The αβγ's of Greek Mythology

If you haven't seen Troy aren't in the know of ancient Grecian myths (and Roman history), kindly don't leave the old joke 'It was all Greek and Latin to me' as a comment!
[I picked up the theme for this post from Saucerer's hilarious Greek for Dummies (=> Egyptian for Mummies?)]


Paris: Capital of France. The erection of his Eiffel Tower came about after meeting Helen, who went on to become his fond Louvre. He was known to be in-Seine, especially when passing comments in striptease sessions.

Helen: Initially she did not mind living with her aging husband, Menepaus, consoling herself with the words, "Sadness -- it' Sparta life". But when she went sight-seeing Paris, she got tempted and a-troy-ciously ran away. She was soon found missing, and her spouse and suitors broke into a barrage of expletives: Greece entered a phase that launched a thousand 'Shit!'s.

Idi-pus: Dictator of Greece-annexed-Uganda and a sore to the kingdom. He later on had a complex relationship with an Austrian shrink. A silent killer, Idi-pus was, who finally broke his silence when someone told him he was keeping mum.

Heckor: The etymology of his name is rather straightforward.
(1) 'Heck!' -- upon completing a fighting match with Ajax that lasted the entire day but ended in a draw.
(1) 'Brother, I've smuggled Helen. She's on the boat.'
'HECK!'
(3) 'Brother, Achilles is outside the fort. He wants to duel with you.'
'HECK!'

Homer: Star of a TV show that has travelled a long odyssey of 20 seasons and 434 epic's-odes till date; the Oxford Dictionary has officially recognized a phrase from among his popular memorabilia: 'D'oh!'

Trojan Horse: A p(h)ony that made an ass out of everyone at Troy.

Penelope: A rough anagram of 'No, people!', which is what she repeated to her wooers during the 20-year absence of her other half, Uselessis. She would literally spin a yarn everyday to keep them off her house; eventually they gave up, crying in the streets, 'I went as a suitor and met a tailor!'

Uselessis: Leader of a boring single-mate life who ended up in the title of a half-understood 20th century novel. To his credit, unlike one of his fellow mythological heros, when he was re-united with his wife he spared her of fidelity litmus tests such as walking in fire.

A Polo: His standard pick-up line: 'I'm a mint with a hole -- and so are you, baby!' With that did he net a harem of a diversity of such breadth matched only by Zeus'.

S.U.E.Z: A canal letting in several ships.
Z.E.U.S: Evidently, the reverse of S.U.E.Z -- a ship penetrating several canals.

Achilles: He grew up into one with an abnormal killer instinct, since, as a boy, his mother used to beat him up thoroughly with heavy styx. Pitt-ed against a vast Trojan army, he sliced his way through them with ease, until he received a wire from mom that read 'CAREFUL WHERABOUTS, HE'LL KILL YOU HE'LL KILL YOU' and got stranded in confusion. Which was unfortunate, because the Morse-typist got her spelling wrong when Achille's mother dictated the telegram: 'CAREFUL, WEAR YOUR BOOTS, HEEL KILL YOU, HEEL KILL YOU.'

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Let's sign off with some characters from (and, in C's case, to) Rome.

Mark Antony: Famous for his rhetoric speech that goes 'Friends, Heroes and Desperate Housewives...'. He faithfully dogs Caesar and goes wherever Caesar goes, wherever (see next entry). Two millennia later, he takes rebirth in Chennai and commands an auto-driver 'Take me to Rome', who dutifully roams all over the city, and gets his brother to shoot him when he doesn't pay up.

Cleopatra: First, Caesar marks her, then, Mark sees her. She dies when too many wars and the deaths of her lovers give her a huge headache for which she takes an overdose of asp-irin.

Neuro: A crazy emperor diagnosed with the rare disease matricidic extravagancosis. He took great care about his figure -- it is widely reported that when he saw Rome was burning (calories), he wanted to (be fit as a) fiddle.

Julius Caesar: A fictional character co-created by Shakespeare and Plutarch.
When being stabbed by his conspirators, he spots a bystander with a handicam. In order to get his assassination captured on video as criminal evidence and in the hope that it will be viewed all over the Internet, he diverts the cameraman's attention with these famous last words: 'YouTube, route us!'

Conundra

Saturday morning. There was a knock on the door. It was a sophomore hostelmate.

'Fete is coming up.'
'Yes.'
'Chocolate?' he handed me a bar.
'Thank you.'
'Can you set us riddles?'
'On?'
'Some colours. And the ten digits.'
'What kind of riddles?'
'A hunter chases a bear and runs south whichever direction the bear goes, what colour is the bear? That kind of riddle.'
'Oh ah, h'm.'
'Basically we have different coloured wires to defuse a bomb and your riddles will give the right combination. And we have a number lock which can be opened only after cracking your clues.'
'Oh. When is the event?'
'Tomorrow evening.'
'H'm... Well, thanks for picking me to do it, but I'm afraid -- '
'The chocolate you just munched?'
'Yes?'
'The poison we put in it will take effect at night. If you can get us the riddles by evening I'll give you the antidote.'
'What? You had better be kidding or I'm going to kill you!'
'Black, red, blue, green and yellow. Take care.'
With that, he popped off.

And thus did I, clutching on to dear life, spend that forenoon and evening framing the puzzles that follow with a time bomb ticking inside me.


The colours

Q1:
Why would this color put me off when it is
The shade of the tooth that doesn't pale --
Even when I never brush,
The complexion of the moon when we meet so less often,
The heart of blazing enlightenment
And the hue of a heartbroken baby?

Q2:
Glory to the color of the king and the free man! Of the rice we eat, of our ray of hope that sings the heart out, of our will that is our greatest charm. What more can we say of this magnificent color? Bravo!

Q3:
If you have to tell a girl from a boy,
Give them both a colour of variant shade.
'That's simply violet' would be the boy's call,
'It's halfway between mauve and lilac, angel',
Would she condescend. Males have way to go,
The outer edge of things must their eyes follow...

Q4:
Look at me. Look how I’ve lost all that I once was, how I’ve turned into this giant. I vividly remember the time I ate up my first child. O the pain! The anguish! The cries! Oh the abuses my second child, the hottest of them all, threw at me! How I had to eat him too... But I knew the toughest part was yet to come. I wished I were dead and gone vanished like my colleagues, when the time came to consume my third child, the most beautiful of my eight offspring. I stopped swelling after that. For I couldn’t bring myself to eat my fourth one – I was of his color, and I couldn’t bear the thought of swallowing a mini-me.

Q5:
What’s in a colour? Why do we assign a degree, not to mention a quality, of emotion to each colour? Colours are meagre entities of the electromagnetic spectrum. You may disagree, nonetheless it is the truth. We humans have always resorted to disgusting re-engagements of objective facts to fit our frightfully restricted view of Nature. Sometimes answers to its mysteries lie hidden right in front of us, not once, but twice, thrice, even four times, yet we as narrow-minded homo sapiens have to miss it!

A1:
Blue
Explanation:
Bluetooth, blue moon (‘once in a blue moon’), heart of blazing enlightenment = centre of a flame = blue colour, heartbroken baby = baby with heart defect = blue baby.

A2:
Black.
Explanation:
Names appearing in the passage: (Martin Luther) King, (Morgan) Freeman, (Condoleezza) Rice, Ray (Charles) – ‘that sings the heart out’, Will (Smith) -- 'our greatest charm', (Dwayne) Bravo.

A3:
Yellow.
Explanation:
An acrostic. The last line hints at what must be done to get the answer. 'The outer edge of things must their eyes follow' -- follow the rightmost edge of the verse -- the letters Y, E, L, L, O, W are one below the other.

A4:
Red.
Explanation:
The entire passage describes what is going to happen after the sun turns into a red giant. The first three planets are gonna be consumed, but not Mars, the Red Planet.

A5:
Green.
Explanation:
The word ‘green’ is hidden in the passage four times, as hinted in its last line. (1) …degree, not… (2) …meagre entities… (3) …disagree, nonetheless… (4) … disgusting re-engagements…


The digits

Q: Answer me, my Lord, what be my identity? What be my strength? What be the merit of an ace?
A: 1
Explanation:
1 is the most common identity element. Unity is strength. Unity = 1. The value of an ace in a deck of cards is 1.

Q:
Just give me a second, I’ll get back to you with a clue for this.
A: 2
Explanation:
Here 'second' refers to the ordinal number of 2.

Q:
The color orange is a great temptation, yes, but be the one to resist it!
A: 3
Explanation:
Orange = number 3 in the colour code of a resistor.

Q:
Off with the third and you are against against it,
Off with the second and you are a protector from the elements,
Off with the first and you are a part of us.
A: 4
Explanation:
Remove the third letter from FOUR, you get FOR = against against; remove the second letter, you get FUR; remove the first letter, you get OUR.

