Brevity is the soul of wit

Once you enter the corporate world, call-center people discover you. How they unearth you, and your phone number could be a mystery befitting Sherlock Holmes. Anyways I am not trying to play Sherlock here, I am just playing the part of Dr. Watson – the narrator, and generally the silent witness.

So for the past two years almost daily I have been getting calls from all the banks that have established in the universe regarding a free-credit-card. You know the general routine “Sir, I am calling from XYZ.” Some are polite enough to enquire “Are you free for a few moments?” And then all calls read from the same printed script, “We are offering you a blah blah blah”, and all calls end on the same note at my end, “Not interested, thank you”.

Well it seems to me that the new mantra for people selling credit cards is brevity. Yesterday I received a call that went like –
Me: “Hello”
Call Center: “Sirrr…”
Me: “Yes?”
CC: “Sirrr, ICICI bank”
Me: “Yes?”
CC: “Sirrr, free credit card”
Me: *disconnected*

No other word was spoken.

Ahh! The 30 seconds I used to waste on these calls has now reduced to 3 seconds… I am all for brevity 😛

Multihued

Sometimes there are vibrant reds & greens,
Although the black makes it’s presence felt.

Sometimes there are shades of drab grays,
Interspersed with the few wisps of silver.

Life is but an amalgamation of colours,
What you concentrate on – is the choice.

How did I learn driving?

Before coming to Hyderabad I had never driven a geared vehicle. I knew the theory, but had failed abysmally at the only practical I had tried before setting foot here (which (the foot, I mean) incidentally celebrated the sixth anniversary of being grounded-firmly-in-Hyderabad yesterday, and it seems highly unlikely that the-set-foot would budge). So it is established now that I was a novice at driving vehicles with gears, so let me carry on with the anecdote.

This took place before the bike-full days, when I was in first year. I was standing at the JNIDB bus stand waiting for 216 or 217 (I do not know if anyone else has noticed this, but don’t the buses come bunched together? For a long time no bus would make an appearance, and suddenly there would be a cameo appearances by multiple buses (I now think Sehwag is inspired by the Hyderabad buses – a series of small scores, and you miss the big knock if you miss half hour of the transmission on that particular day, any of the Sehwag knocks are invariably quick!)) to appear to go to Mehdipatnam. So another fact is established now – that I was waiting for transportation.

All of a sudden, a guy on a scooter stops near me and offers me a lift. Well, don’t look a gift horse in the mouth – soon I was riding pillion on way to Mehdipatnam. We had hardly cleared Gachibowli when he stops and asks me to drive; bewildered as I was, I realized I was at least a kilometer adrift of any bus stop, and to be honest his driving skills had not imparted me any confidence – so that time the only sane option I could think of was to accept his offer of driving and at least get to the next bus stop, Those were my very early days in Hyderabad and I was yet to encounter the wonder called shared-auto. So few stalled starts and many jerks-and-shakes later I was driving, the whole time the weirdo was grinning and humming some song. When he started talking non-stop once he was on the pillion, only then I realized that the guy was drunk. I did not have the heart to leave a drunk on road on a scooter, so I continued driving till Mehdipatnam. To say that it was an adventurous drive would be an understatement. Driving a geared vehicle for the first time in my life and that on an old highway! Thanks to the drunk on the scooter, with my first tryst at serious driving I had conquered the highway 🙂

So if I summarize, I can answer the question in four words – “a drunk helped me”; but I took 438 words… Talk about verbosity 😛

Technorati: Hyderabad, Driving

Book Review: Theft: A Love Story – Peter Carey

It has been a week since I completed Theft: A Love Story by Peter Carey. I did not write its review immediately as I was not sure what I felt about the book. I was initially ambivalent towards the book, but now I really appreciate the book. It is a painter’s story, well sort of… I felt it is the story of two brothers who are coming to terms with life after few major events.

Butcher Bones is a “has-been” painter. He was on the road to fame, but a messy divorce and settlements later he is a non-starter at all Australian studios. He is entrusted with the care of his ‘damaged 220-pound brother’ Hugh. The story is narrated by both these characters, one chapter at a time. At times it did get confusing who was narrating which chapter, but it was fun viewing the same events from two radically different viewpoints.

The book is amazingly well researched. It reminded me of Arthur Hailey books like Airport and Hotel – so thoroughly researched that you feel you can do the work done by the protagonists in those books. Here Peter Carey takes you into the world of art, and explains the nuances of painting. Although at some points the description gets so vivid and so much jargon is used that for a layman (like me) it gets confusing to follow.

The book had its moments of humour, there were interesting details of an art-heist, the romantic angle was present, but the best part was the attachment between the two brothers – that drove the story. All in all it was an entertaining book.

Sporting Views

On Tennis
Federer wins yet again, but just. Nadal made Federer scamper to all parts of the court, stretched him to five sets, was on the verge of breaks twice in the fifth set and yet had to be the loser. I felt Nadal was the better player on Sunday, but lady-luck had saddled with Federer. Federer is arguably the best player tennis has ever seen (I wish to have seen a proper Sampras-Federer match when both were in their prime… Alas!), and is no doubt the most elegant player in tennis; yet Nadal made him look inelegant. Federer’s strokes did not have the fluidity that is always associated with him. Rarely have I seen Federer shouting after winning a point, yesterday there were many such points. Anyways Federer wins Wimbledon for the fifth time; at least this time it was not a boring one-sided match 🙂 And where are the serve-and-volley guys? Sampras, Ivanisevic, Pat Rafter were brilliant at serve and volley, now all I see is the baseline game and very few forays to the net.

On Cricket
It is good that Sachin, Dravid, and Ganguly opted out of the 20-20. 20-20 is not cricket; it is just a slog fest, with the bowlers reduced to the role of bowling machines. With the induction of free-hit in ODIs too, cricket is getting increasingly biased towards batsmen; although ICC has done one good thing and standardized the ground sizes to a minimum to ensure we do not have the “best-ever ODI” (who in the hell termed that match as the best-ever!?) again. Looking forward to great cricket, and by that I mean India-England Test matches.

On F1
Recently I was having a conversation with a friend who has stopped following F1. He was asking me about who are the leaders, any good rookies etc etc. I filled him in about Hamilton – a rookie with podium finishes in all his races till now. Visibly impressed, he predicts that Hamilton is on way to become the Federer of F1, and I have to agree. Hamilton has just had one bad race (yesterday at British Grand Prix) and still managed a podium finish comfortably. Raikonnen seems to be waking from the stupor he was in, and Alonso is not doing anything special. I feel Alonso is not getting as competitive as he used to be when he was up against Schumacher. But for me this season the most enjoyable driver has been Robert Kubica – he has fended off so many challenges from Ferraris and McLarens and more often then not he has come out trumps. I feel he may replace Massa at Ferrari in few seasons, lets see how the time unfolds future 🙂

Technorati: Sports, Formula1, F1, Tennis, Cricket, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Lewis Hamilton, Robert Kubica, 20-20