Why human beings are twat waffles

There, I said it. I have believed this for the longest time now, and the whole of mankind has been ‘kind’ enough to prove my theory right. You may argue that we have the best working brains, the gift of language and invention and the highest level of self awareness among all ‘creatures’ which should relieve us of the ignominy of a ‘twat waffle’ tag.

Sadly, you would be wrong (as humans are wont to be about most things). The fact remains that for all our wonderful inventions, the beauty of arts, music and architecture, our social construct, space travel and other achievements (Hurray.), we are the worst things to have ever walked this planet. And that includes a fictional Indominus Rex.

So much so, that if I were a chimp and some scientist came up to me and said, undoubtedly thinking that it’s a compliment, that I have near-human intelligence, I would fling my choicest poo at him and screech at him to stop insulting me and GTFO of my enclosure.

And no, I’m not reserving the Twat Waffle (henceforth known as Twaffle) tag to sundry horrible humans who grope ladies in the bus, or turn without an indicator, or occupy free government bungalows under the pretext of working for the nation. I’m saying it for the entire species.

Why. So. Serious? Because despite our tall claims about intelligence, all we are is a bunch of copy cats and robots, incapable of thinking for ourselves. We take the ‘knowledge’ that somebody preached ages ago and run with it, without using our brains to think if it’s right or wrong.

Take a look at any newspaper or honest website and you will find proof that what I’m saying is true.

Today, there are only 4 Northern white rhinos left in the world. Why? Because some Twaffle ages ago said that a rhino horn has medicinal properties. I don’t blame him, I blame the bastards who are killing the rhino to extinction without knowing that a rhino horn is made of the same material as your hair, keratin. Pull out your hair and eat it, you morons.

Or take the asshole, who ages ago, instead of confessing to his wife that he couldn’t get it up, claimed that a tiger penis is the remedy for sexual problems. I would have stoned the man to death on account of insanity, but no, poachers hunt tigers for their body parts even today, when a simple Google search will prove the impotent a*hole wrong.

And why waste the rest of the tiger? Its bones are supposed to cure many orthopedic diseases, among other things. Never mind that taking an inexpensive calcium supplement will do the same job. Or the fact that the tiger needs its bones more than you need your mobility.

Have you heard of shark fin soup? It’s supposed to be a delicacy, though which twisted, sadist creep came up with the idea of chopping off just a shark’s fin, leaving it to drown and die in the ocean so that we humans can enjoy a bowl of slimy soup is beyond me. And according to some reports, it doesn’t even taste that good! So why do people have it? As a status symbol, of course! Millions of sharks are caught, separated from their fins and then thrown back in the sea to die. Imagine someone cutting off your legs just because they like your pants and leaving you to bleed out in the street. Imagine millions of such people crawling through the streets helplessly. Too bad this scenario would be too gruesome for our advanced brains to bear.

Recently there was good news about the Gadhimai festival in Nepal being cancelled indefinitely. While I was happily reading the news, a piece of history caught my eye. The origin story of the festival says that the founder of the Gadhimai Temple had a dream that the Goddess asked for a human sacrifice in exchange of freeing him from prison and after he sacrificed an animal instead, they have been butchering millions of animals every five years to keep up the tradition. No offence, but HOW CAN YOU SLAUGHTER SO MANY ANIMALS BASED ON ONE PERSON’S DREAM? THAT TOO A PERSON WHO WENT TO PRISON, FOR GOD KNOWS WHAT! Martin Luther King saw a dream, he was assassinated. The Gadhimai founder saw a dream; scores of animals are cruelly killed. Dreams are dangerous weapons in the hands of humans.

More craziness? I want to meet the first guy who looked at a majestic tusker and thought, ”This elephant’s tusks will look better as an ornament in my house than on the body of a living animal.” Cue to 2015, and we are still poaching 96 elephants a day in Africa, which means 1 elephant is killed for its tusks every FIFTEEN MINUTES. In this day and age of 3D printing and discovering new materials every day, can’t we make a decision to stop decorating our homes with ivory from a violently killed wild animal? If we value intelligence so much, why can’t we appreciate elephants for their proven intelligence and leave them the hell alone?

