My first Diwali outside the country was a Shakespearean tragedy. I blame my craving for the desi and my penchant for adventure to get the adrenaline flowing. You have to be brave or desperate or both to venture out of the comforting confines of your home, only to put yourself through three hours of excruciating torture, fittingly titled, “Jab tak hai Jaan”. At that time, spending our valuable dollars on Indian cinema’s Granddaddy of Mush’s swansong was the closest we could think of making our Diwali memorable. It was memorable all right but for all the wrong reasons. By the time we were done with the movie, we barely had jaan to walk back home. But what does one do in a city, where lighting up diyas inside your apartment can set off the fire-alarm…. where mithai is either frozen or so vividly coloured that it’ll put even Govinda’s wardrobe to shame… the most hyped Diwali Mela is more like a school function where you blink back tears as you listen to an off-key, heavily accented rendition of Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram as you spoon in a mouthful of lamb biryani….where your friends and family are so far away that they can only offer you comfort over the phone!

Your safe, quiet, picture-perfect, wine-sipping, steak hating life in Brisbane is no match to the chaotic but vibrant, stressful but exciting, noisy yet comforting existence in Delhi. It’s a treat to watch Delhi brighten up like an about-to-wed bride, weeks before the festival. There’s a sudden spring in her step, her complexion starts glowing and she surprises herself with her indefatigable energy to shop, shop and shop some more.

It’s surprising what nostalgia can do to your memory as it filters out the unpleasant and retains only the positives. Gone are the memories of getting stuck in nasty traffic snarls, getting your toes trampled at the market crammed with eager Diwali shoppers, scouting Big Bazaar looking for the perfect gifts for your household helps and the noisy celebrations with Yoyo Honey Singh for company. All I can recall is the joy I felt when I saw my city look her most beautiful on Diwali night and the taste of the festive treats. Why, I even managed to miss the “Madam jee, bakshish” brigade!

This year I refused to feel sorry for myself. I got my toes trampled as I did Garba for the first time in my life, got hit by menacing looking Dandiya sticks as I swirled around in my Fab India skirt, devoured a peculiar version of pav-bhaji, memorized Bappi Da’s gems for the Diwali party, let my friends teach me Teen-patti, attended that Diwali Mela again but this time with my gang of giggly femmes. Also, I stayed away from Shahrukh’s films.

It was far from a picture perfect celebration. I was alone on the eve of Diwali, my husband and daughter in different continents. But I still made the effort to pick up flowers and Diwali illuminations for our apartment, cursed loudly as I spent hours trying to assemble made in China tea lights. That evening, I smiled in satisfaction as I watched those electrical diyas flicker all around my house, I came face to face with an astounding revelation - you can travel to any part of the world but you cannot escape made in China Diwali lights. On Diwali, I made my first ever mithai. The almond mishtees looked like gargoyles but tasted divine. A few more years here and I’ll start making gujiyas and malpuas at home.

Courtesy - Google Images

I spent my evening amidst friends and laughter – a bunch of desis caught between First World aspirations and yearning for their home and memories they left behind in the dusty by-lanes of their cities.

As I was chomping on a made in China goodie, scallop dumplings, I came face to face yet another realization. Despite staying away from all that’s familiar and comforting, grappling with unfamiliar accents, bland cuisine and new cultures and norms, the Indian diaspora doesn’t let homesickness dampen their spirits and festivities. In fact they use it as an excuse to try harder to make every festival special. At the Durga Puja, we do all the work ourselves. Kids and their parents rely on Skype to prepare for cultural programmes. The bhog tastes nothing like what we get back home yet we manage to have a gala time. And we take divine permission to celebrate all our festivals only on weekends.

Gone are the days when I used to be picky. Nowadays, anybody who smiles at me is a friend. I wasn’t a least bit upset, when the guy at the car rental confused Durga Puja with Haj.

Distance makes the heart grow fonder and how! The further I moved away from my desh, the closer I felt to it. Just like what I had with my Mom and later with my daughter. When we were together, we drained each other with needless arguments and accusations for not being sensitive enough or caring enough. But now that we are apart, we reserve the best for our moments together.

http://www.indiblogger.in/indipost.php?post=294710

Ms Tee went to watch Thor and came back bubbling like an active Volcano.

In India, if you’re planning to watch a movie at a cinema theatre, you are requested to leave your sense and sensibilities behind. No, I’m not talking about Krrish3 here- I’m too snobby for Hollywood rip-offs. I’m talking about the esteemed variety of movie goers that treats the theatre as their living hall and believes silence is meant for lambs. Since I am usually the silent one, trying her best not to combust with outrage at the manner-less of the manor born, I prefer turning into the observer surrounded by a halo of thought bubbles. Once you detach yourself from all things worldly, the ground becomes fertile for some Animal Planet-like observations.

Here I give my list of pathological behaviours seen in movie audiences-


blueprintreview.co.uk

1. The UPPERCASE variety

Their mobiles are like an extra appendage, or a buzzing tumour on their ear. There is the ‘mildly considerate’ type that will whisper into their phones like they are on their honeymoon. The most common strain of this pathology however presents itself as loud, self-important conversations. If cornered, they will shout out expletives and ask loudly if the offender knows who s/he is. Do not try and reason with them by asking them why they’ve even come to a movie hall if they aren’t going to actually watch one. They are stubborn and the only way to deal with them is to find a seat as far away from them as possible. Maybe hide their phone when they go for a bathroom break. Whatever works for you.

2. The Child on a Sugar High

The most common and by far the most annoying, they are the common cold of movie hall pathologies. They are present everywhere. I watched Black Swan accompanied by constant wailing. First, why would you even bring your infant to a movie as psychologically damaging as Black Swan? Second, this is INDIA: The land of domestic help. If you can leave your children in their care for the better part of the year, 2 hours should not be a problem. If you’re lucky, your local annoying child will only take laps of the entire hall. If 13 black cats have crossed your path, you’ll get a screamer. Fingers crossed.

3. The Canoodling Couple

Dark, air-conditioned, comfy: ideal conditions to get your freak on. Just one problem- there are a hundred-something other people in this space with you. I have no objections if you book those two corner seats in the back of the hall. They even call those seats “couple couches” in Odeon BIG Cinemas. However, if you sit in the 5th row, bang in the middle (no pun intended), you are asking to be pelted with popcorn. If you’re a gentleman, you’ll take her someplace nicer. If you’re a lady, you’ll insist he does.

4. The Unfriendly Neighbour

This is a miscellaneous category. There will be the nosy neighbour, who will creepily listen in on your conversations, the neighbour who takes your armrest (sort of like stealing your newspaper, only with more invasion of personal space). There is the one who texts throughout the movie, blinding you each time they take out their mobile phone (*ahem* my mum *ahem*). Feel free to add on.

5. The Navjyot Singh Sidhu + The Clueless Viewer

These two usually come in pairs, but not always. The first feels the need to give constant, completely unnecessary commentary. Aside from futilely attempting to explain plot points, they will comment on attire, appearance, give a detailed family history, insert anecdotes, and make very, very bad jokes (which they will then proceed to laugh at uncontrollably).

The Clueless Viewer has no idea what is going on throughout the film, begging the question of why they came to watch it in the first place. Most commonly seen in audiences of films adapted from books (believe me, I know. I watched all the Harry Potter films).

6. The Out-of-Context/Delayed Reaction

If you haven’t experienced it first-hand, you have most certainly heard it in the pirated copy of that one film you bought from Pallika or some random stall or a torrent website. No no no, don’t try denying it. Picture this- the protagonist has just confessed to the love of her life that she is dying. Tears are glistening in their eyes (and yours too. Don’t deny it, you big baby). Violins are playing in the distance. Suddenly, you hear jackal-like bark-laughter. The moment is broken. You can actually hear it shattering to pieces. A puppy somewhere has just died.

This list is certainly not definitive. We’ve all had unique movie hall experiences. Something about the dark, cavernous space brings out our most primal selves. Maybe it’s because they blur the lines between private and public spaces. A movie is something we enjoy in the comfort of our homes, on our couches, slouched in bed, covered in popcorn debris. To give an example of this affect: have you ever left a movie hall feeling a particular sense of compatriotism for your fellow movie-goers? This is particularly pronounced with a really mind-blowing film. You slowly rise from your seats, stare at each other; not needing words to explain what you feel. It is probably this vagueness of boundaries that may lead to extremely unreasonable behaviour from people who may otherwise be fairly rational (yeah I’m an optimist). Society conditions us to believe that one is expected to follow a certain code of conduct outside our homes. These rules break down in movie halls. With the way technology is progressing, I look forward to the movie halls of the future, and how behaviour changes (if at all). Till then, I will try becoming rich enough to buy a movie hall.

The CBI, India’s highest investigative agency, has been in pursuit of truth since 1963. An unbiased agency that knows no allegiance and is impervious to political pressure, it is every common and uncommon man’s only hope for justice. So, when its revered chief Ranjit Sinha, in a rare show of candour makes a profound statement about rapes and asks women to enjoy if they can’t stop it, one has no choice but to sit up and take his advice seriously.

Dear women, it’s time you started treating rape like our law enforcement agencies do, as a harmless extra-curricular activity. It’s almost legal, just like Mr Sinha would have betting be treated. As such it was your damn fault that you got raped. Ask any respectable police officer and he’ll tell you when a woman is not covered from head to toe, she wants men to rape her. So, when you venture out of the house for work or pleasure, you are clearly being adventurous. And if you’re not wearing a sack, you are obviously asking for trouble.

If you are stupid enough to get raped, be prepared to be called a slut who did not get paid. According to Delhi Police, expert on sexual crimes, 90% of rape cases are mere business dealings. So, if you were 'really' raped, you would never complain for fear of media and society. Only ‘loose’ women with dubious reputations go to Police stations to file complaints against sexual assaults. Nice women quietly go home and cry.

According to a Policeman’s code of conduct for women – nice women – certainly do not consume alcohol. When a man drinks, he turns into a sex-crazed Neanderthal, incapable of controlling himself. Conclusively, women who drink and place themselves in the company of men having a drink are sluts looking for trouble.

It is a known fact that no respectable lady gets raped in India. Even an underworld don will not like to touch a woman of respect. And if you are in Bharat, no man will touch you even with a barge pole. It’s because in RSS’s Bharat Mahaan, every woman is treated like a cow and every cow is your Mother. Therefore every woman is treated like a mother. Get it?

As such you women have this habit of overreacting over minor discomforts. Is it that poor man’s fault that you were just out there, looking so temptingly helpless, walking all alone with no armed bodyguards to protect your honour! Do you honestly expect a man to behave respectably and not grab opportunity when it presents itself to him? Did you really have to recoil in horror when he approached you menacingly! Men are not used to hearing no from a woman. It then becomes their duty to teach every wayward woman a lesson they will never forget. Didn’t your elders tell you that rape is basically punishment for crossing certain limits! “One has to abide by certain moral limits. If you cross this limit you will be punished."

