Yeah this is a social art one should learn.  One is faced with many situations when one has to paint a fake smile on the face, show pleasure, fork out a whole lot of hard earned money and get a gift for someone one wishes were wiped off the face of this earth!  We need to do the gifting thing for Diwali, for Christmas, for weddings and New Year.

If you are a north Indian, life gets easier.  You simply take a shagun envelope, pop in some money, seal it and slip it into the said person’s pocket.  Chore done!  We have reduced gifting to a simple financial transaction.  But it simply does not reflect the anger, the displeasure that one feels in parting with that sum of money does it?  I mean it does not say “Mrs. Chopra, I think you are an overfed, over made up empty headed shallow person, and I don’t give a rat’s ass that your spoilt son is getting married” etc etc. Get my drift?

Well, if one has to do the deed, I think one can do it with panache!

So here are my suggestions for really creative gifting  

EVIL GIFTING IDEAS

1. Santa themed neck tie

Dont knock it.  Someone gave ex a red christmassy tie with santas, reindeers and christmas bells on it.  The look on his face was priceless when he unwrapped it.  Well, he never wore it (obviously) and I ultimately hung a few bells using it as a string on the baby’s crib.  I have always found it really creatively evil gifting idea!  While on the subject a hawaiian shirt would do well too.

2. A hard-bound copy of the Ramayana or Geeta (written in Sanskrit with no translation).

Feel free to substitute it with other appropriate religious material.  Most effective when the recipient is young, non-religious and suffering from a hangover when he unwraps it.

3. A Morning Walker :

Ideal gift to give to an ex who is simply not moving on or getting the message.  If you do not want to spend that much money, a Low Cal diet recipe book will suffice too.

4. A dress that is just one size small.

This is purrrfect for the oh so superior patronizing females.  I have heard of a lady who did that every christmas for her daughters and daughter in laws.  Then she would insist on them modeling it for her and then cluck sympathetically and say “I simply did not realize how healthy my darling girls have grown!”

Well Alicia Keyes dress says it all ~~~ and most of us arent as shapely as her to carry it off even this much~

5. A vacuum cleaner/Vesta dish warmers.

Husbands if you hate your wives go for it!  If you hate sleeping on the couch, dont do it, tempting though it may be …..  :P

6. A life-sized framed poster of Kylie Minogue looking like this

Works wonderfully as Mrs. Chopra’s spoilt son’s wedding gift.  She can spend the rest of her life bitching about it at kitty parties, but her son wont know where to keep it – not to mention – how to explain to his bride!

7. Soap

Cheap, unimaginative.  Just sends the message that you could not be bothered to think of a suitable gift at the best; and that you think the person should wash up, at the worst.

8. A drum set (the electronic one with 6 different tones and 8 different beats) for your least favorite cousin’s brat

The good thing will be that you will no longer be on talking terms with your cousin.  A win-win situation

9. A neatly packed set of mouth freshener, dental floss and mouth wash

10. Santa Toilet Seat Covers and Shower Decorations

I saw these at Amazon, laughed my guts out and got inspired into writing this blog!

You know the classic melodramatic dialogue one came upon in our Hindi cinema …. during the sixties and seventies

Hai Rabba/Hey Prabhu (pause for effect) isko dekhne se pehley meri aankehn band kyon nahin huien

Or the other alternative

Hey Ram, mujhey is ko dekhne se pehley kyun nahin utha liya

Here is a list of things that would make me say that

1. Amitabh Bacchan as Genie in Aladin

Why dudes, why???  The fake beard is horrible!   I love to believe in myths and this movie seriously makes it difficult to.  It is such a conviction-less, horrible insipid movie.  Abhi toh summer vacation bhi nahin hai …….

2. Rakhi Sawant in any avataar

I dont care if its her swayamvar or she is baby sitting some cranky little tyke.  This female is toxic, and I dont wanna see her.  Did you see the sleazy photos verging on soft porn of her’s (of course she will say look alike) doing the rounds?

3. Yet another tirade by Behn Mayawati

Not interested, dont care …. Next please

4. Yet another interview of Lalooji

Get someone else, dudes.  Even India TV is showing some innovativeness now.  The lines are old and so is the guy now …..

