Deeeseeee

This incident is as narrated by Vindo, but our man never had the time to update the blog !! Because of his figure skating, and horse riding and volleyball and biking and hiking and..... what not he is always "bery vusy"

So here's the incident
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So, Atul and Vindo go one nite to DC for some... dance club.. Happens to be the nite before atuls b'day . Atul finally finds a spot to park - a pretty big one at that, While atul was trying to park, another car had come and seeing atul trying to take the spot, left , made one full round searching around, and after about 20 mins and came back to the place where atul had parked his car..

Wait a minute, not yet, 20 mins, and our man is still trying to park . The other fellow rolls down his window and tells "I haven't seen anything funny like this for a while" !!

Anyways, finally our man parks.. thats when Vindo realises that he doesn't have shoes.. which is a must for the dance place.. Atulasimmas first offer "Hey, I will go dance for 1 hr, and then you can take my shoes and dance for the next one hour" ..

But then suddenly atul remembers.. "Hey there must be some shoes in my car trunk". Vindo is hopeful, they open the car trunk, and there are 4 shoes.. Vindo is glad, well there are 2 pairs to choose from.. After all Atul is smarter than I thought, and starts looking for which one's a good pair

Wait a minute - something funny ? All 4 are different types of shoes of the same foot !!

They keep fighting on the road, and meanwhile its 12 past, and Vindo wishes atul Happy B'day !

And there was an even better b'day gift coming along atul's way. A lady who was watching all these fun all this while from a nearby house, comes up and complements atul and vindo "Hey guys, for the last half an hour, I had awesome fun, watching u people " !!

Halooosidi

This one's not about Atul... as u might be knowing by now, once in a while, we sandwich a non-Atul joke over here

Me (shock) goes to Halu's (Kaushik) house to drop Dyan off (around 6 pm) .. Halu just woke up from his evening sleep on the living room couch.. Seeing me, one of the first things he asks is "Hey can u drop me on campus"... "Sure , why not"

Its time to leave, and Halu can't find his house key .It ain't the first time that I have seen him ending up "losing" it, so I patiently wait.. !. he searches for about 3 mins, and finally searches in the gap between the couch cushions.. and there he finds... well , not his key, but his ID card . .
:-)

Venting it out

So we move in to the new and wonderful 8309, from 9006 on august 15 2005 - "independence" day from our freaking old landlady... leaving behind a bunch of sweet memories and some endangered species in 9006 !!

Atul now has a big complaint about his room - there is no vent in the room.. hjow can he sleep when its summer and winter ?? He searched in every nook and corner of the room and din't find one..

Ever since until the end of October, our man frequently sleeps and sleeps off on the couch upstairs...sometimes with the TV in full blast .. "Hey no vent raa..." continued

And then it came the day when Vindo decided to drop by an otherwise-in-a-mess-and-nobody-wants-to-peep-in Atul room.. Alas! there is a BIG vent right at the center of the ceiling.. and it was closed ...

Is it true that lions can't look up ? After there's no prey for it up there, right ?

This time, I did stop for red

Atul gives Dyan a ride, .. and as they drive, the signal ahead turns yellow.. The nice guy Atul stops the car by the time its red.. All well and good, only one problem- the car is right below the signal!! meaning in the middle of the intersection - Dyan doesn't know whether to laugh or to cry !

Seeing atul stop there, another car in the next lane comes and stops it near atul's car... but the fellow soon realises the mistake and pulls back.. Finally Dyan takes coourage and tells the Lion King to pull it back, before its too late

Gaaaaass

Atul is picking up Vindo from somewhere... on the way, he runs out of gas.... yeah, the CAR STOPS.. apparently the needle has hit the empty button 3 days before, our man has been too busy to fill gas !!

Calls up shock,gets a ride and gets a coke bottle and empties it to fill gas ... While returning from the gas station with the filled bottle in shocks car, our man asks "Hey whats that smell in the car ?"

