Rambodoc at large

I am sure most of the millions of my loyal readers across the Milky Way have not heard of Second Life. This, a creation of Linden Labs, is a virtual world (current strength: 8 million) where you become a resident by signing up. Just like in the real world, you then buy land (from a small house to an island), weapons to defend it, transport to visit other places, etc. You can create any object under the virtual sun and sell it to others.You meet other people and interact with them like you would choose to in real life. How anyone would want to risk making a new mother-in-law is beyond me, but I guess it takes all sorts….
To come back to the point, in Second Life, you kind of live a parallel life, and use the virtual Linden Dollar as the currency for trades. If you want to buy a pretty girl a diamond necklace hoping that you would give you online bed-space, you spend in Linden dollars. Where will these things come from? You have to buy them, with real US dollars! That is the brilliance of this business: it is no longer true that only a fool and his money are soon parted; this is now a general truism. Once you get passionate about your virtual world, with its neighbors, friends and other properties, you start spending real money to get pleasure or property.
So now, if you want to create a huge casino where other residents would be tempted to come in and blow away their money, you need to spend a few Linden dollars. But, hey, wait a bit, this has just become illegal!
In what could spell the death knell for Second Life, virtual gambling in Second Life has been banned by the US Government, parallel to the ban on all forms of online gambling in October last year. I go frog-eyed at the concept: the US, a bastion of individual freedom for three centuries, has banned a gaming activity, which is strictly speaking, none of its normal business. I mean, this is not about screwing pages, interns or Washington madams, or even firing at the wrong people, so why are they interested?
Turns out that people will always give a twist to good things and make things real!
Second Life is under a cloud because intelligence anticipates or fears that terrorists could transfer money across the globe through virtual transactions (after all, you have to buy Linden dollars with real money if you want to gift or buy things). Child sex abuse is also alleged to have happened in Germany. Of course, people suing one another for ‘copyright’ violation of their virtual products is also a reality.
Individual rights have to be balanced in relation to national security and law-and-order. But there are too many occasions for the State to squash individual rights in the name of national security or law. Take China, for example. I believe this is a similar instance. This is all very regrettable. As someone who has never lost money or time gambling, I feel the pain of those deprived of it. Virtually, actually!

Sree of Sris’ Views poses a problem to us, while handling the divorce case of a couple that are both dentists. 'The wife is asking for divorce on the grounds that the husband did
not reveal the fact that he has 'tuberous sclerosis'. After she gave birth, finding white patches on the baby’s skin, she ran a long list of tests and it was then that the disease was diagnosed”, she says. This is the ground for their divorce case now, she says.
Sree wonders whether premarital screening of the partners for diseases should be mandatory.
So, here is an interesting poser: should we routinely screen for diseases (pre-nup), and if we do, which diseases should be screened, and what are the pros and cons of this?
First see what the world is doing: countries as diverse as China, Taiwan, Italy, Turkey and Brazil are among those states where premarital testing is warranted by law. Most of the rest of the world knows nothing about this, or isn’t too worked up.
You can read an interesting article on this subject here.
Among the tests that can be done are HIV, Hepatitis B, syphilis, other sexually transmitted diseases, German measles (rubella), and a load of others. Physical examination, including vaginal examination of the bride-to-be (and ball-squeezing of the groom to make this non-discriminatory), and urine tests are also done, apart from a detailed history-taking to rule out psychiatric and other problems.
Only if the couple is granted a clean chit of health are the Chinese allowed to marry. In modern days, detailed genetic screening can be done to screen for traits for genetically transmitted diseases (like tuberous sclerosis in Sree’s client), leading to the concern that creation of these designer babies will be a form of eugenics.
Sounds like a good thing, isn’t it? Screen couples for diseases, and thereby prevent new diseases like thalassemia and AIDS from affecting newborn babies. In addition, teach the couple some sex and health education, and parenting, too. Good for the couple, and profitable for the society, right? Wait just a bit there!

There are several glitches in making premarital medical screening mandatory. Like what?
1. The rights of the couple are violated, if the tests are done by fiat, without their consent. In the third world, this means more corruption.
2. The costs: who is going to pay for the tests? In China, the couple pays for the tests. For poor patients, imagine how painfully impossible it would be for them to comply.
3. Test results can sometimes lead to wrong conclusions. There are false positives and false negatives. Chasing more tests to confirm a test for TB, Hepatitis B or HIV, for examples, will cost a lost of money.
4. Privacy violation can stigmatise a person for life: for example, if someone spreads a rumor that a girl tested positive for thalassemia, she would be penalized by her society forever on that count alone, as if thalassemia were a contagious disease!
The solution to this, I think lies with society becoming more smart and enlightened. If people become aware of genetic and transmissible diseases that they want to avoid in a marriage, they must mutually agree to each undergo a battery of tests to that purpose. As genetic testing becomes more sophisticated, and society more aware and affluent, this will surely become more germane an issue in the coming years.

