Sunny’s sad sojourn in Switzerland

Geet and I met Sunny for the first time during our four day tour to Switzerland. He was a puny nine year old, wearing thick glasses with a constant expression of sad aloofness. Initially we took his stoicism as lethargy but that did not make any sense. We were visiting the country of the Alps, where Yash Chopra made Bollywood actresses dance in chiffon sarees in negative temperatures. Everyone in the tour bus was excited except for Sunny who had nothing but contempt in his eyes. Maybe he was too young for this tour.

His father Dr. Bhattacharya sat with him on the last seat of the bus, right behind me and Geet. His mother Mrs. Bhattacharya was busy clicking pictures of every cow, tractor and tree on the road as if the world was going to end soon and she was bestowed with the task of passing the relevant proof of the existence of  Homo Sapiens to the next dominant specie. She took rest from the clicking frenzy only to stuff her family with snacks that she had brought in kilos. The tour operator shared the history of Switzerland with us in the background.

A few hours into the bus and we understood the reason why Sunny was so stolid. The initial two days were Alps-less and we toured Zurich, Geneva, Schaffhausen, Lausanne, Lucerne, Interlaken and Bern. As our tour operator poured all his general knowledge on us, we realized that his words were molted lava dripping in Sunny’s ears.

“Sunny!!! Bhaat is the name of that large fountain in Geneva?” Dr. Bhattacharya asked his son.

“Jet something,” he replied.

“Think properly Shona!” Mrs. Bhattacharya said stuffing her son with cashew filled cookies.

“Jet d’Eau,” he said after a while. His parents clapped. Geet and I looked at each other.

“What does Bern means in Swiss?”

“Bear.”

“How many Cantons are there in Switzerland?”

“Twenty-sigh-six.”

“To commemorate whose memory was the carving of the dying lion created in Lucerne?”

“Swiss Guards who were massacred in 1792 during the French Revolution. I wish I was with them.”

“Bhaat? Anyways, Chapel Bridge is situated across which river?”

“Reuss.”

And this went on and on. We were horrified at what the poor child was going through during this ultra educational tour. I was sure that when all this would be over, Sunny will be permanently scarred and a slight inclination by his future wife to visit this romantic destination will be answered by shrieks of madness.

I remember talking to Dr. Bhattacharya during the journey where he expressed his shock that he had to wear seat belt in the bus. I argued that it was commendable that Swiss laws valued human life. I do not remember much of what else we talked about, only that Sunny slept peacefully during that one hour. Geet hailed me as a hero.

After our two days journey through the cities, it was time to visit the Alps. As our bus lifted higher and higher above the sea level, the frenzy of walking on snow that had footprints of Bollywood stars imprinted on it reached an unnerving crescendo. The bus snaked through a thousand tunnels and we saw villages on the edge of lakes surrounded by picturesque blanket of greens. People were straining their necks to get a first peek of the peaks and if the suspense would have carried on for another half an hour, we would have ended up with a new mutated specie that would have been a cross between a human and a giraffe.

Mrs. Bhattacharya was holding her camera so close to her bosom that anyone would have thought that she had a third eye there. In addition, she was jumping in the aisle with enough glee to give me a heart attack. I held Geet’s hands and chanted Hanuman Chalisa. Then everything happened very quickly.

“Boooooooootiphool! There there! Alps!!” Mrs. Bhattacharya screamed seconds before the bus entered a tunnel.

“Bhere?” Dr. Bhattacharya screamed back staring disappointingly at the insides of the tunnel. Sunny shut his eyes tightly pretending that he was asleep.

Soon the tunnel ended and the scream repeated itself. I saw a pair of buttocks jumping up and down in my line of sight and quickly realized that my armrest was not in place. I pushed it down in the nick of time and seconds later Mrs. Bhattacharya tumbled on it instead of my lap.

“Sorry,” she chirruped.

“If I would have been one second late, we would have spent the rest of our life searching for sperm donors,” I whispered in Geet’s ear. She looked with disdain at Mrs. Bhattacharya.

“What is she? A horse with crackers tied to its tail?” she squeaked.

“Control your emotions. The Alps are here,” I said, rotating her head to the window.

We stayed at the village of Engelburg, surrounded by snow covered Alps and minutes away from Mount Titlis and an hour’s drive from Jungfrau. We saw sulking Sunny during dinner. One look at his face and you could tell that the educational tour was spreading like slow poison inside him. Thank God the food was Indian.

The next day we had to take a train to the highest railway station in Europe at 11,000 ft. The prospect was endearing and would have left anyone wide-eyed. As the train spiraled up the tunnel, I spotted Sunny through the gap between the seats, sleeping peacefully. His father was frantically trying to wake him up while his mother was talking pictures of the darkness outside. I poked Geet and made her conscious of the sight. And then both of us started laughing. We laughed till tears ran down our eyes, till our faces turned red with the effort to suppress our laughter. Everyone was staring at us. The tour operator gave us uneasy looks. Our unchecked spurts of laughter took a good fifteen minutes to subside.

