Football and boobs

Two years ago, I was watching the Superbowl halftime show with my wife who, while not actively watching it, was still looking at it dispassionately since the tv remote was under my control. Janet Jackson and the N'Sync guy who got to defile Britney Spears' virginity, can't remember his name, were dancing and dry humping and lip syncing onstage to the accompaniment of some music I couldn't hear since I had the tv set to mute. After all who the fuck wants to listen to that pop crap?

Suddenly, both idiots stopped their dancing and dry humping and then just before the camera swerved away and focussed into the jumping, fake-enthusiasm displaying crowd in the stands, something happened onstage that made both me and my wife give each other startled looks. Had Janet Jackson's boob just fallen out of its semi-protective casing? Both of us put into words the question that had quivered unspoken on our lips because the sheer notion of her boob falling out on live television was so fucking ridiculous, it just couldn't be true. Heck, it must have been a hallucination, we thought.

And then, after the Superbowl, everyone went berserk. It had actually happened. Her boob HAD fallen out during the show. And America was shocked at the implications of what had happened. Women had BOOBS! And these boobs could succumb to gravity! Fuck, America said, when Sir Isaac Newton had put forth his theory, he had omitted to mention any of its potential applications with regard to human mammaries!

And after that episode, it was basically lights out for tv and radio. Howard Stern got fired, Terrell Owens got reprimanded and anything that ever happened on television henceforth, was sharply scrutinized for any possible connection to sex or the female body.

Everything, except football that is. And that is kind of ironic in a way, since the Superbowl itself was the reason behind all this rampant censorship. Anyone who watches football on tv knows that the sport is a game of violence and sex. Violence caused by the relentless pummelling of football players by other football players, and sex caused by the relentless pummelling of pom poms by cheerleaders shaking their bodies on the sideline like a hydrophobic dog trying to get rid of the water in its fur.

It is extremely strange how, even though cheerleaders are there purely for the purpose of eye candy and, as a part of their job description, have to basically bestow sexual favors on football fans by throwing each other up in the air in a way that allows the average fan to find himself in a position conducive to a visual inspection of their undergarments, officially, they occupy the same asexual status as the goalpost.

But for some reason, the football viewing public tacitly refrains from calling cheerleading for what it is. For them, it is a part of the game. And so, deep in the American South, when a group of Bible thumping Jesus loving people who wouldn't think twice before calling for the execution of Janet Jackson's nipple for its abominable excursion into society, will still gather in bars to watch football games and admire the luscious beauties cavorting on the field without feeling the flames of hell licking at their feet.

Funnier still, is the television football commentator's stance on the issue. The commentator is a strange being, full of pathos. He is torn between being appreciative of the human body in its natural form and wary of saying anything that could possibly jeopardize his career in broadcasting. And so, during the game when the cameras suddenly show a shot of the cheerleaders pom-pomming away madly like Pat Robertson after an especially successful television fundraising gig, the commentator, very self-consciously, abruptly changes the subject, straying far away from what he was originally talking about. "And after this sack, Carolina has no other choice than to punt the ball. And now here comes the punting team, but how about the weather in Nairobi, people", he giggles, as the screen switches to fluttering skirts and heaving boobs."Pretty hot there ain't it? Hasn't rained for a while too. Bad for the crops, this hot weather", he continues, gasping for breath as he tries to reconcile his asexual commentary with the busy stroking of his hand off-camera.

But why all this artificial sterilization of football, I ask. Fuck political correctness, football is sex and violence, just like the rest of life. And fuck football, this goes for the rest of television too. Why should we try to depict something on television that doesn't really exist in real life either, which is far more sexual and violent than our perception of it?

Chill, my brothers in the FCC. We are adults. Don't impose your prudishness on us. And put that damn commentator out of his misery.

Strange coincidence

Yesterday, while blogsurfing, I found myself on Gaurav Sabnis's blog Vantage Point. While there, I got pissed off at a post of his which seemed to be attacking environmentalists for no apparent reason other than the fact that in this day and age it seems to be a fashionably libertarian thing to do. So, I wrote a post on it on my other blog. Now keep in mind that I'm not a regular reader of his blog. I only go there occasionally if any blogpage I am visiting happens to have a link to it.

So I wrote this post and then, after some random blogsurfing, arrived at a blog that I had never visited before, that of the Spaceman Spiff. And what did I find on his blog, but a post criticizing the very post I had vented at barely an hour ago . Not only that, his criticism seemed to encompass the very same points that my post did as well. So I left a comment on his blog apprising him of this fact and fucked off.

Fast forward a couple of hours. As I was checking the comments on my blog, I found a comment by who else, but Spaceman Spiff himself! It seems he, through various random links, had simultaneously happened upon my blog on his own, that too for the first time, and had seen my post and commented on it. And all this, within the time frame of a few hours. Strange or what?

As the Spaceman says, "Coincidence!? I say fate."

My worst driving fear

I think my worst fear while driving is that one of the wheels on my car is somehow gonna detach itself from it's parent vehicle and roll off into the horizon. And like every other phobia and mental dysfunction I possess, I can clearly trace it back to my childhood.

It was a time when my dad used to commute to work in a company tempo, and one day he returned home and told us this amazing story, quite possibly fabricated in its entirety, of how that day he had been relaxing during his work commute, looking out through the window at the countryside passing by when suddenly he observed something that seemed to be strangely out of place. He saw a wheel with no car attached to it racing by, making pretty good speed for something without an engine. And then, with horror, he realized that it was the rear wheel of his own vehicle which was moving along at a pretty fast gallop.

Sadly, I cannot remember the rest of the story. For example, I don't remember how, with only three serviceable wheels the tempo came to a halt without causing bodily harm to it's occupants. Also, no matter how hard I tax my imagination, I just cannot envision a tempo losing a wheel and still cruising along at the same speed without crashing, with the only physical reminder of its handicapped status being the visual spectacle of a wheel racing along by its side.

So as I said, looking back, I now tend to believe that my dad fabricated this story, but still, no matter how much I try to convince myself of that possibility, every time I drive on the interstate, I still keep a sharp lookout for any orphan wheels in the lane next to mine.

Where'd all the hair go?

I'm currently reading Jared Diamond's "Guns Germs and Steel", which is quite possibly one of the most brilliant and interesting books on the history of mankind ever written. So as is my habit, I now try to apply its principles to every day-to-day situation. The quandary I found myself mulling over today happened to be where the fuck did all the hair go? As in all the hair on our bodies. Where'd it go man?

See, the way I understand it, every little aspect of the human body has attained its current form through evolution. This means that every human physical trait that could have been disadvantageous towards the survival of the species got eliminated because more humans who didn't possess that trait survived to pass on its non-existence to their progeny. For example, the tail humans used to have till it disappeared through evolution. Tails were a nuisance. I remember when I used to have a tail and each time I had to run away from a rabid dog or an angry father, my tail was the easiest thing for a predator or an ancestor to catch hold of. Soon, I realized that I had to lose my tail or perish. And so, through careful evolution, my tail as well as the tail of every other human being disappeared because only those of us who didn't have tails survived. And so, our children, in turn, having received the tail-less gene from us, didn't have tails either. In a similar fashion, evolution divested Bappi Lahiri of the heavy-ass jewellery around his neck that had made it difficult for him to survive attacks from people he had plagiarized tunes from, and turned him into a bling-less comical-cap-wearing Anu Malik.

But now we turn to the more difficult question of where did all the hair on our bodies disappear? We all know humans were hairy monsters back in the day. Yes, even Salman Khan's ancestors, contrary to popular belief, weren't clean shaven. And now we are pretty much hairless. Why is that? I don't remember hair to have caused any problems in my survival. In fact, hair, if anything, was beneficial because it kept me warm during winters. Why then, I mused, might hair have disappeared through evolution? Why would something apparently so useful for survival have vanished from the human body?

And then, it struck me. Of course! Hair doesn't lessen your chances of survival, but it does lessen the chances of survival for your baby. That is, it lessens the chances of you even having a baby. In other words, what I'm saying is, if you have a hairy body, your chances of getting laid are practically non-existent. A long time ago, when almost every human walking this earth was hairy and there were only a few hairless ones who were the exception, those hairless ones got all the attention and the ass. 'Cause let's face it, people. No one likes to cuddle and spoon with a gorilla. And so, the hairy guys and girls could find no one to fornicate with. Soon they died out, a hairy, horny, miserable species and so did their fuzzy-ass gene. That's what happened to all that freakin' hair.

And that's why I am extremely hopeful about the future of the human race. No matter how ugly most specimens in our race currently are, in the future we will be a much prettier race, a planet of greek gods and goddesses so to speak, simply because only the gorgeous among us will get laid and live to generate offspring. And thus will human beauty multiply till some day the fair people of that time will look back at Hrithik Roshan and say, "Huh .... people thought he was good-looking?" And then they will fall out of their seats laughing at the ugly bastard and the concept that women used to swoon for him, but they probably won't cry out in pain as they hit the ground because of their hyper-evolved extra-padded buttocks.

NBC brilliance

At 6:30 p.m, NBC showed the following news teaser : "Tonight, tune in to NBC News to find out how sports bras could help our troops in Iraq." Brilliant move!

There are three types of men : Men who like sports, men who like bras, and men who like war. This news item is guranteed to reel in all three types. Tonight, 100% of Philadelphia area males will be watching NBC news; some hoping to see some sports, some hoping to see a few bras and the rest hoping to see people shoot other people with guns.

Idiotic insomniacs

So there's this ad for a mattress, and it's one of those technologically advanced mattresses, either sleep number or tempurpedic or one of those crazy-ass supersoft mattresses, the mattresses that are so fucking soft 'cause they are filled with thousands of silky smooth currency bills, the very bills you used to pay for that mattress.

