Saturday, December 11, 2010

Decoy Trojan..

The art of writing is a tiresome habit of indulgence. Giving sentences coherence can however, become a habit in disguise. However, what occupies my mind currently is the concept of "Wikileaks", "Cosmetic Democracy", "26/11 and Kasab". I would, with my limited rendition of the concept of democracy on the whole, will try to delve into all 3 and link them to the broader spectrum.

It's imperative for us to ask what's idealistic and what can be realistically expected from the government in a democracy. The concept of "By the people, Of the people and For the people" is passe. It wouldn't be far-fetched to assume that each government is motivated sectionally by self-preservation and largely by the incentive of staying in power and this stay in power can only be achieved when civilians believe en masse that the tax they are paying is being used in a manner befitting the stature they are conferred upon when politicians come begging for votes before elections. Anything lower than that would be the country "visible" development and mostly they are ok with that too. Eventuality for any government is to interfere in people's scheme of things and this is where the dichotomy reigns supreme. A good government is said to be the one which governs the least. However, if you don't govern you don't justify your position of power. This is where the concept of a "Cosmetic Democracy" comes in, which I will come to later.

The Ruling government has two fundamental problems at any stage- Expectations of people and "THE OPPOSITION". The last term is what keeps a democracy acutely steadfast in it's portrayal of being a voice of the people. Without a strong opposition, a government's functionality is as good as corroded. Herein again lies the concept of what extent of opposition to a government's policies or acts is really justified or deemed prudent of public view. The catch is that the govenment is accountable and the public is fickle. No amount of semantics can delay the inevitability of a government expose that went a step too far in issues pertaining to security of the nation. That's precisely the reason why a Julian Assange is tormented into submission because his exposition reflects the dark underbelly of secrecy that shrouds half the government field operations.

The concept of Wikileaks has to be handled deftly and with care. Making Assange a scapegoat or targeting him into submission can propel the citizens of the world into thinking him to be a real-life messaih of truth. That is definitely not the case here. What I view is a clear incision between two relatively unconnected plots of Democracy and a riotous exposition of classified documents. There are some things the public is better off not knowing and this is what Assange and his cronies failed to realize. No government in this world is a safe haven for it's bureaucrats and diplomats. Yet, every nation greets it's counterpart with a fake honesty bordering on the obsolete. This is called "International Affairs" and it needs the fake smile and dishonest handshake to keep it from falling into chaos. Wikileaks has disturbed that balance by acting as an unruly "OPPOSITION" which is far from what the public needs to know. An opposition should know what to oppose while Wikileaks simply doesn't understand that concept, giving it a double-edged potency which makes it a cosmetic democracy because the government is powerless to stop the crumbling order.

Heading home, we have a man caught on camera gunning down 166 people with his accomplices. We have a body of evidence against him. We have a "rarest-of-rare" case against him. He should be hanged beyond doubt and this is not an emotional outburst. Yet, we give him a right to appeal against a judicial judgement INSPITE of the fact that the kind of evidence we possess and his own acceptance on camera about carrying out 26/11. Question is, does this beast even have a right to life? Yes he does because we live in a cosmetic democracy parading as the world's largest democracy, A democracy where the people's wants come at the bottom of the ladder. A democracy which is psedo-secular but acts as secular. A democracy of 1.1 billion unable to defend itself.


What is the functional unit of a democracy?
Citizen.
Who is a citizen?
Tax-Payer. Period.





Friday, November 26, 2010

The World As I Know It..

It's not a perfect world, but it's the only one I have. It's not the pain but the journey that I have. It's not the end but the effort that I have. What do I have? Ghanta. What do I care? Ghanta. Forgive my narcissism for I have devoted 3 lines to my wandering, torn mind. There are times in life when you have a single blocked nose and then there are times when both your noses are blocked. It's called Viral Flu. Apparently, 'they' still haven't found a cure for it but just this morning, I read that 'they' discovered in a breakthrough  "that students would rather cheat than study". DUH!! That's such a discovery man. Cure for the world yeah. However, why am I raving on like a lunatic exactly?? Yeah. Just had my mid-semester exams you see.

