What do you say to a man who comes and stands in front his ample and polyester-clad behind wiggling at you, prodding the book you are reading, shifting from leg to leg, talking loudly to his companion, unmindful of the dirty looks I give him, which he can’t see, of course? He seems like a run-of-the-mill well-paid executive in a company that pays a decent salary for him to wear the seemingly expensive polyester jiggling in front of me.
All this happen in this morning’s commute to work, in “cattle class” or the “first class” compartment of Bombay’s famed local trains. I don’t know if “first class” is the right term, it doesn’t feel like “first class” at all. It’s hot, the upholstery sags (giving me a backache), there are people towering in front of me where my feet should be resting, and there’s no air circulation. And the bad manners that accompany the crudeness and the churlishness is more distasteful than I can tolerate for the one hour it takes me to reach my place of work.
Actually, I think, there is no “first class” in India. I swear. There’s only one class in India and that’s “Monkey Class.” It means a class where you can brush anyone, even touch forbidden parts, talk loudly, disturb people reading books, litter at will, spit, urinate, leave toilets dirty, after all, “what does your father lose?”.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The Largest Wave of Suicides in History
This is from a blog called Progressive Rural India Forum, here’s an excerpt:
“The statistics are staggering. From 1998 to 2006, over 100,000 farmers have committed suicides. In Vidarbha, 3,000 farmers have taken their lives in the 1999-2006 period. Since June 2005, 2-3 farmers have been committing suicides every day. Yet you wouldn’t know that from the Indian media. Reports of farmer suicides and protests do appear in fits and spurts, but most of the media appears focused on the glitzy malls, the phoren fast-food chains, the luxury cars, the call centres and the hip lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
Wonder why we keep reading about the suicides by farmers in forsaken corners in our newspapers and not on the front pages. None other than crusading journalist P. Sainath calls it “the largest wave of suicides in history” in this article.
“The statistics are staggering. From 1998 to 2006, over 100,000 farmers have committed suicides. In Vidarbha, 3,000 farmers have taken their lives in the 1999-2006 period. Since June 2005, 2-3 farmers have been committing suicides every day. Yet you wouldn’t know that from the Indian media. Reports of farmer suicides and protests do appear in fits and spurts, but most of the media appears focused on the glitzy malls, the phoren fast-food chains, the luxury cars, the call centres and the hip lifestyles of the rich and famous.”
Wonder why we keep reading about the suicides by farmers in forsaken corners in our newspapers and not on the front pages. None other than crusading journalist P. Sainath calls it “the largest wave of suicides in history” in this article.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Recession's Silver Lining
According to livescience.com, recession may have had an unlikely silver lining. According to this article recession has resulted in low carbon dioxide emission. Excerpt:
“It may not exactly be a silver lining to the global recession, but greenhouse gas emissions have fallen sharply as a result of the world's current economic plight, according to a study by the International Energy Agency.
“The IEA found that the drop in carbon dioxide emissions over the last year will be larger than any drop in the past forty years, including the decline in 1981 that resulted from the oil crisis.”
Hat tips: Prem Panicker.
“It may not exactly be a silver lining to the global recession, but greenhouse gas emissions have fallen sharply as a result of the world's current economic plight, according to a study by the International Energy Agency.
“The IEA found that the drop in carbon dioxide emissions over the last year will be larger than any drop in the past forty years, including the decline in 1981 that resulted from the oil crisis.”
Hat tips: Prem Panicker.
Goodbye Rains!
It had to happen. This monsoon (the word is derived, so I read, from the Arabic/Urdu word “mausam” meaning “season”) I had taken a solemn vow to not let the forces of nature, in this case: rain, defeat me. So apart from losing two umbrellas and similar other minor catastrophes, I had come to the end of this monsoon, untarnished and untrammelled. So when the dry spell came I heaved the necessary sighs of relief and said a prayer to the Almighty for having spared me. The monsoon disappears usually around mid-September, and here we are nearing end of September. So, I had got rid of the unwieldy umbrella, trusting it not to rain. But yesterday something happened that was to shake that firm resolve, i.e., that I would be unfazed in the face of the onslaught from heaven, and all that.
