The G spot exists

Ian Sample – I love his name - The Guardian’s science correspondent, reported that doctors have found evidence that the G spot exists. But it seems, that not all women have it. (I don’t think I have it). Anyway, Ian Sample writes: “Ultrasound scans revealed clear anatomical differences between women who said they experienced vaginal orgasms and a group of women who did not. The scans identified a region of thicker tissue where the G spot was rumoured to be lurking, which was not visible in the women who had never had a vaginal orgasm.”
The G spot is believed to have the ability to affect only vaginal orgasms. Thank god! And the doctors in Italy who conducted the study say that it’s possible for women to find out whether they have a G spot. However, one of my newspaper’s editors tells me that the study is nothing new. “Some women have it, others don’t.”

No political ideology

Yesterday, I was asked what my political ideology was -- and I had nothing to say. Politics is shaping the world: Kosovo celebrates its independence, Cuba sees an end of a Castro era, Obama might just become America's first black president. But I, like UK's Gordon Brown, or as we Indians like to call him -- Govardhan Brown - am bumbling along. I have no political bent besides the ususal cliches like 'no more war' and 'freedom of speech'. An old communist journalist I recently interviewed was right when he said that I belong to a generation that has no conviction. He said: "You generation is working in a vacuum. You have lost the conviction and the fight of social liberation for women and working people." And he's right. I have sold out to the iPod, the Internet and middle-class aspiriations. I have no ideology, no stand... nothing. Which is why I will never have children. I don't like them. And anyway, what legacy besides 1GB of music, will I leave them?

Once upon a time

Margaret are you grieving,
Over golden grove unleaving?

Ah, as the heart grows older,

It will come to such sights colder.

-Gerald M Hopkins

It was the perfect day to write a story. And that’s what she decided to do. She crouched in the corner of her first floor veranda and sharpened her pencil. The wind mocked her, rustling the sheets of paper. White paper with red margins and blue lines. From his perch on the tree above, the crow watched her, without curiosity, the way only crows can do. As she prepared to write her first words, the world took a breath and waited. The clouds stopped moving, the wind died down, and the crow… it just watched the way only crows can do.
And she wrote: Once upon a time…
She looked at it, turned the paper upside down and looked at it again. That didn’t look right. Once upon a time was so boring. She scratched it out, again and again and again. Three horizontal lines scratched out the words – Once upon a time. And the world did not like it. The powers that be trembled with anger.
“Traitor,” screeched the crow, the way only crows can screech.
”Et tu, little one,” howled the wind. And the world revolted.
She looked up in surprise: “But at least wait till I finish,” she said. “I haven’t even begun.”
But she had been judged. The sky darkened in fury and the crow cawed out in triumph, “I knew she’d do away with Once upon a time.”
And she found herself in a courtroom. [Don’t ask me how, she just did]. Her hands were shackled in chains. The courtroom was more a dungeon, packed with people booing her. The crow was perched on the shoulder of an old man. His wrinkled face was marred by three scars – two on one cheek, one on the other. The bags around his eyes were black, and his white hair hung on his shoulder – rat-tailed and unkempt. He pointed a manicured finger at her. “Murderer,” he hissed. “You scratched me out. This is premeditated murder.”
The crowd hissed at her, the crow cawed in glee and she stood in the dungeon, her arms bound in iron. “But it’s my story,” she said. “And it has to be different. There is no rule that I have to begin with Once upon a time.”
“I am the Alpha,” said the old man. “Omega is dying.”
He pointed his manicured finger to the far corner of the dungeon. A woman was lying etherised on an operating table. Ten tubes were feeding words into her wasted body. Tears were flowing from her eyes. But her face was scarred beyond recognition. The people in white coats muttered amongst themselves.
“Happily ever after is dying.” The three scars on Once upon a time’s face glowed red. “Once we were the beginning and the end. I was the beginning, she was the happiness, but no you writers were not happy to let things be.”
“But how can there be a happily ever after?” she asked. “How can I write a Happily ever after, when I know that there isn’t one. Everything changes. I want a happily ever after, but there isn’t one anymore. I’ve looked and I’ve looked, and I can’t find it.”
The crowd hissed, the crow cawed, and the girl began to cry. She mourned the dying of Happily ever after, and felt guilty scratching out Once upon her time. But her experiences had shown her that the two did not have a place in her story. They had no place in any new story.
The old man rose and gave the verdict. His voice was gentle, like a grandfather narrating a fairytale. “Little girl, you are guilty of attempting to murder my wife and me. The words will fail you when you need them the most. Without us there can never be a good story, and you will roam in the Wasteland for ever.”
The dungeon dissolved, and she found herself crouched in the veranda. It was a good day to tell a story. But the words did not come. She had no story to tell. The wind mocked her, and the crow watched, the way only crows can do.

