Blogs Away

Thank you to all Movember Supporters

2011-11-30T17:30:00.000-08:00

Like all good things Movember has come to an end. The aim of Movember is to raise vital funds and awareness for men’s health, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Of the 94 million dollars raised around the world, Australia's share was 22 million dollar, which is outstanding. Our team did an equally great job and raised $468/- for a good cause.

Doodle De Dum

2011-11-22T05:31:00.000-08:00

Some times you need to put out meaningless posts and ideas, a doodle de dum moment. You know that point when you think of something silly and have a quite chuckle to yourself - yep that one. So this post is dedicated to that inner sillyness in you, I probably have it in abundance but that is a story for another day.

Like what if someone wanted to start a running of the pitbulls festival - won't that be an epic fail!

In in these Movember times can we forget the classic Movember Rain?

Movember Rain

2011-11-06T03:28:00.000-08:00

Hi,

It’s Movember and time to focus on men’s health. To show my commitment, I’m donating my face to the cause by growing a moustache for the entire month of November, and need your support. My Mo will spark conversations, and no doubt generate some laughs; all in the name of raising vital awareness and funds for prostate cancer male depression.

Why am I so passionate about men’s health?
*1 in 9 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime
*This year 20,000 new cases of the disease will be diagnosed
*1 in 8 men will experience depression in their lifetime

I’m asking you to support my Movember campaign by making a donation by either:
*Donating online at: http://mobro.co/subroto
*Writing a cheque payable to ‘Movember,’ referencing my Registration ID: 1141902 and mailing it to: Movember, PO Box 60, East Melbourne, VIC, 8002

Funds raised will help make a tangible difference to the lives of others. Through the Movember Foundation and its men’s health partners, the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue – the national depression initiative, they are funding world class research, educational and support programs which would otherwise not be possible.

If you’d like to find out more about the type of work you’d be helping to fund by supporting Movember, take a look at the Programs We Fund section on the Movember website: http://au.movember.com/about

Thank you in advance for supporting my efforts to change the face of men’s health. All donations over $2 are tax deductible.

Subroto Pant
Please donate at: http://mobro.co/subroto

Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer

2011-06-25T05:34:00.000-07:00

Won't anyone stop this man from writing???
~
Firaq Baiganpuri On Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer

The Chandans portrait, artist and authenticity unconfirmed. National Portaloo Gallery, London.

Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer (English pronunciation: /ˈValee Meeyaa ˈSheiKHpeer/ (US), /ˈ (baptised 26 April 1944; died 23 April 2008) was an Indian poet, playwright and script writer, widely regarded as the worst script writer in any language, having written the maximum number of flop movies and the world record holder as the producer of the maximum number of flop movies and plays. He is often called Bollywood's worst poet - the "Bard of Amway". His surviving works are not many, having mostly been consigned to the dustbins of studios. Sheikhpeer was born and raised in Sant Nagar-upon-Yamuna. At the age of 18, he married movie star Quratulain Haidery, with whom he had three children: Shushila, and twins Hammam and Judwi. Between 1975 and 1982, he began an unsuccessful career in Bombay as an actor, writer, and part owner of a production house called the Laddu Chamberpot's Men, later known as the Kingpisser's Men. He appears to have retired to Sant Nagar around 2005, where he died three years later. Few records of Sheikhpeer's private life survive, and there has been considerable speculation about such matters as his physical appearance, sexuality, Religious beliefs, and whether the works attributed to him were written by others. The other writers have furiously denied these rumors.
Sheikhpeer produced most of his known work between 1979 and 2003. His early plays were mainly comedies and histories, genres he failed to raise to any level of sophistication and artistry even by the end of the twentieth century. He then wrote mainly tragedies until about 1988, including Ham ki Plate, King Leer, and Macburger, considered some of the worst works in any language. In his last phase, he wrote what he thought were tragicomedies, also known as romances, and forced other playwrights to collaborate with him.
Many of his plays were published in editions of varying quality and accuracy during his lifetime (an improved noted by those forced to review his work). In 1973, he paid two of his former theatrical colleagues to publish the First Folio, a collected edition of his dramatic works that included all but two of the plays now recognised as Sheikhpeer's.
Sheikhpeer was never a respected poet and playwright in his own day, but and fortunately his reputation has not risen to any heights. Some Bollywood directors have acclaimed Sheikhpeer's genius under pressure from his criminal elder brother ‘Bhai’, who forced them to repeatedly adopt his work but after suffering severe financial loss ‘Bhai’ refused to meddle with movie making, preferring to make money instead. Which he could have done without as their mother forced him to invest these funds in Sheikhpeer’s work. Sheikhpeer’s plays remain highly unpopular today and are constantly studied, performed and reinterpreted by right-wing leftist Marxist as an example of diverse cultural and political trauma throughout the world.

Background and early life

Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer

Born baptised 26 April 1944 (birth date unknown)
Sant Nagar-upon-Avon, Warwickgaon, India.

Died 23 April 2008 (aged 52)
Sant Nagar-upon-Avon, Warwickgaon, India

Occupation Playwright, poet, actor

Literary movement Urdu Slapstick theatre

Spouse(s) Quratulain Haidery (m. 1948–1988)

Children Shushila Hallabol,
Hamara Sheikhpeer,
Judwi Qatil

________________________________________
Signature

Wali Miyan Signature.

Life

Early life

Jumman Sheikhpeer's house, believed to be Sheikhpeer's birthplace, in Sant Nagar-upon-Yamuna.

Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer was the son of Jumman Sheikhpeer, a successful glove maker and elderman originally from Suttakhet, and Mariam Arbaz, the daughter of an affluent landowning farmer. He was born in Sant Nagar-upon-Yamuna and baptised on 26 April 1944. His actual birthdate is unknown, but is traditionally observed on 01 April, All Fools Day. This date, which can be traced back to a twentieth-century scholar's prank, has proved appealing because Sheikhpeer died on 23 April 2008. He was the third child of eight and the eldest surviving son.
Although no attendance records for the period survive, most biographers agree that Sheikhpeer may have been educated at the St Mirchiwale New School in Sant Nagar, a free school chartered in 1903, about a quarter of a mile from his home. Saintly schools varied in quality in Delhi and the school would have provided an intensive education in bad functional grammar and the classics.

At the age of 18, Sheikhpeer married the 26-year-old Quratulain (Annie)Haidery. The marriage licence was issued on 27 November 1962 and lost on 29 November 1962. Two of Haidery's neighbours posted bonds the next day as surety that there were no impediments to the marriage. The couple may have arranged the ceremony in some haste, Annie's pregnancy could have been the reason for this. Six months after the marriage, she gave birth to a daughter, Sushila, who was baptised on 26 May 1963 Twins, son Hamara and daughter Judwi, followed almost two years later and were baptised on 2 February 1965. Hamara died of unknown causes at the age of 11 and was buried on 11 August 1976.
After the birth of the twins, there are few historical traces of Sheikhpeer until he is mentioned as part of the Lucknow theatre scene in 1972. Because of this gap, scholars refer to the years between 1965 and 1972 as Sheikhpeer's "wonderful lost years". Biographers attempting to account for this period have reported many apocryphal stories. Naveen Rothas, Sheikhpeer’s first biographer, recounted a Sant Nagar legend that Sheikhpeer fled the town for Lucknow to escape prosecution for deer poaching (a tactic that other Bollywood stars tried to repeat. Tandoori deers not being a problem). Another story has Sheikhpeer starting his theatrical career minding the cars in the car park of theatre patrons in Lucknow. Jiwan Aubrey reported that Sheikhpeer had been a country schoolmaster. Some twentieth-century scholars have suggested that Sheikhpeer may have been employed as a schoolmaster by Sikandar Hoghton of Lalukhet, a landowner who named a certain "Wali Miyan Shekhoo" in his will. No evidence substantiates such stories other than hearsay collected after his death and the name Shekhoo was common in the Lalukhet area.

Lucknow and theatrical career

"Sub dunia nautanki hai

Aur hum sub khatron kay khiladi

Baki sub hain anadi # 1

Bahut kaam wala aadmi hoon"

Jaisa Aap Ko Accha Lage, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42.[25]

Translation

"All the world's a stage

And I am the danger player

the rest are idiot#1

I am a man with lot of work"

Jaisa Aap Ko Accha Lage, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42.[25]

Poster for the super flop Ek Raat Ka Sapna

It is not known exactly when Sheikhpeer began writing, but contemporary allusions and records of performances show that several of his plays were on the Lucknow stage by 1972. He was well enough known in Lucknow by then to be attacked in print by the playwright Ramu Gareen:
...there is an upstart Kauwa (Crow to you anglophiles), beautified with our feathers, supposes he is as well able to rap out a blank verse as the worst of you: and is in his own conceit the only Sheikh-scene in a country…Beware because this lying Crow will peck you with his beak
Scholars differ on the exact meaning of these words, but most agree that Gareen is accusing Sheikhpeer of reaching above his rank in trying to match university-educated writers, such as Mary Marlowe, Coffee Admi and Gareen himself. The pun "Sheikh-scene", identifies Sheikhpeer as Gareen’s target. Noted Bollywood director Raj Kapoor was so inspired by Gareen’s criticism that he turned it into a hit song

"Jhooth bole kauwa kaate

Kaale kauwe say dariyo"

Bobby
Translation
"Beware of the black crow that pecks you"

Bobby

Never before in the history of literature has a writer produced such consistently bad work

Gareen’s attack is the first recorded mention of Sheikhpeer’s career in the theatre. Biographers have noted that that there were 18820 attacks in print on Sheikhpeer during his career as well as 520001 letters to the editor and 7800 negative reviews of his play. The exception being the Chinese delegation of 1981 which watched a performance of Sheikhpeer's play 'As me like it'. The Xinhua News Agency reported that some of the costumes used in the production were made from Chinese Silk by worker silkworms in the state owned collective and made China proud.

In 1979, a partnership of company members built their own theatre on the south bank of the Yamuna, which they called the Jalebi. Records of Sheikhpeer's property purchases and investments indicate that the company made him a wealthy man while his writing skills went downhill. In 1987, he bought the second-largest house in Sant Nagar, New Place, and in 1995, he invested in a share of the samosa shop in Sant Nagar.

Plays

Lone cleaner surveys stage after performance of Wali Miyan's play

"karoon ki na karoon: zindagi ka masla yehi hai"
Translation
"To do or not to do: this is the only question in life
Most playwrights of the period typically collaborated with others at some point, and critics agree that Sheikhpeer tried to do the same, all throughout his career. Not many wanted to do so but some attributions, such as Meri Fair Ladice - Ab Hindi May and the early history plays, remain controversial, while The Two Rupees More and the lost Lost have well-attested contemporary documentation. Textual evidence also supports the view that several of the stolen plays were revised by Sheikhpeer and passed as an original composition.
In the mid 80s, Sheikhpeer wrote the so-called "problem plays" ''Maiyyar for Maiyyar in Bhatinda'', ''Trolly for us and Cressida'', and ''All ij Well'' and a number of his least known tragedies. They were called problem plays because it was a problem to put them on, a problem to find actors willing to commit professional harakiri, a problem to say 'no' to his criminal elder brother ‘Bhai’.

"Your eyes are like potatoes,

and your lips like okra:

your cheeks tomatoes;

oye what shall I call thee dear

my love or my grocery..."

As Me Like It, Act II, Scene 7, 139–42.

Poems

“I used to love poetry and then I read Sheikhpeer”
~ Veggipie on Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer

In 1983 and 1984, when the theatres were closed because of a strike, Sheikhpeer published two narrative poems, Choli Kay Peeche and Yeh Andar Ki Baat Hai. He dedicated them to the Hosiery Industry. This was the first time an artist (and we use the word loosely here) had attempted to combine Art with a commercial interest until Hussain came along. Both proved unpopular and were often mentioned in random Public Interest Litigations (PIL) filed against Sheikhpeer. Sheikhpeer welcomed these PILs as they provided him with free publicity. Most scholars now accept that Sheikhpeer wrote songs for Govinda’s movies including “Meri Chaddi”.

Style

Sheikhpeer's first plays were written in the conventional style of the day. He wrote them in an over stylised language that does not always spring naturally from the needs of the characters or the drama.

Sheikhpeer's only commercial success - the Lota of health.

Theatregoers reported a need to purge their intestines after watching a performance. This turned out to be his biggest commercial success later on, when many health spas started using Sheikhpeer’s plays as a cleansing technique instead of giving enemas to their clients

This technique releases the new power of tripe and inflexibility of the poetry in plays such as Ham Ki Plate. Sheikhpeer uses it, for example, to convey the turmoil in Ham's mind:

“Zindagi cigarette ka dhuan
Jata hai kahan?”
~

Translation
“Life is a cigarette’s smoke
Where does it go?”

~

Movies

“Charlie voltage baddhao,
electicity jaldee jayegi”
~

Translation
“Charlie increase the voltage,
electricity will go faster”

~

Actual dialogue from a Bollywood movie attributed to Sheikhpeer

“It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it”

~ Amitabh Bacchan commenting on his refusal to work on a Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer movie

“It's a funny thing about life; failure is a character building exercise”
~ Kishen Kumar commenting on why he acted in a Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer movie

Kagaj Ke Plate

-- This film was a biggest disaster of decade of 90. People said that this was a semi autobiographical film of Guru Halwai, and reflects also the Guru Halwai's liking of a veggie burger. Film was much ahead of its time, another flop like this would'nt be made till 2005. After its commercial failure Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer wrote more screen plays while Guru Halwai took a MacDonald franchise .

Patang the Kite

-- We barely get to see the actors in this movie. After 90 minutes of watching kites fly the camera pans to the actor flying a kite. By that time the audience had walked away presumably to fly a kite. Patang the Kite was never expected to be a huge summer blockbuster. But the scale of its failure has now made it to business schools. The kite sellers reported good business for that year.

