Destination Miami - Part-I

This is the time of year when my company makes a sincere effort to care about their employees company performance award, which determines which project team will be the champion of the entire organisation, except for the part of the world located outside the United States and southeastern Canada.

This is precisely the time when we (9 people) decided to make a tour to Miami and have an enjoyable weekend at the place where everyone wants to keep their footprints imprinted in time immemorial. This decision was taken well before I was even considered as an invitee. Nevertheless to make the names as anonymous as possible I have found a very effective way of appending “zh” before every name. Hence we can retain the anonymity in them. (Remember that I flunked in my Coding Theory class)

The itinerary was framed by zhsenthil, which had in the available time of 48 hrs for us, a way where we could cover more then 70% of the North American Continent and weather providing a short stay of 70 seconds in the North Pole. The places and attractions were marked in such a way that the MAP for us now represented only as a tool to get lost easily. Zhanbu and zhsuren the two most oldest team members in the crowd (a combined age of these two though less than zhnacha who alone tallies more then 4560 Gregorian calendar yrs) decided that in order to maintain the schedule that had been planned, we had to prepare food for the complete duration of the trip and then start the journey.

Hence, on the D-Day half the population of mainland China was involved in preparing chapattis for our trip. We had estimated to make 4 million of them though we ended up making enough to feed the African continent for the next 45 years even after our consumption. Though the idea was good, but the estimation lacked a bit of practicality like any other software development project. The idea was to make chappathis that were soft so that we can consume it even while coming back to Tampa Bay. The implementation with the help of the experienced “chapatti maker” zhrams, we created soft chappathis, which unfortunately was soft only for 7 nanoseconds from the time we took it from the stove. Then it was transformed into the third hardest known materials in the world and second in the Andromeda Galaxy. (Source NASA Mars Path Finder)

So when this dinner preparation chaos was underway, I entered and add a pinch of salt to the bruises by making curd rice with what ever was remaining in the kitchen. Though many don’t know what went into the making of it, but it turned out to be palatable. Here is a sample of the ingredients … a few ounces of TNT, methanol and some ginger oil to provide the taste. This may also be used as rocket fuel after 3 days of fermentation. Now with all the food ready we packed our bags and got us all loaded into the car carefully folded and placed between the food packets which occupied more than 80% of the car space, 10% was occupied with CD that contained songs which were possibly recorded during the signing of the American Independence.

There are a few people for whom FORD made cars as a sleep inducing medicine, one such person is zhnacha. All she needed was the sound of the gear shifting to go into a sleep mode. Like Newton’s First law, she will continue to be in the same state unless acted upon by an external force … Smell of food. Like zhnacha, there was another guy named zhsathish who also had the same syndrome. So we placed both of them in separate cars hence both the cars could have the Dolby Surround Sound of …. Yes … Snoring.

Snoring is a series problem for all car travelers in the US, one that affects more than shark attacks and Vadivellu jokes combined. Yet many people - here I am in now way referring to zhancha - refuse to admit that they snore a lot. Coming back to our drive … there was nothing much happening expect that we kept calling from our cell phones to the other car asking the precise location where we will have our Dinner … the prima motive for zhmuthu and zhkanagu. (I had to somehow introduce them into the story too.)

After roughly 3 hours of travel, we decided to take a break and wake up zhnacha. So I got out of the car and opened the boot to let zhmuthu and zhkanagu some air and also take out the dinner. We had chappathis, chappathis and more chappathis until 2% of the total chappathis were consumed by the 9 of us. After that the car that I was traveling felt that zhnacha was a danger to our lives since she started to induce sleep into the driver and thereby to all the others in the car. It went so bad that even the truck driver following us was in a state of drowsiness due to Zhnacha. Hence, a unanimous decision (I was not included in this for some reason … I am not making this up) was taken and I was pushed into the front seat to help the driver from not getting distracted – distraction such as zhnacha sleeping in the back seat.

