No regrets.
No repining.
No bitterness.
No apologies.
No reproaches.
No mea culpas.
I shall NOT look back. I shall ONLY look forward.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
When to forgive and when to forget...
Ever since I remember, my nearest and dearest have maintained that I forgive and forget too easily. How can you forget that slight, they hissed at me! How can you take people at face value, they muttered, what if he/she stabs you in the back? My problem, it seems was to actually TRUST people. An even bigger problem, it seemed, was I didn't hold grudges,forgave too readily, was willing to move on, even go on being friends with those who have stabbed me in the back.In short,I am a fool just waiting to be trod on, trampled under and generally reduced to being a gullible idiot.
Well so be it... speaking for myself that's the way I am. And, regardless of the consequences, I like being the way I am and will continue to do so...
But, what really begs the question is this: when should one forgive and forget? When should one turn one's cheek and when should one carry the whole weight of hurts and slights from the distant past into the far future? Should the baggage of hatred burden one to the extent that just thinking of the people who have hurt you makes you burst into a virulent rage... accompanied by some choice four letter words that sear the very atmosphere.
I know people who carry their slights and hurts, sometimes imagined, sometimes not, around with them letting their insides erode with hatred and anger. I know some who put people up on pedestals (even though they didn't ask for this particular perch in life)and then cavil about the fact that they feel let down and hurt and intransigent about the whole deal. And they continue to feel this way for ever and ever...
Then there are people who take up the cudgels on anther's behalf, making someone else's fight their own, and carry this particular grudge for the rest of their lives - uselessly allowing it to drown out memories of happier times, a once-upon-a-time great relationship - letting the poison of rancor and bitterness eat into their very souls.
Why? What's the point of it all?
What's wrong with putting everything behind one, leaving behind the detritus of a ruined relationship and forging a new, kindlier one - which could perhaps be no more than just saying a cheerful "hi" - and carrying on without all that embittered baggage which is bound to affect, influence and perhaps destroy other, new and promising relationships?
Because the past always influences the future. Constant bitterness, constant rehashing of past hurts and slights and insults corode... changing the way you are, permanently disabling your very being, your inner soul, warping your emotions and turning you into a person you perhaps may not recognise years down the road.
At that point you don't want to ask yourself: what happened to me? When did I change? What made me change? Where did I go wrong? Why am I all alone today? Because at that point it may be too late to do anything about it...
Well so be it... speaking for myself that's the way I am. And, regardless of the consequences, I like being the way I am and will continue to do so...
But, what really begs the question is this: when should one forgive and forget? When should one turn one's cheek and when should one carry the whole weight of hurts and slights from the distant past into the far future? Should the baggage of hatred burden one to the extent that just thinking of the people who have hurt you makes you burst into a virulent rage... accompanied by some choice four letter words that sear the very atmosphere.
I know people who carry their slights and hurts, sometimes imagined, sometimes not, around with them letting their insides erode with hatred and anger. I know some who put people up on pedestals (even though they didn't ask for this particular perch in life)and then cavil about the fact that they feel let down and hurt and intransigent about the whole deal. And they continue to feel this way for ever and ever...
Then there are people who take up the cudgels on anther's behalf, making someone else's fight their own, and carry this particular grudge for the rest of their lives - uselessly allowing it to drown out memories of happier times, a once-upon-a-time great relationship - letting the poison of rancor and bitterness eat into their very souls.
Why? What's the point of it all?
What's wrong with putting everything behind one, leaving behind the detritus of a ruined relationship and forging a new, kindlier one - which could perhaps be no more than just saying a cheerful "hi" - and carrying on without all that embittered baggage which is bound to affect, influence and perhaps destroy other, new and promising relationships?
Because the past always influences the future. Constant bitterness, constant rehashing of past hurts and slights and insults corode... changing the way you are, permanently disabling your very being, your inner soul, warping your emotions and turning you into a person you perhaps may not recognise years down the road.
At that point you don't want to ask yourself: what happened to me? When did I change? What made me change? Where did I go wrong? Why am I all alone today? Because at that point it may be too late to do anything about it...
Thursday, December 18, 2008
What price advice?
Why oh why do people ask for advice?
Most people don't follow it when given. In fact, most people don't even like listening to it even though they actually ask for it or bring up the topic...
So why even ask? Just do what you think is right and then go for it, dude!!!
My friends and family have accused me of never listening to advice! Why should I if I don't intend to follow it, by and large? I will listen, factor it into my arguments and then do what I think is right... I have had friends who have...
Complained that people talk about them, interfere in their decision making process and so forth. My advice? Don't tell the world about your problems and they won't interfere! Simple.
When I left my first husband, my parents or siblings were totally unaware of my intentions. They didn't even know I had any problems. It was a decision I took, on my own...
I had another friend (past tense: she used to dump on me and then got upset because she didn't like what I told her!)who, for years, stressed out about whether she should leave her significant other half. Or not. She didn't. Nada! Nyet! Non! And why not? According to her, there were many reasons why not - kids, money, property, you name it, she got a reason that fits.
Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much! And rationalizing... who wants to give up wealth, comfort, convenience, social standing for an unknown future? Perfectly understandable but then admit it. Don't fool yourself that your reasons are anything other than what they are!
People rationalize quitting jobs... moving countries... cutting connections with friends... accepting or not accepting promotions. All I have to say is this: you can fool others most of the time, but stop fooling yourself!
Ultimately, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every morning and face up to realty. And the realty is: no pain, no gain.
Most people don't follow it when given. In fact, most people don't even like listening to it even though they actually ask for it or bring up the topic...
So why even ask? Just do what you think is right and then go for it, dude!!!
My friends and family have accused me of never listening to advice! Why should I if I don't intend to follow it, by and large? I will listen, factor it into my arguments and then do what I think is right... I have had friends who have...
Complained that people talk about them, interfere in their decision making process and so forth. My advice? Don't tell the world about your problems and they won't interfere! Simple.
When I left my first husband, my parents or siblings were totally unaware of my intentions. They didn't even know I had any problems. It was a decision I took, on my own...
I had another friend (past tense: she used to dump on me and then got upset because she didn't like what I told her!)who, for years, stressed out about whether she should leave her significant other half. Or not. She didn't. Nada! Nyet! Non! And why not? According to her, there were many reasons why not - kids, money, property, you name it, she got a reason that fits.
Methinks the lady doth protesteth too much! And rationalizing... who wants to give up wealth, comfort, convenience, social standing for an unknown future? Perfectly understandable but then admit it. Don't fool yourself that your reasons are anything other than what they are!
People rationalize quitting jobs... moving countries... cutting connections with friends... accepting or not accepting promotions. All I have to say is this: you can fool others most of the time, but stop fooling yourself!
Ultimately, you have to look at yourself in the mirror every morning and face up to realty. And the realty is: no pain, no gain.
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Gratitude! A highly over-rated sentiment?
"Be grateful." "You ingrate!" "I have done sooo much for you..." And unspoken: "I have helped you when you needed it and now look how you treat me! I am not your friend anymore!"
How often have we all been at the receiving end of such sentiments? Or have thought these thoughts ourselves. But why do we all do this?
On a person to person basis we have all been helped out by friends and family. Or helped others out - people whom we are fond off or close to or to whom we owe a good turn to. But why do we all expect gratitude in return? Why can't human beings (or nations) help each other out without expecting the other party to be forever grateful?
One old friend helps out another old friend at a critical moment and then gets upset because he or she doesn't always jump to her/his bidding. "After all", the reasoning goes,"I helped out in a big way so why won't he/she jump to my bidding?"
Or one BIG country helps out a not-so-big developing country with vital food grains and then is completed shocked when the debtor refuses to kowtow in all matters of political philosophy.
And then you have the parents! Which parent (even the most tolerant, nicest, understanding, stay out of the child's hair kind) hasn't at some moment or the other thought: How can my child treat me like this? After all I have done, given, sacrificed, etc etc? (Is it more honest to expect gratitude and expect something in return - as in "I put you through IIT now marry the girl/boy I choose for you or look after me for the rest of my life, screw your wife's/husband's feelings" - or shut up and suffer feelings of hurt and rejection?
Why is it that anonymous donors can give big time to charity without expecting 24/7 gestures of gratitude ("No, no", says the donor, "it's nothing really!It's the least I can do!") but when it comes to personal gestures of help and handouts, then a lifetime of gratitude is the least one can expect in return.
Why can't good deeds remain just that, good deeds, with no expectations of returns on investment?
Is it because this flow of gratitude makes us feel better about ourselves? Helps to bolster our feelings of self-esteem? Makes us feel like we matter to some people at least? And gives us a raison de etre for living?
Why can't we just do good things for each other without expecting to be told that we are the greatest? That we really are the next best thing to sliced bread? That we make a difference in this uncaring and careless world?
How often have we all been at the receiving end of such sentiments? Or have thought these thoughts ourselves. But why do we all do this?
On a person to person basis we have all been helped out by friends and family. Or helped others out - people whom we are fond off or close to or to whom we owe a good turn to. But why do we all expect gratitude in return? Why can't human beings (or nations) help each other out without expecting the other party to be forever grateful?
One old friend helps out another old friend at a critical moment and then gets upset because he or she doesn't always jump to her/his bidding. "After all", the reasoning goes,"I helped out in a big way so why won't he/she jump to my bidding?"
Or one BIG country helps out a not-so-big developing country with vital food grains and then is completed shocked when the debtor refuses to kowtow in all matters of political philosophy.
And then you have the parents! Which parent (even the most tolerant, nicest, understanding, stay out of the child's hair kind) hasn't at some moment or the other thought: How can my child treat me like this? After all I have done, given, sacrificed, etc etc? (Is it more honest to expect gratitude and expect something in return - as in "I put you through IIT now marry the girl/boy I choose for you or look after me for the rest of my life, screw your wife's/husband's feelings" - or shut up and suffer feelings of hurt and rejection?
Why is it that anonymous donors can give big time to charity without expecting 24/7 gestures of gratitude ("No, no", says the donor, "it's nothing really!It's the least I can do!") but when it comes to personal gestures of help and handouts, then a lifetime of gratitude is the least one can expect in return.
Why can't good deeds remain just that, good deeds, with no expectations of returns on investment?
Is it because this flow of gratitude makes us feel better about ourselves? Helps to bolster our feelings of self-esteem? Makes us feel like we matter to some people at least? And gives us a raison de etre for living?
Why can't we just do good things for each other without expecting to be told that we are the greatest? That we really are the next best thing to sliced bread? That we make a difference in this uncaring and careless world?
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Stop the world I want to get off...
...but is that the answer? And if I do get off, where will I go? Aside from the Moon, Mars or... there are no desert islands left to run to any more!
I look around me at a world gone mad... taking me along with it... I am bombarded by moments and memories - conflicting and surreal, contradicting each other - leaving me exhausted trying to make sense of them all.
Which is the real India? Will the real India pleeeze stand up?
The in your face auto driver who speeds past my standing toes with millimetres to spare? Or the one who regales me with stories of how he is putting all his earnings into building a future for his three sons, one of whom is working and married at age 19; one who is going to college so he can become an IFS officer; and the youngest who will join the army.
Is it the mayhem in Mumbai? Those searing images of burning buildings, the iconic Taj and Oberoi exploding into the drawing rooms of millions of Indians, unctuous politicians, TRP hungry TV living off the public's hunger for information, sensationalism and the rage for retribution and justice?
Is it my 34 year old maid who got her daughters married off at the ages of 16/17 but is sending her young sons to boarding school so they can make something of themselves and are protected from the drug dealing, the violence, the disease and the corruption endemic in the chawls of our big cities?
Or is it India "shining" - with her urban youth running helter-skelter, at warp speed, hungry for fame and fortune leaving in the dust the controls and traditions beloved off their parents, into a bright, golden future which is now collapsing around them in glittering shards of broken dreams?
Or could it it be that India, populated by a people who still believe in making vows to the "powers that be" if their son, daughter, husband or any other family member is saved from a death dealing illness and who do the rounds of dargahs, temples and self-serving, saffron-robed holy men to ensure that their dreams come true?
Or is it the star-spangled denizens of Bollywood, the Page 3 movers and shakers, around whom acolytes revolve in ever faster circles pulling vast swathes of Indians, young and old, into a maelstrom of idol worship and adulation?
Or finally, is it the India that has been suddenly reborn, that has emerged Phoenix-like from the ashes of the death and destruction that has rained down on all of us; young, angry, justice-seeking, won't put-up-with-all-this-crap-any more India, that has taken to the streets, roads, lanes, parks and highways... demanding answers, action, a complete over-haul of the body politic; a young, vibrant, finally coming of age India asking that the India of all our dreams (for the last 60 plus years) finally become a realty the way our founding fathers had envisaged it to be at the midnight hour of 15th August, 1947?
Which is the real India? And is it now time for her to actually emerge from the shadows and take her place in the sun? Are we finally going to keep our tryst with destiny?
I look around me at a world gone mad... taking me along with it... I am bombarded by moments and memories - conflicting and surreal, contradicting each other - leaving me exhausted trying to make sense of them all.
Which is the real India? Will the real India pleeeze stand up?
The in your face auto driver who speeds past my standing toes with millimetres to spare? Or the one who regales me with stories of how he is putting all his earnings into building a future for his three sons, one of whom is working and married at age 19; one who is going to college so he can become an IFS officer; and the youngest who will join the army.
Is it the mayhem in Mumbai? Those searing images of burning buildings, the iconic Taj and Oberoi exploding into the drawing rooms of millions of Indians, unctuous politicians, TRP hungry TV living off the public's hunger for information, sensationalism and the rage for retribution and justice?
Is it my 34 year old maid who got her daughters married off at the ages of 16/17 but is sending her young sons to boarding school so they can make something of themselves and are protected from the drug dealing, the violence, the disease and the corruption endemic in the chawls of our big cities?
Or is it India "shining" - with her urban youth running helter-skelter, at warp speed, hungry for fame and fortune leaving in the dust the controls and traditions beloved off their parents, into a bright, golden future which is now collapsing around them in glittering shards of broken dreams?
Or could it it be that India, populated by a people who still believe in making vows to the "powers that be" if their son, daughter, husband or any other family member is saved from a death dealing illness and who do the rounds of dargahs, temples and self-serving, saffron-robed holy men to ensure that their dreams come true?
Or is it the star-spangled denizens of Bollywood, the Page 3 movers and shakers, around whom acolytes revolve in ever faster circles pulling vast swathes of Indians, young and old, into a maelstrom of idol worship and adulation?
Or finally, is it the India that has been suddenly reborn, that has emerged Phoenix-like from the ashes of the death and destruction that has rained down on all of us; young, angry, justice-seeking, won't put-up-with-all-this-crap-any more India, that has taken to the streets, roads, lanes, parks and highways... demanding answers, action, a complete over-haul of the body politic; a young, vibrant, finally coming of age India asking that the India of all our dreams (for the last 60 plus years) finally become a realty the way our founding fathers had envisaged it to be at the midnight hour of 15th August, 1947?
Which is the real India? And is it now time for her to actually emerge from the shadows and take her place in the sun? Are we finally going to keep our tryst with destiny?
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Isn't life funny?
Maybe... depends on one's point of view I guess...
