Comes Without A Title*

Okay, this is like the lamest attempt at humor.

Doesn't it happen sometime when you hear a movie title, a certain someone comes to your mind instantaneously. There is not even a remote connection between the two but the title fits so aptly on him/her that we cant stop chuckling. Here are some of the chuckles that I've had with Hollywood titles in the Indian context.

Any fit not understood by a reader will be duly explained. Kindly leave a comment. Also welcome are similar "connections". Let the creative juices flow (:

Artificial Intelligence - Rabri Devi

No Country For Old Men - Sourav Ganguly

Die Another Day - Ajmal Kasab/Mohammed Afzal

I Am Legend - Arindam Chaudhari (Think beyond the IIMs)

2010: The Year We Made Contact: Kishenji

Before Sunrise - Baba Ramdev

Jackass - Raj Thackeray

Jackass Number Two - Pravin Togadia

Minority Report - Mayawati

Italian Job - Sonia Gandhi

All About My Mother - Rahul Gandhi

Baby's Day Out - Varun Gandhi

I, Robot - Manmohan Singh

Clueless - Pratibha Patil

The Insider - Lalit Modi

Say Anything - Shashi Tharoor (On Twitter)

What A Girl Wants - Sunanda Pushkar

Down With Love - Shashi Tharoor

Up In The Air - Praful Patel

Con Air - Poorna Patel (Praful's daughter)

Wanted - MF Hussain

Almost Famous - Abhishek Avasthi

In The Name Of The Father - Uday Chopra

Dead Man Walking - Ashish Nehra

Life Is Beautiful - MS Dhoni

Interview With The Vampire - Shakti Kapoor

The Man Who Copied - Pritam

Scent Of A Woman - ND Tiwary (CM in sex scandal)

Definitely, May Be - Virender Sehwag

Kiss Of The Dragon - Shilpa Shetty

Zack And Miri Make A Porno - Mika & Rakhi Sawant

Meet The Parents - Jaya Sawant (Rakhi's momsy)

Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex - Sherlyn Chopra/Khushwant Singh

Extra Terrestrial - Krishan Kumar

A Beautiful Mind - Charles Sobhraj

The Innocent - Salman Khan

Basic Instinct - Swami Nithyananda (The Swami in sex scandal)

Beauty And The Beast - Sania Mirza & Shoaib Malik

Dirty Dancing - S. Sreesanth

Cruel Intentions - Raghu Ram

A Fistful Of Dollars - Madhu Koda

Boys Don't Cry - S.Sreesanth

Dumb And Dumber - Riya Sen & Raima Sen

Cast Away - Rahul Dravid

50 First Dates - Deepika Padukone

The Gods Must Be Crazy - Kamaal Rashid Khan

Bad Education - Arjun Singh

Devil's Advocate - Ram Jethmalani

Sound Of Music - Baba Sehgal

School Of Rock - Himesh Reshammiya (Jai Mata Di, Let's Rock :P)

Knocked Up - Neena Gupta

Whatever It Takes - Shit Rukh Khan

* because I couldn't think of one!!!!

Confessions Of A Bloody Erection

I'm a man's worst foe. Damn, you say and I come into your life. Sometimes, you just fear me. I'm quite fond of making appearances at the wrong places at the wrong time. Sometimes you call me up, subconsciously. At others, it's not your fault. I come uninvited. I just love fooling around with your psyche. I love it when you really gotta pee, but you cant get up. I drool over situations when you are with your parents watching television and your dad asks you to get a glass of water. That's my all time favourite time of appearance. And at such times, I make sure that the more you wish I go away, the more I wake up. I’m the reason wallets now are being promoted to the pockets in front. If you are a new client, I love making surprise visits. With acquaintance, I tend to make you more comfortable and listen to you more. Gradually I handover my autonomy to you and surrender myself to your whims and fancies. But for that, you need to train me just like a Ninja gets trained – who is seen only when he wishes to be. From being a master, I’m now your slave. Well, almost.

I'm a man's best friend. Aloha, I say, and come into your life. Sometimes, you just love me. I provide you with confidence in the hour of need. I do fail you at times but that's just too naughty of me. Don't panic as I do it with everyone. How else on earth am I supposed to prove my worth? I'm just a call away, though. You gotta call it right. And when you or your special someone does, I appear in my full majesty bringing smiles all around. If it weren't for me, life would be so hard, pun intended. I am not so kind to everyone, especially if you have spent a considerable time on earth. But the medicos have come up with a stimulant. You know, I have weaknesses as well, na. Its the V-word. It makes me weak at the knees and facilitates my appearance whenever I want to ditch some old bugger. Anyway, I love spreading joy, happiness and ecstasy. If it weren't for me, the world's favourite and the oldest sport would be so hard, pun intended again. And there wouldn't be any life. I'm the creator.

