Earlier this week, I was awakened by a wretched, inconsolable wailing, the kind my noise my mother made after my 12th-standard examination results came in. I knew at once that it could not be coming from the home of my aged neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. M; had either of them keeled over, the survivor would more likely than not have been breaking out some of that exceptional 1999 Barolo-Ciabot Mentin Ginestra kept in the cellar for just such an occasion.
It turned out that a loathsome couple who live across the road – you know the type, 1.83 children fed on organic groceries, two cars, $90,837,468,947,567.99 post-tax annual income, makers of regular tax-deductible contributions to the famine-stricken in Ethiopia – had lost their prized Pomeranian bitch. Having come under the wheels of a large four-wheel drive Mercedes, the beast was flat as a sheet of cardboard. By the time I showed up to see what the to-do was all about, Brat 0.83 was being carted off in a straitjacket for psychoanalysis (Brat 1.0, having been lobotomized with generous doses of Prozac some months earlier, was wearing his usual manic grin but was otherwise placid). Daddy Dear, as is de rigueur for New Men, had tears rolling down his cheeks; Mommy Dear, as befits a New Woman, had an ashen but firm-chinned look, like Cary Grant in The Lonely Heart.
Now, I’ve seen perfectly sane Hindustanis get all tight about Pomeranian bitches, so I wasn’t as taken by surprise by this tamasha as you might imagine. My sometime friend General B., who possessed two of the finest, was deeply concerned about the threat to their chastity posed by the virile street-dogs of Leh. Using his considerable influence, he had what appeared to be an entire regiment of Naga troops posted around his home, thus ensuring any roadside dogs who attempted to outrage the modesty ended up up as dinner. I have to add, though, that General B.’s concern was purely pragmatic: he didn’t want his daughter’s chastity violated, since she’d then cost him a prettier-than-usual penny on the marriage market; and he didn’t want the bitches’ chastity violated, since he needed pure-bred puppies to pay for beti-jaan’s dowry.
What did startle me, though, was that the to-do wasn’t about the fact that my neighbors’ Pomeranian had died without becoming the mother of a thousand sons, thus robbing Daddy Dear and Mommy Dear of the means to gather the vast loot they will without dispute have to cough up to get their idiot offspring into Harvard. It was grief, plain and simple. In between bouts of sobbing, what conversation there was centered around the grim business of the mortal remains the kuttiya-jaan. It turned out Daddy Dear and Mommy Dear couldn’t abide burying the dead beast, while 1.0 and 0.83 had a problem with cremating it. I helpfully suggested that they try selling the carcass to the Korean restaurant up the road, and thus make the best of a bad deal, but what seemed to me to be eminently pragmatic elicited only disgusted looks from the goras.
“Why not freeze-dry it”, someone suggested? What? I gagged on the fourth single-malt I had helped myself to in an effort to still my grief at my neighbors’ loss (ahem, ‘nuff said), certain that if my humble suggestion had seemed tasteless to the natives, this would without doubt lead to violence. To my horror, promptly everyone agreed that this was a wonderful idea. It turned out there are a large number of establishments that specialize in freeze-drying dead animals, so that their owners can gaze upon their amazingly life-like corpses with love and tenderness. Half an hour later, some ghoulish-looking fellow showed up to do the needful, bearing with him both the implements of his trade and a large numbers of testimonials about the joys his company had provided to hundreds of bereaved pet-owners. “We loved him so much”, one couple had written of their dead cat, Snuffy, who is perched for all time to come on their mantlepiece, “and to have him back is great!!”
I asked my native guides to make some discreet inquiries about the costs involved in this bizarre enterprise. Starting at $375.99 for a carcass weighing up to 1.5 kilograms, the price can run up to $ 575.99 for a beast of up to 5 kilograms, and an additional $ 100.99 for every additional kilogram. Apparently, each year thousands of loved pets are by this means restored to life, or a sit-in-one-place fashion of it (which is arguably better, given the manners of some animals and their people). It also turned out that Jesustanis lavish on live dogs as much as they do on dead ones: people buy dog toothpaste ($4.99 each, $47.99 for a dozen), dog cosmetics ($39.99 upwards), dog jewelry ($69.99 upwards) and even the services of plastic surgeons to address their self-esteem issues. There are dog psychoanalysts, dog stylists, and dog…
No, wait a minute, there aren’t!!!!!
Unlike in Hindustan, Jesustanis do not allow their dogs to copulate in public, which does rather open up the question of how these poor animals ever get any, you know, relief. I mean, being taken to the breeder once a year for a soulless five-minute fuck wouldn’t bring any joy into your life, would it? Just ask the millions of women in Hindustan condemned to precisely that fate. Opportunity knocks! I remember this fine young woman at an agricultural fair in Chandigarh some years ago, who was demonstrating the means used to obtain semen from pigs for the purposes of artificial insemination (for those of you so inclined, it involved a lubricated rubber tube, 'nuff said, again). She was surrounded by hundreds of mesmerized peasants, all in advanced stages of pig-envy. I’m sure I have her number somewhere. All I need is a financier, and then I too will be well on my way to a wife, 1.83 brats, and a post-tax income of $90,837,468,947,567.99.