Like yesterday...there I was in a auto rickshaw with Alan (my eldest son for those who don't know) being driven along by the rick driver, all minding our own business trying to keep on the straight and the narrow when - whoom!... this guy came right at us from the left flank! If our charioteer hadn't taken instant evasive action all of us would have been in ICU if not singing with a choir of angels! Needless to say, I was somewhat disturbed by the whole incident but Alan sagely said that getting high blood pressure about such things would have the same result as being run over. He's got a point! So I am supposed to accept with unruffled demeanour the whole idea of instant death! Anyways, as far as that guy was concerned he must have been labouring under the impression that his father owns the roads in Delhi! In fact most drivers in Delhi - in cars, mobikes, ricks, buses (especially the killer blue lines)cycles, even hand drawn carts - are all under the same impression. Good to feel that one is lord of all one surveys, or in this case, drives on!
Funny isn't it how people think they can get away with bull shit? Take the case of a certain person who has been negotiating with me on using my professional services. After much hooing and hahing, he offered the princely sum of 10 grand a month for being a sort of advertising consultant! On my demurring, rather mildly I thought, he then held out this oh-so-luscious carrot: the promise of, maybe, getting rid of their agency in the next couple of months and then I could, maybe, perhaps, make 30 - 40 grand a month. Wow! If I hold my breath in expectation I wouldn't live to see the day in all likelihood!I think he felt my skepticism because he has been thereafter conspicuous by his absence. Or maybe he didn't like the fact that I didn't ask how high when he expected me to jump!
Then again people are funny, aren't they? Why does what seems to me perfectly logical behaviour seem insane, stupid and not acceptable to others? Also how is it that I spent my whole life as a Mother instilling (I think) tolerance, forgiveness, patience, let the past be past, let bygones be bygones, life is too short to hold grudges or hate people attitude in my kids to find out now, when they are all grown up. that they they believe in having the exact opposite attitude? Oh, the veneer of forgive and forget is there - but deep down? No way! They won't even deign to fling a casual hello in the direction of the people they feel badly done by! Well, I tried!
Nature wins over nurture - again!
And finally, why is it I can't tell my sons (or rather they won't listen) when I don't want to discuss something or listen to their advice on what I should do or not do - but should I even evince an interest in what they are thinking, doing or the state of their lives and bodies - all hell breaks loose. So what am I supposed to have a conversation about? The weather, potholes on the road, the state of the nation?
Life is funny. People even funnier. Yeah right!
Like yesterday...there I was in a auto rickshaw with Alan (my eldest son for those who don't know) being driven along by the rick driver, all minding our own business trying to keep on the straight and the narrow when - whoom!... this guy came right at us from the left flank! If our charioteer hadn't taken instant evasive action all of us would have been in ICU if not singing with a choir of angels! Needless to say, I was somewhat disturbed by the whole incident but Alan sagely said that getting high blood pressure about such things would have the same result as being run over. He's got a point! So I am supposed to accept with unruffled demeanour the whole idea of instant death! Anyways, as far as that guy was concerned he must have been labouring under the impression that his father owns the roads in Delhi! In fact most drivers in Delhi - in cars, mobikes, ricks, buses (especially the killer blue lines)cycles, even hand drawn carts - are all under the same impression. Good to feel that one is lord of all one surveys, or in this case, drives on!
Funny isn't it how people think they can get away with bull shit? Take the case of a certain person who has been negotiating with me on using my professional services. After much hooing and hahing, he offered the princely sum of 10 grand a month for being a sort of advertising consultant! On my demurring, rather mildly I thought, he then held out this oh-so-luscious carrot: the promise of, maybe, getting rid of their agency in the next couple of months and then I could, maybe, perhaps, make 30 - 40 grand a month. Wow! If I hold my breath in expectation I wouldn't live to see the day in all likelihood!I think he felt my skepticism because he has been thereafter conspicuous by his absence. Or maybe he didn't like the fact that I didn't ask how high when he expected me to jump!
Then again people are funny, aren't they? Why does what seems to me perfectly logical behaviour seem insane, stupid and not acceptable to others? Also how is it that I spent my whole life as a Mother instilling (I think) tolerance, forgiveness, patience, let the past be past, let bygones be bygones, life is too short to hold grudges or hate people attitude in my kids to find out now, when they are all grown up. that they they believe in having the exact opposite attitude? Oh, the veneer of forgive and forget is there - but deep down? No way! They won't even deign to fling a casual hello in the direction of the people they feel badly done by! Well, I tried!
Nature wins over nurture - again!
And finally, why is it I can't tell my sons (or rather they won't listen) when I don't want to discuss something or listen to their advice on what I should do or not do - but should I even evince an interest in what they are thinking, doing or the state of their lives and bodies - all hell breaks loose. So what am I supposed to have a conversation about? The weather, potholes on the road, the state of the nation?
Life is funny. People even funnier. Yeah right!
Monday, July 28, 2008
Today I lost my life...
30 years down the tube. That's what's happened ... everything that I ever owned, everything with some meaning in my life has been sold to strangers. Unknowing, uncaring strangers thousands of miles away in another land.
Why and how you ask? Because I fell back on my payments to the storage place in NYC - only by three months. So they auctioned everything off. They say they sent notice by registered mail but I didn't receive it. I could (and do want) to sue them but to what purpose? I don't have the money to sue. And it won't get my stuff back...
So my life is done. Gone. All the little things and the big things... everything I collected and put together - being pawed over, torn apart, thrown away, bought for probably 10 or 20 dollars.
Once before this has happened to me. When I left so many things behind in England. But I was younger then, more resilient about standing up to blows like this... now 30 years down... I am numb.
So what do I do? At the end of the day what does this make me? A failure that's what. Can't get a good job. No savings. At the mercy of fate. Maybe it's worth staying married to arse holes - at least I would have felt useless in the lap of luxury. So what if mental and emotional abuse would have been the price to pay... I wouldn't have had to worry about paying bills. Because the arse hole would have paid...
So now, here I am, as bare of possessions as the day I started out on my own.
Cest la vie...
Why and how you ask? Because I fell back on my payments to the storage place in NYC - only by three months. So they auctioned everything off. They say they sent notice by registered mail but I didn't receive it. I could (and do want) to sue them but to what purpose? I don't have the money to sue. And it won't get my stuff back...
So my life is done. Gone. All the little things and the big things... everything I collected and put together - being pawed over, torn apart, thrown away, bought for probably 10 or 20 dollars.
Once before this has happened to me. When I left so many things behind in England. But I was younger then, more resilient about standing up to blows like this... now 30 years down... I am numb.
So what do I do? At the end of the day what does this make me? A failure that's what. Can't get a good job. No savings. At the mercy of fate. Maybe it's worth staying married to arse holes - at least I would have felt useless in the lap of luxury. So what if mental and emotional abuse would have been the price to pay... I wouldn't have had to worry about paying bills. Because the arse hole would have paid...
So now, here I am, as bare of possessions as the day I started out on my own.
Cest la vie...
Sunday, July 27, 2008
A mouthful of poison!
That's what I get when I am in an auto, stuck in a traffic jam at Nehru Place,Chirag Dilli, Moolchand intersection, Kotla signal... or wherever. The level of the auto is uniquely placed to ensure (guarantee?) that its passenger gets the full benefit of all the fumes belched out by cars, buses, mobikes, other autos - CNG be damned - trucks, you name it... any and every vehicle that is attached to a combustion engine. And I wonder...
I am surrounded by the hundreds and thousands who are at the receiving end of such emmisions. Walking on the roads, residing on the pavements, earning their living selling magazines and pushing carts, riding in over-crowded buses and, like me, in autos... and I wonder: what do they think, these have-nots, of the haves riding by in their cool, comfortable and protective air conditioned chariots?
Have they ever been exposed to the cacophony of horns (blown continuously), screams, shouts, gears crashing, motors whining, screeching tires, braking lorries and shouted invectives that fill the atmosphere around us - but against which they are safely cocooned? No, of course not! Otherwise, how could they look so cool and unconcerned and uncaring and disdainful (yes, disdainful!) behind the tinted windows of their multi-lakh cars?
Do they ever consider rising up, a la the Russians in the 1917 Revolution, and turn on the rich and the uncaring? Do the haves ever realise that this ever-growing, in your face, flaunting of wealth and privilege will, if not corrected some time soon, blow up in their faces in a vitriolic out-pouring of rage, resentment and envy?
Every age, every nation, every society has its haves and its have-nots... but if we consider the world today, very few have it in such close juxtaposition as we do. In our metros one crore rupee cars scrape shoulders with the rickshaw pullers; 17 crore helipads tower over the poorest of the poor, in shanty towns that are a moral indictment on any decent society. Do the haves even know the least thing about the squalour that surrounds them? Have they the faintest idea of the damage and poison that the riders in autos and cycles and pedestrians are exposed to?
Of course not. We are all depending on the age-old, traditional conditioning (that word again!)that the have-nots have been imbued with since time immemorial: this is our karma, it is written, it is our destiny to live our lives this way, we were born to this as were our forefathers - so be it. But, and this is a BIG but, India today is not the India that has been... young India will not not be so patient and long suffering. They have seen the other side and they want their rights. The right to a better life... amongst the haves. And they won't be shy about getting their way, by force if necessary. It's just a matter of time...
I am surrounded by the hundreds and thousands who are at the receiving end of such emmisions. Walking on the roads, residing on the pavements, earning their living selling magazines and pushing carts, riding in over-crowded buses and, like me, in autos... and I wonder: what do they think, these have-nots, of the haves riding by in their cool, comfortable and protective air conditioned chariots?
Have they ever been exposed to the cacophony of horns (blown continuously), screams, shouts, gears crashing, motors whining, screeching tires, braking lorries and shouted invectives that fill the atmosphere around us - but against which they are safely cocooned? No, of course not! Otherwise, how could they look so cool and unconcerned and uncaring and disdainful (yes, disdainful!) behind the tinted windows of their multi-lakh cars?
Do they ever consider rising up, a la the Russians in the 1917 Revolution, and turn on the rich and the uncaring? Do the haves ever realise that this ever-growing, in your face, flaunting of wealth and privilege will, if not corrected some time soon, blow up in their faces in a vitriolic out-pouring of rage, resentment and envy?
Every age, every nation, every society has its haves and its have-nots... but if we consider the world today, very few have it in such close juxtaposition as we do. In our metros one crore rupee cars scrape shoulders with the rickshaw pullers; 17 crore helipads tower over the poorest of the poor, in shanty towns that are a moral indictment on any decent society. Do the haves even know the least thing about the squalour that surrounds them? Have they the faintest idea of the damage and poison that the riders in autos and cycles and pedestrians are exposed to?
Of course not. We are all depending on the age-old, traditional conditioning (that word again!)that the have-nots have been imbued with since time immemorial: this is our karma, it is written, it is our destiny to live our lives this way, we were born to this as were our forefathers - so be it. But, and this is a BIG but, India today is not the India that has been... young India will not not be so patient and long suffering. They have seen the other side and they want their rights. The right to a better life... amongst the haves. And they won't be shy about getting their way, by force if necessary. It's just a matter of time...
A matter of conditioning?
Is everything we do or say a matter of conditioning? Does that mean that respect for parents and elders is up for debate and should not be taken for granted ONLY because we have been conditioned to do so? That the importance of good manners is up for debate because after all, that too is a matter of conditioning? Should we take a fresh look at the accepted societal prohibitions against murder, theft and all manner of dishonest behaviour just because we have been conditioned to accept these norms?
Why am I asking these questions? Because recently, two incidents occurred during which crass behaviour on the part of youngsters was actually condoned with the explanation that the behaviour was only considered 'crass' and "disrespectful' because we have been conditioned to do so.
In one case, a child told her father to shut up. On being reprimanded, her response was "but you are my father!" - the logic being if she can't tell her father to shut up, who could she say it to? My opinion? Not the father, not anyone! It was just gross bad manners - and if not corrected, likely to carry over into her adult life when it will be brought home to her forcebly that she can't get away with teling anyone to shut up!
In another case, a teenage boy tells his Mom not to be an idiot. The mother laughs it away... Since when is it right for a child to call his parent an idiot? Why would he ever want to respect her if she lets him get away with such crass bad manners? But I forget - good manners and respect and politeness are only society's conditioning. They are not necessarily correct or right or part of the mandate that society expects us to follow. We could debate these and do away with them.
After all, it's all a matter of conditioning! So is murder and mayhem and terrorism...
Why am I asking these questions? Because recently, two incidents occurred during which crass behaviour on the part of youngsters was actually condoned with the explanation that the behaviour was only considered 'crass' and "disrespectful' because we have been conditioned to do so.
In one case, a child told her father to shut up. On being reprimanded, her response was "but you are my father!" - the logic being if she can't tell her father to shut up, who could she say it to? My opinion? Not the father, not anyone! It was just gross bad manners - and if not corrected, likely to carry over into her adult life when it will be brought home to her forcebly that she can't get away with teling anyone to shut up!
In another case, a teenage boy tells his Mom not to be an idiot. The mother laughs it away... Since when is it right for a child to call his parent an idiot? Why would he ever want to respect her if she lets him get away with such crass bad manners? But I forget - good manners and respect and politeness are only society's conditioning. They are not necessarily correct or right or part of the mandate that society expects us to follow. We could debate these and do away with them.
After all, it's all a matter of conditioning! So is murder and mayhem and terrorism...
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The high cost of being a perfectionist.
Growing up, I used to often wonder why I never got into an argument concerning the heftier concerns in life - say politics, existentialism,the fate of mankind etc etc! - or into debates, discussions and diatribes. I am OK with one on one conversations but the moment I am faced with a group of people my knees turn to water! I used to wonder why...
Now after decades of soul searching I have come to some sort of conclusion: I didn't want to come off looking like an idiot.I didn't want to be thought of as an ignoramous. I didn't want to be laughed at. And, most importantly, I didn't ever want to be thought of as less than perfect in everything I did, do and know.
That I think is a problem with quite a few people!
People who carry a personal responsibility for the failures of others - friends, family and colleagues. People who take it as a personal affront when others fail the company, the job, the assignment.
While, as a boss, one is of course accountable but beyond a point one cannot carry the load for the rest of the world or at least folks one has to work with. There is a limit to accountability, responsibility and carrying the can. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can't be held responsible for hardware failures and software glitches their products suffer from! Failings that their companies, and the workers therein, could be and should be held accountable for.
The problem is that a perfectionist will always feel that he/she is making excuses should some small cog in the corporate machine fail him/her. These individuals are convinced that in explaining failures of the system will be thought off as rationalising, and reflect badly on them. That they will be letting all and sundry down.
I don't agree. Because perfectionists very rarely fail nor will they allow others to fail them. Generally. But occasionally it does happen. A weak link in the chain does snap... and when that happens one shouldn't take on unbearable loads because under stress the strongest link can, in the greater scheme of things, suddenly become the weakest by snapping at a critical juncture, at the wrong time when everyone else is depending on that link standing firm and strong.
So my point is that sometimes one stops thinking and worrying about holding up the universe on one's shoulders and thinks solely of holding oneself up so that one survives the storm, lets the person concerned take the fall... Because it's most important that you remain strong to fight for the greater good another day.
