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

Spell Check

We speeka da Engrish good

Don't you hate it when you see signboards that try to be cutesy or different with add-on letters like "The Bakers' Stoppe" or "Marys' Little Lambe Shoppe".

Methinx we should ask the Sales Tax Ministry to levy an add-on tax; say Rs. 50,000 for every frivolous extra letter. So for the word "shoppe" the proprietor will pay an additional Rs.100,000 per annum, flat and non-deductible. However, for any attempt to distort the meaning and add value by making a business sign look old and original such as " Marke and Fettles Olde Haberdashery" the owner should be summarily shot, without a trial.

Then there's the new Indian numerology fad that assigns numbers to the English alphabet- duh ! which allows the sum total of the letters of your name add up to your lucky number and J.Jayalalita becomes J.Jayalalithaa after which she promptly loses the election. If someone can pay for the services of a "Numerologist" ( I wonder if there's a recognised Doctorate course in Numerology!) to discover his extra letter, I say that, in the national interest, he should be required to pay an add-on service tax plus VAT, every time he signs his name.

And don't forget those restaurants with names such as Martin's Corner, Bosco's Vineyard and Anton's Shack which conjure up imaGES OF A GENIAL GREY-HAIRED POT-BELLIED GOAN "PATRON" ( arrrrgh! why did they put the "Caps Lock" key is right next to the "a" key! I say shift the "Caps Lock" key altogether .... to another room!) when in fact the ownership probably belongs to the guys responsible for approving defence armament purchases. Anyone found using such phony names should be fined heavily and made to display a signboard that reflects the actual ownership.( Hey! How about we go get some fried chicken wings at "Guys Responsible for Defence Armament Purchases".)

Tomorrow I'm taking Arun and Nalini out to dinner at 'Tony Carvalos' , a midlife crisis restaurant filled with middle-aged guys in shorts and sports shoes who claim they love 'Def Leppard', but actually think they're just OK. I wish they'd take those copper degchis, earthen pots with lights in them and farm plows, designed to create an ethnic, relaxed,old-fashioned decor but in fact creates an environment of funky wierdness, off the walls.... the food is great though.

Do you agree with me that "Ye Olde Mayor" in the picture there needs 40 lashes with a bull whip !

Viva Carnival 2008

Mommee! It's like the Circus!

Hear tell the Hillbillys (or are they the Billarys?) are on the rampage versus the Obambis, in what they are calling a "Super Tuesday" over at Uncle Sam's place.

America seems to be in a quandary; they are not sure whether this time around their pres. will be a white woman or a black man..... sort of the same question Michael Jackson asks himself every morning eh?

Meanwhile the Bears seem to be overrunning the stock markets, while Raj Thackerays MNS goons are overunning the North Indians in "Amchi Mumbai" and Amitabh Bachchan is running for cover. On the internet front MSN is gunning for Yahoo and Google is running for cover.

Al Gore received the Nobel Prize, George Bush the "Academy award for Funny Bushisms", Charlize Theron and Christopher Walken have been awarded Harvards' "Hasty Pudding Awards", Paris Hilton, Harvard Lampoons' "Woman of the Year" award and Jyoti Basu has been awarded the "Last Living Fossil" award by this blog.

Oh! You mean the Goa Carnival ! So sorry I sort of slept through it, but I intend catching the Rio Carnival telecast on FTV on the weekend, which I'm sure will more than make up for any excitement of the Goan Carnival which I may have missed. But hey, I did attend UB40's show as well as the Queen Experience, along with bootylicious Babs, all THREE of which were awesome.

I'm now looking forward to "Valington's" Day as my friend Bosco puts it. All those anonymous declarations of love make my heart beat faster even though I know it's coming from the sweet old lady down the lane!... or are they coming from her husband ??!! eh! well !

Of Weddings and other Oddities

Part I - Let's just get there first !

It’s a great time to be a newlywed, and an excellent time to be indoors together cosying-up, what with the cold wave sweeping the northern plains and all.

As you celebrity buffs may recall Abhishek and Aishwarya were married in April and it was so hot the ceremony lasted three weeks, that’s how long it took the groom to work up the nerve to leave his air-conditioned limo and sprint into the air-conditioned wedding hall.

Nandini however opted for the romantic version; the coldest part of winter in January.

So with a lot of trepidation and enough woolens to make a polar bear sweat, I board the flight to Delhi and the 2 degree cold. I listen to the safety demo given by the flight attendants (we called them “air-hostesses” before some of them became males.)

One safety feature that never ceases to amuse me is the one where those plastic cups drop from the roof when the plane is crashing, you put a cup over your nose and get enough oxygen so that when the plane hits the ground at 32 feet per second, you will still be breathing; another of course is that the seats float so in case you hit water instead of land, the airline can collect and recycle all those seats.

After takeoff I settle down to read my dirty book (ideal for a plane journey because the scenario is the same no matter which page you open the book to, the only question being the number of times.)

