History

Growing up, reading school textbooks, I always had a great respect for the man who was known as Christopher Columbus. You do not have to be a nerd to know his story – how he wanted to find a direct route to Asia, and how he landed up in the Caribbean and discovered the continent of America. We were all taught only half of the truth (and this means the time when I was in school). The complete truth is that this voyager was also a tyrant, murderer and a person who can be said to have globalized slave trade. He lead a conquest, which made the native Indians commit mass suicides (estimated to be around 100,000). His men tortured the natives, violated women, and chopped off hands or executed whomsoever did not give them gold. 56 years after Columbus's first voyage, only 500 out of 300,000 native Indians remained on Hispaniola (present day Dominican Republic). Here’s one of your childhood heroes dusted.

We are taught democracy is government of the people, for the people and by the people. It’s any day better than dictatorship, aristocracy or military regime. However, a certain German guy was a very popular democratic leader too (wasn’t the most popular) and was responsible for one of the worst genocides in the human history. Democracy is better than whatever available, but just blindly mugging up ‘of the people, for the people and by the people’ just because Abraham Lincoln said so, makes you so conditioned that we start believing that all our elected representatives work for us (and not for another term). Democracy is the best of what is available, but democratic governments should not be free from criticism.   

We’ve learnt about Hitler, and how he was responsible for killing thousands. What is seldom discussed is the British genocide in Kenya. Between 1952 and 1960, it is estimated that hundreds and thousands (some even estimate it to a million) Kenyans were killed by the British. No one knows what this number actually is, since the British burnt the documents just before leaving Kenya. We also had someone known as King Leopold II of Belgium – who ruled Belgium between 1865-1909 and his regime was responsible for the death of 10 million Africans (that’s one crore!).  Recently, when King Leopold’s statue was defaced in Belgium, his ancestor said that Leopold wasn’t responsible for the deaths in Congo because he himself did not go there (smh!). As early in the past as 1958, Belgium had a ‘human zoo’ which displayed Congolese people. Not quite long in the past, but still something not many of us know. Let’s put it this way, if Hitler is to be declared as the greatest villain in human history, he sure has some serious competition at his hands.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The Spanish conquests of South America and the French colonization of Africa were quite terrible too. It is baffling, that our history books do not teach us about some of the worst atrocities done to man. What’s even more baffling the regimes that were responsible for committing these crimes have seldom offered direct apologies to the countries where these acts were committed. It is the same reason why Shashi Tharoor delivered a famous speech at Oxford Union, where he discusses why Britain owes India reparations. It is a remarkable speech, and one needs to watch it if he/she hasn’t (link below). It won’t mean much of course, after all the damage that has been done, but it is the least that they can do. Some of these nations, are still suffering from the problems that were created out of these regimes, and these problems have only amplified with time.

Rather than trying to mug up what year a King died, how many wives he had or what was the name of his horse, I would have liked to study learn things which caused some of the problems that the world is facing today. Only after one is well aware of the brutalities of the past, will we have children growing up being sensitive to other communities of the world. Only then, history won’t repeat itself.

 

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M. 

References:

9 reasons Christopher Columbus was a murderer, tyrant, and scoundrel

Leopold II: Belgium 'wakes up' to its bloody colonial past

Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire

Dr Shashi Tharoor MP - Britain Does Owe Reparations

A Bitter Movie Review: K2H2

The first shot of the movie is Rahul looking at the burning funeral pyre of his deceased wife, Tina. As he is looking at the burning pyre, he is reminiscing some of the important moments in his relationship with Tina – how they met, their marriage, him kissing on her neck, her pregnancy and eventual death. Tina had a complicated pregnancy. As popular in the movies from those ages, the doctors could only choose between saving the child or the mother. The movie fast forwards and we are introduced to Rahul and Tina’s daughter – Anjali (referred as “baby Anjali” hereinafter). Baby Anjali says her hobbies are eating chocolates, slapping boys and watching reality TV – I hope her future boyfriends saw these as red flags.

While on her death bed, Tina had written eight letters for baby Anjali, to be read every year on her birthday, until her 8^th birthday. Our adorable, semi-toxic and boy-slapping baby Anjali was reading/being read out letters in her ages 1 and 2 as well, apparently. The creators burnt logic as well on Tina’s funeral pyre. Anyway, baby Anjali gets this letter on her 8^th birthday, which introduces her to Rahul and Tina’s college days. The college scene starts with a basketball match between Rahul and another character – Anjali, who is Rahul’s best friend. Rahul is beaten by Anjali in almost all of his games, and after watching this movie, most desi parents forced their kids to give up basketball. Rahul is the biggest simp in his college, and wears a steel chain with “cool” written on it. He ties friendship bands to girls, hugs them and thinks they’re impressed. Anjali is a tomboy, but has cute bangs. Btw girls, how could you allow bangs to go out of style? Without me being too obvious about my preferences, let’s move on.

