The Army song.................

There used to be this army song which my school teacher taught us long back. It was a variant of an old world war II song and there are many versions of it. If my memory serves right, it went something like this...

The pay in the army, they say its mighty fine.

They give you rupees hundred and take back ninety nine !

Chorus:

I don't want be in the army now,

Sergeant I want to go!

Where the hell you want to go?

Sergeant I want to go home

The uniform in the army, they say its might fine.

Me and my companions, can all fit in to mine !

Chorus

The shoes in the army, they say its mighty fine

When you ask for number 6, they give you number 9 !

Chorus

The tea in the army, they say its mighty fine.

When you take a sip, it tastes like turpentine !

Chorus

After the recent events, I guess its time to update the song with another stanza.....so here it goes

The glory in the army, they say its mighty fine

When you lay down your life, they says it isn't worth the time of a canine !

They came calling.......

Ok.... Since I mentioned that I am about set my journey along the road of matrimony in my earlier post. I think its time to update on how far he journey has taken me.

Since the time I reached the generally accepted age of getting married, various relatives have shown considerable interest in my well-being. Any visit to the functions inadvertently led to the talks of my bachelorhood and it seemed like I was a blot on the human kind for not getting hitched and suffer like they already were.

Questions of why I haven't got married yet or if I have found someone by myself were frequently asked. My response in the negative for me finding a girl myself was always met with wide eyed disbelief as if I was going against some prophecy which was foretold at my birth( I am sure they even might have started to talk about my sexual orientation behind my back. Though nobody asked me). Then they started listing of bachelorettes who are just the one for me,extolling their virtues. By this point I would have either turned my self off to the words or would have found something very important to do.

But my relatives are a very persistant lot and determined to get me at whatever cost and one such effort bore fruit this weekend. Usually my weekends are.....umm...err... I don't have a word for staying in my room the whole day in front of my laptop, either working , watching movies or surfing the net for... erm ...interesting sites. But that's what my weekends are. So this weekend too was no different from others.

I was there sitting on my bed watching a movie when my aunt came knocking. She ordered me to come down as some one was waiting for me. Expecting my friend who usually drops in over the weekend, I went down in my PJ's and vest and with the general appearance of a hibernating bear only to encounter two people whom I have never met. My dad then introduces me to them and I realised that they were the mom and brother of a girl and I was being subjected to the ritual of 'seeing'!!!. Only that the custom is usually for the guy's folks to go and 'see' the girl. Well that's my luck for you.

Though they were taken aback by my appearance, they hid it well. There were questions to be answered. About my work, how far is my office, how much time does it take to commute, how many people work at my office (I seriously didn't understand the significance of that) and what my hobbies are. I was half expecting a request to sing and imagined myself winning them over with my impressive vocals (which had elicited a thunderous applause from my colleagues a few months back even before I had completed the first line of the song.. ok they wanted me to stop....) . But fortunately the request never came.

Then I stood there looking as lost as a gay guy in a strip joint while they completely ignored me and chatted away with my parents about mutually known relatives and who is where doing what. After about 10 minutes of this blinking in to space, I managed to escape and heave a sigh of relief.

Now I know exactly how a girl feels when a horde of people go to 'see her'. Probably there are few experiences which are more torturous than this.....

Rest assured the saga will continue...though will it end with me heading towards altar of marital bliss or not---only time will tell.

Again....and...again

Condemn strongly, Shocked, Stern Measures
Government.....

Ineffective Government, We are better, Let us rule
Opposition.....

How was the experience?, Were you afraid?,
Media to the victims of the nightmare.......

Misguided souls, Victims of Indian brutality, Save them, Human rights violation
Intellectuals [sic] describing the terrorists........

Not our people, Strongly deny, Offer full support
The neighbouring nation....

Ultimate Sacrifice, Bravery, Valour ,Martyr
To the soldiers who died saving ......

Undying Spirit, Resilience, Unity
To the people whose city is attacked....

These are mere words, which have lost their meaning
To be repeated every time the horror revisits us....again and again..

PS: A poignant post by Sidin and a scathing analysis by Greatbong

Me v/s Her.....

Regular readers of my blog (I mean all those 5-6 people whom I beg to read whenever I post my latest rant) might have noticed that I am adept (at least I like to think so) in writing about various topics and issues. But they may also have noticed that I rarely dwell upon a particular subject. A subject which you would have thought that any self respecting hot blooded single male should have in his mind at least all his waking hours (for some I know, even during their non-waking hours). Yeah you guessed it, the fairer sex.

