Monday, April 25, 2011

The wonderful world of 'Q'



You are a guy. You have just stepped through the gates of adolescence. You are excited in more ways than you knew you could be. You are walking down the street. You pass a gorgeous girl, light years out of your league. You drool. You appreciate your latest set of hormones. You try hard to control them. The girl walks away, without even acknowledging your presence. What are your options? You could click a mental picture of hers, in high resolution, and develop it in the dark corners of your alone time. You could hang your head in disappointment, bend over and pick up bits of your shattered self esteem. Or, you could just ‘Q’ her and walk away in absolute satisfaction. And that, people, brings me to the subject of ‘Q’ – the land of infinite possibilities.

The story of ‘Q’ takes me back a few years. I had just entered the aforementioned gates. I was the kid Newton spoke about. The one standing on the beach, picking pebbles, staring at the vast ocean of truth or something profound. But with a small difference. I wasn’t trying to find solutions to the problems that revolved around purposefully in the universe. I wasn’t sitting under the apple tree. My ocean was simpler. Superficially at least. It was full of women, of all forms, shapes, ages and sizes, swimming around. And I was sitting on the beach – working out my hormones and playing with my pebbles.

Back to ‘Q’ now. I was introduced to the concept of ‘Q’ during a quiet afternoon with the ‘Debonair’ and ‘Fantasy’ magazines of the world. I was with my cousin Mithun (name not changed despite numerous personal requests). We were browsing through his elder brother’s collection, neatly and smartly tucked behind a stack of ‘Hardy Boys’. Not so smart brother.

As we flipped in unison, we stopped at the centre spread. It was as if destiny took us by our throats and demanded us to halt and take notice. And there she was. All of her. Thread bare. The Ebony Goddess - who would later leave the magazine and move, compact and folded, into that tiny space under a strip of newspaper spread on the floor of my instrument box. A gasp escaped me. Luckily, and less embarrassingly, the excitement stopped at the gasp. And then, it happened.

Mithu: “I am going to ‘Q’ her!”

Note: Dear reader, ‘Q’ is not used in this context as a replacement for anything that it rhymes with. So when my cousin said ‘Q’, he meant ‘Q’.

I gave him a puzzled look. And in response, as was the case with Vaisampayana and Janamejaya (both of Mahabharatha fame), he unfolded the world of ‘Q’ and its infinite possibilities before my bewildered eyes.

Remember the guy from the first paragraph and that gorgeous girl he was ogling at? In the world of ‘Q’, things wouldn’t stop at just ogling. There would be results. There would be no shattered self esteem. You would not go unacknowledged. She would be yours. And all that, by simply saying ‘Q’. ‘Q’ is the Matrix and we are the coders. We could do anything here. We could have anyone. Women couldn’t escape our charm in the world of ‘Q’. She could pass you by behind a speeding motorbike with a hunk. She could flee from your line of sight at a crowded cinema hall because you are too short. She could even close her bedroom window shut just before you scaled the last brick on the adjacent wall. But once you ‘Q’ed her, there was no escape.

Let me explain. Here is how ‘Q’ functions. All you have to do is, look at a girl and say ‘Q’ out loud or in your mind. The girl in question is immediately transported to the land of ‘Q’. A beautiful piece of space set in your afterlife where every woman you ever desired can be housed and made love to. Oh yeah, afterlife! Yes, you go to ‘Q’ once you are dead (We were kids back then, but still we knew we couldn’t have everything). If she was old and was once gorgeous, we could put her in an age machine and bring her back to her glory days. Only in ‘Q’. If she was young and had potential, we could take the old lady out, and put the young thing in. And there it was. Only in ‘Q’.

Some of us might die old and some of us might die young. But in the land of ‘Q’, you are anything you want to be. It is like Neo minus those floppy disks and those tubes plugged to his scalp. You can choose your age. Your body has an unending supply of testosterone. You are endowed like the guy from ‘Tarzan and Jane’. No, the other one. Not that it is necessary. Because in the land of ‘Q’, you are the only one the ladies have got!

So boys, the next time you see that gorgeous lady pass you by, don’t stop at a gasp. ‘Q’ her. And she shall be yours in this life or the next.

Tuesday, April 05, 2011

If you believe in God, stop praying.



Despite differing drastically in form, name and dress code, there is one thing Gods from around the planet have in common – Omniscience. By the virtue of being the creator, God sees everything. God knows everything. Sometimes even before the things happen. He, or Alanis Morissette in one particular case, is the master of everything. He is aware of it all. He hears the pin drop. He knows where the needle is. And all that without even trying. So when you go shoot off your prayers, requesting a better job for instance, aren’t you making a fool of yourself? The bugger knows you are struggling with your current job. He's the one who put you in that cubicle. He even knows what you secretly call your boss. And with a bit of common sense, and of course mind reading skills, he also knows that you want a new one. So what is the point of praying to him and cribbing about something he already knows, or even better, something he himself devised during potty? Instead, why don’t you just look at the sky, or any of the million divine symbols, and say, “God, please do the needful.”