Category: rants

this evening, i got mugged yet again.

[for my two readers: don’t worry, i’m still alive. no stabbing this time around.]

whereas the first time around, all i felt was utter shock and disbelief, this time around i felt a whole gamut of emotions, including humour, pride, disbelief and sympathy. before i elaborate, i must admit that the first time around, the entire operation was reminiscent of a swat team: they were in, they did their business, and they were out. this time around, i was confronted by possibly two of the dumbest idiots around, and that is why i felt so many emotions.

first of all, today was ugly shirt day. due to the monsoon and the maid who refuses to wash clothes if there is a single cloud in the sky, i was forced to wear the ugliest shirt i ever owned to work. in addition, i haven’t shaved in a week, and therefore look quite grotesque. ideally, no one would want to mug me, because i did not look my best. finally, it being the end of the month, i had limited funds – all i had in my wallet was 100 bucks (for those of you unfamiliar with our currency, that’s somewhere near $1.50).

ideally, then, no self-respecting mugger would think of mugging me. however, the ones i was faced with had a whole range of psychological problems themselves, and did not mind telling me about them in depth during the mugging. clearly, not only do i attract psychopathic women to me like a magnet, i also attract psychopathic people of all callings, whether it be legal or illegal.

having stopped my rickshaw, which basically involved swerving in front of it, since the rickshaw-puller was of an age approximately equal to that of gandalf, they stepped off their own rickshaw and surrounded me on both sides. now, you’re thinking, i’m sure, that this was done in a dark alley, with no lights and nobody around. wrong. they did it on a main street, in the middle of town, with a lot of traffic on both sides. of course, expecting someone to stop and assist would be asking too much of the fuckers that inhabit this country. however, the best part was that they mugged me right under a brilliant flood-light, which, presumably was put there to prevent muggings. no matter.

the bright light allowed me to recognize the two idiots as people who live in my neighbourhood. now, the one on my right was the intelligent one, whereas the one on the left was a complete dumbass. the smart one started shaking my hand, and inadvertently drew my hand towards his waist, apparently to show me that he had a gun. good for him. and then he began telling me of his troubles, beginning with an abusive dad who ran away, leaving his poor mother and him alone, meaning that he hasn’t been able to eat anything in about 724 days. while i bought none of this crap, the summation to his tale of woe was the fact that he wanted to eat some mishti, and by some remarkable coincidence, he decided that i would be the one to fund his culinary adventure. meanwhile, dumbass on my left kept mouthing random death threats, all of which i presume were meant to be scary, but none of which really were. the conversation ran something like this:

me: so how much do you need?
intelligent one (io): about 500 bucks.
dumbass (da): …i swear, we’ll shoot you in so many places, but nobody will come to your aid…
me: but i don’t have 500 bucks…
io: how much do you have?
me: about a 100
io: well, if we find 500 on you…
da: …we’ll cut you open from your throat to your stomach, and you’ll die of bleeding before you get to a hospital [keep in mind, this was right in front of a hospital] me: you won’t. see? [pull out my wallet, and show them the few notes in there] io: [taking the hundred buck note] okay, i believe you. what’s your mobile number?
da: …i swear, we’ll gut you alive etc. etc….
me: i don’t have a mobile [see later for clarification] io: are you sure? let me check. [searches my pockets, finds no mobile] da: etc. etc. etc.
io: fine, i believe you. now go.
da: and if you tell anyone, we’ll find you in your room and etc. etc. etc.

and so i left.

now, the reason i didn’t have my mobile on me today was because it’s been acting funky, and wasn’t charging properly. so i left it at home, and on this one day that i don’t have it on me, these fuckers decide to rob me.

now, i know for a fact that all they wanted was some money to buy drugs. the amount of money they got from me wouldn’t buy them even half a bottle of anything. and they didn’t get a cell phone off of me. so therefore, their net earnings = 100 bucks. of course, when i came home, i sent the cops to their houses to arrest them, so in reality, their net earnings = time in jail.

so, was it really worth it?

but seriously, law and order in this city is a mess, and someone needs to start teaching people civic responsibility.

my family has a set of proven methods of dealing with situations when i am sick. in these rare cases, they believe that:

a. i am faking it.
b. i am dying a slow, painful death from a high fever.
c. i have aids, or
d. i am faking dying a slow, painful death from a high fever when i really have aids.

if i wasn’t too busy facing the slow and painful aspects of the fever that has engulfed me over the past weekend, i’d laugh at their antics. some highlights:

**************

dad: what’s your temperature now?
me: 102.4.
dad: oh, that’s nothing. it’ll go away in a couple of hours.

