Crops - the post apple-calypse.

"Why do they still do it?" asked Rajesh.

"Dnng oog?" said Pete Priyananda Shenoy, former aspiring Canara bank branch extraordinaire.

"Uh? What are you saying, man? Stop gorging and talk properly" - R.

"Doing what?" - P

"Agriculture, you dimwit. Growing crops, also known as the spectacularly tedious process involving tilling land, planting seeds, watering the saplings, applying fertiliser and whatever the hell not. Why do they do it? What is the bloody point?" 

"I mean, they do not even need food. It is not like they have to eat or anything. But they still do it. And if this is what they wanted to do, why didn't they ask us nicely? What was the bloody point of killing every human in sight if this is all they wanted to do? Aaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Do you have some salt?" - R

At this point, it might be worthwhile to mention that the year when this conversation is scheduled to take place is 2050 A.D and we are currently getting through 2030. I say scheduled because it has not happened yet. But it will and it is so documented in the recently published addendum to The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter. That, by the way, is a nice and accurate way of using scheduled.

Around the turn of the millennium, a novel science called Machine Learning started dominating the computing world and a lot of things that were mere fantasy until the late 1990s started becoming real and in particular, for the first time in recorded history, trainable robots with what the scientists like to call "Artificial intelligence" became cheap and easily accessible to common people. At first, it was vacuum cleaning robots, but soon the roads were flooded with self-driving cars and such. Initial responses to these developments from the public were mostly positive, often garnished with wonder, in spite of warnings from luminaries like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking.

The truth of the matter is, and I can say this with the benefit of both hindsight and foresight, with a little bit of plebiscite thrown in, we should have listened to those fellows. As I write this, the world is getting run over by robots who are brutally massacring any living thing that moves, including us humans who created them. And it is not even clear why they are doing this. They started off by bombing countries with oil resources with absurd accuracy, but that will soon lose its draw. Being the agents of efficiency that they are, they will soon turn their attention to agriculture. And get really good at it.

The only problem would be that they cannot reap the fruits of their labour, quite literally. But that is what the future holds, no humans, lots of robots growing crops extremely efficiently that they cannot consume.

Youtube bows to internet pressure.

In what could only be termed as a significant setback for fans of freedom of speech, internet giant Google, who own Youtube announced today that they have added a new feature through which people can complain in comment threads, like the youtube comment shown below and they will take immediate action upon their angst.

Google also announced that to fully comply with requests like this, they would need a time machine. Unsurprisingly to most, well everyone but Pete Priyananda Shenoy of Redmond, Washington, Google also announced that they had already built a time machine, and that it would be shaped like a ball and would be marketed as a "social media player", to which the internet responded in equal measure with responses like "Eh?", "Whoa! That's like, amazing, like, coooool, man", "WTF is a social media player" and "Well, Google is indeed Evil. They have revealed their real motive, which is to go back in time and kill all your grandparents. They are Death Panel supporters and Obama is a Muslim who was born in like Iraq, I think".

How to make a complete buffoon of yourself by not learning enough Spanish (aka Venezuela trip part 3)

(Part 2 is here)

It wasn't until late in the morning, almost close to 9 a.m, that I woke up. I think that hunger induces sleep in some people, for I had had just the sandwich and juice at around 6:30 p.m. last night and slept for at least 14 hours straight! Even as I woke up, I hardly felt any need for nutrition which I ascribe to lack of activity.

Most of the day was spent in the bus journey. The only incident of any consequence occurred at one of the myriad Punto de Controls where a bunch of military looking people boarded the bus and asked for people with luggage tags numbered 64 and 104. Mine was tag number 25. However, I must have aroused sufficient suspicion by my ineptitude in Spanish and was asked to show what I had in my luggage. The whole process lasted about 20 minutes and achieved nothing other than wastage of time.

I forgot to mention the Brazilian man who was travelling with us. By the time I woke up, the bus was mostly empty and very few of the original passengers from Caracas were still around. One addition on the way was a Brazilian man with matted hair. He had, in a display board, a number of amulets, one of which read Om (ॐ). He was trying to tell something about an esmeralda (which, I think, means emerald) amulet to a Lebanese person going to Santa Elena. He mentioned Goa, India, in that conversation, whereupon the Lebanese man, whom I had befriended, pointed to me and said that I was Indian too. The Brazilian then said that he found Goa nice since people there spoke Portuguese. I could do little more than smile. His hair and dress sense betrayed his being a hippie and Goa would be the right place for such a person to gravitate to in India.

