My Sister's Homework

Which I got to do again because my job is only an excuse for me to make money. Here's the speech I had to write for her:

Ten fun things to do during an exam

Three whole hours and nothing to do. Especially if you haven't studied for it. Time is very important and noone should ever waste it, right? Friends, I will tell you what you can do when you're stuck in a boring exam hall.

1. Build a tranformer out of erasers. You might need a lot of erasers. It's ok because you have three whole hours to borrow erasers from everyone in the room. You can even go to the other rooms to borrow erasers for your pet project. If teacher tries to ask you what you're doing, shush her with a brow furrowed in deep concentration.

2. Try to think about what Darwin really meant by his theory of evolution and how you can make it more relevant to the present century. Ponder upon the evolution of your principal and teachers and take notes on your exam papers. Won't teacher be happy when you keep asking for extra sheets.

3. Count every hair on your head. Remember how you've always wanted to do that but never had the time? Well here's the chance for you to finally do it because you have three whole hours to kill!

4. Plan the party of the century. Or even the millennium. Just use your answer book to start calculating expenses. Hey, at least you're practising your math, right?!

5. Practise the mating call of the komodo dragon. Start with high pitched squeaks. If no komodo dragon appears, move onto to low growls. Keep doing this until a dragon approaches you. Note: the komodo dragon is not to be confused with your class teacher who would also approach you once she begins to hear the sounds.

6. Stare at the person on your left until they look back at you but before they can catch you staring, turn to the person on the right. Do this with the person on the right and take turns to annoy them. If they both begin to stare at you, stare at the ceiling and begin to count the cracks in it.

7. Give your stationery names. Make an army out of them. You can be general. Instruct them on how they will all be battling the vicious History monster and how they must not fail their noble task.

8. Say water... water... like a dying man in a desert and collapse in a dead faint. Before you know it, you're being pumped with glucose and out of the exam hall.

9. Do a da Vinci on your desk. Now is the time to discover the artist in you. Get to work creating the masterpiece of the century. You can even try drawing your teacher. She might even be impressed by it, you never know.

10. If nothing else works, point out the window and yell,"Terrorists! I see bombs and guns!" and rush out the door. Grab the first taxi home and settle down with a coke and pizza. You earned it.

Horn Definitely Not OK

Spot the most fingered spot on this guy's wheel

I don't know what you managed to find, but I'm talking about the horn. The average Indian driver, whether a taxi driver, a motorcyclist, a bus driver or an automobile owner, tends to overuse the horn, which his vehicle had been primarily blessed with to prevent him from knocking over other people.

The horn today is supposed to signify any of:

• Get out of my way, asshole, you're going too slow
• Get out of my way, bitch, your skirt's blowing in my face
• Get out of my way, pedestrian, I have four wheels and you have none, har har!
• Get out of my way, my finger's stuck to my horn, look ma!

The incessant blaring of the guy behind you gets really annoying when you happen to be at a signal that has turned red and there is no way you could go forward unless you particularly wanted a fine doled out to you. Or when you're only going as fast as the guy in front of you if only the tooting prick behind you would notice.

One thing I like to do is go especially slow if I know the horn is of the 'Get out of my way, bitch, your skirt's blowing in my face' persuasion. Sure, I nearly got beaten up for my arrogance, but it sure was worth sticking it back to the jerk.

F* Corporate Cost Cutting

Aargh! First cheap towels and now this.

And You Thought Your Parents Were Bad

Maybe they were worse than this particular couple, but if they were, you'd probably be reading this from some sort of asylum by now.

The case of Baby P caught my attention today, the poor child unfortunate enough to be born to the woman who caused his subsequent death. In case you're unfamiliar of the details of the case, a young British woman aged 25 had a little baby boy in March 2006 and months later broke up with the father of the child and got friendly with another guy. Normal so far. The new boyfriend moves in and suddenly there are bruises appearing on Baby P's, Peter's, body. Months later, the boyfriend gets his friend to stay with them, who was on the run from his wife, with his 15 year old girlfriend. Several welfare visits later (around 60 over a span of eight months) and enforced trips to the various doctors, and arrests and temporary stays of the child with a family friend while his mother stayed in jail for a while after a fresh set of bruises were discovered, Baby P was taken to hospital with a broken back and ribs, none of which were discovered by the doctor who attended to him.

One day in August 2007, at the grand old age of 17 months, Peter was found dead in his blood spattered cot. Oh, and during the subsequent court proceedings where his mother and her boyfriend were put on trial, it was found that the latter was also guilty of having raped a two year old.