Unlike the Ambanis and Vijay Mallya who fly their corporate jets and drink Long Island Iced Tea at 30,000 feet, we lesser mortals are destined to fly commercial airlines where it is a rule to allow boarding of kids who are trained to start screaming above 500 feet. It’s absolutely amazing how a kid can keep squalling for as long as 45 minutes without breathing. This keeps the passengers from realising that they’re locked in a metal tube probably designed, built and operated by unknown refugees from Bangla Desh; instead they’re preoccupied with thinking, “Why doesn’t someone shut the brat up!”

Eventually I land in Delhi and see Lutyens’ buildings. They are large and pink just like I was told. (Lutyens is the Brit who designed and built New Delhi, and then poured red wine all over them to give them that distinctive colour. Sometimes you will find villagers from outlying districts licking the walls and looking very happy.)

Delhi is beautiful and its people are very disciplined thanks to terrorism. They have now been trained to stand in long queues and to submit their personage to being groped by strange men in uniform. All entry points to the Republic Day Parade had groping men and women, and by the time the last of the visitors had entered, the parade was over. Even at the mall (and this is true) there was a line of people a kilometer long, waiting to be groped to get in!

Part II - Unions & Re-Unions
So there we were Ronni, Rahul, Shweta, Amit and yours truly, wondering what madness prompted us to brave the cold and the groping of our fair capital city. And the answer was quite simply, “We’re suckers for punishment!”

So what goes into a wedding you may ask? Well if you plan to have a real nice wedding this is what you do:

First off you need to find someone reliable to get married to – meaning the person has to be an adult and should actually show up. It is preferable if one of you has a job, but if either one is independently wealthy a job is not necessary.

Announcing the wedding is easy if your name is Bachchan or Gandhi; the newspapers will carry the story as headlines, and you can send in a picture of Katrina Kaif. But with a common name like Kusum Kumar or Sunita Singh you will have to settle for a flyer on the local grocery store bulletin board.

The wedding invitation should consist of a box of mitthai, along with a large envelope, into which you place a smaller envelope with a foldable card with tissue paper in between and a gold tassel. There should also be a small visiting card which invites only the close and the very rich for a private pre-nuptial dinner. Remember NOT to clip this card with the general one, and send a larger mitthai box. Then there’s the map giving directions to the venue (predictably those you did not want to attend in the first place but had to invite anyway, will not show if you do not include the directions, and you can then blame the delivery packers) Remember to RSVP the card, not that anyone “s’il vous plaits” anyway.

Wedding costumes take on various hues and shapes. In South India the women wear varicolored 9- yard silk saris, all the gold with which they can weigh themselves down without tipping over, and rubber flip flops, while in North India they wear expensive ghagras and dresses so hideous that they can never be used again except for escaping from burning buildings.

The groom should wear a sherwani or a three piece pastel suit rented from the local theatre troupe. Grooms have it easy in South India, they go to the ceremony bare-chested, with just an extended loin cloth or dhoti to cover their peripherals.

For the arts remember to hire a group of hijras to dance at the mehndi ceremony, so that all the men folk can acknowlegde their gay instincts without feeling guilty.

For the wedding ritual it is preferable to install a few shrieking shenaiis and out of sync dholaks. And have plenty of rice and flower petals on hand to douse the couple with. (if the bride is pregnant used puffed rice.)

For the reception hire a live band with audio equipment loud enough to be heard in outer space. The band must repeatedly launch into the popular number “Om Shanti Om” so that aliens sitting in their continent-sized flying saucers armed with magma weapons and death rays and listening to this simple ditty of love, universal peace and brotherhood, over, and over, and over, and over again, will then send us a message saying, “LISTEN UP EARTH PEOPLE, WE WERE ENJOYING A PEACEFUL DAY SO FAR AND UNLESS YOU START PLAYING SOMETHING MORE INTERESTING WE WILL REDUCE YOUR PLANET TO THE SIZE OF A CRICKET BALL AND VAPORISE SHAH RUKH KHAN.”

Choosing a venue depends on the distance from your place of residence. The further away the better, snob value dictates a vast windswept football field (in case the aliens decide to join the party)with a zillion candlepower of lighting, a marching band to accompany the baraat, and a narrow approach lane to deter all but the most foolhardy.

Of course the momentous occasion has to be recorded for posterity so there has to be at least two video cameras, one VHS and one BETA, on hand, as well as Blue Ray and HDTV formats and assorted digital cameras to capture those poignant moments of the groom picking his nose.

Seated next to the groom in all the pictures should be the adorable little daughter of the brides’ sister. If her sister does not have an adorable daughter then she should rent one.

In the family photograph the sister of the bride stands next to the brides’ closest friends’ fiancé, followed by the oldest brother of the grooms’ father with her mothers’ sister. Then the brides’ oldest unmarried female friend stands with the most eligible male member of the grooms family, provided he can speak English.

Seated with the bride are of course her parents, grandparents and any great-grandparents (unless they are deceased, in which case they may be replaced by the grooms’ grandparents.)

Other photographic evidence can be recorded with anyone else present who is not stiff from the freezing cold and can be dragged from the warmth of the bonfires.

Payment for the wedding is as follows:
*The father of the bride pays for the invitations, the long distance calls, the mehndi, the pre-nuptial party, the hijras, the food, the liquor, the band, the hotels, the transportation, the dinner, the cake, the costumes, the wedding trousseau, and the honeymoon.
*The grooms’ family eats a lot of food and gets plastered.

