Mau-Mauing the Chakras of the Bakras
by
Richard Crasta
Copyright 2011 Richard Crasta
Published by Richard Crasta on Smashwords
To the Reader: This is not the product of a zillion-dollar Corporation or of a fat cat author, but a tiny piece of the soul of a mere ant of an independent writer who is striving to continue to write independently. If you wish to write to me about formatting, content, affordability, or other issues, please write to rc@richardcrasta.com with the title of the book in the subject line. Please also read the “Personal Message from the Author” at the back of this book. Thank you. Author’s website: http://www.richardcrasta.com
All rights reserved, including the right not to go to sleep.
Disclaimer: This is a book of humor, fiction, and fantasy, with the license to break all normal rules, including the author’s own. It is therefore forbidden to quote the author’s other writings against this book.
BRIEF PRAISE FOR THE AUTHOR’S OTHER BOOKS (More Praise at the end of the book):
The Revised Kama Sutra
“Very funny”—Kurt Vonnegut
“Humorous and irrepressibly manic.”—The Independent, UK
“Hilarious and delicate.”—The Face, U.K.
“Indefatigable good humor . . . considerable charm.”—Publishers Weekly
“He may be our best humorist ever. Very, very funny.”—Business Standard.
Beauty Queens, Children and the Death of Sex
“Classy humor. Get it.”—Femina
Impressing the Whites
“The reader laughs, squirms, recognizes his/her own hypocrisy and the blatant absurdity of most unquestioned social conventions. In this, Crasta succeeds in ways not unlike Sasha Baron Cohen's Borat character or Chris Rock race routines succeed, i.e., brilliantly.”—Frank Feldman, Amazon 5-star review.
Massage No Boom Boom (or, The Hunger for Touch and Love)
“Above all, funny. I laughed out loud once every 3 pages.”—James Farley, Writer/Social Worker.
“Witty, enjoyable, deeply human.”—Alex von Prellwitz, Literary Agent.
ABOUT THIS ULTRA-SHORT BOOK AND THE AUTHOR
Richard Crasta, author or co-author of 10 books, including “The Revised Kama Sutra”, described by Kurt Vonnegut as “very funny”, is one of ten writers recommended by the Lonely Planet Guide to South India; his books have been published in ten different countries. This short book is part of the Invisible Man Books Free a Writer Series, and is the second book in that series (parts of this short book have since then been published in the 50,000-word Massage No Boom Boom or The Hunger for Touch and Love—however, this short book has a different emphasis and angle, concentrating on the phenomenon of bakras or human sheep of the male variety).
Richard Crasta was born in Bangalore, India, and grew up in Mangalore as a sometimes barefoot Catholic briefly shepherded by nuns, priests, and assorted guardians. He worked in the Indian Administrative Service and then studied at American University and at Columbia University, New York. In 1993, his first novel, The Revised Kama Sutra, was published by Penguin India to considerable acclaim and some controversy, and then by other publishers worldwide, and has just been republished by HarperCollins India (but only in the Indian subcontinent).
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Mau-mauing the Chakras of the Bakras
A Personal Message from the Author & Other Books by the Author
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to the poor bakras of the world, whoever they may be, so long as they happen to be bakras far more often than they happen to be shepherds or mutton butchers.
Mau-mauing the Chakras of the Bakras
A Short Introduction to Bakras
Ladies and Gentlemen, ye bleeding hearts of the liberal world that are gathered here on this somber occasion to listen to this sad tale, please arm yourselves with an adequate supply of tissues, for our parquet wood floor and our Persian rugs are easily corroded by massive quantities of saline solution, and will not take kindly to a lachrymose flood.
And please, no laughter—no laughter at the oppressed. It’s been verboten now for at least 30 years, so where have you been?
Because a bakra is a North Indian word with two meanings: 1) Literally, a sheep. 2) Metaphorically, a human being who is naïve and pitiful and, like a sheep, completely innocent of his fate as he is about to led to the slaughterhouse, to be chopped up into little pieces of mutton. And a bakra is a piteous thing indeed.
And yes, I have often been a bakra myself, and a willing bakra at times, and therefore no sympathy is due to me.
Still, why is it that there have been no societies or movements dedicated to the liberation of bakras, or at least to garnering public sympathy for bakras, I simply have no clue. And, while there plenty of female bakras or bakris, the proportion of male bakras is greatly on the rise in these feminist times.
Indeed, as I will observe later in this book, Al Gore was briefly a bakra; every man, however powerful, has moments when he becomes a bakra.
And now for a short chapter in the unending saga of the bakras of the world.
* * *
Bakras at Indian “Handshake” Parlors:
Despite appearances, you will discover that India, or at least the world of Indian massage parlors, the ones that have been mushrooming recently in cities like Bangalore, is a very friendly and even Westernized place, because instead of the traditional Indian namaste or folded hands greeting, they will offer, on their unofficial menu, a handshake.