Heat Strokes and Heated Strokes

Serena Williams had an "out-of-body" experience in the brutal heat of Melbourne at the Australian Open yesterday. [link]

She is believed to have said: "I felt I was watching someone play in a blue dress, and it wasn't me, because it was so hot out there".

Considering the heat wave in the sub-continent in the searing summer season is no less forgiving these are some of the more entertaining "out-of-body" experiences that we can expect soon :

" I see this fat, bald man crying hoarse with a diva sitting cross-legged on the dais. There is a unshaven, lean fellow with a stupid grin on his face, he has probably pinched that hair-band of his from his wife. He is sitting beside her, holding her hands, pointing at her sindoor. Also, there seems to be this really important looking old man trying to read "Mere Pitaji ki kuchh Kavitaaye" in a familiar baritone to the irate unpadh crowd shouting "kajraa rey, kajraa rey". I think the bald fellow needs some protection. Both from the sun and the mob."

- Amar Singh at a rally in Madhepura, Bihar. [link]


"I see this black-ox-of-a-man trying to prevent his small raft from sinking under his weight, all the while humming absorbedly a "chinna china asaai" tune. He also has a stack of magazines with a fat lady in a negligee posing most distastefully on their covers. His passport has only two letters - VP to avoid the entire thing being overrun by his full signature, between which he is trying to etch a carefully caligraphed 'I' just for an ego-boost in these troubling times. There is also a photo of a bald man in dark googles smiling that is peeping out from his misfitted outfit."

- Velupillai Prabhakaran fleeing Sri Lanka. [link]



"I see this man with a manicured moustache brooding intensely over a list titled "Who Next To Hit On in World Poilitcs" with a picture of a beautiful woman on the adjoining table kept face-down. I also notice a file labeled "Evidence from India" in the trash-can along with a note which reads " I am sorry. Love, Mushy". On the walls I see along with assorted portraits of American Presidents and Taliban Ulemas two distinct aberrations : The portraits of Hugh Hefner and Shivraj Patil."

- Just another day in office for Asif Ali Zardari. [link,] [ link]


"I see this really dejected fellow, white hair and an air of erudition about him, slapping his forehead and crying, "Bhogobaan!!! Not Again!!" at the sight of hoodlums picnicking in front of his house, blocking his way, raising a storm with slogans of "Cholchhe na! Cholbe na!" to everything he ever utters - a much familiar cry of dissent and protest, one he was brought up to believe in from his early years, ironically."

- Buddhadeb Bhattacharya trying to dribble past a blockade in front of his house. [link] & [link]


"I see, yes, I can cleaaarly see a O-man in a sadaa-kaalo-paar-saaree doing rasta-rokos and chakka-jams and amoron onoshons in the meedeel of the road. I can also see her in a Subhash-Chandra-Bosh-Dilli--Cholo posture, pointing her index finger towards a great red building. She seems driven now that the Tatas have driven their Nano out of Bengal. She recites her self-composed poem :
Leeteel caars phor leeteel peepol.
Bangaali is a graate jaati.
Make the autos doble, treepol
Or I become attyoghaati."

- Momota Banerjee in the middle of a mid-summer rally in Kolkata. [link] & [link]
P.S - attyoghati is bengali for sueycaaide.


" Who is this man ? Can't recognize him! Put him away! Seems terribly underfed. Might be from the SWAT valley or worse, one of those Ram Sena, Ravan Sena whatever!"
- Adnan Sami. [link]


"A man crying inconsolably. A tune drifting in from a distance , "kaahe ko roye.... chaahe jo hoye... safal hogi teri aradhana...kaahe ko roye...". He wipes his tears, settles his Johor-coat and enters the MEA after a heartrendingly brief stint in the PMO. He swears to himself, almost inaudibly, "In next laaife, I will be Madam if not the PM. Ei holo amar otoot bochon" and then struts like a politician who could never care to win a election, himself."

- Pehchan Kaun ? [link] & [link]

The Drumstick Strikes Back

This is an excerpt from the translated speech that was given on 23^rd December at the International Avian Summit Conference by its supreme leader, General Hen Peck (no relation of Gregory Peck of course) in the national capital.

