Selfies

You know what?
We need to take more selfies.

I've been in the dumps lately. Thinking I have no life, no friends, no social calender, no 'these-are-the-days-of-our-lives' moments anymore. And then I look at selfies of people in restaurants, eating a burger and I'm like: I go to restaurants. I eat burgers. Why, I did it last week. With friends, too.
I look at photos of people with pets, babies & boyfriends and feel sad for myself. Till I realize: I don't want pets, I don't want babies and I have a boyfriend, who is very nice.

The key then is, take selfies. Take lots of fucking selfies. 

 

The Ryan Gosling And Macaulay Culkin T-Shirt Meme Is The Best Thing On The Internet

An Optimist's Take on Election 2014

First off: Amit Shah, if you're surveilling, HI! Love what you've done with India. Totally amazeballs. Keep in touch, yeah?

It's the frenetic morning of election results in India and it's pretty clear that Gujarati Santa Claus is going to be our next PM, with the RSS finally in power (they tried with Vajpayee but he just wasn't that into them). 

It's going to be good for the oppressed Hindu right wing. Question is, will it be as good for us?

[By 'us', I mean people like me - with lady bits (or respect for people with lady bits), liberal views, sympathies for minorities & the marginalized and expectations of social reform along with economic development. In short: People who may not live the Hindu way.]

Here's my optimistic take on the matter: India is not the same apathetic country it was in the '90s or early 2000s and while the BJP/RSS may enjoy routing every other party, there are large sections of society that aren't going to sit quietly as they push their Big Balls patriarchal ideology on to us - however surreptitiously. The fact that the AAP has emerged in the last 2 years and that women are not as accepting of their second-class status as they once were, are two trends that suggest that this will not be smooth sailing for the right wing.

Let me get even more optimistic: There are going to be hairy moments in the next few years, where besides economic bonhomie, the RSS and its bretheren may be challenged to update themselves and their narrow world view. I would love to see how that unfolds and just for that reason, I might even be glad that Mr. Modi is now in power.

Inshallah, all will be well.

Or the government will succeed in numbing the vocal middle-classes with goodies and such, in which case: Hey Amit Shah, you're looking good. Have you lost weight?

In Wonderment of Jose Mujica

Sometimes the robotic clicking of a remote can lead you to fantastic things.
Like this Christiane Amanpour interview of Uruguay's president Jose Mujica.
Read the CNN article here:

It's so refreshing to see someone in political life, let alone a president, who doesn't talk like a slick car salesman.

On relations with the US:
What is it like for a former Marxist guerrilla to enter the White House, that most potent of Western’s symbols?
“I cannot deny reality,” he told Amanpour. “I don't know whether I like this planet or not, but I have to accept it.”
There is not just one “United States,” he said. Yes, the country wields tremendous – “scary” – influence in Latin America, and the relationship between the region and America has a troubled history full of attempted coups and CIA operatives.
“However,” he said, “there's also a big debate in the States. There's human progress. There's a technological and scientific development that helps the whole of humanity. So we cannot just put everything in one bag and just say one word to describe the U.S.”
“I know that the U.S. is a bit of a global policeman, but I also recognize something really positive about the U.S. which has helped humanity.”

On Uruguay legalizing marijuana: 
“It is a measure against trafficking, drug dealing. We are trying to snatch the market away from them, because it's 80 years now that we are repressing drug use.”
“So like everywhere in the world, repression by itself doesn't do the job. We are trying to find another way.”
Regulating use of the drug, he suggested, could even lead to a decrease in usage.
“When you surround that with this forbidden aura, you are actually calling the younger to take it up. However, if you place it as a controlled product that you can purchase at the chemist – like some other drugs like morphine, which is used for certain prescriptions – then we are taking the mystery out of marijuana and we hit the drug dealers.”

On his past life as a political prisoner:
“If you catch a black ant, a normal common ant, you grab her with two fingers, you put her right inside your ear, and you hear it scream,” he told Amanpour. “But of course you need time to do that. And you have to be really lonely.”
“When you spend a long time by yourself in solitary confinement, a frog, a rat that comes to eat because you leave some crumbs there – it's life. It's the life you have there.”

On being the 'poorest president in the world':
He donates 97% of his salary, drives a 1987 Volkwagen Beetle – the original “peoples’ car” – and sells flowers with his wife at their home.
Mujica, a former Marxist guerrilla, lives in the same modest Montevideo house he always has, forgoing the presidential palace.
“I do not need much to live. I live in the same way I used to live when I wasn’t a president and in the same neighborhood, in my same house, and in the same way. And I am a republican” – small ‘r.’
“I live like the majority in my country lives. It was a majority who voted for me. And that's why I identify with them. Morally, I do not have the right to live like a minority in my country.”

*****

On a totally whacked-out tangent, the only other politician who seems to be (relatively speaking) a straight-talker and someone who doesn't beat about the bush (too much) when answering journalists' questions is the mega-creepy Amit Shah.
Watch his interview with CNN-IBN's Rajdeep Sardesai and tell me if I've lost it: