An Indictment

Class presentations, rituals that marked the closure of each course of a term bored us to death or were minefields of inane laughter. With exams usually a week or two away and a few more Projects to be wrapped up, who wants to stay alive in darkened rooms to listen to power point presentations which earn only
disdain-ah, don't I know how he did his Project-all gas, no substance-he simply started working on his Project last evening. And hence everyone wanted to go to sleep. Generals of a losing side would have an easier job of stopping their troops retreating from the warfront-never the presentors from rousing us from sleep. They had an audience of one, the professor, the poor soul who had ordered the whole affair in the first place.

The other day Satyan was presenting the Pharma industry to us. His father was a Doctor and Satyan, not being able to study Medicine, always nursed a soft corner for the Pharma sector. He could hold his own on IPRs, process and product patents, the impact of WTO on Indian Pharma industry and he peppered his talk with a lot of relevant examples...Poor Satyan, that day he was putting up one of his best performances but there was none to savor it. He would be finally shown his seat with a round of customary applause which was done more for breaking the audience's monotony than for pepping up the speaker.

Satyan was using the example of Viagra to illustrate how the lack of product patents in India gave the local companies enough room to reverse-engineer the final molecule and rebuild them using different processes. He took up Viagra as a point in case. Viagra he said was very costly for an average Indian. So the local companies cashed in with reverse-engineered verisons such as Penagra, Cinagra (add up three such rhyming names, dear readers). Medically safe and effective, he said, but definitely bending international patent regimes!!

The lights at the back and the corners of the classroom had been switched off to falicitate relaxation and scores of silent snores. The class was deadeningly silent-not of a rapt attention, but of a deep sedation. From one dark corner arose an innocent voice, 'You seem to know so much about this...!'

It was as if the class was waiting to pounce on something and shred it with laughter. The dropped bomb created waves after waves of laughter. The professor couldn't help smiling, neither could Satyan searching as he was the owner of that nasty voice!

Case of A Mis(interpreted)nomer

We were a group of tamil friends in a predominantly hindi- speaking campus. The language bonded us closer than usual and we knew each other so well that we were each quite a character for the other. We bickered, fought, loved and stayed put together as only family members can! We had Venkat the most idiosyncratic of all-Rajini fanatic, and a guy with one helluva attitude and
confidence. He had an engineering degree in Computer Science and was very comfortable with coding, softwares and actually anything to do with Information Techonology (IT). Then there was
Krishna-amazing singing talent, quickwit, and such an amiable character!

Our summer Project scattered us to different cities. I and Krishna were in Mumbai while Venkat was based in distant Coimbatore. Embroiled as we were in work and the leisure of our respective cities, we hardly spoke or even mailed each other for a month. And then came our term grades.

There was a flurry of mails across each asking the other's grades, consoling and congragulating and feeling worse or better at the end of the day. Krishna too sent a mail to Venkat asking his term grades and informing him his.

The eagerly awaited mail from Venkat, alas, was blocked by an Anti-Spam Software . An automated mail arrived mentioning that the mail was identified as a spam and hence blocked. Krishna was
asked to reply in case the mail was not a spam and was valid and personal. Krishna immediately replied that the mail was from his friend and surely not spam. The reply mail from the Network
Administration was a bombshell. It said, 'We are sorry to say that according to the Network Management Policy of this Company mails containing sexual content cannot be delivered to the recipients. We regret the inconvience caused. All the best in the future. Regards, Irfan Ahmed, System Administrator'

Krishna was flustered. Not only was he a very uprighteous guy; he maintained restraint and decorum in such matters that he found it very ironical such a thing should happen to him. He wondered what sexy mail could Venkat have sent in reply to a mail that discussed something as sober and grave as one's term grades!! He called me immediately to share his woes, wondering loudly over the telephone wires just what could have been the dubious content of Venkat's mail...I too listened with curiosity and interest. It was a sleepy afternoon you see, such interventions were very welcome.

I assuaged him that no one can do much about such spams and he should be treating this a minor issue. Krishna was worried of infamy. He said that it reminded him of the predictions of a
certain astrologer who coupla years back stated that Krishna shall lose face in his Company on a 'ladies issue' as he had delicately termed it. As I was wondering how to reason him out of this line of thinking, it suddenly struck me...

'Krishna which ID did Venkat reply from..?'
'From his yahoo id...'
'Oh ok,' I beamed 'the venkatit one..?'
'what...?'
This time I spelt the ID again, slow and meaningfully,
'venka-tit!!'

No wonder the automated software smelt something sexy in the id which actually should have been read as venkat-it. Anyway how could the software have known it was venkat's expression of his career interests and not of other shady fetishes! Krishna revealed a sigh. Sadly, my efforts to push the matters along the line of further fun by inducing Krishna into explaining this subtle matter to the Network Administrator failed though.