Dear Sweet Lord!

Dear god, you know i don't ask for many things from you. Well, it is probably because i don't believe you exist. But hey, play along, alright? As you would hypothetically know, i don't like beating around the bushes much. No, sir. Catch the turkey, i say, and bash it's head right in. So, let's move on to business.

Now, living in a city filled with 7 million people, you would feel it's natural to dash into one or two souls once in a while. Or maybe you wouldn't know. Not many people make it to where you live, do they? You don't have to stand in the sweltering heat and wait for an overcrowded public transport vehicle with a score of other greasy people, beside you. Nor do you need to have your lunch in a canteen which is way to small to service the crowd that comes in. No, you don't. You don't have to smile and shrug away every single shove in your back when you're still waiting for those on board to descend. You don't have to control yourself everyday from turning around and telling the dimwit that two people can't be at the same spot at the same time and he's gonna have to ruddy wait if he wants to get on that bus. Also, if he has to satisfy his homoerotic fantasies, he can blasted well go and lay his hands on someone else. What's that you're saying? Oh, they're probably uneducated, malnourished or maybe just in a hurry to get somewhere. Yes, yes, i understand. You still can't get on board a bus unless the people are done descending, sorry. But, you see, down here, in the land of the petty mortals, we have these things called as colleges. They are supposed to be where people go to get 'wholesome' education. Etiquette and common courtesy, pretty much a part of it, you could say. What do i know of courtesy, you ask me? Well, skip along down here. Be nice to me, don't try to screw me over just because you can't understand me and you'll find out for yourself. So, at these colleges, we have canteens. We go there to eat food, hopefully with enough space so as to not spill someone else' coffee with barely a twitch of our nose. And, being the good boys that we are, we never forget to wash our hands at the end of our meal. To get to the wash basin earlier, we may cut in queue, push someone out of the way, simply use our hideous mass to plough through without as much as excusing ourselves and save a glorious 15 seconds. But hey, we wash our grimy ol' hands. That's what matters, right?

Now, dear sweet lord, don't get me wrong. I'm not a wimpy li'l crybaby who goes running home to his mommy whenever any small thing goes wrong. Mostly because i can't, but, you knew that already, didn't you? I'm all for everybody knuckling up and bracing themselves to live in a world where everybody is accepted and, as far as possible, every character, opinion and point of view be tolerated. Yes, what the H-man did to the J-s was wrong. But, there are other issues such as humour, such as personal taste which are widely hunted down and killed. Being politically correct is a pain in the you-know-what. And politically correct humour is not, should not and must not be the only accepted form. As long as someone finds it funny and it doesn't directly harm anyone, you're darn right, it's humour. And personal taste, oh almighty, is something everyone is entitled to, isn't it? Living in a world where Fat is the f-word, where you aren't allowed to say you like fair/dark people that bit more without being scrutinized and ostracized is a little trying at times. But hey, i'm a mere mortal, i'm supposed to bend over, aren't i?

Why i write to you, is to ask you to end this already. All the blabber above is just about strangers. You don't wanna hear me chatter about the 'near and dear' ones, do you? So, send over that great wave of yours, or come in yourself, riding on a magnificent white steed. Unleash Lucifer, if you will or just help Marvin the Martian succeed for once. You, obviously, can't or don't care enough to build an open-minded society. Why not screw us over, already?

Yours devotedly,
S.

Your Animal is the Owl

You are brilliant, but you keep your insights to yourself. You tend to be a recluse. Others are captivated and enchanted by you, but you hardly even notice. You have a powerful presence. You are passionate and strident. After a while your personality can be a bit overwhelming. You are quite misunderstood. You are more emotional and mystical than people realize.

What's Your Celtic Animal?

Mirror on the wall, go for a fall?

