Beginners guide to Pseudo Intellectualism

5 Rules to become a Pseudo Intellectual.

Now don't ask me what Pseudo Intellectualism is all about? Incognizance is something, my friend, pseudo intellectuals are definitely against!
I searched the web but there was no definition available so I decided to define it. (One more thing that I have done to save this world !...and the Noble Peace Prize still eludes me!)

Pseudo Intellectualism:
Function: Noun
Meaning: Devotion to the exercise of Pseudo Intellect or to Pseudo Intellectual pursuits.
(If you have not understood the meaning of Pseudo Intellectualism by now, that means that you are looking for intellectual content in this article and hence, by the power vested in me as the head of the Pseudo Intellectual council, I deem you unfit to be a part of the Pseudo Intellectual community and hence bar you from reading any further!!!)

For those who have understood what it means, you need to know what is expected of you as a Pseudo Intellectual. It is about appearing knowledgeable, when you know nothing. It is about being able to argue with out having any stance, it is about being able to talk on matters you have no idea about and come up with catchy lines which have no relevance to the discussion at hand but still leave people in awe.

Let us now go through what it takes to become a Pseudo Intellectual.

Rule 1: NEVER READ A BOOK.

Gaining knowledge is against the basic spirit of Pseudo Intellectualism. It is a total NO-NO. Books make you wise. They make you think and they show the path towards intellectual enlightment and away from Pseudo Intellectualism. Wise guys are not eccentric (and I am using the 'guys' word to refer to both men and women) and that leaves the world such a bland place to be. The intellectuals are the one who look for logic or abstractness in the forms of expression. Now logically that means that any expression is either logical or abstract, either black or white? Why a thing can't be both, logically abstracted or have an abstract logic?
Now as, you might have noticed, it makes no sense at all and that is the very crux of the Pseudo Intellectualistic philosophy.
And now you know why we are against the books. Books will get a sense of logic in you, which is like poison for the Pseudo Intellectual in you.

Rule 2: ALWAYS READ A BOOK REVIEW.

Unawareness is something we cannot afford. The beauty of being Pseudo Intellectual is in being pseudo and yet appearing intellectual. Confusing? Let us see how to do it.
Read a book review and you would know about the writer's style, the pros and cons, the plot and the characters and that is all that you need to know to talk about over a cup of coffee/a mug of beer/a glass of wine.
Agreed that what you be saying or talking about is going to be the reviewer's understanding of the book, but then, you don't need to have a understanding of your own! You are a Pseudo Intellectual, not an intellectual, remember! Let the intellectuals do all the dirty work and we would just reap the benefits. And who cares about the originality?
The above argument holds for all sorts of means of expressions, not just books.
Never visit an art gallery but read about the art reviews. Do not watch a movie but read the reviews. (Incase you are reading rediff reviews, make sure you read the comments put on Raja Sen's reviews. Raja Sen is a Pseudo Intellectual; you do not want one Pseudo Intellectual to influence the other!)

Rule 3: SPEAK IN A LANGUAGE ALIEN TO THE AUDIENCE.

Now you might be wondering that you would need to learn a new language all together. If yes, then you have not yet realized the spirit of being Pseudo Intellectual, say one thing and mean the other, and when you master the art of being a Pseudo Intellectual, you would say one thing and mean nothing.
Read the subject again. If I meant what I had written, I would be writing this is the language which only I can understand. What I mean, and I am explaining this only for the purpose of you budding Pseudo Intellectuals, is that speak in a language which is difficult to understand.
Use a quote no one has heard before by a celebrity about whom no one has heard either. That will leave no one but you to vouch for its authenticity and you would be an expert on the life and deeds of that celebrity. So, you would become an expert without even doing anything. Now you know the advantage of being a Pseudo Intellectual!
Use very heavy words. Make a list of words having more than 15 characters, remember them by heart. Use them as frequently as you can. Most management articles are full of such words. They look glossy, and they make very little sense to the average people. So, when you use them, everybody would perceive you to be smart and intelligent.
Have as long sentences as possible. People have short memories. So, when you use long sentences, then whatever little sense it was supposed to make, would be lost in the middle and it would have nothing but a list of heavy words perfectly intangible for the average intelligentsia and the minds devoid of ability for concentrating for long periods of time. The last sentence was an example. It has 51 words and 242 characters to convey the fact that all you need to do, is to speak bullshit!
Statistics, my dear friend, are like magic tricks. Always useless, but they leave the audience in awe. Just take two numbers, divide one by the other, the order doesn't matter, get a percentage and use that in the discussion irrelevant of the context.