[4 hours later]

dad: what’s your temperature now?
me: 99.8.
dad: AVAST! BATTLE STATIONS! ALL HANDS ON DECK! WASH HIS HEAD! FEED HIM TILL HE BURSTS! SCRATCH HIS EAR! CUT HIS TOENAILS! etc. etc. etc.

[commentary: clearly, a high temperature is of no concern under any circumstances. it’s only when my temperature must remotely resemble that of a human being that the troops are swept into action, and that all sorts of attention must be paid to me. especially annoying when all this happens at odd hours of the morning, when i’d rather be sleeping.]

**************

sister [on the phone]: hello?
me [coughing, sneezing, gagging and moaning at one go]: hello?
sister: you sound drunk. have you been drinking?

[commentary: i was under the impression that drinking and/or being drunk involved feeling a whole lot better than needing to cough, gag, sneeze and moan simultaneously. apparently i was wrong.]

**************

sister-in-law: how are you feeling?
me: not too good.
sister-in-law: i’ll send you some soup.

[the next day]

other sister: are you better now?
me: no, not really.
other sister: i’m sending you some soup.

[commentary: now, correct me if i’m wrong, but are there any empirical studies on the curative power of soup? i didn’t think so. however, my entire family thinks that a fever is the ideal time to mobilize the soup army. i’ve realized i should go into the soup business. i could make a bundle, just off my family alone.]

**************

dad: i heard you threw up this morning. must have been because you didn’t have any breakfast.
me: actually, the stuff i threw up WAS breakfast.
dad: well then, must have been because you didn’t have dinner last night.
me: but i did.
dad: okay. so it must have been because you didn’t have lunch yesterday.
etc. etc. etc.

clearly the solution for illness in my family, besides soup, is to stuff your face with as much as possible all the time. my family works on a very simple formula, i realized:

IF
cold.present()= true
fever.present()= false
THEN
input daily.food= X
WHERE
X= normal.food.consumed() * 25032
ELSE
cold.present()= false
fever.present()= true
THEN
input daily.food= X * 2423 + soup()
ELSE
cold.present()= true
fever.present()= true
THEN
input daily.food= X * 2423 * 2423 + soup() + soup()
ENDIF
IF
cold.present.duration>= 3 days
OR
fever.present.duration>= 3 days
THEN
patient.has.aids()= true
ENDIF

sigh.

my theory, i am pleased to say, now has concrete proof – at any time, only two people regularly read my blog.

since both people expressed concern at the accident, i felt i should do something to reassure them that i am still alive and well. the accident was minor – the casualties included two busted tires and a broken axle, but otherwise everyone survived. however, the major point of physical impact for me was my nose, which is now even more bent out of shape than it was previously. it’s one of the hazards of having a large nose – i guess that the largest parts of human bodies are hurt the most often. which explains quite well why my nose and my big toes are in constant pain.

speaking of large body parts getting hurt…

i have come to the conclusion that i will no longer be able to reproduce. the reason behind this is not the lack of a female partner to perform the act with – which, in itself, seems to be a large problem in my life currently – but rather that my valued progeny-producing organs have received much abuse over the past few weeks, due to riding in rickshaws.

if you have never ridden in a rickshaw, consider yourself lucky. a rickshaw is a device developed by the devil himself to deny unsuspecting fools like myself the pleasure of hearing the pitter-patter of little feet in the hallways. rickshaws, particularly those in this corner of the earth, are fundamentally evil for two reasons: first, the seats are harder than rocks to sit on, and second, the people who pilot these infernal devices are descendants of the devil himself. no matter how much i pray or beg these people to drive carefully, they still manage to hit every single pothole on the road, and even some of the road, with the end result being me bouncing up and down on the seat like a jack-in-the-box. now, as i have mentioned before, these seats are harder than rocks, and as a result of these bouncing action, i end up landing very hard on the seat, at great cost to my testicles. if you want to find out what this feels like, take a hammer and bring it down hard on your left pinky. then multiply the pain by about 52.35, and try and translocate it to your nether regions.

therefore, although i have already decided the names of my kids – reeham for a girl, which means “little light rain”, and rahib for a boy, which means “meditative” – i’m afraid that there aren’t going to be any reehams or rahibs any time in the future. damn you, balls.

1. make sure you watch a movie in a language you don’t understand, so you have no idea what the hell is going on.

2. to better the experience, make sure you have a friend with you who doesn’t understand the language of the movie either, but still has watched it at least 35 times, so he can give you a very rough play-by-play of the entire movie.

3. make sure you and your friend sit in the middle of the seating area, so that the entire crowd can benefit from his knowledge.

4. if your friend happens to speak softly, encourage him to speak very loudly. don’t worry about everyone else: chances are they don’t understand what’s going on up on the screen either.

