A Dry Kerala? What the Fuck!

I don't know how this happened and when it happened. I guess, it kind of caught us unaware. There was always these ominous signs, which on hindsight, we should have paid attention to. But like the frog in a pot of water that is being brought to a boil, we did not realize it until we lost everything.

We surrendered without a fight. Somehow even the thought of a resistance was sabotaged by the media and the oppressors , by making us into the enemy. We were the disease. This was being done to cure us. Our rights were stripped away over night.

This was a black day and we could not even drink to that.

To think this could happen in my own , nay, God's own country!

True, a mallu like his peg. Okay we like it a lot.

It offers him the necessary numbness to actually live with being a mallu. Its hard being a mallu. Its like being a black Jew.

I for one, thinks this is a bad idea. You are dealing with a bunch of people who are some of the smartest in the Indian Nation. We even have one of our boys going on that one way trip to Mars. Okie, we are not that smart. But we are devious. You can never tell a mallu to do something or not do something. Terms cannot be dictated to a Keralite. It doesnt go down well with us.

"We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in our toddy shops
we shall fight on the seas and oceans,
we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Bars, whatever the cost may be,
we shall fight on the beaches,
we shall fight in the Parliament,
we shall fight in the paddy fields and in the streets,
we shall fight in the hills;
we shall never surrender,
and even if we do, which I do not for a moment believe; and this prawn state or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our NRIs beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the Foreign exchange, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the Bars, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the drunks.”

I have kept quite when the prawn state declared the law against smoking in public places. I felt that it was a justified law. After all those who disagree must consider that smoking in a public place is like peeing in the pool, its gets around.

But closing the bars and declaring a prohibition is stepping on my constitutional right. Its my fucking money, my fucking liver, my fucking life and if I want to drink , I should be allowed to. The day I want the government to become my wife, I will ask them to get into the ring and go a round with my wife.

Look, I get the whole problem with alcoholism. I have seen, as many of us, people who have died of it, the domestic violence due to it, the accidents that are caused by it ( Salman Bhai, take a bow), the late night texting to the exes and the regrettable status updates on facebook. Alcoholism is a serious problem. I get it.

But like a wise monk once said, if the thorns hurt your feet, the solution is not in covering the whole world in leather but rather your soles in it.

The cure for alcoholism is not in prohibition. That will drive the problem underground. You really think you can keep a mallu away from his alcohol? These are the guys who runs lucrative bootlegging trade in moonshine, in Saudi Arabia, which has the strictest penalty against alcohol and its use. My friends are already surfing the net to study making home made mead.

Our Kerala politicians are the most entertaining folks there is. They are the ones who keep the whole of Kerala glued to the TV ,watching Asianet, ignoring the fact that a whole world exists beyond Kerala, Nammade nadu. If they did, they would learn some amount of history which will show what happened when this stunt was pulled in other countries.

This is the same stunt, which costed a horse its head and enabled Italian men in great suits to make offers that no one could refuse.

I don't do politics. I don't understand it and I don't follow it. But every once in a while, one of them goes and does something so stupid that, I will have to switch the channel to Asianet, where I get to to see fat men in white, indistinguishable from each other, talking in a Malayalam which is never really in common conversation. This Malayalam is pompous, incomprehensible and reeks of insincerity. The plan now I hear is to encourage all persons who partakes to rehabilitation. The help of the police is being sought to enforce this. But first they will ensure that the tipplers among the police are rehabilitated and made into teetotalers.

By this time I got off from the floor , where I was rolling around trying hard to control my laughter.

Now I understood why my fellow mallus were glued to this channel to see the antics of these walruses all dressed in white. They are fucking hilarious.

So the plan, in short, is a police state, with moral policing.

Having spend a life time battling addictions, allow me to give you a realistic insight into the dark recesses of a person who take solace in substance abuse. Though this prohibition move effects even the sensible drinkers among us, it is being touted as the concerned step taken by the government to help stem alcoholism.

We need help.

But not this kind of help. You take away an addicts source, he will replace it with another addiction. Once that void has been experienced , you will tend to try and fill it. Every time. We are like zombies. We keep going. The only way, we can climb out of this hole , we have helped dig, is a want to quit. The change , the need for it, has to come from within.

