Some random internet story……. :-)
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Charlie Sheen has slept with a lot of women, enough for let's say, "Two and a Half Men."
The sitcom star lands on Maxim magazine's Top 10 "Living Sex Legends" list having allegedly done the deed with 5,000 women.
The full Top 10 list of "Living Sex Legends" follows:
10. Bill Wyman (Rolling Stones bassist) - 1,000
9. Earvin (Magic) Johnson (basketball star) - 1,000
8. Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead frontman) - 1,200
7. Jack Nicholson (actor) - 2,000
6. Ilie Nastase (tennis star) - 2,500
5. Engelbert Humperdinck (singer) - 3,000
4. Julio Iglesias (singer) - 3,000
3. Gene Simmons (Kiss frontman) - 4,600
2. Charlie Sheen (actor) - 5,000
1. Umberto Billo (Venetian hotel porter) - 8,000
Surprisingly, the top lothario isn't anyone rich or famous (until now) at all. The men's magazine claims that lowly Venetian hotel porter Umberto Billo has charmed 8,000 women to his bed. "They crossed oceans to see me," he boasts. While guest satisfaction is the randy Italian's trademark, his work ethic isn't. Maxim reports that he has been fired after getting it on took precedence over his paid duties.
"Sometimes he was too exhausted to carry the guests' luggage," says his ex-boss
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
This is an article that appeared on NY Times columns. It is well written and most of us would feel the same way like the writer. Catch it if you have missed on the times.
Perhaps happiness, like peace or passion, comes most when it isn’t pursued.
The Joy of Less
- By Pico Iyer
“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner miracles.” The young Dutchwoman Etty Hillesum wrote that in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later. Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen,” though by then he had already lost his father when he was 7, his first wife when she was 20 and his first son, aged 5. In Japan, the late 18th-century poet Issa is celebrated for his delighted, almost child-like celebrations of the natural world. Issa saw four children die in infancy, his wife die in childbirth, and his own body partially paralyzed.
I’m not sure I knew the details of all these lives when I was 29, but I did begin to guess that happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense. “There is nothing either good or bad,” I had heard in high school, from Hamlet, “but thinking makes it so.” I had been lucky enough at that point to stumble into the life I might have dreamed of as a boy: a great job writing on world affairs for Time magazine, an apartment (officially at least) on Park avenue, enough time and money to take vacations in Burma, Morocco, El Salvador. But every time I went to one of those places, I noticed that the people I met there, mired in difficulty and often warfare, seemed to have more energy and even optimism than the friends I’d grown up with in privileged, peaceful Santa Barbara, Calif., many of whom were on their fourth marriages and seeing a therapist every day. Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either.
So — as post-1960s cliché decreed — I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I’d noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of haiku I’d imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live in the vicinity of Kyoto, in a two-room apartment that makes my old monastic cell look almost luxurious by comparison. I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media — and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.
I’m no Buddhist monk, and I can’t say I’m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I’ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a cell phone and high-speed Internet, I have time to play ping-pong every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).
When the phone does ring — once a week — I’m thrilled, as I never was when the phone rang in my overcrowded office in Rockefeller Center. And when I return to the United States every three months or so and pick up a newspaper, I find I haven’t missed much at all. While I’ve been rereading P.G. Wodehouse, or “Walden,” the crazily accelerating roller-coaster of the 24/7 news cycle has propelled people up and down and down and up and then left them pretty much where they started. “I call that man rich,” Henry James’s Ralph Touchett observes in “Portrait of a Lady,” “who can satisfy the requirements of his imagination.” Living in the future tense never did that for me.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend my life to most people — and my heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted. But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down. The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends (whose motivations they are no longer sure of). And I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.
Being self-employed will always make for a precarious life; these days, it is more uncertain than ever, especially since my tools of choice, written words, are coming to seem like accessories to images. Like almost everyone I know, I’ve lost much of my savings in the past few months. I even went through a dress-rehearsal for our enforced austerity when my family home in Santa Barbara burned to the ground some years ago, leaving me with nothing but the toothbrush I bought from an all-night supermarket that night. And yet my two-room apartment in nowhere Japan seems more abundant than the big house that burned down. I have time to read the new John le Carre, while nibbling at sweet tangerines in the sun. When a Sigur Ros album comes out, it fills my days and nights, resplendent. And then it seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued.