Sunday, May 29, 2005
Monday, May 23, 2005
Sodom, Gomorrah, and the Soul of Jesustan
The soul of a nation, wrote that great traveler Marco Polo, lies in its countryside.
Before some educated chutiya takes objection: all right, he didn’t say anything of the kind. But someone else did, and for all we know, Marco Polo might have also done so while he was shagging shepherds’ wives in Outer Mongolia. Anyway, whoever said it, it is true.
Last weekend, while I was drowning my many sorrows in some of The Big Hunt’s finest, leering at undergraduates, and generally minding my own business, I was accosted by a Jesustani (who are not in general a people who respect privacy). Like me, it turned out, he was a visitor to this big city, here on business to do with his occupation as an organizer for Beloved Leader’s party.
My new-found acquaintance turned out to be deeply disturbed by what he saw unfolding before us. Hindustan, he told me, had it right. Men did not snog other men, at least not in public places. Women did not talk back. And the lower orders did not let loose at the master race with Uzis, at least not if they weren’t looking to get lynched. Etc.
In Jesustan, he said, there were still places, across the prairies, across the hills, across the rivers, and across the I-95 highway, where all was as it ought to be: lands where men were men and the sheep were nervous. There, he went on, lived the sterling yeomen followers of Beloved Leaders, the real men and real women who had voted back to power earlier this year, in defense of their values. If I wished to see the real Jesustan, my acquaintance said, I would find it there.
So off I went the next morning, disguised by way of caution as a native, with the aid of industrial quantities of Fair and Lovely Facial Cream (Jesustanis in the provinces, my native guides had warned me, are suspicious these days of little brown people, and their fright can sometimes turn to violence). I could not travel on horseback, as Marco Polo would have, but instead used Amtrak. It was a little slower than horseback, given the unfortunate state of Jesustan’s railway infrastructure, but none the less quite satisfactory.
After a long journey, during which I had to endure many privations, I finally arrived at Montandon, in rural Pennsylvania. Deceived by my disguise, the natives greeted me with considerable warmth, and guided me to a place where I might rest. Along the way, I was stopped short by a large board which read “Sodom School”. I jest not: that is precisely what was written. Behind the board was a large octagonal stone building, shaped in a somewhat phallic manner, like a shivling on steroids (the Jesustanis like large things; it compensates for what they do not have, if you get my drift).
It turned out Montandon had been founded by a person named Lot Carson, who had set up a hotel along the road to cater for gentleman-travelers on the high road from Northumberland to Milton who found themselves in need of feminine company. Carson met a sad end, having fallen into a well under the influence of hard spirits, but the Jesustanis venerate their ancestors and did not let his memory die. In 1814, the aforesaid phallus-shaped building was erected as a memorial, which served both as – and here I quote the very reliable Tourist Guide to Central Pennsylvania – “as a schoolhouse and place of worship”.
A place of worship? A schoolhouse? My mind boggled, but aware of my perilous circumstances, I said nothing. More surprises soon greeted me. My informant turned out to be right on at least one count; no Montandon men could be seen in various stages of passionate lip-lock. All the graduates of Sodom School were cloistered in an establishment known as Mustang Sally’s, watching naked women in various stages of passionate lip-lock. I now understood why the followers of Beloved Leader, who have crusaded against men violating the natural order of things, had said not one word about women who violated the natural order of things: lesbian erotica alone stood between Jesustan and an epidemic of buggery.
I had little rest that night, and not only because the images of the melon-breasted lesbians haunted my dreams. The staccato sounds of gunfire interrupted my slumber every few minutes, causing me much unease. It turned out the nearby town of Williamsport had been facing considerable problems with gun-related incidents after its bars closed, the reasons for which no-one had quite deciphered. I ventured to suggest that an advertisement I had seen on a place-mat at Mustang Sally’s might hold the answer. Placed by Messrs. Troxells Sporting Goods, dealers in handguns, rifles and shotguns, it proudly proclaimed: “We sell wholesale to Anyone” [sic., capital A]. It even provided a helpful 24-hour toll-free number for those in need of such transactions: 1-800-339-1562
No native, however, would agree that it was imprudent to sell weapons wholesale to juveniles crazed by an education in Sodom School, and brought to the edge of dementia by the cavorting lesbians at Mustang Sally’s. To them, the right to bear weapons not only served the useful purpose of protecting their womenfolk and themselves from black men with gigantic penises, but were also an affirmation of manhood: a signifier that they were different from those fags and perverts in the big cities. I said nothing; there was nothing to say. I remained silent all the way back to my base camp. I had seen the soul of Jesustan, and it was, indecipherable. Mysterious. Inscrutable. And, well, eccentric.
A post-script on my privations: should any future traveler choose to follow my example, and venture forth to Montandon, do not eat at the local doughnut-and-coffee shops. Diarrhea is, of course, an occupation hazard of the professional traveler, but the fact that Jesustanis wipe their buttocks with toilet paper rather than wash it with water creates special problems. My backside now feels like a piece of plywood must after it is sandpapered and then gone at with chisel and hammer. In addition, it is bright red, like langur’s buttocks, and there is no nice desi kudi to gently minister to it with coconut oil. Your servant is desolate.
