Obsession with Home Improvement

My wife always finds some reason or excuse to go to the Departmental store. Like for instance if I didn’t wash my car or if we needed to patch the ceiling, she will immediately put her slippers on and call out “Let’s go shopping”. I guess from so many male readers reading this line that I am not in a minority group.

I hate sarcasm and more than that hate the 3 most used sarcastic words in English “You do it”. You must be wondering why even a third rated super market in your locality is always crowded, well it’s because we males are afraid of those 3 words. Men hate to do anything themselves except getting lost in the car or watching cricket on TV. So the “Y” chromosomes in this planet have adapted to dislike the concept of sharing house-hold work with our wives.

What really baffles me is why all these supermarkets are carrying a big section for home & kitchen appliances, vegetable stalls when every 9 out of 10 families prefer to eat out. I presume that the shop owners are obsessed for success since even if we prefer to eat out, they tap the female instinct to shop unnecessarily. I have never seen my wife return empty handed from a super market, even if she doesn’t like anything in there she may buy a new fair of silver ware when we hardly eat at our residence.

The supermarket folks are very intelligent; even if we are not willing to cook inside our kitchen they come out with products to mordernise or remodel our kitchens. The only best thing I like about this idea is that every time when we either remodel or mordernise the kitchen, we make sure that we dump those 23 million cockroaches and 43 million lizards out of the kitchen. Perhaps my wife buys those cheeses, breads and cement concretes which stay for inside the freezer (roughly for 43 years) for the roaches to feed their colonies.

Another interesting fact is that these home improvement shops and restaurants are always full of guys who are instructed by their wives to modernize their kitchen or shop unnecessary grocery items. Even at 10:30PM when the store wants to close you will see many guys leaping and diving to enter before the shutters go down. If you don’t believe me, then try to get a vantage parking place at 10:30PM in a super market. After these call centers, I assume the next thing which is 24/7 is the super markets sales counter.

The recent trend is really disturbing, families go out buy houses than rent them so that they can go and shop for home improvements, furnishings, kitchen accessories. Not long ago, my friends used to say “Why waste your money on renting a place when for the same you can buy one. Thus you create equity out of it.” Now, seeing the queue in front of these home improvement shops and super markets, I guess my friends are creating equities for these SHOPS.

On a trip one day to the home improvement shop, I had to visit the restroom. The rest rooms in these shops are always located in the next available planet or 2 miles from the entrance. I walked right through the shop which had sections like plumbing, nuts ’n’ bolts, PVC pipes, bathroom accessories, marbles, tiles, clay, soil and hardware clothes etc. Upon reaching the rest room I find that I can not enter it. It baffles me if so many guys are out there buying these accessories and building a home but can’t flush a single toilet. Perhaps the only solution which I can think of for this problem is that we out-source this work too.

My Son's Driving Turns Me Neurotic

My sons learning to drive and he is really terrific. He is just 4 years old.

Well every parent would love to see their kids learn to drive as long as the vehicle which they drive is manufactured by Fisher-Price and moves in pace with a mega serial. One thing which is safe is that the Fisher-Price set comes with toy Fisher-Price people who are unlikely to swear when you are driving rashly.

Technically from the perspective of a parent, there is no difference between 4 and 18 year except that when is 4 you have more control over him while he is driving his Fisher-Price manufactured Ferrari. Recently when I looked into my driving license I found that according to the law, whenever your child reaches 18 he is allowed to apply for a license and drive an actual car on the actual road with an actual speed of 60 KMS. This puts a big shrill down my bone marrows since I keep seeing him drive, on a daily basis, between the bed room and the kitchen.

According to the law, when my son is 18 he shall be allowed to drive a vehicle with a restriction that he be accompanied by another person (preferably over 40) who has a valid driving license and is not Salman Khan. [I rather let my son drive on the road and kill people than drive on the foot path.] So I request the government to make this restriction a bit stricter by saying that he can drive along with a co-driver, 2 Supreme Court judges, my mother-in-law and a child surgeon.

This is not to hint that my son drives badly but the actual people on the road are worse. My son today follows all laws which are prescribed in the driving learner’s manual and I am afraid. He drives at correct speed; shows hand signals, slows down while turning and honks at my wife while crossing the kitchen etc. My worry is what if my son starts to believe in the manual and tries to replicate this in the real world?

