When I crawled into my cubicle on 2nd January 2007, also known as that day in history when the three wise men finally left Bethlehem, leaving behind a manger strewn with empty beer bottles and burger wrappers, after all the birthday presents had been opened, detested and regifted and after Mary and Joseph had realized that the picnic was over and now it was time to change baby Jesus' diaper again for the twentieth time inside the goddamned freakin' hour, I thought I knew exactly what those good folks had gone through during that hallowed period. It was Back to Work time.
It was then that I saw a fat envelope lying comfortably on my chair, addressed to me from the company. Hallelujah, I expostulated, raising my face to the heavens and giving the baby Jesus a look of gratitude as he lay on the miniature manger scene I had recreated on my desk out of toilet paper and nail clippings. It was Christmas bonus time! Maybe it would still be possible for me to accomplish my fourth quarter earnings goal of not owning fewer liquid assets than I had in the third quarter.
Fingers working feverishly, their dexterity seasoned by numerous encounters with their owner's bursting bladder, the envelope was opened and the contents of the envelope retrieved. Strange and bizarre non-monetary things appeared to be nestling inside. Things made of plastic that looked incredibly like a pair of cash-strapped hand-cuffs. There was a long rectangular slip and two circular ring-type things. Also, a piece of paper containing instructions in English, Spanish and the language of the fair croissant.
I followed the instructions carefully, exercising that same exemplary work ethic that makes me an outstanding employee. Rolling the rectangular slip and joining it together, I then attached the two circular lids at its two ends and presto, I had myself a plastic pen stand. Hey, a do-it-your-own-goddamned-self pen stand, just what I had needed for this holiday season, what with all my homeless pens and all. Into this newly assembled pen stand I now proceeded to stuff my broken dreams. Then, I took the baby Jesus out of his manger and finger-flicked him into the trash. He will, in all likelihood, grow up to be a troubled young man, quite possibly turning into a Marilyn Manson fan.
Where is this society headed, you ask yourself, when you cannot even trust fat envelopes placed on your chair during Christmas to bring you holiday warmth and cheer?
Update : No actual babies or Saviors of all mankind were harmed during the compilation of this blogpost.
Showing posts with label favorites. Show all posts
Showing posts with label favorites. Show all posts
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Friday, August 25, 2006
Raaga of the day : Bhatiyar
Bhatiyar. What a raaga. Infinitely complex and extremely puzzling to the ears. It is a morning raaga, which, in the words of Mr Rajan Parrikar, "is heard at the crack of dawn, attendant with the quotidian, crepuscular rite where Indian ladies, armed with state-of-the-art spices, take control of their sovereign space to negotiate the day's culinary projects."
Despite my relative unfamiliarity with quotidian crepuscular rites, I have very little doubt that this richly tapestried pastiche of bizarrely juxtaposed words accurately describes this amazing raaga. Bhatiyar is a raaga with an edge. It is a raaga of apparent calm on the surface and a whirlpool of seething emotions underneath. I like to compare a Bhatiyar recital to, say, being a psychiatrist in a therapy session with a new patient who is chronicling, in detail, the happenings of his day as he sits across the table from you. This particular patient of yours is well-educated, clean-shaven and appears to be leading a well-adjusted life. Why, you wonder is he here and what does he want from you?
And so Bhatiyar begins quite innocuously, with every note shuddha (pure), Sa Ma Pa Dha Ni and you relax and settle back into your seat, expecting it to be a smooth listen. You pour yourself a big one.
And so, as your patient begins to talk about his life, his work, his hobbies, you begin to think that perhaps this will be an easy case, just some guy who has no one to talk to. And you are lulled into a state of tranquility as your patient drones on and on about his daughter's spending habits and his wife's preoccupation with jewellery and your attention begins to wander. And then, just as you are about to nod off, your patient exclaims, "Oh oh, let me tell you a story, this is funny, I killed my neighbour today, hacked him with a chainsaw, chopped off his head and made love to the torso".
And that is when Bhatiyar, inexplicably, takes a deep breath while on the Nishad, skips the higher Shadja and leaps onto the komal Rishabh, screaming out the intense sorrow and rage that has always been lurking beneath the outward serenity of the pure notes of the raaga.
But once that single hysterical outburst is done, Bhatiyar returns back to normalcy as a sober clean-shaven law-abiding melody, just like your patient, who continues to ramble on about how he just purchased a new garden rake because summer is almost over and he's got a lot of wooded acres in his backyard and they keep the house cool during the hot months but clearing all the leaves becomes a bitch in autumn, but as you are listening to him, you can't help but brace yourself for the next psychotic zinger he will surely be throwing at you, just as you brace yourself for Bhatiyar's next foray into the high octave komal Rishabh.
Here is a clip of Pandit Jasraj's rendition of Raaga Bhatiyar. Listen to the final moments of the clip. Don't be fooled by its apparent placidity, it is a homicidal raaga with a repressed childhood.
Despite my relative unfamiliarity with quotidian crepuscular rites, I have very little doubt that this richly tapestried pastiche of bizarrely juxtaposed words accurately describes this amazing raaga. Bhatiyar is a raaga with an edge. It is a raaga of apparent calm on the surface and a whirlpool of seething emotions underneath. I like to compare a Bhatiyar recital to, say, being a psychiatrist in a therapy session with a new patient who is chronicling, in detail, the happenings of his day as he sits across the table from you. This particular patient of yours is well-educated, clean-shaven and appears to be leading a well-adjusted life. Why, you wonder is he here and what does he want from you?
And so Bhatiyar begins quite innocuously, with every note shuddha (pure), Sa Ma Pa Dha Ni and you relax and settle back into your seat, expecting it to be a smooth listen. You pour yourself a big one.
And so, as your patient begins to talk about his life, his work, his hobbies, you begin to think that perhaps this will be an easy case, just some guy who has no one to talk to. And you are lulled into a state of tranquility as your patient drones on and on about his daughter's spending habits and his wife's preoccupation with jewellery and your attention begins to wander. And then, just as you are about to nod off, your patient exclaims, "Oh oh, let me tell you a story, this is funny, I killed my neighbour today, hacked him with a chainsaw, chopped off his head and made love to the torso".
And that is when Bhatiyar, inexplicably, takes a deep breath while on the Nishad, skips the higher Shadja and leaps onto the komal Rishabh, screaming out the intense sorrow and rage that has always been lurking beneath the outward serenity of the pure notes of the raaga.
But once that single hysterical outburst is done, Bhatiyar returns back to normalcy as a sober clean-shaven law-abiding melody, just like your patient, who continues to ramble on about how he just purchased a new garden rake because summer is almost over and he's got a lot of wooded acres in his backyard and they keep the house cool during the hot months but clearing all the leaves becomes a bitch in autumn, but as you are listening to him, you can't help but brace yourself for the next psychotic zinger he will surely be throwing at you, just as you brace yourself for Bhatiyar's next foray into the high octave komal Rishabh.
Here is a clip of Pandit Jasraj's rendition of Raaga Bhatiyar. Listen to the final moments of the clip. Don't be fooled by its apparent placidity, it is a homicidal raaga with a repressed childhood.
Friday, July 28, 2006
Cops
The first thing I saw when I entered the Subway parking lot yesterday was two cop cars parked side by side with cops inside. I slid my car into a parking spot but my windows were open because lately, it's been hot like the fucking desert here and I don't like to turn on the air conditioning because I'm trying to conserve gas which rightfully belongs to all those 5 miles per gallon Hummer owners. Poor things. We all need to chip in and contribute in order to keep those guys operational. America, freedom and bare-breasted justice demands it.
So then I was gonna pull up my windows before getting out of the car because I could see a "Raj for Congress" campaign bus parked nearby and politicians being so free with our money and all, what's to stop them from being similarly free with our cars and wives as well?
But then I realized that the cops were there and man, if Raj managed to get away with my car with those cops watching, he surely deserved to own it and not only that, I would even vote for his carjacking ass. So I left the windows open and went inside the Subway. But just as I was ordering my sandwich, who should enter it, the Subway, not the sandwich, but those same goddamned cops. What the fuck, cops, I said to myself, can't I even trust you to spend some time maintaining law and order and keeping an eye on things without getting hungry?
And after a while, with my anger gradually subsiding, I began to think clearly and realized that with cops around and all, today was obviously not a good day for stealing quarters from the cystic fibrosis fund. So I didn't do it and someone with cystic fibrosis probably owes me one. Furthermore, Raj hadn't taken a fancy to my car. I doubt Raj would have been able to drive stick shift anyways. He seems to have been born and brought up in this country because he is quite good looking and he doesn't give other Indians the evil eye. Plus there is a Peter or Paul in his name, I forget which.
PS : I chose cystic fibrosis because of my hypothesis that there was about one chance in a million that one of my readers would know someone with cystic fibrosis and get offended. However, if there is anyone here who does know someone with cystic fibrosis, please let me know, so I can change it to something more obscure like pellagra or goitre, although I am not sure if there are goitre or pellagra foundations.
So then I was gonna pull up my windows before getting out of the car because I could see a "Raj for Congress" campaign bus parked nearby and politicians being so free with our money and all, what's to stop them from being similarly free with our cars and wives as well?
But then I realized that the cops were there and man, if Raj managed to get away with my car with those cops watching, he surely deserved to own it and not only that, I would even vote for his carjacking ass. So I left the windows open and went inside the Subway. But just as I was ordering my sandwich, who should enter it, the Subway, not the sandwich, but those same goddamned cops. What the fuck, cops, I said to myself, can't I even trust you to spend some time maintaining law and order and keeping an eye on things without getting hungry?
And after a while, with my anger gradually subsiding, I began to think clearly and realized that with cops around and all, today was obviously not a good day for stealing quarters from the cystic fibrosis fund. So I didn't do it and someone with cystic fibrosis probably owes me one. Furthermore, Raj hadn't taken a fancy to my car. I doubt Raj would have been able to drive stick shift anyways. He seems to have been born and brought up in this country because he is quite good looking and he doesn't give other Indians the evil eye. Plus there is a Peter or Paul in his name, I forget which.
PS : I chose cystic fibrosis because of my hypothesis that there was about one chance in a million that one of my readers would know someone with cystic fibrosis and get offended. However, if there is anyone here who does know someone with cystic fibrosis, please let me know, so I can change it to something more obscure like pellagra or goitre, although I am not sure if there are goitre or pellagra foundations.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Some bad news
Hello my fellow Indians from the US, the UK and everywhere else around the world except India. It is never a pleasant experience for anyone to be the purveyor of bad news but today I will regretfully don that mantle for the common good. My friends, listen up and please sit down or stand up depending on whether you are in the habit of suddenly sitting down or standing up when you hear really bad news.
Here is the bad news. India has, or soon will, stop exporting dal to the United States. I hear a collective gasp of horror from myself which drowned out the gasp I am sure simultaneously issued forth from your frozen lips. Yes it is true. India will no longer export any more dal to the US until March 2007. That is about 7 months from now. Sadly I did not hear a gasp of horror from my American audience. In order to elicit that gasp, I will elaborate upon the extraordinary nature of the news I just conveyed.
Imagine, dear American reader, if, someday, suddenly all the cows in America were to disappear, lets say, through alien abduction, along with all the burger buns wrapped around them. Not only that, let us imagine a scenario where ketchup, mustard and french fries were to suffer from a severe shortage due to a late monsoon playing havoc with the ketchup and mustard crops and France, finally having had enough of Bill O'Reilly's hissy-fits, refusing to ship their fries to the US. And finally, imagine if all the chickens in the country were to be afflicted by sinus infections, thus rendering them unsuitable for consumption and fornication. (Note that I purposely didn't say bird flu because I did not want to raise the terror alert level and make you want to go out there and invade China's bird population)
How, pray shuddering American, would you react to such a situation? Yes, that is right, you would be aghast, fearing for the future, wondering how to feed your pets and your family. Because that is the exact equivalent of the perplexing bind the average Indian in the US now finds himself in.
Yes, dal is the Indian's ground beef and chicken cordon bleu, all in one. It is a good source of protein. It is quick to cook, fills the belly and helps you in maintaining a spotless colon. Which is why every Indian will take this news of a dal shortage very seriously.
But all is not lost, friend Indian. It is not time to panic yet. Listen up and stop weeping. Go to your neighbourhood Indian store. It is still selling toor dal, only now it is called "toovar" for some reason, probably something to do with the export ban. The price is higher now, it costs about 4 and a half dollars for a packet small enough to fit comfortably inside your spotless colon, not that I am trying to give you any ideas. I don't know how much it used to cost before but I assume it was much cheaper than that. It is a fact of life that one only begins to notice the price of things after they become pricey. So anyways, my point is, go to your Indian store and snap up all the dal you can find. Oh do not worry about your fellow Indians. They will eat cake.
There is but one problem. Dal Eaters Against Stockpiling and Price Gouging (DEASPG) has ordered all Indian groceries not to dispense more than two bags of dal per person. So by the time you finish reading this and head off to the Indian store, it is imperative that you raise a decent sized Indian family. And then, look for all the Indian stores within a 50 mile radius and make the rounds with each family member going into each store in turn to receive his or her allotted ration of dal. Take a pickup truck. Remember, March is a long way off. In between there is Thanksgiving and turkey stuffed with dal, Christmas with the dalnog and boy, let's not forget the Superbowl dal shots. Halftime this year will be tinged with sadness. There will be rice, but where, oh where will be the dal?
I guess the only solace one can find during this troubling time is in the fact that one's car runs on gasoline and not dal.
