Toilet paper

When I started this blog I decided to be very strict on one particular aspect- that I will blog only about things that have either happened in my life or about those that I ve experienced during my brief stay in this planet, neither of which would be of any use to others. So here goes another one of my good for nothing posts.

• The largest circulated daily: Hindustan Times

• The second largest circulated daily: The Hindu

• The total number of registered newspapers, as on 31 December 2000: 49,145

• The second largest number of newspapers and periodicals in any language: English (7,175).

Well by now you must ve come to one of the following two conclusions:

This fellow has run out of steam; he hasn’t got anything to write about and so he is giving us stupid statistics

Or you might ve decided that this fellow is gonna go blah blah about how the pen is mightier than the sword….

But wait! That’s not what I'm gonna talk about now… It is this thing about…ahem….hmmm…err… how do I start… We must ve all experienced this at some point of time in our life so assuming that I won’t be ridiculed about this blog I continue….

How many of you read newspapers…ah! I see lotsa hands…. That is a good habit, good for you all!

Now how many of you read them in the toilet? I see not many of you put your hands up.

For many of you, the only paper that is found in your toilet is definitely not something that you would wanna read. But for the rest of us, who constitute the minority, reading newspapers in the toilet is a habit that we simply cannot kick and we have no intention to do so!

You‘ll certainly laugh if I say that the toilet is one of the best places to read. If you are able to ignore your mom occasionally shouting for you to come out so that you can get the bus in time, it’s a place where there is no irritating blaring of the FM or television, no Honk! Honk! of the vehicles, no dogs barking, no early morning stupid visitors to disturb you, no Gurkha waiting for you to pay him off…. I can go on and on and on, but it is up to you if you want to try it. The best thing that could come out of this reading in toilet is that you’ll stop using the internet to get to know the news; it will actually increase the number of people who prefer newspapers to e-print (unless you are that kind of daredevil who wouldn’t mind taking your laptop along with you inside the toilet). The only drawback is that you‘ll have to put up with your mom’s berating!

I distinctly remember myself starting to develop this keenness towards reading papers even as I was a kid. What started as reading comic strips slowly evolved to magazines and weekly and then to the newspapers. The young world and the last page of Hindu was enough to sustain my reading habits at that time. By the time I was in high school I had become addicted to newspapers. I started hating public holidays coz there was no news paper the next day! If u had been my neighbor at some point of time in your life you would ve definitely seen me at least once, standing at my gate cursing the paper boy for being late. I used to get pretty irritable and quite volatile on those days.

What I don’t remember is how I picked up this habit of reading in the toilet! It must ve been during those horrendous days when I was in my tenth std. I'm not the kinda guy you would find to be exactly brilliant. I used to slug it out each time they announced those damned exams. And being a strong believer in “don’t do today, what you can put off for tomorrow”, I always had a significant part of my lessons to be done on the morning of the exams. I'm not an early bird you see, so I had to somehow squeeze in those lessons in the morning; I cannot read while I’m brushing my teeth or while taking a bath…. So I took them to the toilet seat!

And from that day on, I ve learnt more sitting in the toilet seat than I ve ever learnt in any of my classrooms. I got to know Newton and Einstein better in there than I ve managed in a laboratory. I ve understood the political scenario during the World wars, learnt the difference between a PNP and a NPN transistor, mastered the C programming, introduced myself to web development etc….. everything in the quiet of the toilet.

It wouldn't be an exaggeration if i said that the toilet seat has been to me what the Asvattha tree was to Lord Buddha!

By the time the exams got over, I had got so used to reading in the toilet that I found it quite weird not to take a book inside; so I decided to switch to newspapers instead. And thus began my association with toilet and the newspapers. I got to understand Bush, Osama, Putin, Jacqeus Chirac, Sensex, Medha Patkar, Le Clemenceau, Ganguly and what not inside that silent room.

It has now got to a point where, anytime you go inside the toilet there is a big bundle of old newspapers piled on top of the flush! In fact anyone who needed some old newspaper came straight to me coz they knew where it would be!

I know most of you are screwing up your face in disgust after reading this blog, but I'm jus part of a small cult who is desperately trying to keep alive a dying custom!

.-Karthikeyan

People are not always the way they seem to be...or are they???

There's only 6 degrees of seperation between each nd evry individual...its sed!!!...so ther's like no way to avoid bumpin into various specimens. Evry person tends to have someone closer than the most of the people they know. A lifetime of relationship nd u feel u seem to know evrything bout the other person... u believe u've judged that person well...but then suddenly from no where .......WHAAAAAAM!!!!....wat happened??..straight on ur face!!..a bug jumps out..stings u hard...a bug u never hav seen or u never wished u'd see!!!!...is it ur mistake that u had misjudged that person?? Or is the person's mistake of hidin that bug frm u??..come on!!!..u thot u took a long time to know him/her well..but isnt that long enuf??..how long can it ever take to judge a person??..i personally feel...NO GODDAMN HUMAN CAN JUDGE OR EVEN SKIM THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER HUMAN'S TRAITS!!!....why the hell is it soo difficult??...well the answer's always out ther...no person is ever 100% truthful to another...I know this cud hurt, but thats the cold truth!!!..i wish i was completely truthful to someone...but that part aint so easy..but wat ever happened to friendship, love, brotherhood nd there r so many ways to connect...but r these words, that we jus use to relate ourselves to other ppl??...jus to prove the fact man is a social animal??..do these words ever mean anything??

