Beat this ! n hey, happy women's day!

First of all, I'd like to wish all of you a happy women's day !! Strive for everything you want to, it's an open sky!

Here's the scene:
One dingy classroom, 15-20 odd, uninterested students (sound familiar?)... the lukewarm, yet comforting winter sunlight streaming in through the windows..... a cyborg drone, in the guise of a professer,in the process of setting a new Guinness world record for the longest, most drab, meaningless monologue ever.The spotlight is on a wild-haired guy, in the evergreen ensemble of a black tee n blue denim, looking out the window, basking in the soft solar warmth, fully unaware of his blogsworld ventures in the not-so-far future. yup, me!
If I'd known then, I would've written this down a long time ago... but it just struck me, and I realised it'd be a fun thing to write about.

Have you ever heard of those whirlpool washing machines that have an axle-type thingy for a claimed 'hand-wash type result' ? The advertisement on TV used to carry the slogan one-two, one-two...or something like that...oh, well, that's why I took the pictures na?

So our prof was telling us about this particular case study involving this particular brand of washing machine...and I decided to listen (and it was a hilarious insight into our wonderful country's amaazing regional culture !) ... cuz I remembered we had it at home too...what the heck..
Now, according to the case study, after introducing this product in the Indian market the whirlpool guys noticed a very peculiar pattern in its sales.... the machine wasn't doing too well, frankly...apparantly, the Indian consumer hadn't taken to it in the way that the whirlpool people had hoped for. The sales were showing a negative growth pattern in the entire country EXCEPT for one state... PUNJAB . To the boardroom's bewilderment, the machine sales had gradually escalated in the entire state!

This was something no one had ever expected or thought about, and so, a very capable team of the marketing department was sent out to Punjab, for an expedition to the unravelling of this enigma... to discover the cause behind the product's success here.
As they were travelling towards one of the major cities of the state, to rest for the night and start their survey from the next day, they couldn't help but stop at one of the ever-popular and recommended-by-all roadside DHABAS along the highway, which I'm sure you guys know of...even if you don't, n I'll be glad to let you know that they're supposed to have awsome food!

The executives took their seats in front of a plastic table, under a pepsi-sponsored beach umbrella that had SRK grinning as if pepsi was heaven's nectar itself. A little wary of the cleanliness of the food, and excited about the alleged amazing taste of it, the city dwelling executives were having a good time there, happy to get out of office for this tour cum vacation, which they were keen to take full advantage of. One of them suddenly remembered what he had been repeatedly tought in school, and thought of following the advice, at least to project a good image of his kind in that remote place... and he got up to wash his hands (seriously!) ... he was guided by the table-boy towards the back of the dhaba, where the makeshift washrooms were located. The exec was drying his hands when out of the blue he heard a familiar sound... "no, it can't be"..." is it? could it be?" .... and he hurried behind the sound towards its source... what he saw when he got there, left him at once, in splits at the humorous obviousness of it, in awe at the diversity of his country that he hadn't thought about till now, and smiling at the simplicity and pragmatism of the people.

Standing in one corner, was his company's product...the whirlpool whitemagic washing machine with the rotating and counter-rotating, churning axle in the middle.... and its use:

To prepare goliath-quantities of the local, world-famous beverage of
Punjab... LASSI !!!!!!

Ingenious large scale production, eh? Jai Ho !!

ps: For all those unaware, click here to know more about this beverage called- Lassi.

The chariot of thought

Hey again. reeeally loved the comments on the last 2 posts ,which I wrote on the same day, btw...just one of those 'idea-centric' days, which I'm sure all of you have too!
So thanks for that...the comments make me smile :D

I'm currently reading 'shalimar the clown' by Salman Rushdie.... now, I'm not sure how many of you have read his works...but doesn't he ALWAYS have a sexually subversive overtone (not complaining !) to his stories? I don't mean to sound judgemental Mr. Rushdie...firstly, I'm not in a position to be a critic of your works and secondly, uve probly not even read this and there's a really slim chance that u will ever do... so that really is what I think !

So anyway, there's an idea presented at a point in that book... and I decided to write something on similar lines. Here goes:
Did you ever think of why our deepest and most involving, not to mention absorbing thoughts come to us at NIGHT, when we're lying down in our bed, waiting for sleep to take over? Well, mine do, at least.... I've asked myself the most perplexing of questions at these times... who am I? What have I achieved till now? Why am I here anyway? Why do I do the things the way I do, and say the things that I say? Will I ever have six pack abs? (yes, I was sober at the time, unlike what u may be inclined to believe!)

