I really want to start blogging again.

The Quiz Foundation of India (Chennai Chapter), in association with Indian Terrain is proud to announce ‘The QFI Open Quiz 2009′, the fifth edition of the annual open quiz, which has become a fixture on the Chennai quizzing calendar.

The QFI Opens of the last four years have been resounding successes, attracting more than 120 teams each time, including some from Hyderabad, Bangalore, Mumbai and even Ahmedabad. This time, the quiz promises to be both bigger and better. You can read The Hindu’s review of the QFI Open 2006 here, and the 2007 edition here.

Apart from being original, well researched and immensely entertaining, the QFI Open also aims at making quizzing a fun experience for everyone involved. It will try and bring to a wider audience the same mix of light-hearted fun and serious high-standard quizzing that is seen at QFI’s fortnightly meetings.

It is an open quiz with no conditions whatsoever for participation. All are welcome to participate. Prizes include cash and Landmark gift vouchers. I will be conducting the quiz helped with research from my team-mates Krishnamurti and Vikram. Please do come and have fun. There will a Sports and Entertainment quiz in the morning at 10:30 a.m conducted by Rajen Prabhu a.k.a Sumo at the same venue. Plenty of audience prizes from Landmark and DilSeBol also on offer. The details are as follows:

Date: 7th of June, 2009 (Sunday)

Venue: Museum Theatre,
Govt. Museum, Pantheon Road,
Egmore, Chennai – 600008

Schedule of Events

Sports and Entertainment Quiz

Quizmaster: Rajen Prabhu

Research Team: Sreeram, Vijay Sarathy, Vinod Ganesh, Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan, Sivakumar V.V.

Timings: Prelims – 10:30 a.m. and Finals – 11:30 a.m.

Team size: Maximum of 2 members

Registration Fee: Rs. 50 per team. (This fee is waived for school teams. The registration fee must be paid at the registration desk in front before the quiz.)

General Quiz

Quizmaster: Vinod Ganesh

Research Team: Krishnamurti Ganesh, Vikram Rajan

Timings: Prelims – 03:30 p.m. and Finals – 05:00 p.m.

Team size: Maximum of 3 members

Registration Fee: Rs. 50 per team. (This fee is waived for school teams. The registration fee must be paid at the registration desk in front before the quiz.)

Also, if it’s not too much to ask for, please put this up on your blogs and bulletin boards and help spread the word. Thanks!!

Sample Questions from the last edition

Q1. During the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, the teams usually travelled with a group of journalists from their nation. One of these flights had suffered a major delay, and the passengers finally started boarding after a frustrating long wait. During the routine security check, when one of the journalists was asked what he had in his bag, he sarcastically replied that he had a bomb. This sparked off a panic among the passengers, and nearly caused the flight to be cancelled. What did this incident lead to?

Q2. What word comes from the Latin for “I will please”, because it is used to denote something that is given merely to please than to actually benefit?

Q3. The Hellenistic Ptolemaic dynasty, which ruled Egypt from 305 BC to 30 BC, issued a series of decrees over the course of their reign. The first one, issued in 239 BC by Ptolemy III, was called the Decree of Canopus. The second one, issued by Ptolemy IV in 216 BC, was called the Decree of Memphis. The third was issued by Ptolemy V in 196 BC. Why is it famous?

Q4. These are a special kind of military bullets are modified with a small pyrotechnic charge added in their base. Ignited upon firing, the composition burns very brightly making the projectile path visible to the naked eye. This enables the shooter to follow the bullet’s trajectory relative to the target in order to make corrections to his aim for the next shot. The British introduced this in 1915, and the U.S. did it two years later in 1917. What is this type of ammunition called?

Answers

A1. Dennis Bergkamp was traumatised and developed his famous fear of flying that would lead him to miss a number of matches overseas for both club and country.

A2. Placebo

A3. This was the inscription on the Rosetta Stone. It describes the repealing of various taxes and gives instructions to erect statues in temples.

A4. Tracer Bullets, familiar to us through the cricket commentary of Ravi Shastri.

A fantastic article about one of the men I admire the most.

Right here.

