Women.

Women play games with men.

Women play games with women.

Then they get drunk and tell you their life sucks.

Mutton Gluttony.

I wonder what goats think of right before they are slaughtered.

(You’re reading this, so I’m not the only jobless one.)

The butcher- that guy who sits in anticipation with the knife between his toe-nails, I’ve always believed, has to be a true leader(except that his name must also preferably be Habib). You can’t rule out the possibilities of goats having a personality and making things complicated.

Like the one who sued this kid for asking ‘Got milk?’.

It got infinitely more interesting when this Gujju guy asked: ‘Goat milk?’.

Or the radical feminist: ‘What’ll they do? Just use us for our bodies and throw us away ? I feel so objectified’

The sophisticated, stiff-upper lipped variety: ‘I expect not to be disappointed, Mr. Habib’

Alas, they form only a minority. The larger sample space is thinking what most of middle class India, and indeed, the likes of Rakhi Sawant and Poonam Pandey believe:

‘If I’m going under the knife, it better be worth it’.

And it is truly worth it, ladies and gentlemen, when they give up their life for the cause of Salim’s Kakori Kebabs.

Yes, this is actually a piece on how awesome they are. Sorry. If you felt manipulated, guess how I feel everytime I cross this outlet in Defence Colony Market.

The aroma has changed my choice of dinner from a modest Masala Dosai or roadside Chinese to something as rich as these Kebabs which shamelessly melt in your mouth.

Bastards.

About Kakori Kebabs. I tried finding some similarity with that place Bhagat Singh and the others looted a train at, but no, Aamir Khan didn’t have any answers.

Suffice it to say that if mutton ever had an identity crisis, this would be it. It looks like a Seekh Kebab, but is too fine to be one. You can hold a seekh kebab in your hand. This one, you can’t. It breaks under the weight of your appetite and the specially made masalas that spice it up.

Now, any finer, and it would be mince meat. It’s not entirely dry either. Add a hint of gravy, and it would be something like ‘Sun dried Mutton Korma’.

So if you have a blurry image in your head but just can’t complete it , go try it. The accompaniments remain predictable but nevertheless, to die for: Green chutney, onions and roomali roti.It’s the same one that was at Khan Market, but apparently they are only good with kebabs, not with real estate. So Def. Col. it is.

If you’re not in Delhi, too bad.

On the flip side, you can always go back to talking about how unsafe it is for women.

And people with high cholesterol.

The Problem With Being Vijay Mallya

Retrospect is a beautiful word, isn’t it?

Probed a remarkably erudite Rahul Dravid when asked if, ‘in retrospect’, he would’ve played for a win instead of a tame draw, during the 2007 Test series in England.

As Kingfisher Airlines bites the dust, I wonder if Vijay Mallya is tempted to respond to Market Analysts in the same vein.

‘Mallya shouldn’t have entered the airline business in the first place’

‘Kingfisher was fine, but Kingfisher Red? Big mistake.’

One even used a clever turn of phrase: ‘The airline shouldn’t have started flying before it learnt to walk’.

These soothsayers of doom surface conveniently. Throw up obvious facts and non-controversial arguments. Play to the Lowest Common Denominator. Play it safe.

All the things Vijay Mallya doesn’t believe in.

In all the reactions to the Kingfisher fiasco, one can’t help notice a sense of Karmic Justice.

‘Serves him right. The crook.’.

‘He can’t always have his cake and eat it too’.

Why? Because the going had been way too good for the King of Good Times. And we hate people like those.

Why? Because we don’t own a beach villa in Goa and private jets and yachts. We don’t own cricket teams and shoot calendars with hot supermodels. We don’t have a son who dates a Bollywood Hottie and doesn’t have to worry about EMIs for his first car.

So, to hell with a man who flaunts his wealth in a country teeming with poverty.

Why? Because he’s rich and successful, and doesn’t apologize for it. He doesn’t cater to idealistic notions of humility imposed by a land that spawned many a saint. He’s not happy and contented with just one successful business. He wants more. He says it in no uncertain terms, and usually backs it up with performance.

