I had a 4 hour meeting while being driven to town and back. The future of business, ladies and gentlemen. Takes mobile conferencing to a new level.

I ate a sandwich at ‘Right Place’ in Breach Candy after about 5-6 years. It still costs what it used to way back when I was in college. Suggested baselines for RP could be ‘Fuck inflation’, or ‘Helping poverty struck college dudes pull off dates since 19__’.

I picked up ‘Their Law: The best of the Prodigy’. It’s a wicked, wicked double disc.

I had a lot of whisky and watched ‘Bad Boys’ with my neighbour.

I spoke to Jaynt, and told him that if he didn’t do as I said, the Indian army would attack Singapore and destroy all the shopping malls and then Singaporeans would have nothing left to do. After this, the Indian army would hand over control of Singapore to Malaysia. Jaynt panicked, and saved all of Singapore from this holocaust by agreeing to send me the 3^rd season DVDs of ‘Six Feet Under’ with Neha when she comes down next month.

I fell ill, and couldn’t sleep all night. Daylight hit like Mike Tyson on steroids.

I watched a lot of cricket and even more of Mitali Mukherjee on CNBC.

I spoke to Lakshmi, who’s got into Neurology at Cornell. New York is freezing, she said, but in true Lakshmi style, she chooses to sprint across the street from her apartment to the hospital instead of wearing warm clothes. Jacket kyon yaar, heating hai na sab jagah. But Starbucks hai na, street corner pe, bina jacket ke vahan tak jaane ko nahi hota hai.

I rediscovered the first CD that Arrested Development cut. ‘3 years, 5 months, 2 days in the life of …’ ‘Mr. Wendal’ is one of my all time favourite tracks.

I watched ‘Chasing Amy’, where writer-director Kevin Smith enlightens viewers about the 4 month idiot attack that happens to guys. Basically, perturbed about how smoothly their relationship is going, but bogged down with the funda that states ‘If things seem too good to be true, they usually are’, guys invent a problem and fuck-up their relationship, in the 4^th month.

So until next time ... SNOOTCHIE BOOTCHES!!

Dreams are scurrying little children, protected by a playpen called Hope.

Reality is a chainsaw wielding serial killer standing outside the playpen.

Tiptoe around him quietly.

As a kid I was a complete mama’s boy.

And I was petrified of my older sister. She would scratch me, pull my hair and threaten to do worse if I would welch on her to ma. Which I would, with the caveat that ma would not tell Gunjan that I had told her, or else I would get it from Gunjan. But ma would pull Gunjan up, and the whole wrath dispersal circle would continue.

When I was in the 6^th standard, ma used to send my lunch dabba to school. The dabbawaala would come home around noon to collect the dabba. One day ma wasn’t at home to hand the dabba over, but she left instructions with Gunjan, who had stayed home from school to study, to heat the chhole chawal before putting it in my dabba.

Gunjan completely forgot. And when the dabbawaala came, hurriedly dumped the chhole chawal without heating it and sent it.

Now, I was a quiet kid. No tantrums and stuff. Even that day when I came home, I didn’t scream and bring the house down.

I quietly whispered my grievance in ma’s ear, for fear of being torn apart by Gunjan.

Ma asked Gunjan if she had sent the dabba. Gunjan very proudly replied in the affirmative. Ma asked her if she had forgotten anything. Gunjan vigorously shook her head and denied that.

Then ma reminded her that according to me, she had forgotten to send a spoon, because of which I had to eat with my fingers. And I never eat chawal with my fingers, even today.

Gunjan was on the backfoot. Ma gave Gunjan the dressing down of her life, telling her that she couldn’t even take care of a little tiny detail like this. I, of course, enjoyed the whole thing.

I don’t remember any of this. I spoke to Gunjan tonight and while she was cribbing about my nephew’s un-cooperative ways, she suddenly remembered this incident.

