Obligatory Nostalgia

As of today, I have 21 published blog posts and over 60-70 followers. I can most definitely call myself a blogger if I just make myself do intellectual stuff like attend literary festivals or read a book without crying at how few pictures it has. Couple a blogger with the fact that he was born between the 1990 and 2000 and you stumble upon the obligation he faces to write an article about how the 90s was the best time frame the universe had experienced and how nothing except the Swat Kats riding triples with Johnny Bravo on a flaming RX100 will ever hold a candle to it. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am not very big on politics or the BJP, so I don’t face the obligation of telling you incessantly how Modi is going to bring back the 90s. Although, if he fails bad enough, there may be a repeat of the 2000s. Here I am, doing what I do best and giving in to obligations set by society as I write an article about nostalgia.

Maybe just a handful of people have the luxury of saying that their childhood was amazing. I thankfully fall into the right category this once and can say that without a speck of doubt. A lot of that can be attributed to the fact that I was a child who’d get impressed by something as stupid as a leaf that looked like potato, but I shall continually insist that the 90’s was what did it for me. You know how people think the earth is positioned just at the right distance from the sun in order for life to exist on this huge swirling landmass? Being born in the 90s had that sort of effect. Had I been born in the 80s or something, I would have been a teenager by the time I made it to the invention of the computer. That means there would have been no google by the time I would have been in college, which in turn means that I would not have gotten any college degree at all. If the latter had happened, and I would have been a 2000’s kid, I would not have found time to rant over nostalgia because I’d have automatically been born into a house with a decent Wi-Fi speed and uTorrent.

As a 90s kid, I sometimes feel I have a sort of responsibility. I have a responsibility to sit down with my laptop and surf the internet, which is basically a database of all the information in the world, to visit social networking sites and construct carefully worded statuses about the 90s. While I hit random mechanical keys and light up pixels on this mystery box of technology I call a laptop, I must think about instances from my childhood which remind me that how world was much simpler without the onset of all these technological breakthroughs. About how the current generation is messed up and how they are spoilt by the luxuries they possess. I must not leave out any points when I tell you how unnecessary these things are. How you basically just need a stick and a cycle tire to have a blast. I am obligated to do all of those things. If only the Internet service provider mega company was competent enough to provide a fast broadband connection to every single person living in every corner of the country, I would have found the time to wax about how technology is ruining us.

A slight side effect of sarcasm is that, not everyone gets it. Every time I see anything even closely related to the 90s, the ‘average Buzzfeed article reader’ part of me shouts out the entirety of his her known vocabulary and goes “OMG THAT IS TOTALLY ME”. I wish I could promote myself to the level of providing you with meaningful journalism in the form of “43 GIF IMAGES THAT DEFINE YOUR CHILDHOOD” or “13 WAYS HOW YOUR SHIT PATTERN DESCRIBES YOUR PERSONALITY” but unfortunately, I am not as talented as the folks at that revolutionary organization. The problem is that, everything that can be said about the 90s, has already been said about 17,342 times. An additional problem is that all these 17,342 times have talked about the same thing. Because most of the articles I have read have been Indians spurting out GRE Essay inertia on the internet, I’m pretty sure nobody really understood what that poor animal was trying to convey. A teary eyed smiley face with a semi emotional quote took care of their obliviousness. So, in my quest to continually seem like a smart person, I shall again attempt to sound like a pretentious asshole with a socially different opinion on a famous topic.

I am proud to be a 90s kind in the same way I’m proud to be an Indian. I had nothing to do with that procedure and I find it extremely hard to be proud of probability. I would say that I am extremely lucky to be a part of that magical time. I’m pretty sure that I would have turned out to be a completely different person had I been born in any other period. Clearly, that isn’t such a safe bet if you consider the fact that I could have lost out on the sarcasm and self-proclaimed wit while being stuck with the same appearance.

Being a 90s kid didn’t simply give you perks like good music and the negligence to your fashion related crimes, it also held up all the awesome things for when you were of an optimum age group to enjoy it. I have witnessed most of the peak years of Sachin Tendulkar and AR Rahman, the rise and fall of the CD, Floppy, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Okay I didn’t actually watch the rise and fall of Vajpayee but I did watch jokes about him during the time I saw the brief rise and fall of a certain comic called Shekhar Suman.

A lot is romanticized about the 90s. The simpler times and how it was not very easy to screw up colossally. How it was almost ritualistic to play cricket all day despite summers which could give an Australian a heat stroke. How tight my schedules would be, despite not having 74 tuition classes for the 4^th standard mock preliminary primary examination that counted for 0.34% of your final marks at the end of the 32^th hexamester.  How birthdays and get-togethers maintained this awkward balance of being formal and generic with the cake cutting/return gifts while being informal and batshit insane in a different way every single time. How festivals meant a jolly family get together after months of being away.  All these romanticized parts of the 90s fail to explain how much of a high-octane struggle these petty things actually were.

Forget the Malaysian flights, do you have even the slightest clue what you would have done if you lost your kid in the 90s? Forget the United Nations peace council; do you even know how to keep relations stable when you get a Charizard card in your pokemon pack while your friend gets 6 Energy cards? Don’t even talk to me about wars on terrorism man. Do you know how one had to strategize their way through cricket matches all without losing 75-100% of their friends? Bro, if you have stayed calm and composed during your birthday without opening any of the gifts until the party is over, you need to put that shit in your resume. Forget acid attacks for a minute here and focus on how you would get mortally wounded and whiplashed by your teacher in school while still trying to control your tears because of the girls around. Don’t even talk about dilemma if you haven’t had to hurriedly sort your priorities tediously everyday at 5pm because of the cavalcade of amazing shows that were on multiple channels then. Domestic violence can take a back seat my friend. Have you ever been the youngest sibling amongst your cousins? If the answer is no, I’ll just say that you do not have physical scars that need recovery. The 90s are way too romanticized and someone needs to tell these people the truth.

All said and done, I was a pathetic example in braving through these struggles in the 90s. I’ve gotten lost at a park; I’ve been chased around and beaten up by my teachers while my tears left a snail stain along the path I took; I’ve been the shameless kid at a party who shakes his gifts and immediately claws into them when I receive it and much more. If any kid now were to do either one of these things, he’d be branded as a bad influence and sent to a corrective facility somewhere in Slovakia. Besides all the amazing tv shows, endless cricket and the cycle races, I am most grateful for the fact that I didn’t experience the prime years of my childhood in a corrective facility. That, for me remains the real magic of the 90s. Now, excuse me while I check out 17 ways how my rolly chair is actually trying to kill me.

The Art film Apocalypse.

There is just a stipulated amount of eloquent waxing you can carry out on the issues plaguing the society before you’re called a psychopath with no understanding of the society or an RSS activist. I have around 20-30 more years until I am restricted to disease and politics related talks at weddings, so I thought I’d give this society and culture bashing a rest and write about something that doesn’t involve matters having violent repercussions. Let’s go to the other end of the stupid spectrum and review some movies that I absolutely despised. Let me get done with this review quickly before Kannan Gill comes and takes this away from me.

