Could you unloosen my laces?

At first glance, it simply seems like a convoluted way of saying, “tighten” - along the lines of ‘unfasten’ and ‘unlace.’

But no, thanks to The Atlantic Monthly’s authoritative Word Court, I now know that “unloosen” actually equates to “loosen” (try explaining that to a mathematician). If you’re not convinced, Shakespeare and Shelley and Sheridan used “unloose”.

I did some research and learned that it just so happened that un and in were randomly used in words long before their non-un and non-in (doesn’t non seem innocuous by comparison?) counterparts came into being, as a result of which all of them stuck around, meaning pretty much the same thing. For instance, the word “inflammable” simply preceded “flammable,” and now both are here to stay (till someone actually lights something on fire thinking it’s IN-flammable).
And then there’s fat chance and slim chance that mean roughly the same thing; not to mention I give or don’t give a rat’s ass. The list goes on.

The English language sure could use some unloosening...

And as if that were not enough, The Unword Dictionary allows you to make up your own words. After all, in this world of open-sourcing everything, shouldn't words be given their due?

Tandoori flavored papadums?

My best pals in Philadelphia are unequivocally American, except that they know the subtle differences in flavor between chicken tikka and chicken 65, often manage to surprise me with almost flawless enunciations of “mughlai” and unforeseen disclosures of very indigenous terms like kabuli channa – they are, of course, an exclusively northeastern breed – more global than most, well-traveled, cosmopolitan and as a result, very aware of the world across the Atlantic.

While it’s rewarding to hang out with people that can accompany you to a Brazilian meat-orgy (without premonitions of offending the Almighty) and the seedy Indian deli that serves delicious mutton biryani and enjoy them both the same, my biggest complaint is their unbelievable lack of introduction to southern Indian cuisine. And worse still, their belief that it cannot be that much different from fare that hails from the Northern part of the subcontinent.

“There’s a world of difference,” I often yell. “You wouldn’t know unless you have had it.”

“Well, I like dosa,” my Canadian friend offers; I must admit that he is privy to the kind of clandestine information about the Indian palate you only get from extended stays in tandoori-rich London. In this instance, however, I have to point out the oversight.

After I explain to him that Udipi's crispy, larger-than-life sheet of rice and lentils is hardly a south Indian staple, he is subject to elaborate instruction on the topic of Southern Indian spices and seasonings. A consensus on tamarind and lentils is reached, following which, everyone agrees they must find the staples just as delectable.

Since I am hardly the authority on South Indian cooking, treating them to culinary delights from my hometown is not an option. Same reason why, I often make an SOS trip to Whole Foods to avail of surprisingly good “sambhar from a can.”

But even the thought of tamarind-laced lentils soaking up aromatic basmati rice is not enough to quell the sheer horror that engulfs me when this item peers smugly from one of the store’s lofty aisles:

Tandoori flavored papadums

Tandoori is a curry flavor used exclusively in northern India and a papadum is batter from fermented lentils fried to a delicious crispness to complement south Indian rice dishes. The two flavors can never ever be put together in a single dish, without disastrous consequences to the unsuspecting palate. Think fish and cheese.

Oh, for the love of God! - the Sequel

Every time I reel from the after-effects of a Dubya mishap and wonder what prompted me to make the trip halfway round the globe to this country, India answers with an episode – usually one that makes me shake my head and sigh in resignation and say, "oh, that's why". That's not necessarily a good thing, but it goes a long way in explaining why I'm not a stone's throw away from a home-cooked meal of lentils and rice (which can be surprisingly delicious when done right).

The exceptionally gifted policy-makers in my home country can always be counted upon to do something jaw-droppingly stupid, like impose curfews in night-clubs or decide which cable service you can or cannot buy. I might not necessarily care one way or other, but I'd like it to be my choice, is all. My other beef with them is their sheer inability to get priorities straight – I’d rather they insist you pick up your trash, for instance, than regulate physical affec(ta)tion in public places (both are known to cause irrepressible nausea, but at least in one case, it’s not cos of the pinworms in your intestines).

The latest furor is over the release of – surprise, surprise - The Da Vinci Code. Apparently, the information and broadcasting minister decided to first watch it to figure out if the rest of India should be allowed to do so. To a reasonable human being like myself, this begs the question: are we talking about a country or a third grade class? They might as well set parental filters on the control panel that India’s government is fast becoming.

The head of the Catholic Secular Forum has begun a “hunger strike until death” so the film can be banned. It’s not really my place but this forum doesn’t sound ‘secular’ to me. And if this could get any more ridiculous, Christians account for less than two percent of the country’s population. I know what you’re thinking – if two percent can threaten to ban a film what could eighty percent do? Simple -- they could shut it down altogether - a fate that Deepa Mehta’s thought-provoking and extremely relevant Water met with a few years ago, prompting her to flee to another country, shoot it under a pseudonym and simulate the irreproducible Ganges, before finally being released last month.

So, even while the technology hub in Bangalore manufactures the fastest processor to open us to the world of information, the morally conscious thought police decides to shield us from it. And boy, do I feel safe and secure under its (s)mothering. Now, if only it would drop some change in my pocket as well, so I can quit thinking altogether…

Not that Americans are that much saner. If the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson could have their way, I’d probably be denied the liberty to watch Hanks make a mess of Robert Langdon myself. But the difference in this country is that, there is bound to be a sardonic Trey Parker to shut up a screaming Falwell. And for every incredibly close-minded, religiously blinded, kool-aid drinking cult, you can count on a pragmatic and relevant ACLU.

Last I checked, India was a democracy. I wish we’d treat it like one and allow the Mehtas to reveal horrifying truths about practiced Hinduism even while the Narendra Modis are practicing them....Cos that's what a democracy is about...It isn’t always popular or homogenous, it isn’t intended to be. But it’s functional -- as functional as a billion people with a billion different viewpoints can get…..

Petty peeves

Now that Spring is here and the celestial bodies are behaving themselves, I decided to leave them alone and worry about the smaller things in life...

Would you please hit the freakin’ button!

You’d think in this fast-paced world, where bills get paid in minutes and google gives answers in seconds, the most obvious and fruitful thing to do when you got on an elevator would be to hit the door-close button. But no, some think the most fruitful thing to do is to remark on the lovely weather or worry about a lab mouse with cardiac arrest. That’s all well and good, but if you stand there any longer without shutting the door, Spring might just pass you by and your beloved mouse might not have a chance at resuscitation.

Don’t you start your car when you get into it? Don’t you turn on the light when you enter a room? Wouldn’t shutting the darn door be the natural thing to do in a 6-foot wide car that moves on a vertical shaft? On an elevator, people somehow seem to lose their earthly instincts. It’s either the screwed up gravity or the lack of oxygen. I couldn’t tell you, cos I happen to be in the minority – the I-hit-the-door-close-button minority (we have an affirmative action case going). And this is my official call to that small group of individuals that believes ‘the button’ serves a purpose and begs to be used. Some dismiss it as a placebo cos apparently it doesn’t do anything; I don’t care, I happen to be a pro-active human being and I need to hit it! Why? Bcos it is there, and the elevator door is open 5 freaking seconds after it needs to be shut.