Talking of figure skating

Come weekend, and for Vindo its time for variety activities... figure skating, horse riding, biking,volleyball, marathon practice,... so much so that he is ultra busy on weekends

Atul and Vindo are together for figure skating and on saturday early morning (read 10 am), they are supposed to take turns to wake each other up

Once it was Vindo's turn and he conveniently sleeps off... Atul wakes up 30 min after the scheduled class time, goes and bangs on Vindo's room and says "what man, u didn't wake me up.. we are late"

Vindo gets up, looks at his watch and says "Thanks man, just in time for my horse riding class"

Figures...

Atul's accounts

Amount paid for figure skating registration : $80
No: of red light violation tickets while going for figure skating classes: 2
Amount paid as fine, while driving to figure skating classes : 150$

woodlands

Atul, shock and Vindo go to woodlands..

Atul tells the waiter "Table for 2 people please " !!!!!!

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Shock orders butter masala dosa, Atul goes for channa batura. And then comes atul's favorite question "hey do u wanna share half half ?" ...

As shock agrees, atulasimma laments "Man, had we made the deal before I would asked them to put butter on only one half of the dosa.." !!

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Clothhhhhhhhhhhhhs

There used to be a zamaana when all that King Atul need to do was to put his clothes in the washer on Friday.. He never takes them out... for hours, days.. Junta would put it in dryer, and once done, take it out and keep it on the those-days-neat bed downstairs.. And the Royal one that he is, would not have the enthu to take them back to his room, but would rather pick one set at a time from downstairs living room, until it gets exhausted

But the same cycle too many times, and his Prajas have started feeling exhausted. Now-a-days, the clothes come right out of the washer into a rather dirty (am skipping the "dirty-of-what?" part) bed downstairs, cos thats the only place left after Utsavs moving in an already humengous Sohil's stuff downstairs. So now this is the typical cycle these days

Fri evening : Atuls clothes go into washer

Sat morning : Shock pulls them out and puts it on the dirty bed, finishes his washing and drying

Sat evening: Atul puts it again into the washer, after showing everyone in the house that his clothes were on dirty bed

Sun morning : Vindo pulls them out and puts it on the bed, finisihes his clothes washing and drying

Sun nite: Once more simma puts them into the washer, and once more shows everyone in the house that his clothes were on the dirty bed. He mentions the entire sequence of events to his parents in India on the phone as well !!

Monday evening : Harish pulls out Atuls clothes from the washer and puts his

Monday late nite, around 3 am : Atul comes down, Utsav is sleeping there, and Atul starts searching for his clothes, among Utsavs clothes . Poor Utsav wakes up clarifies to atul that its his clothes.. Atulasimma goes "Oh Sorry,but where are my clothes ? I have a meeting at 9 am on Tuesday !!"


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The cycle repeats every weekend !!!!

This email explains it all !!
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kal raat bahut maza aaya.... so I came home at 4am on bike, Atul was in living room reading something. As I put key in lock Atul was so scared after hearing noise that he threw whatever he was reading and cried a really scary yell and rushed to his room and closed himself from inside. As I came in Atul came out first by peeping his head out. I cudn't stop laughing till I fell asleep....

vinod
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Apparently Atul was reading Agatha Christie ..

God, keys again

Atul is sitting on the couch, gloomy "Man, I lost my keys, my car keys, room keys , lab keys .. everything". Then he gets up goes on a frantic search all around the house - almost every area that one can think in the house. 30 min gone, no respite

Finally Utsob, gives a suggestion." Did you search under the cushion of the couch u were sitting?"

Atul "Oh thats a good idea". He lifts up the cushion, Utsob notices that the keys are right there, but Atul still misses the whole bunch, right in front of his eyes. He puts the cushion back.. Utsob keeps watching the fun.. Suddenly it dawns upon the Lion king.. "Hey my keys" !!

