oh little flower. see your lover. see your chittu kannil pattu pattu sikki konda lover.

ohai :) This blog post title is taken from this song. I think it’s pretty self-explanatory so that’s all I have to say about that.

I would like to say mostheartfelt thank you to the hyperawesome people at the hyperawesome Versal for nominating my short story ‘Jugni’ for the Pushcart.  ZOMG PONI3S!!1! Bais, do that Pushkee thang. 

GIFSoup

I really love these guys.

Next, I want to send mostwarmest wishes to Mr. Warren Anderson on the occasion of the anniversary of that thing that happened in Bhopal that one time. A lot of people deserve to be greeted heartily on this occasion but Mr. Anderson, I think you are special, especially when it comes to that thing that happened in Bhopal that one time (I won’t mention it by name because I know it upsets you and my heart would break into a million little Warren Anderson shaped pieces if I ever upset you). 

Anyhoo, my favorite part of the Radia tapes has to be this exchange, stolen from here.

Nira: Hi!

Raja: Hello?

Nira: Hi!

Raja: Tell me.

Nira: Mr Raja?

Raja: Yes?

Nira: Nira

Raja: Tell me, Nira, anything?

Isn’t that neat? This makes the entire Radia expose totes worthwhile. Also, I want to thank Karu Uncle for the Ration Television he gave all us peepal in my corner of the country. This means that everyone here now has two televisions and some of the poorer sections of society have three televisions and many of the private buses have four televisions and certain STDXeroxCoolDrinks booths made out of cardboard boxes have five televisions. Did I mention it has a remote control and four of the buttons glow in the dark? We global, mothafuckaz.

King Hammer, formerly known as MC Hammer was formerly known for this.

 

GIFSoup

Then he released a new song in which he says Jay-Z sold his soul to the devil and then I think he baptizes him in the end although it also looks like he drowned him also. The video seems to have been made by the Doordarshan Podhigai channel and all I can say is how the mighty have fallen and by mighty, I mean the Doordarshan Podhigai channel. 

Irom Sharmila has now been fasting for ten years in protest of the killing of innocent civilians by security forces in Manipur. Raise your hand if you have no idea who this woman is! Raise your one another hand if you think Manipur is ‘somewhere over there, next to Calcutta’! Raise both your legs if you don’t really care also. Anyway, there is no mention of Arundhati Roy here so clearly it is not worth tweeting furiously about using all caps and exclamation marks like you know what you’re saying.

An alarming number of people I don’t know sent me ‘forward greetings’ for Deepavali (that's Diwali in South Indian). These were all filled with sound and fury and signified absolutely nothing. Eye-molesting fonts and the wholly idiotic overuse of overused words like ‘light’ and ‘peace’ in Deepavali forwards reminds of those fecking eejits who insist you join the Facebook group To Save Bi Polar Dolphins From Radiation Emitted By Paper Doilies because “it’s better than doing nothing”. 

                                                      (stolen from here)

I would like to say that in the case of Deepavali forwards and this form of internetz chairitee, the ‘nothing’ is seriously the much better option. Also, let’s just break down these two gawdawful entities shall we?

1. Both are incredibly easy to do which is the ONLY reason why so many people do them. Because it mostly just involves clicking, you can Deepavaligreet that person in Australia you once sat next to that one time and you can do this without the bother of actually seeing their face or talking to them but you get to say you Deepavaligreeted them which makes you awesome. Clicking also lets you do amazing works of charity, like saving gay field mice from homophobic cats. This is how people get deluded into thinking they have awesome internetz superpowers because as long as “saving” involves just a click, we are all internetz heroes. 
2. Deepavali forwards and internetz chairiteez is EXACTLY like saving the whales through modeling in that there are far, far, FAR better things you can do but those things are hard to do and modeling makes you look good and that’s basically why you’re doing this and it has nothing to do with the whales because the whales can go fuck themselves for all you care.
3. Both these acts are like knee-jerk Indian hyperpatriotism, complete with the allcaps, ignorance and exclamation marks. This means if you’re not doing it, then you should be should be charged with sedition and you are Pakistani also.

The Privilege Denying Dude was one of the best memes ever but then it got shut down for copyright issues or something, which just goes to show that you really and truly cannot say stuff about privileged peeps, especially dudes and especially white dudes. And then you know what happened? This wonderful, brave and awesome and brave and wonderful man called Edman offered his own visage in order to let Privilege Denying Dude live once more. See? 

                                                                        (stolen from here)

Isn’t that the best thing ever? If you think this is totes racist against dudes, especially white ones, you can read this although it’s probably much easier to just say it’s racist against white dudes because it saves you the time of reading that article I linked to.

The Local Consortium Of Bigots were completely enamored of Obama when he came to visit and they were forced to concede that he was actually quite handsome, charming and spoke English very well even though he was a Negroids.

I have this pair of sweatpants which I bought off the pavement and they are falling to pieces and in this state of falling-to-piecesness, I noticed that the elastic in the waistband was not elastic at all. It was a dirty tensor bandage. Somebody’s dirty tensor bandage was keeping my pants up. I guess this is why clever people buy clothing from stores that are in buildings and have doors and stuff like that.

And now, because many Indian peepals insist I am actually Canadian (which is superoffensive to Canada), I speak of Lake Shore, Canada’s version of Jersey Shore. This show is very ethnic because everyone is part of some ethnic group and not Canadian at all and that’s just very ethnic. Hopefully all that ethnicness will culminate in ethnic violence at some point. Here is what I found most notable.

1. There is a girl who is described as a pole. This could mean she is Polish but I like to think she is actually a pole.

2. There is a dude who says he is Albanian. I foresee this fellow bringing great shame to the country of Albania. AlsoAlso, he is there to be homophobic to someone called Salem, pronounced like Salem TamilNadu, who is Lebanese. Salem often stands in front of racks of clothes because the Lake Shore people want us to infer that he is a flaming homosexual. 

3. There is some dude who is a construction worker by day and a mad party animal by night. He’s a MAD party animal, I tell you. MAD! How mad? Why, if you saw him, you’d say,

 (stolen from jezebel.com but can't remember exactly where, sue me)

This is exactly what construction workers in India are like also. Also that GIF is always a good idea. 

4. There is a girl who is mainly there because she has big bewbies but also because she is Jewish and she is there to fight with another Turkish girl who said she hates everyone especially Jewish people. In this way, Lake Shore tackles the issue of Islam versus Judaism only it’s in Canada and it involves bewbies.

5. There is a dude who says that he came to Canada from Czechoslovakia when he was three and he’s been taking over ever since. I think his last name is Hollywood. This is embarrassing for Canada, Czechoslovakia, Hollywood and three year olds.

For some reason, there are no crazybadass TamilCanadians. I’m guessing they couldn’t find even one. In TORONTO.

In more positive Canadian news however, we present the ZOMG What A Novel Idea Award to a new Canadian anti-rape campaign that actually targets dudes instead of leddies! This is the first time I’ve seen a campaign like this and I’m like, ZOMG What A Novel Idea! Because instead of blaming leddies for being so rape-able, this campaign encourages dudes not to be that rapey guy that rapes people. But wait! I know that perhaps some people are saying, ‘if a girl is wearing *insert absolutely anything here*, it’s asking for rape, right?’ Wrong! Clothing can’t talk! If clothing is telling you to rape people, it means you need to get professional help before someone’s shoes tell you to disembowel yourself with knitting needles.

