Garbage boy - evidence

I have received millions of e-mails from loyal fans of the blog saying that Garbage boy is not real. They claim that it's just something I made up because I'm running low on ideas. To them I say today - Ha!

I present to you photographic and video (with captions) evidence of the existence of the little creature. The photos below document the walk to the garbage bins. You will notice throughout the pictures his tendency to get distracted.

The video shows the learning curve and how perseverance, in the end, pays off. Garbage throws the last bottle without any assistance from Father Garbage.

The touch of India

An ancient Indian saying goes: What thou shalt not take to heart, thou shalt take in your hand. And it's true. We have never shied away from the sense of touch. Around the world, millions of westerners are only now waking up to our ways.

The recent revolution, of course, is due to a fellow whose surname is Jobs. This man is making billions off a simple human need - the need to touch. It's what we Indians have always done. When we eat our food, we touch it. When Zakir Hussain plays his tabla, he touches it. When we want to show respect to our elders, we touch their feet. Even when we wash ourselves after our morning jobs (no pun intended), we clean by touch. The average Indian has no problems touching food, assorted body parts or percussion instruments.

However, the poor, deprived western world envies our ability to touch. After their capitalist companies forced them to buy toilet paper, spoons, forks, drum sticks and plectrums, their innate urge to touch now manifests itself in the latest technological breakthroughs.Jobs can't get enough touching
(Image credit: via @dhempe on Twitter)

They envy us in general, I think. When we were winning at hockey, they made the pitches turf. Now that our guys are killing at the spelling bees, they want to simplify spelling. The iPods, iPads, iTouches and iMats threaten to steal from us our touchy feely culture. (Aside, iNamitha is now on Twitter RT'ing intense stuff about people giving up drinking because of beggars. Now if that isn't touching, I don't know what is.)

But we are not to be outdone easily. Our march on touching shall not be stopped by a few phones and pads. Where they fail, we will make up. Our young men will continue to touch women as (in)appropriate. We will now regulate our touchiness to the extent that one of our major states is going to have a 'culture policy' that will define what is too touchy to be touched. Heck we'll even be a little contrarian in our greeting. If they shake hands, we will touching and say 'namaste'.

If you think I'm going a touch overboard, sample one of ToI's best headlines in recent times: Fans touch Big B, star touched by fans. You can't expect any better from an ordinary blogger like me.

As the ancient Indian saying goes, 'Dil pe mat le, haath pe le'. Stay in touch.

The straight, single Indian man and Bipasha Basu's boobage

I am a straight Indian man, lucky enough to have a great wife who loves me. But I know numerous other dudes who have recently been finding the going a little tough. They are constantly being maligned by the women of my country. So today I write a plea on their behalf.

Dear Indian woman, why do you snub us so? Is it because we don't make outlandish gestures such as this when we want to marry you? Anyone can organize a bunch of dancers, but if you asked that guy, he would agree that much more courage is required in getting his parents to talk to her parents. And let's face it, if you were that chick in the park, you would have said, "I need to ask my grandmother" instead of saying yes. Imagine the embarrassment you would have faced. Moreover, if it was close to Valentine's day, we would just be putting you in mortal danger with a bunch of sena / sene 's hovering in the area. We care more about your life than some stupid romantic gesture. We are practical like that.

Or do you snub us because we have small penises? (Note: here I can speak only of averages). But really now, it's not the size, it's how you use it (and it wasn't even us who came up with that line). And boy, do we USE it. After the Chinese, we have the most documented success with it. First we practice alone for years. Then when the time comes, we don't use it selfishly only to please the parties involved, but the results of our efforts please our uncles, aunts, distant cousins, passed on ancestors and parents - on both sides. That's got to count for something, right? And all this culture compliance in a matter of minutes. You'd be a fool to label these qualities as shortcomings. In the traditional sense of the word anyway.

If your complaint is about our moobs, let us explain. We make the sacrifice of cultivating those because we want you to experience pleasures from both sides of the fence. So many qualities in one partner that you never feel like you are missing something. We are the only men who actually give up our bodies for their women. Why mock us for something so benevolent?

So why do you snub us? Especially Indian women like Sania Mirza who goes off to marry a Pakistani cricketer when India has so many mooby ones of its own? And Bipasha Basu whose first topless appearance in an ad was for New York Lotto. Seriously, what's up with that? Why not for Gujarat tourism? What is wrong with honest, vegetarian, teetotaling businessmen? Or you could have lent your boobage to the campaign for 'God's own country'. The foreigners would have come flooding for Ayurvedic massages of all kinds. You could have helped your country. But no, you chose to reveal in an ad for the lottery of a city which already has a TV series that equates its name with the act of sex. Good job Bips. You're going to stand out like hay in a haystack.

Therefore dear women of India, I urge you to be a little more understanding. There are many eligible single Indian men out there, and not all of them are only interested in your fraandship. Seek and you shall find a wonderful man whose flaws you can look past. Our hope be with you.

(Proposal and NY Lotto ad links from Gautam John's Twitter feed which really has much more interesting stuff than this post suggests.)