The Ides of March

Well, it's only the second post for this month, and pretty much the last post I am going to make (yes, I seem to have gone from prolific, to rather useless in the short span of a few years). Anyway, when you write a blog post in March, about the post apocalyptic decline of a certain political party that you hated in the first place, the title seems, rather apropos. It was probably around the time that Kapil Sibal said that the JEE was about to go (right along the lines of the Class X board exam and Freedom of Speech) that most of the kids around India decided to sit up and say,"This shit's got to go."

And it has gone. Imploded in fact, to such an extent that cars are being set afire in UP by the people who have actually won the elections. Presumably they are happy. Most likely they are frustrated, or were, at least until recently. Anyway, it is now news that the Congress party has been shot in the foot, mouth, and private parts. But to what avail, would be a good question to be asked by the people of India. For you see, most people in India would be wise to be a little bit circumspect about the entire issue. The Congress party was not the root of all evil plaguing our country, it was merely the face of it. And Kapil Sibal was its rather moronic pinata. Sadly, this country has a long way to go before anything will change for the better, and UP has absolutely nowhere to go, it won't change at all.

But, hey, let us not ignore the power of positive thinking on this one. Yeah, there are so many reasons to rejoice, not least if you are a member of the Samajwadi Party, bhaiya..

1. At least we don't have Vladimir Putin in our country. At least we are ruled by Sonia Gandhi, the Italians always were a bit generous. And they won the war, or did they??

2. Most likely, and this is a big big leap of faith, the education system in our country will be restored to (kindof) normal, and Kapil Sibal will be shot.

3. This one is indubitable, we will not have any more elephant statues in the countryside, not that they weren't pretty of course.

4. The corruption in our country will occur in a manner so as not to be made daily news of, we won't get to know about it at all, which is a BIG relief

5. Facebook will FINALLY be free of all those idiotic Manmohan-Sonia jokes and whatnot, as a result we might actually be able to focus on our studies..or stalk girls..

But hey, what difference does it make. We'd still be the picture of a happy, prosperous, educated India, till some Samajwadi Party hooligan shoots us in the head at least.

Baba Black Sheep

While this curiously titled post may have something to do with black sheep, Harley Davidsons or even Rudyard Kipling, I’m sorry to disappoint you, dear reader, by saying that I will focus on neither of the above. In fact, as I am sure the literary geniuses (and aren’t there many these days) among you must have figured out already, this post is in fact about another species of sheep, humans. Let’s face it, Plato was correct when he said most humans are stupid. We tend to ignore this basic fact about ourselves, but we are, in fact, very very stupid. All of us need to take a long hard look at ourselves, and if possible, slap each other twice on each cheek before gibbering like orangutans.

But that is beside the point.

The point being, that since humans are so stupid, they need other humans to tell them what to do. So in your school, you had your principal and in your college, you had your dean and in your job you had your boss, and at your home you had a succession of parents, spouse and kids, in that order. But that is not significant either. Because all of those have been obligations, and ones you could not safely ignore. I mean, very few people have the guts or the brains to tell their parents to simply leave them alone. In that case, it isn’t so much about free will being the victim as it is about common sense being replaced by that unctuous sense of responsibility.

What is avoidable, what makes a victim out of free will, is the now ubiquitous baba. And these are the people who can now don saffron and presume to tell you what exactly you should do with your life. They have all sorts of popular names, some even portmanteau names that can lead to many sorts of acrostic permutations. Irrespective of all of this, the one uniting factor among all of them, is that they are presumptuous enough to tell you exactly what it is you should do with your life. In order to lend their opinions- and, let’s face it, the biggest certificate they have is the testimonials of their millions of followers- any credence they must convince you of their greatness.

And this is where methods vary, often spectacularly, some resort to vile calumny while others prefer common sense advice and deep breathing to induce some sort of placebo effect. But where things get interesting is when they use scientific/ quasi scientific methods in order to convince you that there are in fact things such as impurities in the blood and little green gremlins inside the head. And let’s face it, Indians more than anyone are susceptible to all sorts of subterfuge. We are a people of extreme optimism and very limited rationalism, and if anyone asks us to do what Krishna would do, we would go ahead and do it without even pausing to consider exactly which Krishna did what.

In the end, it is the faith and belief of a billion people that blinds them to the consequences of their actions. But then again, who are we to question them or their beliefs. The only reason I can think of doing so is because one day all of this might prove tremendously dangerous, just as blind faith usually does. Sadly though, none of the people so blinded by faith would ever realize how dangerous it might eventually prove for them. So we end up with a non sequitur and a lasting regret on the failure of rationalism to actually change anything.

Oh well, might as well get some chanting done.

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.

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.