So, now Donald Trump is claiming that he would have prevented 9/11 fom happening. (http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/18/politics/donald-trump-jeb-bush-9-11/). Apparently, he had a deviously simple plan to advance daylight savings to go from 9/10 to directly to 9/12!!

After driving for a couple of hours from Portland to Corvallis, joined the local team leaders of our company for a quick drink. A very lively group that is awesome fun to be around – and the ring leader Kris Fausti is one of the funniest person you will ever get to know. The discussion at the table somehow veered towards who starts the fights at home – your spouse/significant other or you? Ok, dont ask me how we got there, but we got there.

Some admitted that they are the ones who start the tiffs, some took advantage of the lack of spouse/significant other’s absence and squarely blamed them. One even said 50-50.

But Kris had the most memorable response – “Wait. Being right does not count as starting a fight”!

I had to be picked up from the floor of the bar, I was laughing so hard!!

Game, set and match, Fausti!!

Today is “Mahasasthhi” – the kickoff of the biggest festival for Bengalis – Durga Puja. For my American friends who might land up in such a Puja with some Bengali friend of theirs – I have compiled a ready reckoner to understand the various aspects of our Durga Puja.

“SAREE”: Nine yard of colorful cloth commonly used by Bengali women to wrap their husbands/boy-friends around their fingers. One of the rare objects known to exhibit three different properties at the same time – (*) Pauli’s Exclusion Principle – No Bengali woman shall ever be seen wearing the same saree twice, provided the audience remains constant (*) Lavoisier’s Law of Conservation of Mass – Pauli’s principle notwithstanding, no saree, even if it has no chance of ever being used again shall be evicted from its rightful place in the closet and (*) Associative Property of Value – Ceteris Paribus, a saree carries no value unless accompanied by innumerable accoutrements.

“6 PM” : See “9 PM”

“PANDAL”: also known as “Mandap”. Refers to the geospatial location – invariably a high school – where all the Bengalis congregate. The exact choice of high school is delicate in so far as it has to be at least twenty miles away from the nearest Bengali inhabitant. Such a location must have an auditorium for the really important part of Puja to start at “6 PM”.

“PARKING LOT”. This is a regional definition – valid only for the Puja I go to. This refers to any place that can fit a car that is outside the four walls of “Pandal”. We might drive for fifty miles to go to our “Pandal” but there is no way in God’s errr…. DurgaMa’s green earth that we will walk a few steps. Especially if we are in our “Sarees”. So if you see a lot of cars standing next to each other with nary a space to open the door and blocking all access to emergency vehicles, then you know you have reached our “Parking Lot”

“9 PM” : This is when all programs scheduled to start at 6 PM, 7 PM or 8PM start. There is a reason, “eeesh” is part of the Bengali dialect. For example, we start at “9-eeesh”!

“STAGE” : Where all Bengalis will get up to demonstrate their talents. (which admittedly they have a lot of). Also refer to “Auditorium Seats”.

“PHONE”: Curious looking device in every Bengali’s hand. Also considered an accoutrement for “Saree”. Originally used to make phone calls, was later used to take pictures of Ma Durga. With the advent of the front camera, it is used solely to take selfies. With the “Sarees”, of course.
“SELFIE QUEEN”: That lady going around like the Statue of Liberty all the time. Works best with “Phone”!

“BARS”: This is used to mention the strength of the cellular connectivity. Its original purpose to make reliable calls has been abrogated to today’s single minded determination to upload the selfies to Facebook.

“AUDITORIUM SEATS”: Chair like structures in the gallery used to prop up video cameras on tripods. The purported audience, meanwhile, are all onstage!

“AASCHHEY BOCHHOR AABAR HOBEY”: When the next edition of this primer will be published.

“BOLO BOLO DURGA MAI KI… JAI”: Salutation to end any primer when you have nothing more to add.

Apparently the CIA and Homeland Security email servers have been hacked (http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/19/politics/cia-fbi-alleged-hacking-report/index.html)

As a preventive measure, authorities have switched all CIA and Homeland Security mails to Hillary’s personal email server. A spokesman explained “After dedicating so many resources for so long a time, we have not yet quite figured out what was going on. Frankly, we are not even sure what we are looking for. Therefore, we figured this would be an effective method to confuse all hackers.”