Here is the bad news. India has, or soon will, stop exporting dal to the United States. I hear a collective gasp of horror from myself which drowned out the gasp I am sure simultaneously issued forth from your frozen lips. Yes it is true. India will no longer export any more dal to the US until March 2007. That is about 7 months from now. Sadly I did not hear a gasp of horror from my American audience. In order to elicit that gasp, I will elaborate upon the extraordinary nature of the news I just conveyed.
Imagine, dear American reader, if, someday, suddenly all the cows in America were to disappear, lets say, through alien abduction, along with all the burger buns wrapped around them. Not only that, let us imagine a scenario where ketchup, mustard and french fries were to suffer from a severe shortage due to a late monsoon playing havoc with the ketchup and mustard crops and France, finally having had enough of Bill O'Reilly's hissy-fits, refusing to ship their fries to the US. And finally, imagine if all the chickens in the country were to be afflicted by sinus infections, thus rendering them unsuitable for consumption and fornication. (Note that I purposely didn't say bird flu because I did not want to raise the terror alert level and make you want to go out there and invade China's bird population)
How, pray shuddering American, would you react to such a situation? Yes, that is right, you would be aghast, fearing for the future, wondering how to feed your pets and your family. Because that is the exact equivalent of the perplexing bind the average Indian in the US now finds himself in.
Yes, dal is the Indian's ground beef and chicken cordon bleu, all in one. It is a good source of protein. It is quick to cook, fills the belly and helps you in maintaining a spotless colon. Which is why every Indian will take this news of a dal shortage very seriously.
But all is not lost, friend Indian. It is not time to panic yet. Listen up and stop weeping. Go to your neighbourhood Indian store. It is still selling toor dal, only now it is called "toovar" for some reason, probably something to do with the export ban. The price is higher now, it costs about 4 and a half dollars for a packet small enough to fit comfortably inside your spotless colon, not that I am trying to give you any ideas. I don't know how much it used to cost before but I assume it was much cheaper than that. It is a fact of life that one only begins to notice the price of things after they become pricey. So anyways, my point is, go to your Indian store and snap up all the dal you can find. Oh do not worry about your fellow Indians. They will eat cake.
There is but one problem. Dal Eaters Against Stockpiling and Price Gouging (DEASPG) has ordered all Indian groceries not to dispense more than two bags of dal per person. So by the time you finish reading this and head off to the Indian store, it is imperative that you raise a decent sized Indian family. And then, look for all the Indian stores within a 50 mile radius and make the rounds with each family member going into each store in turn to receive his or her allotted ration of dal. Take a pickup truck. Remember, March is a long way off. In between there is Thanksgiving and turkey stuffed with dal, Christmas with the dalnog and boy, let's not forget the Superbowl dal shots. Halftime this year will be tinged with sadness. There will be rice, but where, oh where will be the dal?
I guess the only solace one can find during this troubling time is in the fact that one's car runs on gasoline and not dal.
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Pepsi One
Here is something I do not quite understand. What is with that one calorie in Pepsi One? A regular can of Pepsi contains 150 calories. Pepsi One contains 1 calorie. So are the folks in Pepsi claiming that they managed to remove 149 of those pesky calories, but just gave up on that final remaining one? Was it a stubborn calorie, trying to cling to the can and not letting go, infused with a passion to live that was, in part, reinforced by its knowledge of being the only remaining survivor of its species?
Or was it that the scientist, who was busy trying to decarb the beakerful of Pepsi in his research lab, disposed of the final calorie and then just as he was about to call it a day, observed that a fly had fallen into the liquid and since he was just too tired to fish it out, decided to add it to the formula? Is that where the single calorie came from?
But in any event, shouldn't Pepsi have tried to find out what the deal was with this one very tenacious calorie and put in some extra efforts behind eliminating it? It kinda looks very sloppy and unprofessional on the part of Pepsi that not only did they not succeed in removing that calorie, they even named the final product Pepsi One as if to highlight their singular lack of interest in being perfectionists.
Imagine if Microsoft were to release an operating system called "Windows One", the explanation being "We removed pretty much all the bugs in the previous version except one. We know what it is and we would have fixed it but we really couldn't be bothered."
Or was it that the scientist, who was busy trying to decarb the beakerful of Pepsi in his research lab, disposed of the final calorie and then just as he was about to call it a day, observed that a fly had fallen into the liquid and since he was just too tired to fish it out, decided to add it to the formula? Is that where the single calorie came from?
But in any event, shouldn't Pepsi have tried to find out what the deal was with this one very tenacious calorie and put in some extra efforts behind eliminating it? It kinda looks very sloppy and unprofessional on the part of Pepsi that not only did they not succeed in removing that calorie, they even named the final product Pepsi One as if to highlight their singular lack of interest in being perfectionists.
Imagine if Microsoft were to release an operating system called "Windows One", the explanation being "We removed pretty much all the bugs in the previous version except one. We know what it is and we would have fixed it but we really couldn't be bothered."
Thursday, June 15, 2006
I was a good friend in my dreams
Last night I helped a very good friend of mine exhume a corpse. It was surprising to me because under normal circumstances I would have expected him to request my assistance in burying a corpse, not digging one up. I was squeamish at first because I have seen exhumed corpses on tv and they are not pretty or maybe it was that I have only seen the ugly ones. And they smell because they haven't showered for several days.
And I wanted to tell my friend that it had been nice knowing him all this while but digging up corpses was not something I had ever envisioned myself doing even in my dreams and that now it was time for us to go our separate ways. But then I remembered how he had put up with me and my wife for over a month after I had lost my job and I had no money, nowhere to live and nothing to drink and my heart melted.
So I walked back to him standing forlorn over the hole that wasn't yet there. "Give me that shovel", I said to him gently and began digging up the asphalt, for strangely enough, it was in the middle of a parking lot that my friend had hidden his bounty. He was always a bizarre one.
And I wanted to tell my friend that it had been nice knowing him all this while but digging up corpses was not something I had ever envisioned myself doing even in my dreams and that now it was time for us to go our separate ways. But then I remembered how he had put up with me and my wife for over a month after I had lost my job and I had no money, nowhere to live and nothing to drink and my heart melted.
So I walked back to him standing forlorn over the hole that wasn't yet there. "Give me that shovel", I said to him gently and began digging up the asphalt, for strangely enough, it was in the middle of a parking lot that my friend had hidden his bounty. He was always a bizarre one.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Buy your own gum
I chew gum. Lots of it. Gum frequently lies on my desk. Apparently a colleague mistook this to mean that I am a free gum dispensing machine. Just like a skimpily dressed woman isn't always a slut, someone with lots of gum in his possession isn't always a benevolent gum distributing philanthropist.
But this colleague, he keeps coming to my cubicle every few minutes, asking for gum. Now it's true that I have lots of gum in my possession. But by God, I have worked my ass off to acquire it. Gum is not easily obtainable in this neighbourhood. I have to drive 2 miles through heavy construction and 4 traffic lights to get gum. So I don't buy gum everyday. I buy a weeks worth and chew it in stages. I have designated fixed gum chewing times during the day when I indulge in this activity. Once when I enter the office in the morning and once after lunch. None in between. You hear that? NONE IN BETWEEN.
And now I am supposed to cater to this undisciplined gum chewing habit of this colleague of mine? That's ridiculous! Now, I have to make two trips to the gum store instead of once every week. I have to re-arrange my entire life around his gum addiction. Sometimes, gumboy asks me if I want soda from the fridge, that he will get me a can since he's going there anyways. What are you doing, I say to myself, no, I don't want soda, don't try to buy my gum with your soda, I will get my own soda, thank you very much. I would walk to the soda even if both my legs were broken or if I were blind and the only way I could get to the soda were to accidentally fall into the ladies room and be escorted out firmly with womanly compassion and dignity destroyed. No, no soda for me, gumboy.
So now, because of this colleague, I have stopped being openly gum-crazy. I hide my gum in my desk drawers now. Whenever gumboy comes to my cubicle, I tell him I am out of gum. He looks at me unconvinced, but what can he do? There's no gum on my desk.
When it is time to chew gum, I unwrap my gum quietly. He sits in the next cubicle so I have to be very careful. Even the slightest sound of rustling paper will have him snapping at my heels in a ferocious gum-induced rage. When I talk to him with my mouth full of gum, I have to make sure he doesn't see it. I have had to hollow out the fleshy part of my cheek from inside with a knife so I can keep my gum in its own nook, safe, secure and invisible.
And I cannot throw away my gum wrappers in the trashcan willy nilly. When he's prowling around my cubicle after I leave in the evening, he will spot my wrappers and the jig will be up. He's a nosy fucker. I think he used to be in the CIA. So I have to take precautions. Every time I throw my wrappers in the trash I have to rearrange the trash to keep them out of sight. Sometimes I swallow them. They taste like gum without the taste.
Once he caught me chewing and accused me of not being truthful to him about not having gum. I lied that I had just purchased some when I had gone to lunch. It is true that lying, just like murder, is easier the second time around. He stared at me with accusing eyes but I continued to chew with confidence. Truth might not be on my side but justice surely was.
I think every man deserves the freedom to chew gum in peace without having to worry about being discovered in the act by his gum-borrowing colleague. I hope things will change for me soon.
But this colleague, he keeps coming to my cubicle every few minutes, asking for gum. Now it's true that I have lots of gum in my possession. But by God, I have worked my ass off to acquire it. Gum is not easily obtainable in this neighbourhood. I have to drive 2 miles through heavy construction and 4 traffic lights to get gum. So I don't buy gum everyday. I buy a weeks worth and chew it in stages. I have designated fixed gum chewing times during the day when I indulge in this activity. Once when I enter the office in the morning and once after lunch. None in between. You hear that? NONE IN BETWEEN.
And now I am supposed to cater to this undisciplined gum chewing habit of this colleague of mine? That's ridiculous! Now, I have to make two trips to the gum store instead of once every week. I have to re-arrange my entire life around his gum addiction. Sometimes, gumboy asks me if I want soda from the fridge, that he will get me a can since he's going there anyways. What are you doing, I say to myself, no, I don't want soda, don't try to buy my gum with your soda, I will get my own soda, thank you very much. I would walk to the soda even if both my legs were broken or if I were blind and the only way I could get to the soda were to accidentally fall into the ladies room and be escorted out firmly with womanly compassion and dignity destroyed. No, no soda for me, gumboy.
So now, because of this colleague, I have stopped being openly gum-crazy. I hide my gum in my desk drawers now. Whenever gumboy comes to my cubicle, I tell him I am out of gum. He looks at me unconvinced, but what can he do? There's no gum on my desk.
When it is time to chew gum, I unwrap my gum quietly. He sits in the next cubicle so I have to be very careful. Even the slightest sound of rustling paper will have him snapping at my heels in a ferocious gum-induced rage. When I talk to him with my mouth full of gum, I have to make sure he doesn't see it. I have had to hollow out the fleshy part of my cheek from inside with a knife so I can keep my gum in its own nook, safe, secure and invisible.
And I cannot throw away my gum wrappers in the trashcan willy nilly. When he's prowling around my cubicle after I leave in the evening, he will spot my wrappers and the jig will be up. He's a nosy fucker. I think he used to be in the CIA. So I have to take precautions. Every time I throw my wrappers in the trash I have to rearrange the trash to keep them out of sight. Sometimes I swallow them. They taste like gum without the taste.
Once he caught me chewing and accused me of not being truthful to him about not having gum. I lied that I had just purchased some when I had gone to lunch. It is true that lying, just like murder, is easier the second time around. He stared at me with accusing eyes but I continued to chew with confidence. Truth might not be on my side but justice surely was.
I think every man deserves the freedom to chew gum in peace without having to worry about being discovered in the act by his gum-borrowing colleague. I hope things will change for me soon.
Thursday, June 01, 2006
I created a Disney animated movie making machine
There's a reason why I'm not blogging as much as I used to. I've been working hard and trying to come up with a revolutionary new invention. And it's done now. I call it the "Disney animated movie making machine". Actually, it was very easy to make and you can make one too. In fact, let's make one right now. There's just one thing you need. An idiot. So go, catch an idiot wandering around the streets, any idiot will do, the only prerequisite being, he shouldn't be deaf or dumb. In other words, he should be able to hear as well as speak.
Ok, so you've got an idiot. Now, think of anything, living or non-living, that could exist in a colony of co-existers. For example, bugs, toys, fish, cars, anything, just think. Then, come up with an activity humans might engage in and think of the corresponding activity that animal, vegetable or mineral would also engage in and add a pun. Do it a few more times and set it to an orchestra score. And presto, you've got yourself a Disney blockbuster. Sounds complicated? Not really. Here, let me explain.
For example, take the new animated Disney film "Cars". In the movie, they show an old doped up Volkswagen van saying "Organic fuel, man, that's the way to go". And the spiffy new sports car standing next to it snaps, "Get a carwash, hippy". *Laughter*. See what I mean? Just as humans would snap at the organic "food" eating hippies in their midst and order 'em to take a bath, cars would hypothetically ask the organic "fuel" guzzling hippies in their midst to take a carwash. Oh goddamn, it is so fucking funny it's not even funny. Ha ha. And the beauty of it is that even an idiot could have come up with that line.
And that's basically the purpose of the idiot in your possession who is trying to escape from you even as we speak. Don't let him go, he is your ticket to the big money.
So now let's try this machine for ourselves, let's say we decide to make a movie about, say footwear. Why not. It's as good an idea as any. And let's say we decide to call it "Shoes". An animated motion picture about shoes. That's hot. A community of shoes and sandals and slippers living in the shoe rack in a big house and the shoes live with each other and run around with feet on their back and say amusing things to each other which is funny because they are shoes saying things to each other. Shoes usually don't speak.
