Best Siddhuisms from the World Cup

Beware of the naked man who promises you his shirt.


Stop calling the world dirty and first clean your spectacles.


Great minds have purpose, others have wishes.


You ask the same question to 10 people in India, you will get 20 opinions.


A hair and a hair can make a mare's head go bare.

Best of the lot - Democracy is like a barber's chair. It fits everyone's bottom.

Most humorous -
Siddhu - A pessimist burns his bridges before they are built
Harsha's reply - And an optimist dreams of a bridge and thinks it is there.


P.S. - Here are some old gems from the verbenator.

Beating Mr. Murphy

Warning – ill-logical post ahead.

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If there is one law in the universe that is understood and endured by all, it is the Murphy’s Law. It states that "Anything that can go wrong; will go wrong". Another interpretation of the Law is that “If you expect something to happen, it never will. If you don’t, it definitely will”. For example, if you carry an umbrella with you, it will not rain. If you don’t, it definitely will rain. The internet connection at your home will work perfectly all year, but get screwed up on the day you are working from home. If you are late in reaching office on a single day in the entire year, you will find our boss looking for you at your desk when you arrive. This will not happen on any other day when you are on time.


Every human being is often frustrated by Murphy’s Law. I am no exception. In fact, I have fallen prey to Murphy’s Law so often that I now expect it to strike anytime.  I try to anticipate various eventualities and build contingencies where ever possible. Here are a couple of examples. 
If I have 2 pieces of paper in my pocket, one that has a phone number I am looking for, and another that does not, the mathematical probability of me picking the correct slip of paper from the pocket is 50%. But it is funny how I would almost always pick up the wrong piece of paper from my pocket first. In order to overcome this, I at times pick one piece of paper, drop it, and get the other piece out of my picket. This example applies to many scenarios in real life. 
Another example. I am sure that the day I am low on charge in my cell, I would get an important call while on the road. So, I try to keep a charger handy at all times. But you can never outsmart Mr. Murphy completely. There can always be a day when the charge would be low AND there would be no electricity for me to re-charge AND I would get an urgent call at the same time.


On giving some more thought, I have figured that there are other ways of beating Mr. Murphy. One can use two occurrences of the law to cancel each other out. Here is an example. One of the most general examples of Murphy’s Law is that “If you plan for something, it will not happen. If you don’t, it will”. If you intend to go on a holiday on a specific time of the year and have made bookings and reservations well in advance in order to avoid a last minute rush, Murphy’s Law would indicate that something urgent would come up at the last moment and you would have to cancel the holiday plans. This is one occurrence of Murphy’s Law. This can be countered by applying another occurrence of Murphy’s Law on top of it. If you don’t make any advance arrangements, you will be able to go to the holiday and have to rush like hell at the last minute. Putting both the occurrences together, a way of beating Mr. Murphy emerges. If you really want to go for a holiday, do not make any arrangements in advance. If you do, Mr. Murphy will ensure that you cannot go. If you don’t, Mr. Murphy will ensure that you do go. You will have to endure the pain of making all arrangements at the 11th hour, but at least your bigger objective of going on a holiday would be satisfied.


While on the topic of Murphy’s Laws, another anecdote comes to my mind. A couple of years back, I was involved with projects related to the entertainment industry and was working with various Hollywood studios. In the beginning of the year, I travelled to Los Angeles for a short business trip. On a weekend, I decided to visit one of the famous theme parks. I came to know that my paying a few extra bucks, I could buy an annual pass to the theme park instead of a single day pass. It made sense to me since it was difficult to see all major attractions in a single day. And as I was working for projects in the entertainment industry, I expected to come back to Los Angeles soon for some other project. Hence I guessed that I would always have the opportunity to use the pass again.