Motorists in Madras believe in some sort of a black magic curse would fall upon you if you follow the driving code and display speeds ranging from Formula 1 to Concorde even while trying to park in a busy shopping mall. If this is not a deterrent to you then I wonder how all these drivers receive calls on their cell phone only when they drive, perhaps their wives are calling them to give instructions on how to come back home. “Swerve left and hit the auto out of the road; turn immediately to the right, 2nd flat is our house, B-A-N-G … The Green one is a garbage lorry you hit, I am wearing a RED dress”.

Veteran Chennai drivers like me precisely know who to go about this system. For instance it is OK to park in the middle of the road; to rush after the Red signal has come. It’s OK to go through the RED as long as you can remember when it was YELLOW. Never to follow an auto-rickshaw because following his wheel makes your head spin. How is my son going to learn all these tricks?

What worries me a lot is that, he may want to drive one day (guessing from his passion for speed in his current Ferrari). My urgent requirement is that there be some kind of a summer camp between school holidays where in they teach you these tiny driving tips which will save many parents from becoming neurotic patients while watching their kids drive. I hope some event managers are reading this piece and start thinking in those directions while I stop typing since my son is approaching me in his Bulldozer @ 250 MPH

Note: Fisher-Price Bulldozer manual says it’s advisable to drive to a maximum of 10 MPH only.

Further Note: The bulldozer is driven by trained child drivers below the age of 4. Never try this at your home.

News As The TV Covers Them

Not long ago the average TV viewing people had very high regards for media journalist who are covering useless news but today this regard has gone way high. Basically I would like to say “It’s rotting”. When I say “it’s” it is referring to the news content and when I say “rotting” is it based on the shockingly new development within the TV channels in covering the top headline of stories that are happening around you and me.

Let me dissect what would happen if hypothetically a news item such as “dead frog found in school canteen” arrives and how would this story be blown out of proportion by these media giants in search for lousy TRP ratings. Let us assume that the story was that a school watchman had ordered a combo meal and noticed that the “Paneer” was chewier than it ought to be. So he spit it out and found it was a piece of a frog. More frighteningly, the head was missing and the watchman was violently trying to vomit food that he had since he was 14.

Before the channel crew members and other innocent bystanders could arrive, the school canteen manager has a tug-of-war and finally takes control over the frog and refused to surrender it. If you knew anything about Indian media journalist, then you would know what happened next, namely, crew members materialized from no-where. Then a group of experts in frog and frog related diseases appear, now it becomes a real head lines for the day and the viewers could be left with frightening visuals of the dead frog, a vomiting watchman and 5 experts wrestling between them. There has to be one lone outsider fanatically shouting slogans like “Stop cruelty to frogs, eat lizards instead”.

With this as a backdrop, the news channels will then form a short documentary featuring interviews with those related to the incident such as the watchman’s second wife, a tea shop owner next to the canteen, the canteen manager’s son-in-law and the school principal. Each of them gives their 10 cents worth of wisdom when the nation is facing economic crises and slowdowns. In-between these documentaries they will show clippings which zoom-in and zoom-out of the actual plate which had the dead frog. Some channels will use latest graphics to recreate the frog in the plate.

In the mean time, the journalist would think and come up with interesting angles from the legal point of view, animal rights and carbon footprint analysis. A PIL would be filed with lawyers stating to the canteen manager that “the frog is vital to the case and that they are to maintain custody of the frog to insure it’s not lost, or damaged or consumed till the case ends”. In reply to this the advocates for the canteen manager would reply “At present we can’t reveal the exact location of the frog but wish to convey that it is being tested by a reputed multinational laboratory at an undisclosed place.”

As soon as we viewers loose interest in this news line item, the channels start their next round of attack. They create a nation wide SMS poll consisting of 32 people well trained to keep sending SMS. They are highly skilled in choosing different options using latest scientific methodology involving “Inky Pinky Ponky” and “Shaat Bhoot Three”. News with charts stating the same numbers in 1000 different ways will be repeatedly aired. They would create headline stories like “Did you Frogget your lunch today”, “A frog in the box”. These stories will be followed by discussion panels answering burning questions related to this incidence like “Are today’s frog suitable for meals?”, “Is the canteens safe for lizards?”, “Face the Nation: Frogs or Onions, which is cheap?”.

