Pardon me...you're going to get the book thrown at you for that!!

Allegedly, a whole bunch of things give it to you. Potatoes, beans, raw bananas, lentils to name but a few. Sometimes not eating anything also results in the same fate. Old people get it, so do young ones. Even tiny toddlers barely out of the womb are not immune to it. That's right, I'm talking about wind. Not the kind that blows in one's backyard, but the kind that comes out of one's backside. Yep, the humble, taboo fart.

Everyone has to pass wind every now and then, yet no one would stand up and say they let one loose when the immediate area surrounding the gathering gets smothered in toxic gases. It's a natural body function, yet we cannot talk about it, just like the one who cannot be named in Harry Potter movies. Everyone knows he exists, but refuse to acknowledge it in the vain hope that not acknowledging his presence somehow makes him go away. According to women's magazines and movies, men are comfortable letting a few rip when in the midst of other men and women do not talk of such dirty things. However, I have not met such men and thankfully have not been in the midst of a demonstration.

Before you all wiggle your noses and head for the close button on the browser, let me assure you, I have no intention of analysing or discussing the nuances of different varieties of wind. I'd like to think I am above such frivolities.

As part of my random reads, I came across this link from a friend on Facebook. I really pity the people of Malawi. They are all going to have to develop a whole new gas free diet. However, more than the people of Malawi, do you know who I pity more? The policemen and women of the country. Not only are they going to have to go after hard hitting criminals, they're going to have to book petty farts as well. Literally.

As I think about the d(r)aft proposal by the Hon. George Fartless Chaponda, a number of visions are popping up in my head:

Scenario #1:

Picture a busy market place. People bustling about. Window shopping, actual shopping, shop lifting, shop keeping and the like. Constable DC is going about on his beat. DC is a vigilant man, and he knows the law like the back of his hand. He hears a noise. It's unmistakeable. Someone had just broken the law. No alarms going off, no guns in sight, not a single person violated. However, the law is broken. DC jumps into action. 

He uses his astute skills of observation and directional hearing to isolate the direction in which the noise came from. He quickly swirls to his right and notices 25 people within 5 feet of him (the market is bustling after all). He is confident the decibel level and frequency of the noise mean it cannot have been further than 5 feet away. What should be do now? DC lines all 25 of them up. After some quick thinking, DC decides his first approach had better be direct questioning and asks, "Alright, I know there was wind passed by one of you lot. You know who you are and you better 'fess up or else...", he finishes with a threat. One dramatic pause later, he is none the wiser, not one soul speaks up. He looks at their faces and realises he's dealing with a serial farter here. Any other person would have broken into a sweat by now. 

All 25 of them are cool as a whistle. 24 of them because they have nothing to worry about and 1 is really good at breaking the law. The next approach in the book issued to all policemen and women, 'the police guide to catching farters' comes to DC's mind. He starts questing suspects one by one. DC has been extensively trained in the matter at the special summer course they had over 3 days in the beach resort of Dickbey (a fine resort, thinks DC as he remembers the 3 days spent in luxury at the training resort). He asks each of them what they have eaten since 5am the previous morning, after all, what goes in, comes out. By the process of elimination, he is confident he has reduced the number of suspects from 25 to 10. 

The next process is the 'tummy tap'. A gaseous tummy has a distinctive tap. This further reduces the number of suspects to 2. DC looks long and hard at the two of them. One of them starts showing the strain of hiding illegality and blurts out, "OK! It was me!" DC is a happy man, he's got his criminal and issues the penalty notice. Justice has been served. A thousand guilty can go free, but one innocent man shall not be punished. Never mind the 3 shops that got looted while DC was interrogating the suspects. A happy DC returns to his beat and prrrrrrt. "Here we go again!" says DC with a sigh and lines up suspects. 

Scenario #2:

A council meeting is taking place. A fierce debate is raging around the level of state subsidy to be given to universities. Members of the public are watching from the viewing gallery. The fate of the city hangs in balance, it is, after all this city is famous for its educational institutions. Suddenly the lawmakers are silenced by the foul smell wafting down from the viewing area. The police are summoned to the scene of the crime. No noise was heard by anyone in the vicinity. This was a 'silent' one. All usual techniques of interrogation prove fruitless and not one person comes forward with a confession. The councillors decide that it is time for an emergency session. Trivial things like education can be left behind and they jump right into a discussion on how to deal with silent farts. 12 hours later, a resolution is passed. In the event a silent fart perpetrator does not confess to the crime, the entire gathering in the vicinity of ground zero will be penalised. 

