Engineering a Writer's Dream

On True Education

2012-12-07T17:50:00.001+05:30

This was in response to a question on Quora.

In addition to what the school system teaches, true education is that which instills in a human being each of these (and more) features mentioned below. Moreover, these features need to be present in the form of life habits, instead of as interests/hobbies.

Reading: to understand life, culture and humanity
Listening to people: to understand perspectives
Thinking for oneself: to form perspectives
Expressing: (in speech or in writing) to communicate perspectives
Social understanding and sensitization: to understand your fellow humans and work towards betterment
Morality: to recognize the good and the bad and apply them in life
Knowledge and information: (basics of science and history, and current affairs) to know of the human civilization
Playing/following a sport: to understand ethics and competition
Travelling: to meet people and to see the world
Emotional stability: to add strength to life
Healthy eating and health consciousness: to use education to enhance life

True education can't be defined as the accomplishment of something, since true education never ends. Instead, true education is more a measure of intent and habits in life. So, true education is not the state of rest or of motion; it actually is the velocity with which you are travelling that journey of education, which shows how truly educated you are.

Would like suggestions on adding more points to the list.

(Using this post to present some views on education) I feel strongly about education, at a time when it is going all wrong in our nation, and many of our students are quite fashionably blaming the education system when it is they themselves who should be blamed. Please, do not hide your mistakes by blaming the system. It's you who has to educate yourselves for life. Not a school or college, as they are primarily meant to educate you for a profession. If you educate yourself for life, you will realize that the school/college education system meant to give you a good professional life, also works. Because if you have adequately respected knowledge, the system will aid you. Do not let exams take the centrestage. Attain knowledge, marks will come by! Remember the line from 3 Idiots: "Kaabil banne ke liye padho, kaamyabi jhak maarke tumhare paas aayegi."

On Capital Punishment in the Modern-Day World

2012-12-06T17:28:00.000+05:30

These are excerpts from my answer and (replies to comments to the answer) to a question on Quora.

Capital Punishment is like War — inhuman, against the idea of a civil society, but a truth of the society, probably inevitable in certain rare cases.

Death penalty is an old savage like treatment. It should not be in a man's hands to take away the life of another man, whatever evil that other man has done.

Death is not a punishment. Death is the total removal of man. Whereas, the intention of a civil society should be to remove evil.

Death penalty is flawed and it is inconsistent with modern law. Modern law intends that a person is punished for his crime. It sentences a criminal to n number of years only, not for life. Why? It assumes that the person will be a changed man in the n years. (I make this assumption from the side of modern law, because the purpose of law is to confine people who pose a danger to society. And, to release a criminal after n years is only possible if you're sure that he will change during the sentence period.) The value of n is judged from the gravity of the crime. Now, when a criminal is being sentenced to death, it must be because the law is confident that the person will not change even during imprisonment for life. The job of law is not to doubt the character and psychology of a criminal, its only job is to punish a criminal and confine him. The job of law is to punish a crime, not a criminal. The moment it becomes criminal-centric, and believes that the person won't change and will be as big a danger to society post-release as he is now, it doubts the will-power of the criminal. It judges a human being, not a criminal.

It must not be the business of law to judge a human being. Civil society has laws to protect itself from crime, and it has prison sentence for three purposes: 1. to confine a criminal as he is a danger to society (a law and order phenomenon), 2. to allow the criminal to introspect and realize his mistakes (a human rights phenomenon), 3. to set a precedent so that others do not do the same thing (a social character phenomenon). A death sentence does the first and the third functions, but does not allow the criminal the basic human right of realization. Even if that person's character is irreparable by the most unanimous public opinion, and he is a supreme danger to society, fellow human beings are just NOBODY to judge that aspect of his character in advance. If they are so worried, sentence that person for life, that provision of having a very high value of n is fair.

Again, I believe death penalty is a savage like, inhuman treatment which compromises with a person's fundamental right to life, and allows an administrative authority to systematically take away the life of a human being, which is probably more unfortunate than an anti-social idiot murdering him.

As far as the expenses are concerned, seriously, should a government care about money against a citizen's right to life?

In response to Sid Carter's question (he asks, if one man's death shouldn't be in another's hands, then should it be in a man's hands to give imprison another man, "whatever evil that other man has done"?):

Yes, because we are a civilized society, and there needs to be a peaceful and orderly coexistence It is necessary to care for each other to some extent if you have to live on the same planet, so that you also get that back from others. If you do not do so, you must be punished. Civil rights come at restrictions. And for that punishment, law would keep you away from that civil society for some time (imprisonment). We are curbing that man's freedom, but we're doing so because he created a danger to the peaceful mutual existence of humans. We try to bring him back to the coexistence in the society.

When you sentence a person to prison, you are seeking correction in him, saving the society from him till then, and setting a precedent. But when you sentence him to death, you are taking a very crude form of revenge.

We are a systematic society. Law and order are meant for the peaceful coexistence of so many people on the same planet. Warning a person beforehand, of taking away his right to freedom if he does wrong, and then actually taking it away when he does so, is the least we can do. Just killing that person is revengeful.

Now, why I say that it is not fair that a man has the life of another in his hand: I say so because death is the removal of that man himself. And, it goes against the idea of peaceful coexistence which a civil society craves for. How? Because it means that the society failed to be confident of changing a living person and adapt him to the idea of peaceful coexistence. Therefore, while we ask of a normal criminal to introspect and learn during his imprisonment how to live in peaceful coexistence with the rest of the society, we're ourselves not ready to peacefully coexist with the death sentence convict. Only because we think we won't be able to change him! Such underconfidence in someone by the society is natural and human, given a person's track record, but not necessarily fair to that person himself. It is more human to deny him food for a month and allow him to die naturally, than to tighten the noose around him, even if they ultimately mean the same thing.

On why an economically weak country should not prefer sentencing criminals to death if it would otherwise have to spend a lot on the the convicts:

Economics and nations and governments came much later. Life came first. Life is the most skeletal form of all systems on earth. Economics, law and order, governance, etc., everything should respect life. Explicitly killing someone by hanging him, is not governance, but a fit of rage, revenge, terror and hatred.

There are limited resources with a country, and there can be a huge number of kinds of people who can be removed to ensure better governance. This is a severely inhuman idea and I do not advocate it, but consider these category of people: 1) poor people. Kill them and your nation instantly becomes economically good. 2) illiterate people. Kill them and your nation instantly becomes a well-educated country. 3) chronically diseased and bed-ridden people. Kill them and your nation instantly becomes a healthy country. 4) criminals who have done crimes which are not considered humanly because of standards set by humans long ago (No, I don't have a problem with those standards. But at the end of it, morality was defined by humans for peaceful and orderly coexistence.), kill them and your nation instantly becomes a crime-free and more orderly country, 5) non-working, non-earning, inactive people, who are not helping the country as human resource. Kill them and your nation instantly becomes a country with good human resource.

There are so many ways to make your country better and utilize your minimal quantity of resources. But we don't choose those ways. Why? * Because it's inhuman and wrong. Because those people have to be developed and helped by giving economic boost, education and health facilities over time. Then why can't the criminal be given a chance to become morally sound?

* Because we recognize that these people are just poor, illiterate, diseased — the early man also came poor, illiterate, diseased, and so, to demand them to die or have money, education and health facilities is going against the rule of nature, and holding artificial concepts of economics, education and medicine important. Why, then, should we give significance to artificial concepts of morality, when it's raw life at stake?

Why, then, should we choose the set of criminals out of all possible sets to kill because we have limited resources?

P.S. the examples of the sets of people given by me are not meant to indicate that these sets of people are a problem to the society. They have been used as an analogy, that by removing them, the governance can surely breathe easy and have less issues to deal with in its modern set of development parameters.

On why I would still support the hanging of Ajmal Aamir Kasab, the lone surviving 26/11 terrorist who was hanged in November 2012:

In the case of Kasab, I believe he HAD to be made the scapegoat. I don't sympathize for his crimes, but I surely do sympathize with him for his impressionable age and his guidance from the masterminds. (Do you really think that if we captured two people: the masterminds and Kasab the puppet, we'd have sentenced BOTH of them to death? Try to compare the crimes of the two. I don't think Kasab would be given the extreme punishment when compared to his masterminds.) Terrorism has become a menace and we had only one scapegoat to prove to the world and set a precedent. We HAD to make use of him, it was a case of Now or Never. Probably this was a case where going against basic human rights, that too of a poor uneducated young lad who had been misled by his jihadi masterminds, was in the interest of the whole world and a step towards stopping the menace, since we have the provision for capital punishment. Otherwise, I don't see it human to hang a person who did a crime (howsoever grave) at just 20 years of age. Hanging someone for a crime done at the age of 40 still makes sense. In this case, it wasn't human, but an important inevitable need of India. There was no other option.

Gender Sensitisation Classes At School : The Need of the Hour

2012-04-05T18:37:00.003+05:30

In this post, I have tried to provide a solution to a problem I feel strongly about... this is a change I would like to see in this society we live in, for a cleaner and safer future for our women.

Around October, I bookmarked the Times of India website on the web browser of my phone. I had decided to use a news website to keep updated while on the move (which means a four-hour travelling time to and back from college). Within few months, I realised that what had made the worst effect on me was the news headlines informing of rape incidents all over India appeared without fail on the TOI Mobile homepage at the rate of two headlines every three days. Or probably more. Which is why I replaced that bookmark with Google News bookmark pretty soon. And this does not mean I was indifferent to the dirty picture, in fact I was too disturbed by what was going on in the country.

Rapes and sexual violence have been part of civilisation (rather, un-civil-isation) ever since man started to think... ever since man wrongly realised that being a man is a passport to strength and superiority (over women). Sexual crimes are as much about the misplaced superiority complex of man, as they are about his misplaced sexual desire. Since a lot is said about the topic every day, and I have myself written a lot in my earlier article "Woman – A Complement, or Commodity to Man?", I will come straight to my present topic, which is about what I hope is a plausible long-term solution to the issue.

PART ONE: CAUSES AND THE ACTUAL ISSUE

Before I present my solution logic, I need to discuss the root features of the issue.

Even if women are being raped by men, why is the phenomenon rising these days? I do not really need fancy statistics here. Because, a woman raped every minute is no better than two raped every second. What we need to address is, what is the society going through after all, that rape has suddenly become a bigger menace than it was earlier? There must be something wrong with the culture, that is reflecting in this trend. And the reasons according to me are of three types:

(a) The reasons within man: An animal sexual desire coupled with an animal sense of chauvinism, lack of respect of a women's modesty not merely in activities, but also in their general thought process (Quoting from my own earlier article on the topic, "A group of men discussing women presents the most disgusting conversation transcript. While a group of women would discuss men more in the sense of joking, a group of men discusses women in the sense of ridiculing. Men make it a point to discuss women in a way that reflects the slavery of one gender and the mastery of the other. Women, instead, discuss men in a way that reflects the stupidity of one gender and the cleverness of their own.").

