Mashed Musings

Have you ever come across a situation when you want to laugh out loud but somehow have to hold yourself back because you know that if you start laughing

• You will fall off the chair.
• Collect the whole staff in the office.
• Your cachinnation might crack the glass door.
• You might choke yourself while tears run down your eyes.

So, you sit there like a lost pup trying to make sense of the rapid sentences falling on your ears. You try to arrange the words to understand the hidden meaning but by the time you grasp it, another convulsive sentence hit your eardrums. Something of this nature happened with yours truly and two of my friends when we decided to meet an agent to buy some Mutual Funds. We hopped into his office at around 7 pm and as soon as he opened his mouth, another of his colleague entered the discussion room and thus ensured the roller coaster ride. No malicious intentions, but you have to read some of his Quotable Quotes. He was fun to be with and was quite intelligent which stems from the fact that he started his introduction by saying the following line - “My colleague here is very intelligent, but, actually what I want to say is….” Throughout the next 2.5 hours, I wished for a Taser to materialize from somewhere, so that I could stun him every time he went off-topic.

So, here are some of the Quotes which describe the exact reason to buy Mutual Funds. There are no intentional mistakes. The lines are straight from the horse’s mouth :

• “You will die in five years. You will rash driving, drink and driving. You will die. Mutual Funds is not only ok. Your family need insurance too.” [We gave a collective gasp at the first sentence.]
• “I did research. You know how much a Tea stall wala earns? 5-15 lakh earning. He is wearing dirty clothes and pee-pull[people] with suits come to him and think that he is poor.” [Tea stall wala and Mutual Funds? The purpose of the quote was completely lost, but we still smiled and nodded our heads.]
• “Boys come to me for discussions but then they go and spend 20,000 on 4 girls. Girls are always selling boys. But girls are Pakka. They save money.” [girls selling boys???]
• “I don’t deal with girls. Girls always asking fathers. Fathers sitting in remote villages. They tell girls - take LIC, why do spend in Funds. Fathers don’t know anything but girls always believe them.” [ I just wanted to shake him and scream - CAN WE GET TO THE POINT???]
• Pee-pull[people] spend so much money. Globes[Globus], Lui Philip[Louis Phillip], MutthuBishi Lancer[Mitsubishi lancer], big house. They want everything. I buy refrigerator last month. I did one swoosh[he meant that he swiped his credit card] and there was fridge. [By now I was biting my tongue so that I don't laugh the next time he says pee-pull]
• Marriage very expensive. My one friend wanted to go to KuluManli for Honeymoon. His wife said we go to Mauritius. He said I have no money. His wife said, You beggar, I will give money. We go to Mauritius. [This one completely got me. I gave him such a shocked expression that he took it to be a genuine concern for his friend.]
• After marrige, your haircut cost 25 Rs, your wife haircut cost 500 Rs, your child playschool cost 50,000 Rs. You have no money. You ask fathers. He give money to grandchildren. Why will he give money to you? [ I was holding an imaginary knife and stabbing myself ]
• Life expectancy very less. I worked in Java, I got everything on table. Food on table, water on table. I was very handsome. Not handsome, but smart. But now look at me. I am having this belly with a child in it. [Thankfully my phone rang and I ran out of the room. I just couldn't hold it any longer.]
• A few days ago one of my friend go to Pondicherry to see movie. We don’t have halls in Chennai? He went for 2 days and spent 7000 Rs for the entertainment of the purpose(!!!!). Pee-pull[people] don’t save but they only do “swoosh”. [Now after discussing his personal life, he was pounding on his friend's]
• Unprofessional I dont work. The three of you can get me murdered. You pee-pull have already wasted 21 years in education. It is your money. [ ]

We waited with bated breath for another pearl of wisdom to drop out of his mouth. But he thankfully stopped. It was 9.30 pm now and we were damn hungry. We quickly signed all the necessary papers and burst out of the building taking deep breaths. As soon as we landed into the autorikshaw, we guffawed our hearts out, stunning the driver in the process. He must have thought that we were drunk. He turned once to check if everything was all right.

The Idiosyncracies of pee-pull. Huh!!!

This post is dedicated to all the sleepyheads who forgot to wish me on my birthday. Yeah Yeah, now don’t give that sleepy grin or the Oh-shit look. I must admit that this year the number of people who would be facing the wrath is very less and I am quite happy about it. And as a once a year bonus, I was spared the task of decorating birthday cards with my calligraphy.

So, for all those who still are scratching their heads, 1 May was the historical day on which I was born. Its celebrated all over the world as May Day/Labour Day/International Worker’s Day. And yes I am quite used to being called a “labourer” at times. Once when I was quite acerbic and poured my heart to one of my friends about the disadvantages of being born on Labour Day, she patted my shoulder and replied - You should thank God that its not Labour Pain day.

