A very funny story

I just found this story on the internet when I was browsing casually. Thought I could share it here. The author is unknown.

Rajinikanth was bragging to Jayalalitha one day, "You know, I know everyone there is to know.

Just name someone, anyone, and I know them."

Tired of his boasting, Jayalalitha called his bluff, "OK, Rajini how about Tom Cruise?"

"Sure, yes, Tom and I are old friends, and I can prove it" Rajini said.

So Rajini and Jayalalitha fly out to Hollywood and knock on Tom Cruise's door, and sure enough, Tom Cruise shouts

"Thalaiva! Great to see you! You and your friend come right in and join me for lunch!".

Although impressed, Jayalalitha is still skeptical.

After they leave Cruise's house, she tells Rajini that she thinks Rajini knowing Cruise was just lucky.

"No, no, just name anyone else" Rajini says.

"President Bush", Jayalalitha quickly retorts.

"Yes", Rajini says, "I know him, let's fly out to Washington".

And off they go. At the White House, Bush spots Rajini on the tour and motions him , saying,

"Rajini, what a surprise, I was just on my way to a meeting, but you and your friend come on in and let's have a cup of coffee first and catch up".

Well, Jayalalitha is very shaken by now, but still not totally convinced. After they leave the White House grounds, he implores her to name anyone else.

"The Pope," Jayalalitha replies.

"Sure!" says Rajini, "My folks are from Germany and I've known the Pope a long time".

So off they fly to Rome. Rajini and Jayalalitha are assembled with the masses in Vatican Square when Rajini says, "This will never work. I can't catch the Pope's eye among all these people. Tell you what, I know all the guards so let me just go upstairs and I'll come out on the balcony with the Pope."

And he disappears into the crowd headed toward the Vatican. Sure enough, half an hour later Rajini emerges with the Pope on the balcony. But by the time Rajini returns, he finds that Jayalalitha had a Heart attack and is surrounded by paramedics.Working his way to Jayalalitha's side, Rajini asks her, "What happened?"

Jayalalitha looks up and says, "I was doing fine until you and the Pope came out on the balcony and the man next to me said, 'Who's that on the balcony with my thalaivar Rajinikanth?' "

The trip to somewhere

The bus finally screeched to a halt by late evening. We were starving. It had been a nine hour travel, with no stops in between. The roads had been terrible, and the bus equally pathetic. All of us were suffering from backache, and we badly needed food and some sleep. We set off in search of a hotel.

We started walking along the crowded and noisy road that seemed more likely to have a hotel. Though we were going to spend the night in the house of Sanjay’s distant relative, we decided to eat outside because we thought it would be too much to expect from a distant relative.
The so-called town market consisted of not more than a couple of streets. And it was nearly empty. There were shops of all shapes and sizes, right from the vegetable selling old woman on the road to the quite big electronics shop near the bus stand. But one thing I was happy about was there were more mobile phone shops than any other kind of shop, as I was worried whether there would be network coverage in such a small town within the interiors of Tamil Nadu.
After at least five minutes of tired and slow walking, we decided that we had come the wrong way in search of a hotel. We were just about to turn back when Ketan cried out as if he had seen something very scary. Then we saw it. In the complete darkness, almost hidden from view, was a sign – ‘Hotel Ashok Pure Veg’.

We proceeded towards the entrance of the hotel. When we looked inside, there was not a single soul sitting and having food. There were a couple of waiters sitting idly in one of the tables, but not even one customer. I was having second thoughts of going in to eat, but it was Akshay who pushed us in (which he paid for dearly later). A guy passing by, noticing that we are entering the place had a look on his face which said. “Where the hell are you people going?”

The moment we entered, the waiters jumped into activity. We took the table nearest to the entrance. It looked a pretty decent hotel, and looking at the menu, it was quite cheap as well. But we decided to play it safe, and ordered a couple of parottas each. Amazingly, the food was ready within 2 minutes, and it was deliciously hot and spicy. We were thrilled, with the very low expectations we had of the place, we were more than satisfied. We ordered more, and ate till we had enough food in our stomach for at least a couple of days. We tipped heavily, and left the hotel wondering why it was deserted. We didn’t have to wait too long.

