This really is A PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT

Black hole of debt.

I am delighted to say that I am a Credit Card Deadbeat! There are a lot of others out there, like me, who are also Credit Card Deadbeats. I congratulate you!

For those of you sporting your shiny Gold and Platinum Cards and looking haughtily at me and thinking I have a screw loose, but who don’t know what a Credit Card Deadbeat is, I’ll have you know I don’t avoid my credit card bills. I just don’t allow the credit card company to make any profit off me. As a matter of fact I made money off them. Huh!?....You may want to continue reading!

Why do credit card companies refer to their customers who pay off their credit cards promptly as “DEADBEATS”? They use the word like a mantra.
It’s not that these folk default on paying their bills.
To the contrary, a credit card deadbeat is the insider term used by credit card company executives and refers to all of the credit card users who pay off their bill each month promptly.
They’re called “DEADBEATS” because the credit card companies don’t make money off of them.

The ones who do not pay are the “PREFERRED CUSTOMERS, because they’re the ones they make money off. They target people they know won’t be able to pay.
The alternative to being a credit card deadbeat is what credit card executives call a “REVOLVER”. No, stupid person! It is not a gun used to commit suicide. Although being a credit card revolver might drive you to commit suicide, a revolver is a credit card user that constantly carries a balance and is charged regular, monthly interest on their charges.
Credit card companies love revolvers because they, in essence, increase the bottom line(again, not what YOU'RE thinking)for the credit card company and make them a nice profit. Further, from an insider perspective, the best customers not only carry a balance, but also make their payments late, triggering extra fees and a higher interest rate.

A credit card service salesperson will tell you it’s a business, and it’s a service, that they help people who are short of cash, help them find status, make their car payments, help them buy that plasma TV, the i-phone, laptop, Christmas and birthday presents for their children during tough times. Just like Santa Claus.



But they do not explain all the credit terms to all their customers, although you will find it on the back of every application, written in English in tiny, tiny print, but in the form of gobbledygook English even MBA’s from IIM Ahmedabad or Rhodes Scholars will not make out heads or tails of.
Sentences created by the same stalwarts who make up government tax laws which in the event are “subject to interpretation”…. meaning pay the bribe or else!

It’s usury, but who listens anyway since the state WANTS the credit card business. If you inquire about a car loan, you can be sure this info is shared among credit bureaus, it’s called Universal Default.

They have an extremely complex marketing strategy, they actually target people with low income or in the west those with bad credit ratings. Then they call or mail them citing exciting bonus offers.

They find people in dire straits and market directly to them with the hope of forming a lifelong relationship, I know of people who kind of operate their business in the same way, they sell heroin.

You can also term them loan sharks, considering they charge their customers 30% interest.

Now that is Criminal Conduct but it is not deemed criminal. Research has shown that the Credit Card industry is more profitable than Infosys, Reliance, and ONGC --- they have themselves a multi-million dollar racket going worldwide.

But don’t try to sue them since they have a lot of security and will bury you, the only way you can put adversary back into the system is to do it openly and notoriously for all to hear. Like in an open forum or NDTV debate.

Did you know that of the thousands of industries tracked by the better business bureau, the credit card racket is number one in customer complaints, that is why they deliberately target those who wont be able to pay off their debts, people they call “REVOLVERS”, people who see zero % interest in big red letters and don’t know that with just one late payment they skyrocket their interest to 30%.

In the last 5 years, in the US alone more than 7 million people filed for bankruptcy but the credit card companies were able to get the US Congress to change the Bankruptcy Code that made it next to impossible for people to be able to discharge credit card debt.

They are essentially a pack of hyenas, crunching on the bones of the poor and middle class. – I smell something foul; it has the stench of big tobacco and oil cartels all over it. Maybe someday they’ll get horribly sick and die.

Olympism 2008

THE BEIJING BANDWAGON

The Opening Ceremony
08:00 pm 08/08/2008 – A spectacular opening ceremony. Started on the dot.
Thus far, the awesomest opening ceremony of any Olympics. (or, as the Hindi Doordarshan commentator insisted on pronouncing, “OLUMPICS”.)
To whit it was a spectacle of sound, light and awesome human co-ordination.
Did I say it was awesome? Almost as good as a Bollywood movie - it had a 9 year old girl lip-syncing for a 7 year old singer, it had computer graphics for television broadcasts of fireworks, and it had scripted volunteers filling in empty seats in the stadium as cheerleaders for opposing teams.It made Ram Gopal Varma and Sanjay Leela Bhansali very proud

Here are some specs:
Number of drummers that pounded out the opening countdown : 2,008
Number of fireworks: 33,866 (this does not include some mortar shells that “accidently” fell at the same time on Tibet)
Number of performers and advisors: 22,000
Number of spectators: 91,000
Number of parking spots: 5
Number of television Viewers: 2.3 billion
Number of visits to the bathroom (including beer guzzling tv viewers) during the ceremony: The count was lost after 5 billion 3, 76,000.
Number of Olympic-related TV commercials watched per viewer: 3,786
Number of times a Games TV viewer in Goa will see the “Dancing Beijing” symbol and say, “Oi Patrone, doesn’t that look like Remo in tights?” : 350
Number of political world leaders: 80.
#George Bush when asked if he had come here for the decathlon, typically answered, “No, I’ll just take the regular coffee.”
#Sonia Gandhi noticed the dishevelled, undisciplined, sloppily dressed Indian squad, led by an ex-army officer no-less. She, understanding that they were tired from the long journey to the stadium and the endless practising, and were missing home; rose to the occasion, tucking in her gorgeous silk sari in true "jhadoo wali" style, and waved out to them in empathy. Prompting L.K.Advani to remark,“Well, that puts paid to my harping on her “foreign origin” in the future.
You don't believe me? Then watch the video below. Except that the video bit on Advaniji has been removed as his face not to mention voice, was not considered cute enough for an Olympic performance.


Number of participating countries: 204 (Brunei chickened out)
Number of athletes expected to compete: 10,500
Number of raincoats prepared for the athletes: 10,000 - unfortunately the Sichuan sweatshop shut down due to the earthquake, so the swimmers will not receive any raincoats
Number of Indian athletes: 57, actually 56 since a weightlifter was wantonly dropped at the last minute. She cried copiously and shed 5 kilos..
Number of Officials accompanying the squad: 42. Wonder why? Could be any number of reasons actually....They were there to prevent possible defections to the “other side”; As cheerleaders, like for the IPL; Sania Mirza’s mom was also part of the squad to find an Olympic match for her little girl; There were no weightlifters in the squad, but the weightlifting officials were there to persuade some other team to lift for the Indian side; Then there's the question of satisfying the "Olympic Reservation Quota" requirements. You have to admire the Indian Olympic Committee for efficiently covering all angles. Your taxes are being put to good use.
Number of condom vending machines in the games village: 2, right next to the pirated DVD kiosks.
Number of events competed for: 302 events in 28 sports (no, it does not include kabbadi)
Number of medals to be won: D-uh, do the math!
Number of atoms in Rakhi Sawant’s fingernail: 25 million. I just threw that in there as a statistic.
Money spent on the opening: Just 480 million Yuan – proof that you don’t have to spend a lot of money if you can threaten your citizens with jail time or worse to work for a handful of rice and beans a day.( 1 Yuan= 1 bean and 5 grains of rice)

For more accurate information you can always visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Summer_Olympics#Participating_NOCs

China Snapshot
- Home to one out of every four people on earth. So if you belong to a family of four, I’m sure one of you is Chinese (check your Ration Card)
– An ancient culture which invented gunpowder, and paper, fireworks, travel agents, Chinese checkers and pirated DVD’s – bootleg copies of the opening ceremony were available 2 weeks earlier in Hong Kong.
– Home of the Great Wall, a man-made object that can be seen almost as clearly from outer space as Mukesh Ambani’s new home “Antilla” in downtown Mumbai.

