The Truth about Nobody

The Gag Reflex

2011-12-11T11:27:00.001+05:30

Thanks to Anne Taintor...once again! (An older post - an editorial I wrote on our website following Mr. Kapil Sibal's remarks on 'regulation' of social media...a lazy way of getting back to this blog!) Why does it feel like I woke up in China? Oh yes, it’s because the Indian government’s latest ‘appeal’ to social networking sites for a little ‘regulation’ of ‘sensitive’ content has a

Snare-e-Punjab

2011-01-18T14:17:00.001+05:30

dunali (double-bore gun)... revaalver (revolver, of course)...panga (trouble-making)...daaru (booze)... kudiyan (chicks)... kukkad (chicken)...gwandiyan de munde (neighbourhood boys)...gabroo (strapping young lads)...laung da lashkara (glittering nose-pins)...sat rang de parande (colourful hair accessories)...chaati di lassi (most awesome buttermilk)...boys gona ral ke pao bhangra tonite (weird

Lost and Found

2011-01-07T16:21:00.001+05:30

...also to Anne Taintor for her special brand of genius! I had been desperately looking for a piece of paper over the last couple of years. You see, while I was studying for my Masters, someone I knew gave me a faded copy of an excerpt from some magazine. At that time -- and sans regular access to the Internet and the Googling skills I was to acquire a few years later -- I had no idea where it

Mars attacks and Venus fly traps

2010-08-29T16:58:00.003+05:30

I had mentioned in an earlier post how I continue to get these toxic mails from a bunch of pro-male, anti-female, feminism-bashing, rabid misogynists, posing as knights to the rescue of the "Indian Family", following a piece I wrote for HT some months ago. (Don't bother clicking on this link if you did read this recent blog post, or you'll accuse me of nauseating cause-promotion.) Well, to

The Emperor has no clothes!

2010-08-10T17:27:00.003+05:30

Leaking roofs and coffers with holes Stadiums standing on faith and totem poles India awaits its turn on the auction block No time, none even to take stock Money spent, records not even in a dusty register Where are you, Mr.Prime Minister? Red flags running amok in jungles beyond reach Everyone's an expert, thanks to that freedom of speech Hollow victories built on dispensable lives Bidders all,

Are you game enough? My very own Commonwealth Games advisory: Vol. I

2010-07-31T18:51:00.001+05:30

Someone emailed me this picture as part of a chain mail. Credit to whoever took it. Thanks! Countries are issuing advisories all the time...don't go here, you might get killed; don't go there, you might discover no one in your family cares enough to pay a ransom to get your little pinkie back; don't go anywhere, you paranoid bugger, they might worship cows but they WILL sell you for a

Family ties and what not

2010-07-17T18:34:00.000+05:30

I get a lot of spam from these male activists who say they are fighting for the rights of men/fathers/brothers everywhere. It started out as vitriolic hate mail after a piece I wrote for HT a few months ago and then they just never stopped. Apparently, as a fellow journalist warned me after reading some of the online comments on the piece (too bad the website's dusted and cleaned every few weeks;

Of clunky reporters and Chunky Pandey

2010-07-09T17:28:00.004+05:30

It never fails to amuse me that people still use the words 'concubine', and 'paramour' (special mention: 'danseuse'?). This is why a metro news item that would have inspired nothing more than a quick glance and casual solemnity, made me want to slap on some eau de cologne, hop onto a Vespa and ask someone for directions to the Fifties. Still, I read on. And soon that one word wasn't the problem

Dementia, now!

2010-07-07T15:46:00.001+05:30

Snippets from the morning meeting: Someone: So, what's behind this big ban on all these militant outfits by Pakistan? Someone else: Just Punjab...Blah blah blah... the US has... blah blah... bad-ass Taliban... blah blah....(some one says, "but where the hell is that Zardari?")... blah blah.... Sharif brothers... blah blah blah ... Tehrik-i-Taliban... blah blah blah....after Benazir... blah blah

Strangers in the night

2010-07-02T20:01:00.002+05:30

Quite like this corny next line, It was a dark and stormy night; A bit like having make-up sex, In the middle of an unresolved fight. Thence upon a time, They had a go at it twice; Only because the first time he fumbled, Not unlike the three blind mice. With her thoughts far, far away, She lay awake to watch him sleep; A smile played on her scarlet lips Lost, he looked, like Little Beau Peep’s

Hanging by a word

2010-06-14T19:49:00.003+05:30

I'm a little worried about my reading habits these days. Gone is the time when I would, very wisely, pepper my gourmet (albeit eclectic) diet of the printed word with just the right amount of junk food: moving from the Hardy Boys, to sneaking in the odd Victoria Holt from the senior school library, right on to smuggled Irving Wallace, Ken Follett, Jackie Collins and Judith Krantz and a late but

Bhangra in the Bible belt

2010-06-12T18:28:00.001+05:30

Years ago, on a beach in Langkawi, I heard a Malaysian boy-girl band butcher Sade and her smoky rendition of this song. Not that it is a favourite or anything, but I can still hear them in my head, as clearly as if they were here with me, whispering feverishly into my new Sony headphones: "He's a Smooth Operaaator; Smooooooooth Operaaaaatorrrr...Coast to coast, LA to Cheee-caaago/ Across the

What if beggars became choosers?

