With Brush In Hand

Here's a general rant. I just bought a new toothbrush. Its by a company which seems to sell the most amount of toothbrushes here in India (no real statistic used, just a general observation) called Oral-B. Don't worry, I'll attach an image of it below. Now to my rant. Why are there so many things on my toothbrush?! I mean, its unbelievable! Just look at it! There are 5 sets of bristles on it, with each set having a different angle. All the sets are made of some sort of fiber that I'm not familiar with but... one set is made of rubber! At the back of the head of the toothbrush, its supposed to be a tongue cleaner with strange spiral groves, very psychedelic.

I gave into the whole "if it does so many things, then it might actually be good" or in other words the "more is better" deal. But come on, its doing way too much. I'm sure if I look hard enough it can even do my taxes for me or some genetic research. I'm also sure that, on a subconscious level, I bought it just because it looked pretty.

Alice In Darklands

Alice In Wonderland has always been an obsession for people in the media arts basically because of the beautiful and artistic world called Wonderland that Lewis Carroll had imagined. Now even though Wonderland is a one of the most artistic places ever imagined and Alice's adventure being one of the greatest adventures ever written in the literary arts, I've never been able to imagine why Alice In Wonderland has always been inclined to the darker side. I've never actually read Alice In Wonderland (and I hope to read it soon), but the first time I came in contact with Alice's adventure when a game called American McGee's Alice came out in 2000. Now this game is one of the most twisted games that I have ever played and American McGee (the person responsible for the design of this game) has said that this game is how he actually looked at the world of Wonderland and a lot of people applauded it actually agreed to his perspective of the book saying that the underlining feel of the book was actually as dark as American McGee had portrayed in his game.

The main reason why I chose to write this article is because of the airing of "Alice" on The Syfy Channel and the 2010 movie release of Tim Burton's take on "Alice In Wonderland". There's so much hype created at the moment about Alice In Wonderland and everybody has been cashing in on the hype. I know this isn't the time to bash Tim Burton but there's something about him that I don't like. No doubt, his movies are great but sometimes he just goes overboard and people appreciate his total stupidity to be really really artistic, for example "Charlie And The Chocolate Factory".

But we're just going off topic here. But my main questions were,

1) What is the current obsession with Alice In Wonderland? Is it like a ticket to get yourself recognized as having an artistic mind? What's artistic about reusing an idea written in the 19th century over and over again?

and,

2) Why does Alice In Wonderland give me the creeps?! No, seriously. I'm sure its supposed to be a kids story and all but there is just something really creepy going on in there. The Grinning Cat, The Mad Hatter, The Chess Kingdom etc etc. Its just scary.

A Leak At Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant And I'm Losing Hair!

There's been a nuclear leak at the Kaiga Atomic Power Plant in Karnataka. Now I'm not surprised something like this happened and so soon. Now, I'm not one of those crazy the-world-is-gonna-end cultists, and I actually am a supporter of the nuclear power drive that the government has, after all, we need all the power we can get. Most villages in India get about 8 hours of electricity in 24 hours. But I just can't accept that we're ready to take on such a huge responsibility. I fear that the general public in this nation still don't have the moral sensibility that if a nuclear fallout does take place, we'll be able to control it. I'm just dreading the day we'll have another Union Carbide incident on our hands. Which is basically because I'm sure we haven't completely thought through all the safety protocols when a disaster occurs. I'm also sure when a nuclear fallout does occur the government will set up a committee and they'll talk about what happened and the consensus will come in the next decade or after we've lost 2 or 3 generations of the families that were effected by the fallout.

Now the Kaiga Nuclear Power Plant has a leak and I start losing hair! And I'm not the only one. Everyone I know has started to lose hair right now. Men, women, animals, you name it, they're going bald. Even my tires (lol)! I'm sure you've figured out why I'm ranting about the leak. I've been freaked out by the amount of hair I see all over my apartment! Seriously, I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Erin Brockovich story going on here. I hope somebody sees this hair-loss as a clue to some huge environmental disaster and starts some research into it because its the only reason that's come to my mind.

Have A Happy "Bloody" Eid

Yesterday, on the 28th of November 2009, was the Muslim festival of Eid-Ul-Adha. Its a festival celebrated after performing the Hajj where you have to perform a sacrifice of an animal (preferably a goat). So, living in a part of Delhi where the maximum population is Muslim, you get to see things on this day that could literally send chills down your spine. Now, I'm sure you people are asking yourself "what could actually be so disturbing on such a festive day?". Well, I happen to have the answer to that. Let me divide this narration into 2 parts. Part 1 - consisting of the day before Eid and Part 2 - consisting of the actual day of Eid. Why? Because, its just more dramatic. Haha.

