The Miley Cyrus Act

Call us retard, or out of touch, or whatever your sanguine heart would have us be labelled, we got to see Miley Cyrus' act only today. Hm. 

Now singers are a different breed altogether, that's why they are so crude and manage to get attention. Cyrus, by the by, did what was unpredictable, and abominable, in our opinion. Like the Indian item song routine each new song (or performance) tends to overstep what the other guys have done, thereby escalating the obscenity factor. Of course pop stars don't bring up children so they don't have to think about what effect the gestures would have on an unsuspecting generation. They would love it, as is their wont, but would they become better people, we doubt. The absolute slide in moral standards start with acts such as these, be aware and be forewarned.

Be that as it may, it has created a celebrity out of Miley Cyrus. Who has heard of her, not us. Now her albums will sell like that of Lady GaGa. In this world of ours the more the scandalous, the better it is. We don't have to exercise moral judgement anymore. Just go ahead and do it and become a celebrity, the bungalow on Sunset Boulevard with tennis court and swimming pool will soon follow. Provoke them, insult them, be obscene with them and they will make you into a celebrity, and will write about you in their scandal sheets. 

Because that's what the world has become, son!

Has Society Stopped Accepting the Lover?

Now that the dust has settled and the culprits have been caught, we are still shocked by the implications, nay, the nature of the rape of the journalist in Bombay. What resemblance does it have to the Delhi rape case, except that both were gang rapes, when multiple men rape a single woman.

Yes, both women were accompanied by men. Escorts. It's a well accepted fact all over the world that women with men - probably lovers, or spouses - be left well alone. Society affords its lovers their peace, to settle their own quarrels and talk their own language of love. Doesn't it?

But it seems it doesn't, at least, not in India. In both the rapes the women were accompanied by men, lovers or otherwise. Both men were threatened and traumatised before the women were subjected to their cruelty. 

Doesn't society accept its lovers? Those creatures of whom poems and novels are written. It is a society that has gone bad that doesn't accept vulnerable lovers, so we think. The signs are already out, the proclamations made. Make it known from roof tops and at village squares. Peet the dindoras.

Meanwhile for Nirbhaya another tear is shed, another totem pole demolished. Nothing has been learnt and nothing will be.

Oh, These Pakistanis! An Independence Rant.

Since the independence day has come and gone - though it was quite drizzly in New Bombay - a few thoughts and ruminations.

It's not right to be gloomy on this happy day, so I will start with something good. But, ugh, there is no good news to share. One remains optimistic through the grind of bad news, however, there's hardly any good news to go by, to share. Sorry, folks!

A submarine blew up after we announced proudly that we have constructed our own nuclear submarine. Could anything worse happen? Well, we also had launched our own aircraft carrier. However, the only news carried on the big boss of reporting BBC was of the submarine blowing up. Guess the Brits are cross because we decommissioned the HMS Hercules, which was what Vikrant was known as before we acquired it.

Be that as it may, we are in the market for submarines, and we can judge another scandal coming. Fellas, leave this transaction alone, I say. Because it's disconcerting to read about Liju's death after two months of his wedding. Look what dreams he carried to his watery grave. What happened? Who was at fault?

The Paks are very cunning people. That we know since our Saudi days. We had a lot of Pakistanis in the company we worked. They were all pretty decent in behaviour, except when it came to jingoism and chest thumping. "Thum Char Sau ko Hum Char Bus Hai." They would say. To this taunt our Sardarji watchman would say, "Saley thum hazaron ko hum ek bus hai." Bravo. Who started it?

Yes such was their jingoism and misplaced patriotism. So it's no wonder that after killing five jawans the Pakistani parliament passed a resolution condemning India's aggression. You must give it to them, surely, something like the Oscar of Demented Parliamentarians. Tomorrow, Pakistan will attack us with nuclear weapons and allege that we started the fight, they will fix matches and say we lost the game, they will invade Gujarat and say we captured Punjab. So, be warned and prepared for anything.

Enough for one Independence day. Sorry, we couldn't dwell about dollar prices, gold, American visas and such like. We will give them separate treatment in future episodes. Bye, and be good.

Snowden, Durga Shakti, and Antony, What Else? Saturday Musings.

It's another weekend and we, I mean our fingers, are itching to write another post here, this sacred space. The promotion we are planning for the completion of 10 years of blogging is underway. However, health concerns, certain anxieties prevent us from going full steam ahead. Do please, please watch out for it though.

So, Snowden is in Russia and Obama goes on to announce that he is not interested in snooping into the lives of us netizens. Then why is the Indian version of PRISM so zealous about applying cyber rules to ordinary citizens as seen in the Shaheen Dadha case? We do a double take when it comes to rules, don't we? Snooping on private citizens is, we maintain, an invasion of privacy. After all, a post on Facebook is not expressing ones views on a public platform, it is just an expression of views to a list of people on the forum who are friends. That's why Facebook classifies people in ones list a "friends." Now when has expressing an opinion to friends been a crime?

