For Want of Better Dress Sense!

Something happened a few days ago that reinforced my belief that women don’t have a dress sense, at least, Indian women. Before being branded the male version of the bra-burning feminist, i.e., the underwear and crotch adjusting, nose digging Indian male, let me also affirm that Indian men, too, don’t have much of dress sense. You find all types of dresses on men/women in office. Power dressing is a concept that is lost on Indian women/men executives and those who do not wear the graceful sari/dhoti and salwar kameez to office, wear just anything – jeans, miniskirts, denim skirts, tank tops, cute tops with bold prints, large checked shirts, capris, just about anything.

So imagine my surprise at a meeting with an event management agency, the account manager came wearing a Capri that showed most of her legs, and a top with short sleeve that afforded a peek, I mean a very deep, shameless peek, into her plunging cleavage. Oh, God, not in a business meeting. I was ill at ease in the narrow room, and didn’t know where to look and finally decided to keep my eyes riveted at the ceiling and at the walls, lest my eyes wander in the direction of all the exposure of flesh.

Another senior executive came into the reception area – would you believe this? – with her sari held hitched up to her calves. Ho, oh, it was raining alright, but up to the calves? A very senior executive always wears checked shirts to office, that too, checks as big as the ones Dharmendra used to (still does) sport on his shirts. Have some semblance of formality, ni, pachi, soo karvano? What to do? No, nathi, even my friend wealth-enjoying-brother Dhansukhbhai wouldn’t approve. So what if he has a private jet and a helipad on top of his own building? He, too, has no dress sense. He is always dressed in ill-fitting suits (I guess he keeps things in his shirt pocket and that’s why his suit always sags and bulges in the wrong places.) and crumpled safari suits; and his wife is always seen in gaudy saris. They are one badly dressed couple who destroy my confidence in Indian dress sense.

Oh, by the way, I have taken to wearing ties in the new office. Office rules and etiquette, you see, and I comply. But, I feel I get more respect with a tie around my neck, you know, it’s a big hit with the girls in the office. Oh, if only I had known this earlier!

Pissed and Happy at Airtel

I am pissed and happy and again pissed at the same time as I tap this (with agitated fingers) on my laptop at around 10.42 p.m. tonight.

First things, as they say, first: Pissed about the following:

The country’s leading mobile carrier AIRTEL has been charging me Rs 14.50 TWICE daily for a GPRS connection on my cellphone, irrespective of whether I download or upload anything or not. This is in spite of the fact that they should only charge me once, i.e., Rs 14.50 a day. That’s okay, being the patient man that I am (“P” being my middle name), because these days I am uploading several pictures for blogging through my mobile, you know, just shoot and upload, and then paste on my blog.

But today – would you believe it? – they charged me Rs 14.50 four times! Twice while I was travelling on the train and just now before I began a tirade against the abovementioned carrier. My intention is to show how callous and negligent they are to give service once they have received your money, I mean, your hard earned, sweat off the brow money.

I dialled 121 which is the AIRTEL customer service at 9 p.m. and straight away got in somewhere in their customer service spiel in Marathi, while I always choose English, which is my adopted lingua franca. After their ads and promos battered my poor suffering eardrums I got the chance to dial “9” and speak to their customer service executive (CSE, in short).

One tired, timid sounding CSE voice answered. I asked her name, which was Ms. T. Chakravarty. I let loose a tirade that, obviously, scared her and she reacted by disconnecting me. Yes! She disconnected me!

Instead of issuing fumes from my ears, I patiently sat with my notebook, writing down everything I did with the intention of writing this blog, and dialled a second time. The bell rang around 12 times and then disconnected.

I have nerves of steel in these regards, I confess, don’t go by looks alone, okay? Just today I had negotiated with a newspaper to carry an ad despite their telling me that the deadline was long over. So I am not push over material, you see. “Apro pasey “vat” che, kem,” as my friend Dhansukhbhai would day, “I have influence, what?” Bless him. [Dhansukhbhai (meaning wealth enjoying brother) is the latest character to invade this blog, who happens to be a stock investor and avid Bollywood movie watcher.]

I digress.

Then I dial again, and as wealth-enjoying-brother Dhansukhbhai would say, “Phone mali gayo.” Remember this is after the assault that my poor eardrums suffer of their offers of the day and such like. Again after ringing 10 times the line gets cut. I think it is deliberate and somebody in the call centre is playing with my patience.

Again I dial, for the fourth time, and wait through their promos shouted out by a feminine voice in a high-pitched hustling sort of voice. I don’t care blah for that kind of stuff! A certain feminine CSE by the name of A. Kasthuria answers and in broken English answers my queries, said very graphically and patiently, as she can’t understand anything spoken a bit fast. I am in an excited state and she can’t understand what I am blabbering.