5. to prevent confusion when something that you don’t understand happens, make sure your friend tells you what’s about to happen right before every key scene. this is crucial to ensure that everyone enjoys the movie.

6. feeling kind of tired? don’t worry – you can always take a nap in the middle of the movie. while the seats do not have headrests, the shoulders of your neighbors will suffice, and they don’t mind a bit.

7. if you do decide to take a nap, make sure that you snore as loud as possible. the people around you will not mind, unless of course you are louder than the person telling them what’s happening on the screen.

8. if you do decide to stay awake, please ensure that your cell phone is on throughout the movie, no matter how many times they tell you to turn it off before the movie starts.

9. also ensure that your cellphone is set to the most annoying ringer possible. if you can’t find a britney spears tune in monophonic, just using a long and high-pitched hindi movie tune. but, for the love of god, do not have a normal ringer on, by no means.

10. once someone calls, make sure you have your conversation with them as loud as possible, while sitting in your seat. the only circumstance in which this may be a problem is if you are the designated interpreter for the show. for good measure, tell whoever is calling that you are in a movie theatre, watching a movie, then proceed to describe it to them over the phone.

11. had a big lunch and feeling kind of gassy? don’t worry; even though the hall is enclosed, there must be good ventilation, so feel free to let loose. just make sure you mask the source of the stench by pretending it was your friend who relaxed his sphincters, and yell at him loudly.

12. a movie is the best time to use that extremely bright cell phone of yours to send a text message to nearly everybody you know on the planet. don’t worry – the people behind you aren’t blinded; their eyes are just watering because it’s such an emotional movie.

13. finally, got a girlfriend and feeling horny, yet you have no where to go? that’s okay, there’s always the cineplex! make sure your smooches are extremely loud and passionate, and if things get a little too carried away, and your limbs start flailing all over the place, it’s perfectly all right. no body will mind much at all.

argh. the things i do for money. as part of my new piracy scheme, i supply a local cd store with downloads of the latest albums, and so, due to consumer demand, i was forced to download the new backstreet boys album last night. meanwhile, my other pc still has not figured out that i do not listen to backstreet boys, and has nicely added the songs from the new album to my playlist. stupid computer. why can’t you think on the same wavelength as me?

meanwhile, i have also supplied the store with the coldplay cd and the new dream theater cd. and, surprise surprise, dream theater sold about 200 copies on its first day, whereas coldplay sold about 20 copies so far. so therefore there are people who listen to progressive metal out there. if these are the same people who made me download backstreet boys, i’m afraid they need to be shot. in the head. at close range.

one of the perils of living in this corner of the world, besides having to coexist with people who still listen to backstreet boys, is having to coexist with cockroaches. i am intensely afraid of cockroaches. i will admit it. and i know why i am afraid of them.

when i was really young, i apparently used to go swatting cockroaches of all sizes and shapes to death. unfortunately, however, my sisters came along and taught me to fear them. it was one specific day, actually, back in 1989 (isn’t it sad that i can remember things that happened sixteen years ago? i feel so old). anyway, on this particular day, our house (we lived in the philippines back then) decided to become infested with cockroaches. not the nice friendly types that walk slowly up to you and roll over, like they want to be tickled on their stomachs or something. instead, these were the kind that flew into your face and then ran down inside your shirt. my sisters were both afraid of cockroaches, yet till then i had to deal with only one of them at a time in the presence of cockroaches. combined, the force of their screaming at the cockroaches overpowered my more rational urge to kill the critters. so i joined them in screaming, which set the cockroaches off even further. they flew in all directions, but mostly in our collective screaming directions. having no further recourse, we fled into the bathroom, where we found cockroaches flying out of the toilet. seriously. we then fled down the stairs and into the garden, where we engaged in more screaming and jumping up and down, not because there were more cockroaches there (there weren’t), but because we were on a roll and didn’t want to stop. meanwhile, when the maids finally stopped rolling on the floor laughing their ass off at our wonderful antics, they finally took control of the situation, and killed as many of the bastards as they could. but the damage was done. to this day, i’m afraid of large cockroaches, especially the ones that fly.

sadly, this house is also infested with the bugs. fortunately, however, i have managed to arrive at a decent compromise with them. it’s beautiful in its simplicity: they don’t fly towards me, and i don’t kill them. to further top it off, we have a simple arrangement: every time i need to go into a room that they hold their gala feasts in (i.e. the kitchen or the bathroom), i turn a light on ten seconds in advance, and they all scurry away out of the room until i’m done with my business and turn off the lights, at which point they resume their festivities. it’s a simple arrangement, but it works amazingly well. the numbers of flying cockroaches around me have dwindled down to none, and i haven’t intentionally killed a cockroach at this house in years (i accidentally stepped on one a few days ago. wasn’t my fault. it ran straight into my walking path).

