Chp 436. 12.12.12.

No I am not one of those people who puts up pictures like “OMG, today is 12.12.12! This will never happen again in your lifetimeeeee!” and tag all their Facebook friends to that pic. All I feel like commenting to such tags is “OMG, tomorrow is 13.12.12! That will never happen again in your lifetime eitherrrrr!” but don’t wanna sound like a douchebag so I just keep mum.

I’m using 12.12.12 as the title of this post maybe because 12 is my favorite number and throughout my basketball career, from School team to College team to University team to playing for various Clubs, I was always jersey number 12.

Or maybe this post is entitled 12.12.12. because I just can’t think of an appropriate title.

This is my 51st blog post this year, and I just realized I’ve been consistently publishing around 50 posts a year since 2006 (I managed only 42 posts in 2005, and just 9 posts in 2004 because I started blogging at the end of that year). To me, that level of consistency and dedication is something I am proud of (all humility aside), even though my blog is nowhere near where it used to be a couple of years ago.

Back then I used to visit at least 20-30 different blogs every day and comment on all their new posts. My own posts too used to see a flurry of activity in the comment section. Today, I hardly visit my friends’ blogs anymore, and even if I do, I rarely leave a comment after quickly reading their updates. Likewise, many of my posts too do not receive comments anymore and I am actually not bothered by that. Times are a changing. New job, new wife, new kids, these are the reasons why many of my old blog friends do not blog anymore. Same with me, I guess, except for the new wife part.

And now you’re wondering why I didn’t mention the new kids part :P

I guess for me, my entire blog life took a big hit back in April this year (End of an Era) when I left the advertising sector and took up a new project on a completely different line of work, which is still going on today.

Check out my blog traffic below. I was consistently getting more than 3000 visits per month (and around 5000 page views per month). And then BAMMMM, April happened and now look at my sorry stats! :(



After April, I managed to get my usual 3000 visits per month only once, on August, and that was only because of my post A not so “Happy Independence Day” post which was cross posted by the Editors at FirstPost.com

I always thought an R&D project would give me more free time, but oh I was so wrong!  Yes of course it is much less stressful than working in the advertising sector, but TIME, that is found wanting every single day. Yup, the only thing worse than deadlines is when you have no deadlines.

With that, I close this yet another fruitless blog post.

Happy 12.12.12 everyone. Remember, today happens only once! *go kill yourself Kima* :)

Cheers!

Chp 435. Where there’s a will…

… there’s definitely a way!

So have you ever experienced that extremely frustrating moment when you try to recollect the name of someone or something but suddenly cannot? That you completely blank out and no longer remember a name you used to know, even though it’s right there at the tip of your head…

Tormenting, ain’t it?

You just feel like banging your head on the hard concrete floor or thrashing it with a frying pan in the hope that you might be able to beat out the name you’re trying to remember.

I experienced that a few days ago, November 25th, 2012 to be precise.

So it was a lazy Sunday afternoon. Was just recovering from a hard night of partying and binging, and it was one of those surreally peaceful moments, with the cool sea breeze blowing across my room while I was just listening to Kiara and Kong by Bonobo, setting the trippy relaxy mood just right.

And then suddenly, for lunch, I had this huge craving for South Indian food from a particular restaurant I used to order from!

Being brought up in Tamilnadu, I am actually very finicky when it comes to South Indian dishes. I do not like any of these Shiv Sagars, Sur Sagars, Shri Sagars chain of restaurants in Mumbai as their Sambar style is too sweet for my liking (do know that not just every South Indian state, but in fact many of the regions within a particular state have their own unique recipes and flavors). Oh I really miss those Saravana Bhavans, Hotel Aryaas, Sri Annapoornas etc. chain of restaurants.

Hence, I loved the food served from that particular restaurant whose name I couldn’t remember. And I couldn’t find the menu anymore, which made things worse.

And then, the “Forbidden Apple” syndrome set in… Just when you know you can’t have something, your desire to have it increases a thousand times (The same reason why we suddenly feel like drinking when we realize that particular day is a Dry Day, or why we are sometimes attracted more to somebody who doesn’t return our love).

I tried Burrp, Zomato, Google, Titbit, TastyKhaana, but none of the search results I got rang any bell.

Meanwhile the desire to eat from that forgotten place intensified further and further.

And then suddenly I had an Archimedes moment (without shouting EUREKA and running down my apartment butt-naked of course, because that would mean immediate eviction from our Housing Society! Ahhh, Archimedes was so lucky not to live in Mumbai back then :P )

I suddenly remembered I took a photo of the dish I ordered from that restaurant because I wanted to share it with somebody on Whatsapp. And so I went to my Whatsapp folder immediately and found the photos!



That was the day I decided to have full South Indian “Meals” (or as North Indians call it, “Thaali”), while I watched Madagascar 3: Europe’s Most Wanted. Hehehe, this picture I took is really funny, it looks as if Alex, Marty, Melman and Gloria are shocked to see what I was eating, lolz..



I clicked on the photo property and viewed the date that particular photo was taken…



21st October, 1:55PM.

I went to my call history but since it was more than a month ago, the record was not there.