And I thought about why night times are such captivating zones, why does the chariot of my imagination move freely across the verdant nightly world of thought? Why does my soliloquy stage mostly when I'm about to doze off?

My reasoning is (and I agree with the book) that at night, when the day's work is done, when we're through with heaving those humongous baggages of routine, the mind takes the reins from the body, and the aforementioned chariot of thought runs wild. So yeah, what you ultimately have is a pretty free-willed, adventurous , often drunk-at-night, on-the-rampage driver in control of the horse-power and behold, in come the myriad variety of all of your hidden dreams, desires, and feelings, emanating from both external and internal stimuli. Because we don't have puny stuff such as living, earning, working,studying etc.etc. on the mind at sleep-time, it appears as if our thought chariot has delinked itself from its innumerable bogies, and it gains velocity, hypothetically lightened.

So there you have it... another thought taken apart in the effort of being analysed.What say?Of course, the mind also does gain temporary control over the chariot in the day too, and we've termed it "daydreaming".

So hey, keep at it... its not like anyone's complaining, right? Besides, if we don't let the mind wander about freely, the world's surely going down on the scale of exciting places to be in !

the hip hop ride and the one liner

One of the things I like about Delhi are drives late in the night.... the city looks so inviting when the pot-holed roads are seemingly empty... the yellow street lights appear almost occult against the greyish background of the sky.... and what makes the entire experience even more surreal is if you ditch the car and hop onto what I like to call a "hip hop auto" .... Its not your regular auto-rikshaw... rather, the driver is a lively young bloke who has an ear for blaring loud music... so there's a woofer system installed in there... unfortunately, most of the time you'll get cought in the Himesh brand of music... although, if you can manage to squeeze the monotony of it out of your head, just enjoy the beats and take in the cool night air!

Over the years, I've noticed that lady luck (if you believe in her) seems to have a set pattern of behaviour towards a particular person for extended periods of time. If its good, then nice things happen continuously for a while and vice versa. Although, one would argue that people strive hard to achieve goals... so then should they not try at all if they're having a rough patch with lady luck? Not really... do try... but u gotta remember, if luck's on your side, the results appear sooner...and u can't deny that.

In my case, the 'clumsy' side of lady luck's temperament seems to have a liking for me every now and then.I'm extremely prone to 'screwing up' (quote Obama) when least expected. One particular aspect of my 'speciality' comes out when in contact with other people's sunglasses (thank god they're not mine !) .
This happened in the first year of college when I was checking out a classmate's shades... two or three other people checked 'em out too...but when I tried them on, they broke in half! (yup, inferior quality :P)... and what I said that moment has eversince become iconic in my friend circle.. "ab kya karun?" (roughly translated as "what do I do now?") and I don't know if it was the way I said it, or my expression, but everyone around me burst out laughing!
A similar thing happened a week ago at Shaun's place... Shaun, Alex and I had partied well that night (which is just another way of saying how drunk we were)... just when everything's been fine,just when you start having fun at the party, does it ever happen with you that an innane mistake (often unintended) spoils your evening?

That's what happens with me, mostly. There's rarely a 'morning-after' that I wake up and think about what SHOULDN'T have happened.

So as I was saying,both of them had gone off to sleep, and I decided to mess around with Shaun's computer... I was sitting there, and I moved my feet slightly, when my foot hit the extremely wobbly computer table ... and Shaun's ray-bans fell to the ground. 'CRACK' ... the left lens came off completely... and I couldn't help but say to myself "ab kya karun?"
It wasn't my fault Shaun... Alex had kept them on the CPU in the first place... how was I supposed to know???
When I told my friends what had happened, they couldn't help but recall my one liner ... "ab kya karun?"

one kind act

It's kinda funny that when I look at my blog, I ALWAYS end up thinking " woah, how the f^ck did I manage to actually write all this crap? "
I met up with this school friend after a really looong time... and it was nice and all.... you know how everyone fills up slam books and stuff on the last days of school and everything? yea, well this friend of mine has literally been in the same class as I have for like all of the 12 years of school.... I still remember when she handed me her slam book and asked me to write, I went completely blank. like seriously blank... and I did want to write.. I just couldn't think of what to though ..and I managed to fill in a couple of words (which was silly on my part cuz we'd been friends for so long and I couldn't even make a good memory in there) ....
and now, I'm the same person who writes on this blog.
Bigtime changes, huh? I can't say why... but I kinda write here for no specific reason, and without thinking it out a lot... When I do start to pre-decide what to write, my way of writing seems ,awkward, somehow.
So hey, sorry about my lame entry in the slam book back then, Anne...

