3. Shaanth Gadaadhaari Bheem, Shaanth

I was talking to K about of all things morning BO. I see your face cringing or laughing, or making that expression that you make  when you type out L-O-L to a statement a friend or a BFF or a frenemy makes. (I’m in a Mean Girls-ish mood as I write this, so get off my back). Coming back to the BO; K being K got disgusted with the banality of the discussion and gently nudged me into steering the conversation away from bodily functions. 

We got to talking about the Francois Gautier article that she shared and we started talking about political debate on the internet. At this point your face is making the expression represented by the blank faced Emoji. You’re also giving a humongous Liz Lemon eye-roll saying “Seriously Dude? How original!”.  You might (hopefully I must add) comment on my blog saying the exact same thing. Most of you would do that hoping that I respond, flexing your finger muscles, cracking your knuckles getting ready for a war of keystrokes. And it looks like that’s all political debate has been reduced to these days, a war of keystrokes and raised voices. 

You’re waiting in the shadows for one slip up, one typo, one grammatical mistake, one statement that you agree with - all to say something, from “LOL NOOB, CAN’T FIT YOUR THOUGHTS INTO 140 CHARACTERS! to “HOW DARE YOU INSULT RAHUL DAMODARDAS KEJRIWAL! YOU PSEUDO RIGHT WING LIBTARD COMMIE!”  You just want to speak, to make yourself heard. I admire you for it, and I love social media for it. But it seems to me that you don’t care about the state of affairs as much as you do about wanting to have the last word. At the end you end up looking like Jane Goodall’s favourite creatures flinging poo at one another. That being said . I’ll stop before making this post preachier than it already is. I’m just as guilty as you are. I’m only writing this post to be heard, to be seen, but not necessarily to have the last word 

I’ve had discussions with K on the grey area between right and wrong. I strongly believe in there being a spectrum of states between right and wrong. I believe that we should all be open enough to recognize the merits and demerits of “both wings” of political ideology and every other wing in between. I also believe that a majority of you adorable politically aware internet trolls see the good and the bad of different political ideologies, even if you don’t say it out loud. I say all of this because I’m strong believer in Upendra’s ideology in the movie Upendra. “Sari thappu antha yenu illa, yella avaravara opinion ashte”