As I must have mentioned somewhere earlier in my blogs, I don' t like exams. They remind me of everything that's wrong with the world. The pain, the suffering, the misery. No student should be made a model out of for what to avoid being in your life. Yea I agree that if you can't set examples, you could be a decent warning but that's a personal thing isn't it?? Like scratching your crotch in full-public view. A personal thing. Like the T-Shirt the whole world says doesn't suit you but you still wear it 'coz your brother or sister gifted it with his/her first salary. Personal thing.

My college is a gathering for unbridled buffoons who carry the tag of Professors. They are unified in their mental faculties and reasoning capacities. They are men of the world who don't know how the world thinks. Time passed them when they were busy navel-scratching behind the secrecy of their rooms while carelessly marking the graffiti students had scrawled on their answer sheets. Consequently, with their thinning hair and sneer, they resemble almost everything that's wrong with the world. The dredges of human race who would rather sneer than share.


Do I sound frustrated? Comment to let me know on a scale of 1-10..;)
 Peace!!

Monday, May 17, 2010

Overdone Stew..

The consensus is waiting. The house is still divided about the raging caste debate in the Indian Parliament. Caste has to be addressed, according to the "waiting-to-be-uplifted" voice of the nation. The opposition to this Bill says that it's going to set India back by some decades. Casteism, after independence was abolished owing to the forward mindset of the house that thought that such a frivolous and dormant issue such as this has to be kept to stew. And stew it has over the last half a century.


The Bill addresses the issue of a caste divide that exists in India and "maybe" will work towards actually uplifting them.However, what happens to the minorities? Muslims of the secular India. Christians. Buddhists. An overview is required. Caste created barriers, divides across the strata of society according to the forming brains of our Constitution. In an eventful 60 years, amendments were introduced in bits and pieces, some reforming and some restraining, some formative and some plain ones. However, even though no one addresses that castes exist, all it needs for an introspection is to have a look at the matrimonial section of a newspaper. Castes sell, at prices higher than when Adi Sankaracharya bought Hinduism back into vogue, and with it a torrent of luscious parade of Brahmins, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras.

If there's a difference in how a person travels, what he eats, how he is addressed and the company he keeps after a time, it's bound that there is a factor that drives. Posto Facto, what is it? Caste. Creed. Religion. What happens when we decide to address the issue and turn our backs to the repercussions of the domino effect it will have? What happens next?

What we need to actually introspect about is the dilemma that faces us in the form of castes right now. And what happens if the government suddenly decides that castes exist well and good and we take them into consideration but no socio-economic improvement for the minorities. What happens next? Kill Bill -III??...;) It's a Catch-22 situation and I don't prefer when we monopolize a side without weighing the pitfalls of the society. However, I also don't like to be in a situation where sidestepping and yet taking a decision is the only viable option left.

Cheers to prosperity!!

Saturday, January 30, 2010

Of Happy Certifiable Intoxication..;)

This is a sensitive blog, and I had to dig hard and deep to find out a part of me that's as tender as a cooked leg piece of Butter Chicken. Like I said, it's a sensitive blog and most people are just eons away from feeling the raw pull of the gravitational field of my cranky yet soft predisposition. Frankly speaking, I don't even know what I just wrote meant so forgive me and God will forgive you for reading this blog.


Paradoxes exist in life as we all know and no offence to all the voracious readers and intellectual folksy out there because your cerebral capabilities might be more enceinte than the rest of us but the rest are more emotionally capable of handling life's bitter truths than you all are. Well, I don't belong to either of the groups so I'm just a keen observer watching people better equipped and adept and handling life passing me by...;) I don't enjoy it but that's what I'm good at and I plan to turn this handicap into an asset in the future. I don't exactly know how but the moment I figure it out, I'm going to patent it and sell it at a loss to all the ill-equipped people of this world since the intelligent and the emotional will have no need of it. Most probably they will all be frustrated engineers from undisclosed colleges and walks of life.


