Mouse to replace elephant as Railways mascot

In a move that is bound to stir up a hornet’s nest,Union Railways minister Tinesh Dwivedi today announced his intention to replace Bholu,the endearing,cuddly elephant mascot of the indian railways with a mouse,named rather aptly as Sahyatri.

Speaking at a press conference, he revealed that it was something which was on his mind for a long time,and he felt that this was the opportune moment to roll it out. “I have talked to a lot of people,both as a minister and as common man,and I feel that I speak for a wide cross section of the junta”,he said.

Explaining the logic behind the move,he said that the ubiquitous mouse had become an integral part of any train journey. “ Among the things that you would take back from a train journey,the mouse would be right on top of the list,its actually your sahyatri, something you would inevitably associate with the Indian Railways, and hence this change in the Railways’ mascot is apt and befitting”.

The move seems to have struck a chord with frequent travellers, with a lot of them voicing their support for the same. “It takes time for the import of the move to sink in,but when it does,you marvel at its compelling simplicity and novelty and bask in its glory,absolutely splendid,one of the best things to have happened to the Railways”, said a rather eloquent and visibly thrilled gentleman. “Just to look at these harmless,amiable creatures diligently scurrying up and down the aisle is in itself a source of inspiration,and when you are sitting in a train,with little to do,these things seldom go unnoticed”,averred a psychiatrist.

However,like any other government policies,this move has had its fair share of dectractors as well. The most vociferous opposition has come in from Statue City,with a visibly upset Bhaiji  trashing the move as being absolute rubbish. “The elephant has over the years come to represent the trials and tribulations of the socially downtrodden,this move is paramount to a slap on their faces,we strongly condemn this atrocious move”, he said. He also informed the press of the party’s intention to erect a statue of an elephant outside the Statue Central as a mark of protest. Joining Bhaiji in expressing displeasure over the decision,Ms DeeDee has alleged that the states were not taken into confidence at the time of drafting the legislation. “The Railways might be centrally owned but the very fact that rails pass through all states makes the Indian Railways a state subject. The government’s policies seem to be in direct conflict with the principles of a federal structure,and this sort of autocratic rulership is not acceptable,the government must get off its high horse.”,she said. The season of rollbacks was not lost on her,and she wasted little time in asking for the Minister’s head. “He has proved that he is not capable of running such a crucial department,and has lost the mandate to be Railway minister. I demand his immediate resignation and a rollback of this nonsensical proposal. In fact,I ll be going to the Capital,on elephant back,to see to the matter myself”,she concluded in a hurry.

While the proposal  is set to hang fire for a long time to come, it is obvious that the move has captured the nation’s imagination,and it remains to be seen whether the government gives in to popular demand or satiates its political allies.

The Unholy Confluence

It was the coldest day in about a decade,they said. The news channels and papers were full of it. “thand se behaal janta”, screamed one channel; “thand ki maramari”,said another.

Bhen ke l***e,he said. You don’t have any right to talk about how cold it is,sitting in a centrally heated room with plush interiors,elaborately covered from head to toe,sipping a cup of steaming hot coffee. You’ve got to be outside,on the roads,fighting a losing battle with the merciless elements of nature. You’ve got to know how it feels like when ice cold winds rush in through a stuck window,steamrollering a meek defence in the form of a shredded blanket and cut through your bones. You’ve got to know the futile attempts involved in getting some circulation to go through your benumbed hands. You’ve got to know what it takes to steer an ailing taxi through dense fog with those hands.

Well,they were correct to some extent. It definitely was the coldest day ever.  He was shivering from head to toe, partly because of the cold, and partly because of rock bottom alcohol reserves in his system. He held the steering wheel firmly, to get a grip on himself. It wouldn’t work.  Nothing would work. He simply needed spirit. He had just finished work, and was about to wheel it for the nearest watering hole, when he was flagged down by a rather agitated couple near the flyover. 

Their car had broken down, apparently. What caught his attention however, was the woman.  He saw more skin than clothes.  He had no intention of taking them anywhere,not when alcohol was waiting,but the cleavage and assets and all relegated alcohol to second spot. “kahaan jaana hai?” 

“Bhai rpm lounge hai basant lok mein,wahaan chod de” ,

 “400 loonga,ulta padhega” ,

“tu 1000 le le bhai,seedha kara de”.

