Author: Jamshed V Rajan

Jammy, as Jamshed V Rajan is affectionately called, is a wannabe stand up comedian. He has a funny take on most things but documents only some of them. If you are interested in chatting up with him, do drop him an email at jv.rajan@gmail.com or message him at +919650080255.

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When I wanted to be Milkha Singh

Why doesn`t Mexico have an Olympic team?
Because all Mexicans who can run, jump, or swim are in US of A.

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Rekha and I are half way through Iqbal – the Nagesh Kuknoor movie. And I would say it is a must watch. Especially, if like me you are also a sportsman. Believe me, I am a junior Nationals kabaddi player.

I had tears in my eyes every time deaf-mute Shreyas Talpade – a village teenager yearning to be a part of the Indian cricket team – was on the screen. He so much resembled me when I was in my first year of college. Back then, I wanted to become the greatest athlete India had ever produced. Then I didn`t have the benefit of having glamourous role models like Sania Mirza. I had to content with PT Usha and Milkha Singh.

Had it not been for a small measurement error I would have been a great athlete. When I was in class five I didn`t even know how long one meter was, but I was given a list of race distances and asked to choose my event for the annual sports day.

I asked a friend, how much was 50 meters.

“50 meters? That`s quite a distance,” he said.

“How far would I have to run if I opted for the 50m dash?”

“You must be one meter tall. Why don`t you lie down 50 times head-to-toe and measure the distance you cover – that`s the distance you will have to run.” My friend was very emphatic in his reply and I had this feeling that he knew his distances.

I immediately ran outside and did as recommended. It was quite an ordeal. After half an hour of measuring, my white shirt and blue trousers were all soiled…but I had found out that I could run 50m.

I wonder why my class teacher – who was also my English teacher – asked me to stand outside the class. I knew I was outstanding in English, but did it mean I had to stand out?

I wouldn`t know…but by the time I was let in by my teacher…many had nominated themselves for the shorter distance and the 1500m race was my only option. Mind you that is, a kilometer and half.

I immeidately went back to my guru – the same boy who asked me to roll in the mud and measure the distance – and asked him how long would 1500m be.

“Not much. Instead of lying down 50 times head-to-toe and measuring the distance… do it 1500 times!”

Ever since, I have been a sports freak. Here are some of the sport I am cynical about.

Formula One: I watched it till I realized they were all a bunch of non-punctual drivers. If only they started early they needn`t risk their lives going so fast.

Boxing: If they have decided to kick the shit out of each other…why do they even need any rules. And anyways whats the idea of calling it a boxing ring if it is a square!

Golf: It is a uniqe game. If I wanted to play it..my father should have started the warm up – which would have included earning enough for me to join a Golf Course.

Football: In India, doctors treating heart-patients suggest them that they follow Indian football for their own good. No excitement.

Swimming: It is not a difficult sport. But more than half the World doesn`t know to swim. Perhaps that is why Ian Thorpe`s father threw him in the lake – a hard way of teaching swimming. Thorpe struggled to swim out of the lake…but the harder part was getting out of the sack!

(P)UNINTENDED!

A Birthday Post for Himani Sahni

This post is dedicated to an ardent reader Himani Sahni of Gurgaon who will be celebrating her birthday on January 31 – today. She mailed me yesterday and requested a funny post, so that she can wake up to something funny on her birthday. I am glad Himani happened to be a lady – I would have found little motivation in writing for a man!

Dear Himani,

I am writing this open letter for you because you have flattered me. Next time, I might not fall for your flattery. Suggest you try bribery instead.

Today, you are older by a year. Rekha and I wish you the very best. But if I were you, I would stick to my mother`s advice and not mail (or talk to) strangers. Here is a short story to make you understand the extent to which I would go to obey such orders from my mother. I think I was 14 years old. I was going back from school and badly needed to smoke. I walked up to a stranger, put my hands in his pocket, took out a match-box and lit my cigarette.

The stranger wasn`t too happy, “You could have asked me!” he said.
“I know. But my mother has asked me not to speak to strangers,” I said.

Before mailing strangers with such request, you should watch where you are going. What if I were a serial killer? I know…I don`t look like one but check with Rekha, my wife, and she would agree that I am a serial killer. Even last night when she was watching Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, I snatched the remote and shut the TV off.

I would suggest you straighten up and watch your step now. Watching your step becomes a big problem when you are old. You are old and wiser…but can`t stake a step out because you are too old!

Did you laugh at the above joke of mine? Gone are the days when he (or she) who laughed last was the winner. Today`s competitive World calls the ‘last laugher` the slowest. Don`t wait for the proverbial last laugh. Use Revenge wherever you can. It is a good perfume used in the Superman series.

