My mother always said that I had a million dollar look. I doubted her till I was tall enough to see in the small mirror mounted on our bathroom`s wall. After I saw myself in the mirror, my trust in my mother increased a million times. “She has taste”, I told myself.

It has been 33 year since I was born, 23 years since I first saw myself in the mirror….and I still look like a million dollars. Just that the million dollars seem a little over-used and ragged.

Some of the major growing issues that I have been facing are:

My hair is no longer my hair

My hair has matured and now wants to lead a life of its own. I find it in every corner of my house trying to build a family of its own. Where ever I go, I leave a trail of hair…so much so…one week after we vacated Choki Dhani Village Resort`s room…I got a call.

“Sir, is this Mr Jamshed?”

“Yes, that`s me. May I know who is on the line?”

“Jamshed, I am the house keeping guy at Choki Dhani Village and I clean the room in which you stayed.”

From his accent I knew he was from Haryana. I did notice a bit of no-respect….but then that`s what Haryana is all about…so didn`t bother.

“Sure. So how can I help you?”

“I wanted you to know that I have lost my job at Choki Dhani Village Resort because I couldn`t remove all the hair you left inside the room and the bath tub.”

“Oops that`s bad.” I didn`t know how else I could have responded. I did hear him mutter a swear word but wasn`t so sure….so didn`t pursue.

“So, where do you live Jamshed? What is your address?” I noticed sudden friendliness in his tone.

We Rajans are born with a tremendous amount of survival instinct, which over the years has been sharpened by dealing with credit card callers, personal loan callers & LIC Agents. I immediately cut the call and switched off my mobile. I think this decision saved me and my family from a hair-raising experience.

As I was saying…fed-up of my hair`s revolt I have been cutting it regularly….but none of the barbers I have come across know how to cut it properly. It always grows back. I want to remove the root cause…but nobody seems to know how.

If it was about hair alone, I wouldn`t really be worried. I have dandruff too! Beware! Back off!

Bob Monkhouse once said…My dandruff`s just been signed up for the title role in the movie “White Christmas”. How much I wish, there was snow in India …my dandruff could have tried its hand (do they have hands?) in Bollywood!

I own my set of Teeth

I have always had good teeth. At least that`s what my colleagues at ibibo thought, till during a conversation it came out that I was using false teeth. The set actually fell off.

I bet none of you own your set of teeth. The first set (the milk teeth) that I got fell off in the early days itself and then the tooth fairy gave me another set. That fell off one by one – during street fights, during wild sex with college girls (don`t ask me what kind of sex involves teeth!), during arguments with my bosses etc. Unlike you, who thrive on a gifted set, I have now paid for and own a set of my own.

To tell you the truth, I own two sets. Both are in different glass jars in my house. One is labeled “Daily Wear” and the other is labeled “Party Wear”.

My face is losing its glow

You wouldn`t believe me, but there was a time when I had a handsome face. So much so, the first man who came to see my sister for marriage asked for my hand (I am a man, mind you!). Back then, I was too young to understand his advances…and thank God my sister refused him anyway.

It is said that a beautiful face or in my case a handsome face…is a passport. It opens the doors of nations…well, there was a time when I could have cried on TV like Shilpa Shetty and got the whole country rallying behind me. Not any more. The passport has expired and the authorities (read plastic surgeons) have ruled out a second issue.

Here is what you have to do:

Write this information down –

Your Blog Title:
Your Blog URL:
Your Blog Description (in a line or two):

E-mail the above info to my gmail ID jv.rajan@gmail.com before 30th Aug, 2008 (Saturday). Would be great if you can spread the word, so that maximum bloggers can benefit (including me!).

I realized just now that I have been blogging for the last five years. Damn! This itself deserves a blog post. Another humor blogging biggie Great Bong celebrated his fourth year in blogging recently.

Unfortunately, I am still suffering from the writer`s block that`s been plaguing me for the last one month. So here goes another feeble attempt.

This post is about the time when the Rajasthan government out of love & respect for me…gifted me a camel.

The story begins in 1990 when I first visited Jaipur as part of Tamil Nadu`s kabbadi team. I was studying 10th grade in Kendriya Vidhyalaya, Madurai. Being the youngest in the team I was automatically a substitute and thus didn`t have to play many (or should it be ‘any`?) of the matches. With a lot of free time on hand, I started roaming the streets of Jaipur.

Remember the year was 1990 – the year of Mandal Commission, where heavy reservations were being recommended for OBCs (today I know that it is Other Backward Castes & NOT Onions, Baigans & Cabbages as I had thought back then) by then Prime Minister VP Singh. Even as I roamed the streets, I witnessed riots all around me.

Generally, Hindus and Muslims chase and kill each other in riots… and one is used to it…but this was a different riot…both the prey and the predator were Hindus.

