Monday, March 29, 2010

Ghonchu and the Lizard

Ghonchu walked briskly towards his house. Having played cricket, he felt sweaty and dirty and decided to take a bath.

He unrobed himself and moved towards the bathroom in a towel. Just as he was about to enter the bathroom, he saw an unexpected gate-keeper guarding the bathroom. An enormous lizard was hanging precariously on the half-open bathroom door. Two of Ghonchu’s favorite nightmares were, one where he would be trapped in a den of crocodiles, and the other where a lizard would fall out of nowhere on his shirt and go underneath it. In this case, the latter wasn’t possible because he wasn’t wearing anything other than his skin.

Ghonchu looked at the lizard. The lizard looked at Ghonchu. Both eyed each other with mutual respect which foes on a battlefield have for each other. Each waited for the other to make the first move.

Ghonchu enumerated the possibilities. He could try and drive the lizard away but that was fraught with danger. The lizard could go into the bathroom instead and then he wouldn’t be able to take a bath. He could go carefully into the bathroom without disturbing the lizard and take a bath with the door half-open. Or else, he could simply wait till the lizard decided where to go next.

Discarding option two, he decided to go with option three for some time before risking option one. Ghonchu waited 10 minutes for the gatekeeper to give way. While waiting, Ghonchu was standing on one leg with a towel robed around him in a ready position to make a dash for the bathroom should the gatekeeper gracefully give way. The gatekeeper refused to budge. Feeling itchy and sweaty, Ghonchu in a rash act of bravado decided to try ugly tactics and move to option one. He knew, if the gatekeeper went inside he would be stranded. It would be like Abhimanyu who went into a chakraview without knowing how to get out of it.

Ghonchu said “hooosh” to the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper looked scornfully back as though it would lose the battle so easily. It remained undaunted and ready for Ghonchu’s next attack. Ghonchu’s next attack was “hoosh hoosh”. The gatekeeper started ignoring Ghonchu now thinking him to be an unworthy opponent.

Now, Ghonchu lost temper at being ignored and felt that’s enough. He started poking the gatekeeper with a newly-found stick. At first, the gatekeeper ignored him busy looking for dinner (mosquitoes). Suddenly, when the stick came quite close to it, realization struck the gatekeeper. Ghonchu had struck back with a vengeance. With a look of disdain, because the opponent had used a new weapon not originally mentioned in the battle rules; the gatekeeper quickly moved away.

Ghonchu waited with baited breath to see where it would go. The gatekeeper moved away and out of the bathroom door. “Yippee”, screamed Ghonchu at having won the battle, albeit unfairly. The gatekeeper no longer was guarding the door, nor did it go inside.

But, Ghonchu though delighted at having won the minor skirmish, had not planned for the entire war. His opponent had another tactical masterstroke in hand. Just as Ghonchu got ready to enter the bathroom, he observed the lizard sticking a tongue at him before entering into the cupboard where he kept all his clothes.


As a response to this post, I received this wonderful anecdote in the form of a poem composed by Divya.

"Subah Subah - ek anchaha mehmaan "
Aaj yu hi jab darwaza khola wo saamne tapak gayi
bin bole bin pooche bas yu hi ander chali aayi
isse pehle ki main rokti kuch kehti wo meri table ke neeche jaake baith gayi
maine bulana chaha darwaze ki taraf ishara kiya
par wo wahi baithi mujhe tukur tukur dekhti rahi
use bhagaane ke liye maine jhoothi mooti safai ka natak kiya
jhaadoo leke uske aaspaas mandarayi
par wo to bas wahi usi jagah jaise chipak hi gayi
maine thoda aur zor se khule darwaze ke aur ishara jo kiya
to wo bhaag ke mere kamre me aur ander aa gayi
ye dekh mere muh se zor se aawaaz nikli nahiiiiiiii
fir shukar manaya ki mere padosi kabhi aise shor pe dhyaan nahi dete
ab jise ander aana tha aa gayi thi ye samajhke
maine us khule darwaaze ko band kar diya
socha ki kahin uske jaise aur ander na aa jaye
use daraane ki chah thi par khud hi darrti rahi
wo itni chup aur shaant thi is dauraan
ki thodi der me hi mere kamre ke ek samaan jaisi lagne lagi
itna ghulmil gayi wo mere kamre ki cheeso me
ki main uski maujundgi ko hi bhool gayi
kamre ko band karke aaraam se tehelne nikal gayi

ab jab wapas kamre me jana hai to lag raha hai ....

wo chipkali abhi bhi mere saamaano me kahin chupi hogi !