I was almost depressed, when suddenly I had another epiphany *TING*

I called up Vodafone and requested them to send me my previous itemized bill on my e-mail asap. I explained the gravity of the nature, about how I needed a very important phone number I dialed on a particular day otherwise I would have to sell my Pvt Ltd company and render 500 employees jobless.

Within 20 minutes, I received an e-mail with my itemized bill in the form of a PDF. Nice work, Vodafone.



I went to that exact day (21st October) and looked at all my dialed calls on that day. Thankfully, there was only one LAN-line number I called, and the time fit in perfectly too, 1:24PM (Remember I took the photo at 1:55PM, that means around 25 minutes to deliver which is standard here at Carter Road).



But still, I crossed my fingers as I dialed the number…

After three rings, a man with a deep voice answered, “Southside Café.”

Ahhhh yessss, Southside Café! The name immediately rang a bell huge titanium made gong.

I ordered one Mysore Masala Dosa, one set steamed idli and one set medu vada, and told them to send their menu card along as well.

As I hung up the phone, I was suddenly filled with this powerful feeling of achievement and sense of satisfaction. Boy I really went through a lot just to order from that restaurant.

Oh and yes, it was so worth it.



So, remember, where there’s a will (and hunger, and internet), there’s always a way :)

Cheers!

Ps. This entire blog post was summed up in just 12 short points on my Facebook status, but what the heck, a little more description with images make it a little bit more interesting too, right? :P



Cheers again! :)

Chp 434. My encounter with the Police [UPDATE]

Ps. DO NOT MISS THE POST UPDATE AT THE END!!! Updated today, 7pm. You'll shit bricks, just like I did!!! OMG!

Ok now back to the original post first - 





My encounter with the Police (Cyber Crime cell)


Or…  a comedy of errors.

Or… two wrongs DO make a right.

This morning I received a mail that made me sit up and almost choke on my coffee. It has been almost two years since somebody posted vulgar expletive material about somebody on a blog, and I was a part of that investigation.

Being an admin of misual.com, I am no stranger to receiving phone calls from our Mizoram Police (cyber crime cell), usually because somebody took an offense to a comment made by one of our forum members and filed a complaint. We try to moderate such comments and the police are well aware of the difficulty we face in managing the non-profit website as we all have our respective occupations too. But my encounter with the cops that day was different.

So this morning I received this mail –



Yes, somebody sending a foursquare invitation at 4 in the morning may be a bit odd, but I was more focused on the name - Sangg sangi. There’s a double g in the name probably to stylize it (like snopp dogg) or maybe because “Sangsangi” was already taken. But the very name “Sangsangi” brought back memories of those police investigation days.

As most of you may not know, apart from managing misual.com, I have also taken up the responsibility of collecting all the weekly blog updates of Mizo bloggers and promoting the links at misual.com and Facebook. I do this so that more people can read their blogs, hence encouraging them to keep blogging.

Currently, I am subscribed to more than 500 Mizo blog feeds, but the job of updating the links of new blog posts every week is not that difficult because at least 70% of these bloggers are inactive now.

So imagine my surprise last year (30th July 2011 to be precise) when I was reading and collecting all the new blog updates of that week and suddenly there was this update from a Mizo blogger who had been inactive for more than a year! The owner of that blog was Sangsangi. I clicked on her new post excitedly, only to find extremely vulgar material posted on her latest update!

Here is a brief extract from that blog post which is still visible on my Google Reader as of today even though the blog had been taken down…

“Hey guys of all races, I Zothansangi Khawlhring (Sangsangi) warmly welcome your ***** inside my…” (I cannot quote the rest of the extremely profane and despicable post for the obvious reason, and out of respect for Pi Sangsangi and family.)

My immediate reaction then was that her blog account had been hacked!

And so I posted at misual.com immediately, directing people to the “hacked” blog and asking people if anybody knew her and whether they could inform her that her blog had been hacked. The news spread like wildfire and Facebook Mizo groups were abuzz over this scandal. And finally, the person (victim) concerned was identified and alerted, and she filed a police complaint immediately.

She got my phone number from a common friend and called me up. Now here’s the TWIST. She had never blogged in her entire life before! In fact she’s a teacher at St. Pauls, one of the most reputed schools in Mizoram, and no way could she have written those earlier posts which were written casually in slang. Hence, all those posts I was following for many years on that particular blog – sangsangi.blogspot.com, written by a certain Sangsangi, were apparently not written by this teacher! Crazy… So now, from a case of hacking, it looked more like a complete identity theft.

From the police side, Pu Vanlalfaka (Additional SP) called me up regularly, and I explained everything from my blog expertise point of view and even submitted all the earlier feeds of that particular blog to the police. They too contacted Google and other agencies.

