Humor - Born to Be Mild

By Gaurav Parab

One of the biggest flaws in the Master plan is the fact that men have been supposedly designed to fight. They are units whose purpose is to draw blood, to spit around and to punch each other for no good reason apart from the possibility that a hot girl maybe watching.

Then there is the occasional design error. There are men who are clearly not meant to fight. Men, who although are not able to stand up to other men, are good at other meaningless things that I cannot think of right
now.

I am one such Man and I am proud of the fact that India posted an economic growth of 9 % in the last fiscal.

I have never liked Pop music, especially the Michael Jackson collection of high frequency screams and freaky erotic grunts. I don’t think kids or juries should listen to what he has to say. But there is one piece of MJ music that never fails to strike the right chord with me. “Beat it” - not exactly the blend of vintage Jackson lack of meaning and tons of crape – is a song that I strongly identify with. Every time MJ suggests that we should all just beat it instead of picking up fights, I nod in agreement. If only men around the world listened more to what MJ says in that song instead of trying to dissolve out of site every time he lets go of a trademark pelvic thrust, the world would have been a better place to live in.

Now, I know of some people who may not be tough in the day time, but in their dreams, easily turn to Kryptonite eating, hot babe saving, fast car driving versions of them selves. I, on the other hand, am an out and out – thorough bred –– top of the shelf – pure blood – untouched by human hand - state of the art – best in class coward. I don’t even like to fight in my dreams. Even with pretty chicks (Anna Kournikova and Maria Sharapova) begging me to fight.

If there is a fight coming, I pretty much step into a pre programmed denial mode of not having the arms or legs to contribute in the impending engagement. Leave reality aside, I even run in my dreams.

But things were not always like this. There was a period in my life when hot lava flowed through my veins and I used to reply a brick for a brick, an eye for an eye.


I remember one particular instance, when a gang of strong tattoo infested men passed comments at a hot date I had gone out with. It was dark and I was telling my date that we really should have invited her wrestler brother along for the movie. The bad guys appeared from nowhere, and began to tease her. This was when something gave in my head. I knew I had to lay the ghosts of my forefathers to rest, to stand up for mankind, look the devil in the eye, and defend basic values of human decencies and all that.


I gathered my courage by remembering this Chinese movie I had seen the previous day on Television. Basically, there were two schools in Shaolin about a hundred million years ago. They taught Karate to the students since they already knew how to eat with chopsticks. One school was Good and one was Bad. Now, I don’t know how the distinction happened, but I am guessing it was because the Good school taught the kids to bow down before chopping each other’s head off, while the other taught their kids to overact and laugh loudly before chopping each other’s head off. Anyways, over a minor disagreement of who gets to work in the Nike factory, the bad school master kills the Good school’s master. This off course is the cue for the good master’s favorite student to make an entrance and try to demonstrate his own unique brand of overacting. The student (Thin lanky, just like me) bows down in front of a picture of the Good Master (Yes, Digital Cameras were invented in China before Color was) and swears to avenge the master’s death again for apparently no good reason at all. And then he challenges the entire (Yeah, all the students, teachers, books, bags, pencils) of the bad school to a fight. And he wins simply by picturing the ugly schezwan sauce rich face of his dying master, and by unleashing hidden Yins, Yans and a magazine from his Uzi sub machine gun.

So I tried the same trick. I imagined that this gang had killed my boss and it was time for me to settle the score. But unfortunately, every time, I imagined the dying face of my boss, I wanted to rush to the gang leader and shake his hand and thump his back. Did he cry? Did he beg for his life? Tell me all the gory details.

I realized that the Chinese trick would not work. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way. First one to kill wins. My girl and I paused. We looked at each other. I think she sensed the spark in my eye and realized that things had changed. I was not fooling around. This was a different Gaurav.


“Go get them my tiger,” were the exact words that she whispered.

“Go get them yourselves,” were the exact words I shouted as I broke the sound barrier in the opposite direction.

Heck, she always liked to break stereotypes, let her try this one. And while she was beating those weak punks, could she get the big dude’s watch for me? It looks like a Rolex.