Friday, December 24, 2010

Udipis hiring Non-waiters

Jaldrajan consultants, a Chennai based firm is developing innovative ways to increase the turnover of their clients, 90% of whom are Udipi or South Indian fast food restaurant owners. Jaldrajan Jadapkrishnan Iyer, CEO of Jaldrajan consultants says, "Udipi owners have traditionally been impatient with slow eaters at their restaurants. Our market research indicates that 8/10 Udipis in Southern and Western India are looking for innovative ways to kick the existing customers out as quickly as possible. We have provided our own patented formula of employing non-waiters for our clients."

Traditional waiters who take the order will now be accompanied by non-waiters. If you wondered how having your last bite of idli automatically made the plate below disappear, it was the work of an impatient waiter circling like a vulture around your table. Waiters in these South Indian fast food joints are generally trained to clear your table and hand you the bill as soon as you even think about having your last piece of Dosa, Idli, Mendu Vada, etc. They are even trained to make a dirty face and discourage you from ordering the next dish or if you take too long to decide. The age-old concept of these joints is to make the customer feel guilty of having more food than they'd like him to eat.

Jaldrajan consultants have gone ahead and created the concept of a non-waiter. A non-waiter simply means a person who cannot wait. This new breed of restaurant workers will now not even let you savour your last bite. They will be professionally trained to be emotionally unattached to the customer and will come equipped with timers. As soon as the waiter serves a dish to a customer, a non-waiter will start the timer. When the time runs out, irrespective of whether the food in the plate has been completely eaten, a non-waiter will swoop in and snatch the plate away. Also, in case the customer takes more than 15 seconds to decide on the next dish he'd like to eat, he is handed over the tab.

Mr. Iyer is working with leading Udipi owners to create standard time limits for various dishes. A major issue that Mr. Iyer is working on improving is the time lag. "We are working on decreasing the time lag between the moment at which the customer's time runs out to the moment at which the non-waiter swoops in.The current average time lag is 600 milliseconds and that can be brought down to 450 milliseconds with better training", he says.

Sources tell us that the Udipi owners are getting impatient as Jaldrajan Iyer is yet to come out with a prototype of a typical non-waiter. Manjunath Ramanathan, a disgruntled Udipi customer gloats when he says, "This Jaldrajan fellow should experience first-hand the impatience of these Udipi owners. 5 years back, I was escorted out of an Udipi in Tiruchipelli for taking more than 45 seconds for deciding between Dahi Wada or Coconut Barfi for dessert."

However, major corporate giants have welcomed the move to employ non-waiters. Mr. Tej Bechain, CEO of Fast Forward Ltd is planning on hiring Udipi owners to run the canteens of all the offices. "We'll have employees whose lunch breaks are timed. What more could an uptight, nitpicky boss like me ask for?".

Inspite of Udipi owners standing on his head when we interviewed him, Jaldrajan Iyer is confident that he'll come out with a prototype soon and the amount spent on non-waiters will soon compensate for the revenue earnt through a quicker turnover.

Monday, November 22, 2010

Cabinet reshuffle in Lord Indra's ministry

The Khetu Times caught up with Mr. Badal Panidar, official spokesperson for Lord Indra's rain ministry yesterday when he had come down to earth on an official visit. Here is an exclusive interview with Mr. Panidar who has attempted to explain the sudden changes in weather pattern in India.

KT (Khetu Times): Good evening sir, thank you for taking out the time.

BP (Badal Panidar): Not at all, the pleasure is mine.

KT: Sir, I'd like to get straight to the point, there is a lot of talk of unseasonal thundershowers in the month of November in many parts of India. Many people are asking questions. How do you explain it, sir?

BP: This is just temporary. It will be rectified soon.

KT: I'm sure you are doing all you can to rectify it sir, but can you please tell us why it happened in the first place?

BP: You've got to understand one thing. There has been a major cabinet reshuffle and we've appointed a lot of new Rain Gods in our cabinet this year. Since this is their first time, they are bound to get excited and trigger-happy. 

KT: What was the need for a cabinet reshuffle?