Security – There are police and army officers everywhere, including one in every athlete’s room closet. Unfortunately, as we now know, this tight security does not extend to accompanying in-laws.

Language – Chinese of course or Mandarin. Get your destination written down by your helpful hotel staff. Show it to your taxi driver. Then look astounded when you figure out by the shrug of his shoulders that he cannot read either.

Toilets – Carry your own bathroom accessories. Since they were so busy inventing gunpowder, they never really got around to plumbing and modern bathrooms. Maybe you can carry your own porta- potty.

Cuisine – For the most part the cuisine there can be described as “Chinese Food”. For Starters try scorpion, snake on a stick, or dog liver.

dog brain soup,for the entree, go on to mixed cow and horse stew,
and top this splendid repast with assorted lizard legs, dung beetles and roasted silk worm soufflé. Yumm!


You will notice however that Chinese people in the markets are buying lamb chops, noodles and chicken dumplings.
The truth is, the Chinese don’t eat scorpions. They feed their reptiles to Olympic visitors. I suspect that the Chinese word for lizard legs when translated actually means “food for foreigners”

Pollution - Not as bad as Vapi, in Gujarat. Although I did think those shapes that looked like tiny polo shaped Olympic rings in the stadium were swarming toxic particles.
There’s really no air-pollution problem here. That’s what it says in the "Beijing Times", the official English-language newspaper of the "Chinese Olympic Committee".

And if one can't trust an official Chinese Committee to be objective about this, who can we trust? George Bush? Pakistan? The Goan Government?
The Beijing Times has run front-page stories stating that the yellowish-gray atmospheric gunk blotting out the sun is merely ''haze.'' OK? So enough nonsense about ''air pollution.''

You need a lot of help here, since most of the writing is in Chinese, which is basically a giant secret code designed to prevent you from having any idea what the hell is going on.

On the other hand the regular Chinese people are wonderful hosts, unfailingly friendly and helpful.
When you arrive at the hotel front desk, it will be staffed by at least 15 people. The great thing about China is : There are always plenty of people around to help.
For example: In some men's rooms, there are attendants whose sole function, as far as one can tell, is to direct you to the toilets. You walk in, and there's a guy, and he makes this gesture toward the toilets, which are roughly 5 steps away, his point being, ''Here are the toilets.''
This happens in Calangute too but mostly they gesture the way to the nearest bar. But unlike in Calangute, you do not tip him in Beijing.

Footnote: Rahul Gandhi was last seen drinking a refreshing beverage; when deciphered the Chinese label read “ BRAKE FLUID”

Closed for Service

Free Public Service Announcement

The Invoicing Section of my credit card company is incredibly efficient. I received my credit card statement which outlined charges for the annual fee for my replacement card, right on the dot. Perfectly normal procedure! Right? Now for the Dispatch (Despatch?) Section - I’m still waiting for that replacement card!! I now need to call Customer Service.

It's my own stupid fault that I need to speak to Customer Service. I made a really idiotic mistake: I moved to another city and into a new house.

Don't ever make this mistake! It's ALWAYS better to stay in your current home, even if it's destroyed in a tsunami or an earthquake.

If other people have bought your house and are moving in, you should hide in the garage and only come out at night to forage for food.

If you move, you'll end up like me: surrounded by hundreds of cardboard boxes packed by aliens, each box containing an average of one item -- perhaps a single old sock -- wadded up inside 2000 metres of bubble wrap and corrugated cardboard.

Almost every box will be labeled with the words “sundry items” but spelled in cell-phone texting language “S. IT”. You will not be able to find ANYTHING. For example, I'm pretty sure that, before I moved, I owned a 12-year-old cat.
(I'm kidding, of course. I know exactly where the cat is. It’s inside one of those boxes which the vultures keep circling.)

On moving day, I was surrounded by a forest of stacked boxes, attempting to take apart a credenza the size of an SUV so that I could attempt to force it through a doorway the width of Kareena Kapoor, when suddenly, outside, I heard the movers, who spoke Tamil, shouting something about a paamboo. I could tell by the urgency in their voices that when translated into cell-phone text, it would be all in capital letters. So I ran outside, and there, on the verandah,was a snake.

In other places, when you move, you're given a Farewell Dinner; there in Chennai, you get the Farewell Snake!

So, anyway, after dialling the number for Customer Service listed and waiting on hold for Customer Service a cool idea came to me.

Looks as though it’s what I do these days: wait for Customer Service. My call is important to them. They have told me this many times in a sincere recorded message. They can't wait to serve me! They will answer my call just as soon as they finish serving the entire population of Uttar Pradesh. After all Chief Minister Mayawati came oh- so-close to being our fair country’s first Dalit Prime Minister!

But my point, which I am hoping to make in the telling of this tale, is that, because I moved I had to change all my essential services -- cooking gas, telephones, ration card, postal service, beer delivery, etc. -- and naturally, because all the companies involved use sophisticated network technologies, none of these services actually work right in my new abode.

Everything is all mixed up. I have e mails being printed out via my electric iron, I receive phone calls on the hand- shower, and when I turn on the washing machine, scenes from 'Desperate Housewives'' are telecast during the rinse cycle.

So to sort out this mess, I quit my job (whatever that may have been) and started spending my days waiting on hold for Customer Service, listening to the toe-tapping ''lite'' muzak they play when they are not telling you how important your call is to them. While doing this, the idea came to me.

You know those telemarketing people who always call you at siesta-time? Or those Eureka Forbes salesmen who lean on your doorbell? I'm talking about the ones who never come right out and say they're selling something. Lately, they've been using the bizarre term ''courtesy call'' to describe what they're doing.

''Sir,'' they'll say, “this is just a courtesy call to do you the courtesy of interrupting your siesta so I can ask you this question: Would you like to save 50 percent or more on your long-distance phone bill?'' or “May I demonstrate this awesome water purifier, which doesn’t need electricity and absorbs moisture from the air."

I always say no. I tell them that if I wanted to talk to someone in a distant continent I would use Skype, or better yet, just go there. And to the Eureka guy I say I only drink beer and water is bad for my alcohol stream. Then I hang up/ shut the door. But, of course, this does not stop them. The next afternoon, they call again. That's how caring and considerate they are.

So here's the scenario: On the one hand, we have the telemarketers and salesmen constantly calling on us, even though everyone hates them and, to my knowledge, nobody in the history of the world has ever bought anything from them; and on the other hand, when we want to reach Customer Service, we can never get through.

