Woke up to find the plan gone wrong
The best-laid plans go oft awry
You thought of it as your swan-song
But you forgot
That there are two paths you can go by
Morning. That’s the word for the time of the day when you wake up. Although in this part of the world, that’s all it is – a word. He isn’t even sure if it is indeed morning or just some unearthly hour he has woken up at. The feeling is eerie, surreal, all that jazz, but not in a good way. He hasn’t seen bright sunshine for more than six months now. It’s obvious to him that time is a lie.
Why is it so cold? He tries to get out of bed and look outside but his legs seem to have gone numb. He can still feel the cold in his feet though. He can’t remember the time he went to sleep. His last distinct memory is of his friends playing the game of ‘telephone’ with two tin cans and a piece of wire. Not really his friends, actually just two people whom he can’t exactly recall right now, but whatever he can recall, it’s not very pleasant. Why were they playing the stupid game? They were right next to each other and could hear each other anyway. But he’s not worried about it, just curious. There are other things to be worried about. Like why is it so cold?
It’s been cold since that night. It just won’t end. No one is around. No one has been around for a long time. He tries to speak but he has this weird taste in his mouth and he’s afraid it will escape into the air if he opens his mouth. It’s not a good taste, but it’s the only ‘feeling’ he has right now, and he doesn’t want to lose it. Well, other than the cold of course. Also, there is no one around to speak to, so that’s there.
The ice, the loneliness. There’s so much of both.
It’s sad. It seems sad. He can’t remember much, but it’s still sad.
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a type of depressive disorder that occurs in the winter when daylight hours are short. It is believed that the body's production of melatonin, which is produced at higher levels in the dark, plays a major part in the onset of SAD and that many sufferers respond well to bright light therapy, also known as phototherapy.
When life was around, it made him sad.
He was promised hell would be hot and fiery. What was that someone told him once? Oh yea, promises are meant to be broken. He knew it already obviously, just like he knew that cleanliness is next to godliness, love is blind, everything happens for a reason, life is a lemon (also a play, unfair, and many other things), shining sun is conducive to hay production and should be utilized for the same while it is still around, too many cooks spoil the broth, a friend with weed is a friend indeed (need, weed, what’s the difference?), a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
Well, the difference he discovered was that this one applied to God too. The least he could expect from the giver of morals was to stick to a promise. That of a burning hell.
Why can’t he find his feet? Oh there they are, but why are they yellow and misshapen? Must be the cold, he thinks. And what’s wrong with his hands? He can’t feel his fingers. He tries hard to see. He has no fingers, just hands shaped like flaps. Flap, flap, he flaps them against his sides.
They seem like wings but he can’t fly.
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas, isn’t that what he asked for? Well, at least one part of one promise was kept.
Elementary penguin singing Hare Krishna
Man you’ve been a naughty boy; you let your face grow long
Epilogue
“Hey!”
“Wha…what?”
“What happened? Were you daydreaming again?”
“Uh…no I was just trying to work out the approach to this project. I guess I got a little lost. I’m sorry.”
He heaves a sigh, not exactly of relief, but maybe just because the dream was so overwhelming. He still can’t get over it, and he is still sure that he really had died and was reborn as a penguin somewhere in the Antarctic seas. It’s clear to him that time is a lie, that within each moment is another moment.
His manager is sitting next to him and talking over the phone to another manager, who is sitting in front of him. He can hear them both, and he is pretty sure, so can they. He is surrounded by people, but there’s no one around, and it has been this way for a long time.
Woke up to find the world turned blue
The stinging rain has made it blind
But that is not what bothers you
You just miss
Laying supine in the sunshine
a reason to rhyme about revelations in real-time
Friday, December 28, 2007
Thursday, December 20, 2007
Dear Mr. Adams,
I want to thank you. There are plenty of reasons. I'm going to list them below in a concise editorial style so that you may be able to gather the key takeaways with minimal effort and without expending too much of your mental faculty or bandwidth. Oh by the way, only recently I discovered that 'bandwidth' is the corporate buzzword for 'time'. It was by far the biggest shock of my corporate experience, because I don't remember reading it in any of the many Dilbert books I have wasted my bandwidth on.
Let me introduce myself before getting into all the comically misleading remarks regarding your influence on my life, wherein I'll try to disguise my sycophancy as sarcasm, or maybe its the other way round. I'm an IIT graduate. Guess I'll give you some time to let that sink in. I know you're particularly fond of our species. I passed out of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in June 2007 and am currently employed with.....well that's not important. What that actually means is that the job isn't good enough for an IITian, going by your portrayal of our kind (you know what I mean, don't you? I'm not exactly the heating-teacups-through-mental-radiations kind). I started reading your comic strip sometime during my preparation for the IIT entrance exam. At that time it was on and off, mostly during the times when I flipped through newspapers pretending to be interested in the business section. It was however during my second or third year in IIT that I really got into it. I borrowed The Dilbert Principle from somebody and went through it like a diamond-edged blade goes through a cobweb.That is to say that I got through it really fast but got badly entangled in the process, and never really got through it.
I want to thank you. There are plenty of reasons. I'm going to list them below in a concise editorial style so that you may be able to gather the key takeaways with minimal effort and without expending too much of your mental faculty or bandwidth. Oh by the way, only recently I discovered that 'bandwidth' is the corporate buzzword for 'time'. It was by far the biggest shock of my corporate experience, because I don't remember reading it in any of the many Dilbert books I have wasted my bandwidth on.
Let me introduce myself before getting into all the comically misleading remarks regarding your influence on my life, wherein I'll try to disguise my sycophancy as sarcasm, or maybe its the other way round. I'm an IIT graduate. Guess I'll give you some time to let that sink in. I know you're particularly fond of our species. I passed out of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur in June 2007 and am currently employed with.....well that's not important. What that actually means is that the job isn't good enough for an IITian, going by your portrayal of our kind (you know what I mean, don't you? I'm not exactly the heating-teacups-through-mental-radiations kind). I started reading your comic strip sometime during my preparation for the IIT entrance exam. At that time it was on and off, mostly during the times when I flipped through newspapers pretending to be interested in the business section. It was however during my second or third year in IIT that I really got into it. I borrowed The Dilbert Principle from somebody and went through it like a diamond-edged blade goes through a cobweb.That is to say that I got through it really fast but got badly entangled in the process, and never really got through it.
- I'd like to thank you for inhibiting my ability to quote appropriate and socially acceptable analogies.
It wasn't really the right time to get introduced to the absurdities of the corporate world, and it would be safe to say that you played a major role in screwing up my career by making me aware of the fact that everyone is an idiot.
- I'd like to thank you for introducing me, alongwith an entire generation, to the stupidity of the world at a time when I actually should have been looking forward to the excitement of professional life.
I mean, by my final year in college I was already aware of all the corporate buzzwords which ideally I should have known by experience, the way you did. While we still share the occasional smug smile whenever we hear terms like 'team player', 'key takeaways', 'quality control' etc., it's hardly the same as being bombarded with those unexpectedly.
But then, a lot of my friends had read the book, and apparently weren't so drastically affected by it. Probably because I then made the mistake of also reading The Dilbert Future. Yes, I found the last chapter to be heavily self-indulgent, much like most of the other readers, but somehow it attracted me. So it would also be safe to say that you are the only one responsible for making me the self-indulgent prick that I have become now.
- I'd like to thank you for making me believe that my opinion actually matters and that one day people might pay to read it.
But my transition wasn't complete till I read God's Debris. I could never have imagined that such an ignorant piece of fiction could drive me towards serious philosophy. Well, I read it at the same time as I was doing a course on 'Philosophical problems'. In the middle of all the skeptic Western thought about the origins of Life, the Universe and Everything (at this moment, I'd also like to thank the 'other' Mr. Adams on the other side of the Atlantic), came your heavily Eastern-thought-influenced commentary on essentially the same stuff. The thing that continues to surprise me is that despite me being a science student and all, and a serious one at that (this would be a good time to remind you that I'm an IIT graduate), the first time I actually became genuinely interested in the general theory of relativity was after reading God's Debris. It was the only reason I picked up Brian Greene's Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality, or Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus, and finally, Bertrand Russell's Why I Am Not a Christian.
Of course, certain other things followed logically. For one, I became an atheist. This is actually more surprising than you would imagine, because I'm a Hindu, and you have borrowed heavily from a certain Indian philosophical school called Advaita Vedanta in writing God's Debris. It would seem that your crusade against religion primarily stems from, and is targeted at, Semitic or Abrahamic religions. However, much as Eastern philosophy may fascinate you, it's not all that different. Yes, it gives you more space and freedom to believe what you want. There are even certain schools within Hinduism that do not believe in a supernatural being. The Carvaka school for instance, propounds materialism of the kind that even the Western world may find extreme.
