DISCLAIMER:
* What follows is completely and without exception the work of a deranged maniac who ought to have been locked up in a padded cell quite some time ago.
* What the aforementioned deranged maniac has written has absolutely nothing to do with reality
* To wax eloquent on what has already been mentioned in the previous statement: no character in what follows even remotely resembles any human being, animal, animagus or dementor living on earth. And any reader who attempts to draw parallels to the real world is, to put it succinctly, being a chump.
* And NO! None of the characters resemble any plants either.
* And as usual, if you believe none of the above, it’s all a huge conspiracy to defame yours truly – hatched by George Bush, Jacques Chiraq, Ahmed Shah Massoud, Elvis Presley and Radio Mirchi RJ Suchitra. Al Qaeda, ISI and the Taliban helped, too.


In addition, as the story unfolds, it will be clear to the meanest intellect that though this story is written in the first person singular, it has absolutely nothing to do with me, because:

* I was not admitted into the group of the seven dwarfs who ministered to Snow Whiste, for I was two inches too short.
* I have been blessed with a face which, even when not ridden with pimples, has the ability to stop clocks of all sizes and shapes.
* Strong women who remain impassive when confronted with tarantulas, king cobras and spiders, let out screams of disgust and repulsion when my face is suddenly sprung upon their unsuspecting selves. In other words, magnet to the opposite sex I’m not.
* My physique – if I could call it that - is also nothing to sneeze at. (For an inadvertently loud sneeze could displace me quite a fair distance.) Dilton Doileys the world over derive solace from my existence – living proof that people DO get punier than they.
* My idea of an intellectually stimulating conversation is me. Which is, as is quite apparent to those who are acquainted with me, not the most intellectually stimulating topic in the world. * Also, my IQ has been, after repeated tests, identified to lie somewhere between that of a dodo and a dinosaur. Scientists concluded that I was an evolutionary anomaly, for I should have by all rights been extinct.

To summarize therefore, it is nigh impossible that any of what is described below could have conceivably happened to yours truly. Read on, and you’ll realize why the author exudes an air of flippant confidence as he makes the aforementioned statement. Therefore, what follows is a mere figment of the author’s fervid imagination.

NOTE – Why Disclaimers?: (Readers already bored to tears by the disclaimer are requested to detour and go ahead to the story about which I have spoken so much)

This is the season for disclaimers.

Or have I got it wrong? Yes, I think I have committed what the British call a blooper (or was that bloomer?). Strong men the world over, glued to their monitors as they peruse this blog, in all probability winced and bit their tongues when they saw me call this a season for disclaimers. Many, I imagine, looked upon each other with a surmise which couldn’t have got any wilder if I were Cortez staring at the Pacific (refer previous blog).

I think it is but fair, therefore, that I elucidate upon what I have just stated.

Blogs around blogsville – as I heard someone call it – are filled to the brim with disclaimers. It was but the other day that I noticed Vinod mention something of the sort. Then it was Navin’s turn next – though his disclaimer seemed more like a pugilist’s challenge to all comers than a disclaimer. Realizing that disclaimers are not merely the flavour of the season, but also insurance against overactive imaginations jumping to conclusions on the basis of what is assumed to be written between lines, I decided to jump onto the bandwagon and post a disclaimer before I continued any further.

- Siddhu (4th January 2005)