Its a dog's life

Over the centuries humans have slowly become more civilized and less barbaric. But this change has been too slow with many old and barbaric practices continuing to this date. One such practice is the imprisonment of animals like dogs and cats and calling them 'pets'. In the olden days, when humans were living as savages in the wilderness, they needed to rear and train dogs as companions. But today this practice has degenerated into the imprisonment and torture of dogs. In many big cities, dogs do not know anything outside the lonely confines of their apartment and the 5 minute walk their masters take them before the masters hurry off to work. Dogs are tied to a rope during these walks, putting a lot of stress on their necks. Such confinement in cramped apartments and tying ropes drastically reduces the chances of the dog having an active life.

Moreover, almost all male dogs are forcefully castrated and prevented from having fulfilling sexual lives. The number of dogs in the US is around 70 million. Assuming no sex selection, there are close to 35 million pairs of missing dog balls in the US alone. No civilized society can allow such levels of barbarism. Dogs must be allowed to roam freely and choose their own sexual partners instead of having to hump pillows and the legs of neighbors (the second point is more prevalent than you think).

Dogs are also subjected to humiliation in the name of dog shows where they are forced to dress up and perform dangerous tricks for their human masters. It is not uncommon for dogs to get injured in these shows. Since dogs live under such stress, their acts in self defense are construed as 'bad behavior' and such dogs are 'put down' in the thousands across the US. Another barbaric practice forced upon dogs is using them as hunting companions. Hunting dogs are specifically bred to have hunting instincts and aggression, and are routinely put in harms way. Thousands of dogs die and get injured in hunting accidents each year. As the sole adhikAris of rationality, we should ask the questions: What is the need to hunt in this day and age? Is it not easy and efficient to just pick up food from the nearest supermarket? When confronted with this question, a hunting enthusiast callously said: "My grandfather used to love the outdoors. So did my father. As a kid I used to accompany them during these trips and learnt a lot about tracking animals, shooting, etc. It was just a lot of fun and a nice change from school. My son, daughter and our dogs enjoy to go with me on hunting trips during the summer. I guess it runs in the family." Apart from the sheer savagery and imparting this to the next generation, the presumptuousness in saying that his dogs enjoy hunting left me shocked. 

In another corner of the world, this can be compared with the 'love' for bulls that barbaric Tamils show. They savagely wrestle with the bulls on one day each year in a pagan festival called Pongal. During the festival they thank the sun god and their cattle for their harvest, as if the sun and the poor cattle can understand their language. I spoke to a young man about why he takes part in the festival and why he trains bulls. He said: "I love my bull karuppan. He was an aggressive one right from a young age. I was told that this festival has been going on for thousands of years. I grew up listening to my grandmother's stories of brave men and strong bulls that everyone feared.". When I asked him about the torture, he obliviously said: "Torture? There may be a few people who treat bulls badly. They should be punished. But the bull is a 'sAmi' for all of us. Because our sAmi paramasivan rides on a bull, the bull is also a sAmi. That is why we do a pUjai for the bull and smear it with a holy paste before the festival. The bull is our rival on one day of the year. On other days he is our friend." This regressive superstition made me cringe. But I did not challenge him further because he could not speak English. That made him intellectually inferior to me and any further argument was pointless.

As the sole adhikAris of rationality we should also ask questions such as: What is the point of downhill skiing? You go up and come back to the same place at the risk of mortal injury. That should also be outlawed as an irrational and wasteful practice.

(Pictures taken from internet.)

Where is Rahul Gandhi?

After his party was thrashed in the LS elections,  RaGa was seen standing next to his mother, grinning cluelessly  while addressing the press.

Since then he has been missing from action and the congis are rudderless. Amit shah asked them to find where RaGa is before they tried to find holes in the land ordinance. Amit Shah is also useless because he cannot find RaGa. I think I might have some leads to help everyone. 

Chilling with Nemo in the depths of the ocean (Finding Rahul)

Trying to destroy the one ring with Frodo in Mordor (Lord of the Grins).

Taking physics tuition in an undisclosed location to find escape velocity of Jupiter (Jupter Escaping).