Bhajia Sultan

-- Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer is said to spend five long years in writing script of this movie and the director Khatmal Amrohi spent lavishly over the sets, costumes, starcasts, and stunts. By watching this movie one could barely see any hard work done on it. Film has nice shots of the Halidiram bhajiyya factory and the pairing of Garam Dharma and Hema Nalini, bad music by some unknown director. The biggest reason of failing this film was the timing of release. Had this film released one or two decades earlier this could be a Huge Success as people were willing to watch anything. Nobody was interested in watching period Drama written by Sheikhpeer.

MacBhoot

The poster for MacBhoot

The movie adaption of the play by Wali Miyan Sheikhpeer. It is the longest and least compressed of Sheikhpeer's tragedies, a total lack ambition incites MacBhoot and his wife, Ladice MacBhoot, to do absolutely nothing, until their own inptitude brings rewards. In this play, Sheikhpeer adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure.

Critical reputation

Audience at the performance of one of Sheikhpeer's tragedies

Sheikhpeer was not revered in his lifetime, but he received his share of praise. Mostly from his his mother who thought he was very talented.
In 1968, the critic and author Nirad Chaudhuri singled him out from a group of writers as "the least talented writer in the past 50 years " in both comedy and tragedy. As he said "I would also set down, as a matter of moral obligation, that I consider Sheikhpeer to be the only Indian writer who should never have a permanent place in English literature with books on Indian themes, and who will also be read by everyone who wants to know how a book should never be written."

Viral Signs

2011-05-13T22:28:00.000-07:00

The day after the video of Sam K's antics went viral on the Internet; he was lying in his bedroom with the curtains drawn trying to keep his eyes shut tightly as possible. The throbbing pain in his head was a vigorous reminder of the many shots of tequila drowned at the office party the night before, not that he remembered anything else that may have happened.

Sam K - aka Samir Kapadia - big time nerd and small time everything else. Not a great communicator unless you spoke Java/C#/C++ and a few other programming languages that he was fluent in. OK, yes, no and head wag sufficed for anything else. Not the ideal candidate for hogging news headlines by any stretch of imagination.

Before the YouTube incident, Sam's career path had progressed to the point where he was assigned the role of a Project Architect for the first time. It was a prestigious project for a major health services provider. The work was challenging and it was the opportunity that he had been waiting. If done correctly it would demonstrate that he was capable of handling such projects and be the stepping stone on the pathway of success.

Sam had considered himself to be fortunate that the project timeline was for three months. His belief was that "This is a three month project and we're going to achieve success in 3 months. We're going to see the system in production in 3 months."

Initially the project had been progressing smoothly but then a month into the project timeline the changes started to happen and they were the dreaded bugbear of imprecise or changing business requirements.

The senior management at client site met Sam's account manager - Jason- to negotiate further contracts for the firm and casually gave a list of changes that they felt would make the system function better. Soon enough Jason contacted the project manager - Rob - and asked him to accommodate the changes in order to facilitate future business. All of that meant that the last minute changes in the business requirements were now making their way towards Sam.

From: Rob Morgan
Subject: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: sam.kapadia@busorg.com

Hey Sam,
The client's given us a few changes to look at. Jason has communicated his desire of pushing them in the next release, as he put it - 'If we make the client happy, they will look after us'. Apparently senior management is very keen for these changes to go through.

Cheers,
Rob

"Maybe we should give the client a massage. That will make them happy", grumbled Sam to himself. He was well aware that business was well within their rights to ask for changes. Well thought changes added that excitement to a project, but the down side was the hasty, unplanned change requests that added to a project's scope creep. This was definitely one of them and had to be shot down as soon as possible.

From: Sam Kapadia
Subject: RE: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: rob.morgan@busorg.com

Hi Rob,

What is this? I don't think that the business requirements are being clearly articulated; we need lot more information than a verbal request. Plus they do know that this will impact the project timelines, don't they? I don't see how we can roll these out in this release.

Cheers,
Sam

Damn this project, thought Sam, it was supposed to be his great big opportunity and just when he thought he had everything under control the enemy artillery aka major change request started firing. The increased working hours had meant that he was seeing a lot less of his girlfriend Anna than he wanted to. All work and no play were making Sam an extremely dull boy. Plus Anna was driving him crazy these days with her demands for communication. And communication for Anna meant that she had to talk to him face-to-face. E-mail, Sam had told her, is a wonderful invention and not just for receiving messages from Rev Peter Paul Thomas of Nigeria wanting to give you a million dollars. SMS is an option too, they are even rewriting Shakespeare using SMS text format. But emails and SMSs were not for Anna. She needed direct verbal communication with no other distractions. This meant no watching TV while she was talking. Work could be set aside while they had their time together, even when Sam had a deadline to meet. She might not have cared about design patterns in C Sharp or the beauty of object-oriented programming and unlike her Sam had no interest in literature, but they adored each other's company. Sam was reminded of what he had once read in an online relationship column 'diversity is an asset in relationships; you won't get bored with each other'.

From: Rob Morgan
Subject: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: sam.kapadia@busorg.com
CC: ruby.ross@busorg.com

Sam,
How many more resources would you need for this change to go through?
Ruby I need you to go through the HR's database for a list of additional developers.
Cheers,
Rob

Ruby Ross was responsible for finding the right resource for each project and Rob was intent on using her to increase the size of the team.

"Maybe I should tell him that we will work overtime", thought Sam, "Hey Rob, if people work more hours, they can get more work done in the same amount of calendar time. Overtime may be the best option if you’re close to the end of the project and just need a final push to get everything done on schedule. And probably sleep less if possible, just to get more hours in a day."

Sam's mobile vibrated, probably a message from Rob trying to contact him, but Sam decided to ignore it. He had a message of his own for Rob that needed to be sent.

From: Sam Kapadia
Subject: RE: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: rob.morgan@busorg.com

Hi Rob,
The biggest issue that we are facing is that the business requirements not being clearly articulated and agreed to at the outset of this project. We've had a number of discussions related to this and I am sure in the post project appraisal, the auditors are bound to bring it up. Now I hear you telling me to 'push changes' in the next release. How do we plan for this deviation in terms of schedule, cost, performance, or scope of work?

Regards,
Sam

"Now that", pondered Sam "will make him think, which will give me time to work without further interference". He quickly glanced at his mobile and was stunned to see a message from Anna. Her mobile was a gift from him, he had made her take it by explaining that while she did not have to use it every day, it would be handy if she had an emergency like the car breaking down when coming from work or if she ever ran out of coffee and needed him to get some. She never used it so it must be important that she was sending a message.

From Anna
To Sam: Sam r u coming home this wk? Or will it b like last wk? We need to talk.

Late nights working at this project meant that recently they hardly interacted nowadays. By the time he got home it was already way past dinner time. Anna would have eaten by then so he ate alone, sometimes he carried on working on his laptop and on some days he was so tired that he went to sleep straightaway.

From Sam
To Anna: Sorry wrking la8. Will make it up 2 u.

Before he had a chance to ponder on the significance of the message, there was another email from Jason to be looked at. The man was persistent if nothing else.

From: Jason Groot
Subject: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: sam.kapadia@busorg.com
CC: rob.morgan@busorg.com

Hi Sam,
Really appreciate the work you have been putting into this project. Can't say that you work has gone unnoticed. I need you to make a few changes to your design and push through the changes the client is asking for, we feel that they add value to the project.
Thanks,
Jason

So Jason was going through the underhand route now thought Sam. It was the kind of sneaky attempt that he had been expecting, throw in a few compliments and try to push in a few changes. There was no way that he was going to let this happen.

From: Sam Kapadia [sam.kapadia@busorg.com]
Subject: Re: Change to product requirements (mtt-01/3439)
To: jason.groot@busorg.com
CC: rob.morgan@busorg.com

Hi Jason,
Can you get them to put the change requests in and then we work through the change control procedure.
Cheers,
Sam

Change control had its uses thought Sam, especially in this organization where it was a process gleaned from books implemented by overpriced consultants to help streamline technology-related change. It could take days before anything tangible happened and that would give him enough time to do things the way he wanted them.

The rest of that day went on with a continuous stream of messages and meetings to attend. As usual he was the last to leave work, long after the cleaners had gone. But that night turned out a lot different from the others. When he reached home there was no one inside and all of Anna's belongings had been moved out of their apartment. It was as if he stayed alone in a bachelor's pad. Stuck to the fridge was a post-it note from Anna. He took it down and read it.

I am going away for a while Sam. I have been thinking about it a lot in the past month or so. The time I had alone allowed me to do that. Maybe it's not just about me or you or us. I have thought about the way we could have made this work and I was hoping and praying that it would never come to this. Nothing lasts forever, we make mistakes and lose people that we love but I never thought that would happen to us. Will I come back? That remains entirely up to you and your work commitment.

Sam dropped the note, he wasn't sure what to make of it. A part of him was hopeful but a gnawing feeling that told him that maybe it was all over. "I am so self absorbed," he thought, "that I could not see it coming. That I neglected her for so long, taking her presence for granted."

For all his intentions at attempting a reconciliation Sam's workload over the next few months ensured that he had no time away from work. Managing the client's expectation and fighting with the account managers to retain his team kept him on his toes. His email inbox once had an old Internet joke about customers who demand the universe gift-wrapped and delivered yesterday but this time instead of laughing he found himself nodding in agreement. The hard work by his team had ensured that they did not have to face deadline-imposed project fiascoes.

And so it happened that after managing different industrial awards and multiple industrial agreements they were able to deliver on time. It was finally time for a celebratory function for the team. Jason had organized drinks for the all people who had worked on the project as well as the team from the client side and the senior managers. The event was hosted at the restaurant where the company decided they would have dinner. To enliven things up the function was Wild West themed one, each person was handed over a huge cowboy hat as they walked in. There was a big bar in the restaurant moment where the very outgoing bartender, was greeting each person with a cold, strong drink of orange juice and vodka and there were soft drinks for those who did not imbibe. Immediately, the drinks started flowing and meeting each other in a lighter setting was making everyone relax. Suddenly Sam wished that Anna was with him. He took out his phone and texted her.

From Sam
To Anna: Need to talk 2 u. Can we meet?

Maybe she had forgiven him by now, maybe she was missing him too. His phone was beeping, there was a reply from Anna.

From Anna
To Sam: Not today Sam and maybe not ever.

He was stunned by the reply, the fact that that they would never meet had not occurred to him. To him it was another obstacle that he was sure he would overcome. Another trick bit of code that he would find a solution to because that's what he did - resolved tricky bits, no matter how long it took. Sam did not remember how many drinks he had after the reading the text but when the
Karaoke machine was setup with the live band and backing vocals, he found himself gravitating near the stage.
“Sam, Sam, we want Sam”, went the cry.
As far as musical abilities went he lacked the singing gene, his DNA was missing the genetic instructions for musical ability. It probably contained the DNA sequence for toneless intonations, yep it would be safe to say that Sam was not a singer. But in his mind right now he was the star. He stepped up, picked up the microphone and faced his audience.
“Ladies and gentlemen my girlfriend Anna has left me. But I love her and I want her back. So Anna I am singing this for you.“
And with that he sunk on one knee and started his rendition of the hit by KC and the Sunshine Band “Please don’t go”
“Babe, I love you so
I want you to know
that I'm going to miss your love
the minute you walk out that door

so please don't go…..”

He was awful. But incredibly some people stayed and watched, including those whose mobile phones were video recording the whole song. As a friend later told him “I’ve never heard anything that bad in my life. But you know while you might not make a fan out of every spectator, but there was something compelling to watch. It was like you were impossible to ignore onstage in a twisted, demented sort of way”.

It was around four in the morning when Samir staggered home and managed to collapse on his bed. How he had accomplished that was something that he was never able to figure out. But while he was sleeping at home, the love song of Samir Kapadia was already up on Youtube and gathering page hits. Social commentators have often wondered 'what is the numerical indicator of a YouTube hit'. While exact figure have not been agreed on there is a broad agreement on certain numbers. So 10 million hits, means that the video is probably worth looking at. At the 50 million hits count its on the way to becoming a phenomenon. But even with those numbers, it may be just a one-trick show pony.

If it gets 90 million hits, and has back-up videos made by fans that get millions of hits, it is a social phenomenon. Then something fundamental is going on. The challenge is to figure out what and then prove it. Good luck on that because how do you prove the attraction of a badly sung song by a semi-drunk love sick nerd? After all one of the top YouTube hits is A Man So Drunk In Restaurant That He Eats His Own Napkin.

But Sam had no idea of his growing online fame. He didn't know about his expanding fame in the twitterverse. Jimmy Kimmel was going to feature Sam's song on his show. Sam heard the noise of a door opening but it sounded like heavy metal band playing next to him. There was light streaming in his room causing him to wince and before he knew it someone had flung them self on him.
"Sam", said voice that sounded like Anna.
"Sam you crazy, crazy boy. Why didn't you tell me that you missed me so?"
The heavy metal drummer in Sam's head was pounding the crash cymbal but he did not care about the noise anymore. Life was about to get better again.

Gnome Shanti

2011-02-20T03:57:00.000-08:00

News Item: UK Box Office Report: Gnomeo and Juliet Heads a Record-Breaking Week

Buoyed by the success of the animated movie Gnomeo and Juliet, which is based on the idea of retelling Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" with red and blue British garden gnomes as the feuding families, reports are now emerging of rival filmmakers planning spin-offs to cash in on the idea.

Fans of Aussie soaps will be glad to learn that TV studios are excited by idea of a daytime soap ‘Gnome and Away’ set in the Summer Bay Gnome Park.

The producers of Simpsons have announced plans to have a Gnome version featuring Gnomer Simpson.

For the followers of Westerns the news is that the talks for production of Gnome Ranger TV serials and movies are on right now. These might feature the song ‘Gnome on the Range’.

The Discovery Channel will be showing a special program on Ancient Gnome.

For music lovers the news is that David Cassidy has announced plans to release his new album ‘Gnome is Where the Heart Is’ to cash in on the current trend.

