Chinese Whispers

Chinese Whispers - A Short One-Act Play

Cast of Characters:

Mary - Woman

Jane - Another Woman

Time and Place:

Any Place , Any Time

Mary: OMG Jane Did you know that..but I really can't tell you..

Jane: No Jane tell me ..

Mary: I've got some HOT news. I promised to keep it a secret but I'll tell only you and you must promise not to tell anyone else. That totally hot guy from Mizoram Kima is dating Bipasha!

Jane: Kima hot? Hah..no way but that's really big news. How did you get to know?

Mary: Oh well my sister Susan heard it from her colleague Sanjana who overheard Annie and Preeti discussing it in the ladies room... it seems they saw it on some other girl's facebook status stating that she saw Kima patting Jennifer on her shoulder so its obvious that Kima is dating Bipasha!

---------------------------~the end~-------------------------------

Chinese Whispers is the name of a game we used to play when we were kids - We'd sit in a circle and one kid would whisper something to another kid to his right or left and the other kid would whisper what he/she was told to the next person and so on and by the time the whispers reached the last kid the original whisper would have been totally distorted. And that's exactly how rumours are spread in real life.

I have often been the victim of some really wild rumours but this one is my favourite - this happened a while ago and I won't mention any names. Sometime ago in 2005 I was at work and a friend of mine sends me a text message - (His girlfriend had recently dumped him and he was feeling rather blue) "I am at so and so lake.. I am going to jump in and I don't know how to swim. Goodbye". I got really worried and I immediately took an auto to that lake assuming that he was trying to kill himself. I searched for him (or his body) but there were no signs of him (or dead body).

To cut a long story short (TCALSS) it all ended well after I called up some friends and we went to his place and found him drunk and fast asleep . Two weeks later my mother and father call me up and my mother told me that someone told her that my girlfriend tried to commit suicide 'cause I dumped her ! I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It was so funny and at the same time infuriating that people spread this particular rumour. Anyway that story too also ended well after I explained everything.

Women seem to love gossiping and spreading unfounded rumours much more than men (but that's an universal truth so I won't elaborate on that.) It probably is encoded in their DNA or something. Some of it is harmless but a lot of it is malicious and can lead to a lot of people getting hurt and getting beaten up or being drowned in a pond with their body encased in a block of cement . Even if we know for sure that someone is hiding a dirty little secret it is best to keep it to oneself and not let the whole world know about it. Various religions consider gossiping and spreading rumours as a grave sin. Islam considers gossiping as bad as eating the flesh of your own brother and the Bible equates gossiping with murder!

I'm aware of only one instance when rumours and gossip ended up in something good coming out of it - someone spread a rumour that a guy I know and some girl were sleeping around. None of it was true and both parties were very embarassed about it. The funny thing was they didn't even know each other . So one day they met up to clear up this rumour and TCALSS they ended up falling in love (and are still together after 3 years!). Now if only someone would start a similar rumour about Megan Fox and myself then maybe she'd want to meet up with me to clear up the situation and maybe things could happen...

Interlude/When You Are Old

A short break from "heavy duty blogging" -

Robert Frost's Stopping by Woods.. used to be my favourite poem. Now I've found a new favourite poem. Sorry Frosty. This one's called When You Are Old and was written by William Butler Yeats. I'm not big on poems especially abstract ones and this one is pretty straightforward as far as I can tell but if you were to google it you'll find that its about "rich mythical imagery" and "an abstract image issuing from a more concrete description of loneliness and regret". Big words flummox me :). Let me enjoy the poem for what I feel it portrays. Love -

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Such a sad and beautiful poem .

Note: The 'imagery' in this blog entry was provided by U J-i .My constant pestering of her to take a picture of an old Mizo lady inspired her to blog about it :). You can go read about it on her blog -

http://calliopes-canticles.blogspot.com/2009/08/whose-perspective-is-it-anyway.html

A poorly written diary chronicling the events of my visit home to Aizawl

July 1:- "Meru City Taxi" arrives at 4 am to pick me up. Try to make eye contact with some pretty airhostesses at airport . Fail terribly. Tried same thing inside aeroplane - same results.

Make it in time for my Calcutta-Aizawl flight. Heavy cloud cover over Lengpui Airport . After about 40 minutes of trying to land and avoiding hills our pilot decides that he isn't highly paid enough to risk landing in this miserable weather and we fly back to Calcutta. When we land in Calcutta the fat Marwadi looking guy in front of me asks the air hostess if we've landed in Aizawl. Giggles all around. First time I've had a Cal-Azl flight cancelled. To top it all off I fall sick. Fever.

