Blame your genes for that XXL Jeans!!

Its time we replaced the phrase "Show me your friends and I will tell about you" with "Show me your genes and I will decode you!" because its increasingly becoming evident that what we are is all about our genes. This might irritate the highly successful people because it takes away all credits they bore for their success. But its mighty reassuring for guys like me who kept blaming ourselves for not achieving as much as the frontbenchers did. Genetic engineering has turned out be a more fascinating field than I had imagined. In my younger days I used to go around town saying I wanted to become a genetic engineer. I am not very sure why I did it, but I think it could be because it sounded very sophisticated and would create a good impression about myself or it sounded complicated and people wouldn't probe me any further. But I clearly remember why I let go off this idea - My consistently poor performance in biology which in-turn was due to my unique ability to draw a circle which resembled an amoeba (well you could argue thats biology too!). Anyways without digressing much into topics which will be dealt in detail in my biography (I am too humble and lazy to write an autobiography), I want to say I am super excited about the prospects of human genome project. The avenues that open up with the ability to tweak our genetic code are mind-blowing and will surely be the next giant step in the development of mankind. And my crazy mind has come up with the following wish list for genetic tweaking -  

• The BCCI instead of requesting (read as 'secretly pleading') the services of a stripper like Poonam Pandey to motivate the Indian team should have recruited some genetic engineers to help them decode the gene responsible for fear of OFOs (Overhead Flying Objects) also called as 'Rainaphobia'. This condition displayed by many Indian batsmen involves morbid fear of any spherical object traveling at 150km/h above shoulder level. And this fear is the main reason why a lot of Indian batsmen fall sick in overseas tour.

• Another gene therapy that will benefit our cricket team is the cause for PSRS (Progressive Speed Reduction Syndrome) which is a rare condition endemic to Asian males especially Indians who are professional fast bowlers. The main symptom is the gradual reduction of bowling speed with time to such an extent that they transform from strike bowlers to striken bowlers.
• A major flaw in the evolution of womankind is their mutual exclusivity of beauty and brains (of course not the girl to whom I am getting married to!). They have tried a lot over the ages (smart women invented the cosmetics industry and beautiful women slept with smart men) to overcome this 'birth defect' but have only managed to widen the gap further. So I guess it is something very fundamental to women and hence some tweaking of their genetic makeup will help these poor souls a lot.

• Unlike women men had no evolutionary flaws (hmm.... ok except for this arrogance). But then some men started experimenting with their body and developed some sort of wrinkles on their stomach (read as 'six packs'). Now those of us who don't have six packs are considered to suffer from some sort of deformity. Every gym I visited and every instructor over there told me that to a large extent it depends on "You regularly hitting the gym" and to a lesser extent "It depends on your genes". Since both these causes attack my core values, I very badly want to undergo gene therapy to absolve myself of this lifelong burden.

• When I am in a state of rest (physically or mentally), I become this immovable object which won't move even if acted upon by any amount of external force like verbal or physical abuse (Newton would be really disappointed to hear this). At the end of the day my arse moves just because the earth rotates. There is a general consensus that this state of inertia is what is stopping me from achieving greater success and becoming a prominent figure of the 21st century. Since I don't see this condition among any of my fellow human beings, I am sure it has to be rare congenital defect.
• When will an Indian ever win an Olympic gold medal? Will Sania Mirza, the greatest sportswoman India never produced, ever cross the first round of a grand slam? Can India ever win a football world cup (to be little more accurate, when will it qualify for the world cup)? These questions have dominated our coffee table discussions for a very long time now. To find the answer to these questions we have to travel back several centuries when our forefathers where making pioneering efforts in maths, science and even the art of love making! At the same time the Europeans were raising armies and busy waging wars against each other. The moral of the story is, genetically we are not suited for exerting ourselves physically. So lets stop burdening our sportsmen with such unrealistic expectations and allow them to concentrate more on their social life. But if you ask me why then aren't we in the forefront of science and technology, I would simply say it is out of the scope of this discussion.    

The Condemned XI

The news that NASA is planning an one-way  manned mission to Mars to establish human settlements wanted me to laugh out loud. But as history has taught me, such an act would only re-direct that same laughter 100 years later at my grave. So it is only safe to assume that we will some day have human settlements in Mars. And that day will mark mankind's greatest scientific endeavor ever. Anyways the 'how' and 'when' this is going to happen is for those brilliant of brilliant minds to decide. And for the record I want to say that nothing is going to move my ass out of this lovely blue planet!!

