Mesmerizing Mysteries of History

Yup you are thinking right this heading is as meaningful as the phrase- ‘aabraa ka dabraaaaaaaa’…but it does sound catchy and intellectual, and thus serves its purpose. Well, now I am gonna scribble few pages boring you guys with my new found passion- ‘History’.
It all started with excessive boredom, which pulled me out of my bed on a lazy Sunday afternoon and nudged me in to my car and thereby out of my oh so sweet Noida. Crossing the toll bridge really depresses me; broad clean roads of Noida give away to narrow shanty roads of Ashram. If that’s not bad enough, I have to skip one flyover in order to steer in to the horrifying gulis of Lajpat Nagar. This place is a mini Punjab in itself, here you’ll find people of all shapes and sizes, doing all sorts of things right in the middle of the roads. And, how can I not mention plethora of cars, rickshaws, scooters, bikes which grace the 5 meter stretch of road, a part of the complex nervous system which connects Lajpat Nagar and takes me to the place of my good old friend – Mr Karan Gupta.

Karan Gupta is a rebel, a lady killer, a look alike of Imran Khan (Jai Singhania of Jane tu… fame) and god knows what all. This is how Mr Gupta would have liked to introduce himself, but sorry buddy I am gonna write my story my way. So let’s start all over again…Karan Gupta is an egoistic prick. Shitty ideas, theories and misconceptions swirl around in his little pea sized brain, as a result of which it smells of fart when he talks. Believe me he is one stubborn ass, who is obsessed with doing stuff that is “cool” according to his numerous lady friends ( How he made so many lady frnds? well a whole shastra of Chal , Kapat and Kaminapan can be written on that…lets reserve it for future scribblings). But, despite his idiosyncrasies, this ludicrous, nymphomaniac is a good lad (I am very economical with my words, when it comes to hurling praises).

Sorry where were we…hmm so I reach his home and gave him a customary call “ki sahib taxi neeche aa gayi hain kripa garib par daya kar ke neeche aa jain”. Few minutes later, Mr Gupta dressed in his only pair of blue jeans and some rose colored pink T-shit walks towards my car. Through the glasses of little imagination, one can easily confuse him for a high society call girl, for he is as white as Priety Zinta’s teeth. But, as he comes nearer, even your glasses of little imagination can’t help you from noticing those pimples, loads of them on his right cheek, extending right down to his neck (that’s as far as I can see, don’t how further down they go...yuck!!) littered like city names on a map. “Saale Kamine yeh koi time hai aane ka …tera kaminpan nahi jayenga Kutte” yelled my polite friend and I thumped my accelerator and couple of minutes later we were out of the Punjab Nightmare!

Traffic as usual is unrelenting, and we have managed only 5 kms in past 30 minutes. Meanwhile, my friend was leering at the Delhi girls wagging his tongue out of the car like a dog eyes popping out as if he his crack got sealed and he was full up-to his neck with his VX poisonous gas. Take it easy man! I shout. He retorts calmly in his own usual way by yelling back “are you gay? ”. A hot babe – so hot that if I even dare to pen down any details of her fabulous body, my god damn laptop would catch fire - crossed the signal walking hands-in-hands with a boy whose face reminded me of sufferings in places like Somalia and Darfur; and on looking carefully I could even spot letters like L, S, R, E, O written all over his face. Seeing this “Baap of irony and injustice”, even the traffic light couldn’t help turning green with envy. Vrooom…we were out of there only to get stuck in the next.

“Yaha say right lay lay short cut hain” said Karan Gupta beaming with confidence. His expert advice, which in hindsight I shouldn’t have followed, led us to a Woodstock of sorts, where millions of automobiles had gathered. Each one trying to honk a better cacophony then the other; constant hurling of abuses (teri maa ki, bahan ki , iski uski…) provided the much needed bass support and the battery of beggars made a formidable chorus. Atmosphere turned electric, and the concert was in full flow…”teri maa ki honk honk …road tere baap ki hain honk Slap honk Slap..paison de do subah se kuch nahi khaya honk honk do rupaiya de de tera pappu khub saal jeeyenga” ( now that alarmed me , but I was wrong “by Pappu she meant Karan”, which makes it even more embarrassing!) . Oblivious of all this, KG was gyrating to the peppy songs of the movie ‘Partner’, which were streaming out loudly from his newly brought Motorola V something model.

Passing many such Woodstocks, we finally managed to reach PVR Select City Mall, a good 1.5 hrs after my friend had dashed in to my car. Our sojourn to select city mall, was a part of our customary weekend drill to kill boredom. KG and I are off to swanky malls every weekend to catch the latest flicks, talk trash and admire beauties.

As no good movie was playing, we decided to go window shopping. While I was standing in the queue in Lee showroom to try on a pair of rugged blue jeans, I saw a beautiful angel. She was standing next to a trial room holding heap of clothes, wearing a bright yellow tank top, maroon aladdin pajamas and an endearing nose ring. And she was not with an ugly looking loser! Seeing this Thakur (sholay movie dude) popped in my mind like a Microsoft desktop widget and yelled” Loha Garam hain maar do hathora”. Then, suddenly, the doors of the trial room splashed open “Damn, What do I do now? Should I go for the girl or go for the jeans?” To solve the dilemma I quickly calculated the probability of the hot chick being there when I came back from the trial room (P – being the probability that she’ll stay, Q – being the probability that I’ll buy the pair of jeans. Assuming that it will take me 10 mins to try the jeans) P came out to be 75%. Good enough, I told my self and hopped into the trial room. When I came out nor was the hot chick there nor did the pair of jeans fit! As usual, I fucked up the probability question again. We searched the entire mall twice, but were unable to spot her; dejected we walked in to the ‘Crossword’ bookstore. There Mr. Gupta started frantically searching for a book called ‘In Xanadu’ (written by William Dalrymple) apparently it was his crushes’ favorite book. But, to read a travel book tracing the path taken by Marco Polo from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem to the summer capital of King Kubla Khan was little too much even to impress a girl. But, as I couldn’t find anything better I bought it. And my purchase transcended me in to the magical world of William Dalrymple. Arguably, the finest travel writer of the century, he made me fall in love with history be it the ‘era of Mughal dominance in India’ or ‘era of Marc Polo and John Moschos’. More on his books later…adios for now.

