License to Like

I like.

I like those who like. Infact, in the badlands of coastal Andhra Pradesh, they call me the 'Like Liker of the Likeless Like'

I like myself. To embrace life, one needs to embrace oneself first. And I am constantly striving to achieve this in full light of a recorded narrative - and as a result, acquire awesomehood. Last weekend, I participated in a four legged race. The week before I took photography lessons.  My accomplishments are no longer suspiciously hard to verify.

I like Modi. The other option I had was to reduce salt from my diet. The choice was obvious. He is a man capable of breathtaking feats. He can roll out his tongue and touch his forehead . (He can touch yours if you want him to.)

The other day, I bought myself a Modi kurta. It was a divine experience. It was like God himself spun the yarn and imprinted his legacy. I had this powerful urge emerging from deep within my soul  - to develop. I had to develop something. Code, country kuch bhi.

I sneezed. It worked ! I developed a cold. I liked.

I like India. Not the India that is but the India that would have been if a few select incidents in History were different. I was so wronged. So, was your uncle. Talking of history, did you know that France was originally a part of the Indian subcontinent ? And that due to tectonic shifts and Arab conspiracy, we had to eventually cede control ?

There wernt any pictures from those times or else I'd catch you by the sleeve and show you. A picture speaks a thousand words. Or sometimes 60 gazillion. Anyway, nothing else can explain the feeling of ease of an Indian customer in a French branded store. "auntiji, ye lijiye aapka louis vuitton white large ."  "Merci beaucoup."

I like shopping. When I have nothing to do, I go to malls. Which technically means, I'm always at a mall. They have everything i like.  Food courts, movie theatres, branded shops and a bodhi tree. Once I overcome my desires, I sit under the bodhi tree.

Last time I went shopping, i bought the iPhone 19.7 G. It came with a free toothbrush and a toilet paper. I like iPhone. It is not only a good friend but a trusted advisor, a critic, a well wisher and an integral member of my family. I like the new feature - the one where a pair of hands come out from the sides to give you a hug. Sniff.

And you wont believe the quality of the camera. It feels like I'm the picture and the reality is inside the phone.

And finally, I like poetry. Here is one written by Modi himself during the time he was healing lepers with his miraculous touch.

The soul selects her own society.
And then shuts the door;
On her divine majority.
Obtrude no more.

Super like chhe.

A Tribute

Roodade gham e ulfat unse hum kyaa kehte kyun kar kehte ,
ek hurf na nikla honton se aur aankh me aansoon aa bhi gaye

Year 2008

"Your grandpa is no more" said the voice at the other end.
"Shit, what happened ?"
"He had another stroke last night. This time they couldnt get him to the hospital on time."

 His voice was trembling. But the bold, fearless head of the family was being consciously composed. He wouldnt give in.It would be considered a sign of weakness.

"Only A man who remains calm in the face of grief is a real man" - He used to tell me when I was growing up. I think it was a saying by Jesus. Or one of those Biblical prophets. They were just too many of them and their smart ass sayings.

 I however had not much of an interest in being a real man after getting beaten up by bullies in school. Or falling off a bicyle and hurting my knee. Instead I preferred to turn on the waterworks, gripe, grumble, whine and make as many sad sounds as possible.

 But then I grew up.

 He probably had many others to inform so he got straight to the point.
 "You must attend the funeral, try to be here by tomorrow."
 "I'll try. I'll have to ask my boss. Works quite hectic these days, we lost headcount"

 He knew where this was heading.He knew my pulse by the second.
 "You should definitely come. He doted on you. You were his favourite. The family would like to see you too"

 That was true though. For some reason grandpa doted on me. He loved my silence. "Such a nice boy, always quiet aa" he'd say.
 "Ok fine. I'll get on a flight this evening. I'll be there"
 "Thats good. Take care and travel safe. Call me before you board the plane"
"Ok, will do."

 We hung up.

 Cold shower.

 Grandpa was not really part of my recent social network. I rarely spoke to him and when I did it was almost always a hurried inquiry about his deteriorating health. His folks were anyway closer to him and I didnt think I would have been able to make a signficant difference to his life. Independence is a virtue that comes at a price of affection.

 The plane ride was long and tenuous.I didnt want to catch up on sleep. I didnt think it would have been appropriate. I decided to watch some movies to kill time. The airline had a good selection. There was enough humour and violence to keep my attention.

