Intestinal Homicide

Statutory Warning: The frozen processed-meat produce sections of all stores contain cryogenically frozen animals that have been stored there to be revived by some future generation that would have evolved a cure for their disease.

D-DAY………
....nestled in their polythene packing “Costas Sausages” looked endearingly up at me through the glass door of the ‘Farmers Choice’ freezer. They wiggled their fat, glistening, perfectly-shaped little cocktail fingers at me, ‘Take me home,’ they said, “We’ll show you such a good time!”

I took them home!

I HAVE NOW EXPERIENCED THE BARF OF DEATH. THIS IS NO ORDINARY EXPERIENCE : not the kind that feels so good the morning after you’ve tied one on with the guys at the local Pink Pussycat Pub, when you head feels like a balloon, and your cell phone when it rings, sounds like Big Ben doing cartwheels inside your skull.

No, this particular strain must have an official name, something like “Shock & Awe” or “Terminal Velocity”.

The main symptom of food-poisoning is that your insides turn out and your lungs collapse,(well they don’t really collapse, you just run out of breathable air from all that retching.)

Another symptom is that your mouth tastes like a sewer.(I’ve never actually tasted a sewer, but if I had, I’m sure that’s the taste I would have got). So you start to brush your teeth, but your muscles don’t respond and you just have to lie down on the bathroom floor while toothpaste foam dribbles out of the side of your mouth, which hardens into an adhesive paste and bonds your ears to the floor tiles, which is where the coroner may eventually find you.

Then you get a fever and you spend a lot of time lying still and thinking morbid thoughts. One scientific fact is clear though: air is definitely made up of billions of atomic particles. I discover this since I can feel each and everyone of them striking my skin like homing bullets, at supersonic speeds, especially my eyeballs. And when I try to escape by covering my head with the sheet, they attack my, by-now, equally sensitive hair follicles.

That rumpled bed- sheet that has lain on the bed now for the last few days and appears motionless except that it makes the occasional effort to reach for a tissue - do not attempt to prod it, because if it does turn out to be me, and I were alive, and you prodded me, it would kill me.

THREE DAYS LATER......
……I am now trying to lead a more active lifestyle. I attempt to crawl to the bathroom three or four times a day. The bathroom is all of 12 feet away, with a great barrage of atomic air particles en route, and at the halfway point I try to curl up and hope for lightning to strike me, instead I meet up with Buffy, also on all fours. Buffy is the cat. She instantly senses that something is wrong, and guided by that timeless and unerring feline instinct that all cats have, gives me a haughty look reminding me that cats have nine lives.

The day just flies by. Soon it is 7.30 pm, time for sustenance in the form of soft boiled lentils and rice, or what Nadia terms “Barf Kichidi”.Then its time to crawl back, past the haughty Buffy, through the air particles to the bedroom, and call it a night.

DAY FIVE....
……“Aah!”, says the policeman when they find me lying on the bathroom floor, “Barf Kichidi!”

On Yuppyness.

Jimmy Choos or Bata , Crocs or Gumboots !

Disclaimer : This is a work of fiction, if you resemble any of the characters here living or dead….. TOUGH COOKIES!!

If you have been following the tabloids you will know that “yuppies” or in long, “young urban professionals,” are the new breed of serious, clean-cut, ambitious, career-oriented youth that probably resulted from all those underground nuclear tests.( The errata version that disturbingly comes from Punjab are called “puppies”)

Two really beautiful people and my dear friends: Nishant and Jyotsna (names changed to protect their notoriety) are yuppies in the true sense of the word, and DINK’s too! ( Double Income No Kids)

Lets take Nishant :
Nishant is a “consultant” yuppy with an international business house, wears natural-fibre, businesslike clothing even when he knows there is no client-presentation or funeral. In college he majored in Business Administration, and to meet certain academic criteria which required he take an arts course, chose e-Business Music and Lyrics.

In short he’s just another of these yuppies running around behaving as if they’re real grown-ups, and being politically correct, and he’s doing it where, at his age, I and others of my generation, whom I shall not name here, were playing Rolling Stones records backwards by candlelight, and experimenting with finding out what happens when you drink a whole bottle of Coke mixed with crushed Aspirin.

NOTE TO MY FANS : Nothing happens, you just puke your insides out and, for about 10 hours, develop this intense interest in floor tile designs up close and personal.

As for Jyotsna:

The lovely Jyotsna is a designer with a chic (also international) lifestyle magazine. She is currently redecorating their home.

My friend Sohail and his wife Nabeela are unhappy with their current décor, especially since they have four small kids, the result being that all of their original furniture and upholstery, whatever the original colour scheme , is now the colour of mud.

I do know a great deal about home décor (doesn’t everyone!!) Ever since college, when I shared my room with four other guys, I have done my own decorating ,without any assistance professionally or otherwise.

Our bedroom décor theme was “functionality” which consisted of two dozen underwear each on the bed or covering the floor where we could find them in an hurry.

For the living room we opted for a very basic, practical, functional decorating concept called “ girlie centrespreads stuck on the wall” which in addition to providing colour and overcoming the primordial ooze of grey hostel paint, served to lighten our bachelor moods especially on those rainy afternoons when it was wet.

We highlighted this with a textural effect when we had a party, threw red and green crepe streamers soaked in beer up onto the ceiling, left it there for a month to harden and then tried to scrape it off with the hardcover of our course journals. Sukhbir Singh tried to scrape it off while the ceiling fan was still on and left an interesting splatter effect when a fan blade got in the way of his turbanned skull.

But our pride and joy was a two-piece set consisting of :

a) A flashing rotating red light that we nicked from a police jeep.
b) The front grill of an Ambassador with the headlights intact mounted on the window.

You can imagine the impressive overall effect created by these design elements, especially when we had women friends over and we really cut loose.

We would arrange the empty cigarette packets and beer bottles in the corner, and then would create a romantic atmosphere by spraying a bottle of Aqua deodorant on the underwear stacks.

Trust me it was so cool seeing the look on the ladies’ face when they entered our “suite” for the first time and, experiencing the awesome visual effects created by the flashing red cop light and the blue headlights of the Ambassador, realized what suave, macho college guys they were going out with.

Okay, okay enough about my qualifications, we were talking about Jyotsna and her yuppy Lifestyle Magazine.

Clearly you need new furniture along with all those beautiful wall hangings, and curios that complement them. To select exactly what you want, you need to have a lot of creative decorating ideas.

This is made possible by going out and purchasing Rs.5000 worth of a whole skew of glossy magazines with names like Unaffordable Décor, and Elle (French for sucker) Interieur.

Inside each of these magazines you will find exquisite colour pics of beautiful, well lit, perfectly co-ordinated, wondrously clean, rooms, where even the molecules of light filtering in through a window are arranged in attractive patterns.

You wonder how rooms can look so perfect. Where are the maids hand smudges, the dishrag on the chair, the cats’ hair on the sofa, especially the kids stain on the carpet after swallowing that bottle of mouthwash, and where are all the people who litter the house?