Rule 4: VOICE MODULATION IS IMPORTANT.

Always remember, a Pseudo Intellectual is someone who is pseudo and is perceived to be an intellectual. People who speak slowly and in high base are considered intelligent. Look at the politicians, who speak at the top of their voice, do you think they are intelligent? No.
Remember Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Manmohan Mohan Singh? Now you know what I mean.
When you have nothing to say, think of something which makes no sense, lower the volume so that is just about audible, speak slowly so that it takes longer amount of time, lower the base and say it. For example, dreams are flight from the known to the unknown. You say it normally, and you would realize that everybody knows that! Say it the way I have advised you, doesn't it sound very intelligent?
Low voice, slow pace are the hall mark of a brain which spends most of the time thinking and less time speaking. So, you can create that impression even if that is not natural to you. That is the whole idea!

Rule 5: LEARN FROM THE MASTERS.

Read the interviews on page 3. Watch the one on one host shows. Observe bollywood actors and cricketers.
Always answer in English even if the question was asked in Hindi. Everybody understands Hindi, so why make yourself accessible to all? You have worked hard to get the knowledge (or the lack of it), why share it easily.
Observe actors telling you how much research they have done for a role when all they have done is to visit the parlors and the saloons. Who cares about reality, the perceptions matter.
Use the history well. Speak of great leaders as if you know them personally, even if they were dead three centuries ago.
Blame it on the USA whenever you can. The reservation system is responsible for the death of Kalpana Chawala in the space mishap. Relate things even if they do not have any relation. We thrive on spontaneity and scandals. Create them if necessary.

The last and the most important tip, have an opinion even if you do not know about what.
Even if you think that this blog is trivial and not worth your comment, put it. And you can use the content of this blog in your own name. Nobody will be sued! Pseudo Intellectuals are magnanimous. They don't care!

A day that was!

No, I won’t blame Murphy for his laws! But now I just cannot help smiling at them! How true!

