THE ADS MADMEN

The man driving the car oozes charm at every pore, who condones anything while at the wheel, even his son's poor grade in maths. But the moment he steps out of the car he turns nasty. A modern day re-incarnation of Dr Jekyll (and Mr Hyde), he is a brainchild fathered by one of our TV admen to promote a highly esteemed brand of car.

Frankly, I ad-ore these (m)ad men whose cerebral ejaculations could boggle densest of grey matter. I ad-mire them for the ad-roit handling of their ad campaigns (aired ad nauseum on the TV) that open up a whole new world far removed from reality.

It's world where a house-breaker treats gold and cash with disdain, looting only trendy bib cocks (of a well known brand) from the toilet, and what's more, if he erupts into a fit of cough during burglary, the granny of the house treats him with cough syrup (of one more brand) that compels him to cry "Mummy..." with nostalgia for the rest of his life.

It's a world where people recognise each other not by their faces but by their body odour ( in a deodorant ad), where a brand of hair dye promises to transform aunties into didis (elder sister) and where on chilly mornings, old men are woken up by the incessant clatter of their set of denture kept overnight on the bedside table (just because a brand of air-conditioner wants to tell us how effective their product is).

It's a world where, as you stroll along the mugger's alley, you needn't carry firearms for self-defence as long as you wear a particular brand of underwear that turns into a heavy-weight boxing champ. If confronted by hoodlums, thanks to the undergarment, you can knock the daylights out of the unfortunate thug much to the delight of your girlfriend.

The adman would have us believe that the bridal ghungat (veil) is a clothing behind which the ravenous bride conducts pet puja (eating bout) on a bar of chocolate(so enticed is she that she forgets she is in the midst of her own wedding!). A brand of pen has an inbuilt mechanism which makes nubile chicks peck you on the cheek whenever you lend it to them.

If the umpire turns a deaf ear to your LBW appeal, that's because you don't shout loud enough. So, chew shouto brand of chewing gum before you shout 'Howzaat' and the umpire, startled by the ear-splitting yell, raise his finger with alacrity. And, if by any chance, the umpire had eaten a certain brand of biscuit, then the verdict could be 'Fifty-fifty'.

And finally, you can trust me (I always wear an honest shirt : again a phrase invented by an adman) when I say that, taking a cue from the adman, I have discovered an eco-friendly mode of transport. All you need is to drink a cup of tea, and wah! taj, you feel so light that you take to air and levitate to your destination.

But a word of caution. If the beverage loses its zing en route, you may get stranded half way. So, carry a spare flask of the stimulant for mid-air refuelling.
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CONCLAVE OF GHOULS

Miffed by the peace and tranquillity abounding in the civilized world, a consortium of werewolves in Satanborough have allegedly signed an MoU (Memorandum of Undertakers) to host the First World Dracula Congress. The Lucifer Army, the official sponsors, has chosen the skull and cross-bones as the convention's mascot. Dr A Cula Pati, the Mayor, has promised to show-case Satanborough as the ultimate destination for the global vampire fraternity who will soon descend on the venue, a ramshackle castle deep in the forests.

A fleet of bloodhound-drawn hearses will ferry the delegates - the kingpins of the global blood sports - to be put up at 'Hotel Carnage Resorts & Spa' in light-proof air-chilled catacombs fitted with intricately carved coffins for the princes of darkness to sleep at cock-crow. The washrooms will have blood on tap for the delegates to have their evening blood-bath. 'Spooky', the famous fashion designers, will be officially entrusted with the task of providing weird outfits for the participants.

Necrophagous (corpse-eating) tribe of Aghoris are the official caterers who will run a steak-house at the convention locale serving delicious human organs cooked in pure blood. Pate de homo gras, a human liver delicacy, is expected to take the ghoulish gourmets by storm. Garlic, the purported vampire repellent, will be disallowed at the eatery (You don't invite a mosquito for dinner and serve him food cooked in Odomos!). Bloody Mary will be the recommended cocktail (to be served in skull bowls) at dinners.

