Showing posts with label i dont want to live on this planet anymore. Show all posts
Showing posts with label i dont want to live on this planet anymore. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 04, 2015

Crackin' Intolerance

India is such a huge nation, that to see trash opinions being doled out by the political class, amplified by the media class, and reacted to by the cattle class is terrifying. Intolerance is the latest "in" thing, and we are made to believe that the government that has in past gained huge vote banks on intolerant lines has nothing to do with encouraging these intolerant opinions, and it is not in protocol to give an open condemnation; that this tolerance of intolerant opinions is coincidental; and that we should all agree, without protest, that there is no intolerance in our society whatsoever, and call it a "jolly good day" every waking hour.

Five minutes of listening to these opinions have shut down my pyloric valve. Severe constipation might follow, a psychosomatic response to the verbal diarrhea from these protostomes that encapsulate several prejudices in a pithy dispatch - such viscerally vicious statements should be met with body's autonomous response and nothing else.

People in this country have a very limited thought space, as is, and yet others litter that space with garbage with existential abandon, and make one completely resign to not thinking at all, or giving them a cleanup job that leaves no time to think. It reflects our cultural attitude towards  garbage - there is so much of it generated that we just quit thinking about it instead of formulating wise civic policies to handle that menace. Our streets and neighbourhoods reek of it sometimes, but that is okay, we can always insulate ourselves further, and even mislead our guests about our standards of sanitation and hygiene.

The only intolerance we should show is towards time. Time, that is finite, will not wait while we sit and discuss or try to understand the nature of our politicians and our politik, - their understanding of religion, their definition of patriotism, and the ulterior motives behind foisting such retrograde constructs on a contemporary society that is trying to match shoulders with mature, diversified, and tolerant societies. Time wants to talk about progressive concepts, breakthrough research, and here we are squandering our money, and airtime on whose shit stinks more. One could derive through calculations the money circulated in the system over our daily fix of offensive garbage, and wonder how they - the common man - is never in loop of that money circulation, and if such spending could have - rather unjudiciously - simply been doled out to some community in death throes, on the verge of losing their art, their culture, their tolerant heritage, their song and their science.

Even my last hour of the daylight, on the 11,091st day of my life was irresponsibly spent in this reaction. FML. FMP.

Friday, March 29, 2013

Sad Bus Travel

Feel stupid, feel naked, feel annoyed. And I'm paying 1200 bucks for this bouquet of negative emotions. Thanks UPSRTC, and thanks Delhi.
So it happens, add I just discovered enroute a bus journey to Delhi (in a Volvo, which is supposed to be the luxury way to bus travel, and costs thrice or more than the normal ticket) that the Delhi rape incident has affected our bus travel. Apparently, that crime inside a moving bus prompted the authorities to reach a decision to remove curtains from all buses - this far I'm only certain of the UPSRTC doing it. So now the passenger who pays a premium travels like a mannequin on display for all the traffic to see. Way to go.
Hope this stops all rape, especially since a curtained-moving-bus makes for the scene of crime for a majority of the rapes in or country... yeah?

So, traveling in luxury feels humiliating now. I guess someone is left happy.

Friday, December 07, 2012

Hoodie alert

"Idiots"
Had my own Zimmerman moment of sorts in the form of security guard and desk attendant who wet their pants seeing me in a hoodie. If not for an attempt to delve deeper into my social experiment, I would've just walked beyond the point where I'd already walked beyond them. But I turned around, anyways, pretending to have heard their shouts just then.

One has to be deliberate at mischief to both cause mischief, as well as to study the human psychology. After a long, long break I decided to wear my hoodie today. Winters are a good excuse for looking hip while wearing utility garments - the hoodie serving as a tee, a windsheeter, and a headgear at the same time, eliminating my need to 'gear up' as I went out. As with shorts, same with the hoodie - nobody takes you for a professional, or to frame it in other words "somebody out for generating value". They assume you're out for a picnic of sorts.