If you’re a fairly observant human being, you would have noticed our kind – we are the ones that cling to the control panel, index finger on the mark and ready to go as soon as the last person is in; if we have the misfortune of being more than an arm’s length away we’d be gritting our teeth and clenching our fists, till someone finally reads our mind and does the needful. Boy, am I glad for my little clique! Quite like the glee that accompanies my chancing upon a fellow Maher-obsessor or die-hard steak-fanatic, my eyes light up when I see one of them enter an elevator. I heave a sigh of immense relief, resign to the rear, shut my eyes and lean against the wall, knowing full well that the job will be done...

To go cups have got to go!

One of the prerequisites of the northeastern American lifestyle is the ability to, at some point in time, use a torso and two pairs of limbs to balance your bag, an umbrella and a coffee cup for miles on end to nowhere in particular. It helps the process (and your posture) to have your bag zipped, your umbrella folded and your coffee cup securely shut. Unfortunately, much as Starbucks and the other capitalistic coffee makers out there are inherently gifted in the art of grinding beans to give just the right flavor to that caffeinated stimulant (sweet mother of all things good and pure!) they happen to be surprisingly unqualified to make a paper cup with a lid that fastens just right. Reason why, I've never had coffee from a to-go cup without it streaming down my hand or my choicest white shirt (the inherent klutz in me accepts a fraction of the blame). So, my point is (yeah, I do have one) that Starbucks should collaborate with Nissan and start offering coffee in plastic mugs with screw caps [yeah, two capitalist pigs might as well get together and screw us (pun unintended)]. Apparently Nissan’s mug can be tossed at any angle to any distance without spillage. I personally think anyone that treats coffee with such insult should be appropriately penalized, but often times it’s not really in your hands (but in the air). Here’s how: you’re juggling your keys, your cell phone and your wallet while stepping into a puddle of microbe-enriched water (another exclusive of the Northeastern lifestyle) and your coffee mug just happens to be the one that takes the plunge -- quite possibly your pride does too -- but then you could jus swoop down and pick it right back. I meant the mug, of course, your pride’s pretty much a lost cause after that.

Spring – not cool?

I mean figuratively of course. Literally, it isn’t supposed to be cool, that’s what we like about it...
So, yesterday was a fabulous 70 degree day and I was more than excited to finally go on a run that did not involve fleece or insulated nylon or mittens or headbands, or the process of adjusting, yanking or removing half or all of them midway through the trail.
But I’d forgotten that with Spring and Summer come the rest of life’s troubles -- three quarters through my usual 4-mile lope, my lungs wanted more air, my gut wanted water and my legs wanted a break. Only that wonderful thing called mindless and irrational will power saw me to the end, and the extra rush of adrenalin was oh-so-exhilarating, but I must say, my body wasn’t exactly pleased. It is all good when the 70% water your body is made of is as frozen as the river you’re running by, but when the sun’s vaporizing every ounce of liquid you drank the past week, you could inhale the river and it wouldn’t matter. So, in winter, I had to desensitize to the low temperatures – let’s face it, I had barely breathed in 0°F until then, much less run. And now, I gotta acclimatize to the heat - the tropical inhabitant of two decades of 90°F has to now acclimatize to the heat! In this energy-starved world, that just seems like an awful lot to waste. You’d think evolution would have thought of that and just made us all cold-blooded...

The Da Vinci Code hanked

Considering I think The Da Vinci Code is literally the best book ever written (this could be attributed as much to my current reading slump as to the peerless Dan Brown), I’m obviously excited about the upcoming movie, though I know from past experience that a movie adaptation is almost never nearly as good as a book. Someone got that adage all wrong -- a picture is worth a thousand words -- no amount of pictures could equal an eloquently written piece, IM-writer’s-O. In any case, I was still looking forward to this movie and hoping it would be the exception that was Jurassic Park, and wondering who could convincingly play the elite and suave (and in woman-speak, oh-so-delectable) Robert Langdon. And what did I hear? Tom Hanks! *Groan* No offense to ol’ Tom – I have loved him in almost every movie he’s ever been in, but this is clearly not a Hanks-job! The Harvard historian in his crisp white shirt and tweed jacket, who rattles off a million connotations at the mere sight of an innocuous piece of art, who couldn’t drive a stick if you put a gun to his head but could logically work his way out of a deathtrap using only his mind and who still manages to beat his peers at water polo.

After all this rambling you’re wondering if I have any suggestions. ‘Course I do. Johnny Depp!!! IMO, he’d fit the role to a tee. At least I could have sworn he could play Langdon in The Secret Window. With Hanks, we’d all just be Sleepless in Paris.

Afterthought
I've thought about it and I now think Tim Robbins will be perfect for the role (yeah, Sony Pictures is holding off release till I make up my mind). And he doesn't even have to change anything -- he just has to be Andy Dufresne (The Shawshank Redemption) or Dave Boyle (Mystic River), as is -- smart, sexy, tranquil, elite and oh-so-endearing...

When dates get convoluted

While watching the Burlington commercial for the weekend Easter sale, I happened to glance at an e-greeting from my folks back home. Wondering if they had now begun wishing me for the traditional American holidays (my mom is my most reliable source of info on Daylight saving time and long weekends), I clicked on it. The card proved to be an exercise in my native language -- mustering all of my unseasoned tamil from the forgotten recesses of my brain I unveiled a wish for New Year’s Day, celebrated around the start of the financial year all over India, albeit called differently and observed by a wide variety of creative rituals in different parts of the motherland...
When April 14th has come to largely represent DO YOUR TAXES for the past four years, it isn’t entirely my fault that the New Year needs reminding. To make up for it, I did go and pull out some sticks of unbelievably crispy cod from the freezer – a far cry from the manga pachadi of yesteryears, but till Bush delivers on his promise of delivering the mango, the fish will have to do....

Trials and tribulations of the long-haired mane

I’m in a hair-segue right now – that’s right, other than the emotional, mental and intellectual ones that happen every week, this one boggles my upstairs in very different ways.

The last time I sported hair anywhere longer than the nape of my neck was when I was 18 and foolish and didn’t have my priorities quite in order. In other words, back then, it was okay to have to spend 10 minutes of my precious morning running a comb through my untameable, chaotic cap of hair.

All that is well and good, except that the task usually followed barely waking up at 9 am (my roommate was the only one that successfully testified to it, on account of my eyes being open), rushing to the dorm bathrooms and finding them devoid of water, hurtling down to the cookhouse and draining the last drops from the tank, both only made possible by that thing called gravity, carrying my well-earned reward up two flights of stairs, engaging in a really quick cleansing ritual and donning the only pieces of clothing that seemed to vaguely match each other and that could be lugged out of the pile of washed garments with minimum effort.

So, it’s bad enough that I now gotta remember to brush my hair, straighten it on a bad day, pin it up on a worse one and even use an annoying butterfly clip sometimes (which looks uncannily Pebbles-like). And the constant 25 mph winds in Philly certainly don’t help (though I must admit there’s a certain sail-like quality -- I seem to be flowing easier with the wind, not necessarily in the direction I am headed, but pleasurable nonetheless ;)).

