Takedown
First place :
Tele-Evangelists
My brother renounced Christianity after some uncle on Shalom TV proclaimed that esus Christ’s blood type was AB +ve.
Whether JC really could’ve been a candidate blood donor to me is a aquestion for another time. What amuses me now is how some uncle from some obscure part of Kerala decided that JC was an AB+ve guy . This uncle for those of you who don’t know belongs to a strange species that we know as the ‘tele-evangelists’.
Tele-evangelists are men (and sometimes,women)who couldn’t be bothered to take the longer route and become priests and instead reek out fame and popularity among some unassuming church goers and through the plethora of christian faith channels.
They are what I like to call grade ‘A’ scammers. Because, not only do they spew abominable facts left and right but they also, inexplicably have old women, men, and reluctant grandchildren swaying to their every word. Tele- evangelists are like snake charmers to the Christian world. Or like the sai- babas of Indian Christians.
Growing up watching Shalom TV, I am well accustomed to their drones and throngs. There, tele-evagelists somehow manage to make a 30 – second prayer draw out to 30 minutes, stretched out and milked until I curse at the TV. In one corner of the crowd, you’ll spot an ammachi violently convulating and orgasming to the tele- evangelistic words and truths.
And I cannot fathom why a man with trousers pulled up to his moobs, shirt buttoned up to his double chin and hands grappling at the air like some pervert would have each an impact on the leddies! I am also familiar with American Tele-evangelists , who with their obnoxiously expensive yeezees and Jordans who preach about the blessed poor for “theirs is the kingdom of God”.
If you ask me, Tele- evangelists are men ( here, I take the liberty in assuming only men are capable of rude fanaticisms) who are confident. Confident in their incompetence. So much so that they use their only boon, the gift of gas (this too of mediocre excellence), to rewrite Christian history and even manage to get paid for it. Imagine a crow that shits in all pride and confidence and a fool on the road who convinces himself that , that crow-shit on his hair is inevitable good – luck. This is the tele- evangelists and his subjects and I am just a christian kid with repressed emotions from childhood trauma shitting on these shitters!
– Nikhita Thomas, 3rd EJP
Goblins Munching – on
When I think of Gobi Manchurian, I think of oily talons and paper plates. Adolescents hunched over and sweaty, fighting over the last piece of “Gobi” and what for? What is the core essence of this priced gobi? Mere cauliflower dipped in sauce stolen from our neighbors; deep fried until it loses any resemblance to the original vegetable. That is the Gobi!
The Gobi Manchurian is a has- been. It aspires to walk among chilly chicken and its other non-veg brethren, yet it stumbles and falls head first into mediocrity. In a world ruled by “vegetarians”, the gobi is a sly fox tantalizing non-vegetarians. The poor non-vegetarians, out of hope, and in pure desperation , buys this dish nay this deception, and awaits the hour of their reckoning.
The gobi manchurian is also an option for a vegetarian right wing, getting bullied by his non-vegetarian friends. It lets them blend in, with the least amount of teasing.
The Gobi Manchurian is many things,but first and foremost,it is deception . It is not a dish. It is a mockery of Indian -copycatchinese cuisine. We have successfully indianised chowmein, chilly chicken andcup noodles. Yet, the gobi, was the secret chemical X, that created the powerpuffgirls of manchurian -namely,
- Bubbles – of acidity
- Blossom -ing of vegetarian desire to take over the world
- Buttercup-s of oil
thus, was created this atrocity
– Sreya Mandal, 2nd CZBT.
Second Place:
Gobi Manchurian
Deciding a place to go out with my friends is impossible. It’s easier to schedule Izrael-Palestine peace talks. Everyone has a favorite darshini and all of us have to go only there to eat Gobi manchurian. Only Gobi Manchurian.
Honestly, gobi manchurian rarely even tastes like gobi. It is just a solid mass of congealed soya sauce , corn flour and ajinomoto. It’s always too salty. One has to dig around the solid mass of batter to find the gobi, like a treasure that no one wants in the first place. It is astounding that the darshini industry has fooled people into believing that paying 50 rupees for like 2 pieces of gobi is somehow acceptable.
I don’t think they ever change the oil they use to fry these supposed gobi manchurian. In every bite, you can almost taste whatever other poor vegetables was previously fried and made to pass off as manchurian. The whole concept of gopi manchurian seems icky to me. It’s too much of everything – too much salt, too much corn starch,too much red colour, too much onions and capsicum on the side, too much hype!
I believe that life passes us by as we go in search of that perfect gobi manchurian that doesn’t exist. We can live our lives without it, and still be perfectly happy. too many friendships have been ruined as collateral of the search for the perfect manchurian . It’s not worth it. And that’s the tea for today.
– Aditi Kumar, 3rd EJP
Gobi Manchurian
All the vegetarian maggas who are gonna argue that they have gobi manchurian as touchings for old monk, let me stop you right there. Seriously guys, I think all of you should think about the saying “Think twice before you talk”, just hear yourself out! Did you really think you could compare gobi with murgh?
You take a nice steaming bath to wear off all the wriggly worms off you, you break yourself into small blocks to create an illusion. You deceive the world into giving you the privilege of swimming in the spicy red batter, you burn yourself out in the hot oil, yes, I agree that you make it to the sparkling white plate (wipes, not washed).The cook garnishes you with the help of your carrot and leafy friends , he carries you on his palm, while you glee with pride but don’t you dare think you can fool us. “The murgh lovers”.We might down three drinks, but we surely can see past your red crispy cover. The inside matters!
