Mahesh's advice on choosing a wife ..

Prologue : This was Mahesh Mudigonda's response to the discussion on whether to choose a working women as your wife, triggered off by Girisha. I have done some editing to make it presentable..(BTW, why do these nice mails always come with so much of spelling and/or grammatical mistakes ??)

From: M.V.L.Mahesh Kumar
Subject: Re: Re[18]: HI
Sudarji, Please broadcast it to ur mailing list. I don't have one.

Guys, This is a age old problem but could well turn ou to be a old age problem.

The bug with a working wife is ( normally) u cannot come on onsite assignments like what u hv now without some hard feelings.

Guys without financial need for both partners to work should take nonworking wifes because:

1. You don't have to curse and start cooking after a hectic day.

2. We'll she also can do it w/o running around.

3. Your and her survival is taken care of leaving time for improvement activities like hobbies.

4. You can mildly ease the unemployment problem.

5. Unfortunately this is the first step to subjugation (economically).

6. Beleive me there'll be more fun time.

7. Your vacation needs to be approved by only one manager (yours).

8. Kids of course get more attention which they need and morally deserve.

9. If wifes learn/are trained to use their time properly, you'll have the family's day to day planning and maintenance FULLY taken care of. This way the family (esp. kids) don't bear the brunt of the excess hrs. you have to put in from time to time.

10. Neither you nor kids in future have to see a locked door when you return from office/school. Think in flashback - how discouraging this has been.

11. Last but not the least: To keep your wife as jobless in your company as your company keeps you. ;))

1. Chose a active female. Hopefully she'll wan't to continue to be active

2. Chose one who has worked before. Can understand things a bit better.

3. Higher qualification.

4. Choose one with same hobbies - she'll participate when your friends come rather than -give tea, wait for them to get lost, keep cursing, watch TV.

5. The above helps in you and her sharing your friends (from before marriage).

6. Sorry to say but - One who doesn't use or depend on her (bewitching looks) for her self esteem. This is tough. But if you err here, you are in for some middle age trouble. This basically translates into a (female-femaleness > 0). If this condition is satisfied this is a good selection.

7. A person who if male can still be your friend.

8. NOT A TV ADDICT.

I'm done with my choice, ALL THE BEST GUYS.

Regards, Mahesh

(This piece of writing reached me thru' the net from a friend. I don't know the name of the author also... - Sankara)

ARRANGED MARRIAGE: THE SEARCH FOR BEAUTY

( A collection of tips to find a beautiful wife)

If you are a typical, single, Indian man who lives in the USA, the time will come when it will dawn on you that the only chance you have to indulge in wedded bliss lies in the hallowed institution of the "Arranged Marriage". You probably left India when you were twenty-one, having squandered your adolescence striving to get here. At this point, you are twenty-five or older, and have been out of touch with the general Indian female population for more than a decade All the women you know back home are married. This manual is written for those of you who harbor hopes of acquiring a beautiful arranged bride.

If you belong to the rarified set of intellectuals to whom the external female form holds no charms, and those who evaluate others according to the quality of their inner selves, this manual is not for you. Before you stop reading, please accept my heartiest congratulations on your self control and ideological correctness. I am not worthy of even addressing you (kneel! kneel!).

No, this manual is for the rest of you, mere mortals, who still have enough red blood in their veins so that you can admit, even to yourselves, that you rather like the idea of having a beautiful wife.

Of course, before I even go about describing how to acquire beauty, it is necessary to define it. And this is where I expect the most disagreement. There will be those among you who proclaim, "But beauty is in the eye of the beholder!" And you would be partly right.

If you are a man who equates beauty to facial attractiveness, there is not much that this manual can do for you. You are a very fortunate man, for Indian women have the most beautiful faces of any race in the world. You have a very large pool to choose from, and you do not need much help in choosing, because you can look at each prospective bride's face and decide whether she is beautiful or not.

