Author Archives: Abhinav Bhatt

No News Day

Nothing happened today. No news. Zilch. Of course, usual life carried on. People went for work. Unemployed people didn’t but they don’t anyways. No big event occurred. No hate speech happened. There was sudden dearth of stupid remarks. Some people did speak their mind but nobody heard them so it was alright. There were no weddings. There were some divorces and they were settled peacefully. People obviously cried but that was just a stress reliever. No protests happened, no cease fire violation happened. Nobody died in any accident. None. There was usual traffic at most places and occasional jams at deadlocks. People took them for granted and didn’t show their anger anywhere, neither on the road, nor on Twitter. Some cars got into accidental-y situation and almost collided too but both the drivers were so busy in their own affairs, they thought shouting at the other won’t improve the driving skills, so there wasn’t any point. No celebrity of importance died. Some people did die though. Those who died, died of natural causes, so nobody gave much whimper except their families and close friends, some of whom were, sort of, relieved. No loot happened so security guards spent their day mostly snoring, but acting as if they are fully awake and active. No rape happened. It was indeed surprising but may be it was the arrangement of planets that made sure nobody got insane. No killing happened. Neither in the name of God or language or money or anything. May be the perpetrators’ alarm got into some mess thanks to some seismic activity which geologists failed to capture and they now must be wondering what day it is. Cartoonists took the day off and spent the day by watching at blank TV screens.

Most of the people didn’t pay any heed to the lack of happenings around, but it was a very dull and long day for news channels, newspapers and news websites. They were restless for most of the afternoon but eventually someone had a brilliant spark, which spreaded from one agency to the other and they all published their news of no news. The newspapers published 28 blank pages, with ads of course. The news channels made way for news about TV shows of last weeks and the news websites listed 20 point lists without any content. It was as if they were just hitting enter after every bullet points and eventually got bored after 20 points, randomly.

So today, nothing happened.

You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope someday you’ll join us
And the world will live as one

– John Lennon, Imagine (1971)

Roundup 2014

Well, 2014 is over before you could even spell it out. It got over as quickly as your weekends get over if you sleep a little extra. Here’s my round up of 2014 just for the sake of documenting my life for future biography and also for blogging’s sake which I am continuing since last 7 years or so (Don’t know why).

I know you weren’t able to follow through on your resolutions, as always and same way, 2014 was quite an eventful year for me as well. I ticked off a few things from my bucket list as completed and deleted (moved into Sour Grapes Category) a few. Putting them into bullet points to make the post look longer and more readable:

  • Things like buying a motorcycle and getting a new job in a company which was my favorite company during a particular week in 2005 (since I am working here now, masha-allah, it still is) was successfully accomplished. This sounds like very archaic but it is not.
  • Apart from the usual yada yada, we all became more Cynical (High 5! Wait no, Low 5!), gained some more weight and pissed off more people than getting pissed off by.
  • I also got into Twitter debates (Yes, this was the all-important polarizing, divisive election year so I have made it large finally but still as a faileb) and got called names, one of which rhymes with the phrase ‘ You are so Cute yeah!’.
  • Got my name published in some newspaper/website for posters (again), which is a surprisingly good thing that it is still going on like 2012.
  • Got into the act of hitting and getting hit on to reassure my belief that I am still a human. (Who was the idiot who devised this act of flirting to be called as Hitting? Weird.)
  • Talking of the point above, I did manage to ruffle some feathers by not giving in to the process of spamming FB with photos of weddings and honeymoons. Yet. So you still have a chance. But you had this chance for years, no? Useless fellows.
  • Although, I couldn’t go on any world tour because of my busy schedule of sleeping on weekends (what have I become!), but I did sneak a 2 day weekend visit to Pondicherry, which was a good pleasant time and gave me a lot of pics to Instagram.
  • Also, I met Sidin Vadukut (who doesn’t want to meet him and ask about Whale joke, which I did ask BTW) at Bangalore Literature Festival. Also, I attended a concert by Shreya Ghoshal which I left midway because it was dinner time while she was singing and everyone knows what our priorities are. I met many other Twitter/Blogger friends too and got into lovely chit chat which could have gone for hours and hours but that can happen some other time too.
  • Talking of dinner, I am giving up all my hopes on Vegetarian food. Man, can’t we think of anything else than Paneer. I am fed up of Paneer. Seriously you guys. Potato which used to be my favorite food item on Earth, is being seriously under-used in this part of the world and mostly my household.
  • I am bored of Acche Din, already. I mean, whatever Govt. is doing good, that would not show results in at least 2 years. And whatever Govt. is doing bad, like not shutting up so-called-Nationalists is getting more attention. And, fed up of seeing Mr. Narendra Modi on TV, Newspaper, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Radio, Roads, etc all the time.
  • I am not going to promise myself the same thing I am promising myself since these last 7 years to blog and write more but I will just say that I will try…