Off late, a lot of stuff passes for quality cinema in the Indian film industry. Most of which, I do not really understand. India clearly takes its cinema very seriously and that is the reason you find hardcore and borderline insane fans of any actor. My taste in cinema is completely warped because of this and it results in me enjoying certain films just because of the atmosphere it creates. I am now at the point where I’d probably watch any movie and say it was watchable just because of one attempted comic scene where the 14^th sidekick unknowingly burps in an awkward situation. There are however, some movies I could barely sit through and this is just one of them. If at gunpoint, I was made to sit through any of these movies again, I would willingly take the gun and shoot myself in between the eyes because that would prove to be a faster death. One of these movies has to be Mariyaan, the epic desert romantic action thriller psychopath coming-of-age Dhanush movie directed by renowned artistic film maker, Barathbala.

Dhanush has risen to glory by playing the role of a psychopath in most of his movies and that has mainly been his thing for some time now. Mariyaan aggressively pushes the boundaries and the patience of the average film watching crowd by making you sit through 2 and a half hours of A.R. Rahman trying to save a drowning boat with music. This movie is apparently about the struggles of a fisherman named mariyaan and how he tries to escape from an African mafia gang who have held him hostage. The movie received a lot of critical acclaim, which is just fancy talk for – only enjoyable if you’re paid to write reviews. Apart from obvious unrealistic scenarios like dhanush beating up people, the story also goes on to expect you to believe Dhanush escapes. Look at him. Does he look like someone who would survive 3 days without food? A normal person would expect him to collapse and get a hunger induced coma if he skipped tea in the evening. He also walks the entire length of the desert and makes it to the exit in one A.R Rahman song. That is a lot of walking for someone whose body looks like it can accommodate a maximum of 40 calories. Then again, you must never underestimate the power of a song in a tamil movie.

Dhanush being caught by the mafia and escaping is just scratching the surface of this complex plot. He experiences various conflicts in his hometown as well (obviously girl related). Just when you would think the plot is getting increasingly stupid, there comes a scene in which dhanush picks up a fight with the local villain in his village because he exhibits a liking for his catch ( I mean his girlfriend, not his actual aquatic catch. Spare me, militant feminists). Normal movies would depict this liking in the form of casual flirting or harassing but this is an artistic film, so obviously the reason must be exponentially stupid. Dhanush spots his arch nemesis running his feet through his lovers’ footwear while she is at church. Intense stuff, see for yourself

Ah feet. Sweet sweet feet.

There was a lot of hype for these few scenes wherein Dhanush experiences some weird hallucinations. The first one of these is when he’s trapped in a cellar with his kidnapped buddy. They were food deprived, obviously since they were kidnapped in a country that cannot provide food for their normal citizens, let alone the ones they kidnap. In dire circumstances like these, Dhanush and his friend go crazy and start eating and drinking air. Couple this with some A.R Rahman melody in the background and the director succeeds in making you think that it was masterpiece film making. Another scene that made my friend compel me to not leave the theater hall during the interval was this cheetah scene. I was ready to save the remainder of my neurons and go back halfway through the movie when my friend stopped me and suggested I stay for the second half because there are some amazing scenes. So I waited around 45 minutes through the second half for this Oscar worthy scene, and it can be said that I was disappointed thoroughly and wholly. The entire scene comprises of Dhanush sitting under a tree while imagining cheetahs around him. He does this for around 10 minutes and then Kollywood Kony finds and locks him up again.

There are just some films whose ending you can predict right away. This is one of them. You can actually listen to the music from the album 2 weeks before the movie releases and know that he escapes in the end. This is the basic structure of any artsy film in India. I’ve had enough of these art films from here and I cannot muster the courage to watch the ones made abroad. It is ironic how films are made under the entertainment banner and the critics only appreciate those that entertain us the least. Parallel cinema usually meant a new kind of cinema where the director sways off the general path and creates a different experience. It does not mean random bouts of silence and background music while some actor tries to cry, laugh and sing at the same time, all for a critical accolade.

Release any movie in Tamil Nadu and the general reception varies as such. I’m talking about the reception by the general audience, not the crazy fanboys, by the way.

Week of Release: Wow! What a movie! Such a strong social message embedded by such a ballsy film maker! Kudos to the entire team for undertaking such an overwhelming project. Let’s all join hands and eradicate this social evil!

Week 2 after Release: OTHA SHAMELESS BEHAVIOR BY THE FILM MAKERS IN RIPPING OFF THIS ENTIRE STORY FROM AN ANGLO-INDIAN-THAI-LEBANESE SHORT FILM ONCE AIRED IN A PUBLIC SCHOOL DURING REPORT CARD DAY. SONGS ARE ALSO COPIED FROM VARIOUS SOURCES. THIS CHORD THAT HE PLAYS IN THIS SONG HAS ALREADY BEEN PLAYED IN ALMOST ALL THE SONGS EVER. COPYCATS!

Within a week, the entire social message conveyed is forgotten and the people from the human rights bandwagon jump onto the anti plagiarism one. This is what provokes a director to take up some topic that has never been done before.  Since we live in a country infested with over 5000 different kinds of cinema, you would understand how hard a topic that is to find. Hence we are faced with watching movies about a blind photographer searching for meaning in the nuances of life or a woman with cerebral palsy wading through the hurdles of adulthood. Soon enough, we’re going to run out of movies to make and will end up with something incredibly retarded. Like the touching story of a retarded-paraplegic-terminally ill-speech impaired cricketer who fights his battles using emotional support from his girlfriend, with whom he speaks only through messenger doves carrying lunchboxes across Richie street while selling electronics to support himself financially. I can already see the 58 star ratings along with olive branches around text describing the movie as the best movie that can possibly ever be made ever. Everyday, Indian cinema makes great progress in achieving this distant dream of winning another Oscar for a massively over rated film. Movies like Anjaan and Humshakals must stand testimony to this fact. What an exciting time to be alive!

Greed, Chocolate and H2O

India is a nation that is now well accustomed to random politicians making stupid statements. Or stupid politicians making random statements, whatever. You can actually use any derogatory adjective in that string and still make sense out of it. If I wrote a blog on the detailed deconstruction of each and every stupid thing our beloved politicians would have said or done, I’d have more content in this free domain than the entirety of Arindam Chaudhuri’s IIPM scam database. Hence, I decided to highlight just this one issue which really disturbed me. Funnily though, it isn’t an Indian who’s saying funny things and being a jerk now.