The secret: Jyotsna reveals to me is that these rooms are only 6 inches high. The magazines use highly skilled model-makers solely for the purpose of making your home look like a garbage dump.
Occasionally the magazine will print a “blooper” and you will see , through the window of the featured Bachchans gorgeous living room what appears to be a 500 kilogram fingernail.

Now, assuming you have all your creative juices flowing with decorating ideas, get a sheet of graph paper, make a CAD scale-drawing of your floor plan and mark off spaces where you would put all your nice new furniture,- if you were a drug-dealer or politician and could afford new furniture. Unfortunately the furniture you CAN afford is made out of cardboard and used matchboxes.

The best you can do then would be to spread all those glossy magazines around to create an ambience. Bummer!

So what do these yuppies really achieve other than creating fantasy ? What happened to the natural order ? The natural order being that youth start out being wild-eyed radicals and over time develop haemorrhoids and settle down as public spirited citizens.

What bothers me about these yuppies, is that their accelerated maturity is destroying the natural social order, and that represents a threat to society, and we need to do something about them.
One possibility would be to simply wait till their next vacation takes them to Switzerland and they reproduce. They’ll give their children the finest clothing , toys and designer educations.

Then these kids will ultimately grow up and hate everything their parents stood for: will rebel and become dirty, unkempt, riotous drug-addicts, and violently anti-establishment and society will eventually return to normal. And they will ban the phrase, “In Pursuit of Excellence.”

The problem however is that yuppies have a very low birth rate, and this could take a while.

What we really need to do then is draft them and make them serve for 2 years in Pointless Basic Training where they engage in non-productive activities such as eating Thali meals and watching Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

Then they would be given jobs to do with absolutely no opportunity for career advancement such as:
.Train Compartment Passenger List sticker.
.Construction Brick and Sand carrier.
.Government School bell ringer.Road White Line Painter.
.Temple Chappal Caretaker.
And they would do all this wearing old t-shirts, shorts, with a hanky tied over their head.

Would the “u” in yuppy classify Astronaut Sunita Williams as “upwardly mobile” too? – ahh, but SHE would look good in shorts and an old t-shirt !

Thank Bachhus !

"Cultivating Ambrosia"

Whew! The Goa elections are over, along with all those “dry days” and restaurants losing their bar licences for “violations” so let’s sit back and raise a toast to the winners!

Now after all that excitement, I began to feel this void in my stomach, even after meals, so I said to myself, ”All you’ll ever do now till the next round of politicking is sit around and drink beer”

So I decided to take affirmative action and get a hobby that will bring meaning and true fulfillment into my life. I am making wine.

I haven’t the slightest interest in traditional hobbies like coin collecting, religion and matchbox labels. My banker friend Ajay collects coins. He just sort of rushes to the Reserve Bank counters the moment they open to issue limited edition coins or notes, and then takes them home and just keeps them. A real action sequence happens when he discovers a coin that has been minted with a head on both sides, you should see the way he gets excited and just about wets his polyester pants.

For many years I did not have a hobby. Of course when I put down “drugs” in questionnaires where they asked what my hobbies were I was only joking.

Then one day I met Joe and Maureen from Kodaikanal, and Joe introduced me to a potent bottle of wine made on his farm, right in his own garage. It seems Joe needed a hobby too, and soon became a self-taught home wine-maker or “vintner” as they say in the pretentious wine phrase-making thesaurus.

Joe took me to a store where they have wine-making equipment, where a person named Maharaj told me how wine-making contributed to his artistic development and kept giving me free samples till I handed over my credit card.

I’m glad I got into wine-making, because the wine sold here is watery and sweet and tasteless and the sappiest, wussiest wine in the world. All the other wine-making countries are drinking Don Bradman wine, and we are drinking Mandira Bedi.

At first I was reluctant to make my own wine. I had heard stories about how difficult it was to make, about it being illegal, and making you go blind. My neighbour, the beautiful Avril, has given me her personal wine-making recipe and reassured me that these were tall stories, especially the myth of how it makes you go gmpph drrk, glpph@$&*$*

The truth is home-made wine, is perfectly safe, unless you shake the bottle and it explodes. And it is completely legal to make home-made wine. I read up on the updated Government Bulletin on wine-making and it says, that if you make your own wine you can get a rebate in income tax under Section 800 DD, provided you claim you spent it on agricultural research.

It’s simple making your own wine: You take any old fruit and crush them between your toes in the bathtub, and then quickly walk away. (Traditional wine makers fill empty swimming pools with grapes and stomp on them till their bunions, corns and toenails drop off – this makes for a sweeter wine with a more earthy flavour.)

Your main ingredients are (1) a bottle of wine ingredients that you can get from Avril or Joe or an equivalent person, and (2) sexually active wheat. This little organism has only one cell in its plant-like body but has figured out how to convert sugar to alcohol – this is a far greater accomplishment than we can attribute to complex multi-cellular gigantic organisms such as the Indian World Cup 2007 Cricket Team. (Traditional wine makers use yeast - an animal that can take on the whole Australian Cricket Team)

After the tiny wheat grains finish converting your fruit to wine they suffocate and die in their millions, but you should not feel bad about this, because, like the great expanding population of India, there’s plenty more where they came from, on those huge wheat farms in Punjab.

Next your job is to siphon out the wine into bottles. This is the tricky part, because while you’re doing this, the phone rings and you get involved in a lengthy conversation with your builder, while your little visiting grandchild Adwait, gets hold of the tube and spews new wine and pulp all over the garage, on the car upholstery and on himself. And you become the target of his parents wrath when they accuse you of being a bad influence on their offspring.

But that is the only negative I have found. The wine looks and tastes smooth and delicious, except at times when the bottle tends to explode. There’s also another advantage – next elections when those “dry days” come around you no longer need to worry about running dry. Hic!

Let's Get The "Party" Started.

India Rising


In sync with the 21st Century

Calling all Scoundrels

Yeaaaaaaa !! It’s that time for Goans once again, and time for all politicians, to open that termite–ridden cupboard, pull out and brush off that list of lies and false promises, and then ride out to hoodwink the great unwashed, and illiterate public once again.

Time to form new alliances with old enemies, or to pretend not to, time to make tall claims of progress for one’s party, and to rubbish the opposition.

Yes the Great Electoral Circus has come to town once again, along with all the Political Celebrities and some Bollywood ones – dancing and prancing, with oodles of promises of gifts that would put Santa to shame.

I asked MLA Jos Fernandes, and a dear friend of mine, ”Jos, what is the best thing about being a politician?”
He always answered, ”The best thing is that I can help others and make the world a better place.”
Then everybody had a hearty laugh because of course Jos lied. In fact that’s one of the great things about being a politician: You can lie! You get rewarded when you lie! What other profession can say that?
OK, lawyers, but they have to have gone to college to learn how to lie first. Whereas politicians need never have seen the inside of a classroom. Politicians never need to even wear a uniform, they can wear whatever they want. They can show up (or not ) for work in a giant chicken costume and their bosses would not question it. They might even be impressed and remark on it positively in their annual Performance Appraisals. (“Shows initiative and drive. Met his constituents in chicken costume.”)

