Now, I have nothing to do with top management and prefer it stays that way. Which is why it did cause me some consternation when I was waiting for the lift at work and along came El Jefe, also waiting for the lift. Ordinarily, he would be accompanied by one of the other biggies or would find someone around to talk to, but on this occasion he was all alone and not on the phone. And I was the only other person around. Awkwardness ensued.

Me: Good morning.

El Jefe: Good morning. I don’t believe we’ve met…

Me: I’m Jaskon. I’m part of the so-and-so team and I’ve been working here for so-and-so long.

[I offer my hand. He shakes it]

El Jefe: Good to meet you.

[Slightly awkward silence. He notices my three-week growth of facial hair and decides to use that as a humourous ice-breaker]

El Jefe: Hey, just how hard is it to shave daily, boss?

Me: Heh. I’m just a bit lazy about it.

El Jefe: But you do bathe daily, right?

Me: (warily) Yes…

El Jefe: (sarcastically) So if it’s too much trouble to shave daily, then why bother bathing daily?

Me: I’ve run out of deodorant.

[Very awkward silence]

He said nothing more. Neither did I. I could hear the crickets chirping as we got into the lift together and until he got off at his floor, after which I sighed a huge sigh of relief.

Two days later, we got a company-wide email from HR on revised dress codes. It included a section on the grooming of male facial hair that was definitely not there before.

Coincidence? I haven’t the courage to ask.

URL (UnRelated Link): Yay! New 4 chords!

Me: It must be good to know that even if you have nothing (alcoholic) to drink, you’ll never have nothing to drink it in.

Friend: What?

Me: Nothing…

I’m just going to ease myself back in with an old timepass creation of mine. Yes, I have used this on people. No, it’s not creepy. Okay, maybe a little bit.

Ode to a friend request from, wait… Who?

When my Facebook homepage shows ’1 friend request’,
I hope you’re someone I remember and not a memory test.
But when the name and face do not a bell ring,
I must enquire who sent me this thing.
I can’t just click ‘Ignore’ for it might offend
you, for you might be a long lost friend.
So please do not mind for my memory cells are but few,
but I really must ask: “Do I know you?”

Sigh.

Digressions aside (should it really even be called a digression if I get derailed in the second sentence itself?), when I recently saw the following ad on TV:

my natural instinct was to reach for the laptop and bang out another surefire gem of observational humour. The jokes practically wrote themselves:
1. ‘What will you do to get your first android?’ Save for a Droid X or an Evo 4G.
2. Why should I have to do anything for it? What is this, the ending of Requiem for a Dream?
3. ‘What will you do to get your first android?’ Anything and anyone. Wait, we’re talking Lisa-from-Weird-Science-android, right? No? Bugger off, then.

But, I stopped just short of clicking the ‘Share’ button, as I realized that this particular ad was the polar opposite to the story of how I got my first mobile phone. I didn’t impress my dad to get it; I actually freaked him (and a bunch of other relatives) out. [Of course, it wasn't an android but a good ol' Nokia 3310 - this happened quite a while back, when mobiles with color screens were still a wondrous sight and an android was what you called Data from Star Trek:TNG or the aforementioned Lisa]. So instead of a snappy status update, you get a needlessly long-winded entry (with a needlessly long-winded intro) here. For the sake of the TL,DR crowd, I’ll also include a short version at the end.

This tale takes us back to the hoary days when I was an engineering student in a sweaty corner of Kerala. My roommates and I were neck-deep in a project that was due soon. This being an embedded systems project, we needed to program a microcontroller (in case you don’t know what that is, it’s something like an awesome mini-microprocessor) to do our bidding. And if we got anything wrong, we had to re-program it. Plenty of times. Being that our college had a grand total of one (1!) of the machines that you’d use to program a microcontroller and this machine was always in high demand, we decided to borrow one from a senior of ours who owned one and used it for freelance embedded projects, but lent it to us out of the goodness of his heart. We promised that we’d return it in two days. We didn’t.