Zhanbu requested me to remind him about filling up gas at some point before we hit Miami Beaches… hence I was on guard looking out for the possible GAS station in the middle of a Marshy forest. I failed to look at a rather insignificant board which said “Last Gas station on Plant Earth here … No Gas station for the next 32 billion Light years” or something equivalent like that. Since there were no figurative signs such as a Gas Station and a RED cross across it, I felt I better ignore it. All this while, zhanbu the driver felt that cars are better flying rather than rolling on the roads. So we were (I am not making this up also) not going too fast but literally flying too low. We got several air control messages to fly a little high since many clock towers were on our direct path.

Zhanbu, on my small piece of advice, disregarded all the warnings coming from the back seat and was pressing high on the GAS until Newton’s third law came into effect … the car started to land and we hit the road and the engines looked like stopping … reason … NO G-A-S … the indicator lights started flashing and it looked like there was no sign of a station anywhere nearby. By this time, zhanbu became tensed and so was I… but I was for a different reason. The AC blower was so fine tuned to hit the navigators abdominal region that his bladder was becoming FULL at an alarming rate … the irony was seen, his bladder is FULL while the petrol tank was hitting rock bottom. The situation went on for about 35 min and 30 miles went by still NO sign of the station nor did Zhanbu have any intentions of letting me (the navigator) answer to Nature’s call.

Destination Miami - Part-II

As we felt perhaps that we are going to spend the rest of the 48 hrs on the high way waiting for some re-fuelling guy to come and help us and this was when Zhanbhus eyes met a Gas station but since our Kinetic energy was so high (1.2 Giga Miles/Hour) we were not in a position to stop here and hence proceeded until the last drop of gas in our tank was consumed and our car luckily stopped right in front of a open gas station … we were saved … more than that I was saved, the station had a nice rest room. Since we were at such speed … we had come nearly 90% of the destination and so we started to put on the landing gears and decided to drive like normal Miami driver – Not obeying any RED signals on the way. All this while, zhnacha was not aware that we flew, the tank became empty and we have halted just for refueling asked if Miami had come. She was glad to get the answer from me that we have another 30 min to reach there at the current velocity or 180 days if the cops caught us for over speeding – precisely driving at the speed of light.

Nothing untoward happened and we reached the destination (thanks to the non-helping ness of zhnacha and zhmuthu in navigating) according to the planned time. In fact we had gained roughly 22 days due to our speed. All this was to be washed down the drain due to the latest technology in the accommodation industry … e-booking. Never trust the web and we had to sit outside in the parking lot for the next 34 days waiting for the attendants to even look at you, leave alone search for a booking under the name “Jaivel Surenderan Ramakrishnan”. So, all in all, we were still maintaining on time schedule. So after a few number of months we got into the room and hit the bed straight. None of us had the enthusiasm to have a bath and leave early for sight-seeing, BED was our answer. None of us could even resist the INERTIA calling us to enjoy the next 4 hours of sleep in freedom. (Except for zhnacha and zhsatish who had their lifetime span of sleep while traveling).

We heard the crack of dawn much pretty late and hence our scheduled itinerary was put to the place where it belonged … in the trash can and all of us decided to go with our instincts. We reached for the Chappathis for breakfast and then made our way to the most famous South Beach. We went and took a few snaps to justify our decision to go to the beach. By this time, our man zhsenthil decided to take matters into this hand and led us all to a place called Miami Secaquarium. This is a place where we get to meet all the SEA animals except the Mermaid which probably was having a bath in South Beach.

For the next 4 hours we were walking from theater to theater looking at Miami Dolphins and Killer whales dancing to the tune of their ring-master (who was exceptionally good looking) while we were dancing to the tune of zhsenthil, who was also exceptionally good in ogling at exceptionally good looking females. The 4 hours went as though we were made to sit in those compulsory extra classes for Physic lab during our 12th STD in school. The only consolation in this place was that the most beautiful looking females at least smiled at me and recognized that I was a living being on this planet. Apart from this, we had also taken roughly 12 million snaps of the Killer whale and other dolphins. I would have recovered the entrance fee money had I mailed a few million snaps to the discovery channel.

