You wash my hand, I’ll wash yours

Out of the many forms of torture I've heard of, read about and can think of when I picture Fernando Alonso as its victim; there is nothing that works like making someone read what they've written, for me atleast. I'd easily admit being the assassinator of JFK, Lincoln, Gandhi and Pope Gregory the fifth within a few seconds into the session. Ever since I had to write essays in school about The Cow or the very first 'Myself' composition, I don't remember reading them after I'd finished.

Oh, and if you were to spot lyrics of some Dire Straits song floating about in my posts, forgive me, I really can't get myself an editor, you see.

There, now I’ve made an excuse for any error, grammatical or otherwise, that might have crept into any of my posts.

Really, although I put in some effort into writing, negligible as it is, standing back, looking at it and admiring it is the last thing that comes to my mind. As a matter of fact, reading something that I’d written comes so low down on my book of things to do, that being hung by my toenails, electrocution by my testes and watching Karan Johar’s next movie would seem like the foreword. I’m honestly not kidding.

And I’m quite sure I’m not the only one facing this problem. But happily, for me, I atleast admit as much. If you have a Facebook account, you’ve probably come across posts by people elaborating the benefits of eating grass, or about their latest failed attempt at converting water into wine. People like these are hell bent on making your life that little bit worse, making sure you know about all the movie they’ve watched, writing a half-page review on it, as if you or anybody else cares about their opinion. And all of it will be in one sentence, something like this one, with so many commas that your mind really runs out of breath trying to read it, all the time thinking of how the feeling of running a knife through their intestines would feel. These people sure as hell don’t read what they write.

Should someone tell them? I’m not going to, I’ve too many people out to kill me as it is, and this guy, under the delusion of friendship, might take a bullet for me, while I run away.

All I can hope is that I’m not as bad as them. If I am, then this won’t be the last time I’ve shot myself in the foot. But, please, don’t tell me that, if I am. And I won’t make fun of that really stupid t-shirt you’re wearing now, and your name, and the way you walk, and your Facebook posts, and your movie reviews, and your critical appreciation of Les Miserables.

Ignorance is bliss, yeah?

How my boredom will kill you…

Its been two almost two months since the vacations started and since then, I've been waging war. Against Boredom. Although I've had a few victories in some minor, irrelevant battles, it is with great sadness that I wish to say that I've now lost and been taken prisoner. Life in a PoW camp isn't easy, and especially when you have such a formidable captor, escape is impossible, and eventually I will die.

College students like me are the most susceptible people to boredom, and the story of the guy bringing along an assault rifle in his lunch box and gunning down his mates in some American University after an argument whether Portugal is in Australia, or an eye infection; is proof. We're an easily confused bunch, with the attention span of a goldfish, and I'm no different.

What an average person would do during a vacation is catch up on lost sleep, watch a few movies and read some books. But since this is what I do anyway, I'm really lost and have no idea what to do with so much time on my hands. (I must confess, that is partly the reason why I'm doing this - blogging). Reading newspapers is fun - for a minute, until you're done with the comics, there's never anything worth watching on TV, and when you've exhausted the other options of watching some sitcoms, standing on your head, juggling eggs, scooping up broken eggs, making an omelette, and then throwing up; which took me half an hour to do, it dawned on me that this was going to be a Long vacation.

The next thing I could think of doing was, doing all that over again, properly, this time. So I sit myself with a cup of coffee, bring out the newspaper, and then my neighbour's, after having nicked it; and spent an hour reading and re-reading adverts and catalogues for dining tables, crockery sets and hair growth clinics; recipies for scrambled eggs; and a whole bunch of other things that in no way would affect me, you, or anybody else I know. On TV, I watched Nigella Lawson making cookies (YUM!), convinced myself that the Nicer-Dicer from TeleBrands was humanity’s greatest achievement since inventing the wheel and making a fire, and then watched a Music Television channel that showed no music, but did make a great deal about some guys driving a car. I could then stand on my head for a whole minute longer than I could earlier and didn't throw up the scrambled eggs I made.