If you still want to behave unreasonably, you always have this magic mantra to put an end to your so called agony. Just look entreatingly at your tormentor, remove his hand gently from your throat and whisper – Bhaiya. He will immediately fall at your feet and beg for forgiveness.

If that doesn’t work, you can always fall back on Kiwi defence lawyer Keith Jefferies’ simple but brilliant solution to prevent rape. "All you have to do is close your legs... it's as simple as that."

But in my opinion, you should do what Mr Sinha has advised. Sit back and enjoy the act. After all rape is just fun sex and not an assertion of violence and power, the ultimate act of hostility. When a man mutilates a woman’s genitals, strangles her so that she cannot scream, leaves bite marks all over an 8 month old baby, what’s not there to enjoy. Why deny a man the simple pleasures of indulging in unbridled passion by putting up an unnecessary fight!

All the statements in italics are actual quotes by our respected representatives from the Judiciary, Legislative and the Executive

Source - http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/new-zealand-lawyer-adds-latest-in-bright-ideas-to-prevent-rapes/1/324758.html

www.theguardian.com

So, you thought you were smart when you mortgaged your gold tooth and a kidney to buy that much hyped smartphone- a technology so smart that it compressed the world in your palm. All you had to do was leave smudge marks all over the screen to access information crucial to your existence. Like finding out through Facebook that Mrs Sharma was taking off to Buenos Aires for a three week sojourn and reading your husband’s will miss you sweetie, in one of the many comments. That Delhi has been hit by an earthquake yet again and people were so traumatised that they had to wake-up in the middle of the night to tweet about it. Then you were so engrossed in forwarding Lol, this is too funny yaar, jokes to all your 65 Whatsapp contacts, by the time you looked up, you realized you hadn’t exchanged a word with friends you were out lunching with. Since you’re a strong believer of making up for lost time, you smile sexily for the selfies you take with your friends, click photos of all that you ingested for lunch and coolly post them on Facebook.

Just as you step out of the restaurant, your mobile pings. You narrowly miss colliding into the pillar as you discover to your delight that it’s the much awaited mail from your client. You hastily punch in a reply and press send. It’s when he immediately replies WITH PLEASURE! in caps you find out you’d accidently keyed in ‘I look forward to sleeping with you’ instead of speaking! Wasn’t it last week you’d texted “Happy Birthday, dead husband” to Ajesh, your friend sniggers. You direct your iciest glare at your friend and mumble “He knows, I meant dear” through gritted teeth.

You’ve often wondered if smartphone technology meant you to have spindle shaped fingers. The last time you used your stubby fingers to surf the World Wide Web, you ended up sending a friend request to your daughter’s boyfriend and now she won’t talk to you. To add insult to injury, your phone has an autocorrect feature that insists on behaving like your Mom, completing words and sentences before you can finish them and embarrassing you in public.

You have a sinking feeling that your smartphone has succeeded in its evil design in making you stupid. Why else would you be walking on the pavement like a zombie with your eyes glued to the screen and a silly smile pasted on your face, unmindful of manholes and potholes? But isn’t it how normal beings behave these days – each lost in a world of their own making, oblivious to their surroundings. A new world order where people prefer gazing at their phones to smiling at strangers and trying to make friends…Where drivers are more concerned about replying to texts than road safety.

You are so horribly attached to your phone, it has now become an extension of your hand. Ok, we understand, it’s everything you could have asked for in an ideal mate - plays music, takes pictures, wakes you up in the morning, entertains you with cat videos, lets you access FB and Twitter every 2 minutes and even reminds you to wish your Mom on her birthday. All you have to do is whisper her name and it will even make the call for you. Too bad it can’t converse on your behalf as well!

Don’t worry, it’s not just you who has outsourced her memory and intelligence and let a phone take over your life. Truth be told, when it comes to claiming its victims and their sense and sensibilities, smartphones spare no one. From the lady who loves sharing motivational quotes, to the zealot out to change the world, to the Candy Crush addict, everyone is a willing victim.

This is where the catch lies. How easily you and I have become victims, messing up our priorities and allowing it take away our attention from the crucial to the mundane.

I concede that mobile-technology combined with a cocktail of social networking has enabled us reach out to people in ways that were never possible before, but at the same time, it has also managed bring out our worst. We are raising a generation of loners that prefers the comfort of the virtual world. In our need to constantly upload and share, be entertained and informed , we’ve lost the ability to focus, our attention span reduced to zilch. We feel incomplete without our phones and stress endlessly if it discharges prematurely.

Look around you and you’ll see groups of people at restaurants, inside elevators, at conferences, family gatherings, busy checking their mails, replying to text, updating their status on Facebook or tweeting how unbearably cold it has become. Don’t you find it annoying when you are talking to someone and you see his eyes wandering towards his phone! What the hell happened to social niceties!

Here’s the scariest part – we are becoming one of them.

Two months back, thanks to technical glitches I had to reduce the apps on my phone to the bare minimum. My smartphone is now dumb enough to leave me in peace but smart enough to keep me in touch with my friends and family. On evenings out with friends, I make it a point to keep my phone in the deepest and darkest recesses of my purse.

I am making no claims of a miraculous cure but at least it’s small step towards reclaiming my intelligence and emotional quotient.

Courtesy - Google images

The Bombay High Court on Thursday set aside the countrywide ban on nine variants of Nestle’s Maggi instant noodles, saying the national food regulator had acted in an “arbitrary” manner and not followed the “principles of natural justice” while banning the product.

The residents of Hungristan are dusting cobwebs from their kitchen pots and pans, nervously clicking gas-lighters, hovering near their gas-stoves, their stomachs rumbling in anticipation. Their favourite, sweetheart of millions, Maggiwati is returning after a long vanwas.

Though it’s been only a few months since she went missing, but it feels like a lifetime. Unable to bear the trauma of waking up hungry on those lonely nights, and no simmering Maggiwati to cuddle up to, Dharmendra had taken to writing angst filled poetry. His composition – My life is an empty bartan
baby jaan, you are my dhakkan,

ajaa hila de mera chammach, is now a superhit Honey Singh number, providing succour to unhappy souls guzzling beer at happy hours.

When Sunny, Bunny, Chavanni first heard this song at Maaji Bar, they promptly burst into tears. Something they hadn’t done in decades. Maggiwati was their pole of support through hours of harrowing traffic, snarling drivers and cacophonous symphony of horns. All they had to do was get back home alive and she’d be waiting for them lying coiled in her aromatic glory, waiting to be devoured.

She was simple unlike most women. All it needed was just two minutes to reduce her to a gooey mass of deliciousness. Okay, it took more than two, maybe 10. But once you fell for her easy charms, she became a lifetime obsession. Try as you might, you could never let go of her. In fact, you locked her in your cupboard, hid her in your drawers and sometimes under the bed. She was the answer to every hungry hosteller’s prayer seeking succour from the tyranny of mess food, the brightest thing at a girl’s pyjama party. She reminded her fans, her passionate lovers, her lifelong devotees of Ma kaa pyaar – unconditional, uncomplicated, a little unhealthy and filled with calories.

Maybe this is what made her so charming – the sin factor. Her bad girl appeal made her all the more desirable. The more your parents told you to stay away from her, the more you lusted for her.

There’s an old jungle saying, too much of a good thing always attracts the evil eye. Just as Maggiwati was busy sowing oats with desh ki dhak dhak, Madhuri, people started casting aspersions on her character. The noodle of suspicion was pointed at her. Maggi was accused of ‘lead’ing men and women to the path of damnation and betraying their trust. She was dragged from one laboratory to another and asked to prove her purity even as she protested her innocence.

The reports were damning. They all claimed she was poison.

The witch hunt had started. She was put on a stake, humiliated, pelted with stones even by those who’d declared their undying love for her in the privacy of their rooms. She was thrown out of cupboards, drawers and asked never to show her face again.

From the pedestal to garbage bin – it was indeed a mighty fall.

Even as Maggiwati drapes her yellow sari, getting ready for ghar-wapsi with full honours, she can’t help but smile wistfully. In her absence, Lady Why Wai, Yippee Leone and Patanjali Devi had tried their best to snake themselves into the heart of her admirers but failed miserably. How can you fall for these fakes when you’ve tasted the best with lots of monosodium glutamate!

Maybe this was the agnipareeksha that every true love must go through. The humiliation, taunts, getting disowned by your dearest. She felt like a heroine of a historical saga. She felt Juliet’s pain, Heer’s trauma, Sita’s disillusionment. Only this time she didn’t have to die in the end.

On the contrary, she had fought back like an emancipated woman of the 21st century and finally restored her tarnished image to its restored glory.

Maggiwati couldn’t wait to slide down the hungry gullets of her lovers in all her masala laden glory. But first she’ll have to take care of the bitches who engineered her downfall.

Dearest countrymen and women, till a few days back I was like you and SRK, wondering if intolerance is on the rise, pulling us back to the dark ages. Though I’m still not sure why they call it the dark ages, because our ancestors were pretty chilled out. They encouraged questioning, argument, debate and the give and take of ideas instead of banishing anyone who dared disagree, to a land infested by Mughals and calling them pseudo intellectuals. Instead of throwing ink at each other, they preferred inking literary works like the Urubhanga, Mricchakatika and Meghadootam as well as the most liberal Indian export in history, Kama Sutra. True, Edison had yet to light up their lives but even we in our modern times, experience dark ages, staring at walls, thanks to the efficiency of our vidyut boards.

Lynching for eating mutton that might have been beef. Lynching for being low-caste. Lynching for ‘just like that’. Inking Sudheendra Kulkarni (I’m no fan, even then). Killing of Kalburgi, for his frequent criticism of what he saw as superstition and false beliefs.

Dare you say that such concerted “incidents” are shameful! Dare you say that culprits are inflicting these with impunity because they know they’ll be safe! You were promptly labelled as ant-national, ‘pseudo Hindu’ and offered a one way ticket to Pakistan by ‘Yogis and Sadhvis’ who magically appear on TV. Come to think of it, are they actually Pakistani tourism, since no one in their right senses would visit that country!

Image courtesy Twitter

But seriously, where were these sainiks of true Hindu religion, when Babar invaded India? Where was the bravado when Tipu Sultan massacred Hindus and razed temples? Why didn’t they burst crackers when Humayun tumbled down the stairs and fractured his skull?

Like many, I chose to be angry in private. I’d nod my head in agreement every time I read a fierce critique of rising violence stoked by communalism. It didn’t help that our respected PM’s stoic silence encouraged his party members to amuse us with mothballed views (sorry for hurting the sentiments of the moth community) on patriotism and Hindu superiority to justify everything. According to them, all Muslims are evil and the only way we can counter evil is by being evil and behaving exactly like the fundamentalists.

