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Apologies and Explanation.
1. No, he does not get it from me
2. They held a gun to my head

The Secret World of the Secret Service

(Author's Caveat: The complexity of the following story and the intricacy of its plot might lead the reader to suspect that the author has had one too many. The reader would be right, of course, but still...)






His powers of deduction were extraordinary, which is why the CIA would trust no one else with such assignments. Even his reading of data was legendary. Langley still used it in its "Eavesdropping 101". For instance his interpretation of a lady's "Yes! Yes! Oh, God, Yes!" emanating from the Oval Office one evening in 1995 as evidence of the soundness of the President's draft Economic Proposal is still spoken of in awe.

But the problems facing the government had become a lot more sinister. Just yesterday had come news of a terrible tragedy at a nudist camp in Florida where in a relay race there was some confusion over the exchange of batons and one of the participants was dragged halfway around the track. Surely, the work of the Al Quaida!

And a senior theoretical physicist at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center had been arrested on charges of trying to molest a female graduate student because, as he put it "her bosons gave me a hadron". Could it be a Russian plot?

To top it all, the Vice President had recently tried to shoot a bunch of blameless protons because he heard them go "quark quark", and the news channels were making a big issue of it.

And now this. News had come in from Afghanistan that Osama was going to blow up the world. But how was he going to do it? Was he planning to buy a Nuclear Device from the Russian Mafia? Was he going to use biological weapons from the North Koreans? Surely not an army of Suicide Bombers? He knew it could be none of these. They had all been tried before and the Agency had ears everywhere.

Osama was smart. And logical. You had to out-think him. But how? How? HOW?

Reclining with a bourbon in his living room, his finely tuned senses picked up movement behind the door......

He stole into the bedroom with the stealthiness of a cat and caught the spy planting the bug. Twisting her arm in a smooth movement, he held her neck in a vice like grip. "Oooooh! Oooooh! OOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!" she moaned, puzzling him. Then he realized he had sprayed Axe deodorant that evening. "Ha! Now she will tell me all!" he thought, and made her sniff his armpit.

Moaning, she collapsed, losing all resistance. "Mercy! I'll tell you anything!" she said.

"Tell me how they're going to do it" he demanded.

"Gasp", she gasped, "They're ..." and told him all.

His brow furrowed, he stared blankly into the distance. Who would believe him that Osama wanted to blow up the world with a giant air compressor?

And now, some devotional music!

Emboldened by the kind reception given to him by hordes of listeners, hordes here being defined as any number larger than 7, Panditji felt moved to sing the devotional songs he learnt in his extensive travels across the country.

The first one, "Bhole Bhole" was picked up in North India, somewhere in the hills. While Panditji realises that his musical abilities may not do justice to the composition, he feels sure that the intensity of the lyrics will carry the poets true meaning to the listener's soul.

The second composition, "Jhoot Bole" is by an old college friend of Panditji who theorized that even common film songs can become sublime if rendered with feeling. Sadly, Panditji's emotions overflowed towards the end of that rendition which might, in the eyes of the purist, detract from sheer musical merit of the composition. The listener is requested to condone this lapse.



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Pandit Narendra Sings Raaga Bachana

In a rare gem of a recording, discovered by our diligent audiophiles, the famous Pandit Narendra sings the complex Raaga Bachana.

Said to have been composed by Mian Tansen himself, the raaga is sampoorna in both the ascent and the descent. It was recently made famous by Pandit Ranbeer Maharaj, disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj and a well known exponent of the "Raas Leela - Adhunik" style of dancing, who danced to it in chaste classical style.

Now, without further ado, we present the Panditji himself. The listeners are requested to excuse the poor quality of the recording and the absence of accompanying musicians. The former, because Panditji is given to an unfortunate affliction called "the giggles" which makes serious musical renditions difficult for him and the latter because Panditji's son Vyaas, though an accomplished keyboard player, refused point blank to aid him in what he termed "monkey business".

The present generation, we tell you!



