Hemant's Blog

I have moved my blog to Wordpress.
It is available at www.hsahgal.wordpress.com

If that is indeed true, I want mine to be a box of Anthon Berg Chocolate Liqueurs - dark and full of good alcohol.

Some time back Scott Adams blogged about the shelf life of humor (http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/2007/11/humor-as-a-seas.html). Things that were hilarious some years back are not even funny any more. That got me thinking about works of humor by different authors and how they stand the test of time.

Terry Prachett - PTerry writes a lot of satire and what has come to be termed "white humor" (white as in white noise). Satire has a very short shelf life. In fact satire is appreciated by only by those who understand the context to begin with. As time passes, fewer and fewer people get it. Some time back I had made an unsuccessful attempt at satire but nobody understood it. Only somebody having seen Hong Kong kung-fu movies would have understood it.

P.G. Wodhouse - Wodhouse was at one time the funniest. However, I don't know how much Wodhouse is read by today's young generation. His style of writing and his characters are very dated. I have not read any other author with a command over the language as Wodhouse but despite that he does not stand the test of time.

Jerome K Jerome - Only one of his books was successful - Three Men in a Boat. And a stupendous success it was. The book was written way back in 1889 and is still in print today. His style of writing is unique. Unlike other authors he does attempt to display his writing prowess by clever plays on words. Rather, he demonstrates his mastery over the language through sheer simplicity of writing. Below are some samples:

[It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.]
-- Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)


[What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell. From my earliest infancy I have been a martyr to it. As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day. They did not know, then, that it was my liver. Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.
"Why, you skulking little devil, you," they would say, "get up and do something for your living, can't you?" - not knowing, of course, that I was ill.
And they didn't give me pills; they gave me clumps on the side of the head. And, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me - for the time being. I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time, than a whole box of pills does now.
You know, it often is so - those simple, old-fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.]
-- Three men in a boat (1889)

His writing is as "fresh" today as it was when he wrote. Any modern writer would be proud if could churn out prose of that quality.

NOTE: If any one of you has my copy of Three men in a boat, please be so kind as to return it.

The Friday gone by I was on my way to office. I was alone in the office cab so I had left earlier than usual. There was less traffic on the road. Near Ghitorni, the driver – Santosh, stopped the car, said something about something having fallen on the road and got out of the car. I was busy with my own thoughts and I did not pay him any attention. I suddenly realized that he had stopped the car in the middle of the road! I peered out from the back seat to see him pick up a motorcycle. We could not have hit somebody – I would surly have felt that! I got out of the car to see a young man lying on the road.

The man seemed to be having an epileptic fit. By then a lot of two wheelers had stopped to see what was happening. As Santosh was moving the bike to the side of the road, I moved the man to the side of the road with one of the passer byes. All the people who gathered there assumed that we had knocked him over. Fortunately, the guy who had helped me shift told everyone that he had seen everything and that we were not to blame.

No one knew what to do next. One guy tried to find some form of identification or even a cell phone which could be used to call the fallen guys friend or relative. The man was slightly foaming at the mouth. He was not responding to any attempts to revive him. Two ambulances went by but did not stop even though I hailed them.

A lady driving by stopped. She checked his pulse and told the young man in a commanding voice that he was alright and he should get up. Miraculously, the young man opened his eyes and got up! He was much disoriented. The lady was obviously a doctor because she immediately started asking him questions like if had happened to him before, what medication he was on, the dosage, etc. The lady told him that he should come to the hospital with her but the guy was too disoriented to understand. He kept repeating that he had to get to work and kept trying to get back on his bike. The crowed who had gathered was getting angry at the guy. The lady got so frustrated that she even tried to slap him a couple of times. A man in the crowed said that he was from a school near by and the young man should be taken there till he recovered. The young man refused all offers of going to the school in a car! The man from the school caught him by his collar and marched him to the school.

Any time I see a road side incident I just drive by. I see the people gathered and say that they have nothing better to do than to stop and gape. A lot of people do just stand there and gape but there are others who do more than gape and they are the people who make the world a better place to live in.

One of the reasons I stopped watching men's tennis was Pistol Pete. He was just too good. Roger Federer is no different. Both these players are able to bring finesse into the game of power tennis. Federer and Sampras are playing some exhibition matches against each other. It is a pretty uneven match up. Federer is at the peak of his career and match fit. Sampras is 35 years old and been out of tennis for many years now. How do you think they would have matched up if both had been at their peak? I think Federer would have edged it. Just look at the quality of competition that Federer has and his domination. It is the quality of Federer’s opposition that makes tennis watchable again.

Women’s tennis is more interesting. Not just because of the number of long legged, good looking women but the quality of tennis and the evenness in the top 5. Bartoli and Henin are anything but power players.

I happened to watch parts of the matches in Madrid. Normally, matches have ball boys and ball girls to run and fetch balls. Madrid had hot looking ball babes. It was quit amusing. They spent a lot of time adjusting their hair and their tee-shirts. I wonder if the game has become so un-exciting that it needs to be glammed up?