I was busy expressing intolerance against those voicing intolerance against those protesting against rising intolerance in the country. Phew!

Finally I was hit by the blinding truth while stuck in debilitating Gurgaon traffic. Massaging my head, trying to drown out the impromptu horny symphony of irate drivers, I realised how much shit we tolerate on a daily basis. Of course, we are not intolerant!

Remember all those awful movies you sat through just because you’d paid 450 bucks for a ticket? Didn’t you put up with Mrs Sharma, your Boss’s bitter half, bragging non-stop about their luxury holiday in Warsaw while you spent a few miserable days in Mussoorie! Tell me, if we can tolerate potholed roads, power outages, Arnab Goswami on Newshour, the FB friend who uploads a new selfie with her dog every hour or the slimy inspector expecting chai paani for a hassle free police-verification of our passport – WHY CAN’T WE TOLERATE INTOLERANCE!

Why are writers, filmmakers and scientists returning their awards to protest against growing religious violence? Don’t men and women get killed all the time for reasons as trivial as a fight over parking space, rotis not being round enough, driving carefully, falling in love with a boy from a different caste or simply existing! What’s a few recent killings over cows and caste? Love is in the air only on Karvachauth and Valentine’s Day (only if you’re out of pouncing rage of an upholder of morals). But hate is in the air, all through the year.

I’m aghast why no one is accusing Maggi or even Chhota Rajan, also part of the wapasi scheme, of pseudo intellectualism and agenda driven outrage. How dare some of you celebrate the return of Maggi when you should be accusing ‘her’ of a hidden agenda to make us fat! In this season of returns, even Bihar engineered a Modi wapasi and sent him back to the UK. Or is it the US?

Dear pseudo intellectuals and Biharis, out to bring a bad name to our country, if you cretins are really serious about your protests, please do it the right way. Instead of resorting to sissy ways to protest, man up and bludgeon a few chickens instead with your trophies. Or pigs. Besides, the government will run out of storage space with so many awards arriving every day by Speed Post.

The only saffron lining in the cloud of outrage is that self-proclaimed patriots attacking these “traitors” have discovered their hidden talent. It requires immense dedication, flair, the fine skin of a hippopotamus and volumes of earwax to keep hurling insults at renowned filmmakers, accomplished writers and thought leaders and turn intellectualism and secularism into cuss-words. And that too, without ever having set their eyes on scriptures and books that truly embody our heritage.

There’s far too much polarization in this country – selfless individuals interested in the welfare of cows pitted against selfish ones only interested in development and India’s seat in the global community. Alas, this has made me miss the good old days, when UPA was in power. At least there was no polarization. We were all united by apathy and our wait for the dawn of achhe din.

Unfortunately in the era of achhe din, there are now three kinds of Indians – Right Wingers, Left Wingers and those wondering where their next meal will come from! And the most secular place – your neighborhood KFC, the only place where a right wing happily mingles with the left in a bucket.

Courtesy - Twitter.com

Pahleaaj Cutwani, chief Censor Bore of India has the world’s toughest job. It’s not easy being the ‘maali’ of the Garden of Eden, relentlessly snipping and pruning amoral apples to keep Adam away from temptation. Adam is a gullible fool. He needs to be told what he wants and kept away from sin. Then there’s naughty Eve and her naughtier python, tantalising Adam with unnecessary skin show. For the greater good of mankind, Pehleaaj has tried several times to tempt Eve into wearing clothes. He even gifted her a Satya Paul sari. But that evil woman prefers draping the python, not around her unmentionables but her neck. Yeesh! Even that stupid python refuses to wear the cool designer Yoga wear that Cutwani bought from Baba Reebokdev store. I mean you have to be an idiot to refuse a miraculous garment that can cure piles, homosexuality, eczema and bad body odour with just a tug of the naarha.

Pehleaaj has appointed himself as the conscience keeper of the Garden of Eden (GE), even if it’s at the cost of becoming the butt of unkind jokes by immoral people who have nothing better to do. These are but small sacrifices you make when you are in His Majesty’s Service. Like the ordeal of having to watch that old man Craig kiss the older woman Belucci for such an excruciatingly long time. Since he could not see a mangalsutra around Monica jee’s neck, Pahleaaj Cutwani was quick to deduce they were not married.

What kind of culture allows elderly men and women to indulge in such brazen behaviour when they should be engaged in pooja-paath and satsang!

Of course, Pahleaaj was extremely upset. There’s no way he could let his great culture get corrupted by this lowly culture that makes such a show of lust. Imagine the catastrophic influence a man well into his 40’s, who has yet to marry, but is not a virgin and doesn’t stay with his parents, can have on the gullible Adam! What’s more, the shameless man beds a new woman every week without getting charged for rape!

Had Bond been brought up with right sanskars, he would never have let Halle Berry jee come out of the ocean half naked. Instead, he would have run up to her and said – behen, aapke ke pass kapde nahin hai?

Desi bond can never get the license to kill. In our Garden of Eden, to get one measly license, one has to fill 25 forms in triplicate and then bribe ‘different-different’ officers to get them do the work for which they are paid salaries from our taxes.

Pahleaaj Cutwani has made up his mind. Since it’s too late to change this dirty British agent 007, he will create his desi version who’ll be purer than Ganga-jal. Of course, he’ll have to collaborate with Sooraj Barjatiya to make it into a wholesome entertainment that the entire family can watch while munching Kurkure.

He’ll be called Prem, Prem Boondiwale. A halwai in the kingdom of Pritampur, he doubles up as a secret agent when business is slow. Since he’s a devout bhakt who fasts on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and refuses to indulge in non-veg activities on these days, his missions will take years to complete. By that time the villain will die of boredom, hence no need for unnecessary violence. Prem has only two true loves, his Maajee and his pet Pomeranian Barfi and he kisses neither of them. Not even chastely. The women of Pritampur call him Boondiwale bhaiyya and in his free time, he often plays antakshari with them. Prem’s favourite drink has to be Goumutra shaken not stirred, a sprig of tulsi tossed in carelessly. He will drive around in a Nano with seats still covered with plastic.

Prem’s Maajee is in fact M, the head of MI6 and he is employed in his MataaJi’s service. This will take care of the women’s emancipation angle.

If his mission demands he cavort with women from other lowly cultures, he will seduce them by lighting agarbattis in his bedroom and then introduce them to his Maa.

Cutwani can’t stop smiling. All the khadi yoga outfits that he’d bought for that ungrateful python can now be worn by Prem, his new hero, with no license to kill. His new flick will have 32 songs, including Diwali, Rakhi and Holi item numbers and 6 desh-bhakti geets that’ll be played at all parties for the next decade. He already has a list of movie titles – Casino Gayo Bhaad Mein, For Your Bhai Only, The Chaiwala Who Loved Me…. The script can always be written on set as the shooting progresses.

If only Pahleaaj Cutwani can issue a diktat that allows only him and Barjatiya to make films, he will turn GE into heaven. And if he makes sure his movies are like the bhakti video he made in honour of his Majesty, no one will ever feel like watching movies.

No bamboo, no flute.

Brilliant!

I’m not a phone person. Don’t get me wrong. I’m mostly surgically attached to my phone giving fodder to the husband for his countless number of jokes entirely at my expense. I use it to tweet and check updates and delete WhatsApp forwards. I am incapable of having long conversations on the phone. I have to remind myself again and again to fix a time slot to make that call. Before I can say ‘eesh’ I realize it has slipped my mind yet again and it’s dial another day.

For someone so vocal, I often run out of things to say in just two minutes. And for someone’s who’s a gainfully unemployed ‘web columnist’, I am always short of time.

Strangely I am not alone in my fear of the dial function of the phone. I often see people share similar sentiments on social media. It’s a space where we have conversations with ourselves and hope that someone will eavesdrop. A community where people wear their lack of social skills like a badge of honour but have no qualms in pouring their hearts out to complete strangers. Couples declare undying love for each other in public and quarrel in private. Parents get to tell the world how talented, bright their offspring is. Everyone is trying to convince each other how blessed they are.

When I was growing up, my Mother’s idea of pep-talk was telling me how talented, bright, obedient Mrs X Mrs Y and Mrs Z’s children were and I was doing nothing about it. In fact, the more your parents loved you, the more you got reprimanded by them. I still get scolded by my Mom for not calling her enough, for not bothering to keep in touch with Uncles and Aunties I once so loved.

I can’t because I feel emotionally distant from my Uncles Aunts and cousins, who were once such an important part of my growing-up years. All my happy memories are huddled in the summer breaks I spent with my cousins, with no television, no Internet to distract us. I would cry (sometimes in front of the mirror to feel doubly miserable) every time we had to go back home.

To continue reading, please click here

http://www.ourstories.org.in/the-loneliness-of-the-connected/

Delhi is about to turn into Oddistan – let’s even out the differences, shall we?

Pic courtesy - Hindustan Times

The Delhi government has been spearheading a campaign to turn Delhi into a spiritual haven by sending its denizens closer to God – one smog-full breath at a time. The enviable feat was achieved by the administration doing nothing, absolutely nothing – something that would have taken considerable effort because the National Green Tribunal has been shouting itself hoarse about Delhi’s steadily deteriorating air quality. For many, it must have been an uplifting moment when the WHO revealed that breathing in Delhi was akin to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, without having to pay a single paisa. We’ve heard of friends with benefits. But how many cities can claim to be a city with such smoky benefits!

Smoking kills a few but breathing in Delhi will kill all. Hahahaha.

Not anymore. Or so the Aam Admi government would like us to think after they adopt an odd-even policy for motor vehicles. We hear it has been tried in cities like Beijing and Mexico City, with iffy results. But I guess we are good with iffy. Cars with odd and even numbers will be allowed to run on alternate days. This will take 1 million cars off the road. You and I know that privately owned cars pollute the least because we scurry like alarmed kids every three months to get our pollution checks done. So, trucks, buses and other heavy vehicles, just like our elected representatives, will continue belching smoke and keep up their efforts at turning Delhi into a smoker’s only cubicle, like you see at the airports.

It will be interesting to find out how a city that drops its kids to bus stops barely a km away from home and drives to the neighbourhood market rather than walk, will cope with this trauma. Carpooling will prompt avid WhatsAppers to form groups according to number plates where they’ll be forced to have real conversation rather than simply sharing recycled forwards. Men and women seeking dates and mates will not only have to look for their soulmate but their nameplate-mate as well. Couples can breakup over conflicting number-plates instead of having to rely on the boring ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ excuse.

I can already envision a polarized society with the Even wing accusing the Odd wing of festering an atmosphere of intolerance and returning awards to register their protest.

Anyway, half of us, on a given day, will enthusiastically take to buses and the metro, right? Given our already bursting at seams public transport, what are the odds that people will reach their workplaces in one piece? Imagine having the ‘adjust kar lo beta’ aunty sit on your lap as she knits while the constantly chattering college kids stand on your two feet!