I'm full of blood. That makes me Erection, Bloody Erection. And just like Mr. 007, I like it ‘shaken, not stirred’.

One

The rustle of the leaves was excruciating. The pitter-patter of the rain drops on the asbestos could drive him crazy. The wind had been blowing for far too long. It had to stop now. He held the stainless steel blade in his right hand and brought it near the left wrist for the fourth time. Somehow, he could not gather the courage to go through with it.

He had stayed there - motionless - staring at her brutally violated body. She was pregnant of four months with his child. They had all raped her in turns, laughing and moaning like maniacs from hell. She kept on begging for mercy, bleeding like a leaking tap. They had then stabbed her at all possibly painful places with a butcher's knife and then slit her throat. All in front of his eyes. His limbs were tied disabling any possible motion. Honour killing couldn't have been more dishonourable. How could he live with himself without avenging the trauma? Next Panchayat session, he shot all the six bastards dead.

This wasn't the world he had lived in. This wasn't the world he knew. It had moved ahead. He hadn't. Twenty-four years in the Central Jail had made him everything but someone who could adjust to this new world from a sci-fi movie.

The first night. It was a 'room' for four. The lights went out. The biggest of the three roomies took a three-feet pipe out of his bedding and hit him in the jaws. It was physically the most painful thing he had ever experienced. Still gasping with disbelief on being caught off guard like this, he couldn't think of anything while the fatso kept on hitting him on the teeth. Not to beat him to death. But only because they could have him go on for all-nighters without the fear of his biting their penises away. And he did go on for nights, performing his duties, both ways, for months.

The text above is the first in the series of steps of an experiment. Kindly excuse the randomness, absurdity and abruptness of the same and comment only on the picturesqueness/style/connect/narration. Consider it as a big help that you'd do to me in an auctorial endeavour of mine in the very near future.

Khalish

Khalish hai ragon mein, chubhan si badi hai
Ye jaam koi hataa lo yahan se

Na ho jaaye paagal ye gumnaam kaafir
Tasveer unki hataa lo yahan se

Tazeer si hai ye goshanasheeni
Deedar hota hai unka yahan se

Dum-e-waapasi ko toh aana nahi hai
Janaaza hamara nikalo yahan se

[khalish: pain | chubhan: pain | ragon: nerves | jaam: intoxication | gumnaam: lost/unknown | kaafir: unbeliever | tasveer: picture | tazeer: punishment | goshanasheeni: being in the corner | deedar: view | dum-e-waapasi: the last breath | janaaza: funeral]

A Lot Of Mush. A Lot Of Room.

“Hey silly, marry me!”
“What?”
“Marry me, you shithead!”
“I can’t hear you. Call me up from the next station.”
“Aaaaai saaaidddd, Wouuuuuuld youuu marrrrrrrrry meeeee?” Standing on the doorsteps of C1, he screamed at the top of his voice; as if it would make up for the poor telecom connectivity.

Whoever coined the phrase “madly in love” was a genius. These two ‘iddiots’ knew what it meant. And they wanted to be exactly this mad all their life. Half the time they fought. The rest they made up. But they loved each other. Madly.

He didn’t want to hear stuff about other guys. He didn’t like it when she went out for coffee with them every single day. And he got irritated way too soon. She was paranoid about his ex. And she had a special ability to misinterpret everything he said. He cracked jokes none else on earth would even chuckle at. And she laughed her guts out every single time. Her jokes were even worse. And he made his special comments on them much to her chagrin.

Anything she loved was sure to be despised by him. Anything he fancied didn’t mean anything to her. He loved butter scotch. She hated it. He preferred to keep a ‘Plan B’ with himself. She never cared.

She read like crazy. He thought books were dog-piss. She loved Ronan Keating. He thought it was an insult to music. He was a movie maniac. Errrr, she wasn’t. She loved Julia Roberts. He was scared of the size of Julia’s mouth. He smoked like a chimney. She couldn’t stand the smell of it. He drank like a fish. She abhorred drunkards.

They had nothing to talk over the phone. Absolutely nothing. She never wanted to hang up. And he didn’t find logic in not doing so when there was nothing to be said. She loved the silences as well. He usually didn’t.