Part 1 - The Day Before Eid
Imagine this in slow-motion. Its a bright sunny day, and the kids are about on the street playing and there are "goats" everywhere. The kids having fun with their goats feeding them leaves and petting them and everyone is having a gala of a time. You can hear the children laughing, the women chattering, the old reminiscing and the goats bleating. Its all very lovely, isn't it?

[Picture taken from abdusalaam.blogspot.com]

Part 2 - The Eid
Now imagine this (again in slow-motion). Its Eid day. People are dragging their goats to the butcher and the goats are crying out for help. People have open up temporary butcher shops on the roads, basements and in their front-lawns. The roads are bloody and the biblical line "and the rivers run red with blood" seems so appropriate at the moment (ofcourse, you can interchange "rivers" with "sewers" here). You've got goat stomachs, intestines and other internal crap lying on the road. Its a bloody mess.

[Picture taken from abdusalaam.blogspot.com]

How the indian muslims have turned a pious day like this into a bloody gore-fest, is beyond my comprehension. I've always thought Eid was supposed to be a happy day and people should be out about celebrating and having fun. But how can anyone have fun when you've turned the roads outside into a bloody massacre. I'm sure every goat in the world would be cursing Abraham at moment. The above picture is actually some person's front door. I'm surprised how people could be so inconsiderate as to not empathize that public slaughtering is unnerving for others. They don't even think about how unhygienic this is and it could lead to an epidemic.

Oh well, I guess that's all for ranting now. I know this isn't much of an ending to my post but it'll have to do till I improve my writing skills.

Village Cafe Uses Subway Leftovers

I was at the Village Cafe (near IIT-Delhi) the other day to enjoy some "me-time" and have a cup of coffee. I sat down and ordered a Cappuccino. They got me a cup of Cappuccino with the usual packets of sugar. But to my surprise the packets of sugar had the word "Subway" written on them, which shocked me to see that a cafe-house which has been running as long as Village Cafe (that would be somewhere around 5-8 years now) would resort to something so petty.

Now the location of the Village Cafe is like this, its right under the Subway (I hope you guys know I'm talking about the Subway fast-food chain, the sandwiches one) in the basement. So I'm sure they could get away with a few packets of sugar just for kicks. But giving them to your customers to cut costs is just...hmmmm...I dont know. Not right, I guess. I'll share the picture with you guys so you could know what I'm talking about.


I'm not sure why they would resort to something like this and I'm still trying to make sense of this. But if anyone comes across with an explanation to this write it in the comments below.

I know this isn't what we're expecting out of this blog but I'm just trying to get the ball rolling so I can get used to writing posts. Inconvenience is regretted (yeah, like I care).

Daughter...I am disappoint

Yes, I've finally come back to apologize to everyone who came across this blog with high hopes of finding the answers to the questions I had placed in my previous post. It saddens me that I was not able to fulfill this experiment. I had initiated it with great expectations but then completely forgot about it after awhile.

This blog was an experiment that I had thought of doing because I was under the impression that I had a lot of interesting things going on and would have abundant things to write about. But how is it for life to disappoint us every step of the way. Yes, that's true. I completely ran out of things to say. The main purpose of this blog was to talk about numerous incidents that I would come across on this pathetic journey called life and be able to dissect each and every part of it to understand "why" things happen and "why" people react the way they do.

This was really an attempt to be able to understand my own thought process and to make sense of my own decisions. And now I think it is high time that I start documenting all of these incidents before these discoveries fade into oblivion.

Well, enough of being regretful, its time to get to work. So, on with the experiments! Or as other people would say, "lets cut the bitch up"!

The Thesis

I have started this report as an insight to the inner workings of the Human Psyche. The human mind to me is one of the most spectacular specimen available in the world. To understand the mind is the most difficult task ever attempted by humankind. Even the journey to the Moon was a walk-in-the-park as compared to this monolithic task. I have taken upon me to study this spectacular specimen to understand just one question..."Why?". The reason to why people do the things they do, the (for the most part) stupid acts, the (rarest of the rare) intelligent act and the (seldom times) acts done out of pure compassion. I take to understanding the human psyche by posting every strange event that I come across as well as every feeling I experience due to the ever changing material realm known as The World, the things that influence me, the certain arts created by the fusion of the brain-fluids to which give us masterpieces that make us go "WTF?!" in awe-inspiring manner, the fashion and the fads, the over-all mass hysteria, all will be discussed on this blog.

Yes, the fact that my tastes are very dark and disturbing will have enormous influence on this blog. Please don't be alarmed by the frequent disturbing images that will be flashing on this blog, they are only testaments to the fact of what the human mind is capable of. Anyways, I will meet you students later as my recent specimen needs to be fed before it starts to hurt itself due to its rage, "coming Igor!!". Now if you will excuse me.