The way in which we relate ourselves to ppl define the amount of disclosure we share with them. Friendship being on the highest scale gives oppurtunities for knowin more about a person. But can it guarantee that u know ur friend well???...u always thot that the guy or gal was ur best buddy...but wat bout them??...wat do they think bout u?? That is a question to be answered by ur friend alone...nd wen the answers do surface...r they authentic??...ppl may get angry on readin this nd talk shit about trust nd crap...but face it ppl...its a crazy world. Ask me if i wud trust my best buddy...i'd say a doubtful yes...but ofcourse the answer wud arise frm the long relationship we share rather than the trust i hav on my buddy!!!!...i'm human too...even tho i may write stuff like this...i face all these problems too...

Love...some may say its the purest...CRAP!!!..the current definiton of love...ask someone out...talk on the fone wen u're not eatin, sleepin or shittin..(aaarrrgh!!)...ok lets cut out on the definition of Love...i dont care bout it much...anyway..do u trust ur lover??..ok maybe trust...r u really truthful??...nd i don care bout the ones that r bein trusty nd truthful...its about the remainin pathetic lot i'm talkin bout. Do u think u've figured out every f**kin detail on ur lover? Or do u think u'd ever let ur lover to figure u out? That is a totally worthless question i know...cos the answer wud be a goddamn NO...nd i repeat this is not for ppl who r really truthful nd i doubt nd fear that wud be a mere less than a percent!!! Why the heck do most break-ups even occur???...the very reason i gave u...humans r a really complex species...there're so many tangible things yet to be figured out in a human nd here we are talkin about thots...DUH???...nd then comes brotherhood....the most feable way to connect...wen's the last time u ever shared a thot wit ur bro or sis??...eeeeew!!!!...ther might be exceptions..but most of them fall in the former category...its not such an easy task to judge or share ur mind with someone ...u can try to some extent...but wats the use wen u dunno the password nd the data remains encrypted??..or worse...even if u came to know nd its not true...ther's no way to testify!!!...or even if u decided to give way to ur mind...wud do it with utmost trust??...i seriously doubt that!!!...Ever wished u had a mind readin device??...i remember seein one on sale on EBAY!!!....yeaaa!!!....

Well..wat the...??..y do i even care to blog on this??...I AM F**KIN HUMAN TOOO!!!...damn...lets cut the crap here!!!...enough with it!!!....

- RAHUL

Its a Spooky World Out There

You know there are things that happen in your life that makes you feel real happy. And there are things... real bad things that happen in your life that makes you feel very sad and depressed. But somewhere in between these two there are things, things that are not exactly bad or something, but still tends to make you feel all depressed and sad and sometimes makes you hate yourself. I’m not sure if everyone has such little things in life which makes them sad for no reason at all!

• From the time I’ve been able to understand why dogs stand and shit while we humans have to sit down to do the same thing, I’ve always felt very uncomfortable about going to the railway station to drop off someone.... you go with them all the way to the railway station and after sending them off you have to drag yourself out of the station and go back home alone... I’ve never felt so bad when I’ve had to see someone off at the bus terminal or even at the airport, but railway stations have this depressing effect on me in spite of the fact that I love traveling by train. Maybe it is something that everybody can identify themselves with or maybe I’m jus this weirdo whose got weird feelings about each and everything in life!

• Next on the list is when I look at blind people sitting in buses. Someone comes and sits next to them and they are not able to see who it is. Jus imagine how you would feel if you are prevented from knowing who is sitting next to you. You have to travel the entire distance without knowing who is in your neighboring seat. It is not the fact that they are not able to see, it jus that they wont be able to know who is sitting next to them! Brrrr... That really freaks me out.

• If you thought the previous two were weird I dunno what you would say about this. When I travel by college bus and I have to take a route that was not originally allotted to me, I hate it when I have to ask the driver to stop the bus at some place where the bus is not actually supposed to stop. I know the driver is absolutely fine with that and has no problems; after all that is what he is paid for isn’t he? But still it makes me feel really depressed.

• You go to a park; there are lotsa kids playing around. Swings, see saws, mazes, slides... they are all there, but the thing that really spooks me is when two kids are playing in a see saw and one of the kid is thin and the other one is heavy. Its no problem of mine and I don’t know why I should feel guilty and depressed about it( as if its my mistake the kid is either heavy or thin, or as if its my fault that they two got together to play see saw!)

• A new movie has been released; you know it is a stupid movie with all sorts of heroic masala stuff in it. You think the movie is sure to bomb, but the movie turns out to be block buster. Worse you hear some of your friends rave about the movie, trying to glorify the movie for all its stupidity. I think this one thing I can explain; maybe I get so depressed on thinking that the people around me are so stupid and naive!

• You go to the beach… you feel really bored and you buy peanuts. The peanuts all turn out to be stale, you try to find the vendor but he is no where to be seen. I seriously get upset about that, it is one of the worst situations one could be in.

• when I break open the shell of a crab with great difficulty only to find that the crab has been under nourished and that there is nothing inside except vacuum, that is when I feel like really going on top of a mountain and throwing myself down…

• It breaks my heart when i see these kites in the sky. To me it appears like they are some kinda puppets who are made to do whatever the person holding the string wants them to do. Actually puppets are much better than kites, atleast they know they are puppets... they are branded as puppets and they know that is how they are supposed to live. But being a kite and having to behave like a puppet is horrible. Its like you being employed as the branch manager and asked to the job of a watchman!
  

I jus dunno why I’m listing all these down.... maybe it is because I’ll get really really sad and depressed if I don’t!

-Karthikeyan