It was always going to be hard for Neo to convince Mrs. Neo of his marriage-readiness, but it would have been quicker had Mrs. Neo made Neo take the following test:

1. Write a snark-free essay on two of the following (3000+ words):
   1. My dad (your would-be father-in-law)
   2. Your emotions right now
   3. Foreplay
2. Describe the appearance of your ideal woman, starting with her shoes. Actually, just the shoes—the rest, I know.
3. Critique the outfits I wore on our last 7 dates (skip the 3rd and 5th most recent dates; add more detail about the 6th.)
4. Write a hypothetical conversation between you and any one of my girl-friends, where she will find you cute, endearing, sexy, funny and attractive, but not flirty; she should feel herself attracted to you, while realizing that she is definitely not your type.
5. Draw a dinner fork, a teaspoon and a tablespoon. To scale.
6. List (all questions compulsory):
   1. 10 colors that are not in the rainbow, or in a box of crayons.
   2. 10 things you can do that my mom will find cute (bonus points for listing things that I haven’t told you).
   3. All our anniversaries and important days (use additional sheets if necessary).
   4. All festivals when you are not permitted to discuss religion, or give any variant of your “how 99% of the world’s religions are already extinct” speech.
   5. 10 friends—besides members of your “band”—that you think you will need to phase out of your life, once we’re married. (Do not include friends that have already been phased out.)
7. Write the last joke you will ever make about my brother’s writing, clothing or preference for drinking warm water.
8. Describe your favorite book of all time, and discuss how it could be improved to match Gone With The Wind.
9. Describe in brief all your ex-girlfriends. Attach their pictures. All the pictures. And gifts, etc. Basically everything that’s in “the box.” Just attach the whole box.
10. Under what circumstances are you permitted to lie to me ? (One word or less.)

Respected Mr. Damodaran,

As part of my neighborly endeavor to convince your kind self that your dog is the creator of the “doo doo” deposited frequently outside my front door, I have attached to this letter a set of nine photographs, one video and ten slides of my proposed presentation at the Society Meeting, tentatively titled: “Damodaran’s Doggie Doing Doo Doo.”

(I deeply regret my use of certain less polite euphemisms than “doo doo” during our recent discussion in the hallway. I’ve been in a foul mood since this morning when my day started, somewhat literally, on the wrong foot.)

Sir, please be advised that, after hearing the contours of your defense against these allegations, I now intend to call on a new witness—the maid known as “Ratnamma”, better known as the lady who cleans the hallways. Ratnamma has developed a reputation of being quite the canine expert—you might recall the decisive role she played in the Mrs. Bakshi vs. Pack Of Stray Dogs incident during Holi.

Ratnamma will testify that:

1. The dog in the video recorded at my front door (time 0:10 to 0:53) is your dog; that his manner and posture suggests that he was about to powder his nose; that he would have done so had I not, in my enthusiasm to secure a good angle for my video, startled him.
2. The color and texture of the deposits found at my doorstep (refer to pictures #1, #2, #3, #4, #5—all taken on successive days last week) are identical to the deposits left by your dog elsewhere in our building (refer to pictures #6, #7—showing your dog along with his generous donation to our building’s strategic manure reserves.)

Sir I do respect that it is still your contention that a stray dog bearing an uncanny resemblance to your dog is responsible for these actions, but I would submit to your fair judgment that your position is looking increasingly untenable, for the evidence is mounting. Consider: there were no untoward incidents during the entire week that your family spent in Tirupati—it is hard to imagine that the alleged stray dog modified his restroom arrangements on the basis of your travel itinerary.

Damodaran-ji, while I have your kind attention, I would like to bring to your notice another issue. As per the de facto routine established over the past year, your respected mother blows her conch shell every day at roughly 8:01 a.m. Sir, lately this aforementioned schedule appears to have changed. For instance, today the conch shell was sounded at 5:30 a.m., 5:33 a.m., 5:36 a.m., 5:43 a.m. and 5:48 a.m. If there has been a change in your mother’s prayer strategy, do let me know. Furthermore, at 6:01 a.m. today there was a new and hitherto unheard sound; while my wife is of the opinion that it was someone shouting “Govinda” at the top of their voice, my son remains undecided—he feels that it could have either been your mother trying to scare away a rapidly approaching Godzilla, or vice versa.