Moving on,
You ever had a stranger touch you in a nice way?

OK, I might wanna rephrase that, sounds kinky. SO, Have you ever been emotionally moved by a complete stranger? If yes, then you'd know how good and nice the world feels for a little while after, right? If no, oh well, maybe I'll have to come touch you in the nice way sometime then. (ummm...emotionally!)
Well, this happened to me today in the bus while coming back home after meeting Anne ..... Its something really small, so even if you think it's pretty lame and inconsequential, keep it to yourself, I'm the writer here ( mwahahaha !) .
What happened was that this lady was standing behind me in the reasonably crowded bus... the guy in the seat ahead got up for his stop, and this other guy took the opportunity to sit down. Not a prob, untill I remembered the lady .. and I asked the new guy in the seat to get up and give her the seat.... really normal stuff...happens everywhere... but what was not so common was that she thanked me. and believe me that rarely happens! I mean its fine that we give the ladies our seats, but what's not fine is that they don't even show the tiniest bit of gratitude ( and its rude !)... but this particularly lady did, and I actually felt like smiling the whole time I was in the bus (except that I preferred not having a moronic grin stuck on my face and look like a clownship intern). So all in all, its nice having a little gratitude around.... remember... one kind deed at a time, and you can change the world.

Not done :Multi-tasking and (now) free-writing.

There have been lots of times when I've proved to myself that I'm a total failure at multi-tasking...

seriously... I know people who can talk on the cell and write an email at the same time.... not me !

The last time I tried doing that, a complete disaster occured, which involved my 'friend' hanging up with a shout and the email sounding incoherent.

Is the inability to multi-task just a guy thing? maybe not.

So as it turns out, I've been pretty content with blogging this month.In fact, I've been actively persuing it.... on the expense of one of my other loves... reading. I bought a couple of titles last month... and they've been up in the cupboard since then. Doing both the things kinda doesn't fit into my present scheme of things (for later).

Have you ever had 'an awakening' , btw? I've had lots actually... In fact, most of the to-do  things strike me at the wierdest of times.... which have nothing to do with the task at hand.

This occured to me yesterday.... I was shampooing, happily taking in the lovely scent (ans 29,click here) , when it struck me.... I haven't been reading! and when I looked in the mirror, I could see the book covers looking back at me.... freaky.

That's when I decided I need to quit blogging for a while, and sit down to read .

However, that particular decision was in for a revamp when I saw this article in the paper today...

wtf!?

Click here to read the article 

What is this pointing at? Are the days of transferring whatever's in your head onto your blog, over?

I know free press' a far-fetched thing to equate here, but do all of us actually have to beware of what could lead us to be sued before we write?

That's not fun!

 

Appellation diabolique.

I'm about to tell you a big secret today. Yup, something that'll blow you away.Something that'll leave you gasping for more. Something that'll rip you apart with its intensity and fill you up with awe at the same instant (I'm not quite sure if that's physically possible though..imagine it).

Like the time when Krishna bestowed the darshan of his true, celestial self upon Arjun who was losing the sight of his path, like the enlightenment Gautamaditya acquired under the bodh tree (that was it, wasnt it?) , like Archimedes, you'll be yelling "eureka" ... although (I hope) you don't run out of your bathtub seemingly naked screaming it out loud (why would you be reading this in your bathtub in the first place, freak?) .. once you know this. 

My friend, there comes a time in everyone's existance, when opportunity actually does knock ...when they're hit by the (proverbial) apple on the head.... and when this happens, there's one thing that's certain... it's going to be the best damn piece of information anyone's ever been told by anyone else.

When you feel like bi*ch slapping me ... you know Ive gone too far (you're too sweet for that, aren't you? gulp.). So I shud get back on track and tell you the reason why I wrote this.... 

