Categories
Family

Australian Zebra Finch Birds – my first pet at age 35 years

Rekha has never liked animals. Or birds for that matter. Or fish. She would eat them, but to see them alive give her the creeps.

You probably ask, “If she was so allergic to animals, how come she married you?” Well, my answer is that before marriage I did behave like a human.

Though there were times when she called me a Dog. You got to give it to Rekha for being appropriate – she never addressed me as a dog in front of strangers & relatives. It was reserved for occasions when we were alone – especially when we were in the bedroom.

“You are a dog. Can’t you understand a simple ‘No’?”

“Why are you behaving like a street dog? I am your wife….behave like a gentleman.”

Till the day I decided to get a German Shepherd in the house, I didn’t know that Rekha hated animals. Unfortunately, the only questions I had asked her before our marriage were:

“How much money can your parents pay me if I get married to you?”

“How much money does your father have?”

“Do you have any younger sisters, if yes, is she pretty?”

“How many of your kins do we have to divide your father’s wealth with?”

As happens with most husbands, before marriage I didn’t asked the most important question: “Do you like animals in the house?”

I have always wanted to have pets at home. As a child our parents had trouble feeding the three of us – me and my two sisters – so they didn’t prefer pets. The moment I got a job and became independent, I wanted to get a pet but I had to travel every weekend to Madurai…which meant the pet had to be locked inside the house for two days. So no pet was possible, till I was alone.

The moment I got married, I decided to pursue by life long dream.

“Rekha, we should get a pet for the house.”

“Why Rajan? We just got married – I am your pet…and you are mine. Why do we need a third pet?” Rekha was as seductive as she could be. I fell for it and forgot pets for a year.

With time, we stopped being each other’s pets. That’s when I decided to ask Rekha again.

“Rekha, how about we bring a German Shepherd home?”

“What do you mean German Shepherd?” Rekha didn’t understand my question.

“Let me be straight…can a German Shepherd stay in our house? I responded in haste.

Rekha started blushing. This surprised me. But I waited for her to say something. After the blood had rushed down her face and down her neck…she regained composure and said: “Since reading Paulo Coelho’s Alchemist…I have always wanted to meet a traveling Shepherd. Now that we are short on love….a traveling Shepherd could mix things up.”

“This is a German Shepherd!” I shouted.

“Yeah yeah…. Paulo Coelho says all Shepherds are the same. So get him home. Let us have some fun,” Rekha said.

Before leaving I told Rekha that I shall be back in an hour with the German Shepherd. She looked excited and told me that she will prepare an extra room for him.

Guess, this was my hint – so she wanted a male dog.

I immediately went to a pet store and bought a male German Shepherd puppy. On the way I even decided to name him Paulo Coelho since my wife seemed to like the name so much.

I don’t know what hit me once I reached home. After 30 minutes of shouting at each other I learned a few things: That Paulo Coelho was a philosophical writer who wrote a book called Alchemist in which a shepherd goes around cities loving women. And that Rekha was excited to host him in our house, hoping it would bring back some love in her life.

Needless to say, I had to return the puppy and get my money back.

After this incident, I never brought forth the topic of pets. It has been five years since. Whenever tempted, I would just go to the Facebook Game Farmville and tend to my pet.

In the last few months the urge for pets has cropped up again, thanks primarily to our daughter Rhea. She loves animals and birds and fish – just like her dad.

So, two months back I asked Rekha: “How about a pair of rabbits for Rhea?”

“Alive?” Rekha inquired without looking up from the Adrian Mole series book she was reading.

“Yes alive. It will be a jail-within-a-jail experience for the rabbits….for we will get a cage as well.”

Guess, Rekha didn’t like my sarcasm, but she continued to be polite.

“Rajan, we live in Gurgaon….and we only have AC in our bedroom. How will the rabbits survive in this heat?”

“You don’t need to worry about that – they already have hare conditioning!” I tried to joke. We Rajans rely on our jokes to get things done. And more often than not it helps.

“OK fine…let us say we do get one. How long do they live – what if they die after a year? Wouldn’t Rhea be devastated?” Rekha was looking for reasons to not have rabbits in the house.

“But Rekha, we can always tell the pet shop owner that we don’t want rabbits with gray hare!”

Rekha wasn’t amused by this as well. After an hour long discussion, which also included Rekha throwing the Adrian Mole book at me, we agreed that we won’t get rabbits in the house.

———X——–X———

About a week back, I saw that Snapdeal.com had a great deal – a pair of Australian Zebra Finch birds for just Rs 350. Without consulting Rekha, I bought them for Rhea. Once all three of us – me and the two birds – reached home, I was confronted.

I might as well have brought home a pretty secretary. The cold war took a few days to subside. It has been a week since and both my daughter and wife like the birds now.

Someday, I hope to have a German Shepherd as well in my house….but for that I need my daughter to grow up a little so that she can hold back my wife when she throws herself at me with a knife in her hand.

For now, you can check out my daughter’s reaction on seeing Australian Zebra Finch birds as her first pet.

Categories
Sex

Getting better at sex takes patience and practice

Sex between a man and woman could be great – provided you get between the right man and woman. – Woody Allen

They say that getting better at sex takes patience and practice. I can vouch for that because in the last 25 years I have been through a lot of sexual disasters.

Till I was 19, I was more familiar with different parts of my city than my own body. Arrival of Shalini Menon in my life changed everything. No, we didn’t have sex. Her father owned a Video cassette store (way back in 1995, VCDs and DVDs weren’t available) and she stole a membership card to gift me on my birthday. That was when I started renting ‘A’ rated movies and gained a deep understanding of my body.