It was yesterday,I woke up late for my SIMCAT Test at 10.30, but still made it to the examination room on time, only to learn that the center did not have any question papers left ! Hence I had to run to the other center! I reached, but with fifteen minutes less for a two and a half hour long paper . To top it all, I started feeling pain in my stomach that reminded me that I had not had even a cup of tea since morning. But I sat through the paper and did FINE though i was not very happy then! Then I left for E-Square multiplex only to meet a MAMA (policewala) on my way.
No license, No PUC, No registration Papers! And I was not able to give him “I have no money!” story as I had quite a lot of money in my wallet! My wallet was lighter by 200 bucks by the time I was done with him! Then I went to watch a movie to find every watchable movie housefull . It was pretty hot at 2 in the afternoon and I had to meet a friend at 5 so I decided to watch ANY movie and to make my already bad day worse, it had to be DIL DIYA HAI!
I have not seen a movie worth writing a review about, but this one deserves its due. The movie opens with an item number by Udita Goswami and Asmit Patel! Lots of white skin, a pathetic Himesh Reshamiya song, some pole dancing follow... 5 minutes into the movie and one is left with no illusions about it being good. But there are times in your life when you want to torture yourself; times, when your tooth is about to fall ; you know that it hurts, but you still tease it with your tongue so that it hurts a bit more, and it gives you kicks!( I had paid for the movie and I was going to watch it, come what may!)
So, the the next few minutes are spent in establishing the fact the Asmit Patel is a BAD man to the D and to prove that, he is shown killing two people for no particular reason. He lives on drugs and liquor, is suppose to trade in human flesh or for some other strange reasons, is interested in getting Indian girls for his deals. (He is so bad that next time your kid is in no mood to sleep, please DO NOT SCARE HIM WITH ASMIT'S NAME!As far as i think, your kid might just end wetting his pants!)
Then you have Emran Hashmi, enters the movie by breaking a glass, and you know that he is poor despite that fact that he drives a BMW and sports designer jackets. He is in great trouble, he need 40K pounds to get his mother’s lungs transplant done, but fails to evoke any pathos in the audience. I did not feel any sympathy for him! He runs a travel agency with his partner Patel, whose first name is not important. Why is it not important? I don’t know; ask the director,may he did not bother to give him one! Then there is the girl. (THE GIRL. Geeta Basra, who playes Neha in the film is great to look at. Lot of people might not find her attractive and I wont blame them for that, she is not fair! But she has a good figure, lovely smile, beautiful eyes and dusky skin for which I have a fetish. She looks hot! There is this scene she calls Emraan at 4 in the morning to her room only to say that she was joking and says”Even Stevens Mr Saahil” That smile is worth killing for. I could have cut my heart out, begged on one knee for her to marry her, if she could keep that smile and twinkle in the eye for ever!)
Let’s get back to the movie! The girl and her family arrive from India on a tour of London and the tour is arranged by Saahil (Emraan). They try to trick the family by giving them sub standard facilities but the girl would have none of it! And to make up for that failed attempt, Saahil promises to be at their service 24X7! It is ok so far! Then you see the hero going to a bank to ask for loan and for the security of which he has a rented place to show! I mean, how silly that is! And then he gives a lecture to the bank manager on what he should do with the bank’s money, trying to raise sympathy in the viewer and failing miserably, again! During the course of his 24X7 service, he takes the girl to a disco and that song is the best song of the movie. It was great to listen that in the hall. There come Asmit Patel’s men, clicking the Indian crowd for the right chick! (That was very innovative actually, having a mobile camera to catch the dancing girls and to decide which one to pick. It looked so easy that was wondering if that movie was actually based in London!) And as luck would have it, they pick Neha! And then Neha misses her train to Scotland, is taken on a car to Scotland by Saahil. She has a sandwich on the highway, despite being warned by our hero that it was unhygienic, and as our hero foretold, she has a stomach bug and that too at a place on the highway where there is no clinic. But there is ofcourse Mithun’s (yes you read it right, Mithun Charaborty) house where they seek shelter. We are told that Mithun was a baddie himself but gave up everything bad for ‘love’.
It is now that the movie becomes unbearable! It is diificult tto stand Mithun’s character Ronnie. He preaches, plays a guitar and is...well, Mithun!
Then the girl stays there all night, reaches Scotland the next day. The hero learns that his mother is too sick and needs cash immediately, and this takes him to a casino. He, predictably enough, fails again( give me a break, he is Emraan, not Shakuni Mama!).
Then he gets a call. (There is supposed to be suspense here, pretend at least!)
The girl gets kidnapped and is seen with Asmit Patel, who planned to sell her but then decides against it and plans to marry her! [There is a song sequence where Asmit gets to do the love making scene which is again very aesthetically shot! If you look at the love making scenes in Murder, Aashiq Banaya Apne and this one, nothing has changed except the color of the bed sheet(of course, the actors are different, if you can call them that). It was black in Murder, White in ABA, and Red in DDH!]
Emrran gets a call from the girl's sister enquiring about her BUT (in midst of all DISTRESS and CHAOS) does not forget to tell him that Neha is in love with him!(Wow!).
Emraan goes to Asmit's place, with a lie that the girl's father had a heart attack (that was original!) and asking for the girl to come with her. Asmit declines and then Emraan kidnaps her from there (again!). He runs away from there beating the bad guys and being beaten by the girl! Guess where he goes?? To Mithun's place asking his help to drop the girl to her parents.
Mithun grabs this opportunity to scold Emraan,Emraan cries and tries to justify his action( He ctually says," Maa ke pyaar ke saamne mujhe Neha ka pyaar chhota laga" Wah! wah!) and then leaves???
No, he doesn't. Insread, he waits by his car for Mithun to sing a song, comes back and the girl forgives him for selling him to a brothel (Are huzoor; wah pyaar kahiye!)! And then Asmit patel comes with his gang, Mithun and Emraan nearly kill them all. But Mithun's wife is shot at by Asmit, and Asmit's baddies refuse to shoot Mithun and run away!
Then, in the hospital, Mithun's wife pleads to get the girl back for the "sake of love".
Mithun, the 'respected bad man' that he is, goes to Asmit's father’s place who apparently owns his empire to Mithun. He asks his son to return the girl, gets killed, and ok, finally( i just want to finish it now) Asmit is killed.
The girl's family is told a story that both Emraan and Neha got kidnapped, which they believe!
The story ends and so does this piece with a word of advice (It should have a social message, shouldn't it?). Stay home, don’t watch this movie!

