Dear foreigner, here is a guide to India

This post is not intended to hurt the sentiments of my fellow brothers but to outline the ignorance and stupidity of the "Videsi Tourists"

I've opted for the question & answer format. Here goes…

Guide those that don't know.

I will be traveling to India next week. Is it safe?

- Albert Sutherland, London

Dear Albert, India isn`t safe. We have 2000+ languages and 10+ top religions which result in a lot of misunderstanding & confusion. I wouldn`t advice you to take this extreme step right away. I would suggest, you participate in the British version of ‘Fear Factor‘, win it and then try a visit to India. Sometimes we even torture the moderator who comes in to solve our problems. Heard what happened to the UN Envoy who came in to solve India`s problems with Pakistan? Our President gifted him a starkly pungent lemon pickle, and he is now suffering it daily in Berlin. Three times a day.

After getting down at the airport what do I do?

– Margery Blair, California

Dear Margery, While getting down from the plane, feel the earth under you before keeping your foot down. Thanks to India`s enemies all over the World – Pakistan, Afghanistan, US, Sri Lanka, Russia, Osama Land etc – every step in India is a landmine. We haven`t invested in mine removers because our Government`s population control programs are anyway doing badly.

Once you get down and escape the landmines head straight for the baggage pick up area. An airlines executive who is already hand in glove with the auto rickshaw drivers & the hotels will guide you to what is best for you.

Are auto rickshaws in India safe for human beings to travel?

- Ronald Brown, New York

Dear Ronald, auto Rickshaws aren`t safe for human beings. Their drivers are always on the look out for pale skins (if you guys can call us dark skinned?!). The Indian Government has tried to curb their menace many a times but they always escape convincing the court that they are in the business of taking people for a ride. Here is a tip I can give you: Look out for a religious autorickshaw driver, because they are less likely to cheat. You can identify religious autorickshaw driver by the red (or yellow or orange depending on the sub caste he belongs to) tikka on his forehead, at least 2-3 Tulsi necklaces etc.

If I am in India for a week, where can I stay?

- Adele Becker, Berlin

Dear Adele, staying under the bridge is definitely not a good idea though you will see 10% of India living there. Staying with an Indian friend would be the best idea. Unlike many other countries where a guest needs to call up and arrive and also mention the time by when he/she will leave…in India, guests are God. Remember, this doesn`t mean that you will get to smoke and drink inside the house….especially, in front of the women. If you plan to stay for the night, you might end up sleeping with a newly married couple, two grand parents and three grand children…in a single room. It doesn`t always happen but generally by 3 a.m. the room starts smelling of Dal Makhni (pulses!).

How do I find an address in India?

- Allen Solly, Switzerland

If you have the luxury of hiring a driver, that would be the best way. But if you don`t have that luxury, the best way to find an address in India would be to get it written down on a piece of paper in Hindi or the regional language of the area (one of the 2000+ languages that`s spoken in the country) before setting out. The right people to ask for directions would be people sitting under trees, people having chai at the tea stall, people smoking at the bus stop or people just standing opposite Girls high schools & colleges. The instructions are always ‘go straight and turn right` because we Indians always believe in what is right. I would recommend confirming the directions given by Person 1 by asking a Person 2, for sometimes…we Indians consider every foreigner to be British and thus try to punish him/her for their atrocities on us for 400 years by sending them in the opposite direction.

Does India have electricity?

– Pappe Singh, Canada

Dear Pappe…no, we don`t have electricity. All those stories of India`s Information Technology Enabled Services sector worth 40 billion annually is hog wash. Our computers run on Gobar gas. The electricity is retrieved from the dung of millions of cows, and transferred to a central repository in a city called Patna (in Bihar) via thin wires attached to the rear end of every cow. If you have already visited India and didn`t spot these wires, let me assure you that these are invisible to the untrained eye. As for our bulbs & fans, we run them on what is known as Man gas, which is extracted using the same technology but the wires are fixed to the rear end of 40+ Indian men bred daily on pulses. I am surprised your parents & grand parents didn`t tell you about the bad India they left behind while escaping on horse back.

Does India have mobile phones?

