Yashventures

Salmaan Taseer, governor of the Punjab province of Pakistan was shot dead by one of his guards Mumtaz Qadri. Reason? Mr Taseer was a moderate Muslim and he was a vocal opponent of a blasphemy law under which people (often minority) disrespecting the-one-who-can-not-be-named-drawn-pictured-caricatured-AND-disrespected were sentenced to death.

The killer Mumtaz Qadri is actually heralded as a national hero! In Twitterspace he is referred to as “Ghazi” – a brave warrior! Sure showering bullets on an unarmed man whom you are supposed to guard is a stupendous act of valour and bravery! Somebody creates a Facebook “fan” page for him and 2000 people like him and praise him before the page is removed. He is showered with roses by lawyers – yes lawyers – when he is presented in the court! National hero. Yeah that’s right!!!

People educated enough to be users of Facebook and Twitter and be lawyers are actually supporting a religious fanatic. That’s a dangerous sign for a society!

In the name of God, the most hateful, the most wasteful and the stupidest fantasy of Humans!

Touching the feet is one stupid Indian tradition. It’s meant to show respect towards the elders and it’s a way of seeking blessings.

Asking for blessings? Excuse me! What is that? Blessings? What does it do? You obviously don’t have any super power to make radical changes in my life, so put the blessing things away!

Respect? Sure I respect other people, not just people who are older than me but also people who are younger than me! There are other ways of showing respect. Touching the feet is NOT one of them! Smile, shake hand, say a few warm words, give a hug. That’s enough to show your respect. No individual deserves any special gesture like touching feet just by the virtue of being older! Radical? Yes!

I have always disliked this stupid practice. Partly because of my dad. Whenever someone would try to touch his feet, he would stop him or her and would rather shake hands or give a hug, but touching the feet? Big NO! That is what he inculcated in me I believe. (Something that my mom frowns upon, but we have our way)

Most of the people don’t actually touch the feet, they only bend slightly and reach out till knees giving an impression of touching the feet. Cut the crap guys! Who are you fooling!!

It’s more of a cultural thing, I know. It’s how we Indians show respect towards elders. But not all cultural things are good or necessary. Sati was once in our culture, but that was the most stupid thing to have happened to human intelligence and it’s no longer there. Touching feet is another stupid thing. The oldies really get on my nerves when they equate the action with “Sanskar” – the familial value system. If you don’t touch feet, you lack Sanskar! If you do, you are a very “good” boy with good Sanskars! WTF!!!

Another stupid Indian tradition is gifting the money. This one is amazing. You visit someone’s home on some good occasion, the elders give you money. Some number ending with 1. Depending on the nature of the relationship and wealth of the giving party the amount could be Rs. 21, 51, 101, 151, 201 like that. When I and my wife visit our uncles’ homes, we get money. When their kids visit our home, my parents return the favour. The favour is mostly returned in the proportion of favours received! People actually keep track of money thus received in a diary!! Especially on occasions like wedding and reciprocate at a suitable occasion to the other party!! I don’t see any logic. I visit their home I get 100 Rupees, they come to our house they get 100 Rupees back. So why get in all such useless transactions?!!

We need to cut the useless crap! Can’t have stupidities rolling around in our daily life.

Update:

This is not an issue of hygiene at all. Me not liking the practice of touching feet has to do with me being an atheist. Touching feet somehow gives a deity like status to humans. And since I don’t believe in any deities and gods, I see no reason to make gods out of humans. As I have mentioned being older does not give any extra qualities to a person. And when it comes to parents we humans are not doing any favours to our kids by giving them birth or raising them. We are just performing a biological function which our genes make us do.

I believe communism and all its flavours are against the human nature. We humans by nature are selfish. Its in our genes. That’s why we survive. Communism goes against this very genetic trait. Its unnatural. So its bound to fail.

Communist ideals may look rosy and may work in a society where there is a huge divide between the elite class and the poor. The ideals of equality and classless society will appeal to poor downtrodden class. But it won’t last long. After the initial rush of blood and revolution and all, the tempo will come down. People will tend to find the best return for their labour. If someone is better skilled, better educated and is better at doing something he would definitely want and deserve a larger share of return than those who are not as efficient.

So its not possible to have a completely classless society. There will always be differences. Not even five fingers are same. There will be people with varying degrees of skills and abilities and they will earn in proportion to their abilities. There will be morons and there will be intelligent people. And intelligent people will prevail in the long run. And people would want to retain what they have rightfully earned.

