Cross-belt Land

When Jinku and I first started to work for money, we shared a 1 bedroom house in the heart of a slum in Chennai. For weeks none of our colleagues knew where we lived. And then came the rains that flooded the whole of Chennai. Jinku would tuck his pants upto his knees and hold his shoes in his hands while I rode my motorcycle to drop him at the main road. This continued until my motorcycle's engine was filled with water. And then I had to go on my first overseas trip. Or atleast that was what we told our super sweet landlord's family to get out of the place.

We found yet another one bed room flat. But this time in the second floor so no flood would do anything to us. But unfortunately, we found a flat in the heart of cross-belt land - west mampalam.

West mampalam can be a great or a lousy place to live in; depending on your mind set. But the original inhabitants of that land had certain fixed notions. Such as - Unmarried men are evil (Unmarried non-cross-belts were more evil). Unmarried men eyed all women in the family that included daughters, wives and mothers - even if the wives were 55 year olds and the mothers 85 year olds. Unmarried men smoked cigarettes from the balconies and dropped ash on alpha male cross-belts' bald heads seriously pondering over a cure for cancer. Unmarried men drank beer and puked in other people's door mats.

We did not know all this background and were surprised for the first one month when everyone in the flat scattered like flies whereever and whenever we walked. It took a while to realise noone spoke to us either. No one used lifts when we used it.

But like I said, it can be a great place or a lousy place depending on what you wanted it to be. We wanted it to be a great place. And it was a great place. We felt like tigers in a herd of deer as everyone scampered for their lives as we walked around the place. We felt like Maharajas as people stuck to lift walls like lizards or sneaked out of lifts to let us ride up to our floor. We had our occasional fun as well as we walked as close as possible to our next door neighbour as he walked home from office. We could have added fuel to fire by striking a conversation with their wives, but we were concerned the husbands' heads would turn so hot that we could fry our eggs on top of it. Obviously, we didn't want eggs fried from used coconut oil.

Ring a bell

Before the time of cellphones, we had a landline phone in our home. It was quite handy. It provided midnight updates on leaked question papers and helped plan mid day movies after bunking school. I could see from my mum's body language that she was not convinced with the new device; especially when girls called her son. She managed to find out even if the girls spoke in a man-ish voice.

And then came cellphones. You had to buy one than face the indignation from the voices that echoed 'So you don't have a cellphone?'

My first cellphone was the legendary blue brick. It was the most useful cellphone I have had. My mom endlessly played the snake game and my sister threatened to break my head with it if I didn't share my pocket money with her. I, on the other hand, kept staring at it for months, waiting for it to ring. It taught me patience.

Many years later, cellphones have only become useless. They no longer are large, heavy and strong. So I can't moonlight anymore as a burglar armed with a cellphone and threaten people. I can no longer call pretty girls under the pretext of having forgotten my home number and so called them to ask if they remembered it by any chance.

On contrary, I overheard a couple of 142+ IQ women discuss that cellphones are nature's devices to counter the epidermic called men. They said cellphones emanate certain magic rays that kill men's 'little armies' which help them make more men. Infact, they said it is a grand design that began in the 17th century when the English travelled to most parts of the world. Of the many things that the English took with them, long pants with pockets was one of them. It took the English two and half centuries to make the whole world wear pants. Soon came the cellphones and the cellphones went into men's pockets. The rest is yet to be seen.

As I walk along the corridor with my personal phone in my left pocket and my office phone in my right pocket, I wonder if women are hand in glove with nature. Or why would they buy pouches and handbags for their cellphones inspite of wearing pants? I bet they already have an underground secret cloning facility to keep them multiplied.

Kiran in Kashmir

For a while now, I have been writing just about myself. That was because I was trying to mind my own business. But now, Kiran is going to Kashmir and what a waste this blog would be if I didn't let the world know that Kiran will be in Kashmir.

So why is Kiran going to Kashmir? Because Kiran wants to go and live in Australia. While many may wonder what madness prompted him to travel from Kerala to Kashmir to reach Australia, those who are familiar with Kiran will understand that there will be some method in his madness.

Kiran always looks to follow someone in life. For example, in exams, he tries to write the exact same answers as the person in front of him. So now he wanted to find someone who had recently relocated abroad and do the same things he/she did that took him or her out of the country.

I was one of them. So he decided to study all the things I did in the last one year before I left. The thing that stuck to him most was my road trip to Goa earlier in the year. He knew that a road trip to Goa will take him to England, so he wanted to go somewhere far enough to be ensured to go to Australia. The farthest he could imagine was Kashmir. So Kiran is roadtripping to Kashmir.

Kashmir always brought a nationalistic fervour in Kiran. So he wanted to travel to Kashmir in a way that will tell the world he is a Mallu. So Kiran is hiring an Omni; one way. On his way back he plans to glide down to India Gate in New Delhi with his umbrella. Reasons later.

On the way to Kashmir, he is also dropping in at Sivakasi to pick up as many fire crackers as he can. He is tired of cowering at every person who has a back pack since the Bombay shootout. So he plans to single-handedly destroy all the terrorists in Kashmir with the fire crackers. He has watched Gadar 5 times and so has adequate knowledge to single-handedly finish the job.

Kiran has also seen many English movies as backup for Plan B. In these movies, the victorious soldiers always parachuted to the city; which is why he wants to glide down to India Gate with his umbrella for his Param Vir Chakra. He has not found any place yet that sells cheap parachutes. So if you know of some place in Kerala, please contact Kiran and help him in his nationalistic cause.

But something was missing in the whole plan. If Kiran wanted to go to Australia, Nitin will also want to go to Australia; ofcourse without incurring any cost to himself. So I rang up Nitin and asked him what he was upto. He is removing the spare tyre in the Omni's boot and coiling in instead.

