This Independence Day, think a little..

You wake up. You bathe. You go breakfast. It sucks as usual. You go attend a few classes. You skip a few. It doesn't matter you think. you come back. You suggest lunch. You lunch together, all five of you. You come back. You have classes you don't go to. You go to sleep. You wake up. Somebody suggests dinner. You eat dinner together. You buy coke and chips for your nightly excursion to sitcom land. You joke about how India's doing poorly in the test series. Someone cracks a joke about Ajit Agarkar. You laugh, Agarkar's funny (Bombay Duck, ha!). You come back. You download a few episodes. You watch them while you munch on chips. you feel sleepy. You go to bed. You curse the lack of a curtain rod, light streams through your window. You hang a bedsheet on the window. You go to sleep. You wake up. You bathe. You breakfast. It sucks as usual.

All this while, a storm rages around you. People call for a Jail Bharo Andolan. People call it the second freedom struggle. And oblivious to all of this, you curse your breakfast and take people's case on shoutbox.

Look around you. Do you see wanton corruption, hunger and poverty? Not really. At least not in your immediate surroundings you don't. Maybe you should. Maybe everybody should. Maybe the first step in eradicating all social evils is that everybody deal with them all the time. Maybe if you were to live among filth, among people out for your blood, you'd do something about it. Maybe if you were to see what India really was like on the outside, you'd start thinking. Maybe if the Ambanis were to live in a colony where new born children died everyday for lack of nourishment, they'd rethink their plan for a new house. The Russians had a word you know, for sharing everything, good or bad. It made a lot of sense to a lot of people then.

You argue you're different. Hey, you 'liked' Anna Hazare on Facebook didn't you? You forwarded that mail to a million people. You even blogged about it. You go so far as to say you're going to donate 10% of your first salary someplace. You're modern you say. You condemn antiquated ideas and are progressive. You swear that you'll never say, 'Ladki Gori honi chahiye?' or, 'Aapko jo dena ho aap do, hum to bhayee kuch nahi maangte'. Or that you won't kill your unborn daughter in cold blood. You're doing what the nation needs you to do, aren't you? There you have me.

1.

His eyes were slowly getting accustomed to the dark. Not since the Great Blight ten years ago had such darkness crept into the valley. It had been slow at first, pretending to be harmless dark clouds that did nothing but obstruct sunlight. And then slowly night had set in, a night that was going to be eternal for all he knew. The Dark Ones had been clever this time. There was no escape, and he knew there'd be no mercy. It wasn't much use fighting either, you couldn't physically harm the Dark Ones. Each of them carried a stick of fire that glowed as bright as the sun used to. This helped him see them from afar, but he was never able to use this fact to his advantage. They always found him and then he'd get the stick...

Musings of a certain Exar Kun, 'Dark Lord of the Sith' emeritus.

Dear Diary,

Today I took a 8 month long hiatus from blogging. Oh wait, that wasn't today, that was over the past 8 months. And nobody cared and nothing's changed. Except the Miraluka can see now, and the dark side of the force gets stronger day after day...

Exar out.

The enigma that is Shoutbox.

You've gotten into the very elite and prestigious Shoutbox? Great. Here's how things work,

• TYPE IN CAPS FOR ONE, IT’S SHOUTBOX REMEMBER?
• ASK INTELLIGENT QUESTIONS AND FRAME THEM LIKE LITERAL TRANSLATIONS OF A KABIR DOHA, LIKE ‘HOW TO TURN OFF CAPS LOCK ON MY KEYBOARD THANK YOU GOD BLESS’
• Tag everybody in the aforementioned question; you never know who might be able to help.
• Use dots, a lot……. Use them all the time…..in all comments you make. Some…times…use..dots….between…individual…words…helps…people…focus…
• Use no nadda nil periods or other punctuation ever its a cool style anyway
• Repetition is key, say what you want to again and again. Repetition is key, say what you want to again and again. Repetition is key, say what you want to again and again. Repetition is key, say what you want to again and again. Repetition is key, say what you want to again and again.
• Missing enough attention? UsE UpPeRcAsE aNd LoWeRcAsE AlTeRnAtIvEly, AeStHiTiCaLlY AdViSaBlE.
• Remember the people who wished you a happy birthday on your wall? Think a little, they’re mostly people on Shoutbox right? Why not thank them there while you’re at it? Do it now.
• You know what people care about the most in the world? Their mothers. No, just kidding. It’s your opinion actually. Well thought out points of view like, ‘PS-1 suxxxxxxxxxxxxx’ are worth their weight in gold. Never give any reasons or logic but, nobody cares about that anyway.
• Expanding on the above point, always avoid logical conclusions. If asked why tell people you flunked Discrete Mathematics or didn’t take it, proof that you don’t have time to indulge in such niceties.
• Recommend good movies to people. What’s that? On shoutbox, yeah. Why, aren’t they people too? People have a right to know. Tell them all about Harry Potter or Twilight or RGV ki Aag.
• Making assumptions about people is a vital aspect to active participation. If you do not assume stuff, you got nothing. Say for example somebody says, ‘Our water coolers aren’t working since 1981 blah blah, India democratic blah blah Sonia Gandhi sucks ass blah blah Sachin’s god blah blah fix our coolers blah blah bhook hartal blah blah…’, a very logical surmise would be that the person involved is gay, or is studying Computer Science. State as much in a well thought out comment.
• Post links from your own blog, people need quality education. Also don't forget to call your blog a Bitsian venture, do the right kind of endorsement.
• Tell people about your problems, from nose bleeds to constipation. They’re very helpful. The world’s all good and shiny and filled with sparkly vampires anyway so that’s to be expected.
• Make the world a better place. Take it upon yourself to instruct people morally. Tell them how getting into BITS isn't anything compared to attaining inner peace or wearing khadi.