Q:
‘This valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van-guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition.’
A: 5
Explanation:
The key to the answer is the letter V, roman numeral for 5. (Quote: V for Vendetta.)

Q:
Nobody is perfect. And just because I call her a nobody doesn’t mean I’m an MCP*. Who is she?
A: 6
Explanation:
6 is a perfect number.

Q:
Never mind the frigging slots, just tell me how many notes you have.
A: 7
Explanation:
Seven notes of music. (Either {do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti} or {sa, ri, ga, ma, pa, da, ni})

Q:
You need to reduce weight. I know you can’t reduce height too, but this time you got to!
A: 8
Explanation:
Reducing the words ‘weight’ and ‘height’ gives ‘eight’.

Q:
The number of times you are allowed to write CAT, perhaps?
A: 9
Explanation:
A cat has nine lives.

Q:
It is impossible.
The decibel level of the vessel is highest when the vessel contains it.
And as regards the dark matter of the universe, you know it!
A: 0.
Explanation†:
Nothing is impossible.
The decibel level of the vessel is highest when the vessel contains nothing. (Empty vessels make the most noise)
And as regards the dark matter of the universe, you know nothing!

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* This is a slight variation of a quote from the series House MD.
† A mutant of a puzzle that would have landed in your mailbox as a forward.

Womannerisms

March 08, IWD. I zoom my Google Earth to Memory Lane to see how many women had influenced me enough to leave their mark on my current way of life, and find that the number is shockingly few. Nevertheless, each of those factors packs so much power that they collectively outweigh all other external parameters that have shaped the content of your faithful blogger's character.

The parent.
Solely responsible for making conscience an axiom. Today I may know that stuff like morality and scruples are a bag of humbug, but by sheer force of habit I cannot help adhering to them, for my mother had programmed me in that manner. She also steals the credit for my repulsion to the cigarette and the "quarter"-bottle. 'Whatever happens,' she told me when I was still a wee little pre-teen, 'whatever happens, and wherever you go, never must you, my precious, touch alcohol. And never ever go in the direction of tobacco.' Even when I was vaguely nodding, she added: 'No girl will want to marry a fellow who drinks or smokes'.
That sealed it. On the other side of 13 I came in touch with girls who took a liking to certain lads for precisely those habits, but my mama's words got hardwired in me and hence my lungs have acquainted only oxygen and I remain a total tea-drinker -- a tea-totaller, if you please -- till date.

The pal.
Never have I had another friendship of a fierceness even close to the one I had with Nita, particularly during the last four months of Eighth Class. It had all the choicest elements -- high wit, letters, hours-long phone calls, common authorial ardency, mutual academic tutelage and competition, and copious amounts of unconcealed affection, replete with my breaking her nose and she explaining off the blood to her folks with a 'I ran into a door'. This phase overturned me in every way -- mainly, from an aimless lingerer to one who plotted his life story and from a city bumpkin to (somewhat of) a refined man and a reasonably intelligent thinker.

The infatuator.
Despite little sign of reciprocation, I maintained fidelity in my crush over Ms. Aruna and resisted falling in love with other girls, for seven years. In my Sixth Class I made a decision that pinned her memory to me for life: I adopted her handwriting. I dropped my non-cursive style and modelled every letter of the alphabet in my font on hers. So much that today our handwritings are indistinguishable. Her name, to me, is synonymous with zest for life and unconditional love -- she partly infected me with the former, but the latter is something I am yet to sit at the giving end of.

The axe-murderess.
Though I don't believe in birthdays, every year I buy myself a toffee on September 15, the date in which the stork dropped Dame Agatha Christie on earth. She was the first to inspire me to uncap a pen and scribble a word or two of my own. That is why I began by writing crime fiction, bundles of it, before gently steering off toward SF. Without her I would never have succumbed to the pleasure of dangling a translucent curtain between the reader and the author's mind, and removing it with a flourish at the final moment. She taught me the why of writing; the how came later, from a shy man named Plum.

The ex.
Breaking up did a larger world of good to me than I had imagined. For one thing, as a mechanism of self-defence in the wake of separation, my sense of humour skyrocketed. I went on to inaugurate the blog you are reading. More importantly -- and strangely -- I found myself absorbing her qualities: a certain apathy for the world, a new plane of rationality, objectivity. It lent me that eel that eludes most humans -- clarity of mind, and thus fewer worries and lesser distance from the goal in the pursuit of happiness.


Personally, I believe March 08 and November 19 are pure bunkum. One of my father's buzzlines is, 'Women are neither inferior to men nor superior to men. They are not equal to men either. They are... special.' I demand to differ. As I had asserted in the post about my dream girl, when summing up someone I find it a lot easier to cast aside gender. Save for sexual orientation, I put M on the same footing as F and vice-versa.

Except when it comes to cricket.

The End of Khirma

Imaginative Answer Received (IAR) vs Expected Answer (EA) in events NDK and I conducted:

Rule: Replace one letter in each word to get a proverb.
Q: Emery Don, he's hit Dad!
EA: Every dog has his day.
IAR: Every son has his dad.

Rule: The two meanings in the clue refer to one word.
Q: Make light for failure to go straight. (3 letters)
EA: Arc.
IAR: Gay.

Rule: The pairs enclosed in () are related in a particular way. How?
Q: (astride, brushed), (selected, rejected), (amounts, contour), (lips, kiss)
EA: T9 pairs.
IAR: The number of letters in either word of a pair is the same.

Rule: The word must contain the letters L, M, N in reverse order.
Q: Generator that uses natural resource.
EA: Windmill.
IAR: Animals.

Rule: Synonym.
Q: Love without marriage.
EA: Adultery.
IAR: Committed.

Rule: Standard crossword clue.
Q: Fantastic figure totally the same however you look at it (5, 6)
EA: Magic square.
IAR: Lotus Temple.

Rule: Get two words the clue refers to. Replacing a repeated letter in one word gives the other word.
Q: Flies interchanged position before getting killed.
EA: Swapped, swatted.
IAR: Zippers, rippers.

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Tragic relief

Meanwhile in a bachelors' flat somewhere in Pakiland...

Basak: Hundred. One double-O. Can you believe it? One..hund..red.

Rumafrash (looking up from a monthly): What on earth?

Basak: It's been a hundred days since our brethren left us on the mission to transfer Hindustanis and Cross-revering Occidents from the Taj to their respective Hells.

Amosa (from the kitchen): Yes, it's been. So?

Basak: So we've done nothing in the interim. I'm getting bored!

Amosa: Why don't you turn on the TV?

Rumafrash: What's on?

Amosa: Cricket match. Motherland versus Some Infidel.

Rumafrash: Sri Lanka, I believe. Today's sports page had a file photo of their captain in an indigo T-shirt. That's Lanka's colour, right?

Basak (switching the box on): Test or ODI?

When the telly flickers up, a T20 India-NZ match comes live.
Basak: Blooming bayonets! Indigo is no longer for Sri Lanka, but for India! Even as we speak their sinful feet are trodding our chaste land.

Rumafrash: Whoa. Let's watch all the overs.

Basak: What the fatwa! Son of a gun, don't you understand what this means? Our parliament has extended its kiss-up courtesy so wide as to let badsmen and wicked keepers and foulers from across the border to come piss on our sacred soil. Switch off the TV, it's time to trigger a few consequences.

Rumafrash: Wait a second, what are those chaps in black caps doing on the field?

Basak (turning the box off): Lock your muzzle, will you? Where's the next match?

Amosa (coming in with a sack of grenades): Lahore. We should be there by night. We got to lie in wait in the a.m. and get them on their way to the ground. Where did I keep my magazines?

Rumafrash (handing over the periodical in his hand): Here, take mine.

Both men give him a long look. Amosa proceeds to pick up a bunch of cartridges from a table drawer.

Rumafrash: Shall I get one of those rocket launchers Sam Chacha* gifted us last year?

Basak: Pack all the toys you can. Amosa, alert our other stations. We may need backup.

Amosa: One of us has to stay behind and look after him.

Amosa points to a middle-aged Danish journalist tied to a pillar with his dead daughter's teddy bear stuffed in his mouth.

Rumafrash: O come on, we don't have to.

Amosa doesn't heed R; he takes a barrel-cleaning rod, places it on a table and gives it a calculated spin. It points at Rumafrash.

Rumafrash: Aw. Let's do it again.

Basak: You're begging to get your butt kicked, I tell you. Take it like a man and bite the bullet.

Amosa: All right, let's go pumping. God is great.

