I hate the Goat King

I hate SRK. I hate that name. I hate a perfume by that name. I hate every brand that is associated with that name and I hate going to watch a movie with that name on the cast list.

My wife is a movie buff and loves this self proclaimed King, this despite his breaking her heart four times over the last four years. His movies OSO, RNBDJ, BB and MNIK were all pathetic and most disappointing for her, and I am astonished that despite all those atrocities he still continues to reside in her heart. I am sure that if I had done the same even once she’d have given me a black eye and asked me to take a walk. I hate him.

Well, I am not the only one who hates him. Alongside me stand many men and women of my generation, of which, some men hate him purely because they are jealous of his stardom. The others, like me hate him for various reasons.

For having the naivety to even dream of challenging The Big B. How could he even think of it? And when he fell down flat on his face with a dhobi pachad, what does he do? To prove that he is bigger, he runs to some nondescript town in Malaysia and buys himself some Knighthood. Shame. Shame.

For he is my Bhaijaan’s enemy; and he is responsible for sowing the initial seeds of rift between Bhaijaan and our ‘would have been Bhabijaans’. Because of him, to this day my Bhaijaan remains a bachelor. Sob sob.

For making fun of South Indian movies and southies in general with his rubbish ‘chatti patti’ dialogue in OSO.

For making a goat look bad on the movie screen.

For all those times that my sisters, (girl)friends and now wife drooled (and continue to drool) over him shamelessly every time that he appeared (and appears) on TV, starting from his Fauji days.

For doing whatever he did to The Dada of Indian Cricket.

For all those evenings that I fought with my wife after she hijacked the TV remote to watch recordings of his cheap comics as he played host to one of those petty cine awards nights.

For redefining the way the business of Cricket and Cinema is run in India and for showing to the masses that one can make profits even after coming last in a cricket tournament and by producing an utterly senseless movie.

For proving again and again and again that the masses are nothing but cattle, which can be directed to any direction that ‘he’ desires.

For all his friends who make worthless goods and who believe that they can sell that crap by just putting his picture over it.

For becoming the epitome of a ‘self made man’ and for reaching such dizzying heights that even my best friends are compelled to look up to him as their idol.

For trying to make inroads into my son’s heart with his marketing gimmicks and youtube promos.

And of late, for conniving with my wife and trying to convince me through my seven year old lad that his latest flick, the one on a computer game gone awry is indeed a movie worth a watch.

Yes, I hate this man. In fact, like most of my friends, I love to hate this man. So much that I am compelled to kick my lazy bum to go and watch Ra.One in the theatre; this after making myself cognizant of the fact that this is one movie which has received some of the worst reviews of all times.

Come Saturday, and I am taking my family to the City Centre Multiplex, and there, I plan to put my son through the ultimate test, which will decide whether he is different or just like all other Indians, one of the herd. He will have to choose between Ra.One, Real Steel, Lion King and Johnny English. My son loves heavy transformer like robots, cartoon movies and even Rowan Atkinson, and so I expect that he would not choose to watch Ra.One. But, even in the worst case if he does so, I’d have no regrets. For one, I know the Goat King would only end up breaking Tara’s heart for the fifth time, and in such a circumstance I’d be just more then eager to offer her a shoulder to cry. Secondly I’d be going in with a mind set to watch an ‘F’ grade movie. And either case it’d be a win-win for me. If the movie is bad, I’d have proved my point. If it turns out to be good, I‘d have had a good time. J

But whatever, in the end, I see only one winner, SRK.  

And that’s why I hate him so much. Because, even if you don’t love him, you cannot ignore him, you’ll still love to hate him. And that’s what he wants and gets; just your attention.

And the money? Forget it; that he knows how to make.

iDiot on iPad.

Jay had just come back from a hectic workshop conducted to turnaround one of the troubled projects that he was working on. He entered his office cubicle, dumped his register, lazily walked to the kitchen and started to make himself a cup of tea. As he stood there for the water to boil, he stretched out his arms wide, and let out a groan. He was tired and frustrated.

He was frustrated on his Chinese Contractor’s engineers who would just nod their heads and reply “Yes Yes” to every instruction that he passed on, and yet in the end keep doing all the best that was in their hand to procrastinate work on some or the other pretext. He was frustrated on his Boss, a sexaholic  sexagenarian, who although present in the workshop, shied away from taking any decision at all, and rather spent all his time focussed on his latest obsession of playing Angry Birds on his IPad while intermittently checking on the playboy website.

Jay was tired. He hadn’t had a wink of sleep last night. He had worked the whole night developing a detailed proposal, which would turnaround this project, however his Boss did not bother to pay attention to it, and his Contractor, who although seemed to pay attention and agreed to all his suggestions, which was merely out of hierarchical respect, did not seem to grasp anything.

