Parliament Deadlock Compel Politicians to look for Part- Time Jobs

The Indian Parliament has become the Canadian Horseweed.  Before fingers begin to point, let me clarify that the comparison does not insinuate a pro-western policy or the parasitic behavior of its occupants. It simply implies that much like the plant, the Indian Parliament stays closed more than it opens. Given the state of the matter, it seemed that the Parliament deadlock of 2012 would have outlasted the month long washed out winter session of 2011.

This is an age of celebrity endorsements. The Parliamentary stall provides our politicians with a lot of free time which they can effectively utilize to endorse products and uptake part time jobs. For once, wouldn’t it be good to have party funds collected through our politician’s drudgery? Wouldn’t it be good to have named contributors in place of unnamed donors?

Our Parliamentarians and Politicians make an accomplished group with exclusive individual talents. My almost idle-mind-devil’s-workshop imagines what products our politicians should endorse and which side job they should take.

1. Sushma Swaraj: This Parliamentarian who holds the distinction of being the youngest ever Cabinet Minister is best known for her computer memory. In case, you managed to overlook her career database, let me remind you that Mrs. Swaraj is the “Chacha Chaudhary” of the Indian Parliament. She should, thus, utilize her unmatchable retentiveness as an excuse to bag the endorsement of brain capsules under an agreement to use one of her anti-congress- anti-corruption speeches as a demo advertisement to establish the product?  Kill two birds with one stone, eh?
2. Arun Jaitley:  As a strategic planner of BJP, Arun Jaitley can organize workshops on how to coordinate campaigns in his free time. Though Jaitley is fit to endorse many products; he should simply take this time off to actually fight an election.  A political career with only appointments to show on resume and no ‘actual’ victories is like a pizza with tomato, onion, capsicum, mushroom and jalapenos but no cheese. Tasteless!
3. Nitish Kumar and Narendra Modi: While one is busy hurling brickbats, the other is busy preparing report cards for the upcoming session.  The unspoken chemistry between these two mighty men is hard to ignore. The constant criticizing, teasing and never-ending rivalry makes Narendra Modi and Nitish Kumar, the perfect choice to play a cameo in the longest survived television show, Tom and Jerry. The question is- who gets to be the cat and who has to be the rat?
4. Mamta Banerjee: Oh well, let us keep Didi away from jumping on the endorsement bandwagon. Celebrity endorsements can come later. Lessons in Brand Management are what she needs to learn first. With ghosts from a certain “arrested” past haunting her, Ms. Banerjee would benefit best from an internship stint at a good PR company. Or, would Didi want to go for an image revamp by endorsing a certain mouth (mao-th) wash?
5.  L.K Advani: Advani has a very important task at hand-deciding BJP’s Prime Ministerial Candidate. So, it would be quite unfair on our parts if we expect the senior BJP leader to endorse products or take part time jobs. However, it would also be wrong if we keep the veteran politician away from some constructive and contributory work. Amid appeasing internal clashes and zeroing in on a single candidate, the “Eternal Yatri” can devote his free time to designing a chariot so beautiful, it would magnetize fellow yatris. I am sure a Rath-Yatra is on the cards in 2014.  
