The legend of the fallen

Ever seen a horde of crows encircling just one woman on the street? I did. Yesterday. It was a scene straight out of a Hitchcock film. The only difference was these crows weren't keen on hurting her. They maintained a respectable distance. Maybe they knew that the lady in question is deranged and somebody who lives on the footpath—fending for herself. So in a way, she was a lot like them. But they didn't like what they saw. This woman in tattered clothes and with an unwashed face was holding a dead crow by its neck in her left hand and a small stone in her right; tapping the dead bird's head with it and laughing to herself. The crows may have nothing against human food but they don't like human contact. What ensued last afternoon was a demonstration of what happens when one of their kind is desecrated in public. They show concern. And how. Cacophony is too timid a word to describe the noise they created. Not sure what happened to that electrocuted crow in the end but am yet to witness a similar reaction in humans for the death of a complete stranger.

Doggy style

I respect street dogs. I don't love them as such but i do admire their ethics. Had i loved them, i'd have done a bit more than feeding them Parle-G every now and then. Speaking of which, almost all the dogs in my neighbourhood recognize me. It's like saying "Sanpada ka kutta kutta jaanta hai mujhe" and then actually saying it. They are wonderful creatures. Instinctive, free, fun-loving, hungry, fierce and true survivors. Coming back to how they won my admiration, there's a small theory behind it. You see dogs did a favour on us by letting us domesticate them. And both our speices go back a long time. Of course, there comes moments when they teach us how to run fast by chasing our buttocks. However, they've helped us understand boundaries. Invisible, that is. You see street dogs respect each others' space. Over a period of time, they build these fences that need no mending. Unlike Korean 38th Parallel. Yes, there are incursions that never go unpunished but the idea is to bite and fuck within your own territory. The fittest survive but rarely tells a tale. He eventually gets replaced by someone who barks louder and snarls wider. It's a 'healthy' setup as long as the human government decides when and whom to spay. If you spend some time understanding how they look out for their friends and treat their enemies, you'll be stunned by the amount of justice they dispense. We love reminding ourselves that it's a dog-eats-dog planet but the canines certainly don't believe in such nonsense. They are far more sophisticated than that. If only this world was indeed going to the dogs.

Deeply offensive

Nearly two decades ago, Kurt Cobain came up with his semi-controversial song Rape Me. There was a remarkable touch of lonely pain in those lyrics. But all things sung and done, it was a song. That's it. Flash back to today's unmusical reality as something terrible happened in Delhi recently. The horrific details that emerged out of this incident (mind you, not an accident) makes one's soul turn sick. Those who committed this unpardonable offense won't be able to forgive themselves. We shall never forgive them in any case even though we might forget them in the long run. And the girl who was the victim is going to find it unbearably difficult to move on. Our society—despite its righteous hue and cry—is too stigmatic to be conducive enough for rehabilitation. Rape is infamous for doing that that to the fairer sex. More so, men who do that give rise to questionnaire...endless trail of queries that question us.

    So how do we deal with this horror as a pseudo-society? Where exactly does the problem lie? Are we so sexually regressive that our very sense of morality gets clouded at times? Good apple, bad apple? Does sadism constitute an inherent part of our DNA? Don't we keep evolving as a species? Who are we? Misogynists? Unabashedly patriarchal? Can the media do a bit more than worrying about its TRP? Would the government show its spine for a change? Where are the fast-track stringent laws that'd discourage repetition? Will the real feminists please stand up? What role did our parents play? Religio-socio hypocrisy? Have they raised their daughters at par with their sons? Why do the former feel so insecure then? Kung-fu someone? Shall our poor victim become the physiotherapist she always wanted to be? Which direction might lead to a nobler world? Were we lost? Or we are going to be lost? Gun control in US and penis control in India? Go Shariah for a change? Castration? Damn, wouldn't that hurt? Isn't pleasure from others' agony is what this is all about? Let's redeem ourself, whatsay? Set up an incorruptible fund-raiser instead? Discuss? Abort misconceptions and inseminate knowledge? Open up our mind a little and embrace our imperfections? Shout a bit softer and listen a bit louder? Do we really don't need education? Sex education, huh? Mutual respect is dead? Smiling can be dangerous? Can't trust anybody anymore? Wasn't Gandhiji right? Didn't the Mayans just fooled humankind? Do you hear that? That's animal kingdom laughing at us. 

