Midnight Thoughts

I just became (by the virtue of some luck) a Graduate. But somehow deep inside i don’t feel like one. There are a number of reasons for that. One of the primary reasons is the apathetic behavior of Mumbai University towards its students. I can compare it to one of the many Black Holes in space that keep sucking whatever comes in its way and then throwing it out when nothing is left. MU is like that. It sucks in students. So many students that it cant even handle. And then spits them out after dumbing them down and declares them graduates. I am happy for all who became graduates or are in the process of being one, but just ask yourself one question after becoming one: how much did you ‘learn’ in the process of becoming a graduate?

We all slogged for marks in the internals and the external examinations. We made projects after getting all material online and adding our two cents in it to earn the extra marks. Some even paid for the projects. We made presentations on the basis of what is given in our textbooks. The textbooks are hardly updated. You cant call it a textbook if it is updated every 5-7 years. Even if it is updated, it contains so much useless information that the University has to either omit certain parts and chapters. All this after it is printed and the students have bought the textbooks. The textbooks don’t even get printed on time. And when they do get printed, there are so many authors, that i could buy each authors book and build myself a castle.

Every Tom, Dick and Harry suddenly is an author of a graduation course and tries to sell his textbook to his students because it is ‘better than other authors’ and because ’ you will get a group discount if many of you buy’. Its all about the money for these ‘professors’. 

Then there is the examination itself. In the age of computers where even a 5 year old can handle a computer, only the people at MU cant seem to handle computers. Why does a legitimate student from a legitimate college who has paid proper fees, has given all proof of his existence in this world and all his past education have to sit and fill stupid endless circles with numbers and a black pen just before the exam for which he is not even given 15 minutes of extra time? Is it such a problem to provide an extra 15 minutes? Let me tell you one thing, there is no clarity by the MU on when the students should get the answer sheets before the exams. Some teachers who are kind enough and know it takes time give the sheets as soon as the student enters the classroom, other mindfucks from mars give the paper 5 minutes before the exam is supposed to start because ‘thats the rule’. 

After slogging for weeks on end, the wait for the results starts. There is no clarity on the day and date. The rule book says within 45 days of the examination, the results should be declared. But the illiterate people running MU dont seem to know the rules. They dont care about the students. They dont care if we have to keep everything on hold till they declare the results. They care about finishing their hours of work and go back home. They like to postpone till the very end and as soon as the media starts to report on the delay of the results, they blame the computers. Dear MU, only you seem to have a problem with computers. Either you are living in 1990 or that you have extreme bad luck that whenever you buy a computer, it is always faulty. Grow up MU. Americans landed on the moon in the 60s with less computer power than what you have in your offices right now. 

Finally when we get our results, we are just happy we got it. I asked myself was it really worth it? For me, No. It was not worth it. I put in more efforts to rote what was in the textbook than learning something from it. I feel dumb. I feel outdated. I feel like a MU Graduate.

Pink Floyd put it right:

“When we grew up and went to school,

 There were certain teachers who would hurt the children any way they could.

 We dont need no education

We dont need no thought control
No dark sarcasm in the class room
Teachers leave those kids alone
Hey, teachers! Leave those kids alone!

All in all, it’s just a
Another brick in the wall
All in all, you’re just a
Nother brick in the wall”

Thank You Mumbai University.  Dr. John Wilson must be glad that he is dead right now. The great man founded MU and MU destroyed his legacy. 

Dear Self-Righteous Dude in the train,

I don’t know if i was fortunate or unfortunate to have been standing besides you in the 11.30 CST local on the day when the trains were running extremely late because of a derailment at Cotton Green station. As people crammed inside the already half an hour late train, i somehow found myself besides you. As we settled in the painfully slow and cramped train, i heard you talk complain about the “very crowded train” and how this was “very bad” and how the “authorities did not care about the passengers”. I heard you talk to your friend/partner whoever he was about how you had lived a “very settled life” and how you would “prefer the road instead of such a crowded train”. You even mentioned at one point of time how the “first class usually has more gujaratis but today they are nowhere to be seen”

All the time you spoke about your wealthy and high standard of living, you looked at me atleast 3 times and said to your buddy that many “unwanted people who dont belong here, have taken advantage of the situation and got into the first class compartment”. You must have probably thought, ‘hey whats a guy in jeans and tshirt doing inside this compartment? He doesnt even look Gujju!’. Yes sir, i dont look Gujju. I fail to understand how it matters in Mumbai whether you are gujju or not? Does it enable you to racially profile each person standing besides you in a crowded local train and pass judgements about how everyone in the world apart from gujjus are the most unwanted people in the first class compartment? 

