That Deep Shit Inside a Dog's Head

By Gaurav Parab, Join me on Facebook

If you have ever had a dog, then you know how it is. Those moments when he looks out of the window, or stops in the middle of the road to stare into the distance. And you are like, there must be some deep philosophical shit going on in that tiny little head.

Ever seen a dog pause while running at full steam, only to inexplicably look at a Sun Set? The fading light bouncing reluctantly off his brown eyes. And those strange times when the wild surges through his domesticated frame, making him break into the most soulful and haunting howls late at night? And you are like, there must be some deep philosophical shit going on in that tiny little head.

So here we were, my wife and I, on the bed talking about how life changes when you have a pet, and those Facebook forwards about the many lessons that dogs can teach humans without ever having a Facebook account, and how unselfish is the love they have for us, and how a lousy day changes when a dog hugs you and licks your mustache (that was me, not for my wife) and how humans are generally nasty.

Yes, we agreed. There must be some deep shit going on in those tiny little heads.

The thing with our dog Joko is that in the little planet that he has built in the aforementioned tiny head, he is my wife’s bodyguard. So, every time we speak for more than a minute, he is naturally concerned. Joko drops whatever he is doing (Except Masterchef Australia) and comes over to our room to check if my wife is alright, and if I am not being an asshole.

Here we were on the bed. Discussing the joy of having Joko in our lives. So, here came Joko, slowly at first, then rapidly like a drunk who has finally found the door to his home.  Joko staggered in, paused to look at me and my wife on the bed. And he sighed.

“You guys all right ?” he seemed to say. “Evidently you are”

Then he jumped on to the bed, looked down at us, tilted his head for a fraction of a second, and lay down with us. After licking our faces alternately, he was soon asleep and allowed us to continue our conversation.

“He must have had a bad dream” I said.

“How do you know” my wife said.

“He came over for assurance.  He licked us to thank us”

It was our turn to sigh. And my wife said that she wished there was a way to understand what goes on in Joko’s head. She quickly wiped an impulsive tear. Yes, I said. That is a question I would love to get answered before I die. Dogs, clearly are the noblest creatures in the world…and I wonder what goes on in those tiny little…

Then Joko farted and totally killed the moment.

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What Happens When You Get Your Haircut in a 'Unisex' Salon

Image courtesy Wikipedia commons 

Old post from 2006. Do join the Facebook Page

By Gaurav Parab

This weekend I decided to have a haircut at one of the glitzy Salon places that have recently popped up all over town. The name of the place was Haircut** (**Name changed, because I cannot spell or pronounce it).

So I went. All my life, I have never ever spent more that 20 bucks on a haircut and truth be told, going to a fancy place like this one was a completely new experience for me. Just like having ice cream for the first time, or like using ice cream as an example to say something else for the first time. As I stood outside the place and practiced saying 'Is this the Unisex Salon?' in as gruff a voice as possible for a few minutes, I was troubled by a few questions.

What does Unisex actually mean?
Can I afford to have a haircut in this place?
Do I need to make air quotes by raising two fingers every time I say Unisex?

I went inside.

The fact that they did not display the prices was a giveaway. A place without a Price List display is either obscenely expensive or is a place where the Price List fell down or got painted over.There were no chart of sample haircuts either. If you are a child of the eighties, you know the neighborhood barber shop always has a sample chart with 20 mug shots of Anil Kapoor in all his hairy prime. The pictures show Mr. Kapoor in different stages of hair undress, taken from different angles, and you always wondered how long it took for him get his hair cut and grow it back again for the next picture.

The point I am trying to make is the sample chart is an assuring sight. Just like the middle aged man in a Baniyan who would always come in while you are having your haircut, and signal to your barber to come over and trim his hairy armpits. Returning to you, your barber would proudly brandish the same scissors and mention that he needed to be quick about this before the scissors lost the juicy essence of the arm pit man.

Anyways, with no sample chart in sight, I knew I had to decide fast. This was clearly not a place where you just sit and the barber does his thing. This seemed to be the sort of place where you explain things. You wave your hands and you drop names peppered with European references. “I want the Michael Angelo look from the Sistine Chapel era” is what the Hair Pro keratin Expert/Scientist/Artist wants to hear.

I asked for the rate list.

The Cashier looked at me surprised and repeated “Rate List?”

