Monday, March 8, 2010

Slower, Lamer, Vancouver

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 Nostradamnhim… erm us… Nostradamnus ‘prophesized’ that. Have you never received the e-mail forward that succinctly captures the brilliance of this scientific theory? If not, you’re lucky. You either have very intelligent friends, very few friends or a mom who cannot use e-mail. It is the most well-researched hypothesis after the Liberated Tiger of non-Tamil Elin (aka LTTE) theory - ‘The reason we have only 1411 tigers left is that there is this one tiger in the woods screwing up… erm around… screwing around for the whole bunch of us. He leaves behind nothing for us to do and quite literally so’.

As I had said, these theories are ridiculous but good fun.

During her weeklong break in Bombay, Nilo (the tripod hugger from the previous post) did precisely three things – slept, messed up my already disorderly house and watched the Winter Olympics telecast. She theorizes (and I now agree) that the Winter Olympics are a hoax. Why?

The Winter Olympics are but a mélange of the most nonsensical human activities in the guise of sport. If you did not know, here is a fun-fact - the Winter Olympics was born as the Canadians were pissed. Not at their own sheer stupidity for choosing French over English as their national language. They were miffed to constantly find themselves languishing at the bottom of the medal’s tally along with Kyrgyzstan and Moldova at the Normal People’s Olympics. Leap year after leap year, the board read Canada - zero Gold, zero Silver, zero Bronze, one Maple Leaf.

So they conveniently invented the Winter Olympics and the motley of absurd sports that are showcased in it. In the interest of time and average attention span of the blog reader, I make but three ludicrous cases in point – Curling, Biathlon and the Skeleton.

Curling - The objective of the game is to slide a granite blob (imaginatively named ‘stone’) on a floor of ice in the hope that it goes somewhere. Where? That has not been established as yet. But someone needs to ensure that the blob has a smooth slide while going anywhere, right? Hence, there is a group of humans who L-I-T-E-R-A-L-L-Y ‘sweeps’ the ice with a broom as the blob slides. Why? So that the blob doesn’t have a rough ride.

Bollocks!

Please watch the video below, with sound (Slow connection? Go have a cuppa, but come back and watch the video). Please do observe two things – how the rabid howling generates sound waves so intense that the blob pushes itself further and watch closely as blonde, bob cut aunty throws her broom in ecstasy at the end of the shot.



I have as much respect for the ‘sport’ as I do for the brides on Rahul Ka Swayamvar. For things to start looking up, you curlers first need to respect yourselves. Rehash the sporting nomenclature - please do not call your sporting instruments ‘brooms’ and ‘stones’. You are not out witch-hunting!

And why are we Indians not participating in this event? There must be at least one stone pelting Shiv Sena boy married to sweeper Gangu bai, right? I’d wager that their offspring is our next and only Olympic medal hope.

Biathlon - As the Canadian Winter Olympic Committee was running out of creative steam while coming up with events, they figured that it would not be completely unethical to ‘borrow’ a few from the Normal People’s Olympics. After long hours of absolutely no reflection, they zeroed in on the triathlon (swimming, cycling and running, in that order). Consequently, the Winter Olympic Triathlon took shape – swimming in a glacier followed by cycling and running on ice.

However, after thirty nine athletes succumbed to hypothermia during the ‘swimming in the glacier’ phase of the first ever Winter Triathlon in 1924, the sport was replaced by the less arduous and more bizarre biathlon – an amalgamation of cross country skiing and rifle shooting. Why? But why? At least the Normal Olympics’ triathlon can be thought of as a training ground for prisoners contemplating an escape from Alcatraz or Guantanamo. What conceivable human purpose can the biathlon serve? Competing athletes can now lug a rifle all the way up to the Arctic Circle and shoot a Polar Bear? Or perhaps, we could have a biathlon chase sequence in the next Bond flick – For Your Ice Only?

Bollocks!

From top (clockwise) - Curling, Bobsled, The Skeleton, Biathlon

The Skeleton – Apart from possessing a single-digit IQ, the dunderheads who are retarded enough to take part in a sport with a name like the Skeleton, are expected to slide down a frozen track, face first, on a sled thinner than an anorexic cockroach. The objective of the sport, which has its humble beginnings as a genocidal experiment in Nazi Concentration Camps, is to see how long you can hang on for dear life. If you come out alive, you win!

The same icy-track used for the Skeleton is also used for a sport called Bobsled. Watch the video below.



