Hey Mind... Its Time to Stop Meandering

It ends here... something that started on a whim... the desire to write... no longer as strong...

I thank all of you who tolerated my feeble attempts at writing. Thank you for encouragement. Thank you for all your support...

I wish you well...

Cheers...

Thirsty...

Back in the days when the sun was at its brightest, life reflected the brilliance of sunshine and the soul sparkled with innocence - Back then I embraced darkness.

Brightness was stark and darkness was lush. Darkness was many hued, layered with curiosity, throbbing with the passion of sin and blessed with a deep dark voice of manhood.

Innocence, relatively, seemed effete and boring.

I dived into the depths of darkness. Far away from the reach of light.

Who needs light? Who needs sight... when there is blindness... and blindness can be… Exhilarating. Thrilling. Powerful. Magical.

Ah! To sell the soul in a whore-house frequented by deaf blindness. Darkness raping the soul with insane fervor and to the sound of buzzing psychedelia. Darkness and the soul creating devastating devilish dark hued fabric to dress life up for the night life in the moon light.

My fangs. Are drawn.

My wings. Are spread

I hunt. My love.

Your windows. Are they open tonight?

If yes. Lets drink to it…

Ah!

It has been a good fortnight for me as a blog reader...

I had to share some of the brilliance...

Posts in alphabetical order:

A Promise written by Ashley @ Ashes And Some Dust
A relatively new blogger and a brilliant beginning

A Face in the Mirror, A voice Within by Pawan @ The Other Perspective
Angst and Cynicism; Also a prolific writer of fiction. Loves non-linear narratives and improving at the speed of thought

Home, He Was by Shamanth Huddar @ Diligent Wanderings
The master@work... Meghana refers to him as the master and rightly so...

I Love the Smell of Crazy in the Morning by Indiegurl @ One Long Rant
Sarcasm walks amongst us... unfailingly funny and intelligent...

Love in Parts by AGG @ The files of Agent Green Glass
Creative! Yes... thats her... can write anything...

Mona Bua by This is That @ er… This is That
Her posts are pictures... read them and they come alive

Nine lives by Gayathri @ Love across Bridges
Super prolific and awesome... a million stories in her head, I think...

You wait, patiently. But… by Meghana Naidu @ Subtle Signs
Non-linear, thoughtful and magical...

You know that I love you, don’t you???

“You know that I love you, don’t you”

“Yes baby”

“Then don’t ever leave me.” He sounded upset.

“Why do you say such things baby. And that too over a long distance phone call. It hurts”

“I don’t know what comes over me. Sorry. I guess I am a bit frustrated. Life is not really great, you know”

“Don’t worry babu. I loooove you”

“I don’t have much money you know. Or I would have come down to meet you. Things are really tough. I lost my job because of the fucking recession. I think the bastards needed an excuse to kick people out and recession was their excuse”

“Doesn’t matter. We will meet soon honey. Till then we have the phone baby. And If you don’t have money – I will call you”

“You are chooo sweet honey” he cooed.

“I love you baby.”

He saw her in his mind. She was radiant. Her jet black her and her cute nose. He wanted to bite the nose.

“Heh Heh… You know what I want to do now”

“No. What?” She was all innocence, wasn't she?

“Guess” he teased.

“Shut Up. That is all you can think of” she said in mock annoyance.

“You don’t like it? Ok. Wont talk about it” he teased again.

“No baby. Of course I do”

“Then why are you taking bhav”

“Shut Up”

“He He… listen to me na… You know what I feel like doing”

“No babu. Tell me”

“I want to kiss you”

“And”

“I want to feel your tongue on mine”

“And”

“I want to move down slowly, smelling your skin, kissing your neck”

Giggle. “Shut up. I am feeling ticklish”

“I want to run my tongue over your lips, find your chin and work my way down to your breasts”

“And then”

“Move up slowly again and find your mouth. I want to smell your breath. I want to feel the wetness of your mouth. I want my body to be warmed by your flesh. I want to tickle your breasts. I want to feel them grow in my hands.”

“You are so good baby" she cooed. "I can feel your hands baby and your breath. I love you baby. Come here na. What are you doing there. Come her Now. Pleeease”

“Shhh. Listen. Can you feel my tongue moving back down your neck. Can you feel my tongue moving towards your breasts. I can feel the taste of salt on your skin baby. I can smell your breast. I can hear your heart throb”

“Baby" she moaned "I can feel your body against mine. I can feel its warmth. I feel your strength. Your large manhood and your rigid hardness. Your hard harsh hands crushing my delicate body. I want you baby. I want you now. Move your hands lower down na baby. Feel me there. Find me. I want you there”

“Baby. My hands are reaching down. I feel your belly button baby. How I love it. Its depth. Its….

CLICK.............................................................................

"Hello... Hello... Baby... are you there baby.... Helooooo"

“Fuck” she thought “the line dropped.”

She wiped her brow. The air conditioner wasn't working for three days now.

She smiled to herself. And then stifled her laughter.

The fifty year old lady in the next cubicle was doing her version of the orgasm. It sounded suspiciously like an alien being tortured in Area 51. “Now which was that film”

“Poor woman. She’s giving it her all” she thought "But she wont last long. Its her first day live on calls and the big boss would be monitoring all her conversations. Alien shrieks don't work for the boss. But I wonder what her story is. Everyone here has a story. If only someone listened carefully, they would find a story screaming out loud through each fake orgasm"

That reminded her. She had to collect her paycheck from Burger King for the part time stint she did there during the last month. But she was doing two fucking shifts back to back this week. Sex sells. Even during a downturn.

"I wonder when I'll find time" she grumbled. "A million corny B-movie dialogues to be spouted sixteen hours a day - I can feel your large manhood and your rigid hardness. What the fuck is rigid hardness" she laughed to herself. "Hard harsh hands crushing my delicate body" she laughed again.

The middle aged alien looked at her in disgust.

Her phone was ringing again.

“Fuck! Seven calls on queue” she muttered to herself “Seven horny toads salivating, one of whom will help pay for my child’s education”

“Wait… I am coming baby”


“Seven calls on queue bitches. Everyone on the phone. NOW”


PS: This post is inspired by a tweet that grabbed my attention a few days back on Mentalie's blog

Dream Afresh & Work Around

I sit by a waterfall
Refreshed and elated
By the lemony sweet newness
That comes up to greet me
After water meets stone
And a random spray leaps in joy
With wetness and life
Drenching my exhilarated soul

Then the eyes, they open
To a vision of illusory grandeur
The King is on his throne
He, the lord of nothingness
His empire weighed down and numbed
By the repercussion and the sullenness
Of a dreary existence
And biting bytes of the executive kind


The mind should now shut up and get back to work

Dead Worried

It has been four minutes since I died.

My wife sleeps next to what had been me, unaware of the corpse, which was once her husband that lies next to her.

She will be up in the next couple of hours. By habit, she will do her daily prayers and ablutions and set some tea on fire before coming back to wake me up.

Then I am afraid, all hell will break loose.

I hope God takes me away before this transpires. Nothing such has happened yet. I haven’t seen any light or any such thing. I am still here.

Formless and shapeless. Hopeful. Peaceful. Waiting.


One hour since death

My wife shifts slightly in her sleep. I want to reach out to her, hold her and comfort her. I want to tell her not to worry and that I am there for her.

I fear that she will awaken and ask for the bottle of water that always lies on my side of the bed.

We argued before going to bed last night – on some trivial issue. On lending some money to her cousin brother whom I never really liked. For someone who had taken voluntary retirement a few months back, it is difficult to take the liberty with money the way young people do.

My children take liberty with money. I have two sons. Both married, great jobs, on a high, and spending more than they should. I have tried to talk sense into them. They hear my ranting and respectfully ignore me. No one listens to an old man.

They take after me. I did not listen to my old man.

I married my wife against my fathers wishes. It was meant to be an arranged match. We had visited her house to see her. I, a London educated graduate, working with a bank in Bombay (as it as called then), was a price catch.

My father, a traditionalist with right wing leanings, would only settle for the best.

‘Best’ for him was defined by the size of my potential father in laws bank balance and his willingness to part with a large chunk of it in dowry. ‘Best’ was also defined by the colour of my potential wife’s skin. My father’s son had lived and dined with fair men and of course he had to have a fair wife.

The girl we have travelled to see that day did not qualify. It was a mistake. My father said he realised this the minute the taxi drew into the lower middle class suburb. He would have turned around right then if not for my uncle, who had recommended the match, and who had helped my father financially for my expensive education.

A grim father and an obedient son walked through an open door into a little house that announced aloud that it belonged to a mid-level government servant.

Sparse, minimalistic, functional and definitely not to my fathers taste.

We were greeted by many joyous, rotund relatives and a bald, sombre, humble father. The usual tiffin was served with laddoos wrestling with chaklis and chivda for space in the little plates brought out for each of us by rotound relatives.

“Where is the girls mother. Does she not have the courtesy to come and greet guests” my father whispered loudly to my uncle.

“She died when the girl was little”

“How can my son marry a girl that has not learnt the ways of women from her mother. Will she know how a good daughter in law is expected to conduct herself” my father must have thought. Thankfully he did not say it out loud.

The usual small talk followed with my father answering in monosyllables and sarcasm and I, Mr. London educated eligible commodity, cowered with timidity.

It was then, thankfully, that respite walked in the form of the eyes.

All I could see in her when she walked in were the eyes. She was all eyes and I was all eyes. Eyes met. Eyes spoke. Eyes explored. Eyes questioned. Eyes answered. Eyes were loving and tender and laced with dew. Eyes walked gracefully and sat opposite me. Eyes were bashful. Eyes were shy. Eyes were confident. Eyes told stories that no one else but me could see. Eyes hypnotised. I levitated.