Revered Sir,

I beg to state, I shall not be able to attend office. My patience expired in the Metro and I stabbed four idiots who were standing on my foot from Rajiv Chowk to Badarpur, with a fork. I’ll be spending the rest of my life in Tihar. The food here is free. If you eat it, you will realize why it is free.

Arrestingly yours,

Suresh

But I’m sure once this odd rule is set in motion, it will even out Delhi Traffic Police earnings, bringing them at par with the AAP MLA’s who raised their own salaries by 400%. If Modi has Delhi Police firmly in his pocket, Kejriwal will earn the lifetime gratitude of traffic police. If he excludes CBI from this odd-even decree, who knows they might find ganga jaal and not whisky bottles when they raid his Principal Secretary, Rajendra Kumar house next!

Like any other rule, even this one is not exempt from exemptions that includes the sick, the disabled and single women. For the sake of equality, Baba Ramdev has come out with a new range of salwar kameez. Those who buy two sets will get a complimentary wig made from organic coconut fibre absolutely free.

Speculation is rife that essential services will be exempt as well. This will include lawyers, judges, photocopy stalls, doctors, nurses, chemists, diaper sellers, drivers, cooks, barbers, safai karamcharis, road sign painters, pilots, air hostesses, rajma chawal sellers, gol gappa vendors and paanwallas. After chakka jams by Gujjars, Patels, SC, STs, OBCs and ABCs, a day will emerge when only the unemployed Hindu upper caste liberal male will be the odd one out.

I feel the government can kill many birds with just one stone. Why not extend this odd even rule to dethrone Delhi as the rape capital? Let women drive on even days and men on odd. This will restore the lost reputation of short dresses that get unfairly blamed every time a man pounces on a woman or a child! This will also ensure marital harmony because couples will no longer have the luxury of bickering as they drive. Since men keep insisting that women are bad drivers, women only days will ensure no man will step outside out of fear for their lives.

For our elected representatives, traffic police can put up brain teasers like –

If at a traffic snarl in Andheria Morh, 6769 motorists shook fists at each other and 3435 people also blamed netas for this mess, what was the total number of people on the road that day?

Only those who are able to solve will be allowed to drive. Since most of our politicians get degrees at Agra University where 12,000 appear for an exam and 20,000 pass, almost all will be forced to stay indoors. VIP’s will no longer require security cover and the police can go back to doing their original job – maintaining law and ‘odder’.

No men, no politicians on roads will drastically reduce the number of feminists and activists who have nothing better to do than blame those hallowed species for all their bitterness. Delhi will become a land of peace and harmony and who knows, Kejriwal’s muffler may get nominated for the Nobel prize for peace. After all, he functions better and protests more with his muffler on.

He can complain against Najeeb Jung’s high handedness on even days and Modi’s bullying on odd days.

In the meantime I’m placing all my hopes on a Dilliwala’s passion for breaking the law and for jugaad that’ll turn yet another rule into a joke. And just like any other Indian I’ll waste time and energy critiquing it rather than give it a try.

Change is good as long as it does not involve us, right?

Also published on Huffington Post India

It was just a few months back when I was tossing and turning, unable to sleep on my makeshift bed inside a darkened cabin, the sky an inky blue outside. I was feeling angry at myself. It had been two days since I had been crying non-stop. This wallowing-in-misery-woman was so unlike me. There’s no escaping misery. But it doesn’t take me too long to bounce back to my normal cheerful self – but not this time.

For weeks I had been telling myself, I’ll be able to cope better this time. But as we got into our cab, ready to fly in a few hours to a country thousands of miles away from our daughter, my dam of resolve broke. The first time was when she had just started her 1st semester in one of the most difficult to get into colleges in Delhi. My husband and I flew off to Australia where he was to take over a new position in his company. Remember the baffling pain you felt as your pelvic bones contracted and expanded to expel your little bundle of flesh? As our plane took off, I felt the same pain but this time it was in my heart.

As a mother there are certain things you must learn. You have to let go of your child even if it breaks your heart. The sooner you do it, the better it is for her. Like the time she came back home crying, complaining about the bully in her school bus who’d trouble her needlessly. As much as you’d want to hunt that boy and beat him to pulp, you’d steel yourself before looking at her and saying – you have to learn to fight your own battles, my love! This is certainly not the last time when someone will try to make you feel weak, feel like shit, but despite the feeling of helplessness, you have to get up and fight.

When at times she’d feel wronged and blame others for her trouble, you had to be harsh and say maybe the problem lay with her and not with others. You cannot cluck protectively around her forever. There comes a time when you have to tell her, not everyone will love you and that’s perfectly okay! That it’s okay not to score top grades but not okay to not have tried your best. Every effort however herculean will not fetch results.

The first time she wanted to go for a late evening party with her friends, you had to put your fears aside and say yes and then overcome the urge to text her constantly to find out if she’s okay. I have kept awake all night, waiting for her to text and say, she’s reached her hostel safely. When I finally did call her, close to dawn, sick with worry, I didn’t know whether to feel angry or relieved when I found out she’d forgotten she was meant to text me! The awareness that she may not care as much as you care for her is heartbreaking. But you learn to live with it.

They say maternal love comes naturally to a woman especially when she holds her baby for the first time. I was too exhausted to feel anything. When she’d lustily cry all night keeping me awake, I felt more terrified than the familiar tug of love. Am I holding her properly? What if I drop her! Why does she poop and pee so much! What if I can never love her! Why didn’t anyone tell me motherhood is so bad!

They don’t because despite the tears of frustration while you haul your sore body to feed your baby nearly every hour, despite the terrible realisation that your life will never be the same again, when your baby who keeps you on tenterhooks all day and night, looks at you and gurgles with pleasure – your heart lurches with a love so strong that it takes you by surprise. Suddenly it’s you and your baby against the world and you have to protect her at all costs.

With her you share a love so primal that when you finally get a few hours off from being a Mom, free to do your own things, you are unable to do anything but think of her. Years later, when she was ten, and my husband and I took our first vacation in Europe away from her, she was there with me when the sound of the alpine horn gave me goose-bumps, when we drove through the majestic black-forest, when I took a bite of the most delicious marzipan pastry….

When we were in Australia, I’d store all our happy memories from a good meal at a restaurant, discovering the most beautiful trail alongside the Brisbane river or standing on top of Mount Cootha admiring the panoramic view of the city and replay them all every time she’d visit us. It’s not happiness till you’ve shared it with her.

The other night when she called me, she was sobbing uncontrollably. Just like me a few months back. When she finally was finally able to talk I knew she was going through the first bout of homesickness. The selfish part of me felt relieved. Just like it was torn between happiness and wistfulness to know her daughter was deliriously happy pursuing her dream subject, meeting new people, being able to relate to them, experiencing the new and the highs in a foreign country, all on her own. Only this time she didn’t have me to share every minute detail of the hours she spent at school, her new crush, the nasty teacher stingy with grades or her tete-a-tetes with her friends.

I am now a spectator to her life, cheering loudly as she sets out to conquer the world but ready to be at her side if she faces defeat.

Yet, when my friends cluck sympathetically, wondering how I’m managing without my only child, I bristle with indignation. Yes, I do miss her terribly but I am happy. There’s so much to discover about myself and my journey has just begun.

http://blog.blogadda.com/2016/01/12/tangy-tuesday-picks-january-12-2016-indian-blog-posts

Pic courtesy - HindustanTimes.com

Also on Huffington Post India

Once you start writing for pleasure, you get into the awful habit of observing people around you. You note down their peculiarities, eavesdrop into their conversations and get a glimpse of their exciting lives of truant maids and unfaithful husbands. An addictive pastime but sometimes you end up displeasing others with your not so flattering observations. It’s the same reason why some of us love reading advice columns (mostly concerning sex) in magazines and dailies where shy adults confide their love for masturbation using a banana skin. Or a gentleman complains about his wife who makes him wear lingerie and bangles and ties his hair into a pony, every time they make love. No, I absolutely did not make these up.

What I am going to write about has nothing to do with people’s bizarre sexual fetishes. It is about the Indian woman’s love for dressing not according to her shape, but just her state of mind. Go to any mall or multiplex and you’ll see a parade of jiggly bottoms and generous tyres spilling out of dresses two sizes too small. I’m always in a fix how to react. While a part of me says a silent yay for women who dress for themselves and not others, the other part of me wonders if they have a mirror at home.

I understand what a liberating feeling it is to slip into an apparel that makes you feel fashionable and sexy, the rest of the world be damned. But knowing what’s in fashion may not necessarily look good on you, is also a great liberator. Just like tights. Someone wise once said, drunks, children and tights never lie. In fact, they betray your secrets and indulgences in the most embarrassing manner. Just because Cheenu looked drop-dead gorgeous in that halter neck red bandage dress and got 450 likes on Facebook, doesn’t mean it will transform you into her glamorous avatar. What she didn’t tell you is, she only eats seeds and leaves and when she’s feeling adventurous, adds a pinch of sugar to her tea. And if your friends insist you look fabulous in that leopard print jumpsuit that makes you feel asthmatic, they are lying. While I understand girlfriends are meant to make you feel good about yourself and call you gorgeous even if you’re anything but that, an occasional dose of honesty is needed. It forces you to move your complacent ass out of your comfort zone.

If the sight of hairy uncles flaunting their paunch in Speedos at your club’s swimming pool makes you flinch, what makes you think your thighs wobbling from under the super short skirt you bought from Mango is a sight for sore eyes? And it’s as true whether you’re 16 or 60.

My take is that we should dress according to our body shape and just that. Especially when there’s no dearth of outfits that lets us make the most of what we’ve got. Yet we insist on conforming to standards of beauty popularized by mainstream media and the fashion industry. Flaunting the hottest new trend meant essentially for reed thin, 6 feet tall models doesn’t make you fashionable. Rather it makes you look like a martyr to fashion.

So, why try to be someone you are not. We women are beautiful. It is our dazzling smile, our eyes that speak a thousand words, tresses that sway sensuously, warm demeanour, a zest for life or the ability to laugh at ourselves that makes us attractive. We certainly don’t need fashion trends to prove a point. Rather, discover your own style and flaunt it with pride.

And, if you are forever in a quandary about what looks good on you, just wear a sari. When draped right, it brings out our graceful best. Plus it looks way better than jeans that makes your muffin top pop out. Or choose a dress that looks good on you and not the mannequin. Just make sure you don’t ask the shop assistant how you look in that dress. They will say what they know will make you buy it.

Being fit or fat is entirely your prerogative. And I am certainly not saying women of a certain weight should dress in sacks. In fact, some of the most gorgeous women I know are far from slim. It’s their personality and attitude that adds to their appeal. They don’t necessarily dress for others. Their confidence reflects in their attire. Be it flowy skirts, tailored pants with long quilted jackets, a dupatta carelessly thrown over their linen shirt – these women carry off everything with élan.