5. Another doomsday prediction about 2012

We’ll die when we have to, or when the dharti maata splits into two and takes us into her bosom.  Why freak un-necessarily?  While on the topic, will someone loan me a crore or two, to be returned in 2014 if the earth is still spinning on its axis

6. Yet another swine flu statistics

They’ve started boring me to death – without even giving me the swine flu

7. Another Munna Bhai kind of act by Sunjay Dutt

Enough already.  It was a hit, we enjoyed it …. Now you dont look hunky but chunky.  Lets give it a rest for a while shall we?

8. Another young skinny boy wearing his jeans low

Dont wanna see butt cracks.  Never wanted to and thankfully the fashion has come and gone.  Update your skinny pimply self please

9.  Priety Zinta playing item girl

Seriously lady, this is not happening!  Dont tell me you’re out of work!

10. Yet another lame ass colleague telling me how sasta things were about five years ago

I know, I know.  It pinches me too.  Dont rub it in please.  Ask boss to give us all a raise.  Do something about it.  You’ll be doing all of us a favor and will go to heaven instead of dharti mata ki godh mein in 2012

11. And lastly people who bitch about young people these days … you know the standard “Kya Zamana Aa Gaya Hai”

If I hear one more word about it, Gosh, I’m coming to your side of the town/road/parking lot ….. in my car, and I’m an awful driver, so be warned!  Times have to change and the change in youth morals is the life blood of all gossip sessions.  Agar yeh log kartab nahin karengey, where will we get our entertainment from?

I think I am a diehard traditionalist, set in my ways …. at least in some habits ……

I have memories of waking up to the sound of the cooker’s whistle drowning down the Vividh Bharati

Sounds of the song “Aaj Kal Tere Mere Pyaar Ke Charchey Har Zubaan Par”

K. L. Sehgal, Manna Dey, Kishore …………..

I loved Asha Bhonsle

Hated Lata Aunty’s voice, found it too shrill

See I was an opinionated brat and was proud of being one!

I have kept up the traditions ….

I exercise to music channels playing Aa chance par dance karley and the likes

Nothing like doing your stretches to music channels playing dhin chak Hindi music

I am quite a square

A whisky swigging trash talking zany woman, but a square nevertheless

I met a cousin yesterday and we decided to spend some quality time catching up

We stopped at a pub and had a few drinks and were discussing life in general and stuff like that

I hear a cellphone ring.  The ring tone was “Hey Saala” from Rang De Basanti

I looked around ….

Never thought it was my cousin, dammit he is old hanh!  I can clearly remember him turning his nose up at cellphones and telling me he would never allow his school going kids to keep them

He hated MP3 players and Ipods since kids turned into zombies after plugging on the earphones

He took that cellphone out of his pocket and dealt with the call

I gulped down my drink in an effort to control my jaw that nearly dropped on the floor

HEY SAALA!!!

Dudes, what’s with the world these days????

Me : Ummm Bhai, did the kids put that ring tone on your mobile?

Bhai : No I did, I like the song

Me : Downing a handful of moongphali chaat to control my suprise : You did?

Bhai : Proudly: Yeah I have an entire collection of them and change them often.  Your Bhabhi is boring, she only keeps Sharukh songs as ring tones.  I keep updating hers too.  My Ipod has a huge collection

Dammit, I dont know how to add music to my Ipod!!!

Just at that moment my phone rings a staid Tring Tring

Bhai : Oh this is boring.  Let me change your ring tone for you

Me : Hanging on to my cellphone and shreds of my dignity : No, I prefer a plain ringtone.

Dammit, I’ll remain a small townie and traditionalist.  I am taking a stand.  My phone will continue to have a plain and simplistic ring.

Mumtaz+Rajesh Khanna movie anyone?

Kid 2 has finished his 19 years on earth.  How does a Mom feel when her baby kid turns into a full fledged adult?

I’ll tell you, I feel old.  It is crazy, freakingly crazy.  I can announce with aplomb on the www when I turn 50 and not feel old.  The sight of my full grown kids, healthy skinned full of youth and joie de vivre makes me feel like a shrivelled up mango.

The fact is that I am old, my elder one is married to a woman whose bust doesnt go south even when she does not wear underwires, (I hate that!), and my younger one has just bid goodbye to his teens yesterday.

Now excuse me while I go and bang my head against the wall!

Even the oldest dog in my house is just two years old.

