How not to take a left turn

The past two weeks, I've been on a "sorta" diet (apart for some lavish homemade dinners ;-) ). For all of this week though, I've been shifted to Bangalore, and it seems that God has plans to keep me burning the extra calories that being in Pub city automatically brings.

So when I was invited to Styx by a couple of friends, not only did I not find an auto anywhere on the road (and thus had to walk the entire length from Guest House to M G Road), but even worse shit happened on the way back.

Knowing that I am quite badly directionally-challenged, I made sure that to reach the Guest House, I remembered to take a left turn from the petrol pump after the office, and this was somewhere near State Bank of India. So I got the autowallah to stop near aforesaid SBI, and confidently made my way on foot. Only, I accidentally managed to reach office about two hours, several blisters, four full circles and 5 suttas later. Guess what? Wrong petrol pump.

Meanwhile, I discovered that near office, there are Esprit and Satya Paul showrooms, a Barista, a Coffee Day, a Java City; and not-so-near there is Jewels de Paragon, Lavelle Road, and, well, M G Road. I had just made a trip from guest house to MG to office to MG to guest house.

Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll just attach this beautiful landmark I found. It has "chootia" written all over it :-(

Flying start

I recently have started using my roomie's bike. Last Friday was the first time I came all the way to office, a gruelling ordeal in itself, compounded by the sudden failure of the engine as I turned inside the security gate, when the clutch abruptly released as I was busy showing the guard my security badge. Since a security guard's business is to make sure people are secure, I think he didn't like that happening, and gave me a cold stare. Worse still, I managed to not start the bike again and dragged it up the ramp, at which point his gaze may have turned even colder; there was positively a hint of a frown. Undettered, though slightly low on ego, I human-powered the bike into the parking lot.

Day 2, Same place: Well, I am a newbie, so the bike stalled again. Notice how I knew by then that the word is "stalled". But with a solid, powerful kick of the right foot, I revved up (one more word) the engine again, and off I went. The guard was unimpressed though. Kept his stoic face.

Day 3: I finally made it. Absolutely no hitches whatsoever. Gracefully, like a swan doing a ballet, I shifted gears to neutral as stood beside the security guard showing him my security pass under my shirt, holding it like a badge of honour. As I put the bike into gear and whizzed past the obviously impressed security guard, I noticed the smile. No, it was an ear-to-ear grin, like the one the old man from the movies finally smiles at his deathbed, knowing he has trained his young student well, content in his legacy.

Oh, the ego trip. I felt on top of the world, figuratively, and not-so-figuratively, the bike. I never realized when I had already reached the parking lot and parked the bike. Then it happened. I was looking down at the stand, and saw it all - in a vicious and altogether different light.

My fly was open.

Life is beautiful

Here I am, comfortably seated on my Google bean bag on a Monday afternoon, the TV playing classics from six feet in front, laptop wirelessly connected to blogger, sunbeams streaming gently through red curtains making soft silhouettes and bathing the room in a coloured light, popcorn making faint sounds as it slowly gets microwaved, a small quantity of vodka lying in easy reach, and movie tickets booked in advance for the 4 o'clock "Cars" show.

Life is beautiful.

Murphy's Law revisited (or How not to go to Goa )

You can fool Murphy once. But you can't fool Murphy twice.

It was a long time ago when Takli and I went riding to Brigade Road from Vijaynagar for a cup of tea and ended up, 6 hours and 120km later, in Mysore. What a breeze of a trip that was: we had left totally without any planning whatsoever, with barely enough money to buy us even the petrol for the trip, reached without a hint of mishap on an evidently accident-prone road, as Banner and others would tell you.

So this time it was not two bikes, but a car; it was from Hyderabad, not Bangalore; and the destination was Goa instead of Mysore. It was a distance of 900km instead of a mere hundred, but with the above exceptions, was it not basically the same thing all over again? - Just a joy ride, unplanned yet bound to be uneventful.

Or so we thought.

