What Goes Up Comes Down - But Very Slowly

Lifts - or elevators if that's what you call them (though, even if you're American, why?) -  can cause a good deal of pain and suffering. It's not through any fault of theirs - I mean , okay, so lifts are drab places that you wouldn't spend your holidays in but is that even relevant ? It's what some people do with them. Consider these situations from hottest hell :

(1)  People rush in before you have gotten out.

They also then do not hear your sarcastic one liner (e.g., " in a hurry ! ") because they're already busy pressing their buttons. 

(2)  People press the wrong button 

You're taking the lift down and running very late. The lift stops at some random floor where some woman asks if it's going up. I wouldn't trust her judgement at gunpoint.

(3)  People have pressed all the buttons 

Children and ultra-demented adults have often been known to press all the buttons in a lift to make it stop at every floor. 

(4) People hold you captive with some really boring talk  

You're stuck listening to the guy in the building who may have bored the dinosaurs into extinction. And to make sure you're paying attention he never takes his eyes off yours for a second 

(5)  People hold you captive with some really boring talk about their children 

That same guy talking about his kids ? Enough said. 

(6) People don't keep the door open for you

You've come in needing to use the bathroom. The lift is just about to go up .The person who's seen you rushing makes no attempt to keep the door open as he stares clean past you. What could he have been thinking of ? His own stupidity you hope. 

(7)  People can't  keep the door open for you 

Ditto the previous situation but this time you spot someone in it who you know. BUT this person is so busy smiling and waving at you that they forget to press the Open button. 

So there you are ,  stuck like hell with a bursting bladder , waiting for the damn lift to come down again. What goes up must come down , sure. But  it comes down all too slowly. 

Because on the way there must be a woman who's pressed the wrong button and held the lift up or some ridiculously irritating little kid who're pressed all the buttons on it or that life-threatening bore holding everybody off with kid-talk ?

Oh , hang on , not that guy.  Because here he is now , freshly arrived and  by your side , waiting to give you company through the  longest ever ride to the loo in your whole sorry life. And guess what. He's waving his kid's school report cards at you. 

The Philosopher's Stoned

Cogito Ergo Sum  - "I think, therefore I am" - said the philosopher Rene Descartes whose name is pronounced very differently. Why not write De-Cart ? Typical !

What Descartes left out was this : think what exactly ? Was he being stylish, mysterious or just careless ? We'll never know - and thank goodness.  Philosophy would have  lost some serious  shine had that line been,say, "I think of shopping therefore I am in the mall."

I wish I'd known about the philosopher Immanuel  Kant's Critique of Pure Reason when I found out that critique and criticism weren't the same. It would have both lessened the shock and illustrated the difference. For Kant's critique is apparently all praise for pure reason.

I think pure reason has its limits though.  It's the lifeblood of civilization and all that of course but not particularly effective in such situations as when confronting a raging large man who has it in for you or a raging little ultra-nationalist who has it in for your views.

I'm inclined most towards the philosopher David Hume. Hume is known for empiricism and skepticism. I have no idea what empiricism is - nothing to do,I'm told, with umpiring or even empire -but I'm  skeptical enough to never go anywhere near philosophy. Which is why I should stop here. 

The Romantic Poets

"Hail to thee , blithe spirit !  / Bird thou never wert / That from heaven , or near it / Pourest thy full heart / In profuse strains of unpremeditated art."  - Shelley, "To A Skylark"

Now you and I wouldn't think of squawking ,cawing or even cooing as any form of art unpremeditated or otherwise. In fact , a bunch of crows cawing during siesta time on a hot afternoon is the worst thing that could ever happen to one and how different could skylarks be ?

But that was Percy Shelley . (Now that's who I was thinking of when I wrote William Percy Shakespeare (read here) )

Percy Bysshe Shelly. William Wordsworth.Samuel Taylor Coleridge.And Blake and Browning and Keats and Yeats.

Well , Yeats is not on that list because he came later - though I suspect it's really because Yeats is pronounced 'Yates' as opposed to Keats' 'Keats'.

(By the way : Bysshe ? How's that pronounced ?)

The Romantic poets were some of the greatest minds in human history. Imagine thinking beautiful thoughts in rhyme using 'thou', 'thee' and 'thine'. Not to mention 'o'er' , ''ere' and 'e'en'. Where one usually walks past daffodils without knowing them from Daffy Duck, Wordsworth writes a poem about them. Where one settles in to a state of agreeable inertness after a pinch of opium , Coleridge not only composes a million lines about an ancient mariner but also has it in him to spell it '... Ancyent Marinere'. And show me a guy who knows Ozimandias from Ozzy Osbourne and I'll show you a blank verse (after first finding out what it means)   

My only criticism of the entire movement is that Blake didn't pull off the rhyme on his famous The Tyger.  " ... What immortal hand or eye / Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?".  'Eye' so doesn't rhyme with 'symmetry' !  What was Blake thinking ? Probably about flowers or something. 

