Aravind Kumar’s Blog

The Automan Cometh

A few Months Back (Yeah Yeah!!! I have not blogged in a while) I was having a conversation with a colleague at work and she said Personal blogs are Sad Stories. This one is for you lady!!!

Recently I have become an auto aficionado. Autos for those of you who do not know are three wheeled Vehicles which can take you on a trip or take the trip out of you and yes Auto guys tend to take you for a ride. Autos in Chennai don’t go by the meter it is good old bargaining which works.

IF you have time to waste and are looking for some fun and time pass, do this…

Wave a Auto down, Give him your destination then ask him how much it will cost. Let’s take my normal route Kilpauk to T.Nagar Say he asks you for Rs. 100 you do a small calculation 100 divided by 2 which is 50 and subtract 10 from that. So you will quote 40Rs. (Don’t think it is ridiculous If He goes by the meter it will not cost anything more than 35Rs. Now the autoguy will be shocked and will normally mumble jumble and proceed) If he does not I will assure you he is ready to bargain and can be brought to go on a ride for 45Rs.

Trust me there is nothing wrong in arguing for even 1Re or 2Rs. It is hard earned money after all. If you hate the auto guy and don’t want to have some fun torturing them feel free to take a bus back home. I do that sometimes or better still walk back home.

One of my friends actually tells that she is a college student and that her dad does not giver her enough pocket money. Interesting Story but I would not be able to tell something like that and get away with it.

Have some more Tips, Incidents coming up…
Comments, tips and real life incidents are welcome.

Have fun using public transport.

Tags: auto, autorickshaw, Chennai, incidents

Diwali – The True Story

It is that time of the year when you get to stuff your face with sweets. Anyways here is to not wishing you a Great Diwali!!! Why?Am I freakin’ out of my mind? No No. As I say there is so much confusion about Diwali. See there are so many stories behind it. Here is the most ridiculous one I heard.

There was a Asura (Demon) known as Mahasura. He was a real wicked Dude living in the mountains. Eating shit loads of stuff. He was a terror in the neighbouring villages. So the villagers headed by our Panchayat chief (Nattammai Vijaykumar) signed a treaty called The Mahasura Treaty. Find the conditions of the Treaty below

The Mahasura Treaty

1. The villagers will send a chauffeur driven bullock cart with three Massive Balls of Rice to the Mountains.

2. In Return I Mahasura will not come to the village and eat random people.

Sd/-

Mahasura a.k.a The Wicked Dude

Nattammai Vijayakumar

So the villagers (under the explicit orders of Nattammai Vijayakumar) started sending a chauffer driven bullock cart with three massive food Balls everyday. As the Days went by they could see a new peak in the moutain range. It was the bones of the bullocks and the chauffeurs which was piling up along with all the shitting going on.

So one day Mr Bhima (Not to be confused with Bhim Boy from Michael Madana Kama Rajan, though he did play Bhima in the Mahabharatha Serial) who was in exile with his family members (i.e 4 brothers, one mother and the common wife) found out that Nattammai Vijayakumar is hand in glove with Mahasura. So he kills the Nattammai, and tells the villagers that he will be the chauffeur this time. His Mom asks him not to go. He does not care. The Common Wife pleads, cries and begs him not to go as none of the other brothers are as good as him in bed. (Yudhishtar can’t fantasize because that’s living a lie, Arjun is always aiming for the spot but he is only good with arrows, Nakul and Sahadev are really losers and can’t do much.)

But being the hero he is Bhima goes with the cart. and once he reaches the asura’s cave he realizes that he is very hungry. So he starts gobbling the massive food balls. But while he is eating the third food ball Mahasura wakes up and stands on top of the mountains and sees him food being eaten by some Mahmud Ali Look alike.

There is a huge fight, but each time Bhima tears Mahasura’s body apart he says some magic and the halves join together.

Bhima may have been good in bed

But bleddy no brain in his head.

Once out of frustration he throws the halves in opposite directions. Now body halves got confused and could not join. So Mahasura died and to celebrate his death we eat all those sweets!!! Well this is something I heard from a very unreliable source but he argued till the end that this is the real deal.

Yeah I have never heard this story being connected to Diwali. But Diwali is supposed to be celebrated on a New Moon Day(Night when the moon can’t be seen, namma moon samy can see it though) Why is it celebrated on the previous day in TamilNadu?

After winnig the war in Sri Lanka Rama boarded the special BJP jet plane from Colombo but as the flight was passing the Arignar Anna International Airport it developed some technical snag (Flights were free gifts to the party by Air Deccan) and had to land in Chennai better known as Madras then Rama and his team were made to stay at The GRT Raddisson and the people of TamilNadu heard of the dark dude and the fair lady and visited him there. The Sivakasi Firecracker Manufacturers Association(clever people that they are) told the Tamil People that bursting crackers was how a hero has to be welcomed. So that’s how fireworks came into existence.( No it was not the Chinese for Godsake!!!Please stop saying Chinese for everything) All this happened one day before Rama got to Ayodhya. So we celebrate it one day before the North Indians.

Also apparently the Tamilians don’t eat meat on the New Moon Day. So that’s when a conspiracy was hatched to celebrate Diwali one day ahead of the real festival.

If you have any Diwali stories. Please leave a comment I sure love listening to them and blogging about them.

Tags: bhima, deepavali, diwali, mahasura

Excuse me Boss!!!

