Friday, August 29, 2014

The Soul Bashing

Wow, Soul eh? A fancy word. I don’t know jack shit about what the soul is. But it sure as hell sounds good. Of what I know about its meaning has been derived from other people’s account and they must have read it or heard it from someone else. And so on and so forth it goes.

I was okay until people were throwing this SOUL word around to romanticize the language. Like telling someone that – I mean that from bottom of my heart. Factually it’s wrong because at the bottom of heart you would find blood, veins and other shit. You want to know, go pick up an encyclopedia on human anatomy.

Factually wrong. But sounds good.

This sounds good attitude has somehow corrupted our minds. I don’t know when exactly mankind shifted from using factually wrong but linguistically beautiful statements to blindly accepting them as the social norm to talk and behave in general.

Some would say. It’s nice to be nice. 

After all what are we without our social etiquette and eloquence -- bunch of brute animals with brain, but when you think of it, even with all the snobbish eloquence and etiquette, we are still the same, animals.

Socially engineered animals to be precise. Don’t believe me. Read biology.

Just like dog, cat, fish and the bacteria in our fecal matter we all are nothing but throbbing, pulsating, growing lump of organic mass. 

So why do we claim to be superior than any other species?

Oh, I know why… It’s because we rape… yeah, lot of that going on lately… Sounds cold and insensitive I know.

But among all the species on our planet I have yet to read about any animals committing rape… (Don’t Google right away to find out which other species commit rape. I was rather going for dramatic effect than citing facts)

So is that why we are superior?

Wait a minute I found another reason. We believe in god. Yeah. That invisible, invincible and pretty much incompetent fellow we pray to.

Many of you are offended and shouting.

BLASPHEMY. BLASPHEMY. BLASPHEMY.

Relax. I am just proving a point.

The other day I was discussing that none of the other species on the planet look up at sky and pray to imaginary beings for well fare of their kith and kin and yet they were doing just fine until we arrived, humans, supposedly God’s greatest creation.

But then again there were some dumb cunts who showed me pictures of certain gods on a potato, or a some numerals written in sky. I was literally frozen for a moment by their sheer stupidity.

And then I came across bunch of books about journey of souls. Why we choose to take birth? What the fuck soul do in between the bodies? Why we inhabit particular body?

Some say its karma. Some say it’s by choice. Some say it’s by divine plan.

I say who gives a shit!

Every year millions children die of hunger. Thousands of them get raped every day. So it means the all mighty, all powerful, all graceful divine god chose to distribute karma and under his watch let these kids and women get raped, murdered and die of hunger while he jerks off over them high up in the cloud?

But no, we are not supposed to ask questions. Who decided that?

Oh I know, certain touchy feely self proclaimed advocates of god almighty. To them I say --  get it up yours! And twice on Sunday.

I am sorry I got carried away.

But my point is this. Why worry about someone or something you are not sure about -- A higher power. A soul. A god. Whatever. Rather worry about what’s right in front of you.

There is not a single person on this planet who doesn't know about plight of women and children. About hunger. About Rape. Let’s sort this stuff out first then worry about god, after life and the judgement day.

Please stop this corruption of mind in the name of god and soul.  Do something worthwhile with your time.

I am not saying give up your beliefs. Go, pray, offer sermons. Do whatever that brings joy to your heart but don’t just get stuck there.

Before putting all our eggs in the basket of faith why don’t we try to learn some practical intelligence first and take it from there.

Monday, August 25, 2014

HOMAGE TO RICHARD “DICKIE” ATTENBOROUGH


The body of one of the giants of world cinema has perished but his spirit would live on forever through his films.

To say that Mr. Richard Attenborough was a spectacular actor and brilliant film maker would be stating the obvious.

People have written books about his great body of work so I wouldn’t even attempt to commit a felony by summarizing his immeasurable genius in few sentences.

But rather I would write about how he introduced me to a lawyer named Mohandas K Gandhi.

I was born in the hometown of Mahatma Gandhi. I studied in the city of Rajkot where once, little Mohandas studied. And I went to London where young Mohandas once went for further studies.

To be honest my impression of that little brown man in loin cloth and a bamboo stick wasn’t that great. I mean okay, he gave us Indians independence, but so what, we would have got it anyway, someday.

Then in my initial years in Glasgow I happened to stumble upon a DVD of GANDHI, a film by some fellow named Richard Attenborough.

I am ashamed to say but at that time neither was I inclined to know about Gandhi nor did I know who this Attenborough fellow was. I only picked it up because the film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards.

And then I watched the film to kill time on a lazy summer weekend but instead it killed my ignorance.

Could a film be made this good? Was it really a film or a documentary? And most important of all how could I have been so stupid not to have known, Mahatma Gandhi, the giant mankind had produced in past millennium.

Next thing I did was to buy the autobiography of Mahatma Gandhi and started watching everything and anything done by Mr. Richard Attenborough.

It took Mr. Richard Attenborough 20 years to complete the film because no one wanted to invest money in a film about an Indian guy in loincloth fighting British with non-violence, and that too directed by a British film-maker. But He never gave up. And like they say, rest is history.  

Thank you Mr. Richard Attenborough for living your life the way you did.