Stupid is as Stupid Does

I tossed coins in a jar of hope
To count all my gaffes, big and small
The richer I got, the poorer I felt
Till I stopped counting at all

I am sure every individual, at some points in life or many as the case may be, has done/said/written something which at that moment felt uber-cool only to turn out to be an earth shattering source of embarrassment. The kind of faux pas ('fox passes' for some, N you know what I mean ;) you hope will never be shared in public by those who first encountered it and were immediately sworn in to maintain its secrecy till death do them part. Statistics and experience show, that those very people break their promise at the first opportunity they get to blurt out anecdotes at social gatherings. But you still always hope that this time it better not be 'that' episode.

I must admit I have had more than my fair share of ignominious dalliances with daftness. And for someone who suffers from mild forms of social phobia, it isn't exactly a healthy concoction to have an interminable list of such closeted skeletons. But as an experiment, and out of my sheer desire to share the hilarity of it all, I now present to you one such gem from my past. The year is 2002, and I am just out of school waiting for college to begin. As was the geeky fad in those days, our class had promptly started a yahoo group to keep in touch beyond school (it goes without saying that forum today is as defunct as it can get). I cant quite remember whether it was because of the cobwebs that had begun to settle in my head or my desperation to announce my ability to type mails, I ended up sending an email whose contents I have included below:

"GOD SAVE THE GROUP COZ YOU KNOW WHO IS FINALLY HERE

hi groupies,

yes, finally after much contemplation and a determined self debate on the issue of wether i should go ahead and send my first electronically operative mail to the group , i have come to the ultimately irrevocable and important conclusion that i must answer in the affirmative and do the inexplicably unthinkable deed of putting my more than grossly inadequate intelligence to the tremenduous task of conjuring up archetypally ardent and aptly appropriate sentences, which with their succinct subtlety will incise through superlative superficiality and self sufficiently compensate for my inability to gesticulatively do justice to my wholeheartedly humble and effably effervescent effort to correctly convey my misleadingly malevolent,malicious and morbid, but marvelously meaningful and merry message to this brilliantly boisterous, yet at times belittlingly belligerent brotherhood of a fully, finally functional fraternity of fantastically (un)forgettable fine friends, famous for it's flabbergastingly furtive and far fetched frivolousness.

those of you who had the mental fortitude ,a tenacious enough digestive system and indeed a fine fortune to somehow survive that paragraph and get to these lines, and feel from the bottom of your hearts that it is the worst load of bullshit and seemingly almost-never-ending crap that you have ever read in your life in an email, i modestly welcome you to shower me with your choice words and pleasantly snide remarks; and those who did suffer from brain haemorreage or any form of mental breakdown i assure you there will be no apologies or monetary compensations from my side. nonetheless, barring a certain someone who knew junky stuff like this was definitely coming from my side the moment i joined this group ( yeah, you know who you are Mr. " " i like to impress girls with my Oxford english " " ), i hope all you guys have got a pretty good idea of the shape of things to come.

so now that i have done with the irksome formalities and proven to all my fans and A.C.s and coolers that i am still the good old (and not to forget the terrible pain in the a**) chacko, i can get on with the true objective of this email. firstly i would like to give kudos to 'kanna nam anna' hari for setting up this group, a fine job indeed. next i wish all the groupies a very warm helllllo. it seems like most of the guys have now settled down with college and the likes of it, except for an useless good for nothing fellow like yours' truly who is just 'loafing' ( that certain someone is of the opinion that this is a very inappropriate word to use in front of members of the opposite sex ) around town. i am very sure all the double and triple bonds of our class (the list of their names seems endless) have already started maxing out in their classes, which isnt much of a surprise. its good to see that most of the guys are sending messages and keeping in touch, and those who are yet to join the group ( hey i hope i am not the last guy ), i would advice them to follow in my glorious footsteps and immediately join.

anyway, the singapore posse seems to be having a load of fun and a nice confrontation seems to be building up between the NTU and NUS, all though NUS is only a one man ( i still have doubts about his/her masculinity part) team. also as i read from amar's mail, best of luck guys for your freshers night (speaking of which amar, nice try to get the script of our world famous play but sadly we reserve the copyrights and we aint givin it to you, although you have full freedom from my side atleast to do anything you want with the not-so-original soundtrack of the play). all the same keep those emails coming you 'singies' , it makes for some fun reading.

by the way i have just realised that i have bored the loyal and faithful readers of my email enough(imagine me being so thoughtful, but i assure you i wont commit this mistake again). i apologise for writing such a pathetically short introductory mail and those of you who are still awake and left wanting for more please wait with baited breath for a more satisfying onslaught in my next installment, and those of you who arent, pray dilligently that god really saves this group from my determined attack and the totally unintentional torment caused thereof. so until next time (unless someone chucks me out of the group before i get to that next time) i bid you adeu, adios amigos, au revoir, goodbye etc. etc.

yours' falsely
a*******, chacko, or any of those other nicknames i am too embarassed to sign off with

P.S:- hey aadarsh whats all this stuff i here about you getting bold and physical and all with women and becoming the stud of NTU. if indeed there is any truth to this you have an explanation due and probably a few tips on the art of impressing women to less enlightened people like me and that someone i know ;););)"

Before you get ROTFL, take a moment to note the adulation showered to the person referred to above as 'certain someone', 'you know who you are', etc. Shocking as it may seem, that person is a dude and not a dudette, he is in fact one of my 'best-pals' (a colloquially popular term in the South equivalent to 'best friend', but more casual and less girly). We used to bond together so well, that people often spoke of us as a married couple. Needless to say, we vehemently rubbished any such notion at the time, but now that I look at excerpts similar to the one above, I realise the gay overtones in our camaraderie that were blatantly visible to all. But what the hell, I'll stick my neck out and proclaim that every guy has had (or at least should have had) a friend like that - making up for what he lacks in physical feminine beauty with an ample capacity of intellectual compatibility. Kudos to all such Batmen and Robins of the world. No matter how homosexual your antics might seem, carry on with your unabashed friendship in the 'Jay-Veeru', 'Butch Cassidy-Sundance Kid, 'Laurel-Hardy' style.

Hey, right now I am a little confused. Wasn't this post supposed to be about taking a shot at myself? Seems like I might have indulged myself into trekking away to an entirely different topic here. But I'll cut it short now, and save some up for a more elaborate post on male bonding in general. Meanwhile, you are welcome to re-reads of the good stuff in this post :)