Jay walked out of the kitchen with a cup of tea in his right hand while massaging his eyes with a small bottle of chilled water with his left. Back in his cubicle, he dumped those on his table and slouched on to his revolving chair, kicking it sideways. He was done for the day. After twenty years of working on projects all over the world and in multicultural work environments, he was now beginning to feel the heat. All he wanted to do was to pack his laptop and head home, where he could do something worthwhile, like having a drink or sleeping or playing with his kids. Sadly, it was just 4:00PM, and a hour of office time had to be, but endured. He was in no mood to do any further work, and so shut off all his work related files and logged on to his favourite socializing website, FB. Little did he know that entertainment was waiting his way.

No sooner did he log on to FB, a little chat window appeared on the bottom of his screen. It was a message from Lolo. Lolo is a thirteen year old girl suffering from the pangs of preadolescence. Lolo is Jay’s distant relative.  She resides in a small town in India, some 3500kms away from where Jay is currently based. Her father Cello, who is also Jay’s second cousin, makes millions trading in the Spices Exchange. Needless to mention, she is a rich daughter, and like all girls of that age and background she thinks big, likes sporty cars, older men, dark chocolate and is in love with her iPad, which she loves to flaunt and talk about. She attends high school, and for her age she is pretty tall, which has conned her to believe that she can aspire to become a model. She is a simple girl with little dreams. Her plans are to become a supermodel at the age of sixteen and win the Miss World crown by nineteen. She would then like to act in Bollywood movies, and yes, when she does that, she’d be very choosy about the script, her co-actors and would not do any revealing scenes unless the script absolutely demands it. She is also possibly the biggest fan of a certain mallu film star called Prithvirajappan.  Well, if we base on the last chat that Jay had with Lolo on FB, Lolo was unable to decide whom she likes more, whether if it was Prithvirajappan or SRK or Justin Beiber. Anyways, this is how their chat went about:

Lolo:   Hai lng tym no c?

Jay:     Hi! How are you? Didn’t see you around for a long time now. Everything okay?

Lolo:   Yea lng tym. Ma Comps dead. Nt on lyn. Cudnt tlk. Coz me stk wid ma stupid ipad.

Jay:     Why so? Did you not get a sim card for your IPad?

Lolo:   Wht. Rly? U cnt hve a sim 4 IPad

Jay:     Tell me which version are you using?

Lolo:   Androids

Jay:     Really?

Lolo:   Yea

Jay:     I am using the latest one. It has got a slot for sim card and an SLR camera option as well.

Lolo:   u crious?

Jay:     Pretty serious. Hmmm….. let me guess, you must be using the Indian version right? Where did you buy it from?

Lolo:   Chyn

Jay:     You mean China?

Lolo:   Yea

Jay:     Then it must not be an iPad. Must be some duplicate stuff. I must say these Chinese guys are very good at making fakes.

Lolo:   Hey, its ipad.

Jay:     Really? Who brought it?

Lolo:   ma dads frnd

Jay:     Oh no! And how much did he pay for it?

Lolo:   dunno lyk myb lots

            me tnk 4000

Jay:     You said 4000 rupees?

Lolo:   Yea

Jay:     Oh my God. I got mine for $1500. That’s around 75000 rupees. You got cheated girl. Is it an iPad or iPod. I think yours must be an iPod.

Lolo:   ipad ipad ipad

Jay:     Check the box. What does it say? iPad or iPod

Jay waits for a reply from Lolo and goes on to sip his tea while checking his wall on FB. After some ten odd minutes they commence the chatting.

Lolo:   I chkd. It ipad

Jay:     Poor girl. I can only sympathise with you.

       Tell me, does your iPad have a big screen that’s like half the size of the your computer screen? Does it?

Lolo:   yea

Jay:     Then it must be something like an iPad. But I am sure it’s fake.

            Tell me, what all can your iPad do?

Lolo:   all that urs cn do n mor

Jay:     Does yours have mirror option?

Lolo:   whts dat?

Jay:     It’s called the iMirror app. When I run that app my iPad screen becomes like a mirror and I can actually see my reflection in it. It’s cool. A must for women I must say.

            Doesn’t yours have it?

Lolo:   Yea, me hv it 2

Jay:     Great. Did you download the 3D app

Lolo:   wat?

Jay:     Well, with the 3D app you can convert any movie into a 3D movie. It’s a special technology called image overlaying. All you require is 3D glasses and you have a 3D movie. I even have an iProjector.

Lolo:   wat dat?