- Anthony Clark, Australia

Dear Anthony…no, we don`t have mobile phones. In fact, the last phone that was photographed in India was brought in by George Bush as a gift for our Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh. But since we don`t have telecom operators, Dr Singh uses it like a watch. We all carry small drums wherever we go and convey our messages by drumming. We have codes for every possible scenario….for example, 186 loud hits on the drum mean the person drumming is in danger and 1239 hits on the drum mean the nearby building is on fire. For long distance messaging we climb a hill or one of the bridges. Sometimes we also climb trees, but that`s only if the mango season is on. However, you can bring your mobile phone to India. If it doesn`t get stolen and sold in the chor market, you can use it to check time and date.

Do they accept credit cards in India or should I carry cash?

- Maria Carter, Los Angeles

In land locked regions, it is best to carry sea shells. For instance, shop keepers in Delhi will give you anything in exchange for 10 sea shells. In coastal regions, where lifestyle is a bit more relaxed and sea shells isn`t in demand, it is best to use shiny silk cloth, cigarettes, lighters, rum bottles etc to trade. As you would have guessed by now, no…we don`t use cash…leave alone credit card. The Indian Government is trying hard to introduce currency system in the country but is unable to decide whose photograph has to be used in the notes (and the coins). As of now the country is split into two – our supporting our biggest movie star Amitabh Bacchan and the other wanting our best cricketer Sachin Tendulkar to decorate our currency.

If I don`t know the local language, what can I do?

- David Miller, New Zealand

If you don`t know the language, the best bet is to keep mum. See if you can dye your hair, apply soot on your face & hands and become one of us – dark skinned, that is. If you have already come to India with a lot of Melanin, you stand a good chance of learning our language. If you didn`t already know, we Indians offer best business opportunities to people who come in to perpetuate the 419 Nigerian scam. There is another way around…if you are a girl and are pretty, you can join a Reality Show program on television. Since you are a girl, every man on the show will come to your rescue and teach you Hindi.

Will I find medicines in India? Or should I pack everything from here itself?

- Barbara Young, Norway

Nope, we don`t have medicines. Since all our doctors are in US, UK, Canada and Gulf…we are being forced to live our life without doctors. Not that we care, we just walk up the mountain whenever we are suffering from fever, pluck the purple flowers, walk back in the heat, grind it to a paste and then eat it to cure ourselves of the viral fever. Just in case you are curious…for Typhoid, we dive deep in the sea for a particular type of Oyster. We claim to have eradicated chicken pox and polio, but it is very common to see poultry hopping around on one leg. One of the reasons why we never bothered about getting medicines into the country is because Britishers taught us to write ‘sick letters` before they left: “Dear sir/madam, Since I am suffering from fever I won`t be able to attend classes today. Please grant me one day leave. Yours obediently, XXX”

Do wild animals roam around the streets of India. I have heard India have cows…?

- Vivian Campbell, Trinidad & Tobago

Yes! Wild animals are everywhere in India. That`s why we don`t go outdoors after 6 p.m.. You should know that our wild animals have different weekday & weekend timings. On weekdays, they hunt from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. and on weekdays they retire early at around 12 midnight. The Indian Government has worked out a three pronged strategy for improving our living conditions. Our leaders have advised us to light a fire in front of our houses every evening – first it keeps the wild animals away, second it keeps us warm and third it provides light for our children to study. On the subject of cows, yes BBC is right…we do have lots of cows in India.

The Initial days of my schooling

During my initial days in school, my father always compared me to the Prithvi missile, which was designed and developed by Defence Research and Development Organization.

I don’t know what my father’s reasoning was…but I guess it had something to do with the fact that Prithvi never hit its intended target.

“You are just like that surface-to-surface missile, Prithvi. Can’t even find Pakistan,” he would say.

It wasn’t always my mistake that my father got called to the school often. Like that time when the teacher asked me that Pencil Box question. She said: “Robin if I give you two Pencil Box and then give you two more Pencil Box…how many Pencil Box would you have?”

I said: “Five Pencil Box.”

The teacher asked this question many times and every time my answer was five. I think after the seventh attempt, she lost her cool and called in my father. My father’s answer was ‘Four Pencil Box’ and even after I reminded him that we already had a Pencil Box at home, and the correct answer was ‘Five Pencil Box’ he only gave me a stare.

Now, I could get my progress report signed on the same day it was given to me by my teachers – not because I was getting good marks, but because now my classmates had stopped borrowing it to scare their parents.

Soon, I had realized that the lesser activities I did in school, the lesser my chances of making a mistake, and thus even lesser my chances of being nailed and hanged on the wall. In order to limit the activities, I avoided eye contact with teachers and when they asked me to do anything I would re-confirm if they were talking to me.

