"Sunil? Oh, he is such a nice person."

Is there a cure for being nice?
I am sick of being nice.
The next time somebody calls me a nice person, I will wring their neck.
I want to go back and live my life all over again.
I want to flirt shamelessly.
Beginning, preferably, when I am in the 5th standard.
I will rain my rascally charm on all the girls in my school.
Seduce those hot aunties who haunted my childhood.
I will either be a laughing stock or a Casanova.
But I won’t straddle the middle ground.
I won’t settle for being nice.
I will pilfer my favourite books from the library.
I will collar the next auto driver who overcharges me.
I will say no to people, just for the vicarious pleasure of saying it.
I will mercilessly disparage those who disagree with me.
I will forever live in sin, bless me lord.
I will be an asshole personified.
But I will never ever be a ‘nice person’.
Give me 'bad guy', any day.

Some Old Guinness Stuff

More power to women. Who drink. Moderately.



I flunked my Engineering Graphics exam 6 times in a row. I might have passed it in flying colours, if my Professor had explained terms like plan and elevation with help of the poster below.

Reading

I loved the cover by Paul Hogarth.

Food for Thought

My hyperactive, 5 year old niece has an interesting routine these days.

She tears the front pages of Hindu and Times of India into small bits. Puts it into a small brass pot (a living room showpiece that looks like a sauce pan).

She uses a pencil as a ladle and stirs the mixture. Makes the sound of steam whistles to indicate that cooking is in progress.

Finally, she brings it to me and says, “Chicken Curry.”

To humour her, I pretend to eat the morning news.

She is happy.

If you’re going to try

Bukowski was a committed alcoholic. He was also dead serious about his writing. He wrote at night, with booze in one hand, smokes in the other, classical music on the radio, typing away to escape from what he termed the horror show called life.

Watch 'Factotum'. It ends with this nice little epitaph from him.

If you’re going to try, go all the way. Otherwise don’t even start.

This could mean losing girlfriends, wives, relatives, jobs, and maybe your own mind.

It could mean not eating for three or four days.

It could mean freezing on a park bench.

It could mean jail.

It could mean derision.

It could mean mockery. Isolation.

Isolation is the gift. All the others are tests of your endurance.

Of how much you really want to do it.

And you’ll do it, despite rejection in the worst odds. And it’ll be better than anything else you can imagine.

If you’re going to try, go all the way.

There’s no other feeling like that.

You will be alone with the gods and the nights will flame with fire.

You’ll ride life straight to perfect laughter.

It’s the only good fight there is.

Smell

Quaffed some whisky yesterday. The label said 8 PM but my gut told me it was adulterated.

When I get up in the morning the sour smell of the whisky is still on me.

My breath reeks of whisky.

I am belching whisky fumes.

Even my piss stinks of bad whisky.

I must stick to my preferred poison. My neat, fragrance-free, tipple of choice: Vodka.