City Slickers

I love cars. Of the few things I love, I hold four wheelers the dearest. Maybe after my parents. and... maybe my sister. Goodness, now I sound like a pussy. But yeah, I bloody love cars. Mind you, I'm skipping out on the lady I'm wooing, because honestly, I don't want to jump to conclusions. Whatever that means. 

But here's the deal about cars. I don't love all of them. In fact, I hate a few of them. Two of them, in fact. One is the Maruti Swift Dzire. The second car I've come to hate is the Honda City. My hatred isn't baseless though. 

Starting with the Dzire. I hate it for its ghastly name. It's grammatically incorrect. So are another dozen car names, you'd say. And I wouldn't give a rats arse. My question is "What's so desirous about the Dzire?" Chaps who drive the car don't like being seen in a hatchback. And they are living in the false premise that their car is a sedan. Sorry sir, it isn't. And yes, the Swift is a beautiful looking car. Why destroy something which looks good, and turn it into crap? More importantly, why are all Dzire drivers, I mean "All Dzire Drivers" so bad at driving? Hey! I'm not a great driver myself. I say that because I have seen good driving. But I know when I have a bad driver hovering around me on the streets. These godawful creatures, in their hatchback-grafted-with-a-boot go helter-skelter in the middle of the highway. The change lanes like it's their life's motto to make the life of other drivers hell. And goodness, don't they have a spine! You feel bad for these people because they can't buy a proper sedan? Damn, what are you? A social worker? Get a job or something. 

Coming to the Honda City. The car is simply legendary. Sorry, the name is. The car is just a vestige of it's predecessor. Here is a car that went from being a rockstar, to a bigger rockstar, to a mouse, to a bigger mouse, then to a good car, and finally to something that people want to buy because the first car was so fucking awesome. It does everything fine, looks decently 'contemporary', looks good inside, drives fine on the road, and comes fairly priced. Sounds like a good car, right? For most, it does. In fact, it sounds too right. I'd say obnoxiously clinical. Sanitized. And boy do the chaps at Honda showrooms feel over-confident about their car's sales. Arrogant bastards. 

The City feels so squeaky clean that it makes you doubt yourself. It ticks the right boxes, and yet, there's something that's amiss. And you can never say what. Unless of course you were won by some other car you drove before or after driving the City. In my case, it was the Ford Ecosport. 

Crazy shit. That's what I describe the Ford Ecosport as. No, it isn't a mad car. It's a good car. A very good car. It's a hoot to drive. It feels like an extension of yourself. And the best bit? It's got flaws. The exposed railings of the front seats, the bad plastic, to name some. But sit behind the wheel, and let the foot do the talking. You shall sit with a smile on your face for as long as you can remember. Specially the diesel car. Cross 1600 rpm on the rev-counter, and the awkward little car shoots ahead like it's nobody's business. And you definitely don't want to stop it from doing what it is doing. The gears feel smooth. You feel fully in control. To the point that you thank Henry Ford for giving Ford to the world. Yes, there are downsides to the car. It looks a bit awkward. A little too trendy. But that's not an issue if you don't give a shit about what onlookers think about your ride. Interiors don't feel worth the ten-plus lakh that you shell out for the car. And yes, even otherwise, it feels pricier than it should be. After all, it measures less than four metres. Where has all the government-exemption for small cars gone on this one? However, all of this gives the car some character. The buyer's dilemma, the fun-filled drives, the not-so-heartening fuel-bills. Yada-yada-yada. In the end you say, Fun thing though. 

Most people will still buy the City because it makes more sense. Where the City is a well-thought out purchase, the Ford? Well, that's a car with a heart. 

On Stupidity

Stephen King wrote "On Writing". Sigmund Freud wrote "On Dreams". Richard Hammond wrote "On the road", "On the edge", and "Is that Just me". The last one is what I keep asking everyone. Meh, moving on. Virgia Woolfe wrote "On being ill". I wonder why though. So I had to figure out what I could write about. After a lot of contemplation, I came up with this post's title.

Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish. Wow! This one phrase perhaps made "being foolish" cool. Especially after Steve Jobs's Stanford commencement speech. Because before that speech, people wanted to become engineers, scientists, astronauts and what not. Now, any half-wit who's seen the speech goes like "Let's be foolish!" It's like an Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy cartoon. Everyone's on acid.

But there's a close cousin to Foolish. It's called 'Stupid'. Foolish is oftentimes aloof about stuff. So is stupid. But you know foolish from stupid by this.

This is stupid.

And stupid is what you realize just moments after shit has hit the roof. That's again if you have half a brain, of course. Stupidity otherwise goes unnoticed. It's like wearing those long, draggy, kingly robes which randomly caught fire, and no body noticed. Until the king died.

You know what's troubling here? If there were a test for stupidity, I'd ace it. Straight A, sure shot. What's more troubling is this. I'm afraid my parents will be happy that I at least scored an A in one subject.
Oh yes! A bit about shit here. There are two phrases.

1- Shit hits the roof/ceiling.

2- Shit hits the fan.

Do you notice that the chap who conceived the second phrase must have had a much more vivid imaginations? Or is it just me? I mean, just imagine how the dynamics of the entire scene changes with the mere addition of a fan! 

My way, the highway

The title sounds like a cliche, doesn't it? Even I think so. Sadly, my creativity's short-selling me today. Besides, how do you tell someone that you drove over a very long distance, on a highway of course. Yup! It sounds lame.

You can't technically be in my line of work if you can't drive properly. Driving people crazy doesn't count. I wish it did. Then I could ask for a very dramatic hike in pay. The sort of pay-hike that you cannot imagine. But yes, I'm not a very good driver. And I'm probably the first man to admit that.

My dad's good behind the wheel. Good enough to put 99% of Indian drivers to shame. Not that he can do mind-boggling stunts in a car. Maybe he can. I don't know his wild side, which kind of sucks. You don't really know your parents, do you? They have lived a good 2-3 decades before you could even take a shit in the world. A topic for another blog post, perhaps.

Yeah, my ace driver dad lets me trot around in the car. Nowadays, a little more, thanks to my job description. So today morning, he handed me the keys and told me... "Let's go for a long fucking drive, kid!"
Okay, he didn't say that. He did not use the word "Fucking", and he wasn't exactly enthusiastic about  I being at the helm of affairs for a distance of over 150 kilometers, that between Bombay and Pune. Especially since he'd be sitting in the passenger seat. I half-chuckled to myself, and half-shat in my pants. Whatever else was left of me said "Let's do this shit!" Mathematically, that can't even happen, you know?

So off we were. My mom sitting in the back seat, my dad by my side, and I commandeering the er... vessel. Let's not get overtly dramatic. My mom has blood pressure issues. My dad is the don't-angry-me-types. I seemingly have issues too. I told this girl I'm wooing that she looks sexy. And that's what she said.

"You have issues. :p"

Devastated! You never know what to tell women. I mean, I don't.
Back to driving. I went about doing hand-brake turns, driving my dad bat-shit crazy, the car close to the edge of the road, and my mom to the prayer room. Only that I didn't do the first bit about the handbrake turns.
The city was fine, the highways were cool. Overtaking felt better than well, a lot of things, to subtly put it. My dad turned on the music. Indian songs, I tell you. The first thing, actually the only thing they do is put your romantic interest right in front of your face. That's a good thing. Mine's got good boobs. If this female I'm talking about reads this, here's what I'm going to get in true-blue 1960s Batman style....


Where was I? Oh yes, Hindi songs. Bad idea when you're driving. Another bad idea for songs in the car are ghazals. They put you to sleep. Agreed they are lyrically very intellectual to listen to. But that sort of stuff is best kept for times when you want to go to sleep. Because that's what ghazals do. They put you to sleep.
On a second thought, Adam West, the 1960s Batman had puny arms. No?
I crossed the city, I crossed the long straights, and came to the bloody ghats. Then, I STALLED! Thrice. Devastation. Again. Well, not exactly. My dad took over for the next 20 kilometers. Even he stalled once. Phew!

In those 20 kilometers, I sat behind, thinking. Thinking about all the cars that went past me. Damn! We are living in the past! As in, humans made the internal combustion engine over a hundred years ago, the stuff that powers cars. Cars are a ruddy old concept. And fundamentally, the car hasn't changed one bit. Yes, we can plug our phones into our cars. We can make them go bloody fast. But save for the pure-electric ones, all our cars are still four-wheeled contraptions that rely on a constant set of explosions under the bonnet to move us from point A to point B. Literally no change in technology. Don't even bother arguing that we have made the engine more efficient.
Here's what I think. We stay as we are because of our unwillingness to change. This is as true for cars as is for humans. Big car makers can possibly influence how a country runs, merely with their clout. Not just car makers. Take 10 brands you use in a day. Most of them can be traced back to 2-3 conglomerates.
Here's the deal. The bigger you get, the more sluggish and stagnant you become. And so, if we are looking to develop, bigger is not necessarily better. It's the small places that hold the secret to the future. The big guys just clog the arteries and leave you to die.