By this time the frog issue would have reached to such a height that the parliament would be rocked. The opposition parties would start to blame the ruling party and stall proceedings for 3 days. They would then bring out facts that in-fact the canteen manager was linked with the ruling party and was employed using false certificate for his caste. This would bring the anti-reservationists into the picture and the whole of the media would be having a ball of a time.

Why forget the stock markets, all the restaurants and hotel stocks would have nosed dived and market research analysts would be talking about this deviation. In my opinion anybody who has a nice suit/coat and knows few jargons such as “correction”, “market fundamentals”, “global cues” would be hired by these channels as a market research expert.

While all this is going on, the poor watchman who had tasted the frog and the canteen manager who served the frog would have been pushed to oblivion. Both of them, not to be shocked, would have in their short time of fame enrolled into some opposition political parties and would be campaigning for the next general election. I wouldn’t be shocked if the canteen manager was elected to the health minister portfolio.

This whole drama ends when another headline story is created namely a 14 yr old student wanting to elope with his math teacher. Anyway this ends my point of view on today’s responsible journalists who try to bring news as they occur without distortion. Perhaps I have a different perception of what they show nevertheless I can’t stop watching them on a daily basis for entertainment.

Time For Pre-KG Admission

We are moving inside our own house every 4 minutes and I got to blame this on my son. He is only 42 months old but somehow seems to have got something in him to be always in the news just like our Indian cricket team. This time around we are lurking like a cat in the house due to the fact that we have to get admission for him in a school.

When I was a “YOUTH’ (not long ago, this is to keep me happy) schools were mainly to make sure parents get some time off and the children have some past time. In today’s fast moving world, school is the ONLY thing which a family thinks right from the moment they hear that the wife is pregnant. Even as I am typing these words, some couple would be thinking of which play-school to put their kid in. It has gone to such an extent that many couples like their friends to present school bags, Tiffin boxes, geometry box for their baby shower so that they are well prepared for sending their kid to pre-school.

The process starts with the selection of the school. This involves more calculations than what was encountered by Einstein while solving the theory of relativity. The major criterion is the school being located in the same solar system of ours. Then the issue is about the affordability comes into picture. For all practical purpose consider any school as non-affordable. The reason for this is the schools thrive on your competency to teach your kids. There are 2 methods of filtering the schools of your choice. First method is to look at your neighbour and follow them or the second method which is highly scientific and works all the time – “Inky Pinky Ponky” as a filter.

The second item in the list of things to do is to procure an application form. Usually the forms are given on a day and time which is never suitable for any of the parents. Getting an application form is a real big ordeal compared to buying a nuclear missile from the US Defence Ministry. Parents have to employ 2 people for 3 months to go and stand in-front of the school to be first in line. For many parents who can’t afford people go personally and camp before the school thereby letting their houses for rent. As we read this line I am sure many house owners are contemplating of leasing their homes and pitching a tent before lucrative schools and then think of marriage and kids.

The next item on the list is to find a suitable mode of transportation. As far as I know it’s the same mini-van in which the driver, through very precise calculations, fits as much of human flesh possible inside the van and where ever there is space he will carefully fold the small children and stuff the gap. In the rear end of the van he will mount all the school bags which will weigh roughly 23 metric tonnes. It is truly an engineering marvel on how this van travels through the roads with its wheels hardly in contact with the surface. The driver’s mood often reflects that he is trying to keeps his bladders from breaking while driving the vehicle. In one sense it is really nice that the children don’t feel the drive to school but for other observers outside the van it is horrible.

Even though the above tasks look heavy, the heaviest is yet to come. Getting the child to a ready state is a big struggle for the parents. Firstly to wake the kid up is such a Herculean task that it saps 60% of your energy. We have to put him in the bathroom while he is half awake and brush him up. While the man brushes the kid, the woman undresses him for the bath. Like trying to catch a crocodile in swamp, the woman returns to the room with the kid tied around her shoulders to dress him up. Invariably the guy always gets the dress combination wrong but yet the lady will assign this task to the guy on daily basis. Perhaps both of them went to Harvard Business School for education and the school didn’t teach them this.

