Hello everyone. How are you doing? Did you miss me? That is so sweet of you. But please understand that contrary to popular opinion I do have a life and on rare occasions, that life keeps me busy. Hence the delay. I hope everyone is safe. Times are tough due to the pandemic and tougher due to the news media. Try not to be infected by them.
Dear readers, today I am going to share some of my feelings with you. For the past few weeks, certain thoughts have kept me awake at night and occupied during the day. Some truths are present right in-front of your eyes but there will be an overwhelming feeling of uneasiness because you need something more than the evident truth. You need reason. Yes, my dear readers, you guessed it right (or not, I do not know). I am talking about why people seemed to have stopped smoking pipes.
I am absolutely clueless trying to comprehend the reasons for this unfortunate development. I have checked and verified that there is no statutory ban or anything on smoking pipes. Why did people simply stop? Everyone is smoking cigarettes (both normal and rhea varieties), cigars, hukkas (hookas), beedis etc., completely forgetting the beautiful, regal, elegant, suave and sophisticated pipes. While it is true that I do not smoke and have no intention of taking up the habit, I do admit that smoking makes ordinary people look cool. But pipes, my dear readers, pipes are another level only.
Picture great personalities such as Mark Twain, Bertrand Russel, Albert Einstein, Jean Paul Sartre, Elvis Presley, Joseph Stalin, Mohammed Ali Jinnah, Sherlock Holmes, Popeye (the sailor) and Juno. Yes, the last three may be fictional characters but that only substantiates my contention. I stand by the opinion that smoking pipes is and remains to be most appropriate way of smoking and it is a shame that the practice is not as prevalent as it used to be. If you still need more proof, look at the pictures below:
If this does not convince you dear readers, I do not know what will. Assuming that we are all on the same page here, my proposition is this – kindly bring back pipe smoking into the mainstream. Pipes are not even that costly. They can be reused and are eco-friendly. Well, smoking does cause cancer and death but this is basically being eco-friendly with extra steps. I mean if you are anyway going to cough your way into an early death, why not do it in style?! Am I right or what?!
Moving on from pipe smoking, I have to acknowledge my dear readers that I have not kept my promise of sharing my brilliant idea for a mobile App with you. In the last two editions of the Mann ki Blog, I teased that this is a super hit idea but now I have understood the downsides of my idea and accepted that it is not great idea after all. But this is platform where I share not just my genius but also my failures. I am also a human being like you and even I err sometimes, rarely but certainly.
See, the idea that I had was developing an App for dogs/cats to find suitable partners/mates. My intension was to develop an App similar to Tinder but for dogs/cats instead of humans. I thought that it could be used for cows also but then I immediately realised that it was against our culture. As far as cats/dogs are concerned, my App – Tender (like Tinder), I hoped would place the power of selecting or declining a potential mate in the hands paws of the canines/felines. However, I could not then foresee the disastrous outcome of this idea.
Apart from the possibility of the cute paws of the animals scratching your mobile screens while swiping left-right, the disastrous outcome I could not foresee initially was how Tender would simply be a platform used by the owners to choose the partner/mate that they find suitable for their pets giving little (or no) freedom to the animals themselves to choose. This, my dear readers, is the exact opposite to the outcome that I had envisaged when I came up with the idea for Tender. In fact now that I think of it, Tender would not be Tinder for pets. It would be Bharat Matrimony or Shaadi.com, with owners (parents) making all the decisions.
This is the reason my dear readers I have not shared my App idea with you. I sincerely apologise for disappointing you. However, I can assure you that I am coming up with a new App, the idea for which is still being finalised. But since I do not want to keep you waiting this time, without delving into details, I will simply state that this App would help in calculating the exact amount of money that you can give to a beggar by simply scanning his/her face. The powerful algorithm takes into account various variables including the age and sex of the beggar, whether or not their limbs are intact, how much salary you earn, how many days are left till you get your salary, have you done any sins that need atonement etc. I am still working on these variables and a concrete proposal for the App would be shared free of cost on a future edition of Mann ki Blog. It would be glad if an Indian company develops the App because I want to see our great nation win the global Alms Race. Hehe.
That would be all this time my dear readers. Once again I request you all to please try and bring pipe smoking back into the mainstream. It is not an impossible task so please do not feel that it cannot be achieved. Like they say, there is always a can in cancer.
The Cannibal 