How to find a bride in India? Simple steps.

How to find a bride in India?


To find a bride in India, one needs to give the impression that he is not interested in marriage, love or any suchlike distractions. One has to pretend to have tangible, attainable life goals. Whenever someone asks what you are doing with your life, you have to reply that you're preparing for civil services to at least qualify as a serious minded person.


Once everyone is convinced that you're a serious-minded person, this is what you need to do- assess your skills and talents. Then start pursuing higher studies in something which is completely opposite to your personal inclinations. You might ask what is the reason behind such diabolical behaviour. The answer to which is SHUT UP! You're not supposed to ask questions.


Moving on, once you're done with your education and are done eyeing all the pretty girls in your college, you develop a werewolf-like personality. Due to all the repression, your face develops scary features like dark circles, baldness etc. This is perfectly normal, you're on your way to getting married.


Now once you've acquired a graduate degree, look at your degree and enlist all the jobs suited for you. Now, take that list to the toilet and flush it. Start preparing for civil services, bank exams or other such institutions which offer jobs that require you to sit in a chair and analyze data for the government. Again, do not ask questions. The keyword here is 'government job'. Ok, two words. Keywords.


Anyway, now once you're 'settled', go to the marketplace with a cloth bag and ask for a bride. I am not kidding. Pick up that jhola and take your relatives for bride shopping. Whenever you are bargaining for a bride, assess all features like height, weight, colour (especially colour because dark ones are bad for some reason) etc. Once you have selected a bride suitable to your 'market value', just pick her up and put her in your bag. And here comes the best part, her relatives will pay YOU to take her away from them. Isn't it great?


All the best out there!

Thoughts on Kejriwal and AAP

On 10th Feb, 2015, Aam Aadmi Party created history in Delhi politics by emerging as the single largest party in the State elections. AAP won on 67 seats out of 70. To be honest, I didn't expect the party to fare this well. It was not because I had any doubts in Kejriwal's ability as a crowd-puller but, the negative publicity that had been done by the political opposition seemed to have struck a chord with the Delhi common man.

I can only admire Kejriwal's skills as a human resource manager to revert back from that sort of low where even he was pushed to admit that resigning from the post of Chief Minister was a mistake. He was cornered and there seemed to be no way out. Of course BJP blundered by fielding Kiran Bedi as their CM candidate. Her obnoxious personality beamed through in all her TV interviews. It was not that she was a bad orator. It seemed as if she had sold her soul to the devil and was gung-ho about it.

Yet, something doesn't add up. There was a strong case for BJP in the wake of this new Modi era where BJP was projected as a saviour from all sorts of evil. Congress will loot you, AAP will abandon you, only BJP can save you. If I am not mistaken, the air was laden with a lot of favouritism toward the Right-Wing. Now, here is the time to sing accolades to the beauty of democracy. You can never take anything for granted.

BJP dug its own grave by keeping mum on controversial 'ghar-wapsi movement' and 'four-children per family statements'. It also stopped talking about development and Modi brand and focused on defaming Kejriwal. Even when there are kids fighting, the kid who keeps quiet usually gets less rebuttal from elders. BJP was the other kid- the tantrum throwing, sulky, brash, annoying kid. I think that is what happened.

Even then, 67 seats to a party which had lost its face. In Lok Sabha elections, AAP had performed poorly and even schoolteachers refrain from giving good grades to a child who has recently flunked. The Delhi voter is no schoolteacher I guess. It patiently watched and weighed its options. I am not saying AAP was a bad choice, it was common sense to vote for AAP but, it is just too shocking to see common sense prevail so widely.

You can convince an urban rich person to vote for AAP because even though its politics has certain flaws, it is not dirty politics. But, to convince the poor that politics can be free of issues relating to religion and mud-slinging; and then convincing them to vote for a relatively new party- it seems tricky.

I am not saying I know the secret of AAP's success. I am just saying there has to be a way around populist politics which AAP found. It was either the meetings that Kejriwal held in different Delhi localities, or the alluring campaign which focused on clear and direct promises. Whatever it was, it was a work of genius and all I can say is- well done, crusaders.


