Mechanophobia minus Matrix

image from here

No, I am not going to rant about the impending doom of humanity because Terminators are here. Neither am I going to convince you that we live in the Matrix. And no, my laptop did not transform into a Transformer and attack me.

What I am going to tell you is that I am suffering from mechanophobia. I fear machines. Not the imaginary machines whose fear Hollywood have instilled in millions of us over the years, but the real machines that surround us all day. It is strange how that fear is instilled by small minor incidents that stay with us and grow their inky black tentacles in our brain as we grow up.

Take for example, the ceiling fan. A very harmless machine, you might say. Not for me. I remember my grandfather telling me years ago how a man was decapitated by a ceiling fan that suddenly decided to part from the ceiling. I was a kid and the story stayed with me and every time someone would switch on the fan, I would look at it with fear as if this was going to be the last swirl of air to hit my face. Till date, winters is my favorite time of the year. A few days after my grandfather told me this story, a ceiling fan fell over my uncle’s massive and turbulent tummy as he was sleeping. It is another story that the fan just bounced off him because of the fats he had accumulated over the years. He lived to tell the tale.

A few days back, a guy died in our locality because he had left his laptop switched on to download movies in the night as he went to sleep. The battery developed some problem and emitted some sort of a poisonous gas. The poor guy did not even knew what hit him. Now, I have this habit too and ever since I have heard this story, I have developed a fear of leaving my laptop switched on at nights. I do not want to wake up in heaven without even knowing what happened. I have started sniffing my laptop and I look very suspiciously at it.

Whenever I am using the grinder in the kitchen to chop onions or garlic, I have this fear that while I am putting them in the grinder, it might get accidentally switched on and I will lose half of my finger. Every time I operate this machine, I imagine half of my finger finely chopped with the chopped onions while the other half squirting blood like a fountain. I just can’t shake off the image.

The machines that carry us places terrify me even more. Whenever I sit in cars or buses, I keep wondering if this is my last day on Mother Earth. What if the car explodes in flames or one of the tyres of the bus burst while the driver is over-speeding? What happens if the Metro fall off one of its pillars? What if the train I am travelling in collides with another one and I am stuck with entangled metal and dead bodies with an iron rod jutting out of my shoulder? I can’t sleep at nights in a train. I keep imagining that all of us are going to DIE! Whoever came up with the bloody idea of running this crazily heavy machine on two thin metal tracks was a fool.

And ever since that Malaysian flight has vanished, my fear of flying has multiplied. Think about it. There is this huge machine made up of a million part flying thousands of feet above the ground and you are encased inside it. Thousands of things can go wrong. One small part stops working and that it it. You will end up screaming to glory, falling to Earth in a huge ball of fire. Or worse, end up as shark food.

And don’t get me started on lifts. Every time I hear that slight creaking of the lift as it fills, I keep imagining that the metal wires that keep it dangling are going to snap and we will all experience zero gravity before splattering to our death. I hate confined spaces that does not give you any chance to save yourself.

I fear the drilling machine too. Every time dad brings it out to drill a hole in the wall, I get all panicky when he switches it on. I keep imagining that the drill bit will fly out of the machine any time and head straight for my head. You can’t imagine how many deaths I die before that machine goes back in its box. I keep imagining the drill bit embedded halfway in my forehead.

And I can go on and on. What if my mobile phone explodes? What if the room heater catches fire while I am sleeping? What if the CFL falls on my head (It fell off once in my room and shattered to pieces. Thankfully, no one was standing beneath it)? Sometimes I feel like a walking Final Destination. All Parts.

Of course, I do not let anyone around me know of my fears. I behave as if I don’t care and am perfectly normal like every one else. They have no idea about the storm raging inside me. But then what do I know about the kind of fears other people are living with? On a basic level all of us are the same. Phobia is a part of our psyche. There was a time when I thought that I was going mad, fearing things that are a part of our every day life. I thought I needed some help. I realized it is not the fear of machines per se. All the phobias stem from our fear of death, of losing something. If you ask someone what they fear, you will always get a couple of things – Dads, Bats, Lizards, Darkness, Men, Women, Loneliness, Sea, Company, Self etc etc. So, I think I am all right. I am not falling to pieces. Not yet.

Now if you would excuse me, I need to go and kill a cockroach. I am the only one in the house who is not scared of them.

Daddy Diaries : Music, Sounds and Radars

Dear Diary,

Sometimes I feel that children are born sadists. How else do you explain their waking and wailing at exactly the time when you are praying to God for a minute’s respite? I can give a million examples –

• Geet and I put Anika to bed and even though we are tired to the bone, we think of indulging ourselves with a bit of ding-dong. We are on the cusp of happiness when Anika raises her head from the cot and start wailing.
• I desperately want to work on the book and miracle of miracle happens and Anika goes to sleep. I haven’t even greased my mind properly to write a few words and there she is, sitting and grinning at me.
• We are getting really late and as soon we glide towards our car, Anika dumps a royal poop in her diaper.
• I have an implementation the next day and I have to get up at 4 am and all I am praying for is a good 3 hours sleep. Anika somehow hears my prayers and wakes up so many times in the night that I wonder why I didn’t stay in the office.

