While writing my last post, I happened to write something about 'Dudes!' but felt that I had not really done justice to their potential with the small mention I made. So here it goes. A humble view of a humble person on the infinite greatness of 'Dudes!' and 'Dudeness!'.

First of all, I should set some ground rules. Any mention of this alpha race of humans and its exploits in this post will only be made inside the exclusiveness of apostrophes and will be followed by an exclamation mark, like 'Dudes!'. It is my way of giving them the respect they deserve and serves to linguistically express my awe and admiration everytime I see or talk about one of them.

So how do you know whether someone is a 'Dude!' or not ? They are an elusive breed you see and like to keep to their own generally. One of the distinguishing factors of 'Dudes!' is their I-don't-give-a-damn-about-anything-under-the-sun attitude which is well supported by their unweildy dressing sense, their habit of making smartass comments for untirely obscure reasons, their overall demeanor of having been extremely bored with the world in general and their general lack of basic hygiene. All of this is fine but the most basic trait which raises a mere mortal to the level of 'Dude!' is their uncanny ability of making the wrongest judgements at the wrongest possible time eventhough they had given as much thought to the problem at hand as was humanely possible for them. It is not really their fault. It is nature's way of saying, 'I wish smiles to you all'. They have a greater purpose than we mortals can possibly fathom. The 'Dude!' is working his butt off to bring happiness and joy to the millions who would otherwise have committed suicide in this depressing world. Whenever you read about an overzealous man getting gored by a bull just because he teased that fool a bit or a brave rebel getting rounded up and beaten by the police just because he did not look back to see that all his supporters had vanished or a politician who has made a living out of making smartass comments over Iraq and now brings smiles to the face of millions by constantly fuelling the episodes of 'The daily show' by making an ass of himself, you know that somewhere out there, a 'Dude!' is silently at work. Somewhere behind the scenes, the 'Dude!', relentlessly, is getting the kicking of his life just so that you could have a little colour in life.

The ironical, almost sad part of this amazing story is that the 'Dude!' never wants to land in trouble. He just wants to lead a simple isolated, quiet life. But fate, acting like the unreasonable villain it is, takes the views and actions of the 'Dude!' at their face value. It doesn't understand that the 'Dude!' challenged the herculean bully just because he wanted to impress his girlfriend or that he cried 'Hail Osama' at the airport just for fun or that he genuinly believed that he could jump from the third floor and land precisely on a bike moving at 60.

Since nature plots such vile a plan against the 'Dude!', the 'Dude!' in the greater scheme of things gets reduced merely to the role of the facilitator of giggles. And we should give him credit for this sacrifice. We should understant that even though 'His holy Dude!' doesn't like it, he suffers to bring us joy in myriad ways. So next time when you see a dog running after a guy who happened to bark at it or someone hanging with his nails on a wall who thought that the chair would be able to carry his 400 pounds or a million other such incidents taking place daily, allow yourself a smile for that is all he demands. That is all he is screwing his life for. The 'Dude', in all his holy 'Dudeness' suffers for you and in return, just demands a smirk.

I am not sure if you have seen this movie or not but I sure do remember watching it in Mayfair theatre in Lucknow (it shut down after this movie) on a hot summer day. Boy, was I happy then. English movies were very rare back then and if I remember correctly it was only the second one I had ever seen. It was amazing. All those planes blowing up left right and center. The evil aliens and entirely unnecessary love stories. The heroic President ( India had Devegowda those days) and his heroic commanders. The rest of the world waiting with its bated breath, watching how America saved the world. Boy, wasn't I STUPID.

I happened to catch on with the movie on tbs this evening and I must tell you, I felt proud at how much I have matured since the time I last saw it. You see, it is one of those movies which are so cheesy, so insanely stupid that they have immuned themselves from any prospective 'spoof' attacks. They are infact their own spoofs. Any more attempts at mocking those movies will only end up mocking themselves. Its like trying to spoof Kabhee Khushi Kabhee gham (Its all about loving your family). For crying out loud, even the title is by far the most hilarious combination of english words ever concieved by man. You see the problem ? No one can mock this. The hilarious rapture that a crying Shahrukh khan, Hrithik Roshan, Mr. and Mrs. Bachchan together can provide can hardly be matched by the directorial muscle of anyone less talented than Karan Johar.