As is usual, Shanatanu called up in the middle of the night asking me to get ready to leave for the weekend. And as is usual, I paid no heed, thinking that with it pouring cats and dogs outside, Shantanu, friends and I would probably be sharing a beer somewhere on the countryside, and merely changed into a pair of jeans. 50 km later, I realized that this was no joke, we were indeed on the highway cruising towards Sholapur, then from there to Bijapur, then Chikodi, to a few other places en route and finally, Londa and then Goa. Indeed the trip was altogether uneventful, if a little tiring, till we crossed Sholapur. I observed that as you move further away from the metro areas, the place names become weirder and weirder. So far, so good.

Unlike me, Shantanu, Ankur and Abhinav (my fellow Murphy victims) were a little better prepared, having on them spare shorts, a change of clothing, a camera and several beers. It had been raining quite heavily all the time. It was during a brief spell of dryness that we came out to chill and here is where Murphy's ugly face first surfaced. While opening a Foster's, the bottle having been agitated quite severely over the several 120 kmph speed breakers on the way, furiously hissed and spat all over the back seat. Wanting to capture this moment of insanity with our digital camera turned out not to be, since the batteries were found discharged. Slightly dejected, but nevertheless eager to push forward, we drove on.

On reaching Chikodi, we were dutifully informed by the locals that the way ahead was closed due to heavy rain. We still went on and managed to find the bridge. It was ok, but for the minor exception of being under the water. Car and all, we waded through it with the steering tilted in a direction opposite to the running water and came out victorious on the other side.

Minor hurdles apart, we reached Londa, although it was getting late by now. We calculated that being about 60 km from Goa now, it would take us at most an hour to get there, ie at about 3pm Saturday. But then we saw the road from Londa. Potholes that looked like small barren hills followed by ridges where the road was just not there. After about three km on such track at 20 kmph, a chaiwalah told us (with glee. Oh that bastard. He was actually smiling.) that the next 12 km was even worse. Needless to say, we didn't heed him.

Although we reached the other side, our primary concern was now not to find a beach full of hot firang babes, but where in Goa to get the silencer repaired, and the engine fixed, which by now was leaning at a dangerous sixty degree angle, ready to take leave of the rest of the car any time.

Fortunately, we found such a place, then rented a car, then went to the beach. This is what I learnt: Never go to Goa in off-season. It looks like this.



complete with sari-clad aunty and boxer-clad uncle. A Cafe Coffee Day in Delhi has a higher population density in the middle of summer. And I'm just talking quantity.

By the way, that's Calangute beach. We never got to see the other beaches, because as luck (Murphy?) would have it, the rental car suddenly lurched to a stop a few km before getting there. It turned out the petrol filter had broken and the car was spewing oil all over the road. It took the rental guy two hours before he got there, leaving us stuck miles behind the beach.

It took us the entire night to drink our bad luck away and refreshed, we started back the next day, knowing to avoid the flood and the screwed up road. All went well till Sunday night, till this happened:


Yes, six kilometres from the nearest service place (meant for trucks) and twenty-five kilometres from the nearest town. Don't even ask what happened to the spare. But I guess we were so used to this by now that the three hour wait after getting the spare and the tire repaired, followed by an oh-so-comfortable truck ride home didn't even scratch my bum.

I finally reached Hyderabad around 3pm on Monday, swearing never ever to make another unplanned trip.

Adventures of Appendix man

Last Friday, even as I was finishing the final few of my remaining rites at IIT Madras, as every graduating student must, I felt a sharp pain in the stomach. Truth be told, it had been lurking about in that area rather sadly for the past week, but there was that something about this sudden spurt of renewed enthusiasm.

On a gut feeling (painful pun obviously intended - Ha! There's a pun in that sentence, too.) that something was wrong, I decided to visit the doctor. It was my second trip to the IITM hospital - the first one being on the second day of joining, five years ago. This one was no weirder though, for the last trip occurred due to a rather strange accident involving me running at about 5 miles per hour, an embarrassingly stationary scooter and several stitches.

