This isn’t a post for kids. Or for the sweetheart types. There's a bit of language and a lot of hatred. So, really, if you want to, leave. I won’t blame you.

Here’s the deal. I’m in jail for raping a minor girl. Of course, that’s a trivial issue. I’ll get out. I have the right contacts. But you see, that ain’t enough. I want the whole record taken off my name. I want to show that she’s as guilty as I am of taking part in these carnal pleasures and her age isn’t an issue since she’s given me consent. Luckily, I have friends within the system. We’re gonna do the best thing for me – make her embarrassed for trying to humiliate me and show everyone what kind of a cheap woman.. sorry, girl, she really is. With the help of a few politicians, I’m gonna turn this into a statewide debate. She’ll survive the mental trauma. She’s a kid. They forget.

What ?

You guys don’t agree with my way of thinking ?

Then why the F- double C –K are you all shutting up when women are being beaten for being in a pub and remaining mute spectators when all the government says is let’s debate pub culture in India first, then see whether the girls were really righteous and deserving of our respect ?

Don’t freaking call this nation a Republic if this is what comes as a part and parcel of it.

Mangalore is my home. Not because I was born there. Not because I was brought up there. But because they opened their arms to me when I went there for my medical studies. They never asked me my caste, my religion, my eating habits or any other irrelevant factors. They just welcomed me with love. For 6 years, I lived there watching religious harmony whilst the nation bled itself claiming purification and religious morality.

But I saw what was coming in a bitter glimpse months before I left Mangalore for my higher studies. And I hated what I saw. Early readers of this blog may remember this article on terrorists in Mangalore.

Today, reading how Mangalore is being torn apart by such jobless psychopaths is devastating. They say they found the girls in a pub and so to ‘protect their religious honour’, forced them out and beat them. Oh yes, a bit of molestation and mild groping may have occurred. But that’s expected while saving girls. Oh, and before I forget, according to the big guy of the gang, he won’t apologise because he feels he’s right and ‘he’d do the same for his sister’.

I can see where the term behen chuut arises from.

Is this really a country that was crying two months back saying foreign terrorists bombed my big hotels, mommy ? Boohoo, no doubt the green neighbour’s a bad boy, but what about these paedophilic uncles in your own house who choose to violate your freedom of choice every other day ? Is it ok if a human rights violation occurs within closed doors but if a foreigner is involved, then it’s a crime ?

And this apathy ? God !!! When they burnt a priest alive, people were too bothered saying they want a discussion on conversions. Every Feb 14th, they want to discuss how showing love via cards and gifts is bad moral values. When Gujarat burned, they wanted a discussion on who lit the match in the train, rather than who was cutting up pregnant women and putting up the foetuses in religious forks. Now, you have their degenerates coming and beating up women in numbers and all you can say is – I wanna talk about pubs and their moral effect on my pure Indian culture.

Yoohoo ! Newsflash. India ain’t a pure virgin. She’s a country that’s been plundered and molested innumerable times. Foreigners did it and left, and then we started doing it ourselves. And I ain’t talking natural resources either. Mentally, economically, geographically, this nation has been ripped apart too many times. So DON’ F***ING TELL ME YOU WANT TO DEFEND MY CULTURE.

I can do it myself. I can choose for myself. Each and every Indian living in this nation can choose for him and herself. If they choose to drink, it’s within their rights. If they choose to dance in a pub, it’s within their rights. When they go beyond the law, there are people to bring them to task. They are the law. Wearing saffron underwears doesn’t make you God’s babysitters. It doesn’t give you the right to cause havoc simply knowing that your equally sexually-disoriented saffron goddaddies will support you and say first let’s talk about the right to drink.

To whiskey or not to whiskey is my choice, asshole.

You have a problem with that, get a new saffron dhoti, climb up a mountain and pray for me like your culture teaches you. Vishwamitra would be pleased.

But don’t bloody lay a hand on a woman. Bastard.

If everyone plans to behave like this, well, I’ll put in a phone call to Gilani telling him not to work so hard on training terrorists. In a few years, we’ll be too backward a nation to consider invading. We’ll be too busy purging ourselves clean till no one is left.

Then again, why should I care ? I’m a doc. You people hurting yourselves more implies more dollar bills in my Swiss account. So go ahead. Fight. Hurt each other. Cause pain and violence in this sacred land of cows and lamps where human life is, literally, worth less than one in a billion.

Please don’t try to work towards caring for each other. Don’t open your arms and accept other cultures and opinions. Talk with your stick and your d**k. The two things that work best for you. Don’t try to unite this nation. Let’s cut up the remaining states too into itsy bitsy pieces based on sub-sub-sub caste. Don’t allow heinous places like Mangalore, which was promoting such abnormal practises as communal unity and freedom of choice, to flourish. Heaven forbid other states try it out too. Let’s nip these weird notions in the bud and show them that might is right.

Heaven forbid we actually become decent human beings for a change.

Proud to be an Indian ? I spit on that phrase today.

Today, I’m disgusted at what the papers show me. Today, I wonder whether it’s all worth it. The rich history, the freedom struggles, the wars, the Emergency.

