Stumped... and trippy

And the blue eleven make fools of themselves yet again. Whoever went around saying things like we do well on our own doctored pitches and Sachin is back with a bang. Well maybe he was back with a bang, now he's out with it too. And there seems to be some 1 second delay between my typing something and it appearing on the screen. Need more coffee, I think.

So back to the rather dismal post-diwali damp squibness of the team despite some royal advertising by Pepsi and Nike. Which brings us to Sourav I-like-taking-my-shirt-off Ganguly in some pathetic Pepsi ad. What were they thinking?

Ranting and raving about how badly the team performs makes as much sense as banging the proverbial head against the proverbial wall. Just stopped the virus scan. Delay now reduced to negligible amounts. So instead we take a nice trip (more later on the "trip") into the history of sport with special reference to our motherland - England. Well the British Isles, broadly speaking, from whence the weirdest yet surprisingly popular sports have emerged - Golf, cricket and perhaps fox-hunting and hare-coursing.

What kind of jobless civilization decides to let all active sports go and invent games that could be "played" outdoors but with just about as much energy expenditure as say scrabble or Scotland Yard. Incidentally play Scotland Yard with new and improved rules, almost like Calvinball, it's a treat.

Golf - according to Robin Williams was invented by a drunk Scotsman who after a few shots of the ol' malt decided the following -

Mad Drunk Scotsman : I got an idea, I'm going to take a ball and knock it into a gopher hole with a stick.

Innocent Bystander : Like Pool?

MDS : @$#! Pool not like pool. I'm not going to use a straight stick, I'm going to use a little f@#$%d up stick.

IB : So like Croquet?

MDS : @#$! Croquet. Not like croquet. I'm going to put the gopher hole like yards and yards away. and put shit in the middle like trees and sand and a lake. So you'll keep hitting the ball with a tyre iron and every time you miss you'll feel like you're having a stroke... @#$! that's what we'll call it - we'll call it a stroke, 'cos every time you miss the ball you're going to die! And then... this is brilliant, I'll put some level and and a little flag near the hole, to give you hope. But I'll put a pool on one side and some sand on the other to @#$! with your ball. And you'll be stroking away thinking you're going to die...

IB : So you do this just once, right?

MDS : No, eighteen times...

And now that you've read all of this you can go here and take a look at the video.

My apologies.

Cricket is a very similar story. It's bad enough to have enough time and energy to want to hit a ball with a weapon of some kind, but these guys go all the way... the whole nine yards to come up with the weirdest set of rules.

The ball must be thrown with the arm above the level of the shoulder and the elbow extended at the point of release. Whatever happens before is fine. Paul Adams, way to go and that new Sri Lankan fellow, who's name escapes me.

Then you need to knock one of six sticks down. Or catch the ball or some such. Why is it so damn complex? Take this set of simple rules - Here's a ball, you can't touch it with your hands, or go out side the big white rectangle that we've drawn. Kick, head or chest it into that net on the far side and try not to kill anyone along the way. And you can only head the ball not your opponents.

Isn't that so much simpler. Or take this one. See that guy walking into our court muttering something? we have to grab him and hold him down or make sure he stops muttering. And if he grabs you, you're back on the bench.

Even chess and dungeons and dragons have a simpler rule book than cricket. Yet there are millions (thankfully restricted to the commonwealth and South Africa) who know all the rules and will come up with newer ideas to make things miserable for all concerned... and me.

Why me? Because you can't go around saying things like I'm not watching the match or I honestly don't care or Let them all go to hell without a significant proportion of the blue billion wanting to lynch you.

All that apart, here's on the word "trip"

A: Listened to that band da, the something quartet - ok it is.

B: Did you hear that one song, trippy it is.

A: It's ok nothing to go all crazy about. Supreme Beings is Trippy though.

C: Have you heard Hey by the Pixies? Trippy da, full addicting only that song is.

A: Yeah I downloaded it but I don't think it's all there.

D: I'm damn scared of this trippy word when you @#$!ers are around and drop it all the time...

That's all folks...

Nee Sandman?

