Untangling the Web # 2: Illusions and Realities.

Click on the image. Seriously. Now.

Depressing. Goddamn depressing set of facts.
:|

On the other hand, here's a handy graph for the confused and the conservative.

In Uganda, people can be prosecuted for not reporting gay people to the police. In fact, being gay often calls upon the death penalty in the country.

Pathetic.

Homosexuality does not need to be synonymous with 'hidden' or 'clandestine'. Procreation is not the basis for marriage. You CAN choose your car, your career and your partner for life. Period. The association of the word 'straight' with words like perfect or ideal is the issue here.
The not-straight is the not-allowed, right? Wrong.
Love who you want. Marry who you want to. It's high time people accept that. Let live.

The Facebook You and I Love. Is it getting old?

Click on the image to view it clearly. :)

"Each social network brings out the worst in humanity, but in a different way. With Facebook, it's usually the fact that we devastatingly overshare things we really shouldn't. With YouTube, we reveal that as a species we're incredibly retarded. And with Twitter, we reveal just how self-important we really are. "
I read this in a feature titled 140 Characters of Ego.


I have not an issue with social networking. But yes, my life is more productive when my Facebook account has been deactivated. I read more, study more fervently and am unconcerned with the minutiae of unexceptional lives.  I have come to realise one thing, though.  I live in a generation of narcissists and status updates and 2-minute tweets are a reminder of that. Uniformity generally comes with political correctness, but in this day and age, not having a Facebook account is almost viewed as anarchy. On the other hand, I do genuinely enjoy the site; my natural curiosity is unbridled online. It is fun to surf the site, to update your profile, check out what your friend circle is doing or thinking etc. 
But that's the thing, you know. It's just distracting. Too much fun, some would say. Addictive by its very nature.


But do I think it's reaching its social network sell by date, just like Orkut before? Is Facebook dying, or worse still, dead?
Na-ha.
Dead says the hipster who has no idea of the astounding rate at which the site is growing.


The constant redesigning may get irritating, the people online more stupid and Google-dependent for coolness, the status updates dumber/vaguer, the pictures more pouty/'let's-click-photos-just-to-put-them-up-on-Facebook"-ish, but facts are facts.
Connecting with another person, just never gets old.


*poke*

Happiness, times 60. :)

The number 60 reminds me of:
Elvis, The Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Jim Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan and the like in their prime.
The rise of the feminist movement, where Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook played a seminal role.
The burning flame of the gay rights movement.
The Beat Generation in the West, the Hungry Generation in India.
Che turning into a cultural icon for the rebellious youth.
Bell bottomed jeans, high hemlines, floral shirts, Grecian flowers and drugs came to define the hippies.

Notice the common thread here?
The sixties were defined by the people. People from all walks of life contributed in their million little ways to make the era what it was. That's what the number 60 represents for me. A number held up by people. It represents something new, exciting and vibrant.

Thank you, the 60 followers of the blog, for your genuine appreciation and shadowed criticism of my writing. It means a lot. Nothing compares to the excitement of seeing a new comment on your latest blog post. You make it happen. And for that, I thank you and I love you.
:)

A Safer World.

"For months after 9/11, people watched planes. They watched skyscrapers. They looked over their shoulders in crowded places — at baseball games, college graduations, New Year’s celebrations. They eyed bearded men on planes and trains, glanced nervously at suspicious packages in shopping malls, and listened for the lilt of Arabic in airports and bus stations. They profiled relentlessly and shamelessly, and waited for the next attack to come."
-New York Times


THAT was the level of paranoia in the American citizen up until yesterday. All we see is jubilation outside the White House today. While the threat of an arbitrary terrorist act has not yet disappeared, today marks a huge victory, not just for the U.S., but for the peoples of the world.


I was eight years old when I watched the Twin Towers come crashing down on television. I remember I was sleeping on a mattress on the floor of my parent's room. It was pitch dark, when my parents received a call from an uncle in Chicago, urging us to put on the news. In retrospect, little kiddie me could have just gone back to sleep. Because the same footage was played on loop for weeks after, drowning many newsworthy issues in the home country. The sombre tone of journalists, the fearful conversation over dinner just dragged on. It had finally happened. Someone had had the guts to attack America, a country that for a long time, I believed was some sort of paradise, thanks to all those travel shows. My father's mailbox was filled with chain mails depicting photographs of the disaster from various vantage points, some Photoshopped, but gruesome anyway. The words 'terrorism', 'jihad' and 'extremism' made their way into my vocabulary. And you KNOW something is important, when asked to write a speech on terrorism for 15 marks in your English final.


Osama is finally dead.
Reporters are running overtime broadcasting this story, heading to the scene for that 'exclusive coverage'.
Wikipedia has already updated its page on the man.
Google Maps rapidly found the location of the Abbotabad compound.
And it's old news on Twitter.

The newspapers will have sensational headlines tomorrow morning, run timelines, showcase editorials on the justice of it all.

Yet, that first moment of happiness and relief when you heard/read the words this morning, 'Osama's dead,'; that is the memory you will have of this day. That original feeling of 'the world is a safer place' is what you will take with you, when you narrate the story to another.

Untangling the Web # 1: The Girl Effect

Being completely disillusioned that I am with the manner in which I spend my time online, I have decided to find something amazing, useful, informative or just funny, every time I log in to the internet, and post it here. I will try finding something around:
Literature
Poetry
Cinema
Essays
Music
Trivia
Satire
And yes, the occassional Santa-Banta joke.
among others, for your entertainment and mine. :)

Here's my first installation of the same.
A Youtube video by The Girl Effect which spells out how girls can end poverty for themselves and the world.
Simple and powerful.
:)

We Are A Deep Conversation.