I think children have this radar that catches adult happiness pretty quickly. Then, very clandestinely, they start making elaborate plans for ruining that happiness. I wonder how they do it. Is it some form of a seventh sense? I am glad that some children lose the ability as they grow because the world will be inhabitable otherwise.

Dear diary,

Two teeth have mysteriously appeared in Anika’s mouth and she looks quite cute when she laughs. But before those teeth appeared, we had a harrowing time grappling with the indicators. So almost a month before the twin towers appeared side by side, Anika had an upset tummy that lasted for almost three weeks. Geet and I nearly died of exhaustion during that time. We were changing her diapers for 10-15 times a day. We felt as if there is no other purpose for us to exist other than to be a diaper-changing-machines who were dragging on all four after those horrendous three weeks and were praying to God to have some mercy on them. Anika, of course, had no idea as to what her poor parents were going through. She was busy being a poop Niagara. Finally there was some sunshine and the teeth appeared as our saviour.

Anika has started to crawl with the dexterity of a crocodile master crawler. She can be from one end of the bed to another during the time it takes us to say – Oh Shit! She can now sit in her walker and pose immense threat to all the show-pieces and flower vases appearing in her range. She needs her favourite songs playing in the background when she eats her food. Her favourite songs include – Justin Bieber’s Baby (Sigh!), O Gujaria (Queen), Tum Hi Ho (Ashiqui 2) and Baby Doll main Sone di (Ragini MMS 2), Aaj Blue hai (Paani)x8 (Yaarian) and Gandi Baat (R…Rajkumar). In fact she is so smitten by Tum Hi Ho that she starts staring at the wall the moment the song plays and loses the sense of all her surrounding. It is the correct window to put dollops of Cerelac in her mouth. Bless the Music Director!

Dear Diary,

Anika has started filling the house with her sounds. The first sound she made was Pa-Pa. Of course she has no idea what she is saying and neither does she associate the sound with me. He even calls a flower-pot Pa-Pa. Then the second sound she made was Ma-Ma. Then came Ba-Ba, Ka-Ka, Tat-tat and Bye-Bye. It was a bit surreal after all those cries and throaty laughters.

Sometimes her growth scares me. I mean, she was like a toy earlier to play with but now she has started turning into more human with all those sounds and the way she now recognizes family members and her reactions. It is as if the human that was hidden somewhere inside her is coming out. It makes me more and more aware of the immense responsibilities that Geet and I have as parents. I hope we do well. She is a happy child. She laughs a lot and cries very little (only when she has to oil her happiness radar). We hope we will demolish the radar as she grows up.

Daddy Diaries : Beds and Hobbitses

Dear Diary,

The day for which the Sharma family was eagerly waiting arrived a few days back. Anika started crawling on all four (more like an alligator) a few days back and the house was buzzing with gossip about how long we had before she would fall off the bed. Everyone was of the opinion that her crawl was more of a slither and that she won’t be able to pass the single pillow barricades. How wrong we were! It so happened that one fine evening when Geet was stuffing stuff in her overstuffed almirah while Anika sat sprawled in her pillow cage, she suddenly heard a thud followed by a blood-curling wail. Anika had broken the cage and fallen off the bed.

image from here

There was a sudden buzz in the house. Anika was passed from one hand to another, like a stack of bricks at a construction site. It was one of the landmark days when you realize that your child has crossed a very important milestone. We almost had a party to celebrate the bump on her head.

Anika has also started reacting to all the food that is never going to get into her mouth for a long time. She hates her Cerelac and mashed bananas but stares gluttonously at the aloo paratha in my hand. She then licks her lips and makes sound with her tongue as if she has not eaten in months. She stares beseechingly at Geet’s dinner plate but closes her mouth the moment I try some fruit juice on her. She seems to be a pretty good actress.

Geet and I left Anika with her grandparents and had some ‘us time’. We watched the desolation of Smaug and had pasta followed by brownie dipped in boiling chocolate sauce and got nostalgic about the good old days when we used to eat chocolate off each… never mind. So, we came back home and I decided to create a Lonely Mountain in our bedroom. The trigger was the fact that Geet was feeling tired and wanted to have a nap. So I turned Anika into Bilbo. I was Thorin, the Dwarf king and Geet was Smaug who was lying under her comfortable duvet which was actually millions and millions of coins. I commanded Bilbo to go into the mountain and find the Arkenstone which was nothing but Geet’s hairclip. Bilbo quietly slipped into the mountain of coins but she wasn’t very quiet. She woke up Smaug but before the dragon could shoot fire at the hobbit, Bilbo snatched the hairclip and pulled it with all her might. Smaug bellowed and Bilbo and I ran for our life. Thankfully, that was not the day Bilbo fell off the bed but Smaug made us feel sorry that we woke her up.

Dear Diary,

Seven months have gone by and Anika has turned from a sleeping beauty to a roadrunner. It is hard to catch her and make her stay still. As much as Geet and I are scared of the terrible twos, we are also looking forward to having a full night sleep, an act about which we have very faint memories. Recently Anika went through a phase of nightmares and would wake up screaming like the heroine of a Ramsey movie. We had to eat Crocins before going to work during that horrible phase.

We have realized that with a child you never know what the next day holds. And as a wise man once said – The smaller the package, the smaller the problems. I find solace in believing that nightmares followed by screams, diaper rashes and hobbitses falling off beds are smaller problems as compared to what lies ahead.

