.....AND NOW FOR SOME COMIC RELIEF.

Big-time national politics is all about its Weirdness Quotient. High-level political races should be between identical slim men and women in identical slim suits and saris. Rational, cool men and women, who know the voting market, who never say the wrong thing, who look good on TV…and above all are incorruptible. Candidates who don't fit this mould -- the blatant hacks, the geeks, the loons, the scamsters, the criminals, the people with bad teeth – should be filtered out at the Panchayat level.

The whole point of Indian politicians speaking is watching them makes asses of themselves. They are all weird. Just like the ones who, on the national level, have picked up the torch dropped, with a typical clumsiness, by Morarji Desai and V.P.(weepy) Singh? The fat candidates. The ugly candidates.The stupid candidates.The candidates who go to formal dinners and pass out in the Mutton Vindaloo. Who set fire to themselves with beedis. The candidates, who, the only time they speak the truth is when they call another politician a liar.

If we are to keep the tradition of participatory democracy going in this country, if we are to revive voter interest, we need less of these weird people running for high office, and more of the rational variety and we need them right now.

And so I say: Heaven help Goa, whose very license plates should read, "GOA: WAKA WAKA LOCA." Because in a state like this, a state whose naturally humid climate has permitted a tremendous diversity of human and canine life to flourish and mutate, we should not be surprised to find that this year, we are being treated to an electoral race between politicians who are clearly not Standard Issue. I've spent some time watching all of them, and I can honestly state that regardless of which one is elected, we will all, as voters, have reason to be vastly amused. For example : Here's a full report on the Panaji CCP elections.

***

We are in Manu.P’s rental campaign SUV, which is stout and bouncy, not unlike Manu himself, and we are going to someplace called "Taleigao." Rumor has it that there is agriculture in Taleigao. Manu is going there to show his concern for it.

In the SUV with Manu P. is the press, including a couple of political reporters from Big Bazaar; out-of- state newspapers that are very interested in this race because

(a) it is considered crucial to the opposition’s hopes of coming to power at the centre and

(b) it is nice and warm in Goa.

The press is not crazy about landing in Taleigao. The press frankly does not care about agriculture except insofar as it is a constituent of feni and results in lunch. The press would rather hear Manu P. talk about his opponent, incumbent Anas M.,( no, the part of the anatomy you refer to is spelt with an “u”, although you might not be too far wrong in your presumptions) and his hot new campaign issue,i.e. BLOCKING ALL THE WATER THAT "FLEW" UNDER THE MANDOVI BRIDGES.

This is an issue that materialized out of the air, literally, in the form of an electoral advertisement suggesting that Manu P. is willing to let the waters overrun and drown Panaji and the state. Manu P. who has long portrayed himself as a friend of nature, the Bondla Reserve, bunny rabbits,Tito’s etc., fought back with a counter-advertisement -- featuring a photograph of Anas M. that makes him look like he lost the Room Freshener Pageant because the police thought he was too vacuous -- in which prominent doctors and ecology nuts say that they favor the drowning and they like Manu P. and think Anas’ ad is basically doggy doo.

But in a way, Manu P. has lost the round, because he had to spend money to make additional ads responding to an issue Anas M. raised in HIS advertisement.

The whole thing sort of reminds you of Coke vs. Pepsi, only with less substance.

Carnival Catastrophies and Other Venalities

Tuesday Night’s Red and Black hobgoblins from the Clube Nacional Revelry are doing the devil’s dance inside my head……my eyes blur open, my tongue is stuck to the carpet, and I can’t feel my toes. Oh! Ok those aren’t my toes! God is punishing me for having fun.

Since the dawn of Som Ras , first the Gods and then man has been plagued by hangovers. Having pondered the problem of my alcoholic stupor for the last four hours I have finally discovered the solution.

The best and most obvious way to avoid a hangover is not to drink at all, but I think we can all agree that that is not an option so let’s move on.

It’s Ash Wednesday and the Lenten Season is upon us and in order to cure your hangover and repent you must therefore attend church services as quickly as possible. So tear your tongue off the floor, and weave your way to your pew. During the service, pray for hydration. When the collection plate is passed, remove ten rupees and use it to buy aspirin.

On the way stop at a vegetable vendor and buy a bunch of lettuce leaves. Do not eat the lettuce, as they contain dangerous quantities of butt-blasting fibre. Instead arrange the leaves on your head. Laughter, they say, is the best medicine. Try to laugh at yourself. Look at you in your salad hat in the mirror. You look hilarious.

