They say, when we’re certain we’re going to die, our life flashes before our eyes.

I wonder what goes through the mind of a suicide bomber just before they drop the bombs…..

Or for that matter, of any suicide victim.

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Cuts on arms, slashed wrists, I’ve seen that before. What I haven’t ever seen is someone so happy the day after they did it.

Inspired By a list Chikki did on facebook.

It’s human tendency, i think, to be pessimist. Human tendency to be so caught up in what we’re doing that we forget the actual aim of life.

Maybe the world is ceasing to have time for the little things that used to make us unconditionally happy…..

like the sound of a cat purring…

like the satisfaction after a really good work out…

like a bear hug from your best friend…

like a sunrise…

the joy of taking a perfect photo….

like blowing bubbles…

Maybe it’s the pretty colours, iridiscent rainbows, colours that no paintbox can replicate, changing every second. Maybe it’s the way they fly away, light, beautiful and free, the way we all want to be….

The perfection.

The fact that a thousand physics lessons can be taken from a perfect bubble.

And that my dear, is the aim of life, finding joy. And growing. We’ve forgotten that.

Dear Readers

This post may be taken as a sort of continuation to varun’s post titled “The Aarushi TRP joke!“.

The media as we know it today, seems to have a chronic disease of drawing its own conclusions before the authorities themselves. As varun rightly pointed out with reference to the Aarushi-Hemraj double murder, for the media it is no longer about bringing out the truth but about selling their story to the public. If it really was about bringing out the truth for the media, why is it that out of the countless murders that take place in our country of a billion the media chooses to glorify few odd ones which they think will get them the best ratings on television?

I shudder to think of the trauma the innocent father, Dr Rajesh Talwar, probably had to face when he was initially indicted by the UP police. And after he was declared innocent and released by the CBI, the media still did not leave him in peace. Scenes of scores of media persons crowding around Dr Talwar and his family after his release were splashed across every newspaper in the country and telecast across every news channel. Even a revenge-seeking ghost is not capable of haunting a person the way the Indian media does. Not just outside the Dasna jail where Dr Talwar had been held captive, the media went to the extent of frenzying around Dr Talwar’s home to seek him for questioning after his release.

This isnt the first time that our country has witnessed the disgusting acts of a media desperate to earn better ratings. It was almost two decades ago when our then Prime Minister the late Mr Rajiv Gandhi was the scapegoat that the media choose to perform its halal on. Mr Gandhi was accused of receiving kickbacks from Bofors AB for winning a bid to supply India’s 155 mm field howitzer. Later in 2004, he was declared innocent by the Delhi High Court. Unfortunately Mr Gandhi did not live long enough to see the day justice was granted to him. As usual the Indian media glorified the Bofors scandal and portrayed an innocent and honourable man as the villain behind a nefarious scheme he was never a part of.

Countless Indian celebrities have been part of embarrassing MMS scandals, all thanks to the media. Are clips of Kareena Kapoor sharing a kiss with Shahid Kapur or nude clips of Preity Zinta and Sania Mirza so necessary for the country to see that the media has been granted a license to invade their privacy or anyone’s privacy for that matter? That is what the media people seem to think.

Not just clips of well known personalities in their private moments, the media (and this is not just restricted to the Indian media) have not spared dying men even. When ex Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was put to the gallows, his final moments were captured on a cell phone camera, and as usual media all over the world aired this clip, uploaded it for everyone to see and printed screenshots of it in newspapers and tabloids. And the consequences? Civil and sectarian violence in many parts of the world. Kids as young as 10 years old committed accidental suicide trying to imitate the actions in the clip.

It may be argued that it is because of media that we are constantly updated with news and information from happenings across the world. What sort of information? Lies that serve personal agendas? Or useless half truths about celebrities? And how often is it that good incidents get more air time/space than all the negative things the media seems to be obsessed with showing? Skepticism seems to be the order of the day for the media. Ex US president Lyndon Johnson once rightly quoted, “If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: ‘President Can’t Swim.’”

As varun rightly said in the above mentioned post, “If this is freedom of expression, we don’t need it! Please don’t give this in the hands of people who don’t know how to use it.”

Freedom should be balanced with responsibility. I think a 5 year old can exhibit more responsibility than today’s media. Because in the spider web of facts presented by the media, many a truth is strangled. And this strangulation of truth, if not checked, will one day lead to the asphyxiation of civilization itself.

Yours Ludicrously

This is a poem i wrote…………………4 english class………………………….loosely based on an episode of southpark…………………………….

There lived a pair of head-lice,

Who grew vegetables,lentils,wheat and rice.

They lived in a forest,of human hair,

They lived so long;men just dont care….

