1099, are you outta your mind??

If there's one area where I feel completely clueless, and fearful of the unknown, it's taxes... and by association, accounting for the IRS. You would think this fear would make me extra cautious, and make me watch every step I take. On the contrary, I'm so afraid of it, that I put if off until there is no possible way for me to delay it any more. The last minute has arrived.

February 28th. My 1099's were due today, and, of course, I hadn't done anything about it. I thought about it ... a lot ... but did nothing about it. But, thanks to my good friend Avani, who had already told me this was very simple, and nothing to worry about -- I relaxed a little. In my case, this was bad, because it was further justification to put it off until today. But really, all I had to do was pick up the forms (avail at any Office supply store) and fill out the names of the people who I had paid more than $600 in this business year, and mail them out -- it had to be postmarked by today to make the deadline, and I started working on this at 11am, so I wasn't terribly concerned. Because 'Upaj' had no funds for most of 2010, we hardly did any work, except towards the latter part of the year. I had gotten my individual hires to fill out W9's (unlike the year before where I didn't even know what a W9 is ... not that I know what it is now, but I know I have to make individuals fill it out at least!)

Office Max -- no 1099's.
Office Depot -- no 1099's.

I finally located an Office Max that had one packet of 1099's left. I told them to put it on hold -- I would be there within the hour (I feel like Jack Bauer). The Office Max was right on Market and 3rd -- talk about crappy parking situation. However, I found the associated multi-storied parking garage (which would validate the first 20 mins, so that wasn't so bad), and picked up the package of forms -- a package of 50 ... each page has 2 on it, so 100 forms -- I had three employees for the entire year. Talk about a waste of money. But oh well, it's the IRS, you can't really get around it.

I come back home, and after realizing that one of the guys never sent me his signed W9, track him down and get his info. As I'm on the phone with him, I open the package just to make sure that I don't need any other info from him. BLANK. The pages are blank. ALL OF THEM. WTF?!?!

Apparently this is the electronic version. Where you print the stuff on it? I don't know ... I don't think I have the software for this, and I really don't need anything that fancy. I just need two forms.

Sooooo ... I make the treck BACK to Office Max ... wind up the claustrophobic parking structure to the seventh floor, park, remember to get my parking ticket ... and the Office Max guy looks at me like I'm a moron. 'Yeah, it says blank.' Really helpful dude. 'Well, can I get the pre-printed ones?' He points me to the pile of tax forms, as if I'm a blind idiot, and low and behold, they don't have the pre-printed ones. Of course not.

The only saving  grace was a) I could return the opened package of blank 1099's and b) he recommended a store a couple of blocks away that might have them. So back on the 7th floor of my parking garage, I call the new shop, and make sure to ask for the 'pre-printed 1099's' this time. They have them! And better yet -- they sell them INDIVIDUALLY for $0.80/page, so I can spend $5 on this rather than $35!

That made me feel better ... ok, so what, I wasted an hour, but at least I'm saving money for my production. I park at a parking meter a couple of blocks away, and pick up the papers, and come home to work on filling them out. At this point, I have gotten all the missing info from the other people who I hired for the year (ok, I have to admit, out of the three people, I didn't have info on two of them; I was not on top of my sh--). I sit down to fill them out, and I can't seem to figure out which box to put the amount of money each person was paid. No worries, I leave a message for Avani, she'll call me back and let me know. It's still only 4 pm -- all I have to do is fill three boxes and make it to the post office which is three blocks away (they have parking, so I can even drive it to save time).

Avani calls, and I read out the choices of boxes for where I should be putting in the amount, and she asks me 'You have the 1099 Misc forms, right?' I look at the top right of my forms '1099 Int.'

I have the wrong bloody form.

It's 4:30 at this point. I have resigned to the fact that it's just NOT HAPPENING TODAY. I have no one to blame but myself -- this is what I get for leaving it for the last minute.

I called the other branch of the new stationery story and asked them for the 'pre-printed, 1099 misc forms' and they say they have it. I will be picking them up tomorrow. As a contingency plan, I've asked Avani to pick up a couple for me as well -- worst come to worst, when I go to Redwood City for my car servicing this week, I'll pick them up from her in Palo Alto.

