What is the probability?

Unlike me, my sister is full of dreams. I dream only twice a year - one in summer and one in winter. She dreamt of living in a large house with a wooden swing and a fish tank. So my brother-in-law, who is so full of love, and bank notes, bought her a house. My parents were overjoyed and planned to visit my sister and her new home.

Exactly two years ago, just before I left India to live in the UK, I gave my dad a blank cheque. I was not sure whether I had paid all my bills and thought a cheque with my dad would cover an emergency.

Exactly one year ago, I changed jobs within the company. The new job had many people calling me on my work mobile. Not wanting to fall for the trap and lose my virility any sooner, I started leaving my personal mobile at the bottom of my bag, while being holed up in all day constructive meetings.

The house my sister and her husband bought was liked by everyone. It was in a well to do area. It has two balconies, a swimming pool and a gym. And most importantly, it had a hefty price tag for both set of parents to boast about. Secretly though, my mom wished for a little more. She wished that her son had a place of his own too.

What is the probability of finding an unsold house in a fifteen floored building with six houses in each floor? What is the probability that of all days, on the day your parents want to ask you about a house they wished you bought, you were on an all day meeting with your phone dug deep in a far away bag? What is the probability that when five people are bidding for one house, your dad remembered the blank cheque you gave him a few years ago? And what is the probability that the cheque was still in his wallet and the number he thought to write on that cheque could clinch the deal and he did just that?

I am good with counting, but really bad with probability. But given that the person in question is me, I would say the probability is one.

And that is how I became a proud owner of a new home and an unmentionable amount of debt...

Jungle Book - Lost & Found

Six blokes, none with even the slightest experience of even having lived under a thatched roof are camping this weekend. The sprawling endlessness of our myriad and indomitable universe with its canopy of a gazillion twinkling stars will tranquilise us to our dreams. We basically will be lying flat on our backs on hard ground, shivering in the cold, looking up into the blank darkness and having a hard time to sleep. I was only showing off that I know words too. Anyway, it should be fun!

We have hired a van so that all the guys with all our worldly possessions - 2 litres of Jack Daniels, can leave all in one piece. We are also very confident of reaching the national park in one piece. We have two and half drivers - two with no experience of driving a van and the half who has just failed his driving test.

Given our credentials with directions and our testosterone levels that prevent us from asking for directions, there is a good chance that we may spend the rest of our lives as Georges in the jungle. But evil has always prevailed in this world and how can all the evil in the world be lost in a forest. So we are bound to be back to spread our gospel!

braIN damAGE

What is it with short sleeves?

For a long time in the brief history of mankind, men and women have done everything they could to be different from each other – men from women and women from men. They marked roles and responsibilities to support their collective survival, they reacted differently to similar situations which usually caused bewilderment to the other and they dressed completely differently although they lived in similar sweltering heat or spine chilling cold.

(Science digression: Neanderthals were supposedly a much more intelligent species than Homo sapiens. Whereas Homo sapiens divided their job responsibilities, Neanderthals wanted to do everything on their own. The Homo sapien men hunted the goat and the women collected bananas. So they had mutton Biryani for main course and banana pudding for dessert. But the Neanderthals, they all went for the goat and ended up throwing spades and spikes at each other and perished.)

But somewhere along the line, some woman with a tiny little chromosomal shakeup wanted what was inherently men's; in addition to what was hers. She wanted to do everything that men did. She wanted men's jobs; so she took it. She wanted men's clothes, so she wore pants. She wanted to be man, so she had sex with other women. This change caught on and before we knew a fair number of women folk wanted everything that was historically men's.

If I were to represent all men, I would have recommended that they relinquish everything wholeheartedly and keep only the TV, the PS3 and the couch for themselves. But some moron wanted a tit for tat and that is where everything went wrong. First came the low waist jeans. And then slowly one after the other the manicures, the chest waxes, the ear rings and the pink shirts came trickling along. That is all okay as long as we, the ones content with what we had, have a choice to be as we were.

But it is not to be. You no longer get a regular sleeved t-shirt that easily. (It is easier to buy a full sleeved t-shirt and cut the sleeves to the length you want.) T-shirts have to reveal biceps, however malnourished they may be. (It is not long before men shave their armpits and wear sleeveless t-shirts.) It is not a pretty site if you don't want to wax your biceps. And some of us with furry coats, that is not what we want to do. The fur is for winter.

I can manage with short sleeved t-shirts but I fear for what is to come in ten years. I could tolerate bearing my midriff but I couldn't tolerate piercing my belly button – from the looks of it, its going to hurt a lot :(

(Photo nicked from Dominik)

Dreaded Questions

It was 10 years ago when someone first asked me this question. Since then I have had many people ask me the same question and I have done everything other than hide behind a bush to avoid it.

What is your hobby?

When I first left school to study in a college, the seniors wanted 'to get to know us better' and so they asked us what our hobbies were. They were not particularly impressed when I told them I did not have one. Some of my untruthful friends told the seniors that their hobbies were to listen to music, to watch tv etc. They were all lying. Some dictionary suggested that a hobby was the thing you did in your spare time for pleasure. If you go by the definition all my friends were doing something else for pleasure during their spare time and they were not mentioning it to the seniors. Someone who was slightly inventive said his hobby was philately. But why would one want a collection of his or her saliva under stamps? When I become health minister, I will deem it unhealthy.

When I left college, I assumed real world people asked real questions. But I was wrong. Job interviewers asked me the same dreaded question. So did the landlords. Atleast the landlords had a case. If I told them my hobby was gardening, they had every right to suspect and investigate what I was growing in the backyard.

If I suffered due to the 'what is your hobby?' question in India, I suffer more from the 'what did you do in the weekend?' question in the UK. UK is a land of weather and weekends. The natives and the aliens trying to assimilate into the local culture just can not stop complaining about the weather. When the weather is good, they talk about the weekends; which is most of the time in a year.

To the British, a good weekend is when you took a long walk in the park, or went rowing or cheered your son play football or any one of those activities that I don't really take pleasure at.

'Raja, did you have a good weekend?'
'Absolutely'
'What did you do?'
'Huh, nursed a hangover on Saturday and watched some porn on the Sunday. Good weekend
really!'

Unfortunately, they don't think so.