While i'm clearly not in as cheerful a mood as last time, thanks to 45 days of college and a set of omfg-internals, things have not been all that bad. I can now, at times, look forward to getting up in the morning and stepping out of bed. I can now, without tearing out my hair, look at people doing foolish stuff around me and move on. While i'm certain there are wiser men than me who probably smile a smug smile to themselves, i'm also quite certain that they are outnumbered by the men who don't deserve a dime of my time. Earlier, i'd probably stand and stare. Now, i don't really care. What brought about these changes? Why, the beach of-course. Sitting on a beach all alone in the rain on a pleasant day, ask yourself a few questions and you'll find out what i'm talking about.


All i'm saying here is that it seemed so irrelevant to waste time on investing in people. People change, they do. For better or for worse. And when people change, equations change. When equations change, emotions change. When emotions change, your investment Always goes kaput. Now, if you had to put in your time, effort and heart into something just to watch it all erode as time passes you by, i'd mighty well recommend that you do it in smething which is not as mobile, as versatile and as volatile as a human being. People are selfish, they are. Heck, I am selfish, You are. I like it that way now, dunno if you do. So, i sat and asked myself what the wise man would do. The answer was obvious. The wise man would be a mirror. He'd be a friend to the people who wanted to be friends, an acquaintance, a "business" partner, a companion, a chum, a buddy, a pal, an enemy, a back-stabber, a secret-keeper, a bitch, an angel. And at the end of the day, the actions are more often than not, justified. No, one doesn't turn the other cheek. One doesn't give back two either. One just returns whatever was handed out to him in kind. So, if you wanna give out some candy, good for you, cuz you'll get some back! So, Trick or Treat, you decide.


Besides, a mirror never stores reflections. And what you don't store, you can't be pensive over. And life, life's just way too short to play old filmi-style flashbacks. If you gotta refer to a movie, refer to Gump,"Shit Happens!". Move on. While it may seem like a cold-blooded tune to sing, it still is way better than weeping over spilt milk and thereby holding up the milk-line, if you get what i'm saying. Besides, who doesn't like the uber-confident, suave person who doesn't have a care in the world? Everyone wants to be one. It's just their bags of emotion that weigh them down. Cut-loose and you shall find.


Apart from all the gibberish i just mentioned, things have been rolling thick and fast. VITMUN happened, and boy, am i glad it did. My first score at MUNs, representing Netherlands, being called Netherlands, Sicily's pizza, Cotton candy, Special lassi, 85 bucks pizza, bleddy dorms, trekking 15 mins to the hostels, 2 AM staircase talks, drawing half-moustaches on id-cards, being wrongly mentioned in the press Again (this time for something Maldives did, bleh!), sneaking out of the college and having people freak out at the Bihari mess, meeting someone who knows Achmed (the dead terrorist, i kill you!), having a verbattle with China during unmod, and a lot more crazy stuff happened. A huge amount of gratitude to all them folks who were a part of my experience. Ta!

Cheers..

Flashbacks.. of a phool! :)

My my, it's been a couple of months.. And now, i'm back at college, preparing for yet some more education which Needs to be stuffed into my li'l head.. But then, that is something all of us don't wanna talk about, ain't it? What we do wanna talk about is what we did during our holidays! :) Me, for one, learnt a few lessons.. Wandering through the streets of udupi, loafing with cousins at my native place, sitting at a beach during rain in Goa, almost witnessing flash-floods, hitting on cute konkan shopkeepers, etc. are some of the things i just can't do without getting some actual stuffing knocked into my head!


