Ramblings of a non conformist

Gravy in the graveyard

2010-03-16T12:33:00.001-07:00

(This is a true story)

Things that go bump. Lets see, the following things go bump in the night,
1. Ghosts 2. Blind mosquitoes 3.Drunk men driving too fast 4.The night sticks of security personal doing their rounds.
Of all these the latter kind are the most interesting. Unless you have actually seen a ghost, in which case the interesting top 100 might take a different hue. I spoke to three security type people before reaching this conclusion.

The first one was the night guard in a software company. When I asked him if he liked his job he looked at me like I was a maniac. He actually took two steps back and kept his right hand close to his baton. When I told him I was taking a survey (I was actually waiting for a friend to finish his job and come out so that we could go on a Saturday night binge) he relaxed a bit but his hand still stayed close to his stick. He said he had been doing this job for nearly ten years and all he did was read magazines and drink coffees.

The second was a guard at a nightclub. He said he found his job pretty entertaining. What with carrying bacchius disciples to their cars and knocking the skulls of the odd misbehaving character. He said he couldn’t complain about the job. Besides he was raking in the moolah, tipped heavily by embarrassed girl friends and boyfriends whose other half’s he had to carry to their choice of transport for the night.

The third person was the most interesting. He was the night watchman for a graveyard. Night watchmen for graveyards? It was a crazy question to ask someone sitting in the graveyard at one in the morning. But what could I do, the inquiring mind of mine will traverse through any path however rocky and thorny to satisfy its curiosity.
He told me he had been talking to a bottle of rum for a couple of hours, and the rum having run out of its lifespan was lying in an empty frame of mind and bottle in the corner. Being wise in the ways of the world, I had come prepared, a bottle rum, two plastic containers and a bottle of cold water. I thought of getting a fried chicken but sitting in a graveyard and biting on the leg of a chicken is taking it a bit too far, even by my standards.
We sat down between gravestones and got drinking and talking. I cant repeat all the stories I heard, we spent over two hours talking about night life in the graveyard and helping our bottle of rum towards its demise. I would advice all those who read this to go to your neighborhood grave yard and spend a night drinking with the night watchman. Spooky stories, hilarious happenings, scary moments, sad anecdotes, this guy has seen it all and he ranks among the greatest storytellers of all time. The least surprising fact of the evening was the rums effect on him; it was like water on the proverbial duck.
He told me about the grave of Mary Joseph, people always seemed to trip as they cross it for no apparent reason. The grave of Aloysius where all the huge centipedes (each the size of a grown mans arm) used to meet during the rains. This is a huge graveyard and centipedes holding their annual convention on one particular grave is a surprising fact. Samuel Zackriah's grave where the gravestone breaks on first week of august each year and this has been happening for over a decade. The funny gurgling noise that emits from the belly of Ravi Vincents grave. The weird bearded guy with long locks and a small kettle drum who roams the graveyard at night but is never seen during the day.
I was given the ten-cent tour of the graveyard; unfortunately we didn’t pass through Mary Joseph's grave so at this point of time I cannot verify if the nightwatchman's claim is true. By this time our bottle had reached the end of its tether and went to join its brother in the corner and I was half asleep from its influences. I have a standing invitation to visit my friend in the graveyard anytime I want. Though should I go without a bottle of rum I am sure the welcome will not exactly qualify to five star standards. I will go again and I will write again, you are welcome to join me, just bring your own bottle of rum.

2010-03-15T10:54:00.001-07:00

(The stuff in italics at the beginning of all posts are comments added now. Most original ramblings are from the 2004 era. I am too lazy to redo this, though time has made me realise it should/can/must be improved. There's more such irreverent articles, I ll post them later.)

