26/11 for An 8 Year Old

Hello Everyone!

I am Pragati because my name is Pragati. Mom says Pragati means development and progress. She says that I am development and progress of India, so I am Pragati of India.

You know when this Pragati of India, I mean I was 7 years old I used to remember 3 important dates. 15th August because that is our happy Independence day, 26th January because that is our happy republic day and 18th August. 18th August... because that is my happy birthday.

Now Pragati of India, I mean I am 8 years old. Now Mom says that I have to remember one more day, 26th November. But I hate it because first it doesn't have a name and second Mom doesn't even let me use happy before it. I just don't get the point, If we can't use happy before it, then why should we remember it. Now I have the extra burden of remembering one more day in addition to huge syllabus already there. Would these days keep adding as I grow older. Did it happen to you also when you were 8. Does it create any additional burden on you also, this addition of new dates every year. I think I was better when I was 7.

Pragati Gupta
An 8 Year Old Kid

The Free Mistakes of Your Life!!!

Dear Chetan Bhagat,

Hi, Hope you are doing fine.

I recently happened to read one of your books with the name “The 3 Mistakes of My Life”. I hope you do remember that you wrote it. Well, actually it won’t be right to say that I happened to read it as I didn’t. I wasn’t travelling any long distance train for which I might need some book to kill my time. Neither, I am any more an MBA student who is ready to read any bullshit just to make sure that he doesn’t have to listen to the Glorified Management Jargons during the stupid lectures given by Who’s Who of the Industry. I am not a retired professional. I am not a tired professional. I am not a rich man’s house wife for whom moving the eyeballs while reading would be a good calorie burner and would therefore had to read on the prescription of some dietician. Incidentally, now that the question has arisen, let me clarify you that I am a male so I can never be a house wife though; I am ready to be a house husband in case any of working lady is interested. Coming back to same point, I am certainly not a patient admitted in the general ward of a government hospital who would any way have to read any book for want of other options. Overall, I am not any of those who might have had happened to read your book. And therefore I would like to correct myself from my earlier statement - “I recently happened to read one of your books….” to the statement- “ I recently read one of your books…… ”. So, when I was going to read it I knew well in advance what I was doing and I did it quite intentionally. I hope it would make you feel a little better.

So, now that you already know that I have read your book and I read it quite knowingly the next logical question, which might be and would be arising in your mind, should be that why, then, did I ever plan to read it. Believe me it’s the same question which most of the people had asked themselves after they had read it. But I didn’t. I hope this would make you feel a little more better (please ignore the grammatical mistake). I would keep making you feel better and better as I progress through this letter. I am not a big fan of yours who would read all the books written by you just because they were written by you, though, I must confess that I have already read all the books written by you but, again, that is not because they were written by you. I also won’t say that the book has been a lesser disappointment to me than it has been to other readers who planned or happened to read it. And I am definitely not saying that I didn’t ask the question “ Why did I ever planned to read this book?”, once I had read it, just to make you feel somewhat more better, which I had promised earlier that I would keep making. I genuinely did not feel the need to ask it to myself. I always knew why I was doing it unlike most of the rest of the things of my life for which I still don’t know why I did whatever I did.

It wasn’t a strategic move in the parlance of a recent graduate from Top Notch MBA institute (it could not have been). To deviate a little, it would be worthwhile to mention that there are other MBA institutes also except IIM A (B, C, L, K, I, S included for that matter) like mine whose students still like to claim to have studied at TOP Notch MBA college though you may beg to differ on it. Coming back, if the market research reports were to be believed then it was not even a good investment. So you might consider me a little entrepreneurial about the fact that I defied all the logics, reports and customer feedbacks to venture into reading your book probably purely on my gut feeling. But, unfortunately, it was not for my gut feeling also.
You might not have given it so much of thought before you wrote it as to why you should write it the way you could be wondering now, to figure out, why on earth did I ever read your book, the way I have sensationalized it. India TV would hire me, I bet, on my terms if the HR ever happens to or plans to read this letter of mine. Don’t worry I won’t sensationalize it any further. So, here comes the reason as to why I read your book. I read your book because I felt it was human. In fact, every human being who ever read this book had read this book because it was human. They might not know that they read it because it was human to read it but it was, trust me on that. I know that animals can’t read but even if animals could read, it would still be only humans who would read this book because it is actually so human to read this book. You could feel better about it though you might be thinking was it actually so human but deep down inside you also know that it is. You always knew that it is and that is the precise reason why you wrote it and that is the only reason why readers read it. They were all humans, how they could not have.

