Quarter Life Crisis!

The year 2016 is coming to an end and I am sure there are a lot of us gearing up for Christmas singing “Single Bell Single Bell, Single all the way”. In this era of relationships gaining so much of attention, turning 25 is a major checkpoint in our lives. Both, in terms of how we have fared in our personal and professional lives, which I think need to be balanced. In this post, I am going to stick to the personal life.

Well, turning 25 makes you wonder about what age do you want to get married at and there is a lot of hogwash on the internet on what is the right age or the right time to get married. Also, something interesting to notice is that your relationship status is taken as a marker for evaluating your life. Which, again is the height of stupidity. I really wonder why staying single is somehow quite underrated. I don’t see why a person’s relationship status needs to be a parameter to measure the value of one’s life. Relationships should be a choice and not an obligation.

There is so much more to you than just your relationship status. Don’t let your relationship status define who you are. Trust me on this even if you collate all the happenings of your life till today, who you are is so much more than that. Don’t let yourself be fit into the moulds of conventionality.  Be your own version of whoever you want to be. If you do get into a relationship and it doesn’t work out, It’s hard to recover from I agree. But, there are a lot of things you can do with your life apart from having a girlfriend/boyfriend. Also, relationships are seen today with such a narrow perspective. A boy and a girl can only bond in two major categories. The family friend category or the life partner category. Since these are widely accepted in society. We usually try to fit all our relationships into these two categories and try to make the ends meet. But doing so at times only destroys the relationship.   Let’s just try to see relationships as they are and try not to stretch them just to fit them into a certain category. let's just look at relationships for what they are and not what we want them to be. There are so many ways in which you can connect with someone. Maybe in terms of having similar literature interests, may be having the same taste of music, maybe someone to talk to when you’re facing a problem.

Even if you wish to stay alone and you want to make something out of your life, I am sure that is again a great way of handling your life. Set your dreams. Chase them. Feel the passion of doing something you absolutely love. Explore your talents, hobbies. The best part being the way you get to know who are. What is it that you love. For the movie/serial fanatics(including me), movies or serials are never "just movies" or "just serials" to you. Absorbing certain thoughts from the favourite characters of your favourite movies or serials. Build yourself on such pillars and you’re sure to make a skyscraper out of yourself.

No matter which of the above paths you choose, all these paths have something incredible to offer to you.So this Christmas irrespective of you wanting a life partner, or a relationship or just rediscover yourself, add value to yourself and your life. Here’s me wishing all of you a very peaceful and healthy Christmas. May each one of your wishes be fulfilled. SPIRIT!

The Extrovert City!!

                                      

It is 2:58 am and I am starting to write something. Bangalore, commonly known as "The Garden City of India " or as we call it "Silicon City" . Like anyone who comes to Bangalore from a tier 2 city, I was pretty much excited to explore it.  It was overwhelming what this city has to offer to each of its residents. I feel everyone here is running behind something or the other. Be it money, dream job, love, parties or any other goals you have. Bangalore has it all. The Lush Green parks, the malls, the posh restaurants, the road transport services, the really affordable restaurants (Vidyarthi Bhavan – do go there once), the nearby site seeing places, the humongous tech parks, one of the best research universities in the country, the IT companies. The best thing I like about Bangalore is that anyone from any part of India can come to Bangalore and they would feel at home. Bangalore doesn't differentiate you based on your caste, creed and colour. It accepts you the way you are. To me, this city is one of those which I feel is representative of India. Nevertheless, it doesn't allow you stay stagnant. It drives you towards everything you wanted to achieve and makes it seem possible. It makes you toil for what you want and does give you the rewards.

It does have a hell lot of traffic but you also find really interesting people with whom you can have the most candid conversations. Bangalore offers the best of everything that India has is what I've felt so far and I hope it gets only better from here on. This is what we all have heard of. But yeah there are people here who work the same number of hours on weekdays as we do and volunteer for NGO's on the weekends. The days we just like to sleep and feel lazy at our homes there are people who use that to make this society better. There are people who pursue their hobbies on weekends. While we are complaining about traffic there is "traffic warden organisation" which voluntarily helps police to manage traffic. This city continues to surprise me with everything it has got.