This sums up the year 2014 for me. Let’s see what 2015 brings!

Please Like my Baby

Please like my baby for my baby is so cute,
Look at its* cho-chweet cheeks, and at its tiny snoot…
How cuddly it is, so plump and fluffy, don’t you think so?
So adorable no? The eyes, don’t you think they glow?
The sound it makes, gagagogo gulp, isn’t that music to your ear,
It might be difficult to decipher for you, should I translate to make it clear?

Hey like my baby alright, don’t like it more than necessary…
Although, I’ve applied kala tika protection but I’m wary to keep evils at bay,
No no, don’t ever dare to make that annoyed face, for my baby is a dude,
Doesn’t matter if it wets your lap, don’t complain, no, it’s rude…
How dare you showed discomfort on the running nose of my baby…
Even if it drools more than its weight, why are you going so crazy,

Are you jealous that it is my baby and yours are going down the drain,
You have to like mine on all social media even if it inflicts any pain…
Yes, you are a nobody, what you know you dumbo, still I need your approval,
I’m going to send my baby to this baby beauty contest, if I don’t someone else will…
Do you realize how important is it, to get these social media validations…
Baby will need them in school admission and other important certifications,

I’ve changed my DP to my baby’s pics to show my honesty and intimacy…
Why should I fear, when it grows old, it will take care of its own privacy,
So praise it now and then, please like my baby for my baby is so cute,
It’s an opportunity for you to prove your friendliness, O’ my friend so astute,
Do like the pic where the baby is asleep with father/mother, that’s the pic with the juice…
Yes, do the job you have been asked to do as baby is the best thing we could (re)produce.

(* Using its because we don’t differentiate between boy and girl child on this blog)

P.S.: I thought I am going to offend many people with this post but nobody is going to read this anyway so I am safe. I hope.

Selective Fanhood

X is a great artist doing impeccable service to the art X excels in.

X is an alcoholic and also abuses people.

Some people still love X for the class and others hate X for the crass.

(Solve for X. hehe. Don’t don’t. It’s OK.)

How we filter out certain qualities of people to like or hate them is amazing! We can ignore all bad qualities of someone who does something we like and we ignore all good qualities of someone whom we love to hate. For example, Salman Khan. Some die-hard fans completely ignore the sub-judice cases he is fighting in cases ongoing from more than a decade which involve some deprived humans and animals of National Importance dying. For them, he is the role-model whose dialogue deliveries without a shirt on give more pleasure to people than people mocking him for the same. Another example, Steve Jobs, who was a great visionary who changed the face of technology people use. But he was also a ruthless eccentric individual who was expelled from his own company and he sometimes treated his subordinates with utmost disrespect. There are actors who have divorced more number of times than they do movies per year and we have scattered on both sides of spectrum opinions for them based on our biases. They have their personal lives and their profession should be separate. They full right to do whatever they want but where’s the boundary over which we as fans need to decide whether we should peep into the hole or not.

Now since we are on the Internet, let’s insert Godwin’s Law into our discussion. What if I were a fan of Hitler’s paintings and had no connection whatsoever to the holocaust on any level? Although this analogy is very far fetched (as many others when Godwin’s law is invoked), not caring for the death of 6 million people is insanity but when does love for some artists override the other crimes/immoral/unethical stuff they do. We love our rock bands when we know that half of the time they are neck deep doped. We love Eminem even when we know what lyrics his songs contain. How was Indira Gandhi back to power after the debacle of Emergency? How has Modi’s fanbase exponentially risen now, although we all know that 2002 shames us again and again? How can we put a blind eye to certain events and rejoice over others? How can we relish 100 Rs. Ice-cream at a parlour and ignore the wailing beggar just outside.