 I arrived at my grannys the next morning. People from the entire neighbourhood were assembled there. He had lived there forever and everyone knew him. He was a part of them and they were a part of him. He would have put those we-are-all-connected preaching fcks to shame.

 One by one, they remembered him for all the good things he did. A dead man is always good, honest, reputable, virtuous and worthy.

 I was standing next to the wailing crowd. Emotionally crippled. Not a speck, not a sob.

 Perhaps it was time to resort to an 'instant solution'. Source some heaviness from pop culture references - and celebrity anguish.After all, we are a generation of faking it till we feel it.

 When it comes to grief and despair in cinema, there is one man whose legacy stands tall and strong. A certain Vasanth Kumar Shivshanker Padukone fondly known as Guru Dutt by his critics and admirers. A man who gave us Pyaasa, Sahib Bibi and Kaagaz ke Phool. Each of them a masterpiece flush with brooding tortured characters, heart wrenching poetry, gripping camera-work and subliminal music all mixed into a delectable kheer and thrown at us hot and scalding leaving a deep scar on our minds. A man who had everything but nothing - so helpless by the end of it that even his shadows were disgusted with him.

 There is a scene in his final film Kaagaz ke Phool where Dutt plays a famous film-maker who drinks to insignificance and is forced to play an extra in his apprentices come back film. In the next, he breathes his last on the directors chair at the studio where he had once ruled.

 My eyes began to get moist.

Twitter

http://twitter.com/supersaj

Matrimonial

Its raining celebrations everywhere. Human race has never been more excited about conjugal bliss than it is today. Love is in the air and its players are delighted more than ever to "cordially request the pleasure of our company to grace the super auspicious occasion as they take a step forward into the new journey that is filled with amazing moments, immense fun, tremendous happiness and other such amplitude modifiers + mushy adjectives". And best compliments continue to pour from Shantaben and sons, USA and Kishan Patel (BA First Class ) and daughters.

At a time like this , I cannot be left behind to continue living my life without any meaning, balance and direction whatever they mean. I realized that penning a matrimonial could be the answer to my misery. So ladies and gentlemen , without any further ado, I'll let my ego take-over.

Before getting started, let me throw some light on an essential pre-filter. Skin colour. No matter what South Indian film writers say, skin color does form a key parameter in decision making process and we all know it. MJ knew it. Pure blooded north Indians know it better. Maslow himself has admitted that people with darker skin have no place in his hierarchy of needs and that they eventually go on to become thieves. Let me assure you that all is fine on this aspect. Puritans may see a microscopic cross sectional view above. I can work on the shade if need arises so please dont just dismiss if you are not happy with what is presented.

Moving on to the more important traits, the first thing that comes to my mind are the frequent convulsions that engulf me . Long bouts of shaking chills along with shortness of breath is a common condition. This is nothing but Fear of God. God terrifies me and occasionally I can be seen hiding under my desk to escape His wrath. The story dates back to one of my earlier incarnations where I casually walked in whistling a tune when He was deep in meditation. He opened half his left eye as Gods in those days usually did and said unto me – “abe o, baahar jaake khel. zyaada aawaz ki to tang tod doonga ”. The rest is history.

When It comes to sound moral values , the standards are exceptionally high. I took up trekking as a hobby mainly to serve this purpose. I keep going into mountains especially when there is an exceptionally bright light shining and I often come back with stone tablets carved with up to date commandments dictated by – you guessed it right – God. I have a massive collection of tablets in my warehouse and my favourite is ofcourse the famous – “thou shalt not mix no matter who is paying.”

My sensitive nature has no bounds. I can be seen carressing little birds, healing them and setting them free in the sky. I help old women and little children cross busy streets by holding their hands. When riots take place, I politely ask people to leave their houses before setting the place on fire. I’m pure transcendental love.

Despite all these qualities, I’m basically a simple and down to earth human being . My feet are firmly grounded and when my folks chain me to a pole , they are only enhancing the validity of my point. A simple man, I don’t try to complicate life by contemplating about such things as wine tasting, freemasonry, existentialism and The Realms of Being, oh no Sir. I’d rather go for tilling the soil, growing rice and corn, feeding my family and selling the left over produce to buy wheat and sugar. And eventually marry my children off in a nice , God fearing, respectable family.