However, the critical difference between the two is that with the Bobsled at least there’s a questionably shaped sled. In the Skeleton there’s no sled; it’s just Bob!

One needs to be monumentally sloshed or a mental Canadian or both to either devise these events or take part in them. But the icing on the cake, the biggest joke of them all is not the Winter Olympics; it’s the Winter Paralympics - Winter Olympics for the paralyzed. What was the Olympic committee thinking? Were they even thinking? This Bob can’t walk on normal ground let alone ice. This Bob most definitely doesn’t need a freaking sled. He needs a wheelchair.

Will you please return the wheelchair to Bob?

Friday, February 12, 2010

Javan coffee, Bacardi 151 conversations and nothing more

(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 important part of the story
QY: Colleague. Part Singaporean, part Chinese, part bitch, completely insane. Has forgotten the existence and use of pronouns.
A few locals
A few non-locals
Me

Act 1
[Scene 1: Saturday, 7 PM. Company paid for Singaporean hotel room with a view that is heavenly and a mini-bar that empty. The floor is littered with peanut shells, miniature alcohol bottles, Nilo and me. Enter QY.]
QY: Are (you) guys drunk?
Nilo: [In earnest] No, we’re Indian. We like free stuff.
QY: [Puts her bag down on the floor. Guinness cans take a peek from within.] The mini-bar is not for free.
Nilo: Well, I’m certainly not paying for it and [poking me] he’s not paying for it, so you do the math Chinky. You have your pocket abacus on you, right? Or did you leave it behind with your pronouns.

[Scene 2: Saturday, 9 PM. KTV – Singapore’s answer to public-humiliation induced suicide – A ‘private’ Karaoke.]
QY: I’ll sing (my) Chinese-song [pronounced in a typically hurried oriental manner – chhainisssong] and you guys can sing (your) Indian song.
Nilo: There is NO such language called Indian.
QY: [Realizes her Eureka moment] Ah ah ah, yes – Hindu song.
Nilo: [At her wit’s end] Abe, kahaan se hai yeh?
Me: God knows. [Enlightened] Or perhaps, the Hindu God knows?

[Scene 3: Saturday, 11 PM. Outside KTV – 7 Mandarin, 5 English, 3 Hindu songs and 4 pitchers Guinness later]
QY: [Swinging her arms wildly] Do (you) guys want to dance?
Me: Karaoke ke baad agar yeh aurat dance bol rahi hai toh DDR (Dance Dance Revolution) hi hoga!
Nilo: Clubbing or karaoke-dancing?
QY: [Confused] To a club.
Me: [Regaining partial sanity] No QY. We’re going back to the hotel. Our flight to Jakarta is at 9:30 in the morning.
Nilo: Pu*sy!!
Me: [Re-losing regained sanity] TAXI!! Where are we going QY?

[Scene 4: Sunday, 9:15 AM. The same hotel room; re-emptied mini-bar.]
[Phone rings. Phone rings again. Phone perseveres, rings again.]
Me: [Groping for the phone] Huhlo!
Voice: Good morning, sir. I’m #@$* from the reception. This is to inform you that check-out would be at noon, sir.
Me: [Miraculously awake] What’s the time now?
#@$*: 9:15, sir.
Me: [Miraculously alive] NILO!! Its 9:15. Get up! We missed our bloody flight.
Nilo: [Without moving a milli-millimeter] It’s ok, mom. We’ll get another one. We have three hours to check-out. Go back to sleep.


Act 2
[Scene 1: Sunday, 4 PM. Karan has dozed off on one of the dingy rexine sofas at the at the Jakarta airport exit. His backpack is lying on the ground. Enter Nilo, me. She stops by the sofa and smacks Karan on the head.]
Karan: [Stirring awake] How can you guys miss an INTERNATIONAL flight? How? I mean, how?
Nilo: If you please, after 8 days we can demonstrate it again.
Karan: My flight arrived at 10:30 AM. I have been waiting for over five hours. Why is this city so humid? What is wrong with the currency here? Why is it so devalued? I will need a truckload of currency to buy a bottle of water here - Ten thousand rupees for a bottle of water. What is wrong with the economy?
Nilo: It’s not Rupees testy. It’s Rupiah. [Looking at me] Is he so annoying even at home?
Me: No, even more.