July 2 :- We try again. Great Success. I send a text message to a friend "The Eagle Has Landed". Friend don't care too much for Eagles I guess. No acknowledgment. Shop at the veg/fruit market on the Lengpui-Azl road. It looks like this - (pic credit: Xaia @ misual.com)

Reach home. Happy reunion with mom/niece/sis-in-law/pet cat,dog etc. Dad had actually left for Cal the same day in the same plane I'd landed in.

July 3: I visit friends; Fever worsens. Great way to start a holiday.(It wasn't actually great. It was terrible. This statement is an example of "sarcasm")

July 4: It being a Saturday I lie in bed all day and half of the night when I decide that enough is enough and the whole family drives to Durtlang Hospital. My doctor friend Chhana sticks some needles into me and decides that it isn't malaria. Whew. Instructs me to pop some funny looking pills.

July 5: Have completely recovered now. Attend church. Fell asleep. Must've been the pills I was prescribed. At night I attend the college chapel service. Notice a misprint in the hymn book "Take my hands and let them sing" . I giggle alone.

July 6: Did absolutely nothing.

July 7: I visit the Mizoram Public Service Commission Office. A friend's mother is the Chair(wo)man of the MPSC. Didn't see her. Sucks.Pic below of the office. MPSC Office.

July 8: I visit the SBI branch at Bawngkawn. Bank teller actually complies with my request without any hassles. Surprise Surprise.

July 9: Due to restrictions placed on me by the Presbyterian Church of Mizoram I cannot reveal what I did on 9th July.

July 10: A friend's daughter thinks I look like a "white foreigner". Guess she hasn't seen too many white foreigners and is also colour blind. I also re-pot* some plants. Fascinating.(Yes correct, this too is an example of Sarcasm. You guys are paying attention. I'm pleased).*(How to re-pot a plant)

July 11: I attend birthday of Family friend. Am asked 387 times "When did you arrive/When are you going back?"; I smile politely and poke them in the eye.

July 12: Church. Didn't fall asleep. Preacher makes some good jokes. I like him. Pic Below of Preacher cracking jokes. You can't see him . But he was cracking. Jokes.

July 13: I take my dog to the vet. Dogs are unbelievably obedient at the vet. Little did I know it would turn out to be the "Take your dog to the vet week".

July 14: I take my dog to the vet. Someone actually apparently brought a pet tiger cub to the vet. I see its face and I think it looks more like a wildcat with its face painted to look like a tiger cub.

July 15: I take my dog to the vet. Someone has brought a cat that weighed 7 kgs. Poor cat sits in the corner all the while looking absolutely pissed with itself. A guy suggests that his dog fight with my dog. His dog has a patch over its eye and a tattoo on its butt. I decline the offer.

July 16:I take my dog to the vet. A dog decides that it doesn't want to get an injection. Runs away. Owner chases. Hilarity ensues.

July 17: I take my dog to the vet. I cry a little. He barks a little . After a week of doing stuff together we've become really close. We promise to write to each other. It rains in the afternoon. Pic below was taken while it was raining. You can't see the rain but it was raining. Buckets.

July 18: Due to unforseen reasons I am unable to fly to Calcutta. Seeing my niece again makes up for it.

July 19: A push - a gangsta style handshake - a tiny goodbye.

July 20: Back in Bangalore. I open up Cleartrip.com ; start planning next trip home.

Did Humpty Dumpty Really Fall Off a Wall?

Alright kids lets go way back to our school days.. no not the days of high school and middle school. Most people if you asked them would say that they had the most fun when they were in high school or middle school. Pfft.. so cliched. I want to take you way back to the days when you were just starting school. I'm talking about the period from Kindergarten to Class 2 or 3 - The most important time of our lives. This is where we first learnt the three R's - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. (technically that should be "where we first learnt R,W and A.. confused the hell out of me when I was a kid but the key is in how you pronounce the words! I can see some of you now finally understand why they were called the Three R's)

For today's lesson we will be concentrating on Reading only. I'd want your rapt attention and pin drop silence. Reading first consisted of learning to read the Alphabets and numbers. Yeah the famous Alphabet song. Easiest lyrics ever! Lets skip a few chapters and proceed to the main part - Nursery Rhymes. I always loved reciting nursery rhymes. I probably have this hidden talent as a poet in me but I nowadays produce poems which are often laughed at.

