Not just an innocent ping...it's an N-explosion in your schizoid head

In the early nineties, when we still had haircut hangovers from the 80s (you know the fluffy puff styles with handbands to keep the downy strands from your eyes), my friend Jamie lost his fat cat. He had a rather pretty cat. It wasn’t Persian, nor was it Siamese nor a Mongolian descendant of Chengis Khan’s surviving pet farm. The Mongol threw pet elephants from hills for fun. His cats made it alive because they could land on their feet even after a huge fall. Most of them became lame cats.
Anyway, Jamie’s cat wasn’t from this majestic lineage. His cat was your usual suburban Pune feline whose parents prowled my Bavdhan neighbourhood, ruled by society president Shrisvastava. They managed to enter homes of people who kept their windows and ventilators closed.
One April morning Jamie came to me and banged on my door. I thought, as usual, he had come for the newspapers. When I opened the door he looked like he had been semi-electrocuted. "Man, my cat’s vanished. I think that high caste bastard got rid of him because Ginger had been pooing on doormats. What do I do now?" I could not say much. Since I was re-reading Joseph Heller’s Catch 22, I borrowed a line to show my consideration. I put my hand on his shoulders and said, "There, there."
The news of the missing feline zipped across the student-heavy neighbourhood like a present-day bomb hoax. All the guys gathered and we started Operation Soft Ginger. All outstation students, Maharashtrian and non-Maharashtrian, combed the neighbourhood for Ginger. The best thing was that the guys and gals did not have much to do. They were reading, arguing, getting drunk in the afternoon or trying out illegal stuff. It was easy for them to drop their engagements because they were living life -- really. Finding a cat was something that people living a real life did.
We found Ginger lolling around on a mound of sand with a goat for company, three blocks down from the building where me and Jamie lived. It did not strike us that fat Ginger was still too fast for the forever angry red-faced king of the society.
Now, fast forward to circa 2008. Life is not the same. We have a recession and we haven’t the faintest idea why it is happening, though we pretend to know all about it in flimsy conversations during society parties, where women wear shiny stuff on their eyelids and look like pit vipers, and the guys look like ironed hyenas.
Last week, a college student living in our society in Panchvati lost his cat. It was Persian I am told. However, it was never found because nobody combed the area. Probably, the cat may have come home by now. Nobody knows really. A little boy, who I’ll call Pravin (his hand is frozen in the mouse-hold grip, his fingers can only double click and hold forks) told me that he ran a search on eBay and YouTube but the cat wasn’t there. The college student spoke to everyone he knew in the area on Skype, but nobody had seen anything because nobody needed to step out that much anymore. People tried locating the expensive cat with Google Earth, made queries on webchats and left status messages that read ‘looking 4 a Psian ct’.
That incident made me make this entry in my digital diary:
Am online 2 lng dis days. And it is showing in the way I write. I know a few people, some of them my co-workers, who can’t spell on account of web addiction. Chat is turning into a professional hazard because we thrive on knowing spellings a bit better than others.
Internet is like drugs or alcohol. The virulence of addiction varies and there are no real benchmarks. For instance, Irvine Welsh’s character from Trainspotting, Mother Superior, never fell to heroin despite the length of his abuse and the prodigious amounts he consumed. Conversely, the writer F Fitzgerald Scott was an alcoholic though just two glasses of champagne were toxic for him, as his friend Ernest Hemingway found out. I get withdrawal symptoms if I am away from the web for a week. Most folks feel depressed if they are away for even half a day.
One of the most prominent signs of internet addiction is waking up in a huff at night because you heard a ‘ping’ in your head. That happens to me often. I am a bonafide pingaphrenic. It is like schizophrenia because the symptoms of internet addiction have schizoid qualities about it. A person suffering from full blown pingaphrenia feels suspicious that people who don’t reply to his/her friend request within ten minutes have ignored the request. Pingaprenics fail to understand that people are not online 24/7, that the ‘green button’ status is not the revelation that guys like Descartes were looking for. They don’t not know that ‘I am online, therefore I am’ is a fallacy.
(PS: My friend Baroon Mahanta also pointed out to me that we talk only on Gtalk despite living in the same city at a distance of only 10 km max. We haven’t seen each other since college!)

Guru, do yoga, not war!

It just doesn’t end, does it? I am talking about the reaction to 26/11. After politicians, gurus are now advocating measures that are illogical and sensational. The guru in question is Baba Ramdev, that wildly popular yoga maestro. At a camp organised by a Shiv Sainik in Aurangabad, he said what every Hindu fundamentalist would love to hear: "If the government has no funds for the war against Pakistan, I will collect it". I have to admit one thing -- he would do a good job of collecting funds because many affluent people are with him, all struggling to reach the higher plane. However, he didn’t consider one small problem: nuclear weapons. We need to take a deep breath here.
While I am optimistic that good sense will prevail and N-weapons won’t be fired, it takes just one impulsive fit of rage to release an N-missile, and in the sub-continent impulsive natures are dime a dozen. One does not have to be an expert to understand that Pune will be targeted. Especially the areas surrounding ARDE (the armament research lab) Pashan may be nuked. Since I live in Panchvati, if an N-missile lands here, I’ll be one of the first to be vapourised. And that’s not cool by me.
More specifically, the tip of the iceberg in case of war will look like this: Jamnagar refinery, Mumbai, Trombay nuclear station will be subjected to conventional bombings. Bombay High will be obliterated. At least, 20 percent of our air force will be knocked out. All economic, military installations will be breached with Chinese missile technology that Pakistan has. This will be the scene after four days of war. Pakistan, obviously, will be hurt far more severely. The dead, as usual, will be those that had nothing to do with politics, terrorism or religion.
An amputated Pakistan would then consider the final option: nuclear bombs. The UN will make a lame attempt to stop another holocaust, but some missiles will be fired ‘surreptitiously’. Most of them will be brought down mid-air (considering that we have a missile shield), but those that do land will hit, let us say, unimportant targets. Even if that happens, a 15-kiloton bomb (like ‘Little Boy’ that destroyed Hiroshima) can vapourise Kothrud, Paud and Bavdhan. So, if a bomb lands in Mulshi, three generation of babies in Kothrud may end up with radiation provoked cancer. Now, if ten such bombs hit India, you only have to multiply the destruction. And N-bombs are no longer 15 kiloton affairs. The technology is far deadlier today. So, we should expect a 100 kiloton bomb, which means all of Pune district will be coaled. Can we then take heart in the fact that Pakistan too will be wiped out? Can we rewind to the Stone Age? Those that still revel in the 1971 victory must be reminded that wars in 2008 aren’t going to be about my infantry vs your infantry.
While Baba Ramdev makes it clear that he wishes to strike "terror camps only" in Pakistan, his choice of words is inappropriate in my estimation. One needs to exercise care, especially while using the word ‘war’ because he exercises power over a huge body of public opinion. I have no doubt that if India pre-empts a strike, it might not remain just a specific hit. We are likely to be pushed into a war that would leave deep scars. If there is one thing we can learn from psyched-out nations like the US, it is this: there is no such thing as a winnable war anymore.
The problem of terrorism is a complex one. After 9/11, the US did everything to nail Osama bin Laden but they only ended up bombing helpless Afghanis to oblivion. So, are we going to accept a course of action in which some poor villagers have to be bombed to dust again? If you are human, you can’t accept that, simply because it is inhuman. Even in law, the principle is simple: hundred criminals getting away is acceptable, but one innocent getting punished is not.
By waging a war (especially with US as ally), we’ll end up creating a more motivated GenNext of terror, who would be ready to kill before we finish saying ‘yoga’. We have to wipe out terror systematically. It has to be done with a mean intelligence network. We’ll have to sniper-out blood-thirsty ideologues and ensure Muslims in this country are treated with respect and not made to take the patriotism test every time there is an attack. Also, we’ll have cut down the tongues of blood-thirsty Hindu hardliners to size.

