arthurford

What a lovely friday, not only does the weekend beckon with smiling face and outstretched arm, ford and dent have finally realized their life's aim!!!

A new blog which, dear reader is linked to the beside of this blog...is what i refer to. A collections of ramblings of Mj and Self, which is one of the new things happening these days...

Some repeats, and hopefully the writing skills shall be excercised till our trained senses tell us that we have excercised enough!

Here goes - http://www.deathlyhellos.blogspot.com

And that, is how the chocolate melts!

*Clink!*

Bridging the generation gap... ho ho!

The G gap. Its the chasm, amorphously situated in time and space that separates those who have grown and those who will one day fill their shoes (or at least their socks, as the former may hope). I have heard, and spoken of this chasm whenever I have run out of words during some sort of debate between me and the pater and mater, or a debate which concerned paters and maters from the world over. On most occasions these minor 'chirkut' debates go in the directions of how the generation gap has expanded and expanded, with no effort being made from either side to bridge it in any way. But heck, I'm now looking back at whatever little past I have to look back on, and I realize that my dad is one of the sweetest and most sporting men of his kind alive on the planet today... :) Of course, he isn't one of those dads who has 'never ever let the generation gap bother his relationship with his children' or the type of dad Fardeen Khan's is. (Who went on air and told everyone that he even talks sex with him.. (really, why would anyone want to know that?))

Till a few years back, one of my major disappointments in life was that dad hardly ever spoke to me about anything, apart from how my studies were going. "Koto duur egolo oi onko ta?" or "porikkha kemon holo?" and other such similar hair raising questions used to be the order of the day. Mom and I, on the other hand would talk about perhaps sixty percent of all things under the sun. Among this sixty percent, was the issue I refer to above. And apparently, the news reached the good ears of Dasgupta Senior. That, precisely forms the basic reason why I ever got the chance to sit and write this piece of blog.

Now, put yourself in the shoes of a good man like my dad. Being full of love and concern for the way you bring up your two brats, you don't want to be too forthcoming... but lay in front of him the evidence of these same brats not being too happy about choice of conversation topics, and the hour will come!!

Which is to say, cometh the hour, cometh the man!

The particular day I refer to is a day on which both ma and I had the day off from school and college respectively, and the dad was across the table finishing his breakfast, and behind his glasses was the slight twinkle which said that there was something twinkling in his mind and was about to shine forth in all brightness...

"Let me tell you about an experience I had when I was in Canada in the seventies", he started. I started too, but that was because I was enganed in chewing a pensive idli, and generally concentrating on nothing at all.

"Eh? Oh, sure.."

"We had a group of Indian friends while I was in Canada. I was supposed to visit a friend's family for christmas and we had hired a cab to go the distance. There naturally was a fair bit of luggage, and we were wondering how to manage the whole lot in the car. Thats when one of my friends said 'Lets carry a few bags with us inside the car, the rest can go in the dicky!'. This seemed to be a fair enough idea to us.

"But not to our driver. The blessed man clutched his sides and started laughing like a madman! He kept pointing at the guy who offered the suggestion and kept laughing his head off. Can you guess why?"

"Why?" (By this time the mater was in audience too, listening with rapt attention; apparently she hadn't heard this before either)

"In US slang, dicky is the word they use for penis".

It is a known fact that people respond differently to same stimuli, and though the audience was restricted to the wife and son, there was some variety in response.

"Cheee!", went the mater and sailed off into the kitchen.

I started again. My eyes probably started from their spheres too, but it didn't matter, thanks to my sturdy spectacles.

I looked carefully at the man sitting in front of me. This couldn't be dad. No, he couldn't bring himself to say something like that in the house, at least not in front of me.

"Heh?", I grinned inqiusitively.

There followed what Shakespeare would have called a *pregnant silence*. What this pregnancy would cause, I didn't know. I could sense a little red about to enter the face from all sides... :) Finally the labour was over. We both burst out into the loudest guffaws I have ever heard in the house! More so because my dad realized by now that I always know what the slang for the word in question was!