Eyes could melt ice.

I melted.

The obedient son/slave of the father now enslaved by a vision seen through those eyes.

Vision of the eyes beholding me, tempting me and seducing me while I made tender love, each night, to the possessor of the eyes. A vision of them looking over me, lovingly, each morning while I slept. Eyes that would warn me of harm, comfort me in despair, guide me through life, and direct me when I wandered.

Eyes named Nethra.

While I was all eyes my father saw things differently. Nethra was dark and she was talkative and she was opinionated and her father did not own a bank.

My father walked out of the house in ten minutes. I followed meekly.

My soul stayed back and lingered.

For a month more I saw more girls than there were days. I saw all kinds. I found an excuse for them all.

My father was growing increasingly impatient and agitated.

I had to act.

I did.

When I wasn’t working or visiting sundry potential wives, I started frequenting the area where she lived.

Thank God I smoked.

Thank God I bought my cigarettes from a corner-store while I awaited the eyes to walk around the corner. On the eighth day they did. They walked into the store to buy bread and milk. Thank god for stores in India that stock and sell everything.

“Oh! Hello”

“Ha.. Hi” (I think I had farted out of shock.)

“What are you doing here”

“Nothing much. Had come to see a friend who stays close by. He is not at home so I thought I will wait here for him”

“Smoking is injurious to health”

“There are other things that are killing me right now”. (Shit. What did I say. I wanted to chew on the burning cigarette and make a hole in my tongue. Idiot. I was. I am.)

Giggle. (Oooh! She is soo cute.) “What???”

“No. Nothing. So you come to this store often” (Yeah. What a great conversationalist I am)

“Yes. We have an account here. So we pay at the end of the month. I come here every morning after I visit the market”

“What time??” (What an idiot. Go slow idiot.)

Giggle. (Please don’t do that… don’t giggle... It is doing things to me that you cant imagine) “Between 9:30 and 10:30”

Shit! Shit, Shit Shit…. I am at work at that time.

From the next day, I got to work two hours late each morning. Some in my office thought that my father was ailing. Others thought it was my mother.

And then it started. The wheel started turning and I could not bring myself to stop it.

I had to tell my father.

I did.

And all hell broke loose.

Then I broke loose.

We eloped. We got married at a temple with only a few friends of mine representing both the groom and the bride. Not, by far, the proper Indian wedding circus.

I also knew that I had to get out of the city. My father was friends with some right wing politicians (goons) and I knew his ego was bigger than his love for me. Another day and all the grime in the city would be hunting for us.

I took a friend’s old battered Fiat, most of his money and whatever little I had saved and drove out of the city. My heart beating a drum each time we passed a check-post.

We left the car with my friend’s uncle in Ahmedabad and took a train to Delhi. From Delhi we travelled aimlessly in cheap government busses.

I remember the first time we made love. In a bus stand lavatory at Gorakhpur. I know. It isn’t romantic. But we were on the move and too scared to stay for the night in any one place. We were young and our hormones got the better of us. And so in a foul smelling ladies lavatory at an isolated government bus stand, the newly wed couple consummated their marriage for the first time.

We travelled further up and I started breathing again only after we reached Sunauli, a border town in Nepal. We travelled further up to Kathmandu and stayed there, blissfully, in bed, for two months, till the money was nearly over. Then it was back to Bombay.

Back in Bombay, I realised that I had lost my job.

My father got me the job and my father took it away. He had not forgotten and he would never forgive. Thankfully he had accepted that what had occurred could not be undone.

The first few years still rankle. We stayed in a friend’s apartment until I found a low paying job in a textile mill. We then moved into a one-room ‘chawl’ in Byculla.

From Byculla, I rebuilt my life. I managed to find another job in a bank and in time, life blessed us with two sons, a larger house and reasonable prosperity.

My father never spoke to me till he died. My mother died a few months after I eloped. I would like to believe that she was probably tortured to death by my father for bringing a wretch like me into this world. Into his world.

I have never grieved for them.

I was too busy playing prisoner to the eyes.

I have been imprisoned for life.

Now even death has failed to secure a release.

And it is two hours since I died and its is time for her to wake up.


Two hours since death

I worry for her. Who would believe that the soul (or am I a ghost) worries after death. But I do. I wonder how she will live her life now that I am gone. I am not sure if she knows where I keep all my documents and information. She has never had to pay a bill by herself. She has never wanted to know how much money I have saved or about the insurance or the investments. I have never told her much.

My children lead their own lives. They live separately. They lead busy lives. They have no time for our middle aged bones. They do visit occasionally but I don’t think that they would be comfortable having their mother stay with them.

She doesn't even bloody take her medicines on time. She spent her entire life looking after me and the children and with time she has forgotten herself completely. Her health has been failing in recent years. She has diabetes and high blood pressure.

I took voluntary retirement only to take care of her. And since then she is completely reliant on me. She eats when I eat and I have to cajole her to take her medicines. She had become my baby for the second time in our lives. We were planning to go on a pilgrimage up north. I had booked our tickets last week. Our second road trip.

But now I am FUCKING dead.

And I have waited for two fucking hours for God to take me. To Release me.

And I have come to realise that there is no God.

"Tag Ka Saamna" aka "Iss Tag Se Mujhe Bachao"

I have been tagged... by Choco... so here goes...


1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4
Under the influence of the landowner’s smile, in whose….
Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can & catch air?
Ok… reached out… grabbed some air… Yikes… caught something smelly… Did someone fart???

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
NDTV India… Salman Khan is buying an IPL team to compete with Sharukh Khan… go figure… does anyone care…

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?
1:15 am?

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
1:18 am.

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
Sania Mirza and Somdev Burman have reached the second round in the US Open… good news… on CNN IBN

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
A hour and a half back. Left office to come home.

8. Before you started this Q&As, what did you look at?
My blog…

9. What are you wearing?
A grey pyjama.

10. When did you last laugh?
When I answered question no. 2.

11. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Paint.

12. Seen anything weird lately?
The mirror…

13. What do you think of this quiz?-
Yawn!

14. What is the last film you saw?
Little Zizou… on DVD… a delightful little film

15. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
A book… on how to spend it overnight….

16. Tell me something about you that I dunno!
I live exactly 402 miles (647 kms) from the Palolem beach in Goa.

17. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Nothing… sometimes things are not great… at other times they are dreadful… but everything has a reason… the wheel of creation and destruction has to be kept in motion… consciously we create... subconsciously we destruct... the wheels turn...

18. Do you like to Dance?
I like to prance…


19. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Huh! Gajgamini

20. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Supandi

21. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Not forever… not for long… I care too much for my Indian Passport to exchange it for another… I have had opportunities… I choose to live here. There, in my opinion, is nothing that you can do abroad that you can’t do in India.

22. What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
Son… Here are my papers…. 1 month notice… When do I start the hand-over…


Ok... done... I pass this on to anyone unfortunate enough to have the low IQ levels required to even consider answering this... like me... of course...

If you are proudly stupid... like me... and decide to take up this tag... let me know... i promise to come over and cry while I read the rubbish written on your blog...

Have you ever...

Dreamt of a dream
Where you slept in your sleep

Ran a race
Where no one moved

And lost
From a winning position

Then found Success
In failure

And felt victorious
In defeat

Found fortune
And lost your soul

Then negotiated your way
Into losing your providence

Achieved fame
And lost your identity

Desired the Devil
When you finally found God

Felt desire
On a lonely night

And craved for solitude
In gorgeous companionship

If this is you…

Go on

Get up

Be human

Go Places

Start running

Hunt for life

Find Death

And when you eventually get there… look back… and smile… you have lived a full life….

Shhhh...

It's quiet. Very quiet
I breathe in the silence
No one speaks
There's no one here
Just my thoughts
And me, bored
In my fishbowl existence

I speak up - Let's talk
They all join in
Turn up the volume please
Everyone has to be heard
My solitary fishbowl
Now my populated ocean
And my cacophonic claustrophobia

Rewind.

Stop.

Play.

Fail.

Cry.

Feedback

I have a new template for my blog.

I am currently bankrupt of new writing ideas and too lazy to build on ideas that I already have. But I had to do something with my blog this week - so I took the easy way out and got myself a new template.

And I am mighty kicked about it.

But at the same time, dear reader, I need your feedback. You are the reason I write. Your comments have encouraged me and kept me going despite my lazy self. Your feedback has helped me improve.

While I am pleased with the template, there is a part of me which fears that my obsession with reinvention might take away from your reading pleasure.

Help me out and tell me what you think.

Feed-back on the template - tell me if I should keep this one or go back to the earlier design. And if you feel like it, feel free to feed-back on anything that you wish to about this blog.

I realize that I wont be able to keep everyone happy all the time - but I promise to take majority opinion into account.

Green Glasses Sparkle

I had, in an earlier post, promised to write about blogs or blog posts that fascinate or inspire me. Here is one that does both...

The files of Agent Green Glass...

This Bandra (ahem) girl has more creativity in her little finger than most writers can claim to have in their entire body and soul...

Her writing is effortless, easy to read and appears to have that easy, spontaneous, laid back and effortless flow that most writers would sacrifice their fingers for...

And she is funny... again effortlessly funny...

Infectious is her latest blog post... a little love story with a difference... which I loved

How the west was won was the first post that I read on her blog and this is the post that inspired me to write fiction...

Ek Michael Ki Maut - Myshtery Rejolved

Choco recommends in shudh Hindi that I write about Rakhi Ka Swayamwar. "Web dainiki mein unke swayamvar ke barien mein chapne ka prayas kare toh hum use padne ka vachan detein hain." After that barrage, all of which I don't understand - who has the courage to say no.