Nevertheless, back to the roasting of Independence day, I must say that the movie is essentially a compilation of 3 things:

1. A beaten to death plot of aliens invading Earth for entirely obscure reasons. I never get this point. Like Calvin, I also believe that there is intelligent life in the universe and it is proved by the fact that it has not tried to contact us. What on earth can we offer them anyways ? A social structure based upon differences, tenuously hanging by the threads of compromises? A morally decaying society and an increasingly polluted atmosphere?

2. Regularly interspersed booms and bangs and shrieks and monstrous fireballs and emotional cliches and kisses and love stories and maudlin sentiments.

3. A heavy dose of badass guys with smartass comments. you won't believe how incredible those guys are. They are the DUDES. Their dudeness shines in their slick, in-your-face, trying-to-be-smart-but-managing-to-be-plain-stupid comments. If anyone on United 93 possessed even a fraction of the dudeness these guys ooze on 9/11, he would just have smiled at the terrorists and said 'Do whatever you want, just keep your voice down' and again went off to sleep, before dying ofcourse.

But the best part of the movie is the premise that the aliens which have travelled so many light years just to see some fireworks on Earth get defeated by a simple virus planted by a DUDE. I was wondering, what if the Aliens had Norton. They sure would have laughed their arse off at the stupid humans.

If you have seen the movie, I am terribly sorry at reminding you your horrible past. If not, I guess you get the idea.

I recently came across this documentary which depicted how mass consumerism was consciously introduced in the American society. I saw how the American economy was transferred from a need based system to a desire based system. How ownership of cars was projected as a depiction of male sexuality and how female smoking was consciously projected as a voice again male chauvinism. For a second I thought, god, how idiotic, I am sure the public will be able to see through it all. Well, what do you know, American society today is as materialistically crass as the latest charitable publicity stunt of all those hollywood celebrities and the modern Indian society is following like a faithful dog. It was so sad that I could not watch the full documentary. I hardly hate anyone more than those who refuse to think rationally, build a set a beliefs and have an informed opinion. Looking at the present scenario, I am led to believe that 95% of the human population hardly uses its rational powers, which is another way of saying that 95% of the population is foolish. Not inherently foolish. Just affectedly foolish. Foolish because they do not want to take the pains of rational thinking. Rational thinking - something that differentiates us from animals and jellyfishes and trees and furniture. Good job humanity. It seems that we have come a full circle of evolution.

To all those who buy into the above set of value (or the lack thereof), just some advices so that they can start using their brains for things it was originally meant to do :

- If you think that cigarettes or cars or hard drinks or meat filled burgers accenuate your male sexuality and ego, please be aware that you have a miniscule personality to build upon anyways. If I can pass it off without hurting your ego too much (which I hope to do), you lack the strength of character. The rest of it is just smoke filled partyhouse crap.

- If you think that smoking symbolizes a stance against male dominance, you will be surprised to hear that well, it does not. It was a gimmick started 80 years ago so that 50% of the world population can be addicted to it. I respect women's right for equality (my opinion doesn't matter anyways) but please do not play into the hands of the corporations for attaining it. There is no point trying to look like the plastic faced, personality less, dumb headed celebrities which seem to be pottering every nook and corner of every TV channel and magazine and newspaper. The fact that those ladies do not have anything else to gain respect from except their looks and apparel doesn't mean that you also need to give up intellect and grace for gaining it.

- If you think that you child will feel out of place if he does not has the latest technological gadget or bike or fancy dress or for god's sake english language, you probably belong to points 1 or 2 yourself. Now that you have screwed up most of your life anyways, its time to hammer in some brains into that little brat of yours. Why not try building some self respect in him ? You can either do it by patiently talking to him or if he is too spoilt for that, try giving him a regular dose of lets just say, not so friendly pat on the backs (Seriously, I believe in 'Spare the rod........').

