Tickling delhi's belly..

Three friends surviving in the mean streets of Delhi. One a journalist, another his photographer and the third an artist at an ad agency. Three young men with oodles of charm, wit, sloth, testosterone and foul language. Throw in a mix up and a chain reaction of events leading from it and you have Delhi Belly. It's a laugh riot alright. It's slapstick comedy replete with butt cracks and potty jokes. But what's refreshing is that the jokes are new. Like the photographer not finding water to wash himself after doing business and using cartons of his friend's orange juice and his friend quipping with a straight face: 'you've put me off orange juice forever!'
Delhi belly never slows the pace or slackens the wit. It's all there- the itchy street food hawker, the cameraman with a glad eye and a lens that finds women's bustlines to suggestive sex scenes. The film goes from gag to gag and the language is crude enough to jolt you awake if and when the laughter begins to fade.

For someone whose ears are not used to the Hindi four letter words it's a language lesson. I have added considerably to my roadside vocabulary which i reserve for erring motorists, eve teasers and general people of nuisance value. But i wonder about the thousands of people like me who are in for a shock. The sexual innuendoes and scenes are enough to jolt the average conservative Indian into an uncomfortable space. Our society revels in not talking openly about sex. That's definitely not a healthy thing but will making a caricature of it make people become more open and accept it? Only time will tell.

Delhi Belly is a film not to be watched with your parents or elders in the 'family'. It's a hoot if you go with your friends though. If you accept the crassness you'll appreciate and enjoy the characters and the actors who play them to perfection- well almost. Imran excels in understated elegance but Vir Das is a revelation with his superb comic timing. Vijay Raaz is adorable as the villain and Anoushka (MTV VJ) gives a brilliant cameo as a pompous and vacuous indi-pop singer giving an interview. Everything about the film is refreshing and the music just rocks.
To end with Anoushka's line in the film- Delhi Belly- I hate you like i love you!!

Blabber mouth cars

The rate at which technology is leapfrogging we’ll soon have smart cars that will report bad driving to the police. Johnny, my slightly squishy at the edges blue swift will have a lot to say. “She always overtakes from the wrong side, accelerates at the traffic signals when the lights are turning yellow and scrapes the road divider when making u turns….! Slap a hefty fine please!”
No more covering up accident involved cars with paint and dent jobs and passing them off to innocent customers. Cars will squeak up- hello- don’t trust this bugger. Three accidents, four door bash-ups, ten grazes and five bumper hits! And that will be the end of the deal. Detectives will read the memory of a suspect car for proof of crime and use it in court. It’ll be one car’s word against another human being’s. Cops might even trace the entire life of a car and all its travails by going into its ‘history’.
But hey, Indians are enterprising, if nothing else. We are great at finding short cuts and ‘fix it’ solutions to such problems. Like the homegrown MS office and refill ink cartridges that you can buy in Nehru Place we’ll crack this code too and come up with remotes to ‘silence’ these smart cars. Let the west comes up with new inventions, we’ll come up with new solutions. After any accident you’ll have folks pleading for an ‘erase memory’ job just like mechanics reset the mileage button and fake the usage of an old car. That’ll put an end to all car-smartness. Ok, want to blabber? Here you go….zzzzip!

The Receiver theory

It was a sight for sore eyes. Tired, on my way back from work, I spotted a little boy of about eight rolling in laughter on the train. Something had tickled his funny bone and there he was- in splits and with such gay abandon that after a few minutes he developed a hiccup and was in tears. I forgot my feet which were killing me (thanks to the awkward heels I'd worn to match my trendy outfit), forgot my overfried brain (thanks to a long day at work)and my melancholic heart (induced by some emotional roller coaster rides of late). I watched the boy in wonder and humbly acknowledged his emotional superiority. Couldnt help myself from breaking into a smile and reaching out to him. I walked up to the boy and patted his head affectionately. I told his mother what a wonderful sunny child she had. She gave me a beaming smile with her paan stained teeth and in an apologetic tone said, 'this one's a bit crazy. He's always laughing...'
Yes, i thought. Laughter has become so rare these days that we dont associate it with something healthy or 'right'. Anger and disapproval are the accepted emotions of the day. It's ok to walk around town with a frown on your face and feel slighted at every opportunity. Just look around you and you'll be hard pressed to find any smiling/laughing or 'i'm having a good time' faces. If you do, they are usually the very young or teenagers. A gaggle of young girls are always a source of giggly laughter. You'll notice they wont need a topic. Everything and anything will induce a giggle. But most people in Delhi are dependent on sms jokes for their quota of laughter for the day. 'Read sms= will laugh' is the formula. Ok, jokes are fun, but what about looking at the funny side of life? Why dont we find humour in everyday situations?
The other day a woman standing behind me on the train found my bag too big for her comfort. She had to negotiate around it to pass and couldn't resist a jibe as she got off. 'Itna bara bag leke chalti hain...' she said. 'Yeh self defence ke kaam ata hai!' i retorted. I meant it as a joke but judging by the scowl on her face she didnt find it the least bit funny...

Lack of humour could be explained by the 'Receiver theory'.
According to this theory people must have the receivers for wit. Little receptors in your brain that light up when a joke is told. No receivers = no comprende. That's why when sometimes you get up to tell a joke all you get are stares and what all speakers dread-- silence. A bit like serving gourmet caviar to a die hard vegetarian or selling travel brochures to the blind. It can get very very embarrassing.

Proponents of the Receiver theory say building receivers for humour is a rather tricky affair. They swear you aren’t born with it even though many people think funny bones are hereditary. It’s supposed to be an acquired trait. Education and knowledge of a language helps but are often not enough. You have to go deeper- understand the nuances of culture and geography of a place. Should explain why Santa Banta jokes have instant acceptability in India and Polish jokes in the West.
Many jokes have a scatological edge so prudes need to build receivers to appreciate them. One of my relatives married a Finnish woman. We met after a decade and inevitably Bengali jokes entered the conversation. The poor chap asked his wife to make coffee as we warmed up. ‘This is the only drawback of marrying intercontinental,’ he whispered. ‘You cannot translate khata pykhana- (pot latrine) jokes. She will be horrified if I even tried!’ I guess he didn’t even try building her receivers in that direction. Raunchy, ribald jokes need an in depth knowledge of not just the local language but also the dialects.

A friend in the US called a plumber to deal with the blocked sewage pipe. He fixed the problem but added on his way out, ‘lady, you gotta keep flushing while you are doing business or else you’ll have to call me sooner than you think!’ Can you imagine your plumber making such a comment? Chances are if he did, you would chase him out of the building for being insolent. See how the receiver theory makes a difference?