Everyone inside the Salon turned around. This needed tact and grace and the elegance of a man riding a silky black thoroughbred with a neatly folded handkerchief washed with Single Malt Whiskey.

“How much does a haircut cost?”

Somebody screamed, one of the hair experts pushed a shaving blade through his own skull, exotic after shave bottles came alive and crashed into each other. The conditioning got sucked out of the air conditioned room.

The cashier, now surrounded by  two armed guards, let go of a long drawn out sigh, and like a graceful Swiss banker telling a customer his bank balance, discreetly passed a small chit with the figure towards me.

Trapped, I nodded at the cashier and confidently strode towards the fancy space age chair, mentally calculating the going rate for Kidneys at the Sassoon hospital. Out of nowhere, the Barber drifted in silently like an expensive perfume. A delicate sort of guy, I knew he had to have a testosterone bottle somewhere in his pocket for the occasional sip since levels seem to go down with every passing moment.

“What do we have here?”

“Err…. Are you the barber…I mean the cutter..the..scissor man? ”

“Yes, dear, I am the Grooming expert. “What sort of treatment are we talking about?”

And so we went back and forth. Discussing the bounce of my hair, the ruffled look, the wavy feeling and all that. And then he began. Every single hair on my head got his undivided attention. To give him credit, this was clearly far more important to him than me. In his mind, this was the final hole at Augusta and he could not afford to muff his shot. The Groomer dude would delicately setup my hair through an ivory comb and then take a step back to study the wind and refer to a clipboard his Caddy held. The decision of whether that goes, or doesn’t, how much goes and how much stays were not to be taken lightly.

Two hours and a dozen hair later (Each getting a ceremonial 31 gun salute sendoff ) there was no denying that he had done a decent job of it all. BUT MY HAIR STILL NEEDED CUTTING.

No wonder, Wodehouse had once suggested that the best way to have a haircut is by using a device invented a long long time ago by a Frenchman called as Guillotine.

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Its almost March 31st You Vampires ! Enjoy your double accounting hell !

By Gaurav Parab

Call me sentimental, but I do feel sorry for my blood sucking finance industry friends who must be caught up with that wonderful thing called the Financial Year Ending.

March 31st is nearly here! Woohooo! The punishment for the smarter classmates who got aroused whenever the Finance Professor declared that it was time to balance the balance sheet. The Balance Sheet. THE BALANCE SHEET. My knees go weak every time I say this.

End of March. The day of reckoning  for that man in the finance department whose response to any query about my salary is-

"Ha Ha. That's a good one. We cut that because of the Du Pont" 

"
Ok. but what about that" I ask.

"Ha Ha. That's a good one. We cut that because of the Du Pont"

So, you think what is this writer's issue with people good with numbers? Was he molested by a Sundry Debtor who violated his Third Golden Rule of Finance? Was he scarred for life when someone inappropriately pinched his big ( Hell Yeah) EBITDA? Or is it a state of internal depreciation and amortization?

Surely, saying Assets keeping a straight face is not difficult. ASSETS. He He.No, I just can't.

Don't get me wrong, I get the whole everyone is important in the larger scheme of things line of thinking. Like those King Cobras who kill the little innocent rats, who only wanted to cook in French restaurants.

So, what is my problem?

If anything, I guess it is my own inability to understand numbers. Things were all right till school, when I could rub my hands and tuck the digits I did not get along with under six feet of denominators, forever away from prying eyes.

"Hey, did you see that fraction ? I haven't seen him for a week?" the maths teacher would ask the class. And everyone who look around while I allowed myself the satisfaction of a little grin. The fraction will never breed again.

 But during my post graduation, I really got caught out. Like a Deer between the headlights. Not of a solitary car on a dark cold remote forest trail but in the middle of bustling Swargate, Pune.

Naked. A deer in the middle of the road. A hundred headlights from Lakshmi Road. A hundred from Tilak Road. And a hundred cyclists dressed in Lycra, taking a breather, from the Katraj side so they can laugh at me. While I stood naked and dazed.

Financial Management class. The revenge of the geeks. The Tamilians, the Marwaris - kids evolved after generations of selective gene sequencing using the Double Accounting Method. People who as babies were dipped into deep potions of Euclidian and Binomial fluid and left in valleys to negotiate margins with hungry wolves.The one's with the look that said I am pretty pissed off with you for having long silky hair, so I am going to be taking your money and leverage buying out your ass. Now sign here, pretty boy. Sign now.

