Thoughts on a Sausage

Dear world, apologies for the long break in blogging… I finally found a ‘normal’ job of some sort. Nothing great – but enough to move from the status of being a starving unemployed writer to an I’d-love-to-write-but-cant-find-the-time brand of dilettante pseudo-literati. My good friend Siva induced me to write again. Blame him.

Anyway, since it doesn’t seem practical any more to spend half a day polishing long posts, I have decided to reactivate my blog with a series of short and pithy ‘Thoughts’ posts. This is the first in the series- to be stopped only when a sufficient number of people protest. Loudly. Or the street dogs in my back alley start howling. Louder than they already do.

In these postings, I will present a few thoughts of a deep and philosophical nature on an important intellectual, socio-political or cultural issue of the day.

Today let us consider: Sausages.

What are, in fact, sausages? Sausages are the end result of subjecting sus domestica or the common pig (not to be confused with the male chauvinist pig, a species that, as any woman knows, is good for nothing- not even sausages) to a long and complex industrial process, the ghoulish details of which if I go into you’ll spoil your lunch.

But what are chicken sausages? Chicken sausages are a conspiracy. Try mentioning chicken sausages to a German. He will choke in his tankard of Helles (or if he happens to be drinking Dunkles or Lager at the time, he’ll choke on those). Chicken sausages are a conspiracy by the French to asphyxiate the German nation, a revenge for WWII.

Now, here in India, we don’t eat sausages much. Chicken sausages in Mac don’t count. That is why we aren’t big and strong, like the Germans. We don’t eat much Couscous either. That is why we aren’t big and strong like the Algerians and Moroccans. But we have started to eat a great deal of burgers and fries. Soon we will be big and fat, like the Americans.

Chicken sausages are not politically tenable in the long run. Knowledge of this innovation has not yet filtered down to the global poultry. When it does, what will be the harvest? Could we withstand all the chickens of this world standing up as a hen and squawking? Suppose that happens at your local tandoori joint? Of course, you could argue, that applies to normal sausages as well. Suppose all the pigs of the world gang up and grunt in unison? But that is not the same thing. Not the same thing at all…

There was a report in Nature last week…scientists are genetically modifying pigs to embody the sausage. Not, mind you, that their bodies will be used to make sausages. No, that happens even now. In future, their bodies will be the sausages.

Now there’s a nice thought….Can they genetically modify pigs like the ones who misbehaved with those girls in Mumbai on New Years Day? I’m sure a girl could easily handle a clutch of misbehaving alcohol-soaked sausages – although she can’t realistically be expected to fight back seventy drunken boors on the rampage.

This is a good idea, and must be pushed along with all due alacrity by the scientific community. But then there will be two more kinds of sausages: Konkanasta and Deshasta. And suppose they do it to those roadside Romeos in Delhi as well? What a fun!

Here is how a conversation between a Delhi cheappad and a Babe might go in the future:-

Cheappad: Oye Dolly! Kitthey? Saade naal rahoge to AISH karoge!

Babe: Oye Chavanne, saade naal rahoge to FRY ho jaoge.