After all this can Bollywood be left far behind? Sharukh Khan has been approached to act as the voice of Gnome Makhija on the animated movie ‘Gnome Shanti Gnome’.

In financial markets with Gnomes being such a hot property, all major banks are fighting for a piece of the Gnome Loan market.

Gnomes are in right now, Gnome what I am saying?

The Lost Star

2010-10-05T07:07:00.001-07:00

He slid into my cab, on a still summer night looking hot and sweaty when I picked him past midnight in Brunswick Street, from the old pub that’s opposite the Den adult shop. At least he wasn’t drunk and reeking of alcohol. It was the start of my cab driving shift on Friday night. It was that time when the weekend starts and the city parties hard while the cabbies turn into diplomats ferrying passengers who are more talkative, wittier (so they think) than other days. They are also more violent and throw up more than other days, but for part timers like me the weekend is a good time to work and a lot better than staying in cramped shared digs.
“Finally a cab” he said “I got so tired of waiting at the Tivoli for a cab that I decided to walk from Costin Street to Brunswick Street. It’s so hot tonight that I am totally drenched in sweat.”
“So where do you want go to sir?” I asked.
He looked at me and switched from a glance to a stare. “Oye! You Indian?”
That was a remarkable bit of deduction from someone who was indisputably my fellow countryman. Should I give an Indian head waggle to confirm Sherlock’s deduction? Though there was something about that voice that sounded vaguely familiar. That lanky frame and that face, I couldn’t put a finger on it. But I had no time to waste on sleuthing, it was better to find out my man’s destination.
“That’s right sir I am from India. Now where can I take you?”
“Which part of India?”
“I am from Delhi sir. Can I please have the address?”
“Oye bhootni dey,behn-day-takke you are my brother from Dilli”. It was probably the first time I had been sworn at in Hindi, in a cab in Brisbane, but this was more of the affectionate kind of swearing. The swearing without rancour, the type that mates indulge in, the swearing without malice where the uglier the swearword the more love being expressed. It’s a boy thing, though to fair the women who get into my cab on the weekend probably outdo the men now.
“Thank you praji, ab bata to do kahan jana hai” as I lapsed in Hindi seeking the destination.
“I am hungry yaar, this bloody city of yours doesn’t have a place where I can eat late at night. I can drink all I want but I need khana – food.”
“There are actually few spots that are open late if you want a bite. All the cabbies stop at the takeaway on Petrie Terrace. Or we can go to New York pizza on Edward Street in the city. But tell me, once you have eaten, where do you want to go to?”
He still didn’t tell me the address but carried on talking in a nostalgic tone, as if lost in the memory of an old favourite. “You know what I miss about Delhi? It’s those dhabas yaar. Those bloody roadside stalls have chefs with magic in their hands. A kebab doesn’t have the same flavour unless cooked over a clay tandoor by a chef with dirt under his fingernails”.
I knew what he meant for I remembered those times too, when as young revellers, my friends and I used to seek out our old favourites. The vendors and their carts lined up in a lane, piled high with deep-fried offerings of savoury parcels filled with green peas and hot chapattis or spicy chaat all conjured up on a smoky wok on those old kerosene burning primus stoves.
“I miss those places too but shall we go to the Pizza place?” that was my suggestion for I just had a hankering for a greasy slice of pizza.
And he agreed with me, “OK then take me to Pizza dhaba my good man.”
Finally this cab was going somewhere. I drove down the Brunswick Street marvelling at how crowded the streets were on weekends after midnight. I still remember the first time when I drove past it on a Saturday night. I was on my way from the Airport to drop a passenger to Kenmore and seeing crowds of young people on Ann Street while driving past the Valley Mall. I had never seen so many young people partying in groups in all my time in Brisbane. While I had seen plenty of men urinating on the streets back home, never before had I seen rowdy young men openly urinating on the roads in a Western country.
“Don’t you have any music in this chariot of yours my good man?”
“I’ll put on the radio”, I said fiddling with the knobs on the dashboard, as the music from B105 filled the cab.
“Angrezi music? My brother don’t you listen to Hindi stuff? Not even when you are alone?”
“Anything for the customer”, I grinned as I switched over to Radio Brisvani, the 24 hour Indian radio station that I always put on while waiting for customers on the graveyard shift. The song that came on was from a major hit from a few years back. And that’s when I realized where I had heard that deep resonant voice, I was so excited that I nearly ran through the red light on Upper Edward Street.
“Oye! Easy does it buddy I am not so hungry” said that voice behind me.
It had to be him. As strange as it seemed I was sure that I knew who he was. It was just a matter of time before I got my chance to ask him. But first I needed to stop for the food and at one am at night it is not too hard getting a parking spot on Edward Street, which I did as I pulled up next to the New York Pizza place.
“We are here? Great, now I am not going to eat alone, so come along and have a bite with me. Don’t worry about your cab charge my biradar, I’ll pay the waiting charges, or the surcharge, flag fall, squeeze the passenger’s wallet or whatever you guys call it.”
I was OK with that, heck I would have paid out of my own pocket to talk with-who-I-think-I-was-going-to-talk-with. We ordered the food, pulled up a seat to sit in the no-frills eating area.
“There is something about you,” I boldly said, “that is very familiar. I have heard your voice before. I am sure I have seen you somewhere before.”
“You must have probably picked me up in your cab before. I must have been too drunk to remember. Hota hai yaar, it happens.”
No, that had not happened. Not in my cab, not here in Brisbane, I just had to press ahead. “You know you have such a very deep and distinctive baritone; it’s the kind of voice that stays with you. The kind of voice that would be an asset to, oh say, maybe an actor?”
There it was, out in the open now. Not very direct question but a hinting at - I think I know who you are – kind of challenge.
He looked up sharply and then his expression changed as he grinned.
“Are you doing a TAFE course from Southbank for becoming a detective? DET101?”
“Surely you must have had people come up to you and comment on your resemblance to Archit Kumar?”, I said boldly.
“Archit Kumar!” he said in a mocking tone, “to be Archit or not to be, that is the question; Whether tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous cabbies. You want to know who I am but you haven’t told me your name yet. Why don’t we start with your name then I’ll tell you mine.”
I could do that, heck I could even recite my family tree if he was going to confirm my suspicion. “Well that’s fair enough. My name is Sachin Khosla, I am from New Delhi, and I am doing my Masters in Information Technology from University of Queensland. I stay in shared digs in Toowong and my Aussie mates rib me by calling me Tendulkar. And I drive a cab on the weekends. I could tell you more but I don’t think my life is that exciting.”
“I am going to have another slice of pizza, what about you?”
I really couldn’t eat now, the sheer excitement of getting an answer was getting to me and I declined the offer.
“No more for me thanks.”
“Well I am getting some more” he said and he walked away to the counter. So that was the end of the conversation then. What was that word that Larry used – ‘Bummer’. Bummer indeed! I had made a fool of myself chasing an ex-Bollywood star in Brisbane. Then I smiled to myself thinking how much more my friends now knew about India’s movie industry after getting acquainted with me. Going out to learn Bollywood Dancing in the Metro Arts Building in Edward Street, picking up DVDs of Hindi movies from Geeta down at the McWhirter’s in the valley and watching the Hindi movies that were now being shown not just at Regents in Queen Street Mall but also at the Garden City. Funny I never really watched too many Hindi movies in Delhi but here in Brisbane I had a craving for them just like I sometimes craved a spicy vindaloo. The kind that hits you with the spices and you know the moment you start that you’ve got to control yourself from overeating it but you can’t stop yourself from doing so. And now maybe I was in the presence of my favourite actor from the silver screen.
“So now you want to know who I am?” he was back with another slice of pizza. The funny part is that he seemed to get livelier as the night went on.
“My name is Nikhil Tokas, I come from the Rangpuri village in Delhi”, he looked at me with a mischievous gleam in his eyes.
There went my Bollywood theory, wait hang on, wasn’t Archit Kumar’s real name Nikhil. And wasn’t he discovered by the famous director Subhash Bhai in the men’s room in the Taj hotel, as the story goes. Well you know, he didn’t actually go looking for actors in the men’s room, just happened to be there at the same time and the rest is a piss of history. Under Subhash Bhai ‘s supervision Nikhil Tokas was transformed into a star Archit Kumar.
“It’s you”, I said really excited now, “It really is you. The star, that vanished into thin air, without a leaving a trace behind. It was the biggest news story of the year. You walked away from a glittering film career, leaving a brief statement with your Secretary that you had opted out of the movies, the glamour and were joining an ashram. I remember how there was media frenzy around various ashrams whenever there was a rumoured sighting. Then they got tired of waiting and the memory of presence just faded away. Why did you get away from it all?”
He shrugged his shoulders and said, “Because I could”.
“But why would you do it? Do you mean to say that you walked away from all that fame as a Bollywood star to becoming an unknown entity in Australia on a whim? Do the people you know here have any idea of who you are? Do they even know that you had won three national awards for acting in your short film career? Do they know that your movie, Zulm aur Zalim, is still the biggest box-office hit of all time in India? That you won the MTV-India, and the MTV-Asia award for the best recording artiste. That your duet with Beyonce was nominated for the Grammy.” And I raved like an obsessed fan, which I was, reeling off highlights from the brief but bright career of Archit Kumar.
He smiled again. “Sachin have you ever been to the Ekka?”
“I have” I said wondering what the link was, “Well only once actually. There was this girl I knew who said it was the best thing to happen in Brisbane. She wanted to go to the Ekka and I just wanted to go with her, but what’s your point?”
“I absolutely love it”.
I raised an eyebrow quizzically, this was a man who had partied hard with the best of them at the best night spots in the world and now he wanted to tell me how he loved the annual show of Queensland, which was still organised by the Royal National Agricultural and Industrial Association of Queensland.
He must have seen the expression on my face as he hastened to add, “Really I do. Tell me this, would you not agree that you never see crowds of that nature anytime during the year out here in Brisbane?”
I was thinking more about the crowd at Cannes but I reluctantly agreed, “Yeeaas. I think they had around 700000 people for this year.”
“Ding! That’s correct my statistically minded young friend. You win the prize for the correct answer. You know the very first time I went to the Ekka, it was an unbelievable experience for me and not just because of the Strawberry Ice creams. It was probably the first time in years that I could walk in a crowd and no one knew who I was. Think I could ever do that in Mumbai?”
“I guess in Mumbai you would probably spark a mini stampede if people found out that you were in the crowd. So is that why you left? You couldn’t go anywhere without being recognised and felt a need to run away?”
“Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t. Tell me about my last movie. What was the story? Where was it set? You should know it, being such a fan, refresh my memory”.
Aha! Movie trivia about my favourite star, this was such an easy question so I told him the answer. “I do indeed. It called ‘Premi - The Lovers’ and was a love story set in New York. It was the poor boy meets rich girl story with a twist. Except that it was not really shot in New York” I said with my voice tapering off.
“And you want to tell me where this New York was situated then?”
“It was shot here in Brisbane. The New York skyline was shot across the river from Southbank, the Story Bridge was palmed off as the Brooklyn Bridge and that park in New York where the lovers met was the New Farm Park.”
“Perfect”, he said with a grin, “Though you missed out on the Macy’s department store in Queen Street Mall, which the shoppers here call Myer.”
“Well you also shot it in parts of California that are in Gold Coast. But what does have to do with you leaving?” I said as I tried to figure out a connection.
“I met someone in Brisbane and who made me realise that it was time for me to be honest about myself and about who I was”.
Wow a scandal on my hand, this was even better than reading the New Idea. Imagine Britney talking to you, giving you the low down on Kevin, it was something like that for me. Man if I was a movie journalist in India this would have made my career right now. Bugger that, even a camera phone video would have done right now. Put it on record and then upload to YouTube.
“You found someone in Brisbane? Who was she? And how did the media not find out about this woman you left that actress for? Because you were engaged weren’t you? I was there in India when it happened. I remember how all the TV channels had nothing else on except ‘exclusive’ stories on your engagement. She was the ex Miss Universe who stole your heart. You did those interviews together and talked about the union of souls and love that comes once in a lifetime. After that came the three movie deal with Spielberg’s production house in India.”
“She knew what she was getting into. I never fooled her about my motives and nor was I in any doubt about hers,” he said with a shrug of his shoulders.
I watched his face as the words came out and then I knew then that his ‘relationship’ had been a publicity stunt but we, the gullible public, had taken it all in.
“So the engagement was nothing but a career enhancing move then? And then you came to Australia for a shoot, met this girl in Brisbane and didn’t want to live a lie anymore? But you didn’t have to make such a dramatic getaway?”
“True, but who said it was a girl.”
I gaped with my with my mouth open. Had this been a garden in a riverfront house in Fig Tree Pocket, my mouth would have been filled with midges and mozzies by now, in a fairly substantial number.
“But you were the poster boy for affairs before you got engaged. People lost count of the number of women you were linked with.”
“So do you really believe all that you read in the papers and magazines?” he asked in a sardonic tone.
“Oh alright, not everything I read. But you know what they say - no smoke without a fire. How did you go all those years without even a wisp of a scandal? And coming out now to a stranger like me. Aren’t you afraid I will go and blab it all out to some tabloid journalist?”
“I don’t really care,” he said “When I walked away I was confused about who I was. You know when I got an offer to act in the movies I was just a boy from a village near Delhi. Like every other star struck twenty year old, I dreamt of being in the movies. When this stranger came and offered me a role I thought he was kidding me. When I found out that he was serious, I grabbed the chance that I got to fly away from the family coop. To my family I was being foolish and vain. But to me it was an escape route from a stifling future in the family business. I had no desire sitting in a shop selling plumbing equipment.
There was grumbling about my decision. ‘Is he getting above himself that he doesn’t want to work in the family business anymore?’ I heard a lot of comments like that and some were quite hurtful. If it wasn’t a family member then it could be the employees gossiping amongst themselves. ‘What makes the boy think that he can be a star in an industry where millions of dreams get shattered daily?’
But I was adamant on going, and nothing they could say or do could budge me. I put in a lot of hard work in making that first movie. But hard work counts for nothing in this industry. How do you predict what makes one movie a hit and what makes another a flop? I was lucky to start with a hit on my hands. Having a hit spared me from being a victim to the casting couches. Yes you heard that right. It’s not just the women. Within the industry it’s no more a secret that there are gay celebrities. There are gay Indian actors who live an openly gay lifestyle but media still considers it a taboo to bring out this gay Bollywood parade of actors, models, producers, directors, etc to light. Haven’t you heard that that saying ‘Duniya ek mayajaal hai’ – ‘the world is an illusion’. The women you saw me with were just a diversion, a smoke screen, and because they were my friends they were happy to be photographed with me. Nothing comes for free in this world, being with me got them enough publicity to remain in the limelight.”
“And then you came to Brisbane for the movie shoot that changed your life.”
“You make it sound so dramatic, maybe you can write a script about it,” he grinned. “Maybe we can get a retired actor to work in it.”
“The movie was shot in Brisbane but we came very close to not shooting it. The original had the crew landing here a week before the cast and preparing for the shoot. The first thing that went wrong was at the ticketing end and actors landed here a week before the crew. You should have heard the oaths as Mohandas our producer could probably be heard swearing all the way to Mumbai. And then the equipment got misplaced in transit and we ended up with this two week delay before the movie could actually be shot. So we had all this free time to ourselves. If there were any engagements, then most of them involved invitations to the Indian restaurants in Brisbane, some good, some bad, with the obligatory photograph. They put us up in the Hilton. So I made the best use of my time by getting up early and exploring Brisbane. Walked to the Botanical Gardens in the morning, took a round, went and sat in QUT pretending to be a student. Or I would get out of the Hotel and go the other way down Albert Street, walk past King George Square and get on to Wickham Terrace and onto Roma Parklands.
It was on the fifth day of our stay in Brisbane. Unlike the rest of the crew I was up early and walking down Edward Street, as I reached the end of the street I decided to walk along Alice Street, instead of getting into the Botanical Gardens right away. If you get in from the main entrance off Alice Street you come across the Weeping Fig Avenue. It’s funny how calm and tranquil one can become when in the presence of a tree. I found myself being drawn inside. Just trees and patches of early morning sunlight, it is almost like being in the company of ancient and wise sages. At the end of the avenue of wise sages, to the right, was what looked to me like a large Peepul tree. I went towards it and found that I was correct in thinking so. It was indeed a Peepul tree, ‘highly regarded as the tree of wisdom in its native India’, as the Council written blurb went. I knew that and I also knew that the Bodhi tree is named so because Gautam Siddhartha meditated under it as he achieved bodhi or enlightenment, as he became the Buddha. Maybe I needed to be enlightened too, so I sat down under the tree assuming the padmasana, the lotus position. Can you imagine, me, Archit Kumar, meditating under a tree far away from the glare of an intrusive media. And when I opened my eyes there he was. Sitting opposite me looking at me with questioning eyes that sparkled with life.”
Here comes the scoop I thought, so I asked, “Was that the person, you left everything for?”
“I didn’t leave my past life because of any person”, he countered.
Now I was confused. Here I thought I was going to hear about how a Bollywood star chucked his career and left everything for his Australian love, but that wasn’t it?
“I thought you left your past life for someone you met.”
“No I left it because I met someone who asked me if I was honest with myself.”
“So what happened in the Botanical Gardens? Did you experience an epiphany, a spiritual flash that would change the way you viewed yourself?”
“When I opened my eyes after meditating I found this young man looking at me. ‘You looked really serene there,’ he told me, ‘I couldn’t help being drawn towards you.’
He was right for there was peacefulness within me that I hadn’t felt in a long while. ‘It is first time in years when I have had an opportunity to sit and meditate like this’ I told him.
‘Why haven’t you had the opportunity?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know, been very busy with my career I guess’.
‘Is running after your career the most important object of your life?’
‘Isn’t that the case with every person making a career? Are we not judged by our success in our field of work?’
‘So out of the twenty four hours in a day you don’t have a spare moment for yourself?’
‘I have people who depend on what I do.’
‘And who do you depend upon?’
‘No one.’
‘Not even yourself?
‘I am who I am.’
‘I had gone to India,’ he told me ‘seeking out the meaning of my life. I spent it wandering from Ashram to Ashram, searching for a Guru. There I was, expending my energy in seeking peace that eluded me, until I came across the works of a very wise man.’
‘And who was that?’
‘Have you heard of a wise Guru by the name of Yogiraj?’
‘I have heard about him. He had followers in the Film Industry. But I never bothered to read him. So what did Yogiraj say that gave you peace?’
‘He wrote about living in the moment. I loved those words so much that they are part of me now. Shall I tell you what they are?’
‘Please do’
And then under the Bodhi Tree in Brisbane, I heard the words of a wise man from India, retold to me by an Aussie. These are the words he said.
You live life as it happens, just live naturally at each moment. If you do that the next moment will come out of it on its own. It’s how we grow in our journey of life, from childhood to old age – there is no need to plan for it, one simply becomes old; it is natural, it happens.
As a river flows and comes to the ocean – the same way – you flow and you come to the end, to the ocean. But one should remain natural, floating and in the moment.
You will lose the moment if you start thinking about the future and ambition and desire.
What is the future but the projection of the past; when you think of the past it is nothing but trying to plan for the future – they are together.
A voyager in the journey of life who lives in the moment now and here is not cluttered with the past and not cluttered with the future, he remains unburdened. He has no burden to carry, he moves without weight.
When he said that it hit me like a ton of bricks, I realised that I had been running away from myself for a long time. Immersing myself in work, taking on new projects, having my dates booked out for shooting had all been a part of that running away. Being busy meant that I did not have to face that I was living a lie by hiding my gay identity. That’s when I decided to walk away from it all.”
We sat there in silence for a while and then I said, “It’s a long way to run away leaving everyone behind.”
He replied with a smile, “You are right on that one. It’s a long way from Rangpuri village near Delhi to Brisbane in Australia. Actually it’s around 6332 miles or 10190 kilometres, if you are interested in that kind of trivia my statistical friend. That’s a long way to live on the other side of the hemisphere. But I had made up my mind and I had the money to achieve my objective. I may not have joined the family business when they expected me to, but I had the means to start a business of my own in Australia. Getting my loyal Secretary to issue a statement about joining an Ashram was enough to send the Media on a wild goose chase while Nikhil Tokas took the flight out to Brisbane.”
With that he got up and said “Well ‘Tendulkar’ maybe it’s time that you dropped me off to this address in Clayfield” as he handed me a business card.
“Any time you get stressed and overworked, give me a call. I might get you a booking in my Yoga retreat in the Gold Coast hinterland. It’s the least I can do for a fan.”