As it happens in a variety of these experiments, when you change one thing, you gotta change a whole lot of others to avoid the “cartoon effect”, if you will. So, the past year I have added more than just some length to that mane: clips and hair accessories pervade an area once restricted to a couple of hair brushes, which didn’t get used a lot (running of the fingers is all the grooming a short coiffure really needs – the close-cropped men of the world will vouch for that). Now, to describe them as ‘accessories’ is actually a misnomer, cos when the jumbled mass on your head is growing in all possible directions at uneven lengths and skewed angles, waving where it isn’t supposed to, curling where it strictly shouldn’t, and sticking up in bristles when it should bend down and grow with its cousins, a half dozen hair slides, a wrap and an elastic band become essential.

The costume jewelry that follows, however, could be classified as accessorizing. Your ear lobe now feels insecure with just a little stud earring to keep it company. It was all good when your hair was minding its boundaries, but not when it’s flailing all over your face and stifling your essential senses. Same reason why you go and get your nose pierced. And flaunt it till you finally realize that it defies all of humankind’s most innate reflexes – picking, sneezing, scratching, breathing, to mention just a few.

Sometimes you gotta do things in life that make it a little more complicated than it is...It gets boring when it’s too easy...When Destiny starts doing her job herself, that’s when you cut back :)

Oh, for the love of God!!!

I wish sometimes people could step out of the world and take a look at it from the outside. Really! It would make a great comic routine and they can have a nice hearty laugh. And hopefully come to their senses. I betcha it would beat Friends and Seinfeld and the Simpsons put together.

What the f*** is this whole uproar over a buncha fr****** cartoons!!!

Read the following objectively and tell me it doesn’t make a good story line: A Danish paper publishes some innocuous cartoons of Muhammad. There’s a whole series of riots where people kill people. Then a group of Muslim radicals release obscene cartoons of the prophet to add fuel to the fire!! And now, a paper in Iran plans to retaliate by publishing cartoons of the holocaust.

I don’t know about you, but I think the silver lining is that radical muslim clerics actually broke their shackles enough to publish obscene cartoons of Muhammad. They must be getting progressive! (I do acknowledge that the rest of humankind may not share my enthusiasm at this latest development).

In any case, as a religion outsider, I am looking at all of this and having one helluva good laugh (except for the loss of human life because if there is one thing I will never understand it is the ease with which people trade an existing, real human being for a non-existent, fantastical entity that someone made up for the heck of it).

And this is not the first televised parody in the name of religion.

I remember watching with a great deal of amusement people staging an all-night vigil to protest the removal of the ten commandments from the Alabama state judicial building a couple years ago. First, my bewilderment was directed at folks that think a piece of rock is worth losing precious sleep over. But secondly, who the hell cares if a loony judge wants to display religion in the lobby of a courthouse? Inside, you swear on the bible for crying out loud! If you don’t care for religion, let it just sit there as a piece of art. The only thing that whole episode achieved was kindle among the religion-soaked masses, a reverent respect for the man – yeah, Roy and his Rock are quite a phenomenon now, and he’s running for Governor. And no points for guessing who’ll win in the logic-blinded state of Alabama. So, the secular radical liberals have basically taken a judge whose sole purpose was to bang his gavel from time to time and put him on the legislative playing field, where he can do some real damage. Just what America needs. Another religion-obsessed, blind politician.

Another comic character in this ever-intriguing field is Mike Newdow, who spent millions of hours and hundreds of dollars filing lawsuits just so his daughter would not have to hear a thousand other kids say “under god”. I am equally amused at both ends of the spectrum. Much as I am awestruck by atheistic, radical elites like Newdow, I have to say that protesting it so vehemently is almost just as asinine as being fanatically obsessed with it. I mean, if you don’t believe in it, don’t say it! [Or better still, get a slot on national tv and say a lot about it (vive la Maher :))]

Then the whole furor over The Da Vinci Code. Easily, in my opinion the most fascinating book ever written (the only thing that comes close to beating it is Dan Brown’s own irreverent prequel to it). But no, these religious fanatics can’t take a well-written piece of literature. Who the hell cares if the facts have been researched and spun through a polygraph and who the hell cares if Christ had a wife or a son or maybe a whole family in Alabama (take a moment and think what this could do for your party – not just a family but generations of Christ’s descendants, who could campaign for a half-witted republican to come to power so they can hear him say “God bless America” on tv!!!)

Trey Parker and Matt Stone had it right all along -- taking what people do in the name of religion and moral-values and putting it on celluloid, with a splash of added color is more hilarious than anything a humor writer could dream up. I’m surprised they even have to try so hard. I can just laugh at it in its crude human form, though, for the record, I do love the bright yellow hair and perfectly round faces :)

Update

Found this on another blog, quoted from Metafilter, and thought I'd re-quote it cos I couldn't say it better:

Religion, all religion, needs to be mocked in a free society, for the embarrassment it is. Religion deserves freedom, but it doesn't deserve "respect", quite the opposite. And the more [backward] and insane the adherents of any religion are, the more they demand that unbelievers have to respect their tiresome [idiotic] beliefs, the more those beliefs deserve to be mocked. This [isn't just] for Muslims, the more Jerry Falwell, George Bush, etc. demand we all pay lip service to their ugly superstitions, the more necessary it becomes that South Park and Kevin Smith and Andres Serrano and Marilyn Manson and Richard Dawkins, etc, etc, step up their campaigns to mock and denigrate these outdated beliefs.

Resolution: Be wary of that stranger in your inbox!

It’s that time of year again and you’ve spent about two weeks thinking up the best protocol for that big moment on New Year’s eve -- it could be a fine party, a bar-spree or watching a crystal ball drop; in essence, they all achieve the same thing: pretend that the 31st of December is somehow different from the other 364 days and a fifth. The universal laws of physics and astronomy and sociology shake your deep-rooted belief, however, because the sun still rises and sets (I don’t see it from my corner of the world but everybody swears it’s out there somewhere) and people still say hello and comment on the weather (New York city dares to be a little different because there it is more like hello followed by a ribbing in the stomach or running you over). All said, just another typical day.

However, there’s one thing that promises to be different, no matter what:

You open your email New Year’s day and find a deluge of messages from people whose names you barely remember, some that were on your “ignore” list, but miraculously got back in, thanks to the efficiency that is yahoo and others that don’t particularly care whether you have a great moment or hour, let alone, a whole year. So, while you are still just getting over your annoyance at the clearly meaningless names in the sender’s list, frowning at one that sounds very much like the guy back in college who’s most sociable skill was an ominous stare, it promises to get worse. You open all the emails simply because you have to. Also, following the hype and hoopla of the night before, New Year’s day itself is pretty laidback and you’re not sure what you would rather do. Plus, protocol dictates that you do something newyeary. What better than opening New Year messages? So, you open each email and find out that ALL of them read the same:

Dear All,

Wish you & your family & friends a very Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year 2006 !!

I should grant them this: they all get the year right. So, it’s not something as hollow as copy-pasting last year’s message or sending a pre-designed draft, mind you. But I am thinking yahoo and every other mail service should let go of the “send to all on your address book” feature, cos preceding the two-line message that I now have indelibly stored in my long-term memory from having seen it year after year and message after message, is an endless list of people totally irrelevant to me and my life (I admit, just a tad more than the sender himself). The more tech-savvy ones have learnt to do the bcc thing, which doesn’t really help, because the “all” speaks volumes, and you’re left wondering how many million fortunate beneficiaries you are part of.

