Mechanophobia minus Matrix

image from here

No, I am not going to rant about the impending doom of humanity because Terminators are here. Neither am I going to convince you that we live in the Matrix. And no, my laptop did not transform into a Transformer and attack me.

What I am going to tell you is that I am suffering from mechanophobia. I fear machines. Not the imaginary machines whose fear Hollywood have instilled in millions of us over the years, but the real machines that surround us all day. It is strange how that fear is instilled by small minor incidents that stay with us and grow their inky black tentacles in our brain as we grow up.

Take for example, the ceiling fan. A very harmless machine, you might say. Not for me. I remember my grandfather telling me years ago how a man was decapitated by a ceiling fan that suddenly decided to part from the ceiling. I was a kid and the story stayed with me and every time someone would switch on the fan, I would look at it with fear as if this was going to be the last swirl of air to hit my face. Till date, winters is my favorite time of the year. A few days after my grandfather told me this story, a ceiling fan fell over my uncle’s massive and turbulent tummy as he was sleeping. It is another story that the fan just bounced off him because of the fats he had accumulated over the years. He lived to tell the tale.

A few days back, a guy died in our locality because he had left his laptop switched on to download movies in the night as he went to sleep. The battery developed some problem and emitted some sort of a poisonous gas. The poor guy did not even knew what hit him. Now, I have this habit too and ever since I have heard this story, I have developed a fear of leaving my laptop switched on at nights. I do not want to wake up in heaven without even knowing what happened. I have started sniffing my laptop and I look very suspiciously at it.

Whenever I am using the grinder in the kitchen to chop onions or garlic, I have this fear that while I am putting them in the grinder, it might get accidentally switched on and I will lose half of my finger. Every time I operate this machine, I imagine half of my finger finely chopped with the chopped onions while the other half squirting blood like a fountain. I just can’t shake off the image.

The machines that carry us places terrify me even more. Whenever I sit in cars or buses, I keep wondering if this is my last day on Mother Earth. What if the car explodes in flames or one of the tyres of the bus burst while the driver is over-speeding? What happens if the Metro fall off one of its pillars? What if the train I am travelling in collides with another one and I am stuck with entangled metal and dead bodies with an iron rod jutting out of my shoulder? I can’t sleep at nights in a train. I keep imagining that all of us are going to DIE! Whoever came up with the bloody idea of running this crazily heavy machine on two thin metal tracks was a fool.

And ever since that Malaysian flight has vanished, my fear of flying has multiplied. Think about it. There is this huge machine made up of a million part flying thousands of feet above the ground and you are encased inside it. Thousands of things can go wrong. One small part stops working and that it it. You will end up screaming to glory, falling to Earth in a huge ball of fire. Or worse, end up as shark food.

And don’t get me started on lifts. Every time I hear that slight creaking of the lift as it fills, I keep imagining that the metal wires that keep it dangling are going to snap and we will all experience zero gravity before splattering to our death. I hate confined spaces that does not give you any chance to save yourself.

I fear the drilling machine too. Every time dad brings it out to drill a hole in the wall, I get all panicky when he switches it on. I keep imagining that the drill bit will fly out of the machine any time and head straight for my head. You can’t imagine how many deaths I die before that machine goes back in its box. I keep imagining the drill bit embedded halfway in my forehead.

And I can go on and on. What if my mobile phone explodes? What if the room heater catches fire while I am sleeping? What if the CFL falls on my head (It fell off once in my room and shattered to pieces. Thankfully, no one was standing beneath it)? Sometimes I feel like a walking Final Destination. All Parts.

Of course, I do not let anyone around me know of my fears. I behave as if I don’t care and am perfectly normal like every one else. They have no idea about the storm raging inside me. But then what do I know about the kind of fears other people are living with? On a basic level all of us are the same. Phobia is a part of our psyche. There was a time when I thought that I was going mad, fearing things that are a part of our every day life. I thought I needed some help. I realized it is not the fear of machines per se. All the phobias stem from our fear of death, of losing something. If you ask someone what they fear, you will always get a couple of things – Dads, Bats, Lizards, Darkness, Men, Women, Loneliness, Sea, Company, Self etc etc. So, I think I am all right. I am not falling to pieces. Not yet.

Now if you would excuse me, I need to go and kill a cockroach. I am the only one in the house who is not scared of them.

Money in the blouse and other stories

images from here

The Toofani Couple

A few days back I had an early morning live implementation. As my cab driver played Need for Speed on the roads of Delhi at 5.30 in the morning, I kept an eye on his nitro consumption which basically means that I was wide awake ensuring that he does not squash me in the rear of a truck. Suddenly, a car overtook us near Hyatt. I noticed that it had two toofani couples in it. Now the couple at the rear seat opened their respective windows, pushed their sorry head and torso outside and planted their butts on the windows. They then went ahead and smoked the same cigarette, passing it to each other from the top of the car.  The eyes of my cab driver went wide while I studied them with mild amusement. I was more worried about my cab ramming into their car and the driver flying out to join them. They smoked the whole cigarette and went inside like the neck of a scared turtle. I narrated the whole incident to my team at office and one of them remarked – What’s so toofani in that? It would have been toofani if they would have exchanged the cigarette from the bottom of the car.

I guess I am getting old.