At one point in my life I wanted to be superwoman: superwife, supermom and supercareer woman. I found out that not only was I not being "super" at anything, I was being less than adequate at everything.(I did fail as a wife after all. That too twice!) So I decided that I would have to be the best I could at the various jobs depending on the need of the hour. That made life much simpler for me and took the soul searching out of everyday life...
Perfectionism comes at a high cost. Sometimes the cost is not worth it...
Now after decades of soul searching I have come to some sort of conclusion: I didn't want to come off looking like an idiot.I didn't want to be thought of as an ignoramous. I didn't want to be laughed at. And, most importantly, I didn't ever want to be thought of as less than perfect in everything I did, do and know.
That I think is a problem with quite a few people!
People who carry a personal responsibility for the failures of others - friends, family and colleagues. People who take it as a personal affront when others fail the company, the job, the assignment.
While, as a boss, one is of course accountable but beyond a point one cannot carry the load for the rest of the world or at least folks one has to work with. There is a limit to accountability, responsibility and carrying the can. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates can't be held responsible for hardware failures and software glitches their products suffer from! Failings that their companies, and the workers therein, could be and should be held accountable for.
The problem is that a perfectionist will always feel that he/she is making excuses should some small cog in the corporate machine fail him/her. These individuals are convinced that in explaining failures of the system will be thought off as rationalising, and reflect badly on them. That they will be letting all and sundry down.
I don't agree. Because perfectionists very rarely fail nor will they allow others to fail them. Generally. But occasionally it does happen. A weak link in the chain does snap... and when that happens one shouldn't take on unbearable loads because under stress the strongest link can, in the greater scheme of things, suddenly become the weakest by snapping at a critical juncture, at the wrong time when everyone else is depending on that link standing firm and strong.
So my point is that sometimes one stops thinking and worrying about holding up the universe on one's shoulders and thinks solely of holding oneself up so that one survives the storm, lets the person concerned take the fall... Because it's most important that you remain strong to fight for the greater good another day.
At one point in my life I wanted to be superwoman: superwife, supermom and supercareer woman. I found out that not only was I not being "super" at anything, I was being less than adequate at everything.(I did fail as a wife after all. That too twice!) So I decided that I would have to be the best I could at the various jobs depending on the need of the hour. That made life much simpler for me and took the soul searching out of everyday life...
Perfectionism comes at a high cost. Sometimes the cost is not worth it...
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Is divorce still a dirty word?
So it seems. Though the statistics say that the incidence of divorces is a rising graph,
there are women I know and am very fond off who are still fighting shy of it.
Even though they have more than enough reasons for leaving their unworthy insignificant
other halves to their dirty devices! The reasons are many and varied...!
Must hang in there for the kids' sake. What if the kids are all grown up and doing their own thing?
Do they really need you or does saying this make YOU feel more needed?
I won't get what's due to me. How can I support myself? From the guy's hoarded wealth of course, how else!!!
My conditioning is against divorce. Your conditioning is no linger valid, for God's sake! We are living
in the 21st century - wake up and smell the coffee!
What is society going to say! Who the hell cares? Is society going to come and help you out when you are
getting emotionally and physically battered and bruised? And verbally abused?
And the best of all... I don't have the guts. I am not strong like you! Guess what? I wasn't strong like me
when I got divorced either... I was making a leap in the dark because I didn't want to end up at the age of 60
doing something I was better equipped to handle at the age of 35!
I became strong over the years because I HAD to, living and surviving as I was in a man's world. Because that's
what it was, and still is, and let's not fool ourselves.Dare I say it? I became more like a man! That's what I
have been accused of by a dear friend of mine who is a man. Not feminine enough I was told!
Why did I do it? Because I didn't want to live my life at the beck and call of MY significant other half (halves!) -
compromising, giving, being nice and massaging the very fragile egos that only men have the right to have, looking
after hearth and home while going out to work etc etc.
I contemplated a life which seemed to stretch like a dark, endless tunnel with NO light at the end and figured that
it was better to get used to it, then, than have to do so at the ripe old age of 50 or 60 plus. When you don't have
a choice and can't do anything about anything because one's options are so limited.
Of course, being a divorcee I was at the receiving end of lots of comments, snide opinions and nasty talk including
(by men) "Hey, she is a divorcee. Must be an easy lay...must be desperate to have a man in her life!" You wish!
So here I am. At the ripe old age of almost 60 contemplating (yes, I must admit it) growing even older without a man
by my side - ooohhh, horrible thought, but you know what? I have done so for over 25 years and will continue to do so
for the rest of my life or what's left of it.
I have to still earn my own living but then I know women who are still earning a living while the men in their lives
sit and brood at home, refusing to work any more! So how are they better off than me? At least I don't have to put up
with the frustrations these guys take out on their wives!
I don't have to put up with mood swings, depressions, bouts of new found spirituality, maniacal behaviour, whims and fancies, superstitions, egotistical outbursts, idiotic demands, their trophy girlfriends and bimbo mistresses - ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Today, I live my life on my terms. My way, as Frankie boy has warbled down the years. Yes, there is uncertainty, there is aloneness (not loneliness!); but all these women who can't, don't, won't leave their husbands, who hang like millstones around their necks (the husbands I mean) are they less uncertain, insecure and alone?
I don't think so.
there are women I know and am very fond off who are still fighting shy of it.
Even though they have more than enough reasons for leaving their unworthy insignificant
other halves to their dirty devices! The reasons are many and varied...!
Must hang in there for the kids' sake. What if the kids are all grown up and doing their own thing?
Do they really need you or does saying this make YOU feel more needed?
I won't get what's due to me. How can I support myself? From the guy's hoarded wealth of course, how else!!!
My conditioning is against divorce. Your conditioning is no linger valid, for God's sake! We are living
in the 21st century - wake up and smell the coffee!
What is society going to say! Who the hell cares? Is society going to come and help you out when you are
getting emotionally and physically battered and bruised? And verbally abused?
And the best of all... I don't have the guts. I am not strong like you! Guess what? I wasn't strong like me
when I got divorced either... I was making a leap in the dark because I didn't want to end up at the age of 60
doing something I was better equipped to handle at the age of 35!
I became strong over the years because I HAD to, living and surviving as I was in a man's world. Because that's
what it was, and still is, and let's not fool ourselves.Dare I say it? I became more like a man! That's what I
have been accused of by a dear friend of mine who is a man. Not feminine enough I was told!
Why did I do it? Because I didn't want to live my life at the beck and call of MY significant other half (halves!) -
compromising, giving, being nice and massaging the very fragile egos that only men have the right to have, looking
after hearth and home while going out to work etc etc.
I contemplated a life which seemed to stretch like a dark, endless tunnel with NO light at the end and figured that
it was better to get used to it, then, than have to do so at the ripe old age of 50 or 60 plus. When you don't have
a choice and can't do anything about anything because one's options are so limited.
Of course, being a divorcee I was at the receiving end of lots of comments, snide opinions and nasty talk including
(by men) "Hey, she is a divorcee. Must be an easy lay...must be desperate to have a man in her life!" You wish!
So here I am. At the ripe old age of almost 60 contemplating (yes, I must admit it) growing even older without a man
by my side - ooohhh, horrible thought, but you know what? I have done so for over 25 years and will continue to do so
for the rest of my life or what's left of it.
I have to still earn my own living but then I know women who are still earning a living while the men in their lives
sit and brood at home, refusing to work any more! So how are they better off than me? At least I don't have to put up
with the frustrations these guys take out on their wives!
I don't have to put up with mood swings, depressions, bouts of new found spirituality, maniacal behaviour, whims and fancies, superstitions, egotistical outbursts, idiotic demands, their trophy girlfriends and bimbo mistresses - ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Today, I live my life on my terms. My way, as Frankie boy has warbled down the years. Yes, there is uncertainty, there is aloneness (not loneliness!); but all these women who can't, don't, won't leave their husbands, who hang like millstones around their necks (the husbands I mean) are they less uncertain, insecure and alone?
I don't think so.
Friday, July 4, 2008
Why can't I see life in multi-colours?
My sis goes up into the mountains and waxes lyrical!Poetry
sprouts from her heart and mind like streams in the early spring!
I am down in the plains and see everything in monochrome.
My son blogs and sees the funny side of life!
I blog and all I do (so I have been told!) is whine and whinge.
So do they see a half full bottle? And I see it as half-empty?
And I have always been considered the optimist with the Cheshire
cat grin an my face... 24/7!
So what happened? Where did my groove go?
I often wonder, as the auto drivers navigate their way full pelt
down the madness and mayhem that stand for roads in Delhi, why
I can't see what the gushing tourist sees...
They see colour and vibrance and energy and life...
I see crazy people crossing roads with nary a thought for the
traffic bearing down on them... risking their lives and others!
They see exotic "holy cows" and I see dirty bovines that are
hazards to life and limb.
They see a maelstrom of buildings, old and new; age old heritage
and culture living cheek by jowl with modernity and high tech;
they see every conceivable mode of transport adding a touch
of ethnic pride and Indian ingenuity to everyday life.
I see crumbling ruins badly in need of make-overs, electrical
connections that are death traps,dirt and garbage that only
breed disease and death and people who are all out to make a buck
by any means possible regardless of the morals involved.
So why is it I can't see life the way I used to? Full of dreams,
promises and endless possibilities? Why?
Dare I say it? Am I actually getting old?????
sprouts from her heart and mind like streams in the early spring!
I am down in the plains and see everything in monochrome.
My son blogs and sees the funny side of life!
I blog and all I do (so I have been told!) is whine and whinge.
So do they see a half full bottle? And I see it as half-empty?
And I have always been considered the optimist with the Cheshire
cat grin an my face... 24/7!
So what happened? Where did my groove go?
I often wonder, as the auto drivers navigate their way full pelt
down the madness and mayhem that stand for roads in Delhi, why
I can't see what the gushing tourist sees...
They see colour and vibrance and energy and life...
I see crazy people crossing roads with nary a thought for the
traffic bearing down on them... risking their lives and others!
They see exotic "holy cows" and I see dirty bovines that are
hazards to life and limb.
They see a maelstrom of buildings, old and new; age old heritage
and culture living cheek by jowl with modernity and high tech;
they see every conceivable mode of transport adding a touch
of ethnic pride and Indian ingenuity to everyday life.
I see crumbling ruins badly in need of make-overs, electrical
connections that are death traps,dirt and garbage that only
breed disease and death and people who are all out to make a buck
by any means possible regardless of the morals involved.
So why is it I can't see life the way I used to? Full of dreams,
promises and endless possibilities? Why?
Dare I say it? Am I actually getting old?????
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Writer's block!
That's what I am suffering from! I think... Why else haven't I put fingers to key board for over three weeks now? Every time I sit down to write, I can't seem to get up the energy or focus to do so! But when ever I am out and about, ideas pop into my head with infuriating frequency! May be, like the Big B I should take up phone blogging. Ha! Fat chance!!!
So why am I sitting here and burbling on at random? Maybe because I have just come back from seeing a movie, in a movie hall, after something like eight months. And now I know why I haven't been to see a movie in a movie hall for eight months! I just don't want to sit cheek by jowl with the great unwashed Indian public who have NEVER heard about personal hygiene...If I was Bill Gates, I would give away free deos to everyone aged between 15 - 55 and I would be doing humanity a great service.
I am also killing time because I have to rewrite my resume. And that is not something I am looking forward to...
So what else have I got to whinge about?
Yes, I have one great achievement to my credit. I have managed to tame the recalcitrant, in your face auto driver of "mera mahaan dilli"! Now when I am confronted by one of this tribe refusing to take me by meter, I pull out a piece of paper and a pen and take his number down. Why? Because I am going to complain to the Traffic Police Control Centre, that's why. Voila! It works like a charm. And I get to go places with a minimum of fuss and botheration. Now ain't that something, even though I say so myself!
I am also preparing a surprise for my younger son which I hope will please him.
I am working on some nice coffee table books. Hope that works out...
I am also realising (bad grammar!) how much I miss NYC and am putting my heart and soul into figuring out a way to get back, gainfully employed of course, ASAP.
So those are my thoughts for the day. And, oh yes, I have realised yet again, how stoopid our censors are having just seen "Sex and the City"...they cut the movie, for no rhyme and reason, in all the places that actually are all about "Sex and the City".
Why on earth they even released the movie here I don't know! Did they think it was Mary Poppins in disguise? Do they think that Indian adults are not grown up enough for an adult movie? Or were they expecting steaming sex scenes and getting none of that, they clipped even the most innocuous of innuendo's out of tight arsed frustration?
That's all I have to write about for now. Hope I do another one in the near future for the sake of my non-existent readers!!!
So why am I sitting here and burbling on at random? Maybe because I have just come back from seeing a movie, in a movie hall, after something like eight months. And now I know why I haven't been to see a movie in a movie hall for eight months! I just don't want to sit cheek by jowl with the great unwashed Indian public who have NEVER heard about personal hygiene...If I was Bill Gates, I would give away free deos to everyone aged between 15 - 55 and I would be doing humanity a great service.
I am also killing time because I have to rewrite my resume. And that is not something I am looking forward to...
So what else have I got to whinge about?
Yes, I have one great achievement to my credit. I have managed to tame the recalcitrant, in your face auto driver of "mera mahaan dilli"! Now when I am confronted by one of this tribe refusing to take me by meter, I pull out a piece of paper and a pen and take his number down. Why? Because I am going to complain to the Traffic Police Control Centre, that's why. Voila! It works like a charm. And I get to go places with a minimum of fuss and botheration. Now ain't that something, even though I say so myself!
I am also preparing a surprise for my younger son which I hope will please him.
I am working on some nice coffee table books. Hope that works out...
I am also realising (bad grammar!) how much I miss NYC and am putting my heart and soul into figuring out a way to get back, gainfully employed of course, ASAP.
So those are my thoughts for the day. And, oh yes, I have realised yet again, how stoopid our censors are having just seen "Sex and the City"...they cut the movie, for no rhyme and reason, in all the places that actually are all about "Sex and the City".
Why on earth they even released the movie here I don't know! Did they think it was Mary Poppins in disguise? Do they think that Indian adults are not grown up enough for an adult movie? Or were they expecting steaming sex scenes and getting none of that, they clipped even the most innocuous of innuendo's out of tight arsed frustration?
That's all I have to write about for now. Hope I do another one in the near future for the sake of my non-existent readers!!!
Sunday, June 8, 2008
Where do I begin?
I haven't written for over a week. Because I have been away. Because I have had a surfiet of topics. Because I don't want to vent and depress myself in the process... So, now I don't know where to begin!
Because what ever I write about is going to sound like I am venting and complaining and depressing my non-existent readers! So let me see...
What about this excerpt taken from an article in the New York times about the two Indias we all live in. This is from an article about Hamilton Court, a very posh, gated community, in Gurgaon:
"Some 600 domestic staff members work at Hamilton Court, an average of 2.26 per apartment. The building employs its own plumbers and electricians. At any one time, 22 security guards and 32 surveillance cameras are at work...The guards at the gate are instructed not to let nannies take children outside, and men delivering pizza or okra are allowed in only with permission. Once, Mr. Bhalla recalled proudly, a servant caught spitting on the lawn was beaten up by the building staff.
