Things That Bang

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Keeping the message simple often has a far more dramatic effect than trying to create an out of the box thriller. Shyamalan played on American homegrown terror in the The Happening whereas the movie The Ruins brought terror to an obscure Mayan temple where naive ignorant American tourists found themselves dealing with a horror unheard of by the outside world.

Shyamalan could take a few lessons from Carter Smith. The trauma suffered by the victims in The Ruins was far more palpable than by those in The Happening.

While Shyamalan's movies tend to fizzle somewhere in the middle, The Ruins kept a tight rein on the suspense right till the end. There was no hidden subtext in The Ruins unlike Shyamalan who continues to harp on the post-9/11 effects on American psyche.

The ending of Carter Smith's movie was tinged with dry humor, reflecting touristy ignorance whereas Shyamalan's movie ending was oversimplified and illogical, given the human need to take all kinds of preventive measures when faced with an extreme situation which may cause total annihilation of human existence.

The Ruins and The Happening are both about nature turning against man but that's where the similarities between the two movies end.

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Oh, my tenders!
--------------------Kung Fu Panda

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One of the strangest things I noticed in the US was that people used to leave their curtains open even at night. Even in high rise buildings one could look in on someone making dinner, some watching tv or exercising. Thing is - its considered to be a nasty thing to be a peeping Tom in the US but not so in India.

Once I returned home I found myself drawing the curtains once the sun went down. My sense of security demanded that before I left home I draw the curtains and at night keep them closed.

Today I left the curtains open and at about eight in the night found a little red light dancing on the LCD screen and on the wall. Some asshole was pointing a lazer pointer right inside my house!! Fear engulfed me and I drew my curtains.

Was that asshole in my garden? I checked my doors, called out to my helper to check the place out and he found nothing. Obviously the miscreant stopped doing it when he saw me draw the curtains.

What kind of a motherfucker would do such a thing?! Bloody uncivilized gavaar!!

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Update people: Mini- me flexed his itsy- bitsy muscles yet again but this time the flexing wasn't in bed with his giant headed girlfriend but in court.

The celebrity Web site TMZ posted a 25-second snipped of the video Wednesday, but pulled the clips down Friday evening after a federal judge granted a temporary restraining order requested by Troyer's attorneys.

U.S. District Judge Philip Gutierrez wrote that Troyer's motion "demonstrated that he will suffer irreparable harm to his reputation" if the tape is distributed.

Reparable harm to his reputation? How? He wasn't one of the dwarfs doing Snow White, right? Okay, my bad in this world of being politically correct.

Doesn't he want to be known as a hot stud muffin? A delicious little morsel? French gourmet? A little bit of heaven?

Frankly it isn't his reputation that would be harmed but his psyche.

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Why the prejudice against little people? They too wanna have some sweaty fun between the sheets and so what one of the participants isn't a midget small person.

Verne Troyer (a.k.a Mini-Me) sex video is out for the highest bidder and the bid may go up to one million dollars. Yeah, no question mark there- one million? thats it? Size really shouldn't matter, right?

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Big seems to be in. Whether it be the bumble bee shades or the tent like tops with tights people have now gone crazy looking their worst.

It is my personal perception of course, others who love wearing polka dotted sack clothes are welcome to disagree with me. But to expect me to be part of the herd and wear such clothes or look like a female mobster in big dark glasses is just not going to happen.

As it is after buying a shit expensive Da Milano bag I lost my mind looking for the house keys in a bag bigger than a black hole. But thanks to the trend of big bags and me being putty when it comes to shoes and bags I fell victim and spent five minutes outside the house looking for the keys and throwing all the contents of the bags on the bed to get to the cell phone later on.

In the end I found myself reverting to my old functional bag where things didn't hide in unchartered leathered territories.

Even Indian clothes have become jazzy with loud embroidery and flashy rhinestones.

The eighties seem to have returned and even though some of these clothes look nice on mannequins I look absurd in them. In Western outfits I look all boobs and legs and in Indian jazzy clothes I look like a bling bling Bhapi Lahari. Okay, the Bhapi Lahri part was taking it too far but you get what I mean- there is just too much bling in the sarees and don't get me started on the designs on some of the saree blouses.