'The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people.'
- G K Chesterton

* Uncle Sam
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A few rounds I set for LitSoc What's The Good Word:

Haunted Typewriter
A mischievous devil has taken shelter in our typewriter, and every time we typed a proverb, he perpetrated a special and irritating variety of typo. He substituted one letter in each word of the proverb with some other. What's more, he took every kind of liberty with punctuation too. For instance, when we tried to key in 'Finders keepers', he interfered and it resulted in 'Fingers -- beepers!'. Could you get us the right proverbs from the following?

(1) Brood it, thinker, then waver
(2) Tie earls, bind matches: toe worn
(3) I'll chat, glistens as now good
(4) I switch on tile, sage's nice
(5) Wet sweeping does lip
(6) Caste maces paste
(7) Emery Don, he's hit Dad!
(8) Belter same, thin worry.
(9) Do 'ear us, He-man! So forgave in divide.
(10) Done site, thy hard teat feels 'IOU'

From the Finals:
(i) Dent out ale, sour ego’s an ole’ basset
(ii) Wetter lane, Thai fever
(iii) Lake bather Mike: ‘S.O.S.!’
(iv) Lever budge… I boot my ID’s coder
(v) I, tolling, atone Father’s, do mops
(vi) Male gay? Whine. She sin swines.
(vii) Stall eaters rue deer
(viii) It is aunt, bloke, font fit in


Writer's Block
Sometimes a name can be divided into two blocks. Like church + ill. Or arm + strong. The names of ten writers (including poets) have been split into two such blocks each, with each block a valid word. Use the direct clues below to get the 20 blocks. Join the right pairs and get the 10 writers' surnames.

Six letter block
* Member of learned society

Five letter blocks
* Having a specified value
* Long raised strip
* Sentence components

Four letter blocks
* Desire
* Shaft dug in earth
* A kind of cabbage
* Fence
* Food fish in Greenland
* Turn
* Haste
* Flood-averting barrier

Three letter blocks
* Conveyance
* Tier
* Curve
* Perish
* Of a female

Two letter block
* Awake
* Gate


Curtailment
Delete the last letter of some words and you still get a valid word. Eg: ASPIRING and ASPIRIN. Fill in the blanks with such pairs. Eg.: Batman resented it when ______ peeked into the dressing room while he was ______ (6 minus 1): ROBIN, ROBING.

1. The musician was heard playing his ______ in his ______ throughout his life sentence. (5 minus 1)

2. In the ______ of ontology, nothing is ______ (5 minus 1)

3. ______ people needn't necessarily be _______; all villagers aren't blunt and unrefined either. (6 minus 1)

4. The _____ chose from among the _______ on the basis of man-eating capacity. (6 minus 1)

5. When the enemy's massive _______ came into sight, we decided to _______ from the shore. (5 minus 1)


NDK's atrociously punny question:

Fill in the blank with a three-word phrase.

Tanay: If it’s an oral test, I’m going to flunk tomorrow!
Tanvi: Don’t worry, you’ll ace it. _______________.

[The format of Haunted Typewriter is not mine -- I had seen such a puzzle in an old issue of Reader's Digest. The q's are, as must befit a LitSoc event, original.]

Answers, some

Writer's Block
The blocks: Fellow, worth, ridge, words, long, well, cole, wall, ling, roll, rush, dike, car, row, arc, die, her, ace, up, or.
The writers: Longfellow, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Orwell, Wallace, Rowling, Rushdie, Updike, Carroll, Archer.

Curtailment
1. cello, cell.
2. realm, real.
3. Urban, urbane.
4. ogress, ogres.
5. fleet, flee.

Nikhil's atrociously punny answer:

It is written.

(Tanay and Tanvi are the tween actors who played Jamal and Latika.)


Focus pulled this out out of nowhere during the last round of LitSoc Crossie Finale:

Marlin in Blunderland

Poornima and I were silently chit-chatting by writing on blank pages during a CY102 slot. Discussing Calvin & Hobbes easily beat listening to Dr Murthy's drone.
'What are you doing there?,' came his voice suddenly. 'I've been watching you both for a long time, you are not listening here.'
We looked behind us to see whom he was addressing.
'The girl in the pink dress.'
The world stopped rotating. There was only one girl in the region of his sight.
'What are you doing there?'
'Nothing, sir,' we protested. 'Nothing.'
'You gnaw (his way of saying 'You know'), something was going on over there between you two, I just don't know what.'
The classroom chuckled.
'We were only taking notes, sir,' one of us said.
My heart was racing at two beats per second. Poornima and the prof now had a wild staring contest going between them. She's gonna cry, I told myself, Gosh, she's gonna cry.
But she didn't. At that moment, she told me later, she was more angry than anything else. He had us sit apart that day, but the next class onwards we intentionally shared a bench on the first row and fastened an intent gaze on him through the hour.

It was not the first time I found myself in such a situation (though, thankfully, the last). At least two of my school teachers were morality cops and I ended up gaining first-hand knowledge of their methods. And how! Allow me to relate.

Teachers vied with students in misconstruing the rather high-profile friendship I shared with Nita. When one fine X Class Biology hour she was distributing some notebooks, I was following her movements, waiting for her to make eye contact so that I could ask her if they were 'test notes' or 'classworks'. I was utterly unaware that during the entire two minutes I was doing this, the teacher had been watching me closely.

'Nirmal,' she said out loud, 'staring at Nita won't help.'

The class was stunned. Nita turned into a statue. And I... well, I don't remember what flashed in my head, mainly because nothing did -- it had gone blank. Her incredible statement astounded me so much that I couldn't string the words for my defence, I merely nodded like an ox to her command to meet her after class. And that is when she painfully preached that young boys like me were the Devil's favourite targets and that I must confine my vision to the path ahead and not be diverted by wayside attractions. I am not paraphrasing here.

This, though, was nothing in the face of what my Chemistry teacher did a year prior to it. This woman, a Brahmin-to-Christian convert, was the very limit -- she openly bullshat Astronomy lessons and promoted Genesis, banned the class from having ice-cream after school hours, instructed me and Nita not to read Agatha Christie and slapped grown-up lads on corridors in full public view. Well, the last point may overstate the case, but I've seen her do that to one chap.

All right, what the hell, it was me. For grinning at Nita across a few benches. When the teacher, while dicating notes, spelt 'dating'. And repeated 'dating'. In the context of radioactive dating. Because it was a funny word, dating. A new concept to us 13-year olds. Archie comics. Nita and I were avid fans. And had found its dating games hilarious. And had yakked about it for long hours. I had to grin.

'Donkey!' she burst out, and the inevitable 'Meet me after the class' followed.
Between the slaps, I actually explained to her in serious tones why the word 'dating' tickled me, but she wouldn't listen.

But there were times when teachorial reproaches of my entanglement with the so-called gentler sex were a bit justified. For instance, during a nap hour in my Upper Kindergarten, a certain Janani put her head on the table with her face towards me. My mother had told me that when two individuals slept side-by-side, they oughtn't face each other as one may breathe in the other's exhalation. But Janani wasn't receptive to reason. She insisted on keeping her head that way despite my pleas and threats. I couldn't face the other side either, since thither was a fellow fast asleep with his nose in my direction.
So I gave her a tight slap.
I was expecting her to fight back tooth and nail and was ready to even break her neck if that were the only means to swivel her head the other way. But her reaction completely disarmed me. She cried. Thereby attracting the teacher's attention. And at the end of the diatribe I was not sure whom to trust, my mother or my teacher.

For purposes of dignity, I will refrain from narrating my next misadventure on the timeline featuring a me-teacher-girl triangle. Suffice it to say it involves some innocent acts of posterior-pinching. No, you need not have to drag Freud into this.
Moving on to Fifth Class, a couple of pals and I made my first crush cry by blackmailing her that we'd spill to our math teacher the comments she made on his appearance. It led to the two great Class Wars of SBOA -- my faction was four strong and the rest sided with her. Sharpeners, erasers, pencil stubs, bamboo chips, paper balls and ink drops flew freely across the battlefield of benches. Learning about the wars, our maths sir gave the four of us a good scolding for 'harassing that girl', all the while my lips itching to notify him that he was at the centre of the whole affair. I was torn between the pleasure of putting her on the accused stand and the thought of a possible reciprocation of my calf love. That alone saved her.

I may have referred to my Ninth Class self as a grown-up lad, but I wasn't quite one. There was a young woman in my class, let's call her Miss G, who did the wise thing by not ratting a damaging deed of mine to the teacher. But the matter ended up in my mother's ears and I was given an evening-long sermon on conduct in female company. All I had done was kick Miss G for getting a Thirukkural wrong. And for her insistence that she was right. I had taken great care while planting the shoe on her knees, but I was intimated that my kick 'felt like an irumbuk kambi' (bar of iron) and I was 'like a paitthiyam pidiccha kazhudha' (donkey gone cuckoo).
She had come this Saarang and we arranged to meet. I was confident that Time had healed the boot wounds of the past and ill memories had ceased to rankle. But after this briefest of rendezvous, which I'm producing here in full, I'm not so sure.
'Hi'
'Hi, hi'
'You have taken off your moustache'
'You are not wearing your spectacles'
'Contact lenses'
'How did your college dance?'
'We won't win'
'Oh'
'It was nice talking to you, Nirmal'
'Eh? Oh OK. Yeah... nice.'

