Transgressions

How necessary is change? Why do some people willingly embrace it whilst others abhor it? Is it the only tangible constant or is it repetitive in the realms of necessity? Why do people's desires change over time from dreams to whatever's-in-hand? Why does a girl who dreams of Mr Right settle down with Mr Earns-A-Fuckin'-Lot?

 Why does creativity have no outright takers? Why is innovation predicated on pecuniary means? Why is contentment so elusive? What is contentment? Does happiness have a viable meaning?


Can promiscuity really engender love? When do love and hate collide? Why can't we cure cancer? Why is learning made up of earning? Why do people not use birth control? Why are sons favored over daughters?


Why does free speech only advocate moderate views and not extremist or conservationist views? What is the real meaning of being literate? Why are materialistic gains only looked down upon or looked upto? Why does India have no idea where it's heading? Why do homosexuals need endorsement from celebs to be what they are? Why is prudish behavior met with disapproval? Why am I writing all this?


I haven't an idea of the peculiar human nature that resides among us all but if it did have a voice, it would be disdain.
No really it would.
No catharsis of any sort can help unless elementary, breeding doubts are met. My doubt is:
What is the true meaning of being literate?

Joey vs Barney: Legen-waitforit-till the end of the post i meant.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S - Epic. Unrivalled. Colossal success. Phenomenal.
How I Met Your Mother - Barney Stinson.

A friend of mine said a couple of days back- "Barney Stinson is the new Joey". I spluttered and planned to garrote him in the chasms of my mind. He, then went on to explain that Baaarneeey is the new Jooeeey and not that HIMYM is the new F.R.I.E.N.D.S. I thought about it and since I hated the thought process and where it led me, I therefore proceed to exhume a factor called "Joey" of a goliathan show that's been off air for 8 years now and still has sponsors lining up for re-runs. I pit it against the formidable if not great 'David'ish HIMYM. Since even this would be unfair on many levels, I decide to piggyback on my last sentence and pit Joey with his lady-killing ways and bufffonish charms against the upcoming Barney Stinson with all his Lemon Laws and The Playbook intact.

What Joey had going for him: 
Dr. Drake Ramoray and how he played it, giving his original character a split-personality. Apart from that, Joey had the IQ level of a 4 year old that was sort of funnily endearing. Imagine him not sharing his food and shouting about it. Or the time when he went and got his apartment looted by getting locked in the cupboard by the thief when trying to sell the "Entertainment Unit". Or when he finds about Chandler and Monica and can't tell anyone. Or when he goes and get his head stuck up a turkey on Thanksgiving. Damn I miss the show!!





What Barney has going for him :
The fact of the matter stays that Barney is the pivot around which the whole show of HIMYM hinges and that's what makes my job more difficult and the show more pedestrian. Barney's goofiness is uncannily unlike anyone and for that, I do believe Barney has the upper hand. However, would I rate him higher on the comic-timing scale above Joey? Circumstantial evidence is all we have and based on that, I wouldn't. Would you honestly?? The next part becomes his characterization and herein again, Joey beats him solely on the basis of the support characters he had and what Barney sorely lacks(this is the circumstantial evidence I talked about).  A Chandler-Joey altercation would definitely bring me to the "worth-engaging level" and something that even a "Barney-Ted" bonhomie can't. Scripting problems eh??


Joey vs Barney: You're Hired!!
Whose job is cooler and which one would you prefer? A struggling actor/self-proclaimed soap opera "star"/theatre actor who manages to get along or someone like Barney Stinson with his megalomaniac mindset and suit obsession which he can afford by virtue of his job of ummm..what does he do again at GNB??..I go for Barney. Don't blame me. Money is the root of all evils. Not having money the evil itself.