But in the end, it all still boils down to believing in something, whether it is a Being or a scripture, just for the heck of it. I've read the Bhagvad Gita in parts and some portions are definitely soothing and uplifting. But then again, there's this whole theme of surrender-yourself-to-me-or-you-are-doomed-for-eternity that turns me off. Yes, it's there in Hinduism too. It is less forced and a lot more subtle. The chief difference is in the concept of eternal damnation. While semitic religions condemn a person to burn in hell for his/her sins, Hinduism broadly thinks of life itself as the eternal damnation. Only the all-powerful force - the Gita refers to it as Lord Krishna - can liberate you from the endless cycle of birth and death. Also, the whole concept of liberating others from ignorance is absent at the core of Indian philosophy and religion. Well, at least it used to be.
Anyway, I agree with a lot of stuff in God's Debris. But it starts getting murky with your denial of evolution. Oh yea, I forgot, I can't derive your beliefes from your fiction. Those are not really your opinions, right? That was a good one. Then towards the later chapters, I think around Fighting God, it starts more and more to feel like a religious scripture. And expectedly, I start getting turned off. I guess the first few chapters influenced me so much that by the middle of the book I had already become convinced about the pointlessness of existence.
- I'd like to thank you for making me an unmotivated loser who is totally convinced that nothing really matters, but still has to go around pretending as if it does, lest his parents feel guilty for his shortcomings.
Coming back from pseudo-philosphical musings to the normal, humorously absurd professional experiences, I am currently reading a book called Something Happened by Joseph Heller (better known 'that Catch-22 guy'). Have you read it? In case you haven't, I strongly suggest that you do. The style is more or less the same as Catch-22, and the content is essentially the same as most Dilbert books. But its not humourous anymore. It's kind of scary.
- I'd like to thank you for permanently ruining my taste in books. I would have been reading The Alchemist and other such motivational stuff if it wasn't for you.
Best Regards,
Avichal Chaturvedi
P.S. You may notice the writing style whereby I apparently curse myself for being a loser and generally indulge in self-pity, while actually I try to show off my wit and limited knowledge of pseudo-intellectual topics like religion and philosophy (not to mention general relativity). Even this postscript is part of that same strategy. Yup, Thanks for this too.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Virtual Insanity
"Hey, I'm in pain."
"You wanna see pain, swing by First Methodists Tuesday night. See the guys with testicular cancer. That's pain."
He switches off the movie, or puts the book down, or maybe just opens his eyes. At this point, all that matters is the thought and not the medium that brought it to him. He thinks, thinks, thinks, is he really in pain? Or is he just too self-obsessed to notice anything else but his own problems, which can be described as insignificant at best and downright stupid at better than best. Does he have testicular cancer? Does he even know a loved one who has cancer? Has he ever lost a limb? Does he have any idea what it means to be physically inadequate?
But fuck all that. Does everyone have to live the exact same life to feel genuine pain?
"Well, I mean isn't everything autobiographical? We all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Thomas Wolfe, you know, if you've ever seen that little one page note to the reader in the front of Look Homeward, Angel. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, he says that we are the sum of the moments of our lives, and that anyone who sits down to write, is gonna use the clay of their own lives. You can't avoid that.
So when I look at my own life, you know, I have to admit, right....that I've....I've never been around a bunch of guns, or violence. You know, not really. No political intrigue....or helicopter crash, right? But my life, from my own point of view, has been full of drama, right?
And so, I thought that if I could write a book that...that could capture what it's like to really meet somebody. I mean the most exciting thing that has happened to me, is to really meet somebody, you know, make that connection. And if I could....make that valuable, you know, to capture that, that would be the attempt or....
Did I answer your question?"
He destroys the TV screen (what's a better word for "destroying" a TV screen? He can't remember. Lately, he's not been so good at remembering stuff, the one thing he used to be proud of. It would be safe to say he's a total loser now. Not safe for him, though. If he can't be his own, he'd feel better dead). Or maybe he just opens his eyes again.
"There's no chance for us, it's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever?"
He burns the speakers and bangs his head against the music player. Or maybe, much to the chagrine of the readers, he just opens his fucking eyes again.
"When I grow up I want to be a little boy"
He bites into the book and tears off the pages with his teeth. He really does do it this time. He chews and feels his saliva making the paper into a lump. He gets a weird feeling, as if he is chewing the insides of his own mouth. The soft, red insides of his cheeks. He is reluctant to admit that he likes the feeling. Then another weird feeling, deja vu. He has felt this before. How weird is it exactly to have a weird feeling about a weird feeling?
Was he dreaming in his sleep or sleeping in his dream? Not that it matters. He wants to be Schroedinger's cat, make life and death a question of probabilistic equations.
He killed himself yesterday, but he is still awake.
He is standing in the shadows, his soul is hanging loose
He wants to shake it off, what he has long abused
It's okay, he just had a bad day....
"You wanna see pain, swing by First Methodists Tuesday night. See the guys with testicular cancer. That's pain."
He switches off the movie, or puts the book down, or maybe just opens his eyes. At this point, all that matters is the thought and not the medium that brought it to him. He thinks, thinks, thinks, is he really in pain? Or is he just too self-obsessed to notice anything else but his own problems, which can be described as insignificant at best and downright stupid at better than best. Does he have testicular cancer? Does he even know a loved one who has cancer? Has he ever lost a limb? Does he have any idea what it means to be physically inadequate?
But fuck all that. Does everyone have to live the exact same life to feel genuine pain?
"Well, I mean isn't everything autobiographical? We all see the world through our own tiny keyhole, right? I mean, I always think of Thomas Wolfe, you know, if you've ever seen that little one page note to the reader in the front of Look Homeward, Angel. You know what I'm talking about? Anyway, he says that we are the sum of the moments of our lives, and that anyone who sits down to write, is gonna use the clay of their own lives. You can't avoid that.
So when I look at my own life, you know, I have to admit, right....that I've....I've never been around a bunch of guns, or violence. You know, not really. No political intrigue....or helicopter crash, right? But my life, from my own point of view, has been full of drama, right?
And so, I thought that if I could write a book that...that could capture what it's like to really meet somebody. I mean the most exciting thing that has happened to me, is to really meet somebody, you know, make that connection. And if I could....make that valuable, you know, to capture that, that would be the attempt or....
Did I answer your question?"
He destroys the TV screen (what's a better word for "destroying" a TV screen? He can't remember. Lately, he's not been so good at remembering stuff, the one thing he used to be proud of. It would be safe to say he's a total loser now. Not safe for him, though. If he can't be his own, he'd feel better dead). Or maybe he just opens his eyes again.
"There's no chance for us, it's all decided for us
This world has only one sweet moment set aside for us
Who wants to live forever?"
He burns the speakers and bangs his head against the music player. Or maybe, much to the chagrine of the readers, he just opens his fucking eyes again.
"When I grow up I want to be a little boy"
He bites into the book and tears off the pages with his teeth. He really does do it this time. He chews and feels his saliva making the paper into a lump. He gets a weird feeling, as if he is chewing the insides of his own mouth. The soft, red insides of his cheeks. He is reluctant to admit that he likes the feeling. Then another weird feeling, deja vu. He has felt this before. How weird is it exactly to have a weird feeling about a weird feeling?
Was he dreaming in his sleep or sleeping in his dream? Not that it matters. He wants to be Schroedinger's cat, make life and death a question of probabilistic equations.
He killed himself yesterday, but he is still awake.
He is standing in the shadows, his soul is hanging loose
He wants to shake it off, what he has long abused
It's okay, he just had a bad day....
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Make me a Poem
Nightmare illusion, nicotine backlash
Walking on thin ice, bleeding from broken glass
Burning the blue skies, they're turning green to me
Line-breaks and timequakes
I'm an illusion stranger, Haha! I'm a charade
I want you to push me over the brink
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream, caught in the current
I carry you, you'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now?
Walking on thin ice, bleeding from broken glass
Burning the blue skies, they're turning green to me
Line-breaks and timequakes
I'm an illusion stranger, Haha! I'm a charade
I want you to push me over the brink
Don't want you to guess anymore
You have no idea where I came from
We have no idea where we're going
Lodged in life
Like branches in a river
Flowing downstream, caught in the current
I carry you, you'll carry me
That's how it could be
Don't you know me? Don't you know me by now?
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
An ode to someone who'll never read it
Dear Atul Mama,
Can't believe you're gone. Really can't. A lot of people miss you, some of them much more than I do. But I can't talk for them,all I know is I miss you a lot.
No I don't believe in afterlife. I don't believe that you're a shining star in the sky and I'll see you again after my death. But if I did,I'd wish for an early death. It's tough being a non-believer,but I don't want to delude myself. Maybe it would've been easier if I had known that the last time I met you was gonna be the last time I'll meet you. Or maybe it would've been even tougher. I don't really care about such choices.
