Mostly Harmless

I've given my volume controller for repair and its been 3 weeks since. I've been fed up of calling the fuckers but to no avail. The SOBs are responsible for depriving me of music, and I wondered why my appetite has gone down. I cant take it no more. Of all the bad things and of all the bad people in this world, why did this have to happen to me?
Not fair.
So not fair.
And the only chance I'm willing to give the bastards is a chance in hell. May the suckers rot in hell for perpetrating the most sadistic of all the crimes on me.

As this day went by several of my school days memories came rushing back.
This day was generally regarded with a sense of apprehension and fear by the male of the species. The girls would use this as a pretext to save themselves from the unwanted courtships by tying rakhis on the wrists of unsuspecting and innocent souls like us. The boys feared this day so much that half of them would absent themselves from school on this day. I used to poke fun at all those poor creatures, to the point when they began to seriously consider the possiblity of drowning themselves in handful of water. I considered myself immune to all this. I never seriously considered the thought that a girl would like to tie me a rakhi, my huge ego prevented me from ever considering that possiblity. But I was to find out only later that this world is full of dumbasses who fail to recognize the true potential of geniuses like me. As luck would have it, I was confronted by one of these dumbasses on that fateful rakhi day whom I was trying to woo for quite some time now. I could already see the delicate thread of rakhi strangling me and all the victims of my taunts laughing aloud in my face. I already had started cursing myself for choosing such a dumbass. But all that was not going to prevent the impending disaster. I had to find a way out.

I still rember giving her and and her accomplices a huge lecture on how they had made a mockery of the sacred festival of Raksha Bandhan, and hence I refuse to be a part of this sacreligious act. They should be ashamed of themselves, for exploiting religious sentiments for their own petty needs. And well, the trick had worked all right, ashamed they were. Whatever little experience I've had with girls, I've learned one thing. Inducing a lot of senti and emotional stuff can always save your skin however grim the conditions appear. The girls had to return empty handed or wait was it me? Anyway I was glad the disaster had been avoided. My friends had missed another chance to humiliate me.

I'm not into debating whether licking the ass of your superiors for tacit favours is good or bad, right or wrong, but it cetainly is a surefire way of getting ahead of the bunch, and one of the many things that freak me out.
People here it seems would go to any extent, mind you any extent to get good grades, licking ass just happens to be one of the tactics they employ. There are other methods also which I would not like to elaborate upon for various reasons, but what could be worse than ass licking is anybodys guess. Given the craving of the the fools for grades, people having any remotest connection with the process of grading exploit their authority to the best. Blackmail, threats, sexual favours, you name it. Why am I so upset over these trivialities which anyway form a part of life? Well of course I'm no idealist, I'm as pragmatic a person as anyone else, but when a fucking TA, who still has to take the most basic lessons in civility and politeness, demands servility of me (of the licking ass type), it becomes a bit too much. To add salt to the injury are the constant threats of giving me a zero in the experiment, as if I care. C'mon now man, thats a blackmail in my face. Go ahead, do what you please, may your soul rot in hell is my response. I dont give nonsense and I refuse to take it.
If you feel fed up of my constant outpourings of frustration, I want you to know that, that is the purpose of this blog. Get out of here if you dont like it, and you might consider leaving your ass behind for the gratification of my sadistic soul. Frustration, it seems has really got to me.

I used to wake up in the morning
I used to feel so bad
I got so sick of having sleepless nights
I went and told my dad
He said, "Son now here's some little something"
And stuck them on my wall
And now my nights ain't quite so lonely
In fact I, I don't feel bad at all
Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
Pitcures of Lily solved my childhood problems
Pictures of Lily helped me feel alright
Pictures of LilyLily, oh LilyLily, oh LilyPictures of Lily
And then one day things weren't quite so fine
I fell in love with Lily
I asked my dad where Lily I could find
He said, "Son, now don't be silly"
"She's been dead since 1929"
Oh, how I cried that night
If only I'd been born in Lily's time
It would have been alright
Pictures of Lily made my life so wonderful
Pictures of Lily helped me sleep at night
For me and Lily are together in my dreams
And I ask you, "Hey mister, have you ever seen"
"Pictures of Lily?"

These are the lyrics of the song "Pictures of lily" by "The Who". Supposedly this song was their tribute to masturbation or so wilkipedia tells me. Now why would someone like to write a song on a topic such as this. But anyway dont let that piss you off. Of course I'm aware of the fact that this would provoke more people than it would put off. In case you havent already listened to them, go for it. Listen to them for Peter Townsend's twisted guitar style, for Keith Moon's unconventional drumming which is all over the place at times and yet constrained enough, listen to them for their music which might sound familiar, yet is unique in its own rights. You might like to start with the following songs-

• baba o reilly(personal favourite)
• pinball wizard
• substitute
• who are you
• going mobile
• squeeze box
• boris the spider

Of course I take it that you'll listen to the pictures of lily anyway.

