Of Being Sad

So, I’m still feeling blue. Somewhat.

Listening to Lost Prophets isn't helping much. They make such sad music.

So, I’m going to do a picture post.

Of The Forests of Lollywood and Bollywood

Life is full of predictable patterns. The sun rises from the west and sets in the east. What goes down must come up. Winters are warm and the summers unbearably cold. Tiny little birds hatch into big grown eggs which subsequently lay more tiny birds.

Well, at least all of this should be happening in movies.

When I was a kid, I had the misfortune of enduring through Pakistani and Indian movies that my grandma loved to watch.

Now that I’ve grown up, dad loves watching Indian movies, and I end up watching old Urdu movies on Filmazia to cheer me up when I’m feeling blue. Trust me, if you haven’t done so already, tune into a 90’s Pakistani movie airing on Filmazia when you’re feeling down. Just the pure WTF-ness and blatant defiance of logic will cheer you up (unless you plan on going into the movie business)

If you show the old movies to any Engineer, he’ll tell you that they had their script written before Newton had an apple-tree shit on him. They have no concept of . . . well, anything! Gravity doesn’t work, nor does force and motion, nor does logic. I mean, hero punches minion and minion flies half a mile back into a solid concrete wall, punching a hole in it. Hero then grabs an empty machine gun, and unloads a thousand bullets into the remaining minions without ever reloading the gun.

No offence to my readers across the border – come to think of it, our media is equally messed up. It’s just that yours gets a lot more exposure and is more interesting, (not to mention has comparatively lax censorship laws than ours) since we see it way before our industry copies 80% of it and force feeds it to us.

Most desi movies (and TV Serials) I’ve come across have certain things that are almost like a requirement that needs to be fulfilled before it’s even considered to be aired.

• A hero and a heroine. They can be evil or good, romantic turned murderer, or terrorist turned McDonalds busboy.
• Five or so songs whose combined budget seems to be twice that of the entire movie. These songs are rarely real life. Most of them are imaginary with either the hero or heroine snapping out of it by some randomly placed extra who’s only job in the entire movie is to put an end to the high budget song.
• A sex scandal. Though these have (or rather their shock value has) become rare  these days, they still pop up. It’s like a last minute thing they can throw in to spice a long running drama or a movie that’s gotten really boring in between two flashy songs.
• An unexpected pregnancy. Again, to spice up a dying storyline.
• A pregnancy complication. (All for the drama!)

We Pakistanis are like India’s little sibling when it comes to Dramas. We copy and modify everything from Indian dramas.

Hey, personally I find watching 90210 (the newer sluttier version) better than an Desi Drama. At least you aren’t shocked by the goras having flings and shit. It is expected from their super-liberal society.

Now, excuse me. I’m going to to go watch Dexter. Blood-Loving-Serial-Killer-with-a-Heart-of-gold trumps Crazy-Ass-Family-Politics every time!

Of Comedy Galore

So, tonight I went to see Saad Haroon’s This is Stand Up Comedy.

Danish Ali is brilliant. I mean, he’s freaking awesome!

I mean, anyone who looks like this, is awesome!

I was planning on writing something long and meaningful as to how cool the show was (since watching him perform is just amazing.

I apologize to people who aren’t living in Karachi or Pakistan, since most of these jokes are based on the various happenings around us. I will try and give you an idea what’s going on. The rest can skip this paragraph and click on the link below. Our Bollywood superstar Meera has horrible English, due to which she’s an embarrassment to the film industry. Mr. Zee is, well, a very corrupt man. Certain cyber-laws prevent me from actually naming him. Use your brains. And we’ve got an abundant supply of refugees who’ve taken upon themselves to rush at cars stopping at an intersection and washing their windshields without the consent of the driver (who keeps yelling at them to cease and desist) and then guilt-tripping them out of money. And lastly, our electricity supply is nowhere near our demand for the stuff.

Danish Ali – Batman in Pakistan

I had a lot of fun. Hope you understand what he’s saying.

Of Prediction Cat

While the rest of you are total buffoons and follow horoscopes and Psychic applications on Facebook that deduce how your day is going to be based on the way your Fishville fish are swimming (Okay, horoscope following people aren’t buffoons. the latter are.) I have a living breathing psychic at home.

My cat’s like a super-charged Magic 8 Ball. We just started to exploit her abilities.

• I asked her if I had a chance of getting into KIET (so that if I did I’d apply there.)
• I asked whether I should go to KIET or SSUET.
• My sister asked her if she would be the anchor for the mega event our school’s holding (the one for which I’m slaving away.)
• Mum asked whether she and her sister will become friends (Not that she’s dying to be friends … family politics)
• Mum asked if a relative of ours who recently eloped with some guy and just came back would be welcomed by the guy’s mother (since now she’s the mother of the heir)
• I asked her if a friend of mine should respond to this chichora guy asking her out (even though the obvious answer is no)

And lo-behold.

