In this post I am sharing with you different ways to claim the title “The Great Indian Chamcha”. And the good news is that everyone is given opportunities for that throughout their lives. Statutory WARNING: Before you proceed and read the entire post, please make sure that you are sane enough to digest humor and accept some bitter truths. If you are ‘If I don’t like what you say, you must rot in hell’  type, get the hell out of my blog right now! For the rest of the world, welcome.

The Great Indian Chamcha – Definition:

‘The Great Indian Chamcha’ is a person who always tries to please others, most of the times in an attempt to gain something out of it and rest of the times out of subconscious programming from childhood. Their intuition, gut feelings, self-respect, values etc take the backseats always.

Times of India defined it well in their funny video:

Opportunities to claim the title ‘The Great Indian Chamcha’ throughout Life:

Consider it as a contest with different categories in different areas of life and during different phases of life.  Opportunities to win the title, present itself from the very beginning of life.

The Great Indian Chamcha for Parents:

Do whatever your parents are saying. ‘Sit’ ‘Stop crying’ ‘Don’t be naughty’ ‘Pee’ ‘Don’t pee’ ‘Eat’ … execute every instructions with the precision of a robot. And voila! You can claim the title earliest in life. Parents (most) will be delighted to have such a good kid. They’ll reward (bribe) you with toys, chocolate etc etc. They’ll proudly talk about you in every social gatherings. Even they’ll participate in competition ‘Whose kid is the most well behaved kid ( aka the greatest and youngest Indian Chamcha)’.

And the advantage of claiming this title this early is the deep rooted programming engraved into your subconscious mind that will help you claiming the title again and again throughout life spontaneously. This will be the natural way of life for you, unless you encounter someone or some experience that hit you hard and reprogram you.

Easiest way to claim the title from your parents after you grow up, would be:

1. Choosing the career that your parents think right for you ( and can show off to others in social gatherings), even if you hate it.
2. Marrying and spending whole life with the life partner that your parents had decided for you, even if you love someone else or live a frustrated life.

The Great Indian Chamcha in School / College / University … :

You take the next step and set foot in your nursery school. Congrats! You get a few more people ( along with your parents) who’ll tell you ‘what you should do’ and ‘what you shouldn’t do’. ‘What is right’ and ‘what is wrong’ training starts right from here. Also your preparation for ‘The Great Indian Educational Race‘ starts with a bag full of books ( heavier than you) on your shoulder & a water bottle to keep you hydrated throughout the race.

You just keep listening to what your teachers say, keep memorizing as much information as you can (don’t bother trying to understand or learn anything), just vomit as much as you can during your exams, score top grades with a victorious smile being able to beat your friends – and you are on the way to claim the title. But there is a catch point you need to remember – you have to maintain this performance consistently throughout school, college and university.

Why would you worry? There are super-qualified people sitting somewhere who are deciding what you should study and what you shouldn’t. Let them quarrel over whether you should study English or not in primary school or sex education in secondary school. Let them change the size and information in the books, and even the historical facts to keep their political affiliations in good light. You just keep swallowing whatever you are being given, considering it as sacred ‘education’.

Let me warn you from a few things that might disqualify you from this contest:

• Looking at world beyond the four walls, through the windows during class.
• Questioning everything you are being told. ( Vivekananda said so, so what? You are not Vivekananda!)
• Wondering what’s the point wasting so many years consuming useless information.
• Being interested in anything else ( Sports, arts, music etc) more.
• Asking smart questions to (stupid) teachers.
• Being creative.
• Learning from real life.
• Not caring about exams, marks and grades.
• Keeping a happy face during class. (You are supposed to sit uptight with an expressionless face that signifies your attentiveness)

The Great Indian Chamcha for Friends:

You’ll be able to participate in this contest group throughout life, along with other contest groups. Forget about what you like, you MUST be liked by others. And among ‘others’ who are most important than friends? Let me give you some quick ideas to please your friends and claim the title:

• Take every teasing and bullying with smiling face during school days. Not only you’ll be closer to claiming the title from friends, you’ll also be getting good scores from teachers and parents proving yourself as ‘innocent poor kid’. What if you can’t tolerate anymore? Don’t worry. ‘Suicide’ is an easier way to escape than standing up for your self-esteem.
• Participate in bullying / teasing / harassing / ragging … other students along with your ‘super cool friends’, accepting the logic that all those activities are somehow making the victims stronger for life.
• Ignore and misbehave with your parents and family, to avoid making fun of yourself infornt of your friends.
• Get into the habit of smoking and drinking. How else can you be acceptable among friends? Besides what’s wrong in that? People who don’t smoke, also die of cancer, don’t they? ( Just like people die in road accidents, even when they don’t hit a running truck head on intentionally). And if you don’t drink (alcohol), you haven’t enjoyed life yet. Haven’t you seen so many bollywood movies, where ‘get a life’ = ‘get drunk’? All these indirect promotion about tobacco and alcohol can’t be just a smart plan to increase sales for those industries? Can it?
• Support friends even when they are doing something to ruin their own lives, your life or someone else’s. That’s what friends are for!

