How to make a complete buffoon of yourself by not learning enough Spanish (aka Venezuela trip part 1)

(Disclaimer: This post was originally composed on paper due to lack of access the internet. It is a literal transcription of the original, with minor grammatical fixes, location, date and time set appropriately)


Mostly tired today from the flight journey. The flight to Miami was late, and I just had about 45 minutes to make it to my connecting flight. On top of that, there were 2 flights leaving to Caracas at the same time, one operated by American airlines, and the other by  LAN, for American airlines! Having an AA booking until Miami, I naturally went to the AA flight's gate, on concourse D, where I was duly dispatched to concourse J, for which one has to exit the terminal and go a fair distance. Much pain. I did make it through and met some flight crew members who mistook me for a Canadian having taken one look at my (expired) Canadian visitor Visa.  Since my Spanish is terrible, I took some time communicating that I am an Indian. Process duly completed, I boarded with about 5 minutes left for departure.


On board the flight to Caracas, I discovered that there was only one food option - omelette, some potato patty and some fruits. (That they had any food at all for a journey so short was surprising, having gotten used to American flight service standards). But their coffee was heavenly.


I had been wary of meeting my contact person in Caracas, having not been able to elicit a single response to my emails from the States. Ergo, I was not unduly surprised when he failed to show up. I was mildly disappointed though, when his phone was also unreachable. I had given up on getting anything other than the official exchange rate when I was accosted by a person at the information desk who offered me 7 BsF to the dollar. I took it (official rate was 4.3 Bsf / dollar). He also took me to my hostel.


The traffic into Caracas was terrible and the driving aggressive (by American standards; by Indian standards, this was at worst normal and had much less honking). The city itself reminded me of Bangalore - Las Mercedes bears a striking resemblance to Basavanagudi, while Chaco, where my hotel / hostel is looks like Basaveshwaranagar.


My next task was to obtain tickets to Santa Elena / Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar. Aeroexpresos' office was close by. I put off the visit until I found some food. The hotel's manager, a kind lady who speaks reasonable English, taught me that I ought to say "Comida Vegetariana" to enquire. I asked at a few places in the neighbourhood and drew blanks. Just as I was about ti give up and head to a supermarket for fruits, I noticed a Taqueria. They had one veggie dish, easily identifiable by the adjective vegetariana. I ran my standard "sin carne, sin pollo, sin pescado" routine by the waitress and got a helpful "Si" in return. Suitably refuelled, I headed over to the bus station.


Once again, communicating was proving painful. Thankfully, some locals who heard me say silly things to the lady at the counter in Spanish while simultaneously making ridiculous signs noticed me and came up to help since they could speak English. I discovered that there were no tickets left for the night of the 25th to Puerto Ordaz or Ciudad Bolivar nor did the buses from there go to Santa Elena. One of the 2 helpful locals, Carlos, told me that he himself had been to Roraima 3 months ago and tickets might be available at La Bandera. He also gave me directions to the place by the metro.


I took the train and was up to my ridiculous Spanish speaking antics again, when a boy who could speak English noticed me and helped me make the switch in lines at Plaza Venezuela. Here, I met another chap, native of Valencia, but of Polish descent, who could speak English fluently, having spent time in London. His name is Daniel and he is an independent filmmaker. His mother and he took me to the La Bandera terminus which resembles the Shivajinagar / Pahar Ganj of yore. I learnt that my trip there was a wild goose chase and all buses to Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar / Santa Elena de Uairen left from Terminal de Oriente, which, Daniel advised me against going to then as the time was past 4 in the evening. This, by the way, is a running theme in Caracas, a city rife with mugging and murders. I went back to Chacao hoping to catch a bus to Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar on the night of the 26th. However, Aeroexpresos had run out of tickets. Disappointed, I decided to procure the fuel canisters and worry about the tickets on the 26th. I was also very, very tired by now.


