Midnight Farce

I AM IN LOVE!!!

This is what everyone is hell bent on convincing me about, especially since the NOTTING HILL episode (which, mind you, has not reached its climax yet). First Saffrondude, then Ad Libber and then a train of people who picked up this idea from somewhere. On Independence Day, Mr. Procrastinator (alias Narcissist) asked me who my first ‘crush’ at ISM was. Then, the very next night AL came up with the same question, straight out of the blue, that too at 2.00 a.m.!

AL was recounting the events of yesterday on ‘Raksha Bandhan’ with his ‘mu boli behen’ and how they ran into three other ‘mu-boli bhai behen’ couples and what happened thereafter. But that will be relived some other day as it has nothing to do with the eccentric conversation which followed, and which lasted more than an hour.

Here are some excerpts:

AL (suddenly): Who was your first crush in ISM?

Me: WHAT???

AL: Have you had a crush in ISM? (has a goofy smile on his face)

Me: Yes (I surprised myself with that answer. YES? Why did I say yes?)

AL: You have? (His mouth ends up in a big ‘O’, obviously startled)

Who was it? (shouts it out)

Me: I am not telling.

AL: Why not?

Me: I don’t know. Just forget it.

AL: This is news. Come on, don’t be a jack-ass. Tell me who it is. I’ll not tell anyone.

Me: No.

AL(trying to emotionally blackmail me): I am your friend. You should share things with your friends.

Me: I’ve no problem sharing things, but these are thoughts and feelings.

AL: A**hole!

OK. There are 15 possibilities. No wait. Is it a senior?

Me: No.

AL: And obviously it cannot be a junior because you don’t know anyone. But then, you don’t need to know someone to have a crush.

Me (trying to take the conversation out of these dangerous waters): I like Speed of Sound by Coldplay (and I play the song).

AL: Don’t talk shit. Answer my questions.

Is it someone who is already committed?

Me: No comments.

AL: ‘No comments’ means yes.

Me: No, it does not.

AL: So, it’s a no.

Me: No comments.

AL: How many are committed now? Six as far as I know. So, that leaves nine. Wait. Come on, tell me, is she committed or not?

Me: No, I think. Well, I hope not.

AL: That means this crush is still there.

Me: No comments.

AL: F**k! You still have that crush. Have you ever spoken to her?

Me: Huh? How does that matter?

AL: It matters. Tell.

Me: Sort of eliminates half the list if I answer that. I won’t answer that.

AL: What the f**k? Give some clue, at least. (pesters me for about 10 minutes for a clue)

Me(giving in to his pestering): Her name ends with the letter ‘A’

AL: Ahh! Now we are talking.

(After about a minute’s contemplation bursts out): A**hole! Everyone’s name ends with ‘A’. Only 3 people’s does not. OK. At least it brings the list of probables down to six.

(Is silent for a while. Then again explodes): Tell me who it is. You should. This is bad. I am your friend.

Me: I am not telling.

AL(asks again): Just tell me this. Have you spoken to her or not?

Me: Nopes. I mean I am not telling.

AL(starts making a list of girls whom I have spoken to and ends up making an inaccurate one, thankfully): Which branch is she in?

Me: Will become too easy if I answer that.

AL: Is it MD?

Me: What? (surprised that that came up) What makes you think that it is so?

AL: Is it or not?

Me: (shaking my head) I am not telling anything else to you. Go to sleep. I got new pillow covers, need to use them.

AL: OK. Tell something about her.

Me: I need to know them to tell anything about them.

AL: Come on. Say something. What is the point hiding?

Me: Can you read body language?

AL: No. (Thank goodness. If he could, he would have got the answer by now.)

(after a pause): I am going to guess one name. You just say ‘yes’ if I am right. Nothing else. Deal?

Me: No way.

AL: You are useless. You know, if you tell me I can help you move things forward.

Me (almost tempted to give it away): NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Let it be.

AL: Is it crush or is it love?

