Sports, politics and religion - the cauldron bubbles

Sania Mirza moves up to No.34 in the world rankings after making it to the last 16 in the US Open and Anju Bobby George climbs to No. 4 in long jump world rankings after her silver at the World Athletics Championship in Monaco. Excellent news for Indian sports. But beyond the stadium lights, there is a bit of what I’d call prejudice at work. Read this article in Calcutta’s The Telegraph, which puts down very well what is happening in India to sportspeople who are not so good with their PR: “One is glamorous, cocky, looks and sounds good on TV and is world no. 42 in her sport. The other, with average looks and excelling in a non-spectator sport, is world no. 6. The first, tennis ace Sania Mirza, commands the second-highest sponsorship fees in India after Sachin Tendulkar and is on record that she doesn’t need government aid any more. The second, grandmaster Koneru Humpy, appealed to the Andhra Pradesh government for funds so that she could train for the world chess championships coming up early next year. So who did the money go to?” You don’t need to read the article to know the answer. Sania Mirza it is. The government of Andhra Pradesh has so far given her Rs. 60 lakh and a housing plot, and has ignored Humpy’s requests. All is fair and love, war and sports? On another note, a Muslim boy in Ranchi was pulled up by the madrassa for putting up a poster of Sania Mirza on a wall in his room. When the boy was brought in front of the seminary, he argued that he was an Irfan Pathan fan too. To which the retort was whether he was aware or not of the dresses the two sported. (!!!!!!!!!!!!) Religion can make for highly confused individuals sometimes.

Filmi fashion

For all you film and fashion buffs out there, here’s an update on the latest fashion trends, inspired by Bollywood. Details here, but I’m picking out only those from that list that I think really rock: 1. Rani Mukherji in Bunty aur Babli: Of course, this one does and should take the cake, because I have been seeing replicas of her collared kurti everywhere from high streets to teleserials, in the best and brightest of colours. Way to go, Babli! 2. John Abraham in Dhoom: This guy rocks. Totally. Leather jackets and gelled hair became very very in, especially for Road Romeos wandering about. But no one can beat John – sorry guys! 3. Aamir Khan in Mangal Pandey: The handlebar moustache look. Who can forget it?! Except I don’t know even one man who can carry it off in real life….. 4. Sushmita Sen in Main Hoon Na: This I vouch for. She was as sexy as a woman can get in a saree with her chiffon ensembles. Except you need a body to go with it! 5. Hrithik Roshan in Lakshya: The crew cut, in keeping with his army look. Extremely smart. Women always have a thing for men in uniform, you know. 6. Preity Zinta in Salaam Namaste: Tube tops and feather hair-cuts ahoy. The woman looks young, cool, and very very trendy.

Cannibal Cosmecuticles

TOI reports here that China uses skin from executed convicts to develop beauty products for sale in Europe. The fact that this is used especially to produce collagen for lip and wrinkle treatments, so popular in the West, has led to human rights activists calling it 'cannibal cosmecuticles'.

I'd be happy with ageing skin. Much better to age naturally than prevent wrinkles using this - ugh!

Fair and ‘Lovely’?

Clearly, colour is all a matter of perception. In Delhi, where people are more fair than dusky, my colleagues insist on reminding me of how dark I have become of late. In Calcutta, where people are more dusky, people called me fair when I went there recently on work, and even insisted I cannot be a South Indian because all South Indians are, to quote, ‘dark’! And in South India, I am called fair because the larger population is darker-skinned.

At the end of the day, I am me, and that is what counts. Fair, dusky or dark. Whatever.

Taxes and Hard Work

I was reading a very interesting essay by Frederic Bastiat (1801-1850) on political economy a few days ago. (Thanks to Amit Varma, for the link). It is an excellent treatise on the visible and invisible effects of a law in the economic sphere. Bastiat says that when a law is made or a decree pronounced, very often people see only the immediate effect – the visible one. Those that emerge later following on from this initial effect are invisible, and often more important, and the ability to foresee these are what distinguishes a good economist from a bad one. I will take two points to elaborate on here, that came to my mind after reading the essay. One, how do we know where our tax money is going? This tax issue is something I am picking, because ever since I started paying taxes I have realized certain things. One, that you have no choice in the matter unless you want to be arrested or fined. If you are an honest person, you just have to pay taxes and pray your money is being put to some good use. Because somehow or the other, I believe whether the police is effective or not with respect to guarding the law, they are extremely efficient with regard to finding people who do not pay taxes. And no – evading the law is not something I have tried :-) But, given that I pay tax and I genuinely pray the money is being put to good use, I also have no way of verifying what is being done with my money. And believe me, there are plenty of ways I can put the money to better use if it is not. And I am not talking about shopping, for heaven’s sake! Therefore, I have started thinking, quite over-optimistically, that what the government should do is give tax-paying members of the public an exact break-up of where their hard-earned money is being used. Yeah, I know – HOPES!! The other point relates to hard work. The essay mentions two people who inherit an equal sum of money, but whereas one uses it all in living a luxurious life, soon finding himself without anything to fall back on, the other is a wise investor who lives a decent life and also has some left over for a rainy day. I mention this example because while I am an ardent believer in savings as much as I am in the good life (as long as it harms no one), in this day and age I also see numerous cases where people a) do not save and yet b) have an excellent lifestyle. The reason is that the inheritance they have is enough to fuel their every whim till their dying day and for their kids as well. Inferring from this, a) Their dads did a darn good job of making money, so b) they do not need to even learn how to save, forget saving itself. My question is, is this right or wrong? The previous generation works hard so that the next can live comfortably. But the ‘next’ do not recognize this hard work and think it is their right to use all the money to do all they want. The morals and ethics by which the previous generation got where they are today have no say in the lives of the next because they are already way above where their peers are, without even trying. I think the fault lies in the previous generation. If you do not teach the value of hard work, then there will be no recognition of it. The other possibility is that all the money is black money anyway, so it will obviously be spent on luxuries. Either way, the point is almost the same: if you do no hard work yourself, then your kids will have no desire to do any either. The conclusion of the 33-page essay, where Bastiat quotes what Chateaubriand says of history, is something that almost answers my question: “There are two consequences in history: one immediate and instantaneously recognized; the other distant and unperceived at first. These consequences often contradict each other; the former come from our short-run wisdom, the latter from long-run wisdom. The providential event appears after the human event. Behind men rises God. Deny as much as you wish the Supreme Wisdom, do not believe in its action, dispute over words, call what the common man calls Providence “the force of circumstances” or “reason”; but look at the end of an accomplished fact, and you will see that it has always produced the opposite of what was expected when it has not been founded from the first on morality and justice.” (Chateaubriand, Memoirs from Beyond the Tomb)

