Dear Gentlemen and Ladies

Prologue:

According to the Bible, God created Adam out of sand. Then he created Eve out of Adam’s backbone. 
Question: Why didn’t God create Eve out of sand? (Assuming there was still plenty of sand available)
Answer: Coz he knew that men shall be wiped off from earth had he done that. 

N.B. This is not a post regarding which gender is superior. It merely deals with the plight of one of the sexes caused by the other. And no, I don’t hate women; I’m a sympathizer of my fraternity. (Post to be taken in a lighter vein)

Scene 1: A hot afternoon in front of “New” theatre at Thambanoor

I looked at my watch; the time is 2.15 PM. I’ve been here for half an hour sweating in the middle of a long queue; the guard doesn’t allow ‘anyone’ to enter the gates until 2.45 PM. Anyone?? No, anyone except a particular kind of species; a species which are called by the funny name ‘women’, who coolly walked by the gates giving me a smug look. While I sweated out hours in the hot scorching sun to get to the ticket counter, it was just a matter of seconds for this species to get ‘em. And when I finally reached the counter, the balcony tickets were sold out. 

Scene 2: A crowded bus stop at Ulloor

As soon as the bus arrived, I jumped and hopped into it and barely managed to get a side seat. After a while comes the so called ‘species’ demanding me to get up. Darn! Ladies seat!! Not again! Nevertheless, being the chivalrous young man I’m, alright alright, a ‘wanna-be’ chivalrous young man I’m; I got up and graciously gave ‘my’ seat to them, only to get that 'cheap guy' stares. And O brothers, your faithful narrator, who earned his seat, stood in a corner bearing all the kicking and elbowing of the crowd. 

Brothers, wake up! They’re here, there, everywhere; from the President of India to the Chancellor of Germany, from the President of Congress to the CEO of Pepsico, from Poomanam to Mindspace (Yes, they’ve even dominated the blogosphere. I demand 33.33% visiters of these blogs be given to poor male bloggers like me). Still the echo that’s clamoring is “Reservation” and “Ladies First”. And this is not the case just in India, it’s a widespread epidemic across the world. Here are some statistics:

• The disparity in the spending on men and women in the healthcare system. As an example, in the United Kingdom significantly more money is spent on breast cancer research than prostate cancer research. 40,000 cases of breast cancer were detected in the UK in 2000 and claimed the lives of 13,000 women in 2002. In 2000, about 27,200 cases of prostate cancer were detected and claimed nearly 10,000 lives in 2002 in the UK.
• Increasing suicide rate amongst young men, four times higher than amongst young women in the United Kingdom; (73% of all suicide deaths in the United States are white males.)
• In recent years, girls in the United States have tended to perform better in most educational levels and subjects. In the United States, 57% of college students are women, and the number is growing. The trend is similar in other industrialized countries.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Men's_rights

As you can see, whether it’s healthcare or education or any field for that matter, women are given priority. What about the born-unlucky boy of today?? 

Poor young man being (wo)man-handled
Photo Courtesy: www.funtoosh.com

Cases of husband battering are not unheard of in this era. But due to the social stigma associated with it, the voices of the victims are not heard in the society. And you think this happens in humans alone. Well think again.

Once the king of jungle. Now, a victim of harassment. 
Photo Courtesy: www.icanhascheezburger.com

Brothers, no longer should we ignore the plights of our fellow comrades. They are being victims to the legions of destruction a.k.a. women. Let’s fight for our rights.

“Eda, I need the computer”

Me: 1 minute mom
Mom: What’re you typing so hard, let me see.
Me: Nothing mom, just some, errr
Mom (glancing through the post): WHAT!! Women? Legions? Destruction??? 
Me: I can explain.
Mom: WHY YOU UNFILIAL BRAT!!!

*thwack* *thwack* *THUD* 
“No, let me explaaaiiiiiiiyeeeeeeeeks………..
*thwack* *thud* ZAP!!!

Chatters & Cheaters

This happened quite some time back. There was this sophomore girl in our college with whom I was pretty acquainted with and I used to lend my past semester’s books to her. We used to chat on the internet and during one of those chatting sessions I showed her some of the recently taken photos. Seeing one of my pics,

She: You look like a zombie in that pic.