Recently, Mr. Bhalla’s association cut a path from the main gate to the private club next door, so residents no longer have to share the public sidewalk with servants and the occasional cow..."
This is India Shining? How are we any different from our caste ridden ancestors? And this is an educated person talking!
Last night I got ripped off by two BSES (Electric Supply) guys who came to check why our lights had gone off at 11.15 pm while everyone else's were doing fine. They came and looked at the meter - said the problem was not with the meter downstairs but with the one upstairs which I would need to get seen to. At midnight! They looked expectantly at me...I gave in and offered them cash for fixing the problem. They tinkered with the connection, the guy at the main meter suddenly called out his version of "Eureka!" and lo and behold the lights came back. This morning I found out that all they did was turn the MCD switches back on. A job they were supposed to do for free!
All this makes me so proud of being Indian.
On asking an auto driver why he wanted to over-charge me, I was told the following. "What memsahib! How will I recover the Rs 2000 I pay the lady when I go for renewal of my license? No money, no licence. And I can't afford that, can I?"
Long live bright and shining India. I don't know whether I should laugh or cry...
Because what ever I write about is going to sound like I am venting and complaining and depressing my non-existent readers! So let me see...
What about this excerpt taken from an article in the New York times about the two Indias we all live in. This is from an article about Hamilton Court, a very posh, gated community, in Gurgaon:
"Some 600 domestic staff members work at Hamilton Court, an average of 2.26 per apartment. The building employs its own plumbers and electricians. At any one time, 22 security guards and 32 surveillance cameras are at work...The guards at the gate are instructed not to let nannies take children outside, and men delivering pizza or okra are allowed in only with permission. Once, Mr. Bhalla recalled proudly, a servant caught spitting on the lawn was beaten up by the building staff.
Recently, Mr. Bhalla’s association cut a path from the main gate to the private club next door, so residents no longer have to share the public sidewalk with servants and the occasional cow..."
This is India Shining? How are we any different from our caste ridden ancestors? And this is an educated person talking!
Last night I got ripped off by two BSES (Electric Supply) guys who came to check why our lights had gone off at 11.15 pm while everyone else's were doing fine. They came and looked at the meter - said the problem was not with the meter downstairs but with the one upstairs which I would need to get seen to. At midnight! They looked expectantly at me...I gave in and offered them cash for fixing the problem. They tinkered with the connection, the guy at the main meter suddenly called out his version of "Eureka!" and lo and behold the lights came back. This morning I found out that all they did was turn the MCD switches back on. A job they were supposed to do for free!
All this makes me so proud of being Indian.
On asking an auto driver why he wanted to over-charge me, I was told the following. "What memsahib! How will I recover the Rs 2000 I pay the lady when I go for renewal of my license? No money, no licence. And I can't afford that, can I?"
Long live bright and shining India. I don't know whether I should laugh or cry...
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
In our dreams...
60 long years ago, our leaders promised us a tryst with destiny and announced we had promises to keep and miles to go. Well, I don't know whether Robert Frost managed to do what he set out to do in his poem but we definitely haven't!
We promised ourselves a secular nation - free of bias, prejudice, communal divisions, religious confrontations and so on and so forth.
So, at the expense of beating a much beaten drum and flogging a very dead horse, we are no further on than our forefathers were decades ago... Yes, yes, I know! We are India Shining. So what? Scratch the surface of all that shine and bling and what do you find?
The same racial divides, the same tired and nasty old attitudes...
A few examples...
Domestic help should not sit on chairs in front of their employers. They should have separate utensils to eat from. Their food is carefully parcelled out. and on occasion they are beaten, raped, abused and trodden underfoot.
Brahmins to marry Brahmins. Every caste to stay in its own place - and as for the STs and SCs and the OBCs - for them as long as we have quotas, we can treat them like dirt. Fair and homely girls are still the only kind that sons should marry and the Green Card is the gateway to the promised land.
Farmers are committing suicide by the hundreds. No one seems to care... But why are they dying? Because they and their families are starving to death but then so what? The tribals are dying. The pavement dwellers are dying. Little children are dying, woman are being burnt to death, beaten up and thrown out... in a country of one billion plus, who is going to notice the deaths of even thousands?
Let's look at urban India.Foreign woman "goris" are getting raped and molested with impunity. Why? Because they are considered 'white' chicks and fair game. Bachelors, single women (even though they are above 50!), Muslims, blacks, non-vegetarians (in Chennai) and probably a whole host of others, are denied a place to stay.Women still face a glass ceiling at work and men refuse to discuss business matters with them down South. How secular is that?
We are so fixated about our so-called ethnic pasts that we re-christen cities that didn't even exist before the Brits - there was NO Mumbai or Kolkata or Chennai before the Brits. So where do these names come from? Are we trying to re-write our own history and trying to wipe out 200 years of our existence?
Last, but not least, why should North Indians be kept out of Maharashtra? Anyone with basic knowledge of history will know that before Maharashtra became a linguistic state it consisted of large tracts of Gujarat, and Mumbai itself had more people from other parts of India than from Maharashtra itself. Why should Bengal be only for Bengalis and Punjab for Punjabis?
It's amazing what our politicians will do to win votes. They will stand our constitution on its head with impunity. Who cares about all the principles, ideals and ethics that India was founded upon? We are supposed to be ONE united nation. But are we? Deep down in our hearts? Or are we just a fractured entity being pulled apart by a million vested interests? How does it matter if in the process of dividing to rule, our country goes back to being a hundred little fiefdoms fighting for survival. What price India Shining?
We promised ourselves a secular nation - free of bias, prejudice, communal divisions, religious confrontations and so on and so forth.
So, at the expense of beating a much beaten drum and flogging a very dead horse, we are no further on than our forefathers were decades ago... Yes, yes, I know! We are India Shining. So what? Scratch the surface of all that shine and bling and what do you find?
The same racial divides, the same tired and nasty old attitudes...
A few examples...
Domestic help should not sit on chairs in front of their employers. They should have separate utensils to eat from. Their food is carefully parcelled out. and on occasion they are beaten, raped, abused and trodden underfoot.
Brahmins to marry Brahmins. Every caste to stay in its own place - and as for the STs and SCs and the OBCs - for them as long as we have quotas, we can treat them like dirt. Fair and homely girls are still the only kind that sons should marry and the Green Card is the gateway to the promised land.
Farmers are committing suicide by the hundreds. No one seems to care... But why are they dying? Because they and their families are starving to death but then so what? The tribals are dying. The pavement dwellers are dying. Little children are dying, woman are being burnt to death, beaten up and thrown out... in a country of one billion plus, who is going to notice the deaths of even thousands?
Let's look at urban India.Foreign woman "goris" are getting raped and molested with impunity. Why? Because they are considered 'white' chicks and fair game. Bachelors, single women (even though they are above 50!), Muslims, blacks, non-vegetarians (in Chennai) and probably a whole host of others, are denied a place to stay.Women still face a glass ceiling at work and men refuse to discuss business matters with them down South. How secular is that?
We are so fixated about our so-called ethnic pasts that we re-christen cities that didn't even exist before the Brits - there was NO Mumbai or Kolkata or Chennai before the Brits. So where do these names come from? Are we trying to re-write our own history and trying to wipe out 200 years of our existence?
Last, but not least, why should North Indians be kept out of Maharashtra? Anyone with basic knowledge of history will know that before Maharashtra became a linguistic state it consisted of large tracts of Gujarat, and Mumbai itself had more people from other parts of India than from Maharashtra itself. Why should Bengal be only for Bengalis and Punjab for Punjabis?
It's amazing what our politicians will do to win votes. They will stand our constitution on its head with impunity. Who cares about all the principles, ideals and ethics that India was founded upon? We are supposed to be ONE united nation. But are we? Deep down in our hearts? Or are we just a fractured entity being pulled apart by a million vested interests? How does it matter if in the process of dividing to rule, our country goes back to being a hundred little fiefdoms fighting for survival. What price India Shining?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Thank you ladies!
Today, very coincidentally, I was made to realise how far some of us women have really come... Today, I realised afresh how much we have forgotten what our less fortunate sisters-in-arms fought for decades ago. How much I,personally, have taken for granted about freedom of thought, action, ideas, way of life and living.
So why this wake up call? One conversation. One TV show. And things I have not given much thought to was brought home forcibly to me again.
The conversation was about widowed young girls - as young as eight, 10 or in their early teens, being sent to Vrindavan to spend the rest of their lives with shaved heads and in abject misery. Even today. About young women, aged 16, 20 and 25, widowed and spending their entire lives as the poorest of poor relatives, consigned to doing the most menial jobs for some food and shelter. How over the centuries men ruled our lives with an iron fist... and we smiled and smiled and took it because we were made to believe we deserved it.
Then I saw a TV show about an advertising agency in New York in the 50s. And everything came back to me in a rush! How men would never look at a woman unless she was 'hot'... unfortunately that is still true of men today but it is getting better!
How if a guy took you out, then you were automatically expected to jump into the sack as a "thank you" gesture.
How in offices, the only way men used to look at a woman was by undressing her mentally. How in a zillion different ways women were slighted, put down, relegated to less than a human condition because the grown up gorillas in suits thought they were the masters of the universe. Because they said so... and it was a man's world!
How, the only thing that a woman were supposed to want to be was a wife and mother! As long as the lord and master gave her a house, kids and money, she was supposed to be deliriously happy and contented. God forbid if she actually wanted to use her brains! What brains? Women were supposed to be bird-witted, didn't we know?
As for the guy? He could do whatever he wanted - have affairs by the dozen, drink himself silly, behave outrageously - women were expected to look pretty, obedient, demure and take what ever he dished out on the chin, dust herself off and carry on as if nothing happened!
I know that today in large swathes of the world, including in our own country where the girl child is being killed off before she is born and brides are still being burnt, women are still at the bottom of the pit, trodden upon, mutilated and dishonoured, ill-treated and living in the most appalling conditions.
So while I shouldn't really cloak myself in selfish satisfaction, I am so grateful that I have been able to do what I wanted to do and lived the life I wanted to live - with dignity,self-respect,satisfaction and independence... and yes, happiness! Thank you Emily Pankhurst. Thank you Germaine Greer. And all those ladies who burnt your bras and stood up for yourselves, to make your stand in a man's world. You made a better life possible for women like me. I am truly grateful!
So why this wake up call? One conversation. One TV show. And things I have not given much thought to was brought home forcibly to me again.
The conversation was about widowed young girls - as young as eight, 10 or in their early teens, being sent to Vrindavan to spend the rest of their lives with shaved heads and in abject misery. Even today. About young women, aged 16, 20 and 25, widowed and spending their entire lives as the poorest of poor relatives, consigned to doing the most menial jobs for some food and shelter. How over the centuries men ruled our lives with an iron fist... and we smiled and smiled and took it because we were made to believe we deserved it.
Then I saw a TV show about an advertising agency in New York in the 50s. And everything came back to me in a rush! How men would never look at a woman unless she was 'hot'... unfortunately that is still true of men today but it is getting better!
How if a guy took you out, then you were automatically expected to jump into the sack as a "thank you" gesture.
How in offices, the only way men used to look at a woman was by undressing her mentally. How in a zillion different ways women were slighted, put down, relegated to less than a human condition because the grown up gorillas in suits thought they were the masters of the universe. Because they said so... and it was a man's world!
How, the only thing that a woman were supposed to want to be was a wife and mother! As long as the lord and master gave her a house, kids and money, she was supposed to be deliriously happy and contented. God forbid if she actually wanted to use her brains! What brains? Women were supposed to be bird-witted, didn't we know?
As for the guy? He could do whatever he wanted - have affairs by the dozen, drink himself silly, behave outrageously - women were expected to look pretty, obedient, demure and take what ever he dished out on the chin, dust herself off and carry on as if nothing happened!
I know that today in large swathes of the world, including in our own country where the girl child is being killed off before she is born and brides are still being burnt, women are still at the bottom of the pit, trodden upon, mutilated and dishonoured, ill-treated and living in the most appalling conditions.
So while I shouldn't really cloak myself in selfish satisfaction, I am so grateful that I have been able to do what I wanted to do and lived the life I wanted to live - with dignity,self-respect,satisfaction and independence... and yes, happiness! Thank you Emily Pankhurst. Thank you Germaine Greer. And all those ladies who burnt your bras and stood up for yourselves, to make your stand in a man's world. You made a better life possible for women like me. I am truly grateful!
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Excuses! Excuses! Excuses!
Whenever I have dared to comment on the state of the nation (NOT with the same impact as an American President, of course!) I have been thrown a curve ball which leaves me gently frothing at the mouth... Let me enumerate a few of them here...
1. Why don't people follow road rules, I ask, when a huge top-of-the-line SUV careens across four lanes of traffic and misses us miraculously.
Excuse: (Indignantly) How can you expect people to maintain road discipline when they don't even get one square meal a day!!!
Okkkkaaayyyy... but the guy in the SUV didn't seem to me to fall into that category. So what's his excuse?
2. Recently a middle level official in the transport licensing department was finally caught taking bribes. What gave him away? His 3.5 crore house to start with - given as how his monthly salary was 18,000 rupees a month. In fact his whole department was caught - from top to bottom.
Excuse: (Sadly) You don't understand! How can he make ends meet on that salary? He has to feed his family...
Well, that's true - especially if you are a foot soldier in the police or a humble teacher in a government school with a take home of 6000 - 7000, if that.
But on Rs.18,000, one can feed one's family - providing one doesn't aspire to houses worth crores!
3. Getting a passport. The horror stories are legion. Six months. One year. In some cases - never. People are made to run around - in circles literally.
4. Getting a gas connection - supposed to be quick and easy, right? No way!
5. Getting a pan card - can take up to three months. Why?
6. Not to mention load shedding (mind you, I read somewhere, that one of the head honchos in our government said right to power is not a constitutional right!), water shortages, uncleared garbage... I could go on and on...
So what's the excuse?
Excuse:(Airily)... Those are minor problems... you have to understand! We have a one billion plus population. It takes time for efficiency, productivity, discipline to trickle down. There's a long way to go - from the top to bottom! (Where the rot really starts, I thought to myself!)
So that's the realty of it all - no excuses, no passing the buck! We have been trying for over 60 years... by the time all this is fixed, I'll be dead and gone and won't be in any position to give a damn!
1. Why don't people follow road rules, I ask, when a huge top-of-the-line SUV careens across four lanes of traffic and misses us miraculously.
Excuse: (Indignantly) How can you expect people to maintain road discipline when they don't even get one square meal a day!!!
Okkkkaaayyyy... but the guy in the SUV didn't seem to me to fall into that category. So what's his excuse?
2. Recently a middle level official in the transport licensing department was finally caught taking bribes. What gave him away? His 3.5 crore house to start with - given as how his monthly salary was 18,000 rupees a month. In fact his whole department was caught - from top to bottom.
Excuse: (Sadly) You don't understand! How can he make ends meet on that salary? He has to feed his family...
Well, that's true - especially if you are a foot soldier in the police or a humble teacher in a government school with a take home of 6000 - 7000, if that.
But on Rs.18,000, one can feed one's family - providing one doesn't aspire to houses worth crores!
3. Getting a passport. The horror stories are legion. Six months. One year. In some cases - never. People are made to run around - in circles literally.