Finally, please allow me to express my sympathy for the harrowing morning you had on Sunday, when some rogue locked you in your own house by affixing a Godrej Navtal lock to your front door. The dastardly act was certainly not easy—the exterior bolt is designed to prevent this sort of mischief, and so the vandal needed to loosen the screws, relocate the exterior bolt and then affix the lock. One wonders why the country is in such a bad shape when we seem to have no dearth of innovation, talent, patience and dexterity when it comes to crime.

Sir let me put an end to the vicious rumors: my wife and I did not deliberately ignore your pleas for help as we left the building for our jog that fateful morning. We failed to notice your shouts—and the conch shell—because we, like most people in your immediate neighborhood, have grown rather immune to any loud sound emanating from your premises.

I was especially saddened to learn from Ratnamma that, perhaps due to his long and unplanned incarceration until the locksmith arrived, your dog was forced to perform his doggie duties within the confines of your house. I can’t even begin to imagine the stench, because I already know how bad it is.

I hope that with this letter I have clarified my position on the various obstacles that stand in the way of normalizing the bonds of neighborly brotherhood between our respective households. I now look forward to your esteemed presence in the Society Meeting tonight at 7 p.m. in the club house, assuming that by then—and here I refer you to photos #8 and #9—Ratnamma has cleaned the shit therein.

Sincerely,

Neo

You didn’t cry when you were born; you just looked around the room with an expression that said, “Brighter than I expected, but whatever. Are all nurses this good-looking ? Why are y’all staring at me ? Shock laga kya?” You were Definitely Male, Born Tough, Like.No.Other. – The Best A Man Can Get. So, dearest son, I’m writing you this letter to give you some Ideas For Life, to Make Tomorrow Brighter.

Right now, Life’s Good, and you’ve learned to Express Yourself nicely; you must also become a good listener and a voracious reader, because an Idea Can Change Your Life, as long as you’re good at Applying Thought.

Travel. It will help you become you the Complete Man. Make It Large while you’re still single. Get a Taste of India and experience the King of Good Times. Once you get married – and especially if or after you have kids – your life will be like, Fill it, Shut it and Forget it.

Approximately one out of every ten people is gay. However you’re wired, it’s not weird. You might even change your mind after you grow up – There’s Nothing Official About It. Whichever gender you’re attracted to, No Confusion, Great Combination.

Marry someone only when you feel you’re Made For Each Other. Make sure your partner shares your passions and is physically fit – Taste bhi, health bhi – because the Axe Effect wears off, and no one can be Gorgeous Hamesha. Have an inexpensive wedding – the money you spend on A Diamond Is Forever.

Like me, you will probably grow up to hate your extended family. They’re like, Wherever You Go, Our Network Follows; It’s Everywhere You Want To Be. But they will let you Drive Your Way after they realize that you keep Going and Going and Going. So Simplifly, Reclaim Your Life and Just Do It, Because You’re Worth It.

Thanks to our Indian genes, I will most likely die of heart failure. I hope that I die while I’m still healthy, because I hate medicines – Once You Pop, You Can’t Stop. And after I’m gone, I hope this letter will remind you: the most important thing in life is to Think Hatke – because the only thing that is truly Utterly Butterly Delicious is irony.

Is It In You ? I know that it is. Profit From It.

-Dad

PS: I might have led you to believe that I’m A Complan Boy, but you’re now ready for the truth: Boost was always the Secret Of My Energy. (Don’t tell your mom; I’m not yet ready to Taste The Thunder.)

*

Inspired, sort of, by this, and by many hashtags on Twitter.

If you’ve just arrived from the US to attend a traditional Hindu wedding in India, you might be jet-lagged – but that’s not necessarily bad. While the other wedding guests groggily arrive at the wedding venue at 4 a.m., it will be late afternoon according to your body clock – the perfect time to enjoy the spectacular Hindu wedding shown in the movie “Hum Aapke Hai Kaun”, available in your hotel room upon request.

You have plenty of time to finish the movie and then head to the wedding, because a real-life, traditional Hindu wedding is much longer than Hum Aapke Hai Kaun, and – for the bride and groom at least – much more painful. The undocumented and real purpose of the traditional Hindu wedding ceremony, dear foreigner, is to imprint two critical words into the minds of the bride and groom: never again.

