The 8th Sin

By Shruti Vishwanath

I lie silent, witnessing the cries around me

Pray, what can I do?

I have no political clout.

I am just one hapless person.

The cries get louder

The children are in pain.

Nay, don’t look at me, reader

I am but one hapless person.

Mother, why should I shoulder

The problems of the world

Mustn’t I enjoy the life you’ve given me?

What good came anyway

Of Suu Kyi , Mandela and Gandhi

The world will get more like them, mother

But not me, oh please not me

I want to enjoy this life

I am but a weak and hapless person.

The hooker on the streets

She chose the life

She slept with the ragamuffin

Why should I care?

The NGOs- They will take care of her

I know they can

They will.

What can I do?

Just one hapless person?

The world is changing, ma

It’s getting warmer

The ice caps are melting

What can I do, ma?

I do care, well, maybe a little

But it’s too hot, ma

I need the AC

And I can’t travel in those buses

Jesus, no, I need the car

You see ma?

I’m trying

But what can I do?

I am but one hapless person

I know this world is also mine, my sweet

But what can I do?

There are too many problems that we face

In 2012, we’re probably going to die anyway

What’s the point?

I ain’t standing for no elections.

I don’t want to be no whistleblower

I am just an ordinary human being.

I see the problem.

We’re self-destructing.

But I am no scientist.

I don’t have the trigger in my hand.

I am spiraling downwards, like the rest of our race.

But what can I do?

I am after all

Just one, ordinary, hapless person.

The Life And Times Of Nicholas Sarkozy

By Savyasachee Jha

LUST

Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa, current President of France and ex-officio Coprince of Andorra was born in 1955 to a Hungarian immigrant couple in the city of Paris. A “Rockstar” among presidents, President Nicolas Sarközy is an idealist, known for trying to improve the French work ethic, trying to improve the French economy and trying to bring about an end to intolerance. Whether he succeeds or not will only be known after the national elections to be held 2 years later.

Nicolas was born to a young couple, Pál Sárközy and Andrée Mallah in 17th arrondissement of Paris on the 28th of January 1955. Being as it were, a posh area, young Nicolas grew up in wealthy surroundings without any material wants. He had with him two brothers for company, Guillaume, born in 1951, and François, born in 1957. Young Nicolas’ life had every chance of being very pleasant. He was descended from Hungarian nobility from his father’s side and from an intellectual Jewish family from his mother’s side. Neither of his parents were lacking in money. He went to a state school and then was sent to a private school, where he got his baccalauréat. He entered military service, as was befitting a member of the nobility and then passed the bar as a graduate of business and family law. He was one of Silvio Berlusconi’s top French advocates. Now for the fine print.

For those of you who do not know, the reason young Nicolas was even sent to a private school was because he failed his sixième, an exam one gives at the age of 11 to 12. Naturally, he could neither be shifted to another state school nor could he drop a year. He just had to be shifted to a private school. He somehow managed to scrape through secondary school and graduate. For his military service, he joined the air-force as a part-time air-force cleaner. A job befitting nobility  anywhere in the world. After graduating, he entered the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris, better known as Sciences Po, (1979–1981) but failed to graduate due to an insufficient command of the English language. All this time, young Nicolas maintained that his behaviour was due to actions of his father.

Nicolas Sarközy went on to become leader of the Union for a popular movement (UMP). He has served as Minister of the Interior and as Minister of Finance for France under Chirac and Raffarin. He was, before assuming any of these posts, a Minister of Budget under the RPR government, president of the General council of the Hauts-de-Seine department from 2004 to 2007 and mayor of Neuilly-sur-Seine, one of the wealthiest communes of France, from 1983 to 2002.

He is known for being a skilled orator as well as for his charismatic personality. He is also said to be more pro-US and pro-Israeli than most French Politicians.

However, Sarkö is not a “Rockstar” because of any virtue described above. Like a true Frenchman, his image stems from his many, and highly publicised, relationships with women. A description of the life and lusts of Nicolas Sárközy follows.

 Sarközy married his first wife, Marie-Dominique Culioli, on 23 September 1982. A charming lady, she was the daughter of a pharmacist from Vico. She met him, fell in love with him and married him while he was a newly-elected councillor to Neuilly. The couple had two sons, Pierre and Jean. They lived happily for two years, a happy, loving family. Unfortunately, the bliss was not to last. Nicolas’ libido was simply waiting to spring up again. And spring up it did, as he presided over the marriage of Cécilia Ciganer-Albéniz and Jacques Martin in his capacity of Mayor of Neuilly.

