I’m bummed out.Last night, I went for dinner with four very smart people. Not rocket scientist smart or maths wiz smart but knowing what the score is, making the connections and understanding shit smart.
I barely said a word all evening. Occasionally I thought of a feeble pun or insightful observation of the sort that I could pull off it was just me and one of them, but with an audience of four, there was no chance I was going to say a damn thing unless I was absolutely certain it wasn’t entirely daft. Very intimidating this stuff.
An example:
Smart dude 1: Wasn’t MN Roy in Mexico with Trotsky?
Smart dude 2: No, no, wayyy before Trotsky. He founded the Mexican Communist Party.
Smart dude 1: Oh yeah, Then he had a falling out with Lenin.
Whaddafux? How the hell do you people know all this stuff, man?
If it sounds lame, that’s only because I haven’t given any context, so don’t get all self-righteous and begin feeling good about yourself. You pale in comparison to these fellows as well dude.
As I heard them go on, all the while spooning what I thought was good ol’ aloo but turned out be fucking baingan, I toyed with the idea of never reading non-fiction again. Or the papers. Or anything apart from pulp, really. What’s the point? These guys, none of whom burn brain cells on as regular basis as I do -– or at all -– know far more than I ever will. So why bother?
In the course of writing this, I looked up this MN Roy fellow –- nothing elaborate, just wikipedia -– and landed up reading the entire thing and wondering how and why I’ve never heard of him before. I encourage you to go to the site and check it out. It’s quite fascinating.
Suddenly all the cynicism has gone away. Man, this is not how this post was supposed to end.
How fucking left-liberal/agnostic (wishy-washy) of me.
For the record, I nicked the image from some chick's MySpace page. The image originally linked to something called Dia
UPDATE: It has been brought to my attention that we studied MN Roy in school. Pretty much everyone I have related this story to has said "You don't know MN Roy?"(right after they expressed astonishment at my inability to differentiate between two completely different vegetables). Look, I'm sorry, I don't. Get over it.
posted by Leo M at 12:13 PM
23 Comments:
I see you took my request for new post very seriously and very seriously nice new post.
i think a far more fundamental point is that you can't tell aloo from baingan.
and of course MN Roy is a genius creature. we bongs are wired that way.
Look man, they were chippie strips in white goop. man, peolpe disguise anything as aloo nowadays. they ought to be a law. Have you ever heard of something called arbi (or arabi)? It looks like aloo and feels like aloo (texture-wise) but it doesn't taste a damn thing like aloo. I'm going to start a campaign again fake aloo.
i also really like saying aloo.
i have a friend who's grandmother's name is Aloo. and i know of something whose surname is Mango. they are, obviously, both bawas.
aloo, mango and a link from zulinky banana. and i haven't even smoked anything.
of course i've heard of arbi. it's called kochu in bengali, if you really want to know and makes mouths itch if it is cooked without being marinated in imli. so ha!
mmmphh mmmmphh mmmmmm mmmmm mmmppph !
go on, spit it out then.
yay!
ok, first, arbi or arvi is only similar to potatoes because its a root vegetable, but it goes all gloopy and sticky when cooked. plus its a little sweet.
two, give yourself a break. some people know about random communists, some people could talk about the design of the SS Enterprise engine. doesn't make you stupid.
third, you're a bombay-ite. say "ba-ta-ta", is way more fun. like, woh batata mujhe satata (hain).
lastly, bawa names are funny, but irani ones are much better. ever met a Khodu?
stupid? who said anything about stupid? you're stupid.
Incidentally, the jokers who merged BPL, AT&T and Tata clearly weren't from Bombay. They called the new entity BATATA.
"BPL communications and Birla-AT&T-Tata (BATATA) announced the move - BPL will hold a 49.32% stake in the new company while BATATA's stake will be 50.68%.
A statement issued by the companies said the new entity will move towards a common brand name and a corporate identity in a phased manner."
Good thing it never really took off.
i think this is your funniest comment section yet. already three out loud giggles, much to the alarm of the cat. yay leo! yay comment people! keep going!
i really relate to that post.
fuck MN roy.you really need to know your aloo from your beigan
My GK totally sucks. MN Roy rang a bell only as a vague history book figure. Even after reading the wiki link.
I like this post. I've felt that way almost everyday.
Oh, and I'm nicking the picture.
and stop saying aloo man.
ro said to me the other day "if you're going to keep saying 'teapot' then get out of the kitchen"
but it's so much fun.
and hahaha -- someone's finally throwing YOU out of kitchen
(teapot sounds like fun to say too though).
did ou see the rats on cocaine animation? its fucking hilarious
yeah i kept going up to her and whispering in her ear 'teapot'
and ending all my sentences with teapot
Keep in mind the 'school' you're referring to is a system where you won't ever use 90% of what you were forced to memorize and then bullshit onto gigantic booklets I could never fill up with my 'ant dipped in ink and tossed onto sheet' handwriting. The only thing I ever carried with me out of twelfth grade cbse physics was a bit of understanding of lenses, which the media department at college decided had nothing to do with us actually using the god damn lenses to compose a frame properly.
You want to know some of the scarier secrets of arabi? A rather senior officer in the embassy in pakiland, a colleague of my dad's, didn't want to serve meat at a dinner he'd invited most of the diplomatic and UN circle to. Can't remember if he was just being cheap or if he was vegitarian, anyway, he served three types of arabi and passed it off as meat. He actually got away with it.
fuck. is arbi the new soy?
Could be, but arabi tastes like shit. At least you can do a lot with soy, like make a risotto with the big chunks, make a daal out of the little ones, make tofu out of it, take the water that comes out of the tofu and drink it, all that. Arabi's just... Ugly.
the fun is when you cook potatoes and arvi together. so the whole meal is a guessing game as to whether you're going to get a nice solid chunk of tater, or gloopy arvi.
Yeah but then there's shalgam, or however you spell it... now that stuff's just nasty... I rememeber my sister and I tried to sabotage the shalgam once, and we put loads and loads of salt into it. Turns out my mom forgot to put salt into it in the first place, so it turned out tasting good, as good as shalgam can taste.
Too many bongs made it to history books man. Its alright to forget a Roy, really.
Last summer, I had a serious crush on a boy named Aloo.
I didn't remember MN Roy from school, often suspect THC has slow fried my brain and feel a deep sense of betrayal when vegetables turn out to be other than who I thought they were.
But why have you let them silence you?
vvnflyx
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