Being thrown out of class was something I was supremely thrilled with, because it provided me with a grown-up’s endorsement to go out, play in the school grounds, sit and watch slugs move and leave their slimy trails behind, help the aayah in school in ringing the bell, a few minutes earlier simply because I liked the sound of it. This was more enjoyable than attending class on some occasions, and the propensity towards missing out on classes only magnified further as the years progressed.

This particular train of thought veered towards what the future generations would think of us, the first generation of bloggers. I can only imagine my kid reading about my ‘Dorky Guffaw’ adventures, or about how strongly hippie I have allegedly been, and wonder whether his/her image of me many years hence will be the same as what I’ve portrayed now through my online content.

Our generation has been simultaneously privileged as well as encumbered in some ways due to the revolutionary changes having been brought upon us due to the internet. While communication channels have been made so easy, and long lost friends separated over space and time-zones can still stay in touch as if they were only in the next room, and information of all sorts is available to us within a few clicks, I am led to wonder whether we’re really better off compared to previous generations.

The internet has also brought about a significant invasion of our privacy, and a lot of time is spent on the internet instead of in getting a first life. The future generations might be even worse off than we are, or might ridicule us for our extreme involvement with the net. Nothing exemplifies it better than the constantly changing arbit facebook status messages.

For instance, my current facebook status is as follows: “Hari is astounded at how make-up can make the prettiest women look majorly scary.”

While I might think it is funny right now, or at least, somewhat vaguely relevant, this is just going to be arbit nonsense once I end up saying something else.

While those bloggers who have a defined intent which leads them to blog, and have something topical to write about will have their work appreciated over time, those who use their websites as a means of unleashing arbit (case in point being yours truly) might just as well be better off covering their tracks, lest our children get inspired to do crazy stuff and then conveniently state how their folks’ blogs provided them with the inspiration.

In any case, such an eventuality is quite a long way ahead, and we shall cross the bridge, if it shows up, when we come to it.

Dorky Guffaw had been to Mumbai in the last week of November 2007. This was when his famous brush with death took place while he was ejected out of a moving local train at Dadar station, over the heads of all the passengers standing at the doorway, by an irate mob that didn’t like the way he looked. His parents wish they could do the same, but they’d have society to answer to.

During that same Mumbai trip, when he’d been hanging out with his friend, who has, incidentally been mentioned enough number of times to give one the impression that Dorky’s being paid by said friend to advertise his blog, an incident took place that cemented Dorky’s reputation as being the God of Chick Flicks.

Dorky’s DVD collection included Wild Things and Cruel Intentions, because he adored and worshipped Denise Richards, Neve Campbell, Selma Blair (yeah yeah) and was just struck by the idea of prep schools so much, having studied in a school with an apparently funny name, that he permanently borrowed the DVD from a friend of his.

In addition to the two movies mentioned, the DVD also contained this movie titled How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the starting credits of which Dorky was able to identify with consummate ease, since this was the first movie in the DVD set, and the stupid pirated DVD did not have the initial screens which would lead one to the menu to choose one among the listed movies.

Hence, every single time Dorky had to watch any of the other movies on the disc, he’d have to see the starting credits of aforesaid movie before he was allowed to proceed. Having done this on a few occasions, it was but natural for him to be able to recognize the movie based on its starting credits, just the same way as anyone who’s seen enough movies can recognize the 20th Century Fox music, having seen it umpteen times before the start of so many movies.

One of the few movies that Dorky actually knew well enough was Forrest Gump, which he’d seen so many times that he’d be able to mouth the dialogues of the movie in his sleep, for even his subconscious knew the entire movie end to end. Come to think of it, Forrest was a Dorky as well, except for that he was additionally multi-talented and made lots of money, aspects that Dorky is woefully unaware of.

In the last week of November 2007, Dorky had visited Monkee to hang out with him. During this trip, Monkee was holed up in some posh dwellings in Mumbai, courtesy of his esteemed employers who took great care of him and Dorky had planned to crash there during his trip that lasted two days and one night.

Dorky chanced upon some CDs in an unused compartment of the closet in Monkee’s room where Dorky was intending to keep his backpack, rather than leave it on the floor. Finding two CDs with potentially questionable content led both of them to play the guessing game, something Dorky does out of habit before he is able to see the contents of a package or something similar.

Monkee, in his trademark manner said that it probably contained some pirated visual studio installer left there by some retarded techie. His vitriol against most IT firms, especially the ‘SWITCH’ companies (Satyam | Wipro | Infosys | TCS | Cognizant | HCL) will invariably result in his being abducted by those companies, who, for a change will outsource that task to some organization like the Taliban or the LeT those people who are in the free pool (a.k.a bench) in those respective companies.

On the other hand, Dorky said that it contained some gruesome video of how someone who’d previously occupied the room had been murdered, and that they’d die once they saw it as well. I guess he was inspired by the plot of ‘The Ring’.

In any case, the minute they put the disc into the computer, and the familiar opening credits that he had seen on so many occasions were splashed on screen, like the fraud quizzer he is, Dorky shouted out the answer even though no question was asked, which resulted in his being labelled the God of Chick Flicks.