In the three feet wide lanes of Mykonos, the haunt of the party-going young crowd and the gay-lesbian cohort, I am startled to find, proudly displayed in a shop, Indian bags with pictures and text that basically belong to the ads of Indian low-level tobacco products (I don’t apologise for this bit of snobbery).



I went to the owner, a Greek, and greeted him with the civil, touristy equivalent of the famed, universal exclamation ‘WTF’. “Hello, nice store you have here. Where did you get these beautiful bags from?” Now, I normally look like a less Frantic Harrison Ford in glasses, with a slight tan, so he must have thought I was an Italiano or something. “Thanks youz, Sir, they are from Indiyaa!” Probed further, he said, “I don’t know what these pictures and words are about, but the bags cost 25 euros each.” I reeled at the impact of it. A coarse, faltu Indian bag that my maid wouldn’t carry if I gifted her one, is being sold for 25 euros? India Shining! Now, I felt a sudden give-way, a relief, and let loose what was jerking up and down my stomach all the while: “WTF!”



In Mykonos, all you see around you in terms of human environment are young couples (as I have remarked before) all shaped like 2B Apsara pencils, snogging (kissing) and feeling each other as if they were on a plane that was going to crash into the Ionean Sea in exactly two minutes and eleventifive secs, so do what you want till then. I mean, I have seen a fair bit of this myself, and even fancied doing this some Christmas in London or somewhere similar, but never really found a consenting partner of the opposite sex. Never mind. In spite of what I said above, I was shocked. “WTF”, I thought. People were digitally exploring each other in boats and buses, as if they all worked for Google or something.



Of course, I had heard of the famous nudist beaches of Greece, and would have tolerated a piece of it, in the sense that I would not have minded just looking, push comes to shove and all that. Well, it so happened that my hotel was right on one such beach, and guess what? No luck! The young nude girls were totally invisible as they were wrapped around their mates. And the only chests on display belonged to girls of my late grandmother’s generation. I assumed that they didn’t have bikini tops that could stretch down to the knees, so they must have thought “WTF, hang it!”



Met an Indian guy while searching a way out of a small village called Ano Mera. This guy was so friendly that he outlined his life story in five minutes, while standing outside a bus stop. He then insisted on a lift to town, whence I chanced upon his car, one more messy than mine. You can surely see the broomstick, but probably are missing out on the last six months’ groceries, stationary and sundry mess that was knee deep on the floor of the car. I kid you not.




Oh, and in case you thought he was a bum, he was just the owner of a yatch, three helicopters and four jets. He does tourism for the world. He is India, export-quality!
Oh, and for me, WTF means 'Where's The Food?'

Remember Million Dollar Baby, a four-Oscar flick, with Clint Eastwood playing the tired old boxing coach picking up a girl (Hillary Swank) as his protegé, seeing her through the boxing championships, till she literally falls to bad luck in the final bout?
Now, the point is that I think the whole world is full of high-powered idiots. Like the guys who awarded the Oscars to this splendid movie. Now, I say this because the scenes in the hospital, which make for the climax, are atrocious. Let me now tell you why. The heroine, who trips and breaks her first and second cervical vertebra (what is otherwise known as a broken neck) is on a ventilator with a tracheostomy. In plain English, she was paralysed and was being kept alive by a machine that pushed in oxygen through a tube inserted in a hole in the windpipe. So bloody what, you ask? Admirable sentiments, I must admit. Much as I hate to carp at an otherwise great movie, the girl keeps talking even though she is on a trach. Now, every doctor will tell you that a trached patient can not speak, because the air doesn't go through the voice box anymore. Why couldn't the director (Clint) have researched this well and avoided a crucial faux pas? Why, he could have called me for any help. My consult rates are very standard: just a thousand per hour. Dollars, of course!
The boxwallahs have goofed up on medical issues all the time. It makes me worried how reliable the other things we learn from cinema must be. For example, biologists must have developed hernias laughing while watching the pseudos in Jurassic Park create new dinosaurs from mummified mosquitoes, or whatever it was at that time! Similarly, the guys who deal with Artificial Intelligence, like Ray Kurzweil, must be getting their stress lines ironed by watching The Matrix, or MI-3. One exception seem to be climatologists who seem to think that movies like The Day After Tomorrow or Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth are cinematic versions of the textbook truth.
In Bollywood movies, the best of the movies lose their beans when it comes to hospital scenes. For decades now, it seems that a hero with a bullet injury will escape death the moment the bullet is removed from his body. And if he has lost blood, no problem, his long-lost brother will miraculously come forward and we are treated to a great spectacle of modern medicine: direct transfusion from one hero to the other. No cross-matching, no HIV testing, etc. Who has the time, bro?
Similarly, a critically ill patient is rushed into an operation theater and anesthetised with a mask, sometimes even with a red rubber catheter in the nose. Gawd! Them things don't exist no more, guys!
At the rate in which the medical idiocy is profitably progressing, I feel a heartfelt tug to start a medical consultation firm based in Mumbai. Later I could open up an office in Hollywood. Maybe, outsource this to India, has anyone done that yet?