Later, I felt nothing but pity for the child. In a bid to train their child to become a Superman, Mr. and Mrs. Bhattacharya had ruined his holiday. Wasn’t the kid supposed to enjoy this precious time with his parents? We bid Bhattacharya family goodbye at London airport and that was the last time I saw Sunny. I hope his relationship with his parents does not hit rock bottom, although the chances of this happening are slim.

It has been three years since I visited Switzerland but there are a few moments that are etched forever in my memory -

- Sunny’s lost gaze

- Geet and I laughing hysterically in a tilted train inside a mountain

- Geet and I sitting in the balcony of our room in Engelburg with a blanket draped on both of us, looking at the fog drifting over the mountains.

- Sabotage of Mrs. Bhattacharya’s attempt to cut my family tree.

 

[All the pictures are taken by me]

Sensitization begins at home

We are contrary creatures, us humans, but that isn’t something we need to be afraid of, or even much troubled by. And if you make a list of those people who worship consistency, you’ll find they are one and all tyrants or would-be tyrants. Ruling over thousands, or over a husband or a wife, or some covering child. Never fear contradiction. It is the very heart of diversity.

- The Bonehunters (Malazan Book of the Fallen)

A few days back, I overheard a conversation between two Software Engineers. Both of them were discussing rape cases and laughingly agreed with each other that 95% of the rape cases are consensual. I am sure that they kept a window of 5% open in case a female member of their own family gets raped. Such females can then be conveniently boxed in the category of 5% women who are tamed and belong to well-to-do families but who are victims of the evil. Mind you, these are extremely well-educated men working in an MNC and earning a handsome salary, who like going to a pub and like getting drunk, who despite being married will stare at a woman’s buttock as she passes by, who snigger at a woman driving a car. This well-educated category of urban Indian male also believe that any woman who does not belong to their family are objects and possible prostitutes and leave no stone unturned in blaming the victim. They forget the fact that a stranger might be having similar thoughts about a female member of their own family.

The bad news is that education has nothing to do with changing mindsets. Education cannot teach the idea of respecting a fellow human. But then what can? Baring a minuscule population of India, a large unbelievable chunk is deeply entrenched in the swamp of patriarchy. The rot is so deep that we will not be able to see a change in our lifetime. Patriarchy glorifies the act of controlling another human’s life. The acts of crime against women that we witness in modern India are illegitimate offspring of patriarchy. Respect has to be treated as gender neutral and so should be freedom to make choices. 

Can we make a beginning somewhere?

It is extremely difficult to change the mindset of an adult. Two adults can react differently to the same situation. For example, consider a man who has seen his father as an authoritative figure all his life. It is possible that such a man carries his father’s legacy and treats his own wife as a subordinate. It might also be possible that he reacts to the suffering of his mother and when the time comes, treats his own wife with all the dignity and equality she deserves. But where does the distinction comes from? What are the factors that decide the path a man would finally take?

In the end it all boils down to how much contradiction can you swallow as a human. How much is the magnitude of your fear for a thought or an act that contradicts your beliefs? Are you willing to let go and ready to open the cage that was meticulously built around you? Ironically, a majority of us do not acknowledge the presence of a cage. It has melted so deeply into our psyche that we fail to feel its presence. It is embedded in us. A monster that lurks silently.

Sometimes I wonder that if gender inequality is such a pressing issue, why can’t our government work towards bringing up a more gender sensitive next generation? Why can’t we set up mandatory sensitization sessions for all the newly wed couples? Why don’t we put a huge fine if the couple fail to attend these sessions? Why can’t we arrange similar sessions for all the parents with children in the age group of 0-10 years? I don’t believe reactive measures are the correct way to approach the issue. What we need are preventive measures in place so that the next generation don’t end up like those two software engineers.

I see that as our only hope. Unless the present lot of parents understand the idea of bringing up their daughters and sons at an equal footing, no amount of punishments or laws are going to work. We have to make sure that our next generation is not as messed up as the present one. Otherwise this is a vicious cycle and there is more never-ending, unimaginable traumas coming our way for years. 

A majority of women in this nation do not know what real freedom is. The irony of mankind is that we have used the very act of creating life to abuse women and then blame them for it. It is similar to cutting a tree that sustains life and then blaming it for being in the middle of the road. 

We have to bend this devious road or there won’t be any trees left.

[This is an entry to Indiblogger's iDiya Contest]

http://www.isb.edu/idiya/

image from here

10 Syndromes to check before you decide to have a baby

We all know that India is going to overtake China in population in roughly the next 35 years. The country is already packed to the rafters and our nation might develop a gigantic crack any day from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and do a Sita on us. I completely acknowledge the commendable job our country is doing in reducing the population which includes hunger, accidents, suicides, murders, foeticides, price rise, riots, Rahul Gandhi and so on and so forth but clearly the measures will never be enough unless we move all the people below poverty line to the moon and cut off the oxygen supply.

But there is another way and hence Mashed Musings have come up with an incredible idea to dissuade couples from having babies and nipping the problem at the root. A lot of couples in our nation are anyways not worthy of becoming parents because they are so incredibly messed up and would have been immediately quarantined in another country. So, here is a list of dangerous syndromes commonly found in couples. Refrain from having a child if you have any of these and help to create a better India by ending your family tree.