(Zombie???)

Me: Actually, that’s not me. That’s my twin brother. 

(A fiendish smile appears on my face)

She: You’re kidding.
Me: No, absolutely not. That’s Sam, my bro; he’s 4 minutes younger to me.
She: Seriously???
Me: Why should I lie about my bro. Anyway, I don’t care whether you believe it or not.
She: Oh! I believe you. You’re so lucky to have a twin bro. What’s he doing?

I make up volumes of lies, and meanwhile created a fake profile in Orkut with the descriptions I told her. Then I messaged some of my friends who were online to quickly add that profile to their friends list, to avoid any suspicions. I sat back and patted my head thinking about my ingenious creativity and the inherent gullibility of the fairer sex. Seeing my profile, I mean my bro’s profile, 

She: Oh boy! He looks almost like you.

(Almost??? Man, I was clutching my stomach trying to control my laughter)

Me: Ya, I told ya.  

(The “girl” species is indeed a dumb lot) 

Me: By the way, who do you like more, me or Sam? 

(Now this is when I call myself a genius; as you can see, this is mostly a win-win situation for me)

She: Hmm, Sam! 
Me: Ok 

(I was literally rolling on the floor laughing by now)

Me: But, you know, he’s not your kind of person. Has all those bad habits.
She: Bad??
Me: Ya, he smokes and drinks.
She: I don’t think that’s too bad. I’m pretty ok with that.

(What the F??)

Me: You know, he has numerous girlfriends too.
She: You mean friend girls, right?
Me: No you dumbo, girlfriends!!
She: Hmmm, that’s bad. Maybe, I like you more

(Finally, *phew* )

She: Hey I need some text books. Class notes are of no use. 
Me: Ok
She: You don’t mind giving books to me right?
Me: Actually, I do. But since you’re shameless and blatantly asks for my precious books, and since I’m a noble gentleman with a kind heart, No, I don’t mind.
She: Ok fine, then don’t give.
Me: Just kidding. I’ll give the books to JuniorX. You collect it from him.
She: Thanks a lot. Gotta go now. 
Me: Ok, bye.
She: Bye, take care.

Man, I should say this, I never laughed and guffawed so much in front of the computer, and never thought I could make her believe all those lies (well-crafted lies they are though). Now, JuniorX is her classmate in college, who happened to be my junior at school. Next day, I saw JuniorX at college bus. Upon seeing me,

JuniorX: How’s your twin bro? 
Me: !!!
JuniorX: You know what, as soon as you told her about the twin bro, she messaged me asking whether it’s true. I told you’re a big fat liar. Anyway, she said she was going to play along with you and have some fun. And after chatting with you, she phoned me and said that you’re too gullible to ‘believe’ that others ‘believe’ you. However, she was impressed by the fact that you sweated out creating a fake profile and adding friends in a flash of a second.
Me: Blue Blistering Barnacles!! I want all my books back! 
JuniorX: She also said she had never laughed so much in front of the computer. 

“!!!!!”

Moral of the story, anyone??

Vipz's Story

Late night combined studies is a time for telling jokes, gossips, the merits and demerits of the latest film around, watching TV, eating junk food, more TV, and at last and the least, studying a.k.a. cramming. It was one of those late night sessions when Vipz and I hit the books for a daunting 12 minutes & 40 seconds straight, that we decided to take a much awaited rest to relax our minds after the long tiring study session. So off we went to watch some TV. As we surfed through the umpteen channels, FTV sprung up; and that’s when Vipz told me he gets reminded of a particular incident that happened 9 years back whenever this channel comes up. For the uninitiated, FTV is Fashion Television, an absolutely boring channel for everyone; everyone except boys who’ve just entered the adolescent phase. The channel shows fine female figures catwalking on the ramp which induces funny fantastic feelings in young boys. Now where was I? Ya, Vipz’s story. Here it goes:

