Of Blogs and Rats and Me

Why do I blog?
This is as good an answer as any.

At this point, I'd like to inform everyone that Stephan Pastis (may he live forever and continue to draw Pearls) owns Pearls Before Swine. I don't. Copyright and all that, everything, belongs to Pastis & Co.

Pearls is my favourite strip. Not that kind of strip, perv. Comic strips. The kind they put in newspapers. Like, say, Dilbert. Anyway, about Pearls. It's my favourite strip (I love repeating myself). Not Calvin & Hobbes (it's a close second), not Garfield (third, like Ender), not Dilbert (it's nowhere on the list), not {insert name of comic strip here}, it's Pearls Before Swine that's my favourite. The title is taken from a line in the Bible, that goes something like, thou shalt cast no pearls before swine. The strip is about a bunch of anthropomorphic animals that live in a city, alongside humans. Humans don't appear in the strip very often, and when they do, they don't find talking animals unusual at all.

The humour is dark, it often comes across as insensitive, there are plenty of people lobbying for the un-syndication of Pearls, it pokes fun at many serious issues, but, bottom line is, I find it funny. Funny as in 'hahahaha if I laugh any more I'll die' funny.
Pearls, for the lack of better words, is me. I can identify with all of the main characters in the strip, except one. God, not that one, please.

The hero, Rat, is the personification of our greatest vices. And I don't count greatness as a vice. I think, when things get really really sticky, we think about our own skins alone. I don't mean that we are all always uncaring monsters, we do give lots of damns about our loved ones, it's just that we love our own selves a little more. Take unrequited love, for instance. X (yeah, took me an hour think up the name) loves Y (it was easier this time, only 45 minutes). But Y does not love X (big surprise, huh?). X is sad (understatement of the year) because (duh!) Y does not love X. What I'm trying to say is, although X loves Y, all X is wants is another person to love X. There is no such thing as an unselfish act. No, that's too general. I have never come across a completely unselfish act. Think about it.
Rat is the personification, or more accurately, the rodentification, of the worst of many of my faults, magnified into something enormous that fits into the body of a rat. He is a self-centred, cynical, cruel, sarcastic, insensitive, totally hateful megalomaniac. I know myself well enough to realise that I have a nasty streak in me. I don't kick small children, but I'm tempted to, if they bug me. I need to use a lot of restraint when it comes to not pulling their hair out by the roots when they do that to me, the force of temptation being directly proportional to the age of the child. Rat is multi-talented, he writes children's books and romance novels, owns a tabloid (The National Enquirat), and is also a highly successful (what else?) lawyer.

Pig, Rat's roomie, is, well, a little dumb. He says and does a lot of things that are misunderstood, because he did not know they could be taken the wrong way. He is innocent, not very worldly-wise, shy, insecure, a little slow, a misfit among his peers (he likes bacon). I wish I could say I'm nothing like him, but the truth is that I'm too much like him for comfort. But he's also very sweet, a description that, sadly, does not apply to me.
Rat: If you could have a conversation with one person, living or dead, who would it be?
Pig: The living one.
[pause]
Pig: You must really think I'm stupid.

Goat is quite intelligent, a loner, prefers books to people, is always the butt of Rat's ridicule, and easily exasperated by stupidity and apathy. He can't stand Rat, either, but it's always Rat who gets the last word. Goat keeps a blog that no one reads. Yes, I know, the resemblance is uncanny.

Zebra is a very ordinary sort of guy, but unfortunately, prey. There are all kinds of predators waiting to eat him, or one of his herd members back home in Africa. He's an idealist, trying to make the predators more understanding about the plight of becoming eaten. Not a particularly easy task, when staying alive is hard enough. He also has a lot of principles that he lives by, and he finds it frustrating when they are paid no heed. I could write entire books on the subject.

Most people have guard dogs, but Pig has a Guard Duck. His solution to every problem, small or big, is his rocket launcher. Not a bad idea, that. Nothing like a rocket launcher to stop others from being annoying.

Da Brudderhood of Zeeba Zeeba Eata. The dumbest Crocs on earth live next door to Zebra, and are such incompetent predators that they have to subsist on take out from KFC. Da only seemilareety between da Crocs and me ees dat me sometimes talk like dem. But that could be because I'm addicted to Pearls.


The jokes in the strip are my favourite kind- horrible puns that would leave my victims writhing in agony.
Rat: I saw my cousin Gene today.
Pig: Is he the guy that runs marathons?
Rat: Yeah, but he's a real jerk ... nobody in my family likes him.
Pig: It must be tough to have a bad Gene that runs in the family.

I hope everyone liked the new display picture. And do check out Pearls here. You can read the Wikipedia entry on Pearls here. Enjoy.

There are dozens of recurring characters, like Danny Donkey, Farina, Stromoski, and Angry Bob, who is the hero of the romance novels Rat writes, but none of them are, well, me. The day I become Angry Bob is the day I die (pun intended). Plus the strip is really complex, with cross overs, pop culture references, running gags, and all. In short, just like life. But taken in in its entirety, the strip is totally me.