It rained!
It rained rivers, streams, seas, oceans. I sought shelter in a South Indian restaurant and sat over hot tea to let all the watery hell pass. But when it rains in Bombay it rains for hours and days. One hour passes and the rain doesn't show signs of subsiding, so I come out and try hunting for a taxi to take me Victoria Terminus train station.
Bombay taxis won’t stop for you when it rains!
They see this desperate-looking, bald man soaking wet and up goes all their noses. Their preference during the best of their seasons, the monsoon, is the posh areas of Cuffe Parade and Malabar Hill where madams in sheer chiffon with feather boas tip hundred rupees in addition to your choice of taxi fare! Bastards!
I don’t wear chiffon and am a man, what to do? So I tie a kerchief around my head and walk. Proud head erect, and all, I walk so as not to appear fazed, not leaning forward, straight, so as not to lose all self composure now that it was a last of all showers, the very last burst. I walk in ankle-length water, the shirt starts clinging after a few paces, the shoes squelch, the glasses mist, I am slowly losing... losing my, what shall I say, avoirdupois.
The journey to CBD Belapur takes one hour and I sit and shiver in the cold of the sudden wetness deep into Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” which details the privations of the Buendia family in the godforsaken village of Macondo. It says it rained for four years in Macondo. God forbid! The story narrates the hopelessness of life in this South American hell and it depresses me. But I am seated erect, backache and all, and unfazed.
Then I reach CBD Belapur where I live. Damn, it’s raining here too! There’s a long queue for the rickshaws, the omnipresent small beetle-shaped vehicles that would take me home.
When it rains rickshaw drivers don’t drive!
So I join this long snaking queue. A boy around my son’s age is holding this big multi-coloured umbrella above him, in front, and he deliberately turns it away from me, so I get wet all over, also the water flowing down his umbrella tumbles on me. Who says kindness is a middle-class virtue? Or, maybe, I am seeing things negatively. I stand straighter, hold my head higher, the rain pelts, the rivulets flow. I am as wet as a dish rag by now. A few rickshaws arrive and the queue grows shorter, the rain falls continuously, no respite, no abatement.
When you need a rickshaw you won’t get them!
Yes, no one, none. Other days they would all be tooting-teeting-cursing-lolling around with their bodies twisted in varying shapes on their front seats. Today, guess they have all gone to sleep or are drinking their moonshine hootch in their shabby watering holes.
I am at the head of the queue!
Yes, it takes half-an-hour. But I am at the head of the queue and the availability of the god’s-gift-to-Bombay rickshaws drops to the nadir of all known extents, meaning the absolute of absolute zero. Then one comes puttering out of the rain and darkness and I board its wet interior and it takes me home. I am on my way.
I walk the few paces to my house, my head erect, my pride still intact. Yes, I kept the promise: I wasn’t fazed a bit by the rains. Goodbye rains!
It rained!
It rained rivers, streams, seas, oceans. I sought shelter in a South Indian restaurant and sat over hot tea to let all the watery hell pass. But when it rains in Bombay it rains for hours and days. One hour passes and the rain doesn't show signs of subsiding, so I come out and try hunting for a taxi to take me Victoria Terminus train station.
Bombay taxis won’t stop for you when it rains!
They see this desperate-looking, bald man soaking wet and up goes all their noses. Their preference during the best of their seasons, the monsoon, is the posh areas of Cuffe Parade and Malabar Hill where madams in sheer chiffon with feather boas tip hundred rupees in addition to your choice of taxi fare! Bastards!
I don’t wear chiffon and am a man, what to do? So I tie a kerchief around my head and walk. Proud head erect, and all, I walk so as not to appear fazed, not leaning forward, straight, so as not to lose all self composure now that it was a last of all showers, the very last burst. I walk in ankle-length water, the shirt starts clinging after a few paces, the shoes squelch, the glasses mist, I am slowly losing... losing my, what shall I say, avoirdupois.