The Loud Mouth Syndrome – If the frequency of your voice is very close to that of a bat but still in audible range, if you talk on a mobile as if radio waves are not yet discovered, If people pretend to be a wall-hanging the moment you enter a room, if someone faints in your presence because you have been yakking since the last 5 hours, if empty popcorn boxes fly towards you when you attend a call in a cinema hall, then you should not have a child. The child might end up as loud mouthed as you are or start pretending that he is dumb and deaf from the age of 5, similar to Mamta Banerjee, Rakhi Sawant and Manmohan Singh.

The No Rules Syndrome – Now there are times when you are the king of the roads honking to glory, there are times when you are spitting red liquid like Mount Etna, there are times when you cannot see the harsh red traffic light, there are times when you zigzag your car through traffic like a hungry anaconda. If you are a person who suffers from this syndrome, then you should not have a child because he might end up as irresponsible and worthless as you are.

The Leone Syndrome – If you are addicted to porn, you are making the biggest mistake of your life by making a baby for obvious reasons. Your child will become a liability and you have to discover Sunny Leone on mute.

The Long Nose Control Freak Syndrome – Your life revolves around what other people are doing. You use the gossips to forward your interests or to add some masala to your bland existence. You might go into combative mode just like the Indian Media as soon as the gossip is turned on you. A side effect is that you might have an immensely irritating laughter or a Dracula smile. You should not have a baby because she will shun you violently, commit suicide or end up like you.

The Special Job Syndrome – If you are a painter and usually do not remember when or where was the last time you emptied your bowels or had food, if you like to travel to places like Tanzania to eat a special delicacy of earthworms, if you are a page 3 celebrity who salivates on seeing young models (male/female no bar), if you are a TV actor who works/sleeps/bathe buried under 10 kilo of fake jewellery, if you are a news reporter who specializes in dancing with soldiers in war zones, then try not to have kids. They will anyways never know you.

The Take Care Of My Child Syndrome – You might be dreaming about how other people will take care of your child once you are done with providing the world with your labour of love. If you are about to burden people with your child on weddings, travelling, watching movies, shopping or elections, it will be better not to bring the gift in the world. We know that you derive sadistic pleasure from it but your child might refuse to recognise you as he grows up and might have disorders because of people shunning him all the time. He might end up like Tushar Kapoor.  

The Toy Syndrome – If you are going to handle your future child in any of the following ways, then you should not have the kid – Moving the baby from one room to another by holding him upside down with one leg, throwing the baby 10 feet up to pacify her, slapping/pinching the baby to make him stop crying, putting a strap in his neck and drag him while you shop, forgetting the baby in the car, allowing the dog to lick your baby clean instead of giving her a bath etc.

The My Child is Cool Syndrome – If you might be the kind of parent who thinks that his child will be the most special angel that will grace the Earth and everyone around you have to bow to your and your kid’s flights of inflated egotism, then better not bring the angel in the world. If you think it will be ok for your child to create ruckus by howling at public places, pull hair of aunties in cinema halls, break lines, create special Vadra queues, throw tantrums and your Vijay Mallya money while you wipe a proud tear off your puffed-with-pride face, then try not to grace the world with his existence.

The Bhatt Syndrome – If the habits of farting, belching, peeing in public and scratching your private parts in public is like a gold necklace passed through generations in your family, it will be probably a good idea to deprive yourself of a kid. He will anyways end up an animal just like you or die of poisonous gases and infections.

The Sexist Syndrome – This is the most dangerous syndrome of all. If you are a true blue sexist, then it will be a good idea to use that condom with Fevicol. You MUST NOT have a child. Your daughter will either run away, kill herself, get killed by you or end up as a vegetative cow. Your son might end up a molester, a rapist or a wife abuser. You are a hazardous factory that should be immediately locked.

If all the couples of this country who are suffering from any of these syndromes give up their plans to bring a baby in this world, the day will not be far away when India will have a population less than Lakshadweep.

p.s. We know Mahesh Bhatt does not fart, belch and pee on walls. The syndrome was named after him to honour the self-inflicted (please note) marks on his sexy body.

I can’t *scratch scratch* lift both hands but thanks for *scratch* naming the *scratch* syndrome after me. *scratch damn! scratch*

[images from 1,2,3]

Hashtag and Tantreshwar

For someone who has a name as ubiquitous as a paan stained wall in India, it is impossibly difficult to understand the fact that people do have unique names. I have always hated my name. A.M.I.T. It ends even before it begins, just like premature ejaculation. It’s like a small blip of hope on a heart rate monitor in the otherwise death announcing straight line. It is like our paltry existence in the vast timeline of the universe.

