Flashback

Written when I was younger, but it still makes a point, unlike what i come up with nowadays. Who'd have believed it ???!! In the Organisation of Life, i must be the Pointy Haired Boss, rising to absolute incompetence with age :)

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As I read the paper or when i glance at the news-at-eight a strange terror strikes me deep. I wonder what i'd do if I were confronted by a mad mob determined to murder anyone not their own. A mob which fuelled by religious sanctions, rapes and kills. A criminal mob driven by politics and fascism. Maybe I would cower shamefully and submit and beg them forgivance or owe them allegiance.
As an Indian, today I'm entitled to kill in the name of religion. In good style I can also fulfill all my other satanic urges, humiliation, rape and arson. Someday soon our dodo impulse might possibly lead to gender based cleansing. All the men trying to kill all the women and vice versa. That is not a very absurd thought considering that extreme atrocities which affected either, or rather, all sides in Gujarat have been accepted by most of us, without more than a shudder or a public squeak. I have the birth right to be extremely xenophobic. I think i'll first eliminate the muslims, then the christians, then the sikhs, then maybe the subsects within the hindus itself. In fact i'll eliminate snotty nosed children and oily haired bus travellers also to make sure things turn out aesthetically comfortable for me.
It'll be such a long and satisfying scalping...one after the other, forgive me if i've forgotten anyone. In the end I can sit and watch the ruins. I think it'll be a nice and unique picture. Saffron and green can mix into a very exciting blood red.
I want today to leave this country. I want to leave it because I'm scared, scared of what it will do to harm me, scared of what it might make me. Leave it or make it disappear. Make the blinding bright shades of saffron and green disappear. A few years ago, a younger me was very thrilled when i felt patriotic surges as i heard the National Anthem. Today I am drained, without feeling, even ashamed at times when I begin to think that being an Indian is one of the few identities i have left.
Maybe we could drop these calling cards of being hindu, sikh, muslim, brahmin, christian, dalit, adivasi, communist, malayalee, maharashtrian, bihari, pakistani, indian. Maybe we can just be human. But that would be a Utopia and i would have wasted your time. The point is.. today I just want to be left alone. By everyone made dangerous by defined boundaries like belonging to "X class" or "Y caste". All of these killers and hatemongers have 2 legs and 2 hands, the same as me.
I'd much rather fight purple hued aliens or 14 legged killer ants. There would be dignity in that.

This happened a few years back and the other juvenile of the piece is often seen on these pages.
I call this.....

Self-Evict Convicts!

We went to a little pub last night,
With intentions of tanking up allright,
Over philosophical smokes,
Just the couple of us blokes,
Raved and ranted and attempted,
several metaphysical thoughts demented,
We finished our beers, one a mite faster than his peer,
But that is to be expected said the slower one, for all the alcoholic tales you've spun,
We must have a couple more, otherwise it'll be like never before,
But the wallets hang a little light, splurge now and tie our belts tight?

Oh that is for later to think, now let us just concentrate and drink!

So we drank some more, blithe spirits unthinking,
Daily paper crossword solvers, we could have both been,
Living like we were drinking, blithe spirits unthinking.
Order something cheap to eat, this is a rather meagre treat,
But it'll have to do, for it'll feed another round of golden brew.
So a small bowl of green peas, gives our stomachs some small relief.

Topical reruns, old strains but new trials,
Too tired to talk about, talks which we could do without,
Slow conversation, thoughtful parleys with oneself,
Sequential trips to the men's room, results in a new joke in full bloom,[most pubs here dont need a ladies room..the ladies room board gets me going everytime!!]
Squeeze dry the thought, laugh a lot...
Slow conversation once more, knowing we could feel deja vu if we ignored the realization,
Decision made, no more honey marmalade!

We must go for dinner someplace, good food and more taste!
But the money crunch, we wont have enough to buy tomorrow's lunch!!!
Lets ignore it again, and get some coastal andhra cocaine!Yes!
We are in agreement, our thoughts concurrent.
Lets ask for the cheque, (what a pain in the neck!)
I look for the head waiter, and i shine when the thought hits me square,
Listen dear friend of mine, when did we last do something practical and asinine??
You mean, you don't mean, No! Ok, lets see it through!!!
So sequentially again, we were'nt that poor, but we shot right out of the door!!!!

There was once a beautiful amatuer astronomer. All the extra money she made as a model on television was spent to feed her passion for looking into the night sky at the stars. She was fascinated with every twinkle up in the night sky. Every night she would sit with her telescope and squint into her 33 inch telescope.And every night her dependant boyfriend would ask her not to screw her eyelids up like that.Eventually she could no longer model.

Wrinkle Wrinkle, it'll Scar.

I once had a large gay following, but I ducked into a side street and lost him.

[A day in the life of many of us]

I think [blah blah blah blah blah] and I really believe [blah blah blah blah blah]. Your opinion is flawed, can't you see it. Its staring you in the face dammit ! What i think is that [blah blah blah blah blah].
My favorite music [blah blah blah blah blah] is so superior to your fav music. He has no class because he actually wore those horrible [blah blah blah blah blah]...
and so on...
The most I'll give you is that this my opinion/your opinion is more or less shaped by our completely exclusive set of experiences.

But i still think you are absolutely low IQ / irritating / foolish / stupid and so on . And pig headed to boot !

And I think I am somewhat redeemed by blogging this kind of social historian-like observations-piece ! Guess who is pig headed?