You boast about living a well settled life and then when you spoke, you immediately became the most idiotic and most laughable person in the whole compartment. I could hardly control my laughter. There was a moment when a Sardarji entered the train and stood besides you, you said that ‘God knows how many people will get in now’. You gave a disgusting look to anyone who did not fit your ‘Only gujju’ standard. As we got down i was happy that you got pushed around by some fellow passengers at Masjid Bunder Station while alighting. 

It is because of people like you, that the Gujarati community gets a bad name. It is because of you that Gujaratis like me, always get judged before people even get to know me. You may have lived a life of a fat, rich gujju, but you have absolutely the lowest morals anyone can ever have. Please, go take the road as you mentioned. Dont ever take the train again, as it is better without people like you. And it is so ‘low class’ isnt it? Get a car. burn petrol. I bet you’d love that. 

The authorities whom you mentioned were able to get the Harbor Line up and running again within 3 hours inspite of the heavy rain. What did you do sir? Whine and Complain about how you deserved much better. No, you dont deserve the comfort. All you deserve is crowded trains, heavy rainfall and delayed slow locals when you travel. And i sincerely hope that you get that every fucking time you travel in Mumbai. For insulting me and many others for no reason, you deserve this. Hope you get pushed around in the train. Hope you get pick-pocketed. Hope someone sneezes on you while in a crowded train. Finally, i hope that i never meet you in the train again. 

From,

Akar Gosrani.

I recently started work and have been taking the Harbor line train to Masjid Bunder daily. Even though i go via the first class compartment, there is enough banter to keep me entertained throughout my 20 minute journey on the way to work and back. Sometimes its thoroughly entertaining and worth sharing with everyone. Hence, i thought why not blog about it. So starting today, whenever i hear some really good discussion I will post it under the title ‘Harbor Line Banter’. 

As i entered the first class compartment from Koliwada station, a group of roughly 4-5 gujarati businessmen who seemed to know each other, entered the compartment. They were not more than 38-40 years old. Of all those who entered, one had a freshly bought copy of Mid-Day with the front page report on Osama Bin Laden and how he was put to death. That was enough to get the banter started. The person who had the newspaper was reading it, while the other people started the discussion about what must have happened over the past one day.

“The Pakistani’s must’ve known he (Osama) was there, otherwise how can he live so lavishly?!”

“No, I think Obama just went in with the correct intelligence reports, shot him down and left, It all happened within 40 minutes!” 

“All that is fine, Just see the guts of these Americans. Captured and killed one person who was not in their hands, here we are sitting and can’t even kill those who are already in our hands. Shyaa”

“I was watching the news and they were showing a report about this guy who tweeted the whole thing live unknowingly. He described that one big blast took place and all was silent and then a helicopter crashed”

“Yes i saw that too. He was from Rawalpindi and had come for a vacation to Abbotabad”

“God knows when will these Pakistanis learn. What do they get out of all this? Americans got what they wanted, when will India get Dawood and others. Our government can’t even attack them for fear of a Nuclear attack. What a mad country! (Pakistan)”

Here is my favorite part of the whole conversation.

“I think its all a conspiracy, Obama’s ratings were at an all time low till now. Look at what has happened. His re-election is confirmed in 2012! No one can stop him now!

“These Congress people must be planning the same thing. At the very end of the term, they will pass the lokpal bill, hang Kasab and Afzal Guru and pitch in Rahul Gandhi. Sure shot winning campaign”

“If they are not planning this then at least we should suggest them this idea. At least there won’t be an Advani in contention for Prime Minister. But if (Narendra) Modi comes in, then it will be best”

Gujarat (read Narendra Modi) has suddenly become a role model for all states (read wherever there are gujjus) to emulate. I myself have seen the development going on over there with my own eyes. My native Jamnagar city has transformed into a bustling megapolis with bustling industries and HUGE projects which can put Bombay to shame. Majority of the Gujarati community wants Narendra Modi to continue as Chief Minister of Gujarat. They even want him to be Prime Minister. And just to mention I know of his past and hence won’t discuss that since this is a blogpost about what i heard today in the Bombay local. 