They seemed filthy rich,and he was ripping them off senseless. He didn’t mind,he saw it as an exercise for reducing the gap between rich and poor. The woman didn’t seem happy with her partner’s bargaining,and she was rattling off sentence after sentence in chaste English. The gentlemen seemed to be reciprocating in kind. He didn’t mind, he had dedicated all his senses to the rear view mirror.

                                               ***

“Step on it,will you? We are already late,this party is pretty important for me. “

“Well you are distracting me with that rather risqué dress preference of yours,madame,tu ekdum maal hai yaar,gaadi kaise chalaaoon?”

“Shut up and keep driving,douchebag, its an A list party,man!”

“I cant for the life of me understand whats so special about the party. You’ll start off with being slightly tipsy,you ll then graduate to being Her Holy Highness,and you ll top it off with being freelance cotwarmer. Whats the difference?”

“Hey am I dreaming or is it actually smoke coming outta the bonnet?”

“Well,you surely aint dreaming,lady..  We have a problem”

“Pull over and see if you can fix it no?”He pulled over. He checked if it could be fixed. It couldn’t.

“It cant be fixed”

That’s approximately when the lady lost it.

“What the f**k do you mean by you cant fix it??! Bloody useless vermin,try and get a taxi then!”

There seemed to be no taxis around,everyone had called it a day rather early,and the few on the roads were in a hurry to get off it. Except for one cabbie,though.  Well it was clear what prompted him to hit the brakes though, a minimally clothed female always tilts things in your favour.

. “kahaan jaana hai?” 

“Bhai rpm lounge hai basant lok mein,wahaan chod de” ,

“400 loonga,ulta padhega” ,

“tu 1000 le le bhai,seedha kara de”.

“Are you f***ing mad??!! He s ripping you off man!What nonsense is this! Its barely 4 kilometres away are you in your senses!!?”

“If you have not noticed by now,you have miraculously managed to attract the attention of a dozen  odd lecherous eyes,the best thing to do would be to get you indoors as soon as possible,so shut up and play along for once”

She had worked him up considerably,and as much as she liked bossing him around,she didn’t like it when he was in one of those moods. She knew how to cheer him up. Her agile,nimble hands slowly slid along his lean physique and came to rest roundabouts the crotch.

“What do you think you are doing??! This is a taxi for god’s gracious sake stop it !!”

That’s when he saw another pair of the lecherous eyes he was talking about staring at the duo in the rear view mirror.

“kya dekh raha hai bhen***d gaadi chalaa sharaafat se!!”

He was now positively livid. Well,so much for trying,she thought.

                                               ***

He had completely forgotten the fact that he was  the one driving the cab. The rear view was the only thing that mattered now. Heck,even those movies they showed at the theatre didn’t have such sensational females.. Subtlety and wind became one, this was now shameless ogling. Things had started to increasingly mirror the movies,the car may as well drive itself for all he cared,he had totally given in to carnal pleasures.

“kya dekh raha hai bhen***d gaadi chalaa sharaafat se!!”

Well,all good things come to an end rather rapidly. The cold and the shivering and the alcohol craving and the honking and the steering wheel  and the road all came back in an explosion of sight,smell,sound,taste  and touch. There was an awkward silence in the cab,and he drove on,looking resolutely at the road,with the feeblest of glances towards the rear view.

They were at a traffic junction now. Even the homeless seemed to have found some sort of lodging to go to,the junction was devoid of all hawkers and beggars,except for one kid,who presently came up to the taxi.. He didn’t seem to be in good shape. Tattered blanket,tattered clothes,skeletal figure..

“chutta nahi hai,nikal yahaan se”;said the guy.. He still seemed to be angry.. That more or less remained the mood till he dropped them off at the lounge,and shot off for the nearest bar.
                                                         ***

It seemed to be a rather busy day for the morgue guy. All hell had broken loose in the city. Lit up lounges,illicit liquor,winter related deaths.. He was at his wit’s end.. He was having a tough time getting people to identify bodies of their folks,and to compound matters,almost all his colleagues had gone on leave:he was severely shorthanded.. He was nearing the end of his shift,and the replacement guy hadn’t turned up. He could take no more,he decided to close up the morgue and leave. It was when he was switching off the lights that he noticed the 4 unidentified bodies in the corner. 2 were charred beyond recognition; that would be the lounge fire, he said to himself.. Then there was this boy they picked up off the streets..A victim of the coldwave.. And then there was the hooch tragedy guy.. He was impressed with his memory.. Aging didn’t seem to have any effect on it.. 

