Sunday, June 26, 2005

The End of Empire

Lounging in my Jacuzzi last night, balancing a glass of 1975 Champagne Pol Roger Cuvée in one hand and entertaining my killi with the other, I contemplated the growing concern in Beloved Leader’s durbar that the great days of the Jesustan Empire might be drawing to a close.

Its true: they’re irreparably fucked.

For the past several weeks, the elders of Jesustan have been expressing alarm over the alarming unwillingness of their young to go forth and fight for their nation. In April, the numbers of those willing to sign up to kill for Motherland and Beloved Leader was 42% behind what is needed to stock the Red-Blue-and-White horde. One desperate military recruiter was recently taped telling a particularly demented brat just how he could hide a marijuana habit and fabricate a high-school degree so he might join up and thus avoid a prison rap.

Now, people have offered all kinds of facile explanations for this unwillingness of Jesustani youth to kill. Some claim the young have become soft. Bakwas! The youth of all lands are idle and feckless, which is why twelve-of-the-best, administered with a cane, whip or Prozac is a part of all cultures, from eastest-East to westest-West. What, then, is the problem? Is it, I wondered, the easy access to Pol Roger Cuvée, or other pleasure-giving substances more preferred by the young? Or the magnetic draw of playing with one’s killi, either by oneself or in company? None of these, though, are exclusively Jesustani pastimes. I was, I must confess, mystified.

Eureka!!!! Leaping from my bath, I rushed to my laptop, for light had dawned: it was the damned Jacuzzi. Carnality and champagne are but consequences of a far more profound seduction.

To understand this great insight, we must turn to the history of our erstwhile masters, the ferocious and feared Angrez. From their study of history, the Angrez had come to understood the perils of the bath. Consider the decline and fall of the Romans, who considered hygiene so important that they subsidized the construction of magnificent public baths where men and women washed together. Even the poorest Roman, the Angrez historian Edward Gibbon tells us, “could purchase, with a small copper coin, the daily enjoyment of a scene which might excite the envy of the Kings of Asia”. No prizes for guessing what happened next. The Romans arose and felt, after which they declined and fell.

From the fall of the ancient Romans, the early Christians, the forefathers of the Angrez, learned their lessons well. St. Benedict, Praise Be Upon Him, well understood that the caresses of warm water and fragrant soap would give rise to fevered, impure thoughts. “To those who are well”, he decreed, “and especially to the young, bathing shall seldom be permitted”. St. Agnes, who was martyred in fourth century Rome, took the injunction to heart; she never bathed, even once – which does suggest that her punishment for refusing to refute her Christian faith – i.e. being raped all night in a brothel before she was executed – would have involved some degree of discomfort for her tormentors as well. History is witness to the fact that the Angrez took the teachings of these early martyrs (St. Agnes that is, not the poor would-be rapists) to heart. In medieval Angrez cities, in addition to not bathing, the residents took a further step forward, and adopted the practice of throwing the contents of their chamber pots out on the streets: as in private, thus they would be in public.

And the Angrez were rewarded for their virtue, for they came to rule the world. How did this come about? Lust for loot, our intellectuals tell us. More bakwas!!! Nothing as base as lucre drives warrior races. The success of the White Master was a system of upbringing which drove his offspring into an unremitting frenzy which could be sated only with the spoils of conquest. First, White Master made his young eat a diet of raw beef and boiled cabbage, which induced in them a constant state of constipation, which in turn bred ceaseless ire and wrath. Then, White Master sent his offspring to English public schools, where they were turned into raving homosexuals. Then, they were told of tales of lithe, oiled bodies of natives whose buttocks were like peaches, and who ate strange spices which turned their killis into raging pythons.

Finally, there was the coup de grace: the cold shower in the unheated bathroom.

