Boiling Water – II

image from here

Read part 1 here – Boiling Water – I

I wasn’t late. As I waited for my turn, I looked at the people around me. They were petrified. They carried a façade but I was a fellow traveller. I knew what they craved from inside – to sleep with a grin on their face. No one was as old as I was. At least they realized early in their life that they needed help.

“How are we today, Shubh?” Dr. Kapoor, the kind psychiatrist asked as I settled in his cabin.

“Same old same old,” I said.

“How are the dreams?”

“They still visit me every day without fail.”

The doctor sighed. I was a complicated case. No amount of medication has helped me in the past year. He was the most reputed doctor in Delhi but I had an ever-growing inkling that he was as helpless as I was.

“Tell me about the dream,” he said finally after a few seconds of scribbling on his pad.

“It was different this time but related. There was a huge vessel of water kept on a cooking oven made of bricks in a corner of a hut. A lot of firewood was burning.”

“Go on.”

“The water was boiling. Bubbles were breaking the surface, making a hissing sound. There was a lot of steam coming out.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes.”

“And you woke up?”

“And I woke up.”

“This might be an improvement.”

“It isn’t. I have had this particular dream before. It is not very frequent.”

“You have never told me about it.”

“I thought it was not important.”

“What terrifies you about this dream?”

“Doctor, the dream is the same. Only she is not in it. I am still terrified of what I was terrified earlier.”

“All right, Shubh. I think it is an improvement but we will wait for a few days and see. And, it is not just the sound of boiling water that terrifies you and you know it.” 

I reached home at six. She was watching television.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Medicines and no conclusion,” I said.

“Have faith,” she said with a sad smile. 

                                                *           *           * 

Shyamli was bright. She was the only girl in her class. A few boys teased her for being foolish enough to study and I had a fight with them. One of them ended up with a bloodied forehead. No one dared to tease her again. Both of us walked the 3 kilometres to school every morning. If we were lucky, we would get a ride on a bullock cart while coming back. Sometimes we took a dip in the village pond while returning. Sometimes we would ride buffaloes on the way.

            Shyamli went to school with me for three years before her studies were abruptly stopped. Baba was worried that he would not be able to find a suitable match for her if she studied too much. He was of the view that I too should start working on the farm instead of going to the school. I objected and stopped eating food. Ma took pity on me and talked to father who reluctantly agreed to continue my studies. I asked her to talk about Shyamli too.

“No Shubh! She has studied enough. Now it is time for her to put her mind to household work. She is already eight. She will be married in a few years,” Ma said.

“You were not sending her to school because it was the right thing to do?” I asked her. Ma looked at me for some time.

“No son. We sent her because of you. It is time to end the games and be serious about life. We have to marry her off and these books are doing her no good,” Ma said.

I started going to school alone. In the afternoon, I would come back and teach Shyamli as much as I could. I became her teacher. Sometimes she cried and I told her that she will complete her studies. I promised.

Shyamli was thirteen when Ma and Baba decided that it was time for her to get married. There was a sixteen years old boy called Raghu in the village whose father had a lot of land. They married her to Raghu who raped her on the first night of their marriage. I was not aware of this or I would have strangled him. She told me about it years later.

I was seventeen the year Shyamli was married to Raghu in 1967. My parents had started hunting for a bride for me while I was packing my bags to go to college which meant leaving the village and going to the nearby town to study. Baba was aghast. Ma was petrified as if I was going to fight in a war. No one in our family had ever left the village. In the end both of them gave in after a lot of shouting and cursing. I told them that I did not want to end up like them. I told them about the dream that was killing me from the last fourteen years.

“How many times have you committed the crime? How many?” I screamed.

Baba slapped me hard. I told them what I thought about them. That put a lock on their mouths.

                                    *           *           * 

I washed the dinner plates. She cleaned them with a towel. We then watched television for sometime. She stopped talking after a while. I looked at her. She was sleeping on the sofa with her mouth open. I smiled and woke her up.

“Go to bed,” I told her.

“Aren’t you coming?”

“I will try to avoid it as long as I can.”

“Don’t stretch yourself Shubh. We are not young anymore. Your body needs rest.”

He was holding her upside down by her right foot. She was naked and her crying filled the room. Her body was smeared with blood, the blood of her mother. There were other men in the room, watching the act. Two of them were chewing tobacco, another one was yawning. It was a way of life for them. This was not the first time they were witnessing the act. Another man was digging the ground outside the hut. Someone was wailing nearby.

            He took her to the corner of the hut where water was boiling frivolously over a brick oven. Water, that was unaware of the crime of which it was going to be a part soon. He lowered her towards the water. Steam was rushing up to condense on her face. Her tears mixed with water and dripped in the bubbles breaking the surface. Her shrieks were reaching a crescendo. Her face was close to the hissing water. Oh! So close.

I woke up with a start and with horror in my eyes. I gulped air. My hands were trembling. After a few minutes as my breathing came back to normal, I looked at the clock. It was 4 am. I sighed and got up from the sofa. I needed fresh air.

The same dream. The same dream ever since I could remember. 

*           *           *

I lived in a hostel. Every evening, I would take tuitions to pay for my college fee and other expenses. I was a good teacher. I would go to the village on the weekends to meet my family. I went to Raghu’s house to meet Shyamli. I wasn’t welcomed there. They were unsuccessfully trying to have a baby. Shyamli always beamed on seeing me. I was the only happiness in her life.  She never reminded me of the promise I had made a few years back but I remembered. She would complete her studies. She lived with Raghu and his family for four years. They sent her back home because she could not bear a child. A year later Raghu married someone else.

