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.

..and you are a sucker

Dear Nirmal Baba,

Waddup? Saw Sherlyn Chopra’s pictures yet? C’mon stop blushing, you jerk. With all due respect, I am your fan and you, a sucker. I can stop here, but I wont.

I know how gratifying the business of fooling people, can be. Trust me, when I say that. It’s like a power bestowed upon you by the morons, showering you with loads of money and allowing you to fuck with them. Can life be any better? You have failed all the comic videos, movies, sitcoms that I’ve ever come across in my life. You sir, are a joke personified. Very early in my life, I’d realised, if you can’t fix them, fool them. This is a right thing to do with a society where people kill living beings in the name of a stone, that they call god, where people fuck their present in an attempt to make their future, which may not come, where every Tom, Dick and Harry has an opinion about their neighbour’s daughter, where kids are judged on the basis of their marks and adults, their salary, a society, that prays the goddess in the temple and fucks a woman on the streets, where people do not eat flesh on Tuesdays and reason it on flimsy grounds, where people watch movies like Rab ne bana di Jodi and call it amazing, where, people work their asses off to buy something that they don’t need. They’re already screwed, screw them more. I love the depth in your blank look, sire. I mean, your straight face comedy and resisting the haha-you-sucker-now-payme-and-get-the-fuck-outta-here, cannot be stated in words. You’re a marvel. Please ask your next victim bhakt, to wear hot pink and dance on the streets, it’d be legendary. I wish I could borrow just one drop of awesomeness from you and take the torch of fooling the humanity for generations to come, ahead. Look at you, you can make people buy things like, Eat pasta because your house is made up of bricks or drink jaljeera because unicorns can fly. I mean, beat that shit!  You bring humour to my mundane life so much so that thank you, sounds and means so small. I hope I grow up to become like you. Give me strength to be a bad example for all the generations to come and fuck the already fucked masses. I hope I never let you down in this noble cause and no soul remains untouched by irrationality, stupidity, ignorance and disgust. Amen!

And bro, you’re such a jerk.

Sincerely,

Baba_bakwaas

Where am I safe?

I am a woman who has lived in Delhi for over two decades now. The lessons that my folks taught me as a kid and during all those growing years are a result of the fact that I’ve grown up in a city where over a dozen women get raped and molested every single day. Eve-teasing, verbal molestation and getting stared at, at every nook and corner of the city is a daily affair. I don’t know, when I step out, whether I would come back home, safe. I have grown up living in a fear, that one day, half a dozen men will pull me into their Omni, rape me and render me worthless to my family and to my country. We live in a country where a woman getting raped means, she loses her purity and chastity and that her body is a temple and all that crap. These pseudo ethics were imbibed in me too, by our very own bollywood, news channels and every other media that influences a kid’s mind. I’ve grown up only to realise, this is all bullshit. But I’m still not safe here and I don’t know who, should I write this to. I walk on the road and if a car inches towards me, I change my path. I do not help random men on the road. If I’m alone in an elevator and a man comes in, I walk out. I avoid wearing skirts and shorts in public to avoid getting stared at. And no, I’m not paranoid. Ask a girl and she’ll know what I’m talking about. I am not at peace in my own homeland, my own country. Where should I go? I have been taught to ignore the jerks and their cheesy comments on the roads because apparently if I dare to fight back, I might ‘hurt’ the fucker’s ego and end up getting raped. To say the least, I don’t know what we are growing into. The country’s future is in the bars, drinking their lives away, surrounded by the smoke of the fancy hookas and a girl wrapped around their arms who, more often than not, gets pregnant at the age of 14. Everybody else is too busy blaming everything that’s wrong about their lives on everybody else. You tell women to leave their offices early so that they don’t get victimised? You tell them what to wear and what not so that they don’t ‘tempt’ the men to rape them.  Do you listen to yourself? Is that how you deal with a problem? I don’t trust, any of you to run my country. The windows of our future shut upon our lives like catacombs. I don’t trust the pseudo wisdom of the society that outrages about every superficial hoopla and the weeds that are corroding our roots and eating away our country are effortlessly ignored. I recall, some years back, while crossing a road, a Delhi Police van, full of police officers, passed by and I very clearly remember, one of them passed an obscene comment with a vicious smile, while the other whistled at me. Those were the men who maintain the law and order in the city. That day is imprinted in my memory, for I was left flabbergasted. Not because yet another man misbehaved with me on the road, that’s a routine affair. Because ,the policemen did it. A little something in me, died that day for nothing hurts more than losing hope and trust. Who would I go to, when something bad happens to me? Who should I trust? From bad mouthed auto drivers to horny fuckers in the metro dying to rape your personal space in a disgusting attempt to inappropriately touch you, to attain what? Nirvana? And beat the fuck out of the woman’s life. I’m no where safe. Not in the school, college, home, office, metro, road, bus, you name it. I will continue to express my dissent to the laws that objectify me and tell me what to wear and when to move out. I live here with a disgust and a fear that one fine day my story will feature in the daily newspaper and yet again, the page will be flipped and yet again, dismissed.

