Dogs in a Ghost Town

Last evening, the weather was turning pleasant anticipating the cooling storm that later came that night. I was at the gate of my good friend Diya and we were chatting about how oppressive the term papers and the tests were getting and how good it would be to just take a break from all this for a while. Our topics drifted from immediate murder of certain members (cough, one) the faculty to future endeavors to friends and eventually landing on the city itself. Of how great the place was... How simpler and open the people... How lively and how inclusive... How unpretentious the people, so much so that being pseudo-intellectual-pretentious is not exactly an abuse... How great the living in Calcutta was... In general... That is a pet topic of mine; a little thanksgiving, a little retrospection and a little celebration. Perhaps it was not the city but the part of it that I interact most with, Jadavpur university. But I chose not to believe in that option. Anyone who has been here during the Pujo would agree with me when I say, that it is Calcutta, who is life herself.

Cut 2 today. Not a single person from my apartment complex has stepped out of their flats. Forget going to work; there are no buses. The metro is probably facing a blockade at the gates. Taxis are all lined up at their stands. People have now, a Government sanctioned unofficial holiday. Say hello to the Bharat Bandh. Interesting choice of words I would say. For it means, Shutting down India. That is exactly what they are doing. I am not going to talk about how it is an unlawful activity. It is an illegal one as well. A Bandh is "enforced", i.e. quite literal to its word-meaning, it is forced. How ridiculous is it when Bandhs are planned to make a long-weekend? We laugh at our shame and have a nice day off away from the hot scorching sun. When you choose to protest, go ahead, shut your shops. By forcing a common trader/employee/student to forsake their work for a whole working day, how is it still not ruled that a Bandh is both a human-rights violation and a transgression against the fundamental rights of an individual? Calcutta is a city with a proud history of dissent. And still, we have not voiced our dissent against these fake-holiday-makers.

Why the fuck are we allowing ourselves to sit at home, castrated and defiled by our social inferiors? These second-rate citizens who violate the meaning of the word protest by forcing it on others deserve to whipped in roads by commoners. Of course it is an outrage in a democratic nation. So is a Bandh. Let us burn a bus. A PIL will be filed and nothing will be heard of. Of course, a bus is only a few lakh rupees of public money. Let it go to waste. Party-workers and leaders never pay tax anyway. We must make them sweat. Anyone burning a bus or causing damage to a public property should be made to pay a penalty of twice the cost of the damage they have caused. Jail terms are irrelevant to people who have little respect to the world around them.

What a villain is (s)he who uses societal norms and rules only to protect his/her interests while violating them when it profits him/her? I address this section to those bastard children of a perverted sense of universal ownership. Any protest has to be a voluntary one. Advertise your cause. Cry for justice. Let those who choose to support your cause at the cost of their one day's salary and livelihood come forward to join your protest. You will not do that because you are afraid. You are a spineless, useless, cankerous growth on the society which rots the bone. When protest becomes the order of the day, it is not protest at all. Only when there is a choice of not protesting along with the forum of protest, is there any real meaning to the protest at all.

Today when I was out on the streets to see ordinary people gritting their teeth in the sun, hauling some baggage at times, walking in the middle of one the busiest roads erstwhile, I was overpowered by a feeling that I do not experience often in Calcutta. I had it last Christmas when all my friends had scattered away in different parts of the world. I felt it when my best friend's sister got married and I was not there. And I experienced it today when we were all reduced to being dogs in a ghost town... I wish I was in Madras, because something like this would never happen there... Are the people braver or the police more efficient or the parties weaker? I do not know what the combination is. There is a decided lack of seriousness towards the policies of the parties when it interferes with everyday life. Maybe Calcutta should take a leaf from that book. I have often looked on with admiration when I note how few two-wheelers ply in Calcutta and how the public vehicles outnumber the private ones. Maybe it is time to bring out all those cars and bikes that are collecting dust in a garage. It is time to send a message. It has to be loud and clear. It simply says,

SHUT THE FUCK UP!

The High Priest of the Holy Church of Americana: Sam Worthington

He.z got the "look" (that Vince McMahon looks for when you are in the WWE), the skillset (being able to eat a banana without shoving it up his nose) and he is already becoming the Christian Bale of 2007-08 and the Collin Farrel of 2005-06. Ladies and gentlemen! Sam Worthington. Fuck. He.z even got the name right.