If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies. In New York, a part of me was always somewhere else, thinking of what a simple life in Japan might be like. Now I’m there, I find that I almost never think of Rockefeller Center or Park Avenue at all
Traveling Light
A great friend of mine decided to forsake possessions, to the point that he lived as a guest in friend’s homes, two weeks at a time. His friends looked forward to his visits, as he was an excellent storyteller and truly a brave and entertaining persona. He traveled the country, coast to coast.
When walking him to the train station after a visit, he realized he had accumulated enough to fill two suitcases, both heavy. We were on a bridge, crossing a canal, when he looked at both suitcases, declared he was “too heavy,” and tossed one of the suitcases over the side into the canal. He then smiled a huge smile and we continued walking. Ah, freedom.
— Posted by Paul Henderson
Embrace the Weird
Mr. Iyer, your experience in Kyoto is a lot different from mine. Street races, scraps with biker gangs, saving damsels in distress from would-be rapists and partying all night long on Kiyamachi-dori, Gion, festive occasions on the Kamogawa, etc.
Don’t get the lack of cellphones either, folks, some of the best mobile devices in the world are to be had in Japan. Killer fast Internet too.
Japanese TV? Funny, especially if you understand the humor, which is often crude and off-color and nowhere near politically correct.
If you are living in Japan, the very core of modern decadent consumerism, you should embrace the weird — have a bacon potato pie at McDonald’s, enjoy the white sauce special at Spaghetti Collection on Teramachi, get the 7-megabit wireless Internet for $30 a month. Don’t stick the toe in and wince and cringe, dive in! Have a coffee at a maid cafe, drink with some yakuza down in Minami-ku, get wild at Pub Africa or Pig and Whistle.
Once you have sorted out the language and stepped out a bit, things can seem a bit different. Like the time I was out in a gaijin ghetto bar and a senior monk in full vestments dismounted his long wheelbase S-Class Benz (V-12, naturally) and with his entourage jammed on the dance floor, smacking a young female companion 20 years his junior in full disco regalia over the head with a magazine when she said something stupid. Many of the monasteries I checked out in the hills had satellite dishes and empty sake kegs out back.
Sure, a bit of zen-like harmony is good, but thinking that is the totality of Japan is like thinking that convenience store robberies, shooting smack behind a dumpster and wearing cowboy boots are the totality of the American experience.
— Posted by Jason Lackey
Nothing to Lose
After a divorce and the loss of every friend of the past 10 years, I find myself living as a nomad — literally. I’ve been forced to fit 10 years worth of pain and memories and clutter into very small rented spaces, attic bedrooms in other people’s houses. I have nothing. I’ve lost any grand illusions of reputation I once held, among other things.
Even so, something wonderful has happened. In the forced silence and simplicity, I’ve discovered all of the things I don’t need (as well as the few that I do). And that is a special kind of freedom, I think.
— Posted by Amanda
Perhaps happiness, like peace or passion, comes most when it isn’t pursued.
The Joy of Less
- By Pico Iyer
“The beat of my heart has grown deeper, more active, and yet more peaceful, and it is as if I were all the time storing up inner riches…My [life] is one long sequence of inner miracles.” The young Dutchwoman Etty Hillesum wrote that in a Nazi transit camp in 1943, on her way to her death at Auschwitz two months later. Towards the end of his life, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “All I have seen teaches me to trust the creator for all I have not seen,” though by then he had already lost his father when he was 7, his first wife when she was 20 and his first son, aged 5. In Japan, the late 18th-century poet Issa is celebrated for his delighted, almost child-like celebrations of the natural world. Issa saw four children die in infancy, his wife die in childbirth, and his own body partially paralyzed.
I’m not sure I knew the details of all these lives when I was 29, but I did begin to guess that happiness lies less in our circumstances than in what we make of them, in every sense. “There is nothing either good or bad,” I had heard in high school, from Hamlet, “but thinking makes it so.” I had been lucky enough at that point to stumble into the life I might have dreamed of as a boy: a great job writing on world affairs for Time magazine, an apartment (officially at least) on Park avenue, enough time and money to take vacations in Burma, Morocco, El Salvador. But every time I went to one of those places, I noticed that the people I met there, mired in difficulty and often warfare, seemed to have more energy and even optimism than the friends I’d grown up with in privileged, peaceful Santa Barbara, Calif., many of whom were on their fourth marriages and seeing a therapist every day. Though I knew that poverty certainly didn’t buy happiness, I wasn’t convinced that money did either.
