what the world needs now..

is love, sweet love

'ang on a minute! sorry ducky, need to change the lyrics a bit.

what the world really needs now, is sweets, love sweets

and i'm not referring to ladoos. or even pedhas.
oh stop gasping, i'm not outlawing them.

i'm referring to childhood's sweeties, golis and toffees (taufeeq umar emerges uncertainly).

remember poppins? those multi coloured round sweets that emerged from the silver and striped cylinder, suggesting that horn, except that it seemed to always be full of poppins, rather than refilling fruit and flowers. so not all that much like the horn after all.

and boiled sweets! i always hated that name- boiled sweets evokes a hideous image of sweets clinging by their wrappers to the edge of a large cauldron, begging not to be boiled. the ones made by ravalgaon were my favourite. for me, ravalgaon was a real place. somewhere in UP. (i frequently used it while playing names-of-towns-antakshari)
happiness is the crinkly sound of opening a maroon ravalgaon boiled sweet. during a meeting.

lollipops, now they're a different kettle of sweets. never took to them too much, specially after seeing how i absent-mindedly chewed at the plastic straw.

cadburys chocolate eclairs- now there was a treat! before they changed the colour scheme and they were chocolate and orangely wrapped. but eclairs were a bit of a gamble- you could get those gnarled ones, rock hard and sticking-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth.

honourable mentions
bullseyes
jujubes for the discerning palates
rol-a-cola for the future pepke (crapsi?) drinkers.
and pan pasand (bleargh) for the lil pan-eater inside us all.
and white pepperminty sticks with a glowing red end for those puffer-to-bes.

i know some of you are baiting your breath in anticipation of mention of
fusen gum.

yes. well. ta, then.

55-word story. now stop tagging me!

trouble was brewing in the building. enthralled by post-modernisism, the newer sections mocked the traditional pilasters and reactionary arches. a section of the roof with Doric triglyphs was the butt of all jokes, specially after a donkey had been painted on it. Hearing it begin its daily prayer, the newbies taunted "chant, gadha-dhari beam, chant!"

tagged by 'im.

musical joke part deux

among the many movies on western classical music i haven't seen are Amadeus and Farinelli.

amadeus means god's love, very apt name for the man. although his name was actually Johann Chrysostom Wolfgang Theophilus (Gottlieb, Amadeus) Mozart. there's so much to say about him- how he grew up in salzburg, where you can now get the famous mozart kugeln, mozart ham und kaese brot and mozart omlette.
and how he composed his first symphony at the age of eight.
eight!
fry says it best "aww lil wibbly wobbly amipoopot mozart.. aww have you got music for the nice people, have you?.. have you? oh, its a full symphony? right. in, er four movements? good. full orchestra. well, let's hear it then? clever little sod."

you are now expecting me to comment on mozart's musical joke - ein musicalischer spass. but having lulled you into a false sense of security i spring on you..

(cue evil laughter)

farinelli
or to give the man his full name: farinelli the castrato.
you do see where i'm going with this, don't you?
they needed sopranos, didnt they? and they wouldn't allow women to sing, would they? so that's what they got then.

musical joke

man hears beethoven's 9th symphony being played backwards. goes closer and finds it's beethoven's grave. the great man is decomposing.

Guilty pleasures

fry, stephen and heyer, georgette
georgette crepe saris
sare jahan se acchaa
achhoo!*
hoo let the dogs out?
outer ring road half marathons
thondulkar
karrot cake with cream cheese icing
i sing with john, paul, george and wotsisname
naming the capital of burundi
hrundi bakshi type silly comedies
dies light fluffy chitale bandhu's sakhar perlele pedhe
dher i forget the bakarwadis, so golden and deep fried
fry, stephen


*the moment after a sneeze is rather pleasurable, in'it? for a brief second, your nasal passages are shining pathways of light. feel like god.

yes. quite. that will be all then.
(replaces straitjacket on patient and padding on cell walls)

no hay banda!

when you step on an aircraft the first time, and it's night (an unearthly hour if flying from india) you are in a daze with all the bright lights and announcements. and then in a line, you sleepwalk through covered passages and are magically entering the plane being greeted by the captain. the mist clears for a bit while you shove and elbow to get to your seat and stow your bag, but as the plane takes off, you are pushed back into your seat and all you can see are fairy lights.. and then nothing.

the first time i flew in the day, i could SEE the passage accordion tube thingy connect to the plane. and once, since the plane was v small, we actually walked down onto the tarmac and climbed into the plane. i even saw baggage handlers handle baggage, proving that there wasn't some mysterious narnia-type place your bags were shoved only to be spit out onto the correct revolving belt.

this happened today while swimming. finished my regulation 15 laps (its a hanky sized pool) and floated a bit. but since it's the colony pool and it was 8:30 am, i could SEE the office monkeys with their briefcases going about their business.

does anyone else feel the need for the illusion to be maintained? the magician shouldn't be allowed to take off his hat, plaster his hat hair down with water and mull about the stupidity of pigeons in holland..

bow down mister

since childhood, i have been subject to mengelesque experiments.

from "hong kong" to "shue lin"'s door
all the people know the score
if you want it botched some more
please say hair eh! hair eh!

steps,'shroom cuts, no holds bar
look like diana from afar
closer up its mithunda, ringo starr
please say hair eh hair eh!

these days i'm sporting the 80s aussie serial look. after all, everyone needs good nigh burrs.

the aftermath! you walk out pretending life is not over. your hair has been fried with a drier that leaves you with a bouffant and half the city with no electricity. friends, relatives and bumbling puppies that embarrass easily avoid looking you in the eye. strong men wince and hide their valuables. some try to brazen it out by asking breezily, "oh, did you have a haircut?" you snarl at them, they run away, being careful not to trip over their own gorgeous tresses. and there's the primitive tribes that ritually greet you by slapping you hard on the back of the head and yelling "judi-arse!" dame dench appears on the scene and in arctic accents asks what their bluddy problem is.

what is a fit punishment for a hairdresser who ruins your hair? should she be hoist by her own petard, figuratively speaking? "gimme those scissors, the brush and those hundreds of clever clips. i'll give you a blunt like you'll never forget"
(maniacal laughter in the background)

and please, let's drop that whole chinese illusion once and for all. she is as chinese as gobi manchurian. call the place may shue, provide patrons with taiwanese magazines featuring hairdos incredibly innappropriate for indian hair and xie ha min's your uncle.

i would rant more, but jason and kylie are waiting..