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Little Known Facts #2 - The US Olympic Relay Team and Hu Jintao

In an interesting revelation, Judge Charles Carter Lee, Chef de Mission of the US Olymic contingent to Beijing, told reporters that Hu Jintao, Paramount Leader of The Peoples Republic of China, the country best known for its intellectual freedom and supply of finely crafted products to Messrs. WalMart of Arkansas, can speak fluently in the colloquial "English" spoken in the United States.

Hu, a keen follower of American Sport, especially Track and Field, asked to be briefed regarding the US delegation to Beijing, concerned that simmering discontent over his country's sensitive and democratic handling of Tibet might affect participation in the Olympic Games.

Judge Lee, who speaks Mandarin Chinese fluently, went to the Great Hall Of The People Who Did Not Perish Under Chairman Mao to meet Hu. After the usual diplomatic preliminaries, ("The United States of America respects the Territorial Integrity of China and recognizes its inalienable right over Taiwan, Tibet, Xinjiang, South Korea, The Japanese Kuriles and eastern Alaska. Oops, and Great Britain and Northern Ireland") Hu asked about the sprinters, and requested Judge Lee to speak in "English", though he himself replied in Chinese.

Judge Lee confessed that while the US sprinters were still among the greatest in the world, they were being outclassed by the Jamaicans, especially a young lad named Bolt. Even in the 4x100 relay, things were far from certain.

"The team composition is a bit weakened." Lee said. "The men are running without Dix"

A rattled Hu is reported to have told Lee "You've gotta be shittin me!"

Laughed my beast of burden off

I don't know where my brats get all this stuff, but here's something that had me laughing real hard.

On the insightful commentary by DD experts at the Beijing Olympics

We have been watching with pride that great spectacle of sporting action, The Olympics. Currently being held at Beijing, an important research centre for the effect of smog on human endurance, one of the highlights is the Indian contingent, which has done more for international goodwill than any other country.

It has achieved this by the elegantly simple expedient of letting others win which, as the reader will readily acknowledge, is a delicate art.

This year, of course, the well oiled Indian Sports Establishment slipped up and allowed a winner to participate under its banner. A shooter, Abhinav Bindra, not only insinuated himself into the contingent but went on to win a gold medal, to the embarassment of Suresh Kalmadi, the chairman of the Indian Olympic Association.

"A lifetime of patient work has been wrecked by Mr Bindra" he is reported to have said. "God knows how many young people he will inspire to try and win."

God of course is the well known power that has helped many athletes to achieve greatness, though nowadays nandrolone is considered to be superior. But we digress.

Coming back to our main topic, Mr. K. P. S. Gill was equally upset.

"Make me the chairman of the IOAC" he said. "I ensured that under my expert guidance, the Indian Hockey team did not even qualify. As chairman of the IOC, I will ensure that the next olympic contingent will consist only of officials and coaches. No participants."

A bold claim, but knowing Mr. Gill and his capabilites, not unrealistic.

Shocked out of their complacency, the officials huddled into an emergency damage control exercise and decided that while nothing could be done about Abhinav Bindra, they could make the rest of the coverage so boring and lifeless that the nation would tune into the many exciting cricket tournaments being played around the world and watch a ball being senselessly hammered around a field. Future generations, instead of running, jumping and shooting, would settle down to the much more financially rewarding pastime of hitting balls around and being called little masters.

The main task of making the coverage boring was rendered difficult by the excellent camera work of the Chinese crew, a most tiresome bunch of perfectionists, if we may say so.

But Mr. Kalmadi and the other officials had farsightedly included Hindi and English commentators who could obfuscate and uh-um-aah through anything that might happen in a stadium. In addition, they had been selected for special sentence-construction skills.

For example, one commentator, who spoke about Akhil Kumar's performance in the boxing ring, said that he "boxed very very good today." Then, thinking this over for a second added that "he boxed EXTREMELY very very good", leaving the viewers in no doubt.

These are high standards, as you will doubtless agree, and well worth the several million dollars that the Government is spending, taking them on an all expenses paid vacation to the Olympics, because when you have a billion people in your country, you never know which one will take it into his or her head to excel.