- And if you think that those ads which advertise great tasting dog food really have figured out the culinary likes of your pet, you need to go to an asylum. No, on second thoughts, you should be kept in a museum just to depict how close man got to get intellectually confused with a chimpanzee.

Please, please, think. Don't follow what others are doing without giving it a thought. Spare some time and brains on figuring out why you believe in the things you believe in. Otherwise there is not much difference between a human and a lump of rotting garbage. If you give that lump a shape, the ability to walk, and the ability to talk incessantly, I guess you won't be able to make out the difference.

Well, who am I kidding. 95% of the population thinks I am a nutcase :).

Without any undue story-buildup, let me present some interesting phrases which are easily encountered in day-to-day conversation and which make a person, not so gifted in the mental faculties like me, think about their meaning and even relevance to the present situation:

1. "Like whatever dude" : I hereby contest that mankind in all its humble ingenuity has never ever come up with a vaguer concoction of words. To even think that a set of just 3 words could convey so much vagueness is overwhelming. Look at the sentence. 'Whatever' in itself is probably the single most confused and vague word ever invented by man. It points to no one in particular. It references no particular direction of thought. And worse, it simultaneously tries to point to and reference every possible subject under the sun. If I were given the authority of replacing 'whatever' with something else, I would rather have decreed that whenever someone needs to use 'whatever', he would rather just maintain silence for 2.3 seconds (written as "Like -------- dude"). See, it communicates as much meaning with a negligible waste of energy. Nevertheless, then the speaker is trying to equate some situation with 'whatever'. Now, I would not have gone nuts if 'like' was a normal word. 'Like', in modern societies is spoken not as a verb or a preposition but as a conjunction (for eg. 'and') and is just used to join sentences so different from each other that every such usage of 'like' is disturbing the sleep of dead victorians all across the world. Nevertheless, even if we take this usage of like in the prepositional spirit, what is the speaker trying to convey ? I might have asked him, so how was the food ? Pat came the answer, 'Like whatever dude', and I with an obviously stunted social comprehension factor is left in the lurch to ruminate over the multitude of possibilities that the food could have tasted like.

Crap!, I thought academia was difficult and art was difficult and a million other elaborately planned human pastimes were difficult. I never thought that I would be so stumped by just 3 words. To the proponents of modern language, I present to thee, my head on a platter :).

P.S: I thought that I would include a few more phrases but this one turned out to have a lot more potential than I expected. So others will have to wait.

"LOL :)!!!. I m a gr8 frnd LOL :)!!!. Smart, senzitiv nd kool LOL :)!!!.........."

Minus some exaggeration, this is how the profile of one of my friends went during my Orkut days. The moment I saw this, I thought, well, he goes into the quarantined list from this moment onwards. The problem with this statement is that it is too concealed beneath layers of borrowed style and substance to establish any kind of credibility or individuality for the author. Not to mention that the sentence is full of loads of over-the-top lies. I mean, for a second I thought that I had just witnessed the profile of someone who truly embodied the perfection of the human specie like, God or Chuck Norris or Karan Johar. And even if it was the all too great Karan Johar saying these words, even he, in all his immeasurable idiocy would not have been able to carry the burden of the heavy dose of self-aggrandization which permeates the sentence.

Nevertheless, the fact that I came across some kids in the local grocery store today wearing some kind of in-your-face, extreme T-Shirt made me remember the stereotype which underlines such people. They are the same kind of people who would be forced to listen to Britney Spears or for that matter even rock just because their friends do it, use crazy language to express themselves just because its supposed to be cool, drink at parties not because they like it but because everyone else is doing so and they are being forced etc. They buy into the latest fashion trends and happily pay a fortune big enough to provide for the food of an average family for days just so that they could fit in the upcoming social event. They are the same ones who speak english rather than their native language even if it does not serve any advantage just because its supposed to be such an 'in' thing to do. And they are the same ones who, for lack of an individuality, wear forced mannerisms, phony morals and affected beliefs in social gatherings.

