So Bilawal, Whose Kashmir is it Anyway?

Over the last two days my Facebook timeline has started looking more and more like the YouTube comments of an India-Pakistan cricket match video. Angry people have given befitting (according to them at least) reply to Bilawal Bhutto, which usually range from calling him a Pakistani Rahul Gandhi to making mature allegations that his present state is because he could not satisfy Hina Rabbani.

The exact comment made by Bilawal, that has caused so much widespread social media agitation (can’t believe that’s a thing now), is ‘I will take back Kashmir, all of it, and I will not leave behind a single inch of it because, like the other provinces, it belongs to Pakistan’.

Now the impossibility of the statement itself is unquestionable, since to truly obtain every single inch of Kashmir, Pakistan would have to not only fight India but the home-country of Jackie Chan. And if that were to ever happen then leave aside Kashmir my dear Bilawal, you’ll suddenly find yourself fighting to Chinese claims to Baluchistan and Sindh as well.

So what Bilawal said was more of a dramatic statement and might as well have been ‘Ma ka, Dada ka, sabka badla lega tera yeh Bilawal’. Also, let’s keep in mind this is a statement made by a politician looking to win in the general elections of a country next year and in such a situation he is pretty much expected to make populist statements to connect to ‘his’ people. In all probability he would go on to make Kejriwal-ish statements about removing corruption from its roots in Pakistan, while Zardari would be making ten percent of the ad revenue from his youtube speech and a poor man named irony would simply die crying.

But the point is, he will continue doing so since that’s what politicians do to score brownie points amongst your junta. Were we Indians really expecting Bilawal Bhutto to say, "Let’s give away whole of Kashmir to India. In fact, Sunny Deol can take all our hand pumps too. And yes, please vote for me next year homies cuz I'm so awesome.”

It might really hurt some of us to know this, but he is not really supposed to give much of consideration to what random people on social networking websites from his supposedly rival country feel about his statements, no matter how much we tag him on Twitter and FB. If anything, disapproval from Indian masses is likely to be a mention-worthy positive on his resume.

If tomorrow Modi were to say ‘Pakistan ki MkC, Kashmir aapru che. Here’s a thepla to all of Pakistan’, I have a vague feeling that no Pakistani household will be mighty pleased with that statement. But if it comes to the amount of fucks Modi would give to Pakistan’s reaction to what he says, the answer would be stark in-your-face ‘none’.

The most hilarious aspect of this entire episode has been the Bilawal - Rahul Gandhi comparison. Just imagine a poor RaGa sitting in a quite dark room in a house on Janpath Road shouting agitatedly, “WTF dude, I DIDN'T EVEN DO ANYTHING THIS TIME. Why me mom? Why me?... ok, get me a pasta”. 

I almost feel sad for Rahul Gandhi now. Here was a man who won the MTV Youth Icon in 2009, beating Rahul Dravid (and please bear in mind, hardly anything beats Rahul Dravid. I know this as a Ganguly), and thought the world was for his taking and is now reduced to such a state that even IIPM pass-outs, call centre employees and roadies aspirants mock him.

Coming back to the point of Bilawal and our sensible reaction to his statement, let’s not make over-reaction a way of our life. It is little scary if our Social Media behaviour starts looking like our traffic with horns blazing and adrenaline raging at the slightest of provocations. Politicians say shit, let’s move on…

Whose Cleavage is it Anyway?

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This is Not a Joke on Humshakals

“Lehro kei saath toh koi bhi chal sakta hai, but asli stud voh hai jo lehro kei khilaaf jaaye”… or something like that…

That awesome Aamir Khan movie where he runs on train tracks

If rumours are to be believed, Sajid Khan’s Humshakals has set a new landmark in crappy cinema and etched its name forever in the hearts of all four people who saw the movie and the million others who confidently write posts/tweets ridiculing the movie.

While there’s no doubt about Sajid Khan’s lack of talent and his sheer caliber of delivering

one nonsensical film after another, matched only by Rohit Shetty’s products in terms of mindlessness and a phenomena that should be addressed as IQ lowerability (remember you heard it here), it is strangely fascinating to note how mob mentality works on social media and makes many otherwise completely rational and mature people act like school bullies so eager to get a piece of the latest victim.