By now you would have already guessed what happened next. Mr. Murphy struck. My next project ended up being in the publishing industry and I landed up on the east coast of US. Hence Mr. Murphy had all but ensured that the annual pass was wasted. But this time I was determined to not let Mr. Murphy get the better of me. I went back to the west coast before the year ended, visited the theme park again, and made sure that I utilized my annual pass and saw all the attractions that I missed the first time.

Similarities between IPL and Elections

Both will begin and end together..

Both will be highly entertaining..

Both will contain many controversies..

Both will cause a Media frenzy..

Both will result in record TV ratings..

Both have obscene amounts of money at stake..

Both involve Corporate funding..

Both involve buying and selling of people..

Both have number games..

Both have Bollywood Celebs involved..

Both involve heavy Marketing and Propaganda..

Both their key players will make millions..

Both feed on strong regional allegiances..

Both involve many weird acronyms (KKR, NCP, BJD etc.)..

Both have "foreign" participation..

Both will capture the imagination of the nation..

Both will not change the life of the common man..

Quote Hanger

Here are some of the good quotes I have encountered in the recent past. Some funny, some thought provoking, some both at the same time :-)

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What do you call a beautiful woman on the arm of an ugly man? A tattoo.

It doesn't matter how often a married man changes his job, he still ends up with the same boss.

He that falls in love with himself will have no rivals.

When a man holds a woman's hand before marriage, it is love; after marriage, it is self-defense.

The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on.

You can tell what a man is by what he does when he hasn't anything to do.

You can also tell a man by what he does first when he has a lot to do.

Cricket quote:- Good captaincy is like pornography - it's hard to define but you know it when you see it.

The financial situation at the moment is so bad that women are now marrying for love.

Early to Bed and Early to Rise ,makes your Girl go for another Guy.

Those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.

In order to conserve energy, the light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off.

वक़्त मिलने पे मै तेरी जुल्फ को सुलझा दूंगा, आज उलझा हूँ वक़्त को सुलझाने में!

There are some things man was never meant to know. For everything else, there's Google !!

Life is like a taxi meter. It keeps ticking whether you are getting anywhere or not.

e-breakup !!

They say you learn something new everyday. Here is what I learnt today.

A significant number of young people like to save their girlfriend/boyfriend’s number with the letter “A” in their cell phone address books. They do this not because they want to hide the names from anyone, but because the letter “A” is the easiest to select while typing an SMS !!!

After this incredible revelation, I began wondering what would the consequences of a break-up between two Gen-X love-birds be like? What would the Gen-X equivalents of traditional post break-up activities like tearing apart your ex-fling’s letters, throwing away gifts, and burning his/her photos be like?

Well, here is what I can think of..

- Deleting all e-mails from your ex-love

- Deleting his/her number from the cell phone and e-mail address books

- Deleting Orkut scraps and testimonials from him/her

- Deleting all his /her photos from your PC, cell phone, flickr, picassa etc.

- Deleting all romantic SMSes

If someone with a real-life experience of an e-breakup is reading this post, I request him/her to add to this list, in case I have missed out on any key activity. :-)

Full-tu Fall-tu :-)

1. Why do people always "fall" in love, and not "rise" in it?

2. Why is a toothpaste called a "tooth"paste, and not "teeth"paste?

At Wit's End...

Wit is a rare ability. Some people are born with it, and some are not. It is almost impossible to learn wittiness if you don’t have it in you. Here are two examples from my B-school days, which highlight the fine line between the audacious and the dumb.

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A world renowned CEO of an Indian IT giant, had once graced our annual fest. During one of the informal discussions Mr. CEO was having with the students and alumni, one of our seniors who had passed out from the institute a year back, and was now working with the same IT company, walked up to him and said. “Hi ----, I am ----. Both of us work for the same company.”

The entire room burst out laughing.

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A flamboyant Cabinet Minister had once come to our institute to inaugurate our annual fest. Due to the tight security arrangements, and the truckloads of press reporters around him, students were not allowed into the auditorium where he was giving his speech. Instead, they were accommodated in another hall on the top floor of the same building, and his address was being relayed live there. One of my acquaintances from another B-school had come over to attend the session along with her friends. When I introduced her to one of my batchmates, he remarked, “I hope you enjoy you time here. You won’t get a chance to be on top of a Cabinet Minister too often.”

