Null PointerEntertainment | Null Pointer

Who says luck doesn’t matter?

Debashish Chakrabarty — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 06:04:52 +0000

With a pile of 300 résumés on his desk and a need to pick someone quickly, my boss told me to make calls on the bottom 50 and toss the rest.

“Throw away 250 résumés?” I asked, shocked.

“What if the best candidates are in there?”

“You have a point,” he said. “But then again, I don’t need people with bad luck here.”

- Becky Horowitz (Reader’s digest)

The story of Social Justice

Debashish Chakrabarty — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 09:07:15 +0000

I normally do not post email forwards but this one is bitterly tickling, whoever wrote this has a great career ahead as a satirist IMHO.

OLD VERSION…

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The grasshopper has no food or shelter so he dies out in the cold.

MODERN VERSION…

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks the ant’s a fool and laughs & dances & plays the summer away.

Come winter, the shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others are cold and starving. NDTV, BBC, CNN show up to provide pictures of the shivering grasshopper next to a video of the ant in his comfortable home with a table filled with food. The World is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be that this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so?

Arundhati Roy stages a demonstration in front of the ant’s house. Medha Patkar goes on a fast along with other grasshoppers demanding that grasshoppers be relocated to warmer climates during winter. Amnesty International and Koffi Annan criticize the Indian Government for not upholding the fundamental rights of the grasshopper.

The Internet is flooded with online petitions seeking support to the grasshopper (many promising Heaven and Everlasting Peace for prompt support as against the wrath of God for non-compliance).

Opposition MP’s stage a walkout. Left parties call for “Bharat Bandh” in West Bengal and Kerala demanding a Judicial Enquiry. CPM in Kerala and West Bengal immediately passes a law preventing Ants from working hard in the heat to bring about equality of poverty among ants and grasshoppers. Lalu Prasad allocates one free coach to Grasshoppers on all Indian Railway Trains, aptly named as the ‘Grasshopper Rath’.

Finally, the Judicial Committee drafts the Prevention of Terrorism against Grasshoppers Act [POTAGA]“, with effect from the beginning of the winter. Arjun Singh makes Special Reservation for Grass Hopper in educational Institutions & in Govt Services.

The ant is fined for failing to comply with POTAGA and, having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government and handed over to the grasshopper in a ceremony covered by NDTV.

Arundhati Roy calls it “a triumph of justice”. Lalu calls it ‘Socialistic Justice’. CPM calls it the ‘revolutionary resurgence of the downtrodden. Koffi Annan invites the grasshopper to address the UN General Assembly.

MANY YEARS LATER…

The ant has since migrated to the US and set up a multi billion dollar company in Silicon Valley. 100s of grasshoppers still die of starvation despite reservation somewhere in India…

It’s time…

Debashish Chakrabarty — Wed, 10 May 2006 08:52:59 +0000

Ok, I agree, this was in poor taste. It would have been suited for a April fool post but I guess anytime is good time for some fun. (Via)

What were they thinking?

Debashish Chakrabarty — Thu, 24 Nov 2005 06:43:55 +0000

Is what I think when I see the keyword referrers to my blog. Savor few I encountered offlate:

any company they have been treating their employees unethically
costume for anchors of aaj tak channel
Is abhigyan prakash still with ndtv today?
funny interviews about atal bihari vajpayee in hindi
find any company they have been treating their employees unethically and give the name of this company
israeli “married to an indian”
how to enter in mission one crore programme by sahara tv

Game-shows on Indian telly: hot again

Debashish Chakrabarty — Wed, 26 Oct 2005 15:17:27 +0000

KBC has been the impetus for all the Game shows on the Indian tele, but none could fare better. Channels were in a tizzy during KBC?s first spell, desperate for their share of the pie they went ahead with hastily assembled murky imitations like one hosted by Anupam Kher on Zee or the one by Govinda on Sony. KBC was able to generate interest even in its second avatar, the format was changed very little and this time it was felt other channels were unperturbed. Content with its singing-competition turned into a reality-singing-tussle Saregamapa Zee went ahead with its low-key “Howzee” while Star?s and Sahara?s One channel host similar flicks.

