Ranting over a Filter Kaapi

Welcome back to my world of rants. After I lost my cool over a Chicken Fried rice and blew my top over a Chicken Dindigul Biryani, I was hoping the world would allow me to kick back and enjoy my Filter Kaapi. But no… Oh no. All the usual suspects: Bollywood, politics, idiots on the road, the Republicans and the Brady Bunch. Ok the last one just helped complete that sentence in some sort of a conclusive way. But you are getting the drift and my Kaapi is going cold!!

Let’s begin with my favorite. Bollywood! I have immense respect for the late Mr. Yash Chopra and irrespective of him being alive or dead I can never get myself to speak a word against him because, simply, we owe a huge debt to the man for all that he has created. His latest Jab Tak Hain Jaan was surely flawed beyond repair but my angst isn’t against him. I’m not even angry at Shahrukh coz if you were disappointed with him, then I’m disappointed at you for expecting more from him. My angst, and at the risk of getting shot at a street corner in Triplicane, is at AR Rahman. I mean really man, have you given up? Did that Oscar kill ‘the bollywood’ in you? If we wanted Jatin-Lalit, we would have just gotten Jatin-Lalit, right? Please don’t torture us with your Hollywood and Tollywood rejects. We expect more from you, for crying out loud we have begun to expect more from Pritam too. Pritam!! They key word being, ‘expect’, let’s not take that and stamp it below that JBL headphones gifted to you by Mani Ratnam and some change from Danny Boyle.

Arrests because of posts on Facebook!! Have you guys even been following other posts on Facebook? Long before Thackeray decided to kick the living daylights out of that bucket being used to fill water for that toilet in Dharawi, there was enough and more shit on it. Have you seen a post that says, ‘ ZZZZZZ’!!?? That’s it, that’s what it says. ‘ZZZZZ!!’ Arrest that guy!! Couple of slaps and jail food will do his sleep some good. Two girls getting flustered about their own city in a state of Bandh because a man just died a death that was due to old age and possibly a lot of pent up rage, and that becomes wrong now!! Friends, Mumbaikars and you silly cops/party workers/AR Rahman, lend me your beers, coz you guys sure need some sense to be knocked into you. Get Facebook accounts and start poking each other and you will soon realize, that the only thing that needs arresting is your senses!! And before I close on this, I just have to salute Shreya Singhal, you are one brave girl. Google her!!

Slurrrpp. Now that’s how a Kaapi should roll.

I generally like to keep things domestic, but I just can’t resist this coz it really has irked me like none else. The Republicans. Yes yes I know, our politicians ain’t any better but we got freedom a little over 60 years ago. That in human years is maybe 12 or 13 at best, so we are still hitting puberty. So we can be granted the excited bursts of energy and the confusion over that facial hair and cracking voice but no excuses in the USA and their political party system. They easily are equivalent to a 50 year old grown up man who is ready for his second divorce and third affair. Basically, he has seen it all. Isn’t it time they act their age? To see a constantly bungling Mitt Romney was beyond hilarious. Always backtracking, never consistent and with smugness written all over his backside, or his face, whatever, it’s all the same. Obama too wasn’t really Gerard Butler in 300 but then again he spent an entire term cleaning up close to a trillion dollar deficit legacy left behind by the President Sesame Street elected, George Bush. So Romney had the burden of expectation on him, and man, did he deliver on the stand-up comedy with his international policy, especially the tickler on the West Bank issue. Republicans, wake up! Smell the Kaapi and please stop spending your free calling cards speaking to your counterparts at the BJP in India, they are 13 year old puberty stricken kids who are still wondering why everything goes weird down there when they see Didi or Amma walk by.

Now for some quickies, not the sexual kind.

Katrina, my love. I forgot you earlier. We know you have legs, we all have legs. Agreed ours may not be as watchable as yours but remember this, your legs can’t do the acting for you. That starts way up there. And we can figure that out over a cup of Kaapi sometime.

Who the hell gave Pervez Musharraf the permission to even enter India? Forget that, why are we paying him Indian Rupees to open his mouth and talk nonsense about us and the Indian Army. I’m sorry but this man waged an ISI backed war against our country while we were arranging the rose petals on our honeymoon night with Pakistan. I say we dump him in the backseat of a Tata Nano and ditch him over the Wagah border or maybe Siachen and allow those fundamentalists out there to have their share of Musharraf Sheek Kabab. Wake up Indian Government, broker peace with the guys who care for it.

Now to a favorite. Rahul Gandhi!! Why are you already mute? Haan. Ok let me repharse that, why are you already Manmohan Singh? Who is filling you with shit that ‘silence maketh the man’. No it ain’t, it just maketh you a dumb ass and yes ‘dumb’ has been used to make a point. We are waiting here, out of breath now, for your supposed youth to shine through. You make Romney seem smart, hell you make Rahman’s latest music sound good coz atleast it’s not mute. SPEAK UP!!