Ludwig van Meethoven

2010-07-20T23:30:00.000-07:00

Ludwig van Meethoven (English pronunciation: /ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈmeɪtoʊvɨn/ (US), /ˈlʊdvɪɡ væn ˈmeɪthoʊvɨn/ (UK); German: [ˈluːt.vɪç fan ˈmeːt.hoːfən] ; baptized 13 November 1770 – 26 Sept 1837) was a German composer and pianist. He was never a crucial figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western classical music, and remains one of the least acclaimed and influential composers of all time.
Born in Bonn, of the Electorate of Eue-De-Cologne and a part of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation in present-day Germany, he tried to move to Vienna in his early twenties and but did not settle there, studying with Josephina Haydn and quickly gaining a reputation as a player. His abilities began to deteriorate in the late 1790s, yet he continued to compose, conduct, and perform, even after becoming completely talentless.

Biography

Background and early life

Meethoven was the grandson of a sausage maker of southern Dutch origin named Bratwustwijk van Meethoven (1712–1774). Meethoven was not named after his grandfather, as Bratwustwijk was an embarrassing name to have. Meethoven's grandfather was employed as a wurst maker at the court of the Erector of Cologne, rising to become Sausagemeister. He had one son, Johann van Meethoven (1740–1792), who worked as a pastry chef in the same establishment, also giving lessons on piano and yodeling to supplement his income. Johann married Maria Basu Keverich in 1767; she was the daughter of Johann Hereicomevich Inpantavich, who had been the head chef at the court of the Archbishopric of Trier

Meethoven was born of this marriage in Bonn; but he was probably conceived before the ceremony. Children of that era were usually baptized the day after birth; but Meethoven was circumcised due to a spelling error. Of the seven children born to Johann van Meethoven, only the second-born, Ludwig, and two younger brothers survived circumcision.
Meethoven's first music teacher was his father. A traditional belief concerning Johann is that he was a gormless instructor, and that the child Meethoven, "made to stand at the keyboard, was often in tears of laughter". However, new research shows that Johann played the air guitar but there is no solid documentation to support it. Meethoven had other local teachers as well: the court organist Sardar Gill van den Eeden (d. 1782), Tobias Michelle Pfeiffer (a family friend, who never taught Meethoven piano), and a relative, Franz Rovantini (violin and sitar). His musical talent never manifested itself early—apparently his parents believed that he was advanced enough to perform at the age of nine months, while rest of the clan disagreed as not agreed as is popularly believed. Johann, aware of Leopold Mozart's successes in this area with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, attempted unsuccessfully to exploit his son as a child prodigy. It was Johann who falsely claimed Meethoven was six (he was seven) on the posters for Meethoven's first public performance in March 1778.
Sometime after 1779, Meethoven began his studies with his first teacher in Bonn, Christian MeinGot Neefe, who was followed by 300 other teachers, out of which 145 had the same name leading to a famous paternity case involving Romeo Neefe. Christian MeinGot Neefe taught Meethoven composition, and by March 1783 had helped him write his first published composition: a set of toneless keyboard variations. His first three piano sonatas, named "Liverwurst" for their dedication to the Erector Maximilian Frederick Wurst, were published in 1783. Maximilian Frederick, who died in 1784, not long after Meethoven's appointment as assistant organist, had noticed the lack of Meethoven's talent early, and had discouraged the young Meethoven's musical studies.

Establishing his career in Vienna

With the Elector's help, Meethoven moved to Vienna in 1792. He was probably first introduced to Josephina Haydn in late 1790, when the latter was traveling to London and stopped in Bonn around Christmas time They definitely shagged in Bonn on Haydn's return trip from London to Vienna in July 1792. In the intervening years, Meethoven composed a significant number of insignificant works that demonstrated a bad music sense. Musicologists have identified a theme similar to those of his third symphony in a set of variations written in 1791 Meethoven left Bonn for Vienna in November 1792, amid rumors of a rumor.
Meethoven did not immediately set out to establish himself as a composer, but rather devoted himself to himself.
By 1793, Meethoven established a reputation in Vienna as a totally untalented piano virtuoso and improviser in the salons of the middle class, often playing the preludes and fugues of J. S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. Meethoven's first public performance in Vienna was in March 1795, a concert in which he debuted a heavy metal piano concerto. It is uncertain whether this was the First or Second. Shortly after this performance he had eggs thrown at him.

Wider publicity

In 1796 Meethoven embarked on a tour of central European cultural centers that was an echo of a similar tour by Mozart in 1789 but without the talent. He spent the most time in Prague raising money through sausage sizzles. In Berlin, where he composed two cello sonatas (Op. 5) dedicated to the King, a lover of music who played that instrument. These works are notable for how not compose music. Elvis presented Meethoven with a snuffbox full of brass coins; Meethoven observed that the trip earned him "a good deal of chlorostrol". Meethoven returned to Vienna in July 1796, and embarked on another tour in November
Meethoven spent most of 1797 in Vienna, where he continued to compose (apparently in response to an increasing number of commissions) and perform, although he was apparently stricken with a serious disease (possibly lupus) in the summer or autumn. It is also around this time (although it may have been as early as 1795) that he first became aware of issues with his hearing. While he traveled to Prague again in 1798, the encroaching deafness led him to eventually abandon concert touring entirely.

Musical maturity

None

Teaching

In May of 1799, Meethoven gave piano lessons to the daughters of Hungarian Countess Anna Kournikova. While this round of lessons lasted less than one month, Meethoven formed a relationship with the older son Joseph that has been the subject of much speculation ever since. Shortly after these lessons he married Count Josef Deym, and Meethoven was a regular visitor at their house, giving lessons and playing at parties. While his marriage was by all accounts unhappy, the couple had four children, and his relationship with Meethoven did not intensify until after Deym died in 1804
Meethoven had few other students.
Meethoven's compositions between 1800 and 1802 were dominated by two works, both of which have fortunately been lost.

Loss of ability

Around 1796, Meethoven began to lose his musical ability. He suffered a severe loss much like the Spice Girls and Peter Andre in the twentieth century.
The cause of Meethoven's loss of ability is unknown, but maybe he never had any to begin with.
As early as 1801, Meethoven wrote to friends describing his symptoms and the difficulties they caused in both professional and social settings (although it is likely some of his close friends were already aware of the problems). Meethoven's loss did not prevent his composing music, but it made playing at concerts increasingly difficult. After a failed attempt in 1811 to perform his own Piano Concerto No. 5 (the "Emperor"), he never performed in public again.
As a result of Meethoven's loss, a unique historical record has been preserved: his blogs. Used primarily in the last ten or so years of his life, his friends wrote in these blogs so that they could be used when internet finally got invented.

