KILLING ME LOUDLY....

SHOUT A LITTLE SOFTLY

Do Indians know how to debate?
And when I say debate I mean an impassioned but still sensible discussion.

Not the screaming and slander that substitutes for it. And very often without any proof.

Every small thing causes ‘outrage’. Everything is Breaking News.

Newscasters are always up in arms.

And usually about EVERYTHING. Big or Small. Important or Not.

And its not just the TV ‘people’ (99% of them aren’t fit to be called journalists) it everyone.

Politicians (mostly the likes of Amar Singh rushing to the ‘well of the house’ at every perceived insult), Businessmen (Anil Ambani washing his very private dirty linen publicly on the front pages of all dailies), Actors (Amitabh Bachchan threatening to stop blogging coz people were assuming Aishwarya had swine flu after he himself mentioned her having flu on his blog). They all seem to like to discuss every issue at the highest possible decibel.

Both vocally and emotionally.
Never mind then that “Reason” seldom finds its way among all that noise.

Abdul Kalam was frisked? Let's Ban Continental Airlines.
Shah Rukh Khan was ‘detained’ for 66 minutes? Let's frisk all Americans. Or 'Tit for Tat' as the Lady Minister imaginatively called it.
Jaswant Singh was expelled? That means the BJP is finished. Lets write its obituary.
Rakhi Sawant got engaged? How could she??? Isn’t she supposed to be the national bitch?

(Its another point ofcourse that Ms. Sawant is proving to be just that now with all the excuses she is making to back out of the 'engagement')

There are never any coherent arguments. Just rhetoric. LOUD rhetoric.

Just like the daily soaps on TV.

LOUD. LOUD. LOUD!

Purported ‘news’ becomes loud ‘lecturing’ by the anchors and the ‘discussion’ is often reduced to a Question Of The Day which needs to be answered always with just a YES or a NO.

(Even here they don’t have the common sense to understand that Question Of The Day implies 1 question per day. Not 1 every hour)

The answer to “Should Amitabh Bachchan finally retire? SMS Y or N to xxxx ” is very quickly revealed by a panting anchor to be 89% YES.

Now while I may personally agree about his long overdue retirement, my own Question Of The Day is “89% of how many? 8, 9, 89, 890, 890,000,000??”

We are never told are we? We just get some over-eager journo (and almost always in an ill fitting suit) insisting its doomsday for Mr. Bachchan.

We say India is the IT hub of the world.
We say India is the world’s biggest democracy.
We say India is an emerging superpower.
We say India has the biggest purchasing power in its middle class.
We say we need a place in the permanent membership of the Security Council.

Yet no one seems to be taking us seriously. No one seems to be listening.

Why?

Afterall ALL of the above claims are definitely true.

Maybe we just need to speak a little softly.

Soft Power anyone??

Till Next Time

Luv

Vish

Beware of Diplomats Bearing Gifts..

ALWAYS LOOK A GIFT HORSE IN THE MOUTH.

The Dutch are known to be a very tolerant people and usually don’t get easily riled. On the rare occasion when they do get angry they usually visit the corner coffee shop (or in their case the hash-bar) and their problems usually go up in smoke. Quite literally.

Amsterdam was one of the only places in the Europe where, when asking for directions, I was told by a very polite policewoman;
“Go straight till you reach the Red Light Area and then turn right at the Blue Banana strip bar.”

And to think I was just asking directions to the local Madame Tussauds.

Anyway the point is that they are a very free society and incredibly tolerant.

But even their famed tolerance must have been tested this week when a prized possession at the national museum turned out to be fake.

The Rijksmuseum is saying that a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by US astronauts is fake.

The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees in turn had received it as a private gift on October 9, 1969 from then-US ambassador J William Middendorf during a visit by the three Apollo 11 astronauts, part of their "Giant Leap" goodwill tour after the first moon landing.
(Now of course, that goodwill tour seems less a “Giant Leap” and more a “Giant Leap of Faith” tour.)