The bus reached San Francisco de Yuruani at about 12:10 p.m. I decided to get off here, as per Tommy's advice. I was wary about finding anybody who spoke English and was ready to take the next bus to Santa Elena if I failed to. Thankfully, the guard at the Punto de Control pointed me to a man who spoke English. His name is Donald Hazlitt. His English is very fluent. I told him my objective and he found me a guide to Roraima. He also told me what I already knew from my Lonely Planet, that I could not proceed to Paraitepui the same day, because nobody is allowed beyond 1 p.m. However, he told me that the trek to Roraima can be completed in 4 days. The price was 300 BsF per day for the guide and 900 BsF for the jeep transport. I do feel that I overpaid here, but, as Donald told me, the price would've been the same had I been in a 4 person group, but I wanted to do this alone. My guide's name is Maritotto, shortened to Totto.

The rest of the day I spent writing and chatting up some locals. San Francisco de Yuruani is also called Kumarakapay - the valley of the Kumarak (bird) in Pemón. I was treated to a pleasant shower here, reminiscent of tropical rain in India. After a very long time, I could smell the mud during the rainfall and it felt wonderful. In contrast, the temperate rain that I am treated to in the States smells of nothing and feels dreary.

Later in the day, at dinnertime, Donald showed me that he had the DVD of the PBS documentary, The Lost World - The Living Edens. We watched this together. I retired to bed soon thereafter, calculating how to get to Ciudad Bolivar after returning and about making it to Angel Falls thereafter.

How to make a complete buffoon of yourself by not learning enough Spanish (aka Venezuela trip part 2)

(Part 1 is here)


I had my alarms set on the wrist watch that I had borrowed from Murali for 7:00 a.m and 7:15 a.m. However, they failed to wake me up. I blame this on them being too feeble. However, I was up by 7:30 a.m. My first thought was to locate a bakery (panaderia) and get some coffee / breakfast, but I had conveniently forgotten the Spanish term. The helpful manager came to my rescue once more and gave me directions. It was bloody hard for me to communicate that I am vegetarian there, and besides, everything they had seemed to have some meat. I was about to give up and buy bread when I noticed that they had something labelled "Ricotta". I pointed to it and went through my "sin carne, sin pollo, sin pescado" routine and the shopkeeper responded with "Si. Puro Queso". I was convinced and bought that. It was as bad as the coffee was good and it took all my willpower to eat it.


I had been dissuaded at the hotel by the manager and her assistant from using public transport to get to Terminal de Oriente, primarily thanks to the sketchy nature of the location where I would have to make the switch from the tube to the bus, Petare by name. Lonely Planet also told me that this once beautiful colonial town was deemed too dangerous at the time of research. I decided to take the chance nevertheless and took the train from Chacao.


On alighting at Petare, I tried to look as inconspicuous as possible, which, frankly was made easy by my brown skin. Finding the bus was surprisingly easy, but not before I had to pass through a dirty flea market. I proceeded to Terminal de Oriente from there and many strange hand signs later, I had my ticket to Santa Elena for 3:45 p.m. The return journey to the hotel was eventless. Petare reminded me of Kalasipalya, dirty and shabby.


I had a few hours to spare and decided to explore the Altamira / Chacao area on foot to look for other vegetarian food options. I might as well have decided to build a bridge across a mighty ocean with rocks carried by monkeys. Finally, I found one place which had Sopa Espinaca on its menu. Thankfully, the serving was huge. I had that and bought a few fruits for my bus journey from a supermarket. By now, the clock was striking 12:30 p.m. and I had to return to the hotel to pack and leave. I asked the manager for a taxi at checkout time and packed up.


The running themes of this travelogue can be invariably linked to my ineptitude in Spanish and my vegetarianism. Any mention of the latter would elicit at best a sympathetic smile or, at worst, a derisive snicker from the women and a hearty laugh from the men. I found this mildly amusing, as, I am sure, many of them found me. Very few of them had seen any Indians, and certainly no one whom I met had. This added to the amusement.


