Doctors

There’s a medical camp at work this week — blood pressure, blood sugar, heart problems, general check up etc. I, of course, haven’t gone. That’s because I’m scared of doctors. For one thing, I don’t want to hear the bad news — “You’re not going to live to be forty.” I already know that, I don’t need someone else to tell that me. Even if it’s for free.

More importantly though, I’m scared of doctors. The biggest problem is that their word is so final. It’s almost like living in a dictatorship. Once you enter that room, anything that doctor says is the law. He tells you to “take off all your clothes and make yourself comfortable” and you have to do it. You can’t say no — he’s a doctor! If she tells you to “hold steady while I insert this long, pointy thing up your rectum”, the best you can hope for is that it’s well lubricated. That’s about it.

I think that’s how hypnotism came about. That’s nothing but a bunch of doctors who realized that their patients will do anything they tell them. And they thought to themselves, “Hey! This is a good way to have some fun, make some money and also appear like magicians at the same time.” Let’s call an audience, charge them to watch and for subjects we can just pick people from there itself.

To me that’s a hypnotist — an opportunistic doctor who graduated bottom of his class in medical school and decided that he can’t really cure anything but that it’s a lot of fun to get people to act like a monkey.

Blind Dates

I don’t really understand the concept of the “blind date”. I mean you obviously know that the other person has got to be some sort of loser. Just the very fact that they’ve got to resort to the blind date means that they’re not very ‘dateable’. Whom are you expecting? Alicia Silverstone? How desperate do you have to be to say, “Okay, that’s it. I don’t care what you’ve got, I’ll take it.”

Girls, for some reason, love setting people up. Guys don’t. Guys classify all (single) girls they know into four broad categories. There’s the “not dateable”, the “I’ve already dated”, the “I’m currently dating”, and the “I would like to date sometime in the future”. It’s easy to see why a guy wouldn’t want to set any of their friends up with someone from one of the above categories. Girls, on the other hand, just love the concept of fixing someone up. I think girls have only two real motives in life – first to get themselves fixed up and then to fix up everyone else they know. Because it’s never the single girls who are fixing you up, it’s always the girls who are already going out with someone. When they were single, they would never have considered dating you. But now that they’re not, they suddenly seem to think you’re the most eligible bachelor in town – for their friends!

I’ve lost track of the number of times a girl has said to me, “Oh, you’re single right? You should meet my friend X.” It’s like they’re getting money out of it. And X has always got “a great personality”, that’s the other thing. Just once, I’d like to be set up with someone who’s got no personality but looks like a supermodel. Yeah, set me up with a Playmate who’s got the personality of Attila the Hun. That would do just fine, thank you very much.

That’s why I don’t understand arranged marriages either. Because that’s like the biggest blind date of your life. You haven’t met her, you haven’t seen her, you know nothing about her other than the fact that she’s got a great personality.

How utterly desperate have you to be to settle for that?

Stand Up - 1

I saw two guys, the other day, walking down the street in the hot sun carrying a big, wooden door on their heads. I don’t get it. Wouldn’t it just be simpler just to carry an umbrella?

Free Hugs

I did the “Free Hugs” thing this past Saturday evening on M.G. Road here in Pune. For those of you who aren’t quite aware of what this involves check out the videos on Youtube or this Wikipedia article. This is the Free Hugs Campaign website.

I will be soon posting more stuff on my experiences in the coming days. I also plan to keep doing this. For now though, here’s an article that I wrote for the Pune Mirror regarding the my adventure.

Stay tuned.


The following piece appeared in the Pune Mirror on Monday, 7th July 2008.

How would you react to someone standing at a street corner with a sign saying “Free Hugs”? Would you be willing to give someone you hadn’t met before a hug if they asked you for one? Why is it so hard to get a hug from someone you don’t know? These are some of the questions I wanted to find answers to when I decided to conduct my “Free Hugs” social experiment.

The idea, of course, wasn’t an original. The concept was started by a person called Juan Mann (One Man) in Sydney in 2004. Since then it’s been carried out in many cities across around the world—and popularized thanks to the online video sharing site youtube.com. When I mentioned trying it out in India to some friends, the responses I got leaned heavily toward “It won’t work in India.” I disagreed but thought it was worth finding out.