I am happy because:

Then I ask for her supervisor. She tells me all the supervisors are busy, which is a lie, because supervisors are the least busy people on the call centre floor. Then she apologises and says they will look into the matter and refund me the excess charges that have been made, and I accept, because it sounds reasonable. I know it is a minor concession they are making, but what's a small concession (bribe) to an irate customers when the public do not even know they are being taken for royal ride on the mammoth elephant of indifferent customer service. My complaint number is: 0829567108, if any one is interested. My wealth-enjoying-brother Dhansukhbhai approves of all this and says, “saru che.”

I am pissed again because:

How many of you would sit through four calls, with a notebook on your knee, listening to endless promos about “offer of the day” and such like, and patiently talk some sense into such rude CSEs who disconnect your calls? Huh?

Did I hear you say “who has the time?” Yes, who has? Even I don’t have. Which means the mobile phone carriers are cheating customers of crores of rupees and we, the suffering customers, do not even realise how we are being hoodwinked. It also means that in today’s marketing parlance “customer service” or “customer support” is virtually non-existent and you have to fight it out (remember four successive calls, tens of promotional whine-ings?) to get service for the money you pay them. This world seems a hostile place for customers, they aren’t interested in this tribe anymore, the very tribe that pays the money for the obscene profits they make. Are you listening AIRTEL?

If it wasn’t for the vain hope that somebody somewhere was really reading these words, I wouldn’t have had a mobile phone even. I do a lot of accessing the net to write blogs and to upload pictures, that’s why I need GPRS. I know it’s expensive, but I can’t help.

And I feel cheated and am looking for a better carrier than AIRTEL, anyone interested in a loyal and regularly paying customer?

The Daily Grind… Paying to Get a Seat on a Train... Et Al….

This happens every day, day without end. The train arrives and the seats are gone in three seconds flat. That’s one second to jump in, two seconds to reach the seat and then one second left to dive for a seat. Yes, people push, shove, hit, flail, and dive towards the seats in such a mad rush that if you aren’t an expert in this game you will be trampled.

The luckiest get seats near the window, the second not-so-lucky get a seat, the third not-so-lucky get to stand in between those sitting on seats facing each other, and the unluckiest of all stand holding the horse-shoe-shaped hand holds twisting and turning into unimaginably weird shapes as more and more people pack into the narrow space, depriving them of fresh air and so cramping them in the narrow space that they start sweating right away. Sometimes it’s hot and the fans do not work. Sometimes the railway bogyman (my word) switches off the light so that one can’t even read the novel, or the papers. Damn! One just stares into space, as if the end of the world was near.

That’s the lot of us poor folks who commute by trains. And, it’s not that any of these push-as-hell gentlemen do not own a car. Most of them are car owners, but they only use cars to reach the railway station and then take a train to their destinations. Driving to work is expensive, what with fuel prices, traffic, parking problems, etc. They would be lucky if they reach the office in three hours.

So when a colleague who commutes from Borivli said this I was surprised and shocked: he hires a man to jump into the train and reserve a seat for him every morning for Rs 500 a month. Why? I am prepared to pay a 1000 hard-earned rupees for someone who would do the same for me in CBD Belapur!

The Daily Grind… Paying to Get a Seat on a Train... Et Al….

This happens every day, day without end. The train arrives and the seats are gone in three seconds flat. That’s one second to jump in, two seconds to reach the seat and then one second left to dive for a seat. Yes, people push, shove, hit, flail, and dive towards the seats in such a mad rush that if you aren’t an expert in this game you will be trampled.

The luckiest get seats near the window, the second not-so-lucky get a seat, the third not-so-lucky get to stand in between those sitting on seats facing each other, and the unluckiest of all stand holding the horse-shoe-shaped hand holds twisting and turning into unimaginably weird shapes as more and more people pack into the narrow space, depriving them of fresh air and so cramping them in the narrow space that they start sweating right away. Sometimes it’s hot and the fans do not work. Sometimes the railway bogyman (my word) switches off the light so that one can’t even read the novel, or the papers. Damn! One just stares into space, as if the end of the world was near.

That’s the lot of us poor folks who commute by trains. And, it’s not that any of these push-as-hell gentlemen do not own a car. Most of them are car owners, but they only use cars to reach the railway station and then take a train to their destinations. Driving to work is expensive, what with fuel prices, traffic, parking problems, etc. They would be lucky if they reach the office in three hours.

So when a colleague who commutes from Borivli said this I was surprised and shocked: he hires a man to jump into the train and reserve a seat for him every morning for Rs 500 a month. Why? I am prepared to pay a 1000 hard-earned rupees for someone who would do the same for me in CBD Belapur!