Apart from that, I mailed a few close friends of mine, and we started analyzing her old blog posts from my Google Reader archive, tracing her location based on the people and places she mentioned in her earlier posts, her emotional breakdowns, we even logged into Orkut (after yearssss) only because some of the people she mentioned in her post were apparently on Orkut. Then we started looking for certain Orkut profiles on their friend lists who have the same names mentioned in her posts, and my contacts in Delhi actually went to the said locality in Delhi to inquire if such a girl still lived in that area. Oh the extent we went to, we armchair detectives. :D

Maybe we’ve watched too many Criminal Minds episodes, but we started profiling this UNSUB (unknown subject, as they are called in the TV series), and came to wild conclusions like he or she probably had an abusive childhood and being rejected by friends in school was probably the trigger that brought out repressed emotions and turned this person into a sociopath and hence vehemently attacked his/her teacher Pi Sangsangi etc. Ahhh Television shows, the things it make us think! And of course I was careful because Criminal Minds also taught me that UNSUBs try to inject themselves into an ongoing investigation so as to know what progress the cops have made so far! Hence I didn’t want Mizoram Police to suspect me if I happened to sound too interested in the case, especially since I was the one who discovered the blog, lolz.

One of our suggestions to the Mizoram Police was that, after going through the old Sangsangi posts and the new abusive ones, we have noticed a vast dissimilarity in the language and tone used. Hence could it be possible that there was indeed an actual blogger called Sangsangi, who created this blog and then deleted it, and then this other person created the new blog with the same name coincidentally, which was the only logical reason because if you look at my Google Reader right now, both the old posts and the new ones still point to the same blog permalink address.

However, Pu Vanlafaka called me up to tell me that they asked Google office that question and Google told them it was not possible because once a blog has been deleted, the particular blog name is not available again for new blog registrations.

Makes sense.

And this is quite true because one of my blog friends, Vered Puii, deleted her blog, and if you visit her blog now - blogs1870.blogspot.in you will get the message  -

Blog has been removed

Sorry, the blog at blogs1870.blogspot.com has been removed. This address is not available for new blogs.

Still not convinced, I called up my dear friend Jerusha who was working at Google (Hyderabad office) then, and she personally went to the head of whichever department handled this kinda stuff, and later told me the same thing, that when a blog is deleted, the name is locked and is not made available again for registration.

The madness continued and so we amateur investigators finally gave up.

But Mizoram Police didn’t.

On January 12th 2012, I received a phone call from Pu Vanlalfaka, informing me that they had finally caught the person! He was apparently an old student of Pi Sangsangi, who probably had a crush on her or something. They traced his IP address and from various ISPs and other sources, they got more than 300 pages of data and document that finally led the police to him.

Kudos to our Police!

Pi Sangsangi and her husband also called me a few minutes after that, thanking me for “discovering” the offensive blog and for all the attempts I made to trace the person, even though I kept saying I contributed nothing in the investigation. But I was really happy to hear her voice which sounded so genuinely relieved.

And then came the FINAL TWIST.

Pu Vanlalfaka called me up the next day to inform me that the culprit had indeed confessed to writing all those derogatory posts about Pi Sangsangi, but he had NO IDEA about the earlier posts made by the “earlier” Sangsangi on that same blog url. All he did was register the new blog and write those vulgar posts.

As I hung up the phone, I snickered. It had indeed been a long comedy of errors. Yes, no matter what Google says, I’m afraid they screwed up on this. It was by sheer luck that I came across that blog post, just because it happened to belong to a blogger I used to follow many years ago. Google made the mistake of making a url that had been deleted available again, and the perpetrator (unfortunately for him) made the mistake of registering a new blog using that exact same url. Two implausible coincidences. Hence, yes, in this case, two wrongs did indeed make a right. :)

Still don’t believe in my theory that Google’s wrong when they claimed people cannot register new blogs with the names of previously deleted blogs? Visit the (now TWICE) deleted controversial blog sangsangi.blogspot.com. What message do you see?

Blog not found

Sorry, the blog you were looking for does not exist. However, the name sangsangi is available to register!

I rest my case :)

Have a great day y'all.

------------------



UPDATE UPDATE!!!! THIS IS FREAKISHLY IRONIC, but the girl who sent me the Foursquare request, Sangg Sangi, the one who made me recollect about the Sangsangi incident and ended up blogging about it this morning, well I’m pretty sure is this same girl I just traced on Facebook just now Sangg Sangi (easy to find because not many girls use the double “g” and yup, it’s a good unique identifier from all the other Sangsangis out there as it is a common Mizo girl’s name).

She’s not on my friend list (I’ve just sent her a friend request), and from her blog listed on her FB profile – mykindofthoughts.blogspot.in I visited it and compared some of her old posts with the posts of the controversial SangSangi blog on my Google Reader (the earlier normal posts, not the abusive ones), and THEY INFACT ARE THE SAME PERSON!!!! :)



I wish I could let Pu Vanlalfaka, Jerusha, Fonz, Amos and all the others know about this as it baffled us for sooooo long. Stupid Google screwing up! Lolz, so she IS the original owner of the blog sangsangi.blogspot.in! In fact she is still following that blog on her current blogger profile.



