When unwelcome flatulence secretly rends the air !!

God forbid, but I had to write this since this humorous incident had been irking me for a while.

We are in the thick of a review session and I am all mind-and-body engaged playing the Devil's Advocate with my probing questions and challenging of assumptions when I presume I ended up nettling an equivocating Project Manager and his Team who happened to be at the receiving end of the stick. And at a time when the exchanges were reaching a head, there was this silent whiff of "disgusting air" that whirled it's way up from beneath the table, probably perpetrated by someone from the beleaguered Team. Yes, twas that hydrogen sulphide charged soft rear ended song which altered the course of the review session permanently. The song about the food which churns the air inside your guts !! And as you have by now rightly imagined, the meeting was adjourned with all window and door panes in the room flung open to let the misery out. To add, it is to this day humorously spoken off that the famed room still echoes the hushed tones of that sour song.

Funnily, this had been an area that interested a few kinky friends of mine back during college days even as their purpose was to zero in on the elusive culprits, till they were carried away and were completely lost in the maze of it's intricate body of knowledge which they then aptly named "Fartological Science". Their analysis of the properties and situational adoption of this science by individuals helped them derive different sub-nomenclatures for such folks which I have tried to capture herebelow. The occurrence of the incident a few days back as narrated above is what kicked-up long lost memories of this humorous subject and served as fodder for this blog.

Dishonest types - those who do it and then turn around to accuse a colleague
Eveready types - those who have the anytime-anywhere preparedness to launch one
Ineffective types - those who lack lower abdominal strength to even get one going
Strategic types - those who come up with it and cough aloud at the same time
Green Peace types - those whose constitutes damage-free odours
Confident types - those who literally thunder with those audible 1000W sounds
Sly types - those who let out ultra-low decibel muffled ones
Scholarly types - those who bottle-up their own specimens for research
Nervous types - those who chug and stop mid way
Upright types - those who meekly own up to their mischief
Ultimate WMD types - those killer types with the power to send multitudes down on their knees

How many times have these turbulent currents of this destructive flatulence altered your situation ?

Whipping up memories of a "Moron" from travel days !!

I want to introduce you to a “Moron” with whom I have had coincidental face-offs quite often when I left the country on business. The odds of meeting this blunder-of-a-creation has been 3-to-2 in guesstimated terms. "Mr.Moron" sits guard at one of the vantage exit points from India, and with an "operate to exasperate" motto that powers him he can prove to be the destroyer of destinies to any unwitting maiden traveler. He almost brushed with mine during our first encounter while I was on my way to Melbourne.

I checked in my baggage and was waiting for the Immigration counter to become active for the final formalities before boarding the plane. Oh yes, in this country and city you have to tolerate the Immigration officials (for that matter any Government official) to enjoy their unscheduled pee-breaks or gossip-breaks and return their haunches to their seats in their own sweetest time. I was agonizingly counting minutes and people, hoarding around in random queues lugging their cabin paraphernalia. But, just an hour before my SQ flight’s departure time, they condescendingly decided to make their royal selves worthy. As they finally did, people rushed-in with disgust to get their passports stamped and get out of the lousy place.

As for me, my ill luck and the “Moron” were aligned to utmost perfection. So, he beckoned to me and I went and stood across the counter and passed him my travel documents. His flippant looking at my passport was the first indication that he was a descendant of the “Moronic” clan. His first question though clearly seconded my assumption.

“Where is your other boarding pass ?”
If you are going to a Australia via S'pore, and if you have not been through-checked in, you would alternatively first get a boarding pass to S'pore from your city of embarkation and then a boarding pass to Australia at Changi Airport-S'pore. Right ? Wrong !! The “Moron” was not happy with my answer, and I had my share of trouble over-clarifying this to him.

“Where is your visa to Singapore ?”
Hmmm! I forgot !! Bad joke !! Back then, if you were not pre-equipped with a processed Visa, S'pore optionally had a Visa-on-arrival process if you happened to be a Visa holder of some other destination country. Maybe every other Immigration official in the world knew that, except “Sir.Moron” (I was wondering how he got to this relatively exalted office). Well, he was not convinced.

“What if they don’t give you entry into Singapore ?”
I thought I would call up “Moron”, narrate a brief history about my family and get this guy fixed by swallowing a suicide pill ? Ha !! Does it matter if I am not allowed ? It is not his darn problem anyway. I told him I will be transiting at Changi-S'pore and will take the next Qantas flight to Melbourne. "Moron" however, was singing a melody to himself and didn’t quite get my explanation as he was busy buried inside my passport to pick out some loose ends.