Now moving on to what I wanted to scribble here, supposing there comes a day when Earth can no more accommodate an extra human being. And the People's Republic of China (the then super-power) decides to transport  humans to settlements in Mars. Now the question is - Which XI of your fellow human beings would you so badly want to banish to Mars? For me it turned out to be pretty easy. There are quite a few guys/gals whom I would have 'un-created' if only the word existed in the dictionary. So I would use this opportunity to banish those people and rescue humanity from the burden of co-existing with these... 

 

George.W.Bush Apart from having overseen one-half of all cruelties against mankind in the last decade, there is no one who embodies the explorative spirit of humans better than him. Infact he is so unrelenting in his quests that even non-existent resources (WMD in Iraq!) can't deter him. We could use such a guy on Mars to explore water and even oil!!

Osama Bin Laden The perfect 'better-half' of Bush in the sense he perpetrated the remaining half of all cruelties against humans. This trip to Mars will give them both lots of private moments to catch up with each other and try to understand why mankind despises them a lot. And his knowledge of explosives can come in handy for the heavy construction work that will kick-start on the red planet.

Benjamin Netanyahu Establishing human settlements on Mars is like hmmm....Jews slowly trickling into Palestine to the extent they become the majority and declare it a Jewish state. So who else can be more qualified than the Prime Minister of Israel in this mission of involuntary colonization. Also he can scout for settlements for the first wave of Jewish Inter-Planetary Exodus. 
Kim Jong-il Those who don't know him, he is the current leader of North Korea who is preceded by his father and is to be succeeded by his son. Basically he runs a country like a family business. Also he is such a huge fan of science and technology that he believes nuclear warheads can deliver his fellow countrymen out of hunger and poverty. So lets use space technology to deliver him out of this planet.

Bal Thackarey For someone who thinks Mumbai is a fantasy land in some remote corner of the world, this trip will give him an opportunity to look from outer space and get his geography right. Also for a man who is ultra-proud to be anything that starts with 'M' (Marathi, Mumbaikar, Maniac...), being a Martian will only be another feather in his cap.

Suresh Kalmadi Kamal Haasan once said - "Thamizhla ayiram varthaigal irukidhu. Aana ennaku thevai padumbodhu oru varthai kedaika matingadhu". Similarly, every other politician in India is a **...** (fill whatever u want). But when I have to recollect a name Kalmadi is what comes to my mind. Poor guy he has been victimized by my poor memory. Anyway one of the guys responsible for his rise to (de)fame is next on the list. They have a lot of time to settle their score.

Rajdeep Sardesai (Behalf of media jingoism) There were many contestants for this place. But he marginally pipped them all with his daily 'call for war' (news reading) and the chest beatings about the various 'firsts' of his channel. Just imagine the amount of crap he is going to dish out if he stays back on earth during this space odyssey. So for a change let him be the news-maker rather than the news-screamer. 

Paris Hilton The few things she is self-worthy of, she owes it to her lucky chance of being born in the right womb at the right time. But that doesn't give her the right to abuse her self-existence so much that the thought of co-existing with her irritates me to the core. In Mars she might get the chance to sleep with new species and also her dumbness might not look out of sorts in this group.  

Mallika Sherawat She has bared all she can and earthlings have seen all what they can. So her purpose on Earth has pretty much been served. Also in her latest skin flick (literally!!) Hisss, she has mastered the art of seducing snakes. So could come in handy to seduce Martians if the group encounters any.

'Ilayathazhavali' Vijay The fact that he was the protagonist in movies like Sura, Kuruvi, Thirupachi, Thirumalai, Madurai et.al speak volumes of his torture skills and are reasNorons enough to banish him from Earth. A small loss for his family...but a huge gain for mankind. Tamil movie fans will love me for eternity for this noble deed. 
Mandira Bedi  Pioneer of today's saas-bahu tearjerkers, co-hosting the 2007 World Cup without knowing an iota of the game...What more does one need to do to get packed off from earth. Though she faced stiff competition from Shilpa Shetty (whose 'Big Brother' experience would have come in handy in the hostile conditions on Mars) for the final spot, I had to give it to Mandira for her uncanny ability to pain us in a wide ranging manner.
 
P.S. - For the original Mars article take a look at this link