Light side
Some post-26/11 observations:
q: What’s on Ground Zero?
a: Nothing but Barkha Dutt with a bad voice
q: What is a breaking story on TV?
a: Either a speculation or something trivial
q: What is the ‘real truth’?
a: Something that brings down TRPs
q: What’s a terrorist on TV called?
a: TRP anchor

Tailpiece
Did you know that yoga has been declared ‘haram’ in Malaysian state of Sarawak? How silly is that? Is aerobics next on the list? I don’t think Muslim fanatics can take leotard wearing fitness instructors.

Mumbai hostage drama: The aftermath in my mind

<< The pic on the left shows a Black Cat commando feeding pegions outside the Taj Hotel after flushing out the terrorists on Satruday. At last count 195 people were killed in the attacks

Like most of the people I know, I was fixed to the telly and the phone most of Thursday. Actually, since around 11.30 pm on Wednesday I was hooked to all sources of information. At 11 am on Thursday, I took my two-year-old daughter to the playschool that is on the fifth floor of a building in Baodhan -- a routine affair since the last six days. The kids there were happy, unaffected and perfect. That’s when it became real to me. The feeling in my system seemed so acute, so foreign and so intense that I understood it was, probably, worse than the nausea existential philosopher Sartre described when he encountered reality for the first time. I could feel my veins drain as Mumbai lost blood. I realised, while watching the kids play, that we are all in it. The hostage crisis, the street-shooting, cop car-jacking and the grenade-dropping did not just happen in Mumbai, 146 kilometres from me and around 3,000 km from my parents’ home in the Northeast. It was happening right inside of me and I could feel the aftershocks.
I have a confession to make. The Mumbai suburban train attack and the deadly serial blasts in Guwahati (in which some people and many stray animals were burnt beyond recognition, resulting in those heads not figuring in the casualties list), were somehow not in the my realm of consciousness. They were to me tragic events -- meaning I could look at them with a certain objectivity. But the hostage drama in south Mumbai, for the first time, made me aware what it means to live in a world where there are fidayeens, fanatics, persecution, politicians, stocks and everything else that is not essential for life.
The part of me which imagines negative stuff, wondered how easy it would be to take over the building that houses my daughter’s playschool. The sad part is, such a thought would have never crossed my mind if the Mumbai attack didn’t happen and all of us were not taken through it live on television. This was the first time we saw the terrible face of terror. The thought, that my kid’s school is an easy target, will now stay with me forever.
Probably, Iraqis felt the same way when they saw American planes bomb their country, when Saddam Hussein was still a proud state-head and CNN beamed the war live. Probably, a young Iraqi father taking his two-year-old daughter to playschool might be thinking today how easily an American plane could bomb his kid’s school to rubble again. What I am trying to say is, options of what reality can be are first created in the mind. And then some of these options turn into actual events. Five-star living in India will never be same again, because a horrific option has now been added. Somewhere in the back of our heads we’ll always feel that all posh hotels are also targets of those that believe killing is a legitimate religious option.
When I was growing up, the meaning of freedom and fresh air was different. Freedom meant being free to live the way I pleased and fresh air meant air that we could breath without being grateful. Now, freedom means being allowed to die a natural death and fresh air means an environment that is not in the crossfire. Carbon monoxide content is just an acceptable element. As long as a stray bullet does not strike you in the chest, the air is good enough to breathe.
Amartya Sen’s The Argumentative Indian, which I read last year, gave me a few insights about religion in general. He writes that the safest country to live in today in South East Asia is, probably, Bangaladesh because it does not have a nuclear bomb. His reasoning is that a country that has a nuclear bomb is also a bigger potential victim of a nuclear attack. That is why religious fanatics are the greatest danger to their religion. If these fidayeens use religion to justify their act, the day is not far when they will end up being the reasons why their religion was destroyed.
What makes me truly angry is that the blood on the hands of the 10 fidayeens from Faridkot or wherever, will now be put on the hands of innocent Muslims by those that look at terrorism simplistically. The perception that extremism is Islamic will be fortified now.
Much has been said and shown about the Mumbai hostage drama, so I would like to end by paying my tributes to those that lost their lives. I would also like to tip my hat to the brave policemen who proved they are not just a bunch of incredulous losers, but real men who get a bad name because of the dirty cowards in their ranks.

Mercy killing is a gift sometimes

While mercy killing is still debated, those that have to live with a terminal illness and the pain that comes along feel euthanasia is a gift, especially when one decides in its favour

