T- minus...

Cannot talk long. I am leaving soon to join my compatriots on the trip to Singapore. We go to the airport together. The Mothers went crazy trying to decide where to meet up, what to wear and how to make the kids stand out without attracting terrorists. We meet oppoite Willingdon, the 8th meeting place decided for the last and final time.

The Mothers have packed 70kgs of kitsch with which to bribe the judges. And everyone has a green ribbon tied to their bags. Ask not why. I must leave now.

Off we go, into the wild blue yonder, flying into the Sunburst......

Bear with me

Unsurprisingly, I've got a lot of work pending. While I am planning to write posts about all that occurred during the void between the previous post and the one before that, my organizational skills, shaky at their best, will not be in tip top shape, so the things I write about may not necessarily be in chronological or semilogical order. I'll try to furnish dates whereever possible, and any incoherence which will occur is sincerely apologised for by my humble self.

Also, I will not be writing anything about the blasts until I am finished with the other stuff I intend to write, so please do not take offence if that special post does not arrive until tomorrow.

And please do not make fun of the fact that I am writing this as if I actually have an audience to appease. My mental health is questionable at the moment.

Centrifugal Goldfinger

I've not posted for a long time, so before I get started with bigger posts with long-winded and lengthy descriptions, I thought I'd post a delicious little link first, to start myself up.

I found this beauty on xkcd. I was just pressing the random button, and Centrifugal Force came up. I find it absolutely delightful because

a) it shows a possibility of a new, more interesting way of applying science

b) the James Bond theme along with the ending which-let me say for the record- I never saw coming because I was caught up in the coordinate substitution....

Well, see for yourself

A dose of culture

Before I start the main subject of this post, I would just like to announce a few events that occurred in the void between today's and the previous post. I had intended to write up another post entitled 'The opiate of the people' but that-like an unfortunately large number of good ideas-didn't take off, and now I can't really remember the exact words which were going through my mind; I have a vague memory of it being something about television. But enough of that. Great events have come to pass: the successful putting up of my school play, and the plenty of memories it has spawned; and.....err. Well, not much else. After school play I must confess that life has become rather dull and boring. Of course, there is one more thing. So far, I have kept it covertly beneath my shirt on the internet, though most of my acquaintances aboveground know of it; the subject of this post: The Singapore trip.

Some time ago, the school counsellor approached our class to guide our unprotected minds away from the dark side and towards "productive" opportunities. This included Harvard Model United Nations, Melbourne Trinity College Science Summer School and, most importantly, Sunburst Youth Camp, a completely sponsored youth gathering of students from 14-17 Asian countries. A delegation of  8 people are sent from each country as representatives to Singapore where there will be a medley of activities unrelate to culture and coincidentally related to publicity exercises. The culture related activities are these: a stall will be set up by each delegation with a very wide theme (eg- culture, heritage) within which they have to try and "show what their country is"; a performance of something unique to each country, mostly a dance of some sort or the other; and a formal dinner where everyone gathers in a dining hall with everyone else dressed in their country's fabulous and unique attire.

These, perhaps excluding the formal dinner, are all farces. Or at least that is what I strongly suspect. I shall give reason later on.

From what we've been told, I can say with confidence that the real cultural exchange and learning will be during the noncultural parts of the camp. On arrival all the delegations will be split up into groups, such that no two people from the same country are in the same group. Thus, this mini-melting pot will partake in ridiculously enjoyable and stimulating activities together. Also, each person will be sharing a room with two people not in their group or their country. Living together for an outrageously hectic and active week should form some connection between the people

The only unfortunate part of this is preparation; for months the mothers of the children attending (excluding mine own, they shall henceforth be known as the Mothers) have been working themselves into a craze. We have ridiculous costumes for the dance performance (black dhoti with gold border; koti, maroon and black with 10 kgs of small mirrors glued onto various places; the piece de resistance, a poisonous green kurta with a waistcoat stitched onto it which is a shade of blue seldom seen outside of aliens cheap sci-fi flicks). And we are setting up a small mountain of kitsch to represent India at our stall. It really is undescribable. No, really. words cannot capture the vileness of the cheap mirror things and the load on loaad of synthetic flowers. I talk no more.

We leave on the 6th, brave knights in search of the Holy Grail.

I simply remember my favourite things.......

Aaaargh!!

Sitting and formulating presentations on the Principles and Analyses of Social Stratification which will have to be elaborated and simplified a great deal only to have all my effort frittered away in hurling it at unreceptive brains whose idea of meaningful information is a talk about what you think about, you know..... all that stuff that's been....you know happening and OH DUDES! have you seen the new video on Vh1? It's so amazing.....