“I knew it was a mistake to save her,” Baba said.

My parents were grieved by her presence in the house. She was a burden now. They treated her like a servant, beating and cursing her for minuscule reasons. 

I completed my college and gave entrance exams for clerical posts in government organizations. I got through one and was posted in Delhi. I took a small one room house on rent in Chandni Chowk and shifted there. I went back to the village on the weekend and asked Shyamli to pack her belongings.

“What are you doing Shubh?” she asked with fear in her eyes.

“I made two promises that I intend to keep,” I said.

Baba stood in my way and slapped me. I was a bad son in his eyes. He then held Shyamli’s hand and tried to push her away. He pulled her hair. I slapped him. He held a hand to his cheek and stared at me with disbelief. I slapped him again and again and again till he crumpled on the ground. Ma stood in a corner gawking at me. She did not recognize me anymore. Now she knew how I felt all those years. I took Shyamli’s hand and both of us walked out of the house, never to return. 

to be concluded…

Confused Scared Dirty Angry

image from here

What can a guy possibly know about sexual abuse? After all, he can only have a second hand experience of what the female population of this country goes through on a daily basis. That is why I have to tell you my story.

I was a very shy kid in school. I never bullied anyone or picked up a fight. All I did was study diligently and top my class every single year. When not studying, I was neck deep into Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and Arthur Conan Doyle. My sports teacher were perplexed to come across a boy who did not like throwing and hitting balls. I had great difficulty in striking a conversation with strangers and was terrified at the prospect of leaving the warm embrace of known faces in my school and join a college. To my utter discomfort, that is exactly what life had in store for me.

I got admission in a good college in Delhi University. The college was a one hour bus ride from my home. In those Metro-less days, The DTC buses as a mode of transport were as good as Manmohan Singh as our Prime Minister. So, the only way to get to the college was to board the notorious killer machines called Blueline buses. Sometimes, the buses were so crowded that you won’t find space to expand your chest to breathe. All I could see was a mass of hands holding the metal rods and pressing the windowpanes for support. The crowd was like a giant, single animal with multiple hands protruding from all sides.

The year was 1997. It was a time when we still talked about a lot of topics in hushed voices. Topics like rape, sexual abuse, child molestation, sexual orientation were not openly discussed. And yes, Rape and Sexual abuse happened only to women. Add to it my complete disconnection to the real world because of my nature and you would realise that I was shockingly naive.

So one fine day, I left the college in a hurry to get away from the awful place full of strangers and boarded a Blueline bus chock-a-block with more strangers. I squeezed in somehow and stood completely surrounded by unidentified torsos. A few moments later I felt a hand on my crotch. At first I ignored it, considering the number of people in the bus but then I felt that the hand was not there by mistake. It was slowly rubbing my crotch. I looked down and traced the hand back to the human attached to it. The person who was doing this was an elderly uncle in his late 50s. He looked straight into my eyes and kept rubbing. 

The first emotion that hit me was complete confusion. Why would a person who is of the age of my grandfather rub my crotch? I knew he was somehow getting aroused by this but I failed to understand how. I went red in the face and moved away from him. To my surprise, he came after me. He again stood near me and tried to rub my crotch. By this time, I was completely agitated and it showed on my face. I had no idea what to do in such a situation. I was this scared, timid boy who did not have the courage to push him back. When I look back, I understand that courage and anger are the last of your thoughts, especially when it is happening for the first time. Confused and scared – that is what I felt at the moment. Why was this even happening? I again moved away from him and this time he sensed trouble and did not follow.

When I reached home, I felt anger erupting inside me. I still could not make sense of an old man touching me like this. I felt dirty and disgusted. I did not discuss this with anyone but my parents did notice that I was a bit sad. I encountered the man two more times in the bus back home. He recognized me and tried to come near me but I was not going to let him get away with it, so I always moved near to the driver where I was not completely surrounded by people. He gave up after that.

It took me a long time to get over the incident. 

I told my wife about this incident a few days back. She asked me that how would such an incident play on my psyche if it happened again and again. I told her that I would be devastated till the point that I will require medical help to come out of it. She told me about numerous incidents that happened to her while traveling in buses. She told me how she was groped many times and how she sometimes received help. The women not only survive such abusers but they have to then survive the fingers pointing at them. I cannot imagine someone coming to me and telling me that what that uncle did was my fault. I would spit in the person’s face. 

So you see, I know a bit about sexual abuse. It is a tiny blip in comparison to what happens to women in India but I understand what they go through. I understand how it plays with your mind, how it makes you jittery in the presence of strangers, how it makes you wonder about a life in a parallel universe where you are respected, where people will not touch you without your permission, where they will not treat you as objects. 

I still feel angry that he got away with it. I feel angry that so many people get away with it in our country, in this world. Yes, the world around me has changed in the last 16 years. We are more vocal, more angry. But the abuses haven’t subsided. 

I am a different person from how I was in 1997. I have lived alone, managed my affairs and have shed most of my phobias. And if it is any consolation, if that incident happens now, I would grab that uncle by his balls and toss him out of the moving bus. It would save many more youngsters the trauma they would have gone through by his hands.

How to survive a pregnant wife

A wise man once said that pregnancy brings out the animal in a woman. I don’t exactly remember who said that but I think it was me. It is also said that pregnancy is the most wonderful period for a woman but whoever said that must have been Justin Bieber. You can mildly compare a pregnant woman with a werewolf. Bring out that full moon of empathy/sympathy/apathy and you might be mauled in unimaginable ways. Those nine months are a litmus tests of patience for not only a lady but her husband as well.  Especially the husband. His situation is similar to a walk on burning coals. But let me not put the whole nine months in a single bracket because there are blissful times as well, like seeing your wife turn into Pamela Anderson.