By this time, Masjid Bunder station had arrived and it was time to get down. They all alighted with me and i suddenly realised that 20 minutes had passed by so quickly! Osama’s capture and death was such a huge topic that people in office were also talking about it and discussing it in great detail. Everyone had their own conspiracy theory to tell and share. My dad went on to complain that these idiots (News Channels) kept showing the same thing all day and did not update on the Lokpal bill discussions which were taking place! 

 

When i was a kid, i used to play cricket with my building friends in our compound or the in the next building. It was a ritual to play cricket morning and evening except during school days. During school it used to be either on weekends or during off days. Sometimes even during the afternoon if we had nothing better to do. Every summer this ritual was followed. Nothing stopped us apart from the people who shoo’ed us away if we made too much noise or broke a window or two. We were a group of almost 7 or 8 kids from 2 buildings. Whichever side of the narrow compound we found empty, we used a car tyre as the main stump and a piece of marble for the second, made the teams and started to play.

The rules were always the same. The only thing that came in between was the wall between the two buildings. If anyone hit the ball high or hard, there was a big chance that it would land up in the next building. We either called out to the passers by to give us the ball or sent one person from the batting team to get it as they were just sitting. 

As all of us grew up, we got busy with our lives. Board Exams, College, etc etc. For atleast 3-4 years or more, there was hardly any cricket played in the compound. No banter at all. It felt hollow living here. There always used to be so much commotion and all of a sudden it had all gone away. Even the elderly and the adults acknowledged the same. The same people who complained of us making noise and breaking windows were missing us. Time went on. 

The arguments over runs, wickets, no-balls, wide balls, run-outs, etc made all of it worthwhile. Today i miss those days and i hardly know about the whereabouts of those friends with whom i played apart from a few of them. These memories somehow got deposited in the very back of my mind.

But today, while returning from work, as I was entering my building, a kid from the next building asked ” Excuse me, ball please” while pointing towards the dirty tennis ball which was lying a few feet away from me. As i went to fetch the ball and throw it back to him, all those memories rushed back and i suddenly realised that there were so many times that i must have said the exact same thing to so many people who gladly returned the ball. As I threw the ball back, the kid gladly thanked me and went on with the game. I was once on the other side of the wall. 

I just saw the music video of a song called ‘freak out’ from the upcoming YashRaj movie ‘Love ka the end’ and was quite taken aback at how the makers have completely lifted the whole music video from a very popular and original YouTube video called t-shirt war made by RhettandLink about a year ago and had gone viral instantly. As of now their video has about 67,74,223 views and counting. You can see the original video here: http://youtu.be/DKWdSCt4jGE  . The makers went on to make tshirt war 2 for McDonalds and Coke. YashRaj has copied the entire concept of the tshirt wars video for their music video ‘freak out’ http://youtu.be/W6QjT8mBAFM . It also seems that the said movie is also a copy of the 2006 movie ‘John Tucker Must Die’. 

I really don’t care about the movie nor the music video. All i know is, its been copied. I gave up on Hindi movies and Bollywood a long time ago because of the copied films and pathetic movies it was churning out every week. Out of every 10 movies, hardly 2 are worth watching. The rest are all either pathetic or copied. Its become a hobby now to try and figure out which hindi film/music/music video has been copied from where. Each time i find out something, i try and spread the word to my friends and family just to let them know. I really don’t understand that how do such filmmakers think they will get away with such blatant plagiarising?! The public is quite smart and theres always the internet. 

If anything can go wrong, it will - Edward Aloysius Murphy, Jr.

If there is any law that holds true no matter what, it has to be the one stated by Edward Murphy.He served in the US Military during the 2nd World War fighting in the Pacific Theater (India, China and Burma). After the war he became an aerospace engineer and worked for the US Air Force institute of Technology. But enough about the man. The law is what is i want to discuss.

The law is quite simple and straightforward. Anything that can or has the possibility of going wrong, it probably will. It doesn’t require a genius mind to figure this out. You have probably experienced it atleast once in your life. If you haven’t then you definitely will. There will come a day when almost everything you fear the most in a particular situation or situations will come true. That will be the day when everything will go wrong. A bad day indeed right?