After the honeymoon the bride switches from rolling chapattis with her mother, to rolling chapattis with her mother-in-law, and providing the entertainment for her husband.

She dreams of having her own house. All she needs is a large sum of money. And the best source of money is her parents in the form of savings, investments, pensions and insurance. She can get anything from her parents because she is not afraid to whine and pull her fathers sleeve, “I want a house, I want a house….” ad nauseum! So to preserve their own sanity her parents will get her one.

Part III - And the credit goes to.....

Although you will read nothing about this in the tabloids, who are only concerned with the birth of the Farah Khan triplets; it was a wonderful, unforgettable weekend spent in the company of some very gracious, warm and loving people, and of course i will not forget the gorgeous doe-eyed Shivani, nor the beautiful and limber Urvashi.

Ho hum, it's back to balmy Goa and getting psyched for next week's Carnival with UB40, the Queen Experience and those Brazilian dancers from Rio. Wish all you guys were here too.

I'm back

Dam and begorrah and dagnabit !! Has it been that long ?!! I seem to have taken a hiatus* from my blog allllllll the way from September.

(*Hiatus: An opening, as in the diaphragm. When there is an unusually wide opening in the diaphragm, there can be a hiatus (or hiatal) hernia.
In Latin an hiatus is "an opening, gaping mouth, or chasm." It is derived from the verb "hiare" meaning "to gape or yawn." Therefore, a "hiatus" is a gaping opening in anything, such as the opening in a cliff leading into a cave or a break in the conversation in which nothing happens or is said.)

No I have not developed a hernia, and all said diaphragms are intact, nor have I fallen off a cliff or into any caves, so y'all can close your gaping mouths !

Thanx bro for reminding me that I had neglected "Feni Sunsets" right into the New Year (all that beer must have turned time fuzzy)

By the way for all you ardent fans of mine ( editor: " ARDENT??!! YEAH RIGHT!) Happy Kwannumas, that's Kwanza, Hannukah and Christmas in one word for the illiteratii and uninitiated in the new blogspeak, and here's wishing everyone gets lucky in the New Year ( winkety wink).

Much water has passed under the Mandovi bridges since my last literary attempt ( a lot of said water being passed by politicians who cross over daily to the secretariat, tourists off the cruise boats, fishermen, and sundry blokes off the pier, who get this insane urge to show you that what glitters in the moonlight is not gold!) and .......
I had an insane amount of (some unwelcome) visitors (moochers) to the new house.
In addition to dealing with travel to unwind from the stresses of moving/visitors/travel, I just lost track.....

Hey but I am back ( unlike Arnie Schwarzenbugger) and Fenisunsets will get frequent updates.

Cheers into the New Year and yeah Good Luck with all those resolutions !!

The Taxman Cometh - II

Clause (ii) of sub-section (2) of section 2007

And whether you're an honest man, or whether you're a thief, depends on whose solicitor has given me my brief. - Benjamin Franklin.

NEWS YOU CAN USE : The income tax department has gone “e”.

Now one can file tax returns sooooo conveniently just by downloading the appropriate form ( if you can figure out which ones pertain to you) and use the return preparation software.

Then when you are all confused about how to use the software, or if you have any questions about a particular tax loophole, you may call the toll-free tax helpline number closest to you and listen to the engaged tone until you feel you have a clearer understanding of how helpless you really are and need to now contact a chartered accountant.

There are not many changes in the new tax form, only about 957 significant disallowed expenses. But the good news is :

1. Santa Singh is still the commissioner of income tax.

2. The P.A. to the Assistant Undersecretary of Poverty relief is changing the upholstery in his new office, which costs more than your annual salary, and the government now finding itself in serious debt, also exhorts you to send in “voluntary contributions”.

You are not required to send in more money than what you actually owe.

You can also send in gold, jewellery, clothing or accessories. Santa Singhs’ shoe size is an 8.

When filling in your tax return form this year please remember to avoid the following errors:

When writing up fictitious numbers please use figures that sound plausible such as Rs. 9847.45 instead of the more obviously telltale amount of Rs.10000.00.

Remember that tax officials scrutinise returns even more closely when taxpayers names sound like Dawood Abraham, Harshad Mehta or Rakhee Sawant.

Now for some tax case studies and how they should be handled under the latest tax laws, regardless that it states that this is referred to as the INCOME TAX ACT 1961*.

CASE NUMBER 1 : MLA Shri Sachananda Bihari Jha established a trust for his 9 children where each of them when they turn 18 will receive a Mercedes Benz and 5 villages.

When beating up his bonded labourers 12 year old son one day he vaguely recollects having bought some contraband cattle fodder.

QUESTION: What should Shri Jha do?

ANSWER: He should immediately summon his party workers and his press secretary to place ice-packs on his forehead and soothe him until he can be named to replace Ronen Sen as ambassador to the US.

CASE NUMBER 2 : Shri and Shrimati Bholaram are a working couple with 2 dependant school going children and a gross total annual income of Rs.2,30,000.00.