Even men's formal Indian clothes have gone metro sexual with loud embroidery. Some shirts are transparent and show the male nipples!! Those, of course, as I had been told by a huffy boutique owner are for Western-cum Indian occasions- whatever that meant.

I wanted to tell her that it would be disconcerting for me to stare at some strange male nipples at a party but adhered back to my old mantra of keeping my trap shut.

When it comes to shoes, things have changed as well but having small feet I've always gone in for Flashy shoes and fell in love with a pair of high heeled fiery red shoes though they hurt like crazy.

Thankfully block heels continue to be the rage. They are comfortable, make the woman feel on top of the world and I absolutely love the animal prints on them.

But that is where my being fashion conscious stops. No Empire waist clothes for me or plastic bangles, massive belts or tights over my chubby thighs. I am strictly a jeans and t-shirt girl and if I am considered to be dowdy- so be it.

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I love cussing, people who know me know my need to act like foul-mouthed Ozzy but I surprised myself today. I tripped badly from a high ledge near a restaurant's parking lot post dinner, twisted my ankle badly and fell along side Parita.

The world blacked out, the food jumped to my throat and pain had me howling. Aaman and a dude nearby grabbed Parita, demanded whether I was okay and all I could think was - FUCK!! I am in fucking pain.

I was told Parita was fine despite the nasty fall. Somehow I managed to jump into the backseat of the car, Aayan very sweetly put my shoes in and Aaman drove towards the hospital.

The nausea and pain scrambled my brains and with every pothole that the car went over, I wanted to scream - Fuck Me Silly!! but the kids were in the car and I just howled and then realized that too was upsetting the kids.

Pain gave me the right to be foul mouthed but for once the legitimacy granted didn't make it right. I held back when they nearly toppled the wheelchair with me in it outside the hospital.

I had the right to scream- Fucking Shit but all I said was - Yaay!!

X-Ray time and it was again whimpers of pain - no screaming, no cussing!! I was trying to act prim and proper.

The doctor said the pain can be traumatic, sometimes patients even suffer blackouts. It set me wondering. For all my regular cussing when it really came down to it - I held back. Bad sprain, a shot of painkiller on my butt and a ride back home.

Currently I am hopping around the house like a one legged rabbit. It hurts bad but the foul mouth Dee seems to have disappeared.

Why?

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She couldn’t take her eyes off his face. It was an instant attraction, an old familiarity she did not want to acknowledge. She was with her husband and kids. Where did she know him from? A bond tugged them. They knew, they looked at each other for a while.

The kids demanded her attention. There was nothing to be achieved. She was happily married and he? He knew her well but she only felt the emotion that embroiled them in a torrid affair in some forgotten time.

In her movements he saw the hesitation and the confusion he was well acquainted with. She hadn’t changed. She still bottled up her feelings, forever chained to love; to living.

The airbus gently stopped near the airport terminal and people began to get off with their bags.

She settled the baby against her waist and looked forward. She tried to ignore the fierce tug that demanded she drop everything and go to him. What was wrong with her? Her movements’ jerky.

He let people fall between them, let people push him back with quick apologies when they bumped him. He fell back, right to the end and watched her struggle with her bags and her family through the windows of the bus.

She was leaving him, again. The bond was breaking. She would soon forget him but he’d remember her. His lover from a life lived centuries ago. It was his curse to remember all the lives he lived, to remember those who lived with him and he still loved them and more than ever he loved her.

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He was the sort of person who stood on mountaintops during thunderstorms in wet copper armour shouting "All the Gods are bastards."
-----------Terry Pratchett

Posted by Deepti Lamba at 07:43 AM Stumble It! digg this del.icio.us Fark It | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

FUCK!! FUCK!! How many times do I need to say it before I get hauled up? Thankfully no one will for in the online world using foul language is least of anyone's concern. There is crazier stuff happening here which makes cussing look like tot word play.