Loved for a moment

Her heart jumped. She could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks. He sat staring at her. She didn’t know what she was feeling, or why. Worse, she didn’t know what he was thinking. She didn’t think she wanted to. What a fool she was! Why did she have to say it after all? That she loved him with every inch of her being – always had, ever since she knew him. He reminded her of Prince Charming in those fairy-tales she used to read in primary school. What would he think? He - the smart, intelligent, funny, entertaining type. He - also the brooding, dependable, sensitive type. He – her type. A person like him could have anyone he wanted. Why would he want her? She stood thinking all these thoughts without really being in the present. She was in the past – remembering those books, and her thoughts when she used to read those books. Anne of Green Gables. She’d always loved the series. The mischievous good-looking Gilbert who becomes the even more good-looking, sensible and serious Dr. Blythe, who always was moved by Anne, the fiery, tempestuous, rebellious Anne. The other way around actually. It was the story of Anne, and not Gilbert… She wasn’t paying any attention to him anymore. She didn’t notice his eyes lighting up when she said it. She didn’t notice the happiness on his face. She was too lost to notice anything. Berating herself, she started to turn away. She started running out. They’d been in Barista, on the high street. As she ran onto the street, a car came at her honking madly. The lights blazed in her face. He ran behind her, shouting her name. She froze, framed in the lights. He dropped at her side, the single-stone diamond ring clasped within his wrist. He’d had it ever since he knew her. He’d waited for this day forever, being too shy to muster up the courage to tell her what he felt. The ring fell on the paved road, now smattered with her blood.

Older and wiser

Today is a day of reminiscing. For one year now, I have not known exactly what I have been doing at work – but whatever it is, it has worked, because I recently got a performance rating that was as good as anyone could get. I was thrown, one year ago, head-long into a field of work I had no clue about and that was as new to me as the moon was to Armstrong when he first stepped on it. Till then, I was more of a ‘development’ person. Education, globalization, poverty – in short, the problems and issues of the world – those were my subjects. Interesting, I can hear some of you say. Maybe. But it just wasn’t working for me at that point. I couldn’t figure out where I was going, or why. I didn’t even know what my stance on most of those issues was because I had seen both of the sides of the coin and neither of them was very pretty or, more importantly, hopeful. And then suddenly I was grappling with concepts of business and sales and retail and growth and what-not. I would be lying if I said I was not hugely unsure of what I was doing when I took up this job. I only knew I had to get out of what I had been doing. I am fairly satisfied with what I have done since I did (though people who know me will also know how terribly unhappy I have been on some days, I have come to terms with the fact that everyone probably goes through those kind of days). For one, I have travelled. And I look forward to travelling much more. I have seen places that I never would have, if I had never made this move. I have discovered many new aspects to India and have come to think that if I saw even 60% of India in this life, that would be an achievement. I have made considerable progress in that direction over the last year – Jaipur, Chandigarh, Amritsar, the Wagah border, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Kanpur, Calcutta, Srinagar (including Pahalgam and Gulmarg), McLeodganj, Rishikesh, Dehradun, Mussoorie, Shimla, Chail, Kufri – and many of these I have traversed alone. I have faced questions of all kinds, being a woman travelling alone, but have also seen these places with my inner eyes. I have gained courage and confidence. Talking of confidence, that is also something this job has given me. It would go almost unnoticed to most, but I know that I have changed in that aspect. I am no longer tremulous or afraid to ask questions, to stand up for what I think is right. I am no longer doubtful whether I will discharge my duties well enough, even if it is something I know nothing about. For what is life about, if not learning? I learnt to live alone. Absolutely alone. I paid my bills and got internet connections made and removed, I called up travel agents to make bookings, I stood in queues in railway stations for tickets, I bought groceries, cooked, cleaned and washed clothes (and God knows in a city like Delhi, the more you clean the more dust there seems to appear out of nowhere – not a very good thing when you have a dust allergy and wind up sneezing violently, as if your nose was going to fall off). I learnt to deal with an almost non-existent social life, living alone in a new and slightly aggressive city with hardly anyone I knew from before – but I also learnt to go out of my way to make new ones. I learnt that you cannot force friendships in such circumstances, but you can meet some nice acquaintances along the way. All of this might sound reasonably simple. It is. But I have done some of these in London, and I have done them in Delhi, and let me tell you life in India without the central heating or airconditioning or servants to run around at your command, or a car of your own (the last two are almost habits for a middle-class Indian)…is not easy. And now, as I think about the year gone by, I realize why they say ‘older and wiser’. In every sense, I am both those. In a positive sense.

Rishikesh - The mystical city

Taking advantage of the fact that I am still near the hills (which, according to sources, I may not be in a while), I took off to Rishikesh last weekend. It is a very mystical place – and really like the India you read of in books, which foreigners are in constant search of (also explains why you find so many of them there). From sadhus in ochre robes to ‘holy’ cows wandering along at a relaxed pace, to the mountains nearby and most of all, the majestic gushing Ganges, Rishikesh is a place that is worth a visit. The journey takes around six hours, and after the bus somewhat unceremoniously dropped us off at Haridwar but thankfully put us on a share-auto for the remaining leg of the journey to Rishikesh at 6 a.m, we found ourselves in the land of the pious. We crossed the imposing Ram Jhula, a huge suspension bridge which sways slowly though one steps onto it confidently thinking it is a solid structure. We made our way to the Green Hotel, a budget option for anyone wanting to visit, right at the end of a labyrinthine lane with restaurants and shops selling knick-knacks, and of course a number of temples lining the Ganga as well. Washed and ready for a day of adventure (which turned out to be more adventurous than I had bargained for!!), we proceeded to find a guide for a day’s trek to Kunjapuri, a temple of Goddess Sati (the only one in the country apparently), situated right at the top of a huge mountain. Of course, at the beginning, we thought it would be an easy walk of sorts, albeit a trifle rocky. It is a six and a half kilometer trek but after I finished it in five and a half hours, it felt like nothing less than 30 kilometres which is the actual distance if one goes up to the temple by road instead of taking the ‘short-cut’ uphill. Two hours into the blazing heat of the day , two kilometers and many huffs and puffs later (I was still ok, which mistakenly gave me the bravado to think I could easily complete the rest of the trek), my 2 friends said they couldn’t do it and decided to return to the bottom. That left me to continue alone with the guide, a friendly and extremely trained chap who thought it would be an easy thing to complete for me. Ten minutes after I separated from my friends, the incline became much more steep and every step became a process. I had to stop and rest every few minutes. Thankfully there were a couple of fresh springs along the way with the clearest, freshest water I’ve ever sipped, and I was able to refill my bottle. Half an hour later I decided to steel myself to take breaks after every 15 minutes only and not sooner, or we would take much longer than expected to scale the top. My lower leg muscles and thighs screamed out for rest and every time I sat down on a boulder to rest, I felt like going to sleep. That couldn’t happen. I plodded on. The terrain changed from rocky mountain to forest and we didn’t see people for a couple of hours till an odd villager crossed us on his way down with some cattle. I negotiated narrow paths with tall green bushes on either side which had dubious-sounding rattles coming from them and then suddenly the land opened out into a barley field with huge stalks. I followed the guide determinedly along the cement drain path and continued climbing, past a village and school and five and a half hours later, reached the temple at the top. I stopped to catch my breath and insisted I could go no further, not even the 308 steps up to the temple. The guide however said that it made no sense for me not to go, having come all the way. So I doggedly went on, by now thoroughly exhausted and mentally dead. Physically of course, by some miracle I was still moving step by step. I prayed for a while and by the guide had come up as well. Apparently there was no taxi available at that height and we would have to trek another one and a half kilometers (downhill, thankfully) to get to the nearest bus-stop from where we could catch a bus back to Rishikesh. I slid along the path that the guide led me on and, downhill being so much easier, reached in 25 minutes or so. Then caught the bus as it trundled up, and returned to Rishikesh, exhausted to the bone but dare I say, proud of myself. The next day we took a bus to Shivpuri, about 14 km away. It is a rafting campsite but since the season hadn’t started, we couldn’t raft. Still, sitting by the gorgeous rushing river as the mountains loomed nearby was soul-moving, and I’m glad I could see Nature in its resplendent best. We went back half and hour later to Rishikesh and caught the bus back to Delhi. My body still aches but that was yet another trip to remember. Awesome!

