Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Antivirus for the soul

A friend just told me she had been to a satsang. Nothing unusual about that, you might say, except that she is a very un-satsang-like person. She is to Satsangs what Kim Jong-il is to Democracy. And yet she found it worthwhile to attend one! Must be something in it, right? Well, I therefore took it upon me - I am that kind of person, you know - to elucidate the subject in simple terms, in the FAQ format so popular with the public.

Satsang - FAQs

Q: Whatis a satsang? Is it like a fully automatic washing machine for the Soul with automatic rinse and spin cycles?

A: A nice metaphor, the washing machine, but too simplistic. Except for the fact that satsangs are usually as noisy as washing machines, go on for roughly the same amount of time as a standard wash-rinse-spin program, and make about as much sense as a front-loading whirlpool, there is little similarity.

A satsang is more like antivirus for the soul. When we interact with the world, certain bad programs install themselves and make us do bad things, usually involving a credit card. A satsang attempts to scan your soul and delete these programs or, if that is not possible, quarantine them or, if even that is not possible, steal somebody else's credit card.

Q: What kind of programs?

There are many bad programs (gluttony.exe, lust.com, greed.pif, pride.info and so on) but they are rarely found in the plain form in most souls. They usually morph into Trojans using Stealth Technology and become really hard to find.

In female Souls, some common Trojans are

Need_a_new_dress.pif

I_HATE_her!_How_dare_she_have_a_bigger_solitaire_than_me.com

My_mother_in_law_is_a_dragon.info

and the most difficult to remove

You_dont_love_me_anymore.exe

In male souls there are fewer Trojans, though all are notoriously hard to remove. Here are the major ones

Look_at_those_hooters!.com

I_HATE_him!_How_dare_he_have_a_bigger_SUV_than_me.exe

Directions?_I_dont_need_no_directions.info

and of course, the big daddy of them all

Ofcourse_I_ can_handle_another_drink.pif

Q. Will the Satsang antivirus remove all of these?

While every care is taken to achieve complete consumer satisfaction, we do not purport to provide complete error free solutions in all cases. Furthermore, in the case of certain viruses, additional actions may be required.

For instance, the
Look_at_those_hooters!.com
virus seems to be best removed when a certain part of the affected soul's hardware is cut off.

The
You_dont_love_me_anymore.exe
virus requires purchase of accessories (see "The add-on Jewellery Package") to be removed from the system, though the recurrence is almost certain, despite such purchase.

Q. Is the propensity for infection dependent on the kind of soul?
A. Yes. The soul most easily affected is the large and complicated WindowsVistaTM type soul. Unfortunately, this is also the most common type, because it tends to be bundled with the hardware by the OEM (sometimes known as 'GOD'). There are some free, independent Linux distro type souls which are immune from viruses, but they are quite rare.

Q. WOW! Where can one find these free, independent Linux distro type souls?
A. Only one place. Running naked in the Kalahari Desert.

23 comments:

maxdavinci said...

best removed when a certain part of the affected soul's hardware is cut off.

ouch!

we ought to patent this technology, move over Norton you've got company!

Anonymous said...

LOL!

I thought that's exactly what they did in a satsang. Thay sat, they sang :P

But seriously, cults & commercialism apart, I'm sure you've heard about Vipassana at Igatpuri (near Nasik). It's not satsang, but been good for all apparently, satsangesque & unsatsangesque.

g

Anna Bond said...

Samsung would've been a better choice for the anology.
Samsung and Satsung, the 2 noisy brothers separated at a Kum-Ki-Melee.

Gradwolf said...

ROFL..good one mr. shenoy..

Instead of best removed when a certain part of the affected soul's hardware is cut off.
..I thought you would have used something else here - I_HATE_her!_How_dare_she_have_a_bigger_solitaire_

You know, think Salma Hayek and all that!

Anonymous said...

Simply Awesome this!

Have you considered script writing for stand up ( or sit down) comedy? ;)

No, seriously.

rads said...

Hahaha! I read this again now and you are right on! :)

Thanks Naren :)

Lavanya said...

You seem to have missed the self destruct trojan in women - Does_this_dress_make_me_look_fat.exe. :D

Brilliance as always, ROFL-ed all the way through! :D

slowtumblinglife said...

hey.. hilarious post!!! and great blog.. got here from david mcmahon's blog.. glad i did!!!

:)

Deepak Misra said...

Hilarious !!!

Deepak

Deepak Misra said...

I have "digged" it http://digg.com/comedy/Antivirus_8

high time you have a link to digg in your blog.

Speak to more for more details


Deepak Again

Anonymous said...

Satsangs are the latest, and hottest, a(u)nti(es) social networking platforms. Maybe that's why your friend went there! :-B

"A satsang attempts to scan your soul and delete these programs" - unfortunately most of the ppl who attend these are low on RAM and "skip" the scanning in order to speed up the other applications. :-B Nice one as usual!

Anish

no signal said...

Interesting confluence of tech and humane nature.
Kalahari.. LOL.. what about naga sadhus ??

Anonymous said...

Superb post, Naren! Hands down, the funniest blog I have come across! Competition from Lets Put Da, but you are in a league of your own.

Partho said...

Even by your high standards this is superlative, naren. What did you eat for breakfast?

Narendra shenoy said...

Folks, I'm touched! (sniff).

@max-I'm looking forward to designing flyers - "Only 39.99 for a three user license" kind.

@gauri - I've heard about Vipasssana. It is quite demanding. It requires you to stop talking. Ouch!

@annaBond- :D

@grad - Thanks!

@always - thanks! I've always wanted to do stand-up. Someday.....

@rads - Thanks! And hope your fever's better.

@chutney - That's spot on! One such virus resides in Mrs. Shenoy! We have a great time getting ready for parties and things with her going"This is making me look fat" and me whining away "No no no you look perfect now can we leave please so that we get there before the bar closes?"

@slow - Thanks!

@deepak - Thanks, brother. Digg! I've heard of this but never figured it out. Thanks again

@anish - LOL!

@no signal - I saw some naga sadhus once. Yeah, they're linux distros too.

@doc - Thanks! At variance from Mrs. shenoy's assessment of my funniness (you're so silly!) but great for my morale. Long live you.

Cynic in Wonderland said...

heheh this one rocked!

Pitu said...

HAHAHHAA! Look at those hooters instead :-p

Pitu said...

I meant 'indeed' :p

Unknown said...

Fabulous!!!

Amey said...

Err... hasn't Linux reached Himalayas yet? ;)

Anonymous said...

This programme needs no debugging. Love the stylistic coherence.

Maddy said...

i see that you have been trying out some of that spam exe's that come through. saw anything interesting?

xyz said...

that was simply awsome.. i have really seen this happening.. my mom actually donated her gold ring.. and wen we heard her name through the speakers.. we laughed n said..oh! some one wid the same name as my mom has gone crazy... just to find that it was my own mom...
-abhilasha