Of the human desires: Pokémon GO

Meanwhile in the world  

~  The whole world is left completely addicted to the new app “Pokémon Go” ~

Well not the whole world but yeah almost every smart phone bearer. And the latest person to join this bandwagon is me. ME. ME as in the guy in *the everyday me*. Okay.. Okay,  coming back to the point. So even I have started to play this game. I am reserving my opinion about this game because you all know what it would be..(Read: AWESOME!).  

I won’t be surprised if this game would be having more adult users. This game is based on the hit 90’s T.V show and most of today’s youth have grown up watching it. No doubt this game is such a big hit because it comes with a sense of childhood nostalgia which is very dear to all.

While there are some other factors which has also been contributed to the success, such as use of Augmented Reality (A.R) etc, I think the success of the app lies in some deeper human desires.

                                                             image source

One of them is having your childhood dream fulfilled. Raise your hand if you were one of those kids who used to dream about growing up and being a Pokémon master. Back in those days you must be thinking how cool it would be to follow Ash and his gang on their adventure.

It’s 2016 and tada! Your dream has been turned into reality and you actually have to travel places to collect Pokémons! As we grew and eventually “LIFE” happened, we came to know that things don’t always turns out as we want it to be.  Most of those dreamer kids are now stuck in a boring 9 to 6 job. This game gives nothing but an escape from reality.

Another thing which I notice about this game is the entitlement of power which it gives. Being able to “capture” so many Pokémon and being their “master” gives some sort of pride. The more you capture the better. It may sound bizarre but don’t you think it is similar to the man’s desire of having control or power over something? Moreover you battle different masters to take control over a gym and this power tussle continues.

The catchphrase used by the Ash is “Gotta catch ‘em all”. This brings me to discuss about the human greed. No matter how many Pokémon you catch, there will be hunger for more. It is analogous to the never ending satisfaction which we tend to have. We are always chasing a better life, always trying to increase the amount in our pay check. There are very rare people who are content with what they have. This game gives us one more reason to satisfy our thirst of “owning” more or rare things.

With so many things working out for this game, I don’t see the craze dying any time soon.

Before wrapping up, I would like to advice you all to be aware of the surroundings. And yeah if possible, do catch ‘em all!

Hope to see you in nearby gym! 

Cake,Biscoot,Paruti!!

“Parutiiii!!! Cake, Biscoot Parutii!!”

Whenever I used to hear these sweet rhythmic words, I knew it was 4 in the evening. Hopped on a bicycle, which had a huge basket tied to its rear end, paddled the “Bread wale uncle”. Continuously ringing the bell, he kept repeating the above words. And I swear it was way too catchy.  My Mom used to buy bread from him almost every day. And if it as my lucky day, she even bought some cupcakes for me! For those of you who are still wondering what Paruti is? Let me spell it out loudly, Paruti is bread.

Last weekend when I was buying bread, I suddenly remembered about that “Bread wale uncle”and his catchphrase! I have some hazy memory of me standing on my window waiting for him to arrive and then tell my mom about his arrival. He had an amiable personality and a smile which can make anyone’s day. I don’t exactly remember when we stopped buying bread from him. Actually I used to live in a small town. But as the town expanded, the availability of stuffs in the market became more prevalent. Branded goods became more common and I think our preference shifted to those branded bread and we stopped buying the local brand which the bread wale uncle used to bring. I think he stopped coming to our township because his sales had fallen badly.  

When I think over this, I realise that how we tend to forget or neglect contribution done by many people in our life. As I said, we used to live in a small township, so I should be thankful to that bread wale uncle who used to bring basic amenities at our door step. But then again, this is how the capitalist market works!

In our daily life, we may come across many such people whose actions are taken for granted. I know it is hard to return the gratitude to every such person in our life, but we may try our best to acknowledge the work they are doing for us. And yes, it should be done to people of every section our society.

And for today’s post I want to show my gratitude to one of my bestestestestestestest friend, Sunil Sowrabh! It was because of him, that I dragged my lazy ass to write this piece.

Finally,

Three cheers for all those unsung heroes in our life!

Thank you for your services J              

Different struggles you face while hunting home for rent:

Hi all,,, it has been a long time since I posted anything. Well I have been busy. I located to new place and then I went for a vacation!