Obviously, what my Credit Card Company needs to do is round up all the employees in the Telemarketing and Field Sales Departments, troop them over to Customer Service, and order them to step over the bodies of the Customer Service employees, all of whom apparently passed away years ago, and PICK UP THE BLASTED PHONE, OK? Because I need to take a shower and my shirt is stuck in the printer.

That darn snake is flirting with my cat !!

Oh! The Audacity!

To Park or not to Park

I drive in circles around Panaji at least four times to find a parking spot close to my bank but all to no avail. So I park the car near the old GMC building and hoof it through the light drizzle for twenty minutes and get to the bank just in time; before they close for lunch.
Walking out the door I bump into a couple of guys I know, I think metrosexuals, and we're standing there talking about women and the weather.

That's when a lone parking spot right opposite the bank opens up and an elderly gentleman pulls into it. A white woman in a bandana with cut-off jeans runs up to him.

"That's my space!", she scolds him,"Honestly! I was about to park my car in there! I always have that space! Ask anybody, you have to move!"

"Now that is unmitigated freaking gall," I say.

"I'll bet he gives in," Bosco says.

"C'mon, nobody's that much of a moron," says Santan.

The old man shrugs and grins sheepishly,backs his car out and drives away. Bandana grins and rushes victorious to her car.

"She'll never get that monster SUV in there, he had a Maruti 800!" I say.

"She'll beg and cajole and get everyone to move their cars, you just watch," says Bosco.

And that's exactly what she does.

"Wow," says Santan, "if there was a Nobel prize for manipulation, she'd definitely win."

I walked back in the driving rain, passing the elderly gent who decided to do as i did. Except he was carrying his umbrella.

Bikini Blues

The "eyes" of the beholder

The rains have arrived and you know what that means:

For us men the supreme satisfaction of being able to hunker down with a beer in front of the TV and watch the UEFA Euro 2008 AND the Wimbledon unhindered, because thanks to the rain nobody wants to “hit the beaches” anymore.
That same reason makes kids and teenagers hunch over their Playstations and Xboxes blissfully unaware of their spades, buckets and beach balls left outside floating away down the storm water drains.

So ladies I just know what you’re thinking: This leaves you with enough time to get in shape for the next season and show off that swimsuit! So get in there and start that diet and exercise programme you’ve been looking forward to all of last season, and shed those 5 kilos.

Remember the confidence with which you put on that new swimsuit you got from Rio the last time? How you ripped it off and spent the rest of the weekend in your closet, crying and eating chocolate chip ice cream straight from the container??

Well you’re not going to let that happen again. You’re going to become that supermodel or top Bollywood star by whose standards no woman is supposed to weigh more than her nail polish.

You’re saying that that you read somewhere that they do not want thin models in the industry any more. Femina also had models who were normal humans in a recent fashion spread!

You lamebrain! Don’t you know this is a ploy by the clothing designers to get millions of normal-sized women to go to the chic boutiques, trying to buy the clothes they saw in Femina and finding out that designers manufacture those clothes only for mutant aliens who wear size zero or lower. The 20 kilo salesgirl who comes in and leaves the boutique through the air-vent will haughtily tell you that they don’t have your size and maybe you should try across the road, at Maternity Dresses for Whales.

But let’s be practical, 5 kilos is not going to be the answer to getting you looking like these celebrities who are so impossibly slim. You will need a personal trainer as well. Someone to advise you on nutrition, give you pep talks, and haul you back on your leash whenever you try to weakly crawl to that 200 gram tin of soya nuggets that is the only food supply for the month in your fridge. Someone who will remind you, that the biggest meal of the day for those supermodels is toothpaste.

But you can’t afford a personal trainer, in which case you need willpower. Oops! You don’t have will power either, because you’re sitting there like a blob, allowing gazillions of cellulite particles to mate furiously in your thighs, spawning whole new colonies, and you’re reading this asinine article, instead of jogging to the gym.

So ladies! What CAN you do? Well, take the cue from us men, and learn the secret of OUR success.

Why are we so secure about our bodies that we do absolutely nothing, even given the fact that we go parading about the beaches in our underwear letting our bellies prove that we can create a whole other person from the spare tissue?

It’s simple really: We have no idea what we look like.

This is how a man’s mind works. Before stepping out on the sand, a 300 kilo, bow-legged, 5 foot guy with one eyebrow and more body hair than King Kong will put on a thong, look in the mirror, and with a smirk say, “Oh! Yeeeaaah!”

Notice the man looks at himself head-on in the mirror. We men never look at anything else but the front-view which is the most flattering.

But you women check your body from all angles. Front, Side and Back. Then you convince yourselves that the last two views consist almost entirely of a stomach and a butt. That’s where depression begins to manifest itself.

So study this technique ladies, and remember it. Never look sideways at yourself in the mirror. And when retreating, don’t turn around ... walk backwards.

The Times They Are A-Changing

PRINTERS DEVILS ARE PEOPLE TOO !

Now that the Times of India is being printed right here in Goa, on behalf of the Old English Language Newspaper Industry, namely "O Heraldo" and "The Navhind Times" ( mottos “ All the news that’s unfit to print with bad grammar and worse spelling) I am announcing some changes they need to make to serve you better.

When I say ''serve you better,'' I mean ''increase their profits.'' Newspapers are very big on profits these days. They’re a business, just like any other business, except that they employ journalists who’ve studied English as a third language. To help you better understand the current situation; let's review the history of newspaper finances:

The earliest known newspaper, mentioned in the Holy Bible was called The Ten Commandments, (literally, the Almighty Orders). The first issue offered coverage of Hebrew politics (''Moses sets fire to bush arrested for arson”); science news (''Woman created from rib of Adam); and an early episode of the comic strip ''Dennis the Menace,'' in which Mr.Wilson tries to avoid paying admission to the Greek Games at the Parthenon by climbing over the wall, and lands on his coccyx.

Unfortunately, The Ten Commandments was not profitable, because every copy had to be entirely hand- chiselled on stone tablets by slaves (called ''scribes''); if a big story broke, a huge, beefy man (the ``Pharisee'') would yell, ''Stop the chisels!'' and whack them with his whip.

The Italians are credited for the idea of newspapers which they called gazzetas derived from gazzera, meaning a magpie or chatterer – the Italians were great gossips.Then in the 1400’s Johannes Gutenberg (literally, '' Ol’ Black Joe since he was covered in printer’s ink '') invented the printing press, which made it possible for a newspaper to cheaply and accurately reproduce every single error thousands of times.

Then came modern newspaper advertising but for which “Surf Excel” and “Fair & Lovely” would not have been household names today. Then came television and the internet with news updates by the minute and ruined the thrill of reading the morning paper while sitting in the john.

Before The Times reared it’s head in Goa, luring innocent Goans with pics of “scantily-clad” females, and the local dailies became poo-slinging monkeys, virtually every village had a locally owned newspaper with a name like The Gomantak Times ,Goa Times, The Daily-Pig-Sticker, which kept the community abreast of local politics (''MLA Attacked by pet rabbit'') as well as national and international issues (''Elvis Presley Alive and Well '').

These were family operations run by people, not concerned about making large profits but more worried about informing the general public about births, deaths and wishing local politicos on their birthdays.