On a side note, I admire how Kejriwal has a sense of humour about things. Here's a video by TVF proving that-

On AIB Knockout

Here are the videos for those who live under a rock-

So yeah! That happened! And the internet has been taken by a storm. Haw! How dare they? How could they? That was so racist! They brought in their families to watch this? Values? Society? OMG!

The knockout created all kinds of furore and although I am not a big fan of cussing, I do understand how it helps one exaggerate and make a point. There were no punches pulled and most jokes seemed to be well written and rehearsed.

Problem? The problem is that as a nation, once again, we have overreacted to something so trivial. It is just a video on the internet targeting no one in particular and offending everyone on purpose. It is an art form and is being pursued earnestly. In parts, they failed but only because the punch didn't come along as nicely as thought. How can a conservative person watch these videos even after being given due warning and then pass a decision that it was bad or good. The people who are critiquing it are doing it on grounds that it contained foul language. The funny bit is, AIB is not contesting it. It announces in its opening shot that the show is going to be offensive. People watch it, take offence and then lodge complaints. Funny country. Imagine what would happen if a bunch of atheists tell you how to offer prayers to God! Would that look sensible?

Is it a bad influence on kids? Well, it isn't that kids have no access to internet these days and this video specially is being dropped in their laps. If there is due warning and it is available only for a mature audience, it is now an issue of good or bad parenting if you let your kids watch foul language.

Coming to the jokes on Ashish Shakya's colour and Tanmay Bhat's weight. They took it pretty well. It was insult comedy. Maybe it was distasteful but they're not contesting it. So, a bunch of guys had fun and uploaded their video on the internet. Nobody was offended and you're offended about the fact that these people are so chill about their body image?

You might say that such videos encourage cruel jokes on dark-skinned and fat people. So, umm.. you mean to say AIB invented racism? India is the worst country to grow up for a dark-skinned person. These jokes were at least funny and were on adults. I, as a dark kid in school, had to listen to the meanest jokes about the colour of my skin from kids who were spoonfed since childhood that black is ugly.

'Don't play in the Sun, you will be dark and then no one will marry you.', 'Mishraji's daughter is otherwise good, it is just that her complexion is a bit dark, tut, tut!' - We are one of the most racist people on Earth and now we're offended by a 'Kala Khatta' joke? I am clenching my fists at the mere thought of this hypocrisy.

I am not saying what they did was good or bad. All I am saying is, chill!

Shaking Hands with Strangers

I just shook the hands of a product manager (fancy name for ‘salesgirl’) from an Orthodontic supplies company. It was as awkward as a handshake can get. I don’t know who invented the handshake but he must have been a really lonely person just wanting to hold someone’s hand. “Can’t hold strangers’ hands? Let’s turn this into an etiquette-related thing!”

Initiating a handshake is the toughest part. You hold out your hand hoping that the other person will notice it in time and grab hold of it before it turns into a miserable plea. Sometimes your hand is caught, sometimes it is too late. When it is too late, you begin to simper and the other person notices it and then he holds it like one holds a runner about to faint after a sprint.

Smiling at strangers is less awkward I admit. You just stretch your lips and feign happiness. It is like everyday living. I wonder what would have been the scenario if all this etiquette was more naturally evolved. I guess, we’d have been made to raise our eyebrows and widen our pupils upon arrival of an unexpected guest as opposed to smiling. The handshake would have been replaced by a hand gesture implying appalment on his arrival. ‘How do you do?’ which is a nonsensical salutation in so many ways, would be replaced by ‘Who the F are you? Young kids would be taught to follow their natural impulse on seeing strangers. They’d have grown up into dentists who would have acted all surprised whenever someone entered their clinics without an appointment.

The friendliness etiquette is not that bad though. Of course our natural instincts need to be suppressed because we have already deleted the natural world from the recycle bin. Civilization has made many things possible and it would be unfair to even argue for the case of a more disorderly world.