Even in real life people have bigger things to deal with than a chef effing on a television series. One would think so but as it happens Gordon Ramsay is facing an inquiry for his foul mouth by the Australian senate. It wasn't as if he was foul mouthing their beer guzzling, hard partying hedonistic habits but for brow beating some lowly chef on his reality cooking show.

Whats wrong with saying - FUCK!! Fuck you, fuck me, fuck the gawd damn world, fuck her, fucking a-hole, fucking slut, fucking whore, fucking dickhead, fucking chimp- you get what I mean?

Its empowering to use nasty language. Its verbal violence, its the unleashing of the beast, its accepting the dark side of us that used to hunt, maim and kill during the cave man days. Its accepting that we are in many ways still animals and what the users of foul language need is - hell! what would I know since I love the word - FUCK.

Its what makes the world go round- Fuck-ing!!

Ah well, maybe the Australians belch but don't fuck;)

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Merakles?! What the fuck is wrong with Cartoon Network? The cartoon Krishna, Bheema and a few other mythological toons have the worst accents ever. Don't these dumb fucks who call themselves producers understand that kids watch their shit and pick up words and accents from kiddie shows?

The sage saying Merakles on Krishna had me up in arms as did the sing song accents. Our vernacular 'English' isn't sing song type just as our pronunciation isn't so bad that we'd mangle up the words.

Its gonna be JetX for my kids for now onwards.

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The news isn't whether Obama's wife called her husband empathetic or pathetic but that she vowed to emulate Mrs Laura Bush and be a model White House Wife

Counting your chickens even before the eggs are laid? How arrogant can Michelle be? Maybe it would be for best if she was chained to the White house stove with a bible in her hand.

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I am not much of a morning person. Getting up at bloody 5:45 in the morning for the past three days has wrecked my psyche! And this kind of routine has to be followed for as long as it takes my kids to grow up and get out of school. Somehow my mind is unable to grapple with this fact. Its the way I am made. I am at my best when the sun starts setting and when it rises I am at my slowest and my nastiest.

Its difficult for me to pin a smile on my face and act all cheerful for my kids. But thats the way its supposed to be. Its Happy Hours for the kids and horrid time for the mom.

There must be some way I can get myself to be a little more sane during mornings. No amount of caffeine in the system does the trick. I hate mornings!!

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Recently while I was in Delhi, I was taken aback by the lack of lower class crowds trawling the mall grounds. Only the upper class and the ultra fashion conscious mall rats were seen, along with the maids for the children. There was no crowding at the escalators with apprehensive first timers, nor were there any lower class people in their pristine clothes, neatly oiled hair and cheap sandals. 

Where was the crowd? The thought crossed my mind and silently died when I got distracted by a silk shirt at Debenhams.

In Delhi. the lower classes apparently are not allowed to enter the malls such as City Walk etc. Even the drivers generally hang around outside the mall waiting instructions from their owners as if these aren't malls but 5-star hotels.

This sort of blatant elitism makes me want to throw up. It isn't capitalism at its worst but lack of humanity that we tend to suffer from?

Obviously the poor are apprehensive to enter these shopping complexes. A few days ago I found myself honking at a fruit-wala who was pushing his cart slowly. He couldn't take his eyes off the huge billboards on the roadside. He was clearly suffering from culture shock in his own country and it saddened me.

The disparity between the rich and the poor has psychological effects as well. My maid did not want to go into a regular grocery store. It took a lot of gentle cajoling to get her to step in.

I saw similar apprehension in the eyes of so many who gingerly ventured into the malls or those who stood outside the mall and refused to walk in.

Why the apprehension and why the restriction? They lack money but they are good hard working folks.

As much as I hate the Garuda Mall I liked the fact that people of all economic levels can be seen enjoying the mall. But even then its not as if those who live below the poverty line can step in.

My maid is now quite used to visiting the malls with the kids and me. Her only request is that I tell her before hand when we'd visit the mall so she can be dressed in her best clothes. She loves the Archies store and I have yet to take her to the movies with my kids.