All we read or get to nowadays is stories of how the kids just ain't right. And that some one's getting a face transplant. The last one got rejected on account of ugliness I think. It's interesting how medical research is funded. The first knee prosthesis released over a decade ago were simple hinge joints. In other words, they moved only in one plane and around a single axis. And cost the usual GDP of a tin pot little African country. The rich old men who could afford to both play golf and get their knees replaced realised that post getting enough metal in them to set of detectors in all airports except the ones in Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad, they couldn't play golf anymore. Not that golf is a game that requires one to be in the pink of health and prime of one's fitness but the issue here is simple - the swing, in golf, to be completed perfectly, requires a small amount of rotation in the joint. Now, the knee is easily one of the most complex joints in the body and though primarily a hinge, it does allow enough rotation to make Woods a Tiger on the fairway. It is also historically an extremely important joint and has been immortalised in the Tamil greeting "nee eppudi irruke". Digression apart, rich old men fuelled their rich old money into material research to give rise to this.

Miracle of modern engineering. And that's why as Chris Rock says we'll never find a cure for AIDS. Because then drug companies will go out of business. Then maybe they'll bring small pox back.
That apart been reading two incredibly creative and entertaining comic series - Fables and Sandman. More on them later. But this is a legend I read - every night as we tuck ourselves into bed, the Lord of Dreams comes along and sprinkles sand in our eyes. This makes us sleep (duh!) and the sand is what makes us dream. This also is why we wake up with a gritty, sandy feeling in our eyes.
So I did wake up with something that felt like sand all over my face for a long time. Maybe I need to start earlier. Circa 1980 when teak was actually available. So then the Provider decided to get himself some teak furniture that would look good and outlast us all. And in the midst of all the wood work were two beds. With proportions that required a custom built mattress (80"x30" - we were a tall thin race apparently). The headboards were out of a single piece of teak some three feet across, worth the GDP of a TPLAC (tin pot little...) in present day. And the years rolled on with little or no change outside of us becoming a tall not so thin race and the Provider's taste in wood changing. Albeit slowly but surely.
Then one fine shopping expedition a gargantuan bed with an intricately carved head board but with more acceptable proportions was procured and yours truly inherited the teak. The new bed though wonderfully carved is a dust magnet and if one is allergic the night is spent with the Sandman battling the Dust bunny. But that's not the story, is it? So the teak device was my place of somnolence for many a moon till I realised that I was waking up with the mother of all back aches every morning. And not because I was sleeping funny. Or anything. Investigation revealed that though the cool headboard was teak, the bed itself was plywood (incidentally invented by Alfred Nobel's dad). And teak lasts twenty years. Plywood on the other hand twists and turns with time and warps like the gravitational field of a small star.
The result is a morning-after back ache. The cure is to take the mattress and use it to soften the floor and enjoy a restful night or two. That's when the sandman came along with me waking to a faceful of dust. The legend we began to believe and dreams were in technicolour.
Till it all fell apart. The dreams, the legend and my mattress which was bought circa 1980. Made to order to fit the bed. It says Dunlop on top, like the tyre and over twenty years the rubbers becomes mud. Like the book says, "... and dust ye shall be." Looks like the folks got conned and got an adult rated mattress.
So it's now the not so soft floor. But I'll live. Looking for someone interested in buying the carved monster so that's one less piece of junk I have to deal with.

But on an aside on tyres, what do you do with 365 used condoms? Melt them down and make a tyre. Call it Goodyear.

Lead me not into...

...Temptation Wines.

Church Street is probably the most hedonistic place in bangalore. Unapt (it can't be inapt, can it?) nomenclature aside, greed and gluttony are worshipped and I'm sure in the recesses of the dark night you could add maybe lust and a couple more. And they call it Church street.

There was a plan, maybe a year ago to make it the upmarket "food street" like Ibrahim Sahib or that unnamed road of joy in the middle of VV Puram. And perhaps it can still be that. Some twenty odd restaurants dotting the 20 foot-wide asphalt serving everything from insipid samosas to appam and pandi curry, throw in some good biryani and a smattering of sushi and there you have it.

So a bunch of us where there last night under the awning of the very aptly named Temptation Wines. Sitting on the steps 6 feet from the road belting Bacardi and beer and making the worst jokes possible. For the record the link to silly puns was a hit with at least one person. I'm happy. As a certain commenter so succinctly put it, the rest of you can sod off if you don't like it. After much consumption of legal alcohol and discussions on the more illicit paakits which depending on the ISI (indian standards institute) mark on them may or may not turn you blind, we proceeded to the high temple of non -vegetarianism, videlicet, Empire. Now the normal grilled chicken/chicken kabab, ghee rice is an all time favourite but the management at Empire (who apparently have up to 60 Lakhs worth of outstanding Chicken credit with various sources of poultry in and around Bangalore) have opened an Arabian joint on the roof top. And to save time the menu (sans the prices) is printed on the door of the lift so one can decide what one's poison is on the way up. There are of course signs imploring one to use the stairs since it is perhaps a healthier way to ascend.