Another not so lucky Toofani couple

The same week, while returning home enduring my rickety office bus, I saw an accident on the highway. A motorbike was racing in the wrong direction (Yes! On the highway!) and rammed into an Audi. People actually stopped their cars and came out to help (Surprise!). The woman and the bike ended up between the front and rear wheels while the man was dragged to safety. Now they were not able to pull out the women because the Audi went over her. So they tried to get the Audi off the woman by picking it up. I hope she survived but the chances are slim. This happened a day before Diwali.

I wondered if I could show this whole sequence to the Toofani couple in the earlier story, would they still think what they did was cool? Would they care more for their life?

Money in the blouse

Why on earth do people keep their money in their undergarments? The other day, I squeezed myself in a shared auto, which is basically a metal entity used to carry 10-15 people crammed in a space for 6. Sitting in a shared auto will be the closest you would come to understand the feelings of Jews jostling for space in a gas chamber. So, while I shrunk my butt to adjust in the pitiable space provided to me, I saw an elderly aunty ji sitting opposite me, staring in infinity. As the auto traversed the potholed roads, the aunty ji suddenly realised that her stop was near and thrust her hand inside her blouse. After my initial shock subsided, I realized that she was not trying to seduce me but frantically searching for her purse. She fumbled her right breast first but could not place the purse. Then she took out her left  hand and in went the right one to disturb her left asset. While all this was happening, I was obviously not looking at her but I could comprehend what was happening from the corner of my eye. Finally, she was able to find her purse that was hidden in some remote corner and the trauma ended.

I have also seen men putting hands in their underwear to take out money. Please someone tell me what is so irresistible about rubbing cash on your private parts?

Exercise in Patience

I have realized that writing a book is an exercise in patience. When you are doing research, you are impatient to start writing. When you are writing, you are impatiently waiting for the day when it will finish. When you finish, you are impatiently sending it to publishers. Then you wait very very impatiently for the publishers to respond. After a positive response, you patiently twiddle your fingers and wait for the book to hit the market. So, it you are a very impatient person, try not to write a book unless you have some sort of a mental asylum fetish.

By the way, I have started writing my second book. But now there is a kid in the equation, so it will be a while before I finish it. Deep breaths. Patience.

Mars and Traffic signals

There is a very busy traffic intersection on the highway near my home. Since the last two years for which I have been here, I have hardly seen the signal working on this intersection. Although people living in the country of Uttar Pradesh don’t believe in traffic signals and treat them the same way we treat a stray cow and beggars, I still believe that some day we will find people capable enough to mend the said signal. I know that there is some extremely complicated machinery inside it but I am sure that since we have sent a rocket to Mars now, we will be able to find people suitable to handle the neglected signal. Maybe we can consult a few top scientists at ISRO?

I usually do not write random posts but I had to share the ‘money in the blouse’ story and since I do not want to come across as a pervert, I added four intellectual stories to the post.

Four legs good

I like pigs. I really do. The place where I lived earlier used to be lush and green with wide spaces some twenty five years back. Then because of our brilliant government policies, more and more people from small cities and villages started pouring in Delhi and some very interesting unregulated and illegal colonies sprouted like wild mushrooms all around my home. It did not take long for the place to turn into a ghetto where you could not drive without your car bumping into a buffalo. And then there were the pigs. Their sudden appearance gave a new dimension to the colony in addition to naked children rolling on the roads and men bathing in full public view. Monsoons made the pigs delirious with joy and they sang duets with frogs. What a joy it was to hear the two species go oink-oink and trrrr-trrrr in quick succession while one swathed in rain water (Thanks to the eternally clogged drainage system in Delhi) and the other jumped over them. I felt close to nature.

And did I mention how much I like cows and buffaloes? I find them very well behaved in Delhi. They NEVER sit in the middle of the roads and promptly move away from your car the moment you honk. The cows in Chennai or for that matter in Haryana are a bit rustic and very fearless. They sit right in the middle of the roads even if there are huge trucks rumbling towards them. Also, the city cows make me feel proud of our nation. I have seen foreigners going ooooh and aaaah the moment they spot a cow and then frantically fumble their bags for the camera. I once saw a caucasian woman set up her tripod stand on one side of a busy road to take pictures of two cows lolling while they chew their personal cuds. My chest swells with pride every time I think about the incident. And did I tell you about a foolish, old man whose corpse was taken off a cow’s horn in my locality? I am sure he must have been harassing her for free milk.

Then there are the dogs. Not the pet ones, but the ones who play with kids on the street and bite anyone they fancy. I like them too. Every day before going to office, I religiously put chapattis dabbed in milk at the foot of a lamp-post near my house for the dogs of my street. I like the way my wife jumps and runs when 7-8 dogs try to appreciate her new saree by circling her as she catwalks. I cannot imagine my life without stray dogs. They are such an integral part of every Indian city.

Monkeys hanging from trees around my house always turn me philosophical and make me wonder why nature mutated us from them. Was it a joke? There is a society near my house that has humans and monkeys living in harmony. If you visit that society, you will find one monkey sitting on each car. The people living there have finally bought a few langurs to keep the monkeys at bay. Can you imagine how fortunate the children living in that society are to live in such proximity to their ancestors?

And what should I say about the horses, camels and elephants? I still remember (very fondly) an incident which happened while travelling in my office bus. I was deeply immersed in a novel when I suddenly sensed a giant eye peering through the window to see what I was reading. It was an elephant who was standing next to the bus, waiting patiently for the traffic signal to turn green. That day I almost tasted my heart. Sitting on a camel for a ride and straining my spinal cord always remind me how fragile my life is. And I like their extra long eyelashes and the way their jaw moves when they chew. They remind me of Tinu Anand.

