Turn on, tune in, drop out!

Same same but different

2012-01-15T11:27:00.000+05:30

I am a fairly non-violent person. The only people I ever want to harm or, at the very least, maim are the vegetarians – the ‘by choice’ idiots, not the my-God-says-so ones. But after backpacking through Cambodia, I wanted to bludgeon every communist in the world to death. In high school the only thing I made of communism was that all commies had hammers and sickles for hands, ate the same

Boundaries

2011-10-16T10:58:00.000+05:30

To Punjaban. To everything platonic. To Plato. To gin and tonic. To fraud sardarni, Amrita Pritam and Grace Slick. To Jasbir. I've moved. I am no longer a citizen of Chandigarh. A striking impression I leave with is how the people here are like ostriches. They've dug a giant hole in the ground and stuck their heads into it, conveniently assuming that nobody can see them. Only, the hole is

Prostate

2011-09-04T22:48:00.000+05:30

“I have the most terrible problems with my sex life. It all boils down to the fact that I have no sex life. At least not with another person.” - The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole I have not had sex for 2 months and 77 days. When I was a child, I wasn’t allowed to eat chocolates. It was because I suffered from a medical condition called My Mother. At school, all the kids would molest

No soup for you!

2011-07-18T01:49:00.004+05:30

A dinner date is always a pressure test for the man. Will I be getting into her pants tonight? It might look like I’m deeply interested in her story about spending a summer teaching Telugu to a bunch of homeless, dyslexic Chinese kids in Guatemala, but all I’m actually doing is wondering if I’ll be getting into her pants. And what heightens the pressure is that only she knows the answer to that

The thing about holes

2011-06-17T14:28:00.022+05:30

(I’ve been playing Golf for a while now. For those of you who don’t know a lot about it, here’s Golf for dummies.What it is – A joke. Not a sport. Not a game. A joke, and a very bad one at that.What it is not - 500 white people following a black guy take a walk in the park.Objective – To get a dimpled, white ball from a garden in Scotland, across the Dead Sea, into a hole in Yemen in less than a

Postcards from Africa

2011-05-25T22:19:00.024+05:30

I cannot travel without a plan. I’m not anal about it. It’s just that I need to know what I can and what I cannot do when I go to a new place.Like you absolutely cannot carry a camera in public in Japan – hypocritical considering how a camera seems to be the natural appendage of any Japanese tourist – but well, you cannot. It’s frowned upon. (Also, if your toilet seat has a number of buttons and

Williaminder weds Katepreet

2011-05-06T19:24:00.007+05:30

If only Lizzie and family were PunjabiP.S. Please to check out Prince Harry towards the end of the video.

How to woo a Punjabi Girl 101

2011-04-26T12:36:00.011+05:30

I have called its people and parties retarded, its architecture daft and its drivers mental. But Chandigarh really cannot be as fucked up as I make it out to be. Can it? As I leave this city, I try to find a semblance of normalcy here – in its lyrics. I was recently gifted a collection of Punjabi poems by Amrita Pritam. In one of her pieces Main Tenu Fir Milaangi (I will meet you yet again) she

How to fuck up a city 101

2011-01-23T02:19:00.016+05:30

For those who have not been here before (and you lurking Americans, Canadians and Herzegovinians), I have been living, rather trying hard not to commit suicide, in Chandigarh for the last five months. This and the last few blogposts are my way of asking this city to go fuck itself, royally. Chandigarh, I’ve been told on more than one occasion, is a planned city. Will someone with even one-eighth

Recluse Driving

2011-01-16T00:07:00.015+05:30

I don’t know if there are people like me around but I don’t like to drive. The thing is I do not enjoy any sort of multitasking.I think I’m just not capable of driving. It involves just too many things all at once - looking at the road, flipping radio stations (which, by the way, Chandigarh has aplenty – TWO, that play only the latest Punjabi music of Harbhajan Mann, Babbu Mann, Gurdas Mann,

Thongful Intightment

2010-12-27T16:03:00.005+05:30

I have always hated tights, not that I’ve worn them – I just despise the sight of them.The last girl I dated was always in tights – ALWAYS. No denim, no dresses, no skirts, no nothing – just tights. Plain and simple – leggings.Tights. They’re just so very… very… er… tight. So body hugging and so freaking tight. Why are they so clingy? Why do they need to eat up all your space in the nether lands?