The belated birthday present he received, as a result, has been Samantha Cook’s ‘Rough Guide to Chick Flicks’, which contains enough information and trivia for Dorky to make himself at home in any gathering of women who’re interested in movies that strike a chord with them. However, he plans to do no such thing, and would rather let his hidden knowledge serve him on occasions where it matters the most.

What occasion(s) may come, only Dorky knows, I suspect.

For those who have been following Hindi movies closely for a decade or so now, a certain Hrithik Roshan would be no stranger to you. He made his debut on screen with a big bang, courtesy of this movie – Kaho Na Pyar Hai, and with some super dance moves, good screen presence and a fully muscled hulk-like body and clothes that accompanied it, which accentuated said muscles, he revolutionized the way in which the average Indian male film-goer wanted to emulate his favourite actor.

This was preceeded by Salman Khan’s shirt-off song, where he ‘plays the guitar’ as well as George W Bush could play peace-maker, and with Bollywood being so liberal about men being shirtless, it was only a matter of time before this trickle of thought percolated into the confines of the average guy’s mind.

Gyms became the next big place for people to go to, once they figured out that it was no longer cool to sport unkempt beards or hairstyles, and wear shirts with big collars and bell bottom pants and eve-tease college going women standing at bus shelters all day long.

Instead, it was now cool to zip around on bikes, wearing cooling glasses, sporting tattoos and wearing t shirts that one wore in class 7, if one wasn’t solvent enough to purchase a tight t-shirt of the same size in the present day.

Aside from the material purchases involved in the new cool look, there was also this small matter of beefing up, and gyms were the new place to head out to, and men between the ages 17 and 30 all over India that fell in the ‘wanting to be cool no matter what it takes’ category were now discussing things like bench presses, protein shakes, tricep and bicep work outs and were, for a change discussing their own body parts along with corresponding dimensions and leaving women alone for atleast some points of time during their day, much to the latter group’s relief.

In this mêlée, one might wonder where Dorky would feature, considering he was as distanced from the entire ‘cool’ phenomenon as was boiling water or Jennifer Love Hewitt in a bikini.

As a pertinent aside, Dr.Rajendra Pachauri and Al Gore have unleashed a secret fatwa on Jennifer Love Hewitt for being so hot that she’s apparently one of the individuals that has caused the most melting per-square meter of the polar ice caps, and is rivalled only by big firms such as Conoco, Haliburton, the collective emissions of Bangalore traffic and Seattle’s Hempfest in raising average temperatures worldwide.

So, if you live on the coast (some coast, any coast) and rising water levels cause your house to be flooded forever, you know who to blame. The entire population of Maldives has been unsuccessfully trying to get in touch with said hot actress so she can take them in as refugees in her house once their nation ceases to exist.

Dorky was uncool (still is) in every sense of the word, but sometimes, an absolute lack of anything fruitful to do drives people to do the craziest of things and hence Dorky took the plunge and following campus placements at the end of his sixth semester in engineering college, went ahead and joined a gym, which was almost ten kilometres from his house.

This was as sane a move as Muhammed Bin Tughlaq wanting to move the capital of India from Delhi to Devagiri a.k.a Daulatabad, and look where that got him!

Yes, he was stupid. If you’ve not had this thought in your mind, chances are, YOU’re stupid.

To reinforce his complete lack of intelligence, Dorky used to cycle to his gym and back, and still perform the warm up exercises and run on the treadmill before commencing his weight training. His gym coach also instructed him to have protein supplements, something Dorky’s Mum was not entirely sanguine about. Dorky had a swollen head despite possessing limited mental faculties, and it was quite scary to imagine how much more his ego would bloat, with his muscles experiencing a few mm growth.

This entire exercise, or set of exercises in late 2003 and early 2004 led Dorky to arrive at one conclusion. He might’ve climbed the highest mountain, or swum the deepest sea, but there was no chance in hell for him to actually rid himself of his congenital skinny frame. Eating six meals a day, working out and putting in multi-pronged efforts seemed to bear no fruit.

Secretly though, one would surmise that Dorky harboured such aspirations, like the average malnourished men, simply based on the before and after snaps shown of Hrithik Roshan, who’d been as skinny as Dorky was before he engaged on his body building spree.

Fact of the matter is, Dorky’s before and after pic look the same – only his hair had grown because he had no money to go to the barbershop, having spent it all on protein supplements that tasted quite yucky despite allegedly having a ‘chocolate’ flavour.

Cut to 2008 when the whole gymming fad in Dorky’s mind had a resurrection, this time because he wanted to be in decent shape, stamina-wise before he purchased his bicycle, that he plans to use to commute to work on a daily basis. An increase in age has only addled his brain further.

This new gym he used to frequent was appropriately named ‘Physique’, and the gym instructor there seemed friendly initially, and instructed him on his exercise and his diet.

However, Dorky, who’s quite enthusiastic about all the pies he puts his fingers into, especially if he’s made an investment in them (the gym charged him a fee for using their equipment, of course) was initially gung-ho about his gymming endeavours. He’d wake up early every morning, wear his tracks, jog to the gym and work out sincerely, his ipod plugged into his ears, as he faithfully went about the process of building up his stamina.

