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Saturday, April 11, 2009

പടനം /Studies/ पदाई

Its that time of the year again... the dreaded (and oxymoronically) the most looked forward to period in an academic year are here. Its almost the end of the semester. That means it is Exam time. Possibly the last one such stint i have in India.

Why is looked forward to? The long seemingly never ending (but never starting) summer break begins the day after the examinations...(this year i have 4 months to while away).

But not losing track, exam time has its own special meanings for all of us. So i thought up about what all it could mean and came up with a small list of stuff that i do in and around an examination schedule...

1) It means its obviously time to run to the nerd in class and beg him to part with his notes for an hour or so, so that i can get my share of studying done by photocopying his notes. Then possibly never see the photocopy again till half an hour before the exam and wish I had studied at least the previous night.

2)I will very soon find the latest Anime torrent i like and start downloading it. Downloads will be super fast and what takes more than a month to downloaded will be downloaded in a matter of days from a Japanese super fast nerd computer. I will finish that anime on the last nite of study holidays for the very last examination.

3)Daydreaming will overtake (in terms of priority) everything else. EVERYTHING ELSE becomes of secondary importance.(EG : Breathing, eating, talking etc)

4) I will have amazing conversations with my roomies with whom i hardly connect and then spend some of the sweetest days in Chennai. I will soon regret this and stop talking to them alltogether.

5) All humans of the opposite sex become sexually much more receptive to a noob like me only during the examination period. Some crazy fucker once said stress makes mammals homosexual. I believe they make them blind and willing to take anything of the opposite sex as well.

6) Alcohol suddenly seems to be very accessible (financially) and i become very tempted to use all my money for that one purpose. I succumb to my temptation. After which i soon resort to begging for a pen to write my examination. Which i don't get. And we know the rest of this drill...

7)Examinations are always a source of inspiration for me to blog about some random topic. I always end up losing my writer's block and can write articles at the drop of a hat (i had to google this one out)...But then there are the articles which i need to write for marks in the exam. That still falls under serious writer's block issues....

9) I have serious mommy issues. I miss my mom and the rest of my family the most (for no reason) during my exams. I keep calling them, mailing them etc. I have issues of talking to somebody all the time, especially people from the family. I end up not studying. I tell them i didnt do well in the examinations. They stop talking to me. And its a vicious circle....

10) Exams means one thing more for me : Lady luck is on overtime...


JB Signin off...


MeE

P.s : lemme know what crazy shit u guys do...

Sunday, March 22, 2009

Unchanging Realities

I am 21 years old. An adult by law. I have the right to drink. I have the right to frequent nightclubs. I have been given these rights with a viewpoint that I can, for the first time since i was born, think for myself. Or rather, think straight for myself.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman is a 21 year old too. He too by law can drink and frequent nightclubs. He too has been determined by law to be able to think straight. To think for his betterment.

He is also known as Ajmal Kasab. He decided to shoot innocents instead.

What made him not live like any other 21 year old? What made him pick up that gun?

These are the questions one must ponder about. I am not in any position to answer these questions. I think its poverty, or maybe the desire to become politically active. It may be brainwashing by a few cunning people. It is most likely to be a mixture of all of these.

What i want to understand is whether people like Kasab are a new phenomenon? Is it normal for young people to commit mindless acts in the name of any ideology? Do we have any historic records of young people like me wanting to kill innocents?

I am not in any way supporting or endorsing what Kasab did. I will never endorse what ever it is that anyone does if it involves the lives of the innocent.

Youngsters are the most susceptible to the concept of revolution. For example Chhatrapathi Shivaji, one of the greatest warriors India has ever seen was a rebel. He invented Guerrilla warfare. He was only 17 when he first attacked and captured Torna Fort.

Che Guevara, another revolutionary. Went against governments in South America and armed and formed an army for this purpose. Was branded a terrorist. Believed in an ideology. Everything began with a single trip.

Isn't Kasab's belief in an ideology making him pick up a gun? He must be surely thinking he is a Che, or a Sivaji or maybe even a Bhagat Singh (of his own making obviously).

The thing that is common to all of these men whose names i have stated is that they see around themselves a lot of pain, oppression and poverty. This makes them lose their belief in the ideology they always knew. They start seeking solace in other ideologies. Some promise equality, some others promise freedom and some promise heaven.

Man is always going to be oppressed by his own kind. There is no possible way that there could have been a day since 1900 that some one wasn't warring with some one. It has reached a scenario that we are able to get used to this fact as time goes by.

Man is a creature of habits. He does not learn from his mistakes. Human History seems to be a cycle of events changing names every cycle. As George Santayana once said,

"Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
We are living in a world that grows lesser and lesser safer for everyone. As time goes by there are more and more chances that one's lifespan is getting shorter. Mega Corporations trying to poison you, Terrorists trying to blow you up, Politicians trying to whore you, and so many other things. If you manage to survive every one of these events, you are most likely to be a victim of the ever so magnifying issue of Global warming.

For every problem solved, man is able to create something or the other.

When the Berlin wall fell on August 23rd 1989, the world rejoiced. By April 1996 Israel had finished building most of the Israel - Gaza Strip Barrier. Doesn't anyone realize?

Every wall built will be torn down. For every wall torn down, a new one is erected somewhere else. I know it sounds like a cheesy rip off of the laws of motion. But that is the reality of life. If someone is freed someone else pays for it by losing their freedom.

Men are always going to fight amongst themselves. He needs not a reason. He is sure to make one up. There is no ideology that will appease us all. We slowly will end everything. Sooner or later.

Signin off...

MeE