She then says things like, “Who the hell are you and why do you keep breaking into my apartment every night with a hot cup of maple syrup?” but I think that’s kind of cute.

Recently though, there was a caption contest over at the football blog. I happened to participate and ended up winning some miscellaneous swag. Here’s the picture, and the caption follows.

Theo: I’m pretty sure that bone isn’t broken Robin, so what’s with all the horse placenta in your pants?

Context here.

I might look like a cruel, heartless bastard on the outside, but I just want you to know that inside of me is a sweet little kid … who I ate just this morning.

Wait. Like the rest of you wheelin’ dealin’ human bein’s readin’ this, I realize that something about that last sentence feels horribly wrong. Let me try again.

I might look like a cruel, heartless bastard on the outside, but I just want you to know that inside of me is a sweet little kid … whom I ate just this morning.

Oh My God! I love you!

- Overheard at a Hannah Montana concert.

Is the proof that love,
‘s not only blind but deaf.

- The Arctic Monkeys, who clearly know their shit.

“Not exactly players in the strictest sense of the word, but most definitely home-grown,” announced Ancelotti today whilst nibbling on a carrot that had apparently failed to make the cut. 

“While Cabbage and Mango are undoubtedly healthy additions to the club, we have pulled off something of a coup with young Jackfruit here. As you can see, this solidly built jackfruit is clearly well equipped to deal with the rigors of the English game. Like all other members of the artocarpus family, and like most English defenders, Jackfruit is hard on the outside and soft on the inside. Consequently, not only will he break many legs, but will also appear deeply apologetic and guilt-ridden in the aftermath. 

“At just 21 years old, Jackfruit shows all the signs of maturing into a peach of a player,” opined Ancelotti, beaming, clearly unaware that the peach does not feature in the jackfruit’s life cycle. Carlo however failed to mention that at just 21 years of age, Jackfruit had also started showing all the signs of decomposition. Whether Jackfruit will live up to the gaffer’s expectations, only time, and temperature, will tell. 

“As you are no doubt aware, we missed out on Robinho a couple of years back and we’ve been on the lookout for a similar type of player for some time now. I think Eggplant is a perfect replacement, because we get a similar skill set, a very similar head structure and a much heightened footballing intelligence. Also, to be brutally honest, Eggplant blows Robinho’s pants off when it comes to work rate. 

Ancelotti also took this opportunity to announce the departure of the club mascot and every body’s second favourite bear, Bernard. “It is with a heavy heart that we are today letting go of our much beloved mascot, Bernard. While we all loved Bernard to bits, his cocaine addiction was frankly getting out of hand. We are however, deeply respectful of his decision to not stop doing crack because here at Chelsea FC, nobody likes a quitter. 

On a related note, Yogi bear, every body’s first most favorite bear, having stolen one pick-a-nic basket too many, finally succumbed to a pulmonary embolism. While Boo Boo expressed his grief, Cindy expressed her happiness at “the obese cake-stealing bastard finally getting his just desserts”. 

When questioned by the BBC whether the recent departures of Ballack, Belleti, Joe Cole, Carvalho, and Bernard, and now these surprise inclusions, were signs of a financial crisis at the club, Ancelotti went on record saying, “Absolutely not!” and then discreetly suggested that he would be more than willing to talk to the Beeb after United’s games for half of Sir Alex’s proposed fines. 

The Daily Mail’s question about whether the squad was now too fruity to win anything this season clearly vexed the generally affable Ancelotti. “These additions to our squad are a show of intent. We are still hungry,” he sputtered, and then in a somewhat misplaced show of this new found hunger, bit a sizable chunk out of Eggplant who he’d been gripping ferociously in his right hand. 

At this juncture, the press conference came to an end, emetics were administered, and a frantic search for sup began.

And the long slender leg, which was forcefully propelling said shoe towards his head.

“Die, you bald, Polish pig!” he heard her scream as her patent leather stilettos repeatedly made fresh acquaintance with his face. “Stop!” he cried, “I am not a bald, Polish pig.” His voice was shrill with the surprise; one would have after all, never expected to raise that exact protest when consuming that morning’s cuppa; but it was also unwavering and vehement; rooted in the confidence that can only come from knowing that that one is not bald, not Polish and most definitely not a pig.

She stopped.

“Um, sorry, thought you were someone else, actually,” she said, extracting her left heel out of his bloodied eye-socket, and gingerly reached out to wipe away some bone marrow that was attempting to make a dash for freedom.

The second her hand-made hand made contact with his face, he felt something electric and ephemeral. The spark of true love? The jolt from one of those handshake-buzzer thingamajigs that was strapped to her palm? We will never know. But whatever it was, it did nothing to stop him from bursting into verse, compensating for a non-existent rhyme scheme with one twinkling eye and unbridled enthusiasm.

They told me all roads lead to Rome.
Um, your shoes made my eye sockets foam?

But you won my heart with  kung fu thunder,
And your, erm, quirky mannerisms.

Yet my sightless eye can’t help but wonder,
Do all loads read to spoonerisms?

She giggled. She had always been fond of doggerel. They went out for lunch.