So anyways, they show this woman tossing and turning on her mattress, she just can't sleep, fuck, her insomnia is driving her crazy. So she does some research into mattresses and she slices open her own mattress to find...what? springs? Hell yeah, that explains why she can't get any sleep, it HAS to be 'cause of those nasty iron springs, she just can't imagine how the hell she was able to get any sleep at all with springs under her back. (Hint : Those springs are covered with a layer of foam, then a layer of something else, then a layer of something else, all in all ten different layers of soft padded shit, but goddamn, she is just so happy to have finally solved the problem of why she couldn't sleep that she throws all logic to the wind.)

But I know it's not due to the springs. 'Cause if you observe the commercial closely, you'll come to know the real reason for her tossing and turning. All the while they show her trying to get some sleep, her husband is sitting up in bed by her side with the lights on, reading a book. That's why she can't sleep. It's not the mattress, it's your asshole of a husband who just won't call it a day. See? That didn't have anything to do with the mattress. You could have saved a whole lot of money just by killing your husband rather than running off to the neighbourhood Mattress King.

And that's why, even as you tell us about this goshdarned freakin' awesome mattress that you've newly discovered, you still have circles under your eyes and look like you didn't take a shower today.

How technology has revolutionized drunken debating

There was a time as recent as a couple of years ago that chronically inebriated people didn't have a lot of say in geopolitical matters. What used to happen was when chronically inebriated people, who, for the sake of convenience, I'll call "drunks", used to meet together to discuss current affairs, pretty soon alcohol containers would make their appearance, would be cracked open and the discussion would be carried out accompanied by heavy drinking. The problem was that even if the political wisdom of the debaters exceeded that of the common man, once the increased blood alcohol level of the drunk began to derail his train of thought, he would be reduced to a babbling coot.

So old-time drinkbates would look something like this :

"The country did tremendously well during the BJP reign. I would give you concrete examples if I weren't so shitfaced."
"But what about everyone who is not a software engineer? Are they doing as well too? No. And the reason I know that is because ..... I can't remember, but I'm sure I had a darn good reason."
"It takes time for the money to trickle down. Trickling down is slow. Imagine a traffic jam. I forgot what I was gonna say."
"We need more investment in the rural sector. The Congress would do it. We need more investment in the rural sector. The Congress would do it."
"The Congress is just Sonia Gandhi's bitch. You know what?"
"Who?"
"What?"
"What were you saying?"
"Forget it."
"I need to pee."

But that was before blogging arose as the medium of choice for every average Joe to put his political opinions into writing. So now, during the short periods of sobriety that dot every political drunk's day, he is free to ruminate on the affairs of the day and write his thesis on them while he is still clear headed. And afterwards, when the coterie of drunks meets again for their debate, it goes like this :

"The country did tremendously well during the BJP reign. I wrote a post on my blog on this topic yesterday which illustrates that point extremely well. You should read it."
"But what about everyone who is not a software engineer? Are they doing as well too? No. Refer to my post from a couple of days ago where I make that point abundantly clear."
"It takes time for the economy to trickle down. Trickling is slow. For an apt analogy, visit my blog and read today's post."

And so on and so forth. And instead of getting bogged down in a morass of undelivered viewpoints and unemptied bladders, the debate continues on to its logical conclusion. In fact, this technique works so well that I used it in practice while I was in India and can attest to it's effectiveness. The only problem is, since there is no computer nearby to verify whether the debater actually has written a post of which he speaks so proudly, it is possible for fake debaters to enter the argument and do pretty well too. But I guess every technological innovation has it's loopholes.

The starving people of Africa

So I'm sitting in Barista with my friends in India and eating a smoked chicken sandwich which costs 45 rupees or so. Thats one dollar. It's kinda funny that when I first came to the US, I used to convert everything into rupees. Now I do the opposite in India.

Anyways, I eat the sandwich but leave the hard edges uneaten. 'Cause I guess I've become Americanized and that's what Americans apparently do. Just like they leave the hard crust of a pizza untouched and uneaten while an Indian (apparently) will eat the whole thing wrapper and all. I have it on very good authority.

My friend D who is observing me closely with a hungry look on his face, frowns at me. D didn't order anything to eat. The reason he didn't order anything is because he was pissed off at the manager. D had wanted an iced coffee or some shit that had ice in it. And he had been told that they do not have ice. That made D mad because according to D, everytime he went to any Barista, they always told him that he couldn't have the iced shit because they were out of ice. So, D gave the Barista manager a piece of his mind, advising him that if they didn't have any ice they should just take down the fucking menu that contained any references to ice, for God's sake. And that just because they did not have any ice, he would not be ordering anything at all. They had just lost his business, D raged.

So now, as D watches me discarding the hard sandwich crust, he says, "What are you doing man? There are people starving in Africa and you are discarding food? Shame on you." And D opens a packet of ketchup lying on the table, spreads it all over my uneaten crusts and starts belting them.

And I say "But D, I don't understand. How are the starving people of Africa going to be benefited by you eating my bread crusts with ketchup?"

And far off in the distance, I hear a pin drop.

How abbreviations hide uncoolness

There was a time long long ago when I used to chat on an internet chatroom along with this guy called zambezi who nowadays makes it a point to visit my blog and call me an idiot in my comments. We were a superb pair, quite funny and people used to laugh at us. The great thing was, since both of us are attention whores, we love being in the spotlight and so, that added chemistry to our comic routine.

But one day, like mold on a perfectly delicious loaf of bread, there arrived on the scene a guy. He was a nice guy. He was also a cute guy. He was both nice and cute, and how can I be so certain of that? Because his nick was nicecuteguy, and fuck, if you can't trust someone's chat nick then what can you trust? So anyways, he took the chatroom by storm. Being both nice and cute, he was a worthy opponent to our duo. By and by, because being nice and cute also sometimes makes people think you are funny, people began to laugh at his jokes as well. He became popular, as popular as a guy named nicecuteguy can be.

Now I'll be honest. When I see nicks like nicecuteguy, or cutecuddlyguy or lovelyfunnywellhungguy and so on, I feel nauseous. I feel like I just downed a bottle of vodka neat and followed it up by smoking the wrong end of a cigarette. You should try that by the way. It's a secret known only to tobacco companies and Dennis Leary; Namely that the best part of a cigarette is in its filter.

So anyways, nicecuteguy was giving me an attack of indigestion by his sheer presence. However, being the non-nicked nice cute guy that I am, I didn't allow it to interfere in my interaction with him. By and by, nicecuteguy, probably through dialog and dicussion with people who shared my viewpoint of his nick but not of his guts, abbreviated his nick to ncg. And after some more time, people forgot what that ncg used to stand for.

Except me. So one day, when I was in a particularly foul mood, I picked a fight with nicecuteguy. 'Cause to me, he was still nicecuteguy. The fight was over golf. I said to no one in particular that I thought golf was a pretty lame-ass sport. Now nicecuteguy turned out to be a golf enthusiast. He had probably lost his tv remote pretty early on in his childhood and been forced to watch the golf channel throughout his teen and adult years, thus leading to a fascination with the sport. 'Cause apart from that somewhat plausible reason, I can think of nothing that would ever incite a feeling within me any warmer than a casual dislike for the game.

So nicecuteguy threw a tantrum. He started babbling about the merits of the game. I said to him, "Listen nicecuteguy, I don't like the sport so save your breath." And then there was a pregnant pause in the conversation.

"What did you call me?", said nicecuteguy, seething behind his keyboard.
"I called you nicecuteguy, nicecuteguy", I said.
"Can you not read, my nick is ncg", said nicecuteguy.
"But ncg stands for nicecuteguy does it not?", I queried.
"Fuck you", said nicecuteguy, realizing that being an oldtimer, there were no truths that could be hidden from me.
"Ok nicecuteguy", I said, not willing to give up. He stopped responding. He had tried to hide behind an abbreviation and failed.

But the point of this story, apart from being a vehicle to highlight my ready wit and vindictiveness is also that frequently, seemingly cool abbreviations hide some totally uncool names. Like say, for instance, BEST. I bet most people living in Bombay today don't even know what BEST stands for, especially the younger generation which has no interest in history or how the world works and are just interested in being nice and cute. We have the BEST buses, they say. Oh yeah, Bombay's buses are the BEST. No, that's not how it works. BEST stands for "Bombay Electricity Supply and Transport". So Bombay buses are not the BEST. They might be the best, but not because they are the BEST.

Or take TELCO. When I was young, I thought fuck, my dad works in such a cool-sounding company. And then the cool-sounding abbreviation turned out to stand for Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company. What the fuck, I thought, that sounds so uncool.

Or here, in the US, we have this entity called NAMBLA. Is that a government run super secret anti-terrorist-pro-space-exploration organization, you might ask. Well, yes and no. Yes as in it's an organization but no, as in, it stands for the "North American Man Boy Love Association". They are a group lobbying for increased space exploration between men and boys. You may go throw up now.

But the best part about abbreviations is they can be used to make a fool out of the government. The company I used to work for earlier in my career, lets call it the Amitabh Bacchan Corporation. Just for kicks. So it existed as the Amitabh Bachhan Corporation. And then it went out of business. It owed, lets say a crore rupees to someone. The way it got out of this debt was astounding to say the least. It filed for bankruptcy and closed down so that the Amitabh Bacchan Corporation existed no more. Then it reopened as ABC with a clean sheet and no debt. And fuck, it was in business once more. Ah the joy of abbreviations. You gotta love em.

But if nicecuteguy is reading this piece, then I have one question for him. If you are nice and if you are cute, what's the need to hide under an abbreviation? Shout out to the world that you are nice and cute. And let the whole world drink in your niceness and your cuteness.