Sajid Khan must be drawing inspiration from his version of Gandhi’s famous words, “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you rip-off few different Hollywood movies and make over 200 crores and say chal na, ga**d mara”

Quite honestly, I’m pretty sure Sajid Khan could not give lesser of a f**k about the internet jokes about him. Being rejected for Anil Kapoor by Juhi Chawla in that crow movie probably had a deep scarring impact on his psyche that psychologists just could not repair. But does he even need to worry? If past examples of utter disconnect between internet emotions and mass thinking is anything to go by, we all should be waiting for Humshakals to be branded a hit with a box office of 300 crores if not at least 272+.

Sajid must be feeling a lot better by the fact that not more than a couple of months back if anyone wrote anything remotely not anti-BJP on Social media, fifteen intellectuals jumped on you citing how Modi dines with Satan himself and you yourself are a closet minority-hating genocide-causing fanatic for even thinking that he does not. What subsequently followed was masses essentially showing the middle finger to netizens reflecting the popular emotion of, “ek do ko maara toh kya, dil ka toh saaf hai’.

Given that pictures such as above would certainly evoke some reaction from most, but it's somewhat interesting to note how confident most people seem while ridiculing the flavour of the week without the slightest bit of hesitation. Lack of complete knowledge has totally seized to be a deterrent before passing an opinion.The next week or two will tell us about the fate of the movie, but the poignant question of ‘will we the netizens be able to control our inner jananis?” seems to have been answered and unfortunately it’s a deafening “No”.

An open letter to Arvind Kejriwal

Oh my poor Arvind Kejriwal, what have you done now? It really takes special efforts to ensure that public opinions favour someone as repulsive as Nitin Gadkari over you, and yet you manage it with such ease.

How could this really happen? Where did the whole plot go wrong? When exactly did this transition take place, from being the symbol of middle class’ hopes to middle class’ latest drama dosage? How and when did people start enjoying every slap you get? Why do you seem to be in jail more often than Sanjay Dutt? When did you become the butt of all WhatsApp jokes in a way that would put Alok Nath and Tiger Shroff to shame?

Maybe it was when you started believing in the Bollywood bimbo notion of ‘any publicity is good publicity’. But certainly, you with your IIT degrees must be smart enough to realize that’s not true, at least not in politics. Maybe it was when you made your now characteristic u-turns at a rate that would have made Bill Clinton proud. Maybe it was when Yogendra Yadav started sounding more like Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and every time he talked during those extremely fruitful debate panels it felt like he is giving an inhale-exhale exercise. It’s hard to pin point when exactly you started making it enjoyable for middle class to see you suffer, but you managed it with so much lack of class and panache that KRK started seeming quite all right in comparison.

You have your supporters pointing out that you have to sit in jail while corrupt people like Gadkari roam around freely, which sounds so naive that one almost feels like going ‘awww..’. Do you really think Gadkari’s honesty is even a question here? Do you really feel that that anyone with an iota of intelligence would not be able to tell from just one look at that walrus of a man that he is corrupt as hell? Do you think we don’t know that it’s impossible to have those ‘Sonakshi Sinha’ jaanghs (the word ‘thighs’ would really not do justice) with honest hard-earned money? Hell, everyone knows he must be corrupt. But still we enjoy your misery because somehow in the last six months, you made ‘irritating’ your middle name. It’s ironic that your rise was the result of middle class frustration of the system and the way it functions, and at this rate your downfall too would be the result of the same middle class frustration and venting it out through shit happening to you. Quite frankly, the current post election-results phase for AAP could really be christened ‘The Beginning of the End’. Because it seems now only Poonam Pandey can rescue your dipping fortunes with the age old 'I'll pose naked if he wins’, which let’s face it really appeals well to the mature Indian Junta.

Do you realize what you have just managed with your latest antics? You made people complain about traffic problems faced because of your supporters assembling outside the Tihar. Now that really is a new low. You know people already have their mind made up, when one of their biggest complains about a political personality is ‘dude, he caused a traffic jam’. Hell, we have thieves, dacoits, murderers, rapists and genocide coordinators in the sweet world of Indian politics, and if amongst all that you are being hated since your party caused a traffic jam, then boy, you must be despised already.