This will tell you all about a totes haut new thing called AIDS Orphan Tourism. This where rich people go to African countries and act as caregivers for orphans with AIDS, because then they can go home really soon and tell people that they were a caregiver for an orphan with AIDS in some African country. That’s like the hautest thing ever. However, and I quote, “However, shortly after these ‘connections' have been made, tourists leave - many undoubtedly feeling that they have made a positive contribution to the plight of very vulnerable children. And, in turn, feeling very special as a result of receiving a needy child's affection. Unfortunately, many of the children they leave behind have experienced another abandonment to the detriment of their short- and long-term emotional and social development. Voluntourism is potentially exploitative of children suffering adversity as a result of poverty and HIV/AIDS. Child advocates should protest these practices and welfare authorities should ensure they are stopped.”

I think we can all agree that orphans with AIDS have enough issues to deal with without having to also deal with multiple abandonment issues from wealthy temp caregivers from other countries who are hoping to do something exotic and charitable for their summer holidays. And so I nobly offer this alternative. Voluntourists, come take care of me. I live in third world country, hence the third world name of this third world blog. I don’t have any major diseases but almost all my acquaintances have had diseases like typhoid, malaria, dengue fever, jaundice, chikungunya, cholera and one person even has TB! So you can come down here and wash my clothes and cook for me and buy me stuff  (you can’t touch me though) and I won’t talk in English at all, we can communicate using sign language to make your experience more authentic. Then you can give me lots of money and you can go back home and tell everyone you were a caregiver for a third world ghetto vampire in India. That’s way haut, trust me because it’s like poverty porn and Twilight mixed together. Massive street cred.

And now, teh musics.

Roll Up D Tassa by Drupatee & Alison Hinds- This is heppy song.

Kanavu Kaanum from the movie Neengal Ketavai. This is not heppy song. 

Dark Side Dub by Zeds Dead- This somehow manages to be awesome and evil at the same time, thus making it very suitable for dancing. 

Never Forget You by Noisettes- This song is dedicated to everyone I’ve forgotten. 

Ode to L.A. by The Raveonettes featuring Ronnie Spector- This song is dedicated to everyone who doesn't live in L.A.

I liked this playlist very much. I thought it was very fine.    

And to end on a high note, the All Blacks' Kapa o Pango Haka. Hautest thing ever. Seriously.

okbai.

dance into the danger.

When I was a little youths, I wanted to dance into the danger because I thought it would be a fierce and awesome and fierce thing to do. I wanted to dance into the danger with people like this.



Isn't it neat how a lot of people today look at this pic of Poison and say 'zomg, trannies!' and then they look at a more recent pic of Poison and they say 'zomg, old lesbians!'

Anyway, in the big bad world of free stuff, a certain Frank Delaney is doing a podcast every week on James Joyce's teenyweeny booklet called Ulysses. Frank Delaney says he may even go sentence by sentence if he has to because he thinks the book is that awesome. Frank Delaney will probably be podcasting this for a very long time. So far, he has told us how Joyce did a lot of "multi-tasking in prose" and how each sentence often carried more than one meaning. Isn't that neat? That is neat. Also, this podcast of Huckleberry Finn and this podcast of The Awakening by Kate Chopin are the rare and happy event that happens when the text and the reading make you feel like you're listening to something that can't possibly be free because free stuff is usually crappy and these podcasts are not crappy.

Sometimes one comes across peeps that think rape is cultural. You know, like how all Indians are hard-working and love to dance, how all Moroccans are charming and friendly and all Americans are...American. Along with these very impressive and effective labels, people also like to include rape as a cultural thang and you can read about that here. If indeed rape is a cultural thang, then that is probably all the more reason to not do anything about it because it's very bad to criticize aspects of another culture because that's just racist. ZOMG, did I just talk about rape again on this blog? Oh snap, so feministy! Luckily I'm not a guy or this whole para would have made me 'gay'.

Anyway, one of the really great things about racism jail is that it teaches us to find the commonalities among the differences of our equalities. I was able to see this when I realized that there are so many samenesses existing between Rebbie Jackson's Centipede video and Tamil movie songs from a specific era which is not very specific because that style sometimes persists today and sometimes it doesn't. You can watch the Rebbie Jackson video in the below given underneath.



By contrasting and comparisoning, I was able to find the unity in the diversity between these two equally opposite genres. Unfortunately, I was also able to find the differences which is why I am still in racism jail.


Why Rebbie Jackson's 'Centipede' Video Is Like a Tamil Movie Song

• It starts with "the museum's most treasured masterpiece", which looks like something that I could have painted, which just reflects so incredibly badly on said painting. This is broadly similar to but not the same as this one Tamil movie I saw where they kept plutonium in a cupboard. This cupboard was locked though and that made everything really safe and not radioactive or anything. Just as Rebbie Jackson's Centipede forces us to question what kind of museum would call that painting a masterpiece, Tamil cinema makes us wonder why plutonium looks like lightbulbs sometimes.

• Rebbie Jackson's video is just like Tamil movie song in that they are both essentially about a brown woman in a shiny dress dancing with lots of feeling with men in suits. In Tamil movie song, these men are called sideys. In Rebbie Jackson video, these men are called gay men. If this was a Tamil movie, this woman would later be slapped by the hero or raped by the villain for cavorting with men in this overtly western fashion. It is heartening to note that while the hero and villain are totally not bros, they both have the woman's best interests at heart.

• Rebbie Jackson has lightning shooting out of different parts of her body. It makes you want to do the same dance moves to see if lightning will shoot out of your body parts. This does not happen in real life and that is sad. In Tamil movie, lightning shooting out of dancing woman's body parts means that dancing woman is goddess in disguise and she is possibly dancing into the danger but that's ok because she's a goddess so danger isn't that big a deal to her.

• Rebbie Jackson sometimes has ethnically exotic dance-into-the-danger markings on her forehead. In Tamil movie, this is called 'caste mark' and it is so much a part of our Indian culture. In Rebbie Jackson video, it looks like what is known as "biologicals" which is what happens when those CSI dudes get their black lights out and pan motel beds to see who has been messy when they had teh sexeh.

• In Tamil movie song, it is difficult for me to understand if the sideyback singers are saying 'lalalala' or 'yayayaya' or 'nya-nya-nya-nya' or 'wawawawa'. In Rebbie Jackson video, it is hard for me to understand if the sideyback singers are saying 'psychopede' or 'cycle peed'.

• Rebbie Jackson video has a tiger in it. The tiger walks down the stairs like it doesn't really want to be involved in what is going on and it also walks down the hall in a crooked manner and sometimes it also looks cross-eyed. The tiger feels sad because there is no actual mention of a tiger in the lyrics which is kind of like inviting that one white person to your party so you can tell everyone, I got white people coming to my party but maybe the white person feels bad later because it soon becomes clear that they are only there for bling value (or as much bling value as a sunburnt, recovering-from-food-poisoning white person can have ). Also, nobody will really want to talk to the white person because everyone will be scared that they will get AIDS if they do. Anyway, in Tamil movie, tiger is usually from extremely yellowed documentary footage that is so yellowed you can't really see the tiger anymore. This does not stop the Tamil movie from using said footage again and again and again to underline and reiterate the awesomeness of said tiger. Unlike Rebbie Jackson video, tiger is always mentioned because the lyrics and dialogue always tell us the Tamil hero is like tiger. Sometimes he is like tiger, lion, elephant and also young child with beard all at the same time.