Meanwhile when questioned, ex-ambassador Middendorf told Dutch authorities that he had gotten it from the US State Department, but couldn't recall the exact details (I bet!).

The US Embassy in the Hague has also said that it was investigating the matter.
It was never tested and apparently no one thought to doubt it, since it came from the Prime Minister's collection.

The fraud apparently first came to light during a showing in 2006, when a space expert told the Rijksmuseum it was unlikely that NASA would have handed out moon rocks so shortly after Apollo returned to Earth. (Messrs Armstrong & Aldrin landed on the moon on July 20, ’69)
Testing by researchers from Amsterdam's Free University determined the object was not moon rock.

In fact it wasn’t even a rock. It was a piece of petrified wood.

But the Dutch being as they are, are now planning to hang on to the piece as a curiosity item.
And knowing the Dutch, I am betting that that will soon be one of the most visited attractions at the museum.

Meanwhile who knows, all those conspiracy theories (“How is the flag waving if there is no air or wind on the moon?” “How come there are no stars visible in the background?” etc) about the moon landings being staged by NASA may actually be true afterall.

One small lie by NASA, a giant fraud by the U.S.??

Till Next Time...

Luv

Vish

Dark & Un-Lovely

THE UN-'FAIR' INDIANS

Don’t worry guys this is not another post on SRK’s airport troubles.

Enough on that already.

I was just going through all the blogs and editorials who are both for and against SRK but who all have 1 thing in common.

The mention of brown skins.

Infact religion, nationality apart, what everyone was universally in acceptance of, was that brown skins are the ones who normally get pulled aside.

After India won the inaugural T20 World Cup in S. Africa and were on their way back to India, they transited for a few hours in Dubai.

I happened to be flying out on business the same day and apart from a few over-eager (again brown skinned) autograph hunters I saw them treated just like everyone else.

They spent the 2 hours in the business class lounge (I presume they weren’t flying cattle class) like normal passengers and just seemed a little hungry. And particularly thirsty.

For Champagne!

With all the champagne having already been sprayed at each other in celebration in S Africa, they seemed intent on consuming enough to make up for the wastage on the ground.

Anyway I digress.

The point is that they were treated like everyone else (that is if business class travelers are like everyone else).

Now imagine the Australian or English team at an airport in India. The officers would be falling over themselves to push them to the front of the line and break every other rule they can.

Why?? The colour of their skins stupid.

Rome’s Da Vinci airport is one of the scariest in all of Europe. Not just because of the huge sniffer dogs running around you but also because it is the closest in character to Indian airports (i.e. messy, dirty & crumbling).

At immigration I saw many people being pulled aside and their bags being checked inside out.

And almost 99.9% of them were "brown skinned" people.

But to be fair to the Italians, half of the segregated ‘brown skins’ were also seen carting around amazingly large bundles of luggage. Tied-up securely with nylon ropes and with numerous swathes of masking tape on it with ‘Mr. Agarwal New Dilli-ROME’ or ‘Mr. Banerjee Cal-Air France-Italy’ scrawled on it.
This ofcourse routinely passes for luggage in India but maybe the Europeans aren’t quite so familiar with pre-historic methods of packing.

The other half of the 'brown skins' told to step aside were Arabs, who had thankfully managed to pack sensibly but somehow were wearing pants that began, not near their waists, but somewhere near their nipples.

But I digress again.

The point is 'brown skins' are usually discriminated against while 'white skins' mostly have it easy.

All over the world.

Faced with this reality, do you even wonder then, why the craze there is in Asia for fairness creams?

The irony is that SRK himself endorses one of the brands.

Maybe he should have used some of it too.

In all fairness.

Till Next Time

Ciao

Luv

Vish

MY NAME IS NOT MANGO. NOR IS IT POTATO.

“Hi. I am Raj. Naam toh suna hoga?”