Rambling's of a Looser

Even Hitler shot himself.

Happened decades too late of course but the point is nobody likes Nazis in any shape,form or manner.

So as somebody who can't properly tell preposition from proposition or can't encounter the word 'simile' without the image of a smiley (one nos., yellow) popping in my head, I share everybody's dislike of Grammar Nazis. I mean don't those tight asses have anything better to do ? 

I do, however, cut the tribe some slack when it comes to : (a) apostrophes (b) 'lose' versus 'loose' and (c) 'your' versus 'you're'.

Considering I had to google it up before I was sure it's 'apostrophe'  not 'apropstophe',  I was in two minds about writing this piece. Then I drew strength and resolve from the harrowing memory of being assaulted by the following : " I hope he get's the message".

I survived.

Sure , I'm scarred as hell obviously but alive to tell the tale about the time somebody wrote : "Thanks , your a star". It was all I could do from not replying "Your clearly not." As for 'lose' and 'loose' , that's so rampant  they may as well let the dictionary evolve to accept the interchange.

Ever notice how expletives always come error-free ? Consider online comments sections where bad temper combines with worse writing in a perfect concentration camp of Grammar Nazi porn. You'll see plenty of 'Your a looser' but never a 'Your an ass'hole'.

So hurling abuse on Grammar Nazis works well for everybody. Vitriol is given,correct spelling taken. It's a win win. Nobody looses. 

Bard ? Plane ? Just Ralph Waldo Emerson

William Percy Shakespeare.

Oops, sorry. Not Percy. That was someone else. 

Just William Shakespeare. Or Shakespeare The Greatest. 

Shakespeare wrote about so many things. What did he not write about ? Smartphones perhaps.

And how prolific he was ! He wrote a million plays and a thousand sonnets and bonnets and God knows how many more are yet to be discovered. Maybe when that spaceship gets to extraterrestrial life after all , they'll find a new one in there. Lots of funny looking life forms quoting from it too. 

People are always quoting Shakespeare. Shakespeare is probably the second most quoted person ever after Ralph Waldo Emerson*.  "The quality of mercy is not strained" or " If music be the food of love" and so on.

If William Shakespeare had a Facebook account and had Checked In At The First Class Lounge , they'd have quoted from that too. Imagine a piece about a First Class lounge beginning with something like " As the Bard of Avon said - 'My cup doth runneth o'er / With champagne' "  or something of the sort. Which is why it's fucking wonderful that he didn't. 

(* Ralph Waldo Emerson. I've seen entire books filled with RWE quotes. I know nothing about him. I don't know what he looked like. Wore a quote probably ? RWE had a lot of quotes. Great guy to hang with for bad conversationalists like me. Nothing to say ? Non-issue totally.)

Baby You Can Drive My Car - In Fact , You Did !

Hard work and drive are the factors 

Behind the success of Bollywood actors.

And of all the leading Bollywood men 

Salman Khan is the most driven

Recently no Bollywood producer

Could  negotiate a fee reducer.

Sallu insisted on getting a fiver :

That's four- plus one for the driver.

(http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/mumbai/salman-khans-driver-owns-up-to-crime/article7049042.ece)

(Drawing by Gaurav Sethi) 

Cloudy with a chance of pain

The powers that be in Cape Town

Bloemfontein and Pretoria

Made a declaration 

That went beyond rhetoria.

'Twas made at express speed

(Possibly even faster) :  

A state of emergency 

Owed to natural disaster.

Now, what that was specifically 

Was well known to the crowds :

An overcast sky, namely,

And its rainbearing clouds

( Rain played spoilsport yet again for the South African cricket team today) 

The Portrait of Thomas Edison as a Book

Reading a book on inventors and invention
A drunkard was moved into giving a rendition
Of personifying the book.
With a wild manic look
He cried : " Here, meet Thomash Edition" !

The Human Condition ? Cool !

The Philosopher magazine - Gulf edition 

Had an article on the Human Condition.

It was rare and distinct

Being brief and succinct.

It ran to two words :"Air conditioned"

Now,sure, its a sentiment you understan'

I mean, whoever likes to live in a can !

(OK , so perhaps sardines   

I beg your pardines)

But come summer and I too turn into a fan

Ogden Nashandy (with due apologies)

Shandy
Is dandy !
No other liquor
Could be quicker.

