On Cricket & Beer

I admit it. I don't carry my weight in the company of Indian men. I don't discuss cricket or burp after gulping beer mugs.

For most men, talking sports is as basic and natural a transaction as watching TV, farting keeping a straight face or going to the toilet. Same way like its mandatory for men to hang out in bar joints and gulp down beer mugs more than they have gulped water in a day, if not on weekdays then at least on weekends. Aah!! take out the religion and allergy… I am not religious and surely not allergic to highs. I am allergic to only humans the closer they resemble me more allergic I am to them; good thing is we are NOT talking about love jerks and drugs for once. Just “New Age Alfa Indian Male” It's a universally understood way for strangers to structure interactions, for friends and family to build bonds in the 21^st century over India in 20-20 series or just Bottoms up. Ask me honestly I never had to do anything with beer joints I bloody don’t like the old English Lady Urine taste nor I have seen more brutal way of molesting time than watching cricket…cricket over beer mugs… its suicidal.

The extent to which cricket means nothing to me measures my alienation from my gender and my culture, but I can't help it; my favorite Indian cricketer Salil Ankola his face was bearable it just cant be that Adivasi Dhoni. When talk turns to the most fundamental bond of our fraternity, my overwhelming response is tedium. Though friends know this, and usually give me wide berth on cricket discussion, strangers naturally assume I'm wearing a guard on my crotch, that I look like a typical guy in 20’s who knows the score of every match going on, absolutely no hint of disqualification. Especially men who never caught a ball on less than one bounce are no less eager in their sports talk than the most gym-hardened jock. This means I spend a significant part of my life maneuvering around the issue. Going into bars during world cup is asking for it, I never stray there even if there is a free strip tease along with the match. As for that ultimate haven of maleness -- the barbershop -- my first concern is not the hair cutter's skill but his reticence his choices, is he going to listen to music or watch cricket. Even at home I have to hustle, jumping for the remote whenever a coach or player is going through the hundredth iteration of why they won/lost. Usually we don’t win so explanations are more pathetic and longer.

I do resent it, and why not so much of my society's time, money and attention is consumed by something I don't care about. I feel like leaving this god forsaken land for magnolia or Russia…France never to come back not to have any cricket on my TV channels. I do resent it that even close friends become droning pod when sports comes up and then its beer and the bottoms up stuff which signifies some kind of male-hood.

I thank god for the company of women… for their very creation, they are the saner lot when in comes to these stuff…at least till lately. Although it’s highly unlikely females may harbour same taste and preference in life as mine but at least till start of this decade they were sane enough to hate both cricket and beer mugs and then world detoriated. Bitches came out of closet.

I don’t know why I wrote this maybe some weird drawback symptoms and I am sure no one will read it twice.

Falling in Love

Let's get the "falling" part of the falling in love… just take it out of the way.

"It hurts when you land."

Anyway, what's good about falling in love? If you are of my age and traveled the road I have taken by now you must know it’s just an unwanted pain. Where's the good part? I guess it might be good if you fell in love with someone blonde or someone who don’t understand what it means to be demanding, irritating, plaguing a mans life… to be a woman…and Indian woman.

Anyway falling in love for most people is very painful.

My advice is - avoid it like the plague or plaque if you're dentally challenged. Get laid and thank your stars that you are worth getting laid.

The following is my top five methods to avoid falling in love take it as an advise you will need it to live a healthy life:

5. When you see someone attractive and worth falling in love by your standards, picture them in bed with me (My photo is there in this Blog page for those who don’t know me personally). That should kill any romantic urges.

4. If forced or by devils luck get a chance to talk to someone attractive focus on their nostrils. Unless you are a totally sick human being, there is nothing attractive about nostrils or think about her father. Girls father are the worst of human kind – Physically… mentally… all ally in English diction.

3. If on a dinner date with someone attractive order the whole course at once and keep your ears on high alert luckily you will hear her burp. That’s it.

