Abhinav Bhatt

Take offence, but politely

If I might, let me throw some light, from my side on this issue on our mind, far and wide, You may or may not take my bite into your stride, however I may add, this fad, kind of bad, is here to stay anyways till we realize that mostly all kinds of freedoms, come with a price. Nice? Read on but if you are looking for any surprise, there is none but you are already wise. This is about Freedom of Expression, an Utopian feeling which always stays in contention. While we act all up for that ‘FoE’ but it makes people less friendly and more our foe. Most of us, are anyways hypocritical and thus, we want our liberty all the while, while we ourselves stay in denial. That all is well and we shall raise our voice, as long as our havens stay safe and our steps have poise. The jokes you laugh at and you laugh at quite a few, work only when they are not on you. Your tantrums are pretty well known, you get offended on calling you anything, now please don’t moan or groan as you look to me as a person who is a grown up. Any joke made in haste, are often not in a good taste, but waste is your opinion or any reason on it, as someone else is getting splits because of it or may be even fits, if it fits.

Here’s my take on Freedom of Speech:

If you decide to create some content (in any form be it written, spoken or drawn) which doesn’t coincide with the usual[1] norms of the society, you are bound to get applause as well as hate. There will be many who will praise your ‘crossing the boundary’ and ‘pushing and kicking the envelope’. There will be many who won’t like it. You may claim that it is your freedom of speech and right to express (be it crass, vulgar and downright abusive or wonderfully created satire with wit and bit of double entendre which many aren’t capable of because it requires more effort). Now when you have right to express something (and serve it as comedy? Heh it is not funny though), you should expect retaliation and criticism of your work. It should[2] range from straight faced ridicule of the content and call it non-funny and not-so-awesome-as-people-claim to laughing it off as totally nonsense and in some cases getting very angry over it being non-funny and not-so-awesome-as-people-claim. This Anger[3] can sometime lead to people lodging complaints against you using the democratic way of using some Indian Penal Code law citing that your content hurt their feelings. Or, more importantly, it was not suitable to be shown in public. But, there will be a fringe group[4] which think they are beyond law and take it as their utmost duty to silence the creator by use of fear and may be violence.

While I am 100% totally against these fringe moral brigade who think this is damaging our culture[5], the other non-violent people who got offended have full right to be offended and lodge a complaint with the police. Now here comes the question of whether they are so offended that they got up, went to a police station and actually complained because someone created some content which they didn’t like. Unfortunately, we people do have such people. And they are in plenty. Their LinkedIn bio boasts of skills like Joblessness, Ability to take offense at almost anything, knowledge of IPC laws (appreciable) and free time.

So when you create something and people get offended, you should STAND UP FOR YOUR RIGHT TO SAY STUFF and not delete the content out of fear while you yourself admit that nobody threatened you. If you are shutting down shop without giving a fight to the people who take your stuff to heart (and possibly to their grave or pyre), what is the point of pushing the envelope? Was that just a way to get quick publicity and establish brand name? The brand name which creates less intelligent stuff (some stuff is really very witty and definitely more intelligent than I can ever make) and more of crass, cuss word usage which can make you popular faster as compared to the other harder way for making it to the top by pure satire.

Then there are people who condescend you since you didn’t like the Roast. Well, to be fair to them, I need not waste any space of this blog, except this line, on them. 😛

One more thing… I want Freedom of Speech to be Absolute. But it is not possible. You cannot ever have consensus on everything, all the time. I am not being pessimistic, I am being realistic. In a country like ours which is so divided on so many lines, circles and triangles, it is next to impossible to agree on everything. The laws which currently exist, do exist because govt. can only be preventive. It cannot ensure your safety from violence all the time. This is a fact and you should know it. Plus, I also believe that our society is evolving, getting more open minded and it will surely be able to be more tolerant. Still, even after hundreds of years from now, someone somewhere will continue to feel bad because of you. If not anything, sometimes people’s faces or dressing styles can be offensive. Like someone getting their name’s embroidery all over their suit. So offensive I tell you. There is certainly a scope of getting our laws fairer. And making them more understandable and less fearful for cases like FoE. But I reiterate, the laws are for preventing bad things to happen. And if I recount human history, people have got offended usually on the basis of speeches and waged wars and what not.

That is all.

[1] Usual here means what most people are comfortable with and have accepted as normal. This again depends on context, place and mood.

[2] But in realistic scenario, it isn’t.

[3] We have a huge population so people who get angry in our country are in huge numbers as well.

[4] Totally jobless idiotic guys with no sense of humor at all. Not even sense of humor, but no respect to the law and order situation, or respect to anyone’s human right. Totally unwanted scum of the Earth and fully deserving to be sent to Kalapani for their whole life where they could mate with each other and overpopulate the islands and die of starvation. Or become Zombies, whatever and get extinct.

[5] Doesn’t exist. Please go and find a different country.

P.S: I am not at all fond of AIB sort of comedy. I find those guys ugly. Of course they are funny but I cannot watch them or hear them, in fear of getting totally bored. May be this is my confirmation bias speaking against them. But that’s how it works, right!

