THE INCREDIBLE SULK RETURNS AND SHIT

The Incredible Sulk isn't exactly the brightest bulb in whatever the collective noun for a group of lightbulbs is. At the best of times he walks around with a dull, dim-witted expression on his face. That sort of hangdog look on his face. Quite what a hangdog is the Incredible Sulk doesn't know. Possibly some sort of doggy executioner. He worries not with trivial matters such as these, safe in the knowledge that such is the expression on his face.

But bright and sharp aren't attributes the Incredible Sulk is attributed with (the Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend noddingly interjects, knowingly stroking her chin; She has much to say on the matter).

(But it's MY blog so Booyah!!!)

The Incredible Sulk's dim witted expression is hard to fathom you say. Well...picture if you will a man of average intelligence. Now ask him how Sharukh Khan and rickshaw drivers who don't want to go anywhere make money. That fair maidens and scruffy looking men is what the Incredible Sulk's permanent face-state is. So it's little wonder then that when The Incredible Sulk (who is slave to autocorrect who is master of when the 'T' in the Incredible Sulk is uppercase, lowercase etc etc) is ridiculed frequently. How could they?!?! my loyal reader(s?) cries. Blasphemy! you spew forth, drowning The Incredible Sulk's enemies in a flood of your spittle. Foul! you cry, little knowing this isn't a game of football and you're looking at the wrong screen my dear befuddled chap.

But it is true dear reader. Sad, but true.

In recent times-like today-The Incredible Sulk was ridiculed for deriving philosophy from a movie that intellectuals believed was far beneath their plane of thought. A plane of thought of Ship of Theseus and Thateus. A movie that The Incredible Sulk's Incredibly Useless Research Department dubbed "This Season's Most Watched Movie That Will Only End Next Season." Far beneath the plane of intellectual thought that included a movie like "Lincoln", said to be "Movie That Shouldn't Be Watched While Operating Heavy Machinery" & "Movie That Should Have Remained A Car" by The Incredible Sulk's Incredibly Useless Research Department.

Lincoln.
Navigator. 

These very same intellectuals scoffed at The Incredible Sulk for putting forth the theory that there might be some philosophy in After Earth. They scoffed dear reader and sniffed their noses in that haughty way, haughty people sniff and scoff. They put a dainty index finger and manicured thumb through a fine china cup of tea and drank deeply. They dipped cream scones and dusted the crumbs onto The Incredible Sulk's face. They thought his mouth wasn't open. Ha!

A Haughty Man. Umm..Woman. Basically A Haughty. 

The Incredible Sulk's apparent folly was to use a quote from the Will Smith & Family starrer that ran as such:
"Fear is not real. The only place that fear can exist is in our thoughts of the future. It is a product of our imagination, causing us to fear things that do not at present and may not ever exist. That is near insanity. Do not misunderstand me danger is very real but fear is a choice."
The Incredible Sulk as his reader(s?) and building night watchman knows is terrified of dogs. However on repeating this quote to himself and drinking copious amounts of alcohol The Incredible Sulk managed to overcome The Not Real Fear and ended up chasing said dogs and did other questionable things to mark territory and empty bladder. The Incredible Sulk would however miss out on a crucial part in the quote. The Very Real Danger part of the quote. The Incredible Sulk misunderstood. And was subsequently chased by said dogs.

Which is not to say that The Incredible Sulk hasn't learnt anything. He has learnt that Will Smith had to say "fear" four times in that quote. He has also learnt that those who scoff and sniff usually end up having serious sinus issues and ultimately end up laughing like Janice from Friends. This alleviates The Incredible Sulk's dim witted look from time to time. Aaaaaand it's back again.

ARYABHATTA WAS SINGLE

While debate rages on over whether this single-cloth clothed man (how and why) spelt his name with one or two Ts (ironic for a single-cloth clothed man); the Incredible Sulk's Incredibly Useless Research Department decided to undertake a study as to whether this uni-clothed man was hitched. 

Aryabhata/Aryabhatta as you surely don't know, since you'll are the famed Generation Zzzzzzz, was a famous mathematician. As I hear loud groans and moans I realise that the Incredible Sulk's audience is distinctly uninterested in this drab subject. That accounts for the groans only. With raised eyebrow The Incredible Sulk must deduce and put the moans down to the fact that one of the Incredible Sulk's little flock is naughty, naughty.