So — as post-1960s cliché decreed — I left my comfortable job and life to live for a year in a temple on the backstreets of Kyoto. My high-minded year lasted all of a week, by which time I’d noticed that the depthless contemplation of the moon and composition of haiku I’d imagined from afar was really more a matter of cleaning, sweeping and then cleaning some more. But today, more than 21 years later, I still live in the vicinity of Kyoto, in a two-room apartment that makes my old monastic cell look almost luxurious by comparison. I have no bicycle, no car, no television I can understand, no media — and the days seem to stretch into eternities, and I can’t think of a single thing I lack.
I’m no Buddhist monk, and I can’t say I’m in love with renunciation in itself, or traveling an hour or more to print out an article I’ve written, or missing out on the N.B.A. Finals. But at some point, I decided that, for me at least, happiness arose out of all I didn’t want or need, not all I did. And it seemed quite useful to take a clear, hard look at what really led to peace of mind or absorption (the closest I’ve come to understanding happiness). Not having a car gives me volumes not to think or worry about, and makes walks around the neighborhood a daily adventure. Lacking a cell phone and high-speed Internet, I have time to play ping-pong every evening, to write long letters to old friends and to go shopping for my sweetheart (or to track down old baubles for two kids who are now out in the world).
When the phone does ring — once a week — I’m thrilled, as I never was when the phone rang in my overcrowded office in Rockefeller Center. And when I return to the United States every three months or so and pick up a newspaper, I find I haven’t missed much at all. While I’ve been rereading P.G. Wodehouse, or “Walden,” the crazily accelerating roller-coaster of the 24/7 news cycle has propelled people up and down and down and up and then left them pretty much where they started. “I call that man rich,” Henry James’s Ralph Touchett observes in “Portrait of a Lady,” “who can satisfy the requirements of his imagination.” Living in the future tense never did that for me.
I certainly wouldn’t recommend my life to most people — and my heart goes out to those who have recently been condemned to a simplicity they never needed or wanted. But I’m not sure how much outward details or accomplishments ever really make us happy deep down. The millionaires I know seem desperate to become multimillionaires, and spend more time with their lawyers and their bankers than with their friends (whose motivations they are no longer sure of). And I remember how, in the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.
Being self-employed will always make for a precarious life; these days, it is more uncertain than ever, especially since my tools of choice, written words, are coming to seem like accessories to images. Like almost everyone I know, I’ve lost much of my savings in the past few months. I even went through a dress-rehearsal for our enforced austerity when my family home in Santa Barbara burned to the ground some years ago, leaving me with nothing but the toothbrush I bought from an all-night supermarket that night. And yet my two-room apartment in nowhere Japan seems more abundant than the big house that burned down. I have time to read the new John le Carre, while nibbling at sweet tangerines in the sun. When a Sigur Ros album comes out, it fills my days and nights, resplendent. And then it seems that happiness, like peace or passion, comes most freely when it isn’t pursued.
If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies. In New York, a part of me was always somewhere else, thinking of what a simple life in Japan might be like. Now I’m there, I find that I almost never think of Rockefeller Center or Park Avenue at all
Traveling Light
A great friend of mine decided to forsake possessions, to the point that he lived as a guest in friend’s homes, two weeks at a time. His friends looked forward to his visits, as he was an excellent storyteller and truly a brave and entertaining persona. He traveled the country, coast to coast.
When walking him to the train station after a visit, he realized he had accumulated enough to fill two suitcases, both heavy. We were on a bridge, crossing a canal, when he looked at both suitcases, declared he was “too heavy,” and tossed one of the suitcases over the side into the canal. He then smiled a huge smile and we continued walking. Ah, freedom.