As a result, I am here trying to thrash out something to write on  the blog. I really don't know what to write. I was planning on something to do with great moral implications and consequences which could change the world as we know it, but I seem to have forgotten what I wanted to say. Ah well; can't have been any great thought.

In the meantime, I'm just putting up a few of my favourite PBF comics. Not my explicit favourites, but at the current moment, they appeal to me immensely. (To enlarge just click on them)

Rodeo

There are so many bits I love in this. His expression. Their expressions. The inversion. The understated cruelty. Classic PBF at its darkest best.

Baby

It mocks popular culture, and is bitingly vicious. Pardon the pun

Scorpy, the Forest Friend

Bringing something unusual to innocent surroundings can have consequences. Once again, the expression really makes the comic

Mario Too

Reality and unreality collide on a hilarious level. I imagine the next situation having something to do with a bad mushroom

Extreme Crocball

An important stage in the evolution of man

Astronaut Falling

So innocent. So cruel. So brilliant.

Chew Boy

Understated cruelty brought back in its most beautiful, artistic form yet. Like the The Experimenter in La Jetee.

That's all for now. At some other time, when I don't feel like writing much and want to go through the PBF archives again, I'll put up a few more great ones. Until then, back to Davis & Moore and their erstwhile nemesis, Tumin.

The great eve

Tomorrow being the 16th anniversary of my forced marriage with the world, my house was full of tension this evening. There was an almost solid sense of anticipation hanging in the air like a drunken moth. Occasionally, a drunken moth would hit someone in the face and fly away towards its lightbulb Mecca. You could tell my parents were really looking forward to it:

"Stop eating and start studying!"  "Take the food out and put it on the table" "Stop looking into space, there are heavy objects that aren't going to move themselves"

At least seven people had wished me loud, enthusiastic, heartfelt HAPPY BIRTHDAYs (sometimes accompanied by warm hugs) even though it was a day early. I'm at home, staring at something random, when I get a call from a close family friend.

"It's your birthday?"

"Actually it's tomo-"

"Happy birthday!"

"Thank you, but it's tom-"

"Do you know how I can install a BSNL to connection on my landline?"

Soon after, my uncle and grandmother came to have dinner. This usually heralded long involved arguments and debates over which type of Hindi films were better: the older generation or the newer one. My grandmother would try to convince my ather that bikini-top saris and backless cholis were not good for films, and my father would argue that the only reason they hadn't come into fashion earlier was that the actresses were generally too flabby to wear them. Then, either my uncle or my mother would redirect the combined critical wrath of the family to the taste of some relative whose taste in films is as deplorable as is humanly possible.

There is a break as we watch some twaddle on TV in honour of Amitabh Bachchan's 66th birthday: he lumbers around on stage, not really moving the lower half of his body, while nubile young desi women weave and prance around him, giving proof that sex and sexegenarian can go together.

The time that follows, for a few hours, roughly uptil 11, is the kind of time you'd imagine being an integral part of heaven. It's one of those indescribable spells, when time becomes molten and flows around you like a mercury Yin-and-Yang figure. You lose track of everything else that is "going on" in your lifr. You are truly and in every sense living in the present with no thought of either the future or the past, enjoying the fluid moments as they float around you, and being happily unaware of the preciousness of the moments you are experiencing until later, when the nostalgia for that same happy obliviousness to time.

Gems from school

The people in my class were born to be entertainers. While some try to take this literally by staring themselves for a few days, most simply provide entertainment by being themselves. Being a bystander (innocent until proven guilty) has its advantages. Here are just a few of the splendid thoughts which have, fortunately or unfortunately, been translated into words over the course of several classes.

Teacher: ...and so we must learn to view all other communities and ethnicities equally. We must not judge them based on what the media says about them. We must learn to stop stereotyping them, and we must not judge them-

Student[noticing the 2nd time "must not judge them" is mentioned] : But that's prejudice!

Teacher: You see, the city [Bombay] is in the hands of the majority. They decide the policies. That is why all the politicians canvass the support of the majority-

Student: Miss, but [arguably the most uttered phrase in our class after "But miss,"] the politicians in this article [refers to article being referred to by teacher] are canv- getting the support of the slumpeople. I mean, shouldn't they be with the majority?

Teacher[confused, and completely unprepared for the asinine comments about to follow]: ...?,.? but they're campaigning in the suburbs, especially in the slums and the middle class areas.

Student: Miss, but those aren't the majority group in Bombay!

Teacher[thoroughly mystified]: Then who is?