I then took a taxi to Macundales, with whom I had exchanged emails about the canisters from the States. The people were extremely friendly and most importantly spoke good English. When I narrated the events of the day to them, Andres took it upon himself to find me a ticket at one of the local airlines to Puerto Ordaz, or at least a bus ticket the next day. By then, Tommy arrived and told me that the best location to get a direct bus to Santa Elena is Terminal de Oriente with either Expresos Occidente or Expresos los Llanos. He advised me to go back to the hotel sleep and proceed the next day. Convinced that this was the best recourse, I returned, ate some veggie pizza from a different place, drank coffee (by now, I needed that once every 2 hours) and slept.

Indian group claims that Occupy movements were invented in India.

Addressing a press conference of similarly bored Indians in the shanty town of Bellevue, Washington, Mr. Priyananda Shenoy claimed today that it was his birthday yesterday. Our correspondent has since verified this claim.


While Mr. Shenoy of Bellevue was claiming so, Mr. Priyananda Shenoy of Mulki, Mangalore district, Karnataka, who bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned Mr. Shenoy of Bellevue was busy claiming that the Occupy movements were an ancient Indian invention. He then relapsed into Konkani, at which point some well meaning onlooker telephoned a doctor fearing that Mr. Shenoy's nose had gone bust. Waiving off the medical help, while calling Konkani a genuine language, Mr. Shenoy claimed that such democratic uprisings against a very complicated issue by shabby, stoned people was an ancient Indian invention as evidenced by the Maha Kumbh mela, which Mr. Shenoy referred to as the ancient Occupy Allahabad movement and the Makara Sankranti, which he called the Occupy Sabarimala movement.

Video's title says it all

I cannot really add much to this.

2 states meets 300

Krish Malhotra was born in Patiala and brought up in Delhi. His father, Mr. Malhotra, formerly Major Malhotra is a retired Army officer, with whom Krish constantly quarrels. His mother is a racist and bigoted woman, with a narrow outlook towards life, but loving nevertheless.

Krish was in 11^th std when the IIT fever caught up with him. All his friends were preparing for the JEE. And jump on to the bandwagon, he did. He studied furiously for 2 years and landed a respectable rank in the examination. But, much to his chagrin, his parents overrode his intention of going to IIT Bombay and decreed that he go to IIT Delhi. Ergo, he enrolled to study Mechanical Engineering at IIT Delhi.

His four years in the IIT were a roller-coaster ride. When he began, he tried to be earnest and studious. However, thanks in no small amount to the people whom he befriended and his inherently gullible nature, he ended up with mediocre grades and barely ended up getting a job. In the process, he also lost his virginity; but, that is inconsequential.

2 years later, Krish decided that he wanted to get a MBA. He registered to write the CAT. He "cracked" the test and ended up with a stellar score. This, coupled with his excellent performance in the personal interview, landed him a seat in IIM Ahmedabad. There, he met Ananya Swaminathan. She hailed from Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Needless to say, she lost her virginity to him at the IIM. And then, at some point of time in this "masala" story, they decided to get married. They also graduated with plum jobs from the IIM.

That is when the real problems surfaced. Krish's mother, thanks to many years of practised bigotry and narrow mindedness regarded South Indians with scorn. Ananya's parents were no less cocky; they despised anybody who was not from their own caste. When Krish and Ananya told their respective parents of their marriage plans, their parents were in equal measure flabbergasted, flummoxed and disappointed (Mr Priyananda Shenoy has since generalised this to a linear combination of flabbergasted, flummoxed and disappointed). The outcome of this was that our protagonists met with strong opposition from both sides. However, instead of eloping, Krish and Ananya decided to get their parents to agree.

This proved more difficult than either of them initially imagined. It almost led to Krish and Ananya breaking up at one point, but Krish's father intervened and used his army major skills to fix everything quickly and efficiently. The wedding was scheduled to take place at the bride's hometown, Tiruvananthapuram.

On the eve of the wedding, Krish was so incredibly excited that he could not sleep. At around midnight, he got terribly hungry. So, he wandered out, looking for some place to eat. All he could find was a roadside place making Parottas . The vendor was making them in a cart, next to a huge drain. In spite of the obvious hygiene problems, Krish decided to take a chance. He went to the vendor and said "Bhaiya, do paranThe dEna" . The vendor, who had a six pack, immediately screamed THIS IS PAROOOOOOOOOOTTA and kicked him into the drain. Krish, being unable to swim, died.

