These are my thoughts for thursday

This nigga is back in the hizzouse. Youknowamsayin? That's what gangsta rappers keep asking us. "Youknowamsayin?" even if they haven't said anything yet. For example, Dr Dre, my favorite gangsta rapper of all time, opens his album, "The Chronic", my favorite rap album of all time, with the following lines :

"Hell yeah. Youknowamsayin?"

Yes, I say to the good doctor, you said hell yeah, and there was no way I could have misunderstood your point. See, what gangsta rappers should do is go through at least one full song before taking a break in order to ask the question "youknowamsayin". Kinda like how Ann Coulter pauses AFTER her liberal-bashing speeches to answer questions like, "So Ms Coulter, do you like your babies fried or merely sauted", or "What kinds of condiments do you usually add to your baby sandwich, does bacon merely augment or entirely overwhelm that fresh baby taste?"

Similarly, gangsta rappers should inquire "Youknowamsaying" after they have finished saying something, thus giving their audience an opportunity to reply, no, I did not really understand what you just said but I will now replay the record and listen to it with rapter attention.

But why was I even listening to rap? I was listening to my MP3 player on the train, my car being out of service. She was in the dealership yesterday because lately, the fact that wealth had been piling up in my wallet was kinda bugging me and my conscience reminded me that it was time for its redistribution. So I took her to the dealer for an oil change and left her there, safe in the knowledge that transfer of cash and cows from the bourgeoisie to the proletariat would soon ensue.

So then I took the train to work and back. Philadelphia has an interesting metro rail network, called SEPTA, not that it matters. The basic principle behind its architecture is that in order to travel from point A to point B, which is, say, distance "c", you always have to travel through point D say, at a distance "e" from point A where e = (c + x) miles, where x = distance equivalent to the time it takes you to be late for work. Point D is usually Center City, Philadelphia. So if you want to travel from your home which is in suburb A, to your workplace which is in suburb B, you get to visit the mighty City of Brotherly Love on the way, passing through Mexico in the process.

The very first thing you observe when you enter the city on the R5 regional rail line is a huge glass building standing by itself outside the 30th Street station. The moment you see the building, the first thought that enters your mind is, my, what a humongous penis of a skyscraper. I often wonder why every tall edifice in existence always gets compared to the male member.

When I was in UMass, our university library, called Dubois Library (shown on the left), a pretty gay name for a library, which might have something to do with it, was always compared to a penis. Indian graduate students used to call it "the lawda". I've got to visit the lawda, we used to say when it was time to return our books.

Other things that have been compared to the penis include the Washington memorial, the Eiffel tower and George W. Bush, all of which, excepting the last one have been called so because they suffer from the ignominy of being gargantuan erections of concrete or metal.

The question, therefore is, why aren't similarly human creations of humongous concavity ever compared to the female genitalia? For example, why isn't there anyone who has ever looked at the Pacific Ocean and breathed in wonder, wow, that is one giant vagina. Or how about those tourists who pass the Washington memorial and immediately bestow a look of contempt upon their own crotch in order to shame it out of its lethargy? Would these same people scream, Wooo Hooo here we go, into the vagina, when their car plunges into the Holland tunnel?

But I think I know the reason behind this apparent discrimination between the sexes. See, the vagina is a shy creature, hiding coyly behind not one, not two, but three different pairs of curtains, assuming you are not on the cover of "Shaven" magazine. The penis on the other hand, proudly rears its ugly head aloft in order to be seen and heard by society. The penis craves publicity, the vagina shies away from it. And that is why society tends to project the image of the penis onto anything that even vaguely resembles it while the vagina gets to enjoy a life of relative privacy, away from the public eye.

Good for the vagina, I say.

When in doubt, let the alcohol talk

I think Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers would be a very cute man if he weren't so disgusting looks-wise. Also, he somehow reminds me of Condoleezzaa Rice, assuming she has those two a's at the end which I strongly doubt.

Also, there is but one thing that can be done when all the employees of a company go off to partake of lunch, locking the door behind them and on returning, realize that no one has the key to unlock it. No one except the boss, who has disappeared as well. And that one thing is the playing of wholesome family games in the training room.

Some on the Religious Right might rightfully point out that to play family games with office employees denigrates and endangers the sanctity of a real family. What next, eating together under a single roof? Raising little office children with post-it eyes and staplermouths? Where do we draw the line?