Fat does not equate ugly. But by dressing in outfits not meant for your body-shape does not change your body shape. It simply makes you look ungainly. It is certainly not an assertion of your feminist beliefs. Shouting from rooftops that you’re proud of your booty and then looking like an apple stuck inside a test-tube is certainly not an act of bravado. To me it is lazy subterfuge, just like holding up a soiled sanitary napkin and saying I am proud to bleed. I am neither proud nor ashamed to shed my eggs and certainly don’t have the crying need to prove it to others. It’s a body function that’s as natural as my daily ablutions.

So, if you’re dying to assert your ‘I am an independent woman and care a damn about what you think’ attitude, I am sure there are better ways than squeezing your tummy inside skinnies too tight. Nobody conquered the world in ill-fitting pants!

Also Published on Huffington Post India

www.nairaland.com

I love watching cooking shows on TV. For every Nigella who clogs a thousand arteries as she adds a mammoth cube of butter to the bubbling sauce, there’s a Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Vikas Khanna, Heston Blumenthal vying for our tastebud’s attention. In the world of star chefs with cult following, there are more men than women shining bright in the galaxy. Yet, in real life, men who cook (other than fixing Maggi) are as rare a sight as Modi in India. Imagine being invited over for dinner by your friends and you see the husband slogging away at the kitchen while the wife regales you with stories! In all probability your eyes will pop out in surprise, much like a champagne cork.

Of course there do exist men who love to cook for themselves and their family, but they are more an exception than the norm. I am lucky to be married to the exception. When I tell my friends he’s a fabulous cook and I get to have breakfast in bed on weekends, I get the ‘you must be kidding’ look from them. Interestingly, you’ll hardly hear any man say, he’s lucky to have a mom/sis/wife who cooks. It’s because cooking is still considered a woman’s job. In the age of equality where a woman is as busy as her partner, she may not have to see the inside of her kitchen too often thanks to her cook. But keeping the house clean and the family well-fed even if she’s fed up of it, is still her responsibility. Little wonder it’s the woman and not the man who gets into ‘deep depression’ if her hired helps ditches her for greener pastures.

Behind every successful woman is her hardworking bai.

Frankly I don’t blame men who can’t differentiate cumin powder from coriander and don’t know where the spoons are kept in the kitchen. I blame the women in their lives who insist on treating them like babies incapable of taking care of themselves. Why else would a wife who leaves for a month long vacation at her parents slog for weeks to cook and freeze meals for her dear husband? Why else would a man who’s on a work tour, buy new shirts instead of bothering to wash the used ones? Because all these years he’s gotten away with it!

Women have a perfectly logical excuse for this ineptness. His presence in the kitchen is more a headache than a help. If he cooks, he leaves the kitchen in a mess! A lot of women’s idea of bagging the ‘best wife of the millennium’ trophy is to make their husbands ‘the most inept man’ of the century. And they apply the same logic to their own kids as well. If I make my Twinkle cook a meal, I’ll become a terrible Mom.

Then there are men who are loath to take up cooking. Worse, they are rather proud of it. Far from being grateful for the piping hot meals he gets served on the dining table, he thinks of housework as inferior. And if his friends beg to differ, he’ll promptly call them henpecked.

I also know of instances where the man wants to learn cooking but his mom won’t let him with the standard response “I’m not dead yet”. Well, you will be, when you are bedridden, surrounded by family members who can only boil water for tea. What happens when your dearest son moves out of the house? Have you taught him enough to survive on his own?

Do women think if they stop over-feeding their families, they will be loved less? Is it the desire to remain indispensable to the ones we love that clouds our judgment? It’s perfectly okay to love cooking and to prepare special meals for the ones your love. All my happy childhood memories are centred around the yummy mishtees Maa used to make on festivals. But till I was in college, I couldn’t cook to save my life. Frankly, as a working woman my mom was too busy to teach me cooking. It was my aunt’s comment that sent me scurrying to the kitchen armed with recipe books. She was baffled that a college going girl had to wait for her mum to get back home and prepare lunch. It was thanks to my aunt’s taunt, I developed a love for cooking. And I will be always be thankful to her.

I made sure I didn’t repeat the same mistake with my daughter. She started fixing snacks for herself when she was still in school. In fact, she’d be so excited about her experiments in the kitchen, she’d wake me up from my afternoon nap to show me pictures of her masterpieces. Before she left for college, she was expected to cook a meal a week for all of us. Yes, initially I was worried she might cut herself or worse burn the house down. But if I came home late from work or had to leave the house for an unexpected emergency, I was safe in the knowledge she’d be able to take care of herself.

So, let’s get this clear. Cooking is NOT a woman’s job. It’s a life skill that everyone must possess. If you can’t cook, you don’t brag about it. Instead, you ought to make an attempt to acquire some basic cooking skills. When you’re finally confident of not slicing off your finger as you chop onions and veggies, you surprise her with a meal. Just one tip, don’t leave the kitchen looking like a hurricane passed through it. If you do, prepare your eardrums for her a high decibel dressing down from her. The good news is, you can always order a pair of hearing aids on Amazon. They always have a ‘flat-50%-off’ sale going on.

Also published on Huffington Post India

Pic Courtesy - IndianExpress.com

The last few years I have come across an evolving brand of feminism - women who are so proud to be a feminist that they’ll flaunt it like their newly acquired Birkin. Mostly hashtag feminists, they’ll mount the high horse of morality and slay anyone who disagrees with them. And then there is this other set that treats it like leprosy and cannot stop telling anyone who’s willing to listen - I am not a feminist, yaa. Please, please, don’t stop loving me! Here, let me post yet another cleavage shot to prove my point.

Little wonder I feel like a borderline feminist. I don’t relate to either of them. I felt acutely embarrassed when I didn’t get women outraging about women who keep a Karvachauth fast to be able to remain a Mrs for the rest of their life. Had it been to protest against its blatant commercialisation, I would have happily joined in. I mean this is the time when salons, jewellery and sari stores do roaring business and women get to strut their stuff in embellishments bright enough to light up Times Square, right? But calling it a patriarchal conspiracy to keep women hungry and at the mercy of their husbands is a little too much to digest. If she can starve for an upcoming wedding, or to fit into her new skinnies, why not for a man and also get to make him feel guilty as hell!

If we expect men to respect the life choices we make, why can’t we respect another woman’s choice to starve for her husband’s long life! Remember, all good men are either married or gay and one of them happens to be your spouse.

What baffles me the most is, while we are calling Karvachauth a regressive, meaningless ritual, we are also spearheading a movement that demands women be allowed inside temples like Shani Shignapur and Sabrimala, traditionally meant for only male devotees. At a time when organised religion is increasingly becoming the cause for all strife and is more divisive than spiritual, this new found religiosity puzzle me no end.

Now let’s think of these ‘reserved for men only shrines’ as the women’s only coach in the Delhi Metro. Now imagine a bunch of aggressive men demanding equal rights as women and to be let in! Surely we’ll turn into female incarnates of Lord Shani (of Shani Shignapur fame) and send such strong vibrations their way, these men will start wishing they were not born in the first place. And why not! The Metro coach is our sanctorum sanctum where we can squat on the floor, do our makeup from scratch, doze on our neighbour’s shoulder without the fear of body odour. Why, I’ve even got a lap dance from ‘thoda adjust karlo’ enthusiasts!

I am sure male devotees share similar sentiments while resisting female presence in shrines like Shani Shignapur. A place where they can pray to their God without females who deliberately dress tantalisingly to distract them from their spiritual quest. It’s their women’s only coach in the Mumbai local where they can unwind and gossip while they shell peas for the evening meal. A refuge where men can truly be themselves without the fear of getting nagged and taunted for misdeeds they have no recollection of.

If women can have reservations in trains, buses, queues, seats in Parliament and be exempted from the odd-even scheme, why can’t men be extended the same privileges? So what if it is in a measly number of temples.

But no, we women refuse to leave them in peace! We have to go where every man has gone and prove to them we can do it better, even when it comes to fasting and praying.

I have always prided myself as a woman first and a feminist later. Which is why I have never wanted to be equal to a man. It’s because I’ve always felt this fight for equality is based on the assumption that men are superior. Sorry, but I don’t agree. If men enjoy certain privileges, so do women. We’ve both had to fight our own set of battles to get to where we want to.

So, when a woman wants to be able to do everything a man does, she’s not fighting for equality. Rather, she’s inadvertently placing him on a pedestal and aiming to reach that pinnacle. Tell me, how many men aspire to be as loving, caring, emotionally invested as us?

I feel keeping women away from certain religious shrines on basis of flimsy and not so flimsy excuses is the ultimate ode to the power we wield over men. We’ve been told for centuries that it’s women who come in between a man and his greatness. Buddha had to leave his wife to start a new religion. The naughty Indra never tired of breaking tapasya of sages by sending Apsaras to seduce them. Just our mere presence is so distracting, we have to be kept off religious premises at all costs to let our men focus on all things godly.

When women were finally allowed inside monastic orders in India, they were forced to follow more rules than men. They had not only to control their own desires, they also had to ensure they did not 'tempt' men. In temples that house women-shunning deities such as Shani and Ayyappa, celibacy is seen as the hallmark of religiosity and purity.

If you look at the number of female deities, they easily outnumber their male counterparts. And this particular gentleman from Bihar has amply demonstrated how much we care for our Maatas by filing a petition against Lord Ram for the ‘cruelty showed’ towards his wife, Sita.

We still think that we have to fight for equality?

Rather than storming in temples that uphold the customary exclusion of women in the name of equality, we women should revel in the power we hold over men’s senses. Let’s not grudge them the few remaining bastions of male only sanctuaries where they can heal themselves from the constant onslaught from feminists.

Don’t we all need an oasis where we can burp, yawn, scratch our unmentionables away from the judging eyes of the opposite sex!

And women please, can we get rid of this militant stance against men! By doing so, we are only proving them right when they try to brand feminists as an unhappy, vitriolic, power hungry, man hating fiends. Also, not all traditional rituals are regressive, meant to hold back women. In fact, our forefathers were a lot cooler than us and made sure there’s a scientific rationale behind most age-old rituals. Let’s try and understand them first before agitating about stuff we have little or no knowledge of.

It’s overzealousness that kills a well-intentioned movement like feminism and gives rise to many more women who’d rather hug a lizard than call themselves a feminist.

http://blog.blogadda.com/2016/02/09/tangy-tuesday-picks-february-09-2016-indian-bloggers-blogadda

When you are part of the blogosphere, you discover a person through their blog. You end up associating them with emotions their words conjure. When I finally met Amit after years of following his blog, I had a stupid grin pasted on my face. Don’t blame me, blame him for writing a hilarious account of how a Gurgaonite enjoys monsoon amidst puddles and waterfalls while river-rafting in his car.

