Oh yes he has!

After winning Nobel Peace Prize, US President Barack Obama has collected another shining medal to his award collection. He was awarded the Ig Nobel prize for Improbable Research in chemistry for inventing 'Placebo Piss', a new type of piss that flows not from the urinary tract, but from the mouth of the pisser. At the award ceremony held at Boston, Obama was awarded the honor for his remarkable ability to generate piss from his mouth and also for pissing off many millions around the world by winning Nobel Peace Prize without doing anything substantial in his initial months of presidency.

Also called as Pretense Piss, Pseudo Piss, Mouthful of Piss and Hot Piss, it is sometimes misspelled as 'Peace' which could have been one of the reasons, the Nobel Peace Prize Committee made the historical blunder and awarded him this year's Nobel Peace Prize.

What does Placebo Piss actually do? According to experts, placebo piss like placebo medicines is a sugary, inert piss which actually does absolutely nothing but when released from the mouth of a politician, preacher or a wannabe global messiah, mesmerizes thepatients audience causing them to believe the promises sprouting from his mouth. "Despite being just a placebo, its a very potent piss. Especially when emanated along with words like 'Yes we can change' or Change we can believe in', it makes the listener believe that the world is changing for the better." said Rafael Cladwell, chairman of the Ig Nobel committee.

Even when the world doesn't really change, the belief that the world is indeed become more peaceful does indeed have a therapeutic effort on the gullible listener who starts ignoring all evidence to the contrary.

"Obama's placebo piss has achieved tremendous success in just eight months of his presidency. Despite the fact that Iraq continues to burn, Guantanamo Bay stays operational, Taliban keeps on spreading its influence, Pakistan persists in avoiding termination and export of state-sponsored terrorism, Obama has succeeding in making a large section of international community believe that the world is becoming more peaceful." added Rafael Cladwell.

Unlike other politicians who are full of hot air, Barack Obama is a man of piss. Very early in the presidential campaign, he realized the diminishing value of hot air. "Politicians have been expelling hot air since time immemorial, but people are becoming immune to it due to their sharpening ability in detecting it. Obama being cleverer than most people has found a way to hoodwink them through a radically different way " said one of the admirers of Obama's pissful approach of solving world's problems.

Being a smart cookie, Obama knew he can't win the trust and vote of millions of Americans unless he learned to produce something new and different from the usual hot air. "Hot air emanating from the mouths of politicians releases a distinct rotten smell which alerts the audience in his vicinity. At the time of its release from the mouth, it tends to distort the facial features. The eyes generally become shifty indicating insincerity, the mouth widens more than normal indicating pressure to let out hot air along with rhetorical empty words and the nasal openings tend to contract in an attempt to block out the foul smell of the hot air being released from the mouth. Although people are not aware of the exact process which results in the distortion of the facial features of the person expelling hot air, many million observant voters through long decades of exposure to broken promises have become experts in identifying the precise set of facial distortions associated with release of hot air." said Steve Mayer, one of the members of the committee.

Obama responded to the challenge of his words sounding like hot air by learning to substitute it with placebo piss. "It is not really understood how Obama manages to convert hot air into placebo piss. Perhaps he withholds pissing for long periods of time and through a secret tantrik practise has learnt to move his piss upwards through the spinal cord from his bladder to his mouth where his piss loses its pungency and gets converted into sweet piss." added Mayer.

"But whatever the technique he may use, the effect of his procedure are there for all to see. We can see how the upward movement of piss through his spine makes his back arched perfectly and thrusts outs his chest. When the piss travels to the neck region of his body, it results in a slight upward glance which gives the effect of messiah-like man looking heavenwards for deliverance of his followers. Also notice the effects of his piss on his mouth region resulting in a sticky plastic smile that never ever wears off." Steve Mayer explained to his audience while announcing the prize.

"The pose that he manages to achieve during his sermonsspeeches is near-perfect. Unlike politicians shooting off hot air, his eyes never look shifty or deceitful. The sticky piss he generates makes his eyes look focused, his gaze steady, his tongue glib and his overall look that of a confident trickster who knows he has audience eating out of his hand." said Steve Mayer.

The cacophony that religion is

I am irritated as hell and it’s got nothing to do with the general state of affairs around me, the BJP’s implosion, the weather or the creative hate mail on my posts. My frayed nerves are the result of the surrounding cacophony attacking my ears which has left my brain in permanent vibrator mode (that may explain this bewildering blog).

Last week I got a case of the sniffles. Nothing serious, just seasonal flu, which escalated my irritability levels by a few megahertz. So, early Saturday morning, as I lay in my bed(at home) cursing the world and its viruses, my peaceful reverie(an indication that I was not in the hostel, a place where nothing is ever peaceful, and you can accord that to the unusually small bed that I've got. Sleep, thus is a precious quantity. Twisted muscles of the neck aren't!) was interrupted by a violent clanging sound from the vicinity. A quick investigation from the window showed someone looking remarkably like a priest banging a metal plate outside the temple.

Apparently, it’s some new custom copied from neighbourhood schools to lure in devotees and torture every other soul who doesn’t believe in paying obeisance to the gods. My frantic and angry gestures from the balcony asking him to keep it down only escalated the volume and the situation(and my hatred towards God's own man's undiluted act of schedenfreude).

That brings me to a question, the answer to which I seek in all earnest: Why do all religions have to be so loud about their daily rituals? It’s a sensitive topic so I’ll have to tread lightly, lest I get lynched by some religious zealots on my way back to Bawana Land come Monday morning. I also know that temples, gurdwaras and mosques won’t tone down the volume because a certain short-tempered blogger has got the flu. That’s just wishful thinking.

Day in and day out, these places of worship scream their devotion all over the country. I don’t know for sure, but I have a strong feeling that God is not deaf. The priests, however, always turn a deaf ear to these sentiments. Perhaps all these priests and clerics have a secret deal with the ENT specialists of the country. You scratch my back and I’ll send you the hearing impaired.

