I am a Bombay Bai

I am a Bombay Bai. Don't try to guess my identity, because even you are right, what's the point? Will it increase your CGPA, CV or bonus? Will it increase your airmiles? Do you really think if you tease me enough like a cycling Dev Anand teased Nutan, I will gift you my gender, beauty, loyal asexual following of single males and recruiters, mextrosexual gold necklaces including medals, my rare smile that light lamps in the hearts of dubious youngish lawyers, the real estate I own, and my mature modesty?

Instead, try winning at this legal quiz: Which press note allowed single brand retailing? Quick! The winner gets a massage from me, and two if he dresses up in ethnic Maharashtrian women-sari and performs the lavni. Winner, wear dirty pyjamas (the checked ones, like late 1990s college fashion) and lie down. Ago Mathaila paijama pain na, Masta maalish karegee mai.

SRK

Fuck I love Shahrukh Khan.

I want to see him once again in Kabhi Alvida again (why did they show that tattoo on his hand though in that soccer scene. It was identical to the Victoria tattoo on Beckam in both calligraphy and effect. Almost a copyright violation.)

Maybe I will ask some woman out for a date. PVR I will say, and research Kabhi Alvida timings and pretend I have meetings at every time except that so by chance it happens to be that movie.

That way I can justify to myself, that yeah OK I have to see this movie.

It's uncool to like SRK in urban India. But then why is he a superstar then if noone likes him? He's not a Bhojpuri actor, obviously a large section of collections are made in urban India. And noone HASN'T seen Kuch Kuch, and the rest. So either he isn't a superstar (which is factually incorrect) or the urban chicks are lying.
These girls, pretending to like some strange white Hollywood actors, they are the ones who in my eyes wear "Cool" chains around their besan-faired necks.

Phone

Why does the firm pay for associates to SMS girls who want to be elevated to girlfriend status by reaching the 10 SMS a day mark?
Or to girl-associates who think they can attain girlfriend-status by a continuous flow of SMS messages?

Who do these get billed to? Why not just let HR handle the evolution of inter-personal relationships? That way their salaries will be better utilized and their unofffical work will get official recognition.

A memo:

"All personal messages on cellphones shall hereinforth be directed to HR, with the intended reciepient indicated. The HR thereafter shall forward the message to the appropriate recipeient with reasonable modifications.

When HR deems fit, it can forward messages to multiple employees in the interest of maintaining personal relationships and effective communication. Excessive messaging can result in investigation by HR where the entire interaction between private parties has to be revealed including what who said about whom.

Dating and any substantial alteration of personal relations without prior notice can result in a suitable deduction of bonus.

Should HR obtain information that employees possess any unshared sensitive information (such as Valentine's Day cards) for social and sexual benefit, it could lead to appopriation of all office stationery and the computer assigned to the employee.

Explanation:
"Dating" and "personal relations" includes dating and personal relations of schedulded Friends. Please submit a list of friends who are currently employeed at our Firm and submit quarterly changes.
An extensive schedule of Friends is encouraged and can have a positive impact on your performance review.

Employees are thereby advised to hereinafter only use instant messaging for personal use, and upto reasonable limits.
What is reasonable depends on the employee's personal equation with HR.

This memo was effective ten months ago."

Insults

Today someone told me a word that I felt scared about. Asexual. Not homo, no thank you, I do not flap my fingers when I talk. Asexual is when you don't need a man or a woman. "How can you not need a girlfriend," a friend at some vague law firm tells me at a bar, a hookah stuffed in his mouth. I did not tell him the waiter had carried the hookah straight from the mouth of some giggling Punjabi aunty on the next table, who was slapping the thighs of some other aunty. The hookah is jootha. Aunties were still laughing, holding their blouses as if their breasts would pop out if they laughed any harder. "Hooka hee to hai," she was saying, implying Aunty No 2 was behaving like it was a dick or something. Anyway, so after 2-3 "listen to me, dude" and 1 full-white, full-cold Chardonay later, he said I was asexual. "No, my Hero," I wanted to say, "I am having a threesome with your girlfriend and sister." I wanted to say. In fact I was so drunk, I think I did say it. In fact I even told him my salary though he had been trying to get it out of me for many months, since March I think. Coz he knows if he knows my salary he knows the salary of 30 others. I know about confidentiality etc. but I wonder if inebriation is a defence. Perhaps it is an offence of itself. Fuck. Anyway, Karan is not the kind of guy I want to be seen with. He's too curious and not working hard to afford the things he wants such as a fridge full of foreign chocolates, foreign booze, foreign degrees, foreign gobi like brocolli. He isn't even mailing his resumes. He expects a personal invitation by our Super-Boss for an interview coz "everyone is leaving in your firm." Idiot. He calls himself a Bombay-boy, rides a bike that looks ike a ladies' moped (he says thin is in, please have you seen a Harley? I like thin only for women's bodies and cell phones. And iPods. Nothing else. Not even legal opinions.] AND he lives outside of south Delhi, and says "shaane" often which I am told cool people from south Bombay never use. And he dares to say someone who works hard at a top law firm is asexual.

Lunch

All RBI Master Circulars and case law on non-competes one on side, and on the other- the issue of who to go to lunch with.
Now, it does seem gay to ASK a friend in a distant cubicle for lunch. I mean, I can't pick up the phone and say, Hey want to come for lunch without sounding like I should be a blonde woman with a breathy voice after you dial a 1800 number. I have seen girls do this, and it's one of the few things women can get away with. In most things, men can get away with more so I am cool.
So the only option is to throw my head back casually and ask the Almost New Associate, Lunch? as if I am asking him for a stapler so if the stapler isn't there it is not like I will take it personally or something.
But he is the junior of my boss' rival. So if my boss sees me with him, it's like I am having an affair or something.
I can't walk up to my boss and ask for lunch.
So basically I starve till 1:30 and wait if my boss asks me. If he doesn't, I walk out like I am going to get a print out or something, and then just slip into the lift and stand in line for food talking so much to the person before or after me in line that others think that I came in a group
[HR Woman is spreading rumors about me. What to do. Can't stoop and hit below the sequinned belt.]

