This post would have gotten beaten up if it had ever gone to a pub

So almost every politican and their hooch drinking uncle seems to have come out against "pub culture". Yesterday, our most exalted Health Minister said that he is coming up with a policy which will put an end to "pub culture". Yes, Ladies and Gentlemen, this is all part of the government's plan to protect us from the terrorists. If we adopt the same laws as the taliban, maybe they wouldn't train people to come and kill us and all?

But why does everybody seem to change their mind suddenly? Not because pubs haven't existed in our country. They have been here for decades. The real wink,wink nudge, nudge reason why such a large number of people in power have been feigning this outrage is because they seem to have just discovered that young, "impressionable" woman are now regular visitors to these places which dare to serve decadent western values along with each portion of chicken wings. Our esteemed leaders were under the impression that only lose woman who failed their medical examination and had no choice but to marry a man with a regular source of income, who could only be found drowning his sorrows in a city pub, were the ones who frequented pubs, and not those young teenage women who are of marriageable age and who nowadays, because of "pub culture" know more about different types of Tequila than about different ways to cook eggplant.

Suddenly these people seem to have discovered that it's the twenty first century and that women refused to be treated as free vending machines who alternate between turning out food and popping out children.

Many of these "leaders" might not agree with the methods of the goatfuckers who attacked those women at the bar in Mangalore, but they all agree with the sentiments. Of course, now the horrendous act will be justified using crazy right wing nut job logic according to which the woman were asking for it because of dressing "to provoke" and stepping outside their house without the company of a minimum of three male relatives.

These people think that by just putting a girl and a boy in a room together means that they would end up having sex. Just because most of these people were born centuries before us (some of them literally. I mean how old do you think Arjun Singh is? Multiply it by a hundred. That's his approximate age.) does not mean they know better.

We "youngsters" (they say it like we're smug little assholes) can decide which jackass politician to vote for, we can decide which brokerage firm loses our money in the stock market, we can decide which pious neighborhood we would like to desecrate with our unholy presence. In fact we can even decide how many children NOT to have (unless of course we're living in a joint family. Then it's the decision of the joint family council. Just like they show in Survivor.) So, I think we can pretty much decide how much alcohol we require so that foreplay is minimized. I mean we're Indian. The sooner we "close the deal" the sooner we can go back to praying to God for forgiving us for having sex without the intent of having children.

Legislating your own sixth century morals is against the freedom that our constitution pretends to give us. What pisses me of is when I hear people our age talk the same drivel these old farts do. They also buy into this myth of "culture". Yes. Sure. Because it's served us so well over the past few centuries. *coughsecondlargestpopulationintheworldcough*

In our country, people can get away with murder, with creating mob hysteria, with forcing little kids to work below minimum wage, but the heavens will fall and the gates of hell will devour us all if two, law abiding, tax paying citizens just want to have a cocktail together.

Makes you want to hit the bottle, dunnit?

This post is so fat that you'd want to ask it to lose weight

For fat people, the whole world is nothing like an oyster. It's more like a banquet hall filled with people who offer unwanted, patronizing advise.

If I had a nickel for every time someone has counseled me or advised me or given me tips on how to lose weight or warned me that I'm dying, I'd have enough money to have my own 21 storey library.

We all know that most people have this dellusional, self-fufilling prophecy that they know how this world works and that they need to impart this knowledge to other, lesser intelligent life forms. So that fact that I need to lose weight has been pointed out to me by a thousand candidates applying for the post of Field Marshal Obvious. In return, I give them a gift of information. I let them know that they are ugly or that their daughter's a whore or that their fifteen year old son just stole my Dad's favorite Ming vase to finance his cocaine addiction.

Of course, my Dad does not have a favorite ming vase, I never consider anyone a whore and I'll probably have a cocaine addiction when I'm forty because that's considered like dying in gay years. But it's fun to watch people drop their jaw and have a nice, warm, hazelnut flavored cup of shut the fuck up.

The advise to lose weight is often accompanied by a collorary which states that unless I lose weight I would never be able to find a thin life partner (which in 15 Indian languages means a subservient Indian housewife). Yes, because that's what the world revolves around. Thin, "fair" husband worshiping, pseudo-slave wives whose primary destiny of existence is to keep having daughters until she manages to produce a male child.

The mere thought makes me lose my lunch. Or the very least my after lunch super meal.

This remindes me of an incident. A few weeks ago, one of our family friends was visiting our house with a so called "holy" guru. Now, my family has a lot of family friends and they keep visiting. I tried to educate them about being mean and petty but they don't care about values which are important to me. Then they accuse me of not trying to bond. The nerve.

So I usually don't go to meet these family "friends" unless food items from my favorite bakery are involved. So, unfortunately for everybody except me, on that particular day, my sixth sense told me that there was choclate truffle being served and I happen to enter the room where everyone was sitting.

So this schizophrenic (not actually diagnosed, but that's what I call people who claim to speak with God. Or claim to have met Clint Eastwood.) woman serves me the usual you-must-lose-weight meal along with a side order of thin-girl-logic. So as she broke the rule of not speaking to me when I am eating, which everyone knows is sacrosanct and must be followed even during earthquakes and hurricanes, I told her to get stuffed. I called her bigoted, short sighted and said that even the statue of the laughing buddha in our drawing room is closer to God than she is.

The woman ended up putting a curse on me. Well, pick a number, medusa.

Another irritating habit that people have is to make really bad fat jokes. The only thing people say about fat people is that they eat too much. All their jokes are based on that. The other day this school acquaintance pinged me on facebook and he cracked the same joke he did on the last day of school when I poured beer on his head. I mean, c'mon chuckles, if you can't make up a good joke then at least google for one. If you want to make fun of someone, at least have the decency to use jokes which are funny. Otherwise you're just a Jay Leno wannabe.

My point is (do I EVER have one? Are you surprised?) is that fat people got the memo on being classified as ugly and not desirable when they started using swimsuit models for adverts for tobacco companies. I believe that if I have to change who I am (a glorified food whore) to get someone to like me, then it's not worth it. At least that's what I read in the best selling book "The Monk who ate his Ferrari" (It's a good read, btw). Sometimes a tiny sliver of insecurity does creep in, but then on those days I simply order a ceaser salad.

I know I do have to lose weight someday because it's not good for one's health. And maybe someday I will. When they find a way to make diet fried chicken which tastes as good as the one made using the Colonel's secret recipe.

Until then, can you please pass the coleslaw?

This post would like all of you to have a great new year!!

So the new year is upon us. I tried making lists but that's bound to be incomplete as I'm sure to leave something out. I can't take stock cause well, that involves thinking and analyzing and that's better left to people who are good at math. I even thought of doing a pictorial collage but then there are only so many different types of Vodka.

Although I was sedated through most of it and it feels like one long weekend where you run off to your cottage in the woods and get completely wasted, 2008 was momentous and unique in it's own little way.

So here's to mind numbing headaches, bouts of depression, slight loss of vision and one big-ass hangover.

Have a great 2009, y'all !!