Little known facts #1 - Modern History

The assiduous Swiss have been spring cleaning all their government offices, including the Patent Office in Berne, where a document has been found that might throw light on one of this century's most radical theories. According to this document, a page from the diary of one Mileva Maric, her husband Albert "Emceesquared" Einstein, suffered a nervous breakdown circa 1904. He was advised a rest cure and chose the tropical Portuguese dominion of Goa. Being straitened of means, he decided to stay in an inexpensive B&B run by one Mr. D'Souza. Now the D'Souza's had a big fight over property with the Sequiera's next door and one day, the Sequira brothers caught hold of Mr. D'Souza's son Ronnie and started whaling the tar out of him, as the technical term goes.

Albert, a known pacifist, was aghast. "Why protect him you do not?" he asked of Uncle D'Ssouza who was observing the proceeding with scant concern.

"What? What you sayin, men?" enquired Uncle D'Souza

"When two men him attack, why do him not you defend"? Albert clarified.

"Heh", Uncle D'Souza said, scornfully. "E's equal to 'em Sequira's". And indeed, Ronnie held his own against the Sequira brothers.

"What say did you?" expressed Albert, with amazement.

Uncle D'Souza repeated himself, adding "If you don' com' yer hair, men, you're bloody going to look like a bloody med bugger".

But Albert couldn't hear any of it. He was rushing to catch the next steamer to France and from there to Berne. He had this big theory about e's equal to 'em sequiera's. "But", he said to himself, "the spelling a bit I had change better"

The Mummy Returns and Pulls Daddy's Legs

We've been watching a lot of TV at home these days, mostly a show called "Fear Factor". I have heard that they had a series specially for gay people, in San Francisco, but it turned out a bit differently. In fact, for reasons I cannot go into here, they're planning to call it the "Rear Factor". But the boys have been doing a bit of movie watching on their own and their favorite passtime is pulling the leg of their progenitor. Here's a recent dialogue.

Me: Hi guys, how was the movie (they went to see "The Mummy Returns - The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor")

Gautam: Nice. Great special effects

Vyaas: Especially the avalanche.

Me: Avalanche? You mean sandstorm, don't you?

Gautam: No, this movie is based in China and in the Himalayas. There are some abdominal snowmen as well

Vyaas: That's abominable snowmen, Gau.

Me: I think I know some abdominal slow men too.

Vyaas: Very funny. But the effects were quite good. All computer generated.

Me: Did you get scared

Vyaas: No. I've seen scarier.

Gautam: You know which is a scary Mummy Returns movie?

Me: Which one?

Vyaas: "The Mummy Returns and Finds Us on the Play Station instead of homework". Now THAT's a scary movie.

Gautam: (High fives Vyaas)

Me: You guys set me up for that one. Not fair! (Slinks away)

Going nuts - Exhibit A

I've just come across the sad story of a maternity hospital here having to turn away patients for want of experienced staff. Seems they're going through a mid-wife crisis. The management is to blame of course. The director of the hospital bought a large African parrot and one day it escaped from its cage. The staff tried to catch it, but succeeded only in enraging the bird. It bit several people and two elderly nurses died from the resulting complications. The police charged him with killing two crones with one bird. And speaking of the animal kingdom, there was an interesting interview of an elephant tamer. When asked how they manage these powerful animals during the mating season, when the male elephants are known to go berserk, he replied "We do what we musth". Global warming, incidentally, is thawing frozen lakes in the Arctic, endangering, among oother things, an ancient Eskimo practical joke. They scatter peas around a cutout in one of these frozen lakes. When the victim comes to take a pea, the prankster kicks him in the ice hole. Also sad is the cancellation of the Indian cricket tour to Zimbabwe on account of atrocities commited by the Mugabe regime. Of course, this won't be the first time this game has had to be abandoned because of the reign. And finally, Master Gautham feels that the opposite of Barcelona is Andar se lo na.