Sid-O-Scope

A recent controversial article by Chetan Bhagat tried to highlight a moot point of how the Bhakts (as the Narendra Modi supports are called on internet) are sexually frustrated, male egoist and are people with no proper English dialect (which might summarize the last three characters in his books or any Bollywood film for that matter). But while his observations are completely without any research (as are his flat stories or half-cooked Bollywood plot boilers) the main purpose of this article to set the record straight. Lets look at the facts without any masala added to it. Since the dawn of internet there were trolls who loved to seek attention. They first started email marketing sending countless emails about the exclusive offer they had. But as technology grew closer we brought all sorts of people together and with them we brought these trolls near us. This is a global phenomena and not limited to India. A definition of an internet troll by Wikipedia is as follows In Internet sla...

"Arvind Kejriwal..." he began the sentence. Since this election has come up many of my friends are bitten by this new fever. All of the sudden, without any warning, without any notice they will begin the sentence taking name of their favorite politician (earlier the words were reserved for Sachin Tendulkar and Sehwag) "... Arvind Kejriwal was part of the system and has finally vowed to change it," my friend said proudly driving the unserviced vehicle on M.G. Road. "When was the last time you did a P.U.C.," I asked matter of factly because we were painting the town black. "I don't remember," he said, "My father must have done it before he gave me this car." "As I remember your father gave you this car almost seven years ago when we were in college, right?" I asked. "Yeah man," he said changing the topic, "But think what Arvind Kejriwal can do when we make him the Prime Minister of the country....

Since the Election Commissioners Code of Conduct talking about the elephant in the room is a very painful activity, specially since Elephants are hidden from public view before the elections. But this post is not about a political party but is about the political will. Or for that matter, the lack of it. Whenever a new political ideology grips the nation, a series of similar looking but going nowhere statements come into picture. We need to empower woman, we need to take care of the poor, the farmers are to be supported and the list goes on. Every political party goes on and on how they will 'listen' to a particular sector and help them. Here is the elephant in the room which we all conviniently ignore, corruption is not the only problem gripping this giant Union of India. Populism is. One of the biggest rot to our system since independence is the concept of reservation. The idea of reservation started as a means to 'empower' the backward classes but turned int...

From time to time nowadays certain people choose to start a one sided debate against me over my views. I won't go to the length of calling these voices as an organized effort by a political outfit or a group like those high class ignorant journalist. No, these people are passionate and true believers about their political leader, spiritual leader or religious leader. I don't deny making a provoking statement so that one of these start a debate on Twitter, the intention is not malicious, mind you, because debate improves knowledge, progresses society. Journalism was once a profession that welcomed debate, nowadays it is imposing views between commercial breaks. But bashing journalist is not the point of this post (I just do it for fun), the point of the blog is this people are afraid of change. People are afraid of things that change and will go to any length to prevent it from happening. On the eve of Penguin rekindled the age old battle between creative liberties a...

After Mr. Bharathi of the AAP fame decided to raid a so-called African drug party in kirkee, the residents cheered. After all these Africans were walking around wearing short dresses and "ruining" the "sanskar" on their boys. Of course it was the personal agenda of law minister cum Batman had to take matter in his own hands. The police are again in league with the corrupt members of parliament. He is the minister we deserve not the minister we need and all that. Ofcourse the superman without underpants or the one man army against corruption is not far left behind. While Mr. Kejriwal the honorable chief minister of Delhi had to run away from his own junta durbar due to errant public, he found his strength in doing a protest against the central government. A wise man once said With great powers comes great responsibility but these words are wasted on the crusaders against corruption as they go on stage with a list of people who are corrupt with no proof at...

India is my country. All Indians are my brothers and sisters. The vague memory I have from my school days is singing the national pledge without giving a thought about its words or what it actually meant. When the boys hit puberty, a most common running joke was about all Indians becoming sisters (not sure if the same joke ran on the girls side). The school got over and we moved on to college, people forgot the national anthem, let alone the pledge. Life hit hard and fast, it was survival of the fittest in the wild. The rosy picture got over and we realized by the time we will complete our education, there are absolutely no jobs available for those anything less than an engineer or a doctor. It was dog vs dog world out there and survival was imperative. Entering corporate world was not a big relief since 3000 of other people were fighting for the same thing. So all in all, surviving in India was a big fight and if all Indians are my brothers and sisters, it was Cain and Abel all ove...

The other day I was talking to a bunch of men in our society (the ones who feel they are men only when they play cricket on the street) and the topic started about divorce. So the gossip was (incidentally when men gossip, it's not gossip, it's speculation) that a known person in the locality was getting a divorce. His wife has alleged that the man and his family tortured her. Now unusually in cases like these it is mandatory to have a opinion over the topic in hand. So one guy said, the divorce man is a fool, if he was in the divorce mans place he would make his wife behave.  Before he could get into details, another spoke, but maybe the wife is right. This person and his family are a bit egoistic, they must have tortured her. The first gyaani spoke again, obviously this is right thing to do. See these girls are like that only, that's why I did not marry my girlfriend. There are girls who are good to be girlfriend but not your wife. At this point I was a ...