Some excerpts:

“If you do not balance the books you go bankrupt and die. I could push the club into big debt. I go away with success and the guy who comes after me suffers for five years because he cannot buy a player any more and the club goes down. The guy who comes after me has good players he can work with, he has a healthy financial situation, and he has a club in good shape. That is part of management as well.”

“I feel if you come into a club as manager you have first to work out its specific qualities,” Wenger says. “For me Arsenal is a club which tries to respect tradition, style, honesty, fair play. If you come in and behave like a gangster you will not last long. The supporters will be the first ones not happy with that. A club needs values. If a club has no values you go nowhere.”

But I ask, speaking as a father of a five-year-old, what can I teach him at that age? “To kick correctly the ball. To put him in situations where he develops his skill. The talent of a coach is to put an exercise to a player that he has to find the solution to. If he does not, you teach him to do it better. If the exercise is too easy, or too difficult, he will not learn. And he has to find it out for himself. What makes football special is you have a billion techniques. It is not like in tennis where you hit the ball.” Wenger demonstrates a low forehand. Then, with more demonstration, he adds, “In football when you come to hit the ball you have someone pushing you on the top of your left shoulder, and you still have to keep your balance and hit the ball right. At the start your basic movements have to be right, then you adapt.”

The first rumours surfaced yesterday morning, and initially they caused shock. Arsenal to sign Mikael Silvestre from Manchester United? Surely it was a joke. A player who had plied his trade at one of the club’s most hated rivals for the last nine years. A player on the wrong side of 30. A player who was never top quality, even at his peak. A player who had missed most of the last two seasons because of injury. And last but not the least, a player who looked like a MORON. Silvestre seemed to tick all the wrong boxes.

It seemed completely wrong, but suddenly it was everywhere – the newspapers, the blogs, the chat forums. All the talk was about how Arsene Wenger had finally lost it. But knowing the manager, and how he liked to surprise the fans, there was this feeling in the pit of my stomach that was telling me this wasn’t just one of those regular baseless rumours. And then this morning, when I woke up and did my customary check of the Arsenal website. I find myself staring at this on the home page.

Yes, he has been signed. And now, after a full day of thinking about it, the deal seems pretty sensible to me. After all, Silvestre is a player with loads of Premier League and Champions League experience, playing for one of the top sides. And I don’t think he’s going to be considered first-choice in any case. As a substitute, I can’t think of too many better. he can play all across the back four, and is experienced enough to be able to come on in the second half of an important away game and fit in right away. For instance, if Arsenal are 1-0 up in the 70th minute at Anfield, and Gallas picks up a knock, I don’t think too many Arsenal fans would rather see Senderos come on than Silvestre. At just 750,000 pounds, he’s a bargain.

Moreover, Justin Hoyte left for Middlesbrough last week, for 3 million and so, a replacement was required. I just hope Wenger still plans on signing that new defensive midfielder he promised a couple of weeks back. That could make or break our title hopes, I feel. And believe it or not, this signing has actually made me feel a little better about the defensive back-up, and therefore the season itself.

We’re off to a good start in the league, beating West Brom 1-0, with a patched up midfield. Spurs lost, and Man Utd drew, so the opening weekend was almost perfect. Hopefully, the good times will continue this weekend at Craven Cottage, against Fulham. Also, from Gunnerblog, it looks like Arsene Wenger was in Switzerland last night to watch Gokhan Inler in action against Cyprus. So, here’s to hoping this week brings at least one more piece of incoming transfer news! Cheers!

I had a Rs. 1001 voucher to use up at Odyssey. So I enter the store the day before yesterday, and almost immediately, notice this:

The price: Rs. 995. Only. For 14 books! Super! Picked up. Billed. That’s the way all shopping should happen, IMHO.

The complete James Bond collection, by Ian Fleming, with nice, tacky, retro cover design (I’m a sucker for nice looking covers). Being a stickler for order, I will obviously start reading with Book 1 – which is ‘Casino Royale’, and hopefully will get to Book 8 – ‘For Your Eyes Only’ by November. Why? Because that’s the book that contains the short story ‘Quantum Of Solace’, and that’s the month the movie ‘Quantum Of Solace’ is out. Reports say that the film’s plot is in no way related to the story, and that only the title is borrowed, but it would just give me some mental satisfaction to have read it beforehand.

