Funny

Hilarious articles from Ramesh Mahadevan, including the exploits of Ajay Palvayanteeswaran.

Hilarious post on Pallu baby. Nice read, Karthik. Stay on course. Here’s his follow-up (which I can’t find on his blog any more).

Confluence 2005 is happening and there are students from so many B-schools who have come down to IIM-A. Some of my friends from BITS, now studying in other B-schools, have come down as well.

Yesterday I happened to get a call from one such friend of mine who’s studying in ISB (with whom I wasnt in touch at all). After a couple of hi-bye statements, the first thing she asked me was “How’s Pallu baby? And why arent you blogging at all? Your blog is very widely read in ISB. Everyone knows your blog in ISB. That Pallu baby post was circulated around like crazy.”

I felt a pang of guilt when I thought about all those who check my URL every day only to find the same 2-month old post on it. So I thought I should let you guys in on the post-Pallu-baby-disaster developments.

(For those of you who have no clue what I am talking about, read about the Pallu-baby episode in the following post, Fool’s Proof)

Now, I didnt really talk about how we survived the whole thing in that post. Well, luckily for us, we had a couple of other messages between us which passed around the assignment and had nothing scandalous written on them. So, we could take print outs of those messages and submit it to the prof.

I was basking in all the appreciation I was receiving for my Pallu-baby post just after writing it when the phone rang.

“Hey Atul, wassup?”

“I just read your post. Damn funny man.”

“Ha ha. Seriously dude. What an episode!”

“But did you realize one thing ?”

“What?”

“The print outs you submitted to the profs were messages from you to the others.”

“Okay. So?”

“You have your blog’s URL in your signature.”

“SHIT !!!”

After getting over my initial shock, I congratulated myself on the second blunder in two days. Then I contemplated on whether I should delete that post. After a brief struggle between ego and sense, ego prevailed (sense never stood a chance anyway) and the post prevailed.

Besides I justified it with the theory that profs wouldnt really have the patience to go over the stuff students write in their blogs. (Actually, the prof did make some comment about how we guys go home and talk about women and happened to look at me when she said that. The whole class roared with laughter, leaving me struggling to find a place to bury my head into).

A few weeks back, when the mid-terms were going on, I met BV on the road. He greeted me in an interesting fashion.

“Hey, what the fuck did you tell Pallu baby?”

“Huh ?”

“Did you tell her anything about the blog?”

“Are you crazy? Why would I do that?”

“She was the invigilator today. She almost accosted me and said ‘Hey Mister. What did you write in your blog?'”

“What !” I exclaimed. “What did you say?”

“What the fuck, I told her I dont blog. Then she said, ‘Oh yeah, go ask Karthik Laxman'”

“Wait a minute. It doesnt make sense at all. If she knew I was the one who wrote it, why didnt she come to me directly? Hell, I have my snap on the blog.”

“Beats me, man.”

“Thats because she likes you, BV. She really does. I have been observing all those coy looks she gives you whenever she bumps into you.”

“Shut up, dude. I am gonna whip your ass if anything happens to our ID grades because of this.”

We laughed and parted ways.

Finally she came to know.

A part of me however felt betrayed. After all that I have done for her, is this how she thanks me ? Does she have any idea how famous she is the world over? My estimates are that at least 2000 people know about her. Okay, so what if she’s known as Pallu baby and not by her real name?

One of the major motivations of my blog-readers from ISB in coming to IIM-A for Confluence was to meet Pallu baby. 🙂 I wonder how many more people have been motivated to participate in Confluence because of her. I am thinking of creating a counter especially for these people. I’ll probably call the counter “The Pallu baby interaction cell”.

I have my own theories on why she’d not be too happy with the developments. And I would probably attach 70 % of the blame to you guys – my esteemed blog readers. Following were some of the comments you guys put up to the post.

“Oka, you are a naughty boy. No hard feelings, but we have a job to do as TAs.
Moreover, its fun to make you guys cringe!
Well, until the next assignment…
-Pallu baby aka Pallavi Desai (Name changed intentionally)”

And this,

“was i looking pretty in the class today?? I kept looking in your direction but you were only paying attention to the girl sitting next to you. What is her name again?? I am quite jealous
-Pallu baby.”

And soon there were so many wanna be Pallu baby commentors on my blog.

“Wats all this non sense going on in your blog. Who are all these people pretending to be me. As for you, stop staring at me in the class, especially with that cheap smirk on your face. Come to mu office tomorrow and we shal talk this over in detail. Its completely unacceptable.
– I am the Real Pallu Baby.”

“Hey..’the original’ is a definate fake. I am the real one and i really admire your writing style.Thanks for writing about me
– Pallu Baby”

And this one probably takes the cake.

