Friday, March 16, 2007

Stupid E!

When E! makes a list of the 101 most shocking moments in entertainment and chooses to place Michael Jackson's burning hair ahead of the day the music died you know that the world is no more a safe place to live in. Well, when you start watching E! you know that, safe or unsafe, you are no longer sane enough to live in the world.

Good for me then that I have neither been sane nor been alive. But more about that later. Partly because I like keeping people guessing. Mostly because I have no idea how to go about reasoning that. As a friend of mine once told me after he made a grotesquely unbelievable statement, "I have said it. I will think and tell you how it can be." And voila what do you know! He actually managed to give me a plausible explanation. Don't expect that of me, though.

Whoa! That was my first non-woman quote on this blog outside of the person being Douglas Adams. That really does not mean that I have oodles of respect for him. I have called him non-woman after all. Just that quoting him felt like a good idea at the time, and I don't like using the backspace key. I would much rather go back on what I say. There is a certain charm in doing that.

The same way there is no charm in feeling exilarated during a world cup cricket game not because the underdog is winning but because the team you hate is losing. But there is not much else that charmless people do. Either way, do they have to take it to the extreme by strutting around the house in flaming red tracks and a white vest? And that when they happen to be men? Hyuk! Not satisfied with that they keep up with their endless chatter. Blah blah blah blah blah.

What do you do when you come across the matrimonial ad for someone you know? Probably no different than making such extremely disconnected statements. No, seriously. Do you tell the guy she was dating that her parents have put her on the marriage market? Or do you hold back for reasons of preserving personal dignity? Who would want to be known as the kind of person who reads matrimonial advertisements? Especially when they appear in the Sunday papers! More importantly, what are you supposed to do if the ad is for the girl you want to spend the rest of your life with? Obviously she is willing to go through the pains of screening three million guys just so she does not end up with you. Does it mean you are really pathetic or is she being plain stupid? Questions. Questions. Questions.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Tom, Dick, and Harry

I make no attempt to mask my absolute dislike for corporate gyan. Nay, make that abhorrence. I could never understand for the life of me why anyone would ever spew away so many hours of their lives penning down literature on the subject. More than that, it completely boggles me why anyone should choose to read those books. Ever! I mean, did your mom drop you on the head or something?

Talking of kid-dropping parents, what really goes through their minds when they come up with names for their offspring? Goldie. Dick. Chandi. Shanna. Seriously. The kid has to go through her entire life with that name. What were they thinking? Perhaps the same thing that they were while conceiving the baby - nothing, for had they put that cranium through its paces they would have used birth control.

Not everyone is born with the intellect of Einstein. That said, not everyone needs the intellect of Einstein. You would not want someone rattling on about the Schroedinger Wave Equation when you are on a date. Unless you are in the habit of dating people like that in which case you must re-evaluate your lifestyle choices. Either way, with all the technology of internet search engines at our disposal is 'Guy' the best we can come up with for a boy's name? Jeez!

The most famous bard could say 'What's in a name' and get away with it. Writers tend to get away with a lot. Besides, 400 years ago there was not much in anything let alone a name. Except in the gunpowder treason. That had an idea behind it, an idea so strong that it became the foundation of modern day democracy. And please! Not those mutilated versions that US presidents have passed down through generations.

We live in very shallow times. What you can pass off as your own is of the essence. Basically it makes more sense to own the keys to a Ferrari and not the Ferrari itself. Kinda hard to flash the car inside a restaurant. Oh my God! I finally got it - the true depth of the message of 'The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari'. Sell the Ferrari, but as long as you still have a set of its keys you can remain a part of that pseudo intellectual socialite crowd.

See what I mean? I never had to read the book to understand its message. In a nutshell, that is what corporate gyan is all about. No one understands it, not even the CEO who spreads it around.