(b) The reasons within woman: If I have to write any, I'd say misplaced trust on men in some cases when they do not deserve any. Women need to realise early in life what Mariam realised in A Thousand Splendid Suns only after her mother Nana hanged herself. Wearing provocative clothes is not a mistake, nor does it invite rape, but it is a form of misplaced trust in men. How? You might not be raped for wearing such clothes, but if you think men will not eye you in undesirable manners, you are misplacing your trust on the men on the streets, whom you don't even know. This I mention, because I don't think any woman would like to be viewed in any tasteless manner. This said, it is true that not wearing provocative clothing does not ensure you any safety or undesirable looks. But since it can be agreed upon that the new sense of dressing up does generate a special interest among the men with animal instinct, I am not ruling this out yet.
Question you will ask me: So, do you think women should not dress provocatively, in order to avoid rape?
Answer: No, that is not a correct idea. In fact, a decade later, I would not choose to write anything at all under the section called "the reasons within woman", but I think I have to include this at this stage, because we are in a transition phase in the sense of clothing in our culture. Our parents' generation does not dress the way today's generation does, and hence this could have an effect on the male mindset. I include the reasons within women as mentionable reasons, because we are dealing with a whole society in a crisis, not the mistakes of men or the victimisation of women. I am trying to look for reasons behind the trend, and we have to consider all elements of society, including some reasons within the victim, at least at a hypothetical level, probably to be rejected in the conclusion phase.

(c) The reasons within the society: The commercialisation of women's modesty at the media level in the form of movies and advertisements, and the easy access to pornography, diminish the value of a woman's modesty in the minds of young boys at the age when they can be easily influenced. With a mind full of dirt and filth in terms of the way he views a woman, that young boy gets even more influenced by the female acquaintance at school/college, which is obviously more now than it was fifty years ago. Hence, an exposure to filth at an impressionable age, and then an exposure to the female gender at school, again at this impressionable age, is not an ideal "theory–practical combination" to be exposed to.

These are not the causes behind rapes, but these are the social changes that have contributed somewhere in the corruption of the male mind, and the corruption of the sanctity of the daily news.

PART TWO: THE SOLUTION

The time for a solution: All the changes in our society that I have mentioned above work mutually in a manner that can be depicted by this flowchart:

In the flowchart, please note the blocks 1, 2, 3 and 4.
Reasons behind our problem: Blocks 1 and 2. Effects: Block 4.

Block 1: We cannot and should not curb social changes and the empowerment of women. Women must be brought to the same level as men, and their interaction with men must be encouraged for a competitive civilised society.
Blocks 2 and 3: We have to find a way to ensure that the reason given in block 1 does not add up with the reason given in block 2, to yield the intermediate effect given in block 3. That is, the social changes that are always going on, should NOT influence young minds in any way whatsoever, that would lead to victimisation of women! The task at hand now reduces to this: that we have to make young teenage boys sensitive to gender issues, in such a way that they are IMMUNE to the social developments and their exposure to the female gender.

My solution to the matter of concern hence narrows down to this conclusion:
Just like the introduction of sex education at school level, the education system should introduce a subject called "Gender-Sensitisation" for young schoolboys in their teenage. The subject course should aim at inculcating a scientific realisation among them, that the girls they ogle at are also human beings like them, and are not objects of sexual desire. This is easy to tell a young boy, and it may also be ignored by him. But when this is told in a proper classroom environment, this is surely going to work differently, when the teacher takes good examples that sensitively illustrate the "hot girl of the other class with a sexy figure" as being someone's sister or daughter, examples that illustrate how "that whore of a girl who was flirting with me the other day" might just be a friendly girl who loves to interact, et cetera. They should give the idea how the pornography on internet doesn't mean that a woman's body is a playground which is meant to be surveyed and touched and imagined as and when you wish. And, how the girl who shows cleavage in the marketplace just likes to be independent and to dress the way she wants. The curriculum should include topics like basic understanding of the female gender, and the importance and key ideals of the man–woman coexistence on earth. (And anyway, we expect them all to live happy married lives later on without ever having a formal "man–woman course" in the education system!)
A similar course could also be done for female students as well, with a slightly different and relevant syllabi.

How this could change things: There are a number of things in life which might look easy-to-realise... but only once you realise it. When young boys are at an adolescent stage in the last few years of school, they are influenced a lot by their friends and the internet and the media. They grow up with these ideas, and make bad men, unless they worked on themselves and matured properly. A proper guidance is a MUST, at this stage, to neutralise the ill-effects that arise from these three factors. While parents tend not to discuss these topics, the boys are left to exercise their brain in a bad school of thought. If only they are made to realise certain things about women and girls, in a scientific way in a classroom environment at the age when it matters most, they will certainly grow up into more manly men in future.

Random Thoughts: Some New Food for Thought

2012-01-19T19:04:00.000+05:30

The Random Thoughts I have in this post:

1. This occurred to me when I was in a trance in a bus journey when we were on our college trip. This is about relative scales: "scales" as in "ratios". The world is a much bigger place for an ant, than it is to a human being. Logic says so. If you remember your childhood, you might have a feeling somewhere that say, your house itself, felt a bigger place when you were a kid, than you feel as an adult. Or is it only me? Anyway, what I am saying is that a creature with smaller eyes and body, experiences geography, events, and distances with a much smaller scale than human beings. And creatures with much bigger bodies and eyes experience them with a very high scale than human beings. For example, to a blue whale, the land area of India might feel just as large as Vatican City! What I thought then, was, how about a creature which is so big, that the ratio of actual size of object and experienced size of object is unity (ONE). I defined such a creature as God, since I am still trying to find a scientific explanation to the theory of God. In my thought process, I found it very rational to think that if there can be a creature as small as an ant, as big as a giraffe and whale, there should also be a hypothetical creature which is as big as the universe. And that can be defined as God or the Super Creature or the Everything. So, according to this, God or the Super Creature or the Everything is a creature in which everything else resides.

2. My second thought is on something against superstitions. There are ideas in our Hindu society about not doing certain things on certain days, like say, not cutting nails on a Thursday. Such beliefs are not only ridiculous, but are insane, considering that the division of the week into seven days is totally random. Had the ancient calendar-makers given us a week of 6 days, then a Monday might have actually been a Thursday and a Thursday might have been a Friday. The week having seven days is a system which is random, unlike the year which is a system based on actual astronomical events. So, saying that you should not cut your nails one day every four years is far more sensible than saying you should not cut your nails one day every seven days: which is plain ridiculous. And cutting nails was merely used as an example. However, in our society, such beliefs are more of rules and discipline in life than superstitions. But unfortunately, there are people who would think disobeying such rules would be a bad omen.

3. Sleep is given very little importance by our youth these days. They give far more importance to enjoying and doing their work, than having a proper sleeping schedule. It is very unfortunate, because sleeping is one of the most important activities of daily life. If you are not feeling sleepy, and so you choose to chat on the internet and play games on the computer at midnight, and go to sleep at 4 am only to wake up at 6 am because you have to go to school, you are never going to have a sharp brain. You can't play with your body. Another important activity neglected by the youngsters is scheduled eating habits. However, they at least eat when they are hungry. But sleep? They give it the least priority, and believe they can keep sleep away for those extra two minutes just to be able to finish the game or chat or to put up that new status on Facebook. I suggest you to have a proper, not haphazard, sleeping schedule. If not, then at least start giving sleep more priority in your lives. Ask any person with a high IQ, and I guarantee you they have slept well during their childhood.

4. This is against numerology, and is based on something similar to idea number 2. A month is randomly of 31 days or 30 days. So, if I was born on December 28, 1991, it was only because the Gregorian calendar decided to have 30 days in November. If there were 29 days in November, my birthday would have probably been December 29, 1991. And so, my dear numerologist, I have NOTHING to do with the number 2 + 8 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 9 + 1 (digits of the date of birth) = 33 = 3 + 3 = 6. It could well have been 7, 8, 9 or anything. Don't fool people.

5. I have something against the line which every other youngster so proudly uses: "I am what I am, and you are not going to change me. If you want to change me, go to hell." This is so very narrow-minded and is a symbol of stubborn ego. You don't have to change your behaviour just to suit someone else's needs and comfort, very true. But what if something does end up making you a better person? You have to come across hundreds of people in your lifetime. Everyone is going to inspire and motivate you to change something about you for good. Don't neglect their ideas. If you are able to filter out what changes are for good and what are for bad, and choose the good ones, then you are not changing, you are improving. There is nothing called originality in a human being: there is only quest for improvement and a quest for perfection. Else, you are going to be sore about every second person you meet, just because they disliked and criticised you for something. Accept change, accept improvements. Don't say you are changing for a particular person: call it an improvement for your own self. With the line "I am what I am", you are being foolish, in your pride for yourself. Personally, I have found things to inspire myself in the worst of people, and I mean it.

6. Once again, I wish to say that reading makes a man. Reading is the best hobby a parent can develop in his child. Do it to your child, when you grow up. I recently saw a friend changing his hobby of playing computer games into reading suddenly. At least it is a creative hobby. Be selective while choosing the things that you enjoy. Find creative and constructive hobbies: To be successful in life, you first need to not have a life. Ignore what others tell you, ignore if they mock at you for what you do. (Having said that, reading can't be the most constructive hobby, but surely it is the most useful part of growing up.)

I will keep thinking like always, and will be back with more food for thought some time soon, hopefully.

Gender, Emotions, and Relationships

2011-10-14T16:09:00.001+05:30

Some fights help you strengthen the bond; some spoil it.

What follows below is an account of several ideas, dealing with social and interpersonal aspects, starting broadly, and then narrowing down upon how to make emotional differences between a man and a woman immaterial. I end up with a psychological solution for less harmful fights between partners.

Man and woman, earlier

A century or two ago, women in general, across most societies, were considered as the caretaker of "the inside" of home, and the men of the family, as the caretaker of "the outside" of home. Women were labelled dumb and weak. The consequences of this school of thought were quite interesting. Obviously, the female gender remained uneducated and unexposed to the practicalities of life. Reading through old English classic novels is enough to describe the true extent of the differences. This was not gender discrimination, nor were these exactly differences—I would rather call it the "way of life and society" in those days.

Love, in very old days, for a man, was when he was attracted to a woman for her beauty. Love, for a woman, was when a man asked for her hand in marriage, and she accepted. The pre-requisites of courtship seldom reached the deeper aspects of life and human relationships, like mutual understanding, trust, and so on. Reason: One could not expect the woman to understand the man, since she had never been with one outside; a lady a man fell in love with, was supposed to be inferior and submissive, and do as the man directed. She accepted this, and never really tried to get up and get going. The man needed a wife to love and to extend his generation. All the woman needed from the man, on the other hand, was a sense of protection and happiness. Done. Nothing else really comes in what is close to a "master–slave" relationship. Keats, for example, described his perfect woman as the one that "bleats for man's protection". Relationships were simple. That love "hurts" was merely limited to being "defeated" in love by another suitor.