When I was born, Amitabh Bachchan was at his peak taking bullets by a dozen, romancing girls who couldn’t even reach his chest (and marrying someone who barely reached his pelvis), dancing with lights blinking on his costume and dethroning Rajesh Khanna. He was called Amit ji by the planet and that unfortunately turned into a tragedy for me. My star struck parents christened me with the superstar’s name and thus started the painful story of my struggle. My Daak name (nickname) at home was Rishi, named after Rishi Kapoor who had just exploded in Bollywood with Bobby, Amar Akbar Anthony and Sargam, thus completing my choking and heart wrenching association with Bollywood.

If you are born in India with a name like mine, you will be pretty much used to the fact that screaming this name in a public place packed with people (like a bus, train or a cinema hall) will make 90% of the men turn around and stare at you. There were 4 Amits in my class in 12th which was stressful to the limit of insanity. Try searching me on Facebook and you will have to rummage through 38,49,237 humans with the same name. There are so many men with the said name in my office module that it takes a lot of effort to concentrate on your work instead of turning your head every time someone takes your name. The irony is that if you do not turn your head, it was actually you who were being addressed. Not a single day passes when I do not let 6-7 people know on my office communicator that I am not the one they are searching for to discuss the defect status. I have even modified my status on the communicator to ‘Wrong Amit’ but it is not working. There was this girl who pinged me a few days back and giggled (in written) that she saw my ‘wrong Amit’ status but still wanted to confirm. Maybe I should change my status to – I like slurping human intestines.

As I was growing up and struggling with my name, I noticed a change happening in the last two decades. There was a sudden jostle to give unique names to children. I think this was the only sensible decision taken by Indians in the last 20 years. And now that generation has grown up and suddenly the attendance registers in schools do not look like photocopies of each other. Amit, Rahul, Sunil, Raj and Sumit have been replaced by Aatmaj, Samyak, Hridayanshu, Saksham, Shivankur and Mantram. Priya, Ruchi, Pooja, Aarti and Smita have been replaced by Avni, Samvidha, Kaumudi, Matangi, Adveshi and Tarunima.

Having a unique name is not always a harbinger for peaceful existence. In the blind race to showcase their children as exceptional, parents usually forget that their children are global nomads of the future. A lot of them will visit foreign land and thus naming your child Ak-shit or Shit-ij might have disastrous results. When I read in the newspaper that an American mom has named her child Hashtag, I understood how far the unique name virus has spread. Imagine a school going Hashtag being bullied in school and crying in front of her mother.

“You are one of a kind my child! You make topics trend on Twitter. All those mad humans on Twitter cannot survive without you,” Hashtag’s mother will console her.

Poor Tantreshwar (this is a real name of a boy in Geet’s class) will have a hard life too. His parents must brace themselves for a lifetime of verbal abuses which their son will hurl at them for making him a laughing-stock. Also, his parents will have to find some girl named Chandalika to marry him because no normal girl will go beyond what-is-your-name with him before falling off her chair laughing. Looking at the brighter side, Tantreshwar and Chandalika’s wedding card will be a thing for museums.

Parents need to strike a fine balance while naming their children. Giving him a name as bland as Amit is as bad as naming him after a black magician who sacrifices babies and drinks their blood OR naming her after a special character whom boys will trend instead of date. You might say that changing your name will be a step in the right direction in such scenarios. No, it is not. I remember a boy called Pinkle in my school. After going through a lifetime of being a laughing-stock he changed his name to Prateek. He wasn’t as fortunate as Pi Patel. Everyone still called him Pinkle.

Shakespeare once said – What’s in a name? Well, he was mighty lucky that he did not say that in Hashtag’s, Tantreshwar’s or Pinkle’s presence. He would have ended up with a broken, bleeding nose.

My first Guest Post

I know this is a bit late in the day and most of you have already read the post but if you haven’t, then hop on to the blog of The Girl Next Door to read my guest post there. Thank you TGND for giving me this opportunity.

The post is titled – The Singer, the nurse and the brick.

And what better words to describe The girl Next Door than a few words from her own blog? She is a 30-something working wife who lives with her Other Half (OH) in Bangalore. She is creative, loves her family, loves reading and writing and considers cooking therapeutic. Romantic, Optimist and travel enthusiast are the words which define her some more.

This was my first guest post and I was scared. Thankfully it turned out all right (this is what the people who read it told me). So go on, read the post and I hope you like it too.

Tip to control your child in a cinema hall

People who come to watch movies in cinema halls in India can be broadly divided into three categories:

• Those who come with friends and family (adults only)
• Those who come with screaming children
• Those who come with screaming children to watch ‘Adult only’ movies.

No matter how incomprehensible the last category might look, it does exist. So does the fact that P.Chidambaram chided the middle class for eating ice-creams and ignoring wheat. Well, eerie things happen. Anyways, a few days back, as I watched Silk Smitha bite her lips and seduce the hero (es), I was constantly perturbed by children running up and down the aisle and screaming their heads off.  Why an adult would bring a child to watch a movie with him and unleash the toddler on the crowd trying to derive some ounce of pleasure from their miserable lives is a complete mystery to me. It is inhuman and sadistic.