Another theory could be that these gentlemen want to make the somewhat less devout feel guilty about not going to the temple. If I was in their place, I’d change tactics… this is only driving away the remaining atheists.

Then there are the jagarans(no, not the ones you generally associate with exams). It would seem that the gods are more alert at night. Therefore, screaming your lungs out after midnight is supposed to get you closer to moksha. I believe the Supreme Court has some guidelines about noise levels (religious or otherwise) after 9 pm. Unfortunately, this being a topic of faith, you won’t find too many people willing to take on a mob to uphold a law, yours truly included.

So, how does one sleep when a thousand tone-deaf people are shrieking out devotional songs in unison a few metres from your house. Simple. Invest in ear buds, put pillows over instead of under your head and spend thousands in soundproofing your house. The other option: shift home. Although I doubt the second option is practicable. Religious is ubiquitous, you see.

Another thing I’ve noticed (and I am moving into the rounded-up-and-beatean-up-risk zone again) is that few of these harmless devotees are aware of the harm they are doing to music lovers in the neighbourhood. It’s not just the decibel levels that leave you grimacing, but the murder of melody. Tansen and his ilk must be turning in their grave. I think I should record this mass murder and sell it to the CIA. After Abu Ghraib they must have been looking for new ways to torment prisoners.

Anyway, I need to go and have a man-to-man conversation with the neighbourhood priest. If I cant’t get him to pipe down, at least I can spread some seasonal flu and God-willing give him a sore throat. Just hope I don’t have to participate in a jagaran to get God to listen to me.

Pray!

Babloo hates them too!

'I hate politicians! I hate them, I hate them, I hate them!'

Babloo Arora is just a 10-year old school-going kid living in Delhi, but he has already learned how to hate politicians like all the adults in his family. Son of affluent businessman, Ranjit Arora who exports jewelry to east European countries, he believes politicians are responsible for all his troubles and hopes that by the time he has grown-up, India would become free of politicians.

"Yesterday, I got beaten up by my classmate after I stole his tiffin-box and ate his lunch' said Babloo, 'Bloody politicians! Why can't they introduce strict laws that would prevent school-children from beating up their classmates? We need laws that would allow school authorities to immediately rusticate students who use violence against their fellow students"

"There should be a limit on amount of home-work given to children too. My parents don't allow me to watch TV unless and until I finish my homework. Every second day I miss out on my favorite cartoon show because the damned homework takes so much long to complete. If our politicians were not preoccupied with making money, they would have noticed the tremendous amount of suffering children have to undergo due to ever increasing homework."

"But why would our politicians care about children? After all we don't have the right to vote like adults. Children are not their vote-banks!" rued Babloo.

Babloo is also upset at the inability of our politicians to control runaway inflation. "Earlier I was able to buy pizzas, burgers and diet cokes thrice every week. My pocket-money of Rs. 2000 every month also allowed me to buy at least 5 video game titles and 10-12 movie DVD's. But nowadays I'm forced to cut corners. I've cut down my pizzas and burgers consumption from thrice a week to twice a week. Thanks to inefficient politicians, I'm left with no choice but to beg my dad to increase my monthly pocket money by 500 rupees, if I want to continue playing same number of new video games on my playstation as before."

"Politicians have ruined my life!" added Babloo sobbingly, 'I would not be suffering the way I'm had it not been for complete and total abrogation of duty by politicians and their complete indifference to the plight of young children"

Asked to elaborate, Babloo said "My parents are very ambitious and want to see me on TV. They have huge expectations from me and wish to see me become a big television star. They have pressurized me into joining singing and dancing classes so that I can become trained enough to participate in reality shows. Now, I really love singing and dancing, but at the same time I'm scared to death of my parent's reaction if I fail to qualify for any TV show! Its high time our government bans reality shows on television featuring little children. But sadly, our politicians just don't care about the plight of children"

"When will our politicians wake up from their collective apathy and try to solve the complex problems that kids today are facing? How many kids will have to be lose their childhood to class-room violence, excessive homework, increasing inflation and song-n-dance television shows before our politicians wake up from their slumber and take decisive action to provide children with safety and security they deserve?"

Sigh. Another life, another story.

Of forward thinking and blackmailing

I am going to die within the next 2 days. Why? Well, I kinda forgot to forward a boring forward to some even more boring people. The result: I am as good as dead. Just counting the days, folks.

Readers who have often grimaced with pain after reading my torturous attempts at humour will no doubt be rejoicing at the news of my impending demise. Hold your horses, friends. Apparently, there are some doubts about the credibility of these fatalistic forwards. A ray of hope for a dying man, but I cling to it with my entire body mass index.

Some of you may just be nodding furiously in agreement. After all, these irritating forwards can well be mistaken for email threats from al-Qaida. Come to think of it, I wonder if their terrorists also get such forwards. What a great way to terrorize the terrorist. If I could get hold of Osama bin Laden’s email ID, I’d definitely send him the sob story about a man ditched by his wife because he spent too much time with the other 39 in his harem. “Oye Osama, if you don’t forward this to at least 40 other al-Qaida members in the next 5 minutes, something horrible is going to happen to you…like an encounter with a heat-seeking missile looking for some serious terrorist booty”. Sigh! Wishful thinking!

Truth is, I am something of a serial forwarder. While I avoid terrorizing friends with the goody-goody sob-story emails, I am a sucker for jokes. But even an Internet-addicted, always-forwarding geek like me knows when to draw the line. Sometimes I think even spam from Nigerians asking for money on behalf of some long-lost intolerable relative is acceptable rather than a forward asking me to show my good side and passing it on to others.

I still remember the first forward I received. I got a forward from a friend that dealt with how I was just about to get lucky. Oblivious to the fact that this was a “forward” that someone had sent me to save his/her arse, and was not in anyway a synonym of “Godspeed”, I replied to the sender. Yes, I didn’t know shit from sugar then.

