Hola peeples!

Back from a most exhilarating trip to the Dilli to meet the in-laws, play cards, eat copious sweets and so on.

And not to forget the drive around the city after midnight on Diwali when I had a great chance to take in all that atmosphere. By which I mean suspended particulate matter that now covers the inside of my lungs to a depth of several microns and has aggravated my minor asthma. And let’s not even start about my nose. Let me not get all picky. (Hah!)

Sniff. Gasp. Gurgle. Blow. Ooh barfi!

But I get ahead of myself. All details of the Diwali trip will appear in a friendly blog avatar very soon.

Today I need to get back to work and have only just about enough time to post this frolicsome image from a website I was browsing recently. It is an advertisement for Sharekhan doled out by Google Adsense exhorting novice investors to sign up with them:

Now I like the format. It is quite lively and engaging because of the comic book look and feel. The guy on top looks suitably bamboozled by forwards, options, blue chip, P/E and such like.

But observe the guy at the bottom. The man from Sharekhan.

The friendly face of reliable wealth management he is NOT. In fact he has a look of someone who is just waiting to lay his hands on your money (among other things) before disappearing forever from the face of the earth.

FirstStep – A unique program for those who have never invested before! And will never ever invest again! Unless they sold a kidney! Ha!

Would you give your hard earned money to that man with that sneer?

On the other hand would you give it to a freelance writer who needs it?

Sigh. Thought so.

My heart aches. I am fighting back the tears of indignation that well up. Cannot cry during Diwali, I tell myself, as I sob in time with the roaring of the AC in the office so that no one notices.

How could you people do this to me? How could you let me carry on this blog with two copies of the exact same blogroll on the sidebar of this page for two whole weeks without as mush as a peep.

All you people care about are the blog posts and the content and the wisecracks and all that. I am just  a piece of meat, with some words thrown all over it, for you guys.

I feel used. I have removed the extra blogroll. But our relationship is never going to be the same again.

ROAR! Sob!

In other news the missus managed to destroy the tryanny of under-connectivity perpetrated upon us by the vile people at Wilson Cable here in Wadala East. She is terribly proud of it and I think it only right that I tell you all about her moment of inspiration which now helps me, literally, to run around anywhere in the house and browse porn interesting material on applied sciences and contemporary sociology.

The Wadala East area is heavily under the control of a cable-internet cartel managed by the people at Wilson Cable. They may sound like a nice, warm and friendly outfit in the english countryside as depicted by Blyton or Herriot.

"Hey it’s the man from Wilson! Hello Tommy! Top of the morning to you laddie. Good show with that Set Top Box. DVD quality indeed!".

To which the real Wilson Cable people from Antop Hill would respond: "Oh why don’t you pop over with me to this khopcha and I could, perhaps, feast you on some of my special and copious  kharcha pani."

You take panga with these people at your own risk. They have their own TV channel and stuff. These are bad asses I tell you. Ms. D’Costa from upstairs refused to pair her bill last year on account of poor picture quality. Then one day she went to the airport to catch a flight and was never heard from since. (Some say she migrated to Canada. But we are not believing that story.)

And yet the missus prevailed. Woo hoo!

The thing is this. We have a 256 kbps connection laid to our home by the people from Wilson. Now they may be tough nuts but they are reliable people to do business with. The connection works well and more than once, minutes away from a column deadline, they have repaired a down line so I can mail off things.

Two years ago, when we first got the connection, you could plug in the ethernet line into any PC’s lan port and dial up. All you needed was a PPPOE connection. (Look it up. Basically it is a way to put a dial up connection on the end of a broadband connection so that there is some security and control.)

Then suddenly one day we received a call from the Wilson Cable office. There was a moment of discomfort in the home when we saw the caller id flashing. What did…. gulp… they want… with us? Gulp. Shudder.

"Ab ek hi MAC address chalega… Nahi… Sorry… Bas ek. Aapko kuch problem hai to aap ek kaam keejiye, Antop Hill Wilson office mein aayiye… Oh Ramu! Woh peeche waalah ‘discussion’ room khulwake rakhna…"

Apparently some genius had signed up for one of their unlimited internet connections and then, through a router, set up an illegal internet cafe. So they decided that henceforth they would have two types of accounts: cheap single user accounts for poeple like us, and more expensive multi-user accounts subject to location checking and vetting.

We did not complain and continued to use several laptops on our connection, all using MAC address spoofing but, of course, only lappie at a time. And we always paid Wilson Ke-bill on time. Heh! (Phew. That one’s been inside me for months.)