But the games did take place regardless of these very valid hypothetical arguments. The festivities began with a game of minesweeper with me competing against the clock and heckling bystanders. It took me 184 seconds to complete the beginners level. I was followed by an elderly gentleman who shamed me and my ancestral cottage in Goa by accomplishing the same in 27 seconds. He was amply rewarded with the tabling and passage through popular vote of a legislative proposal that seeked to establish that he was, despite his advancing years, good at something other than the mere consumption of oxygen. Yes, we capitalists can be cruel at times.

Other games that subsequently followed were hangman and one that was tentatively called "make fun of the Indian guy". Oh I was so very bad at that one. But then the boss returned and work resumed. On the whole, it was a productive afternoon if you weren't an Indian guy.

Speaking of nothing in particular, I subscribed to emusic.com, this amazing music download service. It is great because you get 40 song downloads a month for only 10 bucks. So it's 25 cents a song which is great because it allows you to set aside some money every month so as to someday save enough to buy that rat poison you saw the other day in the store window and just couldn't stop thinking about because of all the high gas prices.

Emusic.com makes one feel as if he were a bull in a china shop, a bull who wishes he could stuff all that china into the leftist bag slung over his shoulders and take it home with him. But the best part about emusic is that it has loads of Indian classical music. All the greats. And every song, which is basically an entire album, is 25 cents. A fucking bargain. There's all kinds of other hard-to-find shit too, like the Cocteau Twins, Labradford, Sigur Ros, Thievery Corporation and tons of Indie and ethno techno (Karsh Kale, Midival Panditz). Oh and they also have a boatload of Bollywood stuff. Both new and old.

The downside to this service is that they do not have a lot of big record labels signed up. So no mainstream music. But you know what, if you are into mainstream music, you don't deserve it anyways. Boo.

But check it out anyways, even if you are a Lance Bass fan and are wondering if you should let your folks know that you just found out through People magazine that you are gay. Hey, they give you 25 free downloads when you sign up. You could freak out on Himesh Reshammiya, the early years.

Up and away

After spending most of this week wreathed in a miasma of depression (miasma being the word of the week, courtesy this very succinct review of Tom Friedman's "The world is flat"), the morning of today held some promise towards the relaxation of its vise-like grip on my neck. Why depression? Well why not? The nerve-wracking, gut-punching heat. The relentless attack of search engine queries on this blog relating to the dal shortage, reminding one that yes, the world is still reeling from the effects of that catastrophe. Reading sentences like this in a film review : "It is safe to assume that it will take some time for Shyamalan to dry his clothes in the marketplace". The extraordinarily grim prospects of seeing India in the finals of the next FIFA world cup. And finally, the overwhelming, skin-melting, brain-roasting heat.

But as I was driving to work, things seemed to be picking up. But then, abruptly, they began to go downhill again. First, a motorcycle rider sped past me in the fast lane. Ah to own a motorcycle and be young again, I said to myself. Then, another went by, equally fast, this one with tattoos on his bare legs. I couldn't remember the last time I had a tattoo. Oh wait, I did remember. I was a beautiful young transvestite hooker in Greenwich village. Greenwich village doesn't have any transvestite hookers, you say? You haven't seen any you say? Look closer. They're the ones with the tattoos on their legs.

And just as I was settling comfortably inside the familiar groove formed by my self-pitying wallowing, I saw a black cop car whiz by faster than the wind broken by Carl Lewis' flatulence gland. Hallelujah, I prayed, please let him be pursuing the biker. And so he was, my friends, so he was. Soon the road started to contain people pulled over by the cop, namely the biker. But wait a second, what about the other guy, the tattooless one? He appeared to have escaped. In the distance, I could see him fleeing towards the sunset, changing lanes, weaving through traffic, no doubt heaving a sigh of happiness as the beads of relieved perspiration from his forehead drifted past me on the morning breeze. I began to sink into despondency again.

But fate wasn't done with me yet. Armed with wailing sirens and gnashing teeth, another cop car sped by in the fast lane. Could it really be? Could it? Would the other biker be pulled over as well? Wrestling depression to the ground, shoving my foot in her mouth, thereby removing her grip on my neck, I craned it in order to look beyond the next car. The cop certainly appeared to be aiming for relieved biker no.2. And then, he was pulled over. Merry Christmas. Santa had arrived early this year.

It didn't matter if I didn't own a motorcycle or a tattoo. At least I wasn't being pulled over by cops. No matter how many tattoos you have, you still look stupid being pulled over by a cop.

I am ok now. Plus, it's almost friday.

This and that

I just saw that someone from NASA reached this blog after having googled for "dal shortage". It gets me kinda worried because if NASA rocket scientists are clueless on how to tackle this problem, having resorted to googling for a solution, we might as well look forward to changing our lifestyle to one that does not involve consumption of dal, perhaps even taking to cannibalism (no mother, I wasn't just looking for an excuse to eat people).