Once the kid is dressed up, he looks exactly like Buzz Aldrin just before his launch. Only thing was that Buzz didn’t have to take this Tiffin box and water bottles. Apart from this, in case you kid spills (eventually he will you moron) food we have a bib tied to his collar. While doing all this, the kid shall remain in his sleep like Newton’s First law and shall be forced to wake up only in the evening for watching TV.

The school bag is an issue which I have to touch upon. The actual weight allowed as per law maybe around 450 gms but in reality it is the same weight as the Rock of Gibraltar. They have to take note books which are classified as actual class note, scrap note, rough for the scrap note, rough for no reason, home work notes, promissory note, text books, Britannica encyclopaedia, Income tax law books etc on a daily basis. The heavier the bag the more studious the kid is, this is an unwritten rule according to the educationalists. The second part is the course for these kinder garden kids which includes integral calculus, financial management, foreign law and if time permits some nursery rhymes and good manners. No wonder my kid keeps failing just like me.

On the whole for those couples thinking for a kid and those expecting couples beware of our education system. While the lady is entering the labour ward, you husbands kindly pitch a tent next to the school compound. Don’t cry that I never warned you – I am on duty from tonight near the school grounds.

Note: take the pizza delivery numbers with you & if possible the hospital number for emergency.

15 Early signs of Company Lay-offs

The Top 15 Events that tell you that your company is going to down-size drastically

15. CEO frequently overheard mumbling, “Inky-Pinky-Ponky.”

14. Your workday consists of coming in at 10, thinking up where to lunch with your coworkers and then leaving at 5.

13. Windows XP shutdown screen reads, “It’s Now Safe to Start Looking for Another Job.”

12. Company recreation room is access controlled now.

11. Sudden proliferation of IIT engineers as interns.

10. Your boss keeps asking you “Do you like your present assignment?”

9. Company president now driving a Hyundai Santro myself.

8. Annual company holiday bash moved from Sheraton banquet room to abandoned company guest house.

7. You are allowed to take only 4 print-outs per day (Back-to-Back).

6. Guard at front desk nervously smiles at you whenever you pass by.

5. Giant yard sale of used laptops/desktops in front of corporate headquarters.

4. Babes in the HR suddenly start flirting with dorky technical managers.

3. Employee Discount for your company’s products are discontinued with immediate effect.

2. Company dental plan now is applicable only to select management employees.

and

1. Sign Your Company Is Planning A Layoff …
President begins weekly meetings, “Good morning, you ignorant developers and testers.”

Chandramukhi – II: Erandaam Pagudhi

I am at last really happy that I am the first man to have the scripts for the sequel to the block buster Chandramukhi. I am calling it Chandramukhi-II: Erandaam Pagudhi which for the legal records will show as I am the first to write a sequel.

I am daringly proud of this script which was penned without sleeping or eating except for 2 dinner buffets and 35 minutes in total. I feel like it is really a very heavy work. Guess what would have been for the original scripter writers who had taken twice the amount just to plagiarize the Malayalam script.

As you may know, the original movie titled “Chandramukhi” garnered a record 96 awards including: The best motion picture which was screened for 700 weeks without a single viewer, best makeup artist to make the hero look viewable, best motion picture lasting longer than the Bofor’s case, best supporting role for displaying total lunacy on screen, best movie with copied scripts. The one thing which is very clear from this movie is that if the hero was really a doctor as claimed in real life, he would be hanging upside down in his clinic held by his patients.

The phenomenal success of “Chandramukhi: I - the original” as served as a rebuttal to all the critics in the cinema world that one can make blockbuster movies with copied scripts. Hence, I am saying with full confidence that the script writers are the most talented men in history including Shakespeare, Darwin, Edison and all the four Beatles combined. Why I am saying this is that the script writers will pay me a hefty amount for the sequel.

(The movie opens with a bullock cart moving at high speed and lot of thumping sounds in the background. The hero is sleeping with hay on his face)

Savarana: Whew, I am 50 and still can fight 8 fellows 20 years younger than me.
Senthil: I thought you were in Himalayas, how come you are here?
Savarana: The director said he can’t do an entry scene for me in the Himalayas, so had to come down.