Pigeons are another set of fascinating creatures found in abundance in Delhi. Whenever I go to my mum-in-law’s house, I am greeted by mounds of pigeon shit in her balcony. Her AC cannot be operated because it is filled with straws as numerous pigeons have tried to make their nest on top of it. If you leave any of the doors open by mistake, don’t be surprised by the flapping of wings in your bedroom. And the moaning sounds they make in the morning never fails to turn me on. It is the sexiest alarm anyone can dream of.

Living amongst all these amazing species is an experience which you can only enjoy in India. They are mostly harmless if you enjoy them from a distance. But there is another specie that is deadly and extremely dangerous to live with. Humans. In a dark street, you might have more faith in a gang of five dogs but not in a gang of five men. You might allow your child to feed the pigeons but cannot leave him with a portly, old uncle in the park. You might allow your child to take an elephant ride but can you be sure about the driver who takes the child to school?

Yes, I like pigs. Even if they swathe in mud, are dirty, carry germs and litter the road, I know that they are just animals. Trustworthy. Innocent. Living their life without poking their nose in anyone’s business. No ego hassles. They do not know how to use guns or how to throw acid. They do not understand the meaning of countries, terrorists and caste.

Funny how not being intelligent can be such a boon. I wish we were still animals. Life would have been so much simpler.

p.s. I haven’t mentioned cats, squirrels, cockroaches, lizards, sparrows, crows, donkeys, goats, politicians and so many other animals because this post was getting extra long.

[images from 1,2,3,4]

My USA is here

We all know of the utter disdain with which the oldies refer to the new generation as – oh! Those aping west types. They cleverly forget those decades of their own affinity towards the bell bottoms, Elvis hairstyles and humongous shirt collars that resembled this fish –

Yes, we do try to be the west (which basically means USA to us) by talking in that funny fake accent and looking at them for approvals for everything from Modi to Oscars, but we do not believe that you have to ‘ape’ them to turn this country into USA. Now as our government officials prefer changing names of cities to swatting flies, consider a hypothetical situation where the name of our beloved motherland is changed to USA. Now the ‘A’ in this new USA can stand for a lot many things.

For example –

We can be the United States of Amoeba. Look at the rapid rate at which the states are multiplying. From 26 in my school days, we are now at 29. Or is it 30? And then in a very Draupadi-ish style, we share the capitals too. Chandigarh is being bedded by Haryana and Punjab since ages and now Hyderabad has joined the ranks. We have divided this whole whale of a state in two and it is impossible to find a city to create a new capital? The A for Amoeba can also symbolize the way humans divide in this country although the mode is far from asexual. Coming to think of it, we would have preferred it to be asexual. Then the girls and boys would have held hands and played ring-a-ring-a-roses without their parents fretting about the slaughter of cultural values.

We can also be the United States of Aunties. It may represent the nosy aunty brained politicians who recently arm-twisted the RTI act to save their asses. It can also represent those aunties who bully the vegetable vendor into reducing the prices by 36 paise, threaten him with dire consequences if he does not add free extra chilies to her bag and feel proud of their achievement for the rest of the day.

While we are at aunties, allow me to vent a bit gracious reader.

There is this old hag with whom we share our builder floor house. She lives in the ground floor with her husband (who has this permanent expression of shock on his face as if there is a cactus shoved up his ass), her elder son and his wife (the couple fights with the capacity of two Godzillas. The son is completely incoherent and blabbers in an alien language when he is fighting with his wife. Yes, we can hear everything) and her younger son and his wife (recently married, the couple was in a hurry to reproduce. It has just been a year and the couple already has a baby). So, this insufferable woman has a habit of coming up with brilliant ideas to piss everyone off. A few days back, she invited a few homeless local workers to create huts in an empty plot next to ours (a common sight in NCR). The plot is not hers. Her reason? She needs a new maid and she can pick one from the hut. We politely asked her to fu*k off because this is how illegal colonies flourish.

This pathetic excuse of a human being and her gang of similar creatures are also famous for poking their nose in everyone’s affairs. One night, I will don my Batman suite and hang this whole gang upside down from a high-rise.

Feeling unburdened now, we come back to the topic.

We can be the United States of Apathy, because this is what we teach our children. Nothing is more important than you, your family, your dog, your underwear and your money. Not even another human’s life. We are masters in the art. In fact the leftover compassionate people who have not yet converted should be caught and dragged into gas chambers and vaporized, just like those unnecessary Jews who lived a few decades back.

We can be the United States of Applesauce. Appreciating nonsense is one of our greatest achievements. Look at our daily sitcoms, our news channels, our politicians, our reality shows, our movies and our advertisements – everything is loaded with a slapstick sauce, laden with toppings of buffoonery, laced with layers of stereotypes and mixed with a sense of senselessness. Anything ‘normal’ is called ‘art’. We believe that fairness of the skin brings success. And we love it when SRK plays a Madrasi and licks dal off his arm.

We can be the United States of Arnab. Look at the way our own Superman Arnab singlehandedly bring the culprits to justice by his uncontrollable squeaks. Look at the way he ‘demands’ answers that make the most seasoned politicians cringe in their chairs, sweat instantly and beg for forgiveness. We can all roll at his feet and ask him to give his name to the country.