Still fearing and loathing in Chandigarh

2010-12-25T11:53:00.009+05:30

(This is the city I see) The only reason I go to parties is to watch people.I love to tell a story. Most of my conversations are punctuated with, ‘You know I met this guy last week…’ If you ever have a conversation with me, you will learn close to nothing of me. However, you will definitely hear of the retards I’ve met in the run up to meeting you.Also, I would have watched you, and would have

Fear and Loathing in Chandigarh

2010-10-17T16:13:00.014+05:30

Towns. Small cities. Tier-II-up-and-coming-metros-whose-‘you will see’-awe-inspiring-awesomeness-will-leave-me-in-awe-by-the-year-2031. Please bugger off.I abhor you.I am not being proud of my big city upbringing. Neither am I being presumptuous. I speak from experience for my work takes me places; small places to be precise. For the past two years, I’ve spent 2-3 months, at a time, living in

What Lonely Planet won't tell you

2010-09-11T16:51:00.039+05:30

There are two ways to travel in a new country - as a tourist or as a backpacker. If you have the luxury of time and little money you backpack. If it's the other way around you're a tourist. Also, in all probability, you're a corporate whore. But I'll leave that for later. I've backpacked a bit and as a backpacker one is predisposed to despising tourists. They're loud, with kids (always plural;

Atom Heart Mother

2010-08-22T12:37:00.001+05:30

I come from a pseudo family – pseudo-Punjabi, pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-classy, pseudo-Madrasi. We’re pseudo and for some unimaginable reason we’re unabashedly proud of it.So say, for example, why do I think we’re pseudo-Punjabi?Of the eighteen and a half in-house residents, a majority cannot speak a coherent sentence in Punjabi without emitting guttural noises that bear a strong resemblance to

Save the tiger na baba

2010-06-11T00:13:00.000+05:30

Save him.Save him so that once in a while, twenty something boys get to be twenty something boys.Excuse the trembling hand. I was not being big wuss in front of big puss. It was just a tad breezy okay. I know the tiger, tiger was burning bright and all. But believe you me, it was breezy ... err... windy okay. Very windy!

Newshance Makars Will Be Vekatad This Blog

2010-05-31T11:58:00.001+05:30

Poster in a Bhopali cafeClick to enlarge lest I Spit On Your GraveAB, to your pulp-art taste I'm sure :P

I don't care that it's 47 degrees C and I have to hold an umbrella. I'm getting married today. So fuck you!

2010-05-30T23:10:00.001+05:30

Who the hell do you think you are?Dearest Hawtt dudie,If you ever see this video, please know that I was very late for work because your entire family's favourite pastime is gallivanting to bhojpuri music on a National Highway in the middle of the day, in the middle of summer. Also, while I was waiting for your highness and HMS* Equestrian Ass to pull over, I could think of but three rational

Us and Them

2010-05-23T13:44:00.001+05:30

I don’t like airplanes. I don’t like being disturbed when I’m asleep.Don’t try to wake me on an airplane.If you are a harebrained airline steward (as opposed to the fictional intelligent one, eh?) who particularly enjoys being at the receiving end of some nimble eye-gouging or clumsy rectal probing, ignore the warning.My shoulder was nudged by a hand that ignored the warning. The hand would soon

Any color you like

2010-04-11T17:28:00.001+05:30

Having finished with her board exams, my cousin (dog molester in the previous pic-post) came visiting last weekend. She believes she is a girl of limited needs. The metric system, having given up trying to measure these limits, believes otherwise. She was armed with a shopping list that had a mind, body, soul and even a twitter account of its own. And not any averagely active twitter account. An

Up for adoption

2010-03-21T14:53:00.000+05:30

The things people do to get clicked and onto a blog.Ok.Clicked. Done.Now will the both of you get off my bed. Now!