Am I doing her a disservice by treating her like one of my own when we step out? Some may think so but I cannot bring myself to discriminate against her as if her economic condition is some kind of a nasty contagious disease.

Malls are ordinary places, just buildings with shops in them. And yet they now symbolize the new urban India where the poor are seen as inconveniences or eye sores.

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Anxiety is an emotion difficult to counter. About three hundred parents thronged the cafeteria area and the courtyard while their barely three year olds attended their first day at school yesterday morning. Lots of tears were shed by the tots, teachers seemed distracted and the bus drivers were stalked and harassed by irate parents.

The otherwise tranquil school was in chaos. Dealing with parents especially with the newbie ones was tough. The school staff were polite, helpful but authoritative.

Parents strained against the railings, those having gone through similar experience the previous year where more relaxed and chatty. Some complained about the school and others remained mostly quiet.

Most came without eating their breakfast and like little children they strained against each other trying to get their order delivered first at the cafeteria. They hadn't forgotten their socialist upbringing- jump the queue, be rude, shove, push and never mind that you might be bumping into each other for the rest of the children's school years.

For about three hours we parents puttered around. Some of us exchanged numbers and some were seen sitting on the steps working on their laptops, some held work calls, some worried about the little ones left alone with the servants back home and a few were seen nodding off.

When the kids were let off section by section the wave of anxiety intensified. As the tots walked down the stairs parents reached out to clutch their children. A couple of mothers opened up the kids bags, saw the barely touched tiffins and complained, others demanded whether the teachers and aayas would accompany the kids which they were already doing.

Yellow school buses drove up the driveway, parents boarded the buses with their kids to make sure the buses stopped at the right bus stops, some got off to make their kids use the loo before the bus started and some fed their kids their tiffins and went on complaining about the number of kids in the classes, the early commute, the fees etc.

I sat with my kids in the front seat of the bus, eavesdropped but kept my mouth shut. It was exciting to see people out of their element. Some reacting with humor and patience and others getting harried, aggressive and defensive.

The buses drove off with parents, kids, teachers and aayas. Fights happened over the bus- stops, the route, I fell asleep with Parita curled up on my lap, woke up and found we were still trudging down the route no where close to our stop which incidentally happens to be the last stop and first to be picked up from.

The teacher sat next to me. Waves of anxiety from parents, kids, the teacher, aaya and the driver continued to ebb and flow. The cellphones continued to ring between the fathers who were following the bus (yes, there was an entire entourage of cars following the buses) and the mothers sitting in the bus.

It was an event I basked in. Never again will I experience others anxiety at such close quarters or their tender apprehensions for the apple of their eyes while they attended their first day at school.

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Do the Indian cops need a good PR department? If one rapes ten get judged by the deed done by another. One is corrupt five other honest cops who live within their meager salaries are never taken into account. They do our dirty work- deal with psychos, rapists, murderers and many times they land up even in the middle of domestic disputes.

They deal with the dregs of society, the kind of psychological damage that can happen dealing with shitheads day in day out can be harrowing. But do we think about it? We assume they have to do their jobs. Yes, they get paid but they put their lives on line which we don't with our jobs. That kind of distance we civilians cannot bridge nor can we ever understand the kind of stress they suffer from their supposed jobs.

Its easy for us as a society not to like them. Stories of deaths while in custody are common - one was reported today in Bangalore Mirror and it tends to happen more so with the lower classes who cannot afford lawyers. For them the cops are worse than wolves but the cops on their end say that they aren't there to treat the criminals or their helpers with kids gloves.

They show politeness only to the middle class and may be are more than accommodating for those with fat bank accounts. These are once again popular myths and have some truth to them.

But the Indian cops also keep the law and order machinery working, mostly. Our traffic cops suffer debilitating lung diseases, their lives are shortened due to the pollution but does any of us see that? We shrug them off, we are indifferent towards them- they are doing their jobs, right?

We talk about their inner darkness but why do we find it tough to accept that its their brutal nature that saves us also?

There are two sides to a story and we need to be balanced in our judgment towards our police force.

