Why, Lord? Why do You do this to me?

One stupid week has hardly ended that another starts up in full earnest.

— Md Hasan Kamal (allegedly)

I won’t spend too much time on this section, suffice it to say that you can refer to the last blog for a recap on what I’m on about. So Obama comes to India. He shakes hands with Ashok Chavan (who is soon kicked the F out off his job as chief minister). He does good business (worth a few billion dollars, I believe). He makes awkward and oh-he’s-so-shy faces while his wife busts a move with some kids. He meets some students, who seem to confuse politeness with fawning over someone. He namedrops Dr Ambedkar. After 40-odd hours of waiting, he mentions “Pakistan” leading to an outbreak of nitwits across India high-fiving each other. Why? I don’t rightly know.

He supposedly makes the sternest statements he has made against Pakistan. It’s gotta be true right? Especially if television news channels have said so. I honestly fail to see how saying, “Terror havens in Pakistan are unacceptable” is at all stern. Never mind sternest. I’ve known pint-sized toddlers to be sterner than that. He then says “I look forward to a day when the UN Security Council includes India” and the gathered MPs clap politely. Meanwhile, the news channels and sadly even papers have gone to town with “Obama supports India as permanent member” and “Obama wants India in UNSC”. The usual shrill gallery of morons on television shriek about what a great day this is for India.

What can I say? Barack Hussein Obama, you are a bloody genius. It is a well established fact that the people who inhabit this country (or the geographical group of kingdoms that it once was) are gullible simpletons. The smart ones pack their bags and head overseas. The smarter ones stick around and outsmart us simpletons (Suresh Kalmadi, take a bow). The British knew this. The Mughals knew this. And the Americans know this extremely well. And so, what better than a goodwill trip, in name at least, to strike up a truckload of deals for the betterment of the American economy?

At this point I feel compelled to ask, “Remember Union Carbide? Remember Bhopal?”. But what’s the point? Measly issues like these and the intrusion of American foreign direct investment into the agriculture and retail industries are best kept tidily swept under a rug or left unheard even as hundreds gather at places like Delhi’s Jantar Mantar to yell about them. I may not be a fan of the Communist Party of India(M). However, kudos and massive respect to people like Abdul Chowdhury, who went and made their views heard in a non-violent manner.

It irks to me go on about this, so I’ll make a quick beeline to the actual point of this post. I was reminded of an episode of My Wife and Kids around three days ago when I went to take a highly pointless and redundant exam. The episode is about the Kyle family taking a trip to the beach, where patriarch Micheal is relaxing on a beach chair, enjoying some time off from his hectic daily life. Suddenly, he spies his son Junior skipping around in a ridiculous manner in an equally ridiculous costume. Which is when he gazes skyward and dolefully asks, “Why, Lord? Why do You do this to me?”.

Maths has been a well-known stumbling block for me in the past and so, I turned up for my exam with all the relevant formulae memorised and set to be implemented. The last thing I wanted was for anything to dislodge even a single formula from the front row of my head. And things went according to plan, right? Why the hell would I be typing out these words if they had? Pay attention. So anyway, I get my passport out, get a clipboard with a confidentiality agreement and start filing it up. There’s a 150-or-so word passage about how you will not reveal anything about the exam to anyone. And you have to write this passage out in your own handwriting. Brilliant. So I’m doing that when I make the mistake of looking up.

When identical twins are toddlers or infants or maybe even children, their folks often dress them up in identical clothing. It’s fun, quirky and in a few cases, perhaps even cute. The only time identical twins dress alike as adults is at some sort of twins carnival, on comedy TV shows and in pornos. Best not to ask for details about the latter because I’m basing it on what I was once told by a tempestuous man, whom I consider a good friend.

And as I look up, I see two guys at the reception desk. One was looking the other way, but they both wore a beige t-shirt with this red whoosh across one shoulder. I figured, hell, maybe they both work at the same place. Who knows? It was only when the guy with his back to me turned around that I realised that the two had the same face. And the same t-shirt. And the same jeans. And this is ridiculous, but they also had the same Reebok Classic shoes. Later on, because of the over-enthusiastic air-conditioning there (I couldn’t feel my fingers after a while), they put on the same damn jacket too.

Hilarity ensued momentarily as one of the invigilators checked the identification details of one member of this diabolical duo and frisked him (for unauthorised materials), and then proceeded to tell the other one that she’d just checked him. She also asked why he was back for another inspection. Call it my fundamentally suspicious nature in top gear or whatever you will, I am convinced that those clowns planned to cheat. But how?

As I was mulling this over, I see a middle-aged gent stumbling into the waiting room, where all these shenanigans were being played out. He wasn’t particularly odd by himself, but wearing a sweater, a jacket and a ballaclava (monkey cap, if you prefer) in Mumbai seemed a little excessive. The temperature was around 27°C at the time. Odd, but not overly so, I reasoned. After being informed that he has to leave his bag in a locker outside, our man informs the invigilator that he will be requiring his medication during the course of the exam. She says okay, leave them with an invigilator and you can take them.

I must admit that I felt a pang of sympathy when I saw the poor guy pulling out strips of tablets from his bag. All those strips together seemed to reflect the colours of the rainbow. Yes, there were that many. He takes off his ballaclava and jacket and I notice that he has another item of clothing on his person — some sort of well-padded back brace that velcroed together around his mid-section. The invigilator looks at him with an utterly gormless and puzzled look. “What is that?” she asks him. “Yeah, I need it,” he says to her. Good answer, I think to myself.

Obviously, it’s a security hazard. For all you or I know, these fellow could’ve been a suicide bomber. A terribly unwell suicide bomber, but a suicide bomber nonetheless. I did feel at that point all that beefed up security during the O’s visit had affected my brain. She notices a zip on the left side of his back brace and asks him to unzip it. Another handful of tablet strips emerge. But he’s not done. There is still another zip on the right side.

Meanwhile, a girl walks towards the reception desk. She was seated right at the back so I presume she was one of the early ones. Good on her. Dressed casually and yet in the sort of today’s-not-a-day-to-chill way that people tend to dress for an exam. Like some idiot shining a laser pointer in your eye, something very very disconcerting elicited a sense of mild distress from my retinae. A bright blue flash of leather, maybe pleather caught my eye and I looked floorward. The familiar three stripes of Adidas confirmed my suspicions. The girl was actually wearing football boots. Well, blades to be precise. Can’t afford a pair of shoes, floaters, sandals or slippers, so I’ll wear football blades? No, it’s not an elitist thing to say.

I didn’t have time to contemplate the possibility that she may have just come from a game or that she may be off to play after the exam, because she was soon on her way back from the reception desk and about to have a run-in with Medicine Man. At this point, I don’t think I could even remember the Pythagoras Theorem. And even if I did remember it, the shenanigans that were about to unfold before me would have surely sent ol’ “x² = y² + z²” to the deep recesses of a pit that stores all the things I’ve forgotten, like checking the BEST timetable for Chirmi.

It unfolded like one of those set-pieces Monsieur Wenger and Señor Fabregas regularly mastermind. Medicine Man unzips the right pocket and moves away from his chair and into the aisle just as Bladesy returns from the desk. Bladesy’s stray right foot lands on Medicine Man’s right foot. He grunts loudly in anguish and twists around, sparking off a mini eruption of even more tablet strips that fly everywhere. In the melee, one of the twins gets pushed and he bumps into the invigilator. While Bladesy and Medicine Man exchange apologies, the incredulous invigilator sees the twin who bumped into her and... I wouldn’t say ‘bellows’; that’s a bit extreme... she screeches in a loud, whiny manner, “How many of you are there?” Needless to say, the twin had no response and neither did his brother who emerged from the toilet area moments later. The invigilator has clearly had enough so she follows up her rhetorical question with a series of questions that are even more rhetorical (if that was humanly possible).

“Don’t you have any sense? How old are you? Who told all of you to come here dressed like this?” Sharp. Searing. Brutal. I think it was safe to assume that she was alluding to them being dressed the same way and not passing judgment on their dress sense. Regardless, I’m sure I saw tears well up in the verbally assaulted twin’s eyes as his brother came to comfort him. I missed the rest of the episode because just then I was asked to go into the CCTV and microphone monitored testing rooms to take my exam.

Right, I thought to myself as I walked past the scene of the crash, as it were and begin jogging my memory. Now standard deviation, I began to recall, is σ = the square root of—... Blank. Goddamnit. God-frickin’-damnit!
Why, Lord? Why do You do this to me?

With apologies to...

... Jishnu Dasgupta, Sid Coutto and Wesley (I’m sorry but I do not know your surname)

There’s no easy way of saying this, so I’d like to preface this post by saying that none of this is meant to be hurtful or malicious, but it is something that needs to be said. So, here goes. They say that the mighty French football team at the 2002 World Cup faltered and fell apart not so much as a result of being crappy. It wasn’t that they did so appallingly because the opposition was mind-blowingly better.