His attention went back to the corpses. He somehow was fascinated by the way they lay,in eternal slumber. It was as if Death whispered a lullaby.*

                                
                                                  _____________
PS:* Credits due @opeth for the lovely ,lovely song title

Part your legs and Push

How I came to be at the receiving end of this instruction is a long and painful story, which I tried to put into fictional form, inventing this wife and husband. It must come across as a surprise to you that I could not, and cannot write a story to save my own dear life. Hence I now attempt to write this in the usual way as such, the Totalliemeh way.

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Guest posting is NOT an easy task.And I have been bugged, nudged, threatened, blackmailed(emotionally and otherwise) into writing one. The fact that the owner of this blog wrote a kidu GP on my blog, didn't help to put it off for long. The voice of my conscience, which for some weird reason, resembles the blog owner's voice, gave me sleepless nights, I tossed around with this heavy weight on my mind, a debt, and ..er. well, here I am.

I am not fat.

It is a liberating experience to write that on someone else's blog, for a change. I guess this is my primary concern regarding my life, second only to my unemployed state and unknown dark future. Lets just not go there okay? Okay. So where were we?

Yea, Am NOT fat. Nope. No. But Somehow, everyone seems to think so. I was wondering, why is that a problem? Should it be a problem? Surely you will feel that how food is being processed and deposited on my body is none of anyone's business. but it isn't so. Right from the college store lady who inquired about "the baby" to the old classmate who didn't recognize me at the alumni meet, from a best friend who literally starved herself scolding me for taking second helpings, to a brother who called you thadichi, I have had enough of humiliating experiences, which -which prompted me to go join a --GYM.

Ah. Gym was like school. I was excited to go at first, my mother had to drag me to the place the next two weeks, and I accepted my fate and began liking the gym, after a month. But the "I love to work out" attitude was a rather strange journey, which is, am sure, quite clear in the first sentence of this post. The Leg press machine, asks you to put your legs on the press, part it slightly and push. Well, it was a rather strange analogy that the mind cooked up, but it only confirms my fears that the mind is highly perverted.

I liked walking on the treadmill, which I used to spell as threadmill, and I thought it was named so coz life was hanging like on a thread, while you are on it. I loved the machine, I used to walk , watching the tv infront of me, the hands free to use the remote, all was hunky dory till the instructor came along and asked me to increase the speed from 1.5 km/h and actually "run". Then I began to hate it as I drew analogies from my life, to explain the way I felt about the machine. It is a stupid machine, no matter how much you struggle and run you are at the same position and if you stop, you fall and die.

I was never allowed on the exercise bike as I was prone to sleep while I was on it. The dumbbell exercise was a humiliation, I couldn't lift the lowest of weights. I became a child once again who has forgotten her arithmetic while counting the number of push-ups. Abs exercises were an all in one- It was humiliating, exhausting and I was often found nodding off with my legs in the air. 

Don't wonder. I quit gym a few weeks ago. My trainer keeps calling me, even from different numbers and for all your information, I am right now in the States, married. If she asks, stick with this story. 

The profound influence this blog owner's pragmatic nature had, has, have, whatever- on my life should be mentioned now. His philosophy seems to be rather a very simple, well known and a widely followed one. Eat what you want, when you want, avoid exercise if you can help it, and die a happy man/woman. He looks everyday in the mirror and swears he will gain another kilo that day, which, he achieves quite easily, and he is a happy contented man, if there was any. And I am allowed to affectionately call him "Thadiya". and I do. and I love calling him that as well. Oye- don't get slim, ever. I hope you always remain the cushy squishy pudgy self. 

Love,

Chyechu.

                                                                         ***

Ladies and gentlemen,

That was the fabulously magnificient Totalliemeh opening up on a rather touchy issue. This unprecedented exclusive from the elusive,secretive,mysterious woman's pen brought to you by Oldblighter_Vanwinkle productions. Stay tuned for more sensational scoops.cheers.