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Lynch Mob Mentality: Hang the Witch!

Witch-hunting is the hallmark of an uncivilized society, where a person is accused of engaging in witchcraft, and burnt alive, lynched or hanged to death without a fair trial. Witch-hunts are typically marked by mass hysteria and moral panic. Self-appointed moralizers and sermonizers in public life and media are usually the premier agents of moral indignation in the modern world.


These moral, religious, social and media leaders become dangerous when they are unable to handle mass public faith and adulation, and start suffering from delusions of grandeur. In a deluded state, they tend to fan collective obsessional sentiments of the masses. They ignite the lynch mob mentality of the masses that are repressed, frustrated and angry with their own struggles of life, and vent their frustrations on every new public “witch-of-the-day”. Doing so makes them feel worthwhile and superior to at least someone in their otherwise pathetic life.


Civilized society is differentiated from the Law of the Jungle on just a single premise. That premise, recognized in all free and democratic countries around the world, is summed up in this Latin phrase: Ei incumbit, probation qui dicit, non qui negat – Innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof lies on the person who accuses, not on the person who denies.


It takes an emotionally evolved human being to understand that let 99 guilty persons go free to save one innocent person from injustice. This grand principle of human justice cannot be understood by the weak, suppressed, frustrated and angry masses that are marked by raw emotions and a herd mentality. It requires ten thousand years of civilization of the human mind to arrive at this principle.


In the historic O.J. Simpson criminal “trial of the century” in America, the prosecution piled up a mountain of evidence that pointed towards his guilt in the double murder. However, the grand principle of justice prevailed and he was acquitted due to lack of sufficient incriminating evidence. It was not a victory for O.J. alone, but it was a victory for civilization. Criminal justice system cannot afford to be barbaric and cannot allow itself to be led by mass hysteria and mob mentality. It suits frustrated and angry people to act like barbarians. Nothing better can be expected of them.


There may be a 99 percent chance that Maria Susairaj is guilty of murder. However, people who are baying for the blood of Maria Susairaj should ask themselves what happens if one percent, just one percent, she is innocent? How would an innocent person feel if the entire society targets her like barbarians? How would you feel if you knew you were innocent and the entire society was up in arms against you? In that case, would you call such a society civilized or uncivilized?

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By Vikas Vij – July 12, 2011


If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem

If you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem
 
Aakriti’s death at an eminent Delhi school, as usual, has caused emotion to take precedence over sense. We Indians are genuine emotional cartoons. We enjoy screaming in front of TV wallahs, and TV wallahs enjoy beaming our screams onto our TV screens for higher TRPs. We love to bark on TV talk shows. And those of us who do not get the exalted chance to bark in TV studios, we bark in our drawing rooms, corner tea shops, and posh clubs.
 
Amazingly, you can hunt for hundreds of published articles and reports on Aakriti’s death in the last few days, or scan the miles of footage on TV channels, and you will not find a single person interested in talking of a solution.
 
Solution? Let’s do some simple back-of-the-envelope calculations. Let’s say on average there are 2000 students in a school, whether private or goverment-aided. Now let us levy a charge of Rs. 10 per student per month. That gives us a collection of Rs. 20,000 per month for each school.
 
Now let us hire a qualified MBBS doctor for Rs. 20,000 per month for each school. It is a half-day job, and the remaining half-day the doctor can pursue his other practices. Furthermore, the average number of working days in a school are around 180 days in a year. So certainly, Rs. 20,000 per month is a liberal figure.
 
For those schools, where the students cannot afford to pay Rs. 10 per month, they can still pay Rs. 5 per month, and hire a cheaper doctor or a trainee — the kind who work at charity hospitals or government-aided dispensaries.
 
I’m personally aware of an incident at a top school in Delhi where a boy fractured his leg while playing football. Since he did not express his pain loudly, nobody in the school realised it was a fracture. As a result, the boy kept sitting with a wrong posture, and the crucial delay complicated the fracture. The final outcome is that even three years after the incident, the boy’s leg is not fully normal.
 
