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Dystopian destiny

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Civilization or C-Evil-ization?



What is common between the movies in the above collage? Take a guess. May be the title will give a clue! Not the movie title, I’m talking about the title of blog.

Before I tell you what I meant, lets look at some more movies. Have you seen “You’ve got mail?”, a nice romantic movie, very popular no doubt, you wouldn’t bat an eye lid on the plot. Its very genuine. But it wasn’t when the movie was made. Movies main plot is something that you would call Online dating today. It was completely unheard of in 1998.

So, this movie predicted something that we see today. It predicted future. Now let me rush through a list of movies that spoke of concepts that were total fiction when they were made.
Jim carrey’s The cable guy talks about Online gaming and Smart TVs. Air plane part II shows full body scanners in air ports, Minority report shows personalized advertising, Total recall shows TV’s on public transport & self driving cars/ Back to the future features flat screen TVs, Video conferencing and wearable technology. War games introduced us to cyber war fare. Blade runner said digital bill boards are possible. The true man show is about reality television (the writers can sue the Kardashian’s for copy wright infringement). The running man is about a reality show where contestants had to do dangerous tasks. 2001 A space oddessy gave us the first glimpse of virtual assistants. Smart phones, Virtual reality, Robots, Digital snooping, Identity theft, Smart homes, Face transplants, Nuclear meltdowns were all part of movies even before we had a name for such a thing.

You might write it off saying its all about technology and technological advances were bound to happen. You can also strike me down that there is a whole bunch of stuff that did not become a reality. But that’s exactly what a prediction means. It may happen. It’s not a guess. A prediction is an educated guess. Sort of the one you make at half time of a game. 

Now getting back to the photo collage at the top.At the heart of every plot is the message, Human species is on path to self-destruct. They are not the dystopian dreams of a writer, they are the the result of a prediction that some people made looking at where the human race is heading. The central theme of every movie is problems that arise out of over population of Humans.


Also, there has been an increasing trend where the villain is a guy meaning good. He takes the decision that the only way to save earth is by eliminating significant amount of human beings. So, he is actually trying to be the hero for future generations but we brand him as a bad guy just because we don’t like his modus operandi.

Look at V for vendetta, its based on a book, it is about futuristic Britain. A politician uses fear mongering and comes into power, then systematically establishes an authoritarian regime. Then there is a revolution to over throw him. I think we are seeing the first phases of this movie plot already in action. 

Before humans walked the earth, the only way there could be destruction was through Nature. Humans call them natural disasters. But there is an important thing to note here. They are not disasters to nature. They are occurrences in nature that prove disastrous to Humans. Well, Flora and Fauna also perish. But what ever happened in Nature was for the greater good. You might call it suffering short time loss for a long term gain. Even when a global scale extinction events like the an asteroid struck to wipe out the dinosaurs or an ice age or magnetic reversal of poles occurred, Earth and Nature have always found a way to restore balance and make Earth a hospitable place. But this took a lot of time. I mean a lots & lots of time. 



But since Humans have become so called ‘Civilized’, the magnitude of destruction we have caused is unreal. Its even more unsettling that majority was done in the last 100 years. Earth is been in a non-molten state since at least 3.8 billion years. At least that is oldest rock ever found till date. Fossil records state that life has been on earth for at least 3.5 billion years. Humans have existed for about 200,000 years. The first vaccine was invented in 1796 and now we are in 2018. Humans couldn’t disturb the harmony of the eco system for 199778 years that is until we found a way to cheat Nature’s fix for everything. Nature always balances the scale by allowing only the strongest to survive, even the population strongest of the species was controlled using disease. Once humans found a way to bypass this, the population exploded. 



Now, in any eco-system if the population of a particular species explodes, then the species in the lower level get decimated, then this over populated species starves to death. This way in some time, the natural order is restored. No Humans are different, we don’t just feed on what is available, we grow our own food. Including the live stock used for meat consumption. We not only just eat when required, we store for future needs. This means the rate at which we consume natural resources is faster than at the rate they are replenished. For eg: it takes more millions of years for nature to create crude oil, we now process in days and consume it in minutes. If you look at the relative time taken to produce and consume hydrocarbons, the model we follow is not at all sustainable. So is the carbon foot print we add to earth.

Just at some of the statistics below on deforestation and CO2 emissions 



All this data points to only one result. There are more movie predictions that are about to come true. We may not be alive to see it, but I’m sure someone in future will look at movies like 2012 & Day after tomorrow and think. Man, they said that this would happen decades ago. Wish someone cared.




