I Feel Lazy, Send in My Avatar

Some time ago, a sci fi movie Surrogates, based on a cyberpunk graphic novel of the same name was released. Bruce Willis toplined the feature. It came and went, largely unnoticed. But the frightening fact is, the plot of the movie, or rather the crux of it, could soon be a reality.

It deals with a future where humans live in isolation from the rest of the world and communicate externally through the use of SURROGATES (hence the title, in case ya didnt realise).

We are imperceptibly, gradually getting socially detached. Ironic, considering the array of stay in touch gadgets/widgets splayed at our disposal. Personal contact, face to face interaction is slowly subsiding as video conferencing, chatting and virtual socialising come to the forefront. People shy away from all forms of actual interaction and then promptly enroll in contactotherapy as a cure for their chronic "shyness'. We prefer to go out and socialise using Second Life Avatars. A culture that was possibly parodied intentionally or unintentionally in James Cameron's Avatar.

Slowly and surely we are building a shell around ourselves, brainwashed by mindless entertainment, kept busy by silly fade-in-a-minute crazes and fads. And its not like we are utilising this privacy, this time away from the maddening crowd to self analyse or introspect. We are busy dulling our brains on gimmicks created out of boredom by other numbskulls.

We can exist days, even months, on end without leaving our house. We have almost everything delivered at our doorstep. With almost everything and accessible through the web many of us can and in fact do work from home. Actual interaction with the outside world is not at all necessary to survive - at least, in theory. And if we could have and experience all the pleasures and joy in life from the relative comfort of our own abode, why wouldn't we. As far as we can percieve, there seem to be no pitfalls or flipsides to such an arrangement.

Pleasure and comfort are the hardest to resist. Which explains the influx of entertainment and comfort technologies that we welcome eagerly into the fold. Adaptation to such will of course leave us weak and incapable of facing anything but the mildest and meekest of climate/environment. The illusion of being able to control our world and surroundings is what is at the core of this fatal attraction.

So, I hypothesize that we will all end up staying at home, waiting for the next bit of pleasure to come our way, indirectly interacting with others (but viciously so, because the pleasures of commenting and status updating are overpowering to most). Indulging in artificial exercise and therapy to keep ourselves fit and natural and sustained. And no doubt, some enterprising blighter will use this opportunity to invent an interaction simulation, where we will gladly and gleefully indulge in "realistic and immersive" interaction with other beings.

Phoren Tadka ( Exotic Spices)



Indians like foreign stuff. As long as you properly Indianise them. They want the phirangi stuff drenched in Indian sensibilities. Dish should be foreign, but garnished with local spices. Ok, ok, enough of bad puns, ill elaborate further. They basically want to play it safe but at the same time pretend to project an aura of sophistication.

They think they like Chinese and Italian. But that is only because they have eaten the street side vendor spicy Chinese, or the thick cheese pizza on hard crust bread at the local fast food outlet. Authentic food, with its weird often smelly ingredients and sometimes bland taste would leave them disgusted. And this i say only about the conventional items. I am not even going to speak of acquired taste items like Frog or snakes that might present themselves on the menu. Which reminds me of a funny incident at a Hong Kong breakfast buffet. I took some meatballs on my plate and as I headed back to the table I thought it wise to check the contents in case it was pork. I asked an idle waiter if the contents were chicken or pork. He said something that sounded like pork. Further prodding made him enunciate it equally unintelligibly albeit a little louder. Imagine my horror when I realised the word he was spouting was FROG.

This is not relegated to just food items. They take whatever aspects of foreign culture they like and then Indianise it. The result is not always pretty. Torn jeans that have gaudy glitter patterns on the backside, worn with atrociously loud t shirts. You have to pretend to like exotic stuff. And so you are always searching for exotica. Because at some point the exotic stuff becomes common place. And once everybody else likes it, you have to discard it and move on in search of other exotic stuff. Because, lets face it, there are pretenses to be kept up with.

All this while, the other cultures are discovering the good about our culture. Yoga, vegetarianism and Herbal tea to name a few. Ironically, some of these things became popular only after the West found it cool and hip.


They like modernism, freedom of expressions and casual, open minded approach. They imitate it. But only to a certain extent. Social and class distinctions, communalism have not been discarded. The youth there take up odd end jobs to earn their pocket money. Most of the work here is considered

below standards, sanctity of work has no respect here. So we continue to take and mould, adapt whatever catches our fancy to our convenience. The gadgets, playstations, ipods are all there. Of course wifi zones are scarce. The casual workclothes, and young urban attitude is there, but alternative careers find no takers. We don't move beyond, doctors, engineers, lawyers and MBA.






enough of bad puns, ill elaborate further. They basically want to play it safe but at the same time pretend to project an aura of sophistication.