The journey to CBD Belapur takes one hour and I sit and shiver in the cold of the sudden wetness deep into Garcia Marquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” which details the privations of the Buendia family in the godforsaken village of Macondo. It says it rained for four years in Macondo. God forbid! The story narrates the hopelessness of life in this South American hell and it depresses me. But I am seated erect, backache and all, and unfazed.
Then I reach CBD Belapur where I live. Damn, it’s raining here too! There’s a long queue for the rickshaws, the omnipresent small beetle-shaped vehicles that would take me home.
When it rains rickshaw drivers don’t drive!
So I join this long snaking queue. A boy around my son’s age is holding this big multi-coloured umbrella above him, in front, and he deliberately turns it away from me, so I get wet all over, also the water flowing down his umbrella tumbles on me. Who says kindness is a middle-class virtue? Or, maybe, I am seeing things negatively. I stand straighter, hold my head higher, the rain pelts, the rivulets flow. I am as wet as a dish rag by now. A few rickshaws arrive and the queue grows shorter, the rain falls continuously, no respite, no abatement.
When you need a rickshaw you won’t get them!
Yes, no one, none. Other days they would all be tooting-teeting-cursing-lolling around with their bodies twisted in varying shapes on their front seats. Today, guess they have all gone to sleep or are drinking their moonshine hootch in their shabby watering holes.
I am at the head of the queue!
Yes, it takes half-an-hour. But I am at the head of the queue and the availability of the god’s-gift-to-Bombay rickshaws drops to the nadir of all known extents, meaning the absolute of absolute zero. Then one comes puttering out of the rain and darkness and I board its wet interior and it takes me home. I am on my way.
I walk the few paces to my house, my head erect, my pride still intact. Yes, I kept the promise: I wasn’t fazed a bit by the rains. Goodbye rains!
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Pain - II
Was looking around for some poems to read on “pain” which I underwent during my recent backpain episode mentioned here.
Came across this one by William Wordsworth on Bartlesby.com called “ If This Great World of Joy and Pain" that nearly describes what I went through.
Pain comes and goes like a ghost, a wraith, a spectre. One is relieved, as I am now, but there were times when I was enduring that I thought very dark thoughts indeed. Anyone share my experience?
Came across this one by William Wordsworth on Bartlesby.com called “ If This Great World of Joy and Pain" that nearly describes what I went through.
Pain comes and goes like a ghost, a wraith, a spectre. One is relieved, as I am now, but there were times when I was enduring that I thought very dark thoughts indeed. Anyone share my experience?
Monday, September 21, 2009
Samuel Pepys, Blogger of Yore!
Just wandering on the net found this online diary of Samuel Pepys, the blogger (sort of!) of yore.
Pepys seems to be a very down-at-heels man though he hobnobbed with greats of the like of Oliver Cromwell going by this sample:
“Strange with what freedom and quantity I pissed this night, which I know not what to impute to but my oysters, unless the coldness of the night should cause it, for it was a sad rainy and tempestuous night. Soon as up I begun to have some pain in my bladder and belly, as usual, which made me go to dinner betimes, to fill my belly, and that did ease me, so as I did my business in the afternoon, in forwarding the settling of my house, very well. Betimes to bed, my wife also being all this day ill in the same manner. Troubled at my wife’s haire coming off so much. This day the Parliament met, and adjourned till Friday, when the King will be with them.”
See how he, in his quaint old English, talks of his piss, same as he talks of the “haire” coming off his wife. Seems hair fall was as big a problem in the 1660 as it is these days. Also, quite selfishly, I hope someone reads my blog four-hundred years from now, a la Samuel Pepys'. That's why I have kept it in the public domain!
And this article says India is among the top ten nations of blog creators.
