Random Observations

So seeing how I'm being totally unable to successfully finish off that piece, I've decided not to deny you guys good reading. To that end, I'm bringing out the little postlets I've been storing away for the past two weeks. Here they are:




People need to make up their minds. Seriously. You can't call me 'immature' one day and 'young-at-heart" the next. One's a good thing, the other's not. I don't mind being called either, just not both.

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*sigh* I cannot accurately describe the perils of coming out of the agnostic closet to a hyper-religious mother. I came close to it not so long ago, and it wasn't pretty.

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Indecision sucks. A lot. It's really crappy that people crib about me being childish and noisy, and when I stop being so, complain that I'm too quiet and moody. What do you want, really?

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Mother can't speak in normal tone or at normal volume anymore. I guess 17 years of screaming at 4 and 5 year-olds has taken its toll.

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How to freak out hotel cleaning staff: When you leave your room, leave in the dustbin a sanitary napkin and a condom.

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My brother needs help. He says he has trouble sleeping in our room because it's too hot. He also makes it a point, every night, to turn the fan speed down to 1.

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Drunk driving is fun. Before you all get ballistic on me, I mean getting drunk and playing NFS. Oh, it is so much fun to crash other people's cars on purpose. They honk like frightened little girls!!! *hee hee hee*

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Any arguments about the brilliance of cinema are utterly useless in the face of this one comment: "My singing show is on." That statement is like the thunderclap on the Magnum in CounterStrike. Lethal first shot.

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It's brilliant to hang out (and get mildly drunk) with old, old friends who you don't get to see very often anymore. It's kinda freaky when, based on the duration of your relationship, they start looking to you to define love, though.

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I hate Alexander Graham Bell. Thanks to him, one's attachment to another person is measured purely by the number of times that person is called.

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We are slaves to habit. And our subconsciousness. Like when iced tea is served in a small wine glass with an overly long, obnoxious straw, 8 out of 10 people will drink with the straw when it's infinitely more comfortable to bung it somewhere and drink straight from the glass.

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Here's something you don't want happening to you: You go over to your Creative Director with ads to be approved, tell him that an email awaits him, and he turns to you slowly, saying, "I've got a sinking feeling about this," only to inform you a minute later he was referring to a malfunction in the height control on his chair.

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Who am I?

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It's Festival Time Again!

Seeing how everyone is saying this, it's about time I step out of my self-imposed stupor and wish people.

So here's hoping people had a lovely time with India's greatest celebration of air pollution and child labour!

Clearly, I'm not a festival-sy kind of guy.
Let it also be stated for the record that this frame of mind is brought about only by my thorough dislike of what these festivals now stand for. I'm sure they originally had loftier ideals in mind, but that's clearly not the case anymore.

Just a heads up

So you guys know what to expect, my next post is going to be The Gap - Part III.

This of course, means that those of you who haven't, need to go read The Gap - Part I and The Gap - Part II. Those of you who have, need to go refresh your memory. And those of you who spend your days trolling back and forth in my archives (read my imaginary friends and I), well, chances are you've seen it already, but I was never much of a gambling man, so...

Anyway, will be on real soon.

Seeya then.

Ciao.

Hola Peeps!...umm... er... Again?

I realise the beautiful irony in the fact that my last post stated that I'm back and all that jazz, and that it was a week ago today. Plus, Preeti asked me to post, and that's not the sort of thing one can just ignore.

So, I'm officially apologising for the delay, just been really dashed with work and all that, what with Bunny Singh deciding to move on to greener pastures... Someone's got to take over her workload, and from the looks of it, the CD thinks it should be me, even though Maniak a.k.a. Che a.k.a. Lady Bastard goofs around in office a lot more than I do. Yeah, it all begins with a casual, "Jhayu, do you have about ten minutes to spare?" and the next thing I know, a week later, Team Leads are being yelled at by Business Development people from Singapore for "not knowing that Jhayu has been assigned to XYZ campaign". It would really be rather amusing if it didn't involve my incarceration in the office.