There is a strong reason for this. Ever since I acquired logical thinking ability (now, there are mixed opinion about this, with everybody else except me telling that I can’t think at all), I realized that I cannot understand girls and also that I am a wimp.

Let me trace out my encounters with the female kind. As all stories go, it too started long long time ago and in a land far far away called childhood. Naturally being in co-ed school offered opportunities to develop your social skills and I made full use of it when I was in nursery. Couple of girls was my best friends just because their lunch box held interesting things than what my mum used to pack for me.

In primary school, there was a system of seating boys and girls side by side. And my first crush was the one who sat beside me. This was when I was in 2nd standard. Unless we were occupied in writing, we used to sit holding hands. Those were happy times. As any love story worth its salt should have a villain, the boy in the row front of us became ours. He was older, result of flunking twice and remaining in the same class. One day, as we were sitting holding hands oblivious of the whole world, he jumped upon us and exclaimed 'aaieee holding hands!!’. (Of course he had seen lot more Hindi movies than me). We stared at him defiantly and replied 'Yes'(Even we were not lagging far behind in watching Hindi movies). But our defiance was short lived as he threatened to tell our teacher and we realized quite early in life that all that they showed in movies were make believe. And definitely holding hands was not worth risking a thrashing from teacher. Well our immortal love story was short lived as she left the school at the end of the year and I discovered that playing football with a cricket ball and ruining your school shoes was cooler.

Over the course of years, my interactions with girls became less and lesser. Of course there were odd infatuations but nothing that would make me to break in to a song in the middle of the class where teacher is explaining effects of inflation on economy(no,subprime was never taught to us).

By the time I reached college, I realized that girls had become alien to me. Yeah I know you must be thinking 'What kind of a moron is he? college is the time to get on with girls and he is running away from them !!'. Well in my defense I can only say that I was the studious type who thought that talking to girls and going out with them were the past times of jerks. Yeah I am from that era. My parents knew very well that I had no hopes of impressing a girl. But nevertheless there were strict instructions from home which made my college social life as interesting as watching a live chess game on TV. What can I say, I was an obedient boy.

To make matters worse, my friends too were of the same mould. As an example here is one such incident. We were sitting in class waiting for the lecturer to come. Along comes a beautiful girl. She asks the guy who is sitting by the door as to which subject is it in next class. The guy promptly panicked and stammered that it was Sanskrit, whereas we were waiting for our zoology lecturer.

Around same time I developed this world weary cynicism and if Oxford dictionary is to be believed, developed a disposition to disbelieve in the sincerity or goodness of human motives and actions" and a tendency "to express this by sneers and sarcasms". Ok heavy words, but sincerely I believe that it was more of a 'Been there, Seen that, But never dare to do it' attitude.

The other important factor was my inability to understand them (but who does?). I found that what they think and what they do is always contradictory. Not all of them, but I can safely say that if put to vote, the contradictions will win a landslide victory just as Obama did.

Another aspect is their sense of humour. Yeah, most of them don’t have one. Once a girl I knew made fun of me and those present had a good laugh. But when I responded in kind, the girl sulked away and those around me gave me looks as if all the insensitivity in the world had been distilled in to me. Oye....double standards!!....that’s not cricket mate. All I can say is I have encountered only a few girls who have a terrific sense of humour and they are the ones who tolerate me.

If you are a girl and you are reading this (why?)and are offended by whatever I have said about your ilk, all I can say is it goes to prove my point. You don’t have a sense of humour.

After college, it was work and as my luck goes, the first project I landed in was a one man army thing where I was all alone. The next one was the one with shifts and as a rule no girls were hired. I had lost all the ability to interact with girls by the time I landed in a project which had some. But as time progressed, I have improved and can confidently say that I can have a conversation with a girl for a few minutes without making a complete fool of myself. I must be grateful for those girls who kept a straight face while hearing me out and laughing their heads off after I was out of their sight.

All was hunky dory until my parents and relatives decided that I have enjoyed the life enough and its time for me to get shackled in matrimony. This has put me in a state of panic. A cousin tried to provide a quantum of solace (I know the latest in movie world too) by saying 'Don’t worry, cause after marriage you wont have to talk to your wife at all. She'll do all the talking and you have to just agree to whatever she says'. Wise words of an experienced man, but I am not convinced.