When you are a politician, people allow you a lot of freedom.

As a politician you can call for a press meeting any hour, even at midnight ,and have a swarm of reporters hanging on every word when you make a sweeping statement that: ”Shilpa Shetty being publically kissed by Richard Gere encourages the spread of terrorism in the country.”

As a politician you can state categorically that unaccounted money found in your hotel room are “party funds”.

As a politician you can fake chest pains when issued an arrest warrant and be lodged in a five-star hospitals' private suite instead of a jail cell.

As a politician you can be involved in numerous financial scams, default on bank loans upwards of 20 crores of rupees in a sugar mill mismanagement and a bank, and go on to become Governor of a State and then President elect for the entire country.

.. and much, much more. And guess what? Nobody thinks it’s odd that you do or say these things. Because it’s not odd. These are all part of the job of being a professional politician. And as for mischievous information on any ill-gotten gains, scams, bribes or kickbacks, news of which is being flashed on NDTV via spycam – that’s preposterous!: you obtained every rupee in the course of doing your job as a politician. They are the Tools of Your Trade!

My point is that politicians have a wonderful job. It’s way better than other so-called “elite” jobs, such as Cardiologist, or Secretary to the United Nations.

Don’t believe me? Apart from not requiring any minimum age, experience or educational qualifications, let’s then compare the three vocations with specifics :

A. Okay to wear chicken costume to work ?
Cardiologist - No
Secretary to the U.N. – Only at special functions dealing with “Bird Flu”.
Politician – Yes

B. Hardest part of job ?
Cardiologist – Cutting into chest of live human
Secretary to the U.N. – Maintaining delicate balance of world peace
Politician – Working Shilpa Shetty’s name into speech at Spastics Society

C. Worst that can happen ?
Cardiologist – Heart bounces off your shoes.
Secretary to the U.N. – World War III commences.
Politician – “Shilpa” speech fails to appear in newspaper column.

D. Ultimate benefit ?
Cardiologist – Can save a life.
Secretary to the U.N. – Can truly make the world a better place for millions.
Politician – Can wear pyjamas to television talk show.

So it’s crystal clear folks: any way you look at it, there is no better job than politician. That is why so many people want this job. It looks so easy! In fact as you read this you may find yourself thinking: “Hey, I could do this. Any "bad word" person could do this!”

But that is where you would be wrong! It takes a very special kind of "bad word" person to be a politician. Every election year, thousands of people try their hands at this demanding job. After the results are announced, almost all of them have given up and gone back to petty theft and extortion.

Do you think you could do this job? Do you have what it takes to be a truly thick-skinned politician? Then answer the following multiple choice questions:

TEST FOR POLITICAL APTITUDE

1. You give a speech speaking ill of a certain minority community, that is so insensitive and vicious that thousands of people from all walks of life take out processions and condemn you and your speech. You should:
a. Apologize to them in public
b. Apologize to them on television
c. Threaten to send goons to their houses.

2. If you were given the opportunity to ask one question of Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose what would the appropriate question be?
a. “What did you hope would be your legacy to future generations?”
b. “What is the greatest moral threat facing India and Indians today?”
c. “Can I wear your hat?”

3. As a politician, you should always watch the daily television news because it enables you to:
a. Accurately keep in touch with current affairs and affairs of state.
b. Gauge the mood of the electorate at large.
c. Watch FTV models in their underwear.

4. The part of the newspaper you first turn to is:
a. The headlines
b. The editorial
c. The page which keeps track of your investments.

5. The main purpose of a newspaper, in your opinion, is to :
a. Inform it’s readers about all aspects of important issues.
b. Convince readers by presenting the pros and cons of an argument
c. Print the Railway and Airline Schedules, and Forecast the Weather.

6. The best resource for confirming a fact is:
a. The Discovery Channel
b. Google the Internet
c. All facts will have to be investigated by an appointed commission.

If you answered “c” to all these questions , you might have the potential to be a politician. But I warn you: There is a lot of skullduggery involved.

For example you will have to gain access to bootleg liquor to numb your constituents into a stupor and enable them to carry out their odious election duty (namely vote for you) during the dry days leading upto election day and the announcements of the results, especially if you win.

Next you will have to visit and spend two weeks in Madrid (preferably with a pretty young thing travelling on your wife's passport) conducting tax-deductible research at various bullring cantinas, so you can educate your constituents about issues, such as exactly where Madrid is (not in Portugal, as it turns out) and what the Spaniards are thinking ( they’re thinking we’re morons).

Me? I’m going to curl up with a good book in the rains.

Inquilab Zindabad !

Taking Matters to Heart

Chewing the Fat

I turned 55. I don’t think that’s old, a lot of really famous people accomplished great things after 55. For example, Mr.Morarji Desai discovered the secrets of urine therapy and went on to become Prime Minister of India. And it was ex-Prime Minister Deve Gowda who discovered that sleeping in the opposition benches in Parliament produced enormous amounts of drool.

When I turned 50 (5 years ago if memory serves me) my Doctor Uday, who is a pretty decent guy ordinarily, made me promise to get a complete physical every year. He called me into his clinic, put on a scary rubber glove and made sudden lunges at my personal regions, all the while asking me to cough. I have decided therefore to space out my physicals only to those times when I actually experience physical pain, or my hair falls out, whichever is the latter.

Also Uday has a lady nurse who works with him – a charming young thing – but one who belongs to the Transylvanian Vampirical Society (Motto: Do not let patients leave the clinic with any of their blood) She distracts you with charming conversation, subtly sticks a needle, with a large tube attached, into your arm, and the next thing you hear before you pass out, is a gurgling sound from said tube that leads to a huge overhead tank with the word BLOOD stencilled on the side.

I thought I had come through my physical in great shape. However I hadn’t counted on Uday’s adherence to the medical code which states:

“I swear by my Mercedes Benz, that I will find something medically wrong with any person who steps into my clinic, even the postman.”

The precedent to this of course is the Hippocratic oath, named after the famous Greek Philosopher Aristotle who became known as the Father of Modern Medicine after he invented the following phrases :

- you may experience some pain
- we have to run some tests first
- the tests were not very clear
- we are going to have to carry out some more tests
- does your company reimburse your medicals or do you have medical insurance?

As one can see, without those phrases, modern medicine would be impossible.

And so Uday, realizing he would probably have his Medical Association Gymkhana Pass revoked if he declared me medically fit, called me to say that my blood cholesterol was on the higher side. I told him to check with his nurse, since all my blood had been suctioned out by her anyway, but Uday insisted I needed a change in my food habits.

Uday also sent me an informative animation CD for the layperson, explaining what bad blood is. Cholesterol looks like a little Spongebob-shaped guy with bushbaby eyes, running around in a small tunnel, which represents your blood vessel going to your heart, which is a little smiley face in the background. Sometimes Spongebob gets stuck between boulders which appear in the tunnel, and this causes him to become blue in the face, and your blood vessel starts to look like Mumbai Central Station at rush hour. When a whole lot of cholesterols get stuck, your heart gets a sad face, and a doctor with a face mask (to hide his identity) comes in with a Bob-the-Builder mechanical shovel.