Marie-Dominique Sarközy knew nothing about the thoughts roving in her husband’s head. She befriended Cécilia and the two women grew very close. They went out to fancy restaurants together with their husbands, raised their children together and did other things a pair of close lady friends would do. She never even suspected the real reason behind Cécilia’s friendship. It took the poor woman until 1988 to realise that her husband and Cécilia were having an affair. The discovery took place in the Alpine resort of Megeve where the two couples had gone skiing. Marie-Dominique knocked on Cécilia’s door and was met with the sound of scuffling feet. When she looked out the window of Cécilia’s room, she found Sarkö’s footsteps in the snow. Poor Sarkö, caught in the act. But give him some credit, Sarkö took it like a man should. He convinced Cécilia to leave her husband and come to him, which she did.

At this moment, let us pause to see the exchange Sarközy made. He swapped Marie-Dominique for Cécilia. Marie-Dominique was a small town girl with a rustic, rural touch about her. A native of Vico, Corsica, she could not hold Sarkö’s interest for long. Compare her to Cécilia, who was a former model and a public relations officer. No comparison. No indeed. Sarkö’s mind was made up. He made his choice.

From 1988, Sarkö associated himself with Cécilia, who was lovestruck enough to actually divorce her husband thee months after she left him. The couple stayed together, Marie-Dominique safely out of their lives. The golden years of Cécilia’s life begun here. Apparently, she was enough for Sarkö, for no new reports of affairs stem up from this period in his life. He progressed politically, he was satisfied with his new girl, but for some curious reason, he did not divorce his first wife until 1996, after which he immediately married Cécilia. In 1997, she bore him a baby boy, Louis. His union complete, Sarkö seemed to stabilize, growing in political stature. He went from ministry to ministry, ministry to ministry, finally ending up at the top post itself, that of the president of France.

 But as he went up the ladder, Sarkö’s thoughts turned elsewhere. Or rather, back to where they belonged. ‘Cécilia’s getting boring....’ His thoughts turned to his bed and he began scouting for other talented women. With great power comes great responsibility. Oops! Sarkö misread the quote. With great power come many women.

But Sarkö, for all his academic failure was a very cunning guy. When he was a Minister, Cécilia Sarközy had an office next to his, serving as his close adviser. In 2002, she was appointed to the Office of the Ministry of the Interior. In 2005 she was appointed Chief of Staff for the UMP Party. He heaped political offices on her, hoping to keep her busy while he had his fun. He even took out statements claiming Cécilia was his Achilles heel and that they would forever be together and that she was his soulmate and all that talk. However, Sarkö’s cover was blown when it was reported that he was having an affair with a reporter by the name of Anne Fulda in 2005.

Apparently, Cécilia knew about it as well, because there came an article in the Swiss newspaper Le Matin expounding on her affair with Richard Attias head of Publicis in New York. Way to go Cécilia! You beat the man at his own game!

Sarkö threw a tantrum at that. He sued the paper for its “accusations of private nature”. But their bubbles had burst. He knew that he was not interested in her, and she knew that he was not the one for her. She went as far as calling Attias her true love. All this was too much for Sarkö. On 15 October 2007 he divorced Cécilia and began scouting around for another partner. It took him four months to get married again. Carla Bruni must have been as desperate as he was. Or maybe it was the power of the president’s title which attracted her, she’s known to have been attracted to powerful men.

His marriage to Carla Bruni was the main highlight of his first term in office. Of course, protests and roadblocks are quite common in the land of the French Revolution, so the blockade of the country (twice) doesn’t really count. A President who divorces his wife in office and has a four month whirlwind romance before marrying an Italian pop-star of international fame? Yeah! That’s what we French want!

But Carla Bruni’s supposed to be a tigress herself. With 9 affairs under her (ahem!) belt, she was not one to be satisfied with monogamy. What is Sarkö compared to Mick Jagger and Eric Clapton? Yeah, everyone knows the answer. It seems she’s already set the rules for their marriage. Both parties are currently reported to be engaged in extramarital affairs, according to some allegations on Twitter.

