Shake well before using

Disclaimer: Do not read this while operating a vehicle or heavy machinery

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I have come to realise that the world’s best kept secrets aren’t “Who the Men in Black are?” or “Do people spontaneously combust for real?” or “How Bappi Lahiri still manages to buy gold when its price is skyrocketing?” The Best Kept secret according to me is a small phrase called “Conditions Apply”, otherwise known as the disclaimer. No one seems to know what these conditions are, or where they have been stashed away for security purposes, and how these conditions manage to be so dynamic that they always keep on changing to not favour you. We are surrounded by such disclaimers, and no one seems to take them seriously anyways till the time all hell breaks loose. Some of these mysterious disclaimers have been enumerated below:

1. Actual Results may vary – This disclaimer tops my charts due to the simple fact that one can continue to make the tallest of claims while delivering nothing and no one can hold you responsible for it. This phrase should not be accepted in general conversations. Imagine this – You are having a chat with a mate, (for all intents and purposes let’s call him Jimmy) and you say “Here is what we are going to do Jimmy, we will do some shopping, hang out for a while, probably go out for a drink, and if you’re still awake, back to my place to watch some DVDs”.... if this statement is followed by a disclaimer *Actual Results, may vary* it may very well lead to you getting the following notification the very next day: - Jimmy has unfriended you on Facebook!. This disclaimer, however, can be used effectively on your job applications and resumes; you can claim to have working knowledge and proven expertise on various technologies and processes and get away with not actually knowing the required stuff simply by putting this disclaimer on the last page of your CV in font size Arial 6 – “Actual Results may vary”
2. No animals were harmed in the making of this film – This disclaimer is ok to be used to shut up all the PETA supporters and other annoying bunch of human/animal/alien rights activists of the world, in case the movie has actually used real life animals. What scares me is when films like Godzilla, Jurassic Park, Anaconda and movies based on Nessie start using this disclaimer. Is the fact about their existence in the real world being hidden from us as a part of some larger conspiracy? On a separate note, just wondering how will my dog look with Lipstick, mascara and some cool eye shadow on? Charming!
3. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is purely coincidental – South Park took this disclaimer to a whole new level. Before every episode, their disclaimer states: "All characters and events in this show - even those based on real people –- are entirely fictional. All celebrity voices are impersonated.....poorly. The following program contains coarse language and due to its content it should not be viewed by anyone.” – Bonus points to Trey Parker and Matt Stone for this. But how does this disclaimer work for movies that advertise that they are based on real life people and situations – Mahesh Bhatt and Madhur Bhandarkar please explain. On another note, why do fantasy movies use this disclaimer? Is some dude going to walk up to James Cameron in the year 2029 and say you made a movie on my life without my permission. I am the real Terminator and “I will be Back” - to sue your ass.
4. Batteries not included. – This is a good one. I think on every Monday morning, all people going to work can use this disclaimer for not getting over the fact that the weekend has actually ended. This specially works well, when the company expects you to recharge your batteries over the weekend using rest as a tool, but against all better judgement, you decide to go out and drain your already exhausted batteries with the help of some late night parties. Don’t care much about the TV remotes and toys that don’t come with batteries though, as I personally use neither.
5. As seen on TV – This line usually appears on exercising equipment of various sorts like ab-crunchers, thigh firmers, and ankle smashers which are being sold on TV during the oddest hours of the night by some seriously flat chested women. The people watching these infomercials are usually lazy slobs who wouldn’t move a muscle during an earthquake if something even vaguely interesting (such infomercials for instance) is on TV. “As seen on TV” helps such people instantly identify these products on the rare occasion they decide to venture out. I suggest that the use of this phrase should be extended to celebrities who hog the limelight on TV all the time. Example: Rakhi Sawant – As seen on TV, Paris Hilton – As seen on TV.
6. Avoid contact with eyes and skin – Ok good I read this one, otherwise I would end up shampooing and conditioning my eyes yet again. On some other not so rare occasions, I have also tried to moisturise my eyes, tried to use hair colour on them, washed them with detergent, disinfected them with Harpic, and eventually ended up screaming painfully “My eyes, My eyes!!”
7. Keep out of reach of children. – Children are a menace to society, I know, because I used to be one, a long long time ago. Instead of restricting this disclaimer/warning to medicines and other stuff that may cause kids bodily harm, I think the scope of this notification should be extended to places and things, which if fall into the hands of kids, can cause material or emotional distress to Adults. I wish that all watches, cellphones, jewellery, restaurants, movie theatres, cosmetics and shoe stores came with this disclaimer.
8. Limited time offer, call now to ensure prompt delivery. – All good looking, intelligent and rich people should put up this disclaimer on their Facebook profiles as soon as they are made available to the hoards and masses who complain that all the good people are already taken or married. This will save everyone a lot of trouble and agony.