To prevent this from happening you have to be conscious about foods which you can or cannot eat, they are :

BAD FOOD GROUPS: Meat, milk, cheese, butter, desserts, fried foods, pizza, foods cooked by grandma, snacks, breakfast, lunch, dinner, munchies, beer, birthday, wedding and Christmas cakes.

GOOD FOOD GROUPS: Low fat grass, non-aerated water, rice husk and wood shavings.

Following this diet has been really, really hard for me. The worst part has been giving up steak. I love steak. I’m the kind of person who can gnaw through a whole chunk of tenderloin the size of Adnan Sami. But methinx today, thanks to all that sacrifice, I have developed blood again and that my cholesterol is a lot lower. Uday asked me to come back and have it checked, but his nurse will never take me alive.

On turning 55 ?? – oh! I decided I would keep it quiet, don’t want that pretty thing next door, hugging me and saying,” Happy Birthday UNCLEJI !”

WARNING:Contains the "B" word

A Pair of ...what?


Guys! Drop whatever you’re doing right now (unless it’s a baby) and check out the new Enamor ad doing the television rounds, involving man’s favourite subject “brassieres & bosoms”.
Every few seconds you hear the slogan, “I feel so beautiful inside” conjuring up all kinds of imagery of the male hormonal kind. Although it does feel nice to use the words “brassiere and bosoms” in the same sentence.

I hear tell that the Chinese are designing a special “Combat Bra” for it’s People’s Liberation Army and that our Ministry of Defense is “looking into it”
I recommend we write to our local MP or MLA to take up this issue in Parliament and undertake a large wasteful military research program to match China’s military programs.
We must always, “support our troops” and “keep abreast of our enemy”, and I am sure that our political arm will take a personal interest in its’ development, so much so that we can surge ahead of China by developing the Tactical Field Stealth Uni-Thong,(one size fits all)

Which reminds me of an “investigative” report in one woman’s magazine headed, “ARE YOU WEARING THE WRONG BRA SIZE??”
One would think that women were dropping like flies in the street from wearing wrong sized brassieres. I am therefore, genuinely interested in this problem, despite the fact that I do not even wear a brassiere except on very special occasions involving more than four bottles of beer.
I would also like to know why we say “a pair of shorts” or “a pair of trousers” but NOT “a pair of brassieres”?
My friend Milind, who has a keen interest in these issues, read the complete magazine report and informed me that it focuses on the tragic habit of “women who wear brassieres that are five sizes too small for their bosoms which leaves said bosoms with no choice but to spill out into the camera lens, a la Janet Jackson.”

This I then suspect must be the reason why one of our concerned legislators brought up the subject of the “menace” of topless sunbathers on Goan beaches.

Nadia,( remember her?, my beautiful ABCD co-conspirer!) who is from Los Angeles also tells me that they have a bosom problem there, but the California Tourist Bureau claims that most of the L.A. ones are artificial.

First of all, let me state on behalf of all the citizens of Goa and Goan Beaches that although there ARE topless women sunbathers in Goa, by no stretch of the imagination is this a “menace” and they are not “everywhere.”
If it were “infested” with topless women I would have definitely noticed, and it would have also featured on Voyager TV and the local weather report: “Reporter: The forecast for today is to look out for warmer temperatures and a proliferation of naked bosoms everywhere, so the public are advised to stay indoors with paper bags over their heads.”

Most of our topless sunbathers are European tourists. Europeans are of course immoral; they think nothing of toplessness or drinking warm beer.
For instance you can hardly walk around Europe without seeing topless marble Greek and Roman statues the size of elephants stating the classic concept: “I cannot find a marble brassiere or fig leaf in my size?”
So European women and men sunbathe topless, often with nothing covering their Euros either.

On my research trips to Goan beaches I’ve noticed that Europeans do not seem to notice that they are almost naked. But the Indians definitely notice THEM.
Indian women are subtle about it; they have the ability to notice a man’s Euro region with a Stealth Glance, so you can never actually tell what they are looking at.

Indian men, on the other hand are about as subtle as wild boar rooting in horse manure looking for truffles.
When an Indian male catches sight of a bosom, his head locks on to it, his eyeballs click and zoom in and you can almost hear an alarm-like siren in his head go, “BOSOM! BOSOM! BOSOM!”
As long as the said bosom is within range (about 10 kilometers) he has to look! He will not be able to think of anything else, will remain psychologically incapable of ignoring it, and physically his head will remain pointed towards it; this is the cause of the freighter River Princess running aground on Candolim beach.

I am therefore constrained to issue this following warning to tourists: IF YOU COME TO GOA AND GO TO THE BEACH THE RED BLOB MELTING ON THE SAND MAY BE A TOPLESS EUROPEAN SUNBATHER.

Three Flights and a Wedding

Safe Landings (either way)

I haven’t attended a wedding for over a year:

Missed the Pam Anderson wedding – but got the consummation video off the internet.

Missed the Nicole Kidman / Keith Urban wedding

Missed the Katie Holmes / Tom Cruise wedding

Got thrown out of the Liz Hurley / Arun Nayar wedding

Slept through the Aishwarya / Abhishek Bacchan wedding

Did not make it to the Rahul / Shweta wedding.

But darned if I was going to miss the Anupama / Rohit wedding at Cochin.

The other alumni of the 24 GNC brat-pack, Amit, Ronni, Nandini, Rahul and his wife also planned to be there. How could this pervert resist not being there to check out Rahul’s new bride!

Getting to Cochin was an entirely different kettle of fish.

For those of you planning to travel by air, here are some interesting statistics about the Indian airline industry.

This year, Indian carriers will fly a record of 700 million passengers, 23 million frequent-flyer kilometres, each person will sit in an aircraft on the tarmac for an average of 3 hours, and every one of them will pay a different fare.

Airline fares are calculated by the airlines random fare generator, Polly the Fare Parrot, after determining passenger loads, the distance from City A to City B and whether City B has a landing strip, whether the pilot drinks 12-year old scotch or plain beer and the cups of re-useable yoghurt leftover from previous flights.

Nobody eats the yoghurt, my guess is there are airline yoghurt containers still circulating dating back to pre world-war Dakota flights.

Yes, Indian carriers are cutting back on food service as well, but their record of safety is among the highest in the world; the only country with a better flight safety record is Tibet, which has only the one plane and has yet to figure out how to start it.

In accordance with airline procedures,you should always arrive 2 hours before the scheduled departure time so that you can then stand around, visit the loo at least thrice, and be among the first ones to know that your flight has been delayed due to mechanical problems (usually pilot-hangover).

You pass your baggage through the X-ray machine so the guys sitting at the monitor can laugh at the holes in your underwear.

Laptops are allowed on board as cabin baggage, but have to be turned on, to prove it is not a terrorist bomb. Hah! Any eighth grader can tell you that a terrorist can program a bomb-loaded laptop to turn on.