In any case, I've decided that you guys have suffered long and hard enough (so have my page visits), so here's My Random Observation For The Day:

It's really brilliant how perspectives change. A month ago, if you'd have asked me which is the best seat in a BEST bus, without even a remote competitor, I'd have told you it was the second seat from the right (in that image). You get more wind blowing in, more legroom, fewer people cram into that section of the bus... I could go on and on.

Ask me the same question today, and my answer will be, "the sixth window from the left". And again, this is the best seat by a long, long margin. Why? Simple. The seat is optimally placed to get wind blowing from two windows, but ever more importantly, the overhead light is perfectly placed to allow reading. And believe you me, for someone who only really gets to read in the bus on the way home at somewhere close to 10.30 pm everyday, it's pretty important.

I realise this is not a real post. I have started writing one, one of my stabs at 'serious' writing. Yes, Chusks, it's Part III of The Gap. I'll have it out soon. I swear.

In the meantime, here's a fun thing to do. Read this post again with a British accent.

Hola Peeps!

Yes, I am back. Not in full force, as there remains some work to be done on my PC at home, like activating the internet.

First off, a big shout out to the Lady Bastard a.k.a Maniak a.k.a Che for his assistance in resurrecting my ol' faithful.

And now, responses to those lovely people who cared enough about me to comment on my last. To show my gratitude, I shall link every last one of you. Not that that will achieve anything, but hey, it's the thought that counts, right?

@ Preeti.
Tell me you failed. Please tell me you failed.

@ Lady Bastard.
I think the answer is now redundant.

@ Muduu.
Go on. It was very funny. You can say it. And see, my blog, he like you.

@ Still.
've seen Quark Express used on a PC!!!

@ Gina.
You're here? Like, here, here? Or just in India here?

@ Kurtnirvana.
You frigging R. Not even the remotest sense you have of how not to sound like a bot. Couldn't find an even remotely related post?

@ Bunny Singh.
Liar. You're not guilty at all about the fact that I no longer have a year's worth of photographs. Or any of my software. Evil Woman.

@ The Punguin (yeah, originality is a point I need to work on)
Now, now... Why so cynical? There are some lovely men out there. Like me!

@ Over.
Oh, that you would care enough even to want me arrested... *sighs*


So, will be back with a full fledged post soon. Either Jhayu's offline archives (yes, I've been storing them away), or the continuation of the much-abused Goa miniseries.

Till then, Ciao, familia...

Just to let you know - the second.

I've taken a sabbatical from blogger for a bit. This is to let you guys know that that sabbatical is going to get longer. I can only blog from work now because, thanks to Bunny Singh and her desire to have Quark Express, which, like the gentleman that I am, I agreed to download for her, my PC at home no longer registers a C:/ drive.

Yes, that means my PC is rather royally jacked. Add to that how little time I've been spending at work (he he he, that was a funny), and the end result is that it's going to be some time before I get anything new and interesting up here.

Waah.

Now THAT's What You Call A Job.

What should I think of my work, if in the line of duty (so to speak), I've had the office server IP address blocked by Gmail?

Yeah, that means no one in my office can open a new gmail account while at work, 'cos the shared IP address is suspected of spamming.

Hey, I was on official work.

Waaaaaah!!!

I so chose the wrong day to be sleepy and hung over. My neck hurts. My head hurts. *Coldplay album title* happening. Dammit.

Note to self. You're a noob. No more drinking till 2.




Yeah, get used to these postlets. April Jhayu is back.
Points for guessing the album title. Bunny Singh, Kurtnirvana excluded.

Goa Update 3: My Roman Holiday

Required reading: At least, Lady Bastard's Part 2 of Part 3. If you're in the mood for more reading, then My Goa Update 2 as well.

So after that wonderful session with Sanjay Khare, which in turn was after that absolutely lovely session on branding with our CEO, they decided we've had enough lovely sessions for the day (I'm pretending that whole fiasco of overshooting our budget 3999 times didn't happen). And so, we were lugged in for the briefing on our Roman Holiday.