After the final exams at school, young Vipz decides to spend the vacation in his native place, not just to see his beloved grandpa and grandma, but also to see Cable TV and the gazillion channels in it (those were the times when Cable TV wasn’t ubiquitous as it is now). Once there, he discovered this channel called FTV which showed beautiful figures of a particular kind of human species; but he knew he didn’t get a chance to see this channel when everyone was around. So, determined to watch it, he walks gingerly into the TV room one night (after making sure his grandparents has fallen asleep); switches on the TV in mute mode and puts his blanket over the TV case and also over himself (he sitting on the floor), so that the light from TV doesn’t spread across the room and he can watch TV in peace without anyone knowing. Smart chap I say! But there was some junk showcase articles kept on top of the TV case and as Vipz started enjoying the ramp show, the blanket slowly slipped from over the case along with all the articles on it. *THUD* *CRACK* *THUD* !! Vipz sprung up from the floor terrified, changed the channel (but unfortunately did not switch OFF the TV), pulled down the shutter of the TV case, ran back to his bedroom and jumped onto his bed. Grandpa and grandma wakes up hearing the cracking sounds; comes within a short while to the TV room and switches ON the lights. Seeing the messy floor,

Grandma: There’s something wrong with this house now-a-days. We should call the Poojari to perform the delayed rituals. 
Grandpa: It might be that stupid cat.

Then they go to Vipz’s room, he’s there sleeping cozily under the blanket, I mean pretending to sleep cozily; they awaken him.

Grandpa: Son, did you see or hear anyone around here.
Vipz (yawning): Wha, err, har! See?? Wha….Hear?? No, I was sleeping.
Grandpa (believing his “honest”, “innocent” grandson): Alright son, nothing to worry, you go back to sleep.
Vipz: Ya, ok grandpa.

And he falls asleep immediately, I mean he pretends to. Grandpa goes to the TV room, turn OFF the lights and when about to turn, sees light coming out of the TV case. He lifts up the shutter of the case and to his dismay sees snakes crawling and hissing, on TV. Guess what, Vipz had switched to 'Discovery Channel' before running off to his room.

Grandma: I told ya there was something wrong. The Snake Gods are displeased.
Grandpa: Hmm, I too guess it’s time to call the Poojari and perform the rituals.

And that week itself all the poojas and yajnas were done to please the Gods and ward off all the evil forces out of the house. I know which evil force that was!! The “evil” himself told me 9 years later! 

Understanding the Misunderstanding

This post by Silverine reminded me of something that happened 4 years back. I was chatting with this girl (no no, I wasn’t flirting you bozos, I was just chatting), who was a family friend of ours (kind of a conservative, sensitive girl) and that’s when the doorbell rang. I peeked through the window and saw my neighbor, who had come to collect the key to her house. I immediately typed,

“Neighbor came, will be back after a sec” 

And went to give the keys to my neighbor. As I returned back for chatting after some 2 minutes or so, she had logged out, without even saying a ‘bye’. Just then I noticed something on the chat window. It read,

“Neighbor came, will be back after sex” !!

N.B. Be careful while typing ‘sec’. ‘X’ lies adjacent to ‘C’ on the keyboard. My humble piece of advice. 

P.S. I wasn’t particularly embarrassed by the incident; maybe she was; so I apologized to her later and made her understand the ‘misunderstanding’. 
P.P.S. I don’t know whether I’ve done worse than Silverine, as she asks in her post. But, hmm, on a second thought, maybe not! ;) 

Brainy Blooper

In the final semester we had a paper on Biomedical Engineering which consisted partly of biology and we being electronics engineering students, had our own versions in understanding the human physiology. There was a topic called “EEG frequency bands” which discusses the different types of waves produced in the brain. For example, alpha waves are produced in the initial stages of waking when the eyes are closed; beta waves, when there are high states of wakefulness; theta and delta are indications of sleep. 

After the exam, we went to Vipin’s house to take some photostats for the next exam. An exhausted and sleepy Vipin closes his eyes and says to Priyadarshan,

“My brain must be producing alpha waves now”

Sanil overhears that,

“No no, you got it wrong; you should be running with your eyes closed to produce really good alpha waves”.

Vipin: What?? Get lost!

Sanil: Yes man; walking with your eyes closed can also produce alpha waves, but weakly. 

Priyadarshan: You mean only somnambulists produce alpha waves?

Sanil: Exactly.

