Welcome back

It has been a long time in between a move to start my self employed career and the nitty gritty that ensures i am delayed to no end. Meanwhile there have been some very good introspective articles i managed to go through.

The best of which is this one published in NYT, which debates on the topic of economists, the rise and fall of obscure mathematics, how the economist would put up a view he or she thought would be acceptable to the larger audience as against presenting what he or any sane minded person would have guessed was actually the scenario.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?pagewanted=all

Blog Glut

I was away on an assignment and did not have time to type in a few lines of babble. It still is surprising how easily you can become a member of a large group of individuals who take to typing away on a terminal, publishing for a larger audience without proof reading or for that matter, even without a fair idea about journalism. Maybe that is why you get so many blogs left half baked, which could easily include mine, on the net waiting to rot. It is the seeming ease of entry which makes for so many drop outs, maybe even the lack of rigour in entry, like a dozen papers to pass and a thesis to prepare. Funny how access to a certain halo results in more people turing away from it than higher participation. It would be interesting to find out the percentages of drop outs in an activity or club where there is the said rigour against that which requires almost nothing to get in. It is also worth finding out who are these individuals forming this large mass suddenly found squatting in cyberspace, here are some numbers for the curious ones. Like everything else about statistics, do not ask where the numbers came from or whether the weighted mean has been used where data was missing or whatever.

Global demographics

Segmentation

Gender.... Aha... i see the whites of your eyes now!!!!

This is the link where i came across this, http://www.masternewmedia.org/blog_trends_and_statistics_the_state_of/

The figures are as of 2008 and given the exponential growth we may be majorly off mark but still the stats have a story.

Interesting piece of junk mail

FROM: SULE MOHAMED

AUDITING / ACCOUNTING DIRECTOR

INTERNATIONAL BANK OF AFRICA(BOA)

BURKINA-FASO WEST AFRICA.

My dear (my oh my aren't we getting a bit too comfortable with each other here?) I am contacting you in regards to a business transfer of a huge sum of money from a deceased account. Though I know that a transaction of this magnitude will make anyone apprehensive and worried, but I am assuring you that all will be well at the end of the day. I decided to contact you due to the urgency of this transaction.

PROPOSITION; I discovered an abandant sum of $11.5M(Eleven Million Five Hundred thousand United states Dollars) in an account that belongs to one of our foreign customers who died along with his entire family. Since his death, none of his next-of-kin or relations has come forward to lay claims to this money as the heritier. I cannot release the fund from his account unless someone applies for claim as the next-of-kin to the deceased as indicated in our banking guidelines. Upon this discovery, I now seek your permission to have you stand as a next of kin to the deceased as all documentations will be carefully worked out by me for the funds $11.5M(Eleven Million Five Hundred thousand United states Dollars) to be released in your favour as the beneficiary's next of kin.It may interest you to note that I have secured from the probate an order of madamus to locate any of deceased beneficiaries.

Please acknowledge receipt of this message in acceptance of my mutual business endeavour by

furnishing me with the following;

1. Your Full Names and Address.

2. Direct Telephone and Fax numbers.

These requirements will enable me file a letter of claim to the appropriate departments for necessary approvals in your favour before the transfer can be made. I shall be compensating you with $4.6 Million Dollars on final conclusion of this project, while the rest $6.9Million shall be for me. Your share stays with you while the rest shall be for me for investment purposes in your country.

If this proposal is acceptable by you, do not take undue advantage of the trust I have bestowed in you, I await your urgent email.Please reply in this my alternative email address only (sule_mohamed02@voila.fr <http://us.mc596.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=sule_mohamed016@yahoo.com> ) for confidential reasons.