Napoleon didn’t lose out in Waterloo because he was a poor tactician. Goliath wasn’t slain by David because the latter was a champion fighter. The United States didn’t get ripped to shreds in Vietnam because the US Army was a shoddy armed force. The one thing that I can really put my finger on that is common to all these vanquished parties that I mentioned is their complacency, which led to their fall.

Similarly, I honestly believe complacency ruined Friday night for me. Yes, to a large extent, my own complacency did so too. I did take it as a given that a night with x performing at y venue would be a guaranteed awesome night. I got complacent and was ultimately shown up by a decidedly mediocre and — to quote Gautam Gambhir — ‘ordinary’ night.

To digress ever so slightly, I recall an orthodontist of mine in New Delhi over 12 years ago, Dr Vinod Verma (whoo hoo, I’d been killing myself to remember his name) said something that’s still stuck in my head. I was on one of the chairs there getting a tune up on my braces (yes, I did have braces; hence, my wonderfully shaped teeth today) and one of his assistants was working on this boy’s biters, rippers and gnashers. His dad — one of those typical businessman-types, who would probably have given his son a lame looking beige and orange toy car on his birthday instead of a nice red one, because the former cost a rupee less.

He looked disdainfully at the assistant and then at Dr Verma and said, “I don’t want the assistant working on my son. I came to your practice because I thought you would do it.” The assistant walked away a little hurt and after the man left with his son, Dr Verma said, “They think that because they pay a man, they own his soul.” Made sense then. Still does today.

So no, I do not believe that just because I pay a cover charge or a ticket fee that I own the artiste or venue management’s soul. Yet at the same time, I do believe I’m entitled to a certain quality of entertainment and service respectively. Let’s deal with the latter first. Dealing with the franchise that it was and with staff like Wesley (who is among the hardest working and yet, politest waiters I have ever seen), you would have thought that the Mumbai chapter of that rock music-themed restaurant/bar would put up a better show.

Sadly not. Poorly managed seating-standing coupled with insipid food (a far cry from what the food used to be like). Complacency.

But, I didn’t really go to that place for the food or the ambience. I went for the music. One band I’d heard good things about but never seen live really (apart from some semi acoustic show at a rooftop Bandra restaurant). I’d heard nothing but good things about them hitherto. We’ll call them A. Then there was a band I’ve seen live lots of times before and they’ve never failed to please. We’ll call them B. And band C, we’ll call them Pentagram.

A, for some reason I don’t really know, were abysmal. It’s even worse when the band you’re watching think they’re the cat’s whiskers. But really... Honestly, A... go back to the drawing boards. B realised that they’ve been complacently putting up the same routine day-in-day-out. It doesn’t work if the audience doesn’t really give a rat’s ass and would rather get a beer than listen to some childish “sixth grade Michael Moore logic” sociopolitical rants from an act that really ought to know better. That’s some more complacency right there. Change the routine and ditch the clichéd skit you put on every time, B and don’t for God’s sake, make the mistake of imagining yourself to be Rage Against The Machine, because you are not. That still doesn’t forgive the distinctly flat show put on.

Pentagram though, were incredible.

But I couldn’t help thinking that the show overall was a massive waste of time. I complacently believed that it would be as good as always. But then B probably went in with the belief that the crowd would be as receptive as always. Just as A probably believed that everyone was going to love their music as much as the small group of sycophants they deal with (or fans of the previous band they were in), did.

An unsatisfactory night begets an unsatisfactory post.

Prost!!


(sorry)

Bleurgh in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

I was taught at a young age that you should only fill your plate with as much as you can eat. (The phrase “having too much on one’s plate” rings a few bells I’m sure). Always serve yourself a little less rather than a little more; after all, there’s always second helpings, I was told. Made sense. Wasting food is a terrible thing to do.

The scene with putting food into your mouth isn’t very different. It’s quite an obvious one really. I was taught never to stuff too much food into my mouth. What, you may well ask, as I once did, defines “too much food”? If you can’t shut your jaw or chew with your mouth shut, you’ve got too damn much in there. It’s a basic rule of a thumb. Also, even if you do end up stuffing your face, you have to be a man (or if you’re female, then be a lady) about it and attempt to chew. Cover your mouth with your hand if you have to, as you gnash down on the massive slab of pizza or whatever to break it down. Similarly, if you shove smouldering hot food into your mouth, it’s your own damn fault.

Do whatever you have to, but you never spit food back onto your plate. It’s neither done nor acceptable (I believe) in civilised society.

Just a couple of days ago, I was feeling a bit of a dry mouth and throat coming on in the searing heat and popped into a restaurant that I used to frequent (considerably less so in recent times) and ordered a cold glass of watermelon juice to rehydrate myself. I looked around and sitting at a table, a couple of tables away from mine, was this guy whom my brain instantly tagged as a student-type. Spiked hair, beads around his wrist and neck... the usual Mumbai “Pink Floyd and Psy-Trance are rocking, dewwwd” stereotype.

Now, this lad has before him a plate of fried chicken drumsticks. (Interesting aside: I’ve always found chicken drumsticks to be the clumsiest food known to man. They’re awfully messy, awkward, that cartilage gets into your bite and ruins the taste — I used to be a non-vegetarian — and generally, they’re just a pain in the ass.) So, our man attempts to shovel one rather large and wieldy drumstick into his mouth, as his glazed eyes (probably due to a lack of sleep and excess marijuana abuse) follow it into his mouth.

He’s clearly bitten into too large a chunk, bitten off more than he can chew, as it were and it’s evidently quite hot as indicated by his almost spot-on impression of a gorilla in heat. Ptooie! He spits a glob of flesh and bone shards, laced with digestive juices, back onto his plate and throws back a glass of water down his throat gasping and panting. Meanwhile, I swear I saw that flesh and bone glob twitch a little while on his plate, oozing searing hot oil (as indicated by the steam rising from it). A few customers glared at the lad in disgust, while others tutted and some shook their heads. The waiters, for their part, looked on unperturbed and went back to discussing how Waiter A didn’t pay up after betting 50 bucks the previous night, on a team (that lost) in the IPL.

I’d promised myself I wouldn’t lower myself and deign to write about something as trivial as the matter I’m about to delve into. It’s a dumb topic to blog about, I’d told myself and I wasn’t going to write about it. Sadly, I happened to witness this incident and so, here we are.

I couldn’t help but draw parallels between the binge-and-purge display put on by Stereotype Boy and the way celebrity news is digested (or not) by the masses. With the advent of Twitter and its hashtags and whatnot, nearly everyone has now been empowered to chip in with their two cents about anything and everything. The fact that 70-odd percent of tweets (I read this somewhere... I can’t remember where) pertain to people who are ‘famous’ is a reflection of this binge and purge mentality. Can’t get enough of the Cheryl-Cashley Cole saga, Eva Longhoria and her active sex life and other similar tripe about who’s fucking whom and so on and so forth.

And then, purging in the form of tweets, protests etc. in a bid to enlighten the world with their views about how things should be. In the past week — perhaps a shade less — everybody and their uncle has emoted about why an Indian tennis “star” (more on that in a second) should marry a Pakistani cricketer serving a year-long ban. She’ll still represent India, say the soon-to-be-married couple, so what’s the big deal?

I’m getting impatient so I’ll deal with that “star” part first. Sania Mirza is not a tennis star. Read that again if you want. Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Michael Chang, Goran Ivanisevic, Martina Hingis, Ana Ivanovic, Maria Sharapova, Lindsay Davenport and so on are tennis stars. Andre Agassi (so what if he wore a wig and was on coke?), Steffi Graf, Roger Federer, Martina Navratilova and Serena Williams are tennis superstars. Winning a couple of WTA tournaments that most of the big names didn’t take part in, does not a star make. Neither does a world ranking of 24 for a wee while.

Sure, you could turn around and say, “Who the hell are you to say she’s not a star? Have you ever won Wimbledon?” Fair question. And I reply, she hasn’t won Wimbledon either and neither the fuck have you. Winning a Wimbledon Junior Doubles title is good. But that doesn’t make you a star. Winning an Australian Open Mixed Doubles title is also very good, but everything Bhupathi touches in mixed doubles inevitably turns to gold.

Next you’ll say, well, she’s the best Indian women’s player ever. To which I will retort, well, that shows that we suck and need to start improving, not glorifying middle-of-the-roadness as stardom. We’re getting sidetracked here, but the bottomline is... she’s no star. Just a good player.

Anyway, she’s getting hitched. I’m very happy for her and Shoaib Malik. Whether she continues to play tennis or not, whether she changes nationality or not, whether she goes to live in Dubai forever or not is really none of my effing concern or anyone else’s. So she broke off her engagement to someone else, Shoaib allegedly broke off a wedding. Maybe he’s a user of women. Maybe he isn’t. I fail to see why a) it is anyone’s concern but their own and b) why people should invest their time chipping in with their opinion about the issue.