On the other hand, it might just have been a NASA janitor surfing the web. Maybe NASA should put these janitors to work growing some dal instead of frittering away their time surfing the web. Mmmm fritters. Good bye till march, fritters, I will miss you.

Oh, and my neighbourhood Indian restaurant owner had absolutely no idea of the dal famine currently descending upon the pressure cookers of the world. I told him the breaking news and he was all like "No you lie, you lying liar", and I was like "Man my blogpost on this issue got linked at desipundit and all, where have you been, you should get someone to periodically turn the rock you are living under". And then, just to prove my point, I took out the packet of dal I now keep in my shirt pocket for emergencies, carefully withdrew a handful and threw it in the air. And all the Indian diners leapt up from their tables, and as they clawed around on the floor, trying to grab those precious seeds and stuff 'em inside their pockets, I saw the man turn sheet white, an amazing feat for him because he has a kind of "wheatish complexion", to quote his shaadi.com profile. But sadly, I am not sure if his place will survive the calamity. I hope it does because that place has the best Indian food.

Secondly, I don't know if you've already seen this but Israel will be defended by Captain Birdbrain and his band of yogic-flying superheroes who, coincidentally, I just wrote about a few days ago. That is all. I am sorry if you expected much more.

Thirdly, I have been linked to by the kind people at gilli.in. Thank you for the traffic. I remember when I was in graduate school I was exposed to a lot of gilli this and gilli that in the company of my Tamil friends but I never quite came to know what the word meant. Most of the time it played out in the form of Tamfriend1 saying something to Tamfriend2 and Tamfriend2 with a look of exasperation, saying "gilli" as if to say "c'mon now, how could you even say that". However, I might have been mistaken, it could have been a different but similar sounding word.

Cops

The first thing I saw when I entered the Subway parking lot yesterday was two cop cars parked side by side with cops inside. I slid my car into a parking spot but my windows were open because lately, it's been hot like the fucking desert here and I don't like to turn on the air conditioning because I'm trying to conserve gas which rightfully belongs to all those 5 miles per gallon Hummer owners. Poor things. We all need to chip in and contribute in order to keep those guys operational. America, freedom and bare-breasted justice demands it.

So then I was gonna pull up my windows before getting out of the car because I could see a "Raj for Congress" campaign bus parked nearby and politicians being so free with our money and all, what's to stop them from being similarly free with our cars and wives as well?

But then I realized that the cops were there and man, if Raj managed to get away with my car with those cops watching, he surely deserved to own it and not only that, I would even vote for his carjacking ass. So I left the windows open and went inside the Subway. But just as I was ordering my sandwich, who should enter it, the Subway, not the sandwich, but those same goddamned cops. What the fuck, cops, I said to myself, can't I even trust you to spend some time maintaining law and order and keeping an eye on things without getting hungry?

And after a while, with my anger gradually subsiding, I began to think clearly and realized that with cops around and all, today was obviously not a good day for stealing quarters from the cystic fibrosis fund. So I didn't do it and someone with cystic fibrosis probably owes me one. Furthermore, Raj hadn't taken a fancy to my car. I doubt Raj would have been able to drive stick shift anyways. He seems to have been born and brought up in this country because he is quite good looking and he doesn't give other Indians the evil eye. Plus there is a Peter or Paul in his name, I forget which.

PS : I chose cystic fibrosis because of my hypothesis that there was about one chance in a million that one of my readers would know someone with cystic fibrosis and get offended. However, if there is anyone here who does know someone with cystic fibrosis, please let me know, so I can change it to something more obscure like pellagra or goitre, although I am not sure if there are goitre or pellagra foundations.

Maybe enabling comments was a bad idea

Sometimes I wonder if I did the right thing in enabling comments on this blog. Many times, what happens is, you start to read one of my blog posts, then when you are on the very second line of the post, you see something that you agree with so whole-heartedly that you drop everything right there and begin to craft a comment in your mind.

So while crafting that comment, your brain tunes out and you miss reading the third, fourth, fifth and sixth lines and by God, you shouldn't have missed those lines because those were truly the best ones in the entire post. By the time you are done composing the comment in your mind, checked it for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and inappropriate Nazi references, you have already reached the twentieth line of the post. Since you have missed the last 19 lines of the post, the 21st line suddenly doesn't make any sense. Fuck it, you say, this is such a crappy post. Why am I even reading this blog? And then you delete me from your bloglines subscription list.

