Don't 'care' for us!

Published in One India One People magazine, April 2017

What irritates a woman more? A bad-hair day? The “stay safe” message from the men of her life? I would like to affirm the former, but sadly, for most women, it is the latter. The only thing that comes free in a woman’s life is advise from the ‘know-all’s, in case we forego the ‘buy one,  get one free’ offers.

It starts with “Don’t play with Anu’s son” and goes on like “Not this dress!”, “Don’t wear this lipstick”, “Not this stilettos”, “Reduce the compact, will you?”, “Why do you have to laugh so loud?”, “No outing with your guy friends”, “Cheee…does your friend smoke? Don’t you ever do that!”, “What? A drink with the friends? Are you insane?” and goes on and on till eternity. We preach sermons on ‘don’t dos’ to our girls. Have we ever bothered to tell our sons to treat the women right?

How insensitive our men can get? While the mother keeps rolling rotis out of her kitchen like the roti-maker on fire, the father lounges on the sofa and complains how Kohli missed the catch. Our sons grow up seeing their fathers acting the couch- potatoes they are and sense watching TV brings rotis to their plates once they’re married. “Beta…that girl is probably PMSing…please excuse the way she behaves…”- try saying this to your son, dear mother and see which bomb detonates first- the dad or the son!

Safety of a woman is directly proportional to the length of her skirt. Shorter the skirt, lesser her safety. Don’t ever question why the nun with her five layers of dress isn’t safe. Or why the little six-month old with her rompers isn’t safe. Rapes happen because the woman asks for it. Yes, dear Lord, she prays- please let me be the sacrificial lamb today, send me a bus with four drunk men.

And oh! Learning krav maga to deal with jilted lovers isn’t a safe option against the acid attacks. Safety isn’t about teaching your daughters karate and kung-fu alone. It is about teaching your sons that ‘failures always happen in life and how we make the best of a failure shows our real worth to people’. These days the love of jilted lovers is worse than the roads laid during election dhamaka! In three days of a proposal and a rejection, all we are left with are potholes the size of moon’s craters. Only time will teach our men that ‘rejection’ is cool and it can end well with little booze and a “why this kolaveri di” soup song.

If there is one word that can make a woman go ballistic, it is “Care”. All in the name of care, our men keep suffocating the lives of women. We are brain-washed from time immemorial that a woman is ‘weak’ and is to be cared for. She needs ‘pampering’. She needs constant ‘care’. No sirs! All she needs is a fag at the end of a tough day or an outing with her besties. Definitely she doesn’t need your “Shall I come and pick you up?” or “What time will you be back home?” 

We don’t need fire-breathing dragons at the back of our necks, checking the watch and saying, “You’re late!”, “This place isn’t safe”. As our equals, it is your duty too to keep this place safe for us. After all, you are the bosses! Ah! Talking of the bosses! “Who is the boss?”- “You!”, “Who pays you?”- “You!”, “Who can molest you?”- “NO ONE!” A woman gets paid for her work as salary. No one, take the point, no one gentlemen, pays her in kind, unless SHE asks for it!

We don’t need a Superman to save us every day. Let him please wear his ensemble right (not the undies over the pants, gentleman!) and go save the world. We need the ‘considerate man’ who perfectly knows what a woman possesses and doesn’t cross the boundary under the pretext of ‘caring’ for her. A woman is aware of her power. A man must simply acknowledge her very being and walk hand-in-hand. Safety starts at home. Let’s treat our mothers and wives right. Our daughters and sons will take their lessons from us. As simple as that!

Not Chinkis anymore!

Published in One India One People magazine, March 2017

Our rudimentary knowledge of Indian map begins with Kashmir- yes, can we forget those icy mountains, apples and the guns, of course, and ends with Madras. Each time I meet someone from up North, I remind them it is Chennai, not Madras and not the Southern tip of the country, they smile and say, “Yes, beta…we know. You Madrasis always say that!” We remember anything but Kolkatta and its rosgullas as the Eastern border of the country and conveniently forget the Seven Sisters. For most of us, the North Eastern arm doesn’t even exist in the maps. Either that or we go beserk thinking it is part of some other country.