Why the family of the allegedly ‘used and discarded’ first wife should air their grievances on air. Why the geriatric head honcho of a dying party of hooligans (that’s right, I said it) should see fit to pass judgment And why the general public at large should feel it to be their moral responsibility to advise the duo on what they should do.

But that takes me back to the binge and purge theory. When you stuff yourself with so much info and ‘news’ about these people you claim not to care about, but can’t stop gossiping about, you’re bound to end up puking or spitting up at some point. Or maybe one morsel of info that you stuff down your throat is so damn hot that it burns your mouth and you spit it out (spit out that half-digested morsel with your own salival inputs). And what happens then? You end up looking stupid. Not to mention, spitting half-eaten food back onto your plate is pretty damn grotesque.

Dear God, please don’t send me to hell

Having visited four of the major stops on the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque tour, the time has come to take a slight detour. Worry not, there’s plenty more subject matter that Earth 2010 has to offer for numerous more sequels to the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque tetrology or quadrilogy (I’m not 100% on which one is more correct). Anyway, there’s a lot more going on in the world than merely grotesque things like those beautiful little things that happen every so often.

For the more pedantic among you, there can be beauty in the grotesque and yes, I concede that at times, the grotesque can be beautiful, but that’s really not what I’m on about, so pay some bloody attention.

Justice is one such thing of beauty. From the way a little kid smiles when a toy or sweet or something that has been snatched from him, is returned to him and the snatcher duly punished to the relief the real mother of the baby must’ve felt when King Solomon of Bible Land weeded out the impostor mother. I assume you know the story of “Whose baby is this? Let’s cut it in half”. And I’m not just talking about the justice of men, whether that be criminal justice, civil justice, parental justice, street justice etc. etc. etc.

Animal justice is a thing of beauty too. Not a day goes by when the newspapers don’t have something about x number of animals being poached. Not a day goes by when the Internet doesn’t have a new picture of some poor defenceless animal maimed with an arrow or firecracker or something. And not a single day goes by when I don’t hear a dog howl in pain somewhere in the dark dead of the city. Then there’s times when animals are provoked and they retaliate, injuring or killing humans and so they just have to be put down... or to put it as what it is, killed.

Speaking of being killed, let me take this opportunity to make it abundantly clear that I do not revel in the joy of other people’s misfortune. Schadenfreude is not one of those things I consider as my hobbies. I do not wish death upon anyone and nor do I take joy in the death of anyone. I believe in justice, but I am opposed to the death penalty. So, keeping these pointers in mind, you may now read on.

Elephants, apart from seals and beluga whales (among others), are some of the most adorable creatures to have ever live on this planet. And they’re all essentially non-violent creatures until provoked. That seems perfectly rational. (I bet if you sat jabbing and prodding Mahatma Gandhi or Dr Martin Luther King Jr with a sharp object of some kind all day, eventually they’d probably snap and slap you upside the head.) Maybe. Seals, elephants and belugas are subjected to some truly heinous treatment that is dished out by man.

So it brings a smile to my face whenever I see these subjects of the Animal Kingdom get justice. Yesterday, at the Byculla Zoo, some stoned nitwit jumped the fence and entered the elephant enclosure and mosey down towards the pair of jumbos, who were busy eating. Like most creatures, elephants immensely dislike being disturbed or interrupted when they’re eating. But said nitwit decides to ignore the signs saying “Stay Out” and ventures in anyway.

I’m told that around Ganeshotsav (the Ganesh festival), fools often get wasted and in a bid to receive blessings from Lord Ganesh, they think to themselves, “I know! Here’s the next best thing!!”. And they invade elephant enclosures at zoos to go and touch their feet. Now you can only imagine what an elephant would make of this weird guy (or gal) grabbing at his feet. Think of your reaction if a sewer rat was on your foot. You’d kick it the F away, wouldn’t you? Same thing. Accordingly, tens of people are injured or worse trying to force some blessings out of elephants, every year.

Now back to our elephant, who was eating and who I’m reliable informed was 53-year-old Lakshmi, got mad as hell and told her food, “Hold up a second. I’ll be right back.” She charged out and walloped that sucka over the head with her trunk. Kablamis!! Don’t fuck with the eating elephant, son. Sadly, the impact of the blow caused serious head injuries to the man and he succumbed on the way to the hospital. Shame. It would’ve been a lot better if he had lived to tell the tale.

Just like animals that have been branded, probably gather at animal bars to tell each other stories about what they went through during the branding process, this guy with a massive dent in his skull would have people hanging on his every word at country liquor bars as he told them about the elephant that banjaxed his skull. That, unfortunately, was not to be. Talk about heavy-handed treatment (Highly inappropriate, I know).

What really took the cake though, after this whole incident, was the zoo’s vet reassuring me that the elephant was fine. She should be, considering she started a movement of justice for her whole species. All hail this big ol’ four-legged Rosa Parks with a Malcolm X attitude and a trunk. Hey, that just gave me an incredible idea for an eight-part TV drama or at worst, a sitcom.

A Scowl in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

Grotesque is easy to find, anywhere you look. A large man’s sweaty hairy ass-crack hanging out. Overflowing garbage dumps near restaurants. Being 60 and dressing like you were an 18 lady of the night. Makeup on nine-year-olds. iPopularity. And such like. But, we’re talking sports and entertainment. Arguably, the most grotesque of the lot (televised and shown in over 10 countries) is pro-wrestling.

Here’s merely one reason why — Katie Vick. On a show watched by kids all over the world. Yep. But then, WWF/E have always had to resort to gimmickry. I’m by no means suggesting that shit like that Katie Vick thing can be justified. Don’t get me wrong. But gimmicks, yes. All the fireworks, the entrance theme music, the massive screen and the video segments on it. Long and sometimes painfully long storylines. Cars being run over by other cars. People being run over by cars. Affairs of a sexual nature and so on and so forth.

But, I realise they have to resort to the gimmickry. Can you imagine how boring it would be for people to watch two hours of oiled men in spandex just grappling each other. Match after match? Why do you think normal wrestling sucks so much? Pro-wrestling tries to distract viewers from the actual wrestling aspect of it and throws all sorts of other things to keep them interested. Why do you think the “Divas” league in pro-wrestling was set up at all? Because they can really wrestle? Sure. Whatever you say. I’m not talking about actual women wrestlers here, like the ones who go to the Olympics.

Cricket on the other hand, in India at least (so basically 50 per cent of the world’s viewing population), is interesting enough to engage viewers for hours and hours. And this has been the case since long before the cheerleaders, the fireworks, Twenty20 or any of that other stuff entered the fray. Cricket doesn’t need things to be thrown in just to distract spectators. It’s not wrestling. Twenty20 was created as a format to hook newbies and bring them into cricket and not make them dislike the sport more.

Last night, I got a glimpse of just how bad things have become today and got a glimpse into Commissioner Modi’s nefarious scheme to kill cricket altogether. Random music playing at arbitrary intervals including two shocking theme songs (will elaborate at the very end) and a creepy — yes, that’s the best word — version of 7 Nation Army. Explosions going off, cheerleaders and an ass of an announcer yelling at the crowd to make some noise and demanding Mexican Waves every two minutes.

So much hard work just to distract people from the actual cricket on display. Bowlers having to wait till a song was over or till the announcer was done bellowing. The match seemed to revolve around the bullshit that was going on around the stadium. I’ve never ever thought very highly of television advertisements in the middle of cricket matches, but after last night, I will gladly put up with them, because at least I can change the channel. I’d happily eschew the charm and atmosphere of a stadium and watch the match on TV knowing that the dumb ass announcer can’t hurt my eardrums.

I’d miss out on impossibly long lines for refreshments with people shoving each other hard because obviously them getting their food and drinks first and getting in their seats first is the most important thing. I’d miss out on elbows in my face in my attempt to buy an overpriced cup of warm, syrupy and flat Pepsi. I think I’ll manage without that. I’d miss out on all the characters. I’d miss out on seeing people like this group of business yuppies, whose behaviour would probably make Tommy Lee and Nikki Sixx’ drunken antics seem polite. Chirmi was right. “The one thing business schools or B-schools don’t teach and bloody well should, is manners”.

Just in front of those fuckwits was an absolute legend. A skinny bespectacled guy wearing a Kolkata cap and jersey, who was a friend of the B-school boneheads (I think). His jersey bore the number 13 and his name (presumably, unless he stole the jersey)... Anuprit. This guy would get up and start gyrating as fast as he could, limbs akimbo, singing along to Kolkata’s ridiculous theme music — while actually knowing only one line. Good for him, the handicap of not actually knowing 90 per cent of the song didn’t stop him one bit. When his team hit its first six, he began shaking violently as he spasmed in his seat like some sort of localised tornado. I instinctively reached for my phone to call for an ambulance. I’m nice like that. His palms turn into fists with unfurled middle fingers and within the space of 4.3 seconds, he’s flipped off everyone at the stadium. The Man with the Fastest Fingers in the East — Anuprit 13. What a legend.