4. Getting a gas connection - supposed to be quick and easy, right? No way!
5. Getting a pan card - can take up to three months. Why?
6. Not to mention load shedding (mind you, I read somewhere, that one of the head honchos in our government said right to power is not a constitutional right!), water shortages, uncleared garbage... I could go on and on...
So what's the excuse?
Excuse:(Airily)... Those are minor problems... you have to understand! We have a one billion plus population. It takes time for efficiency, productivity, discipline to trickle down. There's a long way to go - from the top to bottom! (Where the rot really starts, I thought to myself!)
So that's the realty of it all - no excuses, no passing the buck! We have been trying for over 60 years... by the time all this is fixed, I'll be dead and gone and won't be in any position to give a damn!
Saturday, May 17, 2008
When I am 64... ... what will I be doing?
Will I be earning? Will I be working?
When I am 64?
No, of course not!
Didn't I know that as an over 35...
I might as well be dead and buried - alive?
But... but... I protest! My brain is still working!
And I am sure it will do so, when I am 64!
No it won't, say the young Pundits of today.
How can I assume that I will know how the young think...
What they want and what they dream?
How will I understand their lingo, their aspirations,
Their driving force...their motivations?
Because I am over 35, way over 35, so how would I know
How our young country thinks?
But... But... I try again. Surely not everyone...
Is under 35... is my weak refrain.
They might as well be, the know-it-alls tell me...
Didn't I know? they say with curling lip...
And contemptuous sneer...
Look around you, they rub it in with glee!
That all those who really matter...
Today's movers and shakers...add up to 65%...
Of India's population...
And they are all under that magic figure... 35!
So how do YOU expect to do anything useful
In our young country?
In one last weak effort, I try to counter...
Their arguments and oh-so-supercilious manner.
Look around you, I cry, in a last ditch effort...
Tell me why this so very young country of ours...
Is run by a bunch of geriatrics...
None of whom can claim to be remotely within...
Smelling distance of 35?
Tell me, I say again...
Why is it OK to run the world's largest democracy...
But I can't be trusted to work at earning a living?
When I am 64!
When I am 64?
No, of course not!
Didn't I know that as an over 35...
I might as well be dead and buried - alive?
But... but... I protest! My brain is still working!
And I am sure it will do so, when I am 64!
No it won't, say the young Pundits of today.
How can I assume that I will know how the young think...
What they want and what they dream?
How will I understand their lingo, their aspirations,
Their driving force...their motivations?
Because I am over 35, way over 35, so how would I know
How our young country thinks?
But... But... I try again. Surely not everyone...
Is under 35... is my weak refrain.
They might as well be, the know-it-alls tell me...
Didn't I know? they say with curling lip...
And contemptuous sneer...
Look around you, they rub it in with glee!
That all those who really matter...
Today's movers and shakers...add up to 65%...
Of India's population...
And they are all under that magic figure... 35!
So how do YOU expect to do anything useful
In our young country?
In one last weak effort, I try to counter...
Their arguments and oh-so-supercilious manner.
Look around you, I cry, in a last ditch effort...
Tell me why this so very young country of ours...
Is run by a bunch of geriatrics...
None of whom can claim to be remotely within...
Smelling distance of 35?
Tell me, I say again...
Why is it OK to run the world's largest democracy...
But I can't be trusted to work at earning a living?
When I am 64!
Friday, May 16, 2008
Once upon a time...
I was a funny writer! No, really, truly I was a writer with a sense of humour! If any of my English teachers were alive today (which is highly improbable; they are all probably pushing daisies by now!)they would all attest to this fact.
Immodest as it may sound, I had a ironic turn of phrase, a penchant for punning and a wry, self-deprecating sense of humour - on occasion verging on the pie-in-the-face variety of comic capers.
Incidentally, I am quite impressed by my command of the English language - it seems I do remember words other than 'Free!', 'New', 'latest', 'best', 'never before!', 'buy one, get one free' and others of the same ilk! 40 years selling soap and cars and cereal does depress any pretensions I might have had regarding my command over the Queen's English - or even Hinglish!
So where was I? Ah, yes, my lost sense of the funny and the comic - which would come into their own even in those essays we all used to turn in after every summer - "My ideal summer holidays!"
My essays used to be quite funny, hysterical more often than not, and full of incidents and happenings. I always got 10 on 10 for originality! And a pat on the back... Why I even wrote articles for the trend setting Junior Statesman - and Desmond Doig,it's legendary editor, didn't even edit a single funny word!
So what happened in the intervening years? Why can't I imbue my life and all that's happened to me in the bright shades of laughter instead of the dull shades of whinging and complaints? Horror of horrors... maybe instead of becoming merely bitter and infused with acidity, I have become, even worse, dull, boring and trapped in a pool of self-pity?
I really must think this over. Next time I am stuck in the Mother of all traffic jams in Nehru Place, I must instantly compare it to being bumper to bumper at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge - and bless my lucky stars that instead of just being surrounded by cars and trucks, I am actually in the middle of a maelstrom of cows,cycles, autos, hand carts, rickshaws, two wheelers, tempos, cars of every shape and size (including Beamers!)and people, people and more people! This comparison should then make me realise how very boring being stuck over the Hudson really used to be!
So, in future, I shall try and always look at the funny side of things... whether it's the temper trantrums of our recalcitrant maid, load-shedding three times a day, the water running dry just when I have lathered up a headfull of shampoo, missing sure death while crossing the road when the light is against on-coming traffic - and such other minor hazards of daily life here in the land of my forefathers!
I am now going to look far and wide for my missing sense of humour. Wish me luck!
Immodest as it may sound, I had a ironic turn of phrase, a penchant for punning and a wry, self-deprecating sense of humour - on occasion verging on the pie-in-the-face variety of comic capers.
Incidentally, I am quite impressed by my command of the English language - it seems I do remember words other than 'Free!', 'New', 'latest', 'best', 'never before!', 'buy one, get one free' and others of the same ilk! 40 years selling soap and cars and cereal does depress any pretensions I might have had regarding my command over the Queen's English - or even Hinglish!
So where was I? Ah, yes, my lost sense of the funny and the comic - which would come into their own even in those essays we all used to turn in after every summer - "My ideal summer holidays!"
My essays used to be quite funny, hysterical more often than not, and full of incidents and happenings. I always got 10 on 10 for originality! And a pat on the back... Why I even wrote articles for the trend setting Junior Statesman - and Desmond Doig,it's legendary editor, didn't even edit a single funny word!
So what happened in the intervening years? Why can't I imbue my life and all that's happened to me in the bright shades of laughter instead of the dull shades of whinging and complaints? Horror of horrors... maybe instead of becoming merely bitter and infused with acidity, I have become, even worse, dull, boring and trapped in a pool of self-pity?
I really must think this over. Next time I am stuck in the Mother of all traffic jams in Nehru Place, I must instantly compare it to being bumper to bumper at the entrance to the George Washington Bridge - and bless my lucky stars that instead of just being surrounded by cars and trucks, I am actually in the middle of a maelstrom of cows,cycles, autos, hand carts, rickshaws, two wheelers, tempos, cars of every shape and size (including Beamers!)and people, people and more people! This comparison should then make me realise how very boring being stuck over the Hudson really used to be!
So, in future, I shall try and always look at the funny side of things... whether it's the temper trantrums of our recalcitrant maid, load-shedding three times a day, the water running dry just when I have lathered up a headfull of shampoo, missing sure death while crossing the road when the light is against on-coming traffic - and such other minor hazards of daily life here in the land of my forefathers!
I am now going to look far and wide for my missing sense of humour. Wish me luck!
Thursday, May 15, 2008
10 better-than-good reasons why mothers deserve Mother's Day!
Why 10 better-than-good reasons? Because three and five weren't enough reasons and 10 is a nice, round, impressive number! But I digress...! And the reasons I am going to propound have nothing to do with the usual ones that Moms get credit for...
Like being loving and caring and teaching kids the right value systems or for being there for them at all the right and the wrong times and staying up at night and car pooling them around all day... No Siree! Not for me the usual reasons... I think the 10 reasons Moms need to be given credit for are for the miracles they wrought and the mental strain and stress we all undergo while wroughting (I just invented a new word!!!) the same said miracles!
1. Sitting on one's hands while a toddler wobbles his way towards you and trips over a cushion narrowly missing the corner of a glass table.
2. Counting till 110 when said toddler, now a hyper active two, manages to get in the way of a cricket ball and comes home with a black eye to die for.
3. When a nine year old is warned again and again NOT to use a speed breaker as a take-off ramp for his bike, is threatened with dire consequences if he doesn't cease and desist, but does it anyways and ends up landing on his head and produces a bump that rivals the black eye in size, bumpness (another new word! I am inspired!) and sheer hassle value.
4. Keeping one's mouth shut when an aspiring chef, all off 17 years old, bakes a cake with baking soda instead of good old, garden variety flour and then can't understand why said cake is not only flatter than a pancake but as inedible as a rubber tyre.
5. Sitting on one's hands, again!, when an oh-so-proud 11 year old comes home and boasts of having done head-stands on top of the slide in school... then spending 45 minutes explaining the potential, utterly paralysing effects of a fall and then getting a call from school the next day about just such a fall - but, luckily, without the damage - excepting for 6 stitches!
6. Keeping one's mouth shut when adventurous, experimental, nothing-will-ever-happen to me 20 year olds go out to carouse and swagger and impress every babe in town and then come home with a hangover to end all hangovers and Mom then administers Alka Seltzer, soothing words and TLC... when all she wants to say is "I told you so!"
7. When a young, hurting and miserable 18 year, away from home, hearth and family, weeps her heart out because some Lothario broke it (her heart that is) and the Mom can't do anything, anything at all, except wish the most dire and vicious vengeance upon every man ever put on this earth.
8. Or because a Mother is called upon to solve a catastrophic problem that leaves her very, very grown up 'child' thousands of miles away, a quivering wreck and she deals with the problem by remote control and the help of good friends... and one night totally awake and totally stressed out!
9. Consider the sheer terror that a Mother experiences when, in a crowded shopping mall, her child disappears for not more than 30 seconds and the relief she gives vent to with a tight slap on her bottom (or actually any part she can reach!) when the child reappears clutching a stranger's hand.
10. Imagine, if you can, the frustration, depression, despair(!) and sheer anger a Mother feels when her all-knowing, all-grown-up son is down with the Mother of all colds (I wonder why it's ALWAYS the Mother and not the Father of all wars, cold, disasters?)and will just not listen to common sense advice just because WHY should one listen to one's Mother? What does she know anything about anything?
Well, I feel these are 10 better-than-good reasons why Mothers deserve all the praise they get on Mother's day.
And there are two homes truths about Mothers and kids that were, I am sure, accepted even by the Neanderthals...
One: to a parent a child will always be a child however old the child is - 5, 15, 55 or 105!
Second: It doesn't matter how much distance there is between a Mom and her kid; however much the Mom tries to run away from her kid (or more often vice-versa), she will never be able to get away, because the kid or kids is inside her head - and one can't really run away from that!
Like being loving and caring and teaching kids the right value systems or for being there for them at all the right and the wrong times and staying up at night and car pooling them around all day... No Siree! Not for me the usual reasons... I think the 10 reasons Moms need to be given credit for are for the miracles they wrought and the mental strain and stress we all undergo while wroughting (I just invented a new word!!!) the same said miracles!
1. Sitting on one's hands while a toddler wobbles his way towards you and trips over a cushion narrowly missing the corner of a glass table.
2. Counting till 110 when said toddler, now a hyper active two, manages to get in the way of a cricket ball and comes home with a black eye to die for.
3. When a nine year old is warned again and again NOT to use a speed breaker as a take-off ramp for his bike, is threatened with dire consequences if he doesn't cease and desist, but does it anyways and ends up landing on his head and produces a bump that rivals the black eye in size, bumpness (another new word! I am inspired!) and sheer hassle value.
4. Keeping one's mouth shut when an aspiring chef, all off 17 years old, bakes a cake with baking soda instead of good old, garden variety flour and then can't understand why said cake is not only flatter than a pancake but as inedible as a rubber tyre.
5. Sitting on one's hands, again!, when an oh-so-proud 11 year old comes home and boasts of having done head-stands on top of the slide in school... then spending 45 minutes explaining the potential, utterly paralysing effects of a fall and then getting a call from school the next day about just such a fall - but, luckily, without the damage - excepting for 6 stitches!
6. Keeping one's mouth shut when adventurous, experimental, nothing-will-ever-happen to me 20 year olds go out to carouse and swagger and impress every babe in town and then come home with a hangover to end all hangovers and Mom then administers Alka Seltzer, soothing words and TLC... when all she wants to say is "I told you so!"
7. When a young, hurting and miserable 18 year, away from home, hearth and family, weeps her heart out because some Lothario broke it (her heart that is) and the Mom can't do anything, anything at all, except wish the most dire and vicious vengeance upon every man ever put on this earth.
8. Or because a Mother is called upon to solve a catastrophic problem that leaves her very, very grown up 'child' thousands of miles away, a quivering wreck and she deals with the problem by remote control and the help of good friends... and one night totally awake and totally stressed out!
9. Consider the sheer terror that a Mother experiences when, in a crowded shopping mall, her child disappears for not more than 30 seconds and the relief she gives vent to with a tight slap on her bottom (or actually any part she can reach!) when the child reappears clutching a stranger's hand.
10. Imagine, if you can, the frustration, depression, despair(!) and sheer anger a Mother feels when her all-knowing, all-grown-up son is down with the Mother of all colds (I wonder why it's ALWAYS the Mother and not the Father of all wars, cold, disasters?)and will just not listen to common sense advice just because WHY should one listen to one's Mother? What does she know anything about anything?
Well, I feel these are 10 better-than-good reasons why Mothers deserve all the praise they get on Mother's day.
And there are two homes truths about Mothers and kids that were, I am sure, accepted even by the Neanderthals...
One: to a parent a child will always be a child however old the child is - 5, 15, 55 or 105!
Second: It doesn't matter how much distance there is between a Mom and her kid; however much the Mom tries to run away from her kid (or more often vice-versa), she will never be able to get away, because the kid or kids is inside her head - and one can't really run away from that!
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Envious Casca?
According to the Bard, old Julius commented of Casca that"he had a mean and hungry look, such men are dangerous!" Well, even my dearest enemies would hesitate to describe me as mean and hungry but I have been wondering that maybe, just maybe, I am a tad bit envious of those fortunate few who occupy those 'ivory towers of wealth and privilege'?
I have not really been a great one for keeping up with the Joneses. Sad to say, nor have I been overly ambitious. I have never really clung grimly to those steep ladders that the upwardly mobile make a fetish of climbing so assiduously - so that they may, at some stage, charge $6000 shower curtains, their dry cleaning bills and flowers for their trophy girl friends, to their expense accounts.
But I do resent it when I over-hear people, who have a car (sometimes cars) at their disposal 24x7, say how much they enjoyed one solitary auto ride on a holiday - and they didn't have to bargain with the driver either! Wow!!! How wonderful! So very different from my twice - daily experiences and altercations with the same charioteers with the sun beating down mercilessly on me!
Does that comment make me envious?
And then there are those who complain that their domestic help has taken off suddenly - I commiserate till I find out that he/she is one of half a dozen. isn't that inconvenient?