Scenario #3:

One of the suggestions Mr. Chaponda gives is to go use the restroom to fart. Queues outside restrooms in the highstreet become quite long with people waiting to get into the restroom. Things are getting quite impatient with people anxious to relieve themselves. Meanwhile, at the entrance to the restroom, an enterprising young man has set up a stall, charging an atrocious amount for a pair of ear and nose plugs. People going in snap them up like nobody's business, it is wild in there after all...

Scenario #4:

In other news, police are now being issued with air quality meters, after new research finds that the air quality around a fart perpetrator's backside contains lingering effects of the offending gasses, this sensor picks this up, thereby allowing police to easily convict perpetrators of this heinous crime. Police are now following people around town sticking the sensor on their backsides in order to comply with the law. 

Interesting times...!

Padi padi, iPad!

I've been pottering about with the iPad for a smidge more than 4 months now, after the missus very kindly gifted me one for my birthday. I'm not going to say anything other reviewers who have been smitten with the thing have not said. I am going gush about its virtues and how 'cool' it is. Never before in the history of mankind has a single company generated so much interest among layman. No, scratch that. I'm sure folks behind the invention of fire, the tyre and sliced bread generated an equally high level of interest.

Every since I laid my hands on a device at an Apple store, I've wanted it. Sure it's only a bigger version of the iPhone, without the phone. That is the point, see, it's a bigger version of the iPhone.

Everything is simple and everything just works. Sure, there are the odd bugs that bug me, but nothing that would cause me to lose interest.

It's convenient and handy. Can be taken everywhere and I do take it everywhere I go. Here's a short list of the places I've used the device:

• On the sofa,
• In the garden
• in the train
• In a car
• In a flight
• On the john
• On the bed
• In the bath (note: take extra care not to drop it into the water)
• I'm sure you're seeing a pattern here...

I take the thing everywhere I go. In fact even when I sleep, it's always near my pillow. Before I'm dismissed as a weird person, a conclusion that, no doubt, several of you will hasten to do, I only take it everywhere because it's not out of place in any of the places I've taken it so far!

So what is it that's had me go ga-ga?

• the screen, the deliciously crisp screen. It's perfect for emails, browsing the net, watching movies and playing games. Everything is so clear and visible. Although it is little more than a slab of glass and plate at the back, it feels sturdy and incredibly well put together. There are no moving parts, which means panel gaps and rough edges are something the device has not heard of.

• iPad apps. As a policy, on my iPhone, I do not buy applications. Apps just shouldn't be bought. If app X costs £4.99 and can do 'n' number of things, I am quite happy to download 'n' free apps that in total perform 'n-1' functions. Until the iPad came along. I'm now happy to pay for apps that just look so awesome! In fact, I have a subscription to the Economist that I was all set to cancel. The reason for wanting to cancel the subscription was quite simple. It's a weekly magazine and I've had the subscription for approximately 8 months. There are roughly 32 unopened issues lying in wait for my father to come and read. You do the math. Just as I was about to hit the cancel subscription button on the website, along came the Economist iPad app and an announcement that subscribers to the tree killing edition get all areas access to the app included. I thought I'll give it a whirl and boy! I've read every issue that's come out since the app was launched! The paper one still comes in each week, but now I put it away unopened without even a pang of guilt!

When something looks as good as it does on the iPad, I ALMOST don't mind paying to get it!

• email. I don't need to say anymore, but neither computer based email clients, online email or mobile email can come anywhere near the email experience on the iPad.

• games. Specially driving games. These are supremely awesome to play and just so engaging!

• eBook reader. The Kindle can do one thing, which it does brilliantly. The iPad does several things brilliantly and this is one of them. Not only do you get a choice of e-readers to select from (iBooks, Kindle among others), you also get an amazing screen to read on! I don't even want to say anything about the blog reading experience on it. Suffice to say I wouldn't read blogs on any other device if I could avoid it. (not elaborating just saved readers around 15 minutes of time!)