Many years ago, Shah Rukh Khan had spoken that (now immortal) line in DDLJ and charmed a million hearts.

Now barely a month after completing the shooting for his new film, SRK approached the immigration desk at Newark airport and spoke the (new immortal) line;

“Hi. My Name Is Khan” with the ‘naam toh suna hoga’ implied in his dimpled smile.

“Khan is it?” said the decidedly ‘un-charmed’ officer “Can you come with me please”

“But my name is Shah Rukh Kh... Kh...Khan” he said and this time adding “You must have surely heard of me?”

“NO. I have NOT heard of you. Now go sit there till I call you” said the villainous officer pointing to a small room packed with people like a sack of potatoes.

And in India all Hell broke loose.

But inspite of his “I was victimized because My Name Is Khan” proclamation (of hurt and insult) & endorsement (of his aptly titled new movie, ‘My Name Is Khan’), my own guess is that all the anger has nothing to do with perceived racial profiling and all that crap.

No. Not at all.

SRK is livid not because he was detained as his surname is Khan.
SRK is enraged not because he was apprehended due to his being Indian.

SRK is angry because he was not Recognized.

SRK who, when Googled, gets more hits than Cruise, Pitt & Jolie. Combined!

And now some twit is saying ki naam nahi suna hai…. Just Imagine….

For a celebrity like SRK (and to give him credit, he is THE Superstar) nothing is worse than not being recognized and treated like a VIP. Nothing can deflate their egos faster and more surely than anonymity. All celebrities claim they treasure their privacy but infact they would probably wilt and die without the spotlight constantly on them.

Recognition is their own private brand of heroin & cocaine.

A few years ago in Kathmandu I was chatting and waiting with my cousin on the pavement outside as my sister shopped at one of the yearly shoe sales. After waiting for what seemed like hours (and knowing my sis it probably was hours) I decided to go in and extract her from the mountains and mountains of shoes.

This particular shop has a full glass front with a glass door and as I reached in to grab the door, a familiar gentleman came out smiling and grabbed my extended hand and shook it well and good.

“You must be very happy to meet me” he declared with his smile expanding into a satisfied grin by now and with my hand still firmly in his grip.

More confused than happy and with a creased forehead very quickly replacing my own smile, I asked, what I thought was the obvious question;

“I’m sorry, Have we met before? Do I know you?”

Now it was the turn for his smile to vanish as he literally threw my hand away. Then with a look bordering on absolute disgust and maybe even astonishment, he began to strut away to a waiting taxi. A few steps away he stopped, turned and quite literally puffed up his chest and in a deep, deep voice said imperiously

“I’m Udit Narayan Jha.”

And with a final look of contempt he walked away to his car even as his disbelieving head continued to nod in bewilderment.

Mujhe nahi pehchanaa….. Just Imagine!

As SRK told CNN-IBN immediately after his release, during the 2 hours (which the U.S now says was precisely 66 minutes) that he was delayed he tried to convince the immigration officer of who he was and that he was there to be the Chief Guest at an Independence Day Function, that there were many people asking him for autographs and that he even knew Hillary Clinton.

The officer simply refused to take his word on it and decided to check and verify for himself.

He was never arrested or even detained as was widely claimed by a hyper Indian media.

As soon as his papers were found and confirmed he was let go.

Now is it really such a big deal if SRK is delayed for some time?

Is 66 minutes on a stiff chair too much to bear in between his first class flat bed and his limo?

IIIIIIIIIIIIII don’t think so.

But the deal is that the immigration officer did NOT recognize him.

HIM! SRK! Global Superstar!

And trust me, with celebrities, that is always a BLOODY BIG DEAL.

You & Me??? We get delayed everyday. What the heck... we are the aam aadmi, the mango people.

But Celebrities never like to think they are Mangoes or God forbid...... Potatoes.