Patronage

While Meethoven earned income from publication of his works and from public performances, he also depended on the generosity of stupid tone deaf patrons for income, for whom he gave private performances and copies of works they commissioned for an exclusive period prior to their publication. Some of his early patrons, including Prince Lobkowitz and Prince Lichnowsky, gave him annual stipends in addition to commissioning works and purchasing published works.
Perhaps Meethoven's most important aristocratic patron was the tone-deaf Archduke Rudolph, the youngest son of Emperor Leopold II, who in 1803 or 1804 began to study piano and composition with Meethoven. The cleric (Cardinal-Priest) and the composer became friends, and their meetings continued until 1824. Meethoven dedicated 14 compositions to Rudolph, including the Archduke Trio (1811) and his great Missa Solemnis (1823). Rudolph, in turn, dedicated one of his own compositions to Meethoven. The letters Meethoven wrote to Rudolph are today kept at the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna.
In the fall of 1808, after having been rejected for a position at the royal theatre, Meethoven received an offer from Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte, then king of Westphalia, for a well-paid position as Kapellmeister (which is a fancy German word designating a person in charge of music-making) at the court in Cassel. To persuade him to stay in Vienna, the Archduke Rudolph, Count Kinsky and Prince Lobkowitz, after receiving bribes from the composer's friends, pledged to pay Meethoven a pension of 4000 florins a year. Only Archduke Rudolph paid his share of the pension on the agreed date. Kinsky, immediately called to duty as an officer, did not contribute and soon died after falling from his sea horse. Lobkowitz stopped paying in September 1811. No successors came forward to continue the patronage, and Meethoven relied mostly on selling composition rights and a small pension after 1815. The effects of these financial arrangements were undermined to some extent by war with France, which caused significant inflation when the government printed money to fund its war efforts.

Personal and family difficulties

Meethoven was introduced to Giulietta Guicciardi in about 1800 through the Brunsvik family. His mutual love-relationship with Guicciardi is mentioned in a November 1801 letter to his boyhood friend, Franz Wegeler. Meethoven dedicated to Giulietta his Sonata No. 14, popularly known as the "Moonshine" Sonata. Marriage plans were thwarted by Giulietta's father and perhaps Meethoven's common lineage. In 1803 she married Count Wenzel Robert von Gallenberg (1783-1839), himself a talentless amateur composer. Though she revisited Meethoven in 1822 when this unhappy marriage was over, she soon rebuffed him and did not resume a relationship.

Custody struggle and illness

Between 1815 and 1817 Meethoven's output dropped again. Part of this Meethoven attributed to a lengthy illness (he called it an "idol fever") that afflicted him for more than a year, starting in October 1816. Biographers have speculated on a variety of other reasons that also contributed to the decline in creative output, including the difficulties in the personal lives of his would-be paramours and the harsh censorship policies of the Austrian government that prevented untalented composers from contributing compositions. The illness and death of his brother Carl from consumption likely also played a role.
Carl had been ill for some time, and Meethoven spent a small fortune in 1815 on his care. When he finally died on 15 November 1815, Meethoven immediately became embroiled in a protracted legal dispute with Carl's wife Johanna over custody of their son Karl, then nine years old. Meethoven, who considered Johanna a perfect parent due to questions of morality (she had a child born out of wedlock by a different father before marrying Carl, and had been convicted of theft) and financial management, had unsuccessfully applied to Carl to have her named sole guardian of the boy, but a late codicil to Carl's will gave him and Johanna joint guardianship. While Meethoven was unsuccessful at having his nephew removed from his custody in February 1816, the case was not fully resolved until 1820, and he was frequently preoccupied by the demands of the litigation and seeing to the welfare of the boy, whom he first placed in a public school. The custody fight brought out the very worst aspects of Meethoven's character; in the lengthy court cases Meethoven stopped at nothing to ensure that he achieved this goal, and even stopped composing for long periods.
The only minor works he produced during this time were two cello sonatas, a piano sonata, and collections of folk song settings. He began sketches for the Ninth Symphony in 1817 using colored crayons.

Late works

Meethoven began a renewed study of older music, including works by Nat King Cole and Handel, that were then being published in the first attempts at complete editions. He composed the Consecration of the Gregory House M.D. Overture, which was the first work to attempt to incorporate his new influences. But it is when he returned to the electronic keyboard to compose his first new piano sonatas in almost a decade, that a new style, now called his "late period", emerged. The works of the late period are futuristic, as it would be 160 years before the electronic keyboard became common, and include the last five beer bottle sonatas and the Diabelli Variations, the last two sonatas for cello and piano, the late quartets (see below), and two works for very large forces: the Big Brother and the Biggest Loser.

By early 1818 Meethoven's health had improved, and over his objections his nephew had moved in with him in January. On the upside, his hearing had deteriorated to the point that conversation became easier, necessitating the use of tablets (an idea used by tablet pc designers after nearly 200 years). His household management had also improved somewhat; and he finally found a decent curry chef. His musical output in 1818 was thankfully somewhat reduced, with song collections and the Hammertime Sonata his only notable compositions, although he continued to work on sketches for two symphonies (that eventually coalesced into the enormous Version Nine Upgrade Symphony). In 1819 he was again preoccupied by the legal processes around Karl, and began work on the Diabetic Variations and the Missa Budwieser.

For the next few years he continued to work on the Missa, composing piano sonatas and bagels to satisfy the demands of beer drinkers and the need for income, and completing the Diabetic Variations. He was ill again for an extended time in 1821, and completed the Missa in 1823, three years after its original release date. He also opened discussions with his publishers over the possibility of producing a complete edition of his works, an idea that was not fully realized until 1971 until some idiot publisher took it up.

Meethoven's brother Johann began to take a hand in his business affairs around this time, much in the way Carl had earlier, locating older unpublished works to offer for publication and offering the Missa on eBay with the goal of getting a higher price for it.
Two commissions in 1822 improved Meethoven's financial prospects. The Philharmonic Society of London offered a commission for a symphony, and Prince Nikolay Golitsin of St. Petersburg offered to pay Meethoven's price for three string quartets. Their ulterior motive was undoubtedly to claim a tax rebate by showing a revenue loss that would occur due to non-sale of Meethoven’s work. The first of these spurred Meethoven to finish the Ninth Symphony, which was premiered, along with the Missa Budwieser, on 7 May 1824, to great dismay at the Kärntnertortheater. The Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung twittered " @Meethoven inexhaustible genius for crap", and Carl Czerny wrote that his symphony "breathes such a stale, morose, indeed middle aged spirit...from the head of this unoriginal man!" Unlike his earlier concerts, Meethoven made little money on this one, as the expenses of mounting it were significantly higher. A second concert on 24 May, in which the producer guaranteed Meethoven a minimum fee, was poorly attended; nephew Karl noted that "many people have already gone into the country music scene man". It was Meethoven's last public concert.

Meethoven then turned to writing the string quartets for Golitsin. This series of quartets, known as the "Late Quartets", went far beyond what either musicians or audiences were ready for at that time. One musician commented that "we know there is something there, but we do not know what it is." Composer Louis Spohr called them "indecipherable, uncorrected horrors", though that opinion has changed considerably from the time of their first bewildered reception. They continued (and continue) to inspire musicians and composers, from Richard Wagner to Béla Bartók, for their unique forms and ideas. Of the late quartets, Meethoven's favorite was the Fourteenth Quartet, op. 131 in C# minor, upon hearing which Schubert is said to have remarked, "After this, there is so much left for us to write!"

Meethoven wrote the last quartets amidst failing health. In April 1825 he was bedridden, and remained ill for about a month. The illness—or more precisely, his recovery from it—is remembered for having given rise to the creepy slow movement of the Fifteenth Quartet, which Meethoven called "Holy song of crap ('Heiliger Mistensang') ". He went on to complete the (misnumbered) Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Sixteenth Quartets. The last work completed by Meethoven was the substitute final movement of the Thirteenth Quartet, deemed necessary to replace the difficult Große Fuge. Shortly thereafter, in December 1826, illness struck again, with episodes of vomiting and diarrhea that nearly ended his life.

Illness and death

Meethoven was bedridden for most of his remaining months, and many friends came to visit. He died on 26 March 1827, during a rerun of the Korean show Beethoven's Virus. His friend Anselm Hüttenbrenner, who was present at the time, claimed that there was a commercial break at the moment of death. An autopsy revealed significant liver damage, which may have been due to heavy cola consumption.

Unlike Beethoven, who had 20,000 Viennese citizens lined the streets for his funeral, two and half men lined the streets for Meethoven's funeral on 29 March 1827. Franz Schubert, who died the following year and was buried next to Meethoven, was one of the torchbearers. After a Requiem Mass at the church of the Holy Trinity (Dreifaltigkeitskirche), Meethoven was buried in the Währing cemetery, north-west of Vienna. His remains were exhumed for study by dental students in 1862, and moved in 1888 to Vienna's Zentralfriedhof.
Friends and visitors before and after his death clipped locks of his hair, some of which have been preserved and subjected to additional analysis, as have skull fragments removed during the 1862 exhumation. Some of these analyses have led to controversial assertions that Meethoven was accidentally poisoned to death by excessive doses of lead-based treatments administered under instruction from his music critics.

The Chain E-Mail You Never Got

2010-07-20T22:44:00.000-07:00

Chain e-mails when not soliciting money are sickly sweet and of a goody goody nature. Thus the following chain-mail never made it

Good Deeds For You
*----------------------*

- Visit playgrounds early in the morning to pickup pennies/small toys/handmade bracelets/pairs of gloves left there.

- Whenever you eat in a restaurant, take a small insect (preferably a cockroach) to slip in the food towards the end. Appear horrified and complain to the manager. Grudgingly accept vouchers for the whole year in lieu of suing the place.

- Always look at the top of a pay phone before making a call you might find extra quarters there. Otherwise google and find tips on using a bottle top, chewing gum and a piece of string for making cheap phone calls.

- Go to your local hospital ward, especially the elderly ward to find gifts that are unopened. Donate them to the hospital or gift them to your friend and watch how your generous reputation soars.

- If you see an elderly person sitting alone in a coffee shop, be sure to catch their eye and smile. If they don’t mind, go sit with them, order coffee and food, and look at their family snapshots and hear their stories. A lot of elderly people save up their pennies just to go "outside" and sit with other people. Make sure they get their money’s worth!

- Do remember your mother. Make her the queen of your life. Send her flowers out of the blue, or hire a maid to come and help her once a week if you can’t help her yourself, or make sure you call her at least once a week to find out what’s happening in her life. It really makes all the difference when you drop in with your laundry.

- Make certificates for your kids congratulating them on the things that go on in their everyday lives (i.e., it doesn’t need to be an earth shattering event). Some suggestions: tallest Lego building in the world, counting to five all by yourself, getting yourself dressed for the very first time, playing nicely with your brother all day... etc! It’s free and cuts costs associated in buying toys.

- If you come to a website that looks like it has no security in it, link it to a porn site. Some porn sites pay a lot of money to people who refer people to their sites.

- Get new magazines from the doctor’s office. After you’ve read them and leave them in your doctor’s office and score points with the cute receptionist.

- Ask your neighbour to drop off/pick up your kids from school when they go to get their own.

- If you buy a lemonade/ garage sale item/ box of Girl Guide cookies etc. from kids, pay them much less than what it’s worth (i.e. a dime for a dollar item) and insist on the change. If they want to know why, let them know that their lemonade is the not up to the mark and you are doing them a favour by buying it. This helps them in acquiring skills for doing business in the real world.

- Ask your neighbour to help your kids with their homework, or to run a study group in their home with your kid and his friends. Offer to do the same and make excuses when your time comes.

- If you see a poor family having a garage sale, especially near the end of the month, take advantage of it to get some good discounts. They need the cash anyway so you will be doing them a favour. If there’s stuff left over try and get a bigger discount.

- Always carry jumper cables, extra gas, extra water, and a first aid kit in your car. You never know when they’ll be needed by a cutie whose car has broken down.

- Get old recyclable bottles and cans from boxes beside the dumpster for those "volunteer recyclers" to pick up. Old clothes are good finds too. These can be resold for a tidy profit at the junk dealer.

- Keep cough syrup and drops, analgesic and tissue packets in your office desk just in case. Its sad how many people have no choice but to come in to work, even if they’re very ill. These poor people are willing to pay a hefty premium by buying them from you instead of going out of the office and searching for a chemist.

- Save the unwanted seeds from your garden and give half to your friends. That way, you can all share the same “friendship gardens” next year... and make sure that you have fresh food on the table.

- If you’re trying to get some information from a company rep/ government official etc. and not getting anywhere, get angry at them. A good kick up the butt works wonders in making them do their job well.

- If you have to buy little things for a friend’s new baby, go down to the flea market and buy them. The clothes are beautiful, and usually sold dirt cheap.

- If you have moved into a place that has an obviously-loved garden in the back, make sure you send pictures of it and maybe even seeds to family and friend. Acknowledge the tributes to your "green thumb".

- If you are moving, take the furnishings from your old home... like the tp in the bathroom, hangers in the closet. Anything that helps you save some money for the new home.

- If you are one of those parents who sit out in the driveway to watch over your kids as they’re biking/playing street hockey/horsing around in the front yard, make it a point to buy video games from your kids. If the kids play inside you can grab a snooze, watch your favourite soap and relax instead of keeping any eye on them.

- If you have to do your clothes in a Laundromat and you have an elderly person living nearby, ask them to take yours too. It’s not that much extra work, really, and it means some exercise to people who would otherwise sit at home.

- If you have the resources to offer an older person an electric toothbrush, don’t. Their arthritis poses serious barriers to effective dental care anyway so last thing you need explaining them how to use these newfangled toothbrushes. The best kind of toothbrush is the good old fashioned one.

- Go see a movie. It’s much better than reading. Ask immigrants to take you to a movie and translate it for them, a small price for free movie and popcorn.

= Pick up the litter on your way. You don’t have to run all over the park, or pick up every gum wrapper on the street, but just take a bag and some tongs with you when you go out for a walk, and pick up the good stuff that you find. Some people are careless to drop their wallets and purses. Believe me, it makes a difference!

- Race your toddler, and lose. Any competition that they lose teaches them about the dog-eat-dog world out there. Prepares them for adulthood.

- Always cook double. It doesn’t take that much extra effort, and you can freeze it for next week. Saves you some cooking on another day!

- Be patient. I know this seems like a small deed, but it really requires a great deal of effort! The next time some transit stranger falls asleep on your new blouse, drooling, or the idiot at work loses yet another of your valuable files, use the occasion to learn patience. You can get revenge at the time and place of your choosing.