6.  Laloo Prasad Yadav: Laloo Prasad Yadav’s charismatic personality, unsurpassable sense of humor and a long list of admirers in Bollywood and elsewhere, make him the media’s blue eyed boy. Consequentially, this Parliamentarian would never suffer from lack of options to choose from in the brand endorsement game. Laloo Prasad Yadav can endorse any product and make it as famous as Jesus. We know not what he would endorse; we know what he should not endorse- Family planning and English Speaking courses. Bhak Budbak!
7. Vijay Mallya: Desperate times call for desperate measures. The King of good times has been hit by a rough patch. And he will strike back. With endorsements? Err… maybe. Every drop in the Ocean counts, isn’t it? Given his flamboyant lifestyle and playboy image, Mallya should stop endorsing his son and instead endorse some dating websites. The mind should be where the money is. The son can take care of himself.
8.  ManMohan Singh: Which brand name should the Prime Minister of India endorse? Hebrew National. What is Hebrew National? It is a food brand which makes kosher hot dogs and sausages. Is there a connection between Hot Dogs and the Indian Prime Minister? Not that I can think of. Why do I, then, suggest the Prime Minister to endorse the brand? Does not the tagline say it all- We answer to a higher authority. Our Prime Minister would know the pain. Jee Madam Jee!
9. Rahul Gandhi:  “What’s in a name?” said Shakespeare. The Bard of Avon would have eaten his words had he met Rahul Gandhi even once. It’s all in the name. At least, in case of the Gandhis. This Gandhi-Nehru Scion’s kitty must be brimming with companies soliciting him to endorse them. In such a scenario, the onus is on the companies for Rahul Gandhi would endorse only those names which allow him to “play a bigger role”.
10.  Shashi Tharoor: With his long list of conquests and achievements, Shashi Tharoor should be gracing literary events and International conferences more often. But beauty is such a curse. Can anyone really look beyond that charming smile and those beautiful green eyes? No. Tharoor would do best if uses the power of his beauty to endorse cosmetics. Imagine a prim and proper Mr. Tharoor selling fairness creams and hair products. Ah! Works wonders for me. Or the author par excellence can also endorse The Great Indian Wedding. Married thrice and still counting!    
11. Kapil Sibal: Mr. Sibal could have easily marketed Champion Notebooks, Natraj Eraser or Add Gel pens but then he had to lose his sheen by creating the “toilet controversy”. Unfortunately, going by the recent controversy, there is only one company dying to hire Mr. Sibal as its celebrity face- Parryware. Now, it is for Mr. Sibal to decide if he wants to “add glamour to his life” or not.
12. Digvijay Singh: A little birdie told me that a Software Giant has been putting in delirious efforts to get Digvijay Singh to become their new face. They believe if there is a man as well programmed as a Computer Software, its Digvijay. I couldn’t agree more but I suggest, try Manish Tewari too.  
13.  Rekha: Whatever the reason be- fifty layers of make-up, abusive use of concealers or 45 degree portrait light set up; the fact is that even a 100x Zoom lens cannot capture a single wrinkle on Rekha’s face. The only product that Rekha should endorse at 58 is Anti-Ageing Capsules. Dil cheez kya hai, aap mere anti-ageing capsules lijiye.  Bas ek baar mera kaha maan lijiye.
14. Anna Hazare: Anna Hazare says he is not a politician. You know he is not a Parliamentarian. And I believe it would be wrong to devoid this list of a name which has stirred Indian politics and tormented Parliamentarians for months now. A source dying to be disclosed told me publicly that McDonald’s has been putting in a lot of efforts to sign Anna as its brand face. Anna Hazare, when skipping meals, pulls huge crowds. Imagine the reaction if a podgy Anna holds a Happy Meal in his hand and declares, “i’m lovin it”. The result might compel the forever seated Ronald McDonald to stand up in surprise.  

