My Beef with Laddu, Interactions with Supernatural Beings, and why Trump

  As an Aadhaar card-carrying mallu, I have an intimate relationship with beef. So, when I heard there were laddus infused with beef tallow in certain temples, I was a bit surprised and immediately wanted to try that. But I think I’ll have to wait, because as of now nobody knows if that story is true. Continuing with the obsessions of Aadhaar card-carrying mallus, one thing we all like is our tipple, accompanied in most cases by beef in its various incarnations such as beef fry, beef dry fry, beef double fry, beef roast, and chili beef. The epicurean* delights accompanying alcohol are almost always savoury, never sweet. There was one guy though, back in my college days, who was an exception. Let’s call him Thyagarajan II for now (because he resembles the Tamil actor Thyagarajan). He was the strongest guy around and was built like a bull. And, he was the only mallu I ever saw who had laddus as accompaniment for alcohol. Of course, being a mallu, he will also have the beef. Beef with laddus to accompany Old Monk rum. So, what I’m saying is that beef and laddus are not incompatible as the reports suggest. There have been precedents.

  My beef with laddu is that I also have a sweet tooth and can’t keep my hands off if there are laddus around. Same with beef. However, with each passing year my uric acid levels and my HbA1c levels are nearing danger levels, forcing me to cut down on three important items in a middle-aged mallu man’s life—alcohol, beef, and laddu.

  Usually, when faced with such difficulties, many people try to get in contact with supernatural beings, which is what our Chief Justice also did. He apparently calls god and asks for solutions in such situations. Not me. For some reasons, from around the age of 12 or 13, I had been interacting with the devil**. Or at least I think it is the devil. I don’t know if my mind was idle at that age as in the biblical saying “an idle mind is the devil’s workshop”. I was definitely curious and inquisitive and used to make funny remarks about gods to my mom. Probably because I came out of her womb, she didn’t get the rakshaks of the faith to lynch me.

  Anyway, when I heard that the Chief Court Dude interacted with a supernatural being (or was it a non-biological being?), I wanted to know the details. We, however, should be careful when we talk of court dudes, because these are people who can do suo motu stuff (means real bad stuff) if they don’t like something. Looking at the news reports, it is not clear which specific being he talked to or what advice was offered. So, I am trying to imagine how it works. Considering his religion and its billion adherents, I have a feeling that he got a recorded message at first like in those American banks. “All lines are busy right now. Please hold the line while we connect you to a representative. Your call may be recorded for security reasons.” This might have been followed by slow sitar music. Eventually somebody must have come on the line and given him some gyaan (advice). That triggers further questions in my mind (oh, that devil again). What if it was a junior god and what if he didn’t like the gyaan that was offered? Would court dude have asked to speak to a supervisor god? Did he eventually get to speak to the supreme-est being, whoever it is? What if it was Zeus or Ra instead of your dude? From what I gather, the being was probably not in a good mood and told the court dude to “bleep justice” and he took it literally. Given all the motu motu things such people can do, we will stop pursuing this line of thinking here and move on to America.

  Over the past few months, I had the opportunity to travel to fake Viswaguru country and real Viswaguru country. The former is my homeland where I took my family, because, like any mawkish Aadhaar card-carrying mallu, I wanted my kids to maintain the connection to their roots. Within a few days, I was brimming with pride. I was in my bed when I overheard the boys, who were in the next room, addressing each other with the word for pubic hair, as in “nee neengi kida bleep,” or “you move, bleep”. After a brief sojourn, we returned back to Japan and then I left with my first-born to the real Viswaguru country, or the USA. When you go around that country, you understand why it attracts a lot of people. Everything is big. Big houses, big cars, big roads, big pizzas, big drinks, big people. Apparently, 10 people from fake Viswaguru country try to enter the real Viswaguru country illegally every hour, of which five are from Gujarat, says Times of India. Now, the US is having a big election with a woman who is half Indian running against an orange-coloured man. My gut feeling says that Indians would break for Mr. Orange and ditch the woman. More than the committed MAGA Indians (full-fledged bhakths), the difference will come from people of Indian origin who identify as “I’m-not-MAGA-but” people. They are the extension of the “I’m-not-a-bhakth-but” people you find in India. They know their paw-paw’s support is for his phrend Do Lund, who will spank bad brown people they don’t like. That’s the only criterion. It doesn’t matter they themselves are brown. The key phrase here is “don’t like,” or hate. That’s the driving force. The longer you live, the more you realize that fact. I’m an example. The other day I was in Shibuya, a popular tourist destination in Tokyo, and was repelled by the uncouth foreigners there. So, given the general trend around the world, the same scenario will play out across Europe also sooner rather than later. Big daddies will start deporting brown and black people back home. That, incidentally, could include some 725,000 unauthorized Indians in the US and even more in European countries, from the look of it. Interesting times ahead.

 

* From Epicurus, a Greek philosopher, known for his trilemma below.

“Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

 Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

 Is God both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

 Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?”

** The devil, in my opinion, is a reasonable option as a supernatural being. There’s no “I’m the only devil there is and if you don’t follow me, I’ll kill you” kinda threats. Also, there are no zealous followers trying to decapitate you if you say anything against the devil.

