Yeh hai meri kahani

My Wife sent this to me in an e-mail (given our proximity its the best way for us to communicate). I found it to be a very nice piece-straight from the heart
Here it is

Scene 1:last night i slept off at 9:30 because i was enthu about catching up with the long over due aerobics session that starts at 6 :00 a.m around 3 km frm my house..so dreaming about an eye-catching figure(which wud have been a result of the session mentioned before)..i went off to the dreamland..scene 2 - 5: 30 a.m fighting the monsters of sleep and convincing myself that getting up so early will actually pay me dividends i got dressed all set to rock the aerobics floor.Speeding my way on empty roads (So I won't miss the warm-up session) I reached the fitness centre only to dicover the door was closed!! so i tried knocking/the bell...no response!! disappointed but not disheartened...i said i will go those places where I have seen probable sign boards of fitness centres(i am a freak!!) in Gurgaon !!!So the newly enthu driver took on the roads, reached the lane opposite nathupur red light to search for some "gym/aerobis"..why did man ever invent the concept of figury models who can raid the peace of a mortal like me!!!but anyways..passing through newspaper walas, milkmans and lot of senior citizens(our generation prefers a/c gyms to fresh morning walks!) i went thru every board put on the way looking frantically for the words "aerobics"!!!to my dismay all i could find were "smile n care" or real estate(alas don't have the money as of now to avail their services!!)but how could this deter the determination of the GREAT ONE?!! So then i decided to explore the route next to nestle building as my eyes had probably seen "things" there to!!climax:..If you think that NH-8 is any better at 6:15 a.m u r bloody wrong!! sweeping past the traffic as I was nearing the left turn next to Nestle building anirritatingly slow DTC bus was in front of me..so the car racing instinct in me surfaced to overtake the slow giant and i sped off..only to realise that I have missed that long awaited turn!!!now was the time for my spirits to give up and I head straight back to home for a nice cuppa tea...and a short nap!!!hhmmmwaht an exciting beggining to a day!!

Skullduggery?

Brinda Karat is at it again. The good-looking communist party member (something that is a rarity) has gone for the kill. And no, she’s not attacking the communists’ favorite enemy (the MNC) but she’s after a semi-clad yogi from the Himalayas whose yoga camps have attendance that can rival the entire population of the communist states in the world. Animal and human bones are used in the medicines of the yogi, and she’s had laboratory tests verifying her claims.
There is some irony in the situation. Swami Ramdev, the yogi in question, has been inadvertently endorsing the communist parties (lost?) cause of MNC bashing. Being compared to a toilet cleaner is not exactly the kind of promotional campaign that those guys at O&M (or is it Leo Burnett) would recommend for their clients, the cola majors. And though the marketing managers may rest in peace for some time, content with the observation that most attendees of the yoga camps are 40+ people who do not comprise the target segment for their products, the trickle down effect from parents to children is hard to neglect. The yogi has also been bashing junk food (McDonalds Pizza Hut please note) and endorsing the good old fruits and vegetables diet that your granny always told you to have.
The irony notwithstanding, the question is, why is Ms. Karat raising a hue and cry. The apparent reason is that she took up cudgels for some workers fired by the swami from his factory that produces the medicines. Nothing unusual about it. But is there a hidden agenda? What if these marketing savvy MNCs have hit upon this unusual plan to counteract the effect of the Yogi’s popularity? Plausibly, parents now telling their kids not to have coke or Pepsi will be met with the response “And why don’t you stop having human bones?”. And they have bought over their sworn enemy to publicly bash Swami Ramdev. Sounds far fetched? I of course do not have conclusive proof, but its just a point of view. As it is, the communists have had little to do of late. With the collapse of most communist nations, and with the world waking up to the benefits of a free market economy, they find themselves preciously endangered. Therefore they resort to such rabble-rousing techniques to stay in the news, and tell the world that we are alive and kicking. And if some money is to be made in the process, then whose father what goes?


To present a counterpoint, what if her allegations are actually true? That would be something quite startling, and for some even appalling (imagine, they have been eating those medicines, containing skull and bones for years). If the swami actually has some skeletons in his cupboard (pun intended), then the entire country has been taken for a jolly ride. But really, it’s hard to come to a definite conclusion. What one hi-fi sounding lab’s report will conclusively state, another will rubbish. So the battle will likely go on. And till then the devotees can happily ingest Sarp Gandha Vati and other such medicines with the full faith that their ailment will vanish like communism from Russia (Sorry couldn’t resist). After all don’t they say “Its faith that healeth”?

Orchid

A photo I took in Orchid Park Sentosa Island,Singapore.