Regards,

Your;s faithfully,

Sule Mohamed

Indisputable Facts about Chuck Norris

A crazy page on frikipedia, sent to me by Anil, this is the article in full

Indisputable Facts about Chuck Norris

• Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
• He doesn't need to read books, he just gives this stare till they give him the information he need
• If you ask Chuck Norris what time it is, he always says, "Two seconds till." After you ask, "Two seconds to what?" heroundhouse kicks you in the face.
• Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like Chuck Norris
• There are no disabled people. Only people who have met Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris recently had the idea to sell his urine as a canned beverage. We know this beverage as Red Bull.
• Chuck Norris doesn't believe in Germany.
• Chuck Norris once shot an enemy plane down, by pointing his finger at it and yelling "Bang!"
• Chuck Norris invented the entire color spectrum. Except pink. Tom Cruise invented pink.
• What goes through the minds of all Chuck' victims before they die? His shoe.
• Chuck Norris played Russian roulette with a full loaded gun and won.
• Chuck Norris does not think he has had sex with a woman if she survives.

http://www.frikipedia.co.uk/index.php/Chuck_Norris , yes their version of our Rajni

Swine Flu - 4

It seems to have quietened down a bit, what say? Sure the madness and panic with people keeping an active track of those succumbing to this suddenly popular flu, seems to have gone into auto mode. I wonder what the guys planning to sell the masks at a premium, end up doing with a house full of N95s.

Well they have one stoic customer, my wary head on the bookshelf.

Jokes apart, it still is a wonder how we begin profiteering in everything that happens around us. Apart from the mask fiasco, there are actual sms' where some companies producing drugs to fight against such disease are being recommended for purchase by the stock market brokers.

On second thoughts, we actually deserve this.

Millenium City I

There was and still is a lot of tension in the faces of news readers as they declare the lack of rainfall and the plight of the farmers who wholly depend on it to grow their crops. But in Gurgaon even the lightest of showers can put you in a tight spot. This is after a slight shower in Sector 50.

One good aspect of this being that old vehicles would find it hard to survive in this terrain, thus being replaced by more efficient or at the least new vehicles.

Express ways to goof up..

The Indian Express carried this story " Tamilflu tablets stolen from airport" which kicked my socks off. The now renowned drug "Tamiflu" has an Indian origin?? The last person with a serious case of Tamilflu was Bal Thakeray in the 60's which was revised to include people from other parts of the country by him and his own. Careful with the "l" guys.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/tamilflu-tablets-stolen-from-airport/502385/

Swine Flu - 3

Apparently there are a horde of others who think the same way as our gentleman at the hospital. Sad. Reminds me of a line from the awesome batman movie when the joker asks the batman to introduce a little chaos into the lives of the morally correct and watch them shun their own morals in a second.

http://finance.indiainfo.com/article/0908111117_making_a_killing_fear_masks_times_costlier/418208.html

Swine Flu - 2

Taking a cue from the last instance of the possibility of the spreading of the flu in schools, I approached, though through another person, a hospital where I sent them the idea of distributing masks freely. Gurgaon is primarily a moneyed place (why? because if you work here you are probably employed with a large sized multinational or if not you are rich all over by selling the land parcels to the multinationals and you plan to spend your remaining years mumbling to the buffaloes you take out for a walk) so the schools would have students from the parents who are on the "well off" curve or atleast a "High Earning, Not Rich Yet" Henry for short, types. So I see an advantage for the hospitals to actively do their provisions for a long tail activity. Hoping that the "moneyed" place hospitals would have marketing wiz kids who can see that far, I put up the proposal to the head of marketing. Guess what? the guy comes back that he is planning to sell the masks at a hefty premium (50%) even to the employees of the hospital, let alone any school kid. Thus he plans to make what? a few lakhs of profit. Jerk is an understatement here. All you needed was a few working grey cells to see the advantage and not act like a vulture for once. But again when we employee a marketing person we begin treating him like a sales guy and jump up and down on his head asking for numbers only. It is not surprising why he thinks so.

Swine flu

During a recent conversation, one of my friends who was down with a viral, heard me exclaim "swine" through the phone. He promptly questioned me if that was a general take on his behaviour pattern or was I sounding worried. It was a bit of both actually. He had not bothered to call back on a couple of occasions. So much for the innovative name which is slowly gripping the nation.

