Really Geico? So That is your definition of a Caveman?

Well, you all know the Spiel. Geico airs the ad showing that getting auto insurance from Geico is so easy that even a caveman can do it. It is such a hit, their next series of ads show cavemen getting all offended about how they are portrayed on TV.

Funny. Cute. Intelligent.And Geico gains a lot of customers.

 But not me, Geico, not me. I knowingly refuse to submit to your innovative and humorous ads. Want to know why? Well, it is simple really - look at your depiction of a caveman and then travel around the world. It's that easy.

Still not getting it? Ok, let me explain. What is your definition of a caveman? An ordinary bloke, probably with a decent job and a happy life, living in the modern world with just a minor, off putting  detail. And what is it that makes him a caveman? Hair, and lots of it. Let me tell you something - there are parts of the world where there are men who do have lots of hair - not just on the head, on their bodies and face. Mostly they are of Arabic or South Asian descent. I happen to be the in latter category.

When I grew up, chest hair used to be the sign of a real man. As a teenager, I watched each hair follicle grow into a sign of manhood like a gardener watching his garden flourish. I couldn't wait until I could flaunt it all and woo all the beautiful girls waiting to get a glimpse of it. That is, until "Nair for Men" and  "Six pack Abs" became the new normal. So as things would turn out, I missed the train by a couple of years  and that slight shift in trend morphed my fountain of youth into a malfunctioning shower head. Thanks, fashion trends, and good riddance.

So now I am in my late thirties, wearing turtle necks in the sweltering summer (that's right - its like the border fence trying to block all the illegal aliens - in this case, the body hair trying to catch a glimpse of sunlight)  and out you come with this ad to remind me that I am not evolved much from the ape and that I am as close to a caveman that you can get.

No GEICO, I will not sell my dignity even if that means I get 15% or more off of my car insurance by spending 15 minutes.NO WAY.

For 20%, I am willing to talk.

Picture Courtesy: http://pinstripebindi.wordpress.com

It's all Relative!

"All this began after we moved into this god forsaken house", he shouted as he slammed the door behind him. "So now you are blaming our son's illness on the house too?" She responded with the highest pitch she could manage though she knew he wouldn't hear it.

As she sat down next to her bedridden son, she broke down to tears, covering her face and hushing her voice so her son would not wake up. She was always the ambitious one in the family - dreaming higher, getting the man of her dreams, then pursuing him to buy the house of her dreams and finally pursuing a career of her dreams. Then as fate would have it, things broke down soon after her son fell terminally ill. She started to question all her decisions in life and asking herself - "What is the point in all of this? Why am I so overworked to get to my reserved place in society?" As she pondered over life's bigger questions, she gazed out the window and saw a woman with two kids outside the gate looking at her house.

"Mom, I want a house like that. Then  Kayla and I could have birthday parties and we could play in the backyard and also have our friends over!". "I wish I had a house like that", said Kayla.  "Well, I wish we had a house like that too kids, but with your dad being laid off and mom not being able to get a promotion, we will have to be satisfied with the apartment we have. Well, I guess we will never be lucky as the people who live in this house. OK, let's go to the park." "Yay", the kids said in unison and ran across the street to get to the park.

PERSPECTIVE MATTERS. Have you put your problems into perspective lately?


Image courtesy : http://www.hypebeast.com

Inspiration is a chain reaction

It is a universally known fact that money is always tight for a college student. (Well, at least for the majority of us). During my college days, things were no different. For the purposes of full disclosure, I have to add that my mom did send me money, but when you add the Total Cost of Living (including costs of booze, other guilty pleasures etc.), the liabilities easily outweigh assets.

It was at one of those dinners with a shoe string budget that I bore witness to a random act which would have a profound impact later in my life (though I did not realize it at the time).  It was a warm night in Chennai (Madras at the time) and I was heading for dinner towards a street stand close to where we lived. During the short walk, I was carefully calculating the amount of food I could have for the meager amount of money I was carrying with me (And all of you wonder how Asians end up better at Math!). By the time I reached there, I had a pretty good idea of what and how much I will be ordering. While I was munching down my share of street delicacies, I saw a man (who had more than his share of alcohol) walking up to the person next to me. The person next to me definitely looked like he had a job (since he had a motorcycle and was dressed decently) and was sitting on his motorcycle and slowly chowing down his dinner. The drunk then asked him  - "Can I have some money so I can eat something? I am starved!". The other man seemed to be repulsed by the smell and demeanor and quickly moved backwards, then shook his head, gesturing a firm 'No'. The street vendor shouted - "Get the hell out; don't disturb my customers!". The drunk clearly knew a "No" when he saw it as he walked away slowly and sat down on the pavement a couple of meters away from me.His head hung low, either from shame or more likely, from the effects the alcohol had on his brain.

