Motorbike Thievery

There is an ostentatious house to the east of my house in Gongabu that is always full of one kind of racket or the other. Rumor is, it is a police-protected gambling den. That wouldn't be very surprising. Thisarea is full of the nouveau-riche, real-estate and overseas-employment agencies. Along Chakrapath, there are plenty of  dance bars and brothels. What is so surprising if the ugly hodge-podge of architectural styles across the street is an all-night gambling den?

A few days ago, somebody opened the gate of that house, coasted a motorbike out of the gate, closed the gate, disappeared. Imagine that!

It had to be someone who had access to the place, who knew what went on in there. The person must have pushed the motorbike some distance before riding it away. Broad daylight.

Yesterday, while I was watching the football game between the USA and Algeria on one channel and England and Slovania on the other channel [good for you, USA, that you got through, but a pox on you for creating and maintaining that unholy suspense over Slovania's fate...], a woman shrieked across the street.

"This man is robbing us!" she shouted from a window. "A thief! A thief! We're being robbed!"

There were people on the street outside, since it was a cool evening. They caught the thief. Nobody was  bothered by the fact that the house was a gambling den, where dozens of people of unsavory character gathered each day, each night, where it would not be reasonable to expect people to remember every face.

The thief had come with a helmet in his bag. He had lurked inside the house, put on the helmet, opened the gate. At that point, he was discovered.

He was beaten to a pulp. Police was called, but only three policemen showed up to control a crowd of  dozens. When a mob catches a lone man, everybody in the mob feels much stronger than he would normally  care to show. Some men were feeling particularly powerful, particularly in the right. They slapped the thief left  and right, kicked him, punched him, pulled his hair. One man, especially once others started to restrain him,  became more and more bold in his assaults. If nobody had bothered to assuage his anger, perhaps he wouldn't have had any anger or force to spare.

The gamblers were saying to the police: "Leave him with us. We're responsible if we kill him, but we'll make sure we get our lost motorbike from him. Don't worry, we won't kill him."

If you'd heard that, you would've been shocked at their hubris. It seemed they thought the police were merely ornamental, while they were the dispensers of justice.

What should really happen is that the gamblers should be put in jail--not for gambling, for I have nothing against it--but for openly defying the law, for bribing the police for protection, and for saying that they would "be responsible if the thief dies" while they beat him up for interrogation.

Trying out new features

I'm testing Blogger's claim that I can email myself something, and it will automatically appear on my blog.

Today--Thursday, 24th June, 2010--if you have the time and the inclination, come to Nepal-India Library under the [R]NAC building inNew Road. Satish Sharma, a photographer, curator, photography-writer will be talking about a book on grandmothers. I *might* read, although I really don't want to. We shall see.

---

*I cleaned up the line breaks after the fact....

When Screen-writing is fun..

Alok Nembang is cutting another trailer for Kohi ... Mero

Which means, it is possible there will be another trailer for KM in the theaters soon... would be nice if there were on this Saturday evening at Jai Nepal ;)

BTW--why is there never a sad, winking emoticon? A ;-(

There must be some poor bastard who winks when his heart is shattered to a million pieces!

In any case, a few lines from a never-sold TV pilot by John August:

"Carl presses against his chest, where his heart should be beating. It isn’t anymore.

"With a GASP, the old man collapses halfway into the grave he was digging. Just like that, he’s dead. "

Jane Espenson

Jane Espenson writes for television, in Hollywoo-woo, CA. She is also a dissector of jokes.

See The Dangling Kitten

Two jokes her, for a quickie:

"I will go to the animal shelter and get you a kitty cat. I will let you fall in love with that kitty cat; and then on some dark cold night, I will steal away into your home, and punch you in the face."

and

"Monday is for Meeting. Tuesday is for Talking. Wednesday is for Wishing. Thursday is for Touching. Friday for some reason was torn out."

Reading Espenson's dissection of these jokes ups the funny.

Running A Muck

Running amuck / amok is by now a familiar phrase. But, digging into the roots of the phrase in Hobson-Jobson yields a pair of fascinating stories.

The compilers think the word has a Javanese origin. But, when they get to talking about the word's history in India, these are the two incidents they mention:

(Imagine the drama inherent)

""In one of these (Histories if the Rajputs), the eldest son of the Raja of Marwar ran a-muck at the court of Shah Jahan, failing in his blow at the Emperor, but killing five courtiers of eminence before he himself fell.