So then there's this shoe who is walking around in a kinda preoccupied listless manner and he is asked by this other shoe, "hey what's wrong with you, you look like a...." and this is where you whisper into the idiot's ear and ask him what the shoe's gonna say. And the idiot replies "lost sole". He looks like a lost sole. Get it? The shoe. Looking like a lost sole.
This is where the audience will double up with laughter at the pun just like you did the day after you had too much sushi for dinner.
Ok, so we move on. Then the other shoe replies, "....", and back you go to the idiot for advice. The idiot says, "Ah put a 'sock' in it". The shoe says to the other shoe, "Put a sock in it."
*drum roll and laughter*.
God, this machine works just fine.
And then we could have a slipper as the love interest, you know, she would be flirtin' with the leading shoe and sayin' things like "......" Yo idiot, what's she gonna say? And the idiot replies, "Hey baby, let me slip into something ....lacy"
*drum roll and laughter again*
Haha lacy ... 'cause it's a shoe and it would be wearing shoelaces, fuck idiot, you're just killing me. That's half a movie right there. I'm gonna make a mint of money from this idea, to be sure.
So there. Now you know how to make a Disney animated movie. Go on, there's lots of avenues to be explored. A movie about birds, I wonder, it's kinda funny why they haven't come up with that one yet, then you could have a movie about say a grocery aisle and its residents and someone buys the soup and the ketchup goes on a mission to bring it back, or you could have a drawerful of cutlery and the couple living in the house has a fight and the husband kills the wife with the steak knife and the steak knife gets so traumatized by the experience that it goes into therapy and .. fuck it, fuck it all.
Disney should quit making any more animated movies. Disney should die and go away. Die Disney. Die and be trampled by a shoe. And "Hey", the shoe should say, "I Walt right over you". Walt. Get it?
Ok, so you've got an idiot. Now, think of anything, living or non-living, that could exist in a colony of co-existers. For example, bugs, toys, fish, cars, anything, just think. Then, come up with an activity humans might engage in and think of the corresponding activity that animal, vegetable or mineral would also engage in and add a pun. Do it a few more times and set it to an orchestra score. And presto, you've got yourself a Disney blockbuster. Sounds complicated? Not really. Here, let me explain.
For example, take the new animated Disney film "Cars". In the movie, they show an old doped up Volkswagen van saying "Organic fuel, man, that's the way to go". And the spiffy new sports car standing next to it snaps, "Get a carwash, hippy". *Laughter*. See what I mean? Just as humans would snap at the organic "food" eating hippies in their midst and order 'em to take a bath, cars would hypothetically ask the organic "fuel" guzzling hippies in their midst to take a carwash. Oh goddamn, it is so fucking funny it's not even funny. Ha ha. And the beauty of it is that even an idiot could have come up with that line.
And that's basically the purpose of the idiot in your possession who is trying to escape from you even as we speak. Don't let him go, he is your ticket to the big money.
So now let's try this machine for ourselves, let's say we decide to make a movie about, say footwear. Why not. It's as good an idea as any. And let's say we decide to call it "Shoes". An animated motion picture about shoes. That's hot. A community of shoes and sandals and slippers living in the shoe rack in a big house and the shoes live with each other and run around with feet on their back and say amusing things to each other which is funny because they are shoes saying things to each other. Shoes usually don't speak.
So then there's this shoe who is walking around in a kinda preoccupied listless manner and he is asked by this other shoe, "hey what's wrong with you, you look like a...." and this is where you whisper into the idiot's ear and ask him what the shoe's gonna say. And the idiot replies "lost sole". He looks like a lost sole. Get it? The shoe. Looking like a lost sole.
This is where the audience will double up with laughter at the pun just like you did the day after you had too much sushi for dinner.
Ok, so we move on. Then the other shoe replies, "....", and back you go to the idiot for advice. The idiot says, "Ah put a 'sock' in it". The shoe says to the other shoe, "Put a sock in it."
*drum roll and laughter*.
God, this machine works just fine.
And then we could have a slipper as the love interest, you know, she would be flirtin' with the leading shoe and sayin' things like "......" Yo idiot, what's she gonna say? And the idiot replies, "Hey baby, let me slip into something ....lacy"
*drum roll and laughter again*
Haha lacy ... 'cause it's a shoe and it would be wearing shoelaces, fuck idiot, you're just killing me. That's half a movie right there. I'm gonna make a mint of money from this idea, to be sure.
So there. Now you know how to make a Disney animated movie. Go on, there's lots of avenues to be explored. A movie about birds, I wonder, it's kinda funny why they haven't come up with that one yet, then you could have a movie about say a grocery aisle and its residents and someone buys the soup and the ketchup goes on a mission to bring it back, or you could have a drawerful of cutlery and the couple living in the house has a fight and the husband kills the wife with the steak knife and the steak knife gets so traumatized by the experience that it goes into therapy and .. fuck it, fuck it all.
Disney should quit making any more animated movies. Disney should die and go away. Die Disney. Die and be trampled by a shoe. And "Hey", the shoe should say, "I Walt right over you". Walt. Get it?
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Search engine query reply of the day
"punjabi rituals how many dresses for bride should be given"
Answer : This is a serious topic so I will refrain from being flippant about it. As we all know, post-marital bridal disrobement is well on it's way to becoming one of the most serious problems for women in 21st century India. In what is surely a glaring example of the sad state of women's rights in this country, many Indian husbands have begun to insist that their brand new brides consentingly disrobe in front of their eyes, some even as early as on the very night of their wedding. In fact, parents of many newly wed maidens find themselves worrying about whether their little girl will be exposed to the evil machinations of her husband and be seduced into shedding her clothes for him, and if so, what they can do about it. However, there is a solution to this conundrum. To ensure that their daughter doesn't fall prey to such consensual-sex fiends, many parents nowadays have begun to gift-wrap their daughters in the manner of a Christmas present before sending her off to her in-laws.
The most popular way of achieving this is by emptying the bride's suitcase of all her clothes and mounting them on her body just before her departure. This serves two purposes; one, when the actual hour of consensual nudity arrives, declothing the bride becomes a chore of such monumental proportions that not even all the spiced-milk glasses in the world delivered to all the husbands in the world by all the shy brides in the world would be able to provide the muscular strength, stamina and willpower necessary for accomplishing this task.
Secondly, with all the clothes in her possession residing simultaneously on her back, if the bride were to resemble a giant ball of twine, there would be very few husbands curious enough to allocate any physical resources towards determining what might lie at the center of that ball.
However, the query in question, namely, "how many dresses should be given" is a misleader. It is not how many dresses, but what kind of dresses to be given that is key. To flummox a lustful male, quantity is not enough. As long as there are visible buttons that can be undone, switches that can be flicked and trap doors that can be opened, leading into tunnels containing secret levers that can be pushed to unstrap a bra, a typical male will go through all these motions gamely as long as it's not too taxing on his brain. The key, therefore, is to tax his brain.
Enter the Maharashtrian nine yard saree. Maharashtrians have, since long back, perfected the art of packaging their women in an ISO 9001 compliant technique guaranteed to ensure their continued virtuousness even after marriage. The nine yard saree is the indigenously developed chastity belt, the Gordian knot of feminine apparel. It is a complex mesh of intertwining color and fabric that can only be untied by the hand that tied it in the first place. There exists no male libido in the entire world that has ever achieved success in battle against the nine yard saree. This magnificent garment is the perfect guardian-angel for your adored daughter as she sets sail from the safety of her childhood home into the tumultuous sea of lustfulness that is her husband's cave. Wrap nine of these nine-yard brutes around your daughter and this will reduce her once proud, loving husband into a cowering, sulking slave.
I hope that answered the question.
Tuesday, May 16, 2006
Jaani Dushman : A Unique story
AVS TV brings so much joy and unmitigated pleasure into my life that it's not even funny. Every saturday I wake up early, clear away the previous night's beer cans and make space in front of my television screen just so that when the clock strikes 11:00, everything will be in place for the awesome moviegoing experience that is about to follow.
In my household, saturday mornings have always been dedicated to viewing AVS TV. It is the television channel renowned for showcasing artsie movies from Bollywood, independent films which, luckily for the mainstream, never made it to the mainstream and should have gone directly to VHS. For example, the amazing entertainer "Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya", which on one blessed saturday, filled my humble two-bedroom apartment with the sweet sounds of what the Guinness Book of World Records, which I am misquoting just to prove a point, calls "The worst Hindi film song ever in the entire history of bad Hindi film songs". And last weekend, AVS TV did not disappoint. It was time for "Jaani Dushman : Ek Anokhi Kahani", or as one reviewer on IMDB calls it, "The worst Hindi Movie ever".
For my non-Hindi speaking readers, "Jaani Dushman : Ek Anokhi Kahani" means "Worst Enemy : A Unique Story". I'm not sure about the "worst enemy" part. My Hindi kinda sucks. Anyways, first of all, let me begin by saying that Raj Kumar Kohli, the movie's director, displays the extraordinarily high metallic content of his balls by naming this movie "A Unique Story". 'Cause guess what, about 25 years ago, he came out with a movie called, hell yeah, "Jaani Dushman". Both movies were horror flicks with somewhat similar themes, both indulged in the gratuitous misuse of big Bollywood stars and both sucked some major ass. Unique? Hardly.
Since this isn't really a review, I'll just lay out some points in the movie that I found interesting. But before I do that, let me give you the gist of the plot. And if I stray away from the truth, bear with me because my brain went into lockdown mode quite a few times during the movie which led to my missing quite a number of subtle twists in the storyline.
So there's this couple see, during some past golden Indian age when people wore gaudy, unwieldy clothes which I'm sure would have been pretty unsuitable for the performance of one's daily ablutions, except for the fact that they didn't have a whole lot of fabric hanging below the waist area. They are a couple of "Ichhadhari Naags", which, through my limited translational abilities, I can only decribe as a couple of metaphorical snakes who can pretty much do whatever they wish and can take the form of anything that can do the macarena. And this couple, it dances and it sings and it's probably in love and then I look away to check what George W. Bush has been up to of late and when I look back, the couple has fallen through a hole in the ground into the presence of a meditating sage who, along with being livid at being disturbed during his cogitations, has also become painfully aware of a raging boner that has begun to bud and blossom 'twixt his holy thighs. The cause of this boner being the female half of the couple, who's fallen directly into his lap. And we all know the dire effect inadvertant boners can have on the temperaments of the righteously sanctimonious.
So this lethal combination of boners and interrupted musings leads the sage to curse the couple to a life of unrequited love till the 21st century when, as the fine print of the curse specifies, they would be able to get back together again. Fast forwarding to the 21st century, the female half of the couple, who, even after going through numerous reincarnations, still looks the same, is seen cavorting with her friends. In the course of cavorting, she once again gets back with her old flame from the bygone era. However, she is then raped and ravaged by a couple of her friends and dies in the arms of her lover. Her lover, who is actually an evil spirit, then exacts vengeance on everybody and their uncle by killing them in a variety of different ways that would have made Adolf Hitler proud. In this noble venture, he is assisted by the ghost of his dead lover who takes "If not in body, I am with you in spirit" to a whole new level. Sadly, I don't know what happens at the end. I stopped watching because I had a food processor waiting in the kitchen with the name of my brain on it.
In one scene Manisha Koirala, who is the reincarnated "Naag", turns into a skeleton after marrying a guy who, I guess, is one of the gang that is destined to die. For anyone who was curious about whether Manisha Koirala would make a convincing skeleton, the answer is no. The excellent rendering of the skeleton, presumably programmed on some kind of PC-XT 286 with 64 kb RAM and 25 MB Hard drive space, reminds one of the amazing production values of a Ramsay Brothers' movie. Also, there is a heart-warming moment during the skeleton scene when its fist gets detached from its wrist and then gets reattached through a complex web of wires that is clearly visible.
Manisha gets raped twice during the course of the movie. The first time, she is asked to forgive her assailants. Akshay Kumar takes the lead in demanding forgiveness for the rapists by saying something to the effect of "Your beauty makes even me, purportedly a sane responsible adult, go crazy when I look at you, so imagine what effect it might be having on these two juveniles who were merely displaying a similar appreciation of your looks when they violated your vagina." And not to be outdone in the stupidity, Manisha's female friends agree with Akshay Kumar's astute analysis and add their voices to the steadily increasing demand for amnesty for the rape perpetrators. Ah Bollywood. You were always the one with the progressive message.
Other features of the movie include the killing of Arshad Warsi who dies after the ghost, displaying his technological savvy, electrocutes him as he is thrashing about in a swimming pool. The ghost then tries to kill Akshay Kumar by taking the form of his girlfriend, indulging in a song and dance routine with him, then walking off a cliff and hoping that Akshay Kumar would still be so into his musical performance that he would fail to notice the lack of earth under his feet, thereby continuing to follow her to his ultimate doom. Devious. He then kills Aftab Shivdasani by taking the form of his girlfriend, giving false testimony in court that convicts him of murder, thus sending him to the gallows. It's times like these that makes me wish I had the highly evolved mental faculties of a disembodied spirit.
The movie abounds in similar twists and turns, most of which will make you run to that food processor time and time again. But you should watch anyways. Not just because it is a great way to spend your saturday morning, but really, when it comes down to it, what else can you do on a saturday morning anyways?
In my household, saturday mornings have always been dedicated to viewing AVS TV. It is the television channel renowned for showcasing artsie movies from Bollywood, independent films which, luckily for the mainstream, never made it to the mainstream and should have gone directly to VHS. For example, the amazing entertainer "Dil Pardesi Ho Gaya", which on one blessed saturday, filled my humble two-bedroom apartment with the sweet sounds of what the Guinness Book of World Records, which I am misquoting just to prove a point, calls "The worst Hindi film song ever in the entire history of bad Hindi film songs". And last weekend, AVS TV did not disappoint. It was time for "Jaani Dushman : Ek Anokhi Kahani", or as one reviewer on IMDB calls it, "The worst Hindi Movie ever".
