In the name of secularism...

Am really not sure on how many people who are reading this will share such strong feelings as mine. If you are one among them, you can comfortably certify yourselves brain-dead and stop reading further!
Secularism -– in the Indian context is to protect the interests of the minority, however eccentric they are, at the cost of the majority. Though we observe this, we remain oblivious, too busy with our mundane shit trying to make another penny by licking any filthy ass that lets us do so.
If you started thinking, this guy is nuts, give me a minute and I will prove how numb you are. I saw something today, something that shook me to the core. It was a huge hoarding of SaddamHusseinn, displayed in front of a popular mosque in a minority area of the city. There were a couple of others with me, who dismissed it to be something very unimportant not because they were busy trying to finalize nuclear policies, but because they had to catch a quick nap. I started thinking, where are we drifting? And more importantly, was I over reacting? I guess not.
Touch down In**, and what do I see a bunch of people busily preparing for the upcoming festival of another minority community. Why? They aren'’t sure why. Some, so called progressive thinkers may contest my stand in the name of secularism. Then, why not celebrate our festivals with the same zeal? Hypocrites! I guess it's time we try to be true to our religion, and then think about feigning secularism.

HOWZZAT! Or did we get a chance to say that...

People often accuse me of being very morose when there is no need to be so. Well, this time, they won’t. Though there is no room for humor since we lost the match, it is funny in a different way. As one of our able commentators (and ironically, the umpire too) put. “This match wasn’t won either by runs or wickets”. Well, I must tell him, brother, we are different.

Fundoo! Don’t know what they meant, this game of cricket was mutilated until there was no essence of the game left in it. Well, I cannot understand completely on why I signed in for it. I guess it was due to one of my able friends who decided to form a team, motivate and ultimately ditch us for attending his “moo bola” sister’s marriage. How can someone make a sister in college? Guess what he would have said to her – “Hi, Can you be my sister???” Anyways, he’s different ;).

It was chilly winter night (and I am going back to my usual morose narrating self), and we, after endlessly discussing strategies for the game (some even scripted songs to boost the team morale) decided to gear up for the match. I hopped into my Nikes and track pants; I guess I was using them for their true purpose for the first time. As we walked towards the stadium, I could hear some of my teammates narrating their victory tales, and some humming a famous song from Lagaan. Cricket, even if played with the dearest of friends for fun is taken too seriously in this part of the world, I thought. As we reached the well lit volley ball court transformed into a cricket pitch we found that it was already occupied. The referee quickly tried to sum up the absurd sounding rules. As we waited for him to finish, we exchanged silent albeit hostile glances with the opponent team. We won the toss and elected to bat and all our batsmen did a fantastic job taking the total net score to 67 in 7 Overs losing 0 wickets. Surprising! The rules were like that. So far so good, things were to change now.

Our bowlers (including myself) swore that they have done formal bowling for their respective college teams before. Some even went to an extent of revealing their past associations with some of the national players. Just when our captain thought that we are in safe hands, our motley crew started revealing their true colors. For a moment, I got confused on which team we were playing for. I promptly walked to the bowler to remind him of team diligence and the negative aftermaths of match fixing.

Things didn’t change. I guess the opposite team adopted some kind of voodoo technique to alter the thinking pattern of our bowlers. After conceding over a half century in extras we finally completed the match 14 minutes late.
We lost, with dignity!

Perdition, Our Destination...

Over a billion Indians, a problem or an opportunity...

A topic for which die-hard indian optimists say latter and so-called "pessimists", former. I feel it isn't even a topic!

Well the rationale behind such a feeling is not new. It is all pervasive but most of us choose to be comfortably oblivious. A close observation of small, mundane things like the condition of the travellers in the public transport or even the traffic on the main streets in the town should help the uninitiated understand what we've embarked upon. Any one with a miniscular amount of imagination can extrapolate the aftermaths of such a huge population explosion. It really scares me, imagining the conditions that we would need to endure 10 or even 5 years from now gives me nightmares, literally.

Why do we indians, who take pride in our mathematical and calucational capabilities not understand the simple effects of population. Is it because of our uncontrollable sexual urge, this isn't completely true. A recent survey conducted by a "good for no other thing" national daily suggests that we are among the last few countries in that context. So, where do all these babies come from??? Does every f*** in the country mean a baby. If that's so, probably, the goverment should revamp their condom campaign roping in live models to display the pleasures involved in love-making with out resulting in a baby.

I feel, that the core cause for this is a mad rat race. A race every indian community is indulging to increase their numbers. Muslims (Spare me for being blatant), i believe are told in their religious meetings, "Bacche Allah ke den hote hain, hum bas une darthi par lathe hain" - so go on friends, keep indulging. For an average indian, giving birth to a child is as important as it is for a stray dog. No one tries to waste their otherwise busy brains to think what will be the repurcussions of bringing a life to this planet. Can't blame a individual, it's in the system. Every male with the ability to reproduce aspires to be a father, if not for anything but to prove his manhood.

I guess it's time to ask our selves:
Are we are misusing freedom? Do we deserve the independence?
And Remember, we do not have much time, coz if this continues it won't be far when nature decides to get even.

Right next door to hell...