Enough room

Atul and Utsob are on their evening walk-n-talk back from College Perk to 9006 .. It was kinna dark, and they reached a grassy area. Atul goes "Hey man, I donno if there will be snakes and all here. Why don't u go in front?". Utsob says okay and walks in the front. He goes about 15 feet and sees atul still staying back. "Hey Atul, you can atleast follow me I thought"

A serious, concerned and caring Atul says "I want to leave enough gap so that if you see a snake you can run easily "

The gap(e)

This is old estory

A few months after atul had bought his car... Kudva, shock and atul are going somewhere... it was in a parking lot.. Atul stops the car at a distance seeing two cars parked in front of him, and says "I donno if my car will go through the gap". Kudva starts pushing.."what man, it will easily go". Atul goes the usual "Hey , wait ra, don't put me under pressure".. as both of them keep arguing about it, the University shuttle bus comes through that gap from the other side ..

lollypop atul

Once more we get a voice message from our esteemed-in-her-sweet-80ies chinese land lady

"Would u Call me at thlee zelo one, nine thlee seven, five thlee eight seven"

Atul calls back, being the head-of-the-house, well, not really, but because he has been bugged left-right-center by his roomies

Anyways, some where Atul has to give his name to the landlady, I mean the spelling

Our man goes

"A for apple, T for Tom, U for Umbrella,.. L for Lake"

The landlady can't understand the last word.. So Atul explains

"Lake, lake, L for Lollypop, A for Atul, K for key, E for elephant"..

The fun goes on .....

Of "Highs" and "Byes"

Atul, X and Y are leaving the house on a trip while Z stays back home. X wishes "bye" to Z, and hearing that Atul wishes back X "bye" !!

Keeeeeees andooorsssss

Atul locks himself out of his car one day in a restaurant near his house.. But he looks quite confident and the reason being "I have a spare key in my room.. I can go and get it"... and keeps eating his food .. After 2 minutes, he suddenly lifts his head up and wonders "Oh, by the way my room key is also locked up inside the car" !!!!!

A Pleasant Surprise

Contributed by Saurabh Jain
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Sometimes even the most meticulous people can do a blunder....

December 2004, After my graduation I am moving to "LaLa Land" California for a job. My mallu friend's ever creative mind tells him, why not throw Saurabh a surprise farewell party. He takes pain (well not really, he just loves it) and write a few emails to quite a few common friends, convincing the guys (and girls ofcourse) to attend the party and make my day. Poor guys, most of 'em having final exam in a couple of days, couldn't say no to "The Shock" (would have definitely cursed me though).

Here comes the interesting part, excited shock knocks at my door asking me my email password. Its not that I don't trust him but you know....... its my email password...... After asking a zillion times, Shock tells me that he has sent me an email which I am not supposed to read so he wants to log in and delete that mail from my account.

Yes, he has included my email address also in the "Surprise Party" email which he sent to other people. Well I did got some idea as to whats going on but not to the extent it actually happened... It was great.

Moral of the Story: Every "Shock" has his day.

Raitha

Hardly does any cooking TURN of atul pass away without some BURN or some joke or some interesting incident

One day atul decides to cook pulav , and not the ususal daal

and what more.. even raitha with it, he claimed

we come home, see a cooker full of "pulav".. but no raitha..

"Hey da, where is the raitha"

Atul : "Do u see those cut vegetable packets " ??

"Yeah"

Atul : "Yeah, just mix them, add some yogurt and salt to ur taste, and that should be the raitha"

wangwang

again for a change this is about our landlady , before we moved into the house

the 80 year old fit chinese

Comes home one saturday, wakes up the first guy she finds , asks him to help her clean the attic.. both work hard.. two hours later, the 20 some guy is tired and goes to sleep again

She calls the next guy in the house, 2 hrs down the road, he is also dead tired..

The third guy could not stand any more than that either

the land lady goes "any more guys in the house " ?

roomies

One morning shock wakes up to see saurabhs University ID slipped under his door.... !

apparently atul had lost his ID somewhere, taken saurabhs id to get into the lab late nite, and then slipped it under shocks door thinking its saurabhs room

there are many occasions when he walks into shocks rooms shouting :"hey saurabh".. and then "Oh its your room"... Man, aren't u the "head of the house" ?

Phone joke-4

In 5816, we once wanted a sublet for one month

Note: 10 mins walk from our house was spring hill lake apartments, which at that time was considered a little unsafe , but some one checking our house need not know that and did not have to bother about that

some lady called up, and kudva shock and atul are on the phone explaining to her about the house

Lady: so where are u all from
Kudva: some of us are from bangalore- Me, Bharat, and... (he can't remember who else)
Atul : Hey, and Atul raaa

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Lady : is the area safe ?
Kudva: yeah its very safe
atul : springhill lake is across the road on the other side of beltway plaza ....