HDFC commercial

While I was in India, this HDFC commercial kept playing on the tv. I will reproduce it for you in case you haven't seen it.

An old man is about to step from a train onto the railway platform. His son extends his hand in order to help him disembark. The old man frowns at him. The son, chastised, draws back. The old man steps off the train on his own. He maintains his dignity.

Background : "Na sar jukha hai kabhi aur na jukhayenge kabhi"

Now the old guy's wife tries to step off the train. The old guy lends her his hand. She frowns in turn. The old guy is chastised and takes back his hand. His wife steps off on her own. She maintains her dignity.

A little boy is playing on the platform, probably the old guy's grandson. He falls down. The old guy is about to run and pick him up. His son frowns at his father, saying no. The old guy is chastised. Little boy stands up on his own. He maintains his dignity.

Everyone walks to the parking lot. Old guy is about to cross the street. A car comes careening by. The son is about to pull the old guy back in order to save him from being run over. His mother frowns at him. The son, chastised, lets his father walk on. The car runs over the old guy. He maintains his dignity.

The old guy is hurt and bleeding. He tries to get up. His wife puts forth her hand to help him off the road. His son frowns at her. She pulls back, chastised. The old guy falls back onto the road. The old guy maintains his dignity.

A crowd gathers. Someone calls the ambulance. Paramedics are about to help the old guy onto a stretcher. The old guy frowns at them. They cease and desist. The old guy crawls onto the stretcher by himself, moaning in pain and leaving a trail of blood behind him. The old guy maintains his dignity.

He is then taken to the hospital. A doctor gets ready to operate on him. He is about to begin the surgery. Both the son and his mother frown at him. The doctor withdraws from the operating table, chastised. The old guy tries to operate on himself, using a mirror. While cutting open his stomach with a scalpel, he slices through his heart by mistake. Blood shoots through the air. He dies. He maintains his dignity.

Voiceover : "We value your self respect almost as much as your life. HDFC Standard Life Insurance. Respect yourself. And buy our life insurance. 'Cause respecting yourself almost certainly means you are gonna die early"

The Devolving Conscious

I am becoming stupid. No, let me rephrase that. My conscious is becoming stupid. See, your body has two controls, namely, the conscious and the subconscious. The conscious takes care of things you do deliberately with full awareness, while the subconscious takes care of things you do without really being aware of it.

Now I have reason to believe that my conscious has retired and gone to live in a small cottage overlooking the sea where it raises goats and pigs and carries out subsistence agriculture. The reason I believe this is because lately, I have found myself unable to do certain things which are usually performed by my subconscious, if I am aware that I am consciously doing them. Complicated? Let me explain.

Lets take the example of showering. Showering, for most people who make it a point to shower everyday, is an act of subconsciousness. The moment you step into the shower, your body guides itself automatically through the various motions of showering, including applying soap to various parts of your body, then directing a waterjet towards those parts to get rid of the soap. And along with the acts that comprise showering, the sequence in which they occur is also fixed subconsciously by your body. But this is what happened today in the shower. As usual, I was letting my subconscious do everything, while I meditated on various topics of little relevance. Then, suddenly, without any warning, I had soap in my eyes. It brought me out of my reverie, disengaging my subconscious and putting my conscious in control.

So picture my amazement when I realized that my conscious had no fucking clue as to how to go about cleansing my body for me. I tried operating the soap, but every move I made seemed to be totally unfamiliar. Do I rub the soap horizontally or vertically, how the fuck do I even reach my back, were some questions my conscious made a valiant attempt at answering, but ultimately, gave up as a lost cause. I emerged from the shower confused and less than sparkling clean.

The same thing happens to me sometimes while I'm driving. After cruising along on auto-pilot for a while, if suddenly I wake up and ask myself, which of these three levers is the brake, I have no idea. So frequently, people driving the car behind me will find themselves yelling at the idiot in front of them who suddenly brakes for no reason. But in reality, he's just testing to see if he knows where the brakes are. Be patient with him, his conscious has devolved.

Friday photo blogging

The lighthouse at Bass Harbor, Acadia National Park, Maine.



The rocks at the base of the lighthouse. It was superbly foggy and added to the already mystical aura of the lighthouse.

Ode to a special Someone

Today I had a moment of enlightenment about a very special Someone in my life. Someone who, lately, I had not been paying a lot of attention to. Someone who I've always been taking for granted. Someone who has been a very giving someone all these days and yet, has not received a whole lot in return. Someone who means the world to me, yet someone I have been guilty of heaping shameful neglect upon.

My Work.

Today I received new evidence that my Work loves me a lot. My Work has been spending the past couple of weeks, while I was vacationing in India, pining for me. It is disgraceful that I, who took this brief opportunity to escape from my Work, should be informed after I returned that my Work hasn't been well. Work has suffered from the lack of me in her life. In fact, a mere minute and 22 seconds after I entered the office today morning, I was informed by a tearful, emotional Work that it would be a good move on my part to attend to Work's demands if I desired to have her in my life anymore.

And so, I have been slaving all morning listening to the long list of Work's demands and assuring her that they would be taken care of as soon as I get the fuck off this jet lag which is making me feel like I'm having a bad dream even as I walk around like a zombie who's just gnawed his own brains out and is at a loss as to how to cope with the situation.

But as it turns out, I do have a small entertaining (?) tidbit to share. Yesterday, as I was being driven from Grand Central Terminus to Penn Station in a squalid little bus, I noticed this little shop. It was called "Shun Da Trading Company". It was a shop selling bags, and it was closed. I was wondering if the shop belonged to someone who was making a statement about the need for America to reign in her obsession with buying a lot of stuff it didn't need. Or if it was just some Chinese guy who happened to have a funny name.

I would really like to think it was the former.

The Last Day

Today is my last day for this year in my home country. Tomorrow, I leave for my foster nation. It is the same drill every year. I go out to meet my friends. I tell my folks I will be back by 12:00 am. I drive around with my friends, searching for liquor outlets, 'cause, you know, every year they close the liquor outlets an hour earlier. We try the usual suspects : Hotel Blue Diamond, Hotel Aurora Towers, the Pride, the Le Meridien. Only the Le Meridien serves alcohol past 12:00. But since we have been to Le Meridien just 2 days ago, and 'cause it's as expensive as a hooker on Mardi Gras, we decide on the alternate cheaper way : to go to Paud road to the Police sanctioned illegal liquor outlet that is always awake come hell or high water, till 2:00 am.

And that is where we get 6 bottles of Kingfisher beer extra strong, after which, we retire to my friend's outhouse to debate on Indian politics and drink Kingfisher Extra strong beer till 5:00 am. Then, the unfortunate friend, whose outhouse we have been infesting till now, offers to drive us non-vehicle owners home. I am left standing at the corner of my house and the lamppost. Since I am drunk and leaving for the US the next day, I squeeze my driver friend's hand a bit longer than usual, hug my friend sitting next to me on the backseat a bit harder than usual. I ring the bell.

My folks, who have been camping out on the living room sofa, turn the lights on even before I get out of the car. They have been waiting and listening for a car engine all night long. I am the son who is departing for the US. I am scolded as I go inside. "Dad's got to drive all the way to Bombay tomorrow", says my mom. I mumble something even I don't comprehend. I go upstairs to my bedroom, intending to fall asleep right away.

I don't fall asleep. I open the door to the balcony and go outside. I look down at our garden. I see our cat sitting on our porch. Our cat will save me.

Every year I come here for a vacation, my last night here is hell. The only way I salvage my sanity and keep myself from running home from the airport is to do the following : I let our cat back in. Our cat is a selfish bitch. Before I let her in, she is all appreciative and purring. After I let her in, she goes to her dish in the kitchen and eats the cat food left in it. And then, without even a look or a meow, she fucks off. And I close the door. I needed that so I wouldn't feel so bad about leaving. I needed some animal cynicism. So I let her in.

She purred about for a bit and ate her food. Loud cracking noises filled the house. Things were going according to plan. Then, she came to me and looked at me. I told her to get out of the house. Instead, she leapt on my lap. She made herself comfortable. I stroked her head, crying to myself. Things weren't going the way I had hoped they would.

I told her to get up. She refused. I picked her up and opened the door. I kept her outside on the porch. I kissed her stupid head and said "Goodbye sweetheart till next year. Hope you are still here then", and I let her go. She ran away into the darkness. I went back inside.

Tomorrow I leave. I won't be back for at least a year. I hope things won't change a lot by the time I come back. I hope my folks won't look older. I hope my cat is still alive. I hope my house is still in good shape. I hope I can still make out the entrance to our driveway.

I hope I come back next year.

Me against the mosquito

If at all there were to exist a silver lining somewhere between the destruction of all the greenery in the vicinity of your childhood home and the erection of ugly concrete structures that obstruct the view of the sunrise from your terrace, it has got to be the fact that the abovementioned destruction also leads to a decrease in the local mosquito population. This was the reason why I, after having returned from a night of revelry, dared to sleep with my balcony door open in order to let the cool night breeze inside which I hoped, would act as a sleeping aid.

No sooner had I placed my head upon the pillow and turned the light out than I heard the long-forgotten but ever-too-familiar siren of death at my ear; namely, the low monotonous hum of a mosquito. Now I don't know about you, but I hate mosquitoes humming at my ear due to the following two reasons; firstly, because mosquitoes drink your blood which is a good enough reason in itself, and secondly, when the damn thing is at your ear, you are not sure whether it is merely going to engage in the relatively pedestrian ritual of feasting on your bodily fluids or embark on the more enterprising mission of finding out what lies inside your auditory canal.