Today’s post is going to be about house hunting. Here is the scenario... You have just landed a new job.. You are away from your family in an alien city and you don’t want to continue living in any dingy hostel... this is the time when you are desperate to rent a home for your own. A peaceful place where you can lead your life as you like!! As good it may sound, finding your own dream place is nothing more of a nightmare... here is my list of struggles you can go through while house hunting!

1. Decrypting the Ads:

Have you ever came across those advertisement which sounds too good to be true?

The rent is just in your budget. It is close to your place of work /university. It has all the things which you had mentioned in your checklist! And the next thing you do is say “Shut up and take my money”. Well, my advice is to find the invisible * sign of the terms and condition applied!

No deal and I repeat no deal is perfect. You should have thorough knowledge of what you are getting into before signing any agreement. Yup, that huge room as posted in the ad sadly shrinks the day you visit it.

2. Obnoxious landlord/tenants:

Now I don’t want to sound judgemental but all of us are creepy in some way or the other. But what completely baffle me is how the person who is renting out his/her home is so ridiculous with their demands. If you live in India , then you must be familiar with the ads which have too many terms and condition. Some of them are..

·     You should be vegetarian

·     You should non-smoker/non-drinker

·     You should follow a particular religion only

·     You should be a virgin OR should be married with minimum two kids

·     You should be an adarsh balak(ideal boy)

·     You should have six packs abs

Okay I admit that I have exaggerated few points but most of them are true!

Just explain me one thing... if the tenants are so paranoid about their home... why to rent it in first place :/

3. Locating the house:

So now it is the time to go and take a tour of the house, you are interested in. The address mentioned in the ad suggests that it is “really” close to the nearest taxi stand or the bus stop thus making it such a tempting location. Well, best of luck finding that apartment in the first place. Now the definition of “really” close may vary from person to person, it appears. Oh and don’t forget to wear your jogging shoes as it is going to be a long walk ;)

4. Cynical society authorities:

The worst of them all! These are breed of old, retired uncles or bored middle aged aunts whose only mission remaining in the life is to hassle the young generation. They will ridicule you with their judgement which dates back to the Victorian era. They will list out “rules” which has to be followed at any cost. They will give you dirty looks whenever you come late or even pass aside them. They take their role of society secretary/treasurer way too seriously... and to some extent where you want to tell them to calm the f**k down!

5. Your wallet:

Last but definitely not the least... your beloved wallet i.e your bank balance. You did your research, went through many resources and finally zeroed down to your dream place when suddenly you read about the deposit to be submitted! Good bye dream house.. let’s look for some other mediocre place.

But hey after going through this path of fire, we definitely find that “home sweet home” for us.

So never lose hope and keep hunting! 

Finally

Three cheers for the search engines

For making our hunts easier!!!

All gifs sourced from here

The nationalism debate: when will we get “Azadi” from the hypocrisy?

The last few weeks have enraged a new controversial debate in India. It is about who is national and who is anti-national.

The debate started when Kanhaiya Kumar, the president of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student’s union, was arrested and charged with sedition and criminal conspiracy. The charges were that anti-Indian slogans were raised at an event, in which it was quoted that Afzal Guru’s hanging was not only moot, but also wrong, because he was fighting for independence of Kashmir. There shall be many who will fight for the independence of Kashmir, and that they cannot be controlled by India. Why kill them who want independence?

. The charges were such that Kanhaiya, being the president, is responsible for the illegal activities being carried out in the campus. He along with other students faced the charge, which also included Umar Khalid.

Now a whole lot of drama in the parliament and in the media was carried out. Umar Khalid, who resurfaced on day in the campus, gave filmy dialogues like “My name is Umar Khalid and i am not a terrorist”. Kumar was beaten up in the jail, Smriti Irani proved that she is a brilliant actress, Rahul Gandhi tried to be witty, Narendra Modi quoted Rajiv Gandhi, the video which showed the anti-national activity, proved to be doctored, Kumar was released on bail, Kumar made an impactful speech filled with quotes such as “we want freedom in India and not freedom from India”.... oh did I mention that media went crazy covering this story? I guess I did!  

So kids, last year, the topic of debate was tolerance.

This year it is the topic of nationalism.