The ceremony

At first glance, the entire wedding ceremony might seem like a meaningless ritual – but, after the seventh or eighth glance, you will realize that the seemingly meaningless ritual is poignantly symbolic of the meaninglessness of life in general.

No, there might be a deeper meaning (to the ritual). For instance, the groom adds a thousand blades of grass – one at a time, the priest is watching! – into the holy fire (agni); this could symbolize the groom’s ability and willingness to do (karma) a boring cubicle-farm job and earn a good income (artha). The bride changes her saree once every nine minutes, while the groom waits patiently; this could symbolize a shopping marathon (retail therapy).

During the wedding, do not be alarmed if an elderly person tells you to, “See, see!” This doesn’t mean that they are offended to see you reading this guide instead of watching the wedding ceremony. In this context, “See, see!” translates to, “See beta [son], if you decide to get married you can also have such a wonderful marriage [wedding].” In response, you should say, “:)”.

You could look up the various individual rituals – kanyaa daan, saptapadi, etc. – that comprise a Hindu wedding on Wikipedia, but it wouldn’t be helpful, because the priest who is conducting the wedding ceremony is probably doing something totally different, because he hasn’t read the Wikipedia page.

The wedding ceremony – like most other important events in the life of an Indian youngster – is designed to please the family elders. Even then, things can, and do go wrong. It is not uncommon for an elder, usually from the groom’s party, to complain that the wedding ceremony did not meet their requirements, because the priest failed to conduct such-and-such ritual. Such criticism is usually answered by another equal-but-opposite elder, usually from the bride’s party, who retorts that such-and-such ritual is only performed by people belonging to so-and-so caste, which is a so-so caste.

And so it goes.

Etiquette

It is best to watch the ceremony from a safe distance. To verify that you are at a safe distance, look at the feet of the people around you – if you’re the only one wearing shoes, you are probably standing in the sacred mandap, which is the canopy-covered area in the room (look up).

Even though most weddings are now held indoors, the mandap is canopy-covered because Hindu weddings are traditionally supposed to be held outdoors. However, even if the wedding were being held outdoors, you still wouldn’t be allowed to wear your shoes in the mandap. Basically, what we’re trying to say is, taking off your shoes increases the number of places you can safely visit in a Hindu wedding – if you’re willing to take off your shirt, you could probably sit right next to the priest.

If rice is offered to you, examine it carefully – if it is cooked, you should eat it; if it is raw, use it to shower blessings on the couple when everyone else is doing so. You should also bless all those who prostrate themselves in front of you. Bless them profusely for 10-20 seconds; after that, if they are still prostrate, yell for a doctor.

Oh, and that isn’t a vuvuzela – it’s a shehnai, or perhaps a nadaswaram. The shehnai and the nadaswaram are completely different just like Hindi and Urdu are – which means that they are exactly the same, but you can offend people by confusing the two.

Finally

This guide is only an introduction; there are many other important pieces of etiquette you will need to be aware of – ask the nearest elder. Also, we haven’t addressed the elephant in the room, but that’s because the elephant is usually left outside the room.

After you attend a traditional Hindu wedding, you might still prefer the “Hum Aapke Hai Kaun”-style wedding. It is just a matter of taste – there is no such thing as a right or wrong taste, just good or bad taste.

If you liked the wedding you saw, there’s good news – you don’t need to be Hindu for you to be permitted a Hindu wedding. You could probably have a Hindu wedding just because you love the ceremony (and because you love your would-be spouse) – lots of Indian people will be more than happy to not just attend, but also to help organize your wedding. Just make sure you tell the single guests at your wedding what it means when an elder tells them to, “See, see!”

One year ago, I spent an entire night dreaming that I was a giant fly. When I awoke, I was startled to discover that I was myself. I decided that this was a vision, and asked my Guruji (from Better Living through Conscious Snoring) what I should do with it.

Guruji told me to stop depending on other people to tell me what to do, become an entrepreneur, and document my journey and daily achievements in a journal.