Student: Who? Miss, us of course! The upper class community has, like, far more people than the middle or lower classes. Miss, come on; that's obvious.

Teacher: What are you saying??!!?!!?

Student: It's true miss, all the people I know are upper class. I don't know ANYONE from the slums miss, and I've gone farther than Worli, so I know what I'm saying miss.

Teacher: ....................

[after seeing a documentary on the Gujurat riots]

Student: I think it's exaggerated because it was made by a Communist. It was all a very Leftist-ly skewed documentary; it portrayed Modi as this Muslim-hater.

[after hearing that Obama has doubts about the effectiveness of the trickle-down effect]

Classmate: I don't think I'd vote for Obama. He has Communist-like economic policies.

Me: So, assuming we were in a position as US citizens to vote, you'd rather vote for McCain, who has a) NO economic sense/policies and b) economic advisors worse than Bush's.

Classmate:Well, he is a Vietnam war veteran.

Teacher: People in urban India are getting neither food nor money to buy food. With prices rising-

Student: Miss but food prices are low! A burger at McDonalds costs only 20 bucks [Rupees]

There are quite a few more which can' remember right now. I don't really need to. I just have to pay attention in class again....

Fond memories....

...of this man are probably evoked by his epitaph. This grave lies near the city of Hamilton in Canada, a few hundred feet away from the Webster falls, named after this Webster's ancestors.  His first name escapes me, but I wasn't able to forget-amidst the picturesque trees and the beautiful, woody path- stumbling upon this prize of a statement:

For those who can't make out what it says, the epitaph goes:

Come near my friends and cast an eye

Then go your way prepare to die;

Learn your doom and know you must

One day like me be turned to dust.

I sincerely wish that, when I die, words of a similar effect be spread far and wide in my memory. It would be a wonderful prospect to look up and see such poisonous sentiments being spread in my humble name.

My favourite part however is the last line added, perhaps as an afterthought, perhaps to soften the effect of the venom. I prefer to view as an example of how sarcasm transcends various mediums, from conversation to epitaphs- A loving husband, a dutiful son, an affectionate brother.

The day hath passed......

.....and I'm really tired. So I'm not going to say much.

I'll just leave you with Dan O'Brien's slightly earthy, yet quite accurate, report of the media  covering the 2008 election campaign, on Cracked.

To be........

In the long gap between posts several different events have inflicted themselves upon me-sometimes due to my own actions, sometimes not. While I will be besmearing the face of this blog with some of those unfortunate incidents, what currrently occupies my attention is the Curious Case of the School Play I find myself entangled in.

Some background: Every year my school gets some unfortunate, unsuspecting theatre director/actor/general hangaround to take complete charge of 50-60 spoilt schoolkids and create a play at which parents can gape and say: Awwwwwwwwwww my little chumplebump is grown so biiiiiiiiiiig!!!!; the friends of the cast can laugh into their knuckles and forever achieve the ability to burst into hysterics when they hear "Alice" or "Batuslovakia"; the cast can get together and remember incidents to keep other disliked people out of the discussion; and finally, so that the school can trade in its cash register for some other device with a more powerful tallying function which can calculate the grossly high profits it makes out of each performance.

There are, however, some noble souls who take part in this event purely to enjoy acting and the feeling of being on stage, loved by the audience, admired by theie peers, and considered the only person on stage who is worth wasting the enormous amounts of money paid for an otherwise abysmal show.

*cough*

*cough*

*Implying nothing about the writer of this blog*

*cough*

Anyway, this year an enterprising woman (her name is Roo) who has undergone theatre training and voice modulation classes (just so loud........) and her tall, silent Scots husband (Liam) who has a light Afrikaans inflection. Despite myself, I can't help but imagine them together as some indomitable Shakespearean couple(currently, I am inclined towards Katherina and Petruchio).

The reason I reference the Great Bard (for truly great performances click here) is that they have selected parts of 6 plays which will be performed by our very own kids. Yes, Excerpts from Shakespeare, just like Highlights from Hamlet.

My glorious performance during the audition apparently merited a role as Antonio, the homosexually suppressed two-faced hypocritical bigot who borrows money from Shylock in Merchant Of Venice.

While I'm not extremely unhappy about this role, few lines as there are to it, I would have greatly preferred that of Shylock. Or any other marginally central character from the plays being performed (Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It, The Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and mine own play, Merchant Of Venice). That, however, is not my main complaint.

My main complaint is this: why was the role of Shylock given to fat bawa who had vaguely Jewish features and an astounding inability to either act or enunciate languages apart from a nasally accented Gujurati, instead of me or any other person halfway capable of portraying a miser who shows humanity?