Till next time....

luv

Vish

contact me at vishalsubba@hotmail.com

Kaminey: Movie Review

VISHAL KA HAATH, JAGANNATH

KAMINEY

Director, Music, Screenplay, Dialogues: Vishal Bhardwaj

Lyrics: Gulzar

*ing: Shahid Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra & Gang

Sweety (Priyanka Chopra) is having an argument with her boyfriend Guddu (the good Shahid Kapoor) and demanding he marry her coz she is pregnant (btw Guddu is a social worker who distributes condoms and then ironically forgets to wear one himself). Frustrated he locks himself up in the common community toilet. Sweety come to the door and after knocking on it a couple of times, lets out a secret.

She is the sister of the local don Bhope Bhau.

Guddu emerges, shocked & terrified and yet the thing you notice the most in that important scene is a caption which someone has scribbled on the toilet door.

“Apna Haat Jaganath” (which, if you haven’t got it, is a colloquial paean to masturbation).

With hindi movies usually prone to underlining every bit of dialogue lest you don’t get it, its refreshing to finally get a maker who lets you roam free and decide for yourself what to remember and what to ignore. And this movie is packed with so much going on that sometimes its difficult to even keep up.

However this movie is NOT for everyone and I’m pretty sure many may not even like it.

If your favourite actors are from the Govinda, Fardeen, Tusshar etc gang then this movie is probably not for your taste. Not that there is anything wrong with the actors mentioned above.

Like rich oily Chola- Bhautura and Biryani they are perfectly fine but if your tastes are also attuned towards some things more adventurous and bold like Carpaccio, Escargot and Tarantino (Quentin I mean) then this movie is definitely for you.

One thing is for sure. You cannot watch this movie with your mind on auto pilot.

With movies like Dil Chahta Hai, Rock On!, Luck By Chance (incidentally all by the Akhtar siblings) and Omkara, Bollywood also seems to be finally getting over its obsession of larger than life heroes and heroines. What is known in Hollywood as the Ensemble Cast is finally coming to India.

In Kaminey its not just Shahid-Priyanka who are good but almost every character seems to be in perfect sync with the movie.

Amole Gupte (who was the original director of Taare Zameen Par before being sacked and replaced by Aamir Khan) is great as the radical Bhau (which apparently means brother in Marathi but can, if repeated, also sound uncannily like a dog’s bark).

Tashi played by a Tenzing Nima (finally a worthy successor to Danny Denzongpa) is pitch perfect as the don who does not need to scream and shout to show his power. He has it. Simple. And in one brilliant scene on a terrace with a power cut, he faces an African who has just threatened him and smilingly says “Dont worry, I understand. Business is Business” and then the power comes on and still smiling but with steel in his voice he adds “But Power is Power”

Mikhael (as the youngest of the crazy Bengali don trio) is also great and gets a surreal scene with Bhau and his goons in a room where Mikhael, high on drugs, quite literally plays Russian roulette but Indian Style.

Shahid Kapoor is good, definitely and apart from the absolutely rocking Dhan Te Nan song also gets to rock 3 other super tracks.

1. RD Burman’s classic ‘Duniya mein, logon ko...’
2. Ftaying Alive Ftaying Alive and
3. Fpiderman, Fpiderman

The best in the movie for me however was Priyanka Chopra. Fiesty, Loud and with virtually no make up, she is so good as the Marathi girl that you almost wonder if she was the same one who also did Dostana.

The titles credit the choreography to just two songs, Fatak (the AIDS song in the beginning) and the Dhan Te Nan number. However the Raat Ke Dhai Baje song during the Guddu-Sweety wedding is so well shot and so in sync that either someone is not getting credit or Vishal, apart from Director, Dialogues, Music & Screenplay is also a Choreographer. Talk of a Renaissance Man.

In the UAE we get movies with mandatory subtitles (in English and Arabic) so I’m not sure how this movie played out in India because at various times it can get pretty confusing with the characters speaking all kinds of different languages. I counted Bengali, Marathi, English, Spanish, French and even Doggy (bhau, bhau).

