For Part I click here.
For Part II click here.
*** *** ***
1. CCD reactions to espresso
This always happens. Always.
I enter a Cafe Coffee Day (this has absolutely nothing to do with the
quality; availability is the key here) with an insatiable caffeine-deficiency
in my system. I push open the glass door and let the invisible magic fumes
infiltrate my system.
Coffee.
I walk up to the counter. I can see the beans — they're right there
behind the counter, ready to be converted to a liquid state for human
consumption. I patiently wait in the queue as my urge increases. I flash my CCD
membership card (yes, such a thing exists).
"An espresso, please."
"Sir, an espresso comes in a small cup, and is black coffee without
sugar."
MORON, I NEVER ASKED FOR THE DEFINITION. I ASKED FOR THE COITAL COFFEE.
JUST. THE. COFFEE.
PS: Barista is not a lot better, either.
2. The dumpsters
Eating, as we know, is the unsung religion of mankind. Despite Oprah
Winfrey's ignorance, we still enjoy eating with our hands, which is easily
the best medium one can use for Indian food. You can use hands for other
cuisines as well, but I somehow suspect tackling spaghetti with your hands will
not be a good option.
Let us come to the point. This list is more or less confined to
non-vegetarians (yes, I am aware that I am discriminating). Mind you, I have nothing
against vegetarians; how can you be angry at people who go through their lives
with a whopping 20% of their sense organs unused?
Anyway, let us return to our point. With non-vegetarian food comes bones
(of course I am aware that there are boneless versions of every product, but
cooking with the bones on simply tastes better); and for every, every, every
proper meal in a gathering, there exists at least one person who dumps the
bones — fish or flesh — next to his
plate, on the table (or floor).
Vegetarians do the same, but the best they are equipped with is bay
leaves, which are seldom chewed into unrecognisable debris.
Nothing kills my appetite
faster than the dumpsters of the world.
Nothing.
3. Over-familiarness
Direct mail campaigns are a rather cool thing. I have helped prepare gazillions
myself, so I know what it is about.
Gone are the days when they used to arrive at our mailboxes in neat
envelopes. That is history. Now they come in glitzy emails with the option to
download or not download the pictures; the Nehas and Pujas of the world claim
they are waiting for me; KFC never forgets to mention their discounts; and Flipkart
makes it a point to keep me updated about their new launches.
All these are tolerable. Even the über-rich Nigerians.
But.
Over-familiarness
is not. I repeat, not.
I know the
word is not in the dictionary. I just made it up. But it does mean something.
I am
perfectly fine with emails that go “97% discount on Western Digital hard disks.”
[Note: I
made up the number, WD never gives such discounts]
I am,
however, not fine with emails that start off with fake cheery tones: “Hi,
Abhishek! How has your day been? It has been long since you have visited our
site!”
4. Tips and jokes
Let me clear this
once and for all: you do not crack “a jokes”; you crack “a joke”. “Jokes” is
plural for “joke”. It is not a singular. Hence, “a jokes” is grammatically
incorrect, and hence infuriating.
Similarly for “tips”;
you do not pass on “a tips”; it is “a tip”.
[Note: The phrase is more
common in Indian languages than in proper English. “Ami toke ekta tips dichchhi”
is a common Bengali phrase that translates to “let me pass a tips on to you.]
5. Skin and flesh
I have never managed
to figure this out: why do people peel apples before eating them raw?
Apples are generally delicious.
In fact, I would rank them among the tastiest fruits available to mankind, and
certainly the finest of the forbidden fruits; it even has an electronics brand
named after one of its half-eaten brothers.
Apple skins are not
supposed to be discarded. De-pipping makes some sense, but why throw away the layer
of the fruit? Is it not the semi-hard cover, combined with the succulent
interiors that make the fruit so irresistibly delicious?
If you still cannot
have your apple with its peel on, please remove the peel when you’re away from
me. An earnest request.
 |
| As mentioned, credit goes to Barbara W Beacham |
6. Heat! Heat!
Go to a savouries
shop. Ask for your favourite item on display. They ask whether you want it
heated. You agree, somewhat innocently, completely oblivious of what is going
to follow.