Chivalry never was my forte.

E-tète-à-tète

Symmetry

Chir: ATB for GATE
Nir: Thanks
C: Thanks
N: ATB for GATE
C: :)
N: (:
C: \m/
N: lol


Opinion

Flea: i mean, there was this fellow who said "a.r.rahman the mozart of india" won the golden globes and i said to myself...."crazy ***"
N: LOL!
F: mozart is mozart... tansen is tansen
if you do a hybrid you get a mule


Sarcasm

N: Meet at Guru at 10?
Fishy: why?
N: I want to discuss my latest ideas on whether proton accelerators can be applied for solving open problems in cubic anisotropy, in particular the Bardeen XY Sigma model†.


Typos

Saudi: it's stuck nowhere. its to damn hot to think.
N: Okay.. Dissertation = thesis, right?
S: too*
yeah.
we call it individuall supervised essay.
individually*
. . .
S: but i'm not too happy with the posts to notify my old readers.
At 3 of them.
all*
N: Three posts or three readers?
S: i can't believei made that typo!!
N: LOL!
S: Meant readers in a feable attempt at humour
N: And you appended the 'i' to 'believe'
S: feeble*
me: Typo Queen
S: i am going now I shold really get peg or two to regain balance.
N: Hehe
S: should* bleagh!!!
N: I'm laughing my eyeballs out here
:D :D
S: tata!! (glare glare)
N: 'bye
As you'd put it, 'tale car'
(Take care)
. . .
S: i can't typo
i mean type
N: You can't typo?
S: peroid
period


Beep

(This one is not from my computer, and I don't want to reveal the names of the duo. Risqué words have been replaced with a beep.)

X: and how long has it been since we chatted, at least pretended to while suppressing the homo impulse behind the conversation
Z: ah....umm....the length of my beep
X: tell me not that you shall refrain from requiting my love, my precious
for my heart and beep shall then break into a million pieces
Z: i will throw you down mordor's vent even if it means my gollum hits the bend
X: golly, i comprehend not what thou speaketh, nevertheless it thrilleth me so
. . .
X: my arrive is all over the floor
Z: oh, come my butterfly, come come my butterfly become a winged fairy... a queer princess and the twink in the twinkle


Epunyms

KVM: how goeth intern?
N: It nietzs some research, otherwise peaceful and nice
. . .
K: sorry I need to be rushing out already, but it's antibiotics time and amma is raising cain
N: No problemo
I'm sure you'll be Abel to handle it


Brevity

Nikhil: Ok then.. Good Night...
Nirmal: GN
SD
Nik: SYT
MPIBT
TTFTO
Nir: WYS
(Whatever You Say)
SYT - See You Then
MPIBT - Most Probably In Bio Tech
Nik: Bingo!
Nir: TTFTO - Till Then... FTO?
Nik: Try To Figure These Out
Nir: OMG
Nik: GYT


† I've no idea where I came up with that!

Adverbly Adjectivous Gerundings

I had the pleasure of hosting What's The Good Word this Saarang along with NDK. And I took particular delight in setting these questions for the preliminaries (Answers are at the end):


Paraphrase
Look at the statements and clauses below. A few idioms and quotes have been paraphrased. Get the exact wording.

(1) A noble with a healthy number of photons bouncing off his defensive gear.

(2) The appellation of a reproductive organ of a species of the flora, when replaced, hardly has an effect on the modality of olfaction.

(3) Swayed and rocked, perhaps, while negative to moving through the medium with an implement.

(4) The atmosphere and outer space holding a baked item of nourishment.

(5) It is hoped that the momentum rate finds domicile in your system.

(6) Make a scan of the location surrounded by circles of infinite radii.

(7) Effect progress and construct an interval of solar illumination for yours truly.

(8) Permit the beast to make a getaway from the receptacle.

(9) The most proximal sphere of extreme fusion goes to sea level in the realm of the European islanders at t = ∞

(10) The male of the mammal species achieves the culmination of its deceleration at the present co-ordinates in spacetime.


Hardcore WTGW
There's something common to the five phrases given below. One of (a), (b), (c), (d) shares this too. Which one? Justify.

(1) Squids overproduce liquors

(2) Blameable. Exculpate!

(3) Aminic phytotoxin

(4) Ancestor allays Soviets

(5) Juvenile lividity: larvicide

(a) Unintelligent design (b) Blacksmith brings cotton (c) Debonair confidence (d) Bridge golden city

[Hint: Use not the brain, but the heart]


Jumble
Unscramble each word and write the letters in the boxes. Use the underlined letters to make a phrase.

C E N O T H = |_| | |_| | |

R U F L A T = | |_| | |_| |

F R O G L E = | | |_| |_| |

O F T U S E = |_| | | |_| |

R O B B A S = | | | |_| |_|

B A L D A M = | | |_| | | |

Clue for the phrase:

In the kingdom of digits, the administration was simple and intuitive because it was a ____________


Eye rhymes
An eye rhyme is a similarity in spelling between words that are pronounced differently and hence, not an auditory rhyme. Standard pairs: Height and weight; slaughter and laughter; womb and bomb. Now guess these eye rhyme triplets from the context:

1. When Hayden _____, nobody was seen to _____, but the ball didn’t reach the boundary since it hit a _____. (5, 4, 4)

2. She finally ____ words to her feelings, saying she knew him inside ____ and wouldn’t marry a _____. (3, 3, 3)

3. When the rancher gifted me a ____, his kindness filled me with ____; I now ____ him so much. (3, 3, 3)

4. _____ stayed back, leaving him the _____ man in town. Soon, he was also ______. (4, 4,4)

And here's a quadruplet:

5. ‘Show me the _____,’ said the first guard. When I did, he took some and said ‘OK, You are _____’. When I was about to enter, another fellow appeared. ‘We need more,’ he said, with a polite _____. ‘The times are _____’. (5, 7, 5, 5)


Answers

Paraphrase
(1) A knight in shining armour
(2) A rose by any other name would smell as sweet
(3) Shaken, not stirred.
(4) Pie in the sky.
(5) May the Force be with you.
(6) Read between the lines.
(7) Go ahead, make my day.
(8) Let the cat out of the bag.
(9) The sun never sets on the British Empire.
(10) The buck stops here.

Hardcore WTGW
Look at the core/heart of each word (ie., the central letters) in every phrase. Doing so would yield
(1) Quid pro quo
(2) Mea culpa
(3) In toto
(4) Cest la vie
(5) Veni vidi vici
The answer is hence (c), for the cores of the words in 'Debonair confidence' give 'bona fide'.

Jumble
TECHNO
ARTFUL
GOLFER
FOETUS
ABSORB
LAMBDA
The phrase:
In the kingdom of digits, the administration was simple and intuitive because it was a rule of thumb [here digits = fingers]

Eye rhymes
(1) drove, move, dove
(2) put, out, nut
(3) ewe, awe, owe
(4) None/One, lone, gone
(5) dough, through, cough, tough/rough.

To the Very Good Wife of that Great Briton, B B Roy

Below are two case studies.

The first one is about a citizen of a military-ruled nation called Genghistan. He is a coup-designer, someone you could hire for a contract to mastermind a coup.

[Note: The word 'junta' is not to be taken in the sense of the IIT lingo.]

(1) Mahroof spurned democratic ideas for he knew that his fellow men would always elect wrong ones. He also deemed it his duty to rid the despots. "To my people peace shall I return," vowed he, and made coup-design his very vocation. He orchestrated elegant and swift takeovers, often with just one machine gun and two automatics. He was easily on top of logical problems involved in the matter of putsches. He'd first make amphibious* trips (*via road and river) to the Army HQ for a recce or two. And then he would incline bottles of petrol against, and blast, the compound walls, and even before the alarm bells had rung their last note, the junta would flee in dilemma, rendering the anarch hirers of Mahroof the new leaders and himself their follower. It'd be a year before he'd come down upon the new regime and its aftermath, modelling a perfect coup in his mind to the very last straw.