I think I was in the fourth standard, when I became the favorite student of my English teacher. She had spent the last 15 minutes waiting for one of us to give two examples of pronoun. I tried hard to avoid eye-contact but after 15 minutes, my turn did come. She asked: “You over there….give me two examples of a pronoun.”

I was quite. I didn’t look up.

She came closer, and said: “Hello…you…look up and give me two examples of a pronoun.”

I had no choice but to look up. I looked at her, looked behind me, and looked on both my sides and then looked back at the teacher and asked: “Who? Me?”

The teacher went ecstatic. Since then I became her favorite student. Unfortunately, I was promoted to Secondary School and the teachers changed..

Maggi & Me

You probably cook Nestle`s Maggi noodles, eat it and forget it. No so in my case. This blog post is to explain why Maggi has been such a big thing for me, and my sister.

I first came to know about Maggi in 1990, when i was studying in my 2^nd standard.

Nestle had introduced Maggi in India in 1983 and by 1990 students with rich parents had started bringing them for lunch. I first tasted it when my best friend (and I forget his name now) brought it for lunch one day.

“How do you eat this?” I remember asking.

“Simple. Just hold a strand between your thumb and index finger, keep it high in the air and slide one end inside your mouth.”

We were late for our next class. Lunch had taken up a long while that day – and why not? Each strand had to be separated, held up and slid inside the mouth slowly.

With time, I became an expert at eating noodles. To tell you the truth, when my friend wasn`t looking….I would cheat. I would pick up a couple of strands and stuff them into my mouth.

Disaster struck and that rich kid left school.. I assumed his family migrated or something like that.. What bothered me most was: Will I find a friend who would bring Maggi for lunch?

We had Dynora TV back then – though this TV`s screen was only 15 inches…the TV was 40 inches wide. It was on this TV that I first saw Nestle`s advertisement for Maggi noodles. When it appeared again, I pulled my mom before the television set and said: “Mom! Look Maggi Noodles. This is what my friend used to bring for lunch.”

“Ohh…what is it?”

“It is called Maggi noodles and is very tasty. Can we buy it?”

“No putta. That`s for the rich. We don`t make that much money, yet.” The ‘yet` in her sentence gave me hope.

“But father is always at work…what does he do? Doesn`t he earn money?”

“He does putta. But we would rather buy rice so that the whole family can eat instead of buying noodles, which you will finish in two minutes.” I still remember my mom had a caring expression when she said this.

“But mom, when they say two minutes it is not about eating….it is the cooking time.”

My mom just smiled and went back into the kitchen. I stood there waiting for the advertisement to appear again. I loved the way steam escaped from the yellow bowl in which Maggi noodles were served in the advertisement. I swear I even got the aroma each time it appeared on TV.

I must have watched the advertisement at least twenty thousand times before I got my first pack of Maggi noodles – sometime in 1992. Maggi had distributed some samples in our school.

With great pride I walked into the house carrying a Maggi Noodles pack. My sister, my mother and I spent an hour looking at the Maggi Noodles pack and trying to understand the cooking procedure.

I remember my sister, a scholar at school, saying: “Looks like cooking noodles is not final exams…but unit test…if you make a mistake, there is no time to correct it.”

She was right. My mother over cooked it and after eating the three strands each that all in the family got…we came to the conclusion that Maggi noodles wasn`t a tasty snack. I had my doubts, though.

After a few years, we bought 2 packs of Maggi Noodles.

Once again, we had a conference of sorts where it was decided that my mom would cook this time. She did a fairly good job…and we had great fun. We decided to do this often…at least once every month…

After a few months of the Maggi ritual, we forgot all about it and got busy with our lives.

I have watched Maggi evolve for a decade now & it definitely has made a mark, but with preferences varying time has come once again for Maggi to evolve further in its quest of excelling in the instant noodles business with something new & wondrous.

Nestle started to advertise Maggi 2-minute Noodles during the ‘Hum Log` broadcasts on Doordarshan. Just in case you didn`t know in 1984-85 ‘Hum Log` reached 60 million TV viewers. Nestle`s plan paid off and soon enough the volume of demand for Maggi Noodles increased from none in 1982 to 1,600 tons in 1983. It would go on to become 15,000 tons in 1998. I don`t have the latest figures, but I wouldn`t be surprised if it is in the 50,000 tons range. The marketing of Maggi Noodles became a case study on how to market a new product. Taking a cue from Maggi`s success, other companies started thronging Doordarshan for program sponsorship. Thus, advertising rates went up and advertising revenues started pouring in for Doordarshan.