I just wanted to get out of the place.

For support, I would find myself looking around at the rest of the class. The marketing aces. The unappreciated unicorns who would try to make the world a more beautiful place by flashing their charming smile and saying wise things. The operations folks, who would square root all inventory and blend blood and body fluids and engine oil to make sure the machines keep running and the trucks keep dong their Milk Run. The HR people who would flutter their eyebrows and design a little policy to try change the world. The budding Entrepreneurs who no one gave a fck about under the fear of being asked to spell and pronounce entrepreneur. 

People who would eventually go on to do real jobs. Make stuff. Sell stuff. Do stuff. Smoke stuff.

Instead of moving stuff from one column to another.

Sorry, I had to get this off my chest. I love you my finance friends. You know that, don't you? I only have a week out of 52 to say these things as I know you are too busy to respond.

No seriously, March 31st could not have happened to a better set of people.Muaaahh..
Now help me monetize and accrue this blog to my Form 16 by using the Du Pont.  

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The Perfect College Song

By Gaurav Parab

More than the ability to create magic out of nothing, I love musicians for their courage. Writing and painting are easy if you have even an ounce of talent. You can occupy a comfortable corner, express yourself, scratch the unmentionables, and create. You can erase, redo and improve all the time. But playing music in front of an audience! Wow, how tough is that. I can never imagine going on stage and remembering things like,

C, Followed by F Sharp. Maintain the tempo. Give me a flat. Look curiously at the monitor. Crack a private joke about the Sound Engineer. Back to C major.

There is just too much to remember for an easily distractible mind like mine.

And the audience. Don’t get me started on that.

You see, I have this recurring nightmare. I am in a rock band and since it is my dream, I am the lead guitarist, the vocalist and the man most likely to be objectified as a Greek god. We are playing in front of a college where the women say ‘Whatever’ at the end of every sentence and toss their hair 20 times per minute. 20 TOSSES PER MINUTE.

So, we are about to start and I am tuning my guitar and then the rhythm rolls his eyes and tells me about a problem with his G string. I look up and free fall into an uncontrollable fit of laughter. I am in distracted mode. I look at the audience. I forget the lyrics. I forget the song. I forget the language.

I start singing in Parseltongue about Sachin Tendulkar.

And they do not like it. Especially two tall Mallu dudes at the front. No, they came to watch a rock band (pronounced rok) in their jean pant with a crucifix around their wrist and I am going all mainstream on them.

“Let’s throw stuff at the stage”

“Why?”

“Because it is there”

“Ok, but what?”

“Snakes. Let’s throw snakes. Cobras, boa constrictors. Exotic species which even the Tam Brams can’t spell. That’s what Alice Cooper would do”

“Who the f is Alice?”

“Is that the only song you know? I swear Menon, next time you start singing that”

That’s how the dream ends. Always.

Returning to my fears, over years of attending many musical events, I have learned that the audience at a college gig is possibly the most dangerous. Dangerous as even at a musical concert, they are not the types to like anything musical. Half of them are only there to see the band mess up. Like faces pinned against a car window, all set to get off by looking at roadkill. Scientifically, they are Morons.

The other half are friends of the band. They first cheer when the band come on stage. Then they cheer when the band starts unpacking their gear like they know something amazing is about to happen.

“Wow. He has got his guitar. His GUITAR”

They would cheer even if the lead singer farts.

“Now that’s what I call a power ballad. Fruity, but powerful”

 So, I asked my musician friends on how they do it. How to survive the musical life. The drummer gave a drum roll before letting me into their world. And then he whispered, This is our secret. Go tell the world about our story.

·       Get angry

Musicians have to look sullen all the time.

Get crazy pissed Parab, man.

Be angry with a father figure if you play the leads, man.

Pretend someone sold you undersized undergarments, man.

And then it rained and they got wet. And you have this itch.

And you had to ride for a hundred kilometers, man.

With your hands in cuffs, man.

·        Act the part

This involves fist bumping everything that moves. (Except snakes, one of them added after giving me a faraway sort of look) You also have to say man at the end of every sentence. Learn the lingo. If you don’t like anything, say Not Cool. Say respect to everything that gives you joy.