Count your Chicks Before the Match

Another shamelessly plagiarised title from the Management Guru, Dr. Arindam Chaudhary. Hold it, if I acknowledge him, I am not plagiarising. Case Dismissed.
Of course, I am not discussing the legalities of plagiarism here, that was just to give a 'different' start to the post.
Yesterday, on my way back home, a huge hoarding on the roadside caught my eye. It had a beautiful girl in shorts and tees, with some kinda frills in her hand. The headline along with it said "Dribble Dribble drool..". I thought, "Ok, a sequel to Bend it like Beckham, infinitely more in tune with the tastes of the Indian masses. But closer inspection provided a completely different perspective. The sub heading said, "Cheer Indian Football with the Zeebras at the Federation Cup."
Federation Cup? The football tournament? Since when did it start featuring such hot chicks (pardon the use of street lingo). I associated it with a group of tired old(sometimes balding) men chasing a round piece of leather all over the field with the energy of a snail. But these ladies were totally unlike my associations. And that set me thinking on the growing importance of the fairer sex in Indian sport. No, I am not talking about Karnam Malleshwari, Sania Mirza or anyone of their ilk. This breed of 'sportspersons' are there not for their ability to shoot a ball or lift a weight better than their countrymen (women?) but are there just for the fact that they look good. Period.
Someone once famously remarked (Its remarkable that whoever 'famously remarks' never gets famous....) "In India only Sex and SRK sell" . SRK has had limited association with sports (limited to a brief scene in DDLJ where he is outrunning every one else on the rugby field in the pouring rain). With his continuing back problems, I do not envision him playing any serious sport in the future. Even if I were to modify the famous saying to suit sports "In India only sex and SRT sell" (SRT for the uninformed is Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar), it leaves me only with sex as the selling point, given Mr. Tendulkar's long absence from the scene of cricket.
So here we have Ms. Mandira Bedi, wearing a blouse with a strap that would be more at home in a Chinese Restaurant (Connoisseurs of Chinese food and fashion will understand what I mean, the rest please don't bother), hosting cricket matches. Pre match analysis (?) discussions with Sidhu and other such experts (?) and in the process generating a lot of discussion herself. Some people say it was a master stroke, bringing glamour to the screen along with the nation's favourite pastime (ok ok, second favorite pastime). Others disagree, saying it was degrading to mix something as serious as cricket with a woman whose knowledge of cricket can be summed up on a matchbox. Since she's been done to death for her blouse, and other issues, I will not heap more insults on her here.
Lets look at the other sports. Tennis. Sania Mirza is shining on the Tennis horizon. We, at long last have a player with serious potential to make it to the world top ten. And what does most of India focus on? Her dress and what she wears on court and off it. C'mon. Can we discuss something more relevant to tennis here? And the world goes ga ga over Maria Sharapova or Anna Kournikova (whose sporting achievements might rival my own) just because they look good, not for the tennis that they play.
So who is to blame? If there is a need to blame at all, that is. The savvy matketing guys sitting in the corporate offices of those channels will serve the market what it wants. And a market that decides to focus on Sania Mirza's hemline and remarks about pre marital sex, will be served glamorous women discussing sports as if that's what they've played all their lives.
Women and serious sport in India are far away from what they are in other countries. With women's cricket never quite taking off (those who disagree, please name the current Women's Cricket World champions), and other sports per-se never being too popular, women in sport are relegated to the role that requires them just to look good. It is quite a sorry state of affairs, that we mostly do not give our sportswomen their due (I say mostly since we did recognize PT Usha's achievements) but a lot needs to change in our mindset towards women before we can actually admire Sania's powerful forehand, rather than sit and discuss her nosepin and the length of her skirt.
As for Ms. Bedi and her ilk, what the heck, if the men aren't complaining, the channels'll keep them coming. So watch out for the Zeebras-here they come.

Change your wife..oops Life....