During the first financial quarter they received a tax notification that according to the e-governance income tax computer they owed Rs. 10 Crores as taxes.

Laughing at the huge blunder the income tax Department had obviously made and how they would be interviewed by NDTV as victims of typical government lassitude they show this to their friends and neighbors.

QUESTION: Can the Bholarams deduct the cost of the orphanage where they admitted their children while they were interred in debtors prison for four years?
ANSWER: They may deduct 33 percent of the amount spent on food for the period after adjustment to allow for the inflatable index, up to but not greater than Rs.2580.00, provided they maintained accurate records.

CASE NUMBER 3 : Shrimati Ulaganathan, 71 years old, living on her railway pension with no other income, receives a phone call while asleep one night where she discovers she might have an illegitimate son. Shocked, she dies of a heart attack.

QUESTION: Does Shrimati Ulaganathan still have to file a tax return?
ANSWER: Yes. Don’t be stupid. She should use Form ITR-12 Individual and Deceased Person, which can be obtained from the Income Tax Customer Relations Centre on any working day between 9am and 12 noon.

Finally and sadly, I have received word of the deaths of my chartered accountant at the tender age of 46, and 48 hours later my foster dad who was ailing also passed away.

It is hard, at such a time of tragedy to find words to express my feelings, but I speak for all of us when I quote Benjamin Franklin once again who said “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.”

On a more upbeat note he also said, “I look upon death to be as necessary to our constitution as sleep. We shall rise refreshed in the morning.” We can't say the same for taxes, that's for sure!

The Taxman Cometh - I

Clause (i) of sub-section (1) of section 2007

It’s past that time of year, time for all you procrastinators to get sent notices for failing to file your tax returns.

Which prompts me to ask when are we going to get some tax reform ?

We’ve been trying to get tax reform for over a hundred years when someone named Aamir Khan of “Lagaan” fame tried to figure out why they called cricket a “Gentleman’s Game” and discovered that the taxman, British or otherwise, was born without a soul.

And so today my tax return has not been filed and I am being notified, which means one of two things :

1) I’ve hit the big time.YEAAAAA ! Or …..

2) They’ve found out where I hide my booze for those dry days come election time. Bummer!

The problems methinx with the taxation system today is this:

@ The poor pay nothing.

@ The rich pay even less.

@ The large corporations get tax holidays.

@ The Government spends whatever little there is on hare-brained nuclear schemes.

@ No one else pays anything except you, me and ten people where you work.

@ The Commissioner of Income Tax is a guy named Santa Singh.

I propose therefore a tax reform in three phases which would be as follows:

1) We pay only One Hundred Rupees as tax.

2) Falsification of your tax return would be allowed.

3) Anyone who cuts you off in traffic would be thrown in jail (this is not really related, but folks, I've touted this idea to a number of persons and they tend to agree that it should be included.)

Manmohanji made tax reform the platform of his election speeches, just like he made tax reduction the platform of his budget presentations when he was Finance Minister.

He then went on to draw up a mysterious graph on Soniajis’sari pallu to show how the economics of supply and demand would be implemented by a three-pronged strategy of :

1) Importing wheat at exhorbitant prices.

2) Striking an Indo-US nuclear deal and….

3) Holding joint war games with them in the Bay of Bengal.

This is known as the Bakwaas Graph which allegedly shows that when you hold said sari in a certain light the government would make more money and the budget deficit would be reduced.

It wasn’t until recently that economists realized Soniaji had been holding her sari pallu sideways and then a wonderful thing happened. The opposition and the left front, a group of persons who have large pockets for the convenience of MNC’s wishing to make large contributions at midnight, developed a rare courage.

They look a hard look at facts and said: “Are we a bunch of pimps selling out the nation by taking large sums of foreign aid and giving them what they want? No! Let’s take large sums of foreign aid and NOT give them what they want!”

It is a brave step by these courageous men and women, a step that will take them beyond brokering into the realm of international faud.

It is to be hailed as a positive step in the annals of Indian fiscal jurisprudence.

And this is how we will achieve tax reform.

You ask how tax reform will affect you, the common man. The answer is that it will change your lives exponentially.

Let’s assume you are a middle-class family with two children and both parents are working. You also have occasional electrical problems where voltage fluctuations short-circuit your appliances two days after the warranty expires.

With the new system, you will get about a dozen unintelligible forms from the government to fill up, and with your electrical problems taking priority you will put off doing anything about these forms till the very last day, then you will be confused by the directions and will realise that you have spent your tax money on bribing the electricity department and have not kept receipts for the generator and the petrol.

Then you will worry about being notified.

Other than that things will not change and Santa Singh will still be the Commissioner.

Shizzle & Fudge

Dirty Word Scrabble anyone ?

Stumbled out of bed this morning……looked at the clock, I had overslept, this in spite of my alarm going off every 5 minutes after I hit the snooze button. Stubbed my toe on the bed post and in the space of 30 seconds, for the second time this a.m. mouthed a popular dirty word which begins with the letter “S”.For all future references this “S” word shall be referred to as “shizzle”.