There! Not only do I sound envious, I sound positively bitchy!!!
So what's my point exactly? I wish people would stop telling me how lucky I am to be back after 17 years in the land where my every need will be looked after, where I don't have to bestir myself to do anything (except watch movies, play bridge or socialise every day), where I will not have to slog it out in subways and buses and can happily buy clothes and jewellery without blinking an eye lid.
All I have to say is sure thing! Would any of these ivory tower denizens like to change places with me? In my not so high blocks of concrete and brick - surrounded by garbage, holy cows and 'coloney ka kuthas!'?
I have not really been a great one for keeping up with the Joneses. Sad to say, nor have I been overly ambitious. I have never really clung grimly to those steep ladders that the upwardly mobile make a fetish of climbing so assiduously - so that they may, at some stage, charge $6000 shower curtains, their dry cleaning bills and flowers for their trophy girl friends, to their expense accounts.
But I do resent it when I over-hear people, who have a car (sometimes cars) at their disposal 24x7, say how much they enjoyed one solitary auto ride on a holiday - and they didn't have to bargain with the driver either! Wow!!! How wonderful! So very different from my twice - daily experiences and altercations with the same charioteers with the sun beating down mercilessly on me!
Does that comment make me envious?
And then there are those who complain that their domestic help has taken off suddenly - I commiserate till I find out that he/she is one of half a dozen. isn't that inconvenient?
There! Not only do I sound envious, I sound positively bitchy!!!
So what's my point exactly? I wish people would stop telling me how lucky I am to be back after 17 years in the land where my every need will be looked after, where I don't have to bestir myself to do anything (except watch movies, play bridge or socialise every day), where I will not have to slog it out in subways and buses and can happily buy clothes and jewellery without blinking an eye lid.
All I have to say is sure thing! Would any of these ivory tower denizens like to change places with me? In my not so high blocks of concrete and brick - surrounded by garbage, holy cows and 'coloney ka kuthas!'?
Friday, May 9, 2008
There are no free lunches!
Should one walk out? Or not? Should one leave the cocooned comfort of a luxury home...
And face the poisoned barbs of a self-satisfied, self-indulgent, self-righteous, hypocritical society?
While these were questions that really didn't apply to me 30 years ago... (I wish I had had to struggle with the idea of leaving a luxury home! No such luck!) they are questions that a lot of women face while struggling with that famous "To be or not to be?" situation that had the Prince of Denmark tearing his hair out.
Imagine this scenario: A wayward, bullying, megalomaniac or Don Juan of a husband whose mood changes are as unpredictable as the English weather; who likes to strut his stuff over wife and family by denying, and then showering them, with money, gifts and what have you. Expecting them to forgive and forget - because he says so! In short bribing them into submission! And silence!
The wives are faced with the (likely) loss of most of the money they have got so used to spending lavishly; cars and drivers and servants at their beck and call; expensive clothes and top-of-the-line gadgets they didn't think twice before buying. And, of course, society putting them under a microscope!
So what can these women expect to hear from their fellow sisters? "Ohhhh... Did you hear about Mrs. So and So? She left her husband! And he's SUCH a charming man. Met him just the other day at that party at Mrs. C's... I wonder now...why do you think she left him? Do you think...(and you can put in any reason that the most over-heated imagination can cook up)".
As for the men, they go into over-drive on the lines of..."Well, now that she is a divorcee, I just have to snap my fingers and she'll come running! After all, she must be soooo frustrated... and looking for you know what!" ask me about it! I was at the receiving end not once but twice!
No wonder Jack Welch's wife took him to the cleaners as did Clint Eastwood's and Harrison Ford's. And, while in India, we can't do as much damage as they can in the US of A, the aggrieved wife is entitled to a very large share of the husband's wealth - money and position that she helped him grow!
So, my words of wisdom to all the women out there: We have only one life, and in some cases a pretty short one, don't waste it on that useless, inconsiderate, selfish, MCP, so-called "high achiever" of a husband who comes home to "mommy" and wails and moans and throws temper tantrums that his Mom should have had the good sense to stop when he was two!
Men whose egos are the size of the Himalayas but deflate faster than a pricked balloon at imagined slights, or just because his wife might be as smart, as clever, as successful or better liked and more popular than he. Men who want to ride rough shod over thoughts, feelings, emotions, norms of civil behavior - who think a wife is along for a free ride, a chattel to be bought, sold or otherwise disposed off depending on the Lord and Master's whims and fancies.
Ladies, it's not worth it! Take it from me. I have been there, done it! And while life has been tough, I have enjoyed every minute of it. And, when the dust settles, so will you. Because you will be FREE!!!!
And face the poisoned barbs of a self-satisfied, self-indulgent, self-righteous, hypocritical society?
While these were questions that really didn't apply to me 30 years ago... (I wish I had had to struggle with the idea of leaving a luxury home! No such luck!) they are questions that a lot of women face while struggling with that famous "To be or not to be?" situation that had the Prince of Denmark tearing his hair out.
Imagine this scenario: A wayward, bullying, megalomaniac or Don Juan of a husband whose mood changes are as unpredictable as the English weather; who likes to strut his stuff over wife and family by denying, and then showering them, with money, gifts and what have you. Expecting them to forgive and forget - because he says so! In short bribing them into submission! And silence!
The wives are faced with the (likely) loss of most of the money they have got so used to spending lavishly; cars and drivers and servants at their beck and call; expensive clothes and top-of-the-line gadgets they didn't think twice before buying. And, of course, society putting them under a microscope!
So what can these women expect to hear from their fellow sisters? "Ohhhh... Did you hear about Mrs. So and So? She left her husband! And he's SUCH a charming man. Met him just the other day at that party at Mrs. C's... I wonder now...why do you think she left him? Do you think...(and you can put in any reason that the most over-heated imagination can cook up)".
As for the men, they go into over-drive on the lines of..."Well, now that she is a divorcee, I just have to snap my fingers and she'll come running! After all, she must be soooo frustrated... and looking for you know what!" ask me about it! I was at the receiving end not once but twice!
No wonder Jack Welch's wife took him to the cleaners as did Clint Eastwood's and Harrison Ford's. And, while in India, we can't do as much damage as they can in the US of A, the aggrieved wife is entitled to a very large share of the husband's wealth - money and position that she helped him grow!
So, my words of wisdom to all the women out there: We have only one life, and in some cases a pretty short one, don't waste it on that useless, inconsiderate, selfish, MCP, so-called "high achiever" of a husband who comes home to "mommy" and wails and moans and throws temper tantrums that his Mom should have had the good sense to stop when he was two!
Men whose egos are the size of the Himalayas but deflate faster than a pricked balloon at imagined slights, or just because his wife might be as smart, as clever, as successful or better liked and more popular than he. Men who want to ride rough shod over thoughts, feelings, emotions, norms of civil behavior - who think a wife is along for a free ride, a chattel to be bought, sold or otherwise disposed off depending on the Lord and Master's whims and fancies.
Ladies, it's not worth it! Take it from me. I have been there, done it! And while life has been tough, I have enjoyed every minute of it. And, when the dust settles, so will you. Because you will be FREE!!!!
How does a positive turn into a negative?
All my life people have told me what a bright, chirpy person I am!
Ever-smiling, ever-resilient, always bouncing back like a India rubber ball.
How come we never see you down and in the dumps?
What makes you get up and fight back - in the face of all odds?
Wow, what a strong person you are, people have said admiringly.
Almost a man, one of the boys, making your way without a man at your side...
How do you do it? my friends and colleagues have said with one voice.
In fact if I wasn't a woman, I would have been a man!
I walked out on one marriage, with a two year old in tow.
I was walked out on in my second marriage...
And left holding two babies to grow!
I worked and worked and kept on smiling - or so I am told!
So admirable for a female, they gushed...
To cope with single parenthood while surviving in a man's world.
Then I made my way to other climes...
Where life wasn't always kind.
Jobs came, jobs went - money came in fits and starts.
But we survived and I smiled - and smiled and smiled...
My sons grew up and did me proud.
They supported me when I needed their support...
Now they are young men, making their way in the world...
And I start afresh to support myself, by myself!
All these years I have looked at the bright side of things.
Not letting the nitty-gritty of life do me in...
So why is it now I am accused of being negative?
Is it because I have run out of guts, gumption and grit?
Why do I groan and moan about recalcitrant auto drivers?
Why does the errant ways of my domestic help give me high BP?
Is there any point in gnashing my teeth when the shop keeper doesn't deliver?
Would my reporting him to the cops make a difference to the guy...
Who almost runs me down in his monstrous SUV?
Should I go public when my broadband provider rips me off?
Or the cell phone provider fails to provide?
Now that I have to start afresh without being cocooned...
In the ivory towers of privilege and wealth.
Am I expected to stay positive and keep on smiling regardless?
Ever-smiling, ever-resilient, always bouncing back like a India rubber ball.
How come we never see you down and in the dumps?
What makes you get up and fight back - in the face of all odds?
Wow, what a strong person you are, people have said admiringly.
Almost a man, one of the boys, making your way without a man at your side...
How do you do it? my friends and colleagues have said with one voice.
In fact if I wasn't a woman, I would have been a man!
I walked out on one marriage, with a two year old in tow.
I was walked out on in my second marriage...
And left holding two babies to grow!
I worked and worked and kept on smiling - or so I am told!
So admirable for a female, they gushed...
To cope with single parenthood while surviving in a man's world.
Then I made my way to other climes...
Where life wasn't always kind.
Jobs came, jobs went - money came in fits and starts.
But we survived and I smiled - and smiled and smiled...
My sons grew up and did me proud.
They supported me when I needed their support...
Now they are young men, making their way in the world...
And I start afresh to support myself, by myself!
All these years I have looked at the bright side of things.
Not letting the nitty-gritty of life do me in...
So why is it now I am accused of being negative?
Is it because I have run out of guts, gumption and grit?
Why do I groan and moan about recalcitrant auto drivers?
Why does the errant ways of my domestic help give me high BP?
Is there any point in gnashing my teeth when the shop keeper doesn't deliver?
Would my reporting him to the cops make a difference to the guy...
Who almost runs me down in his monstrous SUV?
Should I go public when my broadband provider rips me off?
Or the cell phone provider fails to provide?
Now that I have to start afresh without being cocooned...
In the ivory towers of privilege and wealth.
Am I expected to stay positive and keep on smiling regardless?
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Boring! Or how I have lost my sense of humour and forgotten to laugh.
I have recently been accused of getting too serious, too negative and too, too boring. Nobody wants to read my pearls of wisdom I believe - though perhaps this could be because I am casting them (the pearls, I mean) before swine? Oops! Maybe I should refrain from calling my readers 'swine' even though they (the readers) have been largely non-existent so far. But who knows... things may improve and my blog could suddenly get a zillion hits and get bought out by one of the really big guys for a zillion green backs. Hope rises eternal...
So what's there to laugh about? Hmmmmmm.....Hey, maybe I have lost my sense of humour after all and find nothing to laugh about in life. Now that is sad!
I have decided to digress... and write random thoughts.
Such as... my gym calling me up to find out why I have been missing in action for the last fortnight!!! Imagine that! They are more concerned about me losing money, and adding to my avoir dupois, by my not gymming than I am - and it's my hard earned dough after all. Very touching and very impressive, don't you think? I think it's because they wanted me to extend my three month membership to a six month membership for an additional 8000 bucks plus change and they had to do it by the 8th of this month. Ha ha!
It's all about the money!!! My bank tried very hard to get me to buy 50 grams of gold (at a discount natch!) because it's considered lucky to buy some form of metal during yesterday and today. Having been persuaded into agreeing (considering it an investment for my so far non-existent daughters-in-law!!!) I hauled ass to the bank this hot and muggy morning to be told I had missed the deadline by 30 minutes! The auspicious time to buy some of the precious metal had expired. I was told in very consoling tones by a very young 24 year old that I could choose to invest in other forms of investment - pension plans maybe???
Babus (bureaucrats) never cease to amaze me. Here we were, wandering around (in 104F heat) like lost souls in Khan Market looking for a Western Union. Having spied the distinctive board hanging above a bank, we went in and asked if we could claim the money sent to us from across the seven seas. No, said a surly old man without even looking up. Why not, I asked? Because we don't do Western Union replied he.But there is a board hanging outside your bank, I protested. So what, said he? We don't do Western Union - board or no board. Go look for another bank! End of matter. I retreated chastened - totally overwhelmed by this attitude that is so beautifully summed up in the phrase "We are like that only!" Long live MTV, who really got to the core of what being Indian is all about!
So what's there to laugh about? Hmmmmmm.....Hey, maybe I have lost my sense of humour after all and find nothing to laugh about in life. Now that is sad!
I have decided to digress... and write random thoughts.
Such as... my gym calling me up to find out why I have been missing in action for the last fortnight!!! Imagine that! They are more concerned about me losing money, and adding to my avoir dupois, by my not gymming than I am - and it's my hard earned dough after all. Very touching and very impressive, don't you think? I think it's because they wanted me to extend my three month membership to a six month membership for an additional 8000 bucks plus change and they had to do it by the 8th of this month. Ha ha!
It's all about the money!!! My bank tried very hard to get me to buy 50 grams of gold (at a discount natch!) because it's considered lucky to buy some form of metal during yesterday and today. Having been persuaded into agreeing (considering it an investment for my so far non-existent daughters-in-law!!!) I hauled ass to the bank this hot and muggy morning to be told I had missed the deadline by 30 minutes! The auspicious time to buy some of the precious metal had expired. I was told in very consoling tones by a very young 24 year old that I could choose to invest in other forms of investment - pension plans maybe???
Babus (bureaucrats) never cease to amaze me. Here we were, wandering around (in 104F heat) like lost souls in Khan Market looking for a Western Union. Having spied the distinctive board hanging above a bank, we went in and asked if we could claim the money sent to us from across the seven seas. No, said a surly old man without even looking up. Why not, I asked? Because we don't do Western Union replied he.But there is a board hanging outside your bank, I protested. So what, said he? We don't do Western Union - board or no board. Go look for another bank! End of matter. I retreated chastened - totally overwhelmed by this attitude that is so beautifully summed up in the phrase "We are like that only!" Long live MTV, who really got to the core of what being Indian is all about!
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
This and that... about Indians abroad.
Let me admit to certain ineradicable facts: I left this country in 1990 to make a better future for myself and my kids (the fact that I must be, perhaps, the only person in the whole, wide world who didn't make pots of money in the Middle East, in fact lost money, puts me in a league of my own!)has made me, much against my will, an NRI. Whatever I say that is the faintest bit negative about 'shining' India is taken to be pseudo, patronizing, condescending, looking-down-my-nose at patriotic Indians, NRI attitude.
In this blog, I am going to turn the tables and aim at Indians abroad. My fellow travellers who moved West - but have never really left the East.
So, I am going to pose a few conundrums...
Why move West and then spend your entire time there living in Indian ghettos?
If the idea was to go and make a name, place, space for yourself in a world that is modern, forward looking, with better work ethos and far better opportunities - than why close yourself into a space that is a re-creation of your 'mohalla' back home - with the same age-old prejudices, biases, behaviour patterns and outmoded customs?