If you are very lucky, there will not be children sitting two rows before and after your row, but for that you need the luck of a Bollywood hero (the one who is filled with bullets like a stuffed turkey but still manages to walk and pull out the intestines of the villain). Mostly, you will not be that lucky and would end up in one of the following situations:

• While watching a very mentally straining and emotionally draining sequence where the heroine has locked herself in the house as the villain lurks outside to rape her, someone screams in your ear from behind, giving you a near perfect heart attack. It’s just a child, opposing his father as he tries to take the mobile back. The father has not bothered to put the mobile in silent mode and you hear 1) Gayatri Mantra 2) screams of the child 3) screams of the heroine as the villain breaks open the door and takes her in his arms 4) A terrible background music, all tossed together as the worse form of torture inflicted on your brain.
• You will have a horrifying sensation of an octopus spreading its tentacles inside your hair which is actually a child standing right behind you and playing with your head as he mistakes you for a teddy bear.
• You might panic as your seat starts vibrating and move back and forth all of a sudden. You are filled with images of the roof of the cinema hall caving in due to an earthquake and suddenly get up to run towards the exit, realizing that its only a child thwacking his butt on the back of your seat.
• You might find water/tomato ketchup/popcorn running down your face while watching a very romantic sequence. Don’t worry. A child just upturned whatever was in his hands on your head as his parents are lost in the movie. Get up and ask for a tissue from the parents. They will say sorry if you are lucky, otherwise they will give you a why-are-you-bathing-in-my-child’s-popcorn look.
• There might be a child constantly crying in the row just behind you as his mother try to pacify him and keep failing resulting him in bawling more loudly. The decibels will be so high that there might be a danger that the screen will tear apart by the spiky sound waves. You turn back and stare at the mother in disgust so that she might leave but she is intently watching the movie. You stuff cotton in your ears and watch the movie as people might have watched Raja Harishchandra in 1913 – silently.
• Now some children ask a lot of questions, so you might be in a situation where someone is constantly asking his parents about when Spider-man will kill the Lizard and all you could hear is a lot of destructive interference. There might be children around you who will keep exclaiming – Spider-man! Mom! Spider-man! Dad! Spider-man! Wow! Wow! Wow! Mom why is lizard not wearing underwear?

A lot of people lose their cool and shout at the parents to control their children. The parents react the way Congress reacts to the plight of the common man – with a blank expression. The child is hushed for a second and then he is back to the acrobatics after a while, just like Suresh Kalmadi and A. Raja.

Now it will be unfair, if I do not give all the parents a few tips to control their children instead of staring at the victims sitting around them as if they are talking in Hispanic. Here is the only tip I could think of:

• It’s your child. You know whether he is capable of sitting quietly for three hours or not. If he can, proclaim him to be the reincarnation of Gautama Buddha and roll in cash for the rest of your life. If he can’t, then DON”T BLOODY BRING HIM TO THE CINEMA HALL!!!!!

In a perfect world

I think that sums it up pretty much. Parents really do not have to watch all the movies in the cinema hall. Bollywood movies hardly run for a week and before you could bat an eyelid they are on television. The quality of pirated DVDs and Camcorder recorded prints is good nowadays. Parents will save a lot of money and they will be doing a great social service by not tormenting the poor souls in the cinema hall who are basically there for the air conditioner because there is no electricity in their house from the last 10 hours.

The vocabulary I thought I would never understand

Children, the ultra energetic innocence on two feet, scare me at times. I do not have a child of my own, not yet, although the clan is raising its voice vociferously from the last few months.

My sister-in-law came from USA for a month to spend some time with voltage fluctuations, power cuts, scorching heat, dust and the family. The trauma is yet to end but I am sure she is looking forward to it. With her came her two sons. Lets call them PR (6 years old) and PA (2 years old).

PR is the sensible one as you can make him sit quietly by switching on the television and hurriedly tuning in to cartoon network. PA is a different story all together. Let me add that PA is the cutest kid I have ever seen and I love to throw him up in the air and catch him, but what really puts a smile on my face is his vocabulary. I have seen parents having serious conversations with two year olds and I used to give them bah-crazy-people looks, but PA somehow changed my perception. I thought of writing this post mainly to remember him as he is now, freezing him in time.

Addressing the Family

Nani, Mamma, Bhaiya, Maasi, Aunty, Didi are the words PA could speak with dexterity. The problem was with Uncle – the word he used to address me. It came out as ‘Ikon’ and somehow I had to stop myself for a few days from turning around on the roads and see if a FORD IKON just passed by when he addressed me. He added another mind twister in his kitty when he started addressing my sister as A.C. Didi. How my sister turned into an air conditioner is still a mystery.

The Double O

A lot of words PA utter end with a OO, examples being – BooBoo (which means that he has hurt himself and he is going to cry very soon), DooDoo (milk, for obvious reasons), TooToo (a broken thing). The other day, PA banged his head on the door and incidentally there was a red pen mark at the exact spot. He spent the rest of the day BooBoo-ing and putting his finger on his head and the red mark convincing us that that was his blood and he was badly hurt.