If you think there are any other Disclaimers worth mentioning. Let me know and they shall be included here even if they are “For education purposes only”

Where there is a Will...

I am very very sick today, could not even go to work. To all the people who know me as a non exaggerating, matter of fact kind of person, let me tell you that my fate is doomed and I might succumb to this incessant sneezing and coughing any moment now. So, before I meet my untimely demise, let me distribute my legacy to my near and dear ones.

Let me start with family. To my eldest niece Nancy I leave behind my sennheiser headphones, cause its the only German thing I have in my house. To my dear niece Gargi, I bestow all my cookery books, utensils, spices and unused rations, please admit that you can’t cook nothing and its high time you learn how to make your own cake and eat it too. To my nephew Vinayak, I leave behind my cell phone, just to let you know that people can survive with non-android phones, and since it’s not it the nature of guys to throw away technological stuff away, it will always put a smile on my face to know that somewhere out there, my non GPRS activated, non android, shit of a cell phone is giving you nightmares. To my youngest and very dear niece Ishita, I shall leave my Laptop, coz darling; you need to come online more often. For my sister Saru, I have only these lines to offer: “Tera tujhko arpan, Kya Lagey mera!”

Now, for my friends, who have served me well, by being my mentors and guides in this treacherous world, I shall leave behind things befitting their individual personalities. To Kartik I leave behind, my pre-paid rented house in Mumbai, do enjoy my humble abode while it lasts till April of 2013, for my landlord will never return my PDCs which are already in his custody, and do me a favour, make your stay at my place a living nightmare for the society secretary who lives right next door. To Wriddhi, I shall leave behind the Holy Grail, my precious Cosmopolitan collection. Now you can have access to sure ways to please your man in 25 easy steps, and learn about flirting tips that work. To Nishant Sir, I leave behind my entire watch collection, which includes 4 wrist watches and 1 wall clock because you need to learn to reach places on time. To Simon, I leave my refrigerator, for I would hate to let all the food stocked in there, go to waste, also I leave behind my unpaid credit card balance in your name, to continue the weekend movie adventures even after I’m gone. To my dearest friend Nidhi, I leave in your good care, my entire shoe collection, for you are a true connoisseur and have cursed me enough number of times for not getting any good ones for you.

For Mr. Anupam Padmanabhan, I leave my Wi-Fi Connection, because no one I know, loves to be online as much as you do and also it seems that you always have this uncontrollable desire to post your current locations on Facebook, god forbid, anyone should not know where you are at any given time of the day. For Mohit Neb, I leave my guitar, for I’m sure, sitting in that dark dusty corner, my guitar gently weeps to be taken out and strung, as god intended, and not to be carefully packed inside its bag, as I intended. To Aftab, I leave my collection of board games, which comprises of Monopoly, Cluedo, Scrabble and Pictionary in remembrance of those afternoons well spent at barista, playing Pictionary, for I haven’t met many guys besides you who can be interested for any board games. For Sarab Sandhu, I leave my skipping rope, sorry brother, don’t have any other exercising equipment besides that in my house, also I shall mail you the video of your shameful dance involving Kiits Malhotra and Sabbar on Papi Chulo, I firmly believe no person should live to see it, please hide it in some safe folder and lock it!