Then last week, the tech geek that I am, I decided to have a wifi enabled home. This way I could work online not only in the bedroom, but also absolutely anywhere in the living room. Imagine!

Two days later a shiny, cute Netgear wifi router was shipped in by Ebay and I eagerly unpacked it with dreams of complete domestic mobile computing in my eyes.

Eight hours later I went to bed with the sheer ecstasy of someone who had just wasted eight hours of his life and 2000 bucks (inclusive of VAT) of his hard earned money.

I had forgotten one simple fact. Stupid me. Even if I had spoofed MAC ids all over the place on both lappie and router, the network would still not allow more than one device to access it. Therefore even if I was hooked up to the internet, and the lappie was hooked up to the router I could do nothing with the network.

"Connection ek, aur computer do! Bahut na insaafi hai!" the network would say unnecessarily falling back on a tired Sholay cliche yet again.

Therefore I was adamantly left offline. Completely unable to get on the net and do anything.

Except, of course, obsessively update the software on the Netgear router.

But after four hours of this, the initial exuberance dims somewhat. "Goddammit you fool! NO NEW FIRMWARE VERSION! F&@# I quit!" was the sort of message the router was beginning to spew.

I gave up and went to bed. A sad, broken man.

Next morning I gave the wonderful people at Wilson a call to find out what was wrong.

"Aapne ghar pe ROUTER lagwa diya!" he said with undue emphasis on that exclamation mark. Apparently I had broken some unmentioned rule of the Cable Omerta. After a few moments of pregnant silence he said that this would not work and I would HAVE to take a multi-user account. At a little more than double the rent I pay now. "Main aapko ek aisa offer doonga jisko aap mana nahi kar sakte!" he said. I hung up immediately and ran for protection to the honourable Don Bosco chapel nearby.

Later at home I walked over to the router, packed it back into it’s box, then into the Ebay envelope and then placed it on the coffee table in the living room to forever remind me of my folly.

That evening, back home from work, the wife suddenly had a brainwave. The sort of idea that only comes to those truly gifted with IT. A eureka moment sans compare.

"Use the router as a node. Don’t let it dialup. Then connect to the wifi network with lappie and dialup as usual. Should work…"

I had tears in my eyes. I ran to her and fell to my knees as I tripped over the internet wire. But no matter. I got up and did exactly as she wanted me to: did the dishes and put out the washing to dry.

Then I worked on the router.

Would you believe it? It was working perfectly. Now we have internet anywhere at home. Everywhere at home.

Truly we are a tech advanced household.

If you want to see how it works you are welcome to drop in for a looksee. However we have hidden away the router behind the flush tank of the attached bathroom.

We don’t want them Wilson Cable people ever finding out. And don’t you be telling them a word. Silencio. Mucho secreto! Grazie.

Ciao.

Every once in a while, well every few years really, there used to be a small fire in or around the building we lived in Abu Dhabi. Nothing major. Nothing glamourous. Just a little short circuit in an apartment nearby or one of those old white and silver, heavy as hell, National brand irons with the striped cord abandoned on an old ironing board. Something unremarkable like that.

(One of the universal truths about residential buildings in Abu Dhabi, maybe all of the UAE, was that the freaking fire alarms were always broken when you moved in. I have NEVER seen a building in those parts which had that "Break glass in case of fire!" devices intact. My dad always thought those pesky arab kids did it.)

Touch wood, no drastic fire type things happened while I was there but we had a routine drilled into us by my dad for just the occasion: "Ditch everything, pick up the bag with the passports and RUN! Okay fine. Walk briskly!"

My dad, like most veteran NRI’s, is paranoid about passports. And it doesn’t even have to be his or his family’s passports. The moment he walked into an airport he’d spot somebody with their passport in their backpocket or some firang just leaving it out there on the duty free restaurant table or something like that. (This was a rather disconcerting habit with citizens of countries where replacement passports did not mean calling James (agent) in Worli who would talk to a ‘friend’ (Patil) in the passport office, who would then do his duty, as a Govt. servant, to take only Rs. 2000 (Assistance fee) and give you the contact of someone else (Khobragade) in the office who would come and collect all your papers and then within just three days, exactly as may be expected from the Tatkal service, disappear forever from your life taking with him the LAST attested copy of your leave and licence agreement.)

Dad, on spotting such lax passport maintenance, would then hyperventilate. He’d start mumbling to himself and telling  us how we must never leave our passports out like that and always inside a bag. If not somehow surgically within our bodies itself.

