Putting an end to the paranormal

Talking about paranormal stuff is just so cool, isn’t it? I don’t know about the girls, but I think no man can ever admit that he’s scared of watching horror on screen. And if you were to spot a bunch of eighteen year-olds discussing ghost stories, it’ll not be hard to notice that each one is waiting for the other to finish his story. Every boy wants to pounce on the rest of them with his tale, and each one hopes that his story is the one that freaks everybody the most. I have scores of tales from my engineering days to demonstrate this fact. There’s the story of Vinod Kambli’s fan, last room in the corridor girl’s room-mate, the Ambassador party, the Hotel waiter, the guy in the time capsule and many more. I mean, these are actual stories that have happened to either me or people close to me. But we won’t go into that until sometime later.

Many many years ago while in high school, I remember reading a book about paranormal stuff that people had experienced. One of the stories was about a couple that lived in some part of the world and had always wanted to visit France. Now this story happened sometime in the 70’s from what I recollect. So they decide to vacation there, and in a few weeks they find themselves checking into a hotel room in Paris. Later that evening, the husband and wife are walking down a street. Suddenly the man turns to the wife and remarks that if they were to walk till the end of the road and turn right, they would find a restaurant that went by a certain name, and he said the name of the place. The wife thought her husband was playing a fun game since they had never visited Paris before, and so how could he possibly know the name of this place and the fact that it existed there? But true to his word, they turned right at the road’s end, and found the restaurant with exactly the same name as he had said.

You might have heard this story, or something similar in the past. You might have even experienced something like this yourself. But that was in the 70’s. Let’s see what happens in the year 2009. I’m on a bike with my friend. We are headed some place in the city for some errand that I can’t recollect now. My friend is riding the bike and we are headed to this place. Now both of us haven’t been to that part of the city before. I’m hoping to get directions from people on the streets. After covering some distance, we reach a signal. My friend stops and shuts off the bike. He turns around and tells me that if you go straight from the signal and take a right, there’s a flyover and near that flyover is a Chinese restaurant by the name of Blah Blah. No passerby that we got directions from ever said anything of this kind to us. I thought it could be that this guy had come here before, but that was untrue. So obviously, this must be paranormal.

Not really. Our man had been spending too much time on Google maps before we left home. Darn it, they sucked all the fun out of ghost stories.

Another duck in the hall

Well, we’d all like to keep a blog and let the world know what our gray cells are processing this day and the next. But most of my friends I've spoken to who’ve tried a hand at blogging, and me too, in my early days of blogging had a stiff challenge to overcome. What do I write about? I mean, telling my audience fifteen reasons why I’m so cool is out. The “Sorry guys, I’ve been away for a while and haven’t been able to post” post doesn’t exactly get a rouse up; you realize that no one really misses you anyways. Most of us are no good at consistent diary entries either. Besides, you don’t want to be reading “I hit the loo 47 times today”.

Check out this article if you’re interested in building a blog that can potentially deliver a high impact with each post – something every blogger dreams about:

http://www.dailyblogtips.com/how-to-deliver-the-highest-impact-with-each-post/

On a side note however, I was talking to Sri today. She was telling me how this Chinese guy got deported from the Netherlands because he shot a duck in a public pond and took it home to fix a meal. The cops didn’t think it was cool. So, dear reader, buy a dead duck from the supermarket the next time you’re hungry in Amsterdam. And leave that air-gun at home.

But coming back to the topic of blog posts. For a long while, the way I came up with blog posts was I would keep my eyes and ears open anyplace I went. Anytime, anything sounded catchy, or I felt that I could milk 500 words out of a situation, you bore the pain of reading it here on One of Side of a Sandwich. Times have changed since then. Things are done a little differently these days. The task now is to come up with a phrase that can be a title for a post. My antennae are now tuned to identifying a set of words that can grab your attention. And 500 words on that phrase are a by-product. Well, at least 400.

I was at Hard Rock Café this evening, and they played Another Brick in the Wall (Pink Floyd). So you take the phrase “Another brick in the wall”, throw in some pedestrian creativity, and you come with a title for a blog post called “Another duck in the hall.”

Read this if you're engaged. What the heck! Read it even if you aren't

I don’t usually think of such stuff (I mean, I do, but not aloud), but today we’re going to swing it (forgive the pun) and see where this goes. This one is about love. Any moron like me who can write so much as two sentences that makes the slightest sense hopes to write on the topic of love some day. Chetan Bhagat too vouched for this in an interview when Two States was released. And you thought I was lying about the moron part?

