A cup of tea.

Democracy in the Dark Pool

2020-05-10T01:52:00.000+05:30

In the present socio-political setup, an army of mislead unintelligent people have been created to attack all legitimate examinations of establishment with whataboutery and illogical allegations of anti-nationalism with a sole purpose of preventing the right questions from reaching the right people. If a question is intelligent or fortunate enough to walk past this army, there is a second line of defence throwing question templates like – ‘It’s easy to criticize a government but what are you doing as a citizen?’ or ‘You are pointing all the problems that are there but what solution do you offer?’. To answer those questions, as a citizen we decided to chose a mister as our leader and equipped him with all the bureaucracy, teams of experts, authority over ministries, cabinets, treasuries, and gave him access to all the required infrastructure and resources to solve all the problems that are there. But then, considering how rigorous scrutiny and accusations the questions like ‘who is answerable for the incompetency of government we manifested our trust into?’ has to go through, these lines of defences surprisingly are proving to be beneficial for the mister. I’ll however, dare to ask few questions hoping that a nationalist and citizen of higher order will either let this pass to the right people or protect the right people with right answers.

The world is facing the Coronavirus (COVID – 19) pandemic and the Government feels that they are running short of funds and hence asking people for donations. Not that donating what one has in excess is a bad idea, but let us also not forget to look beyond the emotional cloud our psyches are blinded by. Moreover, charity is a voluntary undertaking but when Government cuts dearness allowances of all tax payers in the name of ‘need of the hour’, it becomes pertinent to ask what share of hit are they taking?

What happens when you run short of funds? Do you ask for donations? No. You borrow! You borrow when you experience a liquidity crunch which essentially mean, that you are taking a hit of interest on yourself because it was your responsibility to manage your funds which somehow didn’t go according to plan. In an event of your liquidity shortfall arising out of some unforeseen circumstances, your rich brother may bail you out but that’s discretionary. You simply cannot go to a bank and withdraw money from his account. Sadly, in the current scenario, we are the rich brothers and the Government has the unencounterable power to go to a bank and withdraw funds from our accounts.

Needless to say, the second line of defence of the mister will ask what solution do I offer. To their surprise, I have a solution to offer. To their disappointment, the mister already knows it but chose not to exercise and instead, circulated invitation for donating in his Prime Minister National Relief Fund account. The PMNRF in itself leaves room for a lot of legitimate queries which I’ll come to later, but first let’s talk about the solution which if exercised, will not be getting exercised for the first time in history and I am sure the kind of teams of experts our mister is surrounded with, he knows.

The obvious way-out of the problem is, instead of asking for grants and withdrawing funds from rich brother’s accounts, borrow! This borrowing not only will help in stockpiling the required funds but if designed efficiently will ease out the stresses on the Banks.

To understand this, one must understand how a Government borrows, and how Banks are stressed due to this pandemic.

An ideal amateur understanding of Bank’s business algorithm is that it takes funds from people who have excess of it (deposits) and offers to ones who need it (loans). The interest on loans are obviously higher than the interest on deposits for a Bank to garner profit. But in reality, the equation is not that linear. Banks do not sit with funds that they have accumulated as deposits, while waiting for a borrower to show up. They hate idle money, so they invest it, just like you and me. However, while investing, the Banks are required to comply with certain restrictions imposed by Central Bank (RBI, in Indian context).

The Central Bank which monitors all the other Banks in the country, requires the Banks to be mandatorily liquid at all times. Being liquid essentially means possessing assets that are either cash or are easily convertible into cash. For example, a person owing gold worth Rs. 50,00,000 is more liquid than a person owing a BMW worth Rs.60,00,000. So, obviously a Bank will never invest in BMW cars but can invest in equity stocks or corporate bonds of BMW company which can be easily sold off at exchanges thereby making it fairly liquid. Without getting into details of financial ratios of liquidity that a Bank is required to maintain, in a reasonably simpler terms, a Bank needs to calculate the total outflows of funds that it is expecting in the next 30 days, and to meet these demands it must have liquid assets of equal amount or more as on the date of calculations. As a matter of fact, just like equities and bonds, there are various financial instruments where Banks (and other institutions) can invest depending upon their risk appetite because each of the financial instruments has a fair share of risk associated with it. The riskier an instrument is, the less liquid is its’ asset quality. Similarly, the more stable, and risk-free a company is, the more liquid their corporate bonds are considered.

Evaluating how stable a company is, or the amount of risk that an investor will be exposed to while investing in the company, is the responsibility of rating agencies. For simplicity, a company rated ‘A’ by a rating agency possess less risk from an investor’s point of view than a company rated ‘B’ by the same agency. Depending upon such classifications of companies based on their ratings, liquidity weightage of their corporate bonds varies too. For example, if a Bank has invested in corporate bonds of a ‘B’ rated company (because it was giving higher coupon rate), the guidelines may restrict the Bank to assign that asset a liquidity weightage of only 75%, which translates into, that on every investment of Rs.100 into those bonds, Bank will assume that in a stressed scenario, if it sells those bonds, it’ll only receive Rs.75.

Avoiding the risk of intimidating readers by financial jargons and complex calculations, here is a hypothetical case study to understand the liquidity-stress the Banks are subjected to in this pandemic, in its’ most simplified form. Suppose on a given sunny day, a Bank has calculated that in the next 30 days, the expected outflows of funds from the Bank is Rs.100, which means on the same sunny day, the Bank should have a liquid asset of Rs.100 or more. The Bank is quite conservative in its’ approach and hence has maintained a liquid asset of Rs.150 to have a safety buffer of Rs.50. But suddenly a virus arrived and scared the hell out of everybody and forced to shut down factories, manufacturing, services, and what not. The companies in which the Bank had invested into through their corporate bonds are suddenly finding themselves out of business and facing a huge loss. This offends the rating agencies and they downgrade the ratings of the companies that are facing losses, from A to B. Because the companies are now downgraded, the liquidity weightages associated with their corporate bonds go down too and hence the Bank which had a liquid asset of Rs.150 on that sunny day, is now having a liquid asset of say Rs.110. If the ratings of the companies the Bank has invested into, go one notch down further, the liquid assets of the Bank will go below Rs.100, hence making the Bank insolvent on account of its’ incapability to meet its’ obligations of outflows. The Bank, hence, at a liquid asset of Rs.110 is in a lot of stress.

Having said all, if anybody is wondering what corporate bonds (or bonds, in general) are, and how do they differ from equities, – bonds are financial instruments that are issued by companies to borrow funds. Unlike equities, the investor does not own a share of the company by investing in bonds, but only grants a loan to that company at a specified coupon rate as a return on the investment. For any institution, Government bonds are considered to be the most liquid form of investment because the risk associated with a Government bond is negligible (yes, Government too issues bonds when it needs fund). For a Government bond (also called Sovereign Bond) to fail, the country has to fail, and it is less likely for a Bank to not fail before its’ country. Hence, for a Bank, a Sovereign bond is 100% liquid.

How simple the equation looks now! Banks need high quality liquid assets for coming out of stress, and Government needs funds for fighting the pandemic. How wonderful it would have been if Government instead of pickpocketing rich brothers would have simply borrowed the funds from Banks by issuing Sovereign bonds and at the same time would have brought Banks out of stress, meanwhile keeping the donation still a voluntary undertaking! But why to borrow money which is to be repaid when you can simply access the rich brother’s account? Why not to chip in financial jargons which no one will understand, to explain why Government can’t borrow and how it will widen the deficit which no one will question as to why it is not syncing in line with the 5 trillion economy’s promise? Or in fact, why to give any explanation at all when there are two lines of defences to slaughter all the questions that examines competency of the Government?

Invite donations and cut the DA! Easy-peasy!

PMNRF is the allocated relief fund where contributions are accumulated for rendering immediate relief to families of those killed in natural calamities. But somehow, based on some logics, Government decided that the ongoing pandemic doesn’t qualify as natural calamity, and set up a new fund called PM CARES to call for donations. There were recent debates on why a new fund has been created when PMNRF was already in place to which I don’t want to comment because that would mean, one among the two is better. Which is not the case. They are dark pools!

