Exiled in a resort

In my 3 years in NIT Hamirpur, I've come to learn that there's practically no place like this inside a radius of 5000 kms. There's no place, and I say this with a certain amount of confidence, where one can put out a chair in the balcony of one's room, turn on Brothers in arms, stretch out, sip on hot coffee on a cold November morning and stare at the snow capped peak looking into your face. There's no other place, where you could do what you just did and turned around and found her saying 'hey.. waddap :-)' on gtalk. Or you could bang on the door of your neighbour, and grab him out for a game of tennis.

There is no other place that I know of that will serve pipping hot Maggi at 3 in the morning even when the temperature is 3 degree Celsius. Where could you find a bunch of 20 odd guys sweating after a game of footie at 1 in the night? The benches at the Admin Block Nescafe and the view that overlooks it ; well, whoever said that the best things in life aren't free better eat their words. And I know not of another place that can put up a 3 day Hill'ffair (how aptly named!) that leaves you on a high. And kill me for saying this, but the nearest city is 5 hours away. And I'm glad it is.

To all those people in this lovely paradise - the guys at Nescafe who wont sleep to make sure we do, the chachus in every mess who gladly serve brats like us for half their lives, the gorgeous ladies in PGH who make our trips to juice bar worthwhile, the faculty that wouldn't mind staying for 20 odd years inside these walls so that we may go out to explore many more, the guards at the Gates who really know what drunk fights are, Tilak, Ekta, GTM, the newspaper boy and to every other breathing soul, I salute you for making these years worthwhile. It's a one time experience that's not meant to be repeated. There's too much richness in this campus that after a while, it's not fun anymore. But that's for another post.

Movement for the abolition of non-sibling Raksha Bandhan

At the very outset I'm making a bold assumption that Raksha Bandhan is the time for brothers to reassure protection for their sisters. And that the rakhi-for chocolate deal is merely ceremonial. And those words 'Happy Rakhi' are like the name card on a gift wrapped: they say just enough.

Is it really so difficult to understand the meaning of the word brother? You see, because over here, I am openly taking after the 'sister's'. Why, in heaven's name, would a girl want to 'make' a brother? If she already has one, good for her! Else sorry, but the chromosomes just didn't make it there! Now, is it humanly acceptable that a girl wants protection (protection from what? Gorillas? or Joey?)and since she doesn't have a brother, she be-brothers a guy for protection's sake? HELL, NO!

Here's a secret, ladies: Guys don't want to have sexy 'sisters'. It's too big a risk to take. And besides, they are thrown right out of the competition (that starts at age 11 and goes on till a 111). The last, and I mean the absolutely last thing that a guy wants to hear from a girl who is not his sister are those very dreaded words : 'Happy Rakhi'.

But just in case, men, if you happen to become an unfortunate victim of the R-disease, here's how you diffuse the situation. When a girl says those words, with no further delay, laugh out loudly. Really really loud. And make her look stupid. Really really stupid. And walk away from there with this parting remark - "You know what, I like to keep my options open."

Please join me in making this operation successful. If this is a cause that you believe in and want to make it work for the benefit of those coming after us, mail me mentioning 'With you' in the subject line. Once sufficient numbers are made, a proposal will be sent to the cabinet for consideration of removal of this social menace; for the abolition of non-sibling Raksha Bandhan.

An !dea can change your day

It's purely coincidental that Sagar (I prefer referring to him as Psygrr.. the psychotic tigrrr.. lol!) features in this post too.

Minutes

9:30 a.m: We are in the Dynamics of Machinery class- Nagraj's lecture :-). We've been mass bunking classes for the last 3 days in a row. And he's mighty pissed at that.

9:32 a.m: Two minutes after Nagraj's frowning entry into the class, Psygrr's phone rings. The Sweet Child o mine ringtone can be heard from a kilometre. And the 1100 is stuck deep in our man's tight pants; pants that can put Enrique Iglesias to shame. The seconds that follow are nervous. The whole class keeps silent. All eyes are on Psygrr, including Nagraj's. Everyone's watching as Psygrr wrestles his pant pockets to free the phone and turn it off. This is not exactly music to the ears. It is torture to the eyes. Everyone knows that someone can help Psygrr; but no one knows how to. And then the white candy bar pops out. His nervous fingers nimbly shuts out the ringing. He must have felt like a kid in diaper put on a dark stage, and suddenly the spotlight is turned on this little kid and a thousand people in the audience are awestruck.Applause.

