The Last Yap

Sherlock Holmes. You see, but you do not observe. Sherlock Holmes. The pioneer of the science of deduction, the mysterious detective genius with a brain that could explode like a cannon, the man with inane powers of cane fencing, wrestling and baritsu, the aloof; friendless human being who finds a chum and colleague in Dr. Watson, the man with an equally worthy arch-enemy. When he created the character of Sherlock Holmes in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle unleashed a tale of fiery awesomeness that has us captivated even today. With every story accompanied by a gripping plot and intense character development, he wove magic with words. For a book (series) that was written in the late 1980s and the early 1990s, it is still as un-put-down-able as a Michael Crichton, Stephen King, John LeCarre, or an Alistair MacLean. And when it seemed that this was just about how good it gets to be, it was Steven Moffat who created a BBC TV series by the name Sherlock, that has set a new benchmark for

Count my abs! Men have been making fires, sharpening spears and tightening bowstrings since the Stone Age. When they went hunting it must have got their adrenaline racing, their heightened senses poised to detect the presence of the most surreptitious prey. While the joy of having conquered all barriers in having made the kill must have reigned supreme, the thought of the subsequent lip-smacking food would surely have been a powerful motivator. Life was simple then, and living was not really an art. You needed to have incredible sword-fighting and spear-throwing skills along with great abs. And if you also managed to kill the big bad neighborhood wolf, there was the added incentive that you would be crowned king. It is trying to take off ! Present day man lives in the petrol age. An age where making fires at random places is frowned upon, for a reduced carbon footprint defines your social acceptance and brandishing spears and bow-arrows would certainly

Every hero needs a villain. Villains have always been undermined throughout history. Period. Their only purpose in a movie has been to provide aesthetic fodder to the super-human antics of the heroes. They are the ones who get shot multiple times, sucked; by the handsome neighborhood vampire, sawed off with electric saws, thrown off unnecessarily tall buildings, gulped down by big fat snakes, fed in to aircraft propellers, light- sabered , bombed; with the bomb cleverly slipped into their pants, eaten; by the local werewolf-hunk, drowned, strangled, wrist-slashed, fed with cyanide and expelliarmus-ed;  to name just a few. And as if this wasn’t enough, they also have to listen to the heroes blabber on about righteousness, good versus evil and saving the occasional hot girl. But as time would have it, all of that is changing. Villains are not so easy to run over anymore. They are cold, vicious, macabre and calculating. They exact vengeance with a steely determination. They plot thei

When I was a kid , I loved going to doctors. It was incredible. They stuck sharp gleaming needles in your arse, sang soothing poems while they did it, and then gave you toffees as a parting gift, which proved to be so much more effective than the painkillers and left you feeling great about yourself. However, this feel-good syndrome was applicable only to ‘normal’ doctors, that is, all types of doctors besides dentists. After having been at the mercy of various practitioners in the medical arena, I have come to fear dentists the most. Almost every other type of doctor, and this has been true since the dawn of time and doctors; does the damage that is due to a patient when the patient is unconscious, either naturally because they passed out like a scaredy-cat, or because they have been anaesthetized. It is only the dentist that cruelly instructs you to open your mouth wider, ignores your meek whelps of pain, and proceeds to grind a drill into your teeth and plays with your nerve

It is new year’s eve and I’ve just hit upon something stimulating enough to actually write about. And in case that thought just popped into your mind, no, I’m not typing this on a smart-phone at a party, waiting for the clock to strike midnight. On a day like this when the brain inadvertently chooses to reflect on the year that flew by, it proves to be pretty strenuous to pass time doing nothing. You feel guilty of having wasted most of the year doing crazy, mostly irrelevant shit, and you also realize that you aren’t really getting any younger. But what really gets to me is the ominous knowledge that despite having had this enlightenment, I’m most probably going to keep at the crazy irrelevant shit throughout the next year, and the years to come, and just waste more time. So much for being a human being, and the thus related theory of evolution. I must be making Darwin a proud skeleton indeed. The first time I watched ‘You’ve Got Mail’, it just blew me away without really