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The UNIVERSE doesn't want you to ANTHROPOMORPHIZE it

Believed 3 years, 2 months ago in Attempted humour. 0 Comments

Hi again all,

This is a very interesting mail that my good blogger friend Mick sent me, and I felt like sharing it.

But before that, just a word to the flaming idiots who call themeselves hackers and hacked my blog: You think hacking is cool? You thought putting up a blank page and deleting all my thoughts is fun? You flaming idiot from Riyad, you thought you wouldn’t leave tracks? And I was stupid enough to let you off that easily? Good luck, my friend, good luck…

Back to the conversation with the universe….

The UNIVERSE doesn’t want you to ANTHROPOMORPHIZE it

I was having breakfast this morning
(You all know how I feel about breakfast) when I heard a voice.

I know, you are all saying, oh now he is hearing voices.

So I took off my tinfoil hat and said, HUH?

And the voice said,
I want you to quit anthropomorphizing me.

Who said that? I wondered aloud.

Oh, I said, did I say that aloud?

The lady in the next booth got up and left.

The universe replied,
Yes you did, boy, now back to the subject.
I want you to stop anthropomorphizing me.
I think it belittles me and that makes me mad.

Are you God?
Are you the great Hairy Thunderer? I wondered.
People started looking at me.
Oh, shit, I said that aloud again.

Many people call me that. You could if you want.
But I want you to stop.
Stop making me seem like a human being.
Oh, pass the butter; they never put enough on the toast.

Then it said, you gunna eat all of that? You could even call me the Cosmic Muffin if you like.
The universe turned its back on me for a second and then said

Would you do me a favour?
Scratch my back, right there in the middle.
I can never quite reach it.

I still did not know where to reach out to so I scratched the wall.

NOT THERE YOU IDIOT! Shouted the universe

GOD DAMN! I shouted back.

WHAT THE FLAMING HELL IS GOING ON HERE…, shouted a couple of McDonald’s Patrons.

Oh, never mind, I will just go rub my back up against a planet somewhere.

Just then, the manager came around the corner, with that look I know oh so well.

The universe said, Watch this.

The manager tripped on his shoestring and almost fell.

Ever hear a universe chortle?
It sounds almost like a trolley car going by outside.

Which it sounded like to most of the patrons

Since there WAS a trolley car going by outside they didn’t notice that it was actually the chortling of the universe.

So, Universe, are you going to save me from being thrown out of here?

Just a minute, I have to go pee said the Universe.

Just then, it started to rain.
The manager drew closer and a cook and a janitor were with him.

I sighed.
Oh, well, it’s time to find my smelly sleeping bag
and hunt out another door frame
and see if I can get some sleep.

Putting my tinfoil hat back on,
I yelled at them on my way out
THE UNIVERSE WANTS MY EGG MCNUTTIN

I left it on the table just in case the Universe was still hungry.

Push Push and away!

Believed 3 years, 3 months ago in Attempted humour and Political contemplations. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , .

*Shudder* Pssssssssssssssssst *bump* tchang *shudder* ssssssssssssssss….

Very characteristic sounds. You now have to alight, and help push the vehicle, so that we can start it again.

It had happened quite a few times, many years ago, with a Fiat Premier Padmini that my father owned. And then a few more times with the government-white Ambassador car provided by his company. And a couple of times more, in Bangalore.

But it was the first ever time in my life that I had to alight, and push a public transport bus! Yup! I was heading to @2s’s and @soumyageorge’s wedding reception, when the lucky bus I got onto decided to whimper to a stop. Right in front of a busy junction.

As a traffic police seized the moment to scream his head off at the driver of the BMTC bus, the wily conducter said a few words in some heaven forsaken language (real sorry! iPod headphones were in my auditory apparatus…) and I saw many people stealthily getting down through the back entrance.

Curious me decided to alight as well. Interestingly, those who got down were getting into a very curious position. Was I witnessing some ancient pagan sex worship, something like that described in the Da Vinci Code, but in a homosexual subversion?

No! They were going to push the bus! I was illusionalised because many men had their hands not on the bus, but on the backs and heaven-knows-where-elses of other men. Ah! I should have removed the headphones! Coldplay’s Yellow just didn’t go with the scene. Anyway, determined to do my bit to help the country improve, even if that bit was as bittle as pushing the bus, thus helping a public service bus to start, which in turn would also clear a traffic jam, I laid my hands on the nearest available peace of iron/steel/whatever metal part of the bus (I didn’t exactly see the idea of pushing those who were pushing the bus as very appealing).

