Office and Offensibility
1. Tambrams
2. Most of the rest of humanity
3. The goats of the animal kingdom whom I had implicated as having carnal relations with some Tambrams and most of the rest of humanity. (Mamis and large predatory females kindly note these are carnal relations not cornell relations. Get your daughters married there at your own peril)
In fact my post on family values has irritated a few people. Upon further inquiry it transpires that it irritated people because:
1. It was basically their own values
2. I am a horrible git
(What is this compulsion I have with numbered lists. Irritating!!!)
However considering that this is India and considering that if ever Tambrams decide that their relegious sensitivities are hurt they could not just sue the bejesus out of me, they could also come and burn me I guess some steps will have to be taken. In fact consider Tasleema Nasreen. Here are the facts of the case:
Tasleema Nasreen was assaulted at a function she was attending in Hyderabad by a member of a relegious minority ( to whom Taslima also belongs) because her book had insulted the member’s sentiments. The member spoke only Telugu and Urdu and had barely passed the second standard.
Hang On!!!
So here we have a man who hit a woman because he believed her book had insulted her relegious sentiments even though he couldn’t read her book even in his own mother tounge (leave alone the original in Bengali).
However this is India where other members of the relegious minority then bought the book by the dozens and burnt them in order to protest which lead to:
1. The publisher ordering the printing of 10,000 copies because they were selling so fast
2. The book moving to No. 128 in the bestseller charts (it hadn’t even figured there before)
3. Global warming and the breakdown of the Kyoto protocol and a lot of exhausted penguins who couldn’t locate the ice pack
No. Seriously.
Considering that this is serious stuff. Here’s what I plan to do.
1. Write something in this blog that offends the three major Abrahamic Relegion and the Mormon Church
2. Write something more offensive about Hinduism and Buddhism
3. Call up an Imam, a Pope and the Bajrang Dal and warn them about the offensive nature of the blog.
4. Once the carnage begins book myself on a flight to London and request political asylum (seeing that they let ugly mug Salman Rushdie in how bad can it be for this Tambram)
5. Ask Penguin to publish the book since they can be now assured of a bestseller
I have a feeling that this should work. The Christian will buy the book because Muslim sentiments are hurt. The Muslim because Hindu sentiments are hurt. The Hindu because Christian sentiments are hurt. Then they would all proceed to burn the damn thing because their own sentiments are hurt. The publishers would make a killing, I would be in London, preferably with a large bank balance and some nice scotch. How bad can it be?
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December 27th, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Random ramblings
It was recently pointed out to me that one of the girls who was in school with me, a specimen whose pimply face we used to make fun of, who we popularly used to call ‘nani ma’ (meaning old grandmother for the not-so-familiar-with-hindi-parties-reading-this-blog), whose lunch we used to steal and whose dress we used to splatter with the ink of many a shattered nib has now made a career as a fashion model. Which leads me to dispense this nugget of advice:
Girls on whom we throw ink become models.
Sorry. That wasn’t the moral after all. No the moral is this. Never make fun of girls. Especially pimply ones. Thanks to the wonder of modern pharmaceuticals (and I am not discounting acid here), they all end up as models thereby making sure we all have extremely horrible lives. Here! They seem to say, I am now loved and adored by all, whereby I should now enjoy a hearty laugh if the number of people who adore you is more than the pinkies on your left hand. I am sure there are classmates of the inestimable Deepika Padukone who are suffering the same tortures now. Sigh!
So there that’s it. The one piece of advice I would like to leave the younger generation with. Do not poke fun at girls. Especially the types you love to nickname(nani-ma, boothni etc. etc.) The other piece of advice I have to dispense has nothing to do with girls but an awful lot to do with cricket.
We used to play cricket in our school when I was very young. The fact that we didn’t have a cricketing field, did not deter us from playing cricket. The fact that we were not playing anything resembling cricket did not deter our sports teacher from labeling the game we played rather euphemistically as “French cricket”. Never having been to France (or having played French cricket there) I cannot comment on what we played, but the game went roughly like this.