It is interesting to note that PMNRF is audited by Sarc & Associates, an audit firm based in Delhi. Yes, that’s right. It is not CAG, it’s Sarc & Associates. A spokesperson of the mister said, that we wanted an independent auditor to audit PMNRF account.

Let’s do this again!

It is interesting to note that PMNRF is audited by Sarc & Associates, an audit firm based in Delhi. Yes, that’s right. It is not Deloitte, it is not KPMG, it’s Sarc & Associates.

It is interesting to note that LinkedIn page of Sarc & Associates boasts how India is going to be a 5 trillion-dollar economy by FY 2024-25. There, in fact, are a lot of interesting things to note about Sarc & Associates. Sunil Kumar Gupta, the founder of Sarc & Associates has interesting achievements to talk about. Or if I can put it this way –

Government – Hey Sunil! There is an interesting show we are starting on Zee Business, that promotes Prime Minister’s Mudra Yojna. Would you like to be part of it? Hey Sunil! Would you like to accompany Ms. Pratibha Patil in the business delegations to Seychelles and South Africa to discuss bilateral issues between the two nations? Hey Sunil! Would you like to be a part of delegation from ICA of India to Vienna? Hey Sunil! Also, can you please audit this PMNRF account and see if things are in order.

To the list of interesting things to note, PM CARES is although not assigned an auditor as of now, but Government has given a clarity that it won’t be CAG but an ”independent auditor” who can be once again presumed to be Sarc & Associates considering that along with boasting about a 5 trillion-dollar economy, its’ LinkedIn page is also encouraging citizens of India to donate in PM CARES.

I’d dearly hope, and would still like to believe that Sarc & Associates are ethical, Government’s efforts are in the right direction, their strategies might have a legitimate sagacity and rationality. I am open to all the possibilities but only until arguments are not countered with noises, questions are not silenced with whataboutism, concerns are not slaughtered with allegations, and the faith that we have vested in our Government is not shattered by arrogance.

Until then, I have reasons to believe, that everything that happens beyond public appearances and articulatory oratories, happens in the dark pool. And the lines of defences must understand which side they must face while raising fingers, because it’s about time when we’ll be losing our democracy in the dark pool.

Peeing on the grave

2019-03-09T20:40:00.000+05:30

Despite the fact that a tiniest of error would cost him his life and Troy, the ongoing battle, King Priam, in the darkest hours of night, went to Achilles’ camp to plead for his son’s dead body which Achilles, after killing him had kept in his captivity, robbing him off of his last rituals. Achilles, although being an enemy, was moved by Priam's gesture and returned him Hector's body and promised a truce of twelve days to allow the Trojans to perform funeral rites for Hector. Priam returned to Troy with the body of his son, and it was given dignified funeral honours.

Not only in Greek mythology, but also in the community we live, ‘Shok Sabha’ is organised where we gather to offer our condolences and pay honour to the deceased for all their contributions to this world, be that in any form. Even the persons one has always lived in disagreement with, come to put an end to their differences and acknowledge the worth of the deceased in the society. Although, few argue against this practice, calling it ‘pretence’ and ‘fake’ but the notion behind paying testimonial homage and commendations is, setting a moral persona of the departing soul; untarnishing the spirit and establishing an image for us to remember the nobility of the dead.

So it was upon King Priam to decide whether Hector should be remembered as the man who was killed by Achilles, tied to his chariot and was dragged to the enemies camp or, the brave leader who he’ll be claimed to have been in farewell speeches of the people of Troy in his dignity. King Priam opted the latter and hence risked his life for procuring Hector’s dead body.

We remember Hector as the man who stood for the honour of Troy, fought for his brother and his people. We remember him as the glorified warrior who died combating the man who was known to be immortal!

The act of remembering someone isn’t just an algorithm for sustaining the structure of a society, but your entire identity, foundation and school of thought depends on how you are remembering the people you are remembering. For example, in July, 2016, ‘Hindustan Times’, published a story where it reported that actor Naseeruddin Shah believes that late actor Rajesh Khanna’s entry in Bollywood changed the way films were made, but not for good. According to the report, he also said that Rajesh Khanna was a poor actor and his era of acting was an era of mediocrity of Bollywood. The credibility Naseeruddin Shah holds as an actor, changed the way his fans used to remember Rajesh Khanna. The memories of same Rajesh Khanna which were filled with ‘Anand’, ‘Kati Patang’, ’Amar Prem’, and as a pictorial representation of the evergreen voice of Kishore Kumar, was adulterated with doubts of him even being a good actor. In Rajesh Khanna’s defence, Twinkle Khanna, his daughter, replied to Naseeruddin Shah through a tweet saying, ‘Sir, if you can’t respect the living, respect the dead. Mediocrity is attacking a man who can’t respond’.

Naseeruddin Shah, as per democracy, is rightfully entitled to have an opinion but was it required to dishonour a man’s entire life and an institute’s entire era by calling it an era of mediocrity which was generally known to be a golden era of Bollywood? Was there no other way to put his opinion than to discredit a man’s entire work, who must, on his deathbed, be lying satisfied thinking about the fact that he did justice to his institute by giving 15 consecutive solo hit films?

Declarations like these not only change the way people look at somebody, but also fabricate the history of an institute; Bollywood in this case. Because as Twinkle said, the man is no more to undo the damage that has been done to the memories of his existence. The man has probably lost the co-ordinates he earned for himself in the mapping of history and sadly, he didn’t have the opportunity to fix it!

It’s 2019. We have grown almost 3 years older since this incident but, did we really grow up? Because in 2016 it was Rajesh Khanna and in 2019, it is Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Sardar Patel, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Chandra Bose and many more. A certain section of the society is practising this idea of demeaning historic leaders of opposition to earn some political benefit in the coming Lok Sabha election. The humungous circulations of questions, being raised to justify the credibility of our leaders of the past, on social media under the banner of election campaign, is not just adulterating our memories of these great leaders but is also tarnishing the history of our country. The same leaders who lost their lives fighting for country’s independence are being charged with having alliances with the people they were fighting with. And sadly, just like Rajesh Khanna, they are no more to answer to those questions.

How unfortunate is this, that the people who believed that their martyrdom will be paid off with honour, that their contribution in the freedom struggle will be paid off with respect, that their death will be paid off with immortality, are being accused of treason!

And all this just for winning an election! The campaigns for the elections are being designed in a way which could hit our psyche and change the way we remember our history and historical figures. To win a Parliament for 5 years, the campaign has been designed to destroy decades of our narratives forever.

It’s time for us to understand that no matter what outcome the election will bring to the political party of our choice, no matter who wins or loses, the glory of our leaders should remain intact, the sanctity of our history must remain intact, the decency of our ‘Shok Sabha’ must remain intact. It is for us to understand that the polarisation on the basis of our political opinions, is blinding us too much to hold on humanity. It is for us to understand that unlike King Priam, we are digging our warriors from their graves and dragging their bodies in the battlefield.

The greatness of our Hectors must remain intact!

Jai Hind!

Youth-anasia

2018-06-25T12:49:00.001+05:30

When one of my dearest friend texted that he feels that life after college is being deteriorated with every passing day, I ran a poll on Twitter that resulted in 70% of the voters admitting that their life after college is actually being degenerating. Post-graduate depression is not a newly introduced phenomena but yesterday when an apparently happy-go-lucky kind of guy tweeted publicly that he is going to commit suicide, it occurred to me that millennials are required to be reminded that they need to update their system’s software.

Do you remember your parents and relatives convincing you how your next academic year after 10^th grade will become easy and negotiating to make you more attentive towards your board exams? And do you remember your academic graph falling like the Sensex of 2007 in your 11^th grade? Of course you don’t want to remember that but the fact is, a major syllabus transition required you to redesign your learning strategies which you couldn’t realise on time and hence the index fall of 2007.