For those who do not know Amit, behind the easy humour lies a sensitive man with a dogged determination to bring his passion to fruition. In his case his first novel ‘False Ceilings’ that he wrote during his years in Manchester. If you are familiar with the functioning of the publishing world, you will be aware that the agony, heartburn, sleepless nights begins after you have submitted your manuscript. That’s when all the hard-work begins and only the fittest can survive the ‘agnipariksha’. I have yet to ask Amit if at any time he felt like Sita wanting the earth to open up and swallow him alive.

Good thing is, I have asked a few our friends to ask Amit a few cringe-worthy questions. I believe this exercise will help him trim down his list of Facebook friends.

Purba Ray: Once your book was out, you would have obviously asked blogger friends to review it. What were the weirdest reactions you got when you asked them?

Amit Sharma: To be honest, most of my Facebook and blogging friends were genuinely happy but there was an eccentric, unpredictable category. There was one guy who asked for a blurb so that he could decide whether he was interested or not. No congratulations, no hey-how-are-you? Just a cold reply. I sent him the blurb anyway. As expected, he refused as he didn’t fancy the genre. Then there were some who behaved as if I have asked them to kill the Queen of England. I was so amused by the airs and the noses pointed to the sky that I wanted to capture the moment somehow.

Besides my FB friends, I also approached a few bloggers unknown to me and book review websites. A majority of them never replied back, even after three follow-up mails. Piece of advice – If you are sending out your book to a reviewer you don’t know personally, read his previous reviews. A person who is physically incapable of moving his mouse pointer beyond a three star rating for any book on Goodreads (including the classics) will land your book in you-know-where. And some reviewers write such tacky reviews (and even have the audacity to ask for money) that you would be better off without them.

Kanchana Banerjee: Amit, you’ve dedicated your book to your demons. That’s quite a strange dedication, especially for the first book. Can you explain this? What are those demons and did writing the book exorcise them?

Amit Sharma: There is one character in the book that is based on my life experiences (clichéd, I know). But there is a point in the book where our paths fork out. He goes towards becoming someone that I always dreaded that I might turn into. And I go towards the real me who walked out of the abyss and refused the misery. It wasn’t easy to write him or any of the six main characters as the story is 60% true. Their relationship, their poison is true. I fought those demons to complete every page. And when I wrote the last page, it was like nailing a coffin shut. I always thought that I would never find enough courage to pull everything out of me. So, when I exorcised those demons, I laughed heartily and dedicated the book to them.

Ruchira Shukla: At a time when almost every newbie author is either writing love stories or stories about their college days what made you chose a Family Saga as your first novel?

Amit Sharma: The rose-tinted, red hearted, drenched with young love, overrated romance? Yes, why not? Because that is not how life is. There are so many layers to explore beyond that first kiss, the hugs and tears. Frankly speaking, I am a bit annoyed by the oversimplifications that are ubiquitous in the stories of the genre. What happens after the first kiss? What happens when the couple grows old, when their decisions clash, when their children grow up and the thread of romance has almost vanished, when relationships grow so mangled that not even death can resolve them, when children carry the malevolence to the next generation? And then, I answered a part of the question in Kanchana’s reply earlier. I had to get this story out of my system. It never appeared to me that I could write something else for my first book.

Alka Gurha: Which was a bigger challenge? Writing, Publishing or Marketing?

Amit Sharma: When I was writing, I thought nothing could be more challenging. Because of the span of the story, I had to do research for six months before I started writing. I wrote eleven drafts before I was satisfied enough to send it to friends to read.

After I had fifteen rejection letters in my hand, I thought nothing can be more heartbreaking and difficult than finding a publisher. I almost gave up hope. After a publisher accepted the book and the contract was signed, it was another two year long wait at the end of a queue. Deep breaths and patience carried me forward. Now that the book is out, I think nothing can be more difficult than marketing. A first time writer does not have a reader base. You have to constantly tell people about your book. Ask for reviews, ratings; find means to somehow let people know that your book exists, interact. Keep some money aside and hire a marketing agency.

It’s a long journey and you might not even get what you deserve in the end. But you have to believe in your work. So, to answer your question Alka, all three activities come with their own set of challenges. The whole process is bittersweet but worth every second of it.

Rickie Khosla : The character named S started a certain way and ended up being a remarkably different person as the book progressed. Apart from life and circumstances, I suspect TV serials may also have something to do with her slow decay. So, question – what were the TV serials she used to normally watch?

Amit Sharma : S was already on the path of decay by the time Hum Log, the first television serial hit Doordarshan. But yes, television serials did provide her the salt and pepper that was required to make her life interesting and turned into her best friends. How I wish she was alive today! The sheer number of mindless junk that appears on television would have made her scream with ecstasy. The stuff would have turned her into a super villian of Marvel proportions. S grew up in an era when the radio was the only source of entertainment, so its not hard to understand her transformations stemming from leaps in technology. Imagine how we would react to our new 3D realities ten year down the line when our real world and animated world will overlap; when the fire from the mouth of a dragon could induce a sensation of artificial burning!
False Ceilings is more than just a love story. Well, there is love in the book but it is mostly lost in the larger scheme of secrets and jealousies. A story based on true events, it spans 135 years. It begins in the pre-independence era and ends in 2065. There are six main characters in the book but Amit believes that Dalhousie and Delhi are also two characters in the book. You can see the hill-station and the city evolve over the decades as the story progresses.

You can read more about the book and buy your copy from here –

http://amit-sharma.co.in/false-ceilings/

Also published on Huffington Post India

Sharing political and religious beliefs on social media is like airing your dirty laundry. It forces your ‘friends’ to show the true colours of their laundry as well. Once you wash your dirty laundry in the same lot as theirs, your pristine whites may get damaged for life.

If you are tired of being a like enthusiast on Facebook and ‘hahaha good one’ samaritan on Twitter that everybody loves, I suggest you start sharing your beliefs on religion and politics. This is a foolproof method to awaken the dormant Arnab Goswami (ArG) in your dearest online friends. Beliefs, for the uninitiated, is like the softest, worn-out tee-shirt that you’ve held on to for years. All of us have one and we stubbornly refuse to let go of it even as it waits to be reborn as a duster or a mop. Slipping into its soft fabric is the closest we feel to our mother’s womb – where we felt safe from the heartless world of loudmouths. So, when an opinionated cretin’s grating voice such as yours infiltrates their warm, soft cocoon, their ArG comes out in full force.

Interestingly, this process will greatly facilitate in bringing out your own argumentative ArG as well. Pretty soon, we’ll be reduced to a hollering mass as we point fingers accusingly at each other, our eyes blazing with righteousness. Everybody will engage in the fine art of debating each other’s views by screaming more loudly.

The only way to counter your enemy is to behave exactly like them.

Before you begin this exercise, I suggest you develop paper thin skin by scrubbing yourself daily with dailies. The print media ensures we begin our day on a cheerful note by publishing reports on rapes, murders, ungrateful sloganeering students charged with sedition, Jats going on a rampage to show the government who the boss is. Once your skin has reached the correct level of bristliness, power your words with your supressed anger, imagine the audience as your spouse and start typing. Make sure each sentence ends with a string of exclamation marks longer than the Great Wall of China!!!! Be liberal with the usage of terms like pseudo-intellectuals, bhakts, right-wingers, anti-national, presstitute, or feminazi, depending on your favourite bias. Convincing yourself that everyone but you is a fool, helps greatly. Also, make sure you close your mind with a secure lock.

Once you’ve pressed the publish button, simply wait to make the heartbreaking discovery – that when you express opinions, you will be bombarded with counter opinions. Some of it will be abrasive, hurtful and come from your previously agreeable friends.

I understand it is not easy accepting that friends, unlike pets, are capable of having opinions contrary to yours. You will promptly deal with it with a maturity expected only of you by either unfollowing or unfriending these pests. Else you can follow the great thought leader Anupam Kher’s reasoning and call it pest control.

You can finish off by writing an emotional post by lambasting unnamed people for making Facebook such a negative place.

If you are on Twitter, you can experience the delight of being attacked by a mob of blood thirsty patriots who will not only question your loyalty to your motherland but also call you ugly, fat, frustrated and a moron. If it’s is your lucky day, your old tweets will be dugout from the graveyard of the past as further proof of your treachery. Your future will be banished to Pakistan. Since no argument in India is complete without your family members being dragged in, they will be anointed with the choicest epithets. Make sure you memorise them all. They will come in handy when you’re dealing with that entitled a%s^#le when he hits your car while driving on the wrong side.

If all the planets favour you, you might even get arrested for inciting sedition or hurting some unknown person’s religious sentiments. In India, you are guaranteed freedom of speech but nobody can guarantee your freedom when you’ve made that speech.

Such unsavoury incidents would never have happened had you made all your would-be friends sign a contract before accepting their friendship request. Thou shall love me as much as I love myself. In case of an argument, thou shalt always be on my side, which is always ‘Right’. If you question my beliefs and dare to disagree with me publicly, I will question your motives and wonder if you have a hidden agenda behind this unbridled hate. Also, you will be promptly declared an anti-national having ties with Hafeez Saeed.

Alas, life would be much easier for all of us if we could accept that critiquing the government and its knee-jerk reactions is not practising our fundamental rights but siding with the enemies of the nation and disrupting “our great leader’s” dream of development.

And if you find this too difficult to practise, I suggest you stick to sharing exciting news such as ‘Is Mira expecting a baby’? If anybody dares ask, who the eff is Mira, don’t bother replying. Just make sure you make them a Shahid!

Else stick to advice given by the self-proclaimed wise author of this post – someone or the other will get offended irrespective of what you write. Soon you’ll realise that you can’t please them all. Once you stop caring what others like, you will start saying what you really think. Because a debate is about two opposing perspectives. And at times, truth is the casualty. Caught in the crossfire of unyielding righteousness.

Also published on Huffington Post India

I come from a family of educationists. My Mom was a high school teacher, my Dad principal of a reputed public school. Yet, I had no desire to be part of this field. Like many others I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do in life. My parents would try their best to sow the seeds of ambition in my head and failed spectacularly. I found studies dull, Maths terrifying. Decades later while going through my daughter’s textbooks I found out why. Textbooks prescribed by schools are written by academicians with an expertise in making even the most interesting topics mind-numbingly boring. If I had to quote an example of how not to write, I’d use school textbooks as examples.

It also makes you realise the importance of good teachers who rise above textbooks and ignite a passion for learning through inquisitiveness and exploration. Blessed are those to have teachers with the ability to think like a kid to get into their minds and make learning as exciting as it’s meant to be. Our children definitely do not need harsh men and women who never shy of castigating them for not being good enough. It’s not as if I did not have good teachers. In fact some of them have influenced me deeply. But I’ve also lost count of number of times when as a student I was shamed for asking a question that the teacher deemed silly, punished for arguing because it made her look bad in front of the class. I can still recall vividly the fear I felt in the pit of my stomach when my Math teacher approached me menacingly and slapped me on my face because I did not know the correct answer. I was in class V. I am sure she has forgotten me but I never forgave her.

