Karma, Confessions, Holi and a New Story!

I just don't get the concept of hitting unsuspecting strangers walking on the road with water balloons in the name of Holi. I don't get the need for celebrating festivals at all is another thing altogether, but this thing of hitting people with water balloons is the most annoying one! Imagine, you are walking on the road, immersed in your own thoughts and then boom! there's a balloon on your shoulder and you're cursing the person with all the English expletives you know! I mean, if you're so into celebrating festivals, then celebrate it with your friends and family..... why are you dragging people whom you don't know into celebrating it! Actually, now it's become more of harassing women than celebrating Holi. Yes, I have become blunt. I know, by now, especially after reading the first two lines of this post and the entire last post, you must be wondering if I'am anti-social. No, I'm not anti-social.... I just don't like people! More so now, when I'm renewing my friendship with old friends at the same time of cutting ties...umm reducing ties with other friends. It's all a part of the game of life!

I'm just beginning to discover how ironical life is. On the one hand, I'm losing touch with my bestest friends while on the other hand, I'm making best friends out of friends. Similarly, I feel I've suddenly grown up in the past 6 months... I've not as naive as I was earlier.... I don't trust people that easily, I don't get hurt that easily....and most importantly.... I've learnt to let go of people......where as on the other hand, I feel like a kid.I mean, I was this over-matured person who, had directly gone to adult stage from infancy bypassing childhood (According to my Mom and Sis).But now, I feel young at heart. Feel like this lost childhood has come back to me! I feel like a 2 year old baby actually!! I've suddenly started liking kids is a different story altogether!

I know, the people who've been reading the story that I'm writing here are quite pissed with me,now that I've stopped writing the story. I'm really sorry guys, but I'm bored of the three of them! I'm now thinking of writing a new story.... it's a simple love story between a guy and girl... no love triangles involved...and it's their journey to getting married. This comes from an online challenge I had taken up unnecessarily on my Facebook status update when I said that Two States sucked big time and that I can write a better story than that!! So, I'll start writing that in some time....and then you decide which version of Two States is better! What do you get to vote for my version......umm.... I'll complete the story....how's that for a deal?!?? I know, I'll make an offer you can't reject!! For all the people who've been spending sleepless nights thinking of whatever happened to Ahaana, Anay and Arjun.... here's a little dope..... Ahaana finally got rid of her emotional baggage and the jerk, Anay .....and she lived happily ever after with Arjun. Now don't ask me what had Anay done to her... I just don't like Anay....and as it's my story.... so, I made Ahaana go with Arjun!!

Keep visiting this site for the exclusive premiere of my new story!!!

Someone please do something about the news channels

One thing that I absolutely hate is people's lack of general knowledge and something that I abhor, detest, despise, and all the synonyms of hate thrown up by dictionary.com, is people's apathy to whatever is going on in the nation. I know, I have a lot of Ï-want-to-make-India-a-better-country nucleotides in my DNA, and my aforementioned feelings are just an extension of the same.

I somehow managed to catch the Splitsvilla finale..... I didn't watch the entire show, yet I was interested in knowing who won in the end. I liked Varun till the moment he opened his mouth to say that Lal Bahadur Shastri was India's first president.... Can someone please send him to primary school? MTV people, please do the honours.

One of the factors attributing to people's lack of GK today can be ignominy on the part of Mumbai univ while setting up the syllabus. But then it is also the student's fault. I mean how difficult is it to just open TOI and go through what's happening in the country? The headlines at least? Or just listen your Dad talk, for a change... you'll have all the information about the world you need.

One more incident that happened in real life, not to me, but to one of the people I know was, someone asked who's Tony Blair(this was about 2 years back). And the person who was supposed to answer said: I know him... he's the US Prime Minister!! This showed two things 1) this person had no clue what so ever who Mr. TB is and 2) She has no clue who George Bush is. So when in doubt, it is better to keep your mouth shut.... !! One more incident that I can recollect is when I asked one of my friend who Vilasrao Deshmukh is. And she replied: isn't he Ritiesh Deshmukh's dad?? I said, yes he is... but that's like knowing Imran Khan as the guy whom Nupur likes! Chuck it if you fail to register the analogy. You're just suffering from the Sonal Chuahan syndrome (Watch Jannat and you'll know how dyslexic she is)

I've titled this post against the news channels because I've had it from them. I never really felt like dragging them to court when they kept on showing stupid superstitious shows, predicting Doom's Day, showing when which God will reincarnate, showing how Earth is in constant peril of being attacked by aliens who look out of a Steven Spielberg movie and all other antics they're upto 24x7. I also never went ahead on my mission to rechristen these channels as COMEDY CIRCUS channels. I never took any drastic step to vent my anger. But now, I feel, it's time I do that. At least try filing a PIL or something. I mean Bihar was submerged in floods with 3 million people stranded. No food.No water. There never was any electricity in this part of the world. Food riots breaking out..... and none of the news channels are showing it. I mean what?!? What are you supposed to show? Comedy clips or natural catastrophes? How many of us know why there have been communal riots in Orissa? Why is Kashmir burning? Farmers are still committing suicide... where have the 5000 crore rupees gone?? I didn't have a clue until I googled these things out. TV, today, has reached the Mariana Trench.... time it at least comes back to surface.