Perhaps you should make a phone call to the likes of Wayne Rooney and Louis Figo, who would tell you quite elaborately about the 
whole ‘We hate you so, because we loved you so’ phenomena. Perhaps in your so-called apology you could genuinely admit that ‘you fucked up’ instead of giving us the whole ‘we didn't do anything wrong, but am apologizing since you guys are angry with us’, which sounds so much like a boyfriend-girlfriend apology which gets the other partner even more infuriated. Please get your act right, Mr Kejriwal. We need you to be a model statesman first and perhaps then an ambitious news-hungry political Rakhi Sawant clone. Please stop being so adamant and following the Honey Singh prescribed way of ‘screw signs given by public, yeh Aam Aadmi Part yu hee chalegi’.

We need the hope that you had given us of a system that would be better than this. We need what you had promised to prove all those detractors who go about saying ‘is desh ka kuch nahi hoga, bahar chalo’ wrong. We need you to be a calm aadmi first, and then perhaps an aam aadmi. 

Game of Thrones Season 4 Episode 6 Review - A Few Good Men 'GOT style'

Ever wondered about the outcome if we mix and mash the two movies, ‘Gladiator’ and ‘A Few Good Men’. Episode 6 gives us just that if not more, except that you’re rooting for the accused and hoping like hell that someone in the Jury might have a little bit of that thing the guy in ‘A Girl Next Door’ kept talking about (moral fibre, in case you’re wondering).

But let’s start from the beginning. Episode 6 kicks off with old chums Davos and Stannis arriving at the Iron Bank of Bravos through this grand entrance between the legs of a massive statue which might be a big deal to westerners, but for us has been a usual sight while entering those awesomely designed Hanuman temples right in heart of Delhi.

The trouble is that the head of the finance committee at the Iron Bank, which decides whether to sanction the loan to Stannis, happens to be Mycroft from Sherlock himself. And let’s be honest about this, people of normal intellect are not likely to stand a chance around the 250+ IQ Mycroft, leave alone these two ragged oldies whom you can only imagine cheering for West ham United in some dark and depressing British pub. In my head I could literally place Mycroft making all his deductions about these two and pretty much figuring out their entire lives without even batting an eyelid.

In any case, the entire proceeding seems to perfectly resemble a VISA interview where the applicant’s ego, morale, self-respect and dignity are carefully crucified before rejecting his/her plea. Davos tries to plead with them that Stannis is the only plausible choice they have if they ever wish to get back their gold, although I really didn’t get Davos’ rationale of ‘He’s the best choice. Hell, he even cut my fingers ensuring misery for the rest of my life. So awesome he is’.

Post this Davos heads to the bathing chambers to bring along the services of his old fellow-pirate Salladhor Saan in return for some gold in a scene reminiscent of what must have transpired when Vijay Mallya tried to buy Chris Gayle for Royal Challengers.

We move on to the rescue mission of Theon Greyjoy, or whatever is left of him, led by none other than his sweet sister Yara Greyjoy, who seems to be the future image of what Arya Stark aspires to be. I can literally imagine Arya’s prompt response on being asked by the HR interviewer ‘So, where do you see yourself 5 years from now?’ Arya: Yara Greyjoy it is, with a bit of Brienne strength.

Yara’s plans of course go horribly wrong when her brother, who by now has lost his identity and believes himself to this pleasant fellow named Reek, raises an alarm and we have a face-to-face situation between the two parties, the rescuers and the ‘let’s kill the rescuers’. To sum it up, the latter party wins with Yara bolting the scene and the castle as fast as she could, not that she really had the choice of strolling out casually considering there were a pack of hounds running after her. In an almost continuing scene our sweet twisted Ramasay gives Theon the luxury of a bath for having stayed loyal to him and reveals sinister plans for some other day. I feel bad for Theon. Although he was never really portrayed as the viewer’s favourite character, it’s really sad to see him converted to this mockery of a person. It is quite ironical how in India if someone’s penis is cut out, they hardly become this submissive and instead just start going ‘aye chkinei, shaadi ka paisa?’ (just a dark joke, relax).

Meanwhile, Daenerys has started her own version of Diwan-e-khas. The episode featured just two cases dealt by Dani Dearest and the mere thought that there were 212 more requests lined up made you realize what Kejriwal found out the hard way, that Janta durbars don’t really have a very happy ending. More so when you have 3 sweet pet dragons that time to time go on this dinner spree of wondering herds.