With that thought, my dad's 20 kilometer stretch came to an end. If it hadn't, I'd have been tripping balls. But then again, you either trip balls, or don't trip at all. And now, reports from the driver seat!

I was back on the straights! And I fucking floored it. Till I got to 120kph, that is. My dad's a little apprehensive about high-speeds. No problem. His car, his apprehensions. So, I kept things south of 120. And he remained happy. And I drove all the way home. Brilliant. *Ting*

Enjoyable drive. Cute female in my head. Weird ideas about the future. Cute female in my head.  Sexy Santa, would you be my girlfriend?

What if?

It was late in the evening by the time I got out of work. It's been this way for a while, but stepping out of the office felt like I was inside for eternity. I strolled out of the building's compound, wondering about a myraid of things, all of which felt indecipherable.

I looked to the right, then to the left, and then again to the right. Road crossing, you know. Road crossing in India. You never know the side from which a monster-truck shall come at you and smash itself to smithereens against your palms. Anyway, I crossed the road. Well, almost.

I could see her, I thought. 8.45 in the evening, and she was loitering near my office. With a guy. I blinked four thousand times, just to make sure that what I was seeing was what I was seeing. She had her back to me. I wouldn't describe this woman that I was so shocked to see. Too many snooping wolves around. And I feel a little vulnerable at times. Bollocks!

This woman, the one I think about a lot, wouldn't come across as striking at first. Thankfully. But there's something very endearing about her. It's probably the way she moves. No jerks. Everything feels fluid. The way she keeps fixing her hair, her nervous ticks. Even the glances she clandestinely throws. Maybe I'm imagining the last bit. Maybe I'm not. And her derriere! Poof!!

Such thoughts are unhealthy when crossing the road, I'm sure you realise that. And then, I saw her with this chap. For a moment, I was shattered. Yeah, shattered. That's something I've picked up from my workplace. Anything good that happens, is shattering. Someone gets beaten up? Shattering. Someone about to get beaten up.... Shattering. Someone went and took a shit yesterday..... Shat-tering. Well, literally. Can't you just sock these chaps right in the cunt?

Moving on. I couldn't grasp what I was seeing. And I still hadn't reached the other side of the road. Damn slow-motion! I mean, the open hair looked right, the  tapering waist was nearly there, the hind-side and thighs looked the same, okay, a bit smaller than usual(I wondered why). But the face remained hidden, for some goodness forsaken reason. The lady has a spring and a healthy pace to her walk. The one I saw across the road, I couldn't see her walk. My head said yes. My madly thumping ticker said NO. The head then raised an ugly question.

"What if?" The mind's a bastard.

Bloody hell, it felt like a dream, where you never get to see what's on the other side of the wall, no matter how much you peer over.

For a moment, maybe for a quanta, I thought to myself.... "Does the chap at least look okay?" I of course dispelled the thought the very moment it struck me. I mean how?

Then, IDEA! I just walked faster to get ahead of the woman, just to see her face.  I was so sure it was her. Rarely do I not recognize people with a mere cursory glance. Anxious few moments passed. I got ahead of her, looked for the familiar face. It wasn't her. My anxiety quelled.

Honestly, after seeing that the lady in front was not her, I suddenly had the energy to go through the entire day another four times without batting an eyelid. I feel bonkers at times. For a lot of things. I don't know why she smiled when I told her that I felt bonkers every time I saw her. Should I have told her that? Maybe. Maybe not. Who knows.

Hag diya- Week 1

For my Hindi-averse friends, "Hag diya", it's a phrase that means botching shit up when everything is laid out to you on a platter. The word "Hag"(Pronounced HUG) means shit, and "diya" means 'to give' per se. In this context, the phrase translates to 'taking a shit' where you usually aren't supposed to. I still don't understand why taking a shit is so looked down upon culturally. What were people thinking? To live  perpetually constipated?

I must say that I feel I've had more than my fair shots at botching shit up, especially when it comes to dealing with ladies. My sister says that you're supposed to make attempts to know the woman you're wooing. I fall asleep by the time she reaches the word 'attempt'. Leaving the usual lady-talks aside, there's another thing I've managed to botch up... WRITING. Here I was, thinking that writing is about stringing words together that make sense when read in a sequence. It's not that I'm wrong, because you see, no one is ever wrong, at least not admittedly. But writing is a lot more than that, as I've come to know in the last few months. 

In writing, there's supposed to be thing like structure, flow and that sort of nonsense. All this to make sense to a bunch of people who just look at the fancy picture atop your 400000-word piece of crafty-wafty verbosity. I've seen the chaps who go through magazines. They blankly ogle some half, or completely nude female that they can find, and then, simply flip the page. However, there is a small gang who read the bollocks that you've tirelessly written. And oh my word! How it is worth watching someone read your sweat and blood! It is in beguiling times like this that you wonder to yourself, "Damn! I get paid to write. I must be onto something."

I mean, I still can't get the sweet girl to come out for a movie, but blimey! The pleasure of seeing someone buying a piece of your hard work is otherworldly. I almost cried when I saw four people on my flight clutching onto the magazine I write in. 

Talking about flights, I've never had much luck with flight seats. No good looking female has ever greeted her derriere to the seat next to me. To the extent that if there actually is a good looking lady on my flight, she'll be sitting at the further most corner of the cabin from where I sit. Either that, or she'll park her bums next to this chap who can really chat up his women. Sucks. I on the other hand am not the biggest fan of the window seat. The sight through the smaller-than-my-head window may sometimes be worth dying for. But by the time such a view comes by, I must have already died of claustrophobia. That's because I usually get a seat next to obnoxiously fat men who either snore, or fight with me for elbow space all throughout the flight. Sometimes, just for fun, I wonder how these poor lives got so rolly-polly. Do they just eat their while away, or do the countless parties they attend, a 'proof' of all their hard-work, just pile onto their front and sides till the point they can see their pricks no more? Take care of yourselves, my fat uncle-buddies!

Oh crap! This isn't an advisory forum, of course. Especially not after proclaiming to my dwindling readership that I'm a professional botcher of well, everything. So what do we talk about next? How about a ride in a rickshaw? It's a fun-little three-wheeler, and no-one knows why it exists. It pollutes the heavens out of any place, and is not allowed in the best parts of my city, Mumbai. Yeah, I plan to rule the place in some time, hence 'My City'. Coming back to auto-rickshaws, these machines are to mobility what Quartz watches were to the wind-me type watches of the past. Just enough automation to have the word 'auto' prefixed to them. Here too, lady-luck has evaded me so far. If big lads were a problem in flights, it's big ladies who squish me in rickshaws. It's like this.... 

I sit in side this three-wheeler, which is ideally suited for four people, including the driver. But carefully notice. On an average, there are 24 people sitting inside a rickshaw at any given point. You see, it's the result mindset of the lower, middle, and even upper middle-class of our country to get as much as possible by spending the least amount required. And in the process, four ladies get into the vehicle with three children each, and I'm told to sit in front with the driver. Ha ha. Not funny.

In case the kid's are playing at home, and the ladies are on their day out, they come to the rickshaw, find me inside, give me an abhorrent look, and shovel themselves inside anyway, although trying fruitlessly to maintain distance with my, just in case I'm a rapist. How can people confuse criminals with victims so badly? 

This is when I think, chuck everything. Let's buy a motorcycle. 

Never mind the bollocks

Goodness, where are the Sex Pistols? If hurtling around a racetrack at 240 kilometers per hour is the only time you remember being one with yourself in the last two months, then there's something wrong. Although I cannot pinpoint exactly what's gone awry, but there's some loose nut somewhere. If this is followed by a morning where you randomly wake up, and manage to do a hundred push-ups without breaking a sweat, well almost, then you are superman. Batman's still cooler, though. Follow this with a five-star lunch and a big-ass smile from the cute female, and what you have is UNBELIEVABLE. Random streams of thoughts aside, a few observations here...

Firstly, this world is waiting to give exactly what we ask of it. At the same time, the world is also waiting for a chance to suck the life out of us, and all it needs is  for us to give it a chance at that.
More importantly, the day your railway pass expires, which happens to be the same day that you forgot to renew your monthly ticket, is the day when the ticket checker will step into the compartment you happen to travel in. How convenient! Since I knew this would happen, I renewed my ticket on the morning that it expired. And the ticket checker did not come. That was last month. Today, exactly a month later, my pass expired. I forgot to renew my ticket. And the rest is history. So are my 200 bucks. That sucks.