But inspite of all the news of a rising toll of victims, my present homeland Gurgaon remains oblivious to the dangers. We all know it spreads fast and there is no doubt that there is a higher probability of contracting it when in a human congregation. There is also the terror of having to be admitted into a government run hospital on contracting it and being exposed to a horde of other disease which run free.

I was taken aback when even in the schools, children have not been asked to take on the precautionary mask. The mask is still the sign of a victim and is open to being discriminated against rather than being seen as a measure of precaution. I agree, precaution is not really embedded in the Gurgaon psyche where beating the other vehicle to the toll plaza would probably top the favourite daydream contest, but schools?. Atleast that's the last place you hear that tree and sapling planting is good and that it could save the earth. Yes, idealistic, and you would expect them to think better during such an epidemic.

Out to prove a point

Entity Proof - 3

The entity proof is fraught with many contributing to the collective sabotage of a very simple process. I am licking some wounds and thus the reason for this update.

For the filling up of the ST – 1 form for registration of the Service Tax, it is recommended that this be done by you. Spelling and content need to match big time. Well for starters the spellings were messed up and so was the address. Simple stuff like the word “Engineering” was entered as “Enggineering”. “Vyapar” as in “Vyapar Kendra” was replaced with a singular “Vayapar” along with some additional details being omitted at will.

To remedy this glitch I looked at covering the address correctly during the current account address creation. Well RBI guidelines specify that the address proof and the address mentioned should match completely but there are some areas where we can make the necessary changes like

- the entity name being too long , “engineering” was replaced with “engg” so similar errors can be made up for

- the forms for account opening have information like “landmark” being captured in the address which is the best place to add missing details and rectify some errors.

It is recommended that all such oversights be cleared at the onset to avoid severe case of head banging later in the year. About correcting the form with the help of the lawyer whose flunky did it, I am pursuing that and hope to get him to do this for me.

Afternoon innovation

I was at a restaurant in Gurgaon and saw an "offer". It read "Upto 20% discount on billing amount using your Citibank credit card". I order a wee bit more than i need, yes it is tough to resist, and knowing how hardwired the word "discount" is to ones psyche. Well I was packing the same for a family lunch at home. The Gurgaon sun is not so appealing this time of the year and more so if your car's ac is not in "tip top" condition.

I flash the gold card only to be told by the waiters (post a huddle and shifty eyeball dialect, practiced and perfected after years of confronting demanding customers), that the scheme is valid only for those who eat the meal at the restaurant rather than pack it.

Now that would qualify as the most innovative idea on how not to give the discount I have ever come across.

Entity Proof - 2

This is a continuation to creating an entity proof for your company.

The routes to service tax registration are many. The most difficult one being that of approaching the excise department and wading through the swamp manually. It is not difficult to understand why the processes are made so tardily and how it throws up a turgid layer of middlemen and fixers.

For the fresh ones making an application or trying valiantly to do so individually, its fairly pointless. The axe will fall on you somewhere down the line. There are two groups you can approach for doing this. One is the CAs dotting the offices near the courts or the lawyers blinding the entrance of this institution. I chose the latter as the former would have got in touch with his soft target “latter” and further strengthened the bond at my expense.

It cost me 5k to do this. As with much of the commitments in and around Delhi (I have no idea why it is so though), the standard line is that it would be ready in 48 hours. But let me tell you, that, does not include the signatory going on an unannounced and unplanned extended holiday just when your application hits his desk. So bottomline, keep a week in hand.

Also, avoid mentioning this to other CAs during conversation and wise cracks as they would come up with the “Tch tch, you should have told me nah, I would have got this done at 1/10^th the cost” tagline. All the while you were wailing from high above for someone to help avoid the expense, there were no takers.

Well you need to fill in the form ST – 1 and the docs that need to be furnished are

- Your id proof (PAN Card)

- Your address proof ( telephone bill or lease agreement) as I am sure that the migrant worker would rarely have a drivers license or passport with the current address.

