Doomoo's Blog

…esp. for the non-Mallus

1. Thou shalt not deny the booze. There is no excuse to say no to alcohol. Not after the uncle offering you the booze bought five bottles of whiskey on his way back home from a bypass surgery.

2. Thou shalt diversify. No edible item at the table is ‘the best’. The moment you start stuffing yourself with fried fish thinking it’s the yummiest thing on the menu, you discover the chicken curry. But you might just be a kilo too late.

3. Thou shalt extrapolate. Even if you don’t understand the language, you shall do your best to reconstruct a coherent sentence from the 2 words you understand out of every 30.

4. Thou shalt not try fancy, new-fangled technology devices. Mobile signals are weak and the GPS thingy does not even connect to a satellite. Shame on you for fiddling with that fancy phone.

5. Thou shalt never ever, EVER travel by sleeper class. Whether it’s the noisy guys on the way to Kerala or the ribald Romeos on the way back, you don’t want to have to show your macho moves to save the wife. Mainly because you don’t have any.

6. Thou shalt not accept gifts heavier than 1 kg. You now have enough rice flour and bananas to adopt a pet monkey who likes appams. And if it weren’t for coolies, you would have lost a shoulder.

7. Thou shalt lose weight BEFORE thou travel(eth?). Because 3 breakfasts and 2 lunches and a smorgasbord for dinner everyday will push you over the quintal.

8. Thou shalt believe in a higher presence. Not because there are a large number of places of worship per area, but because you have travelled on a road not wide enough for two cars at 80 KMPH and lived to tell the tale.

9. Thou shalt respect traditional dress. The mundu is not only airy, but also customizable from long to short at a single flick of the wrist.

10. Thou shalt not state preference of food under any condition. Else thou shalt have to eat thy preference till thou loosen thy mundu, regain thy weight, and manage to speak the two words to communicate that you are done.

But seriously, Kerala is a beautiful place to visit especially if you have relatives there like my wife does. Despite not understanding the language, I really look forward to going because of the copious alcohol, the delectable cuisine, the fresh air and the warm people. What more is there to life, really?

From the moment I first saw it, I always wished that the ‘Moment of Truth’ was brought to India. And my wish came true a few weeks ago. The Indian version called ‘Sach ka saamna’ that airs on Star Plus has caused quite a furore in the general public and even some wise MP’s have asked for bans. But some of my favourite quotes in the whole episode comes from the High Court Bench:

1. Switch off your TV, Mister, if you don’t like it, or change the channel. Moral policing is not our job.
2. We don’t think our social values are so fragile that one TV programme will
damage them.

Seriously, these culturally erect guys took the hard way out by pursuing legal action rather than pressing a button on their remotes. What do they want anyway? An apology? “Sir, I am so sorry that I stole money from my job or slept with some random person. I will never do it again, and even if I do, I won’t tell because as you pointed out, telling the truth ‘offends your culture and ethos‘.” WTF?

The contestants come of their own volition, have a choice to discontinue at any point, and if they lose their jobs or their wives so be it. They are mature adults and cannot be told how to act by other, more mature adults.

I have a feeling that the actual reason for demanding a ban on the serial is that we are unable to accept a different opinion or behaviour and we want to believe life is dandy and perfect. Ain’t that the truth?

Check out the greatdrivingchallenge.com – an ingenious way to use the internet to promote your brand. You can register as a couple too if you think you are upto this sort of thing. Me, I’m not much of a driver and would not get 12 days off if I were dead.

And this is definitely my favourite couple. Voting for them is mandated for Daily Humor readers.

Worry not, regular blogging shall commence post this weekend. Been overworked and overstressed, but I shall come back like a blogging phoenix. A bleenix even. Ok off to bed now. Good night bleeple.

And no, I wasn’t paid my Mitsubishi for this post.

After the recent racial attacks on Indians in Australia, Canada and never-never land, Indians are now being racially targeted in unexpected quarters – India’s metros.

Earlier in the day, Chennai-ites were shocked to learn that Indians were flowing into Chennai like rasam in a plate of rice. One man, while self-immolating was heard shouting the slogan, “Who set me on fire” to the joy of the mob that had gathered around him. Upon hearing this, the Chief Minister immediately declared that babies born with non-Indian names would be given gold coins and made to cover up their nudity for this was a most non-Tamil state of being. At the time of going to press, a bill was being discussed to make curd rice the symbol of the Tamil movement.

In New Delhi, young boys teased young Indian girls, occasionally molesting or raping them in order to a lesson. Cops who stopped some of these offenders were immediately presented with a cellphone saying, “Lo baat kar lo”. The code phrase led to a wide smile from the cops who immediately recognized the Dilli ka bandas and responded with, “Panchod.” Later in the evening, Punjabis and Nepalis joined the Delhi-ites in a candle light vigil at the newly-rechristened Delhi Gate.

