Basic Instinct

As a race, we have always take things a little too far. Haven't believed in moderation. During the industrial revolution we worked the workers to death, which eventually led to Karl Marx having a field day. During renaissance we thought our brains out, which eventually led to grotesqueries that we are forced to acknowledge as pieces of art for fear of ridicule. During the writing of this post I was completely incapable of coming up with a third important period in history, which eventually led to the formation of this banal sentence.

As I said, extremes. With time, we have sunk lower into this nadir. It has never been truer than in this century. Green Peace activists have taken the red out of red meat, while at the same time we have dumped so much of our filth that mother nature might as well give up on us tomorrow. Why? At least let me enjoy my meat without making me think of the torture that the animal to which the shoulder on my table belonged to underwent. There is not much to look up to, is there?

They say the night is always darkest before the dawn. Things are at their worst before they get better. Just when we thought things could only get better, they give us hybrid cars. Really. Hybrid cars! Human ingenuity or human stupidity? Cars. It was the only constant in our lives. No matter what the world went through, there was always the comforting thought that a couple of hammer strokes in the right places would always get the car started. We did not have to depend on the bloke with a laptop to tell us what was wrong with our throttle response (This line, of course, is a complete rip-off of Neela's in the movie Tokyo Drift).

I remember the days when even the slightest of engine misfires told me if it was the fuel line, suspended matter in the fuel, spark plug, or distributor cap that was the culprit. Today it could be regenerative braking, battery (Yes, battery! Imagine that.), MPFI, Engine Management System or any or all of a host of other factors that we previously thought could only occur in the Star Trek universe. If I wanted to be bothered with all that I would call Captain Kirk. If I want a car, do not saddle me with a computer.

There was a time when if you could afford to buy a car you could not be bothered about the fuel prices. Those were simpler times, freer times. You could buy a Lincoln that did 8 miles to a gallon because, heck, you were rich enough to buy a car. Cars were never meant for anyone other than the rich. That is why we have public transport. That is why I love the Ferraris and the Lamborghinis. They have stuck to the basics while all around them have lost theirs.

How to write a blog post

Ask not what a blog post can do for you. Ask what you can do for a blog post. No, not for the altruistic reasons of working for a bigger cause (all that is humbug) but for the obviousness of it being insanely simpler to answer the latter. You can do nothing for a blog post, save for creating it. Then again, human beings have been making babies for eons and look at where that has brought us.

Before purists start to frown (do purists ever not frown?), it should be stated that this blog is not a 10 step guide to Nirvana. The Buddhists have the 8-fold path, the Jains have the 4-fold path. This needs verification - since this blog cannot be prosecuted, I am not going to spend my energy checking facts. That reminds me of this statement made in the US Senate about the right to be entitled to your own opinion but not to your own facts, which is a complete load of bull since it violates my fundamental right as a being on this planet to be entitled to whatever the hell I want to be entitled to, not to mention how much more colourful life could be if we all had different definitions for, say, the colour red.

That brings us to the subject of stilettos. <Trinity impression begins> No? Let me tell you what I believe. I believe that my blog means more to me than it does to you. I believe if you are really serious about deciphering it, you are going to need my help. And since I am the author of this blog, if you don't like it I believe you can go to hell. Because you are not going anywhere else <Trinity impression ends>. Stilettos are such fine creations, exceeded in fineness only by the fine legs that go into them. Speaking of fine legs, I have not seen a pair finer than those belonging to the sassy Stacy Keibler.

We should pause here to note the sickness of the jibe made by whoever it was who chose to coin the word ‘lisp’ to describe the condition that lisp describes. Now that it has been noted, we can choose to move on. Only, I prefer being here. Why move on when you can be perfectly happy not moving on? Besides, if Einstein was right (and I would like to think that he was – not for any good that this may bring to mankind but to avoid the disaster its falsehood can cause, a case in point being all nuclear reactors suddenly deciding to shove E=mC² right up Einstein’s backside turning this planet into one giant fireball (on second thoughts, that may be fun)) no matter how far you travel you would end up where you started. Perhaps that is why all political speeches never seem to get anywhere.

