That's all, folks!

I guess its been on the boil for quite a while now. The job was getting on my nerves. It was mostly a joke. The best conversations I've had in years were with myself, on a single cylinder British motorcycle. But I knew I had hit rock bottom when people started mistaking the mask for the clown, so to speak.

So yesterday I did the most natural thing any level-headed person would have done in the same situation. I quit my job, and decided to take my motorcycle and leave on what will hopefully be a wild goose chase across the sub-continent in search of The Me. I don't know if I will come back to Madras, or to Blogger. I have no idea.

To the 4 regular readers of this blog, and to the dozens who arrive here from google.com looking for pornography, thanks for putting up with the nonsense. Be good and keep the faith.  

Live gracefully. Die well.

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Goodbye.

V

A few life saving tips from a guy who knows nothing about life.

I don't take life too seriously, and life doesn't take me too seriously. It's an arrangement that works reasonably well for both of us. But here's something you will do well to remember for as long as you live:

Remember to never trust banks. Or hedge funds. Big corporations will ALWAYS want your money. The only thing that changes is how badly they want it and how much they are willing to pay for it. So you see fluctuating interest rates.

Follow business news. It is very amusing. You will very likely be reminded of a dog running in circles, chasing its own tail. But the difference is that a dog chasing tail is a zero sum game. Economics is not. There are always losers in an economy. That's the way of the world.

Never trust the media. They manipulate. They lie. They dwell on inconsequential controversies, like Shiney Ahuja's libido, to divert your attention from the really important issues, like global warming. They contrive the most unlikely conspiracy theories, yet they don't say the most obvious thing if it hurts the majority sentiment. They make such popular but ridiculously false proclamations as "Prevent global warming. Save the Arctic Penguin.", when the exact opposite is true. It is actually the penguins who are causing global warming. By breathing. One whiff of carbon-dioxide at the poles has the same effect on the atmosphere as burning down a forest or a coal mine at the equator, because the air is thinner. You are moving from the double ring to the bull's eye. It can be scientifically proven. Infact, I just did. If there were no animals or birds at the poles, it would be much cooler there and hence the ice wouldn't melt. So, in a way the surest way to save the Arctic Penguin is to shoot them all. Why then does the media urge us to save them? Because penguins are cute.

Penguins are not cute. That can also be scientifically proven.

Play Xonix. It is the only thing in the world worth pursuing. It is a seemingly trivial 2D computer game in which you have to trap evil little dots in progressively smaller areas in the face of irrational and at times absurd resistance by ever shrinking and expanding sticks. But you should be careful with the little dots. Mere contact with them can seriously undermine your mobility. Repeated contact is rumoured to have a detrimental effect on your very survival in the game, but I wouldn't know about that. The simplicity of the concept is astounding. Yet, its minimalism is matched only by its staggering range of probabilistic permutations. It's like walking into a mirror room. It will show you a million reflections of yourself. And reflections of reflections. You have quite literally infinite options at any given instant. It is a never ending fugue that will either elevate you to an orgasmic state of Karmic awareness, or depress you into a deep psychosomatic existential crisis. It will teach you, if you are inclined to learn, the absurdity of a purposeless existence and demonstrate the futility of endeavour in a way nothing else can. It is a fountainhead of profound philosophical thought.

Education is an industry and it is run by morons.

Let me rule the world, just for a day! I'll show you! I swear to God, you'd have never seen anything quite like it! Bearded university intellectuals and aviator shades will make a comeback. There wouldn't be any hiking gear or laptop bags. I swear to God i'll crash us sideways through the pearly gates in a trail of fire, leaving behind a wake of destruction and shattered window glass. 

I have a vision of a madhouse, a seething charge of explosive creativity, where not a word is uttered that is commonplace, trite or uninspiring. The dull and the unimaginative would have no place in the madhouse. I have a vision of a world where thousands of young men and women break the shackles of slavery and wander off to the mountains, in search of the source of the great Amazon. A whole generation fuelled by Cannabis and a burning desire to set fire to the record. I really, genuinely, truly, earnestly believe that this is the only sensible way to live. Anything else is a compromise. If you fail to see what is to gained by such an existence, the ordinariness to which you doom yourself is entirely your problem to deal with.

The grass IS greener here. It is a dark shade of olive. 

If only I ruled the world....

If what I said offended you, I just want you to know that I am not sorry. I'm not looking for anyone's forgiveness. Keep the change.

V

A knotty problem...

For most part I don't understand iPod earphones. If you leave them unattended on a table for a couple of minutes, they somehow seem get entangled in a knot of such bewildering complexity that you need hyperbolic invariants and supercomputer algorithms to figure out how to untie them. 

Mathematically, a tangled iPod earphone is the closest thing we have to multi-dimensional hyperspace and parallel Universes. Ancient Hindu saints and Buddhist monks knew about this. This is evident from the fact that the iPod earphone knot is one of the eight auspicious symbols in Tibetan philosophy. 

What a tangled web we weave! Have you ever wondered what to really make of all the other regular nonsense we get up to? I do. So my mind is a very crowded place.