No, this is written for those who would like their wife to have a good figure too. For you, the job is harder. Typically, Indian women do not get much physical exercise, and consequently, if they are not scrawny,tend to be on the overweight side. Why do you think sarees are popular in India? Because they can hide all the embarrassing bulk! Some men think that Indian women do not have shapely legs by reasons of genetics. I say to them, check out the figures of the IA (ABCD to you politically incorrect guys) women. They are on par with anything I have seen on any other race. This is because IA women work out and take care to keep themselves in shape. You cannot go covering yourself up around here, not if you want to get dates.

If you are one of those academic types who have not given much thought to the matter, or merely one of those blighters who like to ask intelligent questions to which you already know the answers, and ask me, "But why does one NEED a beautiful wife?" I would reply that beauty is a double edged sword. It has its advantages and disadvantages, some of which I summarize below.

Advantages of having a beautiful wife.

a) A beautiful girl is much easier to adjust to than an unattractive one. You will be much more tolerant of her faults during the initial "adjustment" phase of marriage, simply because you will not have the heart to get irritated with someone so lovely. She will be much easier to forgive after a fight.

b) If you are the typical desi engineer, you will not be exactly Adonis Reborn. If your wife is homely too, your child will probably look like the Swamp Thing, or the Blob. If you love your unborn children, you owe it to them to give them a beautiful mother.

c) A beautiful wife enhances your social stature. People will look at you and think, "How the ^&*% did that !@## land such a gorgeous babe? He must have something that is not visible on the outside!" You will get invited to more parties, especially by men who want to spend the evening drooling at her. Conversely, if your wife is homely, you will be rather embarrassed to take her to gatherings of your friends, especially if they are all married to knockouts.

d) And most importantly, sex will be much better if your wife is good-looking. Otherwise, after a couple of years when the pent-up horniness of the past 25+ years has worn off, you probably will not be even able to get it up, unless you resort to ungentlemanly and undignified tactics, like fantasising about Sridevi when you are in bed.

Disadvantages of having a beautiful wife.

a) If you are one of those for whom innocence, virtue, and chastity are important, beautiful women are not for you. My empirical research shows that, while beauty (or the lack of it) in a woman is in no way indicative of her intelligence, beautiful women are invariably very street-smart. They KNOW that they are good looking, and have got used to people bending over backwards to accommodate them. This dawns on them very early on in life, when they observe that teachers are much nicer to them than to their less-attractive friends, when almost all the men they encounter behave like brainless, testeterone-driven apes in their presense, when they observe that they get things done twice as quickly in a government office .

As a teenager in college, a beautiful woman would have had lots of men vying with each other for her friendship and affections. She would have to be more than human not to have enjoyed the attention. She would have played the men one against the other, as women have done since time immemorial.. She might have dated, and even had affairs. In the process, she would get to know men all too well, and would realize that they are but putty in the hands of a good-looking woman.

b) A good-looking woman is more than a match for the average desi engineer. She will twist you around her little finger and make you jump through hoops. Things will get done her way nearly all the time. Of course, it will be fun to jump through hoops for someone as lovely as she is. A homely woman, on the other hand, will usually be so grateful to you for marrying her that she will treat you like a king.

c) As I mentioned before, a beautiful woman is unlikely to be particularly virtuous or righteous. But that is okay, since too much virtue often goes hand-in-hand with rather undesirable traits. A virtuous woman may also be ugly, weird, boring, hyper-religious or frigid.

d) A beautiful woman is more likely to "stray" after marriage too. This is the USA, and the fact that a woman is married does not make her off-limits to adventurers or would-be Casanovas. The more lovely a woman is, the more likely is she to be propositioned by her male colleagues or friends. Ergo, she is subject to much more temptation than her homely counterparts. Think about this... how would it be if women kept asking you, a man, to make love to them? How many times would you refuse?

How to go about selecting a beautiful wife.

First of all, there is the matter of mentioning the fact to your parents. If your parents are anything like mine, they will freak out when they hear that their dear devoted son is actually interested in earthy things like beauty (and, by extrapolation, sex). It is not considered good form to say that beauty is important to you in Indian circles.