 

BMTC Bus (courtesy Deccan Herald)

BMTC Bus (courtesy Deccan Herald)

 

 

And heave ho, heave ho, push, push… Hey… Wait a second… Isn’t the bus supposed to be going front? And not back?

Oops. Wrong gear. *snort* skrick. Gears changed. Clutch pushed all the way down.

Heave ho, heave ho, sixty people pushing a BMTC bus, heave ho. We pushed it for a good five metres before the antediluvian garangutan finally chugged to a start.

One would have expected a bit more respect for all the pushing we did. Without a thought for those who helped that rusted monstrosity to gear up, the driver bhaiya decided to zoom on. Ha! We didn’t let go! With yet another heave, we pushed ourselves onto the speeding animal.

The whole incident brought forth reminiscent memories of stone-age times, when humans must have had the same struggle when (s)he tried to tame the elephant…

But somehow, in the backdrop of Coldplay’s Clocks (Acoustic) I could draw metaphorical parallels between this small incident and present day citizen-government relationship in India. When there is a problem in our nation, we all point fingers at the government. Bad roads. Bad government. Corruption. Bad government. No street lights. Bad government. Bureaucracy. Bad government.

This can go on and on. If I project this scenario onto the bus incident, all of us passengers would have stood there, waiting for the mechanics to come and do whatever they have to. Meanwhile, we would have kept complaining what crap BMTC was. Instead, we all alighted, and lent a hand to push the bus, and get it started. Why? ‘Cos we all had to get somewhere.

Why don’t we apply the same principle for our problems? Does this mean that we are all hypocrites? We say that we want our nation to improve, but yet, we don’t show it. If we have to get somewhere, people, and we really feel that way, what on earth is stopping us from getting down and pushing?

 

Push! (Courtesy Cellular blog)

Push! (Courtesy Cellular blog)

 

When we have a civic issue, instead of blaming the government and twiddling thumbs, why don’t we try getting down, and pushing? No garbage dumps? Mail your councillor. Bad roads? Mail your local MLA. No books in the public library? Mail the HRD Ministry. Roads full of garbage? Why not spend a couple of hours on a Sunday as a group to clean up the road? And make it a point not to dump garbage there the next time? Deforestation? Don’t waste paper the next time. Poaching? Don’t buy that animal skin! Traffic problem? Use a cycle, or walk. Use public transport.

We are all contributors to the ‘problems’ we speak of. For instance, we all crib about the traffic problem. And then we catch an auto to travel half a kilometer! Why? Why don’t we just walk? That way, we don’t contribute to the traffic problem, we don’t contribute to global warming, we save money, we become healthy! But no, we rather catch the auto, and blame the government. We blame the government of global warming, of recession, and even of unhealthy environment!

In a republican nation, citizens elect a few leaders, to make important decisions. But that does not mean that our responsibility as a citizen ends as soon as we press that button to register our vote during elections. The government is not an elite body of a few elected people. The government is us. We are the government.

Sixty two years back when our forefathers declared our nation independent, and adopted our own constitution, they knew what they were getting into. They knew that they had the responsibility of building a nation. And upkeeping it.

The question is, do we?

Random ponderings of an unstable mind before an English Literature Exam

Believed 3 years, 3 months ago in Attempted humour and Tragic relief. 0 Comments

# 1
If somebody doesn’t want to talk, why does (s)he  have to employ external agencies to falsely and quite audibly implicate pressure? Why doesn’t (s)he tell it her/himself? Wow, so much for close friendship :)

# 1.1
Why didn’t I inform her/him that I knew what they were up to? So much for openess :o

# 2
Why do you fail to hear the alarm when you ‘lie down’ for ten minutes?

# 3
Why do your roommates have to welcome a friend for combined study when you’re trying to beat your head over some earth-shaking post-colonial literary theory?

# 4
Why does your roommate have to act gay right in the morning, try to feel you up, and piss you off?

# 5
Why does there have to be fog, when its not cold?

# 6
Why does your water heating cord have to make sounds like a Suzuki motorbike?

# 7
Why am I typing this when my exam is in another four hours, and I have portions worth two months to study?

No where, anywhere, here where, whatsits?

Believed 3 years, 6 months ago in Attempted humour and My Life My Voice. 0 Comments

What happens when you start from No Where, hoping to reach Now Here, and end up somewhere, and you have no clue where? Well, our chief correspondent Agent M had such an experience in the heart of India, the economic capital of the largest republic in the world, which gave rise to many a name in the Top 10 of the Forbes list, which left him quite dazed and unsettled for a couple of days. On a specially drafted mission, he found out the very nitty gritties of making a conference not go right, and also the consequences of such actions.