• battery life. It just goes on and on! Even with my obsessive use, it goes roughly 2-3 weeks between charges. The one time I tried my darned best to make it run of out juice in one sitting, I ran out of juice before it did!

• engaging. On a recent trip to the US, I (of course!) took it with me and what a boon it was! We went on this road trip from San Francisco to San Diego with my sister's family. The niece is an active bubbly little bee and during the whole 10 hour drive, all she needed was a couple of hours to nap and unrestricted use of the iPad. She drew, drew some more, played scrabble, angry birds, cross-n-knots and what not! We didn't hear a peep from her the whole drive. 

I don't blame anyone for thinking, based on that I've said above, that I'm incapable of finding fault with the device. I can and I have. Big ones.

• eBook reader. It's a lousy eBook reader. Aha! I know your eyes just shot up a couple of centimetres on the screen to see the exact opposite of this sentence written on things I like. That's right, the very same advantage I found is my biggest disadvantage. The Kindle can do one thing and it does so brilliantly, the iPad, on the other hand is a master of all trades. It can do several things in a way most ordinary computers would struggle to do. When iOS 4 was released, it unleashed the beast within with multi-tasking. Now it is impossible to read a book on the iPad. Before one page is done with, one feels like playing a game, checking facebook, checking emails, reading blogs, random news items and the like. There's too much packed into this. I just cannot focus. On a Kindle or other dedicated reader, a book is all you can read and that's what one ends up reading. 

• Then there is the screen. Brilliant and amazing as it is, it just cannot hold water against the e-ink display of dedicated readers. As amazing as it is, it is just not easy on the eye. Much as I would love (and still do), I just cannot see myself curling up with the iPad and blasting my way through a book the way a paperback would do. The 'ol eyes would simply put their feet up and announce an early retirement. In a dark room, even the lowest power setting is too bright. 

Apart from two of its biggest advantages turning into its biggest disadvantages, I am smitten by this little stroke of genius and I know for sure that when Mr. S Jobs comes back and announces the iPad 2 and fixes the things he deliberately left out just to make sure iPad 2 can include them and be 'all new', I will miss the camera that would change the face of video chat.

Finally, I suppose huge thanks are due to the missus for uniting me with the pad... iPad :)

An argument goes up in smoke

I'm the sort of bloke who spends spare time reading about this and that. Nothing strange about it, but the 'this' and that I refer to is hardly entertaining. I like reading about obscure projects, products, reviews. I also follow cars across the world. One of the things being thrown about like rubbish out of a house in the Yewnited States of America is being carbon neutral. Never before has being neutral been so much in vogue.

I had seen the term being thrown around quite a bit over the past few years and I thought it was one of those crazy green things like you pay to have a sapling planted in the Amazon rain forest if you fart in the UK or something like that. Turns out it's that and a lot more. Pretty complex stuff this. To cut a long story short, there is a company that finds guys/gals who don't fart much and hooks them up with more gassy individuals and makes a tidy sum in between. One sets off the other and all that sort of thing. However, I'm not in the mood to cut long stories short and hence you get the whole 9 yards.

Let's start by setting the scene here. Person A, living in the UK wants to do the following:

• drive a car
• take a train
• drink coffee
• not freeze to death
• take a holiday
• switch on a light
• use the toilet
• watch TV
• use a bicycle (yes, cycling is not pollution free, not according to these nutters. The cycle is manufactured in a CO2 belching factory and talking of belching, I would say they've even successfully measured how much CO2 we emit while puffing and panting our way up a hill).
• you get the drift. 

Any activity performed by human beings is now contributing to global warming (err, sorry Climate Change) because we all emit tonnes and tonnes of CO2 each year and we're heating the place up (please don't ask me why London is still so cold, I do not know). Wanting to do something about climate change is a very noble and essential thought. Sure going green costs money and sure, it's not an easy thing to do.

Coming back to our case, getting Mr. A to be carbon neutral.