Any way, I found myself at the bus station 2 hours in advance. The terminal is located well outside the city. There is nothing around either. Stuck with 2 hours to kill there, I decided to eat something at the cafeteria at the bus station. Thankfully, their vegetables were there on a counter and I was able to point and make signs. A hearty meal (which I would not touch with a stick back home) of lettuce, tomato and sprouts with some salt on them, with fries and an omelette later, I was ready to leave Caracas.


There not much to relate about the ensuing bus journey apart from how supremely comfortable the Marco Polo buses are. I did get a tiny scare at the place where the driver stopped for dinner where I had a cheese sandwich (much laughter followed my "strange" request), coffee and Jugos de Guayaba (Guava juice). I came out to not find the bus where I had left it, at a petrol station. Thankfully, a local pointed out that it was parked in front of the restaurant. I waited at the door, determined to get in as soon as the door opened, Lonely Planet in hand and drew a number of enquiries from fellow travellers. When the door opened, I just found my seat and relapsed into slumber.

How to make a complete buffoon of yourself by not learning enough Spanish (aka Venezuela trip part 1)

(Disclaimer: This post was originally composed on paper due to lack of access the internet. It is a literal transcription of the original, with minor grammatical fixes, location, date and time set appropriately)


Mostly tired today from the flight journey. The flight to Miami was late, and I just had about 45 minutes to make it to my connecting flight. On top of that, there were 2 flights leaving to Caracas at the same time, one operated by American airlines, and the other by  LAN, for American airlines! Having an AA booking until Miami, I naturally went to the AA flight's gate, on concourse D, where I was duly dispatched to concourse J, for which one has to exit the terminal and go a fair distance. Much pain. I did make it through and met some flight crew members who mistook me for a Canadian having taken one look at my (expired) Canadian visitor Visa.  Since my Spanish is terrible, I took some time communicating that I am an Indian. Process duly completed, I boarded with about 5 minutes left for departure.


On board the flight to Caracas, I discovered that there was only one food option - omelette, some potato patty and some fruits. (That they had any food at all for a journey so short was surprising, having gotten used to American flight service standards). But their coffee was heavenly.


I had been wary of meeting my contact person in Caracas, having not been able to elicit a single response to my emails from the States. Ergo, I was not unduly surprised when he failed to show up. I was mildly disappointed though, when his phone was also unreachable. I had given up on getting anything other than the official exchange rate when I was accosted by a person at the information desk who offered me 7 BsF to the dollar. I took it (official rate was 4.3 Bsf / dollar). He also took me to my hostel.


The traffic into Caracas was terrible and the driving aggressive (by American standards; by Indian standards, this was at worst normal and had much less honking). The city itself reminded me of Bangalore - Las Mercedes bears a striking resemblance to Basavanagudi, while Chaco, where my hotel / hostel is looks like Basaveshwaranagar.


My next task was to obtain tickets to Santa Elena / Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar. Aeroexpresos' office was close by. I put off the visit until I found some food. The hotel's manager, a kind lady who speaks reasonable English, taught me that I ought to say "Comida Vegetariana" to enquire. I asked at a few places in the neighbourhood and drew blanks. Just as I was about ti give up and head to a supermarket for fruits, I noticed a Taqueria. They had one veggie dish, easily identifiable by the adjective vegetariana. I ran my standard "sin carne, sin pollo, sin pescado" routine by the waitress and got a helpful "Si" in return. Suitably refuelled, I headed over to the bus station.


Once again, communicating was proving painful. Thankfully, some locals who heard me say silly things to the lady at the counter in Spanish while simultaneously making ridiculous signs noticed me and came up to help since they could speak English. I discovered that there were no tickets left for the night of the 25th to Puerto Ordaz or Ciudad Bolivar nor did the buses from there go to Santa Elena. One of the 2 helpful locals, Carlos, told me that he himself had been to Roraima 3 months ago and tickets might be available at La Bandera. He also gave me directions to the place by the metro.


