Tripping down a trip!

I don’t know how else to put it, but me and my three friends had one hell of a trip today! I mean we crossed paths annihilated by large landslides, had to run from a huge herd of cows, nearly went down to three, and oh... how the ‘hell’ could I forget! We were with the son of god!

Okay! Let’s put it like it happened!

We had planned to go to a tourist spot called ‘Kasar-devi’ that’s in walking distance from our town. We set off at seven in the morning. We were four friends, three impure souls and Christ himself. Okay! One of my friends...whom I saw after a year...who has now got a beard, and thus assumed the appearance of the Son of god...and thus his name!

So we set of on the asphalt covered trail towards our destination. The road to the destination had, to a certain extent, nothing special...well, apart from us christening Christ the redeemer, Christ the photographer; and us nearly entering what looked liked a deserted caravan, in hopes of finding a severed head but otherwise... nothing special!

The actual journey began at our destination!

The ‘Kasar-devi’ temple is at quite some height, and has some great rock outcrops, and we are four young boys... so we decided to get our photos snapped as we fought for dear life on the edges of the severed rocks! So three of us did it, the fourth being an acrophobic or rather unwise...seeing that the lord walked with us!

Let me tell you something here. The spirit of adventure is like herpes, once you get it... there is no way back!

So we got infected, and that too real bad!

We decided to walk down the hill to the road by following un-trodden paths, or rather, no paths at all!

The first real adventure came up when one of our friends, an engineering student, decided to run down a hill, and then (perhaps by the divine will of the ‘lord’ himself), stop as the edge of the mountain approached!

And he failed.

Drastically.

He ran down (as he perhaps had planned), gained speed (the inevitable), and failed to stop (despite the son of god).

But as I approached the edge of the hill, expecting to see a thousand foot fall and his spread-eagled body... I was shocked to see him hopping down what seemed like a 7-foot-drop, clutching his ankle! After all our swearing at him...Lord had indeed blessed his child!

After that we decided to ‘forget’ the sprained ankle and move on down the hill, on no path still!

After we had reached another steep fall, we decided to sit down and enjoy the serene beauty of the valley! But then, one of our friends stepped on cow dung, and ‘Yeshua’ was extremely tired, and despite our ‘forgetting’ the ankle...it was still there!

So we decided to get on the path home as soon as possible. Soon we found an ill-trodden (but ‘still’ trodden) path. We started climbing down the hill. Suddenly we realized that a few women (who apparently decided to think that we didn’t exist), started to walk down the same path we were on with there huge heard of cows. The only way the cows could have walked down the path was by either throwing us down the hill, or by thinking that we were invisible, trotting on upon us and beyond.

Seeing either of these options as clearly unacceptable, we ran down the path for dear life!

After running down what seemed like a few hundred yards, we started walking down again.

Yet again... despite being with the son of god, and despite having faced ‘quite some’ difficulties, our path was now blocked by a massive landslide... which Christ, as usual, thought, could be crossed easily...only if we had the ‘faith’!

Sadly, one of my friends agreed with him... so I swore (don’t call it blasphemy) at both of them and we four split up into two teams... one of my friends and I decided to head back and climb up to the ‘asphalt’ road down as soon as we saw a visible road up. Lord, on the other hand decided to go right way ‘UP”!

Finally after much loud swearing, and pretty much hard work... we finally reached the ‘real road’, and headed on our way down... another ‘not-so special’ journey... with another few exceptions like me playing loud metal music and Christ disagreeing( as expected!) and no one listening to him (again expected!); and also us eating a very-very awkward dish...consisting of curry, mashed potatoes and I-don’t-have-a-freaking-idea-what’s.

On the hole, the journey was fun (irritating), adventurous (ridiculous) and worth remembering (at least for a few days)!

Thanks for all the fun...to Pankaj, Akash, and the lord almighty!

Run...Apocalypse coming!!!

The world will end when it will end. There is no point being scared that a mighty meteor, which will presumably, appear out of a gigantic black hole, will strike the earth and kill us all, just because the Mayans did not know how to count after 2012. This is the ultimate extent of stupidity.

Assuming that they did know that the earth will come to an end in 2012, and that a giant rat will come and devour us all, it is still utter foolishness to sell all that you have and go hide in a cave. If there were to be a massive earthquake and the earth were to end, you would die even if you were hiding in a small cave in the mountains of Turkey!

I guarantee, if I had a long beard and a toga, I would have convinced at least a dozen people to sell all their property and dig an underground cave!

Do you know what the reason behind all this is?

I'll tell it to you. In all the years of development that we've seen, in the technological revolution that we've experienced, there is one vital thing that we've forgotten!