If you see more than two men with pony tails together, shout group hug.

             

·        Avoid the girls.

Girls will sleep with you. Avoid them.

“That does not make sense” I had to say.

“Nothing makes sense, man. I am just helping you add more words to your column”

“Respect” I say. We fist-bump.

“Every time you see a good looking girl, quickly insert headphones”

“Why?”

“That’s what headphones mean to musicians. We are like doctors with stethoscopes. Commies with manifestos. Professors with fountain pens. Lab assistants with Vernier Calipers”

“Respect, man” followed by more fist-bumps.

·        Always play the songs people know.

Listen carefully Parab, one friend said. You are a good kid. Remember what Russell Crowe said in Gladiator, if you want to have Lingerie thrown at you, play the songs people know. Win the crowd, win the thong.

“But that would be a long list of songs, right?”

“Yes. Zombie. Hotel California and Summer of 69”

And that was that. A few simple mantras to live the musician’s life. And to thank all my musical friends for the wisdom shared, I wrote the Perfect College Song. If this does not impress them fools in the crowd, I don’t know what will. I call this song 

The Perfect College Song.

or The California Based Zombie Who First Died in 69

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair

Warm smell of

Zombie, Zombie Zombie

Rising up in the air.

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a simmering

Zombie Zombie Zombie

And then I thought I heard them say,

Welcome to the Hotel California.

Such a Lovely Place

Such a lovely face

So I called up the captain

Please bring me my wine

And he said,

We haven’t had that spirit here, since the Summer of 69.

And me and some guys from school

Had a band and we tried real hard

Jimmy quit, and Jody Got married

To a Zombie Zombie Zombie

Hey, hey, hey, hey, oh, dou, dou, dou, dou, dou...

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Say I Love You, Everytime You Walk Through A Door

By Gaurav Parab

Image from Wikimedia Commons

This blog is about a lesson I gained when flying from Chandigarh to Mumbai after a short personal visit. Our aircraft was waiting on the tarmac for its cue to take off. Every now and then cries of “Paneer, I will miss you so much” and “Sector 17 rocks. Down with Andheri” punctured the strangely awkward silence that had enveloped the plane.

I say strangely, for a space full of North Indians is usually many wonderful things, but rarely is it quiet. It was almost as if everyone on the aircraft had some sort of premonition about the things to follow. I glanced across the aisle to my three college buddies.

1. The excitable South Indian returning to what South Indians call their native.
2. The Mumbai girl rolling her eyes about something that was so 2012. Whatever.
3. The Navi Mumbai guy fondly thinking of the Harbor Line.

I guess, if someone had looked at me to pass judgment, they would not have failed to notice the typical good looking Pune chap furiously figuring out ways to stereotype everyone on the plane.

But that’s not what the blog is about. My study of my friends was interrupted by the pilot announcing that he expects mildly wild weather on the way to…[Followed by a pause and sound of shuffling paper] …Mumbai.

The engines revved, the lights dimmed, and the pilot sighed. (This should have been our first warning). I looked up and found the air-hostess staring down the passenger section and shaking her head like Raakhee Majumdar every time she is told that  Amrish Puri has killed another of her sons.

And we were on our way. Well, almost.

Remember those Reader’s Digest special features on facing death and experiencing life changing moments? The person at the center of it all is taking his family and friends for granted. He is going about things in a carefree manner, usually whistling to show that he is carefree.

Bang. A chain saw comes loose. A beam unhinges. Boiling water tips over. A giant Ladoo rolls down the hill.

A voice in our hero’s head tells him that he took work too seriously. He is going to die soon. He should have listened to “If Tomorrow Never Comes” by Garth Brooks and Promiscuous Girl by Nelly Furtado more carefully. He laments about not telling his loved ones how much he loved them. A moment before impact, he writes that article for the magazine, goes to the post office, stops on the way for a smoke and then dies.

Back to the aircraft from Chandigarh to Mumbai. As it picked up pace, it started to move from side to side on the runway like it was trying hard to avoid something. Or as is the case on North Indian roads, hit something. Someone screamed at the back of the plane. I closed my eyes to find an image of Bane whispering. “Calm Down Doctor. Now is not the time for fear. That comes later.”