I took the train and was up to my ridiculous Spanish speaking antics again, when a boy who could speak English noticed me and helped me make the switch in lines at Plaza Venezuela. Here, I met another chap, native of Valencia, but of Polish descent, who could speak English fluently, having spent time in London. His name is Daniel and he is an independent filmmaker. His mother and he took me to the La Bandera terminus which resembles the Shivajinagar / Pahar Ganj of yore. I learnt that my trip there was a wild goose chase and all buses to Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar / Santa Elena de Uairen left from Terminal de Oriente, which, Daniel advised me against going to then as the time was past 4 in the evening. This, by the way, is a running theme in Caracas, a city rife with mugging and murders. I went back to Chacao hoping to catch a bus to Puerto Ordaz / Ciudad Bolivar on the night of the 26th. However, Aeroexpresos had run out of tickets. Disappointed, I decided to procure the fuel canisters and worry about the tickets on the 26th. I was also very, very tired by now.


I then took a taxi to Macundales, with whom I had exchanged emails about the canisters from the States. The people were extremely friendly and most importantly spoke good English. When I narrated the events of the day to them, Andres took it upon himself to find me a ticket at one of the local airlines to Puerto Ordaz, or at least a bus ticket the next day. By then, Tommy arrived and told me that the best location to get a direct bus to Santa Elena is Terminal de Oriente with either Expresos Occidente or Expresos los Llanos. He advised me to go back to the hotel sleep and proceed the next day. Convinced that this was the best recourse, I returned, ate some veggie pizza from a different place, drank coffee (by now, I needed that once every 2 hours) and slept.

Indian group claims that Occupy movements were invented in India.

Addressing a press conference of similarly bored Indians in the shanty town of Bellevue, Washington, Mr. Priyananda Shenoy claimed today that it was his birthday yesterday. Our correspondent has since verified this claim.


While Mr. Shenoy of Bellevue was claiming so, Mr. Priyananda Shenoy of Mulki, Mangalore district, Karnataka, who bears a striking resemblance to the aforementioned Mr. Shenoy of Bellevue was busy claiming that the Occupy movements were an ancient Indian invention. He then relapsed into Konkani, at which point some well meaning onlooker telephoned a doctor fearing that Mr. Shenoy's nose had gone bust. Waiving off the medical help, while calling Konkani a genuine language, Mr. Shenoy claimed that such democratic uprisings against a very complicated issue by shabby, stoned people was an ancient Indian invention as evidenced by the Maha Kumbh mela, which Mr. Shenoy referred to as the ancient Occupy Allahabad movement and the Makara Sankranti, which he called the Occupy Sabarimala movement.

Video's title says it all

I cannot really add much to this.

2 states meets 300

Krish Malhotra was born in Patiala and brought up in Delhi. His father, Mr. Malhotra, formerly Major Malhotra is a retired Army officer, with whom Krish constantly quarrels. His mother is a racist and bigoted woman, with a narrow outlook towards life, but loving nevertheless.

Krish was in 11^th std when the IIT fever caught up with him. All his friends were preparing for the JEE. And jump on to the bandwagon, he did. He studied furiously for 2 years and landed a respectable rank in the examination. But, much to his chagrin, his parents overrode his intention of going to IIT Bombay and decreed that he go to IIT Delhi. Ergo, he enrolled to study Mechanical Engineering at IIT Delhi.

His four years in the IIT were a roller-coaster ride. When he began, he tried to be earnest and studious. However, thanks in no small amount to the people whom he befriended and his inherently gullible nature, he ended up with mediocre grades and barely ended up getting a job. In the process, he also lost his virginity; but, that is inconsequential.

2 years later, Krish decided that he wanted to get a MBA. He registered to write the CAT. He "cracked" the test and ended up with a stellar score. This, coupled with his excellent performance in the personal interview, landed him a seat in IIM Ahmedabad. There, he met Ananya Swaminathan. She hailed from Tiruvananthapuram, Kerala. Needless to say, she lost her virginity to him at the IIM. And then, at some point of time in this "masala" story, they decided to get married. They also graduated with plum jobs from the IIM.

That is when the real problems surfaced. Krish's mother, thanks to many years of practised bigotry and narrow mindedness regarded South Indians with scorn. Ananya's parents were no less cocky; they despised anybody who was not from their own caste. When Krish and Ananya told their respective parents of their marriage plans, their parents were in equal measure flabbergasted, flummoxed and disappointed (Mr Priyananda Shenoy has since generalised this to a linear combination of flabbergasted, flummoxed and disappointed). The outcome of this was that our protagonists met with strong opposition from both sides. However, instead of eloping, Krish and Ananya decided to get their parents to agree.

