Wednesday, February 27, 2008

why does sex have negative connotations?

Have you ever wondered why sex - particularly premarital sex - is considered bad? Why is something that harms no one but gives so much pleasure (not to mention heralding new life) considered paap? You can enjoy great food, cool bikes, stylish clothes, fun games but sex? Noooo......that u aren't allowed to do. But why? What makes sex different from all the other means of pleasure? I'll tell you why. (I wonder why I keep reverting to anthropology to form my theories. I have absolutely no background in it.) Anyways, here goes:

At some point during the course of the development of civilization, people realized that free love (yes, it is not a modern concept) had it's huge disadvantage viz. uncared-for-children. You see, when people go about mating with each other without any responsibility for the outcome of their actions, what you end up with is pregnant females with no one to look after and feed their young ones - except maybe the females most in demand (maals). The male had no way of knowing whether the child was his or not and hence he had no interest in it's rearing (and hence propagating his own genes - if they were his in the first place). So to ensure that the male would take care of the child the bond of marriage was created and called sacred and pre-marital sex was forbidden and labeled immoral. Therefore, the actual reason for making pre-marital sex a taboo was to ensure the proper upbringing of the child.

Now fast-forward to the 21st century. Unwanted pregnancies can be avoided by condoms and birth control pills, among other methods of contraception. So the problem of the uncared-for-child doesn't arise at all. Considering the reasons for the labelling of sex as immoral and the technological advancements of our age, shouldn't we re-think our assessment about the morality of sex?

Sunday, February 24, 2008

the grass is greener at another time

We are never satisfied with where we are in life, are we?

When we are children we want to grow up so that we can do whatever we want.
When in college we detest is so much that we want to get out of it as soon as possible.
When we start working we want to go back to our carefree college life and hang out with friends.
On getting to middle age we long for our childhood when we had no worries or stress.
And when we retire we fondly remember the times when we had something to do.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

propriety vs speed of execution

A few days ago, my prof told me to write the whole question in the index of my AI lab file. What I do is write just the gist of the question in about 4-5 words. The idea is that the only people that are going to read it are students or profs and both are familiar with the questions. So it only needs a few keywords to remind them of what the question is about. Writing the whole question is like defeating the whole purpose of an index - which is to find out the contents of a file with minimum time and effort. And if she still isn't sure what an entry is she can look it up inside. The complete question is written inside anyways. So i told my prof that writing the whole question is a waste of time of both the writer and the reader that's why i won't do it.

This case is just an example of a greater malaise in the thinking of the people of our country. We give more importance to what is "proper" than to what will speed up execution and save valuable time. We think it more important to show all the information rather than only that which is relevant and necessary. I believe this is one of the biggest differences between the thinking of people from  developing and developed countries.

koi lauta de mujhe woh bachpan ke din ....... woh kagaz ki kashti ....... woh barish ka pani

This was the status message of Varun on gtalk. It touched something deep inside me. Kind of made me long for my childhood days. The funny thing about being in the final semester of engineering is that u don't spend your nostalgic moments remembering the stuff you used to do in college but rather the things you used to do when you were a child or when you were in high school. Maybe you'll think of the former once you finally do pass out. However I do regularly remind myself that the privilleges that I have now (lots of free time, no worries, the luxury of being able to meet a friend at any time of the day - or night) will be something i'll long for years after passing out. Hence I try to enjoy them as long as I can.

Before I had got a job offer, my seniors used to tell me that once u're placed, life at college is boring. I used to think "that's not gonna happen to me". I was always doing something or the other. I always kept myself busy. So there seemed no way that I (the great me) would be bored. Par jab mera number aaya, I found myself in the same desolate land I was warned of - boredom. That's not because I didn't have anything to do - it was because I didn't feel like doing anything. Mann nahi lag raha tha. So while I was right that not having something to do wouldn't be the cause of my boredom a whole other reason popped up that I hadn't even thought of. Talk of Murphy's law.

And while I am on the topic of life @ my college, let me tell you what I think the biggest problems among the students here are: arrogance and narrow mindedness. Most of the guys here were once among the toppers of their class while in school. So all the respect that they got probably got into their head. Being proud of yourself is acceptable ........ but to the extent that you refuse to appreciate someone else's capabilities? As for narrow mindedness, if a guy talks to a girl in class just casually, he is teased by his male friends. What kind of perversion is that? It's interesting to note that the one's who tease are the same ones that don't have the guts to go up and talk to a girl. The girls are no better. They never take a conversation forward. Instead they look at you as if you are going to rape them. Gawwar sab ke sab. At least this was the case for our branch in the first two years. Needless to say, things didn't improve much in the following years. Last sem when we were to present our projects, a female classmate asked me whether the next one to go in was Remish. I said "I don't know. Why don't u go ask Remish?" To which she replied "How can i do that? I've never talked to him before." What? If that's a reason not to talk to someone then logically she can't have talked to anyone since she was born. How can anyone talk to new people if the prerequisite to talking to them is to already have talked to them before? And if u can't go and talk to your own classmate in your final year then that does not indicate a healthy level of interaction among students of your class.

(This article was written in a moment of weakness when i gave free reign to my feelings. For those who complain that my articles are impersonal, relish this one, coz u're not gonna catch me getting personal very often)

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

in the end.............it doesn't matter

This was Manisha's gtalk status message. It made me wonder. Really it does kinda make all that you do in your life seem pointless. You're gonna die anyway.So what's the use of anything you do if it's not lasting? If you're not lasting?

Wait a minute. This logic is based on the presumption that for something to be worthwhile, it has to persist - to remain in existance. But the only thing constant is change. So nothing else can persist. So does that make everything worthless? Of course not. But if persistance is not what makes something important then what does?