• Rebbie Jackson video has a cobra in it that swings back and forth like it is headbanging. It has white lightning coming out of its eyes and in this way, it is similar to the dancing woman. Maybe they are brothersister. The combination of headbanging movement and white lightning is symbolic of dancing into the danger. In Tamil movie song, headbanging cobra is a sign that god is very angry and someone will be dancing into the danger very soon but not in a fabulous way like the Rebbie Jackson cobra.
.
• In Tamil movie song lyrics, sometimes we like to compare the girl to a turkey-chicken noodle. I'm not even sure what that is. What is a turkey-chicken? Why would you call a girl a noodle? Who can say? Other certain movie song lyrics have the guy telling the girl that her hormones are like harmoniums and also something about 'A' vitamins. I'm not kidding. Rebbie Jackson song lyrics effuse this same awesomeness. For instance,

"but when the centipede is hot"

As someone who has been unfortunate enough to encounter centipedes on many occasions, can I just say you don't want those motherfuckers to be hot and you don't want to touch them and you don't want them to touch you. However, she may be referring to parts of her body or the other person's body as a centipede, in which case I don't think you should be touching that either, especially if it is hot because maybe they are having fever. In general I feel one should avoid touching things that resemble centipedes. This is a glaring example of centipede racism.

"Like you crawled into the bathroom window, To give him all your love"

You'd have to be pretty fucking haut to get me to climb through a bathroom window. Also, if a veryveryvery haut man crawled though my bathroom window, they would have a long drop before falling face first into the business end of a very old "eastern" toilet. So I'm not sure that would work for me either.

"Just like a centipede you've got, A lot of lovin' to touch"

DON'T TOUCH CENTIPEDES! I can't stress this enough! Don't touch them! You don't want their love! That is evil insect love!

• Rebbie Jackson's video has an "English" room and we can tell it's English because it has a pool table, sofa and paintings on the wall. Also the pockets of the pool table seem to be backed up with water, which makes them like toilets and that's gross. Anyway, in Tamil movie, bad people who speak English live in houses like this. In Rebbie Jackson's video, gay men and headbanging cobras live in houses like this. There is also a large, winding staircase. This is only there for dancing purposes. In this aspect, Rebbie Jackson video is exactly the same as a Tamil movie song.


Why Rebbie Jackson's Centipede video is not like a Tamil Movie Song

• There is no dog, monkey or elephant which is "dancing" because they love all the awesome humans and they are happy so they are "dancing" and they aren't ill-treated or malnourished or anything. They are not dancing into the danger.

• No excessive use of bongo drums

• No "tribal" women shaking their boobies

• No "tribal" men shaking their boobies

• No dancing in garden and Switzerland

• No villain doing various nefarious activities in a very obvious way. And by obvious I mean doing nefarious activities while wearing a large, flashing neon sign that says HAI!! I AM THE VILLAIN AND I AM DOING VARIOUS NEFARIOUS ACTIVITIES IN A VERY OBVIOUS WAY!!!


As if this blog post wasn't long enuff, I now bombard you with more music.

I Pity The Fool by Molly Lewis, specifically because she rhymed 'commuter bus' with 'uterus', it has awesome kazoo solo and the end of this clip features The Neverending Story remix.

Tightrope by Janelle Monáe and Sound of Kuduro by Buraka Som Sistema
specifically because of the awesome dancing into the danger which you may try to do yourself and you may hurt yourself also. This is the price we pay for dancing into the danger.

And in honor of certain companies that have been fucking us all up our various orifices when we clearly did not want to be fucked, Corporate Cannibal by Grace Jones.

okbai.

words to tell you what to do, words are working hard for you

This sticker is controversial because it has the word 'reading' in it. Reading is very controversial and will probably get you into way more trouble than sexy will. I thought of what reading and sexy have in common.

1. People will say you are a bad person because you read too much, have too much sexy, don't read enough or don't have enough sexy.

2. Reading and sexy can get you in real big trouble because people like to get upset over what other people read and who they have sexy with. This is especially unfortunate when the people who are upset have big guns.

3. Reading too much will make you go blind and crazy. Having too much sexy will make you go blind and crazy.



You Can't Take It With You When You Go

Deepa D recently posted about a mass email that was sent out by the police department of a university after a student was sexually assaulted. She also linked to an essay on rape culture which I think you should read even though it will probably make you feel bad. The mass email listed a number of precautionary measures that I didn't really notice the fuckwittery of because like all good Indian women, I already know a sexual assault is my fault even before it happens so precautionary measures are very important because they might save me and if they don't, that's just because I'm a woman and it's all my fault. Among the interesting things the precautionary measures suggests is to 'Carry minimal amounts of valuables'. Which is indeed sound and very fine advice if you're dealing with thieflets. Rapists are after a different set of "valuables" altogether, which I guess means us ladies should leave our very valuable boobies and vajayjays at home before going out. And I say ladies because this only applies to women because only women get raped, silly. Also only women have boobies. This is not true. Some men also have boobies but I have a strong feeling these boobies are not considered "valuables". I believe that 'minimal amounts of valuables' means we should consider going out with one boobie, which could essentially mean the difference between a rape and a raperape. Because we all know there's a huge difference between rape and raperape.

Does anyone know what rape really means anyway? It's an uncomfortable question to ask because talking about rape is such a bummer. I think the general understanding is that 'rape' is a very badass, irreverent word to use because it has something to do with fucking and violence and it's all very exciting like a movie and who doesn't love a good movie! Using the word over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again will hopefully make people think that you are all about fucking and violence and you are very exciting like a movie and who doesn't love a good movie! Does it matter that rape is a violent sexual crime but for some reason, people seem to be focusing a lot on the 'sexual' part and not so much on the 'violent' and 'crime' part? Isn't it a drag when chick bloggers talk about rape?


And Now. For Something Completely Different.

Tarvusim- Specifically because it is everything. And it is nothing. It is. And it isn't. It's SO easy to join. It's so EASY to JOIN. Hebbo!

Jellyfish- Specifically because of jelly fish and jellyfish. There's a difference. If you don't know the difference you will die.

Malk- Specifically for 'You're going to shoot me if I shoot myself? That doesn't make any sense!' and 'You're like a brother to me! Your hand is like a brother to me!'

LOSTCats- Specifically for 'Dude', 'You all everybody' and 'My Baby!'

Awesome- Specifically because it has the words awesome and unicorns in it. It also has the word fucking in it. Fucking is such a badbad werd but nobody really knows why. Fecking is not such a bad word. Fycking does not have anything to do with knives or Iceland but I feel like it should.

okbai.

we like you and we want you to succeed.

Pimpage Department



This is a picture of when we all of us at the racism jail were taken out for a celebration excursion and we all turned black and white and into mans also. Why we are enjoying like anything means we are celebrating the fact that my story Everyone Does Integral Calculus is a sparkly shiny sparklysparkly in the sparkly pantheon of the sparkly Wigleaf Top 50 Very Short Fictions of 2010 sparkly sparkly sparkly. The selecting editor was Brian Evenson. I don’t really know who he is but I know he wrote ‘Baby Leg’, which very many people love deeply with their pancreas. It is my deepest and most sincere hope that 'Baby Leg' is not a cookbook.

I also have a new story up at AGNI Online , which has a Canadian in it. In some cultures, this is incentive enough to read a piece of fiction.

I would also like to take this opportunity to shamelessly pimp my chapbook called Three Scenarios Leading to the Rape of a Teenage Girl in the Tropicool Icy-land Urban Indian Slum which is coming out from ml press. It costs two dollars, which means it costs about 100 rupees, which means I will not use the word 'just' here because 'just two bucks' and 'just 100 bucks' are two very different things. Anyway, this chapbook is the first piece written in the Tropicool Icy Land series and you can read these other pieces in the series and maybe it will convince you to buy the chapbook and maybe you won't buy it either and that's ok if you don't, I won't judge you.