My facebook feed off late has been concentrating on one common topic- Water. From the ALS Ice bucket challenge, to the seemingly righteous posts about how it’s a waste of water, I have been getting regular updates. This stands to prove a few things about the basic nature of humans on social networks. Mainly, it illustrates the fact that people can get annoyed for basically anything. Be it a funny photo or an awareness program for a life threatening disease. Suddenly, everyone is concerned about the water shortages in Africa. To get one thing clear, EVERYTHING is scarce in Africa. Except for widespread diseases and vegetation maybe. I could probably take a photo of a shattered bulb in my living room and get responses like –

YOU UNGRATEFUL PRICK! HOW CAN YOU JUST TAKE PHOTOS OF BROKEN BULBS? YOU SHOULD HAVE JUST DONATED THAT TO AFRICA INSTEAD OF WASTING A PERFECTLY GOOD BULB. THEY DON’T HAVE ELECTRICITY AND USE TRAPPED FIREFLIES AS LIGHTS OVER THERE. UGH.

I love how everyone is against the challenge but is completely okay with the concept of Holi and La Tomatina. But that’s how bandwagons function. You cannot have a bandwagon without equal support at both ends. Brushing that aside now, I should probably get to the actual topic I wanted to write about. For the 3 of you who follow the news, Nestle recently just made the biggest dick move in the history of dick moves since the mandatory set top box installation notice. Nestle wants to privatize all the water resources in the world. Suddenly, ALS seems like something fancier doesn’t it?

What may sound like some evil plan from a James Bond movie, is actually something your 23^rd favorite chocolate brand has been up to for quite some time. Similar to James Bond villain plans, Nestle has been trying to continually piss off people in the world in order to gain some money and attention.  Peter Brabeck, the chairman of the board of Nestle has gone on record to say the following- “The one opinion, which I think is extreme, is represented by the NGOs, who bang on about declaring water a public right. That means as a human being you should have a right to water. That’s an extreme solution.”

That’s right. Peter here thinks that water being openly available to everyone is somewhat of an extreme and unnecessary solution. This whole fiasco is doubly shocking for us to hear now because we had gotten used to words like free water and Aam Aadmi during the reign of a Mr. Arvind Kejriwal. While he is probably holding rallies in Chandini Chowk elaborating how Nestle is actually a conspiracy started by Reliance, the normal population are just distraught over the level of ignorance shown by this multinational conglomerate. This isn’t even the entire villainous story of this company. Apart from telling people that they don’t really need water like they need rights, Nestle has a record of going pretty dirty in their marketing strategies by manipulating women in lesser economically developed countries into using their baby nutrient powder over natural breast milk. That’s a new low even for these bureaucratic knobs.

There are two kinds of marketing bullies in the industry. One are the actual geniuses; the Don Drapers and the Steve Jobs of the marketing world. They will use sly mind games to get you to buy their product, but once you see through the plot, you will applaud their method. The other type of bully you will usually come across are the C.I.A fellows who will barge into your face and use brute force to make you buy their item. Nestle is basically the douche head of the C.I.A. They actually took the time from their busy schedule involving meetings and cocaine to cram in a flight to some village in Africa whose name sounds like a frog choking on a boulder, just to convince a bunch of pregnant ladies to not feed their children natural nutrients. This is the maximum level a salesman can aspire to go to. This is basically what you would get if you crossed Suresh Kalmadi with some the owner of a textiles shop from Gujarat.  Basically, Narendra Modi on steroids.

The fact that more than several lakhs of infants have died because of improper nutrition doesn’t seem to pose a concern as big as a downward profit graph for these people. We’re talking about Africa here, by the way. Everything in Africa is continually trying to end you. In the midst of these real life Hunger Games (No pun intended..not intentionally at least) , for an organization to gain the upper hand and indirectly kill hundreds of thousands of infants seems like something that should have come up in the news.  Instead, we see Arnab Goswami shouting at inanimate objects like Sanjay Jha and that autistic son of the president.

EDIT:  Abhijit Mukherjee is apparently not autistic, but actually that dumb. Sorry, Autistic people. I’m sure you found that offensive. If you found that at all..but okay.

Unless you can create a space-time portal that enables you to magically transport yourself to Africa within 10 minutes, it may seem like you can’t do anything about this. Fortunately for us, the internet intervenes and makes life a tad bit easier. Since you’ve reached the end of this article, it is safe to assume that you weren’t doing anything productive anyway. Go ahead and sign the petition to join the many people who thought this was wrong. The Nestle Boycott is also a movement that was started way before any of us were born. Evidently, people have been taking a shit on this company for quite a long time. Join the boycott movement too, it’s not like you’re losing out on any great nestle products anyways.

 

This is the Uday Chopra of chocolates and you should be ashamed of even manufacturing this, Nestle.

While I’m dishing out orders to you anyways here, also Like, Comment and Share so that I can get up every morning and not hate myself. Come on guys. Be grateful that you can read these articles at the comfort of your home while kids in Africa have to kick rocks at deer for fun while trying to not get kidnapped by Joseph Kony. Or Branjelina.

 

Petition form link : http://action.storyofstuff.org/sign/nestle_water_privatization_push

 

 

My Favorite Things

 

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Having the Indians being stripped of their wings

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Times Now and NDTV covering Sanjay Dutt’s routine

Ignoring gruesome rapes of girls aged fifteen

Media censorship rights just hanging by weak strings

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Nation in debt sanctioning statues for crores

Raja and Kalmadi and Kanimozhi still wanting some more.

CBSE describing Rahul Gandhi like he’s some king

This is definitely my most favorite thing.

 

China and Pakistan taking turns on Kashmir

Starving at one end, while the other feasts paneer

India still thinking there’s a brain in Digvijay Singh

These are a few of my favorite things.

 

Shooting down people like they’re some worthless pigeon

Culture fanatics and this shit called religion.

Sarcasm and satire flying over the head

Those are the favorite things I highlight in red

 

Brain deads with Tilaks going and beating women

Humiliated and raped and still called the villain.

Dowry is right but jeans give a sting

These are a few of everyone’s favorite things

 

Murderers, embezzlers and frauds all run free

Portraying themselves as just makers of tea

Anu Malik judging people on how they can sing

These are a few of my favorite things

 

Playing the dogma card and conforming to society

Belief in some god in whole and in entirety

Faith is just lost but stupidity is maintained

The favorites list just cannot be constrained.

 

Commercializing and ruining sportive traditions

Having your marriage date dictated by petitions

Honor killing, child marriage and section three seventy seven

So many favorite things here, I’m sure this is heaven. 

The Rape Rant

“I’m almost out of controversial topics to write about in India”- Said nobody ever. Having said that, we now look at one of the most shocking wave of events that publicly displayed the ugly side of Indians. It involved the humiliation and degradation of people while a minority sat and enjoyed the show. Although that may sound like the movie review for Kick, this article will deal with a topic I actually didn’t want to write about ever. The Rape show in India.

There is nothing funny about rape. Well, I couldn’t think of anything funny at least. There is a risk with doing jokes on rape that involve the rapid wrath of the violent feminist and the ‘understanding male compatriot’ (also pronounced as – guy attracted to a violent feminist) sections of the society. Apart from the nonexistent humor quotient in this topic, I also try to maintain the little class my blog has by not incorporating profanity in my articles. I have cruised past the culture articles and Sheila Dikshit jibes like a classy gentleman but when it comes to people like Mulayam Singh Yadav or his orangutan of a son, it becomes harder to not open that other dictionary.