2. Wear underwear that keeps riding up or getting in your crack like barbed wire. That will remind you of how annoying relationships are, and the adjustments you need to make, can be.

1. If none of the above works, find the nearest rest room take your time imagine what ever you want with who so ever you want take the load off your system. Come back if you still want her in your life… well, you are not a man. This whole Blog is not for you.

And If you're still around after all these like shameless monkey scratching his bum trying to find food there… you've fallen hard. Let's just hope you landed on something soft, like you're head. At least you will set examples for others not to fall in love.

Just writing

I always wonder what it takes to be a good and sensible writer. Do you have to get a good penmanship? Do you need to have much exposure to different kinds of situation to have something to write? How about enough courage to speak out everything that you have on your mind? Maybe, your attitude will matter as well, for you to overcome all the criticisms that will come on your way? Do you need to be open-minded enough to accept feedbacks with regards to your work, whether those would be positive or not ah I am not talking about that angel girl who never stops commenting and make me feel like a pig who sleeps with termites? Pigs???… Termites??? This kind of critique always make me end up with saying something that even I take time to understand if I understand it at all.

Anyway we are not talking about that we are talking about writing and writers. Most people will start learning how to write when they reach the age seven. When their hands are strong enough to hold their pen and control it with any words that they want to write. Most of them started writing their own names, for that would be the first thing that they would know at their young minds. But then as they grow older you start seeing crossed words like FLAMES and names like Chris…Arpita…Prageti… and then they become matured.. They get more exposures to the real world and loose a part of hormonal imbalance… eyes open to a bigger more complex world, my mother says a writers mind, a thinkers brain makes you think or take situations and scenarios from more than one perspective you get more experiences to be share on ones writings. But sad thing about it, not all of them will get the courage to be truthful enough to burst out everything that they want to say through their writings.

Since I was a child, I always dreamt to be a writer, write my own novel, have my own book, write articles in magazines, and write news in the newspapers. In writing, you only need to be focus on what you feel; you also need to take consideration on how your readers would feel towards your work and I still believe that’s the best part of it.

I got my interest in writing when I was still in primary grades. I became the feature editor in our school magazine that time. I started to realize that your works won't be realistic not unless you encountered the exact situation you are discussing on your works and those opinions really came from your heart. Being a writer would also be being honest, being trustworthy and being true to you. I write fictions…lot of fictions about myself and people around as if it really happened… it doesn’t matter I wanted it to happen or I felt it happening or I just imagined it.

Before I left for Bombay from small town Rourkela I was already the chief editor of our internal magazine. In Bombay, I started joining in different writing competition. That was also the time when I started learning to socialize with other people, get more friends and fall in love. That was when I started getting interest writing things about one's experiences. I started sharing my own thoughts, beliefs and opinions about particular topic through my pen and paper. I started to realize that you might need to have a lot of exposures to different situation, so you can have much more things to say. Heartbreaks, friends, relationships, fights, riots, smoke, treachery, back stabbing someone or getting back stabbed, failures triumphs, letting go in the paper I hold in hand without a care in the world that my words can crucify my one day are just few of so many things that got my interest in writing.

Now that I grow older, life becomes tougher, much more things to say, but sometimes there are things that are very hard to burst out of you and would need enough courage to complete a single paragraph. This is the time when I become more conscious not only on the content of my work but as well as its composition and grammar, for English is not my primary language. "You cannot appreciate everybody" is like everybody's word of their mouth. But I won't stop. There were a lot of things that happened in my life for all these 26 years, which if I don’t write I may forget. A lot of things that I learned from hundreds my mistakes and I would be more than happy to share these stories to others and somehow have them learned as well from what I've been through…. An experience you call human life.

A Losers World – Joy got this for me( I ain't gonna be an English poet)

Cupid drove an arrow
Through two heartless hearts
Two unsuspecting victims
Stabbed with poison darts.

The plague of love unleashed
Upon the land of teens
Their hearts now filled
With loves silent screams.