Before some educated chutiya takes objection: all right, he didn’t say anything of the kind. But someone else did, and for all we know, Marco Polo might have also done so while he was shagging shepherds’ wives in Outer Mongolia. Anyway, whoever said it, it is true.
Last weekend, while I was drowning my many sorrows in some of The Big Hunt’s finest, leering at undergraduates, and generally minding my own business, I was accosted by a Jesustani (who are not in general a people who respect privacy). Like me, it turned out, he was a visitor to this big city, here on business to do with his occupation as an organizer for Beloved Leader’s party.
My new-found acquaintance turned out to be deeply disturbed by what he saw unfolding before us. Hindustan, he told me, had it right. Men did not snog other men, at least not in public places. Women did not talk back. And the lower orders did not let loose at the master race with Uzis, at least not if they weren’t looking to get lynched. Etc.
In Jesustan, he said, there were still places, across the prairies, across the hills, across the rivers, and across the I-95 highway, where all was as it ought to be: lands where men were men and the sheep were nervous. There, he went on, lived the sterling yeomen followers of Beloved Leaders, the real men and real women who had voted back to power earlier this year, in defense of their values. If I wished to see the real Jesustan, my acquaintance said, I would find it there.
So off I went the next morning, disguised by way of caution as a native, with the aid of industrial quantities of Fair and Lovely Facial Cream (Jesustanis in the provinces, my native guides had warned me, are suspicious these days of little brown people, and their fright can sometimes turn to violence). I could not travel on horseback, as Marco Polo would have, but instead used Amtrak. It was a little slower than horseback, given the unfortunate state of Jesustan’s railway infrastructure, but none the less quite satisfactory.
After a long journey, during which I had to endure many privations, I finally arrived at Montandon, in rural Pennsylvania. Deceived by my disguise, the natives greeted me with considerable warmth, and guided me to a place where I might rest. Along the way, I was stopped short by a large board which read “Sodom School”. I jest not: that is precisely what was written. Behind the board was a large octagonal stone building, shaped in a somewhat phallic manner, like a shivling on steroids (the Jesustanis like large things; it compensates for what they do not have, if you get my drift).
It turned out Montandon had been founded by a person named Lot Carson, who had set up a hotel along the road to cater for gentleman-travelers on the high road from Northumberland to Milton who found themselves in need of feminine company. Carson met a sad end, having fallen into a well under the influence of hard spirits, but the Jesustanis venerate their ancestors and did not let his memory die. In 1814, the aforesaid phallus-shaped building was erected as a memorial, which served both as – and here I quote the very reliable Tourist Guide to Central Pennsylvania – “as a schoolhouse and place of worship”.
A place of worship? A schoolhouse? My mind boggled, but aware of my perilous circumstances, I said nothing. More surprises soon greeted me. My informant turned out to be right on at least one count; no Montandon men could be seen in various stages of passionate lip-lock. All the graduates of Sodom School were cloistered in an establishment known as Mustang Sally’s, watching naked women in various stages of passionate lip-lock. I now understood why the followers of Beloved Leader, who have crusaded against men violating the natural order of things, had said not one word about women who violated the natural order of things: lesbian erotica alone stood between Jesustan and an epidemic of buggery.
I had little rest that night, and not only because the images of the melon-breasted lesbians haunted my dreams. The staccato sounds of gunfire interrupted my slumber every few minutes, causing me much unease. It turned out the nearby town of Williamsport had been facing considerable problems with gun-related incidents after its bars closed, the reasons for which no-one had quite deciphered. I ventured to suggest that an advertisement I had seen on a place-mat at Mustang Sally’s might hold the answer. Placed by Messrs. Troxells Sporting Goods, dealers in handguns, rifles and shotguns, it proudly proclaimed: “We sell wholesale to Anyone” [sic., capital A]. It even provided a helpful 24-hour toll-free number for those in need of such transactions: 1-800-339-1562
No native, however, would agree that it was imprudent to sell weapons wholesale to juveniles crazed by an education in Sodom School, and brought to the edge of dementia by the cavorting lesbians at Mustang Sally’s. To them, the right to bear weapons not only served the useful purpose of protecting their womenfolk and themselves from black men with gigantic penises, but were also an affirmation of manhood: a signifier that they were different from those fags and perverts in the big cities. I said nothing; there was nothing to say. I remained silent all the way back to my base camp. I had seen the soul of Jesustan, and it was, indecipherable. Mysterious. Inscrutable. And, well, eccentric.
A post-script on my privations: should any future traveler choose to follow my example, and venture forth to Montandon, do not eat at the local doughnut-and-coffee shops. Diarrhea is, of course, an occupation hazard of the professional traveler, but the fact that Jesustanis wipe their buttocks with toilet paper rather than wash it with water creates special problems. My backside now feels like a piece of plywood must after it is sandpapered and then gone at with chisel and hammer. In addition, it is bright red, like langur’s buttocks, and there is no nice desi kudi to gently minister to it with coconut oil. Your servant is desolate.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
On Swimsuits and Shame
For decades, one small village held out against the tide of shamlessness that had enveloped Jesustan. Cape May in New Jersey has finally fallen. I am uncertain as to whether I should respond to the death of sharam with a loud haaw, Rabba! or whether I should first wipe dry the river of drool running off my lips: perhaps it is best, though, that I proceed with my tale before I run to buy a bus ticket to witness the apocalypse first hand.