Nobody will give their best if they are not going to get in proportion of their efforts. If on a communist farm, every labourer is going to get the same share regardless of the work done, why would any single individual work hard or care for crops? If an Engineer is going to earn as much as a farm labourer, why should he take the extra pain of studying for all those years to be an engineer?

Communism is a false ideology. It sounds attractive to lazy dumb ass people who feel they are entitled to the same share of riches as the more intelligent, skilled and hard working people do.

For once I agree with Raja Sen. My opinion of a movie is often against his. I usually enjoy the movie he gives poor ratings to and the movies he likes, I find boring. But for TMK, I think we are on the same page. Tees Maar Khan is a monstrosity! They should have just played Sheela Ki Jawani in loop for two hours and that would have been more entertaining. You get to know the entire plot of the movie in first 10 minutes and you know what’s going to happen next!

Akshay Kumar is so freaking loud! And his sidekicks are even louder!! Farah Khan has messed up big time this time. Shah Rukh Khan should actually thank Farah for not casting him in this dud! This is a sort of movie only Akshay Kumar can fit in. There are no positives about the movie. It has some funny moments and classic Farah homage to old movies but we have seen that all in Main Hoon Na and Om Shanti Om. I was expecting something better from Farah this time. This is a David Dhawan type comedy where the laughter is forced by introducing funny dialogs rather than funny situations! But again David and Govinda do a better job at that than what Farah and Akshay have managed to! Kadar Khan would write better dialogs than “*Beep* ki Lutti Izzat…”

Where is Katrina Kaif by the way? Apart from Sheela ki Jawani she is no where to be found! Aman Varma and Murli Sharma as gay CBI agents have better and longer roles than Kat! Akshay Khanna does his best at acting stupid and succeeds! And songs? Boy Farah’s movies always had chart buster songs. That’s completely missing! The only notable song is Sheela ki Jawani the rest are painful to sit through!

I wouldn’t blame Farah for the debacle. I’d blame Shirish Kunder! That guy’s everywhere. He has written the story, lyrics, dialogs. He’s the editor, he has given background score and also music for Sheela Ki Jawani. The best part of the movie was the after movie credits section where the entire team collects their “Oscar”. And Shirish appears after every two awards! You finally know the movie has come to an end!

What if these movies were made in India?

Lord of the Rings
There would be an item song in the mount Doom just before the climax! Frodo and Sam would enter the party disguised as gypsy ladies. Aragon would have followed with a damroo.
The cast would be -
Frodo: Aamir Khan – perfect to play a hobbit, he would actually grow hair on his legs!!
Sam: Ritesh Deskmukh
Aragon: Anil Kapoor
Gandalf: Boman Irani
Legolas: Ranbir Kapoor
Gimli: Rajpal Yadav
Sauron: Amrish Puri/Shakti Kapoor
Casting coup – Gollum: Kamal Rashid Khan aka KRK!

KingKong
First of all the KingKong wouldn’t have died at the end of the movie. Hindi movie heros don’t die, unless there are two of them vying for a single woman. Either KingKong will become a man or Ann Darrow would become a lady Gorilla by the grace of some baba or some Devi. A Romantic duet of Kong and Ms Darrow in the alps would surely be there.
Cast -
KingKong: Sunil Shetty or Sunny Deol
Ann Darrow: Any pretty lady would do
Carl Denham: Nana Patekar
Jack Driscoll: Salman Khan/Shahrukh Khan if he is going to get the girl or any lesser hero who can be killed by Kong.

300
This got to be a Rajnikanth movie and to be renamed “1″. You get the point!

Star Wars
Classic epic. Luke Skywalker would have written on his hand, “Mera baap kala hai” – My father’s on the dark side! Padme Amidala wouldn’t die. In the end there would be a happy reunion of the family and after killing the Sith lord they would rule the galaxy together.
Cast:
Darth Vedar: Amitabh Bachchan
Luke Skywalker: Abhishek Bachchan
Han Solo: Anil Kapoor
Casting coup – Jabba The Hutt: Bappi Lahiri!!