The North East of India is that part of the country that never finds a place in the text books. Please don’t reminisce if we ever read all our books in full and draw a blank. Whatever little knowledge that filtered past our craniums is unaware of the North East. We swallow our momos with gusto, we love being pampered at the salons by the North Easterners, we furtively adore their women, wait, let me rephrase that, we lust over them on our most common misconception that they are freely ‘available’. What we fail to understand is that, the North East is very much an integral part of India.

Our pre-conceived notions are so discriminatory that anyone with eyes smaller than ours is obviously a “chinki” to us. An open challenge, close your eyes and try remembering the names of the seven North Eastern States. I betcha you wouldn’t get past four or five. When we can’t make out a marble from stones, can we make out people of North East from Tibetans? We truly believe they eat dogs. Where did that notion come from? If we ever get to see a North Easterner playing with a puppy, all we see is RED! Do we know the Hill people don’t even eat meat other than chicken? We despise their food habits, yet we gulp down their hand-made momos in swanky malls. We write and speak of volumes about the sacrifices and perseverance of the Gorkha regiment and dutifully ask them, “Are you Nepalis?”, in case we encounter them on road. 

We find their hippie style and colored hair flamboyant and rakish- thank you Danny Denzongpa, you did that right! Their low-waist jean pulls our lips to a leer and so does their country style. We sit on judgment over the poor chaps imagining ourselves as Themis, clad in our pan-stained dhotis. Hell, we even laugh at their names- those that sound better than our Kapurs and Kumars. We entertain ourselves with amusement at the name Kiren Rijuju, that must be a tongue-twister for our big, fat tongues!

The insurgency all along the North East has never got the required attention as we remain cocooned in our self-induced coma. 16 years of fasting by Irom Sharmila Chanu and there are people out there who ask “Irom, who?” When Kareena’s pet puppy skips a day’s meal it is prime time news and Irom’s continuous fasting remains best ignored. It is this apathy by media and the Government that fails to highlight the plight of them that pushes more and more people towards taking up arms. 

North Easterners are the third most joked about community, only next to our Sardarjis and Madrasis. If it is the intelligence of the Sardarjis, the purported gluttony of the Madrasis that is being made fun of, it is the appearance and the slangs of the North Easterners. Agreed, the Assamese have difficulty in pronouncing “ch” which turns out as “s” all the time, they are in no way inferior to our counterparts chewing pan and spitting words right and left. Just because we tower over a feet tall over the short-statured, good natured North Easterners, we can’t point to their cute button noses and say “I am big!”, for we don’t know what a Caucasian will look down at us and say! Racial and gender discrimination against the North easterners must end right now, if we are to remain united as a nation. If we still treat them as brethren beyond our borders, they might very well be right in demanding the realignment of borders.

The last laugh!

Published in One India One People, February 2017

The last laugh!

As a true, “hot-blooded” Indian, I keep wondering if at all we Indians have humor. Did your lips twitch at the word ‘hot- blooded’? Welcome to the world of Indian comedy- a complex quagmire. Comedy that surrounds most of us these days is exaggerated and hell yes, x-rated. When we mean ‘sense’ of humour, it obviously means the sixth one that goes amiss every time we buy that popcorn at the multiplexes. 

Comedy is what we always infer from our Bollywood and Kollywood movies. It was either Johnny Lever and Jaspal Bhatti of yesteryears or Arshad Warsi and his short ‘circuit’ comedy to me that tried to pull out the laughs. These days the heroes have evolved as great comedians- if the hero can save the heroine, why not do it with the cape of the Joker? Watching a movie? We swim in a sea of sexually explicit dialogues that are being delivered, trying to get a grip on what is being thrust into our faces as comedy. Laughing already? See! Effect of ‘masala’ night comedy shows, this!

Crude jokes aren’t all sleazy, but rudimentary and repeated. It gets dull and boring like being stuck in a love-less marriage but with an alimony-full husband. The comedy track in movies these days is like the last dosa made with left-over batter. Never makes the mark and never takes-off. 

The humour mills have been running overtime, turning out jokes that have watered down to plain, regressive women- bashing. The female lead’s anatomy is always the butt of jokes and so is her lack of brains (did I say Bhatt here?) I would like to tell you gentlemen, try cracking one such joke naming the wife and you shall see the end of days coming like the tsunami! The Bolly/Kollywood dictionaries stand corrected thus- a joke is a crude hit always below the belt and a comedian is one boxer who lands punches everywhere but the opponent. (Again…there you go laughing!) Dialogue-writers may please get their heads out of the sand and seriously think out of the box and the proverbial bottle!