2010-05-21T19:50:00.002+05:30

Office party. The usual suspects doing the unusual dancing and making merry like there was a nationwide merry shortage. It's fun though, this ritual of putting people who you work with in a semi-dark room with 80s music, free grub and booze, while expecting them to relax and forget all about low pay packets, stalled increments and all those bad hair days at work in a single night of drunken

Karma kicker

2010-05-17T14:53:00.000+05:30

Just this morning, a friend and I were discussing the embarrassment potential of parents. I bet I am not alone in this universe for having to endlessly endure the telling of cringe-worthy tales from my childhood, often narrated with a kind of absent-minded relish by my over-adoring parents. Unfortunate references to long-forgotten baby-talk, bloopers all the way from kindergarten right up to my

They're on to us or Bawl, baby, bawl

2010-05-13T18:42:00.001+05:30

There are certain things that should have remained in the domain they were intended to, but have found their way across the gender divide to shake up things as we know (and prefer) them. Like checked shirts worn by Marlboro-ish wannabes. I admit I gave them a test drive in the 90s when I was into this weird college-dressing revolt thing of mine. But then I moved on and began investing in

Squeeze me, please?

2010-04-01T18:23:00.002+05:30

"Thank you, thank you...so nice of you". These eight words are like a time machine. They take me back to a time when people started letters with "I beg to state, Sir...", which ended with "Yours faithfully...". Somehow, these words, they seem a bit out of place in this century of conversation wrap-ups like "will do" or "sure", "no problem" and "see ya", or, if you must, email deal sealers

Star-stuck!

2010-02-27T19:52:00.000+05:30

Delhiites don't know how to deal with celebrities. Actually all non-Mumbaikars don't know how to behave when there's a celebrity around, no matter how minor. Heaven help you if the said person is seriously famous. My heart goes out to you, buddy! Now, I say this from recent experience. Last week, I was in Bombay and happened to find my way to a tattered couch at that hookah-coffee lounge

MIA: Bombay's balls. RIP?

2010-02-04T17:59:00.001+05:30

Mumbai. Bombay. Khan. Thackeray. Amar. Mulayam. Kidney. Dustbin. Rahul. Italian. Mummy. Sena. Trash. Insults. Lena-dena. This has been quite a week for us and our politicians, and it's just Thursday. Nothing new about that, I suppose, since most weeks are quite something here in the murky underbelly of Indian politics, but even politically apathetic PS is overwhelmed. From Amar Singh asking

Performance anxiety

2010-01-30T17:07:00.005+05:30

The buzz was that the Goa government planned to ban bikinis on the beach. No, actually they just want to ban ads that show all those bikini babes on the beach. But what people like me heard was "ban bikinis" and we chose not to read the rest of the story. Hmmm... Now I know that all the libertarians of the world are preparing to get together and frown down those silly people who think that

"Are you hurted?"

2010-01-27T15:36:00.001+05:30

Yes. Very much. You see, my tummy hurted from loughing outs lowdly (aka lolz. hw i h8 tht trm!) and my eyeballses had lots of waters from gapping aghasted at the nuclear de-coupling on the idiotic box. Sample this: A Smug Man and a Skeptical Man start the evening by watching innocuous shots of Smug Man and Girl Friend (recorded voluntarily by Smug Man, without knowledge of Girl Friend)

That foggy, foggy bottom

2010-01-21T17:33:00.001+05:30

If there's anything worse than flying into, or out of Delhi these days, it's crossing one of the three bridges that link "Jamnapaar" with the rest of civilisation. I now know this for a fact because I made the mistake of doing exactly that last evening. Now, time is a treacherous thing -- almost as treacherous as the view of the outside world is from a window that hasn't seen a washcloth (much

Change is inevitable. Say, what?