But I deviate like a ballet dancer with two left feet. Aryabhata was a famous mathematician. Apart from having won the Most Trippy 6th Standard Textbook Illustration award for 10 years in a row he is known for the use of zero . Although he never really used the zero symbol (0). No. That went to some bright soul who couldn't draw a proper circle. He also is known for the approximation of Pi.

"Or as he is better known, Piscine Patel," The Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend interjects. As The Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend espouses the qualities of the visual orgy that was Life of Pi the Incredible Sulk's Incredibly Useless Research Department has all the research it needs to carry on research into the personal life of Aryabhat(t)a. 

It is this unasked for soliloquy on the part of The Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend that has led to The Incredible Sulk to believe that Aryabhat(t)a, single T or no, was a single man. Let us look at a few points of discussion then (only the second time that The Incredible Sulk has ever said that. The first time was at a Junior Church Youth Group meeting consisting of 1 person)

The first so-called point of discussion is inevitably The Zero(ironically). Any man inspired by the opposite sex would have dedicated his Eureka moment of discovering the zero to a woman. The modern-day zero symbol looks something like this - 0. Which not only looks like the sensous curves of a woman but looks uncannily like that part of a woman that....

(The Incredible Sulk takes momentary pause here for the simple fact that Google's Eyes are now rested upon the Incredible Sulk's back, finger hovering dangerously close to that Ages 18+ button.)

...looks like a shapely belly button.

(Good save, good save)

The second and most important point was the fact that Aryabhat(t)a wrote his most famous work, Aryabhatiya, which is not vain at all, at the tender age of 23. I must confess my ignorance for the way people lived back then primarily due to the fact that my I was still but a thought in SKYNETs' Human Embryo Development Strategy. And that I wasn't alive at the time. But even at the age of 23 my uneducated guess was that there were some boys who would steal out late from the ashram at night to peek across the wall to where the girly ashram was. 

But not Aryabhat(t)a. Oh no. He was diligently working on a mathematical piece of art that would shape the Trigonometry and Algebra that would ultimately make me opt for 'Arts' stream. Bloody nerds. Not for him were the distractions of the flesh or sneaking peeks into the loose brick at the girly ashram's showers.

The Incredible Sulk's Incredibly Useless Research Department is also inclined to deduce that if Aryabhatta were not single he would have created a seperate number system for the opposite sex.

The Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend raises an eyebrow at this juncture, a particularly difficult manouevre and akin to animals behaving weird before natural catastrophes. But the Incredible Sulk persists, bravely ignoring the facial expressions and the Maori war paint the Imaginary Girlfriend daubs on, sharpening her battle axe at the same time.

You see, the opposite sex operates on a completely different number scale. The Incredible Sulk reminisces about the time he got ready for a movie/wedding/work in 10 minutes flat. However said duration of 10 minutes does not exist in the opposite sex's lexicon of numerical phrases. For although the Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend remonstrates that it indeed takes her 10 minutes to get ready, it would seem that her new Titan watch be stuck in some sort of time warp. For, till date, it has not taken her less than 45 minutes to "get ready." I use this term loosely as by "get ready" I mean "drag her out." 

Oh Aryabhat(t)a! How hast thou failed thine own sex!
For if you were you to tread the road that would have led you to lead a life forever betrothed you would have realised. I present to you oh not-so-discerning-reader my last focus group. They are the men strewn outside trial rooms, laden with the spoils of clothes yet to be tried on, usually a drooling baby or naughty twin boys hanging off the other arm. Vacant, blank looks on their faces.Their morbid existence is broken every 2 minutes by a voice that says, "This size doesn't fit me. I'm not a size 28 anymore." Whatever the answer the poor bugger decides to reply with one can be assured that hell on earth is a given for said poor bugger.

Need I say more? No. Primarily because it's nap time.

THE OBVIOUS AUNTY

The Incredible Sulk has come across many a strange species on his travels that took him to the nooks and crannies of Andheri East. On many of these voyages I have sought to document these strange species and today I seek to bestow my knowledge upon thou of that most fearsome of species, "The Obvious Aunty."