Pyaare Deshwasiyon,

Pyaare Deshwasiyon,

What are you all wasting your time on, today?  Are you still talking about Satyamev Jayate and pretending to care or have you switched to your regular stock of porn, lately? Your maid showed up today? No? Sad. Did you update your facebook status today and counted the number of ‘likes’? Did you like your own status and commented, ‘thanks for the ‘like’, Sakshi’ .I’m sure you have.  How did you come across as cool, among your peers?  Dinner pictures at Maurya? Very cool. Did you tune in to Nirmal baba’s samagams? No? Your life’s a waste. We live in a country where Karishma Kapoor goes on national television and claims that the only way pregnancy changed her life is, skin pigmentation and dullness. Now I totally understand the teenagers who are so fucked in head that they download an episode of Splitsvilla if they happen to miss it. If you ask me, there should be a qualifying test for parenting, if you pass that, you’re allowed to have kids. There’s no other event as life changing as delivering a baby, you get to nurture the goddamn kid, build his character, teach him right and wrong, make him aware of good and evil. Tell him to shut the fuck up and study to serve his country. But, no, the only way your life changes, reflects in your stretch marks, fucking pigmentation and change in your already fucked statistics. Either you are mentally dead or blind or both. I mean, look at us. We are so screwed. We take such things for granted and take shit like Facebook seriously. When will we grow up and atleast accept our flaws? How will we ever evolve as a society, nature too, it seems, has given up on us. Anyway , moving on.  The more critical issue that needs immediate attention is, I cannot decide what is more pathetic, Bol Bacchan’s trailors or Priyanka Chopra’s Garnier commercial.  Also, I have realised and accepted the fact that it is easier to fool people than to put some sense into them. And the only way to make it big in this country is getting into a business of fooling people. Nirmal baba. Ramdev. Asharam Bapu. And likes.  I may also, predict the end of the universe in some random year, say, 17 Oct 4009 and scare the shit outta people living in that era. Just like the Mayans did. It’d be so cool. Anyway, don’t forget to tell your neighbour’s daughter that she shouldn’t wear those shorts. Afterall, you were born to interfere in others’ businesses. Just like goddess Parvati, she was born to marry Lord Shiv. I mean, beat that shit. She was just born to marry. These stories mock themselves. But who cares? Let’s go back and login to our virtual alternative and let others know what we had for breakfast. Cool?

Yours,

You-know-who

Everything I learnt during engineering

I know this sounds stupid, I could very well, write a single word to explain it all, ‘nothing’. But then, my four years at college, helped me figure out things about life and people. And yes, I’m still, technically challenged. (A note to relatives and neighbours: I don’t know shit about fixing televisions. Thank you)

• It’s Vast-You can’t know everything, stop trying. The curriculum makes you more stupid, mechanical and cynical.  You can’t do justice to a summarised course structure taught (did I say taught? My bad) in mere 6 months and master it. Stop whining about it, it’s time.
• Aukaat- So let’s face it, we’re not really engineers. What we were taught (I’m sorry, again) or expected to study was infinity compressed in four years.  You’ll always get, what you deserve. (Aukaat se zyada kabhi kisiko kuch mila hai? ) So next time when you cry about not getting a job in a core company, step back and try pursuing a masters’ degree.
• Bakwaas- So engineering makes you ramble technical shit. Remember the vivas? All you’ve gotto do is, make a grammatically incorrect sentence, and start throwing random technical words at the examiner at the rate of  25 words/minute. That, my friends, will take you far.
• Avoid Manipulation- Yes, you read it right. It’s time we stand by our own decisions, good or bad. Our faults. Our weaknesses. Life’s short, keep it simple. Respect your decisions and learn to face the consequences. Even if that screws you up today, five years down the line, you’d be proud of yourself. Honesty makes your life simpler. Trust me.
• Stop pleasing people-As a rule, people are idiots. No, not you. People. At the end of the day, even if you’re sugar coated, someone will hate you. Like I do. So why so much effort?  Accept the fact, that you can’t be liked by everyone. Stop caring. Do what you love. Forget what the people want or think or are talking about. You like dancing in the rain? Do that. You like those pink shoes, get them. People have an opinion about anything and everything under the sun, stop bothering yourself listening to them.
• Stop Ranting- Even if 100 things are wrong with the system, I bet atleast 50 are wrong at your end. For instance, I wrote a thousand satirical letters to my teachers indicating how they were ruining our lives and how they sucked at teaching etc but I never went back home to study/google things on my own. Did you?
• Acknowledge- So India is a country where getting human rights is a privilege , where 37% of the population lies below the poverty line and as per the international benchmarks, 40% Indians are extremely poor. We’ve been given, probably, the best education, food, healthcare facilities. We have a lot of opportunities, a lot to look forward to, on the other hand, thousands are still on the road sans any shelter, food or potable water. We’re blessed. Have we ever acknowledged that?  
• Respect- I know college is all about, how cool you come across among your peers, juniors, lecturers etcetera. But always remember to draw the line. Always follow the mutual respect concept. Give and take. No, insulting your teacher isn’t cool. Also, respect yourself. If you don’t, nobody will.
• Appreciate the diversity- So, there’s a variety of people in this world. And trust me, you don’t have a clue about what they think, what they do, how they perceive things, how logically/illogically sound they are. You don’t know a shit about them. You can’t. All you can do is, control your actions and stop wasting your time figuring out what others’ are upto. Life’s too short to fix someone else’s shit. Don’t clutter you mind with unnecessary shit. Again, keep it simple.  
• Extract Happiness- Happiness isn’t conditional, you don’t need a reason to be happy. It’s a state of mind. Stop seeking reasons. Always, extract positivity from people and move on to the next. Learn from people. Everybody has something to offer. Talk to them about it. Don’t talk to them about their troubles, ask them about their dreams and aspirations, ask them about their passions.  
• Stop writing/talking. Start doing- So, I’m a live example of writing things and doing nothing.  Like what I’m doing right now. But, the good thing is I’ve figured it out. Have you? And someone told me, life’s too short to be bored. Don’t you think so?

Yes that’s everything I learnt during these four years. I don’t remember anything I learnt as a part of our curriculum, though. All I remember, is a series of random technical words. For now, I think that should be enough.  Or maybe not. What did you learn?