Talk about being optimistic. But Christ!!!!! Labour Pain day???

Ok, coming back to yesterday, my roommates brought a chocolate and walnut cake at 12 am and I had a cake cutting ceremony at my room which thankfully did not include “birthday bumps” and “Cake face pack” as I was constantly accepting birthday wishes on my mobile. I made sure that the cake was finished off before I put my mobile down so that I did not end up with the creamy face pack. This is that yummy cake.

In the morning, I had to wake up early as my mom had been constantly reminding me from the past ten days that I have to go to the temple in the morning and give food and money to the beggars. She is constantly consulting 3 astrologers to know what is going to happen to me in the future and one of them(Don’t know which one) provided her with this Temple thingy. So there I was, dragging my roommate Lokesh with me, at a local restaurant, asking for 10 “separate” packets of Idlies(Yeah, you read it right). I did everything according to my mom’s satisfaction, which I knew, would eventually give her a chance to tell my sister that I am such an obedient boy and she should be like me. Sweet na??

We had planned for a Lunch in one of the four star hotel in Chennai, so I arranged for a cab to pick us up. Another cake was waiting there, to be castrated by me.

As we had our lunch, I was showered with cards and gifts and I was quite overwhelmed. The cards were beautiful and I could never have guessed the gifts. I was asked to make three guesses, but I blurted out anything just because I was so excited to tear off and see what’s inside. Thanks you guys for making my birthday truly memorable. Here is a sneak peek into the gifts.

*Drums rolling. Tension mounting up. The curtain goes up slowly*

Ok, I got this really cool Philips Digital photo frame and “tashan” style goggles specially imported from America by my friends working there. The gifts were finalized after some grueling offshore-onsite discussions with my friends here. For those of you who don’t know, a digital photo frame comes with a memory card where you can upload photos and it will play them just like a slide show. It looks just like a normal photo frame in which photos keep on changing. How cool is that!!!! And the goggs looked just purrfect on me and it was something I was thinking of buying from a long time. A million thanks to the members of tararumpum gang.

Next on the agenda was a movie. We were all in a mood to laugh and make diggs at a movie and what better movie could have solved the purpose other than, you guessed it right, TASHAN. Also, one of my friend had not seen the movie and we all wanted to see the look on her face after the movie ended. We were quite surprised to see a house full and inside people were actually enjoying the movie once it started. We laughed our hearts out and clapped whenever any atrocity was bestowed upon us, which was quite often. The look on my friend’s face after the movie ended was priceless!!! We ended the day by having dinner at one of the restaurants where we have always been on every special occasion, whether it being someone’s birthday or an I-am-leaving-for-U.S.-party or Shit-I-lost-the-BET-party.

So there. Another birthday added to the string of memorable birthdays I am having from the past so many years. Now for those of you who have committed the crime of forgetting my birthday, can leave a message here or can call me. My blogging buddies can also wish me here.

That’s it for the day, Ladies and Gentlemen.

I have been toying with the idea of writing this post from a long time. Largely because it is about a book about which a lot has been written and said and accepted. It took me almost a year to pick up a copy and buy it. Its hard to describe this syndrome, when you know that a book is good, when you have heard everyone praise it to skies and you still don’t buy it. Its as if your brain is asking you to wait, wait for the right time…

I picked up The Kite Runner at the Crossword store at a mall in Delhi. I started reading it in a bus ride from Delhi to Kurukshetra, where I went to collect my degree. It was a six hour to and fro ride on the Haryana Roadways bus. As soon as I opened the book, I got a stare of disapproval from a “Jat” uncle sitting next to me.

“Chora hoke Navel padhan laaag reya hai ( A boy reading novel!!!!)”. Good old Haryana.

I completely ignored the stare and gave him an intellectual look while adjusting my glasses. As I turned the pages of the book, it completely sucked me in. The simplicity of the book amazed me. The story never feels make-believe, but seems like a true story. This could have happened to someone, I told myself. I grabbed my degree as soon as possible, jumped into a return bus to Delhi and jumped into the novel again. That’s jumping twice. Next day, I had a flight to Chennai, and I was again lost in the pages of this beautiful book. Lokesh, who was with me in the flight got bored to death, as even the air hostesses were not so patakha.

The book left a deep impression on me. For days I could not think of anything else. Was Afghanistan actually so beautiful?? How would the sky look when so many kites fly in it?? How would one feel when he knows that he can’t go back and make everything right?? How would one feel when he goes back to his home and tries to find the reminiscence of the past in everything that is destroyed?? Can you really know where a cut kite will land beforehand, as Hassan always did?? The books just throws you in the realms of reality. You just can’t ignore it. Yes, it is a fiction, but its narration encompasses the prosperity, troubles and destruction of a nation. And that is no fiction.