One designated person used to stand at the center of a rather large field (dustbowl) while the rest of the class (numbering nearly in the hundreds) used to form a circle around the guy in the middle. The outer circle was huge. I mean really huge. Sometimes occasionally you could see the other guy who was diametrically opposite you. He really looked tiny. The game consisted of trying to hit the player in the middle between his knees and his ankles. The batter would try and swat the ball away. At least attempt to since the only guy who could get the ball into the inner circle was a guy called… let’s call him Jo who had failed the grade four times and was regularly to be found bullying smaller kids. The rest of us heaved and flung the ball but rarely did it go anywhere close to the inner circle. It just more or less dribbled to somewhere in between.
I didn’t fare any better when the batsman managed to connect with the ball. On the rare occasion the ball came anywhere close to me I would be looking in exactly the wrong direction, digging my nose, eating boogers, whatever. Most other kids managed to stop one two balls occasionally. I managed to miss most of whatever was hit in my direction. So the game consisted of basically Jo running round and round in circles attempting to hit the batter between the knees and the ankle with the ball, the batter making wild ineffectual heaves at whatever we tossed and jumping up or dodging away whatever Jo tossed, and me missing most of whatever was hit in my direction. Entertaining it was not. I was plain bored. Sometimes the batter would stumble as he attempted to dodge and stub his toe, but mostly he was too far away to be seen, so I would just hear his enraged yowl.
I devised ingenious ways to overcome this torture. First was the discovery that a pair of rubber bands could deliver a projectile almost right next to the batsman and with stinging velocity. Four weeks later weary of the assiduous practice schedule I had assigned in my class (aim two feet left of the teacher, two feet above, two feet right), I put small stone to rubber band and let loose. The ensuing yowl let me know I had succeeded. I didn’t know if my missile had hit the target. Too far away.
Thus was born my passion for physics but mostly for projectiles. I discovered the ecstasy of elasticity, the subtlety of stiffness, the sublimity of strength, the accuracy of aim and most importantly the power of the projectile. What Jo would manage in an hour of running around was now carelessly in fact nonchalantly achieved with a little application of brain. Which would have all been fine, if not for the damn geometrical implement called the divider.
It was a rash impulse which had led me to brag to my friends about this new found power of mine, and they challenged me to prove that I could actually hit the batsman. Unsatisfied they egged me on to prove more concrete results where nothing would be left to chance but the result would be plain unambiguous for everyone to see. Two weeks later after careful experimentation and sixteen rubber bands stolen from the lunch boxes of unwary children I managed to make a compass and a divider fly accurately.
Which I put into practice in the next sports period. Unfortunately the compass hit the batsman and in the quite fleshy part of the leg between the knee and the ankle. Having hit it politely refused to bounce off but remained embedded in his leg like a tranquilizer dart, while three friends, bosom buddies who I lost touch with after school and who I hope have a job washing trucks pointed to me and immediately said “Sir. Sir. He did it!!! He did it!!!!”.
After the ensuing session with everybody (including the director of my institution) the one person who still consoled me and allowed me to continue stealing her lunch was ‘nani-ma’. Nani ma! Forgive me. I was cruel to you ( and perhaps the batter who got stuck with the divider). In fact the only person I was more cruel with was an old math book of mine and another girl called ‘RoadRunner’ who also became a model in her own way. Which brings me to the important cricket advice and the even more important piece of advice.
Cricket advice: Next time your friends want you to do something for a bet stick it to them (kindly also use the divider)
Even more important advice: As a general principle never make fun of pimply girls. The pharmaceutical industry is far too good nowadays
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December 25th, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Things that irritate (Part 2)
During this recent event I was also asked to choose “formal” clothes. I had appeared with a dark blue suit a light blue shirt and a dark blue tie (pinched from Mottai Shankar Ram) with yellow darts on it. This wasn’t considered formal.
Me: But this is formal enough for BT VP
Mum: Dark colours are used only for mourning. Abasakunam. Abasakunam.
Me: But traditionally Hindu’s wear white for mourning.
Mama: Which reminds me, don’t wear that light colored shirt.
Me: Which leaves me with nothing to wear.
Dad: How irresponsible can you get? Important function and you don’t even bother to pack your clothes.