What needed to have been done was an awareness drive. More rehabilitation centers. More AA meetings. Support groups for those who needed help. Counselling.

In the meantime, come down hard on domestic violence. Enforce those laws on drunken driving, mercilessly. Drunken public nuisance should not be tolerated. Enforce and implement the laws that are already in place.

So while the politicians berate about the loss of revenue in excise taxes and the bar owners make noises about their licenses and the bar employees mourn about their jobs, the real problem, is going to find ways to sustain itself.

And Kerala has all the resources necessary to find a way around this.

My suggestion is to have a breath analyzer test for all those politicians when they enter the parliament. I feel that will give an idea how sincere anyone of these guys are about the welfare of their people.

Be the change that you want to see around you.

This is not a good trend. Allow this and tomorrow the government will dictate your life. Remember these are the same clowns who think that rape is caused due to what women wear.

Just a thought.

Buns of a man.

Ahh... my baby... come here ... commeeee here.... kissy kissy... hugs... i missed you... there...there... down boy... down boy!!


Due to my long absence from blogging, I had forgotten my password. Anything that is not used for long tends to fall away. Much like my penis.

In my absence, so many things seems to have happened. Things are a lot more clearer now. I guess with age does come a sense of self assurance. Your age group are the ones currently running the show , so you can actually give a fuck to what they think of you.

I guess that's why this is here -

Man Buns

Nope . Not those.

To be fair, even I thought along the same line when I first heard it. The latest trend - Man Buns! And I am going like, fuck me blue, I have no buns to talk about.

But the plan to shove pillows down my pants was stalled when I found out that the new fad was this :

Its apparently a new fad which originated in New York.

Er, I hate to break the bubble but that is the oldest hairstyle in the world. Buddha sported the same thing and no one calls him a hipster. Go down to India and every self respecting ascetic looks like a Jamaican. Remove the turban of a Sikh and lo, a man bun. Go to a temple pond in Kerala and wait at the exit of the women bathe area and if you dont get beaten by them, you will see a man bun on a woman.

If your hair is long , then this is the most practical way to keep it in one place.

I would have certainly gone for this, except that the area where that bun is supposed to be tied is devoid of any follicles. It is like a nuclear test area. Nothing grows there. I have a place on my head like the Tunguska event.

That's where this little fucker comes to use.

The clip on man bun !

I think I will just stick to shoving pillows down the back of my pants.

Drunken Donuts.

We love our drinks, don't we?

But in India , we seem to take it to the next level.

I love my alcohol. I guess being a mallu , I am wired to be an alcoholic. My earliest memory is of a much older cousin, who in an inebriated state, walked over the Tambanoor bridge in Trivandrum ( which is now named Thiruvananthapuram, and is also used by the cops to see if you are drunk by asking the suspects to spell it), naked.

In the later years he went on to become a Sanyasi. The step between chemical imbalance and spirituality seems to be a subtle one. Of course, he was the family legend. He was everything I wanted to be. Naturist and a monk. Who could ask for more?

In the Sand City, I have a ritual for my drinking. Something as sacred as Jack Daniel, in my book, required that sort of devotion. I used to drink only in the night when I was alone. It had to be just right. Absolute silence and solitude was a requirement. I was not meant to be a social drinker much to the dismay of my parents. I am probably the only person in this planet who had his mother screaming at me at a party to get drunk like normal people.

Now that is how it is for a mallu.

But even I was not prepared for the things we do back home in India to have our bottle and drink it too.

Bangalore .

A city who is a lot like the fun loving young girl who has Bal Thackery as her father. The city goes to sleep at 11 pm for heaven's sake! The place probably has the maximum number of watering holes in the country and the biggest revenue the traffic police makes is from those poor souls who return home after downing a few.

The whole thing is like a well organized production. The cops will place metal barrier gates strategically on the road like a maze and then direct suspiciously weaving vehicles to the side of the road and make the drivers/riders do the dreaded blow job.

If your alcohol level is below 40mg per 100ml of blood, you are pretty much ok. You are free to go home. So that one for the road is fine as long as it stays just one. Unlike the Sand City which has zero tolerance.

