What defines me?

(tag taken from GJ's blog)

If theres one word in the English language which describes me completely, its the word 'lazy'. Its a beautiful langourous word which the British developed, presumably, in the post tea session of the fourth day of a test match. But like many other things, they actually learned the concept of laziness from India. Laziness is part of our national identity, seeped into our history, culture, politics and daily life.

The foundations of our laziness was laid by our great sages who attained wisdom purely through sitting in a pose for decades, doing nothing. Sometimes I try the same tehcnique at office and my boss has been very appreciative. He recently wrote on my appraisal form, 'Dream on'. But I wonder why I did'nt get that bonus I asked for.

We passed on the same indolent gene to anyone who came to India. Several rulers, dynasties came to India and settled here as they suddenly found themselves too lazy to move out, like the Mughals. In fact the recent movie Jodha-Akbar was a tribute to the mighty Mughal spirit of laziness wherein Ashutosh Gowariker was so lazy that he forgot to end the movie. My friend went to see this movie last sunday and has'nt returned yet.

Then the British came and looted, exploited and plundered India till the only thing left here was cholera. They too would have settled here had not Gandhiji used our most potent weapon against them i.e our laziness. When he exhorted all Indians to fight the British without lifting a finger, we instinctively knew what we had to do: nothing. And because we were so darn good at it the Brits jus rolled up their eyes and threw up their hands in despair and left.

Then came Nehru and he gave away a parts of Kashmir to Pakistan and China and said, 'It's too far up north to defend anyways'. Indira gandhi was assassinated simply because in our wonderful life of drudgery, boredom and indolence, there no such thing as an Emergency. Now I could go on with examples but I think you get the picture. However, in our geat nation's eternal quest for everlasting laziness, there are three sets of people who are hell bent upon disturbing our stupor: teachers, parents and bosses.

Only a teacher could have come up with an oxymoron as fiendish as home-work. Home is a place for a young boy or girl to relax and freeze infront of the tv. But everyday these malicious teachers throw words like knowledge, hard-work and discipline at you while you could be chasing butterflies in the wild on a computer game. Is it a surprise then that the most important exam a student ever takes is aptly called the BORED Exams. After this comes Graduation. The word Graduation, derived from the word gradual, is a slow process of unlearning eighteen years of family values in four years of.... (to be continued)