Why did this have to happen? Oh I know the hindu philosophy. Everybody faces the sins of his/her past lives. If only I could bring myself to believe in past lives. You were not a sinner in this life. This shouldn't have happened.I don't know who to curse. Actually I do.
I'm not sorry that I never told you the fact that you were one of the most important influences in my life.That I loved you so much I was almost blind to whatever little shortcomings you had.
It wouldn't have mattered much after you were no more. If anything it could've made your last moments tougher to think you were leaving a void in the life of one more person.
याद के बेनिशान जजीरों से, तेरी आवाज़ आ रही है अभी
शहर की बेचिराग गलियों में ज़िंदगी तुझको ढूँढती है अभी
कुछ तो नाज़ुक मिजाज़ हैं हम भी, और ये चोट भी नयी है अभी
I know it sounds petty, but thanks for introducing me to Ghulam Ali.
I don't pray for you. I don't pray for anything. I just miss you.
Such a depressing post doesn't entirely do justice to the most jovial person I've ever known. Following is one of the least important things I miss about you. Also the most.
हमे हर्ष है कि हमारे मूल्यों में उत्कर्ष है
अब देखिए ना, डाक्टर की नज़र में मरीज़ नही मरीज़ का पर्स है
और मरीज़ की नज़र में डाक्टर नही डाक्टर के बगल में खड़ी खूबसूरत नर्स है
Can't believe you're gone. Really can't. A lot of people miss you, some of them much more than I do. But I can't talk for them,all I know is I miss you a lot.
No I don't believe in afterlife. I don't believe that you're a shining star in the sky and I'll see you again after my death. But if I did,I'd wish for an early death. It's tough being a non-believer,but I don't want to delude myself. Maybe it would've been easier if I had known that the last time I met you was gonna be the last time I'll meet you. Or maybe it would've been even tougher. I don't really care about such choices.
Why did this have to happen? Oh I know the hindu philosophy. Everybody faces the sins of his/her past lives. If only I could bring myself to believe in past lives. You were not a sinner in this life. This shouldn't have happened.I don't know who to curse. Actually I do.
I'm not sorry that I never told you the fact that you were one of the most important influences in my life.That I loved you so much I was almost blind to whatever little shortcomings you had.
It wouldn't have mattered much after you were no more. If anything it could've made your last moments tougher to think you were leaving a void in the life of one more person.
याद के बेनिशान जजीरों से, तेरी आवाज़ आ रही है अभी
शहर की बेचिराग गलियों में ज़िंदगी तुझको ढूँढती है अभी
कुछ तो नाज़ुक मिजाज़ हैं हम भी, और ये चोट भी नयी है अभी
I know it sounds petty, but thanks for introducing me to Ghulam Ali.
I don't pray for you. I don't pray for anything. I just miss you.
Such a depressing post doesn't entirely do justice to the most jovial person I've ever known. Following is one of the least important things I miss about you. Also the most.
हमे हर्ष है कि हमारे मूल्यों में उत्कर्ष है
अब देखिए ना, डाक्टर की नज़र में मरीज़ नही मरीज़ का पर्स है
और मरीज़ की नज़र में डाक्टर नही डाक्टर के बगल में खड़ी खूबसूरत नर्स है
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
More on the Man upstairs
These are a few of my favourite quotes on God and religion.
Friedrich Nietzsche was probably the most blasphemous person ever. Sample these:
God is a thought which makes crooked all that is straight.
God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?
- All Nietzsche
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lottery, dating and religion.
- Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle
If God is so smart, why do we fart?
- Scott Adams in The Religion War
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
- Edward Abbey
I don't believe in God, but if I did, he would be a black, left-handed guitarist
- Matthew in Dreamers
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
- Woody Allen
I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
- Issac Asimov
I have more faith in my plumber than I do in the eternal being. Plumbers do a good job. They keep the shit flowing.
- Charles Bukowski
How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation?
- Joseph Heller in Catch 22
I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land
It is sometimes hard, in times like these, to understand God's way. Why would he allow nine innocent people to be run down in the prime of their lives by a senior citizen who, perhaps, shouldn't be driving? It is then that we must understand, God's sense of humor is very different from our own. He does not laugh at the simple "man walks into a bar" joke. No, God needs complex irony and subtle farcical twists that seem macabre to you and me. All that we can hope for is that God got his good laugh and a tragedy such as this will never happen again.
- South Park
I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.
- Marquis de Sade
Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.
- Bertrand Russell
I've been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems as if he's been lashing out, you know, destroying cities, annihilating places. It seems like he's been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he's been getting. If you look at the people who love God now, you know, if I was God, I'd need to destroy something.
- Salman Rushdie
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Alva Edison
God is a mean kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant.
- Bruce Nolan in Bruce Almighty
Even though I've found God, I still love blow jobs, and I still say "fuck".
- Dave Mustaine
I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
- Albert Einstein
I looked and looked but I didn't see God
- Yuri Gagarin, after becoming the first person to orbit the earth
I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.
- Galileo Galilei
Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God.
- Jean Rostand
Religion easily — has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
- George Carlin
God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That, sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, 'Do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out.' When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When a god says the same, we call him loving and build churches in his honor.
- Computer programmer, Chuck Easttom (William C. Easttom II)
If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are always praying for evil against one another.
- Epicurus
You don't fuck around with the infinite
- From Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire
I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck.
- Anonymous
Friedrich Nietzsche was probably the most blasphemous person ever. Sample these:
God is a thought which makes crooked all that is straight.
God is dead: but considering the state Man is in, there will perhaps be caves, for ages yet, in which his shadow will be shown.
I cannot believe in a God who wants to be praised all the time.
Is man merely a mistake of God's? Or God merely a mistake of man?
- All Nietzsche
Nothing defines humans better than their willingness to do irrational things in the pursuit of phenomenally unlikely payoffs. This is the principle behind lottery, dating and religion.
- Scott Adams in The Dilbert Principle
If God is so smart, why do we fart?
- Scott Adams in The Religion War
God is a sound people make when they're too tired to think anymore.
- Edward Abbey
I don't believe in God, but if I did, he would be a black, left-handed guitarist
- Matthew in Dreamers
If it turns out that there is a God, I don't think that he's evil. But the worst that you can say about him is that basically he's an underachiever.
- Woody Allen
I expect death to be nothingness and, for removing me from all possible fears of death, I am thankful to atheism.
- Issac Asimov
I have more faith in my plumber than I do in the eternal being. Plumbers do a good job. They keep the shit flowing.
- Charles Bukowski
How much reverence can you have for a Supreme Being who finds it necessary to include such phenomena as phlegm and tooth decay in his divine system of creation?
- Joseph Heller in Catch 22
I've never understood how God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion by faith — it strikes me as a sloppy way to run a universe.
- Jubal Harshaw in Stranger in a Strange Land
It is sometimes hard, in times like these, to understand God's way. Why would he allow nine innocent people to be run down in the prime of their lives by a senior citizen who, perhaps, shouldn't be driving? It is then that we must understand, God's sense of humor is very different from our own. He does not laugh at the simple "man walks into a bar" joke. No, God needs complex irony and subtle farcical twists that seem macabre to you and me. All that we can hope for is that God got his good laugh and a tragedy such as this will never happen again.
- South Park
I think that if there were a God, there would be less evil on this earth. I believe that if evil exists here below, then either it was willed by God or it was beyond His powers to prevent it. Now I cannot bring myself to fear a God who is either spiteful or weak. I defy Him without fear and care not a fig for his thunderbolts.
- Marquis de Sade
Respectable society believed in God in order to avoid having to speak about him.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.
- Bertrand Russell
I've been worrying about God a little bit lately. It seems as if he's been lashing out, you know, destroying cities, annihilating places. It seems like he's been in a bad mood. And I think it has to do with the quality of lovers he's been getting. If you look at the people who love God now, you know, if I was God, I'd need to destroy something.
- Salman Rushdie
I have never seen the slightest scientific proof of the religious ideas of heaven and hell, of future life for individuals, or of a personal God. So far as religion of the day is concerned, it is a damned fake... Religion is all bunk.
- Thomas Alva Edison
God is a mean kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass, and I'm the ant.
- Bruce Nolan in Bruce Almighty
Even though I've found God, I still love blow jobs, and I still say "fuck".
- Dave Mustaine
I see only with deep regret that God punishes so many of His children for their numerous stupidities, for which only He Himself can be held responsible; in my opinion, only His nonexistence could excuse Him.
- Albert Einstein
I looked and looked but I didn't see God
- Yuri Gagarin, after becoming the first person to orbit the earth
I do not think it is necessary to believe that the same God who has given us our senses, reason, and intelligence wished us to abandon their use, giving us by some other means the information that we could gain through them.