— Posted by Paul Henderson
Embrace the Weird
Mr. Iyer, your experience in Kyoto is a lot different from mine. Street races, scraps with biker gangs, saving damsels in distress from would-be rapists and partying all night long on Kiyamachi-dori, Gion, festive occasions on the Kamogawa, etc.
Don’t get the lack of cellphones either, folks, some of the best mobile devices in the world are to be had in Japan. Killer fast Internet too.
Japanese TV? Funny, especially if you understand the humor, which is often crude and off-color and nowhere near politically correct.
If you are living in Japan, the very core of modern decadent consumerism, you should embrace the weird — have a bacon potato pie at McDonald’s, enjoy the white sauce special at Spaghetti Collection on Teramachi, get the 7-megabit wireless Internet for $30 a month. Don’t stick the toe in and wince and cringe, dive in! Have a coffee at a maid cafe, drink with some yakuza down in Minami-ku, get wild at Pub Africa or Pig and Whistle.
Once you have sorted out the language and stepped out a bit, things can seem a bit different. Like the time I was out in a gaijin ghetto bar and a senior monk in full vestments dismounted his long wheelbase S-Class Benz (V-12, naturally) and with his entourage jammed on the dance floor, smacking a young female companion 20 years his junior in full disco regalia over the head with a magazine when she said something stupid. Many of the monasteries I checked out in the hills had satellite dishes and empty sake kegs out back.
Sure, a bit of zen-like harmony is good, but thinking that is the totality of Japan is like thinking that convenience store robberies, shooting smack behind a dumpster and wearing cowboy boots are the totality of the American experience.
— Posted by Jason Lackey
Nothing to Lose
After a divorce and the loss of every friend of the past 10 years, I find myself living as a nomad — literally. I’ve been forced to fit 10 years worth of pain and memories and clutter into very small rented spaces, attic bedrooms in other people’s houses. I have nothing. I’ve lost any grand illusions of reputation I once held, among other things.
Even so, something wonderful has happened. In the forced silence and simplicity, I’ve discovered all of the things I don’t need (as well as the few that I do). And that is a special kind of freedom, I think.
— Posted by Amanda
Monday, June 08, 2009
Article from Newsweek
-- This is a newsweek article this week. READ this and you would play really really safe. Man it sends jitters in the spine :-).
NEWSWEEK's Rebecca Shabad spoke to Dr. Larry Lipschultz, professor of urology at the Baylor College of Medicine, about what it takes to cause a broken penis, how painful it can be, and the dangerous consequences if untreated. (Dr. Lipschultz was not aware of the daggering phenomenon or of the alleged problems with which it is associated). Some excerpts are below:
What exactly constitutes a broken penis?
A broken penis, also known as a fractured penis, is due to a tear in the tunica albuginea, which is the covering of the erectile tissue of the penis.
What does it actually take to break one?
A sudden bending of the penis when it’s in the erect state. We see it in men who are having intercourse and then just are thrusting. They miss the vagina and then they hit the [pubic] bone and their penis bends in half quickly and it fractures. They get a sudden, sharp pain and it gets black and blue. If you operate on them, you see a tear in the tunic covering the erectile tissue.
So it can only happen during intercourse?
No. If you have an erection and it’s thrust up against something that’s not going to accommodate it, or [will cause it to] bend—a sharp bend will cause a fracture or breaking of the erectile tissue covering.
Do you know if using drugs like Viagra are making men more prone to the injury?
No, it doesn’t make them more prone. Anything that can enable someone to have an erection would make them more prone, because then they would be able to experience this problem. I think basically these people in Jamaica are having an increased frequency [of injury] because they’re having these erections but they’re not penetrating.
How often have you come across that problem?
We usually see the sequelae of it, rather than the actual event. A lot of times men won’t come in when [the inital break] happens. But what happens is they form a scar, and the scar causes the penis to bend or to develop Peyronie’s disease [a connective tissue disorder which can cause unnatural curveature of the penis]. People believe now that Peyronie’s disease is most commonly due to trauma to the penis.
Is a broken penis preventable?
It’s a low incident in general. I think it’s preventable if men are more careful during intercourse—but I mean, in the heat of the moment, it happens.
You described the type of pain that they would experience. What would you equate that pain to?
I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be an 8.
Wow, that’s pretty harsh.