First Trimester (first 3 months) – The vomit generator

After the initial euphoria of witnessing two red lines on the pregnancy test kit dies, the arduous journey begins. Your wife will turn into a recycling machine. Anything that goes inside her will come out in mashed form. Sometimes food and medicine will come out in exactly the same form as they went inside. So don’t be surprised if you see a crisp samosa lying in your wash basin one fine morning.

Husbands should try to avoid making any remarks in this duration if they do not want to be karate chopped. Here are a few sample conversations you should never make while your wife is producing hot dimsums.

Husband – I know what you are going through.

Wife – Do you now?!? *Dimsum 1* Believe me you have no *Dimsum 2* bloody idea so stop pretending *Dimsum 3*. Go away before I *Dimsum 4* kill you.

Husband – *does the mistake of patting her wife’s back while she is hovering over the washbasin*

Wife – Don’t touch me, you sex maniac. This is all your fault. You have had your fun. Now sit back and enjoy the next nine months.

Husband – This will be soon over. Every pregnant woman goes through this. You will be Ok.

*Big fuc*ing mistake*

The guy ends up with a broken neck.

The best approach during the first three months will be to hug her cautiously when you think she will not split you into two. Such occasions will be rare but they will be there.

Second Trimester (months 4-6) – Pamela Anderson

Your wife will start looking like those clandestine celebrities in this duration. The tummy will start showing in the 5^th or 6^th month but it will not be prominent in comparison to her other *ahem*. If you are one of those few unlucky souls, she will carry her first trimester problems in this trimester also. Most women don’t. You should be prepared for some extra shopping as it will appear that the last time your wife shopped was when she was in kindergarten. Nothing will fit her. Her bra size will horrify her. She will buy extra large everything with immense sadness.

During this trimester, the husband should be credit card ready. One tiny sound of rebellion and he might be flying out of Pantaloons. He will be reminded that this photoshop-ish distortion of the wife’s anatomy is all his mistake and now he has to ‘pay’ for it. It will not matter when the husband tries to reason that he is delirious with joy at the photoshop-ish enlargements.

Third Trimester (months 7-9) – The planet

By the ninth month, your wife would have turned into a planet. She would eat as if an asteroid is going to hit Earth tomorrow and vaporize all the ice-cream shops. Do not be alarmed because there is a baby inside her who needs all that nutrition.

The wife might find it uncomfortable to sleep. There will be instances when she will complain that the baby kicks all the times.

Do not try this at home –  

Husband – It will be soon over darling.

Wife – Yeah? What do you know? Have you ever tried pushing a baby out of you? OH GOD! I AM GOING TO DIE! 

Husband – Oh! Come on! It is not as if you are the first woman to….. *Was not able to complete the sentence because of a kick in the balls*

It will be during this trimester that there will be times when the husband and wife will be freaked out by the fact that another human being is growing inside the wife. It might sound like those alien movies but watching the baby play football as your wife’s tummy heaves like a turbulent ocean will not help. This might sound absurd but try talking to the baby. Make a paper boat and keep it on your wife’s tummy while making ridiculous storm sounds.

The D-Day

It gets worse once the labour pain starts. It is like a full moon night and the husband is under immense danger of being flung out of the window of the hospital building. Husbands should be prepared for all the groaning curses flung at them and take them sportingly. Sentences like –

–          This is all your fault you pathetic bastard. God will never forgive you.

–         Wait till this thing gets out of me! I will put you in the washing machine.

–         Don’t ever think that you will make me go through this again. I will snap your neck at the mere mention.

A husband might be alarmed that his wife has been possessed and needs an exorcist more than a mid-wife but that is not the case. Try to dab away the sweat from your wife’s brow when you think she will not dig her nails in your hand. Be quick about it.

Once the baby is delivered your wife will be back to normal except that now she has turned into Mother Dairy and will be dripping milk all over the house. The husband might feel isolated at this point of time as the Dairy will be open 24X7 for the baby. Try not to sulk. 

Surviving a newborn will be covered in another post.

p.s. Pregnancy is a beautiful time. A couple goes through myriad emotions during those nine months. They forget all the pain when they notice the child moving in the tummy, when they try to figure out the head and the arms in the ultrasound report, when they do shopping for the baby before the grand arrival. If the post has given you any negative concerns, then that is purely your pessimistic imagination.

[image from here]

Time to bury chivalry?

I was sitting on a ladies seat in a DTC bus. Now before you take out your knives, let me clarify that I was very tired and there wasn’t a single lady around who was glaring at me. A girl boarded the bus a few minutes later and courteous and chivalrous as I was, I got up to offer her the seat. I guessed that like me, she too was studying in Delhi University as both of us were wearing that unmistakable, funky college kinda stuff. She declined to take the seat and asked me to keep sitting. There was a near contempt in her voice, as if I had insulted her in some way. Confused and bewildered, I sat at the ladies seat while she towered over me for a while and then got down at Mall Road. Finally, my confusion gave way to respect.

This happened almost 15 years back but the incident plays on a loop in my mind whenever I see demarcations etched out all around me for the opposite sex. In our quest to solve a problem we have created a bigger one. Quick fix I call it but they never solve the real issue, do they?