Just like the career of Anil Kumble (of course I keep up with all the sports news), all good things must come to an end and I would be bidding a tearful farewell to bachelorhood. My misadventures in the quest for a perfect bride of course will make a great read to all of you. So expect more in the coming days..........

.......Damsels...no ......diapers.

Just back from the wedding reception of a friend, and it was an eye opener..
Met many of my school/college friends, with whom I had lost contact and most of them are married. They had their wives in tow and some were proud parents of tiny tots.

As I watched them I realised that I am still in the stage of looking out for good girls in the crowd and discussing about them and they have moved over to the stage of having a passionate discussion of merits and demerits of one brand of baby diapers over another...

Its like time has stood stand still for me and everybody have moved along with their life....

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the office bugs bite

I am late for office. The cab comes in next few minutes and I haven't got ready yet. I am trying to find my clothes, my bag, my id card and am not finding anything. The cab driver is calling......he will leave without me....I run across the door to the road only to stumble and fall on my doorstep and see my cab leaving without me.......

Am in office. The applications I handle go kaput one by one. The server goes down, Visual Basic is not responding, MS Access database is corrupted (and yeah people still use these softwares), another application is throwing null pointer exception. I have opened a bridge call with all stakeholders and the speaker phone is not working... The users are shouting at me and my managers are as usual offering profound thoughts which is as useful as Wasim Jaffer to a IPL T20 game.....

Its time to leave office. Only five minutes for the last bus....as I leave my cubicle the phone rings and I pick it up only to hear a client from Manila in her sweet but incomprehensible English starts ranting about how its 1 AM in Manila now and she has to run this report urgently, but as she tries to click on the application , its throwing up a error, which by the way started coming when she had tried to modify the code herself....I hear this in horror and my bus starts to leave without me.........

Are these the normal dreams of a person who is on a week long, refreshing, much needed holiday or is something really wrong with me? ....please somebody tell me......

ನಾಡಿನ ಪ್ರಾಣಿಗಳು ಕಾಡಿನಲ್ಲಿ .......

Last weekend decided to leave all behind and head towards the jungles to get some well deserved rest, reach to my inner self to answer some of the burning questions that tormented my soul (why did I watch Race?)

So me and my friends drove (they did the driving of course, not me...If I drive we will reach only one destination and most of us were not ready to reach there yet) to Bandipur, Beligiri Rangana hills . With my cousin being kind enough to make some arrangements for our stay and sight seeing, we looked forward for 2 days of pleasant fun.

Our first stop was Gundlupet where we had our guest house rooms booked. From here we headed to Gopalswamy hills. The road from Gundlupet to the hills has been declared as a national monument by the Archaeological Survey of India, so all vehicles were avoiding the road and moving along the sides so as to not to disturb the ancient road way, which I believe was constructed during the reign of kings and has never been repaired since then.

Once we reached the hill, we did the most important hing to do. Yes, check our mobiles for the signals (yeah I know I said, I wanted to get away from everything, but who knows a sweet young thing may decide to call me ...). After a few choice words for the mobile service providers for the lack of signal (in fact one of my friend's service provider was informing him that he was in Tamilnadu and wishing him a pleasant stay there and my other friend was supposedly in Kerala. All the time we were standing in Karnataka. Note to self--send Kannada activists to the offices of these mobile companies)

The temple is pretty old and the priest there informed us of the history and importance of the Deity. He also mentioned about the huge rock somewhere in the hill which supposedly helped childless people to conceive. He did not go in to the technicalities of how it helped. But while driving back we saw this rock. It was huge and there was lot of space behind it and the place was devoid of any human presence. So it wasn't hard to imagine how the rock helped, if you know what I am saying...

The view from the top of the hill was pretty good and yes we had the obligatory photo sessions.

Next was the safari in Bandipur. As we waited for our bus for the safari to come in, I saw a lots of tourists waiting with us. Most of them were busily clicking pics of monkeys, which as is their nature were busy scratching their unmentionables. At last when the bus came in there was a mad rush to get in to the bus, with people pushing each other. The bus driver had to shout at them and tell them that the tickets had seat numbers in them and there is no need for this mad scramble. Well at least I gotta see quite a few 'wild' animals even before the safari started.