Daily Future Life Predictions from the Hotmalluauntywetsarisexboobs Dotcomcenter Based In the Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum

The Importance of Having a Minty-Fresh Export-Quality Aadi Velli Special Non-Cola Cola in the Tropicool Icy Land Urban Indian Slum

A Basic Guide To Instigating Violence Among Gentoo Penguins In The Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum

Notes Made in Connnection with the Disappearance of a Boy Outside the Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum as Investigated by the Law & Order: Special Victims Unit



Saving The Whales Through Modeling Department

The new Miss USA is a Muslim Arab-American. This has led to speculation that she won because people are really scared of Muslims now so they want to make them beauty queens, which will teach them how to be less terroristy. This is similar to the Draw Mohammed day, which was also an exercise in making Muslims less terroristy. Of course there has also been speculation that the crowning of a brown beauty queen (I don’t know, she looked more olive to me but whatever) means brown people are taking over the world and by world, I mean the USA. This of course is completely true. And if you think it’s not, think about how you are reading this on a brown blog written by a brown person who lives in a country that is bubbling over with brown people who were supposed to speak some kind of brown people language. And yet I am writing this in English! Think about that very carefully. We didn’t cross the border! The border crossed us! RAWR!



I Haz A Sad Department That Cries Cubicle Tears

I haz a sad that Pindeldyboz is calling it a day. The title of this post is taken from their sub guidelines.



We Sort Of Like You But Not Really And We Want You To Succeed We Just Don't Want You To Succeed Here Department


Dear Contributor,

Thank you for your interest in The Literary Magazine That Rejected You and for the opportunity to read your work. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it and we wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere.

The Editors


This is the formest kind of form rejection. It is so form that not only have you been stripped of your identity, so have the editors, which is just really sad. It’s sad that your story can do that to editors. Let us look at the neat things you can do with a form rejection, not metaphorically or in terms of improving your writing but what you can do with the actual letter to make it funner and to raise the high quality of your daily life generally.


The 'In My Pants' Method

The 'in my pants' game is funny because you take the title of a song, stick ‘in my pants’ at the end and it’s just the most hilarious thing ever. Like ‘I am the girl you lost to cocaine in your pants’, and ‘nee oru kaathal sangeetham in my pants’. Adding these words in the right places can make the form rejection more funner. Like,

Dear Contributor In My Pants,

Thank you for your interest in my pants and in The Literary Magazine That Rejected You in my pants. Also thanks for the opportunity to read your work in my pants. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that in my pants, we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it and we wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere in my pants.

The Editors In My Pants

This version makes the rejection sting a lot less because it makes the magazine seem pervy in a bad way. Also the overuse of 'in my pants' in such a small space kind of makes it lose its humor, which is sad but inevitable like many things in life.



The We Are Occupy Your Rejections While We Are Waiting For Godot Method

Running the form letter through different online generators like this one does this.

Editors
Dear Contributor,

Thank you for you the fiction you that Rejected Your interest in placing it elsewhere.

Thank your work. Unform your Work and for your work. Unfortunately, we regret to infortunity to read you for the opportunity to use the fiction your interest in The Editors
Dear Contributor,

Thank you for you submitted. That we are unable to read your Work and for the opportunity to use the fiction you for you for the opportunity to use the fiction your work. Unform you submitted.

This turns the form rejection into something out of Waiting for Godot. This makes it awesome.

Also, LOLCATS!


OHAI!

WE WUZ IN UR STOREH, REEDIN UR WERDZ. TEH FICSHUN U SUBMITTD R NOT CHEEZBURGER. WE R NOT OCCUPY UR STOREH. MEBBE U CAN HAZ PRETTEH CHEEZBURGER SUMWER ELZ.

OKBAI!
TEH EDITORS


The Shakespearean Method

If you want to make yourself feel worse about your form rejection, you can intersperse it with Shakespearean insults, which can be found here. So you get something like this

Dear Contributor, thou caluminous idle-headed gudgeon,

Thou art a man of wax. But stay, and let us bid thee thanks for your interest in The Literary Magazine That Just Rejected You and for the opportunity to read your work, which confusion now hath made his masterpiece. Unfortunately, we regret to inform you that we are unable to use the fiction you submitted. So go, prick thy face and over-red thy fear, thou lily-liver'd boy. Thank you for giving us the opportunity to consider it though thou art essentially a natural coward without instinct. We wish you the best of luck in placing it elsewhere for thou art violently carried away from grace.

The Editors, who think you are a shallow cowardly hind, and you lie.



The Fight Xenophobia! Method

The best way to fight xenophobia is to translate work into the xenophobic language and then back into English so we can see that all languages are just like English except some people talk it funny. I conquered Japanese xenophobia by translating the form rejection letter into Japanese and then back into English to get

The contribution person who becomes love, your interest of the literature magazine which refuses your work for the opportunity which reads your work thank you. Regrettable, as for us we you the embankment the fiction which is put out not being used regret the fact that it informs. Thank you in order to give the opportunity which considers that in us we that, the best of appropriate luck is desired at the other place. Editor

YAY JAPAN!


The Your Father Has Many Cows And Yours Was the First House In The Village To Get Electricity Method

OrientalSpeek is a bit of an art because you need to make the speaker sound ornate and archaic like the Wise and Holy Colored Person but they also need to sound ever-so-slightly brain-damaged like their brain is leaking onto the floor as they speak. It is worth practicing this art because it is tremendously convenient and can be used across a wide range of "orientals", which include but are not limited to Chinese, Indians, Africans, Native Americans, homosexuals and differently-abled people. It does not apply to poor people because poor people can't talk. Anyway, a good way to practice OrientalSpeek is to transform a form rejection letter into OrientalSpeek.

A thousand prostrations at the feet of your ancestors, without whom your esteemed and illustrious narrative may have never seen the tender light of day, verily, may their names remain evergreen in the pastures of our memory

Like the most auspicious bubbling over of boiling milk, like sweet, clear water joyfully tumbling over a waterfall, our hearts sang with the joy of a million most blessed and heavenly birds for the chance to read with our most unworthy eyes, this noble, esteemed and illustrious narrative. Alas! Our publication which we dare to call a magazine, this filth, this cursed map of letters, this empty vessel of words cannot be the ship on which your bejeweled narrative sets sail. Tirelessly we toiled, beseeched the Gods and all the saints to show us a way to bring these precious words into our publication. But it was not to be. Our saints have turned away. Our Gods have wilted and grown impotent. We rend our flesh, curse our mothers and whip our children in shame. We tear our eyes out and cry to the silent skies, why was this useless bag of flesh given life, why did it create a literary magazine when it cannot publish words such as these? Why?
Our only solace in these dark times, where the monsoons hold back their sweet waters of succor, where the land lies parched, where no birds sing and where the Gods lie naked and dying, our only solace in all this is that your narrative will fly on the wings of a journal far worthier than ours and be kissed by the Sun, the Moon and sweet angels of mercy and love who have already forsaken us all.


We wish you abundant crops, much rain and many sons.

The Editors,
who unendingly praise the womb of your mother, that was rich and blessed enough to bring forth one such as thee


And before I go, awesome dialogue from some of my favorite awesome people in my real life

Awesome Person 1- He had a vegetarian Great Dane called Pinky.

Awesome Person 2- What happened, did it die of shame?


okbai.

good authors too who once knew better words now only use four letter words writing prose anything goes

Do you know where black Africa is? It’s between orange Africa and chartreuse Africa. It is often confused with brown India and yellow China, which are both very colorful countries.

That isn’t really what I want to talk about. I want to talk about the steamed rice cake. I do not know what a steamed rice cake is. That’s not really a big deal- only recently I learned what a fajita was and I was also immensely disappointed to learn about the Garibaldi biscuit. These are just a few of the many, many, many things that I’ve read about in stories but only have a very vague idea about. But among the few things that I do know is idlis. I appreciate idlis so much because they are simple, cheap and when your stomach fucks you over so that all other food readily forsakes you, it is the idli that will stand by you and help you get better. In many ways, the idli is like a very good friend that you don’t like to acknowledge as a very good friend.