the cockroaches at the office, however, are a different matter altogether. the other day, i was in the bathroom, and i spied a cockroach sitting opposite me. we stared each other in the eyes for a long time, and, just when i thought we had reached an agreement to halt all hostilities, the little fucker flew straight at me. at the time i was deeply immersed in taking a crap, and jumping up in the middle of passing a log out of your system is not really a sanitary and hygienic affair. i taught the little fucker a lesson though: i flushed him down the toilet. and then completed my crap in another bathroom. however, on the bright side, i haven’t met a cockroach at the office since that day, so the cockroach underworld over there must have gotten the message.

the most disturbing thing about cockroaches is the ones that decide to fly while mating. it perturbs me greatly. when i’m copulating, i’m usually too engrossed in what i’m doing to want to take off and have a nice flight around the room. if i could fly, that is. but i can’t, so thankfully that’s another distraction out of the way. but what perturbs me about this behavior is that i don’t know how to react. i don’t know whether i should kill them right away, or wait till they are done having their fun to kill them. i’d hate it if anyone stepped on me while i was getting it on, or at least if they stepped on me before i was done. this is a great quandary, especially in the spring, when the cockroaches decide to get it on en masse. my kitchen turns into freaking jfk airport, what with the huge number of flights taking off and landing at any point in time.

all this talk about sex is making me extremely horny. so, therefore, i’m going to go fuck off. later.

piracy rocks. how else would someone in my remote corner of the world be able to listen to an album that came out yesterday? the internet is amazing, if you know what you are looking for.

case in point: last week, my boss ordered me to write a speech for him on giuseppe mazzini, a famous (?!) nineteenth century italian writer and politician who, if i saw him on the street today, i would punch in the balls. for source material, my boss gave me a fifty-four page paper (single-spaced) on the dude, and, to top it all off, he gave me a two hour deadline. i spent the first hour trying to get past the first paragraph, which was so mindnumbingly boring that i could actually feel my brain cells turn off one at a time as i nearly passed out. fortunately, good sense prevailed, and i googled the name, and then cut and pasted from the first website that came up. and then i just made up the following random bullshit:

“What lessons can we learn from the life of Mazzini? Perhaps the most important lesson that Mazzini can teach us is the importance of patriotism. Mazzini’s single-minded and selfless dedication to his country and people, along with his heroic efforts for uniting and liberating Italy, are truly values that are rare in today’s world, and should be the fundamental beliefs of every politician. Mazzini’s life also shows us the importance of dedication. Mazzini had a clear vision – the liberation and unity of Italy under a democratic government – and he continued to fight for this vision even after Italy was united under a monarchy. Finally, Mazzini’s life expresses the importance of unity in the world. In today’s world, it is increasingly important for all nations and peoples to unite to support each other. This is truly a wonderful ideal, and a great goal to strive for.”

needless to say, my boss was truly enamored of the speech, and almost loved me for it – an emotion that i was certain he was incapable of feeling. but the above is pure, unadulterated crap. it could not possibly be more crappy had it fallen out my rectum. i was going to throw in some crap about the eu constitution (this was before the french referendum) but i didn’t.

in addition, i have written several speeches for a highly placed government official in the past few months, all of which have received praise, or so i am told. the fun thing about all these speeches is that they all said precisely the same thing: all the speeches were drawn from this one powerpoint presentation, and i just changed the order of appearance of the contents of the slide every time. it seems, however, that the concerned official has never caught on to the fact that she is, essentially, saying exactly the same thing every single time, just in different combinations. however, as long as she is oblivious, her office keeps calling me to write her a speech every single time she has a meeting on my project. i worry though, about what will happen when i run out of combinations. i wish i had paid more attention in my statistics classes, so i could actually figure out how many combinations are possible with fifteen powerpoint slides.

but enough talking about work. i would like to proudly announce to the world, through the magical connecting powers of the internet, that i am now the most recent holder of the record for the world’s shortest relationship. actually, i’m surprised it actually lasted three days. although i have learnt a valuable lesson: apparently i bring out the neuroses in women i date. this one waited a whole three days to tell me that she could not date me because she had lost all faith in men after finding out her father was cheating on her mother. although i cannot verify the integrity of the story, i’m glad that chapter is over almost as fast as it began. i was extremely drunk when i asked her out (see post about mixing drinks) and all i remembered the next morning was that i had asked someone out, just not whom. imagine my surprise when i got a call from the person the next morning, although i quickly remembered that i had given the person i had asked out my business card, which has my cell phone number on it. but anyway, that’s history.