“you keep talking bout pallu baby,all the while ignoring me (the other TA in ID). Wait till i grade your end term exams. Or else you could always ask me out.
love struck ,
– Prajakta (name changed to protect identity)”

She must have digested all these in silence. And then one day things would have come to a point where she simply couldnt take it anymore. Something very inconsequential would have happened and all her pent up feelings would have burst out. And the person who would be responsible for this inconsequential incident could be someone totally irrelevant as well. Something similar to the squirrel with the nut in Ice Age. (By the way, I dont know if thats a squirrel for sure. I just picked the closest animal).

Earlier in the day she confronted BV about the issue, one of my section-mates happened to bump into her on the road. As they were walking towards each other, they smiled at each other in recognition. And then when he was close enough to be heard by her, he said,

“Hi Pallavi”.

Hilarious anecdotes from an American teacher in Japan.

Hilarious post on how to stop filesharers from stealing hotel bandwidth.

So, I’m in Milwaukee at ye olde Holiday Inn Express. They have a wireless internet connection here and it’s been suckin’ all night, like I couldn’t even do anything on it. I suspected someone running a p2p program and taking up all of the bandwidth, so I fired up ntop to analyze the type of traffic on the network, and just who it was generating it. Lo and behold, someone was running a p2p app, and taking up 1.6Mbit worth of bandwidth. That’s just not fair to the 20 other people on the network, so I decided to boot him from the network. I tried poisoning his arp cache and the default gateway’s cache, but that only works on some wireless access points, apparently not this one. I can’t send an 802.11 deauth message from my OS X box, because the card doesn’t support raw packet injection, so what to do???

I notice that his IP in the ntop interface changed into a name. His windows machine was spewing Netbios packets with his computer name in it. For the sake of his privacy, I’ve changed the name, but let’s say it was “smith-laptop”. So I pick up my cellphone and call the front desk at the hotel and as for Mr. Smith’s room. The lady at the front desk says “Eric Smith?” And I tell her yes. The phone rings, someone picks up, the conversation goes like this:

Me: Eric Smith?

Eric: Uhh, yeah?

Me: My name is Jim Grant, and I’m an investigator with the RIAA. Have you heard of us?

Eric: Uhhhhh….. What does that stand for?

Me: Recording Industry Association of America. We represent several large record companies. In monitoring several p2p filesharing networks, we have found that you Eric, are currently downloading copyrighted material. Are you aware that this is illegal?

Eric: Ummm…. my laptop is off. (At this point, I no longer see him on the network)

Me: We are in the process of filing 18182 lawsuits against people who steal copyrighted music on the internet. We will continue monitoring these networks, and if we see you on them again, you will hear back from us.

Eric: Ok, thanks. Bye.

So, now my network is nice and speedy again. And some guy is in his room trying to dry out his underwear. 🙂 I should have recorded the call since my cellphone has the capability to record conversations. The above conversation can’t even begin to show the fear in his voice. I’m sure he’s scared as hell wondering how they found out his name and that he was staying at a hotel and exactly what room he was in.

My Outsourced Life. Hilarious article by AJ Jacobs on how he outsourced his professional and personal life. I think it’s true — hence amazing.

A hilarious chat on IRC about passwords. More at QDB. via Dhar

<Cthon98> hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
<Cthon98> ********* see!
<AzureDiamond> hunter2
<AzureDiamond> doesnt look like stars to me
<Cthon98> <AzureDiamond> *******
<Cthon98> thats what I see
<AzureDiamond> oh, really?
<Cthon98> Absolutely
<AzureDiamond> you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
<AzureDiamond> haha, does that look funny to you?
<Cthon98> lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
<Cthon98> yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
<AzureDiamond> awesome!
<AzureDiamond> wait, how do you know my pw?
<Cthon98> er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
<AzureDiamond> oh, ok.

Hilarious review of ‘Baba’. Baba is the latest film by Rajnikanth. via Potti

There’s a whole series of articles on Umashankar Dikshit — a Silicon Valley pujari. Not a bad idea — epujari.com (which incidentally is on sale.) Following the articles on Rediff and USA Today, there’s this really funny piece.

Now I’ve heard everything. The San Francisco Chronicle reported some weeks ago that a Hindu priest in Silicon Valley called Umashankar Dixit is in great demand to perform Lakshmi poojas when e-commerce startups are launched by Indians, as an increasing number are. Mr. Dixit says modestly that he is considered a ‘lucky hand’ because his God is Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. He — Mr. Dixit that is, not Ganesha — has been compensated in cash and stock options by several startups and says he has already done very well from the IPOs of successful companies like Exodus Communications. Rediff’s US edition and USA Today have since come up with their own breathless takes on Mr. Dixit, reporting among other things that he spends an hour every morning, presumably just after sandhyavandanam, on the Internet monitoring the financial markets.

