A Series of Unfortunate Events

Disclaimer: This is posted upon request of a person who has been following Gupshup for some time and has thorough knowledge of things happening and happened here. I am but a messenger who is conveying this message. I received this in my e-mail and haven’t read it myself either.

Guppies face “A Series of Unfortunate Events”

Author’s Note: If you are easily disturbed by narrations of accidents, bar fights and assorted inanities sprinkled with liberal doses of total BS, then click on the “Back” button right now and save yourself the trouble. Additionally, if you are quick to be offended by unauthorized use of your nick in unfamiliar situations, this is the right time to go back from where you came from (it means to click on the “Back” button, you genius!). Some of the tales narrated here are facts (fingers crossed), some are fiction and the remaining are complete bullsiht. We leave it for you to discern which is which (not a really hard task, though frankly, you never know).

Unfortunate Event #1 – The Arrest

Usually when ak47 boards a flight from New York, he expects a thorough inspection at the security line. But this day was especially worse. First they frisked him, then they opened his luggage, and then they moved him to a side room and stripped him (almost) for further checking. An inspection of his laptop computer revealed unusual activity at a website (they can do that through cookies, you know) and when they read some of his posts on GS, it immediately resulted in his arrest and they began his deportation hearings. Ak47 gave the reference of myvoice to vouch for his character. Upon contact by FBI, myvoice immediately flew to New York. Once myvoice got the presiding judge totally befuddled as to why the founding fathers inserted the First Amendment into the constitution, ak47 was promptly released on bail. The judge was just too pleased to get myvoice off his back.

On their way from the court, ak47 got into one argument too many on Iraq war with myvoice. Not a good move and certainly bad timing. Myvoice promptly turned the car around and deposited ak47 back into custody and reminded the good folks at Immigration Service not to inform ak47 about the Fifth Amendment and replace Miranda rights with Fanta rights. One can always trust myvoice to argue both sides of the same case with equal conviction and persuasion.

Driving to the airport, myvoice was furious with himself for flying all the way to the Big Apple, thereby missing a day he could, instead, have played Blackjack in Bellagio with his white conservative Christian friends. While crossing the bridge from Manhattan en-route to JFK, the rage took over myvoice and he tried to slap himself. For reasons that are still not clear, he raised both hands from the steering wheel to do that resulting in his car careening off the Brooklyn Bridge into the River below.

Luckily two guys were right there in a dingy boat enjoying a day out in snowy conditions. On hearing myvoice’s cries for help from the sinking car, they rushed to his rescue. Turns out they were gay, were gulf-war veterans and members of Teamsters’ Union. All this wasn’t so bad in itself, but the two buggers decided to take advantage of the situation. Before pulling myvoice out of his car and from frozen water, they made him pledge that from that day, and to the day he dies, myvoice will always vote for Democratic Party, will wish people “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas” and will start a campaign to bring American troops out of Iraq. As soon as myvoice was deposited on dry land (so to speak), he took a cab and went to JFK, where he had to max-out his MasterCard and pay the $500 deductible for totaling the rental car.

He missed his flight.

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Unfortunate Event #2 – Trouble in the Bar

On the same day, Arnold Shalwar Nicker, Ehsan and Madhanee met in a mid-town bar at the corner of Madison and 42’nd. The idea was to put an end to grudging animosities piling up on GS.

“There is no way, I am going to make friends with this fazool insaan”, ASN was clearly not sure why he flew all over from Denmark to spend an icy evening in New York with Madhanee.

“Gentlemen, we just have to be reasonable about this whole thing”, Ehsan calmed him down. “GS is a discussion forum. We may not agree with other people 100% of the time, but we don’t have to fight 100% of the time either”.

“Well clearly ASN is not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but this is the season of giving. I have no problem in forgiving all his past moronic behavior”, Madhanee took a sip of whiskey; “and in any case, once I have downed a few glasses of this whiskey, I will make friends with even Saddam Hussein. And just so you know, my new totally hot but politically incorrect neighbor (African Zoroastrian or Icelandic Arab or ___ ) is having a party tonight, so if you guys want to join in, you will be my guests. ”.