Les Misérables

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The Perennially Pained

Les Misérables is one of the greatest work of literature in 19th century. I’m not going to argure, review or critique Victor Hugo here. Nor will I attempt to comment on the performance of Russel Crowe, High Jackman and Anne Hathaway in the Tom Hooper’s adaptation of this master piece. Though its worth mentioning that I was stunned by the theater skills of the actors once cast as a Gladiator, a Wolverine and a princess. Man they can act. Well lets keep it aside for another day.

What I wanted to convey with the title is my observation of majority of the human population in 21st century. Internet was invented in late 20th century. It made the world a small place, it brought people together. But another thing that was the by product of Internet has started pulling people apart. Internet brought information/misinformation to peoples finger tips. Social media then took both this information and misinformation to every tom dick and harry. 

The result of this is very evident. Not every one can separate music from noise. Not everyone can think and process information objectively. Not every one can accept that it is alright if some people have an alternate view on things. This results is anger and frustration. Which inevitably results in misery. 

Seeing someone post a picture of themselves on a nice holiday or with a brand new sports car will result you in liking, up-voting, commenting or further sharing the post. It depends on which social media platform you prefer, your relationship with that someone and most importantly your mood at that point of time.

Now, Can seeing someone doing things that you cannot do (what ever the reason for it may be) make you jealous? Can it make you regret your past decisions? Can it make you feel that life has dealt you a bad hand? Can it make you feel that your life is inferior? Well it can, you may not realize it, but it can mess up a lot of things in your head – sub consciously. 

You may not agree with it, that is OK. It is a very personal thing on how you feel about others success. So, lets make it less personal.

Suppose you are an animal lover and you see a post in your feed depicting animal cruelty. Would that piss you off? Would that make you feel like screaming on top of your lungs? 

Well, now reacting to anything and everything that you see or hear is just self inflicting misery. This is the primary reason that you see so much hatred and anger everywhere. That’s the only reason that has driven me to make my blog unavailable in search results. I don’t want to be the target of some random persons illogical hate.

This anger and hatred has always been there but it was localized. You would whine and complain about stuff to your barber, friends or family. Once you have vented out your frustration, you are done and you go back to your life. Most people also did not publicly express such feelings as they were afraid of repercussions. But Internet has now provided a perfect platform of anonymity and that combined with continuous flow of information from the websites (that are design to show the content related to or similar to the content you have preferred to read/watch) gives your mind no time to get distract itself from anything you dislike. This will result in adding fuel to fire.

It is human nature to look at information that you do not like with equal interest as the content that you like. Using this nature, lot of people are making money out of your misery.

Why a person does something or says something is a very complex thing to deduce. We are not Sigmund Freud s, so it would be next to impossible to psycho analyse someone and then react.  I can list out a 5 point formula on how to stay happy but that would be of zero help to anyone.

Instead it would be rather helpful to understand the reason for the hatred first. If you are exposed to some information or content that you disagree with or do not like, first try to understand why it happened. If you research for 5 minutes you will understand that the situation is a result of mistakes by numerous people over a very long period of time. There is very little you can do about it and no matter what you feel about it, there are a lot of things in the world that cannot be undone.


When ever I’m exposed to things that I do not like, I just ask myself a question – “Would it help?”. This is a line I heard in the movie Bridge of spies and I was amazed how useful it is to everyone. This question if answered honestly will 99.99% of the times result in the same answer – “NO”. So, you are getting all riled up for no reason apparently. There are a lot of things wrong with the world and there is hardly anything you can do about it. Accept it and focus an things that really matter. Be happy.

Wrong packaging

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Expected vs Actual


Ever seen a wrongly packaged item? At least one of the toy in the below image is wrongly packaged. Right? What if the package was opaque? You wouldn’t know the mistake until you go home an unpack. What if you ordered online?

My wife once ordered a shampoo online, they sent conditioner. I requested an exchange citing wrong product. There was a guy to collect the old item and 2 days later, got a new package. Again a conditioner. Now I was really pissed, I called customer care and gave them an ear full (we all know that the customer care executive doesn’t give a rats ass about our problem and is just going to read out pre-scripted responses, but venting out anger is very satisfying). After a lot of apologies and another exchange request. I finally for a new package the next day… Voila… another Conditioner. I was laughing because I didn’t know what else to do. My wife said let it be and I accepted the delivery. It then turned from funny to hysterical. Next day, i even got an email asking me to review the product.  