‘Luchche … teri vajah se mujhe kya jhaad padi thi. I never ever took your dabba responsibility again in my life.’

‘What goes around comes around’.

1. I don’t understand stocks.
You don’t have to. The best brains in the industry run mutual funds so you can invest in equity without knowing the difference between IPODs and IPOs.

2. I don’t have the money.
If you’re above 25 and can’t even save 500 bucks a month, you have a bit of a problem on your hands.

3. Equities are risky.
So is half the drinking water in our country. At least investing in stocks won’t give you gastro. On the other hand, you might make a minimum of 25% if you invest systematically in a top performing mutual fund.

4. I’m not a pro, I don’t know when to invest.
Since the Sensex was at 6000, every so called expert analyst has been crying his throat dry that we’re going back to 5000. Today we’re above 9000. Bottomline is, markets don’t behave the way you want them to, and it’s futile to try and time them. Mutual funds let you invest small amounts every month systematically so over a period of time you average out your cost and your small savings end up accumulating wealth.

5. I live my life one day at a time.
Let’s hear you say that when you’re 60 years old and jobless and broke and no one’s giving you free alcohol so you can’t get drunk and your breasts reach your knees and / or your dick is shriveled up and useless so your chances of getting laid are pretty much obsolete too.

6. I am rich, I don’t need the money.
Right, and there’s a 100% guarantee that it’s gonna stay that way forever and ever and ever and ever till kingdom come.

7. I’m too lazy to get into this whole thing yaar.
Too lazy to make extra money and secure your future? Er, ok.

8. The Indian financial sector is unstable and unreliable.
Well, our equity and commodity markets are the only ones in the world that are completely electronic, and Indian banks are the first in the world to start adopting Basel 2 norms even before their counterparts from developed countries. So don’t listen to some fuckwit wannabe on the treadmill next to you in the gym bad mouthing India and everything Indian. You have a wondertool called the internet, use it.

9. I’m happy with my fixed deposit.
So is 96% of India. Only 4% of the entire Indian population invests in equities. Compare this to most developed countries where this figure is anywhere above 50%, and you can imagine what kind of growth prospects our markets have in the immediate and extended future. And coming back to the good ol' FD, after factoring in inflation, the 5.5% a year that your fixed deposit gives you comes down to about 3.5%. So in effect, your friendly neighbourhood fixed deposit is actually eating into your capital. Compare this to a mutual fund like SBI Global Magnum Fund which has returned approx. 75% per year in the last three years. So simple math – 1000 bucks in an FD over 3 years would amount to approx. 1110 bucks. With the said mutual fund, you’d be richer by over 5000 bucks.

10. My daddy lost all his money in the Harshad Mehta and Ketan Parikh scams and he has made me swear that I will not even go anywhere near Dalal street.
Don’t speculate and buy stocks just because your paanwaala’s wife’s uncle’s son’s maternal aunt’s husband, who works at the stock exchange as a toilet cleaner said so. That’s probably what your daddy did and lost his shirt. Stick to performing mutual funds and if you must invest in stocks directly, invest in blue chips, in strong, clean companies without dubious track records and you’ll be safe.

After you’ve made your millions you can buy me bottles of Jack and Ferraris to express your gratitude.

Kids watch gleefully as cars tumble down.
A secret ‘colony romance’ develops in a makeshift love nest.
A cat laps up milk from a saucer left especially for him.
A child sits and wonders if he should run away. Or kill himself.
Or go back home and do his homework.
Lakshmibai and her mahila mandal sit and chew chuna and bitch about their respective bhabhijis.
A seed pops and breaks the silence as someone smokes a joint.
Future Hussains make humble beginnings on walls with their crayons.
Sweet nothings echo as they’re whispered into a cellphone.
A servant’s sleep is broken by someone who he later claims was ‘something’.
Someone sits quietly in the darkness, which lies somewhere between fighting back tears and crying helplessly.

Staircases are personal spaces.
Do not disturb.