You can cry hoarse over the fact that another independence day passed peacefully but i have my own set of woes to narrate. And as always, I celebrated the independence day in bed fast asleep. I had my own reasons for celebration. For me it was a holiday when i could peacefully have my share of sleep.
I still remember while in school we would sing the National Anthem as the flag was hoisted by the Principal. The day was special to me for reasons of my own back then. For one my mom would not have to drag me off the bed, I would get up on my own. There would be no unnecessary whining and cribbing on part of my mom to send me to school, needless to say none by me either. There would be no boring classes and of course there was always the lure of the free cake pulling me to school.

But that was then. Now even the free cake fails to entice me, the bed it seems is more enticing. This is fourth and hopefully my last Independence Day in college and i've not cared to attend a single Independence Day function here.
I refuse to be a part of the celebrations when actually there is no reason to celebrate. Well dont get me wrong here, the above alibi has worked just fine for me till now. It saves me the trouble of getting up early on a holiday. Will have to look for a more reasonable excuse once the things in our country start to look better. But thankfully they have remained more or less the same over the years. And i'm the last one to complain as far as my sleep is not disturbed.

The Irish rock band U2 is as famous for their music as for their humanitarian efforts. To me they are more pop than rock though, but amazingly good at it. They are the only band of their genre that I happen to like.

Lisbon - Portugal's president Jorge Sampaio on Sunday awarded Irish rock band U2
one of the nation's highest honours in recognition of their humanitarian efforts
on behalf of African poverty and human.
Sampaio personally pinned the Order of Liberty on each of the four members of the band - lead singer Bono, guitar player The Edge, bassist Adam Clayton and drummer Larry Mullen - at a ceremony held at his official residence.
It is the first time Portugal has awarded the Order of Liberty to a foreign music group.
"It is of course for the four of us a great, great honour," said Bono, who appealed for Europe to do more to alleviate poverty in Africa in a short speech after the ceremony.
U2 have spearheaded a global push to tackle African poverty, most recently during last month's Live 8 concert in London, and have lobbied on behalf of several human rights causes.
Last year the band launched a song, Walk On, which is dedicated to Burmese
democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner who has
spent most of the past 15 years under house arrest.
"Over the last 25 years you have shown it is possible to combine the pleasure of artistic creation with civic and humanitarian intervention to help build a better world," Sampaio said before giving the band members the honour.

Professors and girls are the two species I have never been quite able to understand.
I dont want to talk about the latter here, that I leave to some of the more enlightened brains in the area. I am done with my bit of research on them and have finally settled for an explanation that is well consistent with the observed facts.
The observation first,they talk way too much.
A logical explanation being, the moment they stop talking their brains start working.
That I hope puts to rest all speculations on this subject.

Now regarding professors. They seem to be a perenially frustrated lot, ready to pour all of that frustration on you at the slightest provocation. And some of them seem to be after my ass in a big way these days. Which put the grey cells to work to find out the reasons as to the general affinity of the sadistic creatures towards the ass of innocent and innocuous students like me.
I thought they torture us because they like it that way but I discarded it as being too sadistic. Then may be they do it because thats the only form of entertainment of the poor wretched creatures. But then that justifies them which is not acceptable to me. There has got to be a better explanation. Apparently the only logical answer could be that they do it because they seek vengeance for they have been the victim sometime. Now that is understandable, the vicious circle, I have myself experienced it though in a slightly different form if you know what I mean.

There must be something terribly wrong, but what?
Thats what I've been trying to figure out in vain for some time now. The reasons are now becoming more and more clear though. Lets attribute all that to the inherent prejudices of the human mind.

I used to mock at the other people in the class taking down notes religiously, attending all the classes. Well to me doing all that would somehow diminish the my self respect. I am after all a rung above the rest, or so my mind would have me believe. I am a staunch believer of John Nash and classes after all are for the masses. Little did I realise then that I belong to the masses, and I'm no John Nash. Shaken as I am at the moment at the realisation of the truth, I might even approve of those who even jot down the jokes the instructor might care to crack during the class or other such trivia verbatim, and believe me such suckers exist. Such people frustrated me so much that I wanted to cut them into small pieces and jump on the pieces till I fell down. Oh I'm sorry, got carried away a bit.

