Kissing is overrated.

Yes. Kissing is overrated. Think about it. There is just about too much brouhaha (wow….finally I got to use the word)… about kissing these days….and to think that people have been kissing for ages.
What is it about kissing that gives rise to so many controversies?

So I have tried to do some research (which really means I googled a bit) and have tried to understand some of the kisses that come readily to mind…:-

Judas Kissing Jesus:-

Legend has it that Judas, to finger Jesus to the Roman soldiers, kissed Jesus on the cheek. Its strange bordering on yickee… Either people were really weird those days or someone made this up later. I mean, think about it, if you wanted to finger out a person you would probably ...well..use your finger and point at him…or maybe if you wanted to be discreet just make that meaningful movement of your eyes….or if you really hated him…throw a stone…but kiss him…who would do that?

Now moving 2 thousand years forward:--

Gere-Shetty : So much have been said and written on this…but my album

would not be complete without the picture.

Aiswarya-Hrithik (Dhoom 2): This was way-out. I can just imagine the scene at the Bachhan household….the set is the grand hall….winding staircase in the background, AB Sr, in his paternal kurta attire intensely looking at the camera while the rest of the family (AB Jr, Jaya and offcourse Aishwarya) can be seen in the background.

Cut-to: Close up of Aishwarya, tears streaming down her cheeks as she reflects on her crime… (“Hrithik’s da man”).
Cut-to: Close up of Jaya deep in thought (“I was certainly more beautiful at her age”).
Cut-to: AB Jr trying to look cool and disinterested (“Oh… Rani”).

AB Sr, turns around with a flourish and walks upto Ash…with surprising gentleness he puts his hands on her shoulders and asks her the ultimate question (the loud background score drowns the words). The moment he stops talking there is deathly silence.
Others, having heard what AB Sr just said, turn towards Ash… not at the same time, but in a well orchestrated sequence, one following the other….a series of quick close-ups of all characters … (a la Ekta Kapoor). Slowly Ash raises her face and with great melodrama shouts …”No, there was no tongue”.

The Kiss (sculpture of Rodin) and lion kissing the lady: That lion should never have been taken to sculpture exhibition, gave him all kinds of ideas.

Bush with Saudi Prince: Hey...Bush is not kissing him; he is only looking for information on a certain Bin Laden. He is searching for information, with his tongue, in the Prince’s mouth. Yieeks… Hey..dont puke on the sofa.

Ash again, this time with Vivek: Replay Bacchan family scene above.

Use your imagination …

Ash “Yes there was tongue, but only his not mine”…..

Biocon Chief with Vasundhara Raje: The naughty things that people said

about this....lets not get started on this one. I mean politicians’ hobnobbing with corporates is a global and rather age-old phenomenon...these ladies are just taking it to the next level. I am sure Mr Majumdar Shaw would be looking forward to the propects of catching up with his wife's new found friends....

Mika and Rakhi: This was awesome. Two struggling artists, TV Channels looking for spicy stuff, audience watching out for lewd scenes to comment on degeneration of the media, country’s culture…in short, this kiss worked for everyone, all of society benefited from this.

BJP MLA Renukacharya and Nurse: Two ugly, aged people kissing, this should have been censored. This was too grotesque to have made it to the print and TV media.

They should have featured this news without showing the two people involved. At least, some righteous minds would have had the freedom to get some kicks imagining both of them to be awesomely hot.
Ronaldo and Bips: I understand this really sealed the fate of the

John-Bips affair. But this just did not have the bang (or should it be smooch) of the Rakhi-Mika kiss.

By the way, I am sure you have by now figured out this is my most desperate attempt till date to increase readership of this blog.

College days

Pretty dull…that was what my college days started out like. And for those of you who think that by the end of this post, you’ll realise how interesting it finally turned out to be….well, it depends really… it depends on how dull your college days were or are, or will be.

Let’s face it, our opinion of ourselves, is really shaped by what those around us think of themselves.. Sounds strange…but think about it, it is true. If I am in the company of people who all think they have done well in life, I invariably feel…man, what have I done with mine!!!

Let me explain.
Say I am talking about my college days to Bill Gates, you know, the computer guy who dropped out of college and set up a jillion dollar enterprise…so the conversation would probably go like…

Self: You know Bill, I had the most interesting of college days.
Bill: Oh really…what’s your name again…I have the top 10 in the Forbes list memorised.
Self: Man…this coffee is too strong…let me go get another cup.

Or, maybe I am talking about my college days to Rakhi Sawant:

Self: Those were the days!!!
Rakhi: For sure.
Self: The parties…
Rakhi: Yeah and the lays…..
Self: Oh, you got that too…
Rakhi: Hmm? … See you…got a date with a couch.

If you still do not get the drift please see the by-line on my blog title… An innocent bystander to my own-life….anyway more on that in a later post.