We all disagree with Sanil but he relentlessly argues; says he had read that in his reference text and had written volumes about alpha waves in the exam. And he takes out the text from his bag and gives it to us. It says,

“Alpha waves arise from the posterior brain in the waking person with eyes closed”.

Guess what, “waking person” was misread by Sanil as “walking person”. We all began laughing hysterically while Sanil remains perplexed as to what was going on. We explained to him the mistake while still trying to suppress our laughter; wondering about the plight of the examiner who has to go through volumes of pure “gas” in his answer paper. The difference one letter can make!!!

Presentations, Tribulations, Trepidations

If anything can go wrong, it will.
                                   -- Murphy’s Law

If Murphy's Law can go wrong, it will.
                                  -- Silverman's Law

The 7th semester in engineering was replete with project design, synopsis, intermediate reports and yes, presentations. Well well, presentations bring back a lot of memories; no, not fond memories, but nightmarish ones. 

The presentation titled “Dielectric Resonator Antennas” was meticulously prepared by the four of us, that is, Rohit, Chatti, Chottu and I. But fate giving heed to Murphy’s laws, made Chatti’s pen drive inoperable just before the H-hour and there were no backup CDs. So off we rushed to Chatti’s house to copy the files from his PC. 

Problem: Chatti had no blank CDs with him and so we looked for some unlocked CDs to copy our files. 
The Real Problem: The only unlocked CDs with him were "pr0n" CDs. 

Since we could do nothing about it in the eleventh hour, we searched for an appropriate pr0n CD; that’s when we were amazed at the variety of Chatti’s seksual fetishes. Title cover of some of the CDs:
The Bare Bitch Project
Good Will Humping 
Lord of the G-Strings
Shaving Ryan's Privates (gay pr0n??, naa, I don’t want to think so) 

And that was just a sample collection. Anyway, we decided to go with ‘Good Will Humping’. Copied everything and rushed back to college. The CD was put into our teacher’s laptop; meanwhile Chottu masked the projector, just in case, you know, if it autoplayed. All of us took our presentation, teacher seems impressed and everything went fine. After seminar Chottu jokes,

“Maybe we should have shown the class, the other “educational” files in the CD and got some extra marks for that”

Chatti: “Yeah right, and you can do a live demonstration too”

Chatti gets a thwack in his head. Everyone laughs. We part. And the 4 guys lived happily ever after. Happy ending?? Well, not really. Suddenly we realized that while basking in the afterglow of a successful presentation (albeit the audience were yawning and sleeping), we forgot to retrieve the CD back from teacher’s laptop. Rohit flutters, Chatti faints, I tremble, while Chottu asks,

“Wonder how she’ll put the marks for the presentation”

An infuriated Chatti: “I’m going to lose my entire reputation in front of her and you’re concerned about some effing worthless marks, you moron!”

Off we rushed to teacher’s room; she’s in there and the laptop is on her desk, turned OFF though, luckily. We stood at a distance from the room waiting, in fact craving, for her to leave the room ASAP, so that we could retrieve the CD. Meanwhile, I, being the brave, intrepid macho man, okay fine, ‘trying’ to be the brave, intrepid macho man, confides,

“Why should we be scared? We’re 21 years of age. There’s nothing illegal in it” 

Chatti: “Shut your piehole. 21 years, my foot! And for your information Mr. Smart-ass, pr0n is illegal in India, no matter what the age is”.  

Me: “Errr, ummm, Welly well, whose CD is it anyway, Mr. Dumb-ass??” 

Chatti: @#$%!@#$

At last, teacher goes out of her room, all of us jumped and hopped into her room; switched ON the laptop. Chatti waits at the door keeping a hawk eye. Darn, teacher is coming back; we need a few more seconds. Chatti runs to her, stalls her and asks,

“Teacher, we’ll be using double stub tuner to match our antenna to the load for flexible adjustment and greater range of impedance matching and by adjusting the positions of the shorting plugs attached to the stub lines the length of the stub will be changed thereby achieving tuning”.

Teacher: Ok, but why are you telling me this.

Chatti: You taught us only about single stub tuner. So I just wanted to tell you about the alternative method.

Tecaher: Ugh!

Chatti: Thank you ma'am.

Tecaher: !!!!!