This proved more difficult than either of them initially imagined. It almost led to Krish and Ananya breaking up at one point, but Krish's father intervened and used his army major skills to fix everything quickly and efficiently. The wedding was scheduled to take place at the bride's hometown, Tiruvananthapuram.

On the eve of the wedding, Krish was so incredibly excited that he could not sleep. At around midnight, he got terribly hungry. So, he wandered out, looking for some place to eat. All he could find was a roadside place making Parottas . The vendor was making them in a cart, next to a huge drain. In spite of the obvious hygiene problems, Krish decided to take a chance. He went to the vendor and said "Bhaiya, do paranThe dEna" . The vendor, who had a six pack, immediately screamed THIS IS PAROOOOOOOOOOTTA and kicked him into the drain. Krish, being unable to swim, died.

Short Story

Akhandamindri was the king of Raichur. Rather, his ancestors were the rulers of Raichur. However, after independence, all princely states had merged with the Indian Union and he was king only in name. But, the government, as per the agreement that was signed when Raichur acceded to India, gave him a privy purse and his family was very wealthy, and extremely well respected. However, he was a spendthrift. He spent most of his money in buying a lot of cheetah fight match boxes, which in turn he traded for rare ones. This, was his hobby.

Then came Indira Gandhi. She thought that it was unfair these princes who mostly lazed around and wore fancy dresses every day should get a privy purse while the rest of India lived in abject poverty. So, she abolished it. Thanks to the rather profligate life that Akhandamindri was leading, his family was instantly reduced to penury. The privy purse was their only source of income. Since matchboxes were the only things that he had any experience in, he opened a roadside shop selling Ganesh Bidis and cigarettes, because this gave him an excuse to keep the matchboxes after many customers had emptied them. With this, they could make ends meet.

But, Akhandamindri was very depressed. The reason for his extreme depression was not that his income had been reduced to many lakhs to practically nothing. Rather, it was his childlessness that kept him awake and worried all night. When he was a prince, he had his own personal doctors. Each one of them had more letters of the alphabet after their names, indicating what they have studied, than the other. You see, the way you identify that Doctor A is better than Doctor B is by counting the number of letters that follow their names. For example, Dr Arundathi Nagaraj MBBS MS QWERTY OOGA OOGA CHEEK CHEEK is way better than Dr Arundathi Nagaraj MBBS MS. I digress. Anyway, these doctors still treated Akhandamindri's family out of courtesy. No one could find anything wrong with either him or his wife.

This was when a soothsayer was touring Raichur. His name was Priyananda Shenoy, not to be confused with Nithyananda. He had a degree from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in soothsaying and he knew the periodic table by heart. Such was his fame that the queue to meet him in Raichur stretched till Gulbarga. Priyananda specialised in predicting when people would have children. On hearing his arrival Mrs Akhandamindri pestered her husband to go and meet him. Akhandamindri thought "Well, I have nothing to lose, having lost everything buying match boxes" and went to Priyananda. Priyananda told him that if Akhandamindri and his wife were to go to Mantralaya and pray to Lord Raghavendra, he would be blessed with a child. The Akhandamindris thanked Priyananda and went to Mantralaya the next day.

Just as Priyananda had predicted, the Akhandamindris were blessed with a male child in about an year. They were overjoyed. They named him Raghavendra Raichur after the Lord and the city which they hailed from.

This was the time when television was making its advent in India. Little Raghavendra was always fascinated by the black and white Keltron tv that they had at home. He would always stay glued to it, and sometimes even miss school to watch advertisements on it. His lifetime ambition was to become the owner of a television shop, one in which you could go and choose a television of your choice, and if you were so inclined, buy it.

Time went by and Little Raghavendra Raichur became Big Raghavendra Raichur. When he was about 25, a famous matchbox collector offered Rs 2,00,000 for a rare Cheetah Fight match box from 1970. Raghavendra was unemployed. And these Rs 2,00,000 would serve him well if he had them. Understanding his need, Akhandamindri decided to sell one of the half a million cheetah fight matchboxes from 1970 that he had, and give the money to Raghavendra. With tears in his eyes, and wax in his ears, Akhandamindri sent the 499,697th match box in his collection to the address mentioned in the newspaper. He received the money by cheque in 7 days.