The bus started and took us in to the forest. Everyone were eager to see what the jungle offered them. But the noise they made was loud enough to scare away the animals and the driver had to shout at us once more to keep quiet. We saw a few animals on the way like deers, bisons, wild boar, stags, peacocks and not to mention a cock which was looking for some adventure out in the jungle and was making pass at a peacock (either it was too drunk to notice that it was a peacock or preferred it that way).

But there was no satisfying the people in the bus. The bison was not near enough, the deers did not pose, the peacock did not fan its feathers (I wonder if humans had a highly elongated upper tail coverts jutting out of their bottoms, whether they would be inclined to show it off to others). Some people concluded that the best place to see wild animals is in a zoo.

By the end of the of the safari, I was left wondering whether this trip was for us humans to see animals in their natural habitat or was it for the animals to take a close look at humans and be wary of us. If it was the latter, then no doubt we succeeded in it by our shenanigans .

We decided to call it a day (why do we call it a day, when in fact its night baffles me) and after a good dinner at a local mess, we retired to our rooms. It was quite early and devoid of TV, computer I was confused as to what to do. It was a weird experience where you had to just sit and talk with friends. We couldn't do it for long and submitted ourselves to sleep and became mosquito fodder.

Next day we started early and after a brief stopover at my cousin's place for a wonderful breakfast, we drove to Beligiri Rangana hills (henceforth known as BR hills). It again is part of conserved forest area and we can get in to the area after 6 Am and before 6 Pm. The road to the hill is winding and narrow and after a close encounter with a state transport bus we reached the top and made our way to the Ranganatha temple. After paying our respects and seeking blessings, our guide took us behind the temple and through a fence to a rocky outcrop from where the whole forest spread across below us. It offered a beautiful view of the whole area and was quite dangerous too as there was nothing to stop us from hurling ourselves down except for the fear of dying.

Our rooms were in the guest house at the top of the hill and when we reached there we were informed that our rooms were not ready yet. Next we visited the ashram of Swami Nirmalananda. A nice and quiet place with lots for trees and plants . Behind the ashram was another treacherous rock jutting out in to the forest and we had to climb on to it to get ourselves clicked. again the forest below us was breathtaking and a slip would really have taken our breath literally.

After a satisfying lunch at a restaurant we reached the guest house where our 'VIP' room was waiting for us. A short nap later, we were ready again for a safari through the adjoining forests, only to be disappointed by the forest officer who informed that he could not arrange it and would be possible to do it only the next day. We then decided to roam around the place and our roaming led us to a view point which offered a spectacular view of sunset and the forests. We spent the rest of the day sitting there looking at the setting sun and talking. It was a good experience. Our conversation ranged from in depth critical evaluation of the latest movies we saw to the profound philosophical questions (why till now girls haven't fallen for me?)which has plagued mankind. We also came up with a script for a horror movie, which we plan to produce and direct in the near future.

The sun disappeared at the horizon and the sounds of the forests became louder and a light breeze blowing. It was a perfect moment to lose yourself in. But as everything in my life, this moment was shattered by a watchman who told us to vacate lest we terrify some wild animals which come out at night. As we made our way back to our room, we were struck by the clear night sky. It had been ages since I saw so many stars and my knowledge of astronomy begged to come out. We spent some time staring at the sky and pointing out at stars, constellations, identifying them and creating our own on the way. The local people no doubt had a good laugh looking at four of us staring at the sky and shouting.

An early night again and the next morning started with I must say with quite a bit of trepidation. The in charge of the guest house was an expert in human physiology and had come to a conclusion that there would not be any use of water to us during the night. He had turned the water mains off and our morning was a mixture of cursing the in charge, stomping around the room. All I can say is I would not want to repeat that experience again. So lets move along.

The forest official came along with his vehicle and raised our hopes by announcing that there was no hope of seeing any wild animals at this time and we should have gone a lot earlier. As we moved along the forest we did see a wild squirrel, bisons, stags, deers. But the drive it self was akin to a roller coaster ride with our driver imagining himself driving on a 6 lane highway whereas in fact the road (if you could call it one) was a stretch of mud winding in and out of the forest.

With our short vacation nearing an end, we started back towards home. On the way back, we stopped at Shivanasamudra. The water falls is quite good and would have been spectacular when the river is full. We chose to look at the bigger picture and ignore the fact that people have used the place as a waste bin and dumped all kind of rubbish in there. Our next hop was to Talakad which is a place covered with sand. It has been excavated and quite a few temples have been unearthed.