Now here I was not happy because we sort of had a contract when I made the purchase.I agreed to buy a specific item. Actual item was different from the expected item.
  1. Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
  2. Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka
  3. Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal
These are the official names of North Korea, Sri Lanka and Nepal respectively. Now, the official names carry a lot of prefixes. I know you wouldn’t mind calling Sri Lanka a democratic country or Nepal a federal republic. But I know its ironic to call a dictatorship in North Korea a democracy. This is wrong packaging. Right? I mean the name on the package is different from the product that is inside. 

Now, let me get to my country. India. India is just referred to as India. But it’s a also called Republic of India. So that’s setting low expectations than the above countries. But there is a catch here. 
Here is the preamble of Indian Constitution:

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

In the preamble of the constitution, India is called  
a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC.
Yes, that’s all the words from your civics book. I mean literally all the words that can be put in front of a country name and that sets the bar very high. I can kind of understand the folks who wrote these words. They wanted India to be the good boy of the class. But these are not just words, these are the principles on which they wanted India to run. 

So have been able to uphold these principles we set for ourselves?

I’m not going to list the dictionary definitions of each of these words. I’m just going to use layman’s language to do a fact check.

Theoretically India became a Sovereign on 15th August 1947. The British left for good and that meant that we were our own bosses. But have the governments acted with authority of their own? Every government for the fear of loosing votes and also due to greed gets influenced by not just internal forces but also to multi national conglomerates. So, that’s principle flushed down the drain.

Now, do all the citizens get an equal share of resources in India. No, so we are not socialist.
Then is India secular? India has been melting pot of world religions. In a true secular country Government doesn’t interfere with religion and Religion doesn’t interfere with governance. Now we all know that it’s not the case in India.

In a democracy, government gets elected by the people and all people have equal say in the election. But if you look at it in simple words, this also directly means that if a 100 people vote and at least 51 people want a thing, the rest of the 49 should suck it up and shut the fuck up till the next election. Looking at the number of protests, PIL’s, law suits and agitations – It is any thing but a democracy in India. 

So what are we left with now? Yes, Is India a republic? For this I do have to go back to a Wikipedia definition. Its easier that way.
A republic (Latin: res publica) is a form of government in which the country is considered a “public matter”, not the private concern or property of the rulers. The primary positions of power within a republic are not inherited. It is a form of government under which the head of state is not a monarch.

Now, In India rulers behave like the country is their private property. Most positions of power are definitely inherited. Politics in India are a family business and finally, though our head of state is not a monarch. There has been more than one Monarch like figure who was directly head of the state or worse, held no position of power but made all the decisions. So, I’m going to flush that down the drain too.

Just like my wife gave up on the shampoo and adjusted with the conditioner. Indians have turned a blind eye to what we aspired to be and what we turned out to be.

Well, its good that we do not call our selves SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC of India or SSSDRI.  It sounds silly,awkward, ironic and would be lying through our teeth. Lets continue calling our country just India. But for the sake of sanity, lets amend the preamble to the below text.

 WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN* SOCIALIST* SECULAR* DEMOCRATIC* REPUBLIC* and to secure to all its citizens
 JUSTICE*, social, economic and political;
 LIBERTY* of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
 EQUALITY* of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all
 FRATERNITY* assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;
 IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this  26th day of November, 1949, do HEREBY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

*SUBJECT TO CHANGES

Frogs in the well

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Have you seen the 2014 Sci-Fi film Maze runner or read the Maze runner series James Dashner? If you have’t i’ll walk you through. If you have watched it, please skip to the next paragraph. This movie starts with an unconscious boy, his memory erased, deposited in a community of boys living in a place called Glade. The glade is surrounded by very high walls. Outside the walls is the Maze, a labyrinth of high concrete walls covered in ivy that changes every day. The Maze houses strange, lethal creatures known as Grievers. Grievers are described as amorphous monsters of metal and flesh. The Gladers are trying to stay alive as well as “solve” the Maze by running through it as fast as they can while tracking movements of the walls and trying to find an exit to escape.They only do the running in the day and return to the glade by sun set.

I consider this film as a Scorn/Homage the human civilization (please decide which one after you are done reading this entire thing). The small group of boys represents almost all types of persons that have ever walked the earth. Well don’t look for holes in my plot yet. Its only 2 sentences til now. I know the claim that a group of people can represent every human ever is a tall statement. Let me try to justify my claim.

In the Glade, there are 2 types of people.
1) The ones that abide by the rules set by previous inhabitants.
2) The protagonist who challenges the rules and tries to explore beyond.