I don?t know how the Channels and their producers are getting this idea of revisiting the battle, things seem to be warming up suddenly in this front. Sony has roped in the South superstar Madhavan for a new show dubbed as “Deal or no deal” while Sahara One has perhaps a more fitting reply to the crorepati show KBC with Sanjay Dutt slated to host their “Mission Ek Crore” (seems “ummeed se aadha” can be an interesting catchphrase, rightaway).

Speaking of such shows, I only hope these shows do not follow the path of shows like “Khul ja simsim”, testing the participants for “Idiocity quotient”.

So u got a good memory, huh?

Debashish Chakrabarty — Sat, 05 Mar 2005 09:17:32 +0000

Very few organisations would go out of the way to provide additional facilities to their customers. Obviously Paypal is one such organisation. It gives you the facility to, guess what, forget your password. So if you were too proud of having an elephant's memory, accept the challenge

Title does matter!

Debashish Chakrabarty — Sat, 11 Dec 2004 07:13:32 +0000

Jivha posted an interesting piece (or was it the Kournikova stuff?) on the significance of Titles of blog-posts. I can't agree more with him. A quote from his blog:

With the increasing popularity of RSS-based newsreaders it is neccessary that the title of your post stand out from the tens and hundreds of other posts from other blogs. People will come to your blog only if they are interested in the title of your post.

As for me, half of my time in a post gets devoted to gestating a good title for it. Many would argue that the first few words of the post would suffice as the title, if your posts are more in conversational style rather than being essays or commentries, but certainly a good title makes the post appealing. Moreover, it renders a structured look to the post. But does title really matter if the topic of discussion is Kournikova?

Things people do

Debashish Chakrabarty — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 06:05:28 +0000

What's the big deal about GMail? Even Rediff Mail now has the coveted 1 GB tag. I think the craze for a GMail account is only beacuse you can lay hands on it from an invite (if you were not lucky enought to have used Blogger.com services i.e). Today I got this funny mail from one “Shweta Devgan” (shweta.niit@indiatimes.com):

hi sheesh I am sure it is you! You were confident that you'd get the invite fast and you will get d***h@gmail.com even before the gmail release, but before that you had to get me invite first? You forgot? Now dont say you aren't! Do send me an invitation to join gmail because I am sure we are going to fill Gig when we talk. You know my way of saying thanks. Will wait for the invite. Shweta

Which provokes me to ask something Jay asked Kay in MIB, “When was the last time you had a CAT scan done, Shweta (or whatever is yr real name)?”

Care for a Kopi?

Debashish Chakrabarty — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 11:48:08 +0000

This is hilarious! If you're bored of your regular cup of Java here is something different. Try Kopi Luwak! Kopi (the Indonesian word for coffee) Luwak comes from the islands of Sumatra, Java and goes through a pretty unique harvesting process. The beans are infact, “fermented in the intestines of the civet cat, also called the luwak. These animals eat coffee beans and defecate them in a form considered to be enhanced.” Mark Liberman has an interesting post on this with an animation detailing the “transmission channel”. Animal droppings for your morning cuppa, who would have thought (grin)!

Meandering ways: keeps on coming

Debashish Chakrabarty — Mon, 08 Mar 2004 06:01:50 +0000

Strange are the ways of Google! Here is another compilation of some of the funny referrers I got in past few months (typos are deliberate):

b a t h n i g secnes from indian cinema
aruna irani mother tongue
Singh and spam and false name
email addresses of tractors management officers in india
what kids want today in kolkata
cool hindi company names
what makes a friend dependable
aaj tak daughter of advani
kaa mwa li
how many zeros in a crore
William Shakespeare ghostwriters