Chandler's Third Nipple

All "Friends" devotees would remember the exact episode I'm talking about here. The one where the girl with a prosthetic leg who freaks out on seeing chandler's "nubbin".

The thing about the series is that no matter how much I try to not like it, I can't stop identifying with it. Same with probably everybody in the world which made it the biggest and longest running sitcoms ever.

I bet nobody can identify with any one particular character, that's the sheer genius in the writing of the show, there is a Monica, a Ross, a Chandler, a Rachel, a Joey, a Phoebe and even a Gunther and Janice in all of us.

So why this particular episode?

It portrays, subtly so, the most common features of man, passing judgments about people and learning to deal with them eventually if needed. As the show starts Chandler's the one freaking out about her fake leg, when he does deal with it, she freaks out after seeing his "nubbin".

We all do this, every single moment in our lives. I mean in general, not particularly about stumps and three nipples. Everytime you see a pretty girl with an old guy, your brain screams Golddigger/slut, she may/may not actually be in love with him, not anybody's problem, everytime you see a guy being slightly emotional, GAY! Well again, he may/may not be, not anybody's problem.

The magic words being, its not anybody's problem, unless it actually is theirs. The only business you should be minding, is yours. Nothing justifies judging others, prematurely atleast.

I mean if somebody I guessed would be annoying is infact annoying and continues annoying me, I would put him through a wall, but it's that initial chance is what I'm talking about. Give that to people, you'd be surprised by what they can offer/add to your existing network of people. You can always undo it later if required, like in my example, but once you've shot yourself in the foot, it's way more difficult mending fences then.

As I said, you can not guess as to who you'd end up needing when and vice-versa. The world functions on convenience, where "you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is a tried and tested formula. Stick with it.

It's awesome having 3-5 friends who are closest to you, but there is not harm in having a network of over hundreds of others who may come in handy, or someone you can help whenever you can, IF you know how to manage them well.

The concept of having these networks is now being used on an enormous scale, from spreading awareness about a social issue to acquiring well paying jobs, nationally and internationally.

So I end this(as I'm getting late for gym) by saying that you would not want anybody to judge you within 10 seconds, give that same respect and advantage to the people you interact with.

I'm not saying be over-friendly, I'm saying be receptive, to them, their talents and their ideas and you'll find them being the same towards you. Cheers.

Half An Hour At The Road-side Cobbler

Vacations, finally. I would rather sit at home doing absolutely nothing, but then its almost like parents hate having their children home during vacations.

While I was thinking about errands to run just to avoid talking or having to spend any significant time with my mother, I realised 3 pairs of shoes needed to be re-stitched. So, to the roadside cobbler’s I went.

I knew my shoes would take time, so I went to this little shanty on the side of a busy market road fully equipped with 4 cigarettes and a diet-coke. Earlier, my phone’s battery spazzed out, so I didn’t have that to give me company.

So what do you do at a side of a busy market road waiting for your shoes to be worked on? 

Well, nothing, just stand there and look around. It’s funny ‘cuz standing and looking around at the random people scurrying around with varying expressions, thoughtful expressions with oversized shopping bags can be quite entertaining.

It’s a complete package, with groups of teenagers, the studious ones only half alive returning home from classes, the ones who think they’re cool with their creepy dressing sense, with the “chhappars” whose only aim in life seems to be standing suspiciously in small groups on the street looking at women, with morbidly obese housewives dragging somethings I can only assume walked right out of them, with couples, holding hands, madly in love and other such earthlings.

It’s a good and bad feeling, putting yourself in a spectator’s position. Good, because, well, lets be honest, its good entertainment. Bad, because you might see people doing things which would make you want chop you arm and shove it down your own throat and choke on it and die, just to be from the same species.

I often do this when I’m bored, grab something to eat/smoke/drink, sit in a public place and observe. It is that moment, when everything, is clear. The proverbial “masks” on each face passing you by becomes more obvious than ever.

Each time, each time a woman raping her husband’s credit card snubs a beggar, each time that beggar’s little boy gets chased down for pick-pocketing, each time a girl with her boyfriend, leaves his hand and distances herself ever so slightly from him as she checks you out, each time the guy does the same to check out some chick, each time a dude in formals carrying a briefcase abuses somebody, each time another one with the same attire walks the other way dejected because his sales deal didn’t happen, each time you see these things happen around you, amidst all the chaos, things get beautifully clear.

No, I haven’t figured out the meaning of life, yet. I ain’t on a quest to, either. But then, I 

learn as I go.

