With the Naxals gaining so much screen time on all news channels (India TV-awesome, just awesome!) these days, discussions have been ripe with the talk of how communism as an ideology has impacted our lives. Before going any further, I’d like to confess that I know just as much about communism as Stephen Hawking knows about giving a good lap dance. The only contact I’ve had with communism is the 9th std lesson on Karl Marx(for people who will remark that Marxism is totally different from communism ,I know, it’s ideal v/s practical-but the apparent difference is same as the difference between Sunny Deol in Gadar,and Sunny Deol in any other film-apart from the turban, everything else is same),and Motorcycle diaries, and yes ,the idle chatter I’ve eavesdropped upon from various people at various times of life that socialism is an utter failure.

However, this crib of mine is not against socialism, but faux socialist dudes. Some people claim the number of such youngsters out on street today is directly proportional to the sale of Motorcycle diaries. Okay, so the book is good, but not a landmark or something that’ll make you revolt against your rich capitalist dad and fight for a utopian society. People refuse to accept that Che was popular because of the weed. Grow your hair a bit, spread rumors about using weed daily, and you have got almost the entire generation of youngsters hooked( which makes me wonder if Rolling Stones, Nirvana, Bob Marley could have achieved cult status had they lived in a war-torn thirty-third world country)

So maybe the guy was great, maybe his book even, but my dear friend, reading that most-probably ghost written book makes you a communist just as much as watching American Pie(1-2-3 awesome, rest bakwaas) makes you a freshly baked oven delight. Sample this discussion-

Friend 1:”Hey man (in a strange Jamaican accent, but we’ll talk about accents sometime later), did you read about those jawans killed by the Naxals?”

Me:”That was one horrible massacre.”

Dickhead (the name I have assumed for faux communist dude, you’ll come to know why when you read what he had to say): That’s nothing, the government has been killing innocent Naxals (now that, I believe, is a parody) for so long, it’s almost justified.”

Me:”Dickhead. Nothing, nothing can justify that.”

Dickhead:”You don’t know the hardships they have had to face”

Me:” Okay, what do you know Mr. Industrialist’s son? Did you read about them on the internet while resting your comfy ass on a 15 inch water bed at 15 degree Celsius in your mood-lightened room? Or did your friend tell you something while smoking that 500-a piece hookah and 1000-a-bag weed?”

Dickhead (visibly confused): I……ummm…….I read in Motorcyc…….”

Me-not there in the scene anymore.

Its somehow cool to follow a radical group of people blinded by a failure-prone ideology sitting in a forest and killing innocent people. What next? Verappanism?

What drives such pseudo-intellectuals? The desire to be different from the crowd? The desire to impress other such socialist chicks(which invariably are dressed in long flowing skirts sporting a load full of junk jewelry and more kajal in their eyes than what a chicken poops in a day)?
The most satisfactory answer I’ve received so far-“I used to get off on this picture on Arundhati Roy when I was in my teens, and now I’m into it just because she’s in it as well.”(ahh…the fickleness of the mind!)

So I am an engineering student suffering from the idiosyncrasies of a quirky ,almost to the point of being non-sensical, institution (and by that I mean my college is crap. Really, really crap).Like all students, I too am faced with regular assaults on my well-being and sanity-the omni-potent (or the impotent, whatever you may) exams. Now a regular, inseparable and almost comical feature of the exams is the supervisor.

In my misfortunate journey as a student so far, I’ve come across a huge number of supervisors of various kinds-the sharp ones, stupid ones, downright lazy ones, the I-am-waiting-for-you-to-talk-so-I-can-screw-your-case ones, the I-am-interested-only-in-the-free-chai ones, the I-will-keep-staring-at-the-pretty-girl ones-different attitudes towards approaching a downright worthless job(really, how fruitful are those 3 hours for these guys, apart from the time-killers mentioned above, they really haven’t got anything to do)