The sun was also traveling at a certain speed, which I am not sure, but the evening was already there before we came out of this Secaquarium. Hence, on unanimous decision, probably ignoring zhsenthil’s plausible explanation, we headed back to South beach for a dip in the water. There weren’t much of people … probably around 50-60 of them. Most of them would have just been freed from the Secaquarium after finishing their term of 6 hours of captivity like us. The highlight of the bathing that we had was the best dive in the water, which was 7mm deep by zhnacha.

She had come out like a failed look-alike model of “Bay Watch” star Pamela Anderson but certainly gave us a much need laughter. She came running from the shores and just went the wave came, she jumped right into the water, which was merely 7 mm in depth. T-H-U-G … she landed on the shore itself and then claimed that she was preparing for the dive in the deep … probably about 19 cm depth. We again missed our chance to earn a few bucks by not taking the video of this dive ... we could have easily won $1000 for this clip in America’s Funniest Home Videos. We were unfortunate since zhrams and zhsurens handy cam batteries had run down just while shooting the whales and dolphin diving in depths greater than 40 feet.

After 2 hours of water games, which included zhrams and zhsathish drinking the salty water in the name of swimming and zhmuthu, zhsuren trying to catch each other in the game of catch the leader while swimming in the depth of 3 feet water. We were all exhausted that we returned to the car for some refreshments and then decided to get in to the groove of Miami … get the taste of the night life. As the mention of the word night life came, zhsenthil burst with such zeal that he would have lit the whole of Las Vegas city for one whole month. We are talking in the tune of 1600 Mega watts of energy from his face alone leaving the other anatomy for the moment … if you can catch my drift.

There were 5 of us who were wise and decided to go for shopping and have a peaceful dinner and some much wanted break from the chappathis. So went shopping to Bayshore Mall, shopped heavily in the “Dollar Tree” shop and took a customary snap in front of “The Hooters”. This was pretty much what we did in the early night though we were circling Miami for quiet sometime looking for the entrance to the Mall. The entrance was so full of mazes that even the parking lot attendants would take 12 years to find the way if they left the premises.

The other 4 had quiet a life I suppose … probably more mazes than we encountered since the pubs in Miami were built by the Egyptians, just like the way they built the entrance to the Pyramid Ghiza. So I can’t elaborate on their night life trip but one thing was sure that they returned to the room only around 5:30AM the following day while the 5 of us were having a whale of a time sleeping comfortably in the room, which could easily accommodate 2 people at the maximum.

The next day was not so adventurous since we just drove in the car miles without stopping and then stopping for each mile … this was the regular pattern for all tourists who go to Key West from Miami. The “Key West” was intended for those who love to drive 12000 miles just to see a Rock that says “The End Point of Planet Earth – Only 90 miles to Saturn” and have a snap taken there for memorabilia.

Anyway, we all made it till Jupiter before we ran out of steam and hence decided to take the Glass bottom boat where they show you variety of fishes which can be seen easily and more comfortably in a glass bottom TV. We enjoyed the ride, which lasted the same time as the Second World War and was equally drooling. After the ride, you guessed it right, we had chappathis for lunch, dinner, tea, no special reason, driving and left for Tampa and reached Tampa safely with still 1.4 Million chappathis left untouched.

This concludes our trip … until the next one …, which will be planned by none other than me … It’s me signing off … Bye

Cure For Common Cold - Any Takers?

It’s starting to rain in Madras and all the bacteria and viruses are back to form. So I check up with my consulting doctor on the chances of me getting a common cold for which he said a resounding 200% chance yes. This brings me to an interesting question. I as an honest tax payer paying tons of money to the medical community to develop medicines for all known diseases but in reality I find that they are really useless. Let us say we give them just two more weeks to find a cure for the common cold or let us turn this problem to a more complicated outfit like our political parties to resolve.

