The Coolness Rant-a-tant!

Hey, you. Yes, I'm talking to you. You want to be cool, right? Want people to notice you? It's pretty easy.

Just hate.

Hate everything around you. Random blog posts, social initiatives, Government policies, Twilight, Justin Beiber - anything under the sun. Hate it, despise it, ridicule it. As soon as any damn thing starts getting popular, start a counter-culture that hates it. People are sure going to notice you, Hey, who's that cool guy, the maverick who is going against the norms?

Hate is a powerful thing. It can unite people in ways even patriotism can't, leave alone love. It forces people to lift their fat bottoms up from their comfy couches and beds and do something about it. Take Anna Hazare, for example. This particular bunch of haters, who had no idea up till then who this tiny little man was, actually updated their facebook status to show their feeling against his movement. That's a lot! You don't even actually have to read about it. Just rant. Rant about how no 'Lokpal (which, incidentally, is no different from Jan-Lokpal)' can eradicate corruption. How all Indians are corrupt and therefore it's wrong on their part to even think about supporting a person who's actually doing something about it. Or if you're not the 'political kind' but the artsy-fartsy musician, then you have Justin Beiber! You shouldn't just sit back and smoke your joint while Pink Floyd (a.k.a epitome of coolness) slowly strums the guitar, cooing soft words in your ear. You should get up there and yell and shout and make fun of a teen singing a regular teenage song FOR TEENAGERS! No, there is absolutely nothing wrong with a 25 year old making fun of a kid, that's not stupid at all. After all, people in their 20s have no other work than to monitor the music taste of the teens. You'd be facebook worshipped! Your tweet will get retweeted at least 10 times! Also, hate people who work hard. Call them suck-ups and blame them for not being creative enough to become a writer, artist, musician. Blame them for being 'first-benchers' and scoring high marks.

But there are somethings which will make you even more uncool if you start hating them, or worse doing something about it. Never, ever try to hate poverty or illiteracy and don't even think about doing something about it. You'll be forever tagged as the 'Social Worker types '. In this regard, conventional will always be cool: running to America/UK/Australia/Kuwait will always be cool, becoming a psuedo-NRI with a heavily put up accent and a heartfelt adoration for everything 'foreign' will, without fail, always be cool! Listening to hindi songs or even reading/talking in Hindi will always be uncool, never try to go against that.

It gets easy once you start, this entire coolness thing. Just follow the herd flocking towards the 'counter-culture' and whatever you do, never, EVER say what you really feel out loud. That is the Golden Rule. No matter what, never be yourself.

Shadows and She

What was she?
A mere shadow of the people around her.
She could easily slip in to the skins of those whom she interacted with every day of her life. She could copy - no, borrow - their mannerisms, their acts, their smile. And their words. Especially their words. She slipped in comfortably in these skins and fluttered around, portraying it as her own, till she got tired and found a better skin to borrow. Not only this, she could easily switch from one skin to another whenever she wanted to, whenever the situation called for it.

She was not a good actress, because actresses are supposed to portray someone else. She mingled in these skins, her own self. They became her and she, them. Her original self was reduced to a mimicry of a thousand different originals. She had 'borrowed' set of principles and beliefs. Even her sense of morality was stolen from someone. She carried within her, forged ideals and mimicked passions.

What really was her passion?
Everything and nothing. She would be a writer someday, when her peers' works started getting noticed. She would become a painter, an artist one day, when a movie on painters and artists was made. She could be a reader, an academician, a daredevil - anything - as long as it was the 'in' thing to be. All that mattered to her that people would notice the shining star she really was, the star she so desperately was yearning to become. She would crack jokes and pass witty remarks she had overheard in a private conversations so people would think she's funny. She prayed that they'd think she was funny.

And yet, she was so amused by the people she thought copied her. And she thought that a lot! For her, people always tried to copy the way she dressed, the way she talked, the catchphrases she used that she had borrowed from another someone sitting far away. They amused her and made her proud of what she was. There was nothing more thrilling than to be a trendsetter.

What will happen when she is laid bare of all these skins she has acquired over a stretch of time? What if, one day, she is forced to come back to whatever is left of her own, pure self? Right now, she could be anything and everything. But what if all of it had to stop all of a sudden like she knew would? What then?

She was too afraid to answer that.