I don’t remember the first time I had actual sex – primarily because they didn’t give receipts back then. All I remember is that I was visiting Mumbai and I was drunk. I also vaguely remember that all the girls wanted to make out with me, which means it must have been a whorehouse.

Unfortunately, sex is a very addictive game. I warn those of you who are yet to play the game of sex. Try out cocaine instead. It is cheaper and you can give up whenever you want.

When back in Madurai – which is a lot more conservative and one needs to be friends with a flashy pimp to get anywhere – I was forced to try out phone sex. I had to stop it when I realized that getting a girlfriend was cheaper. Besides, I also got an infection due to too much of phone sex, and with different partners. I still wonder if I can label it STD – not Standard Truck Dial silly…Sexually Transmitted Disease.

By 1997, I had a girlfriend of my own. For the next two years I paid emotionally for sex. Quite a price to pay for sex twice a week.

With time I realized that sex was all about being in the right situation. If you were a man, you didn’t need a situation, just a place was enough. But if you were a woman, a lot of factors contributed to the trigger. To present a metaphor, sex for women is like fire. For it to begin one needs to provide the right amount of oxygen (money), fuel (money) and the spark to ignite (money). If you notice, after the fire is over nothing remains.

Maybe that’s why, the US based comedian Alonzo Bodden has this famous quote listed against his name: “They are working on Viagra for women. Are they crazy? It has been around for 100s of years – it is called cash.”

If my memory serves me right I think I gave up both phone sex and sex with girlfriend due to huge bills. I am not too sure though for when you are an addict, your ability to reason and remember you reasoning comes down drastically. I am sure, all cocaine addicts out there will agree with me.

In 2000, I got involved with another lady. She was quite a personality – always on the wild side. We went steady for a year after which one small incident resulted in our break-up.

Once when her parents weren’t at home, and she had the keys to her father’s car she gave me a call.

“Yeah, Jammy here.” I remember saying.

‘I want to have sex in my father’s car.” She sounded husky.

“Sure. When?”

“Can you drop by at 6 p.m.?” Her voice had dropped down to a whisper. She always did this to get the best out of me.

I agreed to come by and was in front of her house at 5.45 p.m. itself. In the next fifteen minutes I would come to know that she wanted me to just drive the car around the city while she had sex in the backseat. Now, when I think back I guess the guy’s name was “Oh Yeah”. For, I remember the girl repeating his name throughout the long drive.

It took me a while to realize that I had been dumped. A man can get into a shell on such occasions. There are different phases through which a man has to pass before he can come out of such moments and one of them is being a part of self-help groups. Since I had a feeling I had become impotent, I joined The Impotent Brothers in Arms (IBA) – a self help group that operated in Chennai. I had to leave it after the moderator asked us to raise our hands if we disagreed to one of the points being discussed. I would have stayed back, if one of the heartless participants hadn`t remarked: “Thank God, you asked us to raise our hands.”

After I gained back my confidence, I decided to get married. Today, I am a happily married man – which in other words means that I am not aware of the latest trends in the world of sex. In short, by the time you are done getting better at sex thanks to your patience and practice life has taken away the opportunities from you.

Now, when I look back at 20 years of my sex life I can confidently say: “Yes! I have tried my hand at that.”

Categories
Men and Women

Character certificates from Facebook are soon going to be reality

Two days back my wife called me when I was in office. I said, “Rekha, I am in a meeting. Can I call you back?”

“Sure.”

And after ten minutes she called me again. I cut the call and messaged her that I couldn’t talk since I was still in the meeting. She just replied an “OK”

After half an hour, she called again. This time I was angry and said, “Rekha, I am still in the same meeting. Don’t you understand, I am at work.”

My wife replied, “If you are in a meeting why are you commenting on your ex-girlfriend’s status updates?”

Damn! These Facebook news feeds. I muttered under my breath but only let out a “hmm….”

“You have time for her, but not for me?”

“Hmm…oh that? I was in a meeting…a boring one. So was just fiddling around with Facebook while the meeting was on.”

I waited long for a response. After a while she replied, “If the meeting was boring and useless, why not come out and talk to me?”

I tried to explain to Rekha that coming out of the meeting wasn’t a possibility but if she could come online I would be able to converse with her even if I was in a meeting. And for the sake of our four and a half year daughter Rhea, we agreed to disagree that this was the correct approach.

One thing is for sure, this Facebook is going to ruin my married life. But I am not worried much about that. I am more worried about all those boys-wanting-to-be-men who will be winding up their love affairs with a ‘it is not about you, it is about me’ comment and then start identifying the girl they want to marry and live a life with.

I can almost foresee detective companies which would specialize in Facebook investigations – companies with tag lines such as ‘Finding the Real Him via Facebook’ or ‘Saving girls from assholes, one asshole at a time’. Shop signs like these aren’t far away as well.

I can foresee the girl’s parents visiting a private detective firm titled ‘Fancy Facebook Investigators’ and having a conversation such as this:

“We are planning to have our girl married off to a boy from Delhi.”

“Sure. Let me know how we can help you.”

“The boy’s name is Prashant Saxena. And we want to find out if he is a good fit for our innocent daughter.”

“Hmm….do you know his Facebook ID?”

“Yes…our daughter has already started chatting with him. His ID is prashant.sax.”