Thoughts on how to attain blogging glory

I don’t have much work today, so I’ve had the time to read a number of blogs. What is it that makes some blogs interesting and others just narrations? I’m not quite sure. Some write from the soul about what they feel and think, some write about places they’ve been to or people they know, some people just write about nothing (but get away with it pretty well because its well-written). How do you know what type to be? Or what type is best? One thing I have noted about the most interesting (which may not be the best-written) or best-written (which may not be the most interesting) blogs is that the former category usually write about their lives, and the latter are the creative lot. In literary terms, I mean – you know, with poems, or quotes, or references to multiple music lyrics thrown in. I think I’m getting myself into a soup here - and if I am I care a damn, by the way – but I think its better to let thoughts out loud. Then even if you find your thoughts contradicting each other, at some point you will get clarity. So, of course there are blogs that are both interesting and well-written. Many of those belong to famous people. Some of those are teenager or students – I think its because that is the age when you have a lot of things to do and people to meet and thanks to your course or classes, you tend to have practice in writing. Which is not the case with me these days, unfortunately, because work usually means I am slowly killing the creativity in me. Currently, blogging doesn’t count, in my opinion, because at the moment most of my blog pieces are descriptions. They aren’t terribly interesting nor, thanks to my lack of writing practice, are they well-written. Anyway, in addition to these categories there are also those that are merely informative (i.e, they point to various interesting articles), and others that are informative and critical (those who point to interesting articles but also comment on them briefly). I think the key (as I was advising a friend recently, as if I am the One Who Knows All About Blogging) is to just break the barriers down. Some people who blog are often scared about letting out their real idenities to the world, and they have good reason to be in this day and age of computer hacking etc etc. Sometimes that means that they are not completely honest – what if someone they know chances to read their blog and identifies them? That, for example, means that you can’t write about your crappy day at work because someone from work might actually read it and who knows what will happen then. A woman actually lost her job because of exactly that, by the way. Dooce, she calls herself. A solution to this problem is to refer to the people in your life by initials – such as , ‘S said this’ or ‘V thinks that’. That’s not such a bad idea, I’m beginning to think. Anonymity and honesty together. So – the whole point of me writing this is so that I could figure out what type I should be. I still don’t know. Till then, I guess its going to be trial-and-error. But I SO want to attain blogging mastery soon!

Music and dance

I was going through some blogs the other day and I found this group of people who have this project where they record CD’s of their favourite songs and send it to each other. These people are all spread across the world. I think that is a lovely thing to do. Music instantly uplifts you, no matter what, and even if you’re sad or heartbroken, there are songs to keep you company that seem to touch your inner heart, as if they were written for you. My sister has a number of friends who do things like that for her – and there are others who get gifts like that as well – you know, for birthdays and things. I haven’t got any CD’s like that till date (sniff!) – so if anyone is ever interested :-), then here are some songs I will listen to again and again for life. 1. Absolutely everybody – Vanessa Amorosi 2. Time after time – Cyndi Lauper 3. Sexual healing – Marvin Gaye 4. Thank You – Dido 5. Inner Smile – Texas 6. Life – Des’ree 7. Out of reach – Gabrielle 8. Smooth operator – Sade 9. With or without you – U2 10. Come away with me – Norah Jones 11. Don’t know why – Norah Jones 12. Mrs. Robinson – Simon and Garfunkel 13. Over the Rainbow – Wizard of Oz film soundtrack 14. Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid film soundtrack 15. My favourite things – Sound of Music film soundtrack 16. Respect – Aretha Franklin 17. Stand by me – Ben King 18. Fields of gold – Sting 19. Every breath you take – The Police 20. Smooth – Santana feat. Rob Thomas 21. Ain’t no mountain high enough – Marvin Gaye, from Stepmom film soundtrack 22. Sweet home Alabama – Lynrd Skynrd 23. All the people of the world – Safri Duo 24. Aicha – Outlandish 25. Say a little prayer – Diana King from My Best Friend’s Wedding film soundtrack They’re mostly happy feel-good songs with tunes that will make your feet want to get out of your shoes and dance (yeah – even if you don’t ‘know how to’. I don’t understand how people can’t know how to dance. Dance is an expression of yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have two left feet or not. Unless you plan to give a stage performance or something!) You might be alone in a foreign country with the bleakest weather you have ever seen, or it might be bright and sunny and you’re around people you love – just dance. For yourself, for life!

'Yatha raja, tatha praja' (What the king does, the public does too)

For those who are interested in reading more about corruption levels in India - Admiral R H Tahiliani (Retd), architect of the largest ever corruption survey in India, speaks here.

Freedom

The concept of freedom has varied interpretations. I watched the long-awaited Aamir Khan starrer ‘Mangal Pandey’, fittingly, on India’s 58th Independence Day. There’s something to be said about the concept of freedom. And patriotism. How it awakens the hardworking-but-publicly insensitive citizen and apathetic resident alike. How the sacrifice of a life for the sake of an ideology can make you feel that you just have to get out of your seat and do something more meaningful with your own life. How you feel intense hatred for politicians today who have made these sacrifices seem nearly meaningless, because 90 years on they play with the freedom of others nonchalantly. I kept drawing parallels between ‘Braveheart’ and this movie as I was watching it. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I watched ‘Braveheart’ for the second time around very recently, and Mel Gibson as the Scotsman, William Wallace had a lot in common with Aamir Khan as the Indian, Mangal Pandey. Both fought for freedom. From tyranny, from oppression. For a chance to let the people rule. Both took years to achieve their objectives – objectives which were realized years after their deaths but which were ignited BY their deaths. ‘You may take our lives, but you can never take our freedom’. 58 years on, India has achieved a lot. But no matter how much I try to appreciate that fact, the Aruna Roys, the Baba Amte’s, the thousands of uncelebrated individuals who struggle relentlessly for the sake of the oppressed, I keep coming back to the fact that everyday you have reports of corruption, of bribery, of assault, murder, every single day in modern India – a lot of it that can be contained if only people did not abuse the power vested with them. And that is a murder as well. A murder of faith. They play with people’s freedom. And their lives. And when the government and the legal system prolong this murder of freedom, they are partners in crime. And that is not worth forgiving. Don’t talk about freedom if you can’t uphold it, dammit. That’s why I feel tears rolling slowly down my cheeks when I see these kind of sacrifices. Even in Bollywood movies. And I refuse to feel ashamed.

McLeodganj – A walk in the Tibetan woods

There comes a point in your life when you just get tired of your life being ruled by external factors – someone else’s daily schedule, or your work or concerns about what this person would think or that. Sometimes you just need a break, to be by yourself.