• She said yes, I applied for KIET and got in
• She said yes, and I paid the fees.
• She said no, and turns out that the event got delayed by a week and my sister has some fashion show at the exact same day in school.
• She said Yes and in Feb (this we’ll have to wait and see. As it is, my other khala, who can’t stand siblings fighting is coming over to Karachi in Feb)
• She said no, and yesterday Mum found out that the relative’s mother-in-law still hates her, and has disowned her son
• She said no, even she knows he’s an ass.

So yeah.

I know most of you must think I’m insane – have you even read the blog? I am insane and proud of it. But the cat’s prophecies are true. Sure she can’t talk, but she can move, meow, and sit on things. Like a parrot, only a thousand times more accurate.

Today, the headmistress’s office is getting a total make-over. New paint, new chairs, new upholstery. The last time this happened, our old head, Ms Farah, was booted off to another section. I should go and ask Prediction Cat if our current head has job security or not.

BTW, TOMORROW'S SINGLES DAY! MAKE YOUR NEAREST COUPLE MISERABLE!!

Of Fathers and Tailors

If you live in Karachi, you must be familiar with this building. It’s Moosajee’s Defence branch,

Moosajee’s is a well known brand of bespoke suiting. My awesome cousin from the UK decided to treat me to a suit too. So, since he’s footing the bill, I’ll be in possession of an awesome suit soon

Now, today was my trial fitting. Naturally, trial fittings mean that the suit is no where near complete. It’s just a bunch of pieces of expensive fabric loosely stitched together.

Dad was really eager to go with me to the trial. Now, before I continue, let me tell you something about my dad. He picks a fight with everyone. He’ll get pissed at the smallest of things. We go to celebrate mum’s birthday at Pizza hut, salad bar’s out of cucumbers, dad throws a fit. Naturally keeping such incidents in mind, I tried my best to somehow leave dad home. Sadly my luck sucks.

So, I’m at the trial, the tailor gave me the trousers, tossed me into the dressing room. Now, i found out that the trousers didn’t have anyway to keep the fly completely closed. Soon as I wore the trousers, dad barges in. One look at my semi closed fly and he’s up in the tailor’s grill. Statements such as “In England suits are made with precision” “I got suits made when you were still a little kid” etc were tossed about the dressing room.

So needless to say, the tailor was bullied into pinning my fly shut (an uncomfortable experience for the both of us – which I’ll get around to blocking from my memory as soon as I’m done with this post.) Then dad saw that I was without shoes. He sweep kicked them from across the room towards me yelling at me to wear them.

Then he continued to order the tailor around, altering my suit (which looks damn good as it is by the way) to a style that was in fashion in the 1940s.

So, not only was I extremely embarrassed, even the tailor was getting uncomfortable and since dad was shadowing me, I never got the chance to apologise for dad’s behavior or ask him to ignore all the alterations dad made him do.

After a very silent trip home, I finally had the brilliant idea as dad was out of the house to call the shop. The tailor had some trouble remembering who I was till I said “I’m the guy whose dad is uh…ummm *ahem* *ahem*” to which he said “OH YESSSSS!! What can I do for you.?” Undid all the weird ass changes.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t particularly like undermining dad’s authority. Dad’s got his huge-ass flaws, but I would rather let him believe that he’s doing the right thing than shatter his dreams. Not to mention piss him off. Pissed off dad is very very bad for health.

Of V-Day

The world's most pathetic celebratory event.

This isn't a case of sour grapes, but please! Couples get all sorts of opportunities to celebrate their love for each other. You have week-iversaries, month-iverseries, dates, and hot make-out sessions as it is. Do you honestly need another day to rub it into our single faces?

We should have a S-Day. Singles Day. Where single friends get to embarrass the couples by revealing secrets and deep dark thoughts of one half of the loving couple to the other. Basically one day when couples would hide in their own closets (alone) afraid to even call the other one.

Single people unite! I propose every Feb 21st be an Anti Valentines Day! We will make every happy couple uncomfortable (no, we won't break them up... just make them regret ever rubbing their happiness in our faces)

So spread the word. 21st Feb we make people miserable. Because we all are very very single and very very harami.