Pepys seems to be a very down-at-heels man though he hobnobbed with greats of the like of Oliver Cromwell going by this sample:
“Strange with what freedom and quantity I pissed this night, which I know not what to impute to but my oysters, unless the coldness of the night should cause it, for it was a sad rainy and tempestuous night. Soon as up I begun to have some pain in my bladder and belly, as usual, which made me go to dinner betimes, to fill my belly, and that did ease me, so as I did my business in the afternoon, in forwarding the settling of my house, very well. Betimes to bed, my wife also being all this day ill in the same manner. Troubled at my wife’s haire coming off so much. This day the Parliament met, and adjourned till Friday, when the King will be with them.”
See how he, in his quaint old English, talks of his piss, same as he talks of the “haire” coming off his wife. Seems hair fall was as big a problem in the 1660 as it is these days. Also, quite selfishly, I hope someone reads my blog four-hundred years from now, a la Samuel Pepys'. That's why I have kept it in the public domain!
And this article says India is among the top ten nations of blog creators.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Leave Shashi Tharoor Alone!
All this talk of austerity is bunkum. (In today’s Times of India both Shobha De and M. J. Akbar have said identical things.) Really it’s been blown out proportions, I feel, by the media machine. Look which public figure is austere in today’s world? Businessmen? Nathi! Stars? Nyet! Godmen? Mafi (Arabic)! Bureaucrats? Illa! Ottum Illa! (not even a trace, in Malayalam) Scientists? Nahi!
So why this fuss about my twitter friend Shashi Tharoor ( his twitter address if you didn’t already know) if he is a bit inaustere? Guys, be sach much real. We need people like Shashi Tharoor. He is an original thinker, an author, no less, an intellectual, has experience and contacts that can prove to be India’s strong point while dealing with sensitive international issues, especially with our foes across the mountains and the fields. But what do they, the jealous guys who are green over his qualifications, do to encourage him? They brand him inaustere and make an issue over his jokes. "Cattle class" is a light dig at economy class. I must say I enjoy "cattle class" on international and local jaunts. You can view so much diverse types of people, observe their habits. Like there was this guy who when the plane took off took ten different medicine bottles with him to the loo. For what, don't ask me. He came back, his worried face sporting a satisfied kind of look, that's all I can say. I will always remember that "cattle class" guy, his face is just unforgettable.
Come on, give him a break. He is our great big hope for foreign policy, and a look-at-able face among the bald, dyed, ageing, wrinkled politicians in the Augean Stable. All right thinking people, I mean those people with a rational mind over their shoulders would tell him to go ahead with his normal life and not be fazed by such allegations. If he needs a workout every morning, he should get it. You don’t need a sick man in the Ministry of External Affairs, do you?
Friend and enjoyer of wealth, Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah says, “all this is conspiracy hatched by Pakistan and China you know, to keep a good minister down.” I agree.
In passing...
The back is back to normal. I am taking things easy before plunging into work on Monday. It was a horrible hell for four days lying motionless on a hard bed, which was what I was told to do by a friend who went through a similar fate. There’s no cure for lower back pain and surgery is not advisable, so it was up to me to grit my teeth, have lots of patience, read a lot of books lying supine on bed. My advise: always take care of your backs, sit straight, always have support for your back and if you see a bad chair which shakes all over from bad springs or bearings, don’t sit on it.
So why this fuss about my twitter friend Shashi Tharoor ( his twitter address if you didn’t already know) if he is a bit inaustere? Guys, be sach much real. We need people like Shashi Tharoor. He is an original thinker, an author, no less, an intellectual, has experience and contacts that can prove to be India’s strong point while dealing with sensitive international issues, especially with our foes across the mountains and the fields. But what do they, the jealous guys who are green over his qualifications, do to encourage him? They brand him inaustere and make an issue over his jokes. "Cattle class" is a light dig at economy class. I must say I enjoy "cattle class" on international and local jaunts. You can view so much diverse types of people, observe their habits. Like there was this guy who when the plane took off took ten different medicine bottles with him to the loo. For what, don't ask me. He came back, his worried face sporting a satisfied kind of look, that's all I can say. I will always remember that "cattle class" guy, his face is just unforgettable.
