The Consequences of Casual Science (THG #3 of 20)
Life gives you lemons. Ask for some soda too.
Dear reader:
This is the third issue of The Hindustan Grimes, where we take the lemons life gives you, blame society for making the lemons sour, and write news articles about it. You've got this because you're subscribed to the newsletter. If you've not subscribed yet, click here.
After our last issue, one of our enthusiastic dear readers took it upon themselves to design an amazing logo for The Grimes, seeing as we didn't have one. Check the logo out below! It will also appear on our website and our Twitter handle. We would like to thank this enthusiastic reader, who has asked to remain anonymous, for this amazing gift.
This week we talk about some matters of leisure: books, casual science, and pleasure. Have you ever wondered about how reading a book by a dead author is very much like necromancy? We did. We like believing we are necromancers.
Yours magically,
momo & eggsy
2021 Booker Prize awarded to Cyberpunk 2077
Miles Morales and Zelda eye International Booker Prize
London, January 2021: The ARPG game Cyberpunk 2077 was awarded the 2021 Booker prize, in a move that generated a great deal of controversy among bookstagrammers, literary critics, and gamers alike. The event had around 60 attendees, with Keanu Reeves appearing on behalf of CD Projekt Red and Mr. Adam Badowski, the game director, to accept the award. Mr. Reeves had a starring role in the game, and took a break from shooting The Matrix 4 in San Fransisco to accept the award. In his acceptance speech, he profusely thanked the committee for the honour while expressing regret that a book didn't receive the prize.
The game is set in a fictional city named "Night City" in the United States in a dystopian 2077, with Keanu Reeves playing a rock star by the name of Johnny Silverhand. The main player character is a mercenary outlaw named V, who is "going after a one-of-a-kind implant that is the key to immortality."
The event, however, generated a great deal of controversy, with many literary critics pointing to this award as a sign that the millennials had gone too far. "Cyberpunk 2077 now occupies a seat in the pantheon that also houses Kazuo Ishiguro, Margaret Atwood, and Arundhati Roy. These millennials ruin everything," said an angry James Dylan Cross, chair of the British Literary and Theatre Association, in a phone interview with The Grimes. "I understand that readership has plummeted, but that shouldn't change who gets the booker prize. This is disgusting." All members of the association boycotted the event.
There was also a considerable backlash from the gamer community worldwide, particularly previous generation console gamers, who found the game "lacking", "buggy" and "overrated". The hashtag #CancelBooker was trending #7 worldwide and #2 in the United Kingdom on Twitter during and right after the event.
"The fact that this game is honoured after such a botched release goes to show how much the booker prize is rigged in favour of PC gamers. #CancelBooker," tweeted a disgruntled gamer with the handle @cyberpunksucks. This also led to multiple Twitter feuds between PC and console gamers on Twitter. However, there were no tweets from any Mac users, which Twitter speculated was due to the fact that they can't game.
The prize includes a £50,000 cash prize, which CD Projekt Red is using to refund disgruntled console gamers. Gamers who failed to buy gamers' insurance had to console themselves with steam coupons in place of cash refunds.
The ceremony was conducted in Guildhall between 1000 and 1200 GMT this Friday, and the organisers made it clear that they were following social distancing protocols and had hence only allowed a small number of esteemed journalists to attend. A special correspondent from The Grimes was present. The full video of the event is available on The Grimes’ YouTube page.
Flawed Experiment Finds Vegetarianism a Farce.
Bored restaurateur runs experiment. Prices meat lower. Finds no takers for paneer anymore.
Shimoga, January 2021: Vegetarianism, the consumption of products not involving slaughter of animals (without consent), is a practice followed by many. While many Indians consider it merely a way of life, there exist others who do it either to alleviate their guilty consciences of bringing harm to animals or to continue qualifying as a celebrity and staying in vogue. Some do it 'cause their friends fangirl PETA and force them to forego meat. But the final outcome is inevitable; such a friendship won't last long.
K. Dharamgowda, a third generation restaurateur from Shimoga, Karnataka, is a connoisseur of food. The only thing that overshadows his love of food and wealth is his love of science. Drawn early into the family business after his father's death, Dharamgowda was unable to stay in academia for long. His passion for science was as delectable as his ability for it was lacking.
He was curious why certain people ate meat and certain didn't. So he went ahead and priced all the non-vegetarian dishes lower than the vegetarian ones for a week. He told everyone of the change in prices but not the intention behind it. He had heard of "blind studies". Throughout the week, there were no takers for veggies and paneer.
