Paying for service

I'm so annoyed right now. And this is not the first time I'm annoyed about this. A phone line man (or whatever they're called) showed up at my house because I wanted a parallel connection in the other room for my broadband. It took him all of 2 minutes to connect it but he didn't leave right after. Like the rest of them, he waited scratching his head expecting me to pay him money (call it tips if you want) for doing his job! Isn't that why he is paid a salary? Over that, I have to pat him on his shoulder with a 100 bucks saying "good job"? How ridiculous is this situation? It only reaffirms my belief (after being in India for 2 years now) that there are certain things that cannot be changed. You have to either get with it or else be left crawling up the walls because what you need will not be done.

How sad.

Superstars machi

Finally, there is a cricket league in India! I don't think the players in the league are awesome or anything but at least there is some concept of team marketing, merchandising etc. I guess people here have finally realised the revenue potential from sale of clothes, posters, bands etc. Madras has its own team (of course!), they're called the Chennai Superstars (OF COURSE)! It's Rajni's home after all!

The ads for the Indian Cricket League (ICL) are pretty cool. As biased as I may be, I find the Chennai Superstars ad the funniest . Decide for yourself.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zP1FHNsQgN0 http://youtube.com/watch?v=9LQhWFuKjlY&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=I9Aqj0bVS7Q&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w-FKNqWIk1Q&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=C4AVu85Cmx8&feature=related
http://youtube.com/watch?v=uYl3Kcq188Y

Driv(er)ing me crazy - Part 2

My husband just noticed an error in my earlier entry. He says our count is only upto 8. That's because he would like to exclude one driver that showed up for just 45 minutes - just as long as it took him to clean our car and take us to the store and back. That was more than enough to ask him to leave. Should he be on the list?

Fashion for babies

I love shopping for clothes for my daughter. It's so nice to have access to a wide range of colours, patterns and designs. What I like best is that girls look kinda cute even in boys clothes. A boy baby, on the other hand, has such limited choice. Shorts, pants, overalls - pretty much covers it all. Will a boy in a skirt look cute? (Not talking about Scottish kilts). The only guy who looks hot in a skirt is David Beckham (ok sarong, not skirt per se). What made him wear it? Boredom? Fashionably cool? Just trying one on for the heck of it and got caught on camera? I guess we'll never know the true answer. But that makes me wonder what the future of fashion will be. Will there be metrosexual babies in the future? Will parents of boys be daring enough to dress them in skirts?

After all, someone must have started off the trend to dress girls in boys clothes. Some fashionably cool mum, I'm sure!

Driv(er)ing me crazy!!!!!!

I've been in Hyderabad for more than 2 years now and in that time my driver turnover count has hit 8. My last driver was with us for almost a year which means that in one year, we've had 7 drivers! How absurd is that? Due to the number of jobs available as office cabbies, a lot of these drivers just temp in home jobs and then quit (usually the day after their salary is paid out) without even saying a word. The worst part of it all is that most of them are not even good drivers. They've barely passed their drivers test but drive like Aryton Senna most of the time. And they love to chit chat! How important is it to my life which actor's house I'm passing by or whose poster is plastered on the walls? "Just drive", I want to say but don't want to sound too rude.

I sometimes wish I didn't have to depend on one but with the parking situation the way it is, thats an impossibility. My current driver isn't looking all that great either so I'm guessing by the end of the week the turnover count will hit 9.

Maybe that will turn out to be my lucky number.

Blast from the past

Its awesome to get back in touch with people from the past. Mostly. The time that I graduated from school and college all we had were scrapbooks and slambooks where people wrote comments, their address, phone numbers etc. Like addresses and numbers are permanent! At least here in India, all numbers from 10 years ago are different now.

Anyway, thanks to Orkut first and now, Facebook, I've managed to get back in touch with a lot of friends and acquaintances. After the initial excitement of "Oh, look who I found", you quickly realize that there really isn't much to say beyond the initial pleasanteries because its been way too long. But its still nice to see how people look after so many years, pictures of their families etc. For me, the most surprizing part is finding out the career paths that some have chosen. You sort of picture people as being the same as they were 10 years ago and when you find out how different they actually are, its pretty cool!

Here's to Orkut and Facebook for connecting people all over again.