A Very Veritable Breakthrough

Recommended by International Truth Serum Foundation and the makers of True Lies.

The Compulsive Liars Coterie says this does not work... oh well! 

I've been farmed!

India is an agrarian society, where farming is not just a means of earning a livelihood, but also a culture that transcends the biological boundaries. We have all been taught in school that India is a land rich in resources. Well, chief among them are humans. And by virtue of inherent randiness, human resources are quite renewable. Given that, it seems as if India was meant to be a big human farm, for none other than our dear friends from the microscopophere - viruses, bacteria, or now the extra-smart Mr Superbug. For them, there is no dearth of crops (humans are among the few organisms that are in heat throughout the year). India presents to our unicellular (sometimes not even that) entities this Petri dish, where they have all the humans they can experiment on and then fashion themselves in the latest microbial haute couture.

Viruses, or the fence sitters (we are yet to figure out which side of the living-non-living divide they fall on), have found fertile grounds here, in the tropics. It's as if they were offered on a platter an opportunity to go out, multiply and fill the world. The strategy, divide and rule, was spelt out for them. The other day, while reading up about Dengue, my colleague and I discovered that it's a virus that loves to travel business class on their exclusive carrier - Aedes airlines. And with a fancy name like flavivirus, who can doubt they belong to the uber-chic movers and shakers of bug fashion. It even deceives you into thinking it's a fancy food flavouring, as a friend rightly remarked.

Speaking of haute couture, our ramp scorching microbes love to change with seasons. For example, Mr P Falciparum and his first cousin twice removed, Mr P Vivax (he's quite a vivacious creature, but can be a little vexatious at times), have now teamed up with Jaundice Bug Inc. in Mumbai. They could be seen all over the town, jumping from one human to another, thanks to the sponsorship of their hardy hardline vector, Lady Anopheles of Buzznia. In fact, doctors here claimed that rigors, which used to be malarial de rigueur in the days of yore, are now passe. Instead, M/s P are now more influenced by influenzal leanings.

That Indian humans are of great nutritional value to the bug fraternity can be seen in the meteoric rise of Superbug, who once used to hide behind the thick microscope lenses in a quite corner of the serumaholics anonymous. While the world wondered and awed, hemmed and hawed, Superbug grew and grew in power. It proved to everyone that human crops in India are the best for rapidly multiplying little bug babies, especially if they are being nurtured in intensive human farms like hospitals and clinics.

Human crops have a dodoesque tendency to indiscriminately infuse themselves with weak antibiotics, irrigate themselves with extra-useless multivitamins and so on and so forth. This invariably works to the advantage of aspiring bug farmers, who too dream of zipping around the globe in their own rubber suits and red underwear. They practically have a party on the farm with such humans welcoming them with open arms and every open pore of their bodies.

India indeed is an agrarian society, where every human is crop, a pastoral delight for the germane germ gestapo.

 

When neighbours have a thieving for newspapers

It's a curse. A curse that would want to make you wish that your neighbours either have ants in their pants or are forever inflicted with haemorrhoids. Why would I say that? Well, have you ever woken up, all groggy eyed, and gone to the door to fetch the newspaper (out of habit, because you want to sit and read with your morning cuppa, lest you will never feel that you are awake) and realised that it's not there? You search for it frantically, wishing that it's hiding somewhere down that staircase, or has blown in the wind, or simply hope for serendipity. When you've run out of options, you settle down thinking that the newspaper guy was lazy again, today. Disappointed to no end, you have your tea in a very very grumpy mood, and have trouble passing your daily motion (may not be the case always). You feel lost, disconnected. But if you are courageous enough, you go out and buy your copy and come home. I, for one, could murder anyone who crossed my path at such times. Anyway, much later in the day, as you step out to go to work, you see that your newspaper is lying there. Somebody felt generous enough to put it back. And you feel like murdering some more.