And that gets my over-active mind pondering over how much of the well-wishing I could realistically get. I mean, this person wants not just me and my family and friends (which accounts for about 20 people off the top of my head and 100 if I sat and counted), but the whole wide world and its family and friends to have a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. Now, I don’t know about you, but I think that’s asking for too much. I am sure nature and destiny and god will agree with me when I say there is something wrong with that line of thinking and that much well-wishing. You can’t wish for too much in life. I would say it’s mighty benevolent if you just wished for something good for yourself, your immediate family, your best friends, picked one favorite cousin, your uncle’s adorable dog and the salesgirl at the supermarket that is always nice to you.

So, I wouldn’t dig out email-info for every person I have ever known, snatch that post-it slip floating around from yester years, pore over the address book from an era when it was still fashionable, put names in alphabetical and chronological order, re-align an approved list of festive words to form a coherent new year message and spend five precious minutes of new year’s eve sending out an email. The people I care about get the message – either through a personal email, text, phone call or without me ever having to say it and knowing in their hearts that I could wish nothing but goodness for them. And while I’m at it, I don’t really need a day called New Year’s and have a crystal ball drop to say it to them. That day I need to go drink in a bar and get wasted and watch circling lights and wonder if they are indeed oblong and pretend that I enjoy doing that more than I would settling down on my recliner and watching a marathon of Friends :)

Oh, and before I forget, a Happy New year to ya’ll!

On being judicially judicious

The Shawshank Redemption is the kind of movie you sit through in rapt attention the first time, that you continue to quote from years later and one that leaves you with a very disturbing after-taste, every time you watch it -- not because Andy Dufresne gets convicted of a murder he didn’t commit and goes to prison for life, not because he escapes with an ingenious plot, but because the former is so frighteningly possible in real life and the latter that much implausibly surreal.

Since I don’t believe in justice being served on judgment day or in the after-life, and I barely believe in an omnipotent entity called God who watches over us and balances it all out, I very desperately need the reassurance that man gets his due, both good and bad, in this life, on earth, under the watchful eye of a book of laws (and I don’t mean the gold-gilded black one with the fairy tale about the stable boy). I wish the rest of human kind would get real and concur that we only get one shot at serving justice and even if it is by thought-capable, tangible, fellow human beings it must hold a certain level of credibility.

A week ago, I watched the Jessica Sanders’ documentary, After Innocence and I must say, the movie not only offered a lot of food for thought, but also took away my long-held belief that I held unthreatened monopoly over criticism of the many flaws of the justice system. Last year, I followed the Scott Peterson trial with a certain degree of interest and watched a person get convicted of murder and given the death sentence without a shred of evidence. A stone-faced expression, an extra-marital affair and being in the wrong place at the wrong time do not a murderer make.

What is scarier than the ruthlessness of a man that did or did not kill his pregnant wife, is that human beings are so involved in waging an all-out war against “evil” that they don’t seem to stop and wonder if the evil they are fighting is rightly placed. It could be an innocent guilt-free civilian who hasn’t hurt a fly in his entire life (his only fault being that he doesn’t flex his facial muscles often enough), a husband that wants to carry on what remains of his life after tending to a comatose life-partner for a decade or a 12-year old boy on anti-depressants.

The law not only follows a fault-ridden system in its hurry to dole out penalties, it also brands a person with evil, satanic and heinous tendencies, on his way to the prison cell. I sometimes wonder if the prison sentence is much needed solace for a human being that has been stripped of all self-esteem, virtue and credibility by the mirthless eyes of the court, media and society, that shun him before even proving him guilty of his crimes or trying to understand what heart-rending circumstances lead him to them.

It’s funny that while books like A Time to Kill and movies like A Few Good Men, which look beyond the crude physical act of murdering a person and delve deep into the human psyche are given a lot of credence, we so easily disregard a person’s emotional and mental state of mind at the time of crime in real-life situations.

A few weeks ago, a man was released from prison after spending 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. It saddened me that I found it on a corner of the yahoo news home page and didn’t see it mentioned anywhere in the mainstream media. With American news channels as person-centric as they tend to be (Natalie Holloway, Michael Jackson, Ashley Smith & the Runaway bride, for crying out loud!), what IS evil is that a man spends a wasteful quarter century in prison, and it goes unnoticed.

After Innocence focuses on exactly these problems with the justice system – through the representation of the lives (or lack thereof) of several such unfortunate exonerees, it brings out the painfully careless way in which a court of law punishes those that merely have the misfortune of being caught under its radar – basing life sentences on mere eye-witness accounts of victims who are obviously disillusioned post-traumatization, refusing to do a DNA test when it could so easily be done and in one case even ignoring the results of a forensic exam and detaining a convict in prison years after the records clearly ruled out his involvement in the crime.

To my libertarian mind, which defies regulation even when carried out in pristine fashion, vigilante justice, although anarchic, seems a more logical and satisfying solution to the problem, as opposed to a regulated court of law that sadly makes inexcusable mistakes...

In an age of microchips and supercomputers, why are we still using flawed testimonies and circumstantial evidences to make cases? Why aren’t we using science where we can, to make our lives easier and fairer?

In an era of protesting anything Science (abortion, stem-cell research, GM foods) are we merely apprehensive about playing God or are we so terrified by the prospect of an Asimov-grade takeover of man by machines that we are willing to forego an obviously fool-proof solution to a problem and look the other way?

Science is the tool in man’s hands, and it is there for us to use. The micropipette on my bench seems to be in no hurry to turn around and slap me in the face. Let’s use it to add an objective dimension to our otherwise human-error prone society...

Does it take a natural disaster to resolve an ethnic one?

While inhabiting a conveniently distant part of the subcontinent, I am sure many an Indian has exclaimed, “What will it take to get India and Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir issue? Shaking up the earth around it?” Until a couple days ago, that question would have been a very valid one and the answer a resounding no.

I was watching with a mixed feeling of sadness and bewilderment the events that unfolded in the aftermath of the quake in Pakistan (at least as much as American news will allow between the more earth-shattering issues of Rove and Delay and Harriet Miers).

Turns out, it takes more than just a shaking of the earth. It takes a shaking of the earth, the US being bogged down with terrorists and hurricanes, the UN relief effort coming up short, and then some.

Musharraf denied Indian offer of aid on account that the pilots had to be Pakistani. Did he actually think that amid the dead and dying, amid bodies lodged between tectonic plates, amid the rampant putrefying smell of decomposition, Indians were going to infiltrate the border and claim Pakistani controlled Kashmir? More importantly, did he actually find time to stop and think about it?

The first line of defense, as always, was seen by survivors at the scene of the disaster: as if to reinforce the needlessness of political and social boundaries, Indian soldiers were said to have gone across to help Pakis with their bunkers. Reminiscent of old war-time movies that portray soldiers compassionately helping a fellow human being across the line of fire, it was a refreshing change to learn that humanitarian instincts hadn’t completely died. That reassurance was short-lived, of course, cos this report was immediately disputed by Pakistan – their bunkers were robust, they claimed. Robust enough to take on a quake of magnitude 7.6. But that is not the point here. Arguing about self-sufficiency and providence in the face of one of the worst natural disasters in history seemed like a joke. Human beings are quite helpless against Nature’s whims and fancies, as the tsunami and Katrina well proved. The least we can do is put our efforts together.