I should take this as a lesson to not wait until April 10th to complete the accounting for my company, and then be going thru this massive stress & confusion & hysteria. I hope that 6 weeks from now, I don't have another post complaining about how badly my day went, because of my own fault.

I should remember this moment, and think of this quote:
"Every duty which is bidden to wait returns with seven fresh duties at its back."  ~Charles Kingsley

Tell me about it.

You are there/You are the one

One of my favorite songs 'Yeh Vaada Raha' was coming on the desi radio today (I'm totally into the Desi Radio app on my iPhone which has like 15 different Hindi radio stations that play 24/7). Ironically, I'm always singing along with that song, and have never really bothered to listen to the song itself. Today, as I was driving down the 405, I sang along with Asha, but decided to enjoy Kishore da's part and listen quietly.

तू, तू है वहि दिल ने जिसे अपना कहा 

All this time, I was singing तू, तू है वहीँ and not वहि!!

How funny that a slight nasal sound in the word can change the meaning entirely ... it still made sense to me तू है वहीँ -- you are there. I never bothered to connect it with the rest of the sentence to realize that it actually makes no sense.   

It just made me think how complex language is. I didn't even consciously realize until today that there are two words वहि and वहीँ  in the Hindi language, that sound so similar but mean two totally different things. 

Dhing-chak!

I just saw the movie 'Band Baaja Barat.' I had heard from Jagmohan ji that it was really good, and then my Mom & Dad said it was decent ... so I went into it with lukewarm expectations. I was sitting alone for the two hour film, and found myself laughing out loud randomly at places in the film -- something that doesn't happen very often for me. And, of course, I was getting senti at the love-story aspect of it.

The hero from the movie (I still don't even know what his name is, and part of me doesn't want to look him up and attach a different personality and other roles to him) was this sleazy, low class guy from some Harayana village, who obviously has a lot of money, and is "studying" in Delhi college, but is really just squandering away his father's wealth, being a complete wastrel. Luckily the film doesn't dwell too much on that -- one scene is enough to understand this type of guy. But he's sooo low-class in his mannerisms, behavior ... it's hilarious how authentically he played it -- we've all met people like that in our lives. I was watching the opening with Sid Bhaiya and said, 'Oh my God, if this is the hero of the movie and if she is going to fall in love with him .... !! That will be some miracle writing for me to start liking this guy." Low and behold, less than 10 minutes later, I found myself totally rooting for this character, looking forward to how the romance was going to pan out for the next 90 minutes.

Despite the film starting to drag a bit towards the end of the second half, I really enjoyed it. It was refreshing to see a modern Indian story, with the typical Bollywood masala added to it ... but all the 'dhing-chak' (a reference to the film) added to the story and didn't take away from it.

It's great when you only watch 6 Hindi movies in a year ... you filter out all the garbage, and come out feeling a sense of optimism for the future of Bollywood.

P.S. And I also really liked the song 'Dil to aivayin lut gaya' 

Upaj Website

My website for 'Upaj' just went live today!! Have been working on this for nearly a month now with a company based in Pune, called the Website Gurus. You know it was the name of the company that sold it for me ;-)

Anyway, that's another first for me with this film ... not only have I never:

1. worked on a documentary
2. produced something ground up

... but now I've also created my first website :-)

Next week, we'll have a new trailer up on the website, that'll be the next step! 

The Case of the Nectarine

Summer Vacation. Two words that have no significance in present day life. Summer vacation doesn't even exist in adult life. It's like the tooth fairy -- she stopped coming after you realized that she didn't exist, or you lost all your baby teeth -- whichever came first. In this case, adulthood started, and two month vacations ceased to exist.

But as a child, those two words were the sweetest music to your ears.

Every summer, I spent the months with my cousins. Either we would go and spend the majority of the two month holiday at my Uncle's place, or my cousins would come and stay with us. Some summers it would just be two cousins that came over. The best were, of course, when all six cousins came over – but those times were far and few, and not for nearly as long as two months.

This particular summer was the summer of ’88. Four of my cousins had come to stay with my family – Shilpa didi, Shashank, Sapna didi, and Samir. The didi’s (or elder sisters) were 5 years and 3 years older than me. At the age of 9, that made them a different generation altogether.  My cousin Shashank was one year older than me, and Samir was two years younger than me, and we were inseparable. My younger sister was only three years old at the time, and mostly hung out with the didi’s who doted on her like a doll.