Silence for 15 seconds ....

Kudva : so when do you want the room from ? ..................

Some ini

Bharath sees atul talking to some girl... he walks in to meet them. atul introduces his friend to bharat "Hey meet my friend Nalini".. The girl says "No, I am Yamini"

ticket please

Somewhere in NC.. atul jumps a red signal- nothing so unusual, but his bad luck, a cop catches him.. and worst he did not have his records...- points + fine + "submit the records tomorrow"

The next day he comes back to MD, gets his papers and rushes back to NC

He decides to challenge the points in court.. On the summons day, goes to the court in NC, successfully gets it waivered, but finds a parking ticket when he comes back to his car !

And then he forgets to pay the parking ticket in time, and gets a fine on that !!!

caaard

Once more, good picturisation helps

Giant store

atul is asked for the discount card,... he gives his univ ID.. the lady smiles ...

he is asked to swipe his credit card... he swipes in all the 3 different possible wrong ways, before he finally gets it right... try if you can match the feet .... I bet, you cannot get the 3 wrong sequences that easily in a row

A walk in the air

You have to picturise this

In the old house, the staircase and the door to our washer room were next to each other.. One day as kudva watched, atul is reading washington post and trying to climb the staircase into the washer room.. after keeping 2-3 steps in air, he realises, only to see a stunt kudva staring at him

"crystallizzzzzzzzed

11 pm.. shock and atul have an argument over a solid state problem.. about crystal lattices

Both hold on to their views.. shock goes to sleep at 11.30 pm

3 am in the morning, atul wakes up shock from his sleep "Hey man, you were right about that crystal lattice problem" !

"why din't u wake me up"

5816 seminole street

Saturday morning

6 am , atuls alarm rings.. sometimes its in "radio" mode, and so instead of alarm it will be world news all of a sudden from bhis room ... Atul puts it in snooze, but Kudva gets disturbed and wakes up

7 am, the snoozed alarm rings again.. shock gets up .. atul puts it to snooze again

8 am, despo gets up with a "whaat raa.. its saturday morning"

9 am, even swami gets up hearing atuls alarm...

the Lion king will still be sleeping .. and then 10 am he finally gets up.. and when junta crib to him about his alarm, he will go " You guys all woke up and u still din't wake me up" !

fruit

This is when swamy was staying with us.. apparently he had written is some groups that atul is a fruit.. so atul comes home and asks swami "why do u keep telling around people that I am a fruit ?" .. swami coolly replies "Oh, I did not know that it was a secret"

foolproof

atul keeps trying to open a can of something... and can't

calls kudva for help... Kudva man comes, looks at it and says "Obviously u can't open it.. it says foolproof"

Desires

Being in areospace, atul always wanted to fly helicopters and aeroplanes.. once apparently he even went into the cockpit of a flight he was in (hopefully he did not put any fundaes)

There was helicopter on campus- and it was tied using strings to the ground.. and we used to say that its for fear of atul getting in it and flying it one fine day

and we kept saying after helicopters and aeroplanes, atuls aim is to be in and fly a UAV, and then a UFO !!

"its a long way buddy"

One of the first weeks in US, ATul stands on the wrong side of the road (the india hang over0, and takes the metro bus in the oppossite direction.. At the end of the route, atul realised something's wrong.. It shouldn't take this long ... so he asks the driver .. "where is beltway plaza" ? .. "Its a long way buddy" goes the driver... thankfully he sat in the same bus and got back home finally

During summer, the same University shuttle runs in two different routes alternately... Atul was supposed to take springhill lake, but did not realise that the board has been changed to silver spring... he goes on one full round, comes back to the same starting poing, where his housemate gets into the bus, to be surprised to see atul in a what-was "silver spring" shuttle... Knowing fully well what he was going get, atul does a preemptive strike..something like "I went on a site seeing trip to silver spring.. Now this is springhill lake.. so come on in, this should take us home"

Have u seen the white house ?

