Me, Myself and KB

I called my sister today after couple of weeks, which according to my mother is a very long time and her five year old daughter picked up the phone. She became a bit too excited when she realized that it was here MAMA on the phone. Now, there isn’t much that you can talk to a five year old but sometimes they say things which make an impact on you. This post is a direct result of the question that she asked, "Mama, who is your best friend?” I know that it’s pathetic but all I could answer was “Call your Mummy.” When I thought about it, I realized that the closest thing to a best friend I ever had is KB.

When I first met KB, he looked like a creature from the superior side of the world. He looked like the IITian I always wanted to be. Now he pretty much looks like the guy I never want to be(A bit too skinny and no girl, other than the one his father will find for him, will ever look at him). With three fat books in his hand, a tired look in his eyes and a scowl on his face he was trying to get them issued from the Central Library. He was just about to leave, when I asked him to get a book issued for me too. I was too lazy to apply for the Library Card when compared with others in my college and had realized that if I dint act fast, all the pertinent text will be gone in no time. He hardly knew me back then but still he did me this favor, which till today seems like an unreasonable act to me.

I lived three rooms away from him for a period of more than two years and have known that KB would never deny a favor to anyone. I know that he is a bit too self-involved but who isnt? Its not like we never had any differences, as a matter of fact we had loads of them. He often accused me of generalizing, picking up weirdoes as COOL people and not being able to develop a personalized taste in literature. He often tried to win arguments with reason and I defied him by quoting examples from history, facts and statistics. None of us ever lost in a discussion but both of us always won.

When this semester got over, everyone started to head back to their old homes or their new jobs. KB was stuck here because of his pending research work and I had to rot in my hostel because my course requires me to spend this summer vacations in college. I never felt that I would miss any of my college friends because, forgive the cliché, it’s a girly thing to do. As I am writing this, KB is in a cab to the railway station, headed for a career in a company that does not deserve him. Trust me on this one, as KB is the only person I know who got a call from IIM-A but dint even bother to attend the interview. To end it all, I would quote Joni Mitchell from Big Yellow Taxi,
“Don't it always seem to go,
That you don't know what you've got,
Till it's gone”

Most Annoying Character In Indian Cinema

There are some characters we all love (Kajol in KKHH) and there are those whom we love to hate (Amjad Khan in Sholay); but have you ever thought about the most annoying ones? Well, Isha Koppikar made me think about it. So here are the winners of MACINC Awards (You dont know what MACINC is? Read the title, dude!!) :::

Bronze -- Sridevi in Roop Ki Rani, Choron Ka Raza for her extremely annoying voice and pathetic acting performance by her standards.

Silver -- Salman Khan in Hello Brother for the legendary, "Pungi Baja Doonga".

Gold -- Kareena Kapoor in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham... Do in need to state the obvious?

So people, lets here your views on MACINC. I hope that the number of comments will hit DOUBLE DIGITS for the first time after this post.

[ EDITED on Tuesday Morning, June 29th ] I am not talking about the actors as a whole, I am just talking about ONE particular performance. Most of us liked Isha Koppikar in the item-numbers but not in Girlfriend.

The Electronic Female

With the term, “Electronic Female” I am referring to all those females whom we find in chat rooms at some point of the day or another. I am aware that some member of this species will be reading this post and hence I have started preparing for the repercussions that might follow. Given below are some characteristics of the Indian version of these species:

1. Most of them are actually males posing as females. The percentage of such creatures goes up in the hours of darkness.

2. They will not have their own names as IDs but a twisted version of it. Few are creative enough to think beyond contortions but they end up choosing their names from a novel (Richard Bach and Mills N Boons predominantly), a sun sign or some constellation.

3. They will give you their original names within 15 minutes of chat.

4. They are extremely insecure about the way they look so if they send a picture, do not forget to complement them on the way they look.

5. They have a tendency to argue with you on each and every issue even if they agree with your stand.

6. If you divide India into 4 parts, North, South, East and West, the distribution will be : South > North > West > East.

7. Hyderabad seems to be the leader in the city wise rankings with Chennai and Delhi not far behind.

8. They will never ever ADD you to their lists so you have to take the first step. If you do ADD them, they expect that you should ask for their permission.

9. Yahoo "Books N Literature" room is the jungle where various members of this species can be spotted with ease.

There are many others but as my “ELECTRONIC FEMALE” has come online just now, I have to go and chat with her. ;)

P.S. All the above data has been collected through years of research and innumerable hours spent in chat rooms.

Ode to Holden

Rated: R ( For use of strong language.)

