Wednesday, April 22, 2009

bhOndOO celebrates Valentine's day

bhOndOO entered the premises of Advanced Computing Ltd
and headed straight for his cubicle in the Performance
Analysis section. Today he walked rather fast and never
looked anywhere else, especially towards Shami's cubicle
in the HR section. Today was the Valentine's day and he
had a right to be nervous. He wanted to tell Shami what
she meant for him but like any geek, he could never
muster courage.

He sat on the chair in his cubicle and switched on his
PC. Like any geek, he should have opened his mailbox
first. But today even his Team-Lead's mails didn't mean
anything to him, and the usual technical support forum mails
never meant anything to him. He just fiddled with mouse,
adjusted the speakers, again fiddled with mouse and
then switched off the PC.

He thought and thought and thought. Nothing !,
nothing came to his mind. He was numb, dumb and slow.
It was as if 64 bit processor was replaced with 8 bit
8085 processor.

"hey bhOndOO, are you there? Good morning",he heard
Gullu's voice. He got up and looked over the wall of
his cubicle. Gullu was waving with a gift wrapped
in pink paper in his hands. He never wishes me good
morning, bhOndOO thought and all of a sudden, 8 bit
processor worked magic to give him the answer.
Gullu had waved at him only to show the gift to
him, definitely meant for Shami.

This is it. bhOndOO decided to go to his closest
friend, philosopher and guru. He went straight to
benJi's cubicle. Hearing the footsteps, benJi closed
few windows with lightening speed. He wanted to retain
his spiritually superior status.

"Guruji, mujhe bachao! Yeh shishya aapke sharan me aaya hai!"
"Vats bhOndOO, daro mat, apne man ki baat saaf-saaf kaho."
bhOndOO told benJi his troubles.

"Ok, child, I got your problems. The root of problem
is your high G.Q. i.e. Geekiness Quotient. And this
cant be done away with because one is born with G.Q.,
woh toh bhagwaan ki den hoti hai. Because of high
G.Q., you can neither give her rose, nor gift her
some smart greeting, nor ask her for a coffee which
could have been indicative. In fact you cannot even hope
to talk to her on your own on Valentine's day. This is
all fault of high G.Q."

"Then what should I do, soothsayer? Please show me the light".

"Yes, there is a solution. You must write a poem for
her and post it anonymous. Post it before the noon.
If you have it in your destiny, she will know that
you have written it. Remember NOT to mention your
name. It can make the girl coming to your cubicle
and the geeks won't be able to handle the pressure
of further consequences on Valentine's day. Put the
letter in the incoming letter box of office so that
it quickly gets delivered to her. One more thing,
nobody should see you near the letter box. Don't ask
me why. Reason is limited, faith is not. Keep faith
in me. May the almighty bless you!".

bhOndOO bowed to benJi and walked to his cubicle.

He thought and thought and thought. Things started
working for him. With a flash of inspiration he
wrote few lines and drew a heart around it. Then
he carefully put it in an envelope and wrote
"Shami, HR Section, ACL" as address. He looked
at the watch. It showed 11:59 a.m. Only one minute
for noon ! He ran towards the office letter box.
It was three passages away. He quickly passed
first two passages and..

Wham Bam ! He had failed to notice that the floor
of the third passage was wet because of being
mopped few moments ago by the sweeper. He started
searching his spectacles. It was below the couch
but now it had only right glass. He put on
spectacles and looked at the watch. It showed
12:01 a.m.. Listless, he started searching for
the envelope which he never found.

Somebody else found it.

It had flew around the corner of the third passage
and came to rest in second passage outside the
meeting hall. Shami, having just slept through
the meeting, came out of the hall and saw a letter
lying on the ground and a glass beside it. Gem
of a soul, she picked the glass and the letter
herself instead of calling the office attendant.
To her surprise, she found that the letter was
addressed to her. It had a heart drawn with
following lines in it:
-----------------------------
Your beauty is like Einstein's relativity
Even the sun-rays bend towards you while passing by

Your innocence is like Ramanujan's conjecture
the truth of which the world can only hope to guess

Your smile is like Boltzmann's entropy
the radiance of which never ever decreases

Your presence is like Godel's incompleteness theorem
without which I can never hope to be complete
without which I can never hope to be complete...
----------------------------
She heard footsteps. She quickly hid the letter in her
notebook.

"h.. hi , did you find a let... no, no.. a glass?"
bhOndOO stood near the corner with one-glass-spectacles.
"Oh, yes, here it is, d.. d.. dear!" Shami gave him the
glass and tightened grip on her notebook. bhOndOO
pondered on the word 'dear' but soon discarded the usage
as one of the many phrases that girls have habit of saying.

It was not. Not at least in Shami's case.

bhOndOO never found the letter.
Someone else had found it.
As benJi had said, if you have it in your destiny,
she will know that you have written it.

Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Shami goes to Salsa

Now this the version of previous post from Shami's eyes
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I entered the premises of Advanced Computing Ltd and headed straight for bhOndOO’s cubicle in the Performance Analysis section instead of my own in HR. I was rather late today having spent an hour dressing myself up for today’s Salsa class. Oh! I just can’t wait to show bhOndOO new high-heels I bought yesterday for Salsa, he would be so happy to have a look ! After all, he likes me, though a seedha-saadha geek like him doesn’t have the guts to tell me that. But he doesn’t even know that I too like him precisely because this very simplicity he has.

