Burra Na Maano, Holi Hai!

I love Holi. I love what it represents. I love the colours. I enjoy the festivities and smiley faces and people wearing white clothes to accentuate the colours they're doused with. I love the bonfire. I revel in the sentiment.

A favourite song of mine goes, "Holi kè din, dill khill jaatè hain, rango'n mèin rang mill jaatè hain."

It was a big thing back in my day. But, Holi tended to be nothing but a gropefest. Growing up in an all boys boarding school in Shimla, we learned respect and restraint, it was all pretty tame and civil, us Cottonians went over to the all-girls Chelsea or CJM, and physical contact was limited to rubbing coloured powder on the face.

Years later, after leaving school, I joined a Holi Horde back home in Punjab. They rented a Swaraj Mazda, and went around town looking for girls to grope and fondle. I was appalled at how terrible it was for girls. Needless to say, I did not join in ever again.

Going back to the same song, the lyricist says the unsaid:

"Ja rè ja deewanè tu, 
Holi kè bahanè tu,
Ja rè deewanè tu, 
Holi kè bahanè tu,
Chhèd na mujhè, besharam"

'Twas ever thus. Sadly.

Happy Holi, or Hola Mohalla, everýone.

Brenton Tarrant, the Jihadi.

Right, I've had a massively busy day today, having started it earlier than usual, totally sleep-deprived and groggy.

While I was not looking, my Twitter-feed has gone completely off the scale, and my Facebook feed is filled with anguish, pain, remorse, and scarily in some instances, jubilance.

And yes, I've been Whatsapped the video of the camera on that Aussie dickhead's head. I cried when watching it. Needless to say, I've deleted it from my phone, and messaged the person who sent it to me not to propagate it any further. Nothing about sharing footage of this macabre event is cool.

I've been itching to say something about the tragedy that has gone down in Hobbiton. New Zealand is the last place on earth I believed, that would harbour such sentiment.

Racists exist everywhere. Many people think and strongly believe, that they are the true inheritors and enforcers of what is God's will. A God they have never seen and never met.

All Muslims are not blow-yourself-up Jihadies. All Christians are not shoot-em-up-crusaders. All BJP voters are not Hindutva-fanatics. All Sikhs are not Khalistani mindjobs.

My best friend, my chaddi-buddy (langotiya yaar) is a Muslim. His wife is a Hindu. Their kids are a joy to behold. My friends come from all walks of life, of varying beliefs, and the reason they are my friends is essentially the content of their character, not the colour of their skin or the deity they worship. I've never given two hoots about any deity or imaginary clock-maker, but if it gives people a focus to set their moral compass on, so be it. Be nice, get nice. Simples.

Having said that, from this day forth, many Muslims in the West, and in Australia & New Zealand will not go to their mosque for fear of idiots like Brenton Tarrant. Come to think of it, how safe are Hindus in their temples, or Sikhs in their Gurudwaras, or Jews in their Synagogues, in the face of such hatred?

Of course there have been many expressed opinions that people like Brenton Tarrant cannot exist in a vacuum. There has to be a political atmosphere or social cushion that allows hate like this to ferment. This may be one of the truths, but I don't think this is THE truth. I won't be blaming Modi, or Trump, or Candace Owens for this. I'll be blaming Brenton Tarrant.

This is what Brenton Tarrant did: He killed people that did not agree with his mindset. He killed women and children, and a lot of men. He killed people that were not combatants in an arena of war. He is the very thing he thinks he is opposing.

Brenton Tarrant is a Jihadist. Brenton Tarrant is a terrorist. Brenton Tarrant needs to be put away, forever.

Negotiation 101 - The first rule

Never take 'No Deal' off the table. Florists, corner-shops, independent butchers, little cafès and pound-shop retailers know this. It's a tragedy that parliamentarians on £80,000-a-year, plus benefits, don't, or pretend not to.

It is oft said that Britain's exit is equivalent to 19 countries leaving EU at same time. Thing is, if our politicians had the cojones to boldly go forth, 19 other countries would do exactly the same thing - they are looking to us. The EU knows this. Sadly, we have a parliament filled with castrated cuckolds. Unfortunately, the EU knows this too.