Kaminey is not for everyone, but if you enjoy cinema that makes you think then it’s probably the best from Bollywood till date.

Think of it as Jagannath for your Brain.


Till next time and another movie

Ciao

Vish

Babas & Crooks & Toilet Paper

LETS FLUSH BABA SWINE-DEV.

Mr. Ramdev (I refuse to give him any respect by calling him Baba) has claimed from time to time to be able to cure many ailments.

First it was AIDS, then Homosexuality which he claimed (correctly or incorrectly depending on if you take it literally or as a pun) was a disease of the anus. And now Swine Flu.

That man is obviously a charlatan and is always ready with some choice words planned to elicit the maximum publicity.

And yet the media wastes reams and reams of newsprint/primetime on this crook.

Why??? I just don’t understand.

A few years back during the Dubai Shopping Festival a Yemeni man was arrested because he was trying to sell a bulletproof stone.

Some of you may remember my previous post (dated June 25, 2008) about this Yemeni trader who was jailed in Dubai for trying to con people into buying, what he calls, a ‘bulletproof’ onyx. He claimed that anyone who wore that stone round his neck would be rendered bulletproof.

And the price tag for that? 1 million dirhams.

Before anyone could come forward to offer to buy it, the police swooped in and arrested the man.

All through his arrest and subsequent court case, he kept insisting he could prove it.

The curious case finally concluded with the highest court here confirming his 3 month imprisonment to be followed by deportation.

The sad thing is that the man still claims that the stone is bullet-proof but has had no chance to prove it. Several government bodies failed to confirm the Yemeni's claims because they lacked proper scientific methods or equipment to test whether the onyx stone was bulletproof or to decide its real value.

Again as I said earlier, why not just test it on the man himself?

If he survives, then the stone is priceless.... if not….. well, case closed.

Maybe that’s the way to shut up Ramdev too.

Send him some people with Swine Flu & AIDS and a Homosexual.
Or better still a HIV+ Gay with Swine Flu.

If he can cure him then, well, we should all begin to pray to Ramdev.
If not, lets take the big stick of the media and stick it up his…..

What say you?

In other news the Gulf News reported today that the Swiss (who else) are going to market a chocolate which is hard to melt. Its for those of us living in the “warmer parts of the world”.

Now its all very good coz I’ve had my own share of gooey chocolates in 45 degrees heat but the obvious question is, how will it melt in my mouth then?
Just Asking?

And finally in the U.S some smart guy started to manufacture toilet paper.
Just normal toilet paper, except that this had pictures of Fidel Castro on it.

Cuban exiles in Miami are believed to be rushing to buy it in bulk.

Gives a really new (and literal meaning) to really “rub it in”.

Wonder if they’ll make one with Ramdev’s face on it? That way he can check the ‘disease of the anus’ up close and personal.

Till next time….. Jai Ho.

Luv

Vish

Reality Vs Reality

SACH AND THE CITY

Do you wonder about all the recent fuss being made over reality shows in India?

Host: “Have you ever had sexual relations with someone else after your marriage?”
Man: (long dramatic pause) “No”
Host: “Sorry that is NOT TRUE”
Cut to man’s wife sitting in the audience looking visibly shaken.

Cut back to Man sheepishly looking everywhere but at his wife.
Host: “And we’ll be back after a short break. Don’t Go away.”

Sach Ka Samna which is the Indian version of Moment of Truth recently saw the Parliament disrupted over alleged ‘outrage to Indian morals’.

They are not worried that it is happening, they just don’t want to hear about it.

Apparently throwing microphones and chairs and pulling at colleague’s clothes in the Lok Sabha is part of ‘Indian morals’ but talking about truth isn’t. So they want to ban Reality shows.

And by the way, since Parliament TV has gone LIVE can't it also, technically, be called a Reality Show.

Talk of irony.

Anyway personally I don’t have anything to complain about. For the most part atleast.