Friday, March 26, 2010

Ghonchu's machine hangs

(Thanks to Raunak for this story)

Ghonchu walked into his office humming a self-composed tune "Chahe jo bhi ho jaye; humein kuch nahi hoga". He climbed the lift and went to fourth floor towards his cubicle. He saw Ronku and Punu who were discussing something. They greeted him enthusiastically but Ghonchu swiftly moved ahead after greeting them cursorily; he was worried they might include him in their discussion and his total ignorance about everything would be revealed.

On reaching his cubicle, he felt something was wrong. After racking his brains for 2 minutes, it finally struck him. His machine was unlocked!!! Ghonchu mentally abused himself for committing such a stupid mistake. Here goes my 1000 Rs, he thought. There was an unwritten rule in his office that if someone left his machine unlocked; there would be a mail sent from his Outlook, "I am giving a treat at Barista today."

Ghonchu rushed to Ronku who was nearest and asked, "Tell me, am I giving a treat at Barista today?"
A nonplussed Ronku said, "We won't mind if you do. Why, what happened?"
"I left my machine unlocked."
"Oh", said Ronku, now smiling along with Punu.
They all went back to Ghonchu's machine. Punu suggested, "Just check your sent mail. If someone has fooled around, you will know."
"Good idea", Ghonchu appreciated his friends' help mentally.
However, when Ghonchu tried to open his mailbox, nothing happened on clicking Outlook on the task bar.

Ghonchu tried to open other items, and then to his consternation he realized even though the mouse was moving around, his desktop seemed to have hung. Nothing was opening. He even tried the keyboard, and then realized that keyboard too was not responding. The keyboard and mouse connection ports seemed to be fine.

"Damn Windows! Why can't these folks make a reliable product which doesn't crash?"

However, soon he began to appreciate the fact that because Windows hung, no one was able to send a Barista mail. "Thanks to Windows errors, I escaped", Ghonchu exclaimed in happiness to Ronku and Punu.

"Yes, but what about your machine now?", asked Ronku.
"Oh, I will restart. All Windows problems go away with reboot", Ghonchu said confidently.
"But your keyboard isn't working. If you reboot, then you won't be able to login."

Now, Ghonchu got worried. He had to show something to his manager in an hour and hadn't done anything. "Ronku, can I remotely login from your machine to mine and check if it works that way."

"Ya, sure", said Ronku, all helpful as usual.
"Thanks a lot, man."

Ghonchu tried that approach but even then that didn't work. Now in panic, Ghonchu looked for inspiration at his two friends. "What should I do? Seriousu won't accept this as an excuse for not doing work." Seriousu was their manager.

Punu and Ronku listed down the possibilities. Ghonchu couldn't use this as an excuse so he somehow had to get his machine to work. Calling Facilities to change his keyboard would take some time, and he didn't have time.

"The only option left now for you is to fix your machine on your own somehow without restarting. Take 10-15 minutes to do so, then finish your work in 45 minutes", Ronku calmly concluded as though it was as easy as eating breakfast.

Ghonchu tried all he could think of, with various suggestions from Ronku and Punu. Still nothing. Now their expressions were as follows. Ghonchu, in a state of total panic looked like a cat trapped in a den of crocodiles. Ronku's expression showed concern while Punu was trying to restrain himself from laughing.

Ronku remonstrated with Punu for laughing, and Ghonchu also felt very bad and decided that Ronku was his only friend. However, Punu couldn't control himself any longer and started laughing in full flow. Then, Ronku also joined him and both of them just kept on laughing unable to stop.

Perplexed, Ghonchu looked at them with questioning eyes of a curious cat.

Ronku and Punu had taken advantage of the unlocked machine. They took a snapshot of the desktop, copied it in Paint and just opened it in full screen. The real desktop was hidden underneath. Also, a small piece of paper had been inserted in the keyboard port such that it was invisible to naked eye and was the cause of keyboard not working.

Monday, March 22, 2010

Of nostalgia and memories..

