Abusive Language In School Curriculums

Hindi Medium and Super 30 had proved that English was not just a language but high social status. The signs were ominous. In a bid to revive Hindi’s dwindling popularity, education ministry of India has decided to incorporate abusive language in school curriculums. State-of-the-art and old favourite cuss words will be taught. Students will also be encouraged to bring in swear words from their regional languages and dialects. In order to maintain hands-on approach and banality, the syllabus will be overseen by gangsters, pimps, Karan Johar, abusive trolls of social media and Chetan Bhagat’s avid readers. This will also ensure mixed representation in the education system. The goal is to make the education system more relatable, realistic, and practical (or throw in any buzz-word to describe a critically-acclaimed fad).

In addition to that, standard literature will be replaced by abridged screenplays of Gangs Of Wasseypur, Pyar Ka Punchnama and some patriotic biopics etc. to make the language plain, over-simplistic and appealing to the students. “We cannot close our eyes to reality. We are dealing with stiff competition from English. There’s no way to surpass its eminence. We can only try to save Hindi from obsolescence,” barked the spokesperson of education ministry.

“Parents rebuke their children if they use Hindi words in their colloquial language. They have done well in passing on their inferiority complex to the young ones. More and more people are undergoing an un-learning course at Karan Johar Foundation to purge Hindi and Urdu from their brains,” he took a drag off his beedi and continued, “Despite being at the helm of our competition, Karan Johar Foundation, it’s nice of Mr Johar to watch over our syllabus to disperse his first-world chops to our programme.”

The spokesperson insisted, “There’s a dire need to make the language hip and happening. Nobody has the attention span to read books in today’s fast-paced world, that too in Hindi. Imagine how enthusiastic kids will be while mugging up Kartik Aryan’s famous monologue from Pyar Ka Punchnama or while quoting invectives from Gangs of Wassseypur to harass fellow students.”

“Isn’t it inappropriate to teach abusive words to kids?” I protested.

“What’s wrong with abusive language? This is how most people, including teenagers, talk in real world. People shield their kids from harsh realities of life, then they protest that kids are getting too sensitive. Abusive language will toughen them up for future. People want education to reflect real-world issues; they must face reality now” he went on like a kid rote-learning a lesson, in the manner of Kartik Aryan’s dialogue delivery.

In order to uphold the sanctity of realism, Hindi literature will also include English words as well as letters: “Just like how people send text messages in real world, though it gets incomprehensible and quite annoying but such is life.”

While continuing the ground-breaking transformation, the new curriculum will substitute poetry with raps from eminent rappers including Badshah. “Nobody even cares about English poetry, let alone Hindi and Urdu shayari. Poetry is useless and unrealistic like song-and-dance routines in movies. Nobody talks like that in real world. Badshah’s rap typifies modern-day linguistic values. It’s realistic, relatable and practical — realistic, relatable and practical — realistic, relatable and practical,” he chanted the slogan with the fervour of a hired political campaigner.

When contended that nobody even talked in rap or hip-hop in real world, he whispered in an admonitory tone, “No anti-national or low IQ questions please.”

“We want language to be vapid and appealing to the students,” he rambled on.

“How could something be vapid and appealing at the same time? Isn’t that a contradiction?” I asked.

“Haven’t you heard of Facebook and Big Brother?” he quipped, followed by a guffaw.

Algebra facing the axe. Erectile Dysfunction likely to be roped in. 

In a shocking discovery, erectile dysfunction has been found out as the most common problem faced by school boys. Bhumi Pednekar had proved that in her sensible film Shubh Mangal Saavdhan that schools weren’t teaching kids enough on how to cope with life’s problems like erectile dysfunction, but instead wasting time in worthless pursuits like algebra. As a result, Algebra is likely to be dropped in favour of Erectile Dysfunction. Bhumi Pednekar—who’s considered one of the greatest philosophers ever along with Jayden Smith and Mithun’s son Mimoh Chakraborty—has hailed this move as a “victory of content”. Erectile Dysfunction admitted that it was hard to get selected after being down in the dumps but assured that the rise of highbrow content was inevitable. Algebra expressed no hard feelings at the inevitability of being dropped, although reasoned that “instead of going through a long-winded module at school, the students could simply see a doctor but the movie conveniently failed to stress that point”.