Taliban Within

I saw this brilliant movie 'Firaaq' the other day. It is set one month after the ghastly Gujrat carnage in 2002. This theme sets it apart from the previous movies based on the same subject and makes for a riveting watch. Nandita Das (Debutant Director) without the aid of any graphicaly voilent scenes manages to keep the tone extremely tense; tensions, anger, vulnerability and fear of the protagonists - who represent a diverse demographic including poor muslim autorickshaw walah, a middle class gujju business man, an english speaking mixed religion couple - stirr your soul catapulating feelings of shame, guilt, anger, frustration and disgust. And the emotional atyachar continues long after the endcredits.

All you want to do after watching this movie is to fucking chop of the nuts of crazy hindutva fanatics who indulged in this pre-planned genocide. I just wanted to kill them! Once the infernal noises within me calmed down, I realised that I was reacting no differently than how these dogs reacted to Godhra massacre. And thats where I guess the problem lies, that voilent retribution ends up becoming a self fulfiling prophecy, as voilence justifies voilence! No, I am not condoning these riots; I dare not! All i am saying is that 'cause and effect' theory applies here, effect being the riots and it has been the case for over thousands of years now, because as I mentioned earlier voilence justifies voilence. Gujrat carnage is not governed by this theory, as there is evidence that it was not an instantaneous outburst of anger but a well planned state sponsored pogrom. For his indulgence in racial cleansing, Modi was rewarded a successive term in the chief minister's office by people of Gujrat...TBC

Save The Real Tigers!

Did you know that probability of you being struck by lightning in a wildlife sanctuary is more than that of your spotting a tiger there! And that the recent dip in sharemarkets dosen't look so bad when compared to the alarming rate at which Tigers are evaporating in India. Guess, its nothing new and most of us are aware of this travesty, whats strange is that this issue has never really evoked strong reactions from us and nor does this topic ever figure in our daily animated conversations. Slightly strange for a society which suffers from severe verbal diarrhea, and has an opinion on almost every conceivable thing ranging from serious issues such as terrorism, poverty, globalization etc to frivolus ones such as India TV news, Rakhi Sawant and star rivalries. Then, why is it that the tragic state of our national animal escapes our collective conciousness, it's probably due to our lack of awarness on this topic. May be we just dont know or realise how bad things have really become. To emphasise on the severity of the problem, presented below are few statistics I stumbled across recently -

• At the current rate of poaching and habitat loss, it is estimated that tigers in the wild could completely disappear within the next ten years
• Poachers killed 29 tigers, nine out of 16 lions fell to poachers and of the 272 elephants killed since 2005, 72 were killed by poachers. These 29-39 tigers are just the tip of the iceberg. If 29 tigers have been killed by poachers and their carcass found, it means at least 200-250 tigers have been killed by poachers.
• According to the last official census in 2005, India had 1411 tigers in the wild but wildlife experts say the real number could be anything between 800-1000.

We are staring at an imminent extinction of our national animal in next few years time. Damage being done is irreversible, and no stimulus package would be able to bail us out of this crisis. The very fact that the number of paper tigers like me is on the rise and that the real tigers are left to die, says a lot about the civilized, liberal and rational society we all are a part of.

Sorry Tigers, all we can do is offer you our sincere condolences. We would have loved to prevent you from becoming an extinct species, but amidst election season, IPL 2 and global economic slow down, haven't quite got the time to do that. But let me promise you, we wont let you fade away from our memories, we'll watch your footages on the Discovery channel and may even make a movie on the lines of Jurrasic Park. Your precious skin has graced our sofas and the bodies of hot models for years now, and we thank you from the bottom of our hearts for that. You have also been the prime source of livelihood for poachers, giving those lads a steady source of income. We are rapidly turning your homes into concreate jungles , rendering you folks homeless, and you never seem to complain. Yes, some of you do end up entering our premises and then end up getting brutally killed, but such intermittent stray incidents shouldn't come in way of our friendship. "Yeh dosti hum nahi toren gay, extinct ho jaon tum magar hum poaching nahi chorengay"

Nomenclature

This blog has nothing in common with the book 'White Tiger' mainly because author of White Tiger won a booker prizer and author of this blog hasn't won a thing in life. No pity or sympathy is welcome as the author is mediocre but arrogant.

Namkaran of the blog was perhaps the hardest part of opening this blog. I needed a name which would epitomize my journey so far. 'Loser in a one mans race', 'Dreams or Shackles' , Incarcerated' were few options which popped up in my mind, but none of them seemed right. But, one day i stumbled across the term 'Paper Tiger' which is a literal English translation of the Chinese phrase zhǐ lǎohǔ (Chinese: ??????), meaning something that seems as threatening as a tiger, but is really harmless'. Eureka! this was it, it was as if some chinese fellow in Xang dynasty saw me coming back then in some crystal ball and coined the term 'Paper Tiger'.
Drunk in the success of my discovery, I screamed out loud to the world announcing my new name. 'You are not a paper tiger, you are a toilet paper tiger' thundered a friend of mine. And so i agreed and so i named the blog. Stay tuned for the adventures of this tiger...