Hunting is another ‘sport’ that takes us right into the celestial realms of twat wafflery. How is killing a defenseless animal with firepower (or a crossbow in the case of the ultimate douchebag Walter Palmer) a sign of courage? Yes our ancestors hunted for sport but that was when the Earth was teeming with wild animals! Why can’t we break the trend and refuse to kill animals for sport? Go shoot some terrorists on your PlayStation if you’re feeling low on testosterone, man.

I know I’ve sounded like a crazy armchair animal activist till now, but photojournalist Adrian Steirn (who you should totally follow on Instagram) says the most beautiful thing – "What we do to the animals, we do to ourselves". Aren’t we slaughtering our own kind like animals too?

A God man tells you to sacrifice another human being to earn money and you happily kill an unsuspecting neighbor, without stopping to consider if there’s a relation between spilling someone’s blood and gold coins raining down on you.

Loss in business?  Wife not happy with you? Rape your daughter and solicit her out to other people, you will prosper. Even ‘lesser’ animals risk their lives to protect their young ones, and this is what we smart, social animals do? Scar the little girl who you are supposed to protect against the big, bad world?

Some senile villager claims that women should dress, act and marry in a certain manner and we start collecting kerosene and matches in the wholesale market, ready to burn girls at the slightest provocation. Not before raping them to teach them a last lesson, duh!

Ages ago, someone thought up that girls should bring dowry to their husband’s home while getting married and paved the way for greedy no-gooders everywhere to pilfer millions from the girl’s father’s account without lifting a finger. Unless it is to slap the poor wife around if she doesn’t stuff your insatiable throat fast enough. Someone please explain this to me.

A dialogue writer wrote ‘Diamonds are a girl’s best friend’ and off we suckers go to prove our love with solitaires. Is your love so weak that it needs to be cemented by a commercialized gesture which stands on the legs of genocide, blood diamonds and artificial scarcity? Being romantic and being blind to the facts of the world are too very different things. Personally, I’ll pledge my love to a person who proposes with girl’s real best friend, a dog. Be original and get a (love) life people.

A person, however learned, forms a religion millennia ago and his supposed followers preach that theirs is the only true religion (or sub sect of it) and the rest of them are a threat, and off people go killing each other and blowing themselves up in the hope of getting laid at least in heaven. Obviously you nitwits, if you spend all your youth in terrorist training camps and bunkers in the desert, the only time you’ll get a woman in your arms is in heaven.

Speaking of heaven, it’s about time we saw some definitive proof of this coveted location existing anywhere in the known or unknown Universe. Billions of people have died on our Earth till now and not ONE of them has evidence that Heaven exists, or if it has reserved plots for different souls based on the religion that you followed. Without a shred of proof of Heaven, people kill and commit unspeakable horrors just to reserve a place in La La Land, against all proven and basic logic that harming another human being is bad.

 I won’t ask for proof of hell because I see it everywhere I turn my eyes and we definitely don’t need to waste any more square footage on constructing another one with the latest hot oil cauldrons and pitch fork closets. We can of course threaten homosexuals with eternal damnation and ensure that hordes of them commit suicide out of hopelessness rather than sully our pious ways with their gayness.

This is not even the end of the twat wafflery of humans, and it won’t be till we do something about it. I’m not naïve, but neither am I cynical. I know there is goodness, hope and beauty in this world, but right now I’m just too angry to see any of it. All I can see is a dead Cecil, terrorist attacks, beheadings and dowry deaths. As they say, never underestimate the stupidity of humans in a large crowd. And this is precisely what we are. A nameless, directionless, faceless crowd looking for guidance from either redundant rules written thousands of years ago, or Instagram posts written by a bored pimply copywriter on a deadline.

There is a truth above all of this, and it is our own personal Truth. It doesn’t yell from the rooftops, neither does it seek validation from a fellow human being. All it does is keep your moral compass pointed due North, needing no priest or policeman to tell you what’s right and wrong. The truth is different for every human being, but that’s the beauty of it. And unless you’re a psychopath, your Truth will be the voice in your head shaking off the shackles of evil and taking you to the good. You don't have a mind just to play mind games with the cute girl who gave you her number and your gut isn't a thing to decorate with layers of fat from your junk food outings. Give them the credit they deserve and use them just for yourself once, and see your twafflery meter go down.