- Galileo Galilei
Kill one man and you are a murderer. Kill millions and you are a conqueror. Kill everyone and you are a God.
- Jean Rostand
Religion easily — has the best bullshit story of all time. Think about it. Religion has convinced people that there's an invisible man...living in the sky. Who watches everything you do every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a list of ten specific things he doesn't want you to do. And if you do any of these things, he will send you to a special place, of burning and fire and smoke and torture and anguish for you to live forever, and suffer, and burn, and scream, until the end of time. But he loves you. He loves you. He loves you and he needs money.
- George Carlin
God says do what you wish, but make the wrong choice and you will be tortured for eternity in hell. That, sir, is not free will. It would be akin to a man telling his girlfriend, 'Do what you wish, but if you choose to leave me, I will track you down and blow your brains out.' When a man says this we call him a psychopath and cry out for his imprisonment/execution. When a god says the same, we call him loving and build churches in his honor.
- Computer programmer, Chuck Easttom (William C. Easttom II)
If the gods listened to the prayers of men, all men would quickly have perished: for they are always praying for evil against one another.
- Epicurus
You don't fuck around with the infinite
- From Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets
If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
- Voltaire
I think I'll believe in Gosh instead of God. If you don't believe in Gosh too, you'll be darned to heck.
- Anonymous
Of Suicide:And how Immortal Omniscient Omnipotent Humane Universal Anthropomorphic Beings make me sick
Disclaimer: This is a very long post.
Enthusiastic people are a genuine puzzlement for me. Especially the ones who are all fired up about all things trite and blunderful!
"Oh! It's a great morning, it's going to be a great day!"
Many a cheerful induhviduals have started out their days saying this and most have proceeded to get their asses fucked through the course of the entire day. However, such grave misfortune deters not the cheerfulness of true optimists, and they end their day with this little gem of self-motivation:
"I should still be positive and thank God! Things could have been worse!"
Oh really? Why thats a fucking revealation! Here's another revealation for you:
Things can always be worse!
Just think about the shittiest thing that has ever happened to you, and I can assure you you'll be able to think of something shittier that could have happened!
Here's a possible response to my beautifully articulated argument:
But that's what i'm saying. Since things can always be worse, you should be cheerful and thankful all the time for the fact that they're not!
I have just one thing to say in response to this. Just try imagining for a moment how stupid you look being thankful about all the crap that's happening to you!Oh, a bird shit on my face,thank God elephants don't fly!
The answer, according to me, is not in being paranoid about an uncertain and possibly shitty future, as hardcore pessimists would argue. It's about being aware of the fact that shit can and probably will happen, and passively resigning yourself to it. It's about being adequately mirthful or sullen about the current situation, as the case may be, and not expecting anything from the future.
There is a possible pitfall though, and I know this because it has occurred to me. You may become so passive about what life has to offer that you may actually start looking forward to death, or something equally drastic, just to break the monotony. Having observed the lives of a gazillion people around me, I'm now aware of a certain set of courses that life is bound to take.
The problem is, I'm not motivated one way or the other. I'm not looking forward to anything. Good job, good marriage, good children, death! Bad job, bad marriage, bad children, death! Just fill in a few details and replace good with bad here and there and you can broadly chalk out the stages in the life of most of the people you know. The outcome is always the same,and it's the only certainty. Also, what happens after death is probably the only genuine uncertainty in life. From what I've seen, heard and read, I'm inclined to believe that nothing happens. This life is all there is.
Possible Motivation: There's just one life, you should make the most of it. It's your only opportunity after all!
Brilliant Rebuttal: There's just one life, does it even matter if you make the most of it? Do you think Alexander's victories will matter when the Earth itself has been consumed by the Sun?
Well maybe you will be relieved of all miseries after death, but what about those who love you? How can you make them suffer? Umm...once I'm dead, I don't really need to care for my loved ones, do I?
I'm currently reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and this post if quite obviously an indirect result of the same. The essay starts with an amazing line.
There is but one truly serious philisophical problem , and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not individual choice must be safeguarded, whether abortion can be legislated—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
The author then proceeds to illustrate the absurdity of life through the example of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by the Gods to engage in the meaningless task of rolling a boulder up a hill over and over again for eternity. It's a brilliant analogy in the sense that the majority,if not all, of the human race lives equally meaningless lives. However, in the last chapter, Camus abruptly concludes that it is not a meaningless task after all, in fact Sisyphus shouldn't be searching for meaning at all. He should try to find motivation in the task that has been assigned to him, howsoever monotonous it may be. After an exciting start, the end seems rather forced when Camus concludes, Sisyphus is happy! To put it very simply, you're not supposed to be worried about the meaning of your actions, you have to learn to be cheerfully dumb. This singular argument effectively attempts to render most of philosophical thought inappropriate. Or as my nanaji likes to put it, "Philosophy is useless".
Thankfully, I also read another amazing book recently, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene, an eminent physicist and one of the most prominents string theorists. It justifies the search for meaning in life by making it clear that Physics, and most other significant sciences, have emanated from Philosophy. If we had restricted ourselves to mundane tasks without ever worrying about how the physical world functions and how can we control it, we wouldn't have achieved much as a species. It's a great book, but it still doesn't answer the question. In fact, it renders me all the more skeptical of the fact that anything is worth anything.
Then again, to actually get it over with and end your time in the Sun requires possibly an even greater motivation than to live through it. When you've achieved a state of passivity, when most things don't motivate you, you don't look forward to life any more than you look forward to death, and vice versa.
If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;
- "If" by Rudyard Kipling
But the good thing is, death doesn't scare you anymore. That's probably one of the advantages of being an atheist. Not believing in a supreme-being-who-is-perfectly-conscious-that-he-is-a-supreme-being enables your actions to not be guided by an eternal fear of divine punishment. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about God, but maybe it's just due to my bias that I find the ones denying his existence a lot more logical and convincing than the ones advocating it.
I, for one, believe that God is no different from luck, and as a consequence, I also believe that you can only resign yourself to it and not influence it by praising it. There's no concept of justice in the divine order of rewards and punishment. It's all random. Just as there is good luck and bad luck, there can be good God and bad God. You can't do squat about it. so when you are cursing your luck, you are effectively cursing God. Guess that makes the believers mighty uncomfortable. I'm okay with it though,and I never miss an opportunity to actively curse God whenever something unfavourable happens to me. What may be even more perplexing for believers is that I'm considerably luckier than many of the people I know! Don't attempt to explain it, because there is no explanation. Some things that affect you are beyond your control, and praying doesn't help. There aren't many things I'm sure of, but one thing is for certain: If there is a God, He definitely doesn't understand the concept of justice. Either that or he's just plain malevolent. To quote Jim Carrey's character from Bruce Almighty,
Enthusiastic people are a genuine puzzlement for me. Especially the ones who are all fired up about all things trite and blunderful!
"Oh! It's a great morning, it's going to be a great day!"
Many a cheerful induhviduals have started out their days saying this and most have proceeded to get their asses fucked through the course of the entire day. However, such grave misfortune deters not the cheerfulness of true optimists, and they end their day with this little gem of self-motivation:
"I should still be positive and thank God! Things could have been worse!"
Oh really? Why thats a fucking revealation! Here's another revealation for you:
Things can always be worse!
Just think about the shittiest thing that has ever happened to you, and I can assure you you'll be able to think of something shittier that could have happened!
Here's a possible response to my beautifully articulated argument:
But that's what i'm saying. Since things can always be worse, you should be cheerful and thankful all the time for the fact that they're not!
I have just one thing to say in response to this. Just try imagining for a moment how stupid you look being thankful about all the crap that's happening to you!Oh, a bird shit on my face,thank God elephants don't fly!
The answer, according to me, is not in being paranoid about an uncertain and possibly shitty future, as hardcore pessimists would argue. It's about being aware of the fact that shit can and probably will happen, and passively resigning yourself to it. It's about being adequately mirthful or sullen about the current situation, as the case may be, and not expecting anything from the future.
There is a possible pitfall though, and I know this because it has occurred to me. You may become so passive about what life has to offer that you may actually start looking forward to death, or something equally drastic, just to break the monotony. Having observed the lives of a gazillion people around me, I'm now aware of a certain set of courses that life is bound to take.
The problem is, I'm not motivated one way or the other. I'm not looking forward to anything. Good job, good marriage, good children, death! Bad job, bad marriage, bad children, death! Just fill in a few details and replace good with bad here and there and you can broadly chalk out the stages in the life of most of the people you know. The outcome is always the same,and it's the only certainty. Also, what happens after death is probably the only genuine uncertainty in life. From what I've seen, heard and read, I'm inclined to believe that nothing happens. This life is all there is.
Possible Motivation: There's just one life, you should make the most of it. It's your only opportunity after all!
