I have a problem with this.

Let me start by saying I’m not against tigers. I think they should be protected, and allowed to regenerate their population. I’m not against killing anything—except bloodsucking mosquitos and maybe our three dogs—so tigers are safe. In fact, I’ve always wanted a Tiger as a pet cat; where even an extremely large house cat would do. But, I have a problem with this largely fake sympathy toward Tigers.

Tigers and other carnivores are ecologically redundant. Their purpose in nature was to make sure the herbivores don’t eat up all of the grass, thereby leaving the earth barren; ending life. Now, humans are very well capable of doing that job—trigger happy Salman is just waiting to shoot down some black buck—so where does the Tiger fit in? The Tiger is only for the saving. The vanishing of the glamorous cat puts us all in extreme guilt for our better lives, so we want to do something about it. Nature doesn’t give a shit about Tigers. Nature doesn’t need tigers. Existence is not depending on whether or not tigers roam this planet. What are we saving them for. Our children? Aside from knowing that there are tigers in the wild, when was the last time you ever saw one? I’m not counting zoos here. And if you did make a Safari trip, how do you feel about yourself, disturbing their lives with your fucking cameras and littering?

What a magnificent beast, right?

Say something against Tigers, and it won’t be a second before someone yells out, “what a fucking self-important self-riteous selfish ass-tard”. Which is what I am. All individuals are selfish. It starts at the individual level, them family, local society, country, and finally, the species. With animals on the other hand it’s much simpler. In many cases it’s a direct jump from individual to species. Sometimes not even species. My point is we’re all selfish, so it’s not wrong to think of our species first.

Let me get the trivial stuff out of the way. We have no reason to kill tigers. Poaching is just plain wrong, and people who own tiger skin should be hanged at the local beat show. But that’s not why Tigers are disappearing—rather, they’re not proliferating. It’s because of drying watering holes, lack of prey, receding forest cover, and things like that which lead to the Tiger crossing paths with a human. Should we do something about it? What can we do about it? Not much. No matter how many speeches and documentaries we watch, we continue to use motor vehicles, we continue to eat chicken and beef, we continue to live in concrete houses, and continue to breed. As long as there’s development, there will be a climb. The climb may show a steady decline in increase, but it’s increasing nonetheless. Selfish species for sure, but evolution taught us that. It’s nature’s mistake really. It made man so powerful and smart, that he has taken over the planet. I’d like to blame this God fellow, but I’ll leave him alone for a change. But then, the age old philosophical question is asked again, “what are we here for?”. We don’t know. Intelligence, collective consciousness, and documented history could be far greater evolutionary achievements on nature’s part, than something as minor as a four legged carnivore.

So what do we do then? Just stand by and watch? No way. Do something. My parents are one of India’s greatest environmentalists (please don’t tell them I said that), and have played a crucial role in saving Goa from destruction. Truth. My brother is one of the most knowledgeable natural scientists I know, and has been educating people about the harmlessness of snakes for several years now (don’t tell that asswipe I said this either). I have reared the most awesome cat in the world. He’s been bred to be soft, sissy, good looking, and a good internet marketeer apparently. Do something for sure, something selfless that will prolong the life of this planet as we know it.

The problem with this “Save the Tiger” bullshit, is that it makes you feel like you’re doing something by not doing anything. As long as you don’t kill any tigers, and maybe have your kid draw some shitty paintings of happy tigers, you’ve done your job. It’s as fake as using a fleshlight to jerk yourself off. The real problems are swept under the rug, because (a), they’re not glamorous enough to sell a story to the public, and (b), it requires major effort and lifestyle changes on part of the public. The Ganges has turned into one filthy flow of sewage, the mountains are being hacked by people who can afford to pay bribes; we’re not worried about frogs killed for their legs, or indigenous primitive trees being hacked to make way for teak and other desirable wood, or that forest mushrooms hardly grow these days. Our priority should be to create a sustainable environment for the natural ecosystem to thrive. We need cleaner sources of energy, better laws and administration at from our government, and we need to understand that the last link of the chain is not nearly as important as the first. As long as that happens, tigers can most certainly take care of themselves.