I choose my today’s topic as “The nationalism debate: when will we get “Azadi”

from the hypocrisy. “ Azadi” means freedom . This word was invoked again and again by Kumar.

So let’s talk about freedom of speech? Ummm... ok

Standing in front of thousand people, being live-telecasted by the whole media, you are accusing that we don’t have freedom of speech in India? Lol , OK!

You asked the prime minister of the country to quote Hitler, purely indicating that he is no less than a dictator. Ok...so did the dictator ordered to shoot you or hang you? Cause as far as I remember Hitler used to do that.

You invoked late Rohith in your speech again and again and talked about injustice but

I would have been happy if you would have also invoked the name of the Sujan Mukherjee.

Now ask who is he?

Just a few days back he posted something on Facebook , which created tension in the area of Birbhum,West Bengal.  He posted something on India-Pakistan t20 match, which he thought was funny but turned out to hurt religious sentiments. Though he was arrested on posting outrageous stuff, crowd from a certain community tried to create ruckus in the police station and even demanded him to be handed over to the mob. Now who will assure safety of Sujan? Did he get justice??

Did he find a place in your speech Mr.Kumar? I don’t think so, because election are coming up in Bengal and your party(left) will not want  to lose out voters there.

You can publically give out a “lal salaam” (red salute) because you are leftist. But when RSS tries to put forward an idea you accuse them of being communal and fascist. Ok, fair enough.

My intention here is not to demean Kumar here. I just don’t follow his ideology. And the irony is that if I oppose his ideology, I would be tagged  as “Sanghi”,”Bhakt”, ”Hindu fascist”   and what not.

And it is ironical because these people are fighting for a practise which gives space to every ideology. But at the same time they demean the people of ABVP, BJP and of course the new punching bag of the nation, RSS.

I have to give him credit for delivering a brilliant speech though. I agree with fact over freedom from oppression, poverty, caste system. But you ask all this to a newly form government.

 Is the caste system or poverty eradicated in west Bengal, where the left was in power for more than 3 decades? The same party whose ideology you follow!

This evening I heard that Kumar is going to be key campaigner for the left in assembly election of west Bengal and Kerela. Surprise, Surprise!

image source

So when are we actually getting freedom from these selective outrage and hypocrisy??

This entire tale has been blown out of proportion. Those who had to gain political advantage from this issue are already thanking their stars. No one has to right to say that who is national or who is anti-national other than the court. The same court which gave the below excerpts after releasing Kumar

“Suffice it to note that such persons enjoy the freedom to raise such slogans in the comfort of the university campus but without realising that they are in this safe environment because our forces are there at the battle field situated at the highest altitude of the world where even the oxygen is so scarce that those who are shouting anti-national slogans holding posters of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt close to their chest honouring their martyrdom , may not be able to withstand those condition even for an hour ”

Why am I writing this? I may not be student of the one of the most prestigious university in this country. Neither am I elected to any post or a good orator. But I am an Indian citizen who has the freedom of the speech to give out my thought to this world without misusing right.

Why it is nice to meet strangers:

How many times have this happened with you?

You are in a conversation with a member of your family or a friend and they start telling you one of their experiences....

When someone uses this word :”Stranger”, a kind of negative image surfaces in the mind of the listener. There is a pre-conceived notion that strangers are bad, thug, psychopath, serial killer, stalker, cons and what not! We thus forget the fact that even we are stranger for lot of people in this world. They are just like us, a small entity in this big universe.

My today’s discussion would be about meeting strangers and why I like doing that.

As I have said that I identify myself as an introvert, it is usually hard for me to break the ice and start a conversation with a stranger. But I always like doing it. I have this theory... that when you meet someone who has zero knowledge about your past, you are like this fresh page in a notebook. Completely blank! You get a chance to portray yourself like you want to do. No fear, no inhibition! You can use any colour you want to paint yourself with.

Now when I told this idea to one of my friend, she replied by saying,” Oh you mean disguising as someone else “. This is quite a valid argument. You can also deceive the person sitting in front of you or even you can be conned by the stranger, but let us look into the brighter perspective of this idea.