The the 1st category again has certain sub categories. One set of people are very happy with the status quo they are happy with the things as they are.They fear anything new. Then there are others who not only follow rules but go super crazy if one doesn’t.
Finally there are some, who after looking at protagonist, think he makes sense, shift sides and start following him out of the Glade.

This is how humans started out. Early men/women lived in groups, defined rules for based on their experiences. They feared any thing new and anything they did not understand. Then someone like the hero of Maze runner comes around and started exploring. So they started moving beyond the metaphorical ‘Glade’ that was their immediate surroundings. Then lots and lots of years later, we reached the level that we had a map of most of the earth. But still we thought we were the centre of Universe and Sun went around the earth (Such arrogance and self-centric). We thought that the earth was flat. Then lots of years later, we reached moon, can now see beyond our galaxy. So, when we started out as cave men. The comparative sample size of our known to unknown might be same as our current known to unknown. The ratio might even be larger, but lets for the sake of argument say its about the same.

Hunting & Gathering : Hubble telescope = Hubble telescope : All that there is to know.


That way we are still Frog’s in a well. Well, not frogs exactly, Frog wouldn’t be presumptuous for one thing. Because we are human’s in a well, we have come up with a lot of stuff and thus my point finally arrives. The thing I have a feud with – Faith.

Almost all religions are human-centric. For all the years human mind had to evolve to its current state, this is very Naive. Most religions even depict god very human like. As per May 2016, earth is home to an estimated One Trillion species. Of one trillion species on earth, God is like human and has set rules for humans, doesn’t care for the other 999,999,999,999 species?

he heaven, hell, rebirth, ledger of good vs bad, what is good, what is bad, what to eat, where to eat, when to eat,what to say, what not to say, what to wear, what to do, when to do, when to fuck, how many to fuck. I say What the Fuck?
It really makes no sense to me. Like Maze runner, some people chose to remain where they are and came up with a couple of theories. Each theory was ‘a theory of everything’. They are against people who want to explore and see definitive proof before they buy into a theory. I mean why the fuck would so many people be so gullible?

It still amazes me that the guys making up stuff without moving their asses have more subscribers than the other lot. I guess that’s why Big boss has better TRP’s than than Discovery channel. They believe they are house mates in a show run by their “Big boss”. He is always watching them, giving them a purpose, rating them, ranking them, eliminating them and if you have been a good boy, giving you a reentry wild card.

I believe though we are humans, we have been thinking and behaving like Frog’s in a well.Just like the story, many would like to hear from a Frog that has seen stuff that’s outside our well.

May be that’s why we have been fascinated by Aliens.

Crafty crooked corrupts

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With great power comes great opportunity 

Voltaire is credited to be the first one to quote “With great power comes great responsibility”. Many others like Churchill have used it in a slightly altered version. Even Uncle Ben (Peter Parker’s Uncle) used it. Unfortunately if you google the words, Spider-man takes the lime light over Voltaire. Voltaire was talking about politics, kings, rulers. Just like the google results, in real world, this philosophy has been in use only by fictional characters. 

You see this being used in another way by the self proclaimed 1st world countries. They use it as “Power falling into wrong hands”. This is what US said to the world when they destroyed Iraq in the name of chemical weapons falling into wrong hands. This is what US has been trying to do with Syria and Iran for several years now.

Side note: Talking of things falling into wrong hands. Its so ironic that in US even a high school kid, convicted felon or mentally unstable people can buy assault rifles. 

Coming back… Some interpret Voltaire as “The ones with power should protect the powerless”. This is a socialistic view. 

Another side note: the communist view of this would be either no one should have power or all should have equal power. You have to agree that this is  funny (if you are not both a hypocrite and a communist of-course) 

Now that I have mentioned Socialists and Communists, I should also mention capitalists. They wouldn’t agree with Monsieur Voltaire. They would say that it isn’t the fault of the powerful person that others are powerless.

Coming back to the topic, In my insignificant opinion what Voltaire meant to say is that – Those in power should use it responsibly. In other words, one should not misuse their position of privilege. This is again idealistic view. 

In real world this same quote is quite smartly adapted by bureaucrats. They made it “With great power comes great opportunity”. Irrespective of the Country, Colour and Creed, people in power have for decades, centuries and may be even beyond the documented history, powerful people have always found ingenious ways to abuse this power. If you extrapolate the same theory and add some general observation to it, you will find that every life form in the world, generally uses its position of privilege to complete advantage.

