Chotto Maate Kudasai...

I've been busy. Apologies to the unfortunate few who read my blog. After falling in love with my camera, I got busy with work, started taking my camera for granted until I had visitors. Last week, I got an opportunity to rediscover my love for the camera and take a few good shots, too.

Today, I went to Akhiabara, which is an electronics district in Tokyo and home for the world's largest electronics store. I checked out the latest SLR camera from Pentax (Pentax K-7), one that my photographer friend couldn't stop talking about. It was amazing - heavily built, all weather body, excellent grip apart from the fantastic features that Pentax provides in its SLR range of cameras. I happened to recall stories of a British colleague who used to frequent Akhiabara a couple of years ago. He was a geek alright, but he went more for the 'French Maid' restaurants offering food and conversations for a price. The hostesses apparently dressed up as french maids, even offering to feed customers. Anything for money, mate!

The latest from Japan is that its slowly walking out of recession. Elections are due in Japan in a few weeks. Elections cannot be held until my team (Office Team) walks out of Japan. At least that was the reason my boss gave us when he mass-fired us. In his own words, 'Japan is in a severe recession, trading environment has been extremely tough, and elections are on the horizon - Your program is indefinitely postponed and all of you are leaving Japan', interpreted by us as "Elections cannot be held unless you folks walk out, and once you walk out, we will announce the program has been shutdown".

It was an amazing day, since a few of us had foreseen this coming, at least for a couple of months. We gossiped over breakfast, lunch, tea and dinner, about the various real reasons that caused the firing, and we all agreed on one - Excessive consumption of free bananas offered in Office by our team, leading to an increase in operating costs and strain on already low margins.

And the title means, 'Just a moment, please'... Something I should've said in my last post, since it took me a few moments to breathe life into this boring blog of mine, yet again!

The perfect lover

It may come as a surprise for women, but men like women who stand on their own feet. We prefer women who can think for themselves, take our first advice, do not get confused and listen to us at times. This combination may seem as (un)likely as 'accurately' predicting the position of an electron in an atom (remember the Heisenberg's uncertainty principle!), but I found my perfect match over the weekend!

She's smart, sleek, sexy, has an amazing eye for detail, carries an all-weather temperament, agreeable to all my demands, suits herself to circumstances, blinks at the snap of my finger, suggests me great ideas, even recognizes my smile! For those of you men who are purple with envy, bite the chill-pill. You can get one such babe, too! I'm talking about my brand new Pentax X70 digi cam with a great 24X optical zoom! I bought this after a great deal of confusion spanning almost 4 months! After looking at the mesmerizing pics shot by my good friend n colleague, all I wanted was the latest digital SLR camera, which led to hours n hours of discussions n debates, but I eventually settled for a digital point n shoot - saved me a couple of hundred $s to begin with, and the shots are great! Attached the first pics here...

Hajimemashite!!

The d-day is approaching! After spending two long years in Nippon, I'd finally say goodbye (I'm not sure of this), but not just yet. I have a couple of months to go, so I use the time to do what Indians are assumed (by goras, of course!) to be good at - swear in my mother tongue. Little do they know that it is not easy to swear in an Indian language. After all, there are close to 2000 different dialects spoken in India! It takes a lot of ingenuity and presence of mind to pick up the right one at the right time. I'm not a Masters in swearing, but that honor is tantalizingly close, thanks to my master, Kanti Shah!

The first thing you notice in the Land of the rising sun is, of course, that the sun rises real early. Its dawn by 4AM and the sun starts shining by 5. I missed my first sunrise in Tokyo, thanks to my airlines that forced me check in my hand baggage with all my original certificates and flew it to Korea. I did not know if it was north or south, but I'd be a hell lot more worried today if it were north, for staying with Chinkus for 2 long years has given me a rare skill - I can differentiate between Jappus and Chinkis and Koreans and Thai-Chinkus and Filipinos! Note that Chinkus is the super set of all 'Chinkis', while 'Chinkis' specifically refer to our freindly neighbors. The Jappus are struggling for over a decade to get back their citizens kidnapped by the north Koreans. My bag would certainly not be on the top of their list, if it were to reach Pyongyang.

I'm very obsessed with my Original certificates. For one, my university does not issue duplicate originals. All duplicates carry the watermark duplicate. That is not an advantage in India, since most companies spend millions of rupees to verify the originality of the certificates produced by prospective employees! If anything, a duplicate on my certificates would save companies the trouble of verifying mine, and another term I'm obsessed with is, Cost-to-company!