I usually do most of my soul-searching in the toilet. It is quiet and cool in there. I mean much more than the usual job when I say I am going to relieve myself. I think it is the ideal place to think about stuff like the rise of the Third Reich, the Cold War, politics of Chanakya and Casanova and other things related to life, death and afterlife.
I remember a part from the film Patch Adams, where 'Dr' Patch argues that making people laugh enhances the quality of life because all of us are dying anyway. Making terminally ill people laugh, therefore, does not go against the grain of doctor-like behaviour. This argument has another side to it: it provides subtle support to those who want a dignified or good death. Incidentally, the word euthanasia is rooted in two Greek words: ‘eu’ means good and ‘thanatos’ means death. When combined, it means ‘good death’. Dr Patch appears to have sympathy with those that want their plugs pulled. All he cares about is a good laugh. I agree with him because a wholesome laugh before kicking the bucket is rare. Mostly we try to cure people who don’t wish to be cured. In Osho’s words, it’s like helping a blindman cross the road without his consent.
Pro-mercy killing views are gaining ground because the modern man is evolving into a being that puts a high premium on practicality, though some might say that’s not the case considering that stuff like lingerie still exists (before you call me shallow, which I am, lingerie is a diaphanous tiny garment whose purpose is to motivate quick undressing. So, from Darwin’s point of view, it is an object whose practicality is suspect). Some say mercy killing rules out the possibility of a miracle. But that does not include rare circumstances where an easy death is the only miracle one seeks. Some say that legalising euthanasia would encourage murderers. Has the death penalty ever discouraged murderers? Since it hasn’t, I don’t think legalising mercy killing would encourage them either.
I remember my granny who had turned into a bag of bones and was forcibly kept alive with pipes and beeping machines. There was no dignity in the way she lived. She once wrote how she wanted to "just die". The day she died, a huge sigh of relief was heard around the house and the neighbourhood. Everyone said "finally she is happy" self-righteously. As I saw it, they had already killed her in their heads. If they were so sure she was "happy" why did they let her suffer for so long? Before her death, they just kept cursing her under their breaths and saying insensitive things like ‘is this living? she should go’. I think she deserved some compassion and respect. They should have had the decency to ask her if she needed any help to go with dignity. I was a kid then but I am sure she would she would have agreed if there was a law that allowed euthanasia.
However, the tide is turning. Just this week, an Australian woman called Shirley Justins was sentenced to 22 months in prison for helping her terminally ill partner, a 71-year-old man, die. She gave him a lethal dose of barbiturates. However, her sentence has an interesting parenthesis: she will have to stay in prison only during weekends. How dumb is that? But anyway, this judgement accepts one thing clearly: Justins is not a killer. She is someone who loves her partner so much that she is willing to help him fulfil his final desire. Her weekend punishment is silly because it is trying to address the ethical concerns of Justins’. While critics may say she took a life, the point is, what constitutes living? Waiting to die in pain isn’t life. Justins is brave because she helped him write the story of his life, and death is a part of such a story.
The story of 13-year-old leukaemia patient Hannah Jones is another case in point. The courst heard her voice and gave her the right to die. She is in pain and did not want yet another surgery (heart transplant in this case) forced on her to prolong her life. Instead, she wishes to spend the six months she has with her family and turn it into quality time. While some may say she is a kid and cannot give consent, the fact is if you are not in her shoes, her pain is an abstraction. We can theorise about it, but cannot feel it. I think instead of treating her to keep her alive in bed, it is better to treat her well and let her be.
I don’t understand how we justify putting an ailing old dog to sleep (who can’t consent), by saying it is in pain and not give the same benefit to a human being who can give consent. To use a diabetic analogy: one man’s sweet is another man’s poison. For those in excruciating and terminal pain, death is their sweet. Let us hear them out first. It is easy to theorise about moral stands when creation is kind to you.

From Mohan's illiterate eyes

They say that a story has three versions: mine, yours and the truth. And that is the reason why what I see is, like a critic would say when in a positive frame of mind, dynamic. There is a memory from my childhood which is vivid even today because it was comical, but philosophically engaging. The incident happened in a tea garden in Assam. Every Friday there were movie shows (I know the purist does not like the word ‘movie’ and prefers cinema, but I am just that - a movie goer). At around four o clock, a giant white bedsheet discarded by the burra sahib’s housekeeper would be stretched from the posts of the volleyball court. And then, at around five, the audience would roll in.
First the children: clothes in tatters, sandals eaten up by dusty roads, teeth by cheap sugar candies, snotty-nosed and screaming, with full-moon size smiles. Fridays were special for them.
Then the women: loud, whiny, sweaty with work and happy in their sad little lives; wearing gaudy clothes, which suit them in an unusual way.
Then the old people file in: 60 degrees at the waist, wizened like a dry leaf and face almost licking the earth. They are so ancient and washed out that you don’t even feel sorry for them.
Then the men troop in: Wearing dead fashion and ridiculous sunglasses, clapping because every second guy is preparing the ubiquitous tobacco-lime mix, hair oiled to ugly perfection.
Finally, the most important lot trudges in: The drunks. Their walk has no logic, their words have no logic, their desires have no logic, their joy and sorrow have no logic. They are, in fact, appropriate material for study by logicians with high taste who hide in library furnitures. But these drunks keep the tea garden going during the day. They are, in effect, the heroes of their situation.
The movies shown at such tea garden screenings did not, as you may have guessed, seek to elevate their lot intellectually. It was just to keep them a little entertained so that exploiting them wasn’t a problem. Also, keeping them at the open air talkies meant less women would get impregnated because labourers had sex when they had nothing else to do (the privilege of the acutely underprivileged).
The movies shown at these keep-them-occupied screenings were, generally, kitsch masala movies where the hero is as upright as a beanstalk, the heroine’s as helpless as a dove flying over smoky skies during the holocaust and the bad guys were bad to the hilt. The villians were black (a smooth injection of racism that the British Raj had given before they left) and so bad that they were comical. I remember one screening that showed an Amitabh Bachchan starrer called Andha Kanoon (Blind Justice) which had Prem Chopra in the role of a soda-glass wearing drunk who loved to rape. When he came on screen and ravaged a family, the drunks in the crowd were extremely agitated. They threw their bottles at the screen with great virulence. The women were crying, the children were wailing and the guys who were not drinking were turned on because they were used to seeing sex portrayed in a violent manner in most Bollywood films of that time. When I look back, I find the behaviour of this open air labourer audience far more interesting than the film itself. What I call the story within the story.
I felt a strangely melancholic gratitude when I saw these miserable underpaid lot dancing to the mobster’s moll’s raunchy song. It was absurd in many ways. Some of the mothers used their sarees to cover their kids’ eyes when the raunchy song came on -- a practical way of exercising censorship. And the struggle of some kids to overcome this censorship was a metaphorical reflection of the war against censorship in general.
Before I sign off, I must recount a small anecdote. This guy called Mohan worked with my father. He was the quintessential tea garden offspring: he never missed the Friday screening. Usually, every evening there were two to three movies screened, with the first too being clean films in general (by the time the first two films got over, the kids were asleep and the women had to go back home). The third film would either be softcore stuff or a ‘meaningful’ film. Needless to say, the softcore stuff gelled well with the drunk crowd. One evening, the third movie was one of those happy low-budget 1980s flicks featuring Deepti Naval, Vivek Baswani and Farooq Shaikh. Next day when Mohan came to work, I asked him about the shows. "The first two shows were fun like anything. But after that it was a documentary that comes before the trailer."
While some of you might not see the point and think of this as the observation of the uneducated mind, I prefer to give much more credit to Mohan. He is a classic victim of social inequities. Most of what we call meaningful cinema is actually watched by those of us who are privileged. They are our intellectual indulgence. For cinema to make a real impact, it has to reach people like Mohan with greater ease. I think he has the intelligence to appreciate good cinema. But he needs a chance.
In any case, this is a my story of that screening. And it is not the complete truth because it cannot be. Like I said initially, every story has three versions: mine, yours and the truth. But I think I have come a little closer to the truth because the ‘third’ world has a lot of Mohans in it.

Spam, bang, no thank you, ma'am!

