A Sister of Two Tales

My little sister called me today, to talk about something that happened at her place of work recently. As usual, I switched on my sympathetic big brother persona and pretended to listen, all the while waiting for the punchline. She did not disappoint. And since I am not one to be contented by simply laughing at her, I have to give others a chance to do the same.

 First, some background. I have two sisters, Little Sister and Baby Sister, both of whom, as the more astute may have noticed from their names, are younger to me. They are also neither little, nor infants, but well, names are names. Can’t help it. Now, growing up, both have had their shining moments of ‘Oh, shit!’, some of which will no doubt end up here soon, and I am happy to see that they are keeping up their high standards. For your information, I too have had my ‘Oh, shit!’ moments, but those are for another time and place. Anyway, Baby sis is not part of this story. Lilsis is.

Lilsis is doing her MBA somewhere in the writhing mass of humanity and yellow shirts and sunglasses that is Chennai. We don’t really talk about her all that much now that she has decided to major in Human Resources, but well, siblings are siblings, and so I guess I am obliged to show some family love.

Anyway, she is interning in some place with a fancy-schmancy sounding foreign name, and is very dedicated to her work. So dedicated, in fact, that when she learned one fine Thursday that her reporting manager would be on leave Friday, she decided to arrange so that she could take the Friday off herself without actually, you know, asking for the day off or getting it sanctioned. She put the plan into action by telling her reporting manager that she needed Friday morning to “meet her academic advisor”. Then, since the “meeting” would inevitably end late because the “advisor” would be busy or late, she would call in unable to work the afternoon.

Sneaky little monkey, yes. Smart little monkey, no. After her manager approved her request, as she was leaving for the day, she picked up her backpack and exclaimed to those sitting near her ‘Have a nice weekend, everybody’. She left quickly and quietly before anyone could clarify.

This is apparently not the only thing going wrong for Lilsis. Her laptop crashed earlier this week. Having earlier paid a large sum of money to get it serviced and have a hard drive back up performed, she decides to wing it and extract some value from her Computer Science and Engineering degree by making it work again. She pops in the recovery CD and follows the instructions. She remembers very little of what happened after that, but all her data has been erased, and she cannot use any of the buttons or menu options anymore without the fear of something going deadly wrong. Because it’s all in German.

Ohh, Baby sis will be so happy to hear this. Now I must run, or Lilsis will kill me.

PS: Yes, the title is a cheap pun on ‘A Tale of Two Sisters’.

PNP This Week

Pitch and Pay has temporarily (or is it?) shifted its headquarters to the land with the self-assumed handle of God’s Own Country. While the move was not been a happy one – leaving friends never is – it had to happen. On a happier note, the withdrawl symptoms of the severely reduced internet access I now enjoy has saved people from having to read senti posts about it. Having now been in the land of communism, beef fry and Bevco for over two weeks now, I think it would be a better idea to put down my observations, feelings and other stuff that occurs to me in digest form, which I am sure will be more digestible (sad pun, I know) to the reader. So, on to it.

1. It’s hot in here. HOT. AS. HELL. While Kerala has always been hot and humid, it sure seems like the global warming offices are headquartered somewhere here. Taking a walk around here is an adventure on par with a ‘Man vs Wild’ episode. Make sure you have lots of fluids (alcoholic or otherwise), and always have a few choice insults handy for when the power goes. I wonder why solar power hasn’t really caught on in Kerala. We have all the ingredients. In plenty.

2. Kerala is home to the some of the hottest chicks in the world. And by hottest I mean the hottest, sweatiest, most sunburnt. By chicks, I mean women (the poultry are just fine, thank you). And to think, I left the US just as spring was starting and the cold was wearing off, taking layers of clothing with it. Sniff.

3. Emirates rocks. Though, if there is one suggestion I must make, it is that flights to and from Kerala should carry even more alcohol. There is really nothing more morbidly entertaining than watching soused adult (and middle aged aged) Malayali males pestering the Brit flight stewardesses with “Plees aanty, wone more. Wonly wone more. Plees” and passing comments about them in loud Malayalam while the women sitting around squirm and the men travelling with families cast envious glances at them while taking breaks from their looks of righteous indignation. Oh, and if I could make two suggestions, it would be to arm the cabin crew with stun guns.

4. I shouldn’t ever do ads for Kerala Tourism, should I? “Enjoy the magic of the monsoons. While recovering from malaria”. Zing!

5. I’ve landed in India in the middle of election fever. Internet inaccessibility and my laziness to pick up a newspaper are good excuses to be ignorant of what’s happening, I have managed to keep up a little bit. Although I have been unable to wrangle a guest column out of our old friend Bull O’Really this time, I think I can entice him to grace us with his presence once again by the time the results are out. Anyway, its election day in Kerala has just passed and since I am unaware of the whereabouts of my voter ID card, and far away from my registered voting booth, democracy has been deprived of my participation. Yet again. Oh, well, maybe next time.

6. Television in Kerala has made leaps and bounds since I was last here. There are now about twice as many channels to entice the viewers with any of three things:
a. neverending glycerine-soaked coma-inducing serials with banal, interchangeable scripts and starring planks of wood with tear glands and/or moustaches. Comfortably Dumb, so to speak.
b. Singing Competitions ala Idol. We Malayalees do not just love music. We love it to the death. And sometimes, when it refuses to die, we have to kill it. Slowly and painfully.
c. Non-stop news. ‘Nuff said.

7. Wait, I take that back. Not ’nuff said. I just switched channels in a misguided effort to get some interesting election coverage, and I found a channel owned by a certain hug-happy spiritual leader that promises, among other things “Unimaginable Election News and Coverage”. I don’t know if they plan to pull a Fox News on us by ignoring the results and declaring their own winner, or if the Onion News Network is expanding, but either way, this is going to be awesome (probably not).

I expect there will be updates to my present position soon. They will turn up here as they happen, I suppose, unless apathy strikes again, in digest form or otherwise. Darn, I miss Stony Brook.

PS: Don’t get me wrong. I love Kerala, but that don’t mean I have to love everything about it.

PPS: Note 4 gives me an evil idea. Time to fire me up some Photoshop.