Self-explanatory. Though I know a few people who wouldn't be, let's not say famous, but " widely known" pretty much cuts it, if they were not writing such interesting blogs. And what can one say about this woman? I read about her before I took my first step into blogosphere.

No Spring Chicken
It's spring. I had to throw the blankets away last night. and this photo was taken this morn near my backyard off the garage. Is that a meadowsweat in the center? I was never good at these things. Googling doesn't help much either. Now that spring is officially here and India is playing a loserly match at Sydney today, I feel compelled to down a He-man 9000.
And I'm eating chicken for Sunday lunch, after eons. This part of the world is famous for h5n1. It's become an yearly phenomenon now, the wrath of the flu gods.Among the contradictory messages over media over the past month, nobody knew if one could die of eating chickens. Now the government has come clean on the issue. Funny thing, what they're telling us now were being said by The Poultry Lobby all along. They took out quarter page ads in national dailies. In the same issue of the same papers, State Government agencies would publish notices, in public interest, to stay away from poultry and eggs and not to go near where they are bred and sold. It created all sorts of confusion in educated people who read the news.
I went to the poultry market today to witness a sad scenario. Many of the chicken-sellers have gone home to till their lands or whatever. Respectable intelligentsia are still not seen buying poultry. Actually I've talked to many and found all that they need is moral support. Well, somebody had to be the pioneer. I guess I'd heard the call.
Just don't call on me if I get body ache and fever in a coupla days, will ya?

Easily this morning's most interesting news. Pity for the Khan. BTW, I think Salman is getting completely favorable media coverage these days. Everybody says he's fine. Including Madame Tussauds. Me, I always thought he was fine. I love the way he never emotes. He's developed a really cool method of thumbing his nose at high drama on screen. Most women always loved him anyways. It's lately that the menfolk have been converted. Guess it's got to do with his holding down a relationship with a bomb of a GF long enough. He should, however go a little easy on promoting his films on TV music shows. Doesn't seem to suit his style. That's so SRK.

I love Fergie. She'll forever be on my list of the sexiest women on earth. She had herself opined in an interview that her greatest asset is her really flat abs. Well, one tends to disagree. But with this number she's added her singing and songwriting abilities to her long list of assets.
And while we're dwelling on it, there's something I'd always wanted to know but was too afraid to ask. Namely, what the heck does black eyed peas mean?

An exchange

Lost and found friend : I went to Kolkata recently. Got a few great European films. One of Godard. When are you coming to Kol next?

Me : Can't resist those arty film festival type movies now can we? Send me the dvds.

Friend: i will olive to share the files. but not by post or courier. it is too risky. we need to meet in kolkata. someday.

my collections are not too bad. i have
kurosawa, bunuel, tarkovski, felini, godard, a bulk of bethoven, mozart, rashid khan, the whole set of seinfeld and the special ones.

what about urs?

Me: You will olive? What? Pardon me, am I technically challenged here?
Actually I was being jocund when I talked about the irresistibility of
film fest type movies in first person plural. I was never too arty, if
you can still remember. My choices, till date, are pretty much
mainstream. A li'l bit of Tarantino here, and a li'l bit of Bertolucci
there.And a dash of Coen Brothers and Farelli brothers thrown in
between. Not to forget Scorsese. For European, I've four of Monica
Bellucci's very best ( ah yes, the lady has done some great work, I
kid you not. Watch Irreversible.) And now for the classics. As in
films. These days I got something innate that hampers my ability to
concentrate while watching anything created before 1975. Not to put
too fine a point on it, One Flew ....seems to be the borderline.
anything beyond, like Seven Samurai, or, To kill a ...zzz is bound to
put me to sleep.Don't get me wrong, I love those films. It's just that
age maybe is catching up with me. I just can't keep awake that long.

