Filetered Vision, filetered logic

The DMK warlord Karunanidhi is an idiot, and it needs no more advertisement for he modeled it all for himself. You don't sit in the lap of you mother and then call her a whore. This is exactly what he did. Who is Ram?Which IIT did he or his engineers go to make that Ram Sethu?

Perhaps he should have had been thankful to the people extolled in our religion or mythology (what many people prefer to call it). If not for these great people, leaders by example, who have taught us the art of patience and forgiveness, he would have been tied to a tree trunk and set afire for his blasphemy. Well we are not like him. We are people who have what we call as brains, not accidentally which Karnuanidhi and many others of his like call and have, if any, for sure, and we use it to think logically and not take everything as it is presented and are not mere fanatics. So we forgive him and he keeps on ranting his jingoistic tunes.

And then there is this group of mahants in Allahabad, Varanasi who have put forth a religious edict for rewarding anybody who brings him Karunanidhi's head. Like begets like. But certainly another fall to correct a fall is not advisable. If we ask for heads so often then we'd be left with many headless torsos and also we are not one of 'those' for whom claiming somebody's head is as routine as say breathing.

But what was surprising in this whole episode was that some people went up in arms against this diktat. If I am not wrong, they said something like we are democracy, nobody can issue such a diktat Plenty of legal cases started in the already overloaded courts.

Where were these people, where were their infallible beliefs in democracy, the whole setup, when somebody asked of the head of the Danish cartoonist, or for Salman Khan to do community service, or when this one lady was asked to marry her father-in-law because the bastard-in-law had raped here and so she was now her husband's mother!!

Termites on any civilization.

Scratch where they feel necessary and meets their own ends. Why don't you guys just simply die or waste away to a horrible death.

I heard Diwali is round the corner. Isn't it time an unknown, a nobody dons the garb of Ram, kills the beast and we celebrate the home coming?

Cry of a famished soul

Disclaimer: This work is purely, to the extent a pure can be pure (like pure Ghee), a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person dead or leaving (Oops! living), any event or place is purely incidental.

I am hungry, famished and starved to be true. Haven't eaten anything since last night, well never actually had breakfast in a long time. It is 12:30 pm and I head for the cafeteria. Okay kind of food, doesn't titillate the taste buds to any extent and has the look of being hygienic.

Now given the fact that India is a 1 billion plus democracy and by the time you read this must be a trillion plus democracy, not discounting the illegal immigrants and those came on visa but lost or missing Pakistanis, crowd is expected everywhere anywhere much before you can expect a molecule of oxygen.

So there's a queue and I simply tag along the tail. Fortunately not many are hungry at this time.

There are just a handful of people before me, shouldn't be long before I can serve myself a belly filling quantity of whatever is on menu today. Taking a big shot, may be.

There is this bunch of ladies ahead of me. Gossiping, a no great guess given their laugh and intermittent "Oh! is it?" "How nice" and all that stuff. There is this gentleman standing in the queue with no acquaintance close by, bidding his time to get a plate for himself. There is this another person happily talking to somebody on the phone.

So here is how the story goes on when people actually reach the point where they can serve themselves something to eat.

1. The gentleman on phone. With the mobile phone safely ensconced between his shoulder and the ear, he picks up the plate, the spoon. but forgets to take the chapatti. Comes back after like half of two seconds, realizing that something is missing is from his plate. A Sheepish smile to the person standing behind him.

2. The guy who was standing all alone, takes half a spoon full of veggie. Takes a moment to think, decides he needs more so he takes a quarter full of spoon and serves more. Still he needs some more, so he serves himself one single instance of that on single identifiable vegetable is that potpourri of vegetables. Same goes for almost all of the things on the menu. Indecisive, or weak in estimation.

3. The ladies of course.
Lady 1: While serving herself a chapatti "Well did you know, yesterday,...."
Others make a funny face and fake a laugh. The one at the last is confused as to how many tissue papers she's need. The one before is busy cleaning every square millimeter of surface on the spoon, the plate and all the utensils thinking the tissue papers are more clean.
Lady 2: Serves herself the veggie, stops, and joins in, "But...." A little more chat when they realize people behind are almost red-faced.

Without warning there is this guy who join in the middle "Excuse me! and serves himself world full of veggies, bucket full of yogurt, pockets full of salad" and is gone before you can "What the *uck do you think you are doing? Jumping in the middle of a queue (well at least in name. Didn't your parent ever taught you some manners or the concept of the queue? Didn't you ever understand the difference in being satiated and over eating? Haven't you ever heard of the saying 'Do to other what you'd like other do to you'."

All this while, I was standing with my cheeks pulled in deep in my skull, my stomach sucked in back all the way towards my spine, I legs have no energy to hold me up. I crumple on the floor, cannot make a sound.

Somebody just stepped over me to get his share of food.

Dogs of God.

