the magic figure.

Desperate to reach 1000 visitors on the same day, Ghonchu thought of various ways to reach the four-figure mark. His possible options were:- 1) open and close his blog page 37 times. 2) Requesting a number of friends to open his blog site.

Ghonchu pressed the refresh button. The visitor count stayed at 963 visits. Previous experience had taught him that won't help, but being an optimist he anyway tried that trick again. He then closed the web-page, closed firefox, reopened it and reopened his blog page again. His web-page visitor count stubbornly refused to move. With sweat dripping from his face (although that might've been due to Hyderabad's temperature), he now restarted the machine, opened firefox and then opened his blog page again. The visitor count limped to 964 visits.

Whew, said Ghonchu to himself, "I can't restart my machine 36 more times." He decided to move to option two. He pinged Keechu, Pingu, Quietu and Chintu and told them to quickly visit his blog page a few times. Their response was typical. Quietu and Pingu did not reply back. Keechu exclaimed, "Sheesh, why on earth should I visit your blog? Don't I've anything better to do?" Pingu just started laughing on being told that Ghonchu had a blog, so Ghonchu decided not to pursue the matter further.

At wits end, Ghonchu wondered what to do. Then he remembered bhOndOO. bhOndOO was an old friend of his whom he hadn't talked to recently. bhOndOO maintained a blog too which was far more popular.

Desperation makes people do strange things. Ghonchu called up bhOndOO and requested him to visit his blog. Every drop was crucial to fill the ocean of 36 leftover visitors. bhOndOO in his usual non-committal way replied, "I will see what I can do." Ghonchu disappointed with all his friends, decided to give up and felt that he would have to apologize to Sweetu.

On reaching office the next day, he tried to avoid Sweetu. However, she met him unexpectedly and exclaimed, "Wow, Ghonchu! Your blog is really popular. You weren't boasting." Startled but delighted, Ghonchu quickly checked his blog-page and saw that his visitor count showed 1021 visits. Shocked and perplexed, Ghonchu thought how did this miracle happen!!

Then, while surfing he accidently went over to bhOndOO's blog. The topmost post said, "This post is for Ghonchu who is currently in a lazy mood. If you have his email id, please write to him some inspirational songs." Also provided was Ghonchu's blog link.

Ghonchu uttered a few abusive words like "#$%@^@^$@#@$@!#^#$%!!%$@#$". But then he smiled recalling the appreciation from Sweetu. So what if a few thousand people got to know that he was lazy.

One year completed

Today this blog celebrates its first birthday. The first post was on Feb 16, 2009.

(Thanks to Rupesh for pointing this out)

Ghonchu learns cooking

Unnerved by his previous rash experiences, Ghonchu decided to take a break and focus on personality development before proposing to someone again. He decided to develop his culinary talents which would add to his curriculum vitae before making another move. He began dreaming of himself as someone who would be surrounded by eager females once he added this noble art to the other skills (or the lack of skills) that he possessed.

Ghonchu entered the kitchen with an expression of one who is about to start a conquest. He looked around trying to decide what to start with. He went over to the stove and decided that every cook worth his salt should know how to start the gas stove with a lighter. With his face averted and hands outstretched and from a distance of 3 feet he tried to start the gas using the lighter. The distance between the lighter and the stove was 10 cms.

“Phatak”, said the lighter in his hand.

The gas remained stone cold. Slowly, Ghonchu moved closer with trepidation walking on tiptoe. The distance between Ghonchu and the stove reduced to two feet. The distance between the lighter and the stove reduced to 1cm. His hands outstretched, Ghonchu used the lighter. “Phatak”, said the lighter again.

The gas remained unmoved by Ghonchu’s attempts. The distance now reduced further. With a perspiring face, Ghonchu tried again. This time the lighter (along with the hand holding it) touched the stove for a split second, said “Phatak” and immediately withdrew to a safe distance of 3 feet and waited to see the after-effects. He averted his face as though a bomb might blast any moment.

The gas sneered at Ghonchu and the lighter. So it seemed to him. He began to think if this was worth the effort. Then he remembered the greater objective. This was part of a noble cause. So what if his hand got burnt. That would be a small sacrifice to make in the quest of crossing the first hurdle on his path. With a grim face and a steely resolve, Ghonchu tried again.

This time he said a prayer to God, mentally forced his hand to stay where it was, kept the lighter in contact with the stove and tried again, "Phatak". Same reaction by the stove. Nil! Ghonchu looked angrily at the unhelpful gas stove and uttered a few abusive words to it. He felt as though everyone in this world was conspiring against him.