THE LADIES ARENA


How You DOOIN?!!
The single pick-up line Joey Tribbiani used to get girls and boy did it work!! It sure did beat the hell out of any competetion at that time. He has slept with girls and never called them. He has forgotten about girls and met them on the streets and not remembered and hit on them again. He has possibly slept with every single girls in her 20's in NYC. Fine I exaggerated. He has possibly the fluidest of moves when hitting on the opposite sex and he charms them into bed without lying to them. 


THE PLAYBOOK
Barney Stinson doesn't play by the rules. He hits on bimbos and he's Armani-clad awesome. He picks up bimbos and then sleeps on them. Bimbos make his world go round and go down and go up. Wise strategy. Only question: Does MacLaren's have this "Bimbo Day" every other day by any chance? I mean yea, Stinson is class with his suave one-liners and tongue-in-cheek wit but the Playbook he uses more often than not, uses in his own words-"scam, con, hustle, hoowink, gambit, flim-flam, strategim and bamboozle to pick up chicks and give 'em the business". I am a sexist yea, but I object to the implication that all bimbos are centred in NYC. But nevertheless, Respect for the bro. Even doing 200 chicks on a show is some serious business and predicates the risk of STD's. Hence, the RESPECT.

CONCLUSION:
2-1. Joey still hold the throne. I know it's time Barney took over and he almost has, but for the extent of sanity, I preserve that "LEGEN-waitforit-DARY" has to wait some more. Drop me a comment. Cheers!!

Of Exe's and Flames..

"Y-o-u comple-te me-e-e."- Jerry Maguire said to the lovely Dorothy Boyd, his angst and love sweeping across his eyes in the cult classic "Jerry Maguire". That line went down as one of the oft-repeated phrases in the history of our times, a (for the lack of a better word) premonition of the statement "I Love You". There was also one statement which struck me as pure genius in the same movie and the statement was "We live in a cynical world. A cynical, cynical world." The depth of this sentence had more gravitas as compared to what followed and what made half the movie-goers cry and sniff. It was an oxymoron of a sentence and yet, it made sense. No one cares about the world being cynical as long as you complete me. And that in essence conveyed the spirit of the lovely, sometimes digressing but engaging movie "Jerry Maguire".

Which bring us to my title. Of exes and flames. Of love, lust and power games. Of egos, tears and sardonic smile. Of male, female and inherent guile. In this cynical world, a relationship fails to work 7 out of 10 times. The standard reason?? Relationships are built on expectations and expectations are relationship killers. Carnage results the first break-up. Second time mistrust. Third time desperation. You blame the universe for it's conspiracy against you. Life goes on innit?? Let me tell you all folksy about the story of the ex and the flame.


The ex is the past. The flame is the burning past which doesn't let go. Try hard not to cross paths but chances are that you will see him/her somewhere. Some exes are mature enough to be friends while some turn out to be friends with benefits(legen-waitforit-D-A-R-Y). Majority however, are stuck in the warp of love, lust, dislike, hate, mistrust and the biggest of all- Memories. If you chance across her, how would it go??..Here's a short transcript with thought bubbles in italics and actual conversation in bold.


Guy and Girl in the supermarket. A year since they broke up an then, voila!! Guy turns a bend while girl is picking something off the bottom rack. Guy halts

Guy: That looks like her ass. Hang on. That is her ass. That is her. Crap!! RUN. NO. Stay. Just look a bit more. NO. Stay. Run. STAY!!
Lesson 1: A guy will never lose focus. Even in times of impending mental trauma and confusion, his mind is objectively clear about his wants and desires.

Girl turns. Guy turns. Seconds late. She has seen him checking out her posterior.Here, for assumption's sake, let guy be X and girl be Y.

Y: X?..X?..X!!.

Lesson 2: The girl never loses being the equivalent of Muammar Gaddafi in a relationship. She in fact, misses the status quo and tries to set the record straight. Just in case.