Matrix
Ram Gopal Verma to direct it. To be named Ram Gopal Verma ki Matrix! He’d be the only one understanding the story.
Cast -
Neo – Manoj Bajpai
Trinity – Nisha or Priyanka or whatever-her-name-is Kothari
Morpheus – Mohanlal
Casting coup – Persephone – Mallika Sherawat

to be continued…

Watched the movie watchmen last night. Kind of heavy stuff. Not a regular super hero movie. I was expecting a typical super heroes v/s super villain, hero kicks ass kind of stuff. But it was different. Interesting twist at the end. Sacrificing millions to save billions. A bit too far fetched but hey its fiction after all isn’t it?

Did some Wikipedia reading later and found it’s directed by Zack Snyder, the guy who directed 300.

It’s been two years since the ghastly attack on India took place in my Mumbai.

As usual our PM vows to bring 26/11 perpetrators to book.

Mr Singh, do you have courage to order RAW to start an insurgency in Pakistan and assassinate the perpetrators in their home? Like Israel did to perpetrators of Munich massacre?

We don’t need to “bring them to book” we know what is happening with Kasab in the name of judicial proceedings. That fucker is still alive and eating our food at the cost of taxpayers!

Can we do that Mr Singh?

I find this amusing. Whenever I try to explain my position as an atheist and ask some logical questions about God, the theists run away. My mom, my wife, friends… they just don’t want to discuss the G word. I often have fun encounters with my mom on the subject. When she tries to thrust some nonsensical religious idea down my throat, I object and question the logic. She wouldn’t answer, or would start scolding me and if I insist, change the topic or just leave the room.

Favorite arguments of my mom to support her belief in God

- Millions of people believe in God, are they all mad and you are the only smart one to not believe?
My answer: Just because majority of the people do something doesn’t make it right. There are 950 million Hindus but there are 1.5 billion Muslims and 2 billion Christians. So Christians are in majority so they must be right in their belief. Why are you a Hindu then? Be a Christian!

- If there is no God who does all this? Who runs the world? Who makes the day and night and gives life?
My answer: Kids in standard four know how day and night happen. Its a natural process, we don’t need a power to run it. Evolution explains life.
Mom: Huh! Evolution?

- Don’t believe. You will go to hell!
My answer: I am not afraid of going to non existent palaces. You can’t go to a place that doesn’t exist can you?

I think theists somehow deep down know that their position is week. I feel every believer is a skeptic somewhere. Theists fear that the logical argument could be true. What if it turns out that there is no God? Oh boy that would be a major blow! After a certain age religion becomes the life support system for the people. Older people especially in India don’t really have much to do except pray and visit temples, mosques, churches. If you take away the religion it will take away the purpose to live for many a people. Pity!

The other reason could be that people genuinely fear that by indulging in a conversation questioning the God’s existence they are committing a great sin and they will have to pay dearly for it. But again you don’t have to fear if you are debating on behalf of God. You are trying to further “his” cause right?

Tip for online book shoppers in India: Compare prices at Iglooo.in and isbn.net.in before buying. I got The God Delusion from landmarkonnet for Rs. 171 (After 10% discount), which is available for as high as 325 at some other sites. Don’t remember when I last bought a book from Crossword or a bookstore.

Other book price comparison sites are indiabookstore.net and mysmartprice.com.

Also whenever you buy something online always search for discount coupon codes for that site. I searched for a coupon for landmarkonnet and got 10% discount. RetailMeNot is the site to find coupons and Google is always there.

• Sachin plays his 300th test for India and scores 100th Century. Coach Ishant Sharma applauds him.
• Abhishek Bachchan’s daughter debuts against Rajnikant in a Hollywood production.
• Amir Khan has been making a movie for 5 years – perfectionist ha!
• Salman Khan is still bachelor!
• PM Rahul Gandhi introduces his teenaged son to politics, India has a new PM in making.
• Advani is trying yet again to be the PM from the hospital bed.
• Lalu is still in Bihar
• Mayawati gets her name in Guinness Book of Records for being the person having maximum statues in the world. 12,374 at last count!
• India hosts Olympic for the first time at the cost of 50% of Country’s GDP! Organiser Suresh Kalmadi buys an entire island in Dubai and settles there for ever. Indians are FINALLY happy to see him go!
• Top 10 people in Forbes’ rich list are Indians – mostly living outside India.
• Prince William and Prince Henry visit Mumbai, travel with the dubbawalas in AirTaxi and praise their service.
• There are 3526 news channels and on any given day you can find more reporters on the road than beggars.
• Mumbai has a population of 5 crores.
• India has two mobile phones per person.
• Nokia is PAYING people to use its phones!