I am very much a religious person. I believe in the institution of religion and the faith. But then I cannot understand the fanatics of religion.

Every day of festivity and celebration is a tool in hands of these kind of jerks who make the life of others miserable.

Ganesh Chaturthi came again.

And everything was back to square one.

The length of the access road to my house is just a couple of meters less than a kilometer. Never would have had imagined the enormity of this 1 kilometer, if not for these days. There are 5 pandals which have idols of Ganesh in them. The first person is an ardent follower of the Elephant-head-God and wants the other to know and understand how feverishly he worships the God. The second, person, not to be bogged down by the intensity of the first person’s worship, makes his offerings, chanting of hyms all the more loud and audible. Well the fifth one cannot go beyond the maximum volume the speakers available in the neighborhood can give. Poor chap doesn’t have much of an upper hand.

Also, there is this procession on the road. The traffic policemen have cordoned off the road. If is peak time in the evening, people are returning from offices, some leaving for offices, all the vehicles that were at some time parked are now on the road. The traffic piles up for kilometers; the procession is the fastest to move, rather the only thing moving. The devotees in the procession light fire crackers, who cares if it hurts anybody, God will take care if he wants to and the injured deserved the care. The drums, the loud Bollywood music, did Ganesh ever fancy the Bollywood music especially ‘Aashiq banaya aapne…”. God knows.

And petty mortals like me wait, asphyxiating in the smoke of fire crackers, shove the silencer of the tractor into me ears, pull out my eyeballs and squash it on the road, chew off my own tongue and do what not, apart from holding that urge to take a piss.

And what do others like me do, just pray that either these kind of people go and meet their God before the next year’s Ganesh Chaturthi or the God puts some sense into these nonsense and make them understand worshiping is not about disturbing others.

Key Take away: Whenever you know there is high probability of traffic jam which nobody knows when it will clear, always wear a diaper.

The Spineless creature

This was long due and it had had this coming. This thing doesn’t have any values, shows no sign of being fair, is totally unpredictable but fairly predictable as it arrives every time at the wrong time; a totally spine less being, if we can call it a being, or else, refer it to as a totally spine less ‘X’.

What is that it here? What else the rain.

Yesterday was a horrible day. I was in office until 6 O’clock in the morning fighting the last minute battle, which incidentally started at 7 in the evening the previous day, to fix up a demo for a visiting dignitary. I went back home, took a short nap before the pangs of hunger could wake me up and turn me into a gobble-everything- type monster. Since it was bright and sunny, a must for Ray-Ban kind of day, I didn’t put on my rain proof jacket and was back in my cubicle.

Now the hell is let loose. 4’O clock the bright day suddenly puts on a dark cloak and turns to night. Dark, really dark clouds hover, strong gusts of wind and it starts pouring. Pouring like anything, like there no another chance to pour, this is the only time, the last time, show your might kind of pour.

And Bangalore, Bangalore that it is, where even a leaking pipe causes a traffic jam this was just too much. The traffic comes to a stand still, as if the director of this whole play called "living life on earth" hits the pause control.

Bad, I wanted to leave early and it doesn’t look like I will ever reach home. So I decide to stay back, so some petty job and kill time till the rain rain go away nursery rhyme bears fruits. 9’O Clock, the clouds seemed to have cleared, or it looked so, and I decided to leave for home. I walk to the parking lot, cool breeze flowing, an awesome moment. The moment I kick start the bike it starts to drizzle. Light drizzle or not, it really doesn’t matter much when you have to travel 13 odd kilometers for reach home and especially if you have breathed life to you bike, there are remote chances, if any of turning back.

You speed, you brake, flash head-lights, honk horns, zigzag between the drops of rain or at least try to do so. And you reach home; drenched, from head to toe. The vest sticks to your torso, the jeans feels heavy, the shoes are more like buckets full of water, the only thing wearable is your resolve to reach home. And you reach home.

You open the gate, and the rain stops. Just like that, all of a sudden, just dropped dead, as if the municipality shut down its water supply, as if it was tired, as if its purpose was fulfilled, as if the revenge was taken, as if the non existent day after today suddenly was visible

I was ambushed, tortured, singularly massacred, chopped to pieces, and fed to rats, the left over left to rot.

Call it timing or lack of it. Call it being unpredictability or being predictable but just at the wrong moments, call it fair or call it unfair, but this is how this lousy thing is.

I am a believer and a God fearing person, but then to retain that devotion, belief, fear I need some confirmation some support some sign of being-ness from the other. Why does it have to rain like cats and dogs here, why does it have to rain so heavily in the upper regions of Ganga and Brahmaputra, why does it have to rain so much that there are floods every year in these regions? Why can’t it rain like this in Rajasthan or Sahara or say North Karnataka?

If the Gods haven’t learned anything till now, I have good reasons to believe that will not learn it in near future; say another few thousand zillion millenniums. If it was up to me, the rain God, Indra better not cross my path.