The era in which we live will leave any man confused. The age old concept of chivalry somehow does not fit in. We cannot talk about equality and special privileges in the same breathe. Ever since that incident, I hesitate to open the door for a lady, I hesitate to pull a chair for her at a restaurant, I hesitate to get up to offer a seat. What if she turns around and glares at me? What if she tells me in very definitive terms that she is capable of taking care of herself? That she does not require any help that is provided considering her gender, considering her weak.

All the women I know are capable of handling things on their own. They are independent and self-sufficient. But you see, that is where the confusion begins. Sometimes, I have been asked to help. When I have refused, citing the fact that the woman in question is completely capable of handling the situation herself, I have been called unchivalrous.

So how much is too much and how less is too less?

What is the point at which I go from being helpful and courteous to being completely irritating and sexist?

Giving an example from my personal life, Geet has been a very independent and headstrong woman all her life but sometimes something gets into her and she behaves all dependent-ish. A few days back, she called me up at the office and asked me to call up her bank for an enquiry.

“Why don’t you call them yourself?” I said.

“Because I don’t feel like doing it. Please can you do this for me?” she said.

“No.”

“Why?”

“Because you can do this on your own.”

Stony Silence.

This went on for a while before she understood that I was not going to do it. She finally told me that I was useless and I asked her whether she would like to replace me as I was still under warranty. She called the bank on her own and got the information she wanted. This wasn’t the first incident as I have done similar routines a number of times with Geet and my sister because I don’t want them to depend on me for things they can handle on their own. In the end, once the task is accomplished, I am greeted with a look-we-don’t-need-you snort. And that is exactly what I am looking for.

But then, am I being a bad husband and a bad brother? Am I been unchivalrous to my wife and my sister? It is not as if both of them don’t know the first time around that they can do it on their own but as much as I am able to understand, women sometimes ‘like’ to depend on men. They like it when we do things for them. It is, for reasons unfathomable to me, taken as a sign of love, affection and respect.

Please don’t take me wrong. I like being helpful. But if I hold a door for someone to pass through, I will do that irrespective of that person’s gender.

I have been running this thought again and again in my mind and I have reached a conclusion that I do not like the idea of a woman asking me for help for a task she can perform on her own. I do not like the idea of extending courtesy to a woman because she is a woman. I do not like the idea of providing special privileges to woman to save them from acts of crimes instead of taking measures to prevent those crimes. Can you sweep a really independent woman off her feet by an act of chivalry? Today, when women have been fighting for equal rights and the power to make their own choices, does it really make sense to mistake dependence with a sign of warmth?

I believe chivalry and equality cannot co-exist. Is it time to bury chivalry?

A woman’s perspective – The Awww-topsy

[image from 1,2]

10 Disadvantages of being a Male

It is not easy being a man. Today when India is hit by a tsunami of Feminism, the men stand at crossroads. Should we jump in too and let go the flood of tears we have been holding since decades? We too have problems with the way the world and nature treats us. It is just that we bear our burdens in silence.

Here are the 10 biggest disadvantages of being a male.

No homemaking

There are times when we don’t feel like slogging. There are times when we are tired of wiping our boss’s spit from our face when he has finished shouting. We have to carry on the mundane task of being a cash machine. We are not even allowed to think about the alternative of letting our wives take that responsibility. How we wish to puff those pillows, dust those expensive showpiece, make dinner, raise our kids and be a perfect homemaker, but all those are distant dreams.

The Tennis Ball

Do you realize the kind of pressure we undergo when Momma and Mate pull us from both the ends? We are not allowed to sit and watch the tennis match between the two ladies because we are that ball. That ball, which is smacked violently and repeatedly in this never-ending match. We are supposed to take sides. Our eardrums hurt.

Road runner

There is always a war on the roads in India. A woman driver is given space and respect because everyone in her vicinity thinks that they will die otherwise. Men on the other hand have to jostle for each and every inch of a road amidst roaring honks and glaring swearwords. We are all Gladiators ready to beat the daylights out of each other.

Probably a rapist/child molester

We are at the end of our tethers trying to duck every woman and child out of our way. A slight brush of our hand on a woman’s skirt and we might be under a hailstorm of sandals. We might talk to a child with a smile and we might end up being pasted to the road by the his father’s SUV. Do you know how straining living like this is? We are a human bomb walking on needles. Of course there is the other end of the spectrum too, but they are more animals than men.

Shares. Stocks. Bonds. Budget.

Men are supposed to act smart. Even if we believe that shares are sung in a Mushaira and Bonds is the name given to all the girls who bonded with James Bond, we are supposed to act like Harshad Mehta. We should follow the rise and fall of the stock market like a Bollywood actress’s bosoms in a dance number. The latest budget should be on our tips if we want some respect.

Under a lens. Always.

Ever since we open our eyes, we are under constant scrutiny. Our parents burden us with all their unfulfilled dreams as if we are a cargo ship. Then we spend the rest of our lives dodging our wives as they suspiciously go through our shirts for a whiff of an affair, our bosses as they take a smelly dump on our career and our children who start treating us as losers the moment they develop sex organs. When we are old, the nurse treats us as an unwanted cockroach that she is too scared to crush under her feet. Ditto for our children.

Sports Journal

Even though the only sport we are good at is the in-the-night-no-control types, we are supposed to have passionate knowledge about a sport, preferably cricket. God forbid if we confess that we are not interested in it or do not remember the color of the underwear Sachin wore in an unforgettable 1993 series, we will be immediately shunned like a woman carrying an illegitimate child. Knowing about Soccer, Baseball and Rugby is an added advantage. It is not easy to be a walking encyclopedia on sports when all you really like is burgers and breasts.