I am not saying that people should not listen to Britney Spears or not drink or not use crazy language. But only if they really find it good or useful or advantageous. If such is the case, all the self-righteous snobbish blabbering about how Beethoven is more desirable than Britney Spears is just a load of nothing. And I am not saying that I am any better, but I am trying hard to improve.

The fact of the matter is that those who would only accept an individual if he conforms to some norms expected by that group do not even deserve the friendship or acquaintance of that individual. True friendship does not have a price tag on it and neither does it have rules and clauses. And it is futile to think that someone can fool the world by not being himself. The truth is only thinly hidden and when it becomes evident, its dirty and disgusting. And moreover, everyone gets just one chance to live. What a way to spend that chance if it is spent pleasing everyone else except oneself ?

Finally, for all those incredible jerks who would rather have you do something forcefully against your own wish, I am sure, their stupidity is not something which a quick jab on the jaws and a roundhouse kick on the backside cannot cure :). Just kidding...

P.S: Have been cribbing a lot these days, isn't it ? Hoping that the next post will be a bit more sane.

http://in.rediff.com/sports/2006/dec/23roger.htm (Federer plays cricket)

Man!!! If ever there was a news snippet which ruled like crazy, this is it.

Most of my friends, even after being Indians, somehow inexplicably are woefully ignorant of the glory of the best game on the planet. They say that the game is suited only for lazy people like me. Well, now you wouldn't call a tiger lying low, in wait for his prey, lazy, would you ? He is just silently waiting for that one moment of weakness on the part of his prey when he can explode with a debilitating burst of energy. My friends don't see the similarity between the tiger and a cricket fielder which I see. Cautious, silent, shrewdly calculating, ever attentive, he grabs on to the ball with fearsom energy when the situation demands.
Alas, they would rather see the glass half empty :).

Nevertheless, well ? Who has the last laugh now ? I am sure, watching the alpha male of human species himself adorn the beautiful game might have raised some doubts about some of your most fundamental beliefs. If you have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel and come face to face with one of the axiomatic truths of the world i.e. cricket is probably the greatest atheletic activity ever undertaken by man after maybe Pheidippides' legendary run from Marathon to Athens giving birth to Olympics, then welcome to my side. If you are still unsure (read wrong, I like to be politically correct) and would like to believe that you still need a bit more time to accept what is only inevitable, be my guest. In either case, if I may just remind you of the fact that there are only two absolute truths in the world. The first is that Federer rules and the second is that cricket rules. And no scale has thus far been invented which could measure how much the spectacle of Federer playing cricket RULES. The only thing that could have beaten this scenario on this scale of fantabuluousness was maybe Federer playing cricket with Audrey Hepburn on the runner's end :).

First of all, let me clarify that this post is not the result of the weary imaginations of a disgruntled soul harbouring jealous feelings against IITs and IITians. If it serves to strengthen my point of view by giving it a more impartial tinge and if I may mention it without seeming to be a snobbish brat, I too am an alumni of one of these institutes.

I have been following rediff.com for a long time now but have lately seen an exponential increase in the number of IIT and IITian related articles on the portal. As an example, from december 1 to december 18, there have been 25 different articles on the subject which pegs the daily average of journalists, who would rather concoct a crowd-pleasing, easy to assemble article on a subject as beaten to death as the glowing exploits of IITians than doing some real research on a real topic at a healthy figure of 1.388888889 (and my calculator gave up here).