For my non-Hindi speaking readers, "Jaani Dushman : Ek Anokhi Kahani" means "Worst Enemy : A Unique Story". I'm not sure about the "worst enemy" part. My Hindi kinda sucks. Anyways, first of all, let me begin by saying that Raj Kumar Kohli, the movie's director, displays the extraordinarily high metallic content of his balls by naming this movie "A Unique Story". 'Cause guess what, about 25 years ago, he came out with a movie called, hell yeah, "Jaani Dushman". Both movies were horror flicks with somewhat similar themes, both indulged in the gratuitous misuse of big Bollywood stars and both sucked some major ass. Unique? Hardly.
Since this isn't really a review, I'll just lay out some points in the movie that I found interesting. But before I do that, let me give you the gist of the plot. And if I stray away from the truth, bear with me because my brain went into lockdown mode quite a few times during the movie which led to my missing quite a number of subtle twists in the storyline.
So there's this couple see, during some past golden Indian age when people wore gaudy, unwieldy clothes which I'm sure would have been pretty unsuitable for the performance of one's daily ablutions, except for the fact that they didn't have a whole lot of fabric hanging below the waist area. They are a couple of "Ichhadhari Naags", which, through my limited translational abilities, I can only decribe as a couple of metaphorical snakes who can pretty much do whatever they wish and can take the form of anything that can do the macarena. And this couple, it dances and it sings and it's probably in love and then I look away to check what George W. Bush has been up to of late and when I look back, the couple has fallen through a hole in the ground into the presence of a meditating sage who, along with being livid at being disturbed during his cogitations, has also become painfully aware of a raging boner that has begun to bud and blossom 'twixt his holy thighs. The cause of this boner being the female half of the couple, who's fallen directly into his lap. And we all know the dire effect inadvertant boners can have on the temperaments of the righteously sanctimonious.
So this lethal combination of boners and interrupted musings leads the sage to curse the couple to a life of unrequited love till the 21st century when, as the fine print of the curse specifies, they would be able to get back together again. Fast forwarding to the 21st century, the female half of the couple, who, even after going through numerous reincarnations, still looks the same, is seen cavorting with her friends. In the course of cavorting, she once again gets back with her old flame from the bygone era. However, she is then raped and ravaged by a couple of her friends and dies in the arms of her lover. Her lover, who is actually an evil spirit, then exacts vengeance on everybody and their uncle by killing them in a variety of different ways that would have made Adolf Hitler proud. In this noble venture, he is assisted by the ghost of his dead lover who takes "If not in body, I am with you in spirit" to a whole new level. Sadly, I don't know what happens at the end. I stopped watching because I had a food processor waiting in the kitchen with the name of my brain on it.
In one scene Manisha Koirala, who is the reincarnated "Naag", turns into a skeleton after marrying a guy who, I guess, is one of the gang that is destined to die. For anyone who was curious about whether Manisha Koirala would make a convincing skeleton, the answer is no. The excellent rendering of the skeleton, presumably programmed on some kind of PC-XT 286 with 64 kb RAM and 25 MB Hard drive space, reminds one of the amazing production values of a Ramsay Brothers' movie. Also, there is a heart-warming moment during the skeleton scene when its fist gets detached from its wrist and then gets reattached through a complex web of wires that is clearly visible.
Manisha gets raped twice during the course of the movie. The first time, she is asked to forgive her assailants. Akshay Kumar takes the lead in demanding forgiveness for the rapists by saying something to the effect of "Your beauty makes even me, purportedly a sane responsible adult, go crazy when I look at you, so imagine what effect it might be having on these two juveniles who were merely displaying a similar appreciation of your looks when they violated your vagina." And not to be outdone in the stupidity, Manisha's female friends agree with Akshay Kumar's astute analysis and add their voices to the steadily increasing demand for amnesty for the rape perpetrators. Ah Bollywood. You were always the one with the progressive message.
Other features of the movie include the killing of Arshad Warsi who dies after the ghost, displaying his technological savvy, electrocutes him as he is thrashing about in a swimming pool. The ghost then tries to kill Akshay Kumar by taking the form of his girlfriend, indulging in a song and dance routine with him, then walking off a cliff and hoping that Akshay Kumar would still be so into his musical performance that he would fail to notice the lack of earth under his feet, thereby continuing to follow her to his ultimate doom. Devious. He then kills Aftab Shivdasani by taking the form of his girlfriend, giving false testimony in court that convicts him of murder, thus sending him to the gallows. It's times like these that makes me wish I had the highly evolved mental faculties of a disembodied spirit.
The movie abounds in similar twists and turns, most of which will make you run to that food processor time and time again. But you should watch anyways. Not just because it is a great way to spend your saturday morning, but really, when it comes down to it, what else can you do on a saturday morning anyways?
Thursday, May 11, 2006
Sad Little Bald Man
I was in the Subway today. To a casual observer it might seem that my life revolves entirely around Subways, but it isn't so. I can also be seen occasionally in the Wawa. It is strange what Pennsylvanians will name their sandwich shops. I guess "Wawa" originates from the primal sound cavemen would make when they were hungry and wanted to sink their teeth into something juicy and dripping with animal protein and sandwiches hadn't been invented yet. You can still see the vestiges of this behavior in starving babies who are in urgent need of a nipple.
But I was in the Subway nevertheless and there was a couple in the line ahead of me. This couple was a guy-guy couple. One was tall and one was short. One had hair and one was bald. One had 20-20 vision and one was wearing glasses. I wonder if it is a trait peculiar to an Indian to type in spectacles first, then realize he hasn't heard anyone using the word in this country, then backspace and type in glasses.
But on with the story. It is going to get more exciting soon so don't stop reading yet. Tall Goodlooking Guy was talking and joking with the sandwich lady, a girl in her twenties or so. She was having a fun time and Tall Goodlooking Guy was getting all the wrong things on his sandwich but he didn't seem to mind since he had her attention. And Sad Little Bald Guy was intermittently trying to make a contribution to the intellectual diversity of the conversation. The problem was, sandwich lady would merely give Sad Little Bald Guy a somewhat uninterested stare, a nod and then return back to her conversation with Tall Goodlooking Guy.
This happened a number of times. Soon Sad Little Bald Guy began to get agitated. The frequency of his interruptions began to increase, his voice began to get higher pitched and he started waving his arms. The net result was nothing. Apart from a polite look from the sandwich lady that lasted a microsecond, he was getting nothing.
Then, Sad Little Bald Guy began doing somersaults on the floor. His glasses fell from their perch and he became a Sad Little Bald Guy Without Glasses. After whirling around for a bit, he returned back to the counter and said "Tada". "You lost your glasses", said the sandwich lady in an absent-minded sort of way. She was trying to picture Tall Goodlooking Guy in a leopardskin leotard. She was an animal lover, you see. Tall Goodlooking Guy, never at a loss for topics to broach, chimed in, "You know, I had an uncle with glasses....". Soon sandwich lady was engrossed in the exciting adventures of Tall Goodlooking Guy's vision-impaired uncle.
Sad Little Bald guy wasn't about to give up. He then took out a sword from his pocket and balanced it on his tongue. He walked around the room, head pointed towards the ceiling, blood dripping from his tongue, but he didn't allow the sword to hit the ground. Then, he took out a foldable unicycle from his other pocket and with arms outstretched began to cycle and balance the sword at the same time. He also started singing, a horrible gurgling sound that wouldn't have won him any record deals because the sword was still wedged into his tongue but I guess there's no accounting for musical tastes. In the midst of all this action, Sad Little Bald guy looked at sandwich lady, awaiting applause. She said to him, "I think your tires aren't fully inflated". "Speaking of inflated ....", said Tall Goodlooking Guy, launching into an anecdote about inflated things. Peals of sandwich colored laughter rang out through the room. A good time was being had by all.
All except Sad Little Bald Guy. He was dejected. Collecting his unicycle and sword and restoring his glasses to their previously dominating position, he went outside and sat on the Subway steps. And it was there that I found him staring into the distance, wordlessly looking at people with hair and without glasses. And I couldn't bear to see him sad, man. I stroked his bald head and folded him up to take him back home with me. I wanted to feed him and clothe him and tell him everything would be alright with the world. I put him in my car and locked the trunk because he started to scream.
He is still in my trunk. It's not yet time to feed him and clothe him. He should be okay, even though he still won't have hair.
But I was in the Subway nevertheless and there was a couple in the line ahead of me. This couple was a guy-guy couple. One was tall and one was short. One had hair and one was bald. One had 20-20 vision and one was wearing glasses. I wonder if it is a trait peculiar to an Indian to type in spectacles first, then realize he hasn't heard anyone using the word in this country, then backspace and type in glasses.
But on with the story. It is going to get more exciting soon so don't stop reading yet. Tall Goodlooking Guy was talking and joking with the sandwich lady, a girl in her twenties or so. She was having a fun time and Tall Goodlooking Guy was getting all the wrong things on his sandwich but he didn't seem to mind since he had her attention. And Sad Little Bald Guy was intermittently trying to make a contribution to the intellectual diversity of the conversation. The problem was, sandwich lady would merely give Sad Little Bald Guy a somewhat uninterested stare, a nod and then return back to her conversation with Tall Goodlooking Guy.
This happened a number of times. Soon Sad Little Bald Guy began to get agitated. The frequency of his interruptions began to increase, his voice began to get higher pitched and he started waving his arms. The net result was nothing. Apart from a polite look from the sandwich lady that lasted a microsecond, he was getting nothing.
Then, Sad Little Bald Guy began doing somersaults on the floor. His glasses fell from their perch and he became a Sad Little Bald Guy Without Glasses. After whirling around for a bit, he returned back to the counter and said "Tada". "You lost your glasses", said the sandwich lady in an absent-minded sort of way. She was trying to picture Tall Goodlooking Guy in a leopardskin leotard. She was an animal lover, you see. Tall Goodlooking Guy, never at a loss for topics to broach, chimed in, "You know, I had an uncle with glasses....". Soon sandwich lady was engrossed in the exciting adventures of Tall Goodlooking Guy's vision-impaired uncle.
Sad Little Bald guy wasn't about to give up. He then took out a sword from his pocket and balanced it on his tongue. He walked around the room, head pointed towards the ceiling, blood dripping from his tongue, but he didn't allow the sword to hit the ground. Then, he took out a foldable unicycle from his other pocket and with arms outstretched began to cycle and balance the sword at the same time. He also started singing, a horrible gurgling sound that wouldn't have won him any record deals because the sword was still wedged into his tongue but I guess there's no accounting for musical tastes. In the midst of all this action, Sad Little Bald guy looked at sandwich lady, awaiting applause. She said to him, "I think your tires aren't fully inflated". "Speaking of inflated ....", said Tall Goodlooking Guy, launching into an anecdote about inflated things. Peals of sandwich colored laughter rang out through the room. A good time was being had by all.
All except Sad Little Bald Guy. He was dejected. Collecting his unicycle and sword and restoring his glasses to their previously dominating position, he went outside and sat on the Subway steps. And it was there that I found him staring into the distance, wordlessly looking at people with hair and without glasses. And I couldn't bear to see him sad, man. I stroked his bald head and folded him up to take him back home with me. I wanted to feed him and clothe him and tell him everything would be alright with the world. I put him in my car and locked the trunk because he started to scream.
He is still in my trunk. It's not yet time to feed him and clothe him. He should be okay, even though he still won't have hair.
Friday, May 05, 2006
The period between two teeth-brushings
Most nights, as I stand at the washbasin brushing my teeth, a habit that I have recently cultivated due to my desire for maintaining my teeth in a state of steak-compatibility till such a time as I myself turn into a piece of steak, I realize that I remember absolutely nothing of what transpired during the day.
In fact, my last recollection of having indulged in any kind of activity during the day is when I brushed my teeth in the morning. Thus, to me, my days appear to consist of teeth-brushing in the morning, followed by something that apparently takes up 16 hours of my time but leaves behind no memories and then it's back to teeth-brushing again at night.
As I lie on my death bed and historians who've made it their life's mission to chronicle my adventures wail out their eulogies, they will say of me that I was a diligent teeth-brusher, that I scrubbed my teeth to hygienic perfection, that I made them glisten and shine. They will admiringly recount how I maintained myself in a state of impeccable oral health and that I used Aquafresh because I was impressed by how its three different ingredients with three different colors (not including white) magically collaborated together in my mouth to give it that icy-fresh sensation while also wreaking havoc on the germs within. They will claim that my practice of using mouth-wash after the teeth-brushing further imparted a fragrance to my mouth that made breathing into my hands the pleasure of a lifetime. And finally, they will celebrate the fact that I tried not to waste any water, that I turned off the faucet while brushing my teeth, as opposed to keeping it running all the time, thus leaving some of that life-giving liquid for those thirsty tribes in Africa.
But history will remain silent on the portion of my life not dedicated to teeth-brushing. Whatever occurred during that period will remain shrouded in mystery. And no one, not even I, will ever come to know about the person that I was, the lives that I affected, the jewish infants that I saved from circumcision or the Komodo dragons that I slayed during the period of my life that wasn't spent standing at my washbasin brushing my teeth.
It is a pity, really.
In fact, my last recollection of having indulged in any kind of activity during the day is when I brushed my teeth in the morning. Thus, to me, my days appear to consist of teeth-brushing in the morning, followed by something that apparently takes up 16 hours of my time but leaves behind no memories and then it's back to teeth-brushing again at night.