Back in King’s Landing, Varys seems to be filling in where Lord Baelish/ Littlefinger left and continues on their common thought of ‘let these blue-blooded stupid Royalties feel that they are running the show while we continue playing Master of Puppets with them. Muhuhaha’.

Quite frankly, Lord Varys seems to be one dangerous character and once you get over the Darren Lehman resemblance to this guy, you realize the scariest part about him is that you don’t have the slightest clue as to what he actually wants. Lord Oberryn, who really should be called Enrique Iglesias of Westeros, finds this out too in his conversation with the former.

And now coming to the final part of the episode and quite frankly the only part that mattered. Tyrion’s trial begins with Tommen recusing himself from it. Tommen, unlike the PM candidate of our currently ruling party, seems to be self-aware enough to set off and not take part in matters that he does not have the maturity to preside. This leaves us with a more reality-depicting image of Tywin on the Iron Throne with other jury members on either side. The other jury members being Mace Tyrel, essentially a white Alok Nath (incidentally he’s also Margaery’s father which makes the analogy almost too correct), and Lord Oberryn, who with his antics during the trial reminds you of that Delhi friend we all have who interrupts all your romantic stories of new relationships with ‘voh sab toh theek hai, but sex hua kya?’

Frankly the witnesses of this trial made the ones in ‘No one killed Jessica’ look more honest. Right from the vicious old fart Pycelle, who seems to be modelled on Asaram Bapu, right to the final nail in the coffin, Shae herself, but let’s get to that later.

In between the trial proceedings, after the first few witnesses and during what seemed like a recess, Jaime Lannister tries to appeal to the Sreesanth in his father and offers to strike a deal just to get his brother to live, something to which Tywin agrees after adding his million stipulations. But apparently, there was no real requirement for all that.

Some real wise person had once said ‘hell hath no fury like a woman scorned’ and boy, scorned Shae was. When I saw Shae’s testament, I really had a nervous chill down my spine and made a quick call to my girlfriend to check if all was fine post yesterday’s fight. While her reply of ‘shut up Abi, talk to you later, in office’ was not really the most romantic one a guy has ever heard, but it sort of relieved me.

Peter Dinklage’s acting skills were never really a doubt, but over the next seven minutes his acting makes the viewer go through his feelings of vulnerability, despair, betrayal, misery, resignation and finally blind fury in a manner seldom executed by television actors. If you did not pause and replay the scene where he goes ‘Watching your vicious bastard die gave me more relief than a thousand lying whores’ then you probably do not know how to pause and play on VLC. (try ‘spacebar’). His confession was so much like a positive version of ‘You Can’t Handle the Truth’, that Jack Nicholson would have nodded in acknowledgement.

I am still a little unclear on the trial by combat situation and how exactly does one go about this. If, like last time in Arryn Palace, Tyrion gets to choose his representative, then it’s not really a bad deal and I don’t get what the hullabaloo is all about. I would much rather have all my trials this way and keep choosing the Great Khali as my rep. In fact, I was even wondering why in the world Ned Stark didn’t think of this trial by combat option. As the episode ends, you wonder who will be Tyrion’s representative? Would it be Jamie Lannister, likely to get superhuman strength in his left hand fuelled by brotherly love post watching Jo Jeeta Vohi Sikander, or Tyrion’s good old ally, Bronn, who’s middle name is ‘win by hook or crook’. While we have to wait a week to find that out, the one thing we certainly do know is that Tyrion might very well go the Deewar Amitabh Bachan way and get tattoed on his arm ‘Mera baap madar**** hai.’

Game of Thrones Episode 5 review

Game of Thrones Episode 5 review

So I am little sick of the million spoilers for GOT that social media is abound with, that too without any form of Spoiler Alert* caution, which has truly led me to declare Monday as a social media avoidance day till I have caught up with the latest episode.

And I figured it’s best to follow the age old policy of ‘If you can’t beat them, join them’. So here goes the effort of trying to review the latest episode of Game of Thrones with a comical perspective. Plus, if nothing else, this will at least prevent the ass whooping I get in QuizUp (Topic GOT) against participants from pretty much everywhere in this world. Call me a racist, but it really felt sucky having lost to someone from Bangladesh.