You know how human it is to err but what is even more human is to tell others that they have erred. I swear to God that I have never missed an opportunity throughout my life to tell others their mistakes and there have been occasions when I did not even wait for them to commit a mistake so that I could tell them that they have committed one. I told them in advance that they are going to commit one as and when I foresaw it which I generally do. Being a human I consider it my utmost duty towards humanity and fellow humans to point out their mistakes. If I won’t tell them then who would and if nobody does then the poor soul would keep repeating the same mistake. I think it’s always better to commit different mistakes, every time you have to commit it than to commit the same mistake over and over again. That would be so dumb, dull and boring apart from being a highly non-learning experience. I mean, it’s always the mistakes from which men (and women as well) learn and wise men (and women as well) are those who learn from others’ mistakes. Needless to say, we humans are wisest of all animal and therefore, I feel so human while finding mistakes like I never do with any other thing associated with humanity.

So, when you provided me and us with an opportunity to know the 3 mistakes of your life by reading “The 3 Mistakes of My Life”, how could any human with humanity in his heart, would have refused to read it. That would have been so inhuman. Humans would any given day be ready to shell out any amount of money to know the mistakes done by others what the f…. hell 300 bucks are. The best of the memories I cherish are the memories of wrongs done by others rather than rights done by me. But the funniest part is that you also did not write about the mistakes of your life. You just wrote about the mistakes of somebody else’s life in first person. That is what makes this book is so human. I am sure it must have been equally human for you to write the way it has been for us to read.

Now, before I end this letter, let me give you an honest feedback for you like a human being would always do. Most of the humans whom I came across, who had read this book told me that it was not worth reading but I still did. So in the end, just to make you feel a little better (which I had promised somewhere in the middle that I would keep doing), let me confess before you that this book of yours is yet better than “In The Line Of Fire” by Mr. Parvez Musharraf about which, almost all had thought that his glorified book was not even worth writing. At least nobody felt so about yours. So, you score some points over him. I hope it does make you feel better.

Looking forward to read some more HUMAN stories.

Warm Regards,
VINEET GARG
(Fellow Human)

The Sixth Non-sense

WHATs, HOWs and WHYs: When I told my friend about something titled ‘Sixth Non-sense’, that I was planning to write, he asked me if it was a spoof of that epic movie by Manoj Night Shyamalan called Sixth Sense. I said that I didn’t know. I had not seen the movie. How would I know, whatever I wrote, might eventually turn out to be a spoof on the movie purely unintentionally?
The Background: Spoofs, I have never believed in. I think spoofs are fun of others’ original work and it is bad to do so knowing that so few people do original work. Unlike most of the writers, I always do the original and once done, I always believe that it was original like….. most of them. It may be a piece of shit but at least its original.
With such high regards for originality, I had long been looking for some sensible topic to write on. I, obviously, could not find any. Finally, when none of my efforts seemed to be bearing fruits, I decided that I won’t sit idle and would write nonsense till the time, though later I realized that it’s easier said than done. One could be non-sense without sensing it but to do non-sense in ones senses is really appreciable. And then these people around you…… they have this uncanny ability to draw some piece of sense out of any non-sense. I didn’t want my work to anyway appeal to the sensibilities of even remotely sensible person. So I titled it ‘Non-sense’ to warn the prospective readers. I had no particular reason to add ‘Sixth’ in the title therefore I added it. It was only after deciding upon the title, I realized that it sounded similar to “Sixth Sense”. But that was purely coincidental.
Unlike other works where title follows work, here first I decided upon the title and then started looking for stuff good enough to fit in it. Hell bent on originality, I found myself completely clueless about such content. And in the situation of utter desperation I thought that I would discuss it with people to get the head start. This completes the background with which, I was talking to this friend of mine.