This home is youth centric and I am the old woman.  I cant borrow young from the kids any more, they’ve become adults.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY KID #2

Kid 2 : Mom, how old are you

Me : (nose firmly in laptop’s monitor) Smile vaguely

Kid 2 : (Critically appraising me) You look old

Me : Hmm Yeah!  I am old, infirm and in my dotage

Kid 2 : Talk English, not Literature

Me: I am old and weak and need to be looked after.  Get me a glass of water

Kid 2: What do I get for my birthday?

Editor’s Note : How about a dose of manners and common sense?  One can kiss any gift goodbye when one is so tactless.  He sure has inherited my foot- in- mouthitis.

Yesterday we four went and dined, while I did my customary hyperventilating act at the bill.  It was frickin HUGE.  Humaarey zamaaney mein bills were decent!  The kids were blase and ignored the demented mother.

Today we have a party and (you guessed right) the home will be deluged with more young adults.

I need to find a bhajan mandali of 50 plusers to find my space.  But for that I need to learn what bhajan mandalis do.

I cant abide Kittys and kittens, so that is out for me.

Can someone give me a suggestion what a 50 plus woman can do to combat this onset of the elderly feeling due to her kids growing up?

If you have any, I am willing to listen ……

Meanwhile, I am stopping at the DVD shop and getting movies starring Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson and drooling over them this weekend to help combat this toxic feeling.

I dont know how much spam you all get on your blogs!

On a good day I get 250 approx!  One a slow day about a hundred!

You can call me crazy, but I check out each and every one before deleting, because some friend or fellow blogger may have commented and the spam filter may have snagged it.  I dont wanna treat friends like that.  So, feeling very virtuous I check each before deleting.  It is my good deed for the day.  Makes my halo shine!  Angel Ritu to the rescue!  :P

That gets me to the crux of it all.  Does spam actually work?

Somebody from a blog named benefitsforhormones(dot)com wrote this comment on my blog entry titled “Planning a career our style”

Thanks for this. Bookmarking your blog.

Why?  To send more spam my way?  Besides what has that blog entry do with stuff you are plugging?

I write a poem to my non existent waist and Car rentals from Mexico wants to sell cars on it.  I fail to see the connection. ….

My elder son’s wedding blog posts have attracted spam from a whole lot of valium and other sleep inducing medicines

Dudes!  Well, if one sleeps through the night, one has no wedding!  Some one please eductate them!

Abhi toh I havent even got into the Free Animal Sex and other pervy stuff that comes on various tags like the self help category      :lol:

Have to admit that I do see a connection there …….

Porn spam does focus on tags, I guess.  The rest, specially the medicine ones are so random!

One die hard optimist is this one

I Love the way you write…thanks for posting

Comes from various mail ids to almost all my blog entries ……..  Persistant fella

And the one that says

I did not know that!  Thanks for the information!

The only reason I did not fall for it was it came on posts that were NOT informative!

Yaara, chodo na!  Nakal mein bhi akal chahiye should be changed to Spamming mein bhi akal istamal karo

To translate this : You need to use the brains God gave you, for cheating as well as spamming.

Leave me and my blog alone please!

The only time the Phoenix family has with each other is at the dining table at night. 

Normally there are two boys each equipped with a PSP playing some intense game and totally incommunicado because they have head phones attached to their heads.  I swear I am so used to saying absolutely insulting things about them to their face and getting away with it – if they retaliate, I’ll faint with shock!

DIL and I have laptops open in front of us and we are either surfing the net or doing something else. 

Yeah there is some dinner ….. and it is normally eaten while we are busy doing other things, i.e. unless I have cooked something sinfully fatteining or exotic.

Tonight was sandwiches and salad, since I had deadlines.

DIL had some major office drawings to do and wanted to eat anything that was boring since (said in OMG I am about to die tones) I have work Mom and my boss will kill me!!!  I dont want to fall asleep right after dinner!

The boys had already eaten pizza so they could not have cared less!

DIL : Babe my autocad has gotten corrupt

Kid#1: Baby what would you do without me?

DIL: (In the I have to humour him tone) Babe tabhi tere se shaadi kee na!!!

Kid#1 (Preen Preen)

Kid#2:  Yeah I know! Bhai can we start the game soon please?!

DIL : (The tone was pure distilled menace) You know you guys would have married each other if you werent brothers!

Kid #1 : Tactful smile : No baby

Kid #2 : Eewwwww!

Me : Another sandwich any one?