Maybe it was my fault to watch two movies of this guy in two weeks straight (Clash of the Titans and Avatar). But I am pretty lucky considering that I did not watch a third (Terminator4). I thought I should give a review first, but then decided to go with a comparative review. However, that I have seen Shutter Island and Manhattan Murder Mystery (two exceptional movies) which deserve reviews more than these trashers, I wanted to go in a different direction. Besides, I am pretty sure that a whole load of you have seen Avatar and come to your own conclusions. What I want to talk about, is the immense quality of bullshit dished out to us by the Holy Church of Americana.

Whom/What is the Holy Church of Americana? It is the creme de la creme of the Fortune500 companies that decide on a complex market analysis algorithm, what the pursuits of the entire globe should be. I am not Anti-American. Let me put that down very clearly. As a country which has always given people enough hope that they can go anywhere they want if they really want it bad enough, America stands for what I believe in too. What I am against, is the corporate-mass-produced kitsch which is shoved down people's throats in America and across the world as the standards one should aspire to. Totalitarianism, even if it is of American-corporate conglomerates, is a path to self-destruction. The question is, whose self is going to be destroyed?

Before I make another point in this direction, let me get this out of the way...

Fuck you James Cameron. And the other guy.

As I was saying, Avatar should make people think, "oh? The movie is a massive hit across the US? People must have really woken up to it that they are cheering for nine foot aliens to kick American G I Ass." But no. It does not. Because ultimately it is a cripple Marine who is so much better than the other people in America (cuz he don't have legs, he must be closer to the earth, non?) and has to ride a Dragon (Turok, Quake, I don't give two shits about its name) to convince the "tribe" with bow and arrows to let him lead them to mass-destruction before kicking them out, American style. Obviously the Dragon-Rider will become the leader of the People. So the White Man in the skin of the Black Man, becomes the master, again. How sweet. Happy fucking ending.

Fuck you motherfucker.

Avatar? More like, Atavar. At a war with everything that's against you. For if we are not with you, we are against you, aren't we? Wait, too much information to process for the humble follower of the Holy Church of Americana, so go back to rule number one. My God is a good God. Your god is a god starting with a small fucking 'g'. As I said earlier,

Fuck you motherfucker.

Now that my Avatar review is over. Lets go over Clash of the Titans. I am not even getting into the adherence/authenticity to the Greek Original. Come on people, get your heads out of your asses. Its fiction. Mythology. It can be adapted in any way they wanna adapt it. If they want to make the Christian, oops, sorry, American AllFather out of the Greek Zeus, let them do it. Now, we have Perseus, a man who is also son of god. Why, we just need a ghost. Oh wait... There is a ghost, Io, cursed never to age, how convenient, lets have Perseus screwing her. Now, what do we need... A bunch of religious fanatics who are fatalistic, willing to sacrifice themselves before the end comes. Wait, we can put a little matted hair in a bun on their heads and add red/white stripes on their foreheads. If we think that they are too much of a direct allusion to the "Hindoo" then Shame on us. Let Sufia Zinobia rip our heads apart. Its our narrow minded perception. There still remains something unfinished... Wait, they have got it. A Djinn. Is that an Arabic term? They did not know. They guy wears a turban, lives in a desert and is supposed to be eternal enemies to OUR people? Iskander says, Fuck me in the mouth. Are you sure that you are not talking about "Moslems" you know, the archetypal fundamentalists? No? You are making a secular movie? Oh right... This is meant for children. They watch it and grow up into Zombie-Americananites. Great. Awesome. Keep the good job up your ass.

Now that I have reviewed two movies in as many paragraphs, I would like to hear from you. What do you think of these movies? What other movies come to your mind when you think of this? Do you remember the classic Sharon Stone line from Alan Quartermain and the Lost city of Gold? "Oh, no! We have lost another (African-tribe-name) tribesman!"

The Booklet

I get annoyed by Horny people.

It is a bother riding in the Summer with these people venting their frustrations on the vehicle before them. There has been so much said about the ill-effects of being so Horny all the time, but people do not seem to give a furry rat's ass about it. So finally I am erupting like a volcano to slam these mouther fulchers hard. Excuse the heavy sexual innuendos; I think its cuz I did some stretch this evening. MUST STO... CANT STOP!!!