[Scene 2: Monday, 10 PM. Karan, Nilo and me are sauntering through a flea market.]
Me: [Picks up imitation sunglasses from a stall] Dolce & GabbUna? Hah!
Vendor: [Tries to make an ‘honest-man’ face; fails miserably] Original from China. Good Price. Only nine hundred and fifty thousand Rupiah.
Karan: See! The currency is so bloody f**ked. Nine and a half lakhs for sunglasses.
Me: [Facing the vendor] Too much! [does the Indian fake bargain walk-away]
Vendor: Ok! Ok! You be good man. For you, best price. Fifty thousand Rupiah.
Nilo: [Staring at me in disbelief] Did he just drop the price NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND Rupiah (INR 4500) because he thinks you’re a good man? [Addressing the eager vendor] He’s good, but I’m awesome. How much do I get it for?


Act 3
[Scene 1: Thursday, 6AM. Karan is throwing up into a paper bag in the corner of the train compartment. Nilo and I are looking at a map. A woman in the seat before ours is kneeling on the musallah (prayer mat) performing her morning Namaaz.]
Nilo: [Sneering at Karan] Doesn’t he take motion sickness too literally? You’re not supposed to get it every time you move, you know.
Karan: I can puke in your handbag, you know.
Nilo: [Ignores pukemon; her gaze is fixed on the woman praying] Isn’t it amazing that she is not ready to compromise on her faith even if she’s in a moving train?
Karan: When was the last time you prayed?
Me: Ouch!
Nilo: [Pretends to ignore] Wait. Hold on. Shit! Shit! Shit! We’re on the wrong f**king train.
Me: Huh?!?
Nilo: If she’s facing the right for her Namaaz, the west is on our right; and we’re moving straight ahead, which is the south. We need to go northwards, damn it! Pull the chain. [Panics and walks up to a lady wearing a hijab; enquires in flawless Urdu.] How does one stop the train?
Lady: [No response]
Nilo: [Howling] Largest population of Muslims in the world and not one speaks Urdu. [Switching to her pseudo-Brit roots and accent] How bloody fantastic!
Karan: Try sign language Einstein.

[Scene 2: Friday, 7PM. Restaurant in Cemero Lawang. The characters are in conversation with a German, and an Australian with a local woman in tow.]
Karan: [In a pretentious display of rage] Do you have any idea how badly you Aussies have been treating us Indians down under? There is one Indian murdered ever week because of the color of his skin. He is battered. His wife is brutally raped and kids burnt alive. Is this what you do to foreigners? [Screaming] Tell me, is that what you do?
Aussie: [Expressionless; shrugs shoulders] I’m really sorry for you mate. But, it wasn’t me!

Nilo:
[Attempting to change the topic] Anyways, so tell me. [Looking at the Aussie-Indonesian couple] I’ve heard that women in this part of the world love the white skin. They throw themselves at Caucasians? Is it true?
Indonesian woman: [Going red in the face] Grrrrr..!
German: [Butting in] Yes, it is. Such women are called prostitutes and they charge you a fee for throwing themselves at you. And, at times you get more than your money’s worth. [Staring at the Aussie] Right, mate?

Karan:
[Attempting to change the topic yet again] We’ve all heard that French women are great in bed. What about German women?
German: They’re cold, lousy and more man than most men. The high point of sex with them is probably orgasm when they stick their hand out and yell “Heil Hitler!”

(The remaining scenes have been reserved for beer conversations)

Pics from the backpack. Any pic that is remotely brilliant is Nilo's work; anything fuzzy is mine. Click to enlarge. Blame pixelation on Microsoft Paint.


We climbed

Clockwise from top left (Smoker, flower, gusher, shaker)

We saw

Temples – Buddhist and Hindu; The water palace; Bahasa Ramayana; the Komodo Dragon

We ate

Line-wise from left to right – Fugu sashimi, ox-tail soup, fried abalone; Prawn-mee soup, durian (the smelliest thing in the world), silver fish fry; Martabak, fish and tofu, chicken satay.

We moved

Pretty obvious; in total 14 different modes of transportation had to used be on Java

Etc.

In a random order – Bacardi 151 (observe warning label; it kills); “Zara sa jhoom loon main” on Karaoke; Nilo and her tripod - inseparable; German, prostitute, Australian; Bahasa Rock; Rules are meant to be broken; etc.

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Eats flies and leaves

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 unforeseen kick. Heineken - characterless, bland and at best, its just something cold.