Olympic Musings: A Girl Called Ned from India

“Hey look, there’s a girl called Ned from India in breaking,” I shouted.

“Accha, she’s a girl called India from the Netherlands!!,” said my son, who had just started breaking (pic above) couple of months ago. He is being taught by a person who is friends with Shigekix, a breakdancer (and gold medal prospect) representing Japan in the Olympics breaking competition in Paris.

“I.n.d.i.a, as in the opposition alliance in India? This must be a conspiracy to defame the country and the Supreme Leader,” I thought. I immediately googled “international plot to prevent India that is Bharat from achieving Vishwaguru-dom in breaking,” but nothing showed up. I must be ahead of the curve. Expect the interwebs to throw up some reliable conspiracy theories on this topic soon.

On a serious note, while it is interesting to think up conspiracy theories regarding Vinesh’s loss (given the impressive track record of the dirty tricks department), it ultimately points to the general lack of professionalism in the field of sports in our country, whether it is the clueless officials or the athletes themselves. If at all Vinesh was worried about the system sabotaging her bid, she should have been extra careful. The sad fact is that a gold for her would’ve taken us to a best-ever finish in the medals table. Now, as usual, we are in the lower half with about six medals. Barring Neeraj Chopra and our badminton stars (regardless of what Prakash Padukone thinks), there are not many Indian athletes who could be considered as having the mettle to compete up there at the top-most levels.

In that sense, Vinesh’s victory over Yui Sasaki in the first round was phenomenal. Sasaki, mind you, has not lost to a foreign competitor ever, till then. Japan consistently produces world-class wrestlers, especially in the lower weight categories. The girl who won the gold in the 53-kg category, Akari Fujinami, has not lost a match since junior high school–137 wins and counting. There were others before her. Saori Yoshida, who won three golds and a silver spanning four Olympics, and Kaori Icho, who won gold in four consecutive Olympics and had a 13-year unbeaten streak. They are products of an effective and efficient professional system that churns out great champions year after year.

Contrast that with what Vinesh had to go through just to qualify. She was fighting a system hell-bent on teaching lessons to those who protest. Just about a year ago, she was being vilified by the lapdog media and the system, so you can’t blame the conspiracy theorists if they come up with stories against the regime. There are some people faulting her for going down a weight category, etc. Such practices, however, are not unheard of in wrestling, judo, etc. Natsumi Tsunoda, the Japanese gold medal winner in judo’s 48-kg category, went below her usual weight category of 52kg, because there was another great athlete called Uta Abe in that category. Abe, however, lost in the first round (a first-ever loss), couldn’t believe that she lost, and cried for a long time on the mat. The Abe siblings’ story is also quite a compelling one, as the bro-sis duo were expected to repeat their gold medal performance from Tokyo. Her brother won the gold again this time.

The fact is, we lack a professional system in India. The sports fields are controlled by dodgy political appointees or moneybags. What has Nita Ambani got to do with sports other than owning a money-making cricket franchise? Why is Ahmedabad the choice for holding Olympics? A state with not much of a sporting pedigree, as opposed to say states like Haryana or Punjab, which produces the few real medal prospects we have. Ideally, it should be Delhi or Mumbai hosting the Olympics in India. But then, it is a choice being made by the powers that be, and you can’t fault them for that (like the semiconductor manufacturers forced to choose between Maharashtra and Gujarat). When 500-600 crore is given to a place where not much sporting activities are happening and one-tenth of that is being given to those places where the actual sportspersons are, you’ll end up with six medals.

And, I'll be clutching at straws like “hey, there is a girl called Ned from India in breaking” in search of some happiness.

 

P.S. As a friend asked in a WhatsApp group, "whatever happened to Kerala?" There was a time in the late 70s and 80s when Kerala was on the cusp of moving to the next level. There were some genuine stars like TC Yohannan, PT Usha, Shiny Abraham, MD Valsamma, Anju Bobby George, and Jimmy George. Where did we lose the plot? Why couldn’t we build on their successes?

Time (Again) for the Show

Now that the elections are over in India, it is time again to show fingers. After each phase of this long-winding cluster-f#*k of an election, the interwebs were flooded with pictures of many people with ink-stained fingers. Well, voting got over couple of days ago. It is time for the result. This time around it will be the politicians who will be displaying their fingers—the middle digit to be exact. The people are eager to see that. They know it, like it, and derive some perverse pleasure from it. That, I believe, is one of the reasons the current ruling dispensation has an upper hand in this election too. They’re upfront about it. The supreme leader says something and later his sidekick comes and tells it is all an election jumla. People like that honesty. They even accept corruption as long as they know who owns their derrieres. That was the problem with the previous regime. Nobody knew who was in charge of the corruption. Those guys, to be frank, were not honest in their corruption. Now people know who has bought and paid for your favourite leader, and that makes a big difference. People are like the wife saying “ours is better” when the husband says he has a mistress just like his business partner.

