Ebb

My stats show an all time dip! Damn it Aarti, you brought it down! (See how convenient it is to shove all the blame? he he). That feminist crap is all repulsive, I tell you.

I will be going home for a month! Yipeee! Fellow bloggers in Madras, want to meet up?

F******** -- The G Version

Feminism to the most part is a feeling of equality of men and women. In India, as siblings, daughters are given less opportunities, than sons. Equality of education and basic development strips independence off women. There the parents should try to see their male and female kids as equals. This is not true even among the urban populace in Chennai. Equal opportunity includes, right to live, access to education, encouragement to participate in sporty activities, sanitation, involvement in socio-economic decision, and marital decisions.

Currently, I believe this to be a pressing goal for any feministic movement. Men and women should share these ideas. But only these. Some high profile intellectuals try to milk the feminist cow, by making grammatical changes like "female actor" instead of "actress", and other point-making exercises.

In most other cases, the learned woman who is being affected by a male dominated society should and needs to rise by herself. Every woman can take things into her hands in the household and the locality. But this is not true for female children who are completely dependent the parents for all their support.

I have a classic example of a wasted feminist energy. In our floor, there are about 40 employees, and the floor has 3 identical individual restrooms. However, one restroom is marked as "Men", another marked as "Women" and a third just "Restroom". There are two women who work in the floor, and the department has been traditionally dominated by males. I am not sure if reservation of the restroom is the most efficient thing to do.

There is a dangerous repercussion because of this wasted energy in making such silly feministic pickets. People lose focus, and the energy is dissipated. When a subset of people try to force unnecessary logic down everybody else's throat, it becomes a nuisance. Similar to when Bombay changed to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, Calcutta to Kolkata, and recently Bangalore to Bengalooru.

Women try to drag everything under the sun and call it feminism. I do not think chivalry has anything to do with feminism. In a trice, the conflicting interests becomes farcical. This is what Pratap tried to tell in the previous post. (Btw, his story was some made up. He does not know that many girls ;-) ) Any act related to courtship, is quite complicated to be branded anything (Good or bad, stupid or charming, rude or smart, Condescending or nice)

Societal roles cannot be eliminated. Some people like to fit into the societal roles. Some women like to be house wives. Some women like to cook painstaking special food for their spouse. Some men like to work with machinery, most women would rather spend time shopping. A true implementation of feminism would only make this place an asexual planet.

I know the above sounds brutal and contradicting to most other views, and this version of feminism from my mouth is not without its sense of irony. If only you know all the things that I know.

F********

Disclaimer: Please don't kill me!

A tag I took from ArtNavy.

I have had very strong feelings about feminism throughout my life. I was born and brought up in urban Madras and to my knowledge my parents have instilled a sense of male pride along with a due respect for the female gender. But my opinion is far from what you think it is...

Feminism has just been bad for me. I am a guy but I tell you it has very serious implications in this young and very attractive man's life. It has been confusing at best. You see, in my house, my father always tells me that I should be nice to girls... and my mom says they should be respected and all. I have been doing all that and more. Well, what the hell do you want me to do?

Well, I met a girl once.. a sorta cute one at that. Not really super attractive and all, but I kinda liked her. We were exiting a store, and I was leading the line to the door, when my super-duper mind starts racing... Should I open the door and give way to the girl? because, my father always says "ladies first!"... I pull the door and half way through, I realize that she might be a fire-breathing feminist and might consider my chivalrous gesture to be condescending... you know they want to be considered equal and all... so they would choose to follow my stinky butt than to accept a nice fella's gentlemanly gesture.

While I was busy processing all these complex moderate feminist concepts in my mind and tried to act all modern, she had come from behind me and tried to squeeze herself through the half open door and her shirt had got stuck in some protrusion in the door. Now, she was looking at me very sweetly, and I had forgot all the second degree feminist stuff... and I thought we were looking into each other's eyes and were really communicating. Even though I got the message through her eyes, she also happened to orally re-iterate it, "Can you please open the door a little bit more? I am getting crushed here!" That was my first experience with feminism. I tell you, that was hardcore!

Then there was this other girl, she had really huge eyes and was cuter than the previous one. I liked her too. This time we are in a coffee shop and she was talking about her cousin who was a jerk or something to that effect. It was an interesting session of "really?", "I am so sorry", "Wow!" between her very many stories with this really relevant cousin of hers. Then it struck me! What if she was a feminist? or not! Since there was no way to infer it, I asked her.

Me: Are you a feminist.
Girl: What do you mean?
Me: Are you a feminist?
Girl: why are you suddenly being rude?

Oh crap! I had forgotten that branding somebody as a feminist is rude. But wait, feminism is not like "are you a robber?" or "are you an ass?" kinda like question. I got confused. Does it mean that she is a feminist? or not? How am I supposed to answer her question?

Me: I will tell you why I am rude later, but I asked a question first, "are you a feminist?"
Girl: Well, I do believe that men and women are equal and, women should not be restrained to the traditional roles.

First of all, I did not ask her to make a political speech on feminism. A simple question with a simple "yes" or "no" would have sufficed. This was getting too complicated. Now I have to wade through her politically correct opinion on gender bias and learn what the hell she is. Man, what a crappy situation. Then I pulled my own politically correct rebuttal...