India isn’t particularly renowned for the way it treats its women. We have this incessant knack for following whatever our ancestors did, no matter how stupid they were. This unquestioned respect given to the elders swings both ways. When it swings good, we have deserving professors and workers getting a gold watch on their retirement day. When it swings bad, we have Digvijay Singh and those folks at that party with the rising sun. So this blind path we follow in the name of culture has pretty much wrecked the stance of women in the society. There are women who are accustomed to this bullshit and then there are other women who are beat up and forced to be accustomed to this bullshit. The media and all those elders from your father’s office parties seem to have everything figured out with this situation. It’s almost always the generic answer for every question you ask.

Question:  Uncle what do you think about these rape things happening nowadays?

    Bullshit:  Beta all this is normal only. It’s because of western influence. This entire western hemisphere no, spoiling our Indian culture!  You leave that now beta. Tell me, are you going to US or not for studies now?

Over the course of this rape saga, there have been quite a handful of eloquent responses and views on this topic. As is the case with most things in this country, these responses range from mind numbingly good to Rahul Gandhi level. We continue to have powerful and inspirational speeches given by intimidating masculine personalities like Amitabh Bachchan and Kiran Bedi. On the flip side, there are also blokes like Abhijit Mukherji who read out random words from the dictionary in an attempt to sound like he is from an educated family. People like him make Arnab Goswami love his job.

Just like every article you read about rape, the next part will usually proceed to highlight the stupidity of our current batch of politicians. It will incorporate some smart ass insults. It will provide innovative ways on how to castigate these rapists, including a fully detailed thesis on how one can be tortured the best. Then I will end it gracefully by saying that rape is bad and the usual generic rant about how we can instill a nation of millions blah blah blah.

Let’s be brutally honest, all of that is complete and utter bullshit.

We are not going to change. The rapists will not understand any of those creative genital mutilation techniques you tirelessly described. They will continue raping because the overall IQ level of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar amounts to about 2 or 2.5. In a predictable statistic, most of our bright politicians hail from Uttar Pradesh only. There will be domestic violence, murders, kidnappings, rapes, honor killing and everything you would expect from a pea brained masculine figure high on Indian Culture. You, as an inconsequential being reading a random blog on a laptop will not be able to do jack shit about it. For every candle light protest you conduct, there will be this macho Indian dude from delhi or Haryana saying that candle light protests are an effect of western cultural influences and must be stopped. The balance is tipped to the side of the stupid Indian culture fanatics.

Western culture did not invent dowry, sati and your caste system. Western civilization didn’t construct caves with animal orgies. Westerners don’t worship a blue man’s penis. Stop blaming the shortcomings of a flawed system on another community because you’re too much of an uptight little bitch. The rape culture arises from the fundamental notion that women are pieces of property every man has a right to. That fundamental notion is the doing of our great ancestral heritage. You can give women 75% reservations in the parliament; tend to every whimsical demand made by angry feminists; castrate and torture the rapists all you want and do everything that is within your power to satisfy yourself, but every one of your attempts will be cancelled out by that one Subramanian Swamy of the society who thinks Chowmein is the primary cause of rape. If there is one thing worse than things like this being preached, its the fact that these things are being followed.

There is a regular influx of a rape report everyday in the newspaper. If I sat to cover every aspect of these events, this rant would go on forever. If I didn’t know any better, I will find more people offended by this article than the actual rape cultures in India. One step forward, Two steps back. Welcome to India. Enjoy your stay.

 

The Culinary Repercussions

With one bunch of loud egomaniacs shouting at each other coming to a halt after the elections, we have the next season of ‘shout and swear till someone takes you seriously’ starting with MasterChef USA. Don’t take me wrong, I have nothing against the show. I actually love watching Gordon Ramsay conjure up new swear phrases and slam everyone on the show. It serves as my second favorite pastime. First being, watching Arnab Goswami conjure up new swear words and slam everyone (Mostly Sanjay Jha) on his show. Fine dining was never a popular concept in India. The definition of fine dining in European and Western countries is given as – Full service restaurants with specific dedicated meal courses. Décor of such restaurants feature higher-quality materials, with an eye towards the “atmosphere” desired by the restaurateur, than restaurants featuring lower-quality materials.

Fine dining in India is when you use a fork instead of your spoon/hands to eat rice. MasterChef has changed that. For the better or the for the worse, I don’t know. It just led to people wanting boiled lentil soup instead of Dal Tadka and the rise of a new breed of arrogant customers who go like – Shit service man. I wanted SLIGHTLY seared tandoori. This is ABOVE AVERAGE seared tandoori. I hate this place.

Let me elucidate the underlying plot of MasterChef for those who are unaware of it. It’s basically a cooking contest where some dramatic underdogs cook for this judging panel. Akin to most reality shows in India, the judging panel consists of one highly talented veteran in the field, one soft spoken confidence booster and another wannabe expert who does something worthless for a living. Honestly, how is wine-tasting even a profession? I’m slogging with 30 exams in one semester for an engineering degree and there are professions where you have to basically just drink alcohol and make faces to earn money. He gets to judge other peoples work and I have other people judge me for not working. There is a difference between a person who criticizes you and elaborates on your shortcomings and the person who just says you suck in a senseless manner. That usually leads to insults like- You look like um.. some big thing that’s really big. Let’s be honest here, we watch the shows only to see how the bad dishes are received by the judges. Here is the basic template of every bad food review on the show ever.

Knowledgeable judge 1 : What is wrong with you? You can do better. Just do this, this and this and use this instead of this next time.

Soft spoken Judge no.2  (Usually Gay for some reason ): I love your spirit. You never give up. I kinda maybe sorta didn’t not hate that one small thing which you managed to not screw up. Kudos to that.

Stupid judge no.3: Basically you are a suxxxx. This dish tastes like um.. toilet. Worst. Totally not oolala.

 

I had made it clear that the concept of Masterchef isn’t what made me write this article. So what’s my rant about the food now? I’ll tell you.

Fine dining came up in the world because they thought they needed an Anna University-esque standard for grading food. Due to the lackluster life decisions made by the world, we are stuck with flamboyant chefs claiming to be masterminding the art of cookery by simply serving us boiled rice with a 54 page long description. With the monkey see, monkey do attitude, my facebook and instagram feed looks like:

“Pan fried stuffed Indian bread infused with various herbs and spices from exotic forests in Gujarat accompanied by a mouth watering exemplary mixture of moderately sweet yoghurt in boiled rice, brought directly by pink unicorns from the heavenly rice plantations in Puerto Rico slightly seasoned with a marinated sauce made from lemons and Heaven Jizz. Ah my dinner. #MasterChefUSA”

Yes, this is my dinner.

It’s freaking thepla with curd rice, pickle and kara sev.