- The lease agreement to the shop you just took for the business

- A company seal which should read “ Proprietor ….. EM&D Inc“ (a subtle way to put forward “Employ Me & Die”). Okay not so obvious, your company name (after careful numerological additions of an extra “a”) would do just fine.

After you did your bit just take on the Hero Honda punchline “fill it, shut it, forget it”. Well you can hope that the signatory who’s absence waylays your completion of this task, suddenly runs out of money due to a moronic move in a game of “teen patti” and has to hurry back to sign your application. Yes light a couple of candles to that, would you.

Sidin's piece

Came across a guffaw .. http://www.whatay.com/2009/07/26/the-alphabetical-ardour-of-life/ lick em up..

Entity Proof - 1

As was assumed earlier that you would not require to get a service tax regirstation or do any of those tardy and seemingly useless spending, it stands corrected. As a proprietorship firm it is hard to get current account started without an "entity proof" document.

You always get a feeling as if the bank believes that there is a high chance that you would start money laundering at the drop of a hat and that they need to be sure of your distance from clandestine activity that you are secretly planning to launch on an unsuspecting nation, what total crap!.

Well I was unable to get any endorsements for a current account in public sector banks and set out testing the "premium" customer tag i have at the two large private sector banks. The only difference in a premium and a non premium customer is that there would be a person giving you totally unproductive calls in the former case, albeit mumbling about a new product in between your request for some actual help.

The end product is similar except that you may derive some dark pleasure out of confusing a lady on the other end who probably took up the job because the recruitment drive mentioned " outgoing, smart, go getters who love challenges required". Well now you know what the challenge was or better who the "challenged" person is.

Johnny Cash Hurt

One really good video of the song "Hurt" by NIN which was sung by the late Johnny Cash in his adorable style can be viewed on the youtube site, have a look. For those who are in love with this song, this provides a version which one can strum on the guitar.

Am C D jai ho!!!

Cash has also done his version of the Sting number "I hung my head", again playable.

Of the "Idoit Box" watch on!!!!!

look at this piece

“If there is electricity in every village then people will watch TV till late night and then fall asleep. They won’t get a chance to produce children. When there is no electricity there is nothing else to do but produce babies. Lack of electricity and any other entertainment facilities, people tend to get electrified themselves to produce children,” Azad is reported to have said on World Population Day.

This guy has some imagination

Bho sad ike

Dont Laugh, this was how it all started as per a creative blogger (vinu thomas).

In times gone by there were some devout followers of the Sanskrit text. Now as a sanskrit greeting,
Bho sad ike? means Sir, are you well?
Everyone knows that 'Sad' is a prefix used for good things, like
sadguru, sadiccha etc.'Bho' is a term used for respect, brahmins will know it since it is used
in the abhivadaye.
Ika is a atmanepadi verb meaning to be.
ike ikaavahe ikaamahe
ikase ikethe ikadhve
ikate ikete ikante
are its forms.

This was a popular form of greeting in ancient India, before the Mughals
came and prohibited this greeting, for reasons unknown.
However some enterprising locals continued to use this greeting.
Therefore, to assasinate this greeting morally, the mughals gave it
vulgar connotations, and those are alive even know.

Thus do not shrivel at the sound of the bhosadike but answer back, "doing cool dude, real cool", give me some time and i will find you some form of sanskrit to go along with that.

The guy is actually wishing you well!! or so it seems unless he is not grinding his molars a nanosecond after the utterance, scram or call your doctor for a hotline appointment.

Dead mosquitoe

In its normal day it does nothing but suck human (?) blood. One whack and it is over for it. I sit at night and do my little typing and these fellas just buzz around without a care, all it needs is some blood. Well it can have it at the cost of near or certain death of the swinging hand. Man, what focus!!

Of true love

If you love your guitar, it loves you back. No conditions. Well if you are like drop dead fans of the instrument you would have come across Metallica. James Hetfield, the lead singer has had a chequered life but he is one rockin person, there is never a time when you see him and do not smile. Watch him if u are on a low and he sure will set the blood flowing in the right direction. Enjoy his insane career on youtube, it would give you a new perspective to what you see around you.