Life after college is no different. The idea that your interests and hobbies are the key ingredients of the personality you posses needs to be rethought. If a student’s college experiences are mostly positive, college provides a cocoon of sorts: a community of friends, teachers and mentors who are mostly readily available to offer support or advice. Graduating symbolizes a leap into ‘adult’ life, leaving back all the ecstatic existence you created back in college, which is a huge transition and if not tackled on time generally leads to an abnormally negative perspective, decreased motivation to get out of bed, a general sense of hopelessness and, occasionally, substance abuse.

Getting out of college actually is the most vulnerable time when a person experiences things like goal-lessness, job with no mental satisfaction, relationship failure, sudden burdening of responsibilities, symptoms of sinking health, and realization of not being the ‘special one’. So, when someone tries negotiating or convincing you by claiming that it’s a wonder ride after your pedagogical life, just know that it’s a trick. But until our colleges and universities that value the mental health of their students, come out with a plan of offering some sort of transition course making them aware of the struggles that may await when the utopian world vanishes the day after graduation, it is for you to understand that you have entered an altogether different phase of life that is susceptible to a decline in magnitude greater than the index fall of 2007.

However trivial it may sound, but it is not unchallenging to admit that one is hit by depression or is confronting a degrading personality because it won’t just sync with the charismatic and dynamic persona one has in his paradisal days of graduation. So, the guy admitting that he is depressed and couldn’t take these changes anymore and wanted to commit suicide, is actually at a head start than those who have hallucinated themselves postponing the inevitable introspection they are going to get hit by.

You know that things aren’t going the way you fancied them to be. All you need to do is, not quit.

Why to not have a Facebook Account

2018-06-09T21:29:00.000+05:30

The not so technical and the not so ‘giving a damn’ about data leaks people can relax as this article is not about Facebook-Cambridge Analytica data scandal of collecting personally identifiable information but is more towards how your ‘I hate politics’ opinion in the ‘Political views’ column of Facebook’s purportedly know-your-client section, is gradually changing into something that can be metaphorically described as ill-knead, naively rolled and half-baked Chapati, getting puffed towards taking shape of a country which, unfortunately, is India.

Considering the psychology of humans of hating or being indifferent towards things they don’t know about, ‘I hate politics’ opinion can be deducible to safely assume that ‘I don’t know much about our country’s political atmosphere’. It’s probably this data of number of people who hate politics (which I reckon to be in lacs), is something that must have encouraged political parties to set up their own information technology cell to shoulder the responsibility of kneading your raw brain and shaping it into a political party’s symbol. Please don’t ask how political parties know that you hate politics because for that I’ll have to go into the scandal that I promised not to.

You’ll, I suppose, will appreciate the fact that the efficiency, these IT cells work with, is directly proportional to your hatred towards politics, your lack of political knowledge, your inability to differentiate between an authentic and a fake news, and in some cases your dependency on bizarre political memes as your life support system. Needless to say that the number of people hating politics is so large that it provided a dream platform for the employees of these IT cells to cash-in brownie points for their annual appraisal. Soon, political discussions began to trend, unauthentic news and fake information took over, and people with ‘I hate politics’ opinion felt left out and deemed tagging themselves with a political party as an absolute exigency.

Not that I don’t advocate having a political opinion but this, unfortunately, instead of making people logically aware of their country’s management, created a lot of adamant, non-compromisingly opined, and close minded nincompoops. It was to my surprise when I met a guy who didn’t know the Indian State where Godhra is geographically located (Yes! Such people exist), was into a textual altercation with a person supporting a different political party than him. To add to this trauma, instead of questioning their elected representative, they have voluntarily taken a self-imposed obligation of defending the political symbol their brain has transformed into.

The IT cells have redeemed so much out of your half-witted debates and baseless political discussions of defending your choice of election that if I say that the current era of political power can be summarized as manufacturing controversies to polarize voters, it won’t be completely inaccurate.

The problem with having skyscrapers of political opinions on foundations hit by an acute attack of shallowness, is allowing the unscrupulous political parties to thrive for eras one after the another, distancing our nation yet again from an unimpeachable management and virtuous representatives for a generation or two. Now that our country again is in election mode, and these IT cells again will be into the fully fledged business of shaping your unscholarly political mind to their advantage, deactivating your social account, the timeline of which is suffering from an unopposed encroachment and making way for yourself to scroll down the timeline of independent India will account for a major contribution on your part for a better tomorrow.

PS: I have not yet touched the ‘3-seconds-share’ thing. That’s altogether a different issue.

Making FOE, a foe!

2016-06-02T00:24:00.000+05:30

I think it gained momentum with Twitter, if not started, which provided a platform for common people to connect with celebrities. Generally, celebrities have oodles of fans who are devotedly self employed at applauding, admiring, congratulating and singing songs of glory for their icons. So adding another song to it wouldn’t have paid a penny hence few decided to try their hands on talking objectionable about them. Using degenerating language for celebrities and demeaning them in the face not only made those few noticeable but also pleased their ego like the cat that’s got the cream. This began to trend.

Soon, controversial remarks and unprincipled stunts began to evolve as a rapid route to publicity and few opportunists like Poonam Pandey, cashed it remarkably. The trend further levelled up and a group of people deduced that our country is now ready to host a contentious show like AIB where celebrities are subjected under humiliation and embarrassment; a concept that is widely popular in western countries.

What they do in the Indian version of the show, AIB, is cross the already drawn socially acceptable lines of cracking jokes to crack jokes. Their argument in support is “Thousands of criminals and rapists are roaming free and you are outraging over a joke cracked by us comedians” but sorry to say that “Thousands of criminals and rapists are roaming free” was supposed to be a worry, not an excuse. That it’s not illegal what you do is grantable but can the law institute such set of rules to which you can comply with while cracking jokes? No, because jokes thrive on your sentiments, experiences, personality and many such idiosyncratic events and profiting on Government’s helplessness to technically frame a set of guidelines for it, makes you a person who flourishes on democracy’s loopholes suggesting, you technically didn’t break it but contravened the intent of the law.

That is where social norms come into effect. Social norms can make rules where the law technically fails. Although most of their rules are arguable and can be discarded without having much of consequences to face but certainly not this because in a subsequent time if a guy smacks a joke on your face about your mother diminishing her to an ill-repute, all in good humour, you can’t do a trifle because he is well within the boundaries of law and if at all you’ll react in a fashion similar to how you are expected of, that will be illegal. So what we can do from here is keep advocating their sense of humour in the name of freedom of expression or think of drawing a line.

Free from any preconceived notion about him and his show and conserving all my even-handedness, last night I watched the Tanmay Bhat’s controversial video of Sachin Tendulkar and Lata Mangeshkar’s roast and found it to be very shoddy and extremely unintelligent. The least a viewer expects of your jokes is to be funny and sadly that wasn’t. Not only it was ill-scripted and disgracefully presented, it was also not comic which safely proposes that the video was just a tawdry stunt for seeking attention.

Few people campaigned for Tanmay Bhat asking why is he being targeted when there are thousands of twitter handles doing the same. Well, to them I would say, thousands of people are raping girls which don’t give me a license to rape one. Moreover, Tanmay Bhat is a public figure whom people take as a pattern making him socially more responsible and careful. Also it’s needless to say that the message is for all.

I am not antagonistic towards all of Tanmay’s work. In fact, I subscribed to few of them. I even didn’t lodge much protest to what they did at Worli on December’14 because the roasted artists had their consent for the show. But assembling mindless jokes on the foundations of vulgarity gives you an undeserved regards and uncalled messages which need to be confronted one of these days if not today.

The whole indignation can be summarised as, someone made a joke about somebody which few people didn’t like and hence are requesting him to stop. As simple as that! If at all it is requisite to use derogatory words, use it to make your point, don’t make a point to use it needlessly. The lesson for Tanmay to learn is that comedy is, cracking a joke without cracking a soul. Moreover with a built like his’, he don’t need to do third-rate tricks, he’ll effortlessly stand out in the crowd (all in good humour).