It’s not clear from the articles whether Mr. Dixit is an Iyer, in which case he would normally wear three bands of vibhooti on his forehead — ideal, one would think, for launching companies which specialise in broadband networks. On the other hand, he may be an Iyengar who wears a U-shaped naamam on his forehead, more suitable for launching ASIC design companies. Or else, he may have decided to assist as wide a spectrum of startups as possible and may favour a simple kumkum pottu — in effect, despite all the gadzillions Sun Microsystems spends on advertising, it may actually be Mr. Dixit who is the dot in dotcom.

It is likely, although both the Chronicle and Rediff are unaccountably reticent on this point, that Mr. Dixit’s poojas are integral to the business plans of his clients and the willingness of canny VCs to part with vast amounts of negotiable tender. I have it on good authority that the average e-commerce startup in the Valley usually has its business plan scribbled on a napkin and requires you to sign a non-disclosure before it will show the napkin to you. Mr. Dixit’s clients have probably jotted down a business plan that typically goes something like this:

1. Come up with brilliant idea for B2B category killer but don’t tell anybody
2. Get copy of founders’ horoscopes for name selection
3. Consult Dixit on launch date and muhurtam
4. Finalise funding of 6 million
5. Locate suitable garage
6. Order pizza
7. Don’t use this napkin to blow your nose

‘So who’s Dixit?’ asks the VC. ‘Oh, he specialises in ultra-long-distance wireless communications’ says the entrepreneur. ‘Wow,’ says the VC as he fumbles for his chequebook, ‘so that’s where you’re going, huh?’ ‘That’s where the whole world will eventually have to go’ says the entrepreneur, ‘but we’re giving you an opportunity to get in on the ground floor!’ And so it goes.

The Chronicle describes a typical Lakshmi pooja performed by Mr. Dixit in lyrical detail. The CEO of the company has set up a small, colourful shrine in a tiny conference room for the ceremony. ‘There is a basket with 108 U.S. coins, symbolizing the 108 different names and forms of Hindu gods; a platter with coconuts, limes and other offerings; and small silver bowls of turmeric, the yellow-orange seasoning signifying wealth, and kumkum, the red powder that Indians use to dot their foreheads. The ceremony, which involves a lot of chanting and tossing of flower petals, lasts about 45 minutes.’ As an honorarium, Mr. Dixit receives 51 dollars and 5,000 stock options. One assumes that for good measure, he also tosses some akshathai on the heads of the VCs, not to mention the Chronicle’s correspondent. And so it goes.

The startup buys two Porsches and sets up shop in a garage to begin work on its brilliant idea. Very soon, it is first round funding ‘swaaha’ as Mr. Dixit might say, and more money is needed although no product is in sight. That’s when the entrepreneurs hide the Porsches and go out and hire a couple of IIT graduates. If all the column inches of pure baloney that have been written about IIT graduates in the past one year were placed end to end, they would reach the moon. ‘Can I see the scar on your thumb you got from the workshop?’ whispers the VC reverently. ‘Aw, gee’ says the bashful IIT graduate, ‘you should see the one I got when they did my frontal lobotomy!’ Immediately, even more money rolls in and our intrepid entrepreneurs organise a homam that is, naturally, performed by Mr. Dixit. ‘We’re increasing our burn rate’ the founders reassure the investors. And so it goes.

Soon, everyone wants to meet Mr. Dixit who duly arrives in his modest Honda Accord. In the Valley, nobody thinks his silk veshti and angavastram are particularly odd. ‘Willya look at those cool threads!’ the investors remark, eyeing his poonal. ‘So how’s it going?’ they want to know. ‘It’s all His leela’ says the devout Mr. Dixit, looking skywards. ‘We’re a pure e-commerce play’ translate the entrepreneurs. By this time, breathless articles in publications like the Chronicle have caused normally cautious people to buy sleeping bags and camp out on the grass outside the company to get a piece of the action. The entrepreneurs use part of the windfall to buy homes in Sausalito. The grihapravesam is performed, naturally, by Mr. Dixit. And so it goes.

The Chronicle doesn’t say specifically what Mr. Dixit thinks of the whole dizzy dotcom world, although Rediff reports that he thinks the economy and the markets will recover very soon, praise be to Vigneshwara. The Chronicle is far too busy asking Dr. Mark Juergensmeyer, professor of sociology who studies Indian religion at the University of California at Santa Barbara what he thinks of the idea of Mr. Dixit receiving stock options. Mr. Dixit will no doubt be reassured to know that Prof. Juergensmeyer thinks that stock options for priests aren’t incompatible with Indian culture. ‘Some Hindu priests’ the good professor says, ‘receive more than others, just as they do in other religions.’ Ayyaiyyo, for these kinds of penetrating insights they gave Juggu a PhD?

What Ganesha thinks is another matter for speculation. The prudent Mr. Dixit says he’s already using a part of his high-tech portfolio to construct a Durga Siddhivinayaka temple in Bangalore, so it may well be okay with Him too. I guess day-trading beats removing obstacles hands down, especially if He already knows which way NASDAQ is going and how the Microsoft saga will end. Sarva Vighna Upashaantaye…