Tuesday 24 January 2012

The Immortals

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

-William Ernest Henley, Invictus

Most people would write a short story, or a poem, or an open letter to a Chennai boy or Delhi boy or some other sort of peripatetic character. It falls upon me then, dear reader, to give you some sort of respite, from all of this banality. You see, it is all well and good to write entertaining shit, witty shit, and obviously it gives you some sort of comfort from the mundane and dreary existence you are no doubt forced to live. However, there comes a time when all of the bullshit that you accept for daily reasonable news must be shaken up, stirred, and put inside an olive, just to complete the James Bond reference.

You see, Bonds there are many, especially in our college, and dear reader, you would be hard pressed to throw a stone at our most populated chai shop without hitting one of them. Although, what the consequences would be to this action is debatable, and mostly not considered to be in your favour. Strangely, we have so many types of bonds that classifying them will involve some sort of Dewey decimal system. We have the Bodies of this world, and then the Bakchods of this world, and then some. And all convinced, in their own little cocoon of inanity, in their sublime little bubble of bullshit, that they, in fact, are the best the world has to offer. They would laugh at every joke, irrespective of whether it was in fact a joke or not, or whether it was on them or not. Then again, they would tend to crack a few jokes. And all of this with the absolute disregard for common sense, or how do I say this..subtlety.

The thing is, you think you are immortal when you are 23 years old. Everything seems like it can't hurt you, or touch you, or even whizz past you with a strong metallic whine. And it is this sense of immortality that permits you to do the things that you do, when you do them. It is this sort of positive disregard for absolutely anything that life could throw at you, that allows you to be great.

And all of this ends as you grow old, dear reader. And you begin to feel a bit more mortal. Your joints begin to ache, and your liver isn't as good as it used to be. Almost all of your thoughts are second guessable, before you can even think of them. As you grow old you tend to realise the extent of your own vulnerability. Most people, cannot even think about this because most people are too engrossed in their own lives to care about when or how or why they would die. Most people tend to scoff at people who gently (and generously) inform them that they might as well show a bit of circumspection before it comes to bite them back in the ass.

But, you and I, dear reader, we are not most people. And it is all well and good to be immortal and everything...just as long as you look out for that bus.

Monday 16 January 2012

We Try Harder

"Avis is only no. 2 in rent a cars, so why go with us? We try harder..When you're not the biggest, you have to"

It has been a long time since I wrote a blog. I would put it down to severe mental absence and semi-severe writer's block, both of which are non fatal diseases, so you need not rejoice, dear reader. In the absence of decent topics to write on, vituperate, spew forth on and the like, one necessarily reverts to type. However, it has been so long since I wrote a blog, that i have all but forgotten what my type was. So, i have decided to take the easy way out, and poke fun at random people whom i don't know, and have no intention, or possibility for that matter, of meeting. Strangely enough, I judge them by their actions, and not by the sort of people they are, kind of like judging the Mahindra Scorpio by the number of accidents it's been in, or like judging the moon...by its average visibility on a stormy night.

Most of the people who make the decisions that affect most of our political life do it without our knowledge or consent, and are usually the least qualified people to make them. But we have never let that bother us, now have we.

So, the Indian political system is a joke, but Indian politicians seem to have gone one better. They have now become the Jokers. While Mayavati is off using elephants as a metaphor for the much abused Dalit community, Kapil Sibal is busy trying to make an ass of himself. So what have we started the new year with?? Here's a review:-

1. The death of free speech:- So google and facebook are being tried in court for something that is not their business, that they didn't do, and would be helpless to stop, a few weeks after Kapil Sibal said that something had to be done about all those(highly entertaining) Manmohan-Sonia photoshopped photos..Go figure.

2. Elephants now symbolise the poor and downtrodden people of UP, which is incidentally about to become 4 different states, each with its own set of poor and downtrodden people, and probably its own species of elephant.

3. Google+ is soo out of tune with the masses, Google has to put a blue bar next to its search menu just to get you to do something on the site. For god's  sake, Google says, just click the damn thing.

4. Now that people are actually in 2012m talking about how the world will end this year seems a bit lame. Most news channels(the Hindi ones) have stopped running it as their prime time story, and well, the mood seems to be one of subdued optimism. We're all set for one hell of a party on the 20th of December though.

5. Trying harder seems to be just a bit better than crawling into a hole and dying. Doomsday prophecies do that to you, it seems.

And just when the Avis ad, brutally (and conveniently) honest, seems to hit the mark, you should also remember dear reader, that giving up is probably the easiest thing you could do. And since it is already 2012,(yes..already..you're old) it couldn't hurt, to try harder, for one last time.
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