News channels aside, it's the people around me who've also been irritating me. Nobody cares about the the people who are affected. Call me an atheist or whatever but I just can't fathom how someone can spend crores, donate a couple of other crore rupees, set up huge Ganpati pandals, immerse the idols in water only to increase pollution levels and kill some fish and aquatic flora and fauna only because someone else is doing it? Why can't you rather go to Bihar and distribute food packets to children who go to sleep drinking the flood water or something even worse? Why does every body's logic go to the dogs when it comes to religion? I'm sure Ganpatiji would be more happy if you help out someone and not just simply worship a stone/POP cut out in His form. This entire Ganeshotsav was started by Lokmanya Tilak, whose sole motive behind it was to get people together and fight for freedom..... so why the extravagance today??

I know, I know, if MNS/Bajrang Dal people are reading this post, they want to come and break the windows of my house and stuff.... but I don't care. I have a fundamental right to the freedom of Speech, and I have just used it. I even don't care if this post doesn't go down well with many of you. You have your point of view..... I have mine....

And yeah Mr. Thackeray, before ordering your men to vandalise shops that haven't put up their store names in Marathi, kindly, break the windows of your house first. Your son doesn't want to learn Marathi.... so how the hell are you to impose the language on a million other people?? I really respeted you when you came out with your new party... A young, dynamic leader to lead the way, I thought.... and it...well, just remained a thought. Practice before you preach. You make your dumb cousin look better than you because of all your antics.

Much Ado About Nothing

I'm not an atheist. I'm not an Agnostic. I do believe in spirituality, I do believe in Karma, I do believe in religion. But I believe in the religion called humanity... where all humans are considered equal, irrespective of the many criteria we've come up with to help in classifying them. I believe in everyone being treated equal and according to me, it's our duty to help in the same.

One thing I don't really like these days is the glamorization of festivals that has taken place. I agree festivals are meant to be celebrated but there's always a nice way to do it. My friends often complain that I do not "enjoy" festivals.... My reply to them is that, if "enjoying" means what everyone today is doing, I'm happy in my non enjoy state.

Let's take Diwali first. I don't get the point in spending thousands of rupees in buying crackers and then eventually burning them.... for what?? Please tell me why. What is the need of increasing air and noise pollution when the festival, traditionally is only about spreading joy and happiness and beginning life afresh.... Where the hell do the crackers fit in? And please don't give me the you-are-a-Jain-hence-you're-talking-like-one theory. I'd rather spend the same amount of money by helping the people in need and help them regain a grip over their lives than burn them up. There are so many people who need help, just try going to a Govt. hospital once and see how people lose their loved ones due to paucity of just a few grands, which we spend without thinking twice.

Holi. Farmers are committing suicide all over the country, the Vidharba belt in Maharashtra to be particular due to water scarcity...... why....? Due the the extra couple of million litres that has to be pumped in your house so that you could "enjoy" a festival. Never mind the death an entire family has to die because of your "enjoyment". Sorry, I cannot and will not indulge in anything so obscenely heinous. Even though this makes me just one amongst a billion people in the country... so be it.... I'd also like to tell Raj Thackeray that his love for fellow Maharashtrians would be justified not be kicking non-Maharashtrians out, but by fighting for his own Maharashtrian brothers by not letting them commit suicide, by proposing and implementing the construction of dams and ensuring a regualr water supply to the farmers all year round. Mr. Thackeray, this issue needs a higher priority.... it's about life and death here.

One festival I don't celebrate for personal reasons is Raksha Bandhan.... I mean due to social obligations and formalities I do have to tie rakhis to my cousins.... but somewhere down the line, I often wonder... does this piece of thread mean anything to anybody? My aloofness with RB is due to the fact that I don't have a brother and for people who say that doesn't make a difference, I beg to differ.... That makes a humongous difference. The bond is missing. The feeling is missing. The assurance that an elder brother's hand on your head gives is missing. I know I have lots in life to complain about the few little things that I don' t have. But this time of the year makes me feel really lonely... and this time it's not because of the lack of 'someone special', but because the absence of a brother and the presence of cousins who are either too busy to come to get a rakhi tied or are too small to understand what the piece of thread means. All I know is that when I needed a brother figure on whose shoulders I could cry on, I didn't have one. When I need a brother to kick people's asses when someone spoke shit about me, I had to silently pray that if not a brother maybe a friend would do the needful. When I needed someone to want to break the bones of the guy whom I liked but cried for, I had to make do with the pillow. I feel so jealous of my friends who have brothers who call them 1000 times if it's raining too heavily, who take them out to shopping with his own money, who are possessive of their sisters to the point of claustrophobia, who can see everything in the world but just not tears in his sister's eyes. I don't have a brother, agreed, but then I do have friends who care for me.... and I'm happy about that, but just not at this time of the year.

About Friendship's Day and Valentine's Day.... All I can say is that do we really need a special day to celebrate the presence of special people in our lives?? I think it's just a lovely way to have Archie's and Hallmark owners' kids spend a couple of lakhs more every month. You can't celebrate FD by tying bands one day only to have them strewn on the floor the next... This is the reason I never get bands, and not the 'Gujju' genes of saving money. But I do reply to people's messages regarding the same, but this year I didn't....had fought with all my best friends for the first time just 2 days prior to FD.... I felt like throwing my phone outta window with every ensuing message that I received. FD and VD, I think, should be celebrated in reality by finding time for your friend/lover who need you even if you're totally submerged in the sea of your problems.....for I do the same, and hence advocate it.

I really feel that rather than making a show of emotions just on one day, why can't we rather show it as empathy for others? One thing I know for sure is that the day I start earning, after I send my parents on the Europe tour that I want to, I will give away some amount of it back to the society. Life is all about making other's lives worth living as well na. If you can please help anyone you can, even your friend who's down just before your exam. Trust me, if that person is a true friend, he/she will never forget the gesture.