The Zombie Killings - Jasoos Metro Singh Case stories (unfinished draft)

It was a case of re-murder which was the culprit behind Metro's interrupted siesta. This was definitely not a good omen, for Metro severly disliked anyone , or anything breaking his siesta.Kitty was going to pay dearly for this, he swore.

  He tried sleeping once again, thinking that this was probably a crank call , but when his GhanChakkar rang once more , singing that horribly irritating ad jingle about ZomCreme ( Eternal Shine for that ravaged zombie skin !! ting tong !! )

He just had it !!!! why didn't kitty pick up the damn call ??

Rubbing his Dry, redddening eyes (forgot those damn eyedrops again !) and cursing Kitty in seven languages, Metro activated the GhanChakkar.

"Kitty !!! Kitttyyyyyyy!!! Damn you, you ugly kitten !!......."No meows in reply... she must have gone to hunt. Seemed that she had relapsed again. 

  Kitty was a genetically enhanced secretary cat which his mum had gifted him when he started his detective agency. His mum , the only person that believed in him ( god bless her unzombified soul), must be sorely disappointed in him right now, Metro thought dejectedly.

Unfortunately, Kitty was one of the earlier editions the company brought out (Gen I ) and had this recurring problem of reverting back to her animalistic nature, and going wild once again. She went off at times to hunt a mouse, leaving her desk, and his calls unattended....

  The Company offered a solution, an injection which temporarily restored the genetic codes... but it cost money.....and money was a distant dream these days....

"You have a virtual visitor" The GhanChakkar AI (artificial intelligence) announced in typical fake cheery voice.

  " The Hell!!" he croaked. " This better not be  one of those Zombie Baba Bhakt Enlisters... or those Zombie Revivalist Nuts.... or I'd kill them with my virtual hands, if I find out they've disturbed my beauty sleep"

Jasoos Metro Singh ( JaMeS in short, to his friends ) was no handsome hero though... he had no beauty, so no beauty sleep was requited .... standing at 5'1 ( with his platform shoes ) stubby  and balding in his late thirties, Metro's only defining feature was his prominent nose ( explained his nosiness, thus the choice of profession :P..) and , of course, the name ..Metro...

   Loving his mum might be, but she really drew the short straw while deciding the name of her only son. The reason ?... She owed her,and her newborn son's life to Delhi Metro... after all, it was the staff, and her co-pasangers, who delivered the baby boy in this world.... on board a metro from Rithala To Chawdi Baazar ......

And now , when he had seen the end of world as we knew , with the dead walking amongst us again and zombies no longer a fiction of kid's storybooks, Metro was sure none of these things mattered anyways.... people had now been shocked beyond shocking....  

  A name like metro singh...  quite normal , actually , considering that half the world's population is dead, and doesn't know it....

                                         But the world moved on.... humans are a resilent race, nothing could shock us for long....        

Now we have Zombie sterelization centres ( to desensetize your domesticated, or near and dear zombies lower jaw, making them no longer an active threat ).....        

We have Zombie Daycare centres , zombie lost and found beaureaus , zombie skin creams ( stops dead zombie skin from flaking ! )......                                                         

        Trust us humans to take an apocalypse, and make money out of it......

For Metro, who always just scraped by, last few months have been difficult.... no new cases, no domesticated zombie abductions, no jealous husbands suspecting their wives having an affair with neighbor's mindless zombie husband (True ! as far as discreet goes, domesticated zombies are the best bet in town ,fabulous for an illicit relationship... no mind to speak of... and no mouth jo jabber your secrets away !!! ).....

           not even missing zombie cases....

  His bills were piling up.. kitty was going wild... and.. and....

  The caller was a lady.... or not... since it was a virtual call, you were never sure... her avatar was of a lady though... an old fashioned one at that.... wearing a saree... a dress not much in vougue these days ( a wild zombie running behind you, wearing a saree maakes you zombie fodder most of the time.... duh......)

" Jasoos Metro Singh at your service maam, how can I help you ?..." he said in his best courteous manner , a task very difficult to him these days.

" My... my late husband is missing......I... I am afraid ... he.......he has been killed once again....." She said in a hesistant, but cultured and compoesd tone....... 

A patient review by an Impatient Guy : Chakravyuh

"Oops................Sorry Kabeer !!"

Best lines of the film , when trigger happy Esha Gupta shoots Abhay Deol in the end.
The scene was supposed to be tragic but it ended up being damned funny !!

That's the biggest problem with Prakash Jha's (supposedly) hard hitting Chakravyuh. It takes a real, live , contemporary topic, and deals with it in a very amateurish, bollywood-y kind of way ( kind of like Sanjay Dutt Starrer Disaster 'Lamha'or Hritik starrer bigger disaster 'mission kashmir')

Much of the blame lies on wooden casting of Esha Gupta and Arjun Rampal. While Abhay Deol and Manoj Bajpayi stole the show, even they could not cover up the deadpan and painfully sub-par acting of others.