Fashion : A new form of Ugliness

Fashion is an art. It is a creative way of using one’s own body as a canvas to send out messages that speak of the million things that goes inside the vital mind. Everything on the exterior is a reflection of the interior. Fashion shares the fundamentals of religion. Anyone who understands this art of silent conversation will agree that fashion, much like religion, is something very personal. It is an individualistic element of personality. However, much like religion, when fashion is spread through coercive or non-coercive influence, it becomes meaningless. It may exist in our mind but we begin to lose its essence. Contrary to the public belief, true fashion has become rare. The new concept of “Universal trends” has taken its place.

Fashion was an intelligent child of creativity. Trend (which today has become synonymous with fashion) is the mindless foster child of the capitalistic fashion industry. Fashion is not an art anymore. It is a business and all the self-proclaimed fashion addicts or media pronounced fashion forwards are nothing but merely, the victims of a capitalistic fashion industry. Abe Ajay, the famous American artist, once said,” The art world is now a fashion industry, led by its Whitney Biennial ‘nose for the new look`. But nobody, it seems has the guts or the brains to blow the necessary whistler and holler, ‘Hold on guys! What the hell is this ugly bit of business?” To be able to understand the true meaning of fashion, it is important to reveal the farce face of current trend-fashion-industry.

Twenty First Century Fashion- a result of capitalism & Elitism

In fashion magazines, pages dealing with intellectual opinions are inserted in between thick piles of advertisements from big fashion houses. The 2011 September issue of the Fashion behemoth, Vogue, carried 532 pages of advertisement of the total 758 pages. Similarly, the second leading fashion magazine, InStyle, had 347 pages filled with ads from big fashion houses and lifestyle brands. It has been alleged that Anna Wintour, the editor-in-chief of the world’s most celebrated fashion magazine, the American Vogue, buys upcoming designers by obligating them through undue favors. Anna Wintour is also infamous for promoting the use of fur by denying paid advertisements of animal protection organizations in her magazine and simultaneously, compelling her designers to promote fur in lieu of promotion in the same coveted magazine. Lifestyle channel celebrates the life of the elites. Television shows are dedicated to celebrity life and their designer wardrobes. Names like Armani, Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Marc Jacobs, Tom Ford, Lanvin, Louis Vuitton, John Galliano, Alexander McQueen etc. have been imprinted on the minds of the middle class.  NDTV Good Times’ famous show “I’m Too Sexy – All Access” is clearly biased towards big fashion houses and popular designer names. In recent episodes on bags and shoes, the top ten picks comprised of ridiculously expensive designer creations. Nothing from the streets made it to the list. Unfortunately, these days, fashion journalism does not give much importance to designers who actually design clothes for the middle strata and no space is dedicated to promoting personal style. The opinion of the pundits is unanimous and one- the style of the elites is celebrated and it is the only thing in the world that should be imitated.

Is it worth the price?

Art is priceless. Isn’t it? The fashion industry lives by the same diktat. This is the only way of explaining the sky high prices that the designers demand for their designs. The haute couture is customized and one of its kind. A fair enough explanation for why it needs to be so expensive. However, not all pieces that designers create are exclusive. Invariably every designer product is priced at an unaffordable amount. Most of these designer items are created in third world countries like Bangladesh, China, India, Cambodia etc. where the labor is available for cheap and is compelled to work for long strenuous hours to get some much needed money (a fact which is constantly undermined and concealed). Gucci’s parent company PPR was accused of using third world cheap labor in 2002. In 2007, A BBC program showed Indian children working extra hours in sweatshops to produce products for the American clothing and accessories retailer GAP. Incidents like these have become recurrent now. The employment of third world labor in the process of production may have reduced the real cost of production but the price demanded for designer goods have only increased over the years. A look at the prices of some of the iconic dresses and accessories will explain things further:

•  The iconic Hermes’s Birkin bag can cost a fashionista anything between £6,000 and £1, 00,000. These bags are made out of calf, crocodile, ostrich or lizard leather. (Should one really kill an ostrich for a bag?) The raw material used may be expensive but does not certainly amount to the value of the bag. The company justifies the cost of the bag on the grounds that these are crafted by experts and are handmade. (An expert craftsman sitting in some puny streets of Delhi can design a more or less similar bag for you at a much lesser price. Well, that’s handmade too but not worthy of the price. Why? Because it is not HERMES and no Vogue or Elle is promoting it).
•  American Designer Herve L. Leroux of Herve Leger created the amazing Bandage or the body-con dress with the materials that are traditionally used for making foundation garments. Herve sells these dresses for a range between $750 and $3800 (considering the fabric used, the cost charged is at least ten times or more of the real cost of production).
•  Fashion may be considered to be an obsession for women but there is no dearth of men who are willing to shed bank accounts to get a custom made suit. A tailor made Tom Ford or Valentino suit can cost a person around $2500. Similarly, the best of Yves Saint Laurent or Dolce and Gabbana custom –made suits are priced around $2100. (The tailor at Raymonds creates impeccable custom made suits for $96. Not many fashion lovers come to him. Why? Because Brad Pitt & Shahrukh Khan, do not endorse his tailored suits on the red carpets).
•  The fashion industry does not only make one pay through bucks. It also makes people pay physically. How? Take for instance, the current obsession with size zero. The supermodel Kate Moss who popularized the “zero-size” or “heroin-chin” look in the 1990s was naturally waif. She did not have to give up eating to attain the size zero status. However, when fashion pundits and celebrities established size zero as a norm, women across the world were compelled to give up eating and attain an anorexic figure.  Plus size women were written off as obese and ugly. In the fight to become fashionably accepted, women begun to become non-existent.

