Mann Role Mera…

It’s 5:02 AM and I’m typing this.

The title. Sad. It’s easily the worst title to a post ever. If the discerning reader (fuck, I’ll just name the sole reader I have!), if Dinesh has noticed, I haven’t complained about how my writing style is non-existent, or how I’ve been going through a bout of writer’s bloc (sic.) for the last one-and-a-half years et cetera. It follows from my principle of “Blog as if no-one’s reading!”, and no-one is! Except for Decay, of course.

In any case, the title is actually a reference to xkcd. I’ve been clicking on the random button at the rate of once every 6 minutes, so I’ve seen approximately 50. Also, there’s a reference to a popular song that is sung in B-grade hindi movies to charm snakes. Also, strangely enough, there was a one-hit wonder teen-pop cover of the same song sung by a girl who had attended a school in Bangalore which I subsequently attended. Can’t remember her name (I never knew it properly in the first place, to be honest).

So, there. TITular references done with.

Randall Munroe is God. Since I was born into a Hindu family (into the Brahmin caste to boot! Descendent of the ancestral priests of the Kalahasti Shrine… Now atheist and KFC fan), I can have multiple cultural and intellectual demi-gods (to monotheist cultural/intellectual demi-godders: Nyeh nyeh!)

I’m going back into AYBABTU probably. It’s psedo-retro and just forgotten enough to be funny again. Again, like in xkcd, it was my first internet meme.

Btw, if a=1, b=2, … z=26.

x + k + c + d = 24 + 11 + 3 + 4 = 42!!!! OMFG! UBER PWNAGE!!!!

But xkcd’s greatest moment has to be this line:

Ah, late night internet. The sheer wastage of time, unrivalled by any other action.

Bob Dylan was right after all!

The parts of his songs I could actually understand that is.

There’s this one song, which like his others, goes something like this:

neeeeya, neeeeya, yeeee, anna, neeeeeya neee neee… Oh, the times, they are a-changing…

Which, as I have implied, they are.

May 11th, 2009.

The 91st birth anniversary of this guy (terrible article, as I believe all of mine are)

The 8th death (or final lift?) of this guy.

And, notably, the day South Park will premiere on Indian Television.

Yes. What the fuck just isn’t enough.

It’s strange. The moment a show hits Indian TV, it goes bad. Scrubs hit Indian TV when season 5 started elsewhere. And we all now that started the steady downward slide of an otherwise hilarious and intelligent show. Following this trend, South Park’s season 13 is a massive disappointment.

Episode 3 was alright. The whole Kyle is a Jew thing can go wrong if not done well.

Episode 1 was kinda funny in parts. “You do not.  FUCK! With Mickey Mouse! Got that? ha ha?”

Episode 2 was just… bad. The Dark Knight could’ve been parodied so much better.

Episode 4… they were tripping on acid or something, but ended up making a brilliant feminist statement. And as a guy, I was repulsed. Sorry, it’s a genetic thing probably.

Episode 5… Nice. Best episode of the season, but nothing compared to their previous work. Why is Trey Parker going after Carlos Mencia? I mean, who cares about Carlos Mencia, for DNA’s sake? The Kayne West thing was nice though.

Episodes 6 and 7… Worst. Ever.

I don’t have a TV, so no clue as to where they’re starting off from and if they’ll go in order. I’m surprised that any TV show who’s pilot episode is called “Cartman Gets An Anal Probe” is being broadcast. I don’t think it’ll last. With India’s censorship system and how regressive thought sells on the t00b, it’ll end up being one long, uninterrupted bleep. Then some nut will say killing children is un-Indian (which it isn’t, by the way… Look at our education system!) and poof! It’ll be gone before you can say Meekrab.

This is the defining sequence of South Park’s pilot episode. I tried to find the actual video, but google has betrayed us and youtube is more or less the lunatic asylum of the interweb, or whatever the damn thing is called now. Anyway, the essence is still there.

Dedicated to ye, who know South Park as only a “3-time Emmy Award winning, animated TV show”…

Left For…

This post is about two things.

1. My efforts to get the most fucking amazing ringtone ever!

2. The status message of Natansh Verma.

I’m up right now trying to download a video and a video to audio converter as I couldn’t find the mp3 file of the most fucking amazing ringtone ever!