9:32:05 a.m: Nagraj is quick to jump in and diffuse this awkward situation. He chooses to send Psygrr and his phone out of the class. Seriously, what is it with this guy getting thrown out every now and then, I wonder?

1: 18 p.m: At the mess table, I ask him cheekily- "So who called at that time?", though my question could have very well been phrased - "Was it your next girlfriend who called then?" But I thought that would be insensitive.

" Cut it called, da. Pain in the ass.", he replies.

"Oh! you mean chuck it called. " I say, laughing my ass off.

Cut it

For the uninformed, here's a brief description of cut it :

Also called chuck it, it is the phone call that one gets from an unknown number. When the call is answered and the receiver says hello!, he's greeted on the other end by a pre-recorded voice(asl: 22, F, who cares) that lacks the basic courtesy of responding to the greeting. She (or it?) yaks on for the next couple of minutes about everything from the latest Bollywood music downloads to mobile dating. The calls from this number are almost always made when the subscriber is in a board meeting/ at a class/driving/ in the bath tub/ making love/about to bungee.

Psygrrr is to be thanked. He observed that these calls were made from one or two numbers consistently. These numbers never changed. So the numbers were saved in his contacts as cut it (and in mine as chuck it). The days of answering these calls and feeling pissed/stupid are over for us. As a matter of fact, these calls are welcome more than ever. Every time cut it calls, the very sight of 'cut it calling' can send you into peels of laughter. Or it could be a source of entertainment for you (thanks to The Rat). Here's how:

STEP 1: cut it calling.

STEP 2: laugh like crazy looking at the cellphone.

STEP 3: phone continues ringing.

STEP 4: gather people around you and make them stand in a circle.

STEP 5: hold out the phone such that everyone standing in the circle can see it.

STEP 6: hit on 'answer' (put on the loudspeaker, if the facility is available).

STEP 7: in unision, shout - "FUCK YOU!", at the phone.

STEP 8: cut the call.

STEP 9:another round of laughter.

STEP 10: wait for 'cut it' to call again.

There you go - 10 easy steps to turn an annoyingly pesky phone call into an entertaining mid-day activity for you and your friends. Go try it. And let me know how well it worked.

Things that make a difference

I often times wonder why a person would go beyond his comfort zone to get what he wants, if he wants it bad enough. Though this has intrigued me a little in the last few days, it still fails to explain why some people attract certain events in their lives effortlessly, while certain others fail to do so with humongous effort; for what ever reason that might be.

Sunday last, I walked up to room no. AS-15 and knocked hard on the door. It was Sagar's room, my ex-roomie. Satyam computers were coming over to our campus (which is a pick in itself) for recruitment's. Despite knowing that Sagar didn't have the required numbers to make the cut off, I still thought he could give it a shot. The guy opened the door with blood shot eyes. Apparently, as I later heard, he was 'busy' the previous night till 3 ;-).

As he walked towards the hall, he msged in saying 'what's the point..? I don't think there's any use in me going'.. I replied ...' A'ole, just go.. who knows.. something might click'.... and hence, go he did. Never having seen an aptitude test before, he walked into one. With 5 minutes to spare before full time, the Satyam guy threw Sagar out of the exam hall.... for disturbing (if you know what I mean).

The list of qualifiers came. Sagar had made it. He had turned up in a Tee and a pair of denims for the test. And his interview was to start in the next 10 minutes.... I rushed in with his formals. He changed. And went into the interview.

I lay half asleep on my bed. Narayan rushed in shouting - "Oye! Sagar got thru' da!" ... At that instant it seemed like the script of my dream had just changed. But 5 minutes later... as I saw a beaming Sagar kicking his feet and hands in the air.. I knew it was true. And yes.... all of us were sure glad for him. Way too glad.

Despite knowing that he would have to fight it out for getting a placement in this coll. , he had held on to that one thought for long.. And held it strongly. And he got it. There were people there in that test who didn't make it. And I'm told they had better grades than my friend. But that noon, they didn't make it. I think they didn't focus hard enough. And full points to Sagar for doing just that.

Big things in life never walk in with the drums sounding loud and the glitterati all over. They creep in through the door, when you are sleeping. And they creep in because you were expecting it. And you deserve it. And it's the expectancy that makes all the difference.

Congrats, Sagar!

