I can understand the motive behind festivals. They're based on some historical event or according to some calendar etc, and religious people celebrate it with the proper rituals etc.

What I don't understand is, days like Mother's Day, Teacher's Day etc.


Teacher's Day, in that list, is the one that bugs me the most.

First of all, it's a different date in every country. I mean, it's an internationally celebrated day, why do you need separate dates for it? Are you worried one country's celebration will interrupt another country's celebration? Or that there's going to be too much celebration that day so it should be restricted to one country at a time?

In India, we celebrate it by having presentations for the teachers, usually a dance, skit/play, or speeches. And then, in some cases, the seniors teach the juniors while the teachers take the day off.

That's how we celebrate teacher's day in our school. From August, we start begging teachers for some time to discuss what we want to do. Then we start begging for practice time while negotiating with the teacher to let us celebrate it.

Then on the 5th, we make the teachers gather everyone in one place. We present whatever it is that we have done.

My question is, why do you need a day to show your gratitude? Because, seriously, that's the only day when students respect their teachers.

Every other day, it's just teasing behind their backs, irritating them to no end etc. So, why go out of your way to dance for them? Simple, you get a break from studies and a lot of free periods.

But, then, there are those speeches. Those emotional speeches that say how glad we all are to have teachers like you. And the very next day, we irritate you in our class, and you scold us to no end.

We know that no matter how much you scold us, you still care very much about us and you only scold us because we're doing something wrong.

And you know that we don't actually hate you and it's just human nature to slightly rebel against any authority figure.

So, why put up a show for all this?

And the most hilarious part about Teacher's Day is, the children are never wished on Children's Day. Teachers don't put up a show on Children's Day. In fact, this year, we had to remind our teachers that it was Children's Day. It was a childish thing to do, we're not considered children any more, but, there should be some reciprocated celebration.

And the grown-ups justify this by saying "every day is children's day". Well, it's not. If it is, they have a very bad way of celebrating it by yelling to our faces.

The same goes for the other days like Mother's Day, Father's Day (If it even exists) etc.

The worst of all, in my opinion, is Valentine's Day.

Sad part is, not many people know about it's origin. Not that they care, they just like to do what all people do, stupidly follow the trend without caring what it's about.

The story says that Saint Valentinus used to perform weddings for soldiers who had sworn not to marry. And it was said that when he was jailed for his actions, he (magically) healed the daughter of the person who jailed him. And he was later executed for all that he had done.

So, basically, we're all celebrating the fact that some priest, who married a bunch of people who weren't supposed to get married, was killed for spreading love.

What a romantic day!

I don't understand the need for this occasion either. Couples celebrate it by exchanging flowers, gifts and going out to a nice restaurant or something. I'm not saying every date is like that but Valentine's Day is nothing different. It's just a bit more fancy.

Valentine's Day is a relationship's equivalent of an Apple product. It costs more, but does the same thing that any other day does.

As a 10th grader, I hear this word at least 50 times a day.

Even the teachers, they hardly care if we understand the lesson/concept, they just tell us how to get the most marks out of it.

And the students are no different. I've seen students memorize mathematical problems. There's a limit, and these kids are way past it. I mean, some problems are fine, you need to see how it's solved a few times to completely understand it (geometric theorems and their proofs, mostly) but you don't have to go as far as to memorize.

And lately, it's all anyone cares about.

"Mom, look I built my own robot."

"Forget the robot, it's not going to get you marks. Go study."

When the idea for school came into the minds of the Ancient Greeks, Romans, Indians, Chinese etc. I don't think they wanted students to get marks. They wanted students to get knowledge.

I'm not even going to talk about the syllabus, that's retarded enough. But, the whole mark system is downright stupid. To be honest, the entire examination system is stupid.

I know, exams are supposed to test our knowledge and keep a check if we're actually studying. But, it really doesn't test our "knowledge". There are a lot of intelligent kids in my class, who are never classified as intelligent by the teachers. Why? Because they never score above 70% or 80%.

It's not like they're street-smart. One of them got 92 percentile in an IQ test whereas the kids who get 90% in exams only got 70 percentile or so. Again, it's not like IQ matters either. But, I'm just saying, these kids are legitimately intelligent.

But, that's the kind of influence that our education system has on us. It's not our fault that we're so mark-obsessed. It's not our teachers' fault for teaching us about marks instead of the subject. It's just that idiot's fault who designed this entire system. (I've been trying to find out who that evil genius is, putting millions of kids through this hell, but sadly, the Internet is not helping)

We, as a whole, have started rating students based on their marks. Right now, no one cares about talents. Sure, even in school we have talent based activities but guess what? They're all for a subject, which is graded, and doesn't count towards the overall report. Which means, the parents don't allow their kids to spend more time on it than necessary and so, all talent is lost.

As you can see, I'm trying to bring about a change, although small, by writing a blog. And whenever I tell this to my parents or friends, they just say the only way out of the system is to beat the system.