Most reality shows are cheap and populated with C listers who are past their prime but they are also like fried food.

Very bad for you obviously, but also sinfully irresistible.

We may have sniggered as Rakhi Sawant dressed up in every piece of jewelry she ever owned/borrowed and got 'engaged' to some loser, but watch we did. (the TRP's for that episode apparently were as high as 5.4)

But should such shows be banned?

HELL NO!

I believe we are mature enough to choose what to watch and what not to without being mollycoddled by the Government. The same government which includes its own stock of C-list characters like the Pimp International – Amar Singh or Village Idiot – Laloo Yadav or Hysterical Diva – here you are spoilt for choice with the Jayalalitas, Mamatas, Mayawatis etc.

Jokes apart, I personally believe that unless you are being forced to watch something against your will there is no need for censorship at all. And especially not in this day and age of the internet where virtually everything can be found online. So what’s the point of censorship?

You may marvel at some crazy ass’s decision to go on national TV to admit to infidelities and other unmentionables but if he/she is an adult willing to do that, then its his/her choice alone.

Not yours or the Govt’s. And you with the remote in your hand have your own choice to make.

To Watch or Not To Watch (and unlike Hamlet your choice is fairly easy).

Simple! Click. Click. Click.

My problem however comes in regard to children.

On shows like Boogie Woogie and Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Lil Champs, young and impressionable children are made to do the most revolting things. And all in the name of Entertainment.

An adult can and has the ability to choose what to do and what is right and wrong. Children cannot.

Last weekend on Boogie Woogie a girl barely 8 or 10 years of age came on stage dressed in clothes and make-up that most prostitutes would fine offensive.

When asked what she was going to do, she creepily batted her fake eyelashes and said “Main aap ko kush karna chahati hu” (I want to make you happy).

Cut to parents’ face in the audience and they are beaming at the camera.

The glare of the flash lights and promise of that elusive 15 minutes of fame probably blinding their ability to see the shockingly suggestive innuendo in their daughter’s words and behaviour.

And they continued to smile and applaud even when that little girl began to suggestively smack her own derriere and implore everyone to ‘Zara Zara Kiss Her, Kiss Her, Kiss Her’ and then to ‘Zara Zara Touch Her, Touch Her, Touch Her.’

And on Lil Champs a few weeks ago another pubescent kid chose to sing “Dus Bahane Karke Le Gaya Dil” and in a significant misinterpretation of ‘Dil’, she began to repeatedly thrust her imaginary bosoms at the camera.

When Madhuri Dixit heaves & thrusts and asks us to guess ‘choli ke peeche kya hai’ its OK to begin forming the answer in your mind but a 10 year old?

Its just plain creepy.

And the worst part is that there may be many sick adults sitting in dark rooms all over India who won’t be finding it creepy at all.

Most child abuse is committed by a person a child trusts.

Amnesty & UNICEF estimates that child abuse is rampant but goes largely unreported due to social stigma in S.E Asia.

THAT is Scary. And maybe THAT is a Sach we need to come to Samna with.

What Say You?

Till next time

Vish

Writing For Writing's Sake. Maybe.

RAPACIOUS RODENTS & OTHER STORIES.


I have always wondered why we write.

I write my blog as a sort of therapy…. To keep me sane in the middle of the rat race that sometimes seems almost like a treadmill gone crazy.

Another friend of mine, Dominic, who blogs beautifully does it to make sense (or try to make sense at least) of the female race and all their inherent complexities and 3 decades on, he is still trying.

Some others write to relax.

But whatever your intention, the basic aim should be to communicate.

The worst are writers who write to show-off. Not communicate or make sense, just show-off.
They are often pompous and write with the sole agenda of showing off their knowledge of big words in every sentence which makes reading their posts seem like going through a thesaurus.

In the UAE we have a magazine called 'Friday' which comes (surprise, surprise) every Friday and is edited by a lady who seems to revel in nonsensical verbal calisthenics.