Scheme 1: The beginning

In the case above, person A would, in order to rectify the harm caused to the environment, walk/ride/drive/swim/fly down to the nearest IKEA, get a sapling, for a round sum of £15, that has been flown into the UK from Timbuktu and plant it in his garden. That sapling would then be tended to by A and in around 20 years become a tree that eats up CO2 and spits out Oxygen.

However, apart from IKEA, which flew the sapling in from T'tu no one else makes a profit. In steps the carbon trader Z, who, would tell Mr. A that in exchange for a 'paltry' £30, she will contact her middleman Y in United States, who would contact his middleman X in Mexico, who would contact his middleman W in Brazil, who will contact a farmer friend of his, a Mr. Poor Farmer, to plant a sapling in the Amazon rainforest, which would immediately offset the carbons emitted by A for the next 3 generations. Mr. A is very happy, feels his farsightedness has saved the planet and goes about smugly driving a gas guzzler to the grocery shop, which is around the corner. Mr. A need not worry about tending to the sapling, he need not worry about protecting the sapling from random creatures eating the tree that is supposed to save 3 generations of his, or from other random farmers clearing the very bit of forest this sapling has been planted in. He's paid money for something and has delegated his responsibility.

Scheme 2: Evolution

This went on for a while and then our friendly neighbourhood carbon trader Mr. Z saw her income drop, there were too many new entrants jumping onto the trading bandwagon, which pushed prices down and there is only so much of the Amazon that can be replanted without it resembling a paddy field.

One day, Ms. Z met her wizardly f(r)iends in the financial services sector, the ones that deal with derivatives and swaps. Soon after she saw them, she came back to her house and found it smelling of food that she had forgotten to put in the freezer. She immediately whipped out her can of room freshener and lo and behold! The smell vanished!

Ms. Z didn't come first in her university for no reason; she quickly put two and two together and came with the answer. Not four, but twenty two. Thinking out of the box and all that fancy stuff.

She jumped onto the internet and found a news item on Google about this factory in China, belonging to Hu Plc that suddenly became environmentally conscious and had replaced all its internal combustion power plants by thousands of labourers using a bicycle pump to blow air into a turbine, which would spin to generate electricity to power the factory (there was no green intention to the move, 1000 labours worked out cheaper than 1000 tonnes of coal, so the switch was made). She called that factory, rustled up the 5 words of Mandarin she had googled before the call and convinced them to calculate how much of CO2 they saved. They came up with a random number, let's say 1 million tonnes of CO2 per year. This made our heroine Z a happy camper.

She got busy with all her contacts, including our very own Mr. A and told them, "Earlier, you paid me money to do something, now I refuse to do anything. However, I do know a company that is doing something about the environment. Hu Plc is a responsible corporate. Realising they are polluting the environment, they have taken concrete, bold and pioneering steps to reduce their carbon footprint. Having invested millions of dollars in reducing their carbon emissions, they are keen in passing on any benefit they get from saving the environment. They have agreed to set off the saving they have achieved in carbon emissions against the CO2 you continue to irresponsibly emit by driving your car all over the country. So if you pay me £100 per year per car, in lieu of the CO2 you are emitting, I will use that money to buy carbon credits from Hu Plc, who, in essence are willing to bear the blame for YOUR pollution!" she finished with a tear in her eye.

Mr. A was suitably impressed by the fact that someone else now bears his cross and pays up. Z then pays Hu Plc a grand sum of £40 for the trouble it is taking to be named in the scheme. Z's profit had just shot up from £9.95 (£15 from Scheme 1, less commissions to Y in the US, X, W of £5, £0.2 each to the blokes in Mexico and Brazil, less £0.1 to Mr. Poor Farmer who actually planted the sapling) to a grand sum of £60. Hu Plc was very happy as it had not only saved money on not using coal, it had a 1000 labourers to exploit and also this dumb person Z from UK who thought the whole scheme was designed for environment friendliness and paid £40 for it! As for Mr. A, he was even happier than scheme 1 because his CO2 emissions were taken care of immediately as opposed to 20 years in the future, so he can continue to pollute and better still, not get affected by it, because someone else was not polluting for him! Win-win situation.