Brilliant Rebuttal: There's just one life, does it even matter if you make the most of it? Do you think Alexander's victories will matter when the Earth itself has been consumed by the Sun?
Well maybe you will be relieved of all miseries after death, but what about those who love you? How can you make them suffer? Umm...once I'm dead, I don't really need to care for my loved ones, do I?
I'm currently reading The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus, and this post if quite obviously an indirect result of the same. The essay starts with an amazing line.
There is but one truly serious philisophical problem , and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest—whether or not individual choice must be safeguarded, whether abortion can be legislated—comes afterwards. These are games; one must first answer.
The author then proceeds to illustrate the absurdity of life through the example of Sisyphus, a character in Greek mythology who was punished by the Gods to engage in the meaningless task of rolling a boulder up a hill over and over again for eternity. It's a brilliant analogy in the sense that the majority,if not all, of the human race lives equally meaningless lives. However, in the last chapter, Camus abruptly concludes that it is not a meaningless task after all, in fact Sisyphus shouldn't be searching for meaning at all. He should try to find motivation in the task that has been assigned to him, howsoever monotonous it may be. After an exciting start, the end seems rather forced when Camus concludes, Sisyphus is happy! To put it very simply, you're not supposed to be worried about the meaning of your actions, you have to learn to be cheerfully dumb. This singular argument effectively attempts to render most of philosophical thought inappropriate. Or as my nanaji likes to put it, "Philosophy is useless".
Thankfully, I also read another amazing book recently, The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time and the Texture of Reality by Brian Greene, an eminent physicist and one of the most prominents string theorists. It justifies the search for meaning in life by making it clear that Physics, and most other significant sciences, have emanated from Philosophy. If we had restricted ourselves to mundane tasks without ever worrying about how the physical world functions and how can we control it, we wouldn't have achieved much as a species. It's a great book, but it still doesn't answer the question. In fact, it renders me all the more skeptical of the fact that anything is worth anything.
Then again, to actually get it over with and end your time in the Sun requires possibly an even greater motivation than to live through it. When you've achieved a state of passivity, when most things don't motivate you, you don't look forward to life any more than you look forward to death, and vice versa.
If you can meet with Triumph and DisasterAnd treat those two impostors just the same;
- "If" by Rudyard Kipling
But the good thing is, death doesn't scare you anymore. That's probably one of the advantages of being an atheist. Not believing in a supreme-being-who-is-perfectly-conscious-that-he-is-a-supreme-being enables your actions to not be guided by an eternal fear of divine punishment. A lot of people have a lot of opinions about God, but maybe it's just due to my bias that I find the ones denying his existence a lot more logical and convincing than the ones advocating it.
I, for one, believe that God is no different from luck, and as a consequence, I also believe that you can only resign yourself to it and not influence it by praising it. There's no concept of justice in the divine order of rewards and punishment. It's all random. Just as there is good luck and bad luck, there can be good God and bad God. You can't do squat about it. so when you are cursing your luck, you are effectively cursing God. Guess that makes the believers mighty uncomfortable. I'm okay with it though,and I never miss an opportunity to actively curse God whenever something unfavourable happens to me. What may be even more perplexing for believers is that I'm considerably luckier than many of the people I know! Don't attempt to explain it, because there is no explanation. Some things that affect you are beyond your control, and praying doesn't help. There aren't many things I'm sure of, but one thing is for certain: If there is a God, He definitely doesn't understand the concept of justice. Either that or he's just plain malevolent. To quote Jim Carrey's character from Bruce Almighty,
God is a mean kid on an anthill with a magnifying glass.
Let me quote an excerpt from possibly the greatest book ever written, at least according to me. Millions have read the master piece, and they can feel a little smug about it because I'm not going to name it, at the risk of copyright infringement of course.
'I wonder what he did to deserve it', the warrant officer with a malaria and a mosquito bite on his ass lamented after Nurse Cramer had read her thermometer and discovered the soldier in white was dead.
'He went to war', the fighter pilot with the golden moustache surmised
'We all went to war', Dunbar countered
'That's what I mean', the warrant officer with the malaria continued, 'Why him? There just doesn't seem to be any logic to this system of rewards and punishment. Look at what happened to me. if I had gotten syphillis or a dose of clap for my 5 minutes of passion on the beach instead of this damned mosquito bite, I could see justice. But malaria? Malaria?Who can explain malaria as a consequence of fornication?' The warrant officer shook his head in numb astonishment.
'What about me?' Yossarian said, 'I stepped out of my tent in Marrakech one night to get a bar of candy and caught your dose of clap when that Wac I never even saw before kissed me into the bushes. All I really wanted was a bar of candy, but who could turn it down?'
'That sounds like my dose of clap all right', the warrant officer agreed. 'But I've still got somebody else's malaria. Just for once I'd like to see all these things sort of straightened out, with each person getting exactly what he deserves. It might give me some confidence in this universe.'
'I've got somebody else's 3,00,000 dollars', the dashing young fighter captain with the golden moustache admitted. 'I've been goofing off since the day I was born. I cheated my way through prep school and college, and just about all I've been doing ever since is shacking up with pretty girls who think I'd make a good husband. I've got no ambition at all. The only thing I want to do after the war is marry some girl who's got more money with I have and shack up with lots more pretty girls. The 3,00,000 bucks was left to me before I was born by a grandfather who made a fortune selling on an international scale. I know I don't deserve it, but I'll be damned if I give it back. I wonder who it really belongs to.'
'Maybe it belongs to my father', Dunbar conjectured. 'He spent a lifetime at hard work and never could make enough money to even send my sister and me through college. He's dead now, so you might as well keep it.'
'Now, if we can just find out who my malaria belongs to we'd be all set. It's not that I've got anything against malaria. I'd just as soon goldbrick with malaria as with anything else. It's only that I feel an injustice has been committed. Why should I have somebody else's malaria and you have my dose of clap?'
'I've got more than your dose of clap', Yossarian told him. 'I've got to keep flying combat missions because of that dose of yours until they kill me.'
'That makes it even worse. Where's the justice in that?'
'I had a friend named Clevinger two and a half weeks ago who used to see plenty of justice in it.'
'It's the highest kind of justice of all,' Clevinger had gloated, clapping his hands with a merry laugh. 'I can't help thinking of Hippolytus of Euripides, where the early licentiousness of Theseus is probably responsible for the asceticism of the son that helps bring about the tragedy that ruins them all. If nothing else, that episode with the Wac should teach you the evils of sexual immorality.'
'It teaches me the evil of candy.'
In my continuous search for a convincing argument regarding the existence of God, I've read and laughed at the Cosmological, Ontological, Teleological and Moral arguments among others. I recently came across one particularly amusing one. It's called Pascal's Wager. Yup, it is attributed to the same Blaise Pascal whom you may have read about while learning probability theory,or the mechanism of hydraulic presses. It is all the more disappointing coming from a supposed man of reason. Here's how it goes:
If there is a God, He is infinitely incomprehensible, since, having neither parts nor limits, He has no affinity to us. We are then incapable of knowing either what He is or if He is....
..."God is, or He is not." But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us. A game is being played at the extremity of this infinite distance where heads or tails will turn up. What will you wager? According to reason, you can do neither the one thing nor the other; according to reason, you can defend neither of the propositions.
Do not, then, reprove for error those who have made a choice; for you know nothing about it. "No, but I blame them for having made, not this choice, but a choice; for again both he who chooses heads and he who chooses tails are equally at fault, they are both in the wrong. The true course is not to wager at all."
Yes; but you must wager. It is not optional. You are embarked. Which will you choose then? Let us see. Since you must choose, let us see which interests you least. You have two things to lose, the true and the good; and two things to stake, your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness; and your nature has two things to shun, error and misery. Your reason is no more shocked in choosing one rather than the other, since you must of necessity choose. This is one point settled. But your happiness? Let us weigh the gain and the loss in wagering that God is. Let us estimate these two chances. If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is. "That is very fine. Yes, I must wager; but I may perhaps wager too much." Let us see. Since there is an equal risk of gain and of loss, if you had only to gain two lives, instead of one, you might still wager. But if there were three lives to gain, you would have to play (since you are under the necessity of playing), and you would be imprudent, when you are forced to play, not to chance your life to gain three at a game where there is an equal risk of loss and gain. But there is an eternity of life and happiness. And this being so, if there were an infinity of chances, of which one only would be for you, you would still be right in wagering one to win two, and you would act stupidly, being obliged to play, by refusing to stake one life against three at a game in which out of an infinity of chances there is one for you, if there were an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain. But there is here an infinity of an infinitely happy life to gain, a chance of gain against a finite number of chances of loss, and what you stake is finite.