“And his email ID?”

“His email ID is prashant.sax@gmail.com”

“Thank you. Consider your job done. We will need at least 15 days. If we find him not good for your daughter, we will not just give you the proof of his past but also generate proof in the present.”

“How much will this investigation cost us?” The cost conscious lady of the house will speak up.

“Madam, just think about it for a while. How much will you be willing to give to ensure your daughter has a good married life?”

I won’t go into how much these detective agencies will charge the hapless parents, but they would make a killing for sure.

And once the parents exit the scene, one young trainee will be put on the job. He will immediately use one of his ‘Girl’ IDs and send a friend request to Prashant.Sax. Being already deprived of friend invites from girls, poor Prashant will immediately accept it and fall into the trap.

It would be great to find out what percent of the total friend invites sent out in Facebook every day are sent out by girls. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is only 1-2%. I am sure 98% of the requests are sent out by men. If there is a girl out there, the men will find her out and send her the request.

The young trainee will then go through Prashant Saxena’s life history on Facebook and find out that he has changed his relationship status with different girls at least 3 times in the last four years. Based on the status updates and comments, the young trainee will also form a report on the kind of relationships Prashant Saxena has had with these three girls.

With the report in hand, he will go to his reporting manager to discuss the future action plan.

“Sir, Prashant Saxena has had three girl friends in the last four years. And they were all very intense relationships. Here is the report.”

The trainee’s reporting manager will go throogh the report and finally look up and say, “This is proof of the past. We also need to prove that he hasn’t changed. Start chatting with him and get some proof of his intentions.”

“Will do sir. Just so you are aware I will be using either Priya Dixit’s or Neha Gupta’s profile for this assignment.”

“Sure. As you wish. You my man! Or should I say girl?”

After the go-ahead from his reporting manager the trainee will get onto the task of exposing Prashant’s present intentions.

This is how his initial chat conversations with Prashant start:

Priya Dixit: Hi Prashant

Prashant Saxena: Hi Priya, sorry but do I know you?

Priya Dixit: Hmmm….does that matter?

Prashant Saxena: Obviously not. It doesn’t matter but it helps.

(In such instances, a man is forced to take this stance. How many times in a lifetime does a man get a Hi from a girl anyway?)

Priya Dixit: You don’t know me. But I know you. I studied in the same college as you.

Prashant Saxena: Is it? How come we never met?

Priya Dixit: I was scared to approach you. You were so popular.
(Who doesn’t want to hear that he/she was popular in college)

Prashant Saxena: That I was. What did you study there?

Priya Dixit: I did BA Economics.

Prashant Saxena: Wow. Where do you stay?
(For a man the territory is important. If there are little chances of meeting in person he won’t waste his time)

Priya Dixit: I stay in Noida. And I know you stay in Delhi. Your profile says so.

Prashant Saxena: Yes, I stay in Delhi. Smart girl.
(A well-trained man knows that girls like to be called smart and beautiful)

Priya Dixit: Thanks. I was home alone and was getting bored so thought I might as well gather the courage to buzz you. Hope I am not disturbing me.

Prashant Saxena: No…no…not at all. In fact, I myself am bored.
(The logs in Facebook servers are proof that a man has never been too busy for a girl)

Priya Dixit: Thanks. You are a nice person.

Prashant Saxena: Thanks. Is that your real profile pic? You look pretty.

Priya Dixit: Yes of course. Why would I use somebody else’s pic?

Prashant Saxena: No just checking.

Priya Dixit: So…what else?

Prashant Saxena: What do you mean bored?

Priya Dixit: Ever since I have broken up with my boyfriend three months back, life has become dull. No thrills.

Prashant Saxena: Ah! You have come to the right person. 😉

Priya Dixit: What???!! What do you mean?
(Real girls have to do this. After years of chatting a man starts suspecting if the girl comes easy)

Prashant Saxena: Was just saying that I know Delhi-NCR region in and out. So you have come to the right person.

Priya Dixit: Better. I thought you were meant something else…you know what I mean.
(During investigations, it is the job of the trainee to lure the man into the trap by giving enough hints)

Prashant Saxena: I know what you mean. But I generally go slow.

Priya Dixit: How slow?

Prashant Saxena: As slow as the girl wants.

The chats continue for around ten days and in these ten days Prashant Saxena starts feeling that he has known the girl for ages. And when in this comfort zone he commits the blunder.

After fifteen days, the agency sends its report to the girl’s parents.

Same day Prashant Saxena’s parents get a call from the girl’s parents that they aren’t interested in pursuing the relationship. Prashant is informed the moment he is back from office.

After dinner, a dejected Prashant logs on to Facebook and finds that Priya Dixit has removed him from her friend list. But wait…now Priya Dixit is friends with his future brother-in-law Keshav Bajaj. Keshav is being explored for his sister Deepika Saxena and only the previous day, Prashant’s parents had been to Fancy Facebook Investigator’s office.

Categories
Current Affairs

How I tried to stop riots, looting and arson in England in 2011

Long, long ago I was in London for a few days. Thats why when I saw the London riots in 2011 on television my heart went out to all Englishmen. I mean, what wrong did they do besides marrying Indian women and creating a bunch of hard-partying Anglo-Indians? The English definately don’t deserve this.

In order to try and stop the riots, I immediately booked my flight to London. Once in London, I realized it was crazy. My immediate reaction was ‘why would anybody do this to their own country?’ And then I answered my own question with another question – ‘who in London is from England? None!’

