More Vegetables than the Doctor Ordered..

 

“ Aloo, Can I help you?”, the receptionist enquired.

“Er yes.. Can  you can direct me to the Non-Non Vegetarian Group Inc. head office”, he answered wondering if that was a jibe at him.

The newspaper ad was short. “Beet the meat in 2 days.Free.”

The line was corny, but he wanted to turn vegetarian for quite some time. Junk food had caused his body all sorts of problems, and he believed vegetables could root this ale’ment and cleanse his system.  But he didn’t want to compromise on the taste quotient by eating boiled veggies. He wanted the body like the Hulk; but not by drinking juices of the same color.

He was escorted to a room where he was told to keep out all leather products.  Apparently they wanted to cleanse you from animal dependence from the outside as well. There weren’t any other customers to be seen. He wondered why people didn’t turnip for this offer as he was led into a glass cabin.

The cabin was filled with vegetables and herbs.  Just as he looked around, the door was bolted shut.

Still confused, he tapped at the glass door, thinking it was a mistake. Sala bakra chodne aaya tha, mujhko hi bakra bana diya.

Two doctors greeted him from outside the cabin.

“Hi. Don’t worry. The door is just jammed. I’ll just ask the security to open it. I am Dr. Jean Cabaye and this is my assistant, friend and brocholli.”

“Its Kohli”, the assistant mutter'ed.

“Oh hi. I thought  you will be experimenting on me in this cabin? Like I am some kind of lab rat?”

“No. No. No. Rats do eat meat, sometimes even other rats”, he said, trying to provide some quantum of solace to his customer.

“Haha..Anyways what’s the deal here? I didn’t quite understand what’s the routine?”-he asked impatiently.

“Nothing,nothing. We will inject you with one of my inventions which will prevent you from having any non veg items.

“Prevent? I hope this is safe. Mereko toh tere se dar lag raha hai sabji”- he blurted out to the Doctor.

“Tomato wohi keh raha hoon. Don’t worry”- assured the assistant.

The serum would change his system in a way that having meat would hurt his stomach. The enzymes secreted by your digestive tract would now be like a herbivore.

“But I will still crave for meat, wont I? I have known people who have had allergies from food, but still longed to eat it.”

“Ah.. But we will tweak your taste buds as well.  Your incisors will also be chiseled so your teeth are more refined to process your new food.”

“ Whoa! Wait a minute. Your experiment isn’t helping me to curb my eating habits, you are taking away my choice to eat meat. One is a lifestyle option but the other is a fundamental right.  These are two different things. Comparing Chalk to Cheese“

“ Tomato,Tomatar, Potato,Batato…I think you are just playing with semantics. La’sooner you stop making such arguments the better”-said the Doctor with a change of tone.

“ I have had enough. I don’t want to sign up for this. Where the hell is the security? ”

“ You have already signed up for this. My serum is odourless and is currently entering your body through the air”

He felt a sudden rush through his body which made him feel weaker. His pulses went higher. His eyes turned radish. He tried hitting the glass, but faltered at every blow.

“You are playing with Nature!!” he exhaled.

As he lost his consciousness, he faintly heard the words

“Let baingons be baingons, now Gobi yourself”

 Dhaniyawaad.

 

Horror Horror on the Ghoul, who is the darkest of them all?

Since everyone has watched The Conjuring( Kudos if you could watch it without the person sitting next to you screaming “ Arey kya kar rahi hai?, udhar andar mat jao!!!”), I thought this is a good time to put out a list of the horror movies to be checked out. The list isn’t exhaustive. Most of the ratings range from the ocassional “I told you so” to “Mummmyyyyy!!!!!!!”

1.       The Japanese Horror: No horror list can exist without mentioning the real masters to this genre. Though Hollywood has already remade these and showed them to a larger audience, it is  always great to lay your hands on the original.

The Ring Series

The Grudge Series

Dark Water

The Audition

2.       Khoon!! Khoon!! :

Just because someone is icky on the outside, doesn’t mean he is icky from the inside’- Bubbles (Powerpuff Girls)talking about Cockroaches

These guys are icky from the inside as well. These monsters just want to kill someone. End of Story. We used to have Alif Laila in the DD1 days where these monsters would sit across the other actors in the final minutes of the episodes to tell their dukh bhari kahanis. But these guys are a different league. However most of the time, the motive to actually commit the crime are laughable.

I Know what you did last summe

Scream Series

Nightmare of Elm Street

The Hills have Eyes

Texas Chain Saw Massacre

Vacancy

House of Wax

3.       Stitch ‘em up:

These movies are filled with villains, who didn’t know if they wanted to be Doctors or Carpenters- so ended up becoming both.