This post is particularly dedicated to one issue I found to be really immature. After coming here I was accused of being a non-Kannadiga because I like to talk to people in different languages. Let me cut to the chase here. The so-called true Kannadigas feel that the enormous diversity of this city is affecting our culture or rather spoiling it in terms of the number of people talking in Kannada being reduced compared to before, which they think is only going to get worse. We hold the people who come from other states responsible for this. But how is that possible? Who is to be blamed? It's us. If you are not speaking Kannada or if there is a reason because of which you have stopped speaking Kannada or even reduced speaking Kannada then it's your fault. Personally, I don't mind using less of Kannada if I have to talk to a lot of people, who do not speak Kannada for whatever reason. I am sure that doesn't make me any less of a Kannadiga. Let's also remember something, everyone who resides in India has been given the right by our constitution to speak any language , practice any religion irrespective of where they stay in India. So when we almost force someone to learn Kannada aren't we going against our constitution? Protecting the Kannada language is our responsibility and not theirs. Just because people in xyz force the people from other states to speak their language doesn't mean we should do the same too. Bangalore has always been impartial to everyone and I hope we don't spoil this balance. When it comes to our language it's our responsibility to preserve it. Let's get some perspective here. What is language? A way of communicating with someone. That is all you need to understand. If you want to communicate with someone then simple logic tells you that you talk to them in a language that you both comfortably know or else the message will not be clear and lead to misunderstanding. Get it right through your head that, just as speaking English doesn't make you British, speaking less of Kannada doesn't make you a non-Kannadiga. Speaking a language and respecting it are two entirely different things. What we should do is try to awaken the respect for Kannada and not just mere usage of the language. If people respect it then I am sure Kannada will never be an  endangered language. On the contrary, if you get people to speak the language then it certainly does not guarantee respect for it. It is not something you display it is something you hold dear to your heart! One more thing, please don't generalise a certain event that happened to you because of some idiot to the community or region or any other parameter that he or she has. I have never come across anyone who disrespected me or my culture in any way and even if I do I am sure I will associate that to the personality and not the place or religion or any other irrelevant factor. There are a lot of pages and people on facebook right now who post stuff that are outrageous. I hope that we don't fall prey to them. Let's promote peace and not develop outrage among people. I hope in these hard times where there is a lot of polarisation we find that one string that holds us all together.

To end it, I wish every city is as hospitable as Bangalore where everyone can live the way they want to without really encroaching into someone else's circle of privacy!

!!! Happy New Year!!!!

It’s time for new year celebrations! Everyone is planning to embrace the new year by partying with their girlfriends, best friends, bffs etc. It’s like partying is in the air. As I sit in my room and go what the hell,  while the whole world parties I am clouded by thoughts. May be you don’t have a girlfriend, a best friend or even a friend . May be you’re still figuring out what is it that you love doing. May be you’re still struggling with your career and you don’t have time for a party. May be you have enough savings but you don’t have a holiday for new year celebration. It’s all okay! We allow ourselves to be influenced by so many lives around and thanks to fb for this, we do feel our life is not rocking as we think others is.

Don’t have time? Just sit with your loved ones when possible and spend some quality time. Don’t have money for a huge rocking party? Have a panipuri competition with your friends. May be you don’t have a high profile top notch job but as long as you’re working on something with passion you have nothing to worry about my dear friend. May be you don’t necessarily need a friend to be happy. Rediscover yourself and do something that you genuinely enjoy. May be you have a dream that you want to work on. May be you’ve cleaned the slate of your career and have started fresh. Be happy about it. May be you have the most trustworthy friends in the world. May be this year wasn’t as per your “plan”. That doesn’t mean the consequent years will follow the same pattern. This new year let’s celebrate with hope.

• Hope that the coming year gets you closer to your dreams. 
• Hope that you get the appraisal for which you have been working your ass off!
• Hope that you may find the peace of mind you’ve been chasing all year. 
• Hope that you find love.
• Hope that you find a trustworthy friend. 
• Hope that you find the passion for which you’ve been switching your jobs. 
• Hope everything starts to fall in place in the years to come .