Just at that time, Matsui entered the bar with SalmanNY. There was a heated argument going on. Apparently Matsui had taken the position that in New York city, if you slit the throat of a guy, it is very likely to get you arrested and you can end up spending the rest of the your life in prison. We are not sure why but for some as-yet-unexplained reason, SalmanNY decided to try out this hypothesis. He jumped to grab Matsui’s throat. Unfortunately (or fortunately) Matsui was about two feet taller than SalmanNY, and there was no chair available nearby on which SalmanNY could climb up to get to Matsui’s throat. Matsui pushed him back. Within moments the scene had turned decidedly ugly. Anwar Qureshi who was sitting near the counter sprung into action and called 9-1-1. Two cops who were conveniently outside, came in.

“This is what makes United States the biggest and the best superpower in the history of mankind”, Madhanee proclaimed.

“What the heck are you smoking?”, ehsan was clearly not happy with this turn of events.

“The efficiency of our police force!” Madhanee climbed up on his bar stool and offered a mock salute to the two cops, “Long live New York Police Department!”

Turns out it was a bad move. The bar stool is never the sturdiest piece of furniture on which to stand, and having drowned several glasses of whiskey earlier had made Madhanee a decidedly bad candidate to try out the physical limits of that particular bar stool. Madhanee tumbled down right in to the lap of ASN. Who promptly pushed him down on the floor. Matsui rushed to the rescue of his friend, and as he was getting down to grab Madhanee, his head banged on the side of the bar counter.

“Ouch!”, Matsui gulped.

In an effort to get his bearing, Matsui grabbed the nearest object he can find. Regrettably that was ASN’s crotch. ASN punched Matsui on the face. Madhanee, who was about to get up, was crushed under the weight of Matsui. Ehsan tried to break up the fight and was caught in the melee. SalmanNY figured this is as good an opportunity as any other. He joined the group and managed to throw a few punches around before the cops got on top and threw the whole party out of the bar and booked them as follows:

  • Madhanee was charged with disorderly conduct and public urination.
  • Matsui was charged with assaulting ASN.
  • SalmanNY was charged with making idle threats (upon further investigation, the charges were later converted to that of identity theft on eBay).
  • Ehsan was charged with hanging out with some very questionable characters.
  • ASN was charged just for the heck of it.

Anwar Qureshi charged himself and as a punishment renamed himself Abba Jaan (though he is not likely to become one any time soon).

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Unfortunate Events #3 – The Accident

Roman was in a hurry. He had to be at the party by five, and if he didn’t leave in the next 30 minutes, he won’t make it. But this was more important. The postman had not arrived so far. It had never happened before. Well, ok, once or twice before, but not normally. Usually the postman was right on time, every single weekday (and Saturday), rain or shine. And Roman just imagine setting out without getting the movie sent by Netflix. As always, it was another foreign flick produced in a country we have never heard about, in a language we don’t understand and on a topic, we couldn’t care about. But it was the single biggest weapon Roman had in his artillery to impress the one girl in the whole world whom he wanted to impress. And Roman can already imagine how the night will turn out if he showed up at the party without that red envelope from Netflix containing the movie. It will be a complete and utter disaster.

Just when he was getting completely upset the white truck with American Eagle on one side showed up. The postman had arrived. And most certainly, the Red Envelop was there with Roman’s name on it. Roman grabbed it from the post-man’s hand, put it in his left breast pocket, thanked the postman profusely while starting off on a gallop towards the bus station.

Roman got to the party just in time, and the girl was there. Not just any girl: ‘The Girl’. After they had shaken hands and exchanged the usual pleasantries, Roman and the girl dived deep into a passionate discussion about the newest trend at Sundance Film Festival. Roman was making a very important point about the link between independent film-making and ancient Samurai mythology, when he was rudely interrupted by a tap on his shoulder. It was his old friend funguy, who seemed to be in great distress.

“Whatever happened to you?”, Roman was not happy about the interruption. He was just about to make the final point that will pike the interest of “The Girl” to make her watch the movie Roman was hiding in the inner pocket of his jacket.

“Thap got into an accident. His car rolled over while making a turn. We have to leave right now”, funguy explained.