So, with the western hemisphere coming up with a widely popular TV series involving day to day tasks, the Indians were ready with pen, paper, a big name actor and a large sum of money to make an exact rip off and act like the Leonardo Da Vinci of modern television. MasterChef India was sanctioned within a heartbeat and Akshay Kumar went from making bad movies to hosting knock off TV shows, a big step in his illustrious film career. Star Plus led the race among the other mentally dead channels to secure rights for MasterChef India. Which in India, implied the clearing of 10-12 hours of broadcast time usually occupied by soaps and telebrands to make room for re-runs.

“Oh wow, a repeat of MasterChef India. I’ve seen this episode but let’s watch it again because I like it”, said nobody ever. Hopefully.

You know how when a monkey tries to build something perfected by humans, it fails miserably because it tries to monkey-fy the item? Yup, MasterChef India gets summed up within that one line. The Indians know that they are never going to make risotto and penne pasta unless Maggi gives them the packet with masala, so why even try? They stuck to their roots and made stuff like rasagulla black forest cake. Yes, you heard that right. In addition to garnishing rasagullas onto a black forest cake, the task involved baking the cake with the rasagullas inside it. And we wonder why India leads the race in Diabetes.

I’m assuming all of you have already seen MasterChef USA or Australia and are familiar with the Mystery Box challenge. It is a task in which all the contestants are given the same base ingredients and it usually turns out to be something very unexpected like pig brains or liver or something. Considering the fact that most of the contestants on the India version are middle age housewives, I understand that the creators could not take a chance and give them some meat related dish in fear of it being a Tuesday or Wednesday or whatever stupid day they don’t eat meat.  Naturally, the Mystery Box challenge was dumbed down to typical Indian standards and this is what it finally looked like. After around 15-20 minutes of suspense, 700 different adjectives and 60,000 zooms and pans on various faces, this was the dreaded mystery box.

A corn cob, an apple, Amul Dahi, A dry coconut, flour, red mirchis, peanuts and that moon shaped thing that always is out of stock in Pazhamudir Chola. Wow. Gordon Ramsay would have killed a baby after seeing those set of ingredients kept on the same table. That was less of a cooking challenge and more of a “Um so we had these few items lying around and the sponsors refused to give us money to buy any more things, so cook with this” challenge. You would be surprised to know that MasterChef India is actually on its fourth season now. I bet they’re making bread butter jam in the elimination round for lack of ideas.

As is the case with most of our shows, sports or states, Pakistan wanted some of it. This led to the conception of MasterChef Pakistan. Although not the worst show, this version sets the bar so low that one of the invention challenges involved some guy making omlette and toasted bread. Obviously you don’t believe me.  I came ready for that reaction.

All these things just serve to prove one basic thing. Even coughed up hairballs will seem like fancy five star meals if you set them up on a rectangular-ish plate. Come back if you can make a visually appealing dish even when it’s on a stainless steel round plate which makes more a louder sound than an exploding Boeing 747 when dropped. I’m just throwing punches into oblivion here. Obviously people aren’t going to stop acting like Gordon Ramsay or that weird guy who wears multicolor pants on MasterChef Australia. Let me just get back to watching MasterChef Pakistan. There are only 4 people left in the competition now! I’m in the 3^rd episode.

 

The Gentleman’s Game.

I may have covered a wide variety of topics up until now but there is one highly controversial topic I have left out on. You may have guessed what it would be. I’m going to talk about the most corrupt bunch of clerical egomaniacs to have ever lived. No, I already did politics last time, I’m talking about cricket now. As the IPL just headed to its curtain call, let’s honor the game of the gentleman. Of course, I use the term gentleman in a highly broad sense. So broad that gentleman actually translates to a shameless and shrewd illiterate. I understand that shrewd and illiterate do not go in the same sentence, but neither do Gentleman and cricket. At least not since when Rahul Dravid retired.

They say that sports bring out the character of a person. If that’s the case, the entirety of the Indian cricket following crowd is headed for a certain doom. Well, so is Pakistan, but I’m sure that’s not only because of this. Cricket was a sport resonant amongst everyone while I grew up. Hence it formed a generation of cricket fanatics of which, I was once a proud member of. I used to leave home at around 10 in the morning with nothing but a cricket bat and return home by around 6. I don’t know what part of this routine made a mould of a general class of ignorant hypocrites, but I seem to have escaped that part. Lucky for me, the 2004 Euros happened and I got out of this cricket loop before it turned ugly. I have come home from school to see my brother watch a re-run of some stupid test match between two third world countries for the second time. Things cannot possibly get any uglier than that. It wasn’t long before he too got out of this loop, but lets address the community that still watches test match re-runs.

Hypocrisy and stupidity walk a thin line that often merges. Not with cricket fans. With cricket fans, Hypocrisy and stupidity share an apartment. As there exist some smart fans for every 10 stupid fans in any sport, the trend is continued in cricket as well. If there are 100 stupid fans in cricket, only around 4 of them would be unbiased fanatics. Call me old school but I grew up watching cricket at a time when the advertisements and the commentary were mutually exclusive. I didn’t have to sit through the torture of people like Sanjay Manjrekar and Shoaib Akhtar being pundits. The sad part is how, people like watching these minutes of mental Guantanamo Bay. Fans are people who admire a game for its beauty and history. Fanatics are those who ardently follow every single detail of it with utmost interest. Lunatics are Indians who watch cricket and make snarky remarks to wage imaginary wars. Let’s take a few case studies on the overall hypocrite behavior of the Indian Cricket watching audience.

So, the ICC T20 world cup took place in Bangladesh a while ago. This was imperative for two main reasons. One being the fact that, the influx polarity was reversed when the Bangladeshis in India snuck back to Bangladesh for this tournament and the other being that, India and Sri Lanka were to meet each other in the finals. I know many of you would have gotten bored of India and Sri Lanka cricket finals, but this holds some importance as this encounter between the two countries did not lead to any civil wars or assassinations. Small steps guys, small steps. Evident by the fact that Star Sports isn’t still showing re runs of the match and in depth analysis of every blade of grass on the field, we lost the finals. In India, we don’t simply lose a game because we are outplayed. We lose a game only because someone obviously screwed up. Ignoring the exemplary death bowling by the Sri Lankans, we chose to point and blame a certain Yuvraj Singh for costing us the finals. He apparently slowed down the pace of the entire team and was subsequently the cause for our downfall. Lucky for him, there are just a handful of understanding cricket fans in the country. The rest are just people who run pages like ”Troll Cricket” on facebook. I’m okay with banter but when it goes to a point where there are death threats and stoning, it just speaks about the overall stupid Jatt nature of people. I am pretty certain I saw some status on my feed saying “Yuvraj singh should have just died of cancer; that way at least Suresh Raina would have batted up the order and won us the game.” I’m pretty sure the same person would have put up a status like “Wow Yuvraj Singh is back to form in the IPL! I always believed in his ability.”

