7 First Dates : Part 5: The call center girl

It took some time for Kangna to get normal with Aman all over again, not because she was too mad with him over what he had said over coffee, but that she herself had some issues to sort out. Of course Aman was thinking otherwise. And so went all over to make her his happiest ever friend. So after a week of the "Third first date", they got together for a movie at PVR.



"You know what, I think I need to finish through last four now", Aman said while catching a popcorn by his mouth.

"You lost the bet, buddy. It was 7 days. So could you remind me again, what payoffs we bet for", Kagna said while sipping from the Regular Pepsi cup.

"Lost?? Excuse me! You got mad at me for no reason. So last week should count as a halt"

"You are a very bad loser! Okay go on! Take your time. Finish the bet. Seems that one slap wasn't enough for you"

"That was an anomaly. I am sure I would cruise through it. So who was next on the list? Some call center girl?"

"It was credit card caller, as far as I recall. But have your fun anyways. I am fine with the call center girl"

_____________________________________________________________________________

"Good Morning! Thank you for calling Airtel. This is Manisha. How may I help you?"

"Hi, this is Aman and my number is 9873961643. I forwarded a request of getting GPRS activated on my account"

"Thank you for the confirmation of your name and number. Sir, may I please put your call on hold while I check the information regarding your query?"

"Sure"

After 1 minute

"Sir, our records say that your GPRS is activated from our end"

"But, this is rubbish. I can't access my GPRS."

"Sir, have you checked with the phone settings?"

"Yes! all is fine with that. I needed GPRS access urgently. India is playing South Africa today. I needed to know the score. And if I can't get the basic services, what's the point in sticking to Airtel?"

"Sir I understand your frustration. But I am helpless in this regard."

"No! It’s me who is helpless. I need to know the score. where can I access that from? Would you tell me? Exactly! You should tell me. I am holding the line. Let me know the live score."



"But, how can I sir?"

"espnstar.com. Check latest scores"

"I am extremely sorry sir", she was her apologetic best, "but we don't have internet access here"

"I don't care anything about that. It's Airtel's responsibility to let me know the score"

She was almost breaking down, "Sir, I will have a break in 30 minutes from now. I will call my home and then give you a call back about the score"

"Are you kidding? In thirty minutes the tables would be turned. I shouldn't have taken Airtel's connection in the first place. Let me talk to your supervisor."

"Sir! I am extremely sorry. Wait. I will try to sneak out for a bathroom break and then would call my home to get you the latest scores. Please bear with us for that duration"

"Manisha! No need for this. This is Nitin calling from Radio City and you are our "Popat of the day"!

"Whaaaaat?? Oh my god!"

"Congrats! And apologies for pissing you off. You must be feeling like killing me", he chuckled.

"Nitin! I was so frustrated. But this is awesome. By the way can I know who set me up?"

"No one Manisha! We called the customer care. And we found you!"

"Of course!! By the way! my real name is Manvi. And very innovative way of making Popat out of me!"

"You are welcome!"

"And when can I listen to this broadcast?"

"9pm on Thursday. Can you give us your contact number?"

"Ummm. ok 9873569145"

"It was nice speaking with you Manisha...oops.. Manvi. Can just say for us once- City bajao?

"City Bajaao", and she started giggling

_________________________________________________________________________________

"Wow that was impressive", Kangna told Aman after he came back after dating Manvi.

"That's me", he pulled up his right collar twice.

"Ha Ha Ha! Very funny! So who's up next?"



"Oh! I found that tissue paper. Let's look", he pulled out something resembling a tissue paper and had some symbols scribbled on it.

"That's almost ruined"

"No i can make some sense out of this. It says Air hostess, a friend's ex girlfriend and a friend's something. Can’t see what this something is? Okies let the last one be just a friend"

"I am fine with it. As I know you are getting nowhere near of getting an Air hostess"

"Well lady! Prepared to be awed again by the charismatic...."

"Babaji keep you gyan to yourself..."

To be continued......

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 6...coming soon!!

When Nolan got inspired from Disney!

About a week ago, when I was busy trying to secure the passing marks in one of my end term exams, someone on IP pinged everybody a link about a disney comic. You can go through it here.

Uncle scrooge's dream starts with something that really happened years ago. Then arrive Beagle boys (dream intruders, just like Cobb). One of them explains to other how they got that machine in his hands which would enable them to intrude into Scrooge's dream. They succeed in doing that and make a number of attempts to steal the vault number combination to steal all of Scrooge's money. Donald, uncle Scrooge's nephew along with Gyro, the trio of kids however have different plans.

The comic-book is strikingly similar to Nolan's Inception for obvious reasons. The concept of dream intrusion, totem and limbo have been discussed in the 26 page comic-book.

Apart from these, the comic-book also attempts at explaining two more interesting concepts:

1) Dream Boundaries: It states if an intruder hits the dream boundary (limited by dreamer's range and conceptualization), he is thrown out of the dream and wakes up in real life.

2) Inability to Lie in dreams upon being asked a question: When somebody asks you a question in your dream, you are bound to think about the real answer. But, as dream is nothing but your thoughts brought to picture and sound, if you think about the real answer to the question, it will be spoken in form of words in your dream. Thus intruder can get the desired information by just asking the dreamer about it.



A lot of articles/bloggers have been talking about the "coincidence" since August'2010. There hasn't been any official comment from Nolan or his representatives till now.

Nevertheless Inception is a great movie and beautifully directed. But, the knowledge about the similarities did make me take a tiny bit of appreciation off from Nolan. May be the idea got incepted in his mind courtesy the comic-book and he never knew it.