A senior Indian citizen looks destined to die a virgin: he took a vow that he would marry only if he passed his exams. Now, according to Reuters, he has failed his high school exams for the 38th time, clearly showing that many pillars of failure make for, not success, but excess.
In this particular context, have a look at some memorable quotes on this subject:

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life - think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.” Swami Vivekananda

“The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.”
Sven Goran Eriksson

“Victory is sweetest when you've known defeat.” Malcolm Forbes

“Striving for success without hard work is like trying to harvest where you haven't planted." David Bly

Just goes to show how inapt certain quotes can be in reality. Submitted without further comment!

The title has a dictionary meaning that says "If someone has the gift of the gab, they speak in a persuasive and interesting way." I am sure most of you must have had some experience of speaking in public. Whenever I have to talk from a podium, I feel excited, energetic..., and nervous!
This jittery feeling can scramble your thoughts and really make your presentation very pedestrian. There are speakers, on the other hand, who can create magic every time they hold a mike. Here are some wonderful tips that can pep your next presentation up so much you will excel yourself, even if you are a semi-retarded doc (like yours truly) who was dropped on his head as a child, when his skull was as soft as his brain.

Christopher M Knight has covered excellent ground in these pages.
I am as much an expert on public speaking as I am of nanotechnology or astrophysics, but I have some tips I use:
1. Rehearse what you want to speak, and the main points, as well as the stories or examples you want to use.
2. Be passionate about what you are saying. If you believe in what you are saying, speak out loud and clear. No monotones!
3. Use a hook, an introductory statement that captures the audience's attention, and then proceed on to the main part of the speech,
4. Use humor, energetic if you are talking from a dominant or authoritative position, and subtle if you are talking in a formal, stiff gathering.
5. Avoid crashing in a rush of words; use pauses to great effect!
6. Use hands and eyes to express, to lay emphasis.
7. Never hog the stage and overstay the attention the audience gifts you!
Don't miss this amazingly good site by Guy Kawasaki, where he talks of better public speaking, comparing it with singing.
At the end of it all, have fun on stage!

In South India, there is a very famous Hindu temple called Guruvayur. A controversy erupted recently in India when a priest of the temple cleaned the premises after a Hindu paid homage to the shrine. Why, pray?
The devotee, a Hindu, was born to a Christian mother, and was the son of a Union Minister, Vayalar Ravi. As this article says, the management has now expressed regret for this, while the priest preaches that he was right in cleaning up because the visitor was of 'impure' breed. I daresay, I am awash in admiration of his pure nuts! I mean, you know what I am getting at, right?

Now, at the same time, I think the Minister's son is acting too spoilt. Does he not know that our temple priests have always acted holier than the Pope? Everyone knows that our ancient rituals are pure, just like bull excreta. Now why should I single out Hinduism alone? Every religion has its holy cows, untouchable in their public sensitivity, sentimental tails, sorry tales, and all.
I see the greatness of every religion as the refusal to admit the nagging questions of the sceptic. Such admirable consistency is to die for, as every beloved, piece-loving al Qaeda fidayeen will vouch. At every point, the answer to each question is stonewalled by the call to faith, and to abandon the senses that normally one uses every day to sidestep the bullshit littering the Indian streets!