That makes me very sad because bloglines subscriptions are like Las Vegas casino dollars. They really have no value outside of the casino but when you are inside, they make you feel like a million bucks worth of real money.

I realize that this might be the very first line you are reading after you tuned out at the second line but please don't remove me from your bloglines subscription.

Some bad news

Hello my fellow Indians from the US, the UK and everywhere else around the world except India. It is never a pleasant experience for anyone to be the purveyor of bad news but today I will regretfully don that mantle for the common good. My friends, listen up and please sit down or stand up depending on whether you are in the habit of suddenly sitting down or standing up when you hear really bad news.

Here is the bad news. India has, or soon will, stop exporting dal to the United States. I hear a collective gasp of horror from myself which drowned out the gasp I am sure simultaneously issued forth from your frozen lips. Yes it is true. India will no longer export any more dal to the US until March 2007. That is about 7 months from now. Sadly I did not hear a gasp of horror from my American audience. In order to elicit that gasp, I will elaborate upon the extraordinary nature of the news I just conveyed.

Imagine, dear American reader, if, someday, suddenly all the cows in America were to disappear, lets say, through alien abduction, along with all the burger buns wrapped around them. Not only that, let us imagine a scenario where ketchup, mustard and french fries were to suffer from a severe shortage due to a late monsoon playing havoc with the ketchup and mustard crops and France, finally having had enough of Bill O'Reilly's hissy-fits, refusing to ship their fries to the US. And finally, imagine if all the chickens in the country were to be afflicted by sinus infections, thus rendering them unsuitable for consumption and fornication. (Note that I purposely didn't say bird flu because I did not want to raise the terror alert level and make you want to go out there and invade China's bird population)

How, pray shuddering American, would you react to such a situation? Yes, that is right, you would be aghast, fearing for the future, wondering how to feed your pets and your family. Because that is the exact equivalent of the perplexing bind the average Indian in the US now finds himself in.

Yes, dal is the Indian's ground beef and chicken cordon bleu, all in one. It is a good source of protein. It is quick to cook, fills the belly and helps you in maintaining a spotless colon. Which is why every Indian will take this news of a dal shortage very seriously.

But all is not lost, friend Indian. It is not time to panic yet. Listen up and stop weeping. Go to your neighbourhood Indian store. It is still selling toor dal, only now it is called "toovar" for some reason, probably something to do with the export ban. The price is higher now, it costs about 4 and a half dollars for a packet small enough to fit comfortably inside your spotless colon, not that I am trying to give you any ideas. I don't know how much it used to cost before but I assume it was much cheaper than that. It is a fact of life that one only begins to notice the price of things after they become pricey. So anyways, my point is, go to your Indian store and snap up all the dal you can find. Oh do not worry about your fellow Indians. They will eat cake.

There is but one problem. Dal Eaters Against Stockpiling and Price Gouging (DEASPG) has ordered all Indian groceries not to dispense more than two bags of dal per person. So by the time you finish reading this and head off to the Indian store, it is imperative that you raise a decent sized Indian family. And then, look for all the Indian stores within a 50 mile radius and make the rounds with each family member going into each store in turn to receive his or her allotted ration of dal. Take a pickup truck. Remember, March is a long way off. In between there is Thanksgiving and turkey stuffed with dal, Christmas with the dalnog and boy, let's not forget the Superbowl dal shots. Halftime this year will be tinged with sadness. There will be rice, but where, oh where will be the dal?

I guess the only solace one can find during this troubling time is in the fact that one's car runs on gasoline and not dal.

Fame

Go here to read about how I achieved fame minus the fortune in a "setting the bar low" kind of way.

In remembrance

Today is a sad day, a day of sorrow, a day of mourning. Today is the day we eulogize the passing of Harry Olivieri, the inventor of the Philadelphia cheesesteak.

Philadelphia is a grand old city. It is chock full of history. History with a big crack down its middle. History that can be viewed in art form and misunderstood. History full of rolling hills and lazy arthritic deer. Black history. White history. But there is only one kind of history in Philadelphia that can be smothered with onions and cheese and devoured to the accompaniment of beer. That is the Philadelphia cheesesteak.

I remember the first time I had a Philadelphia cheesesteak. It was four years ago and I had just arrived in this city, hungry, scared, broke and with a car full of plastic rectangles I had purchased in Walmart and didn't want to throw away when I moved. I had been unemployed for four months and had forgotten what meat looked like. Or cheese.

That is why when the city embraced me with open arms and handed me a big cheesesteak, I did not know what to do with it. I held it against the light and it was beautiful. I sniffed it and it smelt of happiness. I grazed my lips against it and it tasted of sunshine. I placed it on the carpet and knelt in reverence. I kept it on paper and traced its outline. I sang to it. I fixed it a bubble bath and lowered it into the bathtub. It sank to the bottom. That was not a smart thing to do. I went and bought another.

