Life, Laughter and Everything Else

So I called my mother and told her “Ma, I am ready to get married. Go find me a wife”. It was clearly not my intention to take this track, but after years going through an all boys education, 2 years in the testosterone filled army, another 4 years in Engineering and then jumping from one Engineering firm to another, all I remember seeing was men, men and more bloody men. And when you ex finally decides to find herself a boyfriend and all your closest friends decides to get married within the same 2 month period, it hits you. “Fuck, I need to find someone”. The general tendency in such cases was to grab the nearest woman you can find and ask her out, but when living in a country where foreigners are generally viewed with overall suspicion, any kind of grabbing ,of anything, was highly advised against. And when your white friend next to you with his crappy pictures was getting more Tinder matches than you with your best pictures, at some point you come to realise that 1) Yo...

“But I don’t feel the sparks”, she said. “That will come later once we start making out”, I replied. Or more like that is what I wanted to reply, but the wannabe-dignified, in-reality-ball-less me held my tongue and just strolled along in rejection, knowing I had pretty much talked the past 3 hours into the friendzone. What was I thinking? Here was a woman from back home who had tasted the holy grail, the white man, one of the best of the human specimen in all his glory. And once you drank wine, there was no way you were going back to chocolate milk (#subtlereferencetomyself). With the number of suitable candidates in close proximity reducing by a drastic 100%, it was time to put out the ad again. “Lonely and poor student, seeking warmth, security and comfort in the cuddle of a stunning, Snow-White-like Fraulein, if not, worse case, remotely better than average-looking woman, so my mother will not marry me off to a woman whom I barely know and all my relatives won...

Every kilogram of mass equates to about 10N in gravitational pull.  That would equate to about 650N, or perhaps 600N assuming my weight has been going the other way. It always feels like a ton though, almost like Gandalf escaped the realm of magic and, of all places on Earth, chose to come to the shabby room of an impoverished Indian guy. There he placed his hand above me and exerted unimaginable force downwards and roared, “You shall not rise!” I tried my utmost best, but the old, wily magician would have none of it. I could barely lift myself an inch above it. The attraction was magnetic. As I lifted one part of my body, the other side would be inevitably pulled downwards. However, in any battle, true victory lies not in the physical but the mental vanquishing of the enemy and there he deployed his strongest weapon of all. He engulfed me in a soft, warm blanket whose whiteness reassured me of the comfort and security I was enjoying at the moment. Would I rather remain sn...

"I am sorry, but are you good at IT?", she inquired with the most apologetic of expression. I gave her an incredulous look. Seriously? This was the second time I was being asked that question in one month and I took offense. It was almost as if the world judged that the only reason my race would be allowed to venture overseas was to fix other people's computers. "No. I am a production engineer", I replied, half wondering if I should clarify it had nothing to do with human production, which my people are also well known for. "Oh. That is a pity. Our printer broke down and we were wondering how to fix it", she said pointing to a piece of contraption that lay on the table nearby. Men being men, I offered to help. On walking over and looking into the inside of the contraption, I saw what most millennials see if they were to ever see the inside of the multiple devices they are perpetually holding onto; abyss. I doubted she would give me a discount f...

A few years back I came across the Facebook profile of a long lost primary school friend and added him. He accepted my request and I messaged him straight after. "Hi buddy! Remember me?" "Yea. You are the skinny Indian guy from primary school". He could have said intelligent. He could have said fun, but of all the innumerable adjectives the English language afforded him, he chose skinny. Though, there is a touch of truth to his unforgivable recollection. Ok not a touch of truth. It was true. I was skinny. Like so skinny my parents considered donating me to the local hospital as they could not afford a skeleton.  Though it never really bothered me. I was happy to flash my rib cages, proudly calling them, my steel body. Besides puberty was yet to struck its regrettable blow and girls were creatures you stayed away from. And when puberty did strike, it started to matter. My first investment was in a pair of 5 kilogram dumbells that my mum said looked hea...

“Aunty, Kopi Siew Mai”. She stared back at me half bewildered, half stoic. I knew I had uttered something wrong, thought precisely where I got it wrong, I could not pinpoint. I should have just stuck to my usual Kopi and not let my sister’s impassioned speech about a Kopi something that contained no condensed milk disrupt my habit. But I had and now I was facing the consequences in the form of a postmenopausal woman staring at the Indian boy dressed smart and talking stupid, wondering if this was his idea of a joke. “You mean Koi C? Siew Mai is the yellow meat thing you have for breakfast” , my attractive friend tried to help, unable to resist giggling at the humour of the situation. “hmmm.. Not Kopi C. Its Kopi siew something. But nevermind, KopiC also can” , I replied wanting to save face and half not knowing what Kopi C. As long as it saved me from this, anything went. Even tap water. “Oh. Kopi Siew Tai arh?” “Oh yea. That one. Aunty, Kopi Siew Tai!” But the...

Disclaimer : I have never been in a relationship before, so there is a pretty good chance that once you have read the post below, you will come to the conclusion I have no bloody idea what I am talking about, in which case, I honestly couldn't give a fuck. "She was the artsy kind. Very quiet. She liked to go to museums and read. She asked me if I read. Lols!" Lols? Before whatsapp, facebook, TV and whatnot, we all kind of used to do that, though it seems that it has fallen out of fashion with the majority, unless it was Harry Potter (which I have no issues with), Twilight (which I have issues with) or 50 Shades of Grey (which proves I am the one with issues). When reading fell out so fashion, so did readers, like her, with whom he fell he had little in common with. To use the more romanticist term, there was no 'compatibility'.  What was this thing with this type of compatibility, when a potential partner had to be interested and doing the same things...