Moment of Dread/Bewakufi ka Saamna

Indians are an opinionated bunch. They love to offer advice. Even to those who cannot take it, or worse, dont need it. Their voyeuristic tendencies are also linked to this instinct. They tend to snoop and meddle in affairs where they can offer help, advice or opinion though they only

subconciously do so. Paparazzi culture (though i use the word culture in the loosest sense) exists but not at its peak like in the US and so they dont really like to look into others lives all the time especially when they can offer no opinion or affect the outcome by vote. So any reality show that has no public voting system, does not attract them to that extent. They may not realise it yet, but its true.

But producers, dumb as they are in airing all the harebrained shows that they do, have somehow grasped this fact. Which is why every reality show that they ape from the west (yes its true, there is no show on air which doesnt owe its origin to some US primetime show) doesnt fare as well as it did back there. Specially, as i said, if it doesnt have public voting, because then they cant affect the outcome (honestly they can rarely affect the outcome, in any situation, televised or otherwise, but every Indian likes to think that her/his opinion helped.) And so we see celebrity after celerity hitting the stands. As audience, they bring in famous people from every walk of life. He must have made the news enough to make it interesting. Because newsmakers we do care about.

I dread the day when we see convicted felonist or fellows like Ajmal Kasab living in a house or

jungle for a cpl of months on end with our desi celebs. I say forget jail, no better punishment

than some quality time spent in the company of failed tv stars. i guess its because people in the

limelight like staying there that there isnt a dearth of participants. Or someday there might be

reality show where you do something to stay in the limelight...now theres a horrible thought.

Following this line of thought, producers could take this concept to horrendous depths. Where

newsmakers exchanged lives and instead of making a mess of their own proffessions, made a mess of others'. Not much change their since celebrities already multitask. Once you are famous it is like a license to do anything from politics to acting or vice versa, designing, producing, singing, you name it, they decimate it.

A Jar-Jarring Assault on the Senses

See, everybody pretty much hated Jar Jar Binks. And a friend and I couldnt for the life of us understand why. Maybe it was us, maybe we just had a low threshold. Maybe we were too easily pleased, laughing at crude comedies and being awed by any CGI laden feature that came our way!!! OMIGOD!!! Had we turned Bhopali??????? And then we read comments that people had on Jar Jar. Comments that resurfaced when there was debate regarding the steriotypical voice acting of some "black sounding voices" in the new Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Jar Jar was hated for propagating racial steriotypes. His meesa going bumbling.......reminded people of the Yo Maan!!! Carribean. And not in the Johnny Depp swashbuckling pirate way.

And I ask you this. Is everyone black from gangsta rappers to typical wayans brothers nonsensical sitcoms any less guilty of propagating those stereotypes? With the honorable exception of Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman and of course Will Smith in the movie business, isnt everyone black including Samuel L Jackson guilty of propagating that? And i do believe that the Jar Jar similarities may have been unintentional. And in entertainment, only the old jazz artists, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong and coincidentally the late Michael Jackson (may he rest in peace) fall into this category. Who is more guilty then, the people who in all honesty and innocence came up with a buffonlike comical relief or the people who read too much into every piece of harmless fun. Isnt the person who goes "Oh that guy is of so and so religion/race and he is in a negative character......SACRILEGE SACRILEGE!!" guiltier than the filmmaker who was just portraying it in an incidental and unintentional way. Whatever happened to freedom of expression. Artists of all people should be granted that. With limitations of course because their arts can border from the absurd to the scandalously outrageous.

And speaking of stereotypes, what about the Disney stereotype with the mandatory girl lead and the token black goofy friend. A white goof if the central character is black, the vampy bitchy characters who are intentionally less hot than the cental one but everyone pretends otherwise. There is always a pesky annoying brother. And three friends. One guy and two girls. Isnt this nonsensical stereotype even more dangerous considering that its being administered to naive young minds tantamount to shiny new blank slates with nary a smudge on them????