Life has a way of making you eat your own words. Even though I was adamant I’d never get into this profession, I joined a school as faculty after my daughter was born. I’m not ashamed to admit that it was less for the love of teaching and more for the love of the work hours – because that allowed me to spend more time with her.

It’s not as if I hadn’t taught before but it was more as a hobby then. Just after I’d given my final year exams in college, I started teaching spoken English in a privately run management institute. As a fresh out of college girl, it was as much a learning experience for me as it was for my students. These were men and women eager to attain fluency in a language that’s an entry ticket into the swish circle of the corporate world. Walking up and down the classroom, I felt their exhilaration as I coaxed out their thoughts and views in freshly mastered words and phrases.

Years later when I walked into a roomful of 14 year olds, their eyes sparkling in anticipation of the many pranks they’ll get to play at my expense, I realised how much easier it was to teach students who were much older to me. Unlike last time, I could not take their attention for granted and had to work harder to get them as excited as I was about flowcharts and computer coding. Class after class as I shouted myself hoarse to be heard among students determined not to let the petite newcomputer teacher speak, I would recall my own schooldays when I did the same. This time I felt the new Economics teacher’s hurt as she ran out of class XII D that thought it was cool to rag her mercilessly and then brag about it.

When I finally lay claim to their flickering attention spans, I felt like Edmund Hilary who had just conquered the Everest but with no Tenzing Norgay for help. I started enjoying teaching when my students started enjoying learning from me or maybe it was the other way around. A teacher derives her energy from her students. Their inquisitiveness challenges her to read more and learn more to keep pace with them. Had I worked as hard as a student as I did as a teacher, I would definitely have been the daughter my parents could brag about.

When some students start confiding in you their anxieties and fears, you realise the enormity of your role in their life. It’s scary to be the one whose advice the child values more than her parents’. To be the first one that he gives his heart to. To be at the receiving end of their new found machismo. It’s not that easy to make sense of the adolescent angst and be okay to discover that the ones you get hopelessly attached to are able to forget you in a jiffy. As a teacher, you are not only their guide, but sometimes their confidante, friend and inspiration. You may unwittingly be at the receiving end of their resentment as well.

I’m sure the senior boys did not take kindly when their teacher dragged them by the collar from the canteen to the computer centre. I’ve lost count the number of times I lost my temper when,despite my best efforts, all I got was indifference in the classroom. The resistance to learning becomes a more visible trend in senior classes.

In retrospect, perhaps I was wrong to be hurt with their callous attitude towards studies. Even more wrong to take it personally. In this dog eats dog world, where even a 1% dip in your total percentage can change the course of your life, kids tend to concentrate more on marks and less on learning. With the focus on getting into professional colleges, their evenings are a blur, running from one tuition class to another. And it’s scary to see middle school kids doing the same. Little wonder they are exhausted emotionally and physically by the time they reach school. They learn to prioritise and treat the rest as an unnecessary inconvenience.

It also makes you think whether the rise of coaching centres reflects the failure of our system. Is it the teacher’s fault who cannot pay individual attention to all her students? Do we blame the institution for burdening her with extra duties and back-to-back classes in her timetable so that by the end of the day she can barely drag herself home? Or overzealous parents who treat their offspring as projects that must succeed and end up robbing them of their childhoods. Interestingly, no one wants their child to grow up to be a teacher. We all want good teachers, yet none of us want to be that teacher.

Regardless, it’s the child that is the victim.

After a decade of teaching, I left my job not because I did not want to teach anymore. Rather I loved it too much and did not want it to turn into a chore, into something that I keep doing mechanically, like a robot. When something you once loved ceases to make you happy and instead fills you with rancour, it’s time to move on with no regrets. It’s your only chance of finding a new you.

Image courtesy - viewmixed.com

Travelling has the knack of bringing out the abnormal in us. It can either turn us into lazy bums or into the hyper tourist. Of late HT has acquired something of a badass reputation from the breed that prefers to distinguish itself from the hoi-polloi and calls itself a traveller. The traveller will try to immerse himself in the local culture. S/he shuns the comforts of hotels, bathes sparingly, takes a snooze in a cave and licks ant-chutney off the same plate with tribals s/he has just befriended. The HT on the other hand would rather stay in their comfort zone, on the beaten track and in areas where the amenities are similar to what they have at home if not better.

Unlike the traveller who takes off on a whim with just a backpack, the hyper-tourist plans their itinerary like a war strategy. The destination is selected after much deliberation, intense research on the World Wide Web and discussions with other specimens with ample experience of straying. This is followed by further research on familiarising oneself with the new habitation, usually by the female. Pretty soon the female has acquired a formidable collection of anything that starts with ‘top ten’. It can range from ‘must visits, must not visit, hotels – cheap and expensive, local food that give you stomach cramps, bargain haunts, hidden gems that’s public knowledge.’ The more adventurous the female is, the thicker the folder becomes.

Spotting this peculiar type is easy. They stand out like a sore thumb dressed in sneakers and anything that doesn’t go with it. The female carries a handbag large enough to fit a dead body. The male of the species lugs around a camera the size of a Mumbai apartment. They can be seen striking funny poses and clicking anything that looks remotely interesting. It’s only later they discover that the heritage looking building they captured was in fact a urinal.

The femme has the propensity to suddenly go missing and leave her mate in a state of panic. She can be invariably found inside a swish looking store, surveying dresses, shoes and handbags, surreptitiously checking their price-tags and rolling her eyes in horror. Soon she’s seen moonwalking out of the store.

Their favourite activity is walking with a map in hand, looking lost or standing in front of Louvre and asking passers-by where Louvre is. Despite the extensive research that included weather patterns for the next 5 years before packing, they are either sweating or shivering in weather inappropriate clothing. Whatever made you think, weather is like humans that reads its horoscope and behaves accordingly. Of course, it has a mind of its own!

Once the typical tourist sets foot on foreign shores, their energy, adventurous spirit, itinerary starts multiplying like rabbits and their legs transmute into wheels. It’s not a day well spent till they have covered 25 attractions and come back to the hotel with a back-ache, leg-ache, headache and shoulder ache. Stomach ache is always an added bonanza.

There exists another variant - ‘the typical terrible tourist (T4)’ and is usually a fellow Indian. You can usually hear them before you can see them. If you are taking a flight out of the country, you are most likely to find your toe under their foot while you wait for your turn to get into the aircraft. If it’s your lucky day, you might even get your kidney knocked out by their elbow. After appropriating baggage space from fellow passengers by arguing loudly, they’ll make themselves comfortable by poking those seated a row ahead with their knees. You are in danger of losing your hair, sanity, patience as their cublings emit shrill sounds while running up and down the aisle.

T4s exhibit their finest traits when travelling to foreign habitats. Despite carrying four suitcases and six handbags, they prefer leaving their manners behind. If you managed to miss them on your flight, you’re most likely to find them at a Madam Tussaud’s near you, posing with the wax statue of Amitabh Bachchan that bears no resemblance to him.

They also suffer from a deep aversion to the unfamiliar despite seeking it. Even though they spend wads of money to travel, they have little or no interest in about learning about the place they’re visiting. And why would they? Most of them travel for the sake of their relatives and neighbours who they can turn green with envy.

T4 prefers moving around in a herd, either with its Barjatiya sized families or tour groups and gazillion packets of bhujiya. It has a strong preference for having private conversations in public so that the entire world can hear T4 describe the Piaget it bought for 15 lacs. Interestingly, despite its extravagant tastes, it takes great pains to seek out the cheapest eateries, avoids paying tips and freebies it can grab from hotels and stores.

It doesn’t take too long for the tourist to start missing home. The same home they were itching to get away from. After the initial euphoria of picturesque landscapes, unfamiliar cuisine, clean cities where everything works and everyone diligently follows rules, they start craving the familiar comfort of their own habitat. A place where things seldom work, people rarely follow rules and the chaos constantly keeps you on tenterhooks. The dust, the heat chokes you, the traffic exasperates you, yet it feels so good to be back. The heart beating to the rhythm of blaring horns, you step outside the airport, inhale the toxins, and sigh with relief.

One needs to be away from home to realise what a great feeling home is.

Image courtesy - indiatoday.intoday.in

Spending money is addictive, especially when you don’t have it. And who knows it better than Vijay Mallya! In this age of buy now, pay later or get beaten up by bank agents for defaulting, it’s tough not to succumb to the joys of shopping; the shortcut to instant happiness. It doesn’t help that the only thing stopping my impulsive buying urges is my will-power which is as weak as the Indian cricket team’s bowling order. I take solace from the fact that I am not engaging in wanton behaviour. On the contrary I’m fulfilling my social responsibility towards the downtrodden community of retailers and propping up the country’s GDP. The only way I can uplift them is by buying everything I don’t want. It’s easier to get Hrithik and Kangana to patch up than convince a woman that she has everything she needs for the next half a century. In fact the world of commerce thrives on our insatiable hunger. While the unevolved male of the species is content with a blue shirt in stripes, checks and plain, we cannot rest in peace till we have it in midnight blue, azure blue, navy blue, powdered blue, peacock blue and indigo. To make it worse, there’s the maddening variety of frills, snug fit, blouson, scoop-back, halter, polo, front-detailing to choose from. And the male has the audacity to wonder why we take so long to shop!

There was a time in my life when I thought I had achieved the unachievable. The very thought of going to a mall would made me sick. It wasn’t always like this. When shopping malls first started mushrooming in Gurgaon, they were the coolest place to hang out, literally! Rows of stores in swanky air-conditioned buildings with clean restrooms were a welcome change from Karol Bagh where you had to search for a deserted bye-lane every time your child wanted to pee. One could spend hours ambling through floors and floors of decadence and follow it with up a movie and dinner.

It didn’t take too long to discover, malls are like cathedrals. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all. All of them have the same set of stores, the same aroma of stale popcorn and a sad corner selling donuts. Irrespective of the shopping mall’s location, its uppity quotient and parking challenges, there’s no way you can avoid the holy triumvirate of ‘Adidas/Nike/Reebok, Pantaloons and McDonalds.’

Just as I was looking forward to a life of austerity and observing the mating habits of pigeons on my balcony, online shopping discovered me. Initially it was just a pleasant diversion; a place to buy books and memory sticks or redeem vouchers that I had won at a contest I had completely forgotten about. Before I could dismiss it as yet another fling, I realised I was hopelessly lost and ready to commit myself into a lifelong relationship! To be frank, I tried my best to be Vishwamitra. But how long can you resist Apsaras tantalising you with unheard of offers and discounts? What you don’t know is, this is hotel California – “You can check-out any time you like - But you can never leave!” Once you’ve succumbed, they’ll never let you forget this transgression of yours. The silver danglers with orange beads, the tights in abstract print, and those slippers in pink will follow you like the Hutch puppy till you put your hands up and surrender.

