You da Man!

A couple of weeks ago I was searching for "Where is Carmen Sandiego?" . For those of you who don't know what that is , it was this old DOS based game that I played when I was in the 4th or 5th grade.

Google popped up a "Where the Hell is Matt" as one of search results and at that time I paid no attention to it .... but last week someone at work shared a link from the site which had a video of Matt.

Now you are probably wondering who the hell is Matt , let along where the hell he might be. He is a 31 year old guy from CT , who went around the world twice ... dancing. No its not one of those guys who go around the world to learn about the native dances of particular countries - instead he is a guy who went around the world, and stopped at places and danced and took videos of that and posted it online. Its not like he dances well, and its not like he knows a lot of moves. In fact he has just the one move and that one is terrible at best. Its the sort of thing you are likely to do when you've had one too many shots of Tequila or the poison of your choice.

He went around the world the first time around in 2006... and once the videos of that were posted he became "semi-famous" and in 2007 he did it again but this time he invited all the people who had emailed him after his 2006 video, to come dance with him and they did.

His video is fascinating... not because of the places he's been to because am sure if you switched on Discovery or TLC you would end up seeing those places... but fascinating because of the way people in it are dancing ,with him, in it. Old men, young men, women, kids...everyone for that moment the video was being shot forgot whatever it is that they have going on in their lives and danced.... and it was nothing fancy.... but they had fun which is the most important of all. They jumped, they wriggled, they danced and had fun doing it which is evident in every single face .

The few things that stood out for me were the enormous wave in Tongatapu, Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (its fucking surreal) and the background song for the 2008 video.

The song is in Bengali and I didn't get till I watched the video for the 3rd time!! (shame on me... considering am a half Bengali!!).

So... if you think you could use a smile go watch the video at www.wherethehellismatt.com . It ll do the job and make you feel good about life .

And Matt, if you need a backup dancer, lemme know. I am terrible myself :)

Of falling sick and purging

As a kid , I fell sick pretty often. According to my mom, it was because of some wrong vaccination shots I got which totally shot up my immune system for a couple of years. But this post has nothing to do with that.



Am down with a cold, a terrible cough and a fever to boot. So while in my bed weaving in and out of conciousness, I suddenly remebered what happened if you fell sick at home as a kid. Now my parents are great believers in home remedies and medicines were used only as the last resort. While these remedies were extremely effective and had no side effects and probably contributed to the fact that I hardly fall sick , they took their experimentation to a whole new level.

The thing that I remember the most is my dad's theory that everything arose from a "dirty" stomach. Till date, I have no clue what that means. My dad's way of monitoring my (and my sis's) health was to have us stick our tongue out, look at it and go..."Chee Chee Chee... thats dirty!!!" and then utter the dreaded word "Julaab". Julaab is the hindi/punjabi word for the entire Purgative family of products. Apparently having dark spots on the tongue (that I have had all my life and have had a doctor tell me a couple of years ago is just pigmentation marks) is a sign of having a "dirty" stomach and the only way to fix that was making sure that the toilet was the room I spent most of my day in . This diagnosis was for EVERYTHING. Cough, Cold, Fever, Stomach Aches, Acne, Rashes, Allergies...did I say everything???



However, as I have already mentioned, it had to be a home remedy and those things have scarred me for life. If it was a small pill, I probably would'nt have had these memories but no!!.... the stuff forced down my throat were the vilest of concoctions ever devised.



The chief amongst these was the infusion of Senna (Sona Patta in Hindi). The leaves are these pretty golden color but thats the only thing positive about it . The leaves were soaked over night (on Thursdays) and then it was boiled to produce this dark brown brew which smelt like the pits of hell itself and tasted like god only knows what. I cannot describe the taste.... there are no words to describe such a thing . A cup of this infusion was forced down my throat on Friday night and I spent Saturday with my stomach rumbling and twisting and all the things associated with a laxative.

Incase you were under the impression that this was something that happened only when I was sick, it was not. It was given to me weekly as long as I was home. Infact after I left for boarding school, the dosing continued the moment I got home for my holidays.

To all parents out there... Purgatives and Laxatives are NOT the cure for any sickness.... take it from a guy who knew each damp spot in the toilet intimately!!!!