Now the Aunties I allude to here have nothing to do with aunties related to me by a bond of blood (a bond they no doubt curse), for any aunty related to me by blood has a tendency to whack one on the head, if one gets too obvious. Older people look at The Incredible Sulk and shake their head, offer their pity and say, "he must have been dropped on his head when he was a baby." But the asses are sadly mistaken. The result of The Incredible Sulk's idiotacy is because of one too many whacks on the head from the steel arms of aunties related by blood.

No, no the Aunties I refer too are the type that go "tsk tsk" at the immoral youth of today and tell couple off for holding hands before marriage. That sort of aunty. Let me give you an example of a specimen of this sort of aunty that I happened to come in contact with. Picture if you will, an ATM. And a long line that leads to the ATM. An Obvious Aunty stands behind the Incredible Sulk. One of the ATM machines has a sign on cardboard that says "Out of Order." Obvious Aunty looks at said sign, then at long queue and remarks, "That's going to cause some problems."

Quite brilliant Aunty. Sherlock friggin Holmes and his emasculated assistant Dr. Watson would not have seen that coming. Oh NO Aunty, you're powers of observation far exceed that of Ms Marple's. I'm sure you'd go to an F1 race and say something like, "They are going so fast no?".

Or maybe you're the type that likes to say, "Now they won't win," when India need 45 runs of the last ball in a World Cup final. Oh! How the blood boils Aunty, how the blood boils.

You're the type that thinks Justin Bieber MIGHT be a girl when the rest of the civilized world knows otherwise. And yes Aunty, there is no small chance that Rebecca Black could be less obvious than you...and that's really saying something. Because this is the girl who had a rather Eureka moment when she realised that Saturday, did infact, come after Friday.

I see you cowering in fear. I did too when I was first faced with an Obvious Aunty. Rather like Livingstone when he was being mauled by a lion or tiger or Teletubby or some such heinous creature in the jungles of Africa. The thing to do, when faced with an Obvious Aunty is be completely random. For nothing but Utter Nonsense will stave off an Obvious Aunty. For example when she remarks needlessly about the traffic when your bus has moved 5 inches in 2 hours, greet her with a, "I wonder what time I will reach Germania and whether the 12th moon of Romulus will be housed safely in a Moratarium."

Unless of course you meet the sub-species of the Obvious Aunty.

The Obvious Aunty With 35 Cats. In which case you should run.

DRIVING MISS DAISY CRAZY

The Incredible Sulk hates you. And this is no minor dislike for you. This is real, bottom-of-the-heart type hatred.

Now before you baulk at this candid confession and come up with a charity or NGO against it, let me provide your noggin with a gentle tap (what we call a katoos) and turn your open-mouthed-in-surprise face to what this blog is called. I am The Sulk. Not the Hulk, who is green and saves people, not The Bulk who (I just made up and I'm guessing) is a genial, "healthy" man. I am The Sulk. I DON'T LIKE YOU.

Before we get sidetracked any further, let us come to WHY I hate you. I hate you with every last atom of my being. I hate your slick gear-changing-with-the-clutch-pressed-cooly thing you do. I hate the fact that you know the difference between the accelerator and the clutch. And I also HATE THE FACT that when you dabao the brake, you don't find the passengers sitting in the backseat of your car going flying through the windshield.

And you can't pass off stuff like that by saying "inertia's a bitch."

Also you're "Let's JUUUUST miss the pedestrian" routine really pisses me off. Oooooooo, so you have superior judgement. Yes YOU!! With your cool, math-calculatingy mind. With your, "Hmmm, I have 3.6 seconds till I hit that speedbumb which means I have to hit the brakes in 3.6 seconds. The squeal of my braking will last an exact 2.3455 seconds which gives me enough time to pass wind at 3.78 mph...."

Yes, we know.

And lets not forget ALL you show-offs with big cars. But then again, you know what they say about men with big cars....

That's right all you Merc, Ferrari and Jag owners. Oh and lets not forget all you rich buggers who ordered the extra-long wheelbase Maybach. You have absolutely no idea what the female psychologists at Harvard are saying about you, do you?

Oh and lets not forget all of you who drive those mini toy car thingies. You think you're so smart buying small, cheap, eco-friendly cars.

