Deepavali Firecrackers - II

A million bijli's later, my dad introduced me to weird crackers... They cannot be called crackers, because they were never fun. I don't know, but my dad religiously buys these every year.

Have you heard of "Snake" ? That is probably the worst thing that ever came out of Sivakasi. This "Snake" is just a couple of tablets, that comes in a matchbox sized tiny box. It needs to be placed on the ground, and when lit, some dark gray colored shit comes out. It looks ugly if not yucky. No, it does not make any sound or create bright flashes. It comes for about a min or two and then it runs out. Maybe girls like to play with such stuff, you know they always like to play with soft and crappy things. Any ideas girls? Do you girls run around it and sing songs or some such?

The "cape" is the next in the list. Maaan! how lame can one make a pistol? These are tapes with tiny explosive material which blow on impact. It is usually inserted in a special pistol and it blows one by one, when the hammer hits the tape. Not only does this pistol not throw any projectile, it blows and burns the hand. Terrible design. I have no idea who thought this might be a good idea, and why people buy this. I don't think even girls play with this. But I found some use for this otherwise lame ass cracker. Since it blows under pressure, if you drop some of these under the legs of the chair, it startles people when they sit on it. Trust me, even with my level of innovation, it was pretty lame.

Enough of talking of lameness. There are some awesome cool crackers: they are so awesome that the cracker was banned from production. I think it defines awesome coolness! I don't think any of our generation people would have seen a "vengaaya vedi" which literally translates to "onion plosive". I guess it must have looked like an onion. The awesome thing about it is, it does not have a fuse: it is pressure triggered. If you throw this on a wall, it explodes on impact! How cool is that? I mean... wow! Unbelievable! That should have been so much fun! But I have never even seen one of these. Older people... any ideas?

Rockets are cool too. But the thing is, cool rockets are way too expensive. If there is a very special rocket, which explodes into 4 or 5 colors, it is like... I lite it, and boom... there goes my thousand bucks. But, I was lucky. Our neighbours used to spend a ton of money on rockets. I go to the terrace, and just lie down to watch the sky light up in a million sparks. They used to buy many kinds of rockets, some whistle, some have one big bang and radiates into a huge sphere of tiny bombs, each of which again explodes, giving a real time fractal effect. But there was one kind of rockets which are very different. It goes up very high and just explodes without spitting any fire. The explosion is so powerful that I would feel the shock in my stomach a moment later. It always kept reminding me of anti-aircraft missiles. That is what I call, a man's play.

It was so much fun just knowing about these, and then seeing them all over the city. I have no idea if my kids would like them. The least I could do is, buy the stuff for my kids, and use it myself ! :)

Tell Tale 18 - Postnatal story III

I woke and and found myself imprisoned in a short and soft cage. It did not have a ceiling but since I could not even get up, it was impossible for me to escape. I was very stressed out and I was beginning to show signs of early life crisis. I then tried to remember what happened last. I was with Goochi and she had tranquilized me.

Just then as I was planning my day, a bunch of biggies came in (pests don't knock, do they?). It looked like the circus was town, and they were very happy to find yours truly, newly caged. Then a biggie, reached out into the cage and touched me! Yuck! The hand was as big as my face, with nails as long as 1cm and just plain ugly. Can you imagine a huge dirty hand as big as your face touching you everywhere? I came to know about BlankNoiseProject much later started by biggies who did not liked to be touched by other people... but even back then I wanted to start something called BabyNoiseProject (actually QuaQuaProject)!

Then when a biggie touched my palm I quickly graped the finger, and I was glad I could grasp it firm. The biggies ignorantly understand my primitive grasp reflex of a new born as a way to hold on to mommy! Yea right! What they don't know is that, we hold on to your finger only to prevent you from touching us!

I had dexterously grasped every finger which came to touch me when there was sudden flash of light! They kept saying "cheese"! And bang, another flash! I was blinded by the flash and even though I had silently wished to be blinded than to see these biggies again, I never really meant it. The bastards blinded me! Again they called me "Cheese" and more flash bangs. I dawned on me that they had named me "Cheese". "Cheese" sounded like a very sophisticated and endearing name. I had no qualms about that.