A rare red and white tiger, spotted in its natural habitat.

Fact is, I needed to explain all this to a friend of mine who recently joined twitter (and is making an ass out of himself), so why not put it in words. There’s a shit load of Don’t in here, so if all you’re going to do is point out the negativity, I advise you to bend over and stick a carrot through the hole facing the sky. On to twitter…

Retweet Responsibly.

People don’t know how to retweet. You may say, just use the twitter retweets feature, which is fine for some cases. But other times you want to own that piece of news, so you retweet traditionally. Here’s the syntax.

If it’s a piece of news, send out the news first, then add a slasher “/via” followed by @whoever. So, “Michael Jackson has risen again! http://link.me/xhs5y /via @jerkoff” is the right way to go. Always put the content first, and then the credits. Why is it important who you or your followers who you got the information from? But you do want to credit the source, so the via link is apt. RT is just in bad taste.

But what about if there already is a “via @firstperson” in that tweet? I’ve seen so many cases of “RT @someone Here comes the news http://link.me/sexdoll /via @else”. Please don’t treat your followers like shit. In most cases, I’d say give credit only to the person you got the retweet from, not the original source. If you do want to give credit to two sources (never more than two though), add use the slasher and tack em on, like “/via @dumbass @goobimama”.

Sometimes, an ultimate original source will tweet a link. Like for instance, TUAW tweets a link to one of their articles. If that’s the case, you don’t need to add the “via”, because you’ve already credited the source with that link. I would recommend that you change the words though, so it’s more personal.

When it comes to quotes and funnies, instead of using the RT syntax, append the Twitter handle at the end of the tweet using a hyphen. “I vote for world peace — @brandonpittman” is way better than using via or RT. Although, I’d say funnies belong to the original author, so it’s best you just use the new retweet feature.

Avoid Twitlonger

I’ve seen so many people make me hit the unfollow button because they were too lazy to edit their tweet. If the tweet is over 140 characters, don’t tweet it. Just don’t.

The only time Twitlonger is appreciated, is when replying to someone and the answer is too long to be covered in two tweets. It should be at least more than 300 characters to make any sense. For the rest, take heed to Aayush’s advice on cramming your tweets into the 140 character space.

Don’t use hashtags unless you know what the fuck you’re doing

“This #ipad makes you look #cool. #mac #apple” in fact makes you look stupid. Hashtags serve two purposes: to add a tag categorizing a tweet which otherwise doesn’t contain that tag “I’m leaving now! #pakapukutweetup” would being all tweets related to Paka Puku tweetup together. They don’t work for broader untracked subjects—things like Apple or #India. The other use, is sarcasm, satire, and humor. as Patrick does it.

“I feel sorry for the little girl who raped.

#notreally”.

You’re not stupid, are you? No wait, don’t answer that.

Follow Friday

I get the idea behind follow Friday. It’s about recommending your favourite twitterrers so others can enjoy their tweets too. What I don’t get however, is this large scale back scratching that goes on every Friday. I’m even willing to entertain a meaningless tweet with a bunch of people thrown in tagged with #FF, but when I see more than one in a row, I immediately unfollow. There’s absolutely no excuse for that kind of rubbish.

For what exactly are you trying to achieve with a #followfriday? I can bet you not one of your followers will follow someone from an #FF tweet. I don’t, and I don’t even get new followers from such tweets. It doesn’t work. The only way you can truly recommend someone, is by sending out a single tweet explaining why you think that person is great.