Understanding Incomes

A sound financial health stems out of knowing the types of incomes and understanding their underlying fundamentals. Every rupee earned falls into one of two income types: active income and passive income. Active income is that for which a person is directly trading his time for. All salaried and self-employed professionals work for active income. When an individual reports to work, he exchanges his time for a certain amount of money as determined by his pay. This is also called earned income. Passive income on the other hand does not require a person's physical presence, but instead arises out of owning tangible assets like property, shares and bank savings or intangible assets (intellectual property). Rental income, dividends, interest on FD’s, royalty money from sales of books or records qualifies as passive income amongst others.

A word that comes with active income is 'instant gratification'. When a person jumps jobs for a higher pay, he sells his time for a higher price to his new employer. The biggest drawback that comes with earned income is that when a person stops working, his income stops. However, this is not true for passive income where the accompanying emotion is 'delayed gratification'. Traditionally, passive income takes time to build up and grows with the growth of the underlying asset class. But since this can take time, the underlying requirement is patience while developing a stream of passive income. The leverage factor is virtually unlimited for a person building passive income, whereas there is very little leverage for a person working for active income as the amount of time in each of our hands is limited.

In today's volatile economy, it is all the more essential for an individual to diversify his income from more than one income stream. Companies today are diversifying beyond their core businesses. If these giant corporations are thinking in terms of diversification, it becomes almost mandatory for a person to diversify his income streams as well. Relying on any one particular source of income is almost too big a risk for a common individual to take. The good news here is that every time active income flows in, there is a choice: either to expense it out directly; or convert it into an asset that can provide passive income at a later date. For instance, if a salaried person were to invest a portion of his income in a well chosen mutual fund on a regular basis, over a period of time he would find this asset block big enough to provide him a separate stream of income. This secondary income would be his passive income that comes in independent of his active income. Active income can be converted into passive income if nurtured and grown carefully.

Every individual can calculate his financial well being by working out his wealth ratio. Wealth ratio is the sum total of active income and passive income divided by a person's total expenses. A wealth ratio of greater than 1 says that an individual's financial situation is sustainable and looks healthy. A ratio of less than 1 indicates living beyond one's means. Another crucial factor is to ensure that passive income is at least as much as the active income. This indicates that if due to any unforeseen incident, an individual is unable to work; his lifestyle is still maintained by the passive income.

With this understanding, it is a matter of choice between having an active income and a passive life, or a passive income and an active life.

IT'S ALL ABOUT THE CHUTNEY.

By 21, I knew that:
1)You mortgaged the first 20 years of your life to your parents and leased out the the next 20 to your boss.
2)Coffee was a must for survival. Then came air and water.
3)A sexy watch was never worn to tell the time.
4)Newspapers carried out printing errors on purpose so that a regret note could be published the following day showcasing their humble 'after all-we-are-human' side.
5)There was no reason to live if you hadn't watched Schindler's List and The Shawshank Redemption.
6)People 'forgot' to remove their airline baggage tags.
7)Tax planning and tax evasion weren't necessarily different.
8)The letters in 'Mother-in-law' could be rearranged to give 'Woman Hitler' and,
9)It was all about the chutney.

A road down the temple side entrance of the famed Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, led to a little yet well known shop on Margosa road, Malleswaram. The place was well known to make lip-smacking idly-vada. Like everyone else who lived within a 3 kms radius of this little store, I too had stood on the footpath eating off the small stainless steel plate on many occasions. With passage of time, it dawned on me that it was all about the chutney. The soft, white idly and the crisp hole-in-the-middle vada by themselves could do little to tingle the taste buds. But the chutney (which was incapable of independent listing) was the sole reason why this little store's idly-vada was listed on the NASDAQ.
>>
I held the tiny little kaapi lota between my fingers and sipped on the coffee. Hordes of two and four wheelers, buses, auto-rickshaws with state of the art electronic meters, cycles and pedestrians seemed to be in a hurry to get to work. Just then, there was a slight tap on my shoulder. I turned to look. It was Raghv a.k.a Raga, an old neighbour. We had grown up playing cricket in kulla park. He was here with another older looking man.

to be continued...

Nuts in an Eggshell

Bill, Larry, Sergey and Murthy are among the few who have exemplified this cult that’s growing at rate faster than the much talked about Indian GDP. Here’s a lighter look at an oft-plagiarized Indian version of the tale.

PROLOGUE:
India’s obsession with degrees is well known the world over. If you were to stand on a street corner and throw a stone, chances are a little over 13.6 (after much calculation) out of 10 that it would hit a person with the letters next to his name. Stats may seldom fail to impress, but how would you possibly break down the ‘technical + business knowledge’ mantra of the new millennium?