May this is what separates humans from super humans. For someone to be a super hero, one does’t need super human abilities. 
(On a side thought, why is that the powers of most super hero’s are related to general ability of animals? And more importantly why do we call them super humans and these super powers? Logically wouldn’t these super humans be less human, I mean part human, part animal?)
All that one needs to be a super hero is to be able to follow Voltaire’s quote and be responsible with their position. That restraint in my opinion is the biggest super power.

Selling superstitions

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Sacred scavengers of the society


First let me try to explain my choice of the words for the title. 
Sacred is something to do with religion, but in this context it actually refers to an indirect result of calling something sacred. That something cannot be criticised. 
Next, scavengers. A scavenger is a curiosity of natural evolution. Like carnivores, scavengers also survive on meat. Carnivores always target the weakest animal in the herd, this is because its easier to hunt and also the genes of the weak link are thus not passed to next generation. So its a win-win for both sides. Scavengers go one better, they don’t even bother to hunt, they just eat rotting leftovers of the carnivore kills or on animals that die naturally. They clean up the place, like the garbage trucks of nature. These are not he scavengers I’m referring to, the scavengers I see in the society, the ones one that do anything but clean up.

Now lets look at a human equivalents in the society. Let’s call all the humans that try to make a living with a means that don’t harm others – Herbivores. Now everyone that harms others or looks to harm others is a carnivore. Not exactly – humans also have a third kind, the scavengers. Unlike the scavengers of the animal kingdom that are looked down upon, the scavengers of the human kind are actually respected, revered and the half dead prey actually seeks these scavengers.

I’ve been seeing these scavengers since a very young age but their population kind of exploded in the last couple of hours. These also have a professional names to what they do.
Astrologers, Numerologists, Healers and what ever they call someone who sells coloured stones etc etc

These people just amaze me with the ideas they come up with to solve all problems in life. No job no problem. No health no problem. Deadly disease no problem. Just put some incense sticks in fire, light a few lamps and shell out a lot of bucks for blessings. Just add an extra vowel in your name. or go better repeat all vowels in you name. Put on a stone on your ring. Pay someone to pray for you. Change your god. WOW. yes, that had to be in all caps. really WOW. 

Now any one with a sound and healthy mind wouldn’t be their prey. About the rest, Carnivores do not attack them because they are already half dead. Carnivores don’t eat a dying animal, they only kill the ones they kill. So, the ones who are desperate, helpless, gullible or in other words half dead in their heads are targeted by the above mentioned people. Thus, these are my Scavengers and oh yes, these are sacred. Ever tried protecting  someone from being their prey? The prey will protect the predator here. That is the most amusing fact.

Now tell me how the fuck does adding a vowel to a name change someones life? There are thousands of languages is the world, many with their own alphabet. A single name can be written in so many different ways depending on the alphabet you use. This doesn’t end at changing it, you also have to write your name x number of times everyday, everyone in your household should call you with that name. What the hell will that improve? Handwriting? 
I in fact tried an online evaluation for a name.

The name and Date of birth I entered are for Lionel Andrés Messi Cuccittini.
I’m pretty sure if I make an online payment, they will tell Messi that changing name to
Leoneel aandreees Meeessiiii Cuccttne will help him win the World cup for Argentina.
All these vultures of the society hide behind the shield of religion, call their ‘professions’ sacred, a service to the society. But all they do it search for an animal about to die, slowly eat it while its still alive.

I don’t have the patience to describe the strategies employed by all other types of scavengers.
In reality in don’t have to, deep down you also know. Some don’t care, some are afraid of incurring the wrath of a god who is waiting to punish you for insulting some ‘Scavenger’.

Karma ain’t a Bitch

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What makes you you?


Karma is word that a lot of people throw around, not just in India, but world wide. But I believe 99.99% of the ones using it have no clue of what it means.

The above picture is more or less an accurate depiction of how Karma is perceived in the west. I might have mentioned it before but every time I use the word west to describe Europe and Americas, I get this thought again. Isn’t it funny that we define the start and end of a spherical object? Well we didn’t define it, some idiot did and rest of us accepted. That in a way makes us all idiots. Another funny thing is that Africa and South America are not categorised as west. So, West is a name given to Caucasians by Caucasians. In simple words White people. Coming back to Karma, The above image depicts what White people think Karma is. What goes around, comes around. This is too simplistic, In India, the definition is more complex. There is a endless cycle of birth and death, path to Moksha/emancipation and how Karma influences it. So, more or less the same What goes around comes around but spread across multiple life times. Again a random thought, food for thought everyone. Why do we think we humans are superior beings and come up with all these ideas? Why is all this stuff not applicable to other living organisms?