She wasn’t perfect. He wasn’t perfect. They broke up every week and patched up again.

He even forgot her first birthday together!!! “Its my birthday. You can wish me now,” she said at 0030 hours. She gave him a surprise visit a day before his first birthday together.

They had nothing in common. Unusually nothing. Creepily nothing. Zip. Zero. Zilch. They were the two opposite poles created by God in two totally different moods.

But when they met, they became the best things that ever happened to each other. The way they held hands. The way they looked at each other. The way he cared that extra bit not to hurt her while combing her hair. The way she filtered the information he didn’t want to hear. The way they could just sit there, saying nothing at all and it didn’t seem to bother. The way they could keep on blabbering any fucked-up shit about anything on earth. And it didn’t even have to make sense. The way he patted her forehead. The way she held his hand to her cheek. The way they touched. The way they hugged. The way they kissed.

This was love. They knew it. They were sure of it.

And they both loved mushrooms.

“You know I can’t.”
“What you can’t?”
“I can’t marry you right now.”
:|

“I mean, you’re there on the train and I have these darn exams.”
“Aaaaargh bitch. Would you tell me already?”
“Awww, that’s the sweetest way a guy could ever propose. Are you even on your knees?”
“I now am, fuckwit. You know I can fall off the train like this.”
“Yeah whatever. So you were saying something.”

“Babe. Growing old with you and arthritis isn’t half as bad and scary as sitting here near the door of this compartment. For the love of God and in the name of his arse, please be considerate enough to tell me if you would like to see this same ugly face, crooked nose and huge ears by the side of your bed every damned morning all your life?”

“Ummm. Lemme think. What are the options?”
“Well its just me and Shahid Kapoor.”
“In that case…”

There were jolts. Uncharacteristic jolts. Dammit. It shook ominously. He tried to get up stretching his arm to get hold of the rod next to the door. But somehow he couldn’t. The boggie seemed to revolve around a vertical axis. He got thrown towards the ceiling that accelerated towards the ground. And his head hit it. Real bad.

Blood. Silence.
--

He was a ‘Punching-Bag’. She was a ‘Pain-In-The-Ass’.

You Know What I Did This Summer

Summer Internship. Sales. FMCG. Jharkhand.

For the uninitiated, this means that the two months are NOT being spent in any cozy air-conditioned office with transparent walls and free internet. Instead, I’m living out of a suitcase ‘touring’ all of Jharkhand. This also includes the interiors with terrestrial connectivity worse than the jungles of Amazon. Anyway, it’s an experience of a lifetime. An account follows.

• Every address has ‘Near Hanuman Mandir’ on it. I wonder how many fans does the H-Man have in Jharkhand!
• I’ve come across incredibly innovative spellings and grammar. “Please your on laggage”!!!!!
• I have been sneezed and coughed upon in the face so many times now that I’m looking forward to being spitted upon – the Holy Grail.
• I have peed in the most unhygienic of places, sometimes after climbing hillocks of garbage!
• I have travelled in the most ‘rocking’ of vehicles – the desi version of Disneyland swings. My spinal cord seems wrecked for eternity.
• I met a person called ‘Birbal’ for the first time in my life.
• I have grown fond of Sattu – the desi Gatorade.
• The dust on the roads and places named Telmocho, Chas and Tipudana give me the feel of Latin America.
• I have pissed off a sales officer so bad that he has asked me not to call him up ever again.
• I have travelled in an auto-rickshaw without headlights on streets with no light whatsoever at eight in the evening in thunder, storm and rain. Talk about blind trust!
• I have come across a dilapidated hut named ‘Indian School of Learning’ that guarantees ‘100% placement’.

Half of this period has been spent in Ranchi. For people never been to the place, it is merely a newfangled capital of a newfangled underdeveloped tribal state. But the exponential rate of “development” has led to explosions – of population, traffic, pollution and noise. An account follows.

