Life As I Know It

Disclaimer: This post contains content that might not be suitable for people below the age of 18. Read at your own discretion. It is true that the Beatles sang, “All we need is love”, BUT in India the theme for what makes the world spin can be summed in one line, “All we need is a penis”. Here is why I think that – From the time you are born, the first thing people check is to see if you have an appendage between your legs. If you don’t, you easily qualify for the game – “Quest for a Penis”. Hereon onwards you have to go looking for one. The people around you will further emphasize the superiority of the Penis by telling you that EVERYTHING you do on this planet will be irrelevant unless you succeed in your quest for the Penis. BUT there is a catch, you can’t just get any Penis, you have to adhere to the laws of religion, caste, sub caste (if any) ooooh and dare you not forget-Gotra. If the penis you find doesn’t pass the above test, that Penis is useless. BUT if you find...

“You are Will Traynor. Not in a wheelchair but in bumble bee tights.” This message from a friend was followed by a lot of laughter smileys. I am too ashamed to mention the number of smileys that followed. When I asked my friend what the message meant, he asked me to read Me before you by Jojo Moyes. This guy listened to the audio book along with his wife while they commuted to work. My friend told me the only person he could think of was me. (Yay!) I got the book. Read it. I was offended by afore mentioned message. WT is a very rude man restricted by a wheelchair and is obnoxious, a bully, judges people, laughs at their ignorance, is rude, likes people who are rude and imposes his likes and way of life on others and primarily enjoys telling people how to live their life. In his life before the wheelchair he was living an extreme life. As applicable as all of that is to me, I want to mention in my defense that sometimes offence is the best defense. Growing up I had absolutely n...

November, 1996 stands out in my memory because that was my first encounter with the concept of death. My parents told my brother and me that our uncle had passed on and that we’d be going to Bombay to visit our aunt for a while. I knew what death meant. I had squished the life out of way too many insects to be completely oblivious to the idea of death. Yet, I believed death for humans was way different than death of insects and animals. I hadn’t seen other ants mourn for the ant I had killed. The ants just carried on with their task, when an occasional ant would stop and nudge the dead ant and it would just continue with the task at hand. When dogs got run over, the other dogs never stood around the dead dog and paid their respects. When we went to stay with our aunt after the funeral, I would always see her crying. I had never known her to cry. When we returned home, my brother came in to our room and sat across me and asked me, “Have you ever thought of what will happen to us if...

Remember how Nirvana came to be and why Kurt Cobain gave up his life? He wanted to give the world something different and he did and then what he believed to be an individual pursuit became so mainstream he just gave up on his life. A band that was just 3 albums old came to its demise because the world enjoyed what it heard and wanted more of the same because it was never heard of before. Fact is everybody likes to be different. One individual steps out of the regular mould and people encourage his courage to go offbeat. Another person who sees said person’s success vies for the same and does the same. Basically a trend starts and people follow the trend. Hence the trend as of today is to step out of the regular grunge of being a lawyer, doctor or an engineer. Youngsters today are instead going for options that are available to them at the left of center. Which are musicians, actors, writers, comedians, painters, bakers, sportsperson (Badminton/swimming/billiards) etc… A...

“ This is the funny thing about growing up. For years and years, everybody's desperately afraid to be different, you know, in any way. And then, suddenly, almost overnight, everybody wants to be different, and that is where we win. ” - Mitchell Pritchett  ( Modern Family Season 1 Episode 18) I like escaping people. I have been told time and again that I am blunt. I don’t know any other way of being. I can’t smile and be all pink and cotton candy-ish. I have re–lived most my school horrors on this blog. This should give everyone a fair idea as to why I am not keen on staying in touch with my classmates. Thanks to Whatsapp though, one person who had my phone number added me in our Xth Standard Group. Thanks to said person every person I was avoiding has my phone-number. You’d think over a decade later people would at least “Grow Out” of their cliques. Nah! That is expecting too much. I am okay with the cliques. I think I got so used to it that their existence just didn’t m...

The saddest thing in life is that a cynic is always right. You can wish with all your heart and hope otherwise. BUT if a cynic has said it, it is bound to be true. Cynics I suppose have this ingrained nature of being fatalists who believe the worst in people and as they watch the very same people take their beastly form they are not saddened or shocked or scared about the beast unfolding before them instead they are merely watching it knowing fully well what is going to happen next. Cynics are rarely taken by surprise especially when it comes to predicting how a person would react to a certain situation and how a person would perceive a particular situation. People say cynics are people who like to believe the worst in people because they are protecting themselves from being hurt by what others might do to them. Actually on the contrary cynics are not protecting themselves they are just accepting people for what they are. I can accept the beast in me can you accept that th...