After waiting at the reception for ages and being told that I had no medical record at the hospital, I left for about 2 hours to promptly sneak back in when there was nobody at the reception. Finally I met a doctor who told me to lie down and diagnosed me with sub-acute Appendicitis.

Appendicitis is the kind of disease that has two forms: the acute one gives you so much pain that you need surgery immediately; and sub-acute, which slowly persists till it reaches the acute stage, at which point your innards explode.

My first reaction was - "WTF! I'm a ticking time bomb!"

On Saturday, therefore, I rushed back home to Delhi, where a close friend's father happens to be a world-class surgeon. All this while, I'd been taking antibiotics and painkillers and the pain had been easing off, although slowly. When I first contacted friend's dad, the pain was still enough to make him diagnose appendicitis, but he asked for an ultrasound.

For a first-timer, an ultrasound is an adventure in itself. Basically, they ask you to keep drinking gallon after gallon of water and then hold it in till your bladder is fully distended. Whether there is a medical reason, or pure sadism on the part of the operator, I will never know, but the pain in my abdomen was definitely not the first thing on my mind as I lay down on the doctor's table. For crying out loud, the idiot actually took a phone call leaving me in a helpless plight. That done, my appendix didn't show up in the report at all. (Perhaps it got obscured by the now oversized bladder?) The ultrasound wrote down some general inflammation, and a few -itis words so that other doctors could make sense of the report. On seeing this, other doctors advised me to rest and be "under observation" for the next week and avoid rich food.

So here I am, at home, bored to death yet unable to venture out of home, surviving on boiled vegetables when mom's excellent cooking is so close (yet so far), getting blood tests done every other day.

Life slii sucks, but could have been much worse.

UPDATE: It turns out I was afflicted with typhlitis, which in layman terms is basically a different form of -itis. It affects the cecum of the large intestine. Unfortunately, since "Adventures of the-cecum-of-the-large-intestine man" does not have that familiar ring of the original title, we will have to stick to the original.

Although this leaves me with no worry about surgery, it still means that boiled vegetables will continue to constitute most of my meals :-(

Undignified posture

Just when I thought I had become used to being a good-for-nothing penniless bum surviving solely on richer friends' altruism, I hit a new low last night.

It started at 10 o'clock when my friends took me to have the first meal of the day - a five buck plate of idli at Tiffany's. Not that we had any choice, it was the only food left there that late at night. Obviously dissatisfied by the light dinner, my friends decided to go to the beach for some more grub. We decided to meet at Tarams, but when I got there, the folks were nowhere to be found. Thinking they might have gone to the hostel, I returned to my room, only to discover that my room's keys were in a friend's pocket. The fact was, as I later learnt, they were walking to Tarams and were behind me and my borrowed cycle.

So I decided to wait in front of my room, hoping they'd come back to check on me. The thing is, I was wondering if I'd look completely out of place dressed in purple shorts a tad shorter than most micro-mini skirts and stolen bathroom slippers two sizes too small. I would appreciate a quick change of clothing to look more dignified, but I ought to have known that in times like this, survival is the more important thing. Hunger can drive people to desperation, and my friends went to the beach anyway. A half hour passed and nothing happened, so I decided to sit in front of the room and wait it out a little longer.

Next thing I know, I was woken up by someone passing in the wing - it was 11:30 pm and my friends were still on the beach. I had been woken up lying face down in front of my room in the wing, looking like the face of misery, a terribly cocked-up position I had thought I wouldn't want to be caught dead in. So much for dignity.

But there was nothing else to do. All traces of dignity gone, I promptly resumed my place in front of room, the fan inside occasionally blowing thin streams of air on my face from the place between the door's bottom and the floor. It was 12:30 am when I finally got up to drink some water and was spotted by my friends. It seems nobody had bothered to check on me after all.

"College life ke ch**iyape", as one of my friends would agree.

All alone

Thus goes the saying: Mirrors don't lie
Speech is silvern, Silence Golden
Then explain to me, O Truthsayer, why -
There are two of me and not just one?

