Brats In Ads

I happened to see this ad on TV for a milk product (barely remember the name of the product). They had a bunch of kids – of course a healthy mix of boys and girls just to reach across the demographics – jumping into the air, all smiles like Justin Bieber was throwing a personal fucking concert. In another ad, a girl in a karate outfit was sitting with 15 plates of food in front of her and was excitedly screaming out the names of each of the foods. For crying out loud. Get a grip girl. I hate kids, especially the kids in these ads. They probably go to school bragging about how they are on national TV. Their parents thinking this is their ticket to stardom, feeding them with insane idea and setting the expectations so high for inevitable failure. Great work parents.

99% of ads every year are stupid. The kids who star in them are stupid. The parents who consent to this atrocity are stupid. The folks that direct these god forsaken abominations they call ads are stupid. Then again, we all know most of the world is now filled with Stupids.

Sensitive India Inc

Maybe it’s not the whole country just yet, but in the aftermath of the 2008 terror attacks, Mumbai has become a very sensitive city. Did you hear about the one where that Indian girl and her friend were arrested over a Facebook post? Now put aside the fact that the post was neither offensive nor hateful for a moment. Mumbai is a city with a population of 12.4 million people. How in God’s name did this one post from an obscure citizen end up reaching the powers that be, that ended up getting her arrested? Is India watching its citizens like its neighbors?

Experts now claim that the police messed up in the arrest process as, by law, they aren’t allowed to arrest women between dusk and dawn except under “exceptional circumstances”. Really? If we are going to treat women equally as men, I say let everyone get arrested based on the seriousness of their crimes rather than gender. But i digress.

Now the cops arrested them based on a couple of charges, but later withdrew those charges and  booked them under different ones. How can you do that post arrest? Shouldn’t you have a valid reason to arrest folks in the first place? And if that turns out to be wrong, seems to me like they should be allowed to go free at least for now. You shouldn’t be able to shift charges at will. Seems pretty ridiculous.

Then there is the question of the formal charges filed. The girls were charged under Section 505(2) of the Indian Penal Code which

pertains to statements which create or promote enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes

Classes? I think its safe to assume that this isn’t the middle class  / rich we are talking about here. If the Penal Code still has laws that protects the class system, how is India ever supposed to get to a place where everyone is treated equally with no bias based on what they were born into?

At the end of the day. what are the lessons learnt? If you are on Facebook or Twitter, do not make your posts public. If you do make your posts public, stay away from politics and religion. With all the umbrella-laws in place to curb your freedom, better safe than sorry.

Gate Crashers Inc

You ain’t Santa Clause so don’t show up unannounced at someone’s doorstep. There are many good reasons why you should follow this little piece of free advice

1. Maybe your friend isn’t home. And now, you’ve just put out all those green house emissions travelling to your friend’s place for nothing. No, it’s not ok to ignore this even if you have a Prius.
2. Maybe your friend is in the middle of some impromptu sexy time. Now you’ve managed to turn yourself into a cock blocker. Way to go! And we all know what happens to cock-blockers.

In eastern societies, most folks have been trained to never insult a guest. In fact, most protocols state that a guest should be treated as a God. Therefore, barring an emergency, odds are you will be invited into your friend’s home even if they were in the middle of something important. I hate it when this happens, but this is where is gets even uglier.

Don’t you just hate it when these folks who barge in unannounced just won’t leave. First, you go out of your way to accommodate them despite your urgent circumstances, and now they’re just camping? And it’s not like you aren’t dropping hints along the way. These folks just seem to want to linger – the conversation just goes on and on and on. It’s just the same things on repeat.

Look, I’m all for a good time. Why don’t you call ahead? I’ll get the barbecue going, we’ll have a few drinks too if you’re into that kinda thing. And heck, we’ll even watch those stupid cat videos you seem to love on YouTube. But for fuck sake, next time, call ahead will ya please?

P.S:- We all have that one friend we are inclined to take a few extra liberties with (I’m guilty of this too). But maybe it’s in everyone’s best interest to place a courtesy call before you walk in with that 6 pack, a bong and that bag of Doritos. On second thought, just leave the Doritos at the door.

