Random Ramblings

My ancestor was a rishi and not some ape as I believed all along. This I learned during a visit to GOC for vacation a few months ago. I should thank the honorable MP Satyapal Singh (former HRD minister who used to be responsible for higher education) for opening my eyes. One good thing about me is that I am the questioning type. So, when Mr. Singh said this in the Indian parliament, I immediately decided to do some research of my own. That’s how I am. I don’t blindly believe something when someone tells it, unless of course it comes through WhatsApp asking for "maximum share" or from some website which has words such as “true” or “right” in its name. Then I instinctively know it is true.

The rishi thing turned out to be a pretty watertight theory. Rishis, as we all know, can do anything they want. For instance, they can impregnate pretty damsels with their minds. That’s what I reasoned, because visualizing the other option of rishis fornicating with damsels, which my pervert mind did imagine for a brief period, seemed blasphemous. So, I tried to wipe that image out of my mind and replace it with a rishi getting a lady pregnant just by thinking. #$%&, I can’t get rid of that. A Baba Ramdev-ish rishi having coitus with a damsel, hairs and bodies tangled and stuck together like Velcro, sound of conchs breaking and Acharya Balakrishna complaining of giddiness in the background. “Oh, rishis, forgive me. Don’t curse me. I have no control over my thoughts”.

Anyway, with that doubt about my ancestry settled, I went to sleep, sound in the knowledge that I have gained new old wisdom. Next morning, while washing my face I saw my reflection in the mirror, and wondered how frikkin ugly my ancestral rishi would have been (on the premise that rishis impregnate only pretty damsels).

Thank you, former HRD minister.

The exceptional thing regarding HRD ministers of late is that they’re a treasure trove of ancient wisdom. The new minister Mr. Pokhriyal, recently enlightened some misguided IIT students on how our ancestors built the Rama Setu sea bridge with ancient technology. I hope the IIT curriculum will be changed and kids taught these ancient methods instead of modern stupid engineering.

Speaking of education, I’m appalled that the government is straying from its stated aim of bringing back our ancient wisdom in all realms. Recently, the government offered bridge courses for AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy) people to practice modern medicine. Suddenly, a whole bunch of doctors started protesting. I feel these are the wrong docs barking up wrong trees. The government, if it were to follow its own policy, should be offering bridge courses to modern medicine practitioners so that they can use AYUSH remedies. In that way, slowly we can ease out the cancer of modern medicine gnawing away at our nation’s health. There is still time, and we did see some positive signs with the budget papers being brought to the parliament in sacred cloth and all. Next up, no budget papers. Let’s hope next time it’ll be in good old palm leaves and delivered in a chariot.

Continuing with the theme of education, ideas are being floated to change the names of universities to reflect the current mood of the nation. Like changing JNU to MNU (dunno what it stands for except that the name involves Modiji). I think it is OK and any government should be able to change names as they please. The Film and Television Institute of India (FTII), for example, could be renamed as NAMUNA (NArendra Modi University of NAutanki). The humongous body of work including television documentaries that he piled up in a short period of time deserves appreciation. Didn’t they make a movie titled “Crocodile Dandi March” with him in the lead? Maybe I’m wrong.

Food – now, this is serious stuff unlike the above drivel. Mallus in Frankfurt were in the news recently protesting against North Indians who prevented them from serving beef. I think mallus are being duplicitous in this matter. These are people who are self-censoring beef and pork out of their menus in resorts up and down the mallu coast to suck up to North Indian tourists. My school reunion was at a resort  in Kumarakom, Kerala that boasted a 150-metre long pool. A typical backwater resort, but not worth the hole they burn in your pocket. They served roti, daal, Chicken Kolhapuri and such stuff! It's preposterous! Forget Frankfurt, you don’t get no beef, no parotta, no kappa, no nothing even in the supposedly free southwestern tip of Faratham nowadays.

Nor is there pork anywhere. Domino’s Pizza used to have pork salami in their menu. That mysteriously disappeared some time ago. I wrote an e-mail to them, but never got a reply. Domino's probably wanted to suck up to a certain community, as they say in the news (or, Muslims, as they are commonly called). Anyway, I’m back in Japan, where a cup of instant noodle contains everything from pork, chicken and beef to things you don’t even want to imagine (Oooh, that image #$%&…..forgive me, my ancestral rishi!) disodium guanylate and autolyzed torula yeast, whatever they are. Bon Appetit.

Samprati Hype-aha Shruyantham

  

It’s been close to two months since I left the heat and grime of Trivandrum for the cooler climes in the northeast of Japan. With temperatures hovering around 0°C most of the time, my brain also went into a freeze mode, occasionally perking up like a dog’s ear to some bullshit in WhatsApp, but rarely responding actively. Some of my friends say it was because I’ve been active only in eating (exotic items like basashi, or raw horse flesh, and uni, sea urchin roe) and drinking most of the time.