I took a Himachal Pradesh State Transport bus to Kangra on Friday night, and went up from there to Dharamshala and finally McLeodganj. History has it that Dharamshala so captured the imagination of the then Viceroy Lord Elgin that he wanted to make it the summer capital of India. However, fortunately for the small hill settlement, it was spared that fate – and it was Shimla which finally got that 'honour'. I can tell you that Shimla has none of the charm that Dharamshala has today, thanks to hordes of tourists and innumerable hotel constructions along the mountainside there.

McLeodganj, 10 kilometres uphill from Dharamshala, is today the abode of the Dalai Lama. Quaint and very Tibetan (though the troops of Israeli and French backpackers almost make it more foreign that Tibetan – can you imagine hotel menus in Hebrew?!), anyone who goes to the place will come back charmed. I met an Indian couple on the bus who were going to meditate in the hills there, and they were able to give me some valuable information – such as the fact that staying in McLeodganj makes much more sense than in Dharamshala because it is much more interesting with its little market lanes. I went to the Dalai Lama’s residence and walked around the Buddhist temple within (the Dalai Lama himself was away in Switzerland) on my first day there, then went to Norbulingka which is a centre for the preservation of Tibetan arts and crafts spread over a lovely campus near Sidhpur. To get there, simply take the local bus to Palampur and get off at Sidhpur (a ticket costs Rs.4), then walk the 15 minutes to Norbulingka. I spent a couple of hours in the lazy afternoon there, then went back to Dharamshala where I popped in at the Kangra Arts Museum. I suggest you give it a miss – the government enterprise is dark and gloomy. I sat on a sack of potatoes (truly an Indian experience!) during a crowded van trip back as mist began swirling around the valley, then ate Hotel Snow Lion’s famous lemon curd cake in McLeodganj as I watched the slow drizzle change to a steady downpour. Deciding that it was not going to stop for a while, I dashed to my hotel, getting thoroughly drenched in the process.

As a result of that rain soaking my running shoes, I had to traipse around Bhagsu and Dharamkot, both 2 km from McLeodganj, in – catch this – Bata slippers, the next day! It wasn’t such a bad thing as it started raining again during the day but it wasn’t so comfortable after a point! I met an Israeli girl on the way to Bhagsu (the place is known for its temple), and she accompanied me in rambling about the most wonderfully green and mysterious woods nearby. There are a number of meditation camps in Dharamkot, and during our exploring we found a stone hut which looked like it was something out of an ancient land, with a couple of French backpackers eating fruit calmly as the mist loomed up the hills yet again. We spent an hour sitting there peacefully as well.

I caught the bus for the long journey back that evening, but Monday morning and the honking of Delhi only made me wish for the peace of the hills once more.

The land of milk, honey and hardworking people?!

My cousin wanted to know why I hadn’t written about my first visit to the US of A last month so here I am – I can never resist the chance to needle people I think will take it sportingly :-) So, having lived in Europe, India and the Middle East at various points of time, what do I really think about the land of milk-and-honey? I didn’t have any bad experiences that I can describe in lurid detail, much the worse for those of you who thought there was some America-bashing coming up. I didn’t even see that much of the vast country – just a bit of the West coast. But I thought it was a relief to be amidst some order and cleanliness after the chaos of life in India. I also thought that many Americans are a paranoid lot who can exude some more warmth. I had to remove my shoes at numerous points for security checks at the airports. On the way back, I was taken out of line and had to stand in an enclosed space pod, a bit like those you see in science fiction movies, where three blasts of air whooshed around me. I asked an airport officer what that was about, and he said it was to check for drugs and explosives. It was ok, I don’t get offended very easily, but it’s scary to think what happens to people who have the tiniest bit of anything that the machine wrongly detects as harmful. I went for a global meet where there were many non-Americans, so I can’t say I had long interactions with many Americans. Those that I did speak to were quite courteous. Not overly friendly, but nice enough. The cities I visited, Portland and San Francisco, were rather pretty. San Francisco is gorgeous, to be fair. And the day I was there the weather was awesome. The city thrives on tourists and has some spectacular views. During the trip, my boss asked a colleague whether she would like to live abroad. She replied that while she might like to go overseas for a year or two, she’d rather be a first-class citizen in India than a second-class citizen in a country like the US. The US is a very entertaining place to visit, and I might even like to visit multiple times, but I wouldn’t want to live there. I think Europe is more friendly and cultural, and those are things that appeal to me about a place.

Oh G-d Help Me!

Hindered by a God-damnable virus (not the dreaded meningitis surfacing all over Delhi, you’ll be glad to know), sitting in a musty, dusty little room which in better days has seen brightness (can’t say the same about it ever having been non-dusty: in Delhi, dust is all-pervading at any time of the year – kind of like God), I am wondering what to do. And why not write something about God? Jews don’t like saying ‘God’ as in ‘God’. They call Him (or Her), “G-d”, or ‘Gd’. (When I was in school, ‘Gd’ was a short form for ‘good’, by the way. Teachers who had a stack of notebooks to correct often resorted to this, if I remember right) Anyway, the idea is that one shouldn’t invoke God’s name unnecessarily – it becomes a violation of one of the Ten Commandments . That is what a Jewish friend of mine said. I did further research on it and found here that: “the basic concept is actually that Jews do not write the name G-d in full in disposable media such as pieces of paper or more recently, online. Books are OK as these are not regarded as disposable. This is to avoid the possibility of disrespect being given to G-d by throwing the paper in the garbage etc. In fact, when Jewish prayer books etc. are no longer serviceable, they are first stored until there is a sufficient number of them, and then they are respectfully buried (rather than burned, thrown in the garbage etc.).” Interesting, huh?!

Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi

I’ve been wanting to write about Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi ever since I saw it, but dallied this long because I didn’t know quite what to say. I won’t gush about it, nor will I trash it. Readers of this blog may have observed that I prefer to stay in the safe grey area about most things rather than mark anything as outright black or white. The fact is, I don’t think it is possible in the case of art (this includes music, dance, theatre, and films) to label anything as ‘good’ or bad’. Because I didn’t go through the experience of being in it, and I don’t know what the director’s thought-process was at the time of making it. What I can say is whether I enjoyed a production or not. Having said all that, I would have loved to be a part of ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’. But ‘enjoyed’ is not the right term to use to describe ‘Hazaaron Khwahishein Aisi’. It is, I think, not meant to be ‘enjoyed’. It is meant to wake you up. It is meant to make you think of what people in the early 70’s in India had to go through under the ruling government. It is meant to give you a ringside view of what it was like to be a student during the Emergency and pre-Emergency years of 1969-1975 in India. It is meant to touch you with its almost poetic presentation of emotions simultaneously so raw and pure – love, fear, hate, anger, evil. And politics. This movie winds around politics in such a way that you hate what went on in the name of the government. Custodial deaths, police atrocities, political fixing. The Naxalite movement came up as a response to these, and it was an extremely idealistic and passionate group of students and people who had the courage to become Naxalites - that much I did take home. I wonder if I would have had the guts to be one of them, much as I identified with them. New Delhi, 1969: Middle-class Vikram Malhotra loves Geeta Rao who loves rich kid Siddharth who is in love with his dream of a better India. After college, Siddharth becomes a Naxalite. Geeta marries Ram Kapoor, a British-educated IAS officer, but realizes her heart was always with Siddharth. She goes to join him in a village in Bihar. Vikram, determined to become rich, becomes a political fixer and never stops loving her, inspite of, for example, witnessing Geeta and Siddharth making love as a farewell party is in full swing in their last days of college. I won’t say more than this because it wouldn’t be fair. There are scenes which are brilliant in their ability to touch your inner, most hidden emotions. There are performances which are near-perfect. Though some of the cast has come in for criticism, I found nearly all performances in the film above par, including the vile policemen and politicians, and the aging father of Siddharth. Kay Kay Menon, Chitrangada Singh and Shiny Ahuja as the principal characters have made considerable impact, essaying their roles with conviction. My only grouse was the last few frames of the film, where (and perhaps this is my own fault as a viewer) the seriousness of the story lapsed in front of the mirth that Shiny’s character exudes prior to that. But watch the movie. To realize what kind of a country you live in. The political situation might have changed, but Indian politics is still much the same.

'Cleansing' sex in Africa in danger from AIDS

I don’t know which of the two is worse – women being raped in the biggest and richest cities of India in 2005 (different instances cited here, here and here) or the continuing practice of widows being forced to have sex with an in-law soon after their husbands die in Africa, again in this day and age. On the first topic, though I have much to say (a police constable is the accused in one instance – welcome to law in India, though I am not generalizing here), I do not trust myself to elaborate without getting overly emotional. Perhaps I need more blogging/writing experience, so I will stick to voicing my opinions on the second topic. However Amit Varma’s views capture the issue well here and here. The article on Africa in the New York Times profiles the backward tradition of widows having to have sex with an in-law, ostensibly to exorcise the evil spirits that will otherwise pervade the widow and the village. The rising incidence of HIV has now made political and tribal leaders sit up and take notice, citing this practice as a reason for 25 million sub-Saharan Africans being infected with the virus. Yet, change, as in any part of the world, will take time. In a village in Malawi, the headman still endorses the tradition, saying, “We cannot abandon this because it has been for generations.” In fact, some areas even use the services of one of several appointed village ‘cleansers’, selected by a headman as in one case, “ for his sexual prowess after he had impregnated three wives in quick succession”. Jokes are made about the ‘difficult’ job he has. What then of the widows, who are made to go through the practice without their consent – practically describing them, as the New York Times reporter who investigated the issue says, as rape?

Why I love ice-cream

Because it makes me happy. Indescribably, inexorably happy. I’m actually quite a sight to watch when I eat ice-cream – I act as if I’m on drugs or something. It’s a most harmless, fantastic high. And guess what – research has actually proved that ice-cream really does make you happy. You can read more about it here. The article says: Neuroscientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London studied a group of people who ate vanilla ice cream. They found that ice cream affected the orbitofrontal cortex in the brain, known to be activated when people enjoy themselves. Research was also carried out by Unilever, using ice cream made by Walls, which it owns. Don Darling of Unilever said: "This is the first time that we've been able to show that ice cream makes you happy. Just one spoonful lights up the happy zones of the brain in clinical trials." So, everyone, go have a spoonful of ice-cream today. I’m so glad my wacky behaviour when I eat ice-cream has now got scientific sanction!!!

Cows Ahoy!