Scheme 3: The present

Scheme 2 seemed a good racket and Z saw money pouring into her coffers. More people starting the same racket didn't seem to affect profits adversely since more people were buying into the premise that getting someone else to be responsible for them was better than them having to take responsibility. However, the government and regulators didn't seem to be very helpful and insisted that the carbons NOT emitted be audited and checked to ensure that if a million tonnes was saved, not more than a million tonnes of carbon credit was sold on to offset not more than a million tonnes. In other words, supply of carbon credit became limited, which restricted sales. This pushed prices up, which was good, but profits were not adequate since the cost also went up. Z, after all, had a lifestyle to fund. She had become used to this lifestyle.

The next Eureka! moment for Z came when she had gone to the shoe shop for a spot of shopping.

As she used her credit card to pay for the £5,000 Gucci shoes she had just bought, she thought about when her credit card bill was due and if she needed to move some money around in the next few weeks to ensure money was in her account to pay the bill.

Then it hit her. "Of course, I use my credit card to buy things with money I don't have right now. I use future income to pay for my present lifestyle!" she thought. "In the same way, if I find a company that is GOING to invest in becoming green, I can use the carbon they are GOING to not be emitting and sell it to the losers who want to pollute more now!" She hurried home clutching her Gucci pumps, all the while drafting the next killer argument to put forward to the likes of Mr. A...so began her love affair with Carbon Futures trading, a scheme which not only generated a ton of money, but also removed the problem of limited supply of carbon credits. Pay for the present with the future. Win-win situation all over again!

The end.

I am all for going green and helping companies that genuinely want to go green for the good of the environment. We owe it ourselves and our future generations to save the precious planet we are in. We only have one place we can call home and that one place is increasingly becoming a hostile place to live, and that is largely due to us. However, I do not believe the solution is for ordinary citizens to simply pay money to pass on the responsibility of getting something done. That way we are just passing the buck around and not enough people do things for the betterment of the Earth. Saving the planet is an individual responsibility. We all have to play our part in it. If Mr. A planted the tree himself, he would feel attached to the tree, guard it from predators and ensure he does his darn best to see it grow into a large tree that helps clean up the environment around the very area he is polluting. If he pays someone to do it for him, the responsibility is just not there. It only shifts the onus of doing something to someone else. That, is my humble opinion.

Leftist arguments

Nope, not a politically motivated post. Now that we've got that out of the way...I'd indulged in some pond hopping over Christmas and decided to grace the US of A with a flying visit (pun totally intended!). After much uncertainty due to the white stuff. I'm not talking about the white stuff that lands one in jail, the white stuff that lands one in hospital. Wait, that white stuff also lands one in hospital, okay, I'm talking of snow.

We managed to sneak out of the British Isles through a small window of opportunity that the weather afforded us. Landing in the US, I couldn't help but notice one thing right away. The US likes to do things the exact opposite way to the rest of the world. This attitude hit me in the face right at the airport.

I'm usually accustomed to waiting in lines at the airports I've landed in for 'passport control', or immigration. Except for Indian airports, I'm always standing in line at the 'non-residents', 'immigrants' or foreigners queue. In the US I stood in the 'aliens' queue. I understand that the US is a world away from the rest of the world. Being a 10 hour flight from any place outside North America must have certainly contributed to this impression Americans have that they are a separate planet. I am, however, obliged to inform America that I have referred to the latest Google maps and NASA earth-from-space photography, both of whom are US registered entities, and America is still located on planet Earth. I have read somewhere that an alien is usually a person who isn't domiciled on the home planet, so, I humbly submit that I am not an alien, but a foreigner.

After entering planet United States of America, the excitement of the inter-planetary travel hit old bladder hard and I walked toward the 'rest-room' to empty said bladder. Out of sheer force of habit, I walked into the room on the left, only to get told off by one of the ladies who surprised me by being in the men's room. Turns out the ladies 'rest-room' was on the left and the blokes on the right, while I am used to vice-versa. Maybe I am being too picky or thick headed. Once I got into the right toilet and finished my business, I reached for the flush handle, on the right side of the cistern and didn't find one there. Of course, the handle was on the left! During the whole time I was in the States, I would religiously grope the right side of the flush before actually flushing. Having done my business and thoroughly washing my hand, I went out got into my BIL's car, and naturally it was left hand drive.