The order of events is a bit hazy.. Guess that's why i should give my blog a wee bit more attention more often.. But i guess it all began with me pestering people for a (stupid) contest on fb.. Ultimately leading to me being able to give a 'treat' from pizza corner to my buddies.. It was, most certainly followed up with a slew of movies, at the now-so-cliche location, mantri.. The movies for which, i shall bother you with reviews of soon! :p
Soon, the travel bug bit and i was off on my way.. Mysore, as always, being the prime suspect.. Nothing but being fed delicious food and watching tv for a few days later, i was ready to get up and going.. So, i decided to go over to Balehonnur, right up near Sringeri for a while.. Little did i realize that, in small places like those, everyone knows everyone else.. So, it did come as a shock to me, when the bus driver, on arriving at B'honnur, lit up, offered me a smoke and asked me who i was there to meet.. I said i was from the "Pai Family".. Lo and behold, he began with a brief history of the family.. However, it was raining and i had no other shelter to stand under.. Besides, i didn't wanna be impolite and the driver took it as an invitation to keep me company till my cousins and uncle arrived armed with umbrellas.. "Adios amigo" happened and soon, i was under a roof.. Two days later, armed with a jackfruit weighing about 20 kilos and my travel bag, i was back on a bus to bangalore.. In between, however, i managed to wander the whole main street of B'honnur four times, up & down, with about 6 cousins in tow, in search of Ice-cream! Ending up with a measly vanilla cup ice-cream didn't bring much joy.. But hey, seeing what i thought was a ghost somewhere in between made up for it.. I also managed to convince my cousin to take me to the overflowing-with-rain-from-past-two-days Bhadra river.. Boy, joy that was, looking at the river from 15 feet away.. :-/ On my way back, we got that jackfruit rocked n' rollin.. And thus, armed with the "fruit" of my labour, i returned home.. :p

And then, La Furia Roja won the world cup!! :)



Then came a visit to the South of bangalore.. I was camping out at my cousin's place, which, btw, houses my adorable niece.. I was getting ready to be initiated into the world of MUNing.. Early next morning, i got into an auto (shocking, yes) and asked that i be taken to Kumarans school.. About ninety minutes and some backtracking later, i was on campus.. Two days flowed by, met a lot of really nice people.. At the end of trying to split India between China & Pakistan, getting the world to agree to complete nuclear disarmament & "Running out of time constraint" later, i had a certificate, a promised ice-cream and a whole new bunch of friends to show off! Plus, as an added bonus, we created a new "knock-knock" joke at Domino's.. ;)


This summer also saw me making a couple of extra special friends, who, before had been mere acquaintances.. One of them ended up paying a slightly disconcerting amount at Cafe coffee day.. But then, special days are just priceless.. When you read this, I hope it brings a smile on your face to know that you're remembered.. :)
Then there was a role-playing Ban-ki-moon, a HOP who reserved a place for me at the Lunch-queue and a host of others.. You people, smile, now! :)



By this time, travel bug got me, again.. Where to, but my sweetheart, Goa! A bus trip which involved me & my pal laughing like mad-men over two glorious SCPUC years later, i was there.. Went straight to BITS-Goa campus and must say, was impressed.. Crashed at cousin's place (Yes, I Do have cousins everywhere :p) & was off early next morning.. And then, the beach happened.. How i got there involved what is called a 'Pilot' service in Goa.. You travel pillion on a bike! Tourism being a mainstay in Goa, the pilot dude kept me well entertained, showing to me almost submerged huts and telephone lines.. But once i got to the beach, everything else was forgotten.. There is something about looking out and seeing the endless water till it kisses the sky at the border that i'd be stupid to try and describe in words.. And the rain only added to the joy.. One picture that will forever be trapped in my mind.. One other being a picture of the clouds in a pattern around the moon during BCD-1 with a dear friend of mine.. Yeah, you, smile too!:)


Goa is such a magical place.. I doubt you'd find any other place in India where anyone, irrespective of age/gender/status/position is addressed in the singular.. And then there is the Goan fashion, which regardless of age, is a true beauty in it's own.. So simple, yet so charming and irresistible.. Makes you wanna sing "Pretty woman".. :) Also, i doubt you'd find many other places with buses which have "Handy Cap Ceat" or "Complan Box" written in them.. :D