Apparently appearances matter more. That is why superman when bruised, which isnt often, he isnt shown healing rapidly, cuz thats wolverines domain apparently and then it would seem too cliched. Though reality dictates that what with his super high metabolism he should have equally rapid healing if not more. Oh and the time when Gambit was exempted from the earlier x men movies because his powers were thought to be too similar to Cyclops. Well they proved that wrong with X-Men Origins: Wolverine didn't they? ...oh well, before I start sounding like too much of a geek (tho some might say its too late for that already) ill sign off...bye.

                        Hands On - The Phallic Phascination

There is something about a protruding object that seems to catch the male fantasy.  Now, before you allow your minds to wander and take a leisurely dip in the gutter, I shall proceed to paint a clearer picture, with firm brushstrokes - something that i can only figuratively achieve seeing as the only subject I ever failed in school was drawing.  

    Take a gun for instance.  A gun in any form, airgun, toy pistol, prop item, cigarette lighter seems to attract the male attention.  They hold it in various poses, they take mock aim, they wave it around.  Hell, they even like to shove it around in their waistband and move about.  It helps them exude a sense of confidence and power, for some reason.  It could be argued here that it may be so because even a fake gun invokes the imagery of the real thing.  But this phenomenon is not just relegated to firearms.  Mock swords, daggers, knives nunchuks, anything works.  Even the sad geeks have their Star Trek phasers.  Star Wars fans ( they are not GEEKS!!!!) have their lightsabers - which for some is the paragon of symbolism in the Star Wars universe.  Even a remote control, even that small one attached to your keyring that electronically locks/unlocks your car appears irresistible to the males.  Maybe its the sense of control that subconsciously personifies, the power to change channels, to lock and unlock doors at the press of a button or whatever.  And while we are tossing out examples like confetti, lets not forget the guitar.  That for some males is the ultimate chick magnet ( in their defence, the guitar does seem to attract the female in droves, albeit of a somewhat dumber variety - but then people who take up playing guitar to attract women surely don't bother about their IQ or brainpower).  A few chords here and there and you have female swooning.  Its hard to sound disharmonious or cacophonous with a well tuned guitar, be as musically challenged as you may.

   Maybe what it all comes down to is men need something to do with their hands.  While the empty mind is the devil's playground, it's obvious males find empty hands equally unnerving.  Now that I think about it, I cant recall my hands ever being empty.  I'm either holding the handlebars of my scooter, or a TV remote, a book, fiddling with my ipod or tapping away on my keyboard to generate amateurish, corny crap like this piece right here ( its amazing how often u get stymied by simple spellings.  I typed PIECE three times before getting it right. Maybe it is true when they say that the brain just reads the first and last letters and processes the word as a whole.  But let us leave that.  I digress). If none of these, I'm either handling my mouse and keyboard or my joystick (oh come on, you dirty people get your minds out of the gutter.  I'm speaking literally here, not figuratively) and playing games on my trusty PC.  Oh games, the bone of contention between many a parent and son, between boyfriends and girlfriends.  Men are fascinated by games, controlling characters, even worlds at the press of a button.  And now Nintendo that venerable video game maker has given us the ultimate protruding device, the Wiimote.

  Oh now I just thought of another one.  A camera, especially the big powerful one with a protruding lens.  That is something that males like too. Capturing the moment for posterity with the press of a button.  Hence proved, every man craves power, not just ambitious businessmen or bad politicians.  Do I hear women rejoicing.  Well they shouldn't.  They crave power most of all.  And they use their hands to do achieve it too.  Whether it is folding them wistfully to melt a stone heart or just yanking the puppet strings figuratively tied around their fingers to achieve their petty manipulations.  Yay, I'm so happy i managed to end this one on a female-bashing note as well.  Hmm it appears I do have a sad and empty life.

OK, Everybody Ready?... Smile!!!!!





In the whole still camera vs the camcorder, i prefer the still camera. With a camcorder, you're too busy recording stuff. You see through the lens and often forget to take a real good look at the thing yourself. As for the video you shoot, life nowadays is too busy to browse through nostalgic videos anyway. Besides still photography is an art. With exhibitions and all. When was the last time you heard of a pulitzer for a camcorder recording.

Now, about this still photography business. Its supposed to capture real moments isnt it? Then why do people keep posing and smiling when it comes to photographs. Maybe they do it so they can have a new profile pic on all ten of the networking sites that they have joined, or may be they have pics to show off on their albums in the same networking sites. But whatever be the case, there is something grotesquely fake and repulsive about a group pose and smile for a photograph. Thats why I hate being photographed. And when they ask me to smile. Well, then its guaranteed the photos gonna be a stinker. If you really need me to fake smile then you gotta give me a few moments to daydream. Then I can imagine some situation and manage a mild smile without looking totally fake and inappropriate.