You know you are in Ranchi when:

• The roads are narrower than Keira Knightley’s waist: far worse than the by-lanes of Jamshedpur.
• You find no traffic lights but traffic police on squares in 2010!
• The traffic is excruciating for the size of the roads.
• All school buses are yellow in colour and are the biggest culprits in traffic jams.
• Stuck in a jam, if A is behind B and B is behind C, all three are honking at the same time.
• In a jam, if you don’t stick the nose of your vehicle up the ass of the one ahead, some vehicle is bound to cross the road from the gap in between.
• The rickshaws turn at ninety degrees without a whisker of a signal.
• Bumpers and potholes included, there are more speed breakers on the road than the rest of India combined.
• There is no civic sense – AT ALL!!!!
• There are no dustbins – AT ALL!!!!
• You find a lassi hawker everywhere. Fortunately, the town is a sucker for it.
• The favourite evening snack is Chinese food, especially rolls and momos. The extent of craze makes one wonder if it was once a Chinese colony!
• If you are on the opposite side of the road to Big Bazaar, you have to drive for 2 kilometres to come back to mall’s side of the road.
• Big Bazaar is a big big sham. It takes less time to shop there than to cross the road at 10 in the morning.
• The service in restaurants is abysmal and is not a function of prices charged.

Anyway, its just a matter of 20 odd days and it gets over for good! Pray to God that I get strength enough to survive through all of this!

मैं शायर गुमनाम - 1

These are some of the shers I wrote long back when my life was all shit. Today, I'm the luckiest person on earth.

Gaur farmayein! :)

Sailab
Har hanstey chehre ke peechhe kai sailab hote hain,

Wo dard hi kya jo sar-e-aam beparda ho jaaye...

Zinda

Nabz chal rahi hai, saansein le rahe hain,

Khud ko zinda kehne ka dil nahi kar raha...

Aag

Kaali andheri is raat ki jaane kab subah hogi,

Andar ki is aag se ujala kyun nahi hota...

Aandhi

Ik aandhi kya aayi aasra khojne lagey,

Us toofaan ka kya jismein akela chhod diya humein...

Der

Todna hi tha dil toh itni der kyun lagai,

Uunchaai se girakar zakhm dena chahte they aap...

:o

Disclaimer: If you smell sexism, trust me, you are a hardcore sexist by heart. Kindly get your egos shrunk, minds broadened, maturity upped and irritabilities switched off. Freedom of expression is what I was born with.

--

They say science can explain everything – from falling apples to shining trails of light in the sky. But lately I have been bewildered by some of the greatest wonders of the world. The phenomena I’m talking about are not new at all. In fact, as impossible as it might sound, they date older than Shit-Rukh Khan. These have been an integral part of our daily lives, intertwined in such a manner that we no more marvel at their subtle existence.

These are some of the greatest mysteries. Unnoticed. Untalked about. Unsolved. But ultimately baffling.

One. I hear the fairer sex is sick of the better sex staring at their so-called assets in full daylight. If caught in the process, the “starer” from the curious sex is given so cold, mean and snobbish looks by the “staree” from the presumptuous sex that the former from the victimized sex has no option left but to un-stare. But would anyone care to explain why would the dumber sex adorn the pre-mentioned assets with t-shirts that sport a. catchy quotes b. crazy fonts c. flashy colours d. all of the above and beg for attention?

Two. Our action hero is waiting impatiently for her girl on their date on the thirty-second floor of a Rajasthani fort in Mumbai. He has the glow of fresh blood sucked out (khoon pee jaunga!) from the one-eyed villain who murdered his father in the last century. Back home he has a younger sister knitting on a wheelchair and a mother dieing on a shabby bed. And the heroine arrives. In no more than five minutes, we find the couple singing duets and dancing acrobatically!!! My common sense fails me everytime I try to find logic behind Bollywood couples “dancing” on dates. What’s this fetish? I mean, there are a million things to do (by the doer sex) or talk (by the talker sex). But why, of all the things, sing and dance?

Three. If that’s not all, the amazingly secluded terrace suddenly gets crowded by twenty people dancing behind the two (strictly equal number of males and females dancing in pairs as if it’s a group-date). I wonder who first thought of this masterstroke of placing uncles and aunties behind our couple on their date!! “Dance, India, Dance”!!

Four. Ever wondered when you accidentally enter the ladies’ section while ambling around in a shopping mall and some ladies’ tees catch your fancy? Almost all the quotes are always full of pseudo-attitude and inexplicable airs around them. Have you ever seen a guy sporting “Here comes trouble” or “I will date everyone but not you”. No. I mean, what’s with this show of unwarranted air? What exactly does the show-off sex want to show off? If you are your “dad’s bad girl”, be. Why do you have to stick in our faces? I’m sorry, babe, but if your t-shirt says more than you can pull off about how independent and obsessed-with-freedom you are, you are no better than Paulomi 2.0 from MTV Roadies 6.0!!!

