Trouble is my middle name. It is that or I don't know what it is..

As it always does, this phone starts to ring when I was sleeping . It would seem that people checked with each other to find out if I was sleeping and deliberately woke me up the moment I dozed off after a hard day. How would you like it if you were shaken out of your reverie by the squealing of a phone, when you just about closed your eyes after about half an hour of scraping, rubbing, twitching and tossing in the bed. Needless to say to say, I was mad and almost smashed the phone on my head. Slamming the phone on your heads is helpful in two ways....1] it stops the bally thing from screaming and 2] for the anesthetic effect of a solid blow on the head leaves you out cold for a few hours.

I picked up the phone and muttered wearly,

"Hello? "

"Govinda raj"

"No, this is Venu raj, I mean Venugopal"

"I know that. And that is why I dialled your number, you idiot."

"Then don't call me Govinda raj. Call me Venu, if you don't mind."

"Eda, this is Govinda raj. I am back in trivandrum."


Jeeeeeezzzz, it was Govindan. And nobody warned me that he was in town.


" I called Cherian and he told me he was in a conference and may not be able to get out for the next two days. Said he would call me as soon as he could, that is, if he ever could. And Hrishi told me he was suffering from arthritis of the tongue and may not be able to speak for a few days. He promised to get back as soon as he was able to speak. Speak legibly, that is".


Which left me at his mercy for the next few days until he left town. Every time Govinda raj came down to trivandrum for a holiday, we would all get together, have a few round of drinks and get into some trouble. It never failed to happen. It had become such a regular feature of our meetings that everyone fled out of town at the mention of Govindan's name. I had to do some quick thinking and came up with,

"Hi Govinda, good to hear from you. Iam driving my car, reached Kollam, on my way to Kollappuzha, I mean Alappuzha. Don't know when I am going to get back. Will call you when I do. Bye".

"Why are you going to Kollappuzha..er ..Alappuzha?"

"My niece is getting married"

"You mean, your sister's daughter?"

" I couldn't call my sister's son my niece, now, could I?"

"You have only one sister, right?"

"That is what my father told me and it has never occurred to me that he lied to me."

"The last time I came down, she had only two sons. Now, in two years, she has not only had a daughter but she is getting married as welll, eh?"


I swallowed a few gallons of air and let out a long breath. It took me a while to empty myself of all that gas, and in the meanwhile I did some slow thinking as well, since the quick thinking I did earlier did not produce the desired results.

"He, he heh", My thinking was real slow.

"You sound like a donkey going hee haw, hee haw. Why, you even behave like one. Iam standing right outside your house from where I can see your car, which you said you were driving, in the carshed. I have seen technology progress a lot, but I never thought I would see a man drive his car and the car still stay in the same place. In your case, the carshed."

"He heh". It was still so slow that you would think I wasn't thinking at all

"Now come out and open the door. "

"I have two cars. And Iam not driving the car that is parked in the carshed, because that is parked in the carshed. Iam driving the car that Iam driving..I mean..I am driving the car that Iam driving and not the car that is parked in the carshed, because it is parked in the carshed. And my sister is not my sister..I mean..my sister is my sister..er..she is my cousin sister."

My thinking was beginning to work, still a little slow though, but working alright.

"Ok, I believe you. Just wanted to know if you all would like to go for a boat ride which I have arranged. I also have brought 3 bottles of J & B whiskey".

He might have said he brought three bottles of trouble with him. The trouble with a person like me who flirts with and dates trouble in his free time, is that trouble may not look like trouble at all. Three bottles of J & B was too tempting to let go.

"I shall ring up others and let you know when we can all get to meet".

Two days later, we all met up. My car had developed some trouble and I had to borrow Hrishi's bike to get to rendezvous. I also had a few errands to do, one of which book some tickets for a movie for parents and two cousins who had come down to visit them and also their return tickets by train.

So after dropping Hrishi with Govindan and Cherian, I took the long ride to the railway station to book tickets for my cousins. Inspite of Hrishi's warning, I had consumed a few rounds of J & B just so my bike ride too and fro would be smooth and enjoyable. After booking the tickets at the railway station, I rode off to the movie theatre to book tickets. So far, so good.

Coming out of the theatre, I noticed something wrong with the bike. It had ceased to look familiar. I wasn't very sure if it was the drinks that did it but as a man who was capable of both slow and quick thinking, I was not going to be flustered by such trivia. I got on to my quick thinking mode and I phoned Hrishi and checked the bike number. My eyes were not deceiving me. This was not Hrishi's bike.

It seemed like someone had left his bike there and took Hrishi's instead. I immediately switched to slow thinking mode and considered whether to go to the police. Slowly it dawned on me,[ a phenomenon associated with slow thinking, i.e., things dawn on you only a little slowly] to report the matter to the police. They came along with me to the movie theatre and took the bike in and now, my quick thinking told me that it was only a matter of time before police nabbed the guy who took Hrishi's bike.

