Testimonials For Orkut???

A retail chain does a fantastic marketing pitch in TV, Radio, Magazines, Internet etc. Amazing marketing. You are thrilled at the product and you want to buy it or know about it further. And so you go to the shop and….and…and…..THEY DONT LET YOU IN. Why? Because they don’t know you. Actually there is nothing up for sale there. Why were they advertising then? Oh! Just like that. They wanted other people to know how great they were. Do you think the above situation is hypothetical and does not happen in the real world? Welcome to orkut.

I have been spending a lot of time in orkut (also called orkutting). Maybe it’s the enthusiasm of a new found toy or maybe orkut is really addictive. One of the things that keeps me entertained on orkut (apart from drooling at girl's photographs) is the whole testimonial thingy. If you don't know what a testimonial is - let me explain. If a person has a profile in orkut - a friend of that person writes a testimonial about the profile owner. To completely define Testimonial:-

A statement in support of a particular truth, fact, or claim.

A written affirmation of another's character or worth; a personal recommendation. Something given in appreciation of a person's service or achievement; a tribute.

Tribute? Appreciation? Truth? Consider these:

“She is such an amzing girl, everybody wants to be her friend. She is so caring, helpful, adjective 3, adjective 4…..Then ofcourse there are guys slipping in a semi-droolish "she is so beautiful" under the guise of being cool and frank but secretly hoping the girl noticed their tactful flirt.

Some species send forward jokes or articles as testimonials… Psychos all of them….

Then there are some species who write testimonials in some weird shapes. I have seen testimonials in the shapes of hearts, lighthouses, dancing girls…and hold on…A cricket Bat.. I mean what the hell….On second thoughts. Im also partly to blame here too because I too had been bitten by this bug once.

On searching I found out that there is actually a community (group for the Un-Orkut ones) which gives out free testimonials to their members…Don’t believe me? Take a look:

http://www.orkut.com/Community.aspx?cmm=114370

God bless them all!

But undoubtedly the 2 worst (or best) testimonials I have come across are these:

1. lagta hai mausam kafi sard hai,
   Par doston ko scrap karne me kya harz hai,
   Aap ko scrap behjna hamara farz hai,
   kyonki aap ke id hamare pc mai darz hai.
   Yeh scrab type karte-karte hamare unglion me dard hai
   Itna jaan lo ae dost hamara ye scrap app par karz hai
   Is karz ko kitne scrap kar ke chukana hai,
   Yeh sochana ab aapka farz hai......
2. XYZ….Name saays it aal. She liking ballons very much (???) We being frainds for long time. She a sweetheaert. Thank You. (Spelling mistakes are not mine)

This one is the best… Thank You??? Hahaha…..

One more thing I have noticed is that most of these ‘creative’ testimonial writers on Orkut are generally male of the age group (16-24). I mean God had a wicked sense of humor when he created such a sex starved species such as the male homosapien. Most men enter orkut, browsing through profiles, internet, thinking " I need a girl, will she work". I don’t mean to condescend (well! I do but that’s a separate topic) but in all honesty, I sympathize with my fellow male species. There is this overwhelming desire to get the ‘girl’ but they have to make the 'fraanship' first. So you see all these guys leaving messages "will you make friends with me" -- "can I be your friend" or even better “I saw your profile, So I just dropped in to say Hi with a hope that you will respond to this message”. So what the internet has done is bring out the male stupidity into the public domain. In my school days (Ahhh…Nostalgia) we had guys hand out greeting cards (with a passionate face), love letters (no email in my school days, no chat, no mobile - can you believe it?). The only messenger in my days was another friend who communicated 'love' and 'feelings' to this girl. The girl tore up these cards or bashed up the messenger. However, it was all well concealed and happened in private. The boy rarely suffered public humiliation.

Here on Orkut, On one hand all girls are in a centralized place and there is opportunity to flirt. But on the other hand its ripe and presents enormous scope for public humiliation. But the male of the species still bite it. They have an open profile with testimonials, brothers, sisters etc and they still leave 'fraanship' messages in unknown profiles. I have laughed so loud at certain guys begging, pleading and imploring for 'fraanship' in orkut. And I don’t blame them. We are just made that way!!!

There are some laws about testimonial writing. They are:

Teal’s universal law of testimonials:

“The number of lines in one’s testimonial is inversely proportional to the level of knowing the person who is writing the damn thing for them”
Hell I can tell you guys. My best friend has written one of the shortest testimonials, ever.
Not because they don’t care for you, it’s just that they know sooo much about you, cramming years of knowledge in a small amount of space is very hard.