So you see, we really do not have to ape the west to be USA. We have all the right ingredients present right under our nose. All we have to do is to follow our heart, open our eyes and the path will unwrap in front of us. We are already living in USA. All we have to do is choose the right ‘A’.

Do you have any other ideas for what ‘A’ can stand for, O! Reader? I am contemplating starting a petition on change.org to amend the name of our country. Looking forward to your support.

[image from here and here]

Slaughterhouse Country

image from here

I remember a tragic incident from the time when I was in school. There was a narrow two lane bridge on Yamuna close to my house. One fine day, a school bus plunged into the river from that bridge. Reason? The driver lost control because of his rash driving. The children could have been saved if the bridge had a strong concrete railing instead of a feeble iron one, similar to the one used in the balcony of houses. I still remember the face of a mother whose son was never found. The water was too muddy – the divers said. They searched for five days.

Do you know how many children were there in the bus? 120.

One of my British colleagues once made a very interesting observation. He said that we do not treasure life because we believe it is cyclical. We believe that anyone who dies will be reborn and thus don’t care about anyone dying.

Laughable?

But look around you. 4,97,686 road accidents were reported in 2011. 1,42,484 people died in road accidents in 2011 [link]. The statistics are easily available. A lot of us know about them. Still we see people incessantly breaking traffic rules. I have seen school buses jump traffic lights and ply in the wrong direction.

I remember a particular flyover that was constructed in Delhi. It was faulty with a very dangerous curve. It took the sacrifice of 8 human lives on that stretch before the administration woke up. Yes, DDA waited for 8 people to die before they installed safety measures.

How many pilots have died in the faulty MIG airplane crashes? Of the 872 MiG series fighter aircraft purchased by the government till 1980, a total of 482 planes have crashed till now, killing 171 pilots and 39 civilians [link]. Well, we have 390 more airplanes to go.

What happened in Uttarakhand was a mass murder of the first degree. More than 10000 people massacred in cold blood. Warnings were ignored and there was no disaster management plan in place, hotels made on soft riverbed crashed into the river, food didn’t reach the needy on time even though the whole country chipped in to provide supplies.

There are so many buildings that are deemed unfit in case of an earthquake but people still live in them, work in them.

There are buses and trains that run over capacity as people hang dangerously from the doors. They don’t have an option. They have to go to work, put food on the table. I knew a boy who fell off a train, went into coma and died after 10 days. He was in college.

We leave rape victims to die helplessly on the roads. It has taken the sacrifice of thousands of acid attack victims for the rulers to wake up and do something about it. [link][link2]

In 2010, 8391 dowry death cases were reported across India. It means that a bride was burned every 90 minutes [link]

It is estimated that more than 10 million female foetuses have been illegally aborted in India. That is 6 million less than the number of people who died in World War I. In 2011, 15,000 Indian women were bought and sold as brides in areas where foeticide has led to a lack of women. [link]

India contributes 25 percent of the world’s child deaths [link].

Grains rot and never reach the needy. 21 million tonnes of wheat is wasted every year. [link] That is equivalent to the wheat production of whole of Australia.

2,56,913 farmers have committed suicide since 1995. Maharashtra posts a dismal picture with over 50,000 farmers killing themselves. [link]

Don’t even try to count the number of riot victims. [link] Religion in this country is like a woman who was tied-up and hidden in a cowshed and was raped by a different man every night.

What is it if not an utter disregard of human life? What is it if not a country that has turned into a slaughterhouse?

No, I do not find the cyclical life argument laughable anymore. What makes us think that even a single life lost is Ok? It is not just a number. It is a dead human being. Who could have been saved.

And then I wonder if it has something to do with abundance of life? We deem life worthless because it is available in excess in our country? What is another man dead when we have crores of them?

Or is it the fact that we are never taught compassion. An outsider is not the same as your family. We have a shield firmly placed in front of our feelings when it comes to anyone who is not of our own blood. And I have seen this feeling grow over the last decade. We are more self-centered, more suspicious, more inhuman.

And of course, there is money to be made. We believe in compensations after tragedies. We believe in forming committees to probe deaths when we could have averted them in the first place. Committees about which the dead don’t care and neither the living after a while.

Some of us believe in repenting. Yes, we tend to do that after an accident. An accident that could have never happened.

Sometimes I wonder if we deserve each other. The politicians and citizens. Many of us have blood on our hands. We have wrapped our dead unborn daughters in newspaper and thrown them in dustbins, haven’t we? We have allowed our children to sit in a bus filled with 120 souls instead of objecting.

Yes, this slaughterhouse is a joint venture and a successful one. It is said that when the battle of Mahabharat ended, the soil in Kurukshetra was thick with blood. It is still red if you dig it a bit. But we don’t have to do it anymore. Just look at your hands. It will be invisible at first but you will see the red stains if you concentrate.

A handful of us who can still maintain our sanity have to believe that there is always hope. What else can be there after so much bloodshed?

Daddy Diaries : Timings, Fire and Nosy Aunties

Dear Diary,

Anika turns two months old tomorrow. She is taller by a few centimeters and weighs almost double of what she weighed at the time of her birth. She now has layers and layers of baby fat on her arms and legs and has a double chin that can shame Adnan Sami (older one). She also has started smiling although she does that more while staring at the walls than the family which scares the shit out of us. We believe that there is a ghost in the house.

