I Write Like Douglas Adams !

I write like
Douglas Adams

I Write Like. Analyze your writing!

I confess, it took me not more than 4 attempts to finally get the site to declare that I write like Douglas Adams..my joy comparable to that of a child who for the first time tasted the best ice-cream ever; although I can very well imagine why Douglas Adams might turn in his grave, if he read what I just said. 

While I 'stumbled', as always, on this site, I must say it over and over again, but still can't seem to emphasize enough, why StumbleUpon is probably the best thing that happenned on the internet, after Google of course (where else would I turn to feed my little brain and curious mind).

On my first 3 attempts, I was told I write like Dan Brown and H.P Lovecraft. And you might have guessed that I did not like my writing to be compared to either of theirs', although how much accomplished they might be. It's just that I never 'wrote' anything remotely close to blasphemy or 'necronomicon'; however weird and skeptical I might be otherwise in general. For that information wasn't fed into the "Analyze Text" box and they have no way of knowing it! 

I realized soon enough, I was thinking too much - oh and somebody told me people with Master's Degree certainly tend to do that; no fault of theirs though, and that the algorithm was merely trying to figure out "which famous writer you write like", not "which famous writer writes what you write" ! The other funny part is that I've never read books by any of these authors, even Douglas Adams, although "The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" was added to my reading list quite a while ago. Now more than ever I need to get my hands on it. 

There was another little discovery that amused me - it's a write-up of mine, which I thought was funny, that disclosed my writing style similar to that of Douglas Adams. Although, my humorous reads have always been ones either by Scott Adams or P.G. Wodehouse, I couldn't imagine even this little laurel! I know I'm beaming at something very thin not to mention questionably credible, but to hell with it, a writer needs a push every now and then. A writer's block cannot be overstated !

Direct me..not fine me !!

It was a Sunday morning and before the sky cleared to let the sun out, we started off from our place in Pune to Mumbai. We had an evening flight to Kenya from the Mumbai International Airport and thought that it wise to drive down to Mumbai and leave our car at my uncle's place for the week that we were away.

On the previous day, I did the routine tire air pressure check which I do every time before we do a long trip, especially if that involves driving at speeds over 100 kmph on the highways.

We also offered to drop off our friend at Mumbai, who was in Pune for the weekend. So the three of us set off from Pune at a brisk pace. Since we started early enough, the journey till we left the express highway was uneventful with us stopping only at the toll booths occasionally.

A little ahead after the express highway exit, we noticed there were a lot of road works underway, with diversion boards here and there to direct us. We strained our eyes to read the boards making sure we made the right turns. Although, that seemed working fine for a while, we got confused when we saw sign boards up ahead to Mumbai showing us right, when a few meters earlier it showed straight ahead. We were approaching a 'Y' junction, so we had to decide which way to go. My wife noticed that there were few policemen standing at the junction, so we kept going till we reached them.

We thought it was best to stop and ask them for directions rather than getting lost in traffic, defeating the whole purpose of having started early. As we slowed down, I put my head out to ask the policeman, who by then had waved to us to stop a little off the road, to let traffic behind us move.

"Mumbai jaane ka raasta kaunsa hai", I asked with a befuddled expression on my face. To which he replied " Hmmm..aapka license dikhaaye..". Err..what's going on! I pulled out my licence and he looks at it and says, " Aapko lane cutting ka fine bharna padega". For a second I didn't know whether to laugh or get angry. Fine!? What nonsense! I tried reasoning with the cop that we were merely slowing down to ask him for directions. Oblivious to my confession, he goes on to ask "Kahaan ja rahe ho?". What ! What the hell is wrong with this guy? I said we were going to the airport and we have an international flight. Then, he wants us to open the boot and check our bags. "Imported saaman kuch hai kya?", he asks. The three of us are stunned. I started to loose my patience. I told him that he is wasting our time and that there was no offence from our side. By this time, I noticed that the other cop standing beside us, who witnessed all the drama, had a nonplussed & bored expression. I called out to him and said, "Sir, kya ho aha hai yeh sab". He looks at the other cop and says, "Jaane do unko, woh airport ja rahe hai". Thank you, so he is the good cop ! But the other cop is adamant that I leave my license with him, which apparently my friend can collect (as he figured out only my wife & I are traveling). I was starting to get really annoyed; my wife and my friend also tried to reason it with the good cop. Finally, after arguing back & forth he let us off without a fine, although the cop who wanted to fine us wasn't one bit happy. If only he had his mate’s support, he must’ve thought !

As we move ahead, my friend tells me, all the while the cop was waiting for me to tip him off, which is something that never crossed my mind! Yeah, maybe they are working on a Sunday morning, maybe they are underpaid, but whatever the goddamn reason is, this is no way to share their misery!!

