Alter Ego or Normal me

“You know what my problem with current generation is; the line between being a total loser and coolest guy around is so blurred that they can be used interchangeably for most of the cases.

Look at the guy riding the bike without helmet, how careless.

Look at the guy without helmet, feeling the speed, Thrilling.

Don’t know what he smoked last night; he missed the afternoon exam, such a looser.

Don’t know what he smoked last night man; he didn’t even wake up till three next day, cool story bro.

His parents asked him why he is debarred due to less attendance. He replied them back that they are too illiterate to understand any college stuff, he is a total loser.

His parents questioned him about his short attendance; you should have seen his looser parents face when he told them that they haven’t even passed school and lecturing him about college stuff. He always has the best comebacks.

He just married two months back and he is also having illicit relationships with many other women, such a Shameless fellow.

 Dude, forget his wife, he also has three different girlfriends in different cities, all of them are super-hot, Man, what a stud he is.

He convinced his parents for his sister’s inter-religion marriage, such an understanding brother.

Instead of beating the shit out that guy who is having affair with his sister, who is not even of the same religion, he is talking to his parents in favor of that bastard and he calls himself a man also.

They always put an address slip with contact details in their kid’s pocket, how responsible parents they are.

His parents are so uncool. They put an address slip in his pocket. He is a courier or what.”

“I am sorry that I showed you that meme. God! You are ready to preach about anything anytime.” He interrupted me in between.

But I was probably in no mood to stop right there “No man, you just don’t get it. It isn’t about that meme that was actually funny. I would have probably laughed out loud on that in an isolated context. The thing is you showed me that as a reference to prove a point. That’s what bothers me.

People just don’t get jokes or humor of any kind. It’s either they are deeply offended by it or they take it as a license to do something.

That stand-up comedian made fun of it, it’s so uncool to do or he mentioned it in his gig, it’s the coolest thing to do.

I am telling you if you tag 50 friends of yours in a meme. Let’s say in this one:

There three type of stupid people in the world:
 Stupid 
Super Stupid
Then there are those who think their teeth will actually get pyria if they won’t brush every morning.

And I am pretty sure at least few of them start feeling that brushing their teeth every morning is uncool and they will start tagging other people to make them feel the same.

There are jokes on proper food habit, proper sleeping habits, proper etiquettes and about what not and they are funny too when they do it in their stand-up act but that doesn’t make those things any uncool or improper. A meme about something doesn’t legitimize anything. A meme against something doesn’t make any thing uncool also for that matter.”

“Dude, I hope that I don’t meet you ever again in metro, enough of these coincidences. You were telling me that I am the cop of moral police then what are you? A CBI of that?  Look inside yourself first and practice what you preach.” His station arrived. Metro gates got opened. He waived me good bye. I was still standing there in self analyzing mode.

I was really surprised how I can be so preachy. I opened the selfie camera and took a good look of myself. I felt so uncool of me. By the time I was getting off the metro, I decided that I need to find somebody uglier (that I probably can considering the population) or younger (who actually respect elders and doesn’t reply back) or lesser in physique (that’s a bit hard to find though) and have to make some insulting jokes about him so that I can feel cool about myself again.

People are listening to the fiddle while Rome is burning

My office isn’t very far away from my home so I don’t usually commute through metro.  But I can’t say how I feel about it. It’s a good thing that I don’t have to witness a sample of population explosion every day but back when I used to travel to Delhi every day from Gurgaon (Sorry I just can’t), I could read, at least in those 40 minutes. Now sometimes I don’t read even a single page in the entire day.

Delhi Roads before Diwali go crazy. Everybody has gifts and sweets to send to somebody, their relatives, friends, customers, bosses, enemies, strangers, or any god damn body. So it was better to take a metro when I had to go to CP this Sunday. As soon as I got into metro at Saket, I found a familiar face standing against one of those poles; it took me few seconds to recollect that he was the guy I travelled in the metro with, the last time.

I walked to him and extended my hand, “Rajesh ! We met in the metro the other day.”

“Off course, the preachy guy” He replied.

“Preachy guy? Me ? wow !” this guy never fails to surprise me. “Anyhow, I couldn’t get your name that day.”

“Forget it, I heard some actor saying Insaan naam me bhi Majhab dhoond leta hai. (Like it was too hard to guess after the last discussion).”

“Man finds religion even in the name, says the guy who starts his every political opinion with the opening line: I am Kashmiri Hindu.”

“So what, being a Hindu is matter of proud. What’s wrong if he says it out loud?” (Boy, stop giving me clues, I am trying to guess it on my own.)

 “So where will you be getting off” He tried to change the topic.

“Why are you interested anyway, Today I don’t have a seat to offer. Btw I am going to CP, Actually I have to shop a little, or a lot or not at all may be.”

“ahm ahm … Festive shopping ?”  It was so friendly that it gave me major ‘bro let’s party’ vibes.

“Yeah Man, Halloween is coming and I haven’t finalized my dress yet.”

“I know that was sarcastic and supposed to be funny but you really need to be little more respectful to our culture and festivals.” He appeared really concerned about me. (He gets sarcasm. we can probably be friends someday.)

“Dude, you literally don’t get tired of this moral policing. You don’t have to tell people how they have to feel about their culture, country or religion and a little humor never hurt anybody anyway.”

“These things are not law but everybody should do it voluntarily.”

“Does it occur to you that why these things are not law? These are personal choices and everybody is free to decide their personal choices on their own. How it can be voluntarily if you will be lynched to death if you don’t follow them.”

“You just have a leftist mind set. But this ideology is going to get extinct pretty soon. The way ruling party is winning every state election shows how people have started thinking now.”