So you can imagine how flabbergastingly disappointing it is for me to learn that in certain pieces of fiction, this exotic ‘steamed rice cake’ is supposedly an idli. It’s not an explanation or a definition of an idli- the poor idli is stripped of its Indian name and given an awkward English descriptor instead. I know, I know some peeps are saying duh, those stories are not written for you, in which case I haz a sad, like how I haz a sad when I sit in India and watch a documentary about Indian slums that was clearly made for non-Indian audiences [Shot of cow in street with somber voiceover saying ‘Indians are culturally opposed to toilets which is why they enjoy defecating at the side of the roads.’]. I also know that some peeps are saying oh no you d’int! Oh no you di’nt because you know those English descriptors are being used for better factual accuracy and better representation and all that other stuff you keep whining about so oh oh oh NO you di’nt.

But I don’t think this is about factual accuracy. I think this is about discarding the Indian word completely in favor of the English descriptor, like we are ashamed of it. Isn’t an idli an idli like how a nacho is a nacho? You don’t see American writers calling nachos ‘thin, unleavened flat bread made from maize and often cut into triangular wedges’, do you? Personally speaking, I have trouble reconciling the idli with the steamed rice cake because when I think of ‘cake’, I think of birthday cake, when I think of ‘steamed’, I think of a steam pressure washing unit and when I think of ‘rice’, I think of curd rice. So when I read Anand’s mother packed him a simple meal of steamed rice cakes, I’m thinking that he’s getting a birthday cake made of curd rice and steam pressure washing units. But hey, that’s just me.

Is idli one of the many four-letter words we’re not supposed to use in fiction because it is bad? Are we ashamed of idlis? Are we ashamed because many people don’t know what an idli is so we must never speak of them at all unless we apologetically refer to them as Steamed Rice Cakes? Do we fear that non-Indians (otherwise known as white people) might think we are all terrorists if we don’t deconstruct the idli completely so that even native idli eaters don’t recognize what we’re talking about? Is that the only way we can get white people to like us?

I don’t really know. What I do know is that reading some of the English descriptors for Injun things can often be an irrealisticallysurreal experience for myself. Because I am awesome, I have been able to break down how these irrealisticallysurreal experiences happen for me. I am only going to use Tamil words here because that’s all I know.


Example 1

Tamil Word- pottu

English Descriptor- caste mark

Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor – Heavy bruises and blunt force trauma sustained after being bludgeoned with a cast, possibly a full-body cast with the body still inside it

Complete Sentence- She walked home from the local temple, her forehead blazing with caste marks.

Thought Process Following Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor Within The Complete Sentence- For some reason, this woman was beaten up with a body cast by someone in the temple. It doesn’t sound like a very nice temple.

Further Confusion Caused By Another Sentence- He was sitting in the temple, deep in meditation, his body covered in caste marks.

Further Confused Thought Process- What kind of temple is this? Why do people go there? People shouldn’t go there.


Example 2

Tamil Word- sambar

English Descriptor - lentil soup

Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor - In my little youth, I heard a story about a woodsman who was so poor that all he could eat was lentil soup, which I imagined was three pieces of grass in water with a lot of tiny pebbles. To this day, this is what I think of when I think of lentil soup

Complete Sentence- His mouth watered as he thought of having a hot meal of steamed rice cakes and lentil soup.

Thought Process Following Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor Within The Complete Sentence - The aforementioned steamed rice cake and this lentil soup combination makes me think that this is why so many people think all Indians are strange and super poor and would be really happy if someone gave them a sandwich.


Example 3

Tamil Word- vadai

English Descriptor - deep fried spicy lentil cutlet

Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor - This is a code or a secret password for something. The black eagle flies at dawn. Deep fried spicy lentil cutlet.

Complete Sentence- Lakshmi served him a delicious breakfast of steamed rice cakes, lentil soup and a deep fried spicy lentil cutlet.

Thought Process Following Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor Within The Complete Sentence - This whole sentence is a secret password for something. Or maybe Lakshmi is serving up some kind of Chinese food, I heard they eat steamed rice cakes in China. Or was it California. It was some place that started with C. Probably California because Lakshmi seems more like a Californian name than a Chinese one. Hey! Maybe this is a story about Padma Laksmi and Top Chef!


Example 4

Tamil Word- Payasam

English Descriptor - Milk Pudding sweetmeat

Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor - Milk and pudding and pieces of sweet meat all mixed together.

Complete Sentence- As a birthday treat, grandmother served her special milk pudding sweetmeat which all ate with great relish.

Thought Process Following Flawed Initial Understanding of English Descriptor Within Given Context- I do not judge your grandmother for feeding you a mixture of sweet meat, milk and pudding because maybe in your culture you eat that sort of thing. I do judge you for eating this with large quantities of relish which judging from my personal experiences, is always some kind of dodgy, banned American relish that somehow ends up in India along with certain kinds of dodgy peanut butter and chocolate pudding. The Surgeon General recommends you take up smoking instead of eating milk and pudding and sweet meat and dodgy relish. If you decide you would rather not heed this worthy advice, the Surgeon General says to tell you goodbye.


Special shout-out to

She closed her eyes and prayed to the elephant-faced god

Can I just say that I think peeps need to get over the fact that G-dawg has an elephant’s head and maybe do this totally novel and unconventional thing like maybe, oh I don’t know, maybe actually refer to him by name? You don’t see people calling Jesus ‘That Guy On The Cross’, do you?

okbai.


no wait before okbai, let’s listen to some music, no? yes.

First, let’s listen to some white people music which is such a racist thing to say. Let’s use the titles of the song in a sentence to make it more funner. Ready?

Clap your hands because you are the girl you lost to cocaine who isn’t so much into cocaine anymore but I know that you want the candy. For some reason, you do not want the anglerfish. That was two sentences.

And now, as penance for our lying and racism, let’s listen to some Das Racist. Band name and two song names in a sentence. Ready?

You oughtta know that you can’t have a Big Mac at the Combination Pizza Hut and Taco Bell because Das Racist.

okbai

no wait wait. You saw UK Cosmo’s spread of nekkid menz? No? Don’t afraid, you can see here. And what exactly will you see when you clicky-clicky? You will see men you’ve mostly never heard of engaging in lolwutly awkward and staged posing with rapey face, I’m-looking-at-something-over-there face, i-am-going-to-sneeze face and the very popular no-for-realz-this-is-sexy-why-are-you-laffing? face. There is also a gentleman who has a pineapple pressed against his matrimonial areas.

okbai. for realz.

All These Bitches Is My Sons

If I ever write a novel about three generations of an Indian family ripped asunder, thrown together and ripped asunder again by love, lust, freedom struggle/partition, brain drain, intercaste marriage, interracial marriage, no marriage, yes marriage, sometimes marriage, greed and other stuff, I will name this novel All These Bitches Is My Sons. The cover of this novel will have a mango that has mehndi hands and inside these mehndi hands will be a large Indian wedding with Indian food and Indian music and Indian people speaking Indian and then there will be a big Indian fight while a big Indian monsoon breaks over their Indian heads. All of this will be on the cover. All these bitches is my sons.


Pimpage Department

I have a new story up at DIAGRAM called A Basic Guide To Instigating Violence Among Gentoo Penguins In The Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum. Many people have asked me what the Tropicool Icy-Land Urban Indian Slum is. That is such a lie. No one has ever asked me that.