 No matter whatever wherever and however you are , you deserve to be happy my friend. If sleeping the whole day makes you happy go for it. Whatever makes you happy do it. Just don’t materialize happiness. This new year be happy irrespective of what you have or what you don’t have. You have everything that is needed for happiness to prosper in your life. So here’s to a lousy Christmas and a crappy new year(For die hard F.R.I.E.N.D.S fans only). For the rest of the world, pour the wine of hope and dance yourselves out to the rhythm of life! SPIRIT!

The Angry Young Citizen

Has god given us a third eye that has the capacity to see inside a person and figure them out in a second? We are the judgmental folk! We are like two-minute judges. We have a look at someone and somehow our nth sense tells us something about them. Trust me , Sherlock Holmes would go nuts if he looked at our deductions. I don't think I have seen people meet casually anymore. It's like everyone has a board on their head. There is man board. There is woman board and there are people, whom we don't even consider as part of the so-called prestigious social behavioural bible – "The Society" by Anonymous. We don't understand human beings anymore. We understand the man. The woman. The homosexual. It's like we are scanned for the gender first and then there is this way of behaving like/with a particular gender. I see people in their mid-twenties fighting this classic Man vs Woman like a WWE wrestling match telecast on Monday nights. I'm like isn't it obvious! With every gender comes its baggage of challenges. Just for the record every person in this world has an equal share of problems, be it man or woman. I think any conversation that comes down to man vs woman should be stopped immediately. Because, if they wanted to understand that every gender has its problems, they would have done it already.


Language : Now what can I say about this. For all those who think that , if you belong to a particular community/region , then you're supposed to know its language. Language is just a medium of communication. If you want to be a loner, please don't learn any languages. Only in the most remote possibility of you talking to someone, you can use the language that you know. Looking at it logically if you live in north Karnataka, then you need to know the North Karnataka version of Kannada. If you live in Karnataka, then you need to know proper Kannada. If you live in India, then you need to know Hindi. It's Bullshit, or repurposed bovine waste and for your information, both mean the same. You live on Earth first, learn Humanity for God's Sake. Humanity is the universal language that everyone understands (Not offending people who think music is a universal language too. I agree with you guys).You can live anywhere in the world if you know Humanity and that should be the first language we should learn.

God: Nothing beats this. The world is mainly divided between atheists and theists. Both fight with each other to convince that they are right. If you're an atheist ,fine. If you're not, fine . But if you're an atheist, learn to respect someone's belief in God and the vice versa. Not everyone in this world needs to be on the same page.


Profession: There was a recent incident, where I had a debate with a person who thinks his/her profession is really hard and has major issues with respect to the payment because he/she thinks that their profession is the only one which is going through rough patches. Where on earth do such beings emerge on Earth? Every profession is respectable. I feel if you can't respect someone else's profession you can never give justice to yours. Moreover , it's the dedication that you show towards your profession ,that is valued and not merely the profession itself.


Movies: Oh the epitome of regionalism and communalism. Let me explain this taking three recent really successful movies Rangitaranga,  Bahubali and Bajrangi Bhaijaan. All these three movies are absolutely exceptional in their own genre. But let's see how we Indians saw these movies. Bahubali collected the most money out of box office. While, bajrangi bhaijaan had its go at box office collections. We start quantifying movies based on their mere collection at box office. What does this say about us? People who have Kannada as their mother tongue supported Rangitaranga . Those with telugu as their mother tongue supported  Bahubali. Those who knew the national language Hindi, supported Bajrangi Bhaijaan . To which extent it was fine, although I will tell you what's wrong it in shortly, but the real disaster starts when we compare Bahubali Vs Rangitaranga Vs Bajrangi Bhaijaan. Which I definitely feel is uncalled for here. Why do we always need to race everything and derive just one and only one winner out of it? Why can't these three movies just be three fucking great movies? Now ,don't you think hypothetically ,if I being a kannadiga , watch only kannada movies that means I am seriously biassed  towards my language? We should support every language, irrespective of who we are or which city or region we belong to. For those who play "My language is my mother" card. Here's something "Every child thinks his/her mother is the best". Yes metaphorically you love your mother, but it's equally important to respect someone else's mother too. Mothers are all the best and the same.  If you want to watch a movie then the only things to consider should be the script, the screenplay, direction, music and these technical aspects. If you understand the language in which movie was made, fine ,or else please refrain from watching movies. There is a need for "Language Neutrality " when it comes to movies. I think you guys would certainly agree with me on this. Hate only gives rise to hate. While love trumps hate.