How Many More Formats Can Cricket Sustain?

T20 is hailed as the shortest format of cricket but is it short enough? It’s three-and-a-half hours long — longer than an average movie or sport. Any movie longer than two hours and a quarter is met with scornful and hostile reactions; however, the duration of a T20 match is met with a sense of liberation. It’s fiercely argued that T20 is the crowning glory of cricket: for one, it’s short and fast-paced; and apparently nobody is interested in Test cricket. Since the whole fuss of T20 is its short duration, it is still long by global standards. Why be content with just twenty overs: why not ten, seven, six or five overs to put the game on par with elite sports of tolerable lengths to match the rickety attention spans of public? There are more formats mushrooming, as if there weren’t enough already: T10, a ten-over format is sanctioned at club level; The Hundred is soon to be launched by England, a convoluted format of 100-ball innings that will only shorten the game by half hour. When confronted by this question, some fans do concede that the sport will eventually get shorter. So why not do it now? Why not accelerate the “evolution”? It’s not a scientific technology that’s not ready for the present times.

There’s already a barrage of world cups, with nearly one world cup each year. With the proliferation of formats, the world cups will also increase. How many more formats can cricket sustain? Where does this lust for multiple formats end? How many grains of sand can you remove from the heap of sand until it is no longer a heap?

It’s contended that 20-20 cricket is the know-all and end-all of cricket. Wait until the authorities thrust T10, The Hundred, S6, F5 or other skimpier formats. They tell us that we the audience are in control, when in actuality we have no control. They can get viewers hooked on to any format they want; people eventually acquiesce; just like nobody had asked for T20 cricket; international cricket was in great health even before that but they still got public hooked on to it. In truth, people have no choice. People like only what they want them to like. 

Love in Today’s Serious Times

Why This Sanctimony, Serious Cinema?

Serious cinema is important but only when, like everything in life, it co-exists with diverse for forms of cinema. However, when it starts bordering on Fascism then it becomes toxic. Let’s get real Mr Anurag Kashyap. According to Anurag Kashyap, cinema gives people false hopes with regards to relationships by portraying unreal and idealistic relationships. However, when anybody criticises his movies for the unruly behaviour of viewers who were raised on his cinema, he claims that movies make no impact on people’s lives. He cites examples of the failure of anti-smoking campaigns on preventing smoking. He has a valid point: most movies condemn rapes, honour killings, murders etc. but that doesn’t stop people from committing such atrocities. Why this contradiction, Mr Kashyap? Why be so conveniently selective in your criticism?

Older romantic movies were idealistic. People like him blame them for their failed relationships but think about it, back when movies were “impractical” people had much better relationships and marriages. It’s only with the rise of so-called pragmatic cinema that relationships have fallen apart. Now when movies are “realistic” and practical, relationships keep getting worse. People who blame movies for their personal problems are those who cannot accept personal responsibility. Most people like Anurag Kashyap who are anti-thesis to those idealistic movies, have a terrible history of relationships. They are needy, dependent, self-loathing ingrates who were unhappy with their lives even before their relationships. They preach dependence and neediness in relationships. The more obsessed they get with pleasing others the sadder their lives get. They are nothing more than a hipster version of Bajrang Dal, a hardliner group known for beating up couples on Valentine’s Day.