As I lie on my death bed and historians who've made it their life's mission to chronicle my adventures wail out their eulogies, they will say of me that I was a diligent teeth-brusher, that I scrubbed my teeth to hygienic perfection, that I made them glisten and shine. They will admiringly recount how I maintained myself in a state of impeccable oral health and that I used Aquafresh because I was impressed by how its three different ingredients with three different colors (not including white) magically collaborated together in my mouth to give it that icy-fresh sensation while also wreaking havoc on the germs within. They will claim that my practice of using mouth-wash after the teeth-brushing further imparted a fragrance to my mouth that made breathing into my hands the pleasure of a lifetime. And finally, they will celebrate the fact that I tried not to waste any water, that I turned off the faucet while brushing my teeth, as opposed to keeping it running all the time, thus leaving some of that life-giving liquid for those thirsty tribes in Africa.
But history will remain silent on the portion of my life not dedicated to teeth-brushing. Whatever occurred during that period will remain shrouded in mystery. And no one, not even I, will ever come to know about the person that I was, the lives that I affected, the jewish infants that I saved from circumcision or the Komodo dragons that I slayed during the period of my life that wasn't spent standing at my washbasin brushing my teeth.
It is a pity, really.
Thursday, May 04, 2006
Setting up shop on Mars might not be such a great idea
As we pump bullets into our favorite endangered chinkara, or unload truckfulls of polythene and used condoms into our sludge-filled rivers, there is but one hope that sustains us in our day-to-day activity of planetary destruction; that the damage we are inflicting upon mother earth doesn't really matter in the long run because someday, when the wind blows north, we will all climb aboard our shiny new ships and shed these polluted lands for the gorgeous crimson skies of Mars. Our future home and the birthplace of our grandchildren.
Now I know what you are thinking: I do not pump bullets, I am more of a bow and arrow kind of guy. You, sir, won't be allowed on the mothership. Having said that, you still have time to purchase that cool new plasma rifle once it becomes available in 2025. But that is beside the point. For it doesn't matter what method you utilize for raping and pillaging the planet, what I intend to point out is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it might not be such a good idea for us to leave these shores and establish new colonies on Mars.
First of all, I concede that it might be years, even centuries before our species is able to devise a commercially viable method for flying out all the men, women and Michael Jacksons out of our atmosphere and into the bracing carbon dioxide filled one of Mars. And it might take even longer to seduce an overtly hostile crotch-kicking, pepper-spraying red planet into one that would spread it's legs for us, allowing us to sow the seed of our civilization in its balmy womb. The question I am raising is whether this long arduous process of seduction is even worth the effort.
Historically, whenever humans have emigrated from their place of origin to settle someplace else, it hasn't been long before the umbilical bond they hold with their mother country has snapped and they've begun to look upon its current inhabitants with contempt. For example, take the case of America. Even though most citizens of this country arrived here after fleeing Europe, they currently have an opinion about Europeans that is only marginally better than the one they have about Californians. And this, a mere half-century after the last of the unwashed tea-drinking, snail-eating, protection money-demanding hordes from the continent made their way across Ellis island and took up residence in the slovenly ghettoes of New Jersey. Americans now despise the old continent with all their heart, considering their European ancestry to be an ugly sore on the asscheek of their family tree, something not to be discussed in public.
Secondly, through scientific conjecture, we are now in a position to predict exactly what would happen to the human race after it settles down on Mars. They say that due to conditions on that planet being entirely different from those on Earth, after a few generations of humans have lived, died and created bizarre new religions over there, the human musculoskeletal structure will change to adapt with Martian surroundings. For example, brains would grow larger, hearts would grow smaller and the body would grow more tenuous. Basically, humans would evolve and branch out into an entirely new species. A species of freakish hominoids bearing a greater resemblance to an Indian graduate student than their evolutionary ancestors, the humans.
And you know what such freaks will do. Especially those that are physically feeble and intellectually superior. They will sit around in their glass-walled research laboratories upto the wee hours of the morning, brains engulfed by a tired rage against everything that is not food, body suffering from a severe lack of sleep due to a looming deadline for demonstrating to their graduate advisor that they haven't been living off the research money without having anything to show for it. Goddamnit. Okay. So anyways, these psychotic beings will then devise powerful and spectacular new methods for destroying everyone else in the solar system using high intensity death rays brewed in their labs specifically for that purpose. And as I pointed out earlier, by that time, they would have developed a healthy loathing for the planet of their origin as well as its inhabitants to have any kind of qualms about its destruction.
Currently, we are mired in a war in Iraq which will probably continue for the next 50 years after which everybody would have blown up everybody else. At the same time, we have another conflict brewing in Iran which will culminate in the year 2075 after a robotic Salman Rushdie captures the Ayatollah El-Camino (By this time, the Middle-East will be 60% Hispanic) and kills him with one swat of his new book "The Koran was plagiarized from the Bible and other short stories". And who the fuck knows, tomorrow tiny little Turdistan might strike oil and turn out to have a murderous dictator who planned on killing the president's half-brother. With all of our earthly armies thus battling it out amongst themselves, how then will this planet manage to unite and cobble up a coalition to defend itself from the Martians?
Secondly, even if any two countries in the world engage in warfare, at some point they pause, think it over and realize that in spite of their differences, they still dwell on the same planet so it would be pragmatic not to try anything so extreme that it could quite possibly result in the entire planet blowing up into smithereens. But when its Martians versus the Earthlings, there would be no reason for cooler heads to prevail. Fuck that planet, the Martians would say, that blue ball always stuck out like a sore thumb in the sky.
So you see, colonizing Mars is just not worth it since it will probably backfire on us in the future. Let us not not even take that chance. Instead how about we nurture this planet, eh? How about we go about our business as if there were no other planets we could run to after we are done squeezing the juice out of this one? Let us all do our bit towards keeping the earth habitable for the foreseeable future. Let us not kill any more chinkaras. Let us store our polythene bags in our laundry rooms. And most importantly, let us dispose of our used condoms in an environment-friendly way; namely, by reusing them.
Now I know what you are thinking: I do not pump bullets, I am more of a bow and arrow kind of guy. You, sir, won't be allowed on the mothership. Having said that, you still have time to purchase that cool new plasma rifle once it becomes available in 2025. But that is beside the point. For it doesn't matter what method you utilize for raping and pillaging the planet, what I intend to point out is the possibility that maybe, just maybe, it might not be such a good idea for us to leave these shores and establish new colonies on Mars.
First of all, I concede that it might be years, even centuries before our species is able to devise a commercially viable method for flying out all the men, women and Michael Jacksons out of our atmosphere and into the bracing carbon dioxide filled one of Mars. And it might take even longer to seduce an overtly hostile crotch-kicking, pepper-spraying red planet into one that would spread it's legs for us, allowing us to sow the seed of our civilization in its balmy womb. The question I am raising is whether this long arduous process of seduction is even worth the effort.
Historically, whenever humans have emigrated from their place of origin to settle someplace else, it hasn't been long before the umbilical bond they hold with their mother country has snapped and they've begun to look upon its current inhabitants with contempt. For example, take the case of America. Even though most citizens of this country arrived here after fleeing Europe, they currently have an opinion about Europeans that is only marginally better than the one they have about Californians. And this, a mere half-century after the last of the unwashed tea-drinking, snail-eating, protection money-demanding hordes from the continent made their way across Ellis island and took up residence in the slovenly ghettoes of New Jersey. Americans now despise the old continent with all their heart, considering their European ancestry to be an ugly sore on the asscheek of their family tree, something not to be discussed in public.
Secondly, through scientific conjecture, we are now in a position to predict exactly what would happen to the human race after it settles down on Mars. They say that due to conditions on that planet being entirely different from those on Earth, after a few generations of humans have lived, died and created bizarre new religions over there, the human musculoskeletal structure will change to adapt with Martian surroundings. For example, brains would grow larger, hearts would grow smaller and the body would grow more tenuous. Basically, humans would evolve and branch out into an entirely new species. A species of freakish hominoids bearing a greater resemblance to an Indian graduate student than their evolutionary ancestors, the humans.
And you know what such freaks will do. Especially those that are physically feeble and intellectually superior. They will sit around in their glass-walled research laboratories upto the wee hours of the morning, brains engulfed by a tired rage against everything that is not food, body suffering from a severe lack of sleep due to a looming deadline for demonstrating to their graduate advisor that they haven't been living off the research money without having anything to show for it. Goddamnit. Okay. So anyways, these psychotic beings will then devise powerful and spectacular new methods for destroying everyone else in the solar system using high intensity death rays brewed in their labs specifically for that purpose. And as I pointed out earlier, by that time, they would have developed a healthy loathing for the planet of their origin as well as its inhabitants to have any kind of qualms about its destruction.
Currently, we are mired in a war in Iraq which will probably continue for the next 50 years after which everybody would have blown up everybody else. At the same time, we have another conflict brewing in Iran which will culminate in the year 2075 after a robotic Salman Rushdie captures the Ayatollah El-Camino (By this time, the Middle-East will be 60% Hispanic) and kills him with one swat of his new book "The Koran was plagiarized from the Bible and other short stories". And who the fuck knows, tomorrow tiny little Turdistan might strike oil and turn out to have a murderous dictator who planned on killing the president's half-brother. With all of our earthly armies thus battling it out amongst themselves, how then will this planet manage to unite and cobble up a coalition to defend itself from the Martians?
Secondly, even if any two countries in the world engage in warfare, at some point they pause, think it over and realize that in spite of their differences, they still dwell on the same planet so it would be pragmatic not to try anything so extreme that it could quite possibly result in the entire planet blowing up into smithereens. But when its Martians versus the Earthlings, there would be no reason for cooler heads to prevail. Fuck that planet, the Martians would say, that blue ball always stuck out like a sore thumb in the sky.
So you see, colonizing Mars is just not worth it since it will probably backfire on us in the future. Let us not not even take that chance. Instead how about we nurture this planet, eh? How about we go about our business as if there were no other planets we could run to after we are done squeezing the juice out of this one? Let us all do our bit towards keeping the earth habitable for the foreseeable future. Let us not kill any more chinkaras. Let us store our polythene bags in our laundry rooms. And most importantly, let us dispose of our used condoms in an environment-friendly way; namely, by reusing them.
Tuesday, May 02, 2006
Coffee Drinkers
I bear some amount of hostility towards coffee drinkers. Especially those I see hanging around the coffee room in the morning, waiting for the coffee pot to flower and bear fruit with that smug-cum-self-pitying look on their faces. These coffee martyrs will then tell anyone who is willing to listen that they just can't get any work done unless they inject some of that coffee into their systems first.
As a model employee of my company, I don't like this kind of talk in principle. My view is, coffee or no coffee, one should work hard, one should be productive and one should contribute to the global economy which really needs all the help it can get right now. And coffee, by the way, is a relatively new invention. If it really were impossible for humans to work without coffee, we would never have discovered coffee in the first place. All we would have done was to lie around on the floor of our cave groaning about the lack of coffee in our lives, yelling for someone to get the fuck out and invent some coffee for us, preferably mocha white chocolate with that hip brown-colored sugar. And then, we would have added by way of explanation that we would have gone out and done all the inventing ourselves but we really needed to get some coffee into our systems first.
But why give special treatment to coffee? What about the other substances of abuse such as alcohol or baby powder? How about my domestic policy of not operating unless I'm drunk? Do you hear me complaining that I can't work without any alcohol in my system?
So the other day while driving to work, I saw a couple of coffee drinkers emerging out of a Dunkin Donuts and crossing the street. Dunkin Donuts drinkers are even worse than ordinary coffee drinkers. 'Cause not only do they need a coffee fix before they start spreading joy into other people's lives, but they specifically need a Dunkin Donuts coffee fix. No, nothing else will do. They are similar to Starbucks drinkers, except poorer. Such people need to go into rehab. A life such as theirs isn't worth living. So I swerved my car towards them to rid them of their miserable existence.
But then one of them put out his hand in front of the other who wasn't paying attention, probably 'cause he didn't have any coffee in his system, to warn him of oncoming death in the form of me. The sight of this coffee drinker sacrificing his hand to the cause of a fellow coffee drinker, probably the same hand he usually employs to shove coffee inside his body, brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautiful selfless gesture, one that wouldn't have been particularly noteworthy if it had been just an ordinary person, but this was a coffee drinker for chrissake. It reminded me that coffee drinkers are also people and have feelings and emotions and their blood, though highly caffeinated, also flows red on being hit by a car, just like yours and mine.
This sentimentality lasted till I reached my office where I was informed by a colleague that he couldn't work till he had some coffee in his system.
As a model employee of my company, I don't like this kind of talk in principle. My view is, coffee or no coffee, one should work hard, one should be productive and one should contribute to the global economy which really needs all the help it can get right now. And coffee, by the way, is a relatively new invention. If it really were impossible for humans to work without coffee, we would never have discovered coffee in the first place. All we would have done was to lie around on the floor of our cave groaning about the lack of coffee in our lives, yelling for someone to get the fuck out and invent some coffee for us, preferably mocha white chocolate with that hip brown-colored sugar. And then, we would have added by way of explanation that we would have gone out and done all the inventing ourselves but we really needed to get some coffee into our systems first.
But why give special treatment to coffee? What about the other substances of abuse such as alcohol or baby powder? How about my domestic policy of not operating unless I'm drunk? Do you hear me complaining that I can't work without any alcohol in my system?
So the other day while driving to work, I saw a couple of coffee drinkers emerging out of a Dunkin Donuts and crossing the street. Dunkin Donuts drinkers are even worse than ordinary coffee drinkers. 'Cause not only do they need a coffee fix before they start spreading joy into other people's lives, but they specifically need a Dunkin Donuts coffee fix. No, nothing else will do. They are similar to Starbucks drinkers, except poorer. Such people need to go into rehab. A life such as theirs isn't worth living. So I swerved my car towards them to rid them of their miserable existence.