Of Radioactive Potatoes

Two days ago I was talking to a friend of mine, and thought she loves my rambling stories just as much as the next reader, she really hates my blog.
She hates:

• The Colour Scheme: "Honestly, green and blue? Do you really love mold that much? The entire thing promotes a feeling of nausea in me whenever I open the page.
• The Blog Name: Why is it called Radioactive Potatoes From Outer Space Will Enslave Us when there's nothing written about radiation, potatoes, space, outer space, slavery, or us. It's just really really confusing.
• The Post Titles: What's with the "Of Monkeys and Monsters" or "Of I Have A Stupid Blog" or "Of I make You Feel Nauseous Just By Looking At This Page" or "Off! The Mosquito Repellent" (The last one is my creation. She had nothing to do with the super-lameness)
• The Blog Picture: You had to ruin a perfectly good potato just to make your corny mascot. Now I find potatoes creepier than usual.

So, this has forced me to think, how many of you actually like the entire thing. I mean, how many of you actually enjoy reading the blog as a whole, rather than go “OMG THE COLOR SCHEME!!! IT BURNS!! hehe pushto movies are awesome!! THE BURNING!!”
I have an idea. If there’s anyone with the time and the motivation to fix up the blog’s appearance (you can change everything short of the name) you are welcome to try. Just mail me at bakemono (dot) imo (at) gmail (dot) com. If you want the code for this template to be your base, I’ll be more than happy to send it.
That being said. I’m off for the while, need to rest up a bit. Some asshole gave me the flu.
Remember: bakemono.imo@gmail.com
Looking forward hearing from you.

Of Imo in the Real World

As you all know, I'm a university going student now.

So I will continue to bore you with University Stories till the novelty wears off.

Today, I discovered that my Potato-ey alter ego (This thing) has been seeping it's way into my real mild-mannered life. So, the scenario is like this: English Class, the teacher asks us to form groups. Now being a natural leader, I rallied two people and assumed control.

The exercise was to choose three pictures from a pile of newspaper clippings and then use them in an oral presentation in such a way that they can be related to each other. I didn't get much of a choice being the second-last one to sift through the pile. I managed to blindly pick three pictures. They were (descriptions can be found if you hover the pointer over the picture): Now I know what most of you must be thinking: “Imo, dude! What the hell? How will you link these three pictures together? They’re miles apart!” Well… even though I don’t have a stock-pile of fairy dust, I do make miracles appear out of thin air. Behold

Once upon a time, in a lush jungle in the middle of China, a family of tigers lived in peace. They were happy.

However, one fateful day, a rogue employee escaped from the nearby industrial area. He happened to stumble upon the tiger cubs while their mother was away hunting for food. He had a devious idea. He kidnapped them and took them to Bagdad where he sold them and was never seen again.

When the mother tiger came from her hunt, she saw that her kids were missing. Now two things to note here. First is that the kidnapping and selling took place while the mother was hunting, and secondly, you should know that cats have an amazing sense of smell.

After the tigress had locked onto the scent of the cubs she went out to search for them. She hitchhiked on a bus along the Silk Route. Then swam the Atlantic, and even camped in the Arctic.

Finally after 3 months, the tigress tracked down her cubs to a zoo in Bagdad. Now, if anyone of you have kids – and I’m pretty sure at least a couple of you do – you’d know that if someone takes your kid away from you, you’d go to the ends of the Earth to get him/her back

(over here, someone from the audience said “no”)

Then you don’t love your kid. Don’t become a father. Put him up for adoption. The rest of you agree with what I said, yes? YES?

(you literally have to poke these people to get a response out of them)

So anyways the tigress saw the zoo keeper trying to feed her kids. She pounced on him and tore him to bits.

While the tigress and her cubs were feeding on the Zoo Keeper, his dying screams attracted the attention of the visitors, who ran across the road.

Now as everyone knows, animals can’t cross roads. Why else do you think they have so many “why did the chicken cross the road” jokes. Animals can’t cross roads and that’s final.

So, after feasting on the Zoo Keeper, the tigress thought that it’s time to go home. As it is it’s been a long vacation and now they should head home. But wait! Soon as she reached the main gate, she smelt something really familiar. She had found the scent of the hunter who took her cubs

Now, lets look at the hunter. After selling the cubs, he took the money and opened a Pan shop across the road from the zoo, as was his life long dream.

The tigress was outraged. Not only did this man ruin her family, he continues to do so with the families of millions by supplying pan, gutka and cigarettes to their offspring. Enough is enough she thought. This. Ends. Now. (*narrows eyes*)

(*whisper*) And as she slowly advanced towards the pan shop, the air became still and the last thing anyone ever heard from the shop was the hunter’s terrified scream…(/*whisper*) and they lived happily ever after.  (*big insane smile*)

Now, not only did I get a hearty round of applause from the class, during this short story, the teacher’s cell rang and rather than ask me to stop and answer the call, he cut it off without even looking at it and apologized to me. Imagine. My story was that captivating (and senseless, since the teacher kept asking for the logic behind the sudden scene changes)

Hope you all enjoyed this story as much as I did concocting it.