Don’t use yFrog

Use Img.ly, or Droplr, or Cloud (if you have an invite), or even trusty old TwitPic. yFrog is the ugliest image host you could find, and I despise even seeing the link in my timeline. Curse @Tweetie for defaulting to yFrog, which inadvertently leads to me sending out a yFrog link once every few. Using a better host not only reduces clutter, it also makes your images look better. I say Img.ly, because not only is it the best looking one out there, they’re also the most innovative of the lot.

Don’t ever fuck with my timeline

Whenever you’re going to do something, know that it’s stupid, because that’s what you’re good at. So take a step back for a moment, and think about me for a change. Will I benefit from seeing those >140 characters? More often than not, it’s going to be a big no. Do I think I’m as stupid as you to believe I’ll win a MacBook Pro by tweeting about it? Do you really think I’m interested in seeing pictures of your cat? Of course, your timeline belongs to you, and you should post whatever the fuck you feel like. Just don’t overdo it, because you know, the big bad wolf has a habit of dropping in unexpectedly.

So I decided to fit it with a granite slab, wall to wall, instead. Luckily, out here in India marble and granite is oh holy cheap. The 8 foot wide-3 foot deep slab cost me just Rs. 2500—including transporting it home. I then painted my previously orange and blue walls to bright white, all by myself (wait, the paint was done before the slab came, but let’s not get into specifics).

I like how my desk is looking now. It’s massive, so I can do anything I want on it. It’s freedom. I know I won’t clutter it up with junk, since I don’t have any papers and whatnot. Besides, that’s what the metal trashcan at the bottom is for. The Audioengine speakers look fantastic on it. Magic Mouse works like magic on the surface. I only wish I had a wireless keyboard. And even if I keep things lying around on the desk (iPhone, camera, wallet), they’re all so spaced out it feels like they were meant to be there.

But what’s that ugly white thing in the middle, you might ask. That’s my four year old 2Ghz Core Duo iMac, the first of the Intels. And it’s not ugly; it’s beautiful. I know, I know, Apple has gone through two revisions since, but I have absolutely no reason to switch. It’s fast enough for everything, runs the latest and greatest of software, and I have absolutely no crashes or errors to deal with (I guess Apple had better quality control back then). For all intents and purposes, it looks and feels new.

The biggest change in my workspace though, is I now also have a PC on my desk. Where PC stands for Personal Cat.

I don’t know what calls me to make a biking trip. Is it the poetic idea of ‘hitting the road’, or the fear that this is the only age I’ll get to ‘freak out’ so? I don’t know. So without an explanation as to why, I’ll give you a short note on what went down that road.

On the travel plan

I depend on Google Maps. I look through the images, jotting down my path. This time, it was a 400km straight ride to Mangalore, cut across to Metikali (Coorg), and ride through the Nilgiris, passing some flatlands in Kerala, Gudalur, climbing up into Ooty, and finally, Coonoor, where my aunt awaited my arrival with chocolates made just for me.

On Getting there

There weren’t any surprises. I had initially planned on staying at my uncle’s place in Mangalore, but I got there at ~2 in the morning. Add to that now-city is completely unrecognizabke from 3 years ago. Lodges were closed. I managed to find a lonely bus stop with ledges wide enough to accomodate me. It was some terrible mosquito ridden sleep, but I needed it.

I arrived at Coorg late afternoon, and got a royal welcome at Sujata and Anurag’s Eco tourism retreat—dad’s friends. Chilled. Ate. Slept (fucking cold). Left early next morning.

Nothing much to add here. Some rough roads in between, not the greatest of scenery, and food was nothing compared to back home. Fucking Keralites and their coconut oil. I reached Coonoor withi 48 hours of leaving home—actual riding time an unknown.

On Riding Gear

Unlike the last time, I decided to get me some good riding gear to protect me from the cold as well as reduce injury should I crash into a cow. I’ve got to hand it to the Cramster guys. Splendid jacket. Not only could I ride in extreme cold, the jacket beathes enough to make riding in the hot sun quite tolerable. At no point did I get any shivers of any kind, nor did I feel the need to take it off in the sub. Only, if I did stop in the sun , I had to immediately take it off because it just absorbed all that heat leaving me drenched in sweat. Overall amazing constriction, protection, safety, and it looks awesome too.