You know what I have noticed with my limited intelligence and negative IQ test results in hand? Vijay Mallya and ITC live off us man. I mean not ITC optimally but the "Gold Flakes" division is freaking living off us engineers man. So the ITC employees live life "king-size" and Vijay Mallya lives life "pint-size". That's a lot selling sour grapes for a living man. The jackal from the fable of "Jackal and grapes" won't be pleased 'coz he got there first. But just 'coz Vijay Mallya had the resources he beat him to being a billionaire. And the grapes won't be pleased too u know and to this day they are angry coz Mallya uses them without any returns. You know what hangovers are? They are the wrath of grapes essentially at some primitive level...;)


I mean yes, people used to anticipate happiness earlier in life but looking at the skies, expecting the Gods to descend to extend felicity to them. Then, some Homo Sapien(by the way, I do puzzle now and then why we call ourselves that. I mean, not all of us are that you know..;) realized that you can get a better degree of relatively more costly happiness via a bottle of inebriant at the local bar. From here began a condescending journey for the content man who thought the world should share his happiness, and he went shouting in the streets that "thodi si jo peeli hain, chori toh nahin ki hain..zoozoooooyodelliiiyodellleeeyoooo...".The world would patronize the poor helpless man slandering him till the man would pass out of pure happiness, and since the saying goes-"Happiness is short-lived", the man would unfortunately remember zilch of his previous night's happiness and the world would accuse him in the morning 'coz they were all hoarders and had nothing better to do than malign the man with venom and bad names. Cruel cruel world.


I'm not wrong. If you think I'm wrong you are the unhappy one...zooozzooooyodelliyodellliyooooo!!!

Sunday, January 24, 2010

HOLMES AND WATSON ARE BACCCKK!!...

Yea every1..the supersleuth at 221B Baker Street immortalized by his crooked nose and wry demeanour is back with his faithful ally Dr. Watson in Guy Ritchie's translation to the cinematic medium..and boy do they kick ass!!

Now, I'm kinda partial to Sherlock Holmes. Partly 'coz his investigative capabilities rival only that of Inspector Clouseau's which I'm sure is no comparison at all. What Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so vividly brought to our imagination was that of a man with an intellect so keen that it rebels at stagnation, at the indignation of not being put to use. The frequent drug abuse by Holmes when not confronted with an active brain stimulus can only deeply impress upon the desperation of the sleuth for crime. As Inspector Lestrade admirably puts it in a story when Holmes and Watson cleanly break into a house by picking the lock:-"I fear to think about the possibility of you on the other side of law." and all Holmes does is smile, his wry dry sardonic smile. Such was the connoisseur of crime.


Now, you get the drift that I do like Sherlock Holmes a lot and the expectations will always be kinda loaded if anyone even dares to recreate or attempts to captures Holmes's aura onscreen. However, I decided to go watch the movie without any expectations. I wanted to be pleasantly surprised and yes I did come back with 180 bucks well-spent. Now let me come to the movie. Guy Ritchie is the genre where rock 'n' roll movies are made, movies with pumping adrenalin and geysers of blood spraying out of limbs. Thankfully, this movie of his is layered and restrained, an almost monumental task when thinking about Guy Ritchie's kinda movies.

Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock Holmes excels, displaying a class of surprisingly equivocal exhibition of acting, a top-notch credibility last seen from him in "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang". His interpretation of Sherlock Holmes's antics is vivid, and he displays a rare emotional depth in his scenes with Watson's impending departure from 221B Baker Street to get married to Mary Watson.

Dr. Watson, played by Jude Law is accentually and figuratively British, and Law displays a fine skill of holding back in terms of lambasting Holmes's never ending cycle of crazy experiments. His eyes show a maturity which convey Holmes's and his bond which he perennially breaks and forges, much to the displeasure of his future wife, who incidentally hates Holmes's guts.