 

You Know, I Can Hear Your Firecrackers

When it’s just too loud

It’s 6:15 am, when suddenly…

Boom…..(about 1 min silence)….Boom

And I’m not talking about the kind of “boom” you make with your mouth to scare children. This is the real shit! Window-rattling “boom”. Why, thank you neighbor. Thank you for giving me a vague idea of what life in a bloody war zone sounds like.

In certain parts of the world, people love to celebrate Diwali.

…popularly known as the “festival of lights,” is a five day festival…

Somewhere along the evolution of its celebratory activities, firecrackers got included. And now, bursting firecrackers is a 5 day, anytime between 6:00am and 11:00pm affair? Seriously? I’m all for people having the liberty to practice their religious activities, but should there be a certain decorum to it – oh I dunno..nothing fancy….maybe just decency and courtesy? (It’s not like there is a government body regulating the maximum allowed decibels for the activity of bursting firecrackers) While not continuous, a 6:00am to 11:00pm window is just ludicrous. Might I suggest is a more human-friendly 9:00am to 7:00pm , “all-you-can-burst” firecracker buffet. Burst what you need to within those hours and then you stop, allowing those near you who a)may not be indulging in your celebratory protocols b)those who do not care for untimely loud bangs to, say, coexist? That’s a fair compromise, ain’t it? You get to still practice your religion and I get to … live.

Then again, rationality and/or compromise has NEVER gone together with religion.

Dude, Wheres My Time Machine

Whatever happened to the momentum we saw a few decades ago, where everything was about the amazing things science and technology could deliver unto humanity. Granted, advances in medicine and tech. have made life a little easier for us and we are better off (god, what would we have done without the Internet!). But when you compare with the decades of the 60s and the 70s, what is missing is the whole propaganda push. A concerted effort to make people know its cool to want a better tomorrow and more importantly work towards it.

Somewhere along the way, it looks like we’ve all gotten complacent about tomorrow. Complacent about wanting better for ourselves. Maybe we have been dealing with too many distractions (war, climate change, the present economy) to take a moment to look beyond the present. Maybe we have become too anxious about figuring out where the next bubble is. Whatever the reason, seems like we need another big push to building a better future for all of us.

Maybe its time we elect more folks with intelligence into helms of powers. Then again scientist and other intellectuals are too busy working on things that really matter. In that case, maybe what is needed is a paradigm shift – where people in power once again start listening to those who have dedicated their lives to helping the rest of the world. Ok, so we haven’t gotten our time machine just yet, but seems to me that we should’ve been at a way better place right about now. For god’s sake this is the 21st century. We shouldn’t be wasting time and effort debating if climate change is a real, if women need contraception, or if universal health care is something we need. What we need is more investment and more importantly a collective encouragement towards those who work tirelessly to unearth knowledge and give us a better future. Then again maybe that is exactly what each and every one of us needs to be doing – working towards a better tomorrow.

What She Doesn’t Want You To Know About Penguins

Image : Aptenodytes forsteri © Ian Duffy / Wikimedia Common / CC BY 2.0

Most women are quick to pick the penguins as their species of choice when trying to illustrate their preference in relationship rituals. Remember that movie “Good Luck Chuck”, where Jessica Alba gets a pebble in the end? Holy Shit! Men all over the world have since been scrambling to get their hands on the smoothest cut of rock (No, not diamonds, real pebbles). So much so, that penguins are having trouble finding decent stones to woo their partners. Now, penguins and their rituals are supposed to highlight two very specific traits.

• Women get to choose their mates (the pebble ritual) – As members of  a semi-evolved, modern society, everyone should be free to choose their partners. None of this forced arranged marriage that some societies seem to willingly blindly follow. Having said that, if your best argument for freedom of choice is a penguin and a stone, you need to go back to the drawing board…quick!
• Penguins are monogamous and, thus, by extension faithful – This is where the whole thing falls apart. You see, penguins are “serially monogamous” – this means that for one mating season, and for one mating season alone, a male penguin will stick with one female partner. After the season is over, the go their separate ways. If they find each other the next year, they stick with each other again. However, the reality is that only 15% of pairs find each other the next year and that drops to a colossal 5% in the third year. So basically, after the first year, they just sleep around.

So ladies, for the sweet love of God, stop taking the penguin’s name in vain. It is nothing but a paradox.