This is also the case with me when I take photographs. I usually handle the camera in a given situation. For two primary reasons: 1) Photography is something of an ameteur hobby of mine and 2) This way I make sure I dont become a photo casualty i.e. I dont get caught at the wrong end of the camera. Now when people decide and pose and say stuff like "wait, wait, wheres a comb?", "Is my shirt on ok?", "am I visible?" and then finally pose and put on a smile, I lose all the will to click. I prefer spontaneous real moments. Click away when people dont realise I'm doing it, with them being their natural selves.

People have no consideration for things like the perfect setting, capturing the mood etc. These are minor trivialites for them. They will intrude themselves and impose their will on the shot. They refuse to take directions. But at the end of it all, they will insist on checking the camera to see if they came out okay...as if the photo is being sent for the damn pulitzer. Go figure!!!


Well, this years coming to an end. I can look forward to more uselessness, still no earning, rejection from the good and decent MBA colleges, more recession, going to the trouble of making new friends etc. On the bright side, I get to leave Bhopal!! yay for me!!!! Have a HAPLESS NEW YEAR everyone!!!!!

Not Funny


You ever notice how if you come close to setting up a joke or are ready to degrade someone in a really funny and cool way, you find it hard to not do it? Even if evidence contrary to your case is presented or if your facts are misconstrued, you still refuse to let go. Case in point panning the poor music this year. They said that even Rehman's best work was a crappy ^&%^&%^ and that is where they quoted a movie. Two words for you losers...Slumdog Millionaire. But that is neither here nor there. Its the idea of selling a joke.

We've seen some of the worse mimics in the reality comedy shows. They mimic anyone and everyone. And sure it is a form of flattery. But being the one who is doing the flattery instead of being flattered is not that cool either. But to get back to the point, people do anything to put appear funny. They steal jokes and tell them to girls as if they were their own, they make fun of people they know nothing about. They will incorrectly rhyme penis with tennis to sell a dirty limerick but they will acheive their ends. Make fun of styles when you have no personality, make fun of a persona when you are an unkown entity. Or simply interpret badge and batch as the same word and make stupid wordplays (yeah, that happens a lot in my college).

Apparently being irreverent, distasteful and downright slanderous is the new cool. Everyone's doing it. But the fact is, they try so hard its painfully obvious

Peeping Toms/Tabithas



Indians have always been interested in the affairs of others. Mind you I'm not talking about the Myanamar and Tibet issues. When it comes to really helping our neighbours, we decide to turn a blind eye and a deaf ear towards them. Inspite of the fact that we ourselves are constantly on the recieving end of some aid or the other. But other than that, we love meddling in the affairs of others. We can never refrain ourselves from giving opinions and offering advices to others. It does not matter that we are afraid of even a rippling shallow pool of water, we will not cower when it comes to offer tips on extreme river rafting.

And I believe that all of this, somehow, is connected to our voyeuristic tendencies. There is a hidden pervert in all of us. Well not pervert actually. Since we cant all be perverts, we have a macabre, morbid fascination in the acts of those who are. And yes, all those who stand there naked (figuratively speaking) in all their glory, for the world to see are, in my book, Grade A perverts. We love to watch. And though our linen may be spick and span, we love watching people washing their dirtylaundry in public.

And this fact has been exploited. More and more clones keep popping up all over the place. The Schadenfraude element comes in play. The part of our brain that is exited at the misery of others comes into play. That in itself should tell us about ourselves as a generation and humanity. Its not the talent that is spinning money. We all know and realise the fact that the winner, let alone the contestants arent going to get squat out of it. They know it too. But for them its the thrill of being on a stage and holding everyones attention. And for us, its about seeing them in all their misery.

A generation of wasting fools who have entered a redundant cycle that appeals to all and benefits none. Attention grabbers and nosy pokers. Thats what we are.

A Pathetic/Apathetic Situation

Our generation gradually moves towards an apethic state of mind. As we grow number and number (ok, ok if all the wise cracking smart alecs have finished asking "WHICH NUMBER" ill move forward)or actually more and more numb if u will, there are fewer things that amaze us any more. Lets face it, sensationalism just isnt as sensational as it once was. Everything is breaking news, the varying shades of the scarf worn by the dog that belongs to a mediocre cricketer, who just happens to look good is worthy of generating debate and is worthy of at least 30 mins of solid prime time newsreel footage.