This went on for a couple of days, following which he had to miss going to the gym due to unavoidable circumstances. On his return to gym after that brief period of absence, the gym instructor, who has the funniest beard that Dorky has ever seen in his entire life, and it reminded him of the movie ‘Signs’, for it looked like crop circles on someone’s face.

Crop circles on face guy then proceeded to interrogate Dorky on the reason for his absence, and asked him what he’d eaten over the past few days. Seeing no reason to get exasperated, Dorky gave him the required answers, only to be confronted with ‘What are you eating?’ on a daily basis.

It irked Dorky no end that, aside from putting up with other fellow people in the gym, whose narcissistic tendencies which included working out for thirty seconds and staring into the mirror flexing their muscles for the remaining thirty minutes, he’d also have to put up with answering the same questions day in and day out.

To further compound his misery, the ‘changing room’ in the gym where people used to deposit their sweat shirts smelt so bad that it made a public urinal smell like a Chanel outlet by comparison.

A combination of all these factors, coupled with NFS (Need for Sleep) made Dorky take the decision to give up on gymming, until the next big need to go ahead and work out would take centerstage in his mind.

Dorky’s couple of kilos that were built up as a result of his trying to lift weights were shed as soon as he stopped working out, and he’s now back to the frame he’s possessed ever since class 10, concave stomach and all.

The only bright side to having hit the gym is that his arms have now grown longer, once again due to a combination of gravity and heavy weights, and his attempts at trying to lift them haven’t gone in vain, as he can now touch his ankles while keeping his back straight.

Now being the Bangalore Correspondent for one of the country’s most famous music magazines does have its plus points, the main one being the fact that flashing a press card can do wonders in situations where the Common Man has to pay cash to gain access into. Dorky has heard that it can even work with traffic cops and the like, but he hasn’t yet ventured out to make use of that opportunity and prays that he never will have to be in a sticky situation which will warrant that.

One such situation where Dorky used the power of the fourth estate to the max was when he had to go for the Scorpions concert that was held on Sunday 16th December 2007 at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore.

At the outset, print / television media is allowed two representatives into a concert of this type unless they are exclusive media partners, in which case they can even walk on stage when the artists are performing, lift up drum kit equipment to look for missing plectrums and nobody would have the authority to question them.

Dorky’s magazine wasn’t a media partner for this event, and as a consequence, he had to endure janta journalist treatment, which translated into a free entry into the expensive section with no access backstage or no opportunity to meet the Scorpions. Nevertheless, he was glad for the opportunity to write about the gig, while also exhibiting some class A level Kiasu, something he has been an expert at practising for quite some time now.

That trait incidentally is something that exists in the memetic make up of his entire country and as a consequence, he was an adept practitioner of the same.

He was accompanied by a friend who also wanted to put Kiasu level entry into the concert, and as a result had even brought a 7 MP digicam to masquerade as the photographer. However, Dorky had decided in a fit of selfishness that it would be he who would go into the Press Pit (which is the space between the crowd and the playing area), while his friend had to make himself happy with a bitti (free) entry.

Entering the concert venue with his friend (who had been nice enough to bring a car), Dorky proceeded to flash the press card around gleefully, almost as if he were a proud member of the FBI who had come to a crime scene investigation and was required to be given all access. His friend was amazed at the power of the press as Dorky managed to get his friend a parking place in the backstage space, reserved for VIPs and for the guests who had paid 7.5K to sit in the lounge.

Striding purposefully towards the media desk, much to the envy of the huge line of people standing both in line to get tickets as well as in line to get entry into the venue, Dorky managed to get two tags which said “MEDIA”, though he’d have preferred something that said “AAA” (Access All Areas).

After bumping into an entire motley crew of people that formed present and former friends and acquaintances, some of them rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans, some rabid Nazi-loving ganja smoking acid popping non-fans, some non-rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans and some others that subscribed subsets of the above traits and exchanging notes on life, the universe and everything within as much time as it took to shake hands and mumble perfunctory greetings, he then proceeded to cut the queue as the plebians watched with envy. Dorky and his friend even escaped the frisking that one is subject to while entering a concert venue!

Dorky was on the lookout for some people he wanted to avoid, and he was thankful that he managed to do so without much effort on his part. It seems as though the other concerned party shared his sentiments and probably did as much if not more to avoid bumping into him, and this non-meeting was, presumably for the greater good of mankind in general and for Dorky in particular.

Once the concert began with the usual irritating ads, Dorky went into the press pit, armed with his friend’s friend’s 7 MP digicam which was tiny in comparison to the hugeass SLRs that the other professional photographers were carrying. However the thrill of being in the pit for the first ever time in his life mitigated the other feelings he felt, of being out of place among all stud photographers with a 7 MP digicam.

The previous concerts he had attended, he had come real close to the press pit, but never enough to actually be there. In 2001, the Bryan Adams concert saw Dorky splattered against the railing, with the surging crowds crushing his guts against the metal barricade. However, he was one of the sixty-odd people at the concert who had the distinction of having Bryan Adams spit on them as he sang ‘Back thooo You’. That date was more memorable for other reasons, which would be a worthy digression, but would merit being in its own post altogether, should the author feel the need to, in the distant future.