Growing Up!

I’m halfway through my life and questioning my existence.

With my lifestyle, I’ll be a medical miracle if I live beyond 53 or 54 years of age. And on the 29th of October, barely two months away, I will enter my 30th year. Almost half my life has gone by, and I’m sitting in the dark wondering what I’ve achieved so far and what I plan to do for the second half. I seem to be stuck at the intermission for the past few months.

When I look back on what I’ve done in my life so far, a lot of things stand out as being above average, but nothing stands out as being phenomenal. “Been there, done that,” seems to be motto I lived my life for the past twenty-nine years. Radio Jockey, journalism, salesman, writing, public relations, entrepreneur, serial dater and party freak. Now that I look back on those years, all I see is a lot of confusion. I have a goal in life and I am yet grappling with the tools needed to achieve that goal.

I think growing up sucks.

For Vivek Shauq

If it took you 5 minutes to realise who Vivek Shauq is – don’t worry, you’re not the only one. Pretty much every staff writer in newspapers across the country didn’t either; and thus copy pasted his Wikipedia entry and called it a “tribute”.

I’m learning more and more with each passing day about comedy, its history and the people who helped shape it. I’ve read pretty much every biography and/or autobiography of the comics I’ve admired and wasted hours watching their videos. (Pryor, Bruce, Martin, Mooney, Carlin, Hicks etc) And like others of my generation and socio-economic type, I’ve never really looked beyond them for my moments of inspiration and aspiration. And that perhaps, is one of the reasons legends like Vivek Shauq are overlooked - because we forget. Because while we lament the lack of comedy clubs in India or the comedy revolutions that took place in other cultures – we forget the kind of comedy we grew up with and the imprint it left on our subconscious.

I don’t have the academic depth to be able to compare the pairing of Jaspal Bhatti and Shauq with that of Western comics as is the norm in pieces like these. Nor am I able to reference old Hindi comedies or the 60s and 70s because that is not what I grew up with. I grew up with Flop Show. Looking back, those 10 episodes where this duo knocked governmental institutions, cultural beliefs, value systems and inherent ways of being and screenings of Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron on Doordarshan were what defined satire for people of my age. I have the DVD set of Flop Show. 20 years later the writing and stories still hold up and make me laugh. I’ll be glad if the shows presently on air (and the kinds I write for) hold up for even a year. And for that show alone – Shauq will be for me, a comedy legend. Without him – there would be no Flop Show, and that is the end of that.

Shauq also associated with Bhatti for shows like Ulta Pulta (another classic) and Full Tension. He also did a handful of movies in Punjabi (Mahaul Theek Hai being the most popular of the recent lot) and Hindi where his role was usually that of the crummy sidekick with a couple of lines here and there. To a lot of people his movie career took the shine off his glorious past – to me it was just part of the ballgame when you’re a small fish in the pond. Either way, his contribution – which I fear will be overlooked because of being a mere sidekick – towards Indian comedy has been immense and something we shouldn’t forget.

People always point out how great comics and musicians seem to die young. I don’t agree with that thesis at all. But if that were true, and there is some sort of a god – then I imagine he needs all these folks to humor him/her looking at the clusterfuck he created in the form of Earth. Shauq would do a stellar job.

India does not respect its artists. That comedians languish at the bottom of the artistic pile is an even bigger statement on our society. Maybe it’s because Indian comics aren’t like they used to be. (One only needs to turn on the Great Indian Laughter Challenge or watch any Bollywood flick to see the state of what sells) Maybe society hammers us into delivering what it wants and doesn’t leave us with any other options. But the one thing we can do is honour some of our unsung heroes who deserve a lot more respect and recognition than they are accorded.

To Vivek Shauq – one of the first guys who made me laugh – thank you for all the entertainment.

Valentine’s Day: A Cynical Deconstruction

Its finally here. The Day of Love. Loads of people around the world get married on this day, conceive their first-born kid on this day, break up and commit suicide on this day. I find the last two facts more fascinating, for purely statistical reasons.