There are lots of questions to be asked: Why didn't welfare take him in before it was too late? Police who'd been to the premises before claimed she was a 'slob' and would incessantly be either on the Internet or watching TV, leaving the baby to its own devices and the house reeked of urine and she seemed to care more for her three dogs than her son. Why was such a woman allowed to raise a child? If she did not want a child, why didn't she just abort it or give it up for adoption? I mean, it isn't as though she feared social stigma, was it? How does the earth breed idiots like this? Why am I blogging about something that happened two years ago?

This is why safe sex should be advised Mr. Joseph Ratzinger. This is why abortion shouldn't be illegal, Mr. Conservative (a lot of politicians I hate on that list so can't name them all here). This is why morons shouldn't be allowed to have babies. Sure, kids aren't the most loveable things on earth but if you must have them give them a life of dignity. In a way, I'm glad that kid died when he did. I'd hate to see what all that violence would have made him grow up to be.

One Last Cuppa Before I Go

View from the Window of the Office Lobby

There are a lot of things I'm going to miss about this place when I finally leave it. Tea breaks and lunches and dinners out downstairs with R, for one thing. Forever having to implore her to wait if any managers were around, or begging her to let us have lunch anywhere except Saravana Bhavan. 

Odious food at the canteen alleviated by the presence of Gupta's north indian food stall. And now the new biryani guy. 

Horrible scanner that never worked when anyone really needed it; like during the peak season. 

Endless ways to fritter away your salary by visiting the neighbouring mall; despite the incessant power cuts.

Learning how to beat down my ego so that it'd fit into my pocket where I could hide it away from my managers. 

Learning that not all friends are good friends, and how to tell the difference.

Being forced not to speak my mind because dumb people talk louder and it's only the loudest voice that's ever heard.

All in all, this company helped me grow professionally. By that I mean that I have ceased to struggle. I have become truly corporatised. The end has just begun.

Seen at Spencer's

Uhm... I'll try?

With All Due Respect

They'd crept up on me from behind. By the time they were upon me, it was too late to run, or hide. They pounced upon me and opened their mouth: "Priloza, we'd like you to do us a little favour..."

"But" I told them, my heart beating rapidly and my mind racing fast for excuses, "but my work here is done; it's time for me to leave, I've been here for twelve hours already!"

"Oh" they said, ingratiatingly,"but you know we can't ask anyone else. If we asked Sandi she'd yell at us and when we asked Yosef he gave us a piece of his mind. One must always respect the disrespectful, did you not know?"

"Alright, but what does any of this have to do with me?" I said, my brow beginning to furrow.

"You are of manner mild and ineffectual. What you say is of no consequence. You are the ideal workhorse. We'd say work donkey but we have been instructed that we are to boost employee morale. You must therefore yield to our demands, as you always do, and do far more work than we will ever pay you for."

"But..." I tried, helplessly.

"You aren't going to, refuse us, are you?" they asked, in a manner that seemed a touch threatening, or maybe it was only my fancy.

"No, of course not, I just--"

"Good then, you may complete this in an hour's time. Now get on with your work."

Saying this, the two-headed manager demon stalked off back to their chamber.

A Catful of Sorrows

And the lord said unto me: I shall smite thee for thou hast not kept My Will. For thou hast coveted thy neighbour's boyfriend and hath borne false witness against thy manager.
Then I said unto the lord: Have mercy on me, oh lord. I know that I have sinned against you. Let me appease you oh great saviour of us all. What penance should I do to atone for my sins?
Then the lord said unto me: Now you're talking! For thy penance thou shalt live with cats! Bwahahahaha!
And so it came to pass that I was accursed with two mewling kittens, brought home by my roommate. The trouble with cats is that they bite and scratch. To put a finer point on that: they bite and scratch me. I have a history of being bitten and/or scratched by various cats down the years that weren't even my pets. If that wasn't painful enough, the ensuing precautionary injection certainly was. Maybe they hate that I'm a doglover. I dunno. That led to my subsequent hatred for all cats and my letting any neighbouring dog loose on any neighbouring cat I see. I know, that's evil. I've sobered down a lot now and have even gone so far as to develop a fondness for my boyfriend's half-blind black tomcat who blessedly doesn't bite or scratch me at all.
In any case, there the little critters are now; crawling all over the house, miaowing for all they're worth, insisting on exploring every nook and cranny of the house and I can't even plonk myself down anywhere for fear I might flatten one of them. Thankfully they seem to have developed toilet manners early enough so that's one worry out of the way.
One must make up for the sins of one's past in one way or another, I guess.