Tina enters the lives of Rahul and Anjali. Tina, apparently, used to study in Oxford University but decided to move to Mumbai university for final year of her college. This is the single biggest downgrade known to mankind, ever. Little does she know that she would be paying as much in exam revaluation fees, as Oxford charges for an entire course. Tina is so hot, that the entire college walks behind her creepily. Once during their English class, Miss. Braganza, who speaks in a weird seductive tone, asks “what is love”? Only Rahul could answer this very tough question, and his answer impresses both Tina and Anjali. I have been answering questions in classrooms all my life, I wonder where I went wrong. Anyway, keeping my personal issues aside, Rahul expresses his love to Tina and Anjali is heartbroken. Anjali cries and says, “My first love is incomplete”, and leaves town. Cheer up Anjali, most of the times, first love is not the last one. Worst part is Anjali skipped last semester of her college in this depression. Big career mistake.  

Anyway, Tina dies and Rahul is all alone. He doesn’t want to marry again and keeps saying “We live once, we die once, we fall in love once and we marry only once, too”. However, I just think that this was a façade because Rahul’s tricks had become old. Come on, he was trying to impress girls by tying a friendship band and saying “squeeze me” instead of “excuse me” which made him sound like a pervert. Also, Rahul is always going around everywhere in an oversized blazer which hardly helps. Moving on, baby Anjali is able to trace down Anjali (who did not graduate) to a summer camp (remember the career mistake?). Anjali is not a tom-boy anymore. She only wears sarees now, even when she has to play basketball. For some inexplicable reasons, the camera more often than not focuses around Anjali’s waists after she starts wearing sarees. There’s a plot twist – Anjali is already engaged to Aman. She doesn’t love Aman, but is making a “compromise” because it’s an Indian society and everyone SHOULD marry.

To make it worse for Anjali, who already had a miserable life, she bumps into Rahul at the summer camp. Sparks fly right away. Had to, our simp Rahul was lonely from eight years. This starts some intense cheesy flirting in a camp full of at least 50 kids. Rahul is in love with Anjali and Anjali’s love for Rahul never died. However, they both are unable to express. Enter Aman in the summer camp, who had become restless without Anjali around. Anjali, frustrated at Rahul not expressing his love, leaves the camp in a rush with Aman. Anjali’s heart is broken again, and she decides to prepone her wedding with Aman. Poor Aman, he is just being used as a rebound by Anjali in the entire movie.

Baby Anjali still does not give up easily. Rahul and family arrive at Anjali’s home and realize it’s her wedding day. Everyone cries, cries and cries, and there is a lot of yapping going on. I fast-forwarded the end part, because the pain was unbearable after watching this movie for three hours. Aman realizes that Anjali and Rahul love each other, and happily tells Anjali to choose Rahul. Anjali puts the palm of her hand on Aman’s face, and is delighted. There’s just too many scenes in this movie where someone is placing the palm of their hand on someone’s face. Weird!

Rahul and Anjali marry, and there’s the proverbial ‘happily ever after moment”. Aman is an actual good guy, and like all good guys, he ends up last too. He just tries to keep himself happy by repeating what baby Anjali tells him – ‘Tumhe toh koi bhi ladki mil jaaygi’ (you will get any girl). Trust me guys, this line is always a trap.

That’s it. I need to see a therapist.

 

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M.  

Trial by #Hashtags

Someone once said – “Data is the new oil”. Whoever said it made an understatement. No one carried petrol/diesel to their toilets every morning, but people find hard to leave aside their data munching smartphones even when visiting those places. Most of us, excluding the ones who are on the path of greatness, switch on the data of our phones first thing in the morning and scroll through social media. On an average, a person spends about four hours on their phone daily.

While the time we spend on phones/social media has increased, our attention span seems to have come down drastically. How would you otherwise explain that reels and tik toks are more popular than blogs and stand-up comedy. People aren’t too busy to watch or read time-consuming content. We are spending more time in front of screens than ever, right? It is just that we would like to consume something that does not require us to apply our mind too much, and get on with our lives. A stand-up comedian or blogger would build up a story in some minutes, a reel/tik tok on the other hand would complete its story in a few seconds! We’re becoming too good at engaging our intuitive thinking, rather than critical thinking. Also, I find it difficult to fathom that you will ever be able to engage in critical thinking while sitting on your toilet seats. It’s just not the right place.  

