Of likes and dislikes!

Ten months in America and I am convinced that most people in this country can be classified into three broad categories - the normal people, the like-minded people and the desis. Now normal, by its very meaning, doesn't need elaboration. Normal people are those who are ... umm how to say this - well they are the ones who seem the most normal guys around! And I won't waste your time ranting about desis because in all probability, if you are reading my blog, you yourself are one. So this post shall honor the hitherto unsung class - the class of the like-minded!

But before I start, I'd like to add a note of appreciation for the many many other communities that had lobbied over the past few days to get listed in this post. Just yesterday, I received this email signed by over twenty-three hundred people, who claimed they belong to a separate group. They say, and I quote, "Our unique identity derives from the fact that all of us have had our tonsils removed." Other claims included a solicitation from the Possessive and Obsessive American Mothers Association. Now while these people indeed represent legitimate communities, they must understand that my principled political position over the years has consistently hovered around twelve degrees left of the centre-rightist point of view. And no sane minded person who shares my beliefs, would ever classify people by the presence or absence of tonsils! So much for others, on to the like-minded now ...

My first introduction to like-minded people was rather accidental. While on a trip, I was in this terrible hurry to go visit the Cathedral of St. Bazooka. But as my trip was rather hastily planned, I did not have clear directions to the place. So when I saw this guy practicing baseball swings, I went up and asked, "Hiya! You know of the Bazooka's Cathedral?"

Whooshh! The bat swung, missing my nose by a not more than two inches.

"Oh! Ya mean da big church?"

Bigger than what? I wanted to ask, but one look at his bat and better sense prevailed. "Yeah, the big one!", I replied. After all who'd ever heard of a tiny church! More to the point, who'd ever heard of a tiny church named after Bazooka!!

He began, "Well, if you'd ask me", clearly oblivious of the fact that I had already done so, "my guess would be ... ummm lets see. So if you like travel down this road, turn left and move like a hundred paces or somethin' you get to the Main Square. Take the street that's like a li'l to the left of the theatre there. Keep goin' till you like hit the end, go right and walk down the footway until you come against a chapel."

"And is that the Bazooka's Cathedral?"

"Oh no man no! Bazooka's like da big church here. This place I got you to is a pretty small one, but Father Freddy's like the coolest man in the galaxy and he'll tell you how to reach da big church."

"Ah! So you don't know the way to er.. da big church?"

"No man no, I don't. But Father Freddy sure does ... I'd bet my ass he'll get you going on like the coolest possible route to Bazooka's."

I stood silenced. Seven "like"s and I still had no idea of how to reach the place! Ladies and gentlemen, this guy was the first person whom I could positively identify as like-minded.

Let me give a few traits of the people in this category. Like-minded people are characterized by their divine ability to insert the word like into the most unseemly grammatical contexts and still carry off their speech with elan. Though extensive studies are yet to be performed, preliminary analyses suggest a clear and positive correlation of like-mindedness with a high Yo-coefficient. Other traits include knee-length t-shirts, fluorescent bandanas, beaded hair, pierced nipples and the like!

Did you ever notice a funky sports car churning out 4000 Watts of hip hop? Then surely you must have also noticed the driver inside, frantically bobbing his head majorly off-sync with the beat. Did you notice his lips moving, apparently singing along with the rapper? Ever wondered what he was actually saying? Suppressed under the cacophonous music were his words, "Hey man! If I could like get one chance to like sing this shit, I could be like famous in like two days or somethin'"

Like-minded people can also be identified by their unwavering and uniform hatred for that horrendously curved, desperately grotesque punctuation symbol, otherwise known as the 'comma'. Where normal people like you and me would pause each time Wren and Martin said there should be a comma, like-minded people's hatred for the symbol compels them to replace every occurence of the comma with a like. In simple cases the strategy works fine, but English was not designed to withstand such large scale systematic abuse. So once in a while we have cases when simple sentences like "Me and Jimmy, the neighbor's dog who bit Mary ..." become "Me and Jimmy like the neighbor's dog who bit Mary ...". No wonder there's something about Mary!

And to bring my ungainly blabbering to a graceful end, here's a succint definition of what I feel is to be like-minded: "If you kinda like the word like, and if its like you can't say even three syllables without like popping in between, and if you like dislike the comma as if its the crappiest thing ever, and if you like like this post a lot, then you are one helluva like-minded person!"