Here is a very important tip... do not leave bride-hunting to your parents! Beauty is going to be the last of their priorities, coming after caste, horoscopes, family background, perceived virtue of the girl etc. Make it very clear to them that beauty is high on your list of priorities. State in no uncertain terms that you will not marry anyone who does not measure up to your standards. That will prevent them from goofing off during bride-hunting, shirking their responsibilities and palming off some family-friend's daughter on you.

Another unpalatable fact is that your mother will not want you to marry someone too beautiful. This often comes as a surprise to most sons, but the reason is simple. Mothers know that, sooner or later, there will be a tussle between her and her daughter-in-law over her son's affections and loyalties. Since women are extremely conscious of their looks and tend to rate themselves accordingly, a beautiful woman has a psychological advantage over a less attractive one in an argument. Also, your mother knows that a beautiful wife will tilt the scales against her as far as you are concerned, since such a wife will probably have you dangling by the balls, if you pardon the expression. So, left to herself, your mother will limit her search to women who are less attractive than she perceives herself to be.

Before you start on your bride-hunting, you should convince yourself that you deserve a beautiful wife. Do not ever think, "But I am not so good-looking anyway, what right have I to demand a lovely girl?" Since Man started walking the earth, it has been the man's wealth that has been traded off for the woman's beauty. Rest assured that your looks will be the last thing on a girl's mind when she rates you as a prospective husband. (I am limiting myself to arranged marriages here). She will be weighing your earning potential, green-card potential etc. Even in this land of feminism, "Cosmopolitan" has articles on "How to hook a rich husband" and "The ten best places to meet successful men".

You have worked hard, and wasted ten of the most wonderful years of your life getting where you are. You deserve to get something out of it. Do not squander your bargaining position. In other words, do not be ashamed to make your preference for beauty known.

How to check whether she is beautiful.

First of all, never consent to marry a girl whom you have seen only in photographs. PHOTOGRAPHS LIE!!!! Photography is an art that can make HKL Bhagat look like Zeenat Aman. All too often, photographs sent to prospective suitors contain only the face. Also, they usually have been so air-brushed and sanitized, all the pimples and other irregularities removed, that the end product has little in common with the original. Also, it is a certain fact that no woman will consent to send you photograph that presents herself in an unflattering light.

These days, in the urban areas of India, it is often the practice to take an album-full of pictures of a girl when she gets to marriageable age. These pictures show the girl in various outfits, eastern and western. The album is then sent to prospective grooms-in-the-states. During my last visit to India, I learned from an authoritative source that many of these pictures are blatant forgeries, involving splicing the girl's head on to the figure of some other girl, sometimes professional models. In one case, pictures of a girl's good-looking sister were went out instead. Bottom line: do not make a decision based merely on photographs!

Darshan.

Once you see the girl directly, you can easily check whether her face measures up. The figure is a different matter altogether. Women have conducted more research into packaging themselves than have been conducted on the entire US space effort. You should realize that, while you were struggling in your engineering program in undergraduate on grad school, women were learning the techniques of camouflage. She KNOWS that it is her looks that count. By packaging herself so that she seems attractive to a non-resident Indian for about 10 minutes, she can earn all that it took the NRI 10 years of hard work to realize. Women are extremely honest with their friends about their positive and negative points. They are intensely aware of their flaws and work systematically towards concealing them.

So, if she seems to have a liking for loose, flowing sarees or salwar-kameez, keep your mind open to the possibility that she may be overweight. That fold of her saree draped oh-so-elegantly across her midriff might be concealing a paunch. It it is wound demurely around her back, she probably has spare tires. Does she walk slowly and sedately, like an old Spanish galleon making its way across the seas? She is probably holding her paunch in.

So what do you do if she always appears in such clothes? You cannot very well demand that she change clothes... that would be outrageously bad form. AND SHE KNOWS THAT! One way to approach such a problem is the following. Tell her that she cannot wear a saree in the states, that it would be embarrassing for you. Tell her that if she is not willing to wear jeans, shorts and pants on a regular basis, you are probably not a good choice for her. Subtly hint that you would like to see her in western clothes. If she refuses flat-out, my friend, you can be sure that she is hiding something. If she has a good figure, she will make damned sure that you see it.