This doesn`t mean you watch the Superman series. Men wearing their underwear on their trousers can`t be trusted. Even if you do watch the Superman series, don`t be the kind who search the whole house for the TV remote instead of just walking up to the box and switching it on.

Am glad to know that you are from Gurgaon – the happening place in India. I have known the city since it was so small that its maps used to be in actual size.

My last advice for you – life is great. Don`t worry about avoiding temptations. As you grow older they will avoid you!

Driverless cars…the repercussions

Last year four teams (including one each from Stanford and Carnegie Mellon University) raced across 131.6 miles in the Mojave Desert to decide the winner. Just that in this race, the cars were robotic, empty and drove themselves. When I read that the winner got a whooping US $ 2 million – I wondered why would anybody give away so much money? Especially because the ‘giver` happened to be the US Government – the same one that offered India US $ 17.9 million after Tsunami hit our shores and left lakhs homeless!

Here is the logic: US of A wants 30 percent of all Army vehicles to be unmanned by 2015. The idea is to save lives on the battlefield.

If you ask me, I would say the logic is flawed. The better option for US of A would be not to send their soldiers to the battlefront at all! They can save everybody!

Anyways, on the civilian front such research has the potential to change our lives. Here we go again…

Imagine having driverless cars. We can straightaway cut down Rs 4000 – an average driver`s salary/month in Chennai – from our monthly budget. All those old men worried about their daughters running away with the driver will be able to relax.

With no drivers, the petrol/diesel theft will also be history. A step towards an honest, crime-free world? Not exactly…because with no drivers required, the call taxi, auto, bus, truck drivers will be left without a job. In a passionate bid to feed their families, these men will start stealing your robotic cars….or if you are an old man with a pretty daughter of 23, they might even kidnap your daughter.

With the truck driving themselves, the AIDS Society won`t have anybody to blame for the rapid spread of the disease. Doesn`t the AIDS society now blame the Truck/Lorry drivers for playing havoc in highway brothels?

In the busses, the drivers` seat will be empty. So you would be able to sit there and have a good view of the traffic. That is, if you live in Bangalore.

Don`t be too happy…the conductor will be there and you will still have to take that eight-rupee ticket to go from Colaba to Vaashi or any place A to place B.

The autos will be able to accommodate four people. Since, there will be no driver…you won`t be cheated. If you think, you will be able to cheat the robotic autos…don`t even bother. They will come with metallic grips just below the seats and if anybody heads for the exit without paying, these grips will head for the crotch region (as programmed).

The scene gets interesting when we think of the privately owned four-wheelers. You and your wife (or husband) will be sitting in the rear seat and chatting up…and robotic car will announce your arrival. If you are at a party, you can let yourself loose on the booze. After all, your car can drive you back home. Will it be the end of all those “Drinking kills, driving skills” advertisements? Possibly. Sometimes I wonder…doesn`t ‘driving kill, drinking skill` too? For example, the last time I was drinking while driving I spilled my beer trying to keep the car on the road.

With robotic cars in town, would we still have keys? No way. That rules out adventures like the one in which Maruti owners (and some thieves) try using a scale to get into the car. Key-less entry would take a totally new meaning. This will also rule out the simplest gifting solution ever thought of by man – the key-chain. We will never be able to gift a key-chain to the ladies and make them feel important.

Somebody once said…children in backseats cause accidents and accidents in the backseat cause children. I say enough of accidents…let us cause some children!

Who cares, anyways

Here are a few interesting answers given by students, during exams. I came across these while preparing for my exam – the Humour Orientation Test Designed for Useless and Deliquescent Entities. Interestingly the abbreviated form for this exam`s name is ‘Hot Dude`.

The temptation to pretend that I imagined and came up with these funny lines was quite high …but then realized I would lose my ugly face among the Blogger community if I was caught with my pants down.

Here goes the truth –

Name the four seasons.
Answer: Salt, Pepper, Mustard, vinegar

Use the word ‘information` in a sentence.
Answer: Geese sometimes fly information.

What is a seizure?
Answer: He was a Roman emperor.

Where was the Magna Carta signed?
Answer: At the bottom

Who invented fractions?
Answer: Henry 1/8th

Who succeeded the first President of USA?
Answer: The second one

Who invented King Arthur`s Round Table?
Answer: Sir Circumference

What is terminal illness?
Answer: When you are sick at the airport.

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Stealing the show

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?

Can you answer this?

What do you call a woman with a bottle-opener in one hand, a knife in the other, a pair of scissors between her toes on right foot and a corkscrew between her toes on left foot?

The Answer: A Swiss Army Wife!

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Say “I Know” to Drugs!

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!