Humanity and Sanity

2010-03-15T10:41:00.000-07:00

In the beginning when god created earth and the apple tree, he had not yet completed the screenplay. He's a bit like Tarantino, taking each scene as it comes kinds. When he was finished with the creation he decided that he shall let all the actors (All the worlds a stage, remember)ad lib their way through life. And things were progressing at a nice even pace until......until one day humans decided to do things differently.
But first a bit of background. One morning a few thousand years ago, a Shepard was taking his sheep out for breakfast (that night the sheep was dinner, but that is not our concern)when an angel came to him and told him "My dear fellow you are the son of god, so stop this nonsense with the sheep and go forth and save mankind". And with a flash of light and the usual bangs and other assorted sound effects the angel was gone. The Shepard was lost in thought for a while and then he decided that saving mankind was more appealing than being a waiter for sheep and its ilk.So he got a few of his friends and went around talking the talk and walking the walk (the fact that he walked the walk on water was instrumental in drawing a decent sized crowd on weekends).Some people listened to him and some others threw stones at him but 'son of god' was a pretty hardy chap and he didn't let a few stones interrupt his performance. He threw grand dinners with fishes and loaves, went around turning water into wine and all the usual tricks that travelling conjurers do. This went on for a while until one fine day the people of the town got tired of the act and decided to have a final big bash. The gathered at the town square with their children and picnic baskets and somewhere between the main course and dessert they caught 'son of god' and nailed him to a cross and told him it was time for him to go meet his papa.
This act by a bunch of hooligans in an obscure little town has had and still has an impact on almost everything that happens on this little rock called earth.

In the intervening years, from the time 'son of god' took a nail ride to meet his pater to the present times, humans entertained themselves by having a couple of wars, inventing bombs that can destroy the earth seven hundred and fourteen times, having an odd inquisition here and a few genocides there and generally having a good time. They also invented some far out stuff, like for instance when the energy bills of the developed countries were skyrocketing, some bureaucrat came out with the brilliant idea of warming the entire globe with carbon monoxide emissions instead of heating individual buildings.This cost saving idea reportedly got the bureaucrat a noble prize and a box of Belgian chocolates.

Alright getting back to the present. So,life was moving along pleasantly until a small child in an obscure corner (this is not the same obscure corner where 'son of god' had the disagreement with the locals) of the globe threw a stone in the pond of humanity creating ripples that led to far reaching consequences.

This child was on his way to gather firewood when out of the sky came a whooshing sound and a big bang. The child unperturbed (he was in Rwanda you see, where the Tutsi and the Hutu tribes are trying to find out if there is a bullet proof member amongst them) finished gathering the wood and came home to see that his home had been converted into a giant fireplace.The kid who had seen these things happen to other children in the neighbourhood on a pretty regular basis took it in his stride and moved into the neighbours house without batting an eyelid.
This whole scene was caught live on tape by a CNN crew covering the news in Rwanda. The digital images travelled half way around the world and landed in the desk of a news producer. The producer who had a small girl of his own and also being a devout follower of 'son of god',saw the tape and something inside him snapped. Being senior enough to put on air whatever he saw fit, he telecast the unedited version of the tape over and over again with an applet running below saying "Is this what our lord meant when he said 'Love thy neighbour'".
This was picked up by other networks and eventually was telecast around the world over and over again. The world leaders saw the images, the old man with the funny hat in that tiny country saw it, the crazy dictator in the Asian country saw it, the queen in the empire where the sun never rises saw it and they all agreed that it was not something that 'son of god' had listed in the list of "do's ". It was more likely to be in the list of "dont's".
The UN general assembly was called to an emergency session and the world leaders took an oath never to let anything go bang or boom ever again. The war mongers were given a day to stop their mongering or told that UN hit squads would send them to learn better table manners from 'son of god'. The world was once again a peaceful Place and humanity could go back to its more serious perusal of the meaning of life.

The Ghost writer

2010-03-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

This blog is ghost written.This is the work of a maniac who is beyond redemption. Now that the disclaimer has been claimed shall we move on?
Name:The G
Place: Planet Earth
Date:23/09/2004 (If you live in North Korea its 23rd September Juche 93.)

This article is about why I was chosen to write all future articles in this blog instead of the owner.
This is the era of the politically correct writing. You cant call a negro, a negro. Neither is it advisable to call a short man a short man, or a tall man a tall man. There are socially acceptable terms for all of the above. I am sure a detailed explanation wont be needed, the terms, vertically challenged, mentally challenged, odourly challenged (Someone who has a phobia about taking showers) ,etc should be familiar to all except those who live in a cave (Osama, this one is not for you I guess). Shakespeare in all his wisdom said "A rose by another name smells just the same". Now try selling that idea to those weird politicos who come up with the most ridiculous terms. A dirty old man is now a "Sexually focused chronologically gifted individual". A Psychopath is known as a "socially misaligned person" (Friggin A.Way to go. Socially misaligned!!! What next? A serial killer will be "a population reduction expert"?)