This was the time when we were all just a few weeks in US

University takes us on a DC trip (but they don't take us to white house) ... twice atul got seperated from the group.. first time, he got back with some ones help... second time he was enjoying the pictures in the art gallery and the group just walked away.. when everyone's home atul is missing.. he comes back late and when we start making fun of him for being so absent minded, quick comes the reply "I just went on a walk... Have u guys seen the white house yet? I did"

It was not too long before we realised that when atul actually gets home, thats because he has lost his way, and accidentally got to the house .. whenever he tried actually coming home, he ended up somewhere else !! (yeah bit of an exagg...)

"Flat"tiry

After his one month India trip, atul comes back to find his car tyre flat...

He goes to a "used car shop" and gets it replaced for a cheap price.. only to find it flat again the next day morning

Goes to the same shop, drops of the car, gets it replaced for free by another used tyre, and picks it up in the evening ....

Next day morning, again FLAT ....

Same routine... morning... "new" used tyre.. evening pick up... This time he adds a word of caution to the shopkeeper.. "If it goes flat again, I will again drop it off tomorrow morning and pick it up in the evening"

I think it worked... or was there one more time in went flat ??? can't remember

The phone joke -3

This was again in 5816 .. Background: Sometimes our phone used to have an echo ...

One day the phone rang... Atul picks it up

says "hello"

he hears "hello"

Atul asks "Who is this"

He hears "Who is this"

The polite guy that he is , Atul goes " This is Atul here.. who is this"

The phone joke- 2

This was the time when there were two phones at home- call them the top one and the bottom one (both in the living room). And Kudva was staying at 9006

Atul and Shock are sitting in the living room... Atul has to call Kudva who has gone to the Univ.. So Atul picks up the top phone, hunts up Kudvas no: and calls him. In the meantime the bottom phone rings. Atul requests shock to pick it up and shock does

At the same time Atuls phone has been picked up on the other end . Atul goes "Hello, this is atul" and shock hears "Hello, this is atul"

Basically, Atul called Kudva- Kudva's house no:................... meaning the bottom phone

Thank God he did not call the top phone itself and then he would have said "Kudva's no: is engaged"

The phone joke-1

You have to picturise this

Atul gets a call from a friend.. He picks the phone and while saying back Hi, waves his hand in air: full swing :-)

"Some"bar

This is one of the first in the chronological order, and this happened in our old house - 5816

Atul cooks , perhaps for the first time.. Despo has it and tells Atul "Hey your sambar was good".. Atul goes "Thank You, but actually it was meant to be rasam" !

But the, remember Despo was having Atuls cooking for the first time.. It was not too long before that the gang figured out Atuls monthly routine - Rasam, Sambar, Daal in successive weeks (and you get the liberty of calling them what you want),sometimes side dished with boiled vegetables and the fourth week, the special "vegetable pulav"

and the next month, the cycle repeats itself...... religiously !!!

The blessed one

For a change, this is not about Atul !

There was Mr S, staying one month at 9006 in Vindo's room when Vindo was in India ..

You can't see Mr S without a beer bottle in one hand and a cigarrette in the other... One day he even fell sick as he did not have his usual quota of drink

The standard joke in 9006 about such characters was this.. when their parents blessed their son, instead of saying "Jeethe Raho", by mistake they said "Peethe Raho" !!

The Vermisilly

Okay, here is another light one

Vindo decides to make some "kheer" , and asks Atul to get a packet of Vermicelli from the desi store... Atul gets it together with the rest of the DESI stuff he was supposed to get , keeps it safely in the shelf.. Vindo comes back home, finds Atul has done the desi store shopping , but can't find vermicelli.. The first assumption, quite naturally is that Atul forgot..

So Vindo pulls up atulasimha and starts the usual "What man you fogot to get the Vermicelli?"
and in his classic style, Atul goes "Sorry man, I forgot"...

Getting started

Its Feb 5 , 2005

And here comes the latest from Atul.. a simple one compared to his usual ones ....

He loses his wallet ... searched everywhere.... for what half an hour ??

at last finds it... guess where... in his pant pocket

well... that was small, right... but somehow we felt this has come a long way.. and we might start forgetting the older ones... so lets start archiving them

and here goes