Month: January 2006

Girl to her class teacher: “My daddy just got a new car!”
“That`s nice,” says the teacher. “So is he all excited?”
The girl replies: “Of course yes. He spent the whole night re-painting and changing the number plates.”

As always, today also somebody broke into somebody else`s house in Chennai. This has been happening regularly.

What are these enterprising men and women called? Thieves, robbers, burglars, dacoits, bandits…why do we need so many names for them? No wonder, the policemen have such trouble finding out the culprits. Ironically, I know only two synonyms for God – almighty and the American President.

I myself used to be a kleptomaniac once. For a long time I was taking something for it. But then realized, that when the doctor advised me to take something to cure kleptomania…he didn`t mean Priya`s fountain pen or Sudip`s 500 rupees or Satish`s 512 Mb Thumb drive.

This kleptomaniac tendency of mine even forced me to rob a bank. It was neither a sperm bank nor a blood bank. I am talking of a real money bank. I can`t reveal the bank`s name here because I am currently working on a tunnel from that bank`s safe vault and I don`t want them to smarten up. Anyways, I covered my face with a black mask…and took along a gun (the costly black ones you get during Diwali). The good thing about bank employees is that they are paranoid their whole working life – practicing the theft procedure to be followed in case of emergency. Thus, when the actual test comes…they fumble.

Like I said, I entered the bank and ordered all customers to lie on their tummies and keep their hands behind their heads. One guy got down on the floor and started telling me about the time when he met Julia Roberts and she proposed to him and all. When I asked him to shut up…he reminded me that I had only asked him to ‘lie` on his stomach. I had to then clarify my request and all customers went down to the floor and kept quite.

I then moved towards the cashier and asked him to show me the money vault. He smiled, and pointed at a big screen on the wall. It was a huge map of the Bank and somebody was blinking a message to me…it said “You are Here”.

I couldn`t believe this! I had just entered the bank and the police already knew where in the bank I stood. Having seen numerous Hollywood movies, I knew that by now, I would be in a sniper`s cross hair (that`s the cross used to aim, while using a rifle).

I had to surrender. Two years later, when in jail I would come to know that such screens are known as “You Are Here Charts” and are supposed to assist a newcomer to the premises.

I won`t reveal how many years I spent in the Jail. If you are really particular, here is a hint: when Amitabh Bachchan movie ‘Coolie` was being shot inside a jail in 1983 (remember the jahan hum khade hotein hain, line wahin se shuru hoti hai, dialogue?) I was watching it from my cell.

Now you know why this Blog is biographical. Don`t all jailbirds write biographies?

This is a post, which can be used against me the day I run for Mayor`s office in Chennai. Or after I become the Indian President. Remember US President George Bush faced trouble over his drug revelations. Or was it Arnold ‘Terminator` Schwarzenegger?

When I was young…I said No to drugs. But nobody listened. I shouted at the faces of some people but to no avail. Nobody took notice of me. I think it was around this time that I took to drugs. Needless to say, after my first snort…everybody started noticing me. I was popular.

For convenience sake let us refer to people who take drugs as drugsters (don`t we refer to people who protest as protesters?).

Back then, the World was too normal and we were forced to take drugs to make it exciting (loud, noisy, funky, colorful)…but now the World is too exciting and we take drugs like Anacin, Saridon, etc to make it appear normal.

During my flirtation with drugs, I was pretty close to my supplier. Unlike in the movies, this supplier…never sniffed…and never had girls around him…and never smoked like a chimney. Here is a conversation I once had with him –

“Why don`t you use drugs yourself?”

“I once had half an ounce of my 2 Kg brown sugar consignment, which had just then landed.”

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Oh yeah, I did. But I lost the whole consignment to the police. Not to mention the two years in jail when they found me unconscious near my consignment.”

“That`s sad. But if you guys don`t take that much drug…who are your biggest takers?”

“The customs officers, of course.”

I didn`t argue with the man. Just picked up my ounce and went my way. I wouldn`t have remembered this conversation had it not been for this friend of mine whom I saw on the way out…he was stoned.

“How did it happen?” I asked him.

He was relatively quick for somebody who had been stoned. He said: “By mistake, I drank wet cement.”

I tried to bring some sense to him. Having decided to quit myself…I thought I had the right to advice a fellow drugster.

“Mate, you need to give up drugs.” I said.

“How can I do that? You know it…it is quite addictive.”

I precisely knew what he meant. It is quite an addictive hobby…but then…I had to explain it to him that there was more to life that just drugs.

I gave him that fatherly look and said: “You know, you need to make little things count and make your life exciting.”

My friend was moved by my concern and asked an innocent question.

“When you ask me to make little things count…are you asking me to teach arithmetic to dwarfs?”

I gave up advising right then, and got back to romancing with drugs. I never said No for a long time…until that day when I tried to sniff Coke. I tried hard but the straw kept coming in the way. When I removed the straw, I almost drowned…coz the Coke flooded my nose. I am glad I didn`t have ice cubes in the coke…I would have probably died due to suffocation.

I think that was the day when I said ‘I know` to drugs!

Apparently, traveling makes one intelligent and broad-minded.

Am not so sure, coz I traveled the whole of last weekend and my spectacles fits me just fine. From puking eight times between 12 midnight and 6.30 a.m. to traveling to Madurai in a 3rd AC with loud pack of Gujaratis, to picking up a fight with an auto-rickshaw guy for 10 bucks, to traveling in a rickety bus for three hours, to watching a 1980s Vijaykanth movie during a bumpy ride, to getting my uncle`s car grounded, to eating half a kilogram of pongal…I did everything this weekend.

One of Rekha`s relatives had once asked me, “So what is the right time to travel to Madurai?”

I said: “The best time to travel to Madurai is between age 18 to 34. Any travel before or after could be tiring.”

Somehow, age has not stopped my in-laws from traveling to Chennai. They will be here for the long Republic Day weekend. Am glad. If they had come during the Independence Day holidays…it would have been real irony. Imagine me losing my independence on Independence day?

Incidentally, travel works both ways. When you travel, you can inconvenience the stationary objects (relatives staying in the city you are traveling to) or somebody traveling with you can inconvenience you. Especially, if you were traveling with your bitter half…oops…better half.

Take for example, this incident that happened in Matthuthavanai (the biggest Bus stand in Madurai). I asked a bus driver, “Will your Bus No. 12B take me to Reserve Line bus stop?”

The driver gave an emphatic reply: “No sir, this bus can`t take you to the Reserve Line Bus stop.”

As has been happening ever since we got married, Rekha was watching all this from the sidelines. The driver hadn`t even finished, when she stepped forward and asked the driver: “Will it take me?”

During my travel, I also happened to visit Sivakasi – the land of matchboxes and fireworks. Like all cities, this too has a urban legend, narrated to me by a 24-year-old cousin. As all urban legends, this happened two years ago. A rich fireworks factory owner had decided to take Viagra when his wife left India to be with her kids for summer. Apparently, most rich kids from small towns now head for the US and refuse to take up their ancestral business. Anyways, coming back to the Viagra story…this rich factory owner tried taking Viagra but the capsule got stuck in his throat. Legend has it that the next day he got up with a really stiff neck.

We were back on the Chennai soil on Monday morning. Even as I unlocked our house…I realized…I hadn`t been complimented by anybody during this trip to Madurai and Sivakasi. In comparison, the Keralites (my wife`s relatives) had given me a compliment the last time we went visiting. I remember they calling me a PERFECT idiot!