A few days ago, a self-declared “beauty and fashion influencer” posted a reel alleging harassment and violence by an employee of a food delivery company. This caught national attention (in spite of a million other things we could worry about), things went viral and even mainstream media covered this incident. The delivery guy (“DG”) lost his job (allegedly), with the company desperately trying to avoid a PR blunder. Within hours, DGs photos were all over the media, along with the influencers broken nose. Social media had passed its verdict, and the man was held guilty by millions, including people taking a dump who were like – “Yeah, definitely guilty”. What got lost, in the midst of all this conundrum, is perhaps that no one tried to know DGs story. He perhaps didn’t know much about making reels, I am sure most people with such intense jobs don’t. IF (and only IF) he is innocent, imagine the plight and trauma of not only him, but his entire family. I can understand if people are not getting any assistance from the authorities and they use social media to raise their voice. However, if you’ve taken the recourse of law, why would you decide to shame someone publicly and have them prosecuted by people, some of whom would take five hours to purchase an underwear, but pass their judgement here in two minutes. Anyway, now people are covering DGs story and the “influencer” is being made the villain. Ah shit, here we go again!

I fail to understand the concept of influencers. I mean, why in anyone’s rational mind would I want to get influenced by how someone is dressing up or doing their make up? Shouldn’t you be getting influenced by ideas, rather than the superficial, artificial and exaggerated imagery that people create of themselves? There could be some other word we could use for them, but I think calling them “influencers” is too much. Would you not call Mahatma Gandhi or Abraham Lincoln influencers or someone who was crying on social media rather than taking the due recourse of law? Curious what would be the Mahatma’s social media bio in these times.

Mahatma Gandhi – First cry on Oct 2, 1869 – Wanderlust (India, South Africa, England) – Lawyered – Dil se Indian - #Swadeshi #CivilDiobedience #QuitIndia – DM for inquiries ??

I hope not.

Same week, we also had a Meghan Markle and Prince (not anymore) Harry give an interview to Oprah about some affairs of the royal family. Everyone’s again heard one side of the story and passed their judgements. Most of them would gladly get adopted by the Queen if she ever put an advert. Not gonna lie, even I would.  

Our law follows a principle – “1000 culprits can escape, but one innocent should not be punished”. I am not sure the Honorable Judges on Social Media, who give their verdicts based on hashtags, would ever be able to follow this principle.

Until then, let us just hope and pray that this happens to the none of us. I hope that if you are ever prosecuted, it is by the due course of law and not by people taking a dump (this joke was too good to be not used multiple times).

 

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M.

Generation O

It’s a lazy Saturday afternoon. I’ve decided to add some grease to my arteries, and I’ve got two apps in my phone to help me with that. A difficult hint, but the apps rhyme with “Tomato” and “Piggy”. I get on these apps, and check which ones offering the best discounts. I chose one of them. Another difficult choice to make: what do I eat. Pizza? Thin crust? Thick crust? Hand tossed? Cheese Burst? Wheat thin crust? I am on a diet, so wheat thin crust perhaps, which has wholesome goodness of wheat. I am a vegetarian, so non-veg options are ruled out (easy call). I also need a soft drink to wash the pizza down my throat. Let me order a diet coke (I am on a diet, remember?). They charge Rs. 60 for a Rs. 40 can – should I go and get the coke from downstairs? Chuck it, this app is giving a great discount, so diet coke gets added to the cart.

Thirty minutes in, looks like I am set. I place an order and have to choose my payment option. AmazonPay? Paytm? Credit Card? Debit Card? Net Banking? Cash on Delivery, perhaps, because I have trust issues? But wait, there isn’t any discount on COD. So, I get one of my credit cards out. Just before I am placing my order, I have this mini guilt trip. I have been trying to be on a diet and have told everyone about it. People were mildly impressed by my commitment after six days. I won’t be able to handle the sheer burden of shattered expectation if I have this pizza. No, I can’t. I decide against pizza and in my health consciousness, I end up ordering Dal Khichdi. This is literally a proud moment for me. People who can resist their dire temptations are elite personalities, and I might become one of them. I have my Dal Khichdi, which cost around Rs. 150, and mom walks in. She looks a bit mad, and I fake a smile at her. Apparently, she too had cooked Dal Khichdi for lunch. She asked me how much I paid for my order, and walked off unimpressed. A decade and a half back I would have received a flying chappal for this kind of decision.

Welcome to my world, and most of you are a part of it. Together we’re Generation Overthink (“Gen O”). We’re spoilt for options. Everything is so convenient for us, and we still fret over the most immaterial of all decisions. Just like the example quoted above, so many of us waste so much time on simple tasks like ordering food. It is as if convenience has made our life more difficult, rather than easy. Paradoxical, isn’t it?