I really hope she accepts my friend request and read about the experience we went through back then. If only we found out earlier that Blogger (Google) screwed up regarding the permalinking url, we would have saved so much time instead of chasing pillars. Anyway, I am so glad I now finally know who the original sangsangi is, and lolz, yeah, this is foooking amazing, that I was indeed blogging about the very same person earlier this morning!!!! Faaaaak!!! :D



UPDATE 2: Yup she is very much the original owner of the first blog sangsangi.blogspot.in. Small freaking world! And she accepted my friend request. Apparently, she was in a hostel in Chennai when this whole incident happened last year and she had no idea what was going on. She just assumed somebody hacked her blog, without knowing somebody actually registered and got the same url and posted derogatory details about the other Sangsangi. And lolz at Tetea’s comment below. Hahaha. OMG, such a tiny world, and such an irony!!! What are the chances of this happening again to me!!!??? :D

So in conclusion, it was by SHEER luck that I discovered the offensive blog posts because the culprit registered it as sangsangi.blogspot.in which I was still subscribed to, and Google made the mistake of making that url name available (which it still is today too), hence he was eventually caught for posting vulgar things about Pi Sangsangi (the teacher) and if the culprit now knows how I happened to discover his posts, he must be face-palming himself in prison right now, lolz. And again it was by sheer coincidence that I was reminded of this incident by a person today, who in fact turned out to be the very person we were looking for all this time, the original owner of the blog sangsangi.blogspot.in!!! HAH!!!! Whatayyy day!!!!

Chp 433. Gaddafi versus Saddam [video]

It took quite some time for Gaddafi to stop being scared of Saddam. Now they play together and even sleep together. In fact, when the other is not around, the other gets extremely lonely. That’s how attached they are to each other now.

Below is a photo taken just a few minutes ago in our office.



Yup, these are our two little dictators, looking so innocent and sweet, but when they aren’t sleeping, they completely dictate our lives with their whims and fancies. We’ve stopped going out and partying all because of them. We take them to office every day. We have lost hours of sleep because of them.

But sometimes, just watching them play with each other brings out a smile and that’s when you know all the trouble’s worth it. I have made a small compilation of the two of them playing, and I believe you’ll find it really cute, if you are into cats and dogs.

Enjoy…


Have a great weekend :)

Chp 432. Give your blog a Gangsta makeover

Yesterday I came across this site www.gizoogle.net which made me laugh so much!

As the site aptly puts it - Fo' all y'all biotches who wanna find shiznit! This site uses a program that automatically replaces certain words of whichever page you’re looking at and makes it sound all gangsta (would it be racist to say ghetto’ish?) like Snoop Dogg’s fo shizzle mah nizzle.

For example, take my cousin’s blog post – mimihrahsel.blogspot.com

It converts the following -

My Happily Ever After

And they lived happily ever after... Sigh! Growing up with fairy tales like Cinderella, Rapunzel and Snow White.. we always want that Prince charming to come rescue us some day, so that we can live happily ever after. The difference between fairy tales and reality lies on the idea of "Happily ever after".

To this -

My fuckin Happily Ever After

And they lived happily ever after... Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Sigh, muthafucka! Growin up wit fairy talez like Cinderella, Rapunzel n' Snow White.. our crazy-ass asses always want dat Pimp charmin ta come rescue our asses some day, so dat our crazy-ass asses can live happily ever after. Da difference between fairy talez n' realitizzle lies on tha idea of "Happily ever after".

Catch my drift? Yeah you might call this humour immature, but hey, it made me laugh so I don’t care :P

Even the comments are funny. Here is what my friend John commented on Christina’s post – “You are Highly Dexterous. I Like Your Flair, Christy” which became “Yo ass is Highly Dexterous. I Like Yo Crazy-Ass Flair, Christy” lolzzz… Dexterous –> Skillful in physical movements, hence John was appreciating the way Christy was skillfully shaking her ass in front of him. Hope her boyfriend doesn’t find out about that :D

Why all these posts are so funny is because these people are the last ones you’d expect to speak like this. And picturing their faces with what they’ve written is utterly hilarious.

You too should totally look at some of your friends’ blog posts and gizoogle it… You can either go to this page and enter the url you want to check, or you can simply insert this code in the address line and replace the XXXXXXXXX below with the address of the website you want to transformizzle.

http://www.gizoogle.net/xfer.php?link=XXXXXXXXX&sa=U&ei=Kde1UKSnL8Sa1AXA2IGgAg&ved=0CBQQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFF-RVJ7lOUPSZNjbFI8HpF3Bm5Sw

Here are some of my friends’ blog posts –

Kukui Pachuau - Da dopest muthafuckin thang bout thuglife is knowin yo ass put it together

Some stories cut so deep dat retellin em is a impossibilitizzle. They is tha dark selves dat our crazy-ass asses carry n' which our crazy-ass asses will take wit us, entombed alongside our asses up in our graves.  Like dat Stone Sour lyric holla'd, "some thangs is mo' betta left unspoken.Our thugged-out asses bury em up in places dat our crazy-ass asses straight-up only git on over ta by ourselves; Oh n' yo ass was a version like no other". Great cold lil' woo wop fo' realz. And since I can't think of any stories ta tell muthafuckin right now, n' even if I knew, I wouldn't tell, cuz then it wouldn't be a "cutz too deep" kind of story, would it, so yeah, herez a lil ramble down rambly paths.

Amos Lalremtluanga - Alone all up in tha Pornos

So tha other dizzle (It was a Friday) I gotz supa buggin up at work n' I looked up a list of pornos which was showin up in hood n' I was like delighted ta peep dat tha freshly smoked up sci-fi thrilla Looper starrin Bruce " Dude was muthafuckin dead tha whole time" Willis n' Joseph Gordon-Levitt was showin at a theatre near me. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. So I shut down mah 'puta n' strutted ta Gopalan theatre n' then bought mah dirty ass  a big-ass bowl of caramel popcorn n' a big-ass coke n' sat down ta smoke up tha porno fo' realz. Alone, muthafucka! Watchin A Porno Alone!