Last year, at around this time, I was very scared for Arsenal. Thierry Henry, the club’s record goal scorer had left for sunny Barcelona, leaving behind an injury-prone Robin van Persie and error-prone Emmanuel Adebayor to bear the goal-scoring responsibilities. His replacement was an unknown Croat-brazilian, Eduardo Da Silva, who was largely untested outside the Croatian Football League. The only other big signing had been Bacary Sagna, a right-back I’d never even heard of. This was all admittedly underwhelming. The pundits had written the club off for the season and many of the fans had already started making their excuses. Most of them were afraid that Arsene Wenger had completely lost it and his stubborn insistence on not buying big-name stars would cost the club dearly. They were all wrong.

The team was outstanding for most of the season and finished 3rd, a mere four points behind the eventual champions Manchester United. Two of the draws (Birmingham away, Liverpool away) turning into victories and the loss to Man Utd at Old Trafford turning into a draw was all that had separated Wenger’s boys from the title. All three results very much possible given the performances in those games. It WAS actually that close. 

The Champions League, well, Arsenal was six minutes away from qualifying for the semi-finals and two dodgy penalty calls in either leg of the quarter-final against Liverpool cost the club. I know it’s said that dodgy calls even out in the end. But I feel calls going our way in games against Derby County when we’re 3-0 up don’t quite match up to calls going against us in a two-legged Champions League quarterfinal where away goals count more. So they don’t quite even out, do they. Anyway, so that was that. The F.A. Cup and Carling Cup, well, we just weren’t good enough. Overall, a season that left all Arsenal fans feeling deeply unfulfilled.

So, after a summer of transfer activity and a bunch of pre-season friendlies, what does the new season have in store? Here are my thoughts:

The Team

Goalkeeping: Jens Lehmann has left for Stuttgart. As much as I liked him, he was making too many mistakes towards the end and it was time for him to leave. The current no. 1, Manuel Almunia, is not as spectacular as Lehmann was but he’s pretty calm and solid and doesn’t make too many costly errors these days, like he used to when he started out. I would like a better keeper but am not too worried. The back-up keeper, Lukasz Fabianski, looks pretty promising though. I was at the Emirates Stadium when the lad made his competitive debut (against Newcastle United in the Carling Cup) and he’s shown enough promise to suggest that Almunia won’t be first choice for too long. The third keeper, Vito Mannone, has been promoted from the reserves and is still an unknown quantity at the top level.

Defence: Unchanged from last season and not too worrying. The full-backs, Bacary Sagna and Gael Clichy are the best full-back pairing in the league for me. Strong both in attack and defence, it was no surprise that the pair made it into the PFA team of the year last season. The centre-backs, Kolo Toure and William Gallas, are pretty solid as well, with some weaknesses that I’m sure the boss would’ve addressed in training. The back-ups are a bit weak though. In the full-back roles, Justin Hoyte is pretty average and Armand Traore is still not quite the finished product yet. Kieran Gibbs has been tried out at left back but he also needs more time to get used to it, being primarily an attacking midfielder. In fact, I should think Gallas will slot into left-back if Clichy ever gets injured before a big game. Emmanuel Eboue can always do a job at right-back if required, having started his career there. The centre-half backups are slightly better. Philippe Senderos and Johan Djourou, the former in particular, get a lot of stick but I don’t think they’re all that bad. Plus, there’s Alexandre Song to return from the Olympics. He was pretty solid in the Carling Cup last year. So, overall, the first choice back four is excellent, but two or more injuries at the same time may see the defensive performances suffer.

Midfield: The biggest cause of worry this pre-season, without a shadow of a doubt. Aleksandr Hleb, Gilberto Silva and Mathieu Flamini left over the summer and Lassana Diarra left in January. So the team has lost 4 top class midfielders this year alone. Diarra was never in the team enough but I still rate him very highly. It’s only a matter of time before he joins a big club again. Gilberto, I’ve always felt, was very very over-rated and frankly, was happy when he was marginalised last season. I also felt it contributed to the team’s success. Having said that, he was a thorough professional till the end and always came out as decent and sincere in the six years he spent at Arsenal. For that reason, I was sorry to see him go. Hleb and Flamini are a different story. Both of them will be greatly missed in the team. Flamini was the midfield dynamo last season, the Roy Keane in our team. Constantly running and tackling, breaking the opponents’ rhythm, Flamini’s manic energy drove the team last season, and was critical to its success. We haven’t replaced him, yet. Hleb, most would say, didn’t contribute too much in terms of assists or goals, but his value went beyond that. His dribbling drew defenders towards him, allowing other players to make their runs. And he would more often than not, supply the killer pass that would lead to an assist. Statistics don’t reveal his true worth. However, he acted like an idiot towards the end and I was not one bit sorry to see him go. We have replaced him adequately, however, I feel. Now, on to the guys who are still there!