Total ignore from the family

Sensing a golden opportunity I quietly went to the kitchen and sliced a mango and opened a can of condensed milk.  I thought they could eat each other while I quietly had an awesome desert.

Just as I was pouring the condensed milk into the bowl, I looked up!  The whole damn brat brigade was standing and watching me accusingly.

Sigh!  There went my desert!  I did not even get one spoon!

Nah that is exaggeration.  I was rationed …. yes rationed 2 spoonfuls.

Dontcha just love her?  

Like A.R. Rehman she never goes stale …….

1.My husband and I divorced over religious differences. He thought he was God and I didn’t. 

2.I don’t suffer from insanity; I enjoy every minute of it. 

3..Some people are alive only because it’s illegal to kill them. 

4. I used to have a handle on life, but it broke. 

5.. Don’t take life too seriously; No one gets out alive.

6.. You’re just jealous because the voices only talk to me. 

7.. Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder. 

8.. Earth is the insane asylum for the universe. 

9.. I’m not a complete idiot — Some parts are just missing. 

10..Out of my mind. Back in five minutes. 

11.. NyQuil, the stuffy, sneezy, why-the-heck-is-the-room-spinning medicine. 

12.. God must love stupid people; He made so many. 

13.. The gene pool could use a little chlorine. 

14..Consciousness: That annoying time between naps. 

15.. Ever stop to think, and forget to start again? 

16..Being ‘over the hill’ is much better than being under it! 

17. Wrinkled Was Not One of the Things I Wanted to Be When I Grew up 

18.. Procrastinate Now! 

19.. I Have a Degree in Liberal Arts; Do You Want Fries With That? 

20.. A hangover is the wrath of grapes. 

21.. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a cash advance.

22.. Stupidity is not a handicap. Park elsewhere! 

23..They call it PMS because Mad Cow Disease was already taken. 

24. He who dies with the most toys is nonetheless DEAD.

26.. Ham and eggs…A day’s work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig. 

27..The trouble with life is there’s no background music. 

28..The original point and click interface was a Smith & Wesson. 

29.. I smile because I don’t know what the hell is going on. 

and of course the 30th

Sometimes I think Maxine should run for president.  She was right on with this one! 

Everyone concentrates on the problems we’re having in this country lately:

 illegal immigration, hurricane recovery, alligators attacking people in Florida … 

Not me. I concentrate on solutions for the problems. It’s a win-win situation. 

+ Dig a moat the length of the Mexican border. 

+ Send the dirt to New Orleans to raise the level of the levies. 

+ Put the Florida alligators in the moat along the Mexican border. 

Any other problems you would like for me to solve today ?  Yes  ? 

Think about this one: 

1. Cows 

2. The Constitution 

3. The Ten Commandments   

C O W S   

Is it just me, or does anyone else find it amazing that during the mad cow epidemic our government could track a single cow

 born in Canada almost three years ago, right to the stall where she slept in the state of Washington?

And, they tracked her calves to their stalls. But they are unable to locate 11 million illegal aliens wandering around our country.

 Maybe we should give each of them a cow.   

T H E    C O N S T I T U T I O N   

They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq   …. Why don’t we just give them ours?

It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.   

T H E   1 0    C O M M A N D M E N T S   

The real reason that we can’t have the Ten Commandments posted in a courthouse is this: 

You cannot post ‘Thou Shalt Not Steal,’ ‘Thou Shalt Not Commit Adultery,’ and ‘Thou Shall Not Lie’ in a building full of lawyers, judges and politicians… It creates a hostile work environment. (Loved this one … )

HOLI HAI!!

There are so many kinds of Holi revellers:

1.  SPORTS ENTHUSIASTIC HOLI REVELLER

The first is the kind that gets gujiya, water guns, water balloons, gulal, permanent color into place a few days before the event.  Then he gets his Bahadur, kids etc to join in filling the water balloons the night before D-Day , stored in a huge plastic tub at vantage point.  Talk about preparedness.  Such a reveller also has attack points, back-up points etc charted out a few days prior to D-Day.  Commonly found on the terrace, scouting possible victims.

2. GULAL KI TILAK (SIMPLE COLOR POWDER) HOLI REVELLER

These guys dress up in the cleanest of clothes, meet up with like minded Holi celebrators in the colony park where they put gulal politely on each other, feast on garma garam chai and pakoda while telling their enthusiastic kids “No beta, don’t play with water”.  Yours truly belongs to this category.  Commonly found in – yeah you got it – the colony park with a cup of tea.