Are televised comedy shows any better? TRP rating matters the most to the channels than their already waning reputation. Too many shows spoil the fans. The comedy satellite channels are always on ‘repeat’ mode as you twist and turn in the sofas to the innuendos flooding your living rooms, orgasmic, I say! Will someone tell those knuckle-heads that their jokes and bakra shows make us run for the remotes?

Stand-up comedy, anyone? Yes, why not? We have been seeing the sudden spurt of such short term wonders. The audience roars with laughter…now wait! The incredulously pinched faces would be reading between the lines to laugh as the speakers around blare recorded laughter and the herd follows the lead dutifully like domesticated husbands. How I wish I could cut the connection to those speakers. 

Slapstick comedy? Dark humour? I’ve become immune to all those because, these days the best comedians are our politicians and the best comic genre, of course, is - Netagiri! Be it Dibi’s tantrums, MaNo Ji’s chest- thumping or Pappu’s night out, we remain fully entertained by the brigade. Still, move aside Netas, the RBI takes the Oscar for the maximum number of flips and twists in fifty days.

We have received  wholesome entertainment the last few months, with trolls taking up with the netas in social media and meme-creators locking horns, taking sides on ‘ayes’ and ‘nahs’. Being a meme-creator brings you more proposals than what Tom Cruise would have received all his life! How I wish one day I would hear someone say, “Pappu ban gaya meme-creator!” and he gets married and lives happily forever. Social media has given wings to those bees that love to s(t)ing.  

The other day a friend of mine was arguing that Indian women lack ‘humour’. Dear friend, Indian women have come of age long back and your crude and cruel jokes just don’t interest her anymore. Her biggest joke is- what you are looking at the mirror and she loves having the last laugh, always. Any doubts? Go figure!

Past is the new now!

Published in One India One People magazine, January 2016

Heritage- the new fad that is in. Most people who I meet these days are ‘cool’ as they talk about millet dosas, finger millet porridge, foxtail millet kheer and the various paraphernalia that go with these dishes starting from devil’s backbone chutney(ah…the name!), balloon vine chutney, et al. The names and the supposed medicinal qualities of these newly embraced greens and millets are all Greek and Latin to me. As I raise a toast to the rediscovered heritage foods, in all earnestness I agree- the taste buds in my tongue rebel and jump off my tongue in utter disbelief. 

The sight of banana flower vadas look so enticing, all crispy and rich texture, but can I say the same for the millet dosas that resemble grandmother’s handmade cow dung patties? Cow dung- now we are really talking about heritage. We Indians have specific tastes. South Indians can go to the moon and back if they get piping hot sambar and up North, the childhood diktat learnt is “roti, kapda aur makaan”, always in that order. 

Give us burgers, give us pizzas, we gulp them down in the malls as if the apocalypse is approaching. The moment we set foot into the confines of our homes, the first thing that we ask- “Mom, where is my sambar?” We believe a bowl of rice can only complete our day, not a round, sticky, expensive ‘dosa’ called pizza. Our Moksha lies in licking our fingers high and dry off the last drop of Mom’s fish curry, not in ‘finger licking good’ mutant chicken that had hatched in Pennsylvania five years ago!

We guzzle down Pepsi and Coke with equal fervor as our Kattanchaaya. A Sulaimani after a hearty biryani on any given day would be our choice, after a diet coke, of course. We have become gluttons- the fad of the new millennium is still pushing colas and Macs down our throats in public spaces. To appease the Mother God we do dutifully gulp down whatever is handed over to us in a platter. That’s what our Bollywood Khans have been telling us. Each mother is a Rakhee yelling “Mere bête aayenge!”, as we are duty-bound to pounce on her dosas or rotis.

There is a new generation of backpack wielding heritage enthusiasts who go hunting for a little bit of history and heritage. Few walks and lot of talks later, they still would be trying to figure out who made the first flight- the prototype of Wright Brothers or our own Pushpak Viman? Google is the God here, information is wealth and internet is power! Anything that is remotely labeled as ‘Indian heritage’ sells at a premium. 

There is another team of jet-setting women who are trying to ‘revive’ the Saris of India. Look around for these fashionistas who make a killing, mediating sellers (who still suffer in abject poverty) and the eager buyers. Heritage sells. It is the new ‘packaging’ of a product. Tout anything as Indian and a legacy- the sheep blindly follow. The only sane inheritance that I have is probably my plus size figure. There, I said it!