One fine day, somebody calls him and suggests that it would be a great idea to walk across the desert to an oasis to get some water. Despite him not exactly wanting to see an oasis, despite the sheer craziness of walking across the desert to get to water, and despite the damned well in his own backyard, the man agrees; for he loves this person very much. He sets off in his trusty hiking boots and his trusty, but by now, somewhat tight, hiking shorts.

When he arrives, a perilous journey behind him, he frowns at the sight of a crowd the size of a small country, queued up as civilized people tend to, all waiting for their turn at the oasis. While he started out as fresh as a baby’s bottom in diaper advert, the journey has wearied him and right now, water actually seems like the best thing since sliced bread. And speaking of sliced bread, he has also grown hungry. But he waits in line with the rest of them. And then finally he is there, at the front of the queue, in a gold-leaf adorned chamber, finally at the watering-hole he has traveled so far to see.

Now imagine his utter fucking dismay, when the only water in sight is a muddy little puddle at the bottom a suspicious looking wishing-well; and before he can even get a good look at the water, much less slurp at it greedily, he is asked by a couple of burly, tonsured men to bugger off. And on top of all that, not even a sight of the promised (free) Laddu.

The point is, my mother thought it would be a great idea to walk to Tirupati this weekend. As I found out the same weekend, and as you will too if you happen to read on, it was not.

A quick history lesson. The temple at Tirupati is a shrine dedicated to one of Lord Vishnu’s avatars. The Cliff’s notes on Vishnu’s avatars; all of them demanded a willing suspension of disbelief and a couple of them were even blue. (None of them were in 3d, however.)

About Vishnu himself, very little is known except that back in the primordial dark ages, back when the Dead Sea merely suffered from a light case of the common cold and back when the concept of going medieval on someone’s ass was far too ahead of it’s time, he had a particularly conspicuous habit of reincarnating himself as those bad-ass types who fought monsters and taught people lessons about morality, all whilst simultaneously playing cow-friendly tunes on a flute.

As for the actual pilgrimage itself, the fashionable route is pretty, albeit slightly boring. If you are especially lucky, you might witness a pilgrim getting mauled to death by one of the many neighborhood leopards. Without sweet lady luck however, you might be that pilgrim. While the route itself is about 10 km and 3800 steps long, the journey lasts anything between 3 to 7 hours depending on how much heroin you shoot before. (It’s not a question of if, but rather, how much.)

And like a twelve level pyramid of chimpanzees, the whole journey is completely unnecessary.

I’m not here to start some polemic debate about religion or God, but I am pretty sure that even if there is an all-powerful, omniscient Joe Pesci character up in the sky, it would be down right superstitious to think that he’s be interested in bartering with you. Do you think I would help you get into a great college or buy you a Ferrari in exchange for  all the hair on your head? No. So why would God?

Nor am I here to debunk all superstitious beliefs as irrational or baseless. Far from it. For instance, it is widely believed in the Orient that if the first thing you see when you wake up in the morning is a shoe, then it portends misfortune. But when you think about it, if a shoe is what you see first up when you crack your eyelids open in the morning, odds are that you are in the middle of getting kicked in the face which, admittedly, is some pretty bad fortune.

Which begs the question, if all this is not about religion or God or superstition, then what the hell is it about anyways?

Damned if I know.

Either start making strawberry flavored Odomos mosquito repellent or stop putting it in tubes that look exceedingly like Pepsodent tooth paste.

Thanks,
My mouth.

While most people will look at a hundred meter passage to the nearest toilet as an inconvenience, I personally think that I could do with the exercise; it is perfect for those long romantic hundred meter sprints at night, especially when that all-you-can-eat buffet makes its long overdue booty-call.

Son, you’re complaining to the wrong man. I can shit anywhere, anytime. It’s one of my finer qualities. Some might say my finest.

-Shit my Dad says.

What lies at the end of this hundred meter passage though, keeps me up at night. Dad tells me that life is all about tough choices and at the end of this passage is one of the toughest choices any man,  including Dad, especially after a heavy meal at Rajdhani, might ever have to make.

Even once the choice has been made, it makes me wonder as a vegetarian if the grass is  greener, or at least better decomposed on the other side. While it is quite conceivable that this is an attempt to initiate an Indo-European cultural exchange, this is just another case of too many cooks spoiling the bath.

What struck me instantly was the violation of every single principle in Alfred Hitchcock’s famous work on Vaastu Shaastra, North by Northwest and a Fire Place in the Southeast Corner. In an attempt to understand the swirling whirlpool of bad karma emanating  from my bathroom, I decided to get some expert opinion. As there were no Chinese Feng-Shui experts in the vicinity, the man selling illegal Chinese imports down the street would have to do.

So I got my Chinese on, met the man, and after finally convincing him that I did not have a kidney stone, and no, I did not need a laughing Buddha doll to increase my sexual drive, he agreed to look at the above picture and once he did, he concluded that the room’s yin and yang were not in balance, or in his own words, “Yin Yang, Bang Bang”. He added that the only solution was to improve the flow of Chi, which he promised could be done by buying a laughing Buddha doll.

Is all choice necessarily good? Is variety really the spice of life?

Confused, and slightly,
Constipated.

Goddammit, it wouldn’t kill you to use more vowels.

Thanks,
Somebody whose entire charades strategy for Hindi films revolves around splitting the titles into small, easily digestible English chunks.