The runway refused to run out, the aircraft remained reluctant to take off, and the awkward silence from a moment ago was replaced by one that was completely eerie. The whole plane was now one single living thing. And it was shitting in its pants. I looked at my friends.

1.       The South Indian was chanting Rajnikant Rajnikant.

2.       The Navi Mumbaikar was muttering something about the next stop being CBD Belapur.

3.       The Mumbai girl was rolling her eyes. Jimmy Choo. Whatever.

The machine gave in and finally took off. This was reason enough for someone to scream. “Don’t worry” I heard someone else say, “We are in the air”

More reason to worry, the screamer replied.

No sooner were the words said, that we heard a long and hard grinding noise from the undercarriage. Normally, it signals the retraction of the wheels but that night the noise was different and prolonged. It was the sound that lasted for ever. It was the love child of Anu Malik and Himesh Reshmaiya crying out on having his bums forced over a cheese grater. Our plane moaned and bled, and beautiful unicorns and exotic butterflies died a painful death in some part of the universe.

“What is happening?” someone asked. “Lightening hit us” Someone replied. “No, we hit a bird”, another voice said.

And then the plane went down.

This is how it feels.

Shit.

People screamed, the South Indian jumped on his seat, Mumbai girl went vacant in her eyes, and I told myself that it was such a shame to have life end this way. I closed my eyes. I prayed. Think straight. Be practical. What would Liam Neeson do?

The plane corrected itself. Momentarily. Before hitting another air pocket. And people screamed like you will not believe it. The person in front of me pressed the button to call the air-hostess. Possibly for a glass of water? A packet of chips?

The air-hostess, strapped in her chair and facing us, looked hard at that man. It was the DGCA approved method of saying “F off”

The aircraft continued its struggle against gravity by going up and down alternately. I closed my eyes again and prayed to God to help me make it through tonight. I will be nice to everyone. I am so young and unbelievably beautiful to die this way.I opened my eyes, and to distract myself read the Flight Safety Manual for the first time in my life. 

One of my friends looked in my direction and screamed. “GP Is reading the safety manual! “

The plane erupted in an explosion of screams. “He is reading the safety manual”. Someone said “Look at the Wing. Look at the Wing” People climbed over one another to throw their faces at the windows.

“They are on fire”

“They are missing”

“They are of the wrong size for this plane”

"They are like my....The Left One is lower than the..."

The wings waved back at our faces. “Hello, what’s up?”

I continued to send mental I love You’s to everyone I had known. Quickly allowing myself to go through memories, faces, books, songs, events and experiences that in their own ways brought so much joy during my time on earth. I thought of my parents and how annoyingly tall my sister is. I thought of all the wonderful friends over the years. I thought of my wife. And how her eyes glitter when someone mentions the mountains that she comes from. I thought of all the stupid dogs with all those stupid wet noses. I thought of you, reading this.

On cue the weather cleared up. The frequent lightening we had seen receded in our wake. We made it to Mumbai safely. Another shot at life, I guess. If you want to be dramatic about things.

But it was scary when it happened. And if there is one thing, I would like everyone to take from this blog is the line between being a part of a list in a newspaper report, and reading one is not as thick as you believe it to be. I learned it on that flight. 

Every day you live is made of a thousand ways in which you don’t die. While our sense of mortality should not overwhelm us and freeze us up, it is also something not to be lightly ignored. YOU WILL DIE. I WILL DIE. Everyone who reads this will die. Even those who forward this blog to ten people in the next ten minutes will die.  You death will be serene, but you will die nevertheless.

I started by saying this blog is about a lesson I gained while flying from Chandigarh to Mumbai. It is actually a sum of two parts running in separate directions. The first one is for those who find it difficult to express their love, like I do.  While we can’t control the instruments of our death, what we can do is tell everyone how much we love them. Let me just say loud and clear, each one of you is awesome.

The second part is for those who find it difficult to read between the lines when dealing with people like us. And I know, there are many, who are not too good with saying those three words. But if you look closely enough, every time our type walks out of that door and looks back – we are saying I LOVE YOU. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING ! 

There I said it. Now you should too. 

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What Men Think While Taking a Leak

By Gaurav Parab

Quick blog. May take less than ten minutes to write, perhaps three to read. But before you go on, let me warn you. This one is a little graphic. And I don't mean this sort of graphic.