2010-01-14T19:48:00.000+05:30

I've realised that no amount of sunshine /IT sops/ resigned ignorance of their itchy ways/ extra elaichi-adrak in their morning chai/ etc etc. will make men you pass along the short walk from parking lot to work place abandon their morning dose of MC/BC. From the nukkad chaiwallah to the office boy, the parking dude with his long unwashed tresses and stone-washed jeans to the credit card "

Jammin' in CP

2010-01-08T19:42:00.000+05:30

It's amazing how terrible situations become funny sometimes. Like the day before yesterday, when I was caught in a traffic jam near CP (do avoid it like the plague, all you who don't have to go to work there everyday - unless you have a death wish, that is). So I'm caught in this jam. No, it was complete gridlock. Nothing was moving. Nothing. And in a situation like this, you form this warm,

Heyyyyy Mona....Oooooooh Mona!

2010-01-07T16:49:00.002+05:30

That Craig McLachlan song I liked. But I never did see what the big deal was about the other, more famous Mona, the one of the Lisa frame...uh, fame. Still, like any other normal tourist in the world, I remember resigning myself to a serious lookabout for her in the Louvre, only to realise that all I had to do was follow the jhund, which I did, and voila! It took me straight to that plump,

Please do stop the music

2009-12-21T18:17:00.001+05:30

Last night, I was at this Indian-Mughlai type restaurant and they were playing some saxo-phony music. At least it sounded kinda like Kenny G having a bad hair day... well, strike that. When doesn't he? So, I am at this restaurant trying to gently wrestle with some burra kababs and I can't help but feel a little uneasy about the music. I mean if it was Pankaj Udhas asking you to drink moderately

Countdown to conformity?

2009-12-18T15:46:00.002+05:30

Nothing inspires the kind of frenzy that the evening of 31st December or Valentine’s Day do in this city, with the attached pressure planning or of being seen at a “happening” place/person.... even as all I feel like doing is vegetating in front of the television with a crisp pizza and some gooey chocolate cake for company, watching half of Bollywood shaking a leg on screen on NY Eve. Well,

Jolie well, i say

2009-12-16T17:09:00.003+05:30

I want Brad Pitt to dump Angelina Jolie so hard that the collagen in her lips spatters all the way to Africa.just because...

Don't be a chicken... cross the damn road, will ya!

2009-10-09T18:45:00.009+05:30

A few answers to that eternal question "Why did the chicken cross the road?" from the men and women working towards making the world a better place for all creatures:Rahul Gandhi: I have asked our state units to induct chickens en masse into the party, so that they can take my message across the street after they have crossed it safely. No, there are no Dalit chickens that I know of. I love

Tattle for the sexes

2009-10-05T14:24:00.013+05:30

Who can forget Meg Ryan's very real tribute to the fake orgasm in When Harry Met Sally, or its slightly varied encore by Katherine Heigl in The Hard Truth? Now, if that wasn't enough for men and women to sit up and take notice (for different reasons, obviously), here's something from The Guardian today that made me smile -- nay, giggle -- while primly pretending to read the NYT on weather

Anchors aweigh...

2009-10-02T16:23:00.006+05:30

It's flashing on the screen, that frozen hue,when new was old and the old anew.The memory of a day long ago,when about almost nothing there was much ado.Skip to the part that I loved most,when this silly heart ran from pillar to post;and found the beat that matched its step;swaying to song, more drunk than most.The music's soured and so has the wine;oh! my sorrow so sweet, my pain divine:Must we

Jo jeeta wohi bandar?

2009-09-02T16:11:00.009+05:30

I remember the time when I was in primary school and the highlight of the winter term used to be the Fancy Dress Competition. While my mother strove, year after year, to dress us up in style, her inventive ideas never seemed to go down well with a small-town jury. So all those bandages, which took her hours to bundle me up in, and the anaar juice that I was supposed to dribble down the side of my

Shoe! Go away now...

2009-04-13T17:14:00.004+05:30

Yes, yet another shoe post. There are a number of factors that conspired to lead to this moment. The one that refuses to shoo-off from my head is the deteriorating nature of political discourse in this lofty nation of ours. A few examples: the fluctuating age of the grand Old Party aka the Budiya-gudiya Congress; exploits of the Great Lotus Slayer and its thirst for chopped-off Islamic hands;

Living in PC times aka Mera Joota Hindustani

2009-04-07T18:23:00.007+05:30

The shoe was bound to reach Indian shores sooner or later and who better to pioneer this particular brand, in the mother of all adaptations (a cheeky sneaker), than that most enterprising of races: sadde apne Sardars!In a characteristic move that is reminiscent of the waves that hit distant shores in search of a better life, a Sardar has, once again, gone and done what few have dared before. The

The Great Indian Vanishing Act

2009-03-21T17:19:00.004+05:30