This 'picnic' front is greatly envied (and hence frowned-upon) by the blue-collared professional, and suspiciously looked upon by the security guard (who're so used to their kin looking all the same that they assume that professionals ecosystems of all sorts can't function without a dress code). When somebody doesn't fit into their assumptions, the blue-collared professional frowns harder, and the security guard starts making flailing gestures.

That is why professional environments look professional - because they make it difficult for the unprofessional professional to be, uh... professional. That is also why I call these professional environments and personnel 'superficially' professional - because of their reliance on a 'profiling' system; which is just another word for laziness. How else do you think social engineering works? - it's thanks to these retard profiling systems. It is also the reason why geeks hate these so-called professional setups. It is also why I can't function normally, since I'm already deprived of my freedom to cycle to work (yes, another issue, that), wear what I fucken want, and personalize my workspace (think coder caves).

So there I was, turning back to the security attendant who'd shown a great concern to investigate this hoodie hoodlum - ironically armed with a office laptop bag - to get her ass off the chair, and start in my direction. I am polite to those who show any iota of sincerity to their job.

First social tactic - I remove the hoodie to allay her suspicions. Lack of battle scars on my face, no missing earlobes, and a display of well maintained hair, and a groomed face, would make me approachable. It disrupts her belief chain.
"Sir, ID"
"I don't have one. You never ask for it."
"Its a rule."
"You never had this rule before... I just walk in all the time"
"We keep making new rules"
"Oh yeah? 'Making new rules'? Try coming at me with something else"
[I could see that we were going nowhere with this]
Since learning that the smile evolved from "monkeys and apes who often used barely clenched teeth to portray to predators that they were harmless", I regularly use it to the same effect. So, I push my eyeballs out and show teeth. She let me be.
Social hacks FTW.

But this is India, where hoodie isn't popular enough to be a symbol for anything. This is India, where assorted headgear are seen bobbing up and down in all environments. I guess these people rely not on a "looks suspicious" match, but rather on a "not one of us" match - so one who doesn't look like everyone else has gotta be disruptive. Disruptive indeed, today, but only enough to blog about it, and make a tiny dent in the universe.

To reiterate the rule, again:
Into some needless confrontation? - push your eyeballs out and show teeth.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Idol Crisis

It's been a while that I've been in mourning about the fall of Roger Federer in the tennis arena. He's been on a downhill roll, more so since my committed endorsement of this legend of the game. He did win the Wimbledon since my rant about that, but that was eclipsed by his loss record, and moresoever by Andy Murray's - one time Roger's least of troubles - double of an Olympic Gold (defeating who else, but Roger) and the US Open.

Next to come is Lance Armstrong, cycling idol (nay, 'god-worship' is a better word). Victories, allegations, denials, vanishing sponsors... in my eyes he's turned from a step up in the evolutionary chain, into a mafioso boss who pieced together an almost-perfect drug ring to establish that image. Having idolised Lance, I still expect some large undocumented void in this (ongoing) doping saga, and sympathize with the censure he's subject to in these days (but who isn't, the tale of the Tiger (Woods) - for mere infidelity - was a more lamentable affair).

2012 hasn't been good - I've had to drop two idols; and I'm already past that stage in life to be making idols. Should I just go further back in history to pick a figure that has sneaked away untarnished, flew away in his/her make-believe wings of gold?

Monday, October 15, 2012

High Hopes

The biggest developing news in our country is another political embezzlement scandal, the rape of a NLSIU (Bangalore) student inside the univ campus, and a celebrity wedding ("sangeet ceremony was a star-studded ball", one should revel in that fact). Now I know what India would be busy in the coming week - more protests - or, asses complaining about other asses, as it has come to be.

Meanwhile, in world, Felix Baumgartner jumped from the Earth's stratosphere to become the first skydiver to break the sound barrier, a feat unimaginable (or 'mystic') to a majority of India's populace. We are so up our own ass that we never really see any such cherished moments in our timeline anymore. Independence was it. (and my friends circles, enlightened by conspiracy theories, tell me that even that period wasn't one to feel inspired of) To find larger-than-life inspiration outside our history books is really difficult. If one looks to current affairs, the 'difficult' transforms into 'depressing'. Somebody balancing a watermelon on a 40ft pole situated on his roused privates on one of those talent shows is pretty much the best there is. Shabash!