On the 5th of November, our very own Agent M, along with one of his friends, packed bags to go to Mumbai to attend a summit. It was conducted by the largest organisation in the world, in this college which we, sticking to true Witness Times spirit, will call College J. Now College J was all hyped up to be dealing with something at this level. Very hyped up. The easily predictable consequence was that the event turned out to be a major College J PR activity, rather than a well founded conference.

To start off with, the event co-ordinator, lets call him Mr S (yes, it’s a HE!) was an arrogant, pompous young puppy, who wanted to boss over everybody else. Understandable. But when he tried to take the whole event from No Where to Now Here, well, he really met with a lot of problems. Most of them arising from the fact that not much planning had gone into it, and people’s skills were the last things being looked at.

Secondly, it did not help when the college director decided to get drunk and give the belly dancing girl company.

The much awaited discussions were quite enlightening. While Al Gore and Leonardo DeCaprio were beating the heat to advocate beating the heat to people, because of melting glaciers, the sessions in the summit sported healthy and quite heated-up arguments on whether people should be allowed to spit paan(a sort of leaf which is chewed and spat out) in Mumbai, and whether hookers should be allowed in front of Churchgate station. Wow! We almost ended up saving the world!

Not to mention the cameras, which we were supposed to be making documentaries with, ended up whining cacophonous protests, which needed quite a bit of coaxing to finally start recording.

It is also pretty interesting to note how time hit back. Whilst they mentioned “sharp” and accurate time, with punishments for late comers, each event was delayed by atleast 2-3 hours, often resulting in the cancelling or cutting short of certain other events. More importance was given to the cultural exposure  to the delegates, than discussions or work (wherein culture was defined by the seemingly obnoxious dances that J collegeites came up with). More care was given to make sure that the delegates had food and were enjoying the party, while precious work lay aside pending. But of course, comfort is indeed much much more important than melting ice caps or strife in Congo.

One of the several of the ironies included them providing us with the classic 12 steps-to-save-the-world card (which advocated us to not use plastics, and recycle, among other things), printed on non-recycled paper, put in a plastic file. Another included providing bottled mineral water and Coca Cola to all delegates, while on the other side of the gates, Green Peace actively campaigned against the company’s commodification of water.

Overall, it was one of the most mis-organised, hypocritic and chaotic summits that the world had ever seen, or would see.

But of course, every cloud is a silver lining. Agent M interrupts, “I saw, and fell in love with, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, which I think I’ll ever see! I met a lot of awesome folk, and I’m sure that I’ll remember two of them for a while, if not for life. A person, who happens to be in the world of education, who has sort of become a teacher, in a higher sense, to me, and a girl who’s simply an awesome person.” Not to mention that he did learn, all that there was to, about the things which could go wrong in an event.

It might be an interesting exercise to track any of the summit participant’s congnitive waves –

Now Here (Wow! I’m going to a UN Conference!) –> Nowhere (Shouldn’t I have prepared?) –> Now here (Wow! I’m here!) –> Nowhere (Intimidated by the crowd) –> Now here (I’m way above these stupid discussions) –> Nowhere (What on earth am I doing here???!!!) –> Now here (Well, I’ll try to make things better) –> Nowhere (This has been an absolute waste of time) –> Whatsits?!!!@*(*&@!

To sum up this post on a slightly humorous note, which also happens to be a wonderful summing up of the entire event, we’ll quote what Agent M heard from one of the organizing volunteers on the inaugural day, near the registration desk –

“Some Yuck was supposed to be here… ”

(pardonne, amigo, for the inside joke)

 

The Witness Times News Corps 2008

This post is 100% fact, 0% pulp fiction, however much the contrary it appears to be. The views expressed here are entirely my own, and if you have a problem with that, well, go dump your head in the nearest pile of bull feces, ‘cos this is my blog, and I dictate what happens here, and thankfully, I happen to be in India and not China.