Two small incidents triggered this post..I just saw Yuvraj and Kaif batting together the other day. And then I suddenly yearned for one of those partnerships of yore, where they played together. And then sadly I was reminded of the realities of life, that this is now 2010 and not 2002 when Kaif got out after a miserable couple of hits.

The other incident that happened was Sachin hit a hook shot yesterday...after probably half a decade. I suddenly wanted those days back when hitting two boundaries an over were cherished and only classy people like Sachin were capable of it and not every Tom, Dick and Harry as is now the case.

I also saw a random advertisement the other day of some Max insurance where a child plays the fool with his parents about his marks and then recalled myself do something of that sort when I was around 10.

And then I stopped to think about it, and then remembered a lot more things which I suddenly missed. I missed the random nonsense shared with my BTech friends; the close ties, the fights, six people sitting on the corner-most table of 4 during meals with my IISc friends; the solving of intensely difficult Maths problems with my school friends and struggling hard preparing for IIT; all of which are now no longer possible.

Do I wish to turn the clock back to change anything? Probably not, those were great days with no major regrets. If anything, I would love to rewind it to the 2003 World Cup final, where Sachin would've played that recent innings of 200 and won the WC instead of miscuing a pull to McGrath in the first over.

Now things are just so dramatically different in office life, that all those days of school and college just mean nothing but memories. Not that office life isn't fun but still...the three earlier lives were great fun too while I was in those phases. Maybe one just has to move on, with nothing but all those memories left with you.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Visitor Count

Ghonchu opened Mozilla Firefox, pressed Ctrl+T and quickly wrote He had told a girl named Sweetu in his office about his blog and had boasted that it had more than 1000 visits. The statistics on the right panel said 963 visitors. He wanted to quickly get it to 1000 visitors. His hard-work of opening the site three times daily in the last 321 days had successfully paid off. He was now only 37 short of the magic figure.

Desperate to reach 1000 visitors on the same day, Ghonchu thought of various ways to reach the four-figure mark. His possible options were:- 1) open and close his blog page 37 times. 2) Requesting a number of friends to open his blog site.

Ghonchu pressed the refresh button. The visitor count stayed at 963 visits. Previous experience had taught him that won't help, but being an optimist he anyway tried that trick again. He then closed the web-page, closed firefox, reopened it and reopened his blog page again. His web-page visitor count stubbornly refused to move. With sweat dripping from his face (although that might've been due to Hyderabad's temperature), he now restarted the machine, opened firefox and then opened his blog page again. The visitor count limped to 964 visits.

Whew, said Ghonchu to himself, "I can't restart my machine 36 more times." He decided to move to option two. He pinged Keechu, Pingu, Quietu and Chintu and told them to quickly visit his blog page a few times. Their response was typical. Quietu and Pingu did not reply back. Keechu exclaimed, "Sheesh, why on earth should I visit your blog? Don't I've anything better to do?" Pingu just started laughing on being told that Ghonchu had a blog, so Ghonchu decided not to pursue the matter further.

At wits end, Ghonchu wondered what to do. Then he remembered bhOndOO. bhOndOO was an old friend of his whom he hadn't talked to recently. bhOndOO maintained a blog too which was far more popular.

Desperation makes people do strange things. Ghonchu called up bhOndOO and requested him to visit his blog. Every drop was crucial to fill the ocean of 36 leftover visitors. bhOndOO in his usual non-committal way replied, "I will see what I can do." Ghonchu disappointed with all his friends, decided to give up and felt that he would have to apologize to Sweetu.

On reaching office the next day, he tried to avoid Sweetu. However, she met him unexpectedly and exclaimed, "Wow, Ghonchu! Your blog is really popular. You weren't boasting." Startled but delighted, Ghonchu quickly checked his blog-page and saw that his visitor count showed 1021 visits. Shocked and perplexed, Ghonchu thought how did this miracle happen!!

Then, while surfing he accidently went over to bhOndOO's blog. The topmost post said, "This post is for Ghonchu who is currently in a lazy mood. If you have his email id, please write to him some inspirational songs." Also provided was Ghonchu's blog link.

Ghonchu uttered a few abusive words like "#$%@^@^$@#@$@!#^#$%!!%$@#$". But then he smiled recalling the appreciation from Sweetu. So what if a few thousand people got to know that he was lazy.