Since I am so finicky about things fucking around in my ear, I immediately got up and turned on the light. Actually, I had a two-fold objective in doing so : to capture and destroy the mosquito and also to locate the origin of that irritating knock knock sound that seemed to be emanating from somewhere outside the house.

So I got up from my bed, opened the balcony door and peered out into the darkness. The knocking sound seemed to be coming from a neighbour's garden. Cool, I thought, the neighbours are either being haunted or robbed, I thought. Mission accomplished, I was about to return back inside because it was actually quite nippy outside, when I spotted our cat sleeping on a neighbour's scooter seat. A different neighbour, not the one about to wake up in a pool of his own blood in the morning. Since I'm a bit of an asshole at 4:00 in the morning, I psssted at the cat. She immediately woke up and looked up in my direction. "Just wanted to say goodnight, sweetheart", I hissed at her. She bared a fang at me. I went back inside.

So back I went to carry out my main mission. I sat on the bed. The mosquito drew near. I waited till I could see the whites of its eyes and then just as I was about to swat at it, it cunningly flew in the direction of my black jacket that was lying on my suitcase and disappeared, melting into the blackness of its surroundings. Hmm, interesting twist to the situation, I said to myself. Harsher measures would be needed.

So I sat on my bed in a meditative pose reminiscent of that great sage in Hindu mythology (google the fucker if you feel like it) who engaged in similar meditation and so closely resembled a log of wood due to his inertness that vines and snakes crawled into his anus and out of his nostrils, thinking he was just part of the natural landscape. Thusly was I sitting on the bed for a prolonged duration of time with nothing happening, till I realized that evolution had probably trained the mosquito only to try and attack a human engaged in repose. So I then lay down on the bed and waited.

Sure enough, the old familiar drone reappeared at my ear. After I gauged the proximity of the damn thing to be close enough to venture a swat, I did so. Slapped myself silly, throwing my glasses off my nose and into oblivion. Note to self : Do not swat mosquitoes on your ear while wearing glasses. But glory be to the Lord, I discovered that I had also slaughtered the mosquito in the process. Turning the light off, I went back to sleep.

Buzz.

Fuck.

Maybe they don't sell coconuts after all

You know what just occurred to me an hour ago while I was lying on my back just staring at the ceiling fan, doing nothing, 'cause the electricity was out, thus precluding any possibility of my being able to turn on the tv and watch "Kajra Re" on ten different music channels simultaneously or watch NDTV, which, by the way, is supposed to be a news channel, have an hour-long special on the making of Abhishek Bacchan's "Ek main aur ek tu"? What the fuck am I talking about again? Oh yeah, so as I lay thinking about things that do not really matter, it suddenly occurred to me that the strange little shop back in the US near my apartment with "Coconuts Movies Music" written on it might not actually be selling coconuts, movies and music as I had originally believed. In fact, the more I thought about it, the more I began to suspect that "Coconuts" might be the name of the shop and that it might only be in the business of selling movies and music cds. Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's it.

I guess I'm lucky I didn't embarass myself the other day when I decided to go to the grocery to buy coconuts instead of that little shop when we made coconut chutney at my place.

Weddings n shit

The moment I woke up today at 10:00 a.m, I knew this was gonna be a long-ass day. For one, I hadn't slept well. I had fallen asleep at 5:00 a.m the previous night. And the reason for that was because I had watched "The Ring" the previous evening. A word of advice for people who are easily scared like I am. If you are gonna watch a horror movie that you've already watched once, watch it in its entirety. Don't wimp out just before the end. See, the thing is, if you get terrified and switch off the movie before its climactic end, then once the movie is over, the end you remember feels much scarier than the actual end you would have watched if you hadn't switched it off. And if you are staying in a house that you are not that familiar with anymore, which has a high roof that you can't see and a mirror which has the bad habit of suddenly catching flashes of light from outside and terrifying the shit out of you as you lie in bed trying to fall asleep, then just don't even watch the damned thing.

But, as I said, I did watch the movie and switched it off right before it ended. Yeah, I wimped out big time. So, as I woke up at 10:00 a.m, I was feeling slightly under the weather. Fuck, I need a few more hours, I muttered to myself as I changed positions under the sheet. But then, the reason I woke up in the first place, namely my mom, charged into the room. "We are going to a wedding", she announced. "You have 15 minutes". So 15 minutes it was. And as I emerged from the shower rubbing my bleary eyes, I knew it was going to be a long-ass day.

Pune traffic. Man oh man, I could write a volume on it, but it wouldn't sell. Just because it wouldn't have a happy ending. What the fuck is wrong with two-wheeler riders in Pune? They appear to be under the impression that they can coexist in the same physical space with other two-wheeler riders simulteneously unless it is proved otherwise. And at one particular intersection, two armies of oppositely headed two wheelers had taken over both the lanes of the road, thus, disallowing anyone from passing in any direction. As I sat in the backseat of my car yelling at those insane people from the safety of my car, my dad turned around and said to me in that disparaging tone usually reserved for people who return from America and complain about anything Indian, "This isn't America, you know, this is how we drive here in India". I replied, "Well, in that case, I'm just being Indian by yelling and cursing at other drivers. Wouldn't you say that's an Indian trait too?" Touche, said the old man. I took a bow. We drove on.

The wedding. I am sick and tired of weddings. I can't stand 'em. And I couldn't stand 'em even before I got married, which was 3 days of hard core revelry including one instance where I had to climb on and ride a horse as well as be photographed sitting on that same horse wearing a turban and wielding a sword, thus making me susceptible to blackmail for the rest of my life.

This wedding was no different. The bride and groom standing together on the stage had the same acrylic painted smiles on their faces which showed a hint of being replaced by tired scowls every small break they got between being photographed with groups of people filing in queues for that purpose. My parents, for some reason, overestimating my interest in the proceedings, began narrating brief histories of every sari and kurta clad person within viewing range, their relationship with us, as well as their relationship with the bride and / or the groom. I was falling asleep.

I woke up from my coma with a brilliant plan in mind. "I think I left the bathroom water heater on", I said to my dad. My folks are hard core energy conservationists, so I knew this would rattle them. My dad appeared unconcerned. "Your mom probably switched it off before we left", he said. My heart sinking, I confirmed this with my mom, who said yes, she had. I slouched back into my seat, resigned to spending the rest of my life in that wedding hall.

Lunch time. Anyone who has experienced a Maharashtrian wedding lunch knows the drill. Keep a sharp lookout for any signs of lunch being served downstairs. Lunch is served in batches, so before the previous batch of people eat, the next batch has to wait in line swearing at those already partaking of sustenance. There are two reasons for getting into the first batch of lunch-eaters. You get hot food. Secondly, you get new plates. The next batch gets used plates which might or might not have been cleansed of first-batch leftovers, depending on the rush. This time, luckily, we were in the first batch.

Another tip for non-Maharashtrians who might find themselves breaking bread in a Maharashtrian wedding lunch. People will come around and serve you things. But they will not stop at your table for long. No, they will move on before you have had the presence of mind to signal that yes, you want whatever it is that they are serving. So this is what you need to do. Say you are out of puris. You need puris. You need em bad. You keep a sharp lookout for the puri-guy. When he is 5 meters away from you, that is when you start nodding vigorously. You nod irrespective of the fact that you might be in a conversation and nodding might not be the appropriate thing to do. But nod you must. And finally when the puri-guy reaches you, your indiscriminate nodding will pay off and you will get your well earned puri. Otherwise he will pass you by and your puri will be lost in the swirling mists of time.

So after learning this tip the hard way and finally getting the hang of things, I relaxed and began to eat. It was then that an old guy who I didn't know from Adam showed up and placing a kindly arm on my shoulder, asked me not to be shy and to eat a lot and to ask for more if I ran out of things to eat. I graciously accepted this kind offer, which, if it hadn't been made, would certainly have resulted in me starving to death. Soon afterwards, another woman I didn't know from Eve, showed up and berated me for not bringing my wife along to the wedding. Before I, in turn, could berate her for not bringing her husband along for berating me, I saw the puri-guy enter the 5 meter threshold. I began nodding vigorously.

My dad was keeping a close eye on my uncle who was sitting at his side. To his brother, he made the observation that saying "no thanks" after the server had filled his plate served no purpose whatsoever. My uncle thanked him for this observation.

Finally, lunch was over. We were ready to leave. We walked downstairs and out of the building into the sunny Pune afternoon. I was still alive. I had made it through the day. Tomorrow would be another day. I just fucking hoped no one would be getting married tomorrow.

The tomato seller

It is 5:00 p.m Indian Standard Time. I am standing on the first floor balcony of my ancestral home in Pune, Maharashtra. Well, to be accurate, my father built this house in 82 so it's not really old enough to be called ancestral, but that's how it feels to me each time I return home for a vacation. Having lived here most of my life, every square foot of this house is inextricably linked to childhood memories, most of which I look back on with a fond nostalgia.

Last night's binge with my school friends has my innards in turmoil. My stomach feels heavy and my head hurts, the pain in no way being mitigated by the fact that I am also gazing in the direction of a towering concrete monstrosity that has appeared in front of my house, where, in the past, there used to be woods full of tamarind trees and a field where sugarcane stalks used to wave in the breeze. I know development is inevitable, especially in this city, but I wish it wouldn't destroy familiar things during the process.

I look at the road below, which is an extremely quiet and secluded lane in comparison to the rest of Pune. I hear a high pitched voice crying something out in Marathi. I strain to hear what it is. Soon the bearer of the voice comes into focus, as does the content of his yell. He is a pittance of a boy, maybe 6 - 8 years old, pushing a cart full of tomatoes. He is crying out "tomato 3 rupaye kilo" in that singsong tone vegetable vendors throughout Pune have patented to advertize their wares. He is so short in stature that he is barely taller than the cart itself.