Now did the last part of my own last sentence (above) make much sense? See my point?



A few weeks back she was writing about an old abandoned shed in her grandfather’s house, which as a child, she and her cousins used to use as a playhouse. I am guessing that she was trying to go the way of nostalgia with that piece but her language was more attuned towards bragging.

“the slits disenchanted the rapacious rodents and other creatures from aspiring to non-stop nibbles and the three doors allowed for faster transfer of the goods by the farm hands”

My old English teacher always told us one simple rule of writing.
“A sentence should have just six words and each word not bigger than six letters”


“If you can’t say it simply,” he’d bark at us “its probably not worth saying at all.”


Now I myself have not been able to stick to his advice at all times but I have tried (hopefully) to stay true to his other suggestion.

“Always Make Sense.”

Am I?

Making sense I mean. And do you agree?

Tell me

Till then

Ciao & Luv As Usual

Vish

The Darwin Awards

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST? NAY THE SMARTEST

This was in the front page of the Gulf News today.

“This Friday when the clock shows 12:34:56 it will, along with the date 7/8/9 be a numerical phenomenon 123456789 which was last experienced in July 8 1909.”

It went on for another 2 paragraphs but I will not bore you with it. My point is simply this.

Who the F*#K cares? And how in the world is that important to warrant a front page coverage? Aren’t there enough things going on without us getting all worked up about some crazy lame ass “numerical phenomenon”?

Anyway moving on…

A friend, Dominic from Bangalore forwarded this to me and being skeptical of forwarded mails I just let it be.

This morning, just on a hunch I decided to Google it and to my surprise found that there actually exists something called the Darwin Awards. Infact they even have a website with archives of winners from previous years etc.

The website eloquently claims that the “The Darwin Awards salute the improvement of the human genome by honoring those who accidentally remove themselves from it...”

And here are the winners (all apparantly true) for this year.

And while you read remember this....

They walk among us….and what is worse, they Breed !!

Enjoy

Luv

Vish

The Darwin Awards

Here is the glorious winner:

When his 38 caliber revolver failed to fire at his intended victim during a hold-up in Long Beach, California, the would-be robber James Elliot did something that can only inspire wonder. He peered down the barrel and tried the trigger again. This time it worked.

And now, the honorable mentions:

The chef at a hotel in Switzerland lost a finger in a meat cutting machine and submitted a claim to his insurance company. The company, expecting negligence, sent out one of its men to have a look for himself. He tried the machine and he also lost a finger. The chef's claim was approved.

A man who shoveled snow for an hour to clear a space for his car during a blizzard in Chicago returned with his vehicle to find a woman had taken the space. Understandably, he shot her.

After stopping for drinks at an illegal bar, a Zimbabwean bus driver found that the 20 mental patients he was supposed to be transporting from Harare to Bulawayo had escaped. Not wanting to admit his incompetence, the driver went to a nearby bus stop and offered everyone waiting there a free ride. He then delivered the passengers to the mental hospital, telling the staff that the patients were very excitable and prone to bizarre fantasies. The deception wasn't discovered for 3 days.

An American teenager was in the hospital recovering from serious head wounds received from an oncoming train. When asked how he received the injuries, the boy told police that he was simply trying to see how close he could get his head to a moving train before he was hit.

A man walked into a Louisiana Circle-K, put a $20 bill on the counter, and asked for change. When the clerk opened the cash drawer, the man pulled a gun and asked for all the cash in the register, which the clerk promptly provided. The man took the cash from the clerk and fled, leaving the $20 bill on the counter. The total amount of cash he got from the drawer... $15.

(If someone points a gun at you and gives you money, is a crime committed?)

Seems an Arkansas guy wanted some beer pretty badly. He decided that he'd just throw a cinder block through a liquor store window, grab some booze, and run. So he lifted the cinder block and heaved it over his head at the window. The cinder block bounced back and hit the would-be thief on the head, knocking him unconscious. The liquor store window was made of Plexiglas. The whole event was caught on videotape.

