Gretel's Grouse

He rammed his head and cracked one of those cellophane licorice windows open. The gingerbread walls were crumbling at the scaffolding. He struggled to elbow one of the beams, but the chain around his limbs allowed for little movement.

Gretchen, a pedophile cannibalistic witch of the west, was preparing a new feast of plum cherry clafoutis with vanilla whipped cream. Muttering complicated incantations through cavity-eaten teeth, she skimmed through new dessert specials to fatten him up before the big sacrifice.

But where the heck was Gretel?

Gretel seduced Gretchen’s sharp tongue with a bowl of the previous kid’s leg in caramelized apples for dinner. The witch's lenient eyes rolled to the top of her head and she began to sleep, alternating snores with grizzly whistles.

So the sister managed to tiptoe into the hay barn the night before, promising the fattened elder sibling of a way out.

“Her life lies within the bugs on her bed!” discovered Gretel. “Tomorrow night it is. I’ll just fog up the bedpost and fumigate her to death,” she laughed.

But with peach melbas, pistachio macarons, lime-curd meringues and mango mascarpones on Gretchen’s menu for the week, Gretel had a slight change of heart.

She continued poaching pears of perfection as ideas kept brewing in her head. With Hansel on the back burner, she knew she could create magic on a plate. 

Chuckling at her new idea she gave Gretchen a wry smile.

Cause the next season's title of ‘Junior MasterChef Australia’ was going to be hers.

* For 3WW

Our Inexplicable Love for Gadget-Squealers!

It’s amazing how you look back at your lot when you’ve looked away for a bit. We Indians are obsessed with little inventions that can scream, screech, shriek, belch, beep or cheep (like listening to your neighbor yell at his wife down the street wasn’t enough!).

Let’s put us in an analogy. We are to small squawking devices like the Japanese are to a camera trigger. What is it that makes our Indian gene so hyperactive when we see a little machine at arm’s distance?

Hitting the honk button for the 7th time in a row will not take you anywhere! If you stopped playing ‘snake’ or 'angry birds' (or whatever else you use to twiddle your thumbs) for a bit and dug your face out of your phone screen ever so often, you’d notice that the light is still Red. The odd chance that it is Green doesn't justify your need to go palm-happy on the steering wheel. You don't need a degree in math to count the five cars between you and the open road!

Ditto for calling the elevator shaft to your assigned floor. It’s a mechanism with a set trajectory that sometimes does have a mind of its own. But it's not a wish-box! (Stop looking for the I-live-at-the-Empire-State-building pity vote!) Contrary to your continued expectation, poking and jabbing at the little arrowed button will not make it appear out of nowhere. Tried and Tested.

And thanks for making me jump out of my skin with the 4 continuous ting-tongs outside my door. Yes yes, getting my daily dose of packetted milk at 6:30 in the morning ranks very high on my emergency list! (I agree, you’re concerned that I might develop osteoporosis in the future, but 4 doorbell alerts? At six-effin-thirty in the a.m.? Like seriously?)

Going by this list, I would’ve easily concluded that we’re a lot that's just always in a hurry. I won't discount that completely, but on careful speculation, I know it’s more than that. As much as we try to hide our li'l secret, we just love gizmo-induced sounds! Period. So much for cheap thrills and vulgar joys.

How else would you explain the need to download annoyingly loud sms tones to your already busy phone! Isn’t the cacophony of conversation doing its bit for you? Why would someone, in their right mind, wish to endure listening to a baby bawl or a cow moo endlessly if they didn’t secretly love being sadistic? It might seem like fun the first time around. But when you get a string of 30 sms with the same baby crooning for help, I’d want to thwack the little thing and put it to rest!

Grah!

Clap Clap!

Have you ever hated someone so much that you just got up and started applauding as soon as she got done with her act?
(No no, I'm not particularly talking to you, oh nominee-for-the-best-actress-award-who-just-sat-there-clapping-for-the-winner.) I know how you feel, but I'm referring to a whole other gamut of emotions here.

I never thought I could have so much hatred. So much animosity. So much anger for the female form.
But when you get up everyday at 3:30am, and start applauding aimlessly in the dark, you know you can't feel very appreciative. And when two mosquitoes decide to play join-the-dots on your body, you know you want to show feminism the finger.

I'm just this close to wishing that there was someone who'd gas those bitches in one big mosquito genocide!