This is the thought that triggered me to implore another interpretation of the term. Karma basically says, good things happen to people who do good and bad things happen to people who do bad. But what is good and what is bad? Its again something we defined our selves. What was good say a hundred years ago is not good now. There are a lot of social practices that are perceived as superstitions, old school and BAD now. This entire discussion on Karma is centred around what is Good and what is Bad. In my opinion, there is no good and bad. There is only good for me and bad for me. People use concepts like Karma to try persuade me do something that’s bad for me and good for them. Sounds pretty selfish? May be, but its sounds very logical to me. A donation is not good for me, world runs on money and having more of it is good for me. So, they call it a good karma and ask for it. Again sounds selfish. I disagree. It applies to you also. You just don’t realise it. Got a job? Good for you, bad for all the other applicants. Had a good meal? Good for you, bad for a plant or an animal that ended up in your stomach. Oh yeah. Plants are also living things. We don’t know how they feel, so you can’t assume its happy to be your lunch.


Take the example of a social carnivore.No not humans, I’m talking about a Wolf. A Wolf is a carnivore by birth, so it has to Kill. But killing is a bad thing. Not if you kill for self preservation? What if its done for the preservation of your kin? Self protection? So in all these cases its OK to kill. Some times Animals fight over a mate. The most powerful one in the pack gets the prettiest mate, so they fight. sometimes end up gravely wounding or even killing an opponent. So is this bad? Does the animal in next life gets born as a lobster and ends up on a rich man’s plate? Its not fair isn’t it? 


So I see Karma in a different way. Hear my pitch and see if it makes more sense.
I believe Karma is what makes you you and not the way everyone else thinks.


From an organisms birth to death, there are a lot of things that influence it. The longer the life, the longer the learning curve. There are some major influences and there are some minor influences. Lets take the Human example here. (This explanation involves a human because I don’t remember my past life as some other organism)

For me Karma constitutes of multiple things, but the major things are
Parents and family: The first place we learn things is at home. We imitate our parents and other family members. We think what they do is the right thing to do. We decide what they say is BAD is BAD. This is our first distinction of Good from Bad.

Neighbours & friends:
The next big influence is the people who we spend more time around as kids. Friends and their parents who mostly are our neighbours. Here again we start to make associations of good and bad things. 

Daily experiences: As kids most of our time is sent at Home and School. At home the family and neighbours form our perception of good and bad, at school our Teachers define whats good and bad. Anything you are punished for is a bad thing, right? These are our first daily interactions and experiences. Here again there is a hierarchy. Parents supersede any thing that teachers say. This is because we trust our parents more than our teachers.

Next interactions as you grow older come in college, travels, work and all places you go, all people you meet. When ever you do something and something bad happens to you, you mark it as a bad thing and avoid doing that and vice-versa.

Now that I have established how you accumulate Karma, Lets see how it makes you you and how it effect others around you. If you get a chance to travel with me and I drive, You will see that I do two things for sure. Honk when I overtake someone and stop at an intersection even when there are about 5 seconds left for the red light to switch on. This is because, I once got hit by another car while overtaking as the driver changed lanes without looking into the mirror and also I got a traffic fine for passing through a red light. These two bad experiences, lead me to change my driving style. So, this changes when I reach my destination and also influences when everyone else behind be reach their destination. In turn it causes a ripple effect on what happens in lives of a LOT of people.

If a simple thing like a decision to stop or go at an orange light can influence so many things. Imagine what Karma can do. 

My point is that Karma is nothing but things that happen to you and around you. You get influenced by them, your brain gets conditioned to doing or not doing things based on what you perceive from things that happen around you. This is why you behave the way you do and this is what makes you you. Well that and the primal instincts we have. And that’s a discussion for another day!!






The correct prepositions

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The grammar of governments for governance


In the final school exam, English was everyone’s dread. This was because, we did not have a defined book from which the questions came. We had 4 sections, reading for 35 marks, writing for 35, literature for 15 and grammar for 15. Obviously 15 marks in grammar were the only section where one could score 100%, so my father decided that I need grammar classes. The instructor followed a simple technique that I never understood then. He used to get photo copies of ‘fill in the blank’ questions. Everyone in the class got some 10 mins to answer them and then we were asked to take turns to read out the answer for each question. One had to explain why he/she chose the answer if it was correct. If it was incorrect it would be next guys turn to tell the correct answer. If everyone failed he used to give an explanation. Also, he wouldn’t tell us if the answer was correct or not if we couldn’t explain it. 