Imagine it, the constant horror of a life shaped by a ceaseless cycle of constipation, sexual torment – and then, cold showers. Now, the Angrez themselves allowed themselves to be seduced by the pleasures of the lands they conquered, and lapsed into the state of senile decadence that we witness now. The forefathers of the Jesustanis, however, saw the signs of this decline and fled the shores of White Master’s kingdom, determined to hold out against the degradation induced by warm water. Bathing was correctly understood as a hazard to both the physical and spiritual health of a true warrior race. In this land there was no tolerance for the perversions and debaucheries that were starting to invade Old Europe. Until 1820, not one of the homes in the fine town of Quincy, Massachusetts, had a bath. In 1845, the City of Boston forbade bathing by those not possessed of medical authorization. Some unfortunates did, of course, have to bath for reasons of health. Elizabeth Drinker, the wife of a well-respected Philadelphia Quaker, recorded of her course of treatment in 1799: “I bore it better than I expected, not having been wet all over at once for 28 years past”.

As late as the end of the Second World War, few homes in Jesustan had anything other than rudimentary showers and outside of the great metropolis, even these were rare. Bathing every day would have been unheard of. How things have changed. According to a recent survey, 42% of new and remodeled bathrooms in Jeusustan have bathtubs specifically designed for indolence, like the Jacuzzi or the Whirlpool. The Jesustanis spend more on their bathrooms than the ancient Romans. A basic bathtub with a bubble-jet cannot be had for less than $ 1,000; most new owners buy more elaborate models, which retail for more than $ 8,500. Is it mere coincidence that the first residential whirlpool bath was introduced by Jacuzzi in 1968 – the very period when Jesustan was to receive its first major military whipping, in Vietnam; when rebellion against the established order of things became rife; when the Jesustanis turned from being a great warrior race into aimless hedonists?

For the Jesustanis, I fear, it is too late: once seduced into the ways of the labyrinth of error, history tells us, few peoples ever discover a way out. I must confess, though, that I have emerged from this introspection with a new respect for the leaders of Hindustan. Is it any wonder that forbearers, obsessed with washing as they were, failed to build great empires? Some in Hindustan, a pox be upon these ignorant animals, have complained bitterly of the failure of municipal authorities to provide adequate water for bathing in this bitter season of heat and affliction. It is, I now realize, by design that our lords have so acted. All the young men of Hindustan have are two minutes to wash their bodies with a few mugs of tepid water drawn from a small plastic bucket – and another one to play with their penises while pretending to be soaping themselves, the real reason why adolescents in privacy-starved countries such as ours take baths.

It will not last for long: soon, the dam will burst and they will go forth and conquer. Our time of greatness is coming – slowly, perhaps, but I can say with confidence, surely. A little more deprivation is all we need.

Monday, June 20, 2005

The Death of Free Fuddi

Perhaps it is already too late; in which case this will be but a lament. Perhaps, on the other hand, I am raising the alarm too soon; some future chronicler of our times might record that this dispatch was just the first of many warnings which were ignored.

Yet the truth must be told: and now is as good a time to tell it as any. A revolution is brewing in the farthest provinces of Jesustan which could destroy our civilization as we know it. Few men have risen themselves from their stupor to pay heed to these dark events; even fewer have understood their full import. The revolution that stares Jesustan in the face but from which it has chosen to turn its gaze threatens to strip free men of their greatest freedom: free pussy.

Alarmist? Indelicate? Even obscene? Forgive me, my readers, but there are no words but plain ones with which my tale can be told.

One of the less pleasant things about being an itinerant traveler in this part of the world is that it occasionally involves escorting the odd Hindustani who wishes to experience the real Jesustan. Which in turn involves something even worse: meeting the natives. Which in turn involves traveling somewhere where you cannot get a decent bottle of Montrachet Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, 1978, or a sliver of Caciocavallo Podolico for love or for money, and where the men wear Old Spice. You can even end up in places, incredible as it might sound, where they have never heard of Butter Chicken and Thunderbolt.

And so it was that I was assigned the dubious task of escorting Mr. K. across a little known part of Jesustan, the vast desert wastes of Nevada, in search of the untold wealth I had claimed in my reports to my masters in Hindustan litters the pavements of this land (I had lied, but I beg your indulgence; it is much more expensive than you would imagine to fund even a modest lifestyle in strange parts where loneliness will lead even men of sterling moral character such as myself to the odd indiscretion). Deviousness alone could save me. I turned to the services of a certain young lady named Saxophone Suzy, renowned for her skills at blowing on things other than musical instruments, to divert the attentions of Mr. K.