Serious film-makers bore us to death by preaching us to embrace life with its imperfections, accepting people despite their glaring flaws, yet they can’t embrace simple criticism of their films. Anurag Kashyap is at loggerheads with the right-wing but when a kid raised on his brand of cinema threatened him, he didn’t see him a shades-of-grey personality, but rather evil. Serious movie buffs throw temper tantrums whenever anyone disagrees to their cinematic beliefs. Shouldn’t people who criticise their “sensible” cinema be embraced as at least flawed creatures? Shouldn’t they accept our flaws, the way they expect us to celebrate their grey-shaded obnoxious characters? You cannot get everyone to agree to everything you believe in. This is how real world works. Serious film-makers fixate on realism in cinema, but ironically they are the ones detached from reality.

This entire obsession with grey-shaded imperfection is highly inconsistent. On one hand, they preach about putting up with flaws carefully guised as traits. On the other hand, they are busy rearing a perfect breed of children who are expected to get impeccable grades in schools, excel in sports, play musical instruments, learn multiple languages (except for Indian languages), have six-pack abs, sing, dance and do everything that an ideal lead actor does in mainstream cinema. Just look at their contradictions.

Another excuse given for serious cinema is that it toughens people to face harsh realities of life. A fan of Anurag Kashyap, studying at an eminent engineering college, committed suicide because he couldn’t deal with poor grades in college. Clearly, Anurag Kashyap’s cinema isn’t preparing people for real world. The harsh reality is that most of his ilk constitutes of sad and depressed people with some even dealing with alcoholism and drug addiction.

The self-proclaimed sensible film-makers judge, emotionally blackmail and guilt-trip people for finding happiness and success in their lives. They shame people for watching cinema for entertainment but there’s no limit to their own indulgences. They live in extreme luxury, exorbitant house and spend millions of dollars every year on their children’s schooling. And they have the audacity to judge common people for finding pleasure in simple things like movies and love. They tell people to scale down their dreams or not dream at all because in real world dreams don’t come true, which is why people find solace in their depressing and dreary movies. While all these times their fans numb their ambitions, the serious film-makers are fulfilling their own dreams. People who don’t watch their serious movies get called selfish by them and media. Think about it: they expect people to watch their movies and like them. So who’s really selfish here?

Serious cinema is not a guideline for living one’s life. Binge-watching “sensible” movies or TV series won’t help anyone make important decisions in life, it won’t bring prosperity, nor will it get anyone meaningful relationships and most importantly it won’t get anyone a spot in heaven. 

Anurag Kashyap Still In Demand

“Indian actors want to work with Rohit Shetty but Indian public wants Anurag Kashyap’s cinema. Anurag Kashyap is the most popular film director in India. People want to see his movies but cinema owners don’t give them enough shows,” proclaimed Jane Plane at a Flat Earth Society convention.

The entire contingent applauded the speech, followed by howls of approval.

“Anurag Kashyap is more popular than any of those Khans, yet he doesn’t get many opportunities. If somehow he is not that popular, then it’s a conspiracy by Amitabh Bachchan and those three Khan fellows,” orated the ghost of Rajiv Dikshit, also a posthumous winner of Zaid Hamid Conspiracy Theorist medal.

“He is a youth icon. His movies and shows on Netflix India are getting record-breaking views. The budget of the next season of his series will be a whopping $1.5 billion,” reported Propaganda News Channel.

“Even though his films continue to lose more money than ever and his temper tantrums have increased, he is still getting accolades in online comments sections. Though his fans mysteriously disappear from cinemas whenever his film releases, they are quite belligerent on social media,” stated People for Ethical Treatment of Anurag Kashyap.

“His cinematic orientation secured me a place in heaven. His cinema helped me in my day-to-day choices. I am morally superior to all who partake in cinema for entertainment,” asserted a late suicide bomber.

“Watching movies of Anurag Kashyap and cronies has improved my personal and professional life. It has developed my character. I have become smarter than most people. I feel spiritually and socially awakened. I feel like an expert in everything. His cinematic values have also saved my marriage,” said a nondescript man held at a gun-point by a masked person.

“We love Anurag. He’s so adorable,” said no one, not even his parents, not even when he was a kid.