The crucial shift: Inter-gender relationships, today

Love for the outer appearance (or love at first sight) is now increasingly becoming a narrow-minded ideology for most careful-thinking youth. I explain the reason in terms of the exposure of the woman to the outer society, and the coming-at-par of the two genders in form of self-dependence and independent thinking. The ascent of the woman's prominence has allowed for various forms of inter-gender relationships—platonic, romantic, professional, etc., while getting educated and at workplace. This is a very very healthy change in the school of thought, and the society is certainly a more even place now.

The contrast in the first two paragraphs and the third one is extreme and crucial, when one talks of romantic love. When independent thinking comes in, ideologies change, behaviour changes, the society changes, the family setup changes, and the biggest of all—the relationship itself changes. The man still needs the woman for similar conventional purposes (the coming-at-par is associated with the woman's ascent, and not the man's descent), but the wife today needs much beyond merely protection and love. The needs are even in the new society: both need from each other equal unconditional love, support and trust, and a prompt sense of understanding of thoughts and actions. As a result, relationships are more difficult today. That love "hurts" now also includes times when the other person is unable to comprehend you, and you can't dictate terms on the other.

Now come the Emotional Differences

The evenness is beautiful; but it is unfortunately, sabotaged by the differences in the basic emotional constructs of the man and the woman, of which we are better aware today. Men have made a laughing stock out of a woman's brains, by using the clichéd idea that a woman is difficult to comprehend. There is also a notion that women are more emotional than men. It's important to say this here: Neither gender is emotionally weaker; they are just emotionally different. There are some things like a little child's laughter which would excite a female, but would provide no stimulus whatsoever to a man. An unwelcome statement may put two men to violent fight, while it could put two women to discussion. The differences are many, and interesting.

Man, Woman and Relationships Amidst Emotional Differences

The idea of a perfect relationship is to attempt to not just understand the other person, but to skilfully acknowledge and appreciate the other person's senses and emotions. It is not as easy as said: several people are immune to this realisation—they don't feel the need of it, even if it is needed—for a long time into knowing another person. But honestly, once this strikes the mind, one begins to attempt to understand the partner, rather than understanding (unsuccessfully)—and be more tolerant towards their actions and emotional differences. The attempts, over time, become successful; there are less fights over matters, and they advance into beautiful relationships. Once this is achieved, even activities that would have otherwise frustrated one, turn into beautiful reminders of the bond that exists between two people.

So, what's the point of this?

I began with the history of a social aspect, and narrowed down upon relationships today. What's the point of this? With changing times, relationships have become more difficult to sustain, as I expressed, because it depends not on one person any more, and because the other person who it depends upon now, thinks differently. Surviving the relationships is important: and the crucial point was where I said that attempting to understand is more helpful than understanding. When one merely chooses to understand and not make a fuss about something, they are forcing themselves to take something for granted. When they attempt to understand, they are actually understanding why the partner did/said what they did/said—this is surely more helpful, and ends up giving better trust, and knowledge of each other. An attempt to understand can be made by even the most intolerant of people, if at all they love their partner truly.

Don't choose a person who you think "understands" you; no one understands you completely always for that matter. Choose someone who is eager to apply brains to understand you at all points of differences. Attempt applying those brains the next time you are frustrated with your lover and when you see no way ahead, and I guarantee you less fights and a more sustained relationship!

Woman—a Complement, or a Commodity to Man?

2011-08-09T15:34:00.001+05:30

This post was first published on Thoughts In Play in July 2011.

We don't treat our ladies well. And you, the man, are a very ignorant and narrow-minded fellow, doing awful injustice to the other gender, if you agreed to the previous statement just by considering what the daily newspaper barks out about the way the society treats women. Oh, the newspapers have bypassed those stages of evolution when only the minor and the medium of all offences possible to a woman's modesty would make news—today it is just the extreme that makes news and gets recognised. But the rest that goes on, are unfortunately, offences, all the same. The society is plagued with a bundle of other daily blunders that we subject our ladies to, without ever caring to care, and caring to realise; if ever caring to realise, then seldom caring to mend.

For an initial sample, think of the way most men perform their stares and scrutiny of the top, the bottom, and the rest of the feminine torso, every time a woman marks her fair attendance in the vicinity of their dirty head, eyes, and the most damaging—their imagination. For some men unable to get a "proper, vivid view", the principle of the rectilinear propagation of light suddenly gives a practical irritating demonstration, and some weird corners of an eye give the next ray of "hope". The hope to be able to survey the girl with utmost satisfaction; as if not a human, and not certainly a pretty and charming woman deserving a second look for her aesthetic appeal, but just for being a woman with existing or imagined-for-pleasure sexual appeal. Yes, for the supreme perverts, a pretty girl can never be a pretty individual, but she is a "hot" piece of material—"object" or rather, plainly calling her a "thing" sounds more harsh to the girls, and hence the more real, since yes, we're not good to our ladies—dropped in his surroundings by Fate, and chances are that he will thank his horoscope the next moment.

Every young person in the modern urban setup of life would definitely have a story to narrate wherein a guy "used" a girl for short-stayed "amusement", before moving on to another girl, once getting "bored" of the first. The guy remains one in number, while girls populate, and abandon (no, get abandoned from) his life. This is another modern-life example of how we treat our girls. The girl needed love, felt she was getting it; the guy needed pleasure, he knew he was getting it. The worst event which summarises the misfortunes and poor luck of womankind, is, when at the narration session of all such stories at a table of old school and college friends, it is the girl who takes the "stupid" tag and is laughed at, while the guy is never treated with anything close to hate and disrespect. To the guy involved, the girl becomes a souvenir of some form of gallantry and bravery, not a mark of shame.

A group of men discussing women presents the most disgusting conversation transcript. While a group of women would discuss men more in the sense of joking, a group of men discusses women in the sense of ridiculing. Men make it a point to discuss women in a way that reflects the slavery of one gender and the mastery of the other. Women, instead, discuss men in a way that reflects the stupidity of one gender and the cleverness of the other. And dear male world, mend your ways or not, you know exactly who is right and justified.

Forget the "ghar pe maa-behen nahi hai kya" crap. It is just a meaningless way to silence an offender for a moment. For, having a mother and sister at home is not the only—or any—reason he should be expected to respect women. (Analogy: Having a home isn't the reason one would be expected to help in keeping somebody else's home clean! Having a television at home doesn't mean one would not break another person's television! Having a life to live is no reason one should be expected to respect another life! All these are, rather obvious and expected of you as a person!)

What we subject the girl or lady to, is obviously not respect. It is "free entertainment" without an entertainment tax. A particular woman is meant to be a complement to a man; a whole womankind not meant to be a commodity to him! A woman is a piece of life and heart, modesty and humanity, just as a man is; she is not a piece of sexual and visual satisfaction at will. Nature does provide us with sexual preference and understanding, but why not give a thought before choosing any—just any—woman's silhouette to exercise our sexual imagination on? Why use a woman's presence to give ourselves any bit of satisfaction? Does she agree to it? Obviously, she doesn't. After all, you wouldn't accept if an unknown woman chose to throw the responsibility of paying for her bus fare to you, in return of you refusing to take your eyes off her. (That would be too minor a compensation, though, for disturbing the modesty of a woman, which bears no equal.) For all this, a woman does indeed deserve what all you deny her. She is the gender which balances your life and keeps it stable.

It sounds natural on discussion that the society is unfair, but then, wherefrom does the mentality breed? It starts from the society itself; the poison that is fed into the minds of young boys by other young boys, reduces womankind to a luxury, and not a companion, gifted by Nature. Apart from such social inspirations, a more modern form of bad inspiration comes from the easy availability of pornography, which gives an easy illusion to still-immature minds, of women being an easily-accessible slave meant for the pleasures of man. Rape incidents that blot the world around us are evidence of this mentality. Before bringing the urge into action, an offending man doesn't care about who the woman is, where her self-respect and her future go to after this deed. For him she is a woman, not an individual. Isn't this pathetic! I repeat, just having a mother and sister at home is not why you should know how to treat a woman. If not giving specific respect, then treating a woman as yet another human, is plain obvious, not as a outcome of having a mother and sister in your life, but as an evidence of the sanity of your mind.

Social Networking—An Agent of Change

2011-04-24T13:56:00.001+05:30

This is the outcome of my first-in-two-years effort on a write-up with a given topic ("How Social Networking is Acting as an Agent of Change") and a given word limit (500). I found it a brutal violation of my freedom of speech, though I did manage to end up on a dozen words over 500. I wrote it so that I could become a part of the Education Times College Editorial Board, for my own vested interests. Contests are boring, and so are their entries, as you'll get to know if you read this. I hope the outcome isn't as boring, and they select me for what I wrote it.

Update: (April 26) I've been shortlisted for a position in the College Editorial Board. :)
The topic, a heavily clichéd one, is normally put up by middle-aged people still trying to come to terms with their fascination by the compactness that social networking brings to the world. Social networking is now as significant a part of life, as any other life process. And, nothing about the phenomenon is actually strange. A society has always been a—and the—way of life. So, what is the USP that an online society brings? The question is, why it still intrigues masses, even when it is universally acknowledged that the internet is ready to change the way humanity interacts, in the most unexpected of ways, in the years to come.

Obviously, the interest lies in the magical definition it provides to a society. For starters, it may be a pastime that helps find new friends. Social networks can find you friends for life, a spouse for marriage, a new set of customers for business, a bundle of fans of your skills to take you to glory. Moving beyond such social effects, which are largely limited to one’s personal life and workplace, there are certain other impacts, which actually alter the civilisation as a whole, for its good.

If not a more literate society, online societies have given us a more aware youth. Take the daily news for instance. A conventional form of society would need a person to follow the news to know about a story creating waves. Today, a person may not follow the news, but surely follows his Facebook news feed. Here, he is made to know about such a news story, for he is bound to wonder why everyone is talking about the same topic.

The news is just an example—a mere subset of a far bigger effect an online life brings. It is the "sharing of opinions" with a community, which makes social networking what it is. A person, who would not rather write/speak a tirade on his views on life, society, governance and other niceties, is encouraged to showcase those same opinions on an online platform, when he sees everyone doing so. If not as an article, then as a brief status-update! A rebel by heart discovers his speech thus; a yesterday’s “nobody” gets liked, retweeted, and gets confidence. An online forum gives a new definition to freedom of speech. In another part of history, putting forward opinions was the job of the intelligentsia, and following them the duty of the commoner. Today, social networking provides this opportunity to anyone and everyone with an opinion.

In my view, the broader effect of the online simulations of societies as an agent of change is majorly due to its revolutionary platform, that helps an otherwise off-line (pun intended) society to wake up, build and share opinions, think, argue, stay aware about a variety of things in life. The place which ignited the fight to bring Hosni Mubarak down, a phenomenon that can get a whole country behind Anna Hazare, something that can leave behind television media in impact, is surely a remarkable agent of change.