But something's wrong. He seems to be having some trouble pushing the cart. And as he passes my gate, I can see why. The tire of one of the four wheels of the cart is totally flat, and in fact, has come off the wheel itself and has gotten entangled with the axle. The cart refuses to budge. The tiny guy sits down on the tarmac and proceeds to try and pull the tire off the wheel. He sits there, trying to tear apart vulcanized rubber with his bare hands, and I can see that he's not making any progress.

I run downstairs to my mom who is hanging around the kitchen looking busy like a mom usually does. Do we have any scissors, I ask. Big ones, I add. Mom reaches into the filing cabinet of her mind and before 2 seconds have elapsed, I have the requisite scissors in my hands. I go outside armed with my tools.

I go up to the little guy who is still in the same position I left him in. I ask him "Katrini kapun deu ka tire?" (Should I try slicing through the tire with these scissors) The kid nods and relinquishes his position under the cart to me. I sit down and try to cut through the damn thing. It won't cut. I try to ascertain why. I see that there's an iron thread running through the rubber. Of course, I should have realized that. I then cut through the rest of the tire, leaving just the iron thread to be broken through. I run back inside for reinforcements.

Do we have anything bigger than a scissor, I ask my mom. My mom, somehow already apprised of the situation, has a pair of big rusty garden shears in her hands. I gulp as I take those from her hands and go back outside, ready to tackle the iron thread in the tire.

The kid is now tearing at the rubber tube inside the tire. Somehow, he has broken the iron thread. I slice through the rubber tube, again with just the iron thread left to be broken. I pick up the garden shears. The kid tells me, "He nako, he bagha asa karun te tutnar" (we don't need those, I'll show you how to break this) He bends the thread, again straightens it out. Again bends it. Again straightens it out. Pretty soon, it breaks. The oldest trick in the book. I feel foolish. The kid then pulls out the tire and throws it on his cart. He is ready to set sail.

I walk back to the porch where my mom is waiting for me. We watch the little tomato seller walk away with his cart full of 3 rupee kilo tomatoes just as other little kids of his own age pass him by, walking home from school with bags on their backs.

And as I watch him walk away, I feel the vapid selfish glow of satisfaction people from a privileged background like me usually feel when they bestow an act of charity on someone less fortunate, in order to assuage the biting guilt they experience for living a life that is so vastly different from theirs.

Car died today, got pissed off at a truck and going to India

This post is about the three things mentioned in the subject line.

1.> My car died today. She is in the garage. I had to get her towed. I had to rent a car. I was late for work. I had to withdraw money from an ATM not from my bank. I had to pay a surcharge of 3 dollars. It made me mad.

2.> Millions of UPS trucks were on the highway. They were all in the fast lane. They were also in the slow lane. They were driving at low speeds. They were'nt letting anyone by. It made me mad. Then they disappeared. I was then stuck behind a truck with ProFish written on it. It made me mad too. I was mad because I was late for work and my car is in the garage and I was driving a rental car and I was stuck behind Profishguy.

3.> I am off to India. I will take the train to the airport. I will take a train because there are no limo services operating on Christmas day. I am not happy. The reason I am not happy is before I bought my ticket to India I called up the limo operator and asked him if they operate on Christmas day. He said, "We operate 24 hours a day 365 days a year." I asked him but do you operate on Christmas. He said "We operate 24 hours a day 365 days a year." This time he said it with a hint of impatience. I called them up yesterday to book my limo. They said we do not operate on Christmas. I said "But you operate 24 hours a day 365 days a year." They said no, we do not operate on Christmas. I repeated with a hint of impatience, "But you operate 24 hours a day 365 days a year." They hung up on me.

4.> Bonus topic not mentioned in the subject line : My office had a Christmas party last night. I found out that people in my office prefer my company to that of our receptionist. It made me feel warm inside. But that could also have been the alcohol.

5.> Another bonus topic : I might blog from India. It depends on how many moments of sobriety occur during the trip. Hopefully not many. In case I don't, happy holidays and have a happy new year.

The "We" Blogs

There's this new breed of blogs that's cropping up all over the place. I call them the "We" blogs. These blogs are run by (supposedly) more than one person, group blogs colloquially speaking. Most of these blogs purportedly specialize in political analysis, some of them even excelling in the clarity of their viewpoint and it's verbal dissemination.

However, the most distinct characteristic of these blogs is that the individual bloggers who post on such blogs never use "I" in the first person. It's always "We". For instance, a blogger belonging to one such blog might say, "We, at pompous-assmunches.blogspot.com, have asked Iraq to do a great deal in a short time." Or, for example, "We have never lost sight of the fact that we at this blog are more than one person. Really, we swear and attest to that. WE."

What's with this "We"? No really, does this "We" mean that every blogger posting on that blog is guaranteed to agree with the opinions of every other blogger posting on that same blog? Do these bloggers meet every night to be on the same page with respect to each other's positions on everything and iron out any discrepencies just so that they can continue to use "We" in every blog post without possessing opinions that contradict those of their fellow bloggers? Or how about if a member blogger disagrees publicly in the comments section of his fellow blogger's post. Does he get a "We" ultimatum to stop using "We" until such a time as his opinions reconform with those of the other blog members?

The truth is that using "We" in a blog post appears to impart to the blog a false sense of authority. Mentally, if the blog reader thinks there's more than one person supporting the idea being expounded by the blogger, he is more likely to be swayed by it. But how presumptious is it for a blogger to force his opinions on every other blogger posting on the group blog? If that were true, why even have multiple bloggers? Just get rid of 'em all except one, who could be used to fill up your comments page just so that the blog appears to have an audience. But you may still use "We". To denote respectability that is, instead of plurality.

Phrases I don't much care for

"Wow you have a lot of time on your hands"

This phrase is often uttered by people who wish they originally had the bright idea of doing whatever it is that I am proudly showing them. And why, when I do something extraordinary, does the possibility of my being an idle wastrel need to be raised at all? Can't I do something as a hobby? Does my life have to consist merely of my work related activities and day-to-day chores? You know what pal, no I do not have a lot of time on my hands. I am good at multitasking, in fact, even as I'm typing this post, I am simultanously driving a car, cooking dinner and giving a hobo a hand-job. How about that? Did that answer your question?

"Grow up"

I'm doing the best I can. If I could do it quicker, I would, trust me. But no matter how much I grow up, you still won't be one of my favorite people in the world.

"Get a life"

I'm touched by your concern about me not living a life that is upto your high standards of perfection, but really, it's not as bad as it looks. Anyways, I went to the Walmart, they didn't have any other decently priced lives in stock.

"It is what it is"

No kidding! I thought it wasn't really what it was, it was actually something else and that it just looked like what it actually wasn't.

"I'm just an ordinary guy"

You're lying. You think you are God's gift to the planet and you are having a hard time not shouting it out to the world.

"Stick a fork in me, I'm done"

I hope you have a first aid kit handy.

"Say what, now?"

What the fuck does that even mean?

"I'm like, you know, like, it's like, you know,........"

Get to the fucking point before I blow my brains out with, you know, like, this revolver that's, like, you know, pointed towards my head n stuff.

Trains, buses and taxis

"You know, I have always wanted to do something my entire life and now I probably won't be able to do it ever", I said to my wife as we drove over a railway bridge.
"What's that?"
"I always wanted to drive a train engine. I'll probably never get to do it now."
"Mhmm".
"You know, when you are a child you have your entire life ahead of you and whatever ambitions you might have, there's always a possibility that you might be able to fulfill them before you are done and gone. And then you grow old and then suddenly one by one, you realize that you probably won't be able to do some things at all. I mean, look at my dream of driving a train engine. I can say with a fair degree of certainty that I cannot envision a scenario in which it will be possible for me to get inside a train engine and drive it."
"I see".
"You see what I'm saying?"
"Yes, I see what you are saying."
"It's like a door has been closed for me for ever now. Previously, I could have hoped that I would someday drive a railway engine, but now there is none left."
"What's stopping you from doing that?"
"How do I go about doing it? I can't just walk up to an Amtrak engine and ask the driver to let me in."
"You can tell him it's been your lifelong ambition to be a train driver and hope he is a sentimental kind of guy".
"But it's not my lifelong ambition to be a train driver. I just want to drive it once."
"You don't have to tell him that. Your chances would probably increase if he thinks you want to be like him."
"Yeah, that's true. You think I would stand a better chance of driving an engine in India?"
"I don't know."
"I guess train drivers in India could be bribed or something to let me drive."
"Do you really want train drivers in India to become bribeable so that someone else can drive? What if you are travelling on that train?"
"Yes. You are right, it's a bad idea."

Time passes by.

"I think I could get a bus driver to let me drive a bus."
"What?"
"You know, even if I can't get a train driver to let me drive his engine, I'm sure a bus driver would allow me to drive his bus."
"I guess so."
"Why's that so, though?"
"I don't know, I'm just talking."
"'Cause you know, you could probably do a lot more harm driving a bus around than a train. 'Cause a train's not gonna run off it's rails no matter how you steer it."
"You are a brilliant man."
"But then, on the other hand, a bus might be easier to drive than a train. Still, it doesn't have the same attraction to me as driving a train."
"That's good, you should never settle for something less."
"Do you think a train has a steering wheel?"
"You should ask the train driver to let you in and have a peek."
"That brings us back to square one. I don't think that's possible."
"Yes."

More time passes by.

"It should be easy to steal a bus if I really wanted to drive it. Many people have actually succeeded in doing so."
"I think being a career criminal is one door you definitely closed when you got married."
"Yeah, I guess so."