It all began in the 1960s, when the young of Jesustan began to realize that wearing clothes in the summer serves no useful purpose. Life in Cape May became impossible, not the least because the loud factory-whistle sound of steam blowing out of its elderly citizens’ ears made normal conversation impossible. Driven to great roiling frenzies of un-sated lust by the spectacle of kudis and mundas clad in nothing but colorful underwear – if that – the venerable gentlefolk who sat on the Panchayat of Cap May decided they could take it no longer.
After a great deal of debate (a very great deal, because much of it was inaudible owing to the loud whistling sound and sentences had often to be repeated) the Cape May Panchayat determined that there was no other way to deal with the situation other than by unleashing the full wrath of the law upon the problem. Laws were passed that required men and women to cavort upon its beaches at separate times, and then only if clad in long wool suits that covered all but their faces and feet. For most residents of Cape May, I am told, this was a great convenience, since most, like their brethren in Taliban-ruled Kabul, dressed in this fashion at all times, and now did not have to change before taking a swim.
The Afghans, I see, are still holding out, but Cape May, alas, has been driven by the temptation of filthy lucre to resile from its magnificent defiance. Anyone may now frolic in the skimpiest of swimsuits on the beaches of Cape May, without fear of interference by its Saudi Arabia-style mutaween, or religious police. An era has passed, and along with it earning opportunities for the Cape May mutaween and wool-merchants. Yet this sacrifice, Cape May’s Panchayat seems to believe, is worth making. Its residents long for the freedoms they relinquished so many decades ago, and to join in the liberty and freedom of spirit represented by bikinis and Speedo swim-suits.
Freedom? Not everyone is enthused by the winds of change sweeping Cape May. Some of my native guides have objected to it on aesthetic grounds, noting that concealing all is more times than not a gift both to the individual and to the community. It is unlikely, after all, that Brad Pitt or Charlize Theron will grace Cape May in the summer. Compelling the Jesustani equivalents of our Hindustani Mr. & Mrs. English-speaking Halwai to cover up their sagging extremities is a service to both God and humankind, it is argued. Others note that the minimalist swimsuit will bring with it the ghost of the Grim Reaper: the fate of Cape May’s more elderly denizens is likely to be that of a pressure cooker whose gasket has had its day.
I cannot but note, though, that we in Hindustan have a more relaxed attitude to the human body. As long as they claim either to be insane or deeply religious, which amounts to much the same thing, individuals are free to wander the streets of New Delhi or Bombay stark naked; no-one will bat an eyelid. On the other hand, as any woman who had boarded a bus in Delhi will attest, the fact that she may be wearing a tent is no defense against sexual predators; they know the object of desire is what lies within. And, unlike the denizens of Cape May, we strongly resist efforts to interfere with our God-given sexual liberties, like groping women on buses. A social worker in Dhar, recently tried to impress on residents of the village of Dhangarh that the rape of eight year old girls, even if it was marital rape, was a bad idea. The interfering cow promptly had her arms chopped off.
All of which should bring us, I cannot help thinking, to some great wisdom about sharam and besharmi, but I have none to offer. As I prepare to witness the elderly of Cape May keel over, I cannot but help recall the sad story of my friend Mr. G., who although not a resident of Dhar, married a woman many decades his junior. On their wedding night, she cried for she had no idea what to do. He cried too, for he had forgotten what to do.
It all began in the 1960s, when the young of Jesustan began to realize that wearing clothes in the summer serves no useful purpose. Life in Cape May became impossible, not the least because the loud factory-whistle sound of steam blowing out of its elderly citizens’ ears made normal conversation impossible. Driven to great roiling frenzies of un-sated lust by the spectacle of kudis and mundas clad in nothing but colorful underwear – if that – the venerable gentlefolk who sat on the Panchayat of Cap May decided they could take it no longer.
After a great deal of debate (a very great deal, because much of it was inaudible owing to the loud whistling sound and sentences had often to be repeated) the Cape May Panchayat determined that there was no other way to deal with the situation other than by unleashing the full wrath of the law upon the problem. Laws were passed that required men and women to cavort upon its beaches at separate times, and then only if clad in long wool suits that covered all but their faces and feet. For most residents of Cape May, I am told, this was a great convenience, since most, like their brethren in Taliban-ruled Kabul, dressed in this fashion at all times, and now did not have to change before taking a swim.
The Afghans, I see, are still holding out, but Cape May, alas, has been driven by the temptation of filthy lucre to resile from its magnificent defiance. Anyone may now frolic in the skimpiest of swimsuits on the beaches of Cape May, without fear of interference by its Saudi Arabia-style mutaween, or religious police. An era has passed, and along with it earning opportunities for the Cape May mutaween and wool-merchants. Yet this sacrifice, Cape May’s Panchayat seems to believe, is worth making. Its residents long for the freedoms they relinquished so many decades ago, and to join in the liberty and freedom of spirit represented by bikinis and Speedo swim-suits.