anyway, i’m not going to let this get me down. not in the least. i am still a macho, attractive, extremely sexy man, and i know my virility and sexual prowess is renowned the world over. if you are a fantastically beautiful woman with any resemblance to aishwariya rai/keira knightley/lindsey lohan, feel free to drop me a line/send me an email/show up at my doorstep magically, and i will show you the wonders of the kama sutra, or at least those that i remember from that temple in nepal. and i promise, i will not attempt any of the positions that involved sticks.

happily, in my moment of misery due to this unceremonious dumping, which lasted approximately 0.0692 seconds, i was adopted by one of the three stray cats that live in my house. now, every day when i come home from work, i find this cat sitting by the stairs, waiting to be petted. and every morning, when i wake up, i find this cat curled up on my bed. now this is a miraculous thing. first of all, due to the vampires that prowl this region, i am forced to sleep under a mosquito net, and due to the intense heat/humidity, i sleep with all the windows closed and the air conditioner on full blast. yet, somehow, this cat makes its way into my room every morning.

in an attempt to discover the path of entry of the cat and to block it to dissuade further entry, i rearranged all the furniture in my room, but could not find any holes in the wall. not one. so then i did what was only natural: i rearranged the furniture again. after about seventeen different rearrangements, i have still been unable to find the path of entry, although i must admit that i am now a great deal more muscular. seriously. my bed weighs a fucking ton. as does my bookshelf.

perhaps next time i should remove the books from the shelf before attempting to move it around. there’s a thought. hmmm.

mmm. i love keane. they are the best ending to a crappy day. or even a good day. while meditating today, my winamp suddenly started playing keane. it was amazing.

i received an email today, which i shall share with you. it went as follows:

“ewwwwwww. wut happend to ur blog man? it wuz so cool b4 but now itz like ur all razist or sumthin’? wuz up wit dat?”

my first instinct on receiving an email that is worded in this or a similar manner is to delete the email, get out my gun and go and shoot the author. it really isn’t difficult to write in a manner that makes sense, folks. however, convincing folks of this is exceedingly difficult. apparently, people who are well educated, well brought up and listen to yanni in their free time like to talk like they are a 12 year old coke dealer from the ghetto. although i must admit that the weirdest part of it is that many people may talk in perfectly good english, yet write like the above gem. i know many people who do this on a frequent basis, including the author of the composition. i will warn all of you right now: “that” is a pronoun”, while “dat” refers to a filename extension for a particular type of system file on your computer. if you ever get the two of those mixed up, the consequences will be dire.

from the rare parts of the email above that i understood, i realized that people had been taking offense at my piece on asians. therefore, some clarification is in order. i am not a racist or “razist” or anything of that sort. i love all peoples and all cultures. in fact, the longest paragraph was on my own country. the only thing i was poking fun at all was probably at myself, for watching the movie “mean girls” three times (lindsay lohan is really really hot). everything i wrote in that piece was based on fact and on my personal experience in those countries. if you are from one of those countries and can prove to me that what i wrote is wrong, i will gladly rescind it. for instance, if you can prove that there are no tourists in thailand who are there primarily to have sex with twelve-year old boys, i will remove it immediately. best of luck on that front, though.

on that note, i received another email, more eloquently worded this time around, asking what happened to the stories. the truth is, i’m not sure. i had a spurt of creativity when i wrote those stories, and it seems that that spurt has dried up temporarily. ideally, it will be back soon. until then, most of these pieces, except the now infamous asian piece, is mostly fiction anyway. this is my attempt at humor. so read the crap, and feel free to laugh. or don’t. i don’t care either way.
if you expected to read sad boring blog entries, i have one of those, so if that’s what you want, ask me, and i’ll send you the address. if, however, you want a blog that goes something like this:

“i woke up this morning at 8 am. i stared at my toes and decided that the nails needed cutting. i got up and went to the bathroom. i brushed my teeth and then proceeded to put my shirt on. i buttoned the first button and worked my way down.”

or

“i’m so lonely. i need someone so bad. someone who will make my heart soar. someone who will make my life worth living. someone to make sense of all the misery in my life. someone who can change the way i think. someone who gives great head. someone to love, to hold, to cherish, to molest.”

then fuck off, because you’re in the wrong place, buddy.

one last thing: fuck political correctness. someday, with the way being pc trends are going, it’ll be pc to not say anything to anyone at all, and instead just nod and/or shake your head. what’s the point in having language if you can’t use it?

so therefore, if you’ve had a bad day, and want to have a laugh, feel free to read what i have to say. but please, reserve your judgements till you actually get to know me well enough. i’m really not this bad face to face.