Seriously I began to wonder what the medical community is thinking right now. All that we see on the media about the medical community is strikes, huge office furniture and a lot of people with white coats. The media keeps repeating information such as the medical community have found landmark treatments for rodent poisoning and many advanced operations such as installing a micro-device into a fifteen year old boy’s tonsil. The spokesperson happily says “We saw the boy and this micro device, so we figured a way to put them together. Next week we plan to install the batteries for the device.”

While this is going on, millions of Madras-ites are getting common cold and general cough making the place more noisy and dirty. There are two kinds of symptoms to find if you have a cold; one is strong nose blowing or huge continuous grunting. Madras-ians think nothing about these two things, for example the highest decibel sound found on the streets of madras is nose blowing. Not only do they blow but they also make sure that they throw the phlegm right next to you.

So as far as I can see, the only group who are pro-actively trying to solve this problem are the cold-remedy companies which create lousy ads on TV. For example:

(The scene opens in a pleasant suburban bungalow. The husband walks into the house with a running nose and falls flat on the floor)

Wife: Are you OK? Can we leave for shopping now as you promised?
Husband: N-O
Wife: I don’t think so you look OK. Are you having fever?
Husband: Yes
Wife: Is your throat chocking?
Husband: Yes
Wife: Do you feel like committing suicide?
Husband: Yes
Wife: Then go and watch an Ajit’s movie … For common cold, try this Nicks-Passion-500.
Husband: Nicks-Passion-500?
Wife: Yes Nicks-Passion-500.

(The scene shifts to an impressive medical laboratory which has never been used for research purpose. There is a desk; behind it is a huge collection of books. It is actually the complete series of Famous Five but the camera doesn’t get close enough for you to verify that.)

Medical Officer: Research test shows that Nicks-Passion-500, a collection of herbal ingredients, is extremely helpful for a person suffering from cold. When used in a conscientiously applied program for oral hygiene it gets you back on your feet in 15 minutes.

(The scene shifts to a shopping mall with the husband not in the picture but behind a pile of grocery items and a useless credit card whose limit has been reached.)

Wife: Just a second honey, I think I missed that baking powder. Let me get it.
Husband: Come back quick, while I load these items into the trunk.

Well, I guess I have made my point really clear now but still there are some people who believe that they can avoid cold by eating a lot of vitamin C. (Source: My wife) Sometime my wife eats vitamin C say in the order of metric tons during rainy season hoping that the common cold will not harm her. She sincerely believes in this approach and yet she is always down with cold every monsoon season.

I guess you have to follow my way which is very simple. Just drink a large quantity of cool drinks. It seems to work, since I started drinking large quantities of Coke. I have not had one cold that I can remember clearly since last week.

Note: Nicks-Passion-500 with Coke is a good substitute for Rum. (Source: my neighbour’s medical college going son)

Corruption – Back to the Basics

Long ago the Indian government placed some orders which prohibited industries from trying to win orders by bribing. This comes as a shock to many administrators since most of the Indian businesses live on greasing the machinery to win contracts. If this trend was to continue then many marketing executives will be clearly out of jobs and will have to look for openings such as LIC insurance agents and door to door salesperson for vacuum cleaners.

Nevertheless to give you an account of actually what happens just before signing the deal, I am assuming that I play the role of a brother-in-law to a big politician in a state where Mr.X (an honest businessman trying to make inroads) wants to do business.

So relax and enjoy this fictional conversation on the phone for a business deal:

Mr.X: “Mamma ji, it was the most wonderful buffet that I have ever had. Thanks for inviting me”

Myself: “It is my pleasure, what brings you to Chennai?”

Mr.X: “My Company is interested in setting up a plant for mosquito coils in Chennai. We believe this would make a great health contribution to Chennai. It would save many young lives from Chikkun-gunia”

Myself: “A lot of them are offering for mosquito coils, what’s so new about yours?”

Mr.X: “5 million shares and 15% dividend every quarter, 20 million in low interest rate loans.”

Myself: “Looks like my BIL would be interested but her wife may not be too inclined in this”

Mr.X: “No, we plan to invest 60 million in her Women’s Welfare trust and sponsor 2 grand events of A.R.Rehman concert for their trust”

Myself: “Good, the money is to be deposited in Switzerland”

Mr.X: “Why there?”