Can you call yourself fashionable?

Recently, Burberry and Louis Vuitton have won cases against counterfeiting. It means that the fake designer items that were sold in markets for cheap will now be unavailable. Anyone found selling or possessing them, is liable to fine. This is an iconic judgment for the capitalistic fashion industry because it means that the consumers, who earlier satisfied themselves with a cheaper imitation, will now be compelled to spend exorbitant amount of money in buying their favorite designer item. Those who cannot afford it will continue to dream of it (and anything which people cannot afford becomes all the more desirable to them).

The global fashion industry is an approximately thousand billion dollar industry today. People have become more conscious of brands and labels. Clothing and styling has been taken to a whole new level. Fashion magazines and lifestyle channels make millions each year. However, can we truly call ourselves fashionable? What does a woman wearing an Armani or a Valentino say of herself? To the fashion world, she may say that she is fashionable. But to me, her endorsement of designers seems to say that she lacks any knowledge of self and uses a designer as a crutch to boost up her low confidence. We wear clothes that are deemed to be suitable for us by a bunch of people who have invested more time in creating an industry ripe with profits than art. Through our choice of fashion, we shun who we really are to embrace who we want to be. The fashion industry may claim otherwise but the fact is that people are not fashionable anymore. They are simply disillusioned by a trap which is beautiful, glorious and becoming all the more unattainable at every step. Alas! Oscar Wilde saw it all coming years ago when he said, “Fashions are the only induced epidemics, proving that epidemics can be induced by tradesmen.”

 

Baa Baa Brown Indian, should I pull off the ad?

A country deeply marred by political scandals, financial scams, flagrant corruption, hapless poverty, deep seated unemployment and external and internal security threats, doesn't feel raped of its pride when stories which evince that people are being looted, cheated and inappropriately served emerge out each day. However, an entire nation rolls in a common feeling of hurt when an American (white) actor whose job is to impersonate characters, wears the brown skin of an Indian in a commercial advertisement. Beware World. India is a serious nation and we, Indians take ourselves too seriously.  We may be brown but don’t you show it to us or anyone else because if you do, WE WILL SUE YOU.

This is not the first time when Indians have not been able to take a joke on themselves. In January this year, some Indians and an overtly ‘hurt’ N.R.I Dr. Randeep Dhillon dragged the American Comedian and the popular TV show host, Jay Leno to court. Law Suit Case: Disrespecting and hurting the feelings of the Sikh Community by portraying their holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, as a place for the rich and mighty. Jay Leno, had shown a picture of the Golden Temple while satirically and humorously calling it the summer home of the Presidential candidate, Mitt Romney.  Later in April this year, a huge controversy emerged when the well-wishers of Mamta Banerjee and the members of the Trinamool Congress went tooth and nail after Prof. Ambikesh Mohapatra of Jadavpore University when he posted a funny cartoon of the Chief Minister on his Facebook page. Rumors of social media censorship started emerging on the surface after the dictatorial Mamta fanatics jailed the Professor and threatened to take action against anyone who indulged in such lewd ribaldry in future. The many controversies like these, which have surfaced in the last few months have led us to the question- Has the Indians lost their funny bone? Do we take ourselves more seriously than we should?

The Indians have always been the Sentimentalists but now, many Indians have been plagued by a new disease which has made them the “projectionists”. The projectionists are very conscious about the kind of image they wish to project of themselves. They deny the reality, refuse to accept it, do everything to hide it and if anyone dares to put a mirror in front of it, they blow storms.  And yes, the projectionists are utterly unable to take a joke on them because the projectionists take their image too seriously. Do not ‘hurt’ them because they will sue you.