People Are Strange! So Long, Olympics!

Living in Bombay, known for its crowds, the streams of people flowing like water, you pause before acknowledging a former colleague, a former classmate, wondering if it’s the same person, or someone different. You see how they have changed, how their faces have a drawn look, how their laugh lines have turned in worry lines, how they seemed to have lost control over their lives.

But naturally, since people of all persuasions, facial structures, racial features, vocations (a big influencer in how people look, e.g., accountants never smile and salesmen always smile, because their jobs demand that they do), and caste creed and colour prejudices. It’s a huge melting pot, the ladle of which, too, is so huge it requires many hands to stir it. You also see amazingly beautiful faces, faces that make you want to follow them, just to see where they go, what they do, what charmed lives they lead.

No, never been a stalker in my life, nor have any intention to be. But I know of many girls who have become the unwanted centre of people’s attention, and been stalked. Some stalkers even have won their prey with their persistence. Remember “Chotti Si Baat” the Amol Palekar, Vidya Sinha starrer? Amol is a stalker, until he musters courage to speak to Vidya and then – lo and behold – he wins the pretty damsel.

*********

So the Olympics have come to an end in Beijing. So sad. I didn’t see all the events I wanted to. Blame it on bad programming, and the fact that none of the major news channels had teams covering the events. They all featured bought footage, which is bad for our sporting channels. Shows how they are run on re-runs of old cricket matches where India won and insignificant others.

I watched an amazing beach volleyball match between Belgium and Norway. The scores went 11-12, 12-12, 13-12, 13-13, with each serve turning into a tussle of nerves between the players, and the playing teams. It was such a joy to watch because both teams were equally good and competed in the spirit of competition. I guess that’s what the Olympics have become a paragon of over the years.

Alas that’s gone and is now past. That guy Michael Phelps stole the show I guess. By the next Olympics I will be four years older. That sure brought a tear to my eye.

Covering Gokul Ashtami in the Locality

Today is Gokul Ashtami, the day celebrating the birth of Lord Krishna. There’s a rope strung outside my door, couple of floors above my ground floor residence, and tied to it are banana, pears, balloons, a pot of curd, colourful flowers, couple of packets of potato chips (why on earth). The youth of the locality are busy tying the prize money and the pot of curd.

I will post a picture later. Now my camera uploads pictures straight to my email account. No, not to blogger, which will take some time, I guess. I will figure that out.

In Your Face Poverty!

In this article that precedes this blogpost, I lamented, rather mawkish-ly, about the family I saw living on the street. It seems there are several such families in South Bombay, it’s as if they had got down from the train and decided to pitch their plastic tents on the street outside the terminus. Serendipitously, I happened to read this article in Time’s website.

“The defining challenge of the 21st century will be to face the reality that humanity shares a common fate on a crowded planet. We have reached the beginning of the century with 6.6 billion people living in an interconnected global economy producing an astounding $60 trillion of output each year. Human beings fill every ecological niche on the planet, from the icy tundra to the tropical rain forests to the deserts. In some locations, societies have outstripped the carrying capacity of the land, resulting in chronic hunger, environmental degradation and a large-scale exodus of desperate populations. We are, in short, in one another's faces as never before, crowded into an interconnected society of global trade, migration, ideas and, yes, risk of pandemic diseases, terrorism, refugee movements and conflict.”

Yes, we are on each other’s faces a lot these days. Have you seen how they stare at you? And we are also prone to diseases: chickenguniya, dengue, viral fever, of which we weren’t even aware. Get used to it, for it’s going to be like this for all time.

$ 60 trillion is not a small amount of money. It’s huge. We are earning more, we are growing richer, and we are wasting more. Imagine this. Try and think of the manufacturing and service industries as a giant suction pump, sucking in wealth and retaining them in smart investments and in banks of rich people. I read somewhere that since the nineties the number of millionaires in the US had doubled. Ditto in India, someone mentioned that the number of crorepatis (Indian millionaires, currently around 20,000 in the country) has also doubled.

Now don’t accuse me of being dumb dimwit when I ask: where did this money come from?

It came by depriving the people living on the streets, in the slums and in decaying housing colonies of their right to a good life. It came by forcing a section of the people into submission and slavery in air-conditioned traps called outsourcing centres. Go to any urban slum and you will find gangs of youth playing cards throughout the day and doing petty thefts and crime at night to survive, because they don’t have jobs. They have lost their will to work hard, and are satisfied with getting enough to get by.

In short the poor are becoming poorer fast and the rich are becoming rich faster. And the world’s resources are limited, it can run dry tomorrow if the rapacity continues. India could become another Sahara because the rich have a choice of emigrating but the poor will stay and die a painful death on the streets of big cities.