Chronicles of Dearth – Three Gods Two mistakes

…there lived three Gods named Amar, Akbar and Anthony.

Now this happened much before Dearth was filled with Insanes, when it was called Buxom. The three Gods were great friends and had a blast attending cloud-room dance parties thrown by Gods in the neighbouring star systems. In one such party, The Goddess of 100 hands boasted about the creatures she had created in one of the planets in her star system. Soon, other Gods joined in with similar claims. The whole conversation left Amar, Akbar and Anthony deeply embarrassed. They were like nomads wandering through galaxies and dating young goddesses. They realised that they had a status to maintain if they had to remain in the circle.

The three Gods
(Image from here)

The three of them visited the Market of Planetary System where old Gods who were too old to look after planets sold their share. They met God Dharmendra who was half dead and could hardly lift his finger. God Dharmendra was a legend, one of the most handsome gods ever. But like in all families of Gods, the second son of his first wife – God Bobby, was a notorious black sheep. Anyways, so the story goes that they bought the Klatoon System (similar to our Solar System) from him and then chose a green planet on it called Buxom to populate it with their personal creations. The three Gods decided that each of them would create life without sharing it with the other two.

“It will be like a surprise,” God Amar said.

They had realised that their casanova days were behind them and it was time to settle down and what better way than to create a planet as an ode to their friendship. Well, it was their first mistake. If they would have chosen separate planets things would have been different. They did not realise that the fact that they have been together since childhood affected their creative powers. So God Amar created Manu and Shatrupa, God Akbar created Aadam and Hawwa and God Anthony created Adam and Eve. Even though they had no idea what the other was creating, they created replicas and placed them on different parts of Buxom. The pairs were left to discover sex and reproduction on their own as it was not appropriate for Gods to indulge them.

When God Amar, Akbar and Anthony finally met and exchanged notes, they were shocked to see the similarities between their creations. At first they thought of putting them immediately on different planets but the other 27 planets of the Klatoon System were inhabitable and the Gods were not rich enough to buy more planetary systems.

“Why do we need to separate them? Let them stay on the same planet,” God Amar suggested.

“Yes. They will eventually discover each other and live like brothers,” God Akbar squealed with delight.

“Just like us!” chirruped God Anthony.

Well, that was their big fucking second mistake.

The three pairs eventually undearthed the formula to reproduce and went out of control. Soon Buxom was teeming with their children and grandchildren. It was like a chain reaction. The Gods watched Buxom from the clouds while munching Moon chips and Meteor popcorns. They never interfered but yes, they fondly gave a combined name to all their creations – Insanes (pronounced Insaan). The males were called Hinsanes while the females were named Shinsanes.

Soon, the three kinds learnt to make fire, created wheels and ships and traveled beyond their lands and came across each other. But nothing went as per planned. Each of the race believed in the supremacy of their Gods and thus began the blackest era in the history of Buxom. Insanes killed and tortured each other in the name of their Gods. They wanted to win Buxom over. They wanted only their God to be called bestest. They devised strategies to convert each other, they sent missionaries to pull people to their side, they tried to cleanse the planet by obliterating each other. This went on for hundreds of years. None of them were successful but never understood the futility of it. They created spaceships, nanobots, submarines, supersonic jets, skyscrapers, bullet trains, artificial hearts, robots but never gave up the fight to wipe out each other. The three kinds branched into a few hundred more. Things got murkier and confusing. POLs (Piece of Lands) were created (similar to countries on Earth). Eventually Buxom was renamed Dearth after all its resources were squeezed out.

The Gods sat in the clouds and watched. At first they were terrified at the turn of events but then a feeling of amusement took over. They mulled interfering but then where was the fun in that?

“I think we must study them so that we make something better later on,” God Amar said once. God Akbar and Anthony agreed.

“I do not understand why Insanes have this concept of divine intervention? That is bloody crazy. Why will the three of us try to control a billion insanes? That’s insane!” God Akbar remarked.

“Oh come on! I think they are wired that way,” God Anthony said.

So, the Gods watched. Centuries passed. Sometimes, there was hope which was then mercilessly squashed by a concentration camp or an atom bomb or a burning train or a plane flying into a building. The thought of destroying Dearth never passed the minds of the Gods. After all, it was the planetary system of God Dharmendra. Also, the mistake of creating Insanes and the events that followed had given them immense popularity amongst other Gods. Never in the history of the Universe had anyone seen something as remotely exciting as this planet. They started inviting other Gods to watch the show. They threw expensive parties in the clouds and had hundreds of Goddesses running after them. From three nondescript, nomadic Gods, they had turned into eternal celebrities. Soon they started war betting between various POLs on Dearth and won more planetary systems.

And so Dearth went around Klatoon year after year, being nothing more that a rich source of entertainment.

This was a brief history of the creation of Dearth and how it reached its current state. To know more read the following chapter – Chronicles of Dearth : The case of missing Yaun-doms

God Dharmendra with God Bobby, God Sunny and God Chewbecca (Image from here)

Chronicles of Dearth : The case of missing Yaun-doms

….there was a planet called Dearth. The dominant specie on the planet was called Insane (pronounced In-saan*). The name of the planet had seen better days but Insanes had squeezed out all of the planet’s resources and thus a resolution was passed to change the name of the planet to commemorate the achievement.