I have a suggestion. When you buy your next car, how about a rickshaw instead? You'll be eco-friendly, encourage public transport, make a quick buck. Even a friend (or axe-murderer, depends on the city) or two. But more importantly, you won't have your damn windows rolled up when I verbally abuse you, when you try and squeeze your Smurf car into an impossible space.

I'm scared of quite a few things. Dogs, unpredictable cats (they got that look in their eyes), people who KNOW they have body odour, reality checks from my imaginary girlfriend....the list is not endless but it would fill a few pages. Few things however strike fear into my very soul more than the "Undecided pedestrian." You know, those idiots who think about crossing but stop midway to (I'm guessing) weigh the pros and cons of existentialism. I'd rather face a horde of two-headed animals with a head of a dog and an unpredictable cat run by a tribe of people who shun deodrant.

The Incredible Sulk advocates driving with a helmet and recommends the Government put up signs in areas notorious for "Undecided Pedestrians." Please don't drink and drive. Please aim properly after you drink and pee.

THE INCREDIBLE SULK AND THE LOVE SHOVE

The Incredible Sulk's biggest challenge to date has been to eat that last piece of Tibbs frankie without turning the front of his t-shirt into a chicken curry plate. The last annoying piece smirking at you, taunting you as it sits ensconced in its plastic womb.

And exactly as the evil, sadistic people at Tibbs with their stupid paper hats had planned, the biggest piece of chicken with melted cheese has sunk to that last morsel of frankie. But this blogpost is not about how I think the Tibbs people plan to take over the world by distracting us with impossible to eat last frankie morsels...

(At this point the Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend thanks God that I don't hold a position of any power. Little does she know how upset the Big Boys in their leather chairs get when they don't get their morning dose of caffeine.)

So, the Incredible Sulk while obviously, not afraid of big challenges has never really been faced with a REAL challenge; thanks in good measure to Nature's wisdom of giving the weak, appropriate weapons to defend itself. In the Incredible Sulk's case, body odour.

So imagine when the Incredible Sulk's slightly underdeveloped brain was confronted with this concept of Love. At the best of times, three-letter words confound the Incredible Sulk.

You see, at the time when people's parents tell them,

"I hope you're using protection,"

The Incredible Sulk was being questioned,

"Why has the internet bill come so high this month?"

So at first when the Sulk (we already know how Incredible he is) felt this feeling in the pit of his stomach he thought it was his stomach's way of telling him that there definitely was something wrong with the Chinese bhel he had just consumed. And then the feeling moved southward and the Sulk KNEW it was his stomach's way of telling him that there WAS something wrong with that Chinese bhel.

So you see what I meant by confusing. The first time the Sulk felt the Love Shove, he wasn't sure if it was diarrhea or Love.

But worry not my lovesick confused puppies. Soiled underwear and Love are not connected. Unless...well...we won't stray down that path....

The Incredible Sulk HAS felt love, and although the aforementioned incident will not inspire confidence, the fact is you lovesick puppies are in love with girls way outta your league and you will listen to any Love Shove advice anybody gives you.

So beginning now...The Incredible Sulk starts his new segment called,

THE LOVE SHOVE

That's right. All 16 of my readers (Official ratings now put this blog higher than the "Where is Ricky Martin?" blog and "Is Virginia Woolf a canine sub-species and if so who killed them off?" blog) can now write in with their love queries and get rather unsatisfactory answers.

Leave a comment and I will get back to you. As the Incredible Sulk's Imaginary Girlfriend proves, he does know a thing or two about love.

Oh.

That's what they mean by irony.

THE INCREDIBLE SULK'S INCREDIBLY LATE MOVIE REVIEW - DIE HARD 4

First there was Die Hard 1.

("Naturally," says the Incredible Sulk's imaginary girlfriend, "otherwise it'd be called Die Hard 2.")

The Incredible Sulk's imaginary girlfriend is a bit ticked off. She got the entire Die Hard die cast original DVD set as an anniversary present. And she's not so sure it was from the heart. I try telling her, she's imaginary, what good would diamond earrings do? But she wants to go to a marriage counselor. I tell her, that the only counselors that would listen to me rave about my imaginary girlfriend would be the ones that would interview me behind a glass screen in a room with padded walls....

But I am straying from the point.