Uptalk ? ( #That'swhatshesaid? )

I met a teenager the other day ? She didn't look up from her phone ? I don't blame her ? It was probably the weight of the earphones ?

I asked how she was doing ? And she said : "Hashtag whatever? Hashtag that'swhatshesaid?"

'Hashtag' I get ? Like, a couple of generations ago kids used to be like totally  into hash? And now they're like totally into hashtag ? I get it ?

But  'that's what she said ?'

That's what WHO said?

Turns out 'that's what she said' is a way to turn anything into a sexual joke ? It began like that and now   teens say it anyway to complete their sentences ? It's one more way of using their mouth ?  Like hashtag chewing hashtag gum ? That's what she said ?

OK so now apparently 'TWSS' peaked a couple of years ago? So this girl feels really,like,old ? Like 18? She's old ? That's what she said ?

I read about 'Uptalk' today ? You can read about it here ?

Hashtag whatever ?  

Lord Meghnad Desi

How does M. Desai , a Londoner who lives in Times Now
Manage the feat of being both in the UK and India somehow ?
While it may well be the enduring ties of the umbilical cord
I still think it's  very omnipresent on the part of the Lord.

(Disclaimer : This post is just for a little bit of a giggle. No malice or disrespect in any form or manner intended towards Lord Desai) 

Pater Pan / Father's Day

Today's Father's Day. Or is it tomorrow ? Seeing as how there's a do at my kid's school the day after tomorrow, it may well be then. Of course it might even be on all three days. Or it could have been yesterday possibly. Who knows ? 

See,it's hard to tell with these things. There's only one person in the world who knows : one's dad, of course. And if one's dad knows about it , could one's mom be far behind ? 

No, she could not ! 

Now you know why there's also a Mother's Day.

Now some say every day is fit to be Father's Day.Clearly marketers haven't heard that one or it'd be Father's Day all year round. And if it is Father's Day all year round could Mother's Day all year round be very far behind ? 

No, it could not ! 

So every day would be Father's Day and it would also be Mother's Day. Can you imagine the abundance of love and gratitude and appreciation and bickering that'd bring ? 

FATHER : " It's my day"

MOTHER : " The hell it is. It's mine ! "

CHILD : " Oh please , mom, dad. You're embarrassing me."

FATHER & MOTHER : " Get the hell out of here, pest !"

CHILD: " But I got you cards !"

FATHER : " I chucked it in the trash" 

MOTHER : " I, er, misplaced mine."

CHILD : " Waaaahhhh"

MOTHER : " Now don't ruin my day, kid."

FATHER : " Your day ? Overbearing shrew !"

MOTHER : " Asshole."

CHILD : "Waaaahhhh"

Pretty it ain't.

Which is why we can be glad there's only one Father's Day. 

Question is : when is it ? Today ? Tomorrow ? The day after ? Heck, yesterday ? 

Now I know I said one's dad knew. But mine ? Mine jolly well doesn't. I mean, rule it out man ! For one, he's a bit hard of hearing. For another, he'd be gobsmacked. You see every day was Father's Day for him and it consisted almost entirely of receiving a few of the juiciest on the seat of his pants from his daddy.And I'll be blown if he went around writing words of love, gratitude and appreciation for his pains. 

Happy Father's Day. When is it ?

Ink is mightier than the sword

Shri Subroto Roy alias Sahara Shree 

Was assaulted ere he could flee.

Before the ink had  dried on the case

Yo Yadav got some on his face

And of course well before it all 

Was the smearing of Kejriwal. 

The rallying cry these heady days I think 

Is that the sword is weaker than ink 

(c) Bhaskar Khaund

(NOTE : As of date I support the Aam Aadmi Party and any other new party that shares the politics they represent in India. However , neither this blog nor this post has anything to do with either my political views or with politics in general. This is strictly for a laugh and in the spirit of fun. It should not be misconstrued in any other way)

Whyrus Virus ?

What led to this abrupt awakening so late

Of a virus ancienter than Cyrus The Great ?

Perhaps, bored stiff under subterranean ice,

It thought a microscope would be nice.

It doesn't know the internet nor Justin Bieber
Deprived for 30,000 years without amoeba

It looks odd , somewhat like the footprint of a yeti

(Not that anybody's seen a yeti, not even a Veti)

The virus' non-virulence comes as a relief

Although I'd still culture a germ of disbelief 

Are we sure that this little old Rip Van Winkle 

Is incapable of causing a crinkle or a wrinkle ?

Mind. You don't want to get too close or thick !

An infection could get you feeling very Jurasick.

("30,000 year old giant virus comes back to life")

(C) Bhaskar Khaund