Standard issue pita breads and humus and sheekhs exist but the thing to consume is the Kabsa mutton. Which is a huge chunk of meat served on a bed of rice. We've done meat before but this chunk was simply incredible. Tender to a fault and when held up, meat slides off the bone under the influence of gravity. Gravity! No fork, hand, pulling, biting. Just slides off. Incredible. The chicken version isn't such a big deal, in fact it pales in comparison to the red meat.

Satisfaction guaranteed.

Orkut has decided to become user friendly and there's a new thing on the line which is innovatively titled "Gazzag". Cool palindromes apart will review it when I can.

Tell me about it

So things aren't as peachy or creamy as I thought they could be once I had the license. To take a knife to people with curative intent. Which would explain the lack of anything concrete to write about. Spent a few days in good old Pondicherry, essentially taking full advantage of the fact that the State has negligible taxes. At one point of time I wanted to fill a Jerry can with petrol and whisk it across the border. Which reminds me the car's off for the usual overhaul. Will be broke (me, not the car) for the next month so those of you who're planning on asking me to fund food, alcohol and other illicit habits, talk to the hand.
Discovered that Jamaican Passion Bacardi Breezer if spiked with anything above 60mL of Bacardi White Rum is an awesome drink. And also that the Lime Breezer is nothing but Limca. Yuck.
And the Beef Biryani joint in the vicinity of Muruga Theater is still active as ever and they remember old customers. As does the tea shop opposite the main gate of JIPMER.
Learnt a few filthy jokes in Telugu which due to a self-imposed prohibition on sleaze on the blog I can only relate in person. In any case there isn't anything worse than transliterated vernacular humor.
Discovered this.
And this story related by a friend on the etymology of a commonly used phrase.
Long years ago, during the Crusades, knights who due to insanity, peer pressure or sheer boredom decided to head to the holy land would usually lock their houses and their women. The famed chastity belt which now mostly features in strange BDSM pornography and perhaps museums of natural and unnatural history played a rather important social role in the locking up of the aforementioned ladies. These errant knights would leave the key with a trusted friend for safe keeping. And if and when they returned would be welcomed by a presumably fidel (what's the word derived from fidelity that should come here?) close friend and wife. So one such knight in armour decided to save Jerusalem and as custom determined, did the whole locking and stocking and maybe some barrelling before the locking and stocking and gave the key to his friend and rode off. He hadn't gone ten miles when a breathless friend on a breathless horse galloped up and informed him that the key was the wrong one. The knight replied, "Yeah? Tell me about it..."
Cheers.