King James I of Great Britain described it, way back in 1604, as: "A custom loathsome to the eye, hateful to the Nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to the Lungs, and in the blacke stinking fume thereof, neerest resembling the horrible Stigian smoke of the pit that is bottomelesse." Of course, he was talking to his subjects and asking them to stop smoking. Ever since, every wife has taken his admonition to heart, as men with nag-induced deafness will vouch for.
The anti-smoking do-gooder, control-freak mafiosi has spread globally and prohibited almost everything there is to prohibit re smoking. For a glimpse of some high-impact anti-smoking ads, check this blog out. Remember Animal Farm's memorable Orwellism? "Everything is permitted, except that which is not prohibited. Everything is prohibited, except that which is permitted." It is illegal in the US and European countries for young kids below 18 or 19 years to buy cigarettes. I don't understand this: kids can have sex at 13 years, but can't smoke? Are their sexual organs developed faster than their lungs? I mean, is any of this evidence-based? In India, the Censor Board has made it illegal for actors in movies to be shown smoking, unless they, the censors, decide that the act of smoking has, necessarily, to be shown in the scene. You can't smoke in pubs, restaurants, toilets....poor smokers have to stand under a tree, risk bird droppings on their heads, and puff without pleasure. Very soon, some leftist, American environmentalist will protest that the birds in the tree (which were aggressively and unacceptably squirting their pungent excreta inferiorly and aggravating androgenic alopecia in the unfortunates below), were harmed by the second-hand smoke, and launch a multi-billion dollar campaign, funded by the smokers' own taxes, to act and stop the power (less) puff girls and guys. Every irritating caw of a perennially argumentative crow will sound like fits of hacking smokers' cough to their untrained ears. Every bird death will be on the collective conscience of the smokers. They will then prove that Bird Flu (SARS) is caused by a second-hand smoke-induced susceptibility of the birds to germs. 'Smoked chicken' will have a totally different meaning in times to come. Countries where smoking would be allowed would be shamed repeatedly in the UN, WHO, World Bank, GATT, G8 and other international meetings for being barbaric and allowing such wanton ornithologic destruction. Obviously, these countries would be untouchables for trade, as we all know. Just like the animal-testing thing, you know?

The UK is banning smoking in restaurants from the 1st of July this year, and France is following suit from 1st January 2008. In India, every place a smoker goes to becomes a smoking zone. Anything goes, or as we say, "Chalta hai, re!" I remember, back when I was a student on the way back home, sitting near the driver in a ramshackle (even that word is flattering) mini-bus made of tin, tearing up at its edges, there was a man blowing thick cig smoke on my tender, clean face. And this was on a hot, humid day, temperature in the 40s, with my shirt sticking to my back with odorless sweat. I asked him not to smoke, to which he screamed, "Is this your bedroom? You ask me to stop smoking in your bedroom. You have no right to control me here!" Ah, such acute awareness of rights we Indians do have, don't we? In the same breath, I should mention that if anyone should see a young couple necking in a park, or in a car, he would happily get them arrested or, at the least, chastised and threatened. We have a population problem, you see. Can't allow promotion of sex, can we now?

Another heroic human effort at climbing the peaks of scientific knowledge is underlined by the creation of the world's highest laboratory by a team of scientists who have not only taken the dare to climb Mount Everest, but also to do studies on how the human body behaves in low-oxygen states.
The scientists are keeping a blog of their daily activities and sending it online from as high as 8000m above civilisation, yet another benefit of the information revolution!
Among the many fascinating things one learns is that computer hard disks fail at 4,500 m above sea level, and so these guys have specially designed hard disks. Cool!
At the summit, or just below it, the scientists took blood samples from the femoral artery and were astonished to discover arterial oxygen levels lower than what they had seen even in sick intensive-care patients. Another example of how the human body takes it to a higher level in adversity!
I would like to highlight here the tremendous role played in all this by the Sherpas, the local Tibetan mountain climbers. It is funny how I, like many, always thought Sherpas were Nepalis. These men, who have a reputation for being gentle and loyal, have carried huge pieces of equipment and gear on their backs and climbed all the way up the camps. They have also carried the blood samples from near the summit to the labs. Now just imagine if the Sherpa, carrying the box, slipped and lost the blood samples, how successful the whole expedition would have been! And who do you think is doing the manual job of clearing the Base Camp of the tons of garbage that have accumulated over years?

Disclaimer: To read this article, you have to be at least 18. Months, I mean. If you are less than 18 months, please do what every good infant does these days (right-click, check Properties, adjust Parental Controls, etc., etc.), exit, suck your thumb, and go to sleep.