My first flight.

Ok, I have had my flights of imagination in worlds lesser known to anybody but myself; but this was the first time I was flying in the territory known to the birds and people who can afford the flights.
I was all excitement, I had never had felt a force closer to the g force that you experience when the plane takes off and the acceleration (0-60 in 6 secs flat does not qualify!). I left for Mumbai on Friday evening after an eventful day and stayed with my friend and kept asking him about the things to do and not to do on a flight and inside the airport. (This is closest to Navjot Singh Siddhu’s famous kid in a topless bar!).
I left my friend’s place at 4.30 in the morning and reached Sahara Airport after changing three modes of transportation. I reached the airport by 6 in the morning, and I was ushered in to the security check. The dream was materializing. I was about to fly in an hours time!
I went through the security gate and the customary and formal checking (I do not understand what purpose they serve coz I have never heard of any body with intentions to hijack being discouraged by those procedures!).Then I went to get the boarding pass.
The dream......hmmmm.......it was coming to an end..... and HOW is what follows....

I had the ticket of Sahara airlines on a JET airways coupon (which, when I got it, found very natural because of the merger thing in the air).The lady at the counter who has been trained to give fake smiles and greet you with the softest of voices even when she hates you like anything, greeted me with similar sincerity;with the same I- want- to- help-but- I- can't look! She said that she could not allow me to board the flight as it was on a jet airways coupon!
I was asked to speak to the Jet airways people and only they could take me to Calcutta. I spoke to them and was told that even though the ticket was on a Jet airways coupon, they could not take me in unless the Sahara people endorse that as it was for a Sahara flight!
As the merger deal fell through, they had stopped accepting the other party’s coupons!
I was losing my patience, and my dreaming was changing to a nightmare.
I was asked to cancel the ticket I was holding, and that I would need to book afresh and only then I can fly. Also, that as the ticket was booked by a travel agent (Travelguru.com) they could not refund the amount, theycould only stamp it 'FULL REFUND'! I would have to claim them.

I had no choice but to do what I was asked to, and I booked a new ticket for Calcutta and thankfully I got one for Rs5150, Rs1700 more than what I was paying initially! Thank god to credit cards that I was able to book that, my account only had 4000/- bucks!

I was told in the sweetest voices that they understood it was not my fault, but they could not help me. I felt as if they were telling me, look, we get paid to talk in sweet voices and do hell with your problem and get off my face.

And to top it all, the guy who advised me to book afresh, had the audacity to tell me that i was NOW actually flying cheaper!! I have had enough. I turned around and said," You have some balls to say that to a guy you have harassed in last 45 minutes, for a seemingly stupid thing!”
I was relieved to be actually leaving that I did not think much of the cost of the flight. (I would when I get the credit card bill!).