They were on the comedown
The love drug wearing thin
Reality slapped them in the face
Now came deceit and sin.

She was just a cheap slut
Sleeping with his mates
And he was just a junkie
A short cut to heavens gates

Two losers in a world of lies
Where losers never win
Who will help a loser
In this world of sin?

To the one who never forgets to comment

My Love,

Think of this as a get well card. You’ll be needing it. If I didn’t succeed in destroying your life then I am sorry. I’d rather drink a gallon of mosquito blood than spend 10 minutes with you. You sicken me. I want all of my stuff back; I will be sending someone to collect it later. I feel so good and relived that something as grime and filthy like you won’t be feeding on my sanity any more. Life feels like heaven without your plagued presence around me. Yes you are right I lied and you are definitely a bloody stupid, I wanted to have just sex with you but its fine even I was bit stupid you are not even worth having sex with. I will prefer screwing a buffalo than putting it in your garbage can. You are mother of all nightmares a decaying, stinking parasite, a bloody curse on human civilization.

I hope you take time to read this a couple of times; it never sinks in the first time with you. Sing your pitiful love story to someone else.

P.S: You will be doing a great favour to human civilization by not putting anymore comments on my Blog.

Never yours
Ashraf

Dadijaan's Bed time story

Unlike other grandmother’s bed time story mine never had any fairy tale to tell. Her stories never had any prince or princess or fairies from distant land. Most of her stories didn’t even have a happy ending but to top it all… most of them were either true or based on some legends

This story is based on a tragic event that happened around thirty-five years ago. The place in question is Bungalow #127, Mall Road, Mussoorie. Twenty minute brisk walk from our place.

The circumstances of this case are shrouded in mystery, leaving more questions, than answers.
Back in early seventies, a young couple was looking to buy their very first home. The realtor showed them several bungalows, but they were all worth a lot more than they could afford, except for one older home, which was in fairly good condition.

The house needed some fixing up, but the price was just right. One thing in particular, bothered
the couple though, and before they signed the final papers, they asked the realtor, why the fireplace in the basement was all bricked up.

The realtor said he didn't know and maybe he was not lying, the subject was dropped. The newlyweds signed the papers, and were excited to move into their home, to begin their lives together. Young couple got in touch with my grandmother during those early morning walks which still is religiously followed by the town folks of my city.

The first few weeks in their new home, was pretty much quiet. One day around a month of their shifting the young bride had gone down into the basement to stack raddi newspaper, and when she walked passed the fireplace, to get to the storeroom, she heard a baby crying.

Immediately, she bolted up the stairs, and ran to get her husband.

He had tried to calm her down, but she insisted that he go down into the basement and have a look around. So, to appease her, he went down into the basement, with his wife right behind him. He told her that he didn't hear anything strange, but she told him to go over by the fireplace, and when he walked up to it, he also heard the whimpering cry of an infant.

Like any new tenants will do in such cases they informed the neighbors very next day.
That bricked up fireplace, had bothered him even before they moved in handful of curious good neighbors and the terrified couple decided to break down the bricks to the sealed entrance.

After a couple of hours, most of the bricks had been cleared away from the center of the fireplace entrance, and peeking in, through the hole, he saw something laying on the floor, but he couldn't quite make out what it was.

A few hours later, all of the bricks had been broken down, and lying inside, on the soot covered floor, was a little bundle wrapped in plain brown sack, that was tied together with thin cord.

The man reached inside and began to carefully untie the sack, to discover that baby's bones were inside.

The police were immediately called, and the crime scene was processed.

Whose baby it was?
Was the Baby murdered?
Was this an accidental death?
Why were the bones of this infant sealed up inside the fireplace and, who put them there?

My grandmother didn’t answer any of the questions. This case has never been solved and has been discussed last during my grandmother’s bed time story.

The couple has retired and they spend most of their time with their son married and settled in USA, coming to Mussoorie once a year for couple of days.