That said let's consider the Durga Shakti case. It is shameless the way a public servant is suspended based on unverified information and charges. Our politicians do jump the gun to receive media coverage, sure, but should they have gone to this extent? Then all public servants would become the menial servants of ministers, and of what use is their expertise and knowledge? Sand mining is a dangerous threat to our environment and what are we doing about it? When a public servant speaks up, this is what he/she gets.

The rain is still causing havoc in the country and all we can think about is our petty-minded little cover-ups and white washing. AK Antony failed so miserably in handling the case of the Jawans killed by Pakistani forces that he had to retract his statement. Has the former chief minister of Kerala lost face? True he has introduced a lot of reforms for the men in uniform. They have better salaries and better pensions now. But, should he have made that intemperate comment?

Since We Said We Would Post about Our Beard

And since we promised to post our beard on fb here it be, growing rather nicely! Since Amitabh's beard makes headline stuff, we thought this could be our own headline stuff. Uff!

Announcement: We Have Completed 10 Years of This Blog

We are proud to announce: this blog completes ten years of continuous blogging this month. Phew! We set about it in August 2013 and, what shall we say, it has been a rewarding and frustrating experience. Sometimes the post would appear sometimes it would disappear and we would wonder what happened. And, other times, we would read the blog and it would be full of bloopers. Then we would go and hastily press the delete button.

We are glad we did it,though it has had its frustrating moments. We were writing short stories and a novel.Yes, and poems too. All this made it too hectic. But we think the worst has passed, and good things are coming.

Gratified to know that no one abused us, or said an unkind word about our blog. Thank you readers, do come back again and again.

After two months of heavy rain the sun finally came out. So we took this picture standing at the door. Then we went for a walk and sun on our skin felt good. Feeling rejuvenated somehow, which portends some good things, hopefully.

On the Subject of Education and Healthcare: Some Random Musings

Last Sunday's Times of India has an interview with Nobel laureate Amartya Sen on how India is lagging being because of its neglect of education and healthcare. We, as someone marginally related to the field (wifey is a teacher, I have run around for sonny's admission to colleges), can comment on both these vital services which the government has bungled.

We take the example of Kerala, a state that is foolhardily important to us. Our brother-in-law is a government-appointed teacher there. He has a good life, a good salary, a car, a house, property from which he gets a monthly income, and will retire with a handsome pension which will rid him of all worries of the future. But he is not a happy man. Why? Because every year, come admission time, he makes around 100 frantic visits in his car to get students for his class. Only around six of them join, after much coaxing (free books, uniforms, mid-day meal, holidays) which is what they need to run a class. His worry is that if he doesn't get so many students the government will close the school.  In the same state there is rush for admission to private English-medium schools, where the admission rate is around Rs 30, 000 for a student. Come hail or high water these students from well-to-do families will not join a government school.

The government has spent crores of rupees on buildings and playgrounds and, yet, the schools are empty. Much the same thing happens in cities also. The craze is for education in a private institution, whatever their dictats (Which among other things include: donations, activity fees, tuition fees, and sundry other ways of drawing blood). These schools somehow manages to get good teachers and principals. And, also, their performance is measured by their results.

Now our questions are these:

Why can't the government schools get good teachers and principals, considering the pay is so good?

Why can't teachers with proven skills join government schools after a certain age? This is considering the government doesn't offer employment if a person is above the age of thirty.

If the results are good, and a good education is coming from government schools, will fidgety parents send their children to government schools?

Why can't the government be strict in evaluating its teachers and sacking a few (relegate them to desk jobs) if they don't perform?

Now on the subject of health care:

Many moons and many suns ago, when we were suffering from an ailment we saw an ad in the lobby of a nearby government-subsidised hospital stating that free medicines are availabe there for the ailment. We approached the desk and asked for those medicines. The clerk immediately came and took away the poster saying those medicines were no longer available. Some weird logic this! So where do all the free medicines given by the government go? You guessed it.

Recently, we had to undergo a surgery in a private hospital and spent Rs 80,000 on it. We put a claim for the amount with our insurer and were paid only Rs 20,000. Reason? We took an air-conditioned room with a television. The only reason we took that room was because it had a western toilet. But my semi-government insurance company woulddn't listen. We didn't have the energy to fight.

When we talk of free healthcare, which is a given in developed countries, our country fares very badly. We are dependent on private practitioners such as the private practitioners of education we mentioned above. We don't trust government-run hospitals because the staff there are rude and crude and are only doing a government job.

Now our questions are these:

Why don't people trust a government hospital where treatment is supposed to be free?

Why don't the government sack doctors and nurses who don't perform and, instead, give jobs to good nurses and doctors who have good private practises?

Where are the free medicines given by government to hospitals going?

Why can't the government pest control its hospitals? Some time ago we visited a colleague in a government hospital and was told that he can't sleep at night because of the bites of bed bugs.

