Piddler on the Roof!!!

I'd written this back in 2001 while living in Raleigh, NC. Still find it funny:

A couple of kids aged around 5, who live in a close by apartment returned from school and decided to utilize the excellent weather outside to full use. Instead of running home to relinquish their water buildup of the day, they quickly ran towards the wall in front of my apartment and were about to embark on the highlight of their day. But being the spoilsport that I am, I intervened and quickly dispatched them to do their duty in the closed confines of their indoor toilets. While talking to them I made sure that I used the correct words to dissuade them from such future endeavors and also tried to be as “American civilized” as I could.

Let me explain the use of the above term. Now if the same situation had occurred in my homeland, and I come from India, then things would have been played out very differently. For starters, if anyone is seen piddling around your house or apartment, the first and immediate thing you might search for might be: a whip, cane, cricket bat, hockey stick, small stone, big stone, anything as long as it causes pain upon impact. Next, you run out of your house whooping insane war cries and a colorful assortment of swear words that would later surprise even you. Of course, the effect that this action has on the said piddler would be to cause sudden contraction of certain muscles in their body hence inducing sudden freeze of the criminal evidence. This would be followed with the most hilarious form of running while trying to zip up the pants.

In case the culprits were small kids like the ones I had encountered, then in most cases they would be caught and most probably be threatened by the catcher, with dire consequences, the most popular one being to threaten circumcision of the poor kids if they ever thought of piddling on your walls again. Now almost all the kids back home know what the ‘c’ word means and instantly imagine the associated image of a shining knife or scissor coming towards them and causing unimaginable pain. Not surprisingly such threats have a strong effect on the kids and they really take it to heart and never ever repeat the horrendous crime again till the day they find out that it was all a farce anyway and go forth again with vengeance on their minds. But till then, everything is fine as you wouldn’t have to worry about mushrooms and such growing on your walls.

Let us consider the repercussions if I were to take the exact same actions as described above against the two juvenile culprits who were intent on fertilizing the walls in front of my apartment. Well it would definitely have had an impact on them no doubt. But the next day I would have had to deal with a possible lawsuit filed by the parents for being a pervert and a barbarian. A pervert for watching kids performing natures call in pristine nature and a barbarian for threatening to circumcise them. I would possibly have had to deal with the cost of the psychiatrist that the parents had to hire for the poor kids to deal with the trauma that my comments had caused them. There would have been a news crew hounding me wherever I went thus making my life miserable. Not to mention most probably being arrested. Pretty soon I would have been handed an eviction notice by my apartment management for being a psycho and find my photo splashed on some sleazy paper or magazine about the pedophile that “lives amongst us”. My employers wouldn’t want to do anything with me and basically no one would be willing to listen to me.

Life would be miserable and all this because I chose to be “Indian civilized” while living in America. Kind of make sense now when I listen to the “When in Rome act as Romans do” thing. Hence I chose to be “American civilized” when dealing with the two kids I mentioned. But hey, I think I may have been too late as I see some mushrooms growing there already.

How Shammi Kapoor would sound in English

I was recently thinking about Shammi Kapoor's antics in all his songs...especially 'Tum Se Accha Kaun Hai' (from Jaanwar/1964), my very favorite. Not only is the song fun to listen and sing but is great fun to just watch it too. My wife and kids have been the victims of my singing this song to them with precisely the antics of Shammi. However if you convert the lyrics to plain english this is what he's singing:

#Ooooooooo ooooo ooo oooo,
Who is better than youuuuuuu?!?
Take my heart, my liver, my liiife,
We are yours O'beloved,
You should recognize us!!!
#

%I am the whiff,
Of the decadent wind,
Along you, will keep coming.
Ever since happened
Love with you,
Have been meeting you,
Will keep meeting you!!!
%##

$Within the chest is heart,
Within the heart is only you,
Within you is our little life!
While you are safe,
We have no sorrow,
Through you our
World is young!
$##


^Even tried dying,
We could not die,
Heart's romance did
Indeed save us!
Your look's
Magic it is perhaps,
That made us
Alive again!
^##

Perceptions of Paradise

Paradise is as paradise will be. That goes to say that it’s simply beyond the words and imagination of the average man. And no matter how much thought is expended the concept of paradise is beyond rumination. And its better that it remains that way. Otherwise it steals the mysterious pleasure of believing in something that is in fact so hard to believe. Thoughts of verdant lushness iridescent in its pristine glory, exhilarating moistness and an inescapable if not delicate fragrance in the air that is breathed, flowing elegance in all that is to be seen, harmonious silence in the surroundings to be heard, magnificence personified in all that is to be touched and the most unimaginable sense of harmony, peaceful happiness, unity and joy that surrounds you everywhere that you see are what run through the confines of my imagination. Consider the sheer imaginative possibilities at hand if we have the combined brainpower of the entire world at our hands. And yet, I am quite convinced that even that version of paradise is going to fall far short of what it indeed is.

How about questioning the very existence of paradise? There have been and there will always be people who beg (sometimes demand) to digress from the belief in the concept of paradise. I am not interested in trying to prove or disprove its existence but simply to revel in the thoughts of paradise never the less and by doing so inspire others to get their thoughts rumbling on how paradise could be.

Could the earth ever have been a paradise to live in? It may or may not have been depending on your believe in Darwin or his Creator. I feel that looking at things from a Darwinian perspective spoils the whole show - there is no God; Man evolves from the ape; the earth we live on was once a big flaming ball which just happened to be there and then decided it had had enough of solitude and burst in self pity and that makes our very existence a mere happenstance and by the way if you happened to have overlooked, in this scenario paradise does not exist. Ah, but from a Godly perspective things become so colorful. You get to talk and write about what you are now reading.

There have been historical references to paradises on Earth; any place that had been so beautiful in its pristine existence that it required this particular label. But then humans would enter this place of thought provoking beauty and would eventually destroy it for a myriad number of reasons. And beauty of place is something that has always been associated by the more eloquent groups of people who talk about paradise and its glory. But if ever you happen to come across a helpless and destitute soul, who is besieged by all the problems that the world has to offer and goes to sleep worrying about where his next scrap of food might come from or if it will ever come at all, and worries about tomorrows future for his family, it might be interesting for you to find out his version of paradise. Maybe he would muster up an imaginary world where he is free of all worries around him, where he goes to sleep with a full belly and a well fed family and rests assured that it will never change for him. Maybe he never even thinks about the verdant lushness that comes to my mind or for that matter the elegance of sight. For him that’s paradise.

Maybe that’s all there is to it. Maybe it really is futile to think in such eloquence about paradise when you know your thoughts are a wild congregation of impossible thoughts. Impossible for me but definitely not for the person whose thoughts of paradise I just described. Now there’s something attainable. Why not try to materialize at least that person’s paradise. How many of us have thought or tried to act along those lines?

No matter how one person views paradise to be there’s always going to be another one who thinks differently. We are a bunch of people who think disparately and are lost in their own endeavor to attain paradise, building it in our imagination and hoping to make it true…not in this lifetime for sure. If only people would think about each other and try to build someone else’s paradise the world would be so much a better place to live in. But rest assured, paradise is as paradise will be and it will be the same for each and every person who thinks about it…even though they might think differently.