Me: What is the difference?

AL: Crush is more a temporary phase.

Since when is this there? Since first year?

Me: Hmmm. I don’t know what it is. Forget it.

AL: Come on, man. Just let it out. Pleeease!

Me: Not telling.

AL: Fine! I am going. You wasted an hour of mine. F**K OFF!

Me: Yes. I did.

(and AL leaves)

It was around 3 a.m. when he finally left and I dozed off immediately. Readers of my blog, you are the best judge. If I was in love or had a crush, wouldn’t I be wide awake throughout the night thinking about her rather than sleep like a baby?

P.S. Any girl who has started imagining things, I ask you to please continue to do so. And if, in the unlikely event, you have a crush on me (which I cannot imagine WHY), please express it as you cannot expect the same from me.

Friends and Poli

Had a great time last Sunday. Friendship Day after all. These two friends decided the day was apt to give their birthday treats which were due for about 4 months. First lunch, then CCD and finally bought a pillow! Also found out that we were probably the most boring group of people. At least some of us are, people like me, DD and SU hardly had anything to say. To top it all, we were all recounting the most embarrassing moments of our lives and all of us spoke about incidents from the classrooms in our schools. Is that all our lives are made of?
Friends are great. I can’t live without them. They are there when you need them etc. etc. bla bla bla.

But what do you do when your friends turn out to be not as innocent as you had thought them to be? What do you do if you find that some of them are wolves in sheep’s clothing? The thought that your closest buddies can be the shrewdest foxes going around sends a chill down my spine to be frank.

It’s that time of the year when people are selected for the different posts, and as with most other institutes you have rivalry between different factions of the student community who are looking to go one up on the others. I just happened to overhear some of these conversations in the recent past. I cannot recount them but it confirmed to me that there is more to my friends than meets the eye and while I was oblivious to things around me these people were busy plotting and planning their next moves- which profs to approach, what strategy would the other party be playing, who are the different candidates for a given post and so on. From their words, it was also apparent that the female population was also involved to a large extent, something which I had not expected. SILLY ME! How is that possible when there are cries for gender equality all around?

Ohh! How I miss those days to return when you could trust all your friends blindly. Now, it is difficult to decide whom you can still call a friend and who is going to stab someone at the back (at least figuratively). Best of Luck, buddies! But, keep me away from this please.

P.S. This post does not attack any person, so any friend of mine reading this, please don't take it personally.

THE FINAL WORD

(Here is a piece written by DD. Both DD and me are members of Team MD. For background information, MD in this post stands for ‘Mailer Daemon’. It is the students’ newspaper of ISM University. The setting is of us taking interviews for a new team.)

A year has passed since I pushed myself into Team MD. And I have managed to stick to it till today. My colleagues in the team are aware of two kinds of Team MD members: one, those who are dedicated to it and work hard till the end. They ‘eat, dream and think MD’ while working on an issue. The second category belongs to those who were not able to cope up with the pressure and left MD for its and their good. Guess I am a third kind- a category still needed to be researched. (Right now, my colleagues are working on our last issue, while I am typing this article.)

But this article is not about ‘how I fared for MD’. So let us forget this part and let me tell you what is going on in MD right now. Right now, we are interviewing candidates for selecting a new team for MD. How I had waited for this moment since the day I was selected. Back then, I imagined this day as one in which I would scrutinize, analyze and cross-question each candidate so as to bring out the true successors of our team. Now, I amuse myself by watching my colleagues do the same. Just on the second day of the interviews, I found myself hardly uttering a word. (Don’t dream of an HR like me!) ‘My colleagues, try to recall, I was there sitting right beside you.’ I watched, as some anxious, some nervous and some energetic faces took the chair before me while Ishant from one end and Shreya from the other, hovered like vultures, ready to peck at every slip of their tounge. Among the remaining enthusiasts were Sid, Divir, Sukanya, Sukhi, Vijit and Avinash, ready to chip in their part whenever they got a chance. ‘The dedicated and sincere team MD.’ Meanwhile, ‘the Bad Boy of the team‘(that’s me) was busy planning this article and was randomly generating numbers to fill up his analysis sheet. I decided to go back in time and put myself in the interviewee’s position to analyze how I would have fared in the same test.

Interviewer (MD): Would you like to introduce yourself?

Me: (Actually no. My name is a bit too long and you would forget it, the moment I leave this room. My branch will sound alien to you and my hobby-reading books- is of no practical use to you. Anything I mention thereafter about myself will generate further cross questions- causing myself to land in trouble. It is most unwise to introduce myself. But will have to say :) Yes.

MD: Introduce yourself.

Me: I would blabber out the usual intro and add nothing extra, lest I provoke further questions. All this, I would say in a loud tone, with an accent so that you get irritated and leave me quickly.

MD: What do you want your role to be in MD?

Me: (Let me think. If I choose editor it means sitting at my comp, reading other’s articles, sometimes writing by myself. OK, I will manage that, others will most probably help. Reporting will mean running here and there, speaking to admin etc etc. That is too much work. Easy decision.) I want to take up an editor’s job.

I now realize that back then my decision to choose editor actually got me selected. I escaped the PI round, something -I now feel, I would never have qualified.

MD: Where is the campus administration building and the maintenance department?

Me: (Campus Administration has to be within the campus. That is one thing I am sure of. But Murphy’s Law states that: ‘the greatest myth about administration is that, it exists.’ That makes CA a mythical place. What the hell!) I don’t know where the CA is.

Of course, I know where the maintenance department is. It is right behind the workshop. I went there once in the first year to get my window’s glass fixed. I had broken it, made it drop right from the first floor. The complaint got registered, nothing happened thereafter.

MD: What are your likes and dislikes about ISMU?

Me: (I must be cautious about this question- a tricky one. These guys love to point out shortcomings about ISMU, be it students or the admin. So to impress them, I must do the same. The part about ‘likes’ is just a pitfall, I must avoid. I am a clever guy.)

I dislike the students of ISMU. They make too much fuss about everything. There is a breed in ISM which wastes a year discussing ‘why shouldn’t we give certificates of merit to our rivals?’And prior to this, they would plan out a strategy for a month to ‘reach to a particular high status so that they can discuss the previously mentioned question.’ There is another species which goes on claiming for ‘more space.’ Then there is another which spends most of their time in challenging this claim. There is a group that has decided that its life’s ambition is to see all the infrastructural developments that ISM is ever capable of within their four or five years of stay in ISMU. Also ISM must have an increased area and the net speed must build up every year-all this they must witness while they are here. Finally there is MD which compiles all of this into six pages and hands it back to them.

What do I like about ISMU? I like the students of ISMU. There is a breed which is hell-bent on making a mark at ISMU. They would go up to any extent to fulfil their ambition, while they are here at ISMU. Be it promoting their departmental identity, helping the poor, or inspiring entrepreneurial skills, they are always out at the forefront. They are warriors. Remember the shout when the trophy of Muqabla was brought home. Remember Mechathlon, remember Sparx. Those were the times when ISM shone like never before. Ask yourself, don’t they deserve a little more than what they are getting? Maybe they asked for coaches, maybe they asked for a little more departmental and admin cooperation. Shouldn’t an effort be made to grant these? Remember: ‘A college is known by its students.’ And finally there is MD, which is composed of heroes selected from this breed. (When shall the groups mentioned previously get merged with this breed? But I guess, they are one and the same. ‘A mere flip changes the face of the coin.’)

MD: Improvements for MD?

Me: MD. When was the last time I read the complete paper? I remember noticing bar graphs in one of the issues. Then once, there was an article about status of girls in ISM - written by girls of course. You generally expect such stuff from them. ‘Good (status) generally leads to the expectation of Better (status).’ Once again, there was a full page of ‘Ruby Survey’. But that article was not for me. I have stopped staring at them since the time they started staring at me as if they were looking at an ‘ascetic kid.’ No wonders there. I hardly speak, while in a group. Other than these, I hardly recall any other article. Therefore you must increase the frequency of MD so that people like me at least remember a bunch of articles to speak about.

The final question was usually based on a situation, where one had to interview an admin member usually. I having chosen editorship would have escaped this question. So let me tell you, that my colleagues pretended to be part of the admin and conducted a mock interview. From their act, the following things about the admin were clear:

• The admin is ready to come up with excuses at every mistake that is pointed out.
• The admin/G.Sec is ready to take up any action if ‘approached through a proper channel.’
• Everything is student’s fault. ‘No proper events are conducted because students don’t turn up.’(So no point conducting a better event.) ‘The sports complex need not be improved since the students won’t maintain it.’
• The Yahoo HR will never accept the existence of ISMU at least in this life.
• G.Sec will simply act as an interface between students and admin. He lacks the brains or guts to gather support and fight for a cause.

There were further inferences, but I don’t remember them right now.

There you go. I have spoken my heart out. I seldom do that. Judge for yourself whether I deserve to be in the MD team after giving such an interview. By the way do not mistake this for a BC article. Trivial BC is not my job. I am totally serious regarding all views expressed. Also if I am responsible for any hurt feelings upon reading this article. ‘Hate mails invited.’

(For more visit the MD website The site is under construction.)

Notting Hill

NOTTING HILL has taken over my life. I have watched the movie an unprecedented 13 times, YES 13 TIMES, in the last 5 days, and if I am not careful, it can easily become 14 within the next 2 hours. Quoting Saffrondude: ”This is ‘madness’ unlike anything I have seen or heard before.” You are probably thinking I need to see a psychiatrist. Maybe.

Let me take you through my state of mind in the last five days.

June 24, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:1

About 22:00 hours:
Just had my dinner. Opened my laptop and thought let’s watch a movie. Which movie should I watch now?
Shawshank Redemption? Naa, have watched it once this summer already.
How about The Illusionist? Don’t feel like.
Taare Zameen Par? Naa.
Exorcist? No Way.
NOTTING HILL? Ahhh…haven’t watched this for a while. (BIG MISTAKE!)

June 25, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:2

11:00 hours: Had a bath. What do I do now? Let’s watch Notting Hill again.
23:00 hours: No one is online. What do I do? Let’s watch Notting Hill again.

June 26, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:2

<-DITTO as previous day ->

June 27, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:2

11:00 hours: Had a bath. What do I do now? Let’s watch Notting Hill again.

17:00 hours: Need a LAN wire for hostel as old one is lost. Went to Chandni Chowk. Got lost. Finally found my way out of the maze of shops 1.5 hours later with thankfully a 5 metre long LAN wire.

20:00 hours: Had Dinner.

20:10 hours: It is Notting Hill time.

June 28, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:4…WHOA!

There is nothing more to say.

June 29, 2008 A.D. Notting Hill Viewings:2

09:00 hours: Yippeeeeee! Watched a movie that is not Notting Hill. Watched ‘Serial Mom’.
12:00 hours:
Sane me:” Common, think of something to do. There is more to life than a movie.”
Insane me: “And what a movie it is. I think I shall watch it again.”
Sane me: “No, you are not. You have had enough of this. Get a grip.”
Insane me: “Are you insane?”

Both fight and ohhh … Insane me wins… Notting Hill, here I come.

18:00 hours: Cousin has come. He wants to watch a movie. Oh no! Not again.

Well, that pretty much sums up what I have gone through in the last five days. Saffrondude, on hearing this, commented that I am in love!!!It is such a romantic movie, he says.Pretty heavy, coming from a guy who could not imagine me with a girlfriend 6 months ago (see older post on LOVE).

NOTTING HILL. It is a lovely movie. I can almost act it out now.
Well, I better go now. Don’t worry, I won’t watch Notting Hill now. EURO CUP finals is about to start. Ohhh… Notting Hill…..

P.S.1) Any help from anyone who claims to dig me out of this hole is welcome

P.S.2) Dear Reader, if you read this and do not comment, I shall pelt you with olives.

Random Observations of a Primate stuck in a tree in a sweltering Summer afternoon

The good thing about summer vacations is that they are so long (2 months for me), when you can learn something new and catch up with friends and relatives. The bad thing about them is they are so long, you get bored sitting at home or going to the same places over and over again. It is like you actually have too much of a good thing. Hell, it has only been 10 days or so, 50 more to go, I shall go mad by the end of it.

Some of my more enterprising friends and college-mates are doing projects. Some have even gone abroad for them. Good Luck to them, huh!!!

I have been acting as guide to two of them showing them around the city, you know the usual places- Victoria Memorial, Esplanade, Science City, Nicco Park, blah blah blah. Plans ahead :- Botanical Gardens, Eden Gardens for a match, Digha, Darjeeling, North-East India, Italy, Moon….I better stop. It seems they are doing more traveling than project-work. Suits me!

There are still others who have gone for industrial training for a first hand experience of how the job is done by the big shots, some enjoying it at exotic spots like Goa, others ruing it either because they have made a bad choice or due to plain bad luck have ended up at a crap place. My sympathy lies with them, and my advice that from next time “apna dimaag lagao, doosron ke baton pe mat jaao”. (It is meant for a couple of people, so if you are reading this, you will know I am talking to you. No hard feelings. :-)

Finally, there is the breed of procrastinators like me who decided: “WHAT THE HECK! ENJOY YOUR TIME AT HOME.” Mind you, I am not exactly partying away, I am getting some work done, only it seems to be lacking in direction at the moment. It involves Earthquakes!!! What else do you expect from a student of GEOPHYSICS?

Talking of enjoying, I am enjoying the regular storms (norwesters or kalbaisakhi as they call them) in the recent past. Too bad for the uprooted trees though. Got stuck in one of these when I was at Landmark yesterday with a couple of friends. So, we went back inside again.

Got my hands on two interesting books while I was there:

1. HOW TO RUIN YOUR LIFE.

2. HOW TO RUIN YOUR LOVE LIFE.

The inspirational author was Ben Stein.

Here are some excerpts from the CONTENTS pages of the books: (The one’s in bold are those which I especially liked)

First, "HOW TO RUIN YOUR LIFE"

• DON’T LEARN ANY USEFUL SKILLS
• CONVINCE YOURSELF THAT YOU ARE THE CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE
• KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL WISDOM
• TREAT THE PEOPLE WHO ARE GOOD TO YOU BADLY
• HANG OUT WITH THE WRONG CROWD
• USE DRUGS AND ALCOHOL FREELY
• KNOW THAT THE RULES OF REASONABLE, DECENT CONDUCT DO NOT APPLY TO YOU
• LIVE AS IF TRUTH IS RELATIVE- A DISTANT RELATIVE
• SHOW EVERYONE AROUND YOU THAT YOU ARE HOLIER THAN THOU

Once I had ruined my life, I went over to ruining my “LOVE LIFE”, which, of course, is non-existent.....as of now.

