Hail Him Or Jail Him?

I would have hailed him as a hero, if I were 2/3rd my current age and if I were in India. But, alas and thank god, strictly in that order, I am not...so I will boooo him all the way to jail. What would you do and what do you think? This incident reminds of my younger days in Karanataka, India. I remember the state government committed Harakiri and bought in the unpopular 'helmets-are-compulsory-for-2-wheel-drivers' rule just before the elections. Opposition party made it a big political issue and I believe, till today, that above was one of the main reason the ruling party lost. And the first thing the opposition did after winning was to abolish the rule. Can you believe it? Yeap, somethings happen only in India :-( Back to the current topic, what gets my blood boiling about this article is see how this journo is trying to brand this whole charade as Gandhigiri. Gandhi would be squirming upstairs and saying, "Gandhigiri‽ My foot". But as title of my blog homepage says, it's just my opinion and you know what I like, yeap "sticking..."

Irony...a nation that is and once it was.

Yesterday, I received a very interesting forward, which pointed to an irony in India’s performance in recently concluded Beijing Olympics. It was in big red fonts as if it really wanted to ram home the message. It read as follows…

It's so ironical. India is a peace loving country but the medals we have won in Olympics are only in Wrestling, Boxing and Firing

This got me thinking…yeah, so very true. Why is this? Why? Why? Why?

And then, a thought came to me and hit me like a thunderbolt, which questioned the very basic premise that this so-called irony is based on. Is India really a peace loving country, which it once used to be? As much as my heart would like to believe, my mind doesn't allow me. Let’s see…

When we talk about India we are basically talking about we Indians, the general population. So if the people are peace loving, the nation is peace loving, agreed? If you not agree then there is no point in reading further.

Now based on above presumption, let's see if we Indians are peace loving? Some of the points we hear in favor of this debate are…

1. We never attacked any other nation in our history. We only defended our freedom or land.
2. We got our freedom through non-violence through Gandhis and Nehrus of the times.
   

And my counter argument is as follows…

1. We never attacked becoz we had, have, will always have, enough issues internally to kill/murder each other. You call this a peace loving nation?
2. We were peace loving people for a short time in our history but not anymore and even that was just becoz of one person - Gandhi. But now, almost half of the nation either despises his way of thinking or doesn’t know him at all. And to support point 1 above, he was murdered too.
   

And I cannot think of anything that would make me believe that India is a peaceful country, except it’s non-violent independence movement. And even that because of one man. Big thanks to him but, hey, who cares about him anymore, he is dead. Let’s strip him off from his achievements in public…seriously it can’t be just one man who takes all the accolades…can it? What if he paved a different path to our freedom and united a deeply divided nation? What if he was forced to take some wrongful (in hindsight) political decision? He is just too good/peaceful for this violent nation…let’s just shoot him. Do you want to talk to him before? Nah…shoot him and काम ख़तम्

C'mon honestly tell me where we a single nation anytime in last 1000 yrs or before that? Apart from may be those 90yrs (1857 to 1947) which sounds like a blip in long history of this nation.

Before British came in, we were happily fighting against and killing each other for either power, money etc. Do you call these individual states peaceful? Was there a one single nation ever before British?

After independence, have we been a peaceful nation? I can talk mainly about era I grew up in, which I know better than say 50's to 70's.

In a nation where solutions for most of the major conflicts are either swords, laaties, throwing stones, bombs, do you call a peaceful nation? Give me one example where we as a nation resolved conflict by sitting across the table to start with? It always has to be lot of bloodshed before common sense prevails. Either we ignore the conflict completely, or let it go out of hand before we start talking.

Take an example of some of the crisises of our times, like Karnataka-TN fighting violently for every drop of water, or Naxilites in Hyderabad and western states of the nation, or hindu-get-out-of-kashmir crisis. Or think back to Punjab crisis or Hindu Muslim crisis in Gujarat or non-maratis-get-out-of-Maharashtra crisis. And less we talk about UP and Bihar being peaceful states better it would be. Now, which states have I forgotten to mention? I am sure if I dig deep I can find recent violent history in each of them. And even if we find one or two state that is peace-loving (may be MP?) does that make the whole nation peace-loving? Shouldn’t we be ashamed of how low we have gone compared to those non-violent movement times?

On an ending note; the true irony of this post is even though author of this post comes out as a big fan of Gandhi or non-violence, his blog-site is named “stickin…” ☺

Deaf copassengers

Recently, during one of the interesting email conversation within my close group, we started exchanging our thoughts about how annoying a simple bus travel to/from work, can become sometimes. Specifically, when your deaf co-passengers have their music player on, blasting some crap which you are forced to hear/endure. Sometimes you are sitting next to them or in a row not too far from them. And most annoying is when the whole bus, literally, can listen to their choice of music. I am so frustrated with these deaf people that I know one day I will just snap!!