Cromwell springs to mind, you know the guy whose statue you walk past on your way to work.

"Ye sordid prostitutes! Have you not defiled this Sacred Place, and turned the Lord's Temple into a Den of Thieves by your immoral Principals and wicked Practices?

You, deputed here by the People, to get Grievances redressed, are become the greatest Grievance.

The Country therefore calls upon me to cleanse the Augean Stable, by putting a final period to your Iniquitous Proceedings in this House, and which by God's Help, and the strength He has given Me, I now come to do.

I command ye, therefore, upon the Peril of your Lives, to depart immediately out of this Place.

In the name of God, Go! Get out! Make haste ye Venal Slaves, begone!"

We need a new class of politician.
.

The Khyberman Kebab Platter

If you want this, here's how it's done:

1. Lamb: Get VERY lean Lamb mince. Grind up some ginger and garlic, knead into lamb. Add red chilli powder, garam masala, salt, a little amchur powder, and plenty of tandoori masala. Kneed again until thoroughly mixed.

2. Chicken Tikka: Get your local butcher to cut up boneless chicken thigh into one-inch-sized cubes, or do it yourself if you're good with a knife. Add red chilli powder, garam masala, salt, a little amchur powder, ground ginger and garlic, and fresh lemon juice - one lemon for every 500g of chicken, and smother with plenty of tandoori masala.

3. Salmon: The tail works best. Chop up into one-inch cubes, add sea-salt and black pepper, sprinkle a little tandoori masala. Rub it all in with a little olive oil and a dash of lime.

Let all of this marinate for about two hours.

Get bamboo skewers that are longer than the width of your baking tray, soak them in water for about 15-20 minutes, and load the goodies on, using two skewers a centimetre apart, so you can turn the stuff.

Fire up your oven to about 250°C (just under 500°F - Gas mark 9), Fill your baking tray with hot boiling water. Slice up half a lemon and chuck it into the water in the baking tray. Squeeze the rest of the lemon into the water, chop up the squeezed lemon into little pieces and chuck that into the water as well. Add thinly sliced ginger to the water - 4 or 5 slices will do. Add a few cloves into the water.

Place the skewers onto your baking tray (see order below) - making sure nothing touches the water. If it does, you need a deeper baking tray.

First load the lamb. Give it ten minutes. Then load the chicken, give it 10 minutes, then load the fish, giving it 10 minutes. Keep the heat steady at 250°C (just under 500°F - Gas mark 9). Check every now and then, and turn them over as soon as you see browning and sizzling.

By the end, the lamb will have baked for 30 minutes, the chicken for 20 minutes and the fish for 10 minutes.

Extract, and remove from skewers while still hot. Serve with any sauces you like, garnish with chopped coriander and sprinkle on some chat masala and fresh lime.

Optional: The water in the baking tray is now a heady, fragrant,yummy and nutritious mix of lemon, ginger, cloves, and all the fat rendered off the meat, chicken and fish. Crush up the now totally wilted and soft ginger and lemons with a fork and serve in a little bowl to be poured onto your kebabs for a bit of a lemony sting and flavour.


Post pictures on Instagram and tag me in them or @ me on Twitter. 

I'll be issuing points. 

Colour Me Bad - Part 2

Brown people are people with brown skin. Black people are people with black or very dark skin. White people are people with white or pale skin. Gingers are people with gingery-red hair. Tall people are people that are, well, tall. Same applies to short people. Fat people are people that are visibly obese. Chinks, when referring to those of Chinese/Japanese/Vietnamese/East India are people that have narrow, beautifully crafted doe eyes.

It really is that simple. If you're reading too much into a description of you based on your appearance, the problem is yours. While some see it as a racial epithet, I see it as a badge of honour.

I'm brown. I wear a turban. I'm uber-cool with that. I'll still be brown if referring to or describing me by the colour of my skin is outlawed. I dread that day, and I fear that day is upon us.

Don't fight the narrative. BE the narrative.