In the middle, Cesc Fabregas is the jewel in Arsenal’s crown. Without doubt, the fulcrum around which the team revolves, he will be crucial to our title chances. Still only 21, he has improved every year and is now one of the finest central midfielders in the world. If he is injured, Arsenal would have a big problem. His midfield partner is the big question mark: The pecking order is currently Abou Diaby, Denilson and 17-year old Aaron Ramsey, but Wenger is in the market for another ‘experienced’ defensive midfielder and I fancy that player, whoever it is (looking likely to be Gokhan Inler, from Udinese), to be the first choice. The dark horse for this position could be Alexandre Song, who excelled in the role for Cameroon in the African Nations Cup earlier this year. Another intriguing addition to the squad is Amaury Bischoff, signed from Werder Bremen, for whom he made one start in the last two years, being injured for the rest of the time.  Nothing much is really known about the guy and even Wenger himself has admitted the signing is a gamble. We can only wait and watch.

On the wings, Tomas Rosicky, the Czech captain, if fully fit, is a superstar and crowd favourite. Absolutely electrifying and a match-winner on his day. Samir Nasri, Hleb’s replacement, (and the most promising of the many French youngsters touted as the ‘next Zidane’) is sharp, quick and blessed with exquisite technique. At home in the middle of the pitch, and on both wings, he is a superb addition to the squad and if he stays fit, could make the difference between this season and last. Theo Walcott, good on both sides, is steadily improving and should be more of a consistent force this year. Emmanuel Eboue may be extremely irritating but does a decent job on the right most times. The only other option on the wings is also the most exciting – Jack Wilshere, aged 16. He joined Arsenal as a nine-year old school boy in 2001 and has really caught the eye this pre-season. Wenger has already seen enough quality to include him in the first team squad and though he won’t get too many starts this season, training with the big boys will help him improve and he may even get to make a couple of cameo appearances. 

Attack: Doubtlessly, Arsenal’s best area. We’re well-stocked with forwards, and all of them have enough quality. Emmanuel Adebayor has come on in leaps and bounds last season, ensuring that we didn’t miss the legend that is Thierry Henry. That takes some doing! Robin van Persie is someone I rate extremely highly. He’s a fantastic talent, with a supernatural left foot.  A constant threat from free-kicks and also a great provider for others, his only problem is that he seems to be made of glass. He spent most of last season on the treatment table and one can only wonder what could’ve been if he’d been fit throughout. Eduardo Da Silva, so cruelly injured last season just when he was getting into his groove, is expected to be back before Christmas and he is a truly lethal finisher, as proved by his Arsenal scoring record so far (22 starts, 12 goals). I remember going berserk in a pub when Song put him through in extra time against Blackburn in the Carling Cup. There was just no doubt he would tuck it in! That was also one of the best games of last season, for me. And I’m licking my lips at the prospect of what’s going to happen once he’s settled in completely. Nicklas Bendtner is again, quality. Tall, strong, and determined, the guy is a superstar in waiting. I half-expect Adebayor to leave next summer and mark my words, if Bendtner is still there, he will more than adequately replace him. Carlos Vela, an Arsenal player for the last three years but out on loan in Spain, looks a terrific prospect, another typical Wenger signing – out of nowhere. He’s been absolutely brilliant in pre-season. I expect Bendtner and Vela to form a lethal partnership in the Carling Cup. Apart from these five, Walcott can also play up front if necessary.