At my previous work place, I was one of the youngest people in the team. Most of my team mates were in their mid and late twenties. To us lads who were fresh out of college, we didn’t really connect with the old-timers. Every once in a while an engagement or a wedding invite would land up on my desk. Sometimes, it would be an e-mail invite. To know what that meant, read this post that I wrote to let the world know how exactly I felt about e-mail invites (that aren’t at least followed up with a phone call). If you happen to be one of them who sent me an e-mail invite at anytime, don’t feel embarrassed about it. I wasn’t referring to you. I’m only taking it out on the others who send such stuff.

So, further to a somewhat lengthy title and introduction, here’s what appeared to be happening to people once they got engaged. They fell in love. Only recently, my friend and I were having a talk about this: the whole premise of falling in love after being engaged. (It’s funny how guys can have very chickish conversations and live in complete denial about it.) Love-after-engagement must be a different experience compared to getting engaged after falling in love. In the second scenario, when two people fall in love (in the traditional sense), the situation is still vulnerable. It is love that is based on the assumption that things might work out as planned, but with a relatively less degree of surety. You and she are still rowing a boat with an oar that may go one direction now and another direction later. You may or may not make it to the shore. Things may or may not work out. In the love-after-engagement situation, two people (who in most cases haven’t met before) are thrust into a ferry with an engine. Their chances of making it to the shore are far greater than the people in the boat with the oar.

Any couple that is engaged has a vision of what their married life would look like. They’re thinking beyond planning the next sneak-away trip to the sea-shore or the hills that their parents won't know about. As time rolls by, this vision crystallizes and strengthens to a point where the two partners overlook any immediate flaws in the other that might potentially lead to any kind of a disruptive misunderstanding at that stage. (I borrow this concept from Dr. Scott M. Peck’s legendary book The Road Less Traveled. The second chapter on Love is probably the best 100 pages anyone has written about on this topic.)

To wrap it all up, falling in love the way we know it is certainly an adventure in its own end: a story with several opening ends where anything could happen, or anything could go wrong as Murphians like to say it. One of these endings could be getting engaged. But from what I see, the story of love that develops after getting engaged is bound to be more mature and softer simply because it grows between two people who know they can’t turn any which way from here.

My apologies for the analytical and serious undertone this write-up contains. I wish I could have given a Wodehousian touch of humor to this theme. But that would mean I’ll have to be in love with a girl to do so. Only then can you make fun of it, right? See, they weren’t entirely wrong when they said that a person is like a tea-bag; his true color comes out only when he’s put in hot water.

Love being analogous to the hot water, in case you didn’t catch up to that joke.

Most of us didn’t do much for New Year's

Before the scent of New Year’s fades into the stench of the rest of 2010, let’s take a look at what most of us almost did for this New Year’s.

I can only speak for the self in here. How does one have that perfect New Year’s celebration? I completely subscribe to the view that the night of Dec 31^st should be a special one. The reason behind this is more attitudinal (by now you do realize that the word attitude keeps popping up in this blog for more reasons than I can see).  Anytime there’s anything special about anyday, I just have a different attitude about it. Dec 21^st, for example is a special day in my calendar. So every 21/12 serves one purpose: what was a I doing last 21/12? Where will I be next 21/12? In several ways, that in itself is a good check to keep one’s goals and purposes on track.

And on the same grounds, I believe that New Year’s should be spent doing something special that you wouldn’t have otherwise done. That need not include getting wasted.In high school, New Year’s was spent strolling down the well lit but packed M G Road and Brigade road at 9 in the night. Until some drunken buffoon decided to get adventurous with an unsuspecting lady and the cops intervened to disperse the crowds. We went home and watched television. In college, New Year’s meant gathering around a camp fire with beer and boiled potatoes, and prophesying the fact that girls’ hostels in years to come will not have curfews atleast on New Year’s. What a pity!

Back in the new city, we started making plans for Dec 31^st in the end of November.  We decided to head off to Goa for the new years: every person’s dream budget-new years! But alas, they told us we’d have to choose between sleeping in postboxes, or paying an arm and a leg for a room in Goa. Neither of it happened. We tried getting to Gokharna, a tourist town in coastal Karnataka. They told us to try our luck in 2011; all the rooms were booked. We also thought of Pondicherry. But the mayor of Pondy himself came down to my home, showed me the finger and told me to shove it up and left. I’m not going back there in a while.