As the tension spread, Kolkata was slow to react since it was on strike for no apparent reason. As a result of general excitement, it had to call off the strike in order to protest the vast numbers of Indians coming in from non-Bangladeshi borders. “This is not true, we are never racist”, Mr Banerjee said without provocation. “We are too slow to be racists. We will come last.”, he said and giggled with glee bordering on insanity. Upon further enquiring, it was understood that he had attempted a joke. Sourav Ganguly further fuelled outrage among his fans by revealing that the Fake IPL Player was indeed an Indian.

Mumbai-ites were appalled after learning that most of the people in the city were Indians and that they were a minimum in their maximum city. As a stop-gap measure, they renamed their IPL team to ‘Mumbai Mumbai-ites’. Also on the edge of the sea, tourists were treated to a newly-lit Gateway of Mumbai. A pro-Mumbai political party burned down cabs, shops, slums, trains, babies and pictures of the numeral zero claiming that these were Indian influences they didn’t need. “The Marathi man has been suffering indignity for too long now”, said Mr Bhamurdekar as he packed his bags to leave office at 3 PM. “I’ve been working hard, but these bhaiyyas are ruining Mumbai”, he wistfully added as he stared at Mrs Godbole.

The policemen around the country seem to be helpless as they claim that their organization has been infiltrated by Indians. We will keep bringing you news as it happens. Stay tuned.

(c) Paranoid Indian Media

There was a warning that the news of Prabhakaran’s killing may cause riots in the city, so the company that I work for let me go one hour early today. No doubt they’ll keep me back one hour late somewhere in the near future.

So, given the risk of venturing out into the city on a dangerous day, half my blog’s readership (my friend PJ) and I decided to do what most rational souls would have done – travel for about 10-15 km to the Landmark store where India’s most powerful blogger (or something like that), Amit Varma was making an appearance to promote his book.

The book reading was good, although for those of you interested in celebrity trivia, Amit pronounces that as ‘dat’. The passage that Amit started out with contained swear words and orgasmic sounds; these were greeted by silence and a muffled gasp by the Chennai audience who are not used to such potty mouths. And after the discussion with Sharanya and another reading, came the funniest part of the session – audience Q&A. Some gems from the evening below:

1. I am a journalist, and as a journalist I know what journalists go through. Since I’m a journalist who’s written a couple of books called ‘?????’ and ‘The ???? of ????’, my journalistic question to you is about journalistic writing. What is it?

2. Why don’t you start a website?

3. WHO IS THIS YOUR FRIEND SANCHI?

The last question came from a really grumpy but cute old gentleman. The end of the session was followed by the book signing and the most anticipated part of the evening – snacks. Unfortunately, my Ayurvedic diet mandates that bread cannot be eaten, so I had to keep away from the sandwiches.

Oddly, Amit seemed to remember me and insisted on getting his photograph taken with me. Here’s the picture we took after a nice, short conversation about writing, Mumbai, blogging, wives (all good), work and books.

Amit signed my book with, “It’s nice to finally meet you.” The feeling was mutual Amit.

Also, check out Sunil’s more detailed coverage of the event here.

What a day – The Hand that rocked the Lotus, rules the country again. Of course, the Left didn’t do well, because you know that in our culture a ‘Left Hand’ means shit.

All the news channels are thrilled to bits that their exit polls were correct and this is a common headline across the board, ‘UPA Win – Just as we had predicted.’ CNN IBN is even showing that their new website has had 7.5 million hits so far. What joy for me.

I just hope that a united government is able to work towards the progress we desperately need now – no more communal tension, effective anti-terrorism measures, economic and infrastructural reforms. We’ve had enough of these problems – time to move on.

Moving to the IPL, one spot was booked in the semis. Mumbai effectively walked out of the semi-finals of IPL 2 when Sachin walked off the field having scored only 11 from 15 balls. Despite reaching a reasonable total, it was Sachin’s reliable captaincy that ensured they would never make it past Dhoni and Hayden. If anyone should have the nickname ‘The Wall’, it really should be Hayden. Not only does he play with consistency and is difficult to get out, but he also looks massive – a veritable Great Wall of Chennai. And it is on this wall with an orange cap that Chennai have jumped to the other side of the tournament.

The only interest in the DC vs KKR match was to see if DC would continue to be in the hunt for the semis. KKR has become like the Third Front of this IPL now; they can only screw up the other teams’ chances (as BJP claimed the Third Front did in these elections) to be in the top four, and that’s exactly what one though when Andrew Symonds was run out.

KKR managed a very good total of 160 that was primarily a result of a 17-ball 43 by David Hussey. A solid start by Gilly didn’t seem like it would be enough – at the end of the 19th over they still needed 21 to win. But a sensational final over, which Rohit Sharma faced most of, yielded 26 runs, and ensured that KKR continued its losing habit.

It wasn’t without controversy though as Mortaza was no-balled in the early part of the over as one of the fielders wasn’t within the circle. McCullum fought tooth and nail, but didn’t manage to win the argument with the umpire. Poor McCullum I feel so bad for him, he showed so much determination today – being captain of KKR is very much like being CEO of Citi. Chief of a shiny, sinking ship.