And I joined up with the rest of the gang and wow!! we had a whale of a time. We were so drunk that getting home was posing to be a big problem. I swung back and forth from slow to quick thinking, but to no avail. I had forgotten where my house was. I knew it was somewhere in PTP Nagar. We drove around the colony a few times and still no sign of my house. Finally, we decided to ask someone if he knew where I was staying.

"Excuse me, Sir. Would you, by any chance, know where the house of this guy named Venugopal Unnikrishnan is ?"

"Venugopal Unnikrishnan?"

"Yes..Unugopal Annikrishn...I mean. Venugopal Unnikrishnan".

"What does he do?"

"You mean, right now?"

"No, where does he work?"


I had forgotten that too. Now I was suffering from arthritis of the brain. No such thing as slow or quick thinking happened. In fact, I couldn't think at all. But that kind person could understand the dilema I was in.

"Could you pls tell me what this..Unugop...er..Venugopal Unnikrishnan looks like?"

This time my quick thinking side of my brain answered so quickly that I could actually hear myself say it again.

"He looks like me."

"In fact, he looks exactly like him", Chipped in Hrishi.

And that is when jeep full of policemen drove up. They came straight to the point.

"Are you the mutt that filed the complaint about someone mistakenly taking your bike away?"

"Yes Sir, that was me".

"Did you go to the railway station for something?"

"Yes, I did".

"You drunken fleabag!! You left your bike at the railway station and took someone else bike from there, rode it up to the movie theatre. Coming out of the theatre, you thought someone had mistakenly taken your bike and filed a complaint with us. Now, we are taking you in for drunken driving and stealing someone else's bike".

I looked around for help. Govindan, Hrishi and Cherian were nowhere to be seen and disappeared into the void. It was that or I had gone blind.

I spent next two days at the police station, until the other guy, whose bike I had whisked away, under the influence of whiskey withdrew the police case.

I have not seen Govindan since then. I heard from Hrishi, that he took the next flight back to USA and Hrishi and Cherian still haven't stopped talking and laughing about it.

A Rasputin Of Sorts...

Those good old days, when I used to go to the gymnasium will not happen anymore. It is all over and done with. The present generation do not have what it takes to be a true gym rat. Couldn't blame them, 'cause going to the gym is not any like going to a club or the stadium where you played those which have so much glitz and glamour..games like cricket and tennis.

In my young days gymnasium was a place visited by the thugs, hoodlums and certainly not for anyone from a decent family background. It was a place where trouble courted, married and made love to vandalism. Anyone from a good family was not supposed to workout in a gym. Why should they, when there were more interesting and entertaining sports and games like shuttle, cricket, tennis, where you could meet up with the rich and the upperclass?

It was precisely in those settings and backdrop that I decided to join a gymnasium. My mother never knew about it until I started packing on some muscles on my 51 kg of bones and skin. If my mother and family were not ready to accept that fact, it was worse at the gymnasium. I was something the cat brought in. It was a place akin to big junction in a city, where there was a traffic block created by a few huge trucks. Big, tall guys "hung" about silently, everywhere, like ships marooned in cochin harbour. And I pranced, weaved and bobbed out of the way like a lifebuoy thrown carelessly into the water. Those guys were huge and I was a wimp, who muttered thanks to everyone who did not knock me down or trampled over me. "Hey boy, roll that 3 kg dumbell over to me. Don't try to pick it up, it could be too heavy for you. Just push it hard in my direction...yeah ..attaboy!!"

I wasn't going to take this any longer. I was going to get big and strong like those guys. It took me about two years of hardwork, a lot of heaving and puffing to get to be about 75 kg and then I thought I had learned enough to set up my own gymnasium.

And that was when this interesting incident happened.

The first person ever to join my gym was a girl. May be it was just that 75 kg of muscle was not very impressive looking or it was just that I dint have the steel in my eyes to be a true bodybuilder..but she seemed very relaxed in my presence when she said, " I would like to join your gymnasium". I had known this girl for sometime , a pretty little thing, from a well to do family and I wondered what she was doing here in my gym. My eyes flexed its muscles and swelled up in size, everytime I ran into her on the road. I would also suck in all the available oxygen in the neighbourhood and my hands would jump to the side, about a foot from the body and stay that way, as though somebody stuck a hot charcoal under my armpits, everytime her eyes met mine. And I would walk upto her [ and walk past her] like a big bull walking upto a cow. My eyes would lock onto hers and say," Babe, you must be very tired because you have been running in my mind all day long.". She was also something of a choking pain, akin to a chest congestion, in the heart of every guy in the vicinity. And here she was, wanting to join up my gym. I almost jumped up with joy, but all the laden weight of the oxygen I had just sucked in, anchored me to earth.