Ecstatic with his findings, Dharamgowda invited the local media for a press conference. He declared, "Vegetarianism is not real. People are miserly. It will go away with cheaper meat. This is the truth." Asked about whether he would still sell his meat dishes at lower rates like before, he said, "No."
Experts from the ministry of health and scientists from research institutions as well as industry have been at the forefront in acknowledging this pioneering work. Think-tanks and endowments have been formed to discuss, appreciate, and spread this pioneering indigenous work. Efforts are being made to put this finding into practice and government policy. Mr. Dharamgowda is expected to be honoured with a Padma award this Republic Day.
Boy attempts suicide. Discovers autoerotic asphyxiation.
In an exclusive interview with the resident President of the Hedon's Society, our correspondent, Ado Ink, discovers their novel recruitment and matchmaking strategies.
January 2021: Early in the interview, Ms. Maramma Horishetti, President/Head Hedon, explains her discomfort with the leadership position, but that it is this edginess that compels her to discharge her duties well. In the early years of the society, in the 1960s, the society had trouble with leaders who enjoyed leading so much that they chose to forget what the society meant to its fellows. Since then, leaders who find pleasure with the power have been expelled and termed infidels and false hedons. Now, ironically, only fellows who do not enjoy leading are made Head Hedons, albeit only for a year; a sacrifice every hedon finds worthy.
So what does the society mean to its fellows? I asked her. She explained, albeit succinctly. We find hedonists, facilitate their pleasures, and teach them control, class, and, most significantly, charisma. We take them from being aberrant and wacky to idiosyncratic and eccentric. Many observe their transformation and while they become more accommodated to the drab dystopia outside, choose to find their family here. We have grown from pleasure to pleasure.
Many of the fellows, whom the outside world brands obsessive-compulsive, have helped make functioning of the society smooth, cataloguing the variety of modern pleasures. Surprisingly, or rather unsurprisingly, the only members who are disappointed as a result of this are the fellows who love surprises. Well, actually, no. The murderers and the rapists also. But they are no longer members, so definitively, yes.
After a minute of awkward silence, nervous clattering, and some frantic fake coughing outside the door, my nervousness slowly subsided. She comforted me with a tale of the thundering third Head Hedon who was the first to infiltrate the Eavesdroppers Anonymous, not that they knew of course, and had liberated many of the younglings. In his honour, the society still holds fortnightly sham secret meetings for the eavesdroppers to eavesdrop on.
It was now that I had discovered the trickery of Ms. Horishetti. She was no Sardar Patel when it came to leading (or extorting/blackmailing either), but she was a conversationalist of the superlative degree. She had tricked me and caused us to digress away from the boy ToI had termed "the boy who lived".
How was the boy found? I emphasised. She had to concede. "Everyone sees us. Few notice us. Fewer still look for us. Scant seek us. We gather these remnant seekers and bring them here." She assures me that I have seen them and when I discover my true pleasure I would discover them too. She also assures that none of their banner ads are annoying. Well.
The boy was a young one, naught but nineteen years of age. Staying away from home hadn't been pleasant to him. Nothing led to another nothing, and there he was trying to force stop his life. Fortunately, his noose gave him the most ecstatic experience he'd ever felt. He soon discovered the society and sought it. Ms. Horishetti tells me that in the past few years, the recruitment team has had tremendous success. With the spread of internet access, it has become easier to reach eyes.
What would the boy's fate be now? I asked. The Head Hedon laughed out loud. She found my concern amusing. The boy hadn't contracted a deadly disease. He had only learned something new about himself, a thing that was turning out to be latent in large numbers of the population now. She reckons this asphyxiation fixation to the Vespa fad of 2012.
The boy has found himself a complementary mate at the society, one who is meek, but also particularly fancies choking others. Ms. Horishetti had picked her matchmaking chief from the board of Mensa. The Chief funds matching compatible people more fun than matching colourful sweets on increasingly smaller screens.
These are exciting times, says the Head Hedon. The populace's notion of normalcy is evolving. As eccentricities become more mundane, the society will become both omnipresent and absent.
The Grimes’ Definition of the Week
Conflict Resolution: When your friend absolutely bitch slaps you on the group chat and then DM's "nothing personal bro". Commonly confused with arbitration.
Arbitration: When the group chat's Where To Eat discussion fails (either out of indecision or conflicting opinions) and the hungriest person grumpily imposes that we all order in instead. Not to be confused with food insecurity.