Some more time passes by

"I don't think I would want to drive a taxi."
"Did you drink a lot before we left?"
"Why would I even want to drive a taxi? I am driving a taxi right now. There's nothing exhilarating about driving a taxi."
"What are you babbling about?"
"Where are we going anyways?"
"The John Harvard's brewery."
"Yeah, that's right, I just missed the turn."
"You are not a very good taxi driver."
"I am pretty sure I would be a good train driver though."
"Lets stop talking now."

From sweaters to cars

Woman sits in her house trying to decide on a Christmas present for her husband. She shops on her laptop, looking at, hell, a lot of stuff mostly crappy, stuff I wouldn't be seen dead in a ditch with like sweaters and golf clubs. Fuck golf. But she can't make up her mind. Poor procrastinating woman, always putting things off right upto the last minute. I think she's the same woman from the Overstock.com commercial. I guess once she's done with the commercial she just banishes Overstock.com from her mind doesn't she? But anyways, I digress. She suddenly sees a Lexus parked outside her window and fucking hell, it suddenly hits her. Why not buy a Lexus for the boy? 'Cause, y'know, it follows that after setting a Christmas budget for sweaters and golf clubs, what could be more rational than jacking it up to include a $ 35,000 car instead?

Give me a fucking break.

John Spencer died

John Spencer died this weekend. John Spencer, formerly of LA Law and currently of The West Wing (but formerly for John Spencer himself, since he's dead), was an actor I was a fan of ever since my obsession with LA Law back in my days in the mother country.

I was watching last week's taped episode of The West Wing this weekend, in which they were thinking of firing Bradley Whitford and giving his job of managing Jimmy Smits' presidential campaign to John Spencer, and I was like, fuck guys, he's gonna die next week, don't give him Bradley Whitford's job, and they were like, hell Bradley ain't doing such a good job, and like, John Spencer's the best in the business, and I was like, man, don't you people understand, he's not gonna be there to manage Jimmy Smits' campaign 'cause he's gonna be dead, don't do that, trust me, but Jesus, the stupid congressman from Illinois just had a bee in his bonnet about giving John Spencer the job, and he kept pushing for it, and I was jumping up and down in front of the television set going, you fools, you'll have to change your entire fucking script if you give him the job 'cause I'm telling you I'm speaking from the future and I'm telling you he's dead.

But then, John Spencer, who I think had a premonition about his impending demise, looked Jimmy Smits in the eye with the kind of cynical, jaded emotionally exhausted expression he always carried around with him and said, "No, I think Bradley's gonna be doing a great job, so lets not fire him", and it was then that I stopped jumping around the room in excitement and calmed down enough to realize how much of a dork I am.

But John Spencer is dead, and I'm sad, because I knew him for 8 years and he was a really good actor.

Rest in peace, John Spencer.

Indian buffets

Most Indian restaurants in the US offer Indian buffet lunches in the afternoon where you can eat as much as you want as long as you do it within the premises of the establishment. The buffet is exactly similar to buffet lunches or dinners in India, with one difference which is key to the point I am about to make here. In India, the process of eating at a buffet is as follows. You take an empty dish, fill it with food, consume all the food, then go back to the buffet and refill the same dish with food and repeat till you feel you have had your money's worth. Or till your stomach is full, whichever has a higher priority in your mental outlook.

In the US, things are slightly different. You take an empty dish, fill it with food. Then, when you feel the need for obtaining more food, you leave your previous dish at the table, take a fresh dish and then fill it with food. So you may not use the same dish to get a refill, for whatever reasons. Probably to ensure that regurgitated food does not have a chance to fall off a used dish and contaminate the stash of fresh food.

Now, Indian restaurants here follow two different lines of thinking with respect to bread, most commonly parathas or naans. Many restaurants have a single stash of parathas, which is a part of the buffet, from which everyone has to take whatever they need and come back for more. Restaurants that follow a different line of thinking actually bring freshly made hot parathas to every table. The advantage of this method is that everyone gets fresh parathas since they are made and brought to the table according to it's need. The disadvantage of this method is that the parathas that are not consumed by the people eating at the table get wasted, since they cannot be used by anyone else.

Now my point is this. The second method of distributing parathas, which appears to be less cost efficient to the restaurant owner, is usually followed by more upscale restaurants, while most restaurants stick to the first method. But if you ponder a bit more about the logistics of the entire thing, you realize something very strange. That the second method is actually more cost friendly. And it's due to the following reason. What people do is that they fill their plates with food and add, say one or two parathas, since there is no more space in the plate. And once the paratha is done, then the rest of the food in the plate becomes useless. The person then discards that uneaten food on his plate and goes back to the buffet to get a new plate and refill it with a fresh batch of food and parathas.

In the second method, since the parathas are at the table itself, discarding of food does not happen. Hence, even though some parathas might be wasted, costlier food such as fish or meat is conserved. So, if you really think about it, upscale restaurants are actually saving money on their more expensive food items while wasting money on relatively cheaper parathas. Strange innit? In addition to these direct benefits, there are also the indirect benefits of customers being happy to receive personalized hot parathas, which add to their satisfaction with the service. And this also makes them consume more parathas compared to other dishes, thus basically filling themselves up with flour instead of meat.

That will be one observation to file into the deepest recesses of my brain in case I ever decide to go into the hospitality business.

Eureka

I wasn't reclining in a bathtub. I wasn't even awake. But last night, at about, heck I don't know, let's say 2:00 am, I woke up from deep slumber, expostulating in a language unknown to mankind ( I might have been saying "eureka" in Greek) with a smile on my face. Why did I engage in such bizarre behavior? Because yesterday I had spent an entire day pondering over a problem at work, concluding at the end of the day that it was impossible to solve it and somehow, when I woke up, I knew the answer to it.

I fell asleep not even thinking about the issue. I had banished it from my conscious. Which is why, as I woke up mumbling incoherently at 2:00 am, imagine my surprise when I ascertained that sometime during the night I had solved the problem that had been preying on my mind. And I hadn't even been thinking about it. Somehow during the night, my subconscious, frustrated with my conscious's ineptitute in dealing with the problem, had hijacked the aircraft of my brain, taken over the controls and had steered it to the solution.

And then today, I came back to work and found that fuck, my subconscious was a genius. Not only had it come up with the correct answer, it had probably saved a full day's worth of my time today. It kind of made me wonder if society would be better served by me staying asleep and letting my subconscious work for it's betterment rather than my conscious being in charge and doing jackshit.

Mopeds

This post at Dog Journals reminded me of those cool one-step-above-the-cycle-in-the-vehicular-food-chain mopeds that could be seen, and probably are still seen scurrying about the Indian cityscape in a most industrious manner. I think every family in India has boasted the possession of at least one moped during it's entire lifetime. And why not, in a society of fuel conservation and high gas prices, what could make more sense than a motored vehicle that can magically turn into a bicycle on command once it's fuel runs out.

But one thing the moped isn't famous for is its speed. In fact I remember once I was riding double-seat with a friend on his moped, trying to climb up a hill. It wasn't even a real hill, just an upslope. And then, as we began the climb, a stray dog, a number of which populated the roads and lanes of my city, in fact sometimes outnumbering it's human populace, no doubt, attracted by the sight of an easy target, decided to chase us. The only problem was, and surprisingly, it turned out to be a problem he had to deal with, not us, that the moped just couldn't make it up the hill. And so the chasing dog would miscalculate our speed and wind up ahead of us, where, he would then wait with an expression of utter disgust while we apologetically huffed and puffed up to where he was, where he would again resume his chase, and the cycle would repeat. Finally, he decided we were too pathetic to be preyed upon and left us alone, no doubt, with the mental dissatisfaction of time ill-spent.

But a moped is also unique in that you can pile an extraordinary amount of humanity on it and it will still battle inertia to assume some form of motion. I remember during high school, four of us once piled upon a moped and went for a ride. And the driver, just to be a douchebag, began to swerve it from side to side. And being a douchebag that he was, he miscalculated the swerve, the moped began to wobble and pretty soon we found ourselves sprawled on to the tarmac groaning and bleeding. God that was painful, probably the most painful fall I've ever had in my life. Although the moped itself, apparently untraumatized by the experience, got up, dusted itself and cycled off without us. It was a gutsy son of a bitch.

Mopeds still exist in India. And nothing showcases India's inherent contradictions better than a skinny guy on a moped, holding the handlebar with one hand while speaking on a state-of-the-art cellphone held in the other. 21st century glamor and 19th century guts going hand in hand in apparent technological harmony as does the rest of India. And that, my friends, is what drives this great country.

Taking it slow

Usually my commute to work is a blur. I stay 30 miles away from my place of work and my drive consists mostly of interstate, passing through hills and woods and all that good stuff. But I never see any of that because as I said, it's all a blur to me since I'm doing about 85 mph all the way. My style of driving really leaves me with no time to sit back and enjoy the scenery, but heck, when you are speeding, along with the possibility of death or being pulled over, the adrenaline rush itself is worth it.

But today, after my car suddenly began to give off a strange squeaky sound from the engine, I decided to take it slow. So today I did a nice, comparatively benign 75 mph and took the slow lane all the way. You might say, buddy, what's the fucking difference between 85 and 75 mph? To you, I would say, sir, while 75 mph might merely cause my insurance agent's collar to itch uncontrollably, 85 mph would make him wallow in a fairly deep puddle of his own sweat.

But you know, it was worth it. For all my impatience with things not whizzing by as fast as they should, it afforded me a quiet moment to contemplate and look at things. For example, I never realized that the countryside I passed through looked so incredibly beautiful covered with snow. It was so beautiful it could quite easily make a poet out of anyone. And trees, man do trees, even those barren winter trees improve their appearance with a carpet of snow and icicles of, well, ice clinging to their branches.