At this point, we must return to one part of the story we have deliberately overlooked. No, not the reactions of his ex-wives, we can guess those. Remember Sarkö had a father, with whom his relationship while growing up is central to who he is today? Well, in 1959, Pál Sárközy left his wife and remarried three times. He had two more children, Nicolas’ half brothers. He refused to give any financial help to his ex-wife and children, nor did he even visit Nicolas frequently. “What made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations suffered during childhood.” Says Sarkö, who felt inferior to his classmates blessed with kind fathers. Yeah, poor Sarkö. We can feel your pain.

No One Can Eat Just Once

By Nishant Boorla

GREED

No one can eat just one. Simple. Brilliant. For one who has always been an admirer of genius marketing campaign slogans, this one in particular stood out the year it was coined. Coupled with a catchy jingle that’s a blink and a miss, this slogan for Lays potato chips caught the fancy of millions across the nation. It’s appeal lies in its simplicity. Whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, fact is we all hate sharing good food. Add greed to selfishness and you’ve got a knock out marketing strategy. It’s as simple as that. Greed and Gluttony go hand in hand, add a catchy jingle to that and you have the holy trinity of food ad campaigns. But why do we need to pay attention to a simple advertisement? Because it’s one in a long list of commodities sold, targeting the greedy child in you. Don’t take my word for it. Think about it. Take shoes for instance. You apparently don’t need just the one pair, you need separate pair to run, a pair to walk, a pair to work, a pair for yoga and so on. Don’t even get me started on footwear for women. Shoes to match your eyes, shoes to match your top, shoes to match that cute kitten you chanced upon on an exotic holiday! Just one example. And if that didn’t make an impression here’s everyone’s favourite - Greek Mythology.

King Midas was the ruler of Pessinus. He found Silenus and returned him to Bacchus. You don’t need to know who they are. Long story short, Bacchus asked him to wish for anything, Midas asked for the power to turn anything to gold upon touching it.

 So here you have a prosperous monarch, with all the wealth in the world who wants to turn everything around him to gold. Just like a child who always dreams of a room full of candy. Predictably, his food and drinks turned to gold, so  did his daughter. Yeah food, drinks and daughter in one sentence, I’m insensitive, bite me!

Is greed really a sin? Isn’t our greed for knowledge the reason why the human race is at the pinnacle of the evolutionary tree? One may sugar coat it and call it the thirst for knowledge but it is what it is - greed. It’s greed that helped man invent the wheel. It’s greed that pushed him to invent an engine to power his wheel. From a primitive bicycle to a Boeing jet, from a telegraph machine to a Blackberry every product that makes our lives easier to live is a direct product of our insatiable desire for more.

Take technology for instance. There was a time when we were content with cassette players or walkmans as they were called. Then came Discmans and before people figured them out - hello MP3! But a simple MP3 player wasn’t going to be enough. Of course not. We needed a click wheel. We needed a screen.

“Alright, the iPod it is then. “

“Oh no wait, it’s too bulky.

“Fine, you may have the iPod Nano but that’s it. “

“No, too many buttons.”

“Ok the iTouch.”

“But I can’t make calls”

“You ingrate, iPhone should do the trick.”

“No Bluetooth?”

”New iPhone.”

“But it’s not as functional as my PC.”

“Stick to your PC then. “

“What if I’m on the move.”

“Mac Book. “

“Too many buttons.”

“Fine.....only cause you said please..”

“But I didn’t...”

“Just go with the flow ok? Here’s the iPad!”

“But it’s too big....and I can’t make calls...” “aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhh”

So we’re all as greedy as God apparently felt we would be. We’re all sinners and are all destined for hell. Where’s the moral you ask? Come on you greedy prick, how much do you want from a simple essay? And as a parting thought....does hell have an Imax screen? Avatar’s just not the same without one!

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Nishant Boorla
Sarcasm means the world to me. Yeah that's always a good place to start. I watch movies...a lot of movies! Sports nut and a die hard Manchester United fan. Highly opinionated and that shows in my articles.

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To Kill A Mockingbird

Book Review
By Sukanya Venkatraman

PRIDE

“Shoot all the bluejays you want but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”

Set in the 1930s in the sleepy town of Maycomb, To kill a mockingbird, is, essentially, a simple story about growing up. Woven delicately into this, is an epic about racism, and its effects on the society. It is, however, not a blunt, in-your-face description of the immorality of racism. However,  through the eyes of  Jean Louise Finch(Scout), the author profoundly, yet gently, describes the sheer lack of reason and logic to a white man’s pride in his so-called superior race and the unfairness a Negro faces in a racist society.