I'd like to remind everyone that all of the pictures I have used here, and the characters, are the property of Stephan Pastis, the creator of Pearls, and that the copyright and things belong to him.

There are very few things for which I have strong feelings, humour is one of them. My tastes are another. There are a few more, but Medicine tops the list. I also love stating the obvious. I don't know how boring this has been, I talk seriously only about issues that are very close to my heart.

From now on, I'll be ending all my posts on this blog with a joke that I find funny. I'm going to call it *drumroll* Postal Joke.
Pig: What are you reading?
Goat (holding book): It's a mystery.
Pig: Have you checked the title page?

18 and Above

No explicit content, peepals, it's the 18 things you've all been dying to know about me. Oh, someone already died? Thou hast not died in vain, O William of Avon, thy sacrifice has been rewarded. You can read this if you can access the net from your grave. You can all thank Sreejith for this literary masterpiece.

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.
Healed scar, 0.5 * 0.1 cm, on the dorsum of the right hand, 1 cm below and lateral to the 2nd metacarpophalangeal (MCP) joint. I had my viva exam in Forensic Medicine yesterday, so please forgive me for not speaking English. Translated, it's a small scar on the back of my right hand, below my index finger. Don't be misled by the size, I bled like a stuck pig. As is true of all of women's problems, this too was due to an MCP. Looks can be deceiving. That's him on the right.

2. What does your phone look like?
You don't know what an iPhone looks like? Tsk-tsk.* I was just dying to say that. My phone is a combination of dirty silver and a particularly ugly shade of blue, thanks to some idiot at Sony Ericsson who thought he was a designer.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?
Blood, and other less colourful things that splatter when people die under torture. Makes for a very unique design. I could tell you why they were tortured, but then I'd have to kill you.

4. What is your current desktop picture?
This one, from my favourite comic strip, Pearls Before Swine, by Stephan Pastis. Zeeba Zeeba Eata!

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?
Weddings are serious affairs, sometimes a little too serious, so I think a little more liveliness would do no harm. And if the bride(groom) and (bride)groom add to the gaiety, I have no objections.

6. What do you want more than anything right now?
I want mosquitoes to practice birth control.

7 . What time were you born?
My mom went to work as usual, thinking about her maternity leave which began the next day, and how her little Arjun would be born after a month. She was wrong on all counts. I came along a few hours later, and turned out to be this 2.4 kg Amazon any football team would be proud of! Everyone was expecting a boy, because of how I used to kick. Amma's sari would be lifted into the air and slowly come to rest against her tummy, waiting for me to start again. And I was a month early, the doctor said I was as developed as a baby at full term, so I didn't have to be incubated.

8. Are your parents still together?
My dad is watching TV, and my mom is in the kitchen. So technically, they're not. No mean feat, considering the Bush-heart-Osama moments, (flashback to the time Sun Tzu visited them to get tips on waging wars), but it's been 32 years. Are you listening, Nobel Peace Prize guys? I need one!

9. Last person who made you cry?
It wasn't a person, it was a weighing machine. *sob*

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne?
I never go out and buy perfume because all my relatives in the Gelf insist on gifting perfumes, and I don't get a choice in the matter. My favourite so far was Red Door.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?
I can't stand guys with straightened long hair and tinted contacts, a fad that is hugely popular here. Somebody shoot me!

12. What are you listening to?
Moody Blues- Nights in White Satin.

13. Do you get scared of the dark?
I go to sleep clutching a torch and another one under my pillow so that if there's a power failure in the middle of the night and my night lamp goes off, I can scare Count Dracula away. He attacks only in total darkness. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and shine my torch around the room, to ensure that he isn't hiding behind the bookshelf. No exaggeration, this.

14. Do you like painkillers?
They go well with my migraine.

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?
I think I would be. Anyone who could make me want to ask him out would be capable of making me tongue-tied.

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?
Grapes. I'm crazy about grapes. I can eat grapes morning, noon and night, and even while I sleep.

17. Who was the last person you made you mad?
An ad for spectacle lenses with brand mark. Brand nahi to style nahi. What the bloody effing nonsense? I'd like to throw my Lacoste shoes at them.

18. Who was the last person who made you smile?
My cousin, when he rang up and asked for Dr. AP. :)

Anyone who has cats can take up this tag.

PS: Bill from Avon, stop turning over in your grave.
PPS: The guy who gave me the scar is actually a girl. He's pregnant now.

Ordeal by Innocence

It was to begin at precisely 8-30 AM. The victim stood with her head bent, hands clasped as in prayer, eyes closed, awaiting her judgment. She knew what to expect, but she kept hoping it would not happen. It could not happen. Should not. Death would be preferable to... Shivers ran down her spine at the thought.

She opened her eyes. The judge had entered the room. She saw her fate in the judge’s eyes. “NOOOOOO…” She screamed.

“Stop fussing,” said mom. “Everyone will be wearing Kerala saris today.”

Everyone was in Kerala sari, so it should not have mattered. But it did. She hadn’t yet mastered the art of walking normally while wearing a sari. The others had. She almost didn’t enjoy herself. Almost. Onam celebrations at college is always fun.