Had a doctor been present on the scene, even the most ordinary doctor, he would have quickly advised the boy to lie down in the nursing room, and to not move his leg till medical aid arrived. Or, he would have bandaged the leg to keep the bone in its place, so that the damage could be contained.
 
Qualified “first-aid” is a critical, life-saving thing. A stitch in time saves nine. All civilized schools in this world have arrangements for qualifed first-aid. Except in India.
 
Why? Because we Indians like to discuss the problems. The problems are entertainment. A problem makes for a superb reality show. You can abuse the school principal freely. You can shout, scream, cry in public. Give a free vent to your emotions like a junglee. Be undignified, disgraceful, and cheap in the garb of showing concern for the dead.
 
But solution? No, sir. We are Indians. Solution is a boring exercise. It is too serious. It involves brain-storming, and not brainless storming. Solution does not have the scope for abusing Goldy Malhotra. Solution does not have room for melodrama and crocodile tears. Solution has no entertainment value for an entertainment-starved, unevolved society looking for cheap tabloid-style orgasmic excitement.
 
There is a brilliant book by John Miller called “QBQ! Question Behind the Question.” The author states that a QBQ has 3 elements:
 
1. A QBQ starts with a “What” or “How”, and never a “Why,” “When,” or “Who.”
 
2. A QBQ always contains an “I”, and never a “They,” “Them,” “We,” or “You.”
 
3. A QBQ always centers on action.
 
When will the Indian society grow up from its uncivilized chest-beating on the streets in the face of a problem, and learn to behave with the calm dignity of introspection and focus sincerely on solutions?

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By Vikas Vij – April 27, 2009


The History of the Future

“Arrogance invites ruin.” — Chinese Proverb
 
In the year 1978, a loose coalition called the Janata Dal with Morarji Desai as its Prime Minister came to power. It had comprehensively defeated the Congress after the emergency in 1977. Indira Gandhi had been crushed to a personal defeat, and was licking her sores like a wounded tigress.

 

Babu Jagjivan Ram became the Defence Minister in Morarji Desai's Cabinet. There was an intense rivalry within the coalition, with Jagjivan Ram nursing ambitions to become the next prime minister.

 

Around the same time, Indira Gandhi's daughter-in-law Maneka Gandhi launched her own magazine "Surya". Indira called up her old friend Khushwant Singh and asked him to help her out with the magazine. Maneka's mother Amteshwar Anand also approached Khushwant at his home with the request to help her daughter. Khushwant Singh, then editor of the National Herald, acceded, and became a consulting editor for "Surya", and ended up writing or re-writing most of its articles.

 

One fine morning, Khushwant Singh reached his office at Surya, and saw an envelope containing nine perfectly clear pictures of Jagjivan Ram's 40-year old son Suresh Ram in various compromising positions with a 21-year old stunningly beautiful student of Delhi University, Sushma Chaudhary. The pictures had been taken with a self-timed camera by Suresh Ram himself, and were snatched from his Mercedes by the political rivals of Jagjivan Ram who had been tracking him.

 

In Khushwant Singh's own words, "If Kamasutra had 64 poses, then those pictures at least had 9."

 

Khushwant Singh recalls that Maneka Gandhi was very keen to use the pictures. For her, this was the biggest journalistic scoop of her career. Perhaps the thought never even crossed her mind that Suresh Ram was not a politician. His only crime was that he was a womanizer and the son of Jagjivan Ram. And Sushma Chaudhary, a simple, middle-class girl from a respectable family whose only crime was that she was in love with Suresh Ram. Sushma or her simple family’s self-respect evidently ranked nowhere in Maneka’s larger scheme of things.

 

Maneka Gandhi knew exactly what she had to do to consolidate her position with her powerful mother-in-law. The pictures were published as a center-spread in Surya, and the sex scandal rocked the entire nation. It effectively put a permanent end to Jagjivan Ram's political ambitions, and gave rise to a far poorer alternative, Charan Singh.

 

It was political conspiracy at its best, and it was sleazy even by the lowliest journalistic standards. Suresh Ram had nothing to do with politics, and he got used as a target along with his extra-marital lover.

