Selectively Faithfully Yours

How many of you, after seeing people pray or just join their hands at the road-side temple on their way to work, wonder ... "Hey maybe I should be doing that too, I know I believe somewhat in the Almighty One or maybe I do not, but what's the harm in trying? "

Well, it started off the same way for me too. Praying to God, that is. And it paid rich dividends. Beginner's luck maybe. But instead of being a die-hard, true-blood fan of God (read people who do pooja daily + read pothis + watch aastha TV channel), I chose to be "selectively religious".

Like now, I've many exams lined up. BARC / SAIL / PDIL / MDL / DRDO / GAIL...the whole alphabet soup.These are the times when my religious fervor kicks in. Its when I think I'm in trouble, that I turn to God. Not any particular God, just the word God in general and whatever spiritual / philosophical connotations it has.

Just think of it this way, if you are relaxing on your barca lounger and the door bell rings. If it is the courier guy or a neighbour or someone asking you to donate blood, you won't mind opening the door. But if its just the pesky little kids down the hall pulling a prank on you, you get off your chair and open the door just to find that there's really nothing to it. So now you are wise to it. Next time you might not fall so easily for the trick.

It works the same way with God. Don't spam Him with useless prayers. With your daily prayers and your pooja-paath, you are just acting as a bugger. He will block you from his mail-box. He might not be so generous with you, when you really need Him.

Why bother Him daily? Let him peace out \m/ ... Maybe, He'll award you "infrequent flier miles".

Something's Missing

I found this in the may issue of Reader's Digest. Thought its nice and challenging plus something to get you thinking. So here goes ...
Given below are 6 common proverbs. The vowels and spaces have been taken out. The number of words in the phrases are mentioned in the parentheses

1)BTTRLTTHNNVR (4) (this one's easy ... warm-up kind :D )
2)RMWSNTBLTNDY (6)
3)HSTRYRPTSTSLF (3)
4)LTBYGNSBBYGNS (4)
5)TMNDTDWTFRNMN (7) (I couldn't get this 1 .. )
6)TVRYTHNGTHRSSSN (7)

Go go go !

Red, White and Dumbed Down

Russell Peters. The Canadian-Indian hybrid. Do you find his act funny? What in it is funny really? I mean, he is good if you are 16-17 years old. Then maybe, you can identify more with his kind of comedy. Otherwise, you'll just wonder that since so many adults are enjoying this kind of comedy ... is the world really dumbing down??

          

The standard way for him to start off is "Ah, its good to see all of you mixed together..." How many times will he repeat the same thing? The answer is obvious ... he'll repeat it so long as his shows are house-full. The Red, White and Brown act was filled with so many crass jokes, so many crude hand gestures, that it it left me thinking "Hey, you see that guy on the screen ... that was you when you were 15 ... Thank God, you've grown out of that". There have been some good jokes in Russell's acts like "I won't marry ever because I love women and not woman" or "You know what disease you get once you are married : Onegina". Now, that comedy is much more subtle and classy. But then he goes and spoils it with shaved balls and washing yourself jokes. And the worst part about it is that these jokes send the crowd into raucous laughter. 

Maybe, the reason is that Russell Peters people must be having some screening process to select their crowd. If you are a third generation american citizen, you automatically qualify (too much of beer and family wealth has made you dumb). If you are black, you are through too ... If you are Indian / Chinese, they won't mind it ... after all, is it just my opinion or is it true that we do crave recognition so badly that we will pay so much just to see a comedian of our origin or from our part of the world, dish out some jokes that aren't even remotely funny just to be able to think / say "One of ours has made it big!!"

Well, this is all just my opinion. Maybe, there are quite many intelligent people out there who have found out the implied meaning behind the "Louis Vuitton" joke that seems to have escaped my feeble reasoning power. Kudos to them and kudos to RP for finding a dedicated fan base. As for me, I'll enjoy my "george costanza - jerry seinfeld - frazier crane" jokes and try to figure out what it is about RP that makes people laugh !

P.S : I'm thinking of starting a small thing called "song of the day". Just a offbeat thing to share our music likings ... All those who comment on my posts are invited to slip in their songs of the day too. :D

SONG OF THE DAY : Mott the hoople - All the young dudes

dog's death ... literally !

It happened when I was going home with a heavy heart - BITS life having ended. We had stopped at a shitty way-side dhaba for dinner and I was puffing one. My eyes went to a skinny mutt sleeping in a corner. The mutt was in a pitiable state, suffering from whatever skin disease that affects dogs. It was stick thin too and that didn't add to its appearance. Then, a horn blared and bus lights lit up the dog's miserable existence. It was quite obvious that the dog was weak and was reluctant to move out. But what choice did it have? That's when this thing got me thinking ... can any being other than human, wilfully take its own life? I mean, the mutt itself must have gotten pretty fed up of its lowly life. Juxtapose this situation with that of a human,one who's down in the dumps. The human is faced with two options :

1) Fade away : He can take the easier option and just end his own life. Not many will miss him, and since the state of afterlife is not known, he can actually look forward to "existence" after death. Maybe, he'll feel, he has a clean slate to start on, in the afterlife.

2) Phoenix approach : He can fight back,rise from the ashes like a proverbial "phoenix" and get back to leading a respectable life blah blah. Don't know how many people actually manage to do this, but going by the number of suiciding students, businessmen, farmers etc I'm guessing ... not many.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE DOG?

It cannot reason out the two options. It cannot be smart enough to do so. It won't be aware of how easy it is to add one more to the number of road-kills. Nor can it drown itself (dogs can swim naturally) by tying weights to its legs or tail or whatever. And I'm positive that it can't be smart enough to go searching for rat poison, collect it and then in a moment of madness, consume it all just to die of an overdose. Nor can it be a "phoenix" in its own world. I mean, what is a dog doing rising from its ashes??! The idea of a poor, pitiable mutt resurrecting itself is laughable.

So what can the dog do?? The answer is, in my opinion, nothing. It will have to continue its sorry life till God is merciful enough to release it of the pain.

Now, I'm not gonna give some" gyaan" like "Moral of the story is... human's do have a choice and that's where God was so generous with us". This post was meant to get you thinking, maybe chuckling, maybe wondering what is the sense of it all? So, I will let you ponder about what I've just posted, about what is wrong with this post,about whether suicide is a timid way after all? etc etc.As for me, I will stub out the cig and board my bus, and get some sleep - not caring two cents about the pitiable life-forms around me.

Clean Slate

yo people ! This is my n-th attempt at blogging (dunno why I'm so lazy so as not to write something about any random things that evoke some thoughts in me). So here goes ... the n-th time. I also am thinking of making it a pompous attempt at writing "shuddha" i.e no abbr in words and "chumma lite tp zzzz" stuff like that :->
smileys are an exception ... hard to wean off them.
ok so the posts will be totally random and off-beat ... anything that gets me thinking !