Teal’s secret hidden corollary of testimonials:

The sweetest and the best testimonials are inversely proportional to the level of your expectation – i.e. the best testimonials are those that come out of the blue

Teal’s 1st corollary to the universal law of testimonials:

“The level of sweetness in the testimonial towards the person is again inversely proportional to the level of the writer closeness of that individual.”
Lol. Need I say more?

For more knowledge about these laws, please visit

http://trinityteal.blogspot.com/2006/06/art-of-testimonial-writing.html

The laws are not mine… I aint a lawmaker… yet!!!!

Why me???

I fell for a girl the other day.

Just wipe that smirk off your face (If you are grinning, then its even worse), this ain't a thing to be happy about. Especially in principle. Over the years, embittered by ridiculous relationships and watching close friends/acquaintances (will write their experiences) undergo unimaginably messy and complex break-ups, or worse still, 'adjust' to painful after effects -- I have willfully and cleverly chosen the single life, the carefree gait of a string-free, singularly well-dressed butterfly and the eye of the tiger ( like a survivor). That being the mantra, life's all about toppling off the wagon.

Which brings us to line one in this piece, the confession that I was recently (Ahem!) smitten. There, I said it. I met a fascinating, petite thing a few days ago in the middle of my exams, and just couldn't get enough. We talked for a little while that day, exchanged phone numbers, promised to be in touch….. On the way back home, I realized I could not stop thinking about her. I gave a call immediately I reached home & called her and started the conversation with the lame excuse “I wanted to check if your cell was working”. Oops! Anyhow, the way she laughed made it up for it. One conversation led to another and I was down and out in the mystical region of Ahem….LoVe! Anyway, the chick (with a nose to kill for, I kid you not) is tremendous fun. And halfway through past five on date two, the dastardly suggestion slithers onto my unsuspecting head that I might actually want a serious and long lasting relationship with her, this time around.

Hmm.

Damn these hormones, pheromones etc… I didn't instantly coil into a front-foot defense. She rocks, and this could just work. Yeppy! On hindsight, I remember the pessimistic portion of my brain screaming “Dhruv, Back out, Back out…Until its too late”. But being the chivalrous and brave gentleman I am, I went ahead! The man-woman thing is all about balance. With the precision of a racing driver, you have to instinctively find the perfect line and then play with its limits. Go aggressive, fall behind, keep things loose or tight as needed. Some girls want a knight, some a night. You have to play your cards with 007ian self-assurance, leaping from cad to cardinal in a heartbeat. Therein lies, young reader, the thrill of the chase.

This was the issue with other prospects as I thought…. But the issue with being in love, of course, is that you trip headlong over your own shoelaces.
Suddenly, I cared -- about everything. Scanning text messages for subtext & hidden meanings, wondering what she meant when she replied too quick, or too late, and then trying hard to decipher all the conversations -- why she mentions her love for the songs of Kishore Kumar(yuk!!!), gauging her level of laughter at what you consider a particularly witty routine, and whether she really wants the new.
When in a fix, your logical abilities go for a toss. I was desperately seeking counsel from my closest lady friends (never, ever, take a man's advice when it comes to relationships) who all seemed to react in the same fashion. They sat back with a smug smile, laughed their heads off and told me, with their best the-hunter-becomes-the-game phrase, that the tables had turned.

Damn.

Double Damn!

That I had it bad, though, wasn't the worst part. The absolute pits was the realisation that while I knew I was just setting myself up, I was, um, enjoying myself. AS I SAID I DON’T KNOW IF I AM IN LOVE…. BUT THEN LIFE HAS NEVER BEEN SO BEAUTIFUL!!!!!

Tales of rejection

No one wants to be rejected when it comes to love.
It's painful, humiliating and can hurt your self-esteem.
But it's a cruel world, and most of us will face rejection before it's all said and done. The important point is not whether or not you get rejected, it's how you respond.
Will you bounce back and flourish? Or will you flounder and fall to pieces?

These are the tales of my friends (as told by them)... Don’t laugh. This is the true face of love…..for them….Names are being kept anonymous for privacy…..

Case 1:
AG has the following story:
I really regret my reaction to being rejected..
This girl who was with me for four years, all of a sudden declares that she has no more feelings for me. When I pressed her for a reason, she said that she was seeing another guy. I trusted her more than myself. We had the perfect life ahead of us and she shattered it. I did not react normally. Instead, I tried to hurt her. I ruined her reputation by doing little things, for the simple reason that I couldn't tolerate somebody cheating on me. I had trusted her for so many years and she made me so ashamed and let down.
Today, one year later, it seems that I acted very inappropriately. I should not have hurt her, even if she had crushed me. Deep in my heart, I still love her and want to her to be happy. Still, I fear that I will never love anybody as much as I loved her. I am jaded and jealous. I'm left to think only one thing -- that true love only happens once. I don’t think Love occurs, You can only love yourself!