Friends are people you love, trust, and run rackets with. You also know (and hope) they won’t add to the spam in your life. In flesh and blood, there is some satisfaction in the feelings evoked by joining palms in high fives (from here on referred to as Hi5) with your friends, especially if you are in the West Indies.
However, things have been getting out of hand lately. My inbox is under attack, and my friends don’t know that they are the invaders. I have to find a spam shelter to fight this proxy invasion of email accounts worldwide.
Every afternoon when I step into the matrix, I see at least six emails that proclaim how a friend has invited me to Hi5. Since I am not a West Indian, I don’t dig the idea of people insisting I Hi5 them. Why should I? I haven’t won anything. In fact, I have mostly been losing: memory, youth, female attention, money to tax systems (intricacies of which are akin to Greek) and my patience. There is absolutely no sense in wanting to Hi5 with the markets reeling and an imminent depression. I know I’ll be affected sooner than later though I don’t have a single penny riding on stocks. The point is, there is nothing to Hi5 about. Nobody Hi5ves at a funeral.
Hi5 invites put me in an emotional dilemma because they are so damn enthusiastic. Earlier, I could not bear to be the guy without red blood cells, cold like Count Dracula. So I ended up replying to messages like ‘Hi Santanu! your friend Rahul wants to Hi5 you. Hi Santanu! your friend Sonia wants to Hi5 you. Hi Santanu! your friend Manmohan wants to Hi5 you. Hi Santanu! your friend John wants to Hi5 you and your friend Sarah wants to Hi5 you and your friend Barack wants to Hi5 you’. It would have been politically incorrect not to reply. In my replies, I wrote your usual email, stating: "Don’t you think we should have done that when Abhinav Bindra won the gold, though I have no idea what his sport is all about?" Nobody replied. Apparently, I had sent my reply to a machine, an emotionless entity. The desire to Hi5 actually put me in a weird philosophical position. How do you deal with a machine that writes to you? Does it affirm or negate your being? Basically, the whole 22 yards (since we are a cricketing nation, ‘nine yards’ does not seem the right expression to me) of Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential fundas. Is my desire to reply to emails, though I know they are from a machine, over-riding my actual being? Is my belief, that the machine will somehow understand my problem and refrain from spamming me, an act of bad faith (as I know a machine is a being-in-itself and doesn’t derive its existence from my existence and the agnst that follows due to Hi5 invites blah blah blah......)? Those of you who did not get this, don’t bother. I am sure even Sartre didn’t get Sartre.
Hi5 invites are malignant. They started by eating up kilobytes and megabytes, and are now gobbling up gigabytes. Already, Hillary, Bill, Amar, and Mamata have expressed their desire to Hi5 me. In fact, while writing this, I checked my inbox and saw a Hi5 from Priyanka and Rahul. As I see it, this is a real corny way of using the politics of friendship to do business.
In short, everyone wants to Hi5 me. I am pretty sure everyone wants to Hi5 you too, dear readers. I am also sure I may have Hi5ed a thousand people already -- just that I have no idea I have done it. It is like me insulting myself behind my back, if that makes any sense.
The world, if the reality of the inbox is any indication, is turning into Planet Hi5. So, let us fight the invasion. Imagine a world where everyone is happy and Hi5ving... wouldn’t it kill the germ that makes life meaningful? Let us start a campaign to simplify things. Let us call it the ‘Hi5 minus 5’ campaign. It’ll simply mean saying an actual ‘hi’ and moving on with our lives. In any case, why the hell would all of the world want to turn into West Indies? We need some namaskars, a few Nazi and RSS salutes, some oriental bows, a few Latin gesticulations and Qaeda aadabs to keep the ‘I am Ok, You are Ok’ machine going.
All I am saying is, don’t dump Hi5 invites in my inbox. It is a sacred place, not a garbage can. I get holy stuff like credit card bills and sexually explicit forwards on it. So, hi and bye for now.

weTUBE

Goldsworthy talks.....and Nature shows him how fickle she can be
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TWBSMc47bw&feature=related

Goldsworthy collaborates with Nature
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dq1Sw35mYzc&feature=related

One my favourite artists, Andy Goldsworthy, at work
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TWBSMc47bw

Koreans and funky? Yes it is true!. See this young Korean girl hitting it real crunchy
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cqW-WU5Usk

An old and cool version of Volare made famous by Gypsy Kings
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-DVi0ugelc

Nice pedal steel guitar playing by Robert Randolph
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kABK_CDZal8

D-d-daddy cool: Why lying is important

An elderly man in Pune calls his son in New York and says, "I hate to ruin your day son, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are getting a divorce; 35 years of marriage... and that much misery is enough!"
"Dad, what are you talking about?" the son screams.
"We can't stand the sight of each other any longer," the old man says.
"We’re sick of each other, and I'm sick of talking about this, so you call your sister in Hong Kong and tell her!"
Frantic, the son calls his sister, who explodes on the phone.
"Like heck they’re getting divorced," she shouts, "I’ll take care of this."
She calls Pune immediately, and screams at the old man, "You are not getting divorced. Don’t do a single thing until I get there. I’m calling my brother back, and we’ll both be there tomorrow. Until then, don’t do a thing, DO YOU HEAR?" and she hangs up.
The old man hangs up his phone and turns to his wife. "Okay", he says, "It's all set. They’re both coming for Diwali and paying their own airfare!"

Point...and a real good counterpoint

A friend sent me this forward to show why we shouldn’t cry foul about petrol becoming so expensive. It has good logic. This is what it says:

I filled up my car's fuel tank, and I thought fuel has become really expensive after the recent price hike. But then I compared it with other common liquids and did some quick calculations, and I felt a little better.To know why, see the results below – you'll be surprised at how outrageous some other prices are:

• Diesel (regular) in Mumbai: Rs.36.08 per litre
• Petrol (speed) in Mumbai: Rs.52 per litre
• Coca Cola 330 ml can : Rs.20 = Rs.61 per litre
• Dettol antiseptic 100 ml Rs.20 = Rs.200 per litre
• Radiator coolant 500 ml Rs.160 = Rs.320 per litre
• Pantene conditioner 400 ml Rs.165 = Rs.413 per litre
• Medicinal mouthwash like Listerine 100 ml Rs.45 = Rs. 450 per litre
• Red Bull 150 ml can : Rs.75 = Rs.500 per litre
• Corex cough syrup 100 ml Rs.57 = Rs. 570 per litre
• Kores whiteout 15 ml Rs. 15 = Rs. 1000 per litre
• Cup of coffee at any decent business hotel 100 ml Rs. 50 = Rs. 500 per litre
• Old Spice after shave lotion 100 ml Rs. 175 = Rs. 1750 per litre
• Pure almond oil 25 ml Rs. 68 = Rs. 2720 per litre
• And this is the REAL KICKER... HP deskjet colour ink cartridge 21 ml Rs.1900 = Rs. 90476 per litre.Now you know why computer printers are so cheap? So, they have you hooked for the ink!
  So, the next time you're at the pump, don't curse our honorable Petroleum minister – just be glad your car doesn't run on cough syrup, after shave, coffee, or God forbid, printer ink !
  