I’m convinced that ‘life’, for one, is a woman. You can’t live with or without her. You can’t live with her, because, well, she’s a super-menopausal bitch, at times. You can’t live without her, ‘cuz, well, you’d be dead.

It’s a cycle, a chain, a spherical cage of events. Heard of the Chaos Theory? If you haven’t, look it up, the world has Wikipedia for the lesser read.

In short, shit evens itself out.

This happens a lot. I sit to write something “commercially entertaining” and it ends up being a philosophical rant. Sigh.

Cheers.

How To Not Die/Kill On The Roads In Mumbai

 Hey!

Yeah, I’m back, finally. Got a backlog of what seems like a million posts. And damn, this place needed some editing.

Between working out 3 hours a day and then interning for the next 11 hours, it’s a surprise I’ve managed to stay alive.

But hey, I’m here now, the all “new and improved” me, and life’s been awesome lately :-D

Speaking of internships, I need to travel over 38Kms everyday, to and fro from office.

That, mixed with a couple of recent accidents my friends have been having on the road, which I still laugh about, made me think that people require some sort of guide, when it comes to handling the roads in Mumbai.

We shall do this point-wise, to emphasise as to “what” can/will kill you “how”. So here goes nothing –

1.Lane Rules, wait, what?  -

Lane rules in India, well, is pretty much like the concept of family planning in, well, India. It’s unheard of.

 While riding/driving in Mumbai(including the highways), you must ALWAYS assume the doped assclown in the vehicle in front of you, is your enemy, and he wants to kill you.

No matter how much you honk, and let him know you exist, he will swerve to your lane, just when you’ve decided it’s safe to overtake.

 So, think 10 times, observe the body language of the driver in front, and THEN make your move.

2. The Lady-Driver factor –

At the cost of sounding like a “male-chauvinistic-pig”, I’d like to just put it out there. Something all men know.

Women can do everything in today’s day and age. But, driving, nah-uh.

 So, when you see a woman driver in any vehicle near you, one MUST assume that she is putting on her eye-liner looking at the rear-view mirror, and her side-view mirrors are mere accessories she got free with the car.

 One must ALSO assume, that, on panicking, she will floor the accelerator, instead of the clutch/brake. Which means, after hitting you, she will run you over, multiple times, and drag your carcass for quite some distance until she hits something and kills herself, finally bringing the car to a halt.

 So, when you see a woman driver, either you get to a higher gear and rip you sorry ass out of her sight or give her the right of way and reach your destination successfully, and alive.

3. The Auto-rickshaw factor  -

These are the generic, but low powered “tuk-tuks”. With 3 wheels the same size as the wheels of a tricycle I had when I was, well, 3, a turning radius of almost zero and equally retarded drivers, make these the perfect little accident causing suicidal machines.

When you see a rickshaw at the side of the road you’re driving on, ALWAYS assume, that it WILL turn at a 90degree angle right in front of you, at the last minute where you cannot avoid a collision.

You may however feel better knowing the fact that the rickshaw would probably never start again, and the driver’s probably dead.

4. Jay-walkers –

No, We do actually have footpaths/sidewalks in India. Just that, over here we call them Shop-extensions.

The most annoying little creatures we have to share our roads with, the jay walkers.

What makes it worse is that people seem to think it’s their birth-right to walk right in front of your moving vehicle, and stand there. They almost KNOW you will brake to a complete halt from blistering speeds, and they’re willing to take the risk.

 So, when you see somebody at the side of the road, looking to cross, and it seems like he/she’s giving you the right of way, ASSUME that they will at some point jump in front of your vehicle in suicidal fashion.

I’m still confused about the correct suggestion for this issue, ‘cuz my “heart” says, let them live, my brain yells, “Kill the stupid mother)(#)$*+!”

5. Traffic “Pandu” Police effect –

Very similar to the jay-walkers. Just that these obnoxious jokes for human-beings are usually in hiding, most often behind a parked car, or a tree at the side of the road, waiting for you to break a traffic light, or to catch you without your helmet/seat belt, etc. They charge, unofficially ofcourse, anything from 100 to 1000 bucks to let you go.

 It’s funny how they get into your pyche as for those of us who are lucky enough to spot em at a distance, we brake, we brake hard to put on the things we don’t, not caring if our 1yr old baby without the seat-belt goes flying through the windshield in case of a car, or your best friend on the bike gets launched over your head, just to save a 100 bucks and 20 minutes of time.