The mainstream writers, editors and whatchucallits are shit scared to call a spade a spade (Oh my gawd I used the word shit, hope they don't target me with a smart bomb.) What the fuck (Now what have I gone and done "Fuck"?, its low yield nuclear bomb time) is wrong with people, why is being called black considered degrading, I mean people pay extra to have their cars painted black, a black pearl is worth a hell (Oh there goes...more cussing) a lot more than their white counterparts. So why in goddamn name of god cant a black guy be called a black guy.

Like it or not, most of the politically correct terms are born in the land of freedom (For those who came in late "the land of freedom" essentially means the United States of America). The Iraqi's should be happy that they are called "middle easterners" instead of "those crazy brown Islam bastards". Never mind that they are going to be smart bombed out of existence anyways, but the point is at least they went to meet their maker as "middle easterners" not as "crazy.........". America is the worlds policeman ( oops make that policeperson). If a civilian building is bombed in mainland America, it is an act of terrorism. But if they bomb ten buildings in downtown Baghdad then that's considered a fight to free the Iraqi's. Now if someone decides to bomb eight more buildings in D.C would that be considered a fight to free the Americans? Ahh...questions, questions....more questions.

Take for example Saudi Arabia. Everyone agrees that its has one of the most despotic families ruling it. The family of Saud has been clandestinely financing every Islamic terror group in the world. They have probably instituted an annual award for the best terrorist organisation. The king or one of his cronies presents the winners with a few million dollars and a couple of dirty bombs. Now the money for this would have come from the sale of oil to the USA and other countries. The Americans are essentially paying the terrorists to bomb their cities albeit after paying the Saudi royals a large commission for transferring the cash. Why don't the Americans realise that its more cost effective to cut the middle man and bomb their own damn buildings.

The reason why I am writing this instead of the owner of this blog is

a. He will not get a visa to the USA if he carries on in this manner.
b. He will be targeted by radical islamic terrorists.( At this point I should like to note that the owner is keen on having his head on his shoulders and he will be mighty cross if his head is taken out for a guided tour of islamic shrines without the rest of his body in tow).
c. "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure", with a President who comes out with such great nuggets of wisdom the world is definitely a safer place.

Dead on Monday

2010-03-15T10:27:00.000-07:00

(There is a story behind this story....wont tell though...nanananannaaa...naa)

Dead on Monday
It all began one balmy night.
I was walking down the street,
on my tired ol feet,
not missing a beat,
thinking that,
my life is so sweet,
when all of a sudden

WHAMMM, a truck decided to take a right turn where there wasn't one. Unfortunately I happened to be on the path of the wayward truck.
As I lay there bleeding on my way to oblivion, my life did a flashback on me.(It is true what they say about your life doing the flash back thinngy a few moments before you join the 'I lived' alumni club)
An English teacher who taught me there was more to life than Sidney Sheldon and James Hadley Chase, A pretty classmate who might have been my wife, a friend who always spoke the wrong thing at the wrong moment. A sister who is of the opinion that I need to get a search and rescue squad to find and retrieve my senses. A girl friend who's competing with me to win the 'weirdo' sweepstakes. These are some but not all of the actors who play a part in the final show.
Red and blue lights are flashing around me, the night looks surreal. A drizzle indicates the first signs of a stormy night. The people around me scream, a few faint at the sight of the increasing rivulets of blood. The pavement has a new paint job, black, white and red. A Paramedic clamps an oxygen mask on my face and shifts me onto a stretcher. It is a wasted effort. I know I will be present at the John Lennon concert that night.Dancing with Elvis and Greta Garbo and maybe dinner with Hitler.
The Buddhists say you will be reborn. Your soul will move from your body to another body. Somewhat like shifting the house. You are still the same, only the address is changed. What happens to the memories? They are probably stored in an archive file in a big hard disk somewhere and your mind is wiped clean for its new home. You start with a formatted mind.
I know I will be reborn as a carpenter in the South Pacific Island of Tonga. The crystal ball gazing gypsy at the carnival told me so.
The Buddhists also say that you can stop the cycle of birth and death if you attain nirvana. The way to nirvana is through reading Koans like the one below,

Cold Mountain is a house
Without beams or walls.
The six doors left and right are open
The hall is blue sky.
The rooms all vacant and vague
The east wall beats on the west wall
At the center nothing.