I’m a condescending person by birth. This default urge to correct people gets me on the wrong side of people frequently and the grammar classes in school have only exaggerated my condescending nature. Whenever I hear or read something, I check if its grammatically correct. Of all the parts of grammar, I believe prepositions are very important. In certain occasions there are more than one preposition that can be used. Each one gives the sentence a different meaning. The best examples for these are our constitutions. Yes, the founding fathers of every country were pretty smart about how they framed the sentences in constitutions. Let’s look at Indian constitution,
Art. 19 of the constitution now provides six freedoms, namely :
  1. right to freedom of speech and expression,
  2. right to assemble peaceably and without arms,
  3. right to form associations or unions,
  4. right to move freely throughout the territory of India,
  5. right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India,
  6. right to practice any profession or to carry on any occupation trade or business.
Art 25 adds freedom of religion.

There are some restrictions too
Firstly, the state may impose restrictions on the exercise of the right to freedom of speech and expression on eight grounds. These are:
  1. defamation,
  2. contempt of court,
  3. decency or morality,
  4. security of the state,
  5. friendly relations with other states,
  6. incitement of offence and,
  7. sovereignty and
  8. integrity of India.
2 of the 7 freedoms are very interesting to me.
1) Freedom of speech and expression

It means that you have the freedom to express yourself. This is one of the biggest lie in our Constitution. Anything you say can be categorised into one of the restrictions and you can be held guilty. Now a days, going by the News. India’s soft power is trolling.See what happened to Maria Sharapova when she said, she doesn’t know who Sachin tendulkar is? I think if you really put your heart into it you can find fault with even a simple ‘Good morning’. Now Freedom of speech will never work until people are mature enough, and it ain’t gonna happen. So, what we should have is Freedom from speech. In other words a kind of shield or protection from idiots. Our governments cannot guarantee freedom from speech, so I guess for now you have to learn to do it yourself. See a simple preposition change effectively changes the meaning. The next fundamental right gets even more interesting with the same change of preposition.

2) Freedom of religion

Constitution of India assures its citizens that they can practise any religion as long as it doesn’t violate the above mentioned restrictions. But this is again a very clever phrasing of a fundamental right. A religion by its nature is defaming to other religions.It defines a morality that defies common sense. It effects friendly relations with other states. Effects the security of state. So, it more or less qualifies under every restriction mentioned above. What we actually need is freedom from religion. Religion should not allow people to dictate how others live their lives. But its exactly what it does. So, we need freedom from it, not just of it. 

Rest of them though might be grammatically more accurate are also a sham.

  1. right to assemble peaceably and without arms – Are we allowed to really assemble in peace? Only when your government wont mind it. 
  2. right to form associations or unions – Again only if the political persons in power think it does not endanger their ambitions in any way
  3. right to move freely throughout the territory of India, – Big joke again, J&K is off limits. So are various parts of India(conditionally). An Andhra guy is not welcome in Telangana and vice-versa. A non-Tamil is not welcome in Tamil Nadu. Well Bihari’s not welcome anywhere. Well there are some Marathis that fume at the site of certain language speaking Autowallahs. I can go on but you get the point. Right?
  4. right to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India – Explaining this would be just repetition of previous sentences. 
So. in practice the Constitution of a country is in place to control it’s citizens not to protect them. It is a rule book using which political parties in the mask of governance can enforce and indoctrinate their ideologies and agendas.

If you find any grammatical errors in the post, please let me know. You must have had a better teacher than me. 

Imagi-Nation

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Mine is better than yours!


An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. Well this is the dictionary definition of a ‘Belief’. 


Last month, I visited Kolkata. It was my first time there and I went with a couple of my friends/colleagues. 

We had just visited Rabindranath Tagore’s home and were on the way back to the hotel. Everything was fine till, one of the friend I was travelling with opened his twitter feed and read out a trolling tweet about the then National debate of ‘Standing during a national Anthem in Theatres’. I should have fake laughed and kept quiet. But me being me I did not, which resulted in a conversation (argument) in which he tried to explain why India was a great country and one ought to respect it, not standing during the rendition of Indian national anthem is ‘disrespecting’ the country. What he was walking was just an opinion, a feeling at best. There was no fact to support his conclusion. 

