I hate scorpions and liars. I love ice cream and my mother.

Namaskaram Viewers! This blog post is little late but whatever. This blog post title is another one of those wonderful things sometimes found in old school/college autograph/slam books. This snazzy little thing is something I saw on a notebook cover.

A Hindoo pen is apparently some kind of antique pen and not a pen made out of Hindoos, which is disappointing because I think a pen made out of Hindoos would be superneat to have and show off to people also. Speaking of Hindoos, Out of Print magazine's mythology-inspired issue is out and includes a reprint of my story The Dolphin King. Speaking of dolphins, I would like to talk about some things I thought were interesting from my little corner of the world. They actually have nothing to do with dolphins and I’m sorry I misled you like that yougaiz. 

1. We have a flyover and a Marry Brown which is why my templetown is now, and I quote “just like America”. The Marry Brown outlet here has pictures of massive white children on the wall. These massive white children are like the looming threat of American consumerism overpowering Indian culture and the everlingering presence of colonialism in Modern India. They are also like having oversized Children of the Corn staring down at you while you are trying to eat buffalo wings.  
2. There is a marked absence of Shakeela and other sex padam posters which were always present in large and startling numbers in this smalltempletown when I was engster. And when I say ‘marked absence’ I mean I only saw one and someone was drying cow dung on it. Now there is marked profusion of posters for Improve Spoken English courses which I guess is kind of like sex padam because so many sex padams seemed to be called My English Teacher or My Tuition Teacher and for something totally different, My English Tuition Teacher.  

And now I am going to talk about SlutWalks because this just wouldn’t be a chickblog if I didn’t talk about SlutWalks yougaiz. The SlutWalk in Delhi had interesting and completely predictable effects on certain sections of our illustrious society. Some people who had hitherto been trying to wrap their heads around the novel idea that one should not call women sluts suddenly became superconfused and excited because the word ‘slut’ is very exciting. Other sections of society made the exceedingly clever observation that if women themselves are parading themselves as sluts, then why won’t they be treated as sluts? The aforementioned superconfused contingency took a great deal of comfort from this observation and now these two sections of society are like bee eff effs yougaiz.  The ‘SlutWalk joke’ was born and quickly distinguished itself as a very unique breed of humor where peeps got extremely emo and upset if you did not laugh at these jokes, even if they were mind-blowingly unfunny. People also defended general assholic behavior by either saying they had a uterus or they knew someone who had a uterus which is not that interesting when you consider that this is pretty much a template defense for…everything.

I have to say that this adorably bizarro behavior reminded me of the reactions that often happen when you make the mistake of telling certain people that you have been sexually harassed or as we prefer to call it here, “eve-teased”. Ideally, one should never speak of these things because one, it is very Western-y and feminist-y when women talk about “eve-teasing”, especially when they insist on calling it sexual molestation or sexual harassment, thus making the whole thing very sexual and sexy. Secondly, saying that you were groped or grabbed means that you were basically asking for it in some way- for instance, maybe you were walking down the road or riding the bus or breathing. I think we can agree that many women, especially in India, are guilty of breathing. Thirdly, and this seems to be a more modern brand of thought, issues only become all gross and issue-y when you refuse to ‘see the humor’ and decide to make them an issue. This is why we should all start laughing at rape jokes because laughing at rape means it no longer becomes an issue and the last thing we need is for rape to be an issue yougaiz.

Anywaiz, all of this what-the-fuckery reminded me that people say some really bizarre shit to explain sexual harassment. Here are some of the tiptop wtf reasons I have heard for why women get “eve-teased”

1.      You Speak English
In my corner of the world, ‘English padam’ means sex padam, so I think that means that on some level, English means sex. So if you are a woman and you say something in English, you are basically saying sex sex sex sex sex sex sex which is possibly what incites men to grab your breasts on public transportation. This of course does not apply to dudes because dudes who speak English are awesome yougaiz and everyone wants to be their friend and no one wants to grab their tits, which must be superconvenient when you want to ride the bus and stuff like that.

2.      You Are Unmarried
Marriage is the best way to fend off sexual harassment because you know what happens when you get married to a dude? This magic force field grows all around you and if a guy tries to grope you, the force field makes the gropingdude's penis fall off. Seriously. This is why married women never get sexually harassed. Ever.

3.      Men Are Like That Only
Rape is just one of those things that all men are naturally inclined to do. Or something. I don't really understand that but thankfully Scott Adams does and he wrote the Dilbert comics and Dilbert is funny yougaiz. According to certain Tamil movies, this is another reason why women should marry men. Because it cures the inherently rapey tendencies all men have which the woman was trying to avoid in the first place which is why she gets married to a dude who by default has rapey tendencies because he is a dude. Or something. Sometimes Tamil movies are confusing yougaiz and you get the feeling that Scott Adams made them.

4.      You Are Arrogant
Female arrogance in general is apparently at the root of most bad things in the world today. For instance, that whole Maoist problem that is happening somewhere over there is really all about Arundhati Roy and how she’s like so arrogant yougaiz. I’m pretty sure that bird flu was created and perpetuated by arrogant chickens.