Scout and her older brother Jeremy Louise Finch (Jem) live with their father, Atticus Finch, a lawyer. When Atticus is required to defend a Negro, in a rape-accusation case, he realises that the following months would reveal, to him and his children, the cruel and prejudiced side of the people of Maycomb. While he knows that even though logic and evidence is on the defendant’s side, convincing and expecting a jury to deliver a verdict against a white man, Bob Ewell, based on a Negro, Tom Robinson’s words, would be asking for too much.

 As the story progresses one grows along with the characters, and is given an opportunity to view a white man’s pride, the primary cause of racism, through a child’s eyes. What stands out, however, is that Scout’s and Jem’s lives are not primarily defined by the problems they face and lessons they learn while Tom’s case progresses. Rather, it is just a part that helps in their growing up and forming values and beliefs.

It’s a deeply moving and compassionate book that makes one realise that sometimes we need to look through a child’s eyes, to place evidence over pride, to see the unfairness of racial discrimination, and to know why it is a sin, to kill a mockingbird.  

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Sukanya Venkataraman

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Dudley Dursley

By Sayonee Ghosh Roy

 GLUTTONY

Maslow rightly lists food as one of man’s cardinal needs. But excesses always lead to complications, gastronomic disorders by natural extension. Greed has already been established as a Sin, Gluttony is merely its subset. And if you think that Gluttony doesn’t merit any debit, on the scales of Karma, then have a look at Dudley Dursley.

Famous Harry Potter’s not-so-famous cousin. What comes to your mind immediately when I say his name? Yeah, he eats a lot. So does Augustus Gloop from Charlie & The Chocolate Factory. But our liaison with Dudley is a little longer and so is the list of evidence of his gluttony. His only claim to fame is “achieving what he had been threatening to do since the age of five – grow wider than he is taller”.

Dinky Duddydums may not have been born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he most definitely had a spoon in his mouth! Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia left no stone unturned in satiating their precious boy. Really, which parent wouldn’t install a TV in the kitchen because the apple of their eye felt that the refrigerator was too far away? The resultant physique may have landed him a spot on his school boxing team but the Smeltings nurse sure did notice that he had “roughly reached the size and proportion of a baby whale”.

Aunt Petunia could swear that it was nothing but puppy fat and Uncle Vernon may have pronounced the new diet as ‘rabbit food’, but they should have seen it coming. Big D took up an entire side of the table for himself, even more so when sulking over his pitiful meal of celery and cottage cheese. But let us give him a little credit. His gluttony transcends all tastes and he is perfectly capable of displaying a longing for something as unappetizing as Uncle Vernon’s share of grapefruit in his “sour, piggy eyes”.

What a big appetite! How about a tongue to go along with it? Yeah, remember Fred’s Ton-Tongue Toffee? A sweet pay-back. Even though he’s perfectly aware of his parents’ aversion to some of “their lot”, he can’t stop himself from picking up anything that’s edible, wizard-made or otherwise. He’d probably eat out of Voldemort’s palm, even!  But he can’t help it, it’s in the poor chap’s nature.

And he has his parents to thank for this. Even though the Dursleys never actually starved Harry, they always seemed to feed Dudley more than enough for himself and Harry combined. Even during the diet regime, Harry was given his customary, pitiful helping because making sure that he got less to eat than Dudley seemed to be help pull Dudley out of the ‘gloom’ brought on by the diet. And he’s known no other way since childhood, so he thinks it’s perfectly fine. It’s sad to see that his own parents are responsible for nurturing this Sin.

But old Dudders turned out to be okay in the end. True, his other traits are grossly overshadowed by his love for food. Remember Harry’s first reaction to Honeydukes was imagining Dudley’s first reaction to Honeydukes? It is difficult to move past that, but even spoilt brats are capable of human emotions and so is our little Popkin. The consequences of Gluttony are almost laughable when compared to those of other Sins. Obesity, big fat paunches, but again there are slimming pills and gyms to take care of that! In my opinion however, what should really be deemed as Undesirable Number 1 is, being a pig *ahem* *Hagrid* *cough* *cough*

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Sayonee Ghosh Roy
I humbly profess to be spoilt, pampered brat with old-school upbringing. You could let me loose in a book-store and I'd never come out, except if you lure me out with coffee and Italian food.