As we approached Bangalore and its traffic, I was wondering staying back in that ashram would not have been a bad idea after all....Also I watched race just to ogle at Katrina....

L'enfant terrible

Here is one more gem I stumbled upon while traversing through the net.

A 1st grade school teacher had twenty-six students in her class. She presented each child in her classroom the 1st half of a well-known proverb and asked them to come up with the remainder of the proverb. It’s hard to believe these were actually done by first graders. Their insight may surprise you. While reading, keep in mind that these are first-graders, 6-year-olds, because the last one is a classic!

PS: Not sure if the children really did write these (today's children eh !...anything is possible). Even if they did not, these are apt proverbs for the times we live in......

I am famous !!!

At last my life story made it to the media. Barring a few things looks like the writer has got the story right...and the rest of my story may be dictated by this.

No title....cause I cant find one suitable...

Here is something that justifies my previous harangue. And there is no shortage of people who have strong opinions.

NEWS (Not Exactly What is Shown)

Hello people,

I have an announcement to make.

It’s an important thing. Its so important that if I were a celebrity, all newspaper and TV channel people would have camped in front of my home for weeks and would have shot footages of my closed gate, my pet dog widdling against a tree (probably this would have sparked of a panel discussion which included people from PETA and green peace activists discussing why my dog did what it did against the particular tree and what is its meaning and how can it be related to my imminent announcement).

They also would have interviewed the third cousin of the son of my neighbour’s maid to get an exclusive newsbyte. Not to mention the exclusive interview of my watchman's nephew and publish the photo of the donkey of my dhobi.

Cameramen would have climbed the tree in front of my house and using their zoom lens and get a shot of my bedroom through the window half concealed by curtains and claim that its me in the footage that they are showing, but probably it would have been the poster of the orang-utan that I have in my bedroom (don’t ask why I would have a poster of orang-utan of all the things in my bedroom...hey if I am a celebrity I can have anything on my bedroom walls). Another cameraman would have shot my bedroom from an opposite window and informed the viewers that the person on screen is another celebrity friend of mine who has dropped in, whereas that would be just the African voodoo mask that hangs on the wall.

I would probably be called to a chat show hosted by a no nonsense presenter who makes his guest squirm on their seats with his straight forward questions. Without wasting any time and before I can sit in my seat, he would ask me the all important question in an aggressive tone 'Why was my dog widdling against that tree particularly. why?’. And before I could think of a reply he would again query 'don’t you think it’s a discrimination against all the other trees around, the tyres of the vehicles and the fire hydrant outside your gate?’ All that I could say in my defence would be that 'I am sorry, next time I would make sure that my paaltu kutta will give equal consideration to all trees, tyres and hydrants'.

All newspapers, channels and websites would have run SMS opinion polls so that people can express their opinions and exercise their basic fundamental right of poking their noses in a business which is not at all theirs. Also they spend their hard earned money by spending those SMSes which costs anywhere between 2 to 10 Rs there by making the channel, papers websites and mobile phone operators richer. But who cares?. Its important to get their voices heard, opinion matters and shapes the course of a nation (no I am not talking about people voting in elections to choose a government , but voting in public polls to choose the next Hindusthani Putla or whether a actor should shave his/her head for the next movie).

Of course some concerned citizen would have filed a public interest litigation accusing me of showing disrespect to nation and hurting the public feeling by announcing that I will make a important announcement . The media will always be there to provide the in depth analysis of the case and probably will hold a 3 hour prime time discussion.

'New construction sena' activists would have burned my effigy and would have ransacked TV showrooms and other retail outlets again accusing me for all the injustice being caused. Another 'restructuring army' people would then go on a rampage supporting me ,looting the remaining shops, and accusing new construction sena of biasing against me. Again the channels would show all this live with my photo on the side.

All this would then blackball in to a huge controversy that by the time I make my announcement, no body would be interested in what I have to say.

Ok let me stop this digression right now and come to the crux of the matter. So here it goes...

"I am sick up to the gills with all these newspapers, channels and websites fighting over one another to provide trite in the name of news. I am fed up with their sensationalisation of trivial matters and project them as issues of national importance and forgetting their duty as the fourth estate. I feel repelled by the quality of what the media calls as news. If it’s in my hands I would ban all these people from printing, broadcasting till they come to their senses."

Well, how is that for an all important announcement? Don’t you feel enraged, elated with all kind of emotions erupting after reading my announcement?....No!!...nothing at all? .....aah I know why...because I am a nobody...I am not a celebrity......

