Thank you Srikanth Uncle

Srikanth Uncle was a fun guy... especially to kids below the age of twelve... like i was when i first met him.. He had this conveyor belt of jokes.. and to be fair to the man the jokes would only makes kid laugh... He could always make that boring party, that we ( my bro and i ) were forced to attend, really great fun.. by telling us jokes... funny stories and best of all...He sang The Army Song....

Chorus
Oh, I don't wanna join the army life
Oh man i wanna go, Woman i wanna go
Show me the way to go home....

Chorus ends
The boots in the army they say are mighty fine.. if you ask for number seven they give you number nine

Chorus
Oh, I don't wanna join the army life
Oh man i wanna go, Woman i wanna go
Show me the way to go home....

Chorus ends
The Coffee in the army they say are mighty fine... if you ask for a cuppa coffee they give you iodine

Chorus
Oh, I don't wanna join the army life
Oh man i wanna go, Woman i wanna go
Show me the way to go home....

Chorus ends
The movies in the army they say are mighty fine... if you ask for Charlie Chaplin they give you Frankenstein

Chorus
Oh, I don't wanna join the army life
Oh man i wanna go, Woman i wanna go
Show me the way to go home....
Song ends

I always sang the chorus... Actually there were more lines to the song... but my memory fails me.. It never fails to remember the good times we had though... Srikanth Uncle passed away a few years back.. he had had a lot of family problems and health problems... but we kids never knew that because he always had that joke to tell... or that story to narrate.. and when he didnt have the jokes or the story.. we always had our Army Song....

Aint no song by Sister Sledge

I have not missed my brother too much in the past one and half odd years. He has been studying law at a college in a city in a state that does not happen to be the state nor the city nor the college that i happen to be in. And i am sure the feeling of 'not missing' is mutual. As we arent too close considering how close brothers tend to be. But i must admit. I really missed my bro last saturday night. I really should mail him more often

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I was at a wedding reception. The 'lucky' groom was my cousin. A concoction of so-called lack of time mixed with a lot of selfishness and a seasoning of nuclear family pressure has left me a 'funeral and wedding' relative. The kind of vermin who happens to show up in weddings and funerals with a toothy smile plastered on my face. I even managed to skip the last funeral in my family. But believe me I was not too happy about it.

I was not too happy about going for the reception either. Hey dont get me wrong. I really like the cousin in whose honour the reception was. The prob was the only people of my generation happened to be the groom and his sister. But she was all busy being the groom's sister to pay attention to little old me.

What that left me doing was answering questions like 'Hey how did you grow so fast ?' from people who last saw me fifteen years back. But all good things must come to an end and after an initial ten minutes or so, the questions stopped and the different sections of my family took to their respective corners of the hall.

Please do understand that my family are a bunch of wonderful, talented, intelligent and sometimes funny people. But my basic lack of communication skills and a big lack of communication skills in their language of choice and last but not the least the dreaded generation gap ensured that i would not be getting a look at all the talent, intelligence and humour that i had mentioned at the start of this para. Atleast not on that day.

After the initial starting problem i had taken my seat. And i had taken up the 'I am too arrogant to give a damn about what you think of me - but i am a really sweet guy' pose for about ten minutes and then the devil's workshop started spewing out commands which the idle body had no choice but to obey. The first command was to overhear nearby conversations. "Isnt the girl wearing a nice saree". Hell. "The guy has put on weight" Yawn. "How times have changed, the invitation says to avoid gifts". Hmmm this could be interesting.

The invitation for the reception had this nice one-liner at the bottom. "Kindly avoid bringing gifts". But whats so 'how times have changed' about that. I turned around to find out whose conversation i was listening to and i see two angelic old ladies enjoying the company of their own generation. The old lady who had made the earlier comment went on to say -"In my wedding the invitation said 'Please bring your ration card' "

It turns out that in the early years of our independence. The country was suffering from a drastic shortage in rice and the central government had banned parties of more than 15 odd people because they felt there could be a wastage of rice. To circumvent this law, guests to weddings were asked to bring their ration cards along so that if the police dropped in, the guests would show their ration cards and then lie saying that they had all brought rice from their rations and given for the party.

Rice shortage was so bad that people used to boil wheat grains like the way they boiled rice. It was like chewing gum without the spearmint flavour. Rice shortage was so bad, that the communist government in Kerala imported Macaroni. Imagine the poor Malayalis who would most likely have added coconut milk, coconut oil, and grated coconuts with the macaroni and had it with coconut chutney. Yech. I dont need to tell ya that the measure was not really a popular one. And the communist government soon stopped governing

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Ha whats that smell. The devil's workshop has been distracted by the heavenly smell of Pulao and Chicken Manchurian and Mutton Rogan Josth (or Gosth) and Gobi Manchurian and Paneer Butter Masala. Ha dinner is served. Wah. What lovely food. My brother nust be gnawing on his hostel roti served to help develop the muscles of the lower jaw. He will be really pissed when he finds out about the menu.

I really should mail him more often

Conversations buried in the sands of time.

Ga ga, goo goo, aaah peee, da da...

Amma..

I want my lollipop. Give me back the G.I. Joe. I hate school. I dont want to go to school..

Poda, You can play only if your bring a bat. I have better shoes than you. Hey you put kusu.. ( kusu = fart )

Girls are stupid. They are idiotic. They are snobs. They are pig headed. She is fat and ugly..

Woah, girls are too good da. She is sexy na. what a figure she has da. Talk about curves being dangerous. Machan, did you fart ?

F**K da. 12th is bloody tough. Why do the teachers need to screw our happiness like this. Can't wait to get out of school and join college.

I hate college. School was too good. Cha the lecturers are horrible, classmates are sad..

Ha lets bunk that stupid class da, its a bloody useless subject, lets go catch a movie dude, 10 Rupee ticket at Studio 5, ok..

Let's get some beer and some smokes da.. some porn and we got a party on.

Damn da. Can't come with you guys. Need to go out with my girl, she wants me to come with her to choose dresses. Shall surely come next time da.

Dude, what are we going to do da ? College is going to end. We need to get jobs da. Need to pay off the bank loans na.

Ha, got placed dude. Wonder where we will be 5 years from now. Gonna miss college da

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Hell, work sucks da. Bloody tiring. Planning to start my own business soon. You getting married. Wow, thats great da. My parents are fine da.

Business is fine da. My wife's fine, and the baby is doing great. How is your wife and son doing ?

It was bloody close. Got my first attack. Doc says i need to quit smoking and the drink. Yep, I guess i have joined your club. Doctor says its the stress. He told me to try and reduce the tension. I told him i need to drink and smoke for that. He asked me to read more books instead. My daughter is doing fine. Going to leave college soon. How are your sons doing ? Hey how much did your angioplasty cost ?

I have become a grandfather. Can you believe it ?

Bye, I am going to miss you. Hope i shall join you in heaven soon..

So this is what heaven looks like huh.