M.P. Sharma's Blog, page 21

Fly owner sues Red Bull for false advertising after losing wings

Red Bull is in deep waters after a patron of the drink captured a fly that had consumed a few droplets from the dining room table of UK based Mr Harpreet Singh.

”I have been a loyal customer of Red Bull for close to five years and have been waiting patiently for the slogan of the ad to come true,” Mr Singh exasperatedly explained to Faking News Journalists at his press conference, referring to the popular slogan of ‘Red Bull gives you wings’.

”I was shocked and angry to see Pintu (the name Mr Singh has termed his pet fly after imprisoning the insect as proof to be used in legal proceedings) actually lose the wings Mother Nature had gifted him after consumption,” Mr Singh said.

Red Bull has been successfully running the popular advertising campaign the world over, translating their motto into a variety of languages, no doubt garnering a fan base awaiting their turn to grow wings eagerly.

Faking News’ investigative journalists have uncovered a confidential agreement the global conglomerate attempted to make with Mr Singh in order to hush the false advertising case before it hit the global media, but Mr Singh courageously refused to accept the deal rumoured to be in the billions of dollars.

“I have a duty to my fellow Red Bull drinkers”, Mr Singh confirmed at the conference. “”I cannot allow for any poor, unsuspecting individuals to be falsely anticipating that their wings will grow.”

At this point Mr Singh had to cut the conference short unexpectedly, unable to restrain his intense sobbing at his predicament, mumbling uncontrollably as he left saying, “my friends have actually been telling their old parents that they will come to India this year to see them, only because they were going to save on the airfare. Their poor parents.”

Faking News attempted to contact Red Bull, but by the time of printing this article they had not responded.

Though I know how surprised you must be to hear this, this isn’t a true story! :D

I came across this wonderful site called Faking News, thanks to a superb blogger (on WordPress by the name of Shivansh Chaudhary), not to mention extremely talented writer and was inspired by some of his wonderful satirical posts.

Apart from the horrendous spelling error in the title, I’m enjoying the result, if you’d like to read this post and more about the wonderful website, please feel free to click on my piece. See you around guys!

Outside competitors may matter when winning the battle bu...

Outside competitors may matter when winning the battle but the only contender that matters in conquering the war is you, because you’re the real reason your dreams come true or bite the dust.

Often, we’re so focused on the small issues affecting us,...

Often, we’re so focused on the small issues affecting us, we tend to overlook the best things in life.

Sometimes, all we need to do is take a step back and look at the bigger picture to find our rainbow.

Here’s wishing that all of you find your rainbows and smother yourselves in them forever :)

“Mallika is screwed. Absolutely bonkers in all the aspects that make her up – mentally, physically, emotionally – the lot…”

The superbly, amazingly, mind numbingly, stupendously, all-pervading, omnipresent (I know that those two last words are tautological, but that’s how great this blogger is) Herminia Chow a.k.a. AspiringWriter22 invited me to partake in this exercise and I hope to be at least 27.9826348592749% as interesting as her version, so here goes. Bottom’s Up ;)

What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Mallika, which means Queen in my language and seeing as she’s the Vampire Queen, let’s just say I didn’t get any brownie points for alternative, unique ways of character development, which reminds me – I miss Brownies.

My protagonist is most definitely fictional unless you believe that Dracula may be rooted in reality somewhere, in which case I’d like to never meet you in person. Unless you look like Johnny Depp or John Abraham AND you believe you’re a vampire frantically searching for your one true immortal soul mate. Then I’d consider it, but only if you’re into a commitment and not the “bleed & feed” type of guy, but enough about me.

When and where is the story set?

Because I don’t like simplicity (my brain isn’t wired that way), my story ranges from the 1700s to present times in a wide juxtaposition of places, Delhi, India to Boston, USA. I try and confuse my reader as much as I can, as I sincerely believe that keeping them on their toes at all times, will maybe, perhaps, kind of, sort-of steer them clear of the fact that I may believe I am a slightly competent writer without any factual textual proof underpinning that theory.