As I was waiting for my baggage to arrive, I saw on BBC channel being aired on all TV screens at the Heathrow airport, that scared by the extensive London riots, the French had surrendered.

BBC also had a ticker running which said British Telecom’s stocks had gone up due to the high number of internet connection requests it had received ever since the London riots had begun. Experts believe it might be from the looters, who ran away with the Laptops. At the same time, Dell’s call center has been inundated with calls from in and around London on how to switch on the laptops.

My baggage took a good 30 minutes to arrive. My immediate reaction was to blame the blacks in London, who were most likely to be the baggage handlers and most likely to be on leave to make sure they don’t miss the rioting opportunity. But another Englishman who was returning from a business trip to Singapore corrected me. He said: “There are no blacks working at the London airport.”

When I wanted to know the reason, he said, “Placing a vacancy available board was a surefire way of scaring the black population away.”

I would have had a biased opinion, if I hadn’t watched the Live BBC Telecast of the riots that followed the news. It wasn’t just the blacks who were rioting. There were whites as well. I was most pissed about this white guy who had stolen BBC Channel’s broadcast mike and was looking into the camera and giving a running commentary on the riots. What balls – he didn’t even wear a mask!

Finally, I got my baggage and exited the airport. Took a cab to my friend’s place in Tottenham. Scared of the riots, the Pakistani cab driver refused to drive me to my friend’s house and asked me to walk the last one Kilometer.

As I was nearing my friend’s house I saw two men wearing black uniforms carrying a television and moving towards a house. I couldn’t allow this to happen in a country I loved – it was looting in broad day light and I had to stop it at any cost. I immediately took a shovel which was lying nearby and hit both the men on their head and knocked them unconscious. Surprises me to what extent these men would go to loot white goods – they were wearing FedEx’s black uniform and had even arranged for the popular FedEx van. I then handed over the television to a black man in a neighboring house and asked him to call the cops and surrender the television to the police.

Satisfied that I had at least saved one television from being looted, I finally reached my friend’s house. Satbir Singh had stayed in Southall for ten years and only recently moved to Tottenham.

“Welcome, my friend!” he said the moment he saw me. “Bad time to be in England,” he added.

I explained to him that I didn’t have any time for formalities and had to stop the riots immediately. He agreed. He was also pissed with the riots. The thing that irked him most was the timing of the riots – it was his birthday week.

“Imagine my plight. Celebrating my birthday inside the house while watching riots on TV,” he said.

“I can understand friend. That’s why we need to bring back England’s past glory. We need to stop these riots.” I am a determined guy when I am on a mission.

Satbir went on; “Had it not been for my uncle’s gift of a 54 inch Plasma TV, a pair of Reebok shoes and a toaster as gift I would have really been devastated this birthday.”

“Wow! Your uncle must be rich?” I am always appreciative of people who leave their country and end up becoming rich in their adopted country.

“No, he isn’t rich. He lives on benefits but he really works hard and he said he saved on his benefits for the last three years to gift me the Plasma TV.”

I didn’t have the heart to break Satbir’s bubble, so didn’t tell him that his uncle was a London looter.

Not wanting to waste any time, I asked Satbir for the address of the nearest police station. I wanted to offer them my services to help stop the riots. Satbir accompanied me.

I told the Policeman at the station: “Sir, I have come from India to help you stop the riots. We have riots almost everyday so I bring with me a lot of experience.”

“That’s great, Mr….”

“Please call me Jammy.”

“Mr Jammy…that’s nice of you to volunteer. Why don’t you choose a Police uniform that fits you from the cupboard over there and join us. We are short on hands.”

“Short on hands? Why?”

“Well, 40% of our force is black and they didn’t want to lose the opportunity. If I were them I also wouldn’t want to be the only black man in the locality without a 50 plus inch Plasma TV and a laptop at home.”

“I can understand, Police Officer. So do I get a gun and some bullets before I face the rioters?”

“Yes. We will give you five plastic bullets which you can fire on the crowd in emergencies.” I could see that the police officer himself wasn’t too happy with the plastic bullets.

As I accepted the plastic bullets, I couldn’t help but utter: “Wow, Europe is really in recession, huh?”

To which the police officer nodded and said: “Well, this is the increased quota due to the riots in and around London. Earlier, it used to be three plastic bullets.”

I had to find out the extent to which the riots had spread, so asked the Police Officer: “John, so have the riots spread to other places? What about Ireland?”

“Well, we have had some white riots in Manchester and Birmingham. You already know about the black riots in London.”

“What about Ireland? Has it spread there?” I insisted.

“Well, there have been two cases of attempted riot on ebay.com & amazon.com, but the police intervened before the rioters could save pictures of Plasma TVs on their desktops. Besides these two incidents, Ireland has been calm.”

After the discussions, we headed for the streets of London. There were rioters all around. some hooded some not. Some strong, some weak. Some armed some unarmed. In short, it was a motley crowed and there was never going to be one single way of handling these rioters.

Looking at so many able-bodied men approaching me, I panicked and shot all my five plastic bullets into the crowd. None hit.

I turned towards my policeman friend John and confessed: “John, all my shots missed the mark.”

He quipped “Don’t worry. We are used to David Beckham doing that. Do what Beckham would have done – carry on as if nothing happened.”

With no bullets, I decided to leave the other policemen behind and advance into the rioting crowd. Outside an Apple store, I caught a teenager running away with a Macbook Air under his armpit.

