Post 7 - Everything you want to know about Friendship Day

Today is International Friendship Day, also known as Happy Fraaandship Day in the most parts of Delhi. Like other important days - Happy pepper n salt look day, Happy Who let the dogs out woof woof woof Day, Happy I want to see you cry Day and Happy Fuck this shit day, even Happy Friendship Day has an important, to be worthy of attention, story behind it. Get some popcorn.

Here it goes. Once upon a time in 320 BC, right after the birth of Christ, eight people - Rachel Green, Monica Geller, Phoebe Buffay, Joey Tribbiani, Chandler Bing, Ross Geller, Kareena Kapoor and Amrita Arora were chilling at an unknown place watching 'Friends with Benefits' or something. While watching the movie they realised if a naked Justin Timberlake can make friends, then why can't they upgrade from being acquaintance to friends? So, like everyone else around them they used their Airtel 'Friendship Data Plan' and Googled 'the best way to make friends.' The first search result read - Go to Archies. Buy overpriced friendship band. Tie it to the person sitting next to you, even if she's Amrita Arora. And, the rest, as they say, is history. And, since then, to mark the occasion, we have been celebrating the Friendship Day every August 4, because that was the only day not yet taken by Happy Anything-You-Can-Think-Of-Day organisation, also known as the United Nations.

Here are ten quotes from legends who redefined friendship.

1) Friendship is good. It leads to love triangle. ~ Kunal Kohli (Mujhse Dosti Karoge)
2) If your wife dies, you can always re-marry your tom-boyish best friend from college ~ Karan Johar (Kuch Kuch Hota Hai)
3) Only when three friends do a Goa roadtrip together, they stay friends for life ~ Farhan Akhtar (Dil Chahta Hai)
4) The odds of a spoiled young adult living in Mumbai making friends are higher than anyone else ~ Ayan Mukheerji (Wakeup Sid)
5) The most important test of any friendship is whether it can survive a bachelor's trip to Spain ~ Zoya Akhtar (Zindagi Na Milegi Doobara)
6) You fall for your best friend the moment you start pimping love for him/her ~ Abbas Tyrewala. (Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na)
7) Best friends should be able to switch between being homo and straight to get an apartment and a girl respectively. ~ Tarun Mansukhani (Dostana)
8) Friendship is fun only if Tushaar Kapoor is mute ~ Rohit Shetty (Golmaal)
9) Aamir Khan knows it all. Be friends with him ~ Rajkumar Hirani (Three Idiots)
10) Aamir Khan knows it all. Be friends with him ~ Rakesh Om Prakash Mehra (Rang De Basanti)

Post 6 - An open letter to teenagers

Hello or as you call it whaaatsup,

I am pretty sure you won't get to read this unless and until someone will post this on Facebook via Bitstrips. Hoping somebody does that. I must admit how much I admire you people for your sheer ability to change your display pictures thrice a day on every social network. By display pictures I mean DP, for better understanding. It's a proven fact that nobody can make their DP look cooler than teenagers. Your DPs are like leading ladies of soap operas - always behind shitload of cosmetics. If an alien had to judge us based on teenage profile pictures then I am sure he would conclude that this planet is one big Sunburn festival. Also, they would think every teenager is an illegitimate child of Curtly Ambrose's pout. Dude, what's with the pout? I mean even PV Narsimha Rao had one, but trust me that didn't make him any hotter. I hope you know that every time you pout, your lips walk a mile ahead of you, and that makes them look like as if they have an erection. Trust me some of those pouts need a two-piece of their own.

Curtly Ambrose, aka teenage pout.

I also admire you for the unique lexicon you have invented over the years. The best of them all is the coinage of the word - awwww. Nobody had thought that the answer to every problem in the world isn't 42, as Douglas Adams would like us to believe, instead it's 'awww.' For instance, Question: Hey, do you love me? Answer: Awwww. Question: Hey, don't you love me? Answer: Awww. Question: How much wood, would a wood chuck chuck, if a wood chuck could chuck wood? Answer: Awww. Most of the times ‘Aww’ makes so much sense that you start wondering how come nobody else thought of it earlier?

That's the most intelligent statement a teenager has ever said, online or offline.