Yeah, it’s really painful.The quicker the person gets to the emergency room and gets treated, the more likely he’s not going to develop a permanent deformity.
NEWSWEEK's Rebecca Shabad spoke to Dr. Larry Lipschultz, professor of urology at the Baylor College of Medicine, about what it takes to cause a broken penis, how painful it can be, and the dangerous consequences if untreated. (Dr. Lipschultz was not aware of the daggering phenomenon or of the alleged problems with which it is associated). Some excerpts are below:
What exactly constitutes a broken penis?
A broken penis, also known as a fractured penis, is due to a tear in the tunica albuginea, which is the covering of the erectile tissue of the penis.
What does it actually take to break one?
A sudden bending of the penis when it’s in the erect state. We see it in men who are having intercourse and then just are thrusting. They miss the vagina and then they hit the [pubic] bone and their penis bends in half quickly and it fractures. They get a sudden, sharp pain and it gets black and blue. If you operate on them, you see a tear in the tunic covering the erectile tissue.
So it can only happen during intercourse?
No. If you have an erection and it’s thrust up against something that’s not going to accommodate it, or [will cause it to] bend—a sharp bend will cause a fracture or breaking of the erectile tissue covering.
Do you know if using drugs like Viagra are making men more prone to the injury?
No, it doesn’t make them more prone. Anything that can enable someone to have an erection would make them more prone, because then they would be able to experience this problem. I think basically these people in Jamaica are having an increased frequency [of injury] because they’re having these erections but they’re not penetrating.
How often have you come across that problem?
We usually see the sequelae of it, rather than the actual event. A lot of times men won’t come in when [the inital break] happens. But what happens is they form a scar, and the scar causes the penis to bend or to develop Peyronie’s disease [a connective tissue disorder which can cause unnatural curveature of the penis]. People believe now that Peyronie’s disease is most commonly due to trauma to the penis.
Is a broken penis preventable?
It’s a low incident in general. I think it’s preventable if men are more careful during intercourse—but I mean, in the heat of the moment, it happens.
You described the type of pain that they would experience. What would you equate that pain to?
I’d say on a scale of 1 to 10, it would be an 8.
Wow, that’s pretty harsh.
Yeah, it’s really painful.The quicker the person gets to the emergency room and gets treated, the more likely he’s not going to develop a permanent deformity.
War
My attempt at poetry....
Every day I read about the war
In Iraq, In Afghanistan, in the lands very far
Men of valor die
For reasons they think rational to die
People argue pros and cons
Of war and suffering, for peace and glory
The part of the brain makes us fight
Does the same make us cry?
Ever seen a tiger cry for killing
Or cry out ‘Dude why the fuck, you are killing?’
Animals fight for food, for self defense, to mate
Or do they fight for glory too?
We are a great mortal soul we cry
For defense we kill mercilessly
We want all pleasures carnal, banal and eternal
We seek truth and yet live a false life
For the quest unknown
Don’t we exploit everything like parasites?
Don’t we multiply like worms and fight to mate?
So, do you still think we evolved?
Every day I read about the war
In Iraq, In Afghanistan, in the lands very far
Men of valor die
For reasons they think rational to die
People argue pros and cons
Of war and suffering, for peace and glory
The part of the brain makes us fight
Does the same make us cry?
Ever seen a tiger cry for killing
Or cry out ‘Dude why the fuck, you are killing?’
Animals fight for food, for self defense, to mate
Or do they fight for glory too?
We are a great mortal soul we cry
For defense we kill mercilessly
We want all pleasures carnal, banal and eternal
We seek truth and yet live a false life
For the quest unknown
Don’t we exploit everything like parasites?
Don’t we multiply like worms and fight to mate?
So, do you still think we evolved?
Friday, May 29, 2009
Don't Judge the book by its cover
Today I got up little late and got the later bus than usual. I came to the train station around 7:35 and I was waiting for my shuttle bus to pick me up.
It’s a cloudy today and the ground was wet from last night’s rain. There was a gentle breeze in the air. It looked like a lazy day as most of them started work early because of the summer hours.