Freedom? Not everyone is enthused by the winds of change sweeping Cape May. Some of my native guides have objected to it on aesthetic grounds, noting that concealing all is more times than not a gift both to the individual and to the community. It is unlikely, after all, that Brad Pitt or Charlize Theron will grace Cape May in the summer. Compelling the Jesustani equivalents of our Hindustani Mr. & Mrs. English-speaking Halwai to cover up their sagging extremities is a service to both God and humankind, it is argued. Others note that the minimalist swimsuit will bring with it the ghost of the Grim Reaper: the fate of Cape May’s more elderly denizens is likely to be that of a pressure cooker whose gasket has had its day.
I cannot but note, though, that we in Hindustan have a more relaxed attitude to the human body. As long as they claim either to be insane or deeply religious, which amounts to much the same thing, individuals are free to wander the streets of New Delhi or Bombay stark naked; no-one will bat an eyelid. On the other hand, as any woman who had boarded a bus in Delhi will attest, the fact that she may be wearing a tent is no defense against sexual predators; they know the object of desire is what lies within. And, unlike the denizens of Cape May, we strongly resist efforts to interfere with our God-given sexual liberties, like groping women on buses. A social worker in Dhar, recently tried to impress on residents of the village of Dhangarh that the rape of eight year old girls, even if it was marital rape, was a bad idea. The interfering cow promptly had her arms chopped off.
All of which should bring us, I cannot help thinking, to some great wisdom about sharam and besharmi, but I have none to offer. As I prepare to witness the elderly of Cape May keel over, I cannot but help recall the sad story of my friend Mr. G., who although not a resident of Dhar, married a woman many decades his junior. On their wedding night, she cried for she had no idea what to do. He cried too, for he had forgotten what to do.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
The Great Outdoors
I’m not, I confess, a Real Man. My idea of the outdoors is a lawn in Chandigarh where you can smoke a fine cigar at leisure and tell the mundu to hurry back with another whiskey, and none of that chhota peg rubbish, thank you.
Some years ago, on a visit to Kashmir, I gave fishing a go, egged on by (a) a woman, who else, and (b) a sadistic fuck of a tour guide. It ended, as I knew before it began, i.e. sadly. I caught no fish. To add insult to injury, a some filthy peasant arrived at the banks of the Lidder just as I was leaving, casually tossed a stick of dynamite inside, and looked pityingly at my Rs. 23,000 worth of fishing gear as dozens of fine trout floated to the top. I had him flogged, but it was a pyrrhic victory: the woman promptly ran off with the peasant, and the tour guide with my money.
Ah, well, such is life. You can understand, I am sure, why it was with some trepidation that I finally allowed myself to be talked into having a go at deer hunting, Jesustan style. It is, at one level, much the same as at home. You lift up your weapon, peer through your sights, wish that what you were looking at was your wife, and blow the hapless animal away. It is indeed uplifting. Until recently, however, this shahi pursuit involved braving the cold, fighting off insects, and generally rolling around in the mud (as distinct from rolling in the hay, an altogether different sport involving wenches) – none of which gentleman-travelers such as myself are wont to do.
Now, a fine fellow named John Lockwood from Texas has put an end to all this nonsense. Lockwood has peppered various forests with Remington hunting rifles mounted on automated tripods, connected to cameras which are in turn controlled by computers. All you have to do is pay Lockwood the price of a down-market lunch, log on to his website, watch the deer traipse delicately through the sleepy woods, take aim, and then control-click. For a fee, Lockwood will deliver the remains to you, smoked and salted. Alternately, you can have your prey mounted, and then brag about your hunting skills to the idle rich of Greater Kailash II; none of the lalas will be any the wiser.
All of this is a great improvement on our ways at home. Hunting in Hindustan is a complicated business; only Real Men should attempt it:
First, you have to bribe the forest guards at Corbett National Park.
Then, you have to wait until they bribe their boss, who is usually some self-important twit who masks the fact that he is wetting himself at the thought of the CBI and Menaka Gandhi pulling out his toenails by being difficult.
Then, you head out into the bushes and wait endlessly for some suitably clueless and slow-moving beast to show up. More often than not, your wait is indeed endless because mobs of morons, having got to Corbett first, have decimated the wildlife.
Then, you have to load the dead animal into the back of your jeep and drive off before the cops arrive, asking for more loot (Some chaps choose to fly off in helicopters instead, but that costs even more than escaping the tender caresses of the thanedaar).
Then, you have to get rid of the dead animal at some uninhabited spot, mainly because Hindustani wives have a wholly unreasonable attitude to roasting bloody carcasses in the kitchen (I suspect it reminds them of the fate of so many of their sisters; you know, the nylon sari and kerosene thing).
Hunting in Jesustan is lot easier and a lot more fun, but also a lot more dangerous. Again, only Real Men should attempt it:
First, you get a gun. A high-velocity rifle, which only the more demented kinds of Faujis get to use in Hindustan, can be bought off the shelf for a couple of hundred dollars. However, some states have regulations barring the sale of lethal weapons to teenagers, self-confessed psychopaths, and, how does one put this delicately, the generally non compos mentis – in other words, four-fifths of the gun-owning population. If you fall into any of these categories, however, you can usually score a perfectly serviceable Uzi or M-16 in any of the more sordid parts of Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles; just ask at any street corner, but remember to put it in single-shot mode before you let fly.