The story, on the other hand, could be lifted from any of the 80's potboilers... Corrupt politicians and industrialists, hand in glove policemen, and robin hood-ish , holier than thou Maoists.

Mr Jha, we, the audience are not 10 year old kids. If we want potboilers, we have enough number of mindless Salman-Akshay-Shahrukh starrer blunders already. Didn't expect this from maker of Mritydand and Gangajal.....

PS : Cool Chetak Helicopter Stunts in the end made my Day.....!!! Go Go helicopter pilots :)))

PS1 : The movie seemed like a propaganda movie 4 maoists....c'mon man, show the other side of coin too !!

PS2 : the Item number 'kunda khol' : worst item number EVER !! ugh !!

Moral of the story : give a girl a gun , and she'll kill the protagonist of the story :D.....

A Boy,a mike and the Millennium

Browsing through video clip of songs in my inventory, I came across an old favorite – ‘waiting for tonight’ by JLo. For those of you who don’t know, it was the song released especially during the turn of the millennium and still looks fresh and foot tappable. As I saw JLo gyrating among the laser strobes in lush jungles, my thoughts inadvertently crossed over to good ‘ol days. What was ‘I’ doing during this historic event? Where was I…….? And I remembered…..

Some quick mathematics (which is never my strong suite, so slash out quick) helped me remember that I was in class ninth, going on tenth, hardly 15, and was trying to grow a wimpy moustache! Dad was still the provider, the authority figure and we were secure in our knowledge that come what may, he’d handle it. In other words, we were carefree.

I was quite new in town (a year old, to be exact) and like it had always happened before, already working on the ritual of making new friends. Girls were a species not yet discovered (at least by me).

So, big hoopla, new millennium, a once in a lifetime happening, Jlo’s new song coming up, a quickly catching habit of devouring new novels and Hollywood movies, and world just opening up. What to do? Such moments come once in a thousand years, surely I was not gonna waste it sitting in my room watching sad old performers on Doordarshan while people all over world were going Gaga ! What would I tell my future generations? ... No way….

It was time to do something radical, but I was severely limited in my options. In our sleepy little town called Vidisha, there was no place for a decent party, let alone a joint for jamming. I decided that we best manage from what resources we have, rather than crib about it, and an Idea was born.

First task – deciding the venue. This was a no-brainer. Where else would I go? It was to be my terrace. We needed mom’s refreshments (caterer) , sound system(own) , and most importantly, a budget-free place(our budget wouldn’t even get us a small room anywhere, let alone a hall… pocket money used to be meant for very small pocket, you know). The tent was courtesy dad’s office, decorations were paper cuttings and balloons , and with the music system and mom’s catering service, we were in business!

Looking back now, the whole crazy idea – Dad’s office’s worn-up tent, mom’s homemade snacks ,and the wacky sound system from downstairs – it looked like a premise never meant to go off, but how it did!! My younger brother gate crashed the party, (c’mon, teenagers also have some standards, including kids in your party was below them!), and after stern orders from the catering management, we were forced to let them in. It dawned on us later on that it was not so bad, little buggers added zing to the party, more the merrier.

What followed was a madcap caper, including out of tune karaoke singers, monkey-style dancing, yelling and loud din, all out of an old worn out tent in a sleepy little colony in a backwater town. In our own small way, we connected with the world, carried our first event management ourselves, and gave our cranky old neighbors a headache, all at once!

And not a nickel spent on bitchy dates or a brawl with the bouncer at an overpriced joint!!!

Footloose : In the Wild..

Gwalior is a place strongly associated with my childhood memories. Memories of Badi Mummy, my grandmother's younger sister, but as openhearted and larger than life than my own grandma comes unbidden in my mind. I could almost taste the delicious homemade murabbas which she used to make. Well I was on my way back to the memories now, and passing the Chambal Valley was another step closer to my destination.