So, we took the machine and got to work. Having some other friends who were working on a project of a similar nature, we shifted base from our place to theirs for about a week (remember this – it’s relevant). So we spent a few days brainstorming, programming and soldering at our friends’ place (alright, I was mostly playing video games), but not making substantial progress. The next few days were the holiday for Maundy Thursday-Good Friday-Easter, when all of our families were expecting us to be home. So we decided that we’d adjourn and get back to work after the holidays. But some last minute changes meant we worked well into thursday afternoon, when we forced ourselves to stop and go home.

So far so good, except there was the problem of our senior’s machine which we’d already had for close to a week. And he was back in his hometown, a good three hours away, so one of us would have to go there to return it to him. His pleas for us to return it as early as possible – he too had a deadline soon – rang in our ears, so we decided to do so rather than keep it any longer and risk his wrath. But, of course, all of us wanted to go home, too. So we drew straws to decide who would take the trek to return it and apologize. Long story short, I lost.

But I had another complication to deal with as well: we left our student PG in such a hurry to start work that we hadn’t informed the landlord. All calls from our homes came to the landlord who had no idea where we were for so long. And my uncle and his family were expecting me home for the holiday (my parents being in the Gelf). Being immersed in our work, we weren’t really able to call and let our families know we’d be late. And when I tried calling my uncle to let him know I wouldn’t make it for Maundy Thursday, no one picked up the phone. Crap, were they already at church?

Having no time to wait till they got back, I took the train to my senior’s place, with a rough idea of where he lived. Once there, I called his home and got better directions. I tried calling my uncle again. No luck. Were they out visiting relatives? I got to my senior’s place and sheepishly rang the doorbell. He answered the door with an expression on his face that suggested he was looking for the right set of expletives for me. After an uncomfortable silence on his part and profuse apologies on mine, he answered with an extremely restrained, ‘well, at least you were good enough to come and return it’, took the machine from me, and closed the door.

By now, it was already 9 pm and I needed to get back home. Tired, hungry, and running out of cash, I made the first of two crucial mistakes (other than not calling home): I decided to go back home, instead of calling any classmates who lived nearby and crashing at their place. So I ate a little, tried calling home again (no success) and made my way to the railway station. There were no trains that would take me back anytime soon, so I walked over to the bus stand, which was nearby, to see if I would have better luck there. Now, I needed to get from where I was (let’s call it Point A) to my PG (at Point B) to collect all my things and go to my uncle’s. To do this, I had two options: wait for a direct bus from Point A to Point B, which was infrequent, but would get me where I wanted with the least hassle, or catch a bus to Point C (very frequent) and get a connecting bus from there to Point B.

Going with option B was crucial mistake number two.

How or why I settled on this particular brain fart of an idea, I still do not know, but I suppose the factors I mentioned above may have had something to do with them. So I got on the bus to Point C without asking anyone, assuming that I’d easily get a bus to Point B, since the road between the two towns was always busy with traffic during the daytime. I got off at Point C at around midnight, and marched straight to the station master’s room to ask when I could get the next bus to Point B. He sleepily answered, with no trace of concern for my plight, that the last bus had left an hour or so ago, and my only option was to wait for the next day’s first bus at 5 am. I swear I could feel the ground under me give way at that moment. Not knowing what to say or do now, I left the room wordlessly and sat down on one of the benches at the bus stand.

My uncle would surely be asleep by now. No point in calling. I then thought of taking a taxi to Point B. This seemed reasonable, under the circumstances, so I looked into my wallet to see all of Rs 32 in there. No use. And I was starting to feel hungry again. What was I to do?

I quickly calculated that the trip to Point B would take me Rs 20, so that gave me all of 12 bucks to splurge on. I went to one of the all-night tea shops near the bus stand and bought the smallest packet of Parle-G biscuits I could find. I ate a few and washed it down with a bottle of soda. Rs 7 gone. I returned to my seat with nothing to do and no one to talk to (well, there were people around, but most of them were piss-drunk and/or already sleeping) so I clutched my bag to myself and tried to sleep on the stone seat. Oh, did I not mention the seats were big slabs of cold hard stone? Anyway, I lay down on one of them and tried to close my eyes and think happy thoughts.