Come on, give him a break. He is our great big hope for foreign policy, and a look-at-able face among the bald, dyed, ageing, wrinkled politicians in the Augean Stable. All right thinking people, I mean those people with a rational mind over their shoulders would tell him to go ahead with his normal life and not be fazed by such allegations. If he needs a workout every morning, he should get it. You don’t need a sick man in the Ministry of External Affairs, do you?
Friend and enjoyer of wealth, Dhansukhbhai Jethalal Shah says, “all this is conspiracy hatched by Pakistan and China you know, to keep a good minister down.” I agree.
In passing...
The back is back to normal. I am taking things easy before plunging into work on Monday. It was a horrible hell for four days lying motionless on a hard bed, which was what I was told to do by a friend who went through a similar fate. There’s no cure for lower back pain and surgery is not advisable, so it was up to me to grit my teeth, have lots of patience, read a lot of books lying supine on bed. My advise: always take care of your backs, sit straight, always have support for your back and if you see a bad chair which shakes all over from bad springs or bearings, don’t sit on it.
Friday, September 18, 2009
Pain!
Pain. Of the many lyrics written about it Guns and Roses’ “November Rain” comes to mind:
When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
Darling when I hold you
I Just can’t feel the pain.”
Call me dumb idiot, pop vulgarian, whatever, I don’t mind because I am writing this in a state of pain that has lasted a few days. I lie supine, spread-eagled, twisted, curled, writhing with application of unguents creams and medications and still the back pain won’t go away.
Friend Gangadharan Menon suggested there’s no cure for it except to lie on the back on a hard bed (without mattress), legs close together, supported by a pillow just below the knees. I do this and get considerable relief. He has been through the ordeal and knows. Rest is what is needed and I hope to rest for a week.
Pain is eternal
I want to turn my back on my back pain.
Thanks friends for the support and understanding on facebook and other forums.
When I look into your eyes
I can see a love restrained
Darling when I hold you
I Just can’t feel the pain.”
Call me dumb idiot, pop vulgarian, whatever, I don’t mind because I am writing this in a state of pain that has lasted a few days. I lie supine, spread-eagled, twisted, curled, writhing with application of unguents creams and medications and still the back pain won’t go away.
Friend Gangadharan Menon suggested there’s no cure for it except to lie on the back on a hard bed (without mattress), legs close together, supported by a pillow just below the knees. I do this and get considerable relief. He has been through the ordeal and knows. Rest is what is needed and I hope to rest for a week.
Pain is eternal
I want to turn my back on my back pain.
Thanks friends for the support and understanding on facebook and other forums.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
The Perfect Bride; A Wonderful Film Needs Your Vote
There’s this show on Start Plus that takes cake in the emptiness of those who conceive it and takes India several centuries into the past, right when Aurangazeb ruled and purdah or pallu was kept, and women were treated as “paraya dhan.”
The Perfect bride is a show which parades young girls before boys and their mothers. Imagine. The girls sit alone on red seats without anyone for help and the boys loll in their seat with their moms beside them. Did I mention red? The girls look perfectly uncomfortable against deep reds, and shocking pinks of the set and also dressed in similarly shocking shades with a lot of tinsel. The eyes blink, the mind blanches.
The boys look sort of triumphant, sort of. One of the mothers says she likes the “intelligency” of a certain girl who is a doctor. The doctor in the group is the star, everybody likes her. (Does it show our mindset?) There is such mundane banter between the boy’s entourage and the girls. What’s notable about the show is – EMBARASSMENT – everybody is so embarrassed. Shekhar Suman tries to make his usual witticisms which only elicit titters; then again the mood becomes sombre. Vishal and his sidekick both are a picture of embarrassment, they don’t know where to look: either this way or that. Their cracks don’t gel.
Ho hum!
What’s the idea behind the show? Just to push some soap? Why are they showing the country as it existed several hundred years ago?
In Passing
Film maker George M. Thomas’s one minute film “Silences” has been shortlisted for the filminute award. He needs your support, so go thither and vote for this film.