But then one of them put out his hand in front of the other who wasn't paying attention, probably 'cause he didn't have any coffee in his system, to warn him of oncoming death in the form of me. The sight of this coffee drinker sacrificing his hand to the cause of a fellow coffee drinker, probably the same hand he usually employs to shove coffee inside his body, brought tears to my eyes. It was a beautiful selfless gesture, one that wouldn't have been particularly noteworthy if it had been just an ordinary person, but this was a coffee drinker for chrissake. It reminded me that coffee drinkers are also people and have feelings and emotions and their blood, though highly caffeinated, also flows red on being hit by a car, just like yours and mine.
This sentimentality lasted till I reached my office where I was informed by a colleague that he couldn't work till he had some coffee in his system.
Wednesday, April 26, 2006
More on Acadia
Since a couple of my readers are travelling to Acadia National Park next week for a vacation, I will do my part as the honorary unappointed director of the Maine Tourism Bureau by posting a couple of my pictures from the time I spent there. I will also provide mostly useless commentary.
Those are boats floating outside of Bar Harbor (pronounced Baa Haabaa in New Englandese), one of the three or four harbor towns in the park. It is one of the few places in the USA that has an exclusively vegetarian restaurant right in the town square with a view of the ocean. I don't remember the food but I do remember that I had organic beer. Organic beer has a much better taste than regular beer because it is much more expensive. Bar Harbor is always crowded in the evenings with hungry hikers and restaurants are pretty much full so remember to bring your machette along when you go out to eat. Fish is a good choice, especially lobster which is not really a fish but a bug and a close relative of the cockroach family as Alton Brown helpfully reminds us, thereby making us lose our appetites.
The other harbor in the park is Bass Harbor, which has the most photographed lighthouse in Maine (or so I have heard) and also the lighthouse most linked to by this blog. In fact, you know what, lets just designate the Bass Harbor Lighthouse as the official lighthouse of this blog.
This is Echo Lake. It is accessible via a short hike from the road or a long hike from the road depending upon whether you are also being accompanied by one or more women. Its name originates from the fact that if you face those hills in the distance and yell out your name, you will fail to hear an echo.
This is a place called Thunder Hole. Or as the native tribes who lived there long before the White Man made an appearance called it, "Place Where Man Stand For Long Time In Hope Of Hearing Thunder But Hear Wind Rustling Through Pubic Hair Instead".
That is Tom and with him is Dick. A few seconds later, Tom pushes Dick off the cliff due to his everlasting love for Dick's wife. To a bystander, Evil Tom doesn't go well with the serene innocence of the surrounding landscape.
This is the innovatively named Sand Beach, which nestles on Acadia's east side. You know how most beaches have the problem of being too warm, thus forcing you to stay in the water and then you lose track of time and the tide comes in, sweeps you out to sea and feeds you to the fishes? Well, fret no more, 'cause this beach doesn't have any such issues. The water is so fucking cold that it is used by the US Department of Corrections to cryogenically freeze convicted murderers so that they can break out in the year 2075 and terrorize your grandchildren.
This is not Acadia. But this is where you feel you are, as you stand on that beach shivering like a just-escaped cryogenically frozen murderer.
This is what you should be wearing on Sand Beach.
And this is where it should have come from.
On a final note, remember, if you are camping out in one of Acadia's numerous campgrounds, it is illegal to harvest campfire wood from the trees surrounding your tent. Instead, it is much more convenient to steal it from your neighbouring tent along with all the food and alcohol you'll need.
Those are boats floating outside of Bar Harbor (pronounced Baa Haabaa in New Englandese), one of the three or four harbor towns in the park. It is one of the few places in the USA that has an exclusively vegetarian restaurant right in the town square with a view of the ocean. I don't remember the food but I do remember that I had organic beer. Organic beer has a much better taste than regular beer because it is much more expensive. Bar Harbor is always crowded in the evenings with hungry hikers and restaurants are pretty much full so remember to bring your machette along when you go out to eat. Fish is a good choice, especially lobster which is not really a fish but a bug and a close relative of the cockroach family as Alton Brown helpfully reminds us, thereby making us lose our appetites.
The other harbor in the park is Bass Harbor, which has the most photographed lighthouse in Maine (or so I have heard) and also the lighthouse most linked to by this blog. In fact, you know what, lets just designate the Bass Harbor Lighthouse as the official lighthouse of this blog.
This is Echo Lake. It is accessible via a short hike from the road or a long hike from the road depending upon whether you are also being accompanied by one or more women. Its name originates from the fact that if you face those hills in the distance and yell out your name, you will fail to hear an echo.
This is a place called Thunder Hole. Or as the native tribes who lived there long before the White Man made an appearance called it, "Place Where Man Stand For Long Time In Hope Of Hearing Thunder But Hear Wind Rustling Through Pubic Hair Instead".
This is the innovatively named Sand Beach, which nestles on Acadia's east side. You know how most beaches have the problem of being too warm, thus forcing you to stay in the water and then you lose track of time and the tide comes in, sweeps you out to sea and feeds you to the fishes? Well, fret no more, 'cause this beach doesn't have any such issues. The water is so fucking cold that it is used by the US Department of Corrections to cryogenically freeze convicted murderers so that they can break out in the year 2075 and terrorize your grandchildren.
This is not Acadia. But this is where you feel you are, as you stand on that beach shivering like a just-escaped cryogenically frozen murderer.
This is what you should be wearing on Sand Beach.
And this is where it should have come from.
On a final note, remember, if you are camping out in one of Acadia's numerous campgrounds, it is illegal to harvest campfire wood from the trees surrounding your tent. Instead, it is much more convenient to steal it from your neighbouring tent along with all the food and alcohol you'll need.
Monday, April 24, 2006
An obligatory post for anyone who arrived here looking for goose stuff
Since this blog is titled "A Goose Egg", there have been a number of websurfers who have happened upon it via search engines, looking for, among other things, facts pertaining to geese, eggs, goose eggs and things of a similar nature. The most common search engine term that has led (or rather, misled) people up this path has been "goose egg pictures". I have no idea if goose eggs are more photogenic than those of other birds (I'm guessing proud geese parents would vehemently agree) and if I would greatly increase my hit count if I renamed the blog "An Ostrich Egg" (just 'cause I think ostriches are cooler).
Then there are people hunting for "king point goose eggs", whatever they are. One fortunate individual interested in "geese and abandoning eggs" apparently found what he / she was looking for since he / she returned back for a second visit. I however can't recall writing anything on that topic except, perhaps, this post which, due to its generic arbitrariness, could be construed to pertain to any topic in the world.
Since this blog really has nothing to do with geese or eggs except for that one post containing a picture of some geese along with (pardon me if you're a geese lover) a number of choice epithets directed towards their kind due to their general demeanour and outlook towards life, I would like to thank the goose-egg aficionados who ventured upon this blog by taking a moment to answer some of their search engine queries that brought me into their life.
"what does a goose egg look like"
Answer : This is what a goose egg looks like in the earliest stage of its development.
The vivid likeness a goose fetus bears to a human one is probably the reason why goose eggs never became popular as a breakfast food item outside of the Ann Coulter fan community.
"I found a goose egg how do I care for it"
or
"How do I raise a goose egg"
Answer : Just like you would raise the egg of any other creature of God. Hold it against your naked breast when it is feeding time and smack it against the wall if it doesn't stop bawling.
"How do I know if my goose egg is dead"
Answer : This is kind of awkward. First of all, I'm extremely sorry for your loss. Before I reply to your query, let me just say that this does not, in any way reflect upon your parenting skills. Even the most obsessively caring among us have frequently lost our shelled progeny to the random machinations of nature. But to answer your question, your goose egg is probably dead if it looks like this :
"What temperature do goose eggs cook at"
Answer : Isn't there some kind of mourning period during which you are forbidden from cooking the same egg you were grieving for a minute ago? You know, I now feel sorry for that twinge of compassion I just experienced when I learnt about your loss. I didn't know you were such a callous bastard. But to answer your question, it is the very same temperature as that of the pitchfork Lucifer is currently forging in the fires of hell to mow your bush with after you pass on to the next life.
"How often do you turn goose eggs"
Answer : Turn them as often as you wish. Just keep a paper bag handy in case they get nauseous and need to vomit.
"What are the stages of development in a goose egg"
Answer :
Stage 1 : Two geese meet on a meadow. Mr. Goose tells Ms Goose she is so pretty she could get a thousand grown men shot in the face by mistake. Love blossoms, they get married and vow to waddle through life attacking shoppers together.
Stage 2 : Nine months later, the egg is born.
Stage 3 : Mama and papa goose have a fight. They get divorced and the egg custody battle turns ugly.
Stage 4 : Mama goose wins custody and being a single parent, is unable to care for her offspring.
Stage 5 : The egg dies, is devoured by a rattlesnake, which in turn is hunted for its skin and ends up on George W. Bush's watergun holster.
Stage 6 : George W. Bush has nightmares of fundamentalist geese strapping on home-made bombs and flying into the White House.
"How do I find goose genitals"
Answer : Wait for a sleeping goose to wake up. The first thing it will do is scratch its balls.
Then there are people hunting for "king point goose eggs", whatever they are. One fortunate individual interested in "geese and abandoning eggs" apparently found what he / she was looking for since he / she returned back for a second visit. I however can't recall writing anything on that topic except, perhaps, this post which, due to its generic arbitrariness, could be construed to pertain to any topic in the world.
Since this blog really has nothing to do with geese or eggs except for that one post containing a picture of some geese along with (pardon me if you're a geese lover) a number of choice epithets directed towards their kind due to their general demeanour and outlook towards life, I would like to thank the goose-egg aficionados who ventured upon this blog by taking a moment to answer some of their search engine queries that brought me into their life.
"what does a goose egg look like"
Answer : This is what a goose egg looks like in the earliest stage of its development.
The vivid likeness a goose fetus bears to a human one is probably the reason why goose eggs never became popular as a breakfast food item outside of the Ann Coulter fan community.
"I found a goose egg how do I care for it"
or
"How do I raise a goose egg"
Answer : Just like you would raise the egg of any other creature of God. Hold it against your naked breast when it is feeding time and smack it against the wall if it doesn't stop bawling.
"How do I know if my goose egg is dead"
Answer : This is kind of awkward. First of all, I'm extremely sorry for your loss. Before I reply to your query, let me just say that this does not, in any way reflect upon your parenting skills. Even the most obsessively caring among us have frequently lost our shelled progeny to the random machinations of nature. But to answer your question, your goose egg is probably dead if it looks like this :
"What temperature do goose eggs cook at"
Answer : Isn't there some kind of mourning period during which you are forbidden from cooking the same egg you were grieving for a minute ago? You know, I now feel sorry for that twinge of compassion I just experienced when I learnt about your loss. I didn't know you were such a callous bastard. But to answer your question, it is the very same temperature as that of the pitchfork Lucifer is currently forging in the fires of hell to mow your bush with after you pass on to the next life.
"How often do you turn goose eggs"
Answer : Turn them as often as you wish. Just keep a paper bag handy in case they get nauseous and need to vomit.
"What are the stages of development in a goose egg"
Answer :
Stage 1 : Two geese meet on a meadow. Mr. Goose tells Ms Goose she is so pretty she could get a thousand grown men shot in the face by mistake. Love blossoms, they get married and vow to waddle through life attacking shoppers together.
Stage 2 : Nine months later, the egg is born.
Stage 3 : Mama and papa goose have a fight. They get divorced and the egg custody battle turns ugly.
Stage 4 : Mama goose wins custody and being a single parent, is unable to care for her offspring.
Stage 5 : The egg dies, is devoured by a rattlesnake, which in turn is hunted for its skin and ends up on George W. Bush's watergun holster.
Stage 6 : George W. Bush has nightmares of fundamentalist geese strapping on home-made bombs and flying into the White House.
"How do I find goose genitals"
Answer : Wait for a sleeping goose to wake up. The first thing it will do is scratch its balls.
Friday, April 21, 2006
The long road back to a semi-flabby existence
To anyone who used to work out religiously every single day, then had a breakdown of schedule due to various reasons and then, for the next few months, didn't flex a single muscle except when the tv remote needed procuring or an especially formidable bout of constipation needed overcoming, I gotta tell you, it's high time you did something about it. This is that time of year, man, the time when you renounce your lifestyle of slothful decadence and return your body back to it's semi-flabby state that has worked so well for you in the past.
However, I should warn you that the long road back to fair health and a reasonably above average BMI is a hard one. In fact, if I were your gym instructor, this is the advice I would offer you. Starting immediately, embark on a diet consisting exclusively of weapons grade cocaine. Heroin will do as well. Whether you choose to freebase it, shove it in your veins or apply it on your penis for a nightlong erection, I leave the choice to your own discretion. Continue your abuse of the stuff till you are heavily addicted. Then, stop. Spend a few days in agony as you suffer from withdrawal symptoms. Only if you happen to possess the willpower and strength of character to see yourself successfully through the process of drug rehabilitation, will you have proven your mettle for attempting the arduous task ahead. Hardened by your experience, you will now be man enough to Go Back To The Gym.
This is what the timeline of your transition from muscular atrophy to a semi-flaccid physique will look like.
Day 1. While playing Unreal Tournament 2004, you will suddenly come to realize that the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn't caused by your falling off the castle tower and dying in disgrace. It's because the pit of your stomach is actually hanging a few inches below your belt. That's how most people discover beer bellies. Although it's not likely to withstand the scrutiny of logical reasoning, I still maintain my belief in the theory that beer bellies sprout overnight, just like the colorful blossoms of spring.