Everyone makes fun of your punctuations and spellings, but little did these ignorant fools know about your contribution to the rich day-to-day language we all speak. Here are some of the teenage lingos or as they call it #ShitTeenagersSay

Chill: Teenagers are always chilling. They chill more than K2 (the second highest mountain on Earth) ever could during peak winters. You take a teenager to Ethiopia and expect them to even chill there.

Epic: as we all know means anything that surpasses the ordinary. In a teenager's world everything surpasses the ordinary, hence everything is epic. For instance, Hey I just woke up and I feel so epic. Dude, I downloaded Games of Throne via Torrents, and trust me it's an epic series. Hey, it's epic how much I can eat. Hey, that epic is so epic na?

Dude: In teenagers' world everyone is a dude. For example, Look at that dude, he's so shady *points at a Banyan tree*

Bitch: Anything, but a female dog.

Whatever: Like awww is the answer to every problem in the world, whatever is the answer to anything that you don't understand, basically everything in the world. Question: Why Sun rises from the East? Answer: Whatever. Question: Hey, where do yo see yourself five years from now? Answer: Whatever!

Answer to all problems in the world.

Wicked: isn't morally bad, as you ignorant laureates would think, it means 'very'. Hey, check out ma wicked cool hairdo!

Your mum: is the reaction to every abuse in the world. For instance, Abuse: Hey midget, nigga, whitetrash. Reaction: Your mum.  

Random: This random teenage lexicon can't be complete without the word 'random'. Random is often used as an adjective to define an attribute of everything in the universe. For instance, Dude, we are so random. We cracked these random jokes and then laughed so randomly as other random people stood randomly amused.

In short, I love you guys. Without you this world would be such a Duh! place. If you think I have missed out on something relevant, kindly comment. It wasn't done on purpose, it was purely random.

 

Regards, as you know it muah!

Anoop Chugh

 

Post 5 - Pushkar: Yoga, Hummus, joints and trance.

Like every other Hindu religious town of India, even Pushkar is all about bathing in open, smoking pot, eating Falafel with Hammas, and taking pictures. Considered one of the oldest towns of India, Pushkar was founded by Lord Brahma, the real estate tycoon of mythological era. Let's call him DLF bhagwan. Little did he know what he thought was an appropriate place for Mahayagna would turn into a cheap-getaway for hippies from all over the world some hundred centuries later. Honestly, DLF ji could have chosen a better location for his Mahayagna say Ambergris Caye, Santorini, Bora Bora or Isle of Man, but he chose humid and sultry Pushkar. Obviously, travelling wasn't his forte. Or, may be, he thought smuggling Afghanistan opium into Pushkar would be much easier than say Bora Bora. Fair enough.

Lord Brahma's view of Pushkar

  
One reason why Pushkar is so popular among broke foreign tourists is the low cost of living. One can rent a dingy hotel room with a lake view for around Rs 5000-a-month. (In dollars, it is so less that it's not even worth converting). The market area is flooded with Lebanese cafes. Eating vegetarian-only Lebanese food in Pushkar makes you brood over the evolution of mankind from hunting. According to an unreliable study, Pushkar consumes more Hummus than Middle East, Turkey, North Africa, Morocco, and Middle East put together. Though, another study shows that the guy who did the 'Hummus study' on Pushkar was stoned on smuggled opium that he bought at exorbitant rates from Pink Floyd Cafe. In fact, the name 'Pushkar' refers to the art of pushing weed into rolling paper joints. Pushkar market is also known for its hand-made leather products and other Rajasthani handicraft. Most shopkeepers in the market think they can speak English. If 'Hello, how are you?" can be considered 99% of the Queen's language, then surely most shopkeepers can dazzle with their facile tongue.
 

Evening jam outside Sunset cafe.

Everyone in Pushkar is a musician. Some of them are bloody good at that. The ghat opposite Sunset cafe (one of the 52 ghats that Pushkar boasts of) is known for its unpretentious evening jams featuring local Rajasthani musicians and anyone with an instrument. However, many of the innumerable road side cafes in the Pushkar market are known for their bad taste in religious trance, which is often sold to hippies as a shortcut to salvation. So, when these hippies aren't consuming Hummus with Pita, and attending Yoga shivir by quacks, they are often seen grooving to 'Govinda Jaaya Jaaya' (in American accent) at Sunset cafe.
 