What do you know, now they say that for pornographers, internet is now a curse.
Really, how come, if you know what I mean? It turns out that everyone has now bought into the free trial thing so much that buying porn has become as redundant as, um, a flaccid penis. "The barrier to get into the industry is so low: You need a video camera and a couple of people who will have sex," a producer says. So what, I say, even my surgeries need just that! Not a couple of people who will have sex, but surgery. You know where I am getting at?
"Inexpensive digital technology has paved the way for aspiring amateur pornographers, who are flooding the market, while everyone in the industry is giving away more material to lure paying customers" says a producer. You mean, like surgeons giving away free CDs of their operations to their prospective patients? How impressive!

"And unlike consumers looking for music and other media, viewers of pornography do not seem to mind giving up brand-name producers and performers for anonymous ones, or a well-lighted movie set for a ratty couch at an amateur videographer's house." Tell me about it, most of my patients go to low cost nursing homes rather than sell their houses to get operated by me, you know!

"The more traditional pornographic film companies are not giving up, of course. They say they have an answer to the new competition: quality.

They are seeking to differentiate themselves from makers of inexpensive films by selling with fancier packaging in stores or through slicker Web sites, and by using better cameras and more experienced directors and performers. They are banking that viewers will be discerning when it comes to sex.

"We use good-quality lighting and very good sound," said David Joseph, president of Red Light District, a production company in Los Angeles." Arrey, that is exactly what I tell all my patients!

Joseph said his company did not waste its time, or that of the viewers, on unnecessary plot lines.

"There's not a whole lot of story - it's basically right to the sex, but we're consistent with the quality," he said, noting that the company is also careful to pick interesting backdrops. "We use different locations, rooms and couches." Sounds more and more like surgery, now, if you add different positions, which these guys surely do.
So, what are the porn companies doing to offset their higher cost status? "But Logan said he could improve his packaging for retail shelves. He has begun adding a sleeve around his box covers that includes a foil logo and metallic sheen to bring out the images." In other words, they are putting band-aid equivalents on the DVDs, just like modern-day surgeons.
So, the West is now in the clutches of free porn. Like us. We Indians have been seeing free porn in all our Bollywood movies since I was old enough to wear knickers. Only that the free display of sex was always between butterflies and the odd birds. Now that doesn't sound quite straight. 'Odd' birds having sex would be like three or five of them. What is this, a circus?
Indians have realised, after having taught the world how to do it really well, that the most that can be allowed to be seen in public is rape. Never straight sex. Not even kissing. Rape is fine to display. Kissing is 'harmful to our cultural traditions', as Richard Gere found out recently.
As a surgeon, I am getting ready for the day when I will be forced to manually examine female patients through a small window in a huge sheet spread and held over the patient, while the guardians of morality stand in wait. So now I just place my hand over the clothes, close my eyes, and.....order a CAT(Casually Attended To) scan!

Do you really believe the global warming alarmists? I don't. For thousands of years, as far as I know, climate changes have occurred more than what have been seen recently, and the scientists clamoring against greenhouse emissions (or whatever they call it) are not purveyors of the gospel truth.
Here is a sane voice rarely heard amidst the hysteria of the apocalyptic cries of global warming. Michael Crichton (an author I admire a lot) has made startling assertions on the environmentalists' claims on global warming in his best-selling book State Of Fear. I recommend you buy this book, if you have not done so already.

We all know that the world's most magnificent cats are rapidly dwindling, even though laws have long banned poaching, hunting, selling, or buying anything to do with tigers. Why is it then that powerful governments are unable to legislate and regulate their way through the problem and save the tiger?
For his refreshing, new perspectives on tackling the problem, Barun Mitra is now one hot cat in Asia.

Don't be surprised if you hear who makes a better surgeon today.
Young surgeons who spend hours playing on their playstations beat their sedate and (possibly) more studious counterparts hollow as surgeons, as you can read here.
You can also read the abstract of the original article here.