"You knew?" he asked, wiping a tear from below his specs.

"Of course I knew!" I announced.

"But still".

"You bet!!"

And there we went guffawing again...

Then in his face I saw, that this wasn't just a random conversation. You could say taht I realized that my old mand didn't have tomato juice in his veins! He probably knew that I already knew what 'dicky' meant, but all the same the laugh we shared sure broke a few slabs of ice :)

This wasn't the only time the generation bridge appeared in the haze. Here, I recount another incident. About a three years ago we had an aunt visiting us for a couple of weeks. The normal drill with visitors is to take them around to the places Kerala is most famous for. The beaches, the backwaters the greenery and other such and of course, the much famed cape(though not quite in Kerala heh).

This time, an inspiration dawned on dad, and he announced 'Ernakulam!'.

"What? Why?"

"Its a beautiful place. We're going there tomororw. I'm going to arrange a taxi."

"But how come we've never gone there before?"

"But we're going now!", he answered, with the air of one who has set all doubts to rest.

That was my dad. A goner for sudden inspirations :) Morning came, and the taxi arrived on the dot. It was a spotless white ambassador. The kind Kerala is famous for! The driver looked a little sour though, perhaps not unlike a pissed off slab of gorgonzola. It didn't matter, though. We all stuffed ourselves in the car. Mom, Aunt and Gran in the spacious back seat, dad and I on the driver's sofa up front.

We're bongs, by the way. And one thing bongs are famous for, besides the craving for fish and baying for Sourav Ganguly, is loud laughter. That too at shield shattering levels! We proudly observed that characteristic, the gorgonzola was probably getting pissed off even more. My guess is he never ever saw or heard women laughing their hearts out at something which sounded greek to him anyway!

Ernakulam is about 5 hours north of Tvm, and about three hours into the journey, my dad answered a call on his cellphone, and replaced it in his shirt pocket.
I am a jet age kid. At least jet age enough to have read all sorts of emails that tell you what cellphone radiation can do to the human body, and hence I said instantly.

"Dad!"

"Hmm?"

"You should't put your phone in your shirt pocket"

"Why not?"

"It affects the heart and all"

"Oh I see", said he, without argument and proceeded to take it out of shirt and place it in his trouser pocket.

The moment of reckoning came.

"Err... Dad! "

"Hmmm?"

"You shouldn't keep it there either."

"Eh?"

"You shouldn't. "

"Why so?"

"It reduces... errr ah... "(How the dickens could I explain, with all the ladies sitting right behind?! Complete with Gran and Aunt and all!!! )

I waited tactfully for the next peal of laughter to ring out from the back, carpe'd the opportune, and muttered in his ear, "They say it recudes sperm count if you keep your phone in your trousers!"

Then erupted the loudest spate of laughter I have ever heard dad emit. "Ho ho ho!!", he went; and that was loud enough to make the ladies at the back sit up and take notice.

"Why would I need any more of them?! I don't need any more of them!!", he laughed helplessly. "Two.. ho! ho! ... two are more than what I can handle!!!". I saw the funny side now, and joined in with him!

"What? What happened? Why are you two laughing?" said the back seat.

"Nothing. Nothing at all", dad grinned at them. (He's rather cool, heh)
To this day, my mom wonders why we broke into such helpless laughter, and why we kept chuckling the rest of the two hours of car ride to Ernakulam! *guffaw*..

Ah well, it was nothing, really!! :D

When in Rome...

Punning is a good disease to have. What ho, its an addiction you wouldn't put someone in rehab for!! Its the sort of thing that can keep you laughing the whole day, if you aren't careful!
Mj and I were at it again, the whole of saturday went in outshining the other at every opportinuty that placed itself in the way :) Here's an excerpt of an epic roman saga that was brought to sms!