I ate this one. Anyone who's ever eaten a Philly cheesesteak can never have amorous relations with an ordinary sandwich with the same passion again. The combination of thinly sliced ribeye steak, cheese, onions and sometimes mushrooms, depending on whether you are gay or not, on a long roll is something every person on this planet needs to experience at least once during his lifetime.

This is historic Pat's King of Steaks, the place in South Philadelphia where the first ever cheesesteak was invented by Mr Harry Olivieri and his brother, Pat. I once biked 30 miles from Valley Forge to Pat's Steaks and back. It was my pilgrimage, my homage to this extraordinary sandwich that is virtually a food group for most Philadelphians, along with pizza, beer and hookers.

Rest in peace Mr Olivieri. Thinly sliced. Smothered in onions. And drizzled with cheese, of course.

First comment

Someday I hope to achieve such immense blog-popularity that the first comment for every post I publish will unfailingly be a celebratory one from someone relieved to be the first to comment on that post.

But this doesn't mean you need to do that for this post out of pity. I will not accept pity under any circumstances, except when it is tendered in cash form.

The trapdoor

So then we had this intense little storm yesterday which took out the power. The balcony door was open and I was standing outside wearing shorts and my chest. I really wanted to go for a swim but they ask everyone to get out of the pool when it starts to rumble because as we all know, the lightning will always aim at the swimmers first because they are naked.

But standing on a balcony in the rain is just like swimming in the pool without all that urine. Unless, of course, you begin to urinate in which case you might as well be in the pool. But then the wind blew right into the apartment, and trees bent so much that if they were men they would have performed auto-fellatio, and so strong was the blast that from inside the apartment there was a large crack and my wife was pointing towards the ceiling just before she flew out the window and from nowhere, there appeared an opening in the ceiling somewhat akin to the gaping maw of hell, except it was above and not below, and then it disappeared. It was a trapdoor.

Now the question is, what is a trapdoor doing in my ceiling. Perhaps it leads to an attic. You probably think you know where this is going. Could there be a headless body in my attic? A skeleton chained to a chest containing my tax returns? No, I'm not going there. There are more relevant questions that need to be answered. For example, if there is an attic above my ceiling, and if I wasn't informed about its existence, does the space contained within fall under my jurisdiction?

Secondly, is it incumbent upon me to explore it? Would I be a pussy if I chose not to? You know, I would climb up on a chair with a flashlight and lift it up but I have a strong suspicion that Vin Diesel might be waiting in the space above to smash a flailing ball of spikes into my face just as it appears in the gap between trapdoor and ceiling. Vin Diesel likes the darkness. I guess no one here saw the Chronicles of Riddick. Otherwise this joke would have gone over much better.

Now I'm beginning to wonder if there really is a headless body in my attic. Life was so much better without an attic. I hope this apartment doesn't have a basement I know nothing about.

The compulsive conversationalists

I am not a big fan of conversations. If it were up to me, I would communicate exclusively through sign language. For emergencies, I would use whistles, clicks and loud popping sounds.

I try my best to avoid talking to my colleagues. If we are out having lunch, they occasionally crack jokes at my expense by saying, "Goddamn, gawker, stop talking for a second, you are not even letting me get a word in." But most of them, by now, have adjusted to my taciturnity.

All except this guy. Who is also this guy. Some people have a habit of stopping and striking up a conversation with whomever they happen to pass in the hallway, in the parking lot, in the toilet, or heck, just about anywhere. This guy is those people. He is like the ants, who, while running around ever so busily in a line will always stop and exhange friendly banter with every other ant who they happen to encounter in the course of their travels.

State Transport bus drivers in Maharashtra are guilty of the same actions. If they pass each other on the road, there is some obscure governmental regulation which makes it mandatory for them to stop and chat. Maybe they are comparing notes. How many of your passengers threw up today, one probably asks the other. Ah only two, good for you, says the other. Five here. Ok, see you on the return trip. Let that steering wheel fly.

But coming back to this guy, man, he is just too garrulous for my tastes. Doesn't matter if I'm clearly walking towards the men's room, he will accost me and inquire, "Are you going to the men's room?" "Yes", I will reply, "I am going to the men's room and I intend on urinating there". If I'm going to get lunch, he will ask me, "Are you going to the Subway?" And I will say, "Yes, and I intend on urinating there."