I am definitely not a morning person. But I have to reach the airport by 6 a.m. today. Why is that you ask?

Well today’s the day Nandini and Aparna are coming to visit, and to make you guys green with envy, I have to tell you; these babes are hotttt , positively sizzling! and they’re coming to visit ME, so suck on that!

Although I can almost hear Aparna sound off with the F-word if I don’t get to the airport on time to pick them up. For all future references the F-word will be referred to as “fudge”.

I always get grumpy at the fact that, after I have hit the snooze button and turned back to sleep, the clock continues to run.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, after we’ve hit the snooze button, time just stands still, so that a couple of hours later, when we actually get out of bed, via a natural process of yawning, flatulence and scratching it is still the time we set the alarm for.

But the system doesn’t work that way, and that ol’ clock just keeps moving along, making me say “shizzle” at times like these.

I remember saying it right into the ear of my daughter Lekha, at the tender age of four. Lekha would sometimes crawl into our bed in the middle of the night because of nightmares. I’m guessing it’s because she slept with a Pacman printed blanket, that looked like a beheaded chicken chasing black tar-babies.

I immediately regretted opening my morning-breath mouth, but she was pretty cool. She matter of factly said, “Baba, you should not say shizzle.” Only she did not say “shizzle”, she actually said shizzle, you understand.

And she said it so maturely so as to indicate that she was merely trying to discipline me, and got no joy from it whatsoever.How do kids get to be this way.

Isn’t it strange that when I said”shizzle” I was neither referring to the actual substance, nor attempting to represent it.

What I was doing was vocalizing my frustration and anger at being late, and instead of saying, “I feel agonized, frustrated and angry at my tardiness this morning” for the sake of brevity I said”shizzle” and was corrected in no uncertain terms, and this from a child who consistently wore her shoes on the wrong feet.

It’s ironical that through the ages famous writers like Arthur Conan Doyle have penned dirty words that now is considered literature.

In Sherlock Holmes for example the following appears in Act I Scene III , Row IV and Seats VII & VIII :

Holmes : What the fudge do you deduct Mr Watson ?

Watson : That there are a shizzle-load of stars in the sky Mr.Holmes.

Holmes : No, think again Mr.Watson.

Watson : Oh! Someone has stolen our fudging tent!

Holmes : Fudging elementary my dear Watson.

Today fudge is also used in major motion pictures, and when someone cuts us off in traffic.

But when you consider what the word describes and listen to psychoanalysts going on ad nauseum about the relationship between sex and hostility, you just know they’re full of shizzle.

We tend to use fudge in lieu of a nasty comeback as a very witty insult.

Unlike the great sage Birbal, when the Emperor Akbar asked him stupid questions at parties, most of us don’t think of good comebacks until a month afterwards when in the loo, so we tend to go for fudge as a substitute.

I disprove of fudge, since it generally tends to lead to violence and sometimes stabbings. So when we anger each other with a fender bender in traffic, we should exchange phone numbers and call up the other person when we have had the time to think of a really witty insult.

But I think shizzle should be made should be made an acceptable expression for despicable alarms and tyres that go flat in the middle of nowhere.

Aparna used it extensively when she deleted all the Goa visit pics from her camera.

I dread to think what will happen when she gets a cell phone with a camera. Instead of receiving an sms, we can instead expect multiple pictures of her nose!!

Shizzle was also used when dropping the ladies off at the airport, because, guess what? Time kept moving after the morning alarm, again!

Signs of Our Times

Running With The Bulls

Dropping the talented, beautiful and versatile Professor Nalini to the airport was cutting it close, but I was not too worried since most of the distance to the airport is covered via the NH17(1).

I figured that except for the odd stray dog that would attempt to chew my tyres we would arrive in good time for Nalini to catch her flight.

What I did not figure on is this habit that people have of driving on the right side or the fast lane, despite the fact that they are going at less than 40 kmph.

This is true of a few contaminated cities like Delhi, Bangalore and Chennai, populated with aliens and multinationals, where it is customary for people to drive according to their planet of origin.

But I think like bird flu, it’s contagious, now you see it everywhere.

The right lane, (for those of you who got their licences by bribing the RTO), is the fast or “passing” lane. It is not meant for people -who have never passed anyone in their lives- to keep squatting there, like cholesterol globules, clogging up the transit lifelines of this great nation. We have Morchas(2) and Rasta Rokos(3) organized by out-of-work politicians for that sort of thing.

I now generally pass these people from the left, and glare at them. But since this doesn’t seem to be working, because for some reason they seem to be wearing baseball caps backwards and looking intently at the road ahead instead of allowing you to catch their eye, I propose a military option. I propose we mount rocket launchers on the front bumpers of cars of which mine would be among the forerunners.

When coming across a right lane blockage, I would first flash my lights, then I would blow my horn until the driver in front looked in his rear-view mirror to see me making hand signals for him to move over, and if he wanted to drive at 40kmph he should do it in say, a government department, where it would be more appropriate. If that did not work I would sound the specially installed siren, and only if ALL these failed to deter him I would resort to vaporizing him with his car.


What!?? Too harsh !! Shut up or I’ll punch you in the jaw. Oh! I’m sorry, I will admit that I am a little stressed-out from driving behind these persons.