Continuing our efforts to charter Dorky’s concert experiences, he then saw Shankar Dayal Sharma give a speech in some medical college inaugural function, saw Roger Waters in the flesh, saw Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith and enough Indian bands in miscellaneous shows to ensure monthly visits to the ENT specialist. The fact that he loves his ipod didn’t make life easier for him either.

The Scorpions came the first time around to Bangalore during the Accoustica 2001 tour of theirs, as Dorky was pretending to study for his engineering exams while actually trying out all the clothes he had amassed in his wardrobe in sequence, and being the pedantic parsimonious person that he was back then, the exam overruled attending the concert. Dorky was thinking of how he had been given an opportunity to redeem himself as he stepped into the press pit, after being ushered in by the cop who gazed respectfully at his ‘MEDIA’ badge.

The press pit was cooler than he thought, and as he walked all across from one end of the pit to the other and back, the crowd was gazing at him in different shades of green. He managed to see the various setup sections for each of the band members, and saw how the tech guys for each member were laying their guitars in sequence.

For a substantial time, Dorky engaged in the fine art of schadenfreude, as he went about stretching his arms and yawning in the press pit while the poor sods were cramped around the front side, gasping for breath while being in a catch 22 situation. Set yourself free for arm space and lose the coveted position or stay there and be cramped like brown people attending a rock concert in Bangalore. Quite dicey if you ask me, and as someone mentioned to him later, Dorky was being an über “schadist”.

As Nietzsche once said, “humour is just schadenfreude with a clear conscience”, and Dorky went about doing with gay abandon what he had seen others do unto him and other multitudes of people that had attended concerts for times immemorial, knowing fully well that this was not part of a vicious Karmic circle, but was more like ragging in college where the baton was passed on to the next set of unfortunates, instead of being thrown back to the persons who committed the peccadilo(s) in the first place.

The opening act finished, two arbit VJs from some arbit channel walked and said something that reeked of ersatz, practised wit and then finally, with a resounding noise, the Scorpions descended on the spartan stage and began their performance for the evening.

Dorky thought to himself that there are pros and cons of being in every location, and in the press pit, even though he could see the Scorpions perform much closer-up than anyone else could afford to, the compromise was made on the sound quality which mattered more to him.

Members of the press were summarily ejected by the same PRs who were nice to them just a couple of hours ago, and Dorky left, with tears of joy streaming down his eyes (exaggeration included only for effect) at his accomplishments of having been in the pit. He rejoined the crowd and had a gala time, saying “Courteney Cox” when the crowd was screaming “We want more” as part of the encore act.

For the full fledged review on the show from a strictly musical perspective, please pick up a copy of the magazine that Dorky writes for. I guarantee you that you will not be disappointed.

This follows soon after Dorky Guffaw has also made his debut and has had three episodes and another one in the offing within the next couple of days.

Traffic Boy’s origins can be attributed to the on-road crimes committed by the people around on vehicles and the pedestrians, and hence, with the noble intent of rectifying what he felt was seriously wrong with society, the hero, whose name as yet remains a mystery went to the Heavenly Bodies gym (where another prolific LJ guy is a regular visitor) and developed his entire arsenal of super powers that now aid him in making the roads a better place.

Traffic Boy has various super-powers, and here is a list of them that follow. Do keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive, but will be updated, if the author decides not to be too lazy. Fat chance of that happening.

1.Traffic Boy can, with sheer will power, silence errant horns of vehicles parked at traffic signals, or of vehicles plying on roads where horns are honked despite there being no space for any movements to occur. A quick glance towards the source of the offending noise, and voila, it is like someone has pressed the mute button.

2.Traffic Boy has the ability to lock the handle bars and steering wheels of vehicles hell bent on violating the lane rules, thereby preventing them from cutting in on other passengers driving in a straight line on a wide road.

3.Traffic Boy can create a forcefield at signals so that util there is a green signal for the go-ahead, vehicles don’t move. Nobody can cut red signals after that.

4.Traffic Boy can make high beam lights go dim, or in the very worst, burst with a resounding clink should someone use it without reason.

5.Errant riders, who drink and drive and also those that go on footpaths will suddenly find their vehicles punctured and also find themselves out of petrol in a desolate place. Traffic Boy’s ability to engage in multi-person teleportation as and when such offences occur shall hold him in good stead for that.

Traffic Boy shall remain anonymous, riding amidst the sea of vehicles and performing his reconnaissance missions, undetected, unseen behind the visor of his helmet and unheard of, unless he manages to let out an occasional loud fart or screams “I am wanting to break free” at the top of his voice while on an empty road.

More power to Traffic Boy.

Or so he thought.

Standing there within the compartment of a slow local train bound from Thane towards CST, he was supposed to get off the train at Dadar. The train had just slowed down to a halt at the station, and the people within the crowded train were pushing and shoving each other in order to get out while they still could, to make way for those that wanted to board the train.