A little about 'Aunties' now. I mean why not? How different are aunties to season tickets? Knock knock! That was a rhetorical question, and quite a useless one at that. But yeah, as nosy as they are, aunties are a lot cooler than what they are credited for. Unless, unless, unless, they happen to get into the same rickshaw/taxi as you. Here's what happens usually. You're peacefully sitting in the taxi/rickshaw. This slightly older, aunty-type woman comes around looking for a ride to some place, and is utterly disappointed to find you already sitting in the ride she thought was rightfully hers, and hers only. Sadly, it was not. What she thinks, you can make out from her countenances, The slight frown, or scowl, whatever you wish to call it; her incessant search for an empty ride (which is not going to come any time soon), and of course, her apprehension as she finally, and hesitantly steps into the vehicle that you're already occupying. Even the way the woman half-sits next to a young chap is a sure-shot indicator of the fact that she considers the fellow a rapist.
"Oh my god! I'm a woman, and this young bloke sitting next to me, as sexy as he is, is vermin!" Aunty, Aunty! You drive me crazy.

I doubt I should elaborate on this topic any further.
Meanwhile, something called graduation just drove by like a Tesla Model S, or more like a silent fart. To officially graduate, we have a ceremony called the convocation, which is basically a huge parade of juveniles wearing an unnecessarily square cap and a black gown, who walk up to a stage to collect a sheet of paper, which is proof of your three/four years of utter joblessness, quite literally. Do you know why convocations happen about half a year after you write your last exams? Neither do I. But this is one event in life where for the first time, you can think straight when you're stoned. Besides, not all convocation speeches are anywhere nearly as cool as the one Steve Jobs gave at Stanford. This is all the more so true if you happen to belong to one of the best colleges in the country. Here, they just bore you with more pointless statistics about things that were as important to you as the chewing gum you stuck under the teacher's desk in class 9. So yes, the convocation speech, more often than not is a stoner movie with very bad SFX, and a protagonist who is yet to come out of his mother's womb, or worse, is trying to get back inside. Now that makes things more gory, you see? So sit back, relax and enjoy the high. It won't last the entire length of the ugly speech anyway. 

Haunches!

It was may be a bad idea on my part to start reading Richard Branson's biography. The bugger just keeps showing off about the amount of times he had sex when he was a juvenile delinquent. And I keep getting a boner. Mr. Branson's never hovered near an IIT, in all likelihood, doesn't bother what the full-form of IIM or for that matter, IIN is, but nevertheless, doesn't boast about his three mistakes, or even three hundred mistakes. Yet, in his life, there was Pussy Galore, and no sir, he wasn't dreaming, at least apparently.

Holy Virgin olive oil! How do you get out of a dilemma? Sleep? Now there's a scarce commodity. Coffee? Nope! Definitely not if you have been thriving on the black liquid for the last four days. I'll tell you what. If the lady is slightly reluctant, and you just happen to feel like a pussy at the same time, a good jerk-off is the best solution. Basically, a classic situation where the phrase "Go, fuck yourself!" actually makes a lot of sense.

Here's what I do for a living, at least for now. I go to places, all expenses paid, watch things, write about them, come back, try and get someone to fix the grammatical errors in what I write, and get payed. Simple, easy and fun. Somewhere in the middle, I also get to fly around a racetrack at 220kph. Problem is, I still don't know how to hold a conversation. You see, that's the whole point. Things that give you existential issues may be as related to what you do or don't do as much as a giraffe is related to the tree you got your chair made out of. That is excatly how much I understand of what I write when I go about reading what I write. For a change, I won't be the only one facing that problem.

But there's one more problem I am confronted with. I can actually see when things are not in a sequence or an order. Not that one would give a hoot about sequence or order, unless you're one of those OCD infected types, who faints at the sight of strewn paper all around. Let your new found eye for orderliness set in and you will be appalled by another fact, that you are actually conforming to the norm, that of organisation, that you abhorred.

Yeah, I'm losing my creativity. It feels like a balloon with the air leaking out of it. I started with writing about ladies, intricately detailing every curve on the luscious bodies. And now, there's one figurine I want to detail to the point of making the woman a holographic projection in the reader's head. The issue now is that there is a good chance that my dad will read it.

Anyway, here's the deal with the lady. Things are a bit pear shaped. That said, have you ever eaten pears that are just a bit post their firm ripeness? They are just that perfect bit soft to bite into, the skin happy to yield to the teeth's pressure, and all you want is another bite, then another and another. Now, I have a weakness for haunches. Yes, that's a new word I picked up from a car review, which also happened to be my word for the day, actually my favorite word for the day. Don't know what 'haunch' means? Look it up, you lousy human! And the haunches on this woman just kill me. Though, I think I'll die if this holographic image in your head right now ever happens to sit on me, a) out of happiness, b) out of asphyxiation. If the woman reads this, I'm dead for sure. That's what happens when you don't communicate a lot and one of the sides goes about being a bit too in-depth with the details. But if I were to describe this 'Eve' in the least amount of words, I'd call her 'unconventionally sexy'. The only thing I can hope for from here on is that I don't fall for the trap this time as hard as I did last time, because at the end of it all, "It's a TRAP!!"

Blast away!

Have you ever notices adults around babies? Specially the toddler kinds? The adults look and seem like they have gone bonkers. All those facial contortionists come rushing into the room to please the baby, and some bugger in the room wonders... "What the hell is going on?". Perhaps, even the baby must be under the impression of  being in circus, and hence, finally decides to make some sound, just to put all the eager spectators at ease. Alas, that little sound emanating from the kid's mouth just fuels the madness in the room and now, everyone wants to individually make the baby chirp. How awesome! And just in case the baby pukes, farts, shits or pisses, there will still be a female in the room who says "Aww, how cute!". Of course, the chaps in the room would have reached Mars before anyone noticed.  

Let's go off on a tangent. We humans are more than ready to drive a nail through anyone's skull to prove or even state a point. True, that sounds harsh, but strangely, that's the way it is. In today's time, needless to say, a nail is too small an instrument to voice our opinion. And so, the smart ones among us just strap a bomb to themselves in the name of the message they intend to convey and blow themselves along with a few others and then some. Message conveyed, damage done, case closed. Oh wait, then there is a parent body that comes about, taking responsibility for having conducted the whole tear-inducing drama, which is actually very neat. At least then, you know who to look for, which, in actuality, you don't. Are you kidding? It is a little frivolous to even state that the owning up happens not out of some form of guilt for the doings, but is in fact a taunt to our collective incompetence to counter, let alone save the situation. Yes, by saying that alone, I do belittle a lot many brave sons and daughters of our nations, who are forever ready to take a bullet for our safety. Sadly, there is little we can do to prevent man's actions in a free world. Then again, as precisely pointed out in the book "The lord of the Flies", it's what we do; give man freedom to do anything and he will wage war. 

And given that 47 human lives will be replaced in a matter of, well less than a few minutes, thanks to the rate at which we replicate, you don't exactly feel the remorse for having killed whatever number of people who happened to have the misfortune of being around you when you, well, blew up. If protest is the big motto, might as well push people away, make some space and then demonstrate your act of sacrifice. But no! That's just spectator sport, so let's take some of them along for the ride!

Have you ever seen a crater created by an asteroid? Try standing at the edge of a deep canyon and you shall realize how puny man is. All these inventions, explosions, egos and other rods up our arses, just give them 100 years. A good number of them won't matter any more than a grain of sand on the beach. Well, in 100 years, humanity itself will remain little like what we witness it as today. We are very near a brink called AI, which will make anything we've seen before quite honestly redundant, even ourselves for that matter. If we happen to be smart enough to not pointlessly fight a soon to be insurmountable machine intelligence, and also if the machine lets us live, we will quite inevitably become some synergistic form of life, man and machine as one. After that comes a highly probable invasion from somewhere outside of our planet. And we shall be like "Damn! We weren't the only ones out there! A pale blue dot in free-floating space, that's what we've always been." Just hope that the invasion comes after we bind with the machines, because, we are sitting ducks, unless characters from the Marvel and DC comic book universe plan on bringing themselves to life, of course. 

Right now, the sun is setting here, as in many places. Some blokes are busy caressing their newborns, some are busy in the process of making newborns while a few are plotting to keep a bunch of people from making newborns by simply blasting themselves near this above mentioned unfortunate bunch before they get home to their shot at copulation. As usual, countless will pointlessly shed tears at their loss; pointlessly because we still haven't figured out time travel in 2015. Not to forget the chaps will be relentless at blasting away things to make a point, til the time there is no more a point to make.

At the same time, what we shall also be relentless at is being all sentimental about the blasts by writing anywhere between 20 to 2000 words on them, disfiguring our ever so painstakingly selected photos with hues of the French flag, just to show how much we condemn this barbaric act. That's what we do. We "Condemn" such acts, because obviously, what else can we do? In reality, all this support we go around showing to victims, is just a glimpse into our fears of falling prey to such mindlessness. But nevertheless, we live on, the world, despite not being enough, keeps spinning, and still, no one feels giddy. 

Writing vain

I'll tell you about a dream I had. It's quite personal, and needles to day, it will feel like you were on psychedelics by the time you are done reading. And the trip could go bad. But before the dream, a little bit of starter as to how I think I had the dream that I had. 