3 weddings and my funeral

Got happily drunk on beer yesterday and in the midst of many irrelevant statements on life, the universe and everything realised a few things. One, Beer is God's way of telling us that we still hold a special place in his heart. Two, it's always a good thing to drink without having anything to do the next day. No work, nothing to read, no deadlines breathing down your neck - good thing. And three, beer is God's way of telling us...
Had an enlightening chat about a north Indian wedding with a friend. Which brings us in record time and space to the subject matter in dispute here. After Vadakancheri and this really cool Arya Samaj wedding I attended the discussion brought back memories of a Punjabi wedding that I was subjected to a while back. So here we are with a standard-issue compare and contrast.
Vadakancheri was you typical Palaghat Iyer affair, replete with the Kashi Yatra (where the groom, disgusted with the whole concept of marriage pulls this mock show of taking off to Kashi or some such place of spiritual interest to renounce this world of materialism. Methinks it's performance anxiety that made the first groom think of such a thing but can't say that out loud. The in laws-to-be then coax the poor sod back into the fold and proceed to get him married before he can think of escaping again.), the old women in heavily gold-embroidered silk sarees discussing everything from family gossip to potential suitors of every unmarried girl in a ten km vicinity, kids vying for a place next to the couple to inhale the fumes of the pyre. No, fumes of the fire. And the usual old men talking about how good the Railways was in 1932 and how the pension check isn't coming in on time, and how today's generation is simply too disgusting to be left alive and in charge.
The Arya Samaj wedding is a simple, highly interesting affair. Lasts for about an hour, maybe ninety minutes if the man in charge is a little on the slow side. Only the incantations specific to two people being united in holy matrimony and a quick spin around the pyre. Damn, fire. Classmates of the groom resorting the the usual hooliganism in the back chairs. The priest, usually one who's not playing with a full deck - I think he's got just the jokers - translates every line in Sanskrit to Hindi, Kannada and English (I'm sure the languages change with place but one never knows). And before you're done laughing at groom turning red at mention of his (potential) children or his rather frequent bored expression, it's over. May we all adjourn for lunch, never to return.
In stark contrast to all this is the shindig that happens to the north of the Vindhyas and, nowadays due to the exodus, all over the world. So much so that movies and even discovery travel and living, which the world seems to think the world of, does a documentary on the more expensive of these. After HAHK (which sounds like a cat with a fur ball problem) it seemed rather surreal that the many events depicted in that torturous film would actually happen in real life. And then I ended up at this wedding. Landed close to dinner time to a quiet open area with little activity outside of waiters and the buffet. The barat apparently was having trouble with traffic. This I decided needed investigation. So off we went following some distant cacophony to locate the problem.
A mass of humanity herded along on either side with similar humanity carrying tube lights was the first thing that was observed. Then the sound of a portable generator (to power the tube lights) and the sound of an live orchestra. Incidentally on the same truck as the generator vying to out sound the diesel motor with minimal success. Then the horse. With the groom on top and horse-byproducts behind. A million drunk revellers (which I can empathize with) and a brass band. A full brass band. Playing souped up jazzy renditions from the aforementioned HAHK and the more nauseating DDLJ. So this bunch after being temporarily hindered by an ambulance, a cow and the police, proceeded to arrive at the open buffet space.
Then someone wanted to steal shoes. That's when I realised that there sometimes is little difference between reality and celluloid. Stealing shoes apparently is a huge money making racket that persists despite all logic. And more money can be made with the aid of neem leaves and black mail.
And at around 3 am when the vampires have decided that it's time to head coffin-wards, the bride and groom decide to do the old fire spin egged on by close relatives, considering the rest of the invitees have either passed out or decided to go spend that dubiously earned shoe money.

In the midst of all this is me going why can't we just sign the papers and get on with it. But ours is rarely to reason why. And why should we? It's not my funeral. Yet.

Addendum : Condom sales from vending machines in Gujrat during navratri where the whole dancing thing happens for many a night in a row show an astronomical increase from the average for the rest of the year.

Reality Bites

It's one AM. And sleep eludes me in a manner that would make Carlos, the Jackal not Santana, raise an impressed eyebrow and smirk a "You're good kid, real good. But as long as I'm around you'll still be second best." This takes me back to a 36 stanza trip I wrote once one the Mask that has disappeared along with many cherished and not so cherished things in the midst of the four or five changes of residence that used to happen in my life.
It is done, by the way. A day long assessment of three years of learning that didn't go quite as well as one may have liked. Those who've trod (treaded?) that path have attempted to console me by saying that the point of post graduate exams is to squelch all resistance that one's ego might put up while being... squelched. The end result is a blubbering, hypoglycemic idiot who ends up watching Munna Bhai Part Deux.
It's not so bad a movie. But remove Arshad Warsi and it is. Not in quite a state to give movie reviews though Sin City is relatively fresh in the mind and a take on the Movie and comic might come around some time. File that with the waiters from idiotville who despite incessantly managing to make life for all and sundry a living hell have not made it to this blog.
Back to the blubbering blathering bashibazouk... (couldn't resist that. Just discovered all of Tintin on my computer in .cbz) Strangely an unfortunate fallout of the ego bashing, rather humiliating experience is a sudden fear that treating patients may not be such a good idea. That I'm hoping should pass. On an aside I've decided that unsolicited medical advice over the phone or via the internet will not be given any more. It may be given over coffee and beer but not over the phone. The next person who calls in sick will have to first rattle off their credit card number, it's expiry date and that cool 3 digit number at the back of the card. No more Mr. Nice Guy. With the possible exceptions of Kiera Knightley, Koena Mitra and the Ku Klux Klan (the last bunch will get a prescription for Diazepam and Lasix, just to see what happens) and any thinly veiled dancing girls who decide to call.
Results of the afore-oft-mentioned exam will be declared on the blog when they're declared to me.
If random TV trolling gave rise to a distaste for Power Rangers in any avtaar, it's also gotten me thinking about reality shows. What is it about us as humans that we want to see other's misery. And other's lives. In technicolour.
I will admit that a few of those shows are good- The Amazing Race and Pimp My Ride, off the top of my head. But the rest? Disaster Videos, Best Police Chases of All Time, Ripley's (for crying out loud some moron has a tissue expander in his forehead and is obsessed with body modification), How to get a date?, The Apprentice, that stupid designer show... the Cut (I think), Survivor, Indian Idol and finally the killer - Fear Factor.
What kind of weird prostitution is Fear Factor all about? I might give you money if you eat these worms faster than her. And your mom's watching. And some statutory warning to not attempt the stunts at home. Hey, lets all get some tarantulas and jump into the tub. After that we can get the eggs of some endangered species and eat them. Ostriches. The only upside to the whole thing is this woman called Summer Papania. Don't bother googling - there are no pictures of her. If you missed the ostrich egg episode and the favourite winner episode, you aren't ever going to see her again till the reruns. Reruns of Fear Factor is the end of creative television.
But why are we so fascinated with misery being inflicted on our brethren (and sistren)? I don't have the guts or the inclination to eat a worm, as early as I may be up, and I sure as hell don't want to see someone else eating them. But the rest of the planet seems to want that kind of entertainment. It's the modern day Colosseum. An arena of pitched battle and fatal fighting with a significant section of society watching and enjoying what deep down inside they know is disgusting.