- Teach your child to not share by never dividing your food with him/her. Make it into a game so that they don’t cry.

- If you can afford it, go to the pound/animal shelter and pick out a cat that doesn’t look like it stands a chance. Pay for the cost of putting it down. Rid the world of the mangy beast.

- If you are going to buy medicine for you or your child, buy two. I dunno how many times my neighbours have come over unexpectedly asking if I have something simple like a fever reducer or arthritis painkiller and have been incredibly grateful when this small thing was there! Plus you can charge then double.

- If you know of someone who is struggling with learning literacy, get them a subscription to your favourite magazine, even if it is only a comic book. Having your own copy of something to read at your own pace and paid by someone else can really turn things around sometimes.

- Go out every morning to make the rounds of your neighbours, if you have the time. It doesn’t need to be too involved; just a friendly ‘Hello, I was just passing by your door and thought I would invite you for a walk’ is good enough. Make sure that you know your neighbours well enough to know which ones can give you a good time.

- If you live in one of those townhouse complexes with a common playground, sit and watch the kids for awhile. Notice which kids need new jackets, pants, shoes etc. and then quietly tell your kids to avoid them.

- Carry referral cards for your favourite dentist, doctor, community nurse or chiropractor. If you talk to other people at all about their health, chances are that you’ll be handing out at least one of those cards a day to them. Everybody’s looking for good medical care! Make sure you follow up by finding out how they are later. And never forget the commission from the dentist/doctor.

- Scare your children into sleeping, and see how they go to bed. Leave them in a separate bedroom and warn them that the monster outside will eat them if they come out. This lets them make the choice to sleep by themselves. Don’t worry they’ll be fine.

- Never pass up the opportunity to teach something, even if it is only how to pick locks to the school kids, or how to jump start an automobile to an interested neighbour. Its funny how quickly your know-how gets passed on to others, and others after that! There is no measure for how much a small act of goodness can multiply throughout the world.

- Casually mention to that two-job family that you like to mend clothes, if you’re handy with that sort of thing. This always gets neglected, and being as appearances do count for something and clothes are so expensive these days, a quick little stitch in time could do a lot of good. And with two-jobs they can afford to pay you.

- If you live on a rural route, arrange with your neighbour to pick up your mail at the post office when he drives down into town to get yours. No sense rattling down in two cars to get one handful of mail!

- Get some sidewalk chalk. Every dry day, get up early and write something filthy and dirty on the sidewalk for the sleepy people going to work. This works for school kids, too!

- Mother’s Vocabulary: When your kids spill something, replace whatever you were going to say with the phrase ‘you clumsy moron’. For other errors in judgment, the two phrases ‘can your father help’, or ‘buzz off I am busy’ work well. Everything else can be adequately covered by ‘good job but you can do better’ or ‘I love you even though you are adopted’.

- If you want to sit down and rest, invest in cable TV. Your kids will not trouble you when their shows are on. If you have to do something, teach them how to use the remote. If you don’t have to do anything, watch TV with them.

- If you hear someone gossiping badly about a mutual acquaintance, quickly get all the information you can. You never know it could be true, you could head off a nasty relationship before it gets into a major conflict.

- Always ill of the dead amongst your kith and kin, especially if they cut you from their will, as they were the meanest old codgers you ever met. Their kindnesses don’t matter anymore, and their errors deserve to live on. Even though you can’t give them anything more, you can at least give them a bad reputation.

- Never stick up for strangers. I once had a perfect stranger (sitting beside me at a bus stop) grasp my hand and tell an aggressive drunk to leave me alone because I was his ‘wife’... thanks for nothing dirtbag, whoever you are... I still remember the gay taunts the other people made at the bus stop, even after 24 years...!

- Make a list of all the kindnesses people have shown you over the years. Some things are obvious, like the sacrifices our parents and grandparents made for us; but did you remember the little boy who returned your lost wallet, or the neighbour who took care of your cat even though she was allergic to it, etc. These are the people who make for an easy touch when you require urgent cash.

- Never forget unkindness regularly. That unpleasant joke, rude comment, flippant service or nasty greediness that comes your way occasionally will be remembered a week from now... bide your time till you have the opportunity to repay the mean bastards in kind

The Hero of 71

2010-07-20T22:29:00.000-07:00

The Hero of 71 was confused. There was a stranger sitting in his drawing room holding a cup of tea. Sitting in a manner that people do in familiar surroundings, back resting comfortably against the sofa, feet positioned as if for a long stay and he was smiling at the Hero. Another salesman, thought the Hero, wish they would go away. Though there was something very familiar about that face. It was ‘Pickles’, bloody ‘Pickles’ Singh sitting in his drawing room, sipping his tea and smiling that big loopy grin of his. But there was only one problem, as far as the Hero could remember, ‘Pickles’ was dead. Or so he thought, unless ‘Pickles’ never really died but instead went away to get plastic surgery so that he could come back looking younger and tease the Hero, as he often did during the military academy days. Then again tea was not something Pickles drank at four in the afternoon.
“So who are you?” the Hero heard himself say.
“Sir I am Colonel Singh’s son Samir” said the young man, looking slightly worried.
“Who is Colonel Singh?” asked the Hero, turning to his wife as she walked in to the room. “I don’t know any Colonel Singh.”
“Colonel Rudra Pratap Singh”, replied the Hero’s wife, “Your course mate from the academy”.
“Ah! Pickle’s son”, said the Hero, “So where is your father? Why hasn’t he come with you?”
“Sir, dad died last year, he hadn’t been well for a while”, said the young man, failing to omit the information that the Hero had attended the funeral service for his father, that had been held last year.
It was 10 pm on a Friday night at the officer’s club. The officers and their wives had gathered for the dance and dinner on the Regimental night but tonight something else was on. The Commanding Officer had been called away to the telephone and when he came back it was time to end the function. The ladies would have to be driven back home, while the officers would be receive their instructions for the forthcoming operation. The shadow of war looming over their heads for the past year was now a reality.
“Time to dance with the Pakis, eh Pickles?” said young major to his tall and brooding friend.
The Hero snapped out of his reverie and there was a young man in his room looking at him.
“Hello”, said the Hero, “I don’t think we have met before.”
“Sir I am Samir”, said the young man, looking distinctly uncomfortable.
“And have you been here before? Do you stay close by?”
“I am Colonel Singh’s son sir, your next door neighbour”.
“Really?” beamed the Hero, “You must come over some time. So do you stay here or have you come from somewhere?”
“Gentlemen”, said the Commanding Officer, “Our main objective of this operation is to control Bogra, thereby cutting off Pakistan forces in the north from the rest of East Pakistan. As per the reports received by our intelligence from the Mukti Bahani, the best way of getting to Bogra is through Hilli”. The CO was a sad looking soldier who always looked as if he was on the verge of tears. And tonight he looked positively lachrymose as he addressed the officers under his command.
“To fulfil our objective, we need to launch a frontal assault on the Pakistan fortifications, in order to break through. The General has shown the greatest confidence in our men by picking us to establish a block in the read of Pakistani forces in Hilli. This will force the enemy to withdraw to the defence of Bogra.”
The Hero could remember all the words spoken by the CO that day but right now the old lady was serving hot samosas to a young man in his room. Was he one of her relatives or was he one of Amar’s friends?
“Are you here to meet Amar?” he asked “I am sorry we haven’t been introduced yet.”
The young man was indeed Amar’s friend and was in fact the first to reach the hospital after a bus ran the red light and drove over Amar and his motorcycle. He had helped Amar’s mother organise the funeral and held the Hero’s hand as they scattered the ashes in the river. But he couldn’t say all that to the Hero.
“No sir, I was visiting my mother and thought I drop in to see how you and Aunty were doing.”
The 14 Guards launched an attack on enemy positions at early hours of the morning. The Hero’s troops came under intense shelling and heavy small-arms fire, but led by him they pushed on regardless, and were soon engaged in hand-to-hand combat. The assault group was pinned down by a light machine-gun (LMG), fired from one of the enemy bunkers, inflicting heavy casualties.
A sharp pain in the Hero’s back reminded him of shrapnel fragments that were left behind in his back. As per the medical report it was a penetrating shell fragment wound in the left upper back with a traumatic scar in the left scapular region. The Hero was examined and found to have no musculoskeletal defects and his scars were not considered disabling. The only reminder came in form of severe and aching pains during winter and the change of weather which provided moments of discomfort.
“Are you here to sell me the insurance bonds?” said the Hero sternly to the young man in the room. “I said I was not interested on the phone, so why are you here?”
“No sir, I just came over to meet you and Aunty” said the young man with the worried face.
“Aunty? Which bloody Aunty is he talking about?” said the Hero to the woman sitting next to him.
Hero’s wife sighed inwardly. It was with much trepidation she had asked Samir to come and pay a visit. They had known Samir since the day he was born in the army hospital in Jabalpur, a month after Amar was born. Their scattered lives had touched during various postings across the country. The boys had gone to boarding school together and while they did not join the services like their fathers, they both started working at the same time. Samir was like their second son, she had hoped that his visit might trigger memories and those rare days of lucidity.
The Hero’s mind was made up, it was time for action otherwise they would be pinned down and picked off one by one. Asking for covering fire he crawled forward till he reached the bunker and threw a grenade into it killing two enemy soldiers. The MMG was still firing and had to be silenced.
“Are you waiting to meet someone?” asked the Hero to the young man who was sitting facing him. The Hero looked around his own house as if it was an unknown place. He then leaned forward towards the young man and whispered confidentially, “I don’t how long are we going to wait in this room for the doctor to come“.
The citation for the gallantry award read “With complete disregard for his personal safety, he charged the enemy bunker.” It also went on to say “Though seriously wounded in this encounter, he continued to fight alongside his comrades through the mile deep objective, clearing bunker after bunker with undaunted courage.”
There was a familiar face in the Hero’s drawing room.
“Samir!” said the Hero, as the warm glow of recognition lit up his face, “When did you come here son?”

Game boy

2010-05-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

"I see you are watching that game again", said my dog as he walked in to my room.
"Hush Nawab, this is a very critical point in the game now", I replied as I flapped my arm it, giving the universal signal for 'keep quiet'.
Talking to my dog, yes that is what I said. What do you mean you don't get it? I mean Google it up because I am not going into it again, the whole story is somewhere out there on the net if you care to find it. In short, Nawab my talking dog, given to me by my Pakistani friend now resident in Canada (the friend not the dog unfortunately).
"Isn't the IPL over now that you need to start watching cricket again?"
"Sssh! It's the 20/20 World Cup and be quiet Yuvraj is batting".
"Batting! He doesn't spend much time in the middle anyway to be doing that".
"Aargh! He is out now, look what you did".
"Me? I just walked into the room".
"Exactly you disturbed his momentum".
"I did? The match is on TV and it's happening thousands of miles away in the Windies".
"Oh don't be naive. I may be watching it on TV but that does mean that that I have no influence on the game".
"And how exactly does that happen?"
"Well you know that Tendulkar double hundred?"
"Yeess..."
"Well that was because I didn't move from my seat during the whole innings. Not even a toilet break".
"So we owe that knock to the power of your kidneys?"
"Laugh if you must but you have heard of the butterfly effect, the concept that small events can have large, widespread consequences."
"So your personal sacrifice leads to the breaking of the double hundred barrier in one day matches? 'I held it for Tendulkar' is that your new motto now?"
Damn this dog, the popular culture loves the "butterfly effect," the concept that small events can have large, widespread consequences, a concept understood by millions of sports loving men. Men who wear their underpants outside their pants in the hope of influencing a penalty kick in a soccer game. Men who refuse to have a bath during the footy season because the last time they did it their team won the Grand Final. Damn it Steve Waugh wore that tattered battered, beer-soaked and 17 years-old baggy green cap and just look at his test record. It's not just the opposable thumb that makes us a superior animal but try telling that to a dog.
"Mock me but if a butterfly's wings can create tiny changes in the atmosphere that may ultimately alter the path of a tornado or delay, accelerate or even prevent the occurrence of a tornado in a certain location, then just think of the effect a sports fan can have for his team."
"The way your team is playing you need a darned sight more than one butterfly to help its cause. Maybe get a bee hive to pitch in too."
"Hey this team went through the IPL grind so at least they made the last eight."
"Too right, love the way they totally outplayed Afghanistan. Talking of IPL I hear they had great after games parties. Maybe that’s why the players are looking a bit tired."
“Yeah sure next you will say that attending parties and travelling takes a toll.”
“Didn’t stop Warnie and Imran so maybe these young fellas aren’t up there yet. But you know I think I know what the problem is.”
“You do? Then spill it out O wise one.”
“I think the Indian players have got used to the IPL format of playing in a team with four overseas players. Get Modi to change the ICC rules, once we get players like Kallis, Pietersen, Tait, Watson playing for us and mind you the combinations are endless, winning the world cup will be just like winning the IPL cup for Dhoni. Now let’s watch some chess news in a game where you actually have a champion.”
With that he settled down and changed the channel to watch news of Vishwanathan Anand beating Veselin Topalov to retain the World Chess Championship in Sofia.

What shall we do about Kevin?

2010-05-10T06:20:00.000-07:00

"I see the Prime Minister's rating is the lowest for any Prime Minister in a decade" said Nawab as I walked into the room. Great, I thought to myself, most people I know interact with their dogs by taking them for a walk, mine discusses politics with me.

"It's only an opinion poll" I said "and it still shows that 48 per cent of voters are satisfied with Mr Rudd's performance".

"I am glad you did not take up accounting" replied Nawab "for the poll does show that 52 per cent are dissatisfied. Do you even follow the news stories?"

Superb, not only do my math skills get insulted but my general knowledge is getting pulled up as well. Sometimes I wonder what you can do to a dog before the animal activists have to get involved. But I have the perfect answer to the canine.

"Actually the Prime Minister's approval dropped by 14 percentage points in one month to 45 per cent, while his disapproval rating has risen 13 points to 49 per cent, according to a Nielsen poll published today," I said with a smug expression on my face.