On a different note...

kuch to majbooriyaan rahin hongi
Yu koi bewafaa nahi hota

Ji bahut chahta hai sach bolain
Kya kare hausla nahi hota

Guftagu un se roz hoti hai
Muddaton saamna nahi hota

I've been thinking about all the people I have ever known in my life - past and present, and the influences they have had on me. I remember reading once, that the person who causes you the most grief, pushes the most buttons or causes you the most pain - is your greatest teacher. I believe that to be true and I would like to thank everyone today who falls into these categories. Without you none of this would be possible. Your lack of support, understanding and seeming disinterest in my life has given me the motivation and the tools I needed to live. While I am aware that my ramblings here may appear to be somewhat facetious, that is not my intent. I have given a lot of thought to the paths that our lives have taken and to what has brought us here to this moment. There may be some truth to the idea that "things happen for a reason". That being said, I see now that those people were my greatest inspiration after all.

Those very people have triggered a taste within me for being immune to my surrounding, its gives me a unique kick. And I carry on the good work with others what my lot have subjected me to. It’s a start of dream a vision I had once. If I die today it should atleast 3 days for my office people to know that I am dead… a fortnight at least for my parents and relatives and at least a month for my friends and acquaintances. Hopefully If the same can be extended to god as well then nothing like it. You are a non-entity not an eyebrow raised if you are strolling in heaven or sitting in a corner of hell. To be a non entity in any canvas of life.

In my previous company I remember meeting a girl during interview who said her ambition/dream in life is to be a ticket collector. Ambition to be like a guy who sits behind that small dinky window giving you the ticket in bus Depot or railway station. No one remember their faces. At times you don’t even bother to bend a bit and see his face you just wait for him to issue you a ticket and return the change. I never heard such ambition before I met this girl. Not a doctor not a engineer not even a house wife but the guy who issues you bus/railway ticket. The reason was as simple as the ambition itself. She feels they have a 9-6 job, no hassle no tension.. take the money issue a ticket and return the change and that’s it. Start of once vacation or journey is from you. Six in the evening close the window deposit the money and return home. I don’t know what was her idea but it opened a window for me to a whole new world. A life with no struggle…no race…no burning ambition no fire… no remorse… no disappointment…no desire to change the world… no urge to make any kind of impact on anyone… no one remembers you when gone… no one acknowledges your presence or senses your absence… Being that person is the biggest dream I ever saw for myself. I don’t know if I would be able to achieve that in its entirety or not… all i can say is I have started working on it…. And in the coming future if you feel I am deliberately ignoring you, please don’t feel bad I just don’t want to be involved in anything which will become a part of your memory.

Something died within me when she called me back… I was never that important in her life… not even in my wildest of imagination I kid myself by thinking she got a soft corner for me…yes, something really died within me to understand the reason why she called me back…

Mother of all egoistic people I have known… a glass figure who will prefer breaking than bending… she called me back… I didn’t pick her call couple of times initially to help her forget me, but there are temptations and then there is an impulsive nature as well which at times overshadow your ego I can be nothing but a bad news in her life. She called back again this time from a different number which I didn’t recognize… she asked me not to disconnect her call…We spoke… we did something which I never thought will happen again at least from her side. Never saw or met anyone as lonely and friendless as her…. I bet if she had even one distant person as friend, this would have never happened… she would have never called.

I wish I can force her to make good friends or be a part of a good company… her chastity… her principles… her beauty and attraction works against her. People cant help falling in love with her… her seductive aura generates those lusting desires in one and all… if you are a man or a lesbian you cant help but fantasize… she knows it and she stays away…life would have been much more lucrative and giving for her if she would have compromised on her chastity… even those small non physical affairs would have taken her places… I wonder if her husband understands how taxing its for her to maintain her chastity…. I wish I can go back in time and erase those days when I told her about my feelings for her... I wish I was not this selfish…given her a true friend acknowledging her chastity. Such a beautiful chance I had and what a mess I made… my angel was awarding me with her trust & faith and I turned out to be nothing but that selfish leech plagued with desire. I not only killed a good friend but also slaughtered someone who bestowed the highest level of trust I ever had from anyone in my life… A woman trusting you with her chastity… a trust…an honour…. a faith much more valuable than any form of love… yeah… I wish I can go back in time and change few things.