Case 2:
H (a friend of my elder cousin) has the story:
This one was not told by H himself but by my elder cousin in an attempt to keep me away from the disease of love.
I was in love with this girl for over five years. She proposed to me and made me the focus of her life. After we decided to get married, I was the happiest man in the world. But then, just before our marriage, things started to sour. She started giving me lame excuses and asked to have the wedding date postponed. I offered her every possible material possession and every possible expression of love. I even gave up a dream job in London because she didn't want to leave our hometown.
Still, after all these concessions, she finally broke off the marriage and is now engaged to a mutual friend. Since the day her mother told me, for she didn't have the courage, I have been in pain. I often stare at the ceiling and wonder if my life has any worth. Even if I move on in my career and family life, my love life will never be the same. My heart is forever broken and I will never trust another individual again.

Case 3:
M (one of my dearest friends) is in love with a certain female. They live in different cities and their communication is through various electronic means of modulation and demodulation. Long telephone calls, frequent net access etc, the works in short. It seemed to me that those two must have a great relationship together. So I thought. They have 1 major fight in a fortnight and the minor ones are like happening every other day. I don’t whether they are the undesirable by products of the seemingly fallible system of love. But they should know better than us! The point here is that the feeling after the fight which M gives is like he would prefer to die/kill than live this life. Sometimes he finds refuge in company or sometimes in alcohol (Sometimes both)….
What’s the use of being in love when you sometimes have to regret being in love? What’s the seemingly best feeling in the world do to you that you start feeling miserable about yourself?

Case 4:
I don’t need any more cases. The world is abundant of seemingly endless similar cases.
So do you want to be in love????

But the feeling is amazing..Who can resist it?

Definition of love

Some one once asked me how do you define love? It was ideal Sunday, afternoon sun & we were just having some idyllic conversation. I dismissed his question with the remark "who does???But then, later I thought about and tried my hand at the question which even the great philosophers have tried!I'm in esteemed company!!!!

According to the Oxford definition, there are 7 definitions, the 2 most pertinent ones are: -

1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

Here is my definition:
Love is a basic dimension of human experience that is variously conveyed as a sense of tender affection, an intense attraction, the foundation of intimacy and good interpersonal chemistry, willing self-sacrifice on behalf of another, and as an ineffable sense of affinity or connection to nature, other living beings, or even that which is unseen. It manifests itself in feelings, emotion, behavior, thoughts, perception and attitude. It influences, underlies and defines major patterns in interpersonal relationships and self-identification.

But how do we know if its there? I mean the fundamental issue remains the same. How can we know if its there in your body? Well, sorry to disappoint you all. But you can never know for certain. Because there is no One general answer that can satisfy this persistent query...
Lets not consider the sentimental reasons like being unable to live without the other person and thinking about him/her. As these are mainly unsatisfied emotional needs....
I would just say what You know you are in love when you are in love. It may sound self-contradictory. But its the closest to the answer you can get. Love is all about setting yourself free from all of the barriers, obstructions and stigmas. In the end, you should not regret falling in love. No matter what happens, you should be able to look back and say "THOSE WERE THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE"!

Statutory Caution : Love is a quintessential human delusion simultaneously the source of our greatest strength and our biggest weakness. For the pessismistics, Love is a direct result of chemical reactions and hormones which lead to the onset of emotions, which lead love to be designed overwhelmingly to defy logic and reason. Its complex. And I have barely scratched the surface here…

Phew………………..

The End

It was early in the morning at four,

When death knocked upon a bedroom door,

Who is there? The sleeping one cried,

I'm the sandman, let me inside, (no reference to metallica)

At once, the man began to shiver,

As one sweating in deadly fever,

He shouted to his sleeping wife,

Don't let him take away my life.

Please go away, O Angel of Death!

Leave me alone; I'm not ready yet.

My family on me depends,

Give me a chance, O please prepense!

The angel knocked again and again,

Friend! I'll take your life without a pain,

This your soul God requires,

I come not with my own desire.

Bewildered, the man began to cry,

O Angel I'm so afraid to die,

I'll give you gold and be your slave,

Don't send me to the unlit grave.

Let me in, O Friend! The Angel said,

Open the door; get up from your bed,

If you do not allow me in,

I will walk through it, like a Jinn.