I cant write much about the show. I have only watched one episode. A re-run.

This is how it all occurred.

I was surfing channels. I landed on this strange one. And then I saw her. She was dressed in pink. “Mujhe Aishwarya se bhi khoobsoorat brides banna hai” she blabbered.

The earth shook.

I cringed... puked... lost my appetite... then my mind… developed suicidal tendencies... screamed… jumped off a building... and died...

I entered Heaven. I walked around. I saw a Rakhi Sawant look-alike. Dancing.

Someone told me that it was Menaka.

I overreacted. I slapped her.

The Go-On-Darling sent me to hell.

I reached hell. I sensed respite. But it was short-lived.

I was in for a shock.

The devil is a fan. He is her creator. He named her Raakh-I and sent her to earth to recruit fresh ass-in-instants.

Now he awaits her return. He was impatient and angry.

I heard that she refuses to come back. “I likes Aarth too much” she tells him “All aarth-with-lings waant to marie me”.

I think she means earthlings. I also think she means marry. I could be wrong.

The devil, unable to take the pain of longing and separation, has taken to his bed. He is found there all day, roasting in a forever-melancholy mood.

He is now called the Dev-ill.

Over a period of time, I came to realise that the temperature in hell varied considerably. I asked someone called Atom Bhai Narakhia the reason for the temperature change.

He exploded.

He screamed that it is the bloody Dev-ill’s ass-in-instants keeping him in humour. Apparently, the temperature increases each time an ass-in-instants tells Dev-ill that Rakh-I is cumming. I think they mean coming.

Or maybe not. I don’t know. I was too busy getting roasted.

I got the devil to curse me and send me into exile - to the nether world.

Now this was easy.

I tried to explain to the horny fellow “Rakh-I isn’t cumming right now. Period.”

I don’t think Dev-ill understood. He was fuming. I had abused his Ash-wariya. He was in flames.

He went on to foam at the mouth and then promptly threw a fit.

I tried to get him to smell my slipper.

He spat on me and I found myself in netherworld - enveloped in the Dev-ill's spit bubble.

There I stayed suspended for no-time. Then one day after bursting the bubble with a pin (don't ask me where I got that from) and through a small window in time, I found my way back to earth. I came to realise that I was now a ghost.

“She has had it now” I thought to myself. “I shall haunt this Raakh-I to death”

I found her. It was easy.

I just asked one random Johnny “Oh Boss… Yeh Shaadi kidhar hai??”

He pointed towards Rajastan.

Soon, I found her and tried to haunt her.

“poo” I squeaked.

I meant to say "BOOOO." God promise.

She looked at me. She raised her eyebrows. “What a hots bhooth” she said “Itna safeds safeds aur mujhe pyar se poo bhi bulata hai. How cutes”.

“Mujse shaadi karoge” she sang.

I was shocked. She wasn’t scared of me. She wanted to marry me.

I asked her why.

“These facking Indian mards wants marries me” she wailed “They wants vergen”

“Please marry me bhooth. Please say yes. Yours my Shahrukhs and I ams your Gauris. Now come on byabye… lets do the marries”

Suddenly her mood swung again.

“I am pavitra bharatiya naari and I ams vargen… but no one believes my surgeon,” she told me.

Things were getting sad. I tried to change the subject.

I asked her if she uses botox

“How dare you” she screamed “I am a vargen.”

Suddenly I found her doing an item girl version of Madonna.

“I do not mean anything wrong” I squeaked “It was an innocent question”

“Then ok jaanu” she said as she fluttered her cute fake eyelashes “Yes jaanu… I use my botox…. every mornings… for the shits”


I couldn’t even die….



In short - earth, heaven, hell, netherland or Neverland (apparently Michael got a phone call just a few minutes before he visited his doctor)... there is no respite from Rakhi Ka Dimaag-pe-vaar

In Vino Veritas - Drinking to Death

In Vino Veritas - A short story contest... on Jason Evans' blog The Clarity of Night. Got to know about this because of Rohan.

Using the photograph below for inspiration, contributors were asked to compose a short fiction (or poetry) piece of no more than 250 words in any genre or style...

Here is my effort... Have to say that trying to keep the word count down to 250 words nearly killed me... in a week that gave me very little time to think or write...





Drinking to Death

Two young sweaty bodies in the throes of passion on top of a water tank of a high-rise rooftop - an inch away from a sheer fall and death. Bodies coloured and illuminated in blue fluorescent light cast by a neon advertising signboard.

He enters her with his tongue – exploring the woman inside her. Slowly, feeding her desires. She moans as he pulls out and bites the inside of her thigh, an inch away from where she wants him. He moves up. His hands replace his tongue. Fingers finding love.

He kisses her. Tongues find each other and dance.

His other hand reaches out, groping in the dark for the knife.

“Are you ready” he asks. “Yes” she moans.

He kneels between her legs and very slowly, he enters her. She feels him inside her. As she moans, he takes the knife and slashes his wrists.

Blood Drops On Breasts.

She closes her eyes and whimpers as he cuts her wrists.

He finds her wrists in his mouth while he takes his to her lips. They drink of each other. The taste of blood and sex – intoxicating the senses as wine never can. They keep stroking and drinking – immune to pain.

They had been planning this for days.

The stars shine down on their bloodied faces. Ruby red coupling with fluorescent blue.


The stars give way to the morning sun. He looks down at them with sadness and hides behind the clouds to curse and cry. Young. Horny. Stupid.

DEAD.

Cock-Raj

Something has come over me. I was trying to write a short story, which has been lying dormant in my mind since Adam was a boy.

However, the only thought that seems to come to my mind is… cockroach.

"Now, why is this dimwit thinking about cockroaches and then writing about them on his blog?" This, I must confess, is a fair question to ask.

Truth be said. I have no answer.

I have very little control over this dim meandering mind of mine…

Therefore, I cast aside the short story and write a blog post on this pet… peeve…

I convince myself that if my fellow bloggers can write brilliant posts about cats and dogs – Then I should be allowed the liberty to write about cockroaches. Cockroaches are, after all, the creation of the same almighty that created you, cats, dogs, and me.

Now, there are some amongst us who will argue, and rightly so, that only if I had a cockroach as a pet, would I be worthy to write with authority on cockroaches.

I would therefore like to point out that this post does not intend to sermonise about the virtues of having a cockroach as a pet. This post is about a little problem I have and a brilliant plan I have in mind to cure myself of this minor irritant.

I am terrified of cockroaches - especially the big ones with wings.

For some inexplicable reason, the ones that do fly… fly straight at me. There seems to be this peculiar attraction that I hold for them.

Now there are those who have had the opportunity to witness this. They have gone right ahead and formed a number of theories to explain this strange phenomenon.

Some say that it is quite possible that, in my next life, I am destined to be a cockroach. Or it might turn out that I was a cockroach in an earlier lifetime. Others debunk the reincarnation theory and believe that I am destined to turn into a cockroach during this lifetime itself. Wouldn’t that be magical?

Finally, there are those, who to my face, tell me that I am nothing but a cockroach and that it should not surprise me when I attract others of my specie. I have often wondered if these are the only truthful people on earth. It maybe so, that the world is nothing by an illusion, and in this illusionary world, I, a cockroach, look at myself in a mirror and see myself as a man.

Anyway. I digress. As I was saying, cockroaches tend to fly straight at me. When such global calamities strike and cockroaches fly, I tend to mutate very quickly into a superhero. I mean, I can fly and jump over buildings. My superhero avtaar, however, does not need a cape and at times can be found flying around with only a dirty red (and sometimes yellow) underwear. Much collateral damage is caused and many innocent people come to harm when this strange Superhero takes off – with a cockroach hot on his heels.

Now, for those of you reading this and thinking to themselves “what a wuss”, I would like to set matters straight and state that I am not usually a scaredy-boo. I do not, for example, fear scorpions or snakes or mushrooms.

I have, on multiple occasions, had the opportunity of close acquaintance with each of these creatures and have found them to be quite harmless if not friendly.

Then why do I fear puny cockroaches? This most pertinent question deserves a long and lengthy answer, but to cut it short and say it in three words ( I have been found guilty of many a long blog post) – I don’t know.

Finally, after many years of living in fear and many cockroach-human chase sequences, I have, after much thought, decided to face up to my fear. No, I do not plan to spend a night in a casket full of cockroaches. I do not intend to compete in Fear Factor – and lose my life to cockroaches on national television.

I have instead formed a simple and implementable plan. I will adopt a cockroach and bring her up. Yes, my cockroach will grow up to be a daughter to me. I will teach her to crawl, send her to school, protect her from insecticides, lizards, and cats, teach her to fly high, eventually get her married. I plan to grow old and die in the company of my flying grandchildren. Finally, in their company, I will rid myself of my fear of cockroaches.

And yes, for those that have got here and are convinced that I am nothing but a nut, allow me to agree with your brilliant assessment. I am, indeed, nothing but a nut.

But like all good nuts, this nut has a more intricate agenda behind his nutty plan. Please read further if you still have the courage…


Joy - Part 1
A cockroach I will adopt
And keep her, safe, on my loft
She will be a daughter to me
As wonderful as any daughter can be

I will teach her to fly
And reach for the sky
She will be safe
No harm shall come her way

I will teach her to date
I will find her a mate
Of course, she will procreate
Eight hundred times eighty into eight
Million

Ecstasy - Part 2
In time my fellow humans
Your generations shall self-destruct
Your Politics, Your wars, your bombs, your holocaust
Extinct, Kaput, Finito – Ha Ha…There… watch… these morons go bust

But Stand by and Watch Human - My lineage will survive
Be Careful Human – They will Grow, prosper, and thrive
Yes, Its Funny ain’t it Human – laugh at me in mirth
Fuck You Human – Its MY descendants who inherit YOUR earth

You think I am a nut , don’t ya
You think I overreact, fuck ya
Watch this space, will ya
Cockroaches survive holocausts, can ya
Self-destruct soon, I beg ya









Congratulation to those who have got here – You have just read the worst blog post ever. No, I don't do drugs and did not write this under influence...