Car (r rolled), Maar (r rolled), Baar (r rolled) and Pyaar

You buy him a car and the first thing he will do is to take the rubber tyres off. Piss him off and he will make a very dangerous face and raise his left hand to his right side. Just before the punch will land on your face, the word “Maar” would be uttered, giving you a very small window to defend yourself. As far as Pyaar goes, he has a hair (women only) fetish. All of a sudden, while playing, he will take Geet’s or AC Didi’s hair in his hands and smell them. The expression on his face is quite similar to what the girls have in those AXE advertisements. And when he is hell bent to go out of the house, he will keep saying “baar” and bring your clothes and shoes so that you hurry up and do not waste his time.

Play Lea and Tuys

Both PR and PA are crazy for Play Lea (Play Area) and Toys. Go to a mall and leave them in a play area and you can shop all day. PA will go quietly and sit in a toy car for the whole time. He somehow enjoys the madness of a play area by just observing it and tsk-tsk-ing the children jumping needlessly around him.

That is PA, sitting in his car in the play area and trying to understand why everyone around him is jumping.

Taap Taap on Ipone and Pone Neena

I am surprised at times how children are so quick with gadgets. PA just needed one lesson from me on how to unlock the Iphone and play games. He somehow loves Tap Tap revenge (which he calls Taap Taap), Need For Speed (Carr), Tom the Cat (he loves hitting him and then giving him some milk). He would not eat his food till the Ipone is in his hand. And weird as it might sound, but he loves to watch his own videos and chuckle loudly – the activity which is judiciously used by my Sis-in-law to put a large chunk of food in his mouth.

Finally when he has played for a long time, I have to take the phone from him and tell him that now it is the time for the phone to sleep (Neena). I even put a pillow under the phone and a sheet over it to make sure PA gets it. He taps the phone gently till it goes to sleep.

Ellooooo and Powwwerrrr

The moment PA wakes up in the morning, he flashes all his teeth and hug you with a Ellooooo (Hello). He has a habit of saying hello every time he peeks in and enters a room. He has to say hello to whoever is there on the other end of the telephone and then he goes aaii-aaaii-aaii. Powwwerrr (Power) is any superhero. Whether he is wearing a T-Shirt with Batman, Superman or Spiderman on it, they are all Power.

Peepee, Poopee and more Poopee

PA is still a diaper boy. You should see him doing Poopee in his diaper. Anyone who is not used to the strained, red, angry face might think he is trying to move the dining table. And if you try to change the diaper before he thinks you should change it, he makes a duh-I-am-busy-here face and simply says – more poopee.

Sometimes when Pone Neenaa doesn’t work, I have to tell him something like – Pone Poopee. It works at times.

There are so many more words in his vocabulary but this post is getting really long. His innocence tugs at my heart and I will miss him and PR when they go back to Amrika. PR needs an entire separate post because of the number of queries he has asked me about Fantastic Four and the Silver Surfer. I think I have answered each one of them 10 times but he loves to ask questions.

Anyways, what really makes me sad is that the next time I see him, PA might not be this funny kid with this funny vocabulary, but then, sadly, we all grow up. No matter how tired I feel after spending a day with them, I crack up the moment PA enters the room, say Elllloooo, start smelling Geet’s hair, hug her and say – IPone?

Dirty picture is dirty after all

That is all you will get to see after 57 cuts.

The opening scene of The Dirty Picture shows a rustic Silk Smitha moaning in her room trying to distract a couple who is having sex in the next room. As I settled comfortably on my seat in the cinema hall enjoying the moaning overlapping with my wife’s laughter, I heard another voice – a crying child. At first I thought it’s a woman screaming at her husband but then a second later, a pair of toddlers swooshed past me playing on the stairs of the cinema hall. Considering the fact that the movie had an Adult only certificate, there were a lot of children in the theatre. It seems that Indian parents have taken up sex education very seriously and the cinema owners were fully supporting them by royally flaunting the rules.

That is why, when I&B ministry decided to stop the prime time telecast of the movie, it was unscrambling scrambled eggs. If the I&B ministry wanted to save the parents from embarrassment, maybe stopping the news channels from using the word “Porn” while telecasting the sham that happened in the Karnataka assembly would have been the right step.

Another point to moan in the whole episode is that the movie won three National Awards and still was banned to be shown in prime time. It’s like the French draping the statue of Venus with a cloth in the Louvre and justifying it with the following statement – “We know it’s a masterpiece but we can’t show her naked breasts to children.”

How dare you call me a naked woman? I am a masterpiece!

I am not completely blaming I&B ministry for this. The ministry apparently received a lot of calls from concerned parents about the effect the movie will have on their children. Haven’t the parents heard of a remote control? And how much of the objectionable content of the movie will be left after 59 cuts? Did the parents understand the meaning of a UA certificate and the fact that the Censor Board approved the movie after the cuts? Maybe instead of sexually oppressing their children, such parents should talk to them about the topic. They will be surprised to know that their children can teach them a thing or two.