Common-sense!

Yes, we've started to believe in much more of this entire non-sense! We try to convince ourselves that all the mistakes that we've committed will all be wiped out in a single stroke and that we'll all be spared! How childish!

I write this because I recently read a report claiming that a dozen or so people sold all they had because they believed in the 20-may-apocalypse!

Guys! Jesus ain't coming back that soon... and even if he is, he'll lead you into light and not take you into darkness!

So believe in what is a fact and don't take in what is fagged!

I keep this post real short because this isn't an actual post! This is just a small notice of caution for all those who believe too soon... and repent soon enough!

So guys... Keep your cool... There ain't no meteor coming towards us that's not been noticed, and there ain't no Godzilla waking up from its two-hundred-thousand year hibernation!

The New Gods of YouTube

This is a very very personal opinion. My sole intention by this post is to express my personal choice, and while a desperate attempt has been made not to be prejudiced and biased, any loose nut may hit the face of people who are too curious to find faults or rather meddle with deliberate ones!

To begin with, I must ask the fans of 'certain' YouTube sensations (I find it extremely hard to say their name in case I spell it wrong and spark a controversy!), to please STOP reading this! Right now!

I don't say because I am afraid of a small girl coming to my place and threatening to throw water on me! I just feel that if you do proceed with the text (though you might not find a 'SINGLE' clue who am I talking about)... you might 'feel' like I don't like him... some might even go to the extents of thinking that I have exaggerated a few facts... others, who like to be straightforward, might say that I have slaughtered him!

But then I continue thinking that this is your personal opinion... and that I respect it!

So lets jump to the actual topic...

A few years back, when I had been a school going child, I had heard the song of a 'certain singer'; which I found extremely entertaining! Not nice, but 'entertaining'!

The specialty of this singer was that you couldn't possibly tell that you were listening to 'him' or to 'her'! You couldn't have even imagined what the age of the singer was... because if it was a girl, she was close to 16 but if (god forbid!), it were to be a boy, he had just been born!

So the first question that came to my mind was:

"What is the software called?"

What? you don't get it! i mean the software that makes a person's voice have absolutely no relation with his age or sex!

But the person who made me hear the song, which was about a synonym of 'child' and which rhymes with 'maybe' , and who was immensely enjoying it, told me that it was a boy and that he was close to fifteen!

You might feel like I am making fun of someone... but the very next thought that came to my mind was of sympathy...Yes, Sympathy of the greatest degree... or all these teenagers who think that their Adam’s apple would grow... but find out that they haven't got one!

In a few months, this little child, quite possibly gifted with a sexless, ageless voice, became a worldwide hit!

Little girls had posters of him! The boy with a neutered voice became the idle of every little girl... a person every girl wanted to become!

Now you might think that I am one of the "person-I'm-talking-about" haters! And that I am jealous of his hair and his 'gifted' voice!

Well, to this, I certainly have no answer... because whatever I say about how 'utterly ridiculous' his hair look and how, well, 'shrill' his voice is; no one is going to believe me... and even if you don't, I don't give a heck about it!

I write this post not to change the opinions of the people who think that this sensation is their god, because they won't! Nor am I writing this for deliberately expressing 'hate' for the person in question... I don't hate him as a person... I dislike (Quite an understatement) his sort of music!

Another thing that this 'sensation' has done is that he has given birth to many more like him. Recently I heard that there was a particular girl, who, singing about a particular day of the week, had earned herself more dislikes than the 'discussed person'!(I added mine soon afterwards).

To be extremely honest, the song was absolutely ridiculous! I mean we all know Tuesday comes after Monday and that Saturday comes after Friday... and also that Sunday is a holiday! We don't need a freaking song to tell us that! Thank you very much!

Thus I must conclude the post. And the conclusion is that I don't have a particular conclusion. This was just an opinion. This wasn't a post to tell people not to listen to 'the person in question'! Nor was this a 'hate-mail'! This was just a shade of my feelings and opinions about all that happens around me. This was indeed, The light breeze of the Storm!

The New Number of the beast... an ode to the Indian government!

This is a remix of the Iron Maiden classic, the Number of the beast... this will convey meaning of greater essence to all those who grew up listening to heavy metal music and to those too... who are familiar with the current political situation of India. Think not that I’ve don’t this for no cause...  the general elections of 2014 convey a new ray of hope for all of us... a hope against corruption all over India! Comment if you like it... and spread it if you care!

Woe to You Oh U.P and Bengal

for the Government sends the beast with wrath
because he knows the time is short (and elections coming);
Let him who have understanding
reckon the number of the beast
for it is a human number
its number is two thousand and fourteen!