The problem is not that he insists on speaking to me but that most of his speech consists entirely of questions. There's a difference between exchanging pleasantries and asking questions. For example, saying something like "Hey man, it's hot outside, we should take off our clothes and jump into the creek" is a pleasantry. It doesn't require the other person to reply. A smile and a nod from him, acknowledging the idea of two men swimming naked in a creek is sufficient to end the conversation on a friendly note.

On the other hand, if one were to ask, "Hey man, will you take off your clothes and accompany me to the creek for a swim" is a question and it confers an obligation on the other person to shed his silence and tender a response on whether he is for or against swimming naked with another man in a creek during office hours. Unless a reply is offered, the conversation is incomplete and will lead to feelings of resentment between the two and quite possibly, a bad work environment.

Questions are thus, not a very good way to make small talk between colleagues. And this guy needs to understand that.

Indians and lines

Indians in the US have a great technique of tackling long lines at food stands. They walk up to the front of the line with their wives and husbands and sons and daughters, all in a group looking way too flabbergasted and point towards the inside of the food stand with a quizzical stare that proclaims ignorance about the purpose of the line and of the food stand.

And the other people standing meekly in line allow these folks to stand there because they feel, hey these are just cute little confused foreigners who need to find out what the line is for and once they find out, they will probably get the hell back in line.

Sadly, they don't. And the cute foreigners continue to stand there in front of the line and then they look at each other with their wrinkled brows and questioning eyes and they giggle self-consciously and ask each other questions in some Indian language till the person serving the food sheds his inhibitions and talks to them and tells them what the line is for. And then this allows them to grab this opening with both hands and before you can say "that's my sausage", they've ordered food, been served, paid the money and left, while everyone else standing legitimately behind them in line is speechless in disbelief at the gall of these bastards including those who are natives of the same country as theirs.

Goddamn, that's enterprise.

The tragic tale of Captain Birdbrain

Recently, through the efforts of a reader who diligently keeps me abreast of all things strange and bizarre, it was brought to my attention that there exists amongst the picturesque cornfields of Iowa, a place known as the Maharishi Vedic City. When I say city, I use it in a very loose sense of the word since it consists primarily of a number of houses built in close proximity.

The purpose behind this city, ostensibly, is to achieve permanent world peace. A noble objective,wouldn't you say, especially in these violent and troubled times. However, you might, and quite understandably, pose the question, in what specific manner would a community of people living in already peaceful rural Iowa hope to affect and reduce the violence occurring in a different part of the world not as liberally endowed with cornfields? Fortunately, in the words of the Maharishi Vedic City website administrator, technology exists that can achieve this goal.

Many scientific studies have shown that when the square root of one percent of a population is practicing the Transcendental Meditation and TM-Sidhi program including Yogic Flying at the same time then accidents, terrorism, drug abuse and other problems are reduced significantly, and increasing positive influences such as improved health, economy, and well-being of the individual and society occur spontaneously.

That was the sound of me screaming for joy. World peace, here I come. So in other words, all that needs for world peace to be achieved is a collection of people, all simultaneously engaged in the transcendental meditation. What's the catch, you say? Well, the catch is, all these meditating people have to belong to that section of society which is usually prone to committing acts of violence. If these people are meditating, they obviously won't be killing anyone, thus achieving peace. Ha ha. Actually, I was just kidding. There is no catch.

But hold on, what is this about yogic flying? The institute purports to teach vedic scholars studying there how to fly. In fact, they have a "Yogic flying hall" in each of their classrooms where students can learn how to defy gravity.

Notice anything strange about the place? Why would a room, where students are expected to routinely hover in mid-air, require "highest quality 6-inch foam mattresses" on the ground? If you're gonna be flying around the joint, wouldn't you expect the walls to be padded? Or the ceiling? In fact, coming right down to it, if you were to be bestowed the gift of flight, why would you partake of it in a closed room in the first place? Wouldn't you prefer to do it outside where the chances of suffering a mid-air collision with your fellow gravity-defiers would be significantly reduced?

Ah, but there's a reason behind it. See, it turns out, yogic flying isn't actually flying as such. As the wiki describes it, "While sitting cross-legged or in a "lotus" position, yogic flyers can move around in a hopping kind of motion." It's yogic hopping, that's what it is.

Yes, you may cancel your ticket to Iowa now. So to summarize, the folks at the Maharishi Vedic Institute believe that if one percent of the population of America were to hop around in the lotus position, such as these good folks who, curiously enough, have allowed their hopping to be captured for posterity, it would reduce the amount of violence currently prevailing in American society. You know, this would be a good time to stop screaming for joy.