The rise and fall of Junior

The problem with junior is that it is like an alien entity attached between our legs. Like the Ring of the dark Lord, it has a will of its own. It sometimes rises with the Sun and refuses to subside. It refuses to rise and shine when it is actually required to because of performance issues. It rises at the most inappropriate of places and thus has to be covered up with whatever props we can muster – a book, a lost puppy, a bowl snatched from a beggar. Compare this to women – they might be aroused even in a funeral and not a single soul will know. They could be walking on the street, sitting in a bus or sleeping in a room full of guests and no one will ever point at a hill between their legs and laugh. Oh! The pleasure of that freedom!

Facade

Since childhood we are brainwashed into being a real man who don’t cry, who does not take but give emotional support and who can break a jaw at the drop of a hat. Basically we should be robotic providers who do not go beyond a Hmmm when our children run towards us screaming that they have been selected in IIT. It is taxing. We feel desperately like crying at times, we sometimes wish we could treat our children as friends, sit with our wives and pour our heart out but we can’t. We feel unmanly with the mere thought of it. Instead we get drunk and scream swearwords at strangers on roads.

Dispensable. Always.

Yes! She could have saved him!

What boils our blood is that whenever a tragedy strikes or there is a war, we are the ones who are left to die. Women and children are the first ones to be saved. If time and situation permits, men are given a thought. Remember when the Titanic sank? Men were left on that sinking shit while women and children sat on lifeboats and saw the show. Rose had a whole goddamn wooden plank! Why are we always so dispensable? Just because we are in excess and selectively chosen over girls to live does not mean we don’t have a life and can be treated like a street dog.

So you see, it isn’t all that rosy for us men too. The world has been subjugating us in its own way. Nature have had it’s revenge too as we can’t even have pleasure at our own convenience. We are living in unbreakable molds like a Mummy and there is no escape.

[image from 1,2,3]

The Middle Finger Awards 2012

Welcome to the Middle Finger Awards 2012 presented by Mashed Musings. The awards honors the best news makers of 2012 in various categories. We are committed to an unbiased and honest approach toward selecting the nominees and the winners. If you have any concerns about any of the winners not deserving his/her award, please keep it to yourself.
So, lets begin the ceremony.

*Drum rolls. Trumpets Blaring*

Here is the first category :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most Courageous act of 2012

And the nominees are :

Dr. Manmohan Singh – for gathering enough courage to address the nation 7 days after the protests and letting everyone know that he too is a father and there aren’t enough commandoes protecting his daughters. Theek hai?

Sheila Dixit – for having the courage to come to Jantar Mantar and lightening something that looked like a half burnt candle while the crowd booed her.

Anushka Sharma – for wearing a blue XXL vest in Kashmir for a Yash Chopra movie.

Delhi Police Chief, Neeraj Kumar – for his courageous act to save Delhi Police from further shame and twisting facts. Apparently, he hasn’t heard the story of the shepherd and the wolf.

Madhura Honey – for her courageous act of walking with the Indian team in Olympics opening ceremony in a red top and blue jeans looking completely out of place. Just like all those students in Student of the Year.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* Manmohan Singh!!!! For his courageous bland as boiled pasta speech to pacify the nation.

Our next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most limelight hungry Indian of 2012

The nominees are –

Abhijit Mukherjee – for the dented painted comment and letting Indians know that the President has a big mouthed son.

Kailash Vijayvargiya, Madhya Pradesh Minister – for talking about Laxman Rekha when he should have actually zipped it up.

Banwari Lal Singhal, BJP MLA, Rajasthan – for being disturbed by girls wearing skirts as he found it difficult to take his eyes off their legs.

Haryana Khaps – for leaving no stone unturned to be on national media and make us realize that humans haven’t completely evolved from apes.

Dharamvir Goyat, Haryana Congress member – for sharing his pearls of wisdom with us about 90% of rape cases being consensual.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* the Haryana Khaps for their consistency in churning out drivel!!!

Our next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for The Best Blind Eye of 2012.

The nominees are –

Delhi Police – for using teargas, water cannons and Lathis on college students and women and then wondering why people threw stones at them.

BJP ministers in Karnataka – for turning a blind eye towards all the cameras pointed at them as they enjoyed porn in the assembly.

Indian Citizens – for craving for popcorn while they circled the rape victim lying naked, shivering and bleeding on the road.

Indian Politicians – for ignoring thousands of rape victims till waves of people came out on roads and threw stones.

Vijay Mallya – for donating 3 Kg gold to Tirupati temple while his employees went without salary for months.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* the Indian Citizens for achieving the impossible of turning back the clock of human evolution.

Lets move to the next category which is :

The Middle Finger Award for the Most Confused Indian

The nominees are –

Pratibha Patil – for pardoning rapists and murderers and getting confused about her right to not to be a puppet who has to sign a pardon when asked.

Sushil Kumar Shinde – for confusing students with Maoists.

Arvind Kejriwal – for confusing the nation by jumping from one issue to another and giving everyone a terrible headache.

Saif Ali Khan – for his role in the movie Cocktail where he confused the audience in the first half into believing that he wasn’t playing an assho*e.

Delhi Police – for discussing confusing matters of jurisdiction as the rape victim and her friend lay on the road naked and bleeding.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drums roll* Pratibha Patil for letting loose deranged criminals on the society.

The next category is :

The Middle Finger Award for the most Dramatic Indian of 2012

And the nominees are –

Salman Khurshid – for his saas Bahu dialogues about replacing ink with blood if Arvind Kejriwal tried to enter his domain. No shit.