From the beach, i went to my Native deity's temple.. A brief visit later, i grabbed lunch at a place i knew from before, which seemed to be under new management.. On discovering that i spoke Kannada, he proceeded to give me advice on love, narrated his love-life in a detailed fashion and then told me about how "Duniya Vijay"'s movies were popular even in Goa because of his body! He further went on to tell me how the people of Goa were rude and spoke in singular.. i had half a mind to tell him that, back in his home town, bus passengers or even the conductors would hurl abuse directed at the very beginning of your lineage, which was something which i'd never seen at Goa, ever.. Also, that the use of singular terms to address people as a sign of endearment.. However, seeing as he was the one whose shop was sourcing my Chapati, Dal fry and Tea, i decided against it.. Smart, eh? And then, came the ever so beautiful train ride from Goa to Udupi..



Much though i'd have loved to explore udupi, the constant rain kept me indoors.. I was all the better for it since i got to spend some quality time with another of my nieces, who, btw, paints Really well.. But then, i chose a bad time to go ahead and gorge myself on a meal at Udupi's famous Hotel Diana.. As a direct consequence, also having booked the absolute last upper berth on a sleeper coach, had a miserable first few hours while returning to bangalore.. Piece of advice, if you're travelling by sleeper class, Never take the absolute last berth.. However, as my stomach eased up, i faced a different problem, Insomnia.. So, a lot of texting, attempting to headbang to Pinkfloyd later, i was back in Bangalore, home alone for a week! ;)
A lot of what my future had in store, unfolded bit by bit.. As it shall in my next article! Cya! :)
Cheers..
Shreyas!

The curious case of the conductor who smiled!!

So, i'm getting into just another bus.. And then i look into my wallet for exact change so that i can hand it to the conductor and he wouldn't scowl at me and behave like he found me peeking into his bedroom at night.. The cost of the ticket happened to be Rs. 5.00 and alas, i discovered that i had exactly Rs. 4.50 in my wallet as change.. Well, you may suggest that he would have had change too, but, conductors don't take kindly to being given Rs. 500 notes for a Rs. 5 ticket.. So, i waited, quivering, for him to approach me and ask fr "tickayyyt", which he dutifully did.. So, i handed over to him the change i had.. Lo and behold, he broke into the broadest grin i had ever seen a conductor giving and said "Naalku vare ide".. So, i returned the smile and he moved on with his 'collection'..

Now, what that did to me was something strange.. For the first time in weeks, it got me thinking about what mattered to me the most.. Do not ask for a link between the two issues for i cannot provide one.. And i contemplated.. Was it the ppl who mattered or the smile? Was it the place which mattered? Or the mood? Or the occasion? Or the feeling? Would i be able to feel happy if i were to see a stranger, totally unrelated to me smiling in pure joy? Would i feel sad if someone i knew were to be undergoing a rough patch? The answers i came up with surprised me a bit.. And i'm pretty sure that you'd amuse yourselves too if you asked the same question..


And then, it was clear.. It was all about the collective conscience.. Yes, i would be happy if i saw a stranger crying tears of joy.. Yes, i would feel the pain of a dear one and yes, i would sacrifice a part of my happiness for the greater good.. Unfortunately, not many, today, seem to echo that sentiment.. It's all about you, your food, clothing and shelter.. It doesn't matter if someone's child is born with three legs and five hands because of some chemical factory.. You need those chemicals for the battery to run your ultra-expensive classy elegant car.. If you were to walk the 500 mts. to your neighborhood grocery store, what would the difference be between you and your lowly eco-friendly neighbour?? He deserves to be shown, the world deserves to be shown that you are above them, all of them.. Ha, why such issues, it's so darn important for you to show your 'false-best-friend' that you can get more marks than them, you can sing, dance, jump, run, swim better than them.. You're, ofcourse, smarter, more sophisticated and better than them.. Why, they are so foolish they don't even realise you are their 'best-friend' only for that reason.. You could even take over the world if you wanted to.. Right?