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When people ask me how I spend my evening my reply makes them feel kind of uncomfortable. Its a definite conversation stopper. How do I spend my evenings? I pull weed from the soil, I sow seeds, I water my pride and joys, I enjoy the butterflies and the rustling of the wind amongst the bamboo leaves.

Some obviously think I have dumb down- she has nothing better to do? What happened to Deepti?

Others? They don't give a fuck. Either way neither do I give a fuck. There is something grand about nature. I am tickled pink watching seeds sprout, reach a four leaves stage, transplantation, a grand bounty of flowers and vegetables or just kneeling down and yanking the nasty weeds out. A lot of effort goes into getting rid of weed grass, putting up with mosquitoes or digging the soil around plants.

Those who have no interest in gardening get a blank look in their eyes when I talk of sunflowers, home grown cabbage or tomatoes. They rather I discussed the latest killing of a housewife by the irate servant, the Ganjam jewelers - shit! they rather I discussed anything but my tomatoes or my search for rambling roses.

I get their disinterest. There are those whose idea of gardening is visiting a grocery store. I get people being so self absorbed that they believe there are rigid avenues of discussion that make people intelligent- politics, money, stocks, the idiot box, movies, clothes etc.

I too can do that - I read my papers, get my news online as well, I spend my husband's money( lucky me), I know our portfolio, I watch Takashi's Castle with my kids, watch foreign films without subtitles and I read- I read a lot and I write.

But to me my reading and writing are private affairs much like my tomatoes or radishes. Things I do in my own private time. Things done when I can mull over the world and its madness from a distance.

Why do I have to do something spectacular with my evenings? Visit the nightclubs, get roaring drunk, dance the night away? Buy shoes worth more than the clothes on my back? I've done all that growing up and more.

What else would they expect me to do with my evenings? Run around the metropolis naked?

I feed my kids, play with them a little, enjoy a slice of nature and get all excited along with my kids when we'd hear my husband's car's horn. If that isn't bliss what is?

Give me a mundane relaxed evening over excitement. Give me a handful of earthworms over a bunch of pretentious a-holes.

Still wanna know about my tomatoes? Thing is there has been Salmonella scare over tomatoes in America. Makes you think doesn't it? With the food crisis going on, shit and pesticides in food, the rise in petrol prices dumb old me with my little patch of vegetables just may have the last laugh;)

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IshQ Bector rapping Dakku Daddy. Shakti Kapoor at his best. I haven't heard Bector's songs on Bangalore radio waves- too hot and vulgar I suppose. Gimme IshQ instead of all that Bryan Adams and Simply Red shit!!

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Why do women pee on the floors in the washrooms of upmarket malls? Recently I was re-aquainted with this nauseating phenomena in the Ladies washroom next to the food court area in Oasis and then again at the washroom of Reliance Footprint in Indranagar.

Unlike men who are generally sure short aimers and don't deliberately spray at will, women continue to indulge in uncivilized peeing.

They can hover like a saucer over the commode. Thats what we were taught back in the eighties era when clean public toilets were rare phenomenas. It was either the bushes with a mother or an aunt keeping guard when traveling the countryside or pot hovering in dirty stop over restaurants.

One thing was for sure- we girls were brought up to flush both in public and home loos. After use- flush! My mom could be heard hollering from the living room.

When guests with nasty toilet habits visited us we were forever on the cleaning rampage. Whether the guests realized that we were always on the red alert after they used the loo was never aired but I did take my male cousins to task for not putting the seat up a couple of times and we girls landed up hovering over our own pots despite the vehement disinfecting.

Living in a predominately female household we were used to dry floors and dry toilet seats. Visiting public loos was to be avoided as far as possible. We always visited the loo before venturing out. It was a cardinal rule to avoid stinky urine wet public loos.

The only place we went let our guard down was at the PVR Complex. We could drink lots of Coke while watching the movies knowing the loos would be spotless- which they always were and still are. 

In some places things have changed. The Forum public loos are very clean, women flush, seats are dry and rarely would one find a strange turd merely swimming in the commode.

But the loos in rest of the malls in Bangalore are absolute nightmares! The less said the better.