And finally I bought the following guys tickets to Jab Tak Hain Jaan with the following seating arrangement:

• Guy who made the movie ‘Innocence of Muslims’ right alongside a couple of guys I found on the streets of Beirut.  
• Rahul Gandhi just a seat away from Kareena Kapoor from Jab We Met
• Mitt Romney next to a rabid dog. Apparently they hit it off quite well!
• AR Rahman found a seat next to the 6 year old kid I saw at my guitar class the other day. He can really play the guitar now!
• And finally, last and surely not the least Pervez Musharraf next to a hungry Richard Parker.
• If you didn’t get the last one, you have to watch Life of Pi!! Back to Kaapi now..dammit its gone cold. Screw you Shahrukh Khan and don’t ask me why.

Arz karte hain

Hum sadak ke is paar the aur who sadak ki us par thi.

Hum sadak ke is paar the aur who sadak ki us par thi.

The coffee looked strangely like tea and the people in the coffee shop, strangely, all seemed sugary. That bright smile, that overdone bubbliness. I cringed at the various forms of dripping praise that was being showered around at couples holding hands and platitudes of love and hope. I sipped my coffee and it was, indeed, tea. ‘WAITER!!!!’

I think I unintentionally disturbed the cuteness around me. And thank god for that but everyone just shot me a look and I’m sure all the men went, ‘what a jerk, can’t he behave himself?’ And the girls gave them understanding looks filled with this great discovery of dignity in their Prince Charming. Before I threw up in one of their cups, the waiter returned with what was just a whiff of coffee and a lot of milk. I cursed the coffee shop and the fact that as a native of Coorg, the land of coffee, I was being treated to this absurdity they insisted on calling coffee. And then she smiled..

Hum kuch aage badhe aur who kuch aage badhi

Hum kuch aur age badhe aur who kuch aura aage badhi..

She had been observing me for sometime or that’s what my masculine gut insisted on impressing upon me. She looked back into her book which I tried hard to squint and see which one it was. It couldn’t have been ‘chick flick’ inspired literature. It better not be that shallow! I kept shooting her the most unsubtle of glances until she turned the cover of the book a bit to reveal a Tom Clancy!! Tom Clancy, the special ops expert who wrote about elite soldiers being dropped in the middle of nowhere, wiping out the enemy with silencers and automatics and flying back to base in a rundown transporter plane in the guise of Cambodian immigrants with only their army bayonet sticking out of their pant pockets. This chick liked ‘dick flicks’ and all of a sudden I was attracted.

She shot me a glance and I lost it and began my round of Mastermind India. (Read this as one fluid thought)

Was she attracted to me? Wait, is she really looking at me. Quickly turn around and check. Ha there is no one around. Maybe she digs the whole ‘all alone with my book and thoughts’ thing.  I should have worn my kurta. Start looking aloof, stop staring. But she is so cute. No she is hot. She is both. Damn!! She is both. The kind I can take home to Mom and take home to you know..AArghh don’t be like other men. This one has real verve. Man I just want to talk to her. Like know why she is reading Clancy. How does a girl so unbelievably beautiful and delicate and with those legs and look at her feet. Do I have a feet fetish? That is just weird. Anyhow but how does she read such stuff with such relish. She is like that girl I have always wanted but man she might be complicated. But aren’t they all? But if she likes to sit alone in a coffee shop with a book then she sure likes to talk and spend lazy Sunday afternoons and isn’t the compulsive joy seeker. Ah perfection awaits you, lo and behold the one you have always been looking for. Should I just speak to her? I have never done this before but there is always a first time, right? Plus I do look the polished and dignified kind. Atleast I look it. Wait I am it. Past girlfriends have ratified. So she won’t take me as a jerk. Even if she does how can you not give it a shot? Act aloof she is looking at you!!! Look down now, coffee coffee, drink, drink. Aarggh this is horrible. ‘WAITER!!!’ Shit shit that was loud, she is looking at you. Please god I want to disappear. Now now.

We looked at each other and she smiled. I froze and melted at the same time. The waiter walked towards me with a look very similar to what most terrorists may have before they blow themselves up and took the coffee away before conveniently dropping some on my book. I stared at him and then returned my gaze on her. She was already packing up to leave. She tied her hair in three graceful moves, picked her bag up with those lovely fingers of hers, swished her ethnic Fabindia-esque skirt and walked out. I stood up and was stuck mid motion as I saw her cross the road and walk away into the crowd with her cute ponytail in view until the crowds took her away..

Hum sadak ke iss paar the aur woh sadak  ki uss par thi.

Hum sadak ke iss paar the aur woh sadak ki uss par thi.

Hum kuch aage badhe aur woh kuch aage badhi

Hum kuch aur age badhe aur woh kuch aura aage badhi..

Kuch samay baad hum sadak ke us paar the aur woh sadak ki is paar thi...