I have a short story in the new issue of Versal, which is a literary magazine based in Amsterdam. Some people associate Amsterdam with free weed and believe it is just given away, freely and happily on those high and beautiful streets. Others associate Amsterdam with free sex where again, it is just being given away and all you have to do is extend your hand and say yes, I want that. I knew one person who, for reasons best known to herself, kept associating Amsterdam with hamsters. Anyway, if you pre-order a copy of Versal 8 now, you’ll get free shipping. Not many people will do that for us people who live inside countries that are not often associated with English literary magazines.

Also, M.I.A has a new video. You may say, why are you pimping this, you are not M.I.A. This is so true.


ZOMG! Department

ZOMG! the The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction - Volume 2 has revealed itself to this world and the world is aghast and agape and worried that it might not be able to withstand the awesomeness! ZOMG! It hasn't blossomed in bookstores yet but you can order it online or if you're in Chennai you can head over to Madras Terrace House and buy a copy. If you can't do either of those things, wow sucks to be you.


The Junk Department

Oh you crazy, crazy manguys, doing chat roulette and getting flabbergasted by all those other guys out there who keep showing you their junk. That’s funny because it’s funny when a guy gets flashed by another guy, right? It’s like emasculating or something. Isn’t it a drag to be visually molested by some guy’s junk when you totally didn’t want to see his junk in the first place? It is my belief that unnecessary and uncalled for genitalia exhibitions by people who think their genitalia is worth exhibiting is kind of like stepping in poo.

That actually isn’t what I wanted to say.

I wanted to say that I learned two neat things recently and they are kind of connected and they both kind of come from the same place. So let’s say that you want to insult a group of women. This is something that both men and women want to do sometimes. Let’s say that you insult these women by calling them lesbian shitasses. Many people have a vague idea that words like ‘lesbian’ should not be used as an insult but they are not exactly sure WHY. The good news is that it is totes ok to do this if you later inform everyone that you are friends with nice lesbians. It is important to be firm on the fact that you are only friends with nice lesbians, which is like the important distinction white people of yesteryear (and sometimes of today) make about being friends with only the nice, noble colored savages instead of bad colored savages like myself. This line of thinking can be extended to making racist comments as well, as long as you make it clear that you once sat beside a nice colored person that one time. It can be helpful to keep a photograph of this incident handy so that you have proof of your privilege.

So from whence did all these worthy wells of knowledge spring? From Scott Baio. It feels weird to even type that. How many of us who crushed on Charles in Charge are now looking at Scott Baio and thinking oh my God, am I on drugs? Is he on drugs? Is everything on drugs? How did Charles in Charge go from being Charles in Charge to ScottBaioRuinsEverything?

Also, to be clear, Scott taught us all about racism and his louly wife taught us about homophobia. And you can read all about it at Jezebel, home of the original lesbian shitass.



T-Shirts Are Obscene and Against Indian Culture Except When A Man Wears Them And Then It’s Ok Department

Everyone on Youtube is making t-shirts. Even the Gingers Have Souls! kid is selling t-shirts. So it is clear that the reason why I am not selling t-shirts is because I am not on Youtube. If I was though, I would make ones with the following lines on them.

White Supremacists Are Just Like You And Me. Well Maybe Not Like You But They Are Like Me Because I Am A White Supremacist.

Women Writers Are Just Like You And Me Except Sometimes They Write Really Well And That Makes Them Like Men Which Also Makes Them Gay.

Gingers Are Just Like You And Me Except They Have Souls.

Colored Writers Are Just Like You And Me Except When They Don’t Write Like White People. When They Don’t Write Like White People They Are Ethnic, Ghetto, Incomprehensible Or Terrorists. Sometimes They Are EthnicGhettoIncomprehensibleTerrorists.

Jhumpa Lahiri Is Just Like You And Me Except She Is Not Related To Bappi Lahiri. Or Maybe She Is.

Mind-Blowing Writing Is Just Like Mind-Blowing Writing Except Sometimes In Some Places People Think It’s Not So Mind-Blowing But Those People Are Obviously Poopoo Heads So Whatever.

Everyone Is Just Like You And Me Except They Are All Unique And Different.

To add some ethnic authenticity to the mix, I thought I would use a local Tamil phrase I hear a lot, which says an unmarried woman is a ‘vazhaathu ponnu’. Or sloppily translated, a girl who hasn’t lived. At first I thought this was a really mean thing to say. Then I thought it was kind of cool, if you think of it as being in a an undead state of suspended animation. Being an equal opportunity person, I make t-shirt to say

Unmarried People Are Just Like You And Me Except They Haven’t Lived Which Means They Are Undead, Sparkly, Hot And Dangerous.

okbai

Haterz Gonna Hate But That Doesn’t Mean You Can’t Make Them Like You Through Fiction or How To Make Your Writing More Transgendered

Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, fireballs in the sky and unknown objects from other galaxies sending out mysterious radio waves, possibly because they want to get into our planet’s pants. It is so clear that the world as we know it will probably end by next week. So now is the perfect time to take out those stories that are not working in one gender and make them into one another gender so those one another people will love and accept you. What is this gender? Well what I can say is that I watched this "interview" that Weird Al Yankovic did with Eminem and forgot what the word ‘genre’ meant. Then I got it mixed up with the word ‘gender’. Then I decided they mean the same thing. Some bad people write stories which are of unstable genders, which means they are neither here nor there, which makes them androgynous. Thankfully, with a little tweaking, these genderless stories can be translated into one another gender. Below is piece of “literary” microfiction which means it is genderlessly androgynous.

He arrives at your house unexpectedly. Sometimes you let him in and you let him sit down. Sometimes you send him away, saying you’re sick or your mother is coming or your mother is already here. He calls when he’s drunk and tells you how much he likes to fuck. You think of him jerking off into handkerchiefs while he looks at pixilated pictures of women with no pubic hair. You have a lot of porn, you ask and he says oh yeah. You’re into that girl-on-girl stuff, you ask and he says oh yeah. When your train is 4 hours late, he waits, spending the time kicking empty paper cups onto the railway tracks. Sometimes he looks up and tries to see the night sky through the holes in the station roof. When he drops you home, you say thank you and hug him. He just stands there like you’re already gone.

Let’s look at some ways how we can make this examplemicro moar gendered and better.


Magic Realism/Fantasy/SciFi/Weird Gendering

Many people find these terms confusing and complex. To me, they all mean dragons. So turning the examplemicro into a piece of firmly-gendered magic realism/fantasy/scifi/weird fiction means you can do like this.

He arrives at your house on a dragon. Sometimes you let him in but you make him leave the dragon outside because dragons are big motherfuckers. Sometimes you send him away and he cries so much he pulls his eyeballs out and sends them to you by courier because he loves you like a heartfuck. When he comes back for his eyes which he needs and which you keep for him in your freezer, you don’t let him or the dragon in because you say you’re sick or your mother is coming or your mother is already here. But you give him his eyes in a paper bag. He calls when he’s drunk and tells you how much he likes to fuck dragons. You think of him jerking off into handkerchiefs while he looks at pixilated pictures of hairless dragon-parts. You have a lot of dragon porn, you ask and he says oh yeah. He also says he has a time machine but you don’t believe him and you don’t understand what that has to do with dragons anyway. When your train is 4 hours late, he waits in the sky, killing birds and setting planes on fire with his dragon who resents this because it is a pacifist dragon. When he drops you home, you say thank you and hug him. He says, you’re welcome and the dragon just stands there but you can tell it wants to burn your house down even though it is allegedly a pacifist dragon but you can tell that it is full of lies and violence and fire.



EdgyEnExperimental Gendering

I believe at one time, this gender was actually three separate words, namely Edgy And Experimental. For some reason, they became popular modes of describing many different kinds of writing, thus becoming a gender unto itself. The examplemicro can be EdgyEnExperimental gendered like this.

He arrives at your house unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly unexpectedly-

I expect no more.