Hypocrisy aside, cricket has always been the attention seeking teenager of all the other sports. It has taken all the selling points of the other games in the world and has tried to create its own corrupt version of the same. Take the various cricket leagues in the world for example. Cricket has taken the idea of a system that promotes young talent from the country on a stage set by the competition between teams from each district (English Premier League) and made it into a reality drama show called the IPL.  It has taken the challenge system from Tennis and the Free Hit/Bowl Out (now shelved) concept from football. It has gotten the Exxtrraaaa Innings concept from the Match Day in football and has murdered it. You can see in Tennis or Football how the commentators use complex idioms and phrases to frame a sentence to pump more adrenaline into the already tense situation. They will bombard you with mind blowing facts about the history of the clubs and what had happened when those two had met earlier. Then you have cricket. Commentary in cricket sounds like a Roadie trying to read a question in his English arrear exam. Of course, you have the exceptions in the form of Harsha Bhogle who actually do justice to the sport but for every Harsha Bhogle, you have 800 Ramiz Rajas. This leads to a vast difference between commentary lines where Indian commentary is just like “Ohhh what a DLF maximum through the Tata Nano covers into the Pepsi VIP box. This is surely a Star sports Kanna keep calm moment in the Pepsi IPL 2014. Micromax micromax nokia reebok srini mama, haha what do you think mate?”

Ear cancer.

Apart from those abhorrent pieces of sound you are subjected to, there are also certain aspects that make you wonder if there is a thing called negative IQ. Apparent from the fact that Arvind Kejriwal made it to the CM post in the national capital, we know that Engineers will somehow find their way into every field. There was a time when the entire statistics involved in a game gave you just the strike rate of the batsman, the economy of the bowler and the run rate achieved and required. It was then, that computer graphics and mathematics came together in the same ugly fashion as English did with Pakistani players. There are now around 50134 graphical representations of minor useless details like how many times the particular player has scored something between 10 and 30 while playing in that turf while wearing his favorite jockey underwear as compared to when he hasn’t. These systems also glitch sometimes and these glitches provide us with some funny moments like these :

 

All said and done, cricket will continue to get commercialized and boring. There will be more Sanjay Manjrekars and Ramiz Rajas. There will emerge another 500 brands who will fling crores at each other to get advertisement time. There will be more scams, more fixing, more corruption and more of everything. There however, will also be that one moment of magic. That one magical over or one magical spell in a match that will be worth watching. That one player who would make others look like toddlers in a ground. That one Sachin Tendulkar or Don Bradman who will inspire a generation to watch cricket no matter how bad it gets. That one performance that will make you shell out a standing ovation at home. Until these moments of unadulterated adrenaline continue, so will the cricket craze in India. We may even forget how cricket functions, but we will not let go of our innate Indianism when it comes to cricket and that is commendable, to say the least.

 

The Glass is Half Full

Unless you live under a rock or in Zimbabwe or something, you would have probably heard the biggest headline article this week concerning the Indian Elections. It was a pretty big occasion and was fittingly hyped to that level. But that was before the counting process and after the voting booth selfies. Then the results came in and the hype broke all barriers. It was like Slumdog Millionaire all over again but of course with some fundamental differences. One can be characterized as a controversial and shockingly realistic story of success and the other one was Slumdog Millionaire. The election fiasco probably got a lot more popularity mainly because there was no Frieda Pinto type of character in that story.( If you’re thinking Mayawati, then you need serious therapy )

India has always had this reputation of pulling a rabbit out of the hat. They run their own political thriller drama and call it Politics. We have the imported lead characters from Italy. We have the underdog who cannot get a US visa, maybe because he pronounces it ‘Bheesa’. We have comic relief from both highly educated people like Arvind Kejriwal and also from those who use a calculator to count their fingers, like Rahul Gandhi. Adding all these elements up, you would have no doubt that the underdog would have emerged victorious in the Lok Sabha Elections this year. You may know that every character in a story has a number of haters and a number of followers. The love-hate arguments they have eventually lead to the popularization of that character. I am not the biggest fan of Narendra Modi but since the milk is already spilt, I’m going to try and take out some positives from this situation for those who are like me.

I wasn’t familiar with that many people who were aware of the happenings of Indian politics before our trusty tea vendor came into the picture. I didn’t pay attention to politics either and honestly, was quite ignorant of it. I don’t know if college kicked in or mob mentality did but, I started watching political debates and reading articles in the paper. Such may be the case of a large population of the Indian mid 20s crowd. This is a major advancement in terms of overall awareness considering that most people didn’t give two shits about Pranab Mukherjee or Prathiba Patil being president. To be honest, I’m pretty sure their own families didn’t take out more than 10 minutes to congratulate them either. Abhijeet Mukherjee looks like he still doesn’t know what a president is and the location of Pratibha Patil is almost unknown now. Well, at least she isn’t using tax payer’s money to abscond to an exotic location anymore. Getting back to the point, I’m happy that Agent Dandiya helped a larger population be aware on the political drama. It is pretty hard to get 20 year olds in college to agree or follow someone who orchestrated mass riots and indirectly killed thousands believes in this dry state concept. Ridiculous

I would not want to go into awful stereotypes of how muslim extremists are the sole cause of terrorism related activities but then again, they are stereotypes for a reason. At the very least, one may be able to find a tiny positive out of the 2002 communal riots. Let’s say you are a member of the Lashkar E Taliba and you want to carry out your quota of regular bloodshed. You proceed to go look for a nice beautiful and populated place you can annihilate happily. Excluding regular distractions from weird shit like goats or whatever they do for fun in the Middle East, how would a terrorist go about figuring out his Modus Operandi? He would first eliminate all the places which he cannot bomb and hopefully, with a Hindu extremist leader in control of the country, India will find its way onto that list. Who in their right minds would want to screw with a Hindu extremist with a colorful history of indirectly killing Muslims? Exactly.

Following politics isn’t something which widely resonant in the country, but political jibing and complaining is more common than the number of engineering students here, which is saying a lot. When India’s arguably best economist was handed the position of Prime Minister and the rupee still sank to new lows, you might find yourself at a loss of words. Expectations soar higher with every new line in your CV. Narendra Modi is what someone may call, street smart. He will find his way around things through any means possible and not give a damn about the path he takes, but that seems like a glamorous portfolio only until you are thrown under the bus by the government.  Concentrating on the brighter note, with the massive margin he won in the Elections, it would be safe to assume that he has the joint approval of a vast majority in India.  This would imply that, most of the voters would be in whole hearted support of his future decisions, even if it is borderline hypocrisy at some point of time. Then again, hypocrisy is seen as a lesser crime than freedom of opinion so we’re in the green here. India will continue giving their support for the new prime minister and as citizenry of democracy, that counts for a lot.