P.S: I haven’t read the book, and am not even inclined to, since that will essentially prove to be a big clustered ball of spoilers for me. Don’t want to ruin a show I am enjoying that way. Any prediction I would be making in the course of review, would be purely from my judgement and not prior knowledge.

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The episode kick starts with the crowning ceremony of sweet little Tommen Baratheon, aka Incest Son 2, which proceeds without any complication, so much to our relief. Kid Tommen, with all his niceness, indeed feels like the male version of Daenerys Targaryen, which judging from how Westeros is for men, essentially means he will be dead by the end of the season. He even does this sweet little gesture of exchanging glances with prospective wife Margaery, which goes surprisingly well with Cersei. Cersei and Margaery even have a decent respectful conversation, which somehow I could not fathom, considering Cersei’s disdain for Margaery, courtesy the latter being a fellow conniving woman, has already been established. Probably Cersei heard of the phrase ‘Kyuki Saans bhi kabhi bahu thi’ and saw the inner Tulsi in Margaery. I really would never know.

Cersei would then go on to lobby with Tywin and subsequently Oberyn, (the 3^rd Judge for Tyrion’s fate) trying to not-so-subtly get them in favour of her view of judgement for Tyrion. At which point everyone’s inner voice shouts out “HE’S YOUR BROTHER FOR HEAVEN’S SAKE. STOP COMPENSATING FOR YOUR EXCESSIVE TWISTED LOVE FOR ONE BROTHER WITH HATRED FOR THE OTHER”.

Tywin went on to give Cersie a typical South Delhi dad-daughter lecture about how bad they are doing monetarily and how their fiscal deficit makes India’s seem like a shining story. Apparently, having enough resources and money, and still screwing up with debt has always been a white people thing. I love the references to the Iron Bank of Braavos, which seem so much like the GOT version of World Bank; giving loans here and there to essentially make countries fight amongst each other while getting them to agree to their well-thought stipulations. I can almost visualize a UNO for Westeros as well. Go Ser Ban Ki Moon.

Meanwhile, Daenerys Targaryen is put up in a dilemma to either charge at King’s landing with some recently acquired ships or stay back to free the slaves she had already freed once, but who seem to have been enslaved again. Talk about incompetent friggin people. “YAY, We’re free!! (Enter New Masters) Oh shit, not again.” Taking into consideration that her army is not there yet in terms of strength and how she has to be all righteous, she makes the second choice. Also, I don’t get why her main advisor Jorah feels that they would not be able to take over King’s Landing. She has DRAGONS for heaven’s sakes. Does he not know how awesome dragons are? If Bhutan were to have actual dragons (not the imaginary ones they currently do), they would have been capable of giving India a scare or two. Go Dani Targaria (attempted pun at an RHCP song), King’s landing is yours for the taking. Curb the Martin Luther in you, and go get it.

Littlefinger/Lord Baelish and Sansa arrive at her aunt’s (Lysa Arryn, sister of now departed Lady Stark) place, at which I was frankly a little relieved initially, because knowing Lord Baelish, god knows which ‘Sex Cave’ he could have taken her. Here we get to again see Lysa Arryn’s sweet and innocent son Robin (excessive sarcasm), who some might remember wanted to make Tyrion fly through his “Moon Door” last season. You might recall Robin has been breast-fed by his mother till an age he really shouldn't have been and seems like a miniature version of Joffrey. So when we hear of his mother’s plans of hooking up Sansa with him, you indeed feel for Sansa. The poor thing really seems to be a magnet for Twisted sadistic younglings and has managed to jump out of the frying pan right into fire.

We also get to know that apparently Lysa Arryn and Lord Baelish have been quite an item, so much so that she poisoned her husband (who was also the Hand of King before Ned Stark in the opening of Season 1) at the behest of Littlefinger, while all thought it was the Lannisters. Lysa Arryn also apparently has a libido that puts Sherlyn Chopra to shame and wants to marry Lord Baelish, something to which he agrees just so that she shut up about the poisoning of her husband. Obviously he wasn’t expecting that she would have a priest right outside the door to put that to action. Talk about not giving a man even a second for double thoughts. Lysa Arryn also promises to scream like hell when they consummate their marriage and boy, scream she did. It’s little ironical that the guy who’s causing all that screaming has been being given a nickname ‘Littlefinger’. Lisa Arryn also has a nice sweet conversation with Sansa, asking very pleasantly if she had been impregnated by Littlefinger. Such a normal aunt-niece conversation. And to think of it, all that my aunt ever asks me is ‘Beta, shaadi kab kar rahe ho’.