One fine day,they had a fight,

It went on and on;the entire night.

Sleepless,yet tireless;they quarrelled on,

Without a pause;dusk to dawn…

Reason and debate;turned to violence,

A piercing wail;turned to silence……

A marriage broken;a life taken,

All due to the fight;god-forsaken……

He started to cry;shed many a tear,

Just about then,man found clinic all-clear…..

Great thunder,then poisonous foam,

Dissolved two lice,and their little home…..

Here at the end,I have but one doubt,

What was their little fight,all about?????????

Hey folks! Have you heard about what happened to that poor kid? No dude, it was rajkumar who raped her and then killed her… “Like what the hell, they were drunk?!”

Aarushi Talwar

These maybe the reactions from your friends and relatives when you jobless TV addicts were sitting in front of the screens thinking you knew the Aarushi murder case better than the CBI and were the next recruitment of Scotland Yard because your version of the story was the most convincing.

What is disappointing, is not the fact that you, a common man, were making your assumptions. But what is frustrating is the very fact that you became a part of it. Continue Reading ->

Dear Readers

A poem I’d written sometime in 7th grade (thats about 3 years ago), dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

One day, my arm resting on my window sill,
I was gazing at the opposite hill.
My window splattered with rain,
Every drop leaving behind a stain.
With clouds rolling,
And rain falling,
The weather stormed,
As a thunderstorm formed.
I looked up at the sky,
Minutes passed by.
The clouds, dark as ever,
Looked like they’d be there forever.
Extremely hard, the wind was blowing,
Its fury, nature was showing.
The wind blew and it blew,
When it would stop, no one knew.
Seeming to go insane,
The wind soon turned into a hurricane.
It destroyed everything in its way,
Signs of it stopping, were kept at bay.
To God, people begged and prayed,
But everything they tried, failed.
Trees were uprooted,
Houses were evacuated.
People fled their homes,
And sought shelter at the Superdome.
Nature, feeling ruthless,
Rendered thousands homeless.
Nature did not seem pleased,
As the wind of destruction had not ceased.
It did not seem to have had its fill,
But everything else came to a standstill.
There was no food to eat or water to drink,
Even though the place looked like a blocked sink.
On the streets people were left dying,
Everyone was in sorrow and crying.
For these Katrina victims, I sincerely pray,
And hope that once again in their lives, they can have something like a good day.

Yours Ludicrously

It’s almost clichéd the pictures we see everyday on news channels and newspapers. Pictures of bomb sites,pictures of dying men in  hospitals…pictures of failed efforts by the law enforcement agencies in finding those responsible for these terrible acts of  cowardice. We are accustomed to seeing people dying.It happens everywhere…New York,London,Tel-Aviv,Madrid,Mumbai..Every major city in the world has been bombed by terrorists.We seem to think that we are immune to these attacks…we seem to think that there’s some protective blanket around us that will keep us safe.I dont think so…every person is threatened.We need to wake up and fight about this global threat,leaving this in the hands of politicians is not a wise decision.

The pictures I saw on  a news channel of the recent bomb blasts in  Bangalore and Ahmedabad terrified me.Law enforcement agencies in India are incompetent and corrupt to the lowest level.Terrorists escape scott free,plan another attack and the whole blame game starts again.

It saddens me that such lackadaisical,incompetent and corrupt people have been entrusted with the job of securing the country and making it a safe place for the citizens to live in.A radical and quick change is needed.The people responsible for these cowardly acts need to be treated with nary a mercy.An eye for an eye will get the criminals blind….

Dear Readers

satirizing and stereotyping communists is one of my greatest passions….. i dedicate this post to china, which happens to be one of the few remaining communist states in the world today, and would like to focus on their economy…. communism is supposed to be an ideology that seeks to establish a classless, stateless social organization based on common ownership of the means of production….. in other words, the labour class r supposed to be the most valued persons of society….

i see absolutely no reason why there should be no difference between an uneducated labourer and an entrepreneur whose got brains to make more money than most people…. i mean come on, give the guy some credit for his brains man…. he’s got the brains, so let him make his money….. u communists are depriving him of his right to make money!

one of the most annoying habits i think of communist regimes is that of manifesting under the form of a single, self-perpetuating party. where’s the equal, classless, stateless society that communists rant about all the time? i mean if communists believe in equality, why the hell is there single party rule? see, i told u communists are nitwits. they end up contradicting their own
ideology! ruddy paradoxical cretins..