The biggest boon this election campaign brought us was the disintegration of the Congress party. It’s funny how it took this long though. There will be no more of Kapil Sibal and his eyebrows babbling nonsense on live television. There will be no more of Dr. Subramanian Swamy acting like a stuck up 15 year old Hindutva supporter. Although I feel bad for Manmohan Singh, I’m happy he’s ridden of his duties to the Italian estrogen bomb called Rahul Gandhi. Our daily quota of slapstick entertainment will come to a standstill without Rahul Gandhi doing monkey antics on live television. Sanjay Jha will fill in for Rahul Gandhi in this, mainly because his bills are paid by stupid statements and Arnab Goswami’s anger. We have escaped diving deeper into a forest fire but we haven’t extinguished the flames completely. With the rupee gaining a tiny amount of credibility over the days, the overall situation has begun to show some hope. So here’s to moving one step forward and not having to fall another 2 steps back.

The Literally Speechless

As the entire electoral procedure is set to get over in a few weeks, we all reach that point wherein we prepare ourselves to complain about the government’s oppression for the next 6 years. There is going to be unanimous hate towards the ruling party irrespective of who it is. We are pretty certain that it is not going to be the UPA again. On that note, let’s rejoice to the fact that Kapil Sibal will not be throwing punches in the air by attempting to censor the internet and effectively sound like some Vijaykanth movie villain who has a stupid devious plan to colour the moon orange or something. However, one must not judge a book by its cover. The UPA is no debutant to hatching stupid devious plans.

Censorship is resonant across people in the world as they must have certainly faced a degree of it in their respective lives. If not censorship, one must have obviously felt the aftermath of saying something seemingly out of place. We have grown up following certain rules imposed on us by our parents. Our parents grew up with rules imposed on them by our grandparents and the cycle goes on. As a community, we now tolerate most of these things and pass it off as a norm as genetics passed onto us, a blind iron curtain on the freedom of expression. Different households incorporate different cultures and subsequently, anyone who takes charge of a system outside his household tends to facilitate the same rules over there as well.

Let me illustrate with an example. When I was in the 12^th standard, we used to have weekly events like Shipwreck and Debate. One week it so happened that I opted to judge that week’s Shipwreck. Since our school had a surface area lesser than the hair on Sharad pawars scalp, everyone happened to know one another. So as the judge of a supposedly light hearted comic event in high school, I decided to make snarky personal remarks on the participants. I sneaked in a pun involving the name of the participants’ significant other in a rather casual way and ended up being lectured by the principal. This is how the entire scene played out

What I Actually said :“Uh. So do you/have you ever consumed alcohol? No? Good because you shouldn’t drink Rum-ya.” ( Ramya. So smart no?)

What went through most of the teachers minds : Hmm. 2:50. 25 more minutes till I can fin- RUM! HE SAID RUM. OH MY GOD CALL HIS PARENTS IMMEDIATELY NOW.

What my Parents were told :  “YOUR SON PUBLICALLY ENDORSED HIS VIEWS AND OPINIONS ON ALCOHOLISM AND FACILITATED THE SUBSEQUENT DESCENT OF 38 PEOPLE INTO DRUGS..so here tell him to write this apology letter and you can leave”

Okay maybe not exactly like that. They were told that I suggested the consumption of rum to a wide audience, which was also an exaggeration.( So exaggerating and exaggeration is justified) This however, isn’t a direct example of censorship on a small level. It is an example how someone can be incriminated for basically nothing just because they aren’t in the good books of the higher authorities. Be sure that, when somebody doesn’t like what you’re saying, you’re going to be pulled up on some bullshit charge. The provision of numerous such excuses remains one of the primary contributions of religion to the modern society.

With Kapil Sibal trying to censor facebook and bottleneck the entire happenings of the Indian web network, there are questions being asked about the overall freedom of one’s speech. Of course, the answer to those questions are like Narendra Modi’s interview tactics: Either rehearsed or non-existent. There is a clear line drawn by the government on the general acceptability of a particular string of words. I could be arrested by some lunatic party for just liking a facebook comment or a status. Actually, given the said partys’ history, I would bet on me just being beaten up by someone who looks like a failed wrestler and works for a failed politician. At this juncture, I would like to bring up the case of an American writer called Wendy Doniger who published a book on the Alternative History of Hinduism. Naturally, when most Hindu support groups heard the words ‘Alternate’ and ‘Hinduism’, they went bat shit insane and burned down all the copies. Because you know, Hinduism is all about peace and harmony.

These people constitute to the unwanted by-product of the country’s gene pool in terms of their mental approach to the entire concept of the media. Never will you see a channel grill any big shot politician for answers to the questions that actually matter. Most news channels just host a more executive version of Koffee with Karan while accepting a large load of their very own Koffee Hamper. It’s not because they want to draw the curtains on the truth, it’s simply because they do not want to die. This fear among reporters and TV channel heads is the reason we have unnecessary sensationalization that eventually leads to things like

“We have just received information that exposes the entire swiss bank account details of every politician in India with an trusted authority giving us the seal of acceptance. BUT FIRST SEE THIS GIRL WHO CAN BEND HER INDEX FINGER SIDEWAYS. IS SHE AN ALIEN? INCREDIBLE INDIA!! WOW WOW WOW. MORE ON THIS STORY FROM EDUCATED MINDS LIKE KARAN THAPAR AND THAT GUY FROM COMEDY NIGHTS WITH KAPIL.”

All of you must have heard of the RTI from the few million times it was mentioned by Rahul Gandhi on Times Now. It is the Right to Information Act that had been brought in to promote freedom of press in the same way N.Srinivasan had been brought in to enhance the standards of cricket. The RTI is followed even lesser than Priyanka Vadra’s rally speeches. (If you haven’t heard of her, then my point has successfully been put across). One may exercise the RTI and take the matters to court but not many people would be interested in waiting several years just to have the government throw a bone to their cause. Consequently, the RTI implodes and ceases to defeat the cause of its conception. However, slowly, India starts fighting fire with fire and as people adopt these tactics, we hear the Gandhian generation poking us in the back with the evergreen complaint – “but it’s against our culture to rebel”

The past few years have seen a rise in the ballsy and brash nature of the general public, an epitome of which is, Arnab Goswami. We had previously been robbed of our dignity and speech and openly mocked by the politicians and now Arnab Goswami takes revenge for the masses by doing the same to Sanjay Jha, Abhijeet Mukherji and many others on a regular basis. Sarcasm and satire is rapidly taking the place of candle lights and fasts as means of making a point to the higher authorities. Took long enough for them to get a firm grip on the basic working of sarcasm but the achievement must be appreciated. As a country widely renowned for taking two steps back for every step forward, the least we can do is, take larger step forward and minimalize the backward falls.

It’s going to be a long time until we elect an actual leader considering the one we have almost elected now cannot even enter the USA (Iyer equivalent of the end of your life). In the coming years, we shall witness another wave of scams, presumably a higher number of riots and atrocities and hopefully a lesser barrier on the media censorship. Boundaries are widened by pressing them and somewhere along the numerous satirical statuses and shout outs into the void, we are going to reach a point where the thick skinned leaders actually get influenced by the same. Until then, let us just sit and wait for them to commit the crimes they always do and find ourselves getting arrested for talking about it. We will have movies that shed light upon shady events that are banned but will take no efforts whatsoever against the showcased shady events. The stupid nature of the movie censor board is why mindless movies like Dhoom 3 and Yeh Jawaani hai deewani gross 200 crores and Madras Café and Vishwaroopam end up fighting the right to screening. Way to go, India.

