Sunday 28 September 2008

Thought for food

Let me start off by apologizing to my blog and to my incompletely enlightened followers/students for the delay in posting.
I had some extra curricular activities to attend to – and I actually mean extra curricular activities.

I had a debate to participate in and it was not one within my head – fortunately.
It was good.
It has been a while since I went for my last debate – which was last year. I vaguely recall promising myself I shall never put myself through the same load of crap again (all the researching) and I made it a point not to break that one.

The topic for the prelims was ‘The common man has the right to protest in present India’ and I had to speak against it. Now, unfortunately for me, the Constitution of India clearly states every citizen enjoys the right to protest (Article 19).
So I had to cook up bullshit.
And well, I hate modesty so – I am good at cooking up bullshit.
So, after a lengthy conversation with a friend (this is you, mass debater!) and sleep I decide to make up this story about this illiterate, young girl named Radha, who gets raped by Mr X – a politician’s son and justice is not served in the end.
This was my speech.
Just this stupid story and how sometimes people just can’t protest because nobody is there for support, protesting alone being out of the question.
I tell you, watching hindi movies helped me with the prelims more than researching has ever helped me in any debate.

Now with prelims out of the way, we entered finals.
I do not know shit about the Indian law or politics.
I know it is not great to boast about your ignorance, so I’m not boasting.
The finals topic, well I did not understand it.
For a minute I thought I heard Greek and Latin rather than English.
'Strict laws like POTA and TADA are necessary to curb terrorism.'
I got the topic at 6:30 p.m.
At 9:30 p.m. I tried to find POTA and TADA in Wikipedia (I love it!)
At 9:35 p.m. I slept.
I woke up at 7:30 a.m. because my debate partner called to check how my preparation was coming along.
Well, I didn’t have much to say except that I hadn’t started.
I thought she could handle it herself, considering the competition being not that great.
But turns out she was not prepared as well.
8:00 a.m. I read the page I had opened in some god forsaken site wiki lead me to.
Then I got dressed and left.
Screw the researching.
We were in for a surprise – we were going to have a proper parliamentary session.
I didn’t know what a parliamentary session is like.
I kept shut (big mistake!)
I asked my partner after a while what a parliamentary session is like – turns out she didn’t know either.

It started.
I did not keep shut for more than 15 seconds.
It was a very confusing session.
Weird, confusing and after a while I couldn’t actually figure out what side my opponents were speaking on – I just continued speaking against whatever they spoke.
We kept switching sides.
Somewhere along the session I actually felt my blood pressure rise – rarely happens.
It felt good.
I learnt what a parliamentary session is while I was in one – beat that!

We did well – basically because bullshit always works wonders... unlike researching.

We won.

6 comments:

juxtaposed2.0 said...

nice one...but what do you reay think on protests? are u indifferent? i dont know...i realy dont feel that bullshit speakers make the most. sometimes you really need to make a point...sometimes...

Another Blogger said...

as far as protests are concerned i honestly do think common people cannot protest independently without some big shot backing.. but that is my opinion. and i am almost always never indifferent.

and making a point need not always come from researching. from my experience bullshit serves as the sole provider of more points than any amount of search for points.

juxtaposed2.0 said...

bullshit is what mamta bannerjee does when asked about why the chicken crossed the road. she says the chicken crossed the road because the indigenous farmers of singur were shot in thei balls by the commie govt. the bullshit u are talking about is backed by knowledge. that is somewhat research.
protests always happen. at some level. we protest in college if we have saturday college. none of us turn up.we dont need a big backing. in the same way democracy (flawed in concept, agreed) does give the aam aadmi a chance to fight opression.

Another Blogger said...

i am talking about bullshit a knowledgeable person talks... without research to provide facts and figures.points with statistics and quotes is what comes out of research, bullshit does not have any of that.
as for the protest in your college you were talking about, you do have backing in that too - from the rest of the students who agree to cut class with you. but if you were alone in your decision to cut class it would hurt more and nothing would come out of your protest - noone would heed your protest. that is what i meant - a common man can't do anything unless he has support and on a big scale the support almost always includes a big shot.

juxtaposed2.0 said...

there was no big shot babe... eventually the big shot was a collection of small shots. and what about the bmw case?what about priyadarshaini mattoo case? all those just make us feel that everyone of us collectively make a difference. all we need to do is believe in a cause. thats it.

JB

Another Blogger said...

i disagree.
there are thousands of acts committed against illiterate, common people every single day which goes unheard of because of lack of these 'small shots' or a 'big shot'.
and one negative scenario which is not impossible is enough to prove that a common man does not have the right
- because one common man who may have not been able to voice his opinion is more important than millions of people who might have been heard.
and i just have to provide that one single negative scenario.

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