Chai Around The World

Howdy Folks!

I’m alive. Surprise!

So, here’s the deal. I rarely come here on MirrorCracked these days. I had forgotten my password – I got in on the 4th attempt. I don’t know what’s happening on the scene anymore. Are you guys all still here and blogging? I don’t know how many will even read this – I’m sure a lot of people would have given this blog up as dead. I hope not.

I blog at a new location now. I’ve been traveling. A lot. And not on my own. Wink

Check out Chai Around The World. Let me know what you think of it. I plan to return here soon enough. I’m mustering up the courage to revisit the old haunts, read up on all your blogs and update my abandoned blogroll very soon. Within this week, I promise. Just because I don’t blog here often doesn’t mean I don’t love you all.

Go. Read my other blog. Tell me your thoughts.

Free beer for all.

WordPress Troubles

Dear Universe,

Why can’t I seem to access my blog? Please help me. I have so many stories to share!

Sincerely,
A Very Irritated Writer

Letter To Cupid, 2012

Statutory Warning: The following post contains words and imagery that some people may deem as inappropriate. I have used the word ‘fuck’ twice and I talk about raising my middle fingers to someone, giving that someone the message to go fornicate with themselves. I have used a photograph of a winged child-thing found dead, face down, with an arrow in its back, lying in a pool of its own filth. If you or anyone around you find(s) my language and mannerisms offensive, please click here. Else, continue reading. 

Dear Cupid Asshole

Here we are again, in 2012. I’m still here, single as fuck, and you’re still there, dancing around with your gay wings and your gay arrows. I wrote to you earlier, around 4 years ago and you promised me that the next time would be different. You are a filthy liar and nothing more. If I look back on this year, all you’ve given me is hope, despair and embarrassment. What the hell is the matter with you, jackass? Can’t you just do your job right?

So, in the light of all that you’ve done for me this year and for the past so many years before, I raise both my fingers to you. Go suck an orange, kid.

Do you remember how I signed off my last letter to you? You don’t? Drop Dead.

In all sincerity,

Go Fuck Yourself.

As I Sit In My Hotel Room

Yes. I’m in a hotel. I’ve checked into a seedy hotel and the room looks hauntingly familiar for all the wrong reasons. I think I’ve seen many a porn movie shot in this very room. I can’t be too sure about this, but I wouldn’t be surprised. Why the sudden turn or events, you might wonder. Why did a guy like me, who has such a lovely house in the suburbs of Mumbai have to check into a seedy motel at 9 in the night on a weekday, you might ponder. Well, even if you don’t wonder and ponder these mysteries, I’ll enlighten you.

It all began two months ago when my landlady turned stupid.

She noticed that the power company had failed to deduct the monthly electricity bill from her bank account, and being stupid as she is, she thought it was her good fortune that the power company forgot to charge her. Little did she realize that it was a major oversight on her part that her bank had stopped the automatic clearing of bills. She had the same ‘good fortune’ last month, apparently, and she was over the moon. She had saved so much money!

So, I come back home at 8 this evening, tired, drenched in my own sweat, reeking of the day’s exploits and turn the keys in my front door and enter a dark abyss. I turn on the light switch to no avail. I panic a bit. I turn on other switches all over the house and I’m still covered in a thick layer of darkness. I panic, stumble blindly from one room to another, screaming for help and trying to get the darkness off my body. No, I’m exaggerating. I have a flair for drama and I get carried away sometimes. I get my torch and find out that the power company has ripped away the fuse and left a notice in it’s place. It’s a notice that’s in their letterhead and looks very ominous.

“Dear Cheapo,

Pay your light bill in the next 15 days. Or else…

Sincerely,

Power Company”

Or something to that effect. I call my landlady and explain the situation to her. She then realizes that her ‘good fortune’ was actually a serious blunder. She apologized profusely and told me a hundred times that she’ll rectify the issue tomorrow and begged me not to make a big issue of this. I reluctantly agreed and told her that I’d dropped the idea of driving to her house to spend the night.