Some amazing videos

Yes I knows the title is a bit corny. If you do get some time off, go to the youtube site and check out some kids dance. Made a world phenomenon by Micheal Jackson, breakdance is at it awesome levels with these guys. I came across them just now and it was worth the watch. Search for breakdance and am sure you would be grinning into the screen.

If you think what you do requires guts

This was seen on Amit Verma's blog "India Uncut" (which he is currently neglecting for larger projects!!). This doctor has come out with a karoke version of Micheal Jackson's "Beat it" in Hindi. The song is aptly named "Petho, Thok Ke Petho". This guy has some guts and the video claims it is for his daughter. Yes it is hard not to laugh, but can't we all, in the annoymity of our darkened rooms. But to perform this, whoa!!

Check it out. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=dr+chaudhary+beautiful&search_type=&aq=0&oq=Dr+Chaudhary

about it

life could be considered a gift when we accept the impotency underlying all our actions.. read it somewhere.

Next Step

The office would fianlly be in the Sushant Lok I complex as it seems now. With that we move onto the signing of service provider agreements with the banks and financial organization hopefully. The address would need to be my home address on the current account which is due now and maybe a few months into the job i would be able to manage a telephone connection and then update the address on the current account. Kind of windy ? yes i feel the same.

Read on a T Shirt

Man created booze and God created grass. Play it safe.

Initial groundwork, plugging and plodding.

The legalization of ones business is fairly confusing. Though it is much easier and plain straight forward if you submit your mind and purse to a chartered accountant (the choice of height and weight being your personal inclination!!) but then you stay the same rookie you were 10 minutes ago, yes bubbling and frothing. I had the chance to meet up with some of the above mentioned to get a fair idea of how to start. Believe me, all you need is a rubber stamp with your exotic (and numerologically correct if I may add, but I would not leave so much to that though) name on it. You would need a bit of a strong heart too I guess. Numerous sites and webpages suggested the following
- get your company registered (I plan to run a proprietorship firm, recall?)
- get the service tax registration
- get the ESI and PF registration
- The shop and establishment sign off
- Get the labour law guys to give you the go ahead
- Get a current account
Well none of these are mandatory in the single person owned set up, except the last one (for your own good I guess). On the contrary, the registration of the firm and the likes of PF/ ESI and S&E only end up complicating the straight line of business you have in mind. This can also mire you in tedious and long legal hassles if you get into them. Over and above that, each of the certification costs precious money which you are actually out to make and not spend right?. All or some of them become applicable after you attain a certain size and revenue band. A good number of people informed me that to get a current account you need to have one of the above government based certification of your entity. I needed a current account so before I got myself mired in one of the above; I went to the bank where I intended to open the current account. It is true that the private banks need some government certification to start a current account but there was a catch. It is meant for those who are not previous customers of the bank. So having an account there, there was a deviation I could latch on. People who have worked in the private banks would be aware of “deviations”, the bible of doing business. By the way the public sector banks do not require such documentation and base all their decisioning on introduction letters. But frankly how many of us have such luck. The underline in this exercise would make it fairly clear how much you as a person needs to know or have studied well enough earlier and how little you should take an opinion on face value. Go there and find out for yourselves. Yes I agree we still need the luck to find the right people. But if we were not the lucky ones we would have never wanted to step out into the wild wild west and make something of it no?

Get your rubber stamps ready, here we come.

Office Hunters Inc.

I am still in the hunting grounds, scrounging around for decent deals. If you happen to chance on a good lease deal, drop a line. I went to the Vyapar Kendra in Sushant Lok I, again a place with hordes of property dealers sitting out of every square inch in that place. It is quite a shabby place but it has a variety of shops which one can use. A printing press, hair saloon and ofcourse a booze shop right in front. You never know when the going gets a bit boring and you'd love to see life a bit blurred. There office/ shops on the ground floor command a rent of around 15k- 20k is what i am told, it depends on the size as well (obviously!!!). The basement is on the dingy side and the large spaces come for around 12k but is prone to flooding is what the vultures told me. Gurgaon and rain is still a bit taxing on the creative senses. The upper floors seem decent enough and I think I can haggle one for 5k. The only problem I seem to be facing is that they look like tombs.. yeah someone's grand plans died there!!! I just hope I clasp on to dear life for long enough.