My parents watch old Hindi songs at night. From where I see, there's not much of a disparity in what the songs meant back then and what they mean today. They either mean "Let's have sex", or "I miss having sex with you", or "I'm horny!! I'm horny!! I'm HORNY!!!!!!" Here's an example...

Just that today, we need Sunny Leone to fill the void caused by lack of intelligent lyricists. Now, why did I not think of that before?

Back to the dream, during the late-night song session on the idiot box, which I usually refrain to be a part of, save for yesterday of course, my sister was listening Manali trance. Amazing! I doubt she can pronounce or even spell Marijuana properly. Either way, the song was so annoying that I implored her to change the channel. Remember, I implored. I never do that on regular days. Thankfully, she changed the channel. But trouble was right around the bend. She tuned into a channel playing old songs, which at the time that we tuned into, played a song which featured an actress who looked a tad bit too much like a female I was bonkers about. Maybe, I shouldn't have said that. And maybe, I should also not have said that I get panic attacks when I see any woman who bears the remotest resemblance to this female. But I suppose I just did exactly that. I shouldn't reveal such intimate details to strangers, I suppose. Anyway, who gives bollocks to females who give you panic attacks?

So after seeing this ugly song, I freaked out, and probably lunged into my own room; probably because the intervening five seconds are a bit of a blur. I got up to fast, I guess. Back in my room, life came back to normal. I watched a movie, drifted around a digitally generated race-track in an AE-86, oftentimes ramming the car straight into street-lights. The crow booed every time I did that, making me feel like I should have rammed into the stands instead. After a little reading session, I dozed off like the world wouldn't exist tomorrow. That's when the dream started. 

I was driving quite fast around some road like the Sierra Nevada track in the game Road Rash. Remember that one? I don't remember the car I was driving. All I knew was that there were two cars ahead of me that were moving a lot slower than I wanted them to. I just wasn't sure if there was enough room to overtake them both, because it was a blind left-handed turn up ahead. But I jammed the throttle and sped past the two buffoons. In the next bit, I only remember a steep climb that I needed to endure and all of a sudden, I'm not in my car any more. The ordeal this time was on foot. Even in the dream, I was thinking about a cute female who seldom puts her own photo on whats-app. 

The aforementioned female I was bonkers about, was trouble from day one. I knew that in the head, but perverse little me never heeds advice from head-quarters. Mind you, this strategy usually works beautifully; the one of not listening to the head. Alas, not with this female.

After this little climb that was up ahead of me, little did I know that I was to run from this tyrannous woman, or at least that's how the game was planned. I don't know why it was like that. But I ran for deal little life as hard as I could. Thankfully, my attire had transformed into Flash's costume, which of course only meant one thing.. Light Speed!! And a thing about being able to run fast, or even being able to fly in a dream is this. It feels AWESOME! Yeah, I have bouts of lucid dreaming. There were two things going on in my head as I warped through space at Flash-ish speeds.

#1: Why not run back in time and just not meet the troublesome female?

#2: Why is the sound of her voice still lingering around? It's against the laws of physics isn't it? Light being much, much faster than sound, meaning, at the speeds I was running at, I should technically not be able to hear the woman's voice if she said anything. And yet, I could hear her voice looming around, telling me some indecipherable gibberish. 

Next thing I know, the Flash-costume is gone and I am standing at a door with those see-through wire-mesh nets on them. It's a dingy little house of sorts, the place I am in. I distinctly remember how a free spirit I was at the start of the dream. And now, I was a prisoner of my own imagination. And that ruddy female's face kept popping all around the place. This was around 3 in the morning. I know that for a fact because that was about the time when a colleague from work pinged me to inform of the changes I need to make on our website's home-page. Phew! What a bloody relief from an ugly dream! More so, how I want to thank this chap from work for having chosen that time in the morning to wake me up for something work related. That last line is both an honest compliment and a sarcastic remark rolled into one.

I'd also like to thank my cell-phone for surprisingly being audible last night. For had it been otherwise, I'd have been screwed. Other people I want to acknowledge include the female I used to be bonkers about, the cute female who is quite bonkers herself, my parents, teachers, friends and all those jobless people who will go through the painful task of reading this absolutely frivolous piece of literature, which shall add no value to your life whatsoever, To the last set of people mentioned, please get a life.
By the way, moral of the story is this...
If you want to sleep in peace, please don't listen to songs that have actresses in them who even remotely look like some woman who almost drove you nuts. 

Dusted away

There's something inherently dissatisfying about a morning if you sleep before 2 in the morning, the night before. Now why does that line sound so grammatically off?

But yes, wake up, read around, get the blood pumping with some weights and squats and you're good to go. Oh yes! Before that, some coffee would be splendid. Next, you call up a car dealership and ask if there's a vehicle for test driving. Actually, you could do the calling part on the evening before so that you don't need to wait next morning for the dealership to get ready and clean his bottoms. Either way, what a fantastic idea; the whole bit about car dealers bringing their test car to your doorstep! You don't need to get out of your place and go hunting for the showrooms. What a bloody relief, specially when you want to test-drive a Renault. These folks churn out solid cars and then retail them through their sparsely located showrooms. What a shame. Then again, when I talk about solid cars from Renault, the list doesn't include their Scala and the... umm.. what's the smaller, fancier looking Micra called? Aha! The Pulse. What bollocks! I don't know if it is any good, but not that I honestly care.

Phew! It's alleviating to not think about the opposite gender for over an hour. Anyway, moving on... No, actually wait! Why can't you understand these creatures? See, cars are so simple as long as you know how to use the clutch. And in case of automatics, you don't even need to know that. Is there an automatic transmission on ladies too? So that all you need to do is prod the throttle. To many, I might already be getting too graphic. And besides, automatics are no fun, specially since in the manuals, the stick is purely in your control. That again, is not purely metaphorical, mind you.

So yeah, finally, I'm getting a hang of driving. But now, a bit on test-drive vehicles,

It's usually customary to test a car on your potential purchase list, unless of course, you plan on buying a Rs. 2 crore limousine, which in all probability, will be driven a lot more by your chauffeur than by yourself. In that case, you can waltz into a high-end car manufacturer's showroom, do eenie-meenie-minie-mo, pay the jaw-dropping amount on the car's price-tag, and tango out in your fancy new set of wheels.

But just in case you happen to go up the rungs of life like normal people do, you go to the car showroom, pester the salesman about how many kilometers to a litre of petrol or diesel the car in contention will take you before displaying an empty fuel tank. If the above mentioned distance is anywhere below 15 kilometers, you'll outright tick the car off your list and move on.

I learned that trick from my dad, well almost. But  here's the deal. Your car is an extension of yourself. it's like an oversized pet, if one may. It can be a beast when you want it to be, while also being happily sedate when you want it to. So please don't judge it on Miles per gallon.

Today's car was the Duster. I like as well as dislike the way the backside of the car looks like a baby's bottoms. Smooth, but a bit frog-like. Even the eyes look a bit frog-ish.. Something like this... Oo<>oO

Rrrrrribbit...

See? The "<>" is obviously the Renault badge, or the best I could make of it with the keyboard. So yeah, on the outside, it's a little excessively round. But nevertheless, it feels tank-like to look at. Another thing... I don't know why I am writing all of this. Chaps from my workplace have already put the car through its paces, and have also come out with a verdict. To that, I say... Big deal.

(Damn, I hope my boss doesn't read this. And I'm not going to tell you his name.)

So that was the outsides. It's a progeny of a frog and a battle tank. Or to be a little unsubtle, the Duster's exteriors are what you get when a frog has sex with a battle tank; a crossover in the truest of senses. Goodness! That line was a weight on my chest. So since that's off, I shall move onto the interiors, which are staid-looking at best. All functional and everything, but it is built like the car is on sale for the year 2000.

Okay, what the hell am I doing? Am I reviewing a car or something? Well, actually, the seating position is bloody amazing. Big seats, slightly hard to the touch, but in a very reassuring way.

Hold on, the best bit about the car remains. And it is the drive. Save for the slightly notchy gear lever, it drives like a dream. I am reiterating the fact that as a driver, I am a beginner at best. And hence, if I say it's easy to drive, there's hardly a moron out there who couldn't drive the Duster. It is proportionally up on a big chunk of cars out there on the road, but strangely, it doesn't let you feel so, except for maybe its wheel-arches that extend a mile on each side; something worth paying attention to if you are to wade through a lot of traffic. But give it a clean stretch of terra firma, or for that matter, even an undulating one, and this one will seldom fail to make you smile. Just that all its grunt surges out in a bit of a hurry post 2000rpm on the rev meter.

Summing up the car in about two lines is actually simple. If you like to drive and have a penchant for straight forward, uncomplicated things, the Duster is your baby. It's not fancy like the Creta from Hyundai. But it is safe and comes with everything that you will need on the road, or even sometimes off it, just in case push comes to shove.