"It's a still life water color, 
Of a now late afternoon, 
As the sun shines through the curtained lace 
And shadows wash the room. 
And we sit and drink our coffee 
Couched in our indifference, 
Like shells upon the shore 
You can hear the ocean roar 
In the dangling conversation 
And the superficial sighs, 
The borders of our lives. "
-The Dangling Conversation, Simon and Garfunkel

You can say I am an enthusiastic collector of subjective experiences. I tend to weigh one against the other, add, subtract, divide, multiply, and create the outline of a story where you and I play active or passive roles, sometimes just a cameo. I enjoy thinking all of us, the entire population of the planet, and all their combined activities, thought and emotions are collectively responsible for the feelings I feel, the things that I do and the society I live in. I enjoy believing that even as we are silent, we are in deep conversation with each other at some intrinsic level. Speaking of society, I was born into dogma, like we all are, perhaps to understand the difference between personal truth and myth, though both are equally subjective. I guess we have to learn the box exists to truly get out of it. I've been told that I have a way with words, as I should, because they were my first friends to shape my impressions of the world into something symbolic and intangible. Their reckless use inspires destruction, just as their adept use inspires creation. I believe every person must know how to master their words. I know I try to everyday. I lose half my day to dry academia and examinations, I lose my free time being a victim to some prolific writing on the internet or social networking. The rest of time I spend in a happy daze, bubbling conversation and more than a few laughs. I believe imagination is limitless, anger an illusion. I detest cynicism, especially when I see it in people my age.


Day is turning into night, night to day. So, talk, and make me understand your world view. 
We are, after all, a conversation in progress. A deep one, at that. 

Home. :)

Let's give home sweet home a big big hug, here.
Late in the coming, but belated Happy Earth Day everyone.

Here is my Earth Day initiative, which I pledged on the Billion Acts of Green:

"take short showers, and to turn off the tap while brushing."

Yes, I'm keeping it simple. And doable. :)

What are you doing? :)

P.S. Third trimester finals going on. Three days more, and first year of college ends. Just like that. Time does fly. :)

Look who made it to India Today.

Page 16.
India Today, 25th April Edition.
The girl with the STUPID wide-eyed smile with a candle in her hand, and a Gandhian topi on her head. Yeah, that's me. Kshitij (guy in the blue shirt with an equally stupid grin) makes his first appearance in a magazine with nationwide circulation too. Applause.
:P

You > Me

You wake up every morning by 7 a.m. You do yoga. You go swimming. You are fit. You have a nutritious breakfast. You have eight glasses of water in a day. You know how to cook. You know how to drive. You are confident travelling alone by local train. You do not splurge money on fast food, and regret it the moment you're full. You are not begging your mom for more pocket money by the middle of the month. You know exactly where your watch is, and don't leave it lying around in drawers all around the house. You have an Android phone. You have an effortless writing style, and a sleek looking blog. You've shifted to Wordpress, and have no sentimental attachment with Blogger. You don't write to be read, you write because you love it. You make it a point to read, inspite of your busy schedule. You are not obscenely obsessed with social networking.You know when it's time to get off Facebook and study. You don't get irritated when people use your instead of you're, or it's instead of its. You don't point out in the most pedantic way possible, that it is Goo-chee, not Gucky. You have in-depth knowledge of certain subjects, not just random trivia about the same. You do not care about your ex-best friend, and what she's doing and if she ever thinks of you. You are not secretly jealous when friends go on road-trips, or stay out till 12 a.m. You don't cry about the dearth of like-minded people in your age demographic. You don't suffer from an inferiority complex every time you meet him. You don't smile inadvertently while delivering bad news about someone you don't like too much. You know exactly how to react to every situation. You have never used your knowledge of 'big' words to get out of a situation. You can take a compliment and critique with equal ease. People don't get to know when you're fake smiling at social gatherings, or in an awkward situation. You don't feel out of place when everyone around you talks about the latest episode of Community of The Big Bang Theory, because you comfortably watch whatever season is on on television. You are quite the social butterfly. Your modesty is not fake, and you never make self-deprecating comments in a pathetic attempt to gain compliments. You know what's right for you. You do not write vapid posts filled with a bunch of your shortcomings glorifying a non-existent individual.

Inspired by Kat Vapid

Cheat Code#1: How to trick examiners into thinking you're making sense.

English is not the mother-tongue of most teachers in the country. Play off that.
Not kidding.
:D

Cheat Code# 1 Know your examiner.
More often than not, (in India's high schools and graduate colleges, at least), you can get away with writing "a cow ate up my notebook" by writing "a bovine creature given God-like status in our magnificent multi-cultural country consumed my notebook in which I had taken copious notes".

Write these words in your examination. I guarantee you high scores.
(That's how I get my marks, anyway.)
:P
1. Non-essential
2. Acrimonious
3. Detrimental
4. Epitome
5. Fastidious
6. Harbinger
7. Misnomer
8. Mercenary
9. Perfunctory
10. Ostentatious
11.Oblivion
12. Propriety
13. Quintessential
14. Cohesive
15. Encumbered
16. Synergy
17. Dynamism
18. Strategic
19. Optimization
20. Endeavor

You may think I am joking, but you will fall at my feet worshiping me when your mark-sheet flashes a 3.8 GPA.