It took a painstaking ten days for the two governments to come to that realization and agree to open up the line of control. What baffled me was the touting of this as a breakthrough effort by leaders of the two countries. Shouldn’t that have been the absolute first thing done in the aftermath of the disaster? Does a line drawn by politics and ethnicity figure way higher than saving lives that could have been saved?

Alongside the history of the partition and the struggle for independence, I think we should be taught something more fundamental – a list of the priorities of life in ascending order, namely, if someone is dying by your side and you can help, don’t dig out your history text book to see if your government is at war with his.

Yesterday’s South Park spoof on Katrina said it best – even while a catastrophe is unfolding, we are standing in the sidelines and trying to connect things so far removed from it, so as to make an interesting story. Over 40,000 people died in the quake – to me, that is story enough, one that defies boundaries and borders that make perfect sense on other days.

Someone came up with a punch line that there is no LoC at this shared moment of tragedy. Clearly, he meant 10,000 moments after it.

I am not urging the unthinkable and saying unite the two countries. Just wait and rebuild your barbed wires and close down your telecom lines when life is back to normal (normal being relative, of course, since life is never normal in Kashmir).

What is normal is that humanitarian instincts come before ethnic, political and religious ones...that’s how Nature intended (and maybe even God cos somewhere between fasting and going on a pilgrimage, I think he mentioned helping a human being in need).

[If this sounds like one of those essays on righteousness and moral values, it’s NOT. I don’t believe in a list of virtues indelibly carved on stone (with due respect to The Rock), but I do believe that sometimes a human being should think about the immediate present instead of being blurred by a rigid set of rules that someone pinned up in a moment of leisure. It’s my anguish at the recurrent fault of human nature that allows priorities to be so wastefully misconstrued and practicality to be pushed far in the back of the mind, behind religion and politics and needlessly drawn lines (I mean, other than tectonic ones, of course, which seem the most needless of them all)].

To the God of small things....

Like you know from the past, my weblog is a place where I vent my frustration about the things that don’t matter in life, so as to steal focus from the ones that do ;) So here’s to more whining about the little things in life…

Where in the whole wide world was Max Kellerman?

Why didn’t I know of Max Kellerman’s existence until a few months back?
I was watching the great Max make a case for seat-belt breathalyzers in Volvos and I got to wondering: here’s a guy that’s quick-witted, intelligent, articulate and ---not that I care, but you’ve got to be blind not to notice--- incredibly good looking and yet I hadn’t even heard of him like a few months back. Not to sound pompous, but there are very few newscasters or talk show hosts in America that I haven’t heard or at least heard about. Why do we keep seeing dumb, boring liberals like Alan Colmes and Paul Begala, while the Max Kellermans of the world are hiding behind a boxing glove, quite literally? And then we complain that there are no enterprising liberals out there. On second thoughts, is he liberal? Actually I don’t care, as long as he comes and flaunts his wit and airs his views (or the devil’s as the case may be) and puts the equally lovable Tucker to shame every night :)

To hell with sauces and dressings

Before I landed in this country my greatest fear was that Americans didn’t believe in condiments, and now my greatest fear is that they do!
Tucker Carlson said recently that Fries don’t need ketchup or even salt to be divine…… And I agree (as I do with most of his statements). Americans are such ardent “consumers” that they need to keep adding things to things to make them more attractive. My advice to them: DON’T!
To the food industry --- things I don’t particularly care for:
-- nuts (or strawberries or peanut butter or pretzels, for crying out loud) peeping out ominously from otherwise unadulterated, melt-in-your-mouth, divine chocolate
-- barbecue sauce de-sanctifying the orgasmic effect only medium rare steak can provide
-- marinara soaking EVERYting that dares to be Italian (memo: other than spicy Indian food, tomatoes belong only in salads, so let them just snuggle with the lettuce where they feel at home)


We don’t want fillers!

What’s with these people filling in? I watch Countdown with “Keith Olbermann” for Keith Olbermann! And Meet the Press for Tim Russert. I don’t care for Amy Robach or David Gregory. I know you’re trying to carve a place for yourself in the big league, but showing how NOT to be big league is not the way to do it! And by the way, the program is called the “O’Reilly” Factor for a reason, namely, noone else can claim the title of pompous, self-possessed, know-it-all right winger. It’s not like Dave Barry is asking people to write his columns for him or Bill Maher is employing someone to make us laugh during his summer hiatus. If you’re on vacation, I don’t particularly want to see your show! If you spent some time in front of the screen instead of behind it, you’d know that all news shows talk about the same thing, so I am obviously watching your show cos you are saying it, not cos of what you are saying .. Bottomline: In the singular case that Max Kellerman is filling in for Tucker Carlson, I’ll just wait for you to get back from your vacation, thank you.

If doomsday’s here, we don’t need warnings…

Reminiscent of the US Dept of Homeland Security, Nature’s been raising the threat level --- yellow, orange, red…and the hits just keep on coming. First there was the heat wave in Europe, then the huge tsunami in Asia, the zillion hurricanes in the US and Central America and then of course tornadoes, famines, and wildfires galore. If doomsday is here, whoever is controlling it should just go ahead and blow up the earth, big bang style. Not sit there and give us these innuendoes and hints that keep telling ya, “bring out the hurricane shutters”, “board up the windows“, “don’t venture too close to the sea”, “wear SPF 45 and stay indoors”. If you can’t cope, jus blow up… It wouldn’t be the worst thing for the world, ya know…

India’s kickin’ ass

Don’t get me wrong… though I wouldn’t call myself particularly patriotic (in fact too many Indians would pounce on me if I even tried) I can’t help but feel a certain surge of delight when I see all this focus on our motherland :) In fact, I think most of my criticism of India stems from the fact that I see the Gurcharan Dases and the Vir Sanghvis and I wonder why we bother with the Lalu Yadavs and Mayawatis..Anyway, enough about that – this post is supposed to be about petty things. Now, India’s really making waves! Business Week had this huge double issue asking if India and China were the new world economies; and now, Nature has come up with a review that discusses the great strides in biotechnology in India. *beaming*
Now you’re wondering what my problem is. This: My folks back home have one of those fancy CDMA phones that connects to the pc and acts as a modem ….I live in the richest country in the world and I barely have a phone that can be trusted to record voicemails. And that’s not all: the last time I was in India I waited a couple hours for the google home page to load (google---which is a universal verb now---you cant wait two hours for a verb to happen [think breathe, eat, sleep]). I don’t know if you are as inherently discerning as I am, but it seems like technology is playing a game with me. Not to mention religion. It’s stalking me. I escaped from six years of the BJP and fled to the US – only to have Dubya elected to a second term. I leave India and the Congress promptly – and surprisingly -- rises to the occasion. Why do I miss out on the MM Singhs and Bill Clintons and end up with the W Bushes and Vajpayees of the world :(

Uncle Sam’s broken promise

After driving my parents insane with worry for twenty-three years with my impulsive dare-devil antics, I spent my first few months in this country roaming the streets of New york city till long after midnight ---simply because I could!

After four years of trying to understand the nuances and enjoying the benefits of this newfound personal freedom, my mind still does a little jig when the temperature is a soaring 90 degrees and I can walk out in a comfortable pair of shorts and T-shirt without being penalized for my choice of clothes or point out to my boss why he is wrong without having my paycheck delayed. Only now I take it with a pinch of salt, knowing that while the US is a land where you can, for the most part, do whatever the hell you please, it is more because the ACLU can plead your case than because a majority of Americans agree with what you do.