• REST ASSURED THAT YOU KNOW BETTER ABOUT EVERY SUBJECT THAN YOUR LOVER
• POINT OUT YOUR LOVER’S IMPERFECTIONS IN PUBLIC
• CARVE IT IN STONE: LOVE RELATIONSHIPS AREN’T PARTNERSHIPS, THEY ARE MASTER-SERVANT RELATIONSHIPS, AND YOU ARE THE MASTER (OR MISTRESS)
• REMEMBER THAT YOUR LOVER IS YOUR PUNCHING BAG
• PLAY PHONE GAMES- DON’T RETURN HIS/HER CALLS TO SHOW HOW COOL AND ALOOF YOU ARE
• DON’T EVER TELL YOUR LOVER “I LOVE YOU”
• ACT LIKE A BIG BABY ON DATES
• TAKE TOTAL POSSESSION OF YOUR LOVER’S HOME
• FLIRT WITH ANYONE AND EVERYONE- IN FRONT OF YOUR LOVER
• MAKE THE DECISION THAT YOU ARE GOING TO MARRY FOR MONEY- AND DON’T LET LOVE ENTER THE EQUATION
• HAVE AN AFFAIR WITH YOUR LOVER’S BEST FRIEND OR ROOM-MATE, AND TRUST THAT HE/SHE WILL NEVER FIND OUT or EVEN CARE!
• GET INVOLVED IN YOUR LOVER’S FAMILY BUSINESS
• BELIEVE IN YOUR HEART THAT THERE’S SOMEONE BETTER JUST AROUND THE CORNER AND TREAT YOUR CURRENT LOVER LIKE HE/SHE IS MERELY A TEMPORARY SUBSTITUTE FOR THE REAL THING
• WHEN THINGS ARE GOING REALLY WELL, START A FIGHT.

NOW THAT ALL ASPECTS OF MY LIFE ARE RUINED, I SHALL TAKE A LEAVE AND END IT HERE.….CIAO

LOVE!! WHAT'S THAT???

I am really tired after a nice get-together with my friends from school. Unfortunately, these get-togethers generally tend to be revolved around all of us running about after a spherical shaped object and trying to put it through a rectangular bar with our feet. I don’t see any point in it but enjoy it nevertheless. These get-togethers also give us the opportunity to catch up with what is going on in each other’s lives. Who’s been ditched by his girlfriend? Who has fallen in love? And who has someone trying to nick his gf?

I feel pretty left-out during these instances as my love life is as dry as the centre of the Atacama Desert in Chile. I had this friend of mine, Saffrondude (name changed for no particular reason) telling me that there are certain people whom he just cannot imagine with a girlfriend. The bad news is that I was on that list. The good news is that I was on that list but not at the top of it. Saffrondude, of course, put himself in that list too, so that is something comforting.

This brings me to all these ‘majnus’, who live in my hostel. Whenever I am on my way for my middle of the night trip to the bathroom, I inevitably come across someone or the other belonging to the above mentioned species. These guys will be on the phone for several hours on end. No wonder the cell-phone companies are rolling in cash. What on Earth can you possibly talk about for that much amount of time with a single person sitting hundreds of miles away? And this is not like a once-a- month or even once-a-week affair. It literally happens everyday; you have the same faces loitering the corridors, and even the bathroom with their phones stuck to their ears with a permanent sticking charm. How disconcerting, when you are trying to relieve your about to explode bladder to see a person oscillate from one wall to the other looking as if he is having the time of his life.

I happened to overhear one side of some of these conversations and they were really outrageous. One such friend of mine was saying to his girlfriend, “Aaj tumne kya khaya hai?” How the hell does it matter as long as she wasn’t starving to death? It’s not like he could do anything about it even if she was. Or maybe he’s worried about her losing the stunning figure she has because of which he fell for her in the first place. In either case, it sounds like a pretty stupid thing to talk about at any time let alone in the middle of the night on the phone.

Another friend of mine was overheard saying the following words to his gf : ”KAHAN HO?” The time was 4:00 a.m. Ahem!!!
Where do you expect anyone to be at 4:00 a.m. please? Yes, they may be in the pub or disc till late at night occasionally but certainly not till 4:00 a.m. And how do the girls put up with these questions? I have no idea. No wonder I am loveless.

I’m eagerly waiting for the day when I can proudly say “Kahan Ho?” in the middle of the night. But I fear that day might never come. WHY? Well, it seems to me that girls are impressed by such abysmally stupid statements (or questions) which I do not foresee myself ever uttering. Any girl reading this, please correct me if I’m wrong.