The man held a gun in his right hand,

Ready to defy the Angel's stand.

I'll point my gun, towards your head,

You dare come in; I'll shoot you dead.

By now the Angel was in the room,

Saying, O Friend! Prepare for you doom.

Foolish man, Angels never die,

Put down your gun and do not sigh.

Why are you afraid! Tell me O man,

To die according to God's plan?

Come smile at me, do not be grim,

Be Happy to return to Him.

O Angel! I bow my head in shame,

I had no time to take God's Name.

From morning till dusk, I made my wealth,

Not even caring for my health.

God's command I never obeyed,

Not 1 day I prayed.

A festival came & a festival went,

But no time had I to repent.

All charities I did ignore,

Taking usury more and more.

O Angel! I appeal to you,

Spare my life for a year or two.

The Laws of God I will obey,

And keep away from self-conceit.

I will refrain from usury,

And give all my wealth to charity,

We Angels do what God demands,

We cannot go against His commands.

Death is ordained for everyone,

Father, mother, daughter or son.

I'm afraid this moment is your last,

Now be reminded, of your past,

I do understand your fears,

But it is now too late for tears.

You lived in this world, two score and more,

Never did you, your people adore.

Your parents, you did not obey,

Hungry beggars, you turned away.

Breaking promises all your life,

Backbiting friends, and causing strife.

From hoarded goods, great profits you made,

And your poor workers, you underpaid.

Horses and cards were your leisure,

Moneymaking was your pleasure.

You ate vitamins and grew more fat,

With the very sick, you never sat.

A pint of blood you never gave,

Which could a little baby save?

O Human, you have done enough wrong,

You bought good properties for a song.

When the farmers appealed to you,

You did not have mercy, tis true.

Paradise for you? I cannot tell,

Undoubtedly you will dwell in hell.

There is no time for you to repent,

I'll take your soul for which I am sent.

The ending however, is very sad,

Eventually the man became mad

With a cry, he jumped out of bed,

And suddenly, he fell down dead

O Reader! Take moral from here,

You never know, your end may be near

Change your living and make amends

For heaven, on your deeds depends.

If this poem inspires you,

It can help someone too.

End of an Era - Thierry Henry

One fine morning as I was getting up from my bed, I just glanced outside. It seemed just like any other day. Little did I know how my life was to be turned upside down. I got the morning’s edition of the papers. The front page was full of the political back-biting and the allegations, people getting killed and what not ( Just another day in India). Then I got the shock of my life when I turned to my favorite page, the Sports page. There was the headline I was dreading –

“BARCELONA SIGNS HENRY FOR GBP 14 MILLION”!!!!!!

I was flabbergasted to say the least. It wasn’t as if I wasn’t expecting it. But for it to really happen was something else. Its like when you dread something happening & when it really happens, you get that sinking feeling. I got it checked and got all the details from the net. There was no avoiding it. Aaaghhh!!! I couldn’t think straight for a few minutes. Now my friends know what a die hard gunner (Arsenal supported for the uneducated) and a Henry fan I am, started calling up to offer sympathies and (mostly) to poke fun about the whole deal (no pun intended)! One friend Kunal (a MAN U fan, Goddamn them all) just sms’ed me a simple line - “CONGRATULATIONS”….

Leave it. Leave it…I cant bear to thing about that nightmare again!!!! Why am I writing this post? I don’t know but I cant imagine being a gunner without Henry being there. Maybe because his decision to join Barcelona (especially after that 2005 champions league final). Anyway what’s happened has happened, but just think about Arsenal? This is bigger than Vieira leaving, in my opinion. Henry, at his peak, was probably the best player in the world. Some of the goals he scored were just incredible and it was an absolute pleasure watching him. If I try and choose one game I think the game in which he scored 4 against Leeds sticks out for me. He was just brilliant that night and we’re going to miss that Thierry Henry. The departure of Robert Pires and now Thierry Henry means that Arsenal are about 46 goals down before they even kick a ball. What I would like to know is where are these 46 goals expected to come from? Last season we Arsenal fans saw that our present crop of strikers could not provide anywhere close to this amount. Buying new strikers takes time and care and I can't see them arriving before August. Does this mean that European Champions League football will be something we shall remember than take part in...?and even the UEFA Cup might be outside of our capabilities.
Oh dear, Arsenal board....you idiots…..
Now I just hope that Arsene Wenger will not buy another 18 year old, because now that Henry has gone, there aren’t many hugely experienced players in the team, and I think that experience is exactly what Arsenal FC need! Heck, if Ruud Van Nistelrooy can do well in Spain, so can Thierry. I’m sure that he will even do better. Henry served Arsenal well, and I wish him the best of luck!
Now, who’s going to replace him… ?