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Envy

By Vidya Ramamoorthy

ENVY

People turn purple with rage, red with shame, and green with envy at least once a day, and more than a handful of times a week. It’s statistically proven. Ok, maybe it’s not, but that doesn’t make it untrue, and I’m sure you could vouch for that. Shades of these emotions certainly make life more interesting, but while no one wants to lead a boring life, maybe living sinfully isn’t the solution. It’s one thing to talk about the evil effects of these …! GASP! vices, and a whole another thing to live with them.

Envy. 

Something we’ve all befriended, ever  since we saw our neighbor propping his Mac Book against the dashboard of his BMW, or ever since we secretly wished we too,could put away a cheeseburger and fries along with a chocolate latte, and still look like that amazingly fit friend (everyone has one of these friends, everyone).

Envy.

It’s never pretty, and sometimes, it gets downright ugly. Although it might be a bit of an ego boost when you know someone secretly envies you, it’s not so much fun when above mentioned person decides to indulge in a little behind- the- back slander or _______(insert backstabbing activity of choice here). After all, ‘Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, and spite spawns lies.’

Unless your skin is as thick as dragon hide and you are unaffected by the petty crimes the world and its denizens commit around you, you might want to square your shoulders and learn to deal with it.

Look for the good in everything, and also teach others how to do it. More often than not, green eyed monsters are usually big warm marshmallows inside, but with a baggage of low self esteem attached. Counting our blessings and remembering that each of us is unique is an amazingly simple gift we forget to give ourselves. We tend to get so involved in marking our win against the others on that giant imaginary scoreboard, that we forget that we aren’t even in a race.

This season, we stop the sins.

This season, we turn our wasted minutes into useful ones as we finally join that salsa class, or get that A on our report card because we’ve kept ourselves busy and wonderfully so.

This season, we lock up our envy, and give that friend of ours a high five while falling into step beside her during her morning jog. Maybe we even pass Mr. Hotshot neighbour and his car, enroute, and flash him a smile. And just maybe, that classmate who always picked on us for being a Harry Potter nerd will ask us if we’d like to go watch Deathly Hallows: Part 1 with them next week. After all, what goes around comes around.

This season, we shed the green.

Losing My Senses

By Vijay Narayan 

ENVY

Employee

8.45 pm ....hmm...15 minutes before the ‘big’ man left the office. Yes... I mean the President himself, the puppet master in this pathetic excuse of a workplace. Don’t get me wrong, being the Head of Marketing of a huge company does have its perks. But still...all I could dream of in my inebriated state was having his life! Now, the Boss was one man who definitely had it good. Look at him...He had everything!! Loads of money, good looks, that adds to the glam! His social groups included the rich and mighty. He partied with the new Governor, a personal friend of his. He had a beautiful beach house. He was married to one of the most beautiful women in the world. Rumors had it that he was even going at it with the wife one of the vice-presidents of the company( The wife of the head of Logistics, I hear)

And yet....it seemed unfair. Why was he the Boss and not me? I remember twenty years ago, we were good friends; teenagers with a big dream. A vision, that one day, we would make it big in the world. And by God, did we manage it! But here’s the problem. Everyone knows that I’ve always been the smarter one. Everyone, including him, knows that it was my brains that got the two of us to the top. And yet, for some inexplicable reason, he was the Boss, and not me. I, on the other hand, was made to watch as he soared in the financial circles. I was rich as well, no doubt about that, but just not as rich as him! While he was going around with a multitude of gorgeous women, I had to go home late every night to my pregnant wife ( who, for some reason, just didn’t seem to want me around any longer)

Why?

What had he done that I hadn’t??

And in one fell swoop, I made a decision. Enough was enough. For too long had I been the man in the background; and I was sick of it. Perhaps it was the whisky that was doing this to me. Yet somehow, in that haze of alcohol, things seemed crystal clear to me. It was time to take matters into my own hands. Everything that he had rightfully belonged to me. And now was my chance to take it back.

Except for the two of us, the office was deserted. I opened my drawer and took out my prized possession. Yes, there it was…a .45 Walther pistol. That really did bring back memories. It had originally been part of a set of two. And guess who had the other one? Yes, twenty years ago, when we were still the best of friends, the Boss and I had decided to pick up the set. As a token of our…well, brotherly love for each other. But why go there? All that was important to me at the time was the fact that it was loaded.

I slowly made my way to his office. Everything seemed to happen so slow, and yet inexplicably , everything was a blur. Everything else seemed pointless to me. All I knew was that I wanted blood. His blood.