" I have a black belt in karate and my instructor said I had to build some more strength in the arms and legs, which is why Iam here and Iam willing work very hard, as hard as you can push me to achieve my goal." She told me. This was my golden chance to show off what I was really made of. I would run around the house for a few minutes, work up a good sweat and by the time she arrived at the gym, I would load as much weight on the bar and stand next to it as though I had just finished my workout. "Boy! you are so strong. You are so humble not to show off your strength and muscles wearing those tight T shirts". I did not tell her that if I had bulging muscles on my shoulder and chest, I wouldn't wear a shirt, ever. But she was very impressed. In fact, so impressed with me was she, that she brought in two of her friends to join up at the gym, a few days later. If she was beautiful, the other two were stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. I say, breathtaking, because I remember gasping for breath every time one of them just as much as looked at me. I found there wasn't enough oxygen for me suck in, in the gym, anymore. I was using it up like anything. " We would like to be trained the same way you train our friend" said one of them in a voice that had the effect of a cool, soothing breeze kissing my violently pounding heart. "Ok." I answered in a voice that resembled the sound of a buffalo clearing its throat.

My gym was an old, unused car shed, which had an entrance from the road and another from the house. The girls used come in from the entrance in the house. For the first two months since I started the gym, there was almost nobodyelse who joined except these girls. But what I did not know was that I was attracting the attention of the entire neighbours and even become something of a hero in their midst. It happened like this. Usually the girl who joined first, would drop by and the neighbours would see her go into the car shed. They did not know it was a gym inside, but they would see the girl coming out drenched in sweat and too weak to walk. They would also hear cries like " Venu, pls stop, I can't do it any more. No, not today...Oooh, Iam so tired, but it feels good". About half an hour later, the other beauts would sneak into the carshed and come out looking like they fell into a washing machine running at top speed. All the while, I, would go in and out the carshed without just as much as a wrinkle on my shirt. And they would say," this guy is an animal. Some kind of rasputin. Look at him!! three girls in a row and he is not even sweating. And those girls look like they have been raped by a whirlwind."

One day there was a big crash and a thudding noise outside road entrance to the gym. I rushed out to see what was happening and lo! there was another crashing sound and something heavy fell on me. It was my neighbour, a teenager, who had fallen from the roof of the car shed. And there were more, three more to be precise, on the roof. All had a certain sheepish smile on the face which resembled the grin of a monkey that bit into banana and found out that it was made of plastic. "We thought..er..ah..he..heh..". The girls had no clue as to what had happened, but I couldn't help but smile at the funny turn of events.

So many years have gone by since this incident had happened but whenever I bumped into any of those guys on the road, they would look down or the other way and avoid me altogether. And I couldn't help but break into a chuckle and wonder what those kids might have discussed about me until they found out what was happening in the car shed.

"O ba ma Gawd, it's Obama

Obama is the new president of the United States of America. Can you believe that? It was only a few years back, Bush wanted to get rid of Obama's family in Afganistan. Obama's cousin, Osama even had to give up throne and relinquish power because this man named Bush, bushwhacked him to seize power in Afganistan. But if Bush thought Osama would give up that easy, he had 'nother think...er..thought..ah..whatever coming.

Osama Bin Laden always had a plan. Plan 'B' to be precise. He knew he couldn't conquer America by force, but only through political will. And Bush did not believe in beating about the bush, with his statements such as Osama is the curse of the world and had to be wiped out. But Osama had always someone to bank on in America, his very own cousin, Obama. Obama was being trained in India, by Osama to take over America and Bush thought he was sitting pretty.

America has always had a history of racial discrimination. I remember Mohammed Ali [ former heavy weight boxing champion of the world] telling me this story about how it was after he won the Olympic title. Ali dropped in at this restaurant where they wouldn't entertain any blacks. He thought he being the world champ would make some difference to these white morons, especially to this waiter who declared " We don't serve niggers" and Ali said " I don't eat them either".

It was partly due this alienation from the main race, that Obama had come down to settle down in India, in Chennai, to be precise. He was my classmate and best friend in school and that is how I know the inside story. Obama was a short thickset boy then and we used to call him "katta" Obama in school. And we were inseperable. In the early eighties, his father set up a transport service called 'Katta Obaman' transport service, which was later taken over by the Tamil Nadu Govt. He also was the leading man and hero in the famous tamil movie, Veera Pandi Katta Obaman.

Obama jumped into political fray at a very early age. He joined up with DMK who were very much against the aryan race and Klu Klax Klan. He was very good at studies and after school, he went to Harvard and I, wayward. We would always keep in touch though.

The rest is history.

Obama had phoned yesterday to say that the White House will not be called thus after he was sworn in. He has decided to call it 'Black House'. A lot of "white mischief" had taken place in the office and he says it was time to cover up all the previous operations with a "black label".

It is very good news for Indian wives that Obama has taken up the charge d' affairs of american parliament. His immediate plans to stop outsourcing of work would mean that those engaged in software development would be hard pressed for any development, which will lead to more men reaching home very early in the evening and spending more time with the family. Also their flaccid and software approach to their soft, weary wives would be little more hardware-developement-oriented in nature, leading to more placid state of affairs at home. With less money flowing in, there will be less demand for a lot of things in the market, leading to crashing of prices of all essential commodities such as luxury cars, land, gold and to a great extent, even vegetables.

Now that I have inhouse information on every policy matters, I shall keep you posted
of every little development the american govt makes.

All I can say now is , "O BA MA GAWD, OBAMA IS GREAT"