And that's when I started thinking...instead of loosing my cool and creating a scene, how about if I make the whole scene so funny that it embarrasses them and at the same time might make them realize what they are doing. So, following are some of the scenarios what I came up with....may be one day I gather some courage to implement them during one of those rides :-)

Prelude to Dialog 1 & 2:
[Me poking the deaf co-passengers sitting next to me and waiting for him/her to remove that bud from his/her ear which is closer to myside]
Him/Her: What? [bit annoyed]

Dialog 1
ME: Good music, but I can't hear that lyrics properly, can you
pls increase the volume a bit more?

Dialog 2
ME: Beautiful song man! could you pls replay it for me? Please Please Please

Prelude to Dialog 3:
[Turning towards my partner-in-crime friend, BABS, who's sitting in the last row of the bus]

Dialog 3
ME: Hey Babs, c'mon here...you should hear this..it's soo
cool. What? You can here from there too?
[And e'body on the bus Laugh Out Loud]

So, what would you do? And when I asked this same Q to Babs, a very talented friend of mine, following are couple of scenarios he came up with. They are so hilarious you would literally cry laughing if you imagine yourself in mes shoes.

Scenario 1: [male co-passenger listening to jarring music]
me: [Taping his shoulder]
Friggen Dumbo: [nods his head] wat
me: [in subtle voice] They say if u masturbate a lot u can hear well.
FD: What???
entire bus rolling on the floor.........

Scenario 2: [Female co-passenger listening to mind numbing music]
me: [tapping on her shoulders]
Friggen Dumbie: What?
me: Like the music Do you come Free as well?
FD: mind your language mate.
me: cool, u mind ur music then...
[irritated FD cranks the music louder and ignores me]
me: [tapping her shoulder again]
FD: Now what?
me: This number started at stop No.2 and its Stop 23 now...can u please change the music...
FD: F-Off will yaa, its my friggen pod and I wud listen to any number. any number of time i wish too..
[Few chuckles in the bus]
me: [after 5 minutes another tap]
FD: [pauses the music and yells] Driver this man is harassing me....
me: OK i have proposition, I pay u $1, you can use that to download anything from iTunes, pls show me ur playlist lemme play with it n choose nice one (No double meaning implied here)
FD: I'm not a friggen mobile Juke Box for u....u want one get ur own pod.....
me: Wow not bad i thot ur brain wud be as numb n blunt as ur ear drums, but u picked my subtle hint that I'm implying u r juke box for half the bus here, and an admant one that doesn't listen too....
FD: OK assole I give in.....
whole bus applauds n some whistles...

I hope/wish you are not one of those deaf passengers and if you are, I would think you got the moral of the story. And instead, if you a victim then you exactly know what to do in your next ride.

I know, I know, I didn't (or did I!) end this post with "I am stick..."

Weird, Witty and ...

I work in a IT department of a well respected local company which is situated on a top floor. After finishing my daily grind, I caught a lift all alone and was hoping that I will get a non-stop-to-ground-floor ride. Every time it happens I think it's my lucky day and I should buy a lotto ticket. The things I think and do to make mundane tasks interesting. Now you know why I call myself 'weird'. Wait, read on and you will know why I call myself 'witty' too.

Continuing...but, as most of the time happens, the lift stopped on the 4th floor. After couple of secs of opening of the doors, a pretty lady hoped on and screamed looking at me. Ok, not SCREEEEAM scream but was she was shocked and said, "Wow!" as if she had seen a ghost. She had assumed that the lift would be empty and didn't expect me in there standing in the corner and hence the shock. She explained this in a quick few words. Doors closed and lift started it's journey downwards.

Realising how embarrassed she must be feeling that she might have offended me and to lighten the mood in the lift, and me being me, I was quick to react and said, "...and I thought I shaved this morning" which instantly made her smile. Determined not to stop their, I added, "But you know, that's exactly how my wife reacts in the morning when she sees me on 4th to 5th day after I have shaved". Now she laughed a very hearty laugh. My job was done. The lift door opened to ground floor, we parted our ways with huge grin on both of our faces and well-meant "See Ya Tomorrow" on our lips. 'All's Well That Ends Well' they say and how true it was today. Nothing like ending the day with a smile and if you can make others smile along then it's a lotto win.

So, what would you have done in similar situation?

If you don't think I am weird and witty, I will make you change your opinion. But until that happens, you stick to yours and I am 'sticking....'.

Guess the movie!!

Yesterday, one of my friends sent an email asking to see if anybody is interested in watching a movie with him in the theatres. I could sense the excitement in his email as he is a big fan of the actress in the movie.

So now your task is to guess what movie and which actress he was talking about? Just read below a snippet from my reply to his email and see if you get it.

[Melody: For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow….]

For He's Jolly Good Fellow
For Want'n 2 C Jolie In Yellow
He's Got A Wife Who's So Mellowwww...
...and so say all of us.

If you had a laugh, that’s great. If you didn’t, then I still think it was funny and as you might have realised by now, I like “sticking to my guns”.