2. Never tell a Jolly Roger tattooed Swiss tennis fan, sans front teeth, that Roger Federer does not fancy women - "Why else would he marry a cow*?" Do not indulge in punning commentary about the movies Roger's wife could star in - Bridget Jones' dairy, Dude where's my cow, The lives of udders!

3. As a flyer is about to take off refrain from being a wise-ass - "Isn't this para-glider like a modern manifestation of an albatross around our necks? Oh sorry, what I meant is... safe flight!"

4. Mother nature 'urgently-called' is not an acceptable reason for me to return to the ground 5 minutes after take-off. "You amateurs do not respect the wind. You did not have to come down!" Exactly how peeing into the wind is sacrosanct, is a topic I chose not to broach; at least not when your life depended on Mr. Wind-Respecter's walky-talky directional directions. With my sense of direction (to call it below-average would be lying and abysmally embarrassing an understatement; if you can guess the probability of a deaf bat trying to find its way out of a box with a bat shaped hole in it, what you have are the chances of me finding my way from HRC to Shiro, sober) discretion this time, undoubtedly, was the better part of valour.

5. I'm bored. Let's play a game. Let's estimate the number of years of your life you've lost watching the weather forecast on TV?

(all photos by the only non-flyer, Popat-bhai. Ironic?)

(Click-on-pic. FYI, as I don't own a glider, I must rent it. And, when I rent a glider, I have no control over color. I did try my best to convince the Dutchmen that looking chic and NOT YELLOW was as aerodynamically critical as weight, chord, height and number of glider cells. To put it mildly, he was not amused - "Spring je eigen kont en sterven!")


Left - Icarus wannabe; Right - Eric von Whothefucken (on ground), Neil van Whathefucken (suspended)


Gliders of a polyester, never flock together [sic]?

* Mirka Bovine-ic

Sunday, August 16, 2009

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

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!)

Sunday, July 26, 2009

17000 Islands - 2 down, 16998 to go

(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 - Chicken cooked in bamboo, Roast Pig - WHOLE!)


The transport
(From L to R - State of my shoes after a 36-hour non-stop hike 3000m above sea level, The poor man's 4 wheel drive alternate in Indonesia, Flying coffins - the bentor/pechak)


The universal language of kids (east or west)
(From L to R - Farmer kids, my colleague Gabi's daughter Yella)


The partners in crime, rhyme and grime
(From Top L - R: Sandi, Yousuf (aka Bob Marley Jr. - is he the same as your London guy Soniya?), Yuan and Daud, my driver)



The reason I hate airline travel
(My justification for being tired, non-reachable and hating airlines)


5 things I will not forget easily

Water buffalo blood splattered across my face
Drinking beer with rickshaw pullers
Singing 'Kuch Kuch Hota Hai' with the locals (FYI - I was tipsy, they were nice)
Participating in a catholic mass with locals singing hymns karaoke-style
Meeting a 28 year old Canadian traveler who has spent the last 10 years just traveling and working all over the world - 34 countries to be precise; she is single; it's a pity she and women like her don't live in Mumbai :)
Nightlife in Jakarta. Mumbai, learn!
Meeting local Indonesians with names like Van Hilmer, Oliver Van de Bleeker, Denise Barhydt (I checked their IDs in disbelief)
Making fire 3000m above sea level
Being thrown into a rice field at the end of this coversation with a local colleague-
"Beatrice: What do you hate about Indonesia the most?
Me: LANGUAGE! NOBODY speaks English and I don't speak a word of Bahasa.
Beatrice: Its not our fault that we were not colonized by the British like you BPO Indians.
Me: Indonesia was colonized by the Dutch. So, how good is your dutch madam?
SPLASH!!"
Realizing that a list of just 5 things I won't forget easily can't exist
With so many Islands left, the Indonesian currency so badly screwed up (a budget traveler's heaven) and such lovely people, deciding to go back once every year. Next trip - the volcano laced island of Flores in December 09 :)


(P.S. The pics are far, far, far better than they seem. Blame the pixelation on the fact that I'm a very bad photo-editor-cutter-paster-softwarer. Mail me if there's any particular one you would like to see. I'd be more than happy to share)

Sunday, June 14, 2009

Plane stupid

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, perennially inodorous, categorically incurious – NOT “itna paisa main itna-ich milenga”; and lastly my Friday night Long Island Ice Teas – not too strong, not too light, just right! Goldicocks is my well-grounded second-middle name. The first being danger of course.)