An IITian friend of mine openly declares- “I’m technically challenged.” To say the very least, there are plenty of these ‘differently abled’ fish swimming back and forth in the technical pool. But then, the only fish that do swim with the flow of the stream are the dead ones! We have arrived from hiding, the TCs (Technically Challenged) cry out loud. The cult is growing, and a community on the Orkut web site is the proof. The time is probably ripe for the Indian Government to issue licenses to start ‘institutes of technology for the technically challenged’. These institutes would not need labs, obviously. The sole requirements would be classrooms, a few dispersed chalks and yes, MBA aspirants (Beer and Business Administrators alike) to fill up the benches. Like any other disease, TC also comes with its set of symptoms. So who do you think you are?

1)You know the types of brakes, parts of a brake, are a mechanical engineer, the composition of the brake material and the forces acting on the brake pads. But when you sit on a bike, you guess between the front and the rear brakes.
2)You think that The Tower of Hanoi is a tower in Hanoi (Courtesy: Microsoft).
3)As an electrical engineer you can draw and label circuit diagrams faster than current can flow through it. You pick up the phone and call the electrician to fix the geyser.
4)You classify chips as junk food.
Due to constraints in space, we have withheld any further instances. For the complete list of the 4267 disabilities, refer Volumes 3 and 4 of Eggs in a Nutshell.
[In case you answered ‘yes’ to any of the above 4 instances, please make a bold assumption that you could be classified a TC.]


EPILOGUE:
The new age investment banker is truly a jack-of-all-trades. He is not only in the top 2% of the MBA entrance exam crackers; he also features in the top 50% of the engineering entrance exam crackers. A beer guzzling globe trotting fella, he boasts of a 4 yr vacation he took when the wind blew him through the technical course. Sadly so, that didn’t happen in business studies, he admits. While he conditioned himself to talk to lathes and computers while on vacation, what came as a rude awakening was that business required talking to people! Our man can also be seen living in a swanky 3-bed room apartment (fully furnished with an Air Conditioner), wears Jockey inners and Nike outers, owns an American Express and drives around in a Ford. After a couple of years of hard work, the technically baked business pie is ready to lay rubber on the tarmac for the next 35 years. A hop, skip and a jump away to the next big paycheck (with the tax deductions in mind), our man has successfully combined obsolete and irrelevant technical knowledge with business know how. The Great Indian Corporate Czar is in the making (breaking).

Elsewhere, at the Daimler Chrysler headquarters in Germany, a man in his 30s is hard at work on the Merc SL 600. Further insight reveals he is a PhD. in Fuel Injection Systems. “As a PhD, don’t you find it rather bizarre working in a garage”, we ask.

“I wanted to work in this garage. So I had to do a PhD.” he says with a smile, in his
heavy German accent.


(appeared in Srijan 2006, the annual mag of NIT-H)

Molotov Cocktail

For the folks at Manipal;take it away :-)

“Dude, I swear…if Mexico wins today, I’ll give up Vodka.” I said looking up at BD. The guy was hardly listening.

“Fuck you. You’ve been saying that from Kindergarten, arseole.” Lodde shot at me.

“No man. This time, I’m serious. It’s like this umbilical chord that runs through me, Argentina and Vodka. If ‘Tina loses, we all 3 fall.” Evidently, I had been drinking too much.

“Make a cocktail for me, bro.” I asked to no one in particular.
“Yeah, right! How about I make you a Molotov Cocktail to bring you back to your senses?” BD took a good attempt at humour.
“Hey, what’s in a Molotov Cocktail?” I asked very innocently.
“Oh! That would be a mix of, let’s see… 25% beer, 3% milk, and 65% Cerelac and 7% of your intestines.” BD gave an ‘answer’.
“Are you, serious?” now I was playing his game.
“Of course not, you idiot! It’s a home made explosive used to start arson.” Lodde’s IQ ran into the 4 digits when he was not in his senses. But on the flip side, I was too scared to ask what ‘arson’ meant.

It was Tony’s idea to go watch the FIFA World Cup Quarter Finals at his Uncle’s estate house. 6 guys, Kingfisher, football and Vodka are always a package deal: like the 4 legs of a tripod. 23 minutes after kick-off, it was still 0-0. Obviously, the TV was getting out of focus with every passing minute. I looked around for some smokes. Hell, all the packets were empty. Wasn’t that bastard Bogu told to get 6 packs?

I looked around. BD was staring at the fan and smiling at it. In that corner of the mind reserved for girl friends, he was probably making out with her in the loo at Barista.
“Oye, what’s so funny with the fan?” Pavan asked BD.
“I love her man…I fuckin’ love her.” BD looked down and nodded.