I was in Hyderabad for few months and didn’t hear anything bad about Ramalinga Raju even when for me, it was a huge setback personally which costed me almost 2 years professionally. Just because he gave employment to many people there.

When we all follow double standards, and we all do no matter what we claim, the act of being on a higher ground morally based on our personal biases is a proof that we all are, bigots.

Zombingaloroo-uuu-u

(Kindly read this in a heavy whispering voice. No, heavier, yes, you can do it.)

Year: 2019
Place: Looroouuu (Speak this word slow and with wheezing in your voice)

It has been more than 418 days since the Sun came out, here in Looroouuu. Yes, 418 days without Sun in Looroouuu. A 1000 or so years ago, this was called Bendakaluru. Then it became Bangalore 200 odd years ago under British rule and then it stayed the same for some years after British left. Then it became Bengalooroo few years ago and then it became Bengalooroouuu. Similar additions of oouuu and removal of other useless alphabets have resulted in the current name and eventually it will become just U*.

*If this city survives. If not even the U will disappear into oblivion.

Anyways, that’s not the point. Point is that this place which was a bustling city overflowing with people young and old (and making world a better place through innovation and servicing the Information Technology industry of the world), till some couple of years ago has now become a deserted place with only a handful of entities left. Since the outbreak of the virus Zombola 2 years ago somewhere in the country called USA, it took away life and life out of property with it. Bangalore was the worst hit of the all because people downloaded the viruses through torrents and injected themselves with it using the pen drive injection iCrack* (which was Apple’s most innovative product since their last most innovative product which was bigger, better and thinner) which then lead to disastrous results. Yes, the virus which was originated as a computer code eventually got mixed with the human genome code and made the people Half-Human-Half-Zombie.

(You can now stop whispering but keep the tone heavier, for dramatic effects which this post needs but doesn’t deserve)

About 418 days ago, Zombola spreaded like Wild Fire in this city. Everyone got affected. (Dramatic Pause) Everyone. Govt. officials who had already evacuated (not sure why), then quarantined the city. Half-Human-Half-Zombie people had got no clue whatsoever but they had been trapped, left on their own on that day. Nobody could go out, nobody could come in. People didn’t know that they have been converted to something beyond their beliefs. They had been zombified. The only good thing which happened because of this was the return of Awesome Bangalore Weather, which had gone extinct somewhere in the 2010s due to excessive jinxing by tweeting. The Half-Human-Half-Zombies didn’t realize that the disappearance of Sun would be even more fatal for them eventually, as now they didn’t know whether it was day or night. Because the office they worked in, always had lights on and windows closed, the only source of their Vitamin D had been blocked by the clouds. In this precarious situation, Half-Human-Half-Zombie people went into a weird limbo. Where they thought, everything was fine, but nothing was. This new species was termed PeopleZ (People + Zombies) because there was no one left to think of any better name, as they were all ill.

PeopleZ facial features now resembled Zombies but they all wore formals. Even on Fridays. They roamed all around the roads shouting ‘Appraisals! Appraisals’ but in horrific and deafening and coarse voices. Their only source of food was HID cards which they still wore with their companies tag. But they still had half of their brains left which made them realize that if they chew off their HID cards, they will die. So they just sucked it. The City roads had become more frightening than ever because the traffic had cleared off, which was like a shock to the people who had already been shocked many times over due to the recent events. PeopleZ thought that this meant they could easily roam around and reach respective offices on time but such thoughts were short-lived because the Autorickshaw Drivers had gotten infected more. Auto Rickshaws appeared on the road out of nowhere and they could hit you from any directions possible if you stood near the road, even on footpaths. The hit carcass was then harassed by the driver zombies by asking for 20 more Rupees extra on the meter. Sigh.

The main cause of all of this predicament was iCrack. Probably this is what Apple founder Steve Jobs always wanted i.e. mix people, computer and make them high, but we will never know. Status-Quo has been maintained since all these days. Well, you forgot to ask but this is a memoir being written by me. The only human survivor (I think, I wish I had someone else with me too to repopulate the city but all in vain) who has survived the onslaught by hiding under the Silk Board Bridge and not buying the iDevices in first place. Also, even the PeopleZ can’t come near Silk Board even now where light is still Red. This is a win win situation for me which has helped me survive as well, I must add. I am still waiting the light to turn green but observing the city from close proxmities by hiding and surviving. Let’s see how long I can hold on to dear life. Over & Out.