Of Mamata

Hey, I do not know if you read this, it's worth the time spent. http://www.indianexpress.com/news/on-a-different-track/483511/2

This is really insightful for online auction junkies..

http://www.reuters.com/article/bigMoney/idUS255890138320090707
this was sent in by anil.

"Office space" for the near self employed

I am rushing around for my office space for a few days in Gurgaon. A good friend refers to Gurgaon as "India's Texas" wild wild west and all, here property dealers are virtually coming out of the plaster, everywhere. I went to one of the “shopping arcades” (what and why are they selling i have no clue) near Park Plaza and found the rates for lease fair enough. The offices there come in for around 8-9k on the upper floors. Though I must warn you, there are some over guys who are high early in the morning and quoting 17k as well. Just an FYI to the "desperately seeking office space" and "near self employed"

The cost of shifting ones vehicle.

If you are moving from one city to another, it is true you have many worries which are much larger and annoying than your shrieking child (and wife if you are one of the lucky ones!!). It would be prudent to keep your head steady on the costs. These activities being a "once in a coupla years" , we tend to forget the vermin gnawing slowly at balance in the bank. I recently shifted back from the Mumbai to Delhi and had to bring my car along. It cost me around 6k in all. This is much lesser that the quotes I have heard from friends who did the same. The costs were all in the range of 15 to 20k. Now I would not have bothered to put this up if my car got back all banged up and stinky, but it came back just fine. The same was the story when I went to Mumbai last year. A friend of mine, who did the move this year, paid up around 20k. Yeah I have a lot of things I could have done with the saved 14k and I am sure you would do too.

Route 83...

This is a take on the many sensations one goes through when traveling on a bus in Mumbai .. eyes closed... a day in the life for me ....

I have my office in Worli. The place is basically the pad for the accomplished and a host of others who want to make a similar illusion. We at work belong to the latter. This way into “town” (god knows why these guys call it so) and is a stiff hour on the bus.

Every morning I make my way from Santa Cruz station, from a mammoth crumbling edifice which gives the strict warning of not attempting to scratch the walls lest you discover the mother goddess from Harrappa embedded inside. I gave up the train and all the crotch rubbing one goes through for the bus which takes more time but does not violate ones personal space to such an extent.

Mumbai’s bus service like all other forms of public transport, is good, comparatively frequency, clean (thank goodness) and a fairly well to do crowd.

I used to carry a book with me to kill time and possibly have a laughing fit which would, to my glee, cause all other co passengers repulse (thus allowing more space “ gaand phailake baithna” in delhi terminology).

But there is a queer aspect of those running this service. These services are state run which in most other states would mean that the individual is born without a sense of time and any form of responsibility. Bus drivers in Mumbai on the other hand have another aspect. They love mind games.

Say you notice the bus pulling into those stops and you are an easy 15 meters away. You break into a run. The driver with his trained eyes sees you sprint a miracle mile. He immediately activates telepathy to read your mind. The moment you are like 3 meter away from the boarding door, as if on cue he revs the engine and tries a 0 to 60 in 6 seconds flat. You of course do not believe it and keep running towards the door. The driver is good in physics ( I guess it is one of the holy prerequisites). 45 kmph along with your feeble 15 kmph, that is 60 kmph. With an amrs length of 60 cm ( when you catch the side bar and attempt a flying tackle with the fluidity of a tai chi artist, you swing and bang yourself on the sideboard with approximately 600 kilo newtons of force. Rattled and disoriented you struggle up the bus not knowing whether you are to meet a ravishing airhostess or the gruff conductor. Sorry , it is the gruff conductor who tries to capitalize on the disorientation and asks you your destination atleast 3 times. Atleast once in every three days you end up forgetting if you are coming back from office or going to it. Resulting in the moronic chanting of the same stop you got on as your destination. Pan stained teeth greet your hapless fuddle. If he had a chance he would put me on public address. The driver meanwhile takes out his diary and makes a caveman mark (for his writing skills he fairly well read though often giving you a speech on the history of Maharashtra if you venture too close to the gate where you get off) tagging the number of victims for the day. He is sure to go home a open a bottle in celebration with wife in tow of his achievements for the day. Hey the bus service is good though, I just did not know where to put in the disclaimer “all characters in this mess are fictitious in nature, any resemblance to one living or dead (thank god) is pure a matter of someone sleeping with primates”.