Senthil: How did you manage the cold wave there?
Savarana: Fortunately, they had put 50 coats of whiteners through which the cold could not penetrate. By the way who is this?
Ganga: I am ganga remember you saved my life the last time …
Savarana: But ganga was played by Jothika
Ganga: She didn’t want to do another movie with you in the same mental costume. So they looked for a younger female and chose me, I am baby Sandhya.

(The scene shifts to the haunted house)
Murugesan: Do we really need to go inside this house?
Saravana: We have no other option, the eerie sound-track has already began
Murugesan: I hear some spooky sound, do you hear the same?
Savarana: Don’t be silly; what is the chance that they are going to make the same movie plot again?
(There is a loud cluttering sound, the computer animations start with a 50 feet snake and a Stegosaurus coming straight at Savaranan)

(The scene shifts to the family house, all of them are curious as to who the villain is? Saravanan tries to help them)
Villian: Out of my way, I am not prepared to fight another loosing battle with him.
Saravana: No, you have a signed contract and better fight with me else I have to do a duet song shot in Iran with this girl who is twice younger than me.
Villian: For that reason I agree.
Fight goes on and eventually Saravanan (an acclaimed psychiatrist) wins the battle hands down.

The scene shifts to the D-Day, the festival in which Chandramukhi plans to elope with her lover and killing the king Vettiyar.
Saravana: Look through this pin hole and you will understand how bad Ganga dances.
Prahu: (After looking through the window slit) Yenna Kodumai edhu Saravanan
Saravana: Now as per plan let’s spilt and meet at the centre hall after 5 minutes
Senthil: Why 5 minutes? Do you have some kind of a plan?
Saravana: No, That’s how long the climax song runs.

Audience: (Running out of the show)
Director: Why are all of them running?
Audience 1: It’s the song “RA RA” again
Director: Why?? you don’t like it?
Audience 1: Yeah I like it but the music director comes at the end and says “Repeat a” and the song starts again. Once is too many for this song.

They keep a dummy corpse of the king and Ganga avenges her thirst and all are happy. I don’t want to dissect the plot on how Saravanan arrives at the conclusions, for that you have to wait for the release of this movie on the silver screen

US Visa: A mid-summer Night's Dream

[Setting: A Scene at a software office during the pre-Y2K era.]

Since Mohenjodaro and Harrappa days, IT industry has had its own say in the many different stages of Visa processing. Here is a small introduction about all these types.

The prerequisite before you are called upon for the first stage is that the Manager would come and call you only when you are surrounded by 43 employees at your tea break. Then he will proceed ask you if you were willing to travel to the US, Slovakian Republic or to Uganda. Most of the employee using the method of elimination (same as in KBC) choose US and says he is geared up to go. Then the second question to follow this is if he/she can relocate within short notice. A short notice for them varies from 1 day for an overseas trip notice to 287 weeks for approving a technical book.

The first Stage is Resume Collection: This is one of the most preliminary stages wherein the Manager would come running at your seat and pestering you to give in your most recent resume. Here, the word most recent means resumes that are only nanoseconds old. (Note: Not even a day old resume shall be accepted.)

In this kind of a situation, the employee would sit down and prepares a resume, in a traditional format. No one would be able to tell the difference between an ancient Egyptian inscription and the traditional format. One shall always wonder why such fonts and sub-headings are chosen in the first place. Although the main rationale of a resume is lost, we still have to act in accordance with these rules furnishing unnecessary information such as my neighbour’s chest size, my favourite pet's name, do you like Abhishek Bhachan etc.

While this process of building a latest resume is going on, the Managers can't wait. They look like cats that have sipped a boiling hot pan of milk and keep jumping here and there. Their momentous commands makes you think that they would even try going and sitting inside the Printer and pull the paper so that they could tender the resume.

Once tendered, then it's left to lie low like how you prepare mango pickles. Collect all of them and FILE it, File is the last nail in the coffin. For a debutante, filing the resume means a lot since he doesn’t know that this is the one and only step in this type of processing. After a few submissions, he is more matured and just changes a few words here and there in his name, so that it is qualified as a Latest Resume. (Note: Further matured employee file in the previous version without any change since mostly all managers can’t even differentiate between a Word File and a Carbon Paper)

Only if an employee has had more than 6 resumes collected from him is entitled to enter the second round of processing.