Et tu?

Couple of quips on the net that made me believe in the existence of sentient sapient beings on this planet.

A: Dude would anybody be upset if I confessed to being turned on by her drinking an ostrich egg (w.r.t. the Summer episode)
B: Nobody but the Ostrich...

Still no Sleep.

Power Up!

A tryst with destiny is something that happens once every 50 odd years, they say. Like Haley's comet and perhaps a good hindi film song. That doesn't involve jhankar beats, Bappi Lahari or Babul Supriyo or some other skanky characters of dubious genetic make up. But I sway from my purpose, after all digression is my middle name. Actually it's my first name. Always works are my middle and last names respectively. For those not working with a full deck of cards that would mean my name is Digression Always Works.

If there's one thing worse than a bad joke, it's the explanation.

My tryst with destiny after that little scenic detour is tomorrow. It represents the culmination of years of training, the efficiency of which will be judged in a matter of may be an hour and a half. All ye who feel that's unfair and extend sympathy in my direction I'm deeply touched and a few prayers would touch me more.

That isn't the point either. During my rather long study leave I have managed to actually get some studying done between two hourly mail checks, three hourly catnaps (that would mean I'm dozing on the keyboard every six hours) and frequent trips to the refrigerator and the idiot box. The idiot box of course follows the universal law that the more number of channels the less the likely hood of finding something remotely interesting to watch. In one of these random surfs I discovered that I get Jetix - Disney's animation/unmentionables channel. Since I like animation (yeah I think the Swat Kats are cool, so bugger off), I thought this might just be the panacea for all ennui. But, alas, at various randomly picked times of day the only thing on Jetix was Power Rangers.

Which now brings us to the point. Which crazy, demented, high on LSD or some such synthetic psychedelic specimen thought up that show? Even worse which crazy, demented, high on LSD or some such synthetic psychedelic specimen decided to adapt the show from Japanese TV to international broadcast. With Disney at that. It all went downhill after Walt died. Japanese entertainment is tailor-made for a very specific audience - Japanese. Nobody outside of them and perhaps 6 year-old precocious boys can understand it. Pokemon, Beyblade have taken over the minds of these kids. So much so that they can't operate the VCR anymore which used to be exclusively a 6 year old's domain. I will at this point confess that Takeshi's Castle is entertaining. Very funnily so. It reminds me of the Darwin Awards and of lemmings.

But the Power Rangers... If one season of Morphin' idiots in opaque helmets in all colours of the rainbow was not enough, they now have some ten variations of it. All of which come at different, randomly chosen times of the day on Jetix. Now I agree I'm not meant to watch stuff of that intellectual calibre but I don't think anyone is. Especially 6 year olds. The last thing you need is some pesky brat in an opaque helmet running into everything thinking he's going to save the world. Then they have this talking dog ranger. Whose muzzle vanishes in the helmet. And throw in some corny humor. And some potential racism with an African American playing the Black Ranger, and an Asian playing the Yellow Ranger. Which brings us to a disturbing thought, did Quentin get his idea of naming everybody by colour from the Rangers?

The end is nigh. Of the world and maybe this post.

And the show was banned in Malaysia due to the fact that these goofs in spandex kept shouting "It's Morphin' Time!" And Malaysians don't take kindly to references, as oblique as they may be, to Morphine.

OK it's back to the perusal of the famed textbook so toodle-oo and pip-pip.