Well you got on and bought the little piece of paper which is the answer to your prayers of safe passage and sidle into a corner. I usually choose the back seat. Something from school days where the back was synonymous with invisibility, protection from stares from the better students who would be appalled at your sheer lack of knowledge of any subject, the best being the option to doze off.

This experiment with truth (what ? you thought only fathers of the nation tried such stuff ? by the way how do you write that you mean different fathers for different nations and not a draupadi situation?, yeah write to me. I will make paper boats of it) comes at a time when I stopped carrying a book to office out of sheer laziness. I wanted to breeze in and breeze out of office (without anyone noticing , carry a bag and you sure would come across stifled snickers)

The first sensation is that of the breeze that hits you. Remember the miracle mile , dislodged collar bone and intense questioning, you just want some air. The first part which feels cool is the hairline. This is where all the sweat holds on. The next place (hey I do not carry a timer to define how many seconds pass between one place and the other. If you want to know, you carry one yourself.. psycho!!) is the little triangle (hey hey space cadet its up here) between your nose and cheekbone. It is refreshing as you have just been subject to insane pressures of everyday life in this megalopolis.

You settle in with your mind having realigned to where you were going and the hundreds of traffic snarls you would be waiting in. The freshness of the air leaves you in a nanosecond when you realize that you are smelling dust. Now Mumbai has a lot of dividers and typically busses are supposed to be traveling on the lanes close to the pedestrian side rather than the divider. So the bus actually blows up all this dust which had settled between the divider stone and the road and you are going to be caked in it before you reach any where. The good thing is anybody you meet would have the same up his nostrils so he would not be able to tell the difference (except the ladies I guess who dart into the womens room before they step into the office, no I did not stand hiding somewhere to notice that) so that kind of levels it out.

The back of the bus is obviously bumpier like you are sitting on the end of a diving board. That’s the whole point dude, sensation , sensation. But then you notice that the bus, even when not trying to jump you off the seat, keeps vibrating. The sensation is clearly felt on your cheeks. They like jiggle around. No I am not padded with puppy fat, well not all that much I am sure. The vibration is noticeable when you close your eyes. Why? Did you not read the first line? But you’d want to know why this constant vibration persists? I guess it is the interlocking stones that make up most roads. This habit borders fanaticism here. Give a square foot of space to the conservancy guys and they would put in a dozen of these blocks. As to kill the monotony they mix red one and yellow ones in slanting lines. They are all over the place, footpaths and roads alike.

Another sensation is the play of light on your closed eyelids. You have noticed how even with closed eyes you can tell when your brother is creeping up on you to pull your hair. It is something like that. The occasional glass clad building wakes you up from deep trance while the trees and other vehicles moving in the opposite direction keep moving a finger of light across the eyelids. Its fun.

Never travel wearing short sleeves. You have to understand that touching skin in this place is no big deal. The arm hair of the person sitting beside you can be the weirdest sensations. But the bus throws up all sorts of petty silent squabbles. The first one is the proportion of the seat that you occupy. When seating oneself, it is usually done by using gravity to create as much or more space on the seat. Then when you have uncomfortably landed half your ass on the other mans lap, he is sure to shift laterally to avoid getting some part of is leg in a not so comfy area. Well I am sure there are some who would fanaticize about this. Hey move away.