"Again, in the 18th century, Bijai Singh, also of Marwar, bore strong resentment against the Talpura prince of Hyderabad, Bijar Khan, who had sent to demand from the Rajput tribute anda bride. A Bhatti and a Chondawat offered their services for vengeance, and set out for Sind as envoys. Whilst Bijar Khan read their credentials, muttering, 'No mention of the bride!' the Chondawat buried a dagger in his heart, exclaiming 'This for the bride!' 'And this for the tribute!' cried the Bhatti, repeating the blow. The pair then plied their daggers left and right, and 26 persons were slain before the envoys were hacked to pieces."

How is that for heroism and old-world honor?

Further down the history of the word, which speculates if the notion might have a Malayalam root, itself deriving from 'amokshya' in Sanskrit, they dismiss the suggestion of an Arabic root for the word, saying: "But this is etymology of the kind that scorns history."

I think their attitude, as reflected by this sentence, is proof of their veneration of the Word as capable of being potent bearers of events and influences from ages long past. I like their attitude.

--

Duart Barbosa's A Description of the Coasts of E. Africa and Malabar in the beginning of the 16th century apparently also has this story:

"There are among them (Javanese) who if they fall ill of any severe illness vow to God that if they remain in good health they will of their own accord seek another more honourable death for his service, and as soon as they get well, they take a dagger in their hands, and go out into the streets and kill as many persons as they meet, both men, women, and children, in such wise that they go like mad dogs, killing until they are killed. These are called Amuco. And as soon as they see them begin this work, they cry out, saying Amuco, Amuco, in order that people may take care of themselves, and they kill them with dagger and spear thrusts."

Damn, I say!

For Whitman Folks

Imagine my surprise when Yukta wrote to say she is in Kathmandu, indefinitely!

So, anybody else from Wallytown headed this way, let us know, and we could have a little reunion of our own.

Nit-picking Democracy

I bet most of y'all in Nepal haven't given these data a close look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_of_the_Nepalese_Constituent_Assembly_election,_2008

Although this is a Wikipedia page, the same results can be found at the Election Commission's website. Understandably, the site is shit.

Still, a closer look at the numbers can be quite instructive. For instance: I was stumped by how it was possible for the average of two numbers to be larger than the larger of the two numbers. how is (a/2+b/2) <>

If you look at what political parties are included in the MKN government, and tally their FPTP votes, you can begin to appreciate that this is actually the *true majority*, and not the faction led by the Maoists. NC and UML are an unholy political union--they have nothing to distinguish from each other anymore, they are entrenched, and will fight simply for possession over reform. But, it is undeniable that together, they share 44.42 of the FPTP votes, and 41.47% of proportional representation votes.

It would be more instructive to include the various Terai parties to this calculation, but the data here don't suffice: Sadbhavana Party has broken up into 3 groups, MPRF significantly into two factions, etc.

Election observers like EC and JCF should look at the number of total votes cast under the FPTP and proportional systems, because there is huge evidence within that of the massive irregularity that must have taken place: (Prop - FPTP) = 0.04(Prop) Or, 432,958 people who cast the vote for the proportional system didn't cast the vote for the FPTP system.

That is a huge number of people! You had to cast your FPTP votes first, then only were you given your second ballot for the proportional representation vote. Either over 4% of the voters were totally disillusioned with the system and didn't cast their FPTP votes, or, the proportional representation ballot boxes were stuffed.

Look closely at the difference between the FPTP and proportional votes for the top five political parties.

NC, UML and Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party (TMLP) have more FPTP votes than they have proportional votes. These were the status-quo parties, TMLP being a shadow of NC and UML. It was a popular sentiment at that time that people would give their old leaders from NC and UML their direct vote, but would give their proportional rep vote to the new, revolutionary parties: UNCP-Maoist, and MPRF (Forum).

Icing... Perhaps we can substitute with Nepal Ice??

http://brosicingbros.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/09/business/media/09adco.html?hpw

This is a dumbass drinking game, for dumbasses, with the shittiest tasting beverage known to the girlie boys: Smirnoff Ice. Gives you acidity and doesn't quite get you drunk. Too sweet.