Now make yourself a cocktail. Contrary to popular belief drinking alcohol is not counter productive. That’s why you’re there nursing a headache while I sit poised on the brink of discovering the great hangover cure. A Feni Colada is your best option, as cashew nuts contain healing fats and high levels of salts that will replenish your electrolytes. Electrolytes are essential for good health and are not unlike clean underwear in that you can never have too many.

Time now to exercise. Exercise, particularly jogging, generates powerful endorphins, diminishes nausea and weakness and replaces them with higher-qualities of weakness and nausea. While you are jogging think about all the reasons you got so tanked last night. Your life’s pretty sad, isn’t it? Yes. Run faster now.

Now that you’ve worked out you will have developed the emotional clarity to quit your job, divorce your spouse, adopt a pet python and have meaningless sex with a midget. This set of tasks sounds daunting, but keep in mind that it’s difficult to stay hungover when you’re busy applying for a job as a janitor and training a python to uncoil from around your windpipe.

Finally, it’s time for another drink. This should relieve you of your hangover forever, and leave you with a calming sense of dipsomania and melancholia. If you wake up in the morning with another hangover, don’t sweat it. I’ve discovered a cure and will be happy to reveal it to you in due course. Until then take two aspirin you bought with the money you stole from church, and call your physician in the morning. Cheers.

Meanderings

I feel like writing something. I'm not sure what yet. I assumed that as soon as I began to type, it would come to me, but it hasn't yet and now I am just browsing through facebook and stalling for time.

While I am waiting for my mind to catch up with my fingers, I'll tell you about the difference between roads in Mumbai and Goa.

The roads in Mumbai are much the same as most others in the Metros. Especially in the city. Curbs. Asphalt.Polluted.Noisy.Traffic signals with wall-to wall beggars, hawkers or hijras. Sometimes a random street that is poured concrete or one that is all paving blocks. Pedestrian sidewalks where pet animals have left their steaming piles in the early morning smog. Most ordinary.

The special roads in Mumbai are the ones that lead out of town. The ones that lead back into Goa. They are both fun to speed on and oh! the drive.......

In the winter you roll your windows down. If you have one; you can pop the sun roof. If you are Rahul Gandhi, you take the top off your Gypsy.If you are Salman Khan you take off your shirt and flex your man-boobs. And if you are Jaideep Deoshtale you ride your motorcycle.

Take the NH4 to Pune, turn onto Nipani, Amboli and then take a road with a tilted road sign or no road sign at all. It will more than likely immediately start to go up or go down. There is likely to be a field and then a thick wooded area. Watch for the arrows that tell you to prepare for a turn. Most of them are bent in half.

The smell of foliage permeates the car. You cannot help but stick your arm out the window and hold the door with the flat of your palm. The ones with no regrets stand up through the sun roof and make like Leo and Kate in that “Titanic” scene.


Passing Amboli at sunset-if you time it just right, you'll pass a field full of fireflies as they begin to flicker. When your car drops down into where the road goes down into a small valley, you can feel the temperature drop. And the cold is chased away as the road climbs back up again where the heat of the road fights off the chill.

Once you pass Sawantwadi, there is curve after curve that will take you on to bridges that they say can only take one car at a time. Sometimes the signs that tell you to slow down are mere suggestions. Other times those sign have been run over by people who don't take suggestions well. Just be careful. Of course, there is nothing like the feeling of making it though a curve that you thought for a split second you weren't.

When you see another car, honk – it’s considered good manners.

You've probably had your music system on. Turn it off. Take in the sound of the wind. Of the trees passing you by as you pass by them. The hills and twists are short lived as you can't drive too far without bumping back into the NH17 and thence to Goa.

Go ahead and take a lap through Mapusa. And another through the billboard fields of Guirim. Drive past where The Royal Circus tents were pitched during Christmas and New Year. Loop back around and head out to Porvorim and O’Coqueiro –the restaurant where the infamous Charles Sobhraj sat; and once sitting was nabbed. And then cut right onto CHOGM road and drive past Nelsons’ Picnic Restaurant and down into Green Valley and finally home.

Summer is almost here and the Cashew trees are flowering, and those pesky crows up high in their nest are crapping all over the gate.

Aah! Peaceful night, broken only by the chorus of stray dogs yapping and howling at the moon… a Goan Nocturnal Rhapsody.