Sharma Clan is famous for its sense of timing. We have a 100% track record of understanding the importance of a perfect sense of disruption and I am proud to announce that Anika has picked the trait in just two months of her existence. So, the moment I put her to sleep and tiptoe towards my laptop, she suddenly opens her eyes and start wailing. The feat is repeated when we are eating food or trying to take a nap or basically doing anything that does not involve her. She pretends to be asleep and the moment you happily turn your face emancipating a sigh of relief, she opens her eyes and give an evil grin.

I am so proud of her.

Dear Diary,

We had Anika’s naming ceremony a few days back. It was just a formality as she already has a birth certificate with her name on it. She slept throughout the ceremony, flailing her arms in alarm as if the world was about to end when the priest dropped a utensil on the floor. When the fires were lit in the hawan kund, we deported her inside. The priest had too much time on his hands as he had no other appointments and he took his own sweet time to finish off the ceremony.

Now I really like the fire part of such rituals. I was adding ghee to the fires, just like those vamps in our daily soaps. It is an art. You have to drop the ghee at precise locations so that the wood catches fire properly and you don’t end up suffocating to death. It’s basic survival skills. So the whole Sharma clan was more interested in strategically burning the wood rather than what the priest had to say. He was anyways into too much of Sanskrit. In the end, I had to lower a mini coconut in the fire and I loved to see it burn with the rest of the wood that the family had successfully reduced to ashes.

Then the eunuchs arrived. Their leader was a towering personality (imagine The Great Khali in a saree) who made us shudder by her dance. We had to part with 7500 Rs because the gang repeatedly threatened us that they will be taking off their clothes in front of us. I was amused and actually wanted to see if they are capable of doing that but I got glares from my family and we finally gave in to the blackmail.

I can’t describe how much I abhor all those nosy ladies from Mom’s kitty who came for the ceremony. One of them has a granddaughter of her own who is a month younger to Anika. There is some problem with her eyes as they water very frequently. The doctors say that they might have to do a minor surgery. Now this lady finds solace in scrutinizing all the babies in the colony to find watery or uneven eyes. The first comment that fell off her mouth after seeing Anika was – Don’t you think one of her eyes is smaller than the other?

“Really? Just like your boobs?” I wanted to ask. Of course I held my tongue back. Then she did what we were avoiding to do throughout the ceremony. She smeared Anika’s forehead with the red tilak and then plonked a few rice grains on top of it as if she was a ceremonial goat tied in a temple.

Another lady had a huge issue with what Anika was wearing. She behaved as if we have draped the baby in woolens in peak summers. Then she had a problem with her name too.

“Why Anika? It is a very old fashioned name,” she remarked.

Another one had a problem with Anika’s upper lip. Sigh! Dear Diary, I must tell you that my middle finger was twitching to be raised throughout their stay in my house. I am contemplating putting a sign board outside the house specifying that dogs and nosy aunties are not allowed inside.

Dear Diary,

Anika got two injections in her thigh as well. The moment the needle went in, there was an expression of utter shock on her face and then the scream came 5 seconds later shattering all the glass windows of the hospital. I think she was quite brave, given the fact that her mother still holds my hand while facing an injection and makes a face as if she has swallowed a frog.

Time is flying by. I can feel it. A few days back Geet and I were discussing about how Anika will grow up and leave us one day to find her world. Silly, I know. It all started when I took a policy in Anika’s name that will mature in 21 years. Now I have two policies to take care of in addition to a home loan. The dent in my pocket is so enormous that I can fall through it and out of my pants.

Anyways,

I need to stop. She is awake and quivering her lips like Sharmila Tagore.

So long.

[images from 1,2]

Do as the Romans do

Going abroad is not a distant dream anymore. In fact, come summers and the Indian streets seem deserted (if you do not consider dogs and beggars) as most of us are ‘holidaying’ abroad. Europe, South East Asia, Amrika – you name the place and you will find Indians sitting in Indian restaurants, sucking a chicken leg with a noise loud enough to shatter the lens of the Hubble.

Indians going abroad is a welcome change when the roads back home seem a bit cleaner in their absence which in turn give some relief to the sweepers. It also gives me some sort of sadistic pleasure. The tourist destinations that boast of their superior infrastructure are tested to their limits. For how long can we curb the urge to throw that stained tissue on the road? For how long can we restrain ourselves from leaving a mark on the country in the form on a single straight stain on a wall that runs down to form a puddle? There are times when we would like to spit on the spotless roads, when we would like to honk the hired convertible to glory. No wonder Indians breathe a spit of relief the moment they land in their beloved motherland and throw the slurped paper plate of Dahi Bhalle on the road with tears in their eyes. They are doing a national service, they are helping the sweepers to retain their jobs and put food into the mouth of their army of kids.

What I find a bit disturbing is the way nationals of other countries behave in the presence of an Indian dipped in his culture.  Taking an example – We love to put Champakali, Chameli and Coconut oil in our hair. It is a recipe for our lush hair that has been passed through generations. Then why do we see people wrinkle their nose all around us when we go abroad? Don’t they get the exotic aroma rising from our head? Now we already smell of spices because of the kind of heaped-in-spices and swathed-in-oils food we eat since childhood. Add to that a dash of Champakali on our head and we turn into walking aphrodisiacs. Is the wrinkling because of the fact that we at times forget to use deodorants and smell like a dead rat? But how can that be when the oil and spices are so overpowering to make a person lose his consciousness in ecstasy? Beats me.