You are also forbidden, on pain of imprisonment, to carry a nail clipper, it can be used as a skyjack weapon.

Of course those stainless steel forks and knives which accompany your tasteless food tray on board Jet Airways do not count – any self respecting terrorist would not be seen dead trying to use THOSE as hijack weapons if he can smuggle a nail clipper on board.

The flight was scheduled to go from Goa to Bangalore and then on to Cochin, but in Bangalore the situation deteriorated further, we sat on the plane for 2 hours before takeoff – they didn’t let us off the plane for fear that we would run away. So we sat listening to our stomachs rumble.
One woman broke down and drank her baby’s formula. Another asked if they had any leftover yoghurt.

We took off, the flight now had to be re-routed via Mangalore to drop off some spares for another grounded flight,(the “official” reason for our delay) our pilot “Captain Kangaroo”, suffering from alcohol withdrawal pangs, banged us down on the runway and I swear the plane bounced… twice. We landed, took off again and landed an hour later in Cochin, where we dropped to our knees and gratefully licked the terminal floor.

Then an hours drive to discover dinner was almost over, but I got to meet the groom Rohit, the gang, and Anu’s Mom and Dad before they went to bed.

Need I mention that both mother and daughter are breathtakingly beautiful, and looked absolutely ethereal & stunning in their gold bordered white saris at the wedding ceremony.

I also met Shreya, the lovely Nandini’s gorgeous school mate.

NO, I’m not going to tell you how handsome and macho I thought Anu’s dad and the groom looked, it was a wedding not Brokeback Mountain.

Play-gere-ism

The copycat phenomenon

Congratulations Chief Judicial Magistrate Dinesh Gupta of the Jaipur High court, Poonam Chand Bhandari and Pawan Surana for the launch of Bade Bhai, the Indian version of Big Brother.

The object of THIS new serial is basically the same: Get Shilpa Shetty into a confined space (read prison) with no contact with the outside world and humiliate her, but in her OWN country, why should the Brits have fun at the expense of Indian women when we are perfectly capable of doing it ourselves!

I’m sure Bade Bhai will upstage the Bacchan post-wedding bacchanalia, and detract from the pain of the Great Indian World Cup 2007 Disaster.

Wonder whether the Honourable Dineshji, Poonam and Pawan know about the erotica of the Konark Sun Temple and Vatsayana’s Kama Sutra.( Maybe they can start a book-burning club and launch an agitation to bring down the temple “Ayodhya-style”.)

But, case in point - we have no originality.

I went back in time ( about 12.30 pm) to see if I could find more examples of Indian plagiarism and I hit a mother lode…….

Plagiarists 8 – The VHP and the Shiv Sena - feeble attempts to ape the Afghan Taliban with their versions of Indian History & Culture and its defense. (Oops! now THEY know about Konark and the Kama Sutra. Darn!)

Plagiarism 7 – Indian Contemporary Pop Music and dance ( American Rap, Hip Hop and Disco right down to the “Yo Mon”, “Wassup Dude” and the hi-five hand slap)

Plagiarism 6 – Bollywood, Tollywood & Kollywood ( D-uh): wonder if Dineshji watches all those item girls in Hindi movies.

Plagiarist 5 – Bappi Lahiri – The original plagiarist.

Plagiarism 4 – Kaun Banega Crorepati (Who wants to be a millionaire)

Plagiarist 3 – Kaavya Viswanathan, Harvard Sophomore who has now switched names on her book How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild & Got a Life to How Shilpa Shetty Got Kissed, Was Summoned & Became World Famous soon to be a major Bollywood motion picture starring Dev Anand as Richard Gere.

Plagiarism 2 - Dhoom 1 and 2 (The Fast and The Furious meet The Matrix), and Krrish (Superman, Batman and other Comic Book Heroes – shaken not stirred)

And at the top of the list:

Plagiarist 1 - Rahul G. proclaiming his family the best AND so strong as to have divided Pakistan – Hah! Jokes on you Rahul. My family is better, and guess who divided India, and Korea and Germany and….

Future Plagiarism : Indian Idol with Host Govinda

Copycats: Call Centre employees with their fake American accents and names

Decaying Leftovers from the Raj:

Bad English accents ,worse grammar: ”But Saar, vee are like this wonly!”

Men in Three Piece Business Suits with Necktie nooses for formal occasions (Indian womanhood I hail & salute you for retaining the graceful Sari AND for improving on its originality)

Red Tape, Bureaucracy & Corruption (Dating right back to the Rig(ged) Vedas)

Khushwant Singh

Gotta run ,there’s the James Laine book –burning I just HAVE to attend. How dare a British Author pre-empt one of ours by claiming to know more about our own dead heroes indiscretions.

The Wrath of Grapes ( with apologies to John Steinbeck)

...of Birthdays and Beer

Beautiful Avril celebrated a birthday recently. I like to think that maybe we qualify as good neighbours since she invited us to dinner.

Like all birthdays there was great company, nice music, good food and wine, and of course Bonny ( Avril’s macho hubby) made sure beer was on hand.

I’ve never been a wine drinker, I am a beer man. The great thing about beer is that you basically drink it, then you pop open another one.

Beer drinkers are nonchalant, laid back, friendly, down-to-earth folk who enjoy talking football or the importance of spin bowling, much like the Hobbits of the Shire.

Snobs who fancy wine however tend to be insufferable in that they sniff at the cork, swirl it around the glass, and go on and on about it while holding it up to candle light, unlike us beer drinkers, who just guzzle it down.

I know I am generalizing here, but I don’t care.

A while ago I decided to see what all the brouhaha was about wine. I rented a three-piece suit and bow-tie and went on to attend the Annual Sommelier Meet held in the humid confines of the French Consulate in Pondicherry.

For the benefit of you rotgut drinkers a “sommelier” is that dignified-looking wine steward with the starched shirt, who looks down his nose at you in expensive 5-star hotel restaurants, hands you the “Wine List”, and when you point to the French writing that actually means,” Taxes and Surcharge Extra” says “Excellent Choice Sir,” then struts off and brings you the iodine-tasting house wine.

A lot of the Pondicherry “elite” who consider themselves wine aficionados were on hand for the Sommelier Meet.

We were served champagne in the lawns and introductions were bartered in the foyer.

We then went in to dinner and to watch the presentation of new wines.

After a few glasses of champagne this takes on an ethereal, immensely entertaining quality, because some of the local Pondicherry Ashramites spoke (I figured they practiced for days in their meditation chambers) with cultivated French accents which were highly comical,.(Sroo-out eestory zee hrole of zee whine mhakar eez to zeelect zee grape zat epeetomizes zee flavore of zee reegeeawn)

Also as an invitee I got to drink a lot of wine, just like beer I would down my glass of wine and look around for more.

Not so the wine-drinkers at my table who swirled their glasses around, sniffed, and instead of drinking the wine, mostly gargled with it, then with studious faces would make remarks like they were selecting applicants for Big Brother ( “I find it particularly intriguing if a trifle facetious.” Or : “It’s cultivated but just a little too puritanical for rhetoric”)

I asked Brigitte, a French lady sitting next to me if the French went on about wine in the same snotty way. “No,” she said, “we just drink it, because that’s why we make it ,no?”