To those of you who have bothered to read my blog posts until this day and have made a solemn promise never to come back again – Good Bye.

To those who plan to come back in the future – I salute you and I admire your courage.

To those of you, innocent souls, who were misled into reading this because of the blog post name and came here expecting pornography – I apologise.

Candid Four Pointers... with Skilled Sugar-coating

I have to say it. I hate to say. I have been tagged.

The misfortune that has come upon me is my own doing. I incurred the wrath of a candid friend - also my favorite anonymous blogger. She was tagged and tags can sometime put bloggers who choose to be anonymous in a tad uncomfortable position. Well, one can’t really be candid.

I tried to give her a hard time. In return – the vengeful one tagged me. Tagged by someone, who, as a norm, refuses to tag anyone.

I therefore pick up the tag and try to do justice to it.

So here goes – The Four Pointer.

Four places you have lived:
1) I have lived for the longest time and continue to live in a little suburb in Mumbai. A little more than half a century ago, the suburb was a quaint little fishing village. It has now transformed into a bustling town – known for its spiraling real estate prices, shopping, nightlife, sea front promenades, and now its increasing expatriate population. And now a sea link.

2)My coming of age years. For the first time in my life, I had to move out of Mumbai after I was head hunted and landed my second job. I relocated, for a few years, to the little city not far from Mumbai. The city, then a haven for pensioners, middle class locals and students from all over the country, was just about finding its feet and preparing itself (unknowingly) to become a poor mans replica of Mumbai – inheriting all its problems. The expressway between Mumbai and Pune wasn’t built then. I lived in all sorts of rental accommodation – from a one-room pigeonhole to a two bedroom flat shared with five other fellow savages. Freedom - I have have never had as much fun. The best days of my life – house parties, army rum, sex, chilly evenings, jackets, hill stations, rain, bikes, the first steady relationship, parsi food, failed attempts at trying to cook, nostalgia…

3)Hotels. I have lived in all sorts of hotels in countries all over the world. Good hotels, grand hotels, bad hotels, small hotels, big hotels, dodgy hotels, dingy hotels, cheap hotels and expensive hotels. I have stayed in hotels for work, holidays, after missing flights and on romantic getaways. I hate hotels.

4)Hotel Decent. Anyone who has seen ‘Jab We Met’ will remember the dodgy hotel from the movie. I have, unwittingly, stayed in place exactly like that. Picture this - The room next door creaks opens. The door closes. Animated chatter. Giggles. The sound of locomotion. Creaking bed. Giggles. Animated chatter. Door Opens. Door Closes. Twenty minutes of silence. The door opens again. Repeat.


Four TV shows you love(d) to watch:
Now this is a tough one. I have never thought much of the idiot box and I don’t really enjoy idiotic company. But still….

1) He-Man and the Masters of the Universe – I watched this animated series as a child, faithfully, every Sunday evening – with bread and jam. For some reason, I had to have bread and jam religiously, every Sunday, while I watched He-Man take on Skeletor. Another reason I can’t forget the show is a recent incident in a church during a christian friend's wedding mass. During the service, the priest asked the congregation to bow their heads and make a silent prayer. One could hear a pin drop. A little child, sitting in front, across and not far from me, took this opportunity to draw his imaginary sword, raised it towards God and screamed “ BY THE POWER OF GREYSKULL. I HAVE THE POWER”. The priest quickly forgot his prayers. The congregation tittered. The mother was embarrassed and the father beamed – proud of his son.

2) Giant Robot – A Japanese series dubbed in English and another childhood favorite.

3) Man vs Wild - Bear Grylls and his hair-raising adventures. Pure adrenalin. Real.

4) MTV Roadies – Corny and voyeuristic reality TV. But the concept of a long cross country road journey appeals to the traveler in me. Also, Raghu Ram, in my opinion, is brilliant.


Four places you have been to on vacation:
1) Goa – The 12 hour drive from Mumbai is brilliant. The romance in the air, the sound of the sea, the food, the people, the unhurried lifestyle - the place is intoxicating and it isn’t just the cheap alcohol. I slept on a beach once – lulled by the sound of the waves in my ears and the cool wind in my hair. I opened my eyes to a fresh early morning breeze and watched local villagers, at peace with themselves, walking past, smiling, unhurried, for an early morning service at a local church which opened up to the beach.

2) Mangalore – My grandmother’s village. Coconut groves, mango trees and jasmine plantations. The laziest place in the world with the sweetest smelling jasmine scented air. I go there when work gets to me and when I want a few stress free and lazy days. Once there – I just sleep or put my feet up and read. Heaven.

3) Phuket – Thailand… Thailand… the ocean… snorkelling…scuba diving… corals… water sports… the nightlife… need I say more…

4) Kashid – Read Goa but closer to home.


Four of your favorite kind of food:
1) Indian – The diversity in the country is demonstrated through the variety in food options.

2) Indian Chinese Street Food – The Indianised version of Chinese food tastes best at any local street side thela – especially on a rainy evening. Triple Shcezwan rules.

3) South East Asian Food – Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese food, the best-looking food in the world.

4) Irish Stew & Stakes - Sorry, that probably makes it five. But I cant help it. It was tough short listing five in the first place.


Four websites you visit daily:
1) Wikipedia

2) Rediff

3) Candid Talk (Cant help it – Choco is prolific, writes everyday and writes well)

4) My company website (sorry… cant disclose the name… or I wont be anonymous anymore)

5) Used to be Expressive Silence too – but she pulled the blog


Four places you would rather be:
1) Goa

2) Managalore

3) The Lake District – One of the most beautiful places I have been to and the best place to enjoy English weather (I personally find English weather to be the most fair weather in the world – I wonder why they complain)

4) Kashid


Four things you hope to do before you die:
1)Travel around India for one month. I want to travel by train in second-class compartments with no fixed destinations or plans, with a limited budget and without mobile phones or plastic money. I want to live among the people and stay in cheap hotels. I want to travel to the heart of India – to its villages, B towns and C towns – and stay with people in their homes. My destination each day and the mode of transport decided spontaneously at the spur of the moment. My fellow travelers – my books and my camera.

2) Learn the guitar and master it

3) Learn to para glide

4) Retire by the time I am 45 and then write a book


Four novels you wish you were reading for the first time:
1) The God of Small Things – A book that probably wrote itself and Arundhati Roy just took credit. Never have I read anything more magical - influencing and manipulating the imagination, making it soar high and dive deep, all at once. After every few pages – I had to lie back, let my mind take over and imbibe the magic bit by bit. The only book I have read twice.

2) The Fountainhead – A book that has had an immense influence on life. .

3) My name is Red – I did not have to read this book. It sat up and spoke to me. All its characters, animate and inanimate - had life. Brilliant narrative

4) Swami and Friends – For its simplicity. I wish I could write like that. I wish I had a childhood like that. I so wanted to grow up in Malgudi.

5) The Famous Five – I know I am cheating but I want to be a child again and run to the local circulating library. The smell of old books combining with the smell of incense. Pick up a Famous Five book. Run back home and start reading the book with a mom-made Salami sandwich. Aaah! Why did I ever have to grow up…


Four movies you love:
1) Dev D – Or anything by Anurag Kashyap (I loved No Smoking). The film turned Devdas on its head and the visual imagery influenced me to write “Mother Loves Jeremy”. Now I wait for “Paanch” to see the light of day.

2) Life is Beautiful – Chaplinesque. The only movie that made me cry aloud… and I looked so stupid because I think I was smiling at the same time. The father – a hero to his son, both in a Nazi concentration camp and separated from the mother, tells his son that the camp is a game – and the one who gets 1000 points first wins a tank. Inspiring and beautiful. Funny and heart wrenching. An underrated masterpiece.

3) Oldboy – A South Korean. A man is kidnapped and imprisoned illegally for 15 years. He spends the 15 years in one claustrophobic room – with no access to the outside world. For 15 years he plans his revenge and trains himself. Only – he cannot seem to think of anyone with an incentive to do this to him. After 15 years – he is released – as suddenly as he was kidnapped. The man, a misfit, in the outside world, now has only one objective – to find the man who did this to him. The end hits you like a brick that falls from the top of a high-rise and hits you bang on the head. The film was plagiarized in Hindi and made into a bad film called Zinda.

4) Mard – I watched this Amitabh Bachchan starer some 25 times on home video when I was a kid. I still like it. The film is an absolutely regressive, B grade and senseless pot-boiler. Imagine this - A father, a king in exile, has british soldiers hot on his heels. When the soldiers are about to get to him – he picks up his little son, an infant, and with a knife carves “MARD” (Macho Man) on his chest. The infant smiles back. Mard Ko Dard Nahin Hota (A real man never hurts). The child grows up to be the Mard jisko Dard Nahin Hota – Amitabh Bachchan.


There... Done...dusted... And dedicated to Choco...

I know I am supposed to tag someone... but tags can be real drags... anyone who is inspired enough to do so can please pick up this tag and waste a post on it... only... please come back and leave a comment... so I can come over and read and be happy that someone else also had time to waste...

Rain Makers... Mumbaikars

A beleaguered humid city
Prayers for respite from summer
Rain gods answer
Little raindrops rejoice
Summer runs asunder

A few days of joy
Then the city down under
Gutters run wild, shoes soiled,
Clothes don't dry, Yada Yada Yada
The city prays for winter

Aunt winter wears a sweater
Though its only 20°C-old
Days end early, Asthma attacks, Mosquitoes bite
Exams here and vacations round the corner
The city longs for summer


PS: Looooooong days.... shrt psts...