The second stage is Telephonic Interview or in technical jargon Conference Call: Since the employees in this stage have already felt the mental trauma of preparing resume after resume, they are giving a small break. In this stage, the managers call the overseas department and fixes up a time for an interview. This time is generally during the nights since most of the clients belong to the Wild West.

Although the time of the call is very uncomfortable, the employees are again made to fall into the same trap as in stage one by saying that if the interview goes well, then its barely hours before you leave this country. Employees are also not given much time to prepare for an interview, and are handed over a bunch of mock sessions that closely resembles the Shakespeare's Hamlet, with a bold message "Something rotten in burning in Denmark". These booklets which are purely aimed to help an employee better in building a conversation, is in fact mainly used as a bib for many lunches to come.

For example:
Interviewer Question: Hi, this is Jim, how are you doing today?
Employee : Hello Jim, I am [Your Name] (Note, Please don’t say Hi Jim, when his name is Tom)

Interviewer Question: Tell me in short about yourself?
Employee : Poorly paid hairy weasel. (Note: This is an assumption that you are in a software consulting job)

Interviewer Question: What is your Weak Point?
Employee : Females (Note: Be specific for example Blondes. Red necked or Spanish)

The employee has been given a date and time and made to hang around through the night waiting for the call. He very closely resembles those people who go to receive their cousins coming by the Howrah Mail. Never has this train, to the best of my knowledge, come on time and so is the interview call. Since being a Quality oriented organisation, you are required to stay till you can be sure that the call did not happen. Let’s assume that the call was to be at 8:00PM and then the algorithm is that the employee waits till 3:45AM the following day to clarify that the client hasn’t called.

The next plan of action for the manager is to again call the overseas department group and fix up another appointment and then turn to tell you that the client was off to Hawaii on that day as the mail which he sent had reached a bit late. Hence, the employee has to redo all the things on the second day too. This continues for 5 days (not contiguous days), after which the overseas department group get wild and disclose that the client has found another suitable candidate.

The only good thing here is that, this doesn’t damage you in anyway. In case the client had called for an interview and then you had failed, that was the last time you can think of going abroad through this organisation. Now, since there is no faux pas of yours, you shall be expected to do this routine again.

On an average you repeat the above procedure for 4 times and after which you finally attend a call. You were supposed to be interviewed by a Web Development project manager, but the call is from an Accountant of the client who purely asks what your name is and what salary are you drawing currently and things like that. Since the helpful tips given by the organisation didn’t carry these you make up by answering on the spur of the moment.

For Example:
Interviewer Question: Hi, this is Tom, How are you doing today?
Employee : Hi, this is Mahesh here and I am doing pretty lousy since you have called 4 hours late.
Interviewer Question: J (laughs)! I am not sorry. Now what's the salary that you are drawing?
Employee : Almost close to Zero
Interviewer Question: What is your Expectation?
Employee : $23 Billion per Annum
CLICK!!! The Phone hangs up.

The overseas department group conveys that the call was well handled by you and they would get back to you by tomorrow. This is the only time that they are prompt, they call you up tomorrow to say that you were technically not sound to handle such a tough project and hence you had to repeat all over again for another Web Development project.

Assuming you get through 7 client interview, it brings us to the Third Stage called the Consulate Visiting: In this stage we fill up those 2,94,587 forms that repeat the same questions like shown in below:

Form 1023

(Fill it in Bat’s Blood only, NO owl blood. Please use Hebrew Font Only)
1. Has the employee ever flown to Madagascar and Sent Back due to Flu
Yes/No
2. Does the employee wish to take his Neighbor's Wife along with him
Yes/No
2a.
If answered yes for 2, please specify which Neighbour
Name Age Relationship with you Sex

3. Do you need Money from your Organisation *
Yes/No

4.Do you own any share of Infosys Ltd **
Yes/No

5. What is the purpose of this visit
A/B/C/D/E/F

A) Tour to Intel
B) Detailed Weather Report
C) Refer Invitation Fax

D) Y3K COBOL patch fixes

E) None of the Above

F) All of the Above

*: If yes, you may not be permitted to leave for overseas assignments.
**: If yes then surrender them if you want to leave, If NO please buy them and then surrender them to us.