Ghonchu decided to take a break. He went over to the sink, washed his sweaty palms and perspiring face, dried himself with a towel, drank a glass of water and prepared himself for another arduous battle. The first round had been won by the gas stove.

After loosening the top button of his shirt and rolling up his sleeves, Ghonchu faced the stove again. Taking a deep breath, courageously, he tried again. And again. And again and again. For around 15-20 times. Total reaction shown by the gas stove : nil.

Now tired, a thought occured to Ghonchu. "The gas may not be working. What could be the cause?" With an engineer's mind, Ghonchu listed out all the possibilities mentally and tried to pinpoint the fault.
"There is no gas. No, that is not possible since we started using this cylinder only yesterday."
"Could there be a faulty pipe due to which the stove isn't working? Let me check?"

Ghonchu bent down, looked underneath and tried feeling behind the stove. When he withdrew his hands they were full of soot. After he wiped off sweat on his face, the soot happily decided to settle there. Luckily there was no mirror in the kitchen.

With a black-and-white face, a tired body and nearly-reduced-to-tears, Ghonchu's eyes rested on something while his body was in the same bent position.

His eyes registered a knob below the stove, which had On-Off markings and a sign which indicated rotation.

Heaving a sigh, Ghonchu straightened, rotated the knob to the 'On' position and lit the stove calmly as though he had been doing it all his life. The gas burst into flames.

Unforeseen obstacles while proposing

Ghonchu walked into his office with a sense of purpose. A passive bystander might come to the conclusion that here goes a focused person with weighty issues on his mind and no time for idle chit-chat. That conclusion wasn't totally erroneous.

He had thought it all out the previous night. His strategy was clear. He was going speak his heart out to "her" today. He didn't know her name. He didn't know who she was. She seemed quite young and sweet. All he knew about her was the minor fact that she ate lunch at 12.30 and the more important fact that they were meant for each other and she would get to know that today.

Ghonchu walked to his cubicle, opened his mail and found seven pending action items from the previous day and three new had come up while he had been asleep. However his mind being on more important things, he ignored those tasks the same way as Nelson turned a blind eye.

He looked at his watch. It said 10:30. He had to wait till 12.30. After what he felt was quite a long time, he looked at his watch again. It said 10:31. As time trickles slowly when you wait for it, Ghonchu felt it would be an eternity before lunch time would come.

When his watch (finally) said 12.30, Ghonchu leapt from his seat like a cat on a hot tin roof. He turned around with the intention of going to the cafeteria. Two steps out of his cubicle, tragedy hit him. His manager, Seriousu spotted him!

"Hey Ghonchu, could you come to my cabin for a couple of minutes!"

"Yes." (#$@%@@%#%&#!@)

After debating over ETAs and what-nots for various tasks assigned to Ghonchu, he managed to cleverly extricate himself from his manager's clutches in just twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds. There was still time. However, just as Ghonchu was exiting Seriousu's cabin, he asked, "Ghonchu, do you want to go for lunch?"

"Today is Tuesday and all this is happening because I didn't read Hanuman Chalisa. I will only be able to do this task tomorrow", Ghonchu consoled himself with this thought.

"Yes", said Ghonchu to his manager resigning himself to the fact that he won't be able to speak his heart out to "her" today.

On reaching the cafeteria (with his manager), Ghonchu spotted her sitting alone at her usual place. Not wanting to miss out on the opportune moment and forgetting that he hadn't read Hanuman Chalisa, he excused himself from his manager saying he would join him in a few minutes.

Ghonchu walked confidently to her or at least no one seemed to have noticed his legs shaking. Be calm and composed, he told himself. He went and stood in front of her.

"Hi, can I talk to you for a couple of minutes?", he asked in a voice which seemed similar to that of a quivering jellyfish.

"Yes?", she replied with a questioning expression. Her reaction didn't seem enthusiastic or as though she had found her soul-mate. It sounded more like indifference.

Undaunted, Ghonchu continued, "Hi, My name is Ghonchu. I ..."

"Trnng trnng."

Confused and reminded of his past experiences with a phone, Ghonchu looked around.

"Excuse me", she said to Ghonchu and lifted her phone.

"Yes, amma. Is Rahul back from play-school?"

Ghonchu stood stock-still for a moment like a statue, mumbled something unintelligible, walked away cursing himself with his face crimson red.

He rejoined his manager who had watched the scene from afar. "Who was she?", he asked with a roguish glint in his eye.

With all signs of mortification wiped off from his face, Ghonchu nonchalantly replied, "Just an acquaintance."