“Man, you know this girl for like 2 weeks. You’ve already become her dedicated doormat. I mean she’s walking all over you. And now, you love her? You obviously need more pot to smoke this shit out of your rear.” Pavan said. Lodde was rolling on the floor on hearing this. Pavan continued-“Look at Lodde’s shirt for that matter. What does it say,huh? LOVE-Loss Of Virginity Early in life. Don’t you ever learn anything, man?”

It was all getting too boring for me. I had heard this girlfriend bashing before. And frankly, it sucked. I looked at the TV for some time. The half was almost over.

“Bh-o-ys. Three minutes to go for the half to end. And guess what’s official? I need a Navy Cut RIGHT NOW.” Pavan stood up and made the announcement.

“Your freaking nuts. It’s 1:15 in the morning. The nearest shop is 3 kms away.” Tony screamed back at Pavan.
“I give a shit. I’ll take my bike and go. Wanna come, anyone?”
Since no one seemed too inclined to go, I volunteered.

5 minutes later, we were riding on the kuccha road on a Black Pulsar. As the mud tracks met the tar, I asked Pavan-“Hey, do you think there might be cops on the road?”

“Bollocks. They must be too bombed to be at work now. No worries bro.” Pavan said reassuringly.

At a distance on the road we could vaguely spot a Jeep. It was the cops.

“Man, what if they catch us? Fuck, we even left the bike documents in the house and came. And we are drunk and driving. Shit” I was praying.
And sure enough, they stopped us. One of the constables asked us to pull the bike over to the side of the footpath. The other went inside the jeep, pulled out a walkie-talkie and started mumbling into it. I could see Pavan was feeling nervous here.

“Sir, we have caught them.” The constable was saying into the walkie-talkie. “The bike is also there.”

“What bike? And caught us for what?” I said to Pavan. He knew as much as I. The other constable was looking away from us. Pavan immediately took out his mobile and dialled Lodde’s number.

“Lodde, listen. Cops have caught us. The bike documents are on the fridge. Get them and reach near the Temple Arch soon. Or else we guys are screwed.” Pavan whispered hurriedly.

The constable stood there looking at us. We were too nervous to go up to him and open our alcohol-laden mouths. Nor did he say a word to us. 5 minutes went too slow. Finally, we could see the head light of Bogu’s Black Pulsar. I heaved a sigh of relief. At least the documents had come now. Bogu and Lodde stooped their bike right in front of us, took out the documents from the cover and gave it to Pavan.

Suddenly, the constable who had been on the walkie-talkie walked up to us and produced two handcuffs. And all 4 of us were rounded up.

On the way to the Police Station, sitting at the back of the jeep, I looked at Lodde’s face. He was puzzled way beyond human reason. All they had done was come to the rescue of their friends with some stupid bike documents. And now, all 4 of us were riding to jail. What the hell was going on? The constables wouldn’t answer. The mute dummies just drove.

“Sir, we caught these 4 guys with 2 black Pulsars. It’s definitely somebody amongst them”, the constable told the inspector as he lined us up.

“Tell me who did it and I’ll be nice to you. Mess around with me and you’ll become dog food. Bastards, tell me who did it?” the Inspector thundered at us.
We kept our heads down without understanding what was going on, but knowing for sure that trouble was just around the corner. It seemed like 4 different thieves had broken into a house at the same time.

Mustering all energy I could I looked up at the Inspector and said-“Sir, there’s been a mistake. We haven’t done anything. We are software engineers working at IT Park. We have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Shut up, Son-of-a-bang. Tell me which of you two raped the girl?” the Inspector screamed again.

WHAT?! It was getting crazy. “Sir, we have no idea what you want from us. We don’t know of any rape. We can show our ID cards. There’s obviously been a mistake.” Lodde was pleading.

After some persuasion, he saw light. Pavan called on Tony to get the ID Cards from the estate house.

15 minutes later, a confused Tony walked into the Police station with the ID Cards. We were released from the whole mess. The Inspector apologized to us and explained the whole confusion: earlier that evening, a girl had been raped near the place where we were caught. Eyewitnesses had seen 2 boys speed away on a black Pulsar. Unfortunately, we were also 2 boys on a black Pulsar twice over.

As we were walking away from the craziest experience of our lives towards our bikes, I looked at Pavan and said-“Isn’t it funny? We got caught and had no documents. Then they could have booked us for drunken driving, in which case you would have lost your license. Shit, what a close shave that was!”

