Ah, Bhikku! I love the smell of modernity in the morning.
The Diary, Besant Nagar Beach, January 491 BC
As you sow, so shall you reap. Or as Chow Yun Fat might say to that yubbbba figure Zhang Ziyi, "Screeching Bat, You shave with sharp blade, It cut you. I was fighter. Now I die." Chow Yun Fat is right, as you would expect from a man who has acted as Walking Wind and Passing Gas in countless martial arts movies. Yes, indeed. Flying Charlie is spot on--What goes around, comes around, for Allah keeps the score. You give shit, and sooner or later, you'll get it right back.
The problem, of course, is that there is no real way of knowing beforehand what one is sowing. One can only guess. Uncle Sam thinks he is giving bearded foreigners some high-quality liberty and democracy; and instead of being grateful, they blow up his white ass into tiny bits. You think you are building a deep relationship with this cute new girl; and come August, she unfailingly hands you a rakhi.
Which just goes to show, once again, why Indian Tradition is a great thing. Back in my lovely motherland of Brownistan, we know exactly what we are sowing, because we have been sowing the same thing for centuries. We do as our fathers have done, and with any luck, our doings bring us a son. Some might argue that our lives are boring, but at least we avoid unpleasant surprises, like the one this young lady from Richmond had.
You see, like all truly liberated people, our Richmond heroine broke up with her boyfriend. Alas, the lad wasn't quite right up there, so he didn't just thank Allah and move on the next babe, as any normal man would. Nope. As Reuters reports, he distributed DVDs of them having sex to everyone in the neighbourhood. Thankfully, this is Gaad-Bless-Amaizhica where anthrax is in the mail and baddies in the jail. Aye, the offending boyfriend has been locked up for disturbing the peace, as well he should be. Lots of very conservative South Indians in the neighbourhood saw the video, discovered they had been doing it wrong all along, and rudely realized that their children were the boon of Gopala the milkman and not Gopala the Lord, as they had hitherto believed.
It could all have been avoided so easily. If only the said young lady had been a good traditional brown girl, she would never had her sex videos distributed in public. There would have been no sex videos, because there would have been no sex. And even if there had been, the lights would have been off, because it is the Brown Way. Tradition, that great security blanket, saves brown women from indecent exposure to boyfriends past and present. (Some might point to last year's MMS row in Delhi, but the city types are not really Brownistanis, and at any rate, Delhi is, de facto, East Pakistan.)
But I digress. The moral of the story is simple--Novelty, as a rule, bites one right on one's arse. In Conformity lies Happiness.
There! I have said it. And if I am still alive, it is only because noone really reads this blog. If they did, they would all howl in protest and issue fatwas against me. They would do so, because Individualism is the New Faith. Noone wants to be like anyone else. Everyone wants to achieve his or her own "individual potential" by "daring to be different". I shudder to think they'll succeed, for I know the limit of their potential. Most people I know can multiply, but not add. They can breed, but not read. They will try out new things of course, and get screwed in a different way each time.
But let me not lose heart yet. I am Tradition's last Messiah, and I shall sing in its defense, though my voice be lonesome. If I can win back but one prodigal, I'd have done fair by my forlorn Goddess, Conformity.
There are, in general, three kinds of people who oppose Tradition and embrace modernity.
Against the first, I speak no word. Even if I did, they wouldn't understand. These are the Hindi-speaking masses of the Great Cow Belt, and I cannot parley in their tongue, nor they in any of mine. At any rate, they are not foes of Tradition. Their idea of modernity is that they can make Hindi movies without songs and marry outside their caste. They do not think Tradition is particularly wrong, because they do not think. They are children of Kudrat, and they heed the Call of the Wild, or at least the portions of it that come with Hindi subtitles. If Tradition becomes fashionable, I'm sure they will mazey-ke-liye follow it. Their Time will come.