I skilfully took a roundabout way to bhOndOO’s cubicle to avoid that sticky Gullu. He has this masterful art to barge in and to become kabab-mein-haddi whenever bhOndOO and I are alone for barely five seconds. I tapped lightly on bhOndOO’s cubicle. No response! I looked inside. Oh my God! bhOndOO is practising Salsa on his PC! Just look at him! One hand behind the monitor, another on the speaker and moving feet below the table. And there is a youtube video being played on monitor. Awwwww bhOndOO, you don’t have to do this to impress me. You always try too hard and mess up somewhere. On Valentine’s Day celebrations, you wrote such a romantic poem for me and while hurrying to letter box, you slipped on the wet floor. You don’t even know that it was me who picked up that poem. You will never know!

Wham Bam!! Something broke my reverie. Oh no! it was him lying on the floor with monitor on his face and wires entangled with his feet.

“How did you manage this!!” A scream escaped me and I stepped forward to pick him up.
“Oh, at least he managed something!”. Curse that nalaayak Gullu, he had to come here just at this moment! I stepped back and watched bhOndOO slowly get up. How embarassed he must be to find me here! Look at that poor lamb!

“h… h… hi”, he couldn’t manage more than this trying to recover from the severe shock. Oh somebody help this geek! I just smiled at him.

“I h… hear that we are having s… salsa classes t.. today”, he said.
I saw that he was yet to recover from the shock, stuttering at every other word.

“Oh I know… My boss told me yesterday.. See I am wearing new high-heels today.. How do I look?”.
Oh my god!! What did I just ask him! How do I look! This is too much for him in this situation. Just look at him, he is grappling for words. Honey, don’t say anything, you don’t have to say anything, your eyes are telling me everything you want to say.

“Oh, you look fabulous!”, Gullu took charge.
Gullu, gullu, gullu!! goddamn it!! Stickier than Fevicol!!

“Oh, you are a so cutie pie!”, I controlled myself from slapping him hard in face at the last moment my fingers touched his cheeks. You are going to get these very fingers permanently etched on your cheeks one day. Phir mujhe marte dum tak bhula nahi paoge, mere pyare Gullu!

“I hear that some interesting conversation is going on!” Oh no! that’s bhOndOO’s boss.
“Oh yes, just now bhOndOO was demonstrating to us some results he had got!”, Gullu the nosy-est parker. Tomorrow he is getting run over by my Activa. Yesterday he must have heard bhOndOO telling me that he is yet to get the results of some analysis of some improvement over something of a code segment.

I went back to my cubicle. Awww, today he will have to work whole day to get the results and how is he going to manage attending Salsa? Let him not come and I am going to stomp these high heels on Gullu’s feet. Gullu, just pray to god that you don’t have to sit on seats reserved for handicaps for the rest of your life.

“Let me check a Salsa video.” I thought. I checked a video and found out. Oh ok, so boys take left foot forward and girls take right foot backward in the first step. Gullu, you are dead. We’ll both take our left foot forward and soon you will be walking with your right foot in hand.

I peeped over bhOndOO’s cubicle while returning from lunch. He was still there working, he must have skipped lunch. Gullu, better memorize phone number of ambulance, it’s going to prove very handy.

Fiddling with my work, it was like ages before 17:00., the timing for the Salsa class. I went inside the hall. bhOndOO isn’t here. Gullu is smiling at me. Smile a lot, Mr. Fevicol, this is the last time you get to smile. When the instructor told us to pair up, I went and stood opposite to Gullu. Ab to sirf bhagwaan hi tumhe mujhse bacha sakta hai, mere pyare Gullu!

Gullu’s cellphone rang.
“Wait a sec, Shami, it’s a call from Hitler’s cabin, that’s my boss. I’ll be back soon”, Gullu went to his boss’s cabin. I wondered, How can his boss call him from his cabin? He had left a few minutes ago. Then I saw bhOndOO standing opposite to me. Oh my God! It must have been bhOndOO who had called him! Gullu, tum saat janam-me bhi mere bhOndOO ki baraabari nahi kar sakoge. bhOndOO held my hands in Salsa pose. I could feel that he was shivering.

“Ok, boys, take a step ahead with your left foot…”, the instructor declared.
“Ahhhhhhhh !!!”, bhOndOO’s cry pierced my eardrums.
Oh no, what did I do! How could I take my left foot forward! It was meant to be for Gullu, not for him. I just can’t watch him in intense pain. I’m so sorry bhOndOO, I’m so sorry.

“Oh no, no, that was for boys, not for girls”. the instructor said. I am not that dumb, Mr. instructor! I just hope that his foot is not fractured. The instructor took him to his cubicle and came back. And then I saw Gullu coming my way.

That’s it. Not anymore. No putting up anymore with that Fevicol. If bhOndOO isn’t dancing, I’m not and not evermore when it was I who injured him. I went straight to bhOndOO’s cubicle. I saw bhOndOO applying balm and heard him saying something-hundred-and-sixth-something-something.

“What !! You are talking numbers even when you are injured !! Oh, you are so.. so.. so.. what-to-say, so .. so a geek !!”, I just couldn’t contain myself. Speaking numbers now ! These geeks are incurable.

“How could I dance when you got injured because of me? Soooooo sorrry! Give me the balm, and say that you forgive me!”.
I saw that he was again unable to speak.
“Say na…… You geeky pie!!”
“yy..y.. yes”, finally he managed to utter.

I started applying balm. There were almost eleven months to go for the next Valentine’s Day.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Monday, April 13, 2009

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.

-----------------------------------------------------------
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.
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