Lobotomy Untangled

'Psychothymic mood swings'. According to a psychiatrist, Boris Yeltsin (the ex Russian president) was suffering from this illness. Someone please explain the idea behind a psychiatrist. A guy who talks to the spirits is considered an idiot, astrology is unflushed crap, crystal ball gazers are candidates for the fuckwits club, but a shrink makes sense??
Am I missing something here, how does one read another persons mind? A perfectly nice guy who says ‘please’ at breakfast in a coffee shop will chop his neighbor into bite sized pieces that night because of a disagreement over who’s dog peed where. And the mumbo jumbo names given to exotic mental illness are designed to make sense only to the elite club of millionaire shrinks.

Antimatter has decided to unshrink the facts and give you an explanation for some commonly used psychiatric terms.

Multiple personality disorder:
A person who is not sure whether, he is the person that he is, or, is the person whom he thought he was, or, is the person who is actually the person who thinks he is the person who thought he was that person, or, is the person who thought he thinks is the person who thought the person who thought is the person but actually wasn’t that person but is the person who thought the person is a manifestation of all the above persons.

Homicidal Psychopathic Syndrome:
Commonly occurring in females. Normally afflicts them when the boyfriend/husband pisses them off (I wonder if it affects lesbians. Any light thrown on the subject will be appreciated). Usually cured by flowers. In acute cases a candle lit dinner or jewelry might be necessary.

Acute Depression
An illness invented by the big pharmaceutical companies to increase their profits. Prozac an anti depression drug has remained in the global top 10 (the drug companies call it the "pillpop top 10") for decades. No one has ever been cured of this non-existent mental illness.

Schizophrenia
In a person afflicted by the big S, a part of the mind will move into a solitary cell part of the mind and think that all other parts of the mind are out to attack the part of the mind that is in the solitary cell part of the mind. Some times the part of the mind in the solitary cell part of the mind is right, other times the part of the mind that is not in the solitary cell part of the mind is right. But it pays to remember that at no part of time are both, i.e. the part of the mind in the solitary cell part of the mind as well as the other parts of mind that are not in the solitary cell part of the mind right.

Psychothymic mood swings (PMS)
Here you travel the distance from the above mentioned acute depression to its opposite 'acute joy' in a few milli seconds. It would all be nice and hunky dory if one goes from sadness to happiness, the trouble starts when one keeps traversing that distance back and forth six times an hour. Then you tend to look like a clown in a B-grade circus. Now you giggle, now you sob, you giggle, you sob..giggle..sob.. gigg..so..gig..s, you get the picture?

PMS (Post Menstrual Syndrome)
Reams and reams have been written on this bio-mental activity. Though no cure has ever been found, there have been a few strides in the quest to understanding this syndrome. The first fact to be discovered is that, all animal species including the humans tend to feel a little under the weather when blood flows away from the confines of the body. The second and more important fact is that the members of the female species like the idea of having Psychlothymic Mood Swings and they use PMS as an excuse, maybe that's why both have the same abbreviation.

Authors note: For those who have issues against the PMS bit, yeah yeah yeah, I have tried to understand that thing and lost the race. I have no intentions of increasing my knowledge on that subject anymore. People who come out with highly intelligent observations such as, "you don't know what its like", "a man will never know the pain of going through it", and the classic "you are an asshole", will be banging the head against the proverbial wall. If I were meant to understand PMS I would have been born a woman. I am not, and I have learnt to live with it, I suggest you do too.

Enjoy what's left of life before the shrinks get you.

Contributions to:
The Shrink Coordination committee for finding non-existent mental illness
National Institute of Mental Health and Neurological Sciences
Bangalore India.