One can imagine such a nightmare it was "asking cops for directions"! Word of advice - stay off the radar even if you are a law abiding citizen; and you wonder why "men don't stop to ask for directions" ha !!


Cheers,

Air Attack

These days, I've been flying quite frequently, cattle class (literally) as usual and much less proud to be part of the "herd". Flying in India, unlike in olden times, isn't a luxury anymore. I guess this is what Americans seem to be complaining all the time about. Back in the days, I used to think they were just not appreciative of flying because it was way too mundane for them and their expectations of quality was higher than the average Indian’s. But now I empathize with them; gone are the smiles on the faces of the crew, those greetings (that at least seemed fairly genuine), even plane food has become appalling; which I used to look forward to, given plane fares were never cheap and somehow delicious and neatly packed plane food (incl. in the flight fare) made the experience of flying more justified than just reaching one's destination quickly. Plane food is now just a lot of outrageously priced snacks. 

Last night when I was flying, my co-passenger, after scrutinizing the flight menu for a while, decided to pick something to eat. He was obviously taking his time to carefully weigh all the options so as to pick the most appropriately priced item on the menu. He enquired with the crew, pointing his finger at the pack of nuts priced at Rs. 40 (Ha, quite impressed with himself)!

This was met with a rather difficult smile and a curt reply, "Sorry sir, we haven’t got that. Maybe you'd like samosas instead". Now, to me it seemed a bad proposition to a person who wanted a small pack of nuts. All the more inappropriate since these samosas cost Rs. 100 ( whereas elsewhere 20 bucks would have sufficed for the same). So I expected this guy to dismiss this offer with a shrug muttering “Bah, nothing then”, but to my surprise his only query to that suggestion was a mere "I'll have it only if its served hot";I thought to myself, “Seriously, that's what was stopping you from ordering it in the first place ??” I could see the smug look on the face of the crew for he had successfully upsold to the poor bastard! What a loser, I thought. "And you Sir?", the crew member asked, turning to me. "No, thanks I'm all right", I replied. He didn't seem very pleased with me. 

Few mins later the air-hostess dropped off a box of samosas on my co-passenger’s food tray. Mmm..those samosas smelt good..I thought he might after all have bagged a decent deal ! I decided not to look that side (even through the corner of my eye), of course to alleviate myself of all the drooling. My co-passenger seemed to be enjoying his snack quite well and I happily went back to listening to my music. He seemed to shift around in his place making himself all the more jolly as he gobbled away. It seemed as though he was making sure the samosas did reach where his hunger pangs originated ! A little later, emerged the unspeakable -  the obnoxious cloud of fart. It was so discreet that it caught me off guard, left me defenceless and gasping for air !! I managed to look up to see if the crew was enjoying their little practical joke, for all this suddenly seemed to me like their grand plan. Though I couldn’t see anyone, I shuddered at the thought of what my plane food had become after all - a secret bio-weapon to disorient unsuspecting passengers and leave them helpless !! Next time around, I'm going in dressed as Darth Vader !

Bon voyage o.O

Nutty High !!

Ah..finally..it seemed like an eternity waiting for the "Draft" section to load.. you see I sometimes get these spurts of thoughts, which I wanna pen (err..blog) right-away, before I get carried away by some other random thing.

One of those moments, I guess, fingers itching to type (I thought that's something I would never say, when I put it that way) the rumblings in my head. Man, my head is throbbing after those peanuts I gobbled up; certainly couldn't let them get past that way, without the joy of chewing them thoroughly; but hell, that cost me ! My temples..ah, now I know where they are..damn. The things that you end up doing, when you walk in, no almost staggering (from hunger), grab the first thing you can find to abate those pangs. I did that exactly, you see. Found a packet of peanuts stashed away in the cupboard, ripped it open into a container and started to munch them all too quickly. Half a minute into it, before I realized my jaws ain't equipped at handling / working at the speed of an ICE. Ouch ! So I settled down to read my FB messages. We have group chats going on everywhere these days - it's like you start in one place (whatsapp) and then continue elsewhere - like facebook ! I know it get's difficult to keep track, if that's what you are thinking..but well, it doesn't matter really..ours is a fairly close-knit group of buddies from college you see, and we just talk about random things, some from the past, others stemming from jokes in the past or the likes. That's when I had this urge to capture the flow of thoughts in my head..it was as though I had to let them out at the same pace it was getting generated, unadulterated (though that's not so true, is it?, obviously I couldn't afford typos). Ok, now the question arises, as my head starts to clear up from the thick clouds of smoke generated by munching peanuts, when do I stop this non-sense. Right about now, I guess !!

Peace,

\m/ your's truly \m/