Obviously I couldn't use the Food Court's Loo in Oasis where the pee fest is always on but used the one below on the second floor of Lifestyle which is generally spotless and stink-less.

Most upmarket restaurants have clean loos but there too once in a while one suffers rude shock. Nicely done up loos but the visual image of hazardous wastes would destroy all desire to order a good meal.

Why are Indian women so dirty? Don't they realize that when they pee on floors they step on their own pee? That the chances of their clothes getting wet by their own bodily wastes is quite high? Or is it that they just don't care?

I've seen women in sarees peeing on the floors and telling their daughters- Don't sit on the toilet seat. Pee on the floor.

And it has always taken a whole lot of effort on my part to calm the animal in me down and not beat such women to pulp!

Once I was pretty vocal in my protests. But in typical Indian traditions I didn't directly tell the perpetrator off but said it out to the attendee nearby- Dirty women - they have the money but lack basic manners. Like 'kutties' (bitches) they pee all over the floor, they don't flush and best part is they don't even wash their hands. And then they feed their kids in the Food Courts with the same hands."

The woman in question who I had seen squatting along with her little tot in the next cubicle hurried out. Leaving me feeling still mad.

Personally, I think we should have the right to make citizen arrests on such women. Or better still have the right to slap them silly. Fines won't do the trick but a good thrashing would surely deter them.

I know it is not ever going to happen, nor would public bare bummed spanking be allowed- we are after all a civilized society.

But doesn't barbaric behavior deserve an equally brutal punishment? Why in the name of sweet Mary should I find myself inadvertently stepping on someone's pee or find someone's turd in my face?

Don't I and other civilized females of this country have the right to clean public loos? How can we tackle this sort of deviant behavior?  

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'Do you have change for a dollar?'

A silver haired sixty something year old asked me. I wondered if this was what Americans called polite mugging but then decided it couldn’t be. We both had passed through the American customs. He needed change and I was in a hurry to adopt a culture I knew nothing of.

Standing near the sliding doors I stared at the flyovers. The doors silently opened and closed again- inviting me to
step out in the platform of a deserted airport. It was three in the night and except for a few strangling arrivals the place was quiet.

I felt overwhelmed. I had left all that was familiar and was about to set foot into a world I had known only from afar.
“Papa! Mama!” The silver haired man and his wife embraced a young man. He bent down and touched their feet. I smiled. Arrivals were always a pleasure to watch. The family laughed, spoke cheerfully. The son pushed the luggage trolley out with his parents besides him.

I leaned against the coldness of my trolley bar and watched Indians, American’s and others pull their luggage off the carouser. I watched my husband pull the bags off.

He knew the country I didn’t. He had visited before but that was before the planes had flown into the towers and the world had changed.

It was new America. Much like me – a paranoid bride not knowing what the future held for her. All that was familiar was gone, we both had newer relationships to form, we both were given the choice whether to lead lives like we did before or start a new. Everything was different and we both were out of our element trusting someone else to lead us ahead.

My young husband beckoned me to get the trolley. It was the push forward one that I wasn’t used to. It wasn’t introduced in India as yet. The trolley moved smoothly on the marble floor. I smiled and quietly waited as he laid the bags on the trolley.

“We have to get a cab to the hotel.” He was out of breath. The bags were heavy- my clothes more than his.
“Lets step out.”

We walked out. The doors slid open for us. A cool breeze welcomed us and we saw a taxi sign nearby. I was told to wait on the side again. The yellow cab pulled over, the luggage put in the trunk not the dikie I was corrected gently.

The cabbie was a muslim from Sudan. He wore a skull cap and had a beard. His eyes twinkled but not once did he acknowledge me. Maybe it was a cultural thing with him. I gave him the benefit of doubt. I knew nothing about him to get all sanctimonious or feminist for that matter. He was just a cabbie and me a passenger.

He praised America, no mention of 9/11 was made. While he and my husband chatted amicably about America I stared out of the window at the passing buildings, the perfect landscaping, the well light highways and then the silent homes that housed big cars and people I had yet to understand and love.