On The Nilgiris

It’s breathtaking. The green tea gardens, the deep valleys, the clouds beneath. Riding between Coonoor, Kotagiri, and Ooty was sheer joy. The roads are smooth and well maintained. The gear of course protected me from the cold.

After two days of this though, its artificial face showed through. Neatly arranged tea gardens doesn’t exactly spell out ‘nature’. There were of course evergreen forests; beautifully covering the road in certain areas, and I enjoyed riding through those under the thick canopy.

On Coldness

I hate the fucking cold. I hate sleeping under heavy quilts, I hate heating water every time I want to drink, and I hate having my dick frozen every time I have to take a piss. Maybe I’m too stupid to actually like the hot Goan weather; I just do. That is not to say I suffered all these days. I can very well take the cold for a few days or even months. But living I do only in the tropics.

On Aunt’s place in Coonoor

For all those family folks reading this, Anjie’s place is awesome. Really nicely designed, elegant furniture, utilitarian too. Awesome that she made time for even though she was so busy.

On Photography

I hate photographers who post awesome shots, and then complain that they didn’t get it right or some bullshit like that. Also, I’m not a photographer (yet), so I didn’t expect my pictures to make it to people’s desktop wallpapers. During my trip, I remembered something a photography great had said. It’s not about having great lenses, or having years of experience (although those help). Photography is about getting up early in the morning. It’s about hiking to the precise spot on that hill. It’s about stopping, setting up your equipment, and working just because you think a particular scene might end up being a good shot.

I certainly couldn’t wake up at 5 in the morning; it was too cold and I was lazy. But if you allow me to blame equipment for my crappy shots: First, I didn’t have a UV or Polarizer filter on my lens so there was all kinds of weird hues. Second, while travelling, my bag was tied to my bike. So I couldn’t leave it unattended. Third, my left toe was hurting.

On South India

It sucks. No one speaks English or Hindi, so all I could say was “illa placename“. Road signs are all in freakin hibberish—why would they renamed a lovely name like Ooty to Ugamimagadipadam?—and the the coolest place around town was a Cafe Coffee Day. The moment I crossed the Karnataka border into Goa, I could feel the difference. For one, there’s a bar every 200 metres or so (with increasing frequency until they’re actually touching one another). For another, the people are just fun.

On Aloneness

“Of course I’ll be joining you”, said one. Another had already set aside cash. Another was just a few hours away, so definitely. I knew ultimately I would be the only one going on this epic journey. First, I don’t mind the alone. While riding I don’t see how company helps other than for protection should something happen. It would have been nice to have someone on to roam around the place though. To see a breathtaking sight, and all you’re surrounded with are monkeys and yanda-gundu speaking people isn’t all that fun.

Oh I’ll be doing this again. For sure.

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Esther von Marie. Esther loved to play in the woods, amidst the birds and flowers. Esther didn’t have any friends, so the forest became her friend. Every morning her mother would give her a pail to fetch water from the stream. She would skip and hop over the rocks, and pick fresh fruits and berries, as she pranced through the forest.

Then one day, Burra, the big bad wolf entered the forest. Burra was hungry, and horny. He hadn’t eaten in days, and hadn’t fucked since his girlfriend left him for the wandering bear. Apparently his cock was bigger than Burra’s, and Burra knew that for a fact. Just as he entered the forest of Ezilgah, Burra notices this little girl hopping through the bushes. Burra couldn’t believe his eyes! She was his perfect victim! He jumped her, raped her without the least bit of trouble. Esther was crying like a little girl—well she was a little girl to start with—since she didn’t understand what was happening. Burra paid no attention, satisfied himself, and then killed and ate her up down to the last bone.