Hair styling

Cutting your own hair is not such a good idea; especially on a Sunday evening when all barber shops in your town are closed. But I had a reason to cut my own hair. A haircut costs £35 - the money that Rajinikant's hair stylist earns in a month. So I decided to take the matter into my own hands.

I now understand why priests in temples have one small bunch of hair at the top of their heads that is longer than the rest and why some people wear turbans. Cutting your own hair does not always end with the desired result.

The good thing about cutting your own hair is that by the time you are finished with the cutting (which is by the time there is no hair left to cut) you would have styled yourself with 9 different hair-dos. The not-so-good-thing is that the 10th hair-do, which is the final one, always looks the same. It looks exactly like what it would look if you put your head into a burrow full of hungry rats that have not been fed for 13 days.

It will be a very defining moment when I meet my colleagues in the office tomorrow. If they have a laugh at it, I can always blame in on recession and who knows, they could pool in some money for my next hair-cut. But if they like it, then I could have a weekend vocation. I should even think of applying for a patent for my fork cut and retire with all the royalty money I will get from the franchising.

Patent-pending fork cut

If you too are thinking of starting your own hair styling brand, I must warn you that it is not such an easy job. Not only does it take 3 hours to complete, but for the next 3 months nothing would grow on your head - not even dandruff. You have to be ambidextrous; to be able to handle a pair of scissors on your left hand while you operate the hair trimmer on the right. Did I mention that the hair you cut sticks to anything and everything 5 feet around you? Getting rid of it is not easy. But I have a solution. You can wash it down your drain, if you didn't mind your hair clogging your entire street's drainage system.

All barbers cut hair. But they never always end up with patent pending hairstyles. That is because they do not know what I know - yet another of my accidental discoveries.

Half my hair was turning white. While I could fool the Europeans that one of my parents was Finnish and the other Indian; which is why half my hair is white and the other half is black, these second generation Indians in the UK don't believe what I say.

When you have an issue that needs attention, ignore it. When you like to make an issue out of nothing, call your mum for advice. ' Use parachute. How you do think Asian paints make their black paint?'

So that is the secret formula. Every drug has its own side effects. My secret formula has its own. Instead of the 5 feet radius, your hair sticks to a 10 feet radius, and your face, and your shirt, and the mirror, and the trimmer.

Post hair cut question: Are hair trimmers water proof? The mess was so much, that I put the trimmer in a bucket of water mixed with Pantene shampoo to wash off the hair. I am sure they are. Would they have thought about guys like me when they make hair trimmers?

cats, cows & karma

A wise man once told me that the brain can process or hold only a certain amount of data and this is an independent constant for each individual. That is why some women are able to hold on to information that is 20 years old and other men are unable to simultaneously munch their breakfasts while watching two and half men. But the individual constant is a fixed entity for each individual. That is, the sum of the total amount of data one can hold on to one's head and the total amount of processing the head can do is a constant at one particular instant. My abysmal record at remembering names should indicate something to you all about my brain.

The law applies to me but with a clause. That is, the constant is not restricted to the head but to the whole body. Which explains why I get my blog ideas when my IQ is drained through my ears in meetings at the office or when I am contributing my humble bit to global warming from the toilet.

Last Saturday, I had an English breakfast, a Japanese lunch and an Italian dinner. I did not know the English, the Japanese and the Italians did not get along very well and no sooner there was a world war. The bloodbath and destruction caused led to my spending several hours in the closed confines on my closet. As my body got rid of the warring parties and more of itself, it had more processing power than it had had in a long time; which led to the serendipitous discovery of the truth behind karma and rebirth.

According to version 8 and later versions of Hinduism, every man and woman will have 9 lives to live. Depending on what each one does in each of these lives, one will be either be promoted or demoted in the food cycle (Applies only to Hinduism believing Hindus). So if you did certain things you can keep your human status and eat chicken. However, if you did other things, you will be demoted to a chicken and other humans will eat you. By the time you complete your allotted 9 lives, all your parts would have worn out. So you are sent to a place popularly known as the hell where you will be thrown into a sea of fire to be melted and reprocessed along with other people who have completed their 9 lives. This new molten people will be used to generate more brand-new 9-life species.

This is something that many people already know. But what they do not know is that you do not die in one life to go to another. Rajini almost spilt the beans in one of the songs in Baasha when he speaks about dividing one's life in years of 8. What really happens is that there are 9 facets of life and each of these lasts for 8 years (which explains the cumulative average lifespan of species at 72 years). The allegory to dogs or cats or cows or chicken is only what you closest resemble to in each of these facets.

The period when you are shit scared about anything and everything is when you are a chicken, from where comes the expression 'you are such a chicken'.

The period when you don't do any work but sit and shit in the same place and keep eating all day is when you are a domesticated cow in a cowshed.

The period of life when you graze around women is when you are a goat. It is likely for the grazers develop facial hair growth, especially under the chin during this period.

The period when no amount of humiliation would dislodge you is when you are a buffalo.

The period after you wake up in a stranger's apartment with 2 teeth missing after a 12 Jack Daniels night and you swear never to drink again is when you are a camel.

The period when you are unsure of what you want to say to people and so just hang around nervously is when you are a cat. Thus the expression 'cat on the wall'.

The period when you carry your girlfriends' shopping bags while she shops and shops; and shops is when you are a mule.

The period when mid-life crisis engulfs you and you spend all your night chatting with 30 year-old truck drivers masquerading as 18 year old damsels is when you are an owl.

The period when you are too old to walk that when you cross a zebra crossing you hold up the traffic for a mile is when you are a snail.

The period when you have posted close to 100 such crappy posts is when you have ceased all your usefulness and are going to hell.