Robert Vadra – for collecting unmatched black wealth, mocking the nation and then getting away with it by saying something with a mango and banana in it.

Mamata Banerjee – for her histrionics by equating rapes to political conspiracies and asking profound questions like why men and women are allowed to mingle in our society.

Ponty brothers – for their swift and fortunate exit from the world.

Suresh Kalmadi – for having the nerve to express his desire to attend Olympics after being released on bail for the CWG scam.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drum rolls* Robert Vadra for his unmatched feat of taking the whole nation for a ride.

The next category is :

The Middle Finger Award of the most Senselessly Swift Indian of 2012

The nominees are –

Mumbai Police – for their swift response in arresting two girls for stating the truth on Facebook.

Delhi Police – for swiftly arresting 8 random men after a constable died in the protests and filing an FIR without any proof.

Akbaruddin Owaisi – for swiftly going underground in London after his arrest warrant was out in India.

Indian Government – for swiftly moving the rape victim to Singapore when it became apparent that she was not going to live.

The Dengue Mosquito – for swiftly taking away the king of romance, Yash Chopra in the blink of an eye.

And the Middle Finger goes to *drums roll* The Indian Government for acting in the nick of time to save themselves from the blame of the rape victim’s death.

The Middle Finger Lifetime Achievement Award

The  award goes to the man who held a whole city to ransom for years, who divided the country on the basis of the state in which you live and who wore sunglasses even in dark rooms – Shri Balasaheb Thackeray.

That’s it for this year folks! We sincerely hope that the viewers enjoyed the awards ceremony and congratulations to the most deserving winners. We will be back next year with more fun filled categories!!!

[image from 1, 2, 3]

Delhi is NOT India. Sexual crimes happen all over India.

When crime against women are committed in Delhi, the government suddenly springs to action IF there is a protest. An exception to this was the Guwahati molestation case because the video went viral. It was heartening that Delhi took to streets yesterday and forced the government to take notice (however bland it was) but the actions promised are a bit worrisome. There was no talk of taking up the issue at a national level. Our rulers (yeah, that is what they are. Rulers) should understand that applying quick fixes in Delhi will not solve the problem on a national scale.

According to the National Crime  Records Bureau (NCRB) data (1991-2011), Madhya Pradesh has led the nation in the number of rapes committed. Only last year, it recorded 3,406 cases of rape, which means nine women were raped here every 24 hours. Overall, the State accounted for 14 per cent of the rapes committed across the country in 2011. Among cities, the State capital, Bhopal, with 100 rapes, was second only to the metropolises Delhi (453) and Mumbai (221), while the State’s industrial capital, Indore, stood fifth, registering 91 rapes.

Not surprisingly, the top five States in terms of the number of rapes — Madhya Pradesh (3,406), West Bengal (2,363), Uttar Pradesh (2,042), Rajasthan (1,800) and Maharashtra (1,701) — also have dismal sex ratios. While Madhya Pradesh (930), Rajasthan (926) and Uttar Pradesh (908) have sex ratios below the national average of 940, West Bengal (947) and Maharashtra (946) are just on the threshold.

– from The Hindu

In February this year, a woman in Indore was gang-raped by eight people including a cop while her husband was kept in captivity. However the cops took their own sweet time to file an FIR. After the Delhi gang rape case, an abducted school girl was found raped and murdered in Chennai. She was 12. Let us not forget what happened to Sonali Mujherjee in Jharkhand when her face was splashed with acid and her father rubbed his nose in front of authorities for 10 years to get her treated as the criminals who did this to her were out on bail. And lets not forget that 19 rapes happened in a month in Haryana and no one raised an eyebrow.

And of course, Delhi goes on as usual when a 3 year old was raped by the husband of a play school owner. This happened after the Delhi gang rape incident. Clearly, the deterrents are not working. Clearly it is not an issue prevalent just in Delhi.

We are all aware of the various factors in play here which range from treating girl child as a liability to attitude within the government (where ministers blame women and mock them) and the police force to dismal conviction rates. All these problems will not vanish by hanging the gang rape accused of the Delhi case. And I am afraid that is where we are heading.

Punishing the accused is only one end of the spectrum. It happens after the crime has been committed. But what about preventive measures? I found a link to an article at Smitha’s blog which talked in this direction. Do read it here.

At this stage it would be pertinent to remember that the instances of perverts making lewd calls to women – which was a common phenomena in 1990s – dropped to virtually nil within a few years not because the Indian male underwent some sort of moral renaissance, but because phones started coming with caller IDs, and in a way disrupted the script.

– from the article

There are preventive measure which can be applied. More patrolling, better lightening of streets, gender sensitization, education, teaching your children about respecting other humans and gender equality, drilling messages through media. It will not happen immediately. It will take years. We cannot root out all the psychopaths that we have created over decades in one snap of a finger but we have to make a start. The government can play a vital role in this but everything will be defeated if this is not done on a national level.

In India, it takes a protest of the scale of what we saw yesterday to wake up the authorities. Even though the ruling party did call a press conference in the evening, everyone looked bored and completely unconcerned. They were behaving as if all of us were wasting their time. They were throwing technical jargon like rarest of rare rape cases and when asked what that means, they had no answer. When Barkha Dutt asked Sheila Dixit that why doesn’t she go and sit with the people and talk to them, she smiled and gave incoherent answers. Such attitude will not take us anywhere.

