The Pothole Pangs

This is a re hash of my older blog called Potholes Galore - Part 1 and Part 2. Unfortunately due to live.com's  lack of ability to get bloggers or retain them, this blog has vanished into thin air and thus I am happy to be on a stable blog like blogger but also sad that all the hard work of 4 years before starting this blog has now faded into oblivion. I shall try and muster up my brain cells to remember everything that went into the earlier blog and try to re-create them with a bit more of elegance, class and crassness.Also shall try to make them funny.

So coming back to the blog.

I recently had a very bad injury due to a pothole. It injured my wallet. My car had to go for servicing and thus injured me gravely. I decided to go to the head of whoever is responsible for these roads; turns out his car had gotten stuck in one of the potholes and was not coming to work today. While waiting in the room, not knowing that Mr. 'Dig'le was not coming to work I went through newspaper cuttings on the walls of their office. Apparently they were proud of the fact that the city of Poona was applying to Guinness book of world records to become the city with the most potholes in the world. On asking Mr. Digle's secretary why this was put up on the boards hoping that the response would be that they were at least not the worst in the world, he replied that they were trying to create more than Poona so that Mumbai could go into the Guinness Book of World Records. So much so that they have found a chemical to make roads that will wash away with the first rain. If you don't believe me you can read about it here.

This was too much for me to handle and I rushed home, hoping there would be a road by the time I reached there; considering it was raining. On the way I received a mysterious phone call by a person called Mr. 'Khod'ani who wanted to meet me in Lokhandwala to discuss certain things related to potholes. Being the ultra inquisitive journalist that I would love to be, I decided to meet him but at my house because I'm an armchair activist and can't do any activism without my armchair. Turns out that Mr. 'Khod'ani had been to the same office the day before me but did not have the same activist ideas running through my head. Being of a certain community,(which I love for their ingenuity and methods of making money) he had found a way to make money out of the potholes. He was going to hold a competition for potholes and he had already thought of categories. Apparently there shall be a category for largest pothole; to which I immediately mentioned the one in Bandra, but apparently that was not even on their shortlist. another award was for the road with most potholes, potholes to have created the most accidents, potholes to have broken most bones, etc. He wanted me to be the blogger covering the award ceremony , like a live blogger. Obviously I agreed, because this might give some mileage to my blog considering that I have only 5 readers.

I went to the spot that we had agreed to meet the next day and upon entering the judges tent was fitted with a harness across my waist to my astonishment. Apparently Mr. 'Khod'ani had gone into one of the potholes and was lost. I was part of a rescue mission to help find him and get him out of the pothole. After 3 hours, 4 packets of  AA batteries,5 torches and two awkward falls we found Mr. 'Khod'ani to which he exclaimed that this was the second biggest pothole in Mumbai.

Due to the fact that I was underground I had no service on my cell phone. On getting above ground I realized that I had gotten missed calls and a couple of messages from Mr. Digle. Apparently the Guinness Book of World Records were counting the number of potholes in the evening and he invited me on the helicopter ride along with a judge from Guinness. During the helicopter ride I had the urgent need to call Mr. Khodani because I had found the biggest pothole that he desired. However, due to security reasons and the fact that my phone fell from my hand and into the abyss of the metropolitan jungle I could not call Mr. Khodani. The judge from Guinness informed me that he was now on his way to Pune to check their city and would announce the winner during the closing ceremony of Mr. Khodani's function.

The big day arrived; and I got ready to live blog from the event. The show was hosted by prominent contractor Mr.'Khadde' as he was the richest of all of them. The event went without a hitch with the locality of Bhayander winning most of the prizes. But for obvious reasons the most anticipated moment of the ceremony was coming up next. This also happened to be the time when my new and highly expensive smart phone started to ring and I was shushed by the crowd. I cancelled the call and focused on the ceremony. Unfortunately Pune had won the prize of the city with most potholes, but the judge also mentioned what I wanted to tell Mr. Khodani earlier, that Mumbai will still get into the Guinness Book of world records and also what proved to be the biggest pothole in the world... wait for it... (drums rolling)... the city of Mumbai, for being the only city that is within a pothole itself and thus making it the worlds biggest pothole.

After the celebrations (during which I was crying for obvious reasons) I checked the number that gave me a call and called them back. Apparently it was a German Filmmaker who had started reading my live blogs from the ceremony and wanted to meet me. Mr. B'art Shot'tenheimer was a German filmmaker who had grown up in France, made his best films in Japan, lived in Switzerland with a Brazilian wife and an adopted Somalian child. He worked for the Science Channel and was commissioned to make a documentary on the relationship between Mumbai's potholes and the Moon. He cordially invited me to his house and offered me Nutella and bread. ( I want money for advertising Nutella.) He did not speak English very well and sounded like a French person although he was German. "Mizter, I iz looking out of window un day and I saw ze most beeutiful lake outzide. turnz out it waz juzt a pothole with watter. I have received footage of ze moon from ze science channel and am uzing it to compare Mumbaiz roadz to it. It iz very interezting you zee. I called yu hier zo that yu can take me tso those placez of ze potholez." Agreeing on helping out so that I would have my blog and name promoted at the end of thefilm, I took Mr.Shottenheimer around the city. He kept on taking videos and he kept on screaming -"Zis iz fantastik".