As regular readers of this blog, and I hope there are some, will notice, I have become quite a TV addict in the past few weeks. Moving from abhorring this piece of technology to being an addict has been quite a journey, that has spanned a few weeks and some nice reruns of Friends. I confess to have become the non pseudo intellectual Indian male who, on return from office, plonks himself on the couch. Remote in hand, held more lovingly than his girlfriend's hand on their first date, he feasts himself on this remarkable invention that allows him total control (Please note, I am referring to bachelors here) on what he sees before him. And that is a luxury that his surroundings rarely afford him during his day. Surfing through channels, like waves at the Bondi beach, Australia, the remote takes him from the intellectualities of Discovery channel, to the realities of AXN while passing through the (contrived??) humor of Star One. And en passant his eye stops on a channel that's all about enhancement.
Ok, I'm not talking about Aastha and Sanskaar Channels here. This is about a different kind of enhancement. Bust enhancement. Height enhancement. Life enhancement. The first interests our Non Pseusdo Intellectual Indian Male (NPIIM-Ed. This is NOT an anagram of IIPM), purely out of voyeuristic pleasure, while he mentally runs through the list of women he thinks who might be using them. The second is of more direct consequence, especially for those who were given a miss by the height burst that follows the explosion of testosterone in the teen years. The third, well, its so generic, that let me not even begin to talk about it.
Products abound, that promise to revamp your life. There is absolutely no problem that does not have a solution. Are you short? Try our New high growth magnetic resonance machine. It is so small that it fits in the hollow of your shoe. It promotes circulation to those parts of the body that are essential to promote growth (Graphic follows) and increases your height. Cut to a guy with rippling muscles, wearing a sleeveless T Shirt, who talks about his lack of confidence in his life because of his height, his friends who used to make fun of him (and he still calls them friends), how his mother had tried every kind of diet on him and how his girlfriend left him for a taller man. He then chanced upon this machine which increased his height by 6 inches in 6 months and today he has modelling companies falling over each other to sign him on.
The ad ends with a buy now and get 50% off offer, and promises a surprise gift along with the package.
Other mundane problems such as inability to exercise, poor memory, ill luck in business and marital discord also have complete solutions. And the best part is, all of it is scientifically validated, with distinguished looking (and invariably firangi) scientists endorsing the products and their benefits.
My question is, is there any kind of regulation on these channels? Or they are free to air whatever claims they want to? The products are by no means cheap, and the ads, to many may appear quite convincing. Of course not all products are fake. But the whole concept is quite not believable.
Very soon we will have advertisements like "The new lesson reviser" or the "Automatic Exam Taker" The ad will show a group of kids studying all night for an exam, then not being able to answer a single question on the test the next day. Shots of frustrated pencil throwing and pen breaking will be interspersed with images of harried moms and dads with their head in their hands,after reading their kids' report cards. Cut to a curvy lady (with an overenthusiastic Hindi dubbing) standing next to a silver haired scientists who explains the principle on which the product works. He says "The automatic lesson reviser automatically picks up the important words from the lesson and transmits them to your eye. Here the opric nerve transmits these words directly to your brain where these messages are converted into coherent answers dpepeding on the question that is posed in the exam". Cut. Testimonials. "I was a hopeless student. I had failed my high school exams twice. My dad had almost given up on me, and got me a job at the local garage. That was when I discovered the miraculous lesson reviser". It changed my life complet'ely, and today I have a degree from MIT and Harvard and am a successful US President." Whoa...
In olden days, I remember there was such a product, which was a panacea for all problems. It was called "Alladin Ka Chirag". Wonder when they would start selling it.

The Great Indian Dream

I have often wondered, and I'm sure many of you have too, that what is it that makes, nice sane housewives, children and in many cases, heads of the family, give up their essential tasks of the day to sit in front of the television precisely at 8:30 PM and not budge till 11:00. And no, its not to watch National Geographic or any Amitabh Bachchan flick. It’s to see the 'K' serials.
Almost every Indian with cable TV (I think the part 'with cable TV' will soon become redundant) has at some point of time critiqued, hated, loved, enjoyed, cried with, laughed with, laughed at, put down, praised this brand of commercial programming brought to you by Balaji Telefilms. Its become a national pastime to talk about these serials. And there are usually two kind of people doing it. One type will ask you, "I wonder what Prerna will do now that she has discovered that she is pregnant with Mihir's child" (hold on..I think I'm getting mixed up here..but sab chalta hai...Kyonki I have my Writer's Licence). The other type will look at the questioner in an incredulous way and ask "You actually watch that $#$% ?". It has become a fashion statement among the upper crust to call these serials "Oh-so middle class", (if this is Indian Middle Class I would say that liberalisation has done a lot for us). But let me not do anything of that sort here.
My wonderment has resulted in my putting some thought to the question I started with, and one answer is readily forthcoming. These serials, for a majority of the Indians, symbolize the Great Indian Dream.
With all due apologies to Dr. Malay and Dr. Arindam Chaudhary (whose title I have shamelessly plagiarized-the apology is necessary, my Swiss bank account does not have 175 crores. Yet. For the uninformed, that's the going rate at which IIPM is suing people for defamation- I HAVE NO SUCH INTENTIONS!!! but I digress), I would like to examine this great Indian dream. And this is not the dream that Rajiv Gandhi had for us back in 1987, or the more recent version of Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. This is not the dream of such illustrious people. This is the dream of the humble Indian Housewife.
What a life she has. Getting up in the morning, faced with the same chores again and again, she toils unrewarded and unrecognized. Wailing Kid, complaining husband, absconding maid, spiraling prices and other such verb noun combinations take toll on her. And therefore she finds respite in another Verb Noun Combination-Watching Television.
Let us she what she dreams of. She would love to be the ideal wife (Tulsi) who wears expensive flashy clothes, is dressed up as if she is going to a party even while cooking delicious gujiya or dhokla while in the kitchen. She wants her husband to be loving, caring, kind, smart handsome and earning well. Since that's too much to ask of a single man, she happily watches (and probably vicariously likes) Prerna flitting between Anurag and Mr. Bajaj one being what the other is not. She wants to be a good mother, with sons who grow up to be responsible adults (and to satisfy her occasional dark side-not so nice sons too, but with a positive streak). She wants intrigue & conflicts, the kinds of which she can never get to see at her own house (e.g. how will the 500 crore property be divided among three sons of Mr. K, one of whom is illegitimate?). The K serials allow her to live these dreams. For those three hours, she becomes a complete woman, with all shades to her personality, something that she is not allowed to be in real life.
Come to think of it, that is why most of us enjoy movies, don't we? A kind of virtual reality where we take on the identity of the hero (or Anti Hero) and essay deadly deeds, without even getting so much as a scratch. True, this medium allows one to escape reality. And that, sometimes can be very nice.