And we really hate people like those. Just peer over your shoulder to look at the brash, energetic, almost arrogant guy who got promoted twice in the last year. Or wind the clock back to college, and think of the guy who would stay wasted the entire semester, only to wake up for the finals and ace them.

While you religiously attended classes, took notes, agreed with your boss, kissed ass and plodded along for marks and raises that elicited a typical ‘WTF?’ response.

That’s the chasm between Vijay Mallya and the rest of us, which only grows wider because of his public image.

Fancy a Narayan Murthy business going bankrupt. The wave of sympathy will, doubtless, be much greater. Only because his way of life subscribes to what we believe it ‘should’ be. That’s probably also why an out-of-form Yuvraj Singh is bound to face more flak than an out-of-form Laxman.

The Infosys tagline talks of values. Kingfisher talks of good times. That one stroke alienates Mallya from the bulk of India. No wonder then, that the government faces stiff resistance to bail Kingfisher out.

We would rather have it bail out the boring, conservative, ‘humble’ and ineffective Air India.

The problem is, the failure of Kingfisher vindicates the stand of all those who advocate minimum risk. All those who need the security of established facts to grind their noses in, should they fail. We live in such paranoid times, that even in the pint sized world of advertising, which sits at the back-end of most business activities, Brand Managers get their panties in a bunch over an idea that is ‘too strong’.

Mallya, simply stands out in a business climate obsessed with chasing a kind of certainty that doesn't exist.

Nowhere am I making a case for the business plan employed by Kingfisher. It doesn’t take a genius now to figure out that it was indeed flawed. But I AM making a case for giving instinct its due in the number-crunching world of business.

And not adding it to the list of Mallya’s screw-ups.

At a time when the IIMs pride themselves on encouraging innovation and entrepreneurship, we would do well to at least celebrate his tremendous risk appetite.The sheer decisiveness and courage it took to venture into unchartered waters(or, skies).

That the airline still erred, and made mistakes that were shored up by rising fuel prices, was unfortunate for all. One expects Mallya to pick himself up. He’s been bankrupt before, and this is not even half as bad.

Let’s just not get too caught up with his public image, and confuse fearless with reckless.

And let’s leave retrospect to the analysts. It doesn’t go well with people who mean business.

One Shammi Kapoor Later…

Shah Rukh Khan, for all his supposed megalomania and superstardom, has faced a lot of flak throughout his career. ‘He’s always Shah Rukh Khan’, they say.

Well, for about 5 minutes in the utterly forgettable Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, he wasn’t . And for almost one of those, he was Shammi Kapoor(The ‘Phir Milenge’ song, for the uninitiated). I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t count that as one of the high points of his career.

This account of Shammi Kapoor could be somewhat ill-conceived, since I didn’t really grow up watching his films. And he lost out to Rakhi Sawant and MTV Roadies in the hunt for TRPs, so no, the media never celebrated him either.

I must’ve been 4, when someone at home rented out a video tape of ‘Junglee’. I watched over their shoulder, always wondering why Saira Banu was mean to this funny guy. The then under developed halves of my brain couldn’t follow the story or the dialogues. But the mad ‘Yahoooo’ moment interested me enough to ask my parents his name. And affected me enough to go shrill-shrieking, with the good natured Alsatian bearing the brunt of it.

That’s the cool thing about madness. It’s oblivious of faculties of reason. And few moments in Indian cinema have been as mad as that ‘Yahooo’ one.

The next time I saw him, it was on T.V., selling Pan Parag to a paranoid Ashok Kumar. Looking more the ascetic who’d renounced the world, than the dapper who charmed it ( Dil Deke Dekho). I had to be told it was that same madness inducing Shammi Kapoor . Later, now on course with a regular diet of school, homework and summer vacations, I stumbled upon that piece from Tumse Accha Kaun Hai: A blue suited Shammi Kapoor answering multiple calls with a ‘Kiss, Kiss, Kiss…Kissko Pyaar Karoon’.

Madness.

You've heard things like 'Only Salman could pull off a Dabanng'. Well, I dont see anyone else pulling this hysterical prelude to a song off. These lyrics almost demanded someone's charisma to disguise their possible lameness. This man, instead,made them look good.