The best time to travel Pushkar is anytime when Pushkar mela is not on. There's no best time to travel Pushkar if you are an Indian. You will be treated like shit by locals who prefer hosting fair, hot-legged, tall firangs instead.

 

Post 1 - Mahakumbh, India's Rio equivalent

It's that time of the year when we go to Allahabad with a younger sibling and come back alone. It's called Mahakumbh, backpacking Jews in India would know. Or, as Manmohan Desai knows it Nirupama Roy-is-going-to-lose-all-her-kids event.  If you have no clue what I am talking about, obviously you are from Bandra, born in 1990s, sport Justin Beiber hairdo and believe Ben Kingsley is the father of nation. This piece isn't meant for you. BTW, it's 70% off at Zara.

Now, that the pretentious Bandra crowd has left I'd like to confess something - I can't afford a place there so I hate them. Anyway, for everyone's benefit, who isn't a tree-hugging hippie, and who doesn't live in Haridwar on a fake passport, basically Bangladeshis, here's a short history of the largest stampede in the world - Mahakumbh.

A glimpse of the Indian Baywatch. No, don't rub your eyes, certain parts in the picture have been blurred. 

Mahakumbh, also known as the Indian Baywatch, is a Hindu pilgrimage of faith in which people with no water connection at home gather at a sacred river for a bath. The festival is usually attended by people with expensive cameras and producers of ugly people porn genre. The festival takes place at a gap of twelve years at one of the four sacred places: Allahabad, Haridwar, Ujjain and Nashik and daily between 8 AM to 10 AM and 6 PM to 8 PM at Dadar and Kurla. The main attraction of the festival are Naga Babas. As the name suggests they are naked and they are related to versatile tone-deaf rapper Baba Sehgal.

It's very easy to identify a Naga Sadhu in a crowd of 100 million (number of people expected to attend Mahakumbh at Allahabad). Take Bob Marley hairdo add Robert Pattinson's pale skin, Hugh Hefner's wrinkles, playmate Sherlyn Chopra's wardrobe and Tommy Lee Jones' long beak. Put all the ingredients together add complexion of Samuel L Jackson, shake it a little and Naga Sadhu is ready.

Robert Pattinson + Bob Marley + Hugh Hefner + Sherlyn Chopra + Samuel L Jackson = Naga Sadhu 

Naked Monks (that's how I shall refer Naga Sadhus henceforth keeping in mind South Bombay crowd) smoke pot, not like the neighbourhood boy with a Furtados guitar in tow, but more like Syd Barrett, Kurt Cobain and Jim Morrison put together. The belief is that smoking chillum will lead them to Nirvana (not Kurt Cobain's album), but instead results show that post smoking weed these monks end up attaining blondes from Nelson, British Columbia region. In fact, these sadhus can be seen teaching yoga sadhana to some of these blonde western hippie chicks during night at riverside camps. Though, it is highly coincidental that the sadhana position is similar to that of 69, as described in holy book of Kamasutra.

These sadhus are known for their man-are-you-high rituals. For example, some Naga sadhus wear eleven thousand Rudrakhsa beads in sheer respect of Lord Shiva. But, most tourists mistake them for beads shop at Janpath and start bargaining with them. Some Naga Sadhus are believed to practice copulation with the dead. Actually, it's not true. This rumour started when a Naga Sadhu was spotted having intercourse with Arjun Rampal.

These Naga Sadhus belong to different Akharas (camps) - for example Yash Raj camp, Karan Johar Camp, Salman Khan camp and Rohit Shetty camp. The sadhus of Yash Raj and Karan Johar camp are always naked under their heavy Manish Malhotra attire, while sadhus of Salman Khan camp are mostly bare-chested unless they are in their Being Human tees. Sadhus of Rohit Shetty camp are known for their acrobatic skills including pulling a car with power of their testicles. 

Mahakumbh is popular among all sections of Indian society. While, the middle and lower middle class call it Mahakumbh, the upper middle class know it as Kalaghoda festival. More on this in another post.