Last week Boyz bought a new HP laptop but is not allowing Sonali to download porn, he says “my laptop is sacred” ; On hearing this Builder bangs his head twice on some Led Zepp song and goes in search of his new Ipod, but Steve Jobs has made it so small this Christmas that he needs a microscope to find it; There are media players, Ipod speakers and laptop bags strewn across the house and in office people run around with mail-in-rebate forms; At home we have bought so many thumb drives and external passport discs that the total storage capacity of our house is now 3 Terabytes – if this continues for a year, we’ll be Google. In office, across coffee, in the breakrooms and even in rest-rooms Desi techies have a single question -“Is there a good deal ?”
Welcome to the time of the year between thanksgiving and Christmas, its the season of “DealstoBuy“.

I bought a Canon Digital Rebel XT and pacified my last remaining desire in this world. As you all might know, the absolute truthiness is that this is the best camera man has ever laid his hands upon. I zoomed it on the cloudy night sky yesterday and look what I got.


Didn’t get it ? MARTIANS baby MARTIANS!! Finally we know they dont have green mustaches. Can you believe it, this camera zooms till Mars…aweZooom.

Now I had to name my aweZoom camera and as per tradition I named it ‘Lekshmikutty‘. My old camera’s name is lekshmikutty, my laptop’s name is lekshmikutty, my motorola’s name is lekshmikutty and even my stolen Samsung mobile’s name was lekshmikutty. (whoever has stolen lekshmikutty, please return it, else I’m gonna screw you when I become Trivandrum commissioner). This naming logic might sound funky but its a built-in molecule in our family’s stupidity stream. My ex-military (now I dont have to stress the ‘aridity’ of imagination) grand-father had three dogs and all were called ‘Veeran‘.

me : “Apooppa badminton”
ExMgpa : “umm hmm…we’ll first name the new dog”
me : “can we call it Dingan or Maayavi ?”
ExMgpa : “no we’ll call it Veeran“
me : “its a doberman…how can you call it Veeran“
ExMgpa : “you are as stupid as your grandmother”
me : “but Amoomma wont like this name”
ExMgpa : “yet another reason to call him Veeran !! Veera, go shit in Mathai’s property”

[Veeran goes and shits in Tharakkandam Mathai’s property]

Then every girl child in our family is called Srikutty.

Ammayi : “Srikutty, cheekuttiii…look she’s smiling at you”
me : “don’t tell me…her name is also Srikutty ?”
Ammayi : “ya why…ain’t it cute”
me : “but this is the fourth Srikutty right?”
Ammayi : “well…”
me : “why can’t we put some other name”
Ammayi : “like ?”
me : “like Paris Hilton or something”
Ammayi : “when you have a kid, call her Paris or Kochi or whatever you want…cheekuttiii“

Back to my excellent topic of discussion. Now, the desi techies in US have this inherent irritation to buy online. Its natural, Visionary spends all his savings at offshore to buy a MotoRazr, a year and half back and then comes onshore to US. Here he gets a MotoRazr at 1\40th of his monthly take home. Analyze that ! Isn’t there a little irritation to buy something ?

Even I came to US for a very similar purpose [OMG now I’ve got a purpose for coming here, I love blogging]

@ the Port of Entry,
Immigration officer : “What is the purpose of your stay in US”
me : “I want to buy a Olympus 10x extra zoom camera with 4-5 mpx resolution and built-in image stabilization”
Immigration officer : ” Welcome to America, go to dealstobuy“


I bought my camera in the first few weeks after days of deal searching online. Then the two days of package tracking online at the DHL site. Then two days of honeymoon with the camera. And that was it ! You know how a man feels when he’s achieved his last goal in life ? I felt it those days.

Then a dear friend of mine advised me to buy a lap-top. He said coming to US and not buying a lap-top is like going to LA and not sleeping with Paris Hilton. This time I set the bar so high that I didn’t get a good deal for months. Those were the glorious days of struggle, refresh dealstobuy, Dell,Sony,Thoshiba notebook sections every hour, keep watch, discuss the nitty-gritty of processing speed and bluetooth and double-layer memory. Then Christmas came, I got a deal and Lekshmikutty (the notebook) came through DHL with all irrational exuberance.

Lap-top is a great invention. Once you buy a lap-top, there are hundreds of accessories you need ranging from memory devices to laptop fan, laptop light, remote control et all. It kept me busy for months and only I knew how happy I was when I opened each package. All good things must come to an end, so did my desires. Builder and me would look at each other and say,

Builder : “What do we buy man?”
me : “I don’t have anything dude”
Builder : “me too f***”
me : “what a shit life this is”

After the buying binge comes the period of glorious non-use or substance abuse. Lekshmikutty (the notebook) smells of guava juice and musk body spray with specks of egg scramble and chicken wings between the keys on the board. Then one day I found cigarette ash on the speakers,

me : “Who smoked here when I was in office”
Lekshmikutty : “Do I smoke ? so must be you”
me : “shut down!!….don’t try to fool me”
[then I realized I had her with me when I smoked the night before]
me : “sorry about that Lekshmikutty,forgive me..will never suspect you. I promise”

I’m not sure if she’s forgiven me, guess she complains to Builder’s laptop “Chameli” when I sleep. Then, it was my mistake.

LK @ night

Now this mid-life buying crisis strikes only those few like Builder and me, who need a reason to buy something and dont really care about the price if we badly need it. The other type is funny,

Kadru : “I got a deal for Pig-Shit, just saved 20$..yippee”
Me : “what you gonna do with P-S ?”
Kadru : “Dude…if you buy outside, it will be 320$”
Me : “what you gonna do with P-S ?”
Kadru : “you are jealous”

It might be that our jobs are boring and there are no exams where we can score over the other guys. So dig out a deal, get PlayStation3 for free, flout it for sometime and be the cleverest boy in class till someone else gets a better deal.


Another Christmas weekend is coming and USA will be on its second biggest shopping spree after Thanksgiving. Last month there were shooting incidents outside the shopping malls between guys waiting in line for deals. For a nation that considers Wal-marts and BestBuys as their high-churches, the Christmas eve mass will be infront of those shops, in a mad rush for Wiis and Playstations . If we are in the mood, we’ll drink that day and say cheers to the dude for making wine out of water and maybe ask him to chase off the desi-techies, who’ll be sleeping overnight in front of Circuit Citys and Office Depots to grab the free deals as soon as they open – like he did at the temple. To all my desi-techie friends sleeping overnight in front of shops for deals, all I have to say is this quote from the strongest man ever.

“We might be trolley pullersssssssss
…………….But, we are not beggarssss” – Jayan (1944 -1980)