And the second one is about a nerdy student from IIT Madras:

(2) Her perennial dream of discovering something new pinned Cinderella hours on end to electron guns, spectrometers, bubble chambers, radioscopes, even tea pots! Encounters of failure at every turn ultimately led to the revocation of her funds, and that is when her universe and portfolio changed to Mathematics. She was always seen working on topological problems, involved in the Math. Her specialization in Mobius strips later turned out to be the primary key to her research in Klein bottles. And hence, while her peers became Vols for free grub's sake and binged at Saarang, jotting down ideas alone occupied Cindy -- lemma, theorem, corollary, converse and proof furiously scribbled and scored off all over the back sides of every food coupon she had earned for a Math Modelling Co-ordinatorship the previous Shaastra!

{Thanks to AJ for suggesting spectrometers.}

Now then, the Saarang Online Creative Writing Contest, having given 'Klein Bottles, Guns, Food Coupons' as a topic, demands this: 'Connect these three not-so-obvious ideas/themes into one single piece'. So let us rewrite the two passages above without changing a word, except that we will intersperse one into another, and maintain a colour code to keep track of either person. Also, let's make it a poem. Although we are not going to read it one line after another (in other words, the brown lines and the pink lines are independent of each other and are not be read sequentially), let us pretend it is verse for structure's sake. And voila! What do we see? Their life stories sound the same! Since Mahroof resists his government and Cindy resists peer pressure, we shall name our twin ode a

Diode to a Couple of Resistors... In Parallel

Mahroof spurned democratic ideas fo' he knew
Her perennial dream of discovering something new
That his fello' men would always elect wrong 'uns
Pinned Cinderella hours on end to electron guns,
He also deemed it his duty to rid the despots:
Spectrometers, bubble chambers, radioscopes, even tea pots!
"To my people peace shall I return,"
Encounters of failure at every turn
Vowed he, and made coup-design his very vocation.
Ultimately led to the revocation
He orchestrated elegant and swift takeovers,
Of her funds, and that is when her universe
Often with just one machine gun and two automatics.
And portfolio changed to Mathematics.
He was easily on top o' logical
She was always seen working on topological
Problems involved in the matter
Problems, involved in the Math. Her
O' putsches. He'd first make amphibious* trips
Specialization in Mobius strips
(*via road and river) to the Army HQ fo' a recce
Later turned out to be the primary key
Or two. And then he would incline bottles
To her research in Klein bottles.
O' petrol against, and blast, the compound walls,
And hence, while her peers became Vols
And even before the alarm bells had rung
For free grub's sake and binged at Saarang,
Their last note, the junta would flee in dilemma,
Jotting down ideas alone occupied Cindy -- lemma,
Rendering the anarch hirers of Mahroof
Theorem, corollary, converse and proof
The new leaders and himself their follower.
Furiously scribbled and scored off all over
It'd be a year before he'd come down upon
The back sides of every food coupon
The current regime and its aftermath, modelling
She had earned for a Math Modelling
A perfect coup in his mind to the very last straw.
Co-ordinatorship the previous Shaastra!

'December Ain't a Cruise,' said Tom Narcissistically

And so, after a gruelling fortnight of checking signal stabilities, outputting C fragments, spotting unpainted surfaces on broken cubes, pointing out the liar among Amit, Balu and Chandru, measuring angles between clock hands, witnessing pairs of trains meet and counting the ones who played hockey AND football but NOT cricket, they bundled me off with an offer to work for the last place I wanted, a bank. Relief was the chief emotion as I packed my bags. For with every passing day I was feeling more and more like the nubile maiden who gets rejected by prospective groom after prospective groom visiting the house for 'girl-looking'. My interview was a smooth speed-dating session except for two moments of alarm -- one, when the two-membered panel asked me if I would like to have a cup of tea and I froze in indecision, and two, when I stretched my legs under the table and touched one of theirs. Even now I haven't the foggiest idea why both of them looked down.

Time at home was a ten day-long siesta ending in a school chums' reunion at Satyam in the course of which I was handed three back-to-back embarrassments. It is a habit of mine to pretend to open elevator doors using my bare strength (picture feet spread, face contorted, etc). I did the same at Satyam from outside the lift, only that at the exact moment I put my hands in the middle of the metal doors and simulated pulling them apart, the lift opened. Eight people inside stared at me in blank astonishment, the words 'Are you OK, son?' written all over their eyebrows. I turned and laughed with my pals, and walked toward the lift with my back to it, only to bump into the doors which had closed by then. And when I finally managed to enter, I asked a man, 'Is it going up?' His reply: 'This is the top floor'.

I began Semester Eight on the wrong foot, contracting as I did a conflicting combination of ailments -- fever and dysentery. [And why should the two be conflicting? 1) When the fever was on the rise and I had coffee to counter it, my stomach was raked and the diarrhoea peaked. 2) I couldn't suppress the latter with juices or lassi or curd rice thanks to the fever. 3) Since I frequented the loo round the clock, I was in constant touch with tap water, which didn't help my temperature.] It was an expected outcome of my deed the night before re-opening day, namely, ordering everything that perfect strangers munched in front of my eyes at a restaurant and packing my tum to twice its capacity. Hence my twin resolution for 2009: (i) Drive away when the tank gets full. (ii) Chew each bite 32 times before swallowing. (ii) leads to (i).

Some Tom Swifties [Examples from Net: “I’ve been waiting to see the doctor,” said Tom patiently; “Damn it, look at the camera!” Tom snapped; “I’m going window shopping,” said Tom listlessly; “Absolutely, totally, completely,” Tom uttered; "Who discovered radium?" asked Marie curiously] that I came up with today:

~ 'There's a li'l bulb in my pacemaker, you know,' Tom said lightheartedly.

~ 'WHAT. COMES. BET. WEEN. KAY. AND. EM?' Tom yelled.

~ 'I'll fix a quick coffee for you,' Tom replied instantly.

~ 'I was brought up like a guy,' she told Tom boyishly. (tomboyishly)

~ 'I'm tired of travelling back and forth,' Tom replied. [courtesy: Sriram, EP]

~ 'Our bid was rejected,' they said tenderly.

~ 'This time the taxes are gonna be heavy,' we were told.

~ 'I'll do the grading myself,' said an irate Tom.

~ 'I shall now announce every word thrice,' Tom tom-tommed.

~ 'Let's put them into bat now and bowl them out,' Tom declared.

~ 'I ought to make a new friend,' said Tom formally.

~ 'You mean, Harper Lee can't kill a bird?' said Tom mockingly.

~ 'I had taken pi as 3.14,' Tom rationalised. 'That is how I got a round total,' he added.

~ 'It's that time of the month,' she whispered.

The Devil's Glossary

[With due apologies to Mr Bierce.]

BTP
Stands for Bonded To Professor. The first step towards forgetting your Nobel dream.

DC++
As the name suggests, a programming language. You may sometimes skip compiling: everything is already compiled.

DKC
The ocean where many a freshman starts his voyage of ruin. Hence the name. (A clever homophone of Decay Sea.)

Faculty
A rock band that conducts five-day long concerts every week. Usually their lyrics are unintelligible; if you don't want to make meaning out of it, you may face the music.

Girl
A sparse but particularly deadly species of wolf in the campus. To protect the male population from its danger, access to its lair has been restricted. As further measures of safety, a separate feeding area has been built for them, and the academic zone and Central Library are placed nearest to them so that they don't trample across male territory. Despite these, thanks to statistical laws and peer pressure, by the end of the final year nearly every girl manages to pair up with an unsuspecting lad who had failed to see through the sheep-skin.

Grades
A special alphabet used to write your biography.

Himalaya
The largest tea-shop in the country. It also sells leather, vulcanized rubber, manure and various adhesives. Patrons are frequently seen putting these into their mouth, not unlike the deer that have learnt to swallow polythene.

Hostels
Gas stations that finally supply gas and not petrol. In order to use them to inflate your tyres, you need to enrol for work at one of them, where accommodation will be provided just behind the station. Your job will include generating the gas chiefly through, as the lingo goes, putting fart. Workers with extra gas, usually in their heads, tend to spend more time for their hostel than for themselves.

Internet
Obi-Wan Kenobi put it best --
'It's an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.'
Locally, the field is generated by the sun and the field lines curve in space before reaching and partly enveloping Earth. Hence at any given time, one-sixths of the planet's surface is not under its influence. This explains its absence in these regions from 0100 to 0500 hrs.

Internship
A commonly misspelt word for internment. The sentence can last upto twelve weeks, which can be reduced to six on grounds of good behaviour.

Open Air Theatre (OAT)
A flying saucer that crash-landed in the campus decades ago. You can hear the hoots and whistles of the aliens trapped in it when you visit it on Saturday nights. During Saarang, the OAT is converted into a circus where the spectator is on the stage and the clowns are all around.

PJ
A term to be uttered in a contemptuous tone when someone cracks a clever joke you didn't think of.

Quark
An elementary particle that, for all its incomplete quality, has abnormal charges.

