The Sane Lunatic

"You can tell a lot about a man by the way he handles three things… a rainy day, an ill loved one and tangled Christmas tree lights" Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!! Hope everyone gets good gifts, and has a good day. This is the highlight of my Christmas 2014. I was invited to a Christmas Party by an close friend from school days, at her place. I had been waiting a long time to meet up with her anyways, and this was a good chance, so of course I went to spend the day with my friend, regardless of the guest list. Should have asked... I mean, I wouldn't have missed it, but still, should have asked.  You know that awkward moment, when a lot of people who are coming to your friend's party, are those you were friendly with through a common person, and you weren't that close a friend with that person anymore, and they're all with you in the same room? Yea, the air got noticeable heavy at times. But thank god for a new person, my host's college fri

They teach us to be productive,  not to be better people. We are bred not born. They prepare us to be slaves to the system. They dazzle us with hopes to be the leaders of the slaves when we are all slaves to our twisted nature. We are the dominant species because we are ruthless,  not just to others but to one another. That's what it means to be human, and that's what we are. Human.

"It's impossible to consider living without ideals. However, when ideas lead to ideology, that's a very dangerous thing. Ideology then leads to creating the image of an enemy, and it leads to the murder and massacre that we've seen since the beginning of time." -Michael Haneke Now, I'm sure a lot of the people around the world have heard of the latest tragedy in the history of humanity. In a grim series of events, a group of militants broke into a school in the city of Peshawar, Pakistan, wherein they shot and killed over 140 civilians, most of whom were small children. The Taliban has claimed it to be their response to make the people feel what they go through when American bombers kill their own young. While some of the militants died by suicide bombing, others were shot dead by Pakistani forces.  Not long after, the Pakistani army allowed the media into the school to see the carnage close-up. Pools and splatters of dried blood over the floor and walls

Now, if you've read my older posts, you'd notice I hold a real grudge against public transport because I depend on it quite heavily. This is another rant on a similar topic. Usually, I travel in the Delhi Metro by myself. On the rare occasion I have a companion even just halfway, the travel just seems less depressing and not as aggravating. However, by myself, it is on most occasion the most annoying part of my daily schedule. And you can identify who all are regular metro commuters by the look of anger and disappointment on their faces when they are travelling by themselves. Anger from the travelling in metro, disappointed that they have little alternative to it.  Then there are the most annoying commuters, the happy ones. Usually these are couples, groups of friends, colleagues and like. Not families though, there's always a sour face in the family travelling in the metro to balance it up. Now, allow me to explain why happy people in the metro are annoying. It's

Now, I won't always have enough to rant about to make a decent blog post. So I think I'll randomly share quotes from movies I watched very recently.  Today I watched an old classic from the master himself, Charles Chaplin. The movie "Monsieur Verdoux" is another brilliant piece of story telling with using comedy of the highest order, commenting on life's strange ways. Here are some of my favourite lines from the movie that I could remember and look up online. Enjoy (Pointing at Charle's character i.e. Verdoux, addressing the jury and the public in the courtroom) The Prosecutor : Observe him, gentlemen. This man, who has brains, if he had decent instincts, could have made an honest living. And yet, he preferred to rob and murder unsuspecting women. In fact, he made a business of it. I do not ask for vengeance, but for the protection of society. For this mass killer, I demand the extreme penalty: that he be put to death on the guillotine. The State rests i

Most people who drive on the road, are rubbish at it with slow reflexes, no road sense and behave like total c*nts. I live significantly far from the capital, and the daily travel has been the biggest source of continuous pain in my life for the last few years. And so, I shall have multiple rants on this subject after every extra annoying experience.  This weekend, I had gone with my family for a short drive and brunch. The social time and meals were the best part, but the driving was a pain. Stupid w*nkers breaking randomly on the highway, slow guys in the overtaking lane, and the worst of the lot - the slow, driving in two lanes, blocking overtakes like a c*nt. And there are predictable patterns in these driving-d**ks. First, being Delhi, there'll be plenty of cars with Haryana number plates. These ill-tempered bowl-heads are to steered clear off, especially if its any Maruti car besides the Suzuki Swift. That brings me to the next stereotype, most people who drive Maruti ca

A lot of us are familiar with the phrase, 'ghosts of our past', ie, regrets in life or moments we wish we could forget. Thanks to modern communication, there are a lot more of these for teenagers and on occasion more difficult to get rid of those ghosts.I refer here to text messages and photos that we store on our mobile phones. I bring this up because I recently had to go back to using an old nokia phone for one of my numbers as my smartphone had conked off, and it was from the pre-whatsapp days. Now, a lot has changed in my life since I last used that phone and I had forgotten the treasure trove of memories it was. It started with the boot up photo of an old love interest of mine, from the school days. I then was going through the message inbox, and saw hundreds of stored messages between me and my ex, from when the days were good, life felt complete and the world made sense. As I glanced past the long list of messages, I could not help but feel a pang of pain of loss as