“God help that poor bastard who will be the last to get off”, read the thought bubble hovering over Dorky’s head as he joined the mass of people pushing those in front for dear life, trying to disembark when it suddenly struck him that he was the last one to get out of his compartment!!!

There was nobody behind him that was pushing him and it is common knowledge that the last person to try climbing out is usually the recipient of violent blows from an agitated crowd trying to board the train, or is swept up by the crowd and not allowed to get off until the terminus station arrives.

Bracing himself for any possible eventuality, Dorky’s entire life flashed in front of his eyes in those few milliseconds as he said a little prayer, hoping to get out of this mess he was caught in, in one piece while clearly acknowledging the fact that his clothing might not be as lucky. But one hardly bothers about clothes and other such minutiae when one faces the prospect of hanging out with the Grim Reaper in the bat of a few eyelids.

It all began twenty four and a half years ago for Dorky, when he was born in Ghatkopar, a sub-urb of Mumbai and thus began his long-standing association with the city which for some people is the city of dreams, while some others choose to call it the ‘armpit of India’. To each their own.

Dorky spent his life in Mysore, but a significant presence of relatives there translated into periodic visits on multiple occasions, some joyful and celebratory while some weren’t so. Life is a series of such events, as all of you would be obviously privy to.

Dorky’s travels on local trains commenced from a young age, but living in Mysore where the population density was less than that of Mumbai by a factor of thousands meant that he wasn’t exposed to the crazy kind of crowds that a regular Mumbaikar has grown adjusted to.

At age 13, he lost a piece of footwear while boarding a fast local from CST towards Thane along with his family. This was because the local was late by about twenty minutes and it was during the rush hour. Faced with no choice and the prospect of staying back in CST (then VT), group consensus was reached by the family to get back home no matter what. His sandals, new ones at that, were separated from him in the frenzy that ensued due to crowds wanting to get onto the train.

Lamenting the loss of his footwear (for its not like a 13 year old, slightly retarded at that, would bother too much about things beyond his immediate material realm), Dorky’s apprehension at traveling on a local grew after that and though his chappals were replaced by some immediate alternative that he wasn’t too happy about, he nevertheless wasn’t able to completely erase this incident from his mind.

On another occasion, this time at age 15, when he was entrusted enough to not get lost despite progressively diminished mental faculties seeming to strongly indicate otherwise, Dorky was allowed to travel alone. In a fit of extreme stupidity that we shall assume to be naïveté, Dorky climbed into a ladies compartment that was filled with a few college going women.

Clad in a brightly coloured Tom N Jerry t-shirt (don’t even ask!!) that would’ve spelt death for Dorky had a sniper wanted to use him for target practise in a crowd of about a hundred thousand, he was subject to significant ‘Adam-teasing’ by those women travelling on the train from one stop to another, as he sheepishly attempted to explain to them how he was new here and didn’t realize his mistake until the train started moving.

With chants of ‘Tom and Jerry kids, come on down to where all the action is‘ ringing in his ears, Dorky managed to get off at the very next station and clambered into the regular second class section, but not before he was traumatized for life based on the experience he had to undergo. Well, actually it wasn’t like Dorky people ever engaged in eve-teasing, but this experience doubly reinforced his disinclination to even let that thought cross his mind.

These two incidents were what Dorky associated with local trains, and had even had the Chutzpah to brag about being ‘Adam-teased’ to the two or three people willing to put up with his drivel.

It was these precise two incidents that came to his mind as we left him standing in the local at the beginning of this narrative. Having paid a surprise visit to his relatives family at Thane on sunday morning, as part of a weekend trip to Mumbai, his uncle wanted to drop him off to the railway station.

As someone who had seen Dorky ever since he was a klutzy infant that had a perpetually big forehead due to ‘cute’ mishaps happening to him, such as tripping over flat surfaces and with hair forever standing on end due to his propensity to insert his fingers within electric sockets and throw on the switch, it was but obvious that his Uncle’s protective radar went into high alert mode and he dropped Dorky off into the compartment of the aforesaid station, after giving anyone within the train who had bothered to observe the pair of them enough indication that Dorky was not from town and hence would be easy prey to pickpockets and muggers, by repeating his instructions to retarded Dorky in triplicate.

Without any untoward incidents that happened during the course of the journey (unless you call two people being thrown out of the compartment during transit because they were talking too much as something worth mentioning), Dorky’s train came to a slow halt at Dadar, which is where he thought he’d die a horrible death.

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion, as the crowds started rushing out of the compartment violently, in a manner similar to how food would be thrown out of one’s stomach in case of a bad case of food poisoning – high speed high intensity puke.

When Dorky finally made his way near the door, the sight that awaited him made him almost faint, and if not for the adrenaline that kept his newly mended heart thumping within his chest, he’d have died twice over. On the platform stood a huge crowd and the number of people to enter the compartment seemed to be more than the combined attendance for the Iron Maiden concert he had been to in March this year!!!

With a wholesome touch of Quixotic foolish bravado, Dorky launched himself full force into the crowd just as he heard loud whooshes made by about 300 people clambering into the compartment per second on either side of him, and just about managed to escape with his feet on solid ground on the Dadar central platform (too many people, he wouldn’t have fallen down anyway) and brushed himself off.