3 mistakes of my life…

Believed 3 years, 7 months ago in Attempted humour and Tragic relief. 0 Comments

Its said that the characters, events and other entities in a literary work often stem from real life examples. It is not often, however, that a reader gets an opportunity to be an example. Ladies and gentlemen, lets take a look into Agent M’s life… Another of his autobiographical works… Put your hands together (and gather your slippers and rotten tomatoes) fooooooorrrr Ageeentttt Mmmmm…

And there I was, a blooming idiot who made three huge mistakes, just like that idiot in that idiotic book! Yup. The three mistakes of life… (just before a Psychology exam)

3mistakes

As I returned yet again from my hometown, ol’ Dusty was waiting for me… (Dusty = B’lore) Fresh as a withered onion, I got to work. I swore I would start studying for today’s exam atleast by 11AM yesterday. I cut a 1 off the 11, and changed the A into P. I started at one in the afternoon. I finished off one module of the five. This one also happened to be the shortest, and one which had already been extensively probed in the mid semesters.

In joyful exaltation that I had broken tradition and actually studied, for the next few hours, I concentrated my energies in setting up an Ad Hoc wifi connection within the house, so that we could save Rs 1800 on a second hand wireless router. Mistake number one… I should never have turned on my laptop…

Then, voila, realisation struck. Four modules to go. I was extremely tired. It was 7 pm. Cannot sit up late in the night. I had a coffee, and pressed that small red button labelled PANIC. ‘Help’ was at hand though. One of my ‘sisters’ (yes I have a few many) called up, and requested that I find out from her former boyfriend what to study. Her former boyfriend apparently was very good in the subject concerned. Of course, there was a catch involved. She was trying to tutor one of her friends on the topic, but she being in a different year, was facing problems. So she wanted to know what exactly were the portions, so that she could effectively tutor her pupil.

Anyway, I haplessly ended up subscribing to Mr N, my ‘sister’s former boyfriend. Mr N informed me that he was going to tutor some girl who was weak in the subject, and extended an invitation for me to join. As I had been earlier recommended by my ‘sister’ to accept any opportunity to study with Mr N, I accepted.

As I packed my books, one of my roommate looked, and sneered. Hmmmm…

Mistake number two… I should never have accepted the group study invite.

So what happened? Mr Only-One-Module-Down-Four-More-Tough-Ones-To-Go-me met up with the two of them at a coffee shop in a neighbouring mall. Since the girl concerned, lets call her Ms V, didn’t have a clue of what was what, we decided to start from the first module, which I had already done. As the cosy session continued, somehow I got the feeling that either Mr N was acting his worst, or I was an infinitely better teacher than the supposed Mr N. To keep up my spirits, and myself, I had a few cups of coffee. One cold coffee. One double shot extra strong expresso doppio.

Mistake number three… I never should have had those coffees!

We started at 8. We finished the first module and had a dinner break at 10.20. After dinner, we realised that we simply couldn’t go on. So we split, Mr N and Ms V making plans to meet up early today morning, before the exam. How interesting…

4 modules to go… 3 hours wasted… Tired… Sleepy… Psychology… 1… 2… 3…

The three mistakes of my life.

So I gather my spirits, wash my face, browse the net for tips to stay awake, strip to a bath robe, get a bucket of cold water, put my legs in it, and start studying.

Using all the psychology I could muster, I coaxed and motivated myself into finishing off 3 modules, taking short breaks to wash my face or take a shower, to keep myself awake. I thought I was sleepy. It was 4.10AM. I felt really really sleepy. I was reading the same paragraph over and over again. I had a splitting head ache – perhaps due to the excess caffeine. No use of sitting up. So I hit the sack, setting alarms to wake up at seven.

Surprise surprise. I couldn’t sleep. I was not in the slightest bit sleepy. My eyes were paining and watering. My body was screaming in protest.  But eluding me with a malignant sneer, was sleep. I closed my eyes, and pretended to sleep. Soon, I drifted off into a stage beyond consciousness, but nowhere near sleep. I was able to wake up at seven thirty, owing to the fact that I never slept.

I still had that splitting headache. A sour taste in the mouth. To make things worse, I had some weird feeing in the stomach. I had a hangover on caffeine!!!! Not to mention the lack of sleep for the past two days.

Somehow, I managed to rush through the last module. A quick bath later, I was in college, exactly 2 minutes after the bell. Got the paper. It looked easy. Ha! Whom was I kidding! There was so much to write that I could cover Mount Olympus with sheets! And I had a reputation for being slower than a decision by the Indian Supreme Court in writing. As usual, I ended up running through 30 marks worth questions in the last ten minutes.

Hmmm….

Still have the hangover…

I promise -

  1. Never to experiment with Ad Hoc wifi networking for Internet Sharing when I have 4 more modules to go
  2. Never to agree for group study
  3. Never to underestimate caffeine

The three mistakes of my life… (just before the Psycho exam)

UPDATE : 3 months and 2 weeks after this fateful exam. Believe it or not, I got an 80% for it…

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