Day 2. You will stumble upon photos of a strangely skinny individual while looking for a long-lost cd in the closet. After spending an hour trying to remember who it is, you will then spend another hour in denial after realizing it's a picture of you from graduate school. You will marvel at the excess baggage you've accumulated in your trunk in a mere 5 years.
Day 3. You will spend most of this day weighing yourself on the bathroom scale, then taking it apart and putting it back together in order to determine what's wrong with it.
Day 4. While watching an episode of Lost, you will jump up from the couch in an animated manner, trying to describe the philosophical significance of that episode to your wife. You will get your feet entangled in your laptop cables and fall down, breaking your big toe. The throbbing pain in your toe will be far surpassed by the agonized realization that the number of buttresses propping up the weight of your humongous body just got reduced by one. You vow to yourself that you will start working out right away, beginning tomorrow.
Day 5. Your toe will hurt so bad you will let the couch do all the propping up.
Day 6. Since the week is almost over, you will promise yourself that you will start working out next monday.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will change into your gym clothes. You will smile at the people working out. They will all look different to you. Probably 'cause they are healthy. You will touch every piece of equipment in the room, hoping to have expended some calories in the process. The sight of all those people working out will cause you acute mental and physical fatigue. You will go back home without lifting a finger.
Day 2. Somehow, the fact that you didn't work out yesterday will mean that it destroyed the work-out schedule for the entire week, thus rendering it useless. It will also mean that any attempt at working out during the remainder of the week will be meaningless. You will not go to the gym.
Day 3. You will stay home.
Day 4. You will almost feel yourself getting fatter by the minute. But you still stay home.
Day 5. You will continue to stay home. You will write a blogpost denouncing people who make fun of fat people.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will work out like a maniac. After you return back home, you will feel happy, refreshed and contented with life. You will go to sleep, armed with the knowledge of having overcome the final barrier between you and good health.
Day 2. You will wake up, unable to lift up your left hand. You will realize that working out like a maniac on the first day of gym was probably not the smartest thing to do. You will spend all day nursing your hand. The mere thought of working out will cause a bolt of lightning to rip through it. You will not go to the gym.
Day 3. Your hand will still feel the same. You will wonder if you've broken something. You will not go to the gym.
Day 4. Your hand will feel better. But your schedule will be screwed. You will decide to restart your schedule beginning next week.
Day 5. It's the weekend and you will wish to go biking. You will try to determine if biking will help you gain enough stamina for working out or the other way round. You will ponder on chickens, eggs and which came first. You will give up and make an omlet.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will work out more carefully. You will work on your chest and back. While performing bench presses, you will realize that your stomach doesn't fit between the bar and the bench anymore. This observation will firm your resolve of working out every day of this week.
Day 2. You will work on your shoulders and legs. A faint hope will dawn.
Day 3. You will continue to attend gym. You will work on your arms. The sweet pain of yesterday's strained muscles will egg you on.
Day 4. You've completed a full cycle of work-outs. You are now confident that you will make it through this week
Day 5. You've made it. You will write a post celebrating your triumph over inertia. You will hope that others follow in your footsteps.
And thus will you finally settle down into your old work-out schedule again. It will take 4 weeks, not including the cocaine addiction and rehabilitation. So I suggest you start now because it will soon be summer and who the fuck starts anything in summer.
However, I should warn you that the long road back to fair health and a reasonably above average BMI is a hard one. In fact, if I were your gym instructor, this is the advice I would offer you. Starting immediately, embark on a diet consisting exclusively of weapons grade cocaine. Heroin will do as well. Whether you choose to freebase it, shove it in your veins or apply it on your penis for a nightlong erection, I leave the choice to your own discretion. Continue your abuse of the stuff till you are heavily addicted. Then, stop. Spend a few days in agony as you suffer from withdrawal symptoms. Only if you happen to possess the willpower and strength of character to see yourself successfully through the process of drug rehabilitation, will you have proven your mettle for attempting the arduous task ahead. Hardened by your experience, you will now be man enough to Go Back To The Gym.
This is what the timeline of your transition from muscular atrophy to a semi-flaccid physique will look like.
Week 1 : The Dawn of Realization
Day 1. While playing Unreal Tournament 2004, you will suddenly come to realize that the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach wasn't caused by your falling off the castle tower and dying in disgrace. It's because the pit of your stomach is actually hanging a few inches below your belt. That's how most people discover beer bellies. Although it's not likely to withstand the scrutiny of logical reasoning, I still maintain my belief in the theory that beer bellies sprout overnight, just like the colorful blossoms of spring.
Day 2. You will stumble upon photos of a strangely skinny individual while looking for a long-lost cd in the closet. After spending an hour trying to remember who it is, you will then spend another hour in denial after realizing it's a picture of you from graduate school. You will marvel at the excess baggage you've accumulated in your trunk in a mere 5 years.
Day 3. You will spend most of this day weighing yourself on the bathroom scale, then taking it apart and putting it back together in order to determine what's wrong with it.
Day 4. While watching an episode of Lost, you will jump up from the couch in an animated manner, trying to describe the philosophical significance of that episode to your wife. You will get your feet entangled in your laptop cables and fall down, breaking your big toe. The throbbing pain in your toe will be far surpassed by the agonized realization that the number of buttresses propping up the weight of your humongous body just got reduced by one. You vow to yourself that you will start working out right away, beginning tomorrow.
Day 5. Your toe will hurt so bad you will let the couch do all the propping up.
Day 6. Since the week is almost over, you will promise yourself that you will start working out next monday.
Week 2 : The Beginning.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will change into your gym clothes. You will smile at the people working out. They will all look different to you. Probably 'cause they are healthy. You will touch every piece of equipment in the room, hoping to have expended some calories in the process. The sight of all those people working out will cause you acute mental and physical fatigue. You will go back home without lifting a finger.
Day 2. Somehow, the fact that you didn't work out yesterday will mean that it destroyed the work-out schedule for the entire week, thus rendering it useless. It will also mean that any attempt at working out during the remainder of the week will be meaningless. You will not go to the gym.
Day 3. You will stay home.
Day 4. You will almost feel yourself getting fatter by the minute. But you still stay home.
Day 5. You will continue to stay home. You will write a blogpost denouncing people who make fun of fat people.
Week 3: There, but not quite.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will work out like a maniac. After you return back home, you will feel happy, refreshed and contented with life. You will go to sleep, armed with the knowledge of having overcome the final barrier between you and good health.
Day 2. You will wake up, unable to lift up your left hand. You will realize that working out like a maniac on the first day of gym was probably not the smartest thing to do. You will spend all day nursing your hand. The mere thought of working out will cause a bolt of lightning to rip through it. You will not go to the gym.
Day 3. Your hand will still feel the same. You will wonder if you've broken something. You will not go to the gym.
Day 4. Your hand will feel better. But your schedule will be screwed. You will decide to restart your schedule beginning next week.
Day 5. It's the weekend and you will wish to go biking. You will try to determine if biking will help you gain enough stamina for working out or the other way round. You will ponder on chickens, eggs and which came first. You will give up and make an omlet.
Week 4: Victory.
Day 1. You will go to the gym. You will work out more carefully. You will work on your chest and back. While performing bench presses, you will realize that your stomach doesn't fit between the bar and the bench anymore. This observation will firm your resolve of working out every day of this week.
Day 2. You will work on your shoulders and legs. A faint hope will dawn.
Day 3. You will continue to attend gym. You will work on your arms. The sweet pain of yesterday's strained muscles will egg you on.
Day 4. You've completed a full cycle of work-outs. You are now confident that you will make it through this week
Day 5. You've made it. You will write a post celebrating your triumph over inertia. You will hope that others follow in your footsteps.
And thus will you finally settle down into your old work-out schedule again. It will take 4 weeks, not including the cocaine addiction and rehabilitation. So I suggest you start now because it will soon be summer and who the fuck starts anything in summer.
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
How to keep hair from falling out
To formulate an answer to this question, it is necessary to get to the root of the problem. Why does hair fall out in the first place? There have been a number of hypotheses that attempt to explain away this behavior. However, I disagree with them all. Heredity? No. Improper hair care? Rubbish. Stress? Nonsense. Hard water? Just an attempt to fling sand into the eyes of people accusing you of reason 2 which, anyways, is still incorrect. The following is what is really behind the all-too frequent departure of this highly valued protein strand from our lives.
Hairs are human after all, and require nutrition. Nutrition from the brain. Hair roots go deep down through the skull, through the meninx, that is the outer membrane of the brain, and right into the cerebrum. The cerebrum is rich with the vitamins and minerals essential for the mental and physical development of your hair. Now, imagine your scalp to be a suburban community of happy and contented hair citizens. Early on in your life, living conditions are good and plentiful with every hair having access to enough brain resources for it to live a rich and productive existence spent in adorning your pate.
However, later on in life, when you enter your stupid phase through the normal process of aging or the incessant playing of Unreal Tournament 2004 online, your brain undergoes a severe reduction in size, thus depleting the levels of nourishment necessary for maintaining your hair citizenry in the comfortable lifestyle it's been accustomed to. Once that happens, famine conditions begin to take shape. It's every hair for itself. And then, individual hair strands, in the manner of refugees waiting for a UN supply truck to unload, begin to fight amongst themselves for the appropriation of any food packages that are expected to make an appearance.
It gets ugly. Soon your scalp turns into a gnashing mass of hair warriors, who battle it out by coiling around their neighbour's body and pulling it out of its follicle. And after that, it's just a matter of time before the winter moon shines somberly down on a graveyard littered with rotting hair carcasses, the casualties of internecine warfare, waiting for that whiff of breeze to carry them away from the battlefield and into the mashed potatoes and gravy of the guy sitting next to you in Chili's.
In order to avoid this conflagration and the subsequent massacre of innocent hairs, a two-step program is needed. First of all, you need to keep your brain in tip-top shape. Think a lot about things, no matter how irrelevant or salacious. Ruminate. Ponder. Maintain your mental machinery in a constant state of lubrication. Ground left fallow will soon become incapable of supporting life. It's the same with your brain. Stop playing UT2004. You aren't that good at it anyways and it's killing your brain cells. And you would have noticed it too, except you've become too stupid to notice things.
Secondly, if stupidity appears to be ultimately unavoidable, it is still possible to curtail its deadly consequences. Trim your hair short. Cut it often and close to the scalp. Dominate over it. Terrorize it. Bully it to tears. Chop off its limbs, electrocute its genitals and maintain it in a constant state of humiliation. A population of hair brought up in an environment of totalitarianism will never rise against its master or against each other, even during times of hardship (think Iraq under Saddam as opposed to Iraq without Saddam). Not to mention the fact that a hair, devoid of its length and sinuosity, loses its ability to murder its companions through twining and constriction.
Consider a forest full of trees and contrast it with a grassy meadow. Imagine how many more blades of grass can co-exist peacefully in the meadow than trees in the forest. That's because grass is a relatively docile organism. And the reason behind that is its short stature. Its midgety appearance causes it to be physically feeble and spiritually submissive, thus making it a model citizen of society. A blade of grass would never resort to violence and uprootment against members of its own community, even under extreme provocation. Grass swallows its pride and turns the other cheek. Its motto is to live and let live. And that is the attitude we would like to see in our hair.
In summation, to keep your hair from falling out, maintain your brain cells. And subjugate your hair through frequent bitchslappery. This will lead to a full head of hair that will exult in a continued existence throughout your lifetime and quite possibly, through that of your progeny.
Hairs are human after all, and require nutrition. Nutrition from the brain. Hair roots go deep down through the skull, through the meninx, that is the outer membrane of the brain, and right into the cerebrum. The cerebrum is rich with the vitamins and minerals essential for the mental and physical development of your hair. Now, imagine your scalp to be a suburban community of happy and contented hair citizens. Early on in your life, living conditions are good and plentiful with every hair having access to enough brain resources for it to live a rich and productive existence spent in adorning your pate.
However, later on in life, when you enter your stupid phase through the normal process of aging or the incessant playing of Unreal Tournament 2004 online, your brain undergoes a severe reduction in size, thus depleting the levels of nourishment necessary for maintaining your hair citizenry in the comfortable lifestyle it's been accustomed to. Once that happens, famine conditions begin to take shape. It's every hair for itself. And then, individual hair strands, in the manner of refugees waiting for a UN supply truck to unload, begin to fight amongst themselves for the appropriation of any food packages that are expected to make an appearance.
It gets ugly. Soon your scalp turns into a gnashing mass of hair warriors, who battle it out by coiling around their neighbour's body and pulling it out of its follicle. And after that, it's just a matter of time before the winter moon shines somberly down on a graveyard littered with rotting hair carcasses, the casualties of internecine warfare, waiting for that whiff of breeze to carry them away from the battlefield and into the mashed potatoes and gravy of the guy sitting next to you in Chili's.
In order to avoid this conflagration and the subsequent massacre of innocent hairs, a two-step program is needed. First of all, you need to keep your brain in tip-top shape. Think a lot about things, no matter how irrelevant or salacious. Ruminate. Ponder. Maintain your mental machinery in a constant state of lubrication. Ground left fallow will soon become incapable of supporting life. It's the same with your brain. Stop playing UT2004. You aren't that good at it anyways and it's killing your brain cells. And you would have noticed it too, except you've become too stupid to notice things.
Secondly, if stupidity appears to be ultimately unavoidable, it is still possible to curtail its deadly consequences. Trim your hair short. Cut it often and close to the scalp. Dominate over it. Terrorize it. Bully it to tears. Chop off its limbs, electrocute its genitals and maintain it in a constant state of humiliation. A population of hair brought up in an environment of totalitarianism will never rise against its master or against each other, even during times of hardship (think Iraq under Saddam as opposed to Iraq without Saddam). Not to mention the fact that a hair, devoid of its length and sinuosity, loses its ability to murder its companions through twining and constriction.