The Times of India however, is owned by a large corporation, which in turn is owned by a larger corporation, and so on, so that today the entire newspaper industry is being controlled by a giant media conglomerate owned by The Times Group, which frankly does not care what your MLA did. What The Times Group cares about is profits. Here at the newspaper offices in Goa, they get hourly phone calls from The Times Group Headquarters.
''Send more profits!'' Headquarters shouts, and slams down the phone.

So the “bottom line” for O Heraldo, The Navhind Times and the others is that they need to cut costs or The Times of India would take away all their readership and they would starve to death, because, except for having learnt English as a 3rd language, they have no other useful skills.

Here are some of the ways of doing this:
RECYCLE STORIES: To avoid the expense of writing a new story, rerunning earlier ones. For example, every day for the next 3 years, run the same story on genocide in Africa (''Africa Genocide Repeats'').

DOWNSIZE: The typical newspaper staff should be reduced to one editor, one managing editor, 12 assistant editors, 36 deputy assistant editors, and one reporter. The editors should spend their days holding meetings to think of new ways to cut costs, while the reporter (who, for budgetary reasons, should not be not allowed to leave the building) looks out the window, in case news occurs in the parking lot.

SPONSORED PRODUCT PLACEMENT: There should be more sentences like this one, from a recent front-page story in "The Goan Rastafarian": ''We are seriously considering the use of nuclear weapons against Pakistan,' stated President Pratibha Patil, who then took a long sip from a refreshing, ice-cold Thums Up.''

FEWER WORDS: Don’t use adjectives, adverbs. Nouns, verbs can communicate storyline. (''Africa Genocide.'' )

FIND ALTERNATIVES: Outsource columns and editing to China.

AND LASTLY CROSS-SELL: Plug the added benefit of how the pages make great bird-cage lining.

Garden City Blechh !

Rated AAA

Bengaluru nee’ Bangalore is a triple-A rated city in my books.

Now before you "Kannadigas" & IT geeks start patting yourselves silly, that stands for Arthritis, Allergies & Asthma.

And if you folks who have just landed there from Jharkhand, gaping at the malls and all those restaurants with fancy-schmantzy names from “Amrika” like Ruby Tuesdays, Cafe’ Perk, Barista, Stars and Stripes (Sic!) , Manhattans, Olive Beach (huh?) , The Granite Pit Stop ( I swear this is true!), Tiffanys, Caesar’s, Paparazzi, Copacabana, Indi Joes’, Filling Station, American Corner (Yeesh!), The Village,and even the KFC’s the TGIF's and Mc Donalds. ....now where was I ? ... ahh yes if you folks have not caught any one of the triple- A’s yet – trust me you will.

Visiting Milind and Vidulas lovely home in Bangalore (I refuse to call it by its’ new name) those 5 days prompt the question: Can a city drive you insane?

I wake up next morning hoping there’s nothing to do, because I don’t want to get out of bed.
My ears itch, my throat hurts and my nose drips. I didn’t sleep last night because my room is next to the street.

3:00 a.m.: I heard several men screaming at each other.
In the vernacular it sounded like they were arguing about drugs and were going to cut each other. Then they started to smash something, beer bottles or car windows, Crash. Crash. Tinkle. I never ventured to find out. I curled into a foetal position and shut my eyes, humiliated at my cowardice.

4:00 a.m. : It was the turn of a pack of stray dogs the kind of snarling, barking, yapping and fighting that says there’s just the one female in heat among eight males.

9:00 a.m. : My head is pounding. Also there’s a giant bulldozer digging up the earth next door. Someone outside is using a buzzsaw, then a hammer, then a drill. The apartments are being constructed in the vain hope that someone will buy them. Nobody wants to buy apartments anymore. Gates and doors to apartment buildings have been wedged wide open. So far, only one family has been robbed.

I look at the Weather Channel on TV: Air quality bad; Humidity very high. Old People shouldn’t leave the house; Thus the headache. I take an antihistamine Avil25. I feel trapped like a rat.

The Bangalore Times says:-

......... murder in the city has soared to epidemic proportions. We are now to treat murderers as “diseased.” Will they have a new 12-step programme for Murderers Anonymous? “Hello, I’m Billa, and I’m a compulsive serial killer.”

........someone was mugged in Lal Bagh, another girl had a latte poured over her in Cubbon Park and her laptop & wallet stolen.

.......oil prices have skyrocketed so we may be going to have a terrible recession. “We are in a terrible recession already”, I say, “Only nobody’s talking about it.” (All my IT friends are losing their jobs. I find gloomy irony in the fact that those intensely market-researched companies, the ones geared toward certain age groups with certain lifestyles and disposable incomes, are like lemmings going over cliffs, whereas strange old raggedy dinosaurs like Hindustan Lever swell and prosper.)

The neighbourhood is going upscale, shopwise- no more shoemaker, no more butcher,- go to the mall. The corner of the street used to smell strongly of piss, right at the base of the electric power transformer. But the intense ammonia odour is creeping up the street.

Homeless men are congregating and sleeping with their heads in trash cans. Drug-dealers (I think) place old books, and pirated dvd’s for sale on the sidewalks. The pedestrians shift to the roads. Yesterday a beggar jumped out of a doorway and attacked me. There was this big brawny man in National Market clad only in a pink nightdress. Children and cows, innocence embodied, are brutalised everyday.

When I left Goa it was 30 degrees and sunny with some showers, Bangalore is 22 degrees. But I can’t breathe. My sinuses are throbbing to the mesmerising beat of one million exhaust pipes belching hideous bile-coloured faux-air.

I don’t drive in Bangalore, there are grizzly locals youth with gelled hair and ear rings whose eyes rake everyone driving on Bangalore roads. They look smug and cruel and like compulsive serial killers in training.


Someone phones Vidula “Come to this very important interview in Brigade Road and you’ll soon be sitting in Amrika and you’ll make more money than you ever dreamed possible in your wildest dreams.” She was sitting smug in front of her stove making Bisi Bela Bhath. She says, “Okay I’ll come," and drives through the noxious fumes for it seems weeks and gets to Brigade Road and they say “Well it’s so nice to meet you, what do you think about starting out for Milwaukee this Sunday?” And because she can’t breathe anyway she says,"That sounds great” and they say “Fabulous, well, we know someone who knows someone who we think has a project with Madhukar, and as soon as we firm this up we’ll get you over there and soon after you’ll make truckloads of money, and buy a BMW, and your grandchildren will be able to become full-time heroin addicts – love the salwar you’re wearing , goodbye.”

It’s 7:00 p.m. I’m staying in bed till my bus leaves for Goa.

IPL& The Royal Challengers - The Road Ahead

Drink up lads ! There's always Tomorrow !

I decided to go check out the Bangalore Royal Challengers on Monday, to see how they look for next years’ IPL T20. This is important, because the Challengers represent Karnataka’s manhood, and this debut season we had the same community testosterone level as the audience for the President of Indias’ Speech to Brazils’ Parliament. The Challengers lost 10 games and won only 4, just ahead of Hyderabads’ Deccan Chargers.

FAQ’s
There were no papparazzi on hand when I went out to the Challengers camp on Monday, but I did get to watch some players in action. My overall impression of them is that they are quite large, for humans. The largest one I personally saw was Jaques Kallis, their No. 1 foreign pick, who is huge.