I have been known by a lot of names on this blog, and ‘Love Guru’ comes to mind first. I have been known to write extensively on the subject of love, praising their beauty and snubbing their stupidity, proclaiming my life-long love for a few and announcing my denouncement of a few. I have given advice for single men and women on how to pick up members of their opposite sex and I have given advice on how to break up without driving the other person to kill themselves or worse, commit homicide. But this year, in glorified 2011, I have decided to change tracks and expound on the disadvantages of being in love, the utter stupidity of having a ‘Day’ to express your feelings and cynically deconstruct the notion of paradise.

I am not doing this out of spite. No. On the contrary, it’s taken me 28 years to understand the true nature of relationships, the flimsy, see-through negligee that people cloak their statuses with. Never have I been this clear about my thoughts and feelings. Never have I been this single.

I don’t like it one bit – the whole world waiting on one stupid day on which, eons ago, some saint was burned at the stake. There have been stories written about this day, books published, movies made and documentaries shot, and all of them talk about the same lousy thing – if you love someone, you’ll pop the question on V-day. Bullshit. If you love someone, you don’t need a “day” to do it. After all, its a fantastic excuse to get someone into bed. Apart from this, I don’t think this day has any other relevance. I pity the  poor unborn souls who get conceived each year on this day – they are either a drunken mistake, a sober mistake or a mistake of improper contraception. A mistake, nonetheless.

I hate it when people text me asking who my ‘Valentine” is. I feel like slapping the crap out of them and wishing them a happy valentine’s day. Of course, I can’t do that. Or maybe I should. Ending up in jail on assault charges seems to be the best thing to happen to someone on this day. They will be spared the nonsense that wraps the world in a dense web of stupidity, pointlessness and vague references to a vague concept called ‘Love’.

Why Marriage Is A Bad idea

I was having a very interesting conversation with my business partner the other day in KFC over Zingers, Fries, Coke and Mojitos. We discussed business for about twenty seconds and the remainder of our ‘meeting’ we spent in discussing the pros and cons of marriage. We studied and grew up together, along with a few other weirdos, and now when we looked back, most of those weirdos are either married or engaged to someone.

Nowadays, I don’t think it’s a wise idea to marry someone. There are so many things that can go wrong and so many people that can get killed, that it’s definitely not a good idea. Let me tick the reasons off one by one.

1.Show Me The Money: Women these days are not marrying for love. No sir. Gone are the days where women would fall for a guy head over heels and say, “I’ll be with you through thick and thin. I don’t care if we are poor, we’ll have each other.” Laughable thought, isn’t it? Men need to submit a resume, a statement of purpose, financial statements and visa status to the potential in-laws before getting shortlisted for a stress-test interview. If he passes these levels, then he gets to meet the girl and woo her. If she doesn’t like him, then the whole exercise would have been in vain.

2.Show Me A Good Time: A qualifying criteria for a man to be given the green light for marriage these days is his idea of a ‘good honeymoon’. If he is planning to take her abroad, then he’s suitable. If he says Ooty, Kerala or Darjeeling, then he can go there himself, thank you very much.

3.Flexible Auspicious Times: More often than not, the booking of a marriage hall becomes more a pragmatic thing than anything. These days, marriage halls in the country follow the 12-noon check-in and check-out times, and it becomes impossible to people to get an auspicious time to tie the knot in the evenings. Palms are greased and pundits are coerced into finding a right time in accordance with the marriage hall timings. If you’re a pundit / astrologer, then your reputation depends on your ability to provide flexible timings.

4.The Ex-Factor: Men and women are required to completely disassociate themselves with their ex-lovers. If, for any reason, men or women are found fraternizing with their ex-es in the run-up to the wedding, then the whole thing has a high probability of ending up in someone’s death.

These and a lot of other factors (which are 18+ and I can’t mention them here, for the benefit of those readers who aren’t mature enough), contribute to a highly volatile situation where people are not advised to get married. If you’re lucky enough to find a girl who’s got no hang-ups about a live-in, then go for it. Else, make sure you have a grave site marked out for you before you enter wedlock.

The Inner Workings Of The Female Brain

Hey there.

Its been a while since I’ve posted anything new. This atrocity on by part is partly due to my hectic schedule of lazing around and partly due to my utter disregard for other people’s schedules. Today, I’ve decided to take a walk down memory lane and remove the cobwebs from my stiff joints.