5.      You Have No Respect For Indian Culture
This is actually a deadly combination of female arrogance and speaking English, two of the most notoriously disrespectful disrespectations of Indian culture evar, with wearing pants coming in a close third. This is why women who wear traditional Indian dress are never sexually harassed evarevar. Also it is worth noting that if you speak English, wear pants and are a dude, you are #winning and also bravely upholding the tenets of Indian culture with your English and your pants.

And now, at the risk of showing further disrespect for Indian culture, I would like to wish a happy belated Canada Day to Canada, thank you for keeping it real and being so Canadian yougaiz. In your belated honor, I would like to dedicate musical numbers-

The Logdriver’s Waltz

The Best Song

No moleste yougaiz. okbai.

stolen from here

the kkk took my baby away they took her away away from me

The KKK are so mean, you guys. Not only are they racist, they apparently steal babies also. This is such a widespread problem in America that the Ramones sang a song about it and then Clawfinger covered it which I guess means the problem of baby-snatching white supremacists has spilled over into Scandinavia.

Anyhoo, this story of mine was recently published in a brand new online ‘zine called Out of Print. It is from our onenumber Injun countries so let us all Indian brothers and sisters send them so many stories and make them phamous.

Also, my chapbook called Three Scenarios Leading to the Rape of a Teenage Girl in the Tropicool Icy-land Urban Indian Slum is available from mud luscious press and they only printed a limited number of them and that makes this chapbook like Armani but not really. Keeping with the Armani motif, we are having a Wealthy And Upwardly Mobile Offer for the wealthy and upwardly mobile among us. The first three peepal to order a copy of my book starting like right now and I mean like RIGHT NOW will get one of these Armani-like chapbooks free. If you are so upwardly mobile that you don’t want to buy my book (which is mean and breaks my heart) then you can buy the chapbook all by its lonesome here. If you don’t want to buy anything and don’t own anything by Armani though you may have bought certain pavement items called Amrani , I’m sorry but we have no links for poor people to click.

In IndiaSoNotShining news, this article (if link doesn't work please to do the Google for ny times and nilanjana s. roy) tawks about a practice in our one number country called the ‘finger test’ which is used to check if alleged rape victims who are also unmarried women have really been raped or if they’re just having a bit of a laff. Also, being a progressive kind of country, in this year of 2010 we’ve also apparently decided to set up a committee to consider, among other things, that maybe boys and men get raped too! Isn’t that mindblowing? What cutting edge and progressive things will we think of next, India? That setting people on fire is generally not a good way to make new friends? Now, this same article talks about something called Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code, and that says “outraging the modesty of a woman” is against the law. This means that you can sexually assault a young girl and the most that will happen is you will get in big trouble for “outraging her modesty”. So it’s not so much a sexual violence thing as it is a ‘shame shame puppy shame’ thing. Isn't it neat how we take our morals and modesties so seriously? I mean, let us consider this petition It’s all about a really nice police officer who apparently was so steadfast in his moral policing of the modesties that he hit someone, made threats and humiliated people in public, all in the name of Tamil Culture. And while I am the last person with any right to speak on Tamil Culture, I have a very strong feeling Tamil Culture does not need peeps doing things like this in its name. I also have a strong feeling that Tamil Culture would appreciate if you sign the petition also. Remember that unlike the finger test, which only some of us leddies have to fear, moral policing, like dengue fever, can happen to pretty much anyone. And because I am chickenshit I want to say please moral police people, please don’t come after me for posting this because I am young and I want to live and I freely admit, I have no Tamil Culture so I think that means I am beyond saving but perhaps more importantly, please note that I don’t have any money.

Anyhoo, I recently watched a YouTube vid and came across a comment that was, without exception, the most awesomest comment I ever read. It goes something like this ‘Well I have a great sense of humor and I’m a very funny person and I don’t think this is funny.’ I feel we need to have moar peepal like this in the world so they can tell us what is funny and what isn’t. This also made me think of things I had read in the recent past which made me lolololo long time but in light of the awesome comment, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t supposed to find them funny at all.


How To Write About Africa by Binyavanga Wainaina

I feel somewhat about the word ‘Other’. I feel somewhat about the fact that whoever is nonOther is called ‘Other’, like they have some kind of disease which means we have to put them over there in the Other ward away from the nonOthers. Which is why I sometimes like to think of The Other as a demonic breed of anchovies because sometimes that’s how they turn out in teh fictionz anyway and demonic anchovies sounds less offensive to me than Other. Anyhoo, I think we can all agree that the most demonic anchoviest of them all is Africa. Consider the fact that we continue to refer to people from Africa by their continent rather than their country. Binyavanga Wainaina took it upon himself to write this helpful article on how to write about Africa, which I thought was one of the funniest things ever. But apparently, writing about Africa is serious business and when you make fun of it, you’re being racist. Or something. Whatever, I thought it was hilarious but I’m still in racism jail so what do I know.