Me: Well, with the urban population of our generation both boys and girls are given equal opportunity and the gender bias is slowly decreasing. I mean, in my class, the topper was always a girl, and I used to copy notes from her.... Ok, I am digressing, but what exactly did you mean by feminism ?

Girl: I already told you that. Gosh! Now, why did you call me a feminist? You know, asking a girl if she is a feminist is rude.

Me: What the hell!

That was a messed up conversation to start with. Trust me. Don't talk about feminism, to a girl directly... you could either end up being rude or condescending or a MCP or in the gutters!

Man Write - Part III

It boils down to an algorithm!The gender genie! This was just a classification problem, and they trained using hundreds of documents to make a correlation. Cha! I should have known.

Credits: A friend of mine showed me the link. All the credits go to him and the algorithm of course.

My DNA too!

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

My DNA

I got tagged by Vishesh! Here is my DNA! Btw, Aarti was sad that you left her out!

Read my VisualDNA™

Pratap Talkies -- Adolescent Fatiques (Part I)

Claimer: This is the dream I had last week, and I was able to remember a lot of details. This story is what I call "dreamy fiction": untouched from my dream. I did not doctor any of characters, they all came with their own package.

I am a very young soldier in the Sri Lankan army recently transfered to one of the front line outposts. My commander introduces himself and shows me the weapons depot. The building resembles my grandparent's house in Madras and that immediately makes me eerily comfortable. I think that the army must have moved into an abandoned house! The weapons depot is not too big because the weapons here are only light armaments, and no heavy artillery. There are some impressive M16s and that is surprising because the American M16 is quite expensive and I was not aware that the Sri Lankan army would have enough money to buy those. Maybe I need to send orders to bring more firepower in here. While I am not too keen to meet and socialize with the other soldiers who were quite busy themselves, the number of soldiers themselves were too small to defend a front line position.

I was not issued a personal rifle before getting transferred, and getting used to my rifle is quite important. I take my time to select my rifle. I see the rack and the famous M16 attracts my attention and I pick one to examine its age. Just then a jeep screeches to a halt, in front of the single story building, and I could see that it is the Tigers are here! Already! An ambush! Fuck man! I was trained to use M16 rifles but right then, it seems to slip away. There are two other soldiers who are holding their rifles and they become alert. After about 5 mins, since I do not hear any shots being fired, we gingerly head out, and the Tiger jeep was taking a wide turn leaving the compound. "Get ready for battle tomorrow, we have to hold this fort!", says my commander, who had received this information from the Tigers who had come. Why would the Tigers come and tell us about it? Wouldn't it be better for them to ambush this post?

While I was thinking about all this unnecessarily, I realized that I am still in military fatigue but completely unarmed - A perfect sitting duck for tomorrow. I rush back and decided to get ready. I chose an M16. For a forward post, the place was low on ammo. I could get my hands on only one magazine. But, there were many grenades. I took 2 and dropped them into my pants. I really felt the need for a pistol. The problem is, the post is in the middle of a forest and since the number of soldiers are low, we would require a lot of fire power to keep the enemy at bay. But since I had only one M16 magazine with 40 NATO rounds, there really be some close combat. I missed my colt.45. The M16 rifle is cumbersome to fight with in close combat and the grenades are completely useless in close combat unless I had decided to kill myself. I was not planning to die.

The next day, and the munitions were empty, I guess all the other soldiers must have loaded themselves. I decided to stay in the same building. And the tigers came. In swarms. I could not see the numbers because I was not in the exits of the building, and I could only hear the sounds of the tigers coming in the jeeps. I was now in the rifle room, along with 2 other soldiers. I could hear single shots being fired, but no automatic fire. The are footsteps nearing my room and the three of us are holed up with our rifles. Was the building already taken? Crap! I curse the lack of a pistol, and decide to spray the entrance of the room with bullets, and empty my magazine. There was no need to aim, just hold at waist and squeeze the trigger and sweep. Did not have any idea how to proceed after that. I decided to switch from semi-automatic to automatic fire. I change the lever, and the stock comes off. At the sight of my rifle dismantling, I start shivering, because I could hear steady footsteps of a about 3-4 heavy boots coming towards our room.

Just as I was thinking what to do, I see a hand lob a grenade into the room. With no time to think I just pick that heavy thing and lob it back. I was already, holding my head to prevent my ear drum from tearing, which I was not sure because there is a live grenade in to building, just outside the room which was going to explode in the next couple of seconds. While I was bracing myself for the explosion something even worse happened. There were three more hand grenades thrown into the room! There was no way I can throw them all back, and since the first one that I threw back did not explode, I had no option but to get out of the room! I thought about the other two soldiers staring at each other trying to think of something to do, when I throw myself outside the room and roll to a corner! When about to hope for the mercy of the Tamil Tigers, there were 3 soldiers in the tiger fatigues laughing at me, in the corner waiting for a something to happen. It so happens all the 4 grenades were fakes, and would not explode. I felt as though I wanted to throw my own grenades at them, but did not really know if that was needed.