Some years ago, I was living in a dead-end corner in Chembur. It was here that I witnessed the worst newspaper steal-o-mania ever. Every other day I found that my daily fix was missing when I needed it the most. It would mysteriously appear later, a little crumpled, and obviously read through. This went on for a while. Then one day, I decided I'd not sleep the night. When the time came for my newspaper wala to arrive, I planted myself to the spy hole. And watched. Minutes after the paper guy left the paper on my doorstep, I saw something that surprised me to no end. My neighbour's door opened, out came the man of the house and picked up the paper. At that precise moment, I opened the door. He was transfixed, but regained his composure almost as quickly as a fly winks.

"And what exactly is happening here?" I said, trying my best to get my stern tone right at that time of the morning.

"Oh, the newspaper guy left your newspaper at my doorstep, so I was only putting it back."

!!!!!

What in the world! I thought, but said, "If you need the paper, why don't you just ask for it. I've never said no to lending it, provided you ask?" 

My neighbour says, "Uh, I think you are mistaken. I was NOT stealing it." I let it go at that. No point in arguing with this one.

It wasn't as if they were the poorest of the poor who could not afford a newspaper. On the contrary, they seemed quite prosperous, materially. A husband, a wife and a little girl - a happy family one could say. But this was a totally different matter altogether.

And recently, a similar situation cropped up. But this time, it seemed reading the newspaper was not the aim. Last Sunday, my thick wad (I have to subscribe to a lot, my profession demands so) of newspapers all vanished. I was too tired to take it up, so I went back to sleep. When I got up around 11 again, the papers were back. As I took them in, I realised a fragrance was following me. I dismissed it as mere crankiness for not having seen the paper when I needed to and sat down to scour through the supplements.

It was then that I found out what the matter was. One of the supplements had something soapy all over it. And that soapy thing had a very shampooey smell. A quick flipping of the pages, I found one free sample of a shampoo sachet, tucked hurriedly back. Just that it was devoid of any shampoo. Someone had taken the pains to steal the newspaper, tear out the sachet, take out the shampoo, and put the sachet back, smearing all that was left over on to the otherwise perfectly fine supplement.

I never found out who did that. But the extent one went to, just to wash their hair with L'Oreal's colour protect-or-some-fancy-sounding shampoo for free?

We desperately need charity.

Signs that you suck in the social milieu

Have you ever had the feeling that you are being told off by the whole social circle concept that you are, er, not fitting in? For one thing, they said that the body is the clothing, and that your soul keeps changing it every life time. I suppose this social circle takes it to a higher plane all together. When you are the bane of the people around you (who'd rather not be around you), you are the undergarment that they'd like to change as frequently as possible (full marks to them for at least getting this hygiene idea right). Anyway, here are some tell-tale signs that could help you self-diagnose if you are suffering from the social anathema-enema:

1. Your so-called friends only call you before a party. They tell you they are running short of potted plants and ask you if you could plant yourself in a corner of their living room for the evening.

2. You get forwards in the email that ask you not to forward it to anyone you know, or will have the chance of knowing, or will never know. They also tell you that an eternity of bad luck will befall you if you so much as click Forward.

3. You rarely receive text messages. The ones you do receive are promotions that don't want your participation, but only need to wheedle your friends' references out of you.

4. The online lottery scams declare that you are a winner and that you've won squat. And they ask you NOT to reply to their mail or follow any link.

5. In bed, your girlfriend/boyfriend/plastic doll friend tells you, "Not tonight dear! You give me a headache." Or "Not tonight dear, or else I'll give you a black eye/herpes/fatal-scrotal-squeeze."

6. You are denied a promotion no matter how much cleavage you've shown/licked ugly rears at the workplace.

7. A hot chick digs you on a dating site. And tells you she's writing a book titled "What's a girl like you doing with a loser like that?"

8. At school, your teachers never saw you raise your hand when you were dying to answer a question, but somehow always managed to catch the guy/girl next to you. And on occasion if you did answer, their reaction was, "Ok, who's next?"

9. They tell you that they want to tell you a joke, and scream, "It's YOU!" and follow it up with hyena-like hysterical cackling.

10. Your neighbours redirect their spam to your address. And tell you they did it out of concern and they think these mailers will have something useful for you.

 

The Sad Demise of The School's Music Teacher?