“We’ve reached.”

I stared at sign that said – Marriot. Hunger made my stomach growl loudly, my husband laughed loudly handed me a little change he had kept from his previous trip. I was told to go grab some chips from the vending machine on the lobby as he settled the cab’s tab and checked us in.

I walked into the lobby. A sleepy Chinese American sat on the counter. He smiled and greeted me. I told him we were going to check in and my husband was coming in with the luggage. He nodded and went back to his novel.

I went to the vending machine and stared through the glass panel. I recognized Lays; something familiar. My mouth watered. I slide the dollar in. It came back out. I didn’t know what to do.

My husband was checking us in. I didn’t want to seem like a fool unable to use a vending machine. I smoothed the dollar bill (its not called a note, the way we called our currency in India – one of the many things told to me on the flight) and gently nudged it in.

I punched the numbers under the Lays and watched it slide forward and fall below.

“Got it?” he came over with the Keys and a bag.

I smiled triumphantly and showed him the packet. My first victory in the US.

I went back to the lobby to help him get the bags to our room. We had the weekend to go around and look for apartments, get food, call our parents back home. In America everyone led disciplined lives I was told- maintain a To Do List I had been told.

Life had already changed for me. I took out my toothbrush and night wear, sat on the edge of the tub and decided to go with the flow, get to know America just as I got to know my husband- at a slow steady pace. There was no hurry; we had all the time to experience each other.

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All that meat makes me wanna go shoot some creatures;) Fresh meat, little olive oil and a whole lot of friendly burping company. Oh! and add some beer;)

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Found two nasty little toad buggers in my clay pot and wondered who in their right mind would ever want to kiss those yucky things.

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Last year I had written about killing a mole who had been eating my vegetables, roots of my other expensive plants and making horrid little holes all over the garden. I rammed down stones in the holes but mole was an exuberant enthusiastic destroyer. I went psycho and killed him with lethal pesticides. I even put of a picture of a dead mole on my site.

Till date I get nasty wayward emails about my shameful behavior. One even mentioned that I should have called Animal Control and gotten them to remove the pestering pest. Yeah right!! If I called the animal control guys they would have laughed me off- Excuse me, can you take the mole out of my garden?

The snake that co-habituated with us when we came back from the US decided to bid me a firm syonara after we had a run in with each other. The villagers poured in to look for the snake but he had decided to part company. There was no more free loading and the trespasser left without any sort of harassment but the mole was another story.

He enraged me and so was killed with poison. I got hate mail, but hey I am the type who doesn't believe in street dogs either. A menace is a menace and needs to be dealt with - dogs should be killed humanely; moles..well, they along with the rest of their plague carrying relatives do not have my sympathies.

Of course other species of nature are most welcome in my garden like spiders, butterflies, earthworms and of course lady birds. The crow living on the mango tree deterred me from getting a Koi pond. Crows love fish and I'd have to kill it or cut the tree and I am not ready to do either for a bunch of fish.

Killing seems to be a natural part of gardening. Pesticides to kill aphids, boric powder to deter ants who run away with seeds, list goes on.

For a long time I believed I was the only one giving in to her nasty psycho killing streak but on reading the New York Times article - Peter Rabbit Must Die I breathed a sigh of relief I wasn't the only one but one amongst the many.

The article ended with a weak:

There is also the approach offered by Catherine Wachs, a gardener who runs the Right Brain Design advertising company and lives in Larchmont, N.Y.: “I do what the Bible says: Leave the corners of your field unharvested for the poor and strangers among you.”

Thing is they are not human strangers wanting to eat your fruit but pests who destroy the entire crop! And most of us love our tomatoes and cabbages. Think we are crazy? - dig your fingers in dirt, sow some seeds, watch them bloom or watch the vegetables grow and then feel the blow when the devastation happens overnight. If the gardening bug bites you so will the call of the wild come to your aid. Its as simple as that.