I lost sleep over my precious certificates, woke up late each morning, missed my breakfast, swore at the Jappus, the thai-chinkis (their national airline flew me to Tokyo - and misplaced my bag) and the koreans each moment those 4 days. Eventually, on the 4th evening, I got my bag back. It was time to say something nice. I appreciated jappu efficiency, jappu hospitality (its a topic for another post!) and jappu beer for the first time! The next morning, it was time to beat the Sun's schedule. I nonchalantly walked past my Hotel corridors into the walkover in front of the hotel, saw the Sun, and said, Hajimemashite! (I bowed slightly, too :-))

All in the family

"A picture is worth a thousand words"

- Anonymous

No wonder our beloved Chief Minister of TN hates 'Eka Patni Vratasth' (Monogamist) Ram

Rahul better politician than Rajiv? Never!!!

Rahul, a better politician than Rajiv? asks this news agency. Apologies. News agencies in India do not ask for people's opinion. Not that they do not have anything to ask. They do not care. They write what they want, how they want it, and you have to accept it. No questions. If you question, you are reprimanded. You are "forced" to give an unconditional apology. This blogger found out the hard way. You say 'freedom of speech'. The press laughs at you. The columns the next day laugh at you. Other bloggers laugh at you. The country laughs at you. Then its business as usual. The press say what they want. This is what they said - Rahul a better politician than Rajiv.

No, I say. Why, people ask. It's all in the name, I say. The intelligent voter of India asks, How? I go on with my banter...

To begin with, Congress 'leading' the UPA (United Progressive Alliance) is an oxymoron. Well, Pro is the opposite of Con, which implies Congress is the opposite of all progress, moron. Secondly, the name Rahul means 'efficient' in Chinese. How efficient? Like the tainted milk powder? Or the 50 RMB Rayban glasses?? Wikipidea says Rahul means 'conquerer of all miseries', according to an Upanishad, without citing references. If anyone comes across Rahul in an Upanishad, please inform me. I shall remove this point. The name Rahul became famous in history, because that was what Lord Buddha called his son. We all know Lord Buddha, don't we?

Now, Rajiv called his son Rahul. Going by my previous argument, Rahul is famous, only because Rajiv was famous. Is Rahul famous, after all? Indian movie-buffs know that in the most successful SRK movies, he was called Rahul. Now, SRK has a better name. Someone called him Vinnie-dildo recently! I'd say, the name Rahul, is rather infamous!

Finally, the name Rajiv means lotus. Lord Vishnu is called 'Rajivalochana' or lotus-eyed. Some websites incorrectly translate 'Rajiv' as 'striped'. Even if it were correct, a 'striped' Zebra is better than a dildo, Vinnie! Rahul, therefore, can never be better than Rajiv. Heard of Narcissus, anyone? :-)

Mishti Doi!

The first thing that comes to my mind at the mention of Bengal is Mishti Doi, the mouth-watering sweet curds. Now this post is no recipe for this wonderful preparation. No apologies, because you wouldn't regret missing my recipes and preparations. I wanna talk about other bengali sweets here. Sweets that are shared only during elections, as part of the dance of democracy that Times of India calls its election columns. These sweets are not unlike bengali sweets during the freedom struggle, which were bombs used by Indian freedom fighters against the British Raj. The only difference being, these are verbal bombs thrown at opposition leaders. Sample these:

Kalyan Banerjee, a Trinamool candidate from Serampore, says "Aarre the CM is a third grade politician, he doesn't understand industry or culture, only goes to Nandan [state government's cultural hub], drinks a few pegs of Scotch whisky and is surrounded by women."

The communist party of India did not disappoint its patrons either. CPI(M) member Benoy Konar says: "Mamata may be going to Nandigram and Singur, but the women of these areas will show their #&$% (backside) to her."

Other day-to-day sweets thrown around during these elections were bodmash, haramjada, dalal and gando murkho (dirty idiots) - for the first time, I was glad I did not get any of these sweets!

The dullest blog in the world!!!

Now, this came as a pleasant surprise, especially at a time when I was suffering from chronic depression, thanks to the appraisal season, elections (and the dull promises made by dumb leaders), loneliness and a general loss of interest in anything worldly or otherwise.

Before my depression threw me into a vicious circle of self pity and dull life, I came across a blog that claims to be the dullest in the world! I'm no newcomer into the blogging world, what with half-a-dozen blogs under my belt with less than a couple of posts in each of them, and I thought that would earn me the dubious distinction of being the dullest blogger around, but this site proved me wrong, hurray!

I wish the owner had continued his efforts at being the dullest blogger in the world, if only to provide a few bright moments in other dull bloggers' lives! After all, what is happiness but the feeling gotten by looking at someone less fortunate that you are!