WRONG, i tell you.. And i shall say it to each of your faces if i have to.. We need to realise that we stopped being human ages ago.. We stopped being human when the first slave was enslaved, when the last dodo was killed, when religions divided us, when radioactive bombs were dropped, when money took over, when we stopped being social animals.. Yes, we have stopped being social animals.. The part of us which was supposed to Care, just died.. And unless we care, we can't be human.. Two things govern the world today, Lust and Rage..

Lust, being what it is, makes people do crazy stuff.. There are either ppl who are smart enough to get away with it or ppl who will end up being termed creeps.. Yes, this is what prithvi means when he says Raging libidos and i completely fall in line with his views..

Rage, now, is what is more dangerous.. It is a multi-faceted foe and unless we overcome this foe, who lies in each and every one of us, we shall not progress.. Rage arises from the desire to seek revenge, from envy, from helplessness, from unfairness, from rejection, from dissatisfaction, from greed, from the need for power, from the need to be better than the rest and a lot of such stuff.. What it leads to is futile attempts at achieving your goal.. Even in cases where attempts aren't futile, one must bear in mind the cost at which success is achieved.. No, it isn't right to have a person "taken-out" so that you can occupy that person's position, no matter whether you can be traced or not.. Nor, should it be right for you to go and perform the miracle of "tit-for-tat".. Why? Because that is what makes you different from them.. Because you, atleast, must try to be human.. Yes, defend yourself at all costs, but never be the initial offender.. Also, be smart, stick to the people who care for you.. Trust, once broken, will rarely be the same again.. If someone looks out for you all the while and sticks to you, ask yourself whether it is because they care.. If you realise the answer is yes, never let go.. Be smart like that..

What the world needs is more people who are human and who care.. And perhaps, through that, more conductors who smile.. :)

Hope..
Shreyas..

********* Update *********
Well, i was thinking some more about it yesterday night (What else would i do with a caed exam on hand?).. And i just thought of a couple more examples.. There is this li'l country called the U. S. of A. .. Well, to start of with, they were nothing but a bunch of hobos, like they think that the people in thirld world countries currently are.. But then, along came those wars of damnation.. Did they care? Were they Human? No siree!! All they wanted was to make money.. They had the industrial revolution in their stride, didn't they? So, off they went, selling arms left right and centre.. Now, when they blame Hitler and Mussolini, they conveniently slip themselves off the list.. But the rest of the world ain't blind now, is it? Also, their policies of You drop one bomb on us, we'll drop two and You take down two towers and we'll take down two nations hasn't really gone down well with the rest of the world.. This is because they aren't as stupid, blind, haughty, arrogant, ruthless, robots.. The reason the world hates the US of A is not because they are jealous, it's because the US are being snobs..

On the other hand, take India for example, whatte beautiful nation.. Whatte peaceful people.. Whatte friendly government.. Yes, there is corruption that nauseates.. Yes, there are women being raped, children being abused, wives being beaten, senior citizens' throats slit, fetuses squished, extortions happening, police hand in glove with the culprits.. But, we still have beauty, we still have the Taj mahal don't we? All is well.. Yes, the economy is booming! No matter where the land to roll out your Nanos comes from.. No matter how many poor peoples' livelihoods it ruins, no matter the blood shed over it, no matter the govt. forcibly taking away land.. We still get our Rs. 1,00,000 car on time.. Yayyy!!
What, i wonder, is the difference between Pakistan which asks fr a piece of Kashmir (or the whole of it) and a govt. which snatches land from it's own people?
What is the difference between Pakistan which kills Indians and Indian Hindus who kill Indian Muslims in return? And between what Israel and Palestine are stuck at? Ah, yes, they are of different nationality.. So, that should be fine.. Question, WHO decided that it was fine to kill a person cuz he is of different nationality but not if he is of different religion? Isn't he still a human being?
Aren't you still a human being?
Seek answers..
Peace..