I admit that this truth has lost its voice for most people in the scream of sirens and paid television news.  So sit down, calm yourself, and reconnect with this truth inside you. It will whisper to you at first, but given time, it will turn into a squeak and then a roar so loud that you will need no outside crutches to be a good human being in the truest sense, instead of the ‘twat waffle masquerading as a human’ that most of us currently are. Maybe then the monkeys will stop flinging their poo at us. 

Snippets from my trip to Hampi aka God’s Own Lego Land

At the very outset, let me tell you that this post is not a ‘travelogue’. If you are planning a trip to Hampi, this post will be of as much use to you as Rahul Gandhi is to the Congress party. Now that I have linked this blog to current affairs and proved how in the know I am, let’s get to the point.

This Holi weekend, I had the extreme pleasure of visiting Hampi. Most trips are the result of careful and meticulous planning for weeks, if not months, while some are of the impromptu pack-your-bag-and-hum-jo-chalne-lage-chalne-lage-hai-ye-raaste variety. Well, this trip was the fruit of me yelling ‘I WANT TO GO TO HAMPI’ repeatedly in a Whatsapp group till my partner-in-only-the-wander-type-of-lust Nivedita suggested that we make good of the Holi weekend and put an end to my tantrum.

I won’t bore you with details of how to haggle with your auto wala or write a ’13 things you must do in Hampi or you are a loser’ type of post. This is more of ‘to ye rahe Hampi ke mukhya samachar’, a list of things I remember from the trip. More for myself than for anyone else (I’m really living up to my blog’s name)

1. I remember being borderline terrified as the date for the trip came closer. You think it’s because we were two girls going to a strange land on the day of one of the rowdiest festivals in India? Pssshhhh! Such concerns are for mortals. What terrified me is the thought of spending 3-odd days with just one other person, and of course my social anxiety for company.

Put me in a group of people or give me the protective veil of a chat window, and I can smother my anxiety enough to come across as a decent conversationalist.  But 3 whole days of one on one interaction with another human? Gulp.  Doesn’t matter that the person in question is one of my best friends, I will still shudder at the possibility. Turns out, my fears were mostly unfounded.

2. I remember not believing that we’re actually going to Hampi even while packing my bags in a zombie like state at 1 am on the day we were supposed to leave.

3. The random and free flowing conversation with Nivedita in the otherwise silent sleeper bus, aided of course by the lack of data connection on our phones. Tee Hee.

4. The first view of the boulders in Hampi. If Kerala is God’s Own Country, Hampi has to be God’s Own Lego Land. The way in which the HUGE boulders are arranged makes you marvel at the Creator – nature, God, I don’t know. I would like to think that baby Hanuman (who is supposed to have been born here) played with these boulders throughout the land and refused to put his toys back like any other kid, resulting in these incredible formations.

5. The absolute and welcome relief I felt because of the change in scenery – from seeing glitzy malls that were built in front of your eyes and will become ghosts of their present selves in the next few years, to seeing the creations of nature that have been around for centuries and have seen the rise and fall of dynasties.

6. The easy and generous smiles of both the tourists and the locals. From the old, wrinkled woman who needed no permission to smear us with colour accompanied by a genuine ‘Happy Holi!’, to the pretty foreigner who smiled shyly while passing us on the road, it was truly a Hampi, I mean happy place.

7. The local boys who brought their fistfuls of colour to within 3 inches of my face before cocking their heads and asking ‘OK?’ and applying the colour only when I nodded my consent.  

8. Doing the bhangra with coloured (with Holi colours, not being racist) people from many continents, including our own, in the middle of the street as a local band struck up a crazy tempo.

9. Getting my forehead smeared with the most stubborn gulaal by a grinning man. For all I know, I’m still carrying his sindoor in my maang after so many days.

10. Not looking into the mirror for three days (our room didn’t have one) and not caring what we looked like, discovering our tanned faces only in selfies later.

11. Exclaiming ‘What the Hell’ and ‘What the F*&k’ at least twice an hour while exploring the temples and being inwardly thankful that there were no idols in most temples to judge my profanity. The reason for the interjections? The sheer skill and willpower that must have gone into making the Hampi structures.

If God was playing Lego with the boulders, the kings’ favourite game must be Jenga, which they played with huge blocks of stone placed perfectly over one another, making the most breathtaking and enduring structures in the bargain.  And I, who can’t even carve an apple into proper slices in one attempt, have the utmost regard for the long lost sculptors who made living art that has stood the test of time. Hampi – The Most Epic Game of Jenga Ever Played.