MICE MENACE

Remember those Tom and Jerry cartoons with Tom fruitlessly chasing Jerry around the house. I used to like Jerry till a few of his mates started ransacking my room. Man, these guys will eat anything or drink it for that matter. When was the last time you heard of mice who loved coconut oil? Well, they finished off (or rather drilled a hole through) an entire bottle of my roomie’s ‘parachute’ in August. My roomie is really concerned about his hair. No, not because the mice drank his hair-oil, but generally speaking. He has now got a hair-oil whose bottle is made of glass. Beat that Mr. Mouse. The mice living in the back wing ground-floor of TOPAZ Hostel (ISMU) are really health conscious. They ate up my roomie’s bournvita too. Now we have to deal with ‘really strong’ mice. Ahhh!

Wondering why everything seems to be happening to my roomie. Well, it is perhaps because I had very cleverly taken the top shelf for myself in the beginning of the year, but the mice have learnt a few acrobatics and are now seen walking stealthily on the wires near the ceiling of the corridor. Naturally, entering my shelf is now a piece of cake. And cakes are not the only thing they have eaten from my shelf. There is also bhujia and biscuits. The morons were considerate enough to leave a few pieces for me and I had a good mind to offer it to a senior whom I do not particularly like. I had to eventually throw all these goodies away for the dogs to eat.

I have a feeling the dogs and the mice have had a deal. They are the only mammals existing in our hostel besides us, if you ignore the occasional cow which manages its way in. The mice must have said, “You keep the cats away and we will make sure you have plenty of good things to eat.” As a matter of fact, I have never seen a cat in ISMU, even in my OPAL Hostel days. It must be a universal treaty. As the saying goes, “Your enemy’s enemy is your friend.”

Well, I am at home now for a whole ‘mouse-free’ month or so I hope. The above will make the mouse gods really angry who will submerge me in a large lake of molten cheese in a planet in the ‘vicinity of Betelguese’ (ala Douglas Adams).

An Enigma called GOD

Does god exist? If yes, who/what is he or (for political correctness) she? More importantly, why do we have to worship him? If god is in control, then what are we here for? Are we merely pawns in the hand of some puppet-master controlling the universe?

These are questions whose answers no person has been able to give me. People will state several instances of miracles performed, events which cannot be explained, and even the creation of the universe itself to prove the existence of god. These, I cannot personally accept or deny. There have been great men and women in history whom people have "idolized" (read Ram, Jesus and the like). I have nothing against these people for if the tales told about them are for real then they truly are great beings, whether human or ethereal is not for me to decide.

If we accept for a moment that god actually exists, the point still remains why do we worship the idols or pray to him in whatever manner the different religions choose to? If god is truly omnipresent and is in control of the situation everywhere, how would your prayer affect what many "learned" men say is pre-ordained? Why would god grant you that project if you are a businessman? Why would god give you more marks if you are in school? Why would god grant you whatever you have asked from him? The answer is he won't. You have to go out there and do it yourself. To those who say they gain a mental satisfaction, calmness and a sense of security from it, I say please continue. For others who seek returns, I think you are wasting your time and often your money as well.

Is god so conceited that you have to pray to him to get rewards for things which you do not deserve? And if you actually get those rewards, then that practically proves god is corrupt as well. Such a being is hardly someone who should be worshipped. I do not hold this opinion for I do not believe that god exists but am forced to infer the above on seeing the extravagant prayer ceremonies and rituals that are performed around me. Why do you require a priest to perform rituals? If you are so devout, won't your god listen to you? What are all the complicated ceremonies and verses for (referring purely to Hinduism)? Can't your god understand simple thoughts? It is baffling to see such large sections of society actually following these rituals. Hasn't it ever occurred to you that what is the point doing all this?

This blog is not so much about the existence of god as it is about all the lunacy associated with his worship. I sincerely hope, for the sake of millions of devotees that he exists, otherwise all their efforts will be in vain. As for me, I'll continue to rack my brains trying to figure out what exactly these people are trying to achieve.