“Rioting? Should I tell your parents that you stole from Steve Job’s Apple store?”

The teenager was really sacred. But I let him go after he volunteered to become the iWitness to Apple store thefts.

With nothing going our way, we withdrew from the riot scene.

Not all is lost in England, though. Due all the shattering of glasses during the riots, arson and looting there is at least one beneficiary – the AutoGlass company. Their sales has increased & stock prices have gone up through the sky.

Categories
Current Affairs

Funny take on how high gas prices will impact our lives

In the last few years the gas prices have been coming down. USA’s strategy of mess-with-every-fuel-rich country seems to be paying off. Actually I may be way off the mark if I blame just the United States. Iraq, Nigeria, Syria, Ukraine, South Sudan, the East and South China Seas – every conflict is driven by oil and different countries are fueling these conflicts. Naturally, their investment in guns, bombs, mines etc have to be taken out sooner than later. So, don’t be fooled into complacency for the gas prices are going North soon. Your dream of a perfect is still far away.

I have a few thoughts on why we are where we are today, and how we can laugh it over. Let us start with a joke I read sometime back.

A horse and a chicken were playing in a farm. Suddenly, the horse falls into the quicksand and starts sinking. He quickly shouts out to the chicken to go and get the farmer so that he could help in pulling out the horse. The chicken goes out …tries her best but is not able to find the farmer. Desperate to help her friend, she drives back in the farmer’s Mercedes Benz C Class bought on Mercedes Star Lease Plan. The chicken then ties a rope to the car’s bumper and throws the rope for the horse to latch on to. She then drives the car fast out…and the horse gets out on land, safe.

Being animals, the horse and the chicken don’t learn their lesson and continue to play in the same area. A few days later the chicken falls into the quicksand. Faced with the prospect of dying, the chicken requests the horse to run to the farmer and fetch him for help. But the horse refuses. He says, “I think I can stand by the edge of the quicksand and pull you over. So he stretches over the edge and says, “Grab my ‘thingy’ and pull yourself up.”

And the chicken does precisely that and gets pulled to safety.

Here is the moral of the story: “If you are hung like a horse, you don’t need a Mercedes to pick up chicks.”

We all know that 99% of the men in the World aren’t as well hung as we would have wanted. Which helps us conclude that we all need cars to pick up chicks. Extrapolating further, one can safely assume that it is the men who will be most affected by high fuel prices.

Fuel price hike: The Current State of Affairs

I don’t need to tell you the current scene with fuel price hikes. There are jokes all over Facebook and Whatsapp that the fuel price hikes is Vijay Mallya’s conspiracy to make beer look cheaper at Rs 65 per bottle before he gets arrested.

While on the subject of Vijay Mallya of the Kingfisher fame, I have to tell you about the real life incident which happened at Hyderabad Airport and which I heard from a pilot friend. This was before cash-strapped Kingfisher Airlines closed down. This friend of mine had to take off with a full plane but a half-full fuel tank. Midway through he realized that he couldn’t land at the Hyderabad Airport with the fuel he had so he radioed the Control Tower at the Hyderabad Airport. He blurted out into the radio: “Quick! Urgent! Emergency! Call me a mid-air refueling plane immediately!”

The Tower replied: “You are a mid-air refueling plane,” and cut the conversation.

However grave the problem, I don’t think Vijay Mallya is worried about getting arrested. As is, he has not let the Kingfisher Annual Swimsuit Calendar die down. And why should he, as long as he can manage the shoot on a shoe-string budget. In fact, if you check out the latest Kingfisher Swimsuit calendar the models are wearing only their shoe strings.

Anyway, coming back to gas – it isn’t just about the airplanes. Even folks who have fuel guzzlers on the land are affected. So much so, that Harbhajan Singh who owns a Hummer has found a new expansion for the abbreviation HUMMER: Hungry Ugly Monster, Mostly Eats Rupees.

To be honest, I am really worried about the current state of affairs. I mean, imagine having to exchange arms and legs for a tankful of petrol.

“Sir, that would cost you an arm,” the fuel pump attendant would say.

“Here, keep my right hand as well. I had already given my left hand when I did a tank full last year.”

“Thanks sir. Would you prefer the Premium petrol? That’s available for a leg…and if I were you, I would go for the Premium Petrol. At least you will be able to drive your car with one hand.”

“OK fine. Give me a tankful of premium petrol please.”

“Sir, be happy that you are driving a small car. You see that Harbhajan driving away in his Hummer?”

“Yes…was that him?”

“Yes sir. He just got a tankful and in exchange just offered his first born male child.”

Crazy, isn’t it?

This is why I am not surprised when I hear of stories where people try to cheat the system. In Mathura if you give your credit card to the fuel pump attendant after doing a tank full, he will ask you for your car key as well.

“Sir, can I also have the car keys?” He told me.

“Why?” I asked.

“Sir, we have had incidents when people have done a tank full, given expired or stolen or no-cash-left credit cards and made a dash for the highway,” the fuel pump attendant was apologetic.

“Ok, here you go. I would still suggest you have an eye on the car. Because for a tankful of petrol I wouldn’t mind handing over stolen car keys.”

While waiting for the attendant to come back and give my credit card, I struck a conversation with my five-year-old daughter.

“Rhea, did you know that when we were your age we used to walk five kilometers to our school – every day.”

She immediately looked up from the Barbie doll on her lap and asked: “So, your parents couldn’t afford gas, either?”