Now there is a school of thought that thinks left hand drive is the natural one and that the rest of the world is bonkers to drive on the other side. You will find that school to be mostly in America. There is another school of thought that things driving on the right side of the road is, well, not right. I am neutral about this and don't mind either, having lived in America aping Dubai and in Britain and its erstwhile colony. So this is not so much a gripe, but an observation.

The journey between the airport and home was completed without incident. On coming home, I found all switches to be in the on position, but no lights seemed to be on. So I assumed that for all its sophistication and industrial development, the place had a power cut. Then it hit me. On is off and off is on. What the world knows as the universal on position, is the off posish there.

All this got me thinking. Why would this happen? Why would everything, even the most mundane of things be the exact opposite of what the rest of the world considers normal? My thinking and groping later, I came to a plausible reason for this. When the old geezer Amerigo Vespucci did the hop across the ocean back in the 15th century, he must have been pretty peeved at matters the way they were done in Europe. He thought, "Right, I've now discovered my own continent. I'm going to do things my way here. And that way is to do things in a manner contrary to how the rest of those fools in Europe do it." And there folks, is how America came to be the way it is. I'm positive. Astute observers would no doubt, point out to me that in the 15th century, there were no cars, no electricity or immigration or indeed toilets. My explanation covers this too. The tradition established by Amerigo has been carried on by generations after him, who, no doubt, often visited Europe to make sure they were doing everything the Europeans didn't.

Happy New Year folks!

Divine warnings

People often seem to think there is a link between climate change *cough global warming cough* and pretty much anything modern humans do. I do too. Something is messing about with the planet's weather and I guess it is time to invite Hardy Boys and Scooby Doo to find out exactly what's fooling around with the weather.

I have known this to be true ever since I owned by first bicycle at the tender old age of 6 (of course, I owned a cycle even before that, but I was never responsible for its upkeep, or rather, maintenance in running condition. Admittedly, I admit I might have been responsible for the disintegration of quite a few of my earlier cycles, but again, such an admission would be tantamount to digression from the topic, so I withdraw said admission.)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, climate change was the product of insane disaster mongers who claimed to think weather patterns were changing. The topic wasn't even fashionable! In such an environment, how did I, at the tender age of 6-7, realise something's wrong with the weather? I may not have termed the phenomenon as climate change or even global warming. I suppose in my fertile mind, it was more of global warning (scratch that, divine warning is a closer fit). 

Had someone asked me to define what this divine warning is, I might have said its God's way of saying I should not waste water by unnecessarily washing myself or my bike. Allow me to explain.

I have been jinxed with the rains since that age. It would pour cats and dogs each and every time I wash my vehicle. Without fail. The day I decide to restore the colour of my cycle/car/bike back to the colour its maker had bestowed on it, it would rain. No ordinary wetting of the land, mind you. It would be torrential. I would normally choose a day that is bright and sunny to perform said ritual. No matter how sunny the day begins, the moment I finish washing and drying and decide to take my gleaming ride out to air, clouds would rumble in and it would pour. I learnt then that this is a divine warning. As I grew older, I began to think the rains were merely an acknowledgement of me being active. A divine celebration of sorts. So I thought maybe this is a message from God that I should be lazy and outsourced my washing activities. That didn't help either. The vehicle would be wet and dirty by the time I got back from the garage after a good scrub down.

Around 2000, I learnt that the best form of defence is offense, so I began washing my bike even more frequently, in fact, at one stage, it was a continuous process. I would wash, it would rain and I would wash again and it would rain again...you get the drift. The resultant flooding drowned large parts of Meena Estate, which I refuse to be held responsible for.

At wit's end, I decided to flee the country. Maybe going to a country where it rains for 2 or 3 days in a year would break the jinx. So I went to Dubai. My calculation was correct and the jinx with the rains had been broken. My incessant washing did not turn Dubai into a fertile region. However, there was another problem. Just like the suits at CO2 Inc., discovered it isn't so much as global warming but climate change, I discovered my jinx was never with the rain, it was with nature. In Dubai, there would be sand storms. I would wash my car and the next day it would be covered in dust as if someone had emptied the contents of their vacuum cleaner on my car. The dust bowl that is the Arabian Desert would let out an almighty belch and attempt to convert the city of Dubai back into the desert from which it arose. It was horrible. It would lie waiting for me to part with Dh 25 for a car wash. And then pounce.