The other day during an evening made completely of Booze, I realized that I am perhaps the most inspired when I am taking a leak.

Roll your eyes, this train wreck of a blog is just starting. I warned you. This one is not a love song. Or about dogs, or about life changing bus journeys. But this is close to my heart and true.

Maybe it is because in these busy times, having 'alone' time is so difficult. Even the time in the John usually involves checking the blackberry or trying to string together a lame attempt to catch up on your reading.

But when taking a leak - you are actually doing nothing. Your mind is free. Seat belts off, it is ready to go on a  remarkable journey.

So I took a quick dip stick survey ( I am not really paying attention to word usage as you can see) and checked with a few friends and they agree. Some of them, and yes we did discuss this while taking a leak , is I may be on to something big ( Word Usage, continue to ignore) and perhaps I should be writing a Self Help Book on how to use the loo to inspire yourself to greater things in life.

Hey Literary Agent, I may call this  The Eighth Habit and the One Secret to Win Friends and Think Magically Big while standing over Kimberly Clark. 

Based on my extensive studies in this field, here are the typical thoughts in every man's head while taking a leak. Feel free to modify according to your job title, what you really want to do in life, and based on your knowledge about Swarovski elements.

1) Relief. Relief. Relief. God Bless the Red Cross, and the Doctors without borders.

More importantly, God bless the man who made this toilet. He must be a genius. A beautiful genius. The Love Child of George Clooney, Melanie Laurent, and a reckless Albert Einstein - no less.

Mental Note - One day I should blog about the relief one gets after having a dozen buds and reaching the loo. My readers will find it very interesting. It will be the best thing they will ever read. Most will take a printout and light agarbhattis in front of that printout every single day.

2) Maybe not.

What is that ? What sort of retard puts a chewing gum in this exquisite Bathroom Fixture. I will be taking this American Standard off this wall, sneak it home and bring it up like my own child. I will feed it Swarovski elements after I figure out what exactly are Swarovski elements.

3) What am I doing with my life ? My best years are behind me. Seriously, what am I doing ?

4) Is this midlife crisis ?

Very poetic, since I am in the middle of my piss. This observation calls for laughing hysterically.
Slight pain in my back. What am i doing with my life? I should not be drinking so much and laughing so hard. I should not be watching people get rich on the television all the time. No TV from tomorrow.
I should be writing that book. To show them how it is done.

5) I am really wasting my time. I am an old man. But women still look at me. Does that count?

6) Should have another beer. Should have another beer. Should have another beer.
What are they saying back in the hall ? He is grown old and can't drink as much as he could.

From tomorrow, I will exercise. And not cry every single time November Rain is played.
Why not. It is a damn good song. I am a Metrosexual man, I can do what I want. I am sexy. Like the Metro train.

7) I can pee at the speed of sound. And think at the time. So fast! I am being wasted in my job. Tomorrow, I will resign.

If I do it slowly, I can pattern piss the Mona Lisa. I am really wasted at my job.

8) Not so fast. Stupid Home Loan. Must have another beer.

Bye Bye Hands free, Seat Free - Electric Sensor Loo. You are very cute and a marvel of technology. I will see you in another fifteen minutes.

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The Last Generation of the Know it All ?

The Last Generation of the Know it All ?
By Gaurav Parab

We all know one. The Know it All. That person in the group who due to spending his time reading 'stuff' , loves to point out the history of things. You know why they call it 'irritating' ?" Or why they call it 'why?"

And yes, usually I would say his/her but this time it is 'his'. Ladies, that is the hard truth. I know this is the season of awakening and revolution, but there are not many women know it alls, like there are not many women serial killers. Which is a good thing.

By the way, I do know a 'know it all'.

Me.
( If this had been a video, the camera would have panned in and come uncomfortably close to my eyes, lingered on for a second, zoomed out at frightening speed to a shot of birds taking flight)

Since the day of my birth I have known more about things than the average person. This is not me boasting, it is just my thing. If I had been boasting, I would have talked about the quiz competitions. Or hyper-linked this sentence to news reports.

Yes, it is some people's thing. Some  draw, some write, some repair broken stuff. I just happen to know things. Replace the good looks, and the almost unnoticeable and highly irresistible cleft on my chin, and you have to admit that you know a version of me. Ten years ago that friend in your group was possibly ( not fondly) called Encyclopedia. Five years ago, he became "Wikipedia". Now, that person is...Well he is gone isn't he?