A Week After I Abandoned Her

2011-02-21T16:17:00.014+05:30

This is my first attempt at writing fiction. Please clap hard for me, before this fiction piece makes the emotional ones cry hard.

I last smiled seven days ago. I remember because that day was also a Friday. I remember because the Friday prayers and the imam's sermons dominated the background when we were amid our bitter verbal battle. I remember because I didn't laugh at the Friday night comedy on TV. I remember because I have verified the day I abandoned her, by opening the sent-messages folder of my phone, probably more times than I've picked up my phone itself, ever since.

Friday, 11 December 2009 9:03 pm Now get the hell out of my life.

She apologised; she did that. Dozens of messages and neglected calls, an attempt to meet and say sorry, thwarted ruthlessly by me.

Since then, not a day has been the same. A minute of getting hurt, an hour of shock, a day of anger. A minute of typing that message. Followed by, a day of shock, a week of loneliness, a week of distress, a week of regret, a week of grief. A second of eye contact in college—a pair apologetic, the other puzzled. A week of tears. A week of "why"s.

She was the calm one, I the angry one. Anger subsides, she doesn't.

After sitting on the floor for an hour with my head down, I stood up half an hour ago. I could easily have slipped over my tears that wet the tiles.

She was my happiness. Only my mother could have beaten her as the most fantastic person I had ever known. She is right, when she says she didn't mean it. She couldn't have imagined to bruise me thus. She was the only one outside my sweet home, who could leave me forever just if that could make me happy. Even if it meant nightmare for her life. She was priceless. She was. No, she is. She will still be. I need her back.

I'm suffocating. She is the only person I can share this grief with. But I am no longer accepting her, for a little mistake. I'm a scoundrel who pricked the floor of his own boat of happiness. I imagine her shedding more tears than me, every moment I do the same. I see her devastated. I see her lonely. I imagine her feeling the loss of the best guy she ever knew. The person who could bring a smile on her face every time she felt dead. The best friend who could suck all discomfort at ease, just to make sure she ended up merry. He is gone, she feels. No, he will come back, one day. I didn't mean it, when I hurt him. He didn't mean it either, when he left me.

I dial her number. I tell her I'm being selfish. I am solving my loneliness, by forgiving her. I'm sorry, I tell her. You're precious. She tells me, No, you're not being selfish. You're helping someone you love, in her moments of loneliness. Her moments of regret. Only you were supposed to do this. Wipe off my tears. I'm sorry for that day.

No, darling. You didn't do a mistake. I did, by telling you to get out of my life.

That was not a mistake, she says, after what I did.

Neither made a mistake, I tell her. I accept you for your mistakes, you accept me for mine. My errors are your errors, yours are mine. The best thing is, we're still together. And, from today, I'll be more patient with you. Slap me hard and insult me bad, if I get indignant.

No, I won't, you silly. Remain the angry one. I love you that way. The tears that your anger give me, tell me how priceless you are, and how lucky I am. And, the tears also tell me they're already busy packing. They tell me, they are scared of the guy who will be back the next day to accept my love back. Howsoever you are, you belong to me.

And you, to me.

And, it's done. My face flashes a smile once again. The imam at the nearby mosque tells us to love, to be patient. The comedy show still can't make me laugh, though, howsoever hard I try. I'm glad, I'm happy. Comedy shows are needed to keep the mind happy. Today, my heart is happy. I don't need comedy. For, a week after I abandoned her, we're still together as if nothing happened.

All the Metro Lies and Laughs — Some Interesting Anecdotes

2011-01-09T13:27:00.000+05:30

A metro train journey nearly always presents some hilarious experiences, if at all you are on a lonely journey. The case otherwise, that of travelling with your friends, does not present you with as many funny anecdotes to tell your grandkids half a century later because your talks help your loneliness. A solitary mind, surrounded with people, is certainly observant and collects memories from all around.

Before I start the talk, which I realise I already have, let us put up a disclaimer — since I am talking of all this as anecdotes, the characters and stories have every chance of having resemblance with just any person, living, dead or in a coma. If you read on and realise I am talking about you, sorry! It’s not at all co-incidental. Just that I happened to be sitting in the same compartment as you when oops, you did it. Let’s enlist the “it”s now.

This lady I chose to eavesdrop last week during my metro journey turned out to be churning out a list of lies with remarkable ease, shamelessness and ingenuity.

Place: Rithala Station. “Reaching there in ten minutes. The train’s at Rohini East right now,” she bluffs the person at the other end. For the ones unaware of the complicated Metro station-ology — an impossible subject to learn if you normally prefer the bus, auto, bicycle or private helicopter — the Rohini East station in no way resembles Rithala; it is in fact still two stations away from this place.

Rithala is the last station (call it the first, for the optimistic brand of people) on the route it lies on. The population was less at this point in time, and nearly all of them having their ears close enough to catch the words, tried to have a glimpse of the ‘liar’ woman. She went on talking, unfazed by the glances and weak smiles appreciating her cunning and white-clean lie. She kept updating her talking partner of the stations as they came by, telling her position advanced by two stations in the first update, three in the second, and four in the third.

Now, what I wondered was — what if the other person could hear the train announcements in the background of the phone chat?! She would be caught! She was either too confident about her lies or she was stupid not to have thought of that possibility, or the other person was hard of hearing.

This is quite a common scene though. People normally indulge in faking the truth to create in others a flow of false optimism. My friend does it to me, I do it to him. Metro stations come and go faster than the train — just to assure the person I’m on my way.

In a really hilarious metro incident, a man was talking on his phone with his speaker on. The other person: “Where are you? I am stuck in a traffic jam here!” The man in front of me: “Oh, are you? I am also in a jam — don’t expect it to clear soon. Where are you stuck?” The voice in the speaker: “ITO.” “Hey, I’m also there only!” And then the excitement! This guy promptly asked the other to identify him, grinning at me as I couldn’t help concealing a smile at all this — “I’m in a yellow t-shirt. Can you see me?” asked the man in the train to the man on the road. And lo and behold! — If you thought it was futile to play such a prank on someone, the reply made you realise he was foolish enough, indeed, to be made fun of thus — “Yeah I can see you!!” he shouted, “Turn around! You are on your old bike, HEY!” My station came, so I came out of the train, leaving a wonderful phone prank behind.

I am sure you must also have come across lots of funny incidents while in the train!

(This article was first published here under my column Tanay's Web for the e-magazine 21 Fools.)

Who Let the Dogs Out... Bow Wow!

2010-12-31T17:00:00.004+05:30

- A children's guide to tackle fear of stray dogs -

A dog loves getting angry, so don't show you're 'fraid,

and if you give a chase,

he'll accept the race.

Run more, and he can bite your face.

Of your flesh, he will get a taste.

So, upon seeing a dog

On the road; even if afraid,

respect him and show grace.

He won't growl, he won't pounce.

He won't give you any chase.

When I was small, dogs used to give me cold feet — all sorts of dogs : stray dogs, gray dogs, red dogs, dead dogs, black dogs, mad dogs, little dogs, infant dogs, old dogs and pet dogs. The above verse is a poetic form of what I had been taught as a frightened four-year-old shrieking while running from a dog on the road. My grandmother told me this mantra. I was supposed to keep calm. And the dog wouldn't care about me.

I remember sometimes when I was out, going to get something mom asked for, from one of the nearby shops. The problem was — it was a permanent problem — it was probably a municipal order that at least two dogs stay in that street at every point of time. I was reluctant to leave home alone, for this reason. When aged about seven, I couldn't be as reluctant, but the dogs played on my mind. "Get one kg sugar, beta." And before I could figure out what sugar is and what one kilogram means, one part of my mind registered a resolution that I was destined to tackle a dog in the next few minutes. (You love to know more about the enemy. As a result, I knew soon enough the time table of my street's dogs. I preferred going out when they would be asleep.)

Walking, if I spotted a dog, my mind, if not face, would feature signs of restlessness. (I particularly remember a devil dog, not very big, who I bet had made it a point to stand up and take a stroll only when I got out. A nemesis to my little brain, he was. Loved to walk behind me, and it would keep me alert — "Mad-Eye" Moody's "Constant Vigilance". The activities of the dog were scanned by me through the subtle corners of my eyes, and the mind. I've changed my city since then, but I wonder if he still remembers me, whether in heaven or still on that street. Off-the-topic, my new city has more stray dogs.) Terrified, my first method to "save" myself was that I used to speed up, to get ahead of the first person walking in front of me. That was a mindgame. I was so clever. My idea was that now, the dog would chase the guy I had overtaken, and whatever happened would happen to him. Little did I know, that the dog didn't care to hurt either of us.

Today, about ten years past that childish fear of dogs, I get reminded of all this when I see little kids on the road getting frightened of these animals. Some start crying and start running. It gives me déjà vu (and excitement) when I see them surveying the dog from the corners of the eyes (by rotating the head towards the back side. "Mad-Eye" Moody comes to my mind again, for his 360° vigilance), and overtaking people the same way I did, on having the hint of being followed by a dog.

Although I'm still afraid of lizards and know of people who have the phobia of cockroaches, dogs, cattle, cats, spiders, the dark, possibility of ghosts, etc., but, by the time adulthood beckons, the causes of fears move from the "animate" type to the "inanimate" type. It is common to hear of people being most fearful of losing their loved ones, and of facing their hated ones. Some are afraid of situations due to inferiority complexes, among other reasons. The fears at this stage of life are caused in the mind, created by emotions, not by animals. On this note, I write down the last few lines of the verse I began at the top of this post (the two installments of the verse are to be read in continuation).

When you'll be grown-up more with age

The fear won't remain as big as today's.

For, then humans will be scarier, bitches will look humans,

Life will cry, at new disguised demons.

Then humans you'll love and humans you'll abhor,

And you'll not even care, I'm very sure,

To run away from the dog, the ghost or the boar,

Even if it knocks, loudly at your door.

A reader maketh a writer, a reader maketh a human being

2010-12-10T15:17:00.000+05:30

The Magic of Reading

Year: circa 1999. Or probably 2000. I had just finished a Famous Five by Enid Blyton. Two days earlier, I had finished another book, and within four days of my last bookshop visit, I was troubling my dad for more. "Dad, take me to Books-en-Amee; I'm over with the three I bought on Monday!" I moaned. (Books-en-Amee being a popular bookshop in Patna; the words "en-Amee" meaning "as a friend" in French — "books as friends")

I hate people calling readers "bookworms". It's like any
other hobby!

Books have been my friends since childhood. Being brought up in an intellectual family, books and intelligence in talks and behaviour had to be appear somewhere. A vast collection of books collected by Dad and Mom during their masters and doctorate studies — novels, essays, critical works of famous books, etc — still made no sense to me, but the environment surely made an effect. I remember how, sometimes, Mom, after her strenuous school hours, would read out and explain to me stories and highly abridged classics (for children, of course) of the like of Around the World in Eighty Days, Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, Oliver Twist, etc. I was about seven then. Occasionally, I would fantasise writing those books myself, and I ended up writing my own version of the novel in my own immature English!