If anything, we should shake more hands and smile more. It is an uphill task and requires a lot of commitment. I bet if it was left to you, you’d only make friends with people you like and weeded out the rest from your life. But, 26 years of my life have taught me that we cannot weed out people. We must shake hands.

They fired at kids?

There are hashtags on twitter, facebook posts, comments, basically there has been an outrage on social media against the heinous terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar, Pakistan. These words that have been floating in the blogosphere tell us what happened there, how saddening it is but none of them can exactly precisely describe the amount of tragedy that took place in Peshawar on 16-12-2014. 

Taliban has done the unspeakable, the unthinkable. They, as a group, have detached themselves from the rest of the humanity. It is not as if they were one of us but now, they cannot redeem themselves. It has gone too far. There have been moderates in Islam who have been protesting for radicals saying things like 'They are fighting a just cause with unjust means' or that 'sacrifice is the order of God' but what happened yesterday was not ordered by any Allah or God, it was an act of pure evil.

The moderate voices in Islam which somehow end up validating terror need to either shut up or take a stand against it. Islam cannot stand on its own, it needs the support of its followers. It can't be the fault of a religion or God that humanity is going haywire. It is just humans. Humans who kept quite when hate mongers conducted rallies, humans who glorified terrorists like Hafiz Saeed, humans who trained others to carry and use guns; those are our real culprits. I hope this news brings shame to all those humans who sat in Chai stalls, nukkads, barber shops and although they didn't plan any suicide attacks, they justified some killings, they supported the rallies, they raised slogans in the name of Allah. All those heads must hang in shame now.

This is of course not a time to shame Pakistan. I am not pointing at a nation. I am pointing at a specific group of people. They exist in UK, US, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, they are everywhere. They happen to be Muslims and the time has come when we stop protecting or blaming Islam. All those Muslims do not represent Islam. Islam doesn't need representation. It is a much larger religion than one can imagine and its followers are everywhere. If you target the religion, you miss the point and you end up helping the radicals. 

They killed 132 students and burnt their teachers alive. How do you measure such a tragedy in numbers? How do you measure the number of toasts that were made in the morning by the loving mothers who sent their kids to study? How do you measure the hopes of parents, their dreams that they had for their kids? How do you measure the effect on the survivors' minds? How do you measure the cost that humanity will have to pay now that it will be 132 students short in its mission to eliminate ignorance and barbarism?

Even one death would have been painful enough. It would have put to rest a million dreams, a million possibilities. And we have 132 deaths! Keep counting the dead dreams and begin the arrangements for their funeral too.

Do Right- Do Good

This post is a part of the Indiblogger DoRight initiative in association with Tata Capital. Here is the link to their website- http://doright.in/

The best thing one can do to give back to the society, if one wishes to- is the donation of education. Education not only empowers the future citizens, it makes them responsible toward the society too. It is like starting a cascade reaction.

I had goosebumps while watching this video (see above) by the DoRight team where this lone warrior of the mountains wages a battle against natural as well as financial odds to teach underprivileged kids. The dilapidated blackboards, the shaky benches, lack of stationary and challenging terrain are obstacles that only serve to make his resolve more firm.

His sense of humour when he points at the board and tells how it "used" to be black shows how he is not daunted by the challenges. We need more people like this in our country, we need more such people on this Earth!

This is my little way to show my support to him. My younger brother in Bhopal has taught underprivileged kids for an NGO. I wish we get more such NGOs taking up these causes in hilly regions too. Due to the difficulty in accessibility, even after so many years of Independence, these regions remain in neglect fighting it out all alone. I think these people have great potential and great spirit and it is about time they are made partners in nation-building on a more advanced level.

It has been a dream of mine to work in the hills for these simple minded and tough people. Here's praying that Govt of India takes notice of the condition there and opens recruitment for healthcare professionals (like myself) in these regions.

Thank you for reading and watching.

Do right!