I walked into his office. He was sitting right there at his desk, staring into space. I called out to him. He looked up, and in his eyes I saw something strange…resentment. Odd! But I had more important things to take care about. I raised the gun, and kept pulling the trigger.

By God, it was loud!! And surprisingly painful…I looked down, and watched the blood spurt out of my chest…. This was not going to be fun.

Boss

Why him? Of all the women in the world , why did it have to be the wife of the  man who brought me to the top? The man, who as a boy, and shared a dream with me. A dream to make it big.

Everything had been going fine till last year. True, I had been overworking him, but for a reason. Having mingled with all the right people, I knew some things that most others didn’t. The state needed a new Governor, and They had asked me for a suggestion. And I had given his name. Sadly, to make him seem like a viable candidate, he had to be tested. He had to prove that he could take the pressure. He couldn’t.

And then, as he turned to alcohol, I tried to help him. I went to his wife to see what we could do about him. Oh God!! Everything went so wrong then…I couldn’t control myself. She was a beautiful woman, in an unhappy marriage. They had been trying to have a child for a year, and it wasn’t going so well. She was vulnerable, and I …like a fool, unwittingly took advantage of that…

When she told me she was pregnant, everything became clear to me. I wanted the life he had. It didn’t seem fair. I was the richer one obviously, but it was his wife I fell in love with. I was so bloody jealous of him. He had everything he needed. And I wanted it. I wanted to be able to father that child that was growing inside of her. My child…

It seemed so unfair. I loved her, and he was the one who got to go home to her every night. He was the one who got to kiss her when he got home. Not me… And why?? God alone knew.

All I knew was that I wanted him out of the way. That child would be mine, not his.

I realized what I had to do…and it wasn’t going to be easy. He had, after all been like a brother to me in the past.

And then suddenly, he walked in. And I just lost it. I was mad at him, and I would make him pay. In a flash, I had the drawer opened and I had taken out the Walther. I was going to sever every bond we had. I pulled the trigger.

Funny…I never expected it to hurt so much. I watched as he fell slowly to the ground. And then, I noticed the gun in his hand. My vision started to blur. Everything was going cold.

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Vijay Narayan

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Return To The Day Dreamer's Diary

By Edocsil

SLOTH

I snuggled against my pillow, pulled the blanket over my head and lost myself in deep slumber.  The book I had chosen to keep me company this rainy afternoon “Aunts are not Gentlemen” lay forgotten, discarded on a pile of dirty cloths. The general disarray in my room added  to the aesthetics of the scene. That reminded me, my mom fondly called my room the little pandemonium created by her sloth of a son. That pretty much summarized my lifestyle when left to fend for myself.

Well anyway there I was sleeping the afternoon away, when a ‘little’ kick on my door startled me. “By God! Which SOB decided to grace me with his presence today…?”, I thought, as I dragged myself to the door , opened it and got back into bed with the expression of a dead goldfish on my face. My friend used to my beautiful expression, walked into my room and made himself comfortable ( which included some crappy song, god forbid if I ever meet the singer I will strangle her) and then began our chattering, well,  more of a one sided conversation with me replying in monosyllables ( the art of talking when half asleep had escaped my grasp). It seemed like eternity before we reached  the grand climax,  okay, that is kind of heavy for a set of lines we seemed to exchange at the end of every such encounter, which went:

“Dude I’m hungry. Do you have food?”

I shook my head.

“Dude, shit!! Lets go to the restaurant, I’m dying of hunger here.”

This was followed by a cascade of phone calls, which eventually resulted in five or six, numb nuts like me starting a noisy procession through the campus to the restaurant ( I use the word ‘restaurant’ for the lack of words. The place was anything but that.).

Now the food took forever to actually materialize on our plates, so the act of consuming the rubber roties and half cooked curries was preceded and punctuated by random gossip, a really nice way to kill two hours. After the whole exercise of eating I eventually made it back to my room, fattened, content and ready for another sleepless night. One would like to assume that this nocturnal creature would utilize this time of relative calm in the surroundings to get some work done and study but I’d like to point out that this hypothesis is severally flawed, for one thing the hostel is anything but calm in the night, secondly at this point of  time exams haven’t really started biting at my tender backside. So the urge to study hasn’t yet bloomed in the interiors of my cranium. Thus until realization dawns upon me a day after the exams, let’s just sit back and watch what’s up in the life of my dear friend from Princeton, Dr.House.     