Myself: “That’s where the head quarters for this welfare trust is”

Mr.X: So it’s done deal now I think

Myself: Well not so fast, you see my son is running a Clothes shop and he is in the middle of a fund drive you see.

Mr.X: so what, we shall contribute in that drive also. So now does it make a done deal?

Myself: You see I am not the authority, my BIL is the minister for commerce and he is a very tough nut to crack. I shall write a note on your tender and we shall see. By the way he loves diamonds.

Mr.X: We will find the diamonds and have it delivered, anyone else in the list?

Myself: If you can spare a few thousands for the Pinter’s Press Association of Chennai it may be of some help.”

Mr.X: where is this association?

Myself: It’s not started yet, but my daughter is dreaming about one for a long time.

Mr.X: so be it – Now let me convey this to me boss and we shall see it from there

Myself: Good, I will write to the note once I hear from my bank on those transfers. Sleep well my boy.”

Mr.X: Thanks a lot for saving our business in the hour of the need

Myself: For any other favours also get back to me.

C-L-I-C-K
C-L-I-C-K

Well, this is how many deals get over and is precisely how our economy runs.

No wonder I am still a stupid nut who is law abiding and a proper tax paying poor bloke not knowing where to grease the machinery. While I still believe in the legislation to avoid bribery which remains in BOLD letters in every government office may work some day just the as Ghandhi ji’s Portrait hanging in the office walls.

Schools Today Are So Smart

This is a kind of age old cliché that we have been hearing from our parents, but today I feel that the schools today are smarter than when I was doing my seniors. In today’s world to feel confident and superior we just have to complain or make derogatory remarks about the current educational system. Those who are listening will feel that you actually know a lot and are commenting to improve the situation. (Much the same way as all these TV News channel works)

Often you hear parents shouting “These kids today seem to enjoy school and I do not know what they teach there. They pass college and then only start to read and speak. But during my days we had to read the Tale of two cities around 250 times just for our fourth standard”. If I were to take Tale of Tow cities as a base line I wouldn’t mind these comments.

To research on this issue I went around finding facts, which is talking with my neighbours. I found the main evidence that they say is these II-JEE and CAT examinations and their questions.

Remember CAT exams and the only thing that comes to my mind is to sharpen our brains and more importantly sharpen those Natraj 2HB pencils. I wonder how I too was in this race sitting in my college canteen trying to solve one of these questions which may go like this:

“Ashok wanted to redo his bathroom in pink wallpaper and green bath tubs. So he invited Shankar over for help. If Ashok’s bathroom is eight feet by seven feet and has a ten foot ceiling and each roll of wallpaper is thirty inches and you have only 7 feet of sticker and 200 ml of glue, how long will it take for shankar to leave you with a half-finished bath room?”

I have to be sympathetic to these students who appear for CAT exams today much on the tight schedule that they have for preparation. I have my own doubts as to whether any single question in the whole of the CAT paper tries to test someone’s intelligence which one may need to survive in the real world. These papers are set by an elite panel of educationalists sitting around a table for 7 years and design a test paper for CAT. No wonder do the oldies shout and the average students who come out of IIM do know nothing about the real world such as which side of the bike is the kick starter on. Some of them are even worse than this; they can’t comprehend the existence of a bike.

The reason for this level of ignorance in real world things is that we are all taught to learn all the crap in school to get into a college and then to a high paying job so that we can write all our money to the banks which let us buy a house with a covered car park in some remote part of the city.

That’s why I feel that kids today have to become smarter and try not to work their brain cells on questions such as how long will Train A take to over take Train B if they both started from opposite direction 50 KMS apart and traveling at the speed of internet. By scoring less in these exams they let their older generation feel proud about education while the students can live a happy life where failure meets elder’s requirements.

My other worry is that if all students start going to college and thereby graduating themselves as engineers may dilute the degree program. I presume that we are not far away when an engineering degree would be treated much the same way as a gift coupon available with the super market cashiers. (NOTE: It’s for this reason that I choose to fail in all these exams.)