This one’s called ‘The Inner Workings of the Female Brain’, a piece I’d written a few years ago, before attaining maturity. Hope you enjoy it.

Promiscuous as the mind is – constantly searching for newer avenues and doors to sow its seeds of maliciousness – the female brain was, and remains to this day, the holy grail of understanding. Many a honest man has lost his sanity, sometimes his identity and his life, questing for the unattainable. What makes these creatures, which share such similarity with men, so different? The answer, if known, would make me a rich man. Alas, I do not. But, I did take the time to painfully assess these creatures, sometimes probing perilously close to losing my life, and have finally managed to make my observations known to the world. I warn you, dear reader, this is not for the faint of heart.

Lets begin with the most obvious thing that anyone notices with these creatures – their gait. These sapiens have a peculiar kind of a rambling walk, bordering on a strut, that makes them easier to identify in a crowded room. (Of course, the other thing that identifies them in a crowded room is their habit of dousing themselves with strange smelling fluids! But, we’ll get to that later.) The walk is their one sure way to get attention – they gyrate their body in an unearthly fashion while walking! – and they do get it, no doubt. We men being as we are, can’t keep ourselves from looking at them. The female has realized this. So, the female’s brain – which is one hundred time more advanced than ours’ – immediately latched on to this weakness of ours and the story of Pied Piper repeats itself….

Let me remind you of an interesting remark that was made by the Shah of Persia, a few hundred years ago. He said that the single, surest way of attaining salvation – both physically and mentally – is never to trust a female. Well, over time, this aphorism has lost its charm as more and more trustworthy females graced the world and drove the Shah to exile. But then, the present day situation demands more caution on the part of the male. The female brain has quickly analyzed the greatest weakness that the Y-chromosome accords to us. It is that, while the man has to spend his time, money and efforts to woo the girl, she on the other hand just has to smile, and the guy’s hers! No one has been able to satisfactorily explain this phenomenon, but it doesn’t matter, because now there is a new wave of deception tiding the planet. The female has acquired from somewhere the tools to successfully make the man abide by her whims and fancies – so much, so that if Sigmund Freud were alive today, he would have called the male populace of the planet as a “sad bunch of toilet-tissue-emulators”! Though we must be ashamed of ourselves, not to mention cautious, we’re neither, and end up being the receiving end of nitrogenous treatments meted out to us by the female.

More than everything, the female brain has evolved so quickly, that when we were still trying to make faces at ourselves by looking at our reflection in the river, the female was busy creating masks! This disturbing fact has revealed atrocious allegations against what really went on in the Garden of Eden.  She has learned to mask her true emotions so well, that we really feel baffled when she can smile so sweetly at us, hold our hand so warmly, look into our eyes with her lovely eyes and say, “Get lost, you jerk!”

Ever seen women slap a man? Well, I have, and trust me; it’s not a pretty sight. (I have been on the receiving end of many a slap, though that’s not important to the story right now!) Every time she walks away after slapping the jerk, he holds his bruised cheek in his hands and dreamily stares after the departing female and sighs. He says, “I think she likes me…” We men will never improve.

Coming to the gewgaw that these creatures allow themselves to be part of, the smelling fluids I talked about earlier. Neither countless like-minded fools nor me have ever understood the reasons behind this strange phenotypic character. The female bathes in what are known to be “perfumes” – the very word should have made her shy away from it, because in Greek, “per-“ means toxic and “fume-“ means stench. Well, please try to explain this phenomenon. Something really smells fishy, doesn’t it?

The day the mystery of the female brain is solved, it’ll be Genesis: Chapter 1 all over again! But, lets be honest to ourselves. The day is never going to come. We men will remain the scum of the planet for at least another millennium. Feminism is indeed significant, but it should never border on chauvinism.

Need vs. Want

It seems everyone around me is doing it. People I least expect to do it are doing it and it makes me feel a bit left out. No, they aren’t doing it, in the literal sense of the phrase. They’re getting tattoos done on their bodies, and I thought I should get one myself.

The funny thing about making up one’s mind about body modification is the fact that no matter how much one jokes about it, it has to be taken seriously. A tattoo is a permanent thing, and to take it lightly might result in being stuck with the mistake forever. Yesterday, I was having a very mature conversation with a close friend of mine (who used to blog before she ditched the country and ran away to hide under the Queen’s skirt in the United Kingdom). She told me that she’ was getting a tattoo on her back, under the neck and asked for my suggestions about the words.