Aduhi Chawngthu - Nostalgia

Our thugged-out asses was fifteen-year-old classmates yo. Dude was on tha fuckin' down-low, intelligent, n' a phat playa. My fuckin soon-to-be- best playa thought he was cute, n' I had never straight-up noticed his ass until then. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Slowly we all became playas, a big-ass crew of playaz (wonder where they is now?). We would hang up together, borrowin books n' notebooks, takin long struttz home and gatherin at a playa’s crib afta classes. Our thugged-out asses was lil', n' lookin back at our pictures I cannot believe how tha fuck unbelievably lil' our crazy-ass asses were; I wit mah short hair n' innocent face, he wit his shy n' innocent smile.

AmeLia Lalremdiki - Lipsticks n' Heartz :)

Writin has always been funk fo' me, mah alone time n' although it soundz straight-up weird, itz among tha few thangs (and peeps) dat put up wit mah buggin self, mah far-fetched dreams n' mah vibe swings. My fuckin dopest playa all up in tha years. Itz a straight-up rare case when i'm bustin some shiznit phat n' enjoyin it all up in tha same stupid-ass time. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. So when it dawned on mah slowpoke dome dat writin do that, i done cooked up up mah mind ta start blogging. I hope dis don't turn up like mah freshly smoked up years' resolutions.

Dinky Didini - A few thoughtz laid down...

Da 1935 - 1945 decade was a crucial period up in tha history of tha ghetto. Right back up up in yo muthafuckin ass. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Da late 1930s saw tha rise of tensions n' struggle fo' juice between tha ghetto nations, which eventually led ta Ghetto Battle Pt II. This decade was tha golden period of Photojournalizzle which pimped outly enhizzled the effectivenizz of media. In America, durin dis time period, our crazy-ass asses saw tha rise of photojournalizzle wit tha advent of Life magazine. Battle photography widely served tha effectivenizz of tha media durin Ghetto Battle Pt II. My fuckin study helped mah crazy ass up in findin up tha situation of tha different ghettos around tha ghetto durin dis time period.

Mami Lrdi - Five disturbin Mizo folk talez

Da polistically correc' title fo' dis one muthafuckin is : “Five Mizo folk talez I now find disturbin afta reachin adulthood”. I think dat not everyone would share mah views. But if there’s every last muthafuckin muthafucka whoz ass hasn’t grown up hearin his and her muthafathas tell em bedtime stories n' oldschool fables, nuff times, tha thangs these lil pimps hear aren’t straight-up what tha fuck they sounded like. Which brangs our asses muthafuckin right back ta tha whole point of this.

Lal Jo-a - Thoughtz - fo' a update

Waazzzuupp??, muthafucka! It’s been a whole month since mah last post. Yo Ass might wonder why I don’t reply ta mah B-ta-tha-L-O-Gizzay commentz n' tha halt up in freshly smoked up posts.  Well, there’s straight-up no reason behind dat fo' realz. As a matta of fact, I sit up in front of tha computa n' logged tha fuck into mah blogger account, clicked on tha ‘new post’ button n' just stare all up in tha screen thankin nothang.  Just straight-up nothang.

Suzz Felnunmawii - Back ta Work

I've been gettin a shitload of lyrics askin mah crazy ass where I've been n' why I haven't posted stuffs lately. Well, I've been so busy, I'd like to apologize. Screw dat shit. Da truth is, I be tha one whoz ass misses mah dirty ass when I don't blog. I be bloggin like a muthafucka up in dis biatch. I feel like there's a part of mah crazy ass dat wantz ta drop a rhyme up loud but is held inside. Right back up in yo muthafuckin ass. Seriously, I've been busy bein lazy. Plus, no photographers, muthafucka! Pfft. I have ta click mah own photos. I sometimes git mah roomie ta do it fo' me.

MiMie Hrahsel - Bittersweet Love

So aiiight ta be back up in tha def embrace of phat ol' Bangalore, where the rizla makes mah crazy ass nostalgic n' wanna stay home, cuddle up wit a thick book, a ill cuppa n' just stay lazy all day. Cuddle up wit a thick book may also be replaced by “cuddle up wit some muthafucka special” had dis been mah underground diary. I have always shared a bittersweet relationshizzle wit the rain. I aint talkin' bout chicken n' gravy biatch. Durin mah childhood days, I was scared of tha pitta patta on our roof and it was always a challenge fo' mah crazy ass ta be alone up in a room whenever it rained.

Zakk Sangkima - My fuckin top 10 Juice Balladz of all Time

So anyway, I think tha 80’s n' tha 90’s was tha dopest era for noize especially rock yo, but I must admit tha disco guys had it phat too. Some of tha dopest jointz was busted out up in dis era, from jam anthems ta timeless rock balladz our crazy-ass asses had it all. I can still picture partizzles where gangstas would rock it up ta tracks like “Come on feel tha noise by Quiet Riot”, “Our thugged-out asses will rock yo ass - Biatch” etc. Da dopest part bout dis era was dat both pimps n' dem hoes were listenin ta tha same stupid-ass genre of noize ROCK, tha only difference was dat the guys would dig heavy metal n' tha dem hoes hated it yo, but our crazy-ass asses was one and united up in ROCK, until tha NKOTB fever destroyed everythang.