Alone in truth, alone in reflection
Sad and unspoken, Stolid and still
Staring silently in no direction
Empty of spirit, broken of will.

What I would give to hear them speak
My friends, a decent conversation
But I stare at my future - distant and bleak
Working alone, hoping for salvation

Who's that in the mirror? I turn about,
Find nothing but despair, a mirage, a dream.
Call me crazy - I want to shout
But all I can make is a soundless scream.

Stricken by a stupor of madness.

Voiceless.

Still.

I am all alone.
I am all alone.

New wallpaper

Tribute to Mandak...

Weather forecast

Chennai weather sucks!

My day in lab

7:00am - breakfast
7:25am - ask junta to wake me up at 9:00
7:30am - go to sleep
9:00am - angrily drive away idiots who try to disturb
12:30pm - wake up
12:31pm - check mail
12:35pm - brush
12:45pm - shower
1:00pm - lunch
1:15pm - tarams
1:20pm - feel the heat of madras, reconsider the 1km ride to esb
1:30pm - back in room
1:45pm - quake
3:30pm - reminisce
3:45pm - tarams
4:00pm - sleep

well, time for tarams...

Rich man's poor world

"Paisa to haath a mayl hota hai". Whoever said that must have been filthily rich; obviously, he had never experienced that most humiliating and debilitating of all sicknesses - poverty.

I have recently been afflicted with a form of poverty. Not the malnutrition, starvation, illiteracy, or multiple childen-producing variety - that is for the have-nots, but a slightly richer form. I have a mess account that feeds me enough to keep me fat, all modern sanitary amenities, heck, even a computer and a free internet connection to blog on. But, my net cash worth, not counting the several people I owe debt to, would be around Rs. 1.75 right now.

The thing in common with both forms of poverty is the frustration. I can't get my cycle repaired, I can't buy any more cigarettes, can't buy soap, and I am definitely not in the right place needed for ordering a pizza and a veg. burger with extra mayonnaise and a bottle of coke. That pretty much rules out vodka alright.

So, what do I do? I look up to my wingmates and other friends for monetary support. Rs. 5.25 for a Navy Cut and a Rasna packet from Kuntry, 20 bucks for soap from Panchali, 5 bucks from Bachi for a puncture repair... basically, I get into debt. The month goes on, and the debt keeps accumulating. The first of the month approaches, stipend is withdrawn happily, then debts are paid off - and poof! - all the money vanishes.

I am caught in this vicious circle of borrow and pay back. It's essentially the same concept as that of a credit card, only with the added humiliation of approaching someone at the end of the month asking them for a monetary favour, and sometimes getting weird looks and a beat-about-the-bush conversation that basically means "fuck off".

Oh, how I am waiting to get paid for work, and then treat all those who helped me get by!

Long overdue post: Hostel nite

Mandak hostel nite rocks. Has always. Will always.

Inspite of the dean's instructions and threats against having it, this year's hostel nite saw a repeat performance of last year's Raindance™. However, this time not only was it indigenously designed, but it actually performed better, showering more water per square foot than ever. And of course, there was the now-cliched strut and disco lights arrangement, which Mandak proudly introduced in my third year and which has been shamelessly copied by every other hostel nite ever since.

We started by planting a tree in memory of Jhantu in the Mandak yard - May he rest in peace. One by one, we poured water to nourish its roots, and subsequently observed a two-minute silence.

Food Plaza supplied the grub. That itself was not so good, but they also offered unlimited ice-cream, which junta thulped like month-starved pigs. Being a fifth year has its own advantages, primarily that of cutting the line and my Alak guests and I made our way to the ice-cream before dinner had started in earnest.

Most third year get senti at some point or the other, as the night draws in, and the hugging and weeping starts. I remember our third year, when so many of us inconsolably cried ourselves shitless for hours after the toast. But one has to give it to the present batch - there was an excusable amount of senti of course - but I was almost a strangling victim by the hands of Fart.



Raindance™ was followed by the toast, and in another great Mandak tradition, it went on and on - night turned to dawn, dawn to morning - and finally it finished at 6:30 am with none other than yours truly's rape, after which all those remaining went for breakfast to the great Himalaya.