We three were taken prisoners. There were no casualties. It was a walk in the park for them. We had given them no opposition. Shamefully, I was happy that none of us were hurt.

To be continued...

A feeling

What is about these love stories? I understand some, I laugh at some. "Kuch kuch hota hai" was ludicrous. Some stories were romantic, and others I wanted to be in. Really, what exactly defines romance? The girl's idea of romance is what it really is, guys just want to have all romances to end in the bed.

My idea of romance is mix of old and new fashioned. I like Mani-Rathnam styled, rapid fire, ready to die for damsel, dudes. Well I am not 16, so I don't fall in love in a couple of minutes. It takes more than that to make me fall. I also like the old fashioned, singing romantic songs, holding hands and looking into each other's eyes hoping to tell something, types too.

My idea is of romance is mostly driven by movies and fiction novels. Is our idea of a feeling just a reiteration of supporting literature? Are we limited by creativity of fine artists?

Krishna - Part 1

Disclaimer: If you think your God is unassailable, just because he is Supreme, please get out of my blog.

I am from TamLand, and we have a saying, "Netrikkannai thirappinum, kuttram kuttramae". Which translates to, "You might have an awesome cool third eye, (referring to Lord Shiva) but dude, you still made a retarded statement". This was said by a Tamil poet directly to the Lord, having found a flaw in his poem. Such is our ethical system. We stand up to injustice, anywhere. The poet was in turn burned to ashes by Shiva's wrath, but that is just a minor technical detail. We don't take bullshit just because Lord Shiva said it.

My mom used to tell tales about Krishna, and how cute he was. But, Ramanand Sagar who directed that Sri Krishna series in Doordarshan, killed my imagination of "cuteness". Jokes apart, Krishna might be Vishnu's avatar, but he is not great. Simply put, the dude was born with some awesome cool powers, like kicking his evil uncle's ass, and eating a lot of butter and dirt. But a lot of people before and since then have done this. Actually I have both kicked my uncle's ass, and had a lot of butter and dirt when I was a kid. I am cute as hell (they should have cast me as cute Krishna, damn it!). Anyways, where was I?

I think Krishna is arguably the most popular God among hindus. An important factor in the last century was ISKCON, which popularized Krishna outside India. Krishna is know for his, "leela", pranks which mostly involves a lot of trickery and deception and very funny too. Krishna's mostly associated spouse is his girlfriend, Ms. Radha. His life history is by itself quite interesting, his association and involvement in the Mahabharata is at best confusing. "Bhagvat Geeta" is the only text in human history presented by a God to a devotee which explains "way of life" including God's glory.

I think it would be really funny to talk about this dude. I am sure I will not offend Vishnu (Krishna's original and more boring version) in anyway, because I am using only documented and well accepted acts of Krishna. Importantly, he uses a lot of magic (something like David Copperfield) in most of the situations, so I will skip most of the "magic" part. Here is a brief history of our dear Krishna.

Even before he was born, his evil ass uncle knew about nephew and decided to kill the newborn child. Somehow Krishna escapes, and gets to be brought up in a village. The village is known for its dairy products, and guess what our Krishna's fav snack is? Butter. He eats butter from his house and because he eats too much, his family becomes poor and so he decides to steal and eat. He gets caught red handed a couple of times and so becomes a disgrace to his family. His foster mom punishes him severely for such delinquent acts, but since our hero has divine immunity goes scot-free after doing some theatrics.

During his developmental years in Brindavan (name of the village), he also shows signs of extreme pervertedness. He goes to the nearest water body and while young, attractive sexy women take bath, he steals their clothes, hides them and makes them beg for clothes. This is somehow supposed to be funny, but I am sure my mom will immediately disown me if I did something like this. If this is not heights of pervertedness, what is? I think the blanknoiseproject people also would be behind Krishna's ass.

Next comes the girlfriend. The dude becomes adolescent and gets the most popular chick in Brindavan. I will not badmouth her, because she represents MahaLaksmi and never harms anyone. But the poor damsel falls for the MayaKrishna, and in their first love do all kinds of things. Ok, maybe there are no documents for what they did, but I assume they did more than just run around trees like what Ramanand Sagar showed. The best part is, when Krishna decides to leave for a glorious career, he jilts Radha and never returns. Ms. Radha is never talked about in any of his stories after that. What crap is this? This kinda behaviour is unheard of in Tam literature. There have been no documented case of jilts by honorable people, in the entire Hindu literature. Except of course by Krishna.

The dude, then goes on and marries two other women, Bama and Rukmini (dual-marriage is a standard with Hindu divinity package, just like 401k and stock options). Ms. Radha never gets married or nothing is known about her life after Krishna leaves. But Krishna is always associated with Radha... Even today there is a very popular ceremony that devotees celebrate, called "Radha Kalyanam" (Radha's marriage), where they place Radha's idol and Krishna's idol and get them married to each other. I am not sure why people do this, the dude clearly got over her, and never wanted to see her again. Devotee's Denial? or maybe people feel sorry for Radha and pray that their daughters never meet a guy like Krishna!

I am sure people have a lot of things to say about Krishna and want to badmouth me. Bring it on.