This was the beginning. I made myself an independent reader very soon; sometimes I had to go back to Books-en-Amee to get a new stock without reading, because I didn't understand the language yet! Those were the classics in their shortened versions. By the time I was in class IV, I was well-acquainted with Enid Blyton, possibly the best children's writer ever. She entertained me, she thrilled me. Reading Secret Seven and Famous Five might not be a good idea now at this age, but I trace all my petty writing activities and inspiration to Enid Blyton. Unabridged, the international language, the beautiful English countryside of the pre-World War II era, the adventures of the little kids, the mystery-solving, the suspense — MEMORABLE!

I continued with the simplified classics meanwhile, since anyway, Enid Blyton was going to take time. 21 books of the Famous Five, 15 from the Secret Seven, another 8 from another series, and another half a dozen in another. I started with darker mystery — the ones by Agatha Christie, with the book Murder is Easy in I think 2003. The Queen of Crime soon got a loyal fan in me.

I caught Pottermania late. Very late. It was around 2004 when I read Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, and further parts. It still didn't thrill me much. I had to re-read the books once more to get the mania. Finally, in July 2007 when I read the final installment, The Deathly Hallows, I realised I had just finished reading the greatest epic ever written. To create a world with the minutest precision of things that matter in any world, is a job more than well done by J K Rowling.

My little library of 2000-odd books gets few new additions nowadays. I left active reading in 2007, due to the preparations for my JEE. Now, renovating the hobby once again, I feel it's a rather expensive hobby — read the book, dump the book, all within a week of having bought it for a good price!

I particularly love reading fiction based on the English countryside — the peace, the serenity, the contentment and the life enjoyed by the people.

The importance of reading, as a hobby:

Reading novels makes you a good person — at least that's what I choose to believe. Reading about people, their deeds and their life, in fiction, make you take a glimpse at your own life. I've experienced that novels give you the knowledge of what's good and what's bad in life. They teach you the path of truth, honesty and good moral values. Reading mystery tells you that a crime can never go unpunished — be it as heinous as murder or as petty as hurting a person (hurting a person is probably more heinous than murder; but you know, the language of law doesn't have a heart!). Not one novel teaches you these things, but reading over the years make you a good person.

Besides, a reader makes a good writer. Observing the play of words, the use of grammar, etc. make one have the urge to write. The rules of grammar take a backseat for those who read, because they read them being applied in text.

I believe every parent should attempt to inculcate in their children the habit of reading.

The Proposal

2010-11-22T09:23:00.002+05:30

Boy: "I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I really love you; tell me, will you marry me?"

Girl (smiles): "Tell me, (a) What do you expect me to reply? (b) What do you want me to reply? — If the answers to these two questions don't match, we don't deserve to belong to each other, do we?"

The anatomy of my NO to crackers

2010-11-06T09:40:00.002+05:30

"Say no to crackers" is now becoming so old and boring that people would rather say "no" to this oft-repeated four-worded Diwali hymn, than to crackers. People have cared to say the much-needed "no" in the past few years, but I still find the air of Diwali evenings hellish. I abandoned the practice of bursting crackers when I was about eleven, and come here to list out why in my view one should not perform this activity at all.

Upon thinking carefully, I observed there can be three reasons why a person would avoid this practice.

Lack of interest — The young generation have different tastes of happiness and enjoyment. A majority would grow up bursting crackers, but growing up by the brain, they might see better forms of enjoyment, and find no enjoyment in crackers and Diwali blasts. Thus, they would abandon the activity after meeting with the saintly attitude of life.

The environment factor — While the first reason of "lack of interest" can depend solely on a person's individual interests, view of life and taste of amusement, the other two reasons I'll mention are more general and universally sensible, though not probably for the fanatics who love the light and sound of a cracker more than that of a discotheque on a Diwali night. When I go out in the balcony in the evening, I find the sky drowned in a nauseating form of smoke. It repels me and I return to the comfort of my bedroom. If the evening atmosphere is decorated with smoke, the nights can be sleepless due to the sound. I wonder, even if our citizens don't care for the environment and the future (perfectly understandable, we are at a ridiculous stage of the human race where everything bad is the other guy's responsibility and I have a right to everything good), how are they able to survive in that environment for even ten minutes?! Can't they see the smoke they're contributing to, find it disgusting, and leave it altogether?

I wonder if you'd care to set fire
to this stuff.

The money factor — Okay, say even if you don't care for the environment, even if your respiratory system has an extraordinary resistance towards the irregular air, I have a third point: if only currency notes could give out a bursting sound on being burnt, you wouldn't have to go for shopping of the crackers! Because, in that case, you could just set fire to bundles of ten-rupee or fifty-rupee notes; you're anyway doing that! I am at failure to understand the pleasure derived by even half-mature people (come on, money concerns even the most immature; the miser, after all, is an immature human) in spending a thousand bucks on crackers, then setting fire to the product, and finally seeing it go away in a few seconds! Utter foolishness, I feel. Small children don't know anything about money, and they find pleasure in this deed that their families and society teach them, so they're not at a mistake. It's the society which needs to pull up its socks and realise the brilliant levels of sacrifice they perform to their money, which they would otherwise avoid to spend for better purposes. To me, an apt metaphor to the crackers are currency notes that would burst with sound.

It would be great if the society revises its sense of humour and amusement every Diwali. I'd find it better to laugh along with that lady well-endowed-with-laughter-hormones on Comedy Circus, at no-jokes, than to laugh and feel the pleasure at the crackers going off, pleasure of spending an hour or two in smoke (hours of vacuum would be pleasurable than living in this extraordinary stage of mankind), pleasure of making the environment intolerable and restless for the old, the pets and the diseased, pleasure of giving the feeling of non-belonging to the children who can't afford for themselves the pleasure.

Nights of this auspicious day have been more peaceful for my sleep (that I value a lot; even if the world, I observe, gives more priority to work than sleep), since Diwali 2008. Even the pollution reports have reflected the change. I wonder if the change is due to the high levels of growing consciousness, the growing number of alternate pleasure sources at the disposal of the modern teenager, or the growing levels of inflation in India.

I hope all of you had a wonderful Diwali.

The Theory of Love: Love at First Sight

2010-10-07T11:09:00.007+05:30

Once again, the word "love" refers to romantic love, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

"Love at first sight" is a ridiculous concept. It demeans love. It defames attachment. It questions your eye-sight, it questions your definition of love. I doubt you ever read such a thing coming from a guy. Conventionally, men are thought of to be more obsessed with a sexual category of "love", which common sense defines as "lust" more than "love". It might not be such an issue in the Western culture, but it certainly is an oft-discussed puzzle and source of irritation for young girls in most sections of our society. The credit of corrupting the meaning of "love" goes to Bollywood.

You'll agree to this, that there's no possibility that "love at first sight" ever happens between an ugly man and an ugly woman — the very reason that it is a ridiculous concept, since looks are NOT supposed to have any bearing on love and emotions.

LET'S CREATE A SCENE I am a guy in my mid-teenage years, vulnerable and ignorant. Suppose I see a really pretty girl, dressed provocatively, at a party. She looks back at me. Our eyes meet. (Assume it's the first time we are looking at each other, thus making it "first sight"). And, at this "first sight", love... does not happen. What happens is that I get attracted to her beauty. I find her sexy, okay. I find her arousing. I wonder if she already has a boyfriend.

Just as I stare at her, she hurts her leg by the edge of a wooden table. I feel like running towards her. Okay, I do run towards her. She has fallen down. I lift her up. Special care for the opposite sex? Or, a human behaviour of helping another human? Or, affection? No, I don't want her to get hurt. Love?

WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY? That I get attracted towards her, doesn't mean she is attracted towards me. That I feel it would be great to know her more, is a mere feeling. An instantaneous urge. It is a feeling analogous to my sudden urge to touch the moon when it shines beautifully in the nightsky, the urge to sing in a reality show (without having any singing abilities, that is) when I see the fan frenzy for a popular contestant, the urge to become an overnight millionaire. At an afterthought, I wonder what good it would be to touch the moon?! I wonder how exactly can I sing without any skills?! I wonder how insane it's to want to become an overnight millionaire. A momentary reaction and urge is very different from our reality. I wouldn't like to live with this party girl, if she would later have evil plans of cheating me, if she would like things that I hate, if we wouldn't get together well. What happened at the moment was pretty natural, biological, because the hormones of every heterosexual being are made in a manner to be attracted to the opposite sex. I wanted to help her sit up after falling down, because I am momentarily attached with her.

Love is not momentary, but a process. And this process happens — it is not forced to happen. It happens between a man and a woman with repelling personalities, it happens between two people with pleasing personalities. This is the power of love. It is based on emotions, not looks. There is no question as immature as "Is it lust or love that I'm feeling?" If you are doubtful in the first place, it has to be lust!

Everyone wants love. In the modern culture, we have misunderstood the very idea of love. To us, every pair of a girlfriend and a boyfriend are in love — which is not sensible. They can just be in a relationship, which may gradually take them towards love.

Love is divine. It is a romantic form of friendship, not just any romantic relationship. A romantic relationship is not love, but a process towards love. The longevity and smoothness of a relationship make it "love". If two people are in love, they better call themselves "lovers", not a pair of a "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" — or so, is my concept, for reasons I can't explain.

What is disturbing is the seriousness that shallow phenomena like momentary lust and attraction can create in most guys' minds, and that most of them mistake it for genuine love. So, yes, most guys (a) do mistake love, (b) are immature in their handling of attraction towards a girl, (c) fail to control emotions, (d) are late in applying the sensible corner of their brain.

This post is to be read in continuation with the other posts in The Theory of Love.

From the Diary of a Blogging Ghissu

2010-10-04T21:22:00.002+05:30

"No, this is not about myself. It's just about any random devoted blogger." — Tanay Sukumar.

"For starters, ghissu is a Delhiite college term used for studious nerds. A blogging ghissu is a crazy nerd whose nerdism lies in blogging."

I am a blogger.

I am proud of posting new blog posts, even if I know no one reads them. I spend a good portion of my day deliberating over ideas to write upon, then opening my post-edit mode, writing (the modern-day writing is nothing other than typing out, using computer keyboards), deleting a paragraph, re-writing, anxious and cautious over the reader's probable reaction and impression, then finally hitting the "publish" button.

I am a blogger. My mind has bizarre forms of commitments and ambitions. My mind is preoccupied with stuff abnormal to a non-blogger.

I was stung by this lucrative bug of self-publishing. That if no one thought I was a writer, I could make myself one. That I could publish my own works, without having to bother about deadlines, an editor's torture, a publisher's obligation. I do have deadlines — I want to post a certain post by tomorrow night, and when I tell this to my friend to dodge an outing I'm lazy about, he says I've gone crazy. I do have an editor's torture — I want my posts to look perfect, without any silly spelling and grammar errors — no, I am a writer; I call myself one, and I want to look like one. Even when there's no one reading me at the other end.