An interesting episode happened on POL011 on planet Dearth in the klear 5690*. POL or Piece Of Land is very similar to how we define countries on Earth.

POL011 was the second most populated POL on Dearth and this was a major concern for the King. Now the king did not have any real power other than to be a poster boy or pardoning convicts he found sexy. The real power sat with his Prime Minister who was a part of a governing body. Sadly, the Prime Minister was as helpless as the King. He was deaf and dumb and was puppeted by the governing body run by Madaam Pasta.

Population explosion was such an immense problem on POL011 that the King, PM and Madaam Pasta decided that insanes have to be educated about not producing babies every time a power cut happened. Educating the insanes of POL011 was as difficult as asking the PM to speak two words, so the governing body finally passed a bill to put 11000 yaun-dom* machines throughout the POL. Yaun-dom were special devices very similar to our condoms but with a special chip embedded in them which made them reusable.  They were almost like mini- robots that could lid the desirable places.

One fine Klatoony day (Klatoon was the name of their Sun), a minister came running as Madaam Pasta was pouring  cere-lack in baba’s mouth. Baba was her 40 Klat-years old son.

“Madaam!! They are all gone!” the minister said as he kissed her ring.

“Elaborato,” Madaam said with exasperation.

“Madaam, all the Strawberry flavoured yaun-doms are missing from the machines!” the minister said.

Madaam raised one of her eye brows and looked at baba.

“What? Noooo! Of course not! And that is not even my favourite flavour! Why don’t you ask Zeezaazee?” Baba said throwing his hands in the air.

” Your Zeezaazee is a poor farmer. I don’t think he uses local brands,” Madaam said thoughtfully.  

A few minutes later, an SOS message was sent to the ministers to immediately teleport themselves in the King’s War room. After everyone had arrived, the Prime Minister was the first to speak. He talked in sign language which was interpreted and voiced by a T608BOSS robot standing behind him.

“Did we check with Ass-aram? We might have to raid his ass-rum,” the robot said.

“I don’t think he uses yaun-doms,” the King said trying to hold a giggle which earned a stearn look from Madaam.

“What about Imraan Kissme?” a minister asked.

“Checked. He is clean.”

“No one in this fuc*ing POL uses a yaun-dom. That was the fuc*ing point of installing the machines. Do you even realize what will happen if the media gets a whiff of this?” Madaam Pasta screamed, Unable to hold herself anymore.

The robot coughed.

“Get the MIB on it,” Madaam said.

The MIB (Madaam Investigation Bureou) was a coveted organization that was given only those tasks that were supposed to linger on for hundreds of Dearth years. So this decision emancipated nothing but a collective gasp from the ministers and a quick sign from the PM which made the robot gasp an electronic gasp.

The MIB started its investigation but things were about to get worse. Soon, the chocolate flavoured yaun-doms went missing from the machines. And then the news was leaked to the media. And then the banana flavoured ones went missing too.

The media houses did everything from organising panels to discuss the order in which flavours went missing to showing closeups of yaun-dom vending machines for hours as hinsanes (male insanes) cried bitterly holding the machines in their arms. As the king pondered over a proposal of installing hi-tech fly shaped, almost invisible 6755SONAM cameras on all the machines, media houses conducted audience polls to know the favourite flavous of the citizens.  Unsurprisingly, the result came in exactly the order in which the yaun-doms went missing.

[Others including lichi, pomegranate, butter scotch, vanilla etc]

Even after the cameras were installed and MIB worked full time on the case, flavours after flavours vanished from the machines. There was anger in the inhabitants of POL011 as they loved getting things for free and the King seemed simply incapable of providing them the simplest of such free pleasures. There were marches on the street where insanes dressed up as huge yaun-doms and burnt outdated robots dresses up as the King, PM and Madaam. The Po-lice was deployed who stunned the protestors (especially shinsanes (female insanes)) by touching them with their tasers at inappropriate places. The situation went quickly out of hand.

The PM finally addressed the POL. The robot stood behind him and passed on his message as the PM gestured.

Finally, the yaun-dom machines went empty and MIB searched fervently for an excuse for its incompetency. The MIB chief got a personalized slap from Madaam Pasta. The King launched a new scheme called YYHH (yaun-dom yaun-dom Hota Hai) where the citizens were given door to door service of their favourite flavours. A huge amount of currency was transferred from the SOD (Save Our Dearth) fund for this activity.

The flaw in the scheme was stark the very next year when the sale of balloons declined during the festival of la-colourina*. The king realised with horror that the insanes of POL011 wanted to collect free yaun-doms for an entirely different reason but it was too late to make any amendments. To recover the losses, Madaam Pasta gave a brilliant idea to increase the breathing tax.

*  *  *

Meanwhile, in the neighbouring POL92, the notorious gangster The-wood was laughing hysterically in the company of the King of POL92 and his ministers. POL92 was enemies with POL011 over a disputed area called POL011-0191.

“This was a brilliant idea. Who needs killing drones and bombs?” the King said.

“The-wood is a brilliant mastermind. Who would have thought of this,” one of the ministers said.

“Yes, they are already on the brink of a collapse, teaming like nanodrakes*. All we had to do was to give then a nudge. And no one believes in using yaun-doms in that POL. The idiots believe in the more the merrier,” The-wood said.