Q. How huge is he?
A. He must constantly brush away large birds trying to build nests on him.

So there's a lot of pressure on them to not suck so much next year. But the rumblings from the rumour mill has been troubling, especially the feud between Charu Sharma and the Kingfisher.
Sharma was, of course, the Challenger’s CEO. He's also considering a career in show business, since he has the kind of chiseled WWF-style looks, big muscles and receding hairline that many women find attractive.

The Kingfisher is Vijay Mallya, who got his nickname from the fact that he breathes through gills while drinking beer, and can weigh up to 800 kilos. He is the Challenger’s Chairman cum Owner of T20 Operations, which means he runs the team from a secret underground bunker furnished entirely with beer bottle caps. The KF is a gruff, old-school racketeer. He is very hard-nosed.

Q. How hard-nosed is he?
A. He makes Dawood Ibrahim look like Wendell Rodricks.

ON PRIORITISING
The KF reportedly was unhappy about the fact that Sharma competed this season on Boogie Woogie, where he finished second to hair stylist Sylvie. This in itself shows you how far the Challengers have fallen. There is no way that, say, Fraser Castellino would have let that happen. He would have found a way to beat Sylvie, maybe with an ''accidental'' knee to the goolies while dancing to Disco Deewane. Those Rajasthan Royals just knew how to win.

But getting back to the Fisher-Sharma battle: It got even more feisty when Sharma, during a break from dancing, visited the Challenger’s training camp only to find that he was sacked by the Fisher. The KF later emerged from his bunker to claim that there was no sacking, that in fact he didn't even know Charu was in the room because he (the Fisher) was busy with choosing swimsuit models for his Royal Challenge calendar. I am not making any of this up. I heard the Sharma-Fisher-Sacking -vs.-Swimsuit Model story being hotly debated for two solid days on Doordarshan. This is what Challenger fans have been reduced to.

CHALLENGES AHEAD
So I would say the 2008 Challengers’ biggest strength, as a team, is their serve. Their biggest weakness, from what I saw, is gravitational pull. They were serving because they were playing in the Kingfisher Annual Charity Tennis tournament at Bangalore Tennis Club, which is a classy place, as you can tell by the ''C'' in ``Club.''
Before the tournament began I got a chance to size up Rahul Dravid, who's Captaining the team. This has turned out a weak spot for the Challengers, who had proposed many people as Captain, including at one point Sylvie.

Dravid is a professional, and he managed to remain poised in one of the most stressful situations a cricketer can face, namely, being interviewed at close range by extremely outgoing SET MAX TV personality and movie star Lekha.
Lekha was broadcasting from the hotel lobby (or, as they say at the Club, "the lounge") and I would conservatively estimate that by 10 a.m. she had consumed 72 cups of coffee. She began the interview with cricket questions, then switched tack, asking if Dravid had any children. Dravid said yes, he just had a son, at which point Lekha said: “So are you married?”
Dravid looked concerned -- you'd be concerned, too, if a movie star was tempting you in a sultry voice asking you if you were married -- but I thought he handled the situation well, assuring Lekha that he was happily married to a woman.
''You can't beat that home-grown girl!'' declared Lekha, shortly before Dravid fled to the safety of the cricket field.

IN CONCLUSION
So that's my in-house report on the Bangalore Royal Challengers. They have size, but although they serve well, their backhand is poor, although this could be offset by their ability to withstand the siren call of Goan Beaches unlike the Rajasthan Royals.

The big question is whether the Sharma and the Kingfisher will sit down, discuss their differences, kiss and make up, and if so, whether the Fisher will hear what either one of them is saying.

I predict that it's going to be an exciting and rewarding season for Challenger fans next year at the 2009 IPL, at least until it starts. Cheers !

Of Cakes and Kurtas

Many Unhappy Reruns

I had a birthday last month. And I know what everyone was thinking: “Ho hum, do we have to get him a present just to listen to the same corny jokes this year?”

They really should have considered the question: “Does he want another nice kurta?”
Didn’t they notice that I never wear kurtas in spite of the fact that I’m a retiree? I own 25 kurtas and I only ever wore only two of them, tucked into my pants because I’m vertically- challenged (short) and, if I wear them normally like Amitabh Bachchan I could get arrested for impersonating a Catholic priest. And I changed only when the other one developed a food-stain that wouldn’t go away. Did they honestly believe that I was thinking : “Darn, I wish I had another kurta so that I can’t wear it”?

Well of course not. I thought...
... aaah, never mind what I thought. Most of the time nobody really knows what I’m thinking, including, Me. But trust me; I did not want a kurta.

In my entire life, I have met only two persons who were genuinely interested in kurtas. Both of these persons were in the kurta industry.

''But,'' everyone thought, ‘‘When we gave him a kurta last year, he was overjoyed!''
Of course I was. Like all hoteliers, I have learned to simulate zealous appreciation for gifts that I have absolutely no use for.

That's why I always responded so positively when they gave me -- and I hope they no longer do this, although I understand it still happens, even in 21st-century IT enabled, casual-Fridays India – a tie, hand- painted with an ethnic design. Although Nadia keeps nagging me to wear one, preferably with a matching jacket so she can see how ridiculous I really look.
''Oh! Thank you!'' I would gush. ''A beautifully painted tie to wrap around my neck, strikingly similar to the numerous other nooses crumpled together at the bottom of my clothes hamper!

I am so good at faking appreciation that I was able, years ago, to pretend great joy in receiving pens. This was back in the hoary days of pen-gifting, which mercifully came to an end after the horrible Y2K tragedy in Meerut wherein a 64-year-old school teacher’s house collapsed under the weight of the estimated 50,000 unused pens and unopened bottles of ink that she had stored in her loft.

''OK,'' you are saying, 'then what SHOULD I get for you? If I ask you what you want, you always say, 'I don’t need anything.' ''
That's because I know that if I told you what I rrreeeeeaaahllly, really want, you wouldn't give it to me.

For example, let's take garments. The nicest surprise of all for me would be if you handed me a box, and I unwrapped it, and there, inside, sitting in their pristine clear plastic pouches, were 6 new boxer shorts, allowing me finally to throw away my present Y-fronts (or use them as dusters without telling anybody) because they have reached the stage where they are 10 percent underwear and 90 percent holes. I will miss them but they seem to have lost some of their capacity for containment, if you get my drift.
But rightfully by now they should be buried in the same landfill somewhere, along with my unused kurtas like my “Osibisa” T-shirt, which I bought and wore at their 1979 gig during which I stood on my seat and sang 'Sunshine Day', and danced to the "Gong Gong song.'' (Yes! I did this!) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXajaZermHw –( Yes Nadia they WERE from Seattle, you're right as usual.) Somebody threw the shirt away two years ago (without asking me) because it had a bunch of stains, which happened to have great sentimental value, because ...
... OK, never mind about the stains. The point is that you cannot give me these things on my birthday. But you know what you CAN give me? You can give me what I always tell you I want: Nothing. I mean it. (Well maybe a Honda Civic )

For me, the quintessential birthday would be one in which I didn't even realize that it WAS the 20th of May, (my birthday, you retard! D UH!) because nobody was making me express joy over presents I never want, or read greeting cards filled with lame verse (''You don’t look a day over 40, but your flirting is perverted not naughty ; and, “Just hope it’s from the shrimps you ate, but most likely it’s your prostate'').