On Raghavendra's 26th birthday, Akhandamindri summoned him and gave him the cheque. He said "Go open your tv shop". Raghavendra was overcome by joy and started dancing to Asereje. After completing his dance, he rented out a shop in K R Market and opened his TV shop.

In order to inaugurate his TV shop, Raghavendra invited Dr Rajkumar. Dr Rajkumar came with his wife and children and inaugurated the shop. His wife's name was neither Meenakshi nor Kamakshi. Later, Raghavendra himself decided to deliver his first television to the Rajkumar household.

When Raghavendra reached Rajkumar's residence, he was greeted with warm smiles. He had the television in a trolley. When he asked Rajkumar where to put it, Rajkumar replied: ಹಾಲಲ್ಲಾದರು ಹಾಕು ರೂಮಲ್ಲಾದರು ಹಾಕು, ರಾಘವೇಂದ್ರ (hallallaadaru haaku, roomallaadaru haaku, Raghavendra, for the kannadically challenged)!

Valentine's Day Shenoy

I was getting worried during the last semester of my Masters. It was November and the only job offer that I had was to be a system administrator at Microsoft, and that too, at Redmond. I kept asking myself what I will do there? Having trained and evangelised for the *nix (Unix, Linux, Solaris and their ilk, and recently the Apple intel boxes) systems for most of my life, I would be mocked and insulted by my friends and foes alike (Oh! yeah, I have a lot of foes, thanks to me running expect scripts on their terminals and getting their passwords [ an inside reference to http://www.facebook.com/harishjp ] ). I was frantically hoping that Stallman or Linus would come and save me...

That was when lady luck smiled to me. There was this startup in Mountain View, California, who wanted a programmer with proven Unix skills. I immediately applied. And got in, I did (balls to you Yoda, I can do this too). Thus began my affair with the Macbook pro, 17'' glass screen, black keyboard and multitouch trackpad goodness. I spent the first 2 days playing on it, you know, writing shell scripts, setting up aliases, setting up my vimrc, my bashrc, my cron jobs - it was so awesome.

But it all came down last week, like a pack of cards. Some asshole on the caltrain stole my bag. And with that, I lost my baby. I was listening to music and must've dozed off a bit, y'know. I never really thought that anybody would bother to take my rather shambolic bag with the logos of possibly every major software company in the world. Bloody bastard. There were so many ugly PCs lying right there. Why did he not steal them?

I immediately went and ordered a new box. And Apple said that it will take me 3 weeks to get it! 3 effing weeks! I was wondering how I was going to get through these 3 weeks?

And at work, the only other laptops they have are the old PowerPC Mac boxes or Windows PC boxes. And I have to get some work done urgently. So, I decided to bite the bullet and connect to the linux boxes through ssh. Everybody has access to our CM cluster, they are like prostitute machines. Everyone has fun with them.

All this happened yesterday, and I am already done with this horrible box. I cannot take it any more. And I definitely cannot do this for 3 more weeks...

That was what was going on my mind when the phone rang. I picked it up feeling more depressed than ever. It was a policeman. He said that they had found a bag marked DD with a computer in it and a visiting card with my name. They asked me whether I had lost something in the train yesterday. I could not believe my ears. I deliriously muttered out a yes and said that I will get there right away...

I reached the police station in my pajamas. The policeman asked me to identify myself. Thrusting my driving licence in his hands, I asked him where my computer was. He pointed to a black bag lying on the table. He said that they had recovered it from a stolen goods' market where the thief was selling the whole thing off for 300 dollars! He asked me to go through the bag and check whether anything had changed.

I quickly pulled the laptop out, and booted it. What I saw left me flummoxed. Windows 7 was booting up. The scoundrel had installed Windows on it. The machine was useless for me now.

After that, I just went through the motions. I signed on the letter that the policeman gave me, but I was crestfallen.

I just got back home. In my urge to get my work done, I had even run scripts on the Chandramukhi cluster. And now, I have this worthless Macbook Paro, my true love right in front of me. And in front of you, my beloved, I now lay down my *nix life. As a *nix programmer, I am dead.

-- /dev/das

The Shenoy is a reference to Narendra Shenoy.

Moral Science Story 2, continued.

Before you start reading this, read. this: http://priyananda.blogspot.com/2010/02/moral-science-story-2.html

Shulyaka was depressed when he heard that all three of the people whom he wanted to unite through their sorrows had perished at the hands of an evil dog. He said "O Shiva, please give me another chance, and bring those poor souls back to life. Let me go back, and I promise, I will remedy it".