I woke at around 3:30 am. I didn’t know when I drifted off, but now I was awake and had an hour and a half to consider the crapstorm that surely awaited me once I got to my uncle’s. Not wanting to think about it too much, I walked around a bit, finished off my biscuits and drank some more soda. Then I spent some time observing the giant stacks of newspapers on the bus stand floor, which apparently served as a distribution point for for the paper company to the various paperboys who collected their stacks, loaded them onto their bicycles and went about delivering them. The thought crossed my mind of whether the bus stand could be used as a paper distribution point, and whether anyone was getting any money off this business being conducted here, or if the paper people were in the clear to do so in a public area.

Anyway, by this time it was 4:45 and some general commotion had started among the people gathered in the bus stand (there were more people now) as a bus moved slowly from its parking spot to the boarding point and stopped there. The conductor dusted off a dusty destination plate and put it in place. ‘Point B’, it read. With praises to high heavens, I ran to the door and managed to get in first, beating about twenty others. I do not believe I have ever run so fast before or since. I settled on a nice window seat and waited for the bus to start up and take me to Point B.

When I got to Point B at about 6:30 am, I beelined it to my PG, showered, gathered some money I had lying around my room, packed up whatever clothes I could find and was about to head for home when I thought I should inform my landlord that I was still alive and tell them not to call the cops or anything. Answering the door, my landlady had a similar expression to the one sported by my senior the night before. She said my parents had called more than once and were concerned. So had my uncle. Crap. I apologised to her and caught a bus to get to my uncle’s place (Point D).

I thought all would be over once I got to my uncle’s, apologized for all the confusion and got some sleep. But it wasn’t over just yet. When I got there, I was met at the door by my aunt who wore the same pained expression I’d gotten so used to over the last 12 hours. She told me that my uncle was so worried that he just left a while back to go to Point B and find out where I was. She advised me to go just to sleep; she’d explain to my uncle once he got back so that I wouldn’t have to undergo another round of interrogation. Thankful beyond measure, I plopped onto the nearest bed and woke only in the late afternoon when it was time to go to church for the Good Friday service. My uncle never mentioned anything to me about this afterward. When dad called later that evening, he too just told me not to go anywhere again without letting anyone know where I was.

And so, I thought the matter was closed. But, a couple of months later when my parents came to India on their vacation, dad did something he had objected to before: he gave me my own cell phone. Now, I’d never have an excuse to be unreachable. Well, until I figured out how to use ‘no coverage’ as an excuse, anyway.

Short Version for the ADDled TL,DR folks: I went missing for a week and ended up sleeping in a public bus stand, which caused dad to freak out and buy me a phone so I’d never be unreachable again.

As I proofread all of this, I guess I should have just gone with the crappy Facebook status update. :/

He just won't go away.

Actually, it’s within his jurisdiction, since the building was constructed on Army land (Link to story here). But, hey, anything for a cheap pun.

Just consider the elaborate (and expensive) dog and pony show that Obama’s trip to India so far has been. Haven’t we taken every possible opportunity to forcibly immerse the President and First Lady in various aspects of Indian culture? Then why don’t we let them experience first hand what real Indian politics is like? My guess is the American president would go back to his country and tell his people, “Seriously, do not mess with the Indians. In their Parliament, you can’t even ask for a glass of water without being shouted down by half the MPs. And God forbid you should get up to address them, they get up, rush towards the floor, and start picking up whatever’s available in case you should say something that might offend them. And make no mistake, whatever you say, you will.”

Seriously, I doubt Mr Obama will have any taste for WWE or UFC once he gets back to the US after witnessing a full-blown Indian Parliamentary scuffle (“man, those senior citizens can swing a mic stand“). I also doubt he’ll ever speak in public without a three-inch thick protective bullet proof glass again (“one measly pair of shoes? Bush should consider himself lucky. He didn’t have 500-odd people launching shoes and other projectiles”). Though I’m pretty sure he’d wish he could get the opposition to walk out every once in a while. But I’m dead sure he’ll hope Sarah Palin never visits India for inspiration for her 2012 campaign after seeing the welcoming committee at the Parliament gate (“there was even a crazy lady smashing flower pots outside the house“).