After the roast, going with the senti mood, I recited "Life@IITM", a poem I had written last year for Mandak nite.

Also present on hostel nite were Jha, Banner, TG and Meha. Jha was the wild dancer as ever, a combination of monkey and elephant in heat with his new Medusa hairstyle flailing about like half-crazed octopuses trying to attack a whale. As for the other three; Banner kept popping into the dance floor every now and then; TG clicked away photographs, made not-so-obscure anti-drug references; and Meha spoke with nothing and no one. Seemingly, their minds full of other things, they weren't really enjoying it.

The blast over, we all retired to our rooms for some sweet sleep till 3pm, when another Mandak enthu-fest - the Treasure Hunt - was poised to begin.

But that is another story for another time.

What a mess!

The aptly named Himalaya officially started (dys)functioning today. I've been registered into the Northie section of the RR mess, as have 1100 others. Contro and Khokhar accompanied me today on this rather adventurous journey to the first floor. But that was the easy part. When we got upstairs, there were like sixty people standing in line in front of us, and the line wasn't moving.

It was a poond-or-die-starving decision. I chose the former. Bad decision. Perhaps waiting would have whetted my appetite so that the distasteful food would at least seem palatable.

When the food finally arrived, there was a sabzi with unpeeled potatoes in dalda, curry that looked like shit (a tasteless but literal analogy), pooris so hard they could put a hammer to shame, and daal conspicuous by its utter and complete absence.

One more great decision by the great powers-that-be to make hostel life even more miserable. Every time they make such asinine decisions, it makes me happy to know that I will be out of here in a few months' time.

And they wonder why IITM grads never pay any homage to their alma mater.

Jackasses!!

GMail bug

This just in:

This is a shot of a gmail conversation i had a few minutes back. I never really look at the timestamps with any seriousness, but certain events (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) have altered my perception a bit.



Hmmm, it seems Google's been working on a time machine.

Big bunch of nerds

Communication has always been difficult for me. And I'm not talking about Fourier transforms and Constellation diagrams (which are rather easy). This is about talking to others in a group without inviting raised eyebrows or generally commencing on what I call "suicidal conversation". You ever get the feeling that a perfectly normal topic you are speaking about is causing people around you to slowly drift away? There, you have just committed conversational suicide.

It's particularly annoying when the Eureka Effect suddenly manifests itself, causing irreversible effects and fatal amounts of ego damage. A case in point:

Me: So, anybody else here ever had this vague problem with MFC? Those bastards call it a feature!
21 others (thinking): Ummm, no. But the bar would be just the place to go right about now.
Me (realizing seconds later): Hey, where did everyone go?

So when I met 21 random people from all over India at the Google open house in Hyde over the last two days, I sorta felt it easy to mix into the crowd. Because, guess what, there were actually 21 other people there who felt it was perfectly rational to let a comment about Java drop into a dinner conversation and laugh about a faux-pas involving a ridiculous bug in a program.

For starters, all of us met first at a bowling alley. There were 17 guys, and 4 girls, which, no matter how you look at it, is an over-the-top sex ratio, since it's much, much greater than zero, which was the figure I had in mind. Now, bowling alleys are fearful places for compulsive suicidal conversationalists. No matter how small, there is always the lingering probability of a physics model turning up in your head and eventually finding its way to your tongue. A comment or two about rigid bodies, and suddenly a radius of two metres devoid of any sociable creatures envelops you in an aura of solitary nothingness.

This is where a chance meeting with an old friend from school saved the day for me. (Well, I failed to recognize her at once, but that went ok, I guess) Reminisces, nostalgia and catching up with five years past subdued would-be outpourings of dynamics and statics, and soon enough I was introducing myself to everyone, as everyone was introducing themselves to me.

And here is where the first suicidal conversation tidbit emerged.

"There is no freaking way I can remember 20 names in so short a time." proclaimed I.