I lived alone
my mind was blank
I needed time to think to get the memories from my mind

What did I see? 
Could I believe? 
That what I saw that night was real and not just fantasy

Just what I saw 
in my old dreams 
were they
reflections of corruption staring back at me?

'Cause in my dreams
it's always there 
the evil face that twists my mind and brings me to despair 

All the money is black 
was no use holding back
'Cause I just had to see
was someone watching me
In the Swiss bank
huge figures move and twist
was all this for real 
or just some kind of hell
2-0-14 the Number of the Beast
Thieves and dacoits were spawned to be released

Torches blazed and 
sacred chants were phrased
as they start to laugh 
Someone with a quarter and someone with half;
In the night 
the money is shining bright
the ritual has begun 
Government's work is done
2-0-14 the Number of the Beast
Sacrifice is going on tonight

This can't go on 
I must inform the law (oh! Ha ha ha!)
Can this still be real 
or just some crazy dream?
but I feel drawn 
towards the chanting hordes
seem to mesmerize...can't avoid their eyes
2-0-14 the Number of the Beast
2-0-14 the one for you and me

I'm coming back 
I will return
And I'll possess your land
and I'll make you burn
I'll have the fire (money) 
I'll have the force (police)
I'll have the power (literally)
to make my evil take its course!

Thank you!

English, as we know it

The English language is considered much more than a way of communication in my country! It’s a representation of high standard! People here have an odd tendency to believe that they have something more important to say if they can sum it up in English. But the English spoken here is very different from the Queen's English, nor is it related to the English of the Americans, and accent, (if you think it’s the reason) is least of my concerns!

English, as I have already stated, is not just for communication, but is also used for laying emphasis, for quoting (and misquoting), for illustrating, for showing off (mainly) and then, yes, for swearing!

But what troubles me the most is the misuse, and to some extent distortion of English!

As we all know, grammar is the base of English language, of any language, actually. If you get the grammar wrong, you don't get the language at all! But a strange belief exists here! People think that English, however disfigured, grotesque, or disembodied, results in a good impression over the listener, or the reader!

Its just like the belief that piercing makes people look cool... but I believe that only if a cool-looking person gets some piercing done, will he look cooler; all the others look like pin cushions!

Let me give you some examples;

The most common greeting message I get on facebook, Google Talk, Orkut, Nimbuzz or any other Chat is:

"How’s YOU!”

Reading this, I get so irritated that I feel like replying:

"He’s fine; he'll come and talk to you later!”

This isn't a mistake. This is molestation!

Another word that appeared out of nowhere when I was in school was 'takouting'. Now, this is a word that most of you wouldn't have heard. I feel this was very specific, not an epidemic!

As the word itself signifies, it's a cross of Taking and out! So instead of saying, I'm taking my pen out, people preferred to say I'm takouting my pen!

Anyways, Spoken English is not the only thing worth concern. Banners, pamphlets, advertisements etc. also have blunders spread all over them.

I attach a few of the many mistakes I have noticed recently... and I assure you, many more exist!

1. ipots: Of all things I have imagined, this is never come to my mind, because, frankly, it's too unimaginable to imagine!

2. This is a menu card with a few 'funny' points to note!

I would now like to conclude by telling all my fellow Indian friends,

People, you've taken birth in a non-English-speaking nation, its nothing to worry about! Speaking Hindi will usually do, but not always! If you want to be a good speaker of English, please don't use English as a show-off, use it as a language!

Of Education

Just like every other thing in the world, the education system has developed a great deal in the past centuries drastically. The time of 'Gurukuls' in India is long gone. Today is the day of auto-education system and state-of-the-art education technology, of projector and laptop tuitions, of rising power of spectacles and huge landslides of home-work!

But the thing that I am most concerned about is the subjects that are included in the education system today!

To begin with, I have been an ISC (Indian School Certificate) student till intermediate level, so neither am I familiar with other boards of education in India nor am I going to speak about them.

Also to make the situation familiar to my off-shore readers,(Like there are any!!), I would like to briefly illustrate the structure of the pattern of existing study system in India!

We, as science students, have to study a venomous combination of either Physics Chemistry and Mathematics (or Biology), along with Computer science (or physical education, or Hindi) and also (I-don't-know-why-it-exists!) Environmental Education and English!

Since English is and was perhaps the only thing that I have always been up to my expectations in, therefore I would like to (intentionally) 'Forget' talking about it! Hope you don't mind it!