Once the telltale ting
happens, they take out the delicious-looking supremo or envelope or internet or
food-item-with-a-different-name-but-tastes-the-same-anyway out from the
microwave oven (and invariably place it on a paper plate already covered in an
ocean of tomato ketchup).
You take the first
bite; and you scald your mouth.
Servers in fast-food
chains (attention: Mongini’s!) over years, decades, centuries, millennia have
failed to realise that when a customer wants his food hot, he wants it a
bit hotter than room temperature, and hot enough to find it tasty.
THE CUSTOMER
DOES NOT WANT TO HAVE A TASTE OF THE SURFACE OF THE SUN; OR OF ANY CELESTIAL
BODY, FOR THAT MATTER.
It’s time
you realise this.
7. Leaving emails unread
This looks
terrible on Gmail. Your friend or colleague (or someone who is both) or anyone
else asks you to sit next to him. He shows you his mailbox. Your eyes automatically
get diverted to the top left corner of the mailbox, where you get to see the
number of unread emails.
A count of five
or six unread emails is absolutely fine. A count of a few hundreds, on the
other hand, gets under my skin. Some people go a step further.
 |
| See? See? SEE? |
Sigh.
8. The toh people
This,
unfortunately, is something strictly Indian, since the word তো or तो is very
difficult to translate. You may get the flavour, though.
The word is supposed
to be pronounced as “to”; however, a few intellectual descendants of Albert
Einstein have decided to use the spelling “toh”, the reason being that there is
a possibility that the reader may confuse it with the English “to”.
For the
uninitiated, the Indian spelling comes is misread as তোঃ or तो:, which is probably the sound made by someone who
stammers and climaxes at the same time. It is certainly not what the intention
with which the word had been mentioned.
9. Hash-tagging to flaunt respect
Hash-tagging,
one of the greatest concepts since sliced bread, has revolutionised the world of
Twitter and other websites of social networking. Hash-tagging looks suave, they
can be flexible, they trend, they demonstrate creativity, and they allow you to
use #, which is oddly reminiscent of Archie Andrews’ hair.
[Question
(mostly to historians): What was the universally accepted greatest concept in
the pre-sliced bread era? This is a genuine question.]
The question is, why would
someone use the hash-tag #respect? What purpose does it serve? Let us see.
Fardeen Khan has won Academy
Awards in nine consecutive years. #respect
What is this supposed to mean? The
purpose of a hash-tag is to catch a trending topic: for example, the hash-tags #FardeenKhan,
#AcademyAwards, or #AcademyAwardRecords can be used in the above tweet, since
people are likely to search with those hash-tags. Nobody will search with
#respect.
The other purpose of hash-tags is
to show off your creativity skills (social networking, after all, is all about
showing off). Let us check an example.
I say “khandani chor hoon, kuchh
to leke jaoonga” to myself when I check-out of a hotel.
#ThingsAndazApnaApnaDoToYou
See what I meant? See? #respect
does not create the awe #ThingsAndazApnaApnaDoToYou does.
In other words, neither does
#respect capture the trend, nor does it look creative or cool. The only purpose
it serves is to make the person look as ridiculous as a a vegetarian meal on
the KFC menu.
10. People who crave for delivery charges
There was a
period when Flipkart used to charge fifty rupees as book delivery charges unless
your order exceeded an amount of Rs 500 (I have been told the numbers have
changed since).
[Note: Now
that you know I am a voracious reader, why don’t you go here and buy
me a book?]
My problem lies elsewhere: once
you know there is free shipping, why will you buy books worth Rs 450 and pay Rs
50 as delivery, instead of getting another book for a hundred rupees (Agatha
Christie books cost a shade over that)? You will be getting a book worth Rs 110
for Rs 60, which is close to a 50% discount!
Instead, people choose to pay the
extra fifty rupees to the shipping companies. This is too terrible to be true: instead
of getting close to a 50% discount on a book, someone is paying the same amount
to Bluedart or First Flight.
If that is not a reason to get
annoyed, I do not know what is.