Whenever i have experienced Murphy’s law, i have come to the following conclusions:

• It lasts usually the whole day. Almost everything you do goes wrong. No matter what.
• Several situations which you have been trying to deal with in the past few days/weeks/months usually come together on the day you least expect it and this results in everything going wrong.
• The after effects last for a couple of days. 

I don’t remember how many times i have faced this law but i hate the feeling that comes with it. Not only does your day go awfully wrong but it saps your mental, emotional and physical energy to the point where you just feel like doing nothing but waiting for the day to end. But the law is right. And it is a reminder that when you know things are going to go wrong, better prepare for it rather than expecting something entirely opposite. 

Found this while i was on a random surfing spree. Some are really worth living by. I can relate to almost all of them. Good idea to write about them individually i guess?

• If anything can go wrong, it will – Murphy’s Law
• One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory – Brown’s Rule
• If you don’t need it and don’t want it, there is always plenty of it – Murphy’s Law of Supply
• In America, it’s not how much an item costs, it’s how much you save – Paulg’s Law
• Don’t believe everything you hear or anything you say – Murray’s Law
• Marriage teaches you loyality, forbearance, selfrestraint, meekness, and a great many other things you wouldn’t need if you had stayed single – Townsend’s Law
• It doesn’t matter if you win or lose… until you lose – O.J.’s Law
• Assumption is the mother of all screw-ups – Wethern’s Law of Suspended Judgment
• There are no answers, only cross-references – Weiner’s Law of Libraries
• To err is human, but to really f*ck things up requires a computer – Law of Unreliability
• Once you give up integrity, the rest is easy – Evan’s Law
• Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich by promising to protect each from the other – Ameringer’s Axiom
• When a politician gets an idea, he usually gets it wrong – the 5th Rule of Politics
• No matter what goes wrong, it will probably look right – Scott’s First Law
• Murphy’s Law always hits at the worst time – Lanning’s Law
• Things get worse under pressure – Murphy’s Law of Thermodynamics
• Sometimes it takes several years to recognize the obvious – Sy’s Law of Science
• If you are in a hole, stop digging – 1st Rule of Excavation
• There is no issue so small that it can’t be blown out of proportion – Ruckert’s Law
• The degree to which you overreact to information will be in inverse proportion to its accuracy – Weatherwax’s Postulate
• The item you had your eye on the minute you walked in will be taken by the person in front of you – Cafeteria Law
• Nothing is as temporary as that which is called permanent – Jose’s Axiom
• Nothing is as permanent as that which is called temporary – Corollary
• Free time that unexpectedly becomes available will be wasted – Sandiland’s Law
• The one who does the least work will get the most credit – Shapiro’s Law of Reward
• No matter how often a lie is shown to be false, there will remain a percentage of people who believe it to be true – Law of the Lie
• The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that you’ve got it made – Glyme’s Formula for Success
• Never replicate a successful experiment – Fett’s Law of the Lab
• Accuracy is the sum total of your compensating mistakes – Wingfield’s Axiom
• As soon as you’re doing what you wanted to be doing, you want to be doing something else – Law of Living
• There’s no time like the present for postponing what you don’t want to do – Hecht’s Law
• Whichever way you turn upon entering an elevator, the buttons will be on the opposite side – Gluck’s Law
• If credit can possibly go to someone else, it will – Kovaleski’s Dictum
• If you don’t do anything, you can’t do anything wrong – Cameron’s Law
• It is impossible for anyone to learn that which he thinks he already knows – Plutarch’s Rule
• The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because they are generally the same people – Chesterton
• A little inaccuracy can save a lot of explanation – Munroe’s Teaching Principle
• You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive – Grandpa Charnock’s Law
• Man is always ready to die for an idea, provided that the idea is not quite clear to him – Eldridge’s Law of War
• If you don’t care where you are, you’re not lost – Rune’s Rule of the Road
• The probability of someone’s asking irrelevant questions requiring lengthy responses increases in direct proportion to how tired you are of the meeting. – Bowlby’s Law

This comic strip is funny, true and at the same time reflects how Texting/SMSing has taken charge of being a primary mode of communication and how it is affecting our way of communicating to others and how it has changed the dynamics and structure of a conversation literally over its head. Let me be clear here. I am not a big fan of Texting. I hate it. Its the dumbest thing I have seen since Rakhi Sawant’s acting. Texting is more dumbing than India TV’s News. Texting is certainly more Idiotic than Ravindra Jadeja playing cricket. There. I said it. Come and get me.

