Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Dinner Tag.

Sowmya has tagged me . I am supposed to invite 6 people for dinner and then pass the baton on to 3 more bloggers to play host.

The first decision I made was that all six guests would have to be girls. I am not going to fritter away this rare opportunity to be the sole male among seven diners. I am certainly not going to call Thennavan who, apart from being a bachelor, will simply sweep the girls off their feet with his ability to wax forth on subjects ranging from Thai Poosam to Java to Penguins to Vaikunta Ekadasi. Most certainly not Kiruba Shankar whose idea of a relaxed evening is to jog 40 km with his blistered heel and plastered toes. The sight of Kiruba heroically running to the dinner venue will send girls into raptures and draw the attention away from me. Yes, better to keep these competitors away. So, girls it will be.

Having feasted on her cream of potato soup, Aloo parathas, Urulaikizhangu Podimas and a dessert of sweet potatoes, washed down with cold coffee made in her dishwasher, it would be ungentlemanly on my part not to invite Sowmya . Besides, she being a Science afficionado, will regale the IGF2R-mutated guests with trivia and minutae such as the bacterial action involved in the digestion process, the radon gas that is absorbed in the bloodstream when you are exposed to radiation from a light bulb, the calories consumed by super bowels during the Super Bowl , the resultant strain on the bathrooms and how titanium dioxide can clean up the mess. Sowmya loves her veggies and I must make sure that she gets plenty of those. Incidentally, if a vegetarian is one who eats only vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat ? Which brings me to the second guest, Mother Teresa.

No, not the beatified missionary. I know she has reached her heavenly abode. My guest is Mother Teresa 2.0. You know that for the last 40 years, every aspirant to the Miss World title when asked the question, “ If you were to be re-born, who would you like to born as?” almost always answered, “As Mother Teresa”. So, there must be a Mother Teresa 2.0 re-born somewhere and whose personality is an aggregate of several Miss Worlds. She would be some woman.!

There is one girl who gave me my first big break in the blogosphere by linking one of my blog posts in Desipundit. Yes, Neha helped increase the readership of my blogs by 400% ( from 1 to 4) overnight. Her CV shows that she is involved in hundreds of activities, that she is a contributor to about two dozen blogsites, tsunami/quake help groups, that she has traveled extensively- at least from Hyderabad to Delhi to London. I naturally assumed that she must be of my aunt’s age. Then I find she is all of 23 years old. The kids these days!. At 23, I had just about learnt to brush my own teeth and tie my own shoelaces and here’s this precocious kid multi-tasking with effortless ease. Must get her to the dinner table and make her act her age by eating one of those ‘children’s thalis” that they serve at half the price.

Shruthi. This is the girl who made me lose a multi-crore deal by getting my mind engaged in one of her problems- how to keep her favourite driver and save 40 minutes of commuting time to work. She also wants to stay rooted in one place and travel back in time, with or without her favourite driver. She argues that it makes more sense for a person in Bangalore to travel to Mysore for a facial or to watch a movie and provides exhaustive comparisons of cost to support her point. So, I guess that the dinner venue will have to be the Lalit Mahal at Mysore.

Kool Girl, my ten year old daughter will be invited to share details of her new enterprise which boasts of the best profit model tempered with social responsibility. Not since Enron folded up has there been such an ingenious business idea. Quite simply, what she has done is to collect downpayment of Rs 10/- each from twenty friends promising to deliver a 20-page booklet containing some interesting articles downloaded from the web. The proceeds will go to a charitable organization carefully identified by her. She will print out one original and photostat the 20 copies at the nearby shop. Brilliant. She gets brownie points from God for charity, her friends get an informative booklet each for Rs 10/- , the Blue Cross gets a contribution of Rs 200/- from her and the Xerox shop gets Rs 200 worth of business. All the stakeholders are happy. Except me. I had to pay Rs 200/- for the photostat copies!

Finally, I think I will ask my wife ( yes, the homicidal bibliophile) to join. After all, someone's got to pay for the dinner

13 comments:

Casement said...

lol @ Mother Teresa 2.0.

Anonymous said...

Hey, your daughter has a cool blog there..Where does she study, I am just curious!!

PS: I couldnt leave a comment in your daughter's blog [I think you have restricted the comments to bloggers - obvious parental concerns :-)]

A Motley Tunic said...

Thanks for the invite! One whole paragraph dedicated to me! thanku thanku thanku! ucchi kulurndhu pochu!

Hey you didn't tag anyone. Your kiddo is very smart and has a very neat blog.

Shruthi said...

Ha, ha that was fun reading about myself! ;) I come across as an eccentric nut-case (which i am ;)) obsessed with mundane things in life ;) - But Lalit Mahal, OK I am game :)
And your daughter's blog is really cool! :)

neha vish said...

I get a para-long testimonial! This is hilarious. Children's thalis at half price? Are you sure you're not getting away with something!?!

:))

Raj said...

Great.All the girls have graciously accepted the dinner invitation. Except Mother Teresa 2.0. Is she around somewhere?

Ranjini, yes, I have blocked anonymous comments on my daughter's blog. Please do leave your comments here and I will pass it on. She will be thrilled.

Pareshaan said...

Wow,
your daughter has a blog!! The same daughter who was not satisfied with TV channels!!!
She must be the youngest Blogistani ever.

Pareshaan said...

I say sir, I used to think your blog was good, not any more, your daughter is so much better. Congratulations to both you and your missis (THE HOMICIDAL BIBLIOPHILE!), what a fantastic little girl you have - Just great.

Raj said...

Thanks ,Pareshaan. You have made both me and my daughter very happy.

Hawkeye said...

hi raj,

came here thro somya's site. this is a wonderful blog. ur writing reminds me so much of PWG.

u have a wonderful sense of humor

Krish said...

How did I miss this post? Mea Culpa :-). And to think that I fooled someone into believing things about me that do not exist except in vapor? LOL.

Jokes apart, thanks for putting me on a pedestal although you did remove the only ladder (my escape hatch) "out of respect for me" :-).

Raj said...

Kool girl : No more trespassing into 'adult' sites, ok ?

Hawkeye : Thanks. But PGW must be turning in his grave now.

Thennavan : I see that you have now added 'poetry' to your already-awesome repertoire. Girls are attracted to poets like bees to honey. So, sorry, I can't let you in to steal the thunder!

Raj said...

Hiren, thanks. I agree with your views on the Miss Worlds. Let there be less put-on piety and more honesty!