I somehow managed to turn the conversation thread into whether or not I should get one and if I did, what it should be. It also got me thinking later if it’d be a mistake to get one. I consulted another friend of mine who’s crazier than most crazy people, and she said that I’d be crazier than her if I got a tattoo. Now that’s not the kind of branding I want for myself. Another argument against getting a tattoo is the fact that I only want to get one because I’m bored in life and want to do something insane, and that I don’t really NEED a tattoo. In the past, when life got to monotonous, I have quit my job, I have gone on long vacations, I have gone on a spending spree, I have moved houses. This time, none of these options seem viable.

The counter-argument to this is I’m feeling left out and desperately want to be part of the tattoo’d crowd.

Now, 48 hours later, I’m still vacillating about this. Should I get one? Or should I just let it be and latch on to some other passing fancy? Help!

If I Were A Politician…

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been drawn to showing off my accomplishments to others. I have been inclined to step over others for my successes and I’m very fascinated by money. Not money in the bank, but cold, hard cash. I have very few morals and principles in life and I am easily bored with uninteresting people. I love fame and glory and I revel in other people’s accolades. I have a very huge ego and I think I’m God. I love and hate people fiercely and I hate to lose someone I love. I love to lose someone I hate, and not just lose, but to see them dig their own grave and nail themselves in the coffin.

I am a fantastic orator and I can sway people with my words. I have a knack for convincing people to see things from my point of view and I hate it when it fails. I love doing shady deals for lots of money, though I am yet to do one so far. I love being on television and I love seeing myself being written in the papers.

I think I’d make a fantastic politician. Just what the country needs at this point. Someone with a sense of humor and the ability to make the citizens feel good about being fleeced for their money.

I think I am ready for it. Money Fame Politics, here I come! Or, maybe not. I don’t know if I’m ready to be assassinated yet

Hunger Strike!

We Indians have a peculiarly unique way of demanding justice. We stop eating and call a press conference.

It all started with the great Mahatma Gandhi, who went on a hunger strike to oppose the tyranny of the British Raj, back in the 1930s and 1940s. This habit has not died after we got our independence. Every time the government does something that someone doesn’t approve of, a hunger strike is called along with a press conference.

Recently, Anna Hazare did it to oppose corruption in the government. He was hailed as the present Mahatma and the press jumped to draw parallels with him and the original Mahatma. They called it the new Freedom Struggle. And more recently, a guy who made his living doing yoga, Baba Ramdev, went on a hunger strike and no one knows the reason why. I’m sure he gave a laundry list of reasons for doing what he did, but no one really understood them.

It’s like an infectious disease here in India. If one person goes on a hunger strike, it spreads like a virus on heat and before you know it, your neighbor’s on a hunger strike against the local corporation office demanding better roads and clean water. It’s about time I joined in the fun.

I am going on a hunger strike from today onwards to oppose hunger strikes all over. I will eat obscene amounts of food and go on a strike against hunger until everyone stops their respective hunger strikes and eradicates the country of this ridiculous disease.

My diet, during this hunger strike consists of the following:

Breakfast: 12 eggs, 24 slices of bread, 2 pints of orange juice and a quart of coffee

Lunch: 5 helpings of rice, dal and a 12 rotis with vegetables

Dinner: 16 helpings of rice, dal, 20 few rotis, along with some sweets for dessert

I vow to not go hungry again until my objective is fulfilled. This hunger strike will prove to the whole country that I am quite serious. I will not end this hunger strike until all hunger strikes have ended in this country.

I am ready for my title now. I prefer something cool, and nothing with the word “Mahatma” in it. That’s become cliched.

The 50-Rupee Meal

Ten years ago, when the world was a nicer place to live in, I was just getting out of high school, full of misdirected ambitions of making a difference in the world. Of the many things that were ideal back then, I liked the fact that I could have a hearty meal for less than ten rupees. Maybe not a ‘hearty’ meal, but certainly a couple of idlis and a vada for five rupees. For the uninitiated, an idli is a white colored, steamed rice cake, about the size and shape of a BlackBerry Curve and a vada is a brown colored doughnut-shaped (and sized), deep-fried eatable that goes perfectly well with an idli. Ten years ago, a pair of idlis and a vada together used to cost five rupees.