Later at his home, The-wood went to the store room and took almost half an hour to select a flavour to use that night, chuckling at his idea of using a teleporter on a robotic fly to steal the yaun-doms.

*Insaan – means human in Arabic. It is a commonly used word in Hindi

*yaun – Copulation

*nanodrakes – very similar to ants. They can copulate from both ends and hence indulge in chain-mating.

*la-colourina – A festival similar to Holi but played only with  balloons. In recent years, price of balloons have gone up in POL011, just like the price of petrol in India.

*klear 5690 – Similar to Earth years. On Dearth, a klear consists of 225 days. Each day is 12 hours long. Insanes work only for 3 hours a day.

The news that inspired this post – 10,000 condom machines missing, CAG finds

Four legs good

I like pigs. I really do. The place where I lived earlier used to be lush and green with wide spaces some twenty five years back. Then because of our brilliant government policies, more and more people from small cities and villages started pouring in Delhi and some very interesting unregulated and illegal colonies sprouted like wild mushrooms all around my home. It did not take long for the place to turn into a ghetto where you could not drive without your car bumping into a buffalo. And then there were the pigs. Their sudden appearance gave a new dimension to the colony in addition to naked children rolling on the roads and men bathing in full public view. Monsoons made the pigs delirious with joy and they sang duets with frogs. What a joy it was to hear the two species go oink-oink and trrrr-trrrr in quick succession while one swathed in rain water (Thanks to the eternally clogged drainage system in Delhi) and the other jumped over them. I felt close to nature.

And did I mention how much I like cows and buffaloes? I find them very well behaved in Delhi. They NEVER sit in the middle of the roads and promptly move away from your car the moment you honk. The cows in Chennai or for that matter in Haryana are a bit rustic and very fearless. They sit right in the middle of the roads even if there are huge trucks rumbling towards them. Also, the city cows make me feel proud of our nation. I have seen foreigners going ooooh and aaaah the moment they spot a cow and then frantically fumble their bags for the camera. I once saw a caucasian woman set up her tripod stand on one side of a busy road to take pictures of two cows lolling while they chew their personal cuds. My chest swells with pride every time I think about the incident. And did I tell you about a foolish, old man whose corpse was taken off a cow’s horn in my locality? I am sure he must have been harassing her for free milk.

Then there are the dogs. Not the pet ones, but the ones who play with kids on the street and bite anyone they fancy. I like them too. Every day before going to office, I religiously put chapattis dabbed in milk at the foot of a lamp-post near my house for the dogs of my street. I like the way my wife jumps and runs when 7-8 dogs try to appreciate her new saree by circling her as she catwalks. I cannot imagine my life without stray dogs. They are such an integral part of every Indian city.

Monkeys hanging from trees around my house always turn me philosophical and make me wonder why nature mutated us from them. Was it a joke? There is a society near my house that has humans and monkeys living in harmony. If you visit that society, you will find one monkey sitting on each car. The people living there have finally bought a few langurs to keep the monkeys at bay. Can you imagine how fortunate the children living in that society are to live in such proximity to their ancestors?

And what should I say about the horses, camels and elephants? I still remember (very fondly) an incident which happened while travelling in my office bus. I was deeply immersed in a novel when I suddenly sensed a giant eye peering through the window to see what I was reading. It was an elephant who was standing next to the bus, waiting patiently for the traffic signal to turn green. That day I almost tasted my heart. Sitting on a camel for a ride and straining my spinal cord always remind me how fragile my life is. And I like their extra long eyelashes and the way their jaw moves when they chew. They remind me of Tinu Anand.

Pigeons are another set of fascinating creatures found in abundance in Delhi. Whenever I go to my mum-in-law’s house, I am greeted by mounds of pigeon shit in her balcony. Her AC cannot be operated because it is filled with straws as numerous pigeons have tried to make their nest on top of it. If you leave any of the doors open by mistake, don’t be surprised by the flapping of wings in your bedroom. And the moaning sounds they make in the morning never fails to turn me on. It is the sexiest alarm anyone can dream of.

Living amongst all these amazing species is an experience which you can only enjoy in India. They are mostly harmless if you enjoy them from a distance. But there is another specie that is deadly and extremely dangerous to live with. Humans. In a dark street, you might have more faith in a gang of five dogs but not in a gang of five men. You might allow your child to feed the pigeons but cannot leave him with a portly, old uncle in the park. You might allow your child to take an elephant ride but can you be sure about the driver who takes the child to school?

Yes, I like pigs. Even if they swathe in mud, are dirty, carry germs and litter the road, I know that they are just animals. Trustworthy. Innocent. Living their life without poking their nose in anyone’s business. No ego hassles. They do not know how to use guns or how to throw acid. They do not understand the meaning of countries, terrorists and caste.

Funny how not being intelligent can be such a boon. I wish we were still animals. Life would have been so much simpler.

p.s. I haven’t mentioned cats, squirrels, cockroaches, lizards, sparrows, crows, donkeys, goats, politicians and so many other animals because this post was getting extra long.

[images from 1,2,3,4]

CroreHit Shetty goes to Hollywood

New York Depress starring Brave Willis and Emma Wandson

Crore-Hit Shetty was pacing worriedly in his office. His last 7 movies have been blockbusters, generating revenues of over 100 crores each. Producers were falling over each other to make a movie with him. Top actors were rubbing their nose on his toenails to give them a chance. Recently, Kamsina Kaif had a massive heart attack when she was approached to do a dance number for his movie. She was overwhelmed to death.