There you are sitting in your cool-darkened room, trying to impress people you’ll never meet with your wit and wisecracks and then suddenly you decide to buy running shoes on a whim. And you do, with just the click of the mouse. Without having to step out, leaving carbon footprints, fighting over parking space and arguing with the salesman that you’re not being unreasonable for expecting high-impact shoes in a combination of purple and orange!

Once upon a time we had to plan for months, sometimes years before buying household appliances. Not anymore. These days you can just hop over to Amazon to checkout the air-fryer everyone’s been raving about. Before you can say‘Bharat Mata kee Jai’, it’s in your shopping cart ready to be shipped.

Plus, the astounding variety of brands, styles is as available to Mehnaz in Mumbai as it is to Margaret in Mizoram. No longer does one have to be living in a metropolis to have access to high street fashion brands like Mango, Benetton, Michael Kors or Desigual. If you prefer affordable fashion, there’s pages and pages of it on the shopping site to choose from. Aur dikhao, aur dikhao was never this easy. The e-market place does not discriminate between Siraj with just 200 to spend or a Sonam with a budget of 20k. Can it get more egalitarian than this?

For me, online shopping is like a balm for my distressed heart constantly torn between love for multiple Maas (two legged, four legged and the nation). On days when I wonder if I’m an anti-national for not believing JNU is anti-national, I simply open a tab on the browser and start browsing for that perfect pair of jeans in brick-red to soothe my unpatriotic feelings! You’ll discover how often my heart is distressed when you come to my house and see my wardrobe bursting at its seams. Why, I have even bought furniture, cushion covers, table-mats, kitchen pots and pans, planters from online portals!

Time will come when we’ll tell our kids – can you believe it, once upon a time, your ancestors had to step out of the house and have actual money in their wallets to shop! It horrifies me to think what my Mom had to put up with. How could she be content with just 4 pairs of sandals! Imagine the anguish of walking into a store that doesn’t have 20%-70% off signage. Or worse, having to choose between three saris knowing fully well there are thousands of more deserving ones somewhere out there waiting for our purse strings to loosen up.

Or maybe not! The government has reiterated a set of rules regulating e-commerce marketplaces and my shopping urges. The new guidelines have effectively outlawed online marketplaces with FDI from giving discounts and luring us with “big-billion sales” – the opiate for shopping masses. I cannot thank Bharat Mata ki joys enough for freeing me from the clutches of my ‘shop till my mouse says please stop’ urges. Interestingly, while our PM is hopping from country to country telling one and all India is ready for foreign investments, the Department of Industrial Promotion and Policy (DIPP) is going out of its way to make it as difficult as possible for foreign funded players to survive in the Indian market.

Phew, this is such a relief. I can already visualise my future; a life dedicated to fruitful pursuits. Who knows, I might even come up with ‘Pigeon erotica’ and become the next E.L James!

Image courtesy - Rapidleaks.com

For long Gurgaon was chhoree Gurgawan, a behenjee who loved spending time with buffaloes and her Jaat bhais. Once a year during winter, her glamorous cousins Dilli Billis would visit her and frolic away in her many picnic spots. She didn’t mind her uneventful life before fairy godfather DLF and her many cronies set their sight on her and decided she was their future bright. Thus began her grooming, intense sessions at the gym and shopping for a hip wardrobe. Before she could say ‘kay chal rahya se’, she had transformed into a glam diva with a BPO accent. She was now Ms Gurgaon who mwah mwahed with global Fortune 500 companies and sipped Chianti as she swayed to Yo Yo Honey Singh. Dilli Billis could not believe that their behen in two oily plaits was now being wooed by the rich and the famous. The same men who had sworn their undying love for Dilli a few moons back. And why not? Compared to the billis, she looked shiny, new and so full of life. She had willingly shed her rural past and turned up her snooty nose at her cousins Kaphasera, Dundhahera, Bhondsi and Jharsa. Her new friends had fancy names like Jacaranda, Veranda, Harmonica and Magnolia and looked like Victoria Secret’s willowy models from a distance.

Her mercurial rise took many by surprise. She was rich and powerful in no time.

Besotted by her good looks and flirtatious charms, many moved into her welcoming arms dreaming of a rosy happily ever after. Alas, the happily ever after lasted as long as a made in China product. It didn’t take long for them to realise, her glamour and sophistication was just skin deep. Beneath the layers of makeup and designer threads lay a pockmarked, misshapen, unruly, uncouth chhoree. Initially they dismissed her frequent blackouts, wild ways and almost non-existent hospitality as teething problems. They tried their best to ignore the heebie-jeebies she gave them when they were out alone late at night.

Like any loyal lover, they were not willing to give up so easily on her. She was after all their lugai who could not be ditched. They protested, fought relentlessly and demanded she be set right. They had after all lavished their love and riches on her and all they got was disappointment and stress.

It was difficult to come to terms with harsh reality. Was she was just a cauliflower pretending to be a flower?

Then came her Tau Khattar, her guardian angel, lover of cattle and said Tathastu! I shall set everything right. Before her lovers could say phew, he chuckled, if I can’t be a game changer, I can certainly be a name-changer. Gaon she was, gaon she will remain. It was you fellows who expected her to be a Mem. She is now your Behen Gurugram. Go dump your high expectations in the nearest open drain. Also, get ready to do yoga all day with Baba Ramdev. Behen Gurugram will now shop for Khadi. From a stylish diva, she has been upgraded to Sanskari.

Her lovers are wondering, was leaving Dilli Billi a big mistake?

Gurugram has just updated her Facebook status to ‘feeling bewildered’. Do I have no say in my future? Despite being the third richest in the country, these old men stuck in a past of their making are trying their best to ruin my future.

Courtesy - quickmememe.com

A friend while driving got hit by a car that appeared out of nowhere. When he saw the car slow down he braced himself for a lengthy altercation; a norm in the NCR. People would rather kill or prefer dying than admit it was their fault. Just as he was rolling up his sleeves and taking deep breaths, the fellow got out and apologised profusely for his rash driving. When he offered to pay for damages, my friend couldn’t believe his ears.

A common courtesy in any part for the world but certainly not in Gurgaon.

In a city where everyone’s is always in a rush but no one ever reaches on time, we are forever engaged in mortal combat. We push, step on each other’s feet, honk louder, raise our middle finger and are ready to snap at even the slightest provocation. Rarely do we stop to let someone else pass at a busy intersection. We are like raging bulls, ready to charge at anyone who dares challenge us. When an odd soul does stop to let other raging bulls pass, let the hassled lady take the coveted parking-spot, all he gets is a dead fish look. The husband makes it a point to hold the doors of the elevators for women with kids in our apartment building, yet I’ve seen no one turn around to give him a grateful smile.

It’s as if saying thank you and sorry is a bigger sin than hurling expletives at strangers.

I get it, you’ve had a bad day. Your new boss is a fire breathing dragon and a blood sucking vampire rolled into one. The last time you got a bonus was before the big bang. And your girlfriend who can’t even spell loser just called you a looser. Of course you are &*%#&*)&$ mad! And the only way you can restore order is by making random people around you (usually lower in social hierarchy) as miserable as you are. Who in turn dutifully pass on their angst to yet another hapless soul. Sooner than you can say ‘tere baap kaa…,’ the world around you is like a cauldron of negativity. You hold your aching head in your hand and wonder, why is everyone one around me so nasty?

It’s like being stuck in traffic and complaining about it. Dude, you are the traffic!

Add to it a strange persisting mentality that equates aggressiveness as a show of power and niceness as a sign for ‘come trample all over me and take advantage’. So it comes as no surprise why people are almost afraid of being nice.

When it comes to getting work done, no one’s willing to move their butt till you scream at them like a banshee. Every time I have tried being nice with the plumber or electrician, they stretch my patience like chewing gum and a two day job threatens to become a two week nightmare. It’s only when I turn into a menacing mafia don and swing the kitchen knife suggestively, does the job starts showing signs of getting completed.

Does that make me feel good? Of course not! But certain people are extremely persistent when it comes to bringing out your hidden fangs.

Even in daily soaps that play endlessly on TV, it’s the evil bahu who has all the fun while the mild mannered one cries all day while she swabs the floors of her mansion. It takes five years and 692 episodes for her family to finally take notice of her and come to her rescue.

Am I making a case for aggressiveness and pleading with you to turn into a wicked warlord who expects others to obey him – if not by choice then certainly by force? Absolutely not! What I’m trying to say is, let us be more appreciative of the ones who are accommodating, are willing to listen to you and extend empathy. Someone’s kindness is certainly not a license for you to take him for granted. Rather they deserve your love and respect. Listen to the soft-spoken friend of yours whose voice often gets drowned in the cacophony of loud voices. More often than not, it’s she who makes the most sense. When someone asks you nicely to do something, make sure she’s first in your priority list rather than the last. Don’t make those good-hearted souls feel like useless pieces of shit who you think of only when you are in trouble and need a shoulder to cry on.

In this dog eats dog world, they are our beacons of hope for a humanity that often disappoints us and lets us down. Also, as tempting as it maybe, don’t try to counter someone’s snarkiness with yours. It only makes things worse. My most cherished memories are those of complete strangers who held doors for me, offered to carry my heavy shoulder bags, stopped to ask if I was lost when they saw me looking confused at a busy intersection, walked the extra mile with me to make sure I was safe. Besides filling my heart with gratitude, they made me want to be a better person.

It’s doesn’t take too much of our time to stop and try to make someone’s day better with a kind gesture. So, what’s stopping us? True, some of them may not be as appreciative but I don’t think their lack of manners should stop us from showing consideration.

If rudeness can perpetuate itself like a virus, why not kindness?

Made in Phoren Festive Fervour

Monsters of the Matinee

A definitive guide to preventing rapes

So you think you’re smart!

Maggi Wapsi

We Are The Champions of Tolerance!

In His MataaJi’s Service

The Loneliness of the Connected?

WIll Delhi Let The Odd Even Formula Succeed?

Learning and Unlearning to be a Mom

How to Martyr Yourself to Fashion

Women are from the Kitchen, Men are from I-can’t

www.nairaland.com

Why I Don’t Get ‘let us inside the Shani temple’ Kind of Activism

Decoding Amit Sharma, the man behind False Ceilings.

Frankly Speaking – the sure shot way of losing your social media friends

The Reluctant Teacher

Are You a Hyper Tourist ?

I shop till my mouse says, please stop!

Gurgaon Gets a Behenjee Avatar – Gurugram

Why Do People Find It So Tough To Be Kind To Others?