Short Story

Akhandamindri was the king of Raichur. Rather, his ancestors were the rulers of Raichur. However, after independence, all princely states had merged with the Indian Union and he was king only in name. But, the government, as per the agreement that was signed when Raichur acceded to India, gave him a privy purse and his family was very wealthy, and extremely well respected. However, he was a spendthrift. He spent most of his money in buying a lot of cheetah fight match boxes, which in turn he traded for rare ones. This, was his hobby.

Then came Indira Gandhi. She thought that it was unfair these princes who mostly lazed around and wore fancy dresses every day should get a privy purse while the rest of India lived in abject poverty. So, she abolished it. Thanks to the rather profligate life that Akhandamindri was leading, his family was instantly reduced to penury. The privy purse was their only source of income. Since matchboxes were the only things that he had any experience in, he opened a roadside shop selling Ganesh Bidis and cigarettes, because this gave him an excuse to keep the matchboxes after many customers had emptied them. With this, they could make ends meet.

But, Akhandamindri was very depressed. The reason for his extreme depression was not that his income had been reduced to many lakhs to practically nothing. Rather, it was his childlessness that kept him awake and worried all night. When he was a prince, he had his own personal doctors. Each one of them had more letters of the alphabet after their names, indicating what they have studied, than the other. You see, the way you identify that Doctor A is better than Doctor B is by counting the number of letters that follow their names. For example, Dr Arundathi Nagaraj MBBS MS QWERTY OOGA OOGA CHEEK CHEEK is way better than Dr Arundathi Nagaraj MBBS MS. I digress. Anyway, these doctors still treated Akhandamindri's family out of courtesy. No one could find anything wrong with either him or his wife.

This was when a soothsayer was touring Raichur. His name was Priyananda Shenoy, not to be confused with Nithyananda. He had a degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in soothsaying and he knew the periodic table by heart. Such was his fame that the queue to meet him in Raichur stretched till Gulbarga. Priyananda specialised in predicting when people would have children. On hearing his arrival Mrs Akhandamindri pestered her husband to go and meet him. Akhandamindri thought "Well, I have nothing to lose, having lost everything buying match boxes" and went to Priyananda. Priyananda told him that if Akhandamindri and his wife were to go to Mantralaya and pray to Lord Raghavendra, he would be blessed with a child. The Akhandamindris thanked Priyananda and went to Mantralaya the next day.

Just as Priyananda had predicted, the Akhandamindris were blessed with a male child in about an year. They were overjoyed. They named him Raghavendra Raichur after the Lord and the city which they hailed from.

This was the time when television was making its advent in India. Little Raghavendra was always fascinated by the black and white Keltron tv that they had at home. He would always stay glued to it, and sometimes even miss school to watch advertisements on it. His lifetime ambition was to become the owner of a television shop, one in which you could go and choose a television of your choice, and if you were so inclined, buy it.

Time went by and Little Raghavendra Raichur became Big Raghavendra Raichur. When he was about 25, a famous matchbox collector offered Rs 2,00,000 for a rare Cheetah Fight match box from 1970. Raghavendra was unemployed. And these Rs 2,00,000 would serve him well if he had them. Understanding his need, Akhandamindri decided to sell one of the half a million cheetah fight matchboxes from 1970 that he had, and give the money to Raghavendra. With tears in his eyes, and wax in his ears, Akhandamindri sent the 499,697th match box in his collection to the address mentioned in the newspaper. He received the money by cheque in 7 days.

On Raghavendra's 26th birthday, Akhandamindri summoned him and gave him the cheque. He said "Go open your tv shop". Raghavendra was overcome by joy and started dancing to Asereje. After completing his dance, he rented out a shop in K R Market and opened his TV shop.

In order to inaugurate his TV shop, Raghavendra invited Dr Rajkumar. Dr Rajkumar came with his wife and children and inaugurated the shop. His wife's name was neither Meenakshi nor Kamakshi. Later, Raghavendra himself decided to deliver his first television to the Rajkumar household.