Overseeing the money-minting part, it is indeed refreshing to see youngsters in quest of heritage. The love for anything that is antique is a thirst by itself. It pushes one beyond their normal limits in search of the past. I still can’t get to my roots- has anyone tried to get the names of our forefathers two generations back? I bet, we cannot go beyond three or say four generations. Following what they ate, how they worked, science behind their practices- it is all interesting. We have been aping the West for a long time and by now, we have started realizing the World didn’t exist in London alone, few centuries ago. 

The tales and fables told by our grandmothers and grandfathers, the native harvest songs, the local deities and the story behind each of them, the lone pillars in remote areas that were raised centuries ago, temples and their history, architecture of bygone era- everything fascinates us. It is time we kindle the same interest and keep it alive, document whatever we have and pass it on. Legacy is of course what our children get from us in the passing. Let them not think the whole world ate pizzas and read Homer!

Being the lovely parent!

Published in One India One People magazine, November 2016

When someone smiles nicely, a tad bit too sweet and says, “You’re such a lovely mother/father”, all we feel is throwing up our hands in desperation. If there is something so difficult as deciding Trump or Hillary for President, it is deciding who the boss is, at home- the child or the parent.

Gone are those days when we had to cajole and coax our parents to buy a new shoe during mid-term. Our dear children just have to screw up their faces to get a PS4. It is as simple as that. The more gadget friendly children, the tougher gets the parenting. Pampering parents never understand the fact- the needs of a child are basic. I would personally love to snatch every charger of every electronic device and sit back, watch the ‘near-desperation’ with which gadgets are handled. Cruelty factor- infinity! Money can never be traded for parental care and it is high-time we understand that as parents. The best way to discipline a child would be to- be disciplined. Children emulate their parents and it is imperative to place your shoes right on the rack and not at the bedroom door.

There is this lot of control-freak parents who wake the child, feed him, send him to school, feed him when he is back and put him to sleep. The routine life of this child would be like grandfather’s clock in the living room. A child is a child. He needs parents’ quality time. Words come free, when wi-fi is not! We would rather talk to him on anything about the Universe than sit and watch the same old soaps where the sixth heroine plans to murder the seventh mother of the fifth hero.

Our next parent will be the ‘bindas’ parent. Nothing worries this parent- not the stock market crash, not the vegetable market crash. The person is Mr.Cool that the only worry he has is his manager’s pet puppy that needs his petting. Indifference can kill a child, dear Mr.Cool, the manager’s puppy can find a bone on its own! When the child says, “Dad…I got second in potato sack race today”, this couch potato wouldn’t bother to wag a finger and say, “well done, son”. I specifically say the Dad here as our sanskar and sanskriti has taught us- ‘father works in office, mother cares for children”.

In addition to these, we have the com’pare’nt. The only fruitful job this type of parent does is comparison. “See, Mrs. Gupta’s son is so intelligent and smart. Why aren’t you half that smart?” Dear mother, if you had been so smart as Mrs. Gupta, your son would have gone places! Again, I have made ‘mother’ specific here and you know why! Each child is different. Each child is unique. It would be a sin to compare a rose with a daisy. A rose is a rose is a rose!

To me, the worst third degree torture isn’t the one devised by the Police or military forces. It is being the single parent. The name ‘sin’gle parent by itself is the punishment for all our sins that would be cleansed away in this lifetime. Parenting is a tight-rope walk already and being a single parent is rope walking like the proverbial nomad on the streets. Something as trivial as a whiff of air will blow you down the drain of self-wallowing and self-pity. The pressure of a single parent obviously ends up on the shoulders of the little one. In addition to the routine troubles, the kid has to ride on the roller-coaster of life hanging on to a single bare thread, the parent, who is already a superman/superwoman with the red cape.

Our society trains guns on all parents, irrespective of how the child fares in life. Accomplished son- “he is so dull”, adventurous daughter- “she is a pain”, gypsy streak one- “like parent, like child”. Even if you are Mother Mary with Jesus, the society will lay your parenthood bare saying you failed. Our success as a parent isn’t what the society thinks we are or we should be. It is what we feel right to our own conscience. Raising a toast to all parents alike- “let’s enjoy parenthood, for we get only one life and one or two children”, nah, two is a rarity, make it one!