But what about all those people who enrolled in this institute to learn how to fly and achieved mastery in hopping instead? Here is an example of one such individual. He was a quiet boy, a fan of comic book superheroes. Each time he returned from watching a Superman movie, he used to stand on his porch, towel tied around his neck, underwear and shorts interchanged, and stare at the sky, wishing with all his heart, oh, but if only he could fly.

And then, he found out about this mystical place in Iowa that could quite possibly help him achieve his dream. He would become a superhero and fight crime. He even came up with a name for his new self. Captain BirdBrain. He sewed himself a costume out of his mother's spandex leotard, the only garment he would be wearing from now on. And then, he flew to Iowa. On a plane. On his way, he couldn't help but chuckle at his co-passengers. Soon he would be cruising outside their windows and they would look at each other with wonderstruck eyes and whisper, "Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's a grown man wearing a leotard. Oh, oh, wait, it's Captain BirdBrain".

But Destiny wasn't prepared to cooperate with him. After spending eleven years, yes eleven, at the Institute trying to develop his aeronatical skills, he finally gave up. He realized that the Maharishi International University had fooled him. So he sued them for "emotional damage" and won.

U.S. District Court jury here ordered two Transcendental Meditation organizations yesterday to pay almost $138,000 to a man who contended said the organizations falsely promised he could learn to fly.

Eventually, although Captain Birdbrain never learnt how to fly, he did become a role model for future generations. Because of his pioneering superhero aspirations, we now know that being a birdbrain can no longer be a legitimate excuse for failing in life. As long as there are people who can be blamed for your own lack of intelligence, there will always be a chance for you to make it big by suing them.

Although I can't help but wonder about all those superheroes out there, graduates of the Maharishi International University, who are hopping around, fighting crime in society, all the while laboring under the mistaken belief that they are actually flying.

The wax phone

My next door colleague has found a new way to rattle my nerves. Yes, he is the same one I am hiding my chewing gum from.

I have this phone that's made out of wax which is lying around on my desk. It is not a real phone obviously because it is made out of wax. It is something one of our customers manufactured using the software my company sells. I keep it on my desk in order to bear a living testament to my relevance in the world. Even though when this phone was made, I was not employed with this company. But it doesn't matter because if it were to be made right now, it would be made using software which I had some hand in developing.

Coming back to the wax phone, my colleague is extremely enamored by it. He often drops by my cubicle and after snatching chewing gum from my rage-filled fingers, he asks me to call someone up using the phone. It's not that he is not aware that the phone lacks any actual connecting powers to the outside world. He feels that the premise of dialing someone on a wax phone is hilarious.

He has begun to make about five trips a day to my cubicle to ask me to call people up on my wax phone. Sometimes he wants pizza and needs to use the phone to order pizza and he wants me to call up the pizza place on my wax phone. Sometimes he wants me to get in touch with some customer having problems with our software and he specifically wants me to use the wax phone. Other times he comes in and wants to talk to me about something and asks me to call him up on the wax phone.

The good thing about stuff made out of wax is that it can be melted and poured onto human skin. Hey don't judge me, you have your fantasies, I have mine.

In the army

Saturday night saw me ordering take-out from the new Indian restaurant in our neighbourhood. It's such a great place that I've been going there every weekend with my wife and the guy has become friendly with me.

So we started talking and after asking me all the usual questions every Indian asks every other Indian he meets here in the US, for example, how long have I been here and whether I'm planning to ever go back and whether I'm gonna have a baby soon and if so, what would I be calling it and if it were to be a girl, he had this baby boy in mind who would be a suitable bridegroom for her and would I be interested and so on and so forth, he suddenly asked me, "Are you in the army?"

I was startled by this question and asked him, "No, why?"

He replied, "Because you always wear a t-shirt."

If you found this exchange a bit perplexing you weren't alone. I too tried to make sense of it as I stood there and failed utterly in coming up with a logical explanation behind his cryptic remark.

Then, I went home and thought about it for a while and now I think I know why he said what he did. See, the fact is, he probably looked at my 3-month-old-rigorously-worked-out-physique and deemed it worthy of being in the armed forces. So he asked me if I worked for the army. But when asked to explain his statement, he was about to tell me that he thought I had a great body, but then realized it would sound pretty gay and Indians, as a rule, are not a very gay-friendly people. So he had to think on his feet and come up with another reason and at that late hour of the night, all he could come up with was the fact that I always wore a t-shirt.

Anyways, that's what I think, if you have any other possible explanations, please feel free to elaborate.

Being ugly is a crime

Here's a new one.