I tweet, people retweet. I post status updates on Facebook, people like. That is my microblogging episode. Another day, two years ago, I would have labelled the action of thinking and typing out stuff like that I do, as "madness". But today I do that for reasons unknown. I blog for reasons unknown. When a friend of mine — who plays a hundred times more computer games in a week than the number of minutes he opens Facebook (or any other website — except perhaps the college website — a studious ghissu, just a variant of mine, I feel) in a year — asks me what I do on the internet, I don't know what to say. I know he can't understand my insane reasons behind and urgency of posting something new.

In my mind, I am proud to call them "fans". The friend requests — I get taken by their appreciation. Hold on, I am not a celebrity. I know they don't give a shit about who Alpha is. But then, my brain loves to believe that they do.

Acquaintances ask me how many people visit my blog. I multiply the figure by hundred and tell them a decent figure. I think, just as you shouldn't ask a man his income and a woman her age, you ought not to ask a blogger his blog hits.

I love to look busy. I love to look important. I am a blogger.

A crazy weird hobby — an exercise that doesn't pay, doesn't serve. An exercise that makes me fatter (sitting on the computer for long hours, without getting up, will add fat to my tummy, so say my family members). But a passion, nonetheless.

A Year of Writing

2010-09-04T12:59:00.002+05:30

Being trained to become a civil engineer... and here I am, spending most of my joules writing. Why and from where? Since when?

April 24, 2009: Twelve days post IIT-JEE, I wrote my first article written in absolute leisure (the article this link takes you to). The internet had not been working for three days, and the quick services of my connection provider had failed to oblige, when I opened Microsoft Word, and began penning away my ideas on Doomsday. After having written the article, I signed it with the date.

Writing was not even a dear hobby for me — though I had been known to mention to people, prior to this, I would like to become a writer one day. But I had never actually thought over being able to write a real book ever.

Some time in July 2009: I created my first blog. I was like lots of beginners who are clueless about what to do with the blog they proudly created — what to post, how to post, et cetera. And then in the ignorance, I managed to copy-paste all my letters to newspapers from my email inbox into blog posts. The immaturity of the expression I used in those letters makes me smile now (read here, for the younger me).

A year ago, with my interest in mathematics, physics, literature, geography, statistics, I could have chosen anything — but I had voluntarily settled for engineering. But then, the discovery of blogging did the trick. As I had already dived into the ocean of engineering, suddenly some waves were diverting me towards a hobby I had never taken seriously before.

August 26, 2009: All my previous petty works had been written for contests, as insignificant newspaper letters, and so on. All my previous internet leisure had been spent — wasted — on Orkut, Facebook, Yahoo chatrooms and GTalk. When the two — writing and internet — combined, I discovered blogging. Blogging is the best thing that can happen to an aspiring writer.

Today, I wrote my first genuine blog post. For the first time, I blurted out my atheism, my rationalism, my philosophy. I felt really relieved after I wrote strong commentary on God and Religion for the first time.

Now I knew exactly where to advertise my philosophy — where to speak out the beliefs that would haunt me and make me feel abnormal just because most others thought differently. A rebel of thought had discovered his platform.

Pretty soon, I was discovering lots of people who had similar beliefs as me. I observed most talented writers were deep careful thinkers and therefore, rationalists. Blogging was taking me in its grip.

Soon, I was loving writing. From a casual hobby, it had become a deep passion. People appreciated and criticised — some began to look forward to my posts, and it felt good. On demand of one of my best friends, I even wrote out my brief "autobiography".

November 28, 2009: A day that ranks somewhere at the top of the most significant days in my life, when News That Matters Not began, I had no particular ambition. I was just emulating the concept of premier Indian news satire blog Faking News, which I later learnt had been emulating legendary American news satire service The Onion. Fake news struck me, it impressed me, and I decided to have an adventure. With no abilities to do comedy, spoken or written, I doubted I would be able to do much. I wrote a fake interview of the Sachin Tendulkar of 2029. Still unsure whether I could do humour, within three days, I considered taking help from friends. The blog grew, separated from my personal blog, got writers and fans, and rest is history which I would better recount on NTMN's first anniversary in something like an "Editor's Note" :P.

The Effects of Writing

With no guidance in the world of fake news that I had jumped in, I published posts for "humour" for as long as three months. I used to believe fake news was of "humour value". It was then that I learned the significance of "satire" and "satirical humour" through some sensible feedback, criticism and guidance from some experienced journalists, writers and the Faking News founder and editor himself. I realised how writing for humour purposes is outright silly when compared to satire.
Writing satire and humour is still not natural for me — I'm the philosophical kind. I have felt a number of times that I have spoilt my natural writing for the sake of NTMN.
Writing has made me confident of my radical thoughts on religion, patriotism and romance. I now feel sure of putting my points through writing. I've discovered the art of the written debate, I realise the importance of interaction. Quality interaction and arguments on healthy debates make you a better thinker and human being.
Now, whenever I find a new blog which I appreciate, I make it a point to find about the author and sent a note of appreciation. Appreciation is the wheel of the art, and a writer always feels nice on being commented upon.
I learnt criticism is important for life. It just takes a good critic and a good writer to make the criticism functional. A bad critic might post aggressive and obscene comments — whereas, a good critic points out the errors carefully. A bad writer takes the latter sort of comments as aggressive, and decides to ignore them — whereas, a good writer knows what to take and what to flush — and how to take and how to flush.

Today, I have created for myself a sizeable acquaintance and fans list who enjoy writing and reading. I am proud of having found blogging. Otherwise today, like most of the youth, who wait for life to open its roads instead of creating a road for themselves, I would also be sending desperate fraand requests to random cute girls, wasting my time with a permanent chatting schedule, playing pointless sports as hobby for leisure and not as a passion with ambition, and so on. I am proud having created a narrow road for myself in this big world, which I will rebuild with new ambitions if ever I fall from it. It's more cool to be recognised, to keep trying, to work hard, to be determined, to get friend requests; than to wear and dance cool (unless you are a model or dancer), than to have 2000 girls on your friends list, who don't even know your name, than to work without an effort, than to kill time and reserve the initiation of the ambition for the next day that never comes.

I'm thankful to my readers for their support, comments and appreciation during my first year writing, to my interviewers who made me believe I did indeed have an effect, to my critics who read me to improve me, to NDTV 24 × 7 which invited me for an "expert" view on air despite just five months of writing satire, to the few people who found me worthy enough to seek writing advice from, to the NTMNers whose work helped the NTMN blog.

Mera Bharat Mahaan, and may it REMAIN Mahaan

2010-08-08T19:00:00.009+05:30

FACE THE TRUTH. My post might be bitter, it might be sweet — but then, you ought to live in reality, whatever it presents to you.

If you can say Mera Bharat Mahaan, remember that a whiter sample of the same species as yours, living faraway, knows enough English to say Britain is Great and another bloke knows enough French to blurt out La France est Grande. A man can kill you if you don't agree to him using the Japanese sentence Nippon wa subarashiidesu. Though Hitler is dead, you might still be inviting danger if you dare to object to Deutschland ist groß. Pride is a universal feeling, and the pride in each of these sentences is identical. The pride comes from what you were taught as a child — to love your country. Not many of us, however, were taught why exactly our country is great.

Unity in diversity - an academic concept, now a liability -
the former kept bowing down to the growth of the latter.

We describe India's greatness in terms of our history and culture. Sure, I am proud to have been born in a nation that was once the Golden Bird, the unnamed ancient wonder of the world, the source of all knowledge, home to giants of philosophy and spirituality. But I am not proud to be an Indian. Because being an Indian does not imply for sure that I am not corrupt, it does not guarantee my honesty, it does not prove my sarva-dharma-sambhāvism.

I am not proud to be an Indian, for, an Indian ranges from Baba Ramdev to Swami Nityananda, Rammohun Roy to Raj Thackeray, Dravid to Azharuddin, Arjuna to Duryodhana, Naxalite to social worker, the millionaire to the maid, the sincere taxpayer to the corrupt, the literate to the ignorant. And you call this diversity? I call it disparity, differences and misfortune. There is no diversity in matters of conscience, humanity, morality — these virtues have no variety.

Every nationality is an amalgam, every religion is an amalgam — this is the law of averages, the theory of neutrality — that, every point that makes you great has an equal and opposite answer. If Britain was great to have civilised the world, it was inhuman to have tortured the world; if Americans produced the technologically comfortable world of today, they ruined two Japanese cities 65 years ago; if Gandhi was father to his nation, he was not father to his son; if society teaches you manners, it teaches you to hate. For every woman who waits longingly for her husband to come back from work (she reflects love and respect — it touches our heart, doesn't it? — we're proud of this culture), there is a drunk husband who comes and beats up his wife every night.

Everything has to balance somewhere — and that's why every nation is great — and bad, as well — in its own special ways. You can't help it, it's a law of nature, and you're fooling yourself when you say your country is better than others, for even if I agree its better, I will find an equal number of points which makes the neighbour better. Patriotism shouldn't arise per se, at the cost of hating someone else — it is instead merely the love for your nation, just like you love your own sweet home — the home that has brought you up, the home which gave you your identity — you will automatically love that place. To be proud of my motherland is my duty because it's my home, not because it's the best place in the world. It is special indeed, in some aspects, but it is far from special in some.

Ultimately, behind the greatness of a nation lie you. You might be an admirer of your nation's past — it might make you proud — but it's you who will take your country forward. Unless you can contribute to your nation's greatness, that greatness is stagnant and then extinct! Greatness is not a virtue reserved from legacy, it's a perpetual process. A process of constant growth, a process of constant betterment. A process not to be proud of, but to justify — yes, you have to justify your greatness every single day, every single second that you breath. Else, your grandchildren might not be able to give an answer when asked why exactly they claim Mera Bharat Mahaan (or if the current state of greatness survives, they will be more cosy saying the English translation).

Tanay's Web: An Octopus Made Awesome by An Awful World

2010-07-25T16:15:00.005+05:30

21 Fools Magazine | Chai Biscuit - Tanay's Web | Original link to this Article

An aquarium is where football matches are being played these days. The flags of the two opposing teams are the players, and, an octopus is the referee. Paul the Octopus is a referee of the same breed as the ones who were accused of poor decisions during the quarter-finals of the World Cup. Or perhaps, this four-year-old octopus displays an even more biased and cunning form of refereeing. The flags of the teams await him at the bottom of the aquarium - in agonising suspense of over which the octopus chooses to rest his body. The referee chooses the winner, and the fans have to accept. Paul plays the role of a star football player, a star analyst, a star psychologist, a star soothsayer, and a silent wicked commentator. Human beings all over the world are looking up to an octopus in awe, and football shows on the daily news are more about the animal than the athlete.