The solution? If they offer you – a greenhorn of “zero” years of experience – a salary of 1 crore, don’t take it. And, oh, yes, ask them if they have any shame.

Living on a Street of Bombay - Must They?

It’s pathetic. I see them on the way to work, and again, on the way back from work. This is the essence of India and the so called malaise of urban poverty. They have very little to call their own, they live on the street, beside the sugarcane juice vending machine they own, sleep in the open, under a bus shelter – three generation of them – spending all their waking hours in the busy street, under the glaring eyes of people who pass by. I see them cooking their evening meal and have stale rice in the morning, there are only two foldable chairs they can call furniture. Oh, yes, there's a plastic sheet tied to the wall they would use as a shelter in the rain. That's all. Yet they seem to survive with nothing I can see in their faces of regret, deprivation, or hopelessness. They are content to be what they are. They too survive this ruthless world.

The man sells sugarcane juice throughout the day, and packs up around 7 p.m. when the thirsty hordes have gone home. Then he curls up with wife and kids and his father on the road. There isn’t even a stringed charpai to sleep on. Despite the dust and dirt, they seem cleanly dressed. They seem content with their lives, accepting things as they are, never complaining, and if you ask them they will say in their native tongue, Gujarati, “Saru che, badda, saru che.” It’s so pathetic. And then they would even boast of the benefits of living on the street and of the advantages of owning nothing – nothing to worry about being stolen. How cruel can life be, how ruthlessly it deprives people of hope and the possibility of a decent life. That’s life for them, no need to think of loan repayment, credit card balances, huge school/college fees, not to mention bribes and speed money.

I know life in a big city is tenuous, it has to be. There are too many people per square inch, packed like fish half alive, cornered by some giant pressing machine: bags, suitcases, potbellies, lunch boxes, umbrellas. They carry bags so big the others look at them and sneer, “What does he think he is, big, big egjective?” I watched in wonderment at them at Vashi station one day as layer by layer they peeled from inside a train in an unending stream (reminded me of the times when I would peel plantain tree leaves one by one), and there would be more of them, however much I tried vainly to bring to an end their continuous unreeling. Do they read anything: newspapers, books, novels, short stories, poems? For them all these are idle pursuits, unprofitable and unworthy of their attention. But, no, they are so content to let things go by, to avoid/indulge the rough struggle, they are inured, calloused and beaten into submission, and to smile and accept all, regardless.

A nation coping with trauma, through all the trials it is going through, ending each day more confused than ever of what is right and what isn’t. That’s what’s worrying me, this frugality, this contentment with mediocrity, this mother of all poverty.

I walk away, lengthen my steps till I am almost hurrying, I want to be rid of their sight, I want to escape the utter hopelessness of their existence on the road of a big city, people whom you would rather not see, in a city that would betray them very badly one day.

White Men Bearing Gifts!

Reading Amitav Ghosh’s “Sea of Poppies” after reading Dalrymple’s “The Last Mughal” and Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” has had my mind stuck in the Mughal-colonial mode for far too long. Or, so I think. Oh, how many of the events seem so congruent and parallel in my imaginings. I reflect these days too much on what India could have been (Drawing a tentative parallel with what I could have been), and suchlike nauseating stuff, so on and so forth.

In Ghosh’s book here’s what Burnham the rogue merchant of opium has to say:

“Look at what the Celestials did to Lord Amherst. There he was, on the very threshold of Pekin (Peking), with a shipload of presents – and the Emperor wouldn’t so much as receive him.”

I guess the Chinese Emperor did the right thing. The Chinese have a far greater reservation against aliens who come bearing gifts. The Indian Emperor on the contrary received the gift-bearing white men willingly, gave them trading rights and paid a heavy price for their bleeding heart. Look how Burnham justifies opium trade indulged by the East India Company to the American Zachary:

“British rule in India could not be sustained without opium – that is all there is to it, and let us not pretend otherwise. You are no doubt aware that in some years, the Company’s annual gains from opium are almost equal to the entire revenue of your own country, the United States…? And if we reflect on the benefits that British rule has conferred upon India, does it not follow that opium is the land’s greatest blessing? Does it not follow that it is our God-given duty to confer these benefits upon others?”

Baloney! Specious lies told without scruples of any kind, with a stiff upper lip and the lying flair of a hypocrite. What if the Mughals hadn’t given the Brits trading rights, and what if we had succeeded in keeping the Brits off our shores? Would India have been an authoritarian state as China now is, could India have hosted an Olympics, and could India have mustered not one but several Olympic golds?

There I go again, so very typical of me. So very droll.

Some pictures of the Caferati anniversary in Karjat.