“What is the name of your father and mother ?”
Well, I knew mine but did the “Moron” know his ? I reeled out the details but was almost frustrated enough to ask him his in return.

With every callous question he was flipping my passport back and forth as though some magic bunny or some silly dove might just pop out from the pages.

“What will you do in Singapore?”
Oh !! I wanted to tell him that I will be buying stuff for him and his family but just stopped short of saying "only shopping and sight-seeing". No !! I didn't go that way but rather bit my tongue as I knew he won't be too happy to hear that I would be having a ball in the wonderland while he would be sitting on his rotten rear and giving a miserable time to other people.

Finally when he had nothing more to ask, he stamped my passport and cast it back across the counter. Somehow, I just had time to run, pull myself through Security and board the flight.

Next question .... "What if I had missed my flight ?"
Well, “Mr.Moron” would have been in the history books for sure !!

The Alchemist ... I am wondering why it is a Best-seller !!

As I read about celebrities of the likes of Bill Clinton and Julia Roberts and even literary greats like Naipaul, Barrack Obama and Peter Drucker spotted with the book in their hands, I could not resist the idea of picking up "The Alchemist" at Landmark last week, given to understand that it was also commercially an immensely successful book that has made it to the International Bestsellers hall-of-fame.

But having read, over the past few days, about dreams, symbols, omens, destinies and adventure that follow Santiago, the shepherd boy (the central character of the novel) like echoes of ancient wise voices that combine an atmosphere of Medieval mysticism with the song of the desert, I disapprovingly concluded that Paulo Coelho could have done a much better job to truly deserve the high distinction of "a masterpiece" for his work. I found the book constructed upon a flimsy storyline, wildly out of touch with reality, with less-than-artistic use of language that fails to stimulate even minimal excitement that usually goes with any book reading (let alone the life-change movement that it serves to institute) and was a dismally poor attempt at portraying "The Biblical God's" invisible hand at work behind mankind's self-actualization.

With billions of the living still athirst in this visibly rattled generation in seeking out their "Purpose in Life", true "Personal Calling", and obtaining an understanding about the "Almighty God" and the "After Life", it simultaneously presents a huge untapped market and also makes perfect business sense for an upcoming breed of new-age writers to concoct indigenous remedies and recipes to cater to the world-wide demand for literary-drugs promising "life-change". I am unsure about whether "The Alchemist" is one such prescription.

However, I am still left wondering as I close this blog, as to what captivated the minds of 65 million readers drawing such adoration over time, that was least appealing to me, having now ascertained for sure that the book does an extremely pathetic job of helping the reader accomplish what it advertises. Why would not such purpose-seeking readers rather try "The Bible", the undisputed Queen of the International Bestsellers and the best book ever scripted that promotes and guides "God-assisted life-change" ?

Our humorously hideous home initiations

An Aussie colleague of mine was inquired of at a recent luncheon about his meal preference .. vegetarian course or otherwise ? His sarcastic comment that "pure vegetation is meant for cattle and not the humankind" and another recalled act of a Brahmin pal of mine who flicked a prized piece of chicken from my plate and washed it down his gullet in a moment, got this blog rolling off my mind.

My home in Trichy gained notoriety among my college mates for the secret initiations that happened there...especially of the steadfast kind who were sworn-by-their-blood to vegetarianism all their life. Back then, my home and I often played "the haven and the host" to whet the appetite of the ill nourished populace at college. The bashes at home were usually preconceived to treat the invited (also targeted) not to an elaborate spread to choose from as one may imagine, but to a narrow choice of meat-based recipes with limited options. They were so planned to ensure that a famished veggie would fall a natural victim to the savour and delight of my mom's irresistible chicken and fish curries, given that the rest of the dishes were bland alternatives in comparison. I had seen this pattern of occurrence often times, when they all began with posing vocal resistance, but with that gentle urging and teasing thereafter meekly succumbed to the allure and ended up likely picking their plates clean off the last morsels. The initiations happened struggle-free with the proven power of the meats effortlessly prevailing against the wavering will power of the abstinent. The feasting usually ended with the initiated lauded for their courage to walk the walk of faith down a thitherto untraversed path. It was fun to note that the initiations triggered off an unholy craze in them to get their teeth on a carnivorous kill as often as they thereafter could. Crazier still, is the fact that some of such have carefully sought after "broadmindedness and liberal values in epicurean matters" as key partner attributes even during their spousal search, to ensure sustainable support for their secretly cultivated habits.