“Err, you mean, right now? Leave right now? I am kinda in the middle of something very important here”, Roman’s priorities obviously were in the right place.

“Right now. Thap wasn’t alone. He had CM and another guest in his car. I just got a call from the hospital. Come on”, funguy grabbed his arm and lead him outside.

They got into funguy’s car and reached the hospital. Thap was waiting for them at the lobby. He had a bandage on his forehead, and looked a bit shaken, but otherwise alright. CM was in the Intensive Care Unit. The doctors were hopeful.

“Who was the third person in the car?”, Roman asked Thap.

“Oh he is right here”, Thap pointed towards Asif who was sitting in a corner.

“2bornot2b?”, funguy asked with a raised eye-brow.

“Yeah!”, Asif replied with a shy smile.

“What the heck are you doing here?”, Roman didn’t look pleased.

“I was with Thap, and we were coming to the party…”, Asif started to explain.

“No. No, I mean, what the heck are you doing here”, Roman interrupted him, “What were you doing in Thap’s car. I never even knew you were Thap’s friend”.

“Oh, but I am”, Asif sounded apologetic.

“About time, I say. This guy finally got some time to make friends”, funguy also seemed upset. “I thought he is too busy changing nicks and sucking badly”.

“Yeah man, you have single-handedly pissed off all our group, by assuming their identities and you know you suck in all those multi-nicks”, Roman was furious.

“I don’t. I am the only reason people can suck over there. If I go away, there won’t be any suckers left. You know funguy, you should post there more often”, Asif countered.

“Yeah, right. I’d rather post someplace where a few hundred people read what I post. And not suck at a place where two guys, and a pet parrot, reads your rants. You know, man, you should get a life”, funguy turned towards Thap. “Lets get out of here”.

“Hey, please don’t leave me here. I don’t know anyone in America”, Asif begged them. “What will I do? Where will I go?”

“I don’t care. Since you think you are Amit, Faisal, Spock, Phoenixdesi and Xtreme all rolled into one, try acting like any of them in real life, for a change. May be you can finally get some respect”.

Just at that time, a nurse interrupted this intense conversation. Apparently CM had finally regained consciousness and was calling out a name in his semi-alert stand-of-mind.

“Which of you is Roman?”, the nurse asked hurriedly.

“I am”, Roman turned around.

“Come with me, sir. The patient is calling your name”, nurse led Roman through the corridor into the ICU. Before entering the ICU, however, Roman was asked to strip naked and put on the hospital-issue paper dress with facemask and disposable gloves. He was also asked to brush his teeth and wash his hands and face with anti-septic lotion. Roman had not felt so clean since last Eid. He followed the nurse to the bed where CM was whimpering in pain.

“My hero! My ideal! Roman!!!” CM immediately recognized Roman from behind the face mask.

“How are you feeling now?” Roman asked gently.

“Now that I have seen you, I feel a lot better. Oh, how I worship the land you walk on. You are my hero. I’d die a happy man, if I have just an iota of your principles”

“Well, lets not talk about death at this particular time. I am sure you will get better”, Roman was taken slightly aback by the rambling of the child lying in front of him. He decided he should ignore these statements as the work of a semi-confused mind.

“Oh please, sir. Will you spend the night here with me? I want to look at you the whole night”, CM was not willing to let go.

“Unfortunately I can’t. Why don’t you go to sleep, and we will come over tomorrow to take you home”, Roman again tried to extricate himself from the sticky adoration of the child.

CM blathered on some more about how he worships Roman, but right at that time, the nurse added morphine in his IV, and CM passed out in a peaceful slumber. Roman took a deep breath. The whole conversation had left him shaken, even though he tried to rationalize the situation.

Roman came out of the ICU, and put on his clothes. On getting back to the main lobby, he saw Thap and funguy in a deep conversation. Apparently, while Roman was gone, Asif had threatened to commit suicide and as a result, the hospital staff had forcibly taken him and moved him to the mental department. Roman was pleased, and the three of them got into funguy’s car and drove back to the party.