According to the blog in Washington post, racism in India is very prevalent. You can see the blood red colored India very prominent on the map . This story was just mentioned as a passing remark over a coffee table with a smirk, 'Yeah its India, no one cares about race, but they do care about is caste'. It is extremely true about caste system prevalent in India even after almost fifty years of Independence. People still considered other people from schedule tribes and caste as dirty or disgusting. Reservations in education, jobs and by some unconfirmed election butter promotions, has added more to this feud. The number of people who hate other people based on their caste has definitely increased ten fold in the last fifty years. Earlier it was based on some ambiguous religious text, now it is based on medical seat availability. In a normal world any political party getting riddled in scandals popping up faster than rabbits can make babies, will lose the l...

"Its all smokes and mirror," screamed an oversmart audience to the magician on stage. The magician looked at the over smart spectator and said, "You sir, will join me on stage for my next act." "As if," said the over smart spectator. "And for my next act," the magician said, "I am going to make this man disappear." "As if," the over smart spectator said. He was told to inspect the box, which seemed fine. "I am going to expose your trick," said the sceptic. "And now ladies and gentlemen for the magic," he asked the sceptic to step inside the box, "Abracadabra..." Puff, a big ball of smoke surround the box. Someone coughed. The box opened and the sceptic was not seen anywhere. Encore, claps, claps, Once more, once more, screamed the audience. Everyone was too busy to notice the sceptic walking outside the magicians tent counting money in his hands. India on an whole is a funny country. Y...

Our societies and corporations are formed by psychopaths and power honchos who love controlling others life by controlling information. What is common between terrorist organization, Government and corporation? They all breed in silence. In the study of sociology one understands the structure of the organization of a society. There are two types of leaders, one on which leadership is thrust upon and another who rise up to the challenge and 'dedicate' their lives in leadership. The former we call heroes while the later we call politicians. We usually praise the later for they rose up to the challenge, but we ignore one fact, the people who actually rise up to lead are power hungry, psychopaths and mostly feed on negative emotions. Don't get me wrong, I won't say all are bad, yes there are also a few who do manage to stay uncorrupt but not for long. The draw of power is so powerful, escaping it is not an easy task as it is. Just as the way moths are attracted to lights...

The problem with having an open mind is every person with a opinion feels it is his mandatory duty to come and put up a sign board in your mind of his ideologies. There are those who feel it it their birth right to tell me how wrong am I to say that Kasab deserves a free trial or how wrong am I to stop at a traffic signal at the dead of the night. Whatever the ideologies, I simply smile at them and put my hand on their shoulder. Its as simple as that. With the recent sad event of bomb blast in the city, people had a general opinion about one common thing. Some people said, it was Kasab birthday. Some said, the Government should start doing something for the state and to begin with Kasab. There were many, many forwards the social network took on the name as if Kasab was the epicenter of all the terror activities in the world. With the news storming around and the confusion about Kasab birthday, there was another little news let out by a high prolific leader he cl...

Whenever someone comes to me with the idea of signing the janlokpal bill, I pity at the person with such a sweet and innocent hope that one document is going to solve the problem haunting India for last 200 years and more. Yes well, I don't believe that janlokpal is going to solve the problem anymore than the reservation is actually going to help any stupid backward class person grow in life. When we look at the whole world in general, there are many skeptical views on janlokpal bill. True believers will go to extreme length forwarding emails to everyone asking them to sign some petition against the corrupt people. The skeptics will then go and ask questions like what will happen if the lokayukt is corrupt etc. etc. etc. Both these arguments as they amuse me, they also are a cry for help. People are frustrated about corruption and the way it is affecting the country and want to do something about it. People in initial stage of frustration are still having the hope that s...

After the recent stripping for patriotism campaign a new anti-corruption wave has  hit the country, it has became a fashion statement to shout, 'Mera neta chor hai'. People are twitting day and night about the corruption and asking for support to Anna in his 40 hours fast (so far) Anna Hazare is a brave man, he chose to go on a fast until death exactly after world cup and before the start of IPL. Yes, good for him, people would have to choose between India vs Pakistan and him, the choice won't be nice. Corruption is a serious issue happening in India. There must be some sort of voodoo magic happening that is corrupting every person ruling the nation. The Jan Lokpal bill proposed by Anna Hazare and some other publicity hogging social activist (don't blame me, I support Hazare don't ask me to support Sarabhai) is magical, amazing, incredible and dangerous. If we look at the history of India, you will find many similarities in what is happening now and what has ha...

The day begin just like any other, the coffee maker hooted making strange noise proving its existence. I turned up the morning edition of news, to check if any scandal is on today just like always. Witnesses the poetic irony of Japan I felt sad as well as a little nice, we are finally learning we cannot control things. Japan will be a reminder to entire mankind that we cannot control things beyond a certain level, what ensures is total chaos. Just as always, when I was thinking about chaos, a chaos was heard on the stairs. No wonder the torpedo hit me not physically but mentally as he entered my room. 'This is bullshit,' he said, wasting entire energy on a certain word directly crashed in front of me. 'Coffee?' I politely offered him some. 'Didn't you listen?' he asked, not understanding my gesture that I don't care, 'They now are reserving some places for the Jats too.' 'Congratulations,' I replied turning back to my coffee. The ...