For me the saddest nursery rhyme goes like this -

Rock-a-bye-baby On the treetop
When the wind blows,
The cradle will rock.
When the bough breaks,
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

I used to feel so sad for the poor little baby who fell from the tree. I used to think to myself "Oh Why did that bough break?" . I remember asking my mother if the baby died or not. Till date I have not been told the answer. Hope that baby lived or else I'll go into depression. Here is a picture which I've always had in my head about the little baby:

Enough of tragedy in nursery rhymes? No actually not - we're now going to have a look at Poor Little Humpty Dumpty who all the king's men couldn't put together again. You're thinking.."oh cute little rhyme" but like most nursery rhymes this one too has a bit of history attached to it. This website Indianchild.com tells us that Humpty Dumpty was actually the nickname of a cannon placed atop a church in England which subsequently fell down when the church was attacked during a battle. The English people liked the cannon so much they composed a rhyme in remembrance and it trickled down into our text books.

Another nursery rhyme associated with something more tragic than a stupid olde cannon is the also widely known -

Ring-a-Ring o'Rosies
A Pocket full of Posies
"A-tishoo! A-tishoo!"
We all fall Down!

This cute little rhyme is one associated with the Bubonic plague which.. er.. plagued Europe back in the olde days. The symptoms of this plague included a rosy red rash on the skin and violent sneezing and then people would fall sick and die. Try teaching that to the kids now!

Depressing stuff I know but brace yourselves for more depression - Baa Baa Black Sheep? Yep this too was not about some poor little black sheep and a boy. It was apparently about taxation where you were supposed to give a lot of your money in taxes to the king of England or something like that. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star? Apparently back in the middle ages the sun came so close to the earth that the earth evaporated into nothingness and the only surviving man who happened to be on the moon at that time wrote this rhyme. I didn't make that up. It really happened.

Anyhow my clock has now struck one and my mouse has now run up the clock and I gotta run. If that statement vaguely reminds you of a nursery rhyme then you can all give yourselves a pat on the back.

(Quick Note - Someone asked in a previous post about the meaning of the title of my blog - Angel Dust and Bones : Angel Dust is the name of an album put out by one of my favourite rock bands - Faith No More; Dust n' Bones is the name of a Guns n' Roses song. Angel Dust is also the code name for a hallucinatory drug called PCP... and no PCP is not one of my favourite drugs . I hallucinate enough already without drugs.

Red Light Yellow Light Green Light - Go

I'm fuming, I'm royally pissed. You might ask Why? Well today I was on my way to work and was waiting at a red light. There was this dude behind me on his bike who kept honking his horn telling me to run the red light. WTF! I let him pass and as he passes me he actually has the nerve to berate me for not letting him go through the red light ! I guess that's all that's needed to tell you about the behaviour of drivers in Bangalore -rude and have no clue about traffic rules. I was hoping I'd catch up with him at the next red light . I would have sat on his head and forcefully injected him with a dose of Swine Flu culture. Luckily for him he had long disappeared into the maze of auto rickshaws on the road.


And don't get me started on autorickshaws and their obnoxious drivers. Well actually you have - If you get into an accident involving an autorickshaw you are automatically always in the wrong regardless of the fact that the auto driver was driving while simultaneously ogling the girls in his back seat and had run through 3 red lights in the wrong direction and was also smoking an aromatic beedi . Try arguing with an auto driver - by the end of the argument he would have you convinced he was holier than Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul combined.


And then you have the green light honkers - they are a breed of drivers who will honk as soon as the red light turns green!! Forget the fact they are like 20 cars behind the green light and will have to wait for a little while before they can start moving. They will start honking like it was the Annual Car Horn Honking Festival. All one can do is give them the finger
..and then hope its not a gang of rowdies inside the car who will come out and beat you to pulp.


I myself have not been a saint either when it comes to following road rules. The other day I was late for work and I was in a big hurry.. I stopped at a red light but there were no vehicles coming from the other direction. So I looked around and ran thro' the light. As you'd have guessed a scooter suddenly came zooming in from out of nowhere. The driver was a middle aged guy and he screamed at me and called me an "Idiot..fool...mumble mumble..grumble.. ." I could not catch the rest of his curse words but I'm sure they must have not been very complimentary.


By contrast back home in Aizawl people are generally more careful drivers. Probably this has to with the winding and steep roads and people drive with more caution although there are certain exceptions to this rule. Also drivers are more polite and respect the rules of the road - I have a picture here taken on my last trip home. I was in a taxi down the steep and winding Durtlang road and there was a huge traffic jam and vehicles were lined up end to end down the road. The right lane meant for vehicles leading up was free but not a single vehicle broke the lane to overtake the other vehicle.