What should we know about him/her?

Mallika is screwed. Absolutely bonkers in all the aspects that make her up – mentally, physically, emotionally – the lot. Naturally, she is nothing like her creator, which is me by the way, just in case that hasn’t been made clear.

The Vampire Queen is loyal, ethical, moralistic and devastatingly lonely, her isolation is only a further testament to this fact as she has few, if any friends, but you’ll still like her, I promise. Please read about her, pretty please!

What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

This may be a long shot, but I would assume that Dracula ripping her neck apart and sucking her dry has had a slightly profound effect on Mallika’s life, but who knows, some people may actually be into that type of stuff?

Plus, the fact that she has had a pretty uninspiring, standard life for close to 500 years has seriously made our Mallika quite boring, that is until she realises she may have to do something about her brothers wiping out the human race and meet a Werewolf along the way. What? It’s in the YA genre already! 

What is the personal goal of the character?

To die, which come to think of it sounds a tad depressing but seriously, for Mallika, immortality bites, in more ways than one. Please note that this blog does not promote suicidal behaviour or thoughts in any way, okay?

At least that’s how it starts, but similar to all characters, Mallika grows as a person and along with her, her goals and purpose in life also evolve into one that introduces her to the simple things in life that matter the most, plus the fact that the gift of living, even if “un-dead” is immeasurably beautiful.

Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

The title is set so there’s no going back, inked in blood and all (no pun intended). It’s called The Last True Blood (The LTB), and if you’ve visited my Blog, Facebook, Twitter & You Tube Social Media accounts, I’m sure you can’t wait till I shut up about it!

When can we expect the book to be published?

Published already & can be found at the links located at the top right hand corner of this blog.

Okay, now for my expert opinion on who I think should do this. Hmm, everyone who wants to showcase their wonderful inventions & characters! I am following a lot of magnificently talented poets & film script writers so I would love to see their twist on this, such as Euphonos! John Guillen has already been nominated so I can’t twist his arm any further unfortunately  :(

See you guys later :)

My YouTube Initiation

So I finally jumped onto the bandwagon!

Tried my hand, voice, creative skills (or lack of them), at creating an amateurish video.

I’ve been toying with the idea of sharing it with you guys and then thought, eh, why not, right?

Here’s the link, bearing in mind that I am a much better writer than orator, or at least that’s what I tell myself every morning

Who knows? I could just suck at both. ;)

Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to embarrassin...

Practice makes perfect, even when it comes to embarrassing situations – don’t you just love consistency?

I take comfort (sprinkled with a dash of pride) in the fact that no one can quite muster as much perfection as I can when I fall flat on my face, armed with a coffee in one hand and a cream assaulted cake in another, in front of that drop-dead gorgeous Johnny Depp lookalike in the midst of an audience of about, ooh, 100 people at the city train station the way I do.

I’ll be even better the next time round! :p

 

Dear Monday …

Why can’t you understand that it’s over? We’ve had a clean break so quit following me and coming around over and over again the way you do.

My heart has well and truly been given to Friday and there’s no going back now. Get it?

It’s my Birthday, It’s my Birthday – I’mma spend my money

I’ve been humming this tune for a couple of days now, the nerve cells in my skull angrily protesting at the inkling I was having all through the “stuck in my head” tune – it sounds Indian?

Yesterday, while I was wasting away into a mass of protoplasm on the cross trainer at my local gym, I was thankful for my mind being unable to focus on sucking my abs in via alien proportions when recognition finally struck as the Will.I.Am feat. Cody Wise tune blasted from my communal television set. I know this song.

So naturally, I decided to put my well-honed research skills to the test with an extensive and intensive, thought out blueprint of how I was going to find out the name, which naturally commenced and concluded at Wikipedia and Eureka! It’s from a popular Tamil (South Indian cinema) movie, Kadhalan I used to listen to as a child.