There would be none of this on the perfect birthday. There would be just me, wearing my oldest surviving underwear, free of pressure, maybe just sitting in front of the TV, watching the IPL matches.

There would be no conversation, other than my periodical observations on cricket like: What’s with Krish Shrikanth commenting about “ the wicket not coming onto the bat” ? that’s like an oenophile saying “ this wine is soft on the nose”. As far as I’m concerned: “the BALL should come onto the bat” and “wine should be smooth on the PALATE”.

Looks like cricket may be developing its’ own “Hall of Fame for Pretentious Phrases” like those of Oenology. That apart these cricketers today can carry a crowd across the Indian sub-continent the way “Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi” never could. So next year that’s how you can give me the perfect birthday.

Of course, that's not all. You can also make a reservation for the latest blockbuster Hindi movie and at the end of the day, you dress up, go out, have a nice dinner, during which you propose a toast to yours truly. Who will be back home, in front of the TV, happily asleep in my ancient underwear. That would be UTOPIA.

But you're going to get me a kurta.

Deconstructing IPL

Once upon another time in India

So Lekha has been hanging out with Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla.

They were at this major party last week. It went for the whole night right into the "I-wanna-go-wee-wee" hours, with people and drinks everywhere. The Khan and Juhi were great. They’d won a match. In fact, over the course of the evening they’d won the IPL Trophy, but there were legal problems with some dark-skinned cheer leaders refusing to use the Fair & Lovely makeup cream.

Actually, the Trophy wasn't theirs. And it wasn't a real party. The ice cubes in the drinks were made of plastic. It was a scene for the movie Lagaan ka Baap, which is being filmed partly in the Andaman Islands

Lagaan ka Baap is, of course, NOT based on the film Lagaan by Ashutosh Gowarikar, a prop boy, who wrote a script about his grandfather, who, when filing his income tax returns in triplicate in British India and claiming a rebate by playing cricket, wrote in three dialects. For the record Lagaan did not win an Oscar, but till date it has grossed billions of dollars, and has become a major commercial empire, comparable to the Government of Goa, but with more employees.

I mean, sure, the IPL is also about three languages , Hindi, English and Australian and,although not nominated for an Oscar has made the BCCI richer by Rs.350 Crore; is looking to achieve posterity by being offered as a course study in B-schools - an elective in sports management no less!

Set in the present day scenario Lagaan ka Baap will strike a deep resonant chord with cricket lovers everywhere by making two fundamental points:
• It’s all about the money, and in case you forget this, remember....
• It’s RRRRRREEAAAHLLY ALL about the money !

But underneath it all, cricket fans are loyal, loving creatures with hearts of gold. They understand that unlike the movie the IPL in fact has a slightly different thrust:
• It’s all about the money but.......
• It has to be made in the shortest possible time, by appealing to the widest number of cricket obsessed fans with the intelligence of algae.

Anyway, Lekha was hanging with Shah Rukh and Juhi because she had volunteered to be an anchor person in a scene being shot on a field in the Andamans. There were maybe 200 extras -- some from the friendly neighborhood and Jarawa tribes, assorted Naval Admirals others who had responded to an ad on Set Max. Their job was to pretend that they were guests at a surprise 34th birthday party being thrown for Sachin Tendulkar (played by Shah Rukh) by his wife, Anjali (played by Juhi).

The movie set, a literal hive of activity, equipment and cables everywhere and a battery of film crew wearing T-shirts, shorts, mini skirts, utility belts, and pom-poms, striding around doing technical things with lights, cameras, monitors, make- up and props, which included a number of stunt birthday cakes, and a tube of toothpaste. In charge of all this was Chairman Lalit Modi, ( motto: I’m not making money from IPL) a smart and funny man who lives in khaki pants and whose credits include ESPN as well as episodes of BCCI.

Now here’s the set up with a film crew:
At the top of the heap are leading actors or superstars, then the director, cameramen, and prop and light boys, then the support actors, the caterers, security and transporters. And at the bottom comes the producer. In fact the producer is not even considered part of the film crew, except sometimes to pose with the extras when they get herded around as part of the scenery. “All right, scenery, when actor arrives, everybody clap!”

Extras do a lot of work. Sometimes they stand-in for the actor, sometimes they stand-in for the cake. Then they get to be part of the scenery during the rehearsals, and again when the filming is on. Then there are the retakes of the scene over and over and over again, because something is always going wrong. They stand around for long hours. And they do this because they are paid with wads of high-denomination notes of respectable currencies.

I am, of course, joking. For a week’s labour -- and it can be a long week,18 hours a day, including nights and Sundays – an extra gets paid Rs.1000.00, or what one of the extras, Pappu Sinha of Jhumri Talaya, described as ``Ek batli nakli scotch vasool.''

So it's not the money. It's the chance to be in a movie and to be around movie stars, in a house, which had been decorated with balloons, streamers, and a sign that said ''HAPPY 34TH BIRTHDAY SACHINJI.'', handed drinks with plastic ice cubes, then positioned under the curved stairway in the hall around the piano.

In this scene, Juhi (as Anjali) carries the cake into the room while everyone sings "Happy Bird-day" to Shah Rukh (as Sachin) who is wearing a dinner jacket and shades. ''Anjali'' sets the cake down in front of 'Sachin'' and he blows out the candles. Then Sachin feeds a slice of the cake to Anjali, walks to the piano and pretends to play it while she makes moon eyes at him and lip-syncs a love song that clearly sounds like Ila Arun or Usha Utthap or maybe both in tandem. The whole scene is maybe 5 minutes long in the movie but takes 12 hours to shoot.

They rehearse it a few hundred times with professional stand-ins standing in for the stars, and an extra standing in for the cake (aah! that’s where the toothpaste “icing” came in handy.) Then out into the hall comes Juhi Chawla and Shah Rukh Khan!

No doubt you want to know if Juhi Chawla is beautiful. Yes Sir, she is. Although it’s true and I want all you other beautiful women to note, that I encouraged Lekha to be in the IPL solely so I could maybe meet her and have the following intelligent conversation:-

LEKHA: Baba, I'd like you to meet Juhi.
JUHI (shaking my hand): Nice to meet you!
ME: Glmphk..
LEKHA: He's in love with you.
JUHI: Aww, that’s so sweet.
ME: Glmphk.
But before this relationship can flower any further, I’m sure it will be time to do another birthday-cake scene.

Lekha had to do one last scene. In this one, they all stood around the piano and pretended to be old friends. The thing was, at that point it felt as though the whole cast and crew had been together for roughly as long as prisoners serving a life sentence, so in a weird way it actually did feel a little like a party.

If this scene stays in the movie -- it's scheduled for release on Diwali -- you might see Lekha. She’s the anchor in the puce skirt, interviewing Shah Rukh Khan and Juhi Chawla about their future plans for the Kolkata Knightriders. This was her big scene, and in all modesty, I believe that she delivered a nuanced, yet powerful -- even commanding -- performance. Especially considering that all you see is the back of her head.