Ashton Kutcher’s ‘brownface ad’ provoked the Projectionists in the country. Why? Because it was true and the projectionists hate it when somebody shows them the truth that they do not like to hear and see. Does it even matter that the majority of the Indians are actually brown skinned? Does it even matter that Ashton Kutcher was only doing his job as an actor while impersonating the mannerism and the skin tone of an Indian? Does it even matter that the majority of the Indians did not find the advertisement at all racist? No, it didn't. Why? Because the feelings of those projectionists within the country, who buy millions of dollars worth of fairness cream, each year to look fair, were ‘hurt’. How can anyone show them to be brown when they so want to be white?

The dating website decided to pull the advertisement off air to avoid any controversy. However, in the opinion of an Indian who likes to see things as they are, I did not find the concerned advertisement at all racist. If at all there is anything racist, it is the attitude of the Indian projectionists, elaborately discussed above, who refuse to accept the true color of their skin and who secretively still vie to be white faced. The Whites will rule the roost of color as long as the blacks and browns of the world continue to cringe on the very mention of their color. How can we expect the world to respect us for who we are, when we ourselves refuse to embrace our true identity?

The question is simple and one -Who are we kidding, them or us?

MYSTERY MAGIC!!

Mysteries are not necessarily miracles but they make that iota of spark which triggers your imagination and set it into leaps. The curious case of human mind is that it works ardently to unfurl the mystery. As soon as it sees something that it does not understand well, it becomes aggravated. To appease its aggravation, the mind, then, starts to put down the pieces of the puzzle together to get the clear picture. The question however is - Is it really always necessary to get a clear picture? Can we not let some things stay mysterious always? Does every question have to be sufficed with an answer? And, is a mystery solved as charming as a mystery unsolved?

When I was young, my mother often took me to the Tibetan Markets to buy us some cheap winter wool. While she would look for sweaters, I would invariably stand with my glare fixed at those puny pathways that led to the houses of the Tibetans. Those small, bricked and inappropriately built houses held the charm of the world to me. They still do because those houses nurture a lifestyle that is unknown to me. I would stand their imagining how those Tibetans lived in the small houses where privacy seemed an alienated concept and sharing lives seemed the only answer. I had created a world of my own that moved inside those houses like the way I wanted it move. However, deep inside, I knew that I would be disappointed if I ever walked inside those doors. The bitterness of reality would crush the sweetness of my imagination. So, I never did. All I chose to do was stand outside the door and imagine how life moved inside it. I will never open the doors.

Yesterday, while shopping for groceries in a tiny jam packed street on Railway Road, I came across an old man with haggard grey hair, battered brown skin, grey cataract eyes, sitting in his wooden “khoka”, selling all kinds of “parchuni” to an otherwise uninterested and indifferent world. Our eyes met and as soon I looked into his, a hundred questions popped up in my mind. Where does this man live? Does he have any children? If yes, where are they and why do they let him run the shop (clearly, he was quite old for any occupation but comfort)? Is his wife dead? What does he do when he gets home? Within minutes, I was filled with a kind of curiosity that only answers could have satisfied. Did I question the old man? Did I satisfy my curiosity? No. Why? Because, more often than not, things that we begin to understand, begin to lose their charm. 

Finding answers is a choice and not a compulsion. Though it is important to unravel the truth, it is also important to celebrate mystery. Close your eyes and witness your life in flashes and you will realize that a major part of our life’s three hour edited version is made of those moments which were unexplained, unexpected, uncelebrated, unfamiliar, unrevealed, unsung or untold. So, in your quest to seek answers, learn to celebrate the questions that do not have an answer.