Wrath

By Sankalp Singayapally

The sun began to set over the horizon at what seemed like a hundred miles away. The road he was walking on was smooth, in fact one of the smoothest that he had ever seen over his years of driving, traveling, trucking and hitchhiking. It was grey as roads normally are with the ubiquitous white dividing line in between, which led him to think of all the marvels of modern engineering, in the form of cars and motor vehicles that would have traversed this very path. There was a crack on the dividing line and it stood out being the blood red in color that it was. He thought of the accident and the bloodbath that had occurred there a year and two months ago. Vague images of the catastrophe flashed before his eyes.

He remembered sitting at the wheel in a daze. The LSD was just kicking in, though he had swallowed it a couple of hours ago. He thought of the woman who drove him to the drug in the first place. ‘The bitch...’ he began but only to be cut off by the blinding flash of a fog lamp on an incoming car. There was a loud honk; two actually, one from the car that just crossed him and another one from behind. The coincident sounds confused his rather unresponsive nervous system at the time and it took him a couple of seconds to steady the truck. Despite all the years of driving the same truck, he still could not comprehend the motive behind choosing an oil tanker. It happened on a whim and he knew that but, as a child he was raised to question every aspect of his life; beneficial, adversarial or merely indifferent. The oil tanker was supposedly the hardest type of truck to drive and the community of truckers within his small county town were always worrying and discussing about his driving skill and his ability to handle a vehicle of that size and power.

He looked ahead at the road, which was illuminated by the lights of his truck. It took a turn to the right, gracefully like all roads ought to be, instead of the more common sharp curve. He relaxed his grip on the wheel and let it turn a bit to the right. The road narrowed from two lanes to one and the divider, which was merely a line to begin with, vanished. He was never comfortable with narrow roads, especially while driving during the middle of the night. Moreover, the road was rather bumpy, with a couple of ditches at intervals of a hundred odd meters. He tried to control the truck as best as he possibly could but it was still too fast for a road in that condition.

He would remember the next stretch of the road for the rest of his life.

A speck of light fell on the mountain next to him and a car came hooting out from the right swerving its way onto the lane. The sudden appearance startled him and he seemed to come to his senses but there was nothing much to do apart from hold the wheel and control the brakes. His eyes were heavy and they were almost closed. What he didn’t notice was the car behind. It was rather small but was fully occupied. There wasn’t much time to react and he couldn’t have even if there were.

He stepped on a small pebble and it caught his attention. “The little things in life”, he thought and he picked it up. He tried to remember as much as he possibly could but all he could recall was a crunching sound, a blaring horn and the world turning upside down. The weeks after the accident were a daze and he could hardly comprehend anything going on. It took him several months to piece together the events that happened and those before that led to it.

The road he was on led onto the side of another mountain, this one facing the sea over a rocky cliff. He walked, or limped as he occasionally had to. The salty air filled his lungs and he knew the time had come. He tried to introspect, to find that last speck of hope in his life and then realized there was nothing.

He didn’t have a future as a trucker, not that there was anything to begin with, due to his increased drinking. His wife was a solemn and heartless whore as the neighbors colorfully explained to him. Climbing over the ledge, he wished the same fate that was waiting for him at the bottom of the cliff to everyone he ever knew, especially his wife.

Wrath is probably the most complex of the seven deadly sins to comprehend. There is a thin line between envy and wrath, which on most occasions is rather difficult to find. However, the ultimate form of wrath is suicide; when all you can do is blame yourself for everything and inflict upon yourself the ultimate punishment.

Sinners - A short foreword

By Kartheik Ganesh Iyer

My, preciousss.... they can not take it away...

Often heard, often repeated, albeit in forms as varied and multitudinous as the facets of an uncut diamond, this echoes overriding human sentiment, for ever since the sapien, having quantified light and darkness, brought forth the concepts of morality, of good and that of evil.

In the times when the clergy held the seven cardinal sins, pride, lust, greed, gluttony, envy, sloth and wrath as “grave violations of the Ten Commandments and the Beatitudes”, (here I rip from Times online, who rips from the clergy. You'll see that plagiarism is not on the list. Never was.) condemning and abstaining from the seven sins was the only way to avoid the eternal damnation of one’s soul.

This issue is a revival of those ideas, and even as we wrote away, about pride (Book review:To kill a mockingbird), and greed (No one can eat just one), and gluttony (character sketch: Dudley Dursley), we realised how little they’re applicable today. In a time and world where vendetta is glorified, lust is the central theme for almost every bestseller, gluttony is rewarded by the producers, pride is of essence, and sloth plain rules, we, the eternally damned (have faith, pray, seek the light) seek to come up with a new set of moral code, something that is not out of context.