I did not get a window seat, the one who had, was sleeping all the time and I cursed her all the time that if she only wanted to sleep, why the hell she was occupying the window seat!
I learnt all the intricacies of SAREE trade because of an over enthusiastic lady to my immediate back, she had the ability to talk nonstop and she did that for two and a half hours, the entire duration of the flight. And she had the right volume, loud enough to not let you sleep and soft enough to ensure that you don’t turn around and ask her to talk softly!
And then, the airhostess was not pretty! Man, I said, all this has to happen to me!
At least the breakfast was good! I had no clue how to go about it. I just kept observing my neighbors from the corners of my eyes and went about it the way they did. They asked for Tea, I asked for tea, which was, to put it simply, YUK!
In the mean time, I forgot to tell you the good things about the flight. The acceleration on the runway, the steep climb while takeoff, the joy of things getting smaller and then getting lost in the clouds, the curve the plane takes while turning, the chance to look at the Mumbai sea from up above, the sight of the high rises, it was great! But that joy only lasts some 15 minutes, once you are in the clouds, it gets boring, it seems that the plane is stationary; there is no movement at all!
I just read every newspaper that was there to be read in the flight, and reached safely to Calcutta. How much I wanted to experience some turbulence in the air! Some bomb scare maybe, to add up some Xing that was missing in the airhostess!
One thing I could not understand-about the emergency procedures that we would need to follow if the plane had to make an emergency landing in water- where is a water body big enough for a Boeing 747 in between Mumbai and Calcutta? I found that very funny that security procedures are being followed just for the heck of them!
I landed at the Calcutta airport sharp at 10. and then I was waiting for my luggage, and as it went round and round without showing any signs of bag, I was getting anxious. I saw people staying calm about it, but I only pretended to be. That flight was to leave for Guwahati, and if they forgot to bring my back down, I would be with the only clothes on my body till they got it right. But after 15 mins, I saw my bag and was relieved to see that!
Then I had my ticket cancelled at the Calcutta airport and I left, for Salt Lake. The best thing about coming home after so many days is that taxiwalas think that you are totally new and ask for absorbitant fares. It is a joy to see the look on their faces when you tell them the exact fare and distance!
The flight was over and it left some questions to ponder about!
I had a valid ticket, some airlines had the money I paid, and there was of course a vacant seat. They could have saved me of all that trouble by just communicating among themselves and taking me on board. They did not. Have we enterd the age which realizes that the consumer is the god? Probably in India, we are not yet ready for that. There were two airlines, playing ping ping with me, when I had done everything right! And to think that nobody would lose his job over this, it makes me hate my job, coz I might lose it if I deal my clients like that!
We are still some way still quite some leagues away professionalism, and let us not get excited with the prospects of a improving services industry as we are actually not. The gloss is there, the substance is not. We run behind the shield of norms and rules when we are held by the collar and are made to answer the questions.
And it is 7 days since I logged my complaint at the Travelguru. I am yet to hear from them.
One thing is for sure, I am not going to use any of the three service providers ever if I can help that! And it also makes a case for the poor call center operatives for it is them who have to handle the angry customers for the goof ups at the backend!
Are we making the right people accountable? NO.
Are we ready to set things right? NO!
'Chalta hai yaar!'(...?...)

The same old story!

You’re the one I want for me.
That’s what I told myself when she entered the cafeteria.
It was 9.15 in the evening and I was sitting at the CCD on FC Road in Pune. And waiting.
No, not for a hot chic to turn up and waive her hand and say, “Hiiiiiiiii” with the I part of the Hi so long that you can tie her up in the chain made of I’s, drawing attention of everybody in the café, no I was not that lucky (or unlucky, depends which way you want to look at it).
I was waiting for a cousin of mine who got married recently, but that is another story. Let us not digress.
I was sipping my cappuccino (it could have been any other coffee just as well, but this is the only name I could pronounce properly thanks to my friends, I don’t want to be embarrassed in front of the counter guy).
And she was standing on the pavement, probably waiting for someone. Tall, slim, and having all that what a guy wants, how much I wished she was at the café, in front of me!
She turned around, and got in the café. Might be sick of waiting outside.
I don’t remember what she ordered for herself, coz I don’t remember a lot of things when I saw her so close to me. I can kill for this girl, I said. I am not sure if I said that out loud but there were heads which turned in my direction and the girl gave me a glance, well.. I can’t describe what kind of glance that was.
She smiled, but the eyes narrowed.
And then she sat facing me, in the corner, just a few tables away from me.
She knows she has bowled me over, I said to myself. And she is enjoying the attention I was giving her.
Just when I was mustering enough courage to speak to this dame, the guy walked in and sat opposite to her.
I can’t say that I tried not to hear the communication. I was all ears to find any hint that this guy was her brother or cousin or uncle or even father! Anything but her boyfriend but it was not to be!
Howww caaaaaaaan youuuuuuu beeeeeee sooooo laaaaaaate?
That was irritating. How a girl can stretch every word of the sentence, taking three times the time to say it, I thought.
I am ssssssssssssssooooooo sorry jaaaaan! Goodness gracious me, this guy is coming straight from some K*^% aur K&!*8 television serial. Matching the girl for melodrama.
Noooo, you have to say sorrrrrrryyyyyy, the gal said.
I am soooooooooo sorrrrrrryyyyy.
Well, this guy was going to fight till the last moment to win the battle of stretching words with this girl.
I am not going to pain my fingers now by pressing the keys for that long, but I hope you might be in a position to understand how it was said by reading the text.
What took you so long?
Oh the traffic yaar!!
Traffic, at 9 in the night, impossible, this guy was lying between his teeth; I wanted to tell that girl. Dump him, dump him, and think about me!!!!!!
“You know what I did today?”
How could he, unless you tell him, I thought.
“No, what?”
“I met Sheetal today.”
And that was said with so much of excitement I wondered if Sheetal was the new Miss India I forgot to read about.
“And then we went shopping”
“And then you know what we did?”
Please say something that could be interesting for the eavesdropper, please, I cried.
“We went and had panipuris”
“And then we went and bought the new set of sandals”