But these last words by Henry are of some comfort: - “I still have to pass a medical on Monday. But yes, I have chosen Barcelona. I am going to sign there for the next four seasons … for the football they play, their history, their stadium. For Frank Rijkaard, who I grew up watching. David Dein is no longer there and there is no denying the fact this has de-stabilized the team and the manager. Arsene Wenger has said that at this moment he will not commit to the club past the expiration of his current deal, which finishes at the end of this coming season. I respect his decision and honesty but I will be 31 at the end of next season and I cannot take the chance to be there without Arsene Wenger and David Dein. I will miss the Arsenal fans dearly, they have supported me through thick and thin. They will always be in my heart, as will all the fans who make the game here so special. I will always have a special bond with Arsenal Football Club. I will always be a Gooner by heart…. ”

So, the end of an era, very much. It’s been a blast, Thierry, thanks for the memories. Now, let’s move on.

Bonding with brands

WORMS in chocolate. Pesticides in cola. Unmentionables in most other stuff that goes down the gullet... It’s only fair that people love to hate brands these days. MNC brands, in particular.

Why so? Maybe because we feel cheated. All along, we’ve bought MNC brands in the name of quality. If they want to play dirty, we might as well go back to the original dirties—the desis. At least, we’ll be able to identify with the sweat, grime and hair strands found in their products. And pay less to boot.

You may feel that I’m stretching the point too far. You may be amused by my display of feeling for ‘mere brands.’ I will therefore transport you to a normal city.

You are now standing at a corner shop in Gandhi Nagar, Jammu ( For the geographically weak, its in the strife torn state of J&K, India, for more further details, the wiki family will provide u all the details). You want bread. Your eyes scan the counter for Bonn, Dalima or Bakeman’s—three familiar brands. You see Kwality and St. Michaels and Bimbo—three unfamiliar brands. There’s also a day-old packet of Britannia. You take the Britannia. Why? Because it’s an old friend. It spares you the guinea pig feeling. That’s a brand’s place in your life.

Cadbury and Coke do the same to people who move between countries and continents. Otherwise, it’s a moot point whether Cadbury’s chocolates are any better or tastier than Amul’s or Campco’s.

The day-old Britannia you’ve bought is like the offshoot of a banyan tree. When you saw it, you were reminded of another offshoot in your hometown. The association inspired confidence. Similarly, Cadbury is a banyan tree on a much bigger scale. Its offshoots span places as far apart as Harvard and Haryana. It homogenises markets across the world. When a Haryanavi sees Cadbury in Harvard, his eyes twinkle, "Oh, so you are from the house of Cadbury! So glad to meet you, I have known your sisters in India these last 30 years`85"

Yes, brands grow to be our friends and relatives. That’s why we love and trust them. That’s why we remain loyal to them. That’s also the reason why we hate them when they let us down.

I have talked about the ‘brand banyan’, which starts out locally in one place, spreads its shoots far and wide and comes to be seen as ‘local’ in all those places. But there’s also the genuine local brand, which remains confined to one area but inspires fierce loyalty in its patrons.

This kind of brand is capable of triggering the strongest feelings. Recently, on a trip home to Jammu from Delhi, I was served HPMC juice and Verka butter. It had been over six months since I had seen these products. Holding them was like homecoming; it was as if I had found long lost friends on the way home!

Their limited reach is perhaps what makes us cherish a genuine local brand more than any ‘banyan brand’. Consider this: you are a Indian, alumnus of an Indian University and settled in New York for the past 20 years. You read The New York Times everyday. One morning, while walking to work, you spot a copy of any Indian newspaper at a news stand, do you pass it by????

Money in the Air... If the Air is polluted, does that mean the notes too are counterfeit?

BERLIN (Reuters) - A German motorist surprised by euro notes swirling in the air around her car hit the brakes and collected a "substantial amount of money" before turning it over to police, authorities in Worms said on Thursday.

A police spokesman in the small western town said the 24-year-old woman saw the money flying through the air in her rear view mirror late on Wednesday. She pulled over and tried to collect all the notes, unsuccessfully.

When police went with her to the scene they could not find any more cash.

A spokesman at Worms city hall said police were withholding details on the exact sum and location of the find in the hope of learning more about the money's origin.

Hope this happens to me!!!! Voohoooo!!!!!

Falsity cannot keep an idea from being beautiful; there are certain errors of such ingenuity that one could regret their not ranking among the achievements of the human mind.