“In Britain, one in six mobile phones is contaminated with faecal matter.” It’s been a while since I ruminated bittily (and hopefully wittily) about sundry topics under the sun, but this, um, golden-brown nugget of information made me dash to my computer and resume this sorely neglected series.
The article from which this quote is culled presents very little by way of useful information. The last paragraph is practically a copout. (“reading on the toilet is widespread!” Duh! You don’t say!) But little beams of bright sunlight fell on the porch of my mind, darkened by Monday-morning blues, when I learnt that no less a personage than Henry Miller obsessed about loos and reading.
“To enjoy Rabelais, he advised a plain country toilet, “a little outhouse in the corn patch, with a crescent sliver of light coming through the door”. Better still, he said, take a friend along, to sit with you for half an hour of minor bliss.” A rapturous ideal indeed, though I’m in no hurry to implement the latter part of the prescription. Take a friend along? I think not.
The comments that follow the article are, needless to say, hilarious. I’m just a little hurt — okay, maybe more than a little — that the article talks only about reading in the loo, as if that were the only noble pastime permitted in those noisome climes. What about doing the crossword, dear chap? What does Henry Miller have to say about that?
PS: Much blitheness was brought to the spirit by the fact that the article does not employ that infernal euphemism “evacuation,” which always makes me imagine a solemn line of upstanding citizens trooping dispiritedly out of a hometown where a nuclear reactor has gone phhht! Yes, that sound effect goes rather well with this piece, don’t you think?
PPS: Should this installment have been titled Shitty Ruminations? No need to answer.
Baradwaj Rangan 
Bala
October 24, 2011
Saar, Indian style kakkos you have tried reading on ? Let alone do cross-words on ? What elitism I say. (After weeks of being accused of being pro-Brahminism, pro-Hindi films, pro-Sharukh; pro-western shit-pots should be a welcome accusation no ? ) .Also, why am I surrounded by people with shit-happy people ? My dad, who is staying with me for Diwali, starts off the day by telling me about duration, repetition and consistency while also ruminating about the possibilities of the Law of conservation having been disproved since (supposedly) in his case, output is waaay greater than input. Rama, what a fun Diwali this is going to be.
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Mohan
October 24, 2011
@rangan
I was halfway through your article when it struck me if “Shitty ruminations” would have been a more apt title for this one and then I read your PPS and, lo and behold, you have wondered about the same thing.
So much for our thinking being “poles apart”. 😉
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Mohan
October 24, 2011
“Saar, Indian style kakkos you have tried reading on ? Let alone do cross-words on ? What elitism I say.”
Hear hear!!! Frankly, apart from Rangan who mentions this exotic practice on and off, I’ve never heard of it from any quarters. Must be one of Rangan’s queer “Peter” habits then.
Indian-style trip to the loo is generally short, uneventful and……wet. 😉
Also, if you spend so much time doing your ablutions(that is, time enough to knock off an entire newspaper), then one would imagine you will develop piles eventually.
As Vivek has said on more than one occasion, “Pinvilaivugal romba mosama irukkum”.
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bigbala
October 24, 2011
@mohan : hehe, actually my soon to be famous father seems to have been an expert at this exotic act even on Indian style loos…that’s one family secret that won’t get passed on though 😀 And correct-a sonninga about piles 😀
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KayKay
October 26, 2011
Squatters don’t work for me (under-developed musculature in the legs makes it a pain) so on my treasured “sitter” many a novel was consumed and relished, at least until a rude knock at the door folllowed by the missus’ “what are you doing in there for so long” dispels the tranquility 🙂
Deepavali Nalvazhtukkal to you, Mr.B and a Happy Deepavali/Diwali to all pos(t)ers here 🙂
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brangan
October 26, 2011
Mohan: Exotic practice-aa? Queer Peter habit-aa? Don’t you remember Arvind Swamy’s mother in Roja mentioning indulgently that he does the crossword in the loo? On second thoughts, I might just have given you more ammo there 🙂
Happy Deepavali, all.
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Gradwolf
October 26, 2011
Happy Deepavali!
And aiyo why this scatology everywhere? Like Shahid Kapoor says in Jab We Met, “Patah nahin kyun aaj kal mujhe aap jaise hi milre hain”
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raj
October 26, 2011
TOIlet paper of India is an apt companion for such excursions. Read sh#t while passing sh#t
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Hermoine Granger
October 26, 2011
Happy Diwali everyone! BR: You used to post a lot about food previously….What happened? 🙂
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rameshram
October 26, 2011
Speaking of Kakka, who’s watching 7am arivu and ra one?
