The Softer Side of Capitalism

Facebook had an advertisement for a poetry contest on poetry.com a few days back. I had submitted one poem, a few years old, before, to poetry.com, but not as an entry for any contest. So, I said to myself, "What the hell" and decided to give it a shot. The website rejected the first four or five choices from my collection on grounds of length, even after much formatting by removing empty lines in between paragraphs. Finally, seeing no way out and with my resolve to submit something getting stronger with each rejection, I fed the website 'Incoherence' - a title that somewhat salvages some random musings written for this short film, which it gobbled up. I didn't care if I won anymore (and certainly didn't expect to, with the shoddy quality of the submitted poetry) and was just over the moon to be even able to submit something.

I was a little surprised that the website didn't email me confirming the acceptance. Later, as I was rummaging through my Spam folder to make sure Gmail didn't label any of my acquaintances as a Spammer, which you may think is a symptom for some eccentric OC disorder, but let me justify by saying that this has happened in the past, and if I have learned anything from such episodes it is that history repeats itself when it comes to technology, looking at me, sandwiched between a message trying to sell me Viagra and Cialis for discounted prices and one from Shauntelle telling me that she was lonely, was the message from poetry.com. At the time, I didn't think much of Gmail's divisional practices and just brushed it aside as spamophobia.

As I was performing my regular spam filtering routine on Friday, I noticed another email from poetry.com with the subject starting with that favorite word of spammers around the world - 'Congratulations'. A little surprised, I opened the email to find that the poem has received
the Editor's Choice Award. I suddenly felt very kicked, at once forming a blog post in my head on how best to show off to my readers, and then I noticed that the email came with a 'prize' - The 2007 Editor's Choice Published Poet Ribbon Award Pin, Watch, and Medallion. My happiness intensified, I pinched myself a couple of times and continued with the rest of the beauty pageant winner routine. It hadn't even complete sunk in when I saw the number 119 somewhere in that sea of praise of an email. A closer look told me that poetry.com was so impressed with my poem that they were giving me the opportunity to own some jeweled watch whose maker had his hands cut off moments after creating this masterpiece, for a 'minimal fee of $119 only'. The email went on about how this watch, much like the holy ring in the LOTR movies (none of which I have watched BTW) alone could get me laid more often, which is apparently a challenge for even the luminaries of the poetic world. The icing on the cake was that the medallion and the pin were 'completely free' if I were to avail of this offer and the complete bling set was known to have alarming effects on hot women who acquired sensitivity and other similar such feelings when exposed to the glint of the bling set. Anyway, if you are a hot woman, here is the poem in question.

As if that was not enough to make one realize the price on one's head, or rather hand, I was told by San Francisco's Caltrain later that day that I would need to pay 'only $500' to get a shooting permit in order to shoot in any of their stations, even though I was a student and not planning to sell my film and would be shooting on a Sunday when there were hardly any people anyway. It would be Communist, I mean criminal, to end this post, without standing up erect and 'hailing' Capitalism, with its discerning soft quality of making embracing citizens feel so wanted and uplifting their otherwise morose moods, by giving them such bloated price tags, much like products they can only admire though shop windows under expensive studio-like shop lights and its all encompassing hug to include petty little vocations like poetry and film. I have deduced a secret piece of information from this little anecdote - Gmail, and thus by extension, Google is Communist. Don't be surprised if my efforts are successful and Google is shut down in the coming few weeks. I also want to clarify that this post was in no way sponsored by the good people over in Microsoft.

Lennon's Arrogant Wetting of Capitalism's Existential Bed

I wet my bed the other night. It's not what you are thinking, or even you, alias changing commenter (henceforth known as ACC). I was merely quenching my thirst (again no pun intended, ACC) when I sneezed and I just happened to be physically near my abode of nocturnal rest, thus rendering the blue sheets with their galactic objects moist, which is pretty ironic since hydrogen and oxygen, the parents of water, haven't actually been proven to exist in space yet despite the color of my sheets.

Lennon seemed to look down from the wall with his usual calm, though slightly amused at my Laurel and Hardian ways. He has been ignoring me since the day I stopped rocking my weeping guitar on my lap, despite its rich dark brown beauty with an ethnic green circle in the middle reminiscent of tanned Indians before Columbus brought the plague here. I had Lennon placed there so that I would wake up each morning and read the lyrics of Imagine etched right next to him. Little did I imagine at the time that my eyes would completely open only when I had to drive to work, and sometimes not even then.

Talking of Columbus, Bhatija informed me today with almost as much pent up frustration as most Indian men harbor on the day before their wedding, that cnn.com had results of Britney's sister's pregnancy test in their index page, and that they had been OD-ing faithful readers such as himself on much Britney news over the past month or so. The W feels its one of the evils of an exclusively Capitalist economy and that a balance is required, fearing the worst for the Wall Street Journal since it has just been purchased by that obscenely loaded murderer of socialism - Rupert Murdoch. As always, I didn't really care deep down inside, but made some seemingly intelligent economic comment about demand and supply.

The Dell printer, forever a symbol of aggressive marketing of its maker, had arrived like most guests at an Indian wedding - uninvited (Don't ask me why all the metaphors have something to do with Indian weddings today). For once, listening to my kindly heart, I had taken it in, nurtured it with many a cartridge over the two years - color as well as black and white, but had never really used it that much. The thrill of using company stationary had always offset its use, so much so that the ink began to dry like Bhuvan's cricket-virgin land. Now it just stood mute without any apparent sense of purpose like those decorative couch cushions that you have to deal with after (sh!@ here I go again) marriage. However, the secret is that it does have a purpose. Objects like that always have a purpose in middle class homes (yeah, OK, apartments). In this one, it serves to keep the malfunctioning switch of a three story lamp in the reluctant on position. My god! Sartre would have been proud of that existential reference, no? Am I turning into an arrogant prick? Maybe everyone is arrogant, but the ones that are called arrogant are just bad at hiding the arrogance. I am going to define arrogance as the lack of ability to make small talk. You don't agree? Oh well, I am too arrogant to care.

Arrogance is the reason I will skip Welcome and watch only Taare Zameen Pe this weekend, as it would be insult to the latter to even juxtaposition the two in one's schedule. Arrogance is the reason I am trying out this no meat policy because the damned chickens, lambs, cows or goats of this world are not bigger than my bloated ego. I don't really care how badly they are treated in slaughter houses. Ms. Manekha Gandhi, if you are reading this, you will be glad to know they have gyms solely for dogs in NYC where overweight members of the canine species run on treadmills. Yes, some people literally go to the gym to check out the bitches. You can try taking that up with the BJP for the next elections, who I am sure would prescribe gyms with equal facilities for dogs of all religions and overlook urbanity or rurality in building these. Arrogance is also the reason an octogenarian is the head of the opposition in our great land. Arrogance is the reason I claim to readers who have no way of checking that my Xbox, oh sorry Xbox 360 has gathered more dust than the books on my bookshelf. Arrogance is the reason I tip like a royal at the shadiest of restaurants. Arrogance is the reason I distribute part of my wealth at the poker table after winning a handsome pot. Arrogance is the reason I like my Scotch "on the rocks, with very little ice". Arrogance is the reason I flaunt my middle-classness with as much eagerness as I flaunt my long sideburns to effeminate Chinese men. Arrogance is the reason I am going to end this post with utter abruptness.