    As a nation, we are very angry. But this understandable rage has very little to do with the crime (or the criminals) in question. On the contrary, the somewhat hapless emotion reflects strongly on the kind of frail structure we've built over the years. When a system fails, it shows. Sadly, it requires a tragedy of such momentous scale to hold our attention for long. Ergo, we've failed somewhere and that bothers us. We don't know the answers to the questions this widely-reported anomaly (although the word is an euphemism) has given birth to. And that makes us more than furious. Perhaps it's high time gender equality is offered a job and rape, retirement.

Hit & Run

The media in our country is often chided for neglecting North-East India. But after what happened in Guwahati recently, there must be some hushed cries implying it was better off neglected! Having said that, this attitude won't solve the underlying problem. What would do the trick though is a well-executed kick right in the nuts of the perpetrators. Better still, a real hard one. Or two. The thing is anti-social elements (read: chauvinists, sexists, pricks, jerks and ilk) have been in the society long before men learned the art of masturbation. To make future worse, they'll always be around. There's nothing one can do to stop them from taking birth but we can definitely stop them in other ways. I don't know what they are but I'm sure that intolerance can help. For a start, at least. Too much nonsense has been (and is being) tolerated. And silence is not a safe word anymore. For a change, change has to make some noise. Maybe it's high time!

Confessions of a pathological liar

I’ve got an authentic shit to share today. Na, not poem, property or food. Just some semi-random thoughts on a consistent behavior. The thing is I lie a lot. It’s something I’m not very proud of; nor is it one of things I can erase with a delete button. Excuse me for being poetic here: Every morning, when the mirror peeks into me, self-pity engulfs my throat for stammering while I’m shamelessly hiding behind the phalanx of a fake vocabulary. On one hand, I die during such reckless instances. On the other hand, I can live with it. Nobody expects truth anyway, specifically when you’re being cheeky with words. No one’s interested in knowing who you really are or where you come from or where you want to go or what you want. All they wish for is laughter and entertainment. They don’t know anything unless you thoroughly care to share. And when you do so, you give a piece of you away. As if your existence had a price to pay to time. But if you’re smart enough and understand the preciousness of a word, you’ll ensure a better bargain. In simpler terms, you’ll lie. Lying is an art form, they say. Well, trust me, they are lying. In reality, it’s far from that. Lies are cute but the problem is they don’t survive long. That’s how it is. They are blessed with a very low life expectancy and a very high infant mortality. Having stated that, they do make you feel powerful. At least for some fleeting moments. For example, imagine yourself spouting garbage out of your mouth and your tongue wagging like a dog’s tail—producing infinite sound and thus, music of its own—and people grasping stuff which amounts to cipher. But who can help them? Or you?

By the way, I’m just lying.

Excusing our moral smuttiness

Let’s digress for a little while now. Enough of writing/reading stuff that doesn’t arouse us (no pun intended). Why not discuss That We Don't Speak Of although we unscrupulously love watching them? Bingo! Porn, it is! 

To begin with, porn industry thrives on fertile imagination — theirs as well as ours. In fact, it all started because human mind got deeper and wilder than we could possibly handle (pun intended). Having said that, any porn movie that lasts longer than 8 minutes is based on fiction. Accordingly, none of these X-rated magnum opuses carry the ‘Based on a true story’ tag. [Conclusion: The people involved in the making are as ethically honest as we can never get.] To accentuate their veracity, you’ll never see the sexual innuendo 'Coming Soon' used in promotion of such films. Unlike hypocritical regular movies. 

Talking of hypocrisy, there are dickheads who find it difficult to enjoy this kind of cinema (if it may be called so) with a boner. What the F@&#! In any case, the pornographers can’t care less. We don’t live in a perfect civilization. If we did, the porn stars would have been referred to as porn artists. But that’s not how things are. To illustrate this point, Sunny Leone is a honored graduate with B.Cum. And we’ve got to respect that. Along with a lot of her features that distract us, nonetheless. To illustrate a more subtle point, watching Sharapova play tennis is like listening to porn. Well, almost.

Now that we’ve come to that point where this blog post ain’t going nowhere (as usual), let’s welcome God into this tripe. Based on an intense biblical study, God accidentally became the first porn filmmaker when that nefarious serpent got all pimpish. For the all-time record, that was His first divine error. The second was putting up ToI website where soft porn effectively competes for our attention over the crappy news.  

Everything said and done and watched, porn is one of those few wonders that keep humankind hopeful during *hard* times. And we can't digress from this reality. Luckily.