Zuali Seni Hranglung - Seni all up in tha Dentist

Hate be a strong word.... a straight-up strong word. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! And it precisely raps bout mah feelin when I say... "I don't give a fuck bout dentists". And I don't straight-up care if yo ass gotz mah crazy ass wrong fo' realz. A few of mah close playaz is dentistz fo' realz. And I like em mo' betta when they is not up in they clinic. I have too nuff bad experiences wit dentistz since I was a child. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Well, there was dat dentist at Civil Hospizitizzle whoz ass 'forgot' ta give mah crazy ass a Local Anesthesia when he extracted 4 of mah lower front teeth altogether.

Daisy Fanai - Interior | Minimal Bedrooms

Since we're gettin a freshly smoked up place n' dat I will finally be gettin mah own room ( I know dat soundz shockin but wit three other siblings around n' livin as a joint gang back home I never gotz ta have mah own space) afta 21 years, I be pretty buckwild dat all I do these days is hunt fo' bedroom designs all over tha internizzle, searchin fo' ideas n' goin gaga over all em phat designs fo' realz. As yo ass might have noticed, I be a big-ass hustla of minimalizzle when it comes ta interior designs fo' realz. Alot of gangstas might find dat straight lines n' minimalizzle gives off a cold n' unwelcomin feel but not fo' me. I think itz refreshin n' easy as fuck ta peep.

Christina VL Hriatrengi Renthlei - Da Best Hommie I've Never Had

Growin up as a only child, a independent girl, was a geek somehow n' mah hood thuglife sinks ta tha bottom. No one straight-up knows me, I guess. My fuckin room is mah straight-up place up in tha ghetto, mah laptop is da most thugged-out faithful playa I've ever had. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Da only bad muthafuckin thang bout tha playa I have is that, when I pour mah heart up ta him, I don't git a respond I expected, apart from dat I gotz a pimp whom I can lean on ta but itz not like I can always pour mah heart up ta his ass bout everythang, bout life, bout tha stuffs dat bothers me.

Malsawmi Jacob - Formal Trouble

What can a elderly biatch wear at a wedding? When i was teachin up in a Bangalore college, tha dress code fo' dem hoes lecturers was tha saree. It was tough goin fo' tha likez of mah crazy ass whoz ass weren’t born tha fuck into dat shit. But i did manage somehow. Once our crazy-ass asses moved ta Mumbai n' i took up a non-teachin thang, dressin became free n' easy as fuck. Our thugged-out asses don’t deal wit hustas; our crazy-ass asses don’t have ta impress anybody.

Rini Tochhawng - book up in hand

Two, no, almost four muthafuckin years since tha projec' started out…and nearly three since I became a part of it fo' realz. And todizzle, I hold tha book up in mah hand. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! Unexpected. Our thugged-out asses had been communicatin frequently enough while tha publication was up in process. But complete silence once tha manuscript n' cover literature was finally approved. Y'all KNOW dat shit, muthafucka! When tha big-ass sack was collected from tha Post Office todizzle, I had no idea what tha fuck it could be. Especially since mah addiction ta online hustlin finally forced mah crazy ass ta surrender mah cardz ta Mom, I consider mah dirty ass almost “unsurprisable” by periodic deliveries. But todizzle, todizzle, I had tears up in mah eyes.

Even poems are funny…

Lalteii Cherrie Chhangte - Lament of tha Scorned

I be yo' Jezebel,

Da curse yo ass spit up

Along wit tha blood red

Juice of betel dat

I be Delilah,

Yo Crazy-Ass downfall.

I be yo' sticky-icky-icky,

Yo Crazy-Ass shame,

Yo Crazy-Ass reluctant high.

I be tha discarded,

Da one yo ass stone

Bd Chawngthu - Fine

Come n' gone tha moon

Like rizla up in tha monsoon

Full may it be tonight

Round up in all itz sight

No matta where our crazy-ass asses ludd

All it mattas is us

Sanga Says - and a guava tree

for all mah Riatsamthiah playas,

though none of yo ass read and care fo' poetry

'yes, dis is it,' he holla'd, 'I be shizzle of it

 this is tha spot where Helu fell.

 right here, not dis concrete

Baruk Feddabonn - It is she

for tha sun, tha sun

she is outside of her hiding

and tha rizla is pimpin

with a elsewhere

and lata there is ghon be a comin backtion,

and mo' celebratonic

Lal Zam Mawia Sailo - Ka lukhum

My fuckin hat is da most thugged-out devine hat up in tha ghetto

Of all tha thangs I have

I ludd mah hat da most thugged-out

Itz a neat n' keen hat

It has mah deepest ludd.

Itz colour is black

I can even wore it ta Church.

It gives mah crazy ass shades from tha scorchin sun

I just adore mah hat

And so ta mah hat i say " i ludd you, mah dope hat".