Family: And look at the Western wear. We will not tolerate such clothes. You need to be formally and conservatively dressed.
Me: But this is formal and conservative.
Mama II: But western. Though we respect the western tradition of wearing dark clothes at a wedding so you shouldn’t.
Chorus: And also no light clothes at wedding since it is Hindu Mourning Color.
Me: Joy!!!
So I spent a large part of my fortune and time on Saturday trying to purchase a piece of garment that was not dark and not light. Here were the formal requirements for my clothes:
1. It could not be dark
2. It could not be light
3. But it had to be bright (pallichu for the Tamil speaking)
4. But not too showy
5. Modern (but no cargoes/t-shirts/short kurtas or long ones)
6. Yet traditional
7. Veshtis are passe
8. Yet jeans are not in.
Finally after a long afternoon spent with salesmen who had every reason to believe I was mad, I finally got the following:
1. A pink shirt: By far the only thing that satisfied requirements one, two and three
2. Khaki pants: That satisfied four to eight
Thank God they still think homosexual still means “sex with humans”.
December 3rd, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 1 Comments
Things that irritate (Part 1)
I was in Chennai recently for a “family function”. Here are a few general observations about people:
1. They get terribly offended if you don’t do exactly as they do
2. The reason they get offended is that they think since your action isn’t exactly what they would have done, they have to defend their choice.
Considering that there are a million things you can do which is different from what your relatives do this can lead to some fairly interesting conversations.
“You brush with your left”.
Considering that I am a part lefty that’s about the only thing that makes sense. However…
“I brush with my right. You know Vatsyayana recommended brushing with the right since it stimulates the karmic center of the wave function”.
I refrained from mentioning that Vatsyayana may have recommended brushing with the right hand but it would certainly not have been the teeth.
“You use Close Up. I prefer Colgate since it’s been proved to be effective in preventing plaque”. And thus went the long afternoons…
One of the things which came under this category was of course the assertion that “the reason America has so many divorces is because they do not have so many rituals governing their marriage”.
Sigh!
The statement above is a perfect showcase of bad thinking. Let’s see how.
The statement hinges on the assumption that divorces happen when rituals do not happen. However even if we are willing to concede that rituals (or the lack of them) are a very important factor contributing to a divorce how do we know if they are the one all important factor which cause divorce.
This is a classic case of causation versus correlation. While countries with high divorce rate have lower rituals they also have higher GDP and happier citizens. Whoops! The point is countries with higher divorce rates also has a lot of happier women. In fact countries with a higher divorce rate all also lie to the west of India. Co-incidence. I guess not.
That’s the problem with causation versus correlation. Something that anybody who took QT anytime in life should be able to appreciate. Guess our man hadn’t taken that course.
P.S: The guy who made the statement did take a QT course in his lifetime. Guess he just doesn’t feel like applying himself to the subject or the subject to himself. Watch out for Things that irritate (Education versus Literacy)
December 2nd, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments
Family Values
I don’t like tradition. Marriages are tradition. According to those over forty in my family they are the only institutions that foster “family values”. I wonder what those are? If those in my family are any indication they include:
1. An apparent dislike towards supporting anybody over eighty which leads to what I call the super-senior lawn tennis tournaments.
2. An apparent dislike towards treating your wife as your equal
3. A stodgy determination that borders on incenstual xenophobia
4. A fond belief that anything today is described in the vedas including lingerie, MTV, educational cess surcharges and the Smashing Pumpkins.
5. The ability to treat your kids as your own property. Even if they are already married. And if they are not they are tradeable properties.
6. A fond reverence for anything with a three letter or less label (IIM,IIT,REC,MS,PHD). Sorry SOB still does not qualify.
7. The ability to eat only vegetarian food at a Continental Restaurant in Singapore.
P.S.:
I forgot to add these
8. Claiming that the University of Oklohama is amongst the ten top universities in the USA
9. The fond but unique belief that Johnny Walker is a shoe brand for the aged.
10. An apparent need to listen to scratched Mohammed Rafi LP’s recorded on DVD’s through a BOSE home theater system.
Sigh!
What’s your family’s values?
December 2nd, 2007 - Posted in Uncategorized | | 0 Comments