Long live our education system.

There’s a lot of difference between reading a novel and an article in Economic Times. “What’s the similarity?” You might ask- I don’t know, but there are lots of differences. I can turn the pages of a novel really fast and impress the chick opposite, if any that is, and still not feel guilty of pretending. If the novel happens to be a Sidney Sheldon, your job only becomes easy- you know the story already!

I was confronted with jargons like “equity market”, “VAT”, “Capital returns” and I found it guilty to assume meanings -Equity sounds like Kitty, so it must be a market that sells pussies, cats I mean. VAT is it VAT 69? Does that ring bells with you?

I therefore called my friend, a commerce graduate, to clear my doubts. The following is what he had to say.

“Equity is like a hmmm…sort of you know what I mean, it’s a kind of a ..And
hey can I call you later? Someone is at the door.”

..And someone said this for VAT –

“VAT helps the government a lot. It has been implemented in a lot of
countries world wide. It helps avoid black money.”

That’s the sort of reply you expect out of a politician, not from a student of economics!
Having successfully tarnished them, what would I say if a plebeian wanted to know what a microprocessor is?

“It’s a kind of electronic device which helps us to do a lot of stuff in your
computer. its made up of lots of electronic circuits.. hey are you free this
evening? Let’s play cricket.”

Isn’t it a case of the pot calling the kettle black? Long live our education system.

The three phases

There are three phases to any role that’s played in a bollywood movie; the rules are made especially stringent if it’s an Akshay Kumar starrer. Here are a few samples.

a. The mother
#1 The caring mother (until her Police officer husband is shot by the villains)
#2 The hardworking widow (after his death)
#3 Photo on the wall.


b. The beautiful sister

#1 The playful chirpy girl.
#2 Falls in love with a bad guy.
#3 Raped and killed (usually the lengthiest scene in the movie).


c. The Heroine

#1 A Social worker/college student.
#2 Falls in love with the hero (charachterised by songs at unwanted times).
#3 Marries the hero (in case of availability of another heroine, refer b.#3)


...and the formula continues to create sensational hits.

Private companies - real good service.

But for the sweet voice of a chick at the other end, I wouldn’t have called the customer service again. I was to prepare notes for my lecture that day and off went my cable modem. The cute female (she must be) at the other end, whose voice flowed down live a river with flamboyant English assured me of service within 3 hours. I waited like Bashmasura who got seduced by mohini avatar. The asura at least danced with mohini before he was killed but I sat in my dingy room waiting for some help to come; none came.

Whoever feels that the private companies offer a better service hasn’t understood the definition properly. Employing a preposterous woman in the customer service centre does not solve any problem. It adds to the woes!

It hurts, as a computer engineer, to listen to ‘suggestions’ like

a. “Turn off and then turn on your system” (to repair a modem!!!)

b. “Click on the button called the start button at the left hand bottom corner…”

c. “You see, the computer might be affected by something called viruses” (a bigger plural?)

d. “…go to run and type “c:\”, do you want me to spell it?”

e. “Yes. I know you need to check your email, you can do it in a place called browsing centre near your house.”