And then she turned towards her mother (that’s my wife) and asked, “Amma, why don’t the cars go a long distance with little petrol?”

“Because cars are not horses, Rhea.”

That’s when it struck me, cars with amazing fuel efficiencies should do the trick. We are talking about mileages such as 100,000 kilometers in 1 liter of petrol. But how do we achieve that?

All this Multi Point Fuel Injection (MPFI) shit is hogwash. We need to start building cars which will have three-monthly appraisals to check on performance (defined as fuel efficiency). And we need to build cars which can be shot at and killed if they didn’t perform as per expectation. Are we really naïve enough to think King Maharana Pratap’s horse Chetak went all the distance because he was dedicated to his master? No! He had seen what happens to horses that don’t last
the distance.

Fuel price hike: The Future Scenario

At the rate at which we are going, burglars, bandits, robbers will soon start carjacking the vehicles which fill the ATM machines with money and surprise all of us by returning the cash but siphoning off the petrol.

Or maybe, New Zealand will become the next Dubai – the tax free, shopping destination. With no petrol, all lawn mowers will be replaced by sheep. And who has the highest number of sheep in the World? New Zealand, of course. And if all goes well for New Zealand in 25 years or so we will start complaining that the cost of sheep have started going up. Imagine, elections will be fought on the price of sheep.

The property prices near Police stations will increase many-fold. Rich and smart people will start moving near the Police stations. In the mornings they will reach their offices in their cars, but park their vehicles in no-parking zones. Once the Police tow them to the Police stations near their houses….the car owners will reach the Police stations, pay the wrong-parking fine and retrieve the vehicles. Thus, the return trips will cost them next to nothing.

The way we propose to girls today will change. Eager boyfriends will buy barrels of gas before proposing to their girlfriends. They will point at the barrel and pop the question: “Rekha, will you marry me?”

The girl will look at the barrel of gas and shriek. And say: “Yes! Yes! Yes! I will marry you.”

Car or no car we are poised for an exciting ride.

Categories
Current Affairs

Best 25 Arvind Kejriwal Jokes on Twitter, Facebook

Arvind Kejriwal has become the butt end of all jokes in recent times. Why not…in his enthusiasm, he has been creating a lot of opportunities for jokes. So here goes a list of jokes on the man who is currently ruling Delhi.

Joke 1: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he actually tests the level of salt in Colgate Active Salt tooth paste

Joke 2: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he never skips Youtube ads

Joke 3: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he always removes USB safely

Joke 4: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that when he finds the bomb he returns it to the terrorist

Joke 5: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he got his wife’s brother arrested for stealing his shoes during his marriage ceremony

Joke 6: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he cooks maggie only for 2 minutes

Joke 7: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he actually “rolls on the floor laughing” when he texts ROFL

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Joke 8: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he finds an “honest” justification to turn back on every promise he ever made

Joke 9: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that when his wife once asked him if he could get moon for her, he called up ISRO to launch Chandrayaan-1

Joke 10: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he hates the song ‘love the way you lie’

Joke 11: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that once he filed a case against a Halwai because there were neither Gulabs nor Jaamuns in GulabJamun.

Joke 12: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that whenever he downloads a movie online, he buys a ticket to see it

Joke 13: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that no woman has ever asked him “Do I look fat in this?”

Joke 14: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he seeks his wife permission to keep extra marital affairs.

Joke 15: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he gives you a business card that says “nobody”

Joke 16: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he likes Shakira’s Hips because “They Don’t Lie”.

Joke 17: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he surrenders himself to Police after killing a mosquito.

Joke 18: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest He refused to watch Bodyguard because he does not want security.

Joke 19: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he is the only one to buy a Winrar licence.

Joke 20: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that when he throws a party he calls the cops himself after 10 pm

Joke 21: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he told his kids “How I met your mother” in less than a minute

Joke 22: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that he got his memory card arrested when it got corrupted

Joke 23: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that when he was a kid, he clicked on “I am below 18 years” on porn websites.

Joke 24: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that if u find meaning of Honesty on Google it will say “Did u mean Kejriwal”

Joke 25: Arvind Kejriwal is so honest that if he skip red-light by mistake, he take a U-turn to stop before Red light

Categories
Family

Naming our son was stressful but we still managed to find him a name

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Sometime back we named our son, Ritwik. In fact the same day we even booked RitwikRajan.com.

Apparently, in US & Europe you have to decide on a name for your kid within two days of their birth. That is it – 2 days. Meanwhile, here in India, twenty five days after Rekha and I had our second child…we were still looking for a name.

In our son’s case we wanted to give him a name which starts with alphabet ‘R’ for that odd day when our family became a family of SuperHeros, we could call ourselves The ‘R’ Family. But our astrologer sought after by Rekha’s parents didn’t quote the alphabet ‘R’. So it was a question of starting a new life on this planet with a bribe – pay the astrologer to get a favorable alphabet. We did exactly that.

The astrologer was able to add ‘R’ in the list of probable alphabets without affecting any of the stars & moons, thanks to a NEFT transfer of Rs 1000/-.

I went thro’ all of this favourable alphabet seeking exercise in spite of being an opponent of the whole naming ceremony before the kid is 10 years old. I remember being pissed at my parents for naming me without consulting me. I think it was 1986 and I was a 11 year old whose name had been disfigured by his classmates.

“Why couldn’t you consult me before naming me?” I had shouted at my parents.

“Son, you were sleeping 22 hours out of 24 hours. How could we consult you?” My father replied.