My shuttle bus came sharp on time and it was James, the driver for the past 10 months. He talks to me very well. We sometimes go to drink coffee together. I wished him good morning and sat in the bus. Normally my brother would be calling me at this hour or I would be talking to my parents, so I wouldn’t have much time to talk to anyone in the bus. Today its one of those rare days that I am not on phone and I am fresh to talk. I guess it’s probably because of the Dunkin’s coffee.
Moving on, Barb was the only other person in the bus. She was reading the news about the woman who alleged kidnapping of herself and her daughter by a black man. The news turned out to be a hoax. Barb was upset about the subtle racism in stereotyping black people. She wants to vent it out and there I am. So we were talking about our culture, family, racial divide and so on. Anyway barb got down in the D building, so I went to the front seat to talk to James as I felt it would be rude to stay in the back seat and not talk to him.
I said “nice day isn’t James? ‘Pretty nice kanna’, James replied.
He is one of the few guys who can pronounce my name like a tamilian.
‘These people are rarely trustworthy’, he continued. ‘People judge you all the time but Barb’s not like that’, he looked at me as if I had to approve something.
I said ‘I agree with you about Barb’ and smiled.
He smiled back and went on ‘Kanna, you are a smart man. Looking at you, I can tell you are a good guy and you don’t bull shit to me’. ‘Many guys look down upon me because I am a driver and bullshit to me’.
I was little surprised for one reason, I sincerely believe it is rude to assume someone is ignorant because of his profession. Why? I think so, because of my upbringing I guess. I have heard stories of chandalan’s rhetoric with adi shankara when I was a kid and innumerable other stories from my Periappa that insisted on the importance of knowledge and not the source of it. I know my Periappa is extremely knowledgeable and knows more than a learned professor of philosophy, yet he doesn’t have a college degree. Therefore I think so…
Enough digressing, although I knew the world judged people according to their color, degree, school they studied, the locality they reside and many other factors, I felt bad for James even though I personally don’t care a shit about these things in my daily life.
I thought I wanted to cheer him up; I also felt compelled not to falsely praise someone, so I told him ‘You are a reasonable person mate. You have seen world and you know better’.
He looked at me and gave a smile. ‘Damn me, couldn’t I come up with something better than that?’
I was relieved when James opened his mouth ‘Thanks Man’, ‘You are a good guy’, and he repeated it.
He turned his attention towards the road and started talking, ‘I have seen more presidents than these guys would ever dream of’ referring to the Americans.
‘I have assassinated more people than they ever think of’, he said. ‘I could kill a person with my bare hands and could kill them before they could react’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
He continued, ‘Jimmy carter personally gave me a medal for supporting the operations’.
‘How was that? What Operations?’ I asked
‘I am a student of military science’, he looked at me and gave a smile again. I wanted to clarify what I just heard,’ MILITARY SCIENCE, you said’
‘Yes, I was a Special Forces commando’, ‘I was trained by the Israelis and I fought in four wars for my country’ and he looked at me with a pride in his eyes, ‘and for other countries too’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I simply couldn’t control my curiosity. At this time the bus reached my building. I wanted to get down but I couldn’t leave the conversation in the middle so I continued
‘The Israelis, are they good?’
‘They are the BEST maan’, he said without the wink of the eye. ‘Why do these people always tag with them where ever they go’, ‘they have plenty to learn from them’, referring to Americans.
‘Hmm, interesting, so James how did you get here?’
‘I did some job for the CIA and it didn’t go well in one country and I was sentenced to death in that country, so I had to flee’, he said
‘Ten years and I haven’t gone to my country back, the CIA wants me to join them or do some police work, told them I just want to be private citizen so they had to change my identity to protect me’
He continued, ‘ See man, I have see death since I was 12 years old, look at these bullet marks’, he rolled down his sleeves to show bullet marks in his hands, his chest, shoulder and lifts his pants to show bullet marks in his legs.
‘I care a shit about death or anyone in this world including me when I was in Africa’, ‘now it’s not the case, I have a 2 year old daughter’ he said.
I wanted to continue more on the conversation with him. I had more questions for him but I was already late to work, ‘We have to sit and have a nice conversation sometime, may be you could tell me all your war stories, yeah?’ I asked
‘Anytime with you brother’, he said. ‘I normally don’t tell these things but to you I am OK’.
My belief on not to judge someone by their looks just got proved right away. I didn’t expect this Zen moment in the morning today.