But there is a sad aspect to this matter. There are brutal, despicable acts, terrible calamities, ruthless atrocities occuring all over the world that dont get enough space because they dont generate enough (and here i gesture mock inverted commas with my fingers as well) "Human Interest". A high society murder or a high profile kidnapping is something that we can all relate to. That can be follwed up endlessly through months. And its not just the news. Every contest, every reality show overindulges in pregnant silences and sensational drum rolls. So much so that they need only shoot 5 minutes of footage and roll it for the entire 20 minutes by constant repetition and excruciatingly slow Slow Motion.

Our generations has grown unfeeling over time. As it is, we lack the ability to concentrate for more than a few seconds (this fact, demonstrated never more clearly than when we flick through numerous channels without hovering over a single one for more than 10 seconds). Add to that the loss of our ability to empathise with real suffering and the fact that we can shrug off the death of thousands of people when the responsible cause is "just a natural disaster".

This apathy also spills into our personal lives. This gives fuel to the already rampaging juggernaut inside us that drives us towards every increasing self centric tendencies. We are too full of ourselves to look beyond us. And again, yes again, for the umpteenth time and certainly not the last, ill condemn the damned youth brigade with its youngistaan concepts for feeding shit to bloat the egos of already prissy youths.

Then we move on to condemn everything and feel good about it. All the while, we ourselves are trying to get noticed by competing in no matter what talent showcasing against likeminded fools. Its not that we dont want to care. Now, even here people are more concerened with making a show of caring...dealing with the superficial formalities as it were. But to get back to the point, we do want to care. Its just that we have unwittingly shoved ourselves into a quagmire of self indulgence. Everyone is running about concerned only about survival..their survival, then goddamit why shouldn't we? Robots will be redundant in the future if we end up behaving like them ourselves. But what can we do. Oversensationalism compels us to either go mad with their constant implosion or shut our senses off from them.

The Great Escape


Okay, let me start off by warning you that my following few blogs will all have the same recurring themes about panning reality shows and condemning the youth of today. I'm damned busy, frustrated and worried at the moment (no, no..not at the state of our youth...they can all go boil their heads for all i care)and as such my thoughts are quite disjointed. So what else is new say my regular readers. You never made much sense anyway they scream. And I care not as i lazily flick a speck of dust from my impeccable mechlin cuffs...its another matter that I'm wearing a half sleeved T-shirt with a stoned out skull bearing the legend Chill Out or Die and have never even set eyes on mechlin cuffs. But to get back to the what i was saying unable to connect them and bind them into one or two blogs i will examine different aspects of the same phenomenon over the next few blogs. Please bear with me as i ramble along.

We have entered an age of ruthless consumerism and mindless escapism. We dont care how it affects others, what is the longterm aftermath or anything else. Going with the mindless Youthcentric trend, we are living for the moment. ADD afflicted apathetic zombies flicking through channels with a bored expression desperately searching for whatever can hold their interest for a few minutes. Too much? Well, don't blame me. I'm not feeling too charitable. Like babies they are. Shutting their eyes from the world, they think they are invisible to all (here I'm not gonna give the ostrich burying its head in the sand analogy. Its a bloody myth. They do no such bloody thing.). The think tanks at the entertainment channels know that people will go to any extent in search for some moments of escapist pleasure. And we are feeding off ourselves in the proccess.

There is a spate of reality shows where people come to demonstrate what they think is talent. What we do see is artificial emotions which are better served in any weekly movie release and mindless histronics. What happens when they win? Who cares. Its the even more senseless journey that takes them to a senseless finale that captivates us. Love hunts, the search for the true wandering spirit (Roadhoggies/Roadies) or below all, the incessant singing &/or dancing shows that ultimately lead the participants to nowhere are in full vogue. And we love it. We quite knowingly mislead ourselves into believeing that whats out there is real. Real human emotions, real joy, real frustration and the true triumph of human spirit. Pah...Gimme a break.

As real life gets tougher and more tedious, the baby syndrome gets yet more pronounced and people rush to anything that will give them brief respite from the reality that they have to face every single damned day of their miserable lives (okay, maybe not everyone has it as tough as I do, but things have taken a turn for the worse you'll agree) Unfotunately, what they escape into is what i have just described and will continue to describe over a period of time for the next few blogs.