This post is dedicated to the city of complaint boxes.... I am... proudly... one of them... I enjoy the rains now... I look forward to complaining about it soon... WATCH THIS SPACE...

It’s a load of Rubbish… Read at your own Risk

Agent Green Glass finishes a 101 and Choco writes a 100, and I sit here trying to think of something to write. I realise that I have been thinking ever since I wrote some stupid story about the sweetness of salt.

I burn with envy. How can they be so prolific. Ms. R seems to churn out one poem a day. And each one seems to make so much sense.

In anger, I hunt blogosphere. I have to find another blogger as lethargic as I. My hunt leaves me frustrated and depressed. Everyone seems to be updating the blog at least once a day. And there are those idiots who do it twice.

Slowly I realise. Now I understand how the “little” boy felt in the common shower.

I can’t even update mine once a week. What can I write about? Nothing seems interesting enough. I have a few stories spinning in my head – but then I am too lazy to pen them down.

I can’t write poetry. I can’t intellectualise. I can’t write about food. I find politics boring. History repeats. Stories take too long. Films are watched and then forgotten. Work life is a constant. Women never change much. Who wants to write about men anyway? Nostalgia dawns… then yawns. And pets I don’t have.

I need inspiration. Or a muse. Or something to amuse.

Then I read Choco… write for yourself she screams… and as always she sounds candid… and threatening. I say fine. OK. I will write. For myself. Do I have a choice? Who wants to incur the wrath of a candid friend.

So I write this rubbish on my blog.

I am inspired.

I have moved my ass.

Now I move my fingers.

Still no muse

But now I am amused.

I have a post

I have exorcised the ghost

I rest in peace…

I can be lazy for another week

My blog name should change…

One post a week... by a very lazy freak

Mesmerizing Memories

My Memoirs of Mesmerizing Memories... dark and fascinating... A blog that I came across recently and I cant get enough of.

The imagery that the writer conjures up is fascinating.

A few examples below, which I have taken the liberty to put up without her permission. Apologies Anukriti.

From a post called "My Memoirs of Mesmerizing Memories: Blue,Red and Black-A Dream of Despair, Desire and Death" - This one is a personal favorite...

I see two slabs of walls inclined perpendicular to each other, suspended in space. No ceiling, no floor; no light no darkness; nothing below, nothing beyond - just this piece of existence in the depths of my vision. The wall is monochromatic - an evenly painted - dark as well as luminous, stark as well as gloomy - shimmering as the ultramarine sea, secluded as the azure sky, pure as sapphire - The brightest, deepest, most prominent shade of Cobalt Blue.

AND ONE MORE FROM THE SAME POST

A glass coffin emerges from oblivion and encloses me within itself... In complete brutality and heartlessness, I rip open my breast... I take out my bleeding heart and hold it in my hands. My heart is nothing but a grotesque, malformed amalgation of blood and flesh... shapeless and broken like a mirror into a thousand shards!

I don't know if blogging ethics permit this, but something I plan to do every time I stumble on a blog that fascinates me or inspires me, is write a little post about it.

Enjoy this one... My Memoirs of Mesmerizing Memories

The Sweet Taste of Salt

Shazia walked up the stairs. Slowly. Her heart pounding. She legs heavy, like tons of lead. She felt the shackles, that society had put on her, as a woman, dragging her down as she walked up. She felt her desires piercing her mind, one needle at a time. She felt breathless, claustrophobic. The old, dirty, paan stained walls around her appeared to move slowly and come together to crush her. She walked up slowly towards her mousetrap, her one room cage, with all its animals waiting for their banquet - eager to feast on her desires. She was scared. But she had to tell them today.

A thousand thoughts with each step taken. Her life flew by her. She could see her childhood and her father. A policeman stuck for perpetuaty in the bottom rung of the police force and imprisoned in the bottle of cheap whiskey he consumed each night, drowning his frustrations at his pint-sized-life in the gold coloured poison-nectar. He would drink his sorrows and then come home to beat his wife and his children. Two boys and one girl. The girl, his eldest, and, in his opinion, the inauspicious wretch who destroyed his destiny along with his whore of a wife. The whore of a wife who he would fuck each night, after beating her up, while the children pretended to sleep. He beat them every night. With his fists, his belt buckle or with any weapon he could find in his drunken stupor. They hid the knives, each night, in the neighbour’s house. The one time he got his hands on a kitchen knife, he cut Shazia’s forearms and let her bleed until the terrified and pleading neighbours finally took her to a hospital. She still had the scars. He beat them everyday until she was fifteen and till his liver finally, fed up of him, delivered him to his end.

After her father died, they moved to her grandmothers house. The tyrant’s mother and mother of all tyrants. Shazia’s mother worked in the houses of the rich, cleaning their grime and helping them shine. Then she came home and cleaned the grime at home while the tyrant's mother, in her chair by the window, said the rosary.

Shazia went to school along with her brothers and excelled while they just about managed. As a ritual, they beat her up every year on the annual results day to wipe the smirk off her face each time she topped the class. They beat her every year until she finally hit back at the eldest brother. She hit him with his hockey stick and cracked open his chin. They never hit her again. But her grandmother almost stopped her school because of the incident and Shazia’s mother had to fight, grovel and plead to get her back into school. The grandmother finally agreed but not before her mother agreed to hand over every rupee of her income each month.

Shazia’s mother, to her, came before God. God never suffered at the hands of men. Men, the cruel bastards’ had use for women only as a body that satisfied their carnal desires or as a womb that protected them. She had experienced the wretched life of women in her society. A woman’s life is never her own. She can never have her own mind. She can never speak her mind. When she is a child and before she is married her life is run by the father. After marriage, her life is run by her husband and after the husbands death; she is dependent on her sons. No one understood women and no one wanted to. God did not understand women either. God, after all, is not a woman.

Shazia could never say no to her mother. Her mother loved her. Her mother had fought tooth and nail to give her an education. She had fought the tyrant’s mother and the tyrant’s sons to allow Shazia to take up a job. Not that it was much of a job. She made peanuts. But at least she was away from hell for ten hours a day.

Shazia had only one more floor to climb. She had been preparing for this day for months now. But she knew that this one time, even her mother would not understand. She was, after all, a product of the same society. Speaking to her mother, was what Shazia feared the most. Mother had battled men, poverty and the society all her life. But this would be the last straw. This would hurt. This would break her mother’s spirit. Mother would never agree. And Shazia could never say no to her mother.

Shazia worked in an old part of the city in an ancient establishment and had an unfulfilling job as an accounts assistant. She could do so much more. She was made for so much more. If only she wasn’t to be born a woman. If only she was born elsewhere, in another family, in another society, in another land, she would have archived so much more. Yet, she felt, it was better than cooking and cleaning in that chicken-coop of a kitchen.

Most importantly, she had ten hours each day of her life at her disposal.

And she had found love.

It was nearly a year now. In her twenty years on earth, she had never felt the emotions she experienced in the last one year. She felt buoyant and exhilarated. She felt wanted in her lovers arms. Love felt like a steady drizzle on a hot and humid summer morning. Lemon flavoured raindrops. Consistent, wet, fragrant, and refreshing - washing away the years of pain, agony, fear, and unhappiness. Love was like a floating feather and Shazia had found herself levitating, her feet always a few inches above the ground. Love scorched – making love in hot summer afternoons. Love was naughty and tickled. Love was risky and asked many questions. Love made her lie - to her mother for the first time in years. But love was never guilty. Love was faultless. Love was her only desire and her only hope. Love was also her only fear.

Shazia found herself smiling, thinking of love, at her doorstep. And then she realised. She was home. The smile disappeared. She walked in. Her head bent low, her eyes searching the floor - with dignity and humility, she walked in. She dropped her bags on the table and paid her respects to her grandmother, who refused to die, and was always seated on her chair, close to the only window in the room, a rosary in her hand. She hugged her mother and went to the little space in the corner of the room, designated as the bathing area to wash her feet. Each time one of the women had a bath, everyone else had to leave the house. The three toilets, shared, by the other ten families who lived on her floor were in the corner towards the right end of the floor. Chicken-coop for the soul.

Shazia, went into the toilet and locked the door. The smell of faeces hit her senses but that didn’t bother her. She had grown up in this place and the toilet was the only place she had any privacy. Not in the morning though, when everyone from the ten families lined up for their chance, a bucket full of water in their hands. She closed her eyes and gathered courage. She had to tell them today. Tomorrow would be too late.

Tomorrow would bring home the suitor her grandmother had found her. He would come with his extended family and she would be required to cover her face and serve them sweet tea and salty savouries. They would ask a few questions which her grandmother would answer and then it would be over. She knew that the events that would unfold tomorrow were only a formality. Her grandmother had already decided her fate - she would marry the balding son of her distant relative. She had seen a photograph and the man looked, according to her, like a bollywood villain, with paan stained teeth and a potbelly. But no one would ask her for an opinion. It was decided and she would be required to comply - with the dignity and humility required of a young woman in her society.

Her only hope was her mother. But she knew that this time, even her mother would not agree. She had tried for months to gather the courage, and yet, if her grandmother had not forced her hand by trying to get her to marry potbelly, she would never have managed to muster the courage to speak to her mother. Now she had to and she was scared.

She did not care for what they would think of her or the names that they would call her. She was prepared for the beating she would get at the hands of her brothers. She was prepared for the trial that she would have to face at the hands of relatives that her grandmother would gather, to deliver her to eternal damnation. She could fight them all. But she could not fight her mother. She could not think of breaking her mothers heart.