A large percentage of women in India have huge hips and very heavy thighs. This is mainly due to lack of exercise. In a saree or churidar, it is impossible to check for these, which is why they are so popular. If a woman states that she does not wear pants, warning bells should ring in her mind. One way to check for obesity under a saree or salwar is to note the relative positions of her bosom and midriff. For a woman with a good figure, the bosom should be at a considerably higher level. If she dresses so that the bosom does not stand out, it is almost surely because she has a paunch that comes to the same level. Or she may be droopy, saggy or totally flat.

Let me reiterate, if a girl has something to show, she will make damned sure that you will see it.

One way to see how your prospective bride looks when she is not dressed up is to ask to see her family albums. NOT the ones that they keep out ostentatiously but the ones that they keep tucked away at the corner of the shelf. A lot of overweight women go through crash diets during the wedding season, starving themselves or going to professional "fat-farms" to lose dozens of pounds, to get into presentable shape for the darshan. I know of one woman who lost 60 pounds in 8 months preparing for the wedding. She quickly gained it all back after the marriage. Pictures of the woman taken 2 or 3 years ago should tell you whether she is inclined to obesity.

If, on the other hand, she is a thin woman who has padded herself up to look good on darshan day, there is no way on earth that you can tell. The best way to check for this sort of stuff is to enlist the help of a sympathetic, liberated, female, friend, sister or other relative. She can easily see through the disguise and give you unbiased estimates of the interior. So, if you have a sister, you had better start being nice to her.

I hope you will find my article useful. Happy hunting! Would this be handy for you?

thats all for now,

"The optimist sees the donut...the pessimist sees the hole... but the realist sees the calories." - anonymous

Oh sorry, that should have been the 'Syamantaka Money'. I'm sorry for the error, ladies and gentlemen. We welcome you to the enacting of the skit of

This is a story about the software industry. This is a story of mistake and error, and problems, and their solution. This is a story of computer programs, and the greatest hurdles in the successful execution of computer programs: viruses. This is the story of Dr. Ganesha, developer of the world's best anti-virus software, the Vighna-nashaka Anti-Virus.

Once upon a time, there lived a multi-millionaire named Satrajit, the founder-chairman of Satrajit Computers Limited, a company that followed the glorious principles of Sun Microsystems. The business development and sales planning of Satrajit Computers Limited -- which we will call -- SCL, was done by SCL's business partner, Gokul Inc., a company-based in Dwaraka. The CEO of Gokul Inc. was Krishna, a very accomplished programmer and Internet-guru. Satrajit was a great friend of Krishna, the CEO of Gokul Inc.

yeh dosti ham nahiN chhoD.eNge ...

chhoD.eNge industry, tere saath na chhoD.eNge ...

Made in India .... Made in India

yeh Software hai bhai Made in India ...

O jaane waale ho sake to lauT ke aanaa ...

Upon reaching RTP, Prasenajit and Krishna take up residence in Emerald Forest. One day, to get the weekly groceries, Prasenajit goes to Food Lion. Keeping in mind that Satrajit has told him not to let the Syamantaka disk out of his sight at any time, Prasenajit takes the floppy along with him to Food Lion. Unfortunately, he forgets to declare his belongings before entering Food Lion. consequently, when he is being billed for his groceries, the management of Food Lion confiscates the disk...

Unable to bear the ignominy of losing the Syamantaka disk, Prasenajit seeks out a Consultant and joins up a new job, gets a new social security number and a new credit card ... basically, changes his identity entirely and becomes untraceable.

Meanwhile, finding that Prasenajit has not returned from Food Lion for a long time, Krishna goes in search for him, but in vain. Krishna searches high and low, here and there, in Food Lion and Winn Dixie, and, not finding any trace of Prasenajit, returns to India.

