The PM's Independence day speech

Wake up fuckers. I know half of you will wake up only to realise the fucking parade happens on the 26 January. Every little soul who can’t even spell his goddamn name correctly accuses me of being reticent. You want me to talk? Hear me talk, now. Already, I cannot follow this fucking, too-good-to-be-true speech that my writers have fed me. I couldn’t care any less. As it is I’m addressing a nation that is totally and wholly fucked up. I've invested my entire life to go beyond the mediocrity, that you meaningless slimy shit-heads rot in, everyday and die a nameless death one day. What do you know about running a nation anyway? You guys rant all day on twitter because you had three meetings to attend in a day and crack lame jokes about everything on earth and keep retweeting that shit amongst yourselves and pretend having a life, you have epitomized shamelessness, you go on national television to take part in Ratan ka Rishta, you take part in Mtv Roadies and claim that your dream is to ‘become a roadie one day’, on that note, go make Vada Pao on your fake MBA degree and dance naked on national Television because that bald good-for-nothing Raghu Ram has told you so and display the epic case of paralysed self-respect of our country’s youth. You scribble your names on the goddamned walls of our national heritage sites ‘Bittu loves Pinky’ go get a room and cut my troubles already. I have to govern a nation where people are so horny, so much so that they can’t fucking control themselves and rape hundreds of women everyday, buy porn, download it for free online or just die. I’m tired of pretending, dudes. Kids keep committing suicide for the academic ‘pressure’ they face, what do you want me to do? Life isn’t a halua, teach your kids to take pressure, I can’t let people like Mayawati and Laloo run the nation, anymore.  You have sucked every ooze of happiness from my life and despite, being the laid back spineless losers, you guys cannot shut the fuck up. Our nation is so screwed that only an atomic bomb can fix it, I cannot begin to tell you how eagerly I’m waiting for December 23, 2012. Die you all, in hell.  Go ask your child what Independence day is and hear him say, when Ek Tha Tiger, the movie releases. Award him a tight slap, for the obvious. You talk about your nation and your pride and patriotism and outrage about the stupidest things on the face of this earth. Get a job already, contribute your bit for the betterment of the nation. Do that and then talk to me. You don’t even deserve to have a perspective and I need no validation from lesser minds like you, seriously. You have spent your life listening to your wife crib about the maid and how your parents do not leave her alone and how you have been such a dick-head and you have the spine to call me a loser. Wah! While I was still struggling with the damned 2G scam, CWG scam, coal scam, this scam that scam, these Anna and Ramdev are determined to kill me. They don’t just give up, I have seen those fuckers eat a Monaco biscuit in isolation but who listens to me? I even offered them my favourite porn but as they say, aapaat kaal, vipreet buddhi. So be it. And this Aamir Khan keeps sending me letters to do something about female foeticide, honour killings, food, water, and every other shit that has been corroding our roots since Pooja Bhatt lost her sanity. I can’t knock everybody’s doors and put some sense into their brains, I’m only human.  I’d give everybody who’s below the poverty line, a phone. And no, I don’t care how you’d get it recharged or how you’ll fetch the food or get a decent shelter or potable water and stuff. Beg or sell that thing off, I don’t care. Take it and shut up.FYI, my silence means I don’t give a shit. I know now why Soniaji declined the highest office of the country with an imperious wave of her hand. Damn! For the records, I went to the Oxford and excelled academically throughout and now, the economist in me is dying a slow painful death. You know, given my age, how difficult it is to run back and forth between governing the nation and asking Soniaji, what to do next. Sigh. Advaniji, remember you once called me a weak leader? And now you said, UPA2 is illegitimate, I was so heartbroken when the parliament forced you to take your words back, so sorry. This is the reason I talk so less, in this old age. You should shut up too. You angered Soniaji too and now I’ve employed Rakhi Sawant for her anger management classes. Coming back, you guys have a problem with my voice too, at least I don’t sound like Rani Mukherjee, my great grandfather’s broken radio sounded like her. Anyway, what do I do about the price rise? In the global economic recession, what do I do? What do I do? You don’t even have a fully developed brain to understand the concepts of economics, go and update your facebook statuses that you want to change the world and bring in reforms and logoff only to watch your porn. I know you won’t even bother listening to me, when half of the country will wake up with a hangover and clueless about why they’re home and not at office, I’d be here addressing the meaningless bigotic shitheads who kill and get killed in the name of religion and always have somebody else to put the blame on. Go tune in to watch Bhagat Singh, the movie and listen to Lata Mangeshkar and soulful rendition of A.R. Rahman’s Vande Matram and change your DPs to distorted tricolours and feel patriotic at homes while I, try making a little difference to the sea of shit and continue to rot in hell. Next time when you’re in trouble, don’t bother me. I’m done taking your shit. Spare me.