I'll try describing a woman in such detail next time. I'll maybe try to be a little succinct.

From behind the wheel

I just hate fellow drivers. Specially those stinky ones who think that it's their moral right to cut you when your speedo reads over 60. Kilometers per hour, I mean. I know, I could have written 60kph, or 60km/h, but why not waste words for a change? Coming back to fellow drivers, every time I get onto the road, I wonder who created them. And yes, I have also come to the conclusion that pondering over the issue is a purely fruitless waste of time. 

Ever been on Mumbai roads within a 20 meter radius of a Mahindra Scorpio? Here are a few things guaranteed. It will mostly be white. It will be a base variant, as the driver wants the car only for its monstrous proportions. It will most certainly have something written in saffron on it. I won't get into any further specifics as I shall surely be killed if I do. I have seen people coming in harm's way through very inconspicuous blog posts. And so, hail freedom of speech. 

Either way, these above described cars look ugly, just like their Ray-Ban wearing, betel chewing chaps behind their wheels. Now do I actually have to tell you that it is a pain to drive next to them? The blokes drive like the road belongs to them, and I am fully confident that if you go to confront them, they will run you over, and even escape charges for murdering you because..... because..... because..... as always, you don't know who their father is. That comes from the dialogue from Delhi folks... "तू जानता नहीं की मेरा बाप कौन है? (Tu jaanta nahi mera baap kaun hai?)", which means "You don't know who my father is?", which in turn means that the chap who asked you the question during the conflict(Which most likely was caused by the bloke) knows some corrupt little politician who is nowhere related to his father, and hence wants to warn you of potentially dire consequences, should you chose to take the argument any further. 

I just don't understand the logic of this "Fatherly" question. Why would anyone ask you if you know his father? 

No buddy, I don't know your father. Could you please get your pissy little face out of my bloody sight?

The sad part is that the Scorpio driver never asks you this futile question. He has surpassed the Delhi bugger in terms of intelligence on this front. You do though, get to know who this fellow's father or godfather is after you are done being pulverized. But then again, this piece of information is as useful to you as a visiting card of a Datsun salesman when you drive a BMW. And no, I don't drive a BMW... Not right now at least.  

So all is hunky dory and the lord is supposed to be on the last day of creating the world, since tomorrow is a Sunday. Amazing! That's one more thing I hate. Sundays. What dreadful time of the week. Saturday is over. Monday morning blues are less than 24 hours away and the day zips by like a glass of fresh lemonade. Anyone seen those sensitive ladies who sip on their lemonades through a straw? Why, poor women? What has a shot of Vitamin C ever done to you? Besides, these ladies call everything "tacky". What a set of pretentious little wusses!

And tonight's the night. No, the cute lady isn't coming over. Alas. But Saturday nights are when you feel that you can conquer the world! Okay, you end up watching 5 movies in a row, and reach halfway through a book if it's funny. But the feeling of empowerment, specially after having driven your car for quite a bit is uplifting at the very least. 

Another thing about driving cars that I just noticed today is this. We generally shift up to the next gear when the engine runs at about 2000-3000RPM. For a change, just hold onto that gear a while longer. Your perceptions about your car are most likely to change. But that again is when you factor in quite a bit of things. For starters, you need to nail the right pedal to see anything awe inspiring. Secondly, you need to have a clean patch of tarmac ahead of you. It is best if you don't have fellow passengers in the car, specially not your mother; unless of course your mom is a petrolhead.

Mind you, I am still discovering how decent a driver can be, Becoming good, in all honesty, seems a long way ahead. Why is it that I can only thing about cars or women? Cars and women together are fine as long as the lady is not using her pretty smile to lure you into her showroom. 

Deep.. err Stuff

Ah, the sight of my beautiful keyboard without the thoughts of quality controlling words! It is a blissful moment in time, completely worth savoring.

So since that bit is over with, let's proceed with thoughts of the day.

#1: If it's a beautiful Tuesday morning when you find yourself waiting for the weekend to arrive, you're in deep shit.

#2: If you think of shit, or something shitty and don't feel like laughing, then you are in deep shit. Or that you are constipated. Or both.

#3: If you get your paycheck and are still not happy, then again... you are in deep shit. Or actually, the guy who made your cheque was stupid to not include your middle name while writing it. So now, you can't get the money you painstakingly did not work for. Either way, you're still in deep shit.

Okay, the next one's easy.

#4: If you get into a train and cannot get out on your stop, you are in....... err.. Mumbai during peak rush hour. Or you are thinking about some mental female. And of course, you are in deep shit!

#5: If you can only think about work even in your sleep, and in the process, you can't sleep, again, the shit pit gets deeper. Because

a) Your bloody creativity is gone for a good old toss, bugger!

b) You begin to stutter in front of the cute female.

And while all this is happening, the mind is secretly knowing exactly what's going on. You're taking life too seriously, specially when no one seems to be coming out of the other end alive. So the grey fellow behind the forehead whispers... "You chut, you're losing your Vitamin C!" And you're like "What??"

You know the worst bit? The worst bit is when parents send you weird pictures with quotes in it, which, according to them, will perk you up. Parents, oh so naive these creatures are. For a change, I won't go into evolutionary biology of why parents are overprotective of their offsprings. Because to be honest, I have no clue of why they are the way they are. I'd rather listen to Justin Bieber than try to dig deeper into the issue. And this is the point where I was supposed to run out of ideas to type down. But I'm now wondering if the movie "Inherent Vice" make any sense without pot. Because strangely enough, Ant-Man did. Mind you, such issues, when brought up in mind while driving behind an utterly incompetent driver is quite obviously an obnoxiously bad idea. Now, I feel I should add more words to my repertoire. How about the word 'Negligee'? It's what ladies usually wear when at home. You've seen it in the movies, and wondered how wonderful it would be if ladies actually wear such things at home. But a little bit of prudent introspection would help you realize that the negligee isn't made for all. I wouldn't go into the specifics of why so, as I ain't no Shallow Hal. But it's funny what our ladies here wear. It's funnier what it is called. Maxi. Err... Again, why? I'll leave the etymology to you.

Disturbing the train of thought again, it's not a good thing to be told that your thought process just doesn't follow a sequence. Specially when you're told so at work by your boss. What hat does is only strengthen your belief in the fact that you are probably autistic, dyslexic, or have some disorder you cannot spell. I even got the spelling of spelling wrong. You see, any place with the remotest probability of double letters, and the brain just over-fires; or actually does not fire at all. What the hel.

Mind you, despite that the mind minds its own business with a mind of its own, it is actually very mindful. You may not be, but don't say that about your grey matter. You see, just because you decided to wag your dick over fire, turning it into an inedible sausage instead of a useful appendage, don't blame the brain. It just stood by to numb your pain after you were done with business as usual. All this is metaphorical, absolutely! But you never know. With us humans, you NEVER know.

If you notice, there's a voice in your head that tells you a lot of things. When that voice screams "Oh shit! Oh shit! Oh shit! Get your arse out of here", don't listen to it. That's your reptilian cortex(the most rudimentary bit of your brain) speaking.

By the way, in the quest of hilarious novels, I ran into a title called "The sex lives of Cannibals". Nice! Very graphic, very gory and very, very sexy indeed! Not to forget, very painful too. I am yet to read the book, but I am sure it has little to do with sexual habits of the female Preying Mantis. Tempting book title anyway.

And another thing... In Hindi there's a phrase that goes by "हर मर्ज़ की दवा"(Har Marz ki dava), which means 'A cure for everything'. It's surprising how the English speaking population ingeniously circumvented all the anyway incomprehensible Urdu. They just mixed sugar, fat and cocoa in a wide variety of proportions and shut everyone up with good old chocolate. Lesser beings added milk powder to the concoction and gave the world Milk chocolate. And yes, it cures everything. Well, almost.

Why don't you realize?

Today's the day when I figured that I'm not too far from being a half-decent driver. It's also the day when I found out that I'm no where close to being a decent driver. Today, I also saw a bike named after, and inspired by Marla Singer from Fight Club, and thanks to the tug of war between cause and effect, also realized that the producer of the namesake bike either had his shit together, or was completely bonkers, or both. 

Marla. Crazy female. Feisty female. And why is it never strange that all women I have interacted with closely thus far, have in one way or another, told me that they are off in the head? I like women who are off in the head. 

By the way, I shouldn't have started on women. What trouble, these creatures; whether they are or not around. Today is also the day when the cute female who sits next to me at work didn't turn up.... Again. Not that I noticed though. I stuck to my work like a good little lad, hoping that this girl, with all her wavy hair wouldn't turn up in the seat RIGHT in front of me. And with that, I find lying a little easier. What??

On the whole, today was a day of realizations. Remember Kumar Sanu? Saason ki zarurat hai jaise...