The ACLU and my favorite Real Time host are my two remaining hopes for America to live up to what I saw from my rose-tinted glasses through Warner Brothers and Penguin books in tenth grade and decided that this was the place to be. I think I have mentioned Bill Maher on my blog about 25 times in 2 months. But he’s the only one I can see and hear who seems to be protesting in any effective way, this country’s going to the gutters and the least I can do is “spread the gospel” (with due apologies to the heretic at my choice of words).

The thing about Maher is you end up admiring him for his views, his philosophy, his guts and yet the reason you love him is cos he makes you laugh so uproariously while putting them “out there”. The man can talk continuously for an hour and a half---without a commercial break--- make you laugh for about 99% of the time and still convey more wisdom than anyone else ever has on television.

While I was on the verge of insanity with Bill being on his awfully long hiatus, he came up with his HBO special. I am swiss, is what he called it; it’s so Bill, cos God forbid, he doesn’t belong here in this land of religiously fanatical people who spend hours lamenting about a piece of stone outside the Alabama State Judicial building, a couple words in the pledge of allegiance or voters who decide elections based on “men kissing men” as Bill himself puts it.

But thank my lucky stars he is. Thanks to him, I know at least a tiny little part of America is what I expected it to be, what I dreamed it to be, what I fantasized it to be. No offense, I love this country and I know I get more here than I could ever dream of in India or in any other country in the world; it’s just that I am only getting half of what I had bargained for. My life is unaffected; I am as yet neither gay nor in need of an abortion or suffering from a life threatening illness that would need stem cell research at its heights, but even looking at all of it from the outside makes me really, really mad.

Hearing Bill talk about all the things that bug him about this country and its policies struck a kind of familiar chord in the back of my mind. Naah, I am not trying to weasel into that league up, up above where Maher belongs, where I have as yet not been able to admit any other human being.

But I have sat at a bar, at a round table or on a couch with a half dozen Indians time and time again and tried to tell them what I think is wrong with India and its belief system and been treated to looks of absolute incredulity and open-mouthed shock. I am an out and out liberal at heart; I don’t have a problem with gay marriage, I don’t believe in religion (of any kind) and I certainly don’t believe that some kid should be brought into this world and made to suffer because you thought it was a crime to kill it when it was in the womb. I would even go as far as legislating marijuana, euthanasia and suicide if I were given a choice. I really, in the true sense of the word do not believe in a right or wrong, and I think that ANYthing in this world can be justified as long as you want it enough and it does not “physically” affect anyone else. Yeah, I don’t understand the concept of laws being made based on “emotional” damage because they can’t be measured. If you’re writing it on paper and putting it in a file folder that can be touched, make sure what goes in it is tangible as well. This emotional garbage is the root of problems like capital punishment and the fight against euthanasia. Besides, anything can cause emotional damage---from playing the music too loudly to statutory rape. What I cannot understand is that after nearly four million years of evolution, I am still in the minority. How long is it going to take the most powerful country in the world to believe that a chemical reaction that can be reproduced in a test tube is more convincing than an unknown entity building the sun, the moon, the earth and Adam and Eve in seven magical days?

While Americans still battle with the idea of gay marriage it has been happening in at least five countries without inhibition and while you can lose a job here for smoking marijuana, in the Netherlands it might well be soda. In the land of the free, presidents would not get impeached for having extramarital affairs and players would not be penalized for trying to build up their muscles.

So when Bill says emphatically “don’t legislate your tastes” or that “religion is a neurological disorder” it is tempting to speculate how different this country could have been if it were not tainted by the lofty, impractical ideals that religion imposes. Let’s face it, as wonderfully as only Maher can put it, America is being ruled by a book that says man lived up to 400 years and that you are to be put to death if you worked on a Sunday.

Since all the other ingredients are already in place, would it be too hard to put religion on a back seat and rule the country on the principles of reason rather than faith, thus putting me back on track with the “Kane and Abel” and “All the president’s men” that I idolized as a teenager?

[I HAVE to mention this ---I’m tempted to pledge allegiance to Switzerland since my two biggest living heros are now Swiss---Bill of course, and the only other human being I have mentioned more times on my weblog :)---and oh, the chocolates and cheese wouldn't hurt...]

When the remote becomes remote….

Over the past few weeks, I have been coming to terms with a very frightening fact, namely, in the world of HBO there is no place for a remote control.

The shock wasn’t so much that I had to keep my hands off the remote as much as that I couldn’t do it. The last time I had to watch TV without commercials was a decade and a half ago. As a fifth grader with an attention span of 4500 hours and with desi doordarshan the only thing on TV, it didn’t pose much of a problem. Plus there was always someone around to hand me the bag of chips.

Didn’t the people at HBO study the human psyche at all? Didn’t they think about insatiable human obsessions ---chocolate, Pepsi, Bill O’Reilly, the telephone and the internet that sometimes --- just sometimes--- rank a tad higher than the show you’re watching?

The task(?) of watching TV is inherently designed so as not to expend too much energy. At any given time there is only one ideal configuration to sit in and watch the idiot box. This is decided by several parameters---your eyesight, hearing, the angle of your couch towards the TV, the distance of your couch from the TV and the glare from the window. And once you have settled in, there is very little reason to move a muscle---well, other than the ones you use to laugh while watching Friends or frown while tuned to Fox news. And the less your options, the less the permutations and combinations for changing your position (physically of course, not in the Fox news kind of way). Considering I have one chair, a TV that sits on a weather-beaten suitcase, a fan that only seems to dispense air in one direction and a processor that serves as the other piece of furniture in the room, I have even less reason to move than most.

And while your body is enjoying this state of sedentary bliss (whoever said we are constantly moving towards inertia certainly knew what he was talking about), the remote control is trying its dandiest best to counter it.
And your treacherous index finger gladly obliges, surfing channels and playing with the volume control, in the process, pandering to your low attention span (or the incompetence of TV shows as the case may be)..
And for those of you who think my worries are frivolous, here are a few things you take for granted with commercial breaks:

Run into the kitchen to grab a bag of chips, thus doing eternal justice to the term “couch potato”.

Be courteous enough to take a call from a friend and tell him/her that you’ll call right back (which usually means ‘at the top of the hour’).

Call your best friend and shriek, “I am soooooo in love with Bill Maher” only to hang up and go back to Bill.

Google ‘McCarthysm’ before the History channel program threatens to go way over your head.

Answer nature’s call because you have an over active bladder, what with the Pepsi and all…

Flip to Fox News to hear that ridiculously stupid viewpoint that only Sean Hannity can provide.

Tucker Carlson moves his show to the 11 pm slot pushing the three programs you watch religiously (you watch the rest non-religiously) to one half hour of divine television. Though watching snippets of Stewart and Tucker and Chandler all in half an hour doesn’t appeal to my digestive system, I would certainly like to have the choice….

From literary to contemporary

When I say gone are the high school days of sprinting home from school to get to the end of the 400-page book I started yesterday, I don’t mean it temporally. I have lost my ability to read print! Honestly, if it is not glowing at me from a celluloid screen or running at the bottom of a telly at the speed of light, I don’t seem to want to read it anymore.