BP: As we all are aware of how dry 2009 was, we thought it was necessary to make some drastic changes in our cabinet. After all, we were continuously pestered... er... I mean... requested by people's prayers for a better monsoon for 2010. The old lot of Rain Gods that we had were quite intimidated with the unending prayers which stretched beyond their working hours. In fact, after these prayers started getting escalated to Lord Indra, the chief God of Rain, he decided enough is enough and started appointing new Gods.

KT: The Charter of weather Gods created on 4500 B.C. clearly mentions that the jurisdiction of Rain Gods in India should only be for the 4 months of June - September. You need special permission from the winter ministry in order to be allowed to rain in November. Isn't this a clear case of negligence from the ministry to allow it to happen?

BP: You can check it with them whether or not this is a case of negligence from their side. As far as we are concerned, we've got all the necessary clearances so far. We are only offloading the excess water accumulated during 2009 in these months.

KT: We spoke with the spokesperson of the winter ministry Mr. Barfesh Thandon last week. He said that they've only sanctioned 10^30 gallons of water for the whole of November while you have already exceeded 5x10^30 gallons. The thundershowers are so severe, one could almost mistake this time as the monsoon season.

BP: These allegations are baseless, and as I've said, we've got all the necessary clearances.

KT: What about the common man, sir? How is he supposed to cope with sudden rains. You cannot expect people to carry umbrellas all year long or not have weddings in open venues during wedding season?

BP: We are not that worried about the inconveniences of the common man. In fact, inspite of the mayhem and filth the monsoon creates, people still romanticize it in their tweets and facebook posts. It makes us believe that they are pretty happy with the rain. 

KT: One last question, sir. What kind of monsoon can we expect in 2011?

BP: Why are you 'expecting' monsoon in 2011? Monsoon for 2011 has already started.

KT: Haha, thank you for your time.

BP: Pleasure is mine.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Guidelines to write a self-help book

Want to write a huge, thick self-help book and make lakhs of rupees? Look no further, as our self-help book expert Dr. Vahiyat Chaaptergiri who has come out with bestsellers such as '27 habits of highly effective self-help book readers', 'Self-help soup for the chicken' and 'Who moved my self-help book?' has given us a few guidelines.

When I was studying back at IPPM, a hugely idolized our dean as he continuously doled out bullshit and that too extempore. I soon realized that even I have that quality and it needed to be honed somewhat. I therefore read every self-help book that I could get my hands on even though it was a slightly brain damaging experience, I learnt a lot and self-taught myself to write even better bullshit. 

Here are a few pointers:

1. Always write your text in points form:

      a. Use sub-points if necessary

             i. Use as many sub-points as you feel as it will make you appear very systematic.

                   - Overdo it if necessary.

2. Keep repeating your points over and over again to add to the thickness of the book. Since your book needs to be really thick for it to be taken seriously, keep repeating your points. If you keep repeating your points, losers who read your book will think you have a lot of knowledge to share. Therefore, I suggest that repeat the same point over and over again in different ways as it will make your book handsomely thick. Thickness of the book is necessary so if you run out of what to write, repeat the same point over and over and over again in different ways.

3. Quote random people from random universities to back up what you are trying to say. Professor Nikammesh Mandbuddhi from Chhattisgarh university says, "Even though a totally unknown person has a point of view similar to yours, quote him/her, who's going to check anyway?". Professor Vyarthili Bakbak from Tripura woman's university concurs and adds further, "Quoting people from both genders helps as your readers can also belong to different sexes."

4. Do a lot of self-aggrandizing and keep enumerating your achievements. When I was invited as a guest lecturer in Alibaug University, I made the same point and was awarded an honourary Ph.D by them.

5. Keep the tone of your writing very commanding. YOU have to engage your readers and make YOUR book a page turner and YOU have to make sure YOUR language sound like THE GOSPEL TRUTH.

6. Finally, if your run out of things to say, keep repeating what you have said in the earlier chapters over and over and over and over and over again.

- Dr. Vahiyat ChaapterGiri.