Monday, October 08, 2012

Virgin ideas

One archaic concept still dominant in our present (Indian subcontinent) society is that of keeping one's virginity intact. Humour me here - so a girl could talk dirty, watch porn, flirt, go out, exchange saliva (and a variety of other fluids), let you annihilate their breasts, give and get blowjobs, let you finger her, even let you take her anally, and still call herself that - virgin? I know a lot through shared experience to register this rant - thanks, friends (and smaller subsets). It's just too hard for us guys to comprehend what a girl means when she claims being that. I guess is equally hard (or harder) the other way round, when a guy makes such claims.

It's quite like asking for vegetarian food, then being served a plate piled with dog meat, bull testicles, roast cockroach, and snake viscera, and then foolishly asking "you sure there's no chicken in it?" How can someone imagine us to believe in the concept of "virgin" anymore, and why are these people keen on passing this futile notion to their offspring?

Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Fight for Your Right

By the time I'd left the office, it was dark, and I was tired. Another inconvenient Tuk Tuk ride followed, and I was at Sikandarpur Metro station. That is when another tiring incident took place.

As I was standing along the platform balcony, watching the Gurgaon skyline and my office buildings visible in the distance, a security guard accosted me - these are CISF jawans (NCOs) on duty protecting this valuable commuter service, in the lingering threat of female emancipation and terrorism. I turned around to find three of them surrounding me. To lend from Ignatius Reilly, “Like a bitch in heat, I seem to attract a coterie of policemen and sanitation officials. ”

It seemed casual. I should've known that a facepalm moment was in the coming.

"आप काफी देर से खड़े हो..."
"हाँ, तो?"
"ट्रेन भी छोड़ दी अपपने, दो तीन..."
"तीन?"
"हाँ, मैं देख रहा था "
[in reality, i only skipped one train, which too wasnt bound for my destination, which I tried to clarify]
"एक ही ट्रेन छोड़ी है, Sir, वो भी सुल्तानपुर वाली "
"जो भी है, आप साइड से हट जाइये "
[what they were upto was herding bystanders towards the platform, at their personal whim, in the name of security]
"क्यों? मैंने क्या किया?"

At my protest, all three of them jawans grouped ganged up, and asked me to move away, as if their job was making collective strategies to abuse civilians and countering accountability. I asked them for names, but they were more insistent on bossing around. It was annoying, and annoyance is easy to read from my face - always look for that expression of 'ludicrous' on my face and a narrowing of eye slits and a confusion in tone (as a civil society in the urban world is one place I can't do with irrational argumentation - the truckers & hoteliers & dhaba owners & taxiwallahs & prostitutes & peddlers & pimps & the odd traveler, are few of those I've managed in the Himalayan outbacks - but never carry that expectation in the city).

Ultimately one nudged me from the right. It felt demeaning, and I demanded his name, but neither did he tell it, nor could I read his identity from his badge that his bulletproof vest shielded alongside his life. Some folks must have taken notice - of this young rebel, who stood not upto a mere tank which was lacking short range capability, but 3 Indian jawans which were getting as absurd as Monty Python Flying Circus (except that their manifestation in the real world is virally destructive) - coz after the next coupla' minutes of explosive confrontation when I looked around, there was a crowd around us, albeit one which dispersed as quickly on arrival of the next train (which demonstrates the great apathy Dilliwalas are known for).