Now when we were being given the instructions, one guy in our team (our vice-captain) got all excited, and kept telling us to chill, and he'd tell us why he was getting so hyper and all that. When instruction time was over, we were shown our materials and he practically started hopping on one spot, singing, "Haan, we did this last year, no problem!" and "Ours was the winning design, the OE last year had told us that this is the optimum design!"

So with that kind of optimism brimming in the team, we charged into the game, all ready to win and crush our opponents like little bugs, slit their stomachs, ride over them in our charriots resplendent with the colours of war... er... sorry. Too much Percy Jackson for me (even though that's Greek mytho, same Gods, so big shit.) Anyhoo. So with all that confidence, we moved into the game, and the Vice-captain and I entered the arena to work on our machine. I was given a razor and told to get started on some cuts to be made on two bamboo sticks. Working industriously, I did so. Eventually, those cuts were not used. Heck, a lot of shit started to fall apart for us, with my eventual role as a stick holder, keeping one end of a stick in place with my foot while he did all the work. Not that I minded, I think I was just ruining things.

Anyhoo, ten minutes outside of time, we had a contraption that my vice-captain declared ready for use, but not one he'd be proud of. And so, without so much as a test run (I mention this because the team was damn kicked about it), we carried the contraption off to the playing field to see how it would fare. There was a nice list of criteria that had to be met by the design, including such points as:

1. It must be free standing.
2. It must be self propelled.
   
3. It must not fall flat when you fire it causing your eternal embarrassment.

Okay, so I made up the third one. But yeah, there were eight or nine such conditions. Once we were satisfied that we were meeting all the conditions stipulated, we got ready. We had to make a best of three runs and try to get as much distance as possible, so we set it up with great apprehension. We pulled back the sling, set the trigger, and nervously prepared ourselves for the shot.

With a silent prayer, our brave VC pulled the trigger. With bated breath, we watched the tension in the elastic rubber bands set the ball in motion, as it was flung out of our contraption. Soaring through the air for what seemed in the little universes in our minds like minutes, it traversed the space-time continuum to land at a spot a fair distance away from us. In unison, the entire team began to rise, looking at each other with congratulatory and somewhat conspiratorial expressions, cheering ourselves. We were just about to start some natural, unrehearsed, primal dance of joy to make other teams jealous of us when we heard the magical word uttered by our OE.

FOUL!!!!!!

Suddenly, the world of slow motion ceased to be. The dramatic lights and the Chariots of Fire theme in the background faded. The wheel rolled off our mighty chariot, the leading jockey fell off the horse, the model tripped on the runway halfway through her pout, the broadway star forgot his line, the VC and I almost collapsed onto our contraption. Together, we turned incedulously to our OE and said (still in unison, yeah, we were a pretty together team), "WHAT????" "Foul," he calmly repeated. "Your VC's foot was on that end of the catapult. The rules clearly state that the catapult must be free-standing." Of course, most of us had stopped listening long ago, angry and frustrated at (my best guess is) having given no input on this event whatsoever. Nonetheless, grudgingly, we resolved to make our remaining attempts.

Grumbling, and with sound and utterly unnecessary, unhelpful advice (yes, you know the type, everyone's got it at some point in their life) from our teammates (such pearls as,"Now be careful, haan? Don't put your foot there, okay?"), we set up our machine for the next throw. Two throws went without incident, and the best of two measurement came to a crushing 15.8 feet. To me, it looked more like 6 or 7, but heck, who am I to argue? We got the necessary bonus points, and somewhat pleased with our performance, headed out to dinner.

Dinner was (and I remember this for a reason, which you will all see soon) chinese food. Schezwan rice, some type of noodles, and a gravy dish I didn't venture near. As I ate the noodles, I realised I was eating some form of aperetif for starving bulimics. Moving on to the healthy serving of rice, I arrived at the positive conclusion that it was badly disguised pulao from the previous day (this is why I remember). Luckily I was saved from having to eat it by our then Director, now VP, let's call him Rat-a-tat-tat (because when he talks, it's like tommy gun fire) who, wrapped in a shawl, without footwear, and sporting a staff, asked me to make arrangements for a device usually accompanied by several drunk people.