at least i’d like to think so.

ladies and gentlemen of the class of 2005:

do not mix drinks. if i can offer you one piece of advice for the future, not mixing drinks would be it.

seriously. last night, i had just three drinks: 1 frozen margharita, 1 double scotch on the rocks, and 1 heineken beer. i think it’s safe to say that, 24 hours later, i’m still drunk. not hungover, not feeling sick, none of that fun stuff – i’m just plain drunk still. i don’t know how it happened, or why my body is doing this, but i believe that it’s a direct result of drinking nothing but wine for the past month or so. ugh.

on a completely different note, i want to spend some talking about something that has been causing me some concern as of late: my chest. for 23 years, my chest decides to remain relatively hairless, but then suddenly, over the past two weeks, it decides to begin growing hair at a tremendous rate. whoever said chest hair only grew during puberty is sadly mistaken – my chest is testament to the fact that chest hair can spring up on you whenever it very well damn wants, and is likely to do so at any time. so be afraid…be very very afraid.

for many years, i was proud of my relatively hairless chest. while the rest of my body decided to break out in a massive forestation maneuver, leaving my legs and arms looking like the amazon forest, my chest obstinately refused to grow any foliage of any sort whatsoever. which was fine with me.

my primary fear is that hair is not the only thing that will be growing on my chest. my family is composed of men who generally tend to have bigger breasts than their wives. which makes it extremely awkward, because they always want to hug for the most inane reasons (more on this later). anyway, i am worried about the possibility of having breasts at some point in time. i wonder what that will be like, though. will i feel like an awkward twelve year old girl when my breasts start budding? or will they magically appear one morning, similar to breast implants? i find this to be of great concern.

but back to my family’s hugging capacity. my family has been staunchly conservative for the past eternity, where we all accept each other’s personal space without exception. not as of late, however. for some reason (i suspect it’s something in the water), my family members have decided to start hugging each other for no reason whatsoever. and it’s not a pretty sight. imagine throwing a person who’s never learnt to swim into a pool and watching him struggle. that’s exactly what this scene is like. there seems to be massive confusion with people as to whether to stand straight or sideways while engaging in this hugging venture, where to put your hands, and mostly, where to put your chin. one of my uncles has the extremely annoying habit of putting his chin on top of my head, and slowly rocking back and forth, which is a problem, because he is six inches shorter than i am. so our hugging adventure turns into some sort of complex dance, where i bend over slightly so that his chin can access my chin, and then we rock back and forth. frankly, i’m completely fine with going back to that non-hugging point in time, when things were so much better, and all displays of emotion could be accomplished through a simple handshake. i guess this is my family’s way of becoming more modern and keeping up with the times. however, they still will not let their daughters go anywhere by themselves in a car. huh. so much for modernization.

seriously, sometimes i wish i was born as a woman in this country. every single day of the week, i have to get to work using whichever mode of public transport is available, sweating my ass off, while equally sweaty strangers rub up against your body, making me feel like taking about 17 more showers once i get to the office just to disinfect, while the women in our family ride comfortably in an air-conditioned car. but not by themselves, of course. that would be a travesty. also, on the buses, the front seats are always reserved for women, even if there are none on the bus. so what ends up happening is i huddle standing with many sweaty men in a corner of the bus, while the front two rows of seats lie empty.

but the worst part is that men cannot enter the one lingerie store in dhaka. ever. if they do make their way in, say with their wives, they are exiled to the “men’s waiting room”, a concoction straight out of hell, because the walls are lined with pictures of women in lingerie staring down at you seductively. just for market research purposes, i decided to ask the salespeople: what happens if you want to buy some lingerie for your wife as a surprise? the salesgirls were shocked: they couldn’t understand why you would want to do something like that in the first place. then, when i explained that my motives were innocent, and my wife was running severely low on underwear, to the point where she needed an emergency infusion of underclothing, they told me that i would have to sit in the men’s waiting room – which, incidentally, is also filled with sweaty men – while they brought items by one by one for your approval.

now, i don’t know about you, but if i were married, although i would enjoy picturing my wife in various states of undress in different lingerie, i would definitely not enjoy it if a room of sweaty old men were doing the same. i was aghast, to the point of trying to make a break for the women’s section of the store, at which point security was called in and i was hauled out.

but then, i’m also very happy that i’m a man. especially because i have a penis. a penis is a wonderful thing when you have to pee really hard – you don’t want to waste too much time taking off different layers of clothes just to relieve yourself, after which you have to pull them on again. with a penis, all you have to do is stand straight, unzip and let fly. i feel that this works much better for me, especially with all this heat and needing to pee every fifteen minutes (see previous posts for details on the heat).