Suppose you were a shy, bullied or lonely person in your previous place, like school, college or even a new job! So now you have this whole new opportunity to completely revamp your life and lead it completely different from the previous one you were having. Isn’t that great though? No extra baggage from the past and you get to start afresh! And who helps you live this life? The very same strangers! In this whole roller coaster ride, we meet some strangers who later become our life partner, friend or BFFS! Thus it is always nice to meet strangers.

While I write this article, I am pondering over the fact what adventure waits for me in this completely new city. But for now let me begin the chapter of Pune 1.0.

So while I got teary eyed while leaving Gandhinagar, I am trying to embrace Pune with the same zeal I embraced the former city! Let’s see happens next!

The “new year-new me” faux pas:

Happy new year everyone!

Here’s wishing you all one more of year health, happiness and success!  Was that a boring wish? Okay.....Let me try again! Here’s wishing you one more year of booze, orgasm and free food coupons!  

You may think that why am I wishing on 3^rd of Jan? ... Well, I wanted the euphoria of the new year to be settled down and wanted you all back in the normal phase....( I mean the phase which you were in last week  :P )

Every New Year we want some changes around us, because apparently just the change of calendar doesn’t suffice our necessity! So we get highly motivated and pledge to ourselves that the coming year is going to drastically different for us. We not only pledge to ourselves but make our desires public! And that is the worst mistake which we tend to commit. Yup, you get it, I am talking about the “new year-new me” blunder.

We have hopes and we have dreams.

Someone want six packs (of abs, not beer), someone wants to be 10 pointer in college and someone want to update their blog daily (  L ). It’s good to have dreams and aspirations but embedding that dreams with the New Year’s resolution, is the worst thing that you could possibly do. Let me be a little straight forward here.... Most resolutions last maximum till one month. Then we all return to our same old practises. There can be tons of reason for that! But most of the time we quit! But having a resolution and then quitting it, is not that a bad thing, But declaring your resolutions like national news headlines to everyone, is a bad practise to do.

It is because we are surrounded with people who would like to make fun of your failure than support you in fulfilling your dreams. Very few people would be there in your life who will keep on motivating you! So my dear readers, please don’t unveil your plans for the coming year to everyone easily.

                                                                 image source

OH! And one more thing... if you fail to follow the resolution that you had made.. Then please don’t wait till the next year to follow it. Just have strong determination, and then collect all the broken pieces and start once again! What’s the worst that could happen? You will fail? No issues... you can try again and again!  Please don’t give up...

So, from this time, make sure to tell yourself “new me or better me”, but just do that every day instead of every New Year!

Have a great year ahead J ! 

It is year-end already?!

And I am actually asking this question ... where did the year 2k15 go away? Its like years have stolen shoes from Usain Bolt and are in race with each other to see who finishes first!

Okay that maybe an exaggerated analogy... but my today’s topic is going to revolve around the year end.

I still remember the day when I jotted down the last blog entry for the year 2014. It was about New Year and nostalgia. But I am not feeling nostalgic this time. In fact, I am having a hard time in digesting the fact that year 2015 is about to end. Year end is always special for me, as I look forward for some sort of new start, every year! And this fact is eating me up.

I don’t have that special excitement in me anymore. But is the reason behind my dullness is that  I don’t have anything to look forward the coming year? Wrong! Next year is going to be really crucial as I am going to move to a new city.

So, does that mean year-end has no significance for me anymore?

Maybe! Well, to be honest, it is just the change of date and calendar. The first two months will simply pass wishing each other “happy new year” (even though we don’t mean it) and then the monotony will continue. Of course, we all are going to commit the mistake like this  “20156“ or the artistic one are going to overwrite the 5 with 6. Oh and how can I forgot the habit of checking out number of holidays we will be getting this year (btw 2016 has many long weekends). And please don’t get me started over resolution.

That is it! Nothing else! Then why do we all go gaga over new years? Is it because of holidays? New Year’s party? Hope of getting lucky when the clock struck 12 during new year’s night?(yup, I am a rom-com fan).

I guess I am slowly entering the mundane adult life, where there is no much hope left and even New Year means just the change of calendar! But then, while writing this whiny post, I have decided that I am not going to lose to my lethargic and complaining nature! I have to revamp myself and thus be more optimistic. Somehow I got my lost passion back, just with this little introspection.

New Year  remains charming as ever!