I realised then that it there is no point fighting nature and gave up all hope of ever having a clean vehicle. Keeping it clean and admiring it for the few hours it remained clean was all I could do.

Having failed with the rains and dust, I decided I might as well go to a place where it rains more often than it shines and moved to the UK. True to its reputation, it would chuck it down each time I washed, but that's alright, I knew it was coming and more or less got used to a dirty vehicle. Nature had decided to test me and I had failed. I had given up.

Just when I soulfully decided to get used to the notion of a perpetual dirty vehicle, I decided that for one last time, I would pay to have my scooter washed. I paid the money and took possession of a gleaming scooter and looked up and lo and behold! No clouds. In fact, it has been 2 weeks now and it hasn't rained. In all my time in the UK, it hasn't been rain free for 2 weeks in a row. Nature is cruel, I tell you, she's just taunting me with that can of wax to shine my scooter before she chucks it down again, but I'm going to be one step ahead of the game. I am never going to wash or wax my scooter again; maybe it will never rain in the UK again...

Endhirun

October is usually a monumental month in India each year, day 2 of the month marks the birthday of the Father of Nation - monumental mostly because booze is not available in the 'open' market on that day, day 23 marks the birthday of the Father (mine, of course!) and with Diwali in the vicinity, festivity is in the air.


2010 was different. India was grappling with two other epic events. CWG or Common Wealth Games (not sure what is 'Common' about wealth or what games have to do with Wealth, but what would I know, I'm not a cricketer). And a couple of days before that, the release of Robot a.k.a.for.tax.reasons. Endhiran.


The amount of hype and hoopla surrounding the release of this movie boggled the 'ol noodle. The thing with all Rajnikanth movies is that there is always going to be an atmosphere of festivity in the air, expectation even. Expectation, not of a good movie or *gosh* a story, but of entertainment for the masses. He normally does not disappoint (*cough* 'Baba' *cough*) and the masses' mass hysteria is often appeased. This time though, there was a critical difference. Gone were the trademark introduction songs where he astounds one and all by doing completely varied things like ride a motorcycle, horse, cycle, bus, auto-rickshaw or something equally varied before the ol' song and dance around what his name is and what his beliefs are for that movie. Sterling stuff, all that. None of that in this movie. None at all. Zilch, Nada.

Once cannot accuse the old top of not doing anything different in this movie though. For instance, there was not a single scene of him smoking a beedi. He was also playing the role of a geek and technocrat in this movie, something that must have been hard to pull off for a guy who is in his elements in more labour intensive roles. He has also proved that he is a man of his words. Back in the nineties, he wowed the world by warning all baddies that anything he says needs to be compounded by a factor of 100 in order to comprehend the magnitude and seriousness with which he says anything. Now he's proved he backs that by making one robot which multiplied itself a 100 times to devastate Chennai. Kudos.

For a movie that has been set in 2010, the story is about as watertight as a piece of gauze. Due to reasons of health and safety, I am not going to review the movie. I would say, though, that had the story been set in 2050 or something that establishes it as science fiction, I may have enjoyed it a bit more.

Just like Chitti the Robot is amazing, I find his creator's car, the Mercedes CLK convertible amazing. In the movie, it appears to have powers that even Chitti does not have. For example, when Chitti gets behind the wheel for the first time, he drives the car straight into the median, which, among other things, takes out the front right fender and most of the front bumper, but by the very next scene, when they pull into the good scientist's house, the car is gleaming and spotless - it has the powers of self healing! How cool is that. Then there's the scene where Chitti snatches Aishwarya from her wedding and takes off in the Merc, a whole army of Indian security forces materialises in seconds and dumps an entire years' supply of bullets in the general direction of the car, and yet it still chugs on, old faithful, what! I simply loved the way the car could do wheelies, jump over bridges, drive over trucks, get shot at by everything except nuclear bombs and still outrun all badies. I resolved at the movie that my next car would only be bought if it could do at least 1 of the above, its no point owning an automobile that is going to go kaput the moment you run over a nail or run into something as silly as a wall.