Heroic sacrifice of sacrificing heroism

2015-01-02T00:45:00.000+05:30

Dear dad!

How are you? I am doing fine. Dad, you might get angry at the first sight of this letter but please be patient to read it till the end. I made a consequential mistake but before things could go worse, I fixed it. I fixed it all up.

I fell in love with a girl. I am sorry dad. I am sorry that I failed you. You always implied to stay at distance from ‘Love’. I know that Love marriages are evil but I couldn’t resist falling in love with her. Believe me dad, I always did my utmost to maintain a stretch with girls especially those of other religions but somehow she managed to break my vows. I think ‘Love’ is a strong feeling dad. It overcame, despite all the resistances I offered.

I swear that I avoided her for long but I dissolved eventually. She cared for me like mom does. She had this magical ability to explore all the sorrows I tried to hide. She braced me like brother and abided by me like you, dad. She used to make me feel so distinctive and remarkable that I flunked to follow the lessons you gave me.

But be proud of myself dad. Although I discovered that there isn’t actually a control over this feeling called love, there are ways to avoid love marriages. Before my first mistake could turn into something more evil, I backed off. I left her into tears and backed off from letting things to worsen. She was heartbroken of course but she needs to understand that I sacrificed her for a greater cause.

I am sorry dad that I made a mess but I fixed everything up. I felt awful when she cried but it’s fine. I’ll be fine and she’ll be fine too in due course. Nobody needs to know anything. But dad, shouldn’t I be feeling heroic after this? Why I am having this villainous stir inside me? May be it is just a matter of time. Rest all is well dad. Hope you’ll forgive me.

Love

Your son

Femi-naive-ism

2014-05-18T00:34:00.000+05:30

She is my friend who is fond of wearing the shortest possible pants exposing the majority of her body which I never understood why! So I asked one day, “Do you always prefer this attire and is your family comfortable with it?” She replied, “You are talking to a strong feminist and you can get the hell out of business regarding what I wear and what I don’t!”

Now, there were two things I felt uneasy about. One, she acted rude and second, she had altogether taken the wrong turn while walking on the path of feminism. Although I get the hell out of that business but I had to respond.

I am not a man who is an anti-feminist. In fact I strongly favour the equality between all the genders regarding rights and opportunities. But I won’t advocate letting a person go being rude without being paid a healthy response. And I don’t patronize ‘short pants’ being a symbol of feminism.

To be equal you need to capitalize the opportunities you get and to capitalize the opportunities, you need to be strong and capable. Now, there is no absolute theory or enough experimental instances proving a direct proportionate relation between being strong and being rude. May be you don’t realize but you can doubtlessly stay calm, composed and gentle while going strong.

Anyways, suppose a situation where you are in a metro train and a man is sitting on the reserved seat for the ladies. You are left with two choices. You can let the man sit proving your equality of strength and decide to remain unseated making your point. Or, you can ask the man to vacate it demanding your rightful seat. The point is you can take any of the decision with or without the short pants. Your actions will measure the level of your feminism not the apparel. I mean, wear the short pants if you want to but don’t claim yourself to be a feminist on the basis of that. It is more like cashing in your personal desires of fashion under the umbrella of feminism.

I do get aware of the rapes victimizing women, through newspapers and television and it occurred to me that may be wearing short pants is a way of expressing anger challenging all such inhumane behaviour. I understand the outrage but still I would suggest not doing so because if somebody someday will accept your challenge one on one, you’ll be less likely to win unless you are well trained in some kind of defensive technique or art. It is actually an undeniable fact that you lack the equivalency in physical strength when compared to that of a man.

Before you could make judgements about myself, claiming my unbiased state to the topic I would proceed further voicing that mere the feeling of exploration of rather hidden part of the body itself is capable of giving arousals to humans. And it should! I mean, it’s preposterous to see a juicy thigh and not to get aroused. But we, the gentlemen, suppress all our stimulations and present ourselves being very casual and easy. We do so, because we have a reputation to protect, obligations to take care of and responsibilities to carry. But we mustn’t forget how full our country is with people who don’t have any of these. In fact, there even are incidents when the devil of few reputed personalities too overcame their power of staying gentle.

I have seen this picture of a girl, below which it was quoted “Even if I walk naked, I have not given you the right to rape.” True. I agree that you haven’t but neither has anyone else. Not even our constitution! But still there is body governing the law and order because the constitution makers felt that there’ll be elements in the society who won’t pay much heed to what rights belong to them and what not.

Do you sleep in your house every night with the doors and windows open? No, because it would make your house vulnerable to the thieves who are outside there. It’s equally unwise to make yourself vulnerable when there are people outside there who don’t think twice before materializing their internal stimulations. I am not asking you to abolish your fashion desires but please do chose the occasion, company and environment wisely before executing such yearns.

If you’ll take a step on the path of constructive feminism, I’ll push you to take one more. But walking naively without understanding the real meaning of it will make you something I wouldn’t recommend you to become.

P.S: I don’t like rude people.

Let’s not chat, Parineeti

2013-10-31T20:19:00.001+05:30

If you yearn to be good to everyone, you’ll end up failing at to be best to someone. I would rather try being bad to too many if that gives me a handful of finest relations.

You can go and masturbate over the fact that it was a marvellous reunion with your school friends. You may lick your social networking sites’ arses for making this come true. You may wake up every morning and offer mental prizes to the engineers who reduced the suppositions of application like Whatsapp and WeChat to reality. You may also feel proud about being an iconic social being if you want to but just slide down that damn phone in your pocket while you are talking to me.

Have you ever projected a real world analogy of the situation when you are making parallel Whatsapp chat with goddamn six people? If you still feel it’s not rude then I insist you to stop reading and check your phone. Have you ever realized that the person outside your phone talking to you is also a kind of chatting? You do not have to always investigate your phone after every minute in order to not missing out on some “real” conversations. Have you ever even considered the fact that the basic mechanism of a communication is to listen attentively to what the speaker is saying, and to execute a focused speech? Have you figured out yet that talking to six people independently at a time altogether invalidates the point of talking? Do not you feel that the relation, friendship is getting diluted with every pillars of technology you are supporting it with?

If you want to ponder about it, ponder about it or go do whatever the dung you want to do but just slide that goddamn phone inside your pocket while you are talking to me.

A gone green gift

2013-10-04T00:23:00.000+05:30

That moron thought he would rip apart the coop with his tiny beaks as if it’s a movie going on. He probably mistook himself as a human who have constituted themselves with the right to freedom. He surely must have been a fool who ruptured his nail while trying to escape. He got his lessons though, he should have got bloodied. More than ten drops of blood bid farewell to his veins through the wounds he himself opened up while assuming come what may, it will lead to his independence.

I mean, how much more stupid can one be? The fool knew he was a birthday gift to that little child and the child wants to amuse himself from outside to celebrate his sense of not being alone at being a victim of dependence. Did the child ask for much? The child also gave him potatoes to eat. And I am telling you the child was a wise one. He only picked the potatoes that were uneatable for humans who have constituted themselves with the right to food. He was really an idiot who was trying to escape from being a birthday gift of such a wise child.

He was so stubborn to go out that not a single minute passed when he wasn’t trying to break free. The only few minutes he sat placidly was after those ten red drops spurted out of his nail. And again after regaining his strength, he got back to his business. At times, clutching a rod in the beak and trying to twist it open, at times, pushing the rods with his claw and pulling the gate with his beak to set it open. He must have been really a very big dunderhead who thought he would actually succeed and that too at that budding age of 25 days.

The parrot died the next morning. And maybe that should have happened to a fool like that. He didn’t realize he might get tetanus or something. Anyways, he was no match to the wise child he was a gift of. You never know, how fool these birds can be. But thank God, the child was done with his amusements, he don’t want another one to disappoint himself in such stupid manner.

MNC-igarette

2013-04-10T01:18:00.000+05:30

I am telling you this guy must be a spoilt brat. He has just injected his lungs with smokes of three cigarettes back to back. Sitting alone, hiding from all the probable known ones he could encounter, this man has just adulterated the environment along with his lungs with three back to back cigarettes. I mean, look at us, we, a group of three friends, have come to enjoy the cool breezes at the bank of river Ganga and this man here is sitting alone, hiding from don’t know who and smoking cigarettes.