For the thirsty delegates, gift cheques will be issued which they can present at any blood bank to 'draw' cold blood of their choice (A, AB, O etc.). Those preferring warm blood will get a specially designed drinking straw (making machetes and swords obsolete) to drink directly from their victims' jugular.

A local tantrik is trying to communicate with spirit of Jack the Ripper who will be commissioned to deliver the keynote address on 'Modern Trends in Going for the Jugular'. The skull sessions will be conducted at the nearby crematorium where the spirits of the victims of the past massacres too can chip in with suggestions to give butchery a humane touch. All the proceedings will commence after sundown and, following night-long deliberations, the delegates will go back to sleep in their coffins.

Efforts are on to rope in famous horror show moghuls from Bollywood to stage their popular blood-curdling drama 'Gore in Barrels' that will prompt the delegates to cry 'Whoopee' and break into danse macabre.

The proposed First World Dracula Congress has all the potential to make Bram Stoker, the creator of the Dracula legend, turn in his grave. It may even send him into a spin.

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ZODIAC ZEAL

If all those predictions of wealth that appeared over the years under my zodiac sign in the newspaper columns had come true, by now I should have been hob-nobbing with the likes of the oil sheiks of Arabia or computer tycoons of the Silicon Valley, if not the King of Brunei. But alas, it was not to be.

Yet, on that Sunday morning, when the column prophesied that "a great opportunity would knock at my door and a long time endeavour was about bear fruit", a seed of hope had sprouted. Like all true Taureans I was quite bullish about the forecast.

There was a time when I turned to forecast column solely in quest of a hearty laugh. And whenever it said that 'a tempestuous romance with my neighbour was in the offing' I would promptly hide the newspaper from my wife (an ardent believer) to avoid being hit by a hurricane.

Those were the days when I was a hard-boiled maverick. I fought many a pitched battle of words with my believer friends whenever the talk veered round to the star forecasts. "Wouldn't it sound preposterous if a Swamiji, who renounced everything worldly, were to find under his zodiac sign something like ' a domestic disharmony looms large on the horizon. Keep your wife in good humour', I would argue. But all that changed after a tete-a-tete with my bosom friend, Chandru.

Chandru reasoned that the wordings of a star forecast were like the clues of a crossword puzzle. Without taking them at face value, one needed to interpret them logically. To illustrate his theory he said that once a column predicted for him victory at the court. Of course he had no pending court cases. But, as it turned out, he had string of victories at the tennis court!

Chandru's position was vindicated by an event involving my wife. A forecast in her case said that "someone would make her an offer that promised to keep her on her toes for a long time". And sure enough, on her birthday an aunt presented her with a pair of high-heeled shoes that literally kept her on toes for the best part of a year.

To cap it all, what happened last month reinforced the premises on which Chandru's hypothesis was based. "You are at the risk of being exposed", forewarned my favourite columnist. The very next day, as I was walking out of the bathroom, my lungi slipped from my waist down to the knee for a fraction of a second before I could draw it up in a jiffy, but not be before I was exposed to the chill of the winter and the giggle of the housemaid.

As I was musing upon the march of events (such as the ones just described) that dragged me into the twilight zone between rationalism and blind faith, the doorbell rang.

Shaking my thoughts, I got up and opened the door. There was a young man standing on the doorsteps, clutching a briefcase. He said, "Good morning, sir. I represent Messrs Jackson Farms Limited. Here is a great opportunity to own a hundred jackfruit trees. You will get fifty times the invested amount in ninety years. Our unique scheme......." I slammed the door on his face. Jackfruit, my foot!

Well, if opportunity didn't actually knock at my door as was forecast, it certainly did knell through the doorbell, albiet abortively. And my endeavour was about to bear fruit - of the jack variety.
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Under-hand Cricket

Yesterday I dreamt of a former English fast bowler waving a bottle of glycerin at me. Clad in snow-white, he loudly appealed "Just do it."

