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.