Well, let me assure you this has nothing to do with my boss. Well to tell you the truth my team in FindNearYou.com is probably the coolest team. We get to meet celebrities and do a lot of cool stuff and the best part is FindNearYou.com is one big happy family kinds. Lots of fun. But as I said this is not about work so…

I was invited by Alexandra for a beach get-together one Friday evening. (This was happening in the same beach where they have a memorial upon which people piss all the time. Infact one friend of a friend of a friend even found a couple making out. If someone would come too close their secret code was tch…tch…) So Alexandra her boyfriend Arnaud, Laury and me got some sandwiches and then went in search of the picnikers. We found them sitting right at the beach front drinking beer.(Is that not illegal?) Anyways there were men and women, young and old, chatty and quiet, students and office goers and the best, French and German. They were in separate groups and I could catch some words in French. Though the German skidded away to glory over my bald head. I realized I have a prejudice that the German and French are like sworn enemies. (Well if you are wondering why, you really need to bruch your history!!!) But they were nothing of that sort, though they sat in separate circles they were all mingling and jingling.

After a while people started getting up and I was like “Finally picnic over”. But while that thought was running I realized these people were walking towards the sea. They were going for a swim. They were changing right over there with the local boys who were watching all this passing nasty comments.

But before too many people realized what was happening they were having a ball in the dirty salty water. There were some who had stayed back, like my friends Arnaud, Alexandra, Laury and Camille. Slowly a crowd was gathering around us and I was like ” These guys have gone crazy” But a group of guys walked up to me and started talking to me.

Boy1 : Excuse me Boss!! Hello Boss!!!

Boy 2 : Are you from foreign?

I was really in no mood to talk.

Boy 1 Excuse me Boss. Are you working or Studying?

Boy 3 : Dai Avarukku English Theriyadhunnu Ninnaikiren( I think he does not understand english)

Boy 1 : Excuse me Boss. Just talk something.Let us have friendship.

I was wondering “Is he Gay and hitting on me?” I just ignored him and after a while they left having realized no one was talking with them.

I keep wondering why he kept saying “Excuse me Boss” he should have called me MOTTAI BOSS!!!!. Bleddy Fella!!!

For an Audio Version excusemeboss

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Tags: beasant nagar beach, elliots beach, schmidt memorial

Ctrl + D – Bookmark yourself to Glory

Bookmarks have been around for a long time. Even before the web decided to happen. But it is strange that today we have so many kinds of bookmarks in this era of web 2.0 that we have forgotten teeny weeny Mr. Bookmark. When I was in school bookmarks was one of the most cool things to have. It had a fan following of students teachers and parents alike.

Some students had the unfair advantage of having stay at home moms. Moms who would cover their notebooks neatly. Label the Notebooks and then stick a bookmark to a thin ribbon and paste it in the top inner spine of the book. Some of the mother even got the initials of their children drawn on the bookmark. I always found it ridiculous that parents would go through such trouble so that the children can show off their unique bookmarks to their classmates. I thought that bookmarks were too sissy and that they did not have the intended cool factor. So I never had one. (I Could effectively turn pages.)

So the parents loved bookmarks, my friends had so many bookmarks all stuck to their notebooks and the best part was they came with all kind of designs and I remember Tom and Jerry, Popeye, Asterix, TinTin and so many more and the lady teachers simply loved bookmarks. Because they said that it made life easy for them when they corrected the students Home Work(HW). Most teachers would be pissed off at me for not having placed a bookmark at the appropriate pages. Anyways there are too many bookmark stories. Basically I hated bookmarks when I was a primary school student at Don Bosco, Egmore.

Something happened at work which reminded me of bookmarks. We were in a meeting and  we had a discussion about bookmarks and how we could use them and Amousia man who is a SEO Specialist( He is brilliant at his job) says “We are already bookmarking all that needs to be bookmarked. Amousia man is too focussed to even understand what is happening in a world outside his SEO world. Wake up Amousia Man and smell the roses. there is more to life than just Ctrl + D .

Tags: bookmarks, nostalgia

Girls and Women are complicated…

You could also call this Part 2 of Girls Colleges are dumb. Well you can call this what you want I really would be happy if you came up with an alternate title for this post.

I was surfing You Tube this morning and I normally look for Stand up Comedy shows. So I was watching this clip of Carlos Menci…

Funny guy, he says what he says with a lot of courage and gets people to laugh. But I don’t know if he has feminists wanting to murder him. I would love to see if I can get away with this.

Anyways basically girls/women are complicated. Read Narain’s experience with a 7 year old called Yasmin. Poor fellow freaked out with the things she said. I really doubt if a boy would have said the things Yasmin said.

Just like Carlos says women have too many things on their mind. Sometimes it is very nice. But most times it gets on my nerves to know that they are thinking of something/someone else when they are talking to me.

So coming back to the college culturals… Did I mention that I was not allowed to go out for lunch and worse still was they did not have a Restroom for guys.( Restroom is such a stupid word, whoever coined that must have slept while taking a poop or maybe while standing at the urinal to take a leak) I was offered by a girl that she would stand guard while I took a nice grand leak in the ladies room. (Ofcourse I refused.) What’s worse I was complaining to a few lady professors about how we were not being allowed to go out for lunch or any break for the matter of fact and this lady professor looks at me and says “Oh, they probably think that you are a college student” I was like “What, are you kidding? this must be some kind of joke” The professor just left with a grin whose meaning I am still deciphering.

All said and done, My friend Amirtha was not let into the college. Fishing Embarassing. But Narain who also happens to be her friend somehow managed to get her in. The question I had and still have is “Why won’t they let a girl into a girls college?” Men please dont attempt answers to these questions because we are not meant to answer them. Women please do leave your answers.Men please ask more questions.

Cheers!!! People. I have so many Girls College Stories. Someone of them give me nightmares. (Just kidding about the nightmares.)

Tags: colleges, girls, professors, ridiculous, women