As always, there are some new additions to the readership in this, the latest edition of The Ever-So-Oftenly Bugle, or The Bugle to its admirers (I firmly believe in showering love, more of The Bugle and a few sneak attacks on the dying race of detractors of the effervescent rag. Yes, they’re dying for a reason).
Of course, the primary reason that there is a consistent welcome to new members is possibly because I tend to forget who my readers are. And yet, The Bugle prospers. I finally proved Prof. Amit Mukerjee wrong. I believe I may now attain Nirvana.
All new comers may hold firmly on to their seats and enjoy the show. Those of you who are returning after a break, well done. You’re obviously back in my good books.
Those of you who deserve to be kicked out, but have not been, it is merely because I could not decide which was worse punishment; to be Bugled in or Bugled out.
Current-Happenings-and-the-Latest-Paranoia
Shakespeare, quoth he, “All the world’s a stage; and all the men and women merely players”.
In which case, the stage manager hates me.
As a country, perhaps we would be best classified as a country of spitters. We walk, we talk, but most importantly, we spit. Open spaces, closed spaces, people, buses, roads, rooms, walls, flora, fauna, we discriminate not; we spit.
On the other hand, I now frequently find the spitting rather ominous. It seems more targeted somehow. Aimed directly at me, so to speak. On the way to office, I seem to find passers-by and hanger-outs of buses looking at me with a hungry look. Sometimes I need whiz my car just out the range of a particularly sharp shooting spitter. They seem to see me and think to themselves, no harm in spitting, in fact it would rather hit the spot, just about now.
Odd, I think. I sometimes wonder, in an extremely non-paranoid frame of thought, whether the world conspires against me. Are there secret clubs of an unprovoked malevolence plotting and scheming at dead of night, each contributing to the ever-growing mountain of ideas to befuddle and faze me?
This needs more intense thought and deeper research. The world must know of the existence of such malafide intentions. Sigh. The troubles of the great never cease.
The Why-On-Earth-Didn’t-You-Tell-Me-This-Earlier Section of the Week
I caught a rather poor print of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna (KANK to loved ones) last night. It was just as loathsome as it was made out to be, bottles of glycerine, picture perfect women and all; however, I must pick a bone with all the reviewers of the movie.
Why did no one deem fit to mention that SRK had a love scene in there? I can understand the men keeping mum out of a feeling of self preservation and a wild hope of retaining their better halves, but the women? Tsk. I didn’t expect such wanton selfishness from my own kind. That tells you doesn’t it?
The Good-Lord-You-Don’t-Say Section
In an interesting twist to events, the world (more likely its wife) has been unable to make up its mind about me.
Apart from the toddlers and general sucklings hitting on me in open public, their mothers seem to have banded together to put me in my place.
Went to a wedding (yes, I admit, that may have been seen as the beginning of hostilities from my end, weddings do bring out the meanest in all human nature. The milk of kindness seems to withdraw into itself and curdle rather).
It was just as I was (unsuspectingly) playing with my adorable 10 month old niece (to be fair to the rug-rat, she likes me only cos I feed her chocolate cake. And let her pull whats left of my hair) that it happened. The greying, matronly be-jesus seated athwart me turned and said in cloying tones “Is she yours?”.
Now, on the whole, I mind this not. A 10 month old is an obvious mistake. What gets me by the throat really, is the goat I met a day later who made a similar mistake. With the elder sister of the 10 month old. The one who’s SEVEN years old.
There ought to be a law.
Stick-And-Stones
As usual, I invite not the rabid responses I fully expect from the highly diminished readers of this engaging rag. However, if you so wish, please address all praise, adoration and bouquets to the residence. Causes mayhem at work.
