The other night I met up with Pastrami at this Copper Chimney in Worli. The one just down the road from the Food Court with all the Shops, Atria Mall.
“Man whats happening with the test match…” he idly wondered while I silently sipped on a long, cool Kingfisher pint.
As I have stated many many times on this blog I am not really that big a cricket fan. Of course I love it when wonderful things happen like Dwayne Leverock or random spontaneous coach slapping. But otherwise I indifferently flip past the cricket channels.
But this was not an opportunity to be missed! So what if I did not like cricket? I had to show him my GPRS!
“Wait one moment Pastrami!!!”, I muttered politely so as not to upset that upper middle class restaurant ambience, “let me check on my GPRS enabled Sony Ericcson P990i mobile ph… I mean smartphone…”
The P990i was my latest value-for-money gizmo.
I have this philosophy of, among many other things, buying gadgest and gizmos. Now make no mistake, I would love to own the latest in gadget coolness. If I could, I would buy the iPhone. I have no qualms about saying that. But the thing is this freelance writing, magazine editing lifestyle cannot afford such lascivious pleasures. So I work on this principle called ‘phased lag purchasing’, i.e. buying a gadget as soon as something new has come and made it technically obsolete.
By then prices have fallen, bugs have been ironed out and the customer service guys have the spare parts for it when I sit on it/drive over it/pour beer on it.
“What?! You bought that aged monstrosity? Pshaw!”
“Whaddaya mean aged! Its the flag ship Sony phone man!” I protested. “Also you have to pay for dinner…”
“Of course I will dear friend… but till it is nothing compared to my Blackberry Curve…”
He reached into his pant pockets to pull out his Blackberry.
(Pause to ruminate on that unwitting pun.)
But I immediately pressed a few buttons and powered up my web browser. I must get the match scores before his Blackberry! I must! My manhood demands it!
“Go on, try all you can. My Curve will beat the crap out of that chunky piece of obsolete miniature electronics…”
Thumb! Thumb! Scroll! Scroll!
“Oh yeah?!” I retorted weekly
“Oh yeah!” He bellowed with restraint so as to not to trouble an adjacent table of what looked like auditors going by the way they were splitting the bill: “Yes but alcohol has separate VAT rates you know…”
“We are losing the match. Just two wickets to go!” I screamed triumphantly mildly startling people around with unintended unpatrioticity. (Dispatriotism?)
Triumph! Blackberry Curve my foot. Go P990i go!
“Whatever dude! I was checking my push mail. You’ve heard of push email haven’t you?”
Pastrami was beginning to play dirty.
Of course, when you think about it, it was hardly a fair fight from the very beginning. His Curve was an office perk. Mine was bought after fighting through the crowds at Alfa in Irla market. I had to beat some of them away with my old Nokia phone. Connecting people on their temples and all that.
So really any way this worked out, in the end I would be the victor. At least in spirit.
But then it dawned on me. The P990i has push mail. And more!
We paused while nibbling on some starters and sipping on iced tea.
“Oh yes I have push mail. This phone has that. But I don’t need it. I just use the Gmail application I downloaded and configured… Ha!… by the way excellent hara bara kebabs no?”
“Exquisite… You get Gmail on your phone?”
Mine was a masterful counter-attack. Not unlike the Dragon variant of the Sicilian Defence. Pastrami could afford anything he wanted. But fiddling with the technology in his gadgets was just not his cup of tea.
“Oh and did I tell you I have a 2 mega pixel phone??!!…” I jabbed.
Smirk. Smirk.
“Hmm… you have a camera eh?” Pastrami said.
He didn’t.
“Indeed. I just snapped a shot of that kaali daal. Want me to bluetooth it to you?”
I was piling it on. He had bluetooth I guess. But how to activate with one hand! (His other holding one small piece of kofta precariously perched on slice of naan! I had touch screen. Crack scene!)
“I am eating dude. Play fair. Outstanding Kofta. You must try it!”
“I am not going to fall for that one Pastrami! GUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!” I gestured to him in a polite manner trying not to raise a scene in the restaurant.
“No seriously. Its good. I’ll finish all of it otherwise.”
“Ok.”
We munched in silence. He ordered those baby gulab jamuns they have at Copper Chimney. We slurped in a sugary fashion.
Then suddenly out of the blue he turned the Blackberry Curve screen towards me and it was playing a full length video of a sitcom.
I was beaten. I had not bought an extra memory stick yet and had no space to carry anything remotely approaching a respectable video.
I went into a quiet funk.
He paid and we walked out.
“My Blackberry Curve kicked your stupid Sony ass writer boy!” he slurred out of the corner of his mouth as we waited for the valet.
While I enjoyed dinner, especially the not paying the bill bit, it was bitter to lose again to the investment banker. He had the money, the lifestyle and now this!
“It’s ok. Don’t take it to heart!” he said as he walked towards his car. “Why don’t you write a funny blog about it? Ha ha ha…”
And then I had a brainwave. I tuned towards him, looked at him face to face and said in a deathly murmur: “But you can’t do THIS can you banker boy?!”