A certain Alok Singh goes into the nitty-gritty of things and helps you fight withdrawal here.

Metaphorically yours..

The pen is mightier than the sword, and the metaphor is one of the strongest products that a pen can conceive. For people very anal about their grammar, obviously when I say metaphor, I implicitly also refer to all analogical literary devices. Metaphors buy you precious time in tricky situations (Riddles in the Dark anyone?), they can easily add insult to injury, and employed in literature, lower the temperature of the literary piece by a significant bit.(Um..make it cool, in other terms :P. This however is because metaphors make writing difficult to understand and anything that people do not get is uber cool, by definition.)

Here's a thought. Metaphors also create a sense of unity, a sense of brotherhood if you will. It's pretty much the same with jokes too. Here's how, I make a decent joke because I'm smart, now you got the joke and laughed at it, ergo, you're smart too. And smart people tend to get along very, very well. Maybe we could you know, work towards winning a Nobel jointly or something, who knows?

The confusion, or the fun, as far as the observers are concerned, occurs when the (do forgive the usage of the terms to follow, it's just that using them gives me the kicks) Metaphor-er and the Metaphor-ee cease to be on the same wavelength and hence the Metaphor in question is labeled a bad one. And when this happens, chaos reigns.

What could be more fun, as a few of us friends discovered one fine evening, is interpreting dialogues from films as metaphors. Most dialogues can be interpreted in more than just the context they're meant to be relevant to. Want examples? Always at your service,

Star Wars,

• 'I have a bad feeling about this' -used in the bedroom or in the toilet.
• 'I love you.''I know.' -used in a Bollywood movie.
• 'May the force be with you' -used in a physics assignment, or at a game of cards(read force as fours in which case).
• 'Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size do you?' - Amazing how I cannot think of a non sexual connotation for this, try as hard as I might.
• 'Twilight is upon me, and soon night must fall. That is the way of things, the way of the Force' - Somehow, the word Twilight repulses me, not funny.
• 'I am your father' - I dunno, 20 years after a Kumbh Mela perhaps?

The Lord of the Rings

• 'The wizard arrives precisely when he means too.' -This one I'll leave to speculation. Hint: the word 'arrives' :P
• 'The Dark Lord Sauron..yadda yadda' -if this isn't racist, nothing is.
• 'The Black Riders!' -And just when you thought nothing could be more racist.
• 'Three rings for the elven kings...' - Let's say Jack Nicholson was hired to voice the opening lines from The Fellowship. He'd probably go about it like, Three fucking Rings for the fucking Elven-kings under the fucking sky,
  Seven for the fucking Dwarf-lords in their fucking halls of stone,
  Nine for fucking Mortal Men doomed to fucking die,
  One for the Dark fucking Lord on his dark fucking throne
  In the Land of fucking Mordor where the fucking Shadows lie.
  One fucking Ring to rule them all, One fucking Ring to find them,
  One fucking Ring to bring them all and in the fucking darkness bind them
  In the Land of fucking Mordor where the fucking Shadows lie.
  
  

More soon.

Becoming successful at supervillany..for Dummies.

It's amazing how many superheroes are there, and for every superhero you have at least half a dozen unique (super)villains. It's somewhat amazing that while almost no superhero is all powerful, most supervillains have a very tough time facing up to these (forgive the metaphor) sacks full of crap. My sympathies lie not with the hero who well, for one, almost always gets the girl, it lies with the antagonist who's never experienced true love and whose only aim is world domination. Obviously there are villains with other motives, but you see, once world domination is achieved, everything else can happily fall into place. The idea behind the guide is to create a sort of primer for anybody who wishes to be a supervillain, obviously this won't take care of everything, just quite a healthy lot.