So many things well kept and buried in my heart… so many things which will never come out beyond my diary pages…bloody I could have buried this as well…

Weired weired world… many people regret that they never could muster enough courage to express their feeling to the one they love and then there are people like me who will regret long for expressing their feeling…

I end with a sincere thought my friends if you can help avoid making life hard for people whom you value the most by your selfish self.

And I say this not for those people but for us because it makes a day feel like long painful stretched years when you are been eaten with guilt and remorse.

Of Dogs…humans…brains and beauty

Are nerds going to take over the planet? Or are studs going to continue to rule?

The other day an angry citizen of Hyderabad said all strays had to be culled or adopted by the Animal Rights activists 'Let each Animal rights activist donate 1000 rupees, since there are so many of them, the government will give land and all the dogs can be housed safely in a big shelter far away from the city . Humans are safe . Animals are happy…

How come we have time for such stupidity to enter our mind leave alone into papers.

'If human life is not supreme let us treat dogs with more respect', the man said. 'Why should they live on the streets? Let them be in the shelter far from speeding vehicles and not have to undergo forced sterilization. At least they will get decent meals and not have to beg for food'...

Equal rights for dogs...

You ask me and I say kill all of them and don’t think twice before doing that and start with toy dogs like Pomeranian and those small ones which are good for nothing… they are the worst of the lot, bloody they cant survive a day without humans. Making those cute emotional faces they make humans do things which the same humans will think twice before doing it with their own kids leave alone other human beings. Sit back and think for once how the have manipulated us to carry them around clean their shits comb them snug them pamper them. They have manipulated us. Street dogs I love them… in these days when hunting is a taboo and even people like Salman khan can be jailed for hunting a deer… chasing these street dogs and bumping them with car is the only form of hunting I can still have and enjoy without being booked. They are the super stupid of all forms of life ever crossed a street. Absolutely no traffic sense…they are like bloody villagers seeing highway for the first time leave alone crossing it.

Its not about dogs alone… there is something else to it… I am not sure how to put it… I started thinking about it since the time Britney Spears was photographed carrying her dog in the red carpet. She summarize the entire stuff. Of dogs… fair beauty… rich and importance.

When there is an airline crash and 30 people die it is on the headlines for days. When a bus falls into a river and 30 poor people die it is on the second page of the newspapers and not even reported by the TV channels. Is it because brainy people are rich and the poor and not so brainy are on the bus?

Why do animal rights activists only selectively protect animals like dogs? Why not Chickens, goats or even fish? I am not talking about white shark or gold fish but those simple tuna fish. Is it because dogs are considered beautiful and cute by the rich beauties of our society ?

If that is so are humans with lesser brains dispensable also? Sounds Hitlerian but its true. Hazardous factories are set up in Bhopal not in US.

Recently there was a big agitation because Dolphins were killed along with Tuna. Nobody cared for the poor tuna. Just the dolphins beautiful… brains

When millions died in Rwanda it was nowhere near as sensational as 911. Is it because the Americans are rich by far?

In our papers everyday poor people dying get less coverage than rich people. White people dying get more coverage than black or brown people. Hollywood actress with dietary problem gets more attention than people dieing with hunger in Africa.

Even in our country everyone wants a 'fair' bride What is it about white? Is it because the Europeans and white people are perceived to be smarter? I am not questioning this biased opinion, I agree to it. Look around yourself… rich people look smarter, much more attractive than poor people. Much more beauty can be seen in shopping mall than in Sabzi Mandi. Arrogant Blondie is more welcome than any other.

I read recently that 'good looking' people get better jobs. Security in Airport is much more than what you can ever see in a railway station or bus stand. So many real life example

I am still thinking about a one liner which will summarize it all….