Muzzak. If I will be allowed to brag, I have nearly all that the late
Nusrat Fatty Ali Khan Sahab ever lent voice to.I also have a sizeable
chunk of Abeeda, Billy Joel, Dylan, Kenny Rogers, Belafonte, Simon &
G, Norah Jones, Los Lobos, Shania Twain, Santana, Gypsy Kings,
Credence, Marc Cohn and anything you can think of on those lines.
A smattering of Pt. Bhimsen Joshi and a dollop of Ustad Amir Khan.
Symphonies I have none, save a cd or two.

I really envy your collection of Seinfeld. I'm hunting for the whole
set of Yes Minister and Yes Prime Minister myself.

Love

Glory Days

I had a close friend who has found me out after fourteen long years. We used to be in college together. We took our first jobs together in the same place. We were roommates there for almost two years.To put things in perspective, there were no secrets among us back then, no question was taboo. We could even compare, um.. lengths. (No, there was no such thing called homophobia in those days. In fact we had never known a gay person.) Some time in 1992, he left that job and later, drifted. He attended my wedding the next year. Never seen him since. After two longish phone calls of small talks and a round of who's who and where among common friends, how many kids you got in which grade, mail exchanges and some such games people play, he proceeds to ask me " Dude, did you drink your wife's milk in the days when she was nursing? I mean willfully, not accidentally?" Top that for originality.

The good Doc.

Immense entertainment value bit of news this.

One feels a little sorry for the good doc. No, I've no sympathy for pervs and I'm not one of them, for the two of you who'll be reading! But , c'mon now, this is the sort of thing happening all the time these days. Date rape, fake identities, taking advantage of the coy Indian woman desperately seeking love, romance and a life partner ... so what else is new? The news in the item is the startling perversions of the good doc, that he would feel the urge to watch a cricket match after inflicting 10 inches of pain ( you know where), that he would ask the victim "How do you feel on your suhagrat night?" One feels a little sorry just because our good doc was a legit GP who was otherwise doing fine ( a quick google search reveals he's listed on the Newham recorder too) who got busted probably only because he couldn't take it a bit easy and had to go the whole hog ( I mean anal rape, O My God!) on the very first date. I think he could have gotten away like so many other bastards, if only....

Pardon me my bad taste. But we live in India. Here we're used to news items like the Nithari killings and villains like M.S.Pandher. This Tangotra sod looks like an amusing old punk, in perspective. Lastly, the profile of young desi professionals( in UK?) who had no sexual experience whatsoever sounds as phony as a three GBP note.

I just dropped in ( to see what condition my condition was in)

I was shopping in of these retail chain stores at a big mall. For the most part, I live in a small place which has yet to see corporate retailing. Thus whenever I go to a real city, I try to visit the malls. Just for the heck of it. I'm not a big mall rat or something. I stock up on groceries that I don't get at my place, mostly herbs, spices, sauces, cheap imports. So, while doing this I saw a young couple shopping for diapers. A jumbo pack of diapers. Maybe a pack of 30, costing, what, maybe an equivalent of $10. It was then that, I saw for the very first time how large a pack of diapers can actually get. The largest pack at the store had dimensions like 1'x2'x2'. One might need help to drag that babe home. Looked like it had a few hundred pieces inside. I didn't read the pack labels closely. Instead, I started thinking.
Hmmm, so this is the American way of life everybody says we're moving to. Hmm, wait! How long do you think these pack will last for a family with one child? ( Unless it's a joint household, chances are only one will be potty untrained at a point of time?) Now if that pack is meant to be consumed over a month, or even two, the baby would have to be in diapers 24x7.
Call us poor people. We never kept our baby in diapers in the daytime at home. A diaper was used only when going out or, sometimes during the night, when one was not in the mood to change nappies. I thought the idea was to let the kid feel that pissing in one's pants causes a lot of discomfort and encourage it to raise alarm before letting go. Thus started the early lessons of potty training .Now, if you take away discomfort from the whole affair what do you get? A three year old pre-nursery bloke soiling himself at the drop of a hat, perhaps?
Actually I was thinking like poor people. What difference does it make in the long run if a baby is potty trained at the age of two or four? None indeed, except in the bottomline of m/s Johnson & Johnson.