On reaching India, Krishna meets Satrajit and informs him of the status, and says that because of the current boom in the RTP market, Prasenajit might have switched jobs ... Satrajit doesn't believe this. Infact, he believes that Krishna has done away with Prasenajit in order to lay his hands on the Syamantaka Internet Server ... sad and enraged he demands to know of Krishna what he has done to Prasenajit and Syamantaka ... for a few dollars more, have you sold it to a competitor, Krishna? he asks

bol Krishna bol tu ne yeh kya kiya ... apne competitor ko disk de diya ....

koi hamdam na rahaa, koi sahaaraa na rahaa ...

ham kisike na rahe, software hamara na raha ....

To clear himself of these false accusations and bad name, Krishna decides to take it upon himself to trace the whearabouts of the Syamantaka Internet Server. He decides to go back to RTP where he had lost track of it in the first place. While he is using his laptop to decide his plan of action, he discovers that it is infected with the Chandra virus. To clean his laptop, therefore, and to protect it from any further attacks of Chandra virus, Krishna uses Dr. Ganesha's Vighna-nashaka anti-virus vaccine.

Washing powder Nirma (parody) ...

Vighna-nashak vaccine, Vighna-nashak vaccine ...

New-disk ki saphedi, Ganesha ne layi,

rangeen sotware khil khil jaye ...

MSDOS ...UNIX .....Apple .....Netware ...

sabki pasand Ganesha ....

Krishna's efforts in this direction having drawn a blank, he decides to take another line of action, and logs on to the Internet and starts searching. To help him narrow down his search in the world wide web, Krishna uses does a Yahoo search. His yahoo search yields results when he finds that his laptop is able to trace packets coming from jambavati.jamtech.com!

yaaaaaaahooo .... yaaaaaahoooo ...

chaahe koi mujhe 'hacker' kahe ....kahne do ji kahta rahe ...

ham 'net' ki toophanom mein gire .. ham kya jaren ...

On the 21st day, exhausted from this ordeal, and still not having succeeded in counter-hacking Krishna's machine, Jambavan decides to sit back and think about the situation. This hacker is very intelligent, he says to himself, and his hacking style is strangely familiar. Oh my god! It reminds me of the superb hacking style of my ex-boss and friend from my previous life ... from my days in India ... kahiN yeh wohi to nahiN?

To confirm his suspicions, Jambavan establishes and Internet Chat session with Krishna ... and realises that it indeed is the person he was suspecting it was ... he calls himself Krishna now, but when Jambavan was in India, his login name was Rama!

tera mujh se hai pehle kaa naataa koi ...

tere jaise nahin man lubhata koi ....

Taking jambavati and Syamantaka server, Krishna goes back to India and reports to Satrajit. On coming to know of the entire story, Satrajit is filled with remorse for having blamed his friend for something he had never done.

meri chhoTi si ek bhool ne saaraa gulshan jalaa diya ...

In order to make up for his un-businesslike behaviour, Satrajit decides to do what he has been wanting to do for a long time ... to give his daughter Satyabhama in marriage to Krishna!

Krishna, for his part, realizes that all the trouble started because he made his initial calculations when his laptop was infected with Chandra virus on the 4th day of Bhadrapad. Chandra virus, which is an otherwise harmless program, becomes a wicked and dangerous virus on the 4th day of Bhadrapad. Krishna pronounces that to guard against the evil effects of the Chandra virus, everyone should fortify their systems with the Vighna-vinashaka anti-virus vaccine. Once this vaccine is in place, you are safe from the dangers of Chandra!

deva ho deva ganapati deva tum se baDhkar kaun ...

swami tum se baDhkar kaun ...

Krishna -- Sankara Narayanan. Stays in 4311B, works for IBM.

Satrajit -- Venkatesh. Also stays in 4311B, works for Nortel.

Prasenajit -- Girisha. Stays in 4405 H, works for IBM.

Jambavan -- Sudarshan. Stays in 4311B, works for IBM.

Satyabhama --

Food Lion Manager -- Mahesh. Stays in 4311B, works for IBM.

Food Lion Cashier --

Food Lion Door -- Bhavesh & Sudipto. Stay in ____K, work for IBM.

I, your Narrator -- Ravindra. Stay in 4405H, work for IBM.

and the main protagonist of the story, the one and only

Dr. Ganesha -- Stays everywhere and works for everyone!