[P.S – BTW, the ‘ITALIAN JOB’ movie dialog ‘I trust you and not the devil in you’ is lifted from African folk lore. James hasn’t seen the movie and he kept using the same dialog. When I asked where he heard about it. He told me that it’s an African saying.
- Also, I am going to give him some CD’s of African depiction of war. I will ask him how much of it is true and I will interview him more and will post it.]
It’s a cloudy today and the ground was wet from last night’s rain. There was a gentle breeze in the air. It looked like a lazy day as most of them started work early because of the summer hours.
My shuttle bus came sharp on time and it was James, the driver for the past 10 months. He talks to me very well. We sometimes go to drink coffee together. I wished him good morning and sat in the bus. Normally my brother would be calling me at this hour or I would be talking to my parents, so I wouldn’t have much time to talk to anyone in the bus. Today its one of those rare days that I am not on phone and I am fresh to talk. I guess it’s probably because of the Dunkin’s coffee.
Moving on, Barb was the only other person in the bus. She was reading the news about the woman who alleged kidnapping of herself and her daughter by a black man. The news turned out to be a hoax. Barb was upset about the subtle racism in stereotyping black people. She wants to vent it out and there I am. So we were talking about our culture, family, racial divide and so on. Anyway barb got down in the D building, so I went to the front seat to talk to James as I felt it would be rude to stay in the back seat and not talk to him.
I said “nice day isn’t James? ‘Pretty nice kanna’, James replied.
He is one of the few guys who can pronounce my name like a tamilian.
‘These people are rarely trustworthy’, he continued. ‘People judge you all the time but Barb’s not like that’, he looked at me as if I had to approve something.
I said ‘I agree with you about Barb’ and smiled.
He smiled back and went on ‘Kanna, you are a smart man. Looking at you, I can tell you are a good guy and you don’t bull shit to me’. ‘Many guys look down upon me because I am a driver and bullshit to me’.
I was little surprised for one reason, I sincerely believe it is rude to assume someone is ignorant because of his profession. Why? I think so, because of my upbringing I guess. I have heard stories of chandalan’s rhetoric with adi shankara when I was a kid and innumerable other stories from my Periappa that insisted on the importance of knowledge and not the source of it. I know my Periappa is extremely knowledgeable and knows more than a learned professor of philosophy, yet he doesn’t have a college degree. Therefore I think so…
Enough digressing, although I knew the world judged people according to their color, degree, school they studied, the locality they reside and many other factors, I felt bad for James even though I personally don’t care a shit about these things in my daily life.
I thought I wanted to cheer him up; I also felt compelled not to falsely praise someone, so I told him ‘You are a reasonable person mate. You have seen world and you know better’.
He looked at me and gave a smile. ‘Damn me, couldn’t I come up with something better than that?’
I was relieved when James opened his mouth ‘Thanks Man’, ‘You are a good guy’, and he repeated it.
He turned his attention towards the road and started talking, ‘I have seen more presidents than these guys would ever dream of’ referring to the Americans.
‘I have assassinated more people than they ever think of’, he said. ‘I could kill a person with my bare hands and could kill them before they could react’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
He continued, ‘Jimmy carter personally gave me a medal for supporting the operations’.
‘How was that? What Operations?’ I asked
‘I am a student of military science’, he looked at me and gave a smile again. I wanted to clarify what I just heard,’ MILITARY SCIENCE, you said’
‘Yes, I was a Special Forces commando’, ‘I was trained by the Israelis and I fought in four wars for my country’ and he looked at me with a pride in his eyes, ‘and for other countries too’
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and I simply couldn’t control my curiosity. At this time the bus reached my building. I wanted to get down but I couldn’t leave the conversation in the middle so I continued
‘The Israelis, are they good?’
‘They are the BEST maan’, he said without the wink of the eye. ‘Why do these people always tag with them where ever they go’, ‘they have plenty to learn from them’, referring to Americans.
‘Hmm, interesting, so James how did you get here?’