First there was Die Hard 1. It made being bald cool. Then there was Die Hard 2. It made being bald and 40 look cool.

Then there was Die Hard 3. Die Hard 3 was more an "improvement" on the first two movies. As much as you can improve on the-wild-bald-guy-shooting-theme. I would compare it to taking a simlie such as, "like a little boy in a candy store," and changing it to "like a little boy in a Triumph store."

Then you sat back in your wooden rocking chair, smoking your pipe, overlooking your cotton plantation, and you wake up from your dream, and realise you're not an integral part of the British colonial empire in India. You still wonder what you're doing in an 1890s British army costume with a half-finished bottle of rum lying next to your bedside table. In this reverie you say to yourself, they definitely will not come out with a Die Hard 4. For one, Bruce Willis is now an exhibit in the Natural History Museum. Plus after the first three Die Hard movies, you think all those Eastern European idiots who underestimated John McLane would know better by now. And hopefully got a speech coach.

However Die Hard 4 brings you a new villain. A son of the soil. No, he's not Maharashtrian! He is in fact, an American. His name, Thomas Gabriel. No! He's not Mallu either!

As an Indian watching this movie, you will not spend your time trying to decipher Thomas Gabriel's descendants. You will instead spend your time, drooling over Maggie Q. The minds of people who have not watched this movie will immediately revert to a limited edition of a two-minute noodle. I assure all 10 people(viewership is up 50%!) who read my blog...Maggie Q is a much tastier dish. She dies in the middle though. So you might wanna stop watching at about 01:09:12.

If one looks beyond the mindless shooting and the hot villainous chick, one can see what the director is trying to convey throughout the movie. That eternal message of immortality; because Bruce Willis just cannot die.

Let me prove this point. There is an F-22 Raptor fighter jet in the movie that is firing wildly at a truck Bruce Willis is driving. The F-22 Raptor is invisible to radar, impossible to trace and will be the US Air Force's formeost fighter jet. However, the good men at the plane-making place thing forgot to make it Bruce Willis resistant. Watch the movie, you'll see.

Last heard, the Chinese were contacting black market arms dealers looking for a weapon they called, Thee Broos Weeleese.

There is another message the director is trying to convey through this theme of immortality. And that is...the sequel. Expect Die Hard 5.0. And a 70-year-old Bruce Willis. With a walker. That has in-built machine guns.

THE INCREDIBLE SULK'S RAMBLINGS

The Incredible Sulk has long sat and pondered on his Throne. A majestic throne it was. Made of green emerald and inscribed with the words Parryware. It was in the process of these ponderings that was born...The Incredible Sulk's Ramblings.

The Incredible Sulk, for example, has always wondered why people ask him, "Whassup?" and then walk away when he is the middle of a sentence. For the Incredible Sulk will start of with by telling the questioning authority the state of this morning's bowel movement but lose the attention of said questioning authority before he even touches lightly upon the subject of roughage.

The Incredible Sulk soon realised that MAYBE, bowel movement wasn't the ideal subject to start of a "whassup?" answer with. So he changed tack. Rather clever of him. So he started of with what he thought of the country's political situation. He had a "Behind-every-Manmohan-Singh-is-a-Sonia-with-a-whip" joke. He even had a "Mr Karat-can-you-move-a-bit-to-the-right-please". But before he could even utter the words, the questioning authority rode off into the sunset.

The Incredible Sulk was rather puzzled. He was bluer than a Pepsi ad on an Indian cricket jersey. But he was not one to give up easily.

So the next time he was asked what was up, he gave said questioning authority a taste of his own medicine.

"Whassup?," he bellowed, shaking the very foundations of the questioning authority's toupee. Unbelievably, with a nod, the said questioning authority was once more off into the sunset leaving behind a trail of goat droppings.

It was then that it struck the Incredible Sulk that, "Whassup?" had in fact replaced, the greeting "Hey," that had replaced the 80s greeting "Hi," that had replaced the primitive greeting of bashing your friend on the head with a crude club. So the only proper response to "Whassup?" was another "Whassup" in return.

Only after solving this and the answer to time travel, did the Incredible Sulk stop rambling.

The Incredible Sulk is not Incredible for no little reason.

And the answer to time travel is Roy Orbison. Not 42. Or that movie with the car and Micheal Fox.