But she also knew that she had to try. It was her one last attempt at life.

Slowly, she walked out of the hell-hole she had locked herself in and walked into the hell that was waiting for her. She saw God at the stove, preparing chapattis for the evening meal. The devil, on her chair, praying her rosary with eyes wide open, watching, on TV, a young couple running around trees in an old hindi movie. A little devil, having just walked in and flung his shoes in the corner, sitting on the floor with his sweet tea and glucose biscuits.

Softly she said “Mummy, Can I speak to you for a minute”

“Bolo Beta” mother smiled a mother's smile

“Mummy. I wanted to tell you something. Please tell me you won’t get angry”

“Jaldi bolo beta” said mother, now impatient, her attention taken away from the chapattis.

“Maa… I can’t marry… please ma….please don’t hate me…. I…. I am in love ma... I love this person from my office…. I can’t marry that man grandmother brought…. I…. I love…. I love this girl called Deepti ma”

Ahimsa! Then and Now

In my last post. I wrote about Ahimsa and its relevance to our current circumstances. As a Riposte, AGG put up a very interesting post with a very valid point. Very correctly, she pointed out that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. She goes on to say, “Ahimsa looks good on paper, and not in practice. Still, there must be something to it, if it helped us get rid of the British.” Towards the end of her post, she says that she does not yet have a definitive answer.

I can understand that. There is no definitive answer. The reason - there is never one definitive solution that applies to all circumstances, all problems and all situations.

On Ahimsa itself – It isn’t that I think Ahimsa is not relevant anymore.

It still is and yet it always isn’t.

I had, in my earlier post, said that Ahimsa was a very practical solution to a problem of the time. Let me try to explain myself.

Gandhi, a brilliant politician and the man who introduced us to ahimsa, used non-violence shrewdly and wisely. He used ahimsa to bond a fragmented, culturally diverse people and direct their combined energy towards one common objective. As an example, what did Madras have to do with Punjab then... or even now… culturally? How else could he gather the numbers together on one platform to fight one battle, unless he appealed to some collective sensibility?

Ahimsa appealed to our cross-cultural (now Indian) sensibilities of self-pity and self-sacrifice. If you think that I am going too far about our sensibilities, go back to our Hindi film music. We have very popular songs such as “Gunghoroo ki tarah bajta hi chala hun main” OR “Sheesha ho ya dil ho... thooth jaata hai.” Read the Ramayan or the Mahabharata and you will find stories about rishis and saints fasting for years and giving up worldly pleasures to achieve enlightenment or seek an audience with God.

In addition, ahimsa ensured that a people, weakened by years of oppression and therefore obsessed primarily with self-preservation agreed to conflict because the perceived collateral damage and loss of life was relatively minimal.

Whenever, there were mass deaths, such as the Jalianwala Baug incident, it appealed to our “Gunghoroo” mindset… it made us pity ourselves and yet make us angrier and more resolved to beat down the demon that attacked the unarmed.

Ahimsa was a very practical solution, by a brilliant strategist, to a problem of the time.

Yet, Gandhi supported the British in Boer war and helped recruit Indians for World War 1. He also offered “moral and non-violent support” to the World War 2 effort, but this time in return for freedom.

This is not a criticism of Gandhi. I have immense respect for the man, his methods, his passion, and his organisation skills. It is to his credit that he very effectively used the only weapons at his disposal to achieve a very difficult end objective.

Gandhi, by the way, did write to Hitler to try to get the only man who could prevent the war to do so. And in the end the Congress did not end up supporting the British WW2 effort after negotiations failed. The result was the quit India movement.

Some would call this blackmail. Some called Gandhi a wily baniya.

In my opinion, I think he used his weapons effectively. Ahimsa, his first weapon, was only a means to the end – freedom. His other weapon was negotiation. He used that very effectively too. He did as was required, in the circumstances that prevailed.

Would Gandhi use different weapons in different times? I am convinced he would.

Nevertheless, is Ahimsa applicable at all today? I think it is. But to understand Ahimsa, it is equally important to understand the use of violence.

Man has always used violence for defence, for retribution or to exploit an economic / moral opportunity.

My personal interpretation of Ahimsa does not allow me to use violence for either retribution or for exploitation. I would however; use violence for defence if there is no other alternative.

I would therefore never recommend finding the chap who hit the Indian student and bludgeoning him to death OR killing Kasab now. Both are acts of vengeance. Eye for an eye makes the world blind. I buy that.

Neither would I recommend getting children to elbow each other to get into a bus first. This qualifies as using violence to exploiting an economic / moral opportunity. So does going to war with a country to exploit its natural reserves.

However, I would recommend violence if a nation started bombing any country and all peace processes failed.

That in a BIG nutshell, is my take on ahimsa.

Ahimsa… is there still such a thing… The answer my friend… is blowing in the wind… in the winds of change… and the winds blow differently… in different directions… with different answers... to different questions...

Brown but not Out...

Chain reaction. Two angry young ladies. Kadambari wrote something followed by Agent Green Glass. I started to comment on AGG’s blog and realised that I had ended up writing a full-fledged post…

AGG and Kadambari are very angry. And rightly so. Angry with the recent attacks on Indians. And they have a very interesting solution. They recommend that we retain our posture of peace and ahimsa and attack these nations with our largest weapon - Our population.

Procreate and conquer.

Interesting concept and communities and religions have tried this before but with very limited success. This is also one of the reasons why societies, historically, were partial to that the male population. And men could marry multiple times. But I digress.

In my opinion, however, procreate and conquer is unlikely to bear dividends.

When populations migrate, they eventually take on the identity and adapt to the culture, habits and customs of their new adopted land. Over time and generations, the original identity is lost. Third generation brown skinned people living in the UK, for example, ARE as British as any white skinned man is. Loss of jobs to India hurts them as much as it pains a white skinned citizen. Bottom-line – if the procreate and conquer theory succeeds then brown skin may overcome but India won’t.

And some day in the future... we may have brown skinned citizens of one country attacking brown skinned people of another country.

Furthermore, we are not equipped as a nation to procreate exponentially. We prove this to ourselves each day. Moreover, we don't want to continue to create a nation of servants.

Its probably utopia... but the solution lies instead in managing our problem of procreation while at the same time empowering our already massive population with infrastructure, skills and knowledge to take on the world.

History is witness to the fact that it isn’t always the most populous nations or communities that have succeeded in creating new markets. Look at what the English, historically, and the Japanese, more recently, have achieved.

The solution lies in flooding the world with the power and output of our most potent weapons. Our mind and our creativity in “Jugaad”.

Most importantly, it is critical to achieve this from “our shores”. Work harder… in our country… to create our land of dreams… for us tomorrow… for our children…

While this is easier said and done, we have, over the last twenty years or so demonstrated considerable initiative to make this possible. Furthermore, the good news is that even if we achieve success with a fraction of our population, our strength in numbers ensures that returns are massive. It also helps that while the developed world is getting older... we are relatively young.

At the same time, we have to stop lending ourselves to the situation we often find ourselves in...

We have to stop being colour discriminatory ourselves. Oh yes! Indians ARE colour discriminatory. Our markets are flooded with products like ‘fair and lovely’ and our classifieds carry matrimonial ads for “young, fair complexioned men and women”. Bottom-line – A large part of our population still believes that the white skinned man IS superior. This shows in our behaviour and our attitude. Unfortunately, the way the world works… if you give an inch…

We have to treat ourselves, our infrastructure, and our nation with more respect. You will never find an Indian throwing litter on the streets of a developed nation. But bring him back to his country of birth… and he starts flinging garbage missiles out of his car and out of his window. Then we go and blame Slumdog Millionaire of bias. And we think nothing of badmouthing our roads, our infrastructure, our people, our habits, our democracy, our politicians and our everything to all and sundry. As a result, the picture that the world has of our streets and our people reflects on us. A people that thrives in filth… A people that come from the back of beyond.

Change is critical. Change is constant. Unfortunately, we hate change. We are Indians. So remain our habits. Even in Rome, we do as the Indians do. We lend ourselves to caricature.

We compete on cost. We fear competing on quality. We forget our ability to do "Jugaad"... our ability to conjure up solutions. We underestimate our creativity... And we are looked upon as cheap.

Ahimsa is history. Ahimsa was a very practical solution to a problem of the time. Ahimsa was not an excuse for cowardice. Ahimsa should not be used as an excuse for cowardice. Two men beat up one. Three friends of the man being beaten up stood by and watched. They came from the land of Ahimsa. They offered the other cheek… not theirs… but that of their friend. They were non-violent… not by choice… but by compulsion… They were cowards. Cowards attract bullies. Remember school. I don't recommend violence. But if you are dragged into it. React.


If we smell the salts... wake up... change... be practical... not just radical... think... create... improve... little by little... each one... everyone... the possibilities are endless... and brown will be the colour of choice... of success... of opportunity...

Finally... a day where we all go colour blind... Ah... Utopia... maybe... but feels good...

A Simple Life

I put up a forum post recently in this bloggers forum called A Blog Post Written By You... That You Love the Most. The idea was to find some good blogs to follow.

The post got some 25 odd responses and I discovered a number of great blogs. But the one that stood out and simply blew me away is a blog called "A Simple Life" written by this chap called Ravi Lobo.

The writing, in my opinion, is outstanding, simple, lucid and fresh.

The reason I put this up is because I have a feeling that the number of people who don't know about this excellent little blog far outnumber the ones who do...

Give it a read... I promise you will not regret...

I have been tagged... 10 "tings" about me... why am I doing this

Ten things about me…. Now that’s tough… I don’t even know if there are three things about me… so I might stop at 8, 5, 3 or even 1… Lets see how it goes… And I hate R for doing this to me… this link is the reason for this post... how I hate this woman...