When the brutal killings of school children happened in USA a few days back, Obama was on television the next day addressing the nation. And the president was not ashamed of crying on national television. We do not expect something like this from our Prime Minister but he could have at least addressed the nation once? Why does the ruling class treat the very people who chose them as liabilities? Where is the connection, where is the concern?

I sincerely hope that the actions taken for sexual assaults are nationwide and not a quick fix which will crumble with the next rape. There is a limit to which we can tolerate this apathy.

[images from here]

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]

Barista Banter – Ram and Yudhishthir

Read part one of the series here – Costa Chatter – Sita and Draupadi

As Draupadi and Sita chatted in Costa sipping hot Cappuccinos, Yudhishthir finally reached heaven after scaling the mighty Himalayas. He was aghast to see Duryodhan in heaven and fought with Indra over the decision. Indra pacified him stating that Duryodhan had spent a designated time in hell but he was too great a scholar and a king to be kept there forever.

A sulking Yudhishthir ambled into Barista and stood transfixed as he came face to face with Lord Ram. His initial shock gave way to immense joy as he touched Ram’s feet who was completely immersed in ‘The Times of Heaven’ with a hot chocolate drink in his hand and a spinach and corn sandwich in his mouth.

‘Webbcobe Yubhibhtbir. I bbas bxpecbing yo,’ Lord Ram said chewing his sandwich.

‘It is an honor my lord to finally meet you.’

‘The pleasure is mine. Come sit. Where are the rest of your brothers and Draupadi?’ Lord Ram asked after gulping some hot chocolate.

‘I am not sure about Draupadi. She must be nearby. My brothers are at the Walmart store. It is almost as big as our palace on Earth. When will I have the honor to meet Sita ji?’ Yudhishthir asked as he sat next to Lord Ram.

A pained look passed over Ram’s face.

‘I don’t know where she is. She is in one of her depressing moods today. Not a single day passes when I am not reminded…’

‘Oye Ram! Here you are! I have broken my feet searching for you. This market is by God too much for my poor feet,’ Surupnakha said as she entered Barista.

Yudhishthir was flabbergasted. This demon sister of Ravan was supposed to be in hell. Why were Rakshas allowed to roam in heaven? Surupnakha glanced at Yudhishthir and her eyes went wild.

‘Oye you too are here? When did you come? Hello ji, myself Dolly,’ Surupnakha said extending her nails towards Yudhishthir’s eyes.

‘You are not Dolly, Surupnakha,’ Ram said, sighing loudly and rubbing his forehead.

‘Dolly?’ Yudhishthir’s head was spinning.

‘Aho! Dolly!’ Surupnakha said smiling and showed her long teeth.

‘I have requested Brahma numerous times not to go into the future but he doesn’t listen and creates a new wave of craziness in heaven every time he returns. Surupnakha, apparently, will be reborn as Dolly Bindra* in the future. Brahma went bonkers evading her for months as she pestered him to show Big Boss 4 on the giant screen here on which we saw Mahabharata. Ever since Big Boss was telecasted, she has changed her name to Dolly,’ Ram told Yudhishthir moving his head in exasperation. Dolly beamed. Yudhishthir could not make head or tail out of what the Lord said.

‘Why were you searching for me?’ Lord Ram asked Surupnakha.

‘Ravan asked me to give this Yo-China menu pamphlet to you. He says you should try the Chowmein. It is aphrodisiacal.’

‘Go away Surupnakha before I get angry. I have had enough of your brothers and you on Earth. I will not take this mockery anymore. Why am I even asked to share heaven with demons like you?’ Lord Ram said as his face turned red with anger.

‘Wah Wah Ram ji! You are fine sitting with this Yudhishthir? Hain ji? This guy sat like a newly wed bride waiting for her husband when Dushasan was pulling the sari off his wife making her go round and round like a spinning wheel. And you, what did you do yourself? Made your wife walk on fire! Abandoned your pregnant wife in the jungle! Hain ji? And hesitated to take her back when you met her years later when you sons had grown up? Hesitated! Hain ji? Baat karte hain!’ Surupnakha said as she banged the Yo-China menu on the table.

‘Dolly ji,’ Yudhishthir tried to intervene.

‘Oye quiet! All of us have demons inside us Ram. Demons of anger and insults, demons of guilt, demons of irresponsibility and demons of shame. I can change my appearance and look beautiful but that will not change my heart and my actions,’ Surupnakha said looking at both the men.

She then walked towards the door. Yudhishthir though he was going to faint. He gasped when Dolly suddenly turned around at the door.

‘And one more thing. Sita is sitting with Draupadi in Costa. Wait and watch. Both of you are going to get it. {Snapping fingers} Tote Ud jaenge (Your parrots will fly),’ Dolly said as she banged the door.

Ram and Yudhishthir sat dumbfound for a while. Then they gave each other an amusing smile.

‘I hope the humans turn out as intelligent as Surupnakha,’ Lord Ram said.

‘Yes, that was the whole idea. But will they be able to extract the right morals from our stories? You have seen the future. Did they learn anything from our mistakes?’ Yudhishthir asked. Ram gave him a sad look.

‘Extracting and implementing right morals are two ends of a river. You have to make a bridge across it. Unfortunately, humans are only imperfectly capable of it. The bridge keeps falling. So no, it didn’t work. But let me buy you a Latte. That always works,’ Ram said as he ordered a Latte for Yudhishthir.

As Yudhishthir sipped his Latte with relish, he saw Sita and Draupadi pass Barista, chatting like long lost sisters. He wanted Draupadi to come and meet Lord Ram but then he let go of the idea for the time being. He did not want his Latte to turn bitterer than it already was.