I recall with fond memories (not so much for my parents) dancing to the catchy tune, and how my sister and I revelled in our chance to touch base with home.

The song (and movie) starred “jhatka” oriented Prabhu Deva (loose English translation – damn, he got da moves) and was written by India’s favourite Maestro – A.R. Rahman, Suresh Peters and Shahul Hameed.

For those of you who are game, check out the original here :)

A.R. Rahman ji, you rock!

Sex, Money and more Sex

One of the first lessons that my Journalism lecturer taught us bright eyed, news hungry students at University was that all stories only ever came down to two things, and two things only:

Sex and Money.

The more you probed, the higher the bet that at the core of all news worthy stories, it was likely to have been caused by a raunchy sexual encounter somewhere down the murky line of the very first remnants of when the story evolved.

I read a blog post here a couple of weeks ago (by The Journal) about how enticing people to read your work involved reeling potential readers in with a catchy headline that was most imperatively, sexy. This made me think about my lecturer along with that very first lesson and as I took a trip down memory lane, I made a mental note about how many stories I had written, investigated and/or read since that time that involved the three main vices on our planet – sex, drugs and money.

I’ll be the first to admit that though I would like to at least represent a little of Einstein’s brain activity, he has made his firm and staunch negatory position painfully clear to me in terms of my maths skills, but even I could see that stories that boiled down to drugs, naturally gave way to money which was often lost pathetically or more aptly, downright stupidly due to some poor bugger being unable to, well (excuse my lack of eloquence), being unable to keep it in his/her pants!

It’s funnily (and a little depressingly) ironic that the human race has, after all these centuries of being slaughtered, murdered and idiotically perishing, still not quite grasped what more often than not does us in, something that is at the core of our being, a basic human need and genetic requirement – sex!

It’s a little like that great, mouth-watering present we’ve all had menacingly tucked away flimsily under our Christmas tree for thirty days or so before we can claw it apart with our hungry fingernails. The one that keeps us up at nights leading up to D-Day, the cause of our many tosses and turns before the big day until we can finally reveal what we expect to be amazing, the Holy Grail of all presents out there, ready for us to devour in all its grandeur and splendour. And then we open it, and before you’re able to mask your stomach guttering disappointment at the contents of your façade like package, everyone already knows what you’re thinking. This sux.

I always tend to feel the same levels of jumbled disenchantment when I follow a story for months only to find out how the tell-tale is brought down to its knees at the very end, by sex. It’s almost brutally tormenting to have to inflict that sort of dumb explanation on my brain every time I sit down to watch how another one of the world’s “greatest mysteries” has been cracked open.

Why are human beings still so cruelly stupid? I get it, the allure and all its associated bling, but really, seriously? Is it worth all the shaming, ridiculing, money and face losing?

Why can’t we have our cake and eat it too? We can, it would just involve using all the muscles in our body, not just one. You know the one I’m speaking about; the brain as well! I ponder on how many clicks my title is going to get because it has the three letters of s-e-x in the order it does, even though the pesky phrase tells me nothing of relevance really (not that I’m complaining). What I do bet on though, is the disappointment many of my readers will have once they get through this article, that is if they do at all.

So, I apologise in advance for including no porn, dramatic sexual encounters and any 18+ related material, though I have absolutely no problem in pimping my blog out.

What? A girl’s got to make her living somehow, and often whoring out your writing is the only way to go. Sorry, apparently this blog post has had absolutely no impact on the author itself. Eh, you know how it goes – if you can’t beat them then you got to go join them! What can I say? It’s a cruel world folks. ;)

I told my cousin that my life felt like Groundhog Day.Ap...

I told my cousin that my life felt like Groundhog Day.

Apparently, he was quite offended and he proceeded to reprimand me, continuing to explain how the movie was a masterpiece and an epic film.

I’m now quite insulted. I mean, what’s he trying to say about my life? I always thought I was quite epic, thank you very much! -_-