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"It takes the same amount of grain to fill an SUV with ethanol as it does to feed a person. We don't want any more subsidies for biofuels. This rush to biofuels is absolutely dreadful."
---------Barbara Stocking For BBC News

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The Hindu gods always had a sense of humor. How else would they have been able to deal with a gossiping Rishi like Narada? Enough tales have been woven around Narada's mischief in the heavenly abode. It isn't as if a bit of humor would kill the gods when the tales are woven on earth. They are not going to strike us down, they have supposedly better things to do like run the world - if you believe that they exist somewhere high up in the clouds or in some heavenly dimension.

On the heels of the Mohammad cartoons here is Vishnu responding to calls in a call center and the heading underneath is - Please Hold The Line While We Die Of Malaria.

Yes, we do die of Malaria. My grandfather died of Cerebral Malaria, my aunt too suffered from Malaria. Is it a laughing matter? not really; nor is it politically correct but since when has the magazine Onion known to be politically correct about anything?

There was a time when the cartoon of a naked fakir playing his flute to the dancing snakes was used to project India and now this. There was more to India back then and more to India now.

We know it and they know it. It was a crass joke.

What if there was another toon with Jesus smoking weed with the caption below- I Was Stoned And Missed A Few Tornadoes? Not funny, right? There is more to America than just drugs and natural disasters just like there is more to India than call centers and diseases.

Gods and Prophets can take a few jokes at their expense. Don't we put up with jokes made at our expense and are told to grow a thick skin? However I am not comfortable about jokes on famines, genocides, diseases and natural disasters. They entail real human sufferings and are no laughing matters.

Freedom of Speech gives Onion the right to indulge in tongue and cheek humor but at the same time they should realize that crass jokes can and do boomerang. This one didn't have me laughing but thinking at what point does a joke stops being funny?

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Past week the papers had been carrying news of disgruntled Indian oil companies unable to bear the brunt of steep price hikes of petrol. Being a lazy assed fool I had been driving around on an empty tank and today la dee da decided to visit one of the gas stations that I regularly visit on HSR.

They shooed me off- no petrol, went to another one - there too they had no stock, went to Koromangala they were out of petrol too. I was driving on empty and panic was bubbling in my mind. No Petrol!! The what ifs began-

No petrol- no food or steep priced food
No petrol- no transportation
No petrol- anarchy!!

I told myself to calm down decided to try the Shell gas station on Hosur Road. They had premium only. It was obviously no time to be a penny pincher. I got the tank filled, paid enough moolah to make me weep and returned home after driving fucking around for over an hour.

Lesson learned: Never remain in La La land for too long, reality tends to whoop the dreamer's ass!!

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Avid video gamers tend to gravitate towards story lines that are action packed, are believable or as such bring strong magical realism to the games. Movies based on games such as Lara Croft, Resident Evil etc have been box office hits. The influence of video gaming has not only heavily influenced contemporary literature especially in the Scifi and Magic genres but have also reflected the strong feminist presence in modern times.

Take for example Jayel Gibson's book- Quondam which happens to be the last of the four part series of The Ancient Mirror Series has strong female characters. The main character Cwen finds herself falling through a portal to a world devastated by the cruelty of a nymph of the woods who is cursed to live in the flesh and becomes a cruel queen driven to destroy magic and extends her rule over mankind and only through Cwen can the world be saved. A lot rides on her shoulders and the other female characters in the novel are as strong in Cwen in spirit and in magic.

The feminist tone in the book is strong as it is in the gaming world where the women fight shoulder to shoulder with their male warriors. And like the characters in video games the women in Jayel Gibson's book are beautiful, feminine and yet burn with fierce inner spirit.

What makes this book a novelty is that Jayel Gibson is herself a gamer and believes that video gaming is actually good for people. And her books prove her opinion as the characters are complex, their missions difficult and the storyline is action packed. The books are immersing and deal with human frailties as well which not only hooks the readers but also lend the story lines credibility for in the end its not only about good winning over evil but about the indomitable human spirit - a concept that many games are based on where one continues to try and overcome hurdles and conquer missions despite repeated failures.

Jayel Gibson's novels are well written, refreshing and are light read. For more information on the books visit- Wix.com

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