I expectorate.

I rate what you expectorate, you fulsome buxom bastard.

Sometimes you let him in…………………………….but sometimes it’s

I’m sick, motherfucker.

My mother is here, motherfucker.

He calls when he’s drunk. Don’t say you love me, you say and he says

No.

I just wanted to tell you how much I like to fuck.

Ok.



Ok then.

Pixilated pictures of hairless cats
Hairless cats are scary

My train is 4 hours late but he’ll wait

He’ll wait for years,
his shoes rooting deep into the concrete,
the street piling up around him like squirrel aids
his heart breaking open and collecting paper cups.

And shit like that,




Minimalist Gendering

I read on teh internetz that this gender involves getting to the core of the piece, bringing that up front and cutting out everything else. In conclusion, the examplemicro can be minimalzed and gendered like this.


He porn.



Indian English Gendering

A very hard gender to master. Not recommended unless you are Nissim Ezekiel, which you aren’t because he’s dead. Still, we can try, no? Yes.

He is arriving to yours one number house with no one ahead telling also. You can allow him to bring his good self into the open door. You can also allow him to take a kind seat also. You can also tell him the falsehoods to prevent his entry through the open door. What are these falsehoods? We can enumerate the same for ease of understanding. You can tell like you are suffering from fever and dysentery so you are unable to allow him to bring his good self into the open door or to take the kind seat. You can also tell yours aged relations like so much respected mother is taking a seat in the households so is it correct for the gents to enter? It is very much not so. He may feel so much distressed and ruination in the heart. Because there is no respite for this common man he may turn to hot drinks. In such states of intoxications, he may also give you tinkle from publicSTD booth and even though you are ladies, he may share with you informations like he is enjoying having personal relationships fully sexsex with female persons. Even though you are ladies, you may have thoughts of him doing somewhat things with his kerchief involving his matrimonial areas. Maybe he is seeing some blue film pictures also which are so degrading for the women who are like mother goddess. You can question his blue film habits and because he is having hot drinks, he is saying so many rubbish things to you even though you are ladies. Yet even though he is a rascal, he is like a child having moustache. He has a face that is pouring like milk. When you are taking day express, he will stay in the unhygiene conditions of the railway stations which are sometimes very worst. He will await your one number arrival because you are ladies traveling single. Because you are a very forward public girl, maybe it is your habit to hug him like cousin-brother which basically is part of the Western culture. Because he is pucca Indian man, he will not behave in such a forward public manner, especially with ladies so he will stand there simply like you are out of station.

okbai.

In The Good Old Summertime, People Get Heatstroke And Die

It’s that time of year again, where we are overwhelmed and assaulted with prickly heat and power cuts and murderous jealous rage at people who have air conditioners while we neatly disregard the fact that at least we are not outside dying of heatstroke. Just a reminder to my Injun peeps to drink lots of water because when there is no water and you are dying of dehydration, at least you can find comfort in the fact that you drank as much water as you could when there was water to drink.

Also, can I just say that I think someone needs to make a Leave Nithyanada Alone! video. Like Chris Cocker did for Britney. And Seth Green did for Chris Cocker. It would be awesome if Seth Green did a Leave Nithyananda Alone! video.



What’s the Story Department

James Franco wrote a short story and it was published in Esquire. You can read it here if you want. I couldn’t get past the first couple of paras but that’s ok because James Franco is pretty.




Dave Updates Department

A while ago, this blog was host to a These are the Daves I Know I Know conversation with Jai Undurti who talked about the Hyderabad Graphic Novel Project. They now have a site up which you can visit here and you can download the first 7 pages of the graphic novel for freez! Free stuff is important in our daily lives.



RaceFail09 Department

I have been sifting through the mammoth happening known as RaceFail09. It has a lot of AbsoluteEpicFacePalm Phail moments but it also has moments of very sharp and very bright brilliance. One of which is deepa d’s post I Didn’t Dream of Dragons. Among many awesome things she says (and there are a lot), she says this-

"Asking an author to write the Other with respect and assuming it to be sufficient, is like telling a person that being polite to everyone is sufficient in their goal of being an anti-racist ally. This is crap. Your definition of individuality, just like your definition of politeness is culture-specific. And just like I do not want to see yet another Indian princess or lascar stereotype, I do not want to see a White American with brown skin and kohl and an elephant sidekick. I distrust universalising statements proclaiming our inherent mutual humanity because they are uni-directional—they do not make everyone more like me, they make everyone more like you. And I do not want that. White people decrying their race and culture baffles me, because it is a lie. Your alienation from your own mainstream does not equate with your fundamental similarity to my differences with your culture. Even when we feel or are called 'White' or 'Western', we cannot shrug off our identity; we become the vanguard of its complexity. And we are far, far more immersed in your culture, than most of you could ever be in ours. What I resent is the implication of accessibility. That it is as easy to understand people of different ethnicities and cultures as it is to understand the diverse experiences within the identities you share with people. Yes, writing about Indian-Americans or Korean-Canadians or Sengalese-Britishers implies a certain shared national experience. But hyphenated identities are not the only manifestations of a culture, and as someone who identifies as Indian, I want to say--No. It is not that easy to understand me, or my experience, or to accurately represent it. You don't see Native Americans writers going around claiming familiarity with Australian aboriginals on the basis of some shared philosophies, or Chinua Achebe writing about Afro-Caribbeans like an extension of his own world. ”

Some of the comments on the post are really good too so maybe you can read the whole thing but only if you want to.



What The Dickens Department

Dear Charles Dickens,

I know this missive must pain you greatly because you don’t like Indians. At least you didn’t when you were alive. Maybe you feel differently now that you are dead. I have to say your racism kind of bummed me out because I enjoy your writing. Can I just say that Indians Are Just Like You And Me Except That We Are Indian? I guess that doesn’t make a difference to you, not because you are racist but because you are dead.

Anyway, I just wanted to say that I couldn’t help but notice how much your novels are like Tamil movies. I guess this is something you don’t want to hear and maybe it is making you very angry also. So in the spirit of English people who culturally like to drink tea and have duels, let’s have a competition to see which is better. Starting with enumeration of the similarities in chronological and consecutive numerations followed by a consensus of who wins.

1. You have boring virtuous men and women. So do we but at least our boring virtuous men and women dance, so they are not as boring as yours. So we win this one.

2. You have bad people who are often more interesting than the good people and just in case we don’t get the fact that they are bad, you give them names like Smallweed and Barnacle. I remember watching a Tamil movie where the bad guy’s name was Underwear Gounder. Maybe that’s not a good example. This movie I think also had Napoleon and Kasthuri in it and I remember this one girl who was watching it came in feeling a little headachy and by the time the movie was over, she had full-blown viral fever. So we win this one too because I don’t think any of your novels were powerful enough to give anyone viral fever.

3. Your novels are having social message. Tamil movies also have social messages but we do this through dance and maybe sometimes our social messages get a little weird. So we win again and you lose again.

4. By the end of yours novels and ours movies, the bad are suitably rehabilitated or punished (though in our movies they are usually beaten to death but whatever, they totally deserved it), mens and womens are appropriately falling in the lous and married to a member of the opposite sex and all are living so happily ever in the after. Of course we do most of this through dance and we usually have at least one massive wedding. I’m afraid your weddings are just really sad compared to our weddings and also you are not dancing also. So we win this too and we feel sorry for you because you don’t know how to have a good time.

5. I look back on your ‘heroes’ and I see a good but faceless man who is poor at some point and wears top hats. I look at our heroes and I see Rajinikanth. We get eleventyhundred points for that because you will never, ever, EVER have a hero like Rajini. EVER.