And yeah, Happy Independence day, losers. You didn’t earn it, you don’t know it.

Jai Hind!

Let the sun shine

‘You can’t do it, you’ll waste your time’ I was told when I was in tenth grade and decided to take up sciences. I didn’t score much and more often than not, I was below the average. If you have grown up in India, you’d know how scores decide your fate. It was a matter of life and death for parents, teachers, relatives and every other soul who wanted to spice up his/her life by poking his nose, but whatever. I started to try hard to fit in, that’s when the trouble begins. You don’t need to try hard. If you’re studying for scores, to get a fancy degree, or to earn lots of money, or for your parents’ pride, you’re doing it wrong. I always studied with a sense of shame at the back of my mind that I’m bringing shame to family, I was made to believe that. I studied without understanding the meaning of words, I read it all in a jiffy with a sole intention of scoring good this time, at least this time. At the same time, I had to prove my worth to the ones who mocked me and told me to opt out. But then, I tried too hard.

Around the same time, my brother gifted me a copy of ‘Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman’ to say the least, it changed the way I looked at things. I had always known, I loved sciences.Probably more than anything else, more than anybody else. The fact that we are so small and insignificant in the face of universe and yet have unravelled the deepest secrets of nature always left be flabbergasted, of course I knew, one day they can all be proven wrong. You can only be sure that you cannot be sure. There are so many uncertainties and no absolute truth. I visited the mountains and the seas and somewhere amidst the colossal mountains and the silent seas, I could sense the thrust, I could feel the momentum, I could stand there all day in awe and could feel my heart skip a beat. Nature epitomised beauty and everything I saw could be reasoned, it was incredible to learn how mountains are formed and staggering to watch the sea roar, the tremendous amount of energy it holds and how it could destroy the sight of human species from the earth in a matter of few seconds. I realised we cannot ever know everything about pretty much anything. We can only know we are wrong. In our million years of existence we have discovered so much and yet, nothing at all. It’s like an onion, with million layers, you have to peel it off layer by layer, with patience, with passion, with diligence and yet with a constant uncertainty, and one day after all the travail you might learn that it has all been false. The fact that universe remains a mystery to us has always kept me glued to sciences. I knew, I couldn’t go back, I knew I won’t regret it. Ever.

I pursued engineering, because everybody else was doing it, I wasn’t forced by anybody. It looked like an only available choice with a fancy degree. Yes, only choice, is an oxymoron. There are always choices, you just don’t consider them. I graduated and became a bad engineer, a very bad engineer. I didn’t know there’s core science and applied science, engineering was all about applications. Applying what we’ve learnt so far. I just don’t give a fuck about technology, I don’t care what is being developed or how it’d ease out things for users, I just don’t care. So, after many years of studying I landed up being a bad engineer and about to work in the IT sector. For the records, I’m an electronics engineer, but whatever. Either ways, I’m clueless.