 

Precisely thirty years later, the political clock has turned a full circle, when someone secretly recorded the CDs of Maneka Gandhi's only child Varun Gandhi, and gave it back to her in a fantastic manner.

 

It is actually unsurprising that not a single journalist in the entire country seems to have noticed this fascinating connection between Maneka’s past and Varun’s present. History may have a lot to teach, but it is hardly a hot-selling subject in today’s era of TRPs.

 

One does not need a degree in psychology to understand that Varun is a natural product of his mother's hatred against Indira Gandhi who found her younger daughter-in-law to be of no use after her son died, and threw her out of the house.

 

Varun's hate speeches and his nonsensical chants of "Jai Shri Ram" have actually nothing to do with Ram. They have everything to do with his congenital hatred for his estranged family, including his aunt and cousins.

 

Maneka Gandhi is a classic case study in pathological hatred and jealousy. It is unfortunate that she ended this way, and fed the offspring of Sanjay Gandhi on so much venom.

 

But for once, destiny's sense of humor against Maneka Gandhi has been absolutely spectacular. I guarantee you there are at least two people who must be laughing out loud in their graves at destiny's rib-tickling joke of the century: Babu Jagjivan Ram and his son, Suresh Ram who died of heart failure at 46. And yes, a third one too, a woman who perhaps leads a quiet existence today, and owes the perfect public violation of her body and soul to Maneka Gandhi.

 

Let's end with a gem from that great Pakistani poet of the last century, Ahmed Faraz: (Only those who understand the meaning of love, will be able to understand it, even though it is meant for the consumption of Varun Gandhi):

 

Tu dashna-e-nafrat ko hi lehraata rahaa hai

Tu ney kabhi dushman sey lipat kar nahin dekha?

 

You have been brandishing the sword of hate

Do you know how it feels when you embrace the enemy?

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By Vikas Vij – March 26, 2009


Bhakti

From time to time we all get “fwd” mails in our Inbox about some young Indian soldier who sacrificed his life during the Kargil conflict and so on. Such mails are designed to arouse your emotion towards the poor army jawans who lay down their lives during the times of war.
 
One such mail that I received in my Inbox, was followed by an interesting response from an Indian army officer, Lt. Col. Chatterji. That response prompted me to draft this reply for the colonel:
 

Dear Colonel:

 

First of all, I’m highly impressed to see an Indian army man saying:

 

“SO WHAT’S THE BIG DEAL???? For each such sacrifice there are plenty others guzzling beer and playing Tambola on Saturdays. Ask half the Fauji Officers on this list what they do on Saturdays, ask how much each is willing to shed from his or her salary for the unfortunate ones…”

 

This is a rare intellectual response, and frankly, I do not expect many Indian army officers to possess much of an intellectual or philosophical caliber. Whatever intellect they may have possessed when they joined the army, the regimentation and the hierarchical mentality that is drilled into them during their stay in the army, extinguishes it thoroughly and finishes their ability to think independently.

 

By design, an army cannot function if you do not follow the orders of your immediate superior blindly. It will become anarchy if you allow the freedom of questioning your superior in the army. Where as, in the civilized world of intellect and philosophy, freedom of thought and the freedom to question the unquestioned is the pre-condition.

 

If Galileo did not challenge the Church that claimed for two thousand years that earth was flat and the sun revolved around it, there would be no progress to the next step of civilization. Similarly, we challenge the status quo everyday, and take the next step towards our civilization. The typewriter was shattered by MS DOS of Bill Gates, and the MS DOS was shattered by Windows, and the Windows will be shattered someday by Artificial Intelligence. This is the process of civilization of man.

 

But the army, unfortunately, is a non-civilian field. You are not expected to be civil. You are in fact expected to be savage, live in the jungles and the mountains and the uninhabited areas and kill the enemy. There is no room for civilization.

 

Cultism (tantric vidya) is of several kinds. Nationalism is one of them. Brainwash young, inexperienced men, and send them on the frontiers to get butchered. Bhakti.

 

Do not question God in a crowd of blind, cultist bhakts, and do not question nationalism in a crowd of fools. They both will lynch you to your death.  

