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Ian Panda: India; I am Ian and this is MY BLOG!!! Be an audience to this never-ending ordeal I call Life. Take a moment to listen to me describe the escapades of an ordinary Indian guy in his early thirties.

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Why Fighting Propaganda is an Uphill Battle

- October 19, 2023

I am an atheist from a Hindu Brahmin family. I do not like the BJP and their Hindutva agenda. I do not like Islam. I do not like Christianity. I do not like any religion. But I grew up learning about Hinduism – I thought the spiritual lessons of karma and doing good deeds were good lessons and worth following. I was not raised in a household that pushed any religion onto me – I was taught that all religions essentially teach the same thing – be good, do good. My earliest understanding of religion was that it was a practice in moral science aimed at keeping people kind and honest. “Who is the main God?” I once asked my folks, since my grandma’s pooja place had pictures of several gods. My grandfather explained it to me like this: “They are all the same. It is the human imagination that is unable to comprehend the concept of a creator and hence we choose to visualize them as Brahma, Vishnu & Maheshwar – with each entity handling a different task in the Universe. We have assigned name...

Instant Connection. Or Not?

- May 05, 2019

Love stories through the years have led you to believe that all connections are instant and sudden. That people just fall in love at first sight, and live happily ever after. If you're older than twenty years of age, chances are that you're already disillusioned with that notion. You know better than to believe that fairy tales exist. You have lived the "real life" where meeting new people is a tedious task, putting yourself out there feels like a real burden and liking someone, genuinely liking someone doesn't come easily. So when Ishika and Siddhant met for the first time, neither of them was naive or inexperienced enough to believe in 'love at first sight' or anything remotely similar to it. They had both had their own share of relationships and heartbreaks and were just exploring something new. Ishika in fact had no intention for it to be anything more than an evening out with a new guy. Siddhant was cautiously optimistic. Blind dates hadn'...

Cruelty is a Human Concept

- April 03, 2019

Have you ever wondered how no creatures in nature, save humans, are capable of cruelty? The most violent animals in nature hunt and kill for food, they don’t do it out of cruelty. Humans are the only species that hunts for “game”, “fun”, “recreation”. And the cruelty isn’t restricted to hunting and poaching only. People in general are cruel and mean, something you don’t see in the animal kingdom. Take the example of those guys who threw a stray dog off the roof. Or the woman who buried a dog’s litter alive. And I’m yet to mention the cruelty that man imparts on other fellow humans, be it in the name of war, religion or politics. Take the lynching incidents that are so rampant in the recent years or the riots and bombings of the past years. Human beings and their affinity for cruelty never stops astounding me. And then there’s the cruelty and torture at personal level which often goes unnoticed due to its intimate nature. Between the ages of six to nine, I was undergoing syst...

Juice Review: Raw Pressery 100% Valencia Orange

- July 25, 2017

It all started for me a few days ago when I added Raw Pressery’s Sugarcane juice to my shopping cart on Big Basket. It was slightly expensive than all the juices out there, but that didn’t matter to me as it was an impulsive buy. I like to sample new products every now and then. Well, the tall bottle of juice was chilled and sweating when it arrived. That’s usually a good thing with juices. You see if a brand it making an effort to transport a juice in a refrigerated environment, it usually means their product does not have preservatives. Well, I tried it and it was really good. It was a flavor of juice which isn’t commonly bottled by companies. And having it at the roadside thelewala , while refreshing can be a health hazard at times. And the bottle was new and well designed. The cylindrical thick ribbed bottle stood out from the rest. All in all, it left a good impression. So the next time I was surfing Big Basket, I searched for Raw Pressery. I found that they were selling a...

26th February, 2017 5:30 AM

- May 12, 2019

I usually just refer to it as the "accident", but it wasn't an accident at all, was it? It was a case of mob violence. On 26th February, 2017, at 5:30 am, I was almost killed by a group of angry people, armed with sticks and stones. That day changed me forever. And it's the first time in more than two years that I am willing to tell everyone the details of what happened on that fateful morning. I am Rajinder. I hail from the hilly state of Himachal Pradesh. I worked in retail before getting promoted to the marketing department of the brand I work for, back in 2016. I moved to Gurgaon for the job and took up residence at a hostel in Manesar, at a walking distance from my office. Things were going well. In January of 2017, a new guy called Shammi became my roommate. Shammi had a big personality and everybody took a shine on him instantly. By big, I mean the kind of macho aggressive that young men usually gravitate towards. But I never had any problems with h...

Oblivious to Love: "KRITIKA & I"

- January 13, 2016

"Kritika" & I: A Long Time Ago An old flame (Lets call her Kritika!) recently felt insulted when I referred to her as "an underdog" in one of my articles. This surprised me. She missed the whole essence of my writing. When I call you an "underdog", you must take it as a compliment. Because I myself am an underdog. I have always been one. I wrote back to her, "Its the underdogs of the world who actually rule it." I totally stand by that philosophy. Anyway, the whole incident kinda got me thinking. I've written about all the significant people who've shared part of my life with me, except Kritika. That's not fair, is it? So here it is. Long term relationships are like drugs. You get addicted to them. You get addicted to the comfort level that you share with that person. You get addicted to being desired. So when you break up with that person, it feels like withdrawal and you start craving for "the drug". Lon...

In The Name of Ram...

- January 24, 2024

A while ago, I made a video questioning whether the Indian epics Ramayan and Mahabharat were historical events or mythology. It drew a lot of anger from a lot of people. The thing is – I was not always aware that I was an atheist. There was a time when I prayed to God as well – Lord Shiva actually. But I never believed the stories to be true or historical. I viewed them as mythology – which even if it ever happened, happened in some other realm or alternate reality. Because with what we know about science and our own development, we can safely assume that the magical elements in the holy books of all religions are just not possible. I thought everyone knew this – I thought everyone knew that these were stories – metaphorical mostly and meant to impart a moral lesson to the people. So, it was astonishing when a very close friend of mine became seriously offended because I questioned the authenticity of Mahabharat and hence, Shri Krishna in association. I tried to reason with him, s...

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