Slower, Lamer, Vancouver

2010-03-08T00:38:00.001+05:30

Conspiracy theories. They’re so unbelievably preposterous, one cannot help but find them entertaining.‘Elvis is alive’. No, he isn’t. Elvis has left this and every other building. In case you were wondering, that is actually Vivek Oberoi waggling his crotch in the trailer of Prince, it’s not the King.‘The Wingdings font predicted the fall of the two towers’. How did you not know that? Even

Javan coffee, Bacardi 151 conversations and nothing more

2010-02-12T18:50:00.003+05:30

(If you don't have the patience or don't know me, scroll down to the pics) Characters Karan: The only thing we have in common is the blood in our veins; the antithesis of me – rational, teetotaling, thrifty and responsible Nilo: My soul sister’s sister – only, we have no souls, I traded mine for single malt and she traded hers for a tripod; a Muslim – I’m not a communalist, but this is an

Eats flies and leaves

2010-01-16T09:28:00.001+05:30

Addendum 132 to the 'List of 5 inappropriate things to tell Paraglider'1. No matter how drunk you are, never tell two Dutchmen that 'Belgish' beer tastes better than Dutch beer, especially if one of them is your flight instructor. Also, do not verbalize weird drunk analogies about the beer of a nation epitomizing the true nature of its women. Haywards - strong, unpredictable and can give an

"Hal as in Hull not Hole; Ma-hull not Ma-Hole!"

2009-08-16T20:34:00.000+05:30

1 cocky firang (one-liners below pics) + 1 jaded desi + the taj = guilt free bunk-work day :) "Mumtaz had to have been great in bed!""You are a confused race of people."P.S. When sarcastic firangs give you corny one-liners, you have 4 aces up your sleeve - Mr. Bush (not once, but twice), recession and the Grand Canyon (That now ma firangi dahling is 'Yo-Hole!'; a big hole is what it is!)

17000 Islands - 2 down, 16998 to go

2009-07-26T09:41:00.001+05:30

(Click on the pics to enlarge)The People (Top-L to R: Village Idiot, Village Sentinel, Rice Farmers,Village Chief) The Religion(Last day of the Tribal Funeral Ceremony - Water Buffalo Slaughter)The homes away from home(From L to R - My Tongkonan with the tribes, Hotel room view in Rantepao, Room view from the Batutumonga Bio-Reserve)The Food(From L to R - Standard fare with the villagers, Papiong

Plane stupid

2009-06-14T17:52:00.001+05:30

Substantial airline travel is a work hazard that has plagued my existence for the last ten months. Airplanes have become a third-home of sorts, after my 600 sq foot 1BHK bachelor sty and the Hard Rock Café. (HRC? Why, you ask? ‘Cos there are very few things I’m balefully finicky about. My butter chicken – tender, high on cholesterol, high on guilt; my kaamwaali bais – unrelentingly mute,

Ganga, aghori and the holi cow

2009-03-14T14:20:00.000+05:30

Random rumination.Five days sans mobiles, laptops and routine. An evening with Aghoris, camping with pseudo-hippies (the i-phones gave them away) and rafting with absolute strangers. Uzbeki dopeheads know far more about India than I do or ever will. Haridwar serves the best thandai in the world. One must not judge. I must not stereotype. There are very few pleasures that can beat barbequing on

I'm not a Veggietalian

2009-02-21T15:53:00.001+05:30

What follows is a pseudo-attempt to revive this dead thing of a blog while I wait for yet another DELAYED sign to stop flickering in my face. The attempt is pseudo because all this piece contains is words and absolutely no intelligible sentences. Its just a chronological list of things that I have put my stomach through (or rather things that have been put through my stomach) in the not so

:) All in a week's time...

2008-12-27T10:05:00.000+05:30

Two nights on a private Gulfstream JetTwo nights in a private PalaceHeadbanged to Indian Ocean on-stageHeadbanged to Ensiferum on-stageWeekend play-watching at PrithviGoing homeBeing happy :)Not gloating. Just happy and smiling in a long time now :)

Itta kaiku re bolte miyan?

2008-11-20T19:45:00.000+05:30

The lame, for-the-want-of-time pointed format makes a strong comeback. 5 reasons to visit Hyderabad:1. Here, disguised unemployment seems to be the local solution to global recession. It is perhaps the only Indian city where a single crossroad is manned by 13 traffic policemen in spite of the presence of traffic signals in perfect working condition. The absolute lack of synchrony in their

Bone of contention

2008-11-01T15:46:00.000+05:30