Colour Me Bad

I am a person of colour. I'm like, you know, coloured. I'm dark brown after a nice day in Bournemouth, an average brown on a sunny week in London, and a wheatish-ochre on most days. I really couldn't give a monkey's about whatever skin-tone descriptor is in fashion with the woke-folk.

The colour of my skin has nothing to do with the content of my character. The forever shifting of what is or isn't 'acceptable' in describing someone's 'funny tinge' is a disturbing trend. You do yourself no favours. That is where the content of your character falls to shambles.

Stop it.

I could come up with dozens of reasons why I'd like to see the back of Amber Rudd. This is not one of them.

I could come up with dozens of reasons why I'd like to see the back of Diane Abbott. This is one of the main ones.

God Bless America

The yappy Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of the Green New Deal admits on national television that she uses tons of plastic bags from the grocery store and that she throws them all away. Her reason? Lack of recycling facilities.

Why doesn't she reuse the plastic bags or bring her own reusable bags?

I tend not to delve into the warped, psychedelic world of American politics but the double standards of politicians is pretty much the same everywhere. Like socialists who publicly denounce private education, while sending their own children to the very schools they froth at the mouth against. But I digress. Back to Ocasio-Cortez, the one without a cortex...

I have 4 hessian bags I bought sometime in 2003-2004. They have stayed with me for three house moves since then. One lies in my car and three at home. Save the occasional shopping I do on impluse, I almost always use them for my bi-weekly shop, they're still as good as new. The plastic ones I get, after grudgingly paying 5p (7¢) end up being reused until they fall apart. That's when I chuck them.

I tend to avoid supermarkets as much as possible and buy produce from local shops, which generally have a shorter shelf life. This means I shop twice a week and do not buy more than I need. It also means that all the local shopkeepers know me and my family well, and always greet me with a smile and give me excellent service. Occasionally, they throw in a little freebie. I like to believe I contribute to the prosperity of my neighbourhood.

Bottom line is, if you won't support your local community shops with your custom, if you won't eliminate or minimise your waste for the sake of your convienience, and expect the government to clean up after you, you're doing life wrong.

You table a plan to save the world in your own hackneyed way, and then you admit to being an irresponsible throw-away culture child. Not a good look.

When you discard three layers of heat-sealed shrink wrap and a plastic bag because you bought a fillet of fish, the folks from your local authority WILL clean it up. They will use vehicles, machines, and an army of drivers, cleaning staff and logistics managers to take out the trash you did not need to generate.

And guess who pays for all this?

The little people. The cleaners, the nurses, the corner shop owners, the teachers, the sales assistants, the janitors, the taxi drivers, the warehouse workers, the mechanics, the builders, the policemen, and yes the guys who make the big bucks.

That horse you're on is a tad high. Now I'm no Trump fan, but stupid begets stupid. Trump exists because the likes of you exist. You made Trump. The balance in the Force, if you will.

The Donald is probably the 'reset to factory settings' button America desperately needs to eliminate the virus the Left has morphed into. He's the unpleasant medicine America has to swallow to rid itself of a greater malaise the Left is dragging all Western democracies into. He shoots from the hip, but then so do you. Neither of you are good shots by any stretch of the imagination.

For every gaffe PrezT makes, someone marches down the street, their face smothered in menstrual fluids, screaming that MAGA caps are frightening to even look at, while wearing a styrofoam replica of bleeding gentitalia on their head.

Who the hell is this helping?

Not you. Not America. Not me. Not anyone, anywhere in the world.

Did you just call me 'Sir'?

Okay, so this happened yesterday:

I walked into the little boy's room in a large public library for a tinkle.

Propped up against a urinal, was a person with one hand on the wall for support due to obvious drunkenness, peeing away. This is smack bang in the middle of the day.

This person was wearing sheer stockings, high heels, a black tweed miniskirt, a light blue blouse, topped by what was obviously a wig.

And more makeup I have seen on anyone in my entire life.

I finished first, despite having arrived much later, and proceeded to the sink to wash my hands, as you do. This person joins me at the sink.

