B(f)ereted out?

If I'm out of a job this month, it will be because the B has discovered my secret... this blog. The blog that has several posts about the B. And what made me think he knows about the blog? In the meeting today, he asked someone to 'pronounciate'. What are the odds that it was an innocent comment?

If its innocent, then I should object to copyright infringement. I feel rather possessive of the word, having stolen it from a dumb American.

Brevity...

Brief, concise, terse, curt, pithy....
These are words alien to my office. Our meetings are at least three hours long, our conversations are more like speeches - especially when the B is involved. The motto is, never use one word when you can say it in 20. The pinnacle of such piffling, waffling, beating about the bush, extraneous conversation is the lady of nasal talk. She who presides over the second floor. The nasal bong. Every time she opens her mouth to waffle on, the urge to whack her over the head is overwhelming. First there is that irritating, juvenile, trying to be cutesy 16 year-old nasal accent. And then there is the endless spouting of bull. "You know, I saw that and I wondered whether it was right. But we were pressed for time and I wasn't sure so I didn't bother. (Humming sounds). And I think it is a bit of arrogance on our part. We, XXXX, are so sure of ourselves sometimes we just don't think we can do wrong.....,". And it continues in that vein endlessly.

I was trying to waffle too and be un-curt, un-concise, un-brief, un-terse, un-pithy. But I am afraid my attempt pales in comparison to the masters of the art. I am that unhappy soul who is neither terse nor waffly. What to do? We are like that only.

Chilli country girl...

Its midnight and the city is asleep. Well, almost asleep. There are at least 4 people who are awake, crowded into a cosy room, enjoying the last of a series of hallucinogenic plant material. In the middle lies a plate filled with sausages and a dab of pickle - Indian style pickle not those insipid vinegary American pickles. (And this was pickle from the North East. That says it all, doesn't it?)

Everyone respectfully waves the sausage in the vicinity of the pickle and eats. All except one- there is always that one person who has do things differently. And this young person digs into the pickle with gusto, unheeding of the warnings that it is one helluva spicy pickle. Her retort - I am from the land of pickles. I was born in Guntur, home of the largest chilli market in India. We have chilli in our veins....You get the picture.

That was the last piece of conversation from her for half an hour - she was too busy gulping cold beer and water.

Revolutionalising evolution...

I am deeply ashamed. I cannot call myself a student of science any longer. How could I be so unaware? So lost? So caught up in the mundane details of living that I failed to learn that viruses are capable of ratiocination? Reliable sources tell me that viruses have reached the pinnacle of evolution and decided that they had enough of this Darwinian concept (presumably they reached the pinnacle and saw that it was not so good). Therefore, they took the next step of de-evolving. Hmmm.

I am eternally amazed at the fount of knowledge that abides within my workplace.

With love from Almora...

Here are more entries to the signboard database.

Tamil-o-meter...

Furthering the Tamil cause - whatever that may be- babies that are given Tamil names will get a gold ring. But they have to be born in government hospitals.

Wonder who will decide the Tamilness of their names? Next thing is to budget money to draw up a list of 'Tamil' names and then some idiot can get their 15 minutes of fame by objecting to the non inclusion or inclusion of some name. We could even make Tamil named babies a special status group like SC/ST. And all of us Tambrams with Sanskritised names should consider heading to the gazette office and changing our names. Maybe they can give us silver rings for at least having 'Indian' names.

I dub thee...

The cse leddies have a new name, an alias - it is decreed that they shall henceforth be called

Our Ladies of the Phone

You know, like Our Lady of Velankanni or for a more international example - Our Lady of Guadeloupe.

And so they shall be known while they continue their illuminating conversations:

Hello? Hello? HELLO! Poonam talking here. POONAM. HELLO? Can you hear me? HELLO. Who is this? POONAM talking here.

And so on....