Sounds spooky? Let me take the honor (bestowed on me by myself) to present to you one of the most fascinating stories from College. It was narrated to me many a time by a number of my beloved friends (and also foes).
It was a dull Sunday afternoon, some time during our 1st semester exams and I, as usual was sitting in my room cursing the upcoming exam, the course content, the faculty and also to an extent myself, for not doing things on time. My room, being the most accessible one in the hostel was one of the most frequented and popular places in the hostel - could be called a proverbial Times Square, New york of the hostel, "if you stay long enough in room 64 in Cauvery, you would have met everyone in the hostel". Though this proved to be a real pain in the ass then, upon retrospection, I feel that such frequent visits by people from various backgrounds endowed me with ability to handle different kinds of people. Just then, one of my frequent visitors, Das - the quasi Tam Bengali (he wasn't sure about his own ethnicity) walked in with a so called "terrorizing" story.

At first I didn't give in, but as he narrated it to me I started believing in it. He sure was convincing. "Do you know this?" Das started. "Why do you think Room 41, the room next to mine, is not allotted to anyone?" I thought he was nuts. He went on "It's because it's haunted, a lady was raped and subsequently murdered in that room and it has been locked ever since" He swore that he got this story from a credible source. Though I did not believe in it at that moment, it was always there at the back of my mind whenever I visited his room, especially if I did so late in the nights.

It did not take much time before it became a well known phenomenon in the entire hostel, a favorite topic among late-nighters. And one of the last few people who came to know about it was Mohan, Das' hallowed roommate. Mohan was a typical panty waist, with little or no courage especially in matters of the supernatural realm.

Things returned to normal within days after the story broke out and it was soon forgotten by most of the hostilities, except a few who probably remember it even now. The exams seemed more intimidating than a horror story for others. It was during a cold winter night during the 2nd semester when everyone was reminded of the story, again.

Before, I narrate this incident, which I wasn't lucky enough to be a part of. I would want to introduce some of the main characters involved and ofcourse warn weakhearts to abstain from reading further!

Firstly, Dasarathy A.K.A. Das, a seemingly confused rock star and a self confessed balm addict (just like me).

Siddharth A.K.A. Baalu, well nothing's really weird about him except for his hair.

Kashyap A.K.A. Mota, my favorite, can't resist but laugh in his company.

And

Finally, Mohan, well, you will get to know him.

This gang with a few others (not very significant to be mentioned in the story) decided to hit a movie theatre on a Friday evening to watch a latest flick in Gandhi class. Bangalore has a weird theatres' system with exorbitant prices and atrocious conditions and we, students always preferred the cheapest fare (A.K.A. Gandhi Class). The movie was great, the dinner at RotiGhar scrumptious but all these things ate up a lot of time. It was half past midnight; the last bus to reach R.V. had already left Majestic. Since most of them were new to the city they did not have an idea of either the transport system or the city in general. One of the prudent members, who was familiar with the local transport system suggested the late night Mysore passenger. After a series of arguments and counter arguments the idea was accepted. The gang embarked the night passenger at the city station.

The train reached Kengeri Satellite town. Kengeri being one of the closest towns to RV, was a well known place which students visited on weekends for replenishing their supplies of noodles and tiger biscuits, and of course for haircuts.

It was 1 o clock and since there was no other mode of transportation available, they decided to walk the approx. 2.5 kms stretch between kengeri and RV. The stretch between RV and Kengeri had a well lit portion through the well inhabited colonies followed by a deserted patch with huge intimidating trees and finally a railway track. And typical to a small satellite town, people over there preferred to sleep early.

The roads were deserted but the thoughts going through the members weren't. The group was split into 3 subgroups depending on the eagerness of the memebers to reach the hostel. The first set of people including Mohan were eager to reach the hostel had mixed thoughts about their academics and the deserted surroundings. The second set, was busy trying to catch a nap as they trudged the way. And the final set, was busy laughing, talking and discussing out babes from college. Das, Baalu and Mota were among the third set.

As they passed through the deserted colonies and reached the open area the heartbeat of each of the member started rising. Only one thought dominated all their minds, "what's going on in the fast approaching graveyard?"

Soon they reached the place, mohan was the first to cross the place and as he approached it he increased his pace. Das, Mota and Baalu stopped their chat to concentrate on the speed. No one wanted to spend time there.

Suddenly, something hit Mohan on his head, he noticed that it was a rather unusual looking stone. He dismissed it to be an illusion and started walking again, a bit more briskly now.

The group reached the hostel and after saying cursory goodnight to each other they went to their respective rooms. Das, mohan reached their room and as they enetered the room mohan narrated the stone incident. Das was too sleepy to listen so dimissed it as an illusion.

Next morning, mohan saw something that shook him completely. He was try to set his cot and when he lifted the pillow found the same stone under it. He did not have an explanation, so did Das. But Das speculated that may be its the ghost next door that's trying to make a point. Reminding people of it's presence. The news about the incident soon reached everyone in the hostel. Mohan received incessant enquiries about so much so that by dusk, that day he was out of his wits. He decided to inform his pop who was 2500 kms away and take his advice.

I reached their room at about the same time to enquire about the story. I wasn't the first to do so, there were a number of his close friends in the room already. There was an unusual gaiety in the room, I couldn't quiet comprehend on what was goin on. One of the patient souls there spared sometime from the revelry to explain me.

Somethings may never have a rational explanation. As I sit alone at half past midnight to pen this story, my thoughts are still wandering around that haunted room. Perhaps with a sense of nostalgia!