The point is: who has transformed a mere water animal into a star analyst and a star soothsayer, one more dependable than the 90 minutes’ timeline of the game itself? Why on earth, did someone from the country of Einstein decide to put the flags at the bottom of aquarium, in the first place? Who was the devil who said that his sitting on flag A means A will win? And, why the hype over some results that got correct? Okay, I agree, nearly all results got correct, except once in 2008, but there is obviously no way that Paul decided the games.

Paul the Octopus, unknowingly, has made himself nothing more than an indicator of human behaviour of innocence and easy amusement, and a symbol of being interested in something despite having strictly rubbished it. Paul runs as do our reality shows; we know and say that we are watching staged drama, but our morning tea is still a hubbub over the last eliminated contestant in Bigg Boss, and the new husband of Rakhi Sawant. Here, we know Paul doesn’t know about football, and he is merely choosing between two buckets of food, but still, we want to eagerly know who he picked for the 3rd-4th playoff and the final match. Even we might choose between a Dairy Milk printed with an English flag and another with a German flag, but choosing the former could never mean that we have decided England will win. If they do win, you are a hero; but you know the truth. You know it was a coincidence. Imagine that feeling, and now imagine how funny the octopus might have been feeling now if he understood the loud nuisance of the journalist and the death threat from the fan.

Poor Paul is a victim of human stupidity; and due to such hype over him, players are a victim of psychological exploitation. A fan issuing a death threat promotes his stupidity. We don’t want an Indian fan to get a heart attack after Pakistan beats India at cricket; but the hype is taking us to an era of excitement where suicides will occur even before the match starts.

The hype is natural, but it just beings disrepute to the intelligence of the human race and the talent of the athlete; and it makes even octopuses die the death of a hero.

The Time Theory of God

2010-07-10T15:09:00.006+05:30

This is yet another post in my series of philosophical observations related to belief in the existence of God. And, since I am returning back to the topic after a long time of about a year, I would rather summarise the thoughts I had and still have:

The Logical Theory and My Theory of God | God is the Spirit who created the Universe and all beings. Full Stop.

The Original Theory of God | Someone thought: "Where have we come from?!" "How does the world run?" "It's so puzzling." "There must be someone running the world, someone who is ahead of and superior to all human beings." And hence originated the Theory of God. Logical, but its need? None. And hence comes:

The Needlessness Theory of God and The Theory of the Sufficiency of Humanity | I say that the idea of God is not necessary for mankind. If there is a superpower running the world, we don't deserve to mess with Him. We are mortals and we should live as life happens to us. Believing that there's someone else controlling us only makes us weak and dependent. No one ever saw or experienced God, and so whoever conceived the idea first, IMAGINED it. We can connect with the idea, but not with the use of the idea. Fiction is just for amusement, not to be taken seriously. All that is needed, is to be human in your best capacity and God will take care of you. Being Human is Sufficient. Believing in God is Needless.

Being religious is more about being human than being theist.

The Extended Theory of God and How Superficial It Is | Even if I agree that the Original Theory of God was needed, you can NOT explain to me the need (if not proof) of these additional theories: that it is God who controls our actions, that even belief has varieties (I refer to religious differences), that you need to pray to God to get help, that you need to get a bath in a river to get all your sins washed away, and a lot of other things, basically, the stupid person I am, I don't even understand the basic need of BELIEVING in God!! God is just a theory, just have it in your mind that there is a God like there are other galaxies. Would believing in the existence of those galaxies make your life different?

The Time Theory of God | This new theory came to me after I read this post by a blogger friend (click here). This theory of mine compares God to Time. Or for that matter, other entities like Gravity. We don't understand Time and Gravity fully. It can't be understood easily, though. Time is the fourth dimension, and we can't visualise it's meaning. Like, why has "now" come after "then"? How do we travel through time? In fact, we don't travel through time, time makes us travel with us. It seems so natural, that something has changed since you started reading this post. Time. Time has changed. You have become a few minutes older, and it is a puzzle! The fourth dimension is a big puzzle, isn't it?! Similar is the concept of Gravity. Newton gave a formula to measure the force of gravitation, but the cause is still puzzling.

God is probably something analogous to Time and Gravity. Unexplained but Existent, or rather Probable. Time is measured and it serves function to society; the law of gravitation has revolutionised science. To the believers, God probably performs a function more divine: that of providing psychological strength, and I respect that.

Tanay's Web: On Creating, Living and Enjoying Life

2010-06-08T10:53:00.000+05:30

21 Fools Magazine | Chai Biscuit - Tanay's Web | Original link to this Article

I have exams this week. And as usual, I have this amusing wish. Yeah, I have this particular urge whenever I have exams. Has been like this for years. The wish is that the world provide us memory cards and our brains have memory card slots. Memory cards for different subjects, I mean. What you need is stay away from books, have a nice healthy breakfast on the morning of the Physics exam, leave for the exam, and the moment you get the question paper, become a robot. Click a button somewhere near your right ear, the memory card slot comes out, put the Physics memory card in it, and start doing the exam! Interesting, wouldn’t it be? You wouldn’t have to apply your mind.

Like this example, there still exists a lot of stuff unconquered by technology. If humans started working on memory cards, all of us would be perfect. And, that’s just what life shouldn’t become. Perfections would render life more useless than Vindu Dara Singh’s own life. Challenges are needed in life. You need to enjoy the times when you have your bladder full but there’s not a toilet in sight, you need to love moments of thirst when there is no water.

And, in continuation with these thoughts on technology, it occurs to me that this morning I read in the newspaper about USA scientists creating life in laboratory. However, the newspaper seemed to be more excited about the fact that the team of scientists comprised a handful of Indians. It had stories about their families and old school teachers singing praise about the Indians involved in this project. A much smaller part of paper space was devoted to the details of the discovery, which had more biological terms than I ever attempted to put into my mind in my school days. So I couldn’t even figure whether they created a new bacteria or a whole new human being. Anyway, this innovation has disturbed some people, who claim that man should not venture into stuff God has reserved for himself. Now, I wonder, who said Creation is God’s monopoly? Man has created so much, and life is yet another of them. Medical science delays death by curing and controlling diseases, why has this not been argued upon by those who are troubled NOW? Anything that is innovative and generates interest and appreciation is legal in this modern rational world.

So India lost yet another T20 World Cup in West Indies. England won their first. People failed to notice that the victorious English players had also attended IPL after-match Parties hand-in-hand with the Indian team members. All fans could recall was that Indians lost because they partied and the Englishmen won because they didn’t party. Reminds one of 3 Idiots. The trio of Ranchhoddas, Farhan and Raju enjoyed as much as they could, but one turned out topper while the other two found themselves at the bottom. This is yet another example of how this legendary movie portrays the realities of the world. It’s all about how one executes himself when required. The English players and Rancho did, while India remained Raju.

This closes my column for the week. Enjoy the growing heat outside the comfort of your house; you will miss this heat 6 months hence, when you feel cold. Enjoy the challenges, as I said earlier in this piece!

Dumb Quotes by Me - I

2010-06-08T10:41:00.003+05:30

"Gardeners all over the United States have an unusual respect for me. I uproot Bushes very well." - Barack Obama, First Lady, USA.

"When someone hits you on your left cheek, smooch on his right cheek." - Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Maternal Grandfather of all Indians.

"At the stroke of midnight hour, as the world sleeps, we the Indians are beginning the process of more sexual reproduction than any other country in the world: the process of becoming the most populous nation." - Jawaharlal Nehru, the first of all Manmohan Singhs.

"Cowards die many times on their beds." - William Shakespeare.

"All the world's a sage (only men), and women are merely liars." - Shakespeare, yet again.

"I hear, I regret. I see, I tremble. I do, I become a dad. - Confucius

"You must be the change you wish to see in your wallet." - Mahatma Gandhi.

"An eye for an eye and the whole world shall become one-eyed." - Gandhi.

(Coming Soon : Dumb Quotes by Me - II and Dumb Proverbs)

Tanay's Web: On Faking Confidence and Sari Colours

2010-05-20T13:52:00.000+05:30

(My weekly column for 21 Fools. First published here.)

Howdy! What would you call yourself when you know the alphabet from A to P, but invite 100 people, of all kinds, to your home to listen you reciting A to Z? When your family members and neighbours wonder, you say you will manage. You hire a teacher to teach you the Q to Z. You have a fight with that teacher. Still you flatter him and persevere. When it’s one day left for the visitors to come, you suddenly think that you have to provide them accommodation and food too, apart from just showing off your alphabet skills. Your plight in front of them is pathetic.

I was just using an analogy to point towards something different. A far bigger issue, that goes beyond learning alphabet. Beyond 100 people. Just replace "YOU" by "India", "knowing the alphabet" by "holding the Commonwealth Games". "Knowing from A to P" is equivalent to knowing a lot about the Games theoretically. With this, the execution part, "Reciting Q to Z", i.e. actually holding a successful Games, sounds so ambitious.

We are a nation crippled by the weight of "enthusiasm in luxury", which easily dwarves our "enthusiasm in reality". Despite a grim ground reality decorated by poverty and hunger at the lowest level and corruption at the highest, we don't fail to love our Bollywood, cricket and entertainment to the core. Unfortunately, the reality suffers and gets more real. Whether it’s getting that extra money from the public, or teaching the public how (not) to pee in front of others. The day the Games ends, peeing on roadsides will be OK.

Moving on, I have been following Indian Idol this week. The auditions are proof that every Indian considers himself a singer. Even I would love to consider myself a handy singer, and so I understand their feelings. With this self-confidence in singing and holding Commonwealth Games, I wonder whether where this confidence comes from, among all us Indians! We are SO MUCH into faking confidence levels, and fooling people into trusting us. Is it some Ancient Yogic Talents, or something given by the Britishers or Mughals? Or, maybe it is just a passion to embarrass ourselves, or even to gain attention! Getting attention is what many of Indian Idol audition contestants come for, mind you! You get a scolding from Anu Malik, and you are a hero in your locality! Aha, but will it make you hero enough to get a "yes" from your crush?? Haha... the mind is just ambling away into nonsense.

To wind up today's segment, I want to tell an anecdote I had once in school. I was talking to a teacher one fine Thursday morning, and she asked me what day it was; I said Thursday. The next moment, she was scolding herself! "I thought today is Wednesday, and I put on an orange sari! We had to wear red saris today! Damn!!!" Huh! What sort of priorities these women have sometimes!! And, think of what I stood doing there all the while she regretted!

Tanay's Web: My First Column

2010-05-20T13:49:00.001+05:30

(My first column for the e-magazine 21 Fools. First published here, May 9, 2010.)
________________________
My first column, and its supposed to be funny. Damn! Every week, I’m supposed to meet you like this, write and make you read stuff that should make you laugh. Damn, damn! As I try to help myself with topics to talk of at this debut rendezvous, my mind thinks of one, then dumps it, and comes up with another. Those ideas are pretty much like Salman Rushdie's wives, highly temporary and fickle. Let the fickleness be my identity. And hence the name "Tanay's Web". May I take you on rolling roller-coaster rides where you meet new incidents every new sentence. Say "Amen".