It is not all bad. Aside from the obvious plus of no one ever needing to listen to speeches (which, by the way, does not need an Einstein to point out) there is also the comforting relief that one part of this world is always going to get rich by sucking on the other part, or for that matter, one part of this world is always going to make the other part read their blog posts by suckering them into it, evolution my fine tight ass!

Of Die Hard and Romanticism

Being a man of strong opinions, I have been accused of many things. Never before, though, have I been accused of ‘pulling off a Scripto’ or something to that effect.

For the uninitiated, ‘Scripto’ is a term of supreme endearment that my favourite blog reader addresses me with. Whether the endearment ends there I shall never know – I would be shattered if it did. Thus I choose to live in my ignorant bliss.

I have been a die-hard romantic, strictly in the sense of John McClain who simply refuses to die however hard the situation may be. I take pride in my romanticism being as it is a disappearing trait indeed in these days of T20 cricket, not that I have anything against or for this brand of the sport. At any rate, I refuse to partake in an argument that has many takers. I root for the underdog, always have, always will.

Instead let us examine the psychological effects of a nude painting of Lalitha Pawar on adolescent boys. This is a thin line to walk. Aside from bordering child molestation, it verily crosses into the territory of human rights abuse. I do not know what is more horrifying – subjecting under-age boys to the anguish or having the imagination to conjure up such a scenario.

Gabbar, Thakur, and the rest of them

"How many men were they?"
"Two, chief."
"Hmm... They were two. You were three. Despite that you are back. What did you think? Chief will be happy? Will slap your backs? Sons of swines!!!"

Sadly, this is what my posts have been reduced to - making impressions of classic, immortalised dialogues of the holy grail of Indian cinema, Sholay. That is not to say that it has not been done in the past. In fact, that is what makes it such a nadir of creativity. When your brain cells are completely dead, you turn to Sholay.

Self-loathing aside, what made me allocate some disk space to Sholay on my blog was this bolt of enlightenment I was hit by a couple of nights ago after some frenzied sexual activity. Well, yours truly is now a married man. And that means he has the social licence to do it whenever, wherever though, unfortunately, not whoever. Ah, the vagaries and travails of life!

Driving the point home, or at least making an exercise in slipping to the abyss of writing by using phrases as hackneyed as this, the question to ask is whether Gabbar really cut off Thakur's hands. I know in the movie they show us he did. But then, they show a lot of things in the movies. We can't go around believing everything we see on celluloid, can we? What if Gabbar did not cut off Thakur's hands? Does that not leave a new line open for alternate thought?

Picture this. Gabbar has Thakur by his balls, not literally of course. The only way out is for Thakur to give Gabbar a handjob, literally of course. Thakur, like any man facing a life and death situation does what any man facing a life and death situation would do. It was not the handjob that was disgusting. It was the aftermath of it. Not everyone is smart enough to use as hair gel a body fluid that has had no precedent of being used this way before Cameron Diaz. The fluid spills over Thakur's hands. And Thakur was so grossed out by it that he could never bring himself to use his hands again. Ever.

Now, that sounds like a logical explanation.

Much ado about nothing

Guys like me can make their entire careers out of making mountains out of mole hills. No wonder then that it has never happened. Partly because as a race we do not appreciate mountains enough, but mostly because there aren't guys like me. And do we even want to get started talking about me? We could but then we would never get to the point where the conversation ends, such is my all pervading aura that binds those around me. How aura should relate to end points in conversation I cannot elucidate as of this moment. Suffice to say, that it is there. The aura, that is.

Now that we have brought that thought out in the open, I am not sure there is anything that as a race we appreciate enough. As a non-race? Well, that is completely left open to interpretations depending on one's predilections. What those interpretations and predilections should be I should not say. Not that I 'cannot' say, I 'should' not say for there is not much that I believe I won't be able to say about. But if you believe that keeping your mind open and your legs closed if you happen to be a woman or your legs open and your mind closed if you happen to be a man is the road to eternal happiness and bliss then I must say that someone went wrong terribly somewhere or something went wrong'ly' terribly somewhere, depending on (what else?) your predilections.