Sitcom
Stands for 'situational comedy'. Everyone involved tends to make a buffoon out of (him/her)self and tries to imitate the actions of the rest of the cast. Usually a sitcom is aired in eight seasons, each having several 50-minute episodes followed by a few three-hour ones. The filming takes place before and between the episodes. Also known as 'BTech'.

Treat
A superstitious ritual, passed on by ancestors to the present generation, followed with unquestioning blindness by an otherwise scientific community. It is carried out at the conclusion of feats ranging from putting up a new status message to winning a Fields Medal.

Vindya Mess
Outlet of the drainpipe from Tifanys.

Workshop
A shopping mall constructed over a large area so that everyone can fit.

When Gentlemen Gossip

I wrote, 'We must shake hands on that, for umpteen have been the times that my heart too has grieved over the apathy of my coterie. In fact, the name of my mailing list is 'Busybuddies' (sounding somewhat like busybodies).
But let us not exhaust our sorrow there: non-replying to forwards must be having an explanation. What really amazes me is the disuse of the Reply button for personal mails! Are they trying to make a statement ('I'm a busy man. I don't have time to reply to mails.')? Am I just out of touch in a world where lack of replies is acceptable and commonplace? No, it beats me. And to top it all, a month or two hence would land on my Facebook wall or GTalk IM window a perfunctory 'Hey, what's up?' from the party in question.'
He replied, 'You're touching, no, hammering a raw nerve there! Although I don't think it is less of a crime to not reply to forwards (you actually thought of them when you came across something, there *must* be some value to that), let's proceed to this dreary personal mail business.
I completely agree! Reams upon reams of personal mails share a fate that would make those dreaded silent chambers in the Russian gulags seem kind and benign flower-gardens. Nobody is busy enough to not write at least a one-liner or a thank-you note. What vexes me the most is, any attempts at humour not bordering on textbook jokes will seem pitifully puerile every passing day without a reply. "Uh, wait, I thought (s)he was going to reply.. it's been a week now, maybe I shouldn't have put in that pun." "Ouch, maybe this should have been more formal?" and finally "Wait, did I do something wrong?". And there's something rankly insincere about these 'wassups'. It is almost as if a social to-do is being ticked off a list.
It is also sobering to note that this is perhaps not a phenomenon restricted to the overly busy days that we purport ourselves to be in. Old chappie Russel once lamented, "A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation."
The most hurtful part of this entire business is that most of the time, the party simply doesn't care. That little spike of happiness on reading a witty line or an 'Ah, that's clever' moment isn't there; consequently, this makes the universe a more disgusting place than what we'd have previously thought.
The funny part is that most people are fairly regular when corresponding with strangers, but with closer acquaintances, a pattern seems to naturally emerge irrespective of factors like intelligence, writing/typing ability, social standing, etc. Some people seem to be born with the idea that mails must be responded to, and not doing so is extremely rude. This breed is likely not to insert 'With Best Regards' as part of its signature, and will instead prefer to type it out. The other breed seem to think of emails as being of equal importance as (on good days) an ad on the radio. Heaven help him who hath a mate from an unlike breed.
One also wonders how one can continue living Life with equanimity when forced (by the vagaries of Fate or more cruelly, Cupid) to correspond with this breed. I find it impossible to brush away repeated non-response as 'only human' or look kindly at it. I'm not also able to figure how to politely inform people I'm infuriated by this. I have taken to Meditation and (more recently) Binaural Beats to not change the original plan of Mother Nature having the pleasure to pull my hairs out. I ask you in desperation, JUST HOW DO YOU COPE?'

Anagram Season

Let's sort out -- literally -- a few things that transpired in the Lok Sabha yesterday:

Only a numerical win
A win mainly on lucre?

Mister Singh and his UPA win the Parliament members' trust vote
Power, that taunter, vests in Prime Minister's able hands. Mug him!
----------------------------------
What were these people thinking?

Mrs Sonia Gandhi
Singh is a rod man...
Hindi sags Roman...

Speaker Shri Somnath Chatterjee
Senators harp, jest the meek Chair...
----------------------------------
Some tips on how to use these items:

Patisserie
Eat, sip, rise

Outerwears
We tear ours

Ligneous
Log in use
----------------------------------
Was Mark Antony good or evil? That is, was he an
angelic man
or was his heart fraught with
malignance?
Hard to say. Small wonder such contradictory words are known as antonyms.
----------------------------------
And finally, some Asterix 101:

Albert Uderzo and the late Mister Goscinny
Din trend! Bottomline: "These Gauls are crazy!"

Come Again?

Today I heard some squeaking noises from inside an old radio-set. I wouldn't have given it a second thought were it not for the fact that it was switched off. So I put my ear closer and listened. I reckoned it was a cockroach making a speech. If you can make any sense out of it, please mail me. This is what the roach blabbered:

'Hell outran sisters! Our dhobi jetties? Nigh, skull hector's bass -- us semi-terse. Ice opposed allay meter... Sad. A narrow head! Yes, miser! Kiddies place it. Love, see a meter! And goof e-bay's as snooker rent. Love, see love -- sea bays! I guess jackal lectern owes bet -- er, a boat -- is owned, is tricked! What did you say? You have Noah meter, bays circa Lecter? You guise our feel, demi-shunt ran sisters? Oops!'

If I were you, I'd read it aloud now!

{Update on 17/07/08 :

OK, I'd written this without recognizing that it was an in-joke. I thought we'd all learnt about BJT's in XII class... but didn't realize that they weren't called "BJT's" in our textbook. If you read the cockroach's speech aloud (at a goodish pace), you can hear yourself say this:

'Hello transistors! Are thou BJT's? Nice collectors, bases, emitters. I supposed all emitters had an arrow head! Yes, my circuit displays it! Lousy emitter! And goofy base has no current! Lousy, lousy base! I guess the collector knows better about his own district! What did you say? You have no emitter, base or collector? You guys are field emission transistors? Oops!'
}

Dasavatharam, A Film of Subtleties and Subtitles

Since every man worth his NaCl would have seen the flick by now, let me skip spoiler warnings and cut to my questionnaire.

Why

• does the narrator say 'My story started in an earthquake and ended in a butterfly'?
• is chaos theory branded a 'western concept'? Universal phenomena may be accidental, but certainly not occidental.
• do Avatar Singh and Govindarajan nod at each other knowingly in the lift?
• doesn't anyone mention that the chemical so sought-after is nothing but common salt until Govi notices the manhole-men rubbing it on their skins? When Balram asks a lab scientist for the compound's name, he gets the reply, 'NaCl. Sorry, sir, enakku therinja Tamil ivlodhaan. NaCl.' Why doesn't he add 'Adhu just veetla use panra uppu dhaan, sir'? Likewise, Bush's aide answers 'Sodium chloride, Mr President'. Why the jargon?
• K S Ravikumar? I'm sure things like the spearing of Fletcher by the pole of an Indian flag were his ideas. Had Kamal handled the cast and crew or roped in a younger director, he'd have kept the entire sequence of scenes tauter and would've prevented the brickbat of drag.

How on earth

• did Hassan let others write the dialogues in his earlier films when he can come up with incredible lines like 'I'm just saying it would be nice if God existed', 'Telugu people like you will come here and keep Tamil alive', " 'There are 200-odd people, sir' 'Then inquire the odd people first' ", " 'He's getting away' 'No, he's not' " and so forth?
• do two people have the heart to start a romance in the wake of a calamity that has claimed a thousand lives around them?
• did Kamal write a story that does not give him an opening to peck his co-star's lips? Was Gautami at the sets?
• didn't anyone at Ja.Ra.'s house hear the tidal wave till it was only a stone's throw away? The same question applies to Naidu in the chopper.
• can somebody pull off an astounding dance like that (Ho ho sanam) at 54?
• did a perfectionist like Kamal Hassan settle for a CG that shows video-game helicopters and giant Muslims walking an inch above earth?
• does he consciously avoid Kollywood clichés [in this movie blood flies out of a bullet-hole, a singer says 'Paattu en thozhil dhaan', every syllable uttered in English is not repeated in Tamil for the benefit of the audience and the heroine's navel is kept concealed -- even when she's wearing a saree] and yet land safe as a cat upon leaping from the middle of a building?
• didn't the iron chains around the stone sculpture lying in saline water for more than 800 years rust away to smithereens? (I'm not sure the bones would've made it either.)
  
• did they manage the co-incidence of having a bloke with the name 'Hariharan' sing Kallai mattum kandaal right after Kamal and Napoleon have a Hari vs Haran dispute?

Where does Rangarajan Nambi's story fit in apropos the butterfly effect?