… but can you hold all your wishes? I have not had a chance to take Sharmila’s permission yet to call myself the boss 🙂

A classic one I had heard once was when a very irate boss confronted an employee with an aggressive “Who is being stupid – you or I?”, the employee calmly replied “Everybjody knows Sir, that you do not hire stupid people” 🙂

Of all the pictures my friends took, we voted this one as the funniest Rajib face one… 🙂

Actual email I received and replied to this morning. This is what I do when I get bored waiting for flights 🙂

WHAT? WHO COMES UP WITH THESE IDEAS?
Why are they closing all the bars for the whole day? How am I going to have a balanced diet today? In any case, how do you celebrate a No Bar day if not by going to the Bar? I am so going to blame those guys who organized this day for my putting on weight. Experience has taught me that alcohol prevents me from getting fat. In fact it makes me lean… admittedly, on chairs and tables but still…

What was that? It is not No “Bar” Day? I misread it? Oh! I see!! So, what is it today? Wait a minute…
WHAT? WHO COMES UP WITH THESE….. Oh! Never mind!!! 🙂

(Reference: http://nationaldaycalendar.com/2015/10/12/october-13-2015-national-no-bra-day-national-train-your-brain-day-national-yorkshire-pudding-day-navys-birthday/)

Ok, where did I say it is my birthday today? I was just trying to say that I have been waiting for this day – hoping – like every year – that this year they will give me the Nobel Peace Prize. Which, by the way, they did not. How did you conclude that is my birthday? How come you did not think it is my anniversary? Why do you think that it is not more special to me like I do? (Psssstt…. Sharmila is on my Facebook friend list) 🙂

Okay, I admit. There was some mischief mongering there. I had decided to write a light material on not getting the Peace Prize. So, the previous day, I set up a FB trap to let my gullible friends think I was talking about my birthday.

But here is the irony. When I sent out the light material making fun of me not getting the Nobel Prize this morning (replete with well documented arguments why I should have), I was expecting the same folks to say “Haha! You got us there”! Instead, I am getting more and more sympathetic messages from more and more friends feeling sorry that I did not get the Nobel Prize … that too on my birthday!!!

Now, I have started getting calls from India!!! I might have created a Frankenstein.

I have to further submit that it has been a lot of fun though. Almost enough to take out the pain of not getting the Nobel Peace Prize 🙂

BTW, I am impressed that Arthur Altman caught on to my exact ruse yesterday.

On a more serious note, birthday or otherwise, your remembrance and act of penning a wish or calling me is absolutely returned with a deep sense of gratitude from me cherishing our relationship that I hope will grow thru fun times (like this) and not-fun times, birthdays and non-birthdays.

Like every year, I woke up to this day that I look forward to expectantly. Like every year, this year too, I was hoping to get a lot of messages from my well wishers. I was more than a little intrigued though by the fact that my Whatsapp did not ring continuously like a tricycle bell the whole night from my friends in India with congratulatory messages. After all, they are nine and a half hours ahead of me.

Excitedly, I opened up cnn.com on my iPhone only to realize that – Dang! They did not give me the Nobel Peace Prize this year either! That is very sad. I am taking it very hard this year. I tried my best. As an example, I strove very hard to stay alive this year. I understand that the Prize can be given only to non-dead people.

Admittedly I have not caused thousands and thousands of people to die (e.g Kissinger) nor did I make up a lot of stuff in a book (e.g. Menchu) to win the prize. It is true that I have not been just elected the President of America (e.g. Obama) either.

But in my defense, it can certainly be said that everytime my daughter and my wife picked up a fight(I think I forgot to use two adjectives – “elder” and “hourly” appropriately), I refused to participate and instead slinked out of the house to the nearest bar to sip a glass of wine. Experience has taught me that getting involved only made both of them gang up on me and unnecessarily knocked me off the Committee’s list of nominees.

Neither have I ever bothered to respond every time my wife tried to pick a fight with me. (I am hoping against hopes that the Committee is noticing a trend here with my wife. (For nothing would hurt me more if she got the Prize and I did not). In any case, as I was mentioning, any time she tried to pick up a fight, I would just exercise my right to remain silent, secretly hoping that the Committee was keeping count. Just in case they needed a backup, I also carry a small notebook where I keep count. Plus trying to talk animatedly while sipping wine has gifted me way too many stained shirts than I really need. And I have heard that the Norwegian guys do not like messy guys.

On a final note, I would like to submit that anytime my daughters or my aforementioned wife was found hysterically screaming upon spotting a small spider (which would be less than a centimeter any which way you measured it) or a cockroach (which had apparently lost all its legs in an unfortunate incident) or one of those small harmless insects which have more legs than you can throw a stick at, I refused to listen to their orders to kill the insects. A lot of it was because it was difficult to see them from the safe distance I would have myself fled to with my wine glass intact in my hand.

As I said, I am really getting frustrated. This might be the wine talking, but right now, I can kill for a Nobel Peace Prize 🙂