P.S.S: I got so much bored of this issue that I wrote another useless rhyme: http://toomuchgraphic.tumblr.com/post/109964186359/a-good-rhyme-nay

Too Long, Don't Read

So 2015 has finally arrived and January is almost over. No idea what is the hurry. I mean it was barely 2010 few years ago and now this decade is almost half over. Anyways, these year numbers are man-made and there won’t be any year or any number after sometime. Remember, Sun will engulf you eventually.

I have posted some scattered views of mine about religion in few posts in the past. I have never been the religious kind and apart from being superstitious about certain clothing items as they were more comfortable, I am not a believer of superstitions either. I rarely go to any temple, and that too because I had to accompany someone else. But I ‘did’ believe that someone up there is watching my actions and acting on that by rewarding or punishing me. However, my checklist of believing in that started fading few years ago and more recently, most of the remaining points got ticked off as QA failed. Recently I spent time in reading stuff and watching videos which helped a great deal in understanding what is wrong with our worldview about God and religion (whats right is the holidays https://abloquacitylab.wordpress.com/2014/04/15/confusionism/). Some of the stuff range from George Orwell’s 1984 to South Park, from George Carlin to Christopher Hitchens (What a man!) to Sam Harris and even a bit of Richard Dawkins and from RSS to RSS.

Before anything else, I would like to put some thought for 1984 novel. It is said to be about a dystopian era where Govt. has a check on everything an individual does and ‘thinks’. While it is generally considered a word about Communist style of government (and even the Church), I think it is more related to the Theism than anything else. Big Brother or God is watching over you. You cannot question the authority. You cannot even think of stepping out because Godmen or the government will find about your thoughtcrime and punish you for it. There is a word for it: Blasphemy. Je suis Charlie is alright as long there is nobody pointing a gun towards your head.

Coming back, there have been various factors behind me being pushed at the intersection of the venn diagrams of Atheism and believing and even being agnostic. Some of them are plain truths of life, some are untimely deaths of people who were dear and then there were news events such as killing of school kids in Peshawar which tend to tick off points faster.

Through this post, I am trying to align or address my views in a systematic format (partially inspired from http://whatho.in/2014/08/16/things-i-believe-in/)

You’re not special. Nope. You hold as much importance in the world as much as an ant does. You do fit in a larger scheme of things to keep things going but if you’re removed, someone else will take your place. If you do good at the tasks assigned to you, that’s a bonus. If you don’t, there is no point in wasting time over regretting as time is irreversible. And the only thing constant, apart from speed of light, is change. You should, however, keep trying to raise your skills and thereby living standards because who doesn’t want to buy things we don’t actually need.
If possible, try to save your surroundings (which include land, animals and plants) as much as you can. By this I mean, try to be vegetarian. If you can’t, it is okay as taste > life of another organism. Now when it comes to comparing life of another organism to life of plants, all I can say is that to live you have to consume living things which include plant. If possible, you can minimize the damage by eating just plants and not animals with plants. But nobody can force you. If you like to eat non-veg, please keep doing so. Just don’t tell vegetarians that they eat ghaas-foos because your non-veg won’t taste any good without that ghaas-foos.
Continuing on saving the surroundings, minimize use of leather because it involves killing of animals. And killing of animals is (bad, mkay?) required because science has made enough progress that we know how to cook (and not hunt), and how to cultivate (and not kill) and what to wear (not animal skin). Still, if you like, wear fur, leather, whatever.
Karm or Karma is nothing but Newton’s 3rd law. For each of your actions, you can expect a reaction. But, for some of your efforts, you might not get the equal reaction because you are not the only one making efforts. There is nothing like if you do good now, you will get lifetime achievement award later in life. No. There is no guarantee.
You need not please God for getting things in return. God is you yourself and the other voice in your head which tells you what is right morally and what is wrong legally. Act on it and follow the only mantra of life: Live & Let Live. Also, don’t preach but if you think you are right, you can put across your opinion, like I am doing. And I may be wrong.
Since by birth and by tradition, I am a Hindu and Hinduism allows a certain degree of atheism (unlike some other religions, mostly Abrahmic), I will continue to write Hindu in the forms, to please my people. But my opinion has now been affirmed which will take another ‘Resurrection’ sort of miracle to change.
Don’t preach. Keep your belief to yourself but it is never wrong to speak what you think.

P.S: There are certain things which happened to our (still not the perfect heaven) country (and religion) over the years which divided the people somehow. For instance, during the times, religion was more of a way of life than motivation to kill others, people from other places invaded us, looted our property and damaged our buildings. And, they also brought various cultures and good things which make India what it is today, an amalgamation of numerous religions, dialects, colors, faces and many problems.So change is welcome, violence is not. This was again motivated by religion in a way. Well, this is a topic I would touch later when I write about RSS and Nationalism, so this post ends here. I hope you didn’t read it. Good.

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.