When you put your kids into the local schools so they can learn and benefit from an education system that offers more while learning to blend into a society that is ready to welcome them, then why build barriers around them that force them into negative religious beliefs, forced arranged marriages and social practices that should have been long buried.
But then again, some of of these NRI travellers are so keen to blend (superficailly at least) that they unthinkingly adopt an accent that grates on the ears - Indian pronunciations overlaid with the most horrible twang, drawl or what have you - and a dress code that attempts to be western on a wide hipped, buxom Indian figure. Think stretch pants and cropped tops with tummy bulging out!!! This I have seen on many a young lady!!!
But the most obnoxious feature I have seen and experienced has been the way Indian entrepreneurs treat their employees - as indentured slaves and servants who are at their beck and call just because they are paid a salary! It doesn't matter how qualified they are, what skills and expertise they bring to the business.
The attitude is "I pay your salary so you have to jump every time I crack the whip because I say so!" And this applies across the board - from small mom and pop stores to large scale organisations. There is no question of caring for the employees problems, no question of considering anything from the employee's point of view. And no question of abiding by commitments made and promises given. The only promises and commitments that should be kept are the employee's - not the employers. People are enticed abroad, leaving home, hearth and security and left high and dry once they are in the employer's greedy clutches. and most of them don't have a choice. They are dependent for their visas on the employer, have loans to pay back and families to support. Should one be brave enough to leave, the employer is bewildered and can't understand the effrontery of the employee's in daring to leave. How dare the 'servant' hold the employer responsible for any dues not paid and promises not kept! Did he not understand that a servant just doesn't do that?
In the 17 years I have lived abroad I have seen how the Italians treat their fellow Italian employees; the way the Greeks, Chinese, Koreans and Hispanics treat their fellow immigrants. But we Indians are in a class of our own! It's very, very sad but very, very true - I speak from personal experience and the experience members of my family have suffered.
So I ask, again, why? Why are we so selfish, so money grubbing, so hypocritical and so uncaring of those we should care about the most?
In this blog, I am going to turn the tables and aim at Indians abroad. My fellow travellers who moved West - but have never really left the East.
So, I am going to pose a few conundrums...
Why move West and then spend your entire time there living in Indian ghettos?
If the idea was to go and make a name, place, space for yourself in a world that is modern, forward looking, with better work ethos and far better opportunities - than why close yourself into a space that is a re-creation of your 'mohalla' back home - with the same age-old prejudices, biases, behaviour patterns and outmoded customs?
When you put your kids into the local schools so they can learn and benefit from an education system that offers more while learning to blend into a society that is ready to welcome them, then why build barriers around them that force them into negative religious beliefs, forced arranged marriages and social practices that should have been long buried.
But then again, some of of these NRI travellers are so keen to blend (superficailly at least) that they unthinkingly adopt an accent that grates on the ears - Indian pronunciations overlaid with the most horrible twang, drawl or what have you - and a dress code that attempts to be western on a wide hipped, buxom Indian figure. Think stretch pants and cropped tops with tummy bulging out!!! This I have seen on many a young lady!!!
But the most obnoxious feature I have seen and experienced has been the way Indian entrepreneurs treat their employees - as indentured slaves and servants who are at their beck and call just because they are paid a salary! It doesn't matter how qualified they are, what skills and expertise they bring to the business.
The attitude is "I pay your salary so you have to jump every time I crack the whip because I say so!" And this applies across the board - from small mom and pop stores to large scale organisations. There is no question of caring for the employees problems, no question of considering anything from the employee's point of view. And no question of abiding by commitments made and promises given. The only promises and commitments that should be kept are the employee's - not the employers. People are enticed abroad, leaving home, hearth and security and left high and dry once they are in the employer's greedy clutches. and most of them don't have a choice. They are dependent for their visas on the employer, have loans to pay back and families to support. Should one be brave enough to leave, the employer is bewildered and can't understand the effrontery of the employee's in daring to leave. How dare the 'servant' hold the employer responsible for any dues not paid and promises not kept! Did he not understand that a servant just doesn't do that?
In the 17 years I have lived abroad I have seen how the Italians treat their fellow Italian employees; the way the Greeks, Chinese, Koreans and Hispanics treat their fellow immigrants. But we Indians are in a class of our own! It's very, very sad but very, very true - I speak from personal experience and the experience members of my family have suffered.
So I ask, again, why? Why are we so selfish, so money grubbing, so hypocritical and so uncaring of those we should care about the most?
Saturday, May 3, 2008
Expectations!
We are born with them And we die with them... largely unfulfilled in too many cases, I must admit!
A child is born and the parents expect a genius from day one...And that's just for starters! As for the child? He (I am not going through the whole hassle of being PC and say he/she!) expects the parents to put the world at his feet because after all he didn't ask to be brought into this BIG, BAD world!
And it doesn't get any better, any time soon...
The expectations yo-yo back and forth...
The parents: He must get 99.99% in +2. Only then will he get into IIT!
The child: Who wants to get into IIT? I have to go abroad. All my friends are going!
The parents: He must get a good job - in a IT company or a BPO.
The child: Ha Ha! I don't want to get into a boring job... I am going to be a VJ on MTV and meet with all those hot chicks!!!
And so it goes...
And then there are the expectations that go with relationships - whether sanctified by
the church, temple, mosque or synagogue...
He: She should be a sexy but sweet and simple.
She: He should be talk, dark, handsome AND sexy but not look at another woman - ever again (a patent impossibility I have been told!).
He: She should be smart, clever and wonderful in bed and in the boardroom but NOT as smart, clever and wonderful in bed and boardroom as me!
She: He should have loads of cash and go from management trainee to CEO in one fell swoop.
He: She should contribute to the household expenses but I am the bread winner.
She: He should be romantic, take me out to candle lit dinners and woo me with roses - at least once a week!
He: She should hold down a good job and come home to hearth and home on the dot of 5 pm - no working late or going out with friends after work. Who will welcome me home at 10 pm after a hard day's work (and carousing with pals) with a hot dinner and even warmer hugs?
She: I work as hard as he does. So why should I be the only one to cook, clean, do all the housework and look after the kids? That's like holding down 5 jobs - at one and the same time!
He: A man brings home the bacon - isn't that enough?
Nuff said about marriages (relationships) made in heaven!
There are expectations one has of friends, family, jobs, community, the government and one's country...
John Kennedy said (I am roughly paraphrasing this): Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country... And that is where the catch lies, my friends!
From all fiscal indications our country is going great guns! Everyone knows the statistics! But could we ask ourselves whether we live up to the expectations of our country?
Could we, perhaps, live by the rule of law, hygiene and common courtesy? In simple things...
Like maintaining lane discipline while driving (then maybe the BRT would work!)? Like not braking to a stop in the middle of a high speed expressway and killing innocent people. Like not crossing the road anywhere and everywhere the fancy takes us simply because we don't want to walk to the zebra crossing. Like not driving on the wrong side of the road or zipping through red lights.
Like not throwing the trash on to the road because who cares about the road as long as one's home is clean? Like not trying to get one's files moved by judiciously tipping a somnolent clerk a 50 buck note. Like not bopping people over the head (fatally quite often) because they don't agree with you or have the wads of cash you must have, right now.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Maybe our expectations would be realised if we did our little bit to fulfill the expectations our country has of us! That way we might really find ourselves not just a developing but a developed country - in the near future.
A child is born and the parents expect a genius from day one...And that's just for starters! As for the child? He (I am not going through the whole hassle of being PC and say he/she!) expects the parents to put the world at his feet because after all he didn't ask to be brought into this BIG, BAD world!
And it doesn't get any better, any time soon...
The expectations yo-yo back and forth...
The parents: He must get 99.99% in +2. Only then will he get into IIT!
The child: Who wants to get into IIT? I have to go abroad. All my friends are going!
The parents: He must get a good job - in a IT company or a BPO.
The child: Ha Ha! I don't want to get into a boring job... I am going to be a VJ on MTV and meet with all those hot chicks!!!
And so it goes...
And then there are the expectations that go with relationships - whether sanctified by
the church, temple, mosque or synagogue...
He: She should be a sexy but sweet and simple.
She: He should be talk, dark, handsome AND sexy but not look at another woman - ever again (a patent impossibility I have been told!).
He: She should be smart, clever and wonderful in bed and in the boardroom but NOT as smart, clever and wonderful in bed and boardroom as me!
She: He should have loads of cash and go from management trainee to CEO in one fell swoop.
He: She should contribute to the household expenses but I am the bread winner.
She: He should be romantic, take me out to candle lit dinners and woo me with roses - at least once a week!
He: She should hold down a good job and come home to hearth and home on the dot of 5 pm - no working late or going out with friends after work. Who will welcome me home at 10 pm after a hard day's work (and carousing with pals) with a hot dinner and even warmer hugs?
She: I work as hard as he does. So why should I be the only one to cook, clean, do all the housework and look after the kids? That's like holding down 5 jobs - at one and the same time!
He: A man brings home the bacon - isn't that enough?
Nuff said about marriages (relationships) made in heaven!
There are expectations one has of friends, family, jobs, community, the government and one's country...
John Kennedy said (I am roughly paraphrasing this): Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country... And that is where the catch lies, my friends!
From all fiscal indications our country is going great guns! Everyone knows the statistics! But could we ask ourselves whether we live up to the expectations of our country?
Could we, perhaps, live by the rule of law, hygiene and common courtesy? In simple things...
Like maintaining lane discipline while driving (then maybe the BRT would work!)? Like not braking to a stop in the middle of a high speed expressway and killing innocent people. Like not crossing the road anywhere and everywhere the fancy takes us simply because we don't want to walk to the zebra crossing. Like not driving on the wrong side of the road or zipping through red lights.
Like not throwing the trash on to the road because who cares about the road as long as one's home is clean? Like not trying to get one's files moved by judiciously tipping a somnolent clerk a 50 buck note. Like not bopping people over the head (fatally quite often) because they don't agree with you or have the wads of cash you must have, right now.
Ad infinitum, ad nauseum...
Maybe our expectations would be realised if we did our little bit to fulfill the expectations our country has of us! That way we might really find ourselves not just a developing but a developed country - in the near future.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
The half empty. half full dichotomy!
Or why is the grass greener on the other side of the fence? Always, but always, what we don't have sounds so much better. We grow up wanting what our friends have and then miss out on what we do have.
Example: When I was growing up (my college years) my parents were arguably the most liberal in terms of who I mixed with and where I went. But I was always cribbing that my friends had more pocket money, more clothes etc, etc. What I did have was a curfew which I considered quite unreasonable, so I failed to notice that I was surrounded by girls who had NO curfew but then, they weren't even supposed to be out, leave alone mixing with guys!
By and large I never had to lie to my parents about where I was going(except once and that was a sin of omission rather than commission and I was gated for two months for that at the BEGINNING of the summer hols!) But most of my pals, they were supposed to be at a girl friends house (mine generally) when they were out with their boy friends!!!
I didn't have to go to such lengths but did I appreciate it? No way!
Then I grew up and went away. Left home for the wild, wild world outside much against my father's wishes. I wanted the freedom, the liberty and the license to do my thing. I did my thing but also had to do without food - no breakfast and lunch most days and dinner only when I was asked out, no warm clothes (Delhi winter), no bed or any other furniture. Why? Lack of financial resources - no Father to pick up the bills, no Mom cooking food to die for!
And right through my life the grass has been greener on the other side. This is supposed to be an incentive to improve and progress... but I am not sure about that. I went to the UK - and then gave up a job there to come back to India. I married twice and then opted out of both - and while I "earned" independence of thought and action, I also sacrificed on companionship and support.
I landed up in New York and London but returned to India because I was going nowhere professionally. Here I am in India, quite happy with my professional progress (after all the movers and shakers in advertising think I am amongst the walking dead as I am NOT under 35!) but totally frustrated by a country where day to day living is a battle for survival and existence, where the minimum standards that make life bearable are not just missing but well nigh unachievable in the foreseeable future.
Everyday I wake up feeling that another day of mayhem and madness will send me around the bend - that I should instantly catch the first flight back to London.
But will I be exchanging one set of problems for another? Should life have taught me not to keep wanting what I don't have? Shouldn't I look at the bottle and consider it half full instead of half empty? Who is happier? The person who is always wanting? Or the person who is happy with whatever he or she has got? Better, wiser, greater men than I have debated this question and have failed to find an answer. Who am I to try?
Example: When I was growing up (my college years) my parents were arguably the most liberal in terms of who I mixed with and where I went. But I was always cribbing that my friends had more pocket money, more clothes etc, etc. What I did have was a curfew which I considered quite unreasonable, so I failed to notice that I was surrounded by girls who had NO curfew but then, they weren't even supposed to be out, leave alone mixing with guys!
By and large I never had to lie to my parents about where I was going(except once and that was a sin of omission rather than commission and I was gated for two months for that at the BEGINNING of the summer hols!) But most of my pals, they were supposed to be at a girl friends house (mine generally) when they were out with their boy friends!!!
I didn't have to go to such lengths but did I appreciate it? No way!
Then I grew up and went away. Left home for the wild, wild world outside much against my father's wishes. I wanted the freedom, the liberty and the license to do my thing. I did my thing but also had to do without food - no breakfast and lunch most days and dinner only when I was asked out, no warm clothes (Delhi winter), no bed or any other furniture. Why? Lack of financial resources - no Father to pick up the bills, no Mom cooking food to die for!
And right through my life the grass has been greener on the other side. This is supposed to be an incentive to improve and progress... but I am not sure about that. I went to the UK - and then gave up a job there to come back to India. I married twice and then opted out of both - and while I "earned" independence of thought and action, I also sacrificed on companionship and support.
I landed up in New York and London but returned to India because I was going nowhere professionally. Here I am in India, quite happy with my professional progress (after all the movers and shakers in advertising think I am amongst the walking dead as I am NOT under 35!) but totally frustrated by a country where day to day living is a battle for survival and existence, where the minimum standards that make life bearable are not just missing but well nigh unachievable in the foreseeable future.
Everyday I wake up feeling that another day of mayhem and madness will send me around the bend - that I should instantly catch the first flight back to London.
But will I be exchanging one set of problems for another? Should life have taught me not to keep wanting what I don't have? Shouldn't I look at the bottle and consider it half full instead of half empty? Who is happier? The person who is always wanting? Or the person who is happy with whatever he or she has got? Better, wiser, greater men than I have debated this question and have failed to find an answer. Who am I to try?
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
No man is an island...
So the saying goes. And for centuries this has been true of mankind. People around the globe have gathered and lived in communities, as social organisms who have interacted with each other; who have reached out to each other for help, support and emotional warmth. We never thought it would or could be any other way.
Many people who, despite living in an unwired world, went out of their way and stayed in touch, made a point of maintaining contact with friends and families scattered around the world.People who immersed themselves in their work activities and social gatherings just so their minds and hearts would not feel the pangs of an inherently lonely existence.
Maybe, sometimes, it was because in their heart of hearts they were lonely - because, maybe, in their own homes they found no companionship, no shared interests, no one who was interested in what they did, what they achieved, what they thought and felt.
This has driven many into relationships which they hoped would bring warmth and companionship into their empty personal world.Sometimes failing miserably... but at least they tried!
But today we have a world where personal warmth and interpersonal bonds have fallen by the wayside.