TheValley of Chambal, a huge tract of wasteland spanning states of UP and MP , is a place infamous for its dacoits, but if you cross it on road, instead of a distant, distrustful and furitive glance by a train, or an aerial look-see, you will notice the natural beauty of the stark naked mounts and hillocks seamlessly merging with each other- streching up to infinity. The serene Chambal river flowing through it lends it a surreal charm and the ancient bridge and the vistas it beheld made me stop the bike enroute and take in all this beauty in for a minute.A new bridge was alrady under construction next to it which showed amid other things,that the 21st century has finally arrived in this forgotten land.
Nested amidst the chambal valley , looking in all sense like a wild west frontier was one of my old haunts- Morena . I barely remember the two years I spent here as a kid, though some montages peek through the thick curtain of lost time. The sweet taste of Gajjak for which morena is famous for, and chuski, which doesn't lay claim to that kind of fame, but is even more delectable when eaten on roadside 'thelas'.
The premise looks deceptively simple: grate a slab of ice into crushings, pour on a thick layer of 'rabri'(concentrated milk) on it and top it off with sugar syrup. Simple recipe, but the result....oh the result is heavenly. And mind you it is way different (and better) than its country cousin (also named chuski) which is sold over thelas in rest of india(there's no rabri in those chuskis, just crushed ice and flavoured syrup..) Concoted and delivered to you courtesy a mustachioed guy who is probably some distant cousin of a dacoit (I mean it - even some rickshawwallas claim the dubious relation) in an earthenware 'Diya'. A sip from lip of the diya propels you to heaven as the rabri melts with ice and syrup and forms a sweet symphony in your mouth.
It was time to reminisisce. I did not have the good luck of having a chuski, the trip being in winter and all, but I took along a truckload of Morena's special Gajjaks for Badi Mummy.

An added bonus was spotting my old school ; still the same despite added floors and new furnishings. I was the privilaged kid here: my mother was a revered teacher and I was one of the star kids, first in my class , first in all co-curricular activities(a situation which i soon remedied..much to my parent's dismay). i did not have time to check out if my old teachers were still stuck in this time warp, let alone remember their faces, lost in time. So I moved on, after all, Gwalior, and my Grannny's murrabbas were waiting....

Footloose : the next step...

There I was, on the first leg of my first road trip- It started with many gliches, but by the end I was satisfied by the progress.

No brushes with disaster, no (big) goofups, and Agra just within grasp - my first step in a thousand odd km long journey home and my first tentative steps towards my aim - to travel far and wide across India.

Most of the time my Dreams are larger than life, just like Mungerilal, an eponymous telly character which my Mausi refererred to me as jokingly when i seemed too lost in my daydreams.One of the first to strike my fantasy was to roam around the world, to see it- to feel it, a yearning quite beyond any sane reason. I mean, what does this dream practically achieve? nothing but personal gratification.

But my personal freedom and the belief that I can carry out this long journey by myself was to be the first step towards realising that goal.

Moreover, It would convince my reluctant parents that i can be trusted on my own now, something they still could not believe after even

nearly quarter century of existance and five years of independent job.

So In short, I was just day dreaming of this triumphant phonecall I'd give to my startled and worried parents when tragedy struck - Murphy out to exact his revenge.

Till now I had under estimated the Power of UP PWD. I was getting too used to Delhi's glacial smooth highways et al.

So when I encountered a stray Cow, loose stone peppered road and a sharp turn , all at once, along with my fugue state of mind, it was a sure recipe for disaster. My trusted bike couldn't hold the ground, even with her wide treads, and skidded. After that, everything

seemed to go in a slow-mo. I could see my bag (which I foolishly loosned from its bindings & strapped on my back, resulting in an ever

shifting center of gravity- one more cause to the loss of balnce) breaking away from me and tarvelling dangerously close to the open

nullah at the other side of road and instead of thinking about my state, which was rapidly turning from bad to worse, i strangely recall

thinking - that bag continues on itas merry way and all my belongings will be literally down in the gutter.

A stage finally came when the bike gained its own free will And I had to let it go; i skidded and stopped midway on the road. the bike went

further, fuelled by its own momentum, and stopped.

Shock and dim realisation overcame the horror of it all and I slowly gained my wits about me.I some how got all my

belongings togather, and finally took a good look at myself.

My jeans was tornat the knees, blood was beginning to seep out. Okay. Shallow cuts and bruises, no fractures.My jacket saved my shoulder,

but it was ruined - so were my shoes. My helmet, I think it might have saaved my life, it bore the burnt of a hard hit. I was shaken, but not

stirred...=D..

My bag was thankfully lying just at the edge of nullah, holding itself there by sheer willpower, i quickly retrieved it , limping along all the way.

people now started to gather. Thank fully the road was deserted, no traffic to overrun a fallen biker.

Now I turned towards the bike with trepedition. I picked it up. The leg guard and the handle has taken all the burnt , she was relatively unharmed.

I gave a sigh of relief.

I was still a few kms away from uncle's house and It just wouldn't do to have gone in present state. I decided on Impulse(like everything I do...=D)

to chuck away the torn shoes, keep the jacket and Jeans in the bag and don another one. The shoes were one of my favourites, anew addition, but they

were useless to me now.

I found a deserted spot and changed. The blood was now coagulating - I could do nothing about it; macho maan seemingly had forgotten to carry a first

aid kit.