I like living India and I try my best to be a good citizen. That is it. I’m not patriotic. According to me patriotism is an outdated concept, not valid in the age of global citizenship. How can I be proud of or respect something just because of geographical coincidence? One can only be proud of a thing that they achieve. I’m an Indian because I was born in India and my parents were born here. Nothing to be proud of these facts. Patriotism on the other hand is just a bag of emotions and is a kind of an obsession, its the easy option one can take. Where as being a good citizen is much more difficult. I try to cause no or minimum inconvenience to my fellow human beings. I follow the rules of the land, pay taxes and do not commit any crime. This is my definition of a good citizen or more importantly good human being.
I like living in India because my brain and body have been conditioned to live here. The brain is conditioned to language and culture. The body is used to the climatic conditions. So, I find living here more convenient than anywhere else. For that matter, leaving my current city and moving to another place in India would itself be an extremely uncomfortable thing to do for me. Does that mean my country or my city is superior? Absolutely no. Imagining things is fine but asking others to do the same is unfair. I’m sure if I wrote this on any social media forum, I’d be trolled, insulted, threatened and any other verb that the ‘civilised’ human can think of.
Speaking of forcing opinion? If someone else does that he is a bully, if a organisation does it its radical, if a leader does it he is a dictator. But if you are being a dick, then…. well in this case you are patriotic. I may have crossed the line of decency here but the only ones who would have been offended by last few sentences or my ideas as whole. And the reason I was more aggressive in my wording was to show how it feels like to be insulted just for not agreeing on something. 
I believe this ‘Mine better than yours’ is a primal instinct, a way to lie to oneself that they are in a better position than others. 

Schizophrenia

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Then vs Now

Don’t try to relate the title and the heading, I’m not going to talk about the history of mental diseases. I’ll relate them later in the post…
The above image may look like something from the controversial animation movie inside out. But its also closely related to Schizophrenia. It’s a mental disorder that comes in many a form. One of the symptoms is that the patient hallucinates or in simple words..hears voices in his/her head. Its like… if the girl in the movie ‘Inside out’ starts hearing her emotions talk to each other. Why this preamble… ? Well.. before I narrate something, its only fair that I explain where I’m coming from…

I had a realisation / revelation this week. By revelation I don’t mean I also heard voices…. I mean that I pieced together something I never thought of before.. I had a colleague beside me.. and because I didn’t know how he would react..I put fwd this theory/realisation of mine as a quote by some stand up comedian… He liked the idea and agreed with me.. and then asked ‘Who said that?’… I minced my words a little and said I don’t remember.. 
It is a sensitive topic.. I mean now a days in India every thing is sensitive… So.. I’m not going to put fwd my idea like I did to him.. I’m going to give you an example and see if you can meet me half way through the idea…

I saw in a lot of movies.. English ones.. Kids have imaginary friends. Eg: The 2012 Billy Crystal comedy Parental Guidance. I like the movie a lot. Explains a lot about what’s wrong with the current generations parenting skills. Now.. back to the topic. In this movie, Billy’s grandson has a imaginary pet. A Kangaroo. His parents fearing that the kid will get mentally disturbed if they say anything, pretend that they see it too. The grand parents are initially shocked but play along because they fear backlash from their kids.. Now imagine an adult saying something like that..

What would be your initial reaction? Would you treat him like a nut case or would you believe him. I’m going to give you another movie example here.. Raman Raghav 2.0. Its a dark cynical thriller serial killer story. The killer in the movie.. speaks to Gods. Not just one god but all gods. He justifies killing people based on his interactions with god. He even calls himself.. God’s CCTV camera..
Man hearing God’s voice and killing people because god told him to.. Clearly a Phsycopath..
That Now. Not Then. Finally something related to the Heading of the post… Hold your horses.. I’m getting there.. The then I’m referring to is a couple of thousands of years ago.
Let’s say a man said to people.. he heard god’s instructions  for mankind and who ever doesn’t agree or obey these instructions are to be killed or stoned to death.. What did people do? They wrote them down.. when from place to place.. did as per instructions.. In fact they are doing it even now.. They call this religion.

Let me take a less violent example… Another guy.. in the same period(then) sat below a tree and told people that he realised that the current way of life is wrong… and redefined everything.. It became another religion. Its a prominent one too.

This even happens till this day.. Though the registration process for new religion is tedious and success rate is less,we still have Mormons and Scientologists.. In India several self proclaimed god men live life king size talking about the voices they hear..

This is what I wanted to say… If someone heard voices in their head… Now they are put in a psychiatric facility and back then…..

If you agree with me.. you are free to ponder over it.. But if you don’t then please think of me as a schizophrenic..