What it was, why it was needed and what was done with it, will be made amply clear another day.

Just to let people know

I've got more posts in my head right now than I can get out here. Nonetheless, jotting down is happening to see if I can put them out later.

Welcome to the Adblog: Append to Goa Update 2

By popular demand (read Still's asking and Che's taunting), I'm including a taste of the ads that were shown by Mr. Sanjay Khare at our post-lunch session.

He showed us more campaigns than I can bring out here, so I'll highlight the most prominent one. The Economist.

Their print ads were powerfully visual, and ridiculously simple in their message.

This is possibly their most famous ad, beginning a trend that they carried long and far.


The red and white became a symbol of the Economist, a theme they used very successfully. And the copy continued to be cheeky, as you can see.




Here are some examples in other media.






The campaign was so successful, other companies started to ride piggy-back on it; I think this one image tells the story rather well (click on it and see it in full resolution, it's worth it) .


The red rectangle went on to become so well known, that the Economist entered a new phase in their advertising. The name was no longer needed to know who the ad was for, as you can see here.


Finally, after a very long time, they've decided it's time to move on, so they've started an entirely new campaign. I'm not going into that, but I will link it. If you want, go check it out.

Still, I hope you're happy. And that you've learnt your lesson.

Goa Update 2: *nudge nudge* WAKE UP!

Soory about the delay. Week's been crazy. Anyway.

Recommended reading: My Goa Update, Lady Bastard's Part 3. Oh, yeah, make this an announcement, too. Maniak shall henceforth be referred to, by his own volition, as Lady Bastard.



But yeah, that's how it began. See, there were points for punctuality on this damned trip, and we were supposed to report at 6.30. So when one of my roomies (probably the one responsible for the bathroom door locked from inside) woke me up and had me look at my watch, I felt not sligtly un-pissed that it was closing on 6.38 am.

Thankfully my friends had been kind enough to at least call room service when they woke up, and gotten that damn door unlocked. So with a hurried brush of the teeth et al, I too found myself in a circle of P******mers some 60 odd strong, standing on one leg and roating my arms or some such nonsense. Yawning, grumbling and jumping in the air screaming, "SKY!!!!" we finished the exercises only to be led off by our respective OEs to learn that compasses were not just cool things to have on your wrist strap. After acing the knot test that came thereafter, my only intention was to fill up on caffeine and grub.

At the CEO's presentation, we had the task of making a brand of jeans and positioning it in the market. After much haphazard discussion with my team, we decided to make a brand of jeans for those not able to buy expensive clothing, but who wanted to be in fashion. Yeah, the real Indian urban youth that has an aspiration to be somewhere and whatnot. So, we made a brand of jeans called iDENTITi, cheap, yet stylish, so that people would stop buying knockoffs at Fashion Street that fall apart in two days. Yes, you read that right. Our competition was knockoffs. Possibly not the wisest thing to have done, in retrospect. Whatever. Moving on.

Post lunch, I had the distinct impression that I was going to fall asleep in the session. I was proven wrong by one Mr. Sanjay Khare, a prominent art director. This is a major point Mr. Drunkenness left out, because he doesn't remember the BRILLIANT visuals on the ads that were shown. I was wide awake through the whole exercise. The project after that, of course was a different story. We had to draw a campaign for the hotel we were staying at. Draw. Now, I kid you not (my family will attest to this, if ever you get a chance to ask them), my art skills are so bad, that when I draw Santa Claus in Pictionary, the first few guesses include 'chinese burglar', 'bum', 'vagrant' and 'ragpicker'. Anyhoo, we settled on an image of a beach (which we so weren't able to draw) with a table and beach chair under those gigantic umbrellas with a line saying, "Because an open mind needs an open space, Suncity Resort, Baga."

