Coffee And Cigarettes

Bean It Up is a little known coffee shop just below my office. You cannot deny the fact that it has a good name for a coffee shop. Everything else is pretty average. The Chicken Stub and Pasta Salad are the better options on the menu. But I am not going to talk about food today. What I would like to comment upon is their accounting which is pretty bad to say the least. If they keep up with the policy that I am about to discuss, they will land up in trouble.

Bean It Up offers discounts to employees of my company which is a not so modest 15 %. They also charge service tax, which they have to, thanks to the government policies. Here is the clincher; they give the discount on the taxed price and not on the original price. If you cannot comprehend what the difference is, let me clear it out for you. Let us say that the service tax is 10 % for easier calculations.

This is what they do (Case 1):

Chicken Stub + Pasta Salad = Rs. 100

Service Tax = 10 % of Rs. 100 = Rs. 10

Total Amount = Rs. 110.

Discount = 15 % of Total Amount = 15 % of 110 = 16.5 Rs.

Total Amount payable by customer = 110 – 16.5 = 93.5

Here they are getting 93.5 Rs. from the customer and they are giving 10 Rs. in taxes to the government. So they are making 83.5 Rs.

This is what they should do (Case 2):

Chicken Stub + Pasta Salad = Rs. 100

Discount = 15 % of bill = Rs. 15

Total Amount after discount = Rs. 85

Service Tax = 10 % of billable amount = 10 % of 85 = 8.5 Rs.

Total Amount payable by customer = 85 + 8.5 = 93.5

As you can see the customer has to pay the same amount so he would not mind either of the policies. But what does the government get in taxes. In case 1 it was getting 10 Rs. and now it is getting 8.5 Rs. In Case 1, the shop is making 83.5 Rs. In Case 2, the shop is making 85 Rs. If they continue with this policy they will lose 1.5 % of revenue earned which is huge to say the least. As far as the legality of case 2 is concerned, I am not exactly aware. But it does not sound illegal, even unethical to me. Ans Case 1, well…. That just sounds plain stupid.

Car Toon

This is the view of Kolkata Police about Drunken Drivers. They drive with their heads out, a bottle in their hand. Also, am I the only one to whom it looks as if the guy slipped on muddy water rather than being hit by the car. If they actually want to promote safe driving they should show a drunken driver getting crushed by a truck. I do not know how many drunken drivers would give a damn about this hoarding.

The Sorority

My friends down south (my definition of South is pretty wide, anything below Bombay) often claim, “Quizzing scene in _____ (Bangy / Chennai / Pune and even Nagpur) is quite incestuous in nature” which is quite different from what I have seen in Kolkata. If it is a family at all, then it is more dysfunctional than anything that I have ever come across in reality or fiction which includes the Khuranas of Tonk as well as the Bings of New York. The undisputed Grand Dad because of whom we have a collection of species which make the Amish lifestyle look quite reasonable.

The most talked about (I am struggling for a word here. I wanted to put in ‘guy’, ‘person’, ‘human’, etc. but nothing seems to fit) living being is someone who goes to an official party, forces the caterers to start serving food so that he can eat fast and leave. This is still something which might seem understandable to a few but what if he gets food packed for his wife and kids because they could not come to the party. This living being provides mortar to the theories that nerds lack social skills because his educational qualifications are immense.

For every Gaelic Geek there exists a Jacobean Monarch. Russel Peters once said, “Indians have their own motherland, England”. I do not know about the up-tight British but I absolutely adore our Queen. I would have hung an autographed picture on my wall but it would be really hard to the few who dare to visit my dirty dungeon. I know I do not respect women as much as I should but I guess my feelings for the queen compensate the disregard I have towards the other 3 Billion. The Jacobean Monarch is at good terms with the Gaelic Geek but she is at good terms with everyone in the family. Most of the children, the uncles, the aunties live in a world where they consider themselves to be the best. Some of them even claim that in the open but none of them, even the Kalashnikov Blueblood, dare claim to be better thinkers than the Queen. The high and mighty fall and rise like tides in a see but the Queen is always there shedding light at the Silver and Bronze medals.

The Kalashnikov Blueblood is probably the only person I know who has the capability of throwing a “hawai chappal” at celebrity TV quizmaster during the event. Wait a minute… He did that. Let me rephrase. He is probably the only person I know who has the capability of calling up the Dean of a college and yell at because a quiz was cancelled. Wait a minute… He did that too. Let me try again. He is probably the only person I know who can go to a married woman, who is on the wrong side of 40s and is one of the Directors of a reputed firm, in public and tell her, “You need to get fucked properly because your eunuch of a husband can’t do that job properly.” What I fail to understand is how come someone like him hasn’t got whacked yet.

There are few others worth mentioning. Holy Smoke, considered to be the best by the majority. A opinion which I respect but do not subscribe to. The Techie Duo. The Super cop. The Sardar No More. The Doctor. The Silent Rothschild. The Jabberwocky. The Salesman who reminds me of Bill Hicks’ Revelations in which he said, “If you are in Marketing, Kill yourself.” The Young Gun, who won nearly everything this year in Junior category. The Balding British. And yours truly – The Misfit.

The good part about Kolkata quizzing is that most of them are much better quizzers than I am. The sad is that few of them are just that.