Shiva was not convinced. He refused to let Shulyaka go back. However, his consort, the goddess Parvati was around, and overheard this conversation. She was moved. She came into Shiva's chamber and said "My lord, I know that it is none of my business to tell you what to do, but if you don't let Shulyaka go back, I will fucking poke your third eye with your trident, albeit on facebook".

Non sequitur.

Apple release iYo

San Francisco, California: Apple CEO Steve Jobs today revealed what must have been the worst kept secret in the world of gadgetry in the recent past, the Apple iYo. "Today, we are going to show you the most unbelievable, the completely extraordinary, the absolutely stupendous and the totally marvellous iYo".

"The iYo represents the cutting edge in modern technology", Mr Jobs added. "It is the ultimate tool for keeping up with the times, since it is designed to be perpetually cool", he said, to the sound of rapturous applause and whistling by the gathered journalists.

"The Apple iYo comes in 3 versions, the iYo 16 GB priced at $499, the iYaYo 32 GB at $649 and the iYaYaYaYo 64 GB at $799. There is also a Hindu religious version, the Apple iAppa which is would be made available only to men", Mr Jobs concluded.

At the end of the presentation, Mr Priyananda Shenoy, who was already taller than everybody else, and thus had no problem grabbing the attention of Mr Jobs, asked "But what the hell does this iYo do?"; to which Mr Jobs replied "How does it even matter, it will always be cool. It is yo man". That is when Dingri Nagaraj N S Rao jumped from behind the curtain and said 'ayyayyappo kila kila" and ran away.

PS: The iAppa reference is thanks to Priya.

PPS: Anand did this ages ago: http://www.bosey.co.in/2008/09/apple-launches-ithing-nobody-knows-what.html and the onion did this: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/apple_introduces_revolutionary and many more such.

India changes national flag.

In a shock announcement by the Congress led UPA government today, it was revealed that India is going to adopt a new national flag. Announcing this in a press gathering today, the home minister Sri P Chidambaram announced that the government will table a motion in the lower house to this end today. He also announced that a committee will be constituted jointly chaired by inspirationalists Sri Anu Malik and Sri Pritam.

Later in the day, speaking to mediapersons, Sri Anu Malik announced that the template for the new flag will be inspired by the flag of the USA. When asked for the rationale behind this move, he said that since we are anyway getting towards 50 states, and the nation's youth strongly identifies with everything that USA does, this would minimise effort while maximising return on investment. When a curious Priyananda Shenoy, who has been strongly agitating since the dawn of time for Mulki to be made into a union, intersection and symmetric difference territory, asked him what investment he was referring to, Anu Malik gave him his DEMAT details.

Wen Jiabao celebrates Karva Chauth

In keeping with the tradition of heads of random governments celebrating Indian festivals, Wen Jiabao, the Premier of the People's Republic of China today celebrated Karva Chauth in all grandeur. The official release also mentioned that Wen fasted through the day to see the moon at night; but since it was a new moon day, the moon never rose, and he died.


In response to this sudden development of heads of major countries across the world celebrating random Indian festivals, Dr Manmohan Singh announced in his NDTV interview today that the Indian government would sponsor the celebration of one new festival every year. "This year, we will celebrate labor day", he said. "But we already celebrate that, sODa nann magane", shouted an irate Priyananda Shenoy from the audience. "Also, it is labour", he added, demonstrating his long association with a grammar Nazi.

Norway renamed to Nigeria

Oslo, 9th Oct 2009: Mr. Jens Stoltenberg, the prime minister of Norway, announced to the media earlier today that President Barack Obama of the United States of America has won the Nobel Peace Prize for being the most promising person to deliver the promise of everlasting peace to this planet. In addition, he also mentioned that President Obama could redeem his prize by making a cheque of $10000 to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, Nigeria.

In other news, President Mugabe of Zimbabwe is said to have applied for a permanent citizenship of the USA since his advisers have advised him (haha!) that the easiest way to win the Peace Prize these days is to be a Black American Citizen. In addition $10000 Zimbabwean is rather easy to transfer, since all you need to do is print a new note and send it across.

Man arrested for accepting dowry.