Let me tell you where I went. Let me tell you where we all went.

At the peak of our ability to irritate the mitochondria out of people, we knew things because we would do this:- 1) Read Stuff  2) Connect stuff  3) Remember Stuff  4) When you least expect or want it, point out stuff.

"Damn Parab. We are trapped. The train is coming at high speed, and there is no way out" The Russian blonde said.

"Do you know why they call it light at the end of the tunnel?" The Know it All replied.

So, what happened. Where did we all go. The answer is simple. Google + Information Overload + Smartphones Arrived.

Google has been around for a while. ( And thank god Bing has not ) But the smartphone really juiced up things. Now any one with a phone can look up what is BION, when you are standing outside that tourist attraction. You don't have to be someplace, or in some situation and then go back home to get to your clunky computer to learn more about it. Heck, you can point your phone at a place and it will tell you all there is to be known. Since there is no joy to be had in remembering things, all of us stopped doing it. Information has become unbelievably accessible and frighteningly overwhelming.

Data Bits have become Rabbits. They reproduce at a gazillion information points every minute with people blogging, taking pictures, annotating things, giving answers ( and still finding the time to visit porn sites).
There is simply so much to remember and even Know It all have limits.

Limits that have been breached. After all, in the contest between remembering the Noble Prize Winners in Economics ( I mean the Sveriges Riksbank Prize) and having a data center,  humming away in Mexico, remembering it - there is only one winner.

So, where did we all go. What do we do with our amazing abilities that drove our friends to poke their eyes with rusted dinner forks ?

For a while the quizzes. A quiz is like the Woodstock of Know it Alls. The speakers, the microphones, the dope, the rains...all the works except the hippie women. Any woman, if accuracy is your thing.
But here is the shocking bit A leading quiz, for the past couple of years, has been having a Round where contestants search for answers on guess what?

A smartphone.

It is liking asking a bunch of well toned lumberjacks on a log cutting competition take out their Taiwan made tablets and play Plants and Zombies.

So quizzes may die soon. Or become one of the quaint little activities that people undertake for no reason. ( Like applying nail polish, or setting fire to an otherwise perfectly fine shot of alcohol before drinking it).

So, that's where things stand. Possibly, in a couple of decades or even sooner, conversations between friends won't have that unexpected interruption by a 'fact'. People would just look up facts on their glasses, or considering how rapidly things are changing, facts would be displayed as soon as you speak with the person sitting next to you. And in terms of knowing things, everyone would be equal.

Human interactions may go either of the two ways. With the unpleasant bit about knowing things out of the way, people may be inspired to crank up their minds and discuss spirituality and pursuit abstract lines of thoughts more often. "What if Justin Beiber had a kid with Justin Beiber?"

Or worse, we could also have a situation where people don't talk at all. Maybe we will all chat online, and the slowly stop that and only poke each other.

One Poke - I am missing you.
Two Poke - Is there a Statistics class today?
Three Poke -

"Hey what does a Three Poke mean"
"Lol"
"No seriously"
"I dont know"
"Look it up on Google"
"Yeah, but things were so much better when we had a Know it All"

PS- Pardon the spellos and typos on this one. It has been a while since I wrote, and I wanted to finish this blog in 20 minutes flat. Mission accomplished.

Seven Must Have Facebook Friends for Indians

By Gaurav Parab

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The Fully Developed Arnab Goswami

By Gaurav Parab

* Source of pie chart - Times Now Readership Survey

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Why Can't Humans Be Like Dogs ?

By Gaurav Parab

I was returning home from work, on a day when nothing had gone right. You know the sort of day that a struggling scriptwriter would come up with if budgets are low and the brief is to pack everything into an action filled ten hour period.

Every now and then, the office issued Blackberry ( There is a good reason why it is colored black), sent out that red beacon that signals the arrival of another email. With each email stained with expletives like For Your Action and Work.