Meanwhile, those 2 minutes... the guy to my left - the original accoster but the most understanding of them all and coincidentally the youngest, too - then called for a break in their BS, and 'informed' me about some girl's suicide from Metro stn a coupla' days back. Now this news I neither had knowledge of, nor I see why I should, since it holds no relevance into our ongoing conversation of why I shouldn't be standing at some particular public spot. Its no secret that someone committing a suicide is as random as it gets (had it been that girls wearing a chrome turban on their heads and a silken florescent scarf around their waists with a folded paper in one hand and a male iguana in another are jumping off gray-colored buildings fitted with marble tiles, then I could've understood targeting certain people with chrome turbans or silk flourescent scarves or male iguanas).
He also explained me a "profiling" process they use to choose their suspects. Bloody Morgan Freeman wannabes. I could reason me being taken for a suicide "suspect" (again its a random evaluation), but not why they had continued to harass me after having cleared their doubts. Suspects are prone to questioning, not harassment and ego exercises.

I was casual till this point, border line irritated, and arguing rationally against a rising barrage of nonsense. That is when the center jawan tried to use force against reason, grabbing me by the throat. I immediately pulled myself out from his grip, and began to billow in anger - it wasn't seething in anger types, but more of a disappointed anger ("why did I even start politely with these guys?" types). I demanded his (the middle guy) name, but again thanks to his bulletproof vest... But I still hadn't come to threatening them with a demotion, or Court Marshall, or an arrest for assaulting an officer (I was slowly being goaded into that), but with a more vehement, primal plea to respect the civilians who they can't push around like 'भेड़ बकरी'. There was also a line about me having spent enough time with Army, CISF, BRO, etc to know mutual respect. One of the bystanders also came forward to defuse the situation, calling me to calm down and the jawans to let peace be.

Dunno which of the features of the post-throat-choke argument it was, but the jawans soon relented, and didn't seem like they were gonna assault me. The left guy, again, was the most conversant (notice that the 'argument' had toned down into a 'conversation' now). We bullshitted a few lines - me against having to allay their deep fear of suicidal youth jumping from all metro stations [to think of it, I should've reasoned with, "सर, हाथ में ऑफिस का काम लेकर कौन ऊपर जाना चाहता है?] - which might've won me a round on dark comedy] - until the next train arrived.

As I parted their circle, they asked me my name, which I arrogantly refused to tell, starting at them again with an intimidating "क्यों?" and ready to face another round of bullying, but luckily civility seemed to have won, and it was the jawans who first game me their names, in response to which I went "Prashant, Deepak, Prabhat Bhaiyya,..." and shared my name. I then turned and shuffled into the train. As I left - and so did they alongside - the same guy who informally adopted the role of a PR Officer and saved CISF some grace - waved me, and I waved him back.

Let us see if we ever cross paths again, and how we reason.

"तू कूदेगा क्या?" ("are you gonna jump?")
"क्यों, आप पैसा दे रहे हो?" ("why, are you paying me for it?")
"दूंगा तो फिर कूद जायेगा क्या?" ("if given, would you jump?")
"कूद तो जाऊँगा, मगर पैराशूट के साथ" ("i could, but with a parachute")
[WTF expression on the jawan's face - priceless]

Monday, July 02, 2012

TOI - This Oafish India

Google News drew me to an incredulous headline: Beware of missed call to check SIM cloning

By the end of the article, I was in nervous splits. In splits, because the article is outright baseless and hilarious, but nervous upon realising the mass hysteria this is going to trigger (as already evident from its comments section). Such reportage - especially one that demonises technology - is a shame on our media.

Rushing to demonise anything alien, in fact, is a very effective - albeit skewed - psychological device to maintain any unit as a cogent mass, and we can see that in practice in our mass media sources like Times of India. When a news article bashing two things alien - technology and our (in this case) innocent neighbour Pakistan - comes their way, I can imagine the temptation for some junior editor to score double the points. Well done, Sir, well done.

Had it been the BBC publishing such an article in the UK, it'd have been accused of scaremongering and spreading paranoia, and probably there would be a public litigation to follow.

But in our great nation the general trend would go like this: 10000 media houses share this hoax as authentic news, then after a week, of those very 10000, 1000 media houses will declare this a potential hoax, then 100 media houses would actually press for factual information on this hoax, then 10 would ultimately conclusively find evidence against this elaborate hoax, then the same 10000 would declare it a hoax and deny any responsibility of its viral spread. This is where our space for reliable articles and intelligent opinion pieces vanishes.
The junta, subconsciously, seems to know the incredulity of reportage in India, which is why such news has a culture of just passing through without offending anybody.