Commoners Wed Society

Last week, third rock from the sun witnessed one heck of a royal wedding. Nearly two-sixth of humankind was glued to the live event which substantiates our hopeless belief in medieval fairytale. In related news, many were wondering whether it was Beckham's wedding for he sure as hell looked a whole lot nattier than balding William. Similarly Kate’s sister stole the limelight right under her Diana-esque charm. No big deal. It’s all part of regal folklores now.

Anyway, if you paid attention to the extravagance, the ultimate question hits you sooner or later (most probably, sooner): Who’s going to pay for all of this? Well, as usual, the monarch does everything except the payment. When Lakshmi Mittal spent $78 million for his daughter’s wedding, he actually could afford it. On the contrary, here, the bill's is shared by the taxpayers. Yes, common people like you and me and the aliens up in heaven. Some of the lessons of history are debited to future.

Personally, I don't attend weddings. I mean, what's the point when I can't stop it from happening? No, seriously. And if I at all, I do, out of familial pressure or emotional blackmailing, I feel rather sorry for the couples who have to plaster that fake smile throughout the procession. I even fail to understand the significance of this hackneyed marital ritual. If two people love each other, why waste precious time on something as insignificant as announcing it to the society that’s attending just for free food? And then there is the act of divine fraud when the couples exchange “I do” and then do it again and again. Of course, that’s a different story altogether.

By the way, isn’t it amazing that almost every human being, be it from any part of the world, acknowledges the institution of marriage? Perhaps it’s part of social devolution. Yes, people will retort that had my parents not married, I wouldn’t have been typing this drivel here. Nor would you be reading it. True that, in both cases. We are Indians, after all. Maybe that’s precisely what I’m trying to imply here. It’s time to free ourselves from unnecessary bondages of societal validation. It’s not about right or wrong. It’s about why it is so and why couldn’t it be not so. No, I ain’t advocating live-in although I don’t find anything amiss with it, either.

Going back to the royal marriage, media as well as the social media couldn’t help orgasming. They got royally high on a wedding they allegedly didn’t give a damn about. That’s the extent of our blatant hypocrisy when it comes to current affairs. On a lighter note, I’m glad Osama could witness this wedding before embarking on the long-awaited journey to meet 72 virgins. The only thing the $34 million wedding lacked was Indian flavor. You know Dhol, Band Bhaaja, Bharaat, irritating fat aunties and stuff. Okay, forget it. Chicken Tikka Masala is more than enough for Brits.

PS: We’ve got bigger problems than weddings – followed by divorces – so I guess this blog piece was a pure waste of time as always. May y’all have a royaler wedding! Amen.

Blowing out the 24th Candle!

Birthday is supposed to be a huge affair, be it yours or your dog's, for the simple reason that it doesn't repeat itself for more than once in a year. I'm not talking about those "leap year kids" who wait a bit too long for their next birthday to celebrate!

Well, talking of myself, I completed 24 years yesterday, on May 9th, 2010. Its like saying I accomplished 24 free trips around the sun. There's definitely a good feeling to have survived this long, with a bit of amnesia and growing grey hairs to count for. One more year and boom, quarter of allotted 100 years are gone. But who lives for a 100 year now-a-days except for some Japs and MF Hussain look-alikes.

There is some legend attached to my birthday and like all other legends, this one too, does not precede me. I was born on the very same day Tenzing Norgay died. He died during daytime and I was born by night. He was the first human being EVER to climb to the toppest tip on the face of our planet. He kissed Mt. Everest, poetically speaking. He climbed to the top and I'm digging deepest to the core!

Other than melancholy perception towards life, I believe these years I had were the best for any breathing soul out there. Though I sound pessimistic and dark on my Facebook statuses and Twitter tweets, but deep down I know I was one lucky bugger who got to do things the way he like, no matter how unappetizing it turned out in the end.

On a softer note, my bro and ma gifted me a nice piece of Fastrack watch, knowing perfectly well that I don't wear watches. But it was a failed attempt on their side and almost ruined the day for all of us! I kissed her Happy Mother's Day and made peace. As far as bro goes, I don't give much wind!

For the coming years, I want to be more responsible. I kept running away from my responsibilities and believed running is good for my health! I don't want to make the same old excuses. I want to try some new ones too. I concur that I'm terribly self-obsessed but frankly, I do realize that. But my only wish is to be remembered as that boy who never failed to laugh in spite of harboring heavy-duty mouth ulcers!

Maybe its time to think about life. Maybe its time to look out for that old-fashioned girl who is crazy enough to fall in love with me. Maybe its time to put a stop to all this absurdity called 'liberation from societal norm'. Maybe its time to just SHUT UP!