We Indians are very colorful people. Ask a foreigner who has been to India and the first thing he will tell you is that he thinks the whole country has gone gay (which actually seems to be a very good idea considering our amoeba like growth). We love our colors so much that we carry them unabashedly to foreign lands. Even when foreigners all around us start wearing sunglasses indoors to save their eyes from the razor-sharp colors or when they hide their faces in the beer mugs because of the sight of the momma made jumper we are wearing, we fail to get the subtle hints. And why should we? What is the harm in adding some colors to their boring grey, blue and black life?

To curb our habit of staring is another monumental task while we are abroad. If anything remotely Caucasian walks by, our jaw hangs dangerously. It is difficult to make a foreigner understand that we stare at anything. It is our way of admiring the beauty of nature. We also point fingers and giggle. It is harmless of course.

Patience is the name of the seventh moon of Jupiter. That is why when we are subjected to the word while in queues in foreign lands, we respond with bewilderment. Why can’t they make a separate line for ladies, senior citizens, children, people in orange clothes, people in whites and people with two legs? How can everyone have so much time on their hand? Don’t they have a daily soap to catch, a maid to manage, a child to batter and a match to watch?

Should we do as the Romans do or should we splash our superior culture all over the world and teach them a thing or two? Why not turn the question the other way around? What do we expect from a person visiting our country? Don’t we expect them to litter the roads, spit till they end up with salivary deficiency, eat and drink food sprinkled with fumes from the roadside stalls and bring out taser guns the moment they see four men walking towards them? So if we would like tourists to be a part of our culture and enjoy their stay here, then why can’t we reciprocate in a similar manner? In the same way that we are all proud of our culture where people leave soiled diapers in Taj Mahal, people from other countries will be proud of their shiny roads and non-aphrodisiacal surrounding and would like us to respect that.

We know its their loss that they miss this chance to bask in our refined and better cultural glory during our stay in their country but we can leave them to their miseries. If we can adjust 7 people (dog included) on a motorbike, we can do this. Don’t you think?

[image from 1, 2]

The day Gods were Arnab-ised

Arnab looks at the camera and gives a triumphant smile. He feels like the king of the world. 

Arnab: Ladies and gentlemen! This is a Times Wow exclusive. Nowhere in this world, and I repeat, NOWHERE IN THIS WORLD, have you seen a debate of such a scale. Today we will talk to Gods of three religions. Yes, you heard it right ladies and gentlemen. * A pause and he stares at the screen for 3 seconds* You heard it right. Let’s call them God A, B and C. We will not be disclosing the religion they represent, neither will we be disclosing their faces. Please welcome the three Gods.

Three blank screens appear next to Arnab with God A, B and C written below them.

Arnab: “Welcome everyone to the show. Let’s start with the most important question haunting mankind. Let’s end the hide-and-seek game today. LET’S SETTLE THIS NOW AND HERE!!!! Where are all of you? Why are you not helping us? God A?”

God A: Because we are not supposed to! Unless and until a calamity of a monstrous scale happens that threatens the end… 

Arnab: OH MY GOD! You are telling me that there have been no calamities of a monstrous scale? Let me remind you sir. No! Let me remind you! 900 people died in the Mumbai riots in 1993, more than a 1000 people died in the Gujrat roits….

God B: Arnab, he meant on the scale of lakhs, crores. When there is a danger of extinction of mankind, we might appear. Until then…

Arnab: *giving a Dilip Kumar expression* Might appear? Might? MigHT? MIGHT? WE HUMANS HERE ARE COMSUMING VICKS AT AN ALARMING RATE BECAUSE WE ARE GETTING HOARSE CALLING YOU FOR HELP AND YOU MIGHT APPEAR? WE ARE PUTTING LAKHS AND LAKHS OF MONEY AT YOUR FEET WHEN MILLIONS ARE STARVING AND YOU ‘MIGHT’ APPEAR?

God C: Arnab, we cannot undo what humans have done. It is your fate. We gave you brains, didn’t we?

Arnab: *Pointing at God C with a Nirupa Roy look* YOU SIR ARE THE WORST OF THE WHOLE BUNCH! Your people are killing other people since hundred of years and you are eating popcorn and watching the show! Can you sleep at night? Can you look into the mir…..

God C: Why are you blaming me, God B’s people have been destroying one nation after another since decades. What about him? Why don’t you….

God B: Hold on! My people have always fought righteous wars! They have always fought for the love of America humanity. You cannot….

God A: Hrrrrruumph! Give me a break! Both of you should have at least appeared once in a while and made things right. Look at me. I have already appeared 9 times. All you guys do is sit on your ass and….

Arnab: SILENCE! Silence! All three of you are guilty! All three of you! And stop playing your politics here. THIS IS MY SHOW! I AM THE GOD HERE! So, don’t you guys dare to fling fingers at each other. The only finger that flings on this show is MINE! God A, tell me something. Your people are goondas. They beat girls who drink. They beat couples who celebrate Valentines day. Tell me, don’t they serve drinks in heaven when you have cultural programs where apsaras dance? Don’t you have Kamdev in your cabinet?

God A: I never said any of these things are wrong.

Arnab: But YOU NEVER DID ANYTHING TO STOP IT!

God A: What do you want? I can’t bloody come every time on Earth when someone has a flat tyre to help him.

Arnab: OH MY GOD! You are comparing hooliganism and murders to flat tyres? OH MY GOD!

God A: *rolling his eyes* It was just an expression!