Anything above that can get you either fined, vehicle confisticated, licence revoked or jailed , depending on severity and repeat offending. Its all great. They have a detailed website ( http://www.bangaloretrafficpolice.gov.in ) which ensures everyone here knows the law. So its all good.

But lets be honest. When was a law made that was not meant to be broken? Especially when it involves alcohol? Personally I think drunken driving is the most stupidest thing a person can do apart from telling your wife that her butt looks big in that dress. Its suicidal. Not that I have anything against people wanting to kill themselves. Hell, its your life pal, see if I care. But drunken driving puts others at risk. Ask our Salman Bhai.

Since common sense was never the forte of our species, there are many tricks that is being employed to beat the breath analyzer. Whether it works, is anybody's guess. I certainly will not vouch for the effectiveness of any of it. Since I drink myself to a stupor in the confines of my house, this does not apply to me and like politics, government and social issues that does not effect me directly has no relevance or interest to me.

Forget mints and paan.

Apparently guava works. After a night of revelry, eat a guava fruit and you are all set to face Inspector Ramayiah and his breathing tube. Someone said its not the fruit that you have to eat but its leaves. Play it safe. Eat both.

Recently a friend of my wife told her that the most effective method to beat the test is to drink Parachute Coconut Oil.

Yep. I bet the guy was a mallu. The coconut oil as the solution to all of the world's problem can only come from a malayali head.

We believe in our coconut oil. In right doses we know that coconut oil can cure AIDS , baldness and neutralize alcohol from your blood stream.In fact if studied in depth we are positive that it hold the key to the unified theory. In the beginning, before the word, god created coconut oil.

So if you are in Bangalore partying with your local friends , don't be surprised to see a big bottle of Parachute Coconut Oil being part of the celebration.

If the drive home doesn't kill you,hopefully, the cholesterol will.

Still Clueless

I am not much on comparing. Each to its own, that's what I say.

Wife blames it on low empathy but I don't agree, it's more or less because I don't care. Different definition , same meaning...but I really don't care. You live your life and let me live mine.

But it doesn't work that way does it?

The beauty of the sand city is in its way of letting its ugliness be hidden...like its laborers who built it but remains the unseen, unsung heroes. It's easier that way for people like me, who by some unforeseen accident or birth defect cannot relate unless it comes from a source of experience. Even then it's from a source that's self serving. You tend to view from your own perspective and in that lies the virtue or curse, as you might deem it, this ability to be unaffected .

I don't care.

I see yet I don't feel. Thing is I don't think I am alone in this. The more I watch the game of life around me, the more I feel I belong. The only difference being that I say it and most don't. It doesn't make me elate since the easiest path is to admit to your follies and be unconcerned , than to recognize your follies and make a change. But hey, what's the hurry? We are comfortable in our little bubbles of make believe empathy and sympathy, that the need for acting upon it is never called upon us.

Life is good.

We can put a 'Like' on the Tibetan who burns himself to ashes for his freedom on the social media network, or run amok with our verbal diarrhea on female infanticide , rape, genocide, or any other cruelties that we deem deserves our opinion and we can make ourselves believe that we have played our part in changing the world .

Things are good for people like me. The arm chair problem solvers, who with the tip of their fingers can alert the world and make changes.

I blog.

I rest my case.

But then I am the lowest rung in human evolution. I am the bottom feeder. I don't even believe in my own species. If it was up to me , we would have ended on December 21st 2012.

I was that guy who was rooting for the Mayans.

I don't understand.

I don't understand why in India we have those guys standing at the enterance of a mall, going through my bill of purchase and punching it before letting me out. What are they doing? What is the purpose? What do they hope to find.??

I don't understand. I have even asked that uniformed, security guy who gets to wear a uniform and pretend to be a cop what he is doing. He had no answer. He was required to look at the bill and punch it. I asked him if it is to deter shop lifting. He said maybe. So I asked him how will looking at a bill and punching it deter shop lifting, since you are not comparing my purchase with my bill. He nodded thoughtfully and looked at me sheepishly. I realized that I was questioning his purpose. That was not my intention but he emitted the vibes of an animal who is trapped , scared and ashamed. It changes the frequency of my energy and hits me at the base of my solar. It charges the emotion of guilt. I felt bad. I backed away. Thanked him for taking the time to explain it to me. I felt the vibes change.