Why You Shouldn’t Find This Funny- There are probably peeps out there who actually have lists like this for writing about all sorts of demonic anchovy topics. I’m pretty sure there is a How To Write About Indian Slumdwellers list floating around and I believe this list has left the confines of our country and in keeping with the most powerful of all Indian aspirations, it has gone and settled in the West. Anyhoo, this piece caused Mr. Wainaina to be hit with an upgraded kind of concern trolling where the research and all the hard work is already done (which is awful nice because so many times, the Demonic Anchovy must do the research for the nonOther) and now, all the Demonic Anchovy has to do is say ‘Demonic Anchovy Approved!’ (I believe this is a portion of KalariNinjaSkillz #3). Mr. Wainaina himself describes it thusly “Novelists, NGO workers, rock musicians, conservationists, students, and travel writers track down my email, asking: Would you please comment on my homework assignment / pamphlet / short story / funding proposal / haiku / adopted child / photograph of genuine African mother-in-law? All of the people who do this are white. Nobody from China asks, nobody from Cuba, nobody black, blackish, brown, beige, coffee, cappuccino, mulatte. I wrote “How to Write about Africa” as a piss-job, a venting of steam; it was never supposed to see the light of day. Now people write to ask me for permission to write about Africa. They want me to tell them what I think, how they did. Be frank, they say, be candid. Tell it like it is. I have considered investing in a rubber stamp.” (from How to Write About Africa II: The Revenge by Binyavanga Wainaina)


On Wiscon… by Deepa D

This one is labeled satire and I’m guessing the label made it much easier for people to say ‘Well thankfully, I don’t read this kind of racist humor’ because clearly, she’s being totes racist to white peepal here. This is not like certain articles about Indian men that appeared in HuffPo that were totes NOT racist and which I am not linking to because that’s gross and also Google is your friend.

Why You Shouldn’t Find This Funny - To understand why you’re not supposed to find this funny, we need to understand what made the HuffPo article so LOL. It is a very LOL thing for someone who is not an Indian and not a dude to write something that is essentially LOL Injun Dudes Are So Injun! Because not only is it allegedly funny, it shows us that the author is not racist and loves all Indians very much. It’s the same thing that makes LOL Fat People Are So Fat!, LOL Females Are So Female! And LOL Deaf People Are So Deaf! jokes so terribly lol. Now, sometimes people will write something in the LOL genre but with the LOL removed. This means that the piece is written with an honest kind of earnestness which we are supposed to applaud and appreciate and not laff at because it’s totally NOT funny. So that means it's not funny to satirize it either because that would be like satirizing kittens with cancer.

What’s tricky is that you may have actually seen white people write stuff exactly like this for realz about colored folk. And for the record, I have heard Injuns say similar things about non-Injuns. I have heard one religion say this about another religion, one caste about another caste, straight folk about teh gayz, abled about the differently challenged. And they have all been honest and heartbreakingly sincere and the reason why they are sharing these honest and heartbreakingly sincere thoughts with us is because they are so brave to have ventured so boldly into demonic anchovy territory and come out unscathed. And now, it is our most honorable duty to give them a Cookie, because that’s really what this is all about. Cookies. It is possibly the most time-consuming and melodramatic way to ask for a cookie. Mmmm, cookies.


Far Off by Favell Lee Mortimer

It’s not really fair to include Mrs.Mortimer here because unlike Deepa D and Binyavanga Wainaina, I don’t think she wrote this to be funny at all. In fact, I believe she was so serious about this that she kind of employed KalariNinjaSkillz #5 here, which means the credit for this worthy treatise kind of belongs to Jesus, which kinda sucks for Jesus. From what I understand, Mrs. Mortimer wrote this, which is a religious children’s travelogue type thing about Africa, China and Hindoostan and all sorts of other places but she didn’t actually leave the Shire, as they say. She even says in preface “Its plea is not completeness, nor comprehensiveness, nor depth of research, nor splendor of description; but the very reverse,—” Which totes wouldn’t happen today, right? Amirite?

Why You Shouldn’t Find This Funny –I think that Mrs. Mortimer honestly believed the native heathens she wrote about really existed out there in the Far Off and they needed to be saved and she knew just how to save them. Which is condescendingly lol when you sit in 2010 and know that Mrs. Mortimer is safely tucked away in the 1800s. However. This is not funny when you consider that many people in the today still feel the same way about us heathens. And that's actually kind of touching, like how people tracking you down and cutting you open to remove the alien being they think is living in your large intestine is touching. And I guess because some peeps still think this way, they still write this way and the only real difference between them and Mrs. Mortimer is teh internetz. For instance, we no longer say things like ‘The Turks are grave and the Persians lively. The Turks are silent, the Persians talkative. The Turks are rude, the Persians polite’ anymore. But we write things in the HuffPo that are for a LOL and about Injuns because we're all really scared of Turks and Persians right now. In this century, we totes do not talk about the ‘devil priests of Ceylon’. But we make movies called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom which shows Injuns making human sacrifices to the Goddess Kali and eating monkey brains. Mmmm, monkey brains.

Because this blog post is already too long, I end with this extremely important message. A reliable source tells me that there is a very little dude in Pondicherry hawking very little bags with great enthusiasm and violence while shouting ‘Indian Culture!’ So for those of you who were wondering where Indian Culture is, this very little dude in Pondicherry haz it in bag form and you can go get some if you want.

okbai.