It also helps that el supremo upgraded himself to divine leader. India is a country where god people can literally get away with murder. Not only that, god persons also get millions of people to follow them and listen to them attentively when they preach bullcrap about how sambar gets affected by Pluto or something like that. So, el supremo promoting himself to godhood was a masterstroke that completely took the wind out of the opposition’s sails. I hope we will have another mega temple for the new god in the next few years.

That is another thing that impressed me recently after the new mega temple was opened by divine leader. I saw a program in some YouTube channel where children from poor neighbourhoods were asked whether they would like to see more schools rather than places of worship. A majority of them replied they wanted places of worship (temple, church, or mosque depending on the child’s religion). This warmed my cockles to no end. Kids know what they want. They know that the whole scientific temper thing is a sham. Anyway, one of the richest persons in the world, who is attentive to the needs of the poor, probably heard these kids and built more than a dozen temples in Jamnagar recently. The future is bright. Kids don’t have to waste time scientifically analysing things like I do. For instance, why do you fart more when you lie on your left side? You just have to say god deemed it that way and that is it. As they say, degrees are worthless. Some 38% of IIT grads couldn’t find jobs this year. Religulous tourism, on the other hand will never run out of steam. All these grads should be looking at building pakora and other businesses around such religious places.

At the same time, I see some future conflicts because of the supreme leader and, by virtue of that, the country gaining divine status. We already have the US of Amreeka, which, in its Pledge of Allegiance, says “one nation under God” about itself. It, however, doesn’t specify under which god. Could be Yahweh or his son. Or is it the Sioux god Haokah? Nobody knows. Then there is the white-robed person in Europe, with a hotline to god, distributing sainthoods. We also have other areas where people ask the age-old question of “do you believe in god?” and then fight each other. So, we will have to wait and see how all this divinity plays out around the world.

Well, I’m planning to travel to the US of Amreeka later this year in August. Unfortunately, the currency in which I earn my living, the Japanese yen, is following the path of the Indian rupee in falling to dismally low levels. I was wondering whether Sree-to-the-power-of-two Ravishankar said “it is refreshing to know that the yen will get stronger at 80/- per dollar if Kishida comes to power” like he said about the rupee. Yen is trading at close to 160 to the dollar. At this rate, I will have to get tempo-loads of currency notes, similar to what Ambani-Adani sent to Raoul-ji, before I embark on my trip to Amreeka.

It is not a pleasant thought. Perhaps it is time for me to go to Okinawa and meditate. For peas. Green peas. To put in my pav bhaji. Hopefully, it will generate some gas that I can release to the outside world with the confidence and comfort that I’m doing (some) god’s work.

Monkey God and Divine Pregnancy

 

It is 2024, which means a whole year has gone by without me writing anything. I am not vain enough to think that anybody missed this. Anyway, before I invite the wrath of devotees of monkey gods around the world, I must explicitly state here that the monkey god mentioned in the title is not your god. I don’t want some peace-loving seer, who otherwise wishes happiness for everyone in the world, to put a price on my head. Also, serendipitously, I recently saw a video in a family WhatsApp group that conclusively proved (not that I wanted any proof) the existence of gods (monkey god included) travelling south to Serendip. Nonetheless, since I don’t want to create even the slightest misunderstanding among the numerous cult members, I am putting this disclaimer up front. In fact, the only monkey god I feel safe to refer to is the “mythological” Egyptian Babi, also known as Baba, fervently hoping that there are no Egyptian devotees of Baba.

Now, the topic at hand. Some time ago, a news headline about a mysterious pregnancy in a Japanese zoo caught my attention. A female gibbon, kept alone in a cage, had somehow gotten pregnant. There was no way by which the perverted gibbon dudes in nearby cages could’ve gotten to her. Ideally, in a normal country like India, this would’ve been a golden opportunity to bring in god and monetize the event. The media would get on board with theories and proofs of divine pregnancy, etc. A collection box would’ve mysteriously appeared and scores of devotees from far and wide would’ve flocked to catch a glimpse of the divine momma.

But this was Japan. The zookeepers, bird-brained as they are, decided to bring in this pesky thing called science, which essentially takes the romance and the mystery out of anything. They did DNA testing to identify the dad, who turned out to be this lecherous old fart in the adjoining cage. (Zookeepers Say They’ve Solved the Mystery of How a Gibbon Got Pregnant by Herself (vice.com)

The theory of how he did it is also interesting. Apparently, Ito, the dad, poked his tool through a 9mm hole in a steel plate between the cages to get the job done with Momo, the momma! Hmmmmmmmmm… “Ito, my man,” I thought. Also, “Momo, girl, what the #$%&?” Then, being bird-brained like those zookeepers, I immediately googled gibbon “tool”*. Google, unfortunately, didn’t have a clear answer to gibbon tool dimensions. Anyway, I think there’s still scope for Ito, who is most probably an avatar of Baba, the Egyptian monkey god who is usually portrayed with an erection, as per Wikipedia. I have half a mind to get Lord Ito the divinity he deserves, though I suspect I may have to somehow become a supreme leader with a cult to get that done.

P.S. These are the kind of thoughts that keep me from getting depression from watching the cluster#$cks happening around the world. You should also try it out.

 

* You were thinking of googling gibbon tool, weren’t you? Naughty, naughty!