Then came the sommelier competition.

A bunch of them from around the country were quizzed on questions like; which regions with a “B” apart from Bordeaux, Beaujolais, and Baloney produce Pinot Noire wines ( I’m joking about Baloney –that’s where they produce fertiliser)

There was a blind-tasting where we invitees also got to sample a wine introduced from the Golconda region of Hyderabad.

It was rusty brown in colour and everyone at the table agreed it was lousy. “A trifle earthy,” said one lady. “Too efficacious for a Cabernet.” said another. “Like cow pee” I volunteered. The others felt I was being too strong in my opinion, but I was the only one who finished my glass.

Next we got a French wine which was awesome and which I gulped down hastily, but a reporter from the Wine Weekly was upset that instead of it being from the Loire Region as mentioned in the program this wine was from the Alsace region. “They are both haute couture wines but there is such a difference in their personalities.” I was the only one who laughed, although I suspect Brigitte wanted to as well.

For the finale the sommeliers had to match wines with menu selections.

The menus had food disguised with French-sounding names like “ Poisson Marquis de Sade aux Frappe de Merde “ and “ Boeuf avec Coeur de Bastille.”

Each sommelier had to state reasons why he chose a particular wine.

Statements poured forth such as: ”I felt the Chablis ‘69 would have the enhanced bouquet to compliment the Pate’” and “ In my opinion when marrying red herring with melba, the wine has to be allowed to breathe in advance and ….”

It turned out hilarious and entertaining for me, but my table mates were appalled that I had been invited.

In the end the winning sommelier was Alfred Gomes from Goa.

He won the Crystal Carafe’ and an all-expenses-paid trip to France and had this to say: “When I see Turkey on the menu I am reminded of a quote…….”

I say! Capital my man! Now who can argue with a man who is reminded of a quote by turkeys!

Avril’s birthday dinner turned out to be a smashing success, since most of us stuck to drinking beer, ergo there were no controversial issues – except for my references to Divinity and Bacchus in the same breath….

Oh ! and Joe flirted with death on the roof while recovering a ring… but that’s another story.

DIY Mishaps

Tech- Supports R Us

I have spent large portions of daylight in the past few days trying to solve a problem that involves (tantantaratara-background music) two different companies.To protect their identities, the company names are changed and I will call them "Pewlett Hackard" and "Z-Link."

I believe I have talked to all the employees including the janitors at both companies at least twice.

Each time I get to a new person, I explain my problem, and each time the person I'm talking to -- who really, really wants to help me with my problem -- decides, after much review and conferring while I remain on hold, that I need to talk to another person.

This has become my latest pastime. I wake up,brush my teeth, & drink my coffee while calling my new friends at Pewlett and at Link. I am sooooo pathetic! Waaah!

OK, for the benefit of those computer geeks who are looking for details, here is my problem.

If you are searching for entertainment however, do not read further.

I am trying to activate a Z-Link broadband modem on a Pewlett Hackard notebook computer (the Gimpaq Senario X1000), which is a beautiful laptop that I really like) (except for this problem) (and yes, Apple people, I know that Apples are perfect and NEVER have any technical problems; I actually own an Apple,(i Pod) which I liked a lot at first, but for different things, but you're kidding yourself, Apples have problems too, especially your stupid i Pods. And I discovered a worm in the fruit as well!

The thing is, when I bought the notebook, I assumed it came with the broadband modem installed. But apparently it did not.

So I bought the modem (it's the BLT905K model) which according to Z-link is plug and play and can be (tantantaratara) installed by the customer.

I installed it. But I cannot make it work.

I spent a genoooooooorrrrmous amount of time on the phone with Z-link, and they are absolutely positively certain that they have my POP3, SMTP, IP address and Subnet Mask Numbers correct in their system. (No, I don't know what all those numbers are, but you need them, and I have them, and by golly it is correct.)

I also spent a major amount of time on the phone with Pewlett Hackard, particularly a very nice and profoundly patient tech-support lass named Pratima whose soft, langorous voice I have fallen in love with, who ran some kind of remote diagnostic program that enabled her to actually send pretty pictures to my screen, which was awesome, but that did not really help.

Pratima, after trying many things, believes my modem is working properly (even though I installed it) and so far she is stumped if she can figure out why the dam thing will not connect to the network.

So I am going to try moving my notebook to the loo, to see if maybe it's just not getting the signal (which I doubt is the problem, because my old PC worked fine in the same spot with a Z-link broadband modem) (but you never know).

If that doesn't work, I will have to go to another Gimpaq department, “FAQ’s R Us”.

But Pratima gave me all her contact info, and promises that if I need more help, she will be there for me. Maybe I’ll ask her out on a date.

I warned you not to read that. But you wouldn't listen.......

FINALLY: It’s fixed! The problem was -- why I am not surprised? -- me. I did a crappy job of installing the modem, and specifically attaching the ADSL cable to the teeny little line-out connector.

What did you expect? I’m no rocket scientist!

The solution was suggested by Ronny the Banking.com guy, at whose feet I prostrate in gratitude.
With the help of my neighbours 7-year old son, who, unlike me, can see small things, I took the connectors off and reattached them, and for now it seems to be working.
I am much relieved, though I will miss all my tech-support friends.

I also thank all the janitorial staff and persons who came forward with helpful suggestions, even the ones who are clearly mentally challenged.

Pay Now, Pray Later

Concept Holidays

Strolling on the sands of Candolim Beach one morning, I notice this youth lounging at a shack and looking us over predatorily. He begins walking over.

One hand immediately goes to my back pocket to feel for my wallet, and the other forward and down to check for an open fly.

Youth: Congratulations Sir and Madam, you have just won a free holiday in a foreign country.

Me: That’s not possible? We NEVER win anything !

This made the youth explain further: My name is Savio Pinto and I work for the Royal Goan Maharaja Resort Beach Club and you can win a free vacation in Thailand, if you will allow me to make an appointment for you to examine a new Holiday Concept launched by our organisation.

To win the vacation both partners had to be present at the appointment. I figured out later that this was a precaution; in case one signed a contract with them individually and the other found out and killed him, this would void the contract.

We went to the address and presented the card that Savio gave us and were let into a room filled with other couples, not unlike a dentist’s waiting room, except that this room had backdated, dog-eared copies of The Lonely Planet dating back to the sixties, with the illustrations torn out.

Every now and then a woman resembling Whistler’s Mother would come in and lead a couple off, leaving the rest of us to wonder what was going to happen to them. I thought maybe it would be like a college ragging session, where they would put us in a dark room and pour cow-pee over us and then present us with our Thai vacation. But as it happens you don’t get off that easy.

Finally our names were called and we went in to meet Simon. Simon always begins his sentences with, “Let me be frank,” and ends them with shaking your hand grasping it between both of his to let you know that he is the closest friend you have in the world. When Simon was born the doctor told the nurse not to go near his crib wearing her wedding ring.