Sighting Padmini "olinjufying begind" one "thoon" (Thiruttumuzhi Mohanasundaram)

Bonding with horses and trying to go full retard in a secret farm (Simple Jackass)

Now go find him... Or wait. Maybe I am wrong, we should ask Rajdeep Sardesai who knows the mood of the nation and is a better spinner than Shane Warne. Anyway, I wish RaGa is hale and healthy and comes back to take over congis and drive them into the sunset.

Stupidly stupid

Inspired by this inspirational essay:
http://www.thehindu.com/features/magazine/death-is-a-pronounced-differentiator-between-the-urban-and-the-rural-writes-tm-krishna/article6323917.ece
For full trip value please read the inspiration before reading this blog.

Stupid is a fascinating word, its origins being traced to the Latin word stupere, which means to be amazed or stunned. Its synonym ‘moron’ also connects quite beautifully with the Sanskrit moodha or the Tamil muttal, mundam, moodevi etc. Stupidity is a tantalising idea, which numbs our mind. Hearing the word, you immediately visualise a clueless dunce.

Stupidity is a word for the living; a word for all of us who know that no matter how intelligent we may think we are, we would once in a while utter an utterly dimwitted comment or write an essay so full of pseudo intellectual babble that it would make junkies want whatever that we seem to be smoking. A person is not stupid only when someone else knows he is stupid. Even when someone else knows that a person is stupid, the stupid person might be oblivious to the fact that he is stupid. Many stupid people are such loud mouthed windbags that it puts the claims on our ape ancestry into little doubt.

Express rage at falling pass cutoffs in schools and immediately you will be dubbed an elitist and asked “Have stupid people not graduated from high school in the US?” If you were to express concern over the how stupid Shah Rukh Khan movies are, you would be perceived as a "peter party". So what am I protesting against? Can we ever discuss our boneheaded dumbness without bringing politics, history, nationality etc. into the question? Is there a problem with the stupidity of the deed or the inherent stupidity of people themselves? How does the stupidity attributed to the person vary with the person who commits the stupid deed? These are questions that I have to answer for myself.

Stupidity is a pronounced differentiator between the urban and the rural. In mainstream narrative, a city dweller who can speak incorrect English with a fake accent and throw intellectual sounding garbage with confidence is considered to be far less stupid than a villager who can't speak English, but can at least tell time by looking up at the sky. The urban vision of India is the only vision that we know, want to know and are constantly told about. The rural landscape is a regressive, caste ridden cesspool of "patriarchy", spit stains, open air defecation and you guessed it, stupidity. The stories of a retarded Dumbani speeding on city roads and killing pedestrians will flash across our TV screen and newspapers and all it will get from us is a non-linguistic groan of sadness. Our concerns about urban stupidity begins and ends there.

So its clear that not everyone is equal in stupidity. The social or political value of a person can be gauged by the actions that people around him do once he commits a stupid deed. Relationships, family and wealth separate us. When we have a child who is as dumb as a cardboard box, it pains us. This is because it is our dumb genes that are inside of that child and our hopes of an eternal life are realistically placed only upon our own progeny. When the neighbour's child does well in school, sports and arts, but our child still cannot put pen on paper and draw a stickman, it is natural to feel pained by that stupidity.

It is comforting that I am not weird. I don't share the same feelings of anguish towards the stupidity of my own child and the stupidity of another child in the playground. I value human and communal relationships and do not go around trying to reduce the cosmic index of thickheadedness. The passport I hold blurs my reactions to stupidity. When a man of Indian origin wins the Fields Medal, I feel happy that here is an Indian who has done great things with his intellect, and this would hopefully encourage us Indians to work harder and become less inane. Hopefully children would get inspired and inspire each other to conquer stupidity.

Again, one stupid person is rarely equal to another. The further the distance you are from the wannabe mobster speeding on the highway, the safer you are. Humanity has spent many worthwhile centuries wondering how to sharpen the intellect, and may this pursuit continue. It is indeed ironically apposite that I write this piece on September 9, just a day after the world literacy day. It might be a good time for me to consciously try and be a bit less stupid in the future.