 

Questioning is not allowed. Thinking is not allowed. Not in religion. Not in the army.

 

The government of India in its annual budget this month has allocated Rs. 141,000 crores for defence expenditure, a 35% increase over last year, in the midst of an economic recession.

 

But one cannot blame India alone for behaving like a buffoon. We live in an imperfect world. The very fact that armed forces exist in our world, is proof enough of our uncivilization. It is still the law of the jungle, where every morning when sunshine breaks, the lion knows it must run faster than the slowest deer in order to eat, and the deer knows it must run faster than the fastest lion in order to stay alive.

 

Violence, let us understand, is the most basic instinct of all wild animals, including man. You cannot change this reality by raising your voice against it. It is pointless and a waste of time. To achieve something on the front of non-violence, you will have to change the DNA of man. It is a battle against nature, and no army can win it.

 

But there is still hope. The hope that a nuclear war will happen in a few hundred years or sooner. All it needs is one mad man at the top. And the mathematical probability of that occurrence cannot be more than a few hundred years.

 

Perhaps, just perhaps, after a nuclear destruction, there may emerge a new species, with an altered DNA. So there is hope, sir. 

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By Vikas Vij – February 25, 2009


The Human Drama Called Terrorism

The hue and cry following the terrorist attacks in Mumbai is so loud, shrill, and hollow that it has left no room for quiet introspection.

 

Let us begin by asking this question: 24,000 people die from hunger and hunger-related causes PER DAY. Three-fourths of these deaths are of children below the age of five. Has any brave television or newspaper reporter ever captured the picture of a five-year old child who died of hunger?

 

Do you have an idea how it feels to die of hunger? Where is your hue and cry, and your calls to the conscience of a nation when these poor children are dying everyday?

 

The simple answer is, poverty-related death is not a problem of the rich. If you are reading this over a computer, there is little chance of your dying of hunger someday.

 

But terrorism, like obesity, is a problem of the rich. The trouble is that the terrorist’s bullet does not discriminate between rich and poor. Rather, it prefers the rich. If it did not, terrorism would be as useless and boring an issue as hunger.

 

Being a problem of the rich, the amount of attention that terrorism attracts is far too disproportionate in its favor. In George Orwell's "Animal Farm", the pigs proclaim: "All animals are equal." But as soon as they seize power, they revise the principle: "But some animals are more equal than others."

 

Your calls to eliminate terrorism are as cheap and hollow as the calls to eliminate violence in the last five thousand years. Violence is a dysfunctional element of an unfair society where some men are more equal than others.

 

The lesser equal men need the same power, fame and attention as you. And for them, terrorism is an excellent available route to achieve their nirvana.

 

The more you publicize these attention-starved men, the more fuel you add to their fire. Publicity and attention is their lifeline on which they thrive and multiply. In its absence, they die a starvation death.

 

And you, the rich, hypocritical scoundrels of the human society, provide them with precisely what they need.

 

Since barking dogs seldom bite, so a polite suggestion for you would be that you better stop barking about terrorism. You know you are not even capable of paying your taxes willingly. You will cheat if no one is watching. So stop your pseudo-nationalist hyperbole and look at yourself in the mirror. You are barking just like a politician – who does not come from Mars, but from among you only. What is there to blame a politician? Are you any different from him in hollowness of character?

 

Imagine if terrorism becomes as boring an issue as hunger. Imagine if there is no empty gossip about terrorism. If you stop being terrorised, it would reduce terrorism to the point of irrelevance. It would take the wind out of the terrorist’s sails. It would make him a nobody. And that, and that alone, is certain death for him. That is the ONLY way to kill him, without making him a martyr in his own eyes.

 

So now sit up, you mass emotional fools full of illogical hatred and anger, and understand this logical fact once and for all: Terrorists are not after religion. Osama Bin Laden is not interested in Islam. The one, and only one fundamental need of every human being is: Fame and Attention. Our entire life is centered around fulfilling this singular need.

 

In the final analysis, ironically, you and the terrorist are no different. Both are human beings of poor logic, ridiculous emotion, and shallow character. Both are starved for fame. Though you are slightly worse than him because you are also a hypocrite.