A few years ago in Delhi, by December the winter would have settled in and we would be wearing full sleeves during the day and jackets by night. But now, in the first week of December, and I can still roam in my tees during the day just as if it were summer. I do have to wear a pullover or sweater or jacket during the early hours and when travelling in open vehicles such as the autorickshaw. What I miss, are the afternoons where you could roam around during the day with your hands tucked into your jacket pockets, where the clothes felt snug and the city felt calmer. But this year, the mornings are a bit chilly and nights are cozy cool, and the days are sweaty uncomfotably hot, and there is no break from the city's pace. Now, I was never one with the smarts to understand the detailed science or one to stay awake in Geography, but I can safely say this is one of the many observable affects of global warming. We've been studying it for sooo long and for most of us we never took

Hey guys, I just wanted to announce that I shall be resuming posts here. I would like to apologize for my absence to any regular readers, but I have no excuse or valid reason, lets just say I'm a lazy prick. And no, that hasn't changed much, but I do feel that this post helps me to vent my thoughts and feelings which elsewhere expressed would be seen as immoral, illegal or simply in bad taste. I have got many a story to share since last, and many more lined up ahead, along with the day to day cock-ups that I encounter. So stay tuned, as there will be fresh rants and anecdotes coming, right here. As always, do leave a comment for feedback or suggestions for future posts. Thank you!!

Its been a really long time since my last post, and a lot has happened since then. Some things I intend to write about, and will post soon, others were moments passed and opportunities missed for good writing. Hope I haven't lost my touch, enjoy reading... Now, I have often noticed, and been informed, of the serious problem when my mood takes a turn to the dark side. I can only see and percieve the negative aspect of every part of my life, all doom and gloom, a mood so bad I could ruin the mood of anyone who talks to me.  I'm not sure if I have written an earlier post of rough times when nothing seems good enough in life, and am too lazy to check. But yea, there are times when I feel extremely unpleasant, unable to think of anything I'd like that could possibly improve my mood in the slightest. In fact, the more I thought about how to improve my mood, realizing further flaws in the activities that could, simply worsened my day. All kinds of unnecessary negative thoug

As a young adult in the 21st Century, what phone I have makes a huge difference to me. With new brands, and new technology coming out every other week, it gets pretty hard to choose the right phone and keep up. I wouldn't go so as to call myself a tech geek and invite hell from that crowd, but the technical specifications of a phone are really important to me. Now, when I say tech specifications, I'm not talking about the no. of megapixels in the camera, simple screen size and stuff like that. I mean information like the processor speed and build, RAM, OS upgradation, connectivity ranges, screen resolution etc. The second important and just as important to me, is the look and the feel of the phone. A phone could have the greatest and best suited tech specs I can find, but if I don't like the way it looks, or the way it feels when I hold it, if it is oddly shaped, the buttons are ugly, or if the phone looks like cheap plastic, I wouldn't buy it. The next criteria w

I have often thought myself, fortunate, to have the kind of parenting and home environment that has given me the ability to look at life in a different way than most others. Being an addict of passive entertainment, I love to watch films, and thanks to my parents, since the beginning I have watched some of the most thought provoking films in Hollywood and Bollywood.  Now, I am not one to watch documentaries or sob stories. I always prefer comedy and action, to thrillers or horror and have an unreasonable dislike for the romantic films. I love the sci-fi as long as the effects and monsters get my heart thumping with excitement, and a sense of anticipation of a crime-mystery. But every now and then, I stumble across a film while flipping through the channels on TV that can rattle my very existence. A film where the story affects me deeply, for whatever amount of time, but it just hits me like a wall of realizations and emotions. The film I speak of is called, "The Place Beyond Th

Talking about stress to an undergrad, is like preaching to the choir. While the luckiest of us have the advantage of home businesses or genetic brilliance, most of us spend a lot of our time shuffling between our possible careers, none more sure than the next. There are those with active stress of working while studying, and those with passive stress of simply worrying about the load of work that is about to come their way. I belong to the latter group, and as I came to know that is more harmful. Greying hair, shrinking appetites, sleep deprivation and zoning out, the most common plight of a young adult. We are afraid of the future and frustrated with the present. In college, I am simply herded from class to class, reminded of the rising tower of work I need to catch up with. At home, I am exhausted yet cannot rest, hungry yet cannot eat. I can't even remember the last time I 'went' to sleep, I just pass out whenever depending on how tired I am, and I always awake alert