What are these two superstars really like? Lekha says, based on the hours she spent pretending to party with them, that they are very nice. They chatted and joked with the extras, and they were always gracious and polite. This can't be easy when you're surrounded by people who are pretending to be cool, but whose brains are clearly shrieking, ``Ohmigod I am standing RIGHT NEXT TO SHAH RUKH KHAN AND JUHI CHAWLA!''

Roadworthiness and other fairy tales

NEWSFLASH -Porvorim, Goa 4th September 2007

Oh! What a landslide there was! For more than a week , one half of the road was cordoned off to traffic, while a whole slew of administrators got into the act, rubbing their greasy paws in anticipatory glee. As Confucius say, “Calamity unearth whole bag of riches for unscrupulous businessman and bureaucrat”

Stage One: Managing the resultant traffic gridlock at the Mandovi Bridges.
It got to the point where many legislators arrived at the Secretariat, used the bathroom, then immediately began returning home.
Opposition leader Manohar Parrikar, in his haste, and under tremendous pressure, both political and from his vesica urinaria, forcibly removed the barricades, so he could get there faster.

Imagine this; if you were trying to get from Panjim to the Mapusa Friday Market in a real hurry, travelling at roughly the same speed as the River Princess, creeping past long stretches of barricades and immobile construction equipment, you notice a heart-warming sign which says, “Men at Work, Inconveyance regretted. Please bare with us.” Now doesn’t this make you especially grateful for the efficiency of the unsung employees of the Department of Road Signs!

But what can we as citizens do to relieve traffic congestion in times like these? Quite a lot actually. We can car pool so that instead of just being stuck in traffic while dropping your screaming kids to school, you can be stuck in traffic while dropping all your neighbours screaming kids to school as well. Or, while commuting to work, instead of your car, take the bus along with your junior colleagues and be stuck in traffic smelling their bodily odours.



In a later study by a Commission of Inquiry (completed over 6 months at a total cost of Rs. 300 crores) the root cause of traffic congestion at the bridges was, “not the landslide but too many people driving.” Of course the other problem as always is: highway “maintenance”.

Immediately after the landslide, The Division of Road Blocks set out hundreds of steel barricades manned by fierce looking policemen, (these are essential to the commencement of any and all highway projects.) This effort used up the entire budget for the current financial year, and left the highways department with no financially responsible choice but to abandon it till the commencement of the new fiscal year, after receipt and “adjustments” had been made to and from the Prime Ministers’ Disaster relief fund.

With the little money left over the administration moved on to:

Stage Two: Road deconstruction.

This is the next essential part of a highway project where: Large bulldozers, excavators with caterpillar tracks, and angry men with jackhammers and drilling equipment that would make my dentist cringe with envy, arrived and proceeded to reduce the hill to a pile of rubble. In the process every square centimetre of the usable road has been scored into something resembling the lunar landscape.

Stage Three: Nothing happened in stage three which typically lasted for 8 months.

Stage Four: In May someone discovers that the pile of rubble is unstable and the Department of Stability (motto: We can always blame it on the rains) begins to dig huge ditches at the base of the pile. With the rains due in June they hope the unstable rubble will flow down into these ditches and not onto the roofs of passing vehicular traffic. So by the time the rains recede the filled ditches can be used as foundation to put up a retaining wall......or not.

We must realise that good citizens need to pay a price for progress. As the saying goes, ''Rome was not built in a day. Ergo: You cannot make an omelette or the NH17 a motorable highway without putting thousands of road users through living hell for at least a decade.''

When Highway Project NH17 is finally done, Goa and the world will be a better place.

Unfortunately, that will be another twenty thousand years from now, and the only living things left on Earth will be cockroaches. As they frolic along the wide-open, obstacle-free NH17, they'll wave their tentacles at each other, and say: ``I'm so glad they finished this road before they became extinct!''

Cricketsterone (the sequel) IPL

If you fans are listening in and lapping up my blogspots here's a little secret I'm letting you onto.... the Washington Redskins Cheerleading Squad are going to be at the opening of this seasons most awaited cricket extravaganza the IPL. check out the link Ahem!:

http://specials.rediff.com/cricket/2008/apr/10sld2.htm

There's also going to be more of the "Washingtons in View" than you can guess but I'm going to let you find that out for yourselves. e mail me if you find out sooner.



I'm rooting for King's XI Punjab, but of course! Never could resist Preity Zinta's dimple. Oye Balle Balle !!

The Scarlette Pimple (with apologies to Baroness Orczy)

They seek him here, They seek him there,Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?—Is he in hell?That dammed, elusive Pimpernel.- Sir Percy Blakeney (ch.12)

Alas! Poor Scarlette! Your death did begin as a pimple on the face of Goa, and it turns out it's actually a festering cancer. But given our great bumbling administration (they only appear to be so, just like Sir Percy; but unlike the Pimpernel, are really up to no good) the only hope you'll have for justice is in the next life, when the whole cast and crew of this travesty stand before their maker.

Fiona- you've been a lousy, selfish mom; so trying to redeem your sins in this life is not going to work (or is it a publisher's contract you're looking to gain?) - give it up, put li'l Scarlette to rest and make the most of what's left of your pitiful life.

That said I had been wrestling with the idea of my usual tongue-in-cheek blogging on the Goan blot of the life and death of Scarlette Keeling and the continuing saga of Fiona her mother, but out of respect for the deceased I choose not to. You varlets know who you are, know therefore that the grim reaper will visit you one of these days, I hope it's sooner than later, and I hope it's a death made worse than anything you can imagine.

Scarlette Eden Keeling - go to your rest with God and His Angels!

Ring! Ring! Why don't you give me a call....

The Future at Hand

Alexander Graham the inventor of the phrase, "Now why does that ring a bell?" would be a proud man if he could see the exponential way his invention has changed the face of communications.

Today's smart cell phones are so versatile that they fit right into your shoe heel, but I would recommend "heel-phones" only for professional contortionists since you would look funny having to remove your shoe every time it rings. Smelly socks?! Don’t even go there ! Talk about Bluetooth Halitosis! Yeesh!

A SIDE EFFECT OF THE HEEL-PHONE MAYBE ?

It's amazing the things that cell phones can accomplish nowadays; access the internet, distribute SMS spam, receive anonymous crank calls, take dirty pictures and movies, mp3 music and speed dial wrong numbers with accuracy.

Also one can receive unsolicited SMS in two different languages at once. Consider the following SMS from Vodaphone, "Ab life hui Mast! Bonus Card 59, Local VF2VF sirf 30p main, other mobile@50p landline Re.1 main. Validity 30 din." My friend Venugopal Iyer was so excited that he understood all of 10 words in English before he deleted it, though he wondered why they needed to raise a mast and main, and what the din was all about.

And then there's a whole new cyber language called smileys along with acronyms that go like this:

:) Smile
:-) Smile with long nose
:( Sad
:-( Sad about long nose
:-*( Sad about booger stuck in nose
LOL Laugh out loud
ROTFL Rolling on the floor laughing
LMAO Laughing my ass off
(Y) Booty
((Y)) Shaking my booty
(((Y))) Jennifer Lopez
(.)(.) Bosoms
((.)) ((.)) Playboy Mag. Centrefold
GRBWZEGFSKY The last line of my eye-chart or my Polish friend's name, I forget which.