“I am pretty much apolitical guy. So this left, right and center thinking doesn’t really make sense to me. But the political scenario in the country is undoubtedly scary. Have you heard of Roman Emperor Nero?

In A.D. 64, 70 percent of Rome was consumed by fire. People helplessly watched it burn for a week. (It’s hard to even imagine the pain of watching your home burning helplessly in front of your eyes specially when there is no Khaleesi coming out with three baby dragon at the end of fire).

There were rumors that the emperor, Nero, himself set the fire.  He wanted to rebuild Rome in his own way and he used the fire as an excuse for new construction. (By the way the technique always works. As a child I had to tear down my old shoes to get my latest favorite shoes). But most disturbing rumor that came out was that Nero was playing the fiddle while Rome was burning. However the myth is busted because violin wasn't invented for another 1,500 years after the fire. But the idea that Nero fiddled while Rome burned isn’t that unbelievable, because Nero was unquestionably cruel. There have been many examples in history after that how unempathetic a ruler, in madness of power, can be. There have been Hitler, Zedong, Stalin and even in present day politics there are leaders who have idly watched thousands of people die.

“I am History honors student from DU. Obviously I know. What about him” He replied excitedly flaunting his university and knowledge.

“A mad tyrant who preferred to play music rather than offering succor to his people, the current situation of country is even worse.”

“Now you are not making any sense at all. How can something be worse than that?”

“Because now Nero is playing the fiddle and people are enjoying the music. The fire is silently burning the whole country.”

Right then metro announced my station and I waved him good bye, “I hope at least the concept of cracker free Diwali makes sense to you. Happy Diwali.”

Preach, if you must, what you Practice

This Tuesday I was in Delhi metro coming from Gurgaon, sorry if I hurt any sentiments by not calling it Gurugram (getting their sentiments hurt is favorite hobby of people these days). I somehow think I will never get used to of Gurugram. I remember my schoolmate Kallu. In 10th standard, while registering for board exams, it occurred to his parents that Kallu isn't probably a good name. So they registered him as Kapil. It has been fifteen years (oh my God, 15 years... I am really old now.) But I never heard anybody calling him Kapil and case of Gurgaon is even worse because they are trying to change Kapil into Kallu.

 So I was traveling from MG Road to Saket (that's where I live). 3'O clock in the noon isn't the busiest of metro hours so I actually got a seat to sit down. That was great because you really need to feel comfortable to lie better. Oh I forgot to mention, my latest mobile obsession is online poker and I am not the luckiest with card. So I try to bluff with whatever I get. So I was playing poker in my mobile when I realized there is a dude standing near my seat and apparently his only mission in life was to know what is happening in my phone. People generally don't realize how impolite it is to sneak into somebody's phone. Sometimes when I am chatting with my girlfriend in public transport or lift, there will be some dude who will try to read every word of it as if I am sending it to his sister.

So, to make him feel guilty I looked at him but he was in different zone altogether. He was looking back at me as if I was actually asking for nudes from his sister. Those eyes expressions were really confusing so I thought better to use easy mode of communication. So I spoke, “Don’t worry, I am not going to lose Indraprastha and  Draupadi in the gambling." 

 Sometimes I wonder, probably I have some extraordinary quality to offend people. Once I was telling one of my friends who happen to be a Chemical Engineer from an IIT that Ganga Water is now polluted even for bathing how somebody can drink it.

And he was like: Ganga water can make anything pure and you think it is not pure itself. Our generation kids study few things about science and think that they know it all. The whole education System was made by Britishers whereas actual science was invented by, we, Indians centuries ago. You will happily read those foreign writer books and feel that you are very educated. Real knowledge is in Vedas. We had all this knowledge centuries ago. 

“But go and see the water analysis report before any Kumbh Mela, it always says that water isn't clean enough to even bath."

“This is agenda of these anti nationalist people, don't fall prey to it and never ever hurt anybody's sentiment for Ganga Maiya again."

So there was this guy who was staring at me because I looked back at him for peeking into my phone. He replied back to me, “I don't know what’s wrong with people now a day. You guys think making fun of our scriptures is so cool. Don't you ? That wasn't just any gambling game that was according to the will of Lord Krishna."

My tolerance for shit is very high usually but still this pissed me of. Not because he was not making any sense but I didn’t even know him and he was literally invading my privacy and wanted to make me feel guilty about it. So I replied, “Lord Krishna probably forget to mention it in Geeta but I am pretty sure he intended to say that it’s not exactly a good idea to stick your nose into somebody else’s business.”

He replied, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sneak into your phone but I just saw you playing poker. I know it’s virtual and it isn’t any gambling and even if it, it probably isn’t my business (yeah, that’s right there was a ‘probably’). It just made me wonders why we Indian don’t like to do or use Indian things. They take anything and westernized it and it instantly becomes cool for us. Take you for an example, even if you have to play a gambling card game, you won’t play Teen Patti which is invented in India but you have to play Poker. Because using Indian Things is so uncool.”

He totally swept me off the floor by saying sorry. You usually don’t expect sorry from these nationalist cops of moral police. But this was absolutely funny in its own way, I mean if you want to gamble, go gamble try your luck but make sure you are playing an Indian game. I took a good look of him and couldn’t resist laughing. It took me good 10 secs to be able to utter a word. “You are telling me to use Indian things wearing your Jack & Jones Tees, Levi’s jeans and superstar shoes. Dude, do you even listen to yourself ?.”

Right then metro announced, “Next station is Saket. Doors will open on the right.” I got up to leave , giving him my seat. He interjected from behind, “So that’s how it works for you, you will listen to me if I will tell you same thing wearing different clothes.”

“Obviously not, you are not making any sense anyway but then at least you will preach what you practice.” and waved him a good bye.