He stood a little away from the train, and with a very inconspicuous gesture of gratitude towards the almighty, Dorky then plugged in his faithful companion (the ipod) into his ears and proceeded on towards another journey, thinking all along of how this fraud near-death experience would make for a reasonably entertaining blog post.

So much for his delusional assumptions.

Dorky has had a new means of transport, a bike, that his Ameyzing friend couldn’t fit into the cargo baggage on his study-cum-recreation-by-watching-every-possible-artist-perform-live two year stint in some place named Buffalo (where, the most abundant type of four-legged creature, incidentally, are people who are bent over, doggy-style), and hence had to leave it at the airport for Dorky to take back home, after it almost made the conveyor belt break under its weight.

Last heard, he was upgraded from economy, and flew business class for some inexplicable reason. Dorky likes to believe it was good Karma.

Anyway, the bike needed a little servicing, and once it was taken care of at the service center, Dorky set about traveling all across the city on it, although never for arbit reasons as he might once have. After a thorough wash, and some cleaning, and a few new things to spruce it up, the bike was back in the condition that it was supposed to have been in.

The people that inhabit the city that Dorky lives in know for a fact that most of the time spent on the road is invariably spent at traffic signals. Traffic signals and the inevitable delays associated with waiting at them have now become a way of life, such that most highly ingenious people have resorted to utilizing this time for more fruitful purposes.

Portable potties on the side of the road help people take a dump, while washbasins are kept in place for people to brush their teeths (sic). If the wait time at traffic signals goes up further, portable showerheads and shower curtains will also not be too far off for the bustling signal-sidewalk trade.

Some people end up buying their vegetables in the evening while on their ride back home, while students, specially those majoring in electronics and communication at VTU, have, according to unconfirmed and somewhat authentic reports, managed to study the entire syllabus for some subjects while on their way to the exam in college.

Love stories now happen at traffic signals, as lovers of opposite sexes and sometimes, non-opposite sexes (21st Century India is coming out of the closet) , faces hidden in their helmets or behind tinted glasses of neighbouring cars engage in an intimate and intricate courtship ritual that is the stuff that the next Bollywood fop film will derive inspiration from.

Dorky himself was witness to a plethora of such phenomena, and was slowly inured to it, with the passage of time. However, something happened the other day, that brought about an interesting twist to the whole commuting phenomenon.

Dorky was traveling on the bike towards a secret unspecified destination, that he himself had no idea about, while listening to some Arch Enemy (a band he’d recently started listening to) on his ipod. The helmet that his friend had purchased was one size too big, which was perfect for Dorky, as he could listen to music while on the move, albeit at a low volume so as not to prevent him from hearing the traffic. The intense decibel level didn’t really warrant a volume reduction, just for the record.

Dorky was trying to headbang with a big helmet on his head, and looked strikingly like a spaceman with epileptic seizure trying to ride a bike, but since he was unaware of how he looked, ignorance being bliss, he continued his appreciation for the music, unabated. He spotted a traffic signal ahead, well, he actually spotted a whole bunch of vehicles ahead of him on the road, and guessed correctly that a traffic signal lay about 200 metres further ahead, which toughly translated to ten minutes of wait time for him.

He slipped the bike into neutral, switched off the engine and folding his arms, kept listening to music, while intently staring ahead, his mind blank for everything except the music playing in his ears.

His musical appreciation reverie was suddenly disturbed by a loud screech of the kind that you can see right below.

Yup, that kind. Noisy and irritating.

He turned around and saw a dude, in a black leather jacket, on his super bike, matching Dorky’s (hopefully)menacing stare, eyeballs to eyeballs, through the visors of their respective helmets.

Dorky noticed that the dude, who we shall call Mike (simply because it rhymes with bike), had skidded and come to a halt dangerously close to his bike, and gave him a look, that motorists all over the world know and acknowledge as the “don’t fuck with the silencer of my Gaadi by coming too close” look, to which Mike took extreme umbrage.

The high noise levels of the vehicles surrounding them on a busy road then prompted the two of them to engage in conversation through a mode that transcended beyond the usage of mere words for communication. They just needed the language of glares, stares and hand gestures to put their respective points across.

However, since words need to be employed in this blog post to put forth the actual gist of the exchange, it nevertheless warrants a translation of the various messages traded across amongst Dorky and Mike, which are as follows:

Dorky – Don’t stand, don’t stand so close to me.
(which sounds so much like a Police song)
Mike – I’ll stand wherever I want to, balls to you, you skinny runt!
Dorky – Oh yeah? Wait and see, I will beat you to pulp.
Mike – Watch me beat YOU to pulp.
(It is then that Dorky proceeds to take out his Rubik’s cube and solves it within 15 seconds. What Mike is unaware of is that Dorky had solved it earlier and had just rearranged it into another pattern by twisting each surface by two turns, to make it into an alternating criss-cross-cube-colour-combo.)
Dorky – Let’s see YOU do that, spazzo!
(Mike then proceeds to call up his girlfriend, and gives her a telephonic orgasm in 10 seconds. Dorky has no way of knowing whether it was faked or stage-managed)
This whole battle continued as the people about them went around taking showers, taking a dump, solving Sudoku puzzles and cryptic crosswords, engaging in courtship rituals and the like, and ‘both these two’ guys hadn’t bothered with their morning ablutions still, because of this particular clash.

