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....