Pavan smiled back at me and said, “Do you want to know what a closer shave is?” He took out a packet of grass from his back pocket. My tongue almost fell out.

(appeared in Srijan 2006, the annual magazine of NIT-H)

Potters on vaccuum cleaners

Once up on a time, there lived a boy wizard named Harry Potter. He had a scar on his forehead and wore round frame glasses. Like other wizards of his age, Potter loved flying on his broomstick. He spent a lot of time in the open fields flying all around the place. He flew into the clouds and out of them. He flew past windows and flag posts. He kept flying on his broomstick.

Soon, Harry Potter decided that he would fly past the the boundaries of Hogwarts, his school, and explore the world. One fine morning, when the sky was blue and the air was crisp, Potter took off from the grounds at Hogwarts towards the morning sky. He was to make his way towards the realms of the new world. “I shall return by dusk” he said to himself while he left, “and I will comeback and tell my friends just how good my new Thunderbolt broomstick is.”

So off he flew, beyond the castle walls and across the Great Lake. As he turned around, he noticed that Hogwarts was a tiny statuette placed in the midst of nature's abundance. As he flew past the picturesque town of Hogsmeade, he knew that the only direction for him to go from here on was forward; there was no looking back.

For hours at a stretch he flew on his broomstick. The wind was in his hair and the world was beneath his feet. He had experienced the joy of flying before, but this time it was different. He felt like a small speck in the ocean of the sky and also like the King of the world at the same time. This inner conflict of feelings drove him to get a little more adventurous. It was past noon and as he sat munching on his jelly sandwich while on his broom, he realised that it was only a few hours to sunset. He should be turning around now, he thought to himself.

“But aren't I supposed to be brave and explore the big world as Professor Dumbledore had always said.” , he thought. After a short tennis match in his head, he decided that he would take a shot at going a little further. But he promised himself that he would return by the following sunset, lest Ron and Hermione got worried and went looking out for him. He flew through the thick fog and braved the cold as he made his way through the night. Nor owls or the OWLS could stop the adventurer in him. And so he flew.

Early next morning, he landed in a little green village. As he walked towards the lake to fill his can, he noticed a man with long white hair standing by the lakeside. He had bushy eyebrows and was dressed in denims and a red Tee that said 'Virgin' on it. He had a strange looking box with a thick black pipe attached to it by his side. Since Harry had been brought up in the muggle world, he was quick to identify this box as a vacuum cleaner. But what was this man doing with a vacuum cleaner on a fine day by the lake side?
“Good day Sir, my name is Harry Potter.”, said Harry as he walked up to the man.
“Good day to you. My name is Richard Branson.”, said the man.

And right there, they sat by the lake side and spoke for hours over donuts, coffee and more jelly sandwiches. Harry explained to Richard how he had wandered away from Hogwarts on his broomstick while setting out to explore the world. Richard meanwhile told Harry that he thought broomsticks were too outdated and slow to travel on. Vacuum cleaners were much faster and convenient, he said.

But Harry argued by saying that broomsticks had always been the traditional mode of flying. They were more affordable. Sir Richard felt that was true but also felt that people wouldn't mind paying for luxury, as flying on vacuum cleaners was a lot less strenuous and a luxurious experience as compared to the raw thrill of a broomstick. And thus, they spoke all day long. Harry was interested in knowing how vacuum cleaners could work in the air. And so he test flew Richard's red vacuum cleaner. And boy! how different to the traditional broomstick was this! Sir Richard flew around on Harry's Thunderbolt for a while, and concluded that it was the most exciting ride he had had after his hot air balloon experience in Africa.

And thus a deal was made. In a style so typical to the Branson stable, Virgin Broomstick was born. And Harry was made the CEO of the company, the youngest CEO in UK. He will be joining in a couple of days, now that he has finished his 7th year at Hogwarts. And as for the vacuum cleaners, Harry has decided to float his start-up along with three of the Weaselys, with Sir Richard Branson holding a 33% stake in the company – Quick Snitch Travels. Will this venture succeed? Stay tuned to this page for cutting-edge updates.

In real life, Vijay Mallya plays the role of Sir Richard Branson in the story; something he is used to. The vacuum cleaner is his pet project- Kingfisher Airlines. Harry Potter's role is played by Capt. Gopinath. Air Deccan is the broomstick. And the rest is yet to come. Will the Kingfisher-Air Deccan deal hold through? Stay tuned to this page for cutting-edge updates.