And then there was the cricket. Sure, it was good in parts. A Krappy Kolkata Kombination snuck past the Decidedly Complacent Deccan Chargers. Good match. I like watching a team snatch a loss from the jaws of victory as much as watching a team snatching victory from the jaws of a loss. This match had both elements. But it kept getting interrupted by the crowning jewels of grotesque that night.

“Too hot too cool, All the king’s men We rule!!! We too hot We too cool, Aamhi Kolkata We rule!!!” Anuprit 13 nearly burst a blood vessel every time excerpts from this Kolkata theme music played, which it did regularly. As for the Chargers’ they had Shaan singing some song that went along the lines of “Tum paan khaaoge, Hum chaar khaayenge.... Tum paad maaroge, Hum do maarenge”. Which roughly translates of course to: You eat one betel leaf, we’ll eat four and you fart once, we’ll do it twice. And these songs kept playing after every wicket, boundary, six, no ball, wide, every time the umpire coughed etc. etc. etc.

Relevance to cricket? None
Distraction from cricket? Total
Grotesque nature of the theme songs? Extreme
How did it make me feel? Scowl-y

A Smile in the Gaudy Age of the Grotesque

There was a television show once — one I greatly enjoyed through its three seasons — called Bo Selecta. It was a sketch show that took its antics to ludicrous levels of stupidity and sometimes, that’s fun. The ‘celebrity masks’ used on the show were pretty damn grotesque and one of the most grotesque ones was the Kelly Osbourne mask (and character too in fact). There was one particular sketch where the Kelly Osbourne character was trying to pimp some show and suddenly takes on this bizarre cockney voice and says something like, “Look kiddies, we got aww yow five’ritz (all your favourites... duh)!!”

I laughed then...

I sure as hell wasn’t laughing last night when IPL “commissioner” Lalit Modi seemed to be saying that at the IPL opening ceremony, considering the “entertainment” in store for ticket-holding suckers. Some sources told me that the Deccan Chargers management organised the opening ceremony. Unconfirmed rumours of course, but regardless, an opening ceremony there most certainly was. And amid the ceremony were “aww yow five’ritz” comprising Lionel Richie, UB40, some stupid parody act called Bjorn Again and the truly Godawful (there really is no other word) Deepika Padukone. *shudder*

Who, it must be asked, would organise a the inauguration of a tournament of Twenty20 — a game that’s meant to be 21st Century fast, loud, brash — and invite the first three clowns to perform? And then think it’s a good idea? What percentage of the audience actually wanted to see Lionel Richie, UB40 and a joke act from Australia pretending to be Swedish? Padukone on the other hand, was just a joke. Spinning around sluggishly to some frankly foolish Bollywood songs and some Black Eyed Peas stuff. And calling Navi Mumbai “Mumbai”. Good one.

(Call that nitpicking if you will, but to me that’s like some punk act I once saw claiming that Leeds was their favourite place in London, England)

The theme of the whole event however, was what baffled me the most. I had heard somewhere that the IPL (or maybe one of the franchises were supporting the UNAIDS programme). The curtains (?) around the stage that were inflated at the start and floated skyward and hung there and acted as a projector screen (I’m not kidding) seemed to resemble a condom cut in half. Then, each of the eight franchises were represented by what looked like large inflatable penises with their logo on them. Finally, the stage was surrounded by these people in what to the best of my understanding resembled chef outfits with a white triangular hat (that looked like a piece of cheese).

Actually a better comparison would be Ku Klux Klan outfits, with that piece of cheese on them. Now one can only assume that these people — going with the analogy — were supposed to represent sperm cells. So you got the penises, the condom and the sperm cells running around everywhere randomly lighting up in all sorts of different colours (with some LED set up). I don’t know what that’s supposed to represent. Maybe a message of how every sperm is special and so you shouldn’t masturbate? Mr Modi, care to clarify?

But as with everything in life, there’s always something positive to every negative and believe me, you’d be real hard-pressed to find anything positive in thousands of grown up men and women pretending to be sperm cells. But, here goes. One particular segment of the silhouette of a drummer on a curtain (that condom from earlier) as he drummed away was rather good. Laser Man was the BOMB!! I love lasers and that performance was some unequivocally mad shit. It’s dawned on me now that it’s pretty rude to call those Nu Klansmen “sperm cells”. I think I’ll call them “little chefs” henceforth.

Lionel Richie came on at the end and performed one song called Lord-knows-what... oh yeah, Dancing on the Ceiling. That’s the one. Now these little chefs were positioned in straight lines from the stage over to the boundary. So if the ground was a cycle tyre, these little chefs formed the spokes. Got it? And they had to do some obscure dance where they were swaying from side-to-side while doing jumping jacks. This, to me, was more than just ill-conceived choreography. I’m doing my best not to underplay the profundity of this.

The cycle spoke thing for me, was a metaphor for life. In life, as those little chefs demonstrated, you are expected (seldom for some, regularly for others) to fall in line and dance to the beat of someone else’s drum. Painful job or relationship perhaps. And sometimes, you’re even expected to do so while dressed foolishly. Painful job that requires you to wear a chicken suit (or a normal suit and tie for that matter). Savvy?

Every now and then somebody comes along, who falls in line, dresses foolishly as told and dances to someone else’s beat... but does it with such a massive grin on his/her face that it really makes you stop complaining about trivialities. Most of the little chefs were just going through the motions, while wondering how many bedsheets they could make from their costumes. A couple of them, whom I dubbed “happy little chefs” were really getting into it, jumping around all over the place. If behaviour or body language was in fact a window to a person’s feelings, their vigorous, energetic and really really happy movements told me that person’s face must be home to a humongous smile.

And suddenly it didn’t seem to matter that they may have been playing sperm cells in a macabre skit also involving a giant condom and eight penises. The little chefs lighting up randomly now seemed quite cool. They had a job to do and were doing it, some with a hell of lot more enthusiasm than others. They were on the world’s stage after all. Their happy jumping jacks took away all the incredulity, irritation and disgust I’d been harbouring until then. Sachin, Warnie, Ganguly, Dhoni, Padukone and Richie all got pretty robust rounds of applause and cheers from the crowd. I saved my loudest applause for the happy little chefs.

Bring on the cricket!

Daily (almost) deadweight disaster

So there I was in my “need to know” pose at a coffee shop I’ve begun frequenting quite regularly since LT’s visit, desperately waiting for a phone call. A doctor was supposed to call me back with a clincher quote that would put the exclamation point, as it were, on my story. Watching people walk by is overrated. So is sitting around twiddling a pen between your fingers. Actually, it wasn’t a total waste. I did see this absolute fool with a jauntily-angled cap on his head, a t-shirt that was at least 10 sizes too big and jeans that were probably slung just above his knees, judging by the fact that the crotch of the jeans nearly touched the ground. I’m sorry, but housing is just a stupid concept.

No, he wasn’t African-American. He was just a local moron, who seemed to be from Bandra (sorry, couldn’t resist it).

So anyway, once I finished shaking my head at the state of today’s youth and the clothes they wear, my eyes that were now in the highest state of alertness, caught sight of a street-dwelling woman carrying her baby. Seemed like a happy enough baby. 10 fingers. 10 toes. Curious eyes darting around like a peregrine falcon on speed. In the middle of a sip of my middling-to-decent shot of espresso, the baby gets pissed off at something and starts crying loudly.

In an effort that looked driven more towards shutting the baby up, rather than pacifying him/her, the mother starts whacking the baby over the head — albeit not as hard as the word “whacking” would imply, but still pretty hard, considering a baby’s soft skull and all that. It made me remember that I’ve always hated being hit on the head, top of the head or back of it. There’s something very very insulting about it and obviously dangerous about it too. My brain’s got a lot of mileage left in it. There’s a lot I plan to do with it. Hands off.

But throughout my life, I’ve seen people wantonly hitting each other over the head. Mark my words, it’s dangerous. Take daftie for instance. You know daftie. The guy who thought he was black a few paragraphs above. I bet that lad was beaten fairly mercilessly over the head as a child. Maybe he still is. Who knows? I just wish I’d taken a photo of his ludicrous appearance.

Another thing that has always freaked me out is the thought or sight of any sort of injury to the eyeballs or the sternum (breastbone). I’m cringing as I write it. Makes me shudder almost as much as the idea of Camilla Parker-Bowles in the nood. Super-Mega-Shudder.

That’s what makes me queasy. What amuses me no end, in retrospect however, is a numb arm. It’s amused me for a while, but I’ve surprisingly never felt the need to articulate my thoughts about that peculiar form of temporary paralysis. Reminds me of a song actually. One that was introduced to me by a fellow who was pretty peculiar, himself. The song’s a lot of fun and it pays homage/mocks the musical style of a number of bands including Rage against the Machine with this particular line, done in their style.

Corporate America makes pencils
For the man with the left hand
They make pencils for the man with the right hand
But what about the man with the numb hand?

Did I mention that the whole song is about falling asleep on one’s arm and it going numb? I meant to. The track is by The Aquabats and is called I fell asleep on my arm. But back to the real issue, waking up to a numb arm is one of the scariest things I’ve ever encountered. You’re in the middle of a bomb-ass dream and out of nowhere, you wake up... a little dazed... incredibly disoriented... and suddenly, you can’t breathe.

Damn straight you can’t breath. There’s this heavy thing on your chest. And worse, you only have one arm! So you use that arm to lift the heavy thing off you. No luck. It’s deadweight. But what the hell happened to your other arm? That’s right. It’s dead and lying across your chest suffocating you. Sweet sweet irony. Being killed by your right arm (right hand would sound better, but a hand is pretty light).

You try to throw your arm off you and once in a while it lands smack! on your nose, causing the involuntary watering of your eyes. Stop for a second. Regain composure. And then you aim to hurl the arm off your face. You succeed! Boo-yah! Except the momentum of the arm flying away, often carries your body off the bed and onto the floor, with a dull thwap!-sort of slapping sound. How appropriate. You just got bitch-slapped by your own stupidity. Well done! That shit is funny as hell in retrospect.

Why is any of this relevant? Because it bloody damn near happened to me again last night. Previous occasions have seen me get a black eye from falling on my alarm clock or the edge of a bedside table. This time though, my consciousness was slowly taking over and I stopped myself on the very edge of the bed. A semi-Matrix semi-Mission Impossible scene was what I had going on there. Go me!

But seriously, numb arms scare me. It’s all fun and games until you sever or damage a nerve or something. And this happens to me almost on a daily basis. Shudder.

S(qu)iddy, s(qu)iddy, s(qu)iddy

I’ve been reporting for over a year and a half now and in that time, I’ve been to a fair few press conferences. Some of them begin on time, the press notes are precise and have all the info and the people addressing them are willing to answer all questions unflinchingly. Unless there’s some product or service to promote, these are usually very rare. Then there are those press conferencesthat start late, because after declaring a start time of 3 pm, the person holding the conference, doesn’t see fit to turn up before 3.40 pm. Said person goes on to evade questions and then promptly declares the conference over at 4 pm.

(I know who I’m talking about, some of you know who I’m talking about. There really is no need to try and be smart and mention the person or go, “He he yeah, I know. So true” in the comments section. If on the other hand, you don’t know who I’m on about and haven’t had the fortune of crossing paths with him, consider him to be merely a hypothetical example. Thanks)

Similarly, people have different motivating factors to go to press conferences. For a bunch of people, it’s the chance to get a story and get questions answered with minimal fuss that does it. For others, it’s a chance to network. For some, it’s a chance for some good ol’ fashioned free food and for another group, it’s a surrogate social life. And for one particular set of chumps, well, I frankly haven’t a clue as to why they go to press conferences at all.

I’m sure you, gentle readers, have watched a rap or hip hop video before. And you must have noticed that behind the rapper is a group of around a dozen bizarrely-dressed (fluorescent suits with matching hats, shades and walking sticks, for instance) half-wits who basically sway with the music. Every now and then, one of them will yell, “Hail Yeah” in a deep as the sea, gravelly-ass voice. That’s only once in a while. For the rest of the time, they’re just standing around taking up space on the stage.

It is exactly like that at politically-oriented press conferences. There are tons of examples, but I’ll only cite two. After the results of the 2009 General Elections were declared, the leaders of the Congress came and sat along a dais to meet the press and share their joy. However, what the group of around 35 (no lie) behind them was doing, I’ll never know. Standing around. Looking into different cameras. Nodding. That’s it. Not even a courtesy “Hail Yeah!” to get the crowd going. Nothing.

Just yesterday, a major union dispute was sorted and as such, the leader of the union saw fit to barge into a room where the media had been assembled to watch the premiere of a new “save water” ad. So, Mr Union Leader walks in to speak to the press accompanied by a glut of clowns, who push their way through an already packed room and just stand at the back doing... well, doing nothing. Just standing. And taking up breathing air and space in that little room that was being fought for by mediapersons gathered there.

And just as with these hip hop or rap shows, nobody there makes any sense. What “Maananiya this” and “Saheb that” have to do with the most obscure things on the planet I will never know. The person may just as well be reciting the lyrics to Snow’s Informer or be yelling “Is... New... York up in the house?” for all I know. My point is that the similarities are numerous and profound. Go see for yourself.

That being said, in case, you felt I was exonerating the role of, or saying “aww poor thing” to mediapersons a paragraph ago, you are mistaken. Mediapersons are usually the biggest clowns in the whole circus. Just like a rap show again, where the crowd is generally, the biggest set of fools. Who’d pay good money to see that nonsense, I ask you? (I kid... I kid... Oi crowds are far stupider) Long story short, despite the delay yesterday, caused by Mr Union, most mediapersons didn’t think it prudent to get on with the whole scheduled conference. Instead, they kept interrupting every two seconds, with that whole my question or query or demand for language of communication is more important.

I kid you not, there was a point where all I could hear was the fishmarket sounds of “Hindi, hindi, hindi” by certain sections that wanted the medium of communication to be Hindi. “Marathi, Marathi, Marathi” by those who wanted it in... obviously... Marathi. And finally, “Siddy, siddy, siddy” by those who couldn’t care less about the language and just wanted to watch the “siddy” that contained the ad. Computer fucking up and not being able to play the actual “siddy” was another fun little delay.

P.S - I must’ve been quite irritated by that whole set of events yesterday, which doesn’t usually happen to me. Not with press conferences anyway. Last night, I dreamt I was a Sentinel (a squiddy, if you will) — an autonomous sentient being on a search humans and destroy humans mission. I usually have fun dreams.

Why so discourteous?

Flatulence, as you know, kids, is the expulsion through the rectum of a mixture of gases that are a byproduct of the digestive process of mammals mainly. The noises commonly associated with flatulence are caused by the vibration of the anal sphincter and occasionally This mixture of gases is known as flatus or informally, as a simple fart. Apparently, someone who farts for a living — a professional farter is called a flatulist. Apparently.

An air-biscuit is another name for flatus, that is far nastier, but a lot funnier too. Air-biscuits are undoubtedly the source of much mirth and hilarity. They’re not, you say? Then how do you explain the fact that the business of whoopee cushions is still booming? Maybe it isn’t. I don’t know for sure. But I do know they’re sold all over the world. I also know that they have remote-controlled devices that can emit the sounds of a flatus symphony... on demand.

I also know something that might be an urban legend but here goes... some weird girl, well known to a few friends of mine, allegedly goes around saying, “Oops! Came out!” every time she drops an air-biscuit, the frequency of which I’m told is alarmingly regular. Could be a flatulist for all we know. Anyway, the comedy value of farts is not something I intend to discuss here.

It’s the timing that I’m more concerned about. Only a couple of hours ago, I attended a meeting of the mayor of Stuttgart and his Mumbai counterpart. I would’ve thought the occasion would bring out the best behaviour from Mumbai’s representatives, who in an ideal world, would want to show their city in the best light. Wake up and smell the moonshine, I later found me saying to myself. When it wasn’t a reporter burping or slurping tea uncomfortably close to my ear, it was a senior councillor unleashing his volley of burps. When that wasn’t the case, it was Mumbai’s mayor who had no idea of what to say or do, leaping at the snacks on offer, almost as if it was the last plate of sandwiches (and some other junk) left in the world.

Then, as the discussion between the Stuttgart mayor and the commissioner of Mumbai (because the mayor of Mumbai had nothing to say) got to the topic of water management, I hear one of the peons — as he walks past me — let out a low, bass-heavy rear blast. I watched on incredulously as he continued walking nonchalantly past the dignitaries. Ok,... that happened, I said to myself as I tried to pay attention to what this dude from Deutschland was talking about.

Then it happened. That final switch. That last thing that told me loud and clear — Citizens of my city have absolutely no regard for manners, courtesy or even appropriate behaviour.

<I had an inkling about this when I first started living in Mumbai in 2005, when I noticed how people could not stop staring... at anything... anyone. A number of people I know have ranted about this staring thing, some have blogged. In fact, I know a few of these starers too.>

Staring, though was the least of my concerns. That final switch was the realisation that people believe it to be their God-given right to have their mobile phones on Ultra Loud mode at the most idiotic times. I’ve known this for a while, but it all came together today. I’ve seen mobiles ringing loudly in hospital wards, theatres during plays, cinema halls, press conferences, college lectures and even at a small meeting with the Nation’s Prime Minister.

The worst offenders are cameramen and photographers, who for some reason live under the belief that vibrate mode has not been invented and such a concept does not even exist. In fact, talking softly is a concept that’s alien to them as well. Aside from a couple of exceptions, most people I know in these categories are the loudest and most obnoxious people alive. To top it all off, they have the most annoying ringtones on the planet. Criminally irritating stuff.

Today’s photographers were no exception. Loud jangly and oppressive ringtones. In the middle of the meeting. What took the cake was that the deputy public relations officer, for whom (on a side note) food is a fulltime occupation, also did not have the sense to keep his phone silent, because sure enough, his phone began ringing loudly, throwing the mayor of Stuttgart off for a moment, in the middle of a sentence.

The deputy PRO merely glances at his phone... in the process, allowing it to ring for a while longer and then as nonchalantly as the farting peon, proceeds to slip the phone back into his pocket, as his eyes track another plate-load of food travelling across the room.

It wouldn’t be right to pass judgment, I know. And I’ve always been taught that being rude to someone rude, isn’t the right way to do things. The fact that I disregard those teachings most of the time is a different story altogether. Telling someone something politely... that serves no purpose. Yelling at them... even worse as you’ll probably get beaten. Ignoring them... hard to do, very hard to do and in a way, it shows that you accept what they’re doing.

So what have we learnt? Nothing.
What changes will we make in the future? None.
Where will all the knowlege you’ve gathered through this post, take you? Nowhere.

And yet, the sheer degree of catharsis from having vented all this, compels me to quote Lt. Aldo Raine who said, “You know somethin’, Utivich? I think this might just be my masterpiece.”

Mockery, insult and humiliation

A while back, not too long ago, on a dusty, hot and grimy day, I recall seeing a Mercedes S-Class at the intersection of two major roads, stuck just like everyone else, in traffic. At the time, I remember thinking to myself what a great leveller traffic was. Motorists from all walks of life — from all demographics, psychographics and econographics — have to spend a few hours a day stuck in grid-lock traffic. Just like everyone else.

It was then that I peered into the lightly tinted windows of the Merc and saw two kids in the backseat with some adult, whom I could only presume was their mother. Outside the tinted window was a little street urchin-beggar type who was probably no older than the two kids in the vehicle. His palm outstretched, he stood at the window asking for alms. The window, to my surprise, rolled down and a hand no bigger than that of the beggar’s appeared, clutching a chocolate bar.

Soon another hand appeared and unwrapped the bar and the kid inside sat there eating the chocolate bar in front of the beggar. The window, it turns out was rolled down merely to tell the beggar to shoo off away from their vehicle.

Why is this random tale of urban decay relevant, you ask? Well, because it’s a metaphor for some of the ugliness that transpired yesterday at the auction before the Indian Premier League’s third season.

Before delving into it. Let’s get a few points out of the way:
1) With the present tension in Indo-Pak ties, especially after the 26/11 attacks and the governments of both nations not seeing eye-to-eye on investigations, perhaps it may be prudent that sporting ties are suspended between both nations.
2) With the IPL, perhaps certain quarters feel that the Indian board paying Pakistanis after their countrymen wreaked havoc in India, verges on the ridiculous and is certainly out of order. Perhaps.
3) Maybe, it’s uncertain how long the Laskhar-e-Tayyaba or any of those other terror groups can wait before they start attacking the holy beejezus out of India again and so, team owners don’t want to risk buying a Pakistani player, who may not be able to get a visa after further attacks.
4) Finally, maybe they just feel that the political climate is unsafe for Pakistanis to play in India, as it may be risky for them. (Yeah right)
None of these points for my argument. I’ve just put these on the table as givens. I will not be debating these.

The first name on the auction block was Pakistani Shahid Afridi, who if we’re being honest, is a bit of a irresponsible cricketer, but is enjoying some of the best form of his life. Major cricket pundits had tipped Afridi as one of the most sought after players in this auction. Not a single bid. “Shahid Afridi is unsold,” announced the auctioneer. Slowly, other Pakistani names came on the auction block and it became clear.

Poker-faced team owners sat and waited for the auctioneer to call time and it became abundantly clear that none of the franchises were going to buy a Pakistani player. By the auction’s end, the question on most people’s lips was, “If you weren’t going to sell them in the first place, why did you include Pakistanis in the list of auctionees?”

Fair question. Owners of all teams tried to deflect the query, stating “availability” or “we didn’t need a bowler” or some other bull-honkey. When cornered, each and every one of them came up with the lame “well, it’s ultimately the captain’s decision and not ours”. Convenient. Meanwhile, and quite understandably, cricketers from Pakistan were fuming at the snub. Can you blame them?

Amid some of the over-the-top hysterics like “the tournament won’t be as good because of the lack of Pakistanis” and “Indian fans will demand their money back because they won’t get to watch quality players”, one point stuck out like a sore thumb. The most obvious one. Why keep them in the list, purely to humiliate them with no bids? If you, Lalit Modi, had the slightest inkling that something like this could happen, shouldn’t you have held a meeting with owners beforehand to spare the Pakistanis this insult?

That’s a foolish query because as is common knowledge, Modi’s only in it to fatten his own wallet — a point I’ve discussed at length in an earlier post. So far, while politics and relations between India and Pakistan were strained, the sight of the two teams on a cricket field often brought a tiny bit of joy to the harrowed citizens of both nations. A good friend of mine was telling me yesterday that sport holds the answer to most world problems. If that is the case, what now? What if they’re scared to send a team to the Commonwealth Games, thinking, “You never know with these Indians, they might stick our team in Delhi’s slums, while the others stay at the official Games Village”?

Will the Pakistani players and sport administration ever trust us again?

The most vicious creature known to man

Biology was always my favourite subject in school. Shame then that I never really pursued it further, but there were reasons and we shall not go into them right here right now. Regardless, I was always fascinated by biology — not so much plants and trees, but animal biology... the zoology stuff.

I believe it was in Class 7 (Seventh Grade, or Year 8 depending on where you’re from) that I was given an assignment to make a presentation about the most vicious creature in the animal kingdom, according to me. Now, half my brain figured the teacher had been watching some TV show all morning and it happened to be called America’s Most Vicious Animal Attacks or something like that and in her infinite wisdom or unabashed lethargy, had decided to turn it into an assignment.

Still it sounded like fun. While all around me, voices emanated about whether a tiger was more vicious than a lion or whether a bear would survive an octopus attack, my mind was trying to establish parameters to decide on viciousness. After all, even a harmless skunk can be quite a vicious little piece of shit, spraying that vile stink-juice like it does. So I asks the teacher. I asks, “Who decides what is vicious and what isn’t?”. She says, “You do”. I says, “Oh”.

There could be a bit more to this assignment that I previously imagined. So I did a bit of research and whittled the list down to 3 strong contendors — a shark, a vulture and a boa constrictor. After an hour or two of deliberation, the jury that sits inside my head decided to vote in favour of the vulture. Circling dying animals and starting the process of picking them clean to the bone, as they’re dying, is about as vicious as it gets. And besides, I figured that a ton of people would go with the shark, on account of its total bad-assery. As for the boa constrictor? Well at the end of the day, the boa constrictor is just a jerk.

Presentation day rolled around and you know how every class has those one or two (or sometimes more) kids who will basically put in the minimum mental effort required and come up with something like “Tiger has claws and sharp-sharp teeth, so he is most vicious. Thank you please.” Yes I’m a bloody elitist, but that doesn’t invalidate my point. So, a bunch of tigers, lions, panthers and even cheetahs (wussies by nature) went by. Then I did the vulture thing. Wasn’t too shabby. Some of the ones that stood out were jellyfish, polar bear and a good friend on mine’s bid to be ironic with a presentation on why the mosquito was the most vicious creature.

It’s only today, well maybe a couple of days ago that I realised that we were all wrong. Every single one of us was dead wrong. Even Will Ferrell was wrong and Gavin Lyall (author: The Most Dangerous Game) couldn’t be more wrong if he tried. Fuelled by observations made over a lifetime and triggered by an interesting comment made by a colleague of mine, I have now realised that the most vicious animal known to man has always been none other than the Goddamn pigeon, which is also known by its latin binomial nomenclature Shittius motherfuckeris. And you that the braconid wasp (Verae peculya) had it bad?

But seriously, these vile creatures aren’t called flying rats, for cuteness sake. Pigeons are unequivocally, the scum of the earth. You know the phrase “to shit on someone’s work”. Well, I bet the person who coined it made it after watching pigeons drop a slimey smelly one on the world the good Lord created. But, I hear some of you argue, so their personal hygiene sucks, but that doesn’t make them vicious.

These people have clearly never been crapped on by these aerial shitmachines. Their viciousness stems from the fact that they will hunt you down and drop their load on you. It doesn’t matter where you are, they actually find ways to position themselves above you. Your next argument, I’m certain will be “Why you pickin’ on pigeons, you pigeon-hater? As REM says, ‘everybody poops... sometimes’.” Sure, other birds crap from a height too. But if you’ve noticed carefully, it’s usually only by accident that you get crow crap on you (say you’re walking under a tree) or if an eagle or something happens to crap on you. No other bird goes out of its way to score a direct hit everytime it needs “to go potty”.

Take my office washroom for instance. Due to the ingenious design of said washroom, there’s no ceiling overhead and the nearest thing to a ceiling is the roof of the shed that houses this monstrosity of architecture. After being tired of getting crapped on by pigeons while on a visit to the restroom, someone decided to put an asbestos sheet over the top — albeit one that covers only half the men’s room. For around two or three days, the plan worked. But soon after, the pigeons actually relocated themselves so as to be able to “bombs away” away from the sheet and on people in the washroom. Those vicious bastards!

Back to what I was talking about earlier... My colleague once happened to comment, while shooting the breeze, that for pigeons, strategically launching their waste so as to hit high-value targets is probably a sport. And in their sport, they too have their Sachin Tendulkars, he said. Why just Sachin I wondered, surely they also have their Shane Warnes and Muttiah Muralitharans and obviously, their Harsha Bhogles, Richie Benauds and yes, sadly, Ranjit Fernandos (check dis) too. You didn’t honestly believe that the whole “Grrrrooooo Grrrooooo” sound they make was just bird calls, did you?

It’s obviously their commentators describing a particularly strategic relocation that a pigeon just indulged in. Or they’re debating the pros and cons of dropping a fluid missile on an old woman, as opposed to say, a little boy running around in a field — faster moving target equals more points, you see. Or they could even be discussing how long it’ll be before that hotshot Leroy the Pigeon’s prolific scoring rate sees him overtake the established veteran and senior statesman of the game Ernest the Pigeon. Commentator 1 goes “Ghhhrrroooooo Ghhrroo” to state that it’s too early to say something like that, to which Commentator 2 fires back “Ghhhhrrroooo.. Ghrrooo Ghhrooo” which means NEVER! It’s never too soon, given our short life expectancies.

And you honestly thought they were just making noises to pass the time? You gullible fool.

Snippety-snip snap shenanigoats

I was never particularly in love with a festival to the extent that I’d wait impatiently for it to arrive. As far back as I can remember, it’s always been the festivity in the air that appealed to me. And by festivity, I don’t mean long poojas and prayers, fireworks, coloured powder, eggs, halls decked with boughs of holly... Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la and so on and so forth. Festivity to me is the unpredictable mood in the air around those times of the year. You never can say for certain what someone’s going to say or do next.

Sometimes you get doses of great unpredictability like a different city’s bureau of your publication sending you pages early in the night. Sometimes it’s shady unpredictability with a friend pissing all over your collective plans because of a family function he/she simply must attend. So yeah... that’s why I like festivity.

In the festive mood that I presently find myself, I decided to walk on down to the ol’ barber and get a haircut for the whole “ushering in the New Year” thing. It’s times like these that I really hate Hollywood for selling me a false dream. I’m talking about the films Barbershop and Barbershop 2, where said barbershops are bursting with conversation, people cracking jokes and odd characters throwing down some heavy socio-political discourse. The barbershop I frequent, which for some reason is called Air-Cool, is nothing like that.

In fact, Air-Cool is so damn cool that some geezer has immortalised it with this black and white photograph I found online. Upon looking closely at it, I found that the man posing at the front is the same idiot who cut my sideburns too damn short this morning.

As I’m getting weary of repeatedly pointing out, I’ve just gone and digressed again. Now this is one of those places where piped instrumental versions of old Hindi music plays over the chorus of clicking scissors, the hum of electric clippers and of course, the swishing sound of the sweeper clearing away freshly cut hair from the barbershop floor. Peaceful and calm is great, but where’s the conversation?

Faced with that predicament, you sometimes try and engage a barber in a conversation, but the high-levels of stress that emanate from him, with each word you say seemingly adding a wrinkle on his forehead, the desire to talk disappears pretty damn quick. Sometimes the barber is too lazy to respond in any more than monosyllables. So whatcha gonna do? You sit and look around at the people, see if they’re having more fun than you.

Some people make faces as they’re being shaved, others have their faces buried in magazines and a third group just glare at you for looking at them. Fortunately, as I was waiting for my turn in the chair, I got a fair bit of entertainment as well as an important lesson in human psychology and I do believe I’ve come up with some sort of theory that would be admissable in scientific journals.

I’ve seen toddlers get haircuts before. I’ve never before seen two toddlers getting haircuts in the same barbershop at the same time. So naturally, curiosity got the better of me and after sharing a sympathetic half-smile with a seriously harrowed-looking dad, the show began. Toddler A was with his dad (the harrowed guy) and Toddler B was with his mom and dad. Toddler A was first off the mark and unlike any wee ‘un I’ve ever seen, this guy was wide-eyed and wore a wider grin and followed the electrical clippers as they buzzed around his head. I think it’s safe to say he was loving it.

Meanwhile, mom and dad put Toddler B into the chair after a lot of coercion, including a promise to show him crows after the haircut. Seeing the barber wield some long scissors, mom asks him to swap the scissors for electric clippers. While in the red corner, ol’ Toddler A is gurgling to himself and the harrowed dad suddenly seems at peace.

Just then, the peace and quiet is interrupted by a piercing little scream, followed by the loud bawling of Toddler B. He’s not liking it. Not liking it one bit. Thrashing his neck from side to side to avoid the buzzing machine. His little hands clench into tiny baby potato-size fists, while his toes curl up with irritation. Toddler A’s peaceful reverie smashed, he turns to see what all the commotion is about. This is the crucial moment.

He sees Toddler B crying his little lungs out and looks down, Toddler A that is, looks down at his hands and sees little wisps of hair. Hair that’s just been cut from his head. His eyebrows very slowly turn from a flat line like a calm sea to a growing wave and finally a raging tsunami. Running concurrently to all this, his lip starts to quiver and KABOOM!! The weepy bomb explodes. Now, we have crying and screaming and weeping in stereo surround sound.

By then of course, it was time for me to be seated and Toddler A was done with his haircut and Toddler B’s parents had given up. But one thing really stuck out for me. Go back to that crucial moment I spoke about. Toddler A was perfectly happy and then when he saw Toddler B crying, he suddenly started crying. My theory is that it is at this age where the concept of peer pressure or the herd mentality (I’m not sure which) is built into the human system.

Maybe if babies were isolated from one another, they could grow to be individual ladies and gents with their own sets of views, not just some noise about bitches and Nike shoes. You know? Think of the potential for advancement in all of life’s fields. More focussed human beings. Like androids. Or cyborgs.

Then again, maybe Toddler A just got scared.

Boab Mar-lay’s Greatest Hits

I think we’ve all had shitty days
We’ve all had times when we dread the thought of going to work
Or even sometimes, dread the thought of going home.
We’ve all fought with people and come out of the fight angry, hurt or depressed.
There have also been times where it seems as though we’ll never smile again.

In those particular situations, music tends to pick me up, cheer me up, fire me up or whatever the need of the hour is. But there are a few times when even music falls sadly short. What do you do then? I don’t know about you lot, but one thing that never fails to cheer me up is the manifestation of a WTF? Moment before my very eyes. It could be anything, from a man falling over to someone shouting a dorky name out loudly across the street. It could and very often is some obscure phrase a colleague of mine comes up with before jiggling his belly to the beat of the universe (I like how it sounds, I don’t know what it means).

Right, so now that the jibber-jabber of the introduction or lead as it were, has been dealt with and is out of the way, we can actually get to this latest WTF? Moment I experienced. After a fairly ratty day a week or so ago, I found myself on the train heading to work, with my earphones tucked in. As I was sifting through my tracklist to find something to fit the mood, I was shaken out of my dreary state by the sound of three youths yelling and screaming about something.

Sensing a fight about to kick off, I moved to the side to avoid being in the firing line. Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on how you feel after reading this story), it wasn’t a fight at all as it turned out and was just three collegians having a “conversation”.

Before I get into it, let’s meet the characters...
1) A is clearly the leader of the gang, but not in a cool Top Cat kinda way. More in a creepy, “Yeah my brother is drug dealer and I think he’s really cool. Hopefully, he’ll let me deal for him too, so you guys know just how cool I am” kind of way. Spiked hair, an ear piercing, a Ché Guevara t-shirt and a mouth that is filthier than Chris Rock’s.

2) B is A’s little lackey, his little yes-man if you will. Bespectacled and sporting a truly honourable attempt at using hair oil to imitate his leader’s spiked look. Slightly less mouthy but equally annoying.