Something in her expression told us that my batchmate had got the wisecrack dead wrong.

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Patiala Peg !!

The recently concluded Champions Trophy saw Mr. Siddhu at his verbose best once again.
Here are a few gems I managed to pick up from his commodious mouth.

"English team dressing room has a sign-board in front, "Fragile:- Handle with Prayer"."

"A hasty man drinks his tea with a fork."

"Harbhajan can raise a riot in a graveyard."

"A good lather is half the shave."

"It is better to prevent and prepare, rather than repent and repair."

And now for an All-Time-Great Siddhuism...
“An optimist is one who looks at bullshit, and calls it fertilizer”

Such ballistic balderdash from Mr. Siddhu took it's toll on his fellow commentators as well, so much so that even the usually restrained Ian Chappel joined the one-liner bandwagon by saying:-
"A wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse."

Horrendously Horrible !!

This has got to be the worst ad punchline of all times..

Tata Sky –
Isko laga dala.. To life jhinga lala..

"Mooch" ado about nothing !!

I have been living in Hyderabad for the last 6 months.. Most of my commuting time on the over-crowded roads of the city is spent in gazing at monumental south indian movie hoardings, erected on all sides. While I was gazing at one such poster one day, a queer query struck me.

Why do almost all south indian heroes sport mustaches?? And why do none of the Bollywood heroes do so??

The only south India hero without a mustache I can recall is Madhawan (There might be a few others, but the overwhelming majority does have a mustache). While Anil Kapoor, Jackie Shroff, Raj Kapoor and Raj Kumar come to my mind as the only mustached hindi film stars. When Anil Kapoor had just joined Bollywood, someone had even told him, “A mustached man cannot become a Bollywood star!”

I wonder what could be the reason behind this hairy dichotomy??

“Bald”erdash !!

This is the age of women’s liberation. Women have virtually conquered every male bastion. But one field were women can never overtake men is their exclusive right to be Bald. Research says almost 30% of all men become bald by the age of 50. And yet, every balding man spares no effort to hide his “shining glory”. Hair transplant, hair root rejuvenation and other “hair raising” techniques are a multi- million dollar business worldwide. But just as no one has yet been able to find a way to grow grass on the moon, no one has figured out a way to grow hair on a bald head. If anything, all the treatment can only delay the inevitable. At the end of the day, the only thing that can stop hairfall... is the floor!

Many believe that baldness is a sign of intellect. Shakespeare, Gandhi, Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Nehru, Subhash Bose were all bald. On the other hard, Hitler and Saddam weren’t. Shakespeare even went to the extent of saying, “What he hath scanted men in hair, he hath given them in wit.”. Baldness has also been linked with wealth. As the Bengali saying goes, “Tak hole taka hoye”, i.e. “When you grow bald, you grow rich”. But none of these statements can console a man whose hair are disappearing faster than water in the desert. Such a man would always tell you, “a hair in the head is better than two in the comb.”

All said and done, at the end of the day, the bottom line is- “What is under the skull it more important than what is over it”. So folks, today, I declare the creation of a new cult, “BAP”- Bald And Proud!!!

Rendezvous with Death..

The 1st year of engineering is probably one of the most excruciating year’s in a student’s life. Finding an engineering student who has not been “ragged” in his 1st year is about as difficult as findng a house wife who does not watch Ikta Kapoor’s soaps. I was relatively lucky in this respect, and somehow managed to wiggle out of 1st year without being ragged to the same extent as my batchmates. Before I entered college, my brother had challenged me to pass through the 1st year without being slapped by a senior. I somehow managed to achieve this quite remarkable feat. But today, I remember the most mortifying incident of my life, an incident which I would easily make it’s way into any Bollywood pot-boiler, an incident which I am sure to tell my grand children one day.....