Onto some blooperdom and today we feature a Ramiz Raja classic: “It’s touch and go, and it’s more go than touch.” He really knows how to turn a phrase, with more phrase than turn. Also, check out a nice collection of these commentary classics from Cricinfo.

And is it just me or are the Zoozoos getting irritating? They were fine when they first appeared, but it’s all too predictable now.

Sorry for not adding a NSFW warning yesterday – my bad!

Determination is good in sport, but not when it’s used to convert victories into losses. And so it came to pass that KKR of the mi-dust touch scored a total of 174 and lost comfortably to Mallya’s boys. McCullum finally came good as fielder and batsman, but is still to come good as captain. Ross Taylor stitched together 81 from 33 balls to ensure that KKR’s hole-digging continued to reach a new low. SRK’s incentive to return continues to ensure that the team really works manfully against winning. Looking at McCullum though, you can’t help but feel bad for him – he’s like a strongman put in the middle of a nuclear battlefield. Fat lot of good those muscles do him.

Bravo to Mumbai who comfortably overtook KXIP’s piddly totaly of 116 which was always going to be a low one when Duminy got Yuvraj out in his first over. KXIP’s fortunes seemed to have reversed since Sreesanth got fit. His mediocre bowling and his basic fielding errors are only surpassed by his buffoonery. Tendlya finally coming into his own and making a decent-sized score and Lee steaming in like he did when he made his debut.

The table looks very interesting now. The last few games should see a desperate race to the finish with Rajasthan, Mumbai, Deccan, Bangalore and Punjab all vying for the last two spots in the semis. Much anticipation.

Also, I figured out Danny Morrison’s sentence construction rule: A full stop. Is acceptable. At any point. In a sentence.

Sad IPL-related news – A man in Mumbai kills his son for watching the IPL. Men like him give drinking a bad name.

A great couple of matches. The Rajasthan Royals continue their upward trajectory by beating the pants off the Deccan Chargers. Another strong performance by Yusuf. He’s become almost ridiculously reliable. No one can call them an underdog anymore!

In the second match, just as the Daredevils seemed to be running away with it, Captain Courageous stumped Warner and turned it around. After that Karthik finally managed to get out on the second attempt and the rest was a mere formality. An unknown hero came forth in Jakati today and I’m really impressed with his stock ball’s dip and turn. An impressive outing for the slow left armer. What a day for my two favorite captains in the series.

The series is mighty close now and you can put your money on almost anyone. But it’s the Royals and the Super Kings that have the momentum. And unlike last year there are no clear leaders. That’s always good for the game.

Hate mobile blogging!

What a team! No hype, no expensive buys, no fake bloggers, no bling – all heart. It’s hard to not support the Rajasthan Royals. Last year they were the underdog before the tournament started. This year, 4 matches into the tournament they became the underdog. One hopes that today’s match changes their fortunes.

How one loves this team and their story: a seasoned skipper backing his young guns from India to take them to victory. Last time they won it was a young fast bowler called Kamran Khan whose face had to be held between Warne’s palms because he couldn’t stop smiling. This time Yusuf Pathan with a 30-ball unbeaten 62 took someone with Vettori’s experience to the cleaners and blotted the Delhi Daredevils’ all-win record.

Sure DD batted badly, the boundaries were small, but when a team with low confidence is 5 down for 64 with a run rate of over 8 required you sometimes take the result for granted.

The IPL is nicely set up now. Mumbai stands at no. 3, but I wonder if it will manage to get into the semis, I hope they do, but don’t know if they have the fire power to do it. C’mon Chennai, you can come back! It’s great though, the only teams who seem to be sure of where they’re heading are KKR and RCB.

This cricket match is what IPL is all about. I just wish they cut down on the fluff: commentators forcing themselves to say how crowded the stadium is, Lalit Modi stops his lame moves of signing autographs with a camera following him. We really don’t need that. Just focus on the cricket. And the cheerleaders maybe.

Lalit Modi is not supposed to be out of India. And since he is, he decided to share his break with us by creating what is the equivalent of a commercial break in a movie – a tactical time-out. Sachin Tendulkar and the Mumbai Indians definitely won’t be fans of Modi’s brainwaves today. What a disaster – they were cruising after ten overs of their batting. And they had a great bowling comeback after a quick DC start!

Good job by the Deccan Chargers though (or as the ToI likes to call them – Team Hyderabad), they’re scripting quite the ultimate turnaround so far, from last to no. 1 this year. 3 out of 3 matches they’ve won this year.

How about strategizing a reserve day Mr La-mo? Did that ever cross your ass… err… mind?

On a more serious note, this evening seemed eerily empty. Had to make do with Constantine on WB and some other old movies. The end of IPL 2 is gonna give me withdrawal symptoms worse than season 1. Last year, I wasn’t tweeting or blogging so much.