Once you have filled in the essential forms (in triplets), they instruct the travel agent to send the forms to the consulate. As any Indian travel agent, he juggles with the forms and the certificates, which creates an alarm in the consulate and they land up calling the manager. The manager, who in the brightest time of the day, will hum and haw in their replies causing the embassy officials to panic This results the person to appear for a direct face-to-face interview.

As a customary thumb rule, the last employee whom the company doesn’t want to appear before the embassy is the one who is chosen. For these kind of emergency events also we have a document. (This is because we are a CMM level company which has documents for everything from going to the lavatory till using carbon papers) The employee has to rehearse and practice before he leaves for the interview.

A typical sample is shown below
Consulate Interviewer : So how long to do you plan to stay in the US
Employee : All daylong and the night too if you allow us.

Consulate Interviewer : What is the purpose of the visit?
Employee : To spearhead a new pilot project in DVD domain at Sony Labs.

Consulate Interviewer : Do you know anything about Chip Technologies?
Employee : Yes, many of them like Potato, Tomato and Plantain.

Consulate Interviewer : Could you clearly and lucidly elaborate about your credentials
Employee : (Tamil) Soaka Sonna lady, Naanum Edhai Yengayavadhu use pandren Catch my point.
(Note: see Michael Madhana KamaRajan, the film for more clarity)

By all things, Murphy's Law works to its true nature. What must go wrong will go wrong and the chosen candidate does answer in the same lines as shown above and gets himself rejected. Once rejected, the candidate is crestfallen since he now has to initiate from the first stage yet again after a year. Now it’s been unofficially established that when you are summoned for an interview use your brain and not the handy sheet that the company gives for reference.

For some lucky candidates, they bypass this step and get their passports stamped and do the next step which is Post-Stamping. Along with this, the Managers also show a variety of documents such as a Sunnyvale Road Map, a proposed Project Plan without any reference to your name in it, 1385 sites that show what the actual project is about etc. These things are shown so that they develop a confidence in the employee’s mind, while he is well trapped into this drama. The employee is made to believe that he should be able to leave at any moment in the next 48 hours.

The build-up for this event is so pleasant that right from the Project Manager to the Project Leader, they give such nice sugary dialogues that make each of the selected employee's float in their dreams. Many things will look like happening from a fairy tale. (In most cases it's SLEEPING BEAUTY.) You would start to wonder if it’s the same HR that made you wait for 345 hours for a Salary advance are now staying late to send in your papers 456 hours before the deadline, but with a valid H1 all these will happen.

Many new employees, who have not gone through the first and second stage for some reason, fail to understand the principle motive behind this drama. This is purely done to keep the employee busy and also give an impression that he is really an asset to the organisation.(According to a survey employees came 8th in the most valuable asset in an organization, 7th was Carbon Paper) As the hour's starts to tick down, the Visa comes through without any problem, the flight tickets are all confirmed and the Foreign exchange all comes through with just a single nod.

In the meantime, the fresh employee would be on a spending spree right from a baggage to all the masala mixes, while the seasoned professional traveler remain as stationary as a rock watching the events with at most calmness. At some time nearing the 30 hours mark, the Manager could call upon those who are supposedly to leave in a tone as to convey perhaps how to conduct ourselves or whom to meet once we reach the US. The actual ulterior motive is to convey the best climax statement in this drama, the TRIP stands CANCELLED.

The way a manger normally says this news is shown below
Case I:
Manager : (sad voice if the team is really big) I got a Good/Bad news for you. Which do you prefer?
Employee : Sir, I prefer the Good news first.
Manager : Well, here is the good news, the Hurricane Andrew is not going to hit San Jose as expected. Also Salma Hayek is going to do a live show there after you reach.
Employee : HAHA (Background thinking about the Bad news)
Manager : The Bad news is that you will not be there in San Jose to witness that event. We have just heard that the project has been suspended.

Case II:
Manager : (sadder voice if the team is big) I got a Good/Bad news for you. Which do you prefer?
Employee : Sir, I prefer the Good news first.
Manager : Well, here is the good news, The Malaysian Flight is not going to be hijacked as expected.
Employee : HAHA (Background thinking about the Bad news)
Manager : The Bad news is that you will not be there in that flight. We have just heard that the project has been suspended.

Of course the employee may have faced many a trauma, but at this juncture it gives him some solace because he is not alone in this group.