When they returned to the party, it was all finished, and the girl with whom Roman had wanted to score was long gone. Thap was still a bit dazed from the events of the evening, and since neither Roman nor funguy seemed interested in hosting him for the night, he got a cab back to airport and took the next flight back to London.

The red envelope remained in Roman’s left breast pocket. Sometimes he felt, he is doomed to watch all these crappy foreign films all by his own lonely self.

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*Unfortunate Events #4 – The Birth *

Some twelve odd years ago, Gamma Dilation was born.

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Unfortunate Event #5 – The Phonecall

Phone rang. As was customary, Fraudz did not pick it up right away. He had downloaded the special Superman theme music for the ringer, and he usually gave it 10 seconds before picking up the phone. These 10 seconds were sometimes the best part of his hour, as he is humming and swaying to the tune of his favorite super hero. He finally picked up the phone.

It was Azkar and it was bad news. The company that was hosting GupShup had charged them 120% of the agreed amount for last month.

“Let me get this straight”, Fraudz was clearly not happy. “They are over-charging us, because they say that we used more than our agreed share of the bandwidth?”

“No”, Azkar replied.

“No? Then why are they charging us more? What possible reason could there be? They can’t raise the rates retroactively!”

“Oye yaar, its even more serious than bandwidth over-usage. Had it just been an issue of band-width, I can easily take care of it, but they are saying that we used more siyahi (ink) than we had promised. Seems like your posts took 32% of the total use of siyahi allocated to GupShup. I am sorry, yaar, but you just got to stop bolding all your posts. Otherwise GS will have to close down due to bankruptcy”.

Fraudz was devastated.

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*Unfortunate Event #6 – The Kid-Napping *

let_uz_chat# is usually a mild-manned boy who tried to keep to himself. His whole life revolved around watching Bollywood movies and listening to lectures by great sufi saints of Chistia silsila. He always tried to maintain a balance between the two. For example, any time he listened to one hour of spiritual and enlightening lecture by Maudood-e-waqt Hazrat Qibla Mujeeb-ud-Dawla Qadria Chisti, he made sure he spends the next hour surfing the internet for the latest Bollywood gossip. Life was not interesting, but he was content. His next biggest challenge was to save enough money to buy the giant fake-diamond ring he had seen in the pawn shop. It didn’t bother him at all that it was a ladies’ ring, and he had no ladies in his life at that point. Plus he wanted the ring for himself, anyway.

This day, his life took a turn, and it was definitely not what he expected. On his way back from school, he was walking briskly. The latest installment of “Bollywood Minute” was supposed to start at 3 pm on ARY. It didn’t help that that English teacher had held him back after school as a punishment for scoring a D- in the quarterly test. A van screeched to a stop right next to him. Two masked men got out of the car with handguns. They pointed these at #let_uz_chat# and ordered him inside the van. As soon as he got into the van, one of the men hit him with the handle of the gun in the back of his head and he passed out.

When he woke up, it was a dark and smelly room. He was lying on an old worn-out mattress. He climbed out of it. The door was locked. There was no light or windows in the room. He banged on the only door. Footsteps approached, and there was the sound of someone unlocking the door. It was a masked man who opened the door. He was carrying a handgun and motioned #let_uz_chat# to follow him down the hallway. By now #let_uz_chat# was totally petrified and had no idea what was happening. More importantly he had no clue why this is all happening to him. Surely, these guys can’t expect any ransom. No one will pay a penny for #let_uz_chat#, and bitter as it may be, #let_uz_chat# was honest enough to realize this truth.

The lone gun-man led #let_uz_chat# into a lighted room. There were three more masked men sitting in that room.

“What do you want? Why did you bring me here? Who are you?”, questions came pouring out of #let_uz_chat’s mouth. This didn’t look good.

“You will get all your answers, kiddo”, one of the masked men got up from his chair and approached #let_uz_chat#. “Sit down, we want to explain something to you”, he pointed towards an empty chair.

“What time is it? Did I miss the ‘Bollywood Minute’?”, #let_uz_chat# was still clinging on a slim hope.

“Yes, you missed it, but don’t worry, we taped it, so you will get a copy of it when you leave here”, the masked man sounded like the leader of the gang.