There's a school next to my apartment complex. Often, you hear the squeaks and squawks of bachhalog, much reminiscent of how we used to be as kids outside (and most of the time, inside) the classroom. When I had moved into the flat, the first few days, I'd look out my window overlooking the school premises and all the memories of school days would come flooding back. But such nostalgia was short lived.

One not-so-fine morning, after a hard night's sleep, I was rudely awakened by nauseating refrains from (with due apologies to MJ - may his Soul, R&B, Pop, Rap And The Rest rest in peace) Heal The World. At first I thought someone had overdosed on Jackson mania to be playing the tune over and over again, and that too from top. As soon as my mind cleared the dreamy clutter of a bad morning, I heard chorus. It was the school children singing. Along with Mr Jackson.If that was not enough, the incessant "make it a better place..." was replaced by "Jay Ho! Whatchamacallit Jay Ho! Baila Baila... Alooo Aloooo".

"What in the-name-of-global-warming-hell is this?" I wondered. It took me a while to realign the scenario. It was this school. And it was some sort of rehearsal. The minute realisation dawned on me as sullenly as the day had broken, I wanted to go hide in the farthest corner of the world.

Wait a minute. Did I miss out on some centuries ever since I left my school days behind? Or was it scholarly devolution that I was omitted out of, in the scheme of things? Darling Darwin, if ever there was an anomaly in your views on evolution, it was here.Or maybe, I have passed into the annals of paleontology as an extinct sub-species of Neanderthals that never coped with the need to chant Jay Ho at the least provocation, lest the Joneses thought you were quite an Indo-Rahman-And-Slumdog-phobe.

In my time (at school, i.e.) icons of such pop culture were systematically held in disdain. School functions would never (barring an odd or some casual event) feature music or imagery of pop non-sense. The assembly halls would echo with sounds of prayers, songs, and words that seem to be lost in today's time. When the synth sounds of a cheap Casio scrapes your ear drums, you wonder whatever happened to the music teacher's harmonium and tabla?

Some might call it progress, moving with the times, and whatever it is in the name of looking ahead. But, somewhere down the line, aren't we losing a treasure trove that one would remember school times by? I mean, you can always listen to your MJs and Celine Dions and Britneys and Lady Gagas on your iPod. On the other hand, where else but in school would you have found another "Wo Shakti Humein Do Dayanidhe, Kartavya Marg Par Tar Jaayen..." playing? Not that you'd be inclined to listen to it again, but may be one day, you'd recall it with a little fondness, just for the sake of remembering the time.

PS: Even as I finish writing this, A R Rahman is back with a boom on the school's loudspeaker.

To, Your Uncertain Royal Highness

Hello uncertainty. I understand you and I have become shadows of each other? From the time I wake up, you greet me with questions, and the day goes by with more question marks than the toughest interviewer I ever faced in life posed. And if that was not enough, you pop up at every single turn I take and (at the cost of stinging Mr Gordon Sumner) every move I make.

I trust that I can no longer trust myself, with you being my falter ego. Did you somewhere put those invisible tripwires that I seem to stumble over nowadays? Maybe the answer's yes, but then again, it's uncertain. And does it please you to see one humbled so, when one did not have lofty ambition to begin with?

So much for a little peace of mind. I heard it was your bane, your arch enemy. And that you'd fight tooth and nail, AND win, in this unsettling, never-ending battle. They tell me, you're what makes life worth living. I'd agree, but what about those who haven't yet quite come to terms with having you around, and give up on themselves, purely because you wouldn't give up being what you are?

Our ancestors spoke about a remedy: Conformity. Conform, and all your troubles will disappear like a lonely raindrop on the hot sands of a desert. Yay! But conformity is too high a price to pay. I'm sorry, at least I'm certain I can't give you that pleasure. And even if I did, would you really guarantee that I'd be rid of you? I'm sure you'd pop up in some other conformist avatar.

Uncertainty, in no uncertain terms I tell you. It's not always nice to have you around. So would you mind while I keep aside my thoughts awhile and figure out a way to put you in place?

I hear you grinning. Oh, right! There you go again.