I don't see the unity in diversity that we Indians boast about ourselves. All I see is more diversity in diversity. We need to come to a matured understanding of each other's differences and live in harmony. We need to understand that, it's not about being on the same page, but rather, being in the same book sometimes too. If you can't love something, at least don't develop hatred towards it. We really need to unite for humanity to prosper! 

Humanism 2!

While, I did highlight the injustice taking place on women in my previous post, I believe its time to throw light on the other side of the coin too. Man, a term used mostly for expression of power. Man, the guy who saves the actress in all the movies. Man, the keeper of power. Man, someone who does not cry. Man, someone who knows how to get things done by the use of his power. Man, someone who enjoys sexual activity even if he has not consented it. These are all the common beliefs of society with respect to men.

Male rape. How can a man be raped? The famous "Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota". Our society is weirdly interesting. If a boy gets beaten up , he's not a man at all. As sad as I am speaking to you about this , it is true. Until February 3 2013 , rape was considered a crime only on women. So men who were raped before that must have seen worse than hell on earth already. Male on male rapes constitute 93 % of male rape cases . Which is as shocking and saddening as it gets. While , a minority of 7 % male rapes are female on male rapes. It's surprising that out of every 10 male rape cases only 1 is reported. In fact, in most of the male rape cases , the victim is asked to forget it calling it a "fight". Males have the added burden of facing a society that doesn't believe rape can happen to them. Especially , when it's a female on male rape the common opinion is "He's a man, he must be enjoying that". Although, the survival rate of female rape victims in less, compared to male rape victim. A popular movie, released  in 2014,  was made on the basis of a plot to trap a boy for money on the basis of IPC section 498A. I did not hear a single person speaking about it. In fact, the film made a collection of 24.3 crores. The number of reported male rape cases are drastically low compared to female rape cases.

To tell you a fact, I myself went through physical violence in my school days by my seniors when I was in 4th standard because I wasn't aggressive like other boys or never believed in reciprocating violence. During my Engg college's intro session by my seniors ,I was asked about my marks in Mathematics ,which happened to be 64 and the response I received from them was "so you only chased girls during your PUC 2" .

Being a human basically is difficult these days. It's Humanity that is endangered. If we don't do anything about it soon, then humanity will go extinct. Lets set our gender biases aside and save Humanity together. All you need to be his human to stand up for a human. #Humanism

       

HUMANISM!

We all are dealing with issues today in the world, and here is one that I would be highlighting today. Feminism is a term that may seem simple and has very clear meaning ,but is often misinterpreted by people at large. Feminism is the advocacy of women's rights on the ground of the equality of the sexes. Equality is what is emphasized upon . So, please note that there is nothing to be afraid about here. The point that feminism is not synonymous to man hating is crucial part of understanding feminism.  It just means that have the guts to stand for equality. So, if you are a feminist ,no matter who you are just be proud of yourself because you stand for equality. 

I believe that it's one's personal choice to decide how they want to lead their personal life. It's a woman's choice how she wants to lead her life , same way how a man chooses to do so. All that is resulting out of this is more difference of opinions between genders. The way world should see it is ,if any human is subjected to injustice, you don't need to judge the gender to fight for the person's justice. What I mean by this is , say someone named ABC undergoes a physical assault by XYZ group or person , it should be irrelevant ,if ABC belongs to this religion or that gender or any other parameter by which we stereotype people.