And I noticed Natansh’s gtalk status message, which was a rant against his institute. His institute is my dream institute. Now, I don’t know how much Natansh liked Maths before joining IIT-D and whether or not his 4 years there have changed his opinion of the subject. But I do know that 3 years of Amity have made me loathe science in general and utterly uber-despise Aerospace Engineering in particular. If Natansh’s feelings about Mathematics and Computing have gone the same way, and this is with him being in the best damn college for his course in the country (and if IIT loving lunatics -who’re usually the parents of kids who didn’t get in- have it, the world).

The point is, if Natansh’s feelings towards Math and Comp have been negatively affected by his institute analogous in essence and not quantity, to my feelings about Aerospace, that means that the best advice I can anyone planning to pursue (and trust me, pursue is the right word) their undergraduate degree in India is this: Find out what you love more than anything. Something you’d love to make a career out of. Something you know will not bore you even if you work at it for decades. Find your passion. And in no circumstances, do it as your undergrad degree.

All hail the Indian Education System.

All Grown Up

I am oft described as being “a 12-year-old”.

My 21st birthday approacheth.

And I have finally learnt my lesson. Or so I hope.

Years of social isolation (people believe I exaggerate this. Trust me, I do not. The things most people take for granted about youth and adolescence and even one’s teenage years are closed chapters to me. I have learnt my lessons late. I am perhaps a “social dyslexic”) left me with perhaps the biggest misguided notion since “30% of all scientists at NASA are Indians”. And the notion is that it is good to believe in certain abstract values and guard these beliefs against the scrutiny of society. I see now that it is bullshit. I took my parables and fables and “life lessons” too seriously. I never quite outgrew them and have faced the repercussions. And now, at 21, I have finally realized that they were quaint little things one tells children and are not only untrue and inapplicable in the real world (note the lack of quotation marks), but the attempt to apply them in the real world can be detrimental.

Books lie. Philosophy is rubbish. Philosophers don’t apply their own philosophy. The ones that do, we never hear of. Because they end up like me. People with great “promise” who do not “realize their potential”. This isn’t a rant. At least I don’t feel like it is.

I have a fault. It is my beliefs. And to clarify, I’m not talking about religious beliefs, or lack thereof. It is my belief in things like “So what if the world around you is fucked up. You live life the way you want to.” Or “Have a dream. And follow it despite what obstacles come your way. Despite how far-fetched it may seem. Have a dream and follow it.” These things sound great but are utter rubbish. The heady idealism I have lived with my entire life is vanishing. And it is perhaps all the better for me. I am sick of being the iconoclast. Sick of being the “indifferent rebel.” I am just sick of it all. You come to a point in your life when you look back at it and realize how stupid you were for not following the crowd at some point. Every single time, you wanted to be different. Even at the times you were forced to integrate your desires with the demands of the world, you never could. Nothing stopped you consciously. Just this unnatural inner wall that somehow never let you do that. Never let you compromise. And even though that got you into the situation you find yourself in, you couldn’t help but feel proud of yourself for sticking to your beliefs over the prospect of immediate gratification. You hoped that since you were actually putting into practice the lessons you were taught about virtue and crap and were actually imbibed with the values society extols so vigorously and yet violates so rampantly, you would win the war at the cost of losing a few battles. But that isn’t really how the world works, is it?

The payoff for being so ridiculously bookish that you do not witness how the world doesn’t believe in a single word it says. The payoff for being what you want to be or what you believe you ought to be over what you should be is not nil, but negative. And that, my friends, is my birthday gift this year.

The idealism is gone. The will to change whatever the hell I wanted to is gone. I wanted to experiment with being a member of the human race, but I know very well that this experiment is going to extend indefinitely. It is time to stop being what you wanted to be and become what you should be. So what if a part of me dies in the process. It wasn’t a very good utilization of my time in any case.

I guess the only thing I will do that’ll hark back to my days of being a “rebel who didn’t know he was one and frankly wished he didn’t have to be seen that way” will be to tell any progeny I encounter to be absolutely terrible human beings. To not possess any virtuous quality. To never dream and to never do anything that goes against the zeitgeist of their age. That is truly the best way to get forward in the world. Be as horrible a person as you can and the world is your oyster.