- Han Shan, circa 630

Have you attained nirvana yet, have you, have you??Hmm...maybe there is some fine print there. I'll get back to you on that one.

As I take my last breath, the answer to the riddle of life is reveled to me. And I fade away sighing , "Humans have got it all wrong".

Hinglish as she is written

2010-03-15T10:25:00.000-07:00

(This is a real letter and I still have it)

This is a faithful reproduction of a letter that inadvertently found its way to me

Dear Sir,
We trust you received our letter of despite postal non-service outlook.
We do understand that you would have been busy with other matters regarding the occasion. So we chose to send a reminder.
We are authorized video, photographers of xxxxxxxxxx (name withheld).
We look forward to covering your family’s special occasion, in celluloid.
Now, we request you to contact on phone, or in person to ensure that proper filmic record of the occasion is obtained.
As soon as we are contacted by you we can make you an offer or give you demo so that between you customer, and us the film/video recorders of events proper mutuality is obtained.
FREE SPECIAL OFFER FOR THE OCCATION, we are newly Introducing the CCTV, TV Relay in 29” Flat TV on the time of Wedding video Coverage. It will attract the Guest very much the hall will show like Cinema Theatre
May we look forward to an early call from you.
Assuring you of our good services.
We remain,
Yours truly,
Xxxxxxx
Hey Lizzie, anytime you need a Royal English teacher for your Royal great grand kids, give us a call

This is not a figment of my imagination you faithless creatures. If there are enough requests, I’ll scan it and put it up here some time later in life.

Mobile phone phobia

2010-03-15T10:23:00.000-07:00

You ever had the phone ring exactly when you hope it wont? What's with mobile phones and ringing at inappropriate moments?Do they use some kind of software that holds the call till it is the perfect wrong moment to ring? I mean, who came up with this stupid idea of a mobile phone? Wasn't mankind miserable enough already without getting to hear instant bad news? "The stock market is down 400 points", "Honey the dog ate your favorite pair of sneakers", "You are fired", who the hell wants to hear this news when they are spending a happy moment with their mistress or out fishing with their buddies? Cant it wait till you get back? Now they use the mobile phones to watch TV. So who wants to watch TV on a 2 inch screen?. If I did want to watch TV I would take a beer, half a ton of potato chips and sit in front of the idiot box in my favorite couch instead of peering at my Nokia wondering if its a movie or a ball game.
Belling the cat:Alexander 'the bell' Graham reportedly dropped some battery acid on himself while he was inventing the phone. The first words on a telephone were probably " Fucking hell", due to marketing reasons it was changed to "Mr.Watson, come here I need you". See, the first words spoken on a phone was bad news and they continue in the same vein till date.
Mobile phones are getting smaller by the day, in the near to middle future they probably will implant a mobile chip on your brain and you you'll be able to make calls just by thinking (George Bush will be making blank calls I guess).
The industry pundits say that very soon you wont need credit cards, visiting cards, ID documents or any thing that you normally carry around with you. Your mobile phone will double up as all that and more.Does that mean, if you lose your mobile, you cease to exist? "I lost my mobile, I ll just lie down and die"?
Why is it a human necessity to keep talking all the time? People with mobiles need to talk like its mandatory for others to breathe, they talk on the bus, on the train, while in a restaurant, in the loo, at the amusement park. At any public place you find two out of five people on the phone. What did they all do before the mobile was invented? What will they do if all the mobiles on the planet were to disappear tomorrow?
People look like total idiots when they are talking on their hands free kit. It seems like they are talking to the wall, or to a plant, or even to a buffalo. A person who comes from a place that has never seen a mobile phone will probably consider us all loony. And he wont be off the mark by much.
Small is big: My cell phone is smaller than yours, is how you cock your snook at the neighbour. The way a man boasts has undergone a drastic change. His idea of manhood used to be the ability to say "Mine is bigger than yours" ,now it is, "Mine is smaller than yours". Sigh, are we crazy or what.