A particularly interesting biggie was smiling a lot at me, and even looked proud. Initially, I was not sure about the source of the pride. Then I saw it come closer. Closer and closer. Aaarh! The biggie was going to eat me! "Qua qua" I screamed. The biggie was not proud but happy about the dinner I was going to become. Then in a grotesque display of magnanimity, it touched my cheeks with its lips and retracted! I prefer to be eaten than this. Why? Why did the biggie touch me with its lips? Is there even a reason? I also happened to see a close up of the biggie's face. There were black thorns covering the lower half of the face. The biggie had transparent eye protection, so I had had to abort my plan to poke its eyes.

Then the biggie put some grainy crystals into my mouth. Aarh! I screamed "Do you have to kill every one of my senses?". And I saw a sudden change in their behaviour. They were very discomforted by my scream. Did they really listen to me? I was stunned by such a vague sign of decency. After all there was hope. The effect soon vanished, and they got busy violating my senses again. I screamed again, and this time louder than ever. I kept repeating it until Goochi came and shepherded them away. I was much relieved, as though Goochi was any better.

I guess this is the punishment I get for screaming. So, whenever I scream, Goochi is going to come. I cried "save me! save me", but again like before, I was tranquilized with the yummy liquid and silenced. Caged circus animals are treated more humanly, I tell you.

Tell Tale 17 - Postnatal Story II

After I was born, I was put on a fabric, and wrapped all around. None of my personal preferences were heeded, but I was voicing them anyways. I should have had a tag saying, "store in a warm & dark place", not that the biggies would have cared to notice.

Then one biggie, who was also lying in the same bed (about 8-9 times my size!), was checking me. First the appendages (4 big ones) and then the fishy and was very pleased. I was watching its movements carefully and finally it looked at me and began speaking to me like this "bubbla boo, giggly gooogly ga", "goochi goochi", with very very interesting facial expressions. I guess this must be the biggie language. I was very impressed with the biggie language, but damn! even though the biggie was very animated, it lacked articulation and the biggie language had so many consonants. May be it wants me to do something... I said "quuuaa", for which it again repeated "goochi goochi". I tried to say, "goochi", but it was too hard. I promptly named this biggie "goochi". Then I realized that Goochi had a much wider range of vocal versatility: why don't they try to speak my simple "qualese" (the baby language)? Maybe, biggies are not so smart to understand my qualese, so I have to learn their ways. Hmmmm!

Then Goochi touched my tummy, and it felt funny. Actually, there had been a weird feeling going on in my tummy, you know not outside, but inside. Something like a pulling feeling and I had no idea what it was or what to do. Then Goochi took me closer to its body (the biggies have no sense of personal space) and tried to a thrust its sack like appendage into my mouth. I was in no mood for this kind of closeness, for I had just met Goochi. And I told that, "qua quuu quaa quaa". Again this poor hapless being's protest were in vain, even before I could finish the sentence, my mouth was full. With nothing to do, I grasped the huge sack with my limbs, and suddenly my mouth was all wet! Can you believe it? My mouth was full of some very tasty fluid, and unfortunately, it disappeared down my throat immediately. Just when I was sad that such yummy fluid was exhausted, there was more fluid from the sac. Hmm, Hmm... Oh! I get it, the sac must be filled with this, and Goochi must have been trying to articulate this to me! Goochi could have just told me that in the first place, and I would not have made such a huge fuss. I already liked this biggie. I had one more mouthful of tasty liquid. After plenty of yummy liquid in about 3 huge mouthfuls I was very happy. I also wrote a small poem "quaua quaua, quak qu!" (In case you did not understand, it means "Yummy Yummy, Happy me!")

A little while later, I could not think straight and my vision became blurry, and I could not keep my eyelids open! Goochi must have mixed some sedative in that yummy liquid. I have never in my 4 hour life trusted strangers and resolved I never will! Before I could realize, I fell into a deep state of unconsciousness.

To be continued...

Tell Tale 3

And the girl was not coy

The girl was beautiful. She writes very well. She writes with a feminist waft. It was the first date. I was nervous. Had to give her a gift. Something new. Something good. What would be her mood?

So, I thought. And then, I wrote. A story. Telltale 2. First the plot. Then the characters. Portrayed the protagonist. Layered the story. Played the narrator. Rebelled with some anti-feminism. With hesitation, some naughty erotism. A little flirtatious. Tuned the characters. Felt the tension. Some dangerously contained chaos. Nailed the ending. Reread it 4 times. Took me 2 hours.

She thought it was "different" and found a spelling mistake.