That feeling of self pity loomed large over us. We weren’t going to do anything for new years. With that submission, I woke up the following morning to make the ceremonial phone calls. Turned out that most people I knew hadn’t done much either the previous night.

As partners in guilt, things will hopefully be different in twelve months time. But if you do have a party, call me.  

A Brief History of Bad Breath

That’s right; bad breath. That’ll be the theme for this post.

When was the first time in human history that man first started brushing his teeth? Why did he start this at the first place? Did he do it necessarily to keep up oral hygiene, or did he get started on it because early woman demanded it of him?

I don’t know why they started it, but I’m sure glad that one day someone was wandering in the woods. The guy probably broke off a twig and stuck it in his mouth and lo and behold, the dental care market was born. We’ve heard tales from Jataka where neem twigs were used in the early days of dental care. In fact, it is still used widely in several parts of rural India. People then (and even now) used mud to clean their teeth. How then did we evolve from twigs and mud to Sorbitol, Sodium Silicate and 0.04% Methanol in mouthwash?

The answer to this complex question lies at the intersection of a historical time line and biological evolution. In the early days, humans were sparsely populated across a geographical stretch. Just like all animals, humans too have a personal space (or bubble) around them. As dogs go around the block leaving their excretions to demarcate their territorial space, so do humans. Public urination is proof enough.

So when humans were fewer in number, they had relatively bigger personal spaces. As we got good at mating, the per head availability of space reduced, and consequently the size of each of our bubbles shrunk. This was about the time when early woman refused to sleep with early man any longer unless he started his day by biting away at the neem twigs. As more and more people came inside a given territorial boundary, they started interacting at closer quarters and began heavily encroaching each others’ personal spaces. By this stage, even early woman was sucked into biting away at twigs and sediments. Very soon everyone was at it. The common denominator of society was set at brushing when you woke up.

Unlike other evolving social trends, oral hygiene demands a person to stay a cut above the rest in order to smell ‘better’. If I have good breath and you have good breath, then we both don’t realize that the other has good breath because both of us now operate at the same level. But if one of us has good breath and the other has bad breath, now you can tell the difference. This perfect imbalance spawned the market for the tooth paste and then the tooth brush. (Truly speaking, the story of the tooth brush and the tooth paste is a chicken-and-egg problem. So we won’t go into that one.) Now the whole world started using a toothbrush and toothpaste in the morning. To get ahead of competition, some guy started brushing twice a day.

You see, the story could have ended there. But in order to stay ahead of the rest of the pack, I have filled my toilet shelf with the latest battery operated toothbrush, a tongue cleaner developed by NASA for its astronauts, a 5-in-1 toothpaste that squeezes out of both ends of the tube, a set of dental floss so fine it can pass though the two syllables of ‘Hello’, a bottle of mouthwash with a higher percentage of alcohol than absinthe and a self invented, patent-pending mouth spray so strong that even a whiff in your eyes can cause permanent blindness.


Good luck to the rest of the world!

What Barney Stinson forgot to add

“What’s that box for?”

“I’ve decided to start collecting cigarette boxes.”

“But why?”

“Generally, man. I’ve got five of them – 555, Marlboro, Surya, Navy Cut and B&H.”

“So, new hobby?”

“Yea. Timepass.”
---

“How have you been doing? How was the vacation?”

“It was great. I was in Delhi most of the time.”

“What did you for two months?”

“Lazing around, catching up with friends and shopping.”

“Nice!”

“What’s your roommate been up to?”

“Nothing much, except starting a collection of cigarette boxes.”

“Hehe!”
---

“How is she?”

“Normal only.”

“What did she say?”

“She asked how you were doing.”

“And ..”

“I said you just got back; and that you had started collecting cigarette boxes.”

“You told her that?”

“Yes. What’s wrong with that?”

“Did she tell you that her roomie collects panty hoses?”

“No. Why would she tell me something like that?”

“Then why would you tell her something about my cigarette boxes?”
---

What Barney Stinson forgot to add: guy talk should never leave guys.

Who needs a life here?

You know what’s funny? It’s the choices we make. I recollect seeing rajmah for the first time in my first week of college in Hamirpur. I’m talking about that reddish brown kidney shaped group of pulses. Gosh, I hated the very sight of it in the mess. Every Tuesday night meant a trip to Ekta café, Tilak, Canteen or anywhere as far away as possible from Rajmah for Narayan , Sagar and I. And on Thursday mornings we had oats and banans for breakfast. I felt like these mess guys really needed a life. Who has oats at 7 am for crying out loud? I always waited to get out of college and get back home to Bangalore where I could have ‘good’ south Indian dosas, idliys and filter coffee for breakfast.

