Is it just me or is Priyanka Chopra getting hotter by the day! Whatever it is she's doing to keep that body of hers looking the way it is, it's working ... cuz she looks good enough to eat. No wonder they call her Piggy Chops.

***

So Japan's in recession*, Citi is getting rid of 52,000 people (many in India too I imagine), and we won't get to see Himesh's next blockbuster. Yep, Bollywood's feeling the pinch as well. Hhey Gujju has been shelved. What a loss that will be to the world of cinema!

And you'd think by now people would have realised that adding those extra letters (the numerology nonsense I mean) to their names/names of their films doesn't help to turn ones fortunes around. Shit with any number of t's in it will stink just the same. But they don't seem to get it.

*About time them panty-sniffers joined the club. And I'm sure they smelt it coming!

***

What else is making the news? Read last week that Prince Charles' marriage may be illegal. Marrying a horse is, I think in most countries.

And I'm reading right now that Rahul "cocaine kanhaiya" Mahajan is out of Bigg Boss for attempting to leave the house. Reason being he and a bunch of others were sick of home-cooked food. I think the real reason is he wasn't getting his vitamins.

Y'know, we were talking the other day, the lads and I, and we concluded that a new indicator of how desperately you needed to do something with your life is if you still watched Bigg Boss. You agree?

Sarah .... Building a mystery.

Hyderabad the city - Didn't like it too much to be honest. The traffic is a nightmare and the riskshaw drivers are the biggest bludy cheats I've seen yet. Something about the place just made me very uneasy (I was in the Secunderabad area in case you're wondering). Also it can be tough making your way about because so many people don't speak Hindi or English. Which I guess is how it is most places down South - people don't speak much apart from their local jalebi languages*.

Hyderabadi wedding - Whoa! You need to have the stamina of a marathon runner to sit through one of those. I was exhausted just watching. And the noise - bludy hell! Near-permanent damage to my hearing is the only thing I came away with (nope, no N-Series!). Because they had not one but two nankatai bands vying with each other for supremacy in terms of decibel levels. And I ain't kidding when I say they were loud enough to shake the fillings from your teeth!

But why spend so much money on a wedding is something that beats me. The flower arrangements itself I reckon may have exceeded the cost of an entire Goan wedding ... I'm no expert but I know that orchids are freakin' expensive. And the gold on all the women put together may have been enough to open another little gold suq in Dubai. Never before have I seen ladies wearing gold belts ... yeah, big thick things around the waist. They for sure don't need need them to hold the sarees up, so I can't think of any other possible use. BDSM did come to mind but I doubt them Telugu folk are into shit like that.

Couldn't have the much acclaimed biryani this time. And to be honest I'm not sure there'll be a next time.

Happy to be home is what I'll say. Raj can stuff his Marathi down our throats but we're better off here. Hyderabad reeks of conservatism. All you see is bludy men everywhere. Where have all the flowers gone was the question on my lips. Either they are all hidden away somewhere or the sex ratio is something they need to work on pronto. In either case this is what could happen.

* Jalebi coz of they way they're written.

I'm just wondering: If Barack Obama's skin color was more his mothers than his old man's, would the Blacks still be rejoicing?

And something tells me more will be expected from him than any President in the history of the United States. He has talked his way into the White House, but it'll take a lot more than that to stay there.

We wish him the best though, don't we? Yes we do. Go-bama!

***

I head to Hyderabad this weekend. For only a day unfortunately. To attend a friends wedding. I've heard them Hyderabadis (or whatever they're called) have really lavish weddings with shitloads of dowry coming the grooms way. If we (meaning the Goans) had ever to ask for dowry we'd be considered the worst damn villains on earth. The Mallus I believe are also quite notorious in these matters. In their case I've heard it's even a prestige thing, where if the girls parents don't give enough their standing in society gets diminished somewhat!

Anyway, I'm hoping to get a Nokia N-Series as takeaway gift. Sponsored by the guys folks of course.

Couldn't believe how much it costs to fly to Hyderabad though. 12 to 13 grand for a round trip. Bugger it I said, I'm going by bus. Hope to have some nice Hyderabadi dame sitting next to me and not some Naxal rotter. But I have shit luck with these things. The last time I travelled by bus it was only my tough constitution that kept me going. At the lunch stop this old blighter in the next seat had eaten like it was his last damn meal on earth and kept throwing up into a flimsy see-through plastic bag for the next 1 hour, I kid you not! If he was 30 years younger I would have slapped the bastard.

One of my favourites - The Marshall Tucker Band .... Fire on the Mountain. This for my mate AJ, who loves the open roads just like me. All I gotta do is head over to the Enfield Showroom which is just down the street from here and do it, but I don't know what stops me. One of these days though I just might.

I think what stops me is the fear that once I'm out there I may never want to return. To what I now call life. For you AJ... Ride on!

You gotta wonder about the origin of some of the phrases we use. For instance how do you think the phrase "when the shit hits the fan" came into existence? I may be wrong here but something tells me that somewhere, somehow, the shit did actually end up hitting the fan and the result was so catastrophic people far and wide came to know about it.

