It’s amazing how one sight you saw when you were a kid can have more impact on you than your critical years in school or whatever. When I was about five years old, a 'caged' truck came and some people caught all the dogs in my neighborhood. (Rajaji Nagar , Bangalore). They yelped like I would if my eyeballs were touched up with cigarette butts. When they were sitting comfortably in the truck’s grilled enclosure, they were silenced, peering at passersby with gleaming soulful eyes.
My brother told me they were going to be electrocuted in some place. I imagined a special place just for killing dogs. Dogs would be thrown into a machine and feel lots and lots and lots of pain and finally die. I knew even then that it was because they spread rabies and all that. BUT there had to be some other way!!!!. The solution surely was not in just killing them so brutally. This was way back in 1991 and even bear trainers would walk the roads of Bangalore, their living sources of livelihood were often bleeding while being forced to do ridiculous tricks. Their small eyes looked so helpless; parakeets, monkeys, elephants.
Which perverted mind will see an innocent adorable dog walk on the road, minding his own business, aim a stone and laugh at his pain??
I don’t know. It’s always bothered me. While my friends were on their way to becoming engineers, lawyers, doctors, I always confidently said, I want to be an environmental activist. Now in the real sense, I don’t know how but I want to find a voice in me.

What manipulated crayons, we are!

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary. You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

This is one of the most sensible of the quizzes I can't claim to have not taken. What is my world view? (I was materialist) , What were you in your past life? …and others that I was too amused to take. (What rejected crayon are you, Kissing purity test, what is your underwear type)
I mean, who gives a shit?
It's catered for the self obsessed internet users/bloggers around the world. The creators are hoping that in the one second before they hurriedly start answering the questions assigned, they’ll glance at the car insurance and dating ads, and be tempted into them. The creators of these quizzes are probably bored students who are paid a bit for it.
It's a bright idea, though horribly manipulative. This new type of advertising. If you have a gmail account, you'll know that you have links related to mail content with every mail. A mention from an unassuming friend about his arrival in Bangalore is used to market 'cheap' airfares to Bangalore, property there etc!
Behind all this is the concept of knowing what you are most interested in and using that information for advertising. I am pasting an article I wrote for the college paper below:

Will the media be history?

We the smug students of Media Studies may understandably react strongly to know that the print media may be extinct in nine years. Will we be among the unemployed begging at Brigade Road signals then? Well, we can never be sure but according to an internet forward I got recently, Google will be responsible for the extinction of our profession? Huh? That harmless little know it all thing that saves you for every psychology project the night before submission.?

According to this particular internet forward called ‘The museum of Media History.’, one day Google will compete with The New York Times and the latter will lose and ultimately become a newsletter only for the elite and the elderly. Before I begin this sort of ‘futuristic’ History I want to emphasize that I am nor plagiarizing but merely re-stating what the net forward had to say and am not claiming it ……………….. to be the epitome of accuracy. (Yes, that was a disclaimer in disguise.) It is the year 2014AD. ‘It is the best of times. It is the worst of times.’ Everyone participates in the media and it is a ‘living, breathing medium.’ It all began in 1988 when Tim B. Lee invented the World Wide Web in Switzerland. Ten years later, two scientists from Stanford would invent Google, the world’s most effective search engine. Amazon.com was soon launched and aimed to sell everything online. Google news became a news website that had news edited by computers in 2002. In 2003, Google merged with blogger, a personal publishing tool that allowed one to publish unedited content and maintain a profile of one’s interests and aims. 2004 was when it really all began. Sony launched its first electronic paper. Google launched gmail which had unlimited storage. At that time it was a privilege to never have to delete a message again. It’s something we take for granted today! Eventually all of Google's functions were combined-news, blogger, mail etc and the Google grid was created. What is the Google grid? The Google grid ensured that one had functionally limitless storage space and access to information accessible from anywhere in the world .One could conceal information or publish it for the whole world to see. Internet journalism has matured. In 2007, Microsoft launched Botser, a program that ranks and rates news upon personal taste. The Sony E-paper was cheaper than normal newspapers. In 2008, Googlezon was launched .This combined the technology of Amazon.com which provided the social recommendation information in the form of consumption patterns, demographics and tastes. This meant that if you were a subscriber to Google they’d know that you were most vulnerable to consumer brainwashing a.k.a advertising after college hours, preferred McDonald’s to Pizza Hut and so on. They would have access to your blogs and personal files. In 2010, inefficient news gatherers had no business of prancing about the place writing generalized news stories for everyone in the world. Google discovered a new algorithm that would construct a news story for every user. The real struggle for conventional journalism began in 2011 when the New York Times sued Googlezon for violation of copyrights law and for unethical journalism. The case reached the Supreme Court and needless to say googlezon won. The New York Times went offline! In 2014, googlezon launched EPIC (Evolving personalized information construct).Everybody contributed to what would be news and most were paid. This was still a tiny cut for Google’s advertising revenue. Like we do today, all our news is delivered to us the way we want it. It has what we want to read about, how we want to read it and in the order that we want to read it. We could choose a combination of editors depending on our choice. So is news now, deeper, broader and more advanced’? They know our consumption patterns, our social status, our interests, our potential interests. They view us as a potential finance source for the economy, they tell us the news that will manipulate us into making decisions on what and where to buy and how to be. In this sense, it is the worst of times. There is no place for journalistic ethics. News is a ‘collection of trivia’ that is ‘narrow, shallow and sensational.’ Ted Grasse, dean of the Stanford University journalism program said that journalism is a ‘form of public communication and not a private service aimed at individuals whose demographics, advertisers find appealing.’ Perhaps the extinction of journalism won’t happen according to the exact forecast. No, I’m not saying it in the fear of being sued by Google (!) but the concept of journalism as objective presentation of happenings around the world, its aim being primarily to create awareness is fading.