Now, they all begin with something like “I got this mail and I swear it works….” I swear too, at the forwarder I mean. Then the emails proceed to show you dreams of a financial windfall. They usually ask you to do something stupid like putting a coin on your nose and screaming ‘show me the money’. And just as the gullible oaf inside you starts hoping for a solution to beat recession, there comes the catch: Forward this to 50 people in 5 minutes and you could make millions. Forward it to 5 people in 10 minutes and you’ll get a new car free with a house in the suburbs of some congested, polluted city. Not forwarding is not an option. OK maybe it is, if you want to commit suicide. Cyber blackmail, I tell you!

It’s not like I didn’t try it. Before I caught on to what these fiendish forwarders were up to, I would often fall in the trap of selfish emailing. But I am still waiting for my millions.

I am going to rub a lot of people the wrong way with this tirade but who cares. After all I’m going to die because of these very same people?

Oh and yes, before I forget, forward this blog to a minimum 50 of your friends in the next 5 milliseconds or you’ll lose your sense of humour.

War of the words

While there are some who invent imaginative new words thereby contributing to the art of making language richer, there are others who self-appointedly sit on language monitoring committees to monitor the influx of new words and decide which new words deserve an entry in the hallowed English dictionaries. Who gavith them the right?

And then there is the Indian media, suffering from severe lack of sense of discrimination, which starts drooling with excitement whenever anything remotely connected to Indian cultural landmass gets approval from westerners. A press release by a little-known American company that makes money by monitoring new media for mentioning its clients, announcing the crowning of one millionth word should ordinarily have been brushed aside without a thought, but the inclusion of two words having an India-connection (Slumdog & Jai Ho) was enough enticement for our media to treat a publicity gimmick by a private company as yet another shining example of India's cultural impact on the world.

Would we have stopped using the words Slumdog or Jai Ho had this monitoring agency not included these words in its expanding list? Has our national pride suffered a dent because Slumdog is listed at 9,99,997 and not at 10,00,000? If not, why do such crappy crowning ceremonies conferring chance celebritiness to accidental new words become news?

As a response to such senseless pandering to juvenile fancies, I too have created my own list of new words and phrases that deserve an entry in the English dictionary.

Countupation - (noun - Counting clowns) - The silly and absolutely pointless occupation of keeping a count of new inclusions of items in a given branch of knowledge that are indelineatable due to lack of accepted and clear-cut criteria for inclusion or exclusion of such items in that branch of knowledge.

Languappropriate - Attempt to appropriate or assume pseudo-control/ownership of an entire language through insidious means such as setting up a language monitoring company, unauthorizedly taking up the role of deciding which words deserve an inclusion in official lexicon and pompously crowning words arbitrarily with meaningless titles.

Authoreverence - (reverence or worship of authority) Obsessive obeisance by mainstream media to traditional institutions of authority or institutions pretending to be institutions of authority (like Oxford English Dictionary, Global Language Monitor etc) while ignoring the contribution of popular barometers (such as Urbandictionary.com which boasts a dictionary of 4 million words) to the profusion of new words and phrases.

(National) Gloryearning - Excessive yearning or hankering for national glory. Often exhibited by media by giving over-importance to international competitions of no significance, and by treating every international contest featuring any person, product or an abstract idea related to the nation, however tangential the relation might be, as a matter of national pride and glory.

Much ado about nothing

Finance geeks would tell you that the current financial crisis began when investors lost confidence in the value of securitized mortgages in the US resulting in a liquidity crisis that, in turn, caused a substantial injection into financial markets by the US Federal Reserve. They'll talk about mortgages, sub primes, leveraging, shadow banking, swaps and all those things that are part of their holy argot!

Now, a story in English.

"I was the proprietor of a bar(theka?) in Bawana. In order to increase sales, I decided to allow my loyal customers(and friends!) - most of whom were unemployed(as of then) alcoholics - to drink then, but pay later. I kept track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans). Word got around and as a result, the footfall at the Boulevard of thy 'Highness' went up just as the madness is at the Santiago Bernabeu. Taking advantage of my customers’ freedom from immediate payment constraints, I increased my prices for vodka and beer, the most-consumed beverages. My sales volumes(and of innumerable bellies) increased massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank(Students' Bank acknowledging Inebriation) recognised these customer debts(and no the customers) as valuable future assets and increased my borrowing limit. He saw no reason for undue concern since he had the debts of the alcoholics(and their impending pay packets, which were presumably 'high') as collateral.

At the bank’s corporate headquarters, expert bankers transformed these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities were then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understood what these abbreviations meant and how the securities were guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climbed, the securities became top-selling items.

One day, although the prices were still climbing, a risk manager (subsequently of course fired due to his ubiquitous negativity) of the bank decided that slowly the time had come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at my bar. However, they could not pay back the debts. I could not fulfill my loan obligations and claimed bankruptcy. DRINKBOND and ALKBOND dropped in price by 95%. PUKEBOND performed better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80 %(for reasons unknown to all concerned).

The suppliers of my bar, having granted me generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities(if you could call them that) were faced with a new situation. My vodka supplier claimed bankruptcy, my beer supplier was taken over by a competitor.

In the meanwhile, Changu and Mangu, next door neighbours in the basti and owners of competing bars had also thought that this way of conjuring money - where there existed none - had the nascent ability to propel them to 'ultra-richdom'. That the tables had turned on them was all over bar the shouting. They, just like yours' truly, also got beat by the greed game.

The bank was saved by the Government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders(again, if you can call them that) from the governing political parties. The funds required for this purpose were obtained by a tax levied on the non-drinkers."

Yeah, let's keep the game simple!

Can pigs fly?

Can pigs fly? I think not. But how can I be so sure? If I’m pigheaded enough, I can start throwing pigs off a cliff and after an agreed upon number of pigs have turned to pork down below, I can say with almost certainty that porcine flight is impossible. The downside to this method is not that too many pigs are killed to prove a point, but that for believers of flying pigs, too few will have been tested before we, considered as anti-flying pig bigots, come to a conclusion. (‘The next one could have been the pig, you know.’)