Five. Another huge mystery is how some of the people from the inexplicable sex turn total sluts post-breakups. Swearing by their guys’ names when in a relationship, how can they find comfort in every damn pair of arms that comes their way? Apologies if all this hurts you, but all I can understand is that you were always a hippie by heart smothered by a relationship, the end of which not only provides you with sympathies from all quarters but an all-encompassing license to flirt. Why did you pretend to be in a sincere relationship, then? I feel happy for the guy who broke up with you.

There are a few more like:

· Why didn’t mythological characters have surnames back then (ala raVun Gupta)?
· Why does a doctor’s handwriting always suck?
· Why is the class name always written in Roman numerals on the classroom door? (IV ‘C’)
· Why don’t people remove air travel tags from their luggage?
· Why don’t we hear songs like “Thaade rahiyo, o baankey yaar” or “Na na kartey pyar tumhi se kar baithe” anywhere else but while playing the Indian game of Antakshari?
· Why doesn’t anyone else smell foreign hands of Cadbury-Kraft in the weakening of Indian economy when a one-rupee coin is replaced by an éclairs candy pan-India?
· How on earth did Shit-Rukh become an actor?!!??!!
· What is the purpose of KKR’s existence except merchandise-selling?
· Why do you go through all this shit on my blog?

You are welcome onboard if you are either of James Bond, Indiana Jones or ACP Pradyuman. The mysteries are unending. The answers I want. Feel free to take a shot in the space provided below.

Hiya!

Thanks for all the nice pings and mails and comments of appreciation. Honestly, it was humbling!I never knew so many people missed me here. I suppose it wouldn’t be possible to maintain the same frequency of posts but I’ll try to keep up. Also, rest assured that I will read all your blogs and comments and mails and tweets and reply to them in due course of time. Also, I see a few new followers. Great choice! :P Thanks again!
--

I’ve been off my blog for twenty days now. For nerds knowing what radioactivity is, my blog is made up of a hyper radioactive material called khuja-lee having a half life of a million years. For the “kewl” junta, it implies that occurrence of a patch of such cessation of activity on my blog is as improbable as KKR winning an IPL match, or even more.

The reason behind this rare phenomenon of ‘judai’ is the occurrence of another phenomenon – Summer Internship. Without going into the details of the experience - which calls for a totally separate blog altogether – it would suffice if I say it’s been a heavenly experience till now.

Some of the retailers I’ve visited for data collection have treated me worse than they treated lepers in Latin America in the 30s. The heat is awesome: I start wondering the moment I find myself not sweating. Scorching sun has suddenly made the back of my neck magically granular. The traffic of Ranchi has raped the gears of my bike so bad that I wish Kieren Pollard hit me for a six everytime I have to crawl at less than ten kmph for ten minutes at a stretch.

Rewinding, the internship commenced at the city of joy (I wonder who called it that first!) – Kolkata. For someone who has lived all his life in one of the most planned towns in India, Kolkata was a synonym for paranoia. And it lived upto the (un)expectations. An account follows.

You know you’re in Kolkata when:

• The cabbies start “bargaining” from Rs. 280 and end up taking passengers for Rs. 80!
• The platform security check-up is a gigantic sham as anyone can bypass it through an eatery on the corner called ‘Comesum’ with two doors!
• The waiting room on the platform is on the second floor with fifty stairs!!!! (Grrrrr)
• The traffic jams every two minutes – right, every two minutes – raise no eyebrows at all: such is the level of acceptance!
• Girls in airtight jeans and more make-up than Shilpa Shetty buy lingerie with their boyfriends on the footpath!
• The crowd makes you think that all of the one billion Indians live in Kolkata!
• You find people crossing the roads running on the zebra crossings!
• You find kids bathing in full shame-shame costumes at the hand pumps by the side of the streets with more than average traffic!
• You sweat like a pig!
• There are no dustbins – AT ALL! The whole city is one big shameful crapbag!
• Everyone, I repeat, everyone smokes!!

God help the city, especially on the grand eve of the biggest festival of all time – an IPL match – when everyone seems to go insane.

Anyway, I guess I’m back on the blog and would be more frequent than the Haley’s Comet from now on. So what have you been upto?

Insanely Serene

Tired, confused, alone

Vacuum inside my soul

I'm honest, I've always been

I'll never be in your control

I beg not for approval

Of skin, of bones, of blood

A foreign fear inside

Of slipping away unheard

I try, I cry, I die

The tears, the sky, the night

A dark, abandoned cave

Rotting to survive

Enough, the spirit hurts

She's caged, its been a while...

...The wind against my face

The light of being alive.