WHATs, HOWs and WHYs Continued: I chose to talk to him as he was an uninterestedly inquisitive person. He loved the curves of the question mark “?” and would make sure that they are always there at the end of each sentence. He hated to use the not so artistic full stops “.” which end the discussion fruitlessly or the exclamatory mark “!” which end too fruitfully. In a nutshell, his was a questioning personality for a questionable topic like “Sixth Non-sense”. He did live up to his promise and the latest of his query was that how and why I could decide to write something when I had nothing to. This was stupid. Do news channels stop giving news just because they didn’t have one? No...! They make news, exactly the way I was doing. To make myself clearer, I gave him the example of new Ramayana telecasted these days. Logically, why would anybody need a new Ramayana, if the story remains same? One cannot twist the story of Ramayana the way Farhaan Akhtar did with DON. Leave apart the story; in fact, even the dialogues, scene sequence or the costumes of characters cannot be tempered with, not to mention the title. Still, people made new Ramayana. The Director of new Ramayana couldn’t sit idle at his home waiting infinitely until he had something to make. So, in the mean time he made Ramayana. Channel had a slot of half an hour available to them so they made Ramayana. I had a good title ready with me, wasn’t that a good enough reason for me to write. He gave me a strange look, one generally reserved for nuts and left, probably with a lot of questions unanswered; He didn’t dare to ask. Still clueless about the content I headed towards second person.
Simple Random Wisdom: Unlike previous person, this time I randomly chose somebody to talk having no prior idea about him. I was apprehensive that he would even listen to me. But, he gave me a long and patient listening making me skeptic about his hearing abilities or may be…. mental. He actually started thinking about the title making some sound like hmmm….. A sensible person was concentrating hard on non-sense. Only problem was that the sound did not seem to end, turning me impatient. I got bored and broke his concentration to ask did the title ring any alarm bells in his mind. With a lot of guilt in his voice, he apologized at not being able to think anything on the topic. The pain in his voice turned me sad at his helplessness in being helpful. Being a human, I felt compelled to console him. I told him not to feel low. The topic was actually tough and even a creative writer like me could not think anything on this topic except of course the topic; and that is why, was seeking others’ ideas to write. Unexpectedly, this turned him angry. He said that this attempt of mine seemed like a market research done before launching a new product. He didn’t like the idea of asking readers themselves to write something and called it non-sense (Of course! it was intended to be so.). To clear his doubt, adding to his parallelism with marketers, I gave him another parallelism. When one goes to a restaurant, waiters do not just bring anything they would like him to have. How rude it would be? They would always ask him very politely, “What would you like to have, Sir?” Didn’t the readers deserve the same kind of hospitality? He liked the example, but felt that it was demeaning to compare ‘writers’ with ‘waiters’. No! why demeaning? Both are works and work is worship, we know. Writers and waiters are actually same. Both have to care for the tastes of their customers to continue in their career. Didn’t he see writers adjusting scripts to include songs, kisses, bathing sequence and what not just because viewers wanted to see it? Every time, some writer writes a script he accommodates at least 9 songs preferably at equal intervals in all possible moods because viewers want it. I don’t know how much it convinced him about my methodology but I left him there, to find somebody more meaningful.
Noisy, Nosy Meaningful Guy: I did not have to look for the third person. In fact, nobody ever has to. Third persons are always around you to poke their big nose and are by default always meaningful. In this case, somebody who had been listening to all this discussion, himself came to me to tell that it was all rubbish from beginning till end. I felt grateful to him for listening to the entire discussion and expressing his truest feelings in possibly the most polite way. I knew it was rubbish to ask him that why he listened to the rubbish discussion till the end if it was all rubbish from the beginning. He was most definitely a critic. It’s their job to go through all the rubbish things in the world to tell others that they were rubbish. Quite a rubbish job, but somebody has to do it. You can always identify critics from otherwise non-intellectuals by the choice of their words. They are soft spoken considering the kind of work they are paid for and I love the way everything is so intellectual about them. Not getting any response from me, he once again started. He said that it was all non-sense to which I happily agreed. The brief smile which unknowingly flashed across my lips annoyed him further. The happy expression perhaps challenged his ability as a critic. So, he took a tougher stance. He said that he was utterly disappointed with the kind of performance I was putting up and I had better stop it than becoming a subject of national shame. Performance! National Shame! He could not be a critic, I felt. Taking a clue from his dramatized comments and supremely confident body language I asked him whether he was the judge of some reality TV show. He took a pause and told me that though he had not yet been but he was looking for a break. A break as a Judge! He was seeing a lot of scope in this career and had applied in two-three soon to be aired TV shows. This was the biggest non-sense I had ever heard and did deserve the place in ‘Sixth Non-sense’, so I continued listening to him. He had a lot to say on it as a career option, the gist of which was:
1) It is great to judge others.
2) The better judgments are the more dramatized ones done in harmony with Camera-close ups and background music.
3) The tears in the eyes of performers are highly appreciated. Audience love to see that.
He also told that all Indians had natural advantage when it came to judging others and therefore needed no additional qualities, qualifications or past achievements to back their candidature for the job and even I could try my luck. Judges were really in short supply and, in newer shows, were relatively unknown compared to participants in the same show. Well, he did sound logical. After all, we don’t watch cricket matches for umpires but for players, so who cares who the hell judge is. I, however, had some more important non-sense to do, so I thanked him for his advice and his contribution towards ‘Sixth Non-sense’.
A Personal Comment- “No Comments”: I have had the discussion with 3 people and I am sure that, given a chance, they had the potential to contribute much more than what they did towards the realization of ‘Sixth Non-sense’. I hope the way whole thing has got shaped, cannot be termed as anything but non-sense in line with the title of the work. But you might still be wondering that what is so sixth about this non-sense. Well, I did have an ulterior motive behind adding the adjective ‘sixth’. From the moment it clicked to me, I knew that the title ‘Sixth Non-sense’ sounded great and would do better than had the title been only ‘Non-sense’, which was plain, dull and had nothing literary about it. Because of its evident similarity with Sixth Sense it further aroused an initial curiosity hugely increasing its chances of being read. I knew from the beginning that I won’t be able to justify the adjective in the title by the content I would write and even a title “Fourth Non-sense” could have done as fine from my side. But I trust the abilities of the readers more than I do mine and I believe that perhaps by the end of this article you might be able to draw some relevance with the word “sixth”. I still remember watching a movie named ‘Jeans’ which had everything except anything anyway related to jeans. I assume that it was my intellectual capacity which limited my ability to understand the clues aptly present in movie to justify the title. I am sure others unlike me are abler and would have deciphered the clues. I have often found myself limited by my capacity in many such instances. I could never understand what is so secular about the secular political parties in our nation. I could never understand which ones are the likeminded parties and which ones not, in our political system. I don’t know how changing the names of the cities help but it does, as evident from continual changes happening. I have always liked to watch the K-series of movies and serials just because of their title starting with ‘K’ and not for anything else, I swear. There are numerous such examples which helped me introduce myself to my intellectual level. So, I assume that my supposed failure, to justify something in this work, is actually my failure to know that I have justified it somewhere. What else, best, can I say for such sufficiently justified things except “No Comments”?
Pack Up: Now, when I have already stretched “Sixth Non-sense” to its fifth page, I think it’s time to end it. But before I finish writing “Sixth Non-sense”, I would like to tell about the “Fifth Non-sense”. I am sure by now you know the first four. In addition to them, fifth one is the task I did of compiling them and for those of you who match my intellectual level and look for justification more than anything else; you have just completed committing the Sixth one.