Marketing Gimmicks

2010-03-15T10:20:00.000-07:00

(The kind of ads on TV during the reliance world cup was just mind boggling! It was fun though)

There's this brand of mosquito repellent. On the wrapping its say's 'WITH EXTRA MMR'.
The small print goes on to explain that MMR stands for Mosquito Mortality Rate.Mosquito mortality rate hmm... maybe the terrorist training camps should advertise their expertise with something like 'Advanced HMR' technology training (hey dodo just substitute the Mosquito with Humans).
Then theres the nutritious shampoos, whatever that is for? Not like my hair is going to any weight lifting competitions in the foreseeable future.. How about intellegient trousers. My IQ is 90, but when I wear my Van Heusen trousers its goes up to 128. Or VIP undergarnments, if you wear them you become the superhero rescuing the damsel in distress. Sorry, but the jocks on display superhero position has already been taken by Superman aka Clark Kent.
The most abused of all products must be the soap. The Soap market is highly competetive I agree but that is no excuse for the ad men/women to come out with irrelevant concepts. Does your soap help you to be selected in a job interview? Or can your soap make you want to sing and dance in the rain? My soap helps me overcome shyness and become a total extrovert!Who needs a shrink, just buy the right brand of soap.
Mobile phones ads that help India win cricket matches are just fantastic. The batsman who asks the bowler to hold on to his horses while he talks to his mom. His mom tells him to either hit a six or no dinner for Veeru tonight. Momma's boy hits the six and wins the match.Gee, they should give a phone to all eleven players, maybe we ll win more matches.
This cricket crazy nation sure comes out with some creative concepts. Lets take the Pepsi advertisments. Pepsi is available all over the world, and the Pakistanis or Australians are not going to be very happy with an India wins everytime ad, so what do they do, they have a different ad for each country. The country where the ad is displayed always wins. I wonder what they do in Holland and Kenya. That would be pushing things a bit too far, but then as long as the product sells its ok i guess.

Drumstick Dreams

2010-03-15T10:11:00.000-07:00

(A friend told me to pick a topic and write about it. Dumb guy that I am, I told her that she should pick the topic. "Drumstick" that was the answer, funnily enough, I typed this out without hitting the backspace even once.)

Sambar: A south Indian watery brown sauce eaten with rice.
There are many versions of the sambar. Moms sambar, cooks sambar, restaurant sambar, roadside eatery sambar are a few examples. The differences between all these sambars can usually be experienced the morning after.
Drumstick:A thin iron rich vegetable that grows on trees.(What did you expect, that it will grow on chimpanzees bottoms??)
When these two ie the sambar and drumstick, meet,we get a mutant known as the drumstick sambar (not a very creative name I agree). Various adjectives are used to describe this mutant, culinary delight, sauce of the gods and drool drool are some of them.
The ideal way to pay respects to this queen of all sambars is to take some rice, pour a large quantity of ghee (clarification: ghee is clarified butter.I hope that clarifies it) and a reasonable quantity of drumstick sambar, mix them all together and put it in that opening on your face. The feeling you get is called 'delight'. This DS (for all you mentally challenged folks, DS is drumstick sambar) is one of the most versatile dishes. You can eat it with Idli (steamed dumpling, it looks a bit like John Howard's hair do) or dosais (a confused pancake)or even pasta. The Italians are reportedly doing the beta testing on the last one.
The DS has a long shelf life. There has been an instance of DS being kept for over a year before being consumed. The person who consumed it is at present being consumed by the worms. But that is not of concern to us.
Udipi, a small town in south India is credited with creating this masterpiece of a dish. The story goes somewhat like this. In ancient times the sambar and drumstick were never cooked together. One day MR.Bhatt the owner of Udipi Sri Venkatesa Vilas (That is not a coded message from Osama, it was the name of Mr.Bhatts restaurant) was making sambar when he accidentally dropped a drumstick into it. Since the temperature of the sambar was nearing its maiden century he wisely decided against plunging his hand into it to recover the delinquent drumstick. He tasted the sambar when it was done cooking, he was mighty surprised to find that it tasted awesome. And that is how the DS was born.