Boredom then led me to the phone- I called up friends I hadn't talked to for years, and then went on to listen to their stories of how they've ended up in some Siberian labour camp of a college and how their professors were descendants of Nazis who escaped the Nuremberg trials. I gave them my sympathy, and said goodbye, until the same time next year, when I will call them up again, either forgetting this time's experience, or fully willing to go through it again.

Happily though, now things look a bit brighter. Two more weeks to go and I do think I'll make it to the end. I cannot wait to get back to college, and then, a week in, start yearning for the vacations again. Seriously speaking though, I'd stay away from public places if I were you, because the last week is the hardest, and with so many like me on the loose, you'd never know when one of us might lose it and decide to make a shopping mall our very own private shooting range.

Why Rock stars are better off dead...

How many really, genuinely popular bands formed post - 1990 can you name? 2? No, those guys don't count, they don't really make music do they? Come on, think about it, there is no band now that's nearly as popular as any say, half a century or so back. The reason, in my opinion, is this - they're alive.

History has taught us that for a band to be really successful, some of it must be dead. Here's proof - The Who had Keith Moon; Led Zeppelin had John Bonham; Lynyrd Skynyrd, Ronnie Van Zant and Alan Collins; Pink Floyd had Syd Barrett; there was Jimi Hendrix; AC/DC had Bon Scott; The Beatles had John Lennon; Metallica had Cliff Burton; Ozzy had Randy Rhodes, the list goes on...

And the wilder the circumstances in which they died, the better it turned out for their popularity. If Choking on their vomit while knocked out drunk wasn't enough, there were airplane crashes, bus crashes, drug overdoses, suicides, getting shot by fans, and probably anything else that you could think of. It was even better if they dynamited toilets, rode motorcycles down hotel corridors, or snorted cocaine while doing one handed push-ups or something, while they were alive.

Rockstars don't do these things anymore, sadly. They're too busy saving blue whales, instead of trying to swallow them; or petitioning for Africa's debt crisis, although some might think Africa is a cow; or trying to save the Ozone Layer, maybe having been led to believe by some Eco-mentalist that Ozone is the fine inner coating of the paper used in rolling marijuana joints. God, it must be saved before all of humanity is doomed to a life without Ozone!

They needn't be much good at any of those, really, its not their job is it? But sadly, most aren't really much good in the studio either.

If say, any of the bands mentioned above were to perform in India, wouldn't you, assuming you aren't very dim-witted, have a ear and some taste for music want to attend it? I know I would. That’s the thing you see, these legends, all formed sometime in the middle of the last century still manage to capture our imagination, in a way Madame Gaga or Timber-man never could or can. Think about it, fifty years from now, when you're all old and grey would you travel the length of the country to watch Jay-Z(ed) perform? I would guess not.

This, needless to say, has a better chance of happening than me juggling chainsaws.

So while we sit and drool while watching and re-watching videos of them in concert; and then get sick on our keyboards after watching the MTV music awards or the Grammy’s with Slash playing the November Rain outro with zoo-noises to accompany him in the foreground; all I can say is, if I were to learn to play an instrument, and then were to think of making a band, the first person I’d hire would be the guy who dies. I’d let him know that, so he’d have plenty of time to decide how he intends to cross the pearly gates.

Disclaimer:

This blog is not about Cutting Coroners. You will not find a "How to" guide or a "... for dummies" section dedicated to the same. The author wishes to state that he has no aversion or hatred to coroners, and has no intention of cutting them or causing any physical damages to coroners by means of instruments such as saws, knives, or the things surgeons (and coroners) use.

The author expresses his deep heartfelt apologies to you if you are a coroner, or a coroner-loving-person, if the title has hurt you, for this feeble attempt at creating a catchy title was the best his rather unremarkable intellect was capable of coming up with.

Oh, and uh, if you see only this and not my first 'proper' post, don't tell anyone that just yet. I'll be putting it up in a few days. Thank you...