The three old ladies

I call them my Furies; they stare at me wherever I go. The slight rustling of the curtains on the first floor, the creaking of the door when I leave my apartment… they’re always there watching and waiting. They have nothing else to do. They are my neighbours, my very own witches who cackle but offer no predictions.

The first steals my newspapers, if I don’t pick them up by 8am. She’s always lurking in the corridor looking for something to steal. My landlady says that she even made off with a neighbour’s commode. Though how an 80-year- old can accomplish such a task escapes my imagination.

The second is a vigilante – her targets are vehicles parked in front of the building gate. The moment a car is parked outside the gate, she rushes out of her house with surprising agility armed with a rusted spear. She then proceeds to deflate the tires systematically, muttering to herself.

The third smells of cats – rumour has it that there are about 20 in her apartment. But even the local authorities don’t have the courage to investigate.

On Sundays I see them go to church. The three old women mutter and mumble. When they see me, they make the sign of the cross. They hold the mirror to my future. One day I will be old and wrinkled. I see the signs. I’ve already started muttering to myself, and I want to adopt a stray cat. My living room is littered with newspapers and magazines.

When I grow old, I will be a frizzy-haired chain-smoking alcoholic. There will be no mirrors in my house. I am not that brave.

Writer's strike is almost over

Here's a bit of good news for those tired of watching reruns. Michael Eisner has announced that the writers have reached a deal. Hopefully it will be end of the strike. "It's over," Mr Eisner said. "They made the deal, they shook hands on the deal. It's going on Saturday to the writers in general." There is still a chance that the deal may fall throough. Time to turn to Leno for some good old-fashioned stand up comedy.

Whodunit?

The veritable Scotland Yard as made it official: It was the bomb that killed Benazir Bhutto. But it looks like the Pakistan People’s Party would prefer ‘death by gunshot’. The Party has rejected the conclusion and has asked for a UN investigation. Rumours of a cover-up are rife. The Yard’s investigators say that a lone attacker fired the shots at Bhutto and then detonated the blast by blowing himself up moments later.

Safety in numbers

Other people's opinions -- it's easy to live life in fear of the faceless masses and their opinions. But once you break out of the mould, life suddenly becomes a whole lot more satisfying. I learnt that in kindergarten, when I was forced to participate in a race. While everyone headed north, I decided to go south. My mum was mortified, but I quite enjoyed running in the opposite direction -- there was no one jostling me.
Since then, I've always chosen to do exactly what I please, instead of bowing down to society's norms and values. But the going's not easy, and there are times when I seek the safety of numbers, when I crave for mass approval, and seek acceptance from people who don't really care whether I live or die. Today, however, is not one of those days. Today, I'll be driving six white horses.

Groucho makes me laugh

When the Marx Brothers were about to make a movie called A Night in Casablanca, there were threats of legal action from the Warner Brothers, who, five years before, had made a picture called, Casablanca. Whereupon, Groucho, speaking for his brothers and himself, immediately dispatched the following letters:

Dear Warner Brothers
Apparently there is more than one way of conquering a city and holding it as your own. For example, up to the time that we contemplated making this picture, I had no idea that the city of Casablanca belonged exclusively to Warner Brothers. However, it was only a few days after our announcement appeared that we received your long, ominous legal document warning us not to use the name Casablanca.
It seems that in 1471, Ferdinand Balboa Warner, your great-great-grandfather, while looking for a shortcut to the city of Burbank, had stumbled on the shores of Africa and, raising his alpenstock (which he later turned in for a hundred shares of the common), named it Casablanca.
I just don't understand your attitude. Even if you plan on re-releasing your picture, I am sure that the average movie fan could learn in time to distinguish between Ingrid Bergman and Harpo. I don't know whether I could, but I certainly would like to try.
You claim you own Casablanca and that no one else can use that name without your permission. What about "Warner Brothers"? Do you own that, too? You probably have the right to use the name Warner, but what about Brothers? Professionally, we were brothers long before you were. We were touring the sticks as The Marx Brothers when Vitaphone was still a gleam in the inventor's eye, and even before us there had been other brothers -- the Smith Brothers; the Brothers Karamazov; Dan Brothers, an outfielder with Detroit; and "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?" (This was originally "Brothers, Can You Spare a Dime?" but this was spreading a dime pretty thin, so they threw out one brother, gave all the money to the other one and whittled it down to, "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?")
Now Jack, how about you? Do you maintain that yours is an original name? Well, it's not. It was used long before you were born. Offhand, I can think of two Jacks -- there was Jack of "Jack and the Beanstalk," and Jack the Ripper, who cut quite a figure in his day.
As for you, Harry, you probably sign your checks, sure in the belief that you are the first Harry of all time and that all other Harrys are imposters. I can think of two Harrys that preceeded you. There was Lighthouse Harry of Revolutionary fame and a Harry Appelbaum who lived on the corner of 93rd Street and Lexington Avenue. Unfortunately, Appelbaum wasn't too well known. The last I heard of him, he was selling neckties at Weber and Heilbroner.
This all seems to add up to a pretty bitter tirade, but I assure you it's not meant to. I love Warners. Some of my best friends are Warner Brothers. It is even possible that I am doing you an injustice and that you, yourselves, know nothing at all about this dog-in-the-Wanger attitude. It wouldn't surprise me at all to discover that the heads of your legal department are unaware of this absurd dispute, for I am acquainted with many of them and they are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits and a love of their fellow man that out-Saroyans Saroyan.
I have a hunch that this attempt to prevent us from using the title is the brainchild of some ferret-faced shyster, serving a brief apprenticeship in your legal department. I know the type well -- hot out of law school, hungry for success and too ambitious to follow the natural laws of promotion. This bar sinister probably needled your attorneys, most of whom are fine fellows with curly black hair, double-breasted suits, etc., into attempting to enjoin us. Well, he won't get away with it! We'll fight him to the highest court! No pasty-faced legal adventurer is going to cause bad blood between the Warners and the Marxes. We are all brothers under the skin and we'll remain friends till the last reel of "A Night in Casablanca" goes tumbling over the spool.
Sincerely,Groucho Marx

*For some curious reason, this letter seemed to puzzle the Warner Brothers legal department.

Source: From THE BEST OF MODERN HUMOUR, edited by Mordecai Richler, reprinted without any permission whatsoever, but with no intent to make a profit thereby.

What I've learnt over the week

No sex please, we're Indians: If anyone tells you that Bombay -- I refuse to call it Mumbai -- is cosmopolitan, they're lying. Ours is a city that is caught in a timewarp. Lurking beneath its busy exterior, is a city that is regressive in its outlook. Last weekend the police raided a so-called gay party and arrested the people on the grounds of consumption of alchohol. And horror, there were even condoms. This is not the first time the police have barged into a private party... they will do it again.
Weed kills your brain cells: Ever since I've given up grass and hashish, i find I can think more clearly. So now that the haze has lifted I can't help but ask: What am I doing with my life? When will earn more money? And should I adopt a little black kitten?
The world is melting: The way things are going, the Amazon Rainforest will disappear in 50 years, the Greenland ice sheet will melt in 300 years, and the Arctic sea ice in 10. Knowing my luck, and given my pessimitic outloook to life, I will die a painful and horrible death.
Other lessons: Indians are bad sportspeople, tarot card readers cannot read the future, women are fickle and men whine too much.