Done In

Tagged by Sunayana. No, We are not wrestlers from the WWE taking a shot at the Tag Team Championship (although the physical resemblance to a flourishing tag team cannot be denied). This tagging is more docile and I can assure you that none of the below mentioned were injured during the writing of this blog.

Tagging is this new thing that is taking the blogging world by storm, or wait, i just over did it. Tagging is this new thing that is doing the rounds in the blogging world, wait again, i still over did it. Fine, here comes the real truth. I have been tagged, for the first and possibly the only time, to write on books and since it makes me look well-read am off writing this blog. Happy ?? Now, get on with it.

Number of books owned
Around 50 (and that does not include the zillions of copies of "Bhakthi" (devotion) and other religious magazines that my patti is collecting).

Last book bought

The Tom Holt Omnibus - contains "My Hero" and "Whos afraid of Beowulf. A laugh riot if you like pratchett and other humorists. Sort of DNA meets Umberto Eco.

Last book read

The Drawing of The Three - Book II of Stephen King's The Dark Tower Series. As scary as it can get. Has mutants, gigantic lobsters, deadly sorcerers and a clint-eastwood-like hero. Did i mention blood, massacres and cruel deaths ?? Five more books to go before the series ends, and thats a loooong way.

10 Books that mean a lot to me

1. Lord of The Rings - Enough said.
2. Wodehouse's Golf stories - Rib-ticklingly funny.
3. The color of magic - My first book of pratchett and it left me with a pain in my tummy. Also has the dubious distinction of giving this blog it's URL.
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - The first book i bought with money i earned. Sort of special.
5. Mahabharatha & Ramayana - Blame them for all my tall tales.
6. Kanne Kihoo - A thamizh comic about a whale and a boy. My dad tells me i used to bugger him every night to read it for me.
7. Don Quixote - Gives me the feeling that i am looking into a mirror
8. Panchathanthra Tales - The guide to peaceful, prosperous and problem-less life on earth.
9. Clarke's Rama Series and Isaac Asimov's Robot Stories - father and mother of all science fiction
10. C & H, Asterix, Gary Larson and Dilbert - lost childhood, last birth, alternate universe and my current existence - respectively

Books I read as a kid

Tales of the amber sea - fairies vs witches vs wizards vs sorcerers vs princes
Tales from ukraine - different fairies vs different witches vs different wizards vs different sorcerers vs same, dumb, princes
Enid Blyton - Dont we all go through this phase by force ??
Rani/Lion/Muthu Comics - James Bond speaking thamizh
Tinkle - (Suppandi - another case of "do i know this guy personally" characters, kalia, shikari shambu)
Amarchitra Katha - thats how karna became my all-time favorite character
Indrajal Comics - phantom, mandrake, flash gordon, garth and the likes
Tintin - darned expensive they were then, equally darned expensive they are now
World Cup Cricket - blame it on cricket fever

Passing the baton
You dont know how glad i am to get here.

Freak Fauna - works for a company that was just acquired by another company, thus making him one of the youngest millionaires in india. Between time spent for counting notes and mail-ordering his own sports model benz, he does read books too.

Neo Soothsayer - Another of those unlucky bums to have been stuck in where he has been stuck.

Just Me - Just raring to get stuck in one hell-hole or the other by own will. Try stopping her.

Boomsa - No, i dont know her. And yes, she doesnt know me too. But one of the readably-cynical blogs that i have seen on the web.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

Three Blind Mice

The Three Blind Mice do not watch basket-ball. They dont like half-dressed men jumping around hoops. The Three Blind Mice do not watch synchronised swimming because although it has eloquenty dressed women, they stay underwater for most of the time. The Three Blind Mice watch Formula1 because it has fast cars.

The preparations stared few months back. They blew their trumpet everywhere they could. Home, work, freeways, crosswalks, parks and even public restrooms. Anyone who knew them, knew about Formula1 and there was a race in Indianapolis. Everyone who didnt know them considered that there would be atleast 99, 998 more people would be doing precisely that and wondered what all the fuss was about. The Three Blind Mice pretended to be Three Blind'n'Deaf Mice and kept blowing their trumpets until they lost breath.

The big, fat, blind mouse was spouting fundaes about who won where and when that happened while dinner. The tall, lanky, blind mouse was puffing cigarettes to glory, all the while yapping at who would overtake whom at the first corner. The smart, formal blind mouse would've also yapped, only he was busy clicking good-looking latin women in the puerto-rican day parade and decided F1 can wait. The other blind mice considered this option, but for some inexplicable reason, kept yapping about F1 and missed the women.