Dad kept our’s within an inside zipper pouch which itself was hidden inside the central compartment of a chunky Samsonite travel bag that was then secured to the body of my father by a stout leather strap, which was wound around at least three limbs and one neck (sometimes all his) at any given time.

The sad thing was a little bit of all this paranoia rubbed off on me as well.

So if you see a slightly perturbed looking portly man, handsome in a George Clooney sort of way, at the airport, palming his pockets frantically every fifteen minutes or so, you should walk up and say hi. It’s probably me. Or my dad.

So imagine my panic when, last month, I was impatiently waiting for someone from our party to turn up at the airport with my papers for the flight to Malaysia which would leave in two hours.

And by papers I mean everything. Tickets. Passports. Visa. Spending money. Hotel bookings. Tour plans. Contact numbers. Everything except my PAN Card. Which I had lost during the honeymoon in Rajasthan. (Don’t ask how or why.)

Inside, mentally, I was in utter disarray. My mind created various scenarios whereby I would forever be cleaved from my passport. Had the travel agency guy scooted off with it? What if the member of our tour party, who had everyone’s papers, got looted by a rogue taxi driver? Had he been bragging about the trip in public drawing unsavoury elements towards him?

Outside, in order to not alarm the missus, I appeared perfectly calm. Composed.

"Stop that sobbing and sniffing my man! The guy will be here soon enough!" the missus said handing me a paper napkin.

Thankfully, an hour or so just before the flight, MQ landed with the package. And for the first time the group congregated as one. We looked around and nodded. Eight intrepid travelers. So this was the merry bunch I would spend four days in Malaysia with.

It was pretty much the kind of company I was expecting. Except that it was completely not.

Three weeks before that tense night at the airport Rashmi passed on the email from the Tourism Malaysia people with a stern warning.

R: "These press junkets are loaded with old fogey freeloaders who are there only to enjoy the freebies, drink free booze and wind down away their twilight years as unpleasant gruff news hacks. You will loathe their company the moment you set eyes on them."

S: "Free booze you say?"

R: "You are missing the point Sidin. If you are on one of those package type tours made by those Raj Travels type people then you will have to spend all your time with these old men. And get none on your own…"

S: "Free booze you say?"

So when I was suddenly faced with an array of lively, bubbly youths fresh from the campuses of assorted Mumbai colleges I was taken aback.

Of course there was one other press person. The initially enigmatic but later lively PD who wielded her pen for the venerable Time Out Mumbai magazine. She was the first one I met at the airport. I shook hands with her in a lively fashion and then went on to crack a dozen or so lively jokes in order to break the ice. PD seemed to enjoy them if one interpreted, liberally, her cold stare and later aloofness.

Perhaps when I said youths I was not clear enough. The six youngsters had their parents all at the airport to drop them off. There was the usual last morsels of advice: "Zyaada non-veg mat khaana! Late night party sharty mat karo. Phone card se call karna. Hamesha saat rehna… Arrey! Is uncle bhi aapke saat hai kya?!!!"

I made a futile attempt to blend into airport scenery. The wife was nowhere to be seen.

I was told, firmly, to take care of all the kids and make sure they came back in one piece. (Each one of them individually I mean. Not all of them in one huge piece. Though any more uncle references and I could arrange that.) I nodded and quickly entered the airport after bidding the wife a hasty goodbye by sms.

Inside the terminal MQ quickly handed out our packets which contained return tickets, passports (phew!), photos and some tour schedules and information. It all came in a dull blue folder with the words "Raj Travels" emblazoned on it.

Hmm. This trip was getting interestinger and interestinger.

To be continued…

That is not one of those existential angsty type statements. "This is not a pipe." That sort of thing. No.

I merely wish to reiterate to the world that I AM NOT AMIT FOR GODDSAKE!

Amit Varma is possibly the most famous (also popular) Indian blogger out there. A very popular question at blogger meets is "Where is Amit?"

Also one can consider oneself to have arrived in the world of blogging if one can start an intellectual anecdote, dirty joke or mental whimsy with the words "I was talking to Amit Varma the other day and he was telling me about this fascinating electric inflatable doll…"

Or some such thing. Also Amit recently, and famously, won the Bestiat Prize. This award is a renowned prize in Journalism. Most famous for the fact it is merely two letters away from a sexual pervert most weird. Not to say that Amit is anything but most ordinary. I may have caught him in a delicate situation with a Doberman once but he assured me it was platonic. So you should let him be.