Anyways, I am really missing our fourth friend. He is a big shot among us now. We always used to hang out at this very same place and used to discuss about matters that would concern us. At times we also used to discuss about things that didn’t have to do anything with us. He would always say about things he would do once he gets a job and all. We were, I mean, the other three of us would just care about a job and he on the other hand would make plans about what he wants to do once he gets a job. He was really very excited about things he would do, once he gets settled. He used to say, once he’ll get a job, he’ll be free from all the social taboos he is handcuffed with and would execute all his dreams one by one. He was a talented boy, I am telling you. It was as if he always knew he would get a decent job and all. And see, he is in a big multi-national company. Big thing. And we are still here enjoying our evenings on the bank of river Ganga.

Anyways, last night I just texted him about what’s new and all and he replied –

“It takes a lot to live in this society

Till the end you’ve to pay the prices

These days I sit alone and fag

To celebrate all my sacrifices”

I don’t know what does that suppose to mean, but I just hope he don’t smoke a lot of cigarettes.

Holi ; coloured faces

2013-03-28T22:18:00.000+05:30

Happy Holi to you and all but dear lord how I hate Holi! Yeah, yeah, Holi is the festival of brotherhood and love and all that crap, when even the arch enemies forget their rivalry to neck each other for a new feeling to sprout but dear lord how I hate it!

They play colours that don’t make a sense to me. What joy could one get while colouring another guy’s face? Yeah, finding joy while colouring the face of an opposite gender do make some sense. If they find pleasure over their accomplishment of colouring one’s face, better play cricket or badminton for God’s sake. Probably they feel happy about it because they think they are supposed to feel happy about it no matter how much time they spend while bathing that day and scrubbing their faces to fatality.

But it’s not the colour that bothers me much. It’s what they do afterwards that bothers me. They meet. The hell they meet. They meet people they haven’t given a damn for the entire year and they meet artistically and cheerfully. They don’t have topics to talk about but they meet. They don’t have topics therefore they crack jokes. They crack jokes that aren’t even funny and they laugh like Hyenas on jokes that aren’t even funny. They talk about summers, heat, God, generation and all those topics that are very redundant to talk about and then they crack jokes that aren’t even funny. In fact it’s only the joke that can be new to someone. But even the unheard jokes aren’t funny.

I mean why do they meet? I mean, meet me if you want to but don’t meet me just because you think you are supposed to meet and crack a joke that isn’t even funny.

Anyways, happy Holi and colours and all but meet me with a genuine face, not a coloured one.

J, Q & K

2013-02-16T01:23:00.000+05:30

Charlemagne: La Hire, where are you? La hire, are you there? Etienne de Vignolles! I demand you to hear me! Can you hear me?

La Hire: Apologies King but Queen Rachel has put on a lot of weight, a weight enough to abort the birth of every voice. I am beneath her.

Charlemagne: No wonder why I penned my mistress’ name as Rachel.

Rachel: Shut up you dorks! It’s not my weight alone, I am here sandwiched between you and the bloody Ogier the Dane. Charles, it seems like the entire France’s orgasm has to do something with me.

La Hire: Ignore her King. If the majesty demands a conversation with a knave, the knave shall offer his service no matter whom he is sleeping with.

Alexander: Will you both please stop this nonsense? Gone are our armies, gone are our days. Together we are mere bumbling fools here who were just a moment ago brutally thrown and left behind to stare the ceiling and to have a moment for rethinking our lives again by just four of the awfully ordinary guys!

Hector: Ooh! Somebody save me from the mighty Greek, he seems to be upset about something.

Athena: Shut the fuck up guys! Let us not forget our civilization and do good to carry it out well.

Charlemagne: If everyone still remembers, I had something to say at the first place. I think we are highly misunderstood creatures in at least this format. People love us, they eventually get addicted to us but they are ashamed of it and I don’t understand why.

Athena: May be they are not wise enough as say, me.

Alexander: It is because of Poker! I wish I could re-rise to see the demise of the man who designed Poker and left us rolling in the grave of ours!

Hector: And I thought only Achilles overreacts!

David: Oh Jesus! Stop it Hector! Will you elaborate over Poker, Alexander?

Alexander: It is Poker which has ruined our importance. It is the game which parents think their child will ultimately switch to and get crumbled. But what they fail to understand is Poker is not a game played with cards. I mean it is played with cards but the cards are just a tool to carry it. The actual skill one needs to play Poker is the skills of bluffing which at all has nothing to do with cards. So they play with cards but actually they don’t play with it.

Hector: Do all of you get confused about which side you are with?

David: Wait, I see his point. You mean the reason behind our being disliked has nothing to do with us? Poker is just a game of bets and we are just used to put the bets for. If I may give an example, consider a situation where Caesar’s two insane best friends are standing behind him and we just bet upon who’ll stab first. Here, Caesar is just a tool for our game. I got it! Sheer observation Alexander the Great!

Caesar: Et tu David?

Alexander: Exactly! We are like Science. People make the misuse out of us and then hate us! Bloody losers!

Hector: I could only point Dmitri Mendeleev who made out a use of us, bloody Greek!

While all were discussing and pacifying each others’ agony about being the bad company for kids of their age despite of having the hidden potentials of honing one’s mind for ever a voice from inside the cover came, “Guys! Why so serious?”

A poetree

2013-02-08T00:35:00.000+05:30

A thought relayed a thought

A thought fathered another

Some thoughts formed a troop

Some went in an endless loop

They forgot to follow a pattern

They grew wherever they could

May be they already knew

The mind had nothing else to do

If an empty mind is a devil’s workshop

The devil must surely be a gardener

Reproducing thoughts is what it has aimed

Or maybe good people’s devils are tamed

But the thought is an unchained eagle

At a range of heights which has flee

The way your thoughts branches out

Your mind is either busy or it is a tree

The rotting race

2013-02-04T00:00:00.000+05:30

He picked up his pace in blink of an eye

That skill he has, quite a lot in store

The thought, of running towards the rivals

Demanded and compelled him to exert some more

The rivals were supporting their men with their cheers

And at the same time disheartened him with the roar

His failure would lead him into a moment of humiliation

A humiliation, he isn’t allowed to ignore

He has to walk till the end no matter what

Bathing in all the slangs his rivals have to pour

He has planned how he’ll deal, if he loses

Against all the patter, he is going to snore

His momentum apparently is not quite enough

Or maybe upon his efforts, this idea has an outscore

Conclusively he has given up a well started chase

The ball ran to the boundary all the way for four

Con-gress

2012-12-09T03:45:00.000+05:30

What do you do when your laptop catches virus? You kill it. Do you realise what their death could mean? They could influence few of your files and can continue giving pains even while they are gone. You kill it anyways, Do not you? You don’t take two and a half years to investigate the files it has killed and to ponder about the circumstances after its deletion. You do it because you trust your operating system, you know it is genuine. Moreover, you believe that nothing could be as hurtful as the virus’ presence. And if still it has left its mark, you simply reboot the system. It takes time but all ends well.

But what if your operating system is corrupt? You don’t worry about the virus then, do you? Virus hardly bothers you. You become helpless and don’t find ways. Every bit inside your laptop under the corruption fails to perform. You reboot again and again only to find it futile. At last, you format. Those who have lost data while doing so know that formatting is not easy but they do it anyways.

Now let me end this insanity!

P.S: My laptop is just like my country, only difference is it has got a better operating system.