So, here I am, almost in the middle of the night, checked in to the nearest hotel I could walk to, and I sit here on the chair, where I’m vaguely sure that many a pretty chick has done it doggy style. The creepy blue lights and a transparent bathroom add to the cheesyness.

Yes. The bathroom / toilet has a TRANSPARENT wall. Fuck you very much, landlady.

The Transparent Bathroom

Look Familiar, Porn Fans?

 

Habit Over Hate

For those of you who have been wondering why MirrorCracked hasn’t been updated for two months (to the day), well, you can stop wondering. I am still alive, unfortunately, and I’m back in business. For those of you who assumed I had given up, for those of you who assumed I was dead and for those of you who just didn’t (and still don’t) care whether this blog gets updated or not, the least I can offer is a friendly wave.

I’ve been living in a beach town for a while now and working for an ad agency, setting up a business of my own and working on my third book, so arguably, I’ve been a bit busy. Add an ill-timed illness and brand new fuckers around, it does get a bit dicey to manage blogging time.

But anyway, here I am, exactly two months after my last post, itching to tell the world about my beach town.

For a while now, I’ve noticed that the town I live in has been mistakenly called many names and not all of them pleasant. It has been referred to as the Crap Recycler, The Widowmaker, The Land of Opportunity and, my favorite, A Triumph of Habit Over Hate.

I don’t think it’s any of those. The more I look at this town, the more I come to believe that it’s a small-time beach town that has had a sudden influx of different dichotomies:  randomly distributed pockets of wealth and penury, steel-and-concrete monstrosities and corrugated cardboard disguised as houses, intellectuals and dumbasses.

There are still remnants of the little beach town that it actually once was – the early morning air with the slight hint of seawater in it, the small lanes paved with tiles, thatched roof huts (if you’re lucky enough to spot one), tall coconut trees and the stink of freshly caught seafood. People getting haircuts and shaves on the pavement, the constant cacophony of the crows (which seems to be a trait of almost every beach town), and finally, the vast areas of mangroves that signal the edge of land all make up for a wonderfully misunderstood beach town.

Then there are the beaches themselves. Some beaches here have been overrun by people who, I think, have never seen a beach in their lives and hence empathize with. But others are pristine in their naturalness. Vast stretches of sandy shores devoid of any human pollution, the gentle lapping of the waves as they kiss your feet and the distant horizon where the unnaturally large sun sinks, throwing up a fascinating array of golden lights dancing on the rippling water…

There I go again, losing myself while describing the sea. The point I was trying to make is that all these things put together make this place a lovely little beach town which has all the beauty and serenity of any other place like Gokarna or Mahabs or even some parts of Goa, with all the amenities of a fully-developed city of money, power, cricket and Bollywood. It would help if we go past the negativity that is being spun into our lives by everyone who’s been here. Every newspaper, on an average, consists of 90% bad news every day. Murders, political scams, money laundering, government incapacities, road rage, traffic snarls, and other nonsense. Forget all that for a day. If you live where I live, try and overlook all that for just a day. Try and connect with the small-time beach town that it really is.

I live in Mumbai.

The Man From Nowhere

“See the nowhere crowd cry the nowhere tears of honour 
Like twisted vines that grow 
Hide and swallow mansions whole…”

– James Hetfield, The Memory Remains

He came from nowhere and he didn’t know where he was headed. He seemed lost, confused, a paper boat caught in a hurricane, with turmoil eroding the last traces of sanity and reason in his head. He was escaping, hopefully to a better tomorrow, but he didn’t know for sure. He wanted a fresh start, desperately. He didn’t know how he was going to achieve it – his bad luck seemed to have followed him here as well. Everything he tried seemed to fail, and fail miserably. He caught himself searching for straws to clutch at.

He vowed to find a muse, an inspiration, a candle in the whirlwind of his bad luck. He wanted to find the elusive abundance of good luck that had deserted him for so long. He yearned for the peace and tranquility that had been hiding from him. It was not a search in vain.