Bad day. A really bad day. And you know what they say about when it rains. It pours, and stuff falls from balconies, and you run through two men holding a sheet of glass, get caught in the crossfire of rival gangs, and someone comes to your seat and socks you right in the face before saying,

"This is for stealing the affections of my wife"

The bus went along, and I tried my first play at distraction by switching on some music. But you know how it works. Sometimes that worried voice in your head that says, "What is going to happen?" "What is going to happen" just overwhelms you and drown out everything else. I switched off the mp3 player and then looked out to what were surely happier people. Isn't this what windows do ? Draw a line between what you have and what you would like to have. Put the 'other'  in the other side?

But it was national unhappiness day. Two rickshawallas were fighting with each other, which is inconsequential but for the striking resemblance of one of them to Abhishek Bacchan. Trust me, when you are down and out - you don't want to see Abhishek Bacchan in a rickshaw walla outfit.  You just don't. Then there was an alcoholic husband arguing with his wife outside that customary shanty that props up every hundred feet on our roads. The man needed money for his daily does of spirit, while the woman just had her's broken. Closer home, my montage of desolation ended with the visual of a lanky young kid in a football jersey holding a smaller boy by the scruff of his neck.

"The shins" I shouted to the little one as our bus rolled along.

Clearly, nothing was meant to go right. Earlier that morning, I had experienced pain where I suspect one of my kidneys / colon / marrow / something Latin - is supposed to be. A dull pain, not sharp. Like thunder that slowly rolls in, dark and ominous. Like a butcher returning to his desk after washing his hands.

I got down from the office issued bus and said my customary thank you to the office issued bus driver. In keeping with the general theme, he sighed. The day you smile, the day we fire you - his contract probably starts that way.

It was a day when happiness went to that big place in the sky. It was another day at work.

The bus drops me about five hundred yards from my home. It is like some kindhearted bureaucrat in God's department of humans felt that those five hundred yards would give a stressed out man that last chance to think about things bigger than him and salvage his day. See the big picture. A freaking little dot in the universe. Everyone dies one day. The sort of thing that makes you put on a smile so your family and friends only see the best of you.

But the day belonged to a month, where a hundred thousand yards would not have helped. All I could do was take a step followed by another. The chemicals in the head blurred into a soupy thought that egged me on to be a royal ass. No reason at all. I am unhappy, why not return the favor to the entire universe. Starting with the ones closest to me.

I heard him even before I rang the bell. The missus was screaming out warnings. The air force was scrambling fighter jets. Scientists were injecting themselves with serum. The thing who can be named in a thousand ways was slipping into the dreaded Horse Mode.

Let me explain. For a year now we have had an international dog of mystery called  Djoko. ( Mr. Djoko to you). Djoko has Multiple Personality Disorder. There are moments when Djoko truly believes ( Not feels, BUT TRULY BELIEVES ) that he is a Horse. A wild horse. A fire breathing horse. A horse that should be wearing a cape.

This happens when Djoko is Defcon Level 5 Happy. Which happens every time the door bell rings.

All hell breaks lose. After all, the door bell has rung. THE DOOR BELL WENT OFF! THE DOOR BELL WENT OFF ! Djoko starts howling like Kumar Sanu and starts slamming into the door like Daya from CID.
The stereo automatically starts playing gangsta rap about what "This Dog" is going to be doing to the 'bitches' in some club after getting down from some convertible.

The missus screams a warning. " Are you ready. Are you ready for a violent explosion of love?"

And then you hear the walls rattle. Djoko is waiting for you. He smelt you from five hundred yards away. And now it is time. A welcome awaits you. You can hear him, but cannot see him. This is what Djoko expects when the door will open.

Everything is forgotten. Crappy excel sheets, insignificant deadlines, toxic traffic jams,  chor governments, dwindling bank balances and increasing stress levels. You take out the flyer for that meditation class and roll it into a ball and throw it out of the window.This is nirvana. Mr. Djoko, after prancing around for five minutes, and doing doggy cartwheels, has yanked your heart out from the past and future and brought you to this moment. I repeat, this is nirvana. You are in the moment. The missus looks on and laughs. Djoko gets offended with human-woman-dog laughing, so he slobbers you with his saliva. He playfully punches you with his paws (Ok, Djoko I will call them Hoofs) in the nether regions and between pain and joy - you think the thought every person who has a dog and a crappy day thinks - Why can't we be like them ?

Why can't we feel happy in this most pure and boundless way ? Why cant we all be dogs and switch to the Horse Mode for the remainder of our lives? Seriously, why can't we ?

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