And then realized that while the thought was true, it was not one meant to be shared aloud with the world at large, which in another situation might have been miscontrued as "So who the hell really cares about what you idiots are called anyway? I am Aditya, and that is all that matters." Surprise, surprise! Twenty other people were telling me that the exact same words were at the tip of their tongues, and they all agreed with what had been said.

I would have written here the names of these excellent people I met and enjoyed with over the past two days, but unfortunately, I have forgotten some names.

At least five different people came up to me (wearing my Quake@IITM t-shirt) and asked me if I really played Quake. Wow! That should make interesting company.

Thursday night was basically a freakout session - bowling and ethnic cuisine, and a skit we were supposed to prepare in teams of 5/6, which thankfully never happened. There was also an extremely cliched "uncle's pink pyjamas" game, which in other circumstances would have been the conversation killer, but here everyone seemed to enjoy it.

The next day was damn hectic - meetings with all kinds of heads of everything, who gave deep and inspiring (read uninteresting) lectures on all sorts of things. And of course, meetings with our year-old seniors who turned out to be extremely good company as well. Here, I clarified with them that Quake was indeed part of the job experience.

It was during the lunch break that I made the observation that only 5% of the world smokes, since I was the only one who went outside the building to take a fag break.

Dinner was at the Taj Krishna in an opulent and oversized baquet hall all dressed up in red. The words "GOOGLE DINNER" were arranged in golden letters on a velvet banner outside, and I exchanged them to read "GOOGLE NERD IN". Missing an "S", but quite to-the-point.

Of course, what company could be good without a dash of vodka and rock music. So, after the dinner our seniors took us to a pub called "Easy Rider".

At the end of the day (or two days), it seems like a nice place to go to work every day.

Incorrigible loss

The sense of loss is profound. He is gone. Left us, forever.

May he rest in peace.

The end

He turned back for the last time. He was leaving it all behind. From now, on, he would have a new identity, a new life. He thought about the mistakes he had made in the past. But could he have made his choices any other way? He tried to turn his mind away from the negativity of these thoughts, and suddenly the beautiful image of his wife pierced into his mind. The shock of that forced him to face away. He looked straight in front, tried to focus on what lay ahead, but his mind lay in the past still. The friends, who had turned away, at his time of need. His own brother had refused to see him anymore. His wife, how could she have deserted him? He had thought this would not be so difficult. But then, he had also thought that she would understand. He gazed at the infinite stretch of road that lay in front; at the solitary tree standing in the wasteland among the shrubs, tall and proud, yet alone; at the hills in the distance, seeming to call him forth.

He sat down and wiped his moist eyes, then stared at the heavens. Dark clouds loomed in the blue sky, trying to eclipse the sun, which persisted in its descent towards the horizon, making long, dark shapes on the ground. He had been an atheist all his life, always the one in control of his destiny, always in charge, always the world had obeyed his wishes, always he had been the master and all of nature his influence. But today, he felt minute, just another speck on the vast expanse of creation, a dead leaf blowing in a hurricane. As he took off his shoes, he looked down at the gravel below him, studying the intricate pattern. He wondered when he had strayed from the long, patterned lines on the road, all so equal in length, so well-organised; to the random mishmash of the gravel, the neurotic chaos of the grains; from the light to the dark.

The wind was changing from a breeze into to a howl. The dusk was fading into the night. He knew he had to move on. Maybe, there would be more opportunities, there would be new friends. Perhaps, there would be a new life that he wouldn't end up hating. He breathed in deeply and stood up straight, facing the road ahead. The light danced on his clothes, half of him ashine with the illumination, half of him obscured as the dark clouds blended into his silhouette. The shadows danced on the ground, trying to make a straight line with his feet, an athlete's start marker, for a man about to embark on a journey. The winds danced amid the flailing bushes, while the tree stood absolutely still, as if in a silent gesture of mourning.

His arms crossed themselves, and between the quivering of his lips, and the tears that suddenly enveloped his eyes, he heard himself pray for the first time.