It all went rather well, apart from a few moment of embarrassment – caused when Mr. K. whipped out what he imagined in his alcohol-fuelled frenzy to be his fire-hose like penis, banged it on the bar-counter and demanded to know whether Saxophone Suzy likee killi (it cost a good deal of money to have all the glass shards pulled out of both Mr. K.’s killi and Saxophone Suzy’s face, not to mention the discomfiture of having to explain the situation to the staff of Reno General’s good doctors). Anyway, in the emergency room, Saxophone Suzy and I had the opportunity to discuss our respective miseries. “I have an offer for you”, she said, briefly raising the hope that she might be willing to transfer the services Mr. K. was by now in no position to have rendered to him.

It turned out the deal she had in mind was lot, lot better.

You see, it turned out an auction was to be held soon which offered us both a way out of servitude. Inez’s Bar is a well-frequented facility in the charming little town of Elko, Nevada. It has been in business for over a hundred years, and is something of a local landmark. It has a full bar and stockroom, and six immaculate, charming bedrooms. The facility was renovated in 1996, and, in addition to a computerized accounting system, has a fifteen foot concrete wheelchair ramp, which means it meets the access requirement of the American Disability Act. There is, of course, the minor matter of the neighbors. You see, Inez’s isn’t only a bar. Its also home to, well, ahem, ladies of a certain kind. It’s the Inez’ Bar and Brothel, (cat house, a whorehouse, a house of pleasure, a house of ill-repute, ho-house, take your pick) licensed, bilkul No. 1 dhanda, by the State of Nevada.

Don’t get me wrong. Elko itself is a wonderful little place. Northern Nevada has an extraordinary history, and the town has more museums per capital than any other place in the United States. It hosts a cowboy poetry festival each year, and was voted ‘Number One Small Town To Raise A Family’ in 1994, evidence if more was needed that happy children must have a happy father. Anyway, it turns out Nevada is littered with establishments of this kind, several of them on sale. There’s Angel’s Ladies, in Beatty, just a short drive from the famed Death Valley which in addition to its other assets comes complete with a vegetable garden and drip-irrigation system, for women (and men) who think cucumbers are better than men. For others with vegetable inclinations, or so I assume, there’s also the Cherry Patch Whore House; for the zoophile, there’s Chicken’s Inn.

Now, it turns out there’s a pretty penny, if you’ll excuse the unfortunate turn of phrase, to be made. Which isn’t surprising, because the services at these establishments aren’t cheap: a hand-job can start at $100, rising to $500 for what’s called a half-and-half, oral and straight . Specialties such as handcuffs-and-whips are extra, but people seem willing to pay. A gentleman named the Food Dude, for example, is a regular patron of the Bunny Ranch, and arrives weighed down with confectioneries which he pays upwards $ 20,000 to have two naked women throw at him. At other places, the sex isn’t the draw at all. Bella’s Gentlemen’s Club, for example, promises predictably enough that “the atmosphere is incredible”, but, less predictably, that “couples find the atmosphere to be very stimulating”. Lest you think Bella’s is suggesting something deviant, it hastens to add, “sexual participation is optional and available for additional fees”.

Bring Mummy-Ji. Bring Munna. Show the holiday photos to the Guptas.

From the scale of wealth-creation, it looks like a lot of people might be willing to go down that road. One prominent entrepreneur, Dennis Hof – the patron of a new Home Box Office reality show HBO show during which Sunset Thomas and Air Force Amy engage in what is advertised as recreational off-duty ghicchi with a double-headed dildo – pay pays $82,000 annually in license fees and property taxes to Lyon County. And that’s less than half of what one of his employees is reported to be able to make in a single year, after expenses. Expenses: employees must split their earnings with Mr. Hof and in addition pay $19 a day to rent rooms, eat, drink, exercise, tan, and to have their kids cared for. In other words, it’s a better paid job and a more supportive working environment than you’re likely to find in any major corporation: its not for nothing, after all, that Nevada’s working girls are legally described as “independent contractors”, and taxed as such.

What's so special about all this, you might ask? Isn't this just dollar-denominated randibaazi, Heera Mandi or Kamathipura in a MasterCard economy?

