bhOndOO-the-geek-goes-toSalsa

Dear all,

Rupesh (CSA, IISc) has created bhOndOO and his friends on his blog. From a long time, I'm an ardent fan of bhOndOO's adventures. bhOndOO in his stories is a simple PhD student in IISc with a lab and lots of friends and is in love with Shami, his labmate. Like all simple PhD students, he can never express his love for Shami but is in constant search of opportunities to impress her. Rupesh's blog is a beautifully written chronicle of bhOndOO's adventures.

Recently, I tried to dress up Rupesh's bhOndOO as bhOndOO-the-geek who works in a
company called Advanced Computing Limited. This is my meek attempt to describe one of his adventures. Hope you enjoy it. This is a story in which he tries to learn Salsa and of course wants to pair up with Shami. But will he be able to cross the obstacles? Read on.

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bhOndOO entered the premises of Advanced Computing Ltd and headed straight for his cubicle in the Performance Analysis section. Like any geek, the first thing he did was to open the mailbox. There were new mails, most of those were technical support forum mails which he never read and the remaining from his Team Lead which he never wanted to read but was forced to do so. Scrolling the mailbox with chagrin he suddenly stumbled upon a non-techie non-geeky word. “Salsa classes beginning from today! First session at 5 p.m.”

He looked at Shami’s cubicle in the HR section. There was no Gullu (Damn him!) floating around her cubicle. It meant Shami hadn’t come so far. bhOndOO calculated that it was his three-hundred-and-ninety-sixth opportunity to impress Shami since he had joined company. Thomas Edison was one of his role models, though the number of 9999 failed attempts sent shivers down his spine.

Quickly bhOndOO went to Youtube, typed salsa and downloaded first five videos logging into a proxy server. He didn’t want today’s opprtunity to go wasted. He started watching the first video. It looked quite easy to him. He quicky grasped that it was a “modulo 8″ beat. Just a simple rhythmic movement of hands and feet… And hands in hands… with Shami… He closed his eyes, put his right hand behind the LCD monitor imagining Shami’s shoulder and held the speaker in the left hand and started moving his feet under the table.

Wham-Bam !!

The intricate mess of wires of speakers, mouse, webcam, monitor and UPS had betrayed bhOndOO. He feared that the monitor on his face could have done irreparable damage to his spectacles which could be absolutely fatal to his salsa plans.

“How did you manage this!!”, he heard Shami’s voice.
“Oh, at least he managed something!”, he heard Gullu’s voice.
With the help of office boy, bhOndOO got disentangled from the web. Meekly smiling, he could say “h..h..hi” to Shami. He tried hard to ignore
somebody-help-this-geek smile on Shami’s face.

“I h.. hear that we are having s.. salsa classes t.. today”, he was yet to recover from the shock of being found in monitor-on-face situation but could manage saying this.
“Oh I know… My boss told me yesterday.. See I am wearing new high-heels today.. How do I look?” Shami asked adjusting a dangling fringe of hairdo. bhOndOO gulped. His best friend in graduate school had told him the geekometer law. According to the law, the attraction between a geek male and a female was directly proportional to non-geekiness-quotient of the female and “How do I look?” question denoted infinity in non-geekiness-quotient. bhOndOO was no exception. With sudden urge, he started grappling with english to find the best word to describe Shami.
“Oh, you look so fabulous!”, Gullu had seized the opportunity. He had to, bhOndOO thought, bhOndOO’s mothertongue being C.
“Awww, you are a so cutie pie!”, Shami slapped Gullu lightly on his cheeks.
bhOndOO always converted his lost chances into learning. He decided to google-search “fabulous” and “cutie-pie”.

“I hear that some interesting conversation is going on!”, bhOndOO heard a gruff voice, which he hated the most, which belonged to his Team Lead.
“Oh yes, just now bhOndOO was demonstrating to us some results he had got!”, Gullu grabbed another opportunity.
bhOndOO cursed Gullu as a “dangling pointer”, he had no new results.
“Ahem, Thats interesting! Let us have a look and”, bhOndOO’s TL stopped short noticing the mess of wires, monitor and mouse behind bhOndOO’s back.
“Ok we will meet tomorrow. I hope this time your simulations would match our analytical results.”
Damn ! So non-stop simulations today till salsa classes! He thanked god for the mess of wires. It had avoided telling hundred-and-sixty-ninth excuse to his boss that he had deleted the plots by mistake.

bhOndOO didn’t have lunch. He wanted to complete simulations as well as look at the videos. He didn’t go to Shami’s cubicle even once. He was all determination now! Let Gullu have his time with Shami till the evening but later it would be me, me and only me. He sniggered.

Linux panel showed 17:00:00. bhOndOO rushed to the company terrace. He was late. The girls had formed inner circle and the boys had formed the outer circle, the pairs were exact, on top of everything Gullu was standing with Shami. With a sudden rush of inspiration, bhOndOO rushed to Gullu’s boss’s cabin, whom he had just seen leaving and gave a missed call on Gullu’s mobile. He saw Gullu making move for the cabin apparently with killing instinct. bhOndOO quickly managed to exit from the cabin, he was expert at this, thanks to seminars in his graduation days and took Gullu’s place. The instructor told him to put his right hand on Shami’s shoulder and hold Shami’s right hand with his left. bhOndOO started shivering. No, I won’t let this opportunity to go, he told himself and pulled himself together in a moment.

“Ok, take a step ahead with your left foot…”
“Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!”, bhOndOO’s cry penetrated the surroundings.
“Oh no, no, that was for boys, not for girls”. The instructor was telling Shami. The high-heels had served their hidden purpose and bhOndOO was barely able to walk. How could she do this, she always moves like like a feather… aaahhhhhh, more than the pain, it was the thought of Gullu dancing the rest of the evening with Shami, that made it unbearable. The instructor helped him to his cubicle. “Three-hundred-and-ninety-sixth opportunity wasted”, bhOndOO whimpered and started applying the balm from first-aid box.

“What !! You are talking numbers even when you are injured !! Oh, you are so.. so.. so.. what-to-say, so .. so a geek !!”. Shami was standing beside bhOndOO.
“How could I dance when you got injured because of me? Soooooo sorrry”,
she was saying. Everything is fair in love and war, bhOndOO thought, and Shami was too fair for a war.
“Give me the balm, and say that you forgive me”. bhOndOO gulped.
“Say na…… You geeky pie!!”. bhOndOO managed “yy..y.. yes”.
Shami snatched the balm.

Geeky pie.. Ah, that sounded better than everything else in the world, even than the level-3-optimized-C-code, bhOndOO could feel the feathers moving on his foot.