You know you’re getting more than a lion’s share of airborne suspension when - you exhibit clear signs of Pavlovian conditioning by sticking your arm out vertically and groping for a button every time you feel hungry; you involuntarily dig out your mobile and feel your back pocket for a boarding pass whenever you pass through a doorway; you’re disappointed that your WC ‘twirls rapidly’ versus ‘suck swooshingly’; you expect your boss’ secretary to dance out the minutes of the meeting in synchrony with members of her secretary sisterhood placed at equidistant spots along the aisle that leads up to your workstation; you remember duty-free locations by their geo-coordinates (Bangkok Duty Free - 13° 55' 0" Latitude, 100° 37' 0" Longitude; Singapore Duty Free - 1° 21' 38" Latitude, 103° 54' 33" Longitude; Jakarta Duty Free - -6° 10' 27" Latitude, 106° 49' 45" Longitude) but lose your way while coming home from the airport.

Evident by now, airline travel brings out the worst in me (only second to restraining myself from gagging suburbanite yuppies selectively screeching only the chorus of ‘Roke’ anthems in a voice that is clearly the bastard produce of my hangover headache in coitus with a banshee. “The summer of 69 might have been the best days of your life, but I couldn’t care less that Jimmy quit, Jodi got married and left you a miserable sexually confused virgin.”). However, the said pale in comparison to the effect a few fellow airline travelers have had on my sanity.


Munna Mobile: “Please turn your mobile phones and other electronic devices off” should not be interpreted as “Please engross your pathetic self in jargon laced corporate phone-talk in a last-ditch attempt to impress the 55 year old tone-deaf vestal spinster, seated at the tail end of the craft. We are hired exclusively to put up with the façade that conceals a lonesome man whose wife has taken to chronic lesbianism, son has spent the equivalent of Sierra Leone’s GDP to take up Post-modern Hindi at Yale and daughter has taken leave of her sex. But look on the bright side; you do have your Blackberry with a 6 month won’t-fuck-you-when-you’re-down-and-out warranty! Should I perhaps, in the meantime, warm your seat for you?”


Jesus said to him, “There are fat things which may not fly among all the beasts that are on the earth”
- LEVITICUS 11:2

Protuberesh Motwani: There is a reasoned non-Darwinian rationale behind the Penguin’s inability to fly – the Bible. The Word of God forbids a beast with a well-rounded blubbery tush from flying. “Fatty, do you really want to risk antagonizing the Lord?” If your navel has the gravitational pull potent enough to send a mayfly into orbit around your paunch, completing but a single revolution in its entire lifetime, DRIVE! You are forewarned that your derrière trespassing on my seat will elicit counter-attack strategies like acupuncturesque butt-poking and puerile taunts like “Fatty! Fatty! Boombalatty!”


As a nation, we began by declaring that "all men are created equal." We now practically read it "all men are created equal, except negroes and stewardesses."
- Letter from Abraham Lincoln to Joshua Speed, 1855
P.S. How about tonight? Please, my lil Speedo-dido. I’ll make it quick Speedy.

Wtf! Men? Stewardesses? Bitchin mate! Oh… and btw free the Niggers.
- (unconfirmed anon. paraphrase) Speed to Lincoln, 1855
P.S. Oh Abe, my babe! Only if you come dressed as a stewardess?


Chindi Rani (fraternal twin of Chanda Rani, a household name among pimps): Over a hundred and fifty years since, but we still betray the promise of our forefathers (Well, technically not OUR forefathers. More like, forefathers of the Americans and a few Anglo-Indians). We’ve miserably failed at liberating Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the international skies from the shackles of slavery. One moment you’re using a credit card you stole from a doodhwalla (not to be confused with the Dudewallas of Zoroastrian pedigree who dispense their time and modest intellect inbreeding and formulating hideous caveats against outbreeding lest their dhansak-fed, in-bred Cusrow Baug daughters elope with the butter chicken-fed, ill-bred Hiranandani author) to book a ticket with a base fare lower than Jayalalitha’s sex appeal on a scale of one to a million. The next moment you’re stepping down from a cycle-rickshaw, reasoning with the ground staff that your potli and potlam are perfectly permissible hand baggage and children smaller than either potlam or potli should, in all fairness, be issued only half-tickets. However, as you set your bata appareled foot in the craft, imperial history is rewritten in haste, royal genealogy trees stage an impromptu collapse and you’re transmuted into a regal, familial focal point sprouting branches to intercept the King of Jordan - Hussein, the Queen of England – Elizabeth and the Prince of Gay Pride – Prince.

