Things That Are Wrong

Chapter 22.

Changes In Tune

Dreams.

Dreams are God's way of telling us to wake up.

I've realised way too many people make statements ending with the words "you know?", you know? And often enough, you really don't.

"So since my uncle grabbed my ass when I was twelve, I obviously understood how to stop relying on family for personal issues since they were where those issues were originating from in the first place, you know?"

Uhhh...no. I don't know. You see I...quite enjoyed my uncle grabbing my ass, you weirdo.

Some people will say anything to get noticed. Others are nice enough to restrict it to their blogs. People lie to make their lives sound more interesting than they really are, and somehow we've become ok with that over the years.

How do we seriously swallow (and not the GOOD kind of swallowing) some of the absolute tripe our own friends tell us when we weren't even there to see it happen? Trust? Like you trust the news?

We need to start looking at things that are wrong with ourselves. And I mean REALLY look. Just...borderline self LOATHING, but not quite. See in my opinion, it can actually be a very healthy thing to know full well what your flaws are. One advantage definitely being beating others to the punch when they're about to point one of them out. Don't give them the satisfaction I say. They get enough of that from going to expensive coffee shops with their laptops pretending to relax while struggling with the (Insert current favourite American TV series here) catch phrase of the day to remind themselves why they hang out with each other in the first place.

They belong to a group.

I'm the guy who really doesn't quote fictional characters from "How I Met Your Mother." I have few friends because of it.

Yes, we live in a world where even FICTION can be used badly in the wrong hands. For instance, love. Directly proportional in amount to the number of things you buy your loved one on dates that apparently matter, i.e: birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine's Day etc. Love is a fictitious luxury that only the rich can afford but only the poor know the value of. And if you don't believe in all of it, you're an outcast (also known as an asshole). Maybe you'd be a visionary if it was 2000 years ago. But times change, and eventually, the machine wins.

Personally? I don't understand how you don't find it absolutely refreshing to run into someone who has a completely conflicting opinion on things to your own. Makes me one step closer to realising how small a chance there is of another ME hanging around somewhere in this world.

Which is only something I fear to encounter because running into another Faraz Lodhi - the two of us being totally full of ourselves - I wouldn't know:

A.) Who to agree with more than the other.
B.) If all those years of theatre really DID turn me into a flaming homosexual because my first instinct would be to make out with myself. You sexy beast, you.

Though I seriously doubt EITHER of us would call the next day. Because there are some things you just KNOW.

Like those few channel numbers you remember on your tv set because your cable operator keeps changing frequencies so often you don't bother setting them to preference. You just commit those few channels you know don't totally suck ass to memory and keep punching the numbers on the remote to move between them.I agree that TV is better than real life. Atleast you get to change the channel every now and again. But the closest real life gets to television is when you're on one of your favourite channels and some totally LAME movie is playing, so you think "Let my try 18 next, I'm sure there'll be something good on it". Only to realise you were already ON channel 18, you know...the one playing the piece of CRAP flick you have to sit through before things get any better or worse. Much like life.


Yes, friends, learn when it's ok to distant yourself from the shitty things around you to be able to breathe for a second and know how horrible a person you really are. How are you going to learn anything if the only people you talk to are your friends and lovers? They're just sorry souls who feel lucky to have YOU around. Everything's different when viewed or heard from a distance. The perception changes, just like when a car loudly blaring a Bombay Vikings song changes in tune when it gets far enough. The song remains the same, but somehow the note it's being played in goes lower or higher, does it not? I imagine it's because only SOME of the vibrations made by the stereo are actually reaching you now. Unfortunately, the car has to be WAY far before the song begins to sound at all bearable. And how is a story any different?

I'm sick of people. They're overrated. Here's why I say I'm ahead of my time. Because I live the way your descendants will. Alone. Indoors. Paranoid. They way God intended. Completely dependent on man made items so that soon we won't even need to leave the apartment anymore. There will be a few spots left on the globe they'll turn into tourist attractions where only the filthy rich can visit on weekends. The rest of it will we war torn, burnt, uninhabitable or too dangerous to hang around as they'll have you believe through the information getting pumped into your homes via devices that would make an iTouch look like a 3rd grader's attempt at a science project.

Because by then, a 3rd grader will most likely be able to create an iTouch anyway.


It's becoming so easy to control human life. What it believes to be truth. What it considers fun. What it considers entertainment. What's allowed, and what isn't.

What was the point again? Ah yes. Self hatred. Get on board. Whatever you're doing with your life...it's not good enough. It's affecting nothing but your own self interest. Listening to WE ARE THE WORLD is a hypocritical act if you don't take the time out to help a stranger in your day. You're told to fear your neighbour because if you start helping each other, there goes another security guard company led by some corrupt ex military asshole to loss of clientele.

And you don't really think they'll let it happen...or that you have any control over their decision in that matter, do you?

We can all be better people than we are. We just have to stand for something. I know it's damn tempting to come on tv and sit on a couch across from some chick whose main claim to fame is being married to the bassist from Junoon, and say you don't care what people think, if you don't like someone, you're totally vocal about it right in their face. But try to remember the last time you told someone you didn't want to be around them anymore when it WASN'T affecting your pathetic financial situation. It's easy to tell a guy who chews pan and speaks like a mela that you hate his guts when he isn't offering you a gig in a Telenor ad worth 3 lakhs.

What's difficult is what I do. Have a spine and stick to your morals despite the outcome.

We work for criminals. All of us. If not directly, I'm positive the guy YOU work for, TOTALLY works for one. But as long as they keep wearing their white shirts and black ties and secure their bad habits behind locked doors, its ok. I guess if you don't find out about it, it never really happened.

It takes one explosion, 13 killed and a confession beaten out of a man belonging to some so called terrorist group to warp your entire reality. I can't believe I live on the same planet as such a weak and ignorant species. Even animals know more than we do. We've never seen how they behave when we don't have a camera shoved in their face.

In fact the same goes for men.

I wish I was strong enough to keep things inside though. That takes serious strength. Pretending to be role models for people we THINK are living their daily lives based on the actions of their heroes. It does nothing but soften these already pudding headed bastards lining the streets of this city like maggots on a corpse.

Reality. It's the key to healthy living. And not the kind of reality that's followed by the word TV to make for some of the most watched programming in the world today. Let me tell you something (like that's not what I've been doing so far), true reality doesn't MAKE it to television. A human being's behaviour immediately changes when they know more than the 3 people in the room at the time are going to be seeing it. Everyone's a fucking star today. Was a time once when it required skill, artistry, a command over certain entertaining traits and something downright SPECIAL to be one.

Now it requires a lack of shame and morality...and the ability to do ANYTHING for a piece of printed paper with some dude's face on it whose name you can't even remember.

Your vices are the FIRST thing a stranger should know about you.

Your so called virtues, the last. If he or she should happen to be forgiving enough to still wanna find out more about you once they learn you're a man who prefers to be drunk by 12:30 in the afternoon because you like to get it out of the way.

You know?