Because, in the end, India is not a Democracy. It is not a Republic.

It is most certainly, not the land of the free anymore.

P.S. The pics are from my trip last year to Mangalore. The first is of me, Shaffi & Vijay toasting to a good PG life ahead. We belong to 3 different religions. It's never been an issue before. It ain't gonna be one ever in the future with us. Any orange chaddis have a problem with that, I'be back in Mangalore atleast for a day this year just to toast to your 'well being.' Just so you know. Oh, and I danced in that pub too that night. Come beat ME UP, asswipe.

The second pic is of 'ye old adventurers' taken a year back during a much needed trip to Mangalore. The only significance of the picture is the placement - this is where those poor girls got beaten up last week. For being in a pub. In a city with a pub culture that's 20 years old. A year back, you could walk the streets at midnight with no worries.

Please, if there is anything you can do to change this country for the better, do it. Sitting in an operation theatre and keeping people alive and painfree, my words are my only weapons.

P.P.S. I'm not in jail for raping a minor. Just to clarify.

When I was a kid, I used to get ill a lot. I had a lot of respiratory infections and must have been a real burden to my parents. My God never stopped caring though. He ensured I was always given the best hospital’s tender loving care.

When I was a kid, God showed me the miracle of driving a car without touching the steering wheel. Years later, I realised that the car accelerated because of those funny ‘leg cushions’ below the steering wheel.

As a kid, I learnt from God the joys of watching musclemen fake their way in a sport called wrestling. 2 decades later, I no longer watch the game, but I keep up with what’s going on so that I can enjoy listening to God’s view on who’s been ‘naughty and nice’ in the ring.

As a kid, I went to the best schools, had the best education and all the comforts. God ensured I had all this so that his children wouldn’t suffer like he did.

As a kid, I demanded Kinder and Galaxy chocolates, new clothes every other month and endless He-man comics. God never said no, no matter how thin his wallet was.

As I kid, I watched God be generous beyond his means, giving shelter to homeless immigrants till they found a place to live and never take anything in return. In return they abandoned him once their needs were fulfilled. It broke his heart over and over but he carried on.

As a kid, I watched him play pranks on his friends and thus learnt the fine art myself... one of the few traits I’m proud to say I can match him at.

When the time came, like in his own case, God directed me to leave the place where I was comfortable... the only place I’d ever called home. I questioned the need for it in my heart, but eventually relented. Years later, I see the wisdom in his actions. If my initial home, Dubai, gave me my moral values and nature, my new home ( a country I’d seen more in a geography textbook than in real life ) made me who I am today.

As I grew up, I turned away from my God, my own self serving needs better served elsewhere in the company of friends and peers. Still, whenever our paths crossed, he never wavered from showing his love the way he does best – in actions rather than words. There was no open declaration of undying love – just a glass of banana milk shake painstakingly made at 6 am before he left for work or his own great chicken biryani which he slaved over after coming home for his lunch break while I lay on the couch watching TV endlessly.

As I grew up, he guided me to my destiny, opening all the doors for me as I joined medical school. Never once was I found wanting for cash in those lavish teenage years. As the son ate at 3 star hotels with friends, God sat alone or with his spouse eating carrots and leftovers.

As I grew up, I erred in judgement. I chose the wrong crowd and forced my will upon God. I forced a life altering decision upon him. He agreed to my demands... in 2 seconds. He was happy that I was happy. Nothing else mattered.

When my decision backfired and all hell broke loose, he carried on despite his own weakened heart, carrying me as I fell again and again till finally I was safe again. Never once did he point an accusing finger in my direction for the flames that singed us all.

Today, 9 years after I joined the field of medicine, I’m still dependent on him for my needs. I still need his moral support to carry me through when the going gets tough.

I still need to remember how he didn’t let being an orphan affect him – how he controlled his destiny and saved so many people’s lives. How he succeeded against all odds and yet took no pleasures in his golden years, sacrificing it all for his children.

God, I want you to know I haven’t forgotten. I still carry the memories. Of the trips to the zoo ( and the tiger that aimed and pissed at us ), of the shawarma dinners ( that I thought was a national dish ) that have carried over from Dubai to Kannur over these 2 decades. Of the time you sent a poor soul who’d asked where to deliver an A/C to a major 5 star hotel when he rang up our number by mistake. Of the endless times you listened to us kids talk rot without being condescending or forcing your will upon us. Of the time you shielded me from the fact that my dog passed away on my birthday. I still remember the advice you’ve given me as I joined high school, then college and finally my post graduate studies.

People who know me well say a lot about how I’m a do-gooder, a prankster, a kind soul doomed to be fooled repeatedly, a person who makes those around him happy even when he’s suffering.

I tell them the truth – that I may have gotten my mother’s looks, but knowingly or unknowingly, I've inherited my God’s personality.

I wish there was more I could do to make up for the time we’ve lost or make your life more comfortable.

God willing, someday, I will.

But till then, I just want to say,

I Love you, Dad.

And Happy Birthday too.