However the only thing that unites these people is the bloated feeling of extreme power they get while supervising a class. Supervisors generally are junior teachers/lab assistants/senior clerks (which basically means they are frustrated little mongs) who don’t have much of importance in the college administration. Add to that a bit of awkwardness in speaking English, a low salary, a horrible dressing sense (we’ve got a junior teacher in the college who wears horribly low waists jeans. I am always under the mortal fear that somewhere, sometime, ’kaanta lagaa’ might play in his audible range and he might be possessed by Shefali Zariwaala’s finished career’s spirit and start showing off a strap or two. So much so, for having an active imagination!) and what you have is a picture perfect loser-a young 30 something man, with all the sense of self-respect lost trying to pucker up to senior professors’ backsides. So logically what does this man do to regain self-respect?

Yeah. Takes it out on the students while the exam is in progress. A round of supervision almost seems the perfect way of nursing a hurt ego and balming tired lips. Shout at a kid or two. Rattle off that fake mix of Australian/Mexican/Haitian accent that he has acquired recently to impress the Barney(the dinosaur, not Stinson, not Stinson at all, you sitcom-fed geek)lookalike from the comps department. To really make an effect, smack a kid moderately in the back of the head. Mission accomplished. Students will now fear him like they feared Shaktimaan’s villains when they were in 2^nd std. For the next three hours, supervisor is the king!(I can almost see them doing a rendition of SRK’s “I am the king” in the class, although most of them have got the charisma of Mimoh Chakraborty’s face while trying hard to take a dump ) .A look from them is enough for a student trying to copy from a chit to pee in his pants.

Once the exam finishes, though, it’s back to square one. Students might just pee laughing at them.And they return back to dingy staff rooms, with the same fragile ego,just polished and disted from the outside.

ever get the feeling that the whole world is one bloody sea of uniformity...and i propose this not only on my supposedly dreary and pessismistic point of view,ive got a solid backing here......remember the ad of IPL,where you have a hundred people doing the same thing in so god-damned choreographed perfection that it makes sick to your stomach?arent our lives pretty much the same?
my life,as that of most of my friends,has been pre-written according to a script......and that bloody script has been copied and pasted into each and every individual's destiny(if u may call it that)....it sorta goes like this.....birth-admission in a school-a few crushes here and there-admission in a college-again a few affairs here and there-admission in an engineering college(the only aberration that can take place here is you may get into any other college,say commerce or arts, dont get excited though,coz still the deviation from the mean is pretty much insignificant)-job-marriage(now here can come the really spicy stuff,say you get caught humping a sheep,or even more fancier,you discover your homosexual tendencies!...but sadly.....none of this happens...i mean,yeah,people have humped sheep before,but who in hell would be stupid enough to get caught red-handed just before his engagement?)-kids(now,there can be some real spice here too,say your kids turn out to be exact replicas of you...how horrible would that be!...or once agian,they might turn out to be bisexual....how awesome!...but sadly there are about 5% of people in the world with true homosexual tendencies,others just do it for fun,so the chances that your kid will turn up with a husband and you'll do the awesome "maa da laadla bighad gaya" dance routine are pretty much far-fetched....so,no spice here too,just the bland vanilla flavour once again)-retirement(this is like the most frustating stage of life for anyone...think of it....you have everything you need...time,money,no one to question where and how you spend it....but alas!.....you have already lost the ability to get it up...i,personally know people who'll lose their will to live once they loose the highly-esteemed...errm....man-force(for the lack of civilised substitutes)....the more daring ones might actually use the magic blue pills...but then again,if you consider the side-effects,chances of you dying due to a heart attack are more than that of you dying due to extreme sexual exhaustion,so most of them will pretty much avoid it)-death(here you may have alternatives you kno,like dying due to a horrible accident,or being smothered to death by your kids for the meagre property you have left them(how awesome!),or passing away peacefully in your sleep,but none of that,i believe,is going to make a difference to your vanilla flavoured life...the life that you have lived just like the counless millions have,and the life that countless millions will live in the future....all in all,everyone has their lives ready-made in assembly-lines....but what people forget is- all the good things in life,are custom-made.