  BUT THEN....
  However, there is another side to the story. A litre of Listerine lasts a month, at least. If you drink a litre of Corex at one go, you might die of codeine poisoning. One litre of Old Spice can make the whole army smell good. Who uses a litre of almond oil anyway? A litre of Pantene shampoo ....well, that’s a bottomless shampoo pit. One ink cartridge can colour a whole wall. If you drink a litre of Red Bull, you might make it to outer space. A litre of Dettol can treat at least one injured army unit in Saichen. With a litre of Kores whiteout, you can make the whole history of the Holocaust or Jalianwala Bagh disappear. One litre of Coca Cola can easily get you through one rum binging session. And a litre of radiator coolant could keep Myanmar’s Junta cool.
  Which simply means: Oil companies/ OPEC/ US and the govt must stop screwing us. And that it does not take away from the fact that petrol/ diesel is expensive and with a litre of either you can’t even go to the movies and come back without refilling your tank. In short, fuel is too damn expensive.

About Pune, in a little bit of meter

There are three ways to look at life in Pune.
One through the eye of the Mumbaikar:
‘It’s dead, it is as rural as hell,
just an extension of our great metro,
where people retire and live retro,
but we do like the trees with unpolluted
leaves, wish we could buy a flat here,
in a safe housing colony and remember to live.’
But who would tell the train-tired Mumbai man,
that a few more like him and we’d have no place
to live, scream, fight and die. And that’s already
happening - at 80 kmph on the Expressway.
The other way is via the eye of the visitor.
They complain and complain,
they say the food is bad, the roads are gone,
rents are high and there’s nothing called money’s worth,
and that the city is average, plagued by sloth,
peopled by people with no real class or taste.
And they do all the complaining while they
walk on cool bylanes of the University or when
they stand in civil queues at our multiplexes.
After the walk or the movie, they have more to complain,
but they keep it for another walk, another film, another day.
The last way is the way of the ‘natural’: people
who drag their lives here and grow roots like
old trees on pathways up Pune deciduous hills.
Or people like me, who escaped to find newer dreams
and brand new failures and willing women.
When these folks (like me) go home to the home they came
from, they feel like orphans without love or music,
and long to return to the city that’s
as rural as hell for the Mumbaikar
and a box of complaint for the visitor.

(Photo of 'rain couple' taken by my colleague Sanjeev Naik)

'Veli, veli big dearl'

My conversation with a Thai boatman on bombs. And something more...

‘Hav veli big bomb in India , fliend?’ the boatman on the Cho Phraya that runs through Bangkok asks me. I don’t know what to say, so I say ‘yes’. ‘Many people dead in train, no?’ (he is referring to the serial train blasts in Mumbai or 11/7) the betel-chewing alcohol-dripping boatman asks me again, this time with a graver expression. My fuse blows quietly and I shoot back, with enough pauses between my words to ensure he understands. ‘There is a bomb. Many bombs, actually. Some bigger than the rest. Mallika Sherawat very big bomb. But I am not very familiar with terrorism. You people have bombs in Pat Pong, no? Pretty cheap too.’ I don’t know if he gets my joke, but he says Pat Pong has only legal sex business.
I was on a fast boat. One of those junky looking long things that cuts through the water next only to a Thai police motorboat. I also ensured my beer packs were not idle during the joyride. But I could not help thinking if our face as a ‘terrorist’ nation had penetrated down to the riverbed of Thailand’s economic strata, what were people of more organised nations were thinking – for whom a terrorist simply meant brown skin or a man with a skull cap and a beard. My beard and long hair weren’t helping even in this Asian nation that is charmingly placed between eastern values, western dreams and a Muslim south.
Unfortunately, Thailand has its share of terrorism. The checks at airports are far more intrusive than they used to be, say, five years back. The troubled south has enough Islamists to generate hatred against Muslims in general. However, being a nation that is Buddhist in character, they have tried unique methods to help ultras overcome the violence within them. One that I remember was airdropping thousands of paper doves on the restive zone, but it did not work. It probably only elicited some laughter from the firebrand ambassadors.
Hong Kong is more paranoid now. I remember them celebrating ten years as a special administrative region of China by lighting up its skyline with fireworks. Since the place is riddled with skyscrapers, some housing very important corporations that Osama may eye, they are constantly on guard.
I hiked Lamma Island, a stray piece of land on the South China Sea administrated by Hong Kong. It is a pretty little place for a trek of the urban variety because the administration just cannot leave anything untouched. They have little concrete pathways, garbage bins, which is admirable, and signs so that you won’t get lost. And the walk ends on the beach. Since it was a long hike, steep at certain turns, I ended it with a swim in the sea. But that’s another story.
When I got back from Lamma and hit the shore at Harbour City of ‘mainland’ Hong Kong and saw this skyscraper which looked like a spacecraft in the cloudy sky, I could not help but take some pictures. Just when I was done, a policeman and a policewoman stopped me and asked me for identification. With them there was a plainclothes cop who looked like a tourist with his sling bag and awestruck expression. They check everything that I was carrying, including the bottle of Jack Daniel’s in my bag. They wanted to know how long I would be staying, to which I said "not very long now". They jotted down my passport number. They were also polite because they didn’t find any attack maps, letters from Osama and liquid explosives in aerosol cans. I wanted to tell them that the bottle of Jack Daniel’s was pretty explosive.
After the frisking, as I walked towards the car park I wondered why, out of all the people on the promenade, I was singled out. Was it the beard, the hair and the brown skin? I’ll never know, but I understood how easy it was to become a victim of perception. Probably, it was just a random check – but when it happens to you, you wonder what set off the cops’ suspicion.
With the boys from Bangalore giving a suave Indian face to terrorism, perception will surely play a greater role in who gets frisked. And I have to consider silly questions like should I shave before going abroad.
Coincidentally, I read a bit of Amartya Sen’s book Identity and Violence and saw our circumstance a little more clearly. The ‘solitarist’ approach to identity contributes to violence. As he writes, ‘…a major source of potential conflict in the contemporary world is the presumption that people can be uniquely categorised based on religion or culture’.
The world is not that way anymore. I am not just a Hindu. I am also a journalist, a fan of Steely Dan and Miles Davis’ music, an English-speaking Indian, a lover of Pune’s hills and so on. I would hate it if a saffron group tried to tell me I was just a Hindu. I hate pigeonholes.
Finally, all you hardcore clerics and the like, please stop giving us real, usual people a bad name. We love our ice-cream and want to stay that way.