The Perfect bride is a show which parades young girls before boys and their mothers. Imagine. The girls sit alone on red seats without anyone for help and the boys loll in their seat with their moms beside them. Did I mention red? The girls look perfectly uncomfortable against deep reds, and shocking pinks of the set and also dressed in similarly shocking shades with a lot of tinsel. The eyes blink, the mind blanches.
The boys look sort of triumphant, sort of. One of the mothers says she likes the “intelligency” of a certain girl who is a doctor. The doctor in the group is the star, everybody likes her. (Does it show our mindset?) There is such mundane banter between the boy’s entourage and the girls. What’s notable about the show is – EMBARASSMENT – everybody is so embarrassed. Shekhar Suman tries to make his usual witticisms which only elicit titters; then again the mood becomes sombre. Vishal and his sidekick both are a picture of embarrassment, they don’t know where to look: either this way or that. Their cracks don’t gel.
Ho hum!
What’s the idea behind the show? Just to push some soap? Why are they showing the country as it existed several hundred years ago?
In Passing
Film maker George M. Thomas’s one minute film “Silences” has been shortlisted for the filminute award. He needs your support, so go thither and vote for this film.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
Corporate Types and "Mamma Mia"
Spent a Sunday at home after a long time. Yes, I should have time for myself sometimes, as the schedule gets tighter and tighter without any let up. The tensions of modern life add up and one needs to de-stress, as the corporate-types say. I am not yet a corporate type, at least, yet, I often feel like an intruder in their midst. They are in the midst of so much make believe and conning each other the legit way with arguments that one doesn’t know what the truth is. A top executive at a software company I worked for always keeps his arguments ready in case something goes wrong.
“Why was this not done on time?”
“The specs and purchase order were given late, the negotiations took time, besides there were technical glitches, the SQL servers weren’t ready. A key programmer took leave.”
All this without knowing what an SQL server is and knowing fully well the specs and purchase orders went within reasonable time. All lies delivered in amazingly composed manner, without a flicker of emotion.
Well that’s a corporate type I was speaking about. No, I am not one, not yet. I can’t be so glib.
Mamma Mia
Today I saw a movie after my heart. “ Mamma Mia” starring Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep led me into such a nostalgic nadir that I began crying listening to the ABBA numbers: Dancing Queen, Voule-Vous, Thank You for the Music, Waterloo, Mamma Mia, etc. the songs of my youth, crazy ABBA fan that I am. Many monsoons ago, I have seen ABBA the movie at least three times, and remember I was in love with both Agnetha and Annifrid and their melodious voices.
Well time and seasons pass; this beautiful story of a girl who doesn’t know who her real father is brought back a flood memories and it literally drowned me in nostalgia. Bittersweet nostalgia – that’s “Mamma Mia” with some good acting by Meryl Streep as the bohemian mother who can’t really remember who her daughter’s father is. Catch it on HBO.
“Why was this not done on time?”
“The specs and purchase order were given late, the negotiations took time, besides there were technical glitches, the SQL servers weren’t ready. A key programmer took leave.”
All this without knowing what an SQL server is and knowing fully well the specs and purchase orders went within reasonable time. All lies delivered in amazingly composed manner, without a flicker of emotion.
Well that’s a corporate type I was speaking about. No, I am not one, not yet. I can’t be so glib.
Mamma Mia
Today I saw a movie after my heart. “ Mamma Mia” starring Pierce Brosnan and Meryl Streep led me into such a nostalgic nadir that I began crying listening to the ABBA numbers: Dancing Queen, Voule-Vous, Thank You for the Music, Waterloo, Mamma Mia, etc. the songs of my youth, crazy ABBA fan that I am. Many monsoons ago, I have seen ABBA the movie at least three times, and remember I was in love with both Agnetha and Annifrid and their melodious voices.
Well time and seasons pass; this beautiful story of a girl who doesn’t know who her real father is brought back a flood memories and it literally drowned me in nostalgia. Bittersweet nostalgia – that’s “Mamma Mia” with some good acting by Meryl Streep as the bohemian mother who can’t really remember who her daughter’s father is. Catch it on HBO.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)