Jay:     Well, it’s a projector which you have to just connect to your original iPad and it would project the image on to a wall or a screen. The real movie experience you see! And the great thing is that I can even project 3D images from it. HD quality.

Lolo:   Uh?

Jay:     Actually, since mine is connected to the net through a sim card, I have booked myself for the premier show of Ra.1 on netflix and will be watching 3D of it on the release date.

Lolo:   I thnk, gt sum wrk. Gt to go.

Jay:     Okay. Is your dad back from work already?

Lolo:   nop bad trfic cums late

Jay:     Oh that reminds me of an incident that took place few days back.

Lolo:   wat?

Jay:     The other day, I was with my friend in his big GMC and we were stuck in traffic. You know what he did?

Lolo:   wat?

Jay:     He took out his iPad, fixed the iWings and converted it into an iHelicopter. He then opened the sunroof and sent it out, controlling it with his iRemote. The iPad flew over traffic and took videos, which he then emailed to the Traffic Authority’s website. In no time the police came and cleared the traffic.

            Your dad could do something like that.

            But then, you guys are stuck on that fake Chinese thing. Shucks.

Lolo:   me no blv dis. u lyin

Jay:     Ahh! Why should I lie? Cmon!

Lolo:   u lier….. stop it.

Jay:    Do you know, that I use mine to even monitor my Blood Pressure and Sugar levels.

           There’s a small gadget that we’ve just got to tie on our thigh. It’s called iMonitor and it gives out accurate readings of my Blood Pressure and Blood Sugar too, without drawing any blood.

Lolo:   really?

Jay:    In fact, the one that I’ve brought is a bit advanced. It came with the iLoo attachment, which can with an accuracy of one minute tell me as to when I’d feel like going to pee or potty. And my iPad would further give me the exact co-ordinates of the nearest loo. Isn’t that great?

           Once a week it would also tell me the quantity I’d shit and the amount of water I’d require to flush it.

Lolo:   eek yukk! U filthy … chee…

Jay:     If you don’t have the real iPad, ask your Dad to get one.

Lolo:   ma ipad s real

Jay:     Doesn’t look like. Did you get it from a Stationery Shop?

Lolo:   Yea

Jay:     I got mine from a Computer Shop. I think you should do that too.

Lolo:   ma ipad is real

Jay:     Oh c’mon. I think your Dad got you a digital scribbling pad and fooled you.

            You know, my iPad is so so fast that it has come with extra rubber on the bottom.

Lolo:   shut up nw bcos u lyin

            dis is too mch criously

            u filthy fella

            i no u gt no ipad and i no need ur adv

            me going

Lolo went offline with a heavy head and enough tensions that could spoil the remainder of her week. She logged off after typing her range of expletives, swearing for the nth time that she would never ever again chat with this man.

Jay checked his watch with a naughty smile on his face. It was 5:00PM and he had just accomplished what he wanted. He was light again. He packed his bag and left for home. As he drove back home humming on to his favourite song, he hoped his little friend had learnt her lesson: “Never argue with idiots; they'll drag you down to their level and beat you with experience”

Maladies of a Toddler’s Dad.

At the end of this year’s keyobering season the little rascal in our house will cross a major milestone. This year, he will move out of toddlerhood and enter into his fourth year. The last two years were great for him.

This year, he started attending playschool and has started humming some rhymes and also the Indian National Anthem. Toddlerhood also saw him accomplish many feats (read peccadilloes), most of which ended up with plucking my nerves. Although most of his activities ended with me having to take a sizeable fiscal hit, I thoroughly enjoyed having a toddler at home. He continued to entertain us with his antics and was especially successful in positing a smile on my face and help release me off other worldly tensions.

Some of his most unforgettable achievements were:

Killing a laptop.

He managed to soak my laptop with milk and then pluck out all its keys. Sometime early this year our laptop was put in the ICU, but even the best Service Agent in Qatar could not save its soul from departing.

I eventually got home a PC, which he has been using well. He has learnt how to use a mouse and is now a frequent visitor to www.starfall.com

Convert the house into a 24x7 Art Gallery

He is the artist in our house, and has covered all the walls with his complex modern art. Few weeks back we were compelled to repaint our house, but to save his art, we have limited the repainting to just the living and dining rooms. The exhibition is still running live in the kids room.

Convert the sofa into a snow machine, and its cushions into a vault

He converted the sofa cushions into a safe vault for storing all his precious toys away from his elder brother. Now I know why they show raiding Income Tax officials ripping off sofas in those bollywood movies!

Last week we got the sofa upholstery redone. I pray and hope he doesn’t rip off the cushions again this December, to make snow for the Xmas tree.

Teach Dad some carpentry.