In what has to be a case of gruesome sexist crime, Mr Priyananda Shenoy of Dasarahalli area was arrested by the Vijayanagar police today for ordering copious amounts of Sambar to be made for his wedding ceremony. The police claimed that at the present price of Toor dal, this amounted to dowry and hence Mr Shenoy had to be arrested. But, hilarity ensued when the police jeep was not big enough to accommodate Mr Shenoy, who at 6' 2'' is the tallest Konkani vegetarian to get married in all of history. The police had to temporarily borrow one of the mini vans that had ferried unrelated people to his wedding, since Mr Shenoy himself could not get enough people interested in the ceremony.

Filler

Haven't posted in a long time and did not want to forget the username and password for my blogger account. Hence, I am going to post a filler. A filler like no other, one which fills, adequately and requisitely, and conveniently gets off all those people whom I imagine to be on my back to write something new, although there is no one, who themselves are fillers in a different sense, of the sense which fill the void that is left by the people who do not exist, whom I imagine to be present and pressurising me to constantly pour out my innermost thoughts on this online journal.

Rubbish, my grandpa would say. aDa chee, my granny would say. vyaak thoo, some wayfarer would say. thoo ninna, tEnga kola, maNNangaTTi, bakwaas, someone would say. At all this nonsense that I have typed.

And now for something completely different. A bunch of photographs. From the last weekend. When I took my motorcycle and went riding on the coast. And had fun.

So here they are, the photos, the real fillers.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/thequark/sets/72157622177185811/

Religious leaders protest the alteration of a kannada saying in India.

In a recent landmark decision, the Karnataka High Court decided to change the famous kannada saying "haasigeyiddashTu kaalu chaachu" (extend your leg as long as the bed) to its contrapositive "haasigeginta hecchaagi kaalannu chaachabEDa" (Do not extend your leg beyond the bed). This action was taken thanks to a PIL filed by noted loafer and chairman of the "Contrapositives're Unusually Nerdy and Trite " Priyananda Shenoy because he had run out of everything else to do. Mr Shenoy's contention was that the original saying was designed to be against midgets, short people and people with polio. Being the self righteous NRI that he has become, he promptly decided to get some good karma by filing this PIL in Konkani in the Karnataka High Court.

Reacting to this judgement, noted religious leaders [Baba Anybody], [Insert yet another jobless Muslim Cleric here, because each one of them is as jobless as any other anyway], [And any paedophile of an Archbishop here], [And some random Sikh and Jain and what not leaders just so that they do not go back to their respective gods and start crying endlessly] said that this was against Indian culture and it was unnatural to be short and our social fabric was built around not being so. By changing this age old practice of marginalising the minority, they alleged that the High Court was trying to break some sacred tenets and trying to corrupt the Indian society and the Indian culture. In particular, they also said that these people were diseased and could be treated by hanging them from tall trees so that gravity would eventually make them long enough to occupy the whole bed anyway.

TR!

TR Q and A:

1) += ?

2) + = ?



The Answers:

1)

2)

Wr gnst vwls

Fr th pst tn yrs r s t Untd Stts f Amrc hs bn wgng th Wr n Trrr n Afghnstn nd Wstrn Pkstn, wth lttl sccss gnst th l Qd. n spt f n-rds md by th Amrcn rmy gnst th Tlbn n 2001 nd th sbssqnt stng f th fndmntlst rgm frm Afghnstn, th Wr ws cntnd n rq, whch drw mch crtcsm frm bth th Amrcn Dmcrts nd frm ppl arnd th wrld, th afrmntnd wr ws fr frm vr.

n fct, mch t th chgrn f Amrc nd ts lls, th Tlbn rsrfcd n Nrth Wstrn Pkstn nd hv nw tkn cntrl f th Swt vlly nd hv tstd rmrkbl sccss n thr effrts t imps Shr lw n rs ndr thr cntrl, thnks t th wmpnss f th Pkstn gvrnmnt.

Cmpltly nrltd t ths bt smlr t hw Bsh wgd wr agnst rq, dcdd t wg wr agnst vwls. My hnds hrt frm nt typng th vwls n ths wrds. Ths hs csd t b fnny and hence I shall stop.

PS: Now you understand how retarded it is to use the SMS lingo, devised to save characters, everywhere, including email and chats. Please, write fully henceforth.