My first choice eleven would be as follows:

Almunia

Bacary Sagna – Kolo Toure – William Gallas – Gael Clichy

Samir Nasri – Cesc Fabregas – (New Guy) – Tomas Rosicky

Emmanuel Adebayor – Robin van Persie

Summary

Overall, while the starting eleven is top-notch,  the back-ups are not of the highest quality and I suspect this will make the difference through the course of a long and hard season. The fan in me says we’ll win something this year, but I fancy it’ll be more a case of finishing in the top 4 in the Premier League and going as far as we possibly can in the Champions League and the F.A. Cup. As far as the Carling Cup is concerned, the youngsters are a year older, so we could actually do pretty well again.

So, hoping for the best, Go Gunners!!

I was just watching the AFC Challenge Cup game between India and Afghanistan. Not by design, merely by accident. But anyway, when I put it on, 89 minutes were already over and the match was heading into injury time (3 minutes) with the score at 0-0. This was apparently the 60th anniversary of the Indian football team and the commentators were dismayed that India couldn’t win to mark the occasion. Almost everyone had resigned themselves to the fact that this match would end as a bore draw. The coach Bob Houghton was asleep in the dug-out.

And then, in the 92nd minute, India threw everyone forward in one final attack at the Afghan goal. To the utter shock of everyone, including the coach (who had woken up), the players managed to string a few passes together and somehow get the ball in to the opposite D. After some goalmouth confusion, an Indian midfielder drove the ball into an empty net to score the match-winning goal with virtually the last kick of the game. It was over!! India had won the game in the final minute!!

That midfielder was this guy:

And his name, his ACTUAL name, (I swear I’m not kidding, this IS his REAL name) was: “CLIMAX Lawrence”!!

Hahahahahaha… FAAAAAAAACCCKKKK!!

The summer of 1998 changed my life.

Until that point in time, I was only vaguely acquainted with the beautiful game. I had watched bits and pieces of the 1994 World Cup, but with very little involvement, as I wasn’t familiar with any of the players or teams. The first time I watched football over a sustained period of time was two years later, during Euro ’96. The packed stadiums, the noisy fans and above all else, the heart-pounding, non-stop action (completely alien to someone who had grown up on cricket!) captured my young imagination.

At that time, the country’s leading sports magazine, ‘The Sportstar’, devoted a mere two pages, and sometimes not even that, to the world’s most popular sport. A column by Brian Glanville, or just a round up of the developments in the footballing world, usually restricted to England. Every week, as soon as I got my hands on the new issue, I would search out and feverishly devour those two pages, and then go on to spend the rest of the week thinking about what I’d read.

It was in one of those weekly doses of football news, at the beginning of the summer of ’98, that I read about how Arsenal, the challengers, under their sophisticated French manager Arsene Wenger (was the club named after him, I wondered, at the time) had dethroned the two time defending champions Manchester United, led by the ebullient Scot, Alex Ferguson and clinched the English Premier League title. I was a neutral then, and so this underdog victory thrilled me to bits. But I haven’t been a neutral ever since.

That was the singularity, the Big Bang, and after that, the football universe just exploded into life inside my head. ‘The Sportstar’ suddenly started running World Cup special issues to lead up to the footballing extravaganza that was to take place in France later that summer – The Holy Grail itself, the FIFA World Cup, dubbed France ‘98. After a few weeks of committed reading, I knew everything there was to know about the tournament – the teams, the managers, the superstars waiting to be crowned, the young turks looking to make an impression, the schedule, the venues, everything. I was ready for kick-off.

At the same time, a chewing gum company was running a World Cup related promotion, offering a free football card with every wad of a certain gum purchased. I spent a lot of time chewing gum that summer and soon, I had amassed 46 out of the 50 cards that were available for collection. On the front, there was the player’s image, and on the back, some information about him – his nationality, club, position, etc. I would gaze longingly at the images and then flip over the cards to read the names of the great clubs these superstars played for – Inter Milan, Juventus, Bayern Munich, Barcelona, Real Madrid, Ajax – legendary names, with magnificent histories behind them.

Though I can’t find any of those cards now, the images printed on them will forever be embossed on my brain – Ronaldo was muscling his way through some hapless defence, Shearer had just given the ball a frightful thwack, Zidane was snarling away at some unfortunate soul and Schmeichel was screaming instructions at his defenders, his face contorted with rage. I was completely obsessed, staring at the cards for hours, weaving wondrous stories around these static but immortal images. However, even in the set, I had a few cards that I liked more than the others, and one in particular that I treasured over the rest of them. It featured a slightly built, blond Dutchman wearing a red and white shirt that said JVC on it. His name was Dennis Bergkamp.