That the comment space below the article has been reduced to noise - where such is the reader reward mechanism of ToI, that the more unquestioning-and-gregarious-and-eager-to-share one is, the more fancy badges they get - is why I'm commenting upon it on my blog. Pls take note, citizens.

Tuesday, June 26, 2012

A Feminist's Outrage

Just woke up from a dream where this girl applies black lipstick and proceeds into crude biological acts with me. My debauched ways - but that is okay, people are stranger.

But meanwhile, in the feminist circles, the lipstick is now giving way to a surge of [negative] opinions. Bloods are boiling after the European Commission came out with a 'breathtakingly sexist' science video, in their campaign to encourage girls to do science. In the ad, the apparition of a lipstick is replaced by a test tube, and then those paid models start dancing suggestively.
Like me, you'd also go "WTF - what does this have to do with science? Is EU sponsored by Revlon or L'Oreal?"



I think, that next, EC's gonna come up with quick Q&As of the following type
Q: What did the test tube say to the burette?
A: Fill me with your love fluids tonight

They could've simply used Amy Farrah Fowler for their campaign; she is much closer to what a science girl looks like - and guess what... its still fun! Is it so hard for a transnational organization to notice the social trends? Prof. Farnsworth, do I hear you fuming?


Monday, April 02, 2012

day 2/10, her 10/10

The beauty of life is seeing how misfortunes weave themselves so congruously, yet to silently, into life. I am disappointed over the matters of the day. Things were only so good as the morning breakfast, and the preprandial nap of 3 hours. For, upon my entry from a restless dreamworld, back into a calm-at-the-surface real world, I learnt of the disturbances on my phone in the meantime - there was Shiv up with something (that something most often relates to some financial calling), and then Yogi remembering me, probably for some envious fact to share, which could range from a noteworthy feat in the kitchen to a trip abroad doing one better than hippies to stop the N-bomb. And then 'jeet with a missed call, probably giving a green flag after having overcome the last hurdle of noncommmittal buswallahs for our Good Friday weekend's adventure. And then 'jeet again with a text msg. A msg to share of some health issues in the family necessitating him to change his travel directions - from our adventure in the hills, to his hometown in Varanasi. So, the FAIL begins.

Having the extended weekend back in hand meant I could revisit old threads/commitments. Sadly, Ethereon was located already stationed in Manali, him doing a solo array of treks in the region, after my straight refusal for this indulgent plan just a coupla' days back. I had imagined wrapping up the bike trip a day early, and doing a day hike with Ethereon on the last day, and thereafter returning together.
Sadly (to repeat), Yogi had also committed to Ranikhet plans to see his folks. Despite all my disappointment, he didn't miss on reminding me to get him the cookies, though.

Then a much-anticipated arrival of my cousin from a 7-hour 380km Hld-Lko drive in an Innova [a quick affair by any standards, one which might slowly wipe the opinional frown about the state of our highways and turn it into a smile; even Lko-Del stretch is pretty much tits now, as I myself had verified behind the steering of a Nano with O'Toole on the Holi weekend] But what evoked a greater emotion (Note: negative, personally) was a yellow envelope, whose contents kicked up the elderly at home (i.e. everybody) into a transitory frenzy. DB had been the carrier of this doomsday device, herself assigned the responsibility through her old folks, who in turn were helping out their friends (who are 'almost family').

The cool graphic on a white sheet slowly released itself from the papyrus, and the ink strands took me into a chokehold. 'कुंडली' - do you know what it means? I still don't, but at that moment I was being sermonised on this obscure astrological porn, and alongside being asked to evaluate this flower of a girl on glossy finish Kodak paper - which if I'd done approvingly, would've necessitated a complex-yet-common social process of what they call 'arranged marriage' (or rather "arraigned" marriage).

I am not escaping some reality. In my defense, this is not my reality. How did we get here?