8. Overheard
Ring. Ringgggg. RRRRRING.
"Hello, this is Ram Shandran speaking ..."
"Ho ho ho, Abhey Sidey, this is Ajay Palvayanteeswaran. So you might as well cut out that American accent"
"Mama Miya, PJ, you sonava gun, how the hell are you ?"
"By the way, don't call me PJ any more. These days people call me AJ or Pal. I am doing fine, of course, and I just talked to Srini"
"Ohhhhhh. That bugger ! What's that bugger up to these days"
"That bugger is now a great debugger. He has already written a software that the FBI, IBM, CIA and AAA are interested in"
"This reminds me of Pondy. That bugger has built an antenna that you plug onto your car and that would transmit all the gaalis you give to the car in front very clearly to the driver in front. And they won't know where it is coming from. There's a solid demand for it in LA area"
"Talking of Gopal, this bugger Gupta ..."
"Which Gupta, Sexy Gupta or the other one"
"I mean the nonsexy Gupta. He is going to quit after his Masters. He is completing his masters in just eight months, a record in our department and he already has 68 job offers. He was always a smart-alec. Remember he would put all our professors to shame. He had 922 scholarship offers. Even here, his advisor is going to quit and become a hamburger flipper"
"You know about this bugger, Chengy, the guy who made his own mobike in Madras from scrap aluminum cans, he bought a car for just two hundred bucks, an old Ferrari. It is giving him about forty miles per gallon and that is within the city. He did some body work on it and now it is worth over thirty grand"
"He must be getting a lot of chicks then. Talking about chicks, this guy Prakash is dating three of the cutest women on campus. In fact, he is so much in demand that he switches off his phone and screens his calls. He took out five different babes just last week, including Tammy Faye Bakker"
"Machi, that's so interesting. By the way, Ranga from Ganga, Ramana from Jamuna and Chandaks from Mandaks are now roommates and they have a deadly stereo system. It is rated at 22000 watts and their CD player even washes dishes and they bought the whole system for only $ 202.99 because the electronics store was restocking goods. Chandaks lagaoed so much fundas the stores manager was hazzaar impressed and gave him the CD player away"
"Wow, talking about bargains, Sam Bansal got a fantastic deal to go home to India. He got it from Air Somalia and he has a stopover at Haiti and Borkina Faso and N. Yemen. His travel dates will be finalized as soon as the rebels reopen the airport. But for three hundred buck round trip, you can't beat it. That guy from Hyderabad, he looks like a waiter in a desi restaurant, I forget his name, yes, Hitler, he went home to India and managed to take with hime five suitcases by doing some golmaal. He had two IBM PCs, a fax machine, three VCRs and a camcorder and managed to walk through the green channel in the customs. By the way, even I am thinking of going home this summer. I want to stop by in some European capital. Can you suggest any cities ?"
"Machi, if you really want something different, maybe you should try Tirana, capital of Albania. I am told they have old world values and they still have bullock carts and stuff"
"Machi, talking about Europe, did you know the German wall has come down? I didn't even know they had one. These Lithania buggers are doing some agitation, shegitation. I hear even the Kashmir buggers are doing some demo shemo"
"What can I say. All these guys in India, they have no work, nothing. They always do things like this. I am tired of listening to these things. You want real news from India, Rekha got married machi. I actually observed a day of mourning and downed a bottle of Scotch. Her hubby looks like the backside of a water buffalo. There you go machi. Only idiots get sexy chicks. You are going to marry a stunner."
"Ha Ha. That Reddy guy used to go around with her. He was going around with everyone in Bombay film world."
"Machi, another news for you. This bugger Rags, he invested two hundred bucks into this small penny stock and that has now mushroomed into half a million bucks, all in pennies. That guy always finds all these good deals. He had MCI and then told the Sprint guys that he will switch over if they gave him a good deal and they gave him a special discount and then he got an AT & T discount also and the bugger uses email anyway. He was on the CBS world news."
"What is this CBS world news Machi ? I don't watch much TV. Only funda shows like Cosby Show and Who's the Boss and Geraldo. And machi, did you hear that deadly song by Janet Jackson ? I've even put it in my plan file"
"Before I forget, you know what this Sandeep bugger did last week. He was giving making a reservation in his name and he had to spell his name out"
"I know what you are going to say. He said 'S as in Subramaniam, A as in Allahabad.. That's an old one"
"No. He said San as in San Francisco and Deep as in opposite of shallow and the female at the other end was hazzar confused."
"Machi, some of these secretary and operator dames are just dumb. Can you believe my advisor's secretary doesn't even know the calculus of variation."
"My boss's secretary doesn't even know where Coimbatore is. Do you read Soc.Culture.Indian machi ?"
"I used to. But now I don't, because it is full of crap notices like this one that some people are reading. Some guy from some univ used to write pages of crap about this high funda psycho bugger, kya naam hai, Freud and there was another guy who would talk about Sankara and Upanishad crap. Who cares machi"
"Machi time up. I have to go to this opera thing with my friend. The songs are kind of lousy, but the subtitles flashed over the stage are great. Its by this fellow, what's his name, they even made a movie shovie about him, I was told, yes Amadeus guy. I will write to you the other details by email"
"I will look forward to it"
"Abhey, can I ask you for a favor ?"
"What Ramchands ?"
"Just for old times sake, I want to call you PJ once. Byyyyyyye PJ"
"Bye Sidey"
DISCLAIMER: Before you send flames or letter bombs, just realize that this is an imaginary conversation. (of course, two pieces were narrated by two friends of mine, who would probably kill me if I quoted them) I feel funny even writing disclaimers like this, but there exist some people who let their lives be dictated by bboard posts.