Agreed that the interest in the subject has been revived due to the scheduled Pan-IIT conference, is it just me or do others also think that all this hoopla is turning out to be another cheap example of climbing onto the bandwagon of mediocre journalism, the likes of which seem to permeate every aspect of today's society. Dear God!, the situation is bad enough with all those sensationalistic news channels bombarding us with a new breaking news every other minute. A society which manages to throw up on an average of 400 breaking news per day must surely be incredibly high on pheromones. But I am aware that this is not the case because I know that I have not seen a few accidents, some bank robberies, a dozen celebrity scandals, 2-3 government upheavels, and atleast 5 terrorist bombings on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, the point of all this rambling is that the renewed interest in IITs just seems to be an extension of the general trait of journalism which encourages reporters to write socially pleasing articles. And I thought, I had heard somewhere that news is supposed to shape social outlook rather than reflect it.

The underlying point of the matter is, 4000 IITians do not represent India. The 10% growth which the Indian economy is so hopefully looking forward to, is not one of the miracles at the hands of the IITians who comprise less than .01% of the national population. Agreed that it might be spearheaded by some of them, but the fuel that has kept burning it for last several years are the 23% of the Indian work force employed in the service industry and the 50% employed in the agriculture industry. So while it sounds nice to occasionally hear how an IITian killed a bear with his naked hands or doused a fire with his spit or ran faster then light (with light travelling in vacuum and the IITian in water), I think we have had enough. I am sure that rediff is catering well to all those parents who have a kid in 12th and would so much want to see him/her enter one of those hallowed portals and all those kids who have the misfortune of having such parents, why not start doing some real reporting for change? You know, something that meaningfully affects atleast 5% of the population and doesn't look down upon 99.99%.

There are few things in this world which irk me more than those supposedly made-for-the-masses American advertisements which seem to insult my intelligence by being extraordinarily dumb.

They are not the kind of dumb that you see permeating the portals of the world in the guise of under the age of 15 boys who wholeheartedly believe that all that stupid WWF stuff happens for real, all the while managing to convince their dumb parents that they possess a 'serious' opinion about 'real' things. They are not the kind of dumb that expresses itself so proficiently in those teenage girls who regularily manage to shoot beyond 1000 minutes of talk time every month even though they rarely have anything substantial to say and who cannot complete a single sentence consisting of a total of 11 words without using atleast 8 'like's in it. And they are not the kind of dumb which gets personified in those adult men who think that brawn and brashness are the true denominations of manhood and those adult women for whom incessant, almost maniacal self indulgence is the normal way of life. Sir no sir. These ads are bad. They are so bad, you would want to put your head into the working end of the barrel of a 150 mm heavy artillery gun and hope that the soldier operating it is considerate enough to give you the sweet respite of death. These ads are so cheap and mindless, they make even the worst creations of Ed Wood and Karan Johar seem like Operatic masterpieces. Some examples :

Time Warner Cable : 3 guys. 1 dressed as a telephone, 1 as a laptop, 1 as a TV. Trying to hammer in the point that I could get all the three for one low price if I go for TWC. (Ho Ho Ho. That was subtle. Why not just tie those 3 guys in a red ribbon. Then you would be SURE that us fools would REALLY get the point that the 3 come together. You are giving way too much weightage to our pea sized brains here dudes.)

Verizon Wireless : A family of 4 in a shopping mall deciding how to communicate with each other as each one of them is supposedly going to shop at a different place. After deciding that A calls B, B calls C, C....... they finally realize that none of them has a phone. . . . . . Yes!!! its over. Can you believe that ? Not only does it stand for the sheer stupidity which these ads makers have managed to amass, it also manages to shoot off few more working neurons from my already moronized brain, everytime I watch it.

Casino Pauma : A middle age lady: " I won 10000$ ", A balding man : "I won a hummer", An overecstatic asian : "I won 5000$" followed by the directions to Casino Pauma so that I could at once pick up my cell, my keys and a wad of 100$ notes and straightaway rush to the place. Wow! that was easier than I thought. People around the world spend the better parts of their lives trying to figure out how the hell could they increase the sale of their trashbags by 5%. All they had to do really was to get an entirely unconvincing 50 year old and make him blurt out on TV that he likes the trashbags. And ofcourse, the rest of human population forgot to develop beyond the neanderthals, right?

I have too many examples to list here. Rather than boring you, I would sulk in this misery alone :).