Well, after I'm done with 10th, I'll be busy with 12th, and then with college. By the time I'm done with my education, I seriously wouldn't give a shit about the education system. That's typical Indian mentality, if it doesn't bother me, I don't need to do anything about it. And I really wouldn't care about the kids who would be complaining about it when I'm done. I guess that's why today's grown-ups don't want their kids to complain about school either.

So, in our schools, the smart category includes people that get 90% in their exams, not people that have brains. To be honest, the only reason I'm considered to be "smart but a waste" is because I used to get good grades in 5th grade or so and I don't any more.

And EVERYTHING is done based on marks. As in, if there's a workshop where students are invited from certain schools and only 4 are allowed to attend it, there's an exam conducted to determine who those 4 students are. And the exam, like any other, needs the memory of an elephant and skills of a parrot, so, the same kids are sent to competitions, workshops etc and others get no chance.

I shouldn't be talking about that though because I'm one of the students who always represents the school in competitions. But, that's only because I'm in a school that doesn't have too many kids, so the teacher herself picks the children who get to go to these events.

Bottom line is, we're all becoming a mark-oriented society and that needs to change.


PS: I asked the studious kids in my class a simple question

2² x 2⁰

and as expected, I got the wrong answer, 0. We learned about the law of indices in 7th grade. If the studious kids don't remember that x⁰ = 1, what's the point of memorizing?

It's become something almost everyone knows. Like, anyone with a TV knows what Anime is. They don't know the exact definition, but they have seen at least one Anime. They call it cartoons but uh, lately, I really can't see the difference either.

One thing that's really annoying about Anime is it's fan base.

Some Anime series that were pretty popular on television include Naruto, Dragon Ball, Bleach, Fairy Tail, Inazuma Eleven etc (to the point where some of these were even dubbed in Hindi for Indian television) And there are a LOT of people who have just seen these popular Anime and go on to call themselves an "Otaku" (the word has lost all meaning now, those that were actual otaku don't even feel like calling themselves one)

These people, after having watched the big 4 Anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece, Fairy Tail) go on and like 1000s of Facebook pages and join 100s of Anime groups. These groups have debates based on strength of characters and in every argument, there are those few people who just scream "Naruto beats both because he has rasengan."

That's the thing, you can't debate about the strength of two characters from different Anime rationally. There's no real way of comparing the powers. We don't know if Ichigo was vulnerable to the wind-type Rasenshuriken, or if Goku blowing up planets would really kill some Hollow or Vaizard (they don't need oxygen and they can fly, go figure)

Of course, you can pit Luffy's haki against Naruto's shadow clone saying that he's capable of wiping 1000s of enemies in one hit but countering that Naruto can do this a lot of times whereas Luffy's energy source is limited and on and on. But you really can't find out which one's stronger.

It's only possible if there was a crossover or if the two characters come from two series that were written by the same person. And only he can compare them, by declaring certain weaknesses in both to make the debate a bit more logical.

So, mostly, there are 2 kinds of "otaku".

1. They watch 5 series, call themselves "otaku", forget about Anime and just socialize with other wannabe-otaku with their limited knowledge and basically fangirl all over the Japanese culture and say things like "OMG I WISH I WAS BORN IN JAPAN!!! I CAN EAT ONIGIRI ALL MY LIFE!!!"

2. They watch Anime and don't fucking waste their time fangirling over Japan, they know it's Anime that matters, not the language or the people that make it.

The "wannabe"s love Japanese for some reason. They only know a few words like Arigatou or Sayonara and shit like that. But then they say things like "I wish I could live in Japan."

It's not the dream place you think it is. It's just like your city. It has a small spot for the geek that you are, but the common people are still going to treat you like a loser because you watch cartoons. People there don't worship Anime, they think it's just as bad as your parents do.

I mean, it's not as if people wouldn't have seen Anime if it wasn't Japanese. It's just that it was made by the Japanese, so we can't imagine it in any other way. Like, if it was Indian, the world would still be watching it, because it was made that way. The same logic applies everywhere. Why do most people have their taskbar at the bottom? Because it was made that way. 

And for some reason, it's become a trend to role-play. No, not as characters from an Anime, as a family. I don't see how it's related to Anime other than the fact that everyone in the family is either nee-chan or nii-chan or ototo or kaa-san or oto-san etc. It's just a bunch of people taking up different roles in a make believe family, and yet, it only seems to happen in Anime related groups.

And normally, people that are this obsessed with such things are called no-lifers, as in, they don't study, socialize, work, just watch Anime etc. Well, I actually defend no-lifers saying that they can just maintain a balance between both but lately, it seems like no-lifer is too good a word for these "otaku".

No-lifers are supposed to not have any friends, well these people have too many in my opinion. All fake online friends, sure, but, that's too much socializing. They watch a 30 minute episode and then talk about it for 3 hours.

Now, I'm not saying mainstream Anime is bad and only for the wannabe otaku, the Anime is popular for a reason, it's because it's good. But, it's too over-rated and it's fanbase is too fucking cheap. I remember when I had only seen Naruto and I was new to Facebook. I would meet Naruto fans everywhere but when I asked them if they thought Madara Uchiha was alive, they just said "Lol who is Madara Uchiha? Is that Sasuke's father?" and on further asking, I found out most of them only watch the first season. So, out of the millions of fans that these Anime have, only a few 1000 are legit fans.