There is an article in today’s paper about the menace of cows on Indian roads – something which I thought fit to write about because it is actually an issue which has, at various points of time, taken up quite a bit of my thoughts. Which country in the world, other than India, would you see animals sitting square in the middle of the road, seemingly disinterested in the traffic chaos they are causing? If anyone has an answer, please let me know. I find it absolutely frustrating that a government actually prefers regular traffic jams and occasional accidents to getting rid of the cow menace. I mean, wouldn’t the cows themselves rather be happier in a safe dairy? When I was younger, I used to play ‘What if I was Prime Minister’ in my head, and one of the first things I decided I’d do was put all these wandering cows away where they should be. I mean, India has enough and more people to tend to cows, and if a bit of the money going to pay bribes could be usefully diverted to doing this, I think a lot of good would be done. First you’d be clearing the roads and making them safer, and second you would be generating employment for poor people who need them. In fact, a whole industry could be usefully tapped – you could have dairies producing milk which could generate income, and so on and so forth. But I suppose the government would typically have their own views on this – such as where would the land for such an enterprise come from? Oh, well. The Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) has been given a deadline of one week by the High Court to clear city roads of the cattle menace. And the MCD Commissioner is not optimistic of achieving the target within the deadline. Is that surprising? Not to me. Anyway, to quote, ”Considering our experience with the police, we will be able to achieve the target only by the year-end. The court has asked us to submit an action plan within a week. I have called for an immediate meeting of officials from the veterinary department to discuss the matter.” Which basically means – too bad for the public. They are going to have to continue to put up with the cattle menace indefinitely. There is another rather funny angle to this, by the way - a rumour presumably because I didn’t find anything to support it on the globally accepted Source of All Knowledge (the internet of course!!) – apparently cows sit in the middle of the road because flies don’t irritate them there due to the constant flow of traffic. This has, according to the rumour, been found out by none other than the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad!

Do Not Disturb

If anyone has ever had unsolicited calls from various companies asking if you are interested in their products, then you know how I feel. Yesterday I had FOUR calls (and I think I’ve hardly ever got any before that) from HDFC, Tata Indicom, Idea Cellular, and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance asking me whether I’m interested in their credit cards, phone connections, or insurance. I’ve worked with a market research company briefly and I know for a fact that they have a database of landline numbers whom they call to conduct research on various topics. But calling mobile numbers to sell products is another thing altogether and that is what I call complete invasion of privacy. In fact, where I used to work, the system did not permit mobile numbers to be called (but that of course was the UK and not India where privacy is almost non-existent). The first call I actually bothered to respond to because I was interested in what they had to say. I said I’d think about it and put the phone down. To the others I just kept parroting 'Not interested'. Now my theory is that there must be a central database where these people pass on all unsuspecting fools for other companies to harass, because somehow the other three all called the same day. Having been disturbed from my sleep (which is the worst time to call anyone, by the way), I angrily asked the fourth chap where he got my number from, and the answer was a ‘marketing research’ company. Someone should tell them that market research is very different from hard-selling products. India needs to get professional and follow a publicly accepted system.

Paradise on Earth

“If there is paradise on earth, it is here, it is here, it is here,” once exclaimed King Jehangir of Kashmir. The atmosphere is not as carefree as it was during his time, but I echoed his feelings when my eyes feasted upon the natural wealth of Kashmir for the first time. I was full of mixed emotions when I went – what was I to expect? The last two decades have seen Kashmir’s socio-political atmosphere disintegrate tragically, and even if one isn’t too keen on reading about the state of affairs there regularly, the Indian media won’t allow you to speculate. Bombs, suicide attacks – that’s all I ever read about. But things are improving, albeit slowly. On April 7th , the first Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus in recent times made a journey. The happy event was however clouded by a purported ‘militant’ attack on the Tourist Reception Centre in Srinagar a day prior to that. I say ‘purported’ beause the majority of educated Kashmiris in the city believe that it was a government plan to attract attention to the terrorism in the state – security in the area prior to the bus journey was so tight that even a fly couldn’t have flown by, and then a militant attack?, they noted skeptically. As my flight descended into the Valley, I was awestruck by the looming snow-capped mountains in the distance, and the yellow mustard fields dotting the landscape. The grey clouds in the sky seemed all at once mysterious and beautiful. Srinagar, the capital of Kashmir (or, as the BBC, politically correct as always says, ‘Indian Kashmir’) is nestled among the Karakoram range of mountains and has a population of 1.1 million. Muslims are the majority but Sikhs, despite the Anantnag massacre in 2001, still live here, as do many Hindus despite the ouster of the Kashmiri Pandit Hindus a while ago. Army men stand with guns or man bunkers on the roads every few feet, despite the relative peace in most areas where people go about their daily business, having got used to the presence of the military in the state. The supply of electricity is erratic, with regular power cuts, and life pretty much shuts down by 8 PM. Having said all this, I don’t think I can do justice to the beauty of the place. It is no wonder that India and Pakistan are fighting over Kashmir, because I’m pretty sure that tourism alone would bring in a lot of money if there was peace. I went to Gulmarg, literally meaning ‘Meadow of Flowers’, which was actually a meadow of snow when I was there! A white blanket dotted the mountainous area, and a ride by cable-car took me to the upper reaches of the area where the base of some peaks were within walking distance. Many old Hindi films have been shot in Gulmarg, and I even recognized some locations from my limited memory of a few I’ve seen (If anyone knows the Mumtaz-Rajesh Khanna song ‘Jai Jai Shiv Shankar’, it was shot here). Pahalgam is another pretty-as-a-picture place to visit. This one translates as ‘Valley of Shepherds’. A rushing river gushes through the region, called the Lidder Valley, as snow-laden peaks shine in the distance. It actually snowed briefly while I was there, and though summer is known as the best time to visit, the cold added its own touch to my memory of Pahalgam. Taking a ride in a shikara on Dal Lake, getting dressed up in Kashmiri get-up for a photo and begging the army men at security check-posts at the entry to the Mughal Gardens at Cheshmashahi to let us take a video-camera (which we finally did smuggle inside!) are some other enjoyable moments of my trip. One thought that repeatedly came to my mind during my stay was that this was truly a paradise on earth. Now if only someone could only make the region’s decision-makers and activitists understand that.