what amazes me, though, is that in this heat, people are still falling in love left and right. it shocks me to no end. i thought spring was the season for falling in love, and then summer was the season when you took all your clothes off, because of the heat, and had mad sex, because you were naked anyway (as opposed to winter, which is when you have mad sex, just to build up body heat). but no – every time i go jogging by the lake, i have to deal with almost tripping over sets of couples sitting on the sidewalk, talking away. now, if i were one of the members of these couples, i would drown my partner in the lake for dragging me outside in the heat when we could be sitting in a nice air-conditioned room. but no. everyone seems to be tremendously in love with each other, and happy to be at the lake, but aren’t too engrossed in each other to give me strange looks when i go jogging by.

speaking of young love, i saw this advertisement in the newspaper today:

“sohel and shanta: please come back home soon. your parents are sick with worry and bedridden. the only way to save them from their deaths is if you come back home soon. all of us are willing to accept your relationship. please come back soon.”

now, if this country were filled with people with overactive imaginations like me, they would never put an advertisement like that in the newspaper. being completely bored on a weekend, i had nothing better to do than to surmise about the potent scandal in this whole incident. the following is a summary of my thought processes:

a. wow. people are fucked up.

b. there’s a picture of them two together.

c. man, are they both really ugly.

d. wait a second. there’s a distinct family resemblance between them. could it be?

e. man, they both ARE really ugly.

f. well, if there’s a picture of them together in existence, they can’t be distant relatives, and they must be related, especially since if they weren’t and were having a relationship, the parents would not have had a picture of them together.

g. i wonder if by “parents” they mean one set of parents, or two.

h. ewwww. one set of parents. eloping with your sister?

i. wow. people are fucked up.

having derived enough scandal from this simple advertisement, i decided to poke my nephew in the stomach repeatedly.

but this is just a sign of how times have changed here in good old conservative-land. when i was in high school, we used to say that if two guys hold hands and walk down the road, it’s completely fine, but if a guy and a girl hold hands and go down a road, then all hell will break loose. indeed, this is the country where a couple were making out in a rickshaw in the dark, and were stopped by a gang of hoodlums, who proceeded to rape the girl and then, obviously unsatisfied, raped the guy too. but i guess those days are gone. now people are making out in rickshaws in the dark, with no threat to their virginity, except from each other perhaps. girls and boys are holding hands and going on dates all over the place. in fact, an entire service industry has sprung up to cater to these daters: restaurants with dark lighting and partitions for privacy.

i guess i’ve grown too old, because this crap really bothers me.

it bothers me to no end that when people hear the word “asian”, they immediately think that it has something to do with slanty-eyed people who substitute the letter r for the letter l. case in point: while playing with my cell phone the other day, i came upon a ringtone that was named “asian dream” but sounded vaguely like two chinese cats dying a slow painful death. also, in the movie “mean girls”, which i watched a record three times, thus inducing doubts about my sexuality among my friends, the cliques named “cool asians” and “nerdy asians” both were filled with mongoloids, while the lone indian-american was grouped into the more general “nerds” category.

now, don’t get me wrong. i have no problem with those of mongoloid origin at all. in fact, i know some really nice mongoloid folk, like the japanese guy whose only expressions of emotions are communicated through his eyebrows and forehead, which dance with great vigor when he is angry, or the other guy who i’ve been to approximately 57 meetings with but who has uttered a sum total of 10 words at all those meetings combined.

what i do have a problem with, however, is the categorization of asians to include only these people. in fact, thanks to movies like mean girls, and the many teenage girls and child molesters who watch these movies, i’m concerned that the term “asian” is only being used to refer to a subset of all the diverse peoples of the asian continent.

in my efforts to try and dispel this misperception, here are some facts about some other countries in asia, besides the mongoloid ones:

bangladesh: this country is everybody’s favorite joke, including the natives. having gained independence 34 years ago through a bloody war against pakistan, it seems the people have not lost their lust for blood, thus routinely killing each other for inane reasons. also known as the only country in the world that is under sea level, meaning that by 2010, the entire country may be under water. also home to some of the dumbest people on the planet: on september 11, 2001, i was stopped while driving by a cop because two planes had hit and brought down the world trade center. to this day, i can find no reasonable justification for this cop’s action. oh, and also the most corrupt country in the world, four years running. for more funny facts on bangladesh, talk to a certain mr. michael brockfield.

thailand: although many of the people in this country are mongoloid as well, thailand boasts a rich heritage, composed of dirty old men screwing twelve year old boys on the beaches of chiang mai. also known for cheap pirated software, cheap sunglasses, cheap hookers, and extremely expensive health care when you catch aids from sleeping with cheap hookers.

