Piccadilly Jim

Absolutely trivial story, but what a scintillating narration. The story in a Wodehouse book is extremely predictable, but it is only an excuse to weave a magic with words. If ever there was a magician I envy, it would be him.

Not that the plot is inane. It is constructed so that a guy has to impersonate himself in a house comprising a few weird characters- a mobster, a formidable aunt, an uncle, an ex-boxer, a lady fiend detective, an obnoxious boy, all contributing to a delicious khichdi of a plot..

Enjoyed it thouroughly...like watching Padosan or Golmaal once more..good lead in for a Diwali holiday..

Placement Diary

ICICI Bank picked up 28 students yesterday- a big haul indeed. Crisil is on campus today, and SBI Life expected this week too. Sentiment seems to have improved a lot in the Indian corporates, compared with last year or two. Good news for everybody. Otherwise, a 2 year effort looks wasted. Placement team has worked hard, and will be happy too.

Lots of former students are getting back in touch. Feels good, and nice to watch their progress through albums and scrawls on facebook. Leads to occasional meetings too, in different places.

A Wild Sheep Chase

Another book by Murakami I just finished reading. I get the feeling reading him that he is somehow mocking at us- not anyone in particular, but the human race in general. I also get the feeling that he believes ours is a multi-layered (I am not sure if I should use the word multi-splendoured) existence. I think that is the reason his stories always include subterranean allusions to things like sewers that run unseen under a city. Sometimes he creates two complete worlds too.

He also has a rather different style of telling stories- this one, for example, has a rather long investigative trail, but rather than a whodunit, it is more of a what-exactly-is-happening kind of a story, but equally gripping nonetheless. For the first time (except in the case of my own book), I think the blurbs on the back of his book are more than justified. Read him to find out more- no, I won't kill the story by revealing all. I'll only say that it has more to do with people than sheep, in spite of what the title says.

Finance Conclave

Yesterday and today, there was a finance area conclave organised at IMT Nagpur. The student group called Finaholics was the organiser. Must say that they got together an impressive list of speakers, including some from Barclays, Marsh, Mirae Asset Management, Bharti- Axa and the like. The two day event consists of lectures, panel discussions, games, quizzes and the like, and prizes too.

Arth Vyuh is the name of the event. Starting with just an idea, creating an event- or rather, staging it successfully, is a tough thing to do, and our students have done it for the second time this year- first was a marketing area event two months ago. Faculty only helped in the background by providing the encouragement and moral support.

Placement season is upon us and we started off with 5 students getting offers from Asian Paints, one of India's most respected Indian companies.

Adrak Ke Panje

Adrak ke panje literally translates into The Ginger Paw/Palm. This was the title of a super-successful comedy act by one Mr. Babban Khan of Hyderabad. It was a quintessential comic routine with hardly any sets, revolving around a lower middle class Muslim Hyderabadi family. Some classic jokes (many were topical, and changed with the times)-

The hero is surrounded by a clattering bunch of around a dozen children as he enters his home one evening. He says " Itne khush kyon horeain? Main office se aarun koi jail se chhutke nahi aarun" (I am coming from office, not from jail). He carries on in this vein for an hour and half of Rollicking take-offs on everything from the population to landlords, to the police force to almost anything that you can poke fun at.

One classic exchange is between a son of a friend who asks our hero to get him a job. The hero wants to find his skill set, so he does a preliminary interview.

Asks the candidate, Tumko driving aata kya? (Can you drive?)
THe answer is no. Disappointed, the hero says, if only you knew driving , I could have got you a driver's job. And so on, about 2-3 other professions. Each time, the boy says he he can't do this or that.

Finally, exasperated, the hero asks him, "Tumko dimag hai?" (Do you have brains?)
This time, he says, Yes.
The hero puts his hand on his forehead and says, "Shit, if you didn't have brains, I could have got you a job in the police".

All this and more in Hyderabadi is hilarious and a laugh-riot. Wonder if any of this is on VCD/DVD.

Quotes

"Long ago, when men cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft. Today it's called golf." Anonymous/unknown origin.

"Russians are good at aphorisms. They have all winter to think them up." This one is from a book I am reading by Murakami titled A Wild Sheep Chase.

How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”- Oscar Wilde

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked”- Bernard Meltzer

Memory is what tells a man that his wife's birthday was yesterday. ~Mario Rocco

Hyderabadi

There is a strange lingo called Hyderabadi which may be fast fading away. Some attempts at preservation -

Kaikoo? means Why? and How means Yes.

Kaikoo yaaro? means, Why, man?

Parso can mean day before yesterday, day after tomorrow or a year forward or back..as in "Parso main aaya thaa naa," to a long lost relative/friend.

Kya logaan hai yaaro, is a general cry of despair at anything which should not be happening, but has happened, with people, countries, continents or outer space.

Motabbari hai kya? roughly translates into 'Who do you think you are?' when said in the right tone (not a literal translation)

'Bataan nahi karte hum Hyderabadi' is a line from a song in one of Big B's films. It means, "We Hyderabadis don't just talk,...."

Hum kaale hain to kya hua dilwaale hain- was an immortal song filmed on Mehmood in 'Gumnaam' in which he uses Hyderabadi lingo.

The movie Bazaar starring Supriya Pathak and Farooq Sheikh had some excellent use of the lingo in the whole film.

Musical Program

 Could be inching towards the 30th in the last few weeks. But they are addictive. This one- on 29th July 2026-  was dedicated to Mohammad Ra...

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