To Hanumant Paliwal, I leave behind my printer/copier/scanner, now you can find your Google maps, download them and take colour prints of the same on your next trip, wherever to it might be. To Sonia Rai, I present my aroma therapy candle collection, girl, stop being so high strung in life, just take a deep breath, light up the candles and relax. To Aparna, i leave my cosmetics collection, its all brand new, as I hardly know how to use any of it, it’s just a goodwill gesture for tolerating me as a roommate and for any fights that might have occured over not asking before using any of your stuff. I truly treasure your and sabbar. To Varun Kaushik, I leave my entire Dilbert Collection, it might not match your Chinese cartoon standards, but yes whenever I see a Comic/Cartoon, I don’t know why I’m reminded of you. To Ashish Singh, I leave behind this blog, for the world needs to know about the crazy stuff you have going on in your head, and you are one of the few people who have truly mastered the art of Bakar (thanks to all sorts of ruhaani shaitaani takats working in your favour).

I would like to donate my entire wealth of 50 K lying idly by in my bank account to “Save the Unicorn Foundation”....hmmm... who am I kidding? It needs to be sent to the Government of India for their nuclear warfare development program.

So that will be all for now, hoping to get over this sickness soon, if not, everyone knows what they are getting.

PS: If I survive to see the dawn of the day after the day after tomorrow, the agreement to bestow all the things mentioned above shall become null and void. Get your own stuff, you lazy people!

The Legend of Saru

Throughout the history of humankind, there have been people who have risen to the status of Legends. In my household, this status belongs to my very dear sister Saru. As goes with all legends, you hear stories, some believable, some downright implausible about them. So I will try and recall some of these believe it or not stories about the person who lent out a part of her name to me for all eternity.

My earliest childhood memories are that of standing on my balcony looking down awaiting my sister’s arrival and when she arrived, rushing to the stairs to welcome her home. I remember nothing else from ages 0-5, but this scene comes and goes like a flashback of an ominous dream, wonder why? I also remember a rag doll she got me once she was visiting home from college, also the fact that she used to receive an awful lot of letters and cards and that she bought a Phillips Hi-fi music system with gigantic speakers once, but I was only a child then, what would I know.

When we were kids, she loved to teach us all lessons. You know, it's hard to picture her without hearing her saying, "I'm going to teach you a lesson, you fools!!”. Her fondness to teach us lessons can be derived from the fact that as a child she wanted to be a teacher, and not because of her love for knowledge or books but to have access to a larger pool of children who could be taught a lesson or two. I wonder how that could have worked out given the fact that as a child, so I have been told, she had the weird lisp that was incidentally copied by shahid kapoor in the movie kameeney, during those days her introduction used to be... Faru Farma, Nurfery A. I think people of all ages, genders and nationalities can benefit from these lessons, though some of them contain certain aspects of violence.

The Lesson of Tough Love!

Children, at an early age, realize that public humiliation is the best tool to turn the tide in their favour. Of course, most of them have ever met Ms. Saru, for she has often stood calmly next to a wailing child in the market, and offered the child a critique on his/her tantrums by saying that the outburst was lacking effect, drama and soul. This critique was usually followed by a well thought through suggestion that the child in question should in fact lay down on the road, roll on the ground for a little bit just to make their case a little believable for consideration. That’s how we learned how to be content with whatever we get.

The Lesson about extra terrestrial life!

Some people have weird phobias, like fear of vegetables, fear of ugly people etc. The children of my house had a fear of aeroplanes. Like all phobias have a story behind them, this fear of aeroplanes was based on a fact shared by my sister with our nieces that whenever an airplane flies by, there are people on that plane watching out for children playing alone outside of their homes, and whenever they find a child like that, a hand comes out from the aeroplane and grabs them and takes the child away with them. This is the reason that whenever an airplane flew past our house, our nieces ran inside for cover screaming for their lives, the fact that we used to live next to a ground which was often used as a helipad caused many afternoon mayhems. This is how we learned about life outside out planet.

Lessons in Education!