“But Jaskon, what do you have against Barack Obama that you would want him to be subjected to such scenes of depraved behaviour by the elected representatives of the largest democracy in the world?”, you are surely asking. Well, truth be told, I have nothing against Mr Obama. I just wish we could get his CIA security guards to pick off a few of our crazies. We could even have MMS’s black cats return the favour during his next trip there.

Sigh, sometimes I think politics would be so much better without all the politicians.

But wait just a darn minute! In the middle of taking an ADHD test, I lost focus, drifted off to other tests, then on to other links, and only came back because I clicked this tab by accident. How does that not affect my score? If anything, that should be a better indicator of ADHD than my responses to the quiz. This test is crap!

Worst. Online test to determine a behavioural disorder. Ever.

I’d totally have published this as a new method of telling if an online ADHD test is poo or not and bask in the glory of my awesomeness, but then someone sent me a Youtube link about a cat or a lawnmower or something, which lead me on a video watching spree for the rest of my evening.

Ah, well, some battles you just can’t win.

Image from The Simpsons. Like, duh.

In each generation of TV sitcoms, there comes a show so fantastically awesome because of its richly written characters that resonate with the viewers, believeable yet hilariously outlandish plots and finely crafted gags. In the last twenty years, that sitcom was Seinfeld. But since that show ceased its run in 1998, we were left with F.R.I.E.N.D.S, or Friends, because seriously, what’s with all the full stops?

Anyway, Friends went on to become a mass hit and cultural phenomenon in its own right, especially among the urban English-educated middle-class crowd here in India. And while yours truly tried his pretentious best to stay away from it at all costs (twirling my moustache, chomping on a cigar and sipping my chardonnay whilst reading Proust and watching Iranian arthouse cinema, no less), little did I know that my pseudollectual leanings were soon about to be treated with utter disdain by the forces of crass, cultureless commercialism.

Pictured: The six-headed lapdog of commercialism

So, in the interest of research (and having nothing better to do for about a month of enforced leave at home), I decided to throw myself head-first into my sister’s Friends collection (hey, it was either that or Scrubs, okay?). And to my great surprise, it wasn’t as bad as I expected, though the little pseudollectual inside of me threw a hissy fit and eventually died. From a hissy aneurysm, I presume.

Curious, I decided to analyse the characters a bit more, and as I’ve got to know them better, I couldn’t be more horrified. If I had these people as real-life friends, I’d stay awake each night, looking up at the ceiling, wondering how I ended up with this posse of dysfunctional assclowns. Why do I say that about this cast of characters that have endeared themselves to millions and served as the archetype for most buddies-hanging-out sitcoms nowadays? Well, let’s just take a case by case look at why they might be sitcom gold, but more likely to end up friendless in the real world.

Chandler Bing: A typical fan favourite for his witty comebacks and sarcastic remarks, Chandler exemplifies a major difference between TV and reality. In a sitcom, the guy who comes up with endless one-liners and caustic barbs at the expense of his friends as a coping mechanism for dealing with the emotional scars of his childhood becomes ‘the funny one’. In real life, if you knew someone whose entire raison d’être was to belittle you and sarcastically mock anything and everything you say or do (no matter what his reasons), he’d less likely be your trusted confidante and more likely the wannabe funnyman in your hostel whom everyone just wishes would not stop by your door to take a potshot at your abysmal exam results.

Don't you just want to punch this guy?

Yes, the real Chandler would be a bitter, broken man who drives away the last of his friends and loved ones by gnawing away at the last strands of their patience with his relentlessly acidic assault. Hey, but he’d still be the funny one, at least to his cat.