X: Hey. Y? Y. Didn't see you. Yeaaah. It wasn't you who I was seeing. That melon could have been anybody's. So how have you been? Long time. No. Don't look down. Look into her eyes dammit!! Not there. No! WOAAAHH!! NAAIICE. I missed you two easter bunnies all right. NO!! IN HER EYES. Yes. Good.


Lesson 3: Clarity of thoughts. Guys think in a linear progression. Predictable. 

Y: Been good yea. Look at him. So depraved. Thank God I broke up. Lusting at my back and now right in front. Been caught up in some work so couldn't get through to you. Been wanting to talk to you for quite a while. What a guy. Uff!!!


Lesson 4: Girls were born with the gene of multi-tasking, thinking something and saying something else entirely. Kudos!!

X: Yea right. Was in a relationship with you so I do understand what you actually mean now. What you mean is that you want me back. Ha!! What work? Office or something. EYES Dammit EYES!!..Look 
straight.


Lesson 5: Guys can't understand what going on in your mind. For guys, until you break it down, your thoughts and your words are the same. Guys were born without the EQ gene.

Y:Just here and there. Yea Office too. I should get going. Too many thoughts coming up. Listen I gotta go. Wish we were still together. He is still adorable in his innocence. Aaawwww!! Will catch you later. Cya. Bbye.


Lesson 6: Flash from Justice League once tried racing against the oscillation of a girl's thoughts. He lost. So did Rajnikanth.


The last bit was lost on the guy since he was lost somewhere. Just like all of us guys are now and then when it comes to girls. Our ending of 'now' coincides with the beginning of 'then'. Vicious Circle!!


P.S.- Just an observation ladies. Don't get all judge-mental. Drop me a line. Cheerio!!..;)

Concocting A Career.

I am an engineering student and if history and being vouched for by "word-of-mouth" is anything to go by, engineering students are a frustrated lot. Crazy work hours and asinine professors bent on screwing with your career is the common sight/plight for us. Maybe the medical profession comes a close second with their indelible predicament of studying the human anatomy and whatnot to conquer "MBBS" and then specializing in a field for Masters degree and consequently fighting it out with the "your-friendly-neighbourhood-doc" tag. Yea, it's a tough world out there so we know.

So apart from the most sought after fields which are the godforsaken "Engineer" and "Doctor" tags, we have a host of options like C.A and ummmm, aaaaaa, uuummmmm, hang on. Here's where you come in Mr/Ms. Career Counsellor. In a bloated, claustrophobic environment such as India's where the parents force-feed their kids everything from Complan and Horlicks to H.C Verma and dancing and karate lessons, the child's encumbered by his desires against the rant of a totalitarian society.

A Career Counsellor is the person who sits down with the adolescent and gauges his/her abilities via cognitive ability tests and personality assessment. S/He acts as an intermediary to what the adolescent has and what his active potential could be if harnessed. They most typically have a background in vocational psychology or organizational psychology. Even though this career is still in it's nascent stages in India, there will be an outright increase in the demand for career counsellors as parental pressure fluctuates and children battle it out over career choices that are tailor-made for them and not dictated by the norms and dreams of society and their parents.

Nowadays, as work satisfaction slowly but steadily takes over the desire to climb the corporate ladder at any cost, hordes of professionals are taking the plunge into what they truly believe in, work that they enjoy. For taking such a move, they need expert guidance and a mindset to leave a stable job and jump with or without a 'chute. Here too, career counsellors plays a vital role in categorically breaking down the vital and realistic chances of prancing into that world where they want to be in. A Career Counsellor needs to be well versed and have a clear understanding of aptitudes, abilities and resources so as to realistically assess the chances and prospects in a given line of work while directing someone. The framework within which a career counsellor has to work requires tremendous skill and willingness to learn about a person's strentghs, pros and cons before giving a decision on a career choice. 

  

Otherwise, there will hardly be any difference between the inane astrologer who lets his parrot pick a tarot and the counselor who just charges a bigger amount to decide your future.

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.

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!!

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!!