Son: Dad, I need some money.
Dad (not looking up from the newspaper): Why?
Son: You know I did not get through to a merit seat in engineering or medical. I need the money for capitation fees. You know none of this would not have happened if you had only managed to get a fake SC/ST certificate right? Or if our grandads had been like oppressed, depressed and suppressed like centuries ago?
Bedi has been the quintessential angry old man on the park bench of Indian cricket, picking fights with anyone who walks down the gravel path when he is in a foul mood, which is almost always. In the process, he has become somewhat of a spectacle, the kind that makes sensible people take the long route around when they see him ensconced on his bench, shaking his walking stick at the sky. Whether all this bile comes from frustration at how his next generations have minted money while he has not or whether he just enjoys letting fly against all and sundry is a matter of conjecture. What however is beyond doubt is that no one takes him seriously.
While I was off the grid for the last few days in New York City, much seemed to have happened. Harbhajan Singh ultimately got a wicket, Mohammed Azharuddin flashed once again outside the off-stump with his stick and knocked the feathers of a shuttle-cock [Link] (obligatory Gunda reference: Azhar hain jurm se nafrat karney wala, garibon (match-fixers) ke liye jyoti, aur gundon ke liye jwala) , the Indian woman’s hockey coach was accused of doing too much of “Chak De” [Link], Arundhati Roy advanced yet another step towards her Nobel Peace Prize [Link] making it to the list of Forbes (evil capitalist alert) world’s most inspiring women and Wikileaks confirmed that the ship of government is the only ship that leaks from the top [Link].
As to the so-called classified information leak, while it may be big news in the US with Pakistan’s duplicity in the AfPak region being exposed for me it was more like “Tell me something I don’t know.” The day Wikileaks has the full Amar Singh transcripts [link] or the gory inconvenient truths behind all Al Gore globally warming shenanigans [link] or details of Zardari’s five female Turkish “guides” whose services were not compensated for by the Pakistanis [links], I would be mildly interested. But not now. For the present, what was infinitely more intriguing was attending an underground party in the Bronx, thrown in a warehouse, with a “macabro” theme, wherein along with retro erotica from the 1920s being projected on the walls, there were decks of old Tvs showing, in addition to ancient Japanese horror and psychedelic patches of color——hold your breath——Mithun-da’s “Disco Dancer” and Shahrukh Khan’s “Duplicate”.
[You may want to avoid this post if you want to see "Inception" without knowing anything of the plot and its assumptions. Also a full understanding of this post would require having seen the movie since it has many "Inception" references. Else I believe it is quite spoiler-free. I would give the movie 8/10 and not 10/10 because my expectations were pegged a bit higher. Still it is quite a mind-bending ride.]
I was sitting in on the famous class on symbology and of course horny-othology offered by Robert Langda Don at the Lund University. I was mesmerized. In that I was not alone. It seemed that his class, consisting solely of nubile 40 year old aunties with chotis and the sequined short top and shorts of the kind I last saw during the “Girl Eats Girl” act in Ajanta Circus at the Park Circus Melaground, were also entirely taken in by him.
I of course had been dying to meet him ever since I read his world-famous adventures Da Vinci Da Gupt Katha and Pariyon aur Haiwanon . I felt ecstatic at being finally in his class, though how I got there I could not remember.
During my graduate days at Stonybrook, once it happened that I opened the door to find a kindly- looking elderly gentleman in a nice suit standing outside. Since no one came to sell anything to poor desi graduate students, I was a bit surprised. Soon however his intent became clear—–somehow he had come to know that there was a bunch of heathens living in this corner of Long Island and he had taken upon himself to show us the way of Christ.I respectfully told him that I was not interested in what he was selling and was about to close the door when, with the smile stuck on his face like a Halloween mask, he said in a voice whose edge was unmistakable —-”Son, you don’t know it but you are going straight to Hell”. Fortunate enough to have had a comeback materialize instantly on the tip of my tongue, I barked “Good then I will see you there”, banged the door on his face and called the cops (since soliciting was prohibited on campus).
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