I picked M.G. Road because I had expected it to be a Walking Plaza and also because I thought it would have a fairly distributed demographic set. (At the last minute, I found out that the Walking Plaza had been put off for two months because of the rains, so that was a bit of a disappointment.) I could have tried a mall or a multiplex—but in that case I would only come in contact with a certain type of people. I wanted a slightly more varied sample set.

After just one run of the experiment, I would have to say that it was a success. I received a fair share of hugs yesterday and only a couple of really negative responses. Most people who declined, either did so with a smile or just refused to look in my direction at all. That’s okay—everyone has the right to make their own choices. No one told me to get out and go home. So experiment part – success.

There is another side to the whole story though. I actually do believe in the power of the hug. I’m sure every one of us has at some point in their lives felt like that they needed a hug real bad but there was no one around who would offer them one! It shouldn’t be so hard to get one from someone you don’t know. When I stand on the street with a board saying “Free Hugs”, the statement I’m making is that irrespective of who you are—young, old, rich, poor, clean, dirty, anything—if you want a hug, I’m willing to give you one. I think that’s a powerful statement to make.

I plan to continue doing this in the future. Not for the experiment bit—okay, not just for the experiment—but for the sheer fun of it. At the end of the day, each single hug I got, more than made up for all the hugs that were turned down. Hug someone around you now and see if you don’t feel better!

Unsuccessful Ways to Impress Girls at Parties - I

She: What’s your name?
He: Can’t tell you.
She: What do you do?
He: Can’t tell you.
She: Where are you from?
He: Can’t tell you.
She: Ummm. Is there anything you can tell me?
He: Your breasts are too big, you wear too much make-up, and yea – word of advice – try wearing a bra.

PC Gone Wrong

Political Correctness can be hard at achieve at times. For example, last week in Goa I saw a sign in the government bus that I was traveling in saying something like the following – “Differently Abled Passengers will travel free of cost...” So far so good. But then it continues on to say – “… on display of their Government Issued Disability Card.” (Emphasis at both places is mine.)

Ummm. Are they “differently”-abled or “dis”-abled? Make up your minds. And if they’re differently abled then why do they have disability cards?

“Couples Only”

I was at Apache last evening, a local pub, and I ran into what seemed to me (at least initially) to be some pretty strange behavior. Let me explain.

Firstly, I’d gone there with a girl. (No, that isn’t the strange thing!)

Now, the upper floor at Apache has two sections, which I shall refer to as the Outside and the Inside. For some unfathomable reason, the management running the place has decided to reserve the Inside strictly for couples. There’s a board saying “Couples Only” at the entrance to this section. (Okay, that’s strange all right, but it still isn’t what I’m talking about.)

So the two of us have just climbed up the stairs, onto the upper floor, and are looking for a place to sit – in the Outside section – when the waiter tries to usher us into the Inside. “Sir, couples ka andar hai. (Couple seating is inside)”. But Inside looked a little too gaudy and the music was too loud, so we decided to ignore the waiter’s “recommendation” and found ourselves a table on the Outside. A table for four; it was the smallest one available.

Soon the waiter attending to our table arrives and repeats what the earlier one had said, “Andar baito, couples bahar allowed nahin. (Sit inside, couples are not allowed outside.)” Not allowed? This seemed like a little too much. As far as I understood, the board “Couples Only” implied “Only couples can sit here” and not “Couples can sit only here”.

I tried to explain this to the waiter, but he didn’t really seem to get the difference. I was half-tempted to tell him, “We’re NOT a couple. We’re just friends!” But I have a feeling that would have been a waste too. However, I have a penchant for stubbornness, so I finally managed to convince him that the music inside was too loud and thus we would be sitting outside, thank you very much and if he had a problem with it he could go complain to his grandfather.

After he left, I thought about how strange this all was. But within seconds I realized that there was a simple reason that the management had ordered the waiters to ensure that all couples sit inside. A very rational one at that.

The clientèle of the place were mainly male. Consequently, the Inside was almost empty – only one or two tables occupied – and the Outside almost full. The two of us had plopped ourselves down at a table for four. Thus, by sitting Outside, we had denied place to some other group of stags, who could not sit Inside anyway. Assuming that the situation remains like this – Outside full, Inside empty – we had effectively taken up six seats!