I was rioting on behalf of the OBCs. Remember, back then I thought it was Onions, Baigans & Cabbages? Then, I believed that vegetarianism was the way forward. My belief had only grown stronger after I noticed that non-vegetarians farted too much – proof that our digestive system was built for greens & not the heavy proteins one had to digest after eating meat.

Being a kabbadi player, I was the fastest of the rioters and when we were chased by a crowd of non-OBCs…I bolted (NOT Usain Bolt) towards Jantar Mantar. Jantar Mantar is a wrong place to hide from sword wielding men …..it is only getting out that`s difficult….getting in isn`t. The non-OBCs entered Jantar Mantar and caught me….while I was still struggling to find a way out and avoid capture.

Did I tell you, I was born with a mole on my back…which makes me lucky? At the time of my capture….Srimathi Vasundhara Raje, who is now the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, was present inside Jantar Mantar. Back then she was only 35+ and pretty…and more adventurous. She walked up to the leader of the non-OBCs gang and said that we were a couple. She said that we were Mr & Mrs Iyer. Now you know who inspired the movie Mr & Mrs Iyer.

Royalty won, and I was released. Vasundhara Raje then took me to her mother Rajmata Vijayaraje Scindia…and we discussed politics till late in the evening.

I convinced them that there should be reservations for the OBCs…because that`s what God wanted us to do. Vasundhara`s mother did raise an eye brow when I mentioned Onions, Baigans & Cabbages….my guess is she didn`t care much about the baigans. I didn`t pursue the matter much…because even reservation for OCs was fine with me. In the end, they seemed pretty convinced.

Later we discussed about Uniform Civil Code, where I argued that not all school students come from the same financial background and hence…uniforms for school students should remain and the debate on Uniform Civil Code should end. Here again, they seemed to be convinced.

I parted ways after being a State Guest for a few days. While leaving Jaipur I had no idea that Vasundhara`s mother was impressed with me. When she passed away in 2001, 11 years after we met, she willed that Rajasthan gift me the best Camel the World had.

In early 2006, Vasundhara Raje…who by then had become the Chief Minister of Rajasthan, decided to fulfill her mother`s wishes and decided to import a camel from Saudi Arabia.

By late 2006, the best of breed camel was identified and shipped to India. The Rajasthan Government spent the next two years asking me to come and pick up my gift. Not knowing that it was a camel….I went to Jaipur last week….we drove down….but had to come back on camel back.

Don`t believe me? Check out the fax sent by Indian Embassy in Riyadh…and also my photograph on the camel.

Note: If Jaipur isn`t a haven for gays, why is it named the Pink City?

What was Mandal Commission all about?
According to Mandal, 27 percent of all posts in the government must be reserved for members from the “Other Backward Classes” (OBCs), and that those OBC candidates recruited on the basis of merit should not be adjusted against the OBC quota of 27 percent, that they should not be adjusted against the 22.5 percent reserved for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, that the quota was to be applied not only at the time of recruitment but also “to promotion at all levels”, and that if a sufficient number of those sub-standard OBCs were not available to fill the posts during a particular year, the unfilled margin should be carried forward for three years. More Here

Other Funny Reads

# When I became a cockroach
# Flashback: My days in London
# My wife`s oral contraceptive is “No sex today!”
# I despise the ladies…

My Grandmother is over eighty and still doesn’t need glasses. Drinks right out of the bottle.

– Henny Youngman (1906 – 1998)

I have been wearing glasses (not the whiskey ones) since I was in grade one. As proof I even have a mark on the bridge of my nose. Being a south Indian, I am proud to tell you that I share this so called ‘mark` with a Superstar called Rajinikanth!

Anyway, this post isn`t about me sharing a mark with the Superstar…but about this sudden urge in me to shift to contacts. If only I had contacts in high places, I would have got a well paying job and been able to afford contacts…which I would have then placed in high places – for example, my cupboard – for fear of my child.

* * * * * * * * *

I was in grade one, when my teacher asked me to get my parents to school. The obedient boy that I was, I called them.

“Please, get him glasses….I don`t think he can see what I write on the black board,” she told my mother. My mother was nodding her head vigorously. I was standing close by and overhearing.

How did the class teacher know? I was surprised and happy. In my excitement, I took a step closer and asked my teacher: “Madam, will I be able to read after I start wearing glasses?”

“Sure Rajan. Why not?” My class teacher was very encouraging.

“Because my mother thinks one needs to learn ABCD…. before one can start reading.”

Anyway, like I was saying…the first time I landed at an Optician for my pair of glasses, I didn`t even know what hit me. My father looked at a few spectacles, placed a fewer still on my nose and looked at me from far and near….and then handed me a pair that DIDN`T look like Harry Potter`s. I excused him because Harry Potter wasn`t even born then. But my father sure made a spectacle of me.

If you are somebody who has spent a good amount of time with bad eyes but no spectacles, you will agree that the World becomes a lot more colorful with glasses on the bridge of your nose.