Up in Heaven, Lord Vishnu wanted to see what his young Indian devotees were growing into. The Great One could not see anything because the exhaust from the buses and cabs was billowing under the stairway to Heaven, hindering vision.
His spy, Narada, came down to India to find out how the youths were doing and what they were planning for the future.
Narada spent some time in the country, and sent his report to the Creator.
“At the outset Lord, let me tell you that Lord Yama, our Lord of Death, is marketing big time here! His name is mentioned in TV and newspaper ads—it seems he has made a mini-chariot for the youth, called Yama-ha. Can you believe his cheek?
Anyway, the youth is what you sent me for, right, my Lord? The majority of youth wants the job of a cricketer called Sourav Ganguly. This job gives fame and job security—it seems they fire you 3 years late, to give you time to plan your retirement. 43% of boys wanted to be Sourav because they would still have a place off Park Street to park their Merc chariots and get overpriced oily food for free.
Lord, I want to be this person, too!
73% of youths said an honorable exit policy was important to their jobs. Equally important, they said, was an honorable entry policy. They demanded 50% job quotas for various scheduled, disadvantaged classes. An additional 30% reservation was considered mandatory for the un-scheduled, disadvantaged classes, presumably including the persons born out of French letters prematurely failing their warranties. 20% reservation, they said, should be kept for the ‘laid off’ category—this includes job descriptions called item numbers, dance bar girls, ministers, actors called Shakti Kapoor, rapists, alleged rapists, bottom pinchers, etc. Maybe we can keep a section in Heaven for these unfortunates, Sir?
Among older boys, some wanted to become ‘BCCI executive members’. The ostensible reason being the great ideal of ‘Ownership sans Responsibility’ to which these idealistic youth are drawn. Plus you get to eat a lot of 5 star hotel food!
What do our girls want to be? 29% said they wanted to be reborn with fewer clothes and renamed, preferably with multiple, repetitive alphabets to their names, you know, like Nnishha or Mallikkaa. Try it, oh Lord, how blissfully it rolls off your divine tongue: Kkrishnaa, Vvannitaa, and so on! Nnaaraayann!!
Some want to be ‘Fung Shway experts’. The attraction seems to be the ease with which you can make people do foolish things and get paid to make them do that.
A significant number of 14-year-old girls want to be someone called Sania Mirza, because you get to wear such nice skirts and cool T-shirts. Plus you get to lose every time and yet get praised, paid, and proud. Then you get to read 6 columns in the sports pages on the two games you won and only one line on the 12 you lost. Add to that a flattering photograph that is ogled at by every corporate honcho who has a few million bucks to throw on ads and sponsorships…. you get the picture? I must say, Lord, it pays to be a loser in Indian sports!
Sportspersons seem to be the Indian youth’s dominant fascination. The great Indian spirit of unflagging effort, dedication, fitness, and consistent pursuit of excellence are some of the major reasons for this collective, patriotic urge to become a sports star. There are a few minor side benefits that attract youngsters, including a multi-zero income, easy availability of consorts (now called girlfriends), and Government jobs. The fact that a busy sports person wouldn’t be able to attend Sarkari daftar wasn’t considered to be an issue. “Chalta hai re!” was the refrain. Some people, however, were worried about the risk of getting brain cancer. Huh?
It seems if you become a sports star, you have to keep talking on the mobile all the time, answering calls from a certain class of gentlemen called bookies, some kind of ladies called bimbos, and another kind of people called journos. The last are supposed to be a special aquatic species of mammals that eat things called stories, drink a liquid called scotch, and write without fear or favor of facts. Anyways, talking on mobile phones may lead to brain cancer, it seems, leading to worry. Lord, shall I get a mobile with Bluetooth for you? The banks and credit card firms are interested to give me one, FREE!

Where would you like to live, I asked the Indian youth?
A few said they wanted to go to POK, the Kashmir on the other side of the border. Why, I asked? The answer was “ it is the only place on earth where women listen to and obey their men”. Sounds interesting, Lord! Would you like to shift base?
Many boys and girls wanted to live in Bengal, the main reason being the extra 56 days of annual rest days that a benevolent Government ensures for its citizens by sponsored holidays, called bandhs. Some nasty people call them names for doing this. I disagree, as do many learned people like Mr. Karat. The Government wants the people to get rest, breath room air, and have normal domestic fights so that they don’t get carried away in the modern fashion of mindless escape from poverty, ill health and other spiritually empowering experiences. Bandhs also give these overworked people the time to procreate while the kids play street cricket, an important way for India to compete in the coming years with China.
Lord, I hereby recommend reservation of a section of heaven for these wonderful humans called Leftists! The materialistic, modern reformists can go to Hell!
Surprisingly, nobody wanted to live in Chennai. It seems it is unsafe for young people who hope to get kissed at least once in a lifetime. This immoral section of our misguided youth doesn’t realize how bad, demeaning and unhealthy kissing is. Ask the Tamil Nadu cops, they’ll tell you it’s okay to kiss only if the recipient is in Government and the anatomical site chosen for the act is way behind sight. So there!
Some boys wanted to shave their heads and anchor TV programs, attacking all the evil sections of society, like doctors, mothers-in-law, maids, etc. They unanimously said they wanted to establish their opinions without bearing the conventional burden of truth. They claim inspiration from none other than Einstein, who reputedly said, “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts”!
What an admirable country your children are going to create, O Great One! I can then truly say, ‘Mera Bharat Mahaan’!
And, Lord, a place in Heaven for all head-shaved TV anchors, please?!”