Anywho... There are three kinds of Horny people;
Safehorn, Bullhorn, Horntalker

The Safehorn is your overcautious, I-am-moving-three-feet-to-my-left-so-I-am-honking person. This category generally occurs most with people who have recently made a transition from a bike to a car. More often than not, these people have meek horns which sound almost apologetic for even being honked. A safehorn is annoying most in relatively empty roads, where they honk waking babies to update non-existent vehicles on the turn they are taking!

The Bullhorn... grr... Blood boiling even thinking. I will come back to this.

The Horntalker. If you are annoyed easily when strangers are overly familiar, like I am, this is your killjoy. These are jobless people who honk because they think it is fun to talk to the other person riding in front. You can identify them by the specific pattern of honking. If you hear a Nokia standard SMS tune, you have found yourself a Horntalker. Biggest problem, apart from wanting to invent a shrink ray, shrink them and keep repeatedly kicking them after having injected them with ant-like toughness, is that the signals of one horntalker to another is so different that the horn ends up doing the opposite of what a horn should do; instead of giving a clear signal, it confuses you.

I have to come to the Bullhorn. These are idiots who have shoved their... because I am told that I have a family oriented audience reading my blog; some body part up/in the horn. They have distinct bigger-than-my-bike attitudes which spillover in the inappropriately loud/unmatching horns they keep honking, just because they have spent an extra grand on it. I am not a very violent person. But sometimes I wish that I can break these folks' foreheads against the dashboard. Am not that violent; ask the people who I have not beaten up.

There has not been any age-type pattern in all these three categories and slight overlaps are possible between these categories. However, it has been noticed that women with big cars are more often sucked into the Bullhorn category than men with big cars and interestingly the Bullhorn category is also full of men with small penises... I mean... Well, not men with small cars. Oops... Freudian silp!

By my classification, you must have realized that according to me, no honker is a good honker... you know, unless it really is a great honker! ;) winky wink! But coming to the point, all honking is pissing off. However, there are situations where one NEEDS to honk. They are;

To geniunely give a signal. Solution: Use a direction indicator light.

To passover a vehicle in front of you. Solution: Use the dimmer at night. In the day, go closer to the vehicle's tail light and nod your head. The other person's rearview mirror usually catches the driver at the tail and more often than not, this works. Also helps you keep your speed in control.

To reach your pregnant wife to the hospital. For God's sake man, don't cheap out on an Ambulance. They can drive even on the wrong side of the road.

Given that all my ideas are those in use already I am going to introduce my world changing concept; for there are always situations where the driver ahead is a dickhead and needs to be honked at. Hear me out. Honking at him/her is not going to change the bad way they drive. But my innovation is going to. Go for the drum roll now matey, for my innovation is....

The Booklet.

A simple booklet contains twenty five leaves and is issued out under specific drivers' names. A driver cannot have more than one booklet per year. Whenever a person in front is annoying you, you can choose to (a), suck it up and passover at the next signal without any issues. Or if your boss had shouted at you at work or somebody spilt scalding hot coffee on your pants, then you can choose to use the Booklet (which is option (b), btw).

To use the Booklet, simply move next to the annoying car at a signal, take a leaf from your booklet and fill out the car's number, nature of offence, time and date of the event and... Slap that mouther fulcher so hard on the face that it needs a towing truck to take his jaw back to the rest of his/her face. It is completely legal. More empowering than honking. Obviously more cathartic. Less accidents will occur. People will not go slapping the world, because, with just twenty five leaves per year, they will be forced to be very judicious. Since holiday season has a lot of people in an upbeat mood, the most natural time for using of the booklet is countered (because people realize that they have more than a few leaves left). This can also be checked by setting up some kind of a reward system for people who have many leaves left. So if a person gets slapped, he/she must have deserved it, for the person taking all this trouble. More importantly, if the receiver of the slap can prove that the slap was wrongly administered, he/she can always file a complaint because they have the leaf with the details of the driver who slapped them. If proven right, they can slap the original offender twice and if the plea is defeated, a heavy fine and three slaps will be imposed on the appealer.

Am I just a violent, feudal, old testament kinda guy? Or am I really on to something here? What do you think about the Booklet? I know you would like to slap someone! So ya, make this happen!