Non-mainstream Anime is much better. If you meet a fan of, say, Hyouka, you know he's going to be a true fan to have seen something that uncommon. Hyouka is still pretty common (for some reason) as even I'm not that much of an Anime watcher.

The point here is, people say that the Otaku community is growing at a rapid pace. Well, that's bullshit.

It's dead.

It's been taken over by weebs saying "Nee-chan, can we haz Sasuke as our ototo?" to their role-playing families, taken over by people that do "owo .w. ouo eue :3 -3-" instead of "Detective Conan has shown some remarkable improvement in it's 14 years of airing, it went from a poorly animated anime with tonnes of fillers to a solid storyline with good graphics that it is today." It's been taken over by "Erza <3 Lucy <3 Nami <3 Sebastien <3 Grey <3 Sasuke <3" instead of "I like how Light kills criminals instead of using the Death Note for his own reasons."

So, if you're thinking this is a good time for Anime, it's not. The world has too much Anime right now. Basic economy rules. When there's an increase in supply, there's a decrease in demand. And, I'm at a point where I wouldn't mind the whole thing ending.

A very sensitive issue today is discrimination based on gender. I agree, both men and women should be treated equally. And the government too is supporting female empowerment, to some extent.

a scary monster, commonly known as "The Father", it is also known as "The Sanskaar" in some Indian cases.

But, we don't give up,


we jump past the monster, and get the girl,






only to find out, after spending quite some time with her, that she's not "The One"












and you reach The Father, who you will face for the last time,


and you fight the last sanskaar, to start an amazing life with The One


but now, she is completely devoted to sanskaar, and you wait for the sweet release death.

Eventually you die, and,


you are reborn, 


in a tougher world, because you were a jerk in your past life and this is karma saying

We all know it as the idiot box. Something that keeps us addicted all day long, with multiple channels and hundreds of ways of attracting us. TVs today have reality shows from all over the world, educational shows, daily and weekly soaps from all over the world, movies (national and international), news, music and miscellaneous.

In India, we have different DTH providers (Satellite TV, in case you don't know) and some of them provide games through their set-top boxes.

A lot of DTH services also have a recording feature now. Which means, you can record your favourite shows and watch it again and again, like a VCR (which, I think, never came to India)

Serials are a BIG part of any Indian household. It is one aspect where parents are more addicted than children. And these serials are down to the earth stupid. These directors, they know how addictive their serials are and how many viewers they will get.

Because, in all fairness, Indians are a bad judge for movies. There are a few good critics, and teens nowadays have started hating some bollywood movies. But, parents, no. They will hate every movie, song, serial their kid watches but whatever shit they put on their Hindi serial channel, they will watch it.

That's how an average Indian household is. All day long, the mom does her chores, dad goes out to work. Then, when the first serial starts airing, she will glue herself to the couch while waiting for the dad. And when he comes home, after missing 1 or 2 serials, she will tell him what happened. She only tells him 50% and he only understands 25% but he's still excited about the serial no matter how shitty it is.

So, they don't discriminate, they could put ANYTHING on that channel, as long as it doesn't have nudity and constant swearing, parents will watch it. Something educational, something that spreads awareness about a sensitive issue, something citizens should know about the country or stuff like that.

But, no.

You know what they show?

Typical Hindi serials:

Guy is richer than God. Marries a pretty girl who doesn't have a job (hence spreading the message that girls are gold diggers) then she just works in the kitchen all day (Yes, another stereotype that needs to change now)

Huge family in one house. The most elder person in charge of everything however, the male adult often goes against the elder, and ends up getting slapped, in slow motion, 5 - 6 times, depending on the director.

All have dinner together (which fucking encourages parents to call their kids to have dinner with them, while they watch this shit and give excuses like "As a family, we should spend more time together") and naturally, the women are just serving food to the men. Then, there's a discussion going on, usually something to lighten the mood, or sometimes overly serious based on some recent problem in the house. But when a woman voices her opinion, the men shut her down. (promoting a male dominated society)

Discrimination against women is a serious issue in India, and very very sensitive. Even I don't joke about it. I was just on a class trip to a city far from home and I saw first hand what the females go through in public places.

And these serials just encourage the crowd. Yes, I know, TV serials are for entertainment and they aren't to be taken seriously, but, that's the thing, they are taken seriously here. If you watch some reality shows where celebrities from these soaps are called for talking, you'd find out. I was watching one of these shows and a lady, who played the villain in a serial, was talking.

She said that she and her husband went to a house in their neighbourhood where someone had just passed away to pay their respect. And when they reached, the women of that house called her to a room inside. Inside, it's all private, all the relatives of the dead person were gathered and then one of them says "why do you trouble the main character so much?"

A person is dead, and all they can think about is a serial, plus, they even think that she's a real villain.

This is the kind of hold that TV has on Indians, why don't they use it to spread some good message? It'd be a lot better than the drama they spread to every house.