And thus you shall be always forbidden in the land of murgh lovers! *Conditions apply.
*You are very much loved during the lent season.
– Annie Louis, 2nd EJP
Third Place:
Bangalore Metro
You would think travelling by an air conditioned , relatively clean train would be a good way to commute. Sadly, there’s more bad to the good for Namma Metro.You’re greeted by the weird smell of torn ten rupee notes and sweat. The hospital tube-lights are daunting and of course one cannot forget to mention the aunty shoving the detector up against your chest. I dread travelling by the metro alone because I always make a mistake with the platforms. .From MG Road to Trinity Circle itself is quite the uphill battle because for a girl with an attention span of a fly , the Chai point’s , Dominos, and mobile phone accessories kiosks cause more trouble! try to ask the security guards in their dark navy uniforms for the right platform number and both of us are left lost in translation. It’s like walking into the wrong movie theater where the indie french film is being screened. After completing the 200m race to the ladies compartment, judgy googly eyes greet your outfit ad makeup. Atleast the journey is scenic. Ish.
For someone who is familiar with our dashing purple and and green electric monster, travelling via majestic is quite the scare. Nobody tells you to switch lines. No one. It’s like when you are the last person to find out about good news, and you’re very well aware that you are the last one. I didn’t even bother to decode the maps that tell you about the different lines and stops and all the different colour dots. The government better pay those labourers – double because the closest metro station to my humble abode is 6 kilometres away, lovely.
– Shania Mathew , 1st CPE
Gobi Manchurian
So there are few things in the universe that don’t really have a purpose, no matter how optimistic you are. I’ll give you examples- that one tiny pocket on top of the pocket that serves a purpose on your jeans, the most blunt knife tactfully inserted in your nail clipper, the Mexico-US wall project, and our very own Gobi Manchurian. I get it, being vegan is good, so is being vegetarian. I respect the fact that these people aren’t killing animals, birds and fish. That’s great news for the ecological cycle. Or maybe not. But turning non-vegetarian food items into their vegetarian counterparts is like remaking KGF into Kabir Singh. That hurt, didn’t it?
Imagine an Indian remake of marvel movies. Non-vegetarians don’t go about inventing 101 ways to ruin a perfectly perfect veg cuisine.I mean have you ever heard of someone make Chicken falafel or Fish sambhar? No, right?
So why do vegetarians need to come up with totally un-innovative ideas like veg momos, paneer momos and gobi manchurian. Doesn’t veg food stimulate the imaginative cells of your brains to come up with something new? The whole idea of turning chicken manchurian into Gobi Manchurian is as innovative as calling a cake a cake shop, ‘The Cake Shop’.
Don’t get me wrong here. I have nopersonal issueswith Gobi. I love it in places where they are meant to be like gobi paranthas, nice hot gobi curry, you know, normal stuff. But Gobi and Manchurian together, that disturbs me.
Manchurian should probably go like “Gobi, it’s not you, It’s I” ( Me is wrong English, SJC taught me!) and that would be the best use of the legendary breakup statement. So, just like a few things are not meant to be( Yes, I know you’re thinking about your crush right now), Gobi Manchurian is also not meant to be.
– Shreya Ghosh, 1st JIP
First place:
Shweta Philip, 3rd EJP
Surety
On humming rubber along this white concrete,
Light hearted between the gravities,
Of source and destination like a man,
Half way to the moon .The lightness is flightless;
Doubt has weighed anchor to hamper the pockets
Of my mind that are sure of things like
If the moon is real.
Second Place:
Shreya Ghosh, 1st JIP
Love all the way
On humming rubber along this white concrete,
Light hearted between the gravities,
Of source and destination like a man,
Half way to the moon .Tip-toeing towards the fiery sea
Waves engulfing my sanity,
Far from the words unheard and songs unsung
Half way to the sun.My eyes reflecting the blaze so far,
Like on the face of the sea, lies the secret of the moon, ajar
With bright eyes, blinkinglies, a huge leap,
Half way to the stars.Love, deeper than the oceans explored,
Trust, breaking mountains, making new roads,
Fingers, writing letters for you on the zenith
and sent with love,
All the way to you.
Third Place:
Priscilla Bernice, 3rd EJP
On humming rubber along this white concrete,
Light hearted between the gravities,
Of source and destination like a man,
Half way to the moon, I ran.Head and shoulders, hand and feet,
All decided to go freeze, freeze, freeze,
So, then I stopped the passing van,
got in and told them about my plan.Laughing, they decided to drop me home,
And so the driver went vroom, vroom, vroom;
Back in the house, where no one would come,
I lay in a vacant and expensive room.
Aiswarya Radhakrishnan, 1st CPE
On humming rubber along this white concrete,
Light hearted between the gravities,
Of source and destination like a man,
Half way to the moon.
I stared ahead at the void,
Feeling it sucking me in
Everything in me draining out
While I was
Deafended by the silence.
Blinded by the darkness,
|I’m halfway to the moon!
The path ahead is no clearer now
But something’s pulling me forward
I will reach my destination
Though I am only half way to the moon!
I am scared as to what I’ll find
Silence screaming back at me
Or the void consuming me
I might float forever
Identical to the millions already
Or I might drift back home
I know not what’s ahead of me
But I will complete my journey
I am already half way to the moon!