“How about in those 2 hours?” I insisted.

“Son, even if we had asked you…you would have only replied with a ‘blahbla blahhbaba,’ my father kept a straight face.

“You should be glad we gave you such a nice name – Rajan.” My mother chipped in.

Anyway, as I said I was a reluctant participant in this naming ceremony. I thought I was cheating my son by not giving him an opportunity to decide for himself. As is always the case, nobody listened to me and we went ahead with the naming.

Since the alphabet was decided, we had all and sundry giving us name suggestions – from the fine sounding name ‘Rafat’ to the villain meaning ‘Ruffian’. While we politely refused the suggestions – the challenge of finding the right name hung over us.

To complicate matters, within a week of our son’s birth, celebrities Kim Kardashian and Kayne West had a daughter whom they named her ‘North West’….which unfortunately for us ended up trending on Twitter, globally. Now, we were under pressure to beat this and get a name that would also trend.

My mother had always wanted me to be a doctor and whenever I had asked her why, she had said: “Son, I want them to call you Doctor Rajan.”

So, Rekha and I deliberated on naming our son ‘Doctor’ so that when they combined it with his second name, it ended up become ‘Doctor Rajan’. Now that is how he would have been called and my mother’s wish would have been fulfilled.

We had almost finalized on ‘Doctor’ when I remembered that my father had wanted me to join the Army and become a General so that the World would address me as ‘General Rajan’. For a brief while we even deliberated if we should name our son ‘General’. But it was shot down.

With my two chances gone, my wife decided to chip in with suggestions. Her first suggestion was ‘Fire’….yes, she wanted to name our son Fire. Maybe, because he was born due to a fiery session of sex we had after a late night movie on a Saturday evening – a session that lasted between 11.00-11.10 pm. This is one of the advantages of having a planned sex life for you know the time of conception of your child till the last minute.

But I refused to accept Rekha’s suggestion saying I didn’t want my son to be listening to “Fire Rajan!” every time he turned his face.

During one of these days we had one of Rekha’s friend Shaina Ladiwala visit us.

“Why don’t you name your child 123ABC?” Shaina asked.

Rekha knotted her eyes and shot back, “And why would I want to name him 123ABC?”

“So that everybody can find him easily. On whatsapp if somebody’s name is stored as a number, he/she is visible right on top.” Shaina was convinced that it was a great name but we weren’t.

Many such suggestions poured in from all directions.

It would have been so easy if we had had twins – we could have simply named them Karan & Arjun or Dharam & Veer or Ram & Shyam or Sita & Gita, whatever be the situation. Our son being a single child we had to rely on our own creativity.

Whenever Rekha and I zeroed in on a name, and I gave my mother a feeler about what we were thinking and she would ask: “So, was it suggested by our side or Rekha’s side? ” My mother’s reaction on the name was always based on my answer to her this question.

Similarly, there was intense pressure from Rekha’s side to name our son using the Malayali Name Maker. There is a very convenient Name Maker Table that is available in every Malayali’s house, and all we have to do after giving birth to a child is to pick up one syllable from the first column and a syllable from the second column and combine it to form a name. OK…now try it.

Here are some syllables from the first column:
Jo, Ti, Bi, Si, Vi,

Here are some syllables from the second column:
Nu, By, Bi, Ju, Di, Jul

Now you know why we fought the Malayali Mafia, tooth and nail and didn’t get a name out of this Malayali Name Maker Table.

In spite of all these challenges, we did manage to find a good name for our son – Ritwik. I am very proud of him.

In fact, on many days I stand before my washroom mirror, extend my arm forward and say aloud to myself “Hi Ritwik Rajan here. Nice to meet you” just to visualize how my son will introduce himself to the rest of the World long after we are gone.

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Categories
Sex

How sex between husband and wife gets affected because of kids

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Bill Cosby, George Carlin, Richard Pryor, Peter Russell – what’s common among them all? For the not-so-trained-an-eye, it would seem as if the common thing between them is the lack of sex in their lives.

Do you know why only stand up comedians don’t get enough sex? Let me let you in on a little secret. Nobody gets enough of it but it is only the stand-up comedian who complains about it in front of a crowd.

One doesn’t need to be an acclaimed stand up comedian for your sex life to be screwed up….it is enough if you are an aspiring stand up comedian as well.

I remember we would have a go at it at every available opportunity. Just so you are aware, once we celebrated Rekha making round rotis (for my non-Indian readers, that’s bread) with a half hour session on the cemented floor. I also remember the time when we had successfully carried a table fan bought from Saravana store, T-Nagar, Chennai – on my bike me riding and Rekha sitting behind me and holding the table fan. Though tired to the bone, we celebrated the moment we were home by switching on the table fan and enjoying in its fresh breeze.

Back then it was spontaneous. And back then, it was more.

Nowadays, things have changed. Only yesterday, I was with Rekha as she was making the morning tea and said: “When we got married you didn’t know cooking. Remember, how I taught you to cook?”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Nowhere. Just wanted you to NOT forget your teacher,” I insisted.

“Just in case you don’t know tonight is the night. Do you want to mess it up?”

I backed off. Got into my shell. I hadn’t known that tonight was going to be the night. Now that I knew I couldn’t risk it. When Rekha says such a thing, it is as if the court has given a date, and one has to keep it, else it gets pushed back by another week.

“No, I don’t want to mess it up Rekha,” I said. Then I took my cup of tea and went and sat down where I had the least chances of running into Rekha – near the books.