bhutan: many people have never heard of this country, the only country in the world that does not need a visa to visit, but needs special permission from the king itself. also the only country in the world to ban smoking completely – cigarettes, that is. nobody really knows much about this country, mainly because nobody really cares.

maldives: a group of islands that like to call themselves a country. completely non-committal to everything, they have an army composed of four people, since they can’t even commit to fighting a war.

sri lanka: recently devastated by the tsunami, they’ve began airing ads thanking the world for caring. biggest asset is sri lankan airways, where the air hostesses throw your food tray at your face if they like you, or don’t give you any food otherwise.

myanmar: everyone knows aun sang suu kyii. nobody knows anything else about this country. let’s hope it stays that way.

nepal: home to degenerate hippies of all sizes and colors. consumes more marijuana per capita than all the nations of the world combined. home to what many think is spiritual enlightenment but is actually a glass of old stale everest beer.

india: so many people, so little time. indians give new meaning to the term “fucking like rabbits”. has mountains, rivers, deserts and forests, and information technology skills that cause more and more westerners to lose their jobs. also has the highest percentage of immigrants – if every indian hates it in india and wants to move away, who’s doing all the jobs that are being outsourced? perhaps there’s only one person named ganesh manning a computer terminal, answering your stupid customer support questions while programming the next version of microsoft windows.

so as you can see, there’s a lot more in asia than china, japan and korea. share the wealth and knowledge contained in this post with all your loved ones. you’ll feel automatically smarter for knowing all this crap, i guarantee. or if you don’t, i don’t particularly care anyway.

the other day, two of my colleagues were having a conversation about the weather, which ran sort of like so:

A (coming in to the office from outside): god, it’s so hot out.

B: no, actually, it’s very humid.

A: i can assure you, it’s extremely hot outside.

B: but the BBC said that it was going to be humid on their weather report last night.

A: well, they must have been wrong, because it’s extremely hot outside.

B: are you sure? maybe you are confusing heat and humidity.

at about this point in the conversation, i, for some reason or the other, felt like ripping out each of their livers and shoving it back down their throats. actually, there was a very good reason: i didn’t care whether or not it was hot or humid or blistering – i was more concerned about the fact that my testicles were close to rotting in my scrotum from the intense heat. also, because i was in an extremely productive mood, and could not tolerate two idiots standing around talking about the weather in insanely loud voices.

speaking of my testicles in the heat, later on in the day, i was urinating, and my hand somehow happened to touch my scrotum, upon which i discovered, to my surprise, that my scrotum was actually cool. now that can’t be a good sign, i thought to myself. isn’t the point of the scrotum to be the warmest part of the body so that sperm can be produced? that used to be my understanding; after all, i’ve spent many cold winter nights cupping my balls, for the heat they provide, among other reasons.

concerned about this new cooling phenomenon, i picked up the latest newspaper, which screamed out with a HUGE bold headline “hottest spell in history of the nation”. the article had advice from expert doctors to drink a lot of water to stay hydrated, so i promptly drank about 6.4 liters of water.

the next day, while browsing through the newspaper again, i noticed that yet another doctor had said that the heat spell could mean a high incidence of urinary infections. i was concerned by this, considering that i had been urinating about every 15 minutes, while consuming massive quantities of water. so, to find out whether or not i had an urine infection, i googled the phrase.

one of the more colorful sites that came up with the search was a blog of someone who was suffering from an urinary infection, and claimed that a urine infection felt like “a spear being poked up your urethra”.

ouch.

i don’t know about you, but the concept of a spear going up my urethra does not sound tremendously appealing. in fact, i’d go as far as to say that i prefer to have things go down my urethra and thus out of my body, instead of the other way around. i figured i didn’t have an urine infection after all, because it didn’t feel like any sort of object, let alone a spear, was going up the urethra. however, in my anxiety to keep things out of my urethra, i became extra cautious: i didn’t let my urethra come anywhere near any object that might have been in contact with the infectious bacteria, and i gave up peeing on the sides of the street.

apparently, i was the only one. in fact, it seemed that the entire city had come out en masse to pee on the side of the street, women and children included. it got to the point where it became necessary to step over someone peeing every fifth step i took during my evening jogs. apparently, everyone in the city had decided to drink quantities of water equal to me, or else they had all come down with urinary infections. i didn’t wait to find out. what if they all had urine infections and i caught it through the air? this gave me good reason to run fast, i must admit. i haven’t jogged this hard in my life, except when i was being chased by the mob. but that’s another story.

****

the above isn’t all true. my colleagues don’t watch the BBC.