I recently called (YES. I CALL PEOPLE!) a very good friend of mine to talk and catch up. I shall call this friend ABC. Now, ABC most of the time picks up the call to talk no matter how busy he/she is. I hardly text anyone and prefer calling rather than texting. 

It so happens that ABC, always picks up my call or calls back. But this time, after almost half an hour ABC did not call back. Fair enough. I texted ABC what i wanted to talk about and ended the text with a “call me”. I got a reply about the first part of the text and nothing about the “Call Me”. I replied and again ended the message with a “Call me”. Yet i get a reply that goes a bit like this: “a BIT BUSY.is it ok if i call 2mrw?”. I just saw the bit busy written in Caps , replied “ok.gn”  and slammed my phone on the table. Why I did that, I’ll come to that part later. Many of you may ask, why didn’t I simply call again rather than text? Well, Its ok to call and leave a message and wait for that person to respond. So I waited. 

Now why did i slam my phone down? Because in a way, I was offended. I get that ABC was busy. But why write “BIT BUSY” in capital and send the message? It felt as if im an Airtel telesales executive trying to sell ABC a Sim Card and ABC is shooing me off like a rat. Call me an idiot. Call all this a misunderstanding. But if YOUR Best Friend replied and acted like that with you, I am sure, you’d feel the same.

Now heres something to ponder on. This whole Texting saga between me and ABC lasted 10 minutes give or take. Now imagine if ABC would have picked up the call. The conversation would have hardly lasted 2 minutes?. Maximum 5 minutes? But that was not the case. What point am i trying to prove here? Well, its clearly in front of you!

SMS/Texts are alright for Forwarding Jokes, CID Shayaris and those highly irritating Scroll down messages, informing a mass of people about certain announcements. But thats about it. Beyond that I find calling and talking is a far better option. Because a) a conversation is fast and b) a conversation is complete. When it comes to texting, you not only have a limited space to “talk” but also your conversation is left incomplete if one of the “texters” does not reply or replies late. This is where the whole concept of Texting falls flat on its face. 

So why do people prefer texting and not talking? Because its fast and easy? But so is talking isn’t it? I bet all you texters out there, give me a true reason you love texting and I will better the reason and tell you why Talking wins.

The saying that “Give people an option and they will take it” hold true for this. Give people an option between Texting and talking and a majority chunk will want to text. There will hardly be anyone who would like to sit and have a decent conversation. I am sorry texters but you just cant put everything you have to say in a 160 character long text. It just doesnt work and its pointless to me. And please spare me the replies that say “but you can send an extra long sms”. I’d rather have an Extra long conversation than sit and type on a small idiotic keypad or touchscreen what i want to say. 

Say what you want rather than writing it down in a text. It not only feels great but also is fulfilling. It makes you feel closer to whomever you are talking to. You will “feel” emotions and also make you feel better. A conversation can never be forgotten, but a text chat will be deleted or will lie forgotten in your inbox and will fade away from memory. I can bet you that the most memorable conversations in your life will be a talk and not a text message (Unless you are an exception)

I am not here to preach. Everyone has their own opinions. This one is mine. It completely makes no sense to me as to how can people text important stuff and not talk and also that they can find time to text and not talk when clearly talking is so much faster and easier! 

Perhaps the one the thing I hate the most about Cell Phones is that people reply to a text by a text which is okay, but why do people not pick up a call when they are busy but find time to text back instantly that they are busy?! And even more idiotic and irritating is the fact that people dont pick up but instead text back stating ” Hey..you called?..what happened?”. All this irritates me. If you can reply a text with a text, then why not respond to a call with a call?! 

Meanwhile, as I type my rant, my reply to ABC must be in his/her inbox getting burried under new messages and who knows, ABC may have deleted it after reading it. All I know is that ABC is supposed to call me because He/She texted me stating the same. As I wait, I wonder if He/She will even remember about that He/She texted me about calling the next day. 

I just hope i get to talk to ABC and that we dont end up texting each other. Because not only do i value my friend but also value the conversations more than the texts.