‘I did some job for the CIA and it didn’t go well in one country and I was sentenced to death in that country, so I had to flee’, he said
‘Ten years and I haven’t gone to my country back, the CIA wants me to join them or do some police work, told them I just want to be private citizen so they had to change my identity to protect me’
He continued, ‘ See man, I have see death since I was 12 years old, look at these bullet marks’, he rolled down his sleeves to show bullet marks in his hands, his chest, shoulder and lifts his pants to show bullet marks in his legs.
‘I care a shit about death or anyone in this world including me when I was in Africa’, ‘now it’s not the case, I have a 2 year old daughter’ he said.
I wanted to continue more on the conversation with him. I had more questions for him but I was already late to work, ‘We have to sit and have a nice conversation sometime, may be you could tell me all your war stories, yeah?’ I asked
‘Anytime with you brother’, he said. ‘I normally don’t tell these things but to you I am OK’.
My belief on not to judge someone by their looks just got proved right away. I didn’t expect this Zen moment in the morning today.
[P.S – BTW, the ‘ITALIAN JOB’ movie dialog ‘I trust you and not the devil in you’ is lifted from African folk lore. James hasn’t seen the movie and he kept using the same dialog. When I asked where he heard about it. He told me that it’s an African saying.
- Also, I am going to give him some CD’s of African depiction of war. I will ask him how much of it is true and I will interview him more and will post it.]
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Slipper Incidents
Indians have lacked ingenuity to show resentment in this election. Until last election, I have never heard of “Slipper-Throwing” incident anywhere in the meetings. Although we think this is a typical insult, we limit this insult to household quarrels and we don’t show it to leaders. Leaders always deserved bigger insults than this. We pelt our leaders with stones; throw acid on their face and even our own Tamil style of “synchronized-bare-naked-ass-show” when the politician visits our constituency. The latest show-throwing incidents are making me sick. Do you think our politicians have become better? Or we are tired of inventing abuses anymore.
Thursday, April 16, 2009
I drank my own Urine
My father always tells me a story of two brothers in his village that drank each others urine. He always tells me of Moraji Desai who drank his own urine. There are also other instances when Urine is referred like a drink in my household, Say for instance a girl in your class scores better than you, in our family the basic comment would be “Drink her Urine” to get some brain. I don’t know if drinking others urine would improve your intelligence or not but there are number of articles on Auto Urine Therapy these days. The Chinese national news paper reports that about 3 million Chinese drink their own urine. I am sure Indians would be a close second or may be first.
I have brought this topic many times to my friends. I even tried brainwashing one guy to drink his own. Last weekend, I was fucking bored with my regular activities, I thought why not try and experiment this weird thing.
I got up in the morning determined to drink it, filled the cup with my own urine. Looked at it for a while closed my eyes and drank it. I drank a cup of my own fucking urine; I couldn’t believe what I did. It tasted like salted water not very salty. It’s more like the product Vita water anyway. The great thing about it is, I could taste what ever I ate the previous day. It was truly a Zen moment for me. I am not sure if it has any beneficial effect or not, but it’s definitely worth a try.
I have brought this topic many times to my friends. I even tried brainwashing one guy to drink his own. Last weekend, I was fucking bored with my regular activities, I thought why not try and experiment this weird thing.
I got up in the morning determined to drink it, filled the cup with my own urine. Looked at it for a while closed my eyes and drank it. I drank a cup of my own fucking urine; I couldn’t believe what I did. It tasted like salted water not very salty. It’s more like the product Vita water anyway. The great thing about it is, I could taste what ever I ate the previous day. It was truly a Zen moment for me. I am not sure if it has any beneficial effect or not, but it’s definitely worth a try.
Les Miserables
You tube sensation of the "Britan's got talent" show Susan Boyle sang this song. Depressing Lyrics yet poetic.
[Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute]
[FANTINE]
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
[Fantine is left alone, unemployed and destitute]
[FANTINE]
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Happy Tuesday!
Hey, what’s up with this “Happy Tuesday” thing these days? Whomever I see wishes me Happy Tuesday. I know for long it used to be “Wow it’s Friday”, then they added “Thank God, it’s Wednesday”, then they went on to “Let’s party, it’s Thursday”, Now it’s Happy Tuesday!. What the fuck is this?
Now we are left with only one sad day in a week!! And it’s “fucking Monday”!!!!
Now we are left with only one sad day in a week!! And it’s “fucking Monday”!!!!
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