The supervillain kit

• A mirror: For all sorts of rays and lasers. Most worthy neutralisations(MWN's) - Superman and Shaktimaan.
• A stick of kryptonite crystal. -The end of Superman.
• Minions with Guns. MWN's -Heroes with no superpowers, notably Batman, the Phantom etc.
• A Neogenic Recombinator and a large attractive female Tarantula. MWN's -Spiderman.
• A cortosis sword. The entire Star Wars universe.
• A large magnet. MWN's -Wolverine among other heroes with metallic costumes.
• The anti-mutating agent to the X-gene. MWN's the X Men, and other mutated superheroes. Some'd say Spiderman too, but hey, he's just easier to get with the female spider.
• A trip wire. MWN's -Flash.
• AT-AT's. MWN's -Flash Gordon.
• Anti venom for snake toxins. MWN's -Nagraj.
• A couple of bitches. MWN's -Doga.
• A couple of hot chicks. MWN's -Iron Man.

Do's and Dont's

Always,

• Press the big red button already.
• Run for your life if you see a little green creature spouting bad grammar rushing towards.
• If you're gonna inject a toxin, do it NOW.
• Cover vulnerabilities in your large space station with wooden planks.
• Have a backup power supply.
• Close all renegade wormholes to alternate universes. (Universes? :P)
• Check your mathematical calculations for stupid errors.
• Equip the robots you make with a fail safe self destruct mechanism.

Don't ever,

• Mess with Chuck Norris or Rajnikanth.
• Insult Lois Lane.
• Pity Batman.
• Say something on the lines of, 'With great power, yadda yadda..'
• Laugh like the joker.
• Make an anti venom for the toxin you invented.
• Even if you do have an anti venom, just don't reveal where it's kept, to anybody.
• Feel sorry for the plants/birds/minions you lose.
• Stand close to a wormhole that leads to an alternate universe.
• If possible, stay away from the WAG's, it just seems to make them madder.

Obviously this list is countably infinite and additions are possible. But if you're looking to invest in a career as a supervillain, a little headstart wouldn't hurt would it?

SUCKY-MAN

“It’s a bird! It’s a plane! Oh wait..yep it is.”

/*

Disclaimer :
While this act of blasphemy might not go down very well with the Superman fanboys, this is a risk I’ve got to take for reasons I shall explain soon. If I do end up getting lynched in a public place, my lawyer(s) will know who to (pur?)sue.

*/

Let’s begin by facing a truth, shall we? And this truth, believe it or not, involves you. The thing is that I happen to know that you sir, are a geek. Don’t ask me how. It’s just one of those things you know.

(For example, if you were to find one fine day that the food in the mess is um..tolerable, you’d know for a fact that one of two things have occurred, a) you’re in a dream or b) you’ve somehow managed to get yourself transported to a parallel universe. Any other possibilities that you come up with can mathematically be shown to be equal to either of these two, I'd go into the space-time calculations here, but it's what people love to call, 'out of scope').

Anyway, not to be digressing, working on the more than decent assumption that you’re a geek, it’d be logical to surmise that you’d have a favourite superhero. And if that’s Superman, you’re in for a treat.

If you were to sit back and spend some time thinking of reasons about why Superman is well..just lame, I’d bet that you’d come up with quite a few. Here's a few I could think of,

• The Hairstyle. Not only is Superman's hairstyle out of fashion since the 1960's, it's something that looks just about decent almost exclusively on a pet poodle. It's probably okay though if Superman's actually a transvestite or something, anyone know for sure?

• The Disguise. A disguise Lex Luthor's grandchild would have seen through. Too bad he doesn't have one.

• The Name. A name that he probably should have had changed or something. I mean come on, if it wasn't enough that he wears bright red knickers on a skin tight blue thingy, the dude calls himself Superman! Even if it were the people who gave him the name, everybody has rights. An affidavit to change one’s name doesn’t take much time, does it?

• The IQ. Or let's just say, the lack of it. Speculatively, it should be somewhere around just lesser than Forrest Gump's, likely equal to Megan Fox's.

• The Melodrama. If only you could win girls over by catching them while they fell from high rise structures...we'd at least know for sure what works..

• The Outfit. A RED cape. BLUE tights. RED knickers worn over his pants. Enough said.

Reasons enough? I guessed as much :P

The above borrows heavily from a Batman vs Superman conversation I had with a friend a few days back. Hope I've proven a point.