Suddenly the phone rang. It was his dear friend, Safe-Run Khan.

“Are you taking me in your next or not?” Safe-Run shouted the moment Crore-Hit picked up the phone.

“Oh! You won’t believe what I am directing next. I have a Hollywood offer!” Crore-Hit blurted out. He could not hold it any longer.

“What!?!? Please take me! Please! I will dance in all the weddings of your family. Tell me you are not joking!”

“No, I am not! I have been approached by Hippo Searchlight to make an international movie for them.”

“So what is the problem? Why do you sound worried?”

“I don’t have a story!” Crore-Hit said exasperatedly.

“Bah! But you never did! Come on! Pick up any older movie of yours. Pick Chennai Depress. Turn it into New York Depress,” Safe-Run suggested.

“Oh my Crores! You are a genius! I will give you a role in it,” Crore-Hit said and kept the receiver back. Safe-Run wanted to tell him that he would be happy to play even a telephone booth in his movie, but he kept that for later. 

Crore-Hit started working on the modifying the script. He took help of his lungi friends like Sajid Crap, Sajid’s sister Farha Crap, and Arbaaz Crap. The first thing they did was to take away all the South Indian characters out of Chennai Depress and fill them with stereotyped Caucasians. Then the locations of all the romantic songs were changed. There was one song atop the New York subway now and another one where the actors hang upside down from the Golden Gate. Just-Teen Burger was roped in to lend his voice to the lead actress while Yo Yo Donkey Singh was finalized to playback for the male lead.

“What about the crappy one liners and stale jokes?” Crore-Hit asked the Crap clan.

As an answer, Farha Crap took out the ‘Stereotype encyclopaedia for Blondes’ from her bag. The elite directors spent the rest of the day digging out jokes from the book and fitting them in various parts in the screenplay. 

“Have they finalized the starcast yet?” Karamchand, the editor-in-chief of Film-unfair asked Crore-Hit Shetty in a page 3 party.

“Yes, they are taking Brave Willis and Emma Wandson.”

“Isn’t Brave a bit old for the role? And Emma is 1/10^th his age,” Karamchand said.

“But the audience loves old men and young girls. It’s aphrodisiacal,” Crore-Hit said flashing his teeth. 

Finalizing the actress for the item number was a monumental task. Crore-hit finally decided to hold a dance competition and invited Brave Willis to judge it with Farha Crap. It was a disaster. Three actresses shot each other with machine guns while one of them had her eyeballs clawed out. One actress was found naked tied to a commode while another one’s hair caught fire mysteriously. Another one died in a landmine blast just outside the venue. It was finally decided that an international celebrity should be taken. Sunny Lube-onee was finally signed because of her varied ‘exposures’ in the field. 

The movie went on floor and the Hollywood production house was pleasantly taken aback by the amazingly grotesque treatment of the subject. Crore-Hit convinced them that this is what the audience want nowadays. He told them that they leave their brains at home (India’s latest contribution to the list of Idioms) and laugh at all jokes from the Stereotype Encyclopaedia. The highlight of the movie was Brave Willis pelvic thrusting a song in the voice of Yo Yo Donkey Singh on top of a subway train as Emma Wandson quivered semi-naked in front of him. She lip synced Just-teen Burger’s rendition of the duet as a group of hundred dancers gyrated with her atop the train. The whole of New York was out on the streets to see this unbelievable spectacle. 

The movie earned billions of dollars. Crore-Hit Shetty was rechristened BullShit Shetty in international circles.

Safe-Run Khan loved his promised cameo in New York Depress. He was the one who helped Emma Wandson get on the train by giving her his hand, followed by Emma doing an ‘Obliviate’ on him. He looked forward to promote the movie in India by appearing with the lead star cast on the best television shows like See.Eye.Duh and ‘Niyati entangled in the whirlpool of relationships’.

Meanwhile BullShit Shetty was offered to direct the next part of Aven-jerks – The rise of Loki, Tinda and Tori. 

Daddy Diaries : Tribal dances and progressive words

Dear Diary,

Anika is three months old now. She has turned into a Bonsai Sumo wrestler. The doctor says its baby fat and we should not worry much. Silly man! He should try picking her up for half an hour. I even suggested enrolling her in a gym and reducing her diet to half but everyone thinks I am crazy. No one pays any heed to her ever growing double chin and her as-thick-as-Qutab-Minar thighs. Her cheeks are like double scoops of butter-scotch ice-cream. 

I do not understand why we Indians cannot bear the sight of our crying child and rush to pick her up. Geet and I wanted Anika to have a habit of sleeping in her own cot without any assistance. Of course she cried a bit but that was natural and we had to give her some time to get used to it. Instead of allowing her to adjust to this format, the whole family (including Geet and I) rush to her aid the moment she releases a high decibel sound. Everyone is falling on top of each other to grab her, just like a bunch of zombies who have spotted a living human after months of starvation. Dear Diary, things stand at such a point at the moment that she is now unable to sleep on her own. Geet and I have devised new strategies because the put-her-in-cot-and-be-done-with-it strategy has failed miserably. 