1. I am human ( ha ha… one done… nine to go)
2. I love travelling… and luckily, my job requires me to travel lots…
3. My first name starts with an A
4. I really dig good food … favourite places to eat… 1) Fried Chicken, Baghdadi roti and beef chilly onion fry… Baghdadi… Mumbai 2) Barah Handi at Vallibhai Payawalla, Bohri Mohalla 3) a) Skylawn, Royal Festival Hall, Embankment, London 4) Zitadelle Spandau, Berlin and 5) Longuinhos and Martins in Goa 6) Street food in Thailand and 7) any good roadside dosa-idlli wala. I am hungry now.
5. I never wrote anything (apart from official communication) before starting the blog
6. I am lazy and tend to procrastinate… in my personal life… i.e. it could take me 30 years to change a light-bulb at home, if I had my way… Therefore I fear that the blog might not last long…
7. People think I am commitment phobic… bottom-line… women dump me as soon as they get to know the real me… Although I disagree vehemently and strongly believe that the reason I can’t commit is because I haven’t found the right woman yet… I also think that it is vey unlikely that I will find the right woman soon…
8. I like the sea more than the hills… I love reading… my idea of a good weekend is a beach…. Most likely to be Kashid…. a good book… hammock… coconut water (with Bacardi)… read… read… read… siesta… get up (shit…what is that cow doing near my foot… f@$# it wants my chappals...harrr… harrr)... back to the book… coconut water (with Bacardi)… sun sets… sleep again…
9. I love the hills during the rains… and I can trek all day…as long as it rains… and I get wet...
10. I love electronic gaming…. Especially sport related games… Can play on a console, mobile… on anything… anywhere… anytime… all night… and then all day…. then all night…

Mother loves Jeremy

Jeremy was worried. The man was sitting right across him. The man had been looking right at him for the last half an hour. Every time Jeremy looked up, the man scowled at him. Jeremy glared back. He was at this swanky nightclub with friends. It was a friend’s birthday. It was his first time at a nightclub and he did not want to spoil it by getting into a fight. The friends were new. Jeremy was just two months into his first year in college. Everyone around him was new.

The music throbbed. Jeremy could hear it thud through his chest. He felt his heart pounding to the music. This was fun. Jeremy could never afford to get into a place like this by himself.

The man was scowling at him again. The man was running his fingers through his sideburns. Jeremy could feel the sweat on his sideburns. He was sweating but yet he felt cold. The smell of alcohol and cigarette smoke mixed with the odor of sweat, room freshener, cheap perfume and stale food. An assault to the senses. Yet exhilarating. Strange places, these nightclubs.

Mother had told him not to go. No wonder.

Jeremy had lost his father when he was thirteen. Jeremy’s father had married late. His mother much too young for his father. Much too young to become a widow.

She brought him up teaching kindergarten at a local school. They never had much. They had each other. They had enough. Jeremy had to do well. He was his mother’s last hope. Jeremy excelled at school. Jeremy got a scholarship. Jeremy got admission into the swanky college.

Jeremy looked at him again. The man was glaring now. Jeremy glared back. The man looked familiar. He looked like his father. No. He thought he looked like his father. Very peculiar similarities. But then the bastard was dead. The old bastard was dead.

“I will kill the bastard if he looks at me again” thought Jeremy and looked up again. The man was still scowling, a strange look on his face. Jeremy thought he saw a half smile. A sinister, sarcastic half smile.

Jeremy’s blood boiled. Jeremy stood up. The man stood up as well. This was going to be a fight. A full blown bloody fight. Jeremy had never fought before. Mother had told him not to. Jeremy was his mothers only hope. Mother was protective. Mother loved him. Jeremy could never afford to get into a fight. Jeremy never got into a fight. Until now.

The bastard looked like his father. His fucking father. His old fucking father who fucked his mother’s life. Jeremy had enough of his father. Jeremy had enough of his mother‘s wailing about how her family destroyed her life by getting her married to an old man. “Lets get this done and dusted with, you fucking son of a bitch. I want to fuck you motherfucker. I want to fuck you till you die motherfucker. Come get me motherfucker”.

This was it. The man rushed at Jeremy. Jeremy had never been in a fight before. There was something in the mans hand. Something rolled up. “Fight back” Jeremy told himself. “Fight the bastard and finish him. Do it for mother”

But Jeremy felt weak. He felt the music pounding inside his rib cage. The lights were blinding him. “I am scared” thought Jeremy. “I don’t want to die”.

The man was nearly upon Jeremy. Jeremy found himself frozen. His legs wouldn’t move. He raised his hands to cover his face. The man was now upon him. He shoved the thing from his hand into Jeremy’s nose. It felt like paper. The man’s face an inch away from Jeremy’s. Jeremy pushed the man away but it was too late. He felt something run up his nasal cavity. He felt it in his head. He felt his brain explode into many different colors.

Beautiful colors. Beautiful colors in formation. Beautiful colors forming shapes he never knew before. Beautiful colors never seen before. Beautiful colors running riot. Beautiful colors alight. Beautiful colors in the sky. Beautiful colors making love. Beautiful colors… orgasmic passion. Beautiful colors of God. Beautiful colors are God.

Something. Something happened. Something happened again. His brain coming together. His colorful brain coming together. Another explosion. His brain exploded. No stupid. The colors exploded. No. Wasn’t the colors. Something else. FUCK

Jeremy could see again. He could see the man’s face now. The man was looking at him. He wasn’t scowling. He wasn’t glaring. He wasn’t smiling. Was he crying? Jeremy’s vision was getting clearer. The man was crying. Blood dripping from his nose, forming a little stream from the nose to the lips and then dropping to the floor in the form of little red raindrops. Jeremy could hear the sound of the little red raindrops hit the floor. Pitter Patter rain drops. Sound amplified.

Jeremy’s vision was getting clearer. The man looked so much like his father. No. Wait. The man did not look like his father. The man was not his father. He realized. He finally knew. It was him. It was him all along. He had done it. It was him all along. He knew now. He realized. Mother was right. Mother loved me. He wanted to cry. He tried to cry. He couldn’t cry

He couldn’t cry. Something exploded in his brain again. He could see all the colours exploding again. This time exploding outside in and forming a rotating blob of red. The blob was moving. It was moving down his brain. No. It was not moving. It was spreading. He could feel the blob move into his eyes blocking his vision. The blob changed color. The blob was black. It moved into his nose. Christ… He can’t breathe…. It’s in his mouth now… turning his tongue down his throat. His tongue is in his throat…choking him. Its moving again… the blob is in his vertebral column…. he is numb now. Shit… it’s in his chest too… moving faster… gushing in… Oh… this is soothing… calming… he likes the blob in his chest… he can feel the throbbing of the music slow down…. he is getting better…. The throbbing is really slow now… slower… slower…. It’s so peaceful…. Its gonna be fine… he wants to sing… black is a beautiful color… slower… Jesus… Jesus is black… Jesus is slow…

The throbbing is slower…Jesus is slower…slower…slower… slow… slo… sl… s.. ss… sss… ssss…. sssss…. sssssss…. sssssss.. sssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Silence. Peace

Mother walked in silence. She walked up the stairs. This was the second time she walked up those stairs.

She walked up the stairs the first time to collect the body of her husband. This time..... She broke down. Jeremy loved mother. Mother loved Jeremy. He was her only hope.

And he was lost. Lost Forever. To drugs. His first time….. his own choice…and his last breath.

Effective and Efficient Processes to make Swine Fly

Last week I happened to visit three countries. The UK has over a 100 cases of swine flu, Dubai does not have one yet (I think) and India has one detected case of swine flu.

Dubai and the UK are not screening anyone for the flu. India is. If you can call it screening, that is. As usual, we are the best at designing processes and most awful at implementation.

Swine flu screening, according to our babus, is a process of making tired and jet lagged travelers fill up a declaration form stating that they are in the pink of health, stand in yet another mile long queue to have the aforementioned form stamped by a babu in a face mask and finally have jet lagged and now queue phobic traveller submit the form to a bored looking chap in immigration.

Why can’t just bored babu stamp the swine form??? Well, he obviously can’t. How can bored babu have the same skill sets as face mask babu??? Face mask babu is obviously a doctor or nurse or something like that. And one needs all that education to stamp a swine flu form with the power and the passion of a blacksmith, doesn’t one???

Also face-mask babus are gifted face readers. The man looked at my face and through my hair when he stamped the form. For all that matters, even if I had cancelled out everything on the form and instead written in bold that “I AM AFFLICTED BY SWINE FLU”, the man would in all probability, have stamped the form with all his passion and vigour, said “Ookay, theeeeenk you siiiir” and let me go on to bored babu.

Maybe, just maybe, face-mask babus are actually voodoo doctors. Maybe the harder they hammer the form with the stamp, the further swine flu flies from the person whose name is on the form. Maybe “Ookay, theeeeenk you siiiir” is a voodoo charm. Maybe its swine flu that is making me write this...

Finally, I am sure the screening process aims to achieve more than just screening. It aims to make the country immune to swine flu. An old grandmother remedy for disaster says “Feed a fever and starve a cold” and so therefore only old grandmother babu could have conceptualized this brilliant process. After all, only when you throw in a few thousand people in twisted serpentine queues, with a potential swine flu victim on all four sides of every passenger, can you ensure that we have the maximum potential traveling population exposed to swine flu.

And how well the process works…One swine flu over the babu’s nest...And landed in Hyderabad…

Saala... Kyun Vote Karun Yaar...

I cant get over the elections. I have been looking over the internet to find some other opinions on incentives for people to vote. I am sharing a few opinions...

