It's 5 in the evening and I am sitting on my bike, a kilometer or perhaps a kilometer and a half from the theater where a friend of mine is waiting, errr... jumping up and down angrily and waving two tickets to Harry Potter and the Whatever, that he claims, he got at terrific expense, and expressing a heartfelt desire to murder me because it's fifteen minutes since the movie started and I am still here, a kilometer or a half away from the theater, where he is waiting.
Which brings us to the question:
Why am I waiting here like a dweeb sitting on my bike when my friend is alas there?
The reason is that a small traffic signal has apparently gone and drunk a quarter of Smirnoff, with the result that it's flashing randomly and green stays on only for half a second.
The good citizens of Chennai tiring of this, decided to take matters into their own hands and now there is a complete snarl here, and I am sitting here and thinking some bright and entertaining thoughts.
1) Harry Potter is a dweeb. forget that. Any kid who just by looking like a nerd, and acting like one can get studios to give him millions of bucks and impressionable and beautiful young school girls to fall madly in love with him deserves to be my role model. I mean I was a nerd in school, college and am still a nerd in office, but pretty females hardly pause to take a look at me, and continue to deny my existence. But then I have had 18 years to get used to it, so it doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't hurt at all.
What hurts though, is the continued refusal by movie studios to acknowledge my existence. C'mon! I am as good, or even better than any magician who ever swung a staff full of the gonads of a unicorn, the kidneys of a phoneix, and the gall bladder of a very irate headmaster, or who said "Avada Kedavara", to a spider. I mean I look glasses, teeth and a very large scar mark from a spider to whom I said "Avada Kedavara" (Shelob she was called, I believe), but they still refuse to look at me. Come on Warner Brothers, here I am your quintessential nerd.
But they refuse.
Such, is life.
2) Indian cyclists are asinine assholes. Seriously. I mean, which section of the populace would otherwise go and buy cycles that are atleast 2 feet too tall for them. But Indian cyclists do. They go and buy TI cycles which are standard green paint 6 foot tall, wire brake affairs. Attach wide-screen 70 mm rearview mirrors, two carriers, one in front one behind to them, and then have trouble getting onto the bikes in the first place. For instance, this chap before me, he is about 5 feet four inches tall, and is trying to clamber onto this 6 foot tall bicycle. He is attempting this by tilting the cycle at 30 degrees to the road, and then inserting one leg through the frame, and waiting for the sozzled signal to turn green, when he will just push off, and hope to right himself. I would feel right and nice about this, only he has his wife on his rear carrier, and she is still sitting there, feet dangling and tilted at an angle of 30 degrees to the road herself. Hell, they are not the only ones. Everywhere I look I see these guys, all on their bottle green cycles, looking like a set of dimunitive Potters, trying to mount some Speedfire broomstick. I mean don't they reason, don't they think of things before they actually go and buy these 6 foot tall bicycles. Why is it that India is cursed by these 6 foot cycles, that makes the life of a Indian cyclist and all other road user's miserable, and why is it, that the average Indian is so besotted by it. Who shall come and rescue Indians from this plight. Harry Potter?....
3) When is Harry Potter actually going to discover Britney Spears. I won't say she is magical. God Forbid! But seeing that every teenager in Britain, and elsewhere can't seem to spend two minutes without being shown a Britney commercial, which involves 30 seconds of seeing Briteny do quite a few odd things to herself with the aid of a Coke/Pepsi bottle, and a ten minute assertion by Coke/Pepsi, that Britney is coming closer to you, and the eventual promise that by drinking lots of coke/pepsi you could eventually be the bottle with which Britney does odd things to herself with, I mean, it seems quite impossible that Harry Potter could have missed out. Where is he anyway. Magical Land? Rowling, aren't you interested in sexually liberating your boy wizard....
Meanwhile Harry Potter, we here in India need you very badly. Our long heritage of being a nation full of mystics, seers, sword swallowers, and ouiled nail dancers, has been eroded by a deeply vituperative program of rationalness, though as a resistance effort we have not given up our practice of producing inebirated signal posts. Come Master Potter, and save India from the curse of the long tall bicycles, and we promise you that TI will reward you rich and handsomely by liberating you from the monastic influences of Rowling, and eventually helping you achieve your full potential by becoming the Pepsi bottle favoured by Britney Spears.