So let's begin with Physics. It is highly and most respectfully incomprehensible to understand in the way it is illustrated in our books! I mean there are articles about how to make nuclear weapons spanning chapters and still they don't want us to join Al-Qaeda! There are questions relating high-speed-chases and heavy gunfire, but they don't want us to be violent and most un-understandably (if its a word!), there are questions relating men hanging upside down on trees, or from buildings, or from all sorts of odd places and still all they want us to do is to calculate the effect of gravitation on his head without thinking about ways of putting him down!

Still they say that physics brings 'Sense' to life! I mean, I don't know!

Chemistry, on the other hand is very lucid and easy to understand, only had any one seen those tiny little specks somebody called atoms, or had even stopped calling glucose, 6-(hydroxymethyl)oxane-2,3,4,5-tetrol! Otherwise it's an easy and potentially interesting subject!

Mathematics is another good one! Half of the questions that you do, you do because you are told to do, you don't actually have a freaking idea why on earth are you doing them! Or even if there is some use of something that you do today in any distant corner of the earth, till the time you react the reason, you forget the cause! I also like mathematics because it very straight-forward! Only exception is that you've got to study geometry to get an idea of arithmetic, and that you've got to study arithmetic to understand calculus, and then you'll have to study algebra to understand mathematics itself! Pretty Straight-forward!

Computers are good, but they are only good when somebody gives all the programs prepared to you and all the applications that use those programs and the operating system to run those applications!

Otherwise it's quite an arduous job to make even the simplest of programming codes! But I'll not talk detail here since you won't understand it... which is another way of saying even I don't understand it!

I didn't study physical education as a subject but considering all the ones who have had a go, its got nothing to do with 'physical education'; there are some complex diagrams of football fields, of heart ventricles, of diet charts, and then a few minutes play!

I won' t raise an country-wide-outrage by saying anything about Hindi as a subject, but will only say that it is a 'good' subject and that 'everyone' should study it!

Apart from all these small twinges, faults, mistakes, misinterpretations, disast... oops!, distresses, and defects; the Indian system of education, remains one of the most respected systems in the world!

Simplicity

The use of high end technology has made the life of humans simpler than it was ever before. You can now easily do things that you found impossible to do a decade ago. Technology has not only played a role in easing our lives but has also made it much more fun to live!

All this is a huge pile of crap! I'll tell you what the reality is...

When we were in the initial stages of our homo-sapien life, our life was as simple as anything... "Eat-shit-sleep"!

How much more simpler can you get?!

Now-a-days it's more like... "Eat-brush-read-listen to music-watch TV-Chat on facebook-sleep-wake up-...."!

How the hell can anyone call this lifestyle any simpler than ever before! If this is simple then I'm about to become the next president of the United States and Barcelona will end up in the bottom of the Spanish league next year!

The truth behind our believing that our life has become simpler is that its our natural tendency to believe Newspapers, and that its the tendency of the journalists to believe their 'sources', and that its a natural behavior of the 'sources' to believe what the scientists say, and then we all know that scientists have a religious belief in science!

If science comes out with something completely useless, they believe its something worth researching... and then reach conclusions like green vegetables make you healthy... which we have known since time unknown... but its just scientifically proved... THAT's IT!

Similarly, scientists now can pick a doughnut using a mechanical arm... so they say life is simpler... but picking a doughnut using a 3-foot-long, $ 50 million, titanium arm isn't simplicity... its insanity!

The ultimate truth is that our lives are far more complicated, far more entangled, and far more arduous then they were in the earlier times... The only thing that has changed is the methodology of doing things... Like it was raw deer back than and now its Subway! The only thing that’s simpler perhaps!

The Analogy of Facebook

You 'like' and you 'dislike', you comment and you vote, you update your status and put up pictures... till this point of time and space does facebook looks like an entertaining thing! But then you 'tag' people with photos showing a vase of rotten flowers! You send F***ville requests! You ask stupid questions and answer even stupider ones... at this point of time you realise that the entertainment factor is gone and replaced by a crooked, evil smile on your face! Do heck with what's good and what's not... like it or dislike it... You use it!

I will not be surprised when I grow old and have shining silver hair (and perhaps an oxygen mask), if people elope nad marry on facebook and like when the girl's dad posts swear words in the boy's wall!

I will be even less surprised if people of the generation to come call this present decade as the decade of 'The Facebook'!

People who do not use Facebook (like there are any!) find it difficult to swallow the idea of facebook! They don't understand the reason of its success...they can see the aura around it... they fail to get the X-factor that faceook has!

Let me explain this the reason behind these things to those non-existent people!

First things first... Facebook has become a phenomenon due to a simple, comprehensible fact... It is one damn addiction!