The moment I flipped the Bergkamp card over, and found out that the club he played for was Arsenal; I think that’s when the real connection took place. I don’t quite remember whether I liked him because of the club or if my love for the club grew because of him, but either way, supporting any other club was absolutely out of the question now. France ‘98 finally kicked off, and I was overjoyed when the players I’d been seeing on cards all summer, suddenly appeared on my TV screen in the flesh, running around and kicking the ball. It was a thrill like nothing I’d ever felt before. Though all of the players excited me, the one player I looked forward to watching the most was the one on my favourite card – the peerless Bergkamp.

My admiration for the icy-cool assassin in orange rose to astronomical levels as the tournament progressed. His skill, elegance and intelligence captivated me, and in the dying minutes of the quarterfinal against Argentina, when he scored THAT goal, controlling the ball with ease, taking it inside Ayala and slotting it past Roa, I was up on my feet, clapping and screaming. For a player, to do that was difficult enough, but to do it at that crucial moment, at the business end of a knockout game in the world’s biggest tournament, that is the stuff schoolboy dreams are made of. And I was celebrating not only for the Netherlands that day, but also for Arsenal the following season. “We’ve Got Dennis Bergkamp, We’ve Got Dennis Bergkamp,” the Arsenal faithful would chant, for 11 glorious years.

For the Netherlands, he may have been Dennis Bergkamp, but for Arsenal, he was simply DB10. Blessed with quick feet, supernatural vision and exquisite technique, DB10 was Arsene Wenger’s template for the Arsenal teams he has built over the years. There was nothing he could not do on the football pitch – the little dinks, the eye-of-the-needle Hollywood passes, the curlers, the rockets, the tap-ins and the UNDESCRIBABLY BRILLIANT. And of course, as far as I was concerned, DB10 was the very foundation of my relationship with Arsenal. So it was that much more emotional for me when it was announced that the 2005-06 season would be his last, that he would be retiring from the game at the end of it. I just couldn’t believe that DB10 would be no more. 

In mid-2006, he finally packed his bags and left for home, to enjoy the pleasures of retirement, bringing to an end one of the most glorious chapters in Arsenal’s history, not just in terms of trophies won but also in terms of the football that was played. He may be gone now, never again to wear the famous red and white, but one thing is for certain. For Arsenal fans the world over, especially this one in Chennai, DB10 will live forever.

Whenever I tell people I’m a research analyst in an equity research firm, they always react the same way: “Oh boy! That sounds really complicated, and tremendously boring!” And I tell them they’re right. It is all of that, except I prefer to describe it the way I do on my resume – challenging. On a typical office day, I’m sitting at my desk, in my cubicle, staring intently at my monitor and trying to solve important problems, such as: “Is that really the current worth of my portfolio? #$%@!” and “How the hell can I beat Australia in this stick cricket game?”

This is immensely challenging work, and I feel I’m grossly underpaid for doing it. Plus, with the Indian stock market behaving the way it has been this year, I really could use a little extra money. So I’ve decided to write a best-selling novel.

I’ve wanted to write a book ever since I was eleven, when I read Nancy Friday’s soul-stirring ‘Women on Top’. However, I haven’t seriously considered it until now, mainly because, deep down, I’ve always known that I’d never be as good a writer as any of those women. But recently, after reading about how Chetan Bhagat’s books sell 10 gazillion copies every minute, I’ve realized that a chronic inability to write well, make sense and positively impact the emotions of your readers is no longer a road block to becoming a successful novelist.

My book will be targeted at the youth of India, because the old can’t read any more and the little ones prefer Nickelodeon. It’s titled ‘One Night @ The Staff Quarters, Who Not To Do at IIM’, and it’s guaranteed to sell at least 44 billion copies, because I’m hoping all the IIM alumni, current students and aspirants buy it. I never went to an IIM myself, but I don’t see how that makes a difference to anything. Tolkien never battled any Orcs.

