Sunday, September 14, 2014
Monday, June 30, 2014
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”.
Thursday, May 22, 2014
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.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
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.’
Tuesday, May 6, 2014
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.
---------------x---------------------x---------------------------x-----------------------x-------------------------x----------
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 3rd 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 6th (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.
Sunday, November 3, 2013
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.
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.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
B-School Experience
The 80-90 born generation in India likes doing two things. The first is socializing on online platforms, and second is pursuing an MBA.
Everyone likes ‘doing’ an MBA. As a matter of fact, for most Indian males, on the list of things we like doing by preference, MBA will be a close second.
Now, for 40 percent of the population MBA is simply a very expensive Rapidex English Speaking course. 20 percent do it since they just want to postpone the act of actually working. For 10 percent, getting married was proving to be difficult without that MBA degree. The rest 30 percent do it, since the other 70 is doing it, and it seemed like a smart thing to do.
But a B-school experience ain’t really a B-school experience, unless it has the following:
The ‘I’m not here for placements’ guy
Every b-school has at least one of these ‘I’m not here for placements’ guy. He generally follows it up with a ‘I’m here for the learning’ and what not bull-crap. The ironical and equally irritating deal is when you see the ‘I’m not here for placements’ guys salivating as soon as the first company comes to campus and applying for every profile at every damn company. The kind of feelings most harbour for these irritating fagots range from strangling to a more pleasant poisoning.
The only true ‘I’m not here for placements’ people in B-schools are the former engineering students, who are genuinely not here for placements, but for girls. Since post seeing the b-school brochure, they felt confident that the sex-ratio here will be at-least better than their engineering colleges.
The B-school Girl
There are essentially two kinds of B-school girls, the good ones and the bad ones. The bad girl b-school girls drinks beer and will start dating the baddest guy within a month. The good and innocent b-school girl however does not drink beer, talks over phone with one guy, lunches with the second guy, forms team for stupid projects with the third guy, goes to gym with the fourth and cries about her erstwhile heartbreak with the fifth. Take your pick.
The philanthropist Teacher
Every b-school will have one philanthropist teacher who wants you to leave it all and instead do something for the society. She’s one person who just refuses to accept that you are simply a materialistic as***e who’d readily sell his soul for money and instead wants you to focus on weird things like making the world a better place and helping poor people. Most students love her to death except a few who actually pretend to love her even more. Such are the ways of the world.
The ish-tud
The ish-tud is quite simply one person who’s just too cool for everything. He’s too cool to study, too cool to date a girl, too cool to care for frivolous things such as money since his dad had plenty of it, too cool to prepare for campus placements, too cool to care for frivolous thinks like laws and everything. He’s almost like a mini-version of Salman Khan right in your class, except that he’s not really well-ripped and has not really ever dated Katrina Kaif.
The Real-Head
Every b-school has a head, who’s generally titled dean or director or Head of Department. But his real power in the institute is equivalent to Manmohan Singh’s in our sweet country. So who’s the real boss then? Well, every b-school also always has one guy, who in an unassuming position, basically runs the institute. He’s the one to take all the decisions, decide if you’ll get expelled for getting caught drunk on campus, save your gullible a** if you get in any trouble and essentially decide how smooth your MBA will be. He is more essential to the institute than well the students and the professors, and just below the all-important companies campus visiting companies.
*P.S: I might act all out against an MBA, but being quite a materialistic assole myself I’m happily pursuing the same. And it’s been a fascinating experience to say the least. For starters, for a guy who’s suffered all his life from a premature greying of hair problem, a b-school is simply a brilliant place, since the balding problems of so many of your other classmates make your hair problems look less striking, which is quite simply a very new and fantastic experience.
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