Now that I’ve relocated to Chennai, I must not have any problems with the food here, right? There’s dosas and idlies and pongal and gallons of filter coffee available; I just need to wave my arms to get it. But instead, I choose to have rajmah, black dal, cauliflower and rice for breakfast AND lunch. I prefer oats, banana and milk for dinner. I’m serious. It’s like when you’re growing up in India in your twenties, you’re thinking of blonds and bikinis. And after that second year in Amsterdam in your early thirties, you are thinking of gold and silk saris.

For better or for worse

My stay in Chennai is getting more interesting with every passing day.

I came here in August last year, quite by choice and my ongoing stint at Frost and Sullivan (www.frost.com; these guys are good) is keeping things where they should be.

Some of my friends might know this – I spent the first six months living in a room so small that calling it a ‘match box’ would be an overstatement. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this previously in my blog, but I was forced to skip certain positions in my morning yoga because the walls wouldn’t permit. I hope you get the picture.

Almost as a New Year resolution (to live in less claustrophobic places), I moved in with the Logica boys into an apartment in Srinagar Colony. I’m better off here in most ways: I have the best of roomies in the entire eastern hemisphere. Kashe and Nire are the guys you want to live around to get an appreciation of little things- like the importance of having a minimum of three eggs a day, or waking up early; or snoring at night.

But as we collectively acknowledge, our move into this house has proved worse off on two grounds. And these are like the national problems of Chennai: water and mosquitoes. Brushing every morning and night gives me a feeling that I’m taking water straight from the Bay of Bengal into my mouth. Gosh, the amount of salt can put Captain Cook to shame. And those sonovabitch mosquitoes. Every night is a fight for survival. We tried everything: Mortein, Good Knight, Palm Oil, Agarbathis. But these f!@#$%^ keeps coming back. A blood donation camp would have been richer by a couple of units of blood by now.

Last night, Nire came up with the mother of all solutions – a mosquito net. I’m talking about those netted screens that insulate your bed from the blood suckers. We had a hard time getting the net up on to the hooks. But once it went up, I tell you with no shame that we had a night like few others can ever imagine.

Here’s the fun thing about the mosquito net: you get to see the little bastards valiantly trying to get in. But you know that there’s not a chance in hell that can happen. All the fun lies in counting them from inside using your torch; there’s no better way to tease them. It’s truly the joy of laughing at the misery of these guys that makes it all the more worth it. Here’s the sad part: these guys ain’t gonna spare you when you walk out of bed in the morning. They’ll prick you and pound you until you wish you had lived in a blood donation camp.

Everyone must get a mosquito net. I’m convinced about that.

Day 4

Here's one for the road:

Question:

Chinese restaurants in India:

1) Are a poor excuse for chinese restraunts.

2) Get waiters from NE India and fool the customers into believing these guys are actually from China.

3) Serve a special Chinese dish called Gobi Manchurian that the Chinese aren't aware of.

4) Serve fortune cookies only to guests who have an eye in the forehead.

5) What a gas-bag of options are these?

Day 3

'Games' and 'Daily Milk' are:

1) Essential for kids.
2) Indispensable necessities of Jerry Seinfeld's apartment.
3) Duplicate brands of a famous Chocolate manufacturer.
4) Pseudonyms of President Hussien Obama's Secret Service Chiefs.

Day 2

Here's the next one (sorry for the 10 days gap)... I know, no one really noticed it. Not even me :)

MCQ 2: Laughing Buddha is closely related to which celebrity?

1) Yukta Mookhey

2) Ato Boldon

3) Hobbes(the Tiger)

4) The guy who featured twice in the obituary column.

(Please justify your option)

MCQ's

and if i hadn't bought that (THAT) cup of coffee at Kallmane Coffee Shop, I doubt if this post (series of posts) would have happened. so, here's the deal folks: Everyday (ok, as often as I humanly can) epxpect to find one lame/bizzaro question in this blog. There'll be four options to it.

Leave your choice as a comment.The board will compile the results and declare the winner soon.

So here goes:

Q: Why is that idiot wearing sunglasses INSIDE the coffee shop?

A: 1. He's an idiot.
2. He's hiding his red eyes.
3. He's just bought them.
4. It's actually a She. Look closer.


(Pick the closest answer.)

"This is so going into my blog"

Two men are having a conversation.