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Mohan
October 26, 2011
@rangan
Yup, you just gave me some more stones to hit you with. 😉
Aravind Swamy, Kamal Haasan, Maniratnam and some other assorted oldies. Indha vattathukkuliye yaen sir round adikkireenga?
Veliya vaanga. Tamil Cinema has moved on long back. So has Arvind Swamy’s hairline.
Neenga mattum vida maattenu adampidicha eppadi?
And, yeah, Happy Deepavali to you too.
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Mohan
October 26, 2011
@Hermione
“BR: You used to post a lot about food previously….What happened? :)”
He’s still talking about food only. Just that the food has now got digested and converted into another form.
Sorry for that shitty comment. Just couldn’t let it pass. 😉
@rameshram
Avoid 7am arivu like the plague. Poor screenplay. Rotten acting all around, with Shruti Haasan being particularly intolerable. Murukkudoss banging your head repeatedly with the message.
Alternatively, you can take along a gaggle of friends, laugh your head off at the insane shit going on and have a generally terrific evening out.
Highlight of the movie is this dialogue from Shruti: “Dong Lee. Idhu andha Chinakaaran paerathaan irukkanum”.
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raj
October 26, 2011
That’s true to Murugadoss form:
“Indha number 10 digit. Idhu mobile numberaa dhaan irukkum” @Ghajini
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Vijay
October 26, 2011
“Aravind Swamy, Kamal Haasan, Maniratnam and some other assorted oldies. Indha vattathukkuliye yaen sir round adikkireenga? ”
That should give you a strong hint about his age group 🙂 You missed IR in that list
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rameshram
October 27, 2011
Ra one: what do I care! It’s all ambani money, not mine!
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rameshram
October 27, 2011
7am arivu is certainly the more original film but its boring too and ravi chandran’s camera has a hurried quality to it.
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rameshram
October 27, 2011
Ok 7am arivu turned out to be just a little somewhat better as it progressed. for a second there I thought they might take bodhi dharman too seriously. Ravi’s camera is slightly overexposed, stops down, but I think he was doing it consistently , deliberately to give it a “fast film ” flavor.
The last fight was nice. I wish they had more CGI and wire fu, but good effort murugadoss.
@Mohan when we live in free societies, you can actually enjoy a politically incorrect movie where the chinese are the villains.
(doesn’t my chitappa ponnu have the cutest ear/rings?) :),
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Mohan
October 27, 2011
“You missed IR in that list”
Nah. Rangan eulogizes ARR more than he does IR. Many a time, he even appears miffed that tamil directors(in particular the ones who made their mark in the CineMadurai genre) pay their obeisance exclusively to Ilaiyaraja ignoring other “greats” after him.
In fact, ARR, along with the other fellows I mentioned, all had their peaks in the 1990s, a period which Rangan likes to recall fondly.
And like Kamal and Mani, the quality of ARR’s output has also drastically reduced since those times, to the extent that we are now forced to hail positively non-descript OSTs like Rockstar as “Classics”.
Every day, I still hear(and marvel at) IR songs like “Kadhalin Deepam Ondru” being played somewhere in the radio or TV.
30 years from now, will anybody give a damn about Kun faya kun, Tum ho or Sadda Haq(songs from Rockstar, in case you didn’t know)? In our hearts, we all know the answer is in the negative.
Yet, since he has won the Oscars and the grammys, we convince ourselves that surely whatever noise he creates must surely be great music. Alas, such are the times we live in.
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Niranjan
October 27, 2011
“Sorry for that shitty comment. Just couldn’t let it pass.”
Nice double pun!
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lowlylaureate
October 27, 2011
Alas, such are the times we live in.Indeed.
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KayKay
October 27, 2011
“Avoid 7am arivu like the plague. Poor screenplay. Rotten acting all around, ”
Mohan, in other words, par for the course where this no-talent hack called Murugadoss is concerned:-)
“Shruti Haasan being particularly intolerable”
I got a taste of this “Towering Thespic Talent” in a piece of (how appropriate given the subject matter of the article above) shite called “Luck”.
This isn’t so much a case of talent skipping a generation, but making a screeching u-turn and bolting in the opposite direction (that even rhymed, damn I’m good!)
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Shankar
October 27, 2011
@Mohan, obviously you still don’t know BR that well then! 🙂
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