The final session for the day was on the financial aspect of the company. Woo the hoo! My Bachelors classes all over again. I could faintly recall having sat in lectures where these concepts had been explained before. Yummy. Maybe we'd do well at this! So when we were given Euro 2,50,000 to make a plan for massage chairs, we drew up a financial statement where our expenditure in Year one was Euro 1 bn. Needless to say, our presentation crashed and burned, but heck, we got points for trying.

I'll pick up on the Roman soon. I'm guessing if you've been to Lady Bastard's blog, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Goa Update 2

Maniak's put up the next installment of the Goa Miniseries. Go check it out. Yet again, he's been thoroughly inadequate on the details, and remembers jacksquat, so I'll have to fill in again. That'll happen tomorrow, mostly.

This Is NOT A Religiously Intolerant Post.

For those of us in the Indian context, especially from what I've seen in Mumbai, ask yourselves this. How many beggars have you seen saying, "Yah Allah!" and how many saying, "Bhagwaan ke naam pe de de"? In my experience, as much as 90% belong to the former.

Let's get things straight here. I'm not saying that Mulsims are more likely to be beggars than Hindus, or any such rot. I'm not a religious fundamentalist. Fuck it, I'm agnostic, with a deep sense of respect for other people's faiths and beliefs. All I'm saying is that of the beggars I've seen, most tend to appeal to Islamic sensibilites.

Personally, I put this down not to a matter of faith, but of optimisation. I've read somewhere (my readers are more than welcome to correct me if I'm wrong about this) that a follower of Islam must, by his faith, feed a hungry man. Holding that statement as accurate, conceptually speaking, that increases the prospects of a beggar, especially in a heavily multicultural city like Mumbai.

Damn. I see marketing wherever the hell I go. Sheet!

Completely tangentially, if you're agnostic or an atheist, you might enjoy this, and this, the original letter (you'll get it if you follow the link). I know I did.

Goa Update: I Was NOT Tempted.

There you are, folks! As promised, Maniak has decided to be thoroughly useless by being sketchy on the details, possibly because of his alcohol induced stupor, so I'm going to have to take over and oblige you with more than you could ever imagine. Plus, he only talks about himself, so I'll have to do the talking 'bout me part.

Before you read any further, I'd recommend reading Part I, Part II and PartII of Part II (especially this one if you're not big on a lot of reading, in which case, I'm wondering why you're still here) of Maniak's miniseries to help you with a frame of reference. I'll wait. Also, I'd prefer if you opened in a new tab and didn't go away leaving me all alone.

Che, you owe me for this. Four links in the same post. Damn.

Back? So, yeah, if you went to Part II, and are wondering, no, I'm not going to plug my ad unless the good people ask for it. How completely shameless of me. Anyhoo. Moving on.

Coolness. So you know what we're talking about.

Now when our Outbound Expert (OE) was explaining this thingie to us, I got the distinct impression we were going to have to do this for real. I had visions of me bravely balancing on a plank trying to get across a sea of acid (yeah, my OE said acid, Maniak's said lava) and swinging nimbly from tree trunk to branch to safety. All those visions were shattered when we saw where this was happening. On a concrete floor. That was probably made to be a volleyball/beachball court of some torturous sort.

Now our stint at Temptation Crossing came after about an hour of waiting for 6 of the other 11 teams to finish. We'd been watching teams like Maniak's doing their thing, finding their own way across, and decided that we need a major team meeting to decide on strategy. At said meeting, we determined that immunity is a vital thing for life in general, and that as many of us as possible should try to attain it. When we started out to do it, however, that equation chaged drastically.

We realised that what we'd been pointing at and saying, "He shouldn't do that, he should do this!" wasn't remotely as easy as it looked. Nevertheless, it became my job to get across the first stage, come back, and now happily immune, help every last one of my team members across. Believe me, bending to pick up tiles, walking around a person, and placing them back on the ground, only to repeat it several times so the person may proceed, is not a fun thing to do. Especially if you like your thighs and calves not to burn. While I was screwing my legs over for the rest of the week thus, two of my teammates who I had already taken to Checkpoint One moved on through the second phase. By the time I was done getting the last team member across the first stage, they had returned to Checkpoint One, earning them immunity there.