1st: I need to buy a watch. Let's go to National Market.
//National Market is the chor bazaar of Bangalore//

2nd: What kind of watch?

1st: A decent one, like a Rado.

2nd: My friend is selling his Rado. Do you want to buy it? It's brand new.

1st: How much is he selling it for?

2nd: 25,000 bucks.

1st: Baalls! My budget is 300 bucks.

2nd: Bhull! For 300 you'll only get a 'Radio' watch in National Market.

1st: You mean, there will also be a radio in that watch.

2nd: Possible! But it'll say 'Radio' on the dial.

1st: (Laughs out loud)

2nd: The shopkeeper will say that a printing mistake has happened. He'll strike out the 'I' and make it Rado and give it to you.

Me: This is so going into my blog!

A round of coffee follows.

(With inputs from !Anoop and !Navneet)

Testified

Last Saturday was a quiz for all the trainees of the Murugappa Group at Dare House, Parrys Corner in Chennai. Mr. Austin Anandkumar was the quiz master and he had quite a couple of good ones under his sleeve. Here are a few:

1) What is the origin of the word 'testify' (as in to testify in the court of law?)

A: It comes from the word 'testis'. In the earlier days, men who walked behind the box swore on their testis to speak the truth and nothing but the truth. Yewh!Scary thought if he lied.


2) What kind of a magazine is referred to as a 'Top of the Shelf magazine?'

A:) Adult magazines are called Top of the Shelf because they are out of visibility for children.

can't think of more ... append if wish to.

Where's Henman?

I'm on the grass (well, not literally) in the Centre Court at Wimbledon. It's a Men's Doubles match. I'm playing the match; with Tim Henman as my partner. I don't know who the opponents are. Henman is beating the living daylights out of the opponents. I'm standing and watching him in action. It's turning out to be a one on two. I can see the guy's getting tired.

Tables turn. The opponents start dishing out the punishment. And they keep it going. Till we finally lose. Tim smashes the racquet to the ground and walks away into the tunnel.

10 minutes later is the presentation ceremony. Apparently, we have finished third in the tournament. The winners go up, heads high and proud. 2nd place guys go. They are visibly disappointed. Tim and I are up next. He isn't around. I guess that he must have driven back home. I go up. The Duke of Kent shakes my hand and hands me a cheque for 90,000 pounds and says - "You are the hero of our tournament. This prize money is higher than that given to the 1st and 2nd place guys." And I'm thinking to myself - "Why?""

I'm tossing one other question in my mind - "Should I split the prize money with Henman. He won't know. I think I'll just take it away. I'll go to college. I'll be rich and famous. I'll take all the hotties of PGH to HHH for lunch. (We might just stay on for dinner!) Drinks for the men. That's fun! Screw Tim Henman. He's got a lot of money anyway."

A dream is more than a dream when you write it down. It becomes a story. Like the one here.

After a long while

I want to thank 3 people: Diptanu, Debbie and Vivek for getting me bloggin again. I wasn't planning on it, what with my hibernation and all that!

2 months have now passed since I put up anything here. Between the last post and this, I made a lone ranger trip to Pondicherry (to rediscover myself.), drank fine whiskey with a renowned Carnatic Muscian and a French Film Producer, booked my tickets to go to Lakshadweep and cancelled it, shared an apartment with a fine person for a brief period of time ;-), did the Phoenix Walk of 16 kms in 3 hours, bit my tongue twice over the Fries in McD's in Cannaught Place, turned AF-2, MMH into a mueseum, ran away to Mumbai with Sagar 'Just Do' Kattimani and found myself in 5 cities on 5 consecutive mornings.

For the record, ever since this blog began, I have had some insane times. INSANE. Well, not just I, but those lads who I hang out with- Prat, Sagar, Kaashe (off late) .. have had the same too. We've decided to throw it all up and come clean. I've even started attending classes! We made new friends, rediscovered some old ones and eliminated some toxic relationships along the way. A long journey is about to begin in 93 days time. And faith is what I'm hanging on to.

A Perfect Circle

11-11-07, 5:45 p.m.

"For the last two hours, one thing has been constant on this desktop. That bearded mo'fucker on the steps there; yeah, he's more jobless than us."

I turn around and through the glass wall I see this guy on the flight of black stairs that connects The Mall to the Ridge.I can see him. He's got his hands on his head and his knees are joined. His head is bowed and is oscillating with a time period just sufficient to cover 27 human footsteps. And from where I'm seated, I can say that his cap is more to conceal the stares rather than to keep his hair in place.