Chp 431. Food Fusion – Part II

This is the next part of my Food Fusion post. You can read the previous part here - Food Fusion Part I. For those who came in late, Food Fusion is a series of posts where I show photos of my special mix of dried bekang (fermented beans), nghapih (shrimp paste) and vaihmarcha rawt dip (special chilly powder) mixed with non-Mizo dishes, conjuring up a delicious mouth watering taste.

Before I begin, here is a picture of the nghapih I’m using… I keep it in the fridge.



So as I mentioned in my previous post, I discovered one particular combination of this dish with other dish that tastes HEAVENLY, so here’s a step by step method on how I prepare this wonderful concoction (I think I should probably patent my ingredients before some rich corporate steals my idea and makes millions out of it :P )

I call this, the BoonKangPih.

First, keep all the ingredients ready



Now heat around 50ml of water… the quantity depends on how many people are going to eat, sometimes it can be less, sometimes more.



Take roughly 2-3 tbsp of bekang (since I am making it for one serving) and throw the dried fermented beans into the boiling water…



As the bekang water boils, take one tablespoon of chilly powder and add to the pan. As I have mentioned before, this is special chilly powder from Mizoram, extremely spicy, at least 5 times spicier than the regular chilly powder you get outside North East India.



After that, add three pinches of salt to taste…



Now that everything is finely boiling, add one tbsp of the main ingredient nghapih…



Stir well. Make sure the nghapih is properly mixed with the bekang. Also make sure the kitchen exhaust fan is switched on, lolz.



Once everything is properly mixed, switch off the flame and leave it as it is for around 5 minutes. The dried bekang will slowly soak in the water.



Now comes the next big thing -> Take out freshly made Boondi raita from the fridge and mix the bekang-nghapih to it! Thaa daaaa… my scrumptious BOON-KANG-PIH dish is now ready!!!! The sudden mixture of cold and hot elements reacts to add extra flavor to this dish, leaving an awesome long lasting after taste in your mouth!



It goes extremely well with alu paratha…



But since I had been having parathas quite regularly, this time I decided to try it with mutton biryani… Oh Thy Godddd, it was sooo freaking awesome!!!!





So that’s it… you have just witnessed the creation of my boonkangpih (pronounced Boon - Kang - Pih :P ) and hope you get to try it out one day too… Take care :)


BONUS:

I tried out this dish yesterday and it was really good too. Bekang+Nghapih mixed with South Indian dishes like medu vada, steamed idli and rava masala dosa. The mixture especially goes well with coconut chutney, a must try!





Cheers :)

Chp 430. Food Fusion – Part I

I mentioned in my earlier rant - How Mizo am I? that I don’t fancy a lot of our traditional Mizo dishes, but when it comes to bekang and nghapih, I’d… get down on my knees and plead with it, cross a million oceans, climb the highest mountains and swim the longest river just to taste it (Sorry for stealing your line, Shakin’ Stevens :P )

Bekang is fermented beans and nghapih is shrimp paste. And yeah, they have a really pungent smell aroma, especially when boiled together. So imagine my sheer joy when my niece Eunice returned to Mumbai from her vacation in Mizoram and got me some bekang and nghapih!

I invited Eunice and her roommate over for the weekend, since she hadn’t even seen my new pad after moving in here. They loved my new apartment.



The one in green is my niece. But even her roomie ended up calling me “Pu Kim” (Uncle Kima) as well, which my flat-mate Sid found hilarious, until the next day when they were leaving for their hostel, they said goodbye to Sid - “Bye Uncle Sid”. The expression on his face was even funnier! :D

And so here are the things she got for me!!!



Yum yummmm… Lots of bekang, nghapih and hot-and-spicy-as-hell Mizo chilly powder…

From that day onwards, I’ve been preparing bekang + nghapih + chilly “chutney” mix every time I eat, no matter what the dish is.

It goes so well with Rice + ghee + paneer bhurji + friend eggs!



With Dahi Kadhi (yoghurt curry) too it goes extremely well. In fact the curd counters the spiciness of the bekang chilly mix perfectly, moderating my consumption just the way I wanted.



Below is my bekang + nghapih chutney with Dal Khichdi. Ahhhh lovely it is. Simple and yet so tasty.



The next one is one of my favorites – Bekang and nghapih with chicken biryani, bhoondi raita and dry mutton  dish. It’s a taste you’ve never tasted before, I can guarantee that. A must try!



The other day, my neighbor Mapuii came over to my apartment, bringing some of our Mizo traditional Bai she made. Since our cook had already made dinner (matar paneer masala), I mixed our dinner with her dinner, and of course added my trademark bekang + nghapih chutney. Tres delicious mes amis!



But the best is still yet to come. I “discovered” the perfect combination last night, so I will update about that on the next part of this post, with step by step photos on how I prepare my bekang + nghapih mix. If you’re a Mizo, I recommend you try bekang with all the non-Mizo dishes I’ve mentioned above, it’s really good. And if you’re a non-Mizo and a foodie, I really hope you get to try our bekang delicacy one day, that is, if you are adventurous (and courageous) enough to try out completely new cuisines.

So until next post then. Cheers!