Lovely bank a/c !!!

Just received it in my mail (with subject line 'Dear Lovely One'. Thats a first, I have been called lots of names, but nothing anywhere near 'lovely one'). Here it is....

Dear lovely one,


contact me with my e mail adress (xxxxxx@yahoo.com)

Permit me to informyou about my desire to seek for assistant from you and i got the believe that you are going to help me out successfully. but firstly about myself.
I am a 22 years old lady now, i was born on the 1of january 1986.to the family of Mr xxxx. and My father name is xxxx xxxx he is a very wealthy gold and cocoa merchant who based in ACCRA and ABIDJAN respectively, and my mothers name is xxxxx.and I am there only child.well when i was a kid i went to a private schools and things were going on well for me and my parents till when i was in high school when my mother died on the 21ST october 1994 , My father took me so special because i am motherless. and he shower all his love on me and promised me that he will never have another woman because he did not want me for any problem.but has fate his my father got dead last year.but before the death of my father on the 12th December 2007 in a private hospital here in Abidjan , he called me secretly to his bed side and told me that he kept a sumof $10.500 000 (ten million five hundred thousand united states dollars) in a bank in Abidjan Cote D'ivoire. meanwhile that he used my name as the next of kin in deposit of the fund.He also explained to me that it was because of this money he was poisoned by his business partner and that i should seek for foreign partner in a country of my choice where i would transfer this money and use it for investment purpose, such as;real estate investment or stock market investment.
Plesae, i am honourably soliciting your kind assistance as follows.
1) To provide a bank account where this money will be transfered into.

2) To serve as the guardian of these fund ,since i am 22years old.

3)To make arrangement for me in your country to continue my educational career and to procure me a residential permit in your country.

I am inclined to offer you 15% of the total sum as a mode of compensation for your effort after the successful transfering of these fund to your nominated account overseas.Please i will be very happy if this transaction will be concluded with in seven (7) working days from now.I am expecting to hear from you as soon as possible May Almighty God bless you as you do care for me Amen.


contact me with my e mail adress (xxxxx@yahoo.com)

Best regard
xxxx xxxx

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Give me 5 good reasons for not helping out this innocent, naive damsel in distress who has blind faith in me....

Who is fighting?....its exercise honey !!!

Again from people -who have been given a bit too much of funding that they do not know how to put it to good use-comes another comprehensive,insightful and revolutionary research.

Was there not enough reasons for having a row with your partner(this is the politically correct term to be used in these times of changing prefrences), that they have to come up with one more.

So next time your partner comes home and picks a fight with you, its just that he/she is trying to live longer. And if you value his/her health, then take what ever he/she is giving silently and then give back in equal measures later. You don't wanna die quickly.... do you?

Another advise to all couples is to pick fights regularly so that you both can live happily ever after...

Common sense....is it a key to survival?

These are the pioneers in science. They are in the constant endeavour to determine the upper limit of human evolution..they are the true testers of Darwin's theory of natural selection.

Without further ado I present you the modern day marvels who have proven that there are innumerable innovative ways with which you can leave the earthly abode(who needs the old, tried and tested boring methods when you can invent your own style to kiss good bye to life).

Natural selection, Survival of the fittest and all other things are necessary and Darwin was right in pointing them out. But he missed out on the biggest factor(at least for the survival of homo sapiens, other species have it in abundance) which surely plays a very important role in survival..and that is common sense ....

Link Courtesy : Ashok K L

He is not dead.......

Terry Pratchett has Alzheimer's :-(

But as he says in the statement , I too am taking the news philosophically and with optimism and hope that one of the best comic fantasy writer/satirist the world has ever seen will continue writing and give us more of the Discworld, Ankh-Morpork ,Unseen university,The Librarian, Rincewind,The Luggage,The Sweeper, Commander Vimes, Corporal Nobbs, Captain Carrot, Nanny Ogg, Granny Weatherwax,Cohen the Barbarian,Moist von Lipwig and of course DEATH until THE MAN himself comes calling with a scythe in HIS hand to take Pratchett to HIS world (which I hope happens at a very later date...preferably as late as it can)

Till then Sir, I am with you and "Bugrit, millennium hand an' shrimp...".

chumma

Here is something which still holds good(in my life atleast....)

Its a old piece, but I discovered fat mallu late.....but in this case better late than never...Boy ! he is good.....