Then, as he rested in the shade, he notices Esther’s mother Elsie approaching; she was searching for her daughter who hadn’t returned. Burra’s jumped in joy, “fuck yeah!”. He mounted the mother, and raped her too. Unlike the little girl though, the mother enjoyed every bit of burra’s comparatively big organ. By the time Burra was done with her she quite forgot about her daughter. Truth be told, Esther was quite a pain to raise, so in a way Elsie was relieved. She invited Burra into her house, and they lived happily ever after.

The End.

I wrote this while resting in the shade of a tree on the way home from my trip into the Nilgiris. I think I’m pretty good at writing children’s stories—as is evident from this masterpiece—and will strive to write more and hopefully turn it into a full blown children’s book. “The little girl who got raped, and other great stories by Goobi”.

The pics are terrible as usual, and I’m not just saying that. Ambolim is a beautiful place, with a deep valley, but I just couldn’t capture it right. Notice the complete absence of those pics. But there’s time to learn. Meanwhile…

We were in college, in our teens and neither of us had any sizeable bank balance. Someone, I can’t remember who, had the bright idea of organising a basketball tournament that would bring us unimaginable riches. And so it began.

Word was that the Sporting Authority of India, and that of Goa, granted 2 lacs each for major sporting events. However, the event had to be sanctioned by the head of the association in Goa, who was believed to be a corrupt official. If he approved the event, he wanted the grant money all to himself. Once we had his approval in this ‘official’ event however, sponsors would fall at our feet, offering anywhere from a lac or two each. By our calculations, four sponsors would result in around ~6 lacs gross income. Are you feeling the stupidity already or do I still need to continue? I’ll continue. By our baseless calculations, we’d spend about 3 lacs on the event, including the venue, teams, refreshments, all that, and have three lacs to split between the four of us. That’s 1.5 lacs in the hands of a fucking teenager!

We were of course giddy already, and decided to push forward. Bling was the basketball expert; Lion, the event management expert; Lingford, the muscle (well no one knew what else he was good at); and I was in charge of the graphics for all kinds of materials.

We made a swanky Keynote slideshow presentation on the iBook. I still have it, but it’s too embarrassing to share.

Sponsors of course wouldn’t just send money into our personal accounts. So we approached a bank, and found out details on how to open a business account. Spent half a day drafting the memorandum, minutes, and rules, and all that sh.it. Note that this was supposed to be our ‘first event’; we were already dreaming of hitting international in the next few months. There wasn’t even an ‘if’ involved! The name of our company was “Quadz Entertainment”—four, quad, get it?— and I did a logo which you can see below.

We approached the Head of the Goa authority in a secret place, who was totally wowed by the presentation on the ‘Apple’, and immediately signed and stamped the incomplete sheets. That was the difficult part, and we did it without even breaking a sweat! We could almost smell the dirty notes flying out of our overflowing cash bags.

Overjoyed, we decided to approach the sponsors. And it was only then that the cold cruel bitch named reality showed up. No one wanted to give us money! The liquor guys (who we wanted for the post-party) offered some booze in return for the prime spot. The beverages people wanted to give us 10k. We didn’t have the contact info for sports apparel companies. Our faces fell inside. It’s a good thing no one drew a line graph of our enthusiasm levels during this thing.

It fizzled down quick. Our enthusiasm died down. We stopped speaking about it. Sometimes someone would mention ‘quadz’, and we’d share a nervous chuckle (trying to hide the shame from within). We have of course outgrown this and pour generous laughter towards the joke that was Quadz.

Do I regret doing it? Hell no! Was one of the most intense, creative, and serious periods of my life, where for a week or two I suddenly felt grown up [where otherwise armpit farts amuse me]. We had all kinds of meetings, discussed things in secret because we didn’t want anyone getting wind of our brilliant idea, and planned on what we’d do once we got the cash in hand. The beauty of this venture, was that not that we’d get cash where we didn’t have any, but that we didn’t need any of that cash [I speak for myself]. That’s what you get when four idiots, with absolutely no responsibility whatsoever, no pressure to succeed, start searching for pot of gold at the end of a rainbow.

