A Conversation

'What's up?'

'No.'

'No?'

'Yes.'

'That's so gay.'

Personal Space

Indians have a personal space issue.

Especially in public places.

Even more especially in public places like buses.

Now I  understand that we’re a country of a billion people, and that providing buses for these billion people, especially when there aren’t 1,33,33,333 buses (each bus holds 75 people. Do the math), will eventually result in crowded buses.

I hate travelling in crowded buses.

But luckily enough for me, people are generally idiots. Two of the exact same bus will happen to come by, one after the other, and they’ll all pile into the first one, leaving the second one completely empty. This is a good thing.

 

Generally.

Today, after waiting for about half an hour, I was ready to jump into the first bus that went my direction. Except when that bus eventually did arrive, it was packed to the bloody brim with people.

To give you a clear idea of what sort of people, I shall explain to you the surrounding conditions, and you shall infer the rest.

The temperature was at about 32 C, and heat index was at 37 C. That’s mighty hot. People sweat when it’s mighty hot.

People also sweat when they’re packed like rats.

Hey, hey! What a perfect combination of circumstances. The two things that bring out the sweat in people. Yay.

And I’m getting into this bus. First thing on the bus, and I’m already getting abused by the conductor for listening to my iPod. And then I get thrown in the mosh pit.

Wow. Arms and armpits flying everywhere. The sweat, the grime, the heat, the stickiness, the smell, the heat, the sweat, the heat.

Eugh.

About fifteen stops (I exaggerate not. I endured this for a whole forty minutes) later, the bus is reasonably clear, but there are still people clinging to me like I’m some life saver.

When they’ve got the entire bus to take their sweat to, they bring it to me. I must remember to thank them someday.

Personal space, people.

A foot on all sides, at all times.

He’s so chilled, he’s positively bipolar.

Monday was a very entertaining day for me.

I had an English exam on Monday. I generally find these terrible, boring, and drudgery-filled. Yuck would appropriately sum it up, because as much as I like reading, I don’t like ‘summarising’, ‘cause I find it hard.

Yes, I’m a loser. Live with it.

 

Back to story.

We had an English exam, and we couldn’t take the exam in the room assigned to us, and we got shifted a floor down. A friend of mine suggested calling our teacher and telling him (this wasn’t a scripted change, more of a spur of the moment get-outta-here-you-freaks decision) where we were, so he could find us. So I did.

 

“Sir, we’re in 101 and not 201 for writing our English exam.”

“What?” (I figured he couldn’t here me, ‘cause there was a lot of noise from his end)

“We’re writing it in 101 and not 201”

“Writing what?”

“Our English exam.”

“But you don’t have an exam today!”

“No, sir. We do… we’re all in class, waiting for you.”

“Oh, shit.”

 

We finally did write it, with me being given responsibility.

But whatever.

I love my college.

President?

“Whaddya talking about?” I  hear you ask “We don’t have a president.”

Oh, no. I must correct you. We do have a president.

“Yeah? Sez who?”

No, really.

“Naw. You’re talking through your hat.”

Okay, so let’s get this straight. You’ve seen that lady with the saree every now and then on the news channels?

“Yeah…?”

Yep. That one.

“What?!?”

You hear me.

“You mean… she’s our president? I thought she was the Prime Minister’s gardener!”

You’re pretty close on that one, lemme tell you. The only thing she does is tend to that garden of hers.

---

 

And that could probably be true. The conversation, I mean. Not the part about the president. That’s real. I’d much rather the other way ‘round.

‘Cause you know… gardeners, I’m told, don’t make very good leaders of countries. And she hasn’t done anything since she became president. She gave an acceptance speech which would have put a primary school kid to shame, and disappeared into obscurity.

I mean, do something with your power. You’ve got the entire damned country at your disposal. At the very least, you could declare an emergency.

Although an emergency under her, we’d all be forced to fade into obscurity.

 

First woman president.

Phooey.

Look! It’s the Saffron Brigade!

Will they save us?