12. Making it a point to touch and run my hand along every temple and structure I came across, in a feeble attempt to absorb some of the stories that the stones have stood witness to. We can only imagine the kind of stories that the stones would tell if they could.

13. Climbing the steps of the Hanuman temple, and then going further ahead on the cliff to watch the sunset. At one point, I thought I wouldn't be able to navigate the formidable stones (partly because of my infinite wisdom of wearing a maxi dress curtailing my movements) and paused in the middle. Watching a mediocre view was good enough, better than missing a step and bashing my head open on the cliff. But then suddenly it wasn’t enough, and I continued walking till I reached the edge of the cliff, just in time for the sun to disappear. And as I sat there alone amidst total strangers looking at me strangely because I had the most ridiculous grin on my face, I knew it was worth it.

14. Hearing and understanding conversations of locals in Kannada, my mother’s tongue, the language of my childhood.

15. Sitting in a lawn beneath a tree after God knows how much time, staring unashamedly at people going about their business. Rediscovering my favourite pastime – people watching.

16. The family of women who plonked their toddler with us, then settled around us in a gaggle, and before we could comprehend what was happening, clicked a picture with us thinking we were foreigners. I don’t want to imagine their disappointment when someone with a more racially discerning eye points out that they have a photo with a set of desis, or the vehemence with which the photo will then be deleted.

17. The potential generosity of a group of school children in another lawn, who again thought we were foreigners and debated whether to offer us their food for us to ‘taste some of their Indian food’, and then smiling shyly when I turned to look at them.

18. The caretaker aunty’s whistle protesting noisily when I clambered into a heritage building that was apparently non-clamberable. The look that she gave me later made me feel like I was sheltering Dawood Ibrahim in my sling bag.

19. Lakshmi the temple elephant. Regardless of how many elephant pictures you double tap on Instagram, seeing a live elephant swaying in front of you is an unbeatable experience. Touching the sheer power of her wrinkly trunk reminds you that there are bigger things out there than your human ego, and that elephants are basically just too darned cute for their own good.

On a completely unrelated and mature note, if someone has a spare baby elephant (I know they’re called calves) up for adoption, I’m willing to work three jobs to give it my family name and raise it as my own.

20. The late night *cough* illegal *cough* coracle ride across the river. We didn't reach in time to catch the last boat to the other side, and what followed was a fun, adventurous trip crouched in a small, wet coracle in utter darkness with 12 other people (we later found out that it should accommodate only 6-9 people), which included 3 raucous boys singing songs in Russian.

If anyone from my family is reading this, the above account is totally a figment of imagination, a sad attempt of getting some adventure in an utterly boring trip. I swear.

21. Sitting with feet dipped into the gurgling river, trying to believe that this is actually happening, failing to do so, and then getting ridiculously happy to know that all of it is real – the cool water, your relieved toes, the sun getting ready to set, and the huge smile that creeps onto your face.

22. Dancing and jumping in the rain and experiencing HAILSTONES in March on the day you’re scheduled to leave. Running out as it starts raining might seem like a cheesy, wannabe, Yash Chopra movie thing to do, but when it happens, you have no choice to be all filmy and stretch your arms to catch the raindrops.

23. Learning how to navigate a coracle on your own during a ride, doing it admirably well considering it’s your first time, and then giving up when your biceps, or the fat that resides in that general area, start wailing in protest.

24. NOT TOUCHING MY MUSIC PLAYER FOR THE ENTIRE TRIP. This has to be the biggest phenomenon of the trip. I had charged my music player and double checked the earphones before leaving, in the hope that they would shield me during times when words failed me. They came back untouched. There were conversations and there were silences, but no gaps so huge that they had to be filled with music.

That’s quite enough memories for a trip that lasted hardly three days, and Hampi has ensured that there will be many more such memories in the future. Hampi, you weird place you, you’re like the wise old woman who was a legendary beauty in her prime, and now has all the wisdom of a life well lived, to be shared with anyone who comes with an open mind.

Am I glad that I threw that Whatsapp tantrum. 

I Won’t Love You…

I won’t love you…

I won’t love you in all the ways that you have been taught till now,

By books, by movies, by rumoured tales of happy endings that have floated your way in long forgotten conversations.

