Ganesh Chaturthi.. the festival of noise..

So, well. I wasn't going to do this.. Sitting bored to death in a car for about 1.5 hours for a half an hour journey made me change my mind..
Most of my posts are flavored with religion bashing, none so much as this one..

Ganesh Chaturthi.. A festival.. A nuisance..
Don't get me wrong, his holiness might be a great god, Im sure he answers everyone's prayers, well when he has the time anyway.. Its his followers i have a problem understanding. So fine, most of them are uneducated and have no inkling about the destruction they bring about to the ecosystem with every 'visarjan'. What about the inconvenience caused to motorists and other commuters?
Did you know that pre 1893, Ganesh chaturti was mostly a family affair? Tilak made it a social occasion in order to unite the lower classes of society with the higher snobs like the brahmins. Mission accomplished.. Today, in rural areas, lower classes live in harmony with upper classes.. Umm not really.. but well he tried anyway..
lets look at how this festival affects our future shall we?
Modern ganpati idols are made mostly of plaster of paris and take much longer to dissolve than the traditional clay (duh) the use of which has now been abandoned..
Colors used to paint these idols contain numerous heavy metals like mercury, arsenic, lead, carbon and cadmium which mix with the water making it not so drinking friendly.. (I may be wrong about that, a while back people resorted to drinking water from mahim creek claiming God turned the water sweet.. Heavy metal poisoning anyone?)
Dumping heavy metals into water bodies also causes the death of life in the areas concerned. Hundreds of dead fish are washed ashore after each immersion..

As for the people indulging in the immersion for the religious aspect of it, have ANY of you gone back the next day? I have.. a walk on the beach the day after the last day of immersion turned out to be like a walk through an obstacle course.. There was a man sweeping, yes SWEEPING half dissolved (and in some cases complete) ganpati idols into small little piles everywhere.. (for pics, go here http://www.ultrabrown.com/posts/the-battle-of-kurukshetra)

The solution:
well, not polluting water bodies is simple.. Dont use an idol made of POP.. or clay. Use a metal one. Reusable every year..
Im just sorry there's no solution yet for the unnecessary sound pollution.. I mean if people think that its in their culture to dance on roads, burst crackers that cost more that most people earn in a month and just be obnoxious pricks on the roads by blocking them, far be from me to try and go and stop them..

Questions in my head...

This world is a scary place. Or is it just me.
Why can't i see things in color like everyone else? What event in my past changed me to think like the way i do? Why do I not believe in things like true love, religion or true feelings? Why can't i see truth instead of a world of veil clad people. Why do i question seemingly simple things like belief? Why do i doubt someone died for all of our sins? Why don't i believe that a supernatural power great enough to create the universe would care to meddle in our every day life?
Why do i not value relationships as everyone else does? Why would i willingly not want to engage myself in social gatherings? Why don't i believe in the "facts" the media propagates? why does the concept of the conspiracy attract me more than the concept of faith?

Redundant things.. Only read if thoroughly bored already..

Know what I find redundant?
Posts like these.. Why waste your time reading one when you could be writing one?

Know what else i find redundant?
Cops standing at a signal motioning for traffic to move when a signal is green. Ohh I'm sorry, neither the green signal nor the angry mob of honking drivers behind me yelling out death threats will attract my attention, but one person wearing subtle colors gesturing me to move should do it..

Wanna know more?
Bulimia.. I'm sorry, but food should only come out through the front if meant to leisurely chewed later! The term stupid cow comes to mind..

And what the hell is baby food! Stupid lumpy tasteless food.. anything a baby can eat without you seeing it again for a few hours should be deemed good enough..

Catching Swine flu from people! after years of me calling fat people pigs.. Oh well.. Life imitating art... here art being the words spoken by me..

What about some environmentalists throwing a fish back into the water when fishing.. Its already gone through the mental agony of its self esteem disappearing after being fooled by bait. It will probably harbor suicidal tendencies after being reunited with his society.. The least you could do is give it a decent death.. Gut it and fry it after the mourning process completes.

Whats with vegans! Eat your grass in peace, don't offer us any thanks, Don't see me asking you if you want a big bowl of death every time i eat! Same goes with religious nuts, Yes, I'll take a piece of your Jesus cake if you'll take a piece of my agnostic Pie..

