“Lion, lion, burning bra”..

..Slogan of feminist lions.

With apologies to William Blake.

“Snarling Panther, Hidden Cameraperson”–a Yash Raj Films project, in the pipeline..

File photo of Pancho

Loosely inspired by Ang Lee’s epic film, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, this movie is about a young and dashing Punjabi Black Panther named Pancho. Pancho has had a loving, bucolic upbringing in a verdant village not far from the Wagah Border. The village is full, of course, of resplendent Sarson Dey Khet and women dressed in colourful attire, either drying clothes or operating agricultural implements or hand-pumps. One day while foraging, Pancho quite unexpectedly crosses paths with a beautiful female leopard. Hailing from a small forest just outside Lahore, Pakistan, the leopard (whose name is LipSink) loses her way after being hot on the trail of a deer for many days; the deer incidentally is obese and looks quite succulent, but is, surprisingly, quite a nimble animal. LipSink not only manages to lose the deer, but also accidently crosses over into Indian Territory.

As may be expected, what follows is love at first sight: Pancho cannot take his eyes off LipSink’s slender, spotted body, while LipSink is gawking at Pancho, sparing neither his whiskers nor tail while doing so. However, all said and done, Pancho is a chivalrous panther who hasn’t forgotten his traditional roots, and LipSink is a homely leopard with a spotless character (if not spotless body). In other words, they don’t get it on. Pancho escorts LipSink back to her home outside Lahore, braving bad weather, mosquitoes and the occasional Taliban personnel during the journey. The bond between Pancho and LipSink deepens further during this period. Before they part , they decide that they will marry, come what may, and that too with the consent of the families on both sides – a decidedly uphill task given that he is a Hindu (and Indian) panther, and she, a Muslim (and Pakistani) LEOPARD!
The film traipses from gaiety to histrionics and is lightly peppered with episodes of humour of a markedly simian calibre. All the usual issues – the India-Pakistan and Hindu-Muslim divide, nationalism, discrimination on the basis of gender, Cricket, and inter-species fornication – get their due mileage using nauseatingly contrived and pedestrian settings and imagery.
The film ends on a happy note, but this starts to become evident only in the last 5 minutes of the film: Pancho and LipSink finally get the families’ approval after enormous trials and tribulations on both sides of the border (and also on both sides of the film screen).
They get married on Wagah border, a fitting symbol given the fact that most characters in the film suffer from borderline personality disorders. The offspring borne out of wedlock is a cute little Lanther (Panther-Leopard Hybrid) who is promptly offered dual citizenship of India and Pakistan by the concerned authorities. The films ends with a rustic scene: women dressed in colourful attire are cheerfully singing Punjabi folk songs, drying clothes and operating agricultural implements and hand-pumps.

Little Red Riding Hood..

"Little Red Riding Hood"

Pictured here in little red dress. The reasons for this shift in Ms. Hood’s dressing style, to a markedly minimalist one, are attributed to

a) her drastic reduction in wardrobe expenditure owing to cutbacks in income after the global economic recession of 2008 — this has resulted in her wearing clothes that are not really designer and use less fabric, thus making them less costly.

b) global warming — it is now simply too bloody warm for little Ms. Hood to wear what she used to wear earlier.

Monsoon Ecstasy – V. Rao and V. Kohli.