They finally decided to settle it like grown men usually do, by having a bike race, with the one who won being the champion (of what exactly, nobody knows till date, and nobody cares either. It is plain human tendency to try and prove you’re better than others, even in inane contests like being stupid, for instance).

The traffic signal countdown showed 60 seconds till the green light. Dorky put the side stand of his bike, got down, went on the side walk and did ten sit-ups (all with his helmet on, the ipod still playing away songs in his ears). After stretching his arms, when there were 25 seconds more, he mounted the bike. (He mounted the bike – heheheheheheheh – don’t think of what you’re thinking of!)

Mike, on the other hand, lifted his bike, and did a couple of bench presses on the road, with the bike above him. Onlookers, Dorky included, were astounded by his display of strength, but Dorky knew, because he had read the Panchatantra when he was a kid, a few months ago, that ‘mighty brawn is no match for nimble brain‘, but Dorky failed to notice that he had neither quality in abundant quantities while Mike had atleast one of the afore-mentioned ones.

With 25 seconds to go, both men were on their bikes – the signal counting down the last few remaining seconds of the life of at least one of the two people involved in the race, for it was going to be a fight to the death, gladiator-style, so help them God.

The sweat on Dorky’s brow began to cloud his vision, as it formed huge droplets that fell on the lenses of his spectacles, and he had to remove his hanky and wipe it clean, so he could see ahead clearly. Mike, on the other hand, was surprisingly cool about the whole thing, as he started his bike and revved his engine loudly, in an unnecessary show of strength, increasing the carbon emission content in the atmosphere when it wasn’t absolutely necessary.

Dorky started the engine of his bike too, and with a high idling time for the engine, did not resort to making the kind of revving noises that Mike did, as the countdown entered single digits.

6…5…4…3…2…1

Dorky didn’t know about Mike, but his heart was traveling up his oesophagus, all the way till his vocal chords, and was thumping away like a bongo drum in the hands of a drunk chimp with drum-sticks.

Both the bikes were into first gear, as the riders were valiantly trying to look ahead and see if the traffic train, which was thirty metres to the signal, was clearing fast. Dodging their way through the other motorists’ path, receiving not-unjustified curses from the other people waiting to cross the signal, the twosome zig-zagged through, and surged ahead.

Dorky, in a cool and calculated move, just went past Mike onto his right, forcing Mike to the left, and then moved left again, so that Mike didn’t have space and was forced to move further to the left yet again – resulting in him coming dangerously close to the footpath.

It was then that Mike realized that Dorky had tricked and out-manoeuvred him, and that defeat was imminent, for just ten metres ahead, lay a traffic cop checking post, and Mike was stopped by the cops. Dorky had read Mike’s license plate and knew that he was an outstation donkey who’d probably not paid his road-tax, and thus, he chose to make this move to force him onto the left side.

Dorky stopped the bike, parked it on the side stand and watched as Mike was forced to pay up a hefty fine for his offence. Without any further ado, he flashed a thumbs-up at Mike, gave him a big trademark grin, and got on the bike. This time, he almost stumbled and fell as he was about to start if again, but he managed to retain his balance and rode off to his unspecified-destination, with the melodious strains of We Are The Champions by Queen ringing away in his ears.

It should’ve been an evening adventure, he could have ridden away into the sunset.

Ah well.

Dorky Guffaw came into being, one fine ennui-filled afternoon, when a colleague of mine and I were engaged in arbit gtalk chatter, in the absence of anything else remote fruitful to accomplish, and even if there would’ve actually been something that may have been done, the enthusiasm levels had dipped to negative, facilitating some arbit chatter that lead to the creative section of the brain working overtime, thus resulting in DG’s birth.

It is a mere coincidence that he shares his initials with those of DeveGowda or Dolce and Gabbana, for any resemblance between this fictional character and the afore mentioned ones is unintended.

Dorky Guffaw is an uncoordinated klutz, who, in a quixotic manner, has become the self appointed saviour of the Indian IT industry, and its thousands of employees. Just like the absolutely jobless bunch of kids in Enid Blyton novels, that went around trying to solve cases or crimes they had no business involving themselves in, DG also takes up cases despite not being assigned any and his methods of working and going about doing things aren’t half as delightful as that of the jobless kids who, strangely, have alliterative collective names (Five Find-outers, Famous Five, Secret Seven and the like).

Dorky Guffaw’s trademark move is his dorky guffaw, laughter that rumbles deep from within his skinny being and is accompanied by pig-like snorts that he makes in an attempt to laugh. This is usually done at the end of solving a case, and for the sake of having continued readership, no attempts have been made to describe this sound, and our deepest pity rests with those that have an overactive imagination and need no descriptions to imagine Dorky Guffaw’s dorky guffaws.