One morning, we woke up as usual – I don’t have any recollection if it was a weekday or a weekend,  but it hardly mattered, since it was summer vacation. After folding our sheets and sleeping bags, and putting away our pillows, we brushed our teeth and headed towards the kitchen.

My mother stood behind the dining table, waiting for us to arrive. The dining table was empty, except for a single nectarine, placed in the middle of the table.

“Do you see the nectarine?” she asked us. We all moved closer to the table. It was a normal nectarine. The only distinguishing factor of this fruit was that a small piece of its flesh had been removed.  I couldn’t tell if it was a bite mark, or someone was trying to tear off the sticker on the fruit and took off a little too much.

All of us peered on silently, not sure where my mother was going with this.

“Someone took a bite out of it, and then put it back on the table.”

We stiffened, knowing what was coming – someone was going to get in trouble.

As if reading our minds, my mother softened her tone and said, “I’m not mad,” she smiled. “I’m just wondering who would do such a thing?”

We all stood in silence.

“I didn’t eat it,” I broke the silence.

My mother looked at me questioningly. “Are you sure? I know you don’t like fruit. Maybe you took one bite and then decided you didn’t want it anymore?” I shook my head no. I hated fruit, why would I even take one bite?

Shashank chimed in, “Bua ji, I didn’t eat it either.” Mummy nodded. The two didi’s had already been asked about the fruit before we had come in, so they were off the hook. All eyes turned to the youngest of the lot.

“Samir?”

At seven years old, Samir had to have been one of the cutest kids out there, though at the time, we only thought of him as a spoilt brat. Slightly chubby, bowl cut hair, big almond shaped eyes that could put a puppy-dog to shame,  he looked up to his aunt and said “No Mausi, I didn’t eat it.”

Mummy nodded. She realized that none of us would be willing to confess to our ‘crime’ in front of the others, so she changed her tactic. “Well, if whoever did it wants to come and tell me later on, they can, and I won’t be mad. I just wanted to know who ate it – if they wanted the fruit, they should have just taken the whole thing.”

She continued with her daily business, serving us breakfast. But us three never forgot about the nectarine. It was the ‘Case of the Bitten Nectarine,’ whodunit?

The rest of the day, we all suspiciously eyed one another – thinking we could stare someone into a confession. The most likely candidate was undoubtedly Samir. Samir loved food the most, plus, he was the youngest and he was used to getting whatever he wanted, and never getting in trouble for anything. Often he would tattle on the rest of us, and we would get reprimanded for making him cry – we were older, and should be more mature and sensitive to the youngest one.

Shashank and I secretly conspired to each other, “It must be Samir… Did you see how guilty he looked when Bua ji asked him if he ate it?” I nodded. Shashank was older and more knowledgeable in these matters. Besides, I knew it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t Shashank, so it had to be Samir. Though we didn’t discuss the matter with the didi’s, we knew that they, too, silently agreed that Samir was the culprit, and as usual, he was getting away with it for being the youngest.

In the evening we went on our usual walk through Evergreen Park. Most days were too hot to play outside in the afternoon hours, so evening was the time that we’d finally be able to expend all our bottled up energy on the various obstacle courses and strength training exercises along the path of the park. I lagged behind the others as I stopped to tie my shoe, and felt Shashank’s hand on my shoulder. “Look,” he nodded towards the scene ahead of us.

Samir was talking to my mother, all by himself. That was it – he had confessed to eating the nectarine. We knew it all along, and now we had our proof. But we  wouldn’t say anything to him – we were older, and more mature than that. And so the evening continued, and passed like any other evening in the summer of 1988.

Throughout high school, us cousins continued to meet regularly. In 1998, all 8 of us got together for a housewarming get together at my aunt’s house in eastern Washington. It was late at night, we were reminiscing on the ‘good ole days,’ not realizing that the time we were currently spending would soon be the good ole days themselves.  Somehow or the other, the topic of the nectarine came up again.

“Samir,” I say, “It’s been like 10 years already – can’t you just admit that you ate it?”

“Dude, I swear to you, I didn’t eat it!”

“Come on Samir, we know you even confessed to my mom later that day,” I remind him.

“Huh?”