I’m done now.

Wow… 10 Years…

Do you hear that, Mr. Anderson? That is the sound of inevitability.

March 31st was the 10th-year anniversary of the release of ‘The Matrix’.
I found out via xkcd. (Pity they never made any sequels.)
It’s been ten years since they made it. Wow. To understand how much this movie means to me, you have to watch it with me. Get thoroughly annoyed with my tendency to try to show off how I know every line with the right accent and voice intonation. And watch me sigh wistfully when I think of how the movie ended there. I wish they made a sequel or two.

Look who’s writing again!

Now, now honey! Don’t be mad! I know you’re angry that I haven’t been paying as much attention to you as I used to before, but that does not necessarily mean I don’t care about you anymore! It’s just that all this work! The fear of the future, the utter and complete decimation of all my hopes and every single human being I know climbing onto my case as if it was Mount fucking Everest!

And I know. 2-2 at home. At least he didn’t dance. But, hey! At least we’re better off than the Scouse brigade! Decay must be ecstatic, and keeping in mind his recent penchant for “inserting” a sexual innuendo in every second sentence of his speech, I believe he will describe his mood with one of the following words: Euphoric, Orgasmic, Elevation, Ejaculation or more.

As for n00b42, n00b42, n00b42… HIKE! He’s probably singing YNWA even now.

In any case, my parents were missing me for some strange reason. It had been around six months since I saw them last.  So, I am now in Mumbai. My writing has deteriorated more than umm… something; so I’ll not write much but rather inundate your web browsers with tiny packets of information that will be converted into pictures taken from a 1MP phone camera.

But the good news is that I have finally bought myself a copy of ‘The Black Swan’ by Nissim Nicholas Taleb. Yay!

Zuck You Fuckerberg!

Facebook has a new user. No, it’s not me. It’s a guy called Haldamir Tinuviel who happens to share my birth date and city of residence.
Call me paranoid, but that site scares me. So, I created a new email id using the Elvish name I adopted when I was 12 or 13. And I shall reveal nothing. No phone number. No “real” email id. No address. Nothing. For facebook’s Orwell-inspired admins, Haldamir Tinuviel is as close as you’ll get to me. I wonder what the posters inside their Palo Alto HQ say. Perhaps, Oh I don’t know… “Freedom Is Slavery”, “War Is Peace”, “Ignorance Is Strength”.
And why am I ON the cursed service? For the sake of a word I utterly and completely despise, but it’s something I guess I have to do. And the word is… Networking.
Excuse me, I have to wash my hands.

Resurrection

“And on the 42^nd day, he shall rise again!”

Hello!

I cannot explain why I haven’t been writing. Maybe it’s because I no longer enjoy the honor and privilege of an internet connection, or maybe it’s because I’m so busy I can’t waste my time on a silly blog.

Or maybe it’s because blogging, like social networking websites, is merely a fad. And it’s time is up. It shall now be relegated to that hallowed graveyard of peculiar habits that the populace began to practice en masse, solemnly swearing to never stop; for THIS truly defines them, THIS is finally an opportunity for them to express themselves creatively; THIS is the moment they have been waiting for. However, THIS finally becomes THAT and THAT always has been and always will be… boring. (I used to fancy myself as a writer. I just tried to elucidate my views by the means of a series of sentences that hinged on demonstratives.)

The point is, it appears that blogging is now giving company to the Macarena, the Fonz’s jacket, Akshay Kumar’s blue jeans and movies with ‘Khiladi’ in the title and college basketball-playing “dewds”. It’s a pity, though. I used to like blogging. Until the pressure to write something extraordinary every single time kicked in. I guess I’ll resume this blog differently. It’s probably a fresh start.

2008 was a strange year. In the stats column, it started with Chaosverse enjoying 3,000 hits in the first month alone. In the last month of 2008, it dropped to 700. That further fell to 600 in January ‘09. I guess that’s a good thing. There’s no more pressure. No more “Is Harish in form again?” I know I’ve lost my edge, but I’m going to stop trying to get it back. The best things come to you when you never expected them or even asked for them. That’s the one lesson I can say I learnt the easy way. Right, Venom?