A high preference of script is given to the banter between Sherlock Holmes and Watson and the two show a remarkably good chemistry which is a highlight of the movie. Rachel McAdams plays a female vixen, who is commissioned to obtain information from Sherlock Holmes by using him, but falls for him instad. Her deft use of mouth, hands, feet and disposable knives is a tremendous achievment in Victorian era England. The screenplay uses ample special effects to depict 18th century England and succeeds.

The script revolves around Lord Blackwell, played here by Mark Strong who pitches in a decent performance as the shrewd manipulator who practices black magic in a scourging attempt to gain control over the city by rigging the reigning Lords by fear. He partially has success before Holmes thwarts his attempts to reign over the city in a culmination of fist-pumping, throat-ripping sequences that has top-end special effects of a fight sequence on top of the London Bridge under construction in 1880. The ending leaves enough space for the grand entry of Professor Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes's arch nemesis in the forthcoming sequel which promises to pitt Holmes against his adversary in a raging bullfight.


My review is a 3.5/5 for this movie. Go check it out coz the movie's worth it.





P.S.- Don't go looking for Oscar-worthy performances in this movie and you'll do just fine. Remember, for a Guy Ritchie movie, this is a good watch for he has managed to tone it down by quite a few degrees. Go enjoy this enjoyable caper and watch out for the Holmes-Watson bonding.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

The Marriage and the symphony.

Regardless of what I've been through in my public and personal life with the galfolk of this world, I stand undone today. A bizarre mix of heady grass and whiskey aside, I haven't had a sincere and pragmatic laugh in quite a while.


Now fellas, I'm stuck, wrong word, I'm over at a wedding in Calcutta and I am surrounded by girls of all sizes with a common desire- to outdo the bride's dressing herself at the D-Day. The only reason I find it funny is 'coz I have observed their histrionics and I was with coupla guys my age. Oh, n yea we were passing a cigarette amongst ourselves while discussing this phenomenon. However, I will recount my personal observations to the fore. Kindly comment on this blog coz this is a genuinely remarkable phenomenon without any hindrance of race, creed, caste, or colour. And it tickles men of all age to the same degree.



So, the marriage is tomorrow i.e on the 21st of January 2010 at some godforsaken time. Another male lamb will be sacrificed in the holy altar of life and bound to stare at the wall and talk aimlessly in the coming years. However, the mistake has already been committed so let's not dwell on that but go to why the female population loves marriages more than their counterparts.


As I observed, the discussion on wearing clothes started 3 days back in full swing. 2 days back they concluded that they will be wearing clothes. Now came the toughest part, the most momentous task of all, the task which would pale Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay's efforts to scale Everest. "WHAT DO WE WEAR?"- they cry in unison. The cry reverberates throughout the room and we guys shrink back into the darkest place in large room. They might charge at us in their anger for having only 270 dresses to choose from. That's life girls, really unjust. I am only a human being but I can hardly try to delve into this disturbing pattern of unified grief amongst the females for having only just enough dresses to dress up Vatican's inhabitants.



However, they start off with renewed vigour, ticking off dresses as unsuitable for (amongst many reasons)
1.)being too old at 3 months
2.)being a shade too black
3.)can't bring out the colour off my eyes
4.)doesn't match the colour of my new hair shade and mascara which go along fantastically

I'm jaded so I leave. It freaks me out that people have to match eye colours with dresses, bangles, eye shade, lip gloss and footwear. Oh yea, the footwear is a different story altogether. I'm sure I heard a girl complain, crushed, that her 2 weeks old stiletto she bought for the wedding was now unfit 'coz she had seen the same on some other girl. I tried to ask her the logic which connected these two seperate incidents. She glanced at me and giggled away and finally said something which I heard was-"It's wedinbudhuso ehehehe samshoe heeheheh can'tondifrntpeiple hehahaheh..."



I came, I saw, I scampered.









P.S.- Tomorrow's the wedding. Pray for the groom. I did.









P.S.S.- I heard a voice laugh from above. Guess it was Shiva. He was high on Bhang too and was doing tandava . Apparently he thought my request was funny and laughed. I apologise for praying for the groom. Sorry, Shiva.