And me too!

Every once in a while I get welcome emails from people who want me to write for them. Newspapers, magazines, people who want a kind word written on the blog. That type. This is all quite exciting of course. For a struggling freelance writer nothing fuels the ego like people wanting you to write and willing to pay for it too.

But I have increasingly begun to notice that half of these emails begin with the salutation "Hi Amit!" or "Hi Mr. Varma!"

I am not Amit Varma.

My theory is this. The party concerned decides to link up with the half dozen or so more popular blogs around. Amit, obviously, ranks up their right at the top. I come just below him, merely three hundred blogs between us. So the party whips up an email addressed to person number one on the list, i.e. Amit Varma, and then cuts and pastes it to everyone else on his list. Without changing the salutation.

So this means, more often than not, I get an email addressed to Amit Varma offering big bucks, if seen from very very close, for my modest writing abilities. This deflates my ego so. I feel crushed and belittled. And then I reply in the affirmative because I am an MBA and my priorities are very clear.

Nonetheless I am not Amit Varma. Stop sending me emails like that.

Unless of course you are the Bestiat Prize people sending out the prize cheque. In which case I am Amit Varma! Here! Me! Yes!

Otherwise no.

(Update: The book synopsis is currently being reviewed by publishing house no. 1. Fingers crossed. Latest rediff column here. Over and out.)

Unlike our mutual friend Pastrami who routinely spends many a big bucks at that Haakim Aalim place in Bandra, I get my hair cut at this… umm… legacy haircutting saloon bang opposite Wadala station.

Saloon, mind you, not salon. There is an ‘o’ missing.

And that is all the difference between a flowery fellow making trendy conversation while he snips away and Mama, my regular scissorsmith, who seldom raises a peep out of his well creased mouth. But what Mama lacks in style and panache he makes up for in experience and consistency. He is, in fact, Sushilkumar Shinde’s haircutter of choice. Since youth. Shinde now has a fast outfield up there. So Mama has cut a lot of heads.

Irrespective of what I tell Mama to do – long, short, sideburns trimmed, clean at the back, thin on the sides – he finally gives me exactly the same cut. Time after time. There is a certain welcome comfort in that. Crisp partition on my right (your left), 2.5 cms of side burn and nearly vertical side trim.

Classic Hairdressers is quite the old setup and has a board on the wall which says: "Laundry towel and cloth Rs. 10 extra". Which means, unless requested otherwise, you get wrapped in cloth that throngs with mature virus and bacteria that once draped a young Shinde.

Yet I enjoy the familiarity, the old film magazines – Is Bobby Deol the next big thing?! – and the no nonsense approach of it all. And the fact that for the price of one of Pastrami’s trims I can get barbered for the entire duration of an elected government that does not support the nuclear deal.

Yet last fortnight, when I got my latest trim, something happened that shook me to my very core. Halfway through a cut and shave Mama suddenly lunged forward and did something that had never EVER happened in my life.

He gingerly trimmed my nose hair.

The sky fell down around me. My self esteem impacted the floor noisily. Alas! Egads!

Afteryouth had, yet again, struck a mighty blow with nary a warning. I was old enough to get my nosehair trimmed! The shame… the shame.

Every man worth this salt knows that whence the nosehair needs a quick snip the faint attachments with youth doth begin to crumble. From then it is all downhill till the ears themselves sprout locks at which point you just throw yourself in front of a Virar Fast to end the agony and carbon footprint.

Note from Wikipedia: Nasal hair should not be confused with cilia of the nasal cavity, which are the microscopic cellular strands that, unlike macroscopic nasal hair, draw mucus up toward the oropharynx via their coordinated, back-and-forth beating.

Dammit.

Now, each morning, I give the wind tunnels a quick inspection to ensure no wispy flashes. Those with experience know that nothing hurts like an inadvertently pulled out nosehair follicle. Especially in an electric shaver. As the ancients used to say: "Two from the nose is like a fist from the bush."

This morning I noticed a stray peeper and spoke out at the world in general and at the missus in particular about my woe. She threw me a terrific glance before looking away. As we cabbed to work eyes were transfixed outside the window. And even when we parted ways and she walked into her office, she said good bye without looking at me in the face.

Sigh.

Sometimes I think only Mama cares. Only he understand my problems. I completely see where Sushilkumar Shinde is coming from.

So I guess I will now sit and wait till this happens:

Sob. Sniff. Sigh. Sneeze!

Stupid hair…