Witty Scribble

“Bro, I need some money. Give me 2000 bucks real quick.”. Announced Kushal (Name changed deliberately, you will know why in a while). “Bro we got our first salary about a week back and you are out of money already?”, I found it hard to believe. I and Kushal were from the same college and joined the same company along with 56 other people from our college. It was a closely knit group of our college that many people envied at our training campus. Kushal was not a miser but definitely not a profligate when it came to money. “Bro, this Wednesday is Teddy Day. You remember I told you about this cute girl in the other training batch. I must gift a teddy to her. A big one. A bro in need is a bro indeed. I’ll return your money as soon as I get the next salary. Pakka. I swear”. “Cut the crap and here’s your money”, the bro code demanded me to help Kushal and so did I. Cut to four years later, 2014, Kushal married Kanika(name changed again  😉 ). I visited their house and we laughed...

" Bhai send me this song from your phone ", asked Priyam, while we were listening the soulful song from the newly released blockbuster Rang De Basanti. " Ok bro. Bluetooth open karo ", responded Shikhar while switching on the Bluetooth on his Nokia N-Gage phone. " But my phone supports Infrared only ☹️", Priyam said nervously. " What bro, Infrared is an old technology. Buy yourself a new phone na. Lucknow ke Yuvraj ho tum, but your phone doesn't live up to your stature ", winced Shikhar while pulling Priyam's leg. But he was right. Using Infrared to transfer data was really a thing of the past, even back in 2005, when this conversation happened. Before the likes of Gaana.com seeing the light of the day, we depended heavily on crowd-sourcing the songs. And Bluetooth provided us the platform to share songs and other data files easily with one another. Instead of keeping the phones in line-of-sight as was required for Infrared enable...

“Ice creammmmm”, Saddy shouted at top of his voice. We, the group of friends were out for a casual dinner outing on Sunday evening as Shyamlal, our cook and friend, took off on Sunday evenings. As soon as the discussion on desserts started, Saddy made his choice clear. All of us knew his weakness for chocolate ice cream already. I, in a mood of having some fun (and that is my default mood most of the time, especially when my besties are around), asserted, “I don’t think you scream much. But what’s wrong today?”. Few of us laughed on the lame joke that I cracked, and few gave the uninterested, ‘No, not again’ look on my PJ. But that has never stopped me from cracking the next one, even worse PJ. Has it? play of words “Ice cream” and ‘I scream”: two completely different phrases, but hear someone say it, and if you don’t know the context, it is difficult to know which one he means. Oronyms , as we refer such phrases, are the similar sounding but different phrases with differen...

What is the value of 'X'? Read the question in my Maths paper. I gazed at my wrist-watch kept at the front of the desk. The time was running fast, really fast. It was already 2 hours into the exam but I was done with just the 60% of the paper. One more hour and 40% of the paper still remaining, I had to go full throttle or else risk loosing the race.  ' Don't worry Prakhar, you will complete the last territory in time ', assured my inner voice. I wiped the sweat on my brow and started working on the question, to solve for X. X has been a favourite 'unknown' known worldwide. Its elusiveness has been tormenting one and all in the schools and colleges. Though I quite liked Mathematics and was at ease with solving the puzzles, my answer sheet was never bereft of one or the other silly mistake. During my 12th exam, instead of reading A.B, I read it as A-B and lost 5 precious marks due to it.☹️ Unforced errors, I like to call them, relating to sports. ...

  “Come here buddy, let us talk about what games you play.”, I called out to my friend’s son to strike a conversation with the young fellow when I was visiting my friend’s place. The 8 year-old replied, “Give me two minutes, uncle.”. Well, in my early thirties, I have still not made peace with being called as ‘Uncle’ by kids who are actually of same age as my own nephews and nieces. But we will park that conversation for some other day. The kid was holding a cube with jumbled colored pieces and as he promised, he solved it in two minutes and joined me in what turned out to be a fun conversation filled with child innocence. The cube that the kid was playing with, or Rubik’s cube as we know it has been a very popular toy, not just among kids but adults as well. Or maybe, it will not be an exaggeration if I say that adults are more crazy about this toy. So let us talk about Rubik’s cube, its history and popularity. Worry not, this is not another post giving you algo and steps...

Thud Thud…. The crackling sound reverberated five times in quick succession, when a pistol fired at targets 25 meters away. But all of them were perfect shots. Sensing the same, the young shooter smiled; a smile of satisfaction and contentment, for things have proceeded exactly the way he prepared and sweated for.  Next to fire was a 20 year old Aussie, who really couldn’t conceal his nervousness. He had a goal too far-fetched to achieve. Nevertheless, putting all his experience into action, he fired the five shots in quick succession. Magnificent shots, but not just good enough to grab the yellow metal.  Sergei Evglevski , a tad disheartened, could only win silver.  On the other hand, a jubilated 15 year old, Anish Bhanwala , had created history with a record score of 30 in the ' 25m r apid fire  pistol event'  and history for being the youngest gold medalist in CWG for India, bettering the record created a few days back by compatriot Manu Bhaker ...

“Bhai run out mat karwana yaar, runs khud ban jayenge (Bro, please don’t get me run out, runs will flow on their own)”, I told Vijay bhai when we were opening the batting for our team while chasing a target of 165 in 20 overs in a local match. Vijay bhai, a fine cricketer, who runs really fast between the wickets is probably too fast for others to match. So, he ends up getting involved in at least two run outs in every match. However, most of the times he over compensates by scoring big. May be the pitch at our home ground is batting friendly.  As the carnival of cricket in India, the IPL, is going on, let us talk about cricket this week. If you are one of those who is not interested in cricket, congratulations!!! You are one among 0.001 percent of Indian population (yup, I just made that number up). I still find it hard to believe if someone tells me he has never played cricket. As a cricket fan of 90’s, we all have lot of sweet and sour memories of Indian cricket of t...