After the day ended, I took a rickshaw back home. The potholes on the road gave me major back pain and I heard the pregnant lady in the other rickshaw screaming that she thinks that she might have had a abortion. Potholes- the new way to control the population crisis after 3G videos. The potholes were so many that I am surprised that chiropractors aren't the richest doctors in the city and the fact that I hadn't got a slipped disc yet. However during all the expletives that were going through my head at the moment it suddenly struck me. We do not have anything known as Potholes anymore, on the other hand we have something known as potbumps i.e. the road in between the potholes. (this may seem like an old joke now, but when I first wrote this I had never heard the joke before thus leading me to believe that I was the one that created this joke.The older version of this blog I think was published around 6 years ago.) I immediately called Mr. Digle and it turns out Mr. Khodani was on the other line. I told them of my unique observation but it was dismissed as they were planning to have another prize ceremony for Potholes due to the tremendous support from the workers and financial backing from the contractors. It was such a success that they were planning to have more categories for the awards. Potholes that most looks like a Movie Star. The oldest Pothole on the road, The Potholes with the most nicknames etc. After hearing this I decided that I was better suited sitting in my armchair and being an activist from there, cause my back is killing me.

(All Comments are meant to be jokes and should not be taken seriously)

Hometown Heroes

The Mis-adventures of Bunty-Man - Comic by Taha Varawala

I have been born and brought up in Mumbai {nee Bombay (nee Mumbai)} and I am proud to call it my Hometown. Sure it may  be full of potholes, susceptible to terrorist attacks, overpopulated, filled with traffic jams,corruption due to the industrialist and political nexus, but it is still my hometown; and one of which I am proud of.

I believe that Mumbai shall be the training ground for the new generation of Superheroes to the world. Imagine, names like Bunty-Man, Girgaum Gal, Bandra Boy and Lady Lalbaug  saving the day. They shall be household names. I know there are no such things as superheroes but I believe the city of Mumbai is an apt training ground for training superheroes. I shall now demonstrate below how each superpower can be imbibed into Mumbaikars bodies.

Super Speed :- It is a hidden secret that most Mumbaikars are faster than Usain Bolt with a fircracker up his nether regions. However, it is never shown unless the time is 5:42 p.m. or 6:12 p.m. This is the time when the person in question runs to reach his local train. Even if a Somalian athlete was running because there was a buffet table at the finish line, the Mumbaikar shall still be faster and look more harrowed than him.

Super Strength: - All Mumbaikars have a latent ability of super strength, they just haven't tapped into their potential yet. However, one can see this strength come out when people push each other inside the train so that they can get into the train and balance on one toe for the rest of the 2 hour journey back home. This is what I like to call L.S.S. ( Latent Super Strength).Which also leads me to my next superpower.

Super Agility :- A Mumbaikar can jump over dog shit on the road, hurdle a divider, leap out of the way of speeding cars, maneuver  through a crowd of people, jump over a sleeping man (Only the Indian Superhero Rajnikanth can jump over a two floored building; but it doesn't mean we Mumbaikars don't try.),balance on one toe for 2 hours (see point above), dodge a public transport vehicle, come close to falling of a train and consider a trip back home as uneventful.

Super Sight :- This ability gets activated when a person comes out of a train station to search for empty cabs and auto rickshaws. One can spot an empty rickshaw at least half a kilometer away and use their super speed to reach them before anyone else.

Super Hearing :- If one does not have super hearing one would never be able to decipher the message the announcer is trying to convey at railway station, you must have super hearing.

Super Awareness (Spidey - Sense) :- Each Mumbaikar has superb awareness which is the only superpower that is always active. However, this is some time prone to malfunction. Super Awareness is created in the Mumbaikar body due to the fact that his brain has to take notice of the people sleeping on the gorund, the dog shit on the ground as well speeding cars on the road, all in an effort to cross the road. No wonder the Chicken never reached the other side in Mumbai. It takes heightened brain activity at the level of Einstein to manage to be aware of all the surroundings.

I suggest that we start a superhero group called the Manoos Und Mahila Battling against Iniquitous (M.U.M.B.A.I) {und is and in German also Iniquitous means unjust/immoral}to battle the evils of the world and occasionally joined by the anti-hero group called Dastardly.Enigmatic.Law-breaking.Heinous.International (D.E.L.H.I.)

The sidekick training will happen on Mumbai Local trains and once proficient enough to join M.U.M.B.A.I. they shall be upgraded by being able to roam the entire city to hone in on their skills. I shall be the commander of this superhero group, since I thought of it and hopefully it will lead to less cats being stuck in trees.

(All comments are meant to be jokes and should not be taken seriously. Especially the one about Somalians. People need to help the people of that country. )