Another way to prove that pigs don’t fly could be to read the scriptures, the law if you will. For instance, if those awaiting proof are believing Christians, then the tactic could be to read out Chapter 8 Verse 32 of the Book of Matthew in the Bible: “And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.” Not one pig fluttered to safety there.

The downside to this method is that it’s fundamentally stupid: to gather a fact by what’s simply mentioned in a fable, no matter how sacred and profound the fable may be, is a leap of faith not too unlike that taken by the swine mentioned above.

So what’s with all this pig metaphor? Has the swine flu over the cuckoo’s nest? Or am I reading too much into one of Floyd's most cogent creations? No, it’s just that I’ve been going mad cow trying to figure out why otherwise bright sparks have been going on and on about how abnormal it is for 26/11 terrorist Ajmal Kasab to plead ‘not guilty’ during his ongoing trial. Why would a guilty man, they ask in that gobsmacked way that will become a look by the next fashion season, tell a court that he’s not guilty? Because, honeys, that’s what most people accused of committing crimes do: say they’re innocent.

The smart set’s not only upset by Kasab’s plea of ‘not guilty’ but is also appalled that someone, an Indian to boot, is defending him. Surely, they murmur, Kasab’s (first) lawyer Abbas Kazmi would be just pretending to defend his client and actually hanging out with and helping the prosecutor to nail the bastard, right? Or Anjali Waghmare -the now done with lawyer- secretly be an accomplice in hatching a plot to plot the downfall of one of India's most 'celebrated' terrorist captive. Expectedly, the villagers with their pitchforks are baying for blood. The Islam Gymkhana in Mumbai had expelled Kazmi as he “agreed to defend the most dreaded terrorist Kasab. This is against the essence of Islam”. Will the Koran ever be used to defend terrorism again? Never! Only club rules apply. Just to prove he isn’t above loving ‘patriotic Muslims’, Shiv Senapati Balasaheb Thackeray has endorsed the Gymkhana decision.

Anjali Waghmare was done with, for her apparent inability to comply to court rules or what, one might never be able to tell. In any case, she had her house pelted with stones by a mob. I believe that Waghmare was taken off the case of her own volition and not because of the technical reason cited: because she is also representing a 26/11 victim, she couldn’t be defending Kasab. Hmm. If a lawyer is seen to be professional enough to keep her personal views about a terrorist outside the court and defend him, why is prosecuting and defending the accused in two separate cases such a legal taboo?

So what about the pigs? Well, ‘Is Kasab guilty?’ is as tough a question to answer as ‘Can pigs fly?’ But according to the law, that secular scripture we bow to whenever it suits us, you need to jump through a set of agreed-upon hoops before effectively proving that Kasab is a guilty man. It doesn’t matter a bacon-nibbling rat’s ass if it seems obvious to you and me that Kasab’s a mass-killer who brought India to its knees. A good defendant can upset all expectations by arguing that the prosecutor’s evidence simply doesn’t add up. That’s his job. And that’s what makes a trial in this country legit and not an ‘Off with their heads!’ procedure.

And what about us(who the "usses" really are is open to debate)? Are we being so kind in showing our magnanimity to the 'poor' old fellow who showed just how vulnerable India is? Or are we just procrastinating the inevitable in order to prove just how pro-Tiananmen we are, in the current scheme of things?

We, in my humble opinion as I might add here, are like a pig in the middle, caught between what has been a rigid and redundant labyrinth of procedures and a compulsion to prove how we, as a nation, are prone to bootlick that phrase called 'democracy'. The general opinion(the democratic opinion, if it can be called that) is that Kasab is a mass murderer without even hinting at the literal meaning that his name connotes. Yet, we continue to act like young hypocrites at the DU. I wouldn't want to, but given to my tendency of digressing, I shall. The HT City 'reported' recently that young men joining the DU were planning attend their first few days at college in big, swanky cars and NOx guzzling superbikes, or 'Boy's Toys', as you might like to call them. The concerned females accepted that this does manage to attract their attention, afterall, name and fame corrupt anyone. But she(the individual in question) was quick to add that she would turn down-pretty nonchalantly at that- any proposal if she were to learn that the guy didn't "own" the car/bike but had bought it to impress her. Wanting to hang Kasab without a trial, after we're all human, and yet giving him a fair chance to prove he's not guilty. Fair and square? Surely.

I want Kasab to hang. I hope Kasab will hang. That’s why I’m so keen the trial is conducted quarantined from the pandemic hoopla surrounding it. That’s also why I don’t want the prosecution to screw things up.

Till then, pig it!

Of Bootfluenza and the Fourth Estate

Mr. Shoe is gaining in popularity as a political missile. Mr. Shoe might have been thrown-in to 'meet' people before. But in his new found avatar, Mr. Shoe has caught the imagination of the media and the public alike. Suppressed grievances are brought to the fore by giving Mr. Shoe some air!

Feeling helpless? Go chuck him at someone! After Muntazar Al-Zaidi bootslapped Bush, Mr. Shoe in flight has become the weapon of the powerless.

Compared to a bullet or a bomb, the shoe is as harmless as a flower(only as long as your olfactory nerves are jammed!). Its impact is mild, its range is limited(no stilettos please). It is the common man’s weapon or missile where ever or whenever his shoe pinches. There are times when even pebbles or stones may not be readily available, unless you have hidden them in your pocket, to be used against political adversaries as a part of advance planning. But the shoe is there under one’s foot always ready to fly, if lobbed by the wearer as an impromptu release of ire. Indeed, Mr. Shoe has grown in eminence!

There is a time and place for everything. For the shoe throw, the venue of a press conference, attended by a dignified authority or person seems appropriate. In the present climate, shoe throwing has become a winsome gesture, a stunt that surely wins some (un)deserved publicity. Afterall, it takes quite a lot to remove your footwear and bear those pungent heavens while your footwear lies close to the cynosure of the public assembly!