Back to my college days:-

I was a casualty of science (a phrase which to this day I believe I coined). This basically meant I plodded through XI and XII standard studying Physics/Chemistry and Maths leading every-one to believe I will add to the venerated demographic segment of Engineers (for some others it would be Medicine).

Needless to say, around half-way I realised no such prospect awaits me at the end of my academic career but it was too late to turn back….(you know…like in the Lakme India Fashion Week when the model realised there is a wardrobe malfunction, she completed her catwalk never-the less).
(Note: By providing suggestive links I am trying to increase my readership while pretending to be clean).

So much the same way as the thousands of disillusioned casualties before me, I joined B Com in a highly pretentious college…SXC. (Loyal Xaverians are welcome to differ on the pretention part)

Now St Xavier’s College (SXC) B Com was a strange beast in the academic landscape of Calcutta in the early 1990’s. I guess it is much the same now.

For those who always wanted to study commerce (mostly belonging to the business families of Kolkata and around) SXC was the equivalent of IIT.
However for the casualties of science (man…do I love this phrase)…it was …well…just Xavier’s B Com.

College would start at 6am and end at 9:40am. So your classes would be over before the rest of the student population would even start their’s.

Coming from Science, I had every reason to not understand Debit/Credit. Of-course, B Com had a lot of other stuff as well…but my level of understanding in those was the same as Debit/Credit.

When I recall my college days I remember…a couple of good friends…lots of time spent quizzing (Calcutta has this rather active quizzing circuit), hours long adda (aimless discussions on issues ranging from international politics to neighbourhood romances), lots of college fests and, before you conclude I am gay…girls.

Quiz question: What was common to all the girls I knew and did not know?
Ans: Well… none of them ever noticed me.

Most of the conversations would be along these lines

Self: Hi. I am Comrade Chakra.
Girl:

Self: Hi, remember we met at …
Girl: Hi, how are you? (looking over my shoulder and walking away to the person she addressed the greeting to)

If you are feeling a sense of pity or thinking how much of a loser I was…don’t bother…because I conveniently positioned myself as one of those who did not give much of a damn about girls. I like to believe that worked.

In the early 90’s such a positioning was generally not associated with you being Gay. A misogynist like Jughead, were he to appear today, would be gently accepted as being “different”. Anyway, Batman & Robin are generally accepted as the first gay superhero couple.

But really, my exceptional humility aside (now you may think I was not really that much of a loser) there was a girl who did seem to notice me initially, it is just that she fell in with the rest a little later in the day…so all in all…not much of an aberration in my spotless track record.

I have often wondered, if I had the chance to re-live my college days, what would I have done different?
What about you?

And what about your college days, interesting ?

(If you answered the 2nd question in the affirmative, you have only me to thank)

New law of life

I have arrived at my new law of life.

This is the longest break between two subsequent posts that I have had since I started this blog.

Last week I told myself…I better write a post this week since I have made an unwritten rule that I shall be making one post a week.

But hang on, I write blogs because its fun, but then when I start trying to live up to rules it suddenly makes it seem like a job.

Ok, I know it is remotely possible there may be a couple of more who read this blog beside me (certainly not more than that)… and I can flatter myself into thinking that they will be, well disappointed! Hey come of it…they’ll survive!

So I have now not written for two whole weeks. I am writing now because…well because I want to. Not because I feel I should. In other words, if I do not write now, it will seem like my job is to not write posts to my blog.

So the rule going forward is, if you already have a job, stop doing everything else that feels like a job. (I am assuming you need that one job to do all the other things that are non-jobs).

I can see some of you smirking…thinking you only do one job so you have nothing to worry…wrong, wrong, wrong.

There are various things which we feel we should do and they end up resembling jobs more than anything else…

Illustrations: -

1. Accompanying your spouse to his/her office party…I cannot imagine any sane person enjoying this (unless offcourse it is a nude party and all his/her colleagues are the same sex as your spouse).
So next time you are asked to attend such a party, you can simply say…sorry, you hate your present job enough and cannot handle the stress of two jobs.


2. Buying monthly domestic provisions…this some call a chore, which is worse than a job. I am already working my way out of this job.

I have discovered the pleasure of having food without salt, tea without sugar and wearing soiled clothes as there is no detergent to run the washing machine. You can buy this stuff not monthly, but only when you desperately need it, and it is no secret how much pleasure it is to lay your hands on something you really need.

Go ahead try….the road of discovery has been interesting for me … a shampoo is a great substitute for body soap….a hand-wash can double as shampoo and you can have instant noodles for 3 meals a day.

3. Watching cricket…yes, given the present state of Indian cricket, it is pretty much a job. I have stopped watching cricket for quite sometime now and have considerable free time that I spend doing nothing at all.

I can come up with more illustrations, but then it will make my blog writing seem like a job so I wont do it.

So friends, take a breather….list out all the jobs you are doing, decide on the one that you want to continue doing… (The one that pays the most would be an easy guideline for most people… because most people are greedy) and chuck all the rest.

Go on…make the list…it is a job you got to do.