Pascal decided to apply the logic of expected value to his beliefs about God. While the theory makes a lot of sense in probability and game theory, the man got a bit too carried away by it I guess. Many have offered plausible criticisms of the argument, and I especially like the one offered by Richard Dawkins. You can read about it on Wikipedia if you want, but I'm going to offer my own rebuttal here.
At first glance, the argument makes a lot of sense. What can you possibly lose by believing in God? Other than your sanity of course. Anyway, if the stakes are so high, and God truly is such a retarded egomaniac that he'll punish you for eternity if you don't praise him, surely he's also sensitive about what system of belief you follow. I mean if you're not a Christian, and the Christian belief is in fact right, you're screwed just as bad as an atheist. The same goes for all religions.
I believe in a supreme being but I didn't know that Islam was the true path. I'm sorry!
Too bad, motherfucker! You're toast!
It's especially confusing for a Hindu. There are millions of Gods and conflicting sects within Hinduism. What if Shiva punishes the Vaishnavas, or the other way round?
As is clear to me now after reading more about Pascal ol'fellow, he actually wanted to convince non-Christians to convert to Christianity when he came up with this little gem of his.
I guess I just miss my friends.
Alternatively, maybe I just need to get laid.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Life in a instantly-halfcooked-desperately-wannabe-makeshift Metro!
William Shakespeare, the happy and gay English playwright and poet with the stupidest nickname ever (In other words, the dumbass with a retarded sense of humour whose misadventures in writing single-handedly screwed up our English literature courses at one time or the other), once did not say:
Be not afraid of Metros. Some cities are born as Metros, some achieve the status, and some have it thrust upon them.
That's right,he did not say this. I desecrated one of his famous quotes to come up with this.
Anyway, Gurgaon, the city of my current dwelling, falls into the third category. In fact, it fuckin spawned the fuckin category! It used to be a sleepy town in Haryana filled with angry Haryanvis who were pissed off at all the attention they did not manage to get despite being within stone throwing distance of New Delhi(If the stone was thrown by Mahabali, i.e.). Its hip cousins like NOIDA, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and even Meerut used to mock it to death. Which is when one particularly angry resident decided to make a difference! And overnight, Gurgaon boasted of sprawling golf courses, flashy malls, swanky office buildings and nice (I ran out of adjectives) houses!
Well actually, the tranformation was triggered by bigshot corporate houses and filthy rich individuals looking for cheap land near an actual metro, but where is the element of romance in that story?
Anyway, this instant-metro recipe made the humble town a virtual battleground for the real estate wars. The real estate giants grabbed their own portions of the city and went development crazy!
The result: The city boasts of a fuckload of insanely tall apartment buildings despite no apparent shortage of land. The office buildings still make sense. But the cake with the cherry and all other paraphernalia (I've waited so long to use that word), is taken by the 15 fuckin shopping malls, all on the same fuckin road! Last I heard, 15 more are coming up, because malls are the 'coolest' place to 'hang out', aren't they?
All this time the state development authority, with a painfully funny name like HUDA, has been busy not being busy.
The result: The apartments came up first, followed by the offices and malls. And finally they're trying to build roads and provide power and water facilities to people. So the city has all the essential ingredients of a metro now, except for the fact that some of the essential ingredients of a regular city have gone a-missing! The roads that lead to the various hip places in the city are still reminiscent of a typical Haryana village. Power shortage has been marginally overcome by power backup in the apartment buildings, offices and malls, so the government considers its work more or less done.
This leads me to my next point: The city has NO FUCKIN MEANS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT! You have to walk a couple of kilometres to reach a place where you can hope to get the uniquely Indian ride called a cycle rickshaw, which will take you another couple of kilometres to a place from where you can catch the only intra-city bus or the other uniquely Indian ride called a tempo!
Of course, there are on-call taxi services, which for some mysterious reason are called 'Radio Taxis'. However, the government is contemplating closing them down, because apparently it is slightly useful to the people, and whoever heard of a non-pissed-off Haryanvi?
By an incredible stroke of luck, this leads me to my last point: The people in Gurgaon totally rock! First of all, everybody has a heavy Haryanvi accent. This astute observation of mine may sound redundant to the point of being ridiculously obvious, but just imagine for a moment being surrounded by a bunch of Udham Singhs and you'll know what I mean!
And they're all mighty pissed off! If Maddox ever decides to visit this place, he will be absolutely delighted to see the realest of real men, who are ready to kill you if you accidentally step on their shoelace! With a shitload of vehicles and pathetic roads, there are on an average 1500 incidents of road rage every day, which are a true delight to watch if you're not actually involved. Having lived all my life in a laid back place like UP, where the people have infinitely more reasons to be pissed off but are too lazy to actually do something about it, Gur-fuckin-Gaon is like a breath of fresh air in my life!
As Ronald McDonald (the dumbfuck pederast clown) would not say, I'm hatin' it!
Be not afraid of Metros. Some cities are born as Metros, some achieve the status, and some have it thrust upon them.
That's right,he did not say this. I desecrated one of his famous quotes to come up with this.
Anyway, Gurgaon, the city of my current dwelling, falls into the third category. In fact, it fuckin spawned the fuckin category! It used to be a sleepy town in Haryana filled with angry Haryanvis who were pissed off at all the attention they did not manage to get despite being within stone throwing distance of New Delhi(If the stone was thrown by Mahabali, i.e.). Its hip cousins like NOIDA, Faridabad, Ghaziabad and even Meerut used to mock it to death. Which is when one particularly angry resident decided to make a difference! And overnight, Gurgaon boasted of sprawling golf courses, flashy malls, swanky office buildings and nice (I ran out of adjectives) houses!
Well actually, the tranformation was triggered by bigshot corporate houses and filthy rich individuals looking for cheap land near an actual metro, but where is the element of romance in that story?
Anyway, this instant-metro recipe made the humble town a virtual battleground for the real estate wars. The real estate giants grabbed their own portions of the city and went development crazy!
The result: The city boasts of a fuckload of insanely tall apartment buildings despite no apparent shortage of land. The office buildings still make sense. But the cake with the cherry and all other paraphernalia (I've waited so long to use that word), is taken by the 15 fuckin shopping malls, all on the same fuckin road! Last I heard, 15 more are coming up, because malls are the 'coolest' place to 'hang out', aren't they?
All this time the state development authority, with a painfully funny name like HUDA, has been busy not being busy.
The result: The apartments came up first, followed by the offices and malls. And finally they're trying to build roads and provide power and water facilities to people. So the city has all the essential ingredients of a metro now, except for the fact that some of the essential ingredients of a regular city have gone a-missing! The roads that lead to the various hip places in the city are still reminiscent of a typical Haryana village. Power shortage has been marginally overcome by power backup in the apartment buildings, offices and malls, so the government considers its work more or less done.
This leads me to my next point: The city has NO FUCKIN MEANS OF PUBLIC TRANSPORT! You have to walk a couple of kilometres to reach a place where you can hope to get the uniquely Indian ride called a cycle rickshaw, which will take you another couple of kilometres to a place from where you can catch the only intra-city bus or the other uniquely Indian ride called a tempo!
Of course, there are on-call taxi services, which for some mysterious reason are called 'Radio Taxis'. However, the government is contemplating closing them down, because apparently it is slightly useful to the people, and whoever heard of a non-pissed-off Haryanvi?
By an incredible stroke of luck, this leads me to my last point: The people in Gurgaon totally rock! First of all, everybody has a heavy Haryanvi accent. This astute observation of mine may sound redundant to the point of being ridiculously obvious, but just imagine for a moment being surrounded by a bunch of Udham Singhs and you'll know what I mean!
And they're all mighty pissed off! If Maddox ever decides to visit this place, he will be absolutely delighted to see the realest of real men, who are ready to kill you if you accidentally step on their shoelace! With a shitload of vehicles and pathetic roads, there are on an average 1500 incidents of road rage every day, which are a true delight to watch if you're not actually involved. Having lived all my life in a laid back place like UP, where the people have infinitely more reasons to be pissed off but are too lazy to actually do something about it, Gur-fuckin-Gaon is like a breath of fresh air in my life!
As Ronald McDonald (the dumbfuck pederast clown) would not say, I'm hatin' it!
Epilogue: The city does have its share of nightlife, or perhaps more appropriately, 'late evening life'. There's a cafe-cum-pub called Chinese and Thai Cafe that specialises in cheap beer and decent rock music. Very recently (read 'immediately after my Godforsaken self set foot in the city), they decided to ban stag entry in the pub. Think about it, beer and rock music, doesn't this sound like the kind of place where guys would never go in groups but couples would love to hang out? See, it makes sense!
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Unbearable Lightness of Being Cool!
AweFUCKINGsome read if you're half as big a Tarantino fan as I am! While you're at it, here's another surprise for you to check out! It's the entire script of Reservoir Dogs! It's only slightly different from the actual movie, but one of my favorite scenes is missing entirely!