New arrival

The Whatever League

Unbeknownest to the people of this world, a team of undercover superheroes and supervillains lives among them. Their secret personalities as mundane by day as possible, they turn into magnificent beings as night approaches.

"To the service of Justice, Social service, World peace, Orkut, Whisky, Classic milds. Well, whatever..." is their undying call.

The following journalistic entry finally exposes their well-kept secret of 20+ years.

---

THE SUPER HEROES

1. SUPERJHA


It's a bird. No, it's a plane. No, it's Superjha's pyjamas.

Team leader and the general secretary of the Whatever League. Superjha realized his superpowers when he failed to commit suicide by falling into a well in 4th grade. Speaks parseltongue. Moves his neck at velocities faster than a speeding bullet.

Special powers: Instant bakwaas generation (which compensates for his vestige of a brain), transmogrification into his snake avatar, and making poverty into an art form.

2. CYBORG GARY MALL

Able to perform involved computations and evolve complicated strategies from the smallest of assumptions, C. Gary Mall is Superjha's trusted sidekick, aiding him in all his activities even though unfortunately few of strategies have actually ever worked.


Superjha and his Cyborg on the Jhamobile

It (Cyborg Gary Mall) was formed from a failed experiment in the army to create the ultimate spy, and has even worked in this capacity for several years. However, the next generation of the experiment was a hit and succeeded in producing its brother, who is immune to any form of intoxication.

It can sponge emotions completely, because it has none of its own.

Special Power: Complete hypnosis. It is said that CGM once made people apping "strategically" take up jobs.

3. DESTRESS-MAN

Others destress; his distress.


Destress-man's expression after somebody else's hard day at work.

Destress-man is always at the forefront of the team, ready to take in punishment from supervilains for the rest of the team. Unfortunately for him, his own team usually ends up beating him to a pulp long before the villains can arrive.

Special Powers: Long distance phone calls.

4. THE BEHOLDER

It is said that: "Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder."


The Beholder's reaction to a butt-ugly woman.

The Beholder has beauty stuck in his eye in a spot that blinds him to more down-to-earth concepts like symmetry, facial features and height. Can see directly into the heart of his female companions, which is good, since most of them would repel even the most beer-saturated, beyond horny males.

The Beholder derives his superpowers from his "Helmet of unassailability" which renders him invulnerable against any magnitude of force, such as motorcycle crashes.

Special powers: The Beholder rushes in where angels fear to tread. Thereafter, he suffers the consequences.

---

THE SUPER VILLAINS

1. THE BHULK


The Bhulk shows off his goods

Superjha and The Bhulk have a love-hate relationship, akin to Tom and Jerry. He is the arch nemesis, and when irritated is not afraid to push his weight. Many an innocent victim have been pressed against his bulk and a tight spot, and barely survived to tell the tale.

Loves to indulge in extravagant excesses, and can induce magnanimousity in people merely by being close by.

Special Powers: Killer accent, Senti mode, Hooba power.


2. BANNERMAN


Supertrio: From left: Bannerman, Dr. Gadgetron, Junior
"Resistance is futile. You will be bannered."

In the past, with just one click of his mouse, or one keypress, Bannerman has "bannered" multiple blogs, orkut profiles, SMSs, emails... what not. A curse of "bannering" cannot be undone, and the fate of the helpless victim is destroyed forever.

Obsessed with certain rhyming words, his favourite places are Havana and Ghana, and his favourite fruit is a banana.

Special Powers: The curse of "bannering", fist of death.

3. DR. GADGETRON

Dr. Gadgetron makes evil weapons of mass destruction, all of which have hand-driven motors. It is said that the evil part of his brain resides within his beard, and it can only be destroyed by burning it after dousing it in alcohol.

Special Powers: Evil laugh.

4. JUNIOR

A recent addition to the super villain roster, Junior can suck the soul out of his victims by merely placing his hand around their shoulders and using the spell of "Jindagi ka saath". However, his development in the team has been rather slow, since most of the instructions are not in Hindi.

Special Powers: Seniors, Hindi Fundaes.