(The above nonsense is the writer's personal bullshit and Khetu Times is not responsible for the brain damage it may inflict.)

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Haryanvi syllabus to change

In an effort to inculcate deep-rooted values and traditions into the minds of the young, the Haryana government is going to make some changes in the syllabus from the next academic year. They had been mulling over this decision for quite a few years now but since they have got the go ahead from the ruling Congress and INLD MLAs and no opposition from the BJP, the chief minister has announced the change in syllabus and expressed joy as kids will now be brainwashed from an early age itself!

Here are a few examples of how different subjects will deal with customs that glorify honour above everything else:

Civics: An entire subject devoted to the functioning of Khap Panchayats and how they are empowered to kill anyone they wish. A separate section on opposers of khap panchayats described as intellectually arrogant infidels who hurt Haryanvi sentiments and pride.

History: The heroic tales of khap Panchayats tracking down elopers and bludgeoning them with all the prejudice they could muster.

Ethics and Value education: 5 news chapters have been added on how to mistreat women, enslave them, beat them up, sexually assault them and finally, how to kill them if they do not comply.

Mathematics: Venn diagrams have been used to explain students which marriage unions are allowed and which are disallowed. The blue dot denotes the groom and the pink dot denotes the bride.


The honourable teachers hope that the above Venn Diagram will stop students from eloping towards their death.

Biology: The ill effects of marrying someone within your gotra in case you escape alive are added in the biology textbook.

Parents of students have expressed joy over the much-awaited syllabus changes. Mr. Gagandeep Singh expressed elation over the fact that the school has shared responsibility turn his boy into a pig-headed bigot. Another parent, Udham Singh always had reservations about his kid as he was very nice to his sisters and girls overall. Now he believes that the new curriculum will get his son closer to becoming a wife-beating moron in the future.

All in all, at a time when there was danger of Haryanvi boys turning into mature adults, such changes in syllabus have come as a boon to preserve the glorious narrow-minded customs of Haryana.


Disclaimer: This is a work of satire or fiction, no truth involved here.


Friday, April 30, 2010

More sleaze in IPL4

After the scandalous IPL 3, where a lot of skeletons tumbled out of the closet resulting into thorough enquiries and the suspension of Lalit Modi, stay tuned for IPL4 whose commercial crassness is slated to increase even more.

Chirayu Amin - The newly appointed head of IPL has guaranteed more sleaze in the next edition. Speaking exclusively to Khetu Times, he started off with a couple of cliches about how cricket is a religion in India, but later he candidly admitted, "In the end, our IPL team are all a shallow bunch of people. We cannot digest our food until a we do a couple of shady deals and add nauseatingly high amounts of unnecessary glamour in the game".

Sources tell us that the amount of advertisements too will increase in IPL4. The current edition had introduced advertisements within an over between deliveries and two compulsory 'strategic timeouts' during play so that more commercials could be crammed in. Next year, there will be commercial breaks during a delivery - between the time the ball is released by the bowler till it reaches the batsman, a commercial will be slipped in.

There is speculation that more slower bowlers were used in IPL3 in preparation for what is to come in IPL4. The slower the pace of the delivery, the more time is available for advertisements. Even express fast bowlers practiced by using a lot of slower deliveries this time around.

A large number of companies have lined up to sponsor dot balls, run outs, player injuries and on-field confrontations between players. In addition, penalising captains for slow over-rates will be scrapped in the next edition. There is rife speculation that captains will be paid Rs. 1,00,000 for every extra minute they take in making field placements. The money made through commercials that will be crammed in during those extra minutes will more than compensate for the money lost per minute on the 'indecisive' captain.

Also, the fees for post match IPL parties have increased from Rs. 40,000 to Rs. 80,000. A BCCI spokesperson refusing to be named said "Loser-type people who will pay 40,000 bucks to get a few minutes of time to spend with tired players who are not even in the mood will definitely pay Rs. 80,000. Heck, these self-loathing morons will give half their lives to party with the celebrities."

In short, IPL4 promises to be rivettingly sleazy. Expect more crassness and more skeletons tumbling out of people's closets next year.