When a woman says "I can wear whatever I want', what she means is that, her way of dressing should in no way be judged to what kind of person she is , and that no limitation should be exercised on her. To give you an example, when we hear quotes like " you can be whatever you want to be" , logically we can become a terrorist ,or a social worker . But, the way we interpret it is that we can become anything good that we want to be. Every statement, logically has two sides .The maturity to take up the positive in any statement is needed the most in such times, instead of pointing fingers at each other. Why this point is being stressed is because in the crimes against a woman, the cause of the crime is interpreted that, the way in which a woman dresses has been associated to her character. This is bizarre. When a woman says that she can be involved in a physical relationship with anyone, it only means that she reserves the right to trust anyone with her body and soul. For example, in the nirbhaya case, most of the causes given as analysed by many for the horrendous act were that she was roaming in the night wearing modern clothes and she was with a boy who happened to be her friend. We have no right to judge a person, by what time they go out or what what they wear or with whom they go out.  Whereas, the original cause was the inhuman mindset of some men. 

Even if we somehow understand feminism we are afraid to come out of the traditional Indian closet. When we say feminism, the way I want everyone to see it is, a subset of society. If a particular subset of society ,being deprived of the rights and privileges that are enjoyed by the rest of the society, I believe, it's the responsibility of society at large to stand up for the equality of the particular subset. I call this "Humanism"(Please do not google this word.... it's a term I use only in this post). We judge people by their gender, clothes, religion and God knows what else. For a change, see a person as a person. All you need to be is "HUMAN" to stand for a human's rights. Finally to wrap up things , a pinch of sorcery from Daniel Radcliffe a.k.a Harry Potter - " I'm a feminist as much as I'm an egalitarian about everything and I believe in meritocracy. I think anyone who isn't at this point is swimming against the tide, just like people who are vaguely homophobic or racist or sexist". #Humanism

The Deadliest Phobia?

Boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends, best friends forever and the latest, fractions of these roles. The most riveting topics among youth. We all have people in our lives to whom we say our "i love yous”   our "i will always be there for yous" our "you're the closest one to my hearts", " i care for yous" and the list is interminable. We all have at least one person in our life with whom we share all that happens with us. We use all the above mentioned sweet gratifying sentences to let them know how poignant they are in our lives. It all seems like it’s going to last forever and ever.

It’s after this that the real problem arises. COMMITMENT! When I say commitment let me make myself clear that it’s not just about boyfriend-girlfriend relationship. Commitment is just being able to walk the talk. If you can stay by the words you have spoken, that is commitment. Commitment to most these days appears to be the ghost that haunts their minds. When it comes to commitment I see four kinds of people. Firstly those who really love it, who are just waiting to say something and stand by it. Secondly those who get into commitments only if it’s in their comfort zone. Third, those who are scared, so scared to open their mouth because they might have to stand by what they've  said.Finally , the rare ones who never say anything. But all they think of is goodness of their loved ones and do far more than what they ever say.

It doesn't matter if you belong to any of the above four species. You will have the fear of not being able to stand by it. Hurting someone. Loosing trust. Which results in self-deprecating yourselves. As much as I hate to admit it, even I couldn't keep some promises. Couldn't stand on some words I spoke to someone. Now that is what I call “Human”. We are not robots and we happen to be erroneous at times.  Does that mean we should stop making commitments? I am sure your answer in unison would be no.

Commitments tell us who we are. But, failing to keep them sheds the light on the fact that “We Are Humans”. Also, the more you want to obviate something, the more it claws right back into your life. At the same time taking it too lightly might spifflicate someone’s life way out of proportions. I am sure many of you might see commitments synonymous to pressure. But, the truth is it was made so that human life could revolve around it. If you happen to break a commitment to someone, it’s not the end. You can still earn back the feeling that the person had for you. Not that it’s easy but not impossible either. It wouldn't hurt us to forgive someone if the person truly deserves it.

Even if you screw up, don’t give up. I recall a line from Harry Potter movies – “Help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who ask for it”. I have my own version of this applied to life “Second chance in life will always be given to those who undoubtedly deserve it”. So just make sure you are deserving and wait for your chance. Finally, my message to everyone this New Year is to find it in ourselves the finesse to stand by your commitments. Don't avoid it, instead embrace it and I am sure by doing so you will be able to rejuvenate the human inside you.