Saw Series

Hostel Series

4.       DSLR wala Horror Movies:

These movies are captured on hand held cameras to give a more “Real Life” feel to it. The original idea behind these movies was not to have any special sound effects, and let the viewers get the chill by looking from the corner of the lenses.

Paranormal Activity Series

Blairwitch Project

Ragini MMS

5.       The Game Changers:

Some people dream to succeed in life. Others dream to crush these dreams.

The following list will oil your creaking doors, tan up your zombies, stitch your torn dolls and subtly laugh at the genre in the face.  These movies are fun to watch as they take every cliché, every stereotype and make you guilty of ever getting scared of stuff like this.

Cabin in the Woods

ZombieLand

Shuan of the Dead

Warm Bodies

Go Goa Gone

6.       The Thrillers:

These movies are unique as the suspense sometimes kills you more than the ghost scares itself. You would watch it again not to show how brave you are, but just to get the references and hints that were staring at your face. But you chose to ignore them while you waited for the next scare to happen. Mr. Guillermo Del Toro is the best thing that has happened to this Genre.

The Orphanage

Psycho

Pan’s Labrynth

Sleepy Hollow

Sixth Sense

7.       The Classics:

These are the real chilling ones. The blood and gore is usually substituted by unexplained phenomena and the surprise element. These movies actually make you get up in the middle of the night,drink water and run back to bed because you thought someone was following you.

Exorcist

Exorcism of Emily Rose

Mama

Insidious

Bhoot

The Omen

Shutter(Thai)

8.       So bad its good:

These are the movies to be seen in broad daylight with a gang of friends, once it releases on television. The directors usually make a good horror movie at first but end up cashing in on the same by making sequels or the like. And of course, they involve really bad acting. You know the drill for these ones.

Also, my personal  favorite still happens to be Pachadlela(Marathi). The movie is scary, Laxmikant Berde is amazing and somehow reminds us of our current state. An outside force controlling a puppet and annoying the innocent.

Rooney: Chapter 27: The Decision

A fictional chapter of a fictional novel about a fictional transfer move about to happen.

It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way at all. He looked on outside, as kids played and giggled together. The past week, he hadn’t been very good at doing either. The media had extrapolated the wrong sources. Everyone had forgotten what he had given for all these years. It didn’t matter. He had been dethroned. He wanted to come out and make a statement, but he knew it would just get worse. He was still trying to learn the rules of this new reality.

His mind reeled the Scotland game. 67 minutes looked too less. The touch from Lambert looked too many.  Could this be the same at Manchester United? Persie would walk into the starting XI, and Hernandes loved to do such 67 min cameos.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He still had it in him, didn’t he? Why else would Chelsea bid twice for him? He didn’t know if the Rooney or bust headline made him look good or bad.

He looked around his living room. The trophies oozed of satisfaction. Every season, he had added another concrete coating to Gary Neville’s statement about him. His bank balance was well above what he had expected.  His agent had done a good job. So did he need this? Did he deserve this? He had already tasted this around 10 years back. He didn’t want to do this all over again.

Just a year back, he had reasoned the pros and cons. Sir Alex and he had debated this long enough. The football pundits had debated this even more. He never thought such dilemmas and his receding hairline would ever come back. But both of them did.

Chelsea’s transfer targets always hogged most of the limelight. He had seen the Modric saga. If the club didn’t want to sell, he wouldn’t be going. He had also seen the treatment Chelsea had given to Malouda, Anelka and Alex. He didn’t want to be in either situation. 

He switched on the television. The sports channels were showing the Anzhi situation; Eto’o would be available. If Chelsea were ready for his wages, they surely would bare Eto’os. He changed the channel.

 “ Fear is the the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. I sense much fear in you." –Yoda spoke to young Anaken.

Rooney thought about his own demons. He was just like Anaken, hailed as the best. He had proved it too. But was he choosing the wrong path? Would he be Darth Vader? His hair transplant would go unnoticed underneath the mask. He giggled and shook his head at the childish analogy he had created.

Chelsea was a really good option. And Mourinho was a good leader. The World Cup was coming closer day by day. But could a new team help him better than Manchester United? Would a (god forbid!) pay cut be viable? Was all this…normal?

He didn’t fear the arm chair critics; nor the ridicule of the fans. He didn’t want his goals to dry up like Torres... Or Shevchenko… Or Anelka… Or Pizzaro. A young Padawan in Lukaku was waiting under the wings to conquer the Premier League. Would such a force be reckoned with?

“Aaarghh..stop it with the Star Wars references” he thought to himself

He wanted to end this tonight. The unsigned transfer request was lying in his drawer. While taking it out, he found a quotations book in the drawer too. Finally something that didn’t mean media quotes or quoting a price.

Distracted he was.

Rooney opened the first page.

‘The pen is mightier than the sword’ – it read. Rooney strangely interpreted it as a question, would he sign it or tear it apart?