Soak no more

2012-08-15T22:56:00.000+05:30

I always wanted a costly hospital, my place of landing on earth

But amid some women holding sarees, you executed my birth

My childhood need was ‘real toys’, like an aeroplane that can fly

Not that plastic man who on inclinations closes and opens eye

I wished a driver of my dad’s car would take me daily to school

Not that bus with crowds of children and mixed smell of the pool

Joke no more, God, poke no more

Give a goddamn life

Please, soak no more

I desired to be a bold playboy, who does with one or two or many

And not the king of silent lovers, whose love never gave a penny

I craved for marks enough to be seemed as I’m academically good

But it was always the bottom of the list where I shamelessly stood

I dreamt of an air conditioned cabin where I could peacefully work

You gave me a single window and made me a government clerk

Joke no more, God, poke no more

Give a goddamn life

Please, soak no more

I thought I would have a wife, a wife with a perfect zero figure

And you delivered a big heavy gun, with quite a loose trigger

All those dimes I spent on you, all those time I devoted in prayer

My dreams coming true is still a sight, a sight that is awfully rare

Now all I need is a platform, higher enough to take me to the fore

In front of friends, Romans and countrymen, where I could roar

Joke no more, God, poke no more

Give a Goddamn life

Please, soak no more

Marriage: 'A love miscarriage'

2012-08-06T22:52:00.000+05:30

He studies in school which broadly has two sections divided by a virtual wall of some unsaid rules and strict unlikeness. He wants to get old soon to jump the wall, for the other side looks more lenient to him. When he does so, he thinks he is big enough. He finds a girl. He deeply, madly and terribly falls in love with her. He never talks to her actually because once he falls in love with her, he thinks he is even bigger and a big boy when talks to a big girl, people make stories. He works a lot on his hairstyle. He thinks his hairstyle is the only catalyst to make her fall in love with him. At the age of him, erotic movies are less accessible to her, family is stricter towards her and hence such feelings are less likely to rise in her. She only makes friend. She is a

good actress too. She acts friendship well.

He, although never talks but always keeps an eye on her. The day she talks to him, he becomes horribly happy. He comes home and listen music. The day he finds her talking to other male potential competitor, he becomes severely sad. He comes home and listen lyrics. The next day, he also does a Tollywood and gathers comfortable number of his other heroic friends and asks him to leave his way.

In analogous heroism, he eventually passes school. He goes east she goes west. He enters college. He finds more girls. He finds them more beautiful, more perfumed, more attractive, more erotic, much experienced with adult contents and easily accessible. Although a bit late, but by the time she reaches college, she considers herself grown. She doesn’t find boys though. She allows them to find her. He, experienced and well learned from his earlier mistakes, makes one of them to allow him to get her.

They become lovers. They look for better telephone operator in search of a suitable plan. They go for movies. They go for lunch. Few of the lucky ones go for dinner. They talk a lot. They talk about their future. They eventually talk about their past. They say, love teaches many things. They are right. By the time they reach the topic of their past, they are well learnt about each other. They are so much well taught about each other that they know that he/she is not the right one.

This gives rise to two kinds of lovers. One, who are well learnt about what not to do when living with the opposite gender and decides to quit the love and lives happily ever after with the one they get married. And the other, who are well learnt about what not to do when living with the opposite gender but carries their filmy heroism and get married to the same person only to let go all their lessons, waste.

Devoted towards the same operation for nine to ten years, most of them get wise enough to re-rise in the form of first kind of lover adding to the success stories of Indian marriages. The other, although less in number gives rise to topics like ‘Arranged marriages versus Love marriages’.

Disclaimer : The post is for the blog contest http://www.facebook.com/LoveYaArrange

A laugh a bit

2012-02-28T17:28:00.002+05:30

Try reading the title in one go. I mean without spaces. No, that will not do! You need more speed. Is it coming? It is sounding like ‘alphabet’, isn’t it? No? Never mind!

What we call as alphabet is termed as character in computers. Now character is something, I am more interested in. It suggests, that alphabets are not the basic or smallest building blocks of language, they do have a story instead. They possess a characteristic. Each and every one of them! For example A is like that shy and talented kid from the neighbourhood, whose presence is realized only with his absence! Alone, he doesn’t even worth a penny, but when properly directed, can even run a nation! Now you are relating it to Manmohan Singh on your own! Please stop!

Now what does B stands for? B looks like breasts when it sleeps, I don’t know why it stands at all!

C is the con among alphabets! You can never trust it! Sometimes it’s nice, at times it is cute! There are few others who seconds the path of C, for example G, but C still is in the lead in its’ tricks and has acquired the third spot in the list of characters. G on the other hand is my personal favourite for once when it goes in lowercase; you’ll find some nice curves and figure. g- see! It’s the most beautiful of all!

D and E are Hit-men, I suppose. Whenever you want to kill something and make it past, you call ED. I mean, generally!

F? Don’t talk about it. There was a time when F was seen in companies of good words! But it’s fine, people do get fucked up at times.

Now, if I really feel pity about a character, it’s H. Shome shay, H has went sho nonshense over time, that no matter how much H you use in a word, it mean the bloody same! That is a fatal shame!

And yes, don’t go on the slimness and thinness of I and J. No matter how much bag of bones they appear, they are the only ones, who have got balls!

K has some real jacks! SRK, Karan, and Ekta are few of them. I don’t know if it’s the jack or something, but K has delivered some absolute results over the period of time. It has almost dominated Kiran and has snatched Calcutta form C, entirely! It also has shown a great impact over Franz Kafka and high-class Indian urban mothers, who name their kids as K or KK, however, in this regard W tops the chart! I bet you’ll find around fifty thousand kids in India, named W.

L,M and N are like those Indian urban kids, who are being named without caring about its’ consequences in rural India. However hard they may try, rural people call them ‘Yul’, ‘Yum’ and ‘Yun’.

And please don’t care about what does O stands for! Whether it stands or sleeps or sit or whatever, it’s mysterious.

P,Q, R and S owe a lot to the quadrilaterals. If it weren’t for their geometry, P, Q, R and S would have been mere bumbling fools! The story goes further painful for R. If R should stand for something, it should be Rahul Dravid! You see, always there, but seldom acknowledged! However, with H losing reputation rapidly over time, R surely would have cashed in on some relief. Not so different is the case with X,Y and Z! They exist for algebra exists!

I feel T stands for showing its sheer excellence over balancing act. Hats off!

Among all the alphabets, I believe, A, B, C and D have been provided with higher statuses. They are the representatives of all other characters. When an uncle asks a kid whether he or she knows ABCD, he actually means to address all those 26 characters. The saga is so hurtful for XY and Z, that when a kid successfully reaches the 23^rd character, listener takes the last three for granted and finishes it off himself! You see, what degree of respect they have for algebra? Anyways, it’s not only our country’s democracy which is a flawed system, but even within this small system of characters, we have got four representatives, among which one is a con, one is a hit-man, you have already related one to Manmohan Singh, and following it further I’ll relate B to Rahul Gandhi, whom no one wants to stand!

And among all this, it’s really bad of you of not caring about UV, the guy is suffering from cancer after all!

P.S: If feeling erotic about g's curves, please switch to 'Times New Roman'.

Technicolor Taj Mahal

2012-01-19T02:12:00.000+05:30

Mumtaj’s soul rests on Friday. Saturday is full of diversity. It is obvious. Friday’s rest makes weekend more troublesome. If you don’t have a camera, Taj is not a place for you. And yes, you must have someone to accompany, who can click an illusive picture of yours while you can stand stupidly posturing one of your hands holding the tip of Taj. The second hand!? Who cares? I assure you, at that very moment, if someone borrows your other hand for a lifetime, you’ll not even ask for a penny. All you do is stand mindlessly in a hope that the photographer will merge you intelligently with the Taj, and will make your pose look intelligent.

Now on a serious note, what will you do without a camera? All you want to have is a witness. A creative witness, more so! The intellectuality of the purpose behind the visit to the Taj is directly proportional to how far you have come from.

Local guys do well without cameras. They don’t want witnesses. They just want no witness about the fact that they were searching for solitary and they were with someone. Yes, Taj Mahal is in Agra and Agra is in Uttar Pradesh. Anyways, what can be a better place for romance? I guarantee, not even a single girl would have spared her boyfriend, with the question- “Will you build something of this sort for me?” And the guys generally would be responding with a sense of responsibility dissolved with shyness and smile-“Why not?” I say tourism department should nourish these loves, you never know when one such lover might get serious.