I also realize that the key to the success of my novel is word-of-mouth publicity. I don’t know what that word is yet, but I’m desperately hoping to figure it out by the time I’m done. Here’s what I have so far:

Chapter One

Hi, my name is Karan Malhotra. I’m an average guy. Not mean, but average. I have no outstanding qualities whatsoever. I’m neither a complete loser like my best friend Jimmy Cliff nor an uber-cool stud with an attitude problem like my other best friend Jalaluddin Akbar. In short, I am average. The three of us are the best of friends and, by some weird coincidence, named after the lead male characters in the last three Bollywood movies our author saw. All three of us are students at the greatest b-school in the world.

Now, the three of us will have some typical Indian Youth-y conversation.

Chapter Two

“Hi! Are you students here?” said the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was extremely pretty, and all three of us could immediately sense that she would be the lead female character in this novel.

“My name is Sophia,” she said.

I was in love. It felt like destiny that we should meet. I know I don’t know her all that well yet, but time is of the essence. There are only so many pages that can be printed for Rs. 95.

“Get inside the class! I’m your Management Accounting teacher,” she said, “and you have a surprise test right now.”

“Holy Cow!!” Akbar exclaimed, looking at me. “This is going to be a very big problem when you two have sex in Chapter 15!”

Chapter Seven

“This is incredible!!” exclaimed Jimmy. “I just cannot believe it! Just cannot!” he added, because most of India’s youth don’t know the meaning of ‘incredible’.

“What’s incredible?” asked Sophia. “The fact that in spite of being your teacher and possessing ravishing beauty, I still choose to always hang out with you idiots?”

“That’s a good point, but not what Jimmy was referring to,” said Akbar, because being best friends, the three of us always knew exactly what each other meant to say. It’s like an unspoken bond that goes unsaid.

“What is it, then?” asked Sophia, her beautiful face contorted with excitement and curiosity, which made her cuter in my hopelessly lovelorn eyes.

“The fact that after six inane chapters, people are still reading this piece of shit,” I completed.

Chapter Fifteen

“IT’S FINALLY HERE!!!” I yelled, “The part we’ve all been waiting for!! WOO HOO!!”

“You mean the part YOU have been waiting for?” said Jimmy, frowning at me with hatred, “We’re going to be stuck in our rooms, mugging for tomorrow’s mid-term.”

“Yeah, what do we have to gain from this chapter??” added Akbar, “we hardly even figure in it. It’s always only about you, Karan, isn’t it?”

“Guys,” I paused for dramatic effect. “Is this the part in the story where tension drives us apart for a while?”

“My God, this book is lame…” said Jimmy.

Just then, the earthquake struck.

Chapter Sixteen

“That was too close for comfort!” remarked Sophia. “Fortunately, the quake didn’t prevent us from having sex.’”

“Yeah, and the Academic Block got destroyed too. So I won’t have my mid-terms tomorrow! This quake was a God send!!”

To my surprise, Sophia looked surprised, “Yeah, but what about Akbar? He was injured in the quake, wasn’t he? Aren’t you worried about him?”

“Not until the next chapter,” I replied.

Chapter Eighteen

Now that the intercourse was over, I missed my two best friends. And when I found out, from other people, that Akbar still hadn’t been discharged from the hospital, I started getting worried.

That’s all I have so far. I’m itching to finish it, but with no publishing advance in sight yet, I can only work part-time for the time being. And there is plenty of challenging work to be done in the office. The market may be up today, but Australia is not going to beat itself, you know.

As a blogger with his finger on the pulse of the nation, I was first going to write a post about how the proposed Indo-U.S. Nuclear Deal, or the ‘123 agreement’ will affect each Indian on a personal level, but then it occurred to me that I really don’t have the faintest idea. So instead I’m going to focus on the other problem that has been troubling me for the last few days – the psycho killer on the loose in Chennai.

If you’re a normal human being, or even an abnormally well-trained dog, then you probably just pick up the newspaper every morning and turn straight to the sports page, and then pick up the supplement to check the movie listings. So there’s a good chance you’ve missed this spine-chilling story. So here it is, in brief: There is a ‘psycho’ killer on the loose in parts of Chennai (Vadapalani, K.K. Nagar and Ashok Nagar) and he has committed as many as 9 murders in a span of 23 days, the latest victim a 45-year old watchman named Basha who was burnt alive after first having his head smashed in with a large stone. Gulp.