Proverbs, done the wiser way

A first grade teacher collected well known proverbs. She gave each child in her class the first half of a proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. Their insight will surprise you:

1. Better to be safe than....................Punch a 5th grader
2. Strike while the .........................Bug is close
3. It's always darkest before............... Daylight Savings Time
4. Never underestimate the power of..........Termites
5. You can lead a horse to water but........how?
6. Don't bite the hand that................. looks dirty
7. No news is................................impossible
8. A miss is as good as a...................Mr.
9. You can't teach an old dog new............math
10. If you lie down with dogs, you'll.........stink in the morning
11. Love all, trust..........................me
12. The pen is mightier than the..............pigs
13. An idle mind is..........................The best way to relax
14. Where there's smoke there's...............pollution
15. Happy the bride who.......................gets all the presents
16. A penny saved is..........................not much
17. Two's company, three's....................the Musketeers
18. Don't put off till tomorrow what..........you put on to go to bed
19. Laugh and the whole world laughs with you, cry and.......you have to blow your nose
20. Children should be seen and not...........spanked or grounded
21. If at first you don't succeed.............get new batteries
22. You get out of something what you.........see pictured on the box
23. When the blind leadeth the blind..........get out of the way

And the favorites:
24. Better late than.........................pregnant.
25. None are so blind as......................Stevie Wonder

Microerotichaha!

Once upon a time, not sure how long ago, two bacteria were having sex. It was a wild romp. The female bacterium could not stop screaming 'yeah, yeah' and told the micro-organism hunk that she loved his macro-organ. The fella was turned on by the remark - after all very few guys can resist the ego-massage that comes with a 'your dong is so long' compliment. Eventually, they got micro-orgasms!

Once upon a time, just last week actually, a group of liberal virus were having sex. It was in the nano tabloids the next day. The headline blared: VIRUS HAVE MICRO-ORGY SANS PROTECTION

And the virologist who watched the micro-orgy with his electron microscope was turned on.

Words of hilarious wisdom

Here is the Washington Post’s Mensa Invitational, which once againasked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it byadding, subtracting, or changing one letter and supply a newdefinition.
The winners are:
1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying (or building) a house, whichrenders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period oftime.
2. Ignoranus : A person who's both stupid and an asshole.
3 Intaxication : Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts untilyou realize that it was your money to start with.
4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.
5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stopsbright ideas from penetrating. The bozone layer, unfortunately, showslittle sign of breaking down in the near future.
6. Foreploy : Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purposeof getting laid.
7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.
8. Sarchasm : The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and theperson who doesn't get it.
9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.
10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease.
12. Karmageddon: It’s when everybody is sending off all thesereally bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes and it's a seriousbummer.
13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the dayconsuming only things that are good for you.
14. Glibido: All talk and no action.
15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarterwhen they come at you rapidly.
16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just afteryou've accidentally walkedthrough a spider web.
17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets intoyour bedroom at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.
18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a wormin the fruit you're eating.

The Washington Post has also published the winning submissions to itsyearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternatemeanings for common words.
And the winners are:
1. Coffee, n. The person upon whom one coughs.
2. Flabbergasted , adj. Appalled by discovering how much weight onehas gained.
3. Abdicate, v. To give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.
4. Esplanade , v To attempt an explanation while drunk.
5. Willy-Nilly, adj. Impotent.
6. Negligent , adj. Absentmindedly answering the door when wearingonly a nightgown.
7. Lymph, v. To walk with a lisp.
8. Gargoyle , n. Olive-flavored mouthwash.
9. Flatulence , n Emergency vehicle that picks up someone who hasbeen run over by a steamroller.
10. Balderdash , n. A rapidly receding hairline.
11. Testicle, n. A humorous question on an exam.
12. Rectitude , n. The formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.
13. Pokemon, n. A Rastafarian proctologist.
14. Oyster , n. A person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.
15. Frisbeetarianism, n. The belief that, after death, the soulflies up onto the roof andgets stuck there.
16. Circumvent , n. An opening in the front of boxer shorts worn byJewish men.(PS: If any reader has an interesting word, please share it here on my blog. Obrigado!)

a matter of the mind

It was a long New Year’s eve night. Sara had lost her mind. Till a little while back she had been looking for it, but couldn’t find it. It was hard because the whole place was crowded, sticky with spilt alcohol mixed with cola and food that drunk people kept dropping.

When she was about to look inside the oven, someone shouted out: In ten minutes the countdown will start. Everyone put on your hats, please.

Sara had to hurry. So she put on her paper-cone hat and looked in the corners of the oven, just in case somebody left her mind there. But it wasn’t there.

One Army officer with a tall glass of pink drink that had a small umbrella on it came to Sara and said, “I am drinking a woman’s drink. I am for equality. All the other women are drinking rum-cola…that is why. What are you looking for anyway?” Mind-less, Sara had to try real hard to understand the officer. He was slurring a bit and his words came out with a respectable sounding lisp. “I have lost my mind, isn’t it obvious? Nobody looks in the oven for keys or a Ferrari,” she shot back, irritated in a cute sort of way. She was a fairly pretty girl, especially when she smiled and her canines showed. The officer fancied her so he considered some jokes he wanted to make to draw her out. They were:

1. You are looking for your mind? Women have a mind?

But he did not crack this one because he was a sexist and did not want to sound like one. Not on New Year’s eve. He wanted Sara to think highly of him.

2. Just wait for the New Year. After that you’ll find a brand new mind.

He didn’t make this joke because it sounded too corny. Especially on New Year’s eve. The ‘brand new’ angle was too beaten down.

3. Try the washing machine. If it’s on you’ll have a clean mind

He didn’t make this one either, though he seriously considered it. It sounded a little too frivolous because Sara had not lost a diamond. She had lost her MIND – the thing that makes diamonds a girl’s best friend.

4. What did your mind look like? Was it medium built and dark? In that case, I saw one in the nun’s pocket. Might be yours.

He almost made this joke, but just managed to restrain himself. It had a religious twist to it. Sara was a good Christian and might have not liked the church being dragged into a matter as small as a lost mind.

5. Why bother? You can always take some of mine.

Though it sounded playful and generous, he crossed out this joke as well because he wasn’t sure if he would have any mind to give if she agreed to take some. Hardly anything was left of his mind since he got a divorce during the monsoon. He had been getting by with half a mind since then.

6. Why don’t you dance with me? Seeing us moving to the beat, I am sure your mind will join us.

This joke, even before he could consider it left him and was out in the open before Sara. She smiled when she heard it. It wasn’t really funny but it was the kind that worked even on people who didn’t have a mind. Sara quit searching and said, “What the hell, you might be right. I don’t want a mind now. I want to dance. Thanks”

And, as they hit the dance floor, the countdown began and the old year turned into a new one.

Since I haven’t heard from Sara yet, I am not sure if she has found her mind. I’ll write her an email today and advise her to look under the carpet. That’s where most things are these days.