Are they the salvation we’ve all been looking for?

Are they going to liberate us from this rubbish?

Shall we finally see an end to terrorism?

Or are they just a bunch of goons who’ve found a (not so) plausible reason to beat up people?

 

Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

Whatever happened to ‘secular democracy’?

Since when is campaigning for votes the same as hate speech?

Yep. Varun Gandhi, your friend and mine, has just been arrested for hate speech, and trying to incite communal violence. This is a good thing, and one of the few good things that we’ve got right in the recent past.

But looking past his arrest, we’ve got the RSS supporting this nincompoop, and we’ve also got people cheering at his speech.

Let’s come to the people a little later.

The RSS. These guys are trying to run for the central government, and if they’re elected, they’ll be in office for the next five years, and completely unanswerable to anyone. We’ve got some hot headed five year olds (emotionally, anyway) running our country, we’ll probably get involved in a couple of hundred wars, internal and external. We’ll have muslims, sikhs, buddhists, christians, zoarastrians, all being burned and shot at, ‘cause our lovely friend said so.

Our friend with the saffron scarf.

Our friend with the saffron scarf, who is the grandson of Nehru, arguably one of the most influential (in a good way, mind you) leaders in our history.

Our friend with the saffron scarf, the grandson of Nehru, who has read the Gita, and all it has to say about doing your duty and all that.

And apparently his duty is to see India burn.

Which, if allowed to be free, he will do with complete and total effectiveness. Atleast then we’ll have a politician who lives up to his word.

I don’t even think a party like the BJP is allowed to stand constitutionally. Aren’t all parties supposed to be secular? What’s with the whole Hindu-holier-than-thou-and-thou-shalt-burn-and-die attitude?

 

Quite frankly, I’d rather see Odie run the country than this guy.

We’d all be covered in drool, sure, but the BJP? Really?

Go forth and vote, I say. Go forth and make sure this guy never comes a hundred miles within the Rashtrapathi Bhavan.

Epic Fail

I set myself a challenge, remember?

Well, apparently, I didnt.

I failed.

Epically.

:(

“… and that’s what one atom said to the other.”

(Warning : This post is mildly geeky. People with allergies are advised to stay away.)

I think I first started learning Physics as a subject in the seventh, or the sixth, or something like that. Although the physics then was more “A good scientist always asks questions” sort of thing, no real physics.

But even then, when we started learning the rudiments, Newton’s Laws in their most basic forms, I was hearing things like

“When one body hits another with a speed, the other body does not want to stay still, it wants to move.”

My teachers were personifying the objects, giving them likes, dislikes, and a mind of their own. You piece together enough of this, and soon you’ll be giving them personalities of their own.

“But… no! Friction and motion are mortal enemies! I watched the battle the other day, and light and sound were the moderators. They always seemed the calmest of the lot.”

People will argue about who like who, and who hates who, and who is better, or ‘gooder’. You’ll have Physikmon cards, and people trading, and trying to attain the perfect set.

“I’ll trade you sound for inertia.”

“What’s in it for me?”

“Sound diffracts easily!”

Possibly games for consoles, “Beat the Phenomenon” (Probably originate in Kerala, that one.)

An entire franchise, millions to be made of all this, all because some teachers are routinely personifying physics. Very cool, I think.

Although it is a very effective way of teaching, for people who have issues visualising, they just attribute it to the personality of the phenomenon, and that’ll be their explanation for a long time, or even forever.

This is a cycle, because if they go on to teach, then they’d teach the same way, and the kids they teach will teach the same way, and et cetera.

Although it is wrong to personify these things, they get the concepts right, and I suppose that’s what it’s all about.

I just find it downright hilarious.

Criminal Masterminds.

I saw something very disturbing yesterday in the papers.

Apparently during the last elections, in 2004, some 45% of our elected representatives had criminal records. Not like nice little amusing ones like road rage, or Grand Theft Auto, but ridiculously serious ones like murder, rape and extortion.