Like a wave washing away scriptures on sand, I could see that the man on the motorcycle being overpowered by a wave of sympathy and regret washing away his earlier feelings of repulsion. He turned to the drunk and said - "Ok, come and get whatever you want to eat; I will take care of the bill!". He must have known that I was watching all of this, so he quickly turned to me and said, "I know if I give him money he will spend it on booze, this way he will at least eat to ward off his hangover."

The gesture had an impact on me enough that I stopped eating and nodded my head in agreement. I also managed a smile in between all the other thoughts that were in my head. But later on in life, this inspired me to make giving a part of my life and whenever I did that I also made sure that it went to the source rather than an agency or upfront admin - of course, it means more work, but also much more rewarding.

So the next time you get a chance, indulge in a random act of kindness. You never know who you might inspire and how much of a chain reaction that triggers.

Image courtesy : www.clamlynch.com/blog/2005/06/

Waking up.

My head is heavy, eyes red and my vision - a little hazy. Such are the after effects of deep slumber. Sorry for the absence from this space. It was not intentional and and I was not wasting time - I got diverted into other projects and also spent more time with what makes me tick. All I am is a clockface - my kids and better half are the 3 hands on it that keep me ticking.

Meanwhile, thanks for all the queries asking if I was doing OK and when would this hibernation end? When people look at this space and do not find anything new, I do believe that I have done a disservice to them. Time is scarce for me, so why would it be different for other folks searching random blogs in the interwebs?

Right now, my mind is like a cluttered desk - random notes scattered everywhere and completely unorganized. I need to clean it up, get a pen and sit my big, lazy ass down to write. All while keeping in mind that I am but, a mere blogger with minimal impact on the world. But write I should, for the biggest impact it makes, is on me.

Now if you will excuse me while I go wash my face.

Acceptance Speech

Then we kissed. Lips, tongue, saliva and all.

I reveled in the moment, then let go of the presenter and moved closer to the microphone. "Ah, thank you all, thank you! I never thought I would win. Really!. Thanks to all of the other entries that were not as funny as mine. I am truly humbled - and oh let me not forget I would also like to thank all the little people."

You may be asking - "What baloney? You won something? Impossible!" to which my reply is "Yes, I did win something, but the description above is just a fabric of my imagination :)". Yes, I would have loved to have a stage and an audience and a podium for my acceptance stage, but for this time I had to do with a winner email.

What did I win? How did I win it? You will find all the answers here -

http://www.crunchgear.com/2010/04/19/celebrate-ooma-purevoice-with-a-free-ooma-telo-handset-and-1-year-of-service/comment-page-3/#comments

Finally my wife agreed that being a pervert (or at least having perverted thoughts) pays - and you get paid in voip phone sets and minutes. Well, may be my love of voluptuous women helped too (you have to agree that Salma Hayek is as good as they come; and no, agreeing doesn't make you a pervert!)

And about calling Salma - I am working on first steps - losing about 100 lbs to look like I am starved. Without a global famine and drought, I don't see that happening. Meanwhile, I will appreciate tips on setting up a Voip phone.

See you next awards season!

Image courtesy : www.theonering.net/scrapbook/view/6856

Pause. Reflect. Play.

She quietly opened the door so the noise would not waker her parents and brothers. She then put down her heavy backpack on the living room floor and  tiptoed her way into the sink. She washed her face to remove all the dirt and black stuff that had found its way from the factory floor. It was after a cold shower that she realized she was starving. She never had enough time to eat properly at work. Her parents could not afford to get enough to feed all their kids, so she always ended up with leftovers. After getting her hands on what little food she could get, she sat down and gently massaged her feet which was aching from all that walking at the assembly line. After a while, as she slowly slipped into her bed, she thought to herself - "My manager did seem impressed with my ideas to improve productivity. Hopefully that promotion should come through". She fell asleep knowing that the prospects of her ambition - becoming the VP of her company - were getting better each day.
-=-=-=-=-
Quietly, she opened the door to the kitchen from the garage and cursed as it made a loud squeaking noise. She hoped that the sound had not  woken up her husband and kids. She put down her heavy briefcase on the granite kitchen counter top and tip toed her way to the sink. She quickly washed off all the heavy makeup that seemed to suffocate her pores all day. She was never a fan of too much makeup, but in her corporate world of meetings and high profile clients, she always had to present her best face forward. It was then that hunger pangs struck her, and she proceeded to see what was left over in the fridge. There was plenty of food in the fridge, but her diet only allowed her to snack on the leftover salad. After a short while, she found herself  immersed in her high-end spa, gently massaging her feet to relieve them from the constant harassment they received from her high heeled shoes. She then sipped her favorite red wine and thought to herself - "The board of directors seemed pleased with my plan of growing exponentially through acquisitions - maybe my ambition of becoming CEO is not that far away. After all, there's only a couple of steps from VP to CEO."
-=-=-=-=-