Why can't the government which is getting so much money from software and outsourcing exports earmark some money to build clean, efficient, and effective healthcare system as even countries like China and Brazil have done.

Why does the common man have an inborn fear to approach a doctor, any doctor? People have lost their homes and entire savings trying to save sick relatives.

Has the government any answers to these questions? If they have I would like to know about them.

Another Weekend: Sujit Nair's Story

Just another weekend and we thought we would share some things on this blog, our own sacred space, our own world we inhabit.

We have got a job after a long time in a small advertising agency started by our friends and former colleagues. We are there as the copy person, so we can work at home and only go out for meetings. That suits our working style though our novel may be delayed.

Also, we are working in advertising which pays rather well. Our friend Sujit was one such, a ponytailed copywriter with our agency of the time. We envied his ponytail, which was thick and lustrous. He told us he drew a salary of Rs 4 lakh a month. We were incredulous. How can it be possible? With that kind of money he might be having a dream life.

No, all wasn't hunky dory in his life. He lived in an upscale area which cost a bomb, his wife and daughter left him because of his drinking problem. Yes, he drank. He invited us several times for a drink and we told him that drinking is not good for him, as we ourselves had given up the habit.

But habits die hard. Very soon he was in trouble and had to be admitted to hospital. The man who admitted him was his agency head, not his wife or his father. At hospital he made progress and soon was discharged with the admonition that he should give up drinking, which was spoling his liver.

He came to our office for meetings looking pale and emaciated. He jokingly called us "Jesus Christ," for whatever reasons we don't know. Being Mallus we shared a few Mallu jokes (or jocks as a Mallu would say). He was a fountain of jokes and sayings and we loved all of them.

Then his agency head called us one day to announce the death of Sujit. He had started drinking again and this time the drinks took him. We were shocked. How can it be? It can't be, surely he was there somewhere and this must be some kind of prank.

But truth was, he was dead. Though highly paid he had an unhappy life. One of his last jokes went thusly:

An ad man after dying went to heaven. God gave him the choice of heaven or hell. St. Paul showed him heaven and Satan showed him hell. In heaven he was shown a few men in white with some angels playing the harp. Then Devil took him to hell where men in white had scotch in their hands and the angels were playing hard rock.

So the ad man chose hell, seeing as how he loved drinking. But when he was led deep into hell he saw fire, icy mountains, and weird creatures. Drinks were not available, not even water.

"This is not what you showed me," he told Satan.

"Oh, that was just the advertising and marketing, this is the truth."

Rest in peace Sujit, my friend.

India's Population Will Cross 1.5 Billion by 2100

Just read something shocking, and the accompanying graph (Sorry couldn't upload the graph as it was some other file type. However, it is available on the link above.) was still more awe-inducing to our queasy heart. See the graph herein. It says that in 2030 India's population will overtake that of China's and, horrors, will be 1.5 billion in 2100. 

Hm. Haw. Heck, that's worrisome to us. And to think that most of the 1.5 billion will live in cities, without water supply and sewerage. Son, what a world have we given you to inherit? While the population of U.S. and European countries will plateau (as many dying as being born) India and Nigeria would boom with people. What is fueling this reproductive frenzy, is it the climate change, is it the movies? Well, we don't know, we can't answer that.

But we can answer this: should population be curbed, controlled? Yes, yes, yes. Do something right away.

On the Subject of Treyvon Martin

This makes us sick, really. We thought the U.S. to be a decent country where people of colour were respected. Seems Lester Chambers, a blues singer was assaulted on stage during a show. Well, we thought racism was done in the country and only the remnants existed in red-neck country of the south. No, it seems. Treyvon Martin is another victim in the long line of victims who were lynched or beaten to death in this great country professing equality of all people. A teenager, he was walking back to his house after visiting a store when the gun-wielding George Zimmerman shot him, in cold blood. He has done the right thing according to supremacists across the world, but we chafe, we cry for these crimes of utter human hopelessness. Zimmerman was acquitted as there weren't any eye witnesses to the incident, or, were they chicken to come out?  Are all black teenagers wearing hoodies criminals? We simmer with anguish, but we don't know how to protest this atrocity on humanity. Will justice be done, if at all? Who elected a white jury to try the murderer of a back teenager?

After black man Rodney King was beaten by policemen in a similar incident, he asked, "Can we all get along?" No. It seems the answer is no. The U.S., an assylum of contentment and opportunity for many is not a safe place for dark-skinned people. Blacks constitute 13 per cent of the U.S. population while whites are 77 per cent. So they are a majority and even if only half of them are racists they outnumber the blacks. Does it help that the president of the country is half black?

 The shooting of Treyvon Martin opens a can of worms, all well-fed and bigger than rats. To what extent people will go to prove that they are superior to others. A matter of skin collour (which we battle with in my novel Mr. Bandookwala, MBA, Harvard) is the biggest bane of humanity and will take it down the path of perdition, or, something near it, we are sure. The roots of this discrimination lies deeper than the thick skin of centuries slave traders and racial oppressors.