A random fanboy mention

Artist: Radiohead.
Song: Bangers’n'Mash
Album: In Rainbows
Moment: 2.24-2.40
Somehow, no band can do that. Led Zeppelin did it in their songs, but that’s it.
Brilliant!

Download Diary

I utterly despise the practice of alliterative phrases as titles. There is something fundamentally stupid about it. I mean, when I see an alliterative title I instantly assume that what layeth b’fore mine eyes is a chick-lit novel written by some NRI about the trials and tribulations of a teenage girl with orthodox Punjabi parents living in Brixton or Chelsea or Bedford or some such place. Apparently the only decently good novel in this genre is Meera Syal’s ‘Anita and Me’, whose title, please note, is not alliterative. So, eugh! Horrible title, but I can’t copy someone, who incidentally vouched for the decently good-like nature of ‘Anita and Me’, and title my post “Bah! I hate naming ‘me posts!” So, British Punjabi chick-lit title it is.

Anyhoo, this post is an appeal. In the words of David Gilmour and Roger Waters, “Hello… (Hello, hello)? Is there anybody in there?” Or rather, OUT there. I am sick of nobody reading my blog. I don’t write for myself. I write for recognition. For criticism and extravagant praise. For comparisons to Wodehouse and Shelley and Bacon and Shakespeare and Raymond Chandler and Sidney Sheldon. (Okay, maybe not him!) Or to have my writing blown to bits by comparing it to Chetan Bhagat and Jeffrey Archer and Sidney Sheldon (that’s his rightful place!) and John Grisham and Dan Brown (please! I’m not THAT bad, am I?). Well, I shall again quote another band I partially appreciate to explain the nature of my appeal.

Maybe it’s just something I can’t admit but lately,
I feel like I don’t give a shit.
Motivation such an aggravation,
Accusations don’t know how to take them.
Inspiration’s getting hard to fake it.
Concentration’s never hard to break it.

Basically, I don’t feel like writing stuff I’d normally write about. Even that paper I was planning to write is suffering from a massive problem which can be summarized quite succinctly as: where/how the fuck do I start?

So, to kick-start my writing habit, I ask you fair readers to comment more often. Even a “Lol!” will suffice… for the moment. And now to the tit…ular.

I am in the process of downloading the following movies:

• Brazil. Directed by Monty Python’s very own Terry Gilliam, it apparently stars fellow Python Michael Palin. A supposed dystopian science-fiction parody, it is ‘1984′ made in 1984 by someone who didn’t read ‘1984′. Download time left: Will take a day, methinks.
• Slumdog Millionaire. I usually hate movies about India made by the good folks of Hollywoodland. They stick to stereotypes and pass that off as a “gritty and realistic portrayal of India’s…<insert what the movie deals with here>”. Left to them, all of us can’t speak in English without our heads bobbing and always do so in high-pitched nasal tones, every guy is a rag-picker, every girl is a prostitute and we all live in Dharvi. But apparently this movie doesn’t stick to that line. It’s by Danny Boyle, who made ‘Trainspotting’ – a movie I liked. And AR’s winning quite a number of prestigious awards for his score. He picked up a Golden Globe nomination; last time I heard. Too bad no-one gives a flying fuck about those awards. Downloading… 3 hours left.
• Frost/Nixon. Now, Ron Howard scares me. It’s not just that he actually knew The Fonz… he made A Beautiful Mind. Great flick and all, but realism was slaughtered for making it more cinematically appealing. I’ve always felt his movies’ primary objective is to win Oscars. Downloading… 23 hours.
• Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The quiz circuit is a good place to pick up cinema recommendations. Worst place for music recommendations, though. Anyway, there were questions about this Woody Allen movie at quizzes at IIT Delhi and Kanpur. Plus, it does have pretty nifty sounding title. Let’s hope it’s not a chick flick from a pederast. What’s a… pederast, Harish? Shut the fuck up, Donny. Downloading… 14 hours.
• There’re also some “so-bad-they’re-good” flicks I’m planning to get. Showgirls, Freddy Got Fingered, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Gunda, Jaani Dushman.

I like posts which have very little to do with the title. The title is not completely irrelevant, just very irrelevant.