It's during the restaurant scene featuring Holdaway (Randy Brooks) and Freddy Newendyke aka Mr.Orange (Tim Roth). Holdaway asks Freddy about Joe's appearance.
Freddy: You remember The Fantastic Four?
Holdaway: Yea with the invisible bitch and the 'Flame On' shit?
Freddy: The Thing! Motherfucker looks just like The Thing!
There are some other minor mistakes, see if you can spot those. Two cool points for every one that you find! When you earn 10 cool points, shove them up your ass; it feels real good!
It's during the restaurant scene featuring Holdaway (Randy Brooks) and Freddy Newendyke aka Mr.Orange (Tim Roth). Holdaway asks Freddy about Joe's appearance.
Freddy: You remember The Fantastic Four?
Holdaway: Yea with the invisible bitch and the 'Flame On' shit?
Freddy: The Thing! Motherfucker looks just like The Thing!
There are some other minor mistakes, see if you can spot those. Two cool points for every one that you find! When you earn 10 cool points, shove them up your ass; it feels real good!
Monday, July 16, 2007
Corporate Lessons - Chapter 3: "Your input is very important to us! Koi shak?" "Oh fuck!"
Disclaimer: The title is rather obviously inspired from His Holiness Himesh Reshammiya's chartbusting titty-shakin-ass-kickin track "I love you O Sayonee". Please don't sue me O Lord!
Somebody is spreading rumours about me in the office and I've gotta find out who it is before the company closes down! If your pea-sized excuse for a brain finds it hard to make the connection, let me make it easier for you by explaining the kind of rumours doing the rounds. Apparently I'm being projected as a hard and efficient worker who should be staffed on all important projects! At least this is what a very senior employee said in our first meeting for a very important project.
"I have been told that you guys are the best resources available for this project"
And almost instantaneously, I lost all respect for the project.
As if this wasn't enough, I was staffed along with another new joinee to compile one of the most important reports regarding the project. At least that is what they told us! But I kept noticing signs to the contrary. Most of the reports were to be sent to the country head for QC (That's Quality Check, you uninitiated assholes!)
Ours wasn't one of them.
Heck, nobody even bothered to ask us about the progress till the very last minute!
But of course, every other day we were routinely warned that the work is very important and we simply can't afford to screw it up! Then help us not to, for fuck's sake!
Then, after about a week of scrambling our apparently-very-capable-brains, we were informed in a group meeting that a lot of research has already been performed in the particular sector and all we have to really do is sift through the previous reports and look for the relevant material!
So much for 'best resources available'!
I believe the conversation went something like this during the staffing exercise:
"This is a very important project"
"You couldn't be more right, our asses are in danger!"
"I wouldn't want to put your sweet ass in danger!"
"Aww,come 'ere you..."
(half an hour later)
"Phew, nice fucking eh?"
"I'll say"
"Hey, what about the staffing?"
"Oh we've already done that, I just called this meeting to... y'know"
"Aww, come 'ere you...."
(another half hour later)
"Bascially there's just this one sector where we already have all the material but we just have to repackage it to fool our hapless client into giving us more money."
"Hmm...looks like the kind of work that some new joinees may find interesting."
"Hey that's a great idea! Ooh I love your ideas, come 'ere you..."
"Easy babe, it may be a while before I can get it up again!"
"Oh sorry dahling!"
"Anyway, have you noticed any particularly clueless ones in the recent lot?"
"Yea I think there are many of that kind. Anyone who joins this company is clueless anyway"
"Ok put them on this and don't forget to put undue pressure on their sorry asses by overemphasizing the importance of the project"
"Oh you're so naughty! Come 'ere you...."
"Gawd did you descend from rabbits? Bloody nymph!"
What was I talking about?
Somebody is spreading rumours about me in the office and I've gotta find out who it is before the company closes down! If your pea-sized excuse for a brain finds it hard to make the connection, let me make it easier for you by explaining the kind of rumours doing the rounds. Apparently I'm being projected as a hard and efficient worker who should be staffed on all important projects! At least this is what a very senior employee said in our first meeting for a very important project.
"I have been told that you guys are the best resources available for this project"
And almost instantaneously, I lost all respect for the project.
As if this wasn't enough, I was staffed along with another new joinee to compile one of the most important reports regarding the project. At least that is what they told us! But I kept noticing signs to the contrary. Most of the reports were to be sent to the country head for QC (That's Quality Check, you uninitiated assholes!)
Ours wasn't one of them.
Heck, nobody even bothered to ask us about the progress till the very last minute!
But of course, every other day we were routinely warned that the work is very important and we simply can't afford to screw it up! Then help us not to, for fuck's sake!
Then, after about a week of scrambling our apparently-very-capable-brains, we were informed in a group meeting that a lot of research has already been performed in the particular sector and all we have to really do is sift through the previous reports and look for the relevant material!
So much for 'best resources available'!
I believe the conversation went something like this during the staffing exercise:
"This is a very important project"
"You couldn't be more right, our asses are in danger!"
"I wouldn't want to put your sweet ass in danger!"
"Aww,come 'ere you..."
(half an hour later)
"Phew, nice fucking eh?"
"I'll say"
"Hey, what about the staffing?"
"Oh we've already done that, I just called this meeting to... y'know"
"Aww, come 'ere you...."
(another half hour later)
"Bascially there's just this one sector where we already have all the material but we just have to repackage it to fool our hapless client into giving us more money."
"Hmm...looks like the kind of work that some new joinees may find interesting."
"Hey that's a great idea! Ooh I love your ideas, come 'ere you..."
"Easy babe, it may be a while before I can get it up again!"
"Oh sorry dahling!"
"Anyway, have you noticed any particularly clueless ones in the recent lot?"
"Yea I think there are many of that kind. Anyone who joins this company is clueless anyway"
"Ok put them on this and don't forget to put undue pressure on their sorry asses by overemphasizing the importance of the project"
"Oh you're so naughty! Come 'ere you...."
"Gawd did you descend from rabbits? Bloody nymph!"
What was I talking about?
Friday, June 29, 2007
Corporate Lessons - Chapter 2: "English, Mothafucka! Do you speak it?"
Act 1
I got the spookiest phone call last night.
*Tring, tring* (actually, it was my cell phone and the ringtone was 'Money' by Pink Floyd, but *tring,tring* is so much more dramatic)
"Yeah?"
"Hi Avichal"
"Laloo?"
"Yea Hi this is Abhishek"
"Kya?? Laloo?"
(Translation: "What?? Laloo?")
"Yea did you talk to Anosh about the mail regarding change in shift timing?"
"Nahi be main 5 minute mein baat karke tujhe batata hun, waise tu bhi mail kar hi dena"
(Translation: "No man I'll talk to him and let you know in 5 minutes, but you send the mail anyway")
"Yea ok let me know"
If you're wondering what is so spooky about the call, I don't blame you. But consider this: I have never, NEVER once in the 4 years that I have known Abhishek aka Laloo, conversed with him in the Queen's language! Do you blame me for being scared out of my wits when Laloo suddenly calls up and unleashes howhaw Oxbridge on me??
Of course, being fellow corporate bitches, both he and I are expected to, and do speak English within our workspace. But still, I never thought he'd do this to me!
So I call back after 5 minutes and decide to lay it on him.
*Tring,tring* (This time it's the actual sound, since I'm making the call)
"Haan Laloo"
(Translation: "Yeah Laloo")
"Yeah Avichal" (He's still doing it!)
"Haan be mail kar dena pakke se, Anosh shayad ghar chala gaya hai"
(Translation: "Yeah dude send the mail for sure, Anosh seems to have left for home")
"Ok"
"Aur saale angrezi mein baat karne se pehle warning de diya karo"
(Translation:"And do warn me before you start talking to me in English asshole")
And I put the phone down immediately, thus conveying my reaction appropriately.
Act 2
Laloo returns from office, and I don't even wait to give him a breather.
"Behen ke laude angrezi mein kahe batiya rahe the phone par?"
(Translation: "Why the fuck were you talking in English over the phone you sister's dick?")
"Abe mera Boss paas mein hi tha, aur usne humko thodi hi der pehle lecture sunaya tha ki office mein Hindi nahi bolni hai kyunki foreign employees ko bura lagta hai"
(Translation: "Dude my Boss was nearby, and he had recently instructed us about not speaking in Hindi as it makes the foreign employees uncomfortable")
"Maa ki chut uski"
(Translation: "Fuck him!")
"Haan saala"
(Translation: "Sure!")
Yea yea I know I'm being unreasonably whiny and hypocritical about the whole thing, considering I'm actually writing this post in English and providing translations for all Hindi sentences. But it's still bewildering when your closest friends - with the possible exception of Mandu who was born out of America's pussy and plans to return there asap, and Dube who is just an incorrigible Delhi dood - talk to you in English. What's next? Mudit? Nishant? Barsaiyan? Dassa?? Tau??????