Brienne and Pod continue on their journey and get to know each other a little more. Pod apparently is a complete city-boy squire who can’t do shit when on a roadtrip and Brienne starts giving him some credit only after knowing he has at least one murder to his name. Such are the ways of Westeros, clearly an ace requirement for blossoming friendship. Their story seems like a little less twisted and gender-interchanged version of Arya and Hound’s personal little adventure. Talking of which, our sweet little Arya is getting more sinister by the day and has started this cute practice of loudly naming everyone she wants to kill before sleeping every night. This sort of explains how the first thing she goes for in morning is a little bit of sword practice. Arya’s ballerina style of sword practice doesn’t sit well with our Brock “Hound” Lesnar whose life’s motto seems ‘Elegance be damned, I’ll just eat my opponent’.

Meanwhile in wild wild North, John Snow’s Night Watch party is getting ready to strike at Craster’s Keep, where of course Bran and his troupe are held hostage. The big bad bully at the Craster’s Keep who thought there’ll be no end to his Haryanwi ways of raping around is finally killed by our awesome Snow boy. This frees all the women in Craster’s Keep, who had not really had the best of times for the last few days, months and pretty much all their life. I can almost visualize them forming a Gulaabi Gang of their own. Move over Madhuri, Westeros ladies in the house!! Also in a moment that would have done Maneka Gandhi proud, John Snow’s dire wolf Ghost has the last laugh against Rast, one of the Haryanwi guys, who had been sadistically tormenting him last episode.

But my personal favourite moment of the show was when Hodor does something that is not so eh…Hodor-like. When Locke of the night watch (who has made Jon trust in him by now) tries to abduct Bran, the latter possesses Hodor, who simply breaks Locke’s neck displaying strength that would make Hound feel like a small girl in comparison. This made me cheer for Hodor like I cheered for Austin in class 6^th (not sure if kids they still do that). Personally, I think Hodor is  awesomeness redefined. Wouldn’t it be just brilliant if one day Hodor just shouts out something like ‘Teri ma ki chut langde, mai nahi utha raha tujhe’. Honestly, I would be willing to give anything to see that happen. In my mind, Westeros should just have one king and that is Hodor. Cheers for Hodor, In Hodor we trust.

I’m atheist and I know/force it

It’s ironical how things completely turn around over a period of time. Whereas yesteryears saw many radical atheists being completely boycotted by religious sorts and the entire society looking at them as if they were humanities students of Class XII, currently the story has quite drastically turned around.

It started with the odd powerful statement of ‘Religion is opium for the masses’, which has been credited to everyone ranging from George Carlin to random angry intellectual looking celebrities to anybody wearing spectacles to the original Karl Max in pictures shared over Facebook (black background with a hint of smoke). And now it has sort of reached a peak with everyone who knows the meaning of the word opinion having an opinion about it.

For our generation, ‘I’m an atheist’ has almost become the second coolest thing to angrily say, post ‘I hate Mahatma Gandhi’. Mostly, when asked why they have such noble thoughts, it’s followed by a blank ignorant face quite similar to the expression of a science student on being asked Viva questions. Post which there’s this feeble voice going ‘eh dude, I eh read this article on Facebook’.
‘What did the article say?’ you fetch.
‘eh, It was a long article yaaar. I mean it was Friday and I had this party to go to and all’….
‘Ahh’… you judge.
‘But but, (passion back in his voice) when I put ‘I’m an atheist’ as my Facebook status, I got 30 likes. Some of them were girls’

There are indeed a lot of advantages of being an atheist. You are able to eat any animal you want to and when you want to. You are able to ask irritating question to others like ‘So you mean to say God’s completely fine with you eating Chicken on Wednesday but has a problem when you do it on Tuesday?’. You’re able to post awesome status’ like ‘Id Mubarak to all my Muslim brothers’ which make you look ‘oh so secular’ (ironically you never see a ‘Happy Diwali to all my Hindu brothers’ from the same people; it’s just a ‘Happy Diwali’, which tells you the whole secular story really. Sometimes excessive secularism becomes sort of unsecular)