The second priests of modernity are Ayn Rand types. They are usually contemptuous of one's weakness, because one has not yet raped anyeone. And if one thinks one can avoid their contempt merely by raping someone, one would be wrong. They have contempt also for poverty, money, pity, sentimentality, cricket, politics, julabulajungs and all other facets of average human behaviour. They do not like man, because they admire Man. They believe that Man is fundamentally and essentially great. By Man, they are usually referring to their boyfriends, for most Ayn Rand types are teenage girls.
As one might expect, Ayn Rand types are decidedly down on Tradition. They believe that each Man must find his own true calling, which cannot be the same as anyone else's. Having found his goal, Man must achieve it, and in the process, cause death, diarrhoea and bloodsheed, or at the very least a little discomfort to others. For Man, following the beaten path is a strict no-no.
I would, of course, like to enlighten the Ayn Rand types. But to get them to listen to me, I must first rape somebody. Nay. I will let the Ayn Rand types be. Soon enough, they will get married to Man, and then even they will find it difficult to admire him.
The third, and most dangerous, opponents of Tradition are the intellectual types. They sometimes talk like the Ayn Rand types, but they are quite easy to identify because unlike the A. R. types, they are literate, and very ugly. Genius, these intellectual types argue, must needs break the rules. If Galileo had towed the line, would he have achieved lasting fame? If Michaelangelo had indulged in dikilona with little boys, would he be admired by the millions that throng the Sistine chapel? And even if these great men didn't care for fame, can there be greater happiness than the pursuit of perfection? And so saying the intellectual types look satisfied, stroke their beards and wag their tails, believing that they have said something irrefutably profound.
It is all rot, of course. Glance through the histories of the world's most famous, and you'll see that they were a bunch of miserable, run-down sods. It is hardly surprising. Each work of genius, by definition, rises above the norms of its times. For it to be recognized as a work of genius, it must first be understood by people. Now people are people, and if they have to understand something, it had better be bloody simple. And if something is really that bloody simple, it probably is not a work of genius. QED.
Aye! It is no coincidence that all these genius types are generally dead by the time you and I hear about them. My friend B~ used to come up with a Unified Field Theory every two weeks. We all thought he was mental, and it turns out we were right. But the point is that he could quite easily have been a real genius. None of us would have known a Unified Field Theory if it came and bit us on our arse.
It is clear as day. The intellectual types are wrong, because they mistake achievement for happiness. The two are anything but equivalent. Everyone knows that Michaelangelo Buonaratti, that Great Master, locked himself up in the Sistine Chapel and painted the vault all alone, Creation of Man and all. The intellectual types say that he must have felt the highest human happiness when he finished it. They are wrong, because they don't know that when Mikey finished the Sistine Chapel, he went and met his aunty:
M~: Zia Mia, I have returned.
Zia : Michaelangelo Mio, I see you have. But enough about you. Let's talk about my son Lodvico.
M~: But Zia Mia, you must hear my news. I have finished the greatest fresco on earth. Here's a sketch of it--God creating Adam.
Zia: Yes, yes, nice. Don't show it to your grandmother though. She is still old-fashioned.
M~: Why? What do you mean?
Zia: All these naked men. I understand you, Michaelangelo Mio. You were an unhappy child. Now you are a Happy Man. But your grandmother, she will be heartbroken.
M~: But, Zia Mia, this painting celebrates the Glory of Man!
Zia: Yes, it is indeed very glorious. All the same, you could have covered up the glory just a wee little bit by painting some clothing on it, just for your family's honour.
M~: But...
Zia: Enough, Michaelangelo mio! If only you had married like my Lodvico, you wouldn't be hanging like a bat on ceilings and drawing dirty pictures. But I'll always be your Zia. Come and eat something. You look starved. It is all that improper lust eating away at you.
So much for happiness in genius.
Conformity, O Sweet Goddess! When shall your Kingdom be upon us again?
The Diary, Besant Nagar Beach, January 491 BC
As you sow, so shall you reap. Or as Chow Yun Fat might say to that yubbbba figure Zhang Ziyi, "Screeching Bat, You shave with sharp blade, It cut you. I was fighter. Now I die." Chow Yun Fat is right, as you would expect from a man who has acted as Walking Wind and Passing Gas in countless martial arts movies. Yes, indeed. Flying Charlie is spot on--What goes around, comes around, for Allah keeps the score. You give shit, and sooner or later, you'll get it right back.