And I saw a few houses on the side of the interstate that I had never seen. Nice cozy houses ensconced in the mountainside, deep inside woods, usually invisible from the interstate due to all the tree cover, but now clearly visible because of all the leaves having dropped off in winter. I wonder if these people bought their homes in summer, didn't even realize they live almost on top of an interstate and then come winter, one day they woke up and saw drivers peeking into their bedrooms as they drove by.

But when you are looking at scenery while driving, it's important to steer clear of other drivers who are indulging in it too. When the traffic in front of me suddenly slowed down for some reason, the guy in front of me who was busy gawking at the birds and the bees realized that a bit too late and screamed to a halt in a blur of smoke and fucking stupidity. He just saved a bunch of money on his car insurance even though he didn't switch to Geico.

And then there was another guy in the right lane who, regardless of the road curving to the right, continued on his original trajectory which unfortunately, as I predicted, would be taking him on a crash course into my car. But rather than alerting him to that fact, I just accelerated and drove past quickly. After all, if people want to die, they should be allowed to do it, who am I to dictate my terms on them? All we should do is get out of their way and allow them to perish in peace. And as I passed him, I saw that I had made the correct decision since he was speaking on a cellphone.

You know, when I grow up, I'm gonna be a steamroller operator and then one day I'm gonna just round up everyone who drives and speaks on the cellphone simultaneously, put a gun to their heads, divest them of their cellphones and ... just throw all those phones off a cliff, I guess.

But yeah, so it was a good drive today. Saw scenery, saw someone almost get killed, saw someone almost kill me and reached the workplace on time.

Public service message of the day : Doesn't matter if you do 85 or 75 mph, it takes you the same time to get to work.

Bombay Moon

Beautiful picture taken by Pablo at Spanish in India of the moon in Bombay shining over the Arabian sea. I've never been able to take any pictures in the dark.

Hallowed ground

Anyone fortunate enough to be present on the third floor of my office building yesterday would have been treated to a sight of inordinate hilarity. At 11:35 in the morning, a woman walked out of the office at the far end of the hallway, walked up to the men's room on that floor and walked inside. I am pretty sure she was a woman because she looked like a woman, was dressed like a woman, walked like a woman, giggled like a woman as she hurried back out in a distraught way and blushed like a woman, acknowledging her error. Also, only a woman would be liable to misinterpret the sign clearly proclaiming "Men's Toilet" on the door. By this, I do not mean to label women as a species capable of acts of such foolishness. All I meant is that a woman would be more likely to suspend her belief in the credibility of the printed word, instead, opting to verify it's accuracy through personal experience.

Her unprovoked incursion into the men's room irritated me. For ages, women have preserved the sanctity of their ablution center by keeping it out of bounds for men, only periodically providing tantalizing glimpses of what secrets lie behind those closed doors, when they enter or leave that hallowed ground. And for centuries, men have been taught through rigorous training at their mother's knee, high school peer pressure and movies featuring Johnny Lever that the only fate worse than death for a man is to be caught inside a ladies room. In this context, a woman, on the other hand, blatantly entering the domain of male urino-defecation seemed to me outrageous. I resolved to correct this wrong, wreak vengeance on behalf of all malekind, so to speak. I would grasp this opportunity to peek into the ladies room as my revenge in order to satisfy my curiousity as to what artifacts of mythology lay inside.

Firm in my resolve, I advanced in my quest and planted myself in front of the ladies room door. Placing a palm on the door, I pushed it forward. No squeaks of righteous indignation assaulted my presence. I entered the room. It was small, but comfortable. It contained a sofa, a coffee table, magazines lying on the coffee table, a karaoke machine with huge speakers and a bar. It looked more like an airport lounge than a place meant for discharging human waste. But hold on, this seemed to be just the outer waiting room, There was another door. I walked over to it, curious to see what lay beyond. Strains of music filtered through. Gathering courage, I pushed it forward and plunged inside.

It took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the bright light. Strange as it may seem, the sun was shining in this bizarre land. It was a land of meadows, of bright red flowers and gurgling streams of urine. Birds were twittering and squirrels were running around chasing cheerful wads of multicolored toilet paper that were flying around in the cool fragrant breeze. A little white pony ran out of nowhere and began chewing on a low-hanging soap-on-a-rope dangling from a porcelain tree that stood next to the washbasin made of pure gold.

A number of stalls were scattered about with dulcet music emanating from them. The toilet seats were made of leather, covered in fur and a loving masculine voice would periodically compliment the occupant of the stall on the progress she was making in her endeavours.

All this was a bit too much for me to assimilate. I spun around, grabbed the door and was out of there before you could say feverish imagination. "So that's why women spend so much time in there", I thought to myself. Suddenly it all made sense to me. And then I felt the triumphant glow of being the only man in the world who would ever possess that bit of knowledge.

Digging out

Mother Nature didn't disappoint, it did snow last night into today morning. At 6:30 am today it was a full-on blizzard with wind and snow and vague sounds of things hitting the roof and what-not. We got about 6/7 inches of snow and although it wasn't enough to keep me home all day, it at least gave me the chance to go to work late after making myself a nice big breakfast.

Digging the car out of the snow is fun. It's like a game. The objective of the game is to accomplish the following : To dislodge the car from it's remote location deep inside its snow coccoon and make it travel-ready with the least amount of manual labor and time involved. I have whittled this game down to a science. This is how I do it.

Most people spend a huge amount of time scraping mountains of snow off their car using a snow shovel. That is just foolish and time ill-spent. My technique in doing the same involves wearing a waterproof jacket which covers most of your frontal body area. What you do is the following. You stand on the side of your car with or without an adoring look in your eyes. Then you open your arms wide as if to give your car a massive bear hug. Next, you jump on your car, hugging it passionately, so very very closely as if to invite it to enter your very soul. Then, you slide your entire body along the length of the car, taking along with you all the snow that sits atop it. Repeat it on the other side. Trust me. This will save you at least 5 minutes of shovelling time.

Then, the next thing to do is to shovel the snow in front of and behind the tires and you are all set to go. If that doesn't work, keep shovelling till it does. It usually ceases to be a fun game if it doesn't work after the first shovel.

As expected, the authorities had not bothered to plow the roads after the storm. But they did take some measures. What they did was station police cars at the entry to the highway so that no one could get onto it. No, really, that's what they did. Instead of assigning plowtrucks to clear the highway, they assigned cop cars to shut down the highway. Now that's called innovative thinking.

Friday photos

The "High Peaks" region in the Adirondacks. The Adirondacks are a huge area of wilderness in upstate New York. Great spot for hiking.



Grain silos in Vermont while returning from the Adirondacks. If Kerala is God's own country, Vermont is where God goes on vacation.

Snow in the offing

So apparently it's going to snow 4-9 inches here beginning tonight and ending tomorrow noon. This will be the first snow of the season. Well, to be accurate, we already had a couple of inches of snow earlier this week, but that was mere nipple-tickling foreplay compared to the humongous ejaculatory deluge of snow we are expected to receive tonight. Hopefully I might find it impossible to dig my car out in the morning, thus not having to show my face at work tomorrow.

Since I have lived in the ice-ridden bitterly cold New Hampshire tundra for a couple of years, frequently, I find myself feeling a bit of condescension towards the citizens of Pennsylvania who are, to me, a species that have not quite adapted to snow as well as I have. For example, when you know it's going to snow heavily, the typical New England snow connoisseur lifts his windshield wipers so that they stay above the windshield. Why do they do it? Who the fuck knows? All I know is in New Hampshire, everybody used to do it. So I know it has to be done, and so, I do it too. It's my own private piece of elitism. And then when I see people here with their wipers clinging to their windshields during a snow storm, ah you poor saps, I say to myself, smiling from the knowledge of being wiser than the common man.

Also, clearing roadways after a snowstorm is a concept alien to Pennsylvanian mentalities. I remember in New Hampshire, even during the snowstorm, snow plowing trucks used to patrol the highways continuously, and once the snowstorm was over, life returned to normal within a matter of minutes. In Pennsylvania, they have a slightly different world view. Snow plowing trucks only appear once most of the snow has already been melted due to the intense heat generated by cars that skidded into each other and the highway median and then exploded in balls of flame. Although that is a decent enough snow-plowing technique in theory, it leads to a lot of irritating traffic jams in practice.

But my wisdom in dealing with snow has come from bitter experience. The first time I experienced snow was when I was a graduate student in the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. I woke up, noticed something was amiss outside, opened the door and saw white shit over everything. So to celebrate, I did the only possible thing any male does when confronted with something inexplicably wonderful. I borrowed a friend's car, asked a couple of other friends to pile in and drove around aimlessly.

The friend, whose car I borrowed, was then vacationing in India (curiously, the same friend who almost self-immolated himself). Note that I had no experience of driving in the snow. I did not even possess a license. I did not apply the knowledge I had gained in my Mechanics class in engineering to realize snow might reduce the coefficient of friction between the tires and the road. So I basically took no precautions and drove as usual.

Soon I found myself along with the car and my idiot pals at the bottom of a ditch. It was kind of cool in a way. If you haven't crashed somebody else's car, you should do it at least once during your lifetime. It gives you a sense of utter helplessness when the car suddenly develops a will of its own and insists on driving itself in the very direction you are trying not to go, regardless of your steering wheel acrobatics, and then you brace yourself for the crash, and finally, when you are in the ditch, you actually feel better because the ordeal is over. And through it all, you are saying to yourself "Thank God that wasn't my car".