Now there are two plans available to put her to sleep –

Plan A.  Geet does a very complex tribal dance with Anika lying in her arms. The dance has a lot of squats, jumps and swaying steps. It also includes a weird song that sounds different every time she sings it. While dancing, she looks like Neo dodging the bullets. I am thinking of gifting her with a spear on her next birthday. It will give an authenticity to the whole act.

Plan B.  I am a tyro as far as the tribal dance goes but I have devised plan B in case plan A doesn’t work. I take Anika in my arms and move her rapidly in random directions. So a typical manoeuvre will be up-left-down-right-up-up-down-30 Degrees-120 degrees-side… and so on. The immediate effect is that she feels dizzy and faints, which basically solves the purpose. Everyone in the house is amazed that I can put her to sleep in 10 minutes but they have no idea that she succumbs to a rapid change of frames. It is our little father-daughter secret.

Dear Diary,

Another splendid development in the last one month has been that Anika has started saying a very progressive word. Now I call it progressive because even adults shy away from saying something like this so frequently. The word she speaks is – Akuu. Initially I was not very sure what that meant but then one fine sunny day the bulb switched on in my head.

What she really means is – Fu*k You.

And to say that every time with a smile on her face is no small achievement.

“Anika, would you like to have some milk?”

“Akuu.”

“Anika, why are you so cranky? Go to sleep immediately!”

“Akuu.”

“Anika, why do you have to always wake up when I am eating food?”

“Akuu.”

“Anika, why do you drink so much milk and vomit it out?”

“Akuu.”

“Anika, take your hand out of your mouth immediately! Now! Now! Out!”

“Akuu! Akuu! Akuu!”

She even tell the ceiling fan to fu*k off when it fails to entertain her. She loves to watch the fan and the family rotate above her. I think she will go a long way as she has already learnt the one word that is essential for your survival in the world.

Dear Diary,

I think Anika will become a singer. Her wails are raga based. She always cries in a “Ga” moving to “Pa”, “Ma” and “Ni” rapidly. Her hands and the little fingers attached to them move like those of a seasoned classical singer as she gives her performance after staining her diaper and warn us that we better change it. It is a delightful sight. I can right away imagine her performing in an amazing concert and ending it with an Akuu to the audience. Imagine their faces! They will be shocked out of their skins.

Anyways,

I have to go now. The performance has started and it is a full house. I will have to execute Plan B very soon. 

Anika with her 2 friends. One of them works for the Queen of England.

My USA is here

We all know of the utter disdain with which the oldies refer to the new generation as – oh! Those aping west types. They cleverly forget those decades of their own affinity towards the bell bottoms, Elvis hairstyles and humongous shirt collars that resembled this fish –

Yes, we do try to be the west (which basically means USA to us) by talking in that funny fake accent and looking at them for approvals for everything from Modi to Oscars, but we do not believe that you have to ‘ape’ them to turn this country into USA. Now as our government officials prefer changing names of cities to swatting flies, consider a hypothetical situation where the name of our beloved motherland is changed to USA. Now the ‘A’ in this new USA can stand for a lot many things.

For example –

We can be the United States of Amoeba. Look at the rapid rate at which the states are multiplying. From 26 in my school days, we are now at 29. Or is it 30? And then in a very Draupadi-ish style, we share the capitals too. Chandigarh is being bedded by Haryana and Punjab since ages and now Hyderabad has joined the ranks. We have divided this whole whale of a state in two and it is impossible to find a city to create a new capital? The A for Amoeba can also symbolize the way humans divide in this country although the mode is far from asexual. Coming to think of it, we would have preferred it to be asexual. Then the girls and boys would have held hands and played ring-a-ring-a-roses without their parents fretting about the slaughter of cultural values.

We can also be the United States of Aunties. It may represent the nosy aunty brained politicians who recently arm-twisted the RTI act to save their asses. It can also represent those aunties who bully the vegetable vendor into reducing the prices by 36 paise, threaten him with dire consequences if he does not add free extra chilies to her bag and feel proud of their achievement for the rest of the day.

While we are at aunties, allow me to vent a bit gracious reader.

There is this old hag with whom we share our builder floor house. She lives in the ground floor with her husband (who has this permanent expression of shock on his face as if there is a cactus shoved up his ass), her elder son and his wife (the couple fights with the capacity of two Godzillas. The son is completely incoherent and blabbers in an alien language when he is fighting with his wife. Yes, we can hear everything) and her younger son and his wife (recently married, the couple was in a hurry to reproduce. It has just been a year and the couple already has a baby). So, this insufferable woman has a habit of coming up with brilliant ideas to piss everyone off. A few days back, she invited a few homeless local workers to create huts in an empty plot next to ours (a common sight in NCR). The plot is not hers. Her reason? She needs a new maid and she can pick one from the hut. We politely asked her to fu*k off because this is how illegal colonies flourish.

This pathetic excuse of a human being and her gang of similar creatures are also famous for poking their nose in everyone’s affairs. One night, I will don my Batman suite and hang this whole gang upside down from a high-rise.

Feeling unburdened now, we come back to the topic.

We can be the United States of Apathy, because this is what we teach our children. Nothing is more important than you, your family, your dog, your underwear and your money. Not even another human’s life. We are masters in the art. In fact the leftover compassionate people who have not yet converted should be caught and dragged into gas chambers and vaporized, just like those unnecessary Jews who lived a few decades back.