Next time, you see a woman who absolutely scintillates your senses, do not run to her. Simply, capture her scintillations. Next time, you come across a place that seems heaven, do not try and carry it back with you. Simply, capture the beauty. Next time, you feel you are losing someone and nothing you do seem to bring them back, do not question the happening. Simply, capture the fight that you fought. Next time, you get a feeling that you cannot understand, do not try to understand it. Simply, capture the feel. And the next time you feel you do not understand life, do not try to understand it. Simply, begin to live it.

If understanding some things is important, not trying to understand some other things is also equally important. Just to be, is blessing. Just to live is holy.

KIDS-SANS-NATION

                                                  

 A famous actor on an Indian television chat show recently declared- I am not going to have kids; not because I don’t like them but because I think that there is already so much happening in the world that there is no place left for kids to come in.

For a moment, it felt like any other celebrity trying to make an avante garde statement but on prolonged subsequent thoughts, I realized he was right in saying so. The world has indeed become disparate for more kids to come in.

Let us reason this.

Procreation may have been a need once but with the ever increasing population, it has only become a quaint social norm that we can do without. The plight of the kids is pitiable. The next time you pass across a bunch of school going kids, stop for a moment, observe, reminisce and answer- Do they look half as happy as you used to when you were a kid?

The answer is No. For people our age, school was where the fun was. Of course, the whole curriculum revolved around academics yet the pressure never surmounted to sub-human levels. Unfortunately, the picture has become lopsided now. A five year old goes to school carrying a bag as heavy as his own weight.  A ten year old is grinded each day to learn to work harder than he possibly can and logically should. A fifteen year old is subjugated to learn C++ (a language which was introduced to only IT professionals till a few years back). At first, it is about scoring well in the metric exams. The next climb is to qualify for a carrier that gets you good money, ricochets your parent’s respect and establishes you as a “man of worth” in the society. The truth is that if you cannot outshine everyone else at every step of life, you will be labeled an “average” and the world today is no place for the “averages”.

Why do we procreate? The most obvious answer is because we wish to survive ourselves through our children; through our name that they bear. Is it right to bring a life into this already messed up world for the sake of carrying a name forward? I think the answer is no. However, though a name may or may not need survival; the world needs to survive. So, children are inevitability. What is the solution then?

The amount of pressure that is put on children these days would lead to dire consequences. Virtues of life will be replaced by blatant acceptance of much needed vices essential for survival in this overtly competent world. Both education and lifestyle needs to be reviewed and corrected. The present scenario is a disturbing one. However, since change needs time, I propose a more temporary solution. There are about 22 million orphans in India. Instead of creating more life on this planet; let us make better the life that already exists. Adopt a child. Provide an orphan with a home. Give him a name; your name. Provide him with a kind of education and upbringing that would help him stand against the tide and make the world a place suitable enough to bring more children.

"Our family never shared the same last name

 But our family was a family just the same

 And they say blood is thicker than water

Oh, but love is thicker than blood."

The Travelling Saga- Twilight to Breaking Dawn!

On the 29^th of the last month, my sister delivered us a very happy surprise- a nephew and I, soaked in `maternal- aunt` love decided to go to Delhi to see him at once. However, at that time I had no clue that this would prove to be a journey of awakening.

The first train from Aligarh to Delhi runs at six in the morning and I had every plan of getting on it until the time I reached the railway station. Let me tell you this weird fact that most railway stations in India look more of a relief camp (with a hundred or more dull and lost faces filling its every corner) and less of a railroad station. Once I was there, I began with the never ending process of being able to get hold of a ticket. Standing in a cue does not hurt as much as the sound of the lady standing right next to you when she calls out to her husband(trying his luck in the men`s cue) every second minute or the site of her, thrashing her children every time they dare move an inch. Nevertheless, after trying my luck for twenty minutes, I was still behind seven people in the line and without a ticket. I knew my chances were negative and so, I decided to take a bus instead.

There are buses at a gap of every five minute to Delhi and hence getting one was never much of a problem. However, sitting inside it for four hours was a big one because in any roadways bus in India, the windows and the seats make more noise than the passengers themselves. One inevitable thing that I came to know after traveling in a roadways bus that day, is that the peanuts are omnipresent in India. Irrespective of what season it is; you will always find at least a few peanut wraps under some seat of an Indian bus. And if you are lucky enough, you will get a romantic driver who will make Mohd. Rafi and Altaf Raja, your accomplices in the journey.