Simon said that they did not just invite ANY random couples off the street to offer this new Holiday Concept. He said that they had spent a lot of time and money in research to ensure that we fit their high profile – not that they minded it, and we should not feel obligated - since they needed to ensure that no criminals were entertained, or they would not be able to make an offer to upper-class people like us.

I asked how they could carry out research on something like that. This made Simon very nervous. I think it suddenly occurred to him that we could be those very same criminals, and might be carrying weaponry, and he launched into a speech about “different modalities of circumvention, ” the underlying gist meaning that when he said they did not want criminals, he did not mean us per se.

Next Simon asked us where we took our vacations and we were educated on how we could get herpes from the bed sheets in hotels that had housekeeping & room services. This made us realise that whatever Simons’ holiday concept was it did not have housekeeping & room service.

Finally Simon let it be known that their holiday concept was Time Share Resorts. As he explained it basically, we were supposed to give them a couple of lakhs of rupees plus annual maintenance and we could have a 3 night / four day holiday every year at these Time Share Resorts of which Simons’ company had built a few and planned to build many more of.


Then he showed us a brochure to illustrate their Time Share Resort in Delhi, which had a nice picture of the Qutb Minar, although when asked about it, he said that the Qutb Minar was not technically on the resort property per se.

I said that until I had actually seen one of these resorts I could not be expected to put my money down. So Simon said there was one just outside. What we saw was an open-air boy-scout type camping ground with tents, video games and a wading pool. I told him that I would spend holiday time there only if this was one of the demands made by my daughter’s kidnappers.

So we went back inside and Simon lunged at us with his Special Offer, only available for that day:
For thirty thousand rupees plus annual maintenance charges we could become members of his resorts!
Plus, for a small annual fee, we could stay at RCI affiliated, Time-Share resorts world wide! There are thousands of them! They litter whole continents!
Plus we could get discounts at Amusement Parks! Essel World! Air Fares!
A Palace in Rajasthan! Limo Service! Several Palaces in Rajasthan!
Parasailing! Special front row seats to Kaun Banega Crorepati! A.R.Rehman’s English CD!

But we had to act today! Right Now! Before he made this unique offer to other couples waiting outside!

Any Questions?

Just one big one actually!

Did he think we had the same sheep–brains of the idiots who voted on American Idol, George W.Bush for President and the Goa Regional Plan 2011?

Sub-questions followed: What are you talking about? What Palaces? What Amusement Parks? How much of a discount?

Simon didn’t really know. He was more of a specialist in bed sheet hygiene.

Then he brought in his Bosco,his Marketing Manager who pulled out a lot of travel brochures and kept reading the headlines, as if they contained real information.

The whole ordeal took about two hours but we finally got our free vacation in Thailand. However as we had not purchased a time share, this offer was valid only in the monsoons,we had to get there on our own, and then travel North into the hills on donkey back, and we had to carry our own food and water.

All said and done, attending the presentation, assuming that you get through their strict screening procedure and are invited personally – I would say is a fun, family outing.

Those of you who are criminals, might want to use your illegal weapons to bypass the holiday concept presentation altogether and get the free holiday up front.

Oh God ! -Part III

Moses & The Pharaoh

Nadia; one gorgeous hunk of womankind, smart, funny and attractive, though not in that order, and a big part of my life, was invited to her friend Krista’s house for the Passover dinner.

Now Nadia is an American born Indian or ABCD (that’s American Born Confused Desi) whose ancestors EFG (emigrated from Gujarat) where they had a large sprawling HIJ (house in Jamnagar) Sheesh! I outdo myself!

Nadia works with the CDC (Centre for Disease Control) in the U.S., where she currently researches infectious diseases and their historical and empirical importance. Which is why this particular dinner was of major significance. She has now discovered that it was the Old Testament God who is really responsible in the first place for all these infectious diseases.

You see the Old Testament God was a very strict God, unlike the New Testament God who is mellow and loving and forgiving, and would never smite the Philistines and the Pharisees which is something the Old Testament God, tutored by Harlan Ullman, was always doing, by raining down fire and brimstone much like the “shock and awe” tactics of the Americans on the Iraqis.

So in Egypt He forced the Pharaoh, to allow Moses and the Israeli Brickmakers Unions and their families, to leave the country by bringing down upon the Egyptians plagues of frogs, locusts, flies, gnats and dead seafood, turning the Nile into blood, destroying their crops, killing their livestock and their firstborn, and generally raising a stink everywhere; the first prototype weapons-of-mass-destruction.

From this we infer that a whole slew of diseases may have had their origins in Egypt and that the Israelites founded the first Mafia raising "protection" money from the Egyptians by making them Passover all their gold and silver before they had their exit visas stamped and left the country.

There is speculation too that coronary disease was a result of this era, since no matter what disaster took place in the earlier stages of the Exodus, the Lord always “hardened the Pharaoh’s heart,” resulting in blocked arteries – possibly leading to the first bypass surgery Egyptian-style.

And since the Nile was all bloody and polluted, the first deep-bore wells were dug all along its banks to get drinking water.

The Israelites then had to eat unleavened bread, roasted lamb & fresh bitter herbs for all of seven days, whence they discovered that they had better digestion, more roughage, and since there was no yeast fermenting in the dough it made them feel less bloated and not so flatulent.

Later in the week - Easter Monday, Moses was handed down the Ten Commandments carved on stone tablets, and developed the first hernia carrying these down from the mountain, these Commandments are followed to this day along with various amendments, clauses and sub-clauses in Supreme Courts and Kangaroo Courts all over the world.

It may be inferred therefore that the CDC owes its very existence to Moses, the ancient Israelites and the Old Testament God, & should declare the Passover a major annual public holiday and Nadia presented the Abraham Horwitz award.

Computer Hazards for the Addicted

The above pics have been compiled from contributions of a whole community of folk who happen to read and appreciate my blogspots on computerology amongst other stuff, and because I was too lazy to think up new stuff for myself. They prove the saying that a picture is worth a thousand words and I could not have said it better.Here's 23,000 words.Thanx people. Enjoy !

La Tragedie aux Coupe du Monde de Cricket 2007 or "Off With Their Heads"( Pardon my French)

Here Lies Indian World Cup Cricket next to Indian World Cup Hockey.

It’s been a tragic world cup so far – and it makes me both angry and sad:

“Sluggish Trout” Pakistan were out of the World Cup at the outset losing to “Minnows” Ireland.

Poor Bob Woolmer (May he Rest in Peace & enter the Gates of Cricket Valhalla) was “allegedly” murdered by a bookie or bookies unknown.

“Fatted Whales” India next to be ousted lost out to “Sharks (formerly Minnows)” Sri Lanka not long after their humiliating defeat by “Minnows” Bangla Desh.

Vandals crawled out of their petty-crime gutters, (the Indian Press calls them “Cricket Fans”) to loot and bespoil Cricketers houses. You ladies competing in future Miss World and Miss Universe Competitions – Beware the Indian Miss World and Miss Universe “Fans” back home in your neighbourhood.