“So what do you want?”, #let_uz_chat# got a bit confident.

“Just a little assurance we want from you”, the leader continued. “You see, we have been observing you for quite some time. You are just a small kid, and we wish to do you no harm. Too bad, you made it difficult for us to keep on ignoring you”.

“Who are you?”, #let_uz_chat# asked again.

“We are, all of us, are the mods of GS”.

“Mods? But why did you kidnap me? What have I ever done wrong to you guys?”

They all started laughing.

“Done wrong, he says! Hahaha”, they were all laughing.

“Listen, kidoo”, the leader started to explain. “We are all demi-gods on GS. We make the laws of GS. Whatever we say must be done by you, the small insignificant member on GS. You with your olive-yellow font and rubbish posts are always so irritating. But this is not why you are here. No sire, you are here for a particularly ghastly offence, and you left us no choice but to get you here and drill the point, so to speak”.

“What? What did I do?”, #let_uz_chat# was totally confused.

“You let us down. You, Mister Let Uz Chat, you let us down. You were supposed to keep us up to date about all the Bollywood gossip, and we are supposed to turn a blind eye on all the bullcrap you post. And you did not keep your end of the bargain.”

“What do you mean?”, #let_uz_chat# was still reeling from the shock.

“How could you not tell us that Aishwariya Rai is engaged to that clown – Arjun Ramgopal? Do you have any idea how utterly disgusting it was for us to not know this thing and had to find about it two days late? Completely unacceptable!”, the masked man was shaking with rage. “Only yesterday, I had rented “Ham Dil De Chuke Sanam” for the 27th time, and now its all gone down the drain. You let us down, Mister Let Uz Chat. And if you ever miss some thing like this again, you will not live to see the day. Do you understand me?”

“I am so sorry, sir. I am really sorry. I had no idea. I heard about it, yesterday, from my friend Shubrahurankarian, but dismissed it as a lie. That was the only reason why I didn’t post it on GS”, #let_uz_chat# started sobbing uncontrollably. He was more heart-broken on getting confirmation that Aish was infact engaged, than about his predicament.

“Aha!! Now the kidoo will decide what is truth or a lie. Listen Mister. Just because something may be a brazen lie or an utter stupid gossip has never stopped you from crapping on GS before. Why start now? I’ll make it very clear: you are required to post every bit of gossip you hear about Bollywood. You are not supposed to decide whether it is true or false or whatever. You post every thing you hear. Is it very clear?”

“Yes, sir. Very clear. From now on, I will post on GS, every bit of Bollywood gossip that I hear”, #let_uz_chat# could hear his voice quiver.

“Very good. I hope we don’t have to bring you here again”, the leader glared at him from behind his mask.

At that moment, the gun-man who was standing behind #let_uz_chat, hit him with the barrel of the hand-gun and #let_uz_chat# passed out again.

He woke up at the side of the road, where he had been kidnapped. His head was hurting. There was a video tape lying right next to him. He rushed home, and put the tape in the VCR. It was a recording of “Bollywood Minute”. The recording was not complete. It stopped five minutes before the program ended. There was a loud sound. #let_uz_chat# had just slapped himself in rage.

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I gotta read this before it gets locked/deleted quickly..

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:D

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Someone has waaayyy too much time on his hands..... :)

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Edited.

Admin please remove this entire post from the thread.

BTW to the writer: the next time I want my life story made public, I will definitely contact you...needless to say, excellent write.

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What an imagination.

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What about me???

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3 is intriguing. Whats the deal there???

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Problem with #3 is that three people can't fit in a car if CM is one of them. Research is shady here..but good job Nes.

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^ Thats why the car overturned, maybe? :D Poor Thap!

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^ Good point Faisal...and there is no bar on 42nd and Madison. :p

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hilarious! kudos....we have a genuine wodehouse amongst .......us, dare I say!

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Looooooooooooool…:rotfl: now this friggin hilarious, we guys have talent, we can make a full blown movie…it would be such a hit.

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Wodehouse? Considering the title, I’d say NeSLemony SnicketCio, if he wrote it himself.

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Number 5 was good