The Webchutney Blog

May I have your attention please? This is Webchutney Mumbai News Bulletin, reporting on the happenings in these parts of our hallowed organization, not necessarily live, but exclusive nevertheless.

Ever since King Iqbal left his dominion to pursue higher things at Delhi, many people here have had a reason to rejoice. First and foremost, the highly restrictive no smoking edict was revoked by means of a spirited uprising. Smokers at the Chutneyplex, tired with being ill-treated all this while, ferociously staked their claim to a room which, since then, has been designated as the official smoking zone. This meant an end to furtively smoking cigarettes on the stairs or huddling in the Kitchen like pre-independence Harijans (those are the words of the CEO himself). Cigarettes can now be smoked in a relaxed manner in the aforementioned area, in between intermittent bouts of what masquerades as “work” at the Chutneyplex.

Creation of the smoking zone, of course, involved the movement of the non-smoking populace of the room in question to another one exclusively meant for their kind. Since all of the smokers here are male and most of the non-smokers otherwise, the great smoker vs non-smoker divide has become a synonym for the eternal one: Mars vs Venus. It didn’t take much time for two rival camps on the basis of gender to emerge, and since then they have been constantly in a state of a cold war of sorts. Of course, there is a third camp as well: people who are largely indifferent about this whole business, but they don’t really count (If you don’t feel strongly about anything, nobody is going to take you seriously anyway).

Tempers flared up this Tuesday, when the cold war ceased to be cold, and blossomed into a full blown conflict. The sequence of events goes something like this: Members of the mild mannered male faction were minding their own business, and doing what they usually do at 11:00 am - smoke cigarettes - when a messenger from the neutral zone entered and drew their attention to the salvo which had been fired from the female camp. The offending object was a highly provocative message which had been furtively stuck onto the door of their fortress, attempting to imply, quite needlessly and much to the male faction’s chagrin, that there was something distinctly porcine about them.

The members of the male faction then decided to get their act together after finishing their cigarettes and launch a blitzkrieg campaign. A twelve point execution plan was formulated after referring to the requisite Sun Tzu manuals, and the responsibility its execution was delegated to three sub-teams:

Red Team : Creative

Blue Team : Espionage

Black Team : Logistics (Includes refreshments, cigarettes, etc)

The Red Team, with its trusty Google^TM Image Search and witty copy made the war hammer which would strike deep into the heart of the enemy. Likewise, the Blue team’s job was to distract the enemy and engage them at a different location, reminiscent of allied invasion of Normandy. Most importantly, the Black Team was basically running back and forth with supplies like paper, scissors, adhesive tape and cigarettes.

Twenty minutes of intense effort by the male faction led to the eventual achievement of the objective, and what they hoped was the annihilation of the enemy spirit. In retaliation to being compared with pigs, they had succeeded in posting a message at the enemy’s doorstep which suggested an absence of intelligence on the female faction’s part.

The latter of course, did not take this lying down, and an open confrontation broke out subsequently. Reliable witnesses aver that there was lot of shouting and hullabaloo, the collective productivity of the Chutneyplex being seriously hampered for a while. Eventually, a truce was brokered. Both sides were allowed to savagely destroy the messages posted onto the entry-points of their respective fortresses, and peace was restored.

The atmosphere is still tense at the Chutneyplex, and the current state of things can’t be exactly described as normal. Both sides are in a state of readiness, each constantly having an eye out for what the other might be up to.

The cauldron still simmers: for now, a wait and watch policy has been adopted. Fear not, dear reader, for the Webchutney Mumbai News Bulletein shall keep you updated on latest, as it happens.

– With inputs from Mustafa Syed, Saket Vaidya for the Webchutney News Bulletein

Greetings, Earthlings. You are being addressed by the Vulturo, Prince Of Darkness, an unimaginably evil being, who is known to masquerade as Saket Vaidya, the Social Media Analyst at Webchutney. And today, he shall share with you, an excellent game which you can play to sharpen your grey cells, and among other things, waste your time.

Webchutney has always been a company full of smokers, and of that, we are quite proud. The Mumbai Office, until very recently, was a free-smoking zone. The healthy cigarette consumption ensured that at least a 100 odd ITC employees were assured of their daily bread and butter through the fauj’s benevolence, alone.

There is an unwritten law which states that the availability of matches is inversely proportional to the quantum of cigarettes being smoked, and at times, it leads to chronic matchstick shortages. Often, when one fauji asked another for a light, he got a response “Yaar light ki fight hai” (Fight hai, is standard chutney lingo, by the way).

And then the inevitable happened. Like all good things, happy times for smokers at Chutneyplex Mumbai came to an end, when the powers that be declared “Thou shalt not smoke anywhere, but in the Kitchen”. Cigarette consumption reduced, and due to the aforementioned law, the fauj was forced to deal with a matchstick surplus.

Then came along Anirban Biswas, the SEM superstar at Chutney, who invented an extremely invigorating game called Webchutney Light Fight™ which achieved the twin objectives of productively utilising the matchstick surplus, and sharpening one’s intellect.

The game, which is meant to be played against each other by two people, goes thusly: You take fifteen matchsticks. You arrange them in three rows: The first, second and third rows containing three, five, and seven matchsticks respectively.

Subsequent to which, your opponent is invited to pick up one or more matchsticks, with the condition that all the matchsticks which are picked up must belong to one row (e.g. one may choose to pick four matchsticks from row three, or just one match stick from row one, or even all the matchsticks from row two. Or anything else for that matter, you get the drift)

After your opponent is done and it is your turn, you pick any number of matchsticks provided they are all from the same row. That done, your opponent is again invited to play his turn and and the game continues indefinitely in this fashion, the person who picks up the last remaining matchstick being the loser.

In order to win the game, you must pick up your matchsticks in such a way that you leave the last matchstick on the board for your opponent (e.g. The game has proceeded to a stage where there is a single matchstick on row one, and three matchsticks on row two. You pick up all the three matches on row two and leave your opponent stranded with the solitary matchstick on row one)

Anirban Biswas and Vikram Gahlot have devoted considerable research to this game and have developed a secret algorithm which helps them apply superior strategies to ensure that they never lose against lesser opponents, no matter if they play first or second. If you feel that you have it in you to beat them, please feel free to throw in the gauntlet.

The team at Mumbai is, in fact, contemplating requesting the powers that be, to make sure that all future faujis have to prove their skills at WCLF as a mandatory part of the interview process.

So, if you plan to seek a job at Webchutney anytime soon, start practising. Here’s to happy playing!