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How Saturday was spent

Here's a discovery: The 2nd Saturday of every month is a holiday for Santosh, which must be a big relief since you really need two days to recuperate from looking endlessly at the screen and writing nonsense code. Today was a relief for me as well not just because it was a holiday but also since I didn't have to suffer yet another long sermon from Santosh evangelizing the virtues of PHP he had just discovered at work! I bet even the most seasoned non-PHP programmers will feel threatened by his effusive prophesy of all languages being on the verge of extinction now that the world was discovering the viceless PHP. I say this because only I know how humiliating I feel when I return from a tiring day at work only to be preached about PHP being the next big thing after Machine Language and Assembly Language, high-level languages be damned! I enjoyed the tranquility of no such tirades today.

Water is a problem in all of India, but in Bangalore it seems to be a far more coveted compound. The pump is out of order for the past one week and we've had to make do with whatever little manages to seep through our parched taps. Just don't ask me how I've survived this long. Her Holy Highness (the landlady) professes helplessness since the plumber is out of town and it's not known when the apparently indispensable guy (has he won the Nobel Prize or something?) will be back. Hello, was Bangalore feted with only one celebrity plumber? I'm sure there are enough guys who could do some repair work. Anyway, survival instincts kick in at such trying moments and we in India have enough of those. Guess what, I even managed to wash some clothes that had been thirsting for some water for almost a week. This is innovative dry-cleaning, desi style!

I've been guilty of neglecting A Suitable Boy for many months now, though part of the blame should fall on its intimidating bulk. Who has the patience to go through over 1300 pages just to discover a suitable boy for our prima donna? The fact of the matter is that I'm not a suitable reader for such voluminous works in the first place! Anyway, I managed to overcome my inhibitions and continued from where I had left months ago. Needless to say, the plot hadn't lost any of its charms in all this while. I'm now flipping through the pages that lend sufficient light to the dignified but until-now neglected character of the Nawab Sahib of Baitar. The old man is increasingly becoming conscious of approaching death and is thus losing interest in the myriad battles of life. However, his coffers are in crisis from multiple fronts what with the peasants refusing to pay and the government trying to abolish the antediluvian zamindari system itself.

So these were the three chief occupations of mine for today: Buying some pacific time from Santosh's vicious attacks on all high-level languages, dry cleaning (!) some clothes and plunging into the plot of a great novel. The lesser events don't deserve a mention here.

Comments

Anonymous said…
for someone who writes SO much regularly no one could possibly believe u're a turtle at reading!
Deepanjan said…
Do you know what makes Jupiter so unique?
No, it's not the Giant Red Spot.
Jupiter radiates more heat than it absorbs!

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