There is also another breed of drivers - the slow ones. They drive so slowly that if you are driving behind them you have time to get down from your vehicle ,check the tires, smoke a cigarette, update your blog and they'd still be only 2 feet away from you. Most of these drivers I've noticed are women drivers. And no don't get me started on women drivers. Seriously. And on that sexist note I shall now drive away into the sunset thro' these innumerable red lights that life throws at ya!

About A Girl

Once upon a time when I was in the 10th Standard I had this huge, gigantic, massive, titanic, colossal crush on this girl in our class. She was the prettiest thing God had ever created (although prettier things came along later). The first serious crush I'd ever had. Once I thought she actually smiled at me but she was smiling at our Brother (Roman Catholic Priest) who was walking behind me. That was the only time I wished I'd been a Roman Catholic Priest - this was at a time when there were no jokes made about priests who misused Jesus' preaching about letting the little children come to him. She was so pretty that she made at least two girls change their sexuality.. and boys who had changed their sexuality to reverse their decisions (but not their sex change operations..sadly).

Anyway I really wanted this girl (whose name I cannot reveal) to know I had this huge, gigantic, massive, titanic, colossal crush for/on her . In those days email, mobile phones, orkut, facebook (the usual tools to woo a girl) had not been invented yet so sending her a love song every day was out of the question. The only tools that were available at my disposal were -
1.Keep staring at her and grin widely hoping to catch her attention (maybe she'd ask me if I was ill or something)
2.Make friends with her best friends and tell them that the only reason that I'm friends with you is so that I can get to your pretty friend.
3. Write her a letter.

Options 1 and 2 were discarded pretty quickly since they could result in unwanted results. So a letter it was to be. Got out my thick Mizoram Board of School Education prescribed Grammar Text Book. Turned over to the chapter on "Letter Writing". Started writing. For about two hours. The contents of that letter I can't really remember but one embarrassing cringe worthy line I still remember went something like this - "Please ask your mother if she will allow you to fall in love with me 'cuz mothers know best". Yep Cringeworthiness of the highest degree.

After writing the letter I decided to pimp it up a bit. Sprinkled talcum powder in it. Yep I did. Quite generously too. Sprayed it with my mother's costliest perfume. Added a dash of rose petals from the rose that I'd stolen from our neighbour's garden. Red. Enclosed the letter in a nice pink envelope . (Again stolen from my Dad's drawer). Left it on my study table . Had breakfast. Went to school. Realised after reaching school that I had forgotten the sweet smelling letter at home. [Gah! Insert commonly used swear words here!!]

I visualized my father going into my room checking to see if I had left any dirty magazines lying around (no not for his reading pleasure)... and finding my letter. When school got over I slowly trudged home and lo and behold Father had found the letter. He gave me a tongue lashing I'll never forget - "You should be concentrating on your studies.. Oh so this is why you have been ironing your trousers to a knife edged crease.. oh so this is why you have been using my cologne.. Oh this is why you've started shaving.. Oh this is why you keep listening to Boyzone and Backstreet Boys" and so on and so forth. My mother was amused though - she thought the rose petals were a nice touch. Don't remember whatever happened to that perfumed letter. Probably filed away by my Dad for future reference.

So "Pretty Girl" never received my labour of love. Her Loss. Not Mine. I never tried to get to her again. School got over pretty fast. Have never seen her again since 1995. Wonder where she is now. Probably married with three kids or something like that. Or maybe she's single and is on Orkut/Facebook now. Lemme go search.. for old time's sake.

Note: People who know me.. Please don't ask me who the girl is. Not telling. Please respect the privacy of this poor girl. :)

Hybrid Theory in Practice

Inter racial relationships - ah now that's a topic that can always start up a fiery discussion or in this case - a blog. My former flatmate Sandman has written in detail about InterRacial Relationships - and it has been discussed ad infinitum,ad nauseaum and also generating lots of ad sense revenue too I expect.




I'm sure you're thinking everything that can be said about it has probably been said. Topic Closed.. right? Nope - what about us the products of those very relationships? The author of this blog (I am already referring to myself in the third person - signs of a good writer I'm told) too is one of those products and I shall venture forth in writing a lighthearted piece on this hitherto unexplored facet of inter-racial relationships. Any offence taken by you the readers will be met with a light hearted reply. :).


A little background information before I delve into the heart of the matter might be helpful. I'd be using Mizoram (a hotbed of inter racial marriages) as the backdrop for my ruminations. Now Mizoram is this peaceful little sleepy state in the North East region of India. Over here the localites (Mizos) are genetically bred to be antagonistic towards outsiders especially the ones from the plain areas of India and are referred to as "vais". (There is a long story to be told here as to the "whys" but lets save that for later).


