Thursday, February 23, 2006

On today's ponderables menu: Chicken 65, French Fry, Russian salad

India has launched a fresh offensive on chicken, because some chicks died of suspected bird flu. So thousands of chicken are being killed and burnt in fire. Not of the tandoor kind. Poultry farmers are crying fowl.

Bird flu has killed nearly 100 people in the world in the last three years, source WHO. Malaria kills 3,000 children every day, source again WHO. India still hasn't started mass murder of mosquitoes. In spite of the fact that tandoori mosquito is not very popular among Indians.

The difference between tandoori chicken and tandoori mosquito?
Man takes a bite into a chicken leg.
Mosquito bites a human leg.

Two movies likely to re-release to cash in on the crisis:
Chicken Run and Chicken Little. Renamed: Chicken! Run man run! and Chicken, Little left of them chicken!

How did the chicken cross the road?
It flu over.

Sale of alarm clocks in Maharashtra villages have shot up.
The roosters are in hiding from health workers.

What's the new name for the dish Chicken 65?
Chicken H5N1. N1 stands for no one wants this.

People who could die for butter chicken till yesterday are saying no to chicken. And they don't mean infected chicken. They don't want any chicken.

Will they say no to sex if they found out that STD means sexually transmitted disease?

Latest research says the bird flu virus can survive cooking. No final word yet on the far more important question: What came first, chicken or egg?

Will Smith was in Delhi. And he told CNN-IBN: I want authentic Indian food. Oh yeah? How about Murgh makhni? Will ya?

GHAR KO AAG LAGI GAYEE GHAR KE CHIRAC SE
French President Jaques Chirac is in India. And guess the biggest problem in the bilateral talks. How to pronounce his name. Hindi media have a double trouble: How to spell and pronounce his name. Those with some knowledge of French call him Yaak Shee-raa-k. But the most likely mistake is Chiraak, chee as in cheek. And one correspondent reporting live from the venue where Chirac was present today, called him more than that. CHI-RAAGH. And threw some light on the old Hindustani phrase: Chiraagh tale andheraa (literally it's dark under the lamp.) Shiv Sena is yet to demand a change in his name.

DAYA KARO
When facing arrest, politicians play hide and sick. They get themselves admitted to some hospital.

Daya Nayak surrendered today after playing hide and seek for a month. His version of the popular kiddie game was called: Hide and seek bail.

BANGALURING TEHERAN
Russia has a solution to the Iran nuclear standoff. It's trying to persuade Iran to stop enriching uranium at its Natanz plant, but do it in Russia instead.

Now this country is serious about getting its share in the outsourcing business.

All this apparently on the ground that Iran may not be able to observe the essential nuclear safeguards.

Russian surely know about safeguards. They were responsible for the world's worst nuclear tragedy.

On today's Ponderables menu: Chicken curry, bamboo shoots, lentil soup, capsicum masala, desserts

CHICK LIT
Chicks continue to hog the limelight since the day India stopped hogging on those lovely legs, fresh out of the tandoor.
ON CAMERA
Health ministry officials today ate their chicken in front of TV cameras to prove a point: Eating chicken is safe. What they didn't do on camera: Flush it down with a Tamiflu solution.
PANDA DON'T EAT ANDA
Jairam Ramesh, again on camera, says people should turn vegetarians. So no murg masala, but shoots and leaves. Like Pandas of Benaras and Chinese basmboo forests.
HE SHOOTS & LEAVES
Talking about pandas, we have one in Manu Sharma. If refused a drink, he eats, shoots and leaves. Seven years later, he leaves again, unscathed. As prosecution eats humble pie after shooting in dark.
DALMIYAA KUCHH KAALA
Another big shot in lentil soup is Jagmohan Dalmiya. Jaggu Dada of Indian cricket made a lot of money for Indian cricket board, and apparently kept some for himself.
CAPSICA MASALA
But hold your tongue. Tuesday was the International Mother Tongue Day. And our parliamentarians observed it by talking in mother tongues. Speaker in his mother Bong, Ramadoss in his Tam tongue. No, nobody spoke in Italian. Capsica? Si o No?
CAN I EAT YOUR...?
The way to a man's heart is through his stomach. The way to a woman's is: buy her jewellery. And for men with limited budgets, there's good news. Jewellery you can eat. So this weekend take her out, buy her jewellery and eat it off her. Men never had it better.