The first link is from Hemal's blog and he has some interesting information and opinions on the voter turnout during the current elections. Hemal had commented on my last post on Mumbai's voter turnout.

This link from CNN IBN has Anurag Kashyap's take on voting... It's an interesting read...

The last link from Tim Harford's blog offers an economist's perspective on whether it is rational to vote. Tim Harford writes about economics in everyday life. He has written two brilliant, well received and much debated books called "The Undercover Economist" and "The Logic of Life".

Change the Name... Mumbai to Dumbbai

The next time I hear a Mumbaikar complain.... I will hit the looser... all of us from Mumbai are loosers... we are back at being the city that "bounces back from the depths of despair"... some spin doctor coined that... and coined that to eclipse that distasteful fact that what we really are is "apathetic"... Worst of all... we fucking believe the spin doctors... we believe that we are indomitable... bring it on... natural disasters, terrorists... we the brave Mumbaikars will prevail... bull shit... the only thing that gets us cowards out of our houses is the stomachs that we have to feed.

Were was the other 60% of "brave" Mumbai when they were needed to make one little contribution that could potentially drive major change. When all one had to do was stand in line and vote. Hello...Where did everyone vanish... the lot of them...

Brave Indeed! the fuck worths could not even brave the sun!!

But wait... for the fuck worths... there is still hope... the spin doctors are at it again... look at the excuses...

1) It was too hot (its fucking Mumbai... its hot and humid all through the fucking year)

2) Summer Holidays - the north Indians went back home (who the fuck thought this up???... the chap is a talent... find him... honor him... kill him!!!)

3) Extended weekend - everyone is out of town (Ya... the streets of Mumbai were empty indeed... who thought of this one???)

4) All politicians are corrupt (and if you don't vote.. you fucking looser... you bet the most corrupt is also the most likely to win... and you share responsibility... fuck worth)


I am ashamed of being a Mumbaikar... I am ashamed of being a part of an indifferent dumb people... I am ashamed of being a Dumbbaikar.. I hate me...

Moments that Mattered

The Best Compliment I Ever Got
Friend to Me: Boss, If you write... you are a writer...

The Worst I was ever abused
(Different) Friend to Me: Ay bhaire... dikhta nahin hai kya???

Slumdog Thrill-ionaire

We are a divided people… yet again…

And this time it’s a film…. It’s the Slumdog's film

It wasn't very long back when it was so cool to rave and rant about this wonderful (???) little film about this kid from Dharavi who makes it big.

Now, for many, it suddenly is so uber cool to run down the Slumdog film as anything but cool. Those singing hosanna a few weeks ago have now turned up their snot-filled noses and talk about the same film as:

• Yet another instance of the foreign hand's cinematic exploitation of India’s poverty (Not one shot of the skyscrapers or the multiplexes man… what the f@#k... Is Dharavi all we have to show to the world)

• An eighties potboiler all dressed up in Hollywood chique (Imagine if Subhash Ghai had made this… would they take it to the Oscars...haan…) Wait man... this ones easy… it even has Anil Kapoor… only... he would have been playing the role of the teenage millionaire if Subhash Dada had laid his hands on the script first

• One of the masters lesser works (b@nc##t... theek hai yaar music… par saala Dil Se, Roja type nahin hai. Even f#@%ing Delhi 6 has such mind blowing numbers man…. Par saala Hollywood film hai… is liye chal gaya… l@udu saala…)

• A foren film… (What the hell man… Everyone is behaving like its an Indian film yaar…. stupid d!@#heads... It’s a Howlywood film dude… we have nothing to do with it… ch@tiyas)

And where I say is the great Mr. Mutha-lick. I am so waiting for him to open that smelly trap of his. Where is he when we need him. Busy licking his mutha like a nice Mutha-licking cat??

And when are we going to make this an election issue boss... Are they crazy... its election time soon.. get down to dharavi... ban the movie... I cant believe this... have our politicians suddenly discovered a conscience???

Jokes apart... I agree. I do agree to an extent, with all the above (not mutha-lick mind you). They did show poverty and Mumbai does have another swanky side. Maybe an Indian could have made a better film… someone like Anurag Kashyap could have worked wonders with the subject. Rehman does get better with age… this is definitely not his best… his best is yet to come. This IS not an Indian Film.

What I don’t understand is this… it is the same film… nothing changed in the last few months. The book has been out for years… It was written by an Indian... no one complained all this time. So what changed in three months…

• Is it more intellectual (and therefore more swanky) to be snobbish and go against the tide… to be seen as someone with an independent mind and an independent opinion
• Are we living in denial... The film was not about Karan Johar's next door neighbours... It was based on a book about an underdog from the slums... who makes it big... Karan Johar's neighbours could be dogs (owned by a real millionaire) but they definitely not underdogs... no way...
• Is it that we just cannot stomach success by our compatriots
• Is it that we just cant view the film impartially just because it was made in our backyard… and… again… yet again... we missed the bus… we lost the plot… somebody whisked away OUR success story from under our noses AGAIN (like mutha from under Mr. Mutha-licks nose)

As for me... I loved the film.... absolutely loved it. And I haven't seen it yet. Probably wont ever. That's the way it works with me. Either is see it in the first week or my lazy bones just refuse to move by body and take me to the theatre.

I loved the film because I would love anything that acts as a catalyst to bring our countrymen international recognition.

I would love anything that can bring that 1000 wat smile to the face of that little kid from Dharavi who happened to find himself teleported from the grime, the dust and the shit of his everyday life. Teleported straight to a dazzling red carpet that might just fly and take him to his dreams. The dreams that he had dare not dreamt of just a year back.

If the movies are about dreams... dream on slumdog... Life ain't all shit all the time...

CARS CAN PUMP KIN

I had a dream. Oh, I had one of those bigger ones. A big car. One of those big ones that you buy and imagine yourself driving down the road and everyone drops everything and looks at you with their eyes wide and mouth agape.

And...In my dream it actually happened… I drove down the road and everyone looked at me with their eyes wide in astonishment. I could almost read their mind. The eyes were actually wide. The mouths were really agape. A child asked his mother “What is this thing mamma??… Why does it croak? It is a Big Froggy, no??”

“Yes my child” I wanted to tell him “It is a big froggy that uncle…no… sorry... bhaiyya... It’s a biiiiiggggg froggy that bhaiyya’s mechanic dissects every month in his metal laboratory.” Children are sooo cute, no. Can I choke one to death please?

I dreamt that I bought this car for my mechanic. At least, that is what it seemed. The man, in his almost shoulder length Caribbean hairdo, dark glasses, long!! Shorts (are they Bermudas… does any one wear them anymore), floral shirt, rum breath, a$$H@@!# drove my car more than I did. I could almost see his gleeful smile and his hair blowing in the wind as he took the 500th post repair trial. I could see his golden tooth sparkling in the sun (this wasn't true… made it up in my dream… was frustrated… please understand). His father, of curly hair fame, thanked me when I paying him. “Tank You” ha baba, lemme know if any ting happens, Ok.”

These ‘Ting’ happened like shit happens.

I dreamt that I had bought the damn car second hand. Yup. I know you are grinning too. You B!tc#. I was always smart. Born smart. I am a work of art. Just like a whistling fart.

Why pay all that dough for a new car when it depreciates like a D!@k after a fu@K. Might as well buy a good (???) second hand car and save all that money. You idiot… you.

So, in my dream, I went to this friend’s (???????) brother’s wife's uncle’s wife’s brother’s nephew, who happened to be a car dealer. “Mere rishte mein hai yaar… kidhar aur jaega to maamu banega”. Reassured, I went forward with my head in the sky and my feet in my a$$. And as it turned out, my friend WAS right. Barabar bola tha… maamu nahin bana…

Ch@t!ya ban gaya…

This smooooth operator. This grease bag. This fat pumpkin sold me a bigger pumpkin. He made me feel good about pumpkins. “Boss”, he said, “Boss, Yeh pumpkin hai naa… ekdum best hai. Aur pumpkin ka color to dekho, hain. Pumkin kya dikhta hai boss. Kya lagoge aap jab aap pumpkin ke oopar baithoge. Pumpkin mein ek baar bait ke to dekho. Wah! Kya Pumpkin hai sirjee”. In retrospect, all that remained was this small round pumpkin pulling his d!#k out (after finding it somewhere, hidden under multiple layers of meat) and getting off on the bigger “pumpkin”. Well, he did sound as if he was getting an orgasm.

I was his relative’s friend. So he thought he should pump-kin. He must have. That’s what my friend, in the dream, said a few months later when the engine screamed WHORE WHORE one morning. Horny pumpkin… my pumpkin.

And the things that happened to my pumpkin... apart from screaming out for WHORES every couple of months (a mating cry which, by the way, was answered, at lightening speed by the wannabe Caribbean mechanic slut), it found new ways to deprive me of my hard earned money between each WHORE cry. Oil leaks suddenly sprouted and when the mechanic had fixed that with his D!@k, it was time for the pumpkin to land on its ass as the suspensions gave way. Then the Air conditioning thought that that its only objective in life was to warm the cockles of my heart.

I contributed too. I loved my car, so I took it swimming. In the rains, that is. Then I pampered it more by buying it a brand new engine made by (guess who???) a Caribbean.

Now, in my disturbed sleep, I saw that my pumpkin has gone crazy. It has lost its gears. Literally.

And I am finally about to take a post pumpkin meal dump. Anyone who likes pumpkin… please give me a shout. I promise to sell you the most expensive pumpkin shit ever.

Who knows, you might just make it to the record books as the proud and bankrupt owner of the most expensive pumpkin... if you do manage to convert shit back into pumpkin.

Kya lagoge aap jab aap pumpkin ke oopar baith ke jaoge, sirjeeeeeee.