Consider a forest full of trees and contrast it with a grassy meadow. Imagine how many more blades of grass can co-exist peacefully in the meadow than trees in the forest. That's because grass is a relatively docile organism. And the reason behind that is its short stature. Its midgety appearance causes it to be physically feeble and spiritually submissive, thus making it a model citizen of society. A blade of grass would never resort to violence and uprootment against members of its own community, even under extreme provocation. Grass swallows its pride and turns the other cheek. Its motto is to live and let live. And that is the attitude we would like to see in our hair.
In summation, to keep your hair from falling out, maintain your brain cells. And subjugate your hair through frequent bitchslappery. This will lead to a full head of hair that will exult in a continued existence throughout your lifetime and quite possibly, through that of your progeny.
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Synchronization
I walk back to my office building, having just returned from lunch. My building has two pairs of doors at the entrance, about 6 feet apart. As I open the outer door, I step inside and watch as another guy opens the inner door and steps outside. We both are now occupying the buffer zone between those two doors. This buffer zone is that part of the building that smells extraordinarily like a construction worker at the end of a particularly hot summer day. Our eyes meet, each sensing the other's uncertainty.
He holds the inner door open for me while I hold the outer door open for him. Both of us continue to hold our respective doors open. Beyond these doors lies freedom. But neither of us wants to let go of his own door before the other guy passes through. We both have impeccable manners, you see. The doors are too far apart for someone to hold both of them open at the same time. Someone has to let go first.
The situation is getting tense. It is a battle of etiquette. Who will be the first to blink? Who will relinquish his hold on the door and accept defeat, thus abandoning his obligation to uphold societal mores of decorous conduct? Time passes by as we mull over the perplexity of the situation. Finally, I nod at him, having arrived at a decision. He reads my mind and responds with grim acquiescence. We perform a wordless countdown, our muscles flexing in anticipation. The clock winds down. And then we leap.
The next few moments occur as if in slow motion. We each let go of our respective doors, fly past each other and grab the door the other was holding just before it slams shut. We screech to a halt and stare back at each other with triumphant grins. We've managed to make it through without either of us being shunned by society and having to bear the ignominous title of "He Who doesn't Keep Doors Open For Others".
"Good job", the guy says to me as he steps out of the building. "Thank you, you too", I respond as I walk to the staircase that will take me back to my hole in the wall. Both of us go our separate ways.
He holds the inner door open for me while I hold the outer door open for him. Both of us continue to hold our respective doors open. Beyond these doors lies freedom. But neither of us wants to let go of his own door before the other guy passes through. We both have impeccable manners, you see. The doors are too far apart for someone to hold both of them open at the same time. Someone has to let go first.
The situation is getting tense. It is a battle of etiquette. Who will be the first to blink? Who will relinquish his hold on the door and accept defeat, thus abandoning his obligation to uphold societal mores of decorous conduct? Time passes by as we mull over the perplexity of the situation. Finally, I nod at him, having arrived at a decision. He reads my mind and responds with grim acquiescence. We perform a wordless countdown, our muscles flexing in anticipation. The clock winds down. And then we leap.
The next few moments occur as if in slow motion. We each let go of our respective doors, fly past each other and grab the door the other was holding just before it slams shut. We screech to a halt and stare back at each other with triumphant grins. We've managed to make it through without either of us being shunned by society and having to bear the ignominous title of "He Who doesn't Keep Doors Open For Others".
"Good job", the guy says to me as he steps out of the building. "Thank you, you too", I respond as I walk to the staircase that will take me back to my hole in the wall. Both of us go our separate ways.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The One Hit Wonders
March is a magical time in Pune. Not just because it comes after February which, frankly, is a month I don't much care for and detest with all my heart simply 'cause it ain't January, which is a month I gots the hots for. But anyways, getting back to the point, when March arrives in Pune, it brings with it an atmosphere of festivity and celebration to all the college campuses scattered across Pune. The reason behind all this youthful exuberance being, March is that time of the year when the most culturally significant event in any college-goer's life occurs. The Annual Social Gathering.
The Annual Social Gathering is a huge deal in Pune. It is a unifier of sorts, bringing together once every year the studious bookworms and the academically disinclined, the dysfunctional hostelites and the smug city-slickers, the musically challenged and the artistically handicapped, the overbearing professors and the overly sensitive janitors. And working together as a team, this melange of humanity, through sheer hard work, will power and the primal desire to leave its assprint on the bedsheet of history, organizes and puts in motion this event, the Annual Social Gathering.
The Gathering consists of a number of mutually exclusive events. Various competitions are held on the college campus that celebrate excellence in fields such as street art, street acting and street walking. The winners get to keep their dignity and also quite possibly receive an award at the hands of the college principal, subject, of course, to the extraordinarily remote possibility of the award money not already having been pilfered by the notoriously nimble-handed Gathering staff. Fashion shows are held, dances are performed, individual musical offerings of a classical nature are made to a largely apathetic audience and the entire thing finally comes to a close with the biggest event of them all, the great grand-daddy of the bunch; the orchestra show.
Being leader of the college band has its perks. For one, you get treated with a great deal of reverence. And even if you've actively campaigned for the other party in last year's elections for the Gathering administrative posts, as long as you're in the college band, you don't get dragged to the hostel and beaten up along with the rest of your buddies after your guys lose the elections. This invulnerability to post-election brawls surely is the biggest perk of them all.
But there are other minor perks associated with the title as well. You get to preside over the singing auditions that are held in order to choose the vocalists who will be presenting the "individual flowers encompassing the garland of songs that is the show" (to take a marathi phrase and tear it apart). Anyone who was present during the Samudra Manthan, that tumultuous event in mythical history when the Devas and Asuras embarked on a joint effort to churn up the oceans of milk to find out what lay beneath, will relate to what happens during Gathering singing auditions. As was the case during the Manthan when the relentless churning led to a number of agreeable artifacts coming up to the surface such as Kamadhenu (the wish fulfilling cow), Airavata (the white elephant) and the television remote control, singing auditions frequently bring to the surface a number of extremely talented singers who would otherwise have tragically lain hidden away from the public eye for all eternity. But just like how churning the ocean also led to a lethal pot of poison turning up, singing auditions can also inadvertently shine a glaring spotlight upon the malodorous dregs of society who walk this planet secure in the misguided belief that their singing talents lie somewhere between excellent and divine.
These folks can be categorized into various types. Some are plain crappy singers. Those are the easiest to deal with. Far more difficult are the ones who sing fairly well but have other bizarre behavioral idiosyncracies. Like the guy who holds the microphone in his left hand while he sings into his right. Or the girl from the production engineering department who goes into such paroxysms of ecstasy when the mostly male crowd applauds her entry on stage that she forgets to sing, instead, allowing the rest of the band to continue with the song as they wait for her gradual descent back to terra firma. Then there's the guy, your senior, kind of a pompous asshole, who's a decent singer, but who is never averse to replacing the lyrics of the song he is singing with products of his own imagination, some of them not even owing allegiance to any discernible language. Fortunately, he sings with his eyes closed, which allows you and the rest of the band to guffaw, albeit silently, at his goofiness.
But the cream of the crop is the One Hit Wonder. He belongs to a species comparable to none other. The One Hit Wonder is unique, in that, even before the onset of the academic year, he has already decided that he will be singing in the Gathering show. And since he is shrewd enough to diagnose the paucity of singing talent contained within himself, he resolves, through pure hard work and year-long perseverance, to finally nail down one and only one song that he will be able to see through to it's logical conclusion. And he has a formula. The formula is this : First he chooses a singer, most commonly Kumar Sanu 'cause singing in a nasal voice comes naturally to most people. Then, he chooses a song. Finally, through endless hours of practice, he manages to imitate the singer through every nuance of his vocal gyrations in that song until he and the singer sound exactly the same. And this impresses the judges at the auditions because, c'mon, sounding exactly like a singer is pretty hard to achieve. Little does the judge know the amount of hard work that went behind this feat.
However, there is a small problem. This is the last time we will see the One Hit Wonder on stage. Next year he will be gone. He will never be able to sing anything else again in his entire career. Like the male Atlantic salmon who spends his entire life fattening himself for the sole purpose of swimming all the way upstream for that single mating opportunity, and dies right after he sprays his jizz all over the female Atlantic salmon's eggs, the One Hit Wonder performs his one song and then, for all practical purposes, he is dead to the world. Because he has molded his voice into the likeness of Kumar Sanu in "Dil Hai ke maanta nahi" so thoroughly that his voice will never ever adjust to any other singer or song style again. Basically, his voice is similar to a block of stone that has already been hewed into a figurine. That stone will never again assume any form other than its current one. And that is fine. Because in his own small way, the One Hit Wonder has already acted out his part on the stage of life. He has shone at his performance and now he will move on to other, hopefully better things. But never, I repeat, never ever, will he sing again. And that is life.
The Annual Social Gathering is a huge deal in Pune. It is a unifier of sorts, bringing together once every year the studious bookworms and the academically disinclined, the dysfunctional hostelites and the smug city-slickers, the musically challenged and the artistically handicapped, the overbearing professors and the overly sensitive janitors. And working together as a team, this melange of humanity, through sheer hard work, will power and the primal desire to leave its assprint on the bedsheet of history, organizes and puts in motion this event, the Annual Social Gathering.
The Gathering consists of a number of mutually exclusive events. Various competitions are held on the college campus that celebrate excellence in fields such as street art, street acting and street walking. The winners get to keep their dignity and also quite possibly receive an award at the hands of the college principal, subject, of course, to the extraordinarily remote possibility of the award money not already having been pilfered by the notoriously nimble-handed Gathering staff. Fashion shows are held, dances are performed, individual musical offerings of a classical nature are made to a largely apathetic audience and the entire thing finally comes to a close with the biggest event of them all, the great grand-daddy of the bunch; the orchestra show.
Being leader of the college band has its perks. For one, you get treated with a great deal of reverence. And even if you've actively campaigned for the other party in last year's elections for the Gathering administrative posts, as long as you're in the college band, you don't get dragged to the hostel and beaten up along with the rest of your buddies after your guys lose the elections. This invulnerability to post-election brawls surely is the biggest perk of them all.
But there are other minor perks associated with the title as well. You get to preside over the singing auditions that are held in order to choose the vocalists who will be presenting the "individual flowers encompassing the garland of songs that is the show" (to take a marathi phrase and tear it apart). Anyone who was present during the Samudra Manthan, that tumultuous event in mythical history when the Devas and Asuras embarked on a joint effort to churn up the oceans of milk to find out what lay beneath, will relate to what happens during Gathering singing auditions. As was the case during the Manthan when the relentless churning led to a number of agreeable artifacts coming up to the surface such as Kamadhenu (the wish fulfilling cow), Airavata (the white elephant) and the television remote control, singing auditions frequently bring to the surface a number of extremely talented singers who would otherwise have tragically lain hidden away from the public eye for all eternity. But just like how churning the ocean also led to a lethal pot of poison turning up, singing auditions can also inadvertently shine a glaring spotlight upon the malodorous dregs of society who walk this planet secure in the misguided belief that their singing talents lie somewhere between excellent and divine.
These folks can be categorized into various types. Some are plain crappy singers. Those are the easiest to deal with. Far more difficult are the ones who sing fairly well but have other bizarre behavioral idiosyncracies. Like the guy who holds the microphone in his left hand while he sings into his right. Or the girl from the production engineering department who goes into such paroxysms of ecstasy when the mostly male crowd applauds her entry on stage that she forgets to sing, instead, allowing the rest of the band to continue with the song as they wait for her gradual descent back to terra firma. Then there's the guy, your senior, kind of a pompous asshole, who's a decent singer, but who is never averse to replacing the lyrics of the song he is singing with products of his own imagination, some of them not even owing allegiance to any discernible language. Fortunately, he sings with his eyes closed, which allows you and the rest of the band to guffaw, albeit silently, at his goofiness.
But the cream of the crop is the One Hit Wonder. He belongs to a species comparable to none other. The One Hit Wonder is unique, in that, even before the onset of the academic year, he has already decided that he will be singing in the Gathering show. And since he is shrewd enough to diagnose the paucity of singing talent contained within himself, he resolves, through pure hard work and year-long perseverance, to finally nail down one and only one song that he will be able to see through to it's logical conclusion. And he has a formula. The formula is this : First he chooses a singer, most commonly Kumar Sanu 'cause singing in a nasal voice comes naturally to most people. Then, he chooses a song. Finally, through endless hours of practice, he manages to imitate the singer through every nuance of his vocal gyrations in that song until he and the singer sound exactly the same. And this impresses the judges at the auditions because, c'mon, sounding exactly like a singer is pretty hard to achieve. Little does the judge know the amount of hard work that went behind this feat.
However, there is a small problem. This is the last time we will see the One Hit Wonder on stage. Next year he will be gone. He will never be able to sing anything else again in his entire career. Like the male Atlantic salmon who spends his entire life fattening himself for the sole purpose of swimming all the way upstream for that single mating opportunity, and dies right after he sprays his jizz all over the female Atlantic salmon's eggs, the One Hit Wonder performs his one song and then, for all practical purposes, he is dead to the world. Because he has molded his voice into the likeness of Kumar Sanu in "Dil Hai ke maanta nahi" so thoroughly that his voice will never ever adjust to any other singer or song style again. Basically, his voice is similar to a block of stone that has already been hewed into a figurine. That stone will never again assume any form other than its current one. And that is fine. Because in his own small way, the One Hit Wonder has already acted out his part on the stage of life. He has shone at his performance and now he will move on to other, hopefully better things. But never, I repeat, never ever, will he sing again. And that is life.
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