All in all a situation very difficult to imagine ... I mean come on, what would you have to do to get the shit to hit the fan? Because shit as far as I know obeys the law of gravity.

Or is that it - is that what the phrase means? That for the shit to hit the fan you'd have to be doing something really wrong!

I guess there's all ways of looking ai it.

***

Anyway, it's Friday already. Another few weeks and it'll be Christmas, then the New Year. It's like going through the motions these days, innit? When we were kids Christmas used to take forever to arrive. Now it's here before you know it. But this is one Christmas I'm looking forward to with much excitement. Because NBZ will be down after two years of slogging his arse in DXB. And you know what happens to people when they do long hot stints in the Gelf -- They go crazy! All they wanna do is spend .... Oh yeah, show me the money babey!!

Only spending I do at Christmas is a present for JC. Last year it was that little black dress. Why black, I asked her? A girls gotta have a little black dress, SwB ... don't you know anything!

A man's gotta have a pair of jeans is all I know. And not just any pair of jeans - a pair of jeans he can truly say he loves. As for me I have this love affair going with GAP. Lee, Levis, Wrangler and all the others can go into dairy farming for all I care, but if GAP ever stops making them jeans I'll be one very unhappy camper.

***

Something at work yesterday made me laugh for a full 10 minutes ... goddamn I'm still laughing! What happened is I sent an email to one of the dames in the office and got an Out of Office reply that went: "Thank you for nailing me... "

LMAO!! ... Careful not to mix up your m's and n's honey!

Steve Miller Band. The Joker. Think I've played this before but what the hell, love it every time I hear it.

he remembers a story
where the one who survived
was not the fearless
who from his wounds bled
but the coward
who shut his eyes
and played dead

After this they reckon it will be a man on the moon - an Indian man in an Indian spacecraft that is. So what if we're 40 years behind the US .... we're 40 years ahead of most of them African rotter states; only rockets they know to launch is usually aimed at their own people and fired from hand-held RPG's.

So who do you think would be the perfect candidate for India's first man on the moon? It's gotta be someone known yet expendable (given our track record for sending spacecrafts into the ocean). And right now I'd say the most expendable well-known Indian on the planet is none other than our very own crusader for the Marathi Manoos, Raj Thackeray! We'll spare Shahrukh Khan just this time.

***

Beautiful day outside. And the holidays just around the corner. No mention yet of what we're gonna get for Diwali ... though the buzz is, will you believe - 500 Rupee gift vouchers! Most people have already left for home, to hell with your bludy vouchers! As for me I don't know. I could spend the weekend chilling at a shack on Candolim beach, but getting a bus ticket to Goa right now will be as difficult as finding a Bihari on the streets of Mumbai. LOL, ok maybe not that difficult, them Biharis are hardy buggers, but yeah, it won't be easy.

Leo Sayer ... for Surbhi. Happy 26.

Doesn't look like it's gonna be a happy Diwali for a lot of people this year. Just reading about the 850 cabin crew Jet has decided to offload ... layoff I mean. What will all those pretty ladies do, where will they go? Frankly I'm surprised Jet even had 1900 odd cabin crew on its rolls; maybe they got them cheap from all those air hostess academies that sprung up overnight. A large majority of the girls are from the North East I believe. Yeah, it figures.

But with airlines cutting down on staff like this I reckon the day is not far when you find yourself walking up to board an aircraft and an airline staffer after checking your boarding pass hands you three foil-covered plastic trays saying: Here you go Sir, this is your lunch, mid-flight snack and dinner. If there's anything else you might need on board, you will have to go and get it yourself!

Bailout seems to be the buzzword these days. The airlines are asking for one now. When I meet Vijay I'd like to ask him: Who told you to order FIVE A-380's when your airline was barely off the ground?? All those cash flow projections may have looked great back then, but what will you do now? Sacking those poor things, forcing them to go back to Sikkim is NOT going to help.

And if Vijay cancels his 380's god knows how many Airbus workers at Toulouse will get the can. Then we'll have the French hating us. Those snails are not all safe to eat, you know!

As for the rest of us who still have our jobs, don't be expecting any hefty Diwali bonus this time around. Not unless you happen to work in essential services, which in our country is maid-servant or garbage clearing. Everything else is non-essential.

David Gray ... Sail away with me honey!

... But what are your options really?

So I'll say this: Seeing how practically everything in America these days is made in China, why bother with an American for President? You folks appear in a quandry trying to decide between Obama and McCain, when it's quite obvious that neither of them knows jack-shit about running the country! Hence why not just get some Chinese guy to step in as figurehead President and let Congress take all the decisions! Easier for everyone.

And think of all the money you'll be saving. On salary, expenses and security. A Chinese dude doesn't need to be paid half a million dollars a year, and neither will he need to move around in Air Force One. Hell, he'll even travel Coach! All those Secret Service guys working round the clock on Presidential protection could be re-deployed to assist in matters of real national security. And if poor Mr. Fcuk Noes Hoo happens to get bumped off by the Al Qaeda, all you gotta do is replace him with his cousin Hoo Cn Tell.

If their clothes are good enough for ya, why not a President!