He met her on a hot, sunny afternoon and they regarded each other cautiously, unsure of just how much attention the other person warranted. She seemed harmless enough, but he was expecting his seemingly unlimited quota of bad luck to step in again.

“Been a while,” he said. Cautiously. Two tigers, one paranoid and the other indifferent, circling each other.

“Yes. How have you been?” she asked.

“Good,” he replied and they went on to talk about other things mundane.

Time flew by and a pact was etched in stone between them, unwritten yet indelible. It took time, obviously. It did not happen overnight. He began to experience her presence more and more in his life until it almost became an addiction. Over time, he started craving for her company. She became the beacon of light in the darkness that had clouded him. She forced him to embrace good luck again, though he never knew how she managed to do that.

He still had no destination in mind, but he knew that his journey wouldn’t be lonely anymore; the journey that he had started from nowhere and had seemed to head nowhere; the journey that she had spectacularly derailed and made more bearable. He had a lot of things to be thankful for. And for a million things more.

He had found his muse. He had found his share of good fortune. The man from nowhere was finally home.

The Dummy’s Guide To Long Distance Relationships

“Wait a minute! What is this? The Dummy’s Guide? Oh my god, it’s back! It’s back!” screamed one hysterical groupie who ran into me on the street this afternoon. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or delighted. In the end, I just managed to nod my head, smile, make appropriate noises, and escape to the safety of my office.

After what seems like a really long time, MirrorCracked is proud to present the rebirth of the Dummy’s Guide series – the self-help guides that guarantee results. For the uninitiated, check out the other guides here.

This time, I write about a topic in which I have done very extensive research – women and relationships. I don’t claim to know all the answers, of course, but I know just about enough that is bound to help all those poor souls who are unlucky enough to be trapped in a long distance relationship. I have an ulterior motive in writing this post, obviously. I, too, am stuck in a long distance relationship with a wonderful woman who amazes me with her sudden bouts of weirdness. After a deja vu morning that saw me relive my gory days of 2006, when I was rapidly losing my mind and my hair over a dead-end long distance relationship in the US, I decided to write this guide to help ease the pain and mental agony that many of my fellow men face in similar situations.

Given below are a list of the top five accusations that a unhinged girlfriend/wife/partner can make against you in a long distance relationship, and the appropriate responses that you can use as rebuttal. These responses are guaranteed to ensure a long-lasting feeling of warmth and love in the unhinged girl’s mind, while totally absolving you of any grief, guilt or need. Here goes.

1. You never have the time to talk to me!

I’m sorry, I’ve been too busy talking to other people about you. I’ve been so held up that I haven’t really had time for anything. Everyone around me seems to want to know about you, and I’ve told the story of how we met and fell in love a million times in the last three days! (For added effect: Each time, with a smile on my face.)

2. You don’t communicate enough! I don’t know what’s happening in your life!

If I don’t communicate enough, it’s probably because there isn’t anything interesting to report. In the past few months, the only interesting thing that has happened to me is YOU. There is nothing else happening with me. Without you around, I lead a very boring life.

3. You are never there when I need you the most!

The obvious thing to say would be, “Well, neither are you, bitch!” but please refrain from doing so. Instead, say this: I know I’ve been preoccupied with certain things of late, but you’re always a priority, darling. I will make sure that I’ll take the effort to be there for you whenever you need me. You’re never off my mind. 

4. I don’t know whether this will work out or not!

Neither did the Shah of Persia, when he set out to walk around the world alone. But he did. He accomplished the seemingly impossible task by sheer faith. Have faith in us, and we will survive. (PS: There was no Shah of Persia, but she need not know that. Forrest Gump is also a good name to use.)

5. My friend saw you with another woman on the bike / car / mall / beach!

It’s true, I won’t deny it. I met a friend from school / college and we went out for a coffee / lunch. She called me a hopeless romantic because all I could talk about was you. 

***

PS: For tips on how to lie effectively to women, wait for my next guide.

PPS: For more information on specific scenarios, feel free to contact me. If I’m alive at the end of the day, I’ll reply to your mails. If not, It’s been sweet knowing you.