Common Sense: An Autobiography

You all are responsible.

Hi Everyone! I guess there should not be any need to introduce myself because all of you must know me, however if I consider that, there should not have been any need to right this autobiography as well. So let me first introduce myself. I am common sense. I got that name because I am common among all individuals (people in old times were not very creative when it came to naming things). That also means that when I take any decision irrespective of on whose behalf I am taking that decision, it remains the same under same circumstances. Like when an elevator door opens my decision is to let individuals inside the lift get out before you get in. So as long as people using the elevator are allowing me to decide their actions everyone inside the elevator desiring to get off on that particular floor will first get out of the elevator and then people outside will enter. Doesn't it sound like utopia? That's the power I have to change your lives for good, if you allow me to. The problem is I no longer exist. I died long back. 

That's me tingling.

I am sure you want to know how I died. Well; I was driven to commit suicide by all of you. Before we get to the end, lets first explore the beginning. Like most of the celebrated success stories, I also had a very humble beginning. I was born inside the minds of animals, before humans even came into existence. Those animals used me to improve their lives. If you are familiar with the concept of social animal you should also know that it was me in their little brains who prompted them to live in groups to improve their chances of survival. I was having very interesting childhood inside these animals and by the time I became adolescent humans came into existence. Like any other confused teenager, I took some confused decisions in the beginning and got into conflict with curiosity. Sometime curiosity won over me but later we both realised the futility of these conflicts and decided to work together for the betterment of human existence. It was me in partnership with human curiosity who shaped the early years of human existence. Whenever curiosity dictated something you looked at me for the advice and most of the time you followed that advice and fortunately I never let you down. I peaked when humans started forming societies and started living together. It was no problem because they all used me for taking decisions on common matter and they agreed with each other on the decisions taken because it was me taking decisions on all of their behalf. Trust me, I used to be a big deal back then. Everyone would consult me before taking any decision and I was enjoying that.

As it happens with every good thing. I was also not to remain at the top forever. Things started changing. Some people who were smarter than others decided that it is difficult for the less smart ones to decide trivial things on their own, so they decided to make rules to help them decided. These basic rules of life were called religion and everyone was expected to lead their lives governed by these rules. When some people tried to consult me on certain matters and I suggested them something that was against the rules defined by religion, they were frowned upon by the people who got their power by becoming the so called caretakers-cum-enforcers of religion. Situation got so bad that people consulting me were even tortured and many times killed by these religious warlords holding the positions of power. 

Dramatic representation.

I saw many ups and downs from that point onward. Sometimes making the situation even worse by giving birth to even more religions and hurting myself in the process all the time. Then at some point in time another group of powerful people decided to come up with new sets of rules and started calling them law. Now I was becoming irrelevant in human world. Instead of consulting me in their day today lives they had to decide based in these set of rules sometimes in the name of religion and some time in the name of law. I did not give up at this point. I still kept fighting for my survival. I started suggesting people on how to follow those rules i.e. still consulting them on their lives however with my limited capacity. 

The last blow to my survival came when people even started defining processes to follow these policy. That is when my relevance became almost non-existent. People would not refer to these processes instead of consulting me. One day I saw a notice at the entrance of an elevator "please allow people inside the elevator to get out first before trying to enter." That was the day I decided that this is the end of me and I decided to commit suicide and leave the human kind on their own in their battle for survival. I jumped from the heads of the humans on the ground and these stupid humans by now not aware of me instead of picking me up crushed me under their feet. 

You get the idea what I am talking about.

I wish good luck to human kind in their battle for survival and I hope they come out stronger but I know very well that with me dead, this battle is already lost by the human kind and they are heading towards their inevitable doom; unless some part of me still survives in the heads of some smart human beings and they are smart enough to revive me. My only message to everyone out there is to help these humans revive me instead of frowning on them and suppressing their efforts. You survival depends on it.

Yeah. That guy. Don't suppress him.

I Hate Spammers

I probably would be one of the biggest victims of spams, considering that  I win multimillion dollars  euros and rupees every week, some dying nigerian prince wants to share his wealth with me for some reason (considering the amount of such mails I receive I believe life expectancy for Nigerian princes is very low and every Nigerian is a wealthy prince), everyday at least one girl promises to be the best life partner I could ever have, some mails have even started selling me child insurance (probably hoping that I would have by now fallen for one of those marry me spams), often RBI or Income Tax department expects me to share my account details with them, which they already have easy access to. Sometimes I receive mails with suspicious attachments, which I have never had the courage to open. Every week I receive multiple tips about earning quick money from home and almost daily I receive multiple e-mails about some walk-in for some opening in some call center offering me 10 times lower salary than what I already earn. All these are mails delivered to my inbox. Now imagine what I would find if I ever check my spam folder which receives at least 10 times more mails than the inbox. 