"Morvillil Valsakumar Unnikrishnan." To say it was a mouthful, like a foot long subway sandwich, was an understatement. Just like the sandwich, you had to chew through the sparsely filled outer crust, in this case my family and my father, before you got to me, little boy Krishnan, the literal translation of the name. It was my grandmother's idea, the little boy, and my parents always swore off any involvement in its creation, a crafty move considering the creator no longer existed to give me an explanation. Not that it mattered then. In India, I was the 2nd Unnikrishnan in the class and the 3rd Unnikrishnan in the neighbourhood, living in a society devoid of imagination and filled with grandmothers who could not bear to see their grandsons grow up. The first signs of trouble arose when all packed up and ready to move to a new country that I had earlier great difficulty finding on the map, I ran out of boxes to write my full name on the immigration card.  He...

"How about I get married?" "Are you serious?" "Yea" "No really. If you are serious, I can start looking for one" "Uhh....Nah. I was just kidding" After a while, she stopped asking me if I were serious. Instead, she would laugh it off every time I suggested it, which was the original intention of my question. For me it was just comic relief, this idea of marriage that parents back in India would pester their children with once they reached just about where I was right now; young, working with a steady income and of totally no use at home. Though when she did ask me if I was serious, I do remember feeling a palpitation in my heart, the kind one gets when having to make a yuge decision (#trump2016 #makeamericagreatagain), knowing very well that she, along with an army of aunts, waited for my green light to start searching for a bride for the most promising of their nephews. A NRI (non residential Indian used to refer to the ...

"Don'e be like a girl. Come on. Jump!". "You are not a girl. Now put your head into the water". "See those girls. Even they are not afraid of swimming in the big pool". A person's true nature is often very evident in times of frustration. In my failing attempts to make my eight year old cousin swim, I resorted to shaming and comparison, What he needed was courage. Therefore who he had to be compared with was a group that was not associated with it. The sentences came to me almost naturally, Without thought. And then I caught myself swimming in that stereotype. It surprised me for it opposed the strong belief my rational self held on the idea of equality. Following the surprise came the shame, the shame in the knowledge that despite my open claim that women were by no means to be taken to be mentally or emotionally weaker to men, I subconsciously did harbour thoughts that they were in fact, weaker. Plus, it was made worse by the realisat...

“Hello. Sorry, but do you know how to chase away these monkeys?” I turned my head sideways in the direction of the voice with the rest of my body in the push-up position. Looking rather helpless, just a few metres away, was a middle aged Caucasian lady. Getting up from the wooden bench to get a clearer picture, I sawthe culprits. A couple of monkeys had surrounded the woman’s pram, had extracted certain packages from the bottom of the pram and were calmly opening them to explore their contents. Yes, a chance to be a hero! I walked towards the lady, whose toddler busied himself on the playground without showing any concern for the predicament of his mother. “I am not sure but can try”, I answered humbly, to relay the idea that I was stepping out of my comfort zone to come to her aid, and that this required great courage, and therefore she should ready a medal by the time I was done. A few feet from the pram, I aimed a few kicks at the monkeys rather lamely, hoping they ...

This is the story of what the meditation retreat I went to in the South of Thailand in a Buddhist monastery ( I don’t want to name them in case they find out I killed mosquitoes while I was there) was like. There were about 136 of us of which about 130 were Caucasians with about a 60:40 guy to girl ratio. Most of them were, I suspect, between 20-30 years, with a handful of seniors and some who seemed to be going through a mid-life crisis. About 20% of them would drop out over time before the course was over. On Day 0, we were told to surrender all our electronic devices, watches, books and writing material and warned not to talk to each other or risk getting expelled from the monastery. I sneaked some writing material in but, like most others, adhered to the other demands to embark on a journey when every day was pretty much like the other. This is my story. Waking up The bell at the 2 storey bell tower ran punctually at 4 am every morning and the ringing went on for a...

I lost $124 gambling. Statistically speaking, it was not meant to work that way. The first time I came across the game, roulette, was at casino in New Orleans when my friend explained it to me. One simply bet on which color the dice would fall on, red or black. If the bet was in my favour, the winnings would double. If not, I lost everything. I theorised, based on my years of probability education, that it was possible to win the game, as long as the stake was raised by double every time I lost.  Therefore, if the game had worked out the way I predicated, when I bet $4 for the first throw on red and lost, I had to bet $8 on the next. If I lost that, next bet would be $16. Do the math and eventually when one wins, which was a guarantee at some point because one always had a 50% chance of winning, one would have made $4.  Just that I lost every single round from $4 all the way to $64.  Call it sheer rotten luck. I bet on red and it did not turn up the 5 rou...

Having temporarily being resettled in Houston, where pedestrian paths are either absent or empty enough to make you wonder why you are walking, I have had no choice but to hop on a car rental program. Interestingly, the program requires that the car be returned every month for a new one, a practise while seemingly troublesome, is a joy in experimentation, with every car bringing with her, her own unique character. Here are their stories... Mitsubishi Lancer The very first one. She eased me into the American life, their left handed habits and showed me the freedom of America's big highways. Rarely demanding and quietly efficient, I had no complaints, except one.  She came with a smell.  I tried what I could. Perfumes, air fresheners, all, but the smell wouldn't go. At first uncomfortable, I got used to it after a while, but every time one of my friends met her, they would ask, "Oh, whats that smell?" or "Waah! The smell still there?" and ...