No, because an independent contractor isn't just an English-medium randi. She isn't a glorified Lot Lizard, an entity readers of these despatches will have encountered some months earlier [http://jesustandiaries.blogspot.com/2004/12/heera-mandi-on-highway.html]. Saxophone Suzy offered me a simple insight the motivations of independent contractors such as herself. Suzy-di-Mummy, like most married women, had spent an entire lifetime desultorily banging a loutish low-life lala, in return for nothing other than grief and the odd thrashing, when Suzy-da-Papa felt really affectionate. Saxophone Suzy spends her life banging loutish low-life lalas, too, but charges $ 400 an hour, which I have to agree is a much better deal. She works her own hours; she takes holidays when she felt like it, and her boss makes sure, in return for his 50% commission, that there’s considerably less risk of physical assault involved in independent contracting than in the average marriage.

Frankly, I find no rational reason for anyone to oppose Saxaphone Suzy's line of reasoning: other than that getting some is, I suspect, soon going to cost a lot more than dinner, sales tax and self-loathing induced by fake professions of love. It was in this land that they discovered that famous adage, "there’s no such thing as a free lunch". Soon, I suspect, there’ll be no such thing as free fuddi either. While the wheels of capitalism do grind slowly, they also grind exceedingly small.

Monday, June 13, 2005

The Joys of Handy-Handy

“We have reason to believe”, wrote that great Pir Sir Charles Darwin at the end of his travels to far off lands and strange places, “that man first walked upright to free his hands for masturbation”.

Of the many great differences between my land and this one, the most profound and intimate is this: in Jesustan, it is perfectly acceptable for men and women, and men and men, and women and women, to squeeze, grope and fondle each others’ private parts in public. It is, however, forbidden, in the strongest possible terms, to squeeze, grope and fondle your own private parts in public. Even scratching your balls on a hot summer afternoon (that most elemental of Hindustani freedoms after the regrettable ongoing municipal and judicial assault on our right to piss where we please) is considered, well, gauche.

For a Hindustani like me, this attitude is a little mystifying. In our lands, squeezing, groping and fondling your beloved in a public place, if you survived the riot that would most likely break out, would result in a flogging by the village Panchayat or, at the very least, the payment of a equally painful bribe to the staff of the nearest police station. On the other hand, as any woman who has ever traveled on a Delhi Transport Corporation bus will attest, it is perfectly acceptable for men to play with their penises in public: no one will bat an eyelid.

That which is forbidden is, of course, the stuff of fantasy, the font of creativity. In Hindustan, we have an endless and rich seam of slang for sex and sexual organs, where the Jesustanis have but few. But Jesustanis beat us hands down on words and phrases that describe the fine art of masturbating: jacking off, wanking, jizzing, spooging, shooting your wad, beating the bishop, milking the lizard, spanking the monkey, choking the chicken (for some of these terms, I can think of no reasonable origin, short of another regrettable Jesustani habit, zoophilia, but more on that subject some other time).

I wonder why this is so. A social historian I questioned suggested that it might have to do with our varying demographic and economic conditions. In Hindustan, we have too many offspring and too little wealth, hence masturbation is encouraged. In Jesustan, on the other hand, they have too few offspring and too much wealth, and therefore frown on the spilling of seed upon the ground. A psychologist acquaintance argued that for the Hindustani, child of an overcrowded and intrusive society, masturbation was a moment of retreat and solitude; the Jesustani, the product of anomie, looked to the gang-bang instead for what he could not find in his pitilessly asocial existence.

Now, the interesting thing is that there are some in Jesustan who would like it to be more like Hindustan, in the matter of fornication, anyway. A welter of extremist organizations, including the Jesustaliban, the Lashkar-e-Jesus, and the Harkat-ul-Jihad-e-Jesus, are committed to stamping out fornication before and outside of marriage. One group, True Love Waits, is rumored to have made at least 100,000 young people sign a pledge of abstinence. It is obviously a growing business, since full-color credit-card sized True Love Waits pledge forms retail for $5.99 for 20, more expensive than that one commodity desired more by deviant teenagers than sex, cigarettes (inside which other things can then be stuffed).