If aliens ever landed on earth, they would naturally think that iPods are the batteries that power human beings....and that people would go into a state of suspended animation, like energiser bunnies, if the power cable that is plugged into the ears is yanked off.

I wonder how Americans can make reconnaissance satellites that can spot a cockroach flapping its wings in a North Korean nuclear power plant from 300 miles above sea level, but fail to see a huge 2000 kg Russian satellite draped in bright reflective silver foil coming its way from 12 metres away, and collide with it?

I am at a loss to understand what we mean by the word "War Crime". I wonder what could be more criminal than war.

I have a pet theory - Man invented things in the order of how badly he needed them. The things which were really needed for survival were invented first and then Man turned his attention to the less important things. It is a sound theory, and it can be easily verified too. Beer was invented before writing. Spears, bows and axes were invented before bread and clothing. Plastic surgery, chewing gum and breast enhancement were invented before a cure for Ebola.

Do you know why they never mention the ingredients on aerated soft drink cans? The conceited bastards. Let me show you a sample. 330 ml Coca Cola - Caffeine, Phosphoric acid, Glycerin, Cocaine alkaloids, Chlorine, Ethanol, Toluene, Potassium Benzoate, Aspartame, sugar and water. It reads like the contents of a nuclear waste disposal canister. They know they will never be able to move a can off the shelf. Coca-Cola's ad punchline as early as in 1910 was "Quenches the thirst as nothing else can". Really? Whatever happened to plain water? Why should there be a toxic alternative to everything?

Why do sugar-free / low-calorie food items cost more than their regular alternatives? Shouldn't it be cheaper because it has one ingredient less? By the same token, sugar-free tablets should cost nothing.

Computers are the future of the world. Cockroaches can survive a nuclear attack. Some very serious nuclear firepower is wielded by North Korea and Iran, countries where top scientists are confounded by bicycle repair kits. When you put all these seemingly unconnected facts together, you will come to the same inescapable conclusion that I have - We must teach the cockroaches how to use computers. That would save a lot of cockroaches a lot of time.

If it goes down too, why is it called a Lift?

I have a doctor-friend who has killer looks. I wonder if it’s a good thing in her line of work.

In the days of black and white TV, did they broadcast snooker games?

If there are aliens observing us, I guess they'd think we're quite peculiar. We cut down forests and then pay a lot of money to buy clothes that would make us inconspicuous in a jungle. We have jobs we don’t like doing, so that we can buy things that we don't need. We have desk jobs and lead a protected life. We've never seen a river or a stream, yet we wear 50m waterproof watches, even though we know that if we ever get that deep in water, reading the time would be the least of our worries.

Why?

Told you, my mind is a very crowded place.

Things you wish you had said

A good friend of mine recently analysed my feeding philosophy in his characteristic witty manner... It was so brilliant that it just HAD to be mentioned here!

"You believe in abortion, but not murder. That is why you eat eggs but not meat."

Sheesh! I wish I had thought of that!

And now for something funny...

I met God.

He seemed to be a pretty cool chap. A bit aloof, I’d say, but cool undoubtedly.

Yeah.

It happened when I was in the heart of gult-land, Hyderabad, where I had to go on an official trip. As I entered the office complex, I asked the security person where I could find a certain building. He said, and keep in mind that he was gult, “Go straight down this road-u, you will find a grey building-u. When you yenter that building-u, a God will be sitting there. Ask that God, he will tell you where the building-u is.

Stunned, I hurried to meet God, who was allegedly sitting in Bldg-5. As a matter of fact, I even spoke with him. He was really chilled out. He wasnt even wearing the weird clothes and accessories I had imagined he'd be wearing. He was awfully nice. He gave me directions to get to Bldg-5, too.

I just wanted to let you know that if you are in Mecca or Hrishikesh or the Vatican or wherever, looking for God, you are looking in the wrong places. God is actually chilling out at Bldg-5 in an software office in Hyderabad, sitting cross-legged and reading a newspaper, apparently unaware that so many people are looking for him all over the place. 

And you know what’s the most unkindest cut of them all? I have a suspicion He is gult.

(For the uninitiated, God is gultspeak for Guard – something I discovered later. Imagine my disappointment!)

.

When the music is over...

Here is a word of advice to straight-haired girls who spend 2 hours a day in front of a mirror, trying out a dozen shades of lipstick, and splurging money on cosmetics and hair products, spending precious time worrying about how they look - you will never, not in a million years be as beautiful as the woman I love.

Nefertiti.

In her time, she was the queen of Egypt. She was the most powerful woman in the most advanced civilisation on earth. She was also the most beautiful woman ever. And do you want to know how she ended up?

This is how we will all end up one day. Filthy rotting corpses right fit only to be eaten by worms. Yet look at her decaying body and her legacy. She lived a beautiful life. She died old and wrinkled and frail. She died a beautiful human being. You will be lucky if you look so graceful in death. You will be lucky if some young man whom you will never know, in a far, faraway country thousands of years later looks at your picture and wonders who you were, how you smiled, how much you were loved. You’d be lucky if he looked up at the stars thousands of years after you’re gone and wondered if you once saw the same stars.

