Iftar-e Insaniyat Quotes

“Thinking citizens are no good to democracy,
either you obey blind or be branded a terrorist.
Either you hold your mouth, mind and backbone,
or be jailed as an anarchist.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Big brother has turned into a drunken uncle.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Americans worship Batman and Spiderman, Indians worship Monkeyman and Lionman, Egyptians honor Falconman and Catwoman. Fantasies are apekind's escape from the mundane, problem is when fantasy turns humans into vegetable.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Maps of the world are whitewashed,
history of the world is whitewashed,
ethics of the world are whitewashed,
knowledge of the world is whitewashed.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“When Convention is Contaminated:

Brain cannot survive the vacuum of space, mind cannot survive the vacuum of time - so the body produces spinal fluid for the brain to float, and the brain produces beliefs for the mind to survive. But while the immune system keeps the spinal fluid sterilized of infection without conscious intervention, brain does nothing to keep beliefs sterilized of prejudice, unless you make it a habit to question convention.

Choose to fight physical infection or not, your body will do it for you, but as for psychological contaminations, you have to fight them yourself - the faculties are already carved in your brain circuits, but you have to be willing to use them, defying the comforting fantasies of convention, that's how an ape evolves into human.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“We Are Freedom Fighters (Sonnet 2260)

Right to leave religion is just
as fundamental as right to religion.
Freedom of dress is just
as important as freedom of the press.

Freedom to breastfeed without shame
is just as sacred as freedom to pray.
Freedom to choose not to have child
is just as respectable as motherhood.

Freedom to love outside tradition
is just as divine as jesus on the mount.
Freedom to dream across color and collar
is just as elemental as drinking water.

Any halfwit can write Declaration of Independence,
while denying people's rights behind closed doors.
My Declaration of World Independence is this,
rights of another only enhance my own.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“When some poor soul is wounded, it's unimportant what you believe, science or the sacred, what matters is that you rush to them with first aid. To be the first aid in someone's wounds, that's the highest sanctity, as well as the right science.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Tyranny always comes dressed as tradition.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Spare the toilet, spoil the floor. Spare the fascist, spoil the world.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“When boneheaded egomaniacs make a joke of liberty, revolution is our first amendment, mutiny our right.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“To overcome hate some day, we gotta stand human today.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“If it takes just one election to reverse hundreds of years of social progress, then that society never progressed in the first place.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Time to Cancel 4th of July (Sonnet)

If it takes just one election to reverse
hundreds of years of social progress, then
that society never progressed in the first place.
There's no point in celebrating 4th of July,
when we're ever regressing to persecution days.

On the outside we've made tremendous strides,
we have been to the moon and back,
yet the glossiest of land reeks of lunacy,
when we nationalize prejudice as gallant.

America is abomination of everything free and brave,
where persecution is law, intolerance is religion.
To overcome hate some day, we gotta stand human today;
Dream of the King is the Dream of Civilization.

We have no cause for celebration, if anything,
we gotta re-examine the legitimacy of 4th of July.
When boneheaded egomaniacs make a joke of liberty,
revolution is our first amendment, mutiny our right.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“War is the currency of political power.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Only undesirable aliens in the world are the fascists, fanatics, fundamentalists, nationalists and xenophobes.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“When The Nation Regresses (Sonnet 2210)

Letter to the rest of the world -
for the first time in over 200 years,
US is proudly regressing to its primitive origins,
now is the time to take stock of your strengths within -

your domestic brains, your domestic backbones,
and wield, empower and apply them most vehemently -
now is the time you fly higher than ever, without sam,
because big brother has turned into a drunken uncle.

And to those living within these shores of liberty,
who still have their sanity intact, I say -
you might not have had the honor to fight nazis,
but now is the time you resist with your life.

It's not a free country, it's a free jungle,
where predators roam free abusing the marginalized.
If you don't stand up now on the right side of life,
not human, not alive, you are undead - uncivilized.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Science, arts, music, innovation, that's how you serve a nation. There is no greater dipsomaniac profession, than militarist infestation.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Death of soldiers is PR goldmine for nationalist nutters, no matter the side, because it gives them the appetizing ammunition to sell some more fear, some more prejudice, some more fanatic tribalism, neighbor fighting neighbor, all wrapped in cute pills of patriotism - which ultimately manufactures some more orphans, some more widows, some more elderly who lose their hope.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“الكون هو قريبي.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Cosmos is my kin.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“You don’t enter a culture, you disappear into it, be annihilated for others, and you come to life.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“When you are empty enough to hold others, you become whole for the first time.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“AI without ethics is hollow, innovation without wisdom is dangerous. Progress without humanity is regression, abundance without awareness is derangement.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Politicians are professional gaslighters.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“We don't need AI in every gadget, we don't need CRISPR in every baby.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“We don't need AI in every gadget, we don't need CRISPR in every baby. We don't need to abandon tech and live in caves, but that's what will happen if we keep using tech haphazardly.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“Military is the ultimate failure of education, true education shapes minds into instrument of peace, not pawns of legal persecution and terrorism.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“My brain is multilingual,
my heart is multicultural,
my life is multidimensional,
I exist for I dissolve in all.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“World has no shortage of tradition, yet civilization is scarce.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper

“World has no shortage of tradition,
yet civilization is scarce.
World has no shortage of nerve cells,
yet consciousness is scarce.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Iftar-e Insaniyat: The First Supper