***

One thing you cannot help noticing about American TV and American people in general is their total lack of interest in anything outside of their borders. Any time I switched on CNN or Fox or any of the other news channels all they were talking about is matters US - politics, weather, sports. It's like the rest of the world does not exist. But truth be told if I was living in America I wouldn't give a damn about the rest of the world either.

***

O.K. I've uploaded the pictures from Rhode Island and Vermont. Both places were lovely to visit; I loved the beauty of the landscape and just that feeling of being out on the road - vast, limitless, free. Do see and let me have your comments. I need to know if there's an alternate career for me in photography ... cuz I'm sick of my damn job. These are all as is - no Photoshop, and taken on ordinary Sony Cybershot and Canon cameras, considering which I think they came out pretty good.

So there's the trip to the beach at Newport with a drive around the mansions, and the visit to Montpelier, Waterbury-Stowe (where we stayed in a wood cabin and went apple picking ... don't miss the Pam Anderson) and Burlington in Vermont. Pictures from Boston will follow later this week.

Natalie Merchant - someone I heard for the first time just the other day and quickly became a fan. From the album Tigerlily this is San Andreas Fault. For Lee on her 5th blogversary .... been great having you around.

So - it's the jayanti of the Gandhi and the birdie of the Bun. But I'm pretty sure that henceforward this day will be remembered more for how it changed forever the lives of smokers in this country. Because with one stroke of the pen (or whatever else he did stroke) a gentleman named Ramadoss has literally made life for them hell.

Hurried conferences will be convened by people in offices and elsewhere to find a way out. I was witness to one such conference today. No smoking ANYWHERE on the premises is what the email from the company said. What if I prop myself against a wall or fence in a way that the cigarette and the accompanying smoke does not actually trespass inside, is what one guy came up with. Another suggested that easier would be to just climb the damn thing and sit on it with both legs dangling outside and cigarette facing away from the premises. Conferences like these won't end anytime soon I imagine.

But many say it might even be a good thing. Because as things now stand the only two places you can light up are out on the street and in your house. And considering how so many men cannot smoke at home either because their wives won't let them or simply because the buggers have been lying to their old ladies about having quit all those months ago, many say it could be the perfect opportunity to make a serious attempt to kick the butt. Whether they succeed only time will tell.

History has shown us though that whenever something is prohibited there springs an opportunity to make money. They're saying pubs, bars and discos will be the ones hardest hit. People will actually have to step outside to take a drag and then go back in. Which, depending on how much they smoke, will mean at least two, three or even more trips to the pavement. Not very nice. And if you're with a lady on a hot date some non-smoker bugger might even seize the chance and chat her up while you're taking a drag. Nope, no can do. So what be the solution? Our man Ally came up with something that I thought was quite brilliant. And could make whoever manages to pull it off a decent pile of money.

Dude- Mobile Pubs! You can smoke in your car, right? So if you buy a caravan like what those American buggers drive (he had seen a photo of one I had taken on the Interstate in the US), the problem is solved. Put three or four lounge type sofas and let people smoke and drink and do whatever they want inside; design it to look just like a pub with music and everything. I'm telling you dude - mast chalega. Cops-bips aaya toh just start the engine and drive away ... say it's your bleddy mobile home and you're throwing a party for your friends. Nobody can do anything!

Now he ain't exactly the smartest bloke around, but I think he may just have found a loophole. You think mobile pubs will work? Imagine if you parked one right outside Toto's :)

But I can tell you what won't work - the Call Centers. Yep, without their Customer Service Associates burning at least 8 cigarettes a day output will drop drastically. I'm pretty sure many companies will cheat even. Secret smoking areas ... where the smoke will be ingeniously smuggled out along with the fumes from the cafeteria.

To a non-smoker like me though it makes no difference. But I kinda feel bad for all my buddies who enjoy their cancer-sticks.

***

Anyone seen that Sajjanpur movie? Masand has given it four stars and says such movies are few and far between. Haven't seen him that excited about a film since Love Story 2050 flopped. And the things he's said gives me the feeling we won't be seeing anything this good till we do bludy get to 2050! (Now that less people will be dying of smoking related illnesses, 2050 is quite reachable.)

I was thinking of taking JC to see it this weekend. As a thank you for the cake.

***

So here's to you Bun! And for you this song: Dylan and Cash - Girl from the North Country, released 1969. Was a good year 1969.

Hot cup of tea after lots of Johnnie Black. Very nice. Best sleep I've had in three days. Jetlag can be quit a bummer. Trust good ol' scotch to fix it.

JC surprised me with a big chocolate cake. The boys turned up as well ... more for Johnnie than for me I reckon, but that's ok. I wouldn't have been happy drinking alone anyway.

Thanks for all the wishes. I'll try to reply to as many as I can (because there were so many) but if I miss anybody know it wasn't intentional.

And there was this one email sitting quietly in my inbox that I was almost missed among all the crowd which I was very happy to see. From someone whose birthday it was just a day before mine. This song for her ... keep spreading the joy! (bet she gets that a lot)

More Allman Brothers ... Midnight Rider.