Theres this rather sinister prank, if you would allow me to call it that, which I and some of my friends play at other unsuspecting and innocent mortals. Of the many facets of the prank, one is to make the victim believe that he is one of the most smart and intelligent dude around and its really very hard to comprehend the lack of a girl in his life. Going by the extraordinary talent he posesses, I'm damn sure all the female creatures around him are vying for his attention, only he has never cared to notice. Most of them fall for the trick and then I'm their master steering them in all directions at my will. Well there are other alterations of the tricks too, but mentioning all of them here would be giving away too much. In case you think, this is too naive a prank, let me assure you it works, not only with the gullible lot but with the so called sophisticated or wary ones. Still dont believe me, wait till my list of victims, which is pretty large, includes your name as well.

But what has that got to do with this post. Well actually, I also fell into the ditch this one time. And the bearer of the whip was my own brain.
Mind can play really wicked jokes on you sometime, so beware. Unless of course you are an Einstein or John Nash, which I sincerely hope you are not.

FIR filed against RJD MLA for causing death of pregnant woman
In the First
Information Report, Kabutri has alleged that Manju was hit on her abdomen with
rifle butts as she could not quickly give way to the vehicle of the former MLA.
She bled profusely due to the attack and died after 4 days of treatment at a
Begusarai hospital.
http://www.rediff.com/news/2005/aug/08woman.htm

I used to shrug some bollywood movies dealing with similar subjects as being too unreal. Guess I was wrong, what with such ghastly incidents continuing till date.

It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be sane and have ones doubts.
--G. B. Burgin

It is much more comfortable to be mad and know it, than to be mad and have ones doubts.
--Me

I altered the quote slightly because I've long held that most of the human population of this planet belongs to the latter category (i.e. mad and have ones doubts). The humans inhabiting this earth are an amazingly strange and clueless lot and before you make any judgements as to my mental stability, let me give you my reasons for the above conjecture, which are manifold.

Everyone wants to have more of the green pieces of paper, irrespective of the amount they already have. They dont mind killing each other for it.

They are unhappy most of the time trying to understand about life and its meaning and about their relevance to all this but since nobody has ever come up with a conclusive answer to the above queries, it makes them all the more unhappy. At different times at different places, these uncouth creatures tried to divide the human population into groups which they called religion to solve the mystery of life (which did not make much sense to start with), but ironically it has only complicated the mystery. Each of these groups has over the years developed its own version of the solution and these groups are now fighting and killing each other just to prove the superiority of their version of the truth.

They are also unhappy about the piling up of deadly weapons by others and like to express their views against it vehemently, while stealthily increasing their own pile. When asked about the motive behind all this they would invariably reply - "Just in case".

There is much more wrong with the human race than this post would make you realise. If I were to give a complete account, I am afraid it would be too long and noone would actually care to read it all. I shall write more about the amazingly stupid behaviour of this species sometime later. Till then, take care.

I'm back to college after the summer training in The Netherlands and man it feels great to be back home.

Though I usually dont watch many movies, I must confess I've watched a lot since I returned. Well, actually I'm not to blame, after all I had to finish at least all the newly released hindi movies, thats the bare minimum and surprisingly many of them turned out to be good. As hard as that might be to believe or I its just that I'm still recovering from that bout of nostalgia.

The reason I stopped watching movies is that is most of them dont turn out to be worth the time spent. Its not that I could have used it more constructively elsewhere, its going to be wasted anyway, but deliberately wasting time is not too good for my self esteem or so I like to pretend. But fortunately one of my friends has an amazing collection of movies, so I drop by his room whenever I feel like watching a movie. Following movies are highly recommended all of them black and white. Some movies I believe transgress indivudual preferences, these are some of them. Just watch them.

To Kill a Mockingbird:
The most beautifully made movie i've come across period.

Rear Window and Dial M for Murder:
Hitchcock never ceases to amaze me, my favourite filmmaker till date. Watch these movies for his unique brand of filmmaking.

His Girl Friday:
Hilarious is the one word which sums it all up. Comedy uninterrupted from the word go. No slapstick humour here, not that I dont like slapstick humour, all I'm saying is riske (or cheap) comedies can never match the simple and subtle ones. This movie proves this beyond any doubt.

Now some recent desi flicks I watched.

Maine Pyar Kyun Kiya:
A really good and decent entertaining comedy. Sushmita is a treat to watch, shes becoming better by the day. Salman overacts at times but tolerable. Though Sohail might get on your nerves sometimes because of his (over)acting and Katrina has still a lot to learn about acting.

Sarkar
Good performanc by all the actors. This desi version of the Godfather, despite an ordinary storyline turns out well. Definitely worth a watch.

Dus
Nothing great about this movie, its worth a miss.