And with that I withdrew my stylus, poked him in the eye and dived into a waiting black and yellow taxi.
And then I wrote a blog about it.
Victory.
u rock sidin 🙂
ROTFL!!…the end is too good…:))..
Madness! I am loving it!
Hilarious. Sometimes I pity poor Pastrami.
Don’t. He makes too much money. The other day he got a haircut for 600 bucks. Such people deserve nary a mite of sympathy…
That is quite wierd indeed maaan!
Quite a few ppl have 600 buck haircuts. Its not so uncommon. A 2007 batch pass out equity trader commonly known as Thambi also does the same!!
Nice one…but you have been better with some other Pastrami blogs..like the one where he boycotts every brand that sponsors our cricketers..i loved that one :Dkeep writing sir.
The thing is Pastrami isn’t as funny as you would think… And I can’t just make up things can I???
Did some research myself on Blackberry vs P990i
http://www.univercell.in/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3
“….He reached into his pant pockets to pull out his Blackberry.
(Pause to ruminate on that unwitting pun.)” — I almost fell off my chair laughing
Did you hurt your Blackberry?
ROFL! Loved this one. In an age when everyone’s drooling over the iPhone, good to see a post like this 😀
Drool over the iPhone??!!! Who me??!!!
THUD!
Slipped on a puddle of drool…
kyool one, a small inci converted into a blog….Great sid
Need such frequent inci….
:):):)
Titto my man I try all I can. But Pastrami is travelling this weekend. So nothing in the near future methinks…
But…..the blog contains hidden (‘self adi’) ( Swayam Pokkal ) – native mallu languagelol..!!!!
nicely shown to the world about the valuable possession of P990i 😉
GOK whether others will follow the suite…..!!!!!! in their blogs
🙂
varry funneh.
came here through the great mr. krish attack’s blog.
too good.. !!
adipoli!!!
lol! hilarious blog…. amazing work… and ‘(Pause to ruminate on that unwitting pun.)’ masterpiece 😀
hmmm…..intriguing….pastrami the banker ………
Indeed… quite intriguing…
Poke-able Pastrami? 🙂
hi,I have been reading your blog of late.I just love the way you write,especially the puns you crack.Incidentally I also apprenticed in satire and puns at NIT Trichy.Great to have seniors like you to brag about!
keep the puns flowing! Esp the ones about pulling blackberries out of pockets..
Hey! NIT bonding!
They brag about me there? Seriously?
Wow!
Hahaha! full of pun..includin the pasuing in the mid.. I keep having these tech wars wit my frns but never blogegd em b4..hehehe! nice one dude!
Ha ha haBoys will always be boys ha ha ha. Am hyper amused
As amused when I made the phone call that weekend in Delhi. I doubt it!
Does Pastrami ever comment on your blogs? 😀
MUCH MORE OFTEN than people think.
PSST! He has commented on this very blog you know…
Aha…hmm.. btw, I from RECT too, 3 yrs junior…you were the CIC REP I think…? When people mention your blogs, feels good to brag about you being our senior…:)
Not bad…buddy…:)
Keep it coming
I have been reading your blogs for sometime now. Very interesting and hilarious. Pastrami seems to get the best out of you or the worst 🙂 I know you actually did not poke him in the eye. And good pun.
thats fantastic stuff dude. especially the ending. whew!
really hilarious stuff…i just saw an iphone..man cannot get over the swooshes…lets hope comes soon to india…
Keep those puns coming man !!! They make one ROTFL 😀 😀 😀
Sidin,There yis wone more department where P990 can beat the lungi/mundu/underwear off a karuppukkai curve I say. If one was to, DD Ramayana style, launch aforementioned objects at each other, the Curve will be totally demolished, while the 990 will make its way back to the triumphant launcher. Sony will win because as Godzilla once said, (unpronounceable scream) that translates to “Size does matter”
That is the truth. It is big, beefy while being light on its toes. Like me when you come to think of it…
LOL :).
I almost bought the P990i for 19K but then went on to buy Samsung P310 for a great price.. and love it.
BTW your phone has FM radio, 3G (though we cant use it in India yet) and many more things :). Am sure no one uses the stylus or the qwerty keyboard that comes with it.
There is a STYLUS??!!!A QWERTY KEYBOARD!!!
OMG THERE IS!
No seriously I use all of it all the time and I love it.
insider info….i bought a camera phone only to have my company(a bank) ban them… pastrami could have only used a blackberry while you could have used any damn model on earth. Consoling?
Btw the pic reminded me of the famous eye slicing scene from this movie called “An Andalusian Dog” http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0020530/
[…] a long and unwelcome hiatus Pastrami suddenly burst back into my life yesterday. He had just returned from a trip to Jaipur […]
“Connecting people on their temples and all that.”
too good, sidin!!!
Ok, if ur married, can we get Pastrami’s number?