  Anyway, now I am in Shonandai, south of Tokyo, where it is quite balmy and nice, and the brain has begun to thaw, ever so slowly. That is when I got this message extolling Sanskrit. Mind-blowing facts, it said. It’s too big for me to reproduce here, but trust me, it is beyond any normal human being’s comprehension. All the usual suspects – NASA, Brits, Russians, Germans, etc. - are deep into Sanskrit now. I got a feeling that if you know how to read Sanskrit in a certain way, the resulting energy waves would even cure cancer (see P.P.P.S). So, I was reading it intently, when a sentence caught my attention –“Learning of Sanskrit improves brain functioning”. Given the frozen condition of my brain, I immediately latched on to it.

  There was, however, one major problem. You really don’t know anyone who can speak Sanskrit. I personally have heard only two. One was my father’s elder brother, who is long dead, and the other is Baldevananda Sagara. He, Baldevananda Sagara, is a pravachaka (usually refers to one who cannot be criticized) and has been around for as long as Sanskrit has existed, which is “millions of years”, the message tells me. There were a few others in between. Panini, who drew up the grammar some 1500 years ago (don’t ask me about the millions of years before that), Vararuchi and Patanjali. Panini was appropriated by the Italians and made into a small bread roll (grilled sandwich), while Patanjali, of course, makes and sells Italian pasta with no Ruchi, or taste. Pathetic, how these Westerners are stealing everything from us.

  Somebody had to put a stop to this, and as if on cue, Our Lady with the Convent-educated English Accent stood up and instructed the elite technical university students in India to use their palm-tops to study the latest technological secrets inscribed in Sanskrit in state-of-the-art ancient palm leaves. NASA is doing it! so, why can't they?

  #$%&! It is a frikkin’ language. Dead, for all practical purposes! There is pride; and then there is cow dung! We sure must keep that language alive. Without doubt, there will be many people studying it, for the classical literature or for the legitimate early scientific works by Indians, but do we have to impose it on engineering students? Why are we getting all chauvinistic about it now? It was an elitist language to begin with.

  It all appears to be part of this constant bombardment of jingoistic hype, propaganda and hyperbole about everything from the prime honcho wanting to make somebody else’s trinkets in India to reasons why god gets pissed off. God recently got angry in Kerala, probably because Malayali women are wearing jeans now. To god’s credit, he/she/it did send a sign that things are getting out of hand. A god figurine apparently fell down from atop an elephant. Our morons, as usual, didn’t understand the significance of that signal from god. On the other hand, god could have just said, “Ladies (it’s always the ladies), time to discard those tank tops and leggings and get back into mulakachchas. OK, not all of you. You there, you are not allowed to cover those boobies up”. But, for reasons which our brains will never be able to comprehend, god didn’t say anything, and killed a hundred for ignoring that sign.

  I’m now in Japan, a country at which god is perpetually angry, again, probably because the women here wear shorts, though nobody in Japan has caught on to that fact yet. In fact, god has been angry and sending hundreds of earthquakes every day for millions of years in anticipation of the last 40 or 50 years of miniskirt-wearing Japanese women.

  A few days ago I took my kids to see some actual dinosaur fossils from millions of years ago. My younger one, not old enough to comprehend the time scale in millions, wanted to know why there aren’t any dinosaurs alive now. Instead of just the volcanic and meteorite theories, I should have told him the entire truth – “Son, it was the thongs worn by the female spinosaura that invoked the wrath of god, who smote them with meteors”.

  Ithi vartha ha.

P.S. “Sanskrit has the highest number of vocabularies than any other language in the world,” says the message I received. I’m sure there is a “vocabulary” for chasmosaurus too, which was first used millions of years ago by, you guessed it, Baldevananda Sagara. He is a living fossil in his own right. The only known living person who can string together a sentence in Sanskrit, let’s hope he is offered a Nobel Prize that he can refuse.

P.P.S. There is also the mythmaking and the personality cult being created around our supreme leader. “Subtle observations” (means made-up crock, like the one about the Google map pointer being the tilak on Lord Vitthal’s head) keep popping up at regular intervals. Movie-goers may soon have to sit through propaganda news reels like the days when Indira was India. It hasn’t reached Kim Jong-un-esque proportions yet, but pretty soon you may hear stories of how the first words the Chosen One spoke as a baby was “Bharat mata ki jai”.

P.P.P.S. Had to “share (at least) this to the maximum” so that people know the truth and live a healthful life away from anti-national medicines. Excerpted from the voluminous “Why Sanskrit Kicks Ass”:

“Sanskrit is the only language, which uses all the nerves of the tongue. By its pronunciation, energy points in the body are activated that causes the blood circulation to improve. This, coupled with the enhanced brain functioning and higher energy levels, ensures better health. Blood Pressure, diabetes, cholesterol etc. are controlled. (Ref: American Hindu University after constant study)”

P.P.P.P.S. Nah. Nothing more. To your health!