For the longest time, there has been this eternal confusion about predilection and predisposition. I am not one to rant and rave over incorrect usage of words. I usually bite anyone's head off who does not know the basic nuances of language. Say for instance, the difference between beside and besides. I would definitely love to sleep beside Mary should Mary happen to be a smoking hot biologically active woman. And I would definitely more than love to sleep besides Mary should Mary happen to be a cold frigid maid. If you don't get the difference now, you are never going to get it in which case you will probably end up sleeping beside a cold frigid Mary, and sleep besides the smoking hot biologically active one.

Followers of my blogs (I am not sure she is alive any more - may her soul rest in peace - but it is the thought that counts, right?), would recollect that there are things in the paragraph above that I have already stated before. Actually, they wouldn't for anyone with a memory span greater than that needed to remember where the bookmarks are stored would have a life. That would make the exercise of sojourning on these pages redundant unless they are one of those self-righteous masochistic sods.

PS: This post is dedicated to Twigrl. She seems to be the only reader I have left. Attagirl!

Losing my religion

There are events in a man's life that make him lose his faith - painful heartbreaks, bankruptcy, and E! becoming a subscription channel. Note that I have spoken entirely in the masculine gender on a blog that is completely anti-sexist. No, I have not changed my outlook. I am only talking about the male of the species.

Why don't we talk about men? All 'they' seem to be bothered about is the fairer sex - glass ceiling at workplaces, unequal pay, exploitation, trafficking, etc. Has anyone ever thought about the everyday agony of men? Trying to find a pair of matching socks, dishes piled a mile high, eating without the tie getting into the soup bowl, getting through office firewalls to find the good internet porn, picking out curtains that go with the sofa? Okay. Strike the last one. Let us pretend I never said it and move on.

In the midst of all this, there is an image to cater to. We are not supposed to cry during a movie. So what if I cry buckets even in movies that can only be termed plain pathetic? At least I don't not cry in movies that are truly moving. No pun intended, intentionally or otherwise. That brings us to a bigger question. Is something happenning better than something not never happenning? Sample this.

An optimist and a pessimist are walking down a street. A pigeon does its thing on the optimist, and he is smiling about it. The pessimist looks at him quizzically. Basically gives him the 'you must be freaking out of your mind, gone bananas, lost your marbles' look. The optimist is simply happy that elephants can't fly. This goes beyond the 'half empty and half full' shenanighan. It is plain nuts. QED.

Except that, there is more. There is always more with me around. More not sugarcoating, presenting things as they are. That is why children are so difficult to please. They see things for what they are and not for what you want to make them out to be. There is nothing more misleading than the phrase 'child-like innocence'. 'Grown-up ignorance' is more like it.

Spoon and Lemon

Some of us are born with a silver spoon in our mouths. I am not sure why anyone would want to be born that way. Does it not get in the way of breast feeding? Come to think of it, may be that is why the silver spoon people have traits of retards, delinquents, sex offenders, child molesters, serial killers or a multitude of other things that even I consider unprintable. That does not happen. Ever. That is not to be constructed to mean that I don't consider many things unprintable. I do. I print them anyway.

For instance, my sojourn in a strip club. I would never have put that in black and white, or in zeroes and ones as is the case here, had it not been on this space since this is a space where I consider nothing about myself unworthy of being put on. Besides, the very notion of losers being the only frequenters in a strip joint is as real as George Bush's balls for the green you splurge can only rival Swiss bank account balances.

Having used two most over-abused metaphorical references in this day and age, and topping it up with a phrase only more hackneyed than 'From time immemorial' (which is not all that cliched save for the teeny weeny fact that I have used it often enough to cause permanent brain damage in a friend of mine) things can only go one one way. Downhill. And not only as far as the quality of this post is concerned. My life too. But that is not something people are usually bothered about.

Even if I have said this before, I am jaw-droppingly apalled at the increasingly falling standards that we have started making peace with. As if the boy bands were not enough proof of the decandence of the human race, we now have the onslaught of the ugly people to contend with. Lest anyone should misconstrue that statement (a feat that would need the thought capacity of an amoeba or that of Einstein depending on the level of misconstruing), I am a staunch believer in having only beautiful people in showbiz. Seriously. Fat rappers? Balding newscasters? Wrinkled grammy winners? Or Oprah Winfrey? Hyuk! There used to be a world where genetically favourably disposed people ruled. What have we done in the name of progress?