The thrower may be pardoned, if lucky, or if the social or political gap between the thrower and the person targeted is wide enough for a show of magnanimity. Or the law may take its course. But the thrower is amply compensated by the publicity netted. The shoe throw requires no skills; no training. The shoe need not even hit the person. But its direction should leave no one in doubt about the person intended as victim.

Some say demand for easily removable shoes has increased, after the recent events. Those wearing boots no longer tie the lace, to save time when a throw is needed. Suspicions about the inclusion of the up-to-the-minute "shoe-a-thon" as the shoe-stopper in the 2010 CW Games are rife!

The next parliament may legislate on the issue of the shoe. America should ban the sale of easily-removable-and-throwable shoes for not every President is as adept at dodging Hush Puppies(and other concerns) as Bush. For attending functions where dignitaries are present, people may be required to leave their shoes outside before entering the premises. Do we not remove footwear when entering temples and certain marked areas, even though there is no law but only convention?

I don’t say shoes have not been hurled at each other by people earlier. But what makes it sensational are the personalities, occasion, context, issue involved etc. There is a time and place for every thing. Changes in these can create sensations. Throwing a shoe on a common man walking on the road is no great event. Who cares?

The shoe industry may undergo drastic changes in the light of the shoe throw politics. The design, weight, color and many other parameters may need attention.

In the past, rotten eggs, tomatoes, pebbles, paper weights, books, cups, bottles, plates and anything which can be lifted and thrown have been used as projectiles. But the shoe throw is different. Oiling the wheels of this much-acclaimed endeavour are sites like www.shoeandawe.com which choose to pay homage to those great men-at-"arms".

Here the shoe is used as a symbol of religious or political dislike and hatred. The contrast between the humble shoe and the ambitious throne it wants to occupy makes for much publicity. Above all there is the surprise element involved. It should be most unexpected and sudden. Some applaud the feat in private, while condemning it openly. Media display it as if it were a heroic deed!

It is an insult to the intellegentsia to equate shoe-throwing with democracy. At best, these shoe chuckers are attention-seeking individuals. They give bad name to the virtue of.

While it might be true that the ban on Jagdish Tytler owes its existence to everyone's recent interest in a certain someone's shoes, this embrace of vigilante justice is an extremely dangerous trend and one which is truly unbecoming of a healthy democracy. A true democracy hinges on the dictum of public opinion formed not as after-effects of a shoe-gate but of the analysis carried out by free-thinking men. Politicians should be wary of commiting atrocities not because they fear being hit by a shoe in public but because they should fear being exposed and excommunicated from the entire politcal setup.

If the journalist who threw his size-nine Reebok at the Home Minister was just an ordinary citizen who took such action on one of Delhi’s streets then perhaps it could be argued that he simply has no decency. But for a news reporter to take such action is a matter that should be condemned. That he chose to use shoes over words, forgetting that journalism does not debate and communicate using violence and vulgarity is an insult to the profession of journalism and an indicator that the nature of journalism has been misunderstood.

These words are not in defense of Chidambaram; they come in defense of our culture that does not approve of such behavior. These words are for defending the profession of journalism that is beginning to suffer from a lack of professionalism. A journalist is expected to voice his concerns by posting pithy, quick witted questions, aimed at facilitating cognitive thinking. However this journalist, who today has the right to ask questions and to hold a politician responsible and remind him of his lies, decides not to do that; he decides that shoes were powerful than words, reason and argument, as this is some people’s idea of democracy. No civilized society can forgive this way of expressing disapproval in a democracy.

If it is a sign of the times, then it is time to change! This again is a case of wrong means to reach the right ends. Can we change? What would you do if you were in Jarnail Singh's shoes?

Ponder.

Au revoir!

Are you the champion Procrastinator?

And I'm back!

Having lost all my traffic(not my archetypal pompousness!), it feeels good to see that my indomitable spirit is still alive, something which keeps me aboard besides the want of not wanting my blog to go down as yet another dormant collection of random rumblings. Its almost like starting afresh.

I've been meaning to write this , but I keep putting it off. There always seems to be something to stop me – something better or more important or easier to do.
Everybody is rushing to enter the contest to find India's biggest procrastinator. You subscribed to the offer too, didn't you? As an expert in the field, I will help you win the contest. Even if you are not Indian, just tell them you've been meaning to immigrate. That should actually win you some bonus points.
India is just teeming with procrastinators. Some delay roti, kapda, makaan. Some delay filing IT returns. Some even want to delay the elections.

Bah! Some people hold off on taking courses or changing jobs. Others delay household chores. Indians delay cleaning up and filing. They put off buying a car, washing the car, selling the car, and even learning to drive. Some even hold off on getting born (That was me. Sorry Mom.).
If it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done. And many Indians have even eliminated that pesky last minute. Dr. Suraj Joseph(my keen partner and idol when it comes to the Art and Science of procrastination) explains, "It's a lifestyle choice. A professional procrastinator delays walking the dog until the last minute. By then he is busy holding off the lawn mowing. He'll never get to the mowing, even in the last minute, because he spends that last minute not cleaning up after the dog. With so much to delay, the last minute never arrives."

