Guns n Roses

“You have to know your enemy, Alfred. I'd never use one, but even I can appreciate the attraction of a gun. The heft. The sleekness. The cool steel. The precision. And the power. The power to change lives, history. The power of God.” – Bruce Wayne, The Dark Knight

Restless in his grave. Samuel Colt.

The world (for now) seems like a highly magnified version of Angry Birds. All the guns, explosives and bad piggies (or at least touting them as bad) are part of a well-scripted frame; and we have enough birds to sling and cause damage. My immature viewpoint may ruffle a few orthodox feathers who estimate the happenings of the world as the road to Armageddon (it is a new movie that stars Bruce Willis, who ends up fighting humans for survival). For once, the people of the world are united in their relentless stride towards murdering, molesting and pilfering their own kith and kin. I hope this post goes on-line before the dreaded 21.12.12, when the weather forecast will be “cloudy with a chance of fiery meatballs*.”

[* - The number and type of meatballs depend on your sins. Read offer document carefully before making investments.]

After intending no pun in the earlier lines, let me come back to a review of the world in 2012. I can only think of uprisings, the European debt-crisis, gun-shooting incidents, the summer Olympics, the fall of a doping Icarus (Llivestrong), corruption and anti-corruption facades, a royal prank that went horribly wrong, and the hanging of India’s VIP prisoner, Ajmal Kasab (though I still find it hard to believe).

People in glass houses are not supposed to throw stones, for the fear of breaking our own houses with misplaced stones. But, it makes sense for me to do a round-up of India before I vehemently cross the oceans to take on the global cops. I would like to begin my vote of thanks by congratulating our movie directors who take on daring subjects and risk their life to promote the happenings in rural (and urban India) vis-à-vis Gangs of Wasseypur. It has spurred our youth to rape and kill at will (sounds rhyming, the earlier effects of poetry haven’t weaned off yet). We let our guns (and manhood) do all the talking. We molest womenfolk in public, private, on-camera and flaunt it as a flag of our masculinity. Surprisingly, there is always an aide or a group that is involved (except in cases where toddlers are involved). Can our legislators distract themselves from the economy and concentrate on the shambles that’s disrupting the harmony in the country? Do we look like some isolated country in the west-coast of Africa or a state run by a fanatic dictator? For heaven’s sake, we are the world’s biggest (self-proclaimed) “DEMOCRACY.”

I hope Mr. AK is on the Talaash for next season’s themes on spirituality, talking to ghosts and genre of movies joining the 100 Cr movie club. Ironically in this current situation, I can be jailed for storing beef or posting this blog, but might get let off for using guns or raping some hapless women. Period. 65 years of progress, India is truly shining.

Let me board the ship to the United States of Ambiguity. There are two instances that have repeatedly happened out there. High-profile cyclones (which have been part of the annual calendar for the past couple of years) and shooting sprees (spread majorly across educational institutions and malls). Why do assailants always target schools? For the one single reason that it shoots them into stardom. The fact that out there that everything is eventually transformed into irrelevant stats. The number of points Kobe Bryant scores, number of days before Kardashian marries and divorces someone, number of people killed in a shooting spree, number of people affected by a cyclone. Always providing the impetus for someone else to better the previous record (except for the acts of God). Is it really hard to implement a faultless mechanism that’ll resolve these issues, or will someone sue the government for not being given the chance to shoot others?

Whom do we blame? The gun-slinging assailant who walks into a building shooting from his hips, murmuring “Hasta la vista, baby”; the media who elaborately scripted the thesis of previous incidents thereby promoting the villains into cult status;  our fragile mental structure that crumbles in the face of adversity or the hatred that makes us wish that we shoot the villains. I can’t change the world (~I'm only a man in a silly red sheet, Digging for kryptonite on this one way street~), but at least I can take a resolve to keep myself sane and hope the educated masses to follow suit.

Without sounding corny, let me reiterate the message that I see when I walk into the office every day. Report a hazard before it becomes an accident.

“In every country where independence has taken the place of liberty, the first desire of a manly heart is to possess a weapon which at once renders him capable of defence or attack, and, by rendering its owner fearsome, makes him feared.” ― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

P.S: Some jokes can kill. RIP Jacintha Saldanha.