That's what great actors do. Make the banal look dramatic. The lame look intelligent. The drivel look witty.

Years went by and we saw Shammi Kapoor off and on, in obscure movies you never cared about. We were following our own growth chart and had better things to think of, like angles of elevation and the correct pronounciation of 'lingerie'. However, old hindi songs were gradually creeping into one’s life. Maybe it was their timeless charm. Or maybe it was Kanta Laga’s relentless attack. Also that jerk in the head followed by the rhythmic clap in ‘Taarif Karoon Kya Uski’ made for many a repeated viewing.

Which brings us to now, the times of You tube. Many a Saturday night, you cross the Edward Maya and David Guetta threshold, realizing how ‘I’m in Miami, Bitch’ isn’t really the kind of emo-trip you crave. At about 3 in the night/morning, you Youtube old Hindi songs. Kishore Kumar, Rafi. And it’s not funny how often a Shammi Kapoor piece finds its way in your playlist.

These nights also have their typical conversations. About love and life. About how you’ll grow up, make enough money and buy the cheapest piece of real estate close to where you had the most fun in college. About how you’ll quit that job and do what you REALLY want to.

So one of those nights, cut to a group talking about hot men and hot women.
While the lesser mortals restricted ourselves to people we saw walking to college everyday, this lone drunk female stood up and exclaimed: ‘You know who was really hot? Shammi Kapoor’.

*Silence*

Next second, the girls in the group ‘Strongly Agree’ as conversation ventures into the naughty things they’d do to him, amidst loud shrieks of ‘Oh My God! My mom had a huge crush on him’. While we could very well get into the incestuous implications here, I’m afraid that’s another story.

We might not have grown up watching Shammi Kapoor’s films, but the Joie de Vivre of his performances ensured that something always trickled down.

While we can trust the Kapoor assembly line to produce some kind of an icon every generation, I doubt if there’ll ever be one as effortless.

If nothing else, he gave us a few moments of madness. And SRK a rare moment of ease.

The Curious Case of Rahul Dravid’s Rebellion

Disclaimer:
I’d written this piece after Dravid’s hundred at Lords, and delayed posting it. For greater effect, I wanted to post it after our victory the 2nd test against England, which was not to be. The stubborn Test cricket fan in me was hoping, nay, praying for an Indian victory despite the stiff target of 478. Obviously expecting Rahul Dravid to do the needful. Now that we’ve lost, I find it’s still a great time to celebrate the man, when we’re back to cursing our team.



Rahul Dravid’s perceived niceness has, over the 15 year course of his career, moulded itself into an intriguing, exquisite sculpture. Much like his game, it has been cast in stone and placed on a pedestal for a utopian world to follow.

Which makes me want to give it one slight nudge and watch it shatter into a billion pieces.

Partly because I detest nice people. It started way back in school when the teacher’s pet scored more than me, and then snowballed into a visceral hatred. People who turn the other cheek. People who skillfully avoid confrontations because they are woefully hopeless. Then there are those who are no fun to fight or argue with, because some Art of Living course has taught them to ‘accept’ whatever shit happens to them with a smile so beatific it makes their Gurus insecure.

I once believed Dravid was all of these people. The world we live in had conditioned me to adore the aggression of a shirt flinging Sourav Ganguly, an intimidating Matthew Hayden and an in-your-face-if-not-on-your-nerves Shahid Afridi.

I ascribe that to naiveté. But we are all allowed that. Come on, even a certain Joker took some time to see the funny side.

So yeah, NOW I see the funny side. And Rahul Dravid’s bad side. It is so bad, it makes a mockery of Pieterson, Warne, Symonds and Harbhajan. Not Sreesanth, because anything can make a mockery of him.

He is an egoist, sadist and masochist rolled into one: everything Buddha wouldn’t approve of.A monumental desire to win shows up as an unyielding capacity to suffer pain, and an insatiable pleasure in inflicting it. More than wincing with his pain, he smirks at a spinner’s twisted wrists, the fast bowler’s aching shoulders and the close-in fielder’s palms-in-waiting.

Ask the Aussies who played that Kolkata test in 2001.

He’s a rebel all right. With a cause.