I still didn't understand. Perhaps its to keep the guy busy. Give him something to do. To keep him engaged. Like that guy you find in the lift. You don't really need someone in the lift to press the buttons for you but yet, there he is.

Its like in India we create jobs so that people can earn; have a purpose. I am okay with that. Like those shadow people in stores whose only job is to follow you around. I get fazed by them. They make me very nervous.

What's their function?

I don't understand.

Death becomes us

Meat gave up on me.

For a hardcore carnivorous, who believed that to save animals bordering on extinction, we need develop a taste for them, this new development is somewhat weird.

As a misanthrope with a death wish, this is not part of any diet. I have never had a physical done because I am of the old school who believes that what you don't know cannot kill you.

When I look back on that fateful day, I developed a repulsion for all animal based food product , I seem to see a pattern. A coming together of specific events to finally kick me where it made perfect sense.

I was reading K Pax. It's a three part book based on a person in a mental institution who claims to be an alien from the planet K Pax. A movie was made on the first part in which Kevin Spacey played the role of prot , the alien. What struck me about the book was his eating habit. He eats only planet produce. His reasoning is that life should not be sustained by another life but rather from its living energy. I found that fascinating. I have always felt hypocritical about my stand about life , humanity and all such crap while stuffing myself with flesh that came from dead animals. But truth be told, the book did not bring about the change. It was just fodder for my thoughts.

Then one day, someone posted a YouTube video about a cow being taken in for slaughtering. The whole video, which lasted about 4 minutes was this cow standing in a narrow corridor that leads to an entrance that is opened and shut with an automatic gate. The cow cannot see what is happening to the cow which went in before her. But she knows that something is wrong. She moves back. She tries to turn and escape but the corridor is too narrow. I saw the panic. The fear. The desperation to live. The resistance to an impending death.

I think I cried.

And that was the end of meat. Every living creature deserves to live. To feel for the murder of a human child but feel nothing for a fish, seems so fundamentally flawed. It seems like a convenient conscience.

Now my wife is convinced that I am going to set off in search of a boodhi tree.

I doubt it.

There is nothing remotely moral or some higher path shit that I connect to. I am way too much of an asshole for that. My actions are purely selfish and self centered. There is definitely something going on with me, but I attribute that to decades on alcoholism and possible mental damage.

But I do have a possible solution for world hunger and population.

Cannibalism.

Propagate that, get that thought process a little momentum and we will solve two of the biggest problems that seems to plaque humankind.

Two birds with one stone.

The Man From UNCLE

Last week I went to my son's school to witness 200 kids make asses out of themselves in the name of Republic Day Celebration. I have nothing against today’s schools and their evolved form of education but I don’t understand and don’t appreciate being made a part of my children's educational progress or lack of it.

Let us get this straight.

I sell my organs and pay for their education. This means that the school takes the onus for my child's education. Then why the fucks do you need my participation? Do you pay me back?

Here, Mr. Tyson, please find attached in your child's diary a cheque of Rs. 20, 000, in lieu of your part in ensuring that your ward was assisted this year in his science projects, art projects, various other projects that we invented to show you that we are taking your money and making you work for it all over again.

I pay so don't bother me.

I am okay with the whole PTA thing. It’s like those feedbacks thingy. Like a shareholders meeting. You get them to report on your investment.

It should end there.

Anyhow.

While sitting on the steps of the school, far away from those enthusiastic parents who traumatize their children by actually taking part in those ridiculous events the school devise to further humiliate the very people who are working for what they are paying for, it dawned to me that these people are the reflections of me.

I mean, they are probably as old as me. I saw the men with the ear rings, goatees and the constant effort of sucking in a gut that retained its hemisphere even after the lungs was as devoid of air as our neighboring moon and saw in those minds the perpetual stage of youthfulness that never outgrows late twenties until an illness catches us off guard and reminds us of our impending mortality and the lack of time to actually screw every women in the world.

Mid life crisis is so heartbreakingly predictable and uniform.