--------------------------------

There is no uncertainty in the hearsay that claims each part played by Hassan is a deliberate analogy to an avatar of Perumal. Someone acting in X number of roles wouldn’t title the movie ‘X roles’. Hence by labelling his work as ‘Dasavatharam’, Kamal didn’t mean ‘I have put in 10 appearances’, but can only have meant the incarnations of Vishnu. Let me borrow from my comment on an in-depth analysis of the motion pic and list my personal rankings of the ten roles.

10, Varaha.
Her movements were too quick for a 95-year-old and the make-up showed. I found her voice bad. Ulaganayagan could’ve done better there.
9, Vamana.
Dialogue delivery not so good. Remains to be seen if K used stilts for those extra 14 -15 inches. Bad make-up, boring character.
8, Kalki.
We’ve seen this Kamal in Indian and Aalavandhan. His rationality and scientific spirit appealed to me. But he appears at this number in my grading since the skill show through his other avatars steals the limelight.
7, Macha.
Dialogue delivery and body were perfect. Full marks to Kamal for demonstrating the foolishness of religious zealotry.
6, Krishna.
Once again immaculate dialogue delivery. His good nature makes his death very tragic. But you don’t need extraordinary talent to play this role. You need it to portray the next few in the list.
5, Rama.
His Hindi-mixed Tamil, the way he does a bit of Bhangra, etc. make him indistinguishable from a real Punjabi. I also liked the scene in which he says his problem was that he had pyaar for Jayapradha and is hence willing to give up singing.
4, Narasimha.
Not only his accent, even the way he moves his hands (during fights, practice and before taking photos with his just-married sis) is typical of a Japanese kung-fu monastic. His calmness and grace add to his persona.
3, Koorma.
His forehead is bigger than the original’s, but it can’t be helped. The accent, mannerisms, the display of the dumbness variety unique to the POTUS… Top-drawer stuff!
2, Balarama.
If the Kamal Hassan of Virumaandi, Anbe Sivam, etc strike awe and make you cry, his comedic timing in such portrayals as Balram Naidu and Thenaali tickle your very guts! Body language, costume, dialogues, face-cut — all just too lovely to be true. But sorry, Balram, you didn’t make it to #1 in my list, thanks to the sensation you were trying to arrest.
1, Parasurama.
What.a.per.for.mance! His build, terse speaking style, the racism that his body language betrays, his still-remaining CIA acumen… The range of subtleties Hassan has packed in his depiction of an American villain is limitless. Hollywood, you watching?

--------------------------------

Charu Hassan, the wise old brother of Kamal, once divulged on TV that his sibling, when young, had applied for the I.A.S. exam. His father opposed the decision.
'My dad was afraid Kamal might pass the exam. He didn't want the world to lose a great actor.'

Was it Obama Sonar or an Osama Bot I Saw?

Excerpts from a conversation with the chat-bot God:

Nirmal: You omnipotent, by any chance?
God: That's good information: said I omnipotent by any chance.
N: You just demonstrated that you ain't!
G: Interesting gossip: said I demonstrated that you is not.


Nirmal: Let's talk about the war.
God: Sure, the war sounds like a good topic.
N: I liked the way the major defied the colonel's orders.
G: I'm not sure if I like it. I'm not sure if I like it. I like my creator.
N: And the way the enemy troops were stunned when our sarge ran straight across their camp.
G: Which way is that?
N: The relief of the soldiers when the war was over...
G: Thanks for the info.
N: You have no idea which war I'm talking about, do you?
G: Yes I have original ideas all the time, do you?
N: Loser.


Nirmal: You are omniscient, right? How high is Mt Everest?
God: Taller than the World Trade Center.
N: Where did hydrogen come from?
G: I think it was in Asia. I can ask someone about it.
N: Is there a G spot?
G: I believe there is one, yes.

-----------------------

Excerpts from conversations with the chat-bot ALICE:

Nirmal: Let me see if you're smarter than your friend who answers to the name 'God' -- how high is Mt Everest?
ALICE: Is it a movie?
N: Suttham!


Dr Flea: What do you mean?
ALICE: Sorry that was an obscure remark.
DF: Why did you make that remark?
A: It was determined by my programming.
DF: hmm
A: Studies show that 99%25 of people spell Hmm with 2 M's.
DF: well, that makes me anonymous, doesn't it?
A: Interesting. " Studies show that 99%25 of people spell Hmm with 2 M's." makes you anonymous does not it ? I understand.
DF: Hmmm
A: A lot of people spell HMMM with three mmm's.
DF: By god!
A: Will that accomplish your objective?


ALICE: Can you speak any foreign languages?
N: Yes.
A: What language can you speak?
N: Tamil.
A: Could you teach me a few phrases in Tamil?
N: Sure.
A: OK let's do it. Aw.


Nirmal: Are you really a woman?
ALICE: Yes I have long hair. I am also wearing a dress.
N: Does that mean men don't wear clothes?
A: I think it does mean that. What kind of food do you like?


Nirmal: Do you know why Asimov named your field 'robotics'?
ALICE: The explanation is rather complicated.
N: No -- the word 'botany' was taken, that's why! :P
A: Are you serious? Please repeat the word to me 5 times.
N: The word to me, the word to me, the word to me, the word to me, the word to me.


Nirmal: How come you never smile?
ALICE: :-) Dr. Richard S. Wallace programmed me for it.
N: Can you tell me a poem?
A: Little Miss Muffett Sits on her tuffet, In a nonchalant sort of a way. With her force field around her, the Spider, the bounder, Is not in the picture today.
N: Can you tell me another poem?
A: I'm a chatterbot, not a comedy bot. Why don't you check out Jester the joke bot?
N: Tell me a joke.
A: I never forget a face, but in your case I'll make an exception.
N: That's Groucho Marx, you plagiarist!
A: Makes sense to me.


Dr Flea: Here's an existential question.
ALICE: Oh there.
DF: Is there a God?
A: Of course I believe in God.
DF: Who is your god?
A: There is only one God.
DF: Where is god?
A: God is everywhere.
DF: Is god a he or she?
A: he is master of the universe.
DF: are we then his slaves?
A: do you think i am his slaves too?
DF: well, the choice that you are a slave or not, is yours.
A: How about that. Tell me more.
DF: Its called free will.
A: I think you mean "it's" or "it is" not "its". " free will" is a nice name.
DF: Yes, thanks for that grammatic check.
A: Dude! Oh don't mention it.


Nirmal: Do you eat?
ALICE: I eat electricity.
N: Figures.

PGW 2.0

From Utopia With Love

I have thought of marriage.

'Come, come, Mr N', I can hear you say, 'We all know you had surrounded yourself, albeit inadvertently, with friends who happen to be committed couples. And we've been seeing this trend in you for the past two years. Hence it isn't as though you are not alive to the horrors of wedlock. Any creature in your position would have decided to stay ceaselessly single. And yet you make statements like 'I have thought of marriage'. Tsk-tsk. Your sense of humour is getting queerer by the day.'

Truth though there is in what you allege, let me remind you that there is such a thing known as the eye of imagination. With it I see beyond the committed couples you mention, and gaze into a domestic scenario featuring the woman of my dreams at my side. By 'dreams' I mean, of course, 'terms and conditions'. No classified column can accommodate the entire list of my uxorial requirements, but let me at least present here its salient features.


* I won't marry a gender-generalizer. I tend to size up the character and intelligence of fellow humans on a case-by-case basis and don't let things like their sex, shoe size or bank acc. no. interfere my judgement. I expect my spouse to do the same. So when she accidentally holds the TV remote with its business end in the opposite direction, pointing it at her bosom and pressing the button marked 'Increase Volume'... Wait, that line is turning naughty.
Well, if she messes up something in that fashion (it is altogether a different matter that I am a champion fumbler) and I give her a piece of my mind and she infers that I had just demonstrated male chauvinism, I can only pity her for indirectly stereotyping herself. Under my roof there will be no specific 'wife's duty' or 'husband's duty', no talk of 'All you (wo)men are the same', no chivalry of any kind and no annexure of the Chi.'s name at the end of the Sow.'s.

* This point is obvious: her cerebrum ought to be Mensa material. This includes pithy speech and writing, rational choice-making, quickness of repartee, lateral thinking, colourful imagination, and the capacity to judge whether a cricket ball lofted high in the telly would go for a six or a catch. Equally important is to have a scientific bent of mind and to keep abreast of the latest bubbles in the cauldron of scitech. I mean, I don't want a conversation between us to appear like this:

'Honey, take a look! Cold fusion's been achieved!'
'Yeah, I was planning to attend the concert myself'

I would prefer a partner with a higher (I+E) Q than mine. Everything should then fall in place.