Today, ten years later, I realized that there has been a 1000% increase in the cost of the same meal. A pair of idlis and a vada, today, costs 50 rupees.

—Two Idlis and a Vada - The 50-Rupee Meal

For someone who’s spent the better part of his life here in India, that’s daylight robbery. The strangest part of the entire experience today over lunch was not that I was fretting about the astronomical increase in the rate, but the equally enormous decrease in the quantity and taste.

The sizes of the idlis and vadas have reduced so much that its hard to spot them when you put them on a plate. You have to have a pair of really good binoculars to identify where they are and make sure that your spoon hits the mark. No, I’m exaggerating, of course, but you get the idea. And the taste, well, I have eaten pieces of cardboard (for free) that have been tastier.

I hate to call this inflation, because the term ‘inflation’ has a definition, a universally-accepted identity. I would call this phenomenon a gross negligence on the part of the Indian public, who have allowed this kind of injustice to penetrate every aspect of their lives. Our lives. Commonplace examples – a tennis ball that used to cost ten rupees now costs thirty. A piece of chewing gum that was half a rupee is now three rupees. A toothbrush that used to cost around four to five rupees is now thirty-five.

How I wish I were living in the stone ages, where all I had to worry about was the next critter I caught for dinner and the next female I canoodled with. If wishes were horses, I’d be a very rich stable boy.

How To Spot An Indian

How To Spot An Indian

I’ve been hearing a lot of incidents of racial profiling, where Indians are ‘randomly’ pulled out of lines at the airport for a thorough check. It has picked up tremendously after 9/11 and I’m not surprised. As Indians, we unfortunately share the skin color and hair styles of the usual terrorist suspects.

Don’t get me wrong, I am shocked and disgusted each time there is a terrorist attack anywhere in the world. As a pacifist myself, I find the unnecessary loss of human lives intolerable. It is okay to be afraid, but it is not okay to assume that every guy with brown skin is a terrorist with a bomb strapped to his balls.

So, I have decided to write a small but useful guide to help people identify Indians in a line-up. Look, Indians are a harmless, gutless bunch of people who gave the world Kama Sutra, and wanted everyone in the world to live happily together, having awesome sex with each other. We are not the kind of people who would want to harm others. Hell, we go ballistic when our kids eat non-vegetarian foods and call them murderers – we believe in instilling guilt very early in our kids.

The first thing you should notice about an Indian guy in a line-up (I’ll get to Indian women later) is that he won’t smile. His passport photo will look as if he is attending his mother’s funeral. But this alone will not help you weed out Indians from terrorists, because terrorists don’t smile in their passports as well, as Russel Peters very eloquently put it, a few years ago. So, the next thing to do is check out a suspect’s facebook profile or, if he’s in the airport check-in / check-out line, grab his phone and check the pictures on his phone. Here’s what you will expect to see:

1.If the Indian in question is a student at an American / UK / Australian university, he will have definitely stored pictures of himself posing in front of every tree, post-box, car and white guy he comes across. And in all these pictures, he will be wearing a pair of shades that are too big for his face, the thickest fur-lined jacket (if its winter) or a hat that can only be described as a fedora (if its summer). He will also have the smuggest expression on his face that seems to say, “Look at me, I’m so bloody cool!” Yeah, he’s an Indian, let him go. He will probably wet himself if he is questioned about bombs and guns.

2.If the Indian is older and his passport lists him as being married, then his phone / facebook profile will have hundreds of photographs with his wife, taken on their wedding day – the wife will be posing solo in many of these, in a gaudy silk saree and a head-full of flowers, in front of various background images of waterfalls and mountains, arms raised in different gracious angles… He’s an Indian, let him go.

3.If the Indian is older but unmarried, he will probably be trying to smuggle booze and cell phones into the country to distribute to his cousins and friends and parents. Hold him, but be warned that he will have a fantastic defense planned – something about being forced into this by a girlfriend or a dying kid from the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

I hope that I have made it abundantly clear on how to spot Indian men and I hope that this guide will aid law enforcement officials to avoid profiling of Indians because of their skin color. Always remember, we are the assholes posing stupidly in photographs. We are not killers.

PS: It’s quite easy to spot an Indian woman – she’s very hot and she screams in terror when any guy gets too close.

PPS: This post is not meant to be offensive to anyone. If, in the process of putting down my opinions, I have inadvertently insulted any religion, caste, creed or camel, I apologize.