Scam buster: A new Facebook scam that is circulating

My brother received a message from one of his juniors in college, that said something like, ‘Bro, don’t click on the message that was received from me. It is some sorta scam.’ As soon as I got up today, ‘You know, apparently, this guy got this HTML file as a message. He clicked on that and that posted some video on his wall that he’s not able to remove now. Also, this has sent messages to all his friends about this as well,’ my brother said.

Indifferent or grounded?

This is about those times when a side of me thought that I was heartless (it may well still be the case); it was one of those times I hated myself and thought I was a hypocrite (spoiler: no, I’m not a hypocrite).

Let me give you the background first, and then we’ll go to a story.

Anarchy of Speech

Given that the fire around the JNU row has died down a little, I guess some of us are now ready to see it for what it really is; hence the post now.

First of all, thank you, news channels for fuelling outrage using the one factor that you know as a weak point with all Indian middle-class majority—money. Someone claimed that the government spends over ₹3.33 billion per year for these students, and that it is the hard-earned money of us taxpayers. Thank you for using Lance Naik Hanumanthappa as the backup bait to create outrage. You successfully managed to deviate from the point altogether, again.

The sweet smell of stereotypes

Over 1700 words. A mug of coffee is recommended.

I grew up in a society where there were people of different kinds: different languages, different birthplaces, different traditions, different cultures, different customs and so on. Until I was 18, I’d heard of a very small number of stereotypical comments from friends because almost never did it happen that two of us were the same in all of the above aspects (unless we were siblings).

The Nuclear Underreactor

Politics of international affairs is not my domain, nor does it interest me much, but Gen. (Retd.) Musharraf’s statement kinda had me shocked (read: amused) yesterday. My first thought was, “Of course, terrorism is silly to you, General. Schools get blown up with children in them while you perhaps recline in your couch with your afternoon tea, watching the piece of news with nothing more than a lift of your eyebrow in amusement. We didn’t grow up with guns and grenades in our backyards, to be that chilled out about an attack. People in your country die of hunger while your extremists spend millions or even billions of dollars making nuclear weapons, not even 1% of which would you be able to use.”

Why no fairytales?

As kids, we grew up with our share of fables and fairytales; we all do, until we’re eight. But then the telling of these stories persisted in my school until I was ten or eleven—by our beloved Annie ma’am, our librarian. She used to come to our class and tell these stories during proxy hours. While the girls listened to her, widemouthed, we just laughed inside about the stories being boring.

The art of reading

It’s common to ask someone reading a certain book whose cover catches your fancy, ‘How’s the book?’

It’s a simple question, which most of us think is a close-ended one; I thought so too, until I met my friend who reviews books. Her response was more like the reply for, ‘Describe the book you’re reading.’

A crazy beginning to the weekend

Let me start off with a fact: I’m lazy. Yes, I’m lazy to do repetitive tasks, I’m lazy to go pick a new t-shirt, and sometimes I’m lazy to get outta the bed even though I know that’s going to be the cure for my backache caused because of lying in the same position for eight hours. So we get the point.

Did I just see you drink alcohol, Ram?

![Ram, stop acting as if it’s Heineken. It’s not even beer! LOL!][assets/images/postimages/rambeer.jpg ‘Ram, stop acting as if it’s Heineken. It’s not even beer! LOL!’]

Well, no. After a few questions from people who don’t yet know me well, and/or were too lazy to read the caption, or were paranoid enough to think the caption on the picture was a cover-up, I wanted to put it out here that I’m a teetotaller and I wish to be one.

The Intolerance Debate

Before I begin this post, I want to state it outright that the points here are not going to seem well-connected—they’ll seem random. That’s because I really didn’t have the willingness or the patience to organise them. This whole naked dance of death by the media is killing all my senses and ripping my nerves apart, and I wanted an outlet. So if you’re reading this, you’d better have a lot of patience. If not, I’d understand if you just closed the browser window without proceeding.