There are things you are allowed to do and there atre things that you are not allowed to do... and facebook lets you do all of these things with complete freedom!

You 'like' what you like and you 'dislike' what you dislike. No formal pretention! No fake 'Oh-its-so-pretty's' !

You creake your own public image... your own virtual avatar! It might represent who you are or might be the complete opposite! But this is the thing I like most about facebook... it lets you create a represent ation that is more like the framework of you mind instead of you physical being! It lets you create the actual 'YOU', without the defects... without misproportions... without faults!

Facebook has got more than 600 million users, not because it is a social-network, frankly, there are many of those! Faceboo is a grand success because it is a virtual world... and place where all dreams come true... a place with no limits and a perfectly precise environment... where all girls are beautiful and all guys are smart... and where everything is possible!

When Mark Zuckerberg was creating Facebook, he must not have an idea that he was creating something that would change the face of the future... he must not have had an idea that this wasn't just 'a' Social network...this was 'THE' Social network!

Roads Of India

Indian roads are a wonderful place to be on. Before you step in those not-too-wide asphalt covered tracks, everything that you've accomplished or not runs through your mind like a slide show. No other nation has roads that give you such a feeling! It is exclusive, worth cherishing! Each day on an Indian road is an adventure... a journey that is short on scale but very big on excitement! Every moment is a delicate mixture of grit, hope, excitement underlined by heavy tones of fear, or rather 'mortifying terror'. Interesting thing about Indian roads is that before you ever put your foot down on them, you don't even know that you could be killed in so many different ways! You could be run over by a speeding car...or fall victim to a daredevil motorcyclist... or even killed by a cow... or bitten by a dog or even murdered by a blind psychopath with an axe... okay that’s a bit of an overstatement, but still opportunities of losing a body part are infinite!

You might think that I am just exaggerating a simple fact. Well I owe you a sincere apology of not making myself more factual. lets see...

India has the highest road accidents rate in the world. Over 130000 people fall helpless victims to road rage. Almost 14 people an hour! Bang and you're dead!

It's an interesting thing too, to travel on these paths that have as much diversity as our nation itself. In some very exclusive places there are wide multi-laned roads in which various types of vehicles run like they do in every other place in the world... but this isn’t the story on the larger part of our big nation. There are two lane roads, one laned roads, even 3/4 laned roads; there are roads that have tarmac and which are smooth and there are road that are not!

But don't let that fool you. You will die when you will die. And that can happen on any of these various type of roads!

In my opinion, the only man who is completely safe on the Indian roads is either the one who is wearing a space suite over a metal armor or the one who is inside an heavily armored vehicle!

The people who drive on these roads are as diverse as these roads. Especially the two-wheeler-riders...

In one of my travels in an auto-rickshaw on of our roads I got an opportunity to witness the diversity in driving styles. Some of the riders are so fast that you can barely discern the number of people sitting on the vehicle. You see the right next to you in one instant and then you either see their tail-light as a small speck far-far away, or in most cases you see them lying next to the road, heavily mangled, with the shatters of their bike, either unconscious or crying for help!

The other kind of riders is the ones who usually have the visage of an old man, usually bald with round spectacles, and mostly on a scooter! These are what I call the Slow Locomotive User Guys or simply SLUGs. You can walk right next to them as the drive, have a conversation, ask them about their life, and tell them about you’re, and can play chess, and... Then you get tired and remember that they are on a vehicle! These people are so exceedingly slow... so sluggish... that they don't get run over by a drunken drivers, but frustrated ones!

Jeremy Clarkson, the host of the TV show Top Gear writes in one of his articles, ‘...In Greece, there are only two ways by which you can be killed, by being run over by a bike, or by being run over by a car...’.

I must say that though killers in our nation are not so specific in our methods; we certainly can claim that ‘mostly’ people get killed by being run over by either bikes or cars!

Our road signs are also an interesting addition to the fun that our roads give us!

On one of my recent exploits, I encountered one such utterly ridiculous signs. It claimed

“Sharp Curve ahead, Drive safely!”

This might not sound ridiculous but when there is NO darn curve for the next kilometer or so... it is pretty stupid!

But even after being broken, distorted, disfigured, in-bad-shape, poorly-looked-after, and too thin, no other road is as much fun to drive on! The utter thrill of driving with death on the passenger seat has its own excitement!

I would like to conclude this short essay by giving you a little safety tip on how to cross the roads:

Look Left, look right; repeat this procedure over five times. Stop. Take a deep breath. Remember one of you deities (Multiple if it’s a freeway)!

Then...

Cross as if it’s your last walk on the road!