Don’t read any further in this post if you are a goody-good kitsch asshole. I have posted many others for people like you but this one goes out as homage to Holden Caulfield.

If you are reading this then you probably know what a blog is and in all likelihood you'll have one of your own. You often wonder that why your blog isn't as popular as some of the other pretentious bastards on the net who have got nothing else to do but brag about their stupid mundane life or voice their opinions about things that they can do nothing about. Then why do you do it? The simplest reason for this is the fact that as humans you are craving for attention and have a belief that you are the centre of the universe. You give too much importance to yourselves. You are part of a generation that has been raised by television commercials to run after things which do not make much sense but are a status symbol in the society. The whole fuss about a 1 GB GMAIL account all over the tech savvy community proves it. I know that you are lying if you say you never wished for a GMAIL account. In all probability you would have mailed your friends for it, contacted complete strangers requesting for it, posted petitions on various blogs, yahoo groups and orkut communities. Just look inside and try to answer to yourself, "Why do I need a 1 GB email account?" I doubt that the most common answer will be something other than status symbol.

Why is it that you can’t accept the harsh realities of life? Why is it that you are always looking for other people to approve your actions? Why do you give a fuck to what other people say about you?

I reread this post and changed all the WEs and Is to YOUs so that it makes a better impact. I am also a part of the same ostentatious world you live in and think like you do. And if there are some people who are still looking for GMAIL invites, mail me your full name and email address, I have got 5 left.

Is there hope ?

Al Pacino once said in an interview, “You are as good as your last movie.” and I think the same concept can be applied to blogs too, at least to the blogs like mine which have a very small audience. If I create the profile of an average visitor to my blog it would be a 20-25 year old male, probably IITian, who never really had an actual opportunity to be in love. The question that I want to raise now is “Is there hope?” Frankly speaking, I don’t think so.

Love, in my opinion, requires a certain amount of stupidity to become a real success. As the time passes by we become mature and finally reach an age when we judge everything rationally. The loss of rational is an extremely necessary prerequisite for love. Considering my personal case, which I presume is of majority of the readers, I was busy with studies in my high school years and I never looked so good that females would drop as I passed by. I had neither the time nor the inclination for the incidental fling in those years and never had the opportunity once I was out of high school. Spending four or five years in a college where the boy : girl ratio is 20 : 1, its human to give up on love. But, I don’t think that even after I pass out from here, I will have the chance to look for my soul mate. I know that I am not Richard Bach who could abandon everything and leave in search for true love. This happens only in books like “The Bridge Across Forever” or some Yash Chopra movie. Two years from now, most probably, I would be doing a 9 in the morning to 10 in the night job at a software firm which would not leave me any time other than weekends. Finding a girl in that time would be extremely hard as, lets face it, I would be out partying with my guy friends.

I remember Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption when he said, “Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.” Well, Mr. Robbins mine is taking its few last breaths.

Stairway To Heaven

"Some stuff that I might actually call shy and poetic if it didn't carry itself off so well."
- Lenny Kaye, Rolling Stone, 23-12-71.

Thats all... I know its hard to believe but it is the fact. The above were the only words written about Stairway to Heaven in the Rolling Stone review of the LED ZEP IV album and it was never mentioned in the magazine for the next 42 months. Hence,

"Never give a fuck about what people say."
- Ravi Handa, Intellections Of A Lesser Mortal, 21-06-04

UNTITLED

Spotted green lady in a sleazy bar,
She called me to the back room;
I marked bloody eyes in the mirror,
Her smile whishpered my doom...

Kissed her and held her tight,
I fell straight through the floor;
Looked up, white horses were all i saw
Went banging hell's big wooden door,

I looked rich in her eyes
True love, I finally found
Friends came crawling, calling me back
No, I'm not going to turn around
Not turning around...




If you are thinking who this is about, you din't get it...

Charles Manson : A misunderstood philosopher or a Madman ?

Charles Manson has often been identified with the devil of the modern generation. A lot has been said about his killings and murders but few people know about his theories. They are just looking at the image projected to them by the media. Few people are aware about his musical career and the fact that he released five music albums. The ideas given below have been collected from various sources and are not entirely original so I don’t want any accusations of plagiarism. Also, this is just a part of his philosophy which has a lot more dimensions.

In my opinion Charlie was more than an attention-craving madman. Manson and his friends were a part of the rebellion of the sixties. They rejected industrialism, consumerism and its poisonous society. They flaunted the use of hallucinogenic drugs and sexuality. They wanted to live their own way and not contribute to the destruction of the Earth.