My father decided to go back home by the public transport…to which I protested. I said: “Father, why don`t we take an auto?”

“No son…using public transport builds character.”

“No father it doesn`t!” I shouted over the noise created by the passing Diesel version of Ambassador.

“Yes son….it does.”

We argued for sometime…but then my father lost patience and threatened to give back my new spectacles if I refused to see his way with glasses he had paid for.

It has been least 25 years now (with a few years of Contact lenses in between)…and I have to tell you that I have had good and bad times.

The best was when yesterday when Rekha came closer, removed my glasses and said: “Rajan, without the glasses you look as young as you were at our marriage.”

Without battling an eyelid, I shot back: “I tend to agree ….without my glasses you look as young as you were at our marriage.”

*If you noticed this post was supposed to be about my contacts 😉

Other Funny Reads

Train-ed Romance – Flirting with a Pretty girl in a Train
Rekha and I had a small fight today morning
Being a celebrity is tough
Our visit to the gynecologist….
My eyesight….my problems

I once wanted to become a suicide bomber. It was 1990 A.D. and I was in class eight….I think Ms Geeta Kumari was my class teacher.

Suicide bombing hadn`t yet become a career option – the middle classes still wanted their children to become an Engineer, a Doctor or a Collector. I decided to become a Collector, because I didn`t like what the only Engineer & Doctor I knew did for a living – the former was always flirting with the brick carrying lady while the latter preferred the nurse. I know, I was only 14 years old then…but you got to agree that we Rajans have that special something to spot a flirt.

In order to become a suicide bomber, I started practicing. By early February, 1990 I could hide under my shirt my school bag and my cricket bat. My guru in this exercise was Zafar Iqbal, a class 10 student who told me that he was a retired suicide bomber. I followed his advice, and spent at least 20 hours a day, trying to hide all kinds of things under my shirt.

Zafar said his family was full of suicide bombers. He even swore that his 80 year old grand pa was a suicide bomber – I know, it defies logic…but back then I didn`t have the courage to question him.

When I asked him why he had become a suicide bomber at such a young age, he narrated the story of his father`s bravery.

Like the rest of their family, his father Yakub Khan had also enrolled to be a suicide bomber when he was all of 24. After the training was over – in which Yakub couldn`t ask his suicide bombing teacher at Suicide Bombing Institute of India (SBII) for a second demonstration – he was sent to suicide attack an Indian Army camp in Dehradun.

I could see pride in Zafar Iqbal`s eyes as he was in a world of his own while narrating the story of his father`s bravado. He continued….

And then, my father strapped four kilograms of TNT around his stomach and put of a winter jacket over it. Since it was November…nobody suspected him. He walked right up to the middle of the cantonment and called up his bosses in SBII.. My father told his bosses that he was in the center of the cantonment, and wanted permission to commit suicide. Like true professionals, the bosses gave the green signal immediately….but as luck would have it…my father`s bomb refused to go off. He pressed the red button again….then again…then again…but the bomb just didn`t go off.

I looked in awe as I listened to Zafar`s passionate narration.

My father looked around him…there was nobody…..he could have given up and just walked out of the cantonment alive. But that wasn`t my father….he was a brave man. He pulled out his knife…and as promised to his bosses…slashed his wrists and committed suicide.

Zafar was my suicide bombing guru for a long time. And by the time I realized that suicide bombers didn`t retire, as Zafar had claimed, but died and spent time in heaven with 72 virgins, it was too late.

Around December, 1990, I decided to branch out on my own. I named my group Al Alphonsa Al Bimar Al Camchor and even made my own visiting cards.

With just a visiting card and burning ambition, I decided to tie up with other terrorist outfits. Zafar had told me that terrorists exchanged messages on porn sites….so I started visiting porn sites by the dozen.

You are probably thinking how a 14 year old, middle class boy, growing up in Kolkata (and that too in 1990 A.D.) will have internet access at home. Just to remind you…..you are reading my blog. So continue….

I started visiting porn sites. In the six months I spent searching for messages from terrorists hidden in porn sites…I came pretty close only once.

The message, which I saw just below a lady`s picture, said: “She packs solid ones under her jackets. She be mean, and can kill you with her looks.”

There were links next to this message called ‘View Her Images` ‘View Her Free Videos`…….I did view them but it turned out to be a dead end. There were no clues so I couldn`t proceed any further.

After wanting to become a suicide bomber for a little more than a year…I dropped my plan on 21 May, 1991 – the day Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated by a suicide bomber.

Other Funny Reads

On Osama Bin Laden: Everybody`s Bin Looking!
How I averted a flood, an earthquake and a Hindu-Muslim riot
Now I have the license to kill, literally
I have never sat on an airplane
Conversation: Osama vs Batman
Delhi Blasts: When paranoia sets in…