It was the that dreaded 1st month of college, when ragging is at it’s grotesque peak. I used to live in Raipur, and commute to my college, which was in Bhilai, by bus. By doing so, I used to violate one of the tenets laid down by the seniors of Raipur, which stated that every fresher from Raipur has to travel by train to Bhilai. And during the train journey, the freshers used to get royally ragged by the seniors. I had decided I wanted none of it. So I traveled alone by bus. But I knew that the day any senior finds out about my blasphemy, I would be taken straight to the guillotine. I needed to be extra careful to make sure that no one sees my getting into, and out of the bus near our college. So, I always took the usual precautions of reaching Bhilai well before college timings, and getting in and out of the bus about a km away from the college gates. But the sinking feeling that I might eventually be caught one day never ceased to be at the back of my mind. And one day, my worst fears came true.

One evening after college, I boarded a bus to Raipur, and nestled into a comfortable window seat. Just about 15 minutes later, a rowdy fellow on a bike began to ride along the road, just in front of my window. After staring in my direction for a short while, he suddenly exploded into the most vulgar slang attack. While riding his bike, and staring in my direction, he began to utter the most obnoxious profanities I have ever heard. I knew it now, this was a rowdy senior from Raipur, who had seen me getting into the bus, and was now hot on my trail, wanting to scare the wits out of me. But I thought that as long as I was inside the bus and he was on the bike, I was not in any physical danger. He would soon veer off and go away.

I was wrong.

Suddenly, the guy accelerated and overtook the bus. Then, most unexpectedly, asked the bus driver to stop. Soon he was rushing into the bus, anger raging in his face. I knew now, that I was done for. It was time for me to say my final prayers. As he charged towards my seat, I knew that I was seconds away from being pummeled into smithereens. My misadventure of disobeying my seniors had gone fatally wrong. The rough had now reached upto the seat before me. And then, looking at the guy sitting an chewing "pan", on the window seat in front of me, shouted at his highest pitch, “You f****** a******, can’t you look once on who is on the road, before spitting through the bus window!!!”

Phew!!! I had come back from the dead! I felt like someone whose death sentence had been cancelled after the firing squad had taken it's aim! It was the luckiest day of my life! I had lived to fight another day.....

The Birthday Bash(ing)

It is with great pain that I sit here to make this post tonight.. Great pain in the butt.. It’s my b’day today.. And in true engineering and b-school tradition, i've just been subjected to the most inhuman attack from behind..... Not that I have any justification for complaining.. I myself have been guilty of perpetrating this heinous offence on many of my friends.. What you give is what you get.. It was my turn to be on the receiving end today.... unfortunately......

I knew beforehand, that I was in for a bump-y ride .. As is it, I have a wiry frame, and don’t have too much cushion on my posterior.. So, had taken all the precautions I could, like wearing 4 undies and a thick jeans, just to soften the impact of the blows somewhat.. But an umbrella can’t help you in a hurricane.. The precautions proved woefully inadequate.. As boot after boot of each batchmate crash-landed on my seat, all i cud do was hope that i somehow manage to save my ass.... literally......

Later, some of my closer friends got a cake for me.. And after the customary cake make-up on the b’day boy’s face, it was time for some photo-ops.. Nikhil, Dutta, Tappu, Medda, Anish, Khanna, Khetan, Ashita, Payal, Sabya.. They were all there..

I am used to sedate b’day celebrations.. Just between family members.. This was the first time that so many people were involved in my b’day.. I wont forget this day in a hurry.. Atleast not as long as i feel the pain whenever I sit :)....

Birthdays come and go.. Life moves on.. These are days which remind you that life does not have a rewind button… Once u cross the landmark, there is no way of going back.. So, you might as well enjoy each second.. This reminds me of the song- “zindagi ke safar mein guzar jate hain jo mukam, woh phir nahi aate, woh phir nahi aate”........