My coffee was over and in those 5 minutes I had realized that the most intelligent part of the conversation was already over.
I would have killed the guy opposite to her if she had talked any smarter than what she was. But I smiled; if we had got together I would have killed myself as well.
I walked out of the café after paying the bill, and I looked at her again. My word your face can make anybody’s day, I thought. And then I thought about the brains.
I am not jealous of that guy anymore.

Limitation of individual

The ideas expressed here belong to Saurabh, my friend. Though I do not endorse it, I think it is worth thinking about. He will never take the effort to put it in black and white, so I am doing it for him.

Do you accuse the hammer, if working somnambulistically you hit it on your hand?
You do not know how to use a guitar and create the music, and then is it the guitar responsible for the cacophony when it could have created music?
The premise is valid, but the conclusion is not.
Yes, we have not used language well. Language is just a tool, how can we blame the tool for our own shortcomings.
Language has evolved in all these years of existence of life. It has grown and so have we. So many generations have contributed to its growth that now it has grown beyond the capacity of an individual to comprehend its enormity.

Do you think that there is not a word, a phrase, a sentence which can express the way you feel?
There always is.
Only you don’t happen to know it.
We have had great writers, great literary figures but none of them have been able to capture all the human emotions with equal panache.
Some had their trade limited to humor, some to romance, so to tragedy. But none, NONE have been able to express it all.
One individual’s life is not long enough to feel it all, leave aside expressing it, and then you have your limited vocabulary to take care of. If you try, you will get a word. The vastness of the language rivals that of the oceans. You need to know how to dive and get the pearl.

The inability to express is a challenge to you, conquer it. It has never been the nature of the man to succumb. And that to an inanimate thing like the language, what a joke!
Take it on yourself, to win it over, and then expand it. Instead of cribbing about its short comings, make it your slave.
And leave the legacy behind.