Today,  Ladies and Gentlemen , is the day when I tell you that one single thing, that one event that drives me craaazy ... *slap* quit thinking of Aishwarya..... and I'm talking MAD, complete with steam from the nose and ears (no other crevices, thank you) 

Sequence flash  begins.... in negative print (bollywood hai bhai)

Reader: huh??! did I just read through all that #$% to know what bugs you? 

Me:  (arms out the SRK way) Naaahiiii, wait! don't go!  you should know this ... you want to know this... this is cooool....fading sound.  

Me in Mandir: (Bells ringing all at once by unseen cosmic force) Bhagwaan, aaj tak maine tujhse kuch nahi maanga.... par aaj maangta hun... give me back my readers! 

(Thunder, Lightening and punditji with tilak follow...)

Sequence flash ends.

Okay okay, I admit it.. I overdo it sometimes (read always).

But hey, that was refreshingly fun, right?

Not waiting for an answer... I'll just get back to the topic...

What annoys (bigtime understatement) me the most is grosse mis-spellings and mis-pronunciations of my last name! 

(that's not me, in case you're wondering.)

Hence the title of the post.... The name's not so bad that its IMPOSSIBLE to pronounce is it? *rolling eyes*

This may sound really drab... but let me elaborate.

My last name is Luthur .... let me spell that out for you... L-U-T-H-U-R.

If you're thinking this... and I'm quite sure that you are..

No, I'm not a descendent of any of the two Martin LuthErs .... No, I don't know why we use this spelling, it just is.....and No, I don't know why this is my family name. Questions quenched? 

Now, was that so hard? One wouldn't think so.

But the common intellect has formed opinions that beg to differ.

I'll divide this into two sections

a) Spelling.

b) Pronunciation.

Spelling

Its my gift... Its my curse ... as was Peter Parker's ...His problem being way smaller compared to mine (I told you I overdo it)....

People have mis-spelt my name in all kinds of places....I'll be kind enough to list these:

-Attendance registers

-Admit cards

-Driver's licence

-Shopping card

-Campus placement selection list (I corrected them immediately!)

-Phone bill

-Electricity+water bill

-Chat

-emails

You get the drift I'm sure...

Coming to the actual facts, the following are the ways in which my name has been mis-spelt, in order: 

-L-U-T-H-E-R (frequently)

-L-U-T-H-A-R

-L-A-T-H-U-R

-L-U-T-H-R-A (I've fought with people for this one.)

-L-U-T-H-R-I-A

I shopped at lifestyle and got a member ship card issued... I filled in their entry form to the best of my abilities and submitted it to them. The next day, I get a mail saying " Congratulations, Mr. Mohit Mathur"

wtf!!!!   so here's the last..

-M-A-T-H-U-R (rarely)

Although, I haven't encounterd a L-U-T-H-O-R yet...  superman fans... where are you?

Pronunciation

 Allright, coming to the pronunciation bit... I'm sure its pretty clear from the previous spellings section what this one would include... so I'll get right down to listing them: 

okay people... this would be clearer if I actually say it out... I dont really know how to write phonetics... and i'm not sure if u can read it either... so I'm just gonna record it and put up the audio clip.

Click here to get audio

Till the next most irritating occurance, au revoir.

new vista tool

This one's a little about technology... I personally found this tool really cool and useful...so thought i'd tell you

 If that's not your thing, scroll down to the next article or click this .[ Damn, am I bent on keeping you here or what? :P ]

Anyhow, I'm not sure if this tool's in earlier versions of windows or not....

Its called "Snipping Tool" 

What u gotta do to access it:

1) click on the start button (bottom left corner)

2) type 'snipping tool' in the search box.

3) Voila! there u have it

What this tool essentially does is takes a snapshot of any open window... be it a webpage, your 'my computer' page... whatever ... and has the option of storing it in more than one format (jpg, gif, png, html) . 

Also, 

1) you can choose whether you want a part of the page, or the entire window.

2) you can edit the created picture by writing on it with a kind of paintbrush.

That's how I got the mtvindia.com's page onto the blog as a picture.. see it... I was trying to take a pic with my cam earlier, but that wasn't too clear...and things became a cinch when I found this tool (Thanks kyle!)

What actually happened was that I'd put up camera taken pics of the mtv webpage onto the blog... then I called kyle and told him how I'd been put up on their list.... he viewed my page, and told me the pics were unclear... and THEN he gave me this solution! 

I think this is another one of life's lessons:

The answers are ALL there... you just have to know the right people!