P.W.R.

I’m not much of acronyms person, I find it’s too American a tendency, but I have no choice here. Most American acronyms are too mundane and unimaginatively constructed, in fact the only reason they are part of their Lingua Franca is because the dumb chumps can’t remember the big words. Just in case you didn’t know, they aren’t brightest of people.


Getting back to acronyms, P.W.R wasn’t too hard to come up, it means Personal World Record. The expression is my way of snubbing the Guinness Book of World Records because most of us are ordinary individuals who don’t go around playing with our quite breakable spinal cords and openly challenging death to a game of catch-me-if-you-can. You don’t need me to tell you who wins. And so I’ve come up with a revolutionary, harmless method of world-record setting. This way, everybody can become a world-record holder and there hopefully won’t be too many broken bones.

If you’re wondering what kind of records you’re allowed to set or break, wonder no further. You’ll be amazed by the sheer simplicity of the entire jig. Just go about doing normal everyday stuff and claim it is as your own P.W.R. Let me give you a few examples. A few months I set a new personal record by not bathing for five straight days. The streak came to an end on a Sunday. So the next week I went one further and made it six. And for all those disgusted friends of mine, I’d like to let you know that unlike most of you, I don’t suffer from body odour, so had I not confessed, you probably would never have guessed it.

Moving on to something more fun, my personal record for most paanipooris eaten stands at 25. Beat that! I have been challenged to a bout of paanipoori-ing by a middle-aged squirt, which I would have refused knowing her decades of experience in the field, but I’m way too stupid and supposedly proud to back down from a challenge even though it could cause irreversible damage to my taste buds and result in my never being able to look another paanipoori in the eye. While we’re on the subject, I’d also like to mention my favourite record, that of downing the largest, most piping hot, dripping in ghee Parathas known to man (courtesy of my darling grandmother) five days a week. I can now confidently say: Beat That! I know you won’t because you won’t ever get the chance to.

Now that you know the opportunities in setting your very own P.W.R’s are limitless, get cracking at them and show Guinness that you don’t need to melt to be a German melting away inside a sauna to be a world-record holder. And what’s more, write to me about the records you set, I promise that no matter how silly or puke-inducing they turn out to be, one day you will see them compiled in a fat book with lots of pictures that you can gladly gift your grandkids for Christmas fifty years from now.