And they’ve all got sentences of more than two years (minimum) and apparently you can’t stand for elections if you’re a convicted criminal and have a sentence of more than two years, yet these people, quite chilled out, stand for elections, and get elected.

Anyone else spot something wrong with this?

And besides, even if they do stand for office, it would be nice if they have some plans for the city/state/country, instead of here, in singara chennai, we’ve got dear old overweight-lady, and senile-man, promising free rice and free colour televisions to people who vote for them, instead of really telling us what they’ve planned while in office.

On the other hand, when Obama was standing for election, we knew exactly what he was planning, with respect to Iraq, and Afghanistan, and the economy, and health care, and little old ladies, and stores, and kitchen wardrobe styles, Paris Hilton, New York subways, sandwiches…. you get the picture.

When our local goondas stand for election, we’ve got nothing except bribery. Bribery on a large, large scale. Sure, people argue that since a majority of our population is illiterate, there might not really be any point in telling them what is going to happen in the office. But they’re only illiterate, not stupid. That’s why you’ve got the televisio- oh. Is it even possible that our cranially challenged leaders thought of this, and forecasted this?

Oh, no. Wait. Our leaders. Okay. Where was I?

Television sets.

Television sets. Educate the uneducated, or reach out to the illiterates and all that… do that, and maybe for once in your life, you would actually deserve the position of power you get.

Returning to my original point – what the heck are the courts doing, allowing convicted criminals to run for office?

Sometimes, I just feel like hiding in a cupboard until this all blows over.

Count The Shadows

You’ve got to focus on all the silhouettes that you can see, because if the number keeps on changing, then you’re no use to me.

Lines of the chorus from a song I’m strangely addicted to. It’s actually quite a bad song, and ridiculous singing, but a very catchy tune. Go look it up at - “Chameleon Circuit – Count The Shadows”.

Day Two, now. Still don’t quite know how I’m going to finish this stupid challenge.

Today we (read : I) will talk about music. More specifically, we shall talk about the performing of music.

I learn the guitar, right? And I’ve been learning for the last nine years, and I’ve switched teachers quite a few times, and the one I’m with now is clearly the best teacher I’ve had for classical western music that I’ve had, by a long, long shot. And along with me, there are some twenty, thirty odd students learning the guitar, not to mention the innumerable number of people learning the bane of all instruments, the keyboard.

I’ve got an issue with people learning the keyboard. Sure, it’s a substitute for people who have no space for a piano, or can’t afford a piano, but that’s not all they use it for. They use it as a beat provider, and as a synthesiser.

Don’t get me wrong, here. I’m not all against keyboards. Professional musicians use them all the time, to great effect. But the difference is, they are producing their own music, not reproducing someone else’s music with a glorified toy.

There’s a certain beauty, or talent, if you will, involved with playing an instrument… a real one. The guitar, the violin, the piano, the saxophone, the harmonica, the harp, the freaking banjo requires more talent to play than the keyboard. To play the keyboard as a keyboard, not as a piano.

Anyway. So I’m sitting in class, and listening to the keyboardist bicker, because I have nothing better to do, and this one girl is playing a sonata by Mozart on the piano setting, and it sounds really nice. Then the ‘senior’ there (Some frumpy girl with an attitude, who thinks she’s queen ‘cause she’s finished eight grades) asks her :

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“….? Playing the sonata?”

“No. You’re playing it on piano.”

“…. yeah?”

“It’s WRONG!”

“What?”

“It’s WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! There is PROTOCOL to be followed. You can’t just put PIANO!”

 

I could have shot her at this point.

Protocol? Protocol my aunt Martha’s fag end.

The moronic, ninny, nitwit.

Sad part is that she truly believes that’s how it’s supposed to be done. Now she plays the keyboard wonderfully, and I take nothing away from her, but in my opinion, anything that sounds good goes. Playing a piano sonata on a guitar mode on a keyboard… now that’s just wrong.

That’s like having sugar and ghee with your idli.

Just not done.