Though initially stumped, 1 realised that Mr. Snow-white was prodding me to follow his 'shining' example and dream up a scheme to lift the
fortunes of Azharuddin et al who, of late, despite sporadic flashes (in the
pan) of genius, have been pushed on to the back foot by a volley of defeats. As he egged me on, 1 began to hatch a plot.

Snuff Bluff: To poke our business into other people's nose, dip the ball in snuff before bowling a rib-cage bouncer. The whiff of snuff can send any rival batsman with his nose in the air into a fit of sneeze and while he takes a blind swipe, the ball takes the middle stump for a hike. Our boys in the field are advised to wear surgical masks, an advice not to be Sneezed at.

Cherrycol Chutney: A bal(l)sam that turns gluey only on impact with the ball and melts in five seconds. Anointing this gloo on our fielders' palms can help the skied cherries to stick to the (butter-) fingers as they latch on to the catches that win matches.

Magnetic Fielding: involves a unipolar magnetic ball and electrically magnetized boundary ropes - both of identical polarity. Since the like poles repel, our opponent's smashes take U-turn near the ropes to return like homing pigeons. When we bat, the reversed polarity of the ropes ensures that the ball reaches the fence before you can say "Whack. Robin Singh".

Turtle Willow: is a bat that briefly lengthens by a foot when rubbed against the ground. For the chronic victims of the third u(va)mpire groping for the popping crease, such a bat provides that 'short extra cover' against run-outs.

But playing abroad where we find ourselves on sticky wickets is a whole new ballgame. So, taking a cue from Anil Kumble ("I wish I could carry this Kotla pitch everywhere"), the Shiva Sena activists can 'bail' us out of this (block hole) by digging out the Kotla pitch in one block and carrying it to England during the World Cup. On the eve of each India fixture, the Sainiks can, unnoticed by the 'night watchmen', invade the pitch in the pitch-dark and transplant the Kotla pitch - the Operation Pitch-switch.

Image Courtesy: www.plattpc.kentparishes.guv.uk

ANATOMY OF POLITICS

THUMBING through the newspapers, I often suspect that we are, from head to toe, a highly 'organ'-ised nation. Take a closer look at our 'body language':

Our long-in-the-tooth head of state in Delhi, for instance, wears his (palpitating) heart on his sleeve, what with his Cabinet colleagues breathing down his neck (often getting in his hair). He turns red in the face whenever a minister puts his foot in his mouth. His gutsy effort to keep his chin up is, in fact, part of his struggle to keep his head above water.

The government itself is all fingers and thumbs, functioning through knee-jerk reactions ramming explosive issues down people's throats. Each time Chennai blows its nose, New Delhi gets chesty and the ruling elite go around with their tails between their legs.

The coalition partners, when they are not pulling each other's legs, are busy twisting the PM round their little fingers. They are after the scalps of their respective state chiefs, their demands articulated 356 times a month - almost. They brandish the 'skull and crossbones' at the government at the drop of a gandhi cap.

The opposition vents its spleen against the ruling coalition in an effort to elbow its way into the government. As the right goes about flexing its muscles and the Centre drools over the elusive spoils of office, the left racks its brains to invent a secular front ending up having two left feet. All of them use their lungpower left, right and centre. Strange bedfellows live cheek by jowl with one another necking intimately in public. Though some feel it in their bones that the fall of the government is imminent, they tear their hair as the main opposition party cold-shoulders them.

The bewildered citizens sit on their hands. While the rich - what a gall! - bury their heads in the sand, the middle class, kicked in the vitals by the inflation, are sick to their stomachs. The poor, however, pay through their nose to keep body and soul together. They sweat their guts out just for a hand-to-mouth existence.

Appendix: There is the danger that in the new millennium, the new crop of our leadership may decide that the US model of the late 'Nineties is the best to follow to get organised, concluding that the (Lewin)sky is the limit.

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