I'm too scared to write anything else!
I got the spookiest phone call last night.
*Tring, tring* (actually, it was my cell phone and the ringtone was 'Money' by Pink Floyd, but *tring,tring* is so much more dramatic)
"Yeah?"
"Hi Avichal"
"Laloo?"
"Yea Hi this is Abhishek"
"Kya?? Laloo?"
(Translation: "What?? Laloo?")
"Yea did you talk to Anosh about the mail regarding change in shift timing?"
"Nahi be main 5 minute mein baat karke tujhe batata hun, waise tu bhi mail kar hi dena"
(Translation: "No man I'll talk to him and let you know in 5 minutes, but you send the mail anyway")
"Yea ok let me know"
If you're wondering what is so spooky about the call, I don't blame you. But consider this: I have never, NEVER once in the 4 years that I have known Abhishek aka Laloo, conversed with him in the Queen's language! Do you blame me for being scared out of my wits when Laloo suddenly calls up and unleashes howhaw Oxbridge on me??
Of course, being fellow corporate bitches, both he and I are expected to, and do speak English within our workspace. But still, I never thought he'd do this to me!
So I call back after 5 minutes and decide to lay it on him.
*Tring,tring* (This time it's the actual sound, since I'm making the call)
"Haan Laloo"
(Translation: "Yeah Laloo")
"Yeah Avichal" (He's still doing it!)
"Haan be mail kar dena pakke se, Anosh shayad ghar chala gaya hai"
(Translation: "Yeah dude send the mail for sure, Anosh seems to have left for home")
"Ok"
"Aur saale angrezi mein baat karne se pehle warning de diya karo"
(Translation:"And do warn me before you start talking to me in English asshole")
And I put the phone down immediately, thus conveying my reaction appropriately.
Act 2
Laloo returns from office, and I don't even wait to give him a breather.
"Behen ke laude angrezi mein kahe batiya rahe the phone par?"
(Translation: "Why the fuck were you talking in English over the phone you sister's dick?")
"Abe mera Boss paas mein hi tha, aur usne humko thodi hi der pehle lecture sunaya tha ki office mein Hindi nahi bolni hai kyunki foreign employees ko bura lagta hai"
(Translation: "Dude my Boss was nearby, and he had recently instructed us about not speaking in Hindi as it makes the foreign employees uncomfortable")
"Maa ki chut uski"
(Translation: "Fuck him!")
"Haan saala"
(Translation: "Sure!")
Yea yea I know I'm being unreasonably whiny and hypocritical about the whole thing, considering I'm actually writing this post in English and providing translations for all Hindi sentences. But it's still bewildering when your closest friends - with the possible exception of Mandu who was born out of America's pussy and plans to return there asap, and Dube who is just an incorrigible Delhi dood - talk to you in English. What's next? Mudit? Nishant? Barsaiyan? Dassa?? Tau??????
I'm too scared to write anything else!
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Corporate Lessons - Chapter 1: People are sensitive
First things first: People - sexual harassment is NOT a joke!
If you think the above statement is also a joke, I actually love you, but I'm bound by professional ethics to remind you that it is not!
If you're still not serious enough, let Mr. Scott Adams(PBUH) explain it to you himself:
As expected, the start to my professional life has been shaky, to say the least! Every day I learn something about life,the universe and everything that I had unlearned with great effort during the last 4 years of my stay at the greatest place in the whole wide world - IIT Kanpur!
If you think the above statement is also a joke, I actually love you, but I'm bound by professional ethics to remind you that it is not!
If you're still not serious enough, let Mr. Scott Adams(PBUH) explain it to you himself:
As expected, the start to my professional life has been shaky, to say the least! Every day I learn something about life,the universe and everything that I had unlearned with great effort during the last 4 years of my stay at the greatest place in the whole wide world - IIT Kanpur!Yup that's right; whoever said that IIT's are institutions of learning was probably a wannabe IITian stuck in some crappy NIT.
Oops! I seem to have already forgotten my first lesson in professional life:People are sensitive!
Of course,this is a horizontal division that runs across the vertical one defined by Scott Adams (PBUH): People are idiots!
Anyway, the bunch of assholes from our dear alma mater learnt this lesson the hard way during one of our orientation sessions in the company. It was the Anti-sexual harassment session(as has been established earlier, sexual harassment is not a joke. Does that make anti-sexual harassment a joke?) and a smart female, who later turned out to be our group manager (God is a funny guy!), was instructing us about what constitutes sexual harassment in a corporate environment. Tariq(whom we had nicknamed tharki owing to his controversial activities over the last couple of days) wanted to clarify if guys could be sexually harassed by other guys. Why he didn't already know this despite being an IITK alumnus is beyond me, but that's beside the point for now.
Now as is our wont, we find anything and everything extremely funny, at times even stuff that may qualify as extremely tragic for sensitive people! We laughed like second-grade students who had just gained carnal knowledge and the female decided to let us know that college is over for good and our kind of behaviour is not acceptable outside the safe haven that our campus is.
Oh well, as they say, all good things are murdered in cold blood by sensitive people!
P.S. For the record, my heartfelt apologies to NITians. You rock dudes!
P.P.S. Off the record, NITians are so lame man!
P.P.P.S. Quite obviously, the record is just another joke to us.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Walk on
leaden eyes, guilty mind
it's okay to stay behind
comfortably numb is fine
no good standing in the line
heaven's good, but hell's okay
and who's bothered anyway?
win or lose, there is no strife
either way, you'll get through life
cos all that you touch
and all that you see
all that you taste
all you feel
all that you love
and all that you hate
all you distrust
all you save
and all that you give
and all that you deal
and all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
and all you create
and all you destroy
and all that you do
and all that you say
and all that you eat
and everyone you meet
and all that you slight
and everyone you fight
and all that is now
and all that is gone
and all that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
it's okay to stay behind
comfortably numb is fine
no good standing in the line
heaven's good, but hell's okay
and who's bothered anyway?
win or lose, there is no strife
either way, you'll get through life
cos all that you touch
and all that you see
all that you taste
all you feel
all that you love
and all that you hate
all you distrust
all you save
and all that you give
and all that you deal
and all that you buy
beg, borrow or steal
and all you create
and all you destroy
and all that you do
and all that you say
and all that you eat
and everyone you meet
and all that you slight
and everyone you fight
and all that is now
and all that is gone
and all that's to come
and everything under the sun is in tune
but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
A dose of the maestro
Been reading a lot of Ghalib these days. Apart from his genuinely romantic verses, his poetry seems to carry a lot of the rock music attitude. Though not exactly rebellious, and I'll refrain from using the much glorified adjective "pessimistic", but it surely borders on negative determinism, or fatalism if you will.
परतव-ए-खुर से है शबनम को फ़ना की तालीम
मैं भी हूं एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक
( परतव-ए-खुर= Sunlight, शबनम =Dew, फ़ना =Annihilation, तालीम=Knowledge, इनायत=Favour)
Meaning: As a dewdrop knows of its destruction by sunlight, I, too, await somebody's favour towards the same end
Of course, optimists( what is their motivation anyway?) will point out that it is only a pessimist's interpretation of a beautiful description of the parallel between a dewdrop and a human being. Let them.
गम-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किससेे हो जुज़ मर्ग इलाज
शमा हर रंग जलती है सहर होने तक
(गम-ए-हस्ती= The pain that is life, जुज़= other than, मर्ग= Death, शमा= candlelight/flame, सहर= Morning)
Meaning: What else other than death can be the cure of the disease that is life? A flame burns in all colours till morning just as life shows all colours till death takes over.
No multiple interpretations here. Ghalib was the first rock lyricist ever!
परतव-ए-खुर से है शबनम को फ़ना की तालीम
मैं भी हूं एक इनायत की नज़र होने तक
( परतव-ए-खुर= Sunlight, शबनम =Dew, फ़ना =Annihilation, तालीम=Knowledge, इनायत=Favour)
Meaning: As a dewdrop knows of its destruction by sunlight, I, too, await somebody's favour towards the same end
Of course, optimists( what is their motivation anyway?) will point out that it is only a pessimist's interpretation of a beautiful description of the parallel between a dewdrop and a human being. Let them.
गम-ए-हस्ती का 'असद' किससेे हो जुज़ मर्ग इलाज
शमा हर रंग जलती है सहर होने तक
(गम-ए-हस्ती= The pain that is life, जुज़= other than, मर्ग= Death, शमा= candlelight/flame, सहर= Morning)
Meaning: What else other than death can be the cure of the disease that is life? A flame burns in all colours till morning just as life shows all colours till death takes over.
No multiple interpretations here. Ghalib was the first rock lyricist ever!
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