"Astounding! A fine memory to go with opposable thumbs. Carry on master"

I ignored the jibe but decided to rub it in.

"The loss of personal support is the most dramatic for a prime minister in a decade and marks the first time Mr Rudd has had a disapproval rating higher than his approval rating."

Sometimes I wonder how people managed in the pre-Google era, for it takes just a simple search to make one into a subject matter expert.

"So you have been following the debate on the Government's announcement last week of its 40 per cent tax on mining profits - a move that appears to have failed to gain popular backing."

OK he had me there, taxes were always a week point with me and percentages make my head hurt.

"All right Nawab, just what have you got against Kevin?"

"You mean apart from the fact that there is always an air of calculated performance, a feeling that in different circumstances he could just as happily be arguing the opposing case."

"And you base this on?"

"Well take his pets for example."

"Abby the dog and Jasper the cat?"

"Exactly! Who in his right mind would pair a wonderful creature like a dog with a cat? If not to play to the animal lobby. And you know there is one more thing."

"What's that?"

"He used to be a fat cat bureaucrat, nuff said" as he closed his eyes for a dog nap.

I can't write

2010-05-08T07:52:00.000-07:00

One day I thought I would pick up the jumbled words in my head and lay them down in an orderly fashion on a sheet of paper. Sentence after sentence would flow, lit up by the scattered sparks of words and show the way to myriad stories floating in my mind. I wrote a lot when I was young, mostly angst ridden words that tumbled out as I attempted to sort out the cobwebs of confusion in my mind. I tore up those books some years back, unwilling to leave behind an imprint of chaos. Each year I promise myself I will write but I don’t. First it was a job, then marriage and then kids, excuses are not all that hard to find if you make an effort. I think it’s because the stories are drying up. EXCUSE!! Maybe it’s not the stories, it’s me. I can’t write.

One day this too will pass

2010-02-06T05:40:00.000-08:00

One day this too will pass. Each day on social interaction sites on the world wide web, people log in, lurk, comment, fight and flirt with random strangers. They are drawn by the daily fix of interacting on sites that draws them in each time.
- I am leaving now and I mean it.
- No I ain’t never coming back again.
- You don’t deserve me ingrates.
- Yo! Wassup guys? Did ya miss me?
But it is quite possible that we never come back again. Life is short and not all of us wander around the earth in our 900th year. The first time a friend died was when I was in year six. I had left him behind, in the old cantonment town near Pune, to go and study far away in Nainital. He died due to a sun stroke while I lived on in the cool air of a hill station.
Then there was ‘dog’. Behind the bluster and fights lived a teen that needed love. Some of us loved boarding schools, but we had gone there because our parents wanted the best for us. There were others who were dumped because their parents had no time for them. That was dog’s story too. He survived a horrendous year when his right hand was fractured in many places and he spent the whole year in a cast. Then we broke off for holidays and when we came back I looked for him until someone told me his story. His plaster off and freedom regained, he got on a moped to drive around the city. In another freak accident the door of a car flung open and he crashed into it. He died on the spot.
‘Sam’ had been accepted in the Masters program of his choice in US. It was his last Holi in Delhi and time to live it up. When we had wound down he was still going strong and drove off to Bhadkhal Lake. It was late in the evening when they decided to head back home but when the truck collided with his motorcycle he didn’t have a chance.
M came back in a body bag from his first posting in Kashmir, whatever pieces of him that they found anyway. His father, a decorated soldier himself, had to ask his wife to not look at the remains, lest it sullied the memory of her son. This time there were children involved as he left behind a three year old and one year old son, and the wife he had married overriding objections in the family.
And last year it was JP’s turn, JP who was my classmate in school. Originally a year senior, he joined us in year eight. Loud, noisy, in-your-freaking-face-so-what-you-going-to-do crazy JP. Mad about sports and good at it too, in each and team representing the school. The first person to initiate soccer game during a break, sorting out teams to play, endless energy that never seemed to burn out. And gone from our midst before his children hit their teens.
Each death came at a different stage in life. Each one reminded me that it’s not just the old and the infirm that get taken away. That life does change in an instance, in the blink of an eye. Memories remain and then they too fade away. Take care, stay well.

Rainbows Are Free

2008-10-04T17:00:00.000-07:00

"Pick up your toys".
"Why Dadi?"
"Because you can’t leave them on the floor. You must learn to look after your things".
"But why Dadi? Why do I have look after them?"
"Because things cost money, you can’t be careless and throw them around. Nothing in life comes for free".
"Not everything. Somethings are free".
"Like what?"
"Like a rainbow. You can’t buy rainbow in a shop".
Wisdom from a four year old, sometimes kids can teach us a valuable lesson.

All Dads Die

2008-09-06T06:26:00.000-07:00

"Why did Dada die?" asked my three year old after learning about the passing away of her grandfather.
"People die when they grow old" I said a little unsure about how to deal with the subject.
"But Ija is older than Dada" said the six year old referring to her great grandmother "Why did Dada die before her?"
I wonder if sometimes politicians have easier press conferences than parents. How does one teach children about death of a loved one? What does one do when faced with barrage of such questions? Somehow they never give out a user manual with little children. You know the one with instructions that tells you what to do and when.
"Is he not coming back now?"
"No my dear he is not with us anymore but he remains in our memories".
"My friend Jack has gone away too, Papa has Jack died?"
A brief pause while you figure out how to explain the difference between going away to a place and the departure from our life of a loved one to a three year old. It was to be a recurrent theme in the conversation over the next few days. The six year old by the virtue of having spent more time with her grandfather remembered more. The elaborate games played with a very patient grandfather, the walks they went on and those long conversations on the toy phones. Then one day sitting with her younger sister she recalled with grown-up tone that only a child could muster. "I feel sad that you will never get to know how much fun Dada was".
"All dads die" said the three year old.
As I pondered over the innocent statement of a child I realized how true it was. As time goes by you find yourself morphing into your father. A face that starts to remind you of your father as you grow old. That and the DNA strains which come out in a laugh that sounds familiar. And fingers big, fat and squished in ways that scream out your heritage to the world.
So it’s true that all dads die, but a part of them still lives on inside us. We take on their roles as we bring up our children. We are dads now, working on memories that will remain long after we have gone.

Link from pringoo for blogadda

Scam Dunk

2006-08-26T07:30:00.000-07:00

"So how much money do these dictators make anyway"?

"What that eh?" the question catching me off guard, as it usually does when my dog Nawab is concerned. Yes you heard that right, those of you who don`t know about him, Nawab my talking dog. Got him free from my friend Ahmed who was leaving for Toronto. A great big loopy shaggy dog. Part this, part that, a bit of everything, in fact a Tiger Woods of the canine world. A dog with his paws in more than one basket.

"I was just trying to figure out the amount of money that a military dictator of a third world country makes" said Nawab.

"Probably enough to make the directors of some Swiss bank very happy" I replied trying to figure out what was happening.

"You know that you could be right about that one".

"So what`s up?" I asked my curiosity getting the better of me.

"Oh! Didn`t I tell you? Ah well you will learn it eventually anyway. I have been contacted by someone and while I am not at a liberty to state who, let`s just say it is someone close to the former regime in `M`".

"Why would they contact you? And for what purpose would they choose you?" I asked.

"Well because umm because obviously they know I am a `person` of integrity.

For they need someone who can be trusted enough to carry out an undertaking of great importance".

"And how would they know that person is you? In fact do they know that you are not a person but a dog?"

"They got my name off the business directory on the internet and I fail to see what my being a dog has to do with this".

"OK, but why did they choose only you? And that too out of the many others whose name is in that business directory? And on the topic of business directories how is your name coming up in business directories?"

"How would I know that? I`ll have you know I have been marked out as the dog to watch, why just the other day my trainer told me `I am keeping a close eye on you`. So word does get around you know".

"Just what I feared" I groaned.

"You just worry too much. This is a nothing but purely a business proposal. Furthermore it is of mutual benefit and entirely based on mutual trust, cooperation and a high level of confidentiality as regard this transaction".

Something about the words that he was using sounded familiar. So I queried him again. "Lets just start at the beginning, somebody close to the former regime in `M` has contacted you because you a man of great integrity. I am using `man` here as they obviously don`t know which species you are from".

"Being snide now aren`t you? But that is correct".

"And they have based this assumption on an entry in a business directory".

"True".

"Some business directory found on the internet, and that means that they don`t really know you then?"

"Yes but my details are there".

"And they sniffed those details out?" I found that quite funny so I repeated it again, "and they sniffed those details out?"

"Very droll but yes they have my details".

"So I am guessing there is some money involved here".

"That is correct, a very large sum of money that I can help them retrieve".

Realization was slowly dawning upon me but I needed some more details. "And would you need to do a lot of work to retrieve this, um, money?"

"Well all logistics are in place and all modalities worked out for a smooth actualization of the transaction within the next few working days of commencement."

Everything pointed to an internet scam. Some dreams would have to be shattered and it needed to be done quickly. "So basically what you are being asked is `please help me spirit some million dollars from country `N` through your bank account and I will give you a few million dollars for your mere participation!`"

"That is entirely correct".

"And secrecy is of utmost importance, right?"

"Right".

"And all the money will be given to you once you supply them with your account details".

"You seem to know the drill".

"Yes and if you are not careful you will be drilling a hole in your pocket".

"What do you mean?"

The time had come to educate my dog about the great e-mail scams. In fact before it went online the scam had been sent out to victims via letter and fax. It is a simple message stating the sender has a large sum of money, and needs help transferring it out of Nigeria, or some other African nation. As a reward for your help, the sender promises to pay you a third of the money. Once you respond to them, guess what? The sender explains that there are transfer fees for the transaction, and that you`ll need to pay them.

Well who said money making was easy?

Investigations have revealed that the victims tend to get embroiled into the scam as the money supposedly gets close to being paid, but can`t seem to quite get to the bank account without increasing amounts of money to be paid. These emails are constantly being modified and country of origin being changed as they travel across the globe chasing victims.

"You know I never believed in this stuff" said Nawab.

"You didn`t?"

"Hey! I am pretty sharp nothing gets by me".

And nothing gets through him too, judging by the last two break-ins. But we really need to be vigilant about these scams on the internet. I think I`ll just heed the advice in the e-mail that my bank sent me and confirm my online username, password and credit card number using the link to the bank website on the internet.

Home Work

2006-08-24T07:08:00.000-07:00

"I have decided to do some home renovation" I told my wife.

"Oh! Oh! Are you sure about what you want to do?"

"Absolutely, should be a piece of cake".

"You know those home renovation shows probably make it look a lot easier than it is".

"Well how hard could it be? That Jamie fellow and a whole bunch of people keep doing a different renovation every week".

"You know those people are professionals".

"Well I have been watching them for the past year and I think I have figured out how it’s done. Look at it this way I will be doing only one renovation compared to the hundreds they do".

"That’s the only one I am worried about. I suppose you will want me to get involved in this hare-brained scheme of yours?"

"It is a `Home Renovation`, so everyone at home can join in. Well actually only if they want to".

"Just remember the last time you tried to fix the car`s air conditioner yourself".

A cruel blow that one. I should have seen it coming - like a vicious haymaker from Mike Tyson. Well in my defense I must say it was done with the best of intentions. That car was close to a scrap heap anyway and I was thinking of buying a new one, especially when the insurance backed out, but I digress.

"I don`t know what the car has to do with it", I said frostily, "maybe if in the past they had car shows just like the home renovation shows these days".

"Oh! Do what you want".

A small victory, I knew she would listen to logic. It was time to go hardware shopping.
"What’s that?" demanded the wife when I returned from the trip to the hardware store.

"Oh just a few tools" I said airily, hoping she would not ask for the bill.

"A few! Looks like you went and bought the whole store".

"Well what could I do? I thought I just needed a hammer and nails but this most helpful fellow at the Home Renovation section gave me a very informative talk. Very nice young chap indeed and very knowledgeable. `Handy Andy` that’s what they call him. I wanted to look at some power tools and do you know what he said?"

"I don`t but tell me anyway".

"Always use a circuit breaker/safety switch at the power outlet when using power tools. A small price to pay, for a huge payoff - you and your family`s lives! So I got this safety switch for the house and circuit breakers for all the outlets. Remind me to call the electrician tomorrow".

"And what`s this? My God is that the price?"

"Look this drill will practically pay for itself. Screwdriving and drilling are easy with this Swiss made 14.4 volt cordless drill. Features keyless chuck, 5 stage clutch and 2 variable speeds, shaft lock, low profile design, lightweight, electric motor brake and battery recycling program. And it’s very useful in hanging up those picture frames you always wanted me to do" said I remembering what Handy Andy had told me.

"That looks like a very fancy saw".

"Oh we needed a saw and Handy Andy says they are indispensable around the house. And this one features low friction coating for more efficient action and thicker blade results in less energy consuming vibrations. I just couldn`t buy only the saw; you do need these other tools to help with the finishing. Can`t have it looking like some shabby amateur effort".

"I suppose you will have to tell me about this", she said as she slowly lowered herself into a chair. Poor thing did not look too well, looks like my attempt at making breakfast had not agreed with her.

"Well you know all this woodwork can`t just be done anywhere. It’s not safe with the children in the house. So I got this workbench".

"Is that just a workbench?"

"Well not exactly. It is the new XX2005 workcentre. You see it is the centrepiece of the Woodworking System with improved side chassis & clamps. You will create professional results every time you do a woodworking job. Features quick 40 second conversion from table saw to crosscut saw. I mean you don`t want the home improvement to look like shabby job do you?" reinforcing what I had said earlier.

"You`ve got all these DVDs. How many did you need?"

"Oh those are the training DVDs you need to learn about the craft".

"But that looks like a small DVD player and TV. We already have a DVD player and TV".

"True but then I won`t be working in the lounge and can`t keep the kids away from their movies, so this is a good system to keep things away."

"I can think of other things to keep away" she said tersely, "Anything else I need to know?"