And Lo! The Curse was broken! Monsoon made peace with the lands of Delhi! The kingdom lay drenched in its delightful marvels. The sky goldened up at its edges. And there, standing by the open window, with startled raindrops in her hair and a perky rhythm up her sleeve, she said- Oh Life!! :)
*****
She looked down from her Balcony. The city had turned into a lake. Every one was so happy despite the inconvenience of travelling in the rain. Some people wore a happy smile on their face. Other’s celebrated it as Holi–this meant that celebrations were quickly turning into a massive water-splashing, mud-slinging orgy. It was not often that people got a legitimate excuse to indulge in such a big grope-fest. Joy Oh Joy.
Meanwhile, a hippopotamus, which had waded in from a close-by river, was happily munching a bunch of floating cauliflowers–they must have belonged to some nearby vegetable vendor..
*****
It was an unusual sight. There was much activity and all seemed occupied with it. Wild animals were floating about and so were unclaimed vegetables.
The landscape was changing. From drenched it was turning to flooded.
People were stalled under asbestos sheets. Dogs barked. Cats climbed up buildings.
Her hair still held those raindrops from the window. Her eyes were gaping at the lazy Hippo. She suddenly turned away from the window.
“There’s a basket of freshly baked cookies on the Ground Floor.” She thought.
Her teeth stood clenched over a nervous fingernail.
*****
“Am I hallucinating?”, she asked herself. “Could it really be a basket of freshly baked cookies?” “After a while, she convinced herself that they were actually freshly baked cookies. (Henceforth, we use the acronym “FBC” for
“Freshly Baked Cookies–its kinda tedious to keep writing “freshly baked cookies” over and over again).
Her mouth watered at the thought of biting into the FBC. She thought of the FBC creating waves of dopamine induced ecstasy in her brain. Then the low decibel moans, the feeling of complete bliss. “FBC, here I come!”, she said aloud. She was still nervous though: after all, what if the hungry hippo also liked FBC? What if he had spotted the basket too? Would it be worth it to get into a fight with a hungry hippo over some silly FBC?
“Look, stop panicking”, she told herself a litte sternly. “That Hippo has been munching on floating cauliflowers and god-knows-what-else the whole day. He is unlikely to be hungry now. Just stay focussed on the ‘dopamine and the low decibel moans’ part, and you should be just fine.”
She made her way down via the staircase. There was no other way to get down because the elevator was out of order. But she really didn’t mind making the effort as she was rather preoccupied with her strong desire for FBC. She reached the ground floor. She spotted the basket about 20 meters away from where she was, and could hardly control her excitement as she waded towards it through the murky water.
Finally, she reached it. The basket was in her hand. She took one cookie from it and ever-so-gently, bit into it.
Oh My! Oh My Lord!!……….. O damn. They are soggy. :(
The cookies were totally ruined.
The FBC had built up so much excitement, but the end result was horribly soggy cookies – what an anticlimax. How could she have overlooked it? After all, it HAD been raining cats and dogs – the FBC were bound to be wet and soggy. Her crazy euphoria about the FBC had clouded her rational mind. Damn.
“Now what to do?”, she thought. She was still desperate about getting her hands on some fresh, tasty, and very importantly, CRUNCHY cookies.
She thought, “There is a bakery about a kilometre away. But it is very late and dark now. Plus, the city has become a lake with all that water. Even if the shop was closed, I could always break in and steal some cookies, but how would I wade so far?”. Just then, she caught sight of the Hungry Hippo. It was quite close-by. The Hippo was half submerged–only the upper body was visible. The Hippo somehow looked quite benign from that distance. It looked like it could not hurt a little fly. And she was desperate for some FBC. Heck forget fresh, even just old baked cookies (OBC) would do right now. (note: OBC not to be confused with “other backward classes”)
She then had a brainwave: she decided to approach the Hippo and then coax him into ferrying her to the Bakery. “Perhaps I’ve gone crazy, yet I have this gut feeling that this is going to work out. I can ask him if I can sit on his
back and if he can take me to the Bakery.”
So, she waded towards the Hippo. The following conversation ensues between them:
Girlie: “Ahemmmmm. Hello.”
Hippo: “Grummmmmmmmmmm” (Possible Hippo sound, with no well defined meaning – perhaps something similar to our word, “Hmm”)
Girlie: “Hey there”
Hippo: “Grummmmmmmmmmm. Myself Herbie”
Girlie was tempted to say something that a lot of boys had tried with her: “Myself Girlie. Do you want to do FRAENDSIP with me ?” But better sense prevailed, and she refrained from that. Also, she suddenly realised that she could speak Hippo Language. Crazy!!!! Maybe she could speak Hippo language for a reason. Maybe it was all destined. Maybe the meaning of her life was soon going to become clear.
Girlie: “Hi Herbie, I’m Girlie. How are you?”
Herbie: “Fine. Grummmmmmmmmmmmmm.”
Girlie: “That’s good. OK Herbie, I’ll get straight to the point. The thing this that I have been fantasising about FBC…” …
Herbie: “FBC? What the FuNK is that?”
Girlie: “Oh sorry! FBC is short for freshly baked cookies”
Herbie: “I see.” (slightly contemplative “I see” :) )
Girlie: “So the thing is that there is a shop that should have some cookies. But the shop is a little far away, and I dont think I can make my way there all alone through this water. So…. I was wondering………….Ummmm”
Herbie: “What you wondering?”
Girlie: “Umm, if you could ferry me to the bakery”
Herbie: “Look Girlie, I would like to help you, but you know I’m not exactly a taxi service. Moreover, I’m sorry to sound selfish, but what’s in it for me? I don’t like cookies.”
Girlie: “OK, but you do like cauliflowers, don’t you? I saw you devouring a whole bunch a few hours back. You seemed to be really relishing them.”
Herbie: “True. They really were quite delectable. Also they had the right aroma and crunchiness. Mmmmm.”………
Girlie: “So heres the deal. I know the city well, and I could direct you to the vegetable mart. But first, you have to take me to the bakery. What do you say?”
Herbie: “OK, but Girlie, I hope you’re not deceiving me. If you are, I might treat you like I treated those cauliflowers, and make a meal out of you. “
Girlie: “Don’t worry, Herbie. I won’t let you down”.
Herbie: “OK, lets go. Climb onto my back and lead the way”