Ensuing the loss of precious real estate on the seat, the next battle for shoulder space starts. You must have played a childhood game called “thumb wrestling”. This is something similar. Only the participants here have stubble coming out of every pore and grey hair in the most unexpected places. This is a long game, no easy winner. Little like chess also, you know, waiting on the others preoccupation with a pair of tight jeans or a lady in a passing car, combing her hair, and bingo, advantage gangly alien. There are some great ways to circumvent this but anybody having to appear in an office upon getting of this bus would not be able to indulge in that ace. All you need is a shirt with paint drops all over and a can of half opened paint can. Pronto, you have monopoly to real estate and shoulder space, more so if you sit beside one carrying a laptop and talking on the cellphone.

There are some games played with instruments as well. This comes from a deep seated thought of promoting competition when making mundane journeys on this form of transport. It is the window , chumps. I really cannot come up with why the specification of the size of the window and the seats need to follow the Napiers series. But it seems to be. Why could we not have one window to every seat prefixed. The glass shutters are movable which brings us to the third game of this traveling Olympiad, “share the window bozzo”. The width of the open window is directly proportional to the stubble and belly size (recall how obese guys always carry a very small hanky when you know that inkeeping with their sheer volume, they should be carrying a larger one, well). This is a game which requires you to exert a lot of force when your face belies any sort of effort. The method is to push the glass shutter in the opposite direction using elbow all the while staring into wide open space or with ones eyes shut and make the other feel that the moving shutter is a part of the general design. Or in case he is sporting enough to push back, the lack of movement should appear as though the whole shutter is jammed up or something. Onto better stuff now.

The real weird- plus-one sensation is the crotch rub on shoulder. Yet another strange oversight. Imagine you needing to have to put up with the soft push of a crotch on your shoulder. A boner on the guy is all you are hoping, does not come around. You can do the WWF type of move to land yourself hard with a “blame it on the bus” look but that is unlikely if you do not want to end up with nightmares on the same lines. So you put up with this and try bending forward and crouching so that it would take a pair of bent knees to reach you shoulder. Well that is assuming he is not fantasizing about your ear. There are natural reasons for him to play the little “hug me tender, hug me sweet” part as most of them do not carry the money for the tickets in their pockets so one needs to dig out the purse, open it (two hand movement) which leaves a wildly oscillating hip. I am sure with practice one can learn the art of climaxing in this short period if overwhelmed by the sensation. Gawd!!

Dosing and half dreaming you would reach somewhere which is close to your destination which would prompt you to start wiggling around. You can have a little game here as well. The whole idea is that the wiggle and straightening of ones spine attracts those standing beside you like an overdose of pheromones and a small battle for rights could ensue among the multitudes standing around. Alpha males usually have strong looks and arms or stink of sweat which automatically discourages the others. Well the game is to make a small song and dance like you’re about to get up. Then look a bit blank, jaws open like trying to read the sign boards which are clearly too far away and a scribble to see then seat yourself back. The whole act would have excited the alpha male who now is fantasizing of your seat that the sign of you sitting back almost feels like a plump bunny escaping the lions jaw on a hot and dry afternoon in Serengeti. Of course there are no bunnies in Serengeti which by the way is the whole point. Although repetitions of this game could prove painful and attract undue attention from the conductor who on every journey believes that he is weighed down by the responsibilities of reprimanding people for seemingly no cause and that he is the seventeenth generation conductor which makes him a subject matter expert by birth.

After a few stomps you decide to get off. All the way, you stamp other peoples shoes and get stamped which trivializes the morning act of bothering to clean your shoes. One needs to get off from the front door. Something borrowed from the buses in the movies. The driver has copyright of ogling at all the asses getting off the bus. Give the guy a break, believe me he needs it his kicks. The streets are bad so I guess it is deserved.

What? it was not funny enough? Give me a break yaar. Try typing 5 pages while sitting on you bed, mosquitoes and cramps then come back to me with your smartass comments.

Go to work and make your home a better place.