Unevolve!

what the f*#k?

Unevolve

“Woof, woof! Looks like you are on the wrong side of your territory,” barks the dog. “Looks like you are on the wrong side of the evolution curve,” replies Garfield. The fat cat might have been joking, but how I would love to be on the other side, he would never know.

I was having one of these ‘rum’ sessions with Vivi. I luv these sessions because of the quality(very subjective) of the conversations we have. Before that, let me tell you about vivi. Vivi is one of my closest friends. He has been going through a rehab of sorts, had a serious drinking and drug problem. He is one troubled mind, who believes that the whole world is against him. His love for his dad lasts only as long as the bottle of booze his dad buys him on weekends. That time is halved the instance I decide to barge in on weekends. Let me get back to the session. When we have these sessions, we discuss about the weirdest things on the planet. Simple things which might have been overlooked; crazy things which humans would fear to contemplate (includes him and me) under normal sober conditions and lots more. Things that made sense to just both of us.
In the end, that is all that matters. Why should a conversation between two make sense to the world? Why the hell is the world so bothered? Why is life so complicated?

One of the things we discussed that day was about the complications in life. Why is life so complicated? Why does a newborn baby cry? Medical science claims that the moment of the first cry is the moment of life. The moment when the child takes his first breath. That is the scientific part of things. You know what I think? I think, the baby cries because it is the moment of realization. A realization that it is not safe anymore. The simple agenda in the mother’s womb is over. It is a mess out there. The baby is crying on the thought – Why isn’t the world as transparent as a mother’s womb?

Can’t we live like our forefathers…when I say forefathers, I mean, ‘the stone age men.’ The guys from over a million years ago. Forget the ‘sun worship’ part. The rest of it. No electricity bills, no career counseling, no office politics, no traffic jams, no prohibition, no rapes, no AIDS, no hassles. Hunting for food, caves for shelter and a mate for love(literally and laterally). Life was so simple. Why ain’t it anymore? Today if I have to write an ad, I have to think about the consumer psyche more than I think about my parents. What the flying fuck? Dinosaurs might have been a threat. But they don’t bully you. They don’t kill you on a monthly basis with income tax. If your fate would have it, you would have sudden death. Why aint life as straight and simple as that?

Take my case for instance. I am stranded with hardly my bread and butter. Copywriters don’t earn much. I advise all aspirants to think twice before opting for the glamorous advertising life. I survive on a ‘brunch’ all day. Landlady calls up and all efforts of charming the MILF are dissolved in a solvent of monetary demands. In the stone age, all I would have to fight for my place of residence with, would have been a pterodactyl. Why ain’t life as simple as 1 million B.C. or whereabouts.

I guess I would have proudly owned Garfield’s statement. It would have been a privilege to be on the primitive side of life. It would have been a luxury. Hunting wild boars, making cave paintings and making love to my mate and with some luck, some other desperate cavewoman. Neanderthals rule. Why ain’t I on the wrong side of the evolution curve?

School life Vs The rest, etc.

nostalgia...

Which is that period of life that you will cherish till you die? “School Life”, would be the unanimous answer. I beg to differ. Call me a black sheep in the herd, but I have plethora of things that don’t go in tandem with the rest of you. What are you going to do, outcast me?

One of the reasons why my school life falls short of the first spot in the long list of enjoyable phases in life, is because of that word which frequented the nightmares of everyone that age – ‘Home-work.’ Planning ahead to select the snack you will eat while watching a football match during a weekend is the best I can do. Scheming a modus operandi to pass the calculus exams the next day or picking the best person to copy the organic chemistry assignment from, is definitely not my cup of tea, coffee or whisky.

Getting up every morning, rushing to school after bath and breakfast(both have literally stopped appearing daily in my life), encountering the empty basketball court(which we usually use to play cricket), the empty stairway(which used to buzz with activity once upon a time), empty park(home to swing-cricket, a patented Udyogamandal school sport), and a group of uniformed girls and boys piling on a rainbow of assignments to be completed in 15 minutes is not a pleasant sight.

Many guys would consider a co-ed college with the male-female ratio as 1:3 as the closest thing to heaven. When you get suspended for admiring a girl( in the trrrrrrrrrue sense of the word), the heaven image gets tarnished in a second. It is as good as Anna Nicole Smith nude and horny in front of an impotent man. Against all odds, I had fun like never before. Lack of pretentious displays of attitude being the main cause - due to the lack of proximity of the opposite sex.

A chained dog is more dangerous than a stray one. This is applicable in humans too. The opposite poles attract, and here too they attracted with vibes and vigour. A few hearts broke at first, a lot many followed. A very few survived; but fun it was. An attendance shortage with a record breaking 23% should substantiate my claim – a renegade’s dream.

Exams came and went unnoticed, like the hero’s friend in teen movies, with a loud ‘I came, I saw and was ignored’ written all over their faces. I claimed another instance to fame with a miraculous, fastest ever exit, from the exam hall. ‘Gone in 27 seconds’, they called the phenomenon. A few of my friends consider this achievement as a direct reflection of my unscrupulous life; the paper if you remember, was ‘role of ethics in the society.’

I came across the wonders (not listed in any book of records, quite sadly, I must say) called cigarettes and liquor during my graduation years. They were branded evil(what a sinful thing to say!) during school days. This is just one of the few lies taught to us; damn the education system. How untrue our text books were, I ponder as I walk down the memory street (I am tired of using the ‘lane’) with a cigarette in my hand and a few drinks in my belly.

‘Girls are god's worst mistakes’, a popular belief until the 10th standard. The line loses all its credibility as you enter college. Moments of joy and innumerable disappointments that even Shakuntala Devi’s math genius will fail to keep numbered. In large probability, your first kiss – a smooch to be precise, is very much likely to happen (this is in a purely conservative south Indian context- for all those who chuckled and thought out loud, ‘what about the DPS mms clip?’).

Motor bikes – a faster, flashier and a noisier version of your school day mode of transport was also available. Bicycle bells cannot even scare mice away, air-horns on the other hand, can disinfect a jungle.

A great bunch of innovators for friends, ready to venture into the unknown, brings some zing in contrast to another bunch who head home at 5 in the evening to finish the math assignment. Journeys to as far as the center of the earth, or to be honest, as far as your motor bikes would take you when run on fuel that is entirely dependent on the perpetually limited capacity of your wallet, are memories that remain.School life was an unforgettable phase of life. But in the long run, like in the movie ‘eternal sunshine of the spotless mind’, if I were to chose one to be erased from my memory, I’d erase school.

Arguments are not welcome, coz this is a blog.