When Raghavendra reached Rajkumar's residence, he was greeted with warm smiles. He had the television in a trolley. When he asked Rajkumar where to put it, Rajkumar replied: ಹಾಲಲ್ಲಾದರು ಹಾಕು ರೂಮಲ್ಲಾದರು ಹಾಕು, ರಾಘವೇಂದ್ರ (hallallaadaru haaku, roomallaadaru haaku, Raghavendra, for the kannadically challenged)!

Valentine's Day Shenoy

I was getting worried during the last semester of my Masters. It was November and the only job offer that I had was to be a system administrator at Microsoft, and that too, at Redmond. I kept asking myself what I will do there? Having trained and evangelised for the *nix (Unix, Linux, Solaris and their ilk, and recently the Apple intel boxes) systems for most of my life, I would be mocked and insulted by my friends and foes alike (Oh! yeah, I have a lot of foes, thanks to me running expect scripts on their terminals and getting their passwords [ an inside reference to http://www.facebook.com/harishjp ] ). I was frantically hoping that Stallman or Linus would come and save me...

That was when lady luck smiled to me. There was this startup in Mountain View, California, who wanted a programmer with proven Unix skills. I immediately applied. And got in, I did (balls to you Yoda, I can do this too). Thus began my affair with the Macbook pro, 17'' glass screen, black keyboard and multitouch trackpad goodness. I spent the first 2 days playing on it, you know, writing shell scripts, setting up aliases, setting up my vimrc, my bashrc, my cron jobs - it was so awesome.

But it all came down last week, like a pack of cards. Some asshole on the caltrain stole my bag. And with that, I lost my baby. I was listening to music and must've dozed off a bit, y'know. I never really thought that anybody would bother to take my rather shambolic bag with the logos of possibly every major software company in the world. Bloody bastard. There were so many ugly PCs lying right there. Why did he not steal them?

I immediately went and ordered a new box. And Apple said that it will take me 3 weeks to get it! 3 effing weeks! I was wondering how I was going to get through these 3 weeks?

And at work, the only other laptops they have are the old PowerPC Mac boxes or Windows PC boxes. And I have to get some work done urgently. So, I decided to bite the bullet and connect to the linux boxes through ssh. Everybody has access to our CM cluster, they are like prostitute machines. Everyone has fun with them.

All this happened yesterday, and I am already done with this horrible box. I cannot take it any more. And I definitely cannot do this for 3 more weeks...

That was what was going on my mind when the phone rang. I picked it up feeling more depressed than ever. It was a policeman. He said that they had found a bag marked DD with a computer in it and a visiting card with my name. They asked me whether I had lost something in the train yesterday. I could not believe my ears. I deliriously muttered out a yes and said that I will get there right away...

I reached the police station in my pajamas. The policeman asked me to identify myself. Thrusting my driving licence in his hands, I asked him where my computer was. He pointed to a black bag lying on the table. He said that they had recovered it from a stolen goods' market where the thief was selling the whole thing off for 300 dollars! He asked me to go through the bag and check whether anything had changed.

I quickly pulled the laptop out, and booted it. What I saw left me flummoxed. Windows 7 was booting up. The scoundrel had installed Windows on it. The machine was useless for me now.

After that, I just went through the motions. I signed on the letter that the policeman gave me, but I was crestfallen.

I just got back home. In my urge to get my work done, I had even run scripts on the Chandramukhi cluster. And now, I have this worthless Macbook Paro, my true love right in front of me. And in front of you, my beloved, I now lay down my *nix life. As a *nix programmer, I am dead.

-- /dev/das

The Shenoy is a reference to Narendra Shenoy.

Moral Science Story 2, continued.

Before you start reading this, read. this: http://priyananda.blogspot.com/2010/02/moral-science-story-2.html

Shulyaka was depressed when he heard that all three of the people whom he wanted to unite through their sorrows had perished at the hands of an evil dog. He said "O Shiva, please give me another chance, and bring those poor souls back to life. Let me go back, and I promise, I will remedy it".

Shiva was not convinced. He refused to let Shulyaka go back. However, his consort, the goddess Parvati was around, and overheard this conversation. She was moved. She came into Shiva's chamber and said "My lord, I know that it is none of my business to tell you what to do, but if you don't let Shulyaka go back, I will fucking poke your third eye with your trident, albeit on facebook".

Non sequitur.