You demand that the captain prostrates himself along the aisle in an expression of consecrated servitude, the cabin crew break into a well-machinated lawani jig to the sedate in-flight remix of Dil Main Baji Guitar and your fellow passengers kneel before your bainess in inviolable obeisance. Your fiddling potli-baba and potlam-baby are sanctioned uninterrupted what-does-thiiiiiis-button-do cockpit-time while the plane taxies down the runway. The plane takes off at the snap of your fingers. You are Rani! Chindi Rani! The Queen of Cheap Times.


Mrs. Chatrina Pa-Tale: Post a frenetic Friday in the rustic underbelly of the bovine plagued landscape of India (underbelly = anywhere that is not Bombay), the sole scheme of my existence is to get back to Bombay before the Cinderfella within me turns into a grouchy, irritable, ill-tempered pumpkin. While striving to consummate the intended undertaking, I pamper myself with a game of hide and seek – hide from anything human and seek a few prized in-flight winks. However, I forget that the only genetic trait (rabid, unrestrained, loud, violent, unrelenting and intolerantly savage support for the Indian cricket team aside) ingrained in every Indian stem cell is that of the instant conversationalist.

Now, with the advent of low-cost airlines, your standard off-the-shelf long-haul share-your-sob-story-in-twenty-hours railway berthmate has taken shape beside you in seat 3-D with the herculean task of recounting the abridged version of My Whole Life (pun un-unintended) in two odd hours -
Chapter 1: When I was a baby
Chapter 2: Pubehurty
Chapter 3: Then I was his baby
Chapter 3.5: Married cradle-snatching bastard!
Chapter 4: God, no more PMS!
Chapter 5: My Boss’ Dick
Chapter 6: My Boss is a Dick
Chapter 7: My Life’s whole now
Chapter 8: My Life’s a Hole now
Chapter 9: God, no more PMS?
Chapter 10: My Vagina’s Monologue

After many a stillborn attempt at repelling overly chatty armrest sharers - by feigning death/ epilepsy/ orgasm(s)/ sterility, mumbling verses from the Koran, flittering my tongue in a viciously lustful fashion, pretending to be a chauvinist/ feminist/ existentialist/ nihilist/ misogynist/ misandrist/ sadist/ masochist/ sadomasochist – I decided to enroll myself in the uber-exclusive F.L.I.G.H.T. Club (Fuck! Lady, I Give a Hog’s Testicle! Club). Prerogatives of the F.L.I.G.H.T. Club include uninterrupted sleep, unopposed abusing and access to the ‘Repulse button’. When annoyed, a push of this cleverly concealed special access under-seat button deploys a screen that drops down before the assaulter. The screen reads –

“The extremely miffed individual seated alongside you, besides being a blood relative of Bappi-da (paternal), Altaf Raja (maternal), George W. Bush (cerebral) and Batman (conceivable), is an esteemed member of the Elite (official usage obviously pending Mayawati’s approval) F.L.I.G.H.T. Club. The rules for treating members of the club a.k.a. the FLIGHTERS are as follows –

The 1st Rule of FLIGHT CLUB is: You do not talk to a member of FLIGHT CLUB.

The 2nd Rule of FLIGHT CLUB is: You DO NOT talk to a member of FLIGHT CLUB.

The 3rd Rule of FLIGHT CLUB: Someone yells stop, goes limp or taps out, you SHUT UP!

4th Rule: Only two warnings to a flight before you’re thrown off board.

5th Rule: One FLIGHTER at a time.

6th Rule: No gossip, no small talk.

7th Rule: Flights will go on as long as they have to, but if you’re seeing this message you SHUT UP!

And the 8th and final Rule: If this is your first time with a FLIGHTER, you HAVE to SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Violation of any of the above regulations will result in forced airborne deplaning faster than you can say “Look Ma! No wings.”

Saturday, March 14, 2009

Ganga, aghori and the holi cow


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 the banks of the ganga on a full-moon night. I'm a tiny speck in this universe; a tad philosophical, a tad high, very tired. If you ever need to step out from the drudgery that life is, head to Rishikesh. I have never really been at a loss for words before. The world looks the same suspended upside-down. A thirty foot cliff jump into flowing water at five in the morning, amongst other things, leaves one cold. I still am the same speck.