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By Vikas Vij – December 3, 2008


God Complex

Narendra Modi’s State Department of Education has issued a circular to all schools in Gujarat to watch Modi’s “Teacher’s Day” live address on television. The principals are warned in the circular that non-compliance due to any reason will not be tolerated. There will be surprise checks and inspections in schools to ensure that all students and teachers are watching the CM’s address.
 
The directive asks the school principals to collect students in the playgrounds or auditoriums for this mass viewing, while the fact is that over 50% of the schools do not have any playground, let alone auditoriums. Televisions sets have to be arranged by the schools for the purpose, while the fact is that many village schools do not even have electricity, let alone access to television.
 
And we thought the “Teacher’s Day” was meant to mark the relationship between teachers and students, and express a recognition and gratitude from the students, for their teachers’ efforts. So where does the Chief Minister come into all this?
 
GOD COMPLEX
 
Senator J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the U.S. during the Vietnam era, wrote a book titled “The Arrogance of Power”.
 
“Power,” wrote the Senator, “has a way of undermining judgement, of planting delusions of grandeur in the minds of otherwise sensible people and otherwise sensible nations.”
 
Delusions of grandeur, or Megalomania, is an illness of the mind that results from excessive arrogance, that in turn results from excessive power.
 
The irony of the situation is that the megalomaniac who exhibits such gigantic ego and over-confidence about his authority, in reality has such low self-esteem that he wants the people to bow down before him in blind, unquestioned obedience. He does not allow room for dissent or independence of thought.
 
Anything that is not under the megalomaniac’s control is perceived as a threat.
 
In recent times, we have seen the humiliating ending of General Musharraf and a public hanging of his ego. Why and how did Musharraf lose his iron-like grip after 9 turbulent years? Because of a fundamental mistake. He was frank about seizing and retaining power by force. People knew about his crime, they knew all along of his illegitimacy.
 
The oldest art in the world is how to fool people to retain power over them endlessly. Musharraf did not know this art at all. He was like a raw animal of low intelligence who just grabbed power openly by force, and not by brain.
 
A smart politician uses his brain – and learns his tricks from God. He understands, unlike Musharraf, that people must not merely fear you, but also worship you.
 
God has two sides: the benevolent side and the punishing side. To ensure that people continue to bow down before God, it cannot be achieved by benevolence alone. Threat, or fear of punishment is equally important to retain that power. Rituals and practices are also important tools in this cult game.
 
The results of this combination of benevolence and fear are absolutely fatal. There is no chance of dissent or rebellion. In the last 5000 years, there has not been a single period when God went out of power, and lost his grip over the people’s minds. He has been in the seat of power uninterrupted ever since he was placed there.
 
In that sense, if there is an ultimate politician in the Universe, it is God.

And men like Narendra Modi are smart enough to know this truth, and apply its principles on this planet.

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By Vikas Vij – September 6, 2008


A sense of justice

A sense of justice is not possible without a sense of reason. Animals do not have a sense of justice as they have no sense of reason.

The pre-requisite to a sense of reason is that it must be completely devoid of emotion. Emotion is the attribute of the uncivilized. Truly blindfolded justice can be delivered only when it is completely devoid of emotion.

Once you have taken out the emotion, all you are left with is reason.

Now reason compels you to think what punishment does a murderer deserve? Or, does he deserve to be punished at all for his crime of killing another human?

Reason says that if we must punish him, then first we must punish those who created him. The murderer was a mere tool that killed. But who made that tool? Let us hunt him down first, before hanging the gun for its crime of firing.

But if we cannot do that, or if we are unwilling to do that, it is not justice. Hanging a murderer is an incomplete act. It is an act without due reason, it is uncivilized and barbaric.

Before indicting a criminal, the civilized men must point fingers at themselves, and hold themselves responsible for his crime.

The basest criminal in a society is the single most conspicuous symptom of what is going wrong in the society.

What will you achieve by chopping off the symptom? Diagnose the internal disease that has caused this malignant lump to appear on the surface.

Those who can see only at the surface, are the uncivilized, thoughtless men that are devoid of reason, and full of emotion.