Chp 429. The silence that is reminiscent

As I sit typing this post, everything is eerily quiet outside my bedroom window. Save for the continuous cawing of crows, silence has overtaken my environment. The irritating throttle sound of motor engines passing by, the annoying noise of horns honking through, the conspicuous racket of people shouting or chattering, all absent today. Life around my apartment has come to an abrupt halt, devoid of any activity. 

Our drawing room faces the sea, a romantic picturesque view especially during a sunset, but unfortunately my bedroom doesn’t. It faces the back alley of a busy commercial street frequented by Bandra’s high society la-di-da shoppers during the day and drunken revelers late in the night. But today, all is quiet. Quiet because of the death of Bal Thackaray. All shops and restaurants were shut, as a mark of respect to the Marathi leader and also as a precautionary measure against vandalism.

Listening to this unusual silence, I suddenly felt nostalgic. This exact silence triggered memories from the past and ushered them to come flooding back. As Dr. Spencer Reed from “Criminal Minds” said, sometimes certain sound or smell can trigger repressed memories from the past. I guess this is it. The sound took me back to my school days when I had to force myself to study, and the only other distraction was the sound of crows cawing. Everything else was deadly silent.

And then suddenly I felt as if I was transported back to those days. And I saw myself 20 years ago seeing the future version of me and envying me, for I no longer needed to study. 

Did that little me ever imagined how my life would have been like now? Throughout my school life, I always thought I’ll become a doctor. Not because I wanted to be a doctor but rather because my parents wanted me to become one. Did that little me ever imagined I’d be working in India’s top digital advertising agency today, drinking and partying almost every night, having an extremely flexible lifestyle while making decisions and strategies that could be profitable for some of the most reputed companies in India? I’m sure not. I saw that little me envying me because I no longer had to study.

And that’s how the particular sound affected me. I was “LUNGLENG”, a mizo term we use when we miss something… or someone… or some time and event in our faded pasts… desolation, I guess that word would best describe it…

Oh how I used to hate studying those days. And my folks always used to push me to my limit because they said I could be successful in life only if I studied hard enough. So many nights I would sneak under my blanket in our hostel dormitory with a torchlight learning a new chapter or two because I didn’t want my friends I was competing with to know that I was studying. My folks instilled fear in me, the fear of being a drop-out, the fear of becoming unsuccessful in life.

Many years later, I did drop out, from a Post Graduate a course. And yet, I don’t think I have failed in life. Of course it is still too early to weigh my success, but at the rate that I’m going, I think I’m pretty much successful so far. I look at my close friends working in our agency, and most of them are drop-outs too, including the CEO and Co-Founder of our company, and yet they’re one of the most creative and brilliant minds I have come across. I’m not glorifying drop-outs here, but I have come to realize things aren’t that bad if one fails, and that there is still so much hope at the end of the rainbow.

If I was to go back to that time and era, would I do anything differently? Or would I follow this trodden path because this is exactly who I want to be? Have you ever asked yourself that? Would you do anything differently in your past given that you could go back in time?

Much silence conjures many questions.

…

Chp 428. Hello Saddam!

Say hello to Saddam, our new 1 month old Beagle.



Being a pure breed Beagle and being bred by one of the most renowned and trusted breeders in Mumbai, he came at a heavy price tag of 35,000. Throw in all the items he will require like his chewey toys, food stock, medicines, brushes, food bowl etc, the final cost came to almost 45K. That’s like… 118 full bottles of Old Monk rum! Let’s hope the kick and high we will get from him is better than 118 Old Monk bottles. :D

We took him back to office from the pet store and he ate…



slept…



and played with the mop that our office boy was using to clean his pee.



Ah yes, that’s one big difference between Gaddafi and Saddam. Gaddafi, like most cats, craps and pees in the litter box instinctively. They don’t need to be trained. Saddam on the other hand, is not yet toilet trained, and so our house is currently covered with newspapers.





And speaking of Gaddafi, the cat is EXTREMELY SCARED of Saddam. The moment he saw Saddam yesterday, quick as lightning he scooted immediately as if he saw a ghost and scurried up my flatmate’s shirt, clawing him tightly and shivering uncontrollably! The poor soul. :-(

And so we decided to keep the two apart until Gaddafi stops being scared of Saddam, hence I had to sleep with my bedroom door locked with Gaddafi inside (along with his food and water bowl and his litter box). As I said goodnight to him, he was neatly tucked in under my bed. And then when I woke up this morning and opened my eyes, this was the first thing I saw, lolz!



Yeah, shameless and cute at the same time. :-)

Coming back to the breeder, his shop is called “Oh My Dog!!!” and he knows A LOT about dogs. He gave us an hour long lecture on how to treat our new dog, what to feed, when to feed, when to give medicines, when to bathe etc etc… Sid was doing most of the listening while half the time I was taking pictures of his store. Here are some of the pics…













Here is the breeder giving Sid a lecture…



And here are some of the goodies we bought for the bratty little shitting and peeing machine…



BONUS: This here is a pure breed blue-eyed Siberian Husky. He comes at an atrocious price tag of Rs. 75,000/- But he’s super cute and adorable!



So here’s to many sleepless nights and tiresome days ahead of whining and perpetually hungry puppy and kitten who, to make things worse, don’t get along with each other. Cheers!