"You awright?"

"Yes, thank you. And yourself?"

"I'm pissed."

"Lucky you! Haha!"

And then, I left, saying, "Have a good day, Sir!"

This person approaches me a few minutes later, after having checked three floors of the library to find me, and says, "Did you just call me 'Sir'?

I reply, "I might have, I don't know. Is there a problem?"

The answer, "If you don't know there is, then I can't help you." And this person leaves in a huff swearing along the way. There are some 15-20 people at the library now, staring at a red-faced me, as if I'd done something to this person visibly bigger and stronger than me - and I'm a big guy.

I have no idea what line I transgressed or what I did wrong. Why assuming someone peeing standing up in a men's urinal, in a men's toilet, being addressed as 'Sir' would be out of the ordinary?

I use 'Sir' and 'Ma'am' everywhere - at KFC, Sainsubury's, the local butchers. I was brought up with manners.

Now that I've calmed down a bit, and reflected on this episode, I've come to the following conclusion:

Regardless of what it is you want to be called, there is no way I can tell. If you're going to be obnoxious about it, it's not my fault, it's yours.

Whatever you identify as, just remember, at one end of the perineum is a D***, complete with B******s and all, or a C***. At the other is an A-hole.

You seemed to be A, B, C, and D, all at the same time.

You can't even piss in peace these days.

Why does everything happen to me?

Dear Mr Modi

Dear Mr. Modi

Not withstanding many of the reasons the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan allowed the release of a POW, how about we take this at face value?

I refuse to believe Imran Khan is an Islamist, a pathan supremacist, or a vehicle of any kind of misguided Islamic jihad. I do know that being a politician in Pakistan is a much tougher gig than it is in India, given the Ulèma-esque Zia-ul-Haq style rhetoric that has always dominated the completely lawless politics of Pakistan. Just like many parts of rabid, fake Hindutva-infected, Goonda-Raj dominated India.

Imran Khan is one of the good guys. He is, of course, surrounded by people of a coarse visceral mindset, which unfortunately forms the bulk of the easily-led voting public. Just like in India.

He has an uphill task of modernising his nation's polity. I am sure you know this.

India crossed that narrow bridge a long time ago. Or so I thought. The Talibanisation of Dharma worries me deeply. I sincerely hope it worries you too; worries you enough to lead the disparate conglomerate nation that is India into the modern world. Now is not the time to hark back to a world that, that despite our golden-glossed high school history books, never was. War is an outdated concept. Only barbarians settle over fisticuffs. We are not the Dothraki. I like to think we have evolved. The India I know has, for sure.

Imran Khan is hostage to a twisted ideology - a role he is expected to play, and yet he, at the risk of violent derision and possible threats to his life, has extended an olive branch. You should grab it.

Help him. Pakistan may be a failed state, a horrible country, a hotbed of extremism, an incubator of terrorist outfits, and opposed to everything India is.

But your everyday Pakistanis are nothing like that. They were our brothers once. That we live separate lives today doesn't change the fact that they still are our kin.

There are no easy answers, of course.

Pakistan's porous borders, the strong influence of Islamist ideology, widespread racial bigotry, the deeply ingrained hatred towards the 'other' and sectarian conflicts, the blantantly overt persecution of minorities, the utter lack of the rule of law, and outdated blasphemy laws are big challenges Imran Khan faces.

Truth be told, India faces the same set of problems.

India has the military capability of rendering all of Pakistan into rubble in three days. They know it, we know it, the whole world knows it. We don't need to reiterate it by killing millions. The repercussions of our faux machismo since 1947 has already cost both sides so much, and continues to reverberate to this day. Enough is enough.

We invented ahimsa. Here is our chance to revere it. We don't need to reinforce it by killing anyone, or sacrificing any of our own.

Besides, I have first hand knowledge of the plight of families who have lost loved ones in war, in service of their country. Their stories will make any politician with a soul to resign, go home and slash their wrists.

You have an opportunity here. Let's see some mettle. You have it in you to be a bigger man.

Embrace the prodigal son. History will remember.