The context would be more complete in formation of this particular blog, if we included some of our earlier freak inspirations... such as 'When in Rome, do the Romans', or 'To do a Roman, you'll need to do a little roman around before you get one!' and things like that... The following occured after they were doing Rome on the Travel and Living channel :) you know, the colloseum and all the throwing to the lions and all that...

Mj - Just for this, I want to make a bee-lion to the colloseum some day!

Kz - You know, the boyfriends in the ancient Roman empire probably said to their
respective grilfriends:
"I'd walk the lion for you"

Mj - Hmm, if the girlfriends were imperious enough, they'd probably make the young roman
scallwags toe the lion, not withstand the veni-vici'ing!

Kz - *wipes off a tear of laughter* Whoopie! and the Roman singer would go:

"I drew a lion,
I drew a lion for you,
oh what a thing to do;
and it was all yellow! "

Mj - And she said -
"For yellow lion drawings I do not care
Show me some real gladiator fare! "

Kz - To which the singer cried -
"What is this life
So full of this fare,
You have no time
To stand and pair? "

Mj - To which she shot back -

"Julius, to win with me a date,
Prove to me you're truly great"

and that my friend is the tale of how Julius decided to become the emperor :)


Kz - Julius' repartee -

"Fight my Roman ass off to win a date!
Roam through countries, is that my fate?
Not on your life! ", say he to her,
Living up to his name, he sieze her!
"Prove yourself Julius! ", when impore she,
Utter he, 'Veni, Vidi, Vici!! "


We hit the ceiling then, i guess... neither was able to continue the roman
exchange... Well, more communciation, more posts! more come up shortly hopefully... :) Happy reading!

the deathly hellos...

Reader!! I return! and how...

Not just with any bindaas one liners this time, but with real life online communicative experiences.. these are the experiences which make u realize that no one is really alone in this wide world... I use my favourite pgw-ism here, you try and get a birds' eye view of the proceeding, even though, by no stretch of imagnation are you, a bird. But let me not get carried away with the joy of returning to the blogboard...

A few years back, just new to orkut, you could find me sitting quite jobless at home, during the days of my educated unemployment, waiting for a call from the consulting company which had selected me on campus. Those were the days when the sole purpose in a man's life was to start adding as many 'friends' as he could, the higher the small number in brackets
below your name, the more fruitful your day was... Well, by some sleight of mouse or twist of key, I came across this bird, who I shall name Mj.

It has been a good three years now since those times, sole purposes in life have changed in priority, however, a revival of old contact have given occasion for self to roll over in peals of laughter, somewhat like christmas occurring across the world, every second merrily ringing in Xmas in a new time zone... basically the peals go on and on; and thus did I laugh... for a whole bally day, until it was time to pack up and go home...

Mj is an ace at playing on words, and I cannot explain how happy I was to find a character as passionate about punning as I am, or as I have yearned to be in recent times...Let me recount the experiences...

self: halloa! And the hi's begin to flow again!

Mj: oye!!! There you are!! I was actually going to ping you, esp considering we're in Potter season :-D. How've you been? Watched The Order of the Phoenix? :-)

self: arre not yet... i was supposed to catch it on saturday, but something happened :) i want to see this so badlee! what with it being the best potter movie so far and all that... :)

Mj: "badlee" - is that like the Nasal Man's "Moviee" ??? :-D. I'm waiting impatiently for the book - I pre-booked it, so it's supposed to be delivered today.. it still hasn't turned up!

-------------------note the being gentle on that one there :)

Mj : Hey I finished reading Deathly Hallows last night.. but I guess Goblet still remains my favourite!

self: whola the goblet! my favourite remains the arizona of prizkaban.. i mean... the azkaban thingie.. the third book... that was the most interesting one... :)
In the course of book 7 i somehow got the feeling that rowling was getting a little old and rambling on and on, making incoherent sentences... or i guess i was falling asleep over tha book... heh..
finished it last night too... but seriously.. Albus Severus Potter??!? that was a laugh~~!!!