That’s pretty much what I have to say of myself. There are quite a few little things which i havnt touched upon here 'cause I think they'd rather be seen and felt than described. (Like for example my lungi and T-shirt attire demonstrates my traditional yet modern nature and the flask of whiskey tucked into my lungi talks highly of my liberal mindset ). So if you are a girl and loosely resemble Katrina Kaif (in form not in spirit), then please send me mail. Also state which part of Katrina you bear resemblance to.

Genius in the House

Tokyo, which is one of the most cosmopolitan cities in central Japan has surprisingly few Indians. So one does not expect its people to be familiar with anything remotely Indian. However, due to the superior intellect of its local population, people here figure out my nationality within five to six hours of our initial conversation despite my not so obvious physical features (if normal people look at me, they think I’m of elvish descent. )

‘’You are from Indiaaaa!! “ They exclaim. “I love India. I love tandoori chicken and Gandhi. And Bollywood. I’ve always wanted to go to India”

Thanks to The Mahatma, India has truly been propelled onto the world stage. The man single handedly inspired a whole generation of youngsters to sport the ripped six pack abs. If there was no Gandhi , there would have been no dard-e-disco. And we wouldnt have had the phrase "I'm no Gandhi dude, if you slap me on my face, I'll kick you in your balls"

And Bollywood.

“We love Bollywood” proclaim my cosmopolitan friends from Pakistan, Srilanka and The Philippines “Who is that famous actor from your country ? We love his song sequences”

“Govinda ?”

“Yes yes, that’s the one. Govinda. What acting he has done in Zulm ki Hukumat yaar, simply superb”

Its truly heart warming to see people from far off places expressing familiarity with your mother land. And some great personalities have helped us accomplish this. Be it Govinda or Ace Tennis player Sania Mirza’s former fiance or the guy who played the third brother in Yaadon ki Baarat (the second was the famous Vijay Arora), the list of cultural ambassadors from India is growing by the day. However, amidst this whole hullaballoo of glamour and politics, it is easy to overlook the true representatives, the real geniuses - the Scientists, Engineers and the Salespeople of our country. One such man is Tathagat Avatar Tulsi. The Times of India carried a brief story on him recently (http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/City/Mumbai/I-was-programmed-to-be-a-genius/articleshow/6189283.cms )

Tathagat Avatar Tulsi was born after kathor tapasya (extensive meditation) and well planned sex. As an unborn child, Tathagat overheard his father talking about the Schrodingers equation with his wife from the womb. This kind of practice is common in India. When father Tulsi was about to explain the relativistic corrections, he realized surprisingly that his wife was fast asleep and stopped expounding on the equation further. As a result, baby Tulsi was left at a hairs distance from understanding the equation and achieving instant martyrdom.

Growing up is never easy for child prodigies. Jealousy is common place and the less gifted always try to pull you down. I was always jealous of the fellow in school who could curl his tongue in a W shape and touch the tip of his nose or the dude at the back who could approach a girl and talk to her for more than 10 seconds without stumbling. If tongue curlers and ear movers could generate so much jealousy and hatred in a fellow human being, I wonder what the kids at the kindergarten felt like when they spotted their classmate reading the Brief History of Time while they were still stuck with D for Djibouti and K for Knom Penh. If it were me, I would have done what “we people” like to do best - Blown myself to smithereens. Shudder.

As the article mentions, Tathagat according to a hindu dictionary of names means a child with a quick mind and an ability to accomplish a great deal in a short period of time. Given the way he is going, it seems like the man has a massive shortage of time. The guy is so fast , it makes nuclear fission look like nuclear fusion (ha ha ha) If he keeps exhausting all known science to humans and solves all unanswered problems, I wonder what he’ll be left with to accomplish by the time he is 25 ? Maybe he should get involved with Balika Vadhu, that’s a good time killer.

No matter what the critics say, I think this man has raised the bar for all us and set a great example for the current generation – a true global ambassador. We shall all conceive programmed genius male children in the future.

Kahaan hain ?

Yeh masnui chiraag ko ab bujhaa do
woh noor-e-nujoom woh anwar-e-ilaahi kahaan hain
Yeh sarv khad imaaraton ko pabajaula rakho
Woh ku-e-yaar woh ahl-e-ishq kahaan hain
Yeh kaar guzaari me kyaa rakhaa hain
Woh khaak bhar sar woh chaak-e-daaman kahaan hain
Yeh aashiqon ke andaaz pe karta hoon tanah
Woh lahu-e-jigar woh jurm-e-mohabbat kahaan hain
Yeh maikhaane me jaam ki hain na kami lekin
Woh mast-e-khumaar woh jasbah-e-junoon kahaan hain
Yeh rakht-e-safar ka dumsaaz mere siwa kaun hain
Woh ahl-e-wafa woh aatish-e-khwaar kahaan hain..