North Indians, excluding the inhabitants of Agra, visit Taj Mahal with a pride. They come with a feeling of possession. You’ll hear stuffs like “It’s one of the wonders of the world, it’s wonderful. It’s ours. Take a picture Pinky.” Even when they queue up for the tickets, they keep on discussing “Why are we being charged? It is our national heritage!”, until they buy the tickets. Anyways, they generally come to see the beauty. They don’t hire guides. Before reaching the guides, they already happen to buy tickets for Taj. They don’t want to spend much on their own national heritage. It’s their own. People from Delhi are dudes, they don’t want photographs. You’ll see local photographers there “Color-photo, Color-photo, Color-photo, Sir, you want color photo?” And people from Delhi- “No, no! It’s fine. We are dudes.”

South Indians are the craftsmen of poses. They hug the pillars, sleep on floors, lift a leg, watch the sky, turn into Natraj and leave them there alone, I am sure they’ll lick the walls. They don’t let any pose escape. It’s probably because, they aren’t much habitual of seeing white stuffs, and that too in enormity. Guides don’t attract them too. But they carefully follow the guides hired by some foreigner, whenever they get time from their photography.

Guides earn money through foreigners. Foreigners believe, they are in a foreign country and they ought to not know something, no matter how much research they have done before coming. And the guides there are so trained, that they snatch the word ‘WOW’, no matter how strictly a foreigner beheld his praises.

“Sir, it is one of the wonders of the world.”

“Okay.”

“It is completely built out of marbles!”

“Oh.”

“You see, they carved the marbles too very beautifully!!”

“Oh yes.”

“It was built in 17^th century!!!”

“Okay.”

“There wasn’t even computer that time to design the architect!!!!”

“Is it?”

“Sir, there really wasn’t any computer!!!!!”

“Oh.”

“It was really a very difficult task for that time. It took over 3 decades!!!!!!”

“Oho.”

“Sir Mumtaj was unquestionably beautiful. She indeed was the sexiest lady of that time!”

“WOW!!”

“Let’s move Sir.”

You see? If diversity united at a place is what one is looking for, Taj Mahal is that. Not less than people from 15 different states of India and 10 different countries of this world together crowd the place. Although not interacting, not troubling, just clicking and posing and romancing and duding and still coloring the place with their presence. I happened to visit it last Saturday. And what I found was a Technicolor Taj.

Attitude

2011-12-22T11:33:00.000+05:30

I was not bad since my birth

This world forced me to be

I loved a girl with purest heart

And met the common tragedy

She said I am not good enough

But I was always best to her

I took care of her every dream

But follies I guess, she refers

Oceans of tears I drank

In depths of depression I sank

To get back to what I was

Evil was the pillar on which I bank

Hatred was what I began to deal

And it was all to abridge my grief

That’s the story of my being disliked

And birth of an unwanted thief.

I don’t share a different story

Our grieves, I suppose are same

But unlike me you are being hated

Your attitude is what I’ll blame

To avoid my tears I used laughter

I made others too to laugh

To hide my few despotic emotions

I painted my face on smile’s behalf

Despite the pains hidden inside

I am called a depression broker

That is how I still respect my love

And that is how I became a joker.

Buddy! I shrunk the kids!

2011-12-16T18:49:00.000+05:30

“I have heard you are giving lectures to the students,” said Professor NKK in disgust, “I have heard you are giving lectures about Physics. I have heard you connect things to the real world and explain the laws of Physics. I have heard you are not giving notes!”

“Ha ha ha.” Laughed Professor RRS.

“I am sorry, sir.” said JS, in a low voice, “I always get confused about how to spend those 55 minutes.”

“Which 55 minutes?”

“All those 55 minutes.”

“How many such 55 minutes you get?”

“4 to 5 everyday, sir.”

“What about having a cup of tea with us?”

“I don’t drink tea sir, not for 55 minutes.”

“Ha ha ha.” Laughed Professor RRS.

“This guy is insane.” declared professor PMT.

“No madam, I am young. I am new.” defended JS.

“Look kid, the more you’ll teach, the more you’ll confuse them. Give them notes and finish things off!” NKK started again.

“But sir, don’t you think, it is our duty to teach them well. They can find notes from anywhere. The key is to build their concepts.”

“Ha ha ha.” Laughed Professor RRS.

“I told you, this guy is insane!” PMT interfered.

“Indeed you are new kid.” NKK concluded.

“I told you, I am, sir!”

“You haven’t told me, you told Professor PMT!”

“Oh! I am sorry sir!”

“Look JS” NKK leaned forward in superiority, “understand the system. Let things go, as they are going. Those kids will do well with their life. They are the one who needs to bother. Why are you taking pain to build their concepts?”

“Because he is insane!” PMT said.

“Ha ha ha” laughed Professor RRS, “ha ha ha.”

“Sir, because, doing well with one’s life isn’t sufficient for our country. The future prospects are getting damaged, with this action of ours.”

“Oh! He is insane.”

“Ha ha ha.”

“Look boy” started NKK, “I am putting it straight. Yesterday, in the laboratory, a student asked me to explain him the mechanism of Kater’s pendulum.”

“So?”

“Yes. So?”

“Oh God, this guy is insane! I can’t keep on feeding them with spoon every time. They need to find it by themselves!”

“Yes! I told you, this guy is insane!”

“Ha ha ha.”

“So, what can I do in it?” asked JS in a puzzled expression.

“You can do many things by not doing anything.” Said NKK.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s because you are insane.” Told PMT

“Ha ha ha.” Laughed RRS.

“You are teaching them well. It is raising their expectations.”

“I suppose, that is why I am here.”

“No! You are here because you were qualified for being here.”

“But what they need my qualifications for?”

“To teach.”

“And that is what, I am doing.”

“No! You are not just teaching. You are teaching well!”

“They needed those qualifications for not to teach well?”

“Yes!”

“How can you say so?”

“I am not teaching well and they didn’t not need me. You are teaching well and you are in trouble.”

“How am I in trouble?”

“You are on ad hoc!”

“So?”

“I am the vice-principal too. You are in trouble.”

“I got it! What I need to do?”

“You just didn’t need to do anything.”

“Okay. But what I am supposed to do?”

“You have to start drinking tea.”

“Ha ha ha.” Laughed Professor RRS.

“What else?”

“Be our pal. Be our buddy. You’ll be always safe.”

“I got it!”

It was already late. The professors broke the daily meeting and went home. Next morning, in the similar manner, NKK, RSS, PMT along with few other Professors but JS, were discussing about the same topic they left in between, the previous day when suddenly the door opened. It was JS who was just coming after a class. Unlike everyday, he gave the students notes and said proudly-

“Buddy, I shrunk the kids!”

Mind on sale

2011-12-03T13:59:00.001+05:30

Thoughts are playing in my mind

Like a homely feeling

But like a home it never acted

My mind has always been a resort or so

Every minute it was open for all

Few glories inspired

Few glints were bold

But mind was weak

For an owner to hold

Thoughts just come

And thoughts just go

My mind has always been a resort or so

The rain which showers me

Will just drench me tomorrow

But it’s not the water that transformed

Rain drops should not be blamed

But it’s the fickle head

A thought it should have claimed

Whom to invite

Like or dislike

A home should always know

My mind has always been a resort or so

The day I’ll make strict rules

The day I’ll organize my mind

The day I’ll posses an owner

I’ll be dangerous or I’ll be kind

But I’ll be free from all confusions

And that’s what all I know

Either I’ll keep you in my heart forever

Or will hurt you for once and go

But momentary wisdom pops, enjoys and fly

My mind has always been a resort or so

An 'unforgettable' phone call

2011-11-14T03:26:00.002+05:30

Leo: (Pause) Hello! Hello! (Pause) Hello!

Sanju: Hello! Who is this?

Leo: My name is Leonard Shelby. Are you Sanjay Singhania?