So a typical SMS conversation would be:-

hi wassup
:)
bad weather here
LOL
hailstones broke my car windshield
ROTFLMAO
jerk :(

Early telephony consisted of a series of wires, switches and dials which connected everyone to everyone else and created a lot of confusion. This was known as the "party line" and was soon replaced by the personal telephone so you could talk to only one person at a time(Politicians call this "cutting across party lines") though not necessarily the person you really needed to speak to, since her father insisted on picking up the phone every time.

Then Martin Cooper invented the cell phone and freed up raging juvenile hormones everywhere....and telephonic cybersex was enhanced( :-Q .... Having a postcoital cybercigarette after cybersex )


Early cell phones weighed 200 kilos took 4 days to recharge their batteries and had to be hitched to a tractor. Modern day cell phones are small sleek and very sophisticated, their battery stops working right in the middle of an important conference call, leading to the discovery that the charger has been left plugged in the wall socket on the dresser at home. Yet they are so simple to use, that when my 3-year old neighbor’s son, who is continually trying to tie his own shoelaces and getting it wrong, picks up the phone he can effortlessly dial China direct.

What irks me though is how those telemarketers get my number and are able to sound so chirpy when they call me at 3 in the morning; "Good Morning Sir, We are proud to announce that as a select customer you have been chosen to receive a very special offer of a planner bound in calf-skin if you accept our credit card". I always picture these unsolicited callers as a group of Iraqi prisoners who are required to sell 500 credit cards per day or Pfc Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib fame will be let loose on them.( check out http://badgas.co.uk/lynndie/ for more hilarity on doing the “lynndie”)

And then there's the phone bill which comes at the end of every month. I seriously feel they have someone named Polly the Parrot making up my bills. They cleverly make the bills so voluminous thinking I won't notice. I'm not kidding, this is what the itemised portion of my telephone bill looks like:

CMR GROSS FREE DR CR UPTO FIXED CHARGES NIL
METERED CALL CHARGES 144.40
TRUNK CALL CHARGES 500.00
OVERSEAS CALL CHARGES (Country China) 5000.00
DEBITS AND EDUCATION CESS 5400.00
FACILITIES AMOUNT 3000.00
12% SERVICE TAX 2000.00
CREDITS 0.00
HIGHER EDUCATION CESS 1500.00
FIXED CHARGE 900.00
PACKAGE CHARGE FOR BILL DATED 19 B.C 500.00
MINERAL WATER TAX 750.00
TAX TO PAY OFF KARGIL WAR DEBT 2000.00
MINISTERIAL GRATUITY 500.00

There's always a clause that says ," If bills are not paid by date......". I always pay, because I'm afraid if I don't they'll send me a cyber Lynndie !

Visitations

TRAVEL BUGS & OTHER INSECTS

Nalini and Arun arrived the other day. He asked me, "Kenneth where's the toilet?" to which I answered,"Inside that room to the left." And from that point on we were close friends.

Which is why I also allowed him to pick up the tab for dinner at the Taj Village. Truth be told I worry about eating at five-star restaurants, you never know which celebrity is sitting at the next table and getting all the attention while you desperately try to catch the waiter's eye. And sometimes the pedigree of the seafood is highly suspect. I mean, they tell you the red snapper is fresh but for all you know he's just been dallying with the shell fish! And you end up with an allergy. Uh oh! I can see Nadia roll her eyes and go,"Corrrnyyyy!!"


Note:watch out for the asterisks!
This is an amazing couple*. SHE moved from the US to the UK**, HE remains in the USA till the adoption is complete - oh! didn't i tell you? They are adopting a beautiful baby girl from a centre in Pune. And they bought an apartment right here, in our li'l ol' building in Goa! And made ME the Godfather ....... of the apartment.

They regaled us with their travels around the world especially the Greek islands which brings to mind the words of that famous Greek philosopher Polygamius of Sticitomaedia***. Words which when taken to heart by the ancient greeks turned them into famous athletes, notably runners,jumpers and running jumpers.This activity prompted the invention of the Olympic Games. Of course it also explains the high quantum and availability of all those vestal virgins standing around lighting the Olympic Flame.

Which makes me wonder why mankind always had a hunger for travel. Was it to get away from the humdrum of life's daily chores, was it to acquire a better class of neighbour, was it to discover new cuisine?
Marco Polo would be sitting around in Kublai Khan's court, eating rice noodles and he'd turn to his wife and say,"Dona I have a hunger for more travel." And Donata would instantly agree because she had reached the point where she was ready to hang herself if she read one more zen fortune cookie.****So off they went, to see new sights and discover new cultures, eat different foods and encounter new intestinal bacteria, learn new phrases for 'Where's the toilet' and eventually return home to Venice and ask the ancient traveller's timeless question, "Hey! Isn't this where our house used to be!?"

Modern day travel is so much simpler. In ancient times it took weeks, sometimes months to get from Bangalore to Delhi; but today, because of fog at Indira Gandhi airport you can't get there at all.
Besides much of ancient India was occupied by foreign empires such as the Mughal Empire, and the British Empire.
They had no concept of visas, did not accept credit cards, and had no bottled water. Travel was a dangerous experience due to wild jungle animals, highway brigands,***** and scurvy; but mostly it was very boring since they did not have portable generators to allow you to plug in your laptops or dvd players.

With modern day conveniences such as "Travel Agencies", "MagicalMysteryTours.com", and "Relatives Living at Your Destination" your journey and stay becomes a shoo-in.

Beware of travel agents though. The latest trend in marketing mantras dictates, "Tell the client whatever you think they want to hear."
They'll promise you a gourmet tandoori meal at The Castle Resort in Timbuktu, but when you arrive you discover that the only way to get to the tents you'll live in is on camel back, and you have to share a communal bathroom with several Tuareg tribes.
The food will be (of course) camel milk tofu and salt, and you won't be able to contact your travel representative, because he's not even in the country, because he's spending HIS family vacation at The Forum in Bangalore.


Of course you can decide on a domestic travel destination. Most domestic travel destinations are located right here in India, apart from a few exceptions such as Kashmir.
This is a big advantage since you are never far from a roadside dhaba and tandoori chicken, and there's the freedom of the open-air "organic" field toilet, and you can always feel like you are in a foreign country if you are a Hindi-speaking North Indian travelling in the South or vice-versa.

Best of all though you will be getting ripped off only in Indian currency.
In a foreign country you never have the slightest clue how much anything costs.
Foreign countries have confusing currency like the Dollar, the Euro, the Pound, the Kilo, the Yen, the Baht, the Shower and the Bidet.
Not one of these is equal to the Rupee and depending on the phases of the moon keep changing in relation to every other currency.

Of course you will still feel like the Universal Tourist when you arrive at your hotel in Anjuna and ask the modern day travellers timeless question,"What!? You don't have my reservation!?"

KEY TO ASTERISKS
(*) means asterisk
* Nalini and Arun, not the red snapper and the shell fish - "Oh Lorrrd!"goes Nadia.
** The Indian motherland,though many Goans still refer to their motherland as Portugal!
***"When in Rome do as the Romans do, but when in Greece don't bend over."
****Cookies like: Confucius say,"Money he talk - mostry he say,"Goodbye." and,"Never shove your granny when she shave".
*****they call them traffic policemen nowadays