Personally I could never understand this thing about wanting to hold on to our youth by having young girls are girl friends. You have reached a point in your life where, sex, if at all you are having it, is a weekend thing. Like your laundry day or worse your day of the 2 pegs. Sex is there to remind you that you are not yet dead, and that the thing you are married to is, for all sundry purpose, still a woman. Gone are those days when you could do it 5 times in a night and still have enough battery left in you to have a wet dream. Now if you do it once, you feel as if you ran the London Marathon.

Dating a young girl would be like putting the last bit of your remaining self esteem into a blender and whipping it to smitreens. And worse, they talk. Give me a woman who has a couple of miles under her belt. I prefer a real woman. A complete woman. The one who after sex returns to her side of the bed and goes to sleep. The ones who have seen the world well enough to know that conversations are over rated and that men don't complete them, sleep does.

A middle aged woman is beautiful. They have gone beyond the body obsession that seemed to have plagued them earlier on. Now they have attained enough wisdom to know that the man in their life is no pick of the litter either.

Thing about middle age is that it sneaks up on you.

Recently I was in India and in the Casualty Room of a renowned hospital. It was like Grey's Anatomy in there. All were beautiful. I kid thee not. If it wasn’t for the seriousness of my injury and illness, I would have been tempted to turn on my Tys charm, which involves mumbling when spoken to. It’s the carryover of having studied in an all boy’s boarding school.

The whole allure of beautiful doctors and nurses vanished when they started addressing me as Uncle.

When the fuck did I become Uncle?

Middle age creeps up on you.

Dear Aarya (2)

Dear Aarya,

I know its been a long time. Lots have happened. Most you know but some you dont. I have finally taken that first step.

Leaving is never easy. The first step is the hardest.

What crap! Once my mind was made, leaving Sand City was easy as apple pie. That is if I knew how the hell an apple pie is made.

Make no mistake, I am still an NRI. Which means that once in every six months, I will have to enter the Sand City and make my presence felt so that my Visa will be still valid. It also helped that I was working for the last 13 years in our family business which gave me such flexibility. So like most Indian sons, who has the longest weaning period among any animals, I passed off all my liabilities to my parents and left the country.

There comes a time in every true blooded mallu heart, where , like a salmon, he must seek the source of his birth. I wish I could say the same was true of me.

It wasnt.

I was bored. Unexcited. Mostly drunk and with absolutely no purpose. It didnt help that I am blessed with no ambition. Contentment is complacency in designer clothes. Restlessness was my motivation.

I longed to travel. I longed to get on a bike and ride. I longed to set in motion an idea which I felt had a chance, because it would be done by me. My wife believed in it. Once I made the business plan and showed it to my family, they too accepted that it had some merits, despite it being done by me. A prophet is never recognized in his home. Or like we mallus say, the jasmine on your own porch doesnt smell as good as the one on another mans porch...

India.

Reached the Bangaluru airport early morning one day, with my knapsack stuffed with tents, hiking stick,2 jeans, 2 gaberdine pants, 10 black t shirts, 10 cotton boxers, one pair of trekking shoes, 3 pairs of socks and 1 leather jacket donated graciously to me by my elder brother . My earthly possessions of 13 years in the gulf was packed into 2 airbags ( actually one would have been enough, but the sleeping bags , archery equipments , knives and other dooms day appliances took one entire bag) and had been stowed away in the hold.

Standing at the luggage conveyor belt, after getting one bag, waiting for the second one, I fell into a hypnotic lull, watching a similar looking bag as mine going round the snaking belt , out through a heavy plastic strip curtained opening, only to reenter again through another opening, much like the recycling of our sustainable souls. Woken up from my reverie by a gentle tap on my shoulder, I realized that I was the only one standing there.

The lone bag continued its unclaimed sojourn.

The finger giving me the gentle tap was attached to a tall young man in a uniform , who had a name badge identifying him as Bhoopathi.

It was quickly deduced that someone else had claimed my bag, while his own bag was now doing the circuit like a kid lost in the mall. I couldnt help noticing that though similar looking, his bag looked nothing like mine.

Bhoopathi now jumped into action. Literally. He actually jumped onto the conveyor belt, removed the errant bag , read the luggage tag, spoke into his walkie talkie and then sprinted away.