THE TRUTHS TO BE ASHAMED OF......

What is the most important differentiating Truth about you, which stands out for you and you stand out for it. Your sex – everyone has one, age – accompanies you till the end, race – which Darwin’s slow evolution can never outpace, religion – no choice but to have it, caste – truly indigenous, place of origin – attributed to parent’s lack of vision, pronunciation – something of your own, accent – the breeze of your mother land, color – the picture would be so dull without. Each one of us always has each one of these Truths and with a little effort we can find out which ones to be ashamed of so that rest you can proudly be proud of. There is no middle way here. We either feel proud of them or ashamed as these are truths and we should have strong feelings associated with truths, which we do have.

Now, the question arises how you decide which truths you should be ashamed of. Well, I think it is pure common sense, which should be used commonly and not personally. So, we don’t find such truths for ourselves as that would be too selfish. By common use of this common sense we find such truths about others as they do same for us. It is a mutually benefiting, free of cost, spontaneous process for the common good. So, we know their truths and they know ours. And, we feel so selfless and truthful while doing this, like a true community servent. It gives us some divine pleasure. Truths, acutally, always have some element of divinity attached to them. So, all of us do it all the time for all of us. But merely knowing the Truth is not enough like merely knowing the God is not. In the larger interest of community and humanity we must propagate Him as well as Truths. A Truth not said is equivalent to a lie and lies are sins, sins are bad, and so non-divine. So, we don’t miss the first opportunity and in fact any opportunity to avoid the sins we might have commited by not telling the truth. Probably, we don’t want anyone to forget that there are certain things about him which make him so very different from the rest. And ‘different’ is actually a ‘politically correct word’ for this ‘morally correct world’. We think that just being ashamed of the truths is not enough. We need proof of it and whenever we feel that somebody is just going to forget it, we would make sure that he doesn’t and we have quite a straight forward way of doing it. We believe that the best way to say something is to say it and the best time to say truths is always there as it so divine. We genuinely feel that what is true, is true for one and for all and therefore, should come out before everybody all the time. And if it sounds bad, let it after all its Truth, we must face it.