When I was young, Doordarshan ran the wonderfully campy series Vikram-Vetaal.

[Background score] Vikram Vikram Vikram Vikram...Vetaal Vetaal Vetaal Vetaal, Veeekraaam aur Vetaaaaaal...Viiikraaam aur Veeeeytaaaal...

Every episode started with King Vikram [ actually Trivikramasena played by legendary ham Arun Govil ] getting to the simsapa tree in the middle of the cemetry with his sword drawn. First he would jump up and down trying to reach the corpse. He would then, dressed very happily in orange, climb up the tree to get to the corpse. This he did by doing some tacky acrobatics, which esentially involved hooking his ankles together and swinging towards the corpse. He would do this for a while and would finally manage to cut the corpse possessed by the Vetaala [ played by a very good man who agreed to do the role, aptly named Sajjan ] down. On hitting the ground the corpse would invariably, howl in pain and Arun Govil with his Ramayana hangover would at once become immensely concerned about the Vetaalas well being. He would rush to the vetaala and then the vetaala would laugh a hysterical laugh and the corpse would move by its own volition along the ground with Vikram chasing it in vain. Then the vetaala would fly back up the tree laughing all the while. King Vikram would steel his being and set out once again to cut the corpse down. This time he would do it with immaculate timing, outwitting the vetaal, without blinking a single wooden eyelid. He would then swing the corpse over his shoulder and set out. The corpse/vetaal more or less rode piggyback on Arun Govil, like one of those popular and excrutiatingly painful ordeals one has to go through when dealing with 4 yr old kids. The Vetaala itself was very funny to look at with a voice like old timer villian Jeevans'. It had a powder caked face, a flowing white wig and horrendously lip-sticky lips that opened wide in a leering grin, which in turn revealed an absence of teeth. [Background score repeat!] Vikram Vikram Vikram Vikram...Vetaal Vetaal Vetaal Vetaal, Veeekraaam aur Vetaaaaaal...V aur V... The deal was that Arun Govil/Vikram was not supposed to say a word till he got the Vetaal outside the Smashan ghat. Now Vetaal would say, "Raasta kathin hai, Chalo rajan, main tumhein ek kahaani sunaata hoon".He would then weave a tale about some Jataka-tales-era characters which would finally end in a moral dilemma. The best part about these tales was that, they were always populated by the same set of junior artistes in different outrageous hair do's. Then Vetaal would say," Batao Rajan, ab is samasyaa ka kya hal hua? Agar aap jaante hue bhi, nahi bataayenge, toh main aapke sar ka hazaaaaron tukde kar doonga " Wonderful! And Vikram, he would be forced to solve the problem like a moral, god fearing Deep Blue computer. In a jiffy. And in a jiffy, again, Vetaal would rise up and away back to his Tree Joint saying in sepulchral tones, " Ha Ha Ha...ab tu bolaa, toh main chala...ha ha ha" And he would fly using the same technology they used to make Hanuman in Ramayan fly. And Vikram would run chasing him again...ad infinitum it would seem. Luckily the series ended:) But, Subconciously, our feeble minds were irrevocably altered by the travails of King Vikram and slimy old Vetaal. My attitude to philosophy has been shaped by Vikram-Vetaal almost completely. Including and especially InDUHvidualism.

Lend me your ears for a minute?

How do you think Cannibals manage to live as a society? You think they have rules or have stigma's about eating their own families ( as we do with marriages within families ) ??? And if so, how distant is distant enough?? Can you sneak up to your third cousin and take a bite off his shoulder??
You think they have uneatables?? you think they ever had a cannibal version of Gandhi who fought for the rights of uneatables?? What do you think the uneatables were demanding ?? You think they had boards in Cannibal club kitchens which said 'dogs and uneatables not allowed' ?? You think this inspired uneatable revolutionaries to force feed themselves to some upper-class Cannibals who found them unsavory??

And what about their problems in modern society??
How do these Cannibals manage? You think they fund all the human cloning research?? Do you think one of them might be thinking at this very moment " Hey these other humans.. they don't seem to be agreeable to being eaten. Maybe if we could perfect human cloning we could persuade them to part with an ounce of DNA, everytime we mug them. Crime rates would be down because after the Mugging we wont need to eat them...only take some DNA. The police and the vegetarians would get off our case. We can have large farms where we grow this DNA to healthy FDA approved eatables. We'll finally gain respectability with the humans. And maybe I can finally open that restaurant on Times Square."

More importantly, you think 'give head' has a whole different meaning with 'em cannibals?? You think they are thinking of things other than VDs when they promote 'Safe' sex ??
You think they'll ever like chicken??

You think Hannibal the Cannibal is based on the lecters of a famous cannibal historian?? You think we can dig up some statistics on why infant mortality is high among cannibal tribes??
You think Heinz and Hersheys' have products targetting Cannibals? If they do, how do they recruit the sales force?
Do cannibals wear Hand me Downs?? If they do, when and why do they wear them??

Is obesity, which is caused by all the junk food around us, controlled by cannibals? Do they have moles in every food and beverage company planting fatty food additives into all the junk food manufactured, just because Fat People help their cause??
Are fat people sold on the black market to cannibals in the shady markets of Istanbul or Djakarta??

You think the cannibals themselves have problems with obesity? You think they have an Atkin's diet which says ..'stay off middle aged men for a while and Eat a healthy mix of geriatrics and 22 yr old men.'

You think they end every meal with an A-Men ??