Then you get a hunting permit, US$ 12 or just $7.50 for juvenile delinquents and the senile.
Then you buy humungous amounts of beer.
Then you get rat-arsed and let loose at the deer or at other deer-hunters, as takes your fancy. In general, it is easier to let loose at other hunters, since they wear bright-yellow vests and tend to sit still. A fellow named Chai Soua Vang did a fine job of this in December, when he knocked of six kaddoos who he seemed to believe were intruding on his particular patch of the forest.
Poor Vang was promptly dispatched to the clink. The to-do his actions provoked led me to believe this sort of merry boys-will-be-boys stuff was considered, even by Jesustani standards, unusual. I’ve discovered it isn’t. In 1998, for example, eleven kids aged between 9 and 17 were shot dead whilst hunting. Nobody seems to have bothered keeping count of the adults, but it seems that two brats did bump off two daddy-dears. One particularly fun bit of sport involved the hunting down of four school children and their pregnant teacher by a pack of punks with nothing better to do. “I heard a young kid scream. I thought he got a deer,” a witness to one killing told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “But he kept screaming.”
Fear not, though: Jesustani authorities tend to take a lenient view of this sort of thing. Soon after the punks-with-guns incident, Michael Bragman, a prominent legislator from New York, moved legislation seeking to lower the legal hunting age. I’ve puzzled over this wonderful laissez-faire in the matter of the murder of innocents, something over which even Hindustanis these days tend to get all hot and sweaty about. Could ‘accidental’ hunting deaths in fact be a socially-sanctioned form of murder, like the nylon sari and kerosene thing? “I’m taking my beloved and the brats deer hunting”, you would tell your best yaar, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, of course we can stay out whoring all night on Friday, that sort of thing? In any case, Lockwood’s endeavors are going to open up huge new opportunities for software types from Bangalore, who can come and testify that it wasn’t Vang’s fault: the computer did it, honest gov.
Some years ago, on a visit to Kashmir, I gave fishing a go, egged on by (a) a woman, who else, and (b) a sadistic fuck of a tour guide. It ended, as I knew before it began, i.e. sadly. I caught no fish. To add insult to injury, a some filthy peasant arrived at the banks of the Lidder just as I was leaving, casually tossed a stick of dynamite inside, and looked pityingly at my Rs. 23,000 worth of fishing gear as dozens of fine trout floated to the top. I had him flogged, but it was a pyrrhic victory: the woman promptly ran off with the peasant, and the tour guide with my money.
Ah, well, such is life. You can understand, I am sure, why it was with some trepidation that I finally allowed myself to be talked into having a go at deer hunting, Jesustan style. It is, at one level, much the same as at home. You lift up your weapon, peer through your sights, wish that what you were looking at was your wife, and blow the hapless animal away. It is indeed uplifting. Until recently, however, this shahi pursuit involved braving the cold, fighting off insects, and generally rolling around in the mud (as distinct from rolling in the hay, an altogether different sport involving wenches) – none of which gentleman-travelers such as myself are wont to do.
Now, a fine fellow named John Lockwood from Texas has put an end to all this nonsense. Lockwood has peppered various forests with Remington hunting rifles mounted on automated tripods, connected to cameras which are in turn controlled by computers. All you have to do is pay Lockwood the price of a down-market lunch, log on to his website, watch the deer traipse delicately through the sleepy woods, take aim, and then control-click. For a fee, Lockwood will deliver the remains to you, smoked and salted. Alternately, you can have your prey mounted, and then brag about your hunting skills to the idle rich of Greater Kailash II; none of the lalas will be any the wiser.
All of this is a great improvement on our ways at home. Hunting in Hindustan is a complicated business; only Real Men should attempt it:
First, you have to bribe the forest guards at Corbett National Park.
Then, you have to wait until they bribe their boss, who is usually some self-important twit who masks the fact that he is wetting himself at the thought of the CBI and Menaka Gandhi pulling out his toenails by being difficult.
Then, you head out into the bushes and wait endlessly for some suitably clueless and slow-moving beast to show up. More often than not, your wait is indeed endless because mobs of morons, having got to Corbett first, have decimated the wildlife.
Then, you have to load the dead animal into the back of your jeep and drive off before the cops arrive, asking for more loot (Some chaps choose to fly off in helicopters instead, but that costs even more than escaping the tender caresses of the thanedaar).
Then, you have to get rid of the dead animal at some uninhabited spot, mainly because Hindustani wives have a wholly unreasonable attitude to roasting bloody carcasses in the kitchen (I suspect it reminds them of the fate of so many of their sisters; you know, the nylon sari and kerosene thing).