Introspection is the foundation stone of a civil society. Examining others is the pastime of the jungle.

What is the grand purpose of justice? Is it retribution against the criminal, or is it elimination of crime to establish a civil society?

If the grand purpose of justice is to eliminate anger and violence from the world, and to establish a civil society of sense, reason and intellect, then justice has to be introspective.

So first know your purpose of justice. Do not act merely on your basic instincts, like wild animals, without any scope for sense and reason, for thousands of years mindlessly.

Right now what you are doing is, enforcing law and order, to barely keep the society together by force. It is not a civil society. It is a slave society that presumes men will be animals if left free without law and order.

How to change this presumption? How to bring the next level of man’s spiritual evolution – from a junglee to a civilized being?

This spiritual evolution will take time, no doubt. But it will begin from only one word: “I.”

For every major transformation that takes place in a society, the beginning is first made by the men of reason. And then the masses follow. When India was a British colony, firstly the men of reason recognized that freedom is their birthright. The spark was ignited in selective pockets of the privileged class, and it caught on like wildfire in the rest of India.

The masses are always oppressed under their own burden of ignorance — like mules. They survive on faith. They do not have the luxury of reason. It is upto the privileged class to initiate the change.

But of course, reason is the last and most insurmountable frontier for mankind. Reason is the enemy of faith. Reason begins where fear ends.

The methodology to cultivate your sense of reason is to cultivate a sense of introspection. Think of yourself, for yourself, and above all, by yourself.
 
Appreciate your self-worth as a thinking being. Your only mandate on earth is you. Get busy with yourself. If you really want to make a beginning, the only point of beginning is: you.

And once you have begun with you, you will understand an even bigger truth: If it begins with you, it will also end with you. There is no one else inbetween.

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By Vikas Vij – July 25, 2008


Of a Happy Life

[Written in context of the various criticisms that Amitabh Bachchan has been facing ever since he became a fellow-blogger.]

OF A HAPPY LIFE

Facing personal vilification and condemnation is the exclusive privilege of men of eminence. They thrive on it, and it only makes their positions stronger.
 
Whether it is the timeless heroes like Socrates or Jesus Christ or Mahatma Gandhi, or iconic mortals of their time like the Beatles or the Rockefellers or the Manmohan Singhs or Sonia Gandhis or Amitabh Bachchans… all of them must pay a price for their monumental fame.
 
And the price is that the same masses who elevate you to the status of a living God, will condemn you to hell if they dislike anything that you may do even in your personal life. Either you are God, or you are Devil. The masses are too emotional to allow you to be what you are… a human being.
 
Ronald Reagan was famously known as the politician with a teflon-coating. Even the worst charges or slanders wouldn’t stick to his skin for long. He made grand mistakes, but still the public loved him and forgave him everytime. Why? Because he was able to take life in his stride and could accept all criticism with a great sense of elan and humour.
 
The Time magazine in one of its commemorative issues on Reagan, wrote these words about his incredible sense of humour: “When Reagan was shot at by a would-be assassin, he was bleeding under his arm and from his mouth, had a lung punctured, and was rushed to the hospital in an armored vehicle. On the hospital bed, he put the nervous doctors immediately at ease with these unforgettable words: “I hope you guys are Republicans…”
 
But Amitabh Bachchan, like most of us on this earth, is not Ronald Reagan. To become Reagan is to master the art of politics and the art of charming the masses.
 
Amitabh Bachchan, if one tracks his past record, has never been a successful politician. He reveals his true emotions, which is the perfect recipe for disaster in public life. He likes to defend and explain himself, he has the urge to hit back at any criticism that he perceives as unfair, he gets angry and tired like most of us — and worse still, he shows all of it. These are not the qualities of a good politician.
 
Recently, in a television interview, perhaps for the first time Amitabh Bachchan explained why he had decided to fight back the Bofors allegations that vilified him and his brother and family for years. Initially, like every sensible human being, Amitabh continued to ignore the mad, unsubstantiated Bofors charges, and maintained a dignified silence. He did not show any outrage, he did not defend or explain, he simply did not react at all.
 