OK, so I am not much of a storyteller, but more often than not in life, the begin and end points of our ambition feels the same - it is the journey to achieve it that gives the kicks. So when you are fast forwarding through life and everything feels automated and mechanical, press pause, take a deep breath, reflect on what you have achieved, enjoy it to the fullest and then proceed to play the rest. Just sayin'.

Image Courtesy : http://trcs.wikispaces.com/Analysis+of+Poems?f=print

Deathwish

"OK, OK, I admit! I do not take life seriously enough. You happy now?" As I slammed the door behind me and walked towards my motorcycle, I murmured - "I wish I wouldn't have to come back to this place again".

I had thought life would be a breeze now that I had finished college and landed a decent programmer job. The money from one job was not enough to fulfill my materialistic splurges, so I was working 3 jobs; on 10 to 5,  6 to 10(pm) and  11 - 2(am!)  time slots. The third job was for a friend, so working and partying went hand in hand. The only glitch in my otherwise smooth rolling life? I was living with mom. I was away from home since high school - for 7 years - until I found a job in my hometown and of course, the oasis of home made food and all chores being taken care of lured me in to stay.

And then, on a perfectly normal Sunday,  a call from my manager interrupted the verbal warfare between me and my mom. You see, Sundays were special since I would be home and it would make a perfect occasion for mom to make me realize how goal-less I have been throughout my life and that I needed to man up to take up big responsibilities. Anyway, my manager wanted me to get to the office to resolve a bug in the software we were supposed to deliver the next day. "See, everyone is just taking advantage of you!, why should you be working on a  Sunday. You just don't realize the seriousness of it."  I could see that  my mom's verbal floodgates were opening - so I grabbed the keys to my motorcycle, shouted those words, slammed the door and left.

The motorcycle's throttle saw all the rage in me. I was zipping past intersections and traffic (which was very light on that Sunday). Helmets were not enforced those days, so I did not bother to wear one. The wind string on my face calmed me down a little bit. At the end of an overpass, I came up behind an ambassador car. I wanted to overtake it, but I could see that the driver was deciding whether to take an illegal turn or not. After a moment or two, he decided (or it seemed to me) to call it off. So, I gave a strong twist to the throttle, bend down with my chest close to the fuel tank to apply aerodynamics, and proceeded to go around the car.

OK, now freeze frame. Pan camera and lift up to a slight aerial shot. Start slow motion.

In a split second, the driver decided to take the turn anyway. It was too late for me to slam on the brakes. My motorcycle hit the car head on as I was screaming at the driver of the car. The impact was huge. I was thrown out of my motorcycle into the air and I flew above the car. The motorcycle having the advantage of being heavy, fell and slid under the car. As I wandered my gaze, I quickly realized I was headed for landing amidst numerous sign posts (all made of iron!). I closed my eyes and prepared myself for the inevitable. I think I even squeezed out a couple of swear words in between.

Stop slow motion. Zoom out of dust rising from the road. Zoom in to show car driver's shell shocked face. Stop narrative.

No, your whole life does not flash in front of you as they show in the movies. It all happened so freaking fast. Like a miracle, I landed right in the area that lay in middle of all the signposts. I landed on my back and therefore the lack of a helmet did not affect me much. I was bleeding profusely, but in the end, it turned out I did not have any broken bones or any serious injuries.

I guess that was the teaser trailer to my desire to have things change drastically.

So the next time you wish for things to change drastically from status quo, think twice. All it takes is a wrong turn for it to come true. That too, from a total stranger.

Photo Courtesy - http://www.electrical-res.com/motorcycle-accident-attorneys/