china is among the few communist states of the world… the traditional chinese economy happened to be socialist styled… thankfully, the chinese seemed to have locally produced some brains (ofcourse, they are the largest population, maybe they dont have 2 many people with brains, but surely there will be a few among those approximately 1,321,802,000 people)…. now the reason i say they seem to have acquired brains is cause they decided to have some economic reforms… ya, they realized it, later than most people though, that a socialist economy sucks….

the socialist economy is one which promises employment to all able and willing to work and job-security with virtually lifelong tenure. thankfully, the few chinese ppl with brains, who happened to be the reformers realized what a stupid idea a socialist economy is. the labour market was absolutely unproductive because industries were frequently overstaffed to fulfill socialist goals and job-security reduced workers’ incentive to work. this socialist policy was called (rather pejoratively) the iron rice bowl…. ya, this kind of a socialist styled economy would work if prostitution were the backbone of the economy, since u can still earn even if u dont have much job skill (which in the case of prostitution happens to be sexuality and some knowledge of the kama sutra)…. also, their aint many prospects of promotions, wage increments, performance commissions and the likes … that would suit a testosterone-fuelled industry like prostitution just fine…. also, if the entire chinese population were to become prostitutes, the national budget makers could cancel funding for education and save loads of cash that way (but then they would be accused of following capitalism)… so if china were to continue with a socialist economy, the only way they would actually benefit from their socialist styled economy would be if china were to become the largest brothel on earth! the prostitution industry surely wud thrive in china if they ever tried turning the enitre country into one big brothel….

but they didnt make prostitution the base of their economy…. they rather chose 2 abandon the traditional socialist economy and reformed it… the few chinese people with brains realized the disadvantages…. these disadvantages include:
1. as i mentioned above, they would cut on education funding and would eventually end up being accused of following capitalism even if the left over cash was used for other purposes for the country… communists are known to be hardline… so im sure the consequence of following capitalism in a communist nation like china would be pretty harsh…
2. china does not produce enough condoms… so if the entire country were made a brothel, this would add to their already miserable population woes… and the following number of HIV positive patients would create another major problem…
3. chinese economy relies heavily on exports of its local products…. thats cause of the cheap chinese labour (perhaps the only advantage a socialist economy offers, i mean nearly everything is “MADE IN CHINA”)…. now if china were to make prostitution the backbone of its economy, there really isnt much scope for export….
4. the americans would probably declare war on china if prostitution were to be made the base of chinese economy…. as it is, the americans are pissed with countries like india and china since major corporations started outsourcing their various operations to countries like india and china… due to this, outsourcing has resulted in dire consequences for the american workforce which has pissed the americans off terribly… now if china were to be made the prostitution hub of the world… definitely some smartass american entrepreneur would start outsourcing prostitution… and the rest of the american entrepreneurs who are always looking for ways to make profits (specially after the decline of the value of the dollar) will follow suit…. the americans would definitely declare war on China if this were to happen (atleast until bush’s tenure is over)!

now im not surprised the americans are seriously pissed with them chinese. rumour has it that in a few years this will be a likely scenario: a kid reads “MADE IN USA” or “PRODUCT OF USA” on some product, and he goes like “USA?? never heard of that. must be a village in China.”

so to conclude, the chinese have made some reforms to their economy, which makes it lesser like the traditional socialist economy. but its created a problem for the rest of the world, since “MADE IN CHINA” can be seen everywhere! “MADE IN CHINA” are the cheapest products around. that creates a problem since nobody’s buying goods produced in other countries… outsourcing is another major problem created by china… the decision of the International Olympic Committee to hold the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China happened to be another kind of outsourcing… just that the world didnt realize it! hopefully, the chinese should face some uncontrollable inflation, and their export market should collapse (maybe for the greater good, or just for the heck of it)

Yours Ludicrously

Most creative professions have their little challenges, the dark horses, the Everests……the little hates…like Ami on Miami ink hates having to do fairies, I think advertisers must detest doing ads for sanitary pads.
Periods are a pain, period….okay, full-stop. You’d think it’s easy to get used to, seeing that it’s inevitable and happens every month….but it’s not. Fact remains that we hate it and everything about it. Hate PMS, Detest the cramps, and loathe the ickiness…
Therefore, when we’re in a state where violence seems rational, we really don’t want to see the happy-happy pad ads, all SO untrue.
Most ads seem to say, use our product and you’ll be comfy doing anything, playing soccer to climbing gates to running through sprinklers.
Not true. comfort lies not in the brand used, It lies in yourself….
So..”Have a happy period”…??
Not possible. Not even probable. Tolerable, maybe. Happy, no. Not unless your product can stop cramps and PMS and everything else we hate about this monthly show of blood. So keep dreaming.
I wonder if the girls in the ads have their period when the ad’s being filmed……