As a female shopper exited a New York convenience store, a man grabbed her purse and ran. The clerk called 911 immediately, and the woman was able to give them a detailed description of the snatcher. Within minutes, the police apprehended the snatcher. They put him in the car and drove back to the store. The thief was then taken out of the car and told to stand there for a "positive ID." To which he replied, "Yes, officer, that's her. That's the lady I stole the purse from."

The Ann Arbor News crime column reported that a man walked into a Burger King in Ypsilanti, Michigan at 5 A.M., flashed a gun, and demanded cash. The clerk turned him down because he said he couldn't open the cash register without a food order. When the man ordered onion rings, the clerk said they weren't available for breakfast. The man, frustrated, walked away.

When a man attempted to siphon gasoline from a motor home parked on a Seattle street, he got much more than he bargained for. Police arrived at the scene to find a very sick man curled up next to a motor home lying in a pool of spilled sewage. A police spokesman said that the man admitted to trying to steal gasoline, but he plugged his siphon hose into the motor home's sewage tank by mistake. The owner of the vehicle declined to press charges saying that it was the best laugh he'd ever had.

In the interest of bettering mankind, please share these with friends and family....unless of course one of these individuals by chance is adistant relative or long lost friend. In that case, be glad they are distant and hope they remain lost.

Conman Dies Twice. Or Maybe Not.

TO DIE OR NOT TO DIE

One of India’s (maybe even the world’s) greatest con artists is finally dead.

Or Maybe Not.

Known simply as Natwarlal, he duped many people in cons both Small, Big and SPECTACULAR.

He once actually “sold” the Taj Mahal to gullible foreigners much before Abhi & Rani became Bunty & Babli. He went on to dupe hundreds of people of crores of rupees, inspired millions of grandma’s tales and even a movie starring Amitabh Bachchan (the movie was Mr. Natwarlal ofcourse).

Amitabh and Shah Rukh both played the title character in ‘DON’ and got to mouth the famous dialogue “ Don Ka Peecha Toh Barah Mulko Ki Police Kar Raha Hai Magar Don Ko Pakarna Mushkil Hi Nahi Namumkin Hai.” (Don Is Wanted By The Police In 12 Countries But To Capture Don Is Not Just Difficult Its Impossible).

However in real life it was Natwarlal who outwitted the police in 8 indian states and now even in death, Natwarlal, 97, is actually living up to his legend.

In a move that even Don would not have thought of, Natwarlal has “died” twice, 13 years apart.

Here’s how.
Last Tuesday his lawyer filed an application before a magistrate in Kanpur (UP), calling for the dismissal of 100 cases pending against Natwarlal claiming that “he died on Saturday, July 25, 2009”.

But Natwarlal’s brother, Ganga Prasad Srivastava, 85, told India’s Hindustan Times: “He died in 1996. I personally cremated him in Ranchi but don’t remember the exact date.”

What is the truth? The police in UP and Bihar have no clue.

Without a trace of shame or culpability, the Superintendent of Kanpur District Jail, where Natwaralal was serving time said “The last we saw of him was on June 24, 1996.”

He vanished from custody that day at the New Delhi Railway station when he was being taken on a wheelchair from Kanpur to New Delhi’s AIIMS hospital for treatment. He was 84 then.

The conman, born Mithilesh Kumar Srivastava, used more than 50 aliases, was a master of disguises and had “sold” the Taj Mahal thrice, the Red Fort twice and even the Rashtrapati Bhavan once to gullible foreigners.

Anyway Dead or Alive, his legend lives on.

In North India, conmen who pull off particularly smart frauds are simply called Natwarlal.

P.S. Personally as for as the fraudulent selling of the Taj etc go I blame the foreigners completely. If you are soooooooooooooo stupid then you probably don’t deserve to have all that money anyway.

What Say?

Till next time.

Luv

Vish