To mangle a quote from 'The Third Reich', a thousand years shall pass and the guilt of equality shall not be erased.

Save the planet

'Save water - shower with a friend'. Oh, the brilliance of that statement! It almost pardons the travesty of making covers of eternally immortal songs. Almost, not quite, especially when it is a Floyd cover. But that did make me think of the friends I would love to share the shower with. Perv, am I? No. Just a man.

Statistically, a man spends one-third of his waking hours thinking of sex. No wonder that statistics are like bikins - what they reveal is exciting but what they conceal is vital. Men don't trash their time on such banal activities. They make the best of it. The remaining two-thirds is spent thinking of ways to think of sex.

Over the last almost twenty six years that I have spent on this planet (I say 'this' planet because whatever I did outside it is irrelevant) I have come to the one conclusion that usually takes years of dedicated meditation to come to. Thought is the cause of all suffering. Any surprise then that there is a phrase in the English language for it - Eyes lit up like a child's on Christmas. Well, okay. No context there either. But is not a beautiful statement made out of context better than an ugly one made in context?

There is not much I can say about this post except that making it felt like a good idea at the time. That and it was Sunday evening. Outside of a Monday morning, the Sunday evening is the most clinically depressing time of the week. You are too wasted with all the drinking on Saturday to go out, and too bored with all the cranial atrophy to keep your sanity. The latter does not apply to me. I lost mine a long time ago - it is easier to live that way. And I rather enjoy intellectual inactivity. What I enjoy even more, however, is vanity. Shocking then that I have never mentioned it on this space. At least not in a vehemently offensive way. Anything else does not count.

Shall we dance? Over my dead body! No, no. I have nothing against dancing. I rather enjoy it myself. But that movie was sickeningly mushy, and I say that despite not having seen it. Make no mistake. I am a sucker for those over the top mushy romantic comedies that the dream merchants dish out to us off an assembly line. I draw the line at 'How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days'. And only because I saw it in a theatre where I was the only man. Everyone else was a woman.

Whoa! That was nearly as emphatic as 'Indira Gandhi was the only man in her cabinet' descriptive. And yes. As Einstein said, 'Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love'. Neither is Sir Isaac Newton who in his most famous speech said all of two words three times, "I conceive. I conceive. I conceive." It took a woman to tell him of the futility of that sermon. He conceived thrice and produced nothing, and a woman conceived once and produced Newton.

Hair today gone tomorrow...

They say a Nation can show her might but for this she has to fight. Who are 'they'? And why do they keep saying things? Kirsten Dunst did manage to satiate a part of my curiosity when she said that 'they' are the inimitable collective or something of the sort in Elizabethtown - a silly romantic flick starring the chick Orlando Bloom.

That reminds me of facial hair. Basically, of guys who need to keep facial hair to constantly restate their fledgling manhood. I know of at least two of the male species who are like that - Aftab Shivdasani and Abhishek Bachchan. And not only am I not in the habit of mentioning anyone by their names on this blog for the very simple reason that even my whining gives them a higher rating on search engines, I don't ever wear a habit either. Whether that statement is grammatically correct is questioning (I have read and re-read it a thousand times over and I still am not certain of its grammatical integrity) but I am too darn fogged up to reconstruct. So it shall stand as it is, which is a first. It is also a testimony to the standards I am now willing to put up with. Perhaps five and a half months of celibacy does that to a man.

I don't like hair of any kind unless they happen to be on the head of bald women. Since I have not come across bald women other than those who have gone bald of their own volition, I can't say that I like hair. I certainly don't like armpit hair (really, what was Julia Roberts thinking when she wore that lovely dress on unshaved armpits!), and I don't want to talk about hair in the nether regions. I shall only say this to all the women out there, 'if you don't want men to treat you like animals then please don't look like one down there'.

Being a man has its advantages. For one, we can pee standing up. We can pretty much pee anywhere we want. And we can pee just for the heck of having a contest. Not like I am saying that I do any of these things or even that I do not. But that is about the only upside of being a man. Whoever says it is a man's world has no idea what she is talking about. Look around you. Who does the world belong to? Brock Lesner or Jessica Simpson's perfect breasts?

And with that, I rest my case.