Mosquitoes! Those vicious, ruthless, blood-sucking monsters that leave itchy red mounds of ugliness on skin, are ALL FEMALE!!

Apparently, they look for a smooth surface on bare (freshly waxed?) skin and meditate on landing quietly hoping that you're either asleep, numb, dead or too thick skinned to care. They whisk out their proboscis and stick it into you (erm...this surely doesn't sound very lady-like now). And while you're too busy focusing on sleep, they burp on your blood and hi-five to the other bitches on the number of Bloody Mary(s) they just consumed.

And for what purpose? Erm... for the noble cause of being a Mother.

Waiddaminute! They need MY red blood corpuscles, to nurse and raise a new swarm of pests who can come back and bite me on the bum? Again?

I'm telling you. One way or the other, children are EVIL!

Age Rage

If there's one thing that has triggered the mass fuck-up of the human race, it has to be the day when one klutz woke up on a Tuesday morning and decided to bracket people by the number of candles on their birthday cake.

Can someone please explain what would caution for age-appropriateness in behaviour?

So let's get this straight. You plonked out of your mother's womb - You did what you had to (or just slept for the most part) - 364 days rolled over, and then wham, everyone and their uncle stared at you like they were waiting for you to deliver on a magic trick. Well if it was one trick and they'd get over it, I'd even bother trying to ace it. But year after year, the expectations just get crazier!

This is where I realized that attempting to grow an extra organ might seem to be a lot more easy, but matching up to age-appropriate expectations is a whole other ordeal.

"Oh he's one already, and he isn't walking just yet!"
Why bother? Even if he prepares in record time, he won't be able to run the marathon next year.
Seriously, STOP obsessing over youtube videos of one-year-olds who can bob their head, waist and leg to Shakira. They're NOT normal.

"She's thirteen and we're praying that she gets her first 'period' in time."
In time? For what?
Be sure what you pray for. If she's ready to get her period, it's her body's way of also telling you that she's ready to have sex. This one can potentially fast forward you to grandparenthood, if you will.

"I can't wait to turn 18!"
Aah... cause NOW you're an adult. You can drive without your fake licence. You can also vote, elope and get married. Be careful on the outlaw side of things though. No more juvenile courts to save your sorry ass!

"21, woohoo!"
Clearly, you've just developed the skills to handle and hold your alcohol overnight. Now if you could cooperate a little, I'm trying to get you to vomit outside the car.

"Sullen times, babe! It's the 25th. Quarter-life-crisis just decided to bite me on the bum!"
True, presuming you're going to live to be a 100-year-old hag. If you're not meant to live a day over 60, then you're just 5 short of reaching your mid-life. Need more vodka?

"Three-Oh! You'll need Jeetendra's tabs to keep you going through the day!"
Jeetendra's been 30 for the past 30 years. It just dawned on me that they were trying to target my dad and grand-dad with the same pill!

Oh and then we have the un-missable (if that's even a word) classics that everyone's subjected to in one way, shape or form.

"You've reached marriageable age..."
"At your age, you should be changing diapers, not jobs!"

Really? So hang on a second there.

How come we never hear:
"You've reached the age of wanting to kill all your children?"
"It's okay, you're in the age of falling out of love."
"You'll be a nymphomaniac between 33 and 35. It's the age, they say."

See, if everyone could just accept that some of these anomalies are age-appropriate too, we'd stop freaking ourselves out so often!

But as people get older they like to skip over some of these specifics...

So that you can tie the knot, share a bed and bank balance with someone (how can you be so selfish and have the whole bed to yourself?!?!), become fat and have babies, just so that they can come back to you and ask,

"Oh, she's turned one!?! Has she started walking just yet?"

Sadists!

The Lone Student

With one hand on the snooze button he rubbed the sleep out of his starry eyes and winked open a sunbeam.

He was late for school, AGAIN! He quickly dressed into his golden yellow uniform and packed reserve batteries in his lunch-box.

There were shadow lessons with the clouds, and prism lectures with the rain.

He sucked at all subjects but they still called him BRIGHT!

What else would they say for the only one in the class?

Where's the guy with wings?

A listless voice in her head does the occasional "You Can't!" drone in her left ear.

She picks him by his red horns, plunging the pitchfork through his arrowed tail... 

While the lazy little halo'd one sleeps aimlessly under the right earlobe.