The final worry for me is that schools today teach a lot that I am unable to comprehend. Take for instance trigonometry, I feel that I am incapable of answering some of those questions such as how long will the shadow of a light pole which is at 45 degree angle to a light house 50 meters away in the east while the sun is at 15 degree from the horizon. I don’t want to expose my illiteracy in trigonometry but this question is currently being taught to a second standard child. Normally it took a child around 10 years to know that their father also failed in trigonometry but now with the invention of the decade named internet it takes only 2 emails and 6 scraps in Orkut.

In my days we were told a lot of junk information which we never questioned. For instance, if our history teacher said that the battle of Plassey was never fought in India we would accept it without reasoning while today my kid questions me as to why Europe and Asia though not separated are called as 2 continents. My answer (Which is purely a guess) is that the French and English didn’t want to be in the same continent as the Czech republics.

I guess this is enough about the education of today; I am very allergic to studies. More over I have to run to my home to finish my son’s mathematic home work in advanced calculus.

Note: He is just 4 years old and invests in shares during lunch time.

Men And Their Necessary Evil

Man has always shown signs of adventurism which is very evident from the fact that he in always inclined to marry a woman. Supporting this fact, if you were to look into the apes when they descended from the trees, we find that they fell into the trap of hunting food while the female apes sat around a cozy fire place and gossiped all day. This irritated the male species but due to their adventurism they restrained their emotions on the females and expressed it via crude cave drawings depicting them savagely killing their opponents.

Men have always longed for something which is termed as a “Necessary Evil” or in plain English a “Wife”. There is a time when he refuses to listen to thinking part of his brain and this leads to Bigamy (Motto: I don’t know that one wife is too many). Having said that, I may also be persuaded to look at another angle where many have been successful with bigamy. It’s just that they haven’t come out with those formulas in open and my guess is that they may be selling them on need basis. If anyone of you has got it kindly email it to me.

There is no way in the world that a man can ever understand a woman and I say this because I am married and you are going to read beyond this line because you are also married. Let me explain the reason for the above statement with scientific data (i.e. what happened to my neighbour’s family). We all know that if you want to celebrate some occasion we got to get some gifts. Men would accomplish this task with such ease say for instance it’s your friends house warming ceremony. You would straight walk into a departmental store and pick up the new power tool box with 256 equipments (3 AAA batteries also included) and walk out of the store in under 5 minutes. While the same scenario with your wife would be that she would have gone to the mall 45 days in advance and yet to return. Finally she arrives with a Chinese flower vase depicting a monk with a fiery dragon breathing fire which is of no use to anybody.

Not only has she paid 45 times than what you have but also would have spent 3 more days selecting the gift wrapper. I wonder who found this gift wrapping technology. This is the only technology which becomes obsolete fast than even computers. The whole wrapping of the gift takes roughly 3 years and yet those who receive the gift would tear it apart in less than 7 nanoseconds. So why waste the time on it? Tell this to a woman and you know what will happen. It may result in one of the main causes for the third world war.

Women have a preconceived notion that any gift which may be of some use to someone is not at all a choice. Like that tool box which I said maybe of much use to the man while trying to either fix a leaking faucet or as a surface-to-air missile during a fight with his wife. Yet they never agree to it. They rather gift a Van gosh painting or a China Flower vase or a 3rd Century cave drawing of a snake to the tool box (Even with batteries included in them)

Next is about dressing sense which is a separate blog by itself but nevertheless has to be mentioned here. I wonder how a women’s eye is able to differentiate the 16 million colors which come in Adobe Photoshop while men can never even differentiate between a red and a maroon Ferrari. They seem to be obsessed with colors that it always takes them ages to buy a dress for themselves (sometimes civilisations come and go by the time they are done) but when it comes to selecting your trousers you will be given a graceful 2 minutes. As any other man, you would have picked up that grey pants which you have 40 numbers back home. I guess the dress makers use up all the colors for the women’s apparels that all they have left is black and grey which is used for our pants.