This crash was a good crash. Good because I didn't really total the car. Secondly, the car was already in such an advanced state of decrepitude that totalling, if anything, might actually have improved it's appearance. The only thing seemingly wrong with the car in it's post-crash appearance was that a pretty sizeable portion of the planet had gotten stuck in the space between it's bonnet and its body. There was an entire ecosystem within that chunk of earth, including a bird's nest without its residents, a couple of squirrels and a hibernating bear. Being the avid environmentalist that I was and still am, I did not harm the ecosystem. I left it alone.

I then called up my friend in India and informed him about the crash. "Is it totalled?" he asked hopefully. No, I replied. I could sense his disappointment through the phone. Ah well, I guess I had failed him. But it would always snow again right? Funnily enough, I never drove his car in snow again. Because even though I wanted to help him total his vehicle, I wasn't sure I would be able to crash it again without inflicting harm on my own person. And when all is said and done, driving into a ditch is no picnic in the park.

Comments enabled

Comments have been enabled on a trial basis. You may say whatever you wish. Invective will be tolerated, encouraged and in some cases, might even be augmented. And to the hate mail writer who criticized me on the lack of comments on my blog, no sir, this is not because of your taunts so feel free not to bathe in the glow of success.

A confession about my medical credentials

I have a confession to make. And here it is. When I posted about plastic surgery and my recommendations of things to refrain from indulging in after it is done and over with, I did so regardless of the fact that I did not possess any medical qualifications to do that. I am not a doctor, a surgeon, a nurse, not even the receptionist lady who asks you to go to the inner waiting room to, well, wait. In fact, I am not a professional in any field, not even the field I am supposed to be a professional in. Also, my website has not been accredited by the American Institute of Plastic Surgery. And I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty that I wouldn't even know if such an institute were to exist or not.

So that being said, I have been informed that my recommendations nevertheless, are still valid and should be implemented in practice. In fact, I now feel quite a bit of pride in having been able to offer highly competent advice on post-operative care for a medical topic as complex as plastic surgery without having had any kind of professional training whatsoever. And they say it takes 7 years to get a medical degree. Hah! Suckers!

I am also thinking of diversifying my pretend medical practice into other areas of expertise, one of which is dog-bites. I am fairly certain of what to do when one gets bitten by a dog. The reason why I am fairly certain is because I was once bitten by a dog and even though it's been quite a while, I can still remember the steps I had to follow to cure that ailment.

Step 1 : Kill the dog with your bare hands. It's ok if you get bitten again. Hey, you've got nothing to lose. You've already been bitten once, so you might as well make a day of it. Getting infected by rabies is like being convicted for murder. You cannot be convicted twice for the same offence.
Step 2 : Wash the wound with some kind of disinfectant.
Step 3 : I do not remember if you need to tie a tourniquet or not. No, that's for snake bites. I'm no expert on snakebites so I won't comment on that.
Step 4 : Rush to the nearest government-run hospital. Take a route you know will be free of stray dogs. After all, you don't want to spread your rabies around in case you have it. After spending two days in the waiting room, get 14 injections in your buttocks. Do not utilize those same syringes to satisfy your cocaine cravings. Purchase different ones. Don't be a cheapskate.
Step 5 : Stay away from all dogs in the future.
Step 6 : After you begin to have nightmares about you having a love affair with Dracula, who curiously seems to possess the face of a dog and culminates in him sinking his teeth into your neck, start seeing a therapist.

So there you are. That is all for now. Hope that helped. Although if you have been recently bitten by a dog, have not yet seeked medical attention and are sitting at your computer reading this in a nonchalant manner, I would advise you to get up, wipe the foam off your mouth that should be in the process of forming there right about now and follow my instructions detailed above. So be gone, dear patient, and be well.

Next up : How to cope with people who mistake humor for expert medical opinion.

Plastic surgery

Yesterday, on Anderson Cooper, CNN was showing a segment on plastic surgery and people who had undergone it. The ones who got it done to improve their looks that is, not the ones who had it to replace a nose bitten off by a stray dog. So they showed a "before" and "after" picture of this woman who had supposedly undergone the operation and you know what, the only difference in her appearance, as far as I could tell was that the "before" picture had her scowling like a truck driver with hemorrhoids, while the "after" picture had her beaming like an 82 year old virgin who just got laid.

In short, the only way plastic surgery helps you is in making you think you look good. 'Cause a self-satisfied smirk can make the ugliest person look somewhat less hideous.

And after the picture parade, CNN had Dr Sanjay Gupta on to ask him about precautions that should be taken after having had plastic surgery. You know, usually I have the utmost respect for fellow desis in the doctoring business, especially those who appear on American television without reminding Americans of Apu, but goddamn, check out his post-surgery rules :

1.> Try not to talk with your face clenched.

How the fuck do you clench your face?

2.> Try not to pull your face down.

Here he enters somewhat weird and creepy territory. The first thing that popped into my mind on seeing this rule was that god-awful scene in Poltergeist where the guy stands in front of the basin mirror and starts picking and pulling his face apart, pieces of which fall into the basin, till he's left with nothing but a bare skull. Scary-ass scene that was.

But since I was dissatisfied with the good doctor's rules, I came up with my own ones on what not to do after having had plastic surgery.

3.> Do not stick pins into your cheeks.
4.> Do not slap yourself repeatedly while wearing heavy workman's gloves.
5.> Do not hammer nails into your face.
6.> Try not to get mauled by a bear. If mauling appears inevitable, take precautions to restrict the mauling to your lower body area.
7.> Try not to fall face down on the floor for no particular reason.
8.> Do not step on a pitchfork, causing it to rise up and wallop you in the face.
9.> Do not jump headfirst into a pit of boiling lava.
10.> Do not attempt a Babushka. A Babushka being that cute Russian ritual where you take a small amount of vodka in a shot glass, set it aflame and pop it into your mouth while it's still on fire. Although I think the Russian version of the ritual involves firearms and striped baggy pants. A friend of mine from college tried out the non-Russian version once, but instead of popping it into his mouth, he threw it all over his face and clothes, turning into a ball of flame which we then had to put out using blankets. So anyways, don't try a Babushka right after plastic surgery. In case trying it out is absolutely essential, do it before surgery so that you get your money's worth.
11.> And finally, try not to smile too broadly, regardless of how pleased you are with your new appearance. Remember, if your smile is too broad, it might meet at the back of your head, causing it to fall off.

Update : Disclaimer.

Update 2 : The following sequence depicts a close approximation of a Babushka gone haywire. This is pretty close to what happened to my friend. Except he didn't belch flames from his mouth, simply because the fiery liquid didn't have a chance to enter his mouth.

Movie version of Shantaram to begin filming

Uh-oh. That gives me a year to finish the book which is lying at this very moment on my coffee-table in an intimidatingly bulky manner. It's my second attempt to finish it, my first attempt having ended miserably with it's return back to the library. This time, I shall prevail.

But Johnny Depp should be awesome in this film. Fuck, I would pay good money to watch anything he does. Wonder which Indian actors will be cast in the film. Should be interesting.

Overpass Graffiti

This bit of graffiti is on the side of an overpass on the Valley Forge - Philadelphia Schuylkill bike trail. Every time I pass this, I keep wondering what the cultural significance of a lizard (or a baby alligator) riding a chicken is, and what CUJO #1 is supposed to convey. Hopefully someday I shall find out.

What no-talent musicians hear when they play

I am a bad guitarist. No, wait, hold on, I USED to be a bad guitarist, like 5 years ago. Now I'm just a terrible terrible guitarist. I can play other stuff too, like pretty average keyboards, somewhat good drums and I've got a voice that is the aural equivalent of a finger in the eye. But as to playing the guitar, I suck in style.

So the other day I retrieved my old guitar that had been stashed away in the closet for a while, and in a fit of nostalgia, took it out and attempted to recreate the no-talent musicianship I knew I possessed. But a reality-check awaited me. Not only could I not figure out which chord is which, I couldn't even remember which fucking fret, when plucked would be the "C" note. And it was then that I realized that musical talent isn't like riding a bike. Once you lose it, you lose it. And also, you can't fall off a musical instrument. Unless, of course, you are playing the drums. Although, the stool you are sitting on technically, isn't a part of the drum set. Or is it? But, anyways, I digress.

Yesterday, I was watching a film about Def Leppard, the hard rock band of the 80s and 90s. Incidentally, the band that first turned me on to metal. And during a break, there was a promotional VH1 commercial which showed a no-talent guitarist just like me, trying to play Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven". The guy was barely able to crawl up the stairway and was hitting every step on the way. He was quite awful. And it was at that moment that I realized, Christ, is that what bad musicians sound like to other people? Is that what I sound like when I play the guitar? No way, man, I sound much better than this. But do I really? Because in theory his technique pretty much mirrored mine. The main principle of that technique being to pluck every note randomly till you find the correct one, then pluck that note, move on to the next one and repeat this sequence of operations.

And then, I realized something very interesting. When you are trying to play a song on your guitar, or anything else, when you hit a bad note, correct it and continue playing, you, the musician, do not actually "hear" the bad note you just played. 'Cause what you hear at that point is the song which is playing in your head, which you are trying to recreate on your guitar. You see what I'm saying? As far as you are concerned, the bad note you just played never happened. So you continue on with your song, safe in the belief that your musical output is of outstanding quality. And when you are done with your abysmal musical performance, you sit there flushed with the success of your recital and wait for audience adulation, which, in most cases, fails to materialize.

Till now, I used to attribute this lack of applause to audience jealousy. No one likes to see someone do well at something they themselves are bad at, right? But now I know, that's not the case. The reason we, bad musicians, fail to get our due is because there is no due to be gotten. We just sound terrible. And we should realize that and move on.