Of Fair Skin

Today I saw this advert and it got me thinking, I should really watch more TV. Actually it got me thinking why Indians and Pakistanis are so obsessed over being fair. Can someone count the number of Fairness Cream adverts on air? You have Fair & Lovely, some haldi whitening cream, brido whitening cream and what not.

Sometimes it goes to the point where these adverts prey on the innocent minds of young girls. They brainwash impressionable minds into thinking that if you aren’t fair you will never get married. And as we all know, every desi girl who hasn’t been corrupted by western ideals of feminism and liberalism wants to do her matriculation and get married and start pumping out spawn (shame on the readers who got corrupted.) So you need to be white if you want to even get a tiny bit of attention from a guy. And apparently, same goes for guys now. We need to be sparkly white if we want girls falling all over us… wait… sparkly white? Edward? HELL NO!

Now, if you look to the west, you’ll see people dying to get a tan. All the westerners want a nice tan. So, if we extrapolate (Google meaning if you don’t know) the scenario, we have something like this

The Story of Two White Girls: Quest for The Tan

One upon a time, there were two girls. Lets call them Cindy and Sara. So, Cindy and Sara were two very pale white girls. So pale in fact that both used to volunteer at a nurse training institute because of their near translucent skin (which made poking needles in to veins really easy for beginners)

But all wasn’t cakes and marshmallows for them. Dashing young guys used to come to the training center and go on to become rich successful doctors. Yet, no one asked them out (and it’s not because Cindy’s a painting and Sara looks creepy)

One day, their neighborhood aunty was in search of more juicy gossip to share at her Bridge-Party (which didn’t involve being near any bridge for some strange reason) and she happened to come across Sara, who at that time was crying her eyes out.

Upon inquiry, aunty found out that Sara’s nearly 30 (doesn’t look like she’s 30 does it?) and she still hasn’t had a first date. So, aunty smiled gently and after rummaging through her gigantic purse for a good 10 minutes, she pulled out: After handing it to Sara, she started a long, rambling monologue as to how she was once too fair for American Standards and got a job as a reflector-board for modeling gigs. And then her neighborhood aunty gave her Dark and Lovely, and after a month of daily coats, her skin got the healthy chocolatey look that every white American guy longs for.

So, for a month Sara uses dark and lovely.  And voila.

The 32nd day she showed up at the Nurse Training Institute and immediately got proposals from every male nurse and doctor wanna be. The scene ends with her looking at a blank wall and saying “If it wasn’t for Dark and Lovely, I’d still be lonely and dateless. Thank you Dark and Lovely” Then an orderly tackled her and locked her in a padded room (30 years of being dateless and ignored by the opposite sex can severely unhinge you, especially in a liberal country like America)

Now, you must be wondering what happened to Cindy, well…She moved to Pakistan and a wadera was instantly smitten by her pale skin. He took her to his village where they got married and she proceeded to dilute the melanin count of his bloodline.

The End.

Of The Cartoons I Study With

No, not cartoons. That's like insulting cartoons themselves. These people belong in a Zoo. Well, technically so do I, but I bite so they don't dare come near me, not to mention my cheetah like reflexes, though won't save me from banging into static objects, do protect me from hunters and trappers.

Anyways. These unique specimens, are as follows (mind you, due to the sensitive nature of this post, no pictures will be displayed. Use your imagination):

Silent But Deadly

He's one of those silent, innocent kids with a huge beard who've been pampered by mommy a lot. However, he claims to have broken the front teeth of some guy who was harassing him in Inter. Now, this claim alone might scare off people wanting to poke him with sharp-sticks (I'm not one of them - you'll find out why) My sources however tell me that he's one of the most harmless and equally spineless kids on the block. The seniors who travel with him in his van asked him to pay 200/-, he in a fit of jawani gave his entire wallet to them.

Not only that, he’s called silent but deadly because he passes leaks noxious gas. All the seniors in his point are sick and tired of him, and I was unfortunate to sit next to him during a double lecture. Needless to say anyone looking at me would have naturally assumed I was pretending to be a goldfish. Hence, poking him with sharp sticks is out of the question. As a friend of mine says, “Dude – one leak is enough, why make more and suffer the consequences”

Fight Club 

Okay, so we were all asked to introduce our selves in three different sessions. Two of these sessions contained all 82 kids (yes, they’re kids in my eyes) Now, imagine if Barney the purple dinosaur meets you in person and says “Hi, my name’s Barney, I’m soft and cuddly and a serial rapist” Can you wrap your head around it? I mean his image screams child friendly in every way possible. Same is with Fight Club. He claimed that he’s a short tempered guy who usually beats the other guy into pulp.

