… 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 🙂

Like every year, that day is here again! Have to say that this time it snuck up on me. However, now, I can hardly wait!! I am afraid that amidst all the celebrations, I might not get a chance to thank all of you personally on Facebook. So, let me thank you upfront, right now!!

Coming to think of it… maybe it is not just Bengali moms… maybe it is Bengalis…

An actual quote from my daily phone call to my mom this morning. She was explaining how my dad is doing health wise… “Eto gorom porechhe je thanda legey gechhe”. If I could get a break from my peals of my laughter, I would translate it for you as “It is become so hot outside that he has caught a cold”!!!

We, the poor Bengalis can never quite figure out how to set this world’s thermostat correctly.

It is cold outside? Thou shalt catch a cold!
It is hot outside? Thou shalt catch a cold!
It is raining outside? Thou shalt catch a cold!
It is a little windy outside? Thou shalt catch a cold!
There is a lunar eclipse today? Thou shalt catch a cold!

It is like when we were created, our God was in so much hurry that he pressed “Page Down” before He could add the DNA covering sweaters in our genes. And of course, we do not know who to complain to. Bengalis have many many Gods (literally 330 million Gods – if they were to be distributed among my fellow Americans here, everybody would have gotten one and we would still have a few millions spare Gods left). Yet, we do not have a God manning the complaints department.

Arrgh!! Meanwhile, can you pass me my monkey cap, please? The sun is getting real hot today!

India announces that its prime minister Modi would be meeting Facebook founder Zuckerberg this month.
In a hurried press conference, Facebook announces it is working on a new Dislike button.
Coincidence? I think not 🙂