Limitations of language

This might make sense, might not. See, that’s exactly what this blog is about.
We talk, and express ourselves. But at times what the other party understands is just what we did not mean.
Why can not it be like mathematics where 2+2 is always the same?
Why do we need the tone of the voice, the look in the eyes, and the enunciation of the words to make out the intensity with which the speaker spoke, to interpret a simple sentence like “I DO”?
Why does it happen that at times what is stated in black and white seems everything except the obvious?
When you are reading this, you think, what the hell is it, but when I am writing it, it seems the most logical thing to me.
Isn’t it funny, some people have a way with words and when you begin arguing with them, with the most unshakable of beliefs in the infallibility of your logic and after the argument you have serious doubts about your thought process.
One faculty of the brain thinks, the other makes a logically coherent sentence out of it and the third is required to flex the muscles and you pronounce the words. And at times you feel that in that process the sense is lost. What you have said is not what you wanted to say. What the listeners has understood is not what you meant.
Whom do you blame? The process, the seeming incoherence of the entire process or the medium you chose?
I will put the blame on the medium, language. It has done wonders in the civilization, but at times it has failed.
It has betrayed its very purpose of existence, to express.
Why should expression of feelings be inhibited by the strength of one’s vocabulary?
How come something as mundane as the word power limits something as powerful as thought?
We have allowed it to control us. We have not explored other mediums of expressions, because we believed (or tricked ourselves in believing) that we have the all powerful medium.
How we have fooled ourselves.
And when I say we, I put blame on myself as well. I am using this web page to communicate to you, that I have failed as well. After 22 years of existence, this is the only medium I can communicate to you. With all its weaknesses, lack of options with me has made it the only tool I can use. I can’t dance and can’t paint. And it is people like me, who try to kill the dance, and the art.
We are so mediocre that the moment we come across brilliance and ability to break the path, we shower accolades. And trick them to believe that all there was to achieve is achieved. We are scared of the intellect, the light.
It is still dark, inside. Who said that the time we moved in the dark, shouting “Tamso Ma Jyotirgamaya” is over.
It is not. Won’t ever be. Because again, the light of knowledge will come hidden behind the dark words, words which will mean different things to different people. And then, we will phrase, and manipulate, to suit our own interests and we will customize the universal.
I wonder how much we have lost in those black and white prints!
Tamso Ma Jyoutirgamaya.
Asato Ma Sadgamaya.
Mrityorma Amritamgamaya.

Soliloquy....was it?

It was another day in the office and I came back a bit earlier than usual. It was 7.30 in the evening and I had nothing much to do.
I took my bike and went to the near by railway over bridge. That is what I mostly do when I have time to kill and get the frustration out of my system. Why am I frustrated, you will soon find out. Read along.
Standing on the railway over bridge, with my bike’s key in one hand and a cigarette in the other, I looked down on the slums below. I took a deep breath and smiled, gees, I am a capitalist.
And I looked down (literally!) a drunken guy being chased by dogs and I couldn’t suppress a smirk. I puffed up my chest and thought, glad I am so much better off!
And I heard someone laughing. The kind of hysterical laughter that make you cringe. I must admit I had goose bumps then!
So you really think you are better off, it said.
I said yes.
What makes you think that?
I have a job, my own bike, money in my wallet and food in my stomach. I don’t have to be chased by a pack of stray dogs!
That is all you need to be better off!
What else do you want? I said.
You know the answer; just dare to ask the question.
I am not getting you, I said getting a bit irritated. The kind of setting this conversation had reminds me of the epic “DEEWAR”, and its famous “Mere pass maa hai” dialogue. Lots of melodrama and I hate that.
Ok, tell me, why does a 22 year old having a bike , money in his wallet and food in his stomach needs to come to look at the slums to feel happy?
I don’t know, it just gives me kicks.
Sadist, hmm.
May be. I wanted this to end soon, I was feeling uneasy.
Will you trade off your today for exactly a year back, when you were in college and no job and no bike?
I kept quiet.
Hello?
Why Do I have to answer you?
And the laughter again!
22 year old or a ten year kid, throwing his tantrums. You will answer it because you want to.
Yes I said. The answer is yes, is that what you want to hear. I shouted at the top of my voice.
Forget about what I want, know what you want.
This is not getting anywhere.
Yes it is, that’s the whole problem. You are so self occupied that the entire priority thing goes for a toss. You come here to satiate your ego, you loner!
I am happy!
Yeah right, you are. Puffing up your chest when you see struggle, for things have come easy for you. Filling up your lungs with smoke coz you think you have the luxury to do so, coz you have money.
It is my life.
Then why you want to go a year back? Coz you need friends, to listen and to share. You need warmth, you need shoulders to put your head on, and you need the silence, when you can go from one nonsense to another, you might not admit it, but you need love.
What the f***?
Not all that you need, can be bought, and acceptance is not defeat.
I can still work that out, and I have the choice. That gives me the power. I was not going to throw down the gauntlet.
This is what you choose, my sadist capitalist?
The train was approaching, fast and blowing the siren. I could feel the impact inside my head.
Who are you to tell me what to do and what to choose? God almighty?
The train was approaching close and it was difficult to hear.
That laughter again. The sound was too much to bear. I felt that my head will explode!
I am you.
And then there was lull.
The storm had passed.