                                                           

                          A wide half-volley,and a jab beyond point---all it takes to shake God out of his coveted position.A hundred messages,a thousand status-updates,and a million excited voices later,you realise if there is anything bigger than God in India,its the cherubic 5'5 maharashtrian guy.I wonder if God is pissed of right now.And I intend to piss him off even more.
                         Sachin is not God.God has this aura around him that makes him invincible.Mortals don't possess such invincible armour.Sachin is quite your average human.The problems that have penetrated his aura are innumerable and have always seemed insurmountable.Injuries,fitness concerns,questions on his waning passion,and the now cliched burden of expectations.Its not as if Sachin has never failed.2003 finals,entire 2007 campaign,the captaincy stint still remain stubborn dark spots on an otherwise purple career patch.Sachin has tasted defeat in the form of his own blood.Unfortunately,God,you don't have that on your resume.
                         It takes more of a man to triumph after a defeat than to jump from one victory to another.You appreciate a booming drive even more when you have been bowled thorough bat and pad.A Sachin without failures would have been a machine.Neither God,nor human...a machine.Machines don't thank their fathers in heaven,machines don't punch the air on a landmark,machines don't care for their fans.Mr. Tendulkar does.Every time.
                         The next time he comes out to bat,it wont be guaranteed that he'll score a double hundred,hundred or even a fifty.But i will still watch and pray for an encore of 200*.Coz for me,he will always be one-up to any mechanical instrument or a religious myth ever.Take a bow,Sachin-the-mortal,take a bow.

I had been to a restaurant with my family some days ago.Not anything extravagant,just your average run of the mill affair,okay-ish food,normal decor,ordinary customers.All in all,nothing to suggest any 'foreign hand' in the proceeding.Then out of nowhere came this waiter,looked at me and said"Suh,would chyou like any chea or khophhe?"
"Huh?"
"Chea or khophhe,sir?"
"Kya bola tum?"I resorted to bambayya hindi,my knight in shinning armour against strange tongues.
"Chai mangta hai ya coffee?",with a sneer he just couldnt hide.
Yes,this sounded familiar.
I looked at his name tag."There stands Balasubramaniam,asking me questions in his strange British accent"I thought."Wait a minute,moron.His name is Balasubramaniam,he is supposed to ask questions in funny south-Indian accents,not thick British ones"

Epiphanies strike at odd moments.

It dawned upon me that 'the English',or more importantly,'English',had never left India.All these years of dilly-dallying about freedom from England were pretentious assumptions.We are still governed by the English,still under the divide-rule policy.There's some difference though,its the "the" part of "the English" that disappears,leaving just "English" to rule Indians.Haves and Have-nots have been replaced by Know-its and Know-it-nots.Sophistication today implies Anglicization,and sometimes even accentuation.

There was a subject named Communication Skills that we had in our 3rd semester(Fr. Agnel sucks...its not related to the topic at all,but i like to tell this to people,it gives me spiritual bliss)There mere fact that we had discussions,debates and conferences only in English stands testimony to the snobbish language's hold over the social psyche.I can understand if a tamil guy speaks to a marathi guy in English,but what the heck is with two Patils(arguably the most widespread marathi surname) using using "Yo! Wassup mahn?" when they greet each other?

Its this widespread opinion that people who use it stand at the top of the pecking order.Whilst this might be true in most of the cases,its in no way an indication to stop using our own languages for conversation.Supriya Pathak talking to Ranbir Kapoor in broken english in 'Wake up Sid' accurately sums up the whole dilemma of poor regionals.When a mother uses some other language than her own tongue to communicate with her son,i guess its time to start preparing a coffin for hindi,punjabi,tamil gujarati and a host of other languages dying under the imperial language's assault.

The last nails come in the form of people now being embarrassed to use their mother tongues for normal conversations.English speaking classes and all have sprung up,portraying non-speakers are legendary losers.We have taken English from being just a language to a very high pedestal where it defines social segregation.

I guess when the English left India,the left behind a huge sense of inferiority complex as well.