Monica Geller: Sometimes, in some shows, the writers stir in a character with some sort of psychological glitch which makes them lovably quirky, and yet not so overt as to make them simply pitiable. These characters are usually well received among fans due to their, well, lovable quirkiness (witness The Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon Cooper, Seinfeld’s Kramer or Monk’s title character. Or pretty much the entire cast of Titus and Arrested Development). The writers of Friends somehow managed to subvert this by making Monica, a highly competitive character with a fetish for cleaning and systematically arranging things, the least interesting character on the show. This also sort of means she has the least annoying real-world traits, but all that is effectively nullified because she marries Chandler.

The one where Monica sends herself to the corner for deciding to marry Chandler.

To sum up, the person who you suspect might one day snap and go postal if the neighbours’ new curtains are a better shade of lavender gets married to the person who makes merciless jibes at anything, including his wife. Who wouldn’t like to visit them for dinner?

Phoebe Buffay: Another beloved character is this street-smart cloud cuckoolander with a heart of gold, a tragic childhood story and questionable musical ability. While she would be fun to have around for her unique (and funny) perspective and refreshing non-sequitur attitude towards that which most of us take for granted, you quickly realize that you also have to listen to and encourage her ‘music’ and support her various dubious schemes to make money or meet men. Also, her lack of social filters makes her the one person you can count on to say or do something that will embarrass you in public.

I like puppies and rainbows. And death metal.

Actually, this character would be the easiest to extricate from your life. Given her proclivity for engaging in activities whose legal nature is, at best, debatable, it might not be too long before the long arm of the law catches up with her for something. Hell, you could tip the cops off yourself.

Rachel Green and Ross Geller: The least likeable of the lot, these two characters have been clubbed together because it’s impossible to discuss one without bringing up the other. The show’s entire ten-year run comprised of these two in perpetually falling in and out of love with each other, and it was one of the show’s main themes. However, I’m calling cowdung (or any convenient synonym), and for good reason. First, a spoilt brat with self-esteem issues getting it on with the dorky guy who’s been obsessed with her since they were teenagers is a bit creepy, but I guess we can let that slide in the interest of keeping alive the dreams of socially-awkward nerdy guys everywhere (yes, you will one day be mine, Rhona Mitra).

It's as if Snow White finally chose Dopey. And Dopey is really, really dopey.

More importantly, even though they are shown as getting back together in the end, they been together and apart so many times that its pretty much anybody’s guess how long this will last before they’re on their friends’ couches again, getting themselves depressed over ice cream/beer and banal love songs. And folks, if your dear friend pines for a guy/girl, gets the person of their dreams, screws it up and starts the cycle all over again, how much of this drama could you stand before your sympathy turns into, ‘chuck this, I’m just gonna watch Friends’?

For this reason, Rachel and Ross are pretty much the only two characters who are likely to be ejected from this same motley crew of friends by the others, a group that includes Monica, Ross’ sister and Rachel’s childhood BFF, and Chandler, Ross’ best friend since college. Presumably also for not being damaged enough.

Joey Tribbiani: Joey, as a struggling actor and perpetual manchild, is the most easily likeable character on the show, and the fact that he is an irrepressible horndog who keeps eating all his friends’ food is played for laughs, and it works. But how long do you think it would take for you to tire of the self-percieved stud who keeps mooching all your food and hitting on your female relatives? My guess is not too long. But you’d probably end up forgiving him because of his simple, caring, good-natured demeanour, and the fact that you can’t afford the rent by yourself.

There’s no way I would want to be friends with Joey Tribbiani. Hell, I want to be Joey Tribbiani.

And I WILL resort to bodysnatching.

Disclaimer, aka serious-ish paragraph to avoid getting hate mail from people who like the show:
I know it’s difficult to create but easy to mock, and TV shows are no exception. But this whole article is a joke, albeit a lengthy and not very-well-researched one, simply meant to point out some of the differences between TV characters and real life people. I like Friends too, and this stuff could be true about the characters on pretty much any recent sitcom, with few minor changes, for the reason I mentioned somewhere above.
So please don’t letterbomb me or leave doggie bags with flaming poop on my doorstep. Please?

Images and ‘research material’ courtesy Wikipedia and TvTropes.