glimpses of life

When my son Sanjay was 3 months old, I got a call from my friend. She has a 10 year old daughter and a 4 yr old son. She was talking to me about her delivery, "You know, I had C section and it used to pain a lot yada yada yada "
Wait a minute... USED to pain a lot? It STILL pains a lot lady. Please step forward to 2008 please.
The reason I dint tell her that my delivery was also C section is simple.
She dint ask.
I dint tell.
If she had paused a moment and asked about mine, I wouldnt have used this opportunity to get a few laughs.


This another time, me and my another friend went to a restaurant and was waiting for our order. Meanwhile, there is this big group of office people on a table nearby which has one Indian and probably his colleague Americans. They must have ordered bread variety Naan, and its sidedish gravys because I heard the Indian say "This side dish is a blend of spices"

If he had said it in a normal tone, then it wouldnt have bothered me. But he said it with an air of know-it-all. Which made me and my friend laugh.

Ofcourse it is blend of spices.
It is named as gravy for Gods sake.
What else will the Americans expect in an Indian restaurant?
Everyone knows Indian food is spicy and obviously it is made of spices. duh

As much as we enjoyed this free restaurant comedy, we hated the wait. My stomach started grumbling, because our order took a long long time. Have you realised that if you are so hungry, the hunger level raises steeply and then falls deep. Thats what happend to us.

By the time our food came, our stomachs had gone to sleep. Anyways, we finished our dinner, and went to the counter to pay our bills. We know that Indian restaurant owner, and he was at the counter this time and he asked us if everything was ok. So I told him that the orders took some time to be served and that was the only setback that day. The owner said he will look into it and do something about it. cool.

But the moment we came out, my friend told me
fr: "you shouldnt have said that"
me: "said what?"
fr: that the order came in late
me: thats what happened rite?
fr: yes, but you shouldnt have said it
me: why not?
fr: its not nice
me: ofcourse its not nice. it is a negative feedback, how else do u expect it to be?
fr: what will they think of us now.
me: (nearly bursting to laughter) why do you care what they think? It is a customer based business rite? They need feedback to make things better. I am sure the owner wouldnt mind, infact he might be getting lots like this

fr: we have to go in there again
me: so what? are you planning to put a viel on your face and go back? come on, this is ridiculous. If they cant take a simple critisism like this, then they are not running a successful restaurant.
ok. see you are a software developer rite?
what do u do for a project?
you first do requirement analysis, that is get the details from the customer.
then create a model or prototype and show it to customer.
he says add this, remove that, change this.
u do that and show the next prototype
again change this, enhance that, add this. rite?
if the customer wants to say "i dont like the front page, please change it to a different color", will he just say it or will he shy away thinking "Oh what will the developer think about me? how will i face him again????" he might lose his job if he thinks like that.

fr: oh u r such a geek
me: yeah rite. if u cant understand from a simple example of your day to day life, then i dont knwo what else to say
fr: see its not like that....
and it went on and on and on touching all the relevant and irrelevant areas, and ending in "fine we agree to disagree"

Even the restaurant owner might have forgotten about my comment by this time. But we had to debate and argue about this all night long in person, then after reaching home via phone.

I enjoy these small converstations. I need to pass time rite, other than watching tv, reading books and cleaning.