Loos at The Leela

Yesterday we went to The Leela to watch a movie at the Levis store. Sounds random enough to be sarcastic but the (wannabe) tattered pieces of denim in glass cases there were intriguing. With special lighting effects and all that , there were denims made in 1937,1944,1952 and other such randomly assigned years. To me they resembled my now shapeless 1998 ones .The decor of the shop was interesting to say the least, with chains hanging here and there. Actually I could potentially describe it much more sarcastically. I don't however know political incorrectness limits for blogs. I don't mean to be so skeptical but the life of the rich is fascinating.
I don't know why I am bothering with college and all that. I could just buy some crepe saris from Shivaji Nagar and create some minimalist embroidery(read running stitch, and lesser the better, or more expensive.)I’ll sell it for seven thousand bucks, each . Of course I'll create this brand with a rich sounding surname , have black an white pictures of doped out models wearing them, make them hazy on Photoshop.
I'll go through Bangalore Times and hand pick models from page 3 . I mean those pictures are earnestly waiting there to be seen.( Neha,Sneha and friend) whatever. I’ll later have fashion shows and have actors from Bold and the Beautiful come walk the ramp for me.
Didn't one of those dudes come recently? The Hindu’s article on it had undercurrents of mockery ; in fact all the p3p type articles it does, have such a tone. If I am imagining it, forgive me. Deccan Herald was raving and ranting about him being so hot and all.
If I am unemployed enough for unwanted media comparative analysis, I might as well aim for page 3.
I mean , after using the loos at The Leela, it might not be all that bad, really. :P

Mess of love?

The Mess of Love
D. H. Lawrence

We've made a great mess of love
Since we made an ideal of it.
The moment I swear to love a woman, a certain woman, all my life
That moment I begin to hate her.
The moment I even say to a woman: I love you! ---
My love dies down considerably.
The moment love is an understood thing between us,
we are sure of it,It's a cold egg, it isn't love any more.
Love is like a flower, it must flower and fade;
If it doesn't fade, it is not a flower,
It's either an artificial rag blossom,
or an immortelle, for the cemetery.
The moment the mind interferes with love,
or the will fixes on it,Or the personality assumes it as an attribute,
or the ego takes possession of it, It is not love any more, it's just a mess.
And we've made a great mess of love,
mind-perverted, will-perverted, ego-perverted love.
--- © 1929 D. H. Lawrence
We did this poem in Lit class;I quite like it though Lawrence is not really a favourite except Snake which is lovely.Would love to write about it but will do later.:)

clinical vegetable?!

The Logical Song-Supertramp
When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
A miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees,
well they’d be singing so happily,
Joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be
sensible,Logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so
dependable,Clinical, intellectual, cynical.
There are times when all the world’s asleep,

The questions run too deep
For such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
But please tell me who I am.
Now watch what you say
or they’ll be calling you a
radical,Liberal, fanatical, criminal.
Won’t you sign up your name,
we’d like to feel you’re
Acceptable, respectable, presentable, a vegetable!
At night, when all the world’s asleep,
The questions run so deep
For such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd,But please tell me who I am.