 The Great Indian Chamcha for Religion:

Claiming this title is easy. Follow your religion (aka what you are taught as ‘religion’) blindly. Believe every words written in religious texts, even when that seems stupid from ‘common-sense test’, or you have no idea who actually had wrote those instructions or interpreted ( i.e. misinterpreted) original instructions.

Believe that all religious instructions are timeless and evergreen, even if most of it originated from an era that has no similarity with the era you are living in. Respect every person dressed (posed) as religious teachers as much as you respect God.

Every time a wise person does something great, turn them into a “God” or “Prophet”, start building religious establishment (franchisee) with their idols/photos, and start a cult or new religion. Remember, visiting these religious establishments and keeping these religious texts in your home, is more important than living with the good principles practiced by these wise teachers.

A common person may or may not like PK or OMG type of movies, but to claim the title, you have to start a vendetta against these movies – starting/ participating in online movements like #BoycottPK or vandalizing theaters screening the movie.

If your religious leaders instructs, you must be ready to take a gun or sword or bomb to wipe out people from other religions (who cares that they are human too?).

You are disqualified, if your view of religion is like me or Randy Gage :

We need religions that can celebrate their faith without persecuting those that don’t share it.  Religious leaders who respect for all humans, including Lesbians, Gays, Transgender and Bisexual people.  Who respect women and people with other beliefs as equal citizens.

We don’t need religions that program us that we are contemptible, unworthy beings and sorry sinners.  We need religions that build us up.  Religions that exhort us to do new and greater things, to walk the path of enlightenment – which is simply becoming the best we can possibly be.  That’s my kind of religion.

You have to always remember that you are helpless and only the god-sent (they surely have an license from heaven) religious representatives can save you and gift you the life you want.

 The Great Indian Chamcha for Politics:

Oh! It’s very simple and very similar to the contest in ‘Religion’ category. You just have to believe that your political party is always right. You have to love your country’s ethnic dress code more than you love your country. ( Dress প্রেম is more important than দেশপ্রেম ).

And don’t forget to start early. Too bad that you can’t get into politics from school (yet). So get yourself enlisted with a political party, right on the first day of your college life. Forget about friendship, don’t hesitate to crack skulls if a fight starts in the campus. After all, what else can secure a great career right after you pass out from college? You are with the people who pull the strings everywhere. Cheers!

Even if you can’t participate actively in politics, don’t forget to vote in every elections. Even if you don’t give a **** about your country or actually suck your country someway throughout the year, you must know that by giving vote you are doing a great favor to your country. (Just like you’ll be doing a great favor to a chicken by electing one as its caretaker among: a tiger, a lion, a wolf, a hyena).

The Great Indian Chamcha for Celebrities:

Most people are fan of some celebrities or others. But to claim the title, you have to go extra mile. You have to do the followings:

• Spend most time on activities related to the celebrity, completely neglecting every other aspects of your life.
• Along with your fellow fans of that celebrity, you have to work day in and day out to make sure that the celebrity’s next movie (no matter how mindless it is) breaks all the box office records, atleast performs a bit better than the last movie from his/her competitor. And for that you have to be ready to spend all your savings to watch the same movie 10 times and be broke, atleast you’ll sleep in peace that your celebrity bags a few more millions. Why waste the same time, money and energy for those, who needs help? They are dirty smelly poor people, not glamorous celebrities.
• Forget your own identity, become a shadow (even if a ridiculous one) of your favorite celebrity. Dress like them, pose like them, (try to) talk like them, use their photos everywhere as your profile pictures. And for extra points, get a tattoo of their face made on your body.
• Let your favorite celebrities keep you hooked infront of TV, News Papers, Internet and fuel the ecosystem of ‘Advertisement’ selling you things you don’t need, wasting your precious time that you could have used to become a celebrity (or anything else you want) yourself.

The Great Indian Chamcha for English Language:

For this, you must believe that your mother tongue is useless and only by being able to read and write in sophisticated and polished English, you are considered as a gentleman/lady. Don’t get confused here. Everyone understands the importance of English and try to improve their hold of the language. But to claim the title, you have to disown your mother tongue and use English everywhere – even where other people would prefer to communicate in your (or their) mother tongue.