You don’t have to be an Economics Major to figure out that that isn’t the best outcome for the pub.

Weddings: Suddenly Less Fun

It’s like an epidemic and an extremely contagious one at that. Everyone I know - my age, a little older, a little younger - seems to be either getting engaged or married. Literally everyone.

When I was younger, I used to believe that I would NEVER want to get married. I’d picture myself as a single bachelor (pardon the tautology) - the person all my friends would complain to about their wives at parties and other such occasions. A single bachelor accompanied a different girl each time. Or maybe the same one might stick around for a few months, or even a year, but certainly no such bond or commitment as frightening as “marriage”.

In my fantasy little world, I’d imagine them casting lustful glances at the girl I’m with, followed by sleisha fearful ones in the direction of their wives to see if they’ve noticed. “Why does this fool get to enjoy his life as he pleases,” they’d think, “while I’m stuck here with this ol’ hen!” I have a vivid imagination and it’s biased toward me.

Yes, that was the stupid old me.

I think it all started to change about a year or so ago. I can’t put my finger on exactly what triggered it - in fact, it probably wasn’t anything in particular - but I do know that slowly weddings seemed to be going from just happy events to happy events tinged with a bit of sadness and jealousy. I had reached “that” age and I realized that I DID want to get married - and how!

These days, when I hear of an upcoming wedding, I’ll still be happy for the couple - especially if I know one or both of them well. But I’d be lying to myself if I said that deep down - real deep maybe - I didn’t wish it was me instead. Not with that bride, of course, but well, you know.

Basically, I think I’ve had enough of the chicks, I want the hen - and I want her for life.

If you’re getting married and I know you, invite me. But if I appear a wee bit sad at the wedding, you know why.

White Dancers

(Like I mentioned earlier, I’m currently in Germany and having the time of my life because the clubbing scene over here is wicked. Nothing like the Mediterranean or something, obviously, but a million times better than where I’m coming from. However, there is just one small, little thing… )

White people are just the worst club dancers ever. White guys, especially. If you’ve seen one white guy dance, you’ve seen them all. To be more precise, if you’ve seen one white guy dance for 30 seconds, you’ve probably seen every white dance move ever invented. Twice over.

I’ll be the first one to admit that I’m no great dancer. But even I am far better a dancer than 99% of the Europeans I see on the dance floor. That’s saying something! Put me in the midst of a group of white guys and you could easily mistake me for a professional.

White guys have exactly two moves. The more commonly used move is to hold one arm out in front of you, slightly above head level, palm open and facing down and then to pretend like you’re pressing down on some imaginary invisible object in front you in rhythm with (what you think is) the beat. You’ll see this move everywhere – sometimes two or more people doing it together as a group. When doing this move, it is apparently best to either look down with a very serious expression on your face or look straight ahead with a goofy grin. I guess it depends on how sozzled you are at that point. The only variation possible with this move is to, well, use your other hand. (Old masturbatory joke comes to mind here.)

The second move is used for music with a slightly lighter beat. It involves holding your arms to your sides, bent at the elbows so that your forehands are pointing forward, fists closed lightly, and pretending like you’re jogging in one place and not getting anywhere. Fortunately, no variations are possible here.

White girls tend to move their entire body randomly and vigorously in all directions. This is normally quite pleasing to the eye – since most of them are rather good-looking – but all it takes just ONE somewhat overweight, inappropriately dressed enthusiastic dancer to ruin your entire night. I don’t care how many hot chicas you see on the dance floor, the sight of an ungainly belly – almost unhindered by the clothing over it – heaving itself like a blob of Jello on steroids is going to stamp itself over all of them in your mind. There’s no way you can even try to enjoy the night after that.

This is one reason why I like to dance with my eyes closed.

Germany, Ich Komme Zurück!

I am scheduled to fly back to Germany on the 10th of March for about 6 weeks. I will be staying in Frankfurt, like the last time. Weekdays will be hectic at work, but I ought to have the weekends to myself. Any suggestions on which cities or towns within the European mainland (within the Schengen Agreement member countries, preferably) are worth a visit?

I visited Paris (hated it, except for Jim Morrison’s grave) and Rome (loved everything about it) the last time I was in Europe, so those two are out. I’m thinking Amsterdam and Prague this time. What do you’ll say?