Being only nineteen years old, its easy to forget certain realities of life and our surroundings. The world is a harsh place, and it doesn't let us forget it for too long. I haven't written for a long time now, earlier it was because I had plenty of good days, but this time, I was just too busy caught up in my rage. Now that I have it sorted out, join me as I recount the incidents of these last few weeks. It all started with getting thrown out of a class for being an ass just because I already knew the stuff that was being taught. So, I went to have lunch in my college canteen, which it turns out is where you aren't supposed to be during class irrespective of the reason. Quite basically, had a little tiff with the management, which was resolved quickly but triggered a rather extreme rage inside me. All the pent up anger and issues ranging from the first semester to few weeks ago, resurfaced, with an idle mind to make use of it. Long story short, I designed a couple of an

In this fast paced generation of ours, every delay, anything at a slower pace than usual, makes us lose our cool. Something done once in a particular time frame, is now the acceptable time taken for that action, and you can only do it faster, do it any slower and we go into a fit. I myself am one who suffers the same problem, that inappropriate rage just because something is slower than usual, be it my internet, the metro train, the bus driver, the auto driver or simply a traffic jam. I forget the marvel of technology that has helped develop all these amazing facilities in our city in the first place. I forget how much worse or slower life was before all these comforts. Travelling to Connaught Place from Noida by bus would be a tremendous effort and would take mental preparation. Even by personal vehicles, before the flyovers and toll roads, it would be quite a task. Now, the road systems have improved so much, that it takes about half the time than it used to about 8-10 years back.

I have often said unto others that life is about finding happiness, but am often stumped when I cannot even answer to myself, what is happiness? How do you know when you have it? Its again been a long while since the last post, which have been left incomplete in the series as they were too cheerful for the intent and purpose of this blog. The time continues to roll by, the days seem to go by faster even though the nights shorten as summer approaches. In a couple of weeks, it'll be exam time again, scrambling for notes, assignments and nervous eating. The internship frenzy has begun already and yet again, being part of GGSIPU curriculum, the semester ends a month after that of DU and most of the good ones are already taken. Nonetheless, as someone once said, battles are won by preparation, and with that I began keeping an eye out for any news on possible internship offers and updating my resume. It was while rewriting that one page of information about myself and my achiev

Right, continuing with the happy posts of adventures these past weeks, here is the second one. This one reminded me that intelligence is not necessarily accompanied by class or sophistication. This is an account of what happened on the night of 28th Fevrier 2014. It was the evening of CARNAVAL at Alliance Francaise. Scheduled to start at 7, me and my classmates had plenty of time after our class which ends at 4. We spent most of that time at the Cafeteria, but after 2 hours even that got too boring. So 4 of us headed out to India Habitat Centre's food court, Eatopia, where they have a fun zone for little kids with arcade games and air hockey. We all took turns playing the games, and I did laughably bad at all of them. In air hockey, I kept scoring own goals which were just... well my friends simply said, 'Dude, its you', and that seemed explanatory enough. We then headed back to Alliance for the fun evening ahead, where we were joined by the rest of our group. While

There are many reasons, why I haven't posted any posts in a while, but I would like to share the main one with you. Look at the title of this blog. Now, for me to write in that context, I need to have a negative, infuriating experience to write about, but lately I have been having some of the best days with my new friends from French class. So, here's something off topic, me sharing my pleasant experiences from these past few weeks. The first of these, was when I had gone to Jesus & Mary College's Fest where I met some friends of my friends and made new friends. Of course, with the group that we were, there was no way we could have enjoyed the evening without adding some 'flavour' to it. Once we were all set, it was just a wide range of activities to enjoy. There was a band competition going on at the main stage, most of them were guys shredding on guitar and making animal noises for lyrics. Then there were all the food stands that overcharged you for

A dictionary would define the word 'madness' as a state of being severely mentally ill, but over time and use, it is often used to describe strange and absurd behaviour as well. Going by the title of this blog, I think we can assume such is expected of the author, and here's an example. This past week, I had my mid term examinations in college and thus could not write any posts. I'm happy to report that my minimalistic efforts for those tests were rewarded with the same enthusiasm. But this has been our, me and my friends, attitude towards these internal exams, and it usually works well enough. I would do a light preparation for next day's test, we would all meet in the canteen or Donut's car in the morning, hours before the paper,  so that I could teach what I learned and we would revise. Its the fourth semester now, and we don't see enough reason to change this system. Now, that's enough of a backgrounder, to the point of this post. That day,

Intimacy and love, are two emotional pillars that all humans seek out on some level, at just about any time, in life, but even more so during times of emotional distress. The guy with ordinary looks, not from money or fame, may be a hopeless romantic, with little or no wooing skills, still gets the girl. You know why? Because along with all the caring and loving, he could make her laugh. Everyone who doesn't live under a rock, has in some language or another, heard the phrase 'Laughter is the best medicine'. It is a simple yet scientific truth for just about any emotional or psychological problems commonly faced by most people. The ability to make people laugh is the best gift to have. I'm not saying you need to be a comedian, or always make jokes, or need to make people laugh out loud. All it takes, is that one humorous witty line, or action, in the opportune moment, to make someone smile or just giggle, and a connection is established. Some of the walls of forma