Blood Santa: Story about the Midget Thief

Here's a story I heard from a friend who had studied at an orphanage school. He told me the story after we chanced upon a man being thrashed after his unsuccessful attempt to flee a cheap restaurant without footing the bill on Christmas eve. My friend called the story ‘The midget thief’.

“DENIAL IS NOT JUST A RIVER IN EGYPT,” Ryan screamed at the thief they had caught in the doorway leading to the study hall. He was a plump man, about 45-years-old and barely three-and-a-half feet tall. Through his clattering teeth, the thief muttered, “I was only following orders. The storekeeper wanted me to drop some stockings in the study room for the younger kids,” he told Ryan, the monitor of the dormitory and the senior most among the senior boys. He was so senior that sometimes Brother Joseph would share a glass of wine with him. After they were a little loosened up, dramatic Ryan would switch into an extra friendly mood and call Brother Joseph Narmu, what his mother called him.

Ryan was in no mood to listen. “At this unearthly hour, when the winds are a-blowing, you dare to give us such rotten crap,” he told the midget thief. But the midget whined back weakly and said Jesus would punish Ryan for not allowing him to do Santa Claus’ job. Ryan became serious and looked as if he had suddenly started believing the midget thief.
“So, Santa is not coming to the dorm this year,” Ryan asked the midget.
“No he isn’t. He can’t. I don’t know why,” the midget replied, feeling a bit hopeful that he was being understood.
“And Santa did he get my request for a camera?” Ryan asked the Midget.
“Emm… Santa’s not giving expensive gifts this year,” the midget replied.
“Is it because we are a third world country,” Ryan asked the midget.
“I don’t know. That may be the case,” the midget said a little suspiciously, wondering which way Ryan was going.
“GOTCHA! LIAR. I WAS ONLY FIBBING WITH YOU. TERRIBLE LIAR, WE’RE NO BUYERS,” Ryan screamed and danced around the midget thief like he had loosened up already. The dancing roused up the other senior boys in the dorm who had relaxed and were cracking their knuckles, after they realised Ryan, thankfully, didn’t believe in Santa.

That’s when the beating started. The senior boys went about the process clinically. Some had worn their boots for the purpose. They surrounded the midget thief.

After about fifteen minutes of pushing, punching and kicking, some second and third standard boys half-sleeping in the nearby dorm made for the corridor hearing the commotion. They were the littlest ones and most of them had not slept hoping to get a glimpse of Santa. “Is that Santa,” a little fellow in a yellow sweater asked the sweaty, surprised seniors. The question drew a barrage of laughter from Ryan. “Yeah, little kiddies Santa is here and his reindeers are parked outside,” he told the kids. The kids suddenly brightened up and started screaming, “WE WANT TO SEE SANTA, WE WANT TO SEE HIM.”

For a moment, Ryan and the other seniors felt a pang of guilt. They had no choice but to move away. But before they displayed ‘Santa’, one of the senior boys pulled a cheap Santa cap that was hanging on the door over the midget’s head.

“That’s really Santa. It is him,” the kids cooed when they saw the sad midget with a Santa cap. Blood from his forehead had turned his jacket red. When the midget saw the kids, he could not help but smile at them. One of the seniors wiped the midget’s face and told the kids, “He fell off the sledge and hurt his head.” The kids immediately ran to the first aid box and helped Santa’s forehead to some iodine.

By then Brother Joseph had appeared in the dorm. He had come to slip in the gift stockings at the junior class dorm. Ryan explained what had happened while the kids dressed the midget.

And Brother Joseph rescued the situation. He called the midget to his room next to the senior dorm and told him to distribute the gifts to the little fellows “to make the poor devils happy”.

The kids had their first interaction with Santa that night.

That was a great Christmas, my friend told me. “They really thought the midget thief was Santa. They were happy like kids can be,” he said.

After the kids left, nobody was in the mood to beat Santa anymore. Brother Joseph told the midget to leave, as the boys dispersed. Still wearing the Santa cap, the midget left in a bicycle. From a distance, he did look like Santa Claus.

Kiddie wisdom: Marry-go-round

This is an e-mail forward I got. It’s written by kids. It’s hilarious. Kids know why birds and bees love peaPODS (haven't the slightest idea what that means). Anyway, enjoy

How do you decide who to marry?
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the chips and dip coming. Alan, age 10
----
No person really decides before they grow up who they’re going to marry. God decides it all way before, and you get to find out later who you're stuck with. Kristen, age 10

What's the right age to get married?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by then. Camille, age 10
----
No age is good to get married at. You got to be a fool to get married. Freddie, age 6 (very wise for his age)

How can a stranger tell if two people are married?
You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the same kids. Derrick, age 8

What do you think your mum and dad have in common?
Both don’t want any more kids. Lori, age 8

What do most people do on a date?
Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough. Lynnette, age 8 (isn’t she a treasure)
----
On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that usually gets them interested enough to go for a second date. Martin, age 10 (Who said boys do not have brains)

What would you do on a first date that was turning sour?
I’d run home and play dead. The next day I would call all the newspapers and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns. Craig, age 9 (nice plan)

When is it okay to kiss someone?
When they're rich. Pam, age 7 (well said, very well said)
----
The law says you have to be eighteen, so I wouldn't want to mess with that. Curt, age 7 (Good boy)
----
The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them and have kids with them. It's the right thing to do. Howard, age 8 (What about some fun?)

Is it better to be single or married?
I don’t know which is better, but I'll tell you one thing. I’m never going to have sex with my wife. I don’t want to be all grossed out. Theodore, age 8 (Horny > grossed out, my dear)
----
It’s better for girls to be single but not for boys. Boys need someone to clean up after them. Anita, age 9 (Bless you child)

How would the world be different if people didn't get married?
There sure would be a lot of kids to explain, wouldn't there? Kelvin, age 8

And the #1 favourite is: How would make a marriage work?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a truck. Ricky, age 10 (You are the real Yoda)

Electrifying Cinema - II

1. You must have seen that our hero Rajni has his unique style for everything. Here is how he starts his motorcycle -
Rajni, the police officer, is sitting on his motorcycle under a coconut tree, when he sees a couple of villians escaping in a car. He holds the clutch, shifts the gear, then takes his gun and fires upwards at a coconut. The coconut falls on the starter., Rajni releases the clutch. and away he goes chasing the villians.

2. Our Mithun is a military officer. He enters a jail cell wearing a cap. Then in the cell he sees here and there and suddenly puts his finger in a wall. His finger works as a drill machine and makes a hole in the wall. Wow!!! He then takes a pen out of his pocket puts it in the hole. Then he takes off his Cap and hangs it on the Pen.Style mein rehne ka

3. Our hero Jackie is saving a baby from a fire. He’s running through blazing flames with the baby in his arms. His trousers catch fire but he’s unable to douse out the flames as this would endanger the baby’s life. Just then the baby pees and douses out the flames and Jackie is saved.