So back then, I didn’t know what an engineer was, I’m sure nobody did. I still highly doubt, I know it now, but let’s not go there. People had their own reasons, and they all were alien to me. In the past 3 years, kids and their parents ask me about the colleges and the ranks and the cut throat competition et al but nobody has ever asked me what is an engineer, why should they go for it? What are they looking for? Nobody. We live in a country where people believe that education is a formality, not a necessity. I teach/have taught kids as small as 8 years old and their parents just do not leave them alone. You do not study to get into a college, you study to become someone, to do what you love doing, to find what you’ll die for, to find your passion, you do not study to get a degree, you do not study to earn money, you study to find yourself, to do what’ll bring out the best in you, you do not study something because the society wants it, or the parents want it, it’s a path to finding yourself. In the growing years of a kid when parents should encourage the curiosity, encourage kids to question things, doubt the facts and learn things, when parents should help them find what they’re best at, they just suck the life out of the poor soul and cut-off any possibility of the kid’s desire to learn and make them escapists. If you’re clear why you want to study something, let nobody stop you but donot take up a course for wrong reasons. I know it’s a tough world out there and you need a fancy degree but folks, that does not guarantee a high paying job, and in all probabilities, not happiness. If you’re doing it and don’t love it, you are conforming yourself to torture. Let this be a free world, decide what you want to do, have faith in yourself, let people say whatever they want to. Let this be your life, stand by your choices and shut the people up by making it big. At the end of the day, it’s not about money, it’s about understanding your worth as an individual. You don’t want a life that progresses from ignorance to death, confined in a cocoon of myths and norms, break free!

Prisoner in a free world

I have never known what freedom is, I have tasted sour grapes, love, betrayals, wounds, tears, hatred, passion, lust, abuse, trauma, anguish. I have known it all, except freedom. I’ve grown up studying about India’s struggle for freedom, which sometimes got me in tears, of pride, of patriotism, of selflessness and sometimes, it just didn’t make any sense at all. I’ve never known what freedom is, probably because I’ve taken birth in a free nation. As I grew up, I realised, you can be a free man in a prison or a prisoner in a free world. It is a matter of perception. I have grown up with bitter memories of the past that are etched to my mind, body and soul. I have had people all these years telling me the obvious, to move on, I have. It does not bother me anymore, I do not cry about it anymore, but it’s there, embedded. I cannot free myself from the shadows of the past, I cannot free my soul. Freedom is about letting go, of futile feelings, of unwanted relationships, of wasted emotions, of people who do not deserve to be around you. Freedom is about realising self-worth even in the most difficult circumstances, it is about gathering yourself bit by bit to fight the odds, of whatever magnitude. It is about belief, about hope. Freedom is all that and more. It is about gathering the courage to break the norms and do what the heart says without fearing the consequences, about taking risks and knowing it was all worth it, it is about gathering strength to go upstream, to go against the winds and finding your true self in the journey. I’m caged by the society but I cannot blame anybody because I have to open the doors, to fly in the blue skies and see the world that I’ve always dreamt of. I’m bottled up in so much anger for a reason I fail to comprehend.Growing up in a society that is as hypocritical as ours, has taken a toll on me. I do not want anybody to tell me what to do because the norms suggest that. Our morality rests on the fear of god, on religion. We help people, expecting a reward from the god for good karma and don’t hurt others because of the fear of punishment. The norms, the definitions, customs, traditions, tolerance, intolerance, ego, do not make sense to me. Suffocates me, so much so that I’m on the verge of dismissing the world and it’s ways. I want to unchain myself, to penetrate deeper and cleanse my soul. I want to untangle myself from these invisible demons that suck the life out of me. I am at a point where I do not care what people have to say and do not give a fuck about being judged. My words, more often than not, are misinterpreted, I never clarify, I don’t care to, I have invested so much time and energy into futile arguments and discussions about things I couldn’t care less about, that I’ve quit explaining things, I never will, even if that gives me a label of a disrespectful daughter, of a sister who is setting a bad example for a younger sibling, of a rebel, of an iconoclast. I have wasted two decades of my life understanding the ways of the world, thinking I’m an obtuse learner, only to realise these ways are stupid and irrational. I’m on my journey to attain freedom and release the caged bird. Conforming to the norms is conforming myself to torture, but no more. I’ve set forth on the path to find myself, and thereafter discover my dreams and chase them. You cannot find yourself unless you detach yourself with these emotions within and free yourself by opening the doors, no one else will release you. And yes, as Red says in Shawshank Redemption, freedom is like crawling through shit and coming out clean on the other side.