One contestant(from class) bought over Rs. 15,000 worth of software in the past two years "to help me with my computer, 80% of it is still unopened and or unused." It might help if he started by removing the computer from its packaging.
Another contestant(not from class, my class isn't as adept at procrastination as I am, you see) describes how "we go to our sadar bazaar bags to find what we need because we never put them away." I laughed at that one. I thought that was pretty funny. Ha ha ha. My Mom was not laughing. She pointed to the milk boxes piled high beside the door. "But those aren't sadar bazaar bags," I protested with all the conviction of a soggy noodle.
My Mom opened the fridge door. "We have soggy bread. And soggy apples. And soggy turnips. We have a soggy collection. Think it might be time to stop your procrastination and clean the fridge?" Sigh. Master procrastinators are rarely appreciated.
Procrastination has some interesting side effects. A professional procrastinator always marvels at how clean the restrooms are at service stations.
A true procrastinator never gets his Christmas tree up before Christmas. Unless it's still there from last year, of course. Some try to get it down before March arrives, but that calendar always moves so fast!
A skilled procrastinator always reads her mail – but only after the postman comes up to her apartment to complain. One contestant finally emptied her mailbox to find mail from six months earlier.
A determined procrastinator goes several years without pouring his own bathwater or putting out his own garbage. After a while, the community gets involved.
No true procrastinator shovels snow. The snow will hopefully melt in a few months...hopefully.
Even with talented contestants, you can win this contest if you don't try hard enough.
I thought about entering the contest myself. I could delay college graduation by several years. I have a dozen books still sealed in plastic covers. I have a bed to be set, hair to be combed, assignments to be made, projects and reports to be submitted and a "six feet frame" to be cleaned(I'm not all mouth and no trousers, when it comes to procrastination atleast, as you just saw, yet again.)
I was just about to enter the contest, when I came up with an ingenious way to disqualify myself. I offered to put up this open-for-all contest! Now, some credit is due to the person who helps in finding out the nation's best procrastinator. Or maybe not!

With me out of the race, this might finally be the contest you can win. You see, I know a little secret about all the contestants – a fatal flaw that makes every one of them vulnerable. Nobody can legitimately win this year's contest ...unless they enter next year.
Technical notes: To make this note on procrastination authentic, I attempted to withhold it. But my blog gave me "The Frown". If you ever saw The Frown, your boots would still be trembling.
So I decided to submit the post bereft of newer instances of my self-proclaimed-and-attained 'Everest-ine' levels of procrastination. Surely that qualifies as procrastination. But this time my blog gave me "The Double Frown". That sent shivers down through my toenails(which I now remember are still pink from Holi colour!).
I considered sending my post in one word at a time, with each letter cut from a newspaper or magazine like a painfully long ransom note. But my blog told me about its emergency "death ray" frown, so I gave up.
But wait! You can make this true procrastination by not reading any more until next year. Stop reading. If you are still reading, you are failing to procrastinate. Stop now. If you are not reading this sentence, congratulations – you are a champion procrastinator.
Stop, I said. No.. NO!! You can't beat me!! NO!!

And last to last but not in the least, the most useful gyan for the quarter(1st April - 9 December= roughly a quarter, not to be misconstrued with volumetric evaluations, I'm a teetotaller)..

"Watch out for "spam" mobile network messages which say 'Hello! Make new friends with Voice Chat service', for you never know."
Awesome words, I say(Yeah, I did). You'll thank me.

AND, finally the time has come when mighty Zeus and the folk that sit atop the Olympus have conspired to allow me to walk the beaches of the 'parody-siacal' land called Goa(everyone suffers from a bout of procrastination, you see). Fr. William Robert Lyons would turn in his grave if he were to learn that we're traversing half the country in a rotten train that takes 40 hours(no regrets!) to reach Goa to participate in BITS Goa's inter-college football tournament.

O Goa, aqui eu venho!

Adios!

The bigger picture

In my last post, I mentioned something about my exams. Those were the midsems. I know the blog archives would suggest that those were what had me occupied all this while. Hell, no! It was just my newly attained heights of procrastination that has kept me busy since then. Well, I managed to get over with the midsems(and only I know how!). Now is the time for the ENDsems. Starting this week they go on and eat up most of December as well.
However, recent studies by some eminent scientists have shown that I have(or should have), as a matter of fact, no time to study for my exams. Here is this intriguing report I found on the internet.

The world will end in 2012, say experts Several experts from across the globe are predicting that the earth is likely to end by the year 2012. The reason could be a human effect or natural disaster. From Chinese theories to scientific predictions the most likely date is the year 2012.

SCIENTIFIC EXPERTS from around the world are predicting that four years from now, all life on Earth could well come to an end. Some are saying it’ll be humans that would set it off. Others believe that a natural phenomenon will be the cause. And the religious folks are saying it’ll be God himself who would press the stop button. The following are some likely arguments as to why the world would end by the year 2012.

Reason one: Mayan calendar The first to predict 2012 as the end of the world were the Mayans, a bloodthirsty race that were good at two things -- building highly accurate astrological equipment out of stone and sacrificing virgins. Thousands of years ago they managed to calculate the length of the lunar moon as 329.53020 days, only 34 seconds out. The Mayan calendar predicts that the earth will end on December 21, 2012. Given that they were pretty close to the mark with the lunar cycle, it’s likely they’ve got the end of the world right as well.

Reason two: Sun storms Solar experts from around the world monitoring the sun have made a startling discovery. Our sun is in a bit of strife. The energy output of the sun is, like most things in nature, cyclic and it’s supposed to be in the middle of a period of relative stability. However, recent solar storms have been bombarding the earth with lot of radiation energy. It’s been knocking out power grids and destroying satellites. This activity is predicted to get worse and calculations suggest it’ll reach its deadly peak sometime in 2012.

Reason three: The atom smasher Scientists in Europe have been building the world’s largest particle accelerator. Basically, its a 27 km tunnel designed to smash atoms together to find out what makes the universe tick. However, the mega-gadget has caused serious concern, with some scientists suggesting that it’s properly even a bad idea to turn it on in the first place. They’re predicting all manner of deadly results, including mini black holes. So when this machine is fired up for its first serious experiment in 2012, the world could be crushed into a super-dense blob the size of a basketball.

Reason four: The Bible says it If having scientists warning us about the end of the world isn’t bad enough, religious folks are getting in on the act as well. Interpretations of the Christian Bible reveal that the date for Armageddon, the final battle between good an evil, has been set for 2012. The I Ching, also known as the Chinese Book of Changes, says the same thing, as do various sections of the Hindu teachings.