I got to put a stop here, since my wife has come back from shopping. In all I would say with all these difference known to us we still for some reason beyond our reasoning capacity seem to grovel at their feet always.

One point of view is that if we were not after women then the whole economy would fail. There would be no malls, no bouquets, no market for Chinese vases and most importantly no credit card and telemarketing calls. If this was the case, then all men would do is to sit in their couch and watch a cricket match and expect the women to bring the remote to our hands. It would be great if life was like that but let’s not dream too much.

So my reason is that perhaps we are trying to convince them that the tool box is a good gift at least for our carpenter.

Note: Please turn the power driller settings from HIGH to WIFE when used as a missile during a fight for maximum benefit.

Today’s Hot Topic: School Science Project

Come summer and the Indian school system has a way of making its presence felt. During the holidays the student given a task to prepare a science project. This is a yearly ritual since not many teachers like students being free (Their Motto: We hate you). I am not intending to say that science projects are always a “PAIN” but it can help you in many ways. For example, it will teach each parents the Newton’s third law “Every action has an equal and opposite reaction”. Since you shouted at your son, he shall remain silent till the holiday ends and then on the night before school reopening (when you have just entered the pajamas) shout “I HAVE A SCIENCE PROJECT TO BE DONE AND I NEED TO GO TO THE MALL”.

Basically any project can be classified as a science project, but this time around you son is sure to give you guideline details as to how to present them. The last minute running around in your pajamas for a project is a ritual that is most important part of any summer project. The project has to be delivered in a thick card board paper with proper calligraphic titles and all items bonded to the chart with proper adhesive etc. If any of these items are not used then the school authorities will out-rightly reject the science discovery which you have made. This may be one of the main reasons why many top Indian scientists have failed to win a Nobel Prize in Science. (They forgot the thick card board as a base, I guess)

Once you have returned home at the stroke of midnight like Cinderella (with one leg of the pajamas missing) and start to unfold the card board base you are all set. Set to think of some innovative and creative project – kindly allow 6 hours for your brain to rack up an award winning entry like the “Origin of Earth” which is instantly rejected by the panel consisting of your wife, son, the milk man and 700 cockroaches. After much deliberation you come to a conclusion that the prize winning entry would have to be clearly imaginative and original. So you can immediately drop out of the race, forget winning.

What you need is a project which can be done in 30 minutes with materials found in your unwashed kitchen and untidy bedroom. Ideally the women of the house would like to execute the project without any property damage (i.e. Your Life) which is why she volunteers to do the whole stuff. Based on advices from elders and past experience I am refraining myself from explaining the popular projects and previous year winning entries since it may require certain amount of plumbing and nuclear activities.

Irrespective of the topic you choose, the project has to be dived into 3 parts: (1) The Objective, (2) Some thing which goes after the objective and (3) The Conclusion (which should be nothing but the objective). If we fail to follow this policy the project shall be rejected. Perhaps this is why all government proposals get a quick nod, no one cares for item (2).

With not much of luck (I am certain) you are still glaring at the ceiling and looking for a topic such as “Waves”, “Gravity”, “Light”, “Cellular Phones” etc. The gravity is a good one considering that you can take pictures of you holding your baby down and then take another snap of the baby falling and then another snap of you picking up the baby. This proves that there is a lot of gravity around you.

The only problem with this experiment is that you don’t realize the actual gravity of the situation in hand. All you want to do is to come up with some idea which can be done in 10 minutes. So you are back to square one at “Our Solar System” which takes 10 minutes to prepare. Out of these ten minutes, 9 minutes are devoted to searching for plastic balls of various sizes and rubber bands to string them in order.

Anyway you made it for this year and this whole routine shall occur exactly the same time next year, until then you may not have any problems with Science. The only problem you now have a deal is that your son is not going to get a good grade. For good grades you need good projects and for good projects you need good amount of time to think. So think about it.

Note: I am off early from office; have to go to the mall for buying things for my son’s pre-kg project named “Prehistoric Farm Animals”.