I grew up watching Baywatch and Santa Barbara with my grandparents and came out all right.  I do not eve tease; I am not a rapist and have a comfortable job. Although my parents did not want me to see Pamela running on the beach wobbling her assets and reprimanded my grandparents for making me sexually active well before my age (which is not true I think), all they could elicit was an amusing tsk-tsk from my grandma. She found my parents very old fashioned. It’s just a bloody kissing scene, she would say at times.

Sometimes I wonder if there is an entire spectrum of parents in India. The liberal who take their children to watch Delhi Belly, The Dirty Picture and Vicky Donor and the conservatives who have loads of time on their hand to file a PIL against Dirty Picture being shown on prime time after 59 cuts. I am sure the latter group would turn a beetroot red every time they view an advert for sanitary napkins and condoms in front of their children.

The point being that the more a child is hushed into not watching something, the more curious he gets. If you do not give him any answers, he will find them from somewhere else, sometimes contorted ones. I am not asking the parents to send their children to strip clubs but running towards your child with a blanket to cover him up every time you see Imran Hashmi on screen will not help either. You will end up with a lot of holes in your blanket.

And please do not talk about culture and values. I am sure parents will instill more values in their children if they do not spit on roads, do not litter and do not jump signals in front of their children. Installing values is making the children aware of the various evil practices rampant in our great nation. And culture is nothing but a controlling stick. The brittle it gets, the better.

And, yes, The Dirty Picture is available for 20 Rs in a lot of markets in India. I am quite sure most of the children can afford it.

[images from 1,2,3]

Coal and Chilies

Religion comes naturally to my parents. For me it’s like an invisible sibling with whom I have a love-hate relationship. It’s amazing how the rituals and processes to appease Gods which you were very sure your parents were never aware of suddenly resurface during ceremonies. And then there is our family astrologer. I was so amused by his predictions that I sometimes prodded mom to take his advice just to see what he would come up with. He had surprised me time and again and mom had deep faith in him. There are two incidences which instantly surface in my mind. Till date I am not sure whether it was plain luck or the astrologer actually waved his magic wand.

Offering coal to rivers and feeling foolish

I had finished my Masters and had dropped for a year to study for IIT’s GATE exam. I failed that exam and was in a completely suicidal mode. There was darkness all around and no candle of hope was visible. My career was finished.

(Exaggeration alert)

It was then when my mom went to the astrologer with tears in her eyes, banging his door and asking for help.

He patiently saw my birth chart and did some quick calculations and conveniently conveyed to my mother that I was going through a very rough seven and a half years phase of my life called “Sade Sati”. My mom gasped, sucking in two tears by mistake which were racing down her cheeks.

“Don’t worry sister. The good news is that the seven and a half years are almost done. Only a few months left. But yes, there are ways to negate the remaining effects quickly,” the astrologer said.

Mom’s eyes sparkled with hope, her heart racing towards her mouth.

“Please! Please tell me how oh! great astrologer!” she said.

“Ask your son to go to a river for three Tuesdays and offer coal to the flowing water. Take around a kilo of coal every time. This bad phase will pass quickly.”

(de-exaggerating)

I laughed loudly when I heard of this. Mom threw ice spikes from her eyes which effectively closed my mouth. I could have said no and that would have been the end but then I wanted to do this mostly because it sounded fun. I didn’t really think of the implications.

So, there I was, standing at the banks of Hindon River dropping coal in it and feeling utterly foolish. It was bearable the first time. By the time I reached the count of three, I wanted to kill the astrologer.

I forgot about it as soon as it was done and went back to my life which was basically twirling my fingers everyday. Surprisingly, things started to iron out soon. I cleared my NET exam, cleared JNU Ph.D. written exam and interview (only ten students were selected from all over India) and was accepted for M.Tech in Kurukshetra University. Suddenly from nothing-to-look-forward-to, I had too much to handle.

Mom thought it was all due to the blessings of the astrologer. I had my doubts. Maybe things were meant to happen this way but how did that bloody astrologer used it to his advantage?

(6 years later)

Respect me!

Honoring Sun god with water mixed with chili seeds and feeling foolish again

I was in Chennai working for an IT firm. I was there from the last 2.5 years and desperately wanted to come back home to Delhi. My manager wanted me to go to USA for a project from Chennai. No matter how lucrative the offer looked, I was not very keen on it as it meant working in Chennai after I would have come back and I was longing to go back home (at least for a few months). I talked to mom and she had a brilliant idea.

(Exaggeration alert)

Mom was again back to the astrologer. She wanted her son back. She had determination in her eyes. She would find a way no matter what. Her will was steel.

“Sister, don’t worry! I have a very effective solution. Your son will be able to bend the will of Gods,” the astrologer chirruped.

“Is it true? Oh! Please do tell me greatest astrologer of all times!!”

(de-exaggerating)

“Ask him to buy a copper mug. Fill it with water and a few red chili seeds. Ask him to go to the balcony of his house for three days in the morning and raise the mug towards the sun with both hands and drop the water slowly on the ground. Ask him to ask the Sun god whatever he wishes to come true.”