Hunting in Jesustan is lot easier and a lot more fun, but also a lot more dangerous. Again, only Real Men should attempt it:
First, you get a gun. A high-velocity rifle, which only the more demented kinds of Faujis get to use in Hindustan, can be bought off the shelf for a couple of hundred dollars. However, some states have regulations barring the sale of lethal weapons to teenagers, self-confessed psychopaths, and, how does one put this delicately, the generally non compos mentis – in other words, four-fifths of the gun-owning population. If you fall into any of these categories, however, you can usually score a perfectly serviceable Uzi or M-16 in any of the more sordid parts of Washington DC, New York or Los Angeles; just ask at any street corner, but remember to put it in single-shot mode before you let fly.
Then you get a hunting permit, US$ 12 or just $7.50 for juvenile delinquents and the senile.
Then you buy humungous amounts of beer.
Then you get rat-arsed and let loose at the deer or at other deer-hunters, as takes your fancy. In general, it is easier to let loose at other hunters, since they wear bright-yellow vests and tend to sit still. A fellow named Chai Soua Vang did a fine job of this in December, when he knocked of six kaddoos who he seemed to believe were intruding on his particular patch of the forest.
Poor Vang was promptly dispatched to the clink. The to-do his actions provoked led me to believe this sort of merry boys-will-be-boys stuff was considered, even by Jesustani standards, unusual. I’ve discovered it isn’t. In 1998, for example, eleven kids aged between 9 and 17 were shot dead whilst hunting. Nobody seems to have bothered keeping count of the adults, but it seems that two brats did bump off two daddy-dears. One particularly fun bit of sport involved the hunting down of four school children and their pregnant teacher by a pack of punks with nothing better to do. “I heard a young kid scream. I thought he got a deer,” a witness to one killing told the Philadelphia Inquirer, “But he kept screaming.”
Fear not, though: Jesustani authorities tend to take a lenient view of this sort of thing. Soon after the punks-with-guns incident, Michael Bragman, a prominent legislator from New York, moved legislation seeking to lower the legal hunting age. I’ve puzzled over this wonderful laissez-faire in the matter of the murder of innocents, something over which even Hindustanis these days tend to get all hot and sweaty about. Could ‘accidental’ hunting deaths in fact be a socially-sanctioned form of murder, like the nylon sari and kerosene thing? “I’m taking my beloved and the brats deer hunting”, you would tell your best yaar, nudge-nudge, wink-wink, of course we can stay out whoring all night on Friday, that sort of thing? In any case, Lockwood’s endeavors are going to open up huge new opportunities for software types from Bangalore, who can come and testify that it wasn’t Vang’s fault: the computer did it, honest gov.
Monday, May 02, 2005
The Uses of Enchantment
I awoke earlier this week to the unedifying image of Darth Vader (a.k.a. Donald Rumsfeld) locked in a loving embrace with Spiderman and Superman. The Horror! I promptly choked on my rye crackers, spilled my coffee all over myself, and had to spend half an hour flogging my native slaves before I recovered my equanimity and could turn to the newspaper again.
Darth Vader, it turned out, had recruited the services of Marvel Comics to help raise the morale of the Jesustani hordes now engaged, unsuccessfully, in putting Babylon to the sword. Now, the idiots should have known better; Saddam Hussein tried, and he didn’t get anywhere, even with the aid of mustard gas (as anyone who has tried to hunt down rats with a jackboot will attest, the vermin usually have the best of the contest, but I digress).
Anyway, it turned out the leaders of the crusaders believe that their rank-and-file will be filled with renewed valor when they are treated to comic strips in which Captain America hunts down the terrorists. Once I’d finished giving my goras forty of the best, I snorted with derision at the stupidity of Jesustanis in general, and of Darth Vader in particular, and decided to get to the truly interesting part of the newspaper (you know, where they have the wench with the enormous …, but I digress, again).
Then, it hit me: these people actually believe in fairy tales. This is precisely what makes the Jesustanis such a magnificent people. Culture in Jesustani is profoundly reliant on enchantment, on the conviction that several impossible things can in fact happen before breakfast. Enchantment is a profound historical force. Jesustanis have come to rule the world, after all, and they have done so propelled by by the belief that there is actually some point to doing so. It is my conviction that the real reason that the Soviet Union collapsed was not economic ruin or systemic decay: it was cynicism.
Of this ignoble sentiment, the Jesustanis are innocent. Innocence works: the fact is that more Jesustanis seem to live happily than most other peoples. You may assert that this is as much the consequence of Prozac as of prosperity, but that changes reality not one whit. Jesustanis believe in god, in the virtues of motherhood and in fidelity and honor, and still they are happy. They believe that their Beloved Leader will tell them The Truth, and they believe The Truth is out there, so help them god. Jesustanis even believe that Hindustani shopkeepers will hand them the right change (I have never seen anyone count it): and still they are happy.
Enchantment manifests itself across the entire terrain of popular culture. Witness the belief of large numbers of otherwise sane people that Terri Schiavo, a woman who had been brain dead for two decades and more, would at some point jumped off her hospice bed and headed to McDonalds if only her heathen husband had not decided to remove her feeding tube. Or consider what you can buy at any mid-sized store: bacteria-proof pens (we can all be healthy all the time) and plant-foggers with battery-powered fans (the flowers, the advertisements claim, find it refreshing). I’m reasonably convinced it is only a matter of time before somebody starts selling a device that masturbates dogs (after all, they too are entitled to happiness, but public intercourse between animals is considered indecorous in Jesustan) .