What adventures are in store for Herbie and Girlie? And what conversations are they going to have?
Tune in soon, to another episode of “Monsoon Ecstasy”. :)

Acerbic matters

Limes and Lemons

Amicable coexistence of limes and lemons is difficult. This is because a lime’s relationship to a lemon is marked by sourness.

My favourite type of religion

My favourite type of religion: “henotheistic”, with a good supply of chicks.

Interpretation of the Photograph – IV

Polar Bears

1) I think I’ll just chill against this ice-cushion of mine for a bit and watch some TV.

2)Can it be really true? Polar News Network says that the ice-caps are melting. Damn humans. This is hardly my idea of getting a  ”warm welcome”.

3)This is what the visual representation of Tri-Polar Disorder generally looks like.

4)The world is becoming polarised. Join the bandwagon. 

5)Dare to Bear.

6) This view is relaxing and beary nice!

7) MTV is showing my favorite song– it’s by Seal. Which reminds me, I could actually eat a whole seal right about now–man I’m hungry.

8)Sitting on my ass like this has been my most satisfying ass-ignment yet.

9) Cooling one’s heels can be quite pleasurable sometimes.

Interpretations of the Photograph – III

Alaskan Oil Pipeline

Is that the Alaskan Oil Pipeline you are pointing at me, or am I really that attractive? Alternatively, could this be some strange pipe dream of mine?

Mine Your Language

Beefcake archaeologist discovers a big secret passage in a mine he is exploring. He sends news of this exciting discovery to his ‘rather insecure by nature’ project-director, via a mobile phone text message. Unfortunately, the poor archaeologist gets fired soon after. The reason: the text message read–’I knew it! Mine is bigger!’.

Interpretations of the Photograph – II

Jon Secada

1) Jesus aint coming tonight–no matter how hard you pray Jonny.

2) If you had a piece of burning coal stuck between your hands, you would shriek too.

3) Sometimes no one wants to shake our hand. In such a case, we must shake our own two hands with one another.

4) My palms have just turned into a burger and I’m hungry–who cares if later on i’ll be ‘handicapped’?

5) Hands-free urinating has never EVER been this much fun.

6) Look mom, I stole some pepper from our neighbour– but it’s making me sneeze.

7)Mmm, this imaginary banana is delicious.

ps: interpretation 7 provided by friend Nina.