And then the great carrying began. I was lifted bodily (and rather effortlessly) and taken to checkpoint 2 before I even knew what was happening, while the rest of my team strategised how to get everyone else across, seeing how I'm an featherweight and everyone else isn't. Eventually, the two warriors decided, to hell with it. We can carry anyone. And so, while I broke into stage three, they carried every single person to Checkpoint Two.

Stage three was pretty simple. Jump from circle on the ground to circle on the ground slightly further away. Then walk on the kind of beam you'd have trouble keeping a nail balanced on. Then do the whole jumpy thingie again, with an even greater distance. Oh wait, that's just one way. I had to do it again. In reverse. Unsurprisingly, seeing how this is pretty much how I spent the first fifteen years of my life, I managed it rather easily, if I may say so myself, and was received with much amusement and amazement back at Checkpoint Two. After helping one of the macho men across and back, we proceeded to carry most of the team across this stage too. Our team captain, however, refused to have this happen, claiming there wasn't a chance in the world that we'd be able to carry her. Jumping wasn't a strong suit either. So we went with the next best alternative. They said you couldn't step in the acid. They never said anything about immune feet on the acid. So the vice-captain and I offered our feet, on which, apologising profusely, out team captain trod one by one, getting across to the other side. We got like the second best time! Woo the hoo!

Anyway, after an activity like that, with thighs still not feeling the sting, I still wanted to stay at the resort. And then along comes Maniak with the Bunny Singh, all chirpy about stepping out of the resort to go have dinner out. I was initially resistant, but the simple arguments of 'good seafood' and 'cheap alcohol' won me over. When we got to the place that sounded a lot like Burrito, Maniak introduced me to an old friend of his, an acquaintance of mine, a rather elderly abbot. Thereafter, Kurtnirvana (who shall from this day forth be called Chinti, Charlie, Chiqita, or anything else I may make up) showed up with Linti, who was for the day, a vegetarian and so missed out on the *stares wistfully at ceiling* Calamari in Butter Garlic Sauce and the Goan Pork Chilly Sausages.

A little later, more guys from P******m decided to come to the same place, and a rather bright chap decided to buy me another friar. Having a couple of the neophytes, I was a little bit unsteady on my feet (though not as much as on the last day, we'll get to that someday), but the lot of us still set out to the beach next to the restaurant. Here, I promptly threw myself onto the sand, staring at the sky postulating the universe as an entity. Maniak will disagree. After spending a few hours here, we decided to head back to the resort, maybe catch some sleep.

Of course, once we got there, those plans changed. A bunch of people were generally chilling by the pool, but apparently decided that they needed to cool off further. So one by one, P******mers were rather unceremoniously introduced to Mr. Pool. Now, being prone to pneumonia, I decided the safe, and rather wussy course of action would be to run up to my room and hide. But, in true Maniak style, I decided WTF, let's just do this. Seeing three people wading out of the pool and heading menacingly towards me in an effort to reinforce that decision, I hastily removed all valuables from my person, and running in a much more effective circle (my attackers were hampered by the fact that they were sopping wet), I jumped rather ungracefully and ceremoniously into the pool.

At around 2.30, when I decided that I've cheated death (read fever) enough, I stepped out of the pool, collected my things and headed back to my room, realising that my roommates were perhaps long asleep. I weighed the pros and cons of going back and staying in the pool till they woke up, but finally, with a heavy heart and shivering fingers, I just rang the bell till one of them woke. Does the story end here? Of course not! You wanted details, remember?

Now, when one has just thrown oneself into a swimming pool with all of one's clothes on, the first thing one wants to do when one gets to one's room is to sneak into the bathroom, extricate oneself from said items of clothing and dry oneself off. But of course, the fates must conspire! My bathroom door was locked. From the inside. When both my roomies were outside. Leaving this mystery to be solved another day, I salvaged what pride I had left by changing and drying off in the dark.

Stories from the morning onwards will appear in time.

I thank you for your patience, if you made it this far.