LIFE

2010-03-15T10:10:00.000-07:00

(Too much of Roald Dahl influence I guess)

I was born one 23rd October 2003. It was a rainy afternoon and the sun was trying its best to beat a path through the clouds. I remember the first thing I saw when I came into this world. It was my mother giving me a disgusted look. I was different from the others you see. I was black, and that was a first in the family.I had a funny nose it was tilted all wrong and I had a big bottom. Actually it was massive by regular standards. Now that was the high point of my life, from then on things went downhill.
I was shunned by the others, not allowed in any of their games and never allowed to share their food. I had to go find my own food in the yard. Sometimes I was lucky, others I just went hungry.
My mother was a classic beauty, she was the most sought after female in the entire town.The males used to have long fights over who gets the right to spend time with her. Me, I was either ignored or barely tolerated. My mother refused to look in my direction, to her I was an abberation, an accident, a result of bad karma.
Over the days I learnt to ignore the jibes and tolerate the jokes about my looks. Many a time I had to fight bullies who had nothin better to do with their time than to pick on someone.
As days went by all the fighting and running resulted in me becoming one of the most physically fit in town. At that time I didnt realise that the proudest moment of my life would be a direct result of my fitness.
One day my landlord came and took me to this nice mexican restaurant on the outskirts of the town. I was to stay there for the next few days. It was quite amusing watching the comings and goings of different people.There were couples who were making up over a taco after a long fight at home, there were construction workers talking about tensile strengths and erections over a bottle of tequila.There were policemen whispering about the new gang in town and large ladys smelling of expensive perfumes.
On my third day in the restaurant, the chef Gonsalves caught me by my neck and put me in a funny machine that made weird noises. When I came out I was in a kind of daze.The fact that the chef was looking at me and telling his sous chef that I had a great body should have rung a bell but then I was in seventh heaven, I mean the chef is a hard guy to please and a compliment from him is surely worth gloating over. The chef put me on the table and raised a knife. As the knife was coming down the last thing I remember was Gonsalves telling his assistant," This chi........."

The Censor Bored

2010-03-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

(I really, truly hate censors of any kind. How can one person decide what is good for another?)

The moral police are the worst example of a dictatorial country. How can six bigoted fuckwits decide what others should or should not watch? Nudism according to them comes second, only to first-degree murder. Hey morons, why don’t you go to Kajuraho and Konark and take a look at what the land of Kamasutra is capable of. Actually stay away from there; you might want to dress up the sculptures in nine-yard saris.
Too much violence, nudity and sex, complain the herd following the censor propagandists lead.
Solution time:
Black out the news from Kashmir, Palestine, Sri Lanka, Chechnya, Indonesia, and Philippines. Lets go the whole hog, black out news from Africa, America, Asia and Europe. The news agencies can report about Mars, Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto. Making babies is off the list of permitted activities. Sex is a dirty word therefore any thing that has a link to sex is not acceptable. If a woman gives birth to a child, one can deduce that she did have sex (unless the son of god has returned, or she was inseminated artificially, which is a stupid idea to begin with). No more babies. Considering the current gene pool it might actually be a good idea.
Who are these people to tell me what to do and what to watch? In the guise of issuing a censor certificate they control information (If I consider my neighbor’s sexual orgies with an adolescent chicken as information, that’s my concern not theirs). Excuse me, but doesn’t the constitution guarantee the freedom of expression. How does one decide if the violence in a movie is too much or too little? Maybe they have a gore O meter. If it goes beeeeep then that’s too much violence Tone it down now or you don’t get a censor certificate. What whackos. Why is watching two consenting adults screwing onscreen such a big deal? Sixty year old actors run around trees singing songs, if anything should be cut out of a movie that throws up a more compulsive case. Who in real life does that? At least a major part of humanity involves itself in the pursuit of sex. And news channels can show graphical gunshot wounds and babies killed in fire accidents but the films that show a man being chewed to death by dogs are considered ‘not suitable for public viewing’. Reality is more violent than the most graphical images that can be conjured up in a film director’s imagination.
So what next, Mrs. and Mr. Censor? Do you want everyone’s lives to be brought to you for approval before they move on with it?
Rate the movies. A censor should, advise what is suitable for different age groups or give a fair warning about the contents of a film but should never withhold a film, music or any other form of expression with a reason that it would offend people’s senses. Those morons wouldn’t know what sense was if it walked up their nostrils.
Given a choice of being an Orwellian sheep under a group of censors with a crowbar up their pompous asses or a colonial slave, I would welcome the Brits back anytime.