On D-Day, the big fat mouse insisted on driving. The other two mice looked as if they just bit a portion of juicy doughnut only to find it that has been hooked onto a teethed-saw that reads "ek maar do tukda". Can't blame them since they know that the last car that big fat mouse drove was remote controlled and a foot in length. The fact that he crashed even that into a pillar hadnt reached them yet. When actually BFM took them safely to the venue, albeit with a few close encounters with the 16-wheelers' kind, they were sure nothing could go wrong. Nothing, not even one thing.

But it did. Not just once. But 14 times. And that too after a waving-smiling parade, and a farcical warm up lap. The three blind mice thought they are going to be englightened, but 4000 miles and 500$ later all that happened was a blimp on a fossilized torchlight.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...

A 5-day test

A bus that looked on the web like the one where women deliver burgundy wine, but actually had innovatively dressed women giving a porcupine a run for their hair do.

That bus, which already has a mild foul stench as a bonus over and above that dry a/c smell, gets worse. What with some enthusiastic teenager smoking marijuana inside the rest-room on the bus.

A bus driver who swears right into the PA system about an act that was god-sent to man for the sake of human reproduction, but has been reduced to webcams on the internet.

Your co-passenger, who looks like a barrel stuffed inside a pre-teens shirt, a tattoo trailing down from his elbow of some mythical animal, and rivals the aforementioned lady with his hairdo.

Missing the map of the city bus station and having to walk into a dark alley to enquire for the address, with two people in the shadow smoking under the lights with conveniently shrouded frames.

In a hurry to reach the airport on time,, noticing that your watch is slow and trying to fix it, only to squeeze it so hard and see your extra thin watch get decimated in your very hands. (sorry dad, it just caved in).

Airport and not wanting to use your credit in some rundown airport calling booth due to one of your multiple inexplicable paranoias, but still having to make that important call.

Airport and then realising that you dont have enough change for the telephone.

Airport and then running around for an ATM.

Airport and only later realising that you missed the paper with the telephone numbers right at the phone booth.

Airport and noticing the cleanliness-conscious steward clearing the place of all bits and pieces of paper, which includes your only source of information to reach out to the gang, thus completely lost in an alien continent in a sinful city.

Mile long traffic jams which take your plan, fold it into four, into eight, into sixteen and squeeze into the shredder.

Hunger and you see baked pork. Hunger and you see sauteed squid. Hunger and you see wild boar. Hunger and you see roasted turkey. Hunger you see noodles, only to hear the waitress inexplicably say that plain noodles might have chicken.

A chinese cousin of kothamalli chutney (coriander paste) gobbled up in inhuman quantities to subside the hunger, only to know that it is actually from a different house called Wasabi and is one of the most pungent food stuff around. Having your tears in the eyes and a strange feeling in the head as proof that you survived it.

A bunch of mobile phones which were no better than miniature bricks inside the canyon.

A television that sensationalizes hiking by screaming how people dehydrate themselves and drop dead while hiking, when you are trying to coax your friends whos last interest is to walk down a stony pathway in the afternoon sun.

Philosophical ramblings as to if it was sin city or skin city, what with the forehead clearly losing the race for the most exposed body part.

In between all this, there were two african-american good samaritans who staved off the temptation of "dark road-big bag-lost foreigner-sweet" and went on to call you "Chief", the water-volleyball in NYNY where you splashed water more than you did the ball, Funky photographs that were "made" to look natural, a hike down the trail that tired you ONLY because of the supplies you carried fearing dehydration than the actual hike itself, a meal that was almost breakfast-lunch-early snack rolled into one and most importantly as close to vegetarian as they could get at Dennys, a life saver called Burrito, Our constant companion who took a shower more than twice a day only to get screwed by Bull on the last day (take that thought away, i meant Moet Champagne, although pronounced cham-pa-kanee), Jimi Hendrix's guitar standing side by side with clapton's and harrison's at the Hardrock hotel and The Canyon - which so easily doubles up for The Perspective Vortex, letting you know that you are too small to be a even cog in the scheme of the universe and mother nature just needs the snap of a finger to call it quits if she wants to.

But above all this, there was my savior who saved me the pain of having to travel in a drug cartel again - Thagadu (next time, dont plan, just come there on time) , and there was my lightning partner, deputed to earth to reinforce the maxim "Size DOES NOT Matter, atleast not for a sense of humour " - Vish (remember to say "please" to the barmaid nextime, will ya??) , and the planner who planned right from breakfast on day #1 to dinner on day#5, but screwed up with the toothpaste - Bull (no more profile mugshots for you, you outran your quota), and last but not least, for lightening up the mood more than once - a certain Mohini Bharadwaj, whoever she is.

Yo Vegas. We were there and we made hell.

Read on ... (at your own peril, obviously) ...