"But he's jobless, dude. I'm writing. You're playing the guitar.He's holding his head."

"I'm dedicating this song to him. Let it be."

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom
Let it be

Words of Wisdom: There are two ways to see the world go by. One requires you to check in and out of airports, hail taxis, ride buses, walk where wheels can't tread, cycle around streets that have no name and talk to people stranger than yourself. And here's the other: Sit down by the window side table in Barista Coffee House on the Mall and do nothing besides sipping on a hot latte and watch city beautiful (and I believe that 'beautiful' describes the people living here) as she walks past you.

Twenty four hours earlier
"Your telling me that this store crushed the competition?" Pratik asks looking at Rohit 'Good Host' Kondal.

And we burst out laughing.

"Imagine the competition in that case.", I'm quick to dish out my smart arse comment hoping to put the situation from Funny Gear 3 to Funny Gear 4.

We oscillate The Mall (Solan) a couple of times. No bro, this ain't anything like her cousin Shimla. But yes, every smackin' 'ol ATM is here, trust me.

I'm hungry. I can eat a whole Jumbo Burger. We walk into 7's Cafe. And this is when it dawned on me: this is the best interiors of a restaurant I've seen in the hill state. Probably the first floor at Balajees in Shimla compares distantly.And then maybe the bar at HHH ;).

We order. I didn't, they did.And 15 minutes later, it dawned on me again that I hadn't tasted tastier butter naans before.

She's wearing a pink top and a lovely black pant. I say 'lovely' because it tells me she's 30. But her company suggests she's 40 (I do think of Demi Moore). And as she throws her hair aside and glances towards my table, I figure it all out. She's 20.

We pay the chek. I have eye-balled her one too many times to walk away under a pretence of her absence. I go over and say it all in one breath - "I'm sorry to disturb you, but I think you have great eyes."

She mouths a thank you in between a smile.I flash a thumbs up and send her out of my life by walking away.

That night, we smoked a vanilla cigars over some fine Raffles Whiskey; the English way.


Five hours earlier

Every bus that stops is crowded.

"I aint making a two and a half hours journey to Chandigrah on my feet. I'd rather do it on my arse. And I say you take my word." Some things are best thrust up on others for their own good.

Pratik starts the day on two shots of whiskey. I prefer the conventional soap and hot water.

Ten minutes later, we cross the road. Literally. We decide to head back to Shimla. The chiks are better there, it seems. And besides that, what to do in Chandigarh anyways?


11-11-07, 5:45 p.m.

We pay up and walk out into the cold winter evening. We know why we made this trip. One person was to be healed. And the other guy was running out of ideas for his blog.

We got what we wanted, and so did you.

Travelling heals.

SACRED FROGG

In ancient Babylon, there lived a frog. His name was Frogg.

One morning, Frogg hopped all the way from the tree where he lived to a nearby lake for a drink of water. While at the lake, he noticed two other frogs quarrelling. With the intention of diffusing the situation, he hopped up to the fellows and inquired - “What's happening, fellows? Don't you know your not supposed to be quarrelling? This is, after all, the time of the Great Ancient Mesopotamian Civilisation that we are in. Take shame in your act. The King shall not be too pleased to learn this.”

The 2 frogs stopped their fight and looked up at Frogg. One of them was a big guy; he bloated up his throat and blared out - “Shut the hell up, Twinkie. You have no idea what's happening. Go find someone else your size that'll hear out your bullcrap. Maybe you should try the little mouse that lives in that hole there.”, and the fight resumed. Little Frogg was aghast at hearing this. He had always been a frog with a dream. He wanted to make it big in the world; he wanted to bring about change. It hurt him to see his fellow beings squandering away their precious time over petty issues.

Frogg returned back to the tree. He shut his eyes and prayed in silence - “Dear God!I thank you for putting me at this great time in history at a place as divine as Ancient Babylon. I also thank you for giving me the ability to dream big. I wish that my fellow mates could do the same. On their behalf, I ask of you to show them a path in their lives and not let them squander it in meaningless ways. I'm glad that in my hands, you have placed such a bright future.” And he fell asleep.

Months later, Frogg's dream came true. He became the first animal in the world to be dissected and studied in great detail. He was given the name Sacred Frogg after that. Today amongst the frog community, Sacred Frogg is a hero. Nowadays, when a baby frog hops around spelling some mischief, Mama Frog confronts him and says - “Sonny, buck up! You will be like Sacred Frogg one day!”