Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Spare some time, spoil your parents!

I was given everything I ever needed by my parents. Education( never mind that it was the worst school in the town; they had no clue either), clothes, all the food I can eat, all the movies I wanted to watch, all those things that make our life worth living. And most importantly they gave me my freedom and space. In short they spoiled me (My English was spoilt by the aforementioned school though)

So now that I have grown up (physically at least) its time for me to repay my parents. I can give them whatever money I make, I can get them the new generation luxuries. Send them on a holiday trip to wherever they fancy. I have instead decided to just spoil them. That's what they would like more(and at this point that's all I can afford) There is a huge age gap between me and my parents because they had a late marriage. And I guess my father and mother took it seriously when Nehru said that our country is going to progress with the five year plans. There is exactly 5 years of gap between the 3 of us siblings. So I was born late as well. It doesn't matter now. I am a big boy now (more so on the waist)

All I want to do for them is what they did for me. It's a little too late to put them to the same school as mine (wish I could; then they will know why I hate my school life) but I can do all the other things they did for me. I want to drive them wherever they want to go. Wait for them outside when they have parties at their friends place and dad can't drive (and I can't drink). Take my mom shopping whenever she feels like. Make sure they don't have to travel by bus or walk at any time. Make them eat their medicines, make them meet the doctor. Make sure they sleep properly. Take them to the movies and buy them popcorn. Have a sumptuous dinner at a nice restaurant. Go out with them to the beach and watch my mom holding on to my hands when the wave comes up, just like I held on to hers some 20 years back. It feels good.


At a point of your life, your relationship with your parents goes into a reverse mode. You start taking care of them. You get worried when they are late in reaching home. You get worried when they are not feeling well. You become the caretaker and them the carefree children.


So what made me write all these goody stuff (other than to make me look good). A few days back I was teaching my mom how to use the mobile and internet. I was irritated at times when she could not understand simple things. I lost patience, raised my voice and my face looked like I lost hope. She never complained. She just smiled and said it takes time. She wrote down all that I told her. Next day, I got an SMS on my phone. "Hi how are you?" it was from my mom's number. She learned how to use it. She went a step further and started using my computer, connect to internet, find the railways website and checked the PNR status of her ticket. The pride she had in her face when she told me she did it alone. And I could not believe it. I know a lot of people do that. But for some one at her age who has never used a computer I thought that was one hell of an achievement. She was happy and that's all she wants. And i wonder how long she spent explaining the thousands of things that was new to me. Answering my never ending queries and doubts. And I couldnt do that properly even once. Well I will.


So I am going to go ahead and spoil them. Let my dad eat some oily food without worrying about his cholesterol level .Let my mom have her peanut candy without me reminding her about the sugar level. Let them live for themselves and have a great time. That's the least I could do for them. Cheers!!!

Friday, April 20, 2007

The God, the Bad and the Ugly.

Disclaimer and warning :- If you are some one who likes or follows any holymen-godmen, plz dont read the following. It will probably piss u off. and i dont want to offend anyone. this is just my point of view and thoughts, and i dont intend to be harsh or rude or hurt anyones feelings. ( i keep imagining that atleast 100 ppl read this daily and i need to be careful abt not offending em. ) anyway. i did my part now dont go ahead read and say that my words hurt ur feelings, coz i dont realy care.

Here we go -

Am not a religious person, and hence have a problem with all the rituals and superstitions that people around me hold dear. But I can live with that. There is one thing I cant stand, and that is the human incarnations of gods, the messengers, the divine, the holy, The Godmen and the Godwomen( this is perhaps one scene in India where man and woman are very equal). Maas and Ammas, swamis and mantriks. If it wasnt really a sad thing, I would feel funny living around these people.

To start with there is the most important of them all, Sai Baba. He spots an afro hair style of the 70s and wears saffron(inevitably) but has got more followers than the very fashion concious sports, music and movie stars. Because eventhough he doesnt really have any talent (par Magic) he is said to be closer to god than the rest of us. Must be pretty special. He was accused of homosexualtiy by a multiple of disicples, his fraudulent magics were caught on tape, his special bhasma was proved to have materialised not from thin air, but from a capsule he holds between his fingers. Oh! But he lives in India, here godmen can commit murder and getaway with it, so there defintely is nothing wrong with a little magic. Kids love magic and we all love kids, so lets forgive that.