3. NATURE ENTHUSIASTIC HOLI REVELLER

Chandan tika boxes, herbal colours etc.  I even met one who insisted on spraying ittar on me.  Very classy, very expensive – and to my middle class brain – very pretentious.  Commonly found in the rarified locality of the super rich and the arty types.

4. GANDI VAALI HOLI REVELLERS : THOSE THAT PLAY DIRTY

Kid #2 is proud member of this fraternity.  These guys buy the most pakka (permanent) colours, actually buy cartons of rotten tomatoes, trays of eggs and a pichkari to fill water balloons.  This is arsenal and they are going to war.  One car is converted into the war car, seats and other sensitive to color stuff is covered with polythene sheets and padded with towels.  The boot has buckets full of the water balloons, the car is loaded with all the ammo and with sufficient dhin chak music (This year it was Lucky Oye, Rock On, Emosanal Attyachar and the likes) that blare their evil intent, they sail forth looking for like minded warring opponents.  The fond parent gets a shock sometime at 4 pm when “Maa Ka Laadla” comes back with black, blue, purple and metallic blonde permanent colours painted all over him and stinking of rotten egg.  I always try to convince myself that the egg and tomato must be doing some good to his skin.  Commonly found in – the car of course.

5. LET US DISAPPEAR ON HOLI TYPES

My Kid#1 is a former No. 4 type fella who has now joined this fraternity in his old age (:D).  For the past 3 years, he stocks enough booze and snacks and he and his wife simply disappear for the rest of the world.  I am instructed to tell any one that they have gone out of town, on the strict warning that they will not allow me any food or booze if I tell on them.  “I my wife and my dogs do not play Holi” he told me in that oh so superior way.  Wrong thing to do!  I kept wondering “What if I told people they were hiding inside????”  It is too tempting LOL.  Commonly found in front of the TV holding hands sipping wine.

Of course how can one not write about Bhang???  Holi means Bhang right?  I mean what kind of barbarian does not know of the close connection between the two?  Holi is spring and fertility.  In fact the first colours were made with flowers and pollen.  So for any kind of great “fertility rites” to happen you need to lose inhibitions.  Any way, people were exhausted after the harvest … and needed a high to get going I guess.

I would like to have the bhang shardai, but Kid#1 plays spoil sport.  Sigh!  Just had it once in my life.  Man, I was in a trance after that.  Quite unsurprising that its known as Shiv ji’s prasad.  The damn thing takes you to alpha state without much effort!

Next Holi, I am gonna beg plead with every one who does not know Kid#1 to please gimme some.

Okay people, I want to share an interesting find with you – a browser that beats our Firefox and Google Chrome browser hollow.   You can read about it here

Okay okay, don’t throw a bucket full of chilled water on me and dampen my enthusiasm. My boys have already done that. I hate it when they wait until I am literally jumping up and down with my latest technical discovery and then shrug their shoulders and say …. But Mom we already know about it – its been around for ages.

It’s like I switch on the ignition with a “Guess what I found today” and the moment they make eye contact, I shift to first gear with an excited introduction of the thing, then as they say Unhunh, I go on to second gear with its features and my reactions … and then hit the third and revv up …….

Then comes the rain on my party 

But Mom, we already know about it – it’s been around for ages

Sulk

But nothing can rain on my parade today. This browser is most awesome. It combines Firefox and Social networking all together. It makes it simple to check out updates on blogs and all my contacts too. It is so people friendly and has Twitter, Digg etc etc all in one place.

Check it out and download it here

The tutorial they have will tell you all you need to know.

]]> http://phoenixritu.com/flock-an-awesome-browser/feed/ 15 http://phoenixritu.com/all-right-then-confess-who-is-your-biggest-inspiration/ http://phoenixritu.com/all-right-then-confess-who-is-your-biggest-inspiration/#comments Fri, 02 Jan 2009 08:04:02 +0000 phoenixr http://www.phoenixritu.com/?p=905 Continue reading →]]>

WHO IS YOUR BIGGEST INSPIRATION? 

1) Pick your favorite number between 1-9.

2) Multiply by 3

3) Add 3

4) Multiply by 3 again (I’ll wait while you get the calculator….)

5) You’ll get a 2 digit number….

6) Add the digits together to obtain your score.