Here is a word of advice for denim clad young girls in strip malls. What will be left of your good looks after a few years? Just some wrinkles and a few old bones. Ask yourself – what will be left of you after 3500 years?

This was Nefertiti - the most beautiful woman in the world.

A word of advice: Age gracefully. Die well.

.

(PS: Thanks to Meg for the bronze make up, the inspiration and the constant reminders)

Quiz - Part I of many

Guess who eats who

A) 

B) 

Warning: weather report ahead!

Dear blog reader,

If you are in the business of weather forecasting, pay special attention to the following sentence: You are a blithering idiot. If you earnestly believe in the veracity of your forecasts, that is. Otherwise you are plainly a pig-headed moron. Weather forecasters in Madras deserve a special mention here. Why should ignorant people be hired to tell other ignorant people what they don't want to know? And have you seen these jokers?



Why do they wear those stuffy, ill-fitting woolen suits, that make them seem like obese rhinoceri in tight-fitting dinner jackets? Have they ever seen themselves in a mirror? Who clears these harebrained morons as suitable for television audiences? This is broadcast to millions of homes every night for half an hour. What is the health ministry doing about it? How can any civilised culture view radioactive plutonium as a health hazard and yet let this morbid nonsense loose on the unsuspecting public? So the weather-people on TV have so much going against them already, and I havent even started on the meaty bit yet - the actual business of weather prediction; Which is essentially whimsical unscientific speculation by a badly dressed man wearing a wig, grinning like an idiot and vaguely waving his arms about over a map, usually accompanied by retarded 2-D graphics and loud cheerful music. Just what is the bloody point?!

Would you notice it if you heard the exact same weather report on two consecutive days? How many days in a row do you have to see the weather report before you realise that you have been shown the exact same black boring X-ray of the India map since 1957?

The only thing that changes from day to day throughout the year in Madras is the thermometer reading. So inevitably, the only thing that the weather forecasters talk about is how hot it is going to be. What can the weather forecaster on Sun News POSSIBLY say that you didn't know before? Weather news is actually a contradiction in terms, because there is nothing new about it. Pause for a moment here and ask yourselves - how would your daily routine be different if it was 34 degrees C as opposed to, say 33? Scientists who work on drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases in hermetically sealed NMR laboratories have personally told me that they don't much care for 1C differences. So what difference does it make to Mr.Kettle-face (see the pic below) who sells tea and rice cakes in a roadside stall near Aminjikarai post office?

My forgiveness is a raving lunatic. Right now.

Get out of my face.

More things about the universe that don't make sense - Part XXIV

Here are some more questions you are not going to understand.

1) Why do some people say life is hard? Life is hard compared to what? Being dead? How would they know?

2) Why is the alphabet in that order? Why should the alphabet be in ANY order? The only place where it is used is to spot a word in the dictionary. But with computers and what not these days, even that is not necessary any more. So why?

3) THIS report says that America recently broadened the scope of its unmanned air strikes in Pakistan from the semi-autonomous tribal areas to include the province of Baluchistan, in order to "smoke out" the Taliban (whose presence in Baluchistan, incidentally, was merely alleged). This followed speculation by senior members in the Obama administration that Pakistan was heading towards a total collapse of democracy and ultimately State failure....So they are saying all this because Taliban infiltrated certain regions in the North West Frontier Province? That raises an important question which I am sure millions of readers of this blog want to know the answer to - If the US Air Force does not hesitate to bomb the streets of Karachi and Quetta at the slightest suspicion of Taliban infiltration, how would they react if the said terrorists were standing on the roof of a 200000 b.p.d oil refinery in Saudi Arabia? Would they bomb it? What if the terrorists were dancing naked on an offshore oil rig in Alaska? Would they blow up costly Exxon Mobil infrastructure? More importantly, if the same terrorists were holed up somewhere in the Grand Canyon, would it merit a surgically precise SWAT retaliation from the American government... or would it call for carpet-bombing of Colorado? What if they were hiding in a Wal-Mart store in a marginal southern electorate somewhere in Alabama? Where would they drop their bombs?

4) If my previous question left you groping in the dark for answers, this should help you make up your mind - The Americans won't think twice before calling in an airstrike by F-16 fighter jets to blow up Madison Square Garden because there were a few garden lizards in it. See this.

5) What's all the fuss about sedentary jobs? NASCAR drivers and fighter pilots have sedentary jobs. The orthopaedic doctors people visit when they have problems resulting from a sedentary lifestyle have a sedentary lifestyle.

OK get back to your pathetic lives now.

Encore!

Rental lease payment. Electricity. Unsolicited household chores. Packaged homogenised milk. Children. School fees. Castor oil. Kerosene. Purified semolina. Grocery rations. Palm oil. Raw rice. Wheat. Not enough. Not enough. Money is not enough at all. Hey! Rs 0.0625. Rs 0.125. We broke the coin accumulation container. Rs 0.25. Rs 0.50. We borrowed money. We mortgaged the container, the vessel...yet even after begging for Rs. 0.05 and Rs 0.10, not enough, not enough, not enough, not enough.

Knowledge fruit.