 So, if you see a “pandu” at the side of the road, just put a gear down, and don’t let him catch you. It’s highly unlikely that he will even attempt to make an attempt to catch you, being so physically fit and all. It’s funny, now that I think about it, they can probably roll faster than they can run.

6. Instant-Combustion –

Yeah, it is exactly like what it sounds.

There are a few vehicles on our roads, including the rickshaws that are so well engineered, that they instantly go up in flames while standing at a traffic light/parking lots.

 It’s probably the CNG tanks in them, but who cares, its funny when it happens.

 So, when you see a rickshaw standing next to you at a traffic light, suddenly go up in flames, and the driver runs out for his life with his ass half ablaze, you must ALWAYS get out of your car, point at him and laugh. Also record a video of it and put it on Youtube.

Get these things in your head, and your good to go.

Cheers, Drive safe.

Scrabble Lady & Poker-Mom

Another Saturday goes by.

As usual, I reach home by 430a.m, after doing everything that had to be done, I finally got into bed by around 5.

Just when my body thought of shutting down for the day, it was rudely awakened by my phone, which had screamed and vibrated itself to an orgasm.

Yeah, phones don’t do that, not literally anyway.

It was a notification, for somebody had played their turn on the online multiplayer version of Scrabble. That somebody, is the “Scrabble Lady”, the simplicity of our interaction, is beautiful, we’ve been playing together for a while now, and the only thing we know about each other is the name and the countries we live in, we end up chatting whenever we the time, on general topics.

We've never had any awkward moments , because there's this comfort level we share, which is weird for someone I met by clicking a button, she's an amazing person to talk to, has a great personality, and she's one of the rare sane ones you find over the internet.

There’s also somebody else, I call my “Poker-Mom”, for she is somebody I met through the online Poker gaming scene. Again, a random interaction, but a much closer one than the scrabble-lady. She’s actually a great form of support, and a great person to talk to, pretty much like a second mother, and hence the name.

It’s weird, the existence of a whole other world, the virtual one.

A virtual world, generated by the numerous social-networking websites, online-gaming websites and other such interactive mediums, which has brought the entire planet under one roof.

A virtual world, where everybody is perfect. Every individual has been given the ability to play god on him/herself and portray themselves in a way only they can see themselves.

The way I see it. The virtual world, is one where little girls become ladies, little boys become men and men become little girls.

The technology these days, including mobile-phones, computers are produced, keeping these in mind. They are well adapted to social-networking and gaming, which increases their demand in the current market.

But then again, like all things, there are many perspectives of looking at this case.

Let’s take a look at the negatives.

The openness and the transparency in private data on such websites, is an obvious risk. It’s almost like waiting bent over, in a way. Then comes the topic of imitations, duplications and defamations. There have been countless cases of girls being harassed by unknown people, by other sending crude messages, by sneaking into profiles and copying images and creating a duplicate profile.

The “will u make fraandsheep wid mee” messages to girls from random strangers are pretty famous.

Personally, I’ve not had a negative issue, ‘cuz well, for one, I’m not a 15 year old retarded girl who clicks less than appropriate pictures of herself and not bother about privacy settings after uploading.

(It’s funny how it gets almost sexist, ever heard of a guy’s profile being hacked into? It’s obviously not “cool” to do so in the mentally-sick community)

No negatives for me, also because, I’m twice the size of normal human-beings, and I get beastly when I’m angry.

But hey, it’s not only a path strewn with thorns, for a sane, mentally stable person who cares for his/her privacy, such websites can be a boon. Why, even I use them to publicize this very blog. It helps me get in touch with people I’d lost touch with years ago, and stay in touch with people who matter, also ignore and block those who do not.

Many companies in the present day, ask for the link of the individual’s social-networking profile, so that they can gauge the person, by the kind of activities he/she may take part in.

I see it the way it’s meant to be seen, for networking, for keeping in touch with friends, scouting for job/internship opportunities. I’ve met some really cool people over such platforms, people who look at things the way I do.

I even started speaking to my present girlfriend of four years, after I saw that she listens to my favorite metal-band through her social profile. Before that, being in the same school, we both were pretty much strangers.

It gets really hilarious at times, on these platforms.

Like, when some lil’ dude acts all manly over the internet. I mean, common, what’re you going to do? CapsLock my ass?

Let it be the Virtual world, or the Real one. Stay true. There’s literally only one of you in this world. There’s no need to be somebody else.

Chill, Make friends, Drink, listen to good music, have amazing conversations. There’s a lot more to life, I’ve realised.

Cheers.