The conventional definition of rebel: ‘a person who resists authority, control, or convention’ applies to him, but means something else.

Guzzling down insane amounts of lager, beating up the pub owner and waking up with a headache and a paunch? Really? That’s…rebellion?

Going fishing when it’s time to practice? Maybe, but only if fishing was more fun than winning.

Sex scandals ? The world and some of its women are way too insecure to call them ‘exploits’ and get that momentary high. Rather play the field when you’re on it.


And sledging ? Why call the bowler’s mom a bitch when you can effortlessly flick his most lethal yorker to the boundary? Or when you can ignore his most cleverly disguised out-swinger?Why talk shit when you have a steely, determined gaze that crushes the most solid of resolves? Imagine The Godfather issuing empty threats instead of just wiping out rival families.

He’s a rebel all right. When the stakes are mercilessly high.

Like returning Allan Donald’s verbal volleys with his bat, back in the 1997 tour of South Africa. Only sharper and more insulting. The cheek of a guy just a year old in international cricket!

Or not believing commentators, selectors and even fans when they told him he wasn’t fit for ODIs. Whaddya know, he returned to become the highest scorer in the 1999 World Cup.


He probably scoffed at Bishan Singh Bedi when he predicted a whitewash in Australia in 2003. And chose the Adelaide test as his stage to respond: 233 in the first innings and 72* in the second. When a single brought the scores level, he punched the air. He wasn’t relieved, as much as he was resisting the urge to jump until the deal had been sealed. Everyone in the Indian dressing room had their cameras out: This was going to be a victory against Australia in Australia, bitches.
One eager hit through covers later, he was running with his arms raised, leaping sideways and kissing his cap, as an applauding Sourav Ganguly looked on from the boundary.

What a performer. What a moment.

He’s a rebel all right. Just ask a baffled Sachin Tendulkar, who was left stranded at 194, as a nation discovered someone badass enough to deny its favorite son a double century…against Pakistan.

Nothing is quite as romanticized as the causes of rebellion. Broken homes. Poverty. Loneliness. Failed relationships. Childhood scars.

Dravid has his own scars.

That time when every key Indian cricketer spiraled towards the center of the match fixing scandal. If you bitch about office politics, I shudder to think what his ‘work environment’ was like.


Coming within sniffing distance of a victory while chasing 120 in the West Indies, and getting bowled out for 81. He(and so do Tendulkar, Ganguly and Kumble) seethes everytime anyone brings it up.

The humiliating defeat in the finals of the 2003 World Cup.
These were losses that inspired a team, and many victories.

It’s an unusual cricket world today, inhabited by Ravi Shastri’s clichés, non-threatening West Indian quicks and the every-touch-must-be-an-orgasm T20. For those not easily swayed by style, Dravid’s rebellion provides the substance.

It embodies a solid, oft-undermined lesson: People are more than what they seem to be.

Rahul Dravid, we bow to thee. Not for the first time. And certainly not for the last time.

Monday Buggery

If Mondays were to rot in hell, they’d leave the stench of their clichés behind. Which is why I crave my mom most on Mondays. Here are a few you confront/encounter/brave at work on a normal Monday. Other than being utterly predictable, they conveniently ignore that everyone in the space-time continuum is going through the same damn Monday.

1. How was the weekend?

2. I HATE waking up on Mondays, *insert expletive*

3. I don’t wanna worrrk. Waaa. *Calls Boyfriend*

4. New shirt, eh?

5. New haircut, eh?

6. How was the weekend?

7. Whiny girl: ‘Yaar, Monday kyun hota hai’

8. Nerdy Guy Hitting on Whiny Girl: ‘Yes…Ha Ha…There should be two weekends in a week’. Jackass.

9. Nerdy guy(to self): 'Ah, Monday. Just one more day to go before even the week says WTF.'

10. You’re extra lame today. Just what happened over the weekend? Which reminds me: How was the weekend?



Also…Ahem…If you look closer, most of them belong to the women…*runs*

Delhi's Aggression, In and as 'Pre-Office Laughs'

Different people have different starts to their work day. But I pity your boring life if you just woke up, brushed, showered, shaved and reached your work desk.