No one knows better about not being forgiven than the ex-great Chandra Swamiji Maharaj, popularly known as Chandra Swami.Its a shame on our country that the time for swearing in of the whole nations prime minister(PV Narasimha Rao in 1991), was picked by a godman, and not by anyone related to the administration, and without any respect to the convenience of anyone else in this whole nation. But it was the least important issue related to this holy guy. So famous was this Guru and disciple that, Chandraswami was considered the second most powerful man in this nation without even standing in a municipal election. He could walk around metal detectors(this time without magic) and into the PM residence without even a minor search. The man who thus literally ruled the PM, went down the drain with more allegations than even God can handle. The honoured swamiji was then called the " con man in saffron " , who was literally conning money from people. He spent his time in Tihar Jail while the beloved disciple had to run for cover. Narasimha Rao who was accused of more corruption than anyother prime minster, had his gurus blessings in everythinghe did. But we, the people still didnt learn.

Then there comes the Amma who hugs everyone, the maaji who places her foot on everyones head, the prema sai who was found to be living the way his name suggests, sleeping around, making love. There are tons of them. Maybe there are more Godmen than engineers here. And its not only in hinduism. There are the same kind of people among muslims, jews and christians. Fake fakirs and conning missionaries. And not only in India, but all over the world. But by far India is the worst affected.

I know there is another side to this. The free hospitals and schools run by these godmen's ashrmas. The big projects for the upliftment of people. The lots and lots of good things done by them. I am not forgetting it. Maybe its a kind of business where they give belssings, earns money, does charity and lives on fat profit. A perfect ideal business. Everyones a winner , because they share their wealth. But then nobody asks them where their wealth comes from. I wonder whether income tax has any laws for money earned through being a godman ? But as far as people consider them as a god and let them con the public, we are never going to change. I honestly dont expect people to wake up from this trance of holiness, but i hope someday the truth behind the gods and the bads and uglies come out to the public. Maybe some day we will be living among a few goodmen rather than a few god men.

PS- For all those people who belive and respect and love and worship any of the godmen, i know you all must be very upset reading this( Like a 1000 people read my blog...hehe...i must b out of my mind). But this is my point of view, and i stand by that. No offence meant, and none gonna be taken.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Vice men say.

I dont like to boast about myself or my achievements. Mainly because my imagination in that scenario isnt great. I am an immature prick who doesnt have a clue what he is doing most of the time. But I must say that I am a vice guy. No, I did not mispell it. I am not that dumb. I am a vice guy in the sense that i have a lot of vices.

Actually I didnt know about many of my vices until recently. Because, forget the usual vices, I discovered i have been indulging in a few sins without even knowing about it. And chances are most people are doing this. One of those carnal pleasures i am rightly accused of doing is eating tasty food.

For my own sake of living well, I stay away from the healthy food and diets. I cant even imagine myself eating some brown bread and green salad with some sugarless juice for every meal on every day. In my office there are quite a few people who invariably nibble on colourful vegetables and boringly green leaves during lunch hours. People panicking when they realize their tea has sugar in it, almsot fainting when there is a slice of cheese in their sandwich and definitely fainting when some one offers them a fat-rich steak. Time Out !

I can understand eating healthy(but never believe in it- am a heatlh food athiest), But this is ridiculous. Every other magazine and tv show, including the news hour, has something to say about healthy eating habits. I dont eat fast food every day , nor do i live on soft drinks, but i love to eat tasty food and am going to stick to it. All those people who eat tasteless nonsense , do yourself a 'flavour' and eat a hyderabadi dum biryani for lunch. You will see my point.

If i thought the food thing is ridiculous, i was shocked by a newsbit last week. It said that a study on sleeping has proved that sleeping for more than 7 hours a day will cut down on my lifespan and hence is a very unhealthy habbit. What do i say. Beer , cigarettes , fast food and now sleeping. there was one thing i could do without getting worried about the after effects and that was sleeping long and well. not anymore because if i do, i am not going to live that long. This particular piece of useless information made me think about my vices and write about it. Am not exactly worried about my sleeping habbit though because whatever anyone says I am going to do it.

But this is ridiculous. Chocolate is bad, beer is bad , meat is bad , sleeping is bad. Whats left? And there are tons of people who are ready to follow it relgiously. Reminds me of a saying," You may not live longer if you dont eat rich food , drink or smoke. But you will defenitely feel so". Life is for living. And there is only one chane. No point in wasting it on some stupid rules. So for me a vice guy is a wise guy. Lemme go eat a steak burger and sleep for 9 hours. PeaCe !