Toda, I realized that Mr. Ankit Tiwari is the 2015 replacement for the ever....green Mr. Sanu. All his songs sound the same. He pretty much sounds the same in all his songs, and all modern day romeos wail to death listening to the chap's songs, just like all modern day romeos, back in the day, wailed to death listening to Kumar Sanu and his sing-song ancestors. Is it just me or is the concept of lovelorn chaps mulling over their misfortune utterly ludicrous?

A bit more on mainstream Indian music, a.k.a filmy music. Does anyone realize that almost all of our lyricists are men? So all the romantic words that came out of the most melodious female voices were all figments of some very horny bugger's imagination who had a piece of paper and a pen in his hand?  Am I taking things too far? Maybe, But mostly not. Another thing! The best of our songs have very brazen sexual connotations. No sensor board here. 

Switching tracks now, when does a wound heal? How about you having gotten hurt a long time ago? And now, you don't have a concrete memory, reason or evidence to link yourself to the oftentimes debilitating flashbacks of a certain nothing from days of present past. Aha! Of what use is Marvel Comics jargon if you can't incorporate it into day-to-day lingo?

One more realization before I talk about life on Mars, which is, truth be told, as awesome as a fight between a T-Rex and a sea-horse. The realization.... Isn't it a bit upsetting that our parents faced the same talking-down from their elders as most of us, do and shall face? And isn't it more so upsetting that many of our fellow mates, contemporaries, and most importantly ourselves will very likely subject younger blokes around us to our pessimistic nay saying? Just so that we're clear, I wasn't actually going to yak about life on Mars. Only Elon Musk does that sort of a thing.

What's truly sad is that jobless folks write about Marla Singer, raunchy music, star-fish, semen, (Oh hell! I meant Sea Men) and unhappy elderly people when there are others, distressed due to loss of their dear ones in an earthquake that shook the ground beneath them, just a day ago.

And "Moby Dick" is about a sperm whale. Why? 

To find out, get your copy today!

Here's something for everyone who can't figure out lyrics of a song. It's called Afgan Jalebi. Strictly not for those who can't make sense of Urdu. 

My father's guys

Dad's school friends came over yesterday. I was hoping for some scandalous scoop from the time, before, my mom, let alone I, came into the picture. Why does the last sentence sound a bit off? 

Anyway, nothing much came out, at least not the kind of beans you'd expect to be spilled from your father's school days. Rather, one particularly cringe-worthy line came from one of the friends.... "Your dad was a good guy.", which in my opinion, means "Kid, your dad didn't do much." 

Now, I hope my father really never reads this, or for that matter, anything I write. 

The group that came over, wasn't a tight one, back in 1979, when they parted ways. Over 30 years down, nostalgia and Facebook just happened to bring the gang together. Strangely touching. I can't even imagine my close chaps and myself, what we'd look like , or talk about, 30 years from now. And to be honest, imagination has better uses, I suppose. 

There were upsides to the whole get-together though. The gang had a lady. And I can only begin to imagine how gorgeous the woman would have looked, when she was younger. See? I told you. Imagination has better uses! I'm pretty sure that my dad had the hots for her, but never mustered the nerve to tell her anything. How I know if my dad had his hots for this female, you ask? It's kind of in the genes. Like father, like son, you see?

Actually, the woman would have looked just a bit more than good, when she left school. She played basketball. Ladies who play basketball..... I love ladies who play basketball. I love ladies in general, but that's completely besides the point. And here's yours truly falling flat for a 54 year-old woman. Hell! I should have been in place of my dad in 1979. Yes, it would have been a decade after Woodstock. But no one would have noticed. I hope. Nah! Now's better. But what a lovely lady! She's a teacher. And she chugs beer. Just like the principal, Ms.Mullins from School of Rock!

"If you wanna be a teacher's pet,(Oohh.. la la la la)

Maybe you should better forget it! (Oohh.. la la la la)

Rock got no reason, rock got no rhyme! (Oohh.. la la la la)

You better get me to school on time!!!"

Almost forgot, "She's the Man!"

If you are wondering what the last paragraph or so was all about, I've got one word for you. DIE!

Having said that, I have missed out on a big chunk of modern pop culture myself. I haven't read, nor watched the Lord of the Rings, Chronicles of Narnia, or even Game of Thrones series. That, I feel, is a bit of a bummer. I am neither a big fan of Star Wars, or Star Trek, again something I regret a bit. Not that they are going anywhere. And thankfully, I also have skipped out on F.R.I.E.N.D.S and "How I met your mother", the latter in which, apparently no one gets to know how anyone ever gets to meet anyone's mother. 

The last bit, that of not having watched the two insanely popular shows, is very lightening to the soul. Every English talking yuppie boasts about having watched both of them. To them, I say, get a life!

Oh crap! I was talking about the gorgeous lady from my dad's school. Also part of the gang was one of the coolest 50+ year old chap I've met so far. He was so smart, that no body, except for his wife and I could even understand his jokes. That sucked a little. He shot a joke at my dad. My dad didn't grasp it. The bugger condescendingly patted my dad on the shoulder. I wanted to sock him in the face, right there. The fellow is a stock broker. His now-wife, distributed his wedding cards during his first marriage. He smokes, reads, and goofs around like he knows no tomorrow. He listens to Frank Zappa. And yes, he does pot! And he doesn't mind making it public. He at least revealed to me that my dad never smoked pot, something I'd understood a long time ago, but wasn't sure of. The lack of misadventures in my dad's life is a bit of a concern for me. Or maybe, I've met none of his close chappies.   

The only other chap in the gang, to remain so far unmentioned, is a rather uninspiring fellow. He's a scientist at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre. He looks the part. He also looked like the guy who'd secretly jerk off to the photo of the girl he likes; the photo he clicked while stalking the female in question. Needless to say that the girl doesn't even know that he exists. The fellow had an obnoxiously tight handshake, acquired from seemingly years of relentlessly clearing his pipes. Damn! I should apply for the role of Sherlock Holmes in the BBC TV series.

Besides, this friend of my father had an orange bush for a mustache, and a complete irreverence to any topic that the gang was discussing throughout the evening. Worst of all, he wore shiny black, pointy, crocodile leather shoes. That's plain fucking ugly.

That was my version of "Close encounters of the third kind". And I'm just about to watch the movie. Another reason for happiness is that the guests did not finish all the ice-cream. There's two family-packs worth of it left in the freezer. Oh Yeah!

Why you such a chutiya, bro?

Yes! Its that time of the day, that day of the week, that week of the month, goodness knows which one, and that month of the year, when I get to finally sit in front of my computer screen, with only 6 tabs open, unlike a gazillion on usual days. Mind you, I work with two screens. And now, I am completely at sea about what it is that I wanted to write about in the first place.  By the way, the job's great, the girl isn't yet repelled by my overtures, and I get to daydream about cars all day long. And my dad's not pushing me to master any Business Administration. Amazing! 

Anyway, it's time for "The word of the day". Today's word is 'Eponymous'. The word means that a cocky bastard made something and named his made thing after himself. So much in a desperation to leave behind a legacy! I would totally not bother with any eponymous creations of my own, which mind you, is a complete lie. But I just abhor it when some bugger goes about engraving or embossing his name on a beautiful looking pen, or ring. 

As I write this, my dad's ordering a crate of beer... In front of me. Now that's something new. I'm looking at him as he's placing his order, and he gives me this "Kid, you're not getting any of that beer" smile. I'm not big on drinking, or so I like to say. Pot, anyone?

Huh? What??

My phone doesn't catch network at my workplace. Which is in a way, a good thing. Mom doesn't call all the time now. Poor thing. I said this to a friend, who was, to my chagrin, looking for a new service provider. He asked me "Dude, how's Idea?". I said "No idea.". I don't know the buffoon who walked up from behind and said "Get Idea, Sirjee", but I had better things to do than mull over utter buffoonery. By the way, I just gave Idea Cellular an ad idea. Looks like Idea lacks ideas. Okay, too many ideas. 

I belong to a middle-class household. Well, upper-ish middle class home. Nevertheless, the freezer is always stocked with condiments of all kind, rather than chocolates, ice-creams, or anything, that is actually supposed to be mainstay in an ideal refrigerator's freezer compartment. But, BUT, BUT, as you know, middle-class people scurry to the nearest shop to get the good stuff (read ice-creams), the moment guests are expected. I love ice-cream. More so, when I have an opportunity to avenge myself in front of guests. I know, I'm awesome. I feel elated by the very thoughts of watching the expression on my parents' faces when they discover that the ice-cream they bought yesterday, for the guests, passed through my guts, into the commode, just today morning. I let my kid sister in on my grand plans of finishing off all the ice-cream before the guests arrive. You know what my sister told me?

"Why you such a chutiya, bro?"

Kids, nowadays, I tell you. No respect for older siblings.

