13 Dec 2008, 6:23pm
When there is an incentive to read a blog post...
Posted by Script Writer | Category [ Writing ]Comments (5) | Trackbacks (0)
Much has not been made of my ability to survive cranial atrophy for long periods of time. As a tribute to the human race's ineptitude in making anything of anyone other than themselves, this blog post shall be completely devoid of a particular word. There in, as the Bard would say, lies the rub. How could someone not use a word yet convey that such a disuse was intentional and in no way reflective of their vocabulary or lack of it?
Perhaps we will never know, the same way we know that all it takes to get anything (but money) out of me is a woman batting her eyelashes. A few women went even further which probably means that women are not attentive, whatever they accuse us men of notwithstanding. That said, this is a good time to have a contest. The first person to guess the missing word in this post gets to be the first person to guess the missing word in this post. Voila!
Fantasy has been morphing into reality. That is the single greatest truth of the modern era. This basically (and acidically too (ha ha, the engineer's humour strikes!)) implies our dream pool is shrinking. Not the 'in tropical paradise surrounded by gorgeous women' dreams but the 'landing on the moon' dreams. Frankly, I believe those kids who dreamt of becoming astronauts were retarded. But that does not mean I am happier than Queen Latifa's arse as we rob our future generations of their dreams by realising them.
This paragraph can be safely skipped. 'There have always been dreamers. People who see not what is but what can be. There have always been doers. People who make what can be what is. This is how things become possible. This is how the quality of our lives improves. Because we dream. Because we do.' Yes, that is from an old commercial of an automobile company that went bust. I don't know what is more frightening - my remembering such useless things or the fact that we may not be able to dream anymore because there will be nothing left to dream about.
There will be nothing to make us look forward to a new day. Cynics would point out that this has infact been true for a good few hundred years. But who gives a pig's armpit about what cynics say? They speak so much truth so matter of factly that we invariably go into self-preservational denial. No one wants to be told they have an utterly insignificant existence for on a long enough timeline the significance of any being or event approaches zero.
That's that.
Current Music: Limp Bizkit - Now I know
Perhaps we will never know, the same way we know that all it takes to get anything (but money) out of me is a woman batting her eyelashes. A few women went even further which probably means that women are not attentive, whatever they accuse us men of notwithstanding. That said, this is a good time to have a contest. The first person to guess the missing word in this post gets to be the first person to guess the missing word in this post. Voila!
Fantasy has been morphing into reality. That is the single greatest truth of the modern era. This basically (and acidically too (ha ha, the engineer's humour strikes!)) implies our dream pool is shrinking. Not the 'in tropical paradise surrounded by gorgeous women' dreams but the 'landing on the moon' dreams. Frankly, I believe those kids who dreamt of becoming astronauts were retarded. But that does not mean I am happier than Queen Latifa's arse as we rob our future generations of their dreams by realising them.
This paragraph can be safely skipped. 'There have always been dreamers. People who see not what is but what can be. There have always been doers. People who make what can be what is. This is how things become possible. This is how the quality of our lives improves. Because we dream. Because we do.' Yes, that is from an old commercial of an automobile company that went bust. I don't know what is more frightening - my remembering such useless things or the fact that we may not be able to dream anymore because there will be nothing left to dream about.
There will be nothing to make us look forward to a new day. Cynics would point out that this has infact been true for a good few hundred years. But who gives a pig's armpit about what cynics say? They speak so much truth so matter of factly that we invariably go into self-preservational denial. No one wants to be told they have an utterly insignificant existence for on a long enough timeline the significance of any being or event approaches zero.
That's that.
Current Music: Limp Bizkit - Now I know
4 Dec 2008, 3:58pm
When an entire population is desensitised...
Posted by Script Writer | Category [ Writing ]Comments (8) | Trackbacks (0)
There are some things beyond human understanding. Terrorism is not one of them. Anyone who claims to walk on two legs and breathe oxygen should be able to get the hang of it. Yes this includes the allied forces fighting the 'war on terror', strange though it may appear. Even for a fleeting moment I don't buy the allied bluff. I don't think anyone else does. Fighting for the free world, they say. Go figure.
George Bernard Shaw, or someone like him, once said something to the effect that patriotism is the blind faith that one's own country is right simply because one happens to be born in it. Entire wars have been fought upon this flimsy premise. Although this post is not about the futility of war, I should definitely like to mention that in the history of the human race only two wars have ever been justified - the great war of the Mahabharata, and the 1971 Bangladesh war. Every other war has been the result of man's greed for more.