Since this is DG’s blog debut, there was the necessity of having to have such a detailed background of his, a sort of ‘pilot-episode’, had this been a sitcom, and the author hopes earnestly that he shall refrain from going off on unnecessary tangents in future adventures, but can’t guarantee the same.

(Now would be the right time to add the subscription of this blog either to Google Reader or Bloglines or some other RSS feed reader).

This particular adventure begins on an A/C bus on the Mysore-Bangalore highway, which Dorky has boarded, in order to get back to Bangalore, and to his office. This particular adventure ends, as will all the others (well, most of the others), with his getting embarassed, but that to him makes as much of a difference as heavy rain does, to a thick-skinned buffalo. (That analogy sounded better in my native tongue, Konkani.)

Being a lone traveller on almost all his journeys, even on this occasion, the seat next to Dorky’s was empty. Normally, an empty seat would either stay empty, or be taken over by some random obnoxious guy who’d talk away on his phone on a loud voice, drowning out the loudest music Dorky could find on his portable music player, or someone who was bulky and would sit such that Dorky’s thin frame was further squeezed in the limited seat space that he actually had.

The ‘Maximum Moisturizer’ ad of old times, where a person sees a beautiful girl on a flight, and hopes that she comes and sits next to him, whlie she goes ahead and actually says that the guy is on her seat, is fiction. It happens only in the world of movies of the romantic comedy types and advertisements where you are then cajoled into buying random shit you never needed in the first place anyway, with the promise that if you do, someone who fits the bill of lovely woooman would come and sit next to you, and you’d get along like a house on fire and then either part ways or hook up. A lot of poor sods have ended up investing in Maximum Moisturizer, consequently, for no logcal reason whatsoever.

Dorky never had any such luck, but today was slightly different. Maybe it was because he carried two handkerchiefs, one for blowing his nose into, and the other standard issue one to wipe his face. The seat next to him was empty until the bus started, and just as it was about to leave, a real cute girl climbed in, and after scanning all the seats around, came and sat down next to him.

Dorky’s heart skipped a beat, for she was, in a word, beautiful. Just because he didn’t go out with too many women (too many = all the eligible ones out there) didn’t make him the kind who would drop his standards of beauty, so we can asssume, correctly, that she’d have actually been beautiful, if he says so.

With a mole on her upper lip, that was very Cindy Crawford-ish, but many times more beautiful in a manner that only Indian women can be, and with the delightful smell of Davidoff Cool Water (the only Wooman’s perfume Dorky could identify) watfting into his blocked nostrils, she was just the kind of person DG last expected to be sitting next to him.

Dorky had grown his hair for a year now, and had just begun tying it up in a ponytail, and was hence finding it uncomfortable to sit with his head against the headrest, for the felt, in earnest, the discomfort that goes with discovering how your head has something extra attached to it, that previously wasn’t there.

Who better than a woman with a ponytail to offer advice in this regard, Dorky thought and decided to ask the cute chick next to him, about how she manages to sit without her ponytail poking the headrest bothering her. It reminded Dorky of a Tintin comic he had once read, ‘Tintin and the Crab with the Golden Claws’, where Captain Haddock’s mate, Allan, asks him whether he slept with his beard under the blanket or over it, which led to the Captain having a sleepless night, trying to decide which way he actually did it.

What follows next is classic Dorky material. It must be said, at the outset that only a small fraction of initiating this conversation was in order to get chatting with her, while most of the intent was centered around resolving a genuine doubt.

Dorky: Excuse me, can I ask you a question?
(thinking to himself – could I have possibly asked something stupider than that??)

Cutie (raising her eyebrows, thinking to herself – here’s another one who needs to bite the dust): Yeah?

Dorky (pointing to his ponytail): I just wanted to know how it is that you manage to sit, without your ponytail bothering you. I try sitting and I am not sure how it happens.
(It was around this time that he realized that this conversation sounded so much more logical and cogent within the confines of his mind, which was where he should’ve let it stay dormant at, in the first place)

Cutie (incredulous look on her face, wondering what sort of weirdos still walk the earth): I don’t know, I am just used to it, I guess.

Dorky (shrugging his shoulders): Well, ookay. Guess it takes a little getting used to!

Don Juan he may not be, but he knew, thankfully, when he should shut his mouth without causing himself any further embarassment, while the other school of thought that was also in session within his head was trying to convince him that he’d already hit the pits and that since redemption was not possible after having unleashed the demons of stupidity, he might as well go all the way and continue the conversation.

The conservative school of thought won, as the Cutie drifted off into sleep on the adjoining seat, dreaming no doubt, about Prince Charming, who had a crew cut, and could come up with better starting lines of conversation, than something involving haircare, something about coalition politics or about Ishihara test frames to detect colour blindness.

He went back to his reading, and listening to music and continued the journey, not knowing where his next mis-adventure would come from.

Epilogue:What actually happened next was that DG commenced blogging about the entire fiasco, right during the journey after cutie nodded off. Cutie subsequently woke up, and on her own volition, offered him some chocolate, and they got talking and spoke for an hour. Pleasant, enjoyable conversation ensued, the kind that you could expect between two strangers who would never expect to meet each other again, and he eventually got off the bus, when his stop arrived, to head back to where he used to be.