Arnab: Let me tell all three of you today – YOU GUYS ARE GOOD FOR NOTHING. *Inserting a sad Anupam Kher expression* I feel like an orphan today. An orphan! And I say this on the behalf of the whole humanity. ALL OF US ARE ORPHANS! WE ARE ON OUR OWN! OH MY GOD!

God B: You really don’t have to be such a drama queen. Let us speak. You have to understand that this is not how it….

Arnab: DRAMA QUEEN? YOU ARE CALLING ME A DRAMA QUEEN? YOU THREE ARE THE BIGGEST DRAMA QUEENS I HAVE EVER SEEN! Sir, let me tell you that you guys exist because of us. If we want, we can shun you all and live on our own. Tell me how it happens then. I would like to listen. Let’s finish this now and here. Today is the day. Today is JUDGEMENT DAY!

God C: Our task was to create the world. We cannot solve your problems. We can only show you the path. It is up to you to walk on it.

Arnab: So, the three of you agree that you cannot help us?

God A,B,C: Yes.

Arnab: OH MY GOD!

*another 3 second pause and then he looks at the camera*

Arnab: Ladies and gentlemen. Tonight we have seen incompetence at the highest level. Forget politicians. Forget the World Wars. This is the reality exclusively on Times Wow – that we are alone. We have to fight this battle of saving humanity on our own. That OUR GODS ARE NOT GOING TO SAVE US! I WILL NEVER BOW MY HEAD IN FRONT OF ANY GOD FROM NOW ONWARDS!

God A: *yawning* Arnab, why don’t you become the god for humans? You have all the characteristics. *God B and C nod in unison and pass a smile*

Arnab: STOP YOUR SARCASTIC HANKY PANKY! YOUR ROSE TINTED IMAGE HAS BEEN SHATTERED TODAY. HUMANS NOW KNOW WHAT YOU ALL STAND FOR. *looks at the camera* THIS TIMES WOW EXCLUSIVE WILL BE ETCHED IN THE MEMORY OF MANKIND TILL ETERNITY.

God C : *telepathically talks to God A and B* His face is going red. His lungs will be on the table anytime.

God A,B : *telepathically* Don’t make us laugh you idiot! He has already done enough to portray us in a bad light.

God C : *telepathically* You appear as a blank screen, you fool! And you really think people care?

God B : *telepathically* Of course not. That is one reason I haven’t turned him into Rakhi Sawant yet.

God A: *telepathically* Shall we leave?

God C: *telepathically* Oh for God sake! Yes!

*Meanwhile Arnab is still rambling*

Arnab: I AM ASHAMED OF ALL THREE OF YOU!! ASHAMED!! Do you have anything else to say before we end this show?

*Silence*

Arnab: God A, God B, God C?

*Silence*

Arnab: OH MY GOD!

Sari-nama

Ever since Dushasan pulled Draupadi’s sari like a magician pulls out linked handkerchiefs from a hat, the Indian male woke up to the sexiness of sari. There is so much that a sari can reveal that even though women tried their best to cover themselves up with T-shirts and jeans, men frothed at their mouth and gave cultural references to stop the extinction of the aphrodisiacal attire.

We all know that a sari reveals more than a western dress. Imagine Sridevi in Mr. India wearing a skirt instead of that blue sari when she flattened her lips on the lips of an invisible Mr. India and you will suck the oomph out of the song. Imagine Dimple wearing a Salwar Kameez in Saagar instead of a red sari as Rishi Kapoor does a Dushasan with her water soaked pallu and he would not have waited for her to say – Jaane Do na. Imagine Raveena in a mini skirt doing a tip-tip barsa paani with Akshay jungle Kumar and the authenticity would have been lost. It is surprising that even when a sari has been used as a sex toy in our movies, our cultural self-appointed hounds endorse it with the intensity with which Bhagyashree endorsed Himalaya.

Coming back to real life, a lot of women hate the wrapper. The primary reason is that it is completely unmanageable while you work in your office. Secondly, no one has the time to leisurely drape herself in the morning when your husband is screaming in your ear because he can’t find his towel and your child is pulling your hair because his bag is not ready. Wearing a sari is like making a dish for the MasterChef finale. You really can’t fast forward the process.

Who gave me the authority to talk on the subject? Well, I have seen women in my family grope with the endless piece of cloth. Their pain haunts me.

I have witnessed swarms of angry waves that swirl out of my mother’s eyes when she has to wear a sari. She likes Saris but only when they are hanging like slaughtered pigs in her almirah. She sometimes reluctantly wears them and ends up vowing never to touch them again. Geet and I bought her a really expensive sari recently for a cousins wedding who lives  in a hill-station. She did not wear it. ‘You want me to get entangled in bushes and fall off the cliff?’ she asked. The said sari sleeps in her almirah, maybe till the end of humanity.

Yeah! If it was that easy!

My sister wore a sari at my wedding. She was at the end of her tethers throughout and looked as if she would fall to pieces if anyone poked her. Before that, the only time I remember her wearing a sari was when she was in class 6th and turned into Indira Gandhi for a fancy dress competition. She went on stage, raised her finger and forgot her line. I still have her photograph somewhere wearing a white sari with a blue border, trying to remember her dialogue with a raised finger looking like a roll of cloth wrapped on a rod.