The 'Idol' (n)ation

Qazi and Ruprekha....the two newest celebrities on the Indian horizon. Two common people, like you and me, who till not long ago were leading very common lives, catapulted to superstardom by a show created especially for the purpose. No mean feat that. The rigour that these people went through, and the effort that they put in, deserves to be rewarded. However, a larger question begs itself. Why are we as a nation, consistently looking for idols?
Ok, ok...I know the patriots among you would be up in arms saying that it was American Idol, that started the whole 'idol' thing. We just liked the idea of the programme, and copied it. So what? Nothing wrong in that, and I am as proud to be an Indian, as you are. However, the marked proliferation of such shows, just brings forth the fact that we are running so short of idols that we are resorting to creating them artificially.
Who can we rely on today? Our senior generation found their idols in the leaders of the day. Sardar Patel, Pandit Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi. People who espoused ideals that one could incorporate in daily life, and feel proud. It was a kind of vicarious virtuosity, not to say that our seniors were not virtuous in themselves.
Today, leaders are in short supply. Most of them are just politicians, working to fill their own coffers. Not one politician today can be placed on a pedestal equivalent to that accorded to the aforementioned leaders. So where do we go? The next best place to look is sports. And the one sport that has produced idols like cars at a GM assembly line is Cricket
Tendulkar is GOD...A statement that probably 67% of cricket loving India would endorse, 24% would oppose, and 9% would be non commital (Sorry, been reading too much of India Today surveys nowadays) . Ganguly, the most successful captain of the country. Dravid, the cool as a cucumber batsman. All Idol material. So what's wrong?
An essential ingredient of successful idolatory is infallibility. Go back to my first sentence in the previous paragraph. Tendulkar is GOD. and GOD is infallible. Sadly, most of these idols have failed to pass (pardon the linguistic twisting around) the infallibility test. They have revealed, that good as they may be at their art, they are , at the end of the day human beings like you and me. And that is a great downer. No, I cannot accept an Idol that is fallible. Out with them.
Movies? Oh no. They never produced any idols worth mentioning. I've often wondered why. And I think its because that all of us, at some level think movie stars to be not 'common' people. That is another essential ingredient of successful idolatory. The idol must be the guy(girl) I can meet on the road, who made it big. A hope for me, that I too can come out of this rut, and make it big in life. And filmstars, with their drop dead good looks (or mommies and daddies as former actors) are good, but not people I can identify with.
So where to go? Well, if you can't buy them, make them!!! That's the mantra in today's world. If something's not available off the shelf, make it. So we resort to making idols, starting with the blatantly named show "Indian Idol" where a boy next door named Abhijeet Sawant , sang his way into the hearts (and TV sets of millions of Indians). He is a commoner, satisfying the first condition of idolatory. As for his infallibility, well our glib marketers (idol creators) have a solution. Before it comes to light, that he too is just a common human being, before the adoring masses realise his fallibility, divert their attention. Create another set of Idols. Who take the attention away from Abhijeet. And once these start fading, come up with something else. And if nothing, Star Plus is always at hand to provide us with the 2-Crorepati.
Is this wrong? I would refrain from commenting on it. After all, the participants get fame and money, the audience gets entertained, the producers rake in the ad revenues. So its a win win situation for all.
Or is it?