The damp hangs thick over the playground. If you could call it that. A brown, bald patch of flat mud at the center of Lake Camp. The park of the 3rd
generation Bangladeshi refugees. The recreation of the season now is football, complete with painted penalty boxes, wooden goalposts and even the odd
spectator and street dog.
Wait, there is even a man watching from a high-rise just behind the shanties. This man looks down today, as he has often in the past, with keen
interest as the noisy proceedings continue a hundred and fifty feet below him.
A sane man would have looked askance at him. What is a man like him studying bustee football so keenly for? Such a man would have concluded, "This guy
is peculiar and probably a good-for-nothing". As things went, not a bad conclusion to make today, thought Raghu.
Raghu was in deep shit, with a floundering law practice and a huge mortgage hanging over in the cloud above his head. In addition, his family was on
the verge of breaking. Any day now.
A loud cheer went up from the 'stadium'. A soft pass faltered in the middle of a patch of slush. Orange went for it, scampering over a fallen Blue,
and darted to the goalmouth and dispatched an anemic kick that was stopped dead by Undefined, the goalie.
As the ball was sent back to the other side, the players rushed and slid past the generous slush of Monsoon Kolkata. A tenuous fight ensued between
Gravity and F-Max. Inevitably, Gravity won in the end.
As blue smoke slithered through the grills of the verandah, Raghu watched with quiet bemusement as Orange, the right-winger dribbled the ball past a
five-year-old boy on a bicycle. The little boy, unconcerned with the near miss, continued sucking his left thumb as he expertly cruised toward the
Southern penalty box.
In the dying minutes of the match, both teams were sweating through the mud to score. As luck would have it, the Red striker got the ball on the
Southern half, saw a gap, and smartly kicked the ball to the goal. Just as the goalkeeper dived in desperation to his left, the thumb sucking kid came
busily in front of him.
The ball brushed the kid's head and deflected into the goal. Undefined's jump knocked the junior off his transport. Off came the thumb. The little
head hit the ground smack. A soft, Indian thud. And went still.
Frantic cries soon erupted from the huts at the sidelines, soon changing into prolonged wails. The dead boy was rushed to some Government
slaughterhouse hospital.
Raghu continued to watch the scene, frozen in space save the burnt out stub in his fingers. He was not surprised at his apathy. He was used to living
with it. Too bad others were not. He thought to himself, unwitnessed by the dwellers below, nor the ones above, "This is it. I have to stop finding
meaning in this life. Maybe I will be different in the next."
Only the lock in the grill prevented him from jumping down the verandah to join the excitement below. Apathy loses the key to Life, he thought. And to
Death.