Look around yourself. Today’s sins would not be that which is condemned by the clergy, the government, or by any single body of power. In today’s age, where the individual’s ‘right to expression’ has been elevated to a level never heard of before (true, considering that then nobody could speak), a sin would be that act, that is collectively condemned by society.

Some collectives of this sort would have to include the following. (Mind you, this is not a list of absolutes, only a list of probables, at best. The best way to resolve this would be to try it out yourself.)

Terrorism.

One of society’s modern banes, the ugly side of modern revolt that shall not stop at anything to get what it wants, resulting in loss of life, property and loved ones for countless people across the globe, if there are to be sins, this has to be on top.

Summary: Condemned by one and all. This is a bad thing. See photos of the candle march against the Bombay attacks for more. Shed a tear, would you?

Murder.

Defined as homicide, the premeditated slaying of an individual, as opposed to terrorism, which is genocide. Since we have hardly any kings at all, regicide is on its way out. Murder, brutal, deadly, may have been glorified, and glamorized, but that does not detract in the least from the fact that it is an irreparable stain on mankind, for which animal would wantonly slay its own brother?

Summary: This is probably what society will collectively stand against, for, as we all know, all life is precious.

Infidelity.

Failure at man’s attempt at monogamy is a stark (pun intended) problem that confronts all of today’s monogamous society. Carnal passions are not bad, says today’s society, only keep it at home. With infidelity rates rising at a rate that would make a v****a dealer (6 letter word, not a pimp) very, very happy, it may be sooner than we think that society may just decide to let this one drop. But, for now, its bad. Very, very bad.

Summary: as Barney says...Love thy neighbour, but never LOVE thy neighbour. Do not try this at home.

Racism.

Man classified plants, he classified animals, the stars, the soils, the birds, the bees, emotions, textures, tastes, and movie genres. Having done this, (and not being satisfied), he then went on to (big mistake), classify himself, based on whatever physical & ethnic disparity he could find. Caste, social class, race, you name it, we humans have it. Discrimination has been forever one of the most blatant cause of strife in the past, and still is. Peace, bros.

Summary: Go on, blame it on God, you know you want to.

Hypocrisy.

You say one thing, you mean another. Your personality changes with the type of company you keep, you may be a solid smoker in one, and an I-hate-smoking-it-kills-your-lungs guy (or girl, gal, if you prefer it) in another, then this is your kinda thing. Hypocrisy, in many ways, defines modern schools of thought and action, but beware, it is also the cause of most misunderstandings. Be warned.

Summary: Are you vegetarian? Then you know what I’m talking about.

Drugs.

No, not cough syrup. Drugs, and drug peddling, are rampant in most demographies throughout the world, and are a major source of concern to all the non-high people in the world. As said by adults, drugs are only a temporary escape, you don’t need to do drugs to lead a good life. Also said by adults, drugs kill your neurons, cause muscle degeneration, induced cardiomyopathy, impair your judgement, and do many other bad things. So... so what exactly?

Summary: Ah, yes. Right, right. Er, what, exactly?

Chauvinism.

Is the opposite of chivalry. It is primarily heterosexual objectification and derision directed towards the same. Didn’t get that? Its probably all for the best. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t do it.

Summary: It has come to light that there are also female chauvinist pigs. Kudos.

This probably sums up the demography's opinion, and shalt hereby be known as ‘The sins.’ So, my love, please don’t slay, maim, sleep with, degrade, or tell lies to other people. Apparently, they don’t like it.

PS. I’m a vegetarian myself.

On a side note, I’m still jobless, so

7 other sins:

Facebook quizzing: Which sin are you?

Please, go slay yourself, or achieve autocoitus.

Getting Caught for Sharing P***

E.D.O.C.S.I.L.R.U.L.E.Z. \m/ :P :D :D

Lolcat backlash

:p :D :D  and \m/ is not the answer to everything. Try a full stop instead.

Chetan Bhagat & Arundhati Roy.

No explations asked for, none given.

Wearing Pink.

This is selective. Its just not meant for some people.

Homophilia.

Have some consideration for the USA.

Wasting potatoes.

You have no right to live, you despicable, cretinous, vile, blubbering piece of bilge.