Genesis

Disclaimer: All characters in this story are purely fictitious. Any resemblance to a person LIVING or dead is purely coincidental. The material has been inspired by several works of fiction.

In the beginning, much before the existence of the cross currency basis swap, after He created heaven and earth, the seas, the fire and the mountains, God created the chicken, the cow and the pig (also known as The Barbeque Trinity. Humans would much later create the holy trinity consisting of Snoop Dogg, Eminem and 50 cent to exert their supremacy on the world in what is known as one of the greatest con jobs of all time) . And then God created man in his own image and named him “Julian Ulmer” and placed him in the garden of Eden. And the lord God said to the man, “Of every tree of the garden, thou mayest freely eat. But the tree of knowledge and wisdom thou shalt not touch. Yadda yadda yadda“

Anyway, Julian enjoyed himself for a while running naked in the garden. He was enthralled by his Master who created the trees , the flowers, the sparkle of dew on bushes, the rainbow , marijuana and plenty other things ALL IN 6 DAYS.( To understand and appreciate the enormity of this feat, one should note that mankind came up with the basic latex condom only in 1920, a full 2000 years after queen Cleaoptra was railed by more than 60000 men during her lifetime )
But one day Julian became lonely and desperate. “God” he said “I feel wretched. I need a companion” .

“A companion ? Big fucking deal “ said God “You got it”

And so God created a companion for him. “Do you know who this is ?” asked God.

“let me guess” said Julian. “You made another beast? A cougarrrr !!! ”

“No fuckface” said God. “This is the worlds first woman. I’ll call her Hitomi Yasuoka. Sounds japanese but who the fuck cares at this point in time. Now I am going to leave you two alone and I want you to do what comes naturally”

The following morning God said to julian. “Yo, so what happened last night ?”

“Well, what do you expect when a naked man and a naked chick are left by themselves”

“You mean…?"

“Yup, we climbed on top of a tree and counted stars. We plucked the finest fruit and drank from the stream”

“And ?”

"And we lay on the grass and watched the sun rise. Together”

“Dude man…well, let me give you a hint. Man needs love and devotion. He needs something to exert himself every waking hour. Something to worth living for. You cannot just dick around climbing trees and plucking fruit. Give me a break, BE A MAN”

So Julian went back to Hitomi and began the first of a series of human experiments. What is it that could lead to gratification and ecstasy. What is it that could be done every waking hour? He began by staring at her in the eyes for a considerable period of time. Although it didn’t lead to any gratification as such, this gesture went on to become the inspiration for “Looking in the eyes of love” , a B rated adult flick made years later,where a teacher takes a student as her illegal underaged lover after they – you guessed it right – stare at each other in the eyes for a considerable period of time.

They went back and tried several other things but nothing seemed to generate the ultimate spiritual experience. Chopping wood together , swinging off a banyan tree, chasing rabbits didn’t seem to help the cause. Until one fine day the lad was sitting under a banana tree when a fruit fell on his head and onto the wet slushy ground below. And suddenly it all became clear to him. There shone on his face the serenity of knowledge, of one who has found salvation and one who is in complete harmony with the events surrounding him.

He went back and practice the newly discovered act at every opportunity. And thus began “The Great Julian Onslaught’ which is discussed in several private circles and freemason lodges even to this date. On top of volcanoes, by the side of the river, in the meadow, behind the bushes, in the valley day in and day out until it became tedious as chippies.

Meanwhile, a serpent came in and said unto the woman. “why havnteth thou eaten the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden ? Yadda yadda yadda” The woman could take the archaic english no more and yielded in to the serpents repeated pestering. She took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her boy friend with her; and he did eat.

This ofcourse enraged the lord God and he went red with anger. He summoned both of them and said unto them “ I’m mighty pissed with your behaviour. And because I’m lord God, I shall have to inflict punishment upon you. “

And thus the lord created suffering, men with brown skin, cholera, William Shakespeare and Pussycat dolls.