The most unendurable yet the funniest part of an Indian bus journey begins when the driver pulls the bus at some road side plaza for tea and enters the man who is there to sell you the world`s best products. In my case, that day, the efficient sales person turned out to be a rather gory looking man trying to dispose off some tablets that he claimed would come handy in case of constipation and loose motions, vomiting, nausea and what not! (It seemed like the tablet was this medical wonder that could singly cure everything, even AIDS). Even more surprising was this- some half of the passengers bought it. We were on the road again in no time. Alas! The rest of the journey was rather eventless and the free time it provided, prompted me to think about the traveling saga of India.

The road transport in India is neither crippled nor impotent. It is very capable of delivering good results; where we lack in a major way is the administration. There is no dearth of buses and trains but there is a nescience of a working staff that is willing to provide help. It is for this reason that enquiry numbers never connect and the cues on ticket counters take hours to move forward; that people sleep on railway platforms when there are rest rooms and the buses gets swabbed only once in a blue moon. If the situation is to be made better, the ministry of railways, roads and highway transport will have to start looking beyond increasing the counts. It will have to work more on getting an efficient administration in place.

The traveling Saga in India starts from twilight, owing to deficient administration, moves to an eclipse but with an effort can be made into a Breaking dawn.

O! Fish!!

I love water. I love the gossamer blue of it. It is extremely comforting to sit on a beach and listen to the sound of water striking against the shores; at times rough and at times slow. It was my love for water that compelled me to take a flight to the Marari Beach in Kerala on a Friday afternoon.

Courtesy of an old friend, who happens to be an employee of the Kerala Government, a guest house was assigned to me for three days. Nepotism is actually not such a bad thing, is it? I spent the Saturday morning on the beach. In the afternoon, I went for a meal at an inexpensive beach restaurant. In the evening, I went to visit a few tourist places. Sunday Morning saw me on the beach again and to tell you the truth, by the evening, I had begun to pine for Delhi way too much.

My flight way back home was on Monday evening.  To while away some free time, I went for fishing in the morning. I guess I was just hapless; couldn’t catch a single fish. After an hour, my spirits resigned; the love for water precipitated off and just when I was about to drag my heavy feet back to the guest house, something funny happened.

A fish emerged from water, took a high flight into the air and dropped off its weight on my feet. Right next to my feet, it twisted, contorted and gasped for oxygen. In a few seconds, it found eternal peace and stopped twisting forever. And that’s when I said- O FISH! I DID NOT EVOLVE FROM THE APES ALONE.

While watching a fish die underneath my feet on the silken sand of an Indian beach, I came up with an evolution theory that Darwin would kill me for prophesying; a theory which is physically impossible and conceivably disgusting but plausible to the mind of an insane woman and hence, I will propose it.

The humans evolved from apes. We evolved and started looking better. Unfortunately, some of us didn’t evolve much and continue to look and act like apes even to this day. But I propose that the apes must have externally fertilized with a number of different animals and that’s how humans came to existence. This also precisely explains the analogy of human behavior with the action pattern of different animals.

For instance, I am a fish. I could not savor the Marari Beach because I survive best in my own waters. I like being at home. If you put me somewhere else, I twist and turn and yell till I am thrown back into the place where I came from. Some people I know are like Ostriches - just because they have closed their eyes and hidden their faces, they presume very wrongly that the world will not notice them. They fall a prey to their own follies. Then some are Jackasses, the ones who are born morons. Category "Apodogs" includes the ones that descended from ancestors produced from conjugation of apes and dogs. They are a ferocious species of humans. They bite more than they listen. The turtle humans are those who creep slowly all their lives. The lion humans are one-man-shows.. And the worst of all kinds are the cat humans. They are cunning, connive and selfish.

So, you see I have a theory that may seem funny but it is quite plausible. Peep inside your own soul and tell me, which animal are you?

Be true to yourself.