The poor man, who had signed up for the job only the previous day, had been hard at work, using the traditional watchman tactics for scaring away burglars – Heavy Drinking and Loud Snoring, when this ‘psycho’ killer apparently attacked. Over the last month, other watchmen, an auto driver, and a rag picker have suffered similarly morbid deaths involving giant stones and forced immolation. So the result is that the areas in question now have no watchmen, no auto-drivers and no rag pickers. All of this has lead to increased overall safety in the locality, sending rents and house prices rocketing up. This is turning out to be extremely bad news for anyone hoping to buy property there. So, obviously, something needs to be done about it, and fast.

Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. Just a bit of highly insensitive humour to defuse the tension of the situation. Sorry. But all kidding aside, this is a really terrifying situation for a lot of people. How serious is this problem really? What are the police doing? These are probably the questions running through your head right now. The answer to the first one is: Very serious. Definitely not more serious than the SRK-Sallu spat at Kat’s birthday bash, but still reasonably serious. People have actually lost lives here. The second question was conveniently posed to the city’s Police Commissioner Mr. R. Sekar recently, who replied: “We enquired those persons who sleeping on the pavement”, proving that the police are indeed hard at work on this case, leaving them with no time to check their statements for grammar.

Now, I don’t know how to feel about this whole situation as I’ve never really cared too much for watchmen. Take the one in my own apartment, for example. I’m not completely sure yet whether he’s in full working order. For starters, he’s about 110 years old. When we first saw him, we thought he was extremely brave, purely on the basis of the fact that he had slanty eyes, like a Gurkha. It later turned out his name was Arumugam and he was actually from Coimbatore. His eyes had looked like that because he’d been half-asleep during the interview. And at first we had taken the absence of any meaningful response to our queries to imply a lack of understanding of Tamil, but have since realized he is almost completely deaf.

In fact, Arumugam still doesn’t even recognize me most of the time. He’s always telling me parking is for residents only and generally irritating the shit out of me every other day. Quite frankly, I wouldn’t mind it too much if the psycho killer targeted him one of these nights. I would even purchase the petrol required for the burning, actually. I’m guessing psycho killers don’t make much these days, and with the current fuel prices, it would be a strain on his pockets, which must already be sagging from the weight of the large stones.

Trust me, we’d be just fine without him. Some of my neighbour aunties would probably have to start going out to buy milk and vegetables themselves, but they can use the exercise. In Arumugam’s place, we’d hire a guy from one of those professional security services firms, with a name like ‘Black Dog Security’ or something like that, intended to send a chill down the spine of any intruder. When a burglar comes in, if he sees an old man sleeping wearing a name tag saying ‘Arumugam’, he’s probably thinking, ‘Ha, I can take this guy!’ but when he sees the same old geezer wearing a uniform that says ‘Black Dog Security’, with an image of a Black Dog frothing at the mouth to help drive home the point, he’s going to be wetting his pants.

But if this psycho killer is made of sterner stuff, and just goes ahead and kills this watchman too anyway, then we’d just get an actual black dog to keep watch. Or brown, we’re not really too concerned about the colour. We just don’t want one of those yelping Pomeranians. If my apartment got one of those, I might have to set fire to it myself. But I won’t, and neither will the psycho killer, because we both know that we’d immediately have all the PETA and Blue Cross people on our backs. Now they’re way more efficient than the police, who are still enquired those who sleeping on the pavement.

More seriously, I don’t think this killer is really psycho at all. My hunch is that he’s a normal guy with a respectable job who turns into this deranged maniac at night. And there IS one person I know who actually hates security guards that much. I have actually seen him scream his head off at watchmen without provocation and threaten them with actual bodily harm on a number of occasions. And I’ve always felt strongly that he was just a push away from mental instability. He claims to have a job in New Delhi, as a journalist, but I’m now starting to think that’s just a false cover to provide him with a strong alibi in case the police somehow trace the killings to him. Meanwhile, while he’s in Delhi, maybe he could just kill anyone who says anything about the nuclear deal ever again. Please. I’ll courier the stones.