World Toilet Summit

N.R. Ramesh forwarded this link to me. To quote:

New Delhi will host the World Toilet Summit 2007, a four-day international event on sanitation, in October later this year.

The summit with the theme ‘Toilet for all’ will start on October 31. It is expected to attract experts from across the globe.

I don’t want to make fun of anything (ya right !!).. but this was soooo tempting.

1) I would love to get an agenda.

2) If you are attending this conference, would you say to your friends “I’m going to New Delhi to attend the World Toilet Convention” or would you just say “I’m in Delhi for a conference”.

Heres wishing the conference a lot of success. Hope they make more “Sense” than “Sound”

Talking about bathrooms, the Japanese are known for their innovations in this are. Heres an interesting article.

P.S: Its a pure coincidence that one of the categories for this post is “Tongue in Cheek”

If they can’t pay the loans…let them die

The Deccan Herald quotes our “Mannina maga” (Deve Gowda) today lashing out at farmers who were committing suicide and saying something to the effect “If they want to commit suicide, let them“. This was in reaction to an incident where a farmer attempted to kill himself at the Big D’s residence.

Wow !! I dont think theres any election coming up yet. If there was, he’d be talking about how he’d be willing to sacrifice his life instead of the farmers.

All this was at former cricketer Dodda Ganesh’s coming out party where he joined the JD(S). Hopefully he gets more votes than he did wickets.

Talking about Dodda Ganesh, apparently Azhar (Azzu Bhai) talked him into joining the JD(S). Azzu also has committed Rs. 10 Crores to him to contest the elections.

Where did Azhar get that kind of money? Tennis Ball Cricket?

Prediction: Both Gowda and Ganesh will claim they were “misquoted”.

You think we have water shortage?

Theres a waterpipe that burst near my house yesterday. Gallons and gallons of water are flowing unabated. Yet 24 hours later NO ONE has attended to it even though we have complained several times. It pains me to see drinking water go down the drain (literally)

Did someone say we had water shortage?

Why the left agreed to support Ms. Patil

1. The Sugar factory she owned did not owe any dues to the Unions. Only the workers and investors were shafted.

2. She once had a relative who had a friend who was married to a Bengali.

3. She has better hairstyle than Kalam.

4. She already had all her rubber stamps ready.

5. Her questions will be simpler than Kalam’s. (Have you had Lunch, Dinner? etc)

6. They think shes related to Sandeep Patil

7. Supporting the other Patil (Shivraj) would have made the Home Ministry more efficient. They don’t want that.

8. Sharad Pawar threatened to appoint her Cricket Coach if they didn’t support her for president.

9. Shekawat is 300 years old, Kalam is intelligent.

10. Now they can remote control 2 people. The PM and the President.

 P.S: I believe that there are better women candidates who deserve to be president. Kiran Bedi? Sushma Swaraj?

The Knife

Heres another one from memory lane.

Everytime I grumble at Nikhil for the things he does, I realize that hes not half as bad as I was

So here goes… another incident out of the bag.

The very summer I went missing, I had another episode that now in perspective put me on the right path. Natti was a guy who lived across the street…much older than the rest of us.. He was known in the neighbourghood as a trouble maker.. Now that I think about it, the police probably visited his house more that they did the Police Station.

Now this guy was a “friend” of mine. He used to give me “stuff” to keep for him. Usually this used to be in a bag. I was always told, “Don’t show your parents”.. and sure enough I didn’t. It never occured to me to check what was in the bag. I would bring it in to the house when no one was around and hide it in my room. What did I get in return? All I got was a 5 paisa “burfi”.

Amazing Video

A link to this was posted on Porcupyn’s (can you guess who this is?) Blog. An Amazing video of teamwork and what happens when the “weak and oppressed” get pissed off.

Belgian in the Bathroom

In the summer of ’96 we were invited by a large Govt. agency to do an EDI demo in New Delhi. We (my company and our vendor) decided to fly in an expert from Belgium. BH was this EDI expert with classic French accent like Inspector Clousseau (Pink Panther fame).

So, the Demo starts in right earnest (it was spread over 2 days). The 2 days are Saturday and Sunday.

The agency that has asked for the demo has brought in 20 of its trainees to “manage” the demo. These kids, barely out of college are eager to impress their superiors and they do that by asking BH all kinds of questions. Our vendor’s team is doing their best to control the process, but like a true intellectual, BH is getting hassled.

Day 1 ends with a flourish and we have all our softwares installed and ready for “testing” on Day 2.

A spade by any other name…

By Aditya

Bishan Bedi may be a bit of a loud mouth, but the man is no fool. “Power without Accountability” is a perfect description of Gavaskar, the extra-constitutional interfering busybody of Indian cricket. Too bad, Bedi doesn’t have the political savvy and suaveness to make himself heard by those who are in positions of power. Oh wait, those imbeciles couldn’t care less about Indian cricket.

Weekly Top 10 – Why Ford refused the Indian Coaching Job

Top 10 reasons why Ford didnt take the Indian Coaching job

10. BCCI refused to give him PF and ESI

9. Pay was in Pakistani Rupees (I know.. I know but apparently BCCI has lot of “foreign” cash).

8. They selected him only because he could fit into Greg Chappell’s old clothes

7. He was intimidated by Sunny Gavaskar’s height

6. BCCI wanted a royalty on the book he would write post his coaching tenure

5. He wanted to be based in England

4. BCCI insisted that he fly Indian Airlines… yekanamy class

3. BCCI insisted that he share his “match fixing” knowledge

2. Gavaskar insisted that he learn Marathi

1. BCCI insisted that his bowling coach was Maninder Singh

Any  more? Please Add…

Whose son?

Forwarding mails can get dangerous. Murali Partha was telling me this story about a mutual friend.

This friend (VG) had a baby. Now he forwards these baby pictures to a colleague (Mr. MD) of his with the subject “My Son’s Pictures”.

MD in turn forwards it to all employees with the same subject. A reply comes back to MD from another colleague (CC’d to the rest of the organization INCLUDING VG) as follows:

Dear MD,
You son looks handsome. I think he looks just like you. Congratulations!

Lesson: When forwarding mails like this.. CHANGE THE SUBJECT LINE…