A fable helped me make sense of the whole issue:
A Jesustani man and his wife were playing golf. A stroke went astray, and shattered the windows of one of their club’s guest rooms. The man and his wife rushed in, only to be stopped short by the sight of naked man lying unconscious on the floor. They revived him, and apologized profusely for their carelessness. The man, however, replied that he was actually grateful to them. “However hard it may seem to believe”, he said, “I am actually a genie. I had been imprisoned inside that flower-vase, which your golf-ball shattered, for five thousand years. As a sign of my gratitude, and in keeping with the traditions of my people, I will grant any three wishes you make”.
The man asked for a billion dollars, his wife for beach-home in Bermuda, and both for perpetual happiness. “Done, done”, cried the genie, “done”! Overwhelmed by gratitude, the couple asked the genie if there was anything they could do in return. He was at first reticent, but finally, very quietly, pointed out that he had been without a women for five thousand years (a common fate for single South Indian men as well, I am told). The husband looked at his wife; the wife at her husband – and both agreed that it was but a small sacrifice for the genie’s munificence. And so the deed was done, and the time for pillow-talk arrived, and the genie asked the wife how old she was. “Thirty-five”, she answered, “why”?
“Aren’t you a little old to believe in genies”?
Most of the world is. The Jesustanis are not.
Darth Vader, it turned out, had recruited the services of Marvel Comics to help raise the morale of the Jesustani hordes now engaged, unsuccessfully, in putting Babylon to the sword. Now, the idiots should have known better; Saddam Hussein tried, and he didn’t get anywhere, even with the aid of mustard gas (as anyone who has tried to hunt down rats with a jackboot will attest, the vermin usually have the best of the contest, but I digress).
Anyway, it turned out the leaders of the crusaders believe that their rank-and-file will be filled with renewed valor when they are treated to comic strips in which Captain America hunts down the terrorists. Once I’d finished giving my goras forty of the best, I snorted with derision at the stupidity of Jesustanis in general, and of Darth Vader in particular, and decided to get to the truly interesting part of the newspaper (you know, where they have the wench with the enormous …, but I digress, again).
Then, it hit me: these people actually believe in fairy tales. This is precisely what makes the Jesustanis such a magnificent people. Culture in Jesustani is profoundly reliant on enchantment, on the conviction that several impossible things can in fact happen before breakfast. Enchantment is a profound historical force. Jesustanis have come to rule the world, after all, and they have done so propelled by by the belief that there is actually some point to doing so. It is my conviction that the real reason that the Soviet Union collapsed was not economic ruin or systemic decay: it was cynicism.
Of this ignoble sentiment, the Jesustanis are innocent. Innocence works: the fact is that more Jesustanis seem to live happily than most other peoples. You may assert that this is as much the consequence of Prozac as of prosperity, but that changes reality not one whit. Jesustanis believe in god, in the virtues of motherhood and in fidelity and honor, and still they are happy. They believe that their Beloved Leader will tell them The Truth, and they believe The Truth is out there, so help them god. Jesustanis even believe that Hindustani shopkeepers will hand them the right change (I have never seen anyone count it): and still they are happy.
Enchantment manifests itself across the entire terrain of popular culture. Witness the belief of large numbers of otherwise sane people that Terri Schiavo, a woman who had been brain dead for two decades and more, would at some point jumped off her hospice bed and headed to McDonalds if only her heathen husband had not decided to remove her feeding tube. Or consider what you can buy at any mid-sized store: bacteria-proof pens (we can all be healthy all the time) and plant-foggers with battery-powered fans (the flowers, the advertisements claim, find it refreshing). I’m reasonably convinced it is only a matter of time before somebody starts selling a device that masturbates dogs (after all, they too are entitled to happiness, but public intercourse between animals is considered indecorous in Jesustan) .
A fable helped me make sense of the whole issue:
A Jesustani man and his wife were playing golf. A stroke went astray, and shattered the windows of one of their club’s guest rooms. The man and his wife rushed in, only to be stopped short by the sight of naked man lying unconscious on the floor. They revived him, and apologized profusely for their carelessness. The man, however, replied that he was actually grateful to them. “However hard it may seem to believe”, he said, “I am actually a genie. I had been imprisoned inside that flower-vase, which your golf-ball shattered, for five thousand years. As a sign of my gratitude, and in keeping with the traditions of my people, I will grant any three wishes you make”.
The man asked for a billion dollars, his wife for beach-home in Bermuda, and both for perpetual happiness. “Done, done”, cried the genie, “done”! Overwhelmed by gratitude, the couple asked the genie if there was anything they could do in return. He was at first reticent, but finally, very quietly, pointed out that he had been without a women for five thousand years (a common fate for single South Indian men as well, I am told). The husband looked at his wife; the wife at her husband – and both agreed that it was but a small sacrifice for the genie’s munificence. And so the deed was done, and the time for pillow-talk arrived, and the genie asked the wife how old she was. “Thirty-five”, she answered, “why”?
“Aren’t you a little old to believe in genies”?
Most of the world is. The Jesustanis are not.
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