True-blue Indian cricket fans died of heart attacks

Ash and Abhishek announced the probable date for their wedding

And Brangelina adopted a Vietnamese orphan - NO WAIT! That’s a good thing!

I’m calling on genuine cricket fans to send e mails to the Indian Minister for Sports urging him to appoint a committee and make up a bulky report for an enquiry commission on the proliferation of “Minnows” in World Cup Cricket and make a representation to the United Nations along with an appeal to ban drug-testing for Indian Sportsmen, and introduce a “reservation” system for 3rd world nations so that we can level the playing field with casteism and steroids.

Sports writers can now put this World Cup behind them once and for all and go back to writing about the topic that really should be on the sports pages: drugs & betting.

Drug testing is very big in sports, no less in cricket. This is because cricket players are role models for young people.

All you young males out there want to grow up and wear diamond ear studs, with unshaven chins. The cricket association does not want you to associate the sport in any way with drugs. They want you to associate it with alcohol.

During televised games remember famous cricketers urging you not to take drugs, and famous ex-cricketers urging you to drink alcohol and party- only on Indian television they called it Kingfisher Club soda, and Bacardi Blast Cassettes & CD’s, ”nudge, nudge, winkety, wink.” Cheers!
(* See actual ad above, Vat 69 - Published: The Navhind Times, Goa. Dated 25th March, 2007)

As for betting, what the Government needs is an innovative new concept for getting money from people, and we can all be grateful that such concepts appear to be oozing over the fiscal horizon at this very moment: Playwin & KBC.

First pass stricter laws that say it is totally illegal for Private Enterprise to operate Games of Chance, Matka and even Bingo or Housie, because they encourage the poor and the stupid to gamble away their money against ludicrously bad odds. Privateers operating such gambling will be thrown in jail.

Next nationalize the Essel Group and Star TV and introduce a Cricket Lottery in Playwin and Kaun Banega Crorepati with even more ludicrous odds. Give them perky names like “Blue Billion Cricketwin”, and “KBC- Jo Phonekarega Woh Jeetaga,” and run cheerful upbeat ads on TV strongly suggesting that the poor and the stupid could make no wiser investment than spending their children’s school fees on Playwin Tickets or Phone Calls to KBC.

A nice touch would be to say that these proceeds will be used to fund humanitarian programmes that have been budgeted for anyway, such as printing Ration Cards and the Railway Time-Table.

Then have one of our Cricketers or BCCI officials dragged in front of the camera to perform the ritual televised daily drawing of the ticket number on Playwin, or to answer the question on KBC as to which team in his opinion will win the 2007 World Cup.

The clear implication is that if viewers do not purchase tickets or make phone calls the Cricketer/Official will be thrown headfirst into the nearest zoos’ lion cage.

Now for the Cricket World Cup 2007 season, I speak for all Indians when I say: Guys give it up and get some women in. To name a few:

Mamta Bannerjee, (opening batsman)
Jayalalitha, (wicket keeper)
Rabri Devi, (spin bowler)
Uma Bharti, (mid- wicket fielder)
And for Captain none other than the versatile Soniaji from the House of Gandhi

Introduce a cheerleading squad with item girls Shilpa Shetty, Mallika Sherawat, Malaika Arora Khan, Yana Gupta, Urmila Matondkar and Shah Rukh Khan to distract the opposing teams and the umpires and there you have it, the perfect recipe for a winning world cup team.

We haven’t won a World Cup since 1983 – and this one’s gone the same way, but take heart, “it’s more important how you play the game- NOT the winning or the losing.” YEAH! RIGHT!

It’s was also about:
Losing 2.4 million dollars.
and most importantly.......
Keeping Ash and Abhishek out of the limelight for more than a whole month.

Now let’s see what kind of action we can expect as a logical aftermath further down this road:

As in previous years we will find that professional cricketers will be paid, win or lose. So it’s “no skin off their noses” an old man phrase which means “WHATEVER! BIG WOP!”.

Sachin takes his “magic bat” and gets on with being a comic-book superhero.

The rest of the team applies for jobs with Anchor Switches.

TATASKY is despondent about not being able to sell as many DTH TV units, but the focus now is on Village Kabaddi Teams for rural access.

Pepsi plans to launch another asinine “Pepsi Blue” in a “Gold Billion” Campaign for the Indian Commonwealth Games Team.

Mandira Bedi sits next to her phone waiting for the call to host the after game show – in Bangla Desh.

Siddhu has put his euphemisms back into cold storage.

TV networks are looking to ex-players and umpires, preferably white with an unidentifiable accent, to provide helpful expert analysis utilizing technological wizardry like the “electronic chalkboard” to make simple runs seem like nuclear physics, to discover where the Indian team went wrong.

Losing to Bangla Desh!! Don’t forget to wear your silk burkhas before you get on the flight home with your duty-free purchases.
(**see Authors Artistic Impression above of returning Cricket Squad)

Well so much for my Review of the Willow. Call me insecure if you wish, but I am deeply troubled that we may have to import those burkhas from Bangla Desh.

Cricketesterone

Batsmen, Bowlers & the Bedis

Dating back to the Neanderthal era when primitive man took a rock tossed it into the air and whacked his club on the sloping head of his opponent; mankind is still nuts about sports.

What inner spark made that primitive athlete AND the the team of Lagaan seek out such sport…. You guess is as good as mine, maybe your guess is better since you haven’t drunk as many beers as I have.

As Sunil Gavaskar, not the most likeable person in the world but certainly one of the most obnoxious puts it: “As for Mankind and sports, bla bla bla bla bla and when I played in 1983….”

Both Sunil and I used the word “Mankind” since Womankind does not really seem to be into sports in the same way. Sports hasn’t changed too much in ages and was considered unfeminine when I was in high school, when most of the girls hockey squad stayed on the sidelines, claiming it was “that time of the month”.

Ok, chill! I realize that today you have major league athletes like Sania Mirza, Anju Bobby George and Monica Bedi (www.india-station.com/monica/ for you pervs out there) who can run like antelope and look good at the same time. But by way of being totally and brutally frank; as a whole, women have light years to go before they achieve the levels of dedication and intensity for cricket that allows men to be such incredible jerks about it.

Women know this, which is why you almost never hear them mention the 1976 use of Vaseline by bowler John Lever (no he was not gay, this is related to coating the balls – CRICKET BALLS you cretin!), whereas you take any male over 40 and even if he can’t remember which of his children is asthmatic, he can remember how India’s ace batsman Bishan Singh Bedi (not related to Monica) with his zest and passion for the game, strongly objected to such slippery tactics.

See that! Right there, all you women just read through those last lines nodding vaguely, some dreamily reminiscing about Kiran Bedi the actor, but you men jumped up, spilling your beer, shouting: “Bishen Singh Bedi was not a BATSMAN! He was a SPIN BOWLER!”

Every Indian male has a major portion of his brain dedicated to information like this. We can’t help it, we just have no perspective. Although to make a case in silly point; what has fielding a slip through a gully and two fine legs got to do with Cricket?