I felt like being in Bourne Identity.

Airports , like any travel center is a strange place once all the planes had taken off and all the hustle and bustle ceased into a temporary lull. You can all most hear a collective sigh. That customs officer with a handle bar mustache, turns from a ferocious gate keeper to a gentle giant with a penchant for puns.

Being an NRI, gives some an ability to see things from a different perspective. I am never one for a comparison. I believe and love the differences. Iam not one for a uniformed conformity and a global culture. I like the surprises that some may label as imperfections.

As a traveler, it helps to move without expectations. In fact, its almost liberating to just accept without expecting. In that regards, India doesnt disappoint.

After about 1 and a half hours, Bhoopathi, had tracked down the kidnapper of my bags and had him drive back to the airport. After retrieving my bag filled with stuff which has no value to anyone but me, from a man, who was now having his ear filled with words of wisdom from the handle bar mustached customs officer, I left, after shaking Bhoopati's hand, who had unintentionally given me the best welcome to a land I hold dear.

I walked out into the early morning lights of a Banglore dawn. Walked past the unauthorized taxi guys who were half heartedly bidding my attention, into the metered airport taxi.

In the taxi, I asked my driver , Sayeed, whether the unauthorized taxis ever get a ride in the face of the highly efficient and accountable airport taxi services.

We had stopped at a tea stall, where we were served delicious masala tea in still tumblers which was as big as shot glasses. After taking a sip, Sayeed, explained that they actually do.

The airport does not prohibit outside taxis. It is still the travelers choice as to which mode he/she chooses. There are still some who believes that unauthorized taxis are cheaper. This need not necessarily be true. I had traveled in one when I had come for a visit long time ago. It costed me INR 900. The airport taxi , which is metered had come to INR 800. I prefer the metered ones because it gives me a sense of actually believing I have some sort of control.

Then there is the safety aspect to the whole thing. When my wife travels alone, I insist that she takes the airport taxis. The car number along with the travelers names and destination is noted prior to the journey. So there is an amount of accountability which can deter potential hassles. And if that had not deterred the said driver, atleast you will know who you will have to hunt down and hang to dry.

I like accountability. It helps me sleep at night.

Sayeed and I traveled the remaining stretch to my house in silence. I looked out of the window, watching Bangalore walking up to a weekend. Lone joggers, meandering milk men, brown colored stray dogs sniffing around near the cart that was serving breakfast of idli and chutney to a small crowd of workers. A couple of techies, with the prerequisite laptop slung over their shoulders, ate among them. Ladies in nondescript colored saris, swept the streets - moving dirt and debris from one place to another.

Watched with amusement at the billboard advertising a leather sofa with a lady clad in tight leather with both her hands on her lower back , sticking her ample butt out , as if she had just gotten up from the sofa with a bad lower back pain.

The taxi sped on. Towards on coming traffic. Some say that Indian traffic is like organized chaos , that there is some sort of purpose behind all the chaos. I dont think so. I think its just sheer luck. You walk out of the house with the firm belief in an after life.

Its difficult to be an atheist in India. India requires hope. It requires you to have faith in that auto guy ,who is hell bent on killing you, to get you to your destination in one piece. You need to have some sort of a belief structure to ensure that you still believe that all those documents and money and time you had given at the RTO will eventually produce some tangible results. India will make you light those candles or break those coconuts or look up to the sky and murmur inshallah. Indian spirituality is a necessary part of negotiating your way through India.

I reached home. Sayeed helped me take my bags upto my flat. He declined my offer of tea. He had been called for another run.

Hugged my wife. Kissed the kids.

I am home.

I stood at the balcony holding the hot cup of tea which my wife had given to me. I stood among the potted organic farm she had managed to create in that small space. I watched the Bangalore sky line with her.

We stood in silence. It was a comfortable silence, the kind which envelopes you a second before you step into the ring.

I stepped into the ring.

I am home, Aarya. Finally. I feel a calmness.

Heard about your break up. Hold no animosity. Blame games are such emotional drainers. Get up and continue to be open. I am bad with advice and probably lame in my supposed sympathy ( I feel none). You must be laughing.

Love Tys