No worries though, I’m back to being a stupid village idiot now.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Short post this one. Unless you wanted a long one, which I won’t provide. Comments sort of appreciated, that is, the positive ones.

PS: I’m sure there are huge ass bugs, it might not display properly in Firefox and the whole of Windows, but well, as long as I have screenshots to prove it works in Safari, that’s all I care for now. Will fix the rest later.

I love beer. There are many who don’t, and drink it only to get a high (or to be fashionably cool), but I honestly love my beer. Especially a cold one on a hot afternoon. That’s what they are known as, cold ones. There are of course many different kinds of beer, and different brands for each kind. In Goa at least, we usually have the standard 4.8% vol. light Lager, which admittedly is best suited to the climate.

There’s Kingfisher, Tuborg, Budweiser, Fosters, Carlsberg, and Kings Black. Almost every one I know has a strong preference for one or the other, and an intense hatred for at least one of these. I’m pretty sure Budweiser is one universally hated beer; down with that American horse piss! Which brings me to Kings Black.

Brewed out of maize instead of the standard barley, Kings Black is our Goan pride. It’s made in Goa, by Goans, and is sold only in the state of Goa. It’s that special. Now what might a small Goan company have against the mighty Vijay Mallya, or even this new found “pull here for fun” Danish Tuborg? Kings is one of the ‘warmest’ beers I’ve ever had in my life. Where the rest of the lagers have this sharp cold texture, Kings fills in with a warm, round taste, like none other. It takes a little while getting used to, but it’s almost comparable to the difference between a cultivated and free range poultry (none of this makes sense to that idiot vegan from Kolkata I suppose). Every one I know who appreciates beer, has been an ardent fan of Kings.

Indians of course are stupid. They like to go to where the cool is; pretty sure no one buys an Apple product in India to appreciate it for what it really is. Any ‘new’ beer is highly appreciated, especially when some jackass returns from an introductory event at a club with an “It’s smoooooth”. It’s not. “It’s marketing” is what it is. Multinationals have immense capacities to market their products, that there’s no way real goodness can make its way into public appreciation. Turborg was only recently introduced, and it’s already in every bar/club/pub/liquor-shop/grocery-store in Goa¹. And even though advertising alcohol is banned in India, these assholes find a way to make a splash on the front pages of the local newspapers—music CDs or some bullshit like that.

The end result is dwindling availability of the better product—Kings. None of the local bars stock Kings anymore, and the other day when I went to Assagao, a sick motherfucker tried to cheat me—a Goan speaking Konkani—into buying it at 35 bucks a pint. 35 bucks a fucking pint! I immediately told him to fuck off, and walked away. Kings is the cheapest beer in Goa, costing around 20 bucks a pint (and you can get it in wholesale at Rs. 15.40 per pint). Now that’s cheapness right there.

Fun facts:

1. Kings bottles come in two colours: dark and transparent. They’re both the same, but if there’s a white guy in your group, give him the transparent one. It’s a good way to be negatively racist.
2. Kings does have quality control issues, as you might find it tasting ‘burnt’, or there might even be sediments floating around in there. Life is not perfect.
3. Kings is the only beer which refuses to go flat. You can come back to an opened bottle even after a couple of hours when it’s warm and has lost its fizz. Days even.

So if you make a trip to Goa, make sure you stop by at a run down little bar, and ask them for Kings. Insist on Kings. If they don’t have Kings, and you’re a rich fuck, buy a bottle of the piss they’re serving, take a swig, spit it out, and insist on Kings. Trust me, it’s the best.

1. Admittedly, Turborg is one of the better beers out there, but why settle for better when you can have the best?