P.S – Nothing personal against said girl.

P.P.S – If you did click through to the song, yes, I like it. What? Yes, it is pop.

What?

Yeah. It’s catchy, isn’t it?

No, I’m not buying the album when it comes out.

Challenge : Day One.

Now I’m hoping I can think of a liiiitle more creative titles as this goes on, but it isn’t off to a very good start so far.

My excuse is that it’s one in the morning, and I’ve just done two mind numbingly boring assignments, to the sound of some absolutely stunner U2 songs.

Yep. They’ve got a new album. No Line On The Horizon, apparently. I didn’t know that. I always thought there was a line. Hm. Then again, you always learn something new everyday.

 

Today I learned that skipping college, and hoping to hell your professors will follow suit isn’t a smart thing to do, especially if you can’t skip more than 22.5 days a semester. Why the point five? I suppose they want to give us hope, only to dash it to the ground, roaring in laughter at our bewildered looks at not being given another half a day of attendance.

 

Half a lousy day.

 

But I’ve got nothing to complain about. I’ve got another two and a half lousy days to skip.

Although knowing my record for attending college, having two and a half days to last me a month isn’t such a great thing.

I’ve got five hours a day, six days a week. Contrary to the economics department of my college, who gives them three hours free, and two hours to recover from home.

Yeah. That’s their life.

 

Yeah, my life sucks.

A Challenge, Perhaps?

I spend a lot of time on the internet.

Far too much time on the internet. 

Although one thing I've noticed lately, is that people seem to be doing stupid things. No, wait. The internet has always been stupid. A look at Facebook 'discussion forums' and you'd know what I mean.

Anyway.

People seem to be doing a lot of pointless things, and having fun with it. 

On Youtube, there was a channel where these two people tried to make a video every day of the week. But they stopped. Tough.

And other people attempting blogging challenges.

So I figured, one post a day, for a month.

Why not?

It'll just be so much more waste in the world, sure. 

But why not?

So starting... March 10th, for a month (April 10th, for the slower ones out there) I'm going to try and do a post a month.

Feel free to avoid me like the plague once you're done reading the drivel that I'm about to produce.

Sen-tient Beings?

So if you live in India, and have half a brain, you've probably heard of the pub-thing at Mangalore earlier this week, or month, or something like that.

Oh, last month apparently. End last month.

So.

If you live in India, and have half a brain, you've probably heard of the pub attack case late last month, and the tremendous fall out from it. 

Here's me, giving my two cents. Or less, as will be evident from the value of the following rant (?): 

Sri Ram Sena, the self professed moral police of India, just can't seem to get enough attention. Well, admittedly, seeing your name in print all over the country, and all over the world isn't something to mock at, although I'm sure people would love to appear in the news for all the right reasons.

"Hero saves day. Stops runaway train with bare hands"

"She stopped the plane from getting away with my husband : Woman-with-a-husband"

You know, hero-like feats, and general niceness. 

"Man beats up girl in pub"

"I hate women who are smarter than me, so I shall kill them - Sri Ram Sena guy"

Those aren't what people would like to be in the news for, generally.

But our dear friends from the Sena have broken all rules, and the rebels want to be in the news for those reasons specifically. 

The stupidity of the acts make it seem more like a bet, but apparently not. These guys really are that dumb. And they have egos to boot. Which gives them this 'master-of-all-the-world-known-and-unknown' complex. Not something nice to have, when you feel intellectually challenged by the less cranially gifted teaspoons. 

They've taken it upon themselves to stop 'the failure of morals in our country' or some other vague sentence like that. Just an excuse to beat up people, and vent their anger, the poor lugs.

Wearing jeans? I shall grunt at you menacingly.

Wearing tight jeans? I shall grunt at you menacingly and move agressively toward you.

Wearing tight jeans and have the misfortune of being a girl? I shall assemble forces and bodily assault you, until you see the folly of your ways, spawn of the devil!

Their views are completely hypocritical, and moronic. They don't do this to men, because obviously men are subject to different rules than women. One of the plus points of having a larger brain, right? 