Bhubaneshwar Travelogues

This place defies all conventional capitalist wisdom. For those of you who think Bangalore is laid back, let me assure you, compared to this place, Bangalore is a fighter plane with its thrusters on. To give you an example, the government office-staff come to work at 11.30 A.M and go home at 4. Oh, and they take a two hour lunch break. One wonders why they bother leaving home (nope, I wont wonder how they get any work done. You do the wondering on that).
Everything happens in slow motion around here. Whether it is the hotel receptionist filling out the register or the doorman opening the door. If you ask a guy on the road for the time, he will take a while to move his wrist to his eyes, squint at his watch and tell you the time in stretched syllables. His watch would be an hour behind anyways. Time is as important as crow shit, in this part of the world. Odiya's refuse to let their lives be run by a tiny gadget around their wrist.
The people of Orissa are the most profound thinkers to have ever laid paws on earth. Ask a person the way from point A to point B in Bhubaneshwar, and, you can go have breakfast, make mango juice, drink it, design a new space ship from scratch and come back to find that the guy is still ruminating over your question.
The people here are probably the most 'contented with life' clan in the Indian subcontinent. They are a totally satisfied race. Road rage does'nt exist here, they are unbelievably patient, whether it is the delay in trains, cancelled flights, or a misbehaving auto rickshaw driver blocking traffic because he's facing a mid road crisis about the right and left turns of life. On the latter case they just patiently sit behind their steering wheels and handle bars waiting for the confused auto driver to reach a decision and clear the way for others to pass. No curses, no honking, not even a dirty glare. Economically Orrisa might rank down there with the BIMARU states, but as far as satisfaction with the life goes, it is right on top of the heap.
The auto drivers are a much-abused clan in this country and most times rightly so. But the guys here are of a different mould. For a distance of 10 km, an auto driver in Bangalore will charge 70 rupees, in Kerala it would be 90 in Chennai it would be your family jewels (pun, totally intended) and half your house, but here he will ask for 40 rupees and give you a terrified look that says, "I hope you don't think its too much". I am happy to report that I have never bargained with an auto driver here.
Smiling through the day seems to be a unique Odiya trait. They are forever smiling, not the sad or the sarcastic smile, it is the smile of the cat that got the cream and has a fish stashed away for lunch. No discotheques, no glamorous watering holes, not even a shopping arcade, and they seem so happy. (Lessons to be learnt.)
The SISIR SARAS is a tribal festival that is conducted during the second half of January. The tribes from the neighboring districts display their wares and the tribes from other parts of the country (that includes me) come to buy the wares and see the tribes do the Joomba Joomba dance. With the help of an interpreter I asked a tribal about her lifestyle and if she was happy with her current way and state of life (I must have sounded like a NDTV reporter, but then, curiosity is my middle name). Surprise, surprise, she was completely contented with what Madam. Fate had dished out to her. Is it the air, or is it the lack of ambition that runs in the Odiya blood or is it the fact that most Odiya's have'nt seen enough material pleasures to want more? Whatever it is, the rest of the world would do well to learn a few things from these wonderful people about slowing down a bit in a world that seems to be moving at speeds far in excess of what it was designed for.

Contributions to:
Take a moment to smell the flower foundation
Greenwich Village
United Kingdom