We can be the United States of Applesauce. Appreciating nonsense is one of our greatest achievements. Look at our daily sitcoms, our news channels, our politicians, our reality shows, our movies and our advertisements – everything is loaded with a slapstick sauce, laden with toppings of buffoonery, laced with layers of stereotypes and mixed with a sense of senselessness. Anything ‘normal’ is called ‘art’. We believe that fairness of the skin brings success. And we love it when SRK plays a Madrasi and licks dal off his arm.

We can be the United States of Arnab. Look at the way our own Superman Arnab singlehandedly bring the culprits to justice by his uncontrollable squeaks. Look at the way he ‘demands’ answers that make the most seasoned politicians cringe in their chairs, sweat instantly and beg for forgiveness. We can all roll at his feet and ask him to give his name to the country.

So you see, we really do not have to ape the west to be USA. We have all the right ingredients present right under our nose. All we have to do is to follow our heart, open our eyes and the path will unwrap in front of us. We are already living in USA. All we have to do is choose the right ‘A’.

Do you have any other ideas for what ‘A’ can stand for, O! Reader? I am contemplating starting a petition on change.org to amend the name of our country. Looking forward to your support.

[image from here and here]

Daddy Diaries : Timings, Fire and Nosy Aunties

Dear Diary,

Anika turns two months old tomorrow. She is taller by a few centimeters and weighs almost double of what she weighed at the time of her birth. She now has layers and layers of baby fat on her arms and legs and has a double chin that can shame Adnan Sami (older one). She also has started smiling although she does that more while staring at the walls than the family which scares the shit out of us. We believe that there is a ghost in the house.

Sharma Clan is famous for its sense of timing. We have a 100% track record of understanding the importance of a perfect sense of disruption and I am proud to announce that Anika has picked the trait in just two months of her existence. So, the moment I put her to sleep and tiptoe towards my laptop, she suddenly opens her eyes and start wailing. The feat is repeated when we are eating food or trying to take a nap or basically doing anything that does not involve her. She pretends to be asleep and the moment you happily turn your face emancipating a sigh of relief, she opens her eyes and give an evil grin.

I am so proud of her.

Dear Diary,

We had Anika’s naming ceremony a few days back. It was just a formality as she already has a birth certificate with her name on it. She slept throughout the ceremony, flailing her arms in alarm as if the world was about to end when the priest dropped a utensil on the floor. When the fires were lit in the hawan kund, we deported her inside. The priest had too much time on his hands as he had no other appointments and he took his own sweet time to finish off the ceremony.

Now I really like the fire part of such rituals. I was adding ghee to the fires, just like those vamps in our daily soaps. It is an art. You have to drop the ghee at precise locations so that the wood catches fire properly and you don’t end up suffocating to death. It’s basic survival skills. So the whole Sharma clan was more interested in strategically burning the wood rather than what the priest had to say. He was anyways into too much of Sanskrit. In the end, I had to lower a mini coconut in the fire and I loved to see it burn with the rest of the wood that the family had successfully reduced to ashes.

Then the eunuchs arrived. Their leader was a towering personality (imagine The Great Khali in a saree) who made us shudder by her dance. We had to part with 7500 Rs because the gang repeatedly threatened us that they will be taking off their clothes in front of us. I was amused and actually wanted to see if they are capable of doing that but I got glares from my family and we finally gave in to the blackmail.

I can’t describe how much I abhor all those nosy ladies from Mom’s kitty who came for the ceremony. One of them has a granddaughter of her own who is a month younger to Anika. There is some problem with her eyes as they water very frequently. The doctors say that they might have to do a minor surgery. Now this lady finds solace in scrutinizing all the babies in the colony to find watery or uneven eyes. The first comment that fell off her mouth after seeing Anika was – Don’t you think one of her eyes is smaller than the other?

“Really? Just like your boobs?” I wanted to ask. Of course I held my tongue back. Then she did what we were avoiding to do throughout the ceremony. She smeared Anika’s forehead with the red tilak and then plonked a few rice grains on top of it as if she was a ceremonial goat tied in a temple.

Another lady had a huge issue with what Anika was wearing. She behaved as if we have draped the baby in woolens in peak summers. Then she had a problem with her name too.

“Why Anika? It is a very old fashioned name,” she remarked.

Another one had a problem with Anika’s upper lip. Sigh! Dear Diary, I must tell you that my middle finger was twitching to be raised throughout their stay in my house. I am contemplating putting a sign board outside the house specifying that dogs and nosy aunties are not allowed inside.

Dear Diary,

Anika got two injections in her thigh as well. The moment the needle went in, there was an expression of utter shock on her face and then the scream came 5 seconds later shattering all the glass windows of the hospital. I think she was quite brave, given the fact that her mother still holds my hand while facing an injection and makes a face as if she has swallowed a frog.

Time is flying by. I can feel it. A few days back Geet and I were discussing about how Anika will grow up and leave us one day to find her world. Silly, I know. It all started when I took a policy in Anika’s name that will mature in 21 years. Now I have two policies to take care of in addition to a home loan. The dent in my pocket is so enormous that I can fall through it and out of my pants.

Anyways,

I need to stop. She is awake and quivering her lips like Sharmila Tagore.

So long.

[images from 1,2]