There are a few more things that come to mind. The other day, I was staring at two coins, a one rupee, and a two rupee coin. Now you know how jobless I am. Mind you, no one dropped these coins in my hand because they felt how pitiful my condition was. Back to the coins, the two rupee coin is the latest in circulation. The one-rupee coin is the last one that got replaced with new punier ones. And both of them, the one and two rupee coins, are dimensionally the same.  Isn't it slightly weird? We go about, carrying these coins, which are given some value by a seemingly insurmountable, all-governing body; not to forget all the pieces of paper(Read money) we have grown so fond of. Chaps may rant about a need for standardization of exchange of commodities. Bollocks! Okay, maybe I'm wrong. But who gives a hoot? Two coins of the same size, with some minor difference in their fancy designs, not even made out of different materials, are surprisingly different in value. Thumbs up to that!

Anyone listens to radio anymore? It may sound a bit old-school, specially with Gaana.com, and a gazillion more 'apps'(Goodness, I hate the word 'apps') like it playing everything you'd ever listen to. But that said, even radio is a pain in the arse, ear actually. three-fourths of the time, you hear random ads. The remaining time, you hear Honey Singh. If my dad's playing the radio, I do hear melodious Mr. Kishore Kumar. But oftentimes, the experience is ruined by the perpetually saccharine Ms. Lata Mangeshkar. She should replace the 'L' in her name with a 'T'. If you know what I mean. Coming back to radio channels, the way the ads play out on the radio, each brand squeezing every second of available air-time, all of them sound like,,,,

"Mutual funds are subject to market risks. Please read the offer document carefully before investing" played at the rate of 2000 words per minute. No one hears it, and it is maddeningly irritating. 

Jeremy Clarkson is a superbly bright man. I know, I sound too opinionated, and yes, I am talking about the 7-foot, octogenarian-looking, erstwhile host of BBC Top Gear. In his book "Clarkson on Cars", in which the Brit goes about beating up everything on the road, the bugger made a very astute observation. It goes this way.  If someone uses the bus to get to work, the chap would mostly make use a bus to get back. In that vein, if some "X" number of people use the bus in a day, it wouldn't be far from truth that actually, the number of people using buses on an average day are actually "X/2". Or maybe, I find that to be an astute observation because I am a huge Clarkson fan. He looks bloody ugly, though. 

The Curious case of Bugger #3

It had been the three of us for a big chunk of the time, at least for the last two years. The big all-encompassing brainy hulk on top, the ever so unflinching mid-section, and the ballsy base with thunder-thighs. That was three of us. I wonder what would have happened, had we rolled into one human. Whatever be the case, the end result would have been a disaster. But nevertheless. It's been what, four months? And we are already one-third down. A hit to the back from Bane, and even Batman went down for good; and for quite long. 

I am a little oblivious to friendship, to be very frank. Haven't had many in life. But the ones I've had, have held me in good stead, and shall do so for a long time to come. So when someone, who I've spent so much time with, suddenly goes absconding, I feel a little jittery. I'm sure I don't have bloopers to show, of the craziness my two chaps and I have gone through. But our mothers used to call the other two, in case her own son was out of reach. 

Nowadays, you know that someone is not entirely alive if he/she abstains from phone calls, text messages, whatsapp, facebook, and most strangely, even emails. The only thing left to do is to go around with pamphlets containing photos of the missing friend from door to door on the streets of Delhi. On the streets of Delhi, because that was where our 3rd bugger was apparently seen last. Not that I am afraid that the chap can't defend himself. Goodness, the bloke holds a black-belt in Karate. What's more troubling is that he is behaving like those annoying, and oftentimes annoyed girls, who do not respond to any forms of the above mentioned means of communication. Maybe, he shall respond to letters. I don't know. Or I'm just over-reacting. Or maybe the chap has decided to turn into a hermit, or an ascetic, as the fellow's cousin suggests. 

I am only afraid that the guy got killed by his relatives, and everybody is just pretending about him being alive by picking up his phone and saying that the chap's busy, or something on those lines. Scandalous, the mind is. Perhaps, if this friend of mine, if he reads all of this nonsense, might just as well bother to get in touch with me. He would surely have a few choicest words that he would throw at me. But that's fine. It will be target practice for him, just as this is writing practice for me. 

By the way, the guy's name is Nayan. Yeah, that's the guy. Isn't he innocent looking? If someone spots him, please contact 9037696969! ASAP!

HE IS MISSING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why, darling? Why?

It's raining outside at the time I write this. And a few fond memories from not very long ago, are coming back to my mind. But just as they do, I warn myself of the frivolity of these memories. I know for a fact that they meant little now, as much as they did then, back in time. Blah, blah, blah.... Sentimentality, I tell you, completely sucks!

You can get your dream job, follow your passions, watch Narendra Modi travel the world, see Volkswagen drown in its own diesel fumes, and also feel bad about a girl you like sounding iffy upon being asked to buy you coffee. But only two words come to mind when you realize that there's no water in the bathroom, specially just after having taken a dump. The words are "Oh" and "Shit". Needless to say that "!!!!" follows too. But again, let's not focus on excretion.

I was sitting on my commode, and wondering about emoticons. Yeah, I do stuff like that. Can you imagine, it all started with this?.....

It did have the "sad" smiley face for a companion. But then again, the number of options we have now, to express how we feel, is honestly unimaginable.  More importantly, I am still trying to figure out what the hell the one below means.

Anyway, moving on. It's worth wondering what over 7.2 billion people on the planet think while taking a dump. Okay, maybe it's not that much worth thinking what human minds can conjure up while smelling their own turd, or that of those who came and did their business before. That said, however, relieving your bowels is surely a constructive period, at least as far as creativity goes. You can think and do as you please, without a giving a shit, while actually dishing out all your shit. Wow! That was some line!

I'm wondering whether I'd be writing these words, had it not been a nagging female running after my life with a dagger! Goodness, I want to get rid of her! Oh yes, by the way, talking about women, I realized that if you ever so much so as  give them a little leeway, they WILL make you feel like you owe them something. I know, it kind of sucks. I say this despite not having a complete understanding of female psychology. And honestly, anyone, let alone ladies themselves, claiming to have understood how the female mind works, is lying, is a female, or both. Actually, anyone claiming to have understood anything completely is a liar. And if the liar gets away with the lie long enough, the liar is definitely a female!

That brings me to understanding of things. Actually, that does not bring me to anything. Yeah, but there's something that's been bothering me for a while. I went to a mall the other day. The entry to the mall is such that the first area you enter is the food place; a jam packed place where giant firms with fancy logos shovel their crap into your bellies. Agreed, that's a pessimistic take on things. But the "choices" we all pride ourselves on for having, are mostly part of a big.................. fat............. farce. 

I saw the huge crowd in that food-court area, with all these people doing their thing, and something struck me. We are all living mass-produced realities. That statement is still far from clear in my own head. But it strangely rings a bell somewhere inside. Or maybe it's just me. 

Another thing being that there is a good chance that we are living in the past. Not like "There is some force in the future that is playing out our present the way we see it.". Okay, that too may be a possibility. But just the way we live, technologically, there is something very backward about our present. Yes, we have smartphones that would work in space just as well as they do on earth. Now some smart-ass will comment on how there is no network, or plug-points in outer space, or some crap like that. Not that sort of stuff. I am talking about uploading-your-mind-into-the-cloud kind of stuff. Imagine, all these minds, not being separate from one another, sharing each other's streams of thought, and then being able to project it on the planet into some human, or maybe even into a holographic form. So even the flesh is out of picture. No, I'm not talking about artificial intelligence, mind you. Only problem in the picture is that the whole concept of sex goes straight out of our windows. You see, the Cloud spells the end for Windows. Goo(dness)gle knows the use of Apples then. Maybe they'll only remain in the tales of the Eden Garden. Bad trip. Sorry.

Cascade

There is a persistent search for the ethereal. As one of the Bond movies suggest, "The world is not enough." Well, for all anyone knows, it probably isn't. Do you know how easy it is to think, when the mind is ephemerally ridden from thoughts of the flesh, copulation, if I may put it articulately, or fucking, if I allow myself to sound crass. 

The tension in the strings that hold the mind together seems to ease off a little. It feels like those pot-highs when you end up over-analyzing things in your surroundings, with all that excess analysis actually making a lot of sense in some outworldly manner. Jolts of epiphanies hit you like waves crashing on the shores, and sometimes, it all gets too much to handle. But sometimes, that's exactly what's required to clear the pipes of creativity, just to keep creation flowing.

Sometimes, all its needs is a sound, or a syllable, or the glimpse of a part of something that can lead to a song, a book, a painting or the next revolution in technology. What we see is only the tip of the iceberg in most cases, the flashy bits, so to say. Later, when the dust settles, we like to see a biopic on the struggles that lead to the Magnum Opus. But rarely are the toils noticed beforehand. 

You know what's stranger? It's when your dad asks what it is you want from the state of Kerala, to where he is headed for the next week. You do want him to get you something from the place. But you also know in all entirety that he shall never in this lifetime, be able to get you what you truly want from there. And so, you keep to yourself about what you want from the place in question and say "What would I want from Kerala?"