In a way the book is more of a story of Hassan and Sohrab rather than Amir. Hassan’s death shook me more than anything in the book, because while reading the story you start believing that some day Amir and Hassan will meet and everything would be all right. Its the vulnerable, submissive and yet strong character of Hassan which leaves an impression for days. Sohrab’s suicide attempt was another point in the story where I stopped reading and stared at the sunset from my seat in the flight. The ending of the book left me smiling. The last page, at which Amir tells Sohrab - “For you a thousand times over”, is frozen in my mind. I think you can say this line only to someone you really really love.

The book was also a reality check fo me. For a while I was so glad of the kind of world I live in. I thanked God everyday. It also made me realise that time never remains the same. The turmoil which the character of Baba goes through is unimaginable. To work at a gas station after loosing everything you have built up over the years is something which only a strong willed person can do. The book also made me realise that there is no bigger insult than taking someone for granted, specially a person who loves you without any strings attached.

Now before this post gets toooo personal and sentimental I would end it with the news about the “loot”. Before dwelling into that I would like to recommend this book to everyone. Read it, if you still haven’t, you fools!!!

About the Loot :

A few months back I participated in an essay writing competition in my company. The topic was “Should I still be reading books?” and Surprise!!!! I won the second prize. You can read the essay here. Anyways, the post is not about the essay, but the aftermath. I won Crossword gift coupons worth 2500 Rs and I was dying to spend it on all the books which I was dying to buy. That’s dying twice. So I recently got a chance to rummage a Crossword store near my house and bought 8 books. I got quite a few looks that day.

Is-he-crazy-or-what-look

Ummm-he-must-be-rich-look

I-must-not-stand-behind-him-at-the-cash-counter-as-it-will-take-ages-look

God!!!-how-can-someone-waste-2500 bucks-on-books-look (This came from my sister)

WTF-look

Well, I ignored all of them except the second one.

So, here is a look at the LOOT. Ta!!!!Da!!!!

Howwzzzat???

And incidently today is World Book and Copyright day. So, Happy WBCD!!!

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Warning : This post is not for the weak hearted. You might experience nausea or temporary coma/shock after watching the disturbing images. Please keep a glass of water with you before reading further.

What you are viewing are the glorious images from the top Indian News channels. For those of you who are not very much conversant with Hindi, the translations are just below the images.

From top to bottom : Commissioner Sahib’s dog found, Where is Sanif ? ( This is hopefully the dog’s name), The dog was kidnapped(??!!!) on 5 November 2007, Delhi Commissioner’s dog found (This line is just below Breaking News)

From top to bottom : Commissioner’s dog, The Dog went missing on 25 March (Errrr….wasn’t it 5 November earlier???)

From top to bottom : Queen cat on rooftop ( Well…its not a “queen” cat actually, but in India we have a habit of calling cats/girls/brides that way. ), the drama(of the cat, that is) lasted for 6.5 hours.

The last line is some “irrelevant” news on Amitabh and Thakery, neither of whom is related to the queen cat in any way.

From top to bottom : The cat jumped down finally on its own ( What were they expecting? That she will develope wings and fly away??? ), Cat stuck on rooftop (the “queen” part has vanished by now).

The last line is again some gibberish nonsense news which I am quite sure is not about the cat.

The first reaction on watching the images is a loud laugh but then if we think seriously, what are we looking at? Aren’t we somehow responsible of this Grendel? Or are the news channels taking the masses too lightly and trying their patience? Aaj Tak has been awarded the Indian Television Academy’s Best Hindi News Channel six times in a row and has a viewership exceeding 45 million and is closely followed by Star News in terms of viewership, but this does not stop them from being pedestrian. Does it?

Indulging in infotainment is understandable (but not justifiable) where the focus is on marketing and TRPs instead of journalism, but this kind of “breaking news” does not even come in this category. Do the news channels run out of relevant news (which is a hard feat to achieve, specially in India)? Or do they think that the Indian masses are so downright dumb that they will lap up anything served to them? Or is the “Indian mentality” of spicing up everything for its own vicarious thrills taking its toll?

According to a poll conducted by BBC/Reuters/Media Center, Media is more trusted than Governments. In India, 82% of the people who took part in the poll trusted media more than the Government. The most important news source for Indians are the News channels(mentioned by 37%), followed by newspapers. When asked about the most trusted News channel, Aaj Tak won hands on. And then what are we served? Breaking news about lost dogs and terrified cats?

Does these news channels realise the kind of responsibilities they are supposed to handle and the unabashed mockery they make of it?

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