But something needs to be done, word should get around to the slow-drivers-in-the-fast-lane community, wherever they congregate- methinx baseball cap shops- that they have a choice of moving left or becoming fertiliser(4): most would choose the former.

But then again maybe it’s not their fault. Possibly the reason is those road signs on the NH17 that say SPEED LIMIT 40. These signs could possibly create the impression that the speed limit IS indeed 40. This is definitely not the case, as well informed drivers will tell you.

All Indian citizens know this is the “pretend” speed limit, in the same way as call centre employees are always pretending they want their customers to “have a nice day”, but it certainly is not the real speed limit, since nobody, including the police, actually drive that slowly, except bullock carts and people wearing baseball caps backward in the right lane.

On the other hand, when you see cars with red lights and police outriders, sirens blaring, barreling past you at supersonic speeds you wonder, how fast are you really allowed to drive?

But here’s the kicker: Nobody will tell you.


India is the only democracy where the speed limits seems to be a secret.

I asked a cop whom I was friendly with, to tell me the real speed limit, and he told me, but only after I swore on my forefathers not to reveal his name or his state or the speed limit itself.

Unbelievable! Here in India, home of the Taj Mahal and the recently touted “RIGHT TO INFORMATION ACT”, we have a police officer, an officer sworn to uphold the law, afraid he could lose his job, or worse, his share of the matka(5) hafta(6), for revealing the speed limit.

When things are this secretive, then I figure we must be dealing with National Security.

Specifically we must be dealing with the Minister of Transport at the Centre who is in charge of enforcing the national “pretend” speed limit.

The Transport Minister has learned, through NDTV that drivers in a lot of states who are driving faster than 40 kmph, could be terrorists, or worse Members of the Opposition, and has threatened to cut off these states from World Bank Highway Development payoffs.

Therefore to keep the Transport Minister happy, the police pretend to enforce the speed limit and put up all these signs. The police in fact also think it’s stupid, and will not challan(7) you unless you exceed the real speed limit or unless there is a “collection drive”(8). This varies from state to state and even from day to day, but the police don’t dare talk about it for fear of upsetting the Transport Minister.

I told my friend the cop, that not knowing how fast we are allowed to go creates frustration in the average motorist. He said the cops like the idea because apart from police brutality, screwing with peoples heads by changing the speed limits from time to time, is the only other real fun they have.

I think we need to make a better system than this. I say the states should supplement their road revenues by “leaking” the daily speed limits at all the Playwin(9) booths - so for 50 rupees you can stop your car at one of these booths and a road transport employee whispers the daily speed limit in your ear. Don’t you agree?

Of course if the Transport Minister hears about this he could get angry, but then again why should we care when he gets chauffeured around in a Government car with a red light, which is immune to traffic rules - although I do think it would be vulnerable to rocket launchers.

Nalini caught her flight with an hour to spare. Her flight take off was delayed due to “technical difficulties(10)”


GLOSSARY OF TERMS
------------------------


1.NH17 - A National Highway in Goa, part of the Golden Quadrangle that was supposed to connect all major cities (a dream project of former Prime Minister Vajpayee) slowly becoming a nightmare, but thankfully still motorable in parts, namely from my house to Dabolim, Goa’s airport.

2.Morcha - A “front” as in “Mahila Mazdoor Evam Laghu Kisan Morcha” (MMELKM), meaning Women, Labour and Small Farmers’ Front. This particular front was launched as a convenient tax shelter for rich landlords to hide behind.


3.Rasta Roko - A phrase used to block the roads by unscrupulous politicians by gathering a whole bunch of Fronts or Morchas making absurd demands such as reducing the speed limit further to allow for bullock carts to be able to travel in the right lane.

4.Fertiliser - What bullock carts are adept at producing…. So do most politicians.

5.Matka - A form of indigent gambling, “allegedly” frowned on by the establishment because gambling should only be done in “authorized” casinos who have paid a lot of money both below and above board to avail of these licences.

6.Hafta - The graft a policeman gets for “looking the other way” This varies depending on how large the establishment is, (push-cart or 5-star), and does not apply to those owned by politicians and high-ranking officials.

7.Challan - Basically a written demand or a fine-cum-receipt for money, most motorists are expected to pay this on the spot, this is because there is the distinct possibility that the road transport challan form may be uncovered as a fake if presented at a pay- in counter later.

8.Collection Drive - The amount of money a Minister or Senior official designates to lower cadres to collect as fines, so he can send his offspring to finishing school at Oxford or Cambridge. This varies from semester to semester.

9.Playwin - Another form of legit gambling, devised for the masses, like the lottery, which encourages the poor and the stupid to gamble away their newborn’s milk money against ludicrously bad odds.

10.Technical Difficulties - Phrase used by airlines when they find the plane is only half full and they wait for walk-in passengers, or they cancel the flight altogether so that their “partner” airline can fill up, another word for “profit-sharing.”

Ship Ahoy!