Spending three months worth of my hard earned money to buy a ring.. Ahem... Don't see any stipulation that says the wife has to save up for three months to buy the guy a life time supply of games!

Gold, Diamonds, Platinum.. One more expensive then the other.. Also one more illogical than the other.. They've only got this expensive because of the early man's greed to collect shiny things.. Back then, all the glitters was indeed gold.. Their minds weren't complex like ours today, so they were pretty much captivated by shiny metals.. Whats our excuse today?

Office people playing loud music doesn't help concentrate :(
lets see what else i remember..

Inter-religious debates... Those have to be redundant! A debate to see who religion is "better"! Ludicrous is say! (Not the rapper, Allah be with him) On a side note, watching this debate is highly recommended..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-v1TT_ExR2k&feature=related

Many people voting pro life.. First give up on pre-marital sex then think pro life.
I'm not going to go into detail for this one, cause mainly I want to live... Enough said..

Religious terrorists.. Killing in name of the one who has no name.. I should be going around killing people for not liking things like mushrooms.. Or snatch..

Emotions.. They're soon going to be redundant in a practical world like ours.. Sic..

Promises to be together.. they're a nice thought though... Thanks.. One day at a time sweet Jeebus...

Geez.. I was sure I had more than these...
OOh well.. Another day another rant..

Friendship day? A day for friendship? what about the other 364?

Today is internationally known as friendship day. A day when friends give each other small symbols as a token of their appreciation for their fellow pals, the most modern symbol being a 'friendship band'. Isn't that smart? a band that signifies an everlasting friendship that cannot be broken. This idea might have made the premier 'friendship band' manufacturing company very rich off the money of probably millions of gullible people (me included). Why waste time talking to your friend and telling him how you really feel, hugging him/her and thanking her when you can tie a small band around her wrist! Ingenious! Imagine the time saved!
As always, before i sat down to type this, i did a little investigation into the origins of this day. All I managed to get was this.
On the first Saturday of august, 1935, the government of America put a man to death (reason unknown). The next day however his friend committed suicide in his memory. Hence the govt of America decided to observe the first Sunday of august as friendship day.
I really pray that story not be true, if it is, we're celebrating the memory of a criminal and a suicide victim, thus condoning both.
I really do not have anything against this day. Oh wait I do.. I'm expected to fall in line and play nice (thankfully not by anyone who knows me too well). This post however has a greater meaning than just resenting a day specially reserved as a 'friendship day', It goes on to also hate days like Valentines Day, Nurses Day, Mothers Day, Armed Forces Day, Army Day, Fathers Day, Parents Day, Childrens Day, Teachers Day, Students Day, are you beginning to see a pattern here? The very fact that there exists a day for everything shows how minuscule the importance of the day becomes. After we've assigned all 365 days to frivolous days like the above mentioned, what next? overlap them?
People should see these days for what they really are, money making opportunities for some people like future me who will most definitely prey on the gullibility of most common people.
I could never understand the importance of a Valentines day. Aren't you supposed to be nice to her all year around? *whistles looking around. My point is simple, we don't need a day to tell us how to act and behave. We're more intelligent than that. So go ahead, celebrate everyday as all of the above.. Or not.. But don't do so just for one day a year.

Holy land? or land holy?

This is an interesting concept I read about recently.
What makes a place holy. Why is a location on a map called a holy land. What makes 'land' holy?
A lot of explanations were given which mainly said that the land was holy because of some supernatural event that may have taken place there.. OK.. . So if a supernatural event (miracle) takes place in my backyard, it is going to be considered holy.. Thank goodness i cleared that up.
However, what if i decide i want to act like a true pain in everyone's butt and dig out a massive hole taking the exact 'holy spot' taking the center for a circle with a diameter of about a mile long and a mile deep.. Now there's no land! Is it still holy? Well? Is it?? You will probably argue about how I cannot dig a mile deep, fine.. What if i just scrape of the top layer of about a hundred meters and dump the soil elsewhere.. Still holy?
If you've said no, you probably said so because you did not want to look stupid. I mean come on! one minute holy land, next minute none? You'd probably argue that since there's no land, it cannot be holy.. Bear with me for a minute.
If you've said yes, You're even stupider. I mean really! you pray to a god who has created something as intelligent as us (citation needed). Created this entire universe (also citation needed). If there exists something at that level of intelligence, you think he'll really give a crap about a physical location? I mean he's created things like galaxies for heavens sake. You think he's gonna say "Hey you, visit my church in XXX or else" or "visit my holy land called Me**a or damnation is yours!!"
Because of our human inability to perceive anything beyond the physical realm, we give importance to nonconsequential things like a spot of land. whereas we choose to ignore the greater messages religions impart.. Which is, blow yourself up, go to heaven. You have 72 virgins waiting for you.

Peace.

My day at a Shopping Store..

This is a hypothetical situation. Mainly because once I've said that, I am at liberty to pretty much type what i want here.
Let the store be any one you can think of. For example, an I don't mean to influence you thinking, but just for example, lets take Mango. A big brand, clearly it attracts a variety of customers and a lot of them like I found out. Standing alone waiting for the happy shoppers i went there with, to finish with their ritual of taking clothes by the dozen into tiny cubicles to try them on before discarding most of them (it was worth the wait), It gave me a chance to observe other shoppers and people accompanying those shoppers from a third person's perspective.
Many types of different people were identified and put up for dissection my my discerning eyes. Ok, well that's just a fancy way of saying i stood in one place, staring at everyone while i was alone. Almost immediately, i noticed the boyfriends who had gotten themselves caught in the web of going shopping to a store that catered only to women. Poor guys tried to look helpful even though most (READ: ALL) of their advise was gently ignored. Before they even finished with the "what about this dress here", their significant other (The term 'significant' is used more for the sheer quantity because of all the plus sized women trying on clothes meant clearly for anorexic women) suddenly turned to look at something else. Then when this significant other found what she was looking for, the guy stands outside the small matchbox sized room trying to portray his best 'cool' image. However most guys failed at that the moment they went to pick up a shoe they thought was good. Other than the 'ball and chained' guys, these three guys walk in asking for a conversion from an indian dress size to a UK one. We all had a laugh when they said there were looking for a size 4 and as a model, showed someone about 3 times that size. well. The point of this is, well, none actually. I'm just bored. And if you don't want to read something like this again, pray I don't accompany people shopping.

The Age of Illness

As a developing civilization we are bound to come across obstacles in our progress. In our modern life we like to think these obstacles are external factors like religion, politics and economics. A little insightful thinking however will tell you that we are the biggest obstacle in our own progress. We’ve created an environment that is not conducive to our own well being. With each passing day we invent more gadgets which will in the near foreseeable future, rob us of our well being.
About a hundred years ago, an illness was usually the effect of a strain of bacteria or virus that had evolved into something our bodies disagreed with. The beginning of the 20th century saw diseases like the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, Diphtheria which had about 10% mortality rate and Small pox which was estimated to have killed about 300 million people worldwide. Today however not only do we have to worry about new-age diseases like AIDS and SARS but also global warming and pollution which are only the after effects of our negligence. Scientists have estimated that the lungs of a city dweller have a much higher risk of developing late-stage cancer than those living in rural areas. Wasn’t that already known? I mean take for example the most populated city in the world right now: Mumbai. It is estimated that 2800 premature deaths can be traced back to air pollution alone.
Let us take a look at our technology now. Most of us have jobs that require us to sit in front of our screens while out fingers perform short repetitive actions that have more long term implications than people know about. Excessive use of a keyboard causes Repetitive strain injury (RSI) and Carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS) while using your mobile phone or a new generation PDA devices like the Blackberry causes Blackberry Thumb which all take weeks and sometimes months to recover from. We’ve now more addicted to music then ever before, so we’ve gone about inventing devices like the Ipod which insures “music on the run”. We’re immersed in either entertainment or work the entire day and nearly all of our activities involve the use of potentially dangerous devices. We now work longer days and 8 to 9 hour sleep durations seem like a myth to most people. As a result of our reliance on these inventions, we never really do rest until we’re tired or asleep. Hold on, now we’ve got something called “Sleep Tapes”. Yes, tapes you listen to while your body is supposedly resting. There’s a reason we shut our eyes while we’re asleep, it’s called mental rest!
And as we watch the next generation being raised by the television and the X-box, we look at our present generation mentally burn out by the time they’re 30. With stress and high pressure becoming a part of everyone’s day to day life, the term mid life crisis is now outdated. Welcome quarter life crisis.