I won’t be the girl that dreams are made of, for I’d rather live our time together with eyes wide open.

I won’t blush, I won’t be coy. I won’t lower my eyelashes when you give me ‘that’ smile.

I won’t wait for your gaze to turn my way, and forget to breathe when it isn't.

I won’t miss you, or at least won’t tell you that I do.

I won’t whisper sweet nothings in your ear, because they are for people who don’t have enough things to say to each other.

I won’t gaze into your eyes lovingly when a camera is trained on us, even though manufactured magical moments on red carpets tell us that I should.

I won’t tell you that I love you, for my tongue is sure to stumble and trip over the words.

I won’t complete you; neither will I let you do that for me.

I won’t hold on for dear life to your attention, for that’s not love, that’s fear.

When you’re gone, for however short a period of time, you won’t see me shed a tear.

I won’t wheedle you into buying me stuff, and pass it off as the trait, and the right, of a woman in love.

I won't let my smile differ from when we eat roadside chaat to when we dine at places of acclaim,

For as long as it's with you, it's all the same.

I won’t tell our tales to my giddy, giggly friends, so you’ll have to pardon me if the wonders of you don’t reach many ears.

I won’t get jealous when you fancy someone else, and dare you take it as a proof of my detachment.

I won’t shout from the physical or virtual rooftops that you’re mine.

For the world will ‘like’ it and make it mundane, a word which I won’t let our love define.

I won’t ask you to pull my chairs or steady my step, and I won’t let you pick up my luggage.

I won’t pretend to be weak just to make you feel strong, that’s just wrong.

I won’t call you perfect, nor hold you to perfection’s boring, stifling standards.

I won’t make you the centre of my Universe. Trust me, you don’t want that kind of attention!

I won’t…for the life of me, say that 'You are my life'.

And it would be over my dead body that I say ‘I’d die without you’. (How ironic!)

I won’t stop you if you leave me, nor entreat you to stay.

I won’t fight for your love, because how can I fight against you for ‘us’?

I won’t try to bind you for a lifetime with a contract. No, no threats, enticements or guarantees will make their way to you.

I won’t barter with you- no gifts in exchange for love, no trading diamonds for a missed birthday, and no vacations for forgiving transgressions.

I won’t look to you for my solutions or miracles, nor will seek solace in your arms from the big bad world.

You are human too, and you’re mine.

What I will do is love you, without saying it enough to dull its impact.

What I will do is call you silly names, and leave you to decide if it’s a term of endearment, or irritation.

I will match you gaze for gaze as we look together towards the future, our future.

I will take long walks on the beach with you, and turn them into impromptu races which you’ll let me win :)

I will make a world for you, and hide its key from the world forever.

What I will do is let you make mistakes, and take immense joy in correcting you with a haughty sparkle in my eye.

I will watch every day as your imperfections fall away, revealing more delicious imperfections inside.

On overcast nights, I will use your fingers and mine to tell you all the ways in which you are magnificent, ways which still haven't been unearthed by you.

I will read with you and pick your brain, wanting to know everything there is to you.

I will never let you run out of your favourite perfume, because I'll love the way it smells too.

I will leave you be in a roomful of people, needing no anchor tying you to me,

And every time someone makes you laugh, I'll pray for him to the powers that be.

I will bask in your successes but they will only be yours; and battle with your failures, which will always be ours.

I will laugh at all your jokes, yes, even the lame ones, and hope that you didn't see the eye roll at the end of the giggle.

I will be a goofball till you guffaw and wonder where you got me from, and then trace our steps back to where you actually did.

I will let you be your own person and I will be mine, because really, how tragic do two incomplete souls sound?

I will let you out in the world to fight your own battles, and the ones that hurt you; I will gladly destroy them for you.

I will share the burden of wooing and take you out for a night on the town,

And I will knowingly totter in high heels just to clutch your arm a little tighter lest I fall down.

I will tell you that I want a reflection of your nose or your hair in the faces of my children,

Right before knocking down the bedside table lamp during our pillow fight.

On the days when you aren't around, I will get on with my life, safe in the knowledge that you will find your way back to me.

And if you don’t, I will still wish you all the happiness in the world.

I will keep you in my prayers till the end of time,

Because you are human too, and you are mine.