There is, of course, nothing personal in this question; I am simply concerned with the general welfare of the play. Side effects may include a completely rational desire for acquiring a role more deserving of what the user feels is the latent talent within him

To sum up my attitude to today's Let's Begin By Learning How To Speak Verse/Poetry rehearsal, nigel molesworth doth say:

peotry is sissy stuff

Bizarre happenings

Recently, I had a very interesting conversation.

My uncle has horribly high diabetes. Apart from not being able to enjoy the many, many sweet things provided and made for people to enjoy, he has to consume, on a daily basis, a whole arsenal of pills and tablets in an entertaining variety of shapes, sizes and colours (just pronouncing their names had earlier kept me occupied for a good half hour) which he keeps in one of those plastic containers, subdivided into seven boxes: S M T W T F S

Also, he recently arrived from the US (it is significant).

We were having an entertaining conversation (about probability in game shows; great stuff, I'll talk about it some time) post-lunch when he suddenly breaks off and takes out a mini-carnival of pills from the box marked F.

Me: Friday?

Uncle: Yeah..um wait. What day is it? (No, I can assure you that he wasn't stoned; alcohol isn't good for his level of diabetes)

Me: Saturday

Uncle: Then why is my Friday bunch [of pills] still here. This is very weird.

I had my medicines yesterday, so did I take the Thursday dose then?

(we sit pondering what all this could mean)

Uncle: Ah. I think I understand. You see, while flying here, I technically skipped a day.

That was a really freaky thought: even though he had his proper dosage according to the 24-hour prescription, he had skipped a day while coming to India, which could have completely screwed up his dose; any fluctuations in the insulin level and he could be on a hospital bed.

So he was just plain lucky. There was, however, just one more problem:

The Saturday box was empty.

....seen not heard: A lesson in Tact

In a splendid display of tactful brilliance, the Chinese government managed the seemingly difficult job of hammering yet another nail into the already cramped coffin (which is slowly starting to resemble an iron maiden) of it's public image, and simultaneously stripping the Grand Olympic Opening Ceremony of a large portion of worldwide admiration.

At the climaxing moment of the opening ceremony, just as the Chinese flag was being brought onto the field, 9-year old Lin Miaoke was flown around the stadium (on the wires used for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and with perfect timing began singing "Ode to the Motherland" into the little mike clipped on to her in the way only a cute little child could.

There was just one tiny little issue: she wasn't singing. It turned out that she was lip-syncing to a previously recorded version of the song, sung by 7-year old Yang Peiyi.

I know what you're thinking: why would the government make one child sing the song, and the other one lip sync it?

The answer is fairly obvious(if you were a member of the Chinese politburo; then again if you were, you'd probably have more important things to do than read this).

Yang Peiyi sung beautifully, but had crooked teeth, so her smile wasn't perfect. Which cut down on the cuteness factor. Lin Miaoke, on the other hand, was the perfect Cute Chinese Girl, but she couldn't sing very well.

So, in a move that is being called China's most idiotic image-devastating act, they had Lin lip sync Yang's singing.

What's that you say? Why couldn't Yang still sing, as her pictures show she is still pretty cute? Why did the government enact such a shallow, puerile and obviously foolhardy move? Why were they calling the switch a "matter of national interest" instead of all the other issue which deserve that tag? What the FUCK were they thinking? Are you making this up, because it honestly sounds so ridiculous and seems hardly possible that a whole government can screw up like this?

I cannot answer any of those questions except the last one: anyone doubting this can check it out(among other places) here, here and here.

I rest my case.

And we begin, with a funeral

Due to unfortunate timing, the release of the first post coincided with me getting some of my results (1st comprehensive examinations; school truly sucks). As some of the more astute readers may have deduced from the somewhat fatalistic tone of this post, I did not perform spectacularly well. Needless to say, I missed my father's target (and mind you, this is just in Maths) of minimum 90% by a hair; a 16.6% wide hair.

Maths, English, Economics, Sociology and EVE (i.e. 5 out of my 6 subjects): all exams in which I complacently assumed I would do well enough to sail through my father's expectations, which might or might not be high . Here, I must vehemently add that I am not (intentionally) belittling my father; nor am I implying that he can get tyrannical when I bring back a bad report card. No, I am merely saying that he is somewhat more active than my other relations in the matter of....... persuading me towards certain goals using certain methods all for my own benefit.

I picture his reaction, once I reveal the Shockers to him, to be somewhat like this:

For those who couldn't guess, that will be me on the right.

If I do survive the whirlwind of terror, you shall hear the reports of it from miles away.