Reason five: Super volcano Yellowstone National Park in United States is famous for its thermal springs and old faithful geyser. The reason for this is simple -- it’s sitting on top of the world’s biggest volcano and geological experts are beginning to get nervous sweats. The Yellowstone volcano has a pattern of erupting every 650,000 years or so, and we’re many years overdue for an explosion that will fill the atmosphere with ash, blocking the sun and plunging the earth into a frozen winter that could last up to 15,000 years. The pressure under the Yellowstone is building steadily, and geologists have set 2012 as a likely date for the big bang.

Reason six: The physicists This one’s case of bog -- simple maths mathematics. Physicists at Berkeley University have been crunching the numbers. They’ve determined that the earth is well overdue for a major catastrophic event. Even worse, they’re claiming that their calculations prove that we’re all going to die, very soon. They are also saying that their prediction comes with a certainty of 99 per cent; and 2012 just happens to be the best guess as to when it occurs.

Reason seven: Earth’s magnetic field We all know the Earth is surrounded by a magnetic field that shields us from most of the sun’s radiation. What you might not know is that the magnetic poles we call North and South have a nasty habit of swapping places every 750,000 years or so -- and right now we’re about 30,000 years overdue. Scientists have noted that the poles are drifting apart roughly 20-30 kms each year, much faster than ever before, which points to a pole-shift being right around the corner. While the pole shift is under way, the magnetic field is disrupted and will eventually disappear, sometimes for up to 100 years. The result is enough UV outdoors to crisp your skin in seconds, killing everything it touches.

So all you people out there blissfully wasting your time, trying to understand things that you do not have a chance of understanding by 2012, writing exams whose results won't be published before 2012, or attending courses that won't finish by 2012, or even if they do, won't have much value unless you can make the modern day Noah's Ark, better do something more worthwhile because its not just this semester thats ENDing. Come on people, look at the bigger picture! I know the world may not end then, but why take a risk? Personally I'm off to do some research on Greek mythology and playing Football Manager 09, something I've been waiting do for sp long now. I'll try to fit in turning up for my exams between all that, but I can't say that for sure. In the meantime, I suggest you lot all start making plans on salvaging what is left of your life. Do come by this blog more often now than I can assure you a lot more than boring dragging Electrical Measurements, or even worse, Power Apparatus. FYI, I opened my syllabus book yesterday and found out that I had a whole module on Induction Motors and another whole module on Analysis of Complex Functions(did I get the name right?). I'm actually glad that the world is going to end!
RIP!

P.S. Se7en is lucky indeed.

High and not-so dry!

Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
GET drunk!
STAY drunk!
On WINE, virtue, poetry, whatever!

Adios!

Make your own omellete and eat it too!

Warning: Read only if you're as besotted with randomness as I am!

It's 11:30 PM now, and hunger, and the fact that Pizza Hut became Pizza Shut at 10:30 PM, shall soon drive me to the kitchen, where another omelette will join its predecessors in lining my arteries with cholesterol. Only this time it'll be different, this new "kid-on-the-block" will have an awe about it...

What does it take to create an extraordinary omelette? Foremost, Respect(with a capital 'R') as my mum's words rang in my ears. Never forget that you are planning on eating two of some hen's gametes(three actually, one of them accidentally slipped out onto the kitchen floor while me was tossing and twirling the mixing bowl in all his glory like me was the head chef at the Shangri La). Pouring beaten eggs into a frying pan and sprinkling it with 'chedded shreddar' cheese is the addition of an unwanted 'dis' to this most important of ingredients. Only slightly lower in the ingredient gradient is Olive Oil, one of those rare compounds that have been attributed cholestrol-shattering properties(why does chemistry haunt me even while I'm just making my first omellete?). The addition of Olive Oil to a particularly rich omelette is like praying before one's semester examinations -- it may not actually work, but it will give one a sense of spiritual comfort. Render unto me also two sprigs of Coriander leaf, and two small, green chillies -- of the toilet-paper igniting variety -- preferably chopped and with the stalks removed, and you won't regret it. If you live in places where said chillies are pickled and kept out of reach of children, add two of them, and pour in a few ounces of the pickling fluid itself to improve homogeneity and boost octane factors.

Add two pinches of salt and sufficient ground pepper to give the whole mixture a 5% grey-tone, and you're well on your way to making your presence felt when it comes to making "smacka-licious" omelletes(err..). If you have tomatoes, a few very small pieces will help too but I do not recommend tomatoes, which seem to be popular among the masses -- tomatoes make omelettes brittle(and heavy), and render flipping hazardous. Serve me tomatoes in my omelette only if the cautionary hand of Wisdom is forever at your shoulder, or if experience has left you scarred for life(never mind that. Just my pathetic habit of philosophising). Gimme onion instead.

Experience shall also teach you the right amount of milk (or better still, cream) to be added as you beat the eggs. Milk? Verily. Milk will make your omelette puffy, especially if your cover the pan as you fry(I avoid milk coz I loath plump stuff- books, people, girls and yeah, omelletes too! It also doesn't help that I HATE MILK!) For cheese lovers(which I'm not, except for the mozzarella vareity), I suggest 'common' Hamburger cheese. If you want your omelette to stink -- in more ways than one -- use other kinds. A slice is (or two are) to be placed judiciously on top after the bottom of the omelette turns golden. This leaves time for the cheese to melt to the perfect degree, before the bottom turns golden-brown. Then you fold the omelette, so that the cheese is on the inside....

The afterglow will take you as far as the 2AM rerun of "Rock Rules" on VH1. Watch Roger Waters(if he's happy) or hallucinate (if he's not) and be magnanimous in judging him -- if his life possessed the balance that your omelette does now, he'd not be singing hallucinatory songs and Wish you were here wouldn't have existed(that's another story, now). In hindsight, and especially after eating it, calling it an omelette will seem unfair. It's a piece of art. Following this up with some early-morning exercise, will keep you from dying for your art's sake.