4. Mithunda is involved in a fight scene with a tall villain. The villian is at least half a foot taller than Mithunda. But surprise of surprises...Mithunda leaps in the air and hammers this guy on the head. The next scene - This guy has turned into a dwarf and starts doing cartwheels.

5. Clerk - Our freedom fighter veteran Pran suffers a heart attack. His son Manoj Kumar is a poor clerk and has no money to buy his father medicines. However he goes to the market and comes back with a magic potion. Guess what it is? It’s a set of batteries!! He promptly puts it into the radio, Vande Matram starts playing and about to die Pran is on his feet in a jiffy doing the march past. Whew!

- Pankaj Chodhury

Electrifying Cinema - I

Recently I recieved two forwards on my mails. The mails were dedicated to the biggest entertainers in Indian cinema - Mithunda and Rajnikant. Pity they dont make films like this anymore.

Recently the father of physics made a visit to earth to watch a movie. He watched a few Indian movies and had his head spinning. He was convinced that all his logics and laws in physics were just a huge pile of junk and apologised for everything he had done. In the movie of Mithun Chakravarthy Newton dada was confused to an extent that he went paranoid.
Here are a few scenes:

1) Mithunda has a Brain Tumor which, according to the doctors can't be cured and his death is imminent. In one of the fights, Our great Mithunda is shot in the head. To everybody's surprise, the bullet passes through his ears taking away the tumor along with it and he is cured. Long Live Mithunda

2) Mithunda has a Gun but unfortunately only one bullet. Guess, what he does....... holds a knife in his hand and shoots the bullet towards the knife. The knife cuts the bullet into 2 pieces and kills both the gangsters. Then, Mithunda utters the following dialogue "Apun ka naam hai HIRA, Apun ne sabko Chiraa".

3) Mithunda is chased by a gangster. Mithunda has a revolver but he got no bullets in it. Guess, what he does. Nah not even in your remotest imaginations. He waits for the gangster to shoot. As soon as the gangster shoots, Mithunda opens the bullet compartment of his revolver and catches the bullet. Then, he closes the bullet compartment and fires his gun. Bang... And the gangster dies....

4) The heroine is tied to an electric chair and the remote is in the hands of the villain about 100 km away. As usual, the villain confronts the hero saying "Hathiyar phek do warna main yeh remote ka button dabake tumhari mehbooba ko mar doonga". The usual fight occurs and just as the heromakes the final blow, the villain dies but not before he presses than damn button. Now what to do? Sure enough, there is a horse and the hero jumps on it. Now there is a race:
The current in the cable connected to the electric chair is moving fast but our hero and his horse are desparately trying tocatch up.... goes on for a few km and just as the current would hit the chair, the hero jumps from the horse and picks the girl away from the chain and husssshhhh.She is saved. The poor electric current only goes to an empty chair. Climax, taaalian. Hero! Hero!! Hero!!!

This was too much for our Newton to take and he was completely pissed and he wanted to go hell and never to heaven again. But he happened to see a Rajnikanth movie for one last time and thought that atleast one movie will follow his theory of physics.
The whole movies goes fine and newton is happy that all in the world hasnt changed. Oops not so fast. The climax finally arrives. Rajni gets to know that the villian is on the the other side of a very high wall. So high that Rajni can't jump even if he tries like one of those superman techniques that our heroes normally use. Rajni has to desparalety kill the villian because its the climax (newton dada is smiling since it is virtually impossible)...Rajni suddenly pulls two guns from his pocket (Probably a backup). He throws one gun in the air and when the gun has reached the height of the wall , he shoots at the trigger of the first gun in air, with his second gun. Now the first gun fires off and the villian is dead. !!!!!! Newton is gonna repent all his life in hell !!!!!!

- Pankaj Chowdhury

Dissection: What makes a poor joke (PJ)?

While wondering about ‘poor jokes’, I looked up the dictionary because I had nothing to do. Against ‘joke’ I found the following words: witticism, sally, pun, gag, banter, wisecrack. And against ‘poor’ (keeping the context in mind), I found these words: spiritless, miserable, mean, low, disgraceful, despicable, pathetic. And using these words, I created:

Despicable Witticism
Pathetic Pun
Spiritless Sally
Low Gag

You have countless other options, but let us leave it for now. As I discovered, and as you may have noticed, when you put the initial letters of ‘poor’ and ‘joke’ or their variants together they take on a new power. For instance, besides PJ, I have DW, PP, SS and LG. The last variant would make an electronic appliance company very unhappy. As for SS or Spiritless Sally, I used to know a girl like that. She was not promiscuous because she could not be.

After giving scant thought to the matter, I have realised that PJs are creations of a state of mind that is in the infinite plane of ‘coolness’. To use the word that Will Smith gave the world, when you are really getting ‘jiggy’ with it you are able to create PJs. As Smith pointed out, ‘jiggy’ is an ultimate condition of cool, something like speed of light – not achievable. It is possible only in theory. To bring you back to the point, PJ is the state when you create a joke that transcends the character of a joke and becomes so rich that it elicits laughter only when you look for the laugh in it. And you have to look hard, sometimes for days.

Take the case of one of the most easily recognisable PJs: Two sardarjis playing chess.

At first sight it is not funny at all. In fact, it sounds downright despicable. So, along comes someone who isn’t jiggy enough and adds: “And two other sardarjis who are watching ask, ‘Can we play doubles?’”

The sequel makes many laugh. However, the PJ quality is gone because it degenerates into a real joke. It becomes too easy to laugh at. Like an obese woman falling on a rack of eggs. Not like a fat elephant blowing bubbles under water.

As I understand, PJs must not make you laugh. It must make you winch with a helpless irritation that makes you want to say, “Come on. That is stupid!” In truth, a real PJ must be so stupid that using the word ‘stupid’ to define it must fall short by a thousand miles. It must draw out words like ‘dumb’, ‘square’, ‘retard’ and still make the listener angry that s/he is unable to decide or express as to how stupid the PJ really is.

Sacha Baron Cohen, the Ukranian comedian, dished out a cool PJ to the press and nobody laughed. In fact, some of the scribes wondered if he was fit to be a comedian. Sacha told the know-it-all press that he had a funny joke for them and said: “You know that chair which walks. All four legs.” And then gestured how that would look with his fingers. But nobody laughed. So he added, “Guess you already heard that one.”

Keeping these factors in mind I have tried to make my own contribution to the world of PJs or LGs. If you laugh, you are as jiggy as I am. If you feel my creations are pathetic and deserve to be flung to northern Timbuktu, I would consider myself successful. It is a win-win situation for me.

Q: What did the dumb guy tell the elephant?
A: Nothing.
Q: What did the giraffe tell the dumb guy?
A: Only the giraffe, the dumb guy and the safari guide know.
Q: What did the ant tell the bacteria?
A: You are so tiny.

I have one joke on Nithari serial killings too. But it is thoughtless.