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.”

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.

The logic of eccentricity

It’s really sad (and funny) how everyone preaches about living life on your terms, but when they actually encounter someone who does indeed live life on his terms, somehow he seems eccentric.

Time for a post in first person. Two things got me thinking today (at a time when I’m usually fast asleep, dreaming about some adrenaline-pumping adventure or the other—things that I am generally not allowed to do in real life).

My Choice by Vogue: the greatest Trojan of March 2015

After battling between “My Choice by Vogue: naked activism or disguised marketing”, “My Choice by Vogue: the greatest Trojan of March 2015”, I finally settled with the latter. While the former does sound like a nice name for a science paper, the latter, I feel, fits well in the context.

The Derivatives of the Whole

It so happened during this great weekend that a friend of mine approached me with a question (or rather I should say a set of questions): What do you think about keeping idols and photos of Gods at home? What do you think the logic is, behind people saying that idols are more powerful than photos?

Fighting oneself over oneself!

Very Interesting facts!\ Christianity ….One Christ, One Bible Religion…\ But the Latin Catholic will not enter Syrian Catholic Church.\ These two will not enter Marthoma Church.\ These three will not enter Pentecost Church.\ These four will not enter Salvation Army Church.\ These five will no enter Seventh Day Adventist Church .\ These six will not enter Orthodox Church.\ These seven will not enter Jacobite church.\ Like this there are 146 castes in Kerala alone for Christianity,\ each will never share their churches for fellow Christians!\ How shameful..! One Christ, One Bible, One Jehova???\ Now Muslims..! One Allah, One Quran, One Nebi….! Great unity?\ Among Muslims, Shia and Sunni kill each other in all Muslim countries.\ The religious riot in most Muslim countries is always between these two sects.\ The Shia will not go to Sunni Mosque.\ These two will not go to Ahamadiya Mosque.\ These three will not go to Sufi Mosque.\ These four will not go to Mujahiddin mosque.\ Like this it appears there are 13 castes in Muslims.\ Killing/bombing/conquering/ massacring/… each other!\ American attack on Iraq was fully supported by all Muslim countries surrounding Iraq !\ One Allah, One Quran, One Nebi….????\ Hindus -\ They have 1,280 Religious Books, 10,000 Commentaries, more than one lakh sub-commentaries for these foundation books, innumerable presentations of one God, variety of Aacharyas, thousands of Rishies, hundreds of languages.\ Still they all go to All TEMPLES and they are peaceful and tolerant and seek unity with others by inviting them to worship with them whatever God they wish to pray for!\ Hindus never quarreled one another for the last ten thousand years in the name of religion.

Feminism or fanaticism?

Let me start with “no offence”, coz nobody likes being cornered and attacked. By putting up this title, I honestly don’t mean to offend those feminists who know the real meaning of feminism—this is targeted towards those who claim to be feminists, and think that feminism is some sort of activism that gives them some identity. I am a bit of a feminist myself—that’s come through the blood for centuries; we worship the feminine—not in the way the world knows it, or the way Leonardo Da Vinci did, and no crazy stuff (I say this, coz some of us associate the word worship with crazy things—thanks to Hollywood movies); ours is a different one. We see the nature and the Universe as the mother (for obvious reasons), and we worship Her.

As we grow up…

I just read a status update on Facebook, ending with “Feeling Disappointed”, and was surprised how things affect people.

First of all, this is a 1100-words post. Please choose to read it when free, and if you’re reading it now, grab a beverage, and seat yourself comfortably.

Well, yeah, it was one of my close buds that had posted an update over there that compared the lives of hers and one of our mutual friends (also called some geek, for I don’t know what reason). When asked, she said she read a blog post on one of the blogs he contributes to, and started feeling bad that she was not “on par” with guys like him anymore. From what I learnt from the conversation, she was a very good student in school (probably one of those topper gals, who took everything as a competition).