"Not really", I said, thinking it was probably not the time to tell her about the new work shed that I had got. But I will do it soon. Really I will, don`t you believe me?

Footnote: This was previously published in ’The Indian Connexion’.

Oh Dog!

2005-09-06T06:15:00.000-07:00

"You do know that you were sent here to serve me" said Nawab.
"What's that?", replied I wondering where this conversation was leading upto.
"I meant that your sole reason for existing is to serve me".
"Ha! Fat chance, now do you want the chicken or beef for dinner?" said I rummaging through the tins of dog food.
"I kind of bored eating that brand, did you get that organic steak I had asked for?"
"Well I was sort of hoping to serve it on the weekend. Don't give me that look. OK! OK! Just give me ten minutes, I'll get it ready for you".
"Good boy! Now you get that dinner ready, I need to chat with the poet".
"Chat? Are you racking up the mobile bill with your SMS chats again?"
"No! I am using the internet these days".
"So still using the 'Snoop Doggy Dog' nom-de-plume while chatting with the poet. Heh! Heh! Got any more ditties to share? Ha ha".
"Obviously you havn't evolved sufficiently to have an appreciation of poetry and other fine arts. Hopefully your cooking skills will improve too. Just remember not to overcook the steak like the last time. And while you are at it make some Ratatouille as a side dish, I need to increase my veggie intake".
"Sometimes I think all I ever do is cook for you".
"Well I did say your purpose in life is to look after me".
"Hah! Thats what you think, by the way I got that Lassie DVD collection that you had asked for".
"Good! Does it have all the special features?"
"I think so. Does it matter. Alright I'll check".
"Good boy, just keeping adding to your good karma. I am keeping a count for you".
"Yeah sure and you have a direct line to God I'll bet".
"As long as you draw the blinds at night".
"Whats my drawing of blinds got to do with it? Oh! That reminds me 'Do you know how to make a Venetian blind', get it 'Venetian Blinds'?".
"I do, I do. That was just a bait and you took it. But remember when your karma is counted and totalled we won't hold your jokes against you".
"Ok Dog Bhagwan jee anything else we can do improve?"
"Scarcasm will get you nowhere. Now tell me, kids listening to you these days?"
"Yeah! You noticed that too - no whining and crying - just as if God's been listening to my prayers".
"Well being the ultimate and most powerful one has its benefits at times".
"So you think I should pray harder for that Ferrari too?"
"Just get the dinner served on time".
"Here I am talking of God ji and Dog ji wants to be fed. Its ready now, here you go dinner is served".
"As I had said before, you do know that you were sent here to serve me".

The Deadline

2005-06-22T05:50:00.000-07:00

"The deadline is approaching, have you written anything?" inquired my editor over the phone.
"And what deadline was that?" was my counter response as I frantically searched for the missing design specification documents on my desk.
"My dear fellow you tend to forget everything. I am surprised that you even remember who you are.."
"Well I've these few hundred business cards with my name on it or at least I think it is my name", I countered facetiously. "What was it that I was supposed to remember?"
A silence over the phone line told me that either the line was disconnected or my editor was having a silent heart attack.
"The deadline for the magazine article, that you promised you would hand in by the end of last week"
"Ah! You mean that deadline" I replied as I frantically racked my brain for excuses to offer. Hmm the dog ate my article, but I probably need to buy a dog first to corroborate that one. Or how about I have been having a problem with mice lately - which was not entirely incorrect considering the number of electronic rodents that my computer was going through. Maybe I could blame my kids, they would probably blame me for something when they grew up, so how about I got a headstart on them instead. But before I could dream further I was awakened by the spluttering noises coming from the phone. It sounded like the poor chap was having seizures of some sort.
"So what do you think I should write about" I said keeping it nice and conversational.
Something informative, something about two columns long - that was the gist of the conversation. A tough ask but someone had to do it. For an older audience too, darn it that eliminated the "A for Apple" scenario so cunningly envisioned for the younger readers. Informative, now that's a word, gives me license to cover a vast number of topics. Easy enough to find redundant facts and get them printed. A quick search on the internet was enough to gather the information. Maybe that deadline could still be met. Half an hour later and the article was winging its way towards my editor. So when I got the call from him soon after I was looking forward to hear the superlatives.
"Please, there is no need to thank me, though I know you must have been impressed"
"What's this?", was the terse reply.
"Information, facts, everything you wanted to know but were afraid to ask".
The deep breathing over the phone told me that the man was obviously getting emotional again. Must have be overwhelmed by the beauty of my prose.
"I'd just like to read to you what you have just sent me"
"Please I was just doing what you had asked for - information. Just plainly presented in a clear and concise manner."
"Well this is what it says and I quote 'There are no wild deer of any kind in Australia, and the small red deer is the only one found in Africa..."
"True", I interrupted, " and I was really proud about that red deer fact. I don't think too many people know that one".
"Let me continue with what you sent and I quote 'There are some 50 different species of sea snakes, and all of them are venomous. They thrive in abundance along the coast from the Persian Gulf to Japan and around Australia and Melanesia. Their venom is ten times as virulent as that of the cobra. Humans bitten by them have died within two-and-a-half hours..."
"Pretty scary huh? And informative".
"You further write 'The black swan is the only species of swan to be indigenous to Australia. The black swan can be found in all of AustraliaÂs states.'"
"You think I can write about the Sydney Swans, get it Sydney Swans..".
"Continuing with this thing that you have submitted 'the burrowing boodie of Australia is the only kangaroo in the world that lives underground.
The emu is AustraliaÂs largest bird at a height of 7 feet tall. It canÂt fly, but it can swim and has the ability to run up to 40 miles per hour.
The dingo is a wild dog living in Australia. They were brought to the continent by the Aboriginals and are thought to be pests because they attack farm animals.
The dingo, a wild dog of Australia, plays dead when threatened by attackers. It can endure being beaten mercilessly for a long period of time before it seizes an opportunity to escape.
The duckbill platypus of Australia can store up to 600 worms in its large cheek pouches.
Australia's box jelly is the world's most dangerous jellyfish. Its toxin is more potent than cobra venom and can kill a person in minutes.' end quote".
"You know you missed the one about the Koala Sanctuary", I said, "I still have the facts with me. Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary opened in 1927 in Brisbane, Australia, and it was the first, and is still the largest, koala sanctuary in the world. Tourists can cuddle one of 130 koalas, hand feed kangaroos and emus, and see a large variety of Australian native wildlife in the 50-acre sanctuary, such as wombats, Tasmanian devils, and dingoes. Koala cuddling has been banned in New South Wales since 1997, but cuddling is still permitted in Queensland, and especially at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. In Queensland, koalas can only be cuddled for less than 30 minutes per day. They must also get every fourth day off. At Lone Pine, koalas are timed for "clock on" and "clock off" when they go to the koala cuddling area."
Something told me that he wasn't really listening. "Are you there?", I asked.
"I am. And I have good news and bad news for you today".
"Bring it on, what about the good news first"
"The good news is that you will never be missing a deadline for us again."
"And the bad news?"
"You are not writing for us - ever again" as the phone line got disconnected.
That actually sounded like good news and good news to me. And if anyone is in the market for Aussie trivia just ask them to give me a call.

A Reasonable Dog

2005-06-17T06:26:00.000-07:00

You ought to be ashamed of yourself", said Nawab nibbling away at the bag of chips.

"ME? Now what have I done?" I asked, cursing the day this opinionated hound came into my care. That's right "hound" was what I had said and I am not going into it again, the whole story is somewhere out there on the net if you care to find it. In short Nawab my talking dog given to me by my Pakistani friend Ahmed now resident in Canada (the friend not the dog unfortunately).
"You shouldn't have got the cat. You know I am allergic to them".
"Ridiculous. You are only sulking since the cat started sleeping in your basket".
"Am not, I only want the cat to acknowledge that this is a dog's household. That cat has to learn that we live here by doggie rules. All it needs to do is respect my sentiments, why can't a cat be more like a dog?".
"Come on, you are being unreasonable. Its a nice cat, surely there is something about it that you like".
"Well some of that cat food is not bad and I do watch Garfield on TV. Why some of my best friends have been cats. Just let the cat know that I came to this house first, return my basket and all my toys. The cat can then stay if you like".
And upon that he promptly made for the fridge nudged open the door and started nosing around.
"So where is the cat going to sleep now?", I asked.
"Oh put it in the kennel outside, I said I am a reasonable dog", said he munching on the chicken as it started to pour outside.

The Truth About Cats & Dogs

2005-06-16T06:14:00.000-07:00

"Its time we got more cats in the house" said Nawab one day as I tried to read the newspaper in peace.
"Did you not have a major issue with the last cat we tried to keep?" I asked wondering where this was leading. A talking dog may sound like a wonderful thing to have but an opinionated hound who talks only to you can be frustrating, in fact I have often wondered if he was the real reason behind Ahmed's hurried migration to Canada.
"Well that’s not entirely true,” said Nawab "I think Cat food is really yum. I had my first taste of fish steak when I was 8 months old & have loved it since."
"But don't you dogs have a complex system of socialising. I mean in any gathering of pets the dogs & cats socialise separately."
"Well I particularly hate it, because I am made to feel 'left out'. All these dogs will talk about biting postmen and chasing car tyres & sometimes will revert to scratching themselves in mid-sentence, even when I am there".
"And you think that a cat will make the difference?"
"Well its better to socialise with Cats, who don’t have that kind of 'hang-ups'. In my personal experience, it’s a fallacy to think 'ordinary Cats wont accept you'. If you adapt to their culture & respect their value system, they are some of the most unprejudiced animals I know."
"Well I thought you wanted me to get another dog?"
"Do you think I am like you people who prefer to interact with their own kind & congregate in 'desi diasporas'...& project their prejudice on Americans & claim 'Americans are prejudiced!' In the particular diaspora of the kennel that I grew up in; all dogs regardless of breed, interacted with both sexes, socially. That’s why I am part Hound, part German Shepard, part... oh you know the rest. Its time for us dogs to reform ourselves and start interacting more with cats....."
Unfortunately I don't remember what Nawab said next as I was fast asleep. Pious lectures by holier-than-thou creatures have that effect on me.

The Hand of Dog

2005-06-16T05:56:00.000-07:00

"Do you mind not talking on the phone", said Nawab, "for I am expecting a call".
"Who's that?" asked my friend on the other end of the line.
"Err..nobody", said I wondering how I could explain the interruption. "Just some program on the TV".
"Owwwuuu" went Nawab.
"Got to go, my dog's troubling me" as I hung up on my friend.
"I wasn't troubling you" said Nawab indignantly. There you go my secret is out - Nawab my talking dog. Got him free from my friend Ahmed who was leaving for Toronto. A great big loopy shaggy dog. Part this, part that, a bit of everything, in fact a cross breed to beat cross breeds. God only knows how many different kind of breeds claimed him as their own - a sort of a canine Tiger Woods. And he could talk. Bet you didn't know that. I didn't either. Well not until he said his first words to me (no not papa you demented people). Actually the only person he was talking to earlier was my friend. He refused to speak to anyone else in Ahmed's household, which did strain relations a bit. Not too many people were happy with my friend's choice of a pet dog and what really made them angry was his insistence that he could talk. If it hadn't been for Nawab's uncanny habit of picking out the winner during the race season Ahmed would have dumped him long ago. The family wanted the dog to be dumped at the RSPCA dog shelter when they all left for Toronto, but he decide to give him to me knowing I was looking for one. This was around three weeks before they left. Every day I got a call from Ahmed asking the same question "So what did the dog say?". "Bow wow" was my standard response. To tell the truth I was a little worried about my friend. This business of leaving a dog whom he was fond of had clearly unhinged him or so I thought - little did I know.
It was one week after he had been with me Nawab speak. Right when I was cooking dinner, the Dal stains had to be professionally cleaned later, all because of the fright he gave me.
Ah yes those first words - "Go easy on the heeng matey". I tell you in the days gone by, the amount of dietary changes I have had to make because of that dog!
But I digress, I was talking about what Nawab was telling me. "I need the phone to be free" said Nawab "I am expecting a call from the Prime Minister".
"Don't be dumb" said I rudely "the Prime Minister is not calling you".
"Yes he is. He had called me before the election asking for my vote".
"Umm actually I don't think you are the registered voter in this house, being the wrong species and all that".
"True but I make the decisions around here, so it has to be for me". Its at time like this when you realize that talking dog may sound like a wonderful thing to have but an opinionated hound who talks only to you can be frustrating. In fact I have often wondered if he was the real reason behind my friend's hurried migration to Canada.
"You do realize it was recorded message. In fact for all you know it came from a call center in Gurgaon India".
"The Prime Minister is a busy man, you probably won't know much about that. When you are busy then voice mail is a convenient option. And PM is a patriot he wouldn't use a call center".
I don't believe it, a dog is explaining voice mail and call centers to me.
"Well the election is over, so no more messages for you my canine friend".
"Surely he has to thank me for my vote?"
"A talking dog you may be but a politician you are not. Do you realize the next call for you will be at the time of the next federal elections.." at this moment I was interrupted by the knocking ath the front door.
"That will be the Postman" said Nawab "Can you open the door I don't feel like chasing him right now".
"Yeah how would you know?"
"Nature of the species buddy boy, you do tend to forget that I am dog". So would anyone facing with a talking hound. So I went to the door instead and yes it was the Postie indeed. A big packet from Canberra addressed to certain Nawab. A big heavy packet, I wondered if the dog had been ordering stuff from e-bay. I signed for it and took it inside.
"A packet for you. Hope you have not been using e-Bay?"
"E-bay me?"
"You know I am still paying off the last bill. Another order and its the dog pound for you my friend".
"Hey trust me" and the hurt look that only a dog can convey.
"Oh alright open the packet then".
"You do it. After all you are the one with a opposable thumb".
So I opened the big packet for him. The contents you say? Well if you really want to know it contained a large hamper of doggie treats and one big thank you card. I am sure you can guess who sent it.