But finally it was getting too much for him to digest this endless scandal as he started feeling that his father’s name “Bachchan” was now sullied foever. One day he was flipping through a Times of India 150-year sesquicentenary celebration book, which carried the most historic front-page Times headlines of the past 150 years. One of the pages in the book had a screaming headline that said: “Amitabh Bachchan is a traitor.”
 
That was the last straw. That very moment Amitabh, together with brother, decided to fight back the charges and clear their family name. They systematically filed suits in four countries, invested all their resources to fight that complex case to its logical conclusion. And won. And Amitabh says that he did it so that when after 150 years from today, the Times of India brings out its next sesquicentennial publication, it will have a headline that says: “Amitabh Bachchan is not a traitor.”
 
The moral of the story is that all men are not politicians. Some are emotional human beings too.
 
Perhaps the best advice for Amitabh Bachchan would be from Seneca, the Roman philosopher and statesman who wrote 2000 years ago in his work “Of a Happy Life”: “It is the practice of the multitude to bark at eminent men, as little dogs do at strangers.”

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By Vikas Vij – May 17, 2008


Questionnaire from God

Hello, this is God speaking. Here is a small feedback form I’m sending for my bhakts via the channel of Rediff. This feedback will help me serve all my loyal customers better, so please try to answer honestly:
 
1. How did you come to know about me and my services?
 
– From the newspapers, TV or Internet.
 
– From any fraudulent Guru who claims to know all about Me.
 
– In my mom’s lap.
 
2. How did you develop so deep love, faith and respect for me?
 
– I fear something terrible could happen if I disrespect you.
 
– I’m only faking it — even to myself.
 
– All others were doing it, so I too did it.
 
3. Why do you worship me blindly, and never criticise me for anything?
 
– Frankly, I do it to gain favours with you.
 
– I have a slave mentality, how can a slave criticise his master?
 
– Never thought of criticizing you – infact I never think anyway.
 
4. Have you ever thought that you don’t know a s**t about God, and you’re just hallucinating?
 
– I told you I never think.
 
– Don’t try to provoke me by telling me that I’m a fool.
 
– No sir, you know I’m your greatest bhakt, even if you make fun of me or kill me.
 
5. Do you really think I like dishonest sycophants, or I like those who are honest enough to question my existence and demand proof from me?
 
– I told you I never think.
 
– You s.o.b., go to hell.
 
– (Lying prostate in the mud): God, I’m dishonest, I’m a sinner, I’m a criminal, I submit myself before you, forgive me, forgive me … (Lies upon lies upon lies) …

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By Vikas Vij – April 24, 2008


DOG

George Graham Vest (1830-1904) served as U.S. Senator from Missouri from 1879 to 1903 and became one of the leading orators and debaters of his time.
 
This delightful speech is from an earlier period in his life when he was a lawyer in a small Missouri town. This speech was delivered in court while representing a man who sued another for the killing of his dog.
 
During the trial, Vest ignored the entire testimony, but when his turn came to present a summation to the jury, he made this classic speech. Now whenever a list of the world’s greatest speeches is compiled, this one gets included in it, almost as a ritual:

Gentlemen of the Jury:
 
The best friend a man has in the world may turn against him and become his enemy. His son or daughter that he has reared with loving care may prove ungrateful. Those who are nearest and dearest to us, those whom we trust with our happiness and our good name may become traitors to their faith.
 
The money that a man has, he may lose. It flies away from him, perhaps when he needs it most. A man’s reputation may be sacrificed in a moment of ill-considered action.
 
The people who are prone to fall on their knees to do us honor when success is with us, may be the first to throw the stone of malice when failure settles its cloud upon our heads.

The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog.
 
A man’s dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master’s side.
 
He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince.
 
When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.

If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.
 
And when the last scene of all comes, and death takes his master in its embrace and his body is laid away in the cold ground, no matter if all other friends pursue their way, there by the graveside will the noble dog be found, his head between his paws, his eyes sad, but open in alert watchfulness, faithful and true even in death.
 
[George Graham Vest - c. 1855, won the case.]

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By Vikas Vij – April 12, 2008