And quite obviously, just because people wear jeans, their main aim in life is to walk around the country, untying the knots that hold our moral fabric up.

And furthermore, beating them up isn't wrong at all. Since violence in the name of 'protecting Indian values is justified.

They've just issued a warning to couples in Bangalore to watch out on Valentine's Day, because they don't want them getting together on Valentine's Day, because if you've got yourself a girlfriend/boyfriend, then your moral standards are so lax, that the only way you will be able to rectify it, is if you're beaten to within an inch of your life.

And this is what they intend to do.

"...whatever our men deem necessary action." is what the head of the Ram Sena said. 

Bring out the axes and chainsaws, then.

In the face of all this, what does our government do?

'We are considering their statement carefully, and shall discuss aprehending them as a preventive measure.'

Really? Discussing? Discussing what? What to feed these people?

The only way these guys are going to stop, is if they're dead. Next best thing? A solid jail term. Probably won't knock any sense into their heads, since they don't have enough room left for sense behind all that fanaticism, but it's worth a shot, I suppose. 

All That You Can't Leave Behind

Society is strange.

Exceedingly strange. 

Like shove-a-fork-in-your-eye-to-see-what-happens strange.

'Kitchi!' I hear you cry 'Why this sudden observation? Surely you've noticed this before? But then again, you've got the brains of a monkey. We're not counting on much.'

No, I've noticed. Although a little while ago, I just learned how absolutely skewed our perspectives are.

So I'm surfing the Wiki page for 'Black Metal', and came across the following statement.

"...some musicians have been associated with church burnings, murder and/or National Socialism."

How skewed a society do we have to live in, to club murder, arson, and socialism? To add a little more perspective to this - two of them deal with death, destruction and other ghastly words, and one's a political view.

A political view. 

How in the world can we club murder, with a political view? 

Jeez.

But I've just clicked through to find out what National Socialism is. 

Turns out it's a facy way of saying 'Filthy Nazi.'

So clubbing them together is completely warranted.

Rant negated.

Eek. A Terrorist.

I've just realised I've been missing out.

While other people have been 

ripping the terrorists (who attacked Mumbai a bit ago. 26/11 as the media is cleverly calling it) to shreds at various points of time, I've just completely ignored them. Left to the government, they'd accuse me of marginalisation, and ask me to give the terrorists a special quota on my blog.

But I shall thwart their evil attempts by blogging the terrorists. Or commenting on them, assuming my usual position of 'I'm smarter, therefore I can make fun of you'.

I believe that terrorists shouldn't be shot. Oh, no. 

Ridiculed, sure.

But outrightly killed, by shooting? No sir. 

They could be killed by the old and wonderful method, of tying each limb to a different car, and driving each car in a different direction. That would be cool. Serve them right, too. Killing rich people? *gasp* We won't stand for that, will we? No sir!

We could try sympathising with them, sure. The conversation would probably go something like this :

"Look, you've got the brains of a coconut, and the emotional maturity of a two year old. I'll give you a room, which is completely padded, and has toys for you to play with!" 

"The toys are infidel scum! I shall vanquish all the toys in the world!"

So sympathising wouldn't work.

Another thing that amuses me is they way these wonderful creatures think. I mean, the one terrorist who was captured from the attacks, was wearing a fake Versace t-shirt.

Fake.

I mean, the guy goes to all the trouble of obtaining firearms, and comes to India from Pakistan in a boat, and he buys a fake t-shirt? He obviously hasn't thought this thing through. He's obviously doing this to attain Jihadi paradise. And what would the 72 virgins of uncertain gender think of him, if he arrives in a fake t-shirt? 

Stingy. 

He was probably given a couple of million bucks, for the whole job. 

Or not. I don't know. I have no idea what terrorists are paid, if paid at all.

Taking a leaf out of Chuck Jones' hat, we could do this. 

With a wall in the direction of Coyote. It'd make good television, at any rate.