Bottom 10 Books

Inspired by some list makers out there, I decided to make a list of ‘10 must read books’. But then better sense prevailed, there are lots of ‘10 must reads’ brought out by such prestigious publications like the ‘Wollongong times’ and ‘The Timbuktu Herald’.
So, I decided to do a service to the ladies, gentlemen and other assorted species. Here is my list of “Must cross the road if you see these books”.
The worst ever books. I am not including the so-called classics here; they will be dissected another day. (This consists of books I have read or tried to read, feel free to add more, d-uh, use the comments section dodos)
10. Making the Minister Smile-Anurag Mathur
An absolutely insipid story about trying to make a minister smile. Even a 10 year old knows that the only way to make a minister smile is to transfer all the money in yours, your wife’s and your neighbors bank account to the ministers personal benefit fund. So why write three hundred odd pages of rubbish?
9. Flight of the Eagle- Peter Watt
The damn cover said, and I quote, “As good as Wilbur Smith, or your money back”. Idiot that I am, I missed the small asterix that says, “see inside for details”. The fact that it was written in Arial font size- .00000000001 is no excuse. I should have carried my electron microscope with me. Ok, getting back to the small print, it said that if I want my money back I have to return the book to the publishers along with my receipt. The publishers are in the United Kingdom and I am in the South Indian town of Chennai. My shipping charges will be thrice the value of the book, so, considering all things I decided to retain the book as a memento of my stupidity.
8. The House of Blue Mangos – David Davidar
A mega Ad campaign suckered me into buying this and I swore, never again shall I buy a book based on its promotion. This book is a mega serial in printed format.
7. A 5th portion of chicken soup for the soul- Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen
I usually give this kind of book a wide berth, but an uncle’s rave reviews made me borrow the book. Now, I give my uncle a wide berth.
6. The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes – Jamyang Norbu
I have read and reread Sherlock Holmes when I was a kid. Thus its no surprise that I picked up this book in spite of its less than average reviews. I will pay more attention to reviewers in future.
5. New York Burning – Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
‘City of Joy’ was one of the most intense (clichéd but that’s the best word I can find) books I've read. Why do these guys have to do a crossover book and make us want to cross over the river Styx before picking up another book of theirs?
4. American Star- Jackie Collins
Now we are getting into the “I truly hate these books” phase. How this trash ever got into the bestseller list is beyond me. I’d rather read used tampons instead of this muck. The damn thing has gotta be tagged as a weapon of mass destruction. But then I was young.
3. Airframe – Michael Crichton
This is on the list just for spite. A guy who writes a book like “Prey” should not lend his name to this piece of crap. He could excuse it as a bad hair day, but I am still disappointed.
2. Bourne Legacy- Eric Von Lustbader
The ‘Bourne’ name will sell sand to a Bedouin. And that is exactly what they have tried to do here. ‘DO NOT go anywhere close to this book. It is God’s wake up call to all bookworms. This book is the eighth deadly sin. Fucking hell, I have never cursed an author, But here I will make an exception.
1.are you afraid of the dark? – Sidney Sheldon
This book is still in the top 10 of every Indian bestseller list. This book should carry a warning that says, “ There is a sucker born every minute, welcome to the society, buddy.” Yeah, so many good books, one should expect a lousy one, but one shouldn’t expect an author’s crap to be printed as a book. Me thinks they took Sid’s used toilet paper, made copies and sold it to the public. Actually even that can’t be this bad.

Kindly send your contributions to:
Watch more TV, read less books
Fox Networks,
We are there, everywhere.

"Peoples" of the world Unite

“And providing hope to suffering peoples.”
-George Bush, president of the United States addressing a press conference on January 3, 2005.

The ‘peoples’ of England might not be too happy with their government for supporting a man who is committing genocide of their language. Gee, I try so hard not to pick on the most idiotic president any nation has ever seen, but he refuses to let me do it. I mean its your bloody mother tongue damn it and it’s the only language you know, you can’t not be able to communicate in even a single language and have a finger on the button that can destroy planet earth 70 times over. Think about it, if his Sec of defense comes and tells him that the Chinese have sent a missive, there is a very good chance that GWB will launch missiles in retaliation.

Tsunami relief, ex presidents Clinton and Bush senior are deputed to organize the fund raising. And a press conference with the three of them turned into yet another foot in the mouth display of the leader of the most ‘powerful’ nation on earth. Ex-president Clinton’s glaring over the shoulder sure as hell didn’t help GWB junior. Clinton’s amused smile that said, “Dubya, you don’t have a clue as to what you do, have you?” had a predictably unnerving effect on him.
I thought we were rid of the Bush scourge, but looks like there might be a change in the script. Jeb Bush the Governor of Florida is being brought into the forefront in a not too subtle way, and looks like he is being groomed to become the 44th president of the United States. Well, we managed to survive a tsunami; we might actually live through another term of Bushmen, after all, life runs on hope.

The ‘peoples’ (???) of America have given more money and aid to the victims than the rest of the world put together. Corporates and individuals of a nation on the other side of a tragic world have dug deep into their pockets and derided their leaders who act like descendents of Scrooge McDuck. A country that gave us an innumerable number of extremely intelligent beings will give us an idiot once in a while. And statistics say that once in a very rare ‘while’, one of those idiots will become a president.

Send your “thank you” notes to:
The People(s) of the world for contributing to the relief efforts
Planet Earth (Across the street from Planet Mars)
Milky Way Galaxy.

P.s I have received a few mails regarding the word "peoples". Some say its usage is correct in this context, some say it is not. I will let the ayes and nays fight over it. I got better things to do, like, have an intelligent conversation with my rubber duck.