Realizing you’re an atheist has become like the modern day Nirvana moment. It’s pretty much the ‘bhakchod’s version of enlightenment’. Quite similar to Buddha and many others who meditated for years for their own enlightenment. The modern human practices his brilliant worthy life filling his mind with all great positive thoughts of any and every possible way to get more money, fame and sex, till he finally discovers the social media picture of ‘Religion is opium for the masses’ and in this eureka moment attains his atheism. The internet is indeed our personal Bodhi tree.

It’s quite interesting to see the range of atheist. From the stout atheists who would go all Kohli on you if you dare to praise your own religion, to the relaxed atheists (few and far between) to the convenient atheists (atheist as long as I am not in deep shit, post which I go ‘pls bacha lei bhagwan, pls’.)

Which is all, quite frankly, absolutely fine. The issue starts when atheists start becoming the new fanatics in terms of imposing their opinion on others about this topic of opinion-imposing religions. (Notice the irony) The issue starts when atheists become all incredible hulkish over anyone making any statement remotely connected to religion. The original statements might be ranging from innocuous to outright stupid, but the reaction from our atheist brothers is scary and kind of hilarious at the same time. The usual statements of ‘Religion has caused wars’, ‘Religion has killed people’, ‘Religion prevents me from jerking off’ are thrown with such abandon that you almost start feeling ‘Religion’ is the pseudonym for Adolf Hitler or Idi Amin.

I quite don’t understand atheist reacting angrily to someone feeling their religion is the best or even better than other religions at some issue. To feel biased towards something you are linked to is probably the most natural feeling in the world. Isn’t it natural for one to be biased towards their own mother than anybody else’s? Again, not drawing a parallel between mother and religion, but just implying that being biased towards something/someone you believe in and are connected to is absolutely expected. Any human who would claim to not have this is either lying or a saint at a much higher state of mind. As long as one’s not affecting anyone else’s life because of this notion, one should be absolutely entitled to have that thought. Lambasting one for thinking so is sort of inexplicable. Let’s just be fine with anyone being anything: religious, non-religious, one who believes their religion is better, one who believes all religions are equal, etc.

I’m no expert really when it comes to religion, but from my humble learning I am pretty sure that no religion really prescribed wars in the first place. It was the human interpretation which screwed things up and from time to time, still keeps doing so. If tomorrow we have a world where every single person is an atheist, are we certain that no one will fight one another or there would be no killings or wars? Somehow, my pleasant experiences with humanity make me feel that the chances of that happening is less than the pope keeping ramadan fasts.

I have a great belief in wisdom of our ancestors and the ancient Urdu saying of ‘Zan, Zar aur Zameen’ being the reason behind all wars and fights is something that I have found extremely agreeable.
Zan = female
Zar = wealth
Zameen = land
Again, not blaming these three (before the sexistbusters come and slay me), but suggesting it’s just the crazy insatiable human desire for them that could be placed for majority of the wars we put religion to task for. Religion quite often becomes the scapegoat for many wrongs. In essence, it’s not the Arab Muslim terrorist who came and bombed your building, but a helpless hopeless uneducated poor guy whose home, family and life got destroyed because of a drone your country’s government sent in their quest for oil and mullah. All other factors being the same, he would have done exactly the same had he been from any religion. Notice how he didn’t go around bombing the Vatican City.

The good aspects of religion, the festivities each bring along celebrating community feeling and helpfulness is also something that the world needs. Probably atheism could do with a festival of its own. Or celebrate all religion’s festivals with the same zest which is what I am pretty sure was originally intended. It’s unfortunate to see Atheism go down the same way of Socialism and Communism. Ideas that were beautiful and logical in essence but got screwed up in implementation due to angry people, people with less understanding, people just going with the flow or the worse kind, materialistic people pursuing their own agenda. The need is for some flexible, broad-minded, calm and composed Atheists to stand up and be willing to hear others out before pouncing on them. Will the real Atheist please stand up. Please stand up. Please stand up.


P.S: Not that it matters but my personal alignment is leaning towards agnosticism. Being confused is a way of life for me.