You know you had a good three days when you write about it on a blog. A long weekend in a busy month, with emotional and professional pressures, is exactly what you need to unwind. The month of February, famous for Valentine's Day and the entire week of love, along with other important and popular days, is a tough one even though it has the least number of days. Working people have the added tension of tax month coming up, and I have my mid terms too this month. It's amazing how some of the best, most fun events are organized around this time. Luckily, this year I got time to attend some of my favourite ones. On the 7th, it was the first day of India's 4th Annual Comic Con being organized in Delhi, it would be my first, and there is no way I was going to miss it. So I took advantage of my decent attendance in college, and took the day off to go see it from the start. Initially I was hoping to have company, but as it always happens, I went by myself, so I could sti

You know how when your parents 'forbid' you from eating something or doing something or saying something, and you are more tempted than ever to do that very thing. This post is about that, but its about a girl. Those of my readers who know me personally, will probably be having worried thoughts, and curious frowns on their faces right about now. Allow me to reassure you, all is well, and I have not done anything stupid...but I am about to. All guys, straight guys, when they are free of work or related thoughts, are always subconsciously analyzing the women in their given area. This process of analysis is often referred to as 'checking her out'. We all do it, its instinctive, to be on the lookout for the best and most compatible female we would like to be with, a process coined as  'dating'. Now, it has become a perpetuated norm, that those already in the process of 'dating' should no longer participate in the previous process 'checking o

There exists an enemy for each and every person and thing, so is the balance of nature and life. As foes, they destroy and hurt each other, but together they are capable of greatness. I have my good days and my bad days...but then I also have my really bad days. Today was one of those days. A generally low tolerance level of stupidity, lack of common sense and constricted privacy is further halved on such days. On the insides, the frustration and rage seems to burn up my insides. A fever comes on, rising body temperature, acidity are just some of the side effects felt on such days. The tears of frustration held back for sake of pride, feel like acid behind the eyes. As your instincts are screaming for you to breakdown, lash out, release all the build up fury eating away at your insides, your still cool and sensible mind keeps you inactive, to nullify those instincts, and keep you out of trouble. It is classic tale of fighting your inner demons.  The good inside you maintains

It is difficult, it is painful, it is fun, it is amazing, it is beautiful...it is life. It is not often that I get time to reflect upon how wonderful a life I lead, but then you witness certain miracles that were born through life, animals, plants and humans alike, you find yourself in awe of life. The institute where I am currently learning the French language, plays French movies with English subtitles, every Friday, and this time, it was a film on two young girls, depressed, suicidal and void of purpose or joy in their lives. 'Des filles en noir' is an interesting movie, but clearly not popular as the 'villain' of the story survives, and an innocent dies. For the complete story, I suggest you look up the movie on the net, and watch it. It compelled me to retrospect on how the good in my life, I have a functional family, place to live, good food to eat, proper education, luxuries of comfort and safety, friends, loved ones, assets and technology...I have s

The last post I wrote, was about killing the conductor when you travel by bus in Delhi and NCR. Well, recent events have reminded me of the troubles when travelling by metro on days that the service isn't working quite as well. In this case, my stand is 'educate the passenger and kill the idiots'. Last two days, the yellow line of the Delhi Metro, the one towards Jahangirpuri, has not been working as efficiently with the time span between trains extending beyond 5-6 minutes. This situation is worsened during rush hours, and is confusing, because the frequency of trains towards the other end of this line(HUDA City Center)  seems unaffected, so where IS the delay happening? Anyway, the point that I'd like to shed my hatred and anger on is the behaviour of the casual or occasional metro traveller during such troubled times. The early morning and late night office crowd, or the pro-metros as I call them, have over time learned the appropriate mannerisms and pat

You live in New Delhi, the capital city of the great nation of India. You use public transport whenever possible, either for financial reasons or simply because you are trying to reduce your carbon footprint. You have the auto-rickshaw if you are in a hurry or traveling to poorly connected areas or carrying a large package. You have the metro to travel across the city in a delay-free, air-conditioned environment, with the assurance of reaching your designated metro station. Last but the most important, you have the bus service, and here you will re-read the title and probably nod your head in agreement. For those of you not in or from New Delhi, allow me to share. The Delhi Transport Corporation has deployed about 3106 CNG buses for service in the City and National Capital Region. There are plying on about 773 routes to cover as much of the city and towns as possible by road. On top of this you have the private chartered bus services and feeder buses at metro stations. Mi