Shah Rukh

See Kahbi Alwida Na Kehna
How much a divorce lawyer pay to be advertised there, briefly in the middle of the movie like a popup on the silver screen?
Seriously, go watch it. Shah Rukh Khan ke usool, paise vasool.
I know that sounds gay but atleast I am honest. I like Shah Rukh. I even refer to him as Shah Rukh not the half-shy SRK a lot of guys like to call him.
It takes a lot of confidence for a guy to say "yeah i like Shah Rukh, fuck off five times fuckers and go drown in a rose-pool."

Dude

When a guy says "dude" it can only mean two things:
1. He thinks you are his Veeru, and you are riding streets with that banana-shaped bike appendix; or
2. He thinks you are an idiot (choot), and he is saying Dude to tell you look, I am not intimidated.

So now New Associate is Duding me. I don't know where this is going but I will wait and watch. I doubt if it is 1. coz last time he said he was busy, I told him yeah yeah video games are very exhausting. "So is sex," the idiot said as if that had any link to what I was trying to hint: that he's lying about being busy at his computer.

New Associate

New Associate is slowly aging. He has started hitting me at the back, coming from behind. Because light reflects on my computer screen, I have spider vision and I can see what's going on behind me.
He reads what I am working on for a full 10 seconds before he slaps my back. He thinks I don't know that.
Sometime I will surprise him by clapping my fists on his face, at the 8th second, just 2 seconds before I know he will register his presence with a backslap.
Curious fucker, why don't you just ask me what I am doing. I will tell you. It will make you so insecure you will stop circling me like a cobra.

Context

Some people from some law schools think they can avoid research on Manupatra just by using the words "context" and "paradigm."

When used in the plural then it is even more dangerous, I have noticed. The plural person is lazy, and can only talk, and then eventually leaves the firm for a human rights fellowship. Histories, contexts, paradigms. Even peoples. Come on, fuckers. Come on.
Womens- no, their grammer is usually correct.

Period

Some partner is leaving, but he has to bide his notice-period (the only time when a man gets a period) And now his days here are stretched like a bad Ekta Kapoor serial. I must admit I know the names of atleast two charachters in Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. And that doesn't even include Tulsi. Female Partner also likes it, and says she had cried when Mihir had died.

Decrassification

I do not want to be crass
So I will write on the history of ballet
And why water worked so well
In the choppy strokes of Manet
I will write of Dali, and his belief
That in art, the sub-conscious talks
On canvass, his melting clocks
The art of impossible geometry-
Picasso's cubist unsymmetry
Van Gogh and his cypress trees
Swinging madly in the starry breeze
Deep in sketches and oils I see
New worlds waiting for me
Now I must return to this memo
It's nearly done, but I will wait three hours
Send it at 9 pm
So it seems I worked more
And then go.

Full-service

Why do all law firms say we are "full service law firms"?
All it means to ME as a potential client (coz I will be CEO someday of a Fortune 1 company] is that this firm will, like a Delhi pedestrian when you ask for directions, NEVER SAY "NO" I DON'T KNOW.
Why full-service? As opposed to what? Is a litigation boutique firm half-service coz it only does litigation?
Do firms offer massages? Haircuts? DO THEY EVEN PICK UP THE PHONE WHEN CLIENTS CALL THE THIRD TIME?

Then why are all of them full-service?

Full-service

Why do all law firms say we are "full service law firms"?
All it means to ME as a potential client (coz I will be CEO someday of a Fortune 1 company] is that this firm will, like a Delhi pedestrian when you ask for directions, NEVER SAY "NO" I DON'T KNOW.
Why full-service? As opposed to what? Is a litigation boutique firm half-service coz it only does litigation?
Do firms offer massages? Haircuts? DO THEY EVEN PICK UP THE PHONE WHEN CLIENTS CALL THE THIRD TIME?

Then why are all of them full-service?

So what

Someone said that this blog was bitter. Someone else said it was crass.
Why?
If someone is bitter, they will not write about the firang's odd dog, some social website, this-that, conference call culture. It's all so general. I never feel bitter, so why should I blog bitter? Noone wants to read bitter stuff, they want something light and fluffy like a good idli at Sagar. Which this is.
Crass. Yes, I am a little crass. Atleast I am not like Foriegn-Return associate who smiles and says something nasty and you can't even slap him tightly coz he is smiling. And name any Impressionist artist, I can spot his paintings, like we used to spot momuments for ICSE exams. I know my Monet from my Manet. I know that Edward Munch'd Scream is the classic Expressionist painting, made in 1894. That means I know what Expressionism is (proof that Germans can be inspired to paint, outside of the Nazi passion. Hee Hee. See? High class quality humour.)
Now that I have made my points, I shall leave. I have forgotten my laptop at home so I need to stuff the laptop bag with a lot of paper so noone suspects this carelessness. Ofcourse I can't be seen leaving just with an empty laptop bag. How will people know? Some guy- lawyers try to hold my hands, pat my files, squeeze the laptop bag. What I can also do is have a very involved conversation on the cell phone with an imaginary client. That way people at work will be so busy overhearing the conversation they won't notice the oddness of the laptop bag. And I will leave the phone on silent mode in case someone calls while I am pretending to talk.