What I saw this morning was the stuff Delhi legends are made of. There’s a certain sadist alert here, so those of you who put ‘Don’t-criticise-India-If-You-Can’t-Do-Something-About-It’ comments on blog posts, can shove Ravi Shastri’s tracer bullet up your tushy(That’s what Tushar Kapoor is called at home. Apparently, when Jeetender is getting ready for work, he calls out to him- ‘Tushy, Mere white leather shoes kahaan hai?’. To which he restlessly replies- ‘Meri Tushy Mei.’ Poor guy thinks it’s a good joke. You-have-your-shoe-up-my-ass types. No one laughs, so he only mimes it, which is what got him the Golmaal role.)

Anyway, I digress. I take the Delhi metro to work. Amidst the everyday ordeal of raised armpits and rubbing people the wrong side, what makes the everyday travel worth it is that it carries Delhi-ites. And Delhi-ites are a lot of fun. The city and its people lend themselves to lots of unintentional humor. Mostly because of unregulated aggression. Think Virat Kohli’s ‘Bhenchod’ after every hundred he scores. Or after every misfield. That, my friends, is equanimity under success and failure.

So well, I have an awesome job in the awesome corporate jungle in Gurgaon. Of course, the awesomeness gets nullified because hordes of people have awesome jobs here. Which means there’s a mad rush at the Sikandarpur metro station, and there’s a long line even while getting out of the station. Men and women with grave problems varying from hair-loss at the right areas to hair-growth at the wrong areas to not getting laid to getting late, jostle for space.

This is where you say ‘Action’.

There are two people involved here, and just for fun, we’ll call them 'X' and 'O'. They are both men.

Usual long line for swiping cards and getting the hell out of the station.
Suddenly, loud voice.

X: Dhakka kaise maara?

*murmurs*

X: DHAKKA KAISE MAARA TUNE?
*the robotic metro announcement stops*

The crowd parts ways to reveal two men holding hands. In a way that one of them could rip the other one’s out.

O: Abe tere baap ka dhakka hai kya?

X: Baap! Baap ka Dhakka!

Just when you think X’s going to laugh at 'O' for being outrageously, ‘No Problem-No Entry- Welcome’ like funny, he does nothing of the sort. Instead…

X: Baap Pe kaise gaya tu Bhenchod?
O: Gaali Kaise di Bhenchod?
X: Tera Baap Bhenchod, Bhenchod.
O: Baap Pe Kaise Gaya, Bhenchod.

And just like that, somebody slaps. I almost want to shout ‘How Can He Slap?’ but I don’t. Not just because real life is not Twitter, but also because people are reacting to it differently. While I grin and prepare for a potential joke fest, no one quite shares my amusement.

Whiny-Spectacled-Nerdy Friend of 'O': Sir, chod deejie sir. Office...office jaana hai. Kapde kharab ho jaenge uske. (This is what I call ‘Polite Relief’ in an otherwise rude setting)

Woman to a guy enjoying the fight: Arre AAP to aage chaliye na.

Woman from…the Northeast: GO!

Old Uncleji: Ram Ram, Aabadi bohot badh gayi hai. Corruption bohot hai…Accha beta idhar se Galleria Mkt. tak auto milega?

Nice Aunty: Tch Tch Tch Tch.

Now I’m not very good at decoding body language, but I can be sure this one girl looked at ‘X’ admiringly with an 'XOXO' expression. So if you want to impress a girl in Haryana, just beat up the guy next to you.

It’s a fight that could’ve happened anywhere, but only in Delhi can a seemingly mundane fight become as incredibly engaging. I haven’t made anything up here(other than the names. And even there, who's to say that their names are not 'X' and 'O'?). What’ll separate the Delhi people from the non-Delhi ones among you will be how far you believe me. Because Delhi people KNOW how random Delhi can get. Sit in any public transport and you’ll know.

I wanna use this as an answer to those NRI types who talk about ‘America Ki Quality of Life’. Hell, you don’t get Delhi’s quality of life anywhere. All you need is a streak of sadistic bastardism to enjoy it for a few minutes.

And the hope that your boss wont ask you why you were late for work…;)