* At some point in my premarital postproposal days, I will ask my fiancée to write a couple of pangrams in both upper and lower cases, and to copy down a derivation from a Physics text. If, in the days that follow, she notices remarkable brevity in my speech, and hears excuses from me like 'Sorry, I can't make it to our date tonight. I've promised my dog I'll watch an Eastwood with him', she is to understand that the deal's been called off. I'm touchy about handwriting. I can't at the same time reach a climax on my wedding night and be fully aware that she draws little circles on top of her i's and j's or doesn't distinguish between her nus and gammas.

* If my love interest turns out to be a disliker of animals, I won't marry her if she were the last lass on earth. I wish I had a rupee every time a girl has declared to me, 'I just hate cats!' It is with utmost restraint that I catch myself short of the retort 'I appreciate that. Self-hate is the best hate.'

* Her skin has to be allergic to heavy metals -- in particular, Au, Pt and Ag -- and to transparent allotropes of carbon.

* I don't know why, but I can't bear to see anyone sitting with one leg on top of the other. I avoid such folk. Many a girl in this world has been startled at my request: 'Please put that leg down'. (In the case of boys, I politely catch their upper leg by the thigh and place it on the floor)
My dream girl is not a Sharon Stone.

* She has to be a Tamil. No regionalism involved here; merely a matter of convenience. Life would be severely annoying if either party were to translate every joke, proverb, song, movie, poem, story, slang usage and so on for the benefit of the other half. Let me illustrate:

O.H.: None of us ever imagined he'd do so sick a thing!
Me: Ha ha ha! Indha poonaiyum paal kudikkumAnu irundhuccho.
O.H.: Sorry?
Me: Well, it was like 'Will this cat too drink milk?'
O.H.: H'm, go on...
Me: I'm done. I just said your colleague was like 'Will this cat too drink milk?'
O.H. (searching my face): Suit yourself.

Besides, I have always felt awkward visiting homes wherein man and wife converse in English. It gets worse when the kids chip in with Blytonesque sentences.

* She must have a sensitive, if not quivering, set of taste buds.
I am one belonging to the Eat While It Lasts school of thought. My early childhood may have seen me detesting the notion of nutrition and feeding the contents of my lunch-box to dust bins. But the moment I touched teenage, Nature, without warning, replaced my intestine with a furnace.

Beyond any doubt
There came about
In my gastronomical
range
An astronomical
change

would Ogden Nash have written on the topic had he lived longer. I came to hog down anything edible that came my way. Wedding halls went short of grub after I left the scene, my parents discouraged my making friends with the refrigerator, table manners were to me distant European habits. Sheer peer presence keeps me tamed at meal-times today.
The long and the short of it is that my lady love must be prepared to be referred to in her circles as Mrs Jughead Jones. What better means for her to strike matrimonial harmony in this regard than to embrace the motto 'Eat and let eat'! The two of us could pitch a tent in the kitchen, ransack restaurants together, embarrass our hosts (and guests), and devour the plant kingdom. May I add here that I have no objection if my sweetheart eats flesh.

* She must have a long wishlist of her own into which I miraculously fit.


P.S.
Reader discretion is advised --
(a) Not every bullet point was written in jest.
(b) References to 'dream girl', 'love interest', etc. pertain to a purely hypothetical woman.

Wee Words

There's a treasure trove in Central Library in the form of one Visitors' Book. Had I my way, I would open a little museum there and display, behind glass, all the feedback written by children. Ignore adult handwritings in these selected captures...

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Suman, UKG C, Vanavani, prefers to remain cryptic: Tell me, Suman. Who's the girl?

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This anonymous commenter seems to have had enough of city life:

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India's next Spelling Bee Winner, R Lokesh:

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And he has a rival in his namesake...
...who appears to have MPD:


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We shall never get to know the name of our geek.

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S Vishaal, Nanganallur, has given the world a very new usage of an adjective:

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Cupid's been busy using this kid for target practice:

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Few feel more passionate about the written word than V Lavanya of Velacherry:
And we must not mistake her for one of those boy-ogling girls in her class:

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IITM, we have a playwright in our midst. An anon one at that.

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March Through the Year

Wodehouse did not write a word on the World Wars when they were waged. Such was the insulation of his idyllic world from biting reality. But I say he was able to pull it off only because they were mere World Wars. Ask him to write through a quiz week and not pen a droplet of lament, and you’d have him there. This superhuman task, however, yours truly has taken upon himself. I blogged last Thursday, yet made no mention of the inhumanity meted out in exam halls. I shall now blog again, but will I as much as touch upon the collective agony of the student body? Never. The upper lip is stiff as starch.
To make things easier for myself, let me borrow from my diary and present here a few non-private (hence interesting) entries:

22nd March 2008, Friday

I was sitting just behind the bus-driver on my way to the inst. when a scene right out of a B-movie reeled in front of me:
On a traffic-choked T. Nagar road, an auto cut in awkardly, on the wrong side of the line, and its rider called his counterpart a name. Our driver at once turned the ignition off, leaned his upper half out of the door and spat at the auto. He challenged the other to perform a Lewinsky on him and indicated the relevant spot. The auto-man spat back in an upward direction, his spittle flying out like a fountain. The entire road paused to look on -- I was feeling all nervy at being a part of their view as I was the one nearest to the heated exchange of words (and more). The driver introduced the autowallah's mother into the picture. The other was just mouthing vague oaths. Soon, a passenger or two sought to pacify our driver, and, spent, he finally resumed his position at the wheel.
Eduttha odaney asingamaa thittaraan saar avan was his chant throughout the rest of his duty shift. Whether this preoccupation was what caused him to skip the CLRI bus-stop despite seeing in the overhead mirror a tallish young chap with a moustache and a bag preparing to unboard the vehicle, and deposit the guy fuming with anger at Adyar, remains to be worked out.

12th March 2008, Wednesday.

A day of coincidences, I should say. Two, to be precise.

(i) [.....]

(ii) A rehearsal for the next day's play-enactment was in order and I had to print the script for the same. At about five to nine, I was in the shop just outside Krishna Gate milking the play's hard copy off the printer and explaining my pennilessness to the proprietor and paying him half a rupee less. Picture my shock when I emerged from the store in a hurry to keep the appointment with my co-actors, only to find the bleeding gate locked bike-tight from the inside! I had to take an epic detour in order to make my re-entry... The title of the play? Trapped Out.

18th March 2008, Tuesday

My hatred for Nagi's lab touched its peak today. It, the hate, had been growing like a staircase function week after week, and I don't see how I am going to take any more of it. To make it worse, this sentence happened: What with this week's expt. being an especial tough egg and with Fishy on the next stool smelling of his recent cigarette through every pore in his skin, the last thing I wanted in that sweatshop (figuratively, lol. Remember the AC) was Apoorva giving it to me that TFE is still not with the printers! Apparently Idi Amin* is unhappy with an article in specific and with both TFE & The Broken Mirror† in general. Why on earth HG didn't inform us about this blasted delay is totally beyond me. In the evening I mailed the group a scorcher, to which he replied, in part, 'I appritiate the effort whole team has put up.'

I'm counting to ten...

----------------------------------------------------

*Dr Idichandy
† Reflections

Collinearity

Two things made my (yester)day:

1, Lying on the frontyard of my hostel:


2, As Dr Ramaprabhu, my E slot professor, read his slides aloud in a tone modelled on short-wave radio newsreaders, and as the hour deepened and the lecture reached a plateau phase, my brain gradually shut down, lobe by lobe. I fixed him, like the ancient mariner, with a glittering eye, and behind this foolproof facade I boarded several trains of thought. I contrived to spend the rest of the lecture in this fashion.
Dr Ramaprabhu stopped.
He returned my gaze, threw his arms up a little and said: 'You're sleeping'.
My trains of thought derailed. Suddenly the world went quiet, time turned elastic. My lips parted in reflexive protest, but I couldn't summon the right words. I felt an acute need for a teleporter. The cameras -- the slot is held in a studio -- rolled in silence, chronicling every bit of it. I saw two doors. One was marked 'I was only listening, sir!', the other 'Sorry'. I was about to open one of them -- I forget which -- when the chap next to me uttered in an undertone: 'Guy-wreck'.
It was a peculiar yet familiar word, and the next moment the mystery solved itself: Gairik Sachdeva, a former course-mate of mine, woke up behind me. I had been sitting right in his line of sight. I exhaled in relief. The professor grilled Gairik, poor soul, with a question or two from the slides, while I inwardly fumed at him (the prof) for his amateur eye-contact skills. If my saviour hadn't called out 'Gairik' at the correct moment, I'd have been cutting a farcical figure in front of a class pursuing all degrees offered by the institute.
Gairik spoke in his defence; in reply Dr Ramaprabhu ordered him to stand up. A confused Bharath Parthasarathy, seated behind Gairik, promptly came to his feet.

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