After two hours, I slowly walked towards Rekha and asked: “Is the breakfast ready?”

“It will be ready soon.”

“OK,” is all I could say before going and sitting next to the books again. An hour later – at 10 am – I got my breakfast.

If Rekha hadn’t told me at 7 am that tonight was the night I was going to get lucky, I would have known anyway – around 12 noon.

My wife doesn’t know that I have read the signs and can now predict with 99% accuracy if I am going to get lucky or not. The remaining 1% is when we end up watching a Richard Gere or George Clooney movie after lunch or dinner and suddenly Rekha starts hating me. She still repents not marrying a Hollywood hunk.

This is how sex between husband and wife gets affected because of kids

12 noon: Rekha asks me, “You aren’t shaving today is it? You know, you should shave on weekends so that you can avoid the Monday rush.”

12.15 pm: Rekha tries hard to get our daughter Rhea to finish her lunch by 12.30 pm and sleep off by 1 pm max.

12.30 pm-2.00 pm: Rhea doesn’t understand our emergency and continues to play around in the bed. Initially, it looks cute but with time she starts looking like a monster who doesn’t want you to get close to your wife. Sometimes it even appears as if she is doing it on purpose. Around 1.30 pm the patience wears off and both Rekha and I start scolding her to sleep. By 2 pm, both of us have forgotten about making love and are more concerned that Rhea sleeps off early so that we can have our lunch.

2.20 pm: We are just winding up our lunch, while watching TV and Rekha says: “You want to postpone it?” I chuckle as if we are talking of Olympics, which need to be postponed because the stadiums aren’t ready. But most of the time I agree with an “In the night then?”

3.00 pm: We are both lying in bed tired and full of food. We are glad that it isn’t over yet. At least, there is something to look forward to.

3.30 pm: Rekha has slept and I am thinking….why couldn’t it be possible twice? Why not now and then again in the evening? Since when did that stop happening. I don’t even remember it now.

4.30 pm: The alarm goes off and the whole family is out of bed. The first thing that comes out of my mouth as I get up and look at Rekha: “In the night then, huh?” She agrees. But I can already see she is repenting it. She would have preferred finishing it off in the afternoon so that it doesn’t hang over her head as the Damocles Sword.

5.30 pm: I approach my wife, “Pratap just called….said he wanted to catch up over a beer. You have any plans?” Rekha shoots down the plan saying she doesn’t like the smell of beer and I will have to choose between Pratap and her. I call up Pratap to say that wife had already planned a shopping trip and I won’t be able to join for beer.

6.30 pm: Rekha approaches me and asks, “You haven’t shaved yet?” I tell her that I was going to in the next ten minutes at which she quips: “In that case, you might also want to take a bath.”

6.45 pm: I shave and reach out to Rekha to let her know. She responds with: “You still understand that we might not do it at all today, right? What if Rhea sleeps late tonight?” I respond with, “Yes I know. I just shaved now to avoid the Monday morning rush.”

7 pm: Rekha decides that it is time to wash the bedsheets and pillow covers in our bedroom. She changes them with a fresh set even as Rhea and I watch her indulge in the activity.

7.30 pm: Rhea’s dinner time starts early today. It is scheduled for 8 pm but today it starts at 7.30 pm. This is to provision for that extra 30 minutes needed to squeeze in “love making” into the daily schedule.

8.00 pm: Rhea is still eating…

8.30 pm: Rhea has reached her dessert.

9.00 pm: Rhea’s 15 minutes of post-dinner Tom & Jerry session has just begun.

9.30 pm: Rhea’s 15 minutes of post-dinner Tom & Jerry session has got extended by another 15 minutes for the third time.

9.45 pm: Rekha and I are losing our patience. And Rhea isn’t sleeping. It looks like a close finish – will we be able to make it? The huge question hangs in balance.

10.00 pm: TV has been switched off and Rhea has agreed to hold her mother’s hands and sleep.

10.10 pm: Because she wasn’t closing her eyes, Rhea gets scolded by her mother. Now she isn’t friends with mother, but friends with her father, so now she is trying to sleep holding her father’s hands.

10.20 pm: Slight nasal snoring indicates a child with common cold has finally hit the bed and has started sleeping. Both Rekha and I watch ‘The Big Bang Theory’ for 15 minutes just to be sure Rhea has slept well.

10.45 pm: Rekha opens up first, “Do we really want it today?”

I nod my head.

“After dinner or before?” She asks.

“Hmm…difficult question…its almost 11 and I am hungry as hell.” I say.

“I know. Me too.” For once my wife and I agree on something.

“But will anything change after dinner? We might be done with dinner only by 11.30 pm and you shouldn’t say its really late and all that.” I make sure I am not going to miss today’s sex.

Rekha said: “Frankly, even now I am not 100% decided, so lets have dinner and hope for the best.”

Thirty minutes later, we leave Rhea sleeping in our main bedroom and move to the second bedroom. As I close the curtains in the room, I see my neighbor standing in his balcony staring in my direction. He grins and gives me a thumbs up sign. If I were him, I would also have done the same – why else would somebody pull the curtains close at 11 in the night.

As I walk to the bed, my mobile phone buzzes….it is a Facebook notification. My neighbor from the balcony has updated his Facebook status and tagged me as well. His update reads: “Predicted right for the 37th time. He gets lucky tonight!”

P.S: But we seem to be one of the lucky couples. I know one that send an Outlook Calendar invite to each other, when they need to make love.

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