Meanwhile we retrieved the CD and fled away from there; thanks to Chatti’s technical enlightenment. Well, now it’s a happy ending except for a battered and bruised Chottu, who later asks Chatti,

“Mind if I borrow that CD for a day??”

More Viva Woes

Excerpts from the Course Viva: 

Teacher: What is virtual height? 
Rohit: Virtual height with regards to what? 
Teacher: Virtual height of an antenna.
Rohit: Virtual height of an antenna with regards to what?
Teacher: !!!! Ok, what’s internet? 
Rohit: Internet is ….errr....a vast array of….errr
Teacher: What topology does it use?
Rohit: Topology with regards to what?
Teacher: !@#$%@$%#


Teacher: Who discovered electron? (Answer is J.J. Thomson)
Shinu: Ja….err….Ja....mmm….Jackson!
Teacher: Jacksonaa? Aare, Michael Jacksonaa? 


Einstein goes to the viva in his usual smelly clothes, messy hair and a wildly unshaven look. 
Teacher: First tell me what’s bothering you. 
Einstein strikes a chord in teachers emotions, says stuff like he’s a lone ranger and has got no friends (must’ve referred to girlfriends); teacher becomes sentimental and finishes his viva soon. The next day, a horde of messy, smelly, unshaven guys (including yours truly) appears before a perplexed teacher, but, counter-intuitively, gets extra tough viva questions. Sigh!

Excerpt from Microwave Lab Viva: 

Botsu made the day for Microwave lab viva. To the uninitiated, Botsu did his schooling till 10th grade in Botswana, a country in the southern part of Africa. 

Teacher: Give me an application of microwave.
Botsu: Raider!
Teacher: Raider? Athenthuva?
Bostu: Teacher, Raider. R-A-D-A-R.
Teacher: Oh! Radar. Iyaal ividengum ulla aalalle?
Botsu: Alla, njaan Africa ninnu vannatha.
Teacher: !!! Thaanentha enne kaliyaakkukayaano, njaan thanikku mottayittu tharum lab inu.
Botsu: Ayyo teacher, satyamaayittum njaan Africa aane!!

P.S. Actually, a lot of stuff happened during the viva, but due to the successive plethora of exams, I don’t remember much of ‘em.  
P.P.S. Botsu was almost correct in his pronunciation. It’s actually pronounced “reydahr” which we mallus tend to mispronounce as “radahr”. My bad, but we did have a very good laugh at Botsu’s expense. 

Alive & Amplified

Long time no see. How art thou? I'm fine, thanks. First things first. I’ve been tagged by the Phlip Side flipper a.k.a Philip. His blog is one I can identify with coz of the character assassinations of Kunz, Santa and Banta, and the like; after all we both are among the Twelve Apostles, we have the same mission to fulfill, right Philip? 

But I’m modifying his tag to form a new “Quote Tag” (Hope you don’t mind Philip). It’s a pretty simple one. Here’s the tag: 

Jot down 5 of your favorite quotes from the various books you’ve read. If you don’t have the books with you now, googling (Wikiquotes and the like) can be used to find them. Tag five people and acknowledge the person who tagged you.

So here goes my shot:

1. “Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them. With Major Major it had been all three.” 
                                                              -- Catch-22

2. “He was a self-made man who owed his lack of success to nobody.”
                                                              -- Catch-22

3. "I'll tell you what justice is. Justice is a knee in the gut from the floor on the chin at night sneaky with a knife brought up down on the magazine of a battleship sandbagged underhanded in the dark without a word of warning.”
                                                             -- Catch-22

4. Toohey: “Mr. Roark, we're alone here. Why don't you tell me what you think of me? In any words you wish. No one will hear us.” 
     Roark: “But I don't think of you.”
                                                             -- The Fountainhead  

5. “It's said that the worst thing one can do to a man is to kill his self-respect. But that's not true. Self-respect is something that can't be killed. The worst thing is to kill a man's pretense at it.”

                                                             -- The Fountainhead


And I tag Anjali (the sterling Silverine), Deepti (the Mindspace mind boggler), Mathew (another “Spark”ling fellow Apostle), and Philip (yeah, that’s a reverse tag for the Phlip side).