My sister has influenced the education of a whole bunch of children that were born after her. She was the first one in the family to get an MBA degree and according to the latest census our house has a total of 5 MBAs and counting. If this trend continues, pretty soon we would be able to open an MBA college of our own. I admit I could have become a great chef, if only she had not shown her contempt for the hotel industry by saying that if someone from my family joins that industry, I will personally ensure their loss of life. Having been a victim of her numerous slaps during the course of many math homework sessions, I never could take that chance. This is how we learned what to be in life.

Lessons in Fashion!

I know my sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes even though she has to go out and buy new ones for herself. I once told someone, I can only wear clothes that were bought either by me or my sister, and I get complimented only when I am wearing her clothes. My clothes/shoe collection continues to grow, courtesy of her hand me downs. I proudly admit, in the past 3 years, I have only purchased 3 items of clothing, and still have no place to keep all my clothes. She has so many clothes and shoes that she can put a well stocked up Marks & Spencer’s store to shame. You know how people go out for shopping to feel good, because they can catch a glimpse of new and beautiful stuff, for the same feeling, I just had to walk into the next room open her wardrobe. Oh what a splendid sight it wass! This is how I learned to be speechless!

Lesson about teaching others a lesson!

I have only heard these inspirational stories about her, so don’t know how true they are. Story number one is about how she beat up a guy with her bare hands on a railway platform when he tried to misbehave with her and how the crowd applauded after this spectacle. Story number two is about a guy who used to constantly bug her in college and used to turn up every other day at her hostel and how she one day decided to meet him, took him inside the hostel and asked her friends to dress him up in a sari along with well coordinated make up and jewellery so that he could be humiliated enough to not bother her again. These stories taught us how to stand up for ourselves and not take shit from anyone at all!

Lessons in Beauty!

Being as beautiful as she is, I admit once upon a time I used to be really jealous of her but with age i have come to appreciate her beauty and how she is not at all pompous about it. Only last week, I got a call from a friend of mine, who very bluntly told me that she saw my sister’s photographs from her college days, which was followed by a comment on how pretty she is and how i am nothing in front of her, believe me it was a weird call to get at 7:30 in the morning. On another occasion, she came to drop me for my train back to college, when a guy friend of mine was dumbfounded for the entire time she was there, as soon as she left, the first question out of his mouth were, who was she? When I told him, she is my sister and a little too old for you, I could actually hear his heart shatter to pieces. This is how i learned to be humble about gifts from God!

Lessons yet to be learnt!

Among many other things that she has already taught me, there are lessons yet to be learnt. I would like to learn to be as poised, neat and sophisticated as her. I would love to learn how she manages to be sensible all the time and the reasons why my parents always give priority to her opinions than mine. If only I can match up to half her personality in my lifetime i would die a happy person.

A perfect sister I am not, but eternally grateful for the ones I've got.

Nakkadwale Disco! Udharwale Khisko – A Critical Analysis

Since the time I have moved to Mumbai, filmmakers have been conspiring to remind me that I am far away from home. If you don’t believe me, then just look at the names of some of the movies that have been released in the past 3 years – Delhi 6, Chandini Chowk to China, Chalo Dilli and now Delhi Belly. In an attempt to have my revenge on these heartless Shitlers (Shitler (n.) Its like Hitler, only worse), I will now attempt to critically analyze the latest Hit song from Delhi Belly.... Nakkadwale Disco... you know the rest.

At a glance, this seems like a typical fresh, forget the rulebook kind of youth oriented song with freakishly awesome lyrics, but on a closer look you shall discover a treasure of deep and meaningful rhymes hidden in this gem of a song. Other highlights of the song include the fact that Veer Das can play bass on a Sitar and for those who had forgotten that there is a musical instrument called Harmonium there is a reminder, evenly placed after every 8 seconds through out the song, to assure you that the myth called harmonium does exist.

The Lyrics for this classic goes like this:

Teri tirchhi nazar ne dil ko kar diya pen-char (times 2)

Since the movie is going to be based on Delhi (a direct inference from the name of the movie, only July 1, 2011 can prove me wrong), there had to puns on mispronunciation of English words by the general public of Delhi-Haryana-U.P. belt, hence the mention of words like pen-char, hen-tarr etc. Had time permitted, epic words like is-kooter, fillum, poblam etc. could have been included as well. Lets file this line of the song under fine examples of Borderline chetra-waad.