Education and literacy

They were all silent, even those who had not committed the sins I had attributed to them. I dismissed the class early, although the culprits and a few others stayed back to plead their case. They were docile even in their pleas: they wanted to be forgiven, they did not know any better, this was what most professors expected. Two were in tears. What could they do? They had never learned any better. From the first day they had set foot in elementary school, they had been told to memorize. They had been told that their own opinions counted for nothing. - Reading Lolita in Tehran, Azar Nafisi How does it feel when you have ideas and thoughts simmering inside you, but you never have the encouragement or the platform to give vent to them? I know what it feels like. In school, when I was mesmerized by the beauty of billowing clouds on a sun-drenched day, or the romance of the pearl-grey sky throwing forth pricks of happy moisture on a hot evening, I often felt privileged and lonely at the same time. Privileged because as anyone with the ‘heart of a poet’ will understand (as years later a friend from college put it), those fleeting moments when Nature is at her resplendent best are genuinely special, and lonely because at the time, poetry to most in my school meant unwelcome lines that you had to mug up to get extra marks in exams. We were never asked to comment on anything, argue or even paraphrase. It went to the extent that Maths – MATHS for heaven’s sake – was sometime learnt by rote. Today when my 16-year-old cousin tells me that mugging is the only way to get marks in exams – and marks are ultimately the deciding factor for admission to college – I start off arguing forcefully about the need for him to actually understand what he is learning, but slowly my energy peters out. Because he is right. I went through the rigmarole of Indian education and he is still at it, years later, and nothing has changed. I have nothing to support my point of view, apart from my passion for what I call ‘real’ education, as opposed to ‘engineered’ literacy. The Indian education system – and by that I mean primarily Indian state examination boards, because I don’t have the experience of anything else – are seriously flawed. I certainly don’t remember very much of what I studied in school, and I was a pretty good student all through. What is the point of this education then? It doesn’t teach confidence or encourage innovation or talent. It creates factory-moulded robots – and when you hear about the saffronisation of education, that is even scarier. George Orwell’s ‘1984’, anyone? Today the stress placed on students during exams leads them to take their lives, and nowadays parents are turning to that as a solution to their wards’ problems as well. Arjun Singh’s HRD Ministry convened a meeting with representatives from the IIM’s, IIT’s, NGO’s and other institutes last week in New Delhi to debate the issue. Lots of solutions are being bandied about – from doing away with exams till Class 8, to introducing a grading system. Whether mere discussions will translate into effective action remains to be seen, but till then ‘Ten thousand saw I at a glance’ could be written by Mark Twain for all anyone cared. And years down the lane, another person like me will feel forcefully angry and hopelessly sad at the same time, for growing years having gone un-nurtured.

Wah Wagah

I visited the Wagah border between India and Pakistan today. I’ve wanted to for a while, and it didn’t disappoint. Located on the straight Attari Road about 30 kilometres from Amritsar, the Wagah border consists of two huge walled gates, one on either side of the evocatively green, vast farmland of the state of Punjab. But wait – a description like that is simplifying the whole experience. The energy (of full-blooded Indians, especially Punjabis), curiosity (of a host of foreigners and NRIs, and then people born curious like me), excitement (of school children herded along by protective teachers, and everyone else in general) has to be seen to be believed. The ‘event’ as I call it, starts as soon as you step out of your car, as you wait in a crowd to start walking the half-kilometre to the gate. People young and old, of all colours and sizes, try to walk fast, jog and run to make sure they get a good place to view the goings-on. I got there about half an hour early, and we were strictly made to wait by the side of the road till we were let in at about 5 p.m. Anyone who is out of line is herded back by smartly-dressed Indian soldiers, with red and gold turbans sitting majestically on their heads.

The lowering-of-flags ceremony starts at 5.30 and till then the crowd on either side (the Pakistanis have filled up their viewing arena by then as well) shouts and cheers for their respective countries. An officious-looking gentleman warned the Indian crowd not to say anything against ‘them’. The only permitted slogans, apparently, were ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’, ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ and ‘Vande Mataram’. I don’t agree with the ‘Hindustan Zindabad’ part as I believe that India comprises of much more than just Hindus, but I got caught up in the atmosphere and shouted lustily with the rest of the crowd. It reminded me of my college days, but this was much better. I had a more heightened awareness of what was happening around me – and I think time plays a part in this. I hadn’t lost any of my ‘josh’ though, thankfully!

The parade itself is quite good to watch. On the Pakistani side of the gate, I could see the Pakistani soldiers in their navy-blue Pathani salwar kurtas and turbaned heads performing the same actions as their Indian counterparts. After a few minutes of ceremonious marching, the Indian and Pakistani flags, flying high on their masts till then, crossed as they were lowered. They were then folded perfectly (the Indian flag was chakra-side-up) and carried away in a line by their soldiers.

On one hand, it was a pretