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.

Hostages at Home

Warning: It’s been a while since I issued any disclaimers. Let’s see if I remember how to do one. The views expressed below are not as part of a political debate about states or languages. The views are not to pass judgment on what is set to happen in the near future. If you read and interpret them that way, then you’re really really missing the point... and you’re a moron too. Enjoy!

Apparently, a hostage is “a person held by one party in a conflict as security that specified terms will be met by the opposing party”. In other words, the safety of said hostage hangs in the balance and the hostage-taker poses a threat to the hostage’s life. Agreed? Good, then I’ll continue. Now, holding someone hostage in most parts of the civilised world is tantamount to an act of terror, or at its very least, an act of crime. In India for instance, as per section 364 of the Indian Penal Code,...

“Whoever kidnaps or abducts any person in order that such person may be murdered or may be so disposed of as to be put in danger of being murdered, shall be punished with imprisonment for life or rigorous imprisonment for a term which may extend to ten years, and shall also be liable to fine”

I shall safely assume at this point that you, good reader, agrees with me that errr... taking hostages are baaaad... Mmmkay? There’s a funny story I once read that some small hick-ass town in the United States punishes an unsuccessful attempt at suicide with the death penalty. Whether that’s true or not is immaterial. What matters is that it’s a damn funny story. Anyway, as far as an unsuccessful suicide attempt is concerned, the Indian Penal Code says...

“Whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year 1 or with fine, or with both”

People all over the world will tell you that it’s not the destination, but the journey that counts in life. One shouldn’t be preoccupied with reaching a point, instead one should take in the sights, the sounds and the smells along the way. Well your journey is over, dear reader, because here comes the point.

In the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, a movement of secession has been ongoing since God knows how long for a separate state called Telangana, which as Wikipedia will tell you, means Land of the Telugus. The demand for a separate state has been on for a while and most recently, one of the most vocal advocates of a separate state, Mr Kalvakuntla Chandrashekhar Rao launched a fast-unto-death, demanding that the government create a separate state called Telangana.

This standoff went on for around 11 days and his health grew steadily worse, just as his supporters turned increasingly violent until the government finally blinked and said that the process of creating this new state would begin in January 2010. Well, now KCR (as he’s better known) is a hero to his people. Once he recovers his health, he will be garlanded, praised, poured milk upon, cheered etc. etc. Indian cult-of-personality and all that.

But what about the fact that what he effectively did was hold a human being hostage? What about the fact that his threat was to effectively kill a person if he did not get his state of Telangana? And what about the fact that what he was doing was really a case of attempted suicide? Albeit a very slow attempt. Will there be any imprisonment for him? Or a fine, even? Hell no.

For you see, the act of going on a fast-unto-death or a hunger strike has been a part of India’s cultural history, ever since its inception. Gandhi employed this particular tactic to great success and since then, numerous politicos have taken his cue and gone on these hunger strikes. Where does it all stem from? I don’t know.

But I have a theory. Threatening to kill oneself is merely a branch of a tree rooted so deeply in humanity’s collective mindset, that it’s often hard to imagine life without it. Each and every one of us has had a branch from that tree brush past us or whack us across the face at some time or the other in our lives. The name of the tree? Emotional blackmail/manipulation. Not really one of those Latin kingdon-phylum-class-species type names, but it’s a real tree.

The profundity of that last paragraph has just left me speechless, so I shall end here. As for you, gentle reader, you are advised to comment and share your views about this here topic with me... or I’ll never speak to you again.

“What have you achieved?”

Long long ago in a city of steel far far away...
A smokey student hostel room
A tiny television set with a PS2 plugged in
Four pairs of eyes glued to the screen
A burly and hairy beast of a man crushes the PS2 controller’s keys to within an inch of their lives
A relatively smaller and yet almost as hirsute man with a taste for things profane nimbly taps the keys of his battered old PS2 controller.

Enough mood... Now on with the story. The beast man known henceforth as GC and the littler man called AMSTM were playing Pro-Evolution Soccer and were in the middle of a hotly contested match — That being said, most PES matches played in said room were fairly hotly contested anyway. This time though, it was personal... If memory serves, it was the 82nd minute and AMSTM pulled off a screamer of a goal, much to GC’s bitter disappointment.

GC’s anguish was compounded moments later, when one of the carefully crafted onscreen sprites scored another goal, doubling AMSTM’s lead. Being a sporting loser isn’t one of GC’s more well known qualities and so he stood up, like a gorilla in battle (making itself large) and bellowed at AMSTM, “WHAT HAVE YOU ACHIEVED?”

Silence....

I’ve been thinking of that line since the time I woke up this morning. Not for the same reasons as above obviously. For what it’s worth, I recall AMSTM being stunned witless by that outburst and the rest of the room cracking up with laughter. But anyway, back to the point... As we roll into December, the last month of this , the double-O decade, I found me asking that question of myself. “What have you achieved?”.

For sure, it’s been a tumultous and exciting decade, which saw me do a ton of foolish, fun and worthwhile things (sometimes all at once), it saw me meet a wide array of people; from the weird to the downright bizarre (you know who you are). I read a number of good books, saw some brilliant films, heard some awesome music — saw every single live music show I’ve ever been to, in this decade.

There’ve also been disappointments, failures, times that I’ve let myself, my family and my friends down, times I’ve been despondent, times when I felt tomorrow would suck even more. But none of this really amounts to having achieved anything. Educational qualifications happen. I don’t consider them achievements. News stories too, happen. They’re hardly achievements.

So what have I achieved? That being asked, what the hell have you achieved lately?

A year on...

...not a lot has changed,” say people. The November 26 terror attacks of last year have been commemorated with plaques here and junctions being renamed there with a few installations being set up at the theatres of terror. People say the attacks should have served as a warning and yet, they add that nothing has changed. Everything is exactly the same, they say. The government/authorities are still bumbling about with Band-Aid® solutions to compound fracture situations with some unGodly sense of misplaced pride about these solutions.

A case in point is the city’s fire department, which admittedly found itself fighting fires amid a hailstorm of bullets and grenades in the 26/11 attacks. This is not a typical situation. It’s a damn anomaly and as such, should be acknowledged as that, one would imagine. Now, under this misguided idea that firemen will regularly have to deal with being shot at, bulletproof vests have been ordered and received by the department. Honestly, bulletproof vests. And yet, helmets fitted with oxygen masks are too much to ask for.

It’s like a concept in cricket captaincy called “ball chasing”. What happens here is that as a captain, you set a field for a particular bowler and if the batsman happens to pick a gap and hit the ball through a vacant part of the field, your first instinct is to plug that gap by picking up a fielder from somewhere else. Playing catch-up, basically. That is exactly what this bulletproof vest plan is. Some quarters also wanted firemen to receive military training. Thank heavens then for the chief fire official who put his foot down and said, “No! Law and order control is not the fire department’s job. Fighting fires is.”

Digression aside, people also believe that the attitude of the police hasn’t changed despite losing some of their best men in the attacks. They’re still the same callous and corrupt lot, people say. To serve and protect? Ha! “They’re serving themselves an extra helping of tax payer money to protect their well-fed belly” is a view one is more likely to come across.

The government hasn’t changed, the cops haven’t changed, the security of the Nation hasn’t changed, Pakistan’s refusal to take responsibility hasn’t changed. Nothing’s changed, people scream.

I beg to differ.

Something has changed and this change has been quite massive. Last year, I had written about the way people responded to tragedy, specifically, the terror attacks. (Feel free to have a look. I’ll wait.) The biggest change I’ve seen and I’m dead certain that I’m not alone, is that people have turned so incredibly stupid. Which, it must be said, is quite a feat, considering they were already pretty damn stupid to begin with.

First, there were the candles. Those infernal candles. You remember the candles? Then, there was the hysterical news reporting, all that shrieking and bellowing like someone had trapped the anchor’s testicles in a car door. Then came all that “We will not forget!” bull-honkey.

And now, this year, news channels had the same sort of retrospective news reports. “What happened on that day...” and junk like that. People brought their candles out. (I’m convinced that the city of Mumbai has some underhanded dealings with a major wax manufacturer. Everywhere I look, it’s those damn candles) Some people — like this one woman on a news channel who was crying, because all the people who lost their lives, made her feel like she had lost her son and husband — cried, postured, talked about the increased need for accountability etc. etc.

But wait... There were TWO elections held this year. One of them was on a National scale and one was on a state assembly scale. With all the effort these fools could put into making banners and keeping those Godforsaken candles burning in the wind, one would imagine they’d actually go and vote. Nope. No chance of that. Voter turnouts were among the lowest seen by the city. Logic dictates that if you want all these changes, you’d change your representative or at least put pressure on your representative to deliver. Not miss the whole damn election process altogether, as these geniuses did.

And they still see fit to start yelling and screaming about change. Sigh... Such stupid creatures... and getting stupider by the minute.

Chris Tucker said it best...

There’s a film known as Friday and it just so happens to be one of my very favourites. It isn’t especially demanding of the viewer, where brains are concerned anyway. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun. Anyway, so it stars Chris Tucker and one of the most iconic scenes in the film is when he stands over a knocked out Zeus “Tiny” Lister and yells, “You got knocked the fuck out!!”.

It isn’t all that profound a statement, but his delivery of “You got knocked the fuck out!!” still resonates in my head. More pertinently this week, because without flying Mr Tucker over to India to say it, the whole nation seemed to say it to one man... an ageing “tiger”, if you will.

Yes, yes, yes, I am talking about that hot topic. I am talking about Bal Thackeray (the octo-something-arian), that Marathi hriday-samraat (upholder of the pride of the Marathi man is what I think it means) whose acrimonious editorials in his party’s mouthpiece are the stuff of legend. This time around he messed with the one person no Indian would tolerate being so much as disturbed... Leave alone hassled, fined, taxed or worse yet, disciplined. (Mike Deness? Where are you?)

Anyway, India’s pride and glory Sachin Tendulkar told the press that he was an Indian before being a Maharashtrian (i.e. he was a citizen of the Nation, before being a citizen of the state... and why not?). Thackeray lays ridicule upon him telling him to stick to sports and not comment on what that ageing communal and linguistic fascist describes as politics.

In other words, that nearly extinguished shell of a man is allowed to talk trash about anyone and everyone in the vilest terms and when Sachin answers a question and perhaps (knowingly) aims to spread a message of national harmony, Thackeray feels the need to rebuke him. Interesting shit, non? Anyway, the whole of India got behind Sachin and told Thackeray to know his role and shut his mouth. After all, there are some holy cows you just don’t touch. Sachin, in this case.

A day later, Thackeray’s newspaper publishes a “clarification” and claims it to be “affectionate advice from an elder”. HA! Yeah right... Thackeray and your Shiv Sena, you just got knocked the fuck out!!

Of morons, animals and really, morons...

November 9 is a day that will forever live in infamy — in my head at least — for the sheer levels of stupidity and moronic behaviour scaled by people of my city. And this is just when I thought people couldn’t get any stupider — case in point, being people refusing to acknowledge the Nation’s National Song, as it impinged on their Islamic beliefs.

Never mind, today’s idiocy scaled even the mark set by those soaring levels of dumbness. A to-be-sworn-in member of the legislative assembly for Maharashtra wanted to take his oath in Hindi. It just so happens to be the National Language after all. Anyway, so as he’s about to do it, he’s attacked by these animals from the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) — a party of a few intellectuals and mostly thugs. They proceed to slap him for not taking the oath in Marathi, the state language and hit him with slippers, grab his microphone etc. The usual shit goons and thugs indulge in.

The latest is that four of these animals have been suspended for four years... Four years of their five-year term. If you thought for a second that they’d be upset, think again. They’ve received nothing but adulation from their party’s equally obnoxious and thuggish leader. Spare a thought for the voters from the constituencies of those four suspended members of the legislative assembly. What the hell did they vote for? For a candidate who’d be suspended for 80 per cent of the term?

The suspended people will meanwhile, live it up at home and get paid for doing nothing. Hopefully, people learn their lesson and never vote for such foul creatures again.

If on the other hand, you think I’m showing any sort of solidarity with the guy who took his oath in Hindi, you are mistaken. Far from being roundly regarded as a fairly corrupt fellow, I find it incredibly stupid that he would announce days in advance that he would not take his oath in the state’s language, but the National Language. Is it not folly to publicly come up with something like this, when one knows what sort of animals the MNS are and the currency they deal in. See adjoining picture for details of their currency and how lavishly they spend it.

Further, it was reported that at a city church, a crucifix was — believe it or not — crying! And working as I believed I did at a progressive publication that pushes the envelope, I would’ve imagined that running the photographs with a slightly skeptical caption would have been apt. But no. We don’t want to look like mocking their faith. We don’t want to call a shovel a shovel, a spade a spade and an obvious act of condensation as that. We’d rather term it a miracle and in the process, allow people to continue buying into superstition and standing in line with idol worship.

Methinks the two instances of stupidity in the day may not have been so far removed from each other...