3) C is the new kid. While A’s trying to show him the levels of coolness he can aspire to, B’s doing his best to reinforce A’s cool credentials and how C’s life would be so much better if he joined this gang.

I tried to ignore them and switched on some Therapy?. Sadly, the trio drowned out any semblance of sound in my phones. So I figured, hey, why don’t I just listen in. After all, it’s not eavesdropping if you’re listening to a loudspeaker, in this case, a human loudspeaker. I can’t be bothered to write out what they said in Hindi and then translate it, so I’ll just transcribe it in English. I’ll try not to lose the essence in the translation.

A: C, You should come to this party we’re going to, over the weekend.
B: Yes, it’s going to be great
A: And don’t worry. You’ll get everything there *brings his fingers to his mouth and takes a drag from an invisible joint and then takes a swig from an invisible bottle of booze*
C: Really?
A: Of course, we only go to great parties... like this one
C: Wow.

A: And don’t worry about the money. We’re always taken care of. My brother—...
B: Yeah, his brother has contacts...
A: But the best kind of parties to go to are rave parties
B: Rave parties are the best
C: Rave?
A: Yeah, there’s all the drinks and drugs you want and once you’re buzzed, the best kind of music to listen to, is trance. Tu pagal ho jaayega (You’ll go insane)
B: True. Tu pagal ho jaayega (You’ll go insane)

C: I’m not quite with you. Rave?
A: Yes, they’re great. But we only go to this one farm in Amboli. The cops never catch us there because they join us at the party.
B: That’s right.
A: But the best music when you’re high is trance. Tu pagal ho jaayega (You’ll go insane)
B: Tu pagal ho jaayega (You’ll go insane)

<At this point, I am totally hooked. Whether or not I remember to climb out of the train at my stop, is immaterial right now>

A: Trance is the best. You should listen to some.
B: Yeah. Totally
C: But what is it?
B: You know that Goan guy with a long white beard? He makes trance music.
C: Which guy?
A: Have you heard of Boab Mar-lay? [prounced: Bobe (rhymes with hope) Mar-lay (rhymes with parlay)]
B: Yeah yeah yeah! That’s the Goan guy with a beard.
A: No, it’s not.

A: Boab Mar-lay is from Mexico and he got kicked out from there. Now no one knows where he is but he’s still making great music. I have 40 GB of music on my harddrive, of which 13 GB is only Boab.
B: You listen to his music, tu pagal ho jaayega (You’ll go insane)
C: Sounds quite good. I’ve never heard any though.
A: I’ll rip some for you. You see Boab Mar-lay was kicked out from Mexico by the government. Why? Because of his message, which is the thing I love the most. His message is that you should enjoy every moment and have a great time all the time. So do all the drugs you want, drink as much as you want, because life is about enjoying yourself. He has a few songs about cocaine and how it’s something everyone should do. We’ll get some cocaine at the party.
B: Yeah, you’ll love it—...

***

It was then that I had to tear myself from my seat and alight at Lower Parel station. How I wish I could’ve heard more of that bizarre conversation that left me with numerous WTF? Moments and a bemused half-smile across my face. Now I need to go and check out some Boab Mar-ley, if you’ll please excuse me.

The Art of Un-fucking a Situation...

... and sometimes just watching a sufficiently fucked scene crumble
(That’s part of the title too, but too long to fit, you see, so I had to bring it down here)

Anyway, I don’t have a lot of time to luxuriate on each word and sentence and roll it around in the batter of excessive prepositions and punctuation marks before throwing it down here, so I’ll cut right to brass tacks. People around me don’t think I’m a very good listener. Perhaps not, but the reasoning is what I find peculiar.

It’s the theory that when they tell me about a problem or come to me with one, I’m reluctant to just listen to it and make the right noises (the hmmms, ohhhs and awwws expected, presumably) and would rather take the time to think up a solution — maybe not a very good one, but a solution nonetheless. Trying to un-fuck the situation. That doesn’t always go down well but such is life.

Problem-solving and of course cancelling out the fornication that a situation has undergone are two things that one deals with regularly in most walks of life. As I only know about how these two things are done in my walk of life, that’s gonna be my point of reference from here on end. I’ve seen people around me who are very very good at problem-solving in my workplace. Whether it’s the problem of a lack of stories, a rapidly-evolving event that’s hard to keep tabs on or the problem of there being work to do, but preferring to be a lazy bastard and dawdle or stand around chit-chatting (so as to do the minimum work possible), I’ve seen some brilliantly fucked situations being un-fucked.

So much so, that I consider it an art to un-fuck a situation. It takes an artist to take a potentially bad scene and paint it in different colours and end up brightening up the whole scene.

Then again, at times, it’s worth watching the spectacle of chaos and enjoying the sight of everything falling apart. Just as it happened last night and a new Chief Minister was picked for the state around a whole half hour after the last page of the newspaper was ready to go to the printers. Changing one of the main stories on page 1 brought to us the realisation that it completely contradicted a story we had on page 2 and at that time, nothing could be done to change it.

So whatcha gonna do?
a) cry about it?
b) yell at everyone about it, but in effect do nothing?
c) call up 9,412 people in the span of 13 minutes and get a new story?
d) kick back and watch it crumble?

(Answers on a postcard or in the comments section)
(I love these abrupt endings)

Sexy time

What is with the news this week being full of just sex, sex and very little else apart from sex? More so than usual, I mean. In fact, the papers have been so full of sex lately that I’m surprised that a renowned political science (or something) professor from St. Xavier’s College — who usually has a problem with anything and everything — hasn’t gone and filed a Public Interest Litigation to ban all newspapers.

Slight detour: Public Interest Litigation? Now there’s a misnomer if I ever heard one. I’d like to look at a list of all the so-called Public Interest Litigations filed (especially in Mumbai) and check just how many were really in the public’s interest and how many were just because one person was pissy that his/her kid wouldn’t stop watching WWE on TV. Or wouldn’t eat his/her peas. Or something.

But back to the sex part now, more on the issue of bans and banishment later. Here’s a list of only a miniscule number of “sexy” stories that popped up in the papers this week.

Cricket training dossier: The biggest story by far was arguably lifted from what was probably a tiny section in Indian cricket coach Gary Kirsten’s dossier to the team on preparation etc. He happened to mention that sex was a good preparation tool before a big game. In his words, “pre-match sex boosts players’ performance”. Perhaps so, but that was probably just a section of the whole dossier. Instead that was pretty much all that was written about. So much so, that they even had a section in one paper (I forget which) where retired cricketers were asked about their views on this dossier. There are many terrible things in the words and reading about Bishen Singh Bedi and Ajit Wadekar waxing eloquent about masturbation ranks quite high on that list.

Sex degrees of separation: According to Britain’s Lloyd’s Pharmacy, the average British person has had 2.8 million indirect sexual partners in a lifetime. What began as a survey of 6,000 adults to raise and spread awareness about sexually-transmitted diseases, turned within no time into what will undoubtedly form the topic of discussion at many a bar-type situation. According to the ‘sexual health director’ of Lloyds, “When we sleep with someone, we are, in effect, not only sleeping with them, but also their previous partners and their partners’ previous partners.” Lovely thought.

Moskau Mule: Nothing to do with a mule really, I just like the alliteration... But I digress. On the same week as I go and meet the US Ambassador to India, the US Ambassador to Russia filed an official complaint with the Russian government. Why is this relevant? Because the complaint was filed against someone who allegedly fabricated a sex video that popped up on a Russian website, depicting a US diplomat “doink the hokey-pokey” with some unidentified woman in a non-descript hotel room. Apparently, the video was made by splicing footage. Of course it was spliced. It was spliced the same way as Varun Gandhi’s communal speech was spliced with the footage.

Doggy Style: However, what is by far and a long way, my favourite sex story of the week is about 26-year-old taxi driver Mahesh Kamat. Now, as the story goes, Mahesh, after a hectic day behind the wheel, decided to unwinds — as you do — by having sex with a dog. The traumatised canine’s whines and yelps drew the attention of a passerby, who lodged a complaint and had the man put away. Now, after being in custody, Kamat demands bail. Why’s that, you ask? Because according to him, the police had not taken the victim’s statement. Read that again if you need to. The lack of the raped dog’s statement, according to Kamat, was reason enough for him to get bail. Honestly.

And that’s just some of them.

However, reverting to the talk of bans and banishment, some genius from that hallowed hub of Hinduism that is Nevada, USA has called for Kirsten’s resignation as coach, for attacking the moral fibre of the country. According to a “Hindu statesman and president of the Universal Society of Hinduism” by the name of Rajan Zed, Kirsten seemed to imply that women were to be used like gym equipment or some such shit. He also claimed that in India, cricketers are looked upon as role models and having them indulge in casual sex was a scary thought, as millions would start copying them. As an indication of just how mind-numbing that last statement was, my brain has gone blank and I have no idea how to finish this post, let alone continue it.

FIN