Sanju: Yes. How do you know me?

Leo: Are you bald with distorted eight pack abs? And do you have weird tattoos all over your body? Is that you?

Sanju: Yes! Yes, I presume. But I am not bald! I have a peculiar strip in my hairs running till behind my head. And that tattoo…(snobbish laugh). . .

Leo: Yes, what about the tattoo?

Sanju: That’s a tricky one! When looked in mirror, it says ‘KALPANA WAS KILLED’…(snobbish laugh). . .

Leo: Whatever!

Sanju: But how do you know all this?

Leo: I have a picture of you below which is written in bold ‘POTENTIAL FRIEND’.

Sanju: What? Do you have the picture? Please, please try looking it in the mirror. You’ll surely find the tattoos tricky. ‘KALPANA WAS KILLED’. Really tricky!

Leo: Who is Kalpana?

Sanju: Don’t know. I forgot.

Leo: Oh!

Sanju: So?

Leo: I am wondering about how can you be a potential friend. Do we have anything in common?

Sanju: Maybe.

Leo: Let me check it out. What are your hobbies?

Sanju: I don’t remember.

Leo: Which is your favorite sport?

Sanju: I forgot.

Leo: Favorite color?

Sanju: Aaaa…mmm..just a second..aa..I ..I..I don’t know.

Leo: Favorite cuisines?

Sanju: I couldn’t recall?

Leo: Oh! Sad!

Sanju: Forget about me. You tell me about some of your peculiar habits.

Leo: I don’t really have much peculiar habits. One of which..aaa..you can say…aaa…a habit that I forget things too quickly!

Sanju: Oh! I am afraid, it doesn’t really seem we have any common traits. I think that the picture has a wrong caption. Who gave it to you?

Leo: I don’t remember.

Sanju: Then I really think, there is no way we could figure out anything common between us.

Leo: Don’t say that! I am really alone. I need a friend.

Sanju: Then go and look out in your neighborhood!

Leo: Oh! They are bunch of faggots! It pisses me off to see their fake appearances.

Sanju: Fake personalities turn me off too! But what happened?

Leo: One of their ugliest habits is to shed crocodile-tears over lost mementos. As if they have lost all access to the connected people.

Sanju: Oh yes! That over-acting! Oh what to say? It really pisses me off!

Leo: Hey! I guess, we actually have something in common! We get pissed off over similar issue!

Sanju: Oh yes, sheer observation!

Leo: Friends?

Sanju: Best friends!

Leo: Really?

Sanju: Of course!

Leo: Oh my dear friend Sanjay!

Sanju: I wish I could hug you and begin our friendship!

Leo: It has already begun!

Sanju: What has already begun?

Leo: Hello!?

Sanju: What has already begun?

Leo: What!?

Sanju: You were saying right now! What has already begun?

Leo: Who are you?

Sanju: Is it a kind of plot against me? Is it my countdown timer, which has begun? What has already begun? Who are you?

(Beep! Beep! Beep!)

Sanju: Hello! Hello! Hello! Pick up the phone! What has already begun?

A letter to my oldest poem

2011-11-03T18:24:00.001+05:30

Oh! My old creation

You’ll be certainly happy to know

The compliments that I missed on you

Now often comes in a row

It all started with you

You are the first rung of my ladder

But in the interim of my climbing

I kept on getting better

I don’t see you often

But I am not now floating in air

I am nothing but an adolescent author

That is all your fonts declare

You still are dearest

Coz commotions you contain are core

I adorn them now with artificial attentions

Just to come on fore

After gathering fame

Publicizing you will be worthwhile

Coz all my unstructured phrases

Will then be coined as a style

I now know them well

You’ll be surely awarded with merit

Coz what looks simple and unattractive

They simply call it esoteric

From ‘Desi Katta’ to ‘Dragunov’

2011-10-02T20:05:00.011+05:30

With the passage of time, we the people kept on getting so result oriented, that our own dear ‘Desi-Katta’ has been replaced almost entirely by ‘Dragunov’. Now few might debate, why not Dragunov when it’s unanimously better? And that very question is the origin of this write-up.

All I can do but update a, ‘I am missing facebook’, status on facebook. I had never thought that this simple ‘I am missing facebook’ is such a catchy line but yes, if you’ll examine me using even a flawless lie-detector, I’ll clear it with my ‘I am missing facebook’ feeling. It was a tremendous, if not less, source of topics to ponder upon. And yes I was extremely careful while adding the adjective ‘worthy’ with the word ‘topics’. What? You couldn’t find? Never mind! In the real world, where God is not Zuckerberg, people are less philosophical, even less talkative and less social. Amidst this excess of ‘less’, it was this night, a few days back, where I luckily found something.

At a small get together of friends with a pair of ‘more than friends’, enjoying at the intelligently designed terrace of some intelligent house owner, the pair of ‘more than friends’, begun rising to the higher degree of ‘dear’, with every sip of the Royal Challenge. They went past ‘dearest’ in a peg. When the driver, Royal Challenge in this case, got strict, soon the adjectives turned to verbs of kisses and hugs. Have I already made you familiar with the phrase ‘more than friends’? Yes, it’s the social and diplomatic synonym of earlier used phrases like ‘no strings attached’, ‘friends with benefits’, etc. To define it even further, the relation defined under this phrase, is often characterized as having two people at different level of intensity. One of them, the poorer one, is always committed. Now coming back to the same point where the story went off course, it was this guy who snobbishly, somewhat subconsciously, entitled them with another phrase of ‘Desi Katta’, with great care of the decibels. It wasn’t meant for anybody else to listen but I suppose, the care wasn’t that great.

Now just for a while, let’s talk about this less careful guy, and since we can presume that this guy hates ‘Desi Katta’, let’s for the time being, call him ‘Mr. Dragunov’. If I am not wrong in inferring the meaning of this trendy phrase, it could probably mean someone with a limited range of, may be, thoughts, who can not act like a ‘Dragunov’, who is sluggish at adapting the western civilization or precisely, who is slow in broadening his/her mind. Mr. Dragunov also uses some synonyms of that phrase, among which the most popular and trendy one is ‘Jamna-paar’. Applying a bit of logical reasoning, even any Ordinary Joe can tell that what he means is every individual living across the other side of the river Yamuna, is a ‘Desi Katta’. But what he always fails to interpret is the actual data of that ‘Desi Katta’s who with every passing year are widening their range and crossing the Yamuna in enormous numbers. And also he is unaware of the disguised ‘Desi-Katta’-ism he is practicing. Surprisingly, he himself has never been to the other side of the Yamuna! How limited is the range of Mr. Dragunov!

A few days back, while I still had an access to the ‘worthy’ topics to ponder upon, I saw a video on facebook, where the intelligence, to be precise, memory, of a young, hardly a bottle-ridden girl, was on expo by her presumed Dragunov-mom, who was the camerawoman. Examine me again under the same lie-detector and again I’ll do well with ‘The girl had a real fine memory’. She had learned and retained so many stuffs at that budding age of three, that she almost had acquired a habit of learning things. Believe me, the girl was trying real hard to look cute, but all she showed comprised few retained stuffs of our constitution and few unnatural looking retained acts of cuteness.

And since now I am myself weary of recollecting and sewing stuffs together and also I am tired of this write-up, let me come to the prior question.

A ‘Desi Katta’ has all the emotions twined up in it. It is based on the principle that animosity is never heavier than a life. It has the property to satisfy both the sides. You can shoot a person and spill all your anger but at the same time you are also giving him an option to survive. And even if it kills the other guy, unlike Dragunov, you’ll never get rid of the emotions and expressions of that dying person. At least you’ll give him time to die. Time to speak something he always wanted to. Imagine, ‘Hey Ram’ would never have got so famous, if Godse would have used Dragunov!

Now how about reconsidering the goodness of ‘Desi Katta’?

The article is really turning out to be a pain for me, so please take some pain on your side to watch Equilibrium, if you want to attain an idea of emotion less future.

P.S. Christian Bale has an amazing skill of expressing emotions!