Now over to the mid 1970s which is when my father who is from Bombay and my mother who is from Aizawl (the capital of Mizoram) met in Secunderabad where they were studying theology. They ran around some trees, flowers bloomed, brothers vowed revenge and in October 1979 I was born in Aizawl,Mizoram (to cut a very long story short). I was given the very non vai sounding name of Amos Lalremtluanga ; I used to hate having my name start with the letter A. I was always roll number 1 or 2 in school. Always a target of teachers to pick on when asking questions " Roll Number 1 - what is 30 plus 29 " .. (spare a thought for my brother Abel who was ALWAYS roll number 1 unless there was a Abdul in his class and in Mizoram that was pretty much unlikely).


Anyway times rolled by and for all intents and purposes and in mind body and soul I grew up as a normal Mizo kid - hunting lizards, climbing trees and falling down from them, stealing gear knobs from Jeeps to use as marbles, licking battery acid from those very Jeeps. But physically I didn't look like a normal Mizo boy. My nose was long. My eyelids were hooded (Yep I've never been called a chinky..dunno whether I should be sad or happy). Slowly I became aware of the Vai/Mizo divide when I got teased by other kids for being a Vai. When you are a kid you don't feel Vai or Mizo or Japanese - you are just a kid so these things probably didn't bother me much cause I don't remember ever taking offense or running to my parents and crying in their arms.


So in a nutshell I never really had any racial issues to face as a kid. I infact was called a "sap" (a fair skinned foreigner) once but in Mizoram "saps" are placed on a higher pedestal than vais and are highly desired as bridegrooms. I studied in Mizoram till the fifth standard and then our family moved down to Bangalore for three years and then came back to Aizawl and that's when the fun really started. Now this time I now looked really vai - no chances of me being called a sap now. My hair was curly, i was dark skinned (the hot summers in Bangalore took their toll) and my nose put Julius Caesar's nose to shame.


So the day came when one day in class only the Mizo students were asked to go out and practise "sarlamkai" - a popular Mizo dance form. I naturally got up to go out and then one of my teachers told me to not go since I was a vai. It was rather embarrassing but one of my friends dragged me along with him anyway. I practiced the dance but that very same night I dropped a piece of red hot coal on my toes (Don't ask me how) and my toes got swollen and I couldn't dance anyway.


And then once on the way to school I hopped onto a bus and two girls from my school stood next to me and one of them said to the other in Mizo "ka bula vaipa hi chhelo eee" (This vaipa standing next to me is so goodlooking). Good thing I had not forgotten my Mizo or else I wouldn't have had any reason to grin madly from ear to ear). As Borat would have said - " Great Success!" But there were also sad times too ,for instance there was this time when a Mizo-Vai riot broke out but I had to go to school and some teenage boys tried to pick on me but became terribly confused when I replied to their taunts in fluent Mizo.


And one time at the Bharat Scouts and Guides camp in Tanhril a mystified scoutmaster asked me in English " Are you a Mizo?" Joining the Scouts was at that time was mainly a Mizo thing ( I still can't figure out why that was the case). And this other time when I was ranked in the Top 10 in the Matriculate Exams I couldn't apply for an MBBS seat since I was a hybrid. It is an entirely different story that I wasn't interested in studying MBBS (I at that point wanted to retire to an island in the Caribbean Sea with the money I got from well wishers). Older readers will recall the controversy when IPS Officer Kiran Bedi got her daughter admitted to a medical college under the Mizoram Quota. These vais are so shameless I must say. Kudos to my parents who tried their best to get me to study MBBS - they whipped me and fed me only baibing,bekang and water for one month. I never gave in.


I now end my tale with a few notes - I am now in Bangalore where I have been mistaken for an Arab - It must be the camel I ride on, a Malayalee(???), and a Nepali among other things. For added hilarity my father's relatives (cousins,aunts, uncles etc) consider me to be a true blue Mizo. I also don't/can't speak a single word of my father's mother tongue - Marathi. When I go to Mumbai (yeah it probably might've been changed to something else now considering the time taken to write this down) I don't feel like a Marathi at all. Probably what some of you might say is.. it doesn't matter what race you are as long as you are a good person. It's what you feel inside that matters. I dunno about all that but I'll always be a Mizo and I'll happily stick to my bai,bekang,vawksa rep and our Mizo girls (girl actually)for the rest of my days.


Note: I was having a conversation with a Mizo friend the other night and this person said to me " oh so you also like the taste of Mizo dishes too?" ... The insults still fly thick and fast :)