That last bit happened to be a tad too random, I believe. Randomness aside, creativity is actually random. So is the order of numbers and alphabets. That may be taking things too far. But our obsession with order is a farce. Ever seen all these queues that line up at ticket booths? Specially with the person behind you always trying to get ahead of you by standing as possibly adjacent to you as he/she possibly can, mystically believing that you'd let him/her ahead?

The funniest part is the chaos that steps in when a new window opens up for tickets. This mad frenzy unleashes itself in the mind of every member of the queue, making them leap towards the newly opened window. All order is lost, replaced by this urge to push and trample every human in one's path. As a matter of fact, the whole idea of getting men to conduct themselves in an orderly manner is anything more than a joke. Our armies, who seemingly succeed at doing so, do so only to channel the testosterone fueled, sex-craved animals upon a beast facing the same challenges as our men. Strange. It works though, doesn't it? Brilliantly so. You see, there's always an angle to organisation. An ulterior motive, if one may. 

That aside, there rarely is spontaneity in organisation, unless you talk about nanoparticles, of course, that arrange themselves in fancy patterns, that some really intelligent, but usually jobless person observes, and wins a Nobel Prize in the process. There's nothing organised about the jobless person being in the correct time, place and state of mind to observe the particles organising themselves into their organisation.  Complete randomness! It could happen to someone who toiled away for decades without any success. It would happen to the first chap who walks through the lab-doors in the morning after an amazing cup of coffee, for all anyone knows. 

What just struck me is that you need not create anything special if you set out to create something special in the first place. As in you could get the best pair of eyes, the best nose, the best looking head of hair, best mouth, teeth, boobs, arse and all the other parts, put them together still not arrive at anything beautiful looking. You'll actually end up making a female companion to the monster Dr. Frankenstein made. Frankenstein is not the name of a monster, for those illiterates who haven't read the book. Goodness alone knows who came up with the name Franklinstein. Sounds like the zombie of  Benjamin Franklin. Phew!

A little on 'shit' here. Yeah, that's necessary. That reminds me of two things. One is "Shit hitting the fan". The second being "Stepping on shit". Needless to say, either situations are highly unpleasant to find yourselves in. 

For situation #1, even momentary visualization of shit hitting the fan should suffice in destroying the appetites of the most voracious eaters around the table. And given the situation, you can't exactly do much, you know? Running ain't necessarily be very helpful. The best one can do is hope that you are spared the soiling. Or at least, you could hope for not being the last one to be hit by shit. Else, after everyone is done with their share, there's this one piece that comes hurtling your way and....

The last one is usually the worst hit. 

That brings us to situation #2.... Stepping on shit. 

This one happens to those who read the book 'The Alchemist', and started thinking of themselves as the protagonist, who is told to go around a beautiful castle with a spoon of oil in his hand. The protagonist goes about marveling at the castle's beauty, and drops all the oil in the spoon while walking. I'm sure the chap wouldn't have noticed had a piece of shit been dropped in his path. I know I wouldn't have. And besides, who names "Melchizedek" as the protagonist of a book? As a matter of fact, who names  "Melchizedek" the protagonist of ANYTHING? How do you pronounce the hero's name?  Melchizedek?? What? You're going to tell me to break the word up to make the pronunciation easier?

I am sure that Paulo Coelho wanted to play a prank on all those who sent him to a nut-house, who he was sure of, would read his book. He must have thought to himself...

"Those chaps who thought I was mad, when they get to know that I have become a published author, will flock to read my book. And I'll drive them mad by diving them a hero whose name they cannot pronounce, however hard they try! That shall be my REVENGE!!!"

Yeah, I just lost it 5 minutes ago. So much for stepping on shit. Besides, everyone knows who it is that stepped on the poop. And they will all give those "I know you stepped on shit" look. And all you can do is get out of the situation meekly. Or else, if you're good at bluffing, you could just point fingers at the next person. That should convince everyone. 

The lion, the kid and the woman

It's a bit of a disappointment when you realize that nothing really matters in the long run. Despite that "India wants to know on the news hour tonight", about what actually happened to Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, we all know deep down inside that despite us knowing what ACTUALLY happened, no part of the real history is going to change. By the way, we don't even need to know that deep down. Just in case anyone thinks that the disclosure of a few files is going to change over half a century of history, the person needs to, well do nothing. Not like he/she can do anything about his hapless thoughts anyway, But political conspiracies aside, there is so much we don't know, that if brought to light, we shall all be subjected to sever existential angst. Besides, all the shouting that usually takes place is an attempt to divert the public mind from much more pressing issues.

Yes, since not much actually matters, when one looks at the larger picture, apart from the disappointing bit, it is actually a relief. Basically, you can do anything you please, and mostly get away with it. Unless you get involved in some sort of a big crime of sorts, or that sort of a thing. Even after which one usually gets away at the end of everything. You see, exercise, eat healthy, meditate, and die anyway. That's a bit pessimistic, if you look at it, but anyway. 

I was walking down the road. It was all decorated everywhere, given the festive time of Ganesh Chaturthi. There was this kid walking, running, hopping around, doing her own thing behind her parents. The entrance to one of the buildings on the street was decorated with a lion's statue; the ones made from Plaster of Paris. This kid in front of me went berserk upon seeing this dumb looking lion. She went and touched this so called lion, and got so psyched to feel the animal figurine, almost as though it would jump out and start playing with her. And here I was, wondering if the kid was on acid. What, I mean WHAT could be exciting about a bum looking PoP lion statue that gets a little kid so happy? Honestly, at that moment, I wanted a real lion to jump out at the kid, only to see the kid shit in her pants, and probably get killed by the lion. But  was nearby, and if the lion was hungry, my own dear life would have been in trouble. So I kept that thought aside; of the real lion popping out from the statue, and kept walking, part amused by the kid's antics, and part guilty of wanting to watch the kid shit in her pants. Brilliant!

I walked on a little, and just realized that not too long ago, the kid-me would have gotten pretty psyched himself to see a lion statue. That would have been about two decades ago, but yeah, at 3, a lion statue would have looked exciting. Specially since at the time, my dad would have had to tell me that the creature I was looking at, is supposed to be a lion. This is when I could barely spell mu own name, let alone know the spelling of 'Lion'. But thus little girl looked more like she was 6. Damn, the girl must have really been a bum! The smile on her parents' faces were priceless though. 

"Awww... how cute! That's our kid, you know? And we are so proud of her!"

I never understood why parents are so bloody proud of their kids. Specially when they are more like 10 years old. For goodness sake, they can barely go to the loo by themselves. Except for those precocious little overachieving pricks who end up finishing their college degrees by the time they are 15, there is nothing remarkable about kids. The smaller ones are purely a pain in the arse. And yet, "I am so proud of you, my child!"

Every time my mom has said that, I've always said to myself, and to her(on a few occasions), "Damn right, you're proud of me, woman! I'm the most awesomest thing the planet has seen till date."

Huh, what? I was talking about the little bum girl, yes. 

I don't know what it is about parents, the way they feel for their children. The man and woman have sex without a condom; sometimes with one, the female gets pregnant. Relatives, few of them, never seen before, snoop around, asking for the "Good news", basically enquiring whether the couple have had sex yet. Just in case the two in question haven't gotten married, and the condom tears by mistake, or the guy is bum enough to not use one, the whole world castigates the chap and the female, needless to say that the girl faces severe persecution; let alone the humiliation, that is actually completely unnecessary. Why does the world have to bother about two random people trying to have a good time, specially when their doings have no bearings on the society at large? Not like no one else is sticking their boner into someone else. 

I almost forgot. I was talking about why parents are proud of their kids. So the kid is part of the sex, for usual people with sane minds, unless no one told them what happens after copulation, besides the sudden urge to fall asleep, specially when the woman stays wide awake till a lot later(about which you find out much later. Oops!)

The kid comes out. The parents feel like they have created something that will take on the world, make them proud, and all of that. One second. Let me get this right. Just to that the kid makes the parents proud, the parents become proud of the kids beforehand? Technically speaking, that is a logical fallacy. But meh, who cares if we can get away with what we usually do, just because our parents are delusional. 

I was sitting in the rickshaw the other day, when this woman walked by; really voluptuous female. Not that the woman was walking at speeds faster than the rickshaw's. The rickshaw was waiting for another passenger for some reason. Back to the voluptuous woman, I saw her walking by, and she suddenly turned around, got into the rickshaw, and sat next to me. Yeah. My awesomeness has that effect om people. By the way, a big disappointment. The face was inconsistent with the body. Goodness! Why does this happen? Before she turned around, besides I noticing the woman, I also saw the rickshaw driver noticing her. I wondered to myself as to what would happen if some collective conscious unleashed upon the woman, the imaginations of all the men in the woman's immediate vicinity. That aside, I wondered what the woman's fantasies would look like, were she allowed to have things he own way. Weird shit the mind can conjure up. Damn!