Vijai B. Pandey, 60, filed a lawsuit in Hampden Superior Court last month against friends who tried to arrange a marriage between his son Pranjul K. and their niece. The Pandeys, after spending money on long-distance calls and airfare, found her much too homely.

When the Pandeys saw the bride in New Delhi last August, they were "extremely shocked to find ... she was ugly ... with protruded bad teeth, and couldn't speak English to hold a conversation," Vijai Pandey stated in the lawsuit. The woman's complexion was also cited for the broken engagement.

Pandey's civil complaint against Lallan and wife Kanti Giri of Boyds, Md., seeks $200,000 in damages, and charges them with fraud, conspiracy and violation of civil rights, among other claims resulting in emotional distress.

Ok, so let me get this straight. The guy arranges a marriage between his son and a girl, then sues the girl's family after he visits them and discovers that she does not scale his bar of comeliness. Yeah, I can see how that could make some sense. However, what I can not make any sense of are the charges he is levelling against the girl's family. Fraud I can see, ok so they lied that they had a pretty daughter but conspiracy? Somehow I don't think they conspired to create an ugly daughter. What'd they do, make funny faces during her conception?

"Violation of civil rights"? This one I don't get at all. Unless of course the protrusion of the girl's teeth was so pronounced that they encroached into someone else's personal space. Kind of far-fetched, but to me, the only possible theory.

And finally, emotional distress. You got some nerve, boy. After calling the girl ugly, bad complexioned and buck toothed, you want to sue them for emotional distress? That's priceless, no, really.

And by the way, what happened to the good old fashioned way of exchanging photographs before arranging a meeting? That way you get to sue the photographer as well for conspiring to manufacture non-existent beauty. Some more money in the bank, some more sanity down the drain.

Invention of the week

Tequila shots with hot lime pickle. Try it. More delicious than idli-stuffed burritos, more intoxicating than ten week old rasam.

How not to spend a four-day weekend

The problem with four-day weekends is not the fact that eventually, they have to come to a conclusion, but that the countdown to their demise begins barely hours into their arrival. Like, say, about 9:00 am on saturday morning with sunday, monday and tuesday yet to arrive, you begin to bemoan the fact that you've already lost friday night to exhaustion and that one-fifth of the weekend is already over.

Saturday night is even more traumatic. You are not sure whether to consume alcohol, stay awake and milk saturday night for all it's worth and lose sunday morning or to perform the last rites for Saturday night and begin sunday morning bright and early. You spend most of sunday trying to come up with ideas of how to best spend sunday. By evening you still haven't reached a decision.

Sunday night is the half way point of the weekend. It is the time to look back and mourn the passage of the past couple of days and look ahead and mourn the impending passage of the next couple of days.

Monday is obviously spent in a white-knuckled vigil, waiting for tuesday. And it doesn't help that on tuesday, the final night of the four-day weekend, the weather erupts in thunderstorms and results in a cable outage. Sitting in front of a snowy screen, you try and come to terms with the fact that yet another long weekend has come and gone. In some bizarre way, you are almost relieved that your long protracted anticipation of the end of your holiday is finally over and that you can now revel in that more familiar sensation of waiting for the next weekend to arrive.

But on a different note, it was a great game between Deutschland and Italy. I was gonna be an unbiased observer but then I saw the first two comments left on my previous post and became a rabid Italy supporter.

I am not sure what to make of the fact that "drawing a foul" or "selling a dive" has morphed into a skill to be talked about and praised by commentators. Why should the fact that someone was able to deceive a referee into awarding him a free kick be something to celebrate? It's like calling someone a great boxer 'cause he can get the other guy disqualified by forcing him to punch him in his testicles by jumping up and raising his crotch to glove level . No, the ability to "draw a foul" isn't what makes a great player. So the next time someone tries to fake it, please, dear commentator, point at him and laugh. Call him names. Make him feel bad. But don't put him on a pedestal.

Thank you

Thank you for not letting me know who won the Argentina Germany game. I was taping it on my DVR while I was at work. And no thanks to the DVR which recorded the regular game but didn't record overtime. Is it me or does Germany suck big time? The Argentina Germany game reminded me of my childhood football games when the only strategy involved was in kicking the ball towards the north pole. Or the south pole if you weren't actually playing for the team you thought you were. And the German players were running around as if they had Pink Floyd playing in their headsets. Chilled, relaxed, waiting for someone else to take charge of the ball and frequently it turned out to be the boys in blue. Hello Germany, I know PreOktober Fest is in full swing but c'mon, it's only a few more days and then you can guzzle all the malty goodness you want.

Personally I am rooting for Portugal. I am said to have a Goanese ancestry.