On a side note, I don't know what all the fuss about security at the CWG is all about. In the couple of minutes it took Chitti to reach the main road from the wedding hall, an entire army materialised. If that level of security could be provided to an individual who is just a scientist, i.e., not a movie star or politician, then sportsmen have no need to worry. Its all safe and secure.

In order to see the movie about the robot that can only be destroyed with an axe, the wife and I took our chances against the elements, risking life, limb and dry clothes, only to return disappointed. The Gods were chucking it down with a vengeance in bleary old Blighty on the Saturday night that we decided to venture to Cineworld. Cineworld, I might add, is exactly 6 minutes and 30 seconds away from home on the trusty old Burgman. 6 minutes and 30 seconds is all it took for us to get soaked to the bone, the rain was that heavy. We dripped and sploshed our way into the theatre, stood in queue for a further 5 minutes and only on reaching the counter did we notice that all shows for that day were sold out. So we sploshed and soaked our way back home and all but sat in the washing machine to dry out.

The next day, we decided to combine exercise with strategy and ran the 3 miles to the theatre at 10am, only to discover we were the first souls onsite. Not even theatre staff were around. Not recognising the signals from the Gods, we waited. When staff finally arrived onsite, we virtually lynched them and found a couple of seats on the only show available - 8:45pm on a Sunday evening. Notwithstanding the fact that we would be sleepy and tired the next day, we went for it.

Having fulfilled various social commitments, we ran late for the show and anxious to get a good seat, we skipped dinner and went straight in. Around 3.5 hours later, we staggered out, none-the-wiser. To his credit, God gave all the signals and short of hitting us on the head with a kitchen sink and putting up a large neon sign over our heads asking us not to be so over-enthu in going to the movie, he did everything else. I mean, if torrential rain, closed cinemas, sold out shows and lack of food cannot dampen our spirits, what can.

In common with all Rajni movies, we expected too much and this time, we did not get what we bargained for. So Enthiran, for us, became E(zhn)thu run (get up and run). Perhaps if we hadn't been sucked in by the hype, if we hadn't gone through all that trouble to watch the movie, we might have enjoyed it. Perhaps.

P. S.: Couldn't help but wonder, how many tonnes of Botox would the lead pair (or should I say trio) have consumed?

PDAs and a desperate plea for help!

I suppose I would do well to clarify right upfront that this post has nothing to do with those new-fangled devices called PDAs, the ones that become obsolete the minute you chuck a truck load of hard earned cash in order to acquire them. What this post is about is public displays of affection. Don't get me wrong...I'm no prude. I enjoy the sight of a loved up couple as much as the next guy. In fact, I would even go as far as saying the act turns me on a notch or two.

Having established that, there are still some displays that are too much for me to handle. Having to deal with the couple involved often brings out a long dormant animal in me. More so when said canoodling happens in the morning rush. With all my thoughts focussed on tasks to be accomplished that morning, how many clients are going to be blowing a gasket or two, with me being at the receiving end of the explosion, the last thing I want is to have to deal with a couple who can't stay away from each other, their bodies inter-twined snake like and the air that we breath not even trying to come between them, for there are no gaps.

The most discomforting part is the role I am forced to play in this sordid affair, having to go where air finds it impossible to go! It seems unfair that in order to listen to some music, one has to spend 5-10 minutes separating right ear bud from left.

Mr. Right H Phone and Ms. Left E Phone may be having an affair, but that doesn't give them the right to seek the pleasure of each others' company every spare minute of the day. If a human being were to behave in such a manner at their place of work, they would be searching for a job faster than you can say, "What ho!". Not headphones, they can canoodle with impunity, impervious to people or objects around, children or adults.

I can virtually see my readers nodding in agreement, for they have, I am positive, had to deal with the frisky couple on a daily basis. I ask you, how do you manage to keep them apart? This is a plea from a man who is fighting a losing battle, a call for assistance, a wounded general calling for back-up...help me keep the left and right earphones of my headphones apart, untangled and available for use as soon as I take them out of my pockets. Thank you.