He believed that the animal instincts, deeply embedded in our psyche from centuries of evolution, can be brought back to consciousness. Charlie has said that he is "spiritually allied with the scorpion and the wolf," seeing our evolutionary heritage as divine and powerful. Not separating Heaven and Earth, Manson combines both into a Shamanistic whole. Shamanism is an animistic religion of northern Asia having the belief that the mediation between the visible and the spirit worlds is effected by shamans (priest-doctors). Manson’s philosophy also encompasses something of the Eastern mystic. He sees all supposedly separate, individual minds as "The One Mind.” Born into these bodies we think we have separate identities. This is an illusion. Charlie sees the "Mind" as everything. Charlie identifies with the animals and their instincts as they are more in touch with the will of nature. In his belief humans were stupid and not fit enough to survive. His prophecy might come true any day as the world is facing the threat of annihilation by the nuclear powers.

To end it I would like to quote him, "Sure, I am crazy. It used to mean something in the old days. Now, everybody's crazy"

I wish I had.....

The main reason for writing this post in a lighter vein is the fact that my previous two posts have generated no comments which is a bit disheartening. But still, I am not going to stop trying. Why should I accept defeat before the judgement is passed, the world hasnt won yet and I havent lost.

Not to deflect away from the topic I have thought of some diseases which are more of a blessing than a problem. I seriously wish I had some of them. So here they go :

Insomnia is a sleep disorder characterised by an inability to sleep and/or to remain asleep for a reasonable period during the night. It will leave a person with so much extra time that he can really develop some skills, read the classics like War and Peace with ease, watch the rerun of the shows that he/she has missed during the week and many others which if I begin to list would put you to sleep.

Multiple Personality Disorder is another hep disease because it gives you the oppurtunity to deny responsibilty for your actions. It gives you the option to look at the world from a different point of view. Atleast it would have made Ted Bundy a happier person.

Selective Amnesia is one disease which I want my girlfriend (If I ever get one again) to have. Just think about it, wouldnt it be great if you could control the memories that she can retain. Aaah... This paragraph is nothing else but a case of wishful thinking gone too far.

Au Revoir

Google : The Big Brother

I am not able to conjure a better sobriquet for Google than the Big Brother and if there is a better one in your mind, please enlighten this lower mortal. An obvious reason for calling Google so is the fact that it has helped each one of us myriad times. Many people in my college, and presuming that its the condition all over the world, wouldnt have got their degrees with such ease without google. I know many people who have stopped going to libraries if they need some information. The reason being, which was aptly pointed out by one of my friends, "If its not on Google, its not worth enough". Now, looking at Google from an Orwellian point of view, it has changed the way we think. In this sense, Google is starting to define how the net is organised with its magnificent Search Engine. GMAIL is supposedly the next big thing in the EMAIL world. Orkut is gaining popularity day by day. Everyone's favourite search engine now also owns the world's most popular blogging tool. Isnt it just another takeover from a secretive, hyper-competitive company with no respect for the personal privacy of its users. Google, which was previously just controlling the information that we get from the world is now reading our thoughts too. Call me paranoid, but is 2004 the begining of an era which will lead us to Orwell's anti-utopian 1984?

P.S. I hate to mention this but I love google a lot and I am hoping that it would come up with new things to control our miniscule brains. One of my friends has already requested Santa Google Claus for a Messenger.

Paradox in ideals

All the teachings and preachings that I have read or heard have had some basic ideals, some bona fide concepts, some unquestionable axioms. I read about Nihilism today and it has left me befuddled. The concept of nihilism as defined by people far smarter than me is "Complete denial of all established authority and institutions." Is it something that we really want? As humans we have always wanted change but what would happen if Nihilism gains as the dominant philosphy in the world ? If there is no authority, no rules, no power position holders, what would we change? Ideals are supposed to be devoid of paradoxes but is that the case with Nihilism? If we accept Nihilism as an authority then how can we deny the existence of any authority. Hence just saying that "I am a nihilist." is no lesser a paradox than saying "I am a liar." On the other hand the concept has existed from the times of Demosthenes (c.371-322 BC) and is more than relevant in today's scenario. We are a generation that is raised more by TV commercials than by parents. We are used to things that make an impact on us in 30 seconds. We do not want to hold our thoughts for a long time. Nihilism is a constuct that we want, we need and should I say we deserve. It suits our 30 second mentality. I have said "I am a liar" in the past and so I feel no shame in saying "I am a nihilist" at this point of time, but not to forget that even this can fall prey to the hands of the animal we all call CHANGE.