But, I think Kathmandu could use a drinking game of this sort of popular appeal. Would be nice to get 'iced" with Nepal Ice bottles. I would let those poor bastards Ice me all day long.

Can you imagine getting ice cold beer through the hot pre-monsoon menopausal weather that we are having, owing solely to the stupidity of your friends?

A hot evening here...

Tonight was very hard... is very hard... I am awake, as is half the neighborhood. Pukku--the two-year old little girl next door--is awake and actively asking questions. It is 11 pm. This girl sits at the window and waits for fruits and vegetables vendors to ask: "O Bhaiyya! Kasari ho? 40-50 ma milayera dinus na! O Bhaiyya! Kasari ho?" There is one man in particular, in his 50s, who grins at her and asks her to ask him again. The girl is barely 2 years old! But she sits at the window asking: "How much is it? Why don't you sell it for 40 rupees?"

It is so hot that she can't fall asleep. She is asking questions to her parents in her clear, loud voice, and I can hear it.

Two owls, beautiful birds, elusive during the day but active in the night, have taken up their back-and forth calling, loud and unfriendly screeches. One of them often makes the open window-pane by my pillow its perch from where to wait for sewage rats to emerge. Sometimes I hear if swoosh down to the ground. There follows a piercing squeak, a crunch of bones, and a telling silence: dinner, death. Death, dinner.

It is so hot, the owls can't keep their vigilante perch in peace.

The neck sweats more than any other part of the body, and that is a disturbing, sickly sensation: it is the feeling of blood trying to desperately cool down. I moved in the bed to find the water bottle and settling back, almost jumped up in surprise: the outline of heat I'd left on the bed was a pool of fire, an unwelcome surprise.

There is a cloud cover over Kathmandu. Instead of bringing rain, it is just increasing the steamy discomfort.

Monsoon, soon

Or not.

There are times when we yearn a sky full of stars. These are not such days. These days I wish the sky were covered with slumbering thick rainclouds. Quick lightning and the roar of thunder, rain spearing aslant on the panes, anything to wet the soil, anything to cool the air. Storms. Storms that rob chunks of daytime, fill them with chaos, force me to stand by the window to look out, see replicated in the floss of over-brimming sewage the innocence of water hitting water to make ripples...

Rain. Lots of it. Lots and lots of it. That is what I want.

Yesterday's was a strange sky for this time of the year. It was beautiful without the terror; it was pretty. I remember thinking: "These clouds remind me of the function of the sky: to carry beauty." But that is merely a pretty a thought, or a thought about prettiness, not beauty.

Then I thought: to each season its own sky, and to each season its own surprises. Which, really, means nothing.

Then a phrase entered my head: "A well seasoned man."

A well-seasoned man? I sensed a story there. An elaborate short story about a man, caught in particular circumstances, a political and moral animal that is thrown particular political and moral problems, bones to gnaw.

But, I wanted the story to start with a non-story, a red-herring, a schlock-piece, about an abused wife who murders her husband and calls his two lovers--her friends--to eat the flesh. But, she has to postpone the dinner because she can't find the right kind of cardamom to--ahem--season her husband's flesh. Because she wants to serve--!--a well-seasoned man.

I know that sounds dumb. But, I am reserving judgment because I haven't seen the actual story that will follow this terrible attempt to make a very bad pun. I have a feeling the story that will follow will adequately engage this vignette to make it both relevant and interesting.

Get Inspired

How does one know when one is doing 'it" right?
That is the incomparable Roberto Bolano, on what it means to write.

A Weathered People

http://nepalitimes.com.np/issue/2010/06/4/June5EnvironmentDay/17142

Bill Murry in Zombieland

I am watching Zombieland as I write this post. It is a zombie movie: that isn't giving away anything, right?

It is full of funny moments. Then it takes a strange turn: escaping the zombies that have taken over the US of A, the heroes reach LA. There, they decide that Bill Murry's mansion is the only place worth crashing in.

Watch the movie, if only for Bill Murry, who may or may not be a zombie.

He plays himself.

Loadshedding and Mustache

Loadshedding, mustache and a webcam make an explosive combination:

Here's how much drama is leeched out of the picture by the absence of loadshedding:

One man you wouldn't want to meet after your night out. The other you'd send out to buy a bottle of water. One mustache menaces, the other just makes the man look like an idiot.