However recently I have noticed that I do not receive any such mails on a Sunday. That made me wonder that these spammers have become organized and have started taking weekly offs. Since I started the thought process, I continued and decided to trace the roots of spams. According to wikipedia "Spam is the use of electronic messaging systems to send unsolicited bulk messages, especially advertising, indiscriminately." I think that spams go much beyond the invention of electronic-mails. 

I belong to a generation that probably still remembers that post offices were not exclusively intended to be used for sending government or corporate communications. I have used inland letters and postcards during my early hostel days to communicate with my parents and I remember receiving postcards with some story written in it and asking me to send 10-100 such postcards to random addresses if I do not want to be cursed or if I want to be blessed. Much similar to a picture of some god on facebook asking you to share the picture if you want the blessings. Now writing a postcard and posting takes much effort than clicking share button on facebook yet just the fact that I myself have received some such postcards means that some people then used to put that effort. The number could have been much higher it the postcards said "Alcohol god will drink all your stock for a dry day if you do not share this with 25 people" or "the hot girl in your college will fall for you if you send this to 10 people" (much like deodorant commercials) etc.

Nowadays with social media becoming so prominent we are seeing multiple people becoming spammers without even realising it. Otherwise how do you classify multiple people sharing posts with titles like "Share and see what happens" (this I think is the most stupid of them all), "if you love you mother, share this post" (now how much I love my family is decided basis the amount of spamming I do), "Share, if you love Jesus" (if I do not share an stupid post on facebook, somehow that makes me an atheist). Most prominent of them all are by these pseudo patriots who believe that clicking like on a facebook post with change the country and make it corruption free. These guys more often share posts with content, which they were too lazy to verify. The height of this stupidity reached its peak when some prominent people in our national politics thought that they can make APJ Abdul Kalam the president of the country again without him even contesting for the post. 

In short. I hate spammers. Except for the ones who are too stupid to make me laugh. 

Heroine: Not a Review

I have not seen the movie yet and I am not sure if and when I will watch it. So this post if not a review of the movie and should not be used to determine how good or bad the movie is. This post is purely basis the pre-release activities of the movie. This post is a result of my discussion about the film with my friend and the analysis the followed. 

We realised that Heroine while it appears to be is not a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie. I do not think I have to say much about what a typical Madhur Bhandarkar movie is, yet for those who yet have any disconnects. Madhur claims to be a realistic filmmaker (whatever the hell that means). This claim helps him win National Awards, because National Awards jury are sucker for realistic cinema. Madhur typical picks up a setting like dance bars, jail, traffic signal, corporate world etc and puts together all the perceived evils about the particular settings and then tries to fit all these evils in the form of a story. Irrespective of the setting he chooses, the common factor about most of his movies is that the setting is the lead protagonist of the story and all the characters are designed to portray the evil impacts of the chosen setting on themselves. Pick any of his popular movies from Chandani Bar to Fashion and you would understand what I am trying to say here. He even creatively ;) chooses his titles to avoid any confusion in the minds of tha audience. Chandani Bar is about dance bars, Page 3 is about page 3 parties, Corporate is about corporate world, Traffic Signal is about traffic signal, Fashion is about fashion industry and Jail is about, well; jail. The reason he casts not so famous faces in his movies is because he does not want the actors to dilute the portrayal of the surrounding and in few cases where he hired known actors, I presume they were instructed to play their part in a way that highlights the surrounding and not themselves. Counting the number of National Awards he has won, that seems to have been working well for him so far.

Now lets talk about Heroine. The title itself is enough to give away the difference from other Bhandarkar's movies. The title is not Showbiz or Films or Entertainment or Bollywood that means the movie is not about the Film Industy, it is about the Heroine. The main protagonist here is not the setting, it is in this case the Character played by Kareena Kapoor. Since I have not seen the movie, I cannot say how this diversion from his usual style has shaped up. Last time he deviated from his usual style, he gave us Dil To Baccha Hai. So you can get an idea.

The poster screams "it's all about Kareena"

Now imagine how his other movies would have been if Chandani Bar was titled Bar Dancer, Page 3 was named Celebrity, Corporate was named VP-Marketing, Traffic Signal was named Homeless, Fashion was named Super Model and Jail was named Qaidi (prisoner). What that changes is that they now become stories about the impact of the lead characters on their surroundings rather than other way round. Now I am expecting the people who have seen Heroine to tell me how accurate our analysis is.