He managed to get locked in the Master Bedroom twice. Through my efforts to rescue him I eventually ended up learning how to pick a door latch. Since those events, as a precaution, I have removed all the latches and none of our rooms (except the bathrooms) could be locked.

Two days back he managed to get himself locked in the Guest Toilet. Now even the toilets in our house don’t have a latch!

We now have a new rule in the house ‘Sing loudly while using the toilet to avoid unwanted intruders/embarrassment’. Well, knowing my boys, I know they are eagerly waiting for someone to sing, so that they can check out.

Are you a Facebook addict?

You are an FB addict if ___________

• You click ‘like’ or post comments on your friend’s status within seconds of their posting it.

• You updated your status every other minute, and if you ever wrote:
• “Can't get up from the loo....having a bad bad bad loose motion”
• “Being chased by a rabid dog”
• “On M G Road, Junction 2… where can I find a Sulabh Sauchalay?”
• “Anyone travelling to Mumbai tomorrow?”

• You use FB apps:
• To find out who is your best friend.
• To find out who will kill you.
• To make fake report cards just to get ‘A+’ grade based on your friends comments.
• To find out if your partner is cheating on you.
• To invite friends for a party at your place.
• To find out if you are intelligent or not.

• You post pictures of food that your spouse has cooked.

• You type in the grocery list as your status so that you can check it at the store.

• The first thing that you do after switching off the alarm in the morning is check FB.

• You wish your colleague at work through FB on special occasions.

• You don’t laugh at your friend’s jokes, but respond back saying - ROFL, LMAO, LFMAO.

• You exhibit withdrawal symptoms if you don’t have mobile signal for few hours.

• You do FB Mobile while in an important meeting.

• You are someone who thinks for hours for that status message that might attract at least 20 comments and likes.

• Your parents reprimand you by writing on your FB wall.

• You are someone whose spouse screams at you "c'mon now lets have dinner together... you can do your FB thing later..... what is this? all the time FB FB FB"

... and when you log off and reach the dining table your kid goes "what is this Dad?.... Why are you not listening to Mom... eh? You should not do your office work at home... okay?"

... and if the only thing the you feel like doing at that time is, to respond back by giving a " :-) "

• You realize that your 'EX' has stopped all FB activity and abandoned it because notifications of your activities are all over his/her screen!!

• You overhear colleagues gossiping about you "isko office mein koee kaam nahin hai.... poora din FB mein laga rehta hain"

• The only thing u do after logging into your mail is to delete all the FB alert messages3

• You click pictures solely for the purpose of posting it on FB

• If you log into your personal email and find 300 new emails and say "f*** you"... whereas, at the same time, you see a red box on the top left corner of your FB screen with number ‘1’ in it and you instantly have a twinkle in the eye and a smile on your face!!

• If you go scrounging the internet searching for that free software to type in your local language so that your foreigner bosses can not decipher your FB message....

• You sit late in the office and your spouse doesn't believe your explanation that you indeed have lots of work to finish!!

• You are at office, busy writing silly comments on your friend’s status. You forget that it is your kid’s vaccination day today and your wife has to remind you through FB chat like this:

17:16 Wife: Vaccination today

17:17 You: Get ready, I am coming

17:17 Wife: We are ready. You were to reach an hour back

17:17 You: Starting now

17:17 Wife: When?

17:18 You: Now

17:18 Wife: Close your FB AND get out of office NOW!

• If you send love messages to your spouse using FB.

• You start liking your own status/links.

• You read wiki, so that you can post intelligent comments on your friend’s statuses.

• You post live scores of a cricket match that everyone’s watching.

• You comment more on your status than your friends do

• You like the comments you posted on your status

• You go back to your friend's 2 day old status and write comments.

• You are a farmer ..... on FB

• You write comments on your spouse's friend's status more than your spouse does!

• You and your friends type 185 silly comments in just three hours on an absolutely useless status message!!

• You are clueless, and scribble in an utterly out-of-context comment on your friend's status just because you want to. 

• You start hitting comments at the rate of 1 per minute and think "It could've been better"

• Your friend comes in and asks "coming for coffee?" and you reply back "oh no. thanks I am recharging myself with FB"

• When its time to respond to emails, and you'd rather update FB forgetting that your boss too is on your FB Friend’s list.

• You are at office doing FB and it is 16:30hrs and you think "only half hour left, why does the day have to end so fast!!"

• You have nothing else to do and you go back to your old statuses just to have a good read of the comments.

• You can make a blog solely out of the comments your FB friends have written on your wall.

All credits go to my FB friends Harish Kumar, Vidya Rajaram, Arvind Narayanan, Riji Jacob and Nandini Agrawal, who posted these comments on my 22 June 2010 FB status “You know this person is an FB addict, when ____________________________”