‘Did she win Big Boss 4?’ Yudhishthir thoughtfully asked Lord Ram.

‘God No! For all the melodrama she created to screen the programme in heaven, Brahma made sure that she didn’t.’

*Dolly Bindra is an actress who has done numerous supporting roles in Bollywood movies and television soaps. Her shot to fame was when she appeared as a wild card entry in Big Boss 4. The TRP shot through the roof after her entry as it was marked with shouting and fighting in the house on a gigantic proportion. See samples here and here.

Last part of the series  – Starbucks Snivel – Ravan and Duryodhan

[images from 1,2,3,4]

Costa Chatter – Sita and Draupadi

After Krishna’s death, Pandavas along with Draupadi started climbing the Himalayas to reach heaven. Draupadi was one of the first to drop dead while climbing and reached heaven before the others. As she roamed there, she was surprised to see an Indian version of Champs-Élysées  sprawled in one of the by-lanes. She spotted Costa Coffee, Barista, Café Coffee Day and Starbucks doing great business side by side. She had no idea what these shops sold and stood transfixed. Then a hand pressed her shoulder warmly. Scared that Duryodhan was back to eve tease her, she turned around with her most dramatic expression and saw a smiling Sita standing there.

“Draupadi?”

“Yes. Sita? Oh Hi! What a pleasant surprise!” Draupadi was shocked to come face to face with the legendary figure. She was going weak in her knees.

“Which one?” Sita said pointing to the coffee shops.

Draupadi had no idea what Sita was talking about but she did not want to be an ignorant fool in front of a legend. She raised a finger at a random shop.

“Costa? My favorite!”

As both of them settled in their seats and ordered two cappuccino, Draupadi was taken aback by the laid back ambience. It was something she had never experienced before.

“Where did this idea come from?” she asked Sita.

“Oh! Brahma went into the future and drank a cup of Latte at Barista. He was so hypnotized by the taste that he drank 78 cups per head that day, met the owner and convinced him to open an outlet in heaven. The rest they say is history.”

The Cappuccinos arrived and Draupadi had her first taste of Costa Coffee. She looked at Sita with amazement in her eyes.

“That look on the face of first timers always makes me so happy,” Sita beamed. She studied Draupadi as she gulped her coffee.

“I saw what happened in Mahabharata. We had a giant screen here in heaven. You won’t believe the kind of frenzy it created here.  Brahma told us that the euphoria will be unparalleled till a lady called Ekta Kapoor will be born on Earth and kill someone called Mihir Virani.”

“Yes, it was all terrible. So much blood. So many families destroyed. Both of us were a part of terrible wars. So many people died and for what?” Draupadi said looking at Sita.

“You do realize that we will be blamed for both the wars, don’t you? People will always say that it was Draupadi and Sita who started the wars,” Sita said with a glum expression on her face.

“It is always beauty that is at fault, never the lack of a spine.”

Both of them sipped their coffee in silence for a while.

“So, 5 husbands, eh? Lucky you!” Sita said suddenly to lift the mood.

“It was exhausting!” Draupadi said rolling her eyes. Both of them laughed.

“How the hell did you end up with all 5 of them? I thought it was Arjun who married you?”

“Don’t ask! They were so obedient that they blindly did what their mother said even by mistake but when it came to blindly breaking someone’s neck for disrobing me, they turned a blind eye.”

“You’re telling me! My husband abandoned me in a bloody jungle all by myself just because he could not stand all the suspicious talk. I was pregnant at that time, dammit! And he did not even had the courtesy to do it himself. He made Laxman do it.”

“I know. I have read it a hundred times and it never made sense to me,” Draupadi said as she gently held Sita’s hand.

The air had suddenly turned acerbic. The coffee was going cold.

“Do you hate them?” Sita asked wiping a lone tear.

“Should I? I hated them with all my heart when Dushasan was trying to throw me naked in front of the whole court, when Duryodhana asked me to sit on his lap. You cannot imagine the rage that filled me. I shudder to think what would have happened if Krishna would not have helped. But then the war happened. I washed my hair with Duryodhana’s blood when it ended. Now there is no rage in my heart but love cannot mend every crack,” Draupadi said with a sad smile.

“Duryodhan is in heaven. I saw him at the Apple store the other day,” Sita said.

“Is he?” Draupadi said giving a surprised look.

“Yes. He served some time in hell but then Indra put him back in heaven.”

“Well, then he must be having a great time with Ravan,” Draupadi said sipping her coffee.

Sita mulled over Draupadi’s answer. If Gods can forgive a prince and a king for molesting a woman because he was a great scholar or a valiant warrior, then the tides have truly turned. They have set an example that would reverberate through centuries.

“Do you hate Ram?” Draupadi asked.

“There is a difference between your situation and mine. You were let down by your husbands before the war. Mine let me down after it,” Sita said as she picked up her coffee giving Draupadi a thoughtful look.

Darupadi nodded. She had her answer.

“Its gone cold,” Sita said and smiled.

“What are they playing?” Draupadi said pointing at a couple in the café.

“Scrabble. Want to try it?”

“Sure!”

Sita got up and picked up the game from a shelf nearby. She explained the rules to Draupadi and quickly placed 6 tiles in the centre of the board to start the game.

B.I.T.T.E.R

“So tell me about Krishna. I saw him today at Starbucks in a deep discussion with Ram,” Sita said as she ordered another coffee for both of them.

“I will. First tell me more about Mihir Virani,” Draupadi said as she placed her tiles in the rack.

Next part – Barista Banter – Ram and Yudhishthir

[images from 1,2,3]