Why talk when you can email? Why walk around the corner when you can text? Why go out and smell the roses (or the coffee) when you can travel the world on the web? Why enjoy the slow unfolding of a story when you can live the lives of cardboard characters vicariously on TV? Why walk that extra mile to sort out a problem when you can litigate? Why reach out to someone and communicate one-one-one (as today's GenNext is fond of saying) when you can feel the second-hand thrills and chills of shooting up bad guys and racing over hapless bystanders courtesy a Game Console?
Hey, bad enough one has to go to work and talk to service providers! Don't ask us to also get to know and talk and hold our hands out to people who we might actually grow to love and like. Too much hard work, too much trouble. And God help us if we really need help one day - because maybe, just maybe, there won't be anyone around to listen to us.
Many people who, despite living in an unwired world, went out of their way and stayed in touch, made a point of maintaining contact with friends and families scattered around the world.People who immersed themselves in their work activities and social gatherings just so their minds and hearts would not feel the pangs of an inherently lonely existence.
Maybe, sometimes, it was because in their heart of hearts they were lonely - because, maybe, in their own homes they found no companionship, no shared interests, no one who was interested in what they did, what they achieved, what they thought and felt.
This has driven many into relationships which they hoped would bring warmth and companionship into their empty personal world.Sometimes failing miserably... but at least they tried!
But today we have a world where personal warmth and interpersonal bonds have fallen by the wayside.
Why talk when you can email? Why walk around the corner when you can text? Why go out and smell the roses (or the coffee) when you can travel the world on the web? Why enjoy the slow unfolding of a story when you can live the lives of cardboard characters vicariously on TV? Why walk that extra mile to sort out a problem when you can litigate? Why reach out to someone and communicate one-one-one (as today's GenNext is fond of saying) when you can feel the second-hand thrills and chills of shooting up bad guys and racing over hapless bystanders courtesy a Game Console?
Hey, bad enough one has to go to work and talk to service providers! Don't ask us to also get to know and talk and hold our hands out to people who we might actually grow to love and like. Too much hard work, too much trouble. And God help us if we really need help one day - because maybe, just maybe, there won't be anyone around to listen to us.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Why?
My son, in his blog, asks "why?"
Why do we get up in the morning? Why do we go to work regardless of whether we want to or not? Why do we bother to live, love, fight, commit, eat, drink, make merry, achieve, struggle - in short put up with the daily travails of life. Why DO we do it?
These thoughts have been more in the forefront of my mind in the recent past.It's not that one sits around thinking deep thoughts. I don't. Generally I am too busy just surviving the battering life hands out to most of us. For a very long time I did it unthinkingly, on auto pilot. I never questioned what I had to do - put one step in front of another to make sure that I could support my family to a minimum standard of comfort. There was no question of trying to "achieve". Of winning awards or becoming a national creative director or a CEO. If I had, well and good. But if not, tough shit! As long as I made enough moolah to keep our body and soul together, I had achieved nirvana! Fortunately for me, I could do this while working in a profession I loved. How many people can say that? And yes, that is what got me out of my bed every morning of every day from the last 40 years. That and the fact that I HAD to earn.
But what is it for the highest of high achievers?
Those who make it to the Forbes list of the 10 richest men on earth. Those who build helipads on their ivory towers? Those who buy jet planes for their wives? Those with a zillion homes on every continent... after all how many homes can you live in at one time, how many cars can you drive and how many clothes can you change into at one time, how much food can we eat at one time?
Is the fighting, deal making, manouvering, jet setting, working 48 hours in 24 worth the effort?
In the final analysis, shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we have made a difference by being on this planet? Whether the money we lavish on planes and boats and vertiginous towers of wealth could perhaps have been used to educate the children who cluster around in the shanties at the base of these towers? Or put food in the mouths of suicidal farmers? WHY is it just the government's responsibility?
I believe there are over a thousand NGOs in India. Imagine what they can do with the 17 crores that goes into the building of ONE helipad for the use of just TWO men - who can't stand the air-conditioned two hour ride from the airport to their homes in South Mumbai.
Why am I asking these questions? Because my uncle died recently. He was a quiet man who lived quietly and died quietly. But through-out his quiet, and in fact almost spartan life, he built a comfortable home, brought up two sons who grew up to appreciate the value of money and hard work and excellence, was a caring and supportive husband, an internationally respected professional in his field, ethical, totally committed and motivated, honest, caring, very knowledgeable, wise and an achiever by any standards. And yes, he made a great difference to many, many people's lives. I guess that's what got him out of bed every morning...
How many of us can say that about ourselves?
Why do we get up in the morning? Why do we go to work regardless of whether we want to or not? Why do we bother to live, love, fight, commit, eat, drink, make merry, achieve, struggle - in short put up with the daily travails of life. Why DO we do it?
These thoughts have been more in the forefront of my mind in the recent past.It's not that one sits around thinking deep thoughts. I don't. Generally I am too busy just surviving the battering life hands out to most of us. For a very long time I did it unthinkingly, on auto pilot. I never questioned what I had to do - put one step in front of another to make sure that I could support my family to a minimum standard of comfort. There was no question of trying to "achieve". Of winning awards or becoming a national creative director or a CEO. If I had, well and good. But if not, tough shit! As long as I made enough moolah to keep our body and soul together, I had achieved nirvana! Fortunately for me, I could do this while working in a profession I loved. How many people can say that? And yes, that is what got me out of my bed every morning of every day from the last 40 years. That and the fact that I HAD to earn.
But what is it for the highest of high achievers?
Those who make it to the Forbes list of the 10 richest men on earth. Those who build helipads on their ivory towers? Those who buy jet planes for their wives? Those with a zillion homes on every continent... after all how many homes can you live in at one time, how many cars can you drive and how many clothes can you change into at one time, how much food can we eat at one time?
Is the fighting, deal making, manouvering, jet setting, working 48 hours in 24 worth the effort?
In the final analysis, shouldn't we ask ourselves whether we have made a difference by being on this planet? Whether the money we lavish on planes and boats and vertiginous towers of wealth could perhaps have been used to educate the children who cluster around in the shanties at the base of these towers? Or put food in the mouths of suicidal farmers? WHY is it just the government's responsibility?
I believe there are over a thousand NGOs in India. Imagine what they can do with the 17 crores that goes into the building of ONE helipad for the use of just TWO men - who can't stand the air-conditioned two hour ride from the airport to their homes in South Mumbai.
Why am I asking these questions? Because my uncle died recently. He was a quiet man who lived quietly and died quietly. But through-out his quiet, and in fact almost spartan life, he built a comfortable home, brought up two sons who grew up to appreciate the value of money and hard work and excellence, was a caring and supportive husband, an internationally respected professional in his field, ethical, totally committed and motivated, honest, caring, very knowledgeable, wise and an achiever by any standards. And yes, he made a great difference to many, many people's lives. I guess that's what got him out of bed every morning...
How many of us can say that about ourselves?
Stop complaining..try to do something worthwhile...
So says Pradeep Bhaskaran - in response to my very first post.
Yes, generally I would agree with him. I don't believe "that the fault lies not in us ... but in our stars" as the poet says. Because the fault does lie in us...
It's we who go down a one-way street because we don't want to go around to the next legal u-turn...
It's we who bribe the cop with 300 bucks because he stopped us from running a red light...
It's we who overtake by climbing over a road divider because we don't have the patience to wait in line - it's happening on the BRT corridor every second of everyday...
It's we who don't complain when auto drivers refuse to take us where we want to go and refuse to use the meter...
The fact is that I came back to "my country" after 17 years because I heard all about India shining. How the economy is galloping at 9% growth every year.How malls are growing like mushrooms. How jobs are falling over themselves, paying out BIG bucks and attracting people back in droves - brain drain in reverse...How the living is easy, smart and oh so plush in the "ivory" towers of Gurgaon and Noida.
Well, all that is true - and it's happening to a minuscule portion of the 1.2 billion population. It is VERY easy if one is cushioned from the realities of life in air-conditioned comfort - at home, in the car and in office!
But it's not happening to me.
When I asked my friends and family why we didn't have more discipline, more self-control, more awareness, I was told it's pointless to do something about anything. Things are too far gone - this from people who have never left the country!
I am from advertising and communication. I came up with an idea that involved reaching out to children (through a series of simple 30 second animation films) costing a mere 4 lakhs each. And tried to sell the idea to a few MNCs who are supposedly into CSR programs and spend crores on films that illustrate brilliantly how you can drive a car backwards for a bottle of fizzy drink. Did anyone bite? No way!
It's OK to show kids how to break every rule on the road but not how to drive the right way.Enough said. I have tried to do something worthwhile - and so far have been laughed at for my efforts. So the only thing I can do is rant and rave about it here - my own personal forum. And while I appreciate every response, I do not appreciate it when people assume that I have not tried to do anything about it...
Yes, generally I would agree with him. I don't believe "that the fault lies not in us ... but in our stars" as the poet says. Because the fault does lie in us...
It's we who go down a one-way street because we don't want to go around to the next legal u-turn...
It's we who bribe the cop with 300 bucks because he stopped us from running a red light...
It's we who overtake by climbing over a road divider because we don't have the patience to wait in line - it's happening on the BRT corridor every second of everyday...
It's we who don't complain when auto drivers refuse to take us where we want to go and refuse to use the meter...
The fact is that I came back to "my country" after 17 years because I heard all about India shining. How the economy is galloping at 9% growth every year.How malls are growing like mushrooms. How jobs are falling over themselves, paying out BIG bucks and attracting people back in droves - brain drain in reverse...How the living is easy, smart and oh so plush in the "ivory" towers of Gurgaon and Noida.
Well, all that is true - and it's happening to a minuscule portion of the 1.2 billion population. It is VERY easy if one is cushioned from the realities of life in air-conditioned comfort - at home, in the car and in office!
But it's not happening to me.
When I asked my friends and family why we didn't have more discipline, more self-control, more awareness, I was told it's pointless to do something about anything. Things are too far gone - this from people who have never left the country!
I am from advertising and communication. I came up with an idea that involved reaching out to children (through a series of simple 30 second animation films) costing a mere 4 lakhs each. And tried to sell the idea to a few MNCs who are supposedly into CSR programs and spend crores on films that illustrate brilliantly how you can drive a car backwards for a bottle of fizzy drink. Did anyone bite? No way!
It's OK to show kids how to break every rule on the road but not how to drive the right way.Enough said. I have tried to do something worthwhile - and so far have been laughed at for my efforts. So the only thing I can do is rant and rave about it here - my own personal forum. And while I appreciate every response, I do not appreciate it when people assume that I have not tried to do anything about it...
Saturday, April 26, 2008
Quietly into the night he went...
I was asked to speak at a memorial service for my uncle today. But I refused. Why? When I had so much to say about him? Because I had so much to say about him and I didn't think I would last the course. Choking up in front of a 100 odd people was not my most favourite situation.
So what did I want to say about him? What could I say that hadn't already been said by countless folk who have been flooding into his home since that early morning when he "went quietly into the night"? A quiet gentlemen who went quietly away with a minimum of fuss and bother... like he lived his life, with no fanfare, no dramatic gestures.
I don't think any of us will truly realise what he added to our lives in all these years...
The way he maintained and remained in contact with the people he befriended and cared about. And the effort was really all his - no question about it.
The way he dispensed sage advice and wisdom accompanied by dollops of common sense.
The way he encouraged a reality check when he felt that one was being carried away.
He was always punctual, always forbearing, always in control, very rarely lost "it" and I never heard him raise his voice unnecessarily or hurt anyone's feelings.
He was professional, ethical and principled with the bar raised very high on professional matters.
So was he a saint or a paragon? No he wasn't. In the last year of his life he was a touch impatient, a touch less tolerant and tended to forget things now and then. But that was really in the last year.
I have known my Buchu Kaku since I was five years old... I think he still thought of me as being five! He influenced me in many ways - not least that he was responsible for my wonderful 37+ years in advertising because he got me my first job!
He gave women their due - Pran K Choudhury could never be called an MCP. He gave his wife the freedom to be what she wanted to be and, perhaps, this involvement with her raison de etre will help her come to terms with her great loss.
He was a decent, caring, generous man who nurtured a close and loving family and brought up decent, clever and good kids who grew up to be achievers without ever losing touch with humanity.
Admittedly for much of the last 25 years Buchu Kaku and I lived on separate continents - mostly out of touch but never out of mind. Because when we did again catch up with each other, it was as if the intervening years had never been! Little did I know that soon enough we would go our separate ways, yet again, but I do hope that when we do meet up it will be as always a great meeting with loads of catching up to do.
So what did I want to say about him? What could I say that hadn't already been said by countless folk who have been flooding into his home since that early morning when he "went quietly into the night"? A quiet gentlemen who went quietly away with a minimum of fuss and bother... like he lived his life, with no fanfare, no dramatic gestures.
I don't think any of us will truly realise what he added to our lives in all these years...
The way he maintained and remained in contact with the people he befriended and cared about. And the effort was really all his - no question about it.
The way he dispensed sage advice and wisdom accompanied by dollops of common sense.
The way he encouraged a reality check when he felt that one was being carried away.
He was always punctual, always forbearing, always in control, very rarely lost "it" and I never heard him raise his voice unnecessarily or hurt anyone's feelings.
He was professional, ethical and principled with the bar raised very high on professional matters.
So was he a saint or a paragon? No he wasn't. In the last year of his life he was a touch impatient, a touch less tolerant and tended to forget things now and then. But that was really in the last year.
I have known my Buchu Kaku since I was five years old... I think he still thought of me as being five! He influenced me in many ways - not least that he was responsible for my wonderful 37+ years in advertising because he got me my first job!
He gave women their due - Pran K Choudhury could never be called an MCP. He gave his wife the freedom to be what she wanted to be and, perhaps, this involvement with her raison de etre will help her come to terms with her great loss.
He was a decent, caring, generous man who nurtured a close and loving family and brought up decent, clever and good kids who grew up to be achievers without ever losing touch with humanity.
Admittedly for much of the last 25 years Buchu Kaku and I lived on separate continents - mostly out of touch but never out of mind. Because when we did again catch up with each other, it was as if the intervening years had never been! Little did I know that soon enough we would go our separate ways, yet again, but I do hope that when we do meet up it will be as always a great meeting with loads of catching up to do.
Friday, April 25, 2008
Diatribes!
Ever since I set foot on my motherland, I have done little else but rant and rave... much to the detriment of my blood pressure and stress quotient! About all sorts of things...About the traffic mayhem on the roads of Delhi. About people driving through red lights while the cops watch idly. About auto rickshaw drivers who sail past my waving hand while my brains fry in 40 degree C heat. About fat cats and corporates who spend loads of filthy lucre on on IPLs and so-called CSR programs but turn into blank walls when called upon to fund 30 second spots (aimed at encouraging children to learn what their parents refuse to) that cost a measly Rs 4 lakhs.What does it take to bread through blank walls of indifference? What should one do to stir up public wrath against those who think the roads and public spaces belong to their forefathers and hence can be treated with disdain and a total lack of consideration? When will people realise that they themselves are to blame for disasters like the BRT and not just the government because it's the people who won't listen learn or mend their ways when it comes to following the rule of law?
Will anyone ever listen? And learn?
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