It's a little boat, just 23 stories high,with a displacement of 104,000 tonnes, 1092 feet long and 252 feet wide; a speck in the vast Indian Ocean. It has enough weaponry to turn the Coast of Tamil Nadu to charcoal. Nicknamed "Old Salt", the "USS Nimitz"came to party ,and the party-poopers turned out in droves.

If The Asian Age of 6th July ‘07 is to be believed, the Prime Minister played safe, denying awareness of the visit …just in case someone accused an American sailor of kissing a South Indian actress …and to quote:-
[[‘I didn’t know Nimitz was to visit India’By Seema Mustafa
New Delhi, July 5: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did not know that the USS Nimitz would be docking at Chennai port. "It was just an ordinary development, I was not even aware of it until I read about it in the newspapers. Too much should not be read into it," he said. US ambassador to India David C. Mulford had said that the USS Nimitz had come to Chennai for rest and recreation on the invitation of the Government of India, but the Prime Minister made it clear that he was not in the loop.]] End quote.

So what does it take to make the PM of this country aware that the biggest, and meanest warship in the world is wagging it's tail at his country’s doorstep?

What if the Captain of the Nimitz pooped out one teeny tiny missile in his direction?

PM: Huh! Wha…. Where did THAT come from?

AIDE: The USS Nimitz Sir

PM: Tell them not to disturb us, Soniaji and I are busy.

AIDE: The Captain says he is on a goodwill visit and requests an audience Sir.

PM: Well delay him, try to organise some protest or the other to see that the ship does not dock.

AIDE: How shall I do that Sir?

PM: Use your imagination, Soniaji and I cannot think of everything.

AIDE: How long should we delay the docking Sir?

PM: See that I am not distracted, this affair of selection of a new President elect is a very delicate matter.

AIDE: Ms. Jayalalithaa says her party can organise a protest, something to do with nuclear contamination from the ship Sir.

PM: Good woman that! Wasn’t she the one who got rid of that forest brigand Veerapan?

AIDE: Yes Sir.

PM: And wasn’t she also responsible for sacking all those Government employees who went on strike and made them write unconditional apology letters before reinstating them? A first for any administration in this country.

AIDE: Yes Sir.

PM: And didn’t she also arrest the Kanchi Acharya for abetting a murder - another first for this country if I recall?

AIDE: Yes Sir. She’s the one

PM: Then I guess SHE is the only one with the "cajones" who can stop this ship? Extend all co-operation and remind me to present her with the Ashoka Award for bravery and valour.

AIDE: But Sir, she is in the opposition!

PM: Oh! Darn! Well I need the time to sort out this Prathiba Patil fiasco, and I have also to word a letter to the PM of Britain about labelling terrorists by nationality or religion especially when they are from India.

AIDE: But Sir, you did not state this when our own media labelled Islamic terrorists coming from Pakistan or Britain. And should we take credit for the likes of Kalpana Chawla, Sunita Williams, Deepak Chopra and Sanjaya Malakar who are actually US citizens?
PM: Arre! You will not understand "realpolitik". Now what about that ship? Tell the Tamil Nadu Government not to try to stop the protests, ask the Left factions also to join in, and stir up those environmental activists, that should take away some of the limelight from Jayalalithaa, and should also give me some time.

AIDE: Yes Sir.

Two hours later.........

AIDE: Excuse me, Sir.

PM: What is it now ?

AIDE: The ship’s Captain says he has a letter of invitation from our government for the visit.

PM: Oh! Dammit!

AIDE: But the good news is that the ship cannot come into Chennai port but has to anchor two nautical miles offshore, and due to bad weather the Captain cannot leave his ship.He sends his regards and regrets that he cannot call on you personally.

PM: Very good. But why so far out?

AIDE: The ship’s doctors have warned about contamination to the ship’s superstructure from the pollution of the air and waters of the Cooum and Adyar rivers and the Buckingham canal sewage mixing with the water in the vicinity of Chennai Port.
PM: Excellent. Send a congratulatory note to the municipal authorities of Chennai for their initiative. Oh! And inform the auto drivers unions that they should charge the sailors fares on par with New York cab drivers. Let’s make the most of this puppy.

AIDE: Yes Sir.

PM: And clean out that missile mess on my doorstep, blame some kashmiri or ULFA terrorist. Now back to the issue of the President Elect, reminds me, I will also have to ask Madam to think about the Vice-Presidency, I wonder if Rabri Devi is free!

.......USS Nimitz, after much hullaballoo, left Indian shores and sailed out after a lot of bilious water had passed under its bridge.

Our scientists determined that they could not distinguish nuclear contamination from polluted waste of the Chennai port and its accompanying sewage. They wondered how they would ever be able to tell if there was a leakage from the Kalpakkam Atomic Power Plant next door.

JAYALALITHAA: We have an atomic power plant in Chennai? Why didn't someone inform me?

The ships doctors however were busy treating sailors suffering from malaria and intestinal disorders, and the ships janitors were concerned at the garbage and scum of pollution sticking to the ships hull, and entangled in the ships propellors.

At the time of writing the ship is in quarantine, and the Captain of the USS Nimitz is dining with the Sultan of Brunei, and egad! and gadzooks!;Pratibha Patil has become the new President of India.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Rum!