Happy Onam, people.

Practice, In theory

We were really surprised to hear that we would be having a theory class on Forensic Medicine that day, since the university had held the theory exam a week ago. The practical exams were to start the following week, and all the departments had announced their intention of giving us lab revision classes. All of us had totally forgotten what congested spleens looked like under a microscope, and it was real nice of them to do that, especially when the trouble we've made over our year and a half is considered.

It came as real shock that the Forensic guys were taking a theory class, and that too from 9.30 AM to 3.30 PM. That's 7 hours, for the mathematically challenged geniuses like me. Almost everyone turned up for the class with unquenchable enthusiasm, an astonishing event, since the turnout is only about 78% for the classes where attendance is compulsory. The class turned out to be about the theoretical aspects of the practical exam, and was a total washout. Nothing more will be said about the class, and the title loses its relevance.

Unaccustomed to having both eyes open as early as 9.30 in the AM, I had raced to class with the minimum of fuss, without wasting time over frivolities such as breakfast. I had brushed my teeth and washed my face, but only out of consideration for R's feelings, who is submitted to the rare privilege of being my friend. After the lecturers exited the torturing chamber at 11.30 amidst thundering applause (the 3.30 ending time turned out to be a myth), I dragged R to the canteen and polished off some atrocious food giving it the respect all edible materials command. After racking our brains for a while, we discovered there was nothing further to do at college, and tearfully decided to return home.

We were joined on our journey to the bus stop by G, and the three crazy females had fun giving a cute guy the directions to the office. I believe he ended up at the pharmacy college. Suddenly, A rang up R and announced that all the inmates of the Ladies' Hostel were going to catch the new Harry Potter movie, were we interested in joining them. Even after years of friendship, I haven't been able to convince R that the Harry Potter books are fun to read, and she nixed the idea on the spot. So did I, but for different reasons (a book is a book is a book is not a movie). G had already seen it, and considered 2 hours from her life as hopelessly wasted.

The three of us walked on,waiting for the next cute guy to pop up, when G suggested we see the new comedy. R and I liked the idea, and we rang up A to discuss the new development, but A remained true to Umbridge. That's when we ran into our good friend K, and begged him on our knees to accompany us, promising him a place in heaven as St. Peter's right hand man, since 3 'little' girls isn't a strong enough number for my folks. But K said he was going to see Harry Potter no matter what, but a couple of his friends were getting the tickets to the comedy that very second and to call one of them to book us tickets if we wanted to go. Torn by K's betrayal, we wearily trudged to the bus stop. Everyone we met on the way had the same thing to say, "Ha-rry. Ha-rry. Ha-rry." Unable to take more of this harrying, the three heartbroken girls decided to drown their sorrows in Sprite, and unhappily took a detour to the bakery.

After a couple of swigs from the Sprite bottle, washed down by a sandwich, our spirits rose high enough to catch a bus to the Planetarium. But Fate had a different idea...

While in the bus, G's boyfriend, N, rang her up and said he'd go with us, even though he'd seen the movie twice. Moved by his sacrifice, we arranged for K's friends to book us tickets. Having an hour and a half left for the movie to begin, we thought we'd sample the delights the planetarium had to offer, only to discover that the planet show began at 2.30, the same time as our movie.

That's when I realized we had no idea where the movie theatre was. N informed us over the phone that it was only a 5 minute walk from Big Bazaar. That was all we needed to hear. The next thing I knew, we were taking the escalator to the clothes section at Big Bazaar. All hail department stores. It's a deep unsolvable mystery, how we lost track of time. The highlight of the mad rush to the theatre at 2.28 PM was running into the seedy lodge next to the movie house.

We found N waiting outside with our tickets, and entered the hall just as as the movie began. The first sight that greeted our eyes as we shuffled inside was a smiling K waving to us. A closer look revealed the reason for his smile, almost all the seats in the balcony were occupied by our classmates from the Ladies' Hostel. Then the lights went off, we switched off our brains for a couple of hours and watched Communism being massacred on the screen.

I've been busy. Studying.

The title isn't true, you know. It's true that my exams have been going on for the last 3 months, the last I checked. Yeah, yeah, I know. But I haven't been busy studying. I've been busy lazing around every couple of days, then getting all edgy and panicky the day before the exam, ringing up R for 'inspiration' only to find out she's in the exact same state, and hanging up after a zillion "What's wrong with us?", "Why are we like this?" and "Maybe it's the climate.", noticing the situation is worse since I just spent an hour on the phone, bringing on another panic attack, prompting me to attempt an all-nighter, and then falling asleep at 1230 hours to wake up at 1000 hours the next (or technically, the same) morning with the revelation that there are 20 chapters left, and less than 4 hours in which to complete that. That's when I get busy.

Where does all this terrifying efficiency go when I know the exam is still a couple of days off? I read 200 pages in less than 2 hours the night before the exam, but I get through only about half a page (alright, half a paragraph) a day otherwise. I can watch TV for hours, browse for even longer periods, and these days I manage about 12 hours' sleep. Oh, my God. What is wrong with me?

Penicillin, here I come.