He looks nothing like it. He’s one of those sickly sweet and annoyingly nosy people. Also he’s dense. I mean, I’m talking to some guy and Fight Club pops in “heeeeellllooooooo gentalmans!” I have tried to ask him to leave, but he never gets the drift. Also, no matter how bluntly I tell him to piss off, he’s got this stupid smile on his face. He’s exponentially worse than the urdu-medium version of me, if such a person ever existed.

3 Idiots Boy

3 Idiots is a stupid movie. I would have actually liked it if every frigging person in University wasn’t quoting it all the time. 3 Idiot Boy is your typical, lazy, bottom feeder who has no worth in the real world. He’s in my group. A friend and I are practically carrying him with us so far. His only worth, bringing a box of smokes for us.

He believes that 3 Idiots is short for “So you want to be an Engineer? Here’s a visual guide to how every Engineering university works. Exact down to the ants roaming in the grass”

So naturally, all you hear from him is “yeh to Virus hai!” or “yeh Silencer hai” or “mein Rancho hoon” or “3 Idiots dekhi hai? Yaad hai Virus kaisey badley leyta tha?..” Dude. Give it a rest and do one freaking assignment yourself.

But I Think

But I Think is a girl. An unfortunate turn of events has placed her in my group. Now she’s useless, and that’s saying something when we’ve got 3 Idiot Boy in our group. She hasn’t got the first clue about using the Internet. On the first day I was in the library sorting my forms, when she asked me to help her with something on the net. She didn’t know how to make an E-mail account, so she asked me to make one for her.  Then, she asked me to make a Facebook account.

The next day, I find out that she’s forgotten her passwords to both things. And I had to send an important assignment to the members of my group, since I’m their leader and all. So, I had to make her a new account and sms her the password.

The reason why her name’s But I Think is simple. She doesn’t listen to anything, save her opinion. It’s so pissing off at times. Especially during graded group assignments. Sad part is we’re stuck with her for the semester.

I Know All

Know it All dude is super annoying. He’s the product of generations of selective breeding of Forum Trolls. He believes everything he sees in movies. His knowledge is unparallel (when it comes to movies.) Oh and his hobbies, apart from being a pretentious dick, include being a wuss and a cry baby.

He reminds me of my bastard of a Khalu. That, however is not the reason why I dislike him. Dude thinks he’s just awesome. He’ll do all sorts of shit just to make us all look bad. Sucking up to the teachers, giving pointless answers just to show everyone that he knows more than the rest of us (even if it’s bogus)

So, naturally Faraz (a fellow Know It All hater) and I have made it our mission to piss him off whenever we get the chance. Recently, we all had to present our Leadership & Motivation presentation. Now, the teacher (who also happens to be our Dean) constantly told us to keep it specific and to the point. Mr. Know It All here, decided to choose such a topic that covers 75% of Engineering, and made a long an seemingly impressive presentation. Dean got pissed. I literally bounced in my seat to be chosen next. As luck would have it, mine was just what he wanted. So for the entire lecture Imo’s presentation was referred to as how everyone’s should be. Know It All got dissed and instant popularity in one swift motion.

The Priest

This guy is like the hyper-evolved state of all the above idiots. He appears to be a normal skinny, mullah (priest) with trousers ending at mid-shin with a prayer cap super-glued to his head. Poor kid was dropped on his head numerous times as an infant apparently. He thinks he’s the class clown. So naturally he’ll ask all the pointless stupid questions and make the most idiotic remarks (He and Know-It-All if combined would destroy my university with a tidal wave of stupid).

A girl volunteers to write something on the board and Priest asks the Dean “What’s the female of ‘author’?”

We’re having a Linear Algebra & Differential Calculus class and he asks the teacher “Why do we solve quadratic equations” (I assume we’ve all asked that question when we were 12)

His laugh is out of this world. He waits for everyone to stop laughing, and goes “Ee-he-he-he.” This guy is definitely two years old.

Actually, the worst trait this guy has, is that he’ll sit in the front row, and after every stupid act, he’s going to turn around with a goofy grin plastered on his face. The class unanimously feels that whoever’s sitting right behind him should slap him hard when he turns around. I’m pretty sure that next week we’ll be throwing things at him to get him to shut up.

 

That’s about it. Cheers