Atleast keep throwing a few English words (unnecessarily) even when you are communicating in your mother tongue. Like:

Never tell your kids ‘মাসিকে একটা কবিতা শুনিয়ে দাও’ . Say ‘Aunty কে একটা rhyme শুনিয়ে দাও’.

Instead of saying ‘ওই দেখো পায়রা’, say ‘ওই দেখো pigeon’.

And if you are weak in English, live like a waste no matter what other skills and capabilities you have.

Quick test to check whether you are qualified to participate in this contest category:

If you are quite irritated reading my imperfect English, and wondering who the hell had given me licence to blog or how on earth I had dared to write, then congrats! You are an eligible candidate. ( Giving me positive feedback to improve my English doesn’t count).

The Great Indian Chamcha for Society:

To win this contest you have to remember that your society is always right. For example:

The bride have to leave her parents, family, friends, surname – entire world behind to live with groom’s family. She must serve her husband’s family, even if her own family is alone and helpless. Why? Because society says so!

It doesn’t matter whether you love your spouse or not, it doesn’t matter whether you are happy or not, you have to spend your entire life with them pretending to be happy. Failing to do that might result in being disqualified for the title.

You have to be socially acceptable in whatever you do, basically you have to do whatever everyone else is doing. From the career you choose to your sexual orientation, everything must be in accordance with society.

Sure fire way to get disqualified from this contest category, is to have opinions like below:

 

The Great Indian Chamcha for Money:

To claim the title in this category, you need to base every decisions in your life on the basis of money. Pick that choice that have the potential to give your maximum return in terms of money, while:

• Choosing career.
• Choosing life partner.
• Signing for a film (for film stars).
• … and everything else.

For example, you’ll choose liquor distributorship as your business venture for its huge return potential. You’d prefer to open a study center claiming ‘job guarantee’ that will be able to squeeze millions from crazy parents without giving any real values to students, rather than really educating and empowering students.

You’d prefer to build a bridge with third class material, digesting the bribe money without a burp, and the lives lost when the bridge collapses won’t affect you a bit.

You’d become a doctor, not to save lives, but for its earning potential.

You’d endorse a brand, even if it’s not good for customers, just because you are getting huge money from the sponsorship.

The Great Indian Chamcha in Career:

The qualifying criteria for this contest category is connected with some other categories like Parents, Society, Money etc. You must believe that you can never be successful doing what you love. You must choose a career that either your parents decide for you and/or is socially acceptable and/or has most earning potential.

In a workplace, as an employee, you have to focus more on pleasing your superiors to climb corporate ladder. Even if your employer’s decisions/opinions/instructions are against your value or benefit, never get the thought of quitting. Remember it’s always better to work under someone than working for yourself, why bother being so self-motivated? Working under pressure is much nicer way of life.

In another way, you have to leave your job to start your business or become an Entrepreneur, even when you are completely happy in your job or your values match perfectly with value of your employer. Why? Because you think becoming an Entrepreneur will give you more social status among your peers.

To claim this title, you might have to chase career goals that doesn’t matter to you at all. E.g. you are perfectly happy running your business from your Laptop in your bedroom, but your so called elite Entrepreneur friends are running their businesses from posh offices, so you have to do that too. You enjoy teaching kids painting, but you discontinue that to start an art business as suggested by your well wisher friend, though you have no interest in business. You keep working 12 hours/day to earn money for your family, even at the cost of losing all the time and energy to spend time with that family .

You’ll be disqualified from this category if you are found to like or comment on posts like below:

 

 

Training for NOT becoming ‘The Great Indian Chamcha’

I tried to give as much clear instructions as possible on how to claim the title. If you need more help, it’s very easily available everywhere in our society. Unfortunately I am the most unqualified instructor for that. But if any of you, for any reason, need my help to stay away from the contest and rather follow your heart in every aspects of your life, then book a consultation session with me.

Started writing this post as an entry to the The Great Indian Blogging Contest, as a part of the Apeejay Kolkata Literary Festival 2015 in association with Great Indian Circus and Kolkata Bloggers. But it went beyond 500 characters limit. So this post won’t be eligible for the contest I guess. But if you like the post, leave your comments and share with others, and if by any chance this post can wake someone up from the ‘chamcha’ mind programming, that would be my greatest gift.

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Update:

My favorite blog post entry in this contest is the one written by Sayan Bhattacharya.