Abu was married for 22 years. To the same woman, as many teenagers today would have been perplexed to know. His wife of 22 years was unlettered, but now modern. Najma wanted to spend a Vollenteen’s Day with her man, in a speshal way, haan!
As Abu chewed distractedly at the rump end of a soggy cigar, scratching his hairless brainshell, he saw his wife looking at him with aggressive eyebrows. “ I want you to take off on the 14th, and don’t make excuses!” she pouted half-seriously.
Abu couldn’t fathom any reason for his wife’s sudden estrogenic surge. Was it some form of competitive modern feminism, he wondered.
The boy in Abu was tickled at this middle age foolishness. Suddenly, he wanted to surprise his wife with something. Buying a ring was too expensive. Buying anything was too typical. What then could he do for her?
The answer came out like a cockroach from chow mein. “I will cook something truly divine for her!” he decided. The more he thought about it, the better it smelled to him. In more than 7000 days of cohabitation with this woman, he had not cooked one, yes one, meal for himself or for her. He decided to google his way into his new goal. “Real Men Cook” and “Valentine’s Day” gave him few attractive gastronomic entries. For the life of him, he couldn’t make sense out of sweet potato cake, Cajun spices, and smoked catfish, among others. He decided to make the ordinary his precious offering to an oaken romance.
Many monsoons back, a young Abu had married a pretty girl with a boundless spirit and no background. The years had, predictably, dulled the lustful ardor of youth that had overcome the shyness of middle class femininity. But the feelings embered on with scant regard to the changing calendars on the pallid walls of his home.
Today, Abu woke up from his memories to the sound of his wife’s gentle snoring.
On this morning of the 14th of February, he crept out of bed and entered the kitchen. He didn’t even know how to turn the gas on, he realized. Ah, the microwave! The savior of his surprise! His menu was small but assertive. Salad (starring modern Shitake mushrooms from Japan, bell peppers from some exotic South American state, and julienned Arabian dates) was easy. He managed to rustle it up in 10 minutes, bullying a chaotic spill of 5 bowls, 2 plates and 3 spoons. Job done, he started with increasing confidence at his next items. Rice, dal and fried potatoes.
His printout for the Urad dal recipe in hand, he assembled the pulses, ginger, curry leaves, oil, etc. and got ready to start. His mind hiccupped on seeing the first instruction:
“ Soak urad dal for two hours”
“I don’t have the damn time!” he chided his virtual instructor. He decided to improvise the way he had done for most of his life. He doubled the boiling time for the dal from 9 minutes to 18. Job done, he smirked in a short while. He then stroked some oil on a glass casserole and added the spices and cumin seeds to fry them. 5 minutes later, the microwave now looked like the inside of a tandoor. He mixed the dal and the mishmash of spices and stirred them, still afraid to turn on the gas oven. He got the rice from last night’s leftovers and heated it up. On the verge of creative exhaustion, Abu finished his gastronomic adventure by sprinkling some coriander leaves on the rice and dal to give color to his masterpiece. He decided to imagine that there were fried potatoes on the side or, at least, add some chips.
Najma, by now aware of an abnormal phenomenon this morning, was stunned by her husband scooping her up and taking her to the dining table. Plunking her on a chair, the romantic baldie said grandly, “Happy Valentine’s Day, jaan!”
Sleep evaporating from her mind, she stared crazily at her husband. She whispered, “You cooked rice, dal and salad for breakfast? Allah!”
Tears choking her lips, she lifted a frail hand and daintily placed a blob of unsalted dal and rice inside her mouth. She closed her eyes and gulped. The salad is divine, she breathed with emotion. Abu stood by proudly, staring at his mate of long years. He then turned away to blink down a pair of teardrops, looking at a framed photograph of two boys and their parents. Six years away in the past, he remembered a hospital ward and the lifeless bodies of his sons, run over by madness. His wife? She lived, but was perennially in need of physical support from a lack of lower limbs.
Abu lived too. As he saw his pretty wife eating her breakfast, he felt all was not lost. True love was microwave-proof, he thought.

It is meniscus-deep down there. Not a spark of sunlight. Urchins in locally- made Hilfiger T's play football on a flat stretch of water within a sprawling slum. Their shrill, excited cries ricochet off my walls and fail to excite my old memories. The sky is a clichéd grey like a goose. It seems strange how a sleet of nickel-rain floats down into the colorless depths of urban laziness.
Even the expressive trees of the tropical green seem tacitly submissive in the face of nonstop onslaught of a superior barrage.
Down far below, on the streets of Calcutta, tempers are getting fried in the unceasing wetness. Roofs leaking into disaster, stairs hidden by stagnant drainwater, taxi engines sputtering into whimpered silence, bicycles falling off unready hands.
All met with suppressed, feral rage. As if the downpour was the only blemish of an otherwise perfect life. It looks as if the downpour washed away a thin, cosmetic layer of manners that civilizes an underlying intolerance. Even Freud could be forgiven his theories today. The temperamental ejaculation of the soaked pedestrian looks to be an echo of a childhood deprivation of his favorite ball. Others, however, are quietly happy with the fresh deluge. Children in tin carts cautiously wheeling by are gleeful on the way back from closed school gates. Maidservants clutching a paper bag full of singhadas ordered by the korta, wives frying onions and cooking rice for the afternoon’s mandatory khhichuri are some who seem placidly excited at the prospect of a long, relaxed day. Gloomy restaurant managers prepare for a long wait, as do funless doctors in hospitals. Blissfully unaware of the sudden urban upheaval is an infant, silently clutching a comb with his jaws and wetting a pillow with a carefree, well aimed, prolonged squirt from his cute organ. For some reason suddenly, he, too, seems to be enjoying the wetness.