So when Geet entered the house with two large suitcases full of saris, I thought that the attire will now get some respect in our house. The saris are still lying in those suitcases, wrapped and untouched. A few of them came out occasionally for weddings but boy! what a tornado that was. Usually, helping Geet wear a sari leads to these situations :

• Deep discussions about which sari to wear for at least a week before the function. If she has to wear one to school for special occasions, then the duration is reduced to 2-3 days. This includes taking out the contender saris and answering questions like – Why do you think this is better? Why not the other one? Give logical explanation.
• Help with the accessories. There should be matching things to wear in the neck, arms and ears. Matching sandals. Matching lipstick. Matching nail-polish. And a matching husband. Well, there isn’t much of a choice there.
• Wake up 30 minutes before time on D-Day.
• On the D-Day, help her wear the sari. Squat in front of her and hold the pleats of the sari in the correct position while she tucks them in. This gets really frustrating at times because it is never done correctly the first time. Re-pleat and try again. If it fails three times in a row, yell for mom.
• If it a cotton sari, hide in the bathroom.

Needless to say, Geet was as affectionate towards a sari as the rest of the female pack in the house.

The fact that Indians managed to invent something so difficult to wear goes completely against their image in my mind. Aren’t we supposed to be utterly lazy? Going by that parameter, wouldn’t we invent attires which are less time consuming to wear? But we invented sari, dhoti and pagdi which are enough to entangle yourself in so many layers. I have never worn a dhoti but I am sure I will fall flat on my face after taking two steps. Men in cities have completely given up the historical attires but it hasn’t changed for women. It is strange that we attach Indian-ness to it. If I am an Indian male who wears jeans or a suit, then why a woman is not being Indian if she wears a skirt or jeans? It seems that in addition to what we wear to cover our skin, we also wear a halo of double standards.

Anyways, I am very sorry for all the saris lying neglected in my house. All I can tell them is that destiny must have something else stored for them. One of them was turned into a Jaipuri Razai sometime back. I am wondering if they can also me used to make pillow covers, handkerchiefs, table cloths, kitchen towels, mop clothes, car covers, men’s kurta etc etc. Has anyone tried making any of this with a sari?

[images from 1,2,3]

Respect the Commode!

To maintain decorum of this blog, the word ‘Politicians’ will be used in place of certain unwanted solids and liquids that leave a human body at regular intervals.

I am not a cleanliness freak. It takes meticulous, vigilant planning spanning months for me to get up and wipe dust off my laptop screen which looks as if it has been hit by a desert storm and I might unearth a camel’s carcass while cleaning it. So, I am fine with a bit of inherent laziness that seeps into my countrymen which vanishes with a sudden urge to jump on an empty seat in a bus as if it is a dead deer amidst gluttonous tigers. But I do not understand men who enter a washroom and let loose politicians anywhere other than the precise location they are supposed to go. And, no, I am not talking about men using the roadside facilities which resemble a concentration camp but men using sparkling clean washrooms in swanky high-rise offices.

While I was in Manchester for two years, I had to take precautions that no one noticed me going in and coming out of the washroom. I was not scared but ashamed. As my office was filled with fellow countrymen from various companies, the washrooms were filled with embarrassing notices like this –

“Please leave the toilet in a condition suitable for use by the next person”

The darned notice appeared on every door inside the washroom and stared at me every time I visited the best invention in the history of humans – The Loo.

Being in India, I was used to the indifference with which the wall loving Indian men treat the sophisticated commode. Yes, I have flushed the poor thing before he could cry his heart out on seeing his savior in me. Yes, I have picked up tissue and cleaned its rim, relieving it of the political remains of the sinner who has made unholy this greatest creation of mankind. If it was left to me, I would have worshipped a commode, shuddering with fear thinking of a life bereft of its company. Unfortunately, my fellow countrymen do not share my sentiments and molest the commode at every possible opportunity.

What really shocked the Bejesus out of me was that my countrymen carried their passions to foreign lands. They gave the British a taste of how alarmingly misguided their aims could be and the sparkling commodes of the developed nation could not believe their bad luck. Some of them went into a deep uncontrollable coma and refused to flush the politicians out, which lead to the icy notice on the doors. If commodes had legs, we would have witness thousands of them running and jumping off the island.

Mind you, these passionate countrymen were software engineers who would have shamed Gagan Narang in hitting the targets in their own homes in the fear of Ma breaking their necks. They were not rickshaw pullers, who have never seen a commode and might take it for a mini well. Still, they could not treat the foreign commodes with respect just because they were not a part of their families. Leaving aside the abused ones in India, the men left an irreplaceable scar on the minds of the commodes at onsite. Alas! There was no hope to reverse the damage. No psychiatrist deals with depressed commodes.  

Why this apathy?

Why this indifference towards picking up a tissue and cleaning the results of your own aiming misadventures?

Why this coldness towards flushing, checking and flushing again?

Why this deep-rooted mindset that someone will do it for you?

Yes, we could be filthy and education has nothing to do with it, the same way education has nothing to do with female feticide and dowry deaths, the same way education has nothing to do with spitting on roads and jumping signals.

So, while I clean another commode, wiping its tears and promising it better times, I think about the men that would use it in the future without concern and sympathy and wonder when men would begin to acknowledge its importance and marvel at our best creation. There aren’t many things in life that are so pure and selfless, who can smile all the way while taking our shit. Where would we be if all the commodes muster a revolt? Do we have the stamina to dig the soil to bury politicians like the medieval armies did during wars? And what if you work on the 10th floor?

When would we understand that there cannot be a better friend?

When would we hug a commode for being there for us when the need of relieving the politicians was colossal?

When would we truly and genuinely come to love and respect the commode?

[image from here]