Having just moved to Philly, there's not much in the way of celluloid in my apartment yet--- other than my desktop that sits lazily in the corner, thankful for the missing chord that should be able to give the old machine some life. So, while I'm awaiting the laptop from work and looking up tvs of all shapes and sizes, life-saving Borders and B&N are less than a mile away (in case you care-the unbeatable thing about borders: the ambience, that about B&N: Starbucks). Five years ago, two bookstores with practically every book under the sun (or roof, for that matter), and access to divine coffee would have represented incomparable bliss.

Now, all I can do is browse the front and back covers of 50 trashy political paperbacks, as opposed to reading 500 pages out of a single classic. Well, you can hardly blame me---that's the only thing that comes close to the "text-book" definition of surfing a hundred channels on the small screen. If only books had commercials (or Sean Hannity, for that matter), I'd know when to skip and go to the next one.

If people can sue McDonald's for makin them fat, I am filing a suit against B&N for making me daft. They should stop having rows upon rows of the current New York times bestsellers, the past New York times bestsellers, new in paperback, new in hardcover and ‘Our staff recommends’ that make up the unavoidable maze before you finally get to "Literature--arranged alphabetically by author" (figuring out if Capra begins with a C or a K is task enough).

This is the literary equivalent of TBS announcing all the new reality shows that are premiering this season, while I am watching a marathon of friends. Okay, that sure sounds interesting, but will you get on with it already?

And its unavoidable too; if I see a new book by Tom Friedman and I watched him talk about it on the Daily show, I have to glance at it before I can move on. (Same reason why that kid has to buy the cheese burger cos it only costs a dollar, in case you are wondering.)

If boosting the tv's morale by sitting glued to it 24/7 for four years, gradually losing your other interests in life (food exclusive) and now literally going nuts without it isn't a measure of fidelity, I don’t know what is. And I wouldn't trade it for the world. Isn't it easier to put your faith on an inanimate object ;) The touch of a button (at least in a country with unlimited power supply) comes easier than waiting for that much-craved phone call...And getting a new one, should the old one fail doesn't involve folder upon folder of legal briefs or heckling over an alimony settlement...

Paraphrasing Carrie Bradshaw (apt to draw wisdom from one of the very reasons I sit glued to it in the first place), "Some things like a broken TV can be repaired; others like a broken heart cannot."

If I'm rambling, it's cos I have been enjoying my wedded bliss (quite unwittingly) so far. And believe me, the separation is hard....I'll come around.....I just need a new hubby...

Grievances, Inc.

There’s no right jacket

There’s no jacket that’s right as rain. Or right for the rain. Or for the wind or the storm or the snow….

Why doesn’t a jacket come with a hood, be waterproof and have a fleece lining? Why does it always have to be one or the other? And why is the weather always all of it together? And if a jacket has both the hood and the water-proofing then it doesn’t go with your work clothes. If it goes with the black formal trousers, then it invariably doesn’t have a hood. If it has a hood, it isn’t water proof. If it is waterproof, it is not a wind cheater.

Okay, you get it. And I bet you can’t do anything about it either. But London Fog can. Why does London fog make this bulky, fleece-lined, wool-lined, down-filled jacket without a hood? If you are wearing something that insulated, wouldn’t your poor uncovered head cry out in agony, cos no cap in the world can have the wool and fleece and down that your London fog jacket has? Something worth thinking about…..

Oh, so there is a fourth zone?

Picture this: a week before we were all to leave for Colorado in ’03, my boss was giving us the know-how on how to reach him “……..and remember I am two hours behind,” he concluded.

“Oh California is only 2 hours behind us? I thought three.”
He gave me a quizzical look. “California is three hours behind us. But we are moving to Colorado”
Like it makes a difference to an artless Indian who’d traveled 24 hours around the globe to play with bugs that were the same indecipherable creatures anywhere……

“Oh, I thought they belonged to the same zone. So there is a fourth zone?”

You can hardly blame me that I didn’t know a fourth zone existed till I was practically scheduled to land there. All the television commercials go, “.. 9/8 central…. 8 eastern, 5 pacific” If you’re looking at a time stamp on an email it is either eastern or central, sometimes California….

Who was to know there was a zone in between all of that….
Physically dominated by the rockies, and probably the best known zone as the crow flies, it is a shame that the rockies are not represented on the cultural map of the Americas. The people that know it call it the mountain zone…How about the ‘hitherto unknown’ zone?

There’s someone better than Jon Stewart

After resigning to the idea that Sampras was not indeed the unquestioned God of tennis (viva la Federer), I had gotten used to lookin up to Jon Stewart to fill that “infallible” void, as to getting my weeknights’ sleep, my midnight laughs and pretty much all else.

So, when a fellow-Stewart advocate told me recently that Bill Maher is quite amazing, I took it with a pinch of salt…..unfortunately I had to gulp down that salt pretty quickly after HBO on demand (and what a demand that is!)

Bill manages to get a hundred and one points across while being unbelievably funny at the same time. Stewart’s funny alright; but more often than not you are left wondering where he actually stands on the issues--- I know that’s not his job, instead that is exactly what he’s trying to steer clear from ---bein political ---but we already know he’s a left wing liberal and we love it ---why not give people a little more to love…..

Plus Maher is an unabashed heathen (can’t stand Jon Stewart's constant references to his semitism), so skillfully intolerant of even mildly-conservative ideologues and oh-so-single....

And Bill takes the brownie point in handling the other self-possessed Bill ---- O’Reilly, ladies and gentleman----- and actually stimulating his funny side (if ever there was one).
Plus, he doesn’t have any of the detours (read: This week in God, Back in Black) that Jon so heavily relies on.

Maher’s arrogance-----well-deserved, I hasten to add ----- absolutely takes the cake (Jon's nice even to a screaming Giuliani)…Bill has no qualms about revealing his disdain for local news channels or the non-elite (lines unheard on any other show: ‘that’s why he’s a taxi driver’ or ‘the local news channel is for cats caught in trees’).

Stewart is certainly not far behind Maher on intelligence or wit, but Bill Maher is simply better cos he’s not afraid to flaunt it.

The Sociability Quotient

There’s an intelligence quotient and then there is an emotional quotient…Why isn’t there a sociability quotient?

As a self-proclaimed ambivert I demand that there be an SQ pinned on my shirt. So that the extra-cheerful, more-than-merely-vocal guy in that corner realizes that I can’t just walk up to him and say hello. If he comes over and makes the effort, I’d be more that happy to oblige a greeting. But I can’t voluntarily come up to you and ask you how you’re doing or make a casual comment about the folder you’re carrying. Not because I have a problem with you or your folder, but because that’s the way I was made!

Hell, I spent about the first two years in this country figuring out the best way to fit in the “how do you do”, the “good” and the response to their “how do you do” within the fraction of a second it takes two human beings to pass each other. And that was task enough! In any case, if a person with an IQ of 10 can get away with performing badly on the SAT why can’t I get away with being the prude at the party? The world is an unfair place.

So this is how it works: you rate your sociability skills from 1 to 10. If you fall at about 3 and your acquaintance is at about 7, then it befalls on him/her to say the first hello, make the recurring phone calls and invite you over for dinner. That’s the way God intended, if I can mention Him a few hundred words after invoking the name of the unparalleled heretic, Maher.