Some 15 minutes later, we reached the relative’s place. Sanjay introduced us to his uncle.
“Uncle, this is Akshay, Ketan, Karthik and Naveen.”
“Hello uncle.” We greeted him in unison.
“Hello boys. You want to eat something? Dinner is ready.” His uncle asked us.
“No thanks uncle, we already had our dinner in a hotel.” It was Naveen who replied.
“Hotel?? Don’t tell me it is Hotel Ashok!”
“Oh it was the same hotel uncle. The food was really great!” Akshay replied.
“Really? Oh fine then!” But his facial expression didn’t seem fine at all.
“What is wrong uncle?” Sanjay asked him.
“Well I don’t know how to put this. Ten years ago, the hotel caught fire and all the people inside, including the owner and the waiters were charred to death. Since then I have heard some people say they had seen ghosts at night. May be it is true then.”

We stood speechless. The first thing we did was to rush back to the hotel. But there was none. Only the ruins of a burned-down building.

The Lilliput

Saturday, July 11 2009

It was nearly evening when I reached Senate Hall where the specimen was to be kept for display. The place was crowded with so many people such that it looked as if there was a carnival going on. The excitement was understandable. The discovery was amazing, almost next to impossible.

Before this, people had discovered fossils of new dinosaurs, a few Jurassic age insects, and stuff like that. But a new species that resembled Homo sapiens, preserved in an amber fossil? Too much to resist. The media had given full coverage of the discovery, with every news channel and newspaper in the world making it their headline. It was even nicknamed ‘The Lilliput’ by The New York Times. Being a biologist myself, it was quite hard to believe that such a species should exist. But the news was released only after a dozen genetic tests had been conducted by the best genetic engineers in the world. It was indeed a new species. Quite astounding.

After moving past the huge crowd at the entrance, I entered into the heavily guarded hall, thanks to the visitors pass given to me by my good friend Roberts, who was one of the engineers who did the DNA tests. I learnt from him the full details of the genetic makeup of the organism. It closely resembled the human genome, with about 99.9% similarity, he had said. I also learnt that it was planned to name the new species Homo lilliputiens. And it was a male. As I entered the hall, the first thing I noticed was the heavy air-conditioning that was in place, because I started to shiver in the cold. The hall was filled with scientists from different parts of the world discussing about the latest sensation to hit science.

I searched for Roberts, and after a brief search, I found him talking with a beautiful young female scientist. As soon as I went near him, he saw me and excused himself from her and came towards me with a face with worry written all over it. Before I could ask him what was wrong he himself said, “The specimen is alive.”

I couldn’t believe what he said. It was impossible. An organism preserved inside an amber fossil, alive? But before I could voice my protests to him, he caught my arm and took me inside a heavily guarded room at the back of the hall with a powerful laminar hood at the entry to remove the dust and microbial particles from the visitors' body. The door led to a room that was dimly lit, with a couple of armed security men standing guard. In the centre of the room was a glass hood with the specimen inside it. The room was more heavily air-conditioned than the hall.

I heard Roberts say, “See for yourself”. And as I approached the hood, I could make out a miniature organism inside the amber fossil. When I finally reached the hood, I saw it. It was indeed a miniature human. The face was distinct, with eyes, nose, ears and mouth clearly visible. It also had the limbs of a human. But it wasn’t moving. It was as still as if it were dead. A couple of ultra-thin wires were connected to its limbs. The wires led to an ECG which was showing read-outs. It was indeed alive!!

“How is it still alive??” I asked

“That’s a good question. The problem now is we don’t know if the organism is safe enough to humans. Actually we tried killing it as soon as we knew it was alive. We tried all the methods that will instantly kill a man - poison, high voltage, and all other stuff. But it is still alive. That means it is almost immortal.”

“What do we do now? What have you guys decided to do?” I wanted to know.

“We plan to postpone its display to the media and the scientists by another month. And we transfer this to a high security storage area and study it more closely. We don’t want the world to know that it is still alive.” He said.

I just couldn’t speak. The enormity of the situation was astounding. I just stood there watching the Lilliput. It was clearly a man in miniature. As I stood watching it, suddenly many things happened at once. It started wriggling, as if it wanted to break free from the amber fossil. Suddenly the amber cracked and the organism fell out. Then, it started shivering and shaking and then everything stopped and it became still.

Sunday, July 12 2009

It was almost noon when the report came. Roberts studied it for a moment, smiled and handed over the report to me for me to read it. I wondered what was amusing in it as I studied the report.

“After the autopsy, it is clear that the organism died of oxygen poisoning. This can be possible because the atmosphere in which it lived was almost devoid of oxygen and was predominantly carbon dioxide. So, as soon as it got exposed to the high oxygen concentration environment, its respiratory system failed and it died instantly.”