Oye penchar (times 5)
Teri tirchi nazar ne dil ko kar diya penchar

A repeated reference to the word “penchar” underlines the importance of the punctured heart... We can now safely establish that this song is about a pen-charred dil...

Nakkaddwaley Disco, udhaarwaley khisko (times 2)
sa ni re…. (Let’s leave this one line alone)
Nakkaddwaley Disco, udhaarwaley khisko (times 2)

If you look closely at the video of this song, you will find that the prayojak of this song is one “Karol Bagh Cultural Association”. Now the KBCA seems to be an association of current and former disgruntled canteen owners from the North Campus Colleges. Since throughout their entire lifetimes they have handed out more bailouts to students than the federal reserve can ever dream of, this line seems to be a kind of subliminal message placed carefully in the middle of the song for the youth, as otherwise these lines seem to have no connection whatsoever with the rest of the lyrics.

Tumko dekha toh kho gaya
Main fell in Love sa ho gaya

These lines have a direct reference to Einstein’s theory of relativity. Time moves slower for a faster moving object. Hence when struck with a fast moving, ever changing, object like love, the obvious reaction will be a feeling of you falling in a state of eternal stupor.

Socha tumne bhi Hint diya

Maybe she did give you a hint, maybe she didn’t, or maybe you are just a paranoid psychopath!

Lekin Sandal ka Print diya

This is my favourite line as here “Reality Kicks In”...And quite literally! All paranoid psychopaths and molesters roaming free on the roads of Delhi, like him, deserve similar treatment.

Dil tukde tukde ho gaya
Uss din main jaldi so gaya

The first line is a fine example of the Atishyokti Alankar. For those who need to go back to refer their hindi grammar books from the 5^th Standard, it means that when the lyricist compares the heart with something like your wine glass, which can be shattered to pieces in a state of drunken stupor, it is a hyperbolic exaggeration. Whenever you reach such a state of mind where you start comparing your job to be as glamorous as a cold sore, or saying that someone has a thousand yard smile or calling something as exclusive as KRK’s fan club, the best resort is to go to sleep early that day, as the second line of the verse suggests. A go-to-Sleep time of 7:30 PM seems quite appropriate.

Hoye maara tune Left Right and Center

The song gets educational here, teaching us directions, apparently forgetting about up and down. So Children, always remember to look not only to the left and right but also concentrate on the centre!

Hoye sandal (times 5)

Instant identification with the Sandal (Return of the Nemesis!)

Nakkaddwaley Disco, udhaarwaley khisko (times 2)

(Subliminal message alert!)

Iss dil ki nakadi le lo na
Aur pyaar udhaara de do na

Ok... so these lines are about a new product launch. After Loan against property, gold, shares, LIC policies etc., Dena Bank is proud to present loan against body parts, case in point being the application for a loan of love against a pen-charred dil.

Meri kismat mein hai chhed koi
Baby, isko aur kuredo na

Here the guy is not sure what's wrong... But he is almost sure that the girl is to blame! So he is just asking her to back off! He clearly doesn’t know what he wants.... Do you want the girl to be with you or do you want the girl not to bug you? Because both the things can’t happen simultaneously for sure!

Mere laakhon sapne tootein hain
Sab mauke haath se chhoote hain

Dude, that’s why you need to work in the UK shift! You can sleep to your heart’s content, so no broken dreams there. You’ll always reach work on time... so no missed opportunities. A 9-5 Job isn’t going to do you any good.

Hai maar na maar na inkaaron ke hentar

The Key to a thousand blows lies in a single No!

Oye penchar (times 5)

If there is anything that Himesh Bhai/Justin Beiber have ever taught us, its the fact that “Repetition is catchy!”

O teri..!

The most appropriate ending to a diabolical song!

If you want to be worth anything in your life, please put this song on an eternal loop on your playlist!