PeopleZ

Humor is dying

They say that Print is dying. Which is technically correct, print has always been dying ink onto paper. But sadly, digital media is actually killing the newspaper. Not because everyone now has a mobile phone with Internet and everything is available online easily. But because the quality of newspaper hasn’t increased much and admit it, it is difficult to hold while you are on a commode, unlike your phone which is so easy (until it slips from your hand and…)

The print is actually dying faster nowadays because new age websites which present content in lists and bullet points have become immensely popular. Their motive is to break down the story into 35 points or average IQ of the reader (whichever is lower) to make people understand the point the news is trying to make. Now since I am a very happy going (jolly?) and optimistic person, I don’t like to read sad news only. Enough of killing, corruption, crimes against women and hatred against creed, caste or religion. I expect a piece which is full of satire, wit, and name calling of anyone with whom I don’t agree with. So to find genuine humor in a newspaper, either you have to read a Hindi newspaper where all news items are deliberately presented with a headline which unintentionally sounds funny, or you have to find lighthearted humor pieces online.

Online there were funny blogs and funny columns. Then there were sites like Faking News and Unreal Times, to name a few, which were doing a fine job but their problem was that people didn’t read anything apart from first 8-9 words which happened to be their headline. But they surely had wit and good humor if not the best. Then in the last couple of years, new websites came up which you won’t believe, that they could blow your mind the next minute you log onto them. I wouldn’t share their URLs because hyper-linking is endorsement but I will give slight hints which might appear as Buzzfeed and their desi copy paste jobs like scoopwhoop, etc.

Ok, serious stuff from this line: These websites present comedy (and sometimes pictures from email forwards of the late 90s) with lists and have GIFs or just normal photos accompanying the 2-3 word text. This is because pictures are louder than words, we all know that and editorial quality of such websites is almost zero, why write text when you can post pictures. One of the common topics they touch is nostalgia by posting lists of 298 things you could do in the 90s but cannot do now. Or 85 radio advertisements which people miss nowadays because they don’t listen to the radio much. Or 36 types of people who are sexist because 24 hours a day they all talk about 36 sized people. But the lists and GIFs or normal pics with 28 pt sized text in Impact font with a stroke of 3 pts. are just for distraction. The best part about them are the headlines. These headlines might make you cry or blow your mind or make your limbs dysfunctional. The template for these headlines is so brilliant that it can never go old.

Now my point is that such websites are killing humor, shamelessly. They are making a reader keep his/her brain aside and laugh where they tell them to laugh. There is no subtle hidden humor which can make you smile. They have content which begs you to LOL by reminding you 25 things you might find funny but they aren’t but since we have added GIFs of emergency cute animals in them, they surely have become adorable.The reader doesn’t have to implement even a bit of the gray cell to read some genuinely good stuff which doesn’t accompany any picture. (like this text, hehe). The attention span had already taken a hit by those 140 character websites and now the sense of humor or the HQ or Humor Quotient has shattered into 128 pieces which got mixed with the brain which had blown a while ago. I tried giving them some attention but couldn’t laugh at it, in the same way, I cannot laugh at sitcoms which have a laughter track in them. Where are the good old pieces which tingled your funny bone and also shared the horrific news by mellowing them down to the level of humor? What happened to subtle humor which changed your opinion about things without making you go through pictures which take a huge amount of time to load on your mobile if you are inside a loo and you have only 2G?. I hope people move over these lists and come back to the real deal of text and larger attention spans. Amen.

So, if you didn’t read anything above since there were no bullet points or ordered lists, the summary is this: Humor is dying. (Same as the headline. Did it blow your mind?)

P.S.: My last post on this was an NSFW comic. I loved making it because it incorporated elements from few of my fav. web comics. Though, most didn’t understand that. Can’t blame because you like spending time on 9Gag more than the sites from where they curate stuffs actually.

Featured Photo by:

Austin Chan