So I guess what I’m saying is that even though your novels and our Tamil movies may be similar, Tamil movies are way more awesomer because we do almost everything through dance and we have Rajini and you don’t. So we win. Which I guess is just one more reason for you to hate on us, you racist hater.

(disclaimer- the What The Dickens Department is not meant to belittle, insult or disrespect Charles Dickens, England or English people who culturally drink tea and fight duels. As a precaution against any backlash or hurt sentiments this may have incurred, please note that the author of this post has already been sent to racism jail.)


okbai

I Got Soul But I'm Not A Soldier But I Have Some New Work Up But I Don't Have A Garland Made Out Of 1000 Rupee Notes

Can we talk about Mayawati’s Massive Money Mala? Can we talk about how that is the most ultimately blinged out thing ever ever? Can we talk about how now, when other countries talk about how poor India is, we can say hey, do people in YOUR country get massive garlands made out of 1000 rupee notes? No? Then YOU must be living in the poor country, stupidhead!

And can we talk about how awesome Lady Gaga’s Telephone video is? Wouldn’t it have been even more awesome if she had gone to a prison that was filled with hafnekkid menz? Maybe she’ll do that next time. Maybe she won’t do another crotch shot either. More hafnekkidmenz, less crotch shotz.



Pimpage Department

I have a new piece of flash fiction up at a place called Ekleksographia, which is a very long word. The issue is edited by Mary Miller who is kind of famous in America and has a collection which I haven't read because I live in India. There are also other flash fiction writers in this issue who are kind of famous in America.



Spare Monsters Department

The Blaft have just put up some artwork for their new release Kumari Loves a Monster, if you haven’t seen it yet you can go over and see it and feel very glad that you did because it’s awesome.



You Can Call If You Want But There’s No One Home And You’re Not Going To Reach My Telephone Department


Dear Feminism,

I just thought you should know that some people in my one numbers country of India are blaming homosexuality on feminism. I think this means that we should be blaming heterosexuality on anti-feminism but for some reason, no one is very interested in doing that. In general, I have noticed that many people like to blame homosexuality on the soul-less, cultureless and intrinsically evil western civilization which is mainly held responsible for other evil, soul-less and cultureless things like pants. Nobody wants to blame homosexuality on Coca Cola though because for some reason, that would be silly. I think when they get bored of blaming homosexuality in India on feminism, they will blame it on pants.


Dear FTV,

Woah! Looks like you got in trouble again for showing boobies! Didn't AXN once get banned for showing boobies also? It’s nice to know that seemingly unrelated fields like Action and Fashion have boobies in common.


Dear Sandra Bullock,

You won an Oscar. I can honestly say that I never, ever, ever thought I would ever see that happen. Then again, I never thought a movie about singing and dancing Indian slum kids would win an Oscar either. Did you ever think you’d win an Oscar? Was it weird for you too? Because it was really weird for me and I wasn’t even there.



Dear BritishPunjabiHipHopFolkhopRapUrbanGrimeBhangra People,

Hey what’s up desi style? How ya’ll doin’ in da house desi style? How are your mother father desi style? I want to say how I dig a lot of what you people do desi style. I am a little confused about one thing and that is this tendency to use the line ‘hot like Rekha’. The ladies and the gents are both using this very freely- women are hot like Rekha. Guys have girls who are hot like Rekha. Now in the today, so many other Bollywood girls are there with two-syllable names which rhyme with many things. So I kindly suggest you retire the line ‘hot like Rekha’ with so much dignity and never speak of it again, not because Rekha is not hot but because you need to move past 1981. It's a bit like how in some Tamil movie lyrics, they compare the soglamor girl to Elizabeth Taylor who is now well over 70 and perhaps not as soglamor as she once was. Peace out ya'll homibabas, keep it real. Desi style.


Dear Meryl Streep,

What’s it like to be Meryl Streep and watch Sandra Bullock get an Oscar while you, Meryl Streep, do not get an Oscar? Does it make you feel like you are on drugs?


Dear Piranha 2- The Spawning,

You are the most epicest movie ever. You are so epic I watched one scene and my heart nearly exploded from the sheer epicosity of it all. The scene was the beach party where there was an attack by what I assumed were black plastic bottles which were squeaking and also flying and which killed white people’s faces. There was one black man who I immediately recognized as the Wise Colored Person. Unfortunately, the black plastic bottles which were squeaking and also flying attacked and killed his face too and it was only then that I saw that these were not black plastic bottles which were squeaking and also flying. They were in fact flying plastic fish with wings and dentures. And I thought, wow. That is so awesome. By then the Wise Colored Person had been rendered dead because he was killed in the face and since there didn’t seem to be anymore Wise Colored People in the offing, I could not see how anyone in the movie could be saved and I thought, see? This is why racism is bad. It’s racism that prevents the Wise Colored People from saving you when you are being killed in the face by flying plastic fish with wings and dentures.



10 Pieces of Dialogue Which Prove That The Plan To Secretly Drink Rum and Coke During The ‘Highly Respectable Function’ Was Full of Failwhale

1. “Oh my God, who farted? Excuse me ma’am, did you just fart? Don’t tell lies. You totally look like someone who just farted. Shame shame puppy shame. You know what puppy shame is? It is being shameful of puppies. Did you know that? No? Why? Why didn't you know that?”

2. “Why is that man on stage going on talking? Who asked him to talk? Oh, he’s singing! Who asked him to sing? I never asked him to sing, you asked him to sing? Ask the farting aunty if she asked him to sing.”

3. “There are a LOT of white people here. I wonder how many of them have diarrhea? Excuse me sir, do you have diarrhea? Are you holding it in? You should never hold your diarrhea in, very bad for health. Also, welcome to my country.”

4. “Would someone please ask the uncle on the stage to stop talking? Or at least ask him to stop farting? Because I think it was him. Like, really.”

5. “You know, we kicked out all the white people in 1947. We don’t mind if you stay here for a while but you can’t take over the country. If you do that, I will hunt you down and kill you. Where are you staying? Tell me so I can hunt you down and kill you.”

6. “Farting aunty, can I call you Andy? Can I sing you a song? Fifi Fifi, No No No No Philomena Francis, My Name Is Philomena Francis. No you are a kyoon fairy. Yes you are a kyoon fairy. You know this song? You are not Malayalis? Then why is your nose like that?

7. “Uncle let me sing on the stage! I want to sing on the stage. I want to sing on the stage I want to sing on the stage I want to sing on the stage.”

8. “When my mother was small she thought white people didn’t fart because they were awesome and white. See what imperialism colonialism does? You see what you did? See what you did to my mother? Who’s going to pay for that? How much money do you have? Give me all your money or I’ll have your kidneys removed by slum children. You think I won’t do it? Don’t mess with me man, I got post-colonial issues like you would not believe! I got slum kids in this place right now. And if you don’t give me your money, they will slash your Achilles’ tendons and you will be left here to bleed to death because you’re white and we hate white people. We pretend we don't but we really do."

9. “Andy, can I have your handbag? Do you have any candy? Why, are you diabetic? Why did you wear this color sari, it’s not suiting you. Wow, your chappals are really ugly. See my chappals? These are my bathroom chappals. They are prettier than your chappals. At least your chappals match your ugly sari.”

10. “I’d like to dedicate this song to farting Andy, the frightened white man who's trying not to look frightened and the uncle I just pushed off the stage. Only I sing. Nobody else sing. Anybody else singing means I have their kidneys removed by slum children. Ok, ready? Fifi Fifi, No No No No Philomena Francis, My Name Is Philomena Francis. No you are a kyoon fairy. Yes you are a kyoon fairy. Why no one is singing also? No one knows Malayalam? You are all North Indians? No problem no problem, I sing Jumma Chumma De De.”

okbai.