But what, I hear you ask, does masturbation have to do with chastity? Surely, if you don't want the brats to spend their time banging each other, you'd be best off letting them fiddle with their own bits instead? Aye, there’s the rub… so to speak, of course, so to speak. The authoritative Lashkar-e-Jesus website, Bible.com, notes that masturbation merely “creates a deeper desire and capacity for sex, which will lead to more masturbation. If you let yourself become enslaved to a sexual high, you will find that you need to go to increasingly extreme acts to maintain the same degree of excitement. There are even ungodly sex therapists who recommend masturbation as a way of increasing sexual desire, not lessening it. This creates a vicious circle, like the junkie who craves a fix.”

But, as a True Love Waits-recommended book asks, in a “world filled with pornography, sexual innuendo, and alternative lifestyles, how can a student hope to keep pure in body and mind”? Well, the Mormon Church-affiliated expert, Mark E. Petersen, in an essay written circa. 1970 and still widely circulated by the Jesustaliban, offered several useful solutions to the problem of masturbation, some of which I have reproduced below:

During your toileting and shower activities leave the bathroom door or shower curtain partly open, to discourage being alone in total privacy. Take cool brief showers.

It is sometimes helpful to have a physical object to use in overcoming this problem. A Bible, firmly held in hand, even in bed at night has proven helpful in extreme cases.

In very severe cases it may be necessary to tie a hand to the bed frame with a tie in order that the habit of masturbating in a semi-sleep condition can be broken. This can also be accomplished by wearing several layers of clothing which would be difficult to remove while half-asleep.


and my personal favorite:

When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell “STOP” to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind and then recite a pre-chosen Scripture or sing an inspirational hymn.

An epiphany! Mahatma Gandhi, when he sought to test the strength of his renunciation of desire, surrounded himself by naked women and then, or so the story as told by an eminent historian claims, “stared his erection into submission”. The Jesustani, as befits a virile civilization which values rugged, manly individualism above all, must stare his erection into submission in solitude, all by himself. The demons of the Jesustani’s secular world are the houris within, not the houris without.

Will the Jesustaliban win? The signs, I fear, are that virtue is loosing the battle. The Washington Post recently reported that large numbers of the brats True Love Waits-type virginity pledges claimed buggery and blow-jobs did not count as sex, as neat a bit of pambhiri and fraud as even I ever managed at school. From the mouths of innocents and babes comes the truth. As befits my years and greater wisdom, I shall go one step further: masturbation is the hope of the nations. A little handy-handy never hurt anybody. My killi never asked to be taken out to dinner, never ever complained that I never called, and absolutely never threw perfectly good crockery at me.

Mera haath Jagannath: my hand is god; and god is in my hand.

A Post-Script: A gora reader has written to The Jesustan Diaries, asking what a chutiya might be. Contributions to the cause of education are solicited.

Monday, June 06, 2005

Fidelity: The Final Solution

In Jesustan, they have an answer for everything. And if they don’t, they will invent one in short order, of this much you can be sure.

At a little desi do the other night, the very, very luscious Mrs. R was going on about her husband’s long and lamentable record of martial infidelity. I volunteered my services, as any gentleman would have done, to help her settle the score; this only served to send her off on another round of hysterical sobbing, this time even more inconsolable than the last. Mrs. E., the only gori present, intervened in her usual quiet, efficient way: “don’t worry”, she told Mrs. R. earnestly, “there is a way”.

Yeah, sure. Short of amputation, there was no way Mr. R was going to keep his killi out of the nearest available honey. Fidelity, as we all know, is one of those great problems humanity has grappled with since time immemorial. Sultan Shariyar, of The Arabian Nights, lopped off his Queen-Ji’s head, as have many others since. All to no avail!! More recently, Lorena Bobbitt went for her husband’s killi with the garden shears – she served time; he ended up becoming a porn-star. Taliban clerics hid all the local maal inside mobile tents, only to discover that the Pathans simply turned to buggering the pretty little boys of Banno’s market en-masse. Foiled again!!!