Bright Lights & Celluloid Blues

Take II

Not that she had been born yet, but I had already named her, so she figured, “What the heck, I may as well be born a Lekha.”

So you see, I just KNEW she had talent waaaaayy back then. Even before she discovered, at a very tender age, and all on her own, the scientific principle; that warm wet tongues get stuck to cold freezer trays, and, the berry from the tree doesn’t travel very far into the ear canal.

A score and four years later, after her major creative scholastic achievements of discovering how to score pot at dorm parties, the interesting patterns of alcoholic puke, and the designs that guys have on women, – she graduated, quite honourably as expected, top of her class .

Then came the turning point. She gave in to the concept of becoming an actor, when she allowed them to put foundation cream on her face and styling mousse in her hair.

Don’t we marvel at screen actors whose hair all goes in the same direction and looks as though it is full-bodied and soft, and who have such flawless skin, but which in fact are mostly covered in hardened petrochemical substances to the point where they can deflect poison darts.

I suspect that these substances have leached into the skulls of some of these screen personalities and attacked their brain cells. Why else would Larry King think that the concept of a major journalistic achievement would be to interview ex-jailbird Paris Hilton.

Now how did Lekha go about becoming a screen personality.

A while back a public-television channel asked her to be the host of a new television show for young brain-dead adults who had no life, and I remember her saying to me, “ Sounds like fun.”

And so she became an artiste. That’s what people call you when you go in front of the camera: an artiste. They call you that to your face, the screen tabloids call you “the new talented artiste.”
Only after a while, you get down from your high, and realize they don’t really mean that you have any artistry or talent. Looking at it closely it is a calculated insult.

In the celluloid world “artiste” does not mean the cameraman, the lighting or sound engineers or even the person who handles the props, (all of whom do exactly what they are supposed to do every single time), but the dolt with the pancake makeup who makes everyone spend another four hours in the studio because she can’t remember to say, “ The four partridges in the pear tree” and keeps on substituting the “P” with the “F”.

The way they say “artiste” is reminiscent of how hoteliers use the word “guest” which to them means “idiot”.

When you are a screen artiste you are the store dummy. Studio personnel smear stuff on your face and keep brushing lint off your costume, and talk to you in the third person saying things like: ‘ What if we made her sit on the couch instead of the floor?” and “Can we make her eyes look lighter with contacts?” or “Do you think there is some way we can hide her pot belly ?”

Finally your hair contains two barrels of styling gel, and you dare not laugh or cosmetic flakes will fall of your cheek bones.

You pictured going into the studio, ambling upto the camera and saying, “Hello and welcome to our show. I am your host, and we present tonight a leading dentist cum child psychologist, to explain to you why your child likes to put cats into washing machines and microwave ovens.” Then you would sit back and listen to the expert, you would nod your head knowingly and frown with concern every now and then. And sometimes you would say something really spontaneous and witty.

The way it turns out, nothing spontaneous happens in the studio. There’s several hours of prepping the studio, where the light guys shine bright lights at different angles, and then stand around frowning with varying facial expressions, then they dust the studio with special powders to cut down the glare from those bright lights. They then decide to move to a completely different location - usually Switzerland, where they start over.

Once they decide that the lights are just right – as bright and hot as possible, then it becomes time for the artiste to come in and take over- WRONG! That happens AFTER the sound check and the camera placements which take another few hours, and involve a few kilometres of cabling snaking all over the floor and dangling from the ceiling. Then the directors chair gets dusted.

NOW you, the artiste gets called in to make a fool of yourself. You come in, walk up and casually seat yourself on the chaise lounge, lean smiling into the camera, make a witty remark, turn to your left and make more witty remarks to another camera, get up gracefully and walk out. Sounds cool and easy right?

Here’s what actually goes on; while you are giving your performance, the director, the producer, the managing director, all the assistant producers and the tea boy are in the control room out of your hearing, discussing what you’ve been doing wrong.

Now you can take criticism. Your father has always been very direct with you, “Lekha, this is crap” he says by way of criticism, and you can handle it. But studio folk never talk to you like that. They’ll talk to you like you are emotionally retarded – and treat you like a little kid. They go to great pains not to hurt your feelings. Their first sentence is ALWAYS very positive.

“That was great, Lekha. Verrrrry nice. Now, we’re going to try this again but be a little more pro-active, OK? When you walk in, try not to stoop, OK? When you sit down cross your right leg over your left, OK? Also when you look at the camera try not to lick your lips, OK? And when you turn left do it slower without flicking you hair, otherwise it looks odd, OK? Also remember to say F-our P-artridges, don’t mix it up, OK? So try to be natural, and let’s have fun, OK? Let’s put a teeny bit more energy into it, OK? We think we almost have the scene.”

So you repeat everything again and again many times over, and of course all your witty remarks now sound so flat from the repetition to the stupid cameraman, who had not got them even the first time around. But you keep at it, over and over until finally, after you have lost count of the many repeats, comes the voice: “That was perfect, Lekha. Let’s try it again with a little more pizzazz. And this time say your name, OK?

…… and the Oscar for best new female artiste interviewing a dentist goes to……..

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 !