“My dear brothers and sisters of the fowl fraternity. (Tumultuous applause!)

It is here that we meet to make a resolution for the future. Our future. A Better future.

A brighter future, free from the gloomy confines and miserable hygiene that humans provide us in the name of poultry-farming. We have endured brutalities for a few thousand years in the name of service. But our silent subservience has been mistaken for our weakness. Even with the passage of great civilizations our conditions have not improved unlike the price of our flesh. What sold in Hogg Market for less than 60 rupees now costs a hundred. I believe that’s just inflation. But, then nothing seems changed. Human greed and appetite seems infinite. No matter how many of them die of starvation in Sudan or in Mozambique it hardly worries them. They keep gorging on our flesh and bones after facile debates on topics such as 'world poverty' and 'equitable distribution of wealth' get over in the UN Headquarters. This injudicious and biased distribution of our supreme sacrifices, namely our meat and eggs, is in gross violation of That Plateful Accord our great leader Cuckoo-n-Khamen signed in Egypt with his human counterpart. The terms of the accord seem to have been completely forgotten. As if this heinous undermining of our spirit of service and over-pricing of our flesh was not enough, I hear, some Indian diplomat had the audacity to call us hideous names by comparing our headless brothers with their good-for-nothing politicians. I ask you, What can be more dastardly than this? (A big roar goes up. With no sign of this ebbing, the General Secretary pleads to the sea of chickenity to settle down. After a few turbulent moments of thoughtfulness, Hen Peck resumes...)

I believe its time for retribution now. Time for vengeance. And what better way than to make it look imperiously ironic by stealing their plans to wreak havoc on them. Our special cells are being trained in the manner fidayeens in Kashmir and the Middle East train themselves. Only ours will be a more ingenious method. Far more sinister and claiming bigger tolls. Where they cause little damage by blowing themselves up in ostentatious explosions in public-places, ours will be a more deliberate and strategically superior method. The thing I call ‘Covert Catastrophe’. I remember my good friend, Don Meato Cock-eone once saying, “Revenge, unlike chicken, is best served cold.” Ours will be that recipe for revenge. Only this time the flesh will be ours............(pregnant pause).... and the apron too. (Crowds go mad. Females neglect chicks, males forget to brood. Roosters raise hell with their throats working overtime lest they be put to sword anytime now for crowing out of turn.)

And for performing this Her-mule-ean duty I ask of you to come forward and bear the burden of our miserable past. Only you can leave a proud precedent for posterity.

Join the Fowl Brigade. (Now howling like an autumn gale) Infect yourselves with strains of the virulent Avian flu. Look as eternally sumptuous as you and your forefathers have while gracing human buffets, caressing their palates, inviting their appetites. And then (with a cruel cunning showing ominously in his beady eyes...he whispers like the Dimer-Devil (Diabolique-de-Chicken) himself) strike with all you’ve got! The prices will fall. Many of us will be mercilessly culled. But, we must be unwavering in our pursuit, unfailing in our mission. The deceased should pass the baton (the flu i.e) to the next and the plague would proliferate in no time. Remember (thunderously pounds the desk and the podium), it is upon your ability to protect the virus from extinction on which our success hinges. Make the air resonate with billions of human sneezes. Our brothers from the Hawk-and-Vulture Council of Elders have offered volunteers for furthering our just cause. Negotiations are on to rope-in influential members of the Pork-Parliament. Get killed, you will in the process. Only ensure that you are handled with no protective clothing on the humans, and persevere, if possible, to jump out of the cauldron before it reaches that deadly 60-degree Celsius.

Soon, the pandemic will be ours. And panic our cry.

(The crowd is riotous now. The grounds replete with remnants of their excrement....errrr....excitement in the form of heady manure that could sustain oak orchards for the coming millennia reeks of the speech’s success. Peck continues....)

One vision. One motto.

Kill Men!

(rapturous applause and battle cries rend the air)

In Appetite we trust.

More so, in the West Bengal Government.

(Now a solemn shade of satisfaction coming over his violent visage, he whispers...)

Egg Chow-Amen.”

(End of speech to sustained waves of cheers and applause).

image:google wallpaper.