Mj: heheh seriously, she went too far with that epilogue stuff.. .she should've quit while she was ahead... altogether it was too soppy and movie-ish and I'm really rather sick of the Weasleys, esp! :-p.

------- fun resumes...
Mj: Hallow, Hallow!!! ;o) How go things??? :-)

self: things go well... i was just wondering.. if voldemort called harry up on the phone and threatened to kill him, the book would have been called 'Harry Potter and the deathly hellos' no?

Mj: heh abs!! That is, if The Noseless One knew how to use the felly-tone :-).

self: indeed... 'the noseless one always knows; irrespective of whether he knows less or nose more' :)

Mj: har har har!! (or harry harry harry -whatever :-p) Brilliant!! :-).

self: one needs to harry up with the scraps these days eh?
oh, guess what happened to voldemort when all his horcruxes were gone? he was a little harried.. sorry, can't help it :)

Mj: Heh, come on now, be sirius, will ya?!! :-D

self: This black family... do you think they were into family planning? I mean they were all happy and gay then suddenly with the birth of their second son, they got serious...

Mj: Oh well, I don't give a Figg about the Blacks.. :-p

self: hehehe... your puns are giving me an inferi-ority complex...

Mj: :-))) now, now, no need to get crabbe-y over this..

self: Don't snap(e) at me like that...

Mj: No No, I'm not... we're good Firenze after all, how could *I* snap(e) at you? :-D

self: LOL!!! I see orkut is err.. umm-bridging the gap between us...

Mj: Brilliant!!!! :)) This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship, to paraphrase the Boggart ;o) (in Casablanca!)

self: yesh yesh!! and if we should ever face hiccups, we could always gargoyle... (couldn't help)

---------Then orkut did its bad bad server donut thingie, and we carried on using other means:

Mj:
Hmmm, can't access Orkut suddenly.. the proxy I'm using at office is acting up..

Cheers,

M.
PS : Why the sobriquet "apache'ed blak and silver"???

self:

Hi M,

Thats because i bought the bike.. apache, and am quietly kicked about the purchase :)

By the w. i am scheduled to visit your current hometown this weekend... visiting blood relatives... **grin**

Clink!

K.

Mj:
Really???
That's cool... we ought to try and meet up... but if you're only down
for the weekend, you'll probably be busy with ze b. rel.s :-)
Anyway, ping me if poss!
pip-pip!
M(-press of Blandings ;-p )

self:

Ar.. we certainly ought to. Will try and ping...

must mention that the scrapping today has been quite capital, yes indeed...

so long!

Mj:

Yes indeed! A total fleur-y of scraps!
One of us ought to collect the whole set and put it up on a blog or
something :-)
So long!

M.

self:
indeed! i understand the feeling of just having to say it, for that there is no cure :) I sincerely hope there is nothing that can severus from punning at each other :-/

Mj:

*grin grin* abso-blooming-lutely...we shall percy-vere, and continue punning till the

Kaus come home :-))) ;o)
-----** for the reader: I'm Kauz, by the way :)

self:

of kauz we shall... upun my word..

let it flow!! :o)))

** ze lack of zis punning scrappa vill eventuvally get on mi-nerva and driev me krazee, and my sanity will soon krum-ble... **

__________________________________________________

well, one has to draw a line somewhere, and i just did, just above this sentence here :) The puns still continue... may the tenacity never slackenn... !!

Hey Mj, your turn now!! :P

of pustules, itches and short temper...

Pustules; you'd think I have gone crazy from chicken pox, but its such a cute word!

Such want-wit madness this disease had made of me, that I don't want to go anywhere... but once the health is back, the rest of my body must go back to writing documents in Kanbay.

I'm running the danger of irritating myself with typing blasphemies, hence i shall continue this piece later when I am at peace and not when I am so unnecessarily tired...