This is the journal:

Day 1

• After much contemplation, I have decided to stop depending on other people to tell me what to do, become an entrepreneur and document my journey and daily achievements in this journal.
• Changed my LinkedIn title from “Project manager” to “Technology Guru/Entrepreneur/Evangelist in Social/Mobile Web, Biotech, Digital Media, Internet Gaming, and Other Related Technologies.”
• Created a blog and twitter account to chronicle my entrepreneurial journey.

Day 2

• It’s hard to think of cool ideas for a web-based business during a meeting, but it’s easy if you know Conscious Snoring – Guruji taught me how to keep it quiet and do it without anyone noticing.
• Idea 1: It’s just like Twitter, except everyone’s pretending to be someone they’re not! Users can pretend to be a foreign-policy expert, a comic, a hipster, or even an entrepreneur! The addictive nature of Twitter + the excitement of a game = I’d use it.
• Idea 1b: The same concept could be applied to make a LinkedIn clone too.

Day 3

• Read two fascinating articles, “Strategy: The Execution Trap”, and “How Rebranders Unleash Innovation On The Frontline.”

Day 4

• Posted my first two blog entries: “Rebranding: The Strategy Trap”, and “Execution On The Frontlines of Innovation.”

Day 5

• Got five comments on my blog today. It’s nice to see so much interest in my journey. I feel good.
• New post: “Emerging trends in Indian technology for 2010: Mobile phones.”
• Finding .com domain names is hard.

Day 20

• Finally found and registered an awesome domain name: indeaspace.com - it’s a play on “idea space” and “India”. I might need to rework my business plan a little to fit the domain name.
• Attended TEDx. Amazing to have one in southern Ulhasnagar! Met several fellow entrepreneurs, and pitched my idea to a couple of them.
• At TEDx, I managed to hand out all two hundred Conscious Snoring brochures. Guruji was thrilled.
• What exactly does it mean when people say “worked with five Fortune 500 companies?”
• I’ve never liked the About page of my blog – not punchy enough. I hired a professional freelance business writer to write a better one for me. I hope it’ll be worth the money.

Day 25

• I finally launched indeaspace.com, and announced it on my Facebook, Twitter and blog. Emailed everyone I knew. Five subscribers so far. Not much, but exciting times!
• Created my own account on indeaspace. I’ve decided to pretend to be an author and also an expert on relationships.
• My blog post on “10 blogs entrepreneurs must visit” was linked from IndianStartups.com. Huge traffic spike!
• I visited the Sony office to evaluate their new laptop; I must have interacted with people from up to twenty Fortune 500 companies right there. I’m also realizing that there’s all these Fortune 500 people I’ve met at the Ashram. Sent all this to my bio writer.

Day 28

• Traffic to indeaspace.com is growing slower than expected, plus I’m getting a lot of spam. Not nice.
• I got interviewed today by IndiStart, a well-known Indian podcast dedicated to startups. Lots of interesting questions from other entrepreneurs!
• I’ve started a new series on my blog, “My Vision of India in 2020.” (Thought the title was funny: 20/20)
• Created my matrimonial profile on shaady.com to keep my parents quiet for a while. I decided to show some of my humor and flirty skills on my profile: “I’m thirty-six! Do you know the significance of this age ? You have to wait to be thirty-six before you can legally marry a girl half your age! LOL.”

Day 45

• AWESOME, awesome, awesome: WindyBook Publishers called me up today. They want me to write a book about my experiences!! He said there was a huge market for entrepreneurial stories.
• As an entrepreneur, I’ve realized: nothing sells more than the dream of entrepreneurship.
• Also, the freelancer finished my bio. It looks awesome. Got lots of positive feedback. One person said it looked as good as Chetan Bhagat’s bio.

Day 62

• I’ve put indeaspace.com on the back-burner for now. Between the long Conscious Snoring – where I am now a Senior Disciple – sessions, writing the book, and my blog, there is very little time left to work on indeaspace.

Day 97

• My book, “Metamorphosis: How I Transformed Myself Into an Entrepreneur”, was released – 20,000 copies sold in one month. Epic. Win.
• Guruji says I owe him royalty. My fiancee is already picking out houses. I’d love to pay Guruji, but I can’t break the heart of an eighteen-year old.
• Changed my LinkedIn title to “Entrepreneur, best-selling author and strategy consultant.”