*DIng dong ding* Your kind attention please

As a student who does college away from home, I’m pretty used to the frequent train and bus journeys. Almost every 2 weeks, I am commuting to some weird place in an overnight bus or a train. Some journeys are horrible and some are memorable. They are memorable because they make you want to kill a litter of puppies with fire and that is not a feeling you usually get. Most of you might immediately jump to the defense of the Indian railways system and tell me how advanced and sophisticated the entire system is. But then again, no you won’t. Don’t get me wrong. I love how comfy the seats are in the sleeper class and how hospitable those bedbugs are. For them to be screwing with the happiness of every single passenger day in day out and maintaining the uniform torture is something admirable.

I am writing this post from a train right now while I am surrounded by an entire bank of blog content. Let us make this description a little more sophisticated and separate these annoying bags of blood and tissue into three categories depending upon their age.  The mentioned incidents have occurred over the space of my 3 years of both train and bus commute to/from Thanjavur or Trichy. Let’s check out category 1 which involves the lowest form of life.

No, it’s not Subramanian Swamy, It’s babies.

Okay it’s a little like Subramanian Swamy, I’ll give you that.

BABIES :

Babies are the evolved versions of the bedbugs. They possess this magical ability to piss everyone off and to shit their pants at will. I wouldn’t say crying at will was very magical as most people I know now can pull that off better than these maggots. You know how hard it is to walk in a straight line in a fast moving vehicle? Imagine these little excreta banks doing this when they can’t walk a straight line on a normal basis. The parents, obviously fed up of listening to baby gibberish and staring at human waste for 80% of their average day, would decide to leave their kids to roam around a fast moving train to get some alone time and calm themselves. This tactic is so stupid and still so abundantly used that I’m tempted to make a religion out of it. I’m pretty sure even a mass murderer would be held in higher regard than someone who doesn’t help a kid up after it trips and falls over flat ground. Then again, mass murderers and terrorists are held in pretty high regard in this country. On a completely random note though, this Narendra Modi is one fine fellow no?

One time it so happened that I was to share a 2 tier 2^nd A/C compartment with a couple and a kid roughly 5-6 years old. I usually engross myself into a movie or something else on my laptop until I eventually feel sleepy and then pack up. This was one of those nights where Satan wanted to stretch his arms and do some genuine evil. Like all normal people, I push my footwear under the seat below and go to my upper berth where I set up my laptop and hang up my figurative middle finger to the world. Kids usually have this tendency to screw people’s lives up without actively realizing it, much like that one political party in India. (Or all the political parties in India)

So this particular hyperactive bundle of joy was clearly a football enthusiast, complete with a t-shirt that said- Football. Owing to his apparent love for the game, he was kicking things around. The father managed to settle the little dude down but he wouldn’t listen. So like any Indian would, he just gave up.  The result? My flip flops found themselves all the way to that metal link between two compartments, a discovery I made when I took the decision in the morning to just leave the slippers behind and accept defeat. Not the biggest story of tragedy but annoying enough to hate the kin. Now let’s move on to the next type of irksome company you rendezvous with in your travel.

OVER ENTHUSIASTIC TEENAGERS :

Every once in a while you come across that one group of teenagers or college students who act like teenagers, who think they are Jim Carrey and prefer to shout out all their jokes. Only problem is, they aren’t Jim Carrey and their jokes would make Navjot Singh Siddhu contemplate suicide (Since murder isn’t quite a new thing for him). They most probably are either just teens traveling for the first time together or mentally retarded. Even in this, the category falls broadly into two main types. Type 1 involves those who are so adherent to their stereotypes that it’s not even funny and type 2 consists of those who actively make an effort to not to showcase their stereotype. The LCM for them both is their extravagant sense of negative humor and positive reinforcement of irritation.

A train journey with them is a different experience altogether and I don’t mean for this to be in a “coming of age” type way. It is this cocktail of bad jokes in Tamil mixed with testosterone and overconfidence. As a proud practitioner and admirer of shit jokes and bad humor, when a particular joke is deemed as bad by me, it really speaks volumes about it.

Type 2 are generally the Bros from the Bro college of Brongineering in Dudepur. Most Bro conversations cannot happen without a reference to Tam Kroos or Cristyano Donaldo of Reel Madrid in Spen. They often also include exclamatory remarks about goals from the 19^th century like :

BRO 1: Bro andha goal by Zlatan Ibajbfaivbkarginic for PSG was ulti theri bro like wow.

BRO 2: ZOMGLOLZ. who is this zladan and why has he joined psg? Sastra has better placements bro.

<Seemingly infinite cackling from both the bros>

Life had never seemed less unworthy to continue. But we need to move on as I stare at my word count reaching new levels of LOL. I wrap up quickly with my last category of Travel Animosities- The dreaded Uncles.

THE ADVICING UNCLES:

The last thing on a students’ mind while traveling back home, is their future. Unless of course the future in question corresponds to the F, 20 in seat number 30 which we already religiously checked before boarding the train.

*Muffled cries of engineers asking me not to reveal trade secrets*

The only thing scarier than the train derailing and crashing into a pile of flaming cacti is, a middle aged gentleman waltzing into your compartment and settling there with his trusty box of curd rice and futile advice. If you closely pay attention to these few moments, you can actually experience how 9/11 must have felt for the people inside the WTC.

So as this gentleman slowly flies this plane into your entire mood, you realize that life is cruel. He proceeds to question every aspect of your seemingly pointless life and judges you irrespective of what you say. The reason why they are an unpleasant company during travel is, because they will try to make you engage in conversation even if you shoot down all their attempts of it. Once I was on my way from Thanjavur to Chennai in the afternoon train and I wasn’t sleepy. So naturally I pulled out my laptop and started watching a movie (Which, by now you must have realized is, the engineers solution to everything). It was the first Thor movie and I was quietly stationed in my berth with headphones and all. This elderly uncle comes to charge his cell phone at the point and notices me watching this movie. Well aware that I am wearing headphones, he rambles loudly and out of courtesy, I remove my headphones and ask him the dreaded question- What?

“Why pa you are watching movie. It is 1.30pm in afternoon. According to <insert random god name> and <insert random Sanskrit word> it is the best time to study”

Thanks to the 90184571039857 gods and 1047591837 religions, it is hard to find a time which is not ideal for studying. However, trying to avoid further conversation, he laughs. I laugh. He laughs more. I slowly put my headphones back on and turn away, questioning why bad things must happen to good people.

But anyways, like any wise man would tell you- These small experiences play a huge part in shaping who you are in the future. So in the future, if you find me convicted of manslaughter or something, blame that wise old crack for predicting this and arrest him instead. But for now, I’ll be content with you just liking this blog post and coming back regularly for more.