Madness in the name of Our Lord - The Indian Way

It's Holi today. For people unfamiliar with the word, it's the festival of colors where people in this country and their genetic protoplasm spread all around the world like a virus, shed their inhibitions and emerge like the Lochness Monster that's been lying dormant throughout the year spraying color and drinking unbelievable amounts of 'bhaang' (Indianized alcohol, that is deemed and believed to be holy, quite conveniently of course).

Here's a more, real description of what this day usually is like for Indians all over the world.

It's funny how we Indians believe that if there is an occasion to be happy about, they need everyone around them irrespective of caste, creed, and sex to be involved in their happiness. Well, 'forced to be involved' is more like it.

Loud music, unruly behavior, drunken stupor, creating a nuisance, disturbing the peace, forcing down one's beliefs and faith down other people's throats - these are the features of any Indian occasion. How and why are these such important elements of celebrating a festival? You're happy - good. Stay happy in your own home. Mess up your own compound, make a noise in your room, play loud music with your earphones on, spray color on yourself, your family, heck...even your dog. The fact that you're happy doesn't warrant you the right to impose your happiness on me.


Naturally, the rowdier elements of society use this opportunity to threaten the innocent passerby & demand money. But then that's an entirely different matter and doesn't even deserve a separate post since that's really their nature and enough has been written and said about it already.

Funnily enough, this is a day when the lower working class of the Indian population forget which religion they believe in and all of them make it a point to be punctual at the households they work in, are at their best behavior, with a smile upon their faces which is otherwise a contorted countenance on most other days.  There is only one factor that brings about this sea-change in their behavior - 'baksheeh' or money. They consider it their right to partake some money that they feel is rightfully theirs on this auspicious occasion. It is the same set of people who in times of national crises or when it's important for people to keep their wits about them, are up in arms citing religious differences as their main grouse and go about killing people in the name of this sudden attachment to their religious selves and texts alike. Hypocrites - all of them.

Every coin has two sides and if you think about it, this is one festival where this madness results in unity of some sort, where people don't distinguish between each other in terms of skin color or just color in general for that matter.

Coming back to the point. If you're happy about something - keep it to yourself. If someone wants to be a part of that happiness, they will come to wherever you are and join you in your reverie. If someone doesn't feel the need to, or the want either to be part of this artificial day-long craziness, leave them be. Stop that loud music, irrational behavior, crazy drunkenness, and make life normal for people who prefer to celebrate their festival in peace and in the comfort of their own homes. In short (and generalizing it a little bit), GROW UP!

Weekends

An important event in every working individual's life - the big W - the Weekend. A lot of people look forward to it, a lot of them don't for their own reasons, some people enjoy it, and some people just louse around at home doing nothing awaiting the impending doom of the next working week which will start in a few hours time.

I live in a village, Gurgaon (and yes, I refuse to call it anything but a village) that has little to do over the weekends, unless you are a shopaholic with a lot of money and an insatiable craving for stepping out into the horrid heat.

You see what happened here - I got carried away and I am sure this is going to turn into one of those posts where I criticize anything and everything about this place. Sometimes I wonder why am I here. Isn't being here or not completely in my hands? What's binding me to this place? Why am I not bold enough to just take a step and get out of here if I can't come to terms with this place? Well, let that be the topic of discussion for another post altogether. Let me get back on track here.

All right, so coming back on track...a lot of people in this part of the world believe in the fact that they should go out for a weekend break to a godforsaken part of this country just for the drive and the heck of it. Well, as you might have guessed by now - I am not one of the flock.

A lot of people also like going out for a movie and a lunch/dinner with their better halves/families/friends. Again, I am out of this for a few reasons - my better half goes on a cleaning spree over the weekend and I am too lazy to be involved in it. A movie + lunch/dinner means a 1000 bucks down the drain for sure. I might as well just buy a DVD or watch one of the many zillions that I possess but haven't seen yet and order in a cheese pizza with Thums Up - all this for less than 500 bucks and in the comfort of my own home, not that my place is a very ambient place - no reasonably priced apartment in Gurgaon is for that matter. As far as the question of friends/family is concerned, my friends are too busy with either getting hooked up with females or spending time with one of their own. As far as family is concerned - I don't even have any in this place (and thank God for that).

Well then - what about new friends? Isn't Delhi the place to make friends of all shapes and sizes? Well, yes and no. Yes because it is true...you need to have someone with the same mindset and with the same ideologies as yourself and no because the kind of people that exist in this part of the forest are extremely impractical, crude, rude, dishonest, ill-mannered, sick, corrupt and corruptible individuals. There has to be a reason why someone from this place will want to spend some time on a weekend with you. There just has to be a hidden agenda behind the smile. In short, friends/family/strangers aka potential friends - OOTQ - out of the question.

Ok, so what do I actually end up doing? Nothing. Period.

Lie around the whole day, do some grocery shopping, order in grub, watch DVDs/TV, yawn, and of course - my favorite pastime - crib about this place and contemplate and try and figure out how to get back to where I came from - Hyderabad or Kolkata or to a completely unknown destination such as Singapore, Bangalore, or anywhere but here!