The problem, of course, is that there is no real way of knowing beforehand what one is sowing. One can only guess. Uncle Sam thinks he is giving bearded foreigners some high-quality liberty and democracy; and instead of being grateful, they blow up his white ass into tiny bits. You think you are building a deep relationship with this cute new girl; and come August, she unfailingly hands you a rakhi.
Which just goes to show, once again, why Indian Tradition is a great thing. Back in my lovely motherland of Brownistan, we know exactly what we are sowing, because we have been sowing the same thing for centuries. We do as our fathers have done, and with any luck, our doings bring us a son. Some might argue that our lives are boring, but at least we avoid unpleasant surprises, like the one this young lady from Richmond had.
You see, like all truly liberated people, our Richmond heroine broke up with her boyfriend. Alas, the lad wasn't quite right up there, so he didn't just thank Allah and move on the next babe, as any normal man would. Nope. As Reuters reports, he distributed DVDs of them having sex to everyone in the neighbourhood. Thankfully, this is Gaad-Bless-Amaizhica where anthrax is in the mail and baddies in the jail. Aye, the offending boyfriend has been locked up for disturbing the peace, as well he should be. Lots of very conservative South Indians in the neighbourhood saw the video, discovered they had been doing it wrong all along, and rudely realized that their children were the boon of Gopala the milkman and not Gopala the Lord, as they had hitherto believed.
It could all have been avoided so easily. If only the said young lady had been a good traditional brown girl, she would never had her sex videos distributed in public. There would have been no sex videos, because there would have been no sex. And even if there had been, the lights would have been off, because it is the Brown Way. Tradition, that great security blanket, saves brown women from indecent exposure to boyfriends past and present. (Some might point to last year's MMS row in Delhi, but the city types are not really Brownistanis, and at any rate, Delhi is, de facto, East Pakistan.)
But I digress. The moral of the story is simple--Novelty, as a rule, bites one right on one's arse. In Conformity lies Happiness.
There! I have said it. And if I am still alive, it is only because noone really reads this blog. If they did, they would all howl in protest and issue fatwas against me. They would do so, because Individualism is the New Faith. Noone wants to be like anyone else. Everyone wants to achieve his or her own "individual potential" by "daring to be different". I shudder to think they'll succeed, for I know the limit of their potential. Most people I know can multiply, but not add. They can breed, but not read. They will try out new things of course, and get screwed in a different way each time.
But let me not lose heart yet. I am Tradition's last Messiah, and I shall sing in its defense, though my voice be lonesome. If I can win back but one prodigal, I'd have done fair by my forlorn Goddess, Conformity.
There are, in general, three kinds of people who oppose Tradition and embrace modernity.
Against the first, I speak no word. Even if I did, they wouldn't understand. These are the Hindi-speaking masses of the Great Cow Belt, and I cannot parley in their tongue, nor they in any of mine. At any rate, they are not foes of Tradition. Their idea of modernity is that they can make Hindi movies without songs and marry outside their caste. They do not think Tradition is particularly wrong, because they do not think. They are children of Kudrat, and they heed the Call of the Wild, or at least the portions of it that come with Hindi subtitles. If Tradition becomes fashionable, I'm sure they will mazey-ke-liye follow it. Their Time will come.
The second priests of modernity are Ayn Rand types. They are usually contemptuous of one's weakness, because one has not yet raped anyeone. And if one thinks one can avoid their contempt merely by raping someone, one would be wrong. They have contempt also for poverty, money, pity, sentimentality, cricket, politics, julabulajungs and all other facets of average human behaviour. They do not like man, because they admire Man. They believe that Man is fundamentally and essentially great. By Man, they are usually referring to their boyfriends, for most Ayn Rand types are teenage girls.