The sheer amount of time I wasted to find a copper mug can fill an encyclopedia but I finally did the whole process out of curiosity. In my heart I wanted to prove him wrong but wanted my wishes to be granted as well. And so I made the following wish – “Dear Sun God! I don’t know why I am doing this but if you are listening, please send me home first and then onsite. I do not want it the other way round.”

Mysteriously, due to some reasons, my USA Visa developed a snag and I got a call from a project in Delhi. I got transferred here and eight months later I was off to Manchester.

Now whatever you may call it but the lucky bastard got lucky a second time. I still could not nail him. My mom’s faith trebled.

Looking back, everything I did was crazy but somehow it made mom happy and somehow it worked. I have realized that sometimes desperation makes you do funny stuff. Also, incidences like these spice up your past. You can look back and laugh, regale yourself, smile and scratch your head and be happy that thankfully your family is what it is – Weird.

p.s. And if you are wondering where my mom got the coal from, she asked the local Ironman (no, not from Avengers!! The one who uses a very very heavy iron filled with coal to press the clothes) to get it for her.

[images from 1,2,3]

This entry is a part of the contest at BlogAdda.com in association with imlee.com

With due respect Parenting ≠ Martyrdom

Parents are a very complicated species. Their children sometimes end up decoding them throughout their life, even after they turn into their carbon copies, even after the parents are long dead. So, what is so mind-boggling intricate about parenting? Does fear of losing control comes automatically with the warmth of love? Or is it molding forcefully your child into someone you always wanted to be? Or is it flexing the ego once your child deviates from your pre-defined path?

Parenting ≠ Martyrdom

The first sentence your mother might fling at you if you go against her wishes is – “We gave so many sacrifices to bring you up! And for what? For this day?”

Holy Mother! Sacrifices? Firstly, weren’t the parents having fun when the child was conceived? Keeping a child in one’s womb and popping it out is no sacrifice either. It’s not as if an easier alternative is available where a bird drops him in your lap. It’s a natural process and the parents are very much aware of what they are getting into. Secondly, after the child is brought in the world, is it not the moral responsibility of the parents to provide for him? There is no martyrdom in it.

So, dear parents, stop projecting yourself as sacrificial lambs because by doing so, all you are doing is turning your child into one.

Your child has a brain, especially after he is 18 and mostly even before that

Treating your child like a two-year old even after he gets the right to choose the Prime Minister is a bit retarded if you ask me. Looking at all his decision with skepticism will only make him lose confidence in himself and hurl abuses at you after he turns into a loser. Besides, you learn the factual value of wrong decisions in your life by only one way – by committing them . So, let your child make a few decisions and let him grapple with the consequences instead of gagging him with a silver spoon.

Give him some space.

Hovering over your child like a UFO is not going to go down very well with him after a point. He might start treating you as one of the inhabitants of that UFO – an Alien. Some parents have this habit of thrusting their face in front of their child all the time. Give him some personal time of his own. See that he indulges in some creative activities. Try to nudge him towards sports, painting, dancing, reading, writing etc. See if he has a flair for one of them and encourage him to pursue it. Just don’t keep on hurling school books at him.

 Advice, not choke.

Your child’s career is a very daunting decision. Instead of choking him with your dreams and aspirations, talk to him about where he see himself ten years from now. It’s not fair to ask a child to make such a major decision of his life at such young age. Don’t make it more unfair. Everyone is not cut out to be an engineer or doctor. And, yes, what your neighbor’s son is doing should not be used as a yardstick to determine your child’s future. That is again, a bit retarded. Stop imagining your child as a horse and yourself as a jockey.

Marry, not sell

A lot of parents can’t distinguish their children from goats or pigs. They bid for them and stuff them with marriageable capabilities. Boys are stuffed with degrees and money-making potential. Girls are stuffed with money, gold and cultural competence. Some parents are desperately entwined to status. They are like Congress. They can’t see beyond money.

Your house is not a chess board

When the children get married, parents go crazy for maintaining control over their life. It is ironic because the parents had resisted the very thing when they were married. Chess games turn ugly, sometimes into full-blown nuclear wars. Your house is not a fort which you have to guard. Parents should know when to let go. Adults’ respecting adults is the only way this could work out. When your children leave the house after being royally pissed off, you are the only piece left standing on the chess board. Now that is not a very bright prospect, is it? This is not something you want in return for all your sacrifices!

A lot of parents all over the world turn insufferable at one point of time or another. Indian parents, of course, take the cake because they come with a baggage of so many social factors. They have to live up to so many expectations of the society. They are basically running a race for almost their entire life till their own exasperated children make them trip and fall because there is no other way to impede them.

Sometimes it’s frustrating to see so many people around you living with such mutilated notions. A friend of mine once told me that his parents went through a lot to bring him up and he should be a dutiful son and go by their wishes. It’s good to love your parents but there a line which you have to draw yourself somewhere instead of being manipulated for the rest of your life. Sometimes parents don’t even realize the darkness in their desperation, in their inability to let go. Sadly, it’s a legacy which we pass from generation to generation. No matter how cockeyed, a sacrifice is a sacrifice only until someone asks for a repayment. Then it’s a transaction.

[Images from 1,2,3,4, 5]