Book Launch – Invite

Dear All,

Piggies on the Railway is officially being launched on the 24th at the Park Hotel, Parliament Street, New Delhi at 5 p.m. and once again on the 27th at Landmark bookstore, Gurgaon at 7 p.m.

Do try and make it for one or both events. If you are planning on coming, do drop a little RSVP (as an email on the id given on the sidebar) so that the catering guys can provide for you 🙂

Landmark Invite

Read Full Post »

Random Thoughts

Australian Open is over and so are my days of vegetating in front of the telly. *sigh* No more excuses. Now I have my butt down to work. I make a half-heated move to slide my butt off the bed. Okay, but before I go, I really should figure out what else happened while I was away. So I randomly switch channels and discover:

A) Man U won their match against Arsenal 3-1. I try to get excited but find I’m unable to care. I do follow the Premier League but only because several friends are football fanatics (read Manchester United) and it is impossible to have a conversation with them unless you know who’s where in the premier league points table. In fact, I currently support Chelsea only to piss them off. Chelsea vs ManU should be cracker. Meanwhile I’m more curious about the Russian Billionaire and owner of Chelsea. I wonder if wasshisname is on his yacht with a bevy of models. But since the boat comes with an anti-paparazzi photo shield, there’s no way anyone is gonna find out is there? BTW, there’s Abramovich owning Chelsea, Usmanov part owning Arsenal…what’s with Russian billionaires owning English FCs?

B) There’s some furore going on over some BT Brinjals. Everyone is screaming at a beleaguered Jairam Ramesh and I ask myself if I want to find out what fuss is about. The answer is an emphatic no. I mean I do like the occasional baingan bharta but not enough to try and make sense of the din. I move on.

C) A nine year old girl has been raped in Goa. Hold on there’s something that puzzles me. As I listen further, I find the girl is Russian. And suddenly it’s all very clear. Ah, so that’s how she escaped the first eight years and nine months unscathed.

D) The stock market is down but not enough to interest me. Yet.

E) Some Nooria Yusuf or Haveli chick went on a demolition derby after consuming…hold on, one can of beer??!!!! Come on, you can lie better than that. I am the worst drinker around and get buzzed when I’m merely down half a glass, but even I can’t get drunk enough to ram a taxi and run over traffic constables on one can of beer. Pop a date rape drug and pretend amnesia. When you ‘come to’ say someone spiked your drink while you were looking elsewhere. Shout rape and become the victim instead. Deflect suspicion from your homicidal jaunt.

*Sigh* Time to get a move on. Truly. But hey, what’s that? I’ve got a message from a friend. It’s Margaritas in the afternoon today. I guess work can wait another day.

Read Full Post »

The Comedy Store

I caught the Comedy Store show last night at the Grand Maratha Sheraton. To be honest I was in quite a dilemma whether to go or not. For one, it was the French Open final and two the tickets were price at 2000 bucks!

But then I thought, going by the women’s finals, the men’s final match was going to be a damp squib anyway. Besides it wasn’t as though Nadal was going to be there. By the way, congrats, Roger.

About the tickets, 1000 bucks was for the performance and the other 1000 bucks was for two drinks and snacks. Being the cheap Indian that I am, I figured I’d go and order the most expensive booze and stuff myself with snacks thereby doing away with the need for dinner. Besides, anything remotely related to writing is research and tax deductible. So an evening of enjoyment and a chance to cheat the government! Bring it on!

And the money was totally well-spent. As soon as I entered the venue, I made a beeline for the bar which was already quite crowded. The frazzled bartenders worked like dervishes but it was clear they were hopelessly backed up and people had been waiting for their drinks for well over half an hour. Then one enterprising guest jumped behind the bar to lend the harassed bartenders a hand.

But it was clear he was unfamiliar with the act of pouring drinks. He asked me what I wanted. I said, “I wanted a Mojito, but please, anything remotely alcoholic will do.”

“Rum and coke?” he said.

“Yes, yes…please!”

He then proceeded to pour a double shot into the glass and looked around for coke. After frantic scrambling for two minutes, it was discovered that they’d run out of coke. He met my eyes in a shifty kinda way and anticipating an explosion coming on, he poured another double shot into the glass. Like now I’m not going to miss the mixer…and you know what he was right! And to make a salubrious situation better, they lost track of the drinks coupons and everyone got an extra drink. Boy, the evening was looking up already.

To come back to the show, it totally rocked. Sean Meo was the emcee and opened the show. He was really funny, although I found his clipped British accent a bit difficult to follow so missed a few. He was followed by Paul Tonkinson.

Tonkinson’s act was very high energy and very physical. He’s a very good performer but I found his preoccupation with sex and blow jobs a bit tiresome after a while. I bet he’ll have something to say about that. Something regarding my sexual repression or something like that. That’s a laugh. One only has to read my book to know he’s absolutely right!

Ian Stone followed. Him, I actually liked quite a lot. He walked on and straightaway asked, “Any Jews out there?” Not unexpectedly, no hands were raised. He then asked, “What about Muzzies? Any Muzzies out there?” Pin drop silence. People shocked out of their wits.

“Boy, the tension is palpable,” he said and the room cracked up.

All in all a class act. We need more of those.

Oh, I also caught Star Trek but since I hated the new James Tiberius Kirk, I bumped him off in favour of Sean, Paul and Ian.

Read Full Post »