As one might expect, Ayn Rand types are decidedly down on Tradition. They believe that each Man must find his own true calling, which cannot be the same as anyone else's. Having found his goal, Man must achieve it, and in the process, cause death, diarrhoea and bloodsheed, or at the very least a little discomfort to others. For Man, following the beaten path is a strict no-no.
I would, of course, like to enlighten the Ayn Rand types. But to get them to listen to me, I must first rape somebody. Nay. I will let the Ayn Rand types be. Soon enough, they will get married to Man, and then even they will find it difficult to admire him.
The third, and most dangerous, opponents of Tradition are the intellectual types. They sometimes talk like the Ayn Rand types, but they are quite easy to identify because unlike the A. R. types, they are literate, and very ugly. Genius, these intellectual types argue, must needs break the rules. If Galileo had towed the line, would he have achieved lasting fame? If Michaelangelo had indulged in dikilona with little boys, would he be admired by the millions that throng the Sistine chapel? And even if these great men didn't care for fame, can there be greater happiness than the pursuit of perfection? And so saying the intellectual types look satisfied, stroke their beards and wag their tails, believing that they have said something irrefutably profound.
It is all rot, of course. Glance through the histories of the world's most famous, and you'll see that they were a bunch of miserable, run-down sods. It is hardly surprising. Each work of genius, by definition, rises above the norms of its times. For it to be recognized as a work of genius, it must first be understood by people. Now people are people, and if they have to understand something, it had better be bloody simple. And if something is really that bloody simple, it probably is not a work of genius. QED.
Aye! It is no coincidence that all these genius types are generally dead by the time you and I hear about them. My friend B~ used to come up with a Unified Field Theory every two weeks. We all thought he was mental, and it turns out we were right. But the point is that he could quite easily have been a real genius. None of us would have known a Unified Field Theory if it came and bit us on our arse.
It is clear as day. The intellectual types are wrong, because they mistake achievement for happiness. The two are anything but equivalent. Everyone knows that Michaelangelo Buonaratti, that Great Master, locked himself up in the Sistine Chapel and painted the vault all alone, Creation of Man and all. The intellectual types say that he must have felt the highest human happiness when he finished it. They are wrong, because they don't know that when Mikey finished the Sistine Chapel, he went and met his aunty:
M~: Zia Mia, I have returned.
Zia : Michaelangelo Mio, I see you have. But enough about you. Let's talk about my son Lodvico.
M~: But Zia Mia, you must hear my news. I have finished the greatest fresco on earth. Here's a sketch of it--God creating Adam.
Zia: Yes, yes, nice. Don't show it to your grandmother though. She is still old-fashioned.
M~: Why? What do you mean?
Zia: All these naked men. I understand you, Michaelangelo Mio. You were an unhappy child. Now you are a Happy Man. But your grandmother, she will be heartbroken.
M~: But, Zia Mia, this painting celebrates the Glory of Man!
Zia: Yes, it is indeed very glorious. All the same, you could have covered up the glory just a wee little bit by painting some clothing on it, just for your family's honour.
M~: But...
Zia: Enough, Michaelangelo mio! If only you had married like my Lodvico, you wouldn't be hanging like a bat on ceilings and drawing dirty pictures. But I'll always be your Zia. Come and eat something. You look starved. It is all that improper lust eating away at you.
So much for happiness in genius.
Conformity, O Sweet Goddess! When shall your Kingdom be upon us again?
3 comments:
You know, even if the lights are out, some sex tapes manage the dodgy night vision green lighting thing as seen with One Night In Paris...errr...I mean I heard about the night vision lighting, not that I'd ever have seen it myself!
One Night In Paris! Narayana, what are brown girls coming to these days? Anyway, isn't it super cool that our team is winning this time. This is the summer of George, maan.
PS: Of course, your team is my team too, because its the only one with a Tamil in it. I went to watch SL vs. India, and then I realized that it really is Greater Tamil Nadu v. North India, so I switched sides. Go Dark Blues.
Loved the conversation at the end - I can well imagine that this is what wud have happened !!
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