If you've managed to read this far, I understand that either you were just too desperate to know how a guy could actually cook(which btw is the most ridiculous cliche I've managed to come across) or you've never made an omelette of your own!

In either case, I'm afraid you just wasted some precious moments of your life reading my first experience with those two gametes(or was it three?) which by the way, was way more complicated than it seems! (And what became of them can be seen right here!)

LET's OmelLETte baby!!

Mess Inc.

Woah! Life's moving way too fast right now. Today, or rather, yesterday was one of those blink-and-you-miss days with so much happening all around.
Anyway, more about that later.
As I went to college to complete the rather painstaking hostel formalities with Mallu (theek hai, for your sake I won't reveal your true identity and your misadventures with that pink slip!), along with the hundred buck worth hostel brochure(and its gibberish) which we had to buy knowing fully well that it was all but someone's diligent work on the control c's and control v's, we were handed out a rather interesting piece of paper(unwittingly so by the clerk). Err.. don't know, it said something, it was something for the people who had taken the hostel for the first time.

Read on-

"Where else would the noun glutton be best suited to the scrawniest guy in your class? Where else would you find such a fine assortment of delectable dishes waiting to be downed? Where else would you wait for that long walk from your hostel to the mess in the senior hostels like you hadn't eaten for years?

Laced with 'pure' desi ghee and atta from the most expensive chakki in the neighbourhood, and the choicest onions and cucumbers from the college nursery, you are sure to have many presumptions about the quality of food served in the mess at engineering colleges shattered, here at the DCE hostel mess! Right from those tables with a rose each and those beautifully crafted chairs (albeit in plastic!) to the fine looking guys who serve you with utmost glee, you are sure to love your time at the mess.

Now lets just get you started with the mouth-watering delicacies we have on offer for our dear students, you being the latest addition to that distinguished army of strong and healthy engineers we churn out each year!

Monday, the day which gets you started with a new week of possibilities and opportunities, holds in store for you Vada and Upma, arguably the best of its kind. Beans from the French farms reach you, blanched and steamed, with a tinge of homegrown chilly and garlic to satiate that huge stomach of yours. Rajma chawal, way better than the one your mum cooks at home, waits for you at night time.
Tuesday provides you with the opportunity to taste the best Mess Inc. has to offer, the famed Aloo de paranthe aur Shahbad dairy da makhan..So sumptuous are these over-sized atta saucers overladed with aloo fry that you're sure to be found in the queue at eight in the morning even if you're generally there just five minutes before your first lecture. Due to the heavy nature of this dish, and our inability to find enough takers for our Hydrabadi Biryani with rice from the granaries of the Nizam himself, we have decided to shut the mess during lunchtime. However, chana and puri await you at night, ready to leave you smacking your lips.
Some peoples' favourite bird is butter chicken. And not keen on disappointing our customers with a distinct interest in birds, we have an 'unlimited' supply of butter chicken gracing the tables on Wednesday. Although, we must add, 20 rupees would be charged for an extra helping! For those of our patrons who suffer with Ornithophobia, we have lentils cooked in tomato sauce with a tinge of masala, commonly known as dal makhani.. but as dal makhi-wali here as we, noble beings do not believe in discrimination and strongly believe that Wednesday must be one dedicated to the non-veggies.
Thursday takes you to the Panju-land. Aqua-pao bhaji, a special variation owing its origin to us will leave you licking your fingers early in the morning. In having a heady concoction of water and bhaji, it takes care of your daily needs of water! Who cooks aloo gobhi? We do, and we do it the best to warrant complete customer satifaction! To take care of your well-being we also serve soya-bean and curry (a mixture of unknown ingredients which gives a mysterious taste, enough to satisfy the taste-buds of those who particularly have a liking for cockraoches).
Keeping to our promise of serving food with a difference, Chinese chowmein with copious amounts of Indian masala is sure to please you on Friday. Also, to give a well-deserved rest to our hard working team of chefs and waiters dedicated to serve you in times of need and greed, we provide you with the opportunity of getting a taste of things outside.
All meals are accompanied with one of the many dals we have to offer- red, light green, grasshopper green, dirty green, black, pale yellow, dark yellow, orange and brown, we have it all. Choose your colour!"

Looks like there is even more to look forward to come August the 1st.
Till then, make hay while the sun shines!

Adios!

Please note- This account is purely a work of fiction and any resemblance with actual events is just a matter of 'coincidence'! :P

At thy expense, Mr. Programmer

Here are some of the programming jokes I stumbled upon somewhere back in time.

CIA- Computer Industry Acronyms

CD-ROM: Consumer Device, Rendered Obsolete in Months
PCMCIA: People Can't Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms
ISDN: It Still Does Nothing
SCSI: System Can't See It
MIPS: Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed
DOS: Defunct Operating System
WINDOWS: Will Install Needless Data On Whole System
OS/2: Obsolete Soon, Too
PnP: Plug and Pray
APPLE: Arrogance Produces Profit-Losing Entity
IBM: I Blame Microsoft
MICROSOFT: Most Intelligent Customers Realize Our Software Only Fools Teenagers
COBOL: Completely Obsolete Business Oriented Language
LISP: Lots of Insipid and Stupid Parentheses
MACINTOSH: Most Applications Crash; If Not, The Operating System Hangs
AAAAA: American Association Against Acronym Abuse.
WYSIWYMGIYRRLAAGW: What You See Is What You Might Get If You're Really Really Lucky And All Goes Well.

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Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they come to an agreement to hold a contest with God as the judge. They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously, lines of code streaming up the screen, for several hours straight.

Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show his work. Visibly upset, Satan cries and says, "I have nothing. I lost it all when the power went out."

"Very well," says God, "let us see if Jesus has fared any better."

Jesus presses a key, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers.

Satan is astonished. He stutters, "B-b-but how?! I lost everything, yet Jesus’ program is intact! How did he do it?"

God chuckles, "Everybody knows… Jesus saves."

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How many programers dose it take to change a light bulb?
None - It's a hardare problem.

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