And on the off chance that your friend is a “1” on the Sociability scale, you’ve got to learn from your sociable pals on how to carry on a conversation with a person that mumbles a barely decipherable “uh-huh” to your comment on Bush’s social security plan. Not a fan? Okay, how about the Italian restaurant across the street--- surely food is a non-controversial issue? Everybody I know loves it. Still “uh-huh”? Then try your last resort: the weather ….(Disclaimer: Might get you a response in Colorado, but don’t try that in Seattle or Pittsburgh. Could be fatal).

So, while the guy at ten talks and smiles non-stop and the guy at one says “uh-huh” and considers the job done, it’s the poor guy at five that has to ‘go both ways’….In this case, it’s not fun, believe me…..I’ve been with the ones and the tens….

There’s no substitute for meat eaters

I mean the meat, not the eaters (though there’s no substitute for them either!)

Yesterday, I went to a Thai restaurant with a couple of friends and I realized I am being discriminated against just for loving meat. My friend is ruled by the virtues of animal-rights and he wanted the chicken substituted with tofu. He was obliged immediately. I am ruled by the virtues of good eating and I wanted beef instead of shrimp. The waitress gave me an unsettling look that was quickly transformed to what could pass for “contrite”. “I don’t know if we can do that.” And they didn’t. She had a very sheepish (read: triumphant) smile on her face when she announced, “Pad thai with chicken and shrimp”. I should have told her exactly what I think of shrimp--- “Seafood is just where it belongs---in the sea. So leave it there.”

I deserve to get my beef just the way my pal deserves to get his tofu…..I demand to proclaim my choice of meat! I demand that when I order a good angus burger I don’t want lettuce spilling out of it. And I ask for “chicken” salad for a reason (or rather it comes as the unavoidable side with my pasta)----I don’t want to pick out two pieces of chicken from a plate full of lettuce and tomatoes. And I demand that the carrot doesn’t sit there impersonating the cow in my beef stew!


A dollar is never a dollar

I rented a car from Dollar rent a car two days ago and it cost me a hundred dollars---a whopping 40$ more than it would cost me from any other place. The McDonald’s dollar menu is always close to two dollars with tax, I have never found anything in the little bucks dollar store for a dollar, or at Family dollar. And while I am on the subject, no coffee at 61c café, the hip, elite student hang-out in Pittsburgh is ever 61 c.

Why call it a dollar when it isn’t a dollar? If I want it, I’d buy it anyway.

If you absolutely want to buy something for a dollar, walk up to the check-out counter --- IMHO, the only place in the world where a dollar means a dollar.

Two-timing a three-year-old and the television set

When I say kids don't become human till about the age of seven, it's not for lack of human emotion, but rather the excess of it; they cry for everything, laugh at nothing and get excited at the most mundane things (see, the sun! wow, a toilet roll! baah!)

Consider this: I have been stuck with babysitting my three-year-old niece on and off for the past few days cos the poor little thing has been really sick lately. Let's call her "she" so as not to be offensive to anyone---it's not too farfetched since that's what she calls herself, the "r" in "shree" being phonetically impossible for her. (Since my sis herself was a self-proclaimed "peeya" for the first five years of her life, I realize that history doesn't teach us anything when it comes to naming our kids).

For the many hours that I have spent in this humongous task, I have realized that two-timing her and the television set is the only reasonable way to do this. After all, the idiot box has in the past helped me deal with stress, impending doomsday and plain boredom; it failed miserably at the task of taming a toddler, however. I still think I did extremely well and for the fact that I have never been left in charge of such a tiny little thing ever in the past. So, I decided to take a leaf out of my book and leave it on the blog for anyone else (god forbid!) stuck in a similar situation:

First of all, if a kid lives around a 50 feet perimeter of the television, never turn the tv off on a possible kids-channel---Nickleodon, Cartoon Network and Disney are strictly off limits (your local PBS channel is the most deceptive---beware if you watched the Newshour the night before). Here's what happens: after a lot of nerve-racking, you somehow figure out a way to keep the child occupied and heave a sigh of relief before finally turning on the tv ---and bam, in float the high pitched shrills of Dora and her fellow-adventurers. That's it: she turns to eye the idiot box, is totally absorbed in no time, downright oblivious of the hundred other channels a fully-grown human being would rather watch.

And don't ever forego a news show and switch to a sitcom ---believe me, to a three year old, it doesn’t make a whit of difference --- the background laughter doesn’t seem to fool the kids like it does us (the fact that they guffaw at the most serious statements is a different point entirely; "she, you'll get very sick if you don’t take this medicine" *peals of laughter* duh!) If you are indeed watching a news program, choose one carefully--- she's a little more sympathetic to good looking anchors, so I'm sticking with Brian Williams; this is not the time for old newsmen like Scheiffer and Larry King is definitely off the table (sure respect her judgement there!)

On sitcoms, there's a wider range of choices; Full House and The Cosby Show are likely to be better tolerated; believe me, nothing interests them more than their own kind (read: those that shriek with delight on spotting a spider and giggle uncontrollably at the sight of a ball). Which reminds me, if you absolutely have to play a game, play ball or "hide'n'seek". Tossing the ball back and forth not only allows you to watch tv in peace, you'd be impressed at a three-year-old's hand-eye coordination. Hide-and-seek is not only a fun game (from age 3 to 33) but it also allows you to sneak into the den and check your mail while you are "hiding" and sometimes you can just "forget" to seek. Leaves the three-year-old out of your hair for a bit ;)

If she decides its story time, I choose to listen. In that case I can get off with an 'uh-huh' every five minutes. In my defense, the few minutes that I do turn my attention to her, she doesn't make any sense. But you can’t escape your turn at reading. So, make sure you pick your times right. And at this, I have advice for the so-called kids' book writers. Can’t they make it just a tad interesting? I read a 15-page book, the entire content of which was: "Shhhhh, tigger, pooh is asleep. Shhhhh, tigger, piglet is asleep. Shhhhh, tigger, Eeyore is asleep. Shhhhh, tigger, roo is asleep. Goodnight, tigger" !??!! It's only fair, cos she, for one, is not even listening to it. I might as well be reading the Times. That, by the way, is another good strategy: reading the newspaper out loud. Choose the art or sports section as opposed to politics. And put up with her absolutely frivolous observations--- "Blue shorts" as opposed to 'Federer won the Nasdaq Open'. It has something to do with colors. Reason why Barney's purple. Speaking of which, kids' videos are brilliant. I actually watched three barney videos and would watch more if I have to.

If its pee time or poop time, there's no way out. Just your hard luck. Time to start cursing the digestive system that you marveled at in high-school biology. Paraphrasing Marge Simpson, “How did you make that into that?”

At the end of the day, when she has just spent an hour to successfully finish a bowl of ten pasta shells and your patience is wearing thin, she looks up with a winning smile and shrieks "love you, maasi". That's when you hug her, decide she's adorable and switch off the telelvision. Only for a bit though. Friends is up next....

You explain to her that Friends is the grown-up Barney and you can’t get through an entire day without it…Hearing her chirpy “okay” you switch on the idiot box only to watch Monica, Rachel and Phoebe ogle at pictures of li’l Ben. Can’t the world function without little kids anymore?