In the metro train the other day, I overheard two seemingly first-year college students discussing what they would feel like when they got into the second year and brand new juniors would address them as “Sir”. (I’m as enthusiastic an eavesdropper as you are. Face the truth. You can't deny overhearing people, much the same way as you can't conceal your loud farts. Overhearing other people talking is the only thing you can do when you have people all around but friends nowhere close.) One guy seemed pretty excited about the prospect of being referred to with a title that honorable people are conferred after years of toil [read "flattery"; qualifying to be called "Sir" means you need to have the talent of flirting with and impressing the Queen of England as well as you would ~~flirt~~ love to flirt with her granddaughter (if she has one. Even Englishmen wouldn't recall their dynasties properly). Huh, these bracketed sentences. I keep getting away from the topic. The Web.]

At school, we used to address our seniors as "bhaiya" (elder brother) and "didi" (elder sister), as if they were your uncle's sons and daughters. Or even your own dad's children. At college, they become sirs and madams. They suddenly grow up from brothers to sirs and sisters to madams; you suddenly face demotion from being merely a younger cousin/sibling. But that's the way it goes. Call them something else, and you undergo ragging, which will further lead to bragging ("I beat up a junior last night, you know," says Sir ABC to his Madam DEaF at the candle-Knightly Dinner). I still await the experience of becoming a British knight (Sir Tanay, which would usually be reversed in Hindian English to "Tanay sir"), and will get there around the same time as the hopeless guy of the metro train will.

Lets move from hopeless guys to hopeless women. The first one who comes to my mind is Rakhi Sawant, but even hopeless people like Ms Sawant deserve a break. A lot has been said about her, so let's talk about other people. People who took Dalits from rags to riches and uplifted them to higher than Everest by just establishing their statues in free time. Kumari Mayawati. Of all the useless things the Thackeray folk keep saying, one, I remember, sounded amusing. That being, unmarried people get tired of life and do abnormal stuff. The concept sounds fascinating. Mayawati fits. But saying such stuff is part of the Thackerays' daily exercise.

Talking of unmarried women, I recall that last week, the Supreme Court dropped all cases against South Indian actress Khushboo for whatever she said on premarital sex long ago. Lack of democracy on display at the high-level judicial stage. Married people fighting over premarital sex. Nostalgia of old times when they got naughty and had pre-marital sex themselves? Or, regret of not having the experience themselves? No opinion of unmarried people sought, the ones whom the comment concerns most. Lack of democracy.

As quickly as I change topics, allow me to say goodbye. I sense frustration in you. Frustration to see me leave. Only to come back next week. The Web will trap you, be on guard.

The author is the Founder and Editor of the news satire & humour site News That Matters Not.

Random Thoughts: Why Being Talented ≠ Being Great

2010-03-08T16:15:00.005+05:30

This post is purely about my opinion on a topic currently in discussion. So my language and expressions are raw as compared to other posts. So I feel you may not like to read it for the same excitement that some of my previous posts have created in your mind while reading and in my mind while writing. In case you need an exciting post (huh! entertainment-hungry people.. who never like serious topics. All you need is a Bharat Ratna for a cricketer), read the Love Laws (take link from homepage). But you may surely want to read the current post to know my views on this particular topic, and argue and discuss.

The concept of this post came to me when I was thinking over the discussion over whether Sachin Tendulkar deserves a Bharat Ratna. I was in favour of it during the initial part of my thought process, since I believed that after all Sachin has done tremendously well in his field of activity and has made India proud, hence the Bharat Ratna, “India’s jewel”.

But do entertainers really deserve such honours? Among all talents, skills and passions that you may have, entertainment probably has the least importance. As an entertainer, you get attention, appreciation and fans. But how significant is that in the larger context of things? An actor and a star cricketer lighten up our mood temporarily, or maybe sometimes for some days.

There are, I believe, people who enlighten up our full lives and not just the temporary mood. Do you justify Sachin getting an award that once Mother Teresa got? Surely not.

Lets classify people in some categories.

People who have no talent and have nothing to be proud of.
People who have talents and love to display them, and to have people appreciate them.
People who have talents and love to bring them into action just because they love to do so.
People who have passions but do not heed to them, because they want to do something bigger, something for the society.

Entertainers belong to the middle two categories. They do things for their selfishness or amusement and appreciation. Much like I do. I term myself a good human being, I want to entertain and get attention for whatever talent I possess, but most probably would avoid doing social service voluntarily. A Sachin Tendulkar is found spending most of the year playing cricket "because that is his passion and playing for the country makes him proud." Therein lies his selfishness. True, he is a great cricketer and I myself love to see him bat, but he can't claim the greatness of people like Mother Teresa, who lived for others and sacrificed their own passions for the better of the society. Cricketers and other entertainers have also sacrificed a lot and deserve accolades, but not more than that. Not surely the Bharat Ratna. Because their sacrifices didn't do the world much good except giving us yet another talent, a yet another something to cheer about, and a yet another something to use when we are bored and unhappy (and yeah, I agree, probably a talent like never before, who changed the history of a particular arena, like Sachin himself).

The people in the fourth category that I mentioned are indeed great. Civilian awards of high value, like the Bharat Ratna are better off, when given away to people who changed the life of even one person, rather than to people who changed the history of a mere sport or cinema. Ours is a poor nation with lots of social problems, and we need to understand the difference between entertainment and stuff of real value. To get a Bharat Ratna, you need to bring smiles to a face that has no TV at home. You don't need a Bharat Ratna if you have just brought smiles to faces that already can afford a TV set that shows live cricket matches. To get such awards, move beyond yourself and your talents. Excel in the field of "humanity" to deserve such awards.

To Sachin fans (I say that to myself as well): I don't underestimate Sachin's talents and down-to-earth character. He has excelled beyond doubt in his field. He has displayed great character whenever he had the chance to. In case someone has misunderstood my points, please put your arguments here and I'll see if I can answer you.

P.S. Sorry, I am too selfish and I want to entertain much more than do social work, and so I do not demand the Bharat Ratna. Everyone has his own attitude, abilities and field of work. But just don't ask for the Bharat Ratna without thinking about it as much as I tried to.

The Love Laws

2010-02-27T17:26:00.005+05:30

In case you scrolled down to see the length of the post, you are swearing at me, I know. A rather long post, which you must read to discover some interesting truths of life.

Ah! Finally I'm back here, writing something. I don't promise you better frequency on this blog still, but yeah, I do assure you that I'm still alive and still writing. (Although, those whose attention shifted to NTMN after my pause on Tanayisms know that I'm not dead.)

I've been wanting to write this blog post for a long time now. Things have been enjoying a roller-coaster ride inside my mind, and they have been forming and deforming like they always do when you want to express but can't (or, rather, don't). Now when the time has come when I am here to write, I realise that I've already wasted two paragraphs trying to say a mediocre and boring "Hello, welcome back" to you.

The Love Laws Yeah, I've been mean enough to glue you up to my blog with interesting titles, now and before. Here I am going to analyse the meaning of romance and love at different ages in life, for both genders. Both genders? I remember using this sentence once in an earlier post: Had I known what girls felt, I would have been a Tanya and not a Tanay. I'm still a Tanay, don't doubt that, but I'm just trying to exhibit how foolishly I have analysed thoughts of the female sex.

Ages 0-3: You are a sweet and cute little moron to the world. You don't know anything about love and the opposite sex. Law I:

During ages 0-3, you are neither boy nor girl, you are just a child.

Your job is just to amuse and entertain your elders by singing out nursery rhymes and ABC to your parents and visitors ("Beta, show Uncle and Aunty how many nursery rhymes you know!" and you sing and they laugh and smile as if you are a retard donkey trying to sing. The mean elders even praise you for having recited nursery rhymes that have no function in the future life.)

Ages 4-8: The sweetest phase of romance in life. Law II:

Innocence is an integral part of classic romance (if you know what I mean; which you don't).

There are no dirty feelings involved, still, when there's a girl around the same age, somewhere in the vicinity, a boy feels special.

He will try to seek the girl's attention, and try to help her out when she doesn't need it (and in the process, getting embarrassed) and stay looking on, embarrassed, when she indeed needs it. What do girls feel when a boy's somewhere around? They feel nothing. They are still small.

Ages 9-12: Movies start having some effect upon you. You get to know that there's an opposite sex, and there's something called a romantic feeling. Girls start feeling proud of having male company (around the same age, obviously). They feel protected, however malnourished the boy is.

Ages 13-16: Before this, merely the opposite sex excited you. Now, conditions start developing. Law III:

A boy will like a girl, and a girl will like a boy, if they are good-looking and attractive and dress well.

The stupid age of adolescence. The innocent romance advances to sexual feelings. We are so crazy at this age, anything and everything remotely related to sex is a laughing matter for us. At school, if you are able to yield a sex-related meaning to any normal clean word, (e.g. saxophone to sexophone, and therapist to the rapist, and if you mention the seed called rapeseed or if you say someone is pregnant, and so on), you are considered a world-class comedian by the whole class. They will say you have a great sense of humour just because you convert normal things to dirty things. What nonsense! But yeah, this is the age to enjoy all these, since later in life, awaits you serious stuff.

Ages 17-20: The conditions you created for the opposite sex in the last age group I described get bigger. Law IV (which, very honestly, does not apply perfectly to me, but is quite general)

A boy will like a girl, not merely by looks, but by imagining how exciting she would be in bed. A girl will like a boy, not merely by looks, but by imagining how mature he would be in a relationship.

Ah, obviously, that's some exaggeration!

Boys compete to get a girlfriend. Why? Just because you want the other boys to consider you a champion and a hero. Theoretical stuff and hearsay gets replaced by practical stuff at this stage. The last love law I put forward proves that girls are the more mature gender at this age group, while all boys want is sexual fantasy.

Ages 21-25: Things get two-sided. You get to know the world better, and the world gets to know you better. You are finally mature enough to get into relationships with someone compatible from the opposite sex. But, here's the law V:

Even if a male get any bit mature in the way they feel about females and relationships, they will, till the last breath, get the first impression of a female in the form of "how she would be in bed".

No one is responsible for this. We are made this way. Get into the biology books and you will find that in most species, its the male form that tries to attract the attention of the female before they finally mate. In very few species, its the female that makes the first advances. So, girls who have always asked boys, "Why are you guys this way? You see a girl and that makes you go crazy!!", should keep in mind that its nature that has made us that way.

Ages 25-30: I think men get bored of all they did in the past. They can do without having beautiful girls around, and their job matters more. Probably they have got a wife by now, too. In that case, the world of girls and happiness has ended. However, never forget law V.
What about women this age? They are the happiest in the world if they have married someone good from a good family. Their mind, however, becomes nymphomaniac now, if they are still unmarried.

The immaturity that boys used to have during adolescence (refer law IV), will now trap the damsel.

Ages 30-50: Women, enjoy the married life. Men, enjoy the damned, fucked up life.

Ages 50-death: Prepare yourself for death. But law V still holds.