I dragged my sorry ass finally to Uncle's house, defeated, sure that the story will leak to home but determined to keep it a secret.

Uncle welcomed me with open arms.I could hardly believe it was years before I saw him, he seemed just the same.My cousin had grown up from a toddler

to a scrawny little troublemaker....=D....

As I had feared, the stiff knee and the limp gave me away, but I made light of the incident. The knee got its dressing and the ears got their due share

of admonitions.Tentatively, I called home and relayed a heavily sanitised version of incidents. at the end of all the verbal volleys , taers, and

I told you so's I could not believe my ears when i got a green signal for next leg!- with many cautions and warnings of course.....

The evening went by fast.my cousin was adorable and a master of video games...=D.... My acute knowledge of comics came in very handy as i narrated

many of the superhero tales and got the undivided attention of a raptured audience.I realised at the end of the day when he was safely tucked in bed

by aunty, despite his many protests, that despite knowing anyone for a really short time, kids judge you very accurately. They either like you . or not.

there is no middle ground, and you cannot do much about it. They have an inbuilt Bullshitmeter, they can sense it and keep a distance.

The next day I was stiff and sore but ready to roar.I woke up early, the next leg had to be started early in the morn, Gwaliior was 50 - 100 km further

than delhi -Agra leg.I bade goodbye to uncle about the same time my cousin was readying up for school and I was off. Next stop - Gwalior where I had another set

of long lost relatives and friends to reconnect with.This trip was turning out to be a journey for rehashing old bonds and exploring new vistas. I was really happy.

FootLoose on NH1..

How do you explain the urge to go on a nonsensical trip which clearly serves no sane purpose whatsoever- to a set of relatives and well wishers who seem intent upon not letting you repeat the 'nonsensical whims' they've indulged in their youth themselves?
You are utterly overconfident in your persuasion skills if you think you can do the mammoth task.

All things said and done , i finally embarked on the trip not by the virtue of reasoning, but by a sneak exit from Delhi...
So you are finally out of the coop , your bag tied up neatly behind , the machine roaring under your loins , and miles of uncharted (at least according to me) stretch of road ahead.
Being the smartest planner you are, you've perfectly forgotten the earphones for the mp3, which are comfortably nesting in the depths of the bag right now. Well, at least fm will last you till the city limits.....
Now you've been instructed to give an a-ok every two hr or so to the higher HQs lest they think you've met with the most gruesome accident ever imagined - one of the countless examples you've been told about happening every 'second' on the highway. You dutifully carry out the obligations.
Again the first stoppage in your iternary is Agra where you're still not sure of where you'll lodge ,again a loss of foresight but you've got two options in mind- a stay at an uncle's place which you've not visited last...what eight years....?..(you don't even know he's in the town or not.)....

...or you'll find lodging at a friend who may or may not be posted in Agra.

Now I knew that's not a very reassuring picture, but the journey...ah the freedom , cruising at 100kmph on a nearly deserted NH1.....it relieves one of much of worldly worries....a real high for those who feel the rush.
The Gods are truly smiling....100 km past delhi, no incident,and the friend turned up well and thriving in Agra...even having an empty room his buddy vacated when he recently went on leave.... even the uncle was in town , leaving me with two options. I decided to fulfill familial obligations first;
I should have known things were going TOO smoothly in my Murphy's account book....

is anyone else out there sick of what's on telly..?

i mean , i have to grab a book or a mag..or really excuse myself when i'm sitting with frens watching tailored shows like voice of india,or any of those dance shows,or any reality show for that matter.....are we so gullible?

when wwf first came to telly in india ppl thought it was real..later on we termed it as kiddish when we hit the truth,ppl grew out of it.then came saaas bahu serials and ppl liked it,i can't believe now that even i was hooked to kyonki.. for a year...and then they started resurrectin mihir and i thought..wtf!!! and it went downwards from there.now reality show and talent show trends are catching on, serial actors play ram and ravan in same style...saas bahu style...what can you expect when balaji remakes ramayan....

so i turn to fantasy...aaand its the same cast there also, same prehistoric flashy costumes ,90's animation technique,overacting,loud predictable background score....my god!!! is indian telly going to sink in cesspit??

i'd rather watch lost or heroes(at least i get to see one token indian performing well there than the whole cast spewing vomit here).........

only a few serials can be termed as silver or gold....take office office for insatnce(though it is getting past its prime now), or the snippts we sometimes see in mtv...cyrus...flashes of rare inspiration....spoofs....

and i don't want to get started on our news channels.....that is another story, and considering thats real news,the fourth pillar we're talking about,it's a sad state of affairs for us indians.....

i know i rant too much ..............but cribbing is our birthright and i just do this to vent out my feelings.....so let it fall to deaf ears ; or none at all......................