Communication, for example, is more convenient but no less complicated. Love letters used to be a thing and people used to be patient. They relied on Indian Postal Service, and used to have patience for breakfast. However, now you get hurt when she is online and not replying to you. Had an argument with a person? Delete their number and please block them on WhatsApp. It is more convenient than discussing issues and sometimes venting out your emotions. Feeling low? Remove your WhatsApp display picture. More convenient than sharing your feelings with someone. Wanna date someone? Download an app and left/right swipe them based on the way they look in a few filtered pictures. Fall in love with faces, not personalities. Personalities are a little difficult to find.

A friend who had arranged marriage told me that he knew his wife was the right person for him the first time he met her. I took one and a half month to decide on the phone that I am using right now. We’re so much better off right now, that we don’t want to lose this place of convenience. Tomato and Piggy kids would not know what it is like to walk 10 minutes to your favorite wada pav shop, and being told that there was nothing left. At least we were getting lessons in rejections back then. Today, we do not want to initiate our actions just due to the fear of rejection. Getting things are so easier, that we dread the day when we would not get something that we want.

The “O” in Gen O isn’t just overthink, it’s also over complicate. But congratulations, at least life is easier, apparently.

“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.” – Charles Bukowski

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M

It’s not you, It’s me

If this blog sounds insensitive, I can’t do much about it honestly. I am not responsible for your scarred life (at least for most of you).

It’s almost wedding season, and almost everyone, other than people in my friend circle, are getting married. Love doves are putting up their wedding countdowns on social media, and singles are making an Excel tracker of every countdown. I really love these countdowns, it’s similar to what FIFA does for the Football World Cup, albeit FIFA doesn’t do it as grand as these folks getting married. Very soon, most of the weddings would have a theme song to go with the count-down, just like there was Shakira’s “Waka Waka” for the 2010 World Cup. Weddings are serious here, and I am sure if the “2010 Commonwealth Games” was called “2010 Commonwealth Wedding”, Indians would have taken the organization of the event more seriously.

Anyway, weddings need to be special. We should always remember what SRK said about marriage in one of his movies where he got married twice – “Hum ek baar jeete hai, ek baar marte hai, shaadi bhi ek baar hoti hai.“

While our movies are giving such important messages on love and marriages, they fail to cover break-ups properly. There aren’t no legendary dialogues, at least on the back of my mind. However, there is one popular song. Here are some lyrics of “The Break Up Song” –

Kuch din to rona dhona bumper kiya

Aur phir delete uska number kiya

Aansu jo sookhe seedha parlour gayi

Parlour mein jaake shampoo jamkar kiya

Might also add “market jaa kee aalo liya aur raat ko daaru piya” and this song would still make sense. 

These lyrics are actually worse than some of the stuff Lil Wayne used to sing. And Lil Wayne once had a song which said – “She licks me like a lollipop”. Yikes!

This leaves people in very awkward situations when preparing for break-ups. You can’t learn about handling break-ups from movies. The trigonometry you learnt in school isn’t helping either. You can’t approach your parents for advice. There aren’t no mentors in this field either. There are love-gurus on radio, but no break-up gurus. The entire system is flawed; it believes things would always work out. Hence, we do not have anything to fall back upon when things go south.

Here are some of the things people generally say, which are quite interesting.

 

1)      It’s not you, it’s me

Why would you do that? Do you have self-esteem issues where you constantly end up blaming yourself?

Alternative line: It’s not you, it’s not me, it’s us. Both of us together are a disaster.

 

2)      You’ll find someone better

Lame. It’s like saying we are a mess now, but at least you have a bright future. Sounded like a proper politician there.

3)      I’m so sorry

Clearly displays lack of creativity, efforts and respect. These are the kind of people who will win the Academy Award and just say “Thank You” in their acceptance speech, when they were expected to say so many things.

 

4)      I hope we can still be friends

You should have only been friends in the first place. 

5)      I never meant to hurt you

… but accidents happen all the time, and there’s collateral damage always.  

6)      This is hard for me, too

You are feeling terrible. But the fact that even I’m feeling terrible, should make you feel less terrible.

 

7)      We’re just friends

Friendzoned, actually. Can feel just like break-up because it ends your imaginary relationship, and hence honorable mention.

This isn’t an exhaustive list. What you say will actually depend on your creativity, and how smooth you want the break-up experience to be. No matter if you are driving a Ferrari or a Nano, it would always be a tough ride since the road is difficult. And if you break up during these times, all the best on finding anyone during the middle of a pandemic.

I am glad I could write after a long time. I have been able to touch upon a very sensitive issue of our society, which people are afraid to talk about. It’s time to start a conversation.

Wishing fireworks in your relationships (interpret this as you may want – this could mean anything). Happy Diwali.

 

Yours bitterly,

Ashish M.

P.S. - Thanks to Archita for suggesting this blog idea. If you folks want me to cover other sensitive issues affecting the society, please feel free to reach out.