Some, like the nomads of the Pamirs, gave up fighting the inevitable centuries ago. Marco Polo tells us that their hospitality extended to the sharing of their wives and daughters with visitors. National Geographic claims this was intended to widen the gene-pool of their communities, a dubious argument if there was ever one, since I doubt very much that the smelly peasants of those parts either knew or know what a gene is. More likely, the village Panchayat just bowed to the inevitable, and decided to do away with the main consequence of proscribing infidelity, i.e. deceit. Personally, I think my neighbors in New Delhi ought to do the same thing; it would certainly make the lives of Mr. S and Mrs. K, and Mr. P and Mrs. J, and Mr. Q and Mr. N. a lot less complicated, not to mention that of Mrs. N and Ram Lal, the gardener.

But Mrs. E wasn’t suggesting either resignation or rebellion, it turned out: just a little bit of shopping. In Jesustan, it turned out, several fine models of male chastity devices are available on the market. The British manufacturer Tollyboy retails what one discerning consumer described to me as the “Rolls Royce of chastity belts”. For a mere matter of $637.00 or ∈479.00,exclusive of taxes and shipping, it ensures both fidelity and comfort. Tollyboy’s ingenious MB 100 model incorporates a “component into which the penis is inserted; it is then engaged internally into the crotch guard, which is then locked to the waistband. In this design the penis is held pointing downwards and backwards between the legs, which prevents an erection but allows the wearer to urinate without any problem - except that he has to sit like a female. Once the sheath is locked into position the penis cannot be handled. The belt is 100% effective in preventing intercourse”.

As is fitting in a free market, a number of competing models are also available for those who must balance the need to protect the family jewels with fiscal prudence. Northbound Leather, for example, provides “an adjustable leather waist band locks at four points - two at the waist, on the crotch strap, and at the hinged cage. The stainless steel penis cage is hinged at the bottom. When locked closed, the cage contains the penis in the vertical position. A full erection is possible, allowing touch, but no stroking. Four brass padlocks are provided”. Unlike users of Tollyboy’s high-end wares, those who use products manufactured by Northbound must suffer the indignity of an embarrassing bulge, but the difference in price is substantial. Models SKU 6059 and SKU CH1 sell for just $ 191.11, a price at which, the manufacturer claims, “fidelity can be fun”.

It all made me think of the sad story of my friend P, from Canada, and his search for a khoti (she-donkey, beast of burden, wife). Like all sensible Punjabi mundas in Canada, P was a bit dubious about the chastity of the local chicks, and with good reason. He decided to turn to saada Punjab, where the ganna grows tall and the kudis are pure. P knew, though, that things had changed in saada Punjab, too, and that he needed some way to make sure the goods being sold were, so to speak, as described. Since a test-drive was out of the question, this being saada Punjab, I used my formidable intellect to devise an alternate line of investigation. After he visited the prospective khoti’s house, I suggested, had finished drinking the tea and eating the samosa and jalebi he would be offered, and had made sure Daddy-in-Law-Ji’s bank balance was in order, he needed to take the girl aside and whip out his killi. If she knew what it was, I pointed out with my usual impeccable logic, she wasn’t no pure kudi.

At the first place P visited, he was almost taken in by appearances – until the kudi thwacked him across the face, and demanded to know why he was showing her his penis. Despite her demure appearance, she was obviously no pure kudi. Cancelled!!! Ditto the second place. Ditto the third. And ditto the ninety-third. It was starting to look as if there weren’t any pure kudis left even in saada Punjab, when P visited this prospect in a tiny little village across the mountains, across the Ravi, across the Beas, etc., you get the idea. The samosa, jalebi and bank-balance stuff went pretty much as planned, and P, not without some trepidation, took the girl aside. To his astonishment, though, she didn’t smack him across the face at first sight of his penis. When he recovered from the shock enough to ask her what the object in his hand was, she replied that it must be some kind of khilona, or toy.

Bells, Applause, Marriage!!! And then, on his wedding night, Pinky pulled down his silken Fab-India pajamas, and asked his wife what the magnificent organ before her was. “I told you before, ji”, she replied, “it’s a toy or something. I’ve never seen one before”. “No, my love”, Pinky said, his chest and his erection both swelling, “this ain’t no toy, it’s a penis”. “No, ji”, she replied, “what the barber’s son had was a penis, this is just a toy”.

P hasn’t talked to me a lot since.