I digress. The thing is events around me hardly ever shake me up. I am one of those cynics or realists or idealists or whatever other labels you can choose to come up with who believes that the world has always been the same. Almost two millennia ago there were the crusades. Today you have jihad. When colonialism became politically incorrect, it was merely replaced with words like globalisation or intellectual property rights - anything that ensured the wealthy remain that way by sucking dry the old colonial world. Remarkable that Nehru had made this prophecy during a NAM convention, eons before these terms became fashionable.
In my 9 years of adulthood, I have never voted. Not once. Yes, I have never let up on an opportunity to complain about the system but when it came my turn to do something about changing it I remained inactive. I assumed I was insignificant. Forgotten I had that it was that one nail that undid the horseshoe that resulted in a battle being lost.
This time something inside me stirred. It did not stir before. Not when the WTC came down. Not when the Parliament was bombed. Not when Akshardham was attacked. Not when the Mumbai train bombings happened. Not even when tragedy struck closer home in Hyderabad. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Had I been completely desensitised? I don't think so. People not using a condom during sex completely riled me. Then why this apathy towards terrorism?
It was possibly because I realised that the brilliance of democracy is that a country gets the governance it deserves. I realised that with someone who has never once won a Lok Sabha election heading the government, things could not possibly be any better than they are. I realised that all this mindlessness was our own doing. We never tried to change things. All we did is scream off the rooftops.
But what was different this time around? I guess being away from India gives you a very cushy perspective. No, I am not in what is considered to be a developed nation. I am in Nigeria, a country known more for its disorder. Yet, I feel safer here than I did back home. But that is not it. It is a little hard to explain. Let me give it my best shot.
I caught most of the Mumbai news stories on CNN / BBC. I was very touched by the empathetic manner in which they handled this story. They gave the tragedy the dignity it deserved. Indian news channels, on the other hand, turned it into a TRP gimmick. It was appalling. It was even more appalling that reporting news in such a barbaric manner increases TRP. This is a reflection of the kind of people we have become. Deep down, we revel in others' tragedy. And this is saddening. What stirred inside me was a sense of loss. We have possibly lost India to our inner demons. That gives me the goose flesh.
Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: None
George Bernard Shaw, or someone like him, once said something to the effect that patriotism is the blind faith that one's own country is right simply because one happens to be born in it. Entire wars have been fought upon this flimsy premise. Although this post is not about the futility of war, I should definitely like to mention that in the history of the human race only two wars have ever been justified - the great war of the Mahabharata, and the 1971 Bangladesh war. Every other war has been the result of man's greed for more.
I digress. The thing is events around me hardly ever shake me up. I am one of those cynics or realists or idealists or whatever other labels you can choose to come up with who believes that the world has always been the same. Almost two millennia ago there were the crusades. Today you have jihad. When colonialism became politically incorrect, it was merely replaced with words like globalisation or intellectual property rights - anything that ensured the wealthy remain that way by sucking dry the old colonial world. Remarkable that Nehru had made this prophecy during a NAM convention, eons before these terms became fashionable.
In my 9 years of adulthood, I have never voted. Not once. Yes, I have never let up on an opportunity to complain about the system but when it came my turn to do something about changing it I remained inactive. I assumed I was insignificant. Forgotten I had that it was that one nail that undid the horseshoe that resulted in a battle being lost.
This time something inside me stirred. It did not stir before. Not when the WTC came down. Not when the Parliament was bombed. Not when Akshardham was attacked. Not when the Mumbai train bombings happened. Not even when tragedy struck closer home in Hyderabad. Nothing. Zilch. Nada. Had I been completely desensitised? I don't think so. People not using a condom during sex completely riled me. Then why this apathy towards terrorism?
It was possibly because I realised that the brilliance of democracy is that a country gets the governance it deserves. I realised that with someone who has never once won a Lok Sabha election heading the government, things could not possibly be any better than they are. I realised that all this mindlessness was our own doing. We never tried to change things. All we did is scream off the rooftops.
But what was different this time around? I guess being away from India gives you a very cushy perspective. No, I am not in what is considered to be a developed nation. I am in Nigeria, a country known more for its disorder. Yet, I feel safer here than I did back home. But that is not it. It is a little hard to explain. Let me give it my best shot.
I caught most of the Mumbai news stories on CNN / BBC. I was very touched by the empathetic manner in which they handled this story. They gave the tragedy the dignity it deserved. Indian news channels, on the other hand, turned it into a TRP gimmick. It was appalling. It was even more appalling that reporting news in such a barbaric manner increases TRP. This is a reflection of the kind of people we have become. Deep down, we revel in others' tragedy. And this is saddening. What stirred inside me was a sense of loss. We have possibly lost India to our inner demons. That gives me the goose flesh.
Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: None