“We were at Evergreen Park,” Shashank joined in. “You were talking to Bua ji separately, she put her arm around you and patted your back.”

Samir shook his head. “Look, I don’t remember that, but I do remember that I didn’t eat the nectarine!”

I roll my eyes, irritated at his lack of maturity.  All the cousins start ganging up on Samir – even my sister, who was only three years old when the incident took place, tried to convince Samir to tell the truth. She had grown up hearing about the Case of the Nectarine, and like the rest of us, just wanted to hear the truth, straight from the horse’s mouth.

“Actually guys, I ate it.”

We barely even heard the sentence amidst the pandemonium. But sure enough, it had been said. Seven pairs of eyes darted towards Shashank.

“YOU ate it?!?!” I couldn’t believe what I had just heard. I don't think any of us could. Shashank nodded.

“See?!?!” Samir jumped up. “I told you guys it wasn’t me!!”

Everyone looked incredulously at Shashank.

“Why didn’t you just say so? All these years?” someone asked.

“I was scared at first, that I’d get in trouble. And then when everyone started suspecting Samir, I just went with it.”

This was just like the game of Mafia. Shashank had just maneuvered the master play – to convince all the Townspeople that he was the Guardian Angel and Samir was the Mafia – and we all bought it.

Suddenly everyone was angry at Shashank, and felt total guilt for holding the poor, innocent Samir as the culprit in our eyes for all these years. How could we rectify this?

“Mummy!!!!” I called out and ran downstairs where all the parents were. The cousins followed closely behind.

“Remember the nectarine that someone ate, long time ago? In the old house?” My mom took a few minutes to place the incident – it had been, after all, over ten years.

“It was Shashank who ate it!” Samir proudly proclaimed. Shashank nodded regretfully.

“Oh…” she thought about how she should respond.  She shrugged, “Ok.”

And that was that.

What an anti-climactic response to an unsolved mystery, revealed by a fluke confession ten years later. At least now we knew.

The game of Mafia has been a family favorite, as we all passionately accuse one another of being guilty of a crime that most of the time we have not committed. Shashank had just played the ultimate Mafia hand, that lasted over a decade! 

Shoutout!

Shruti is a student of Chhandam who has a blog and wrote about the upcoming 'Upaj' premiere on her blog. I was surprised to see that she linked up to a piece I had written for the Chhandam website a couple of years ago when we had just come back from the shooting ... I didn't even remember writing it! Pretty cool when someone else is writing about you in their blog :-)

The Worst User Interface EVER

I just spent two hours trying to figure out how to upload videos from my new video camera (Canon Vixia HF m30) onto my Mac. Mind you, I'm a decently technically savvy person, esp when it comes to consumer video/photo products. This camera is soooo stupid on so many levels:

1. The installation software they provide is only for a PC. Who doesn't, in this day and age, give software for Mac users? 
2. The Manual tells you nothing, and refers you to their online version of the manual, which also tells you nothing about uploading as a Mac user.
3. After scouring the Canon website for hours (and seeing on the web dozens of posts of other people who are tearing their hair out on how to figure out how to upload their videos from a Mac) I figure out that it can be done with iMovie or FCP. 
4. My camera doesn't show up on the computer when I connect it through the USB -- why? After hours of going back and forth (connecting through a normal USB card reader, which in theory is the same thing, but not for this stupid camera) I find a setting that says that the camera must be in 'Original' playback mode in order for it to show up on the computer. How is ANYONE ever supposed to guess that???
5. The camera must be plugged in to a power outlet if you're connecting it to a computer. WHY?!?! In this day & age of wireless this, hands-free that ... you're expecting me to be plugged into a wall for a computer that's the size of my palm? This is totally the opposite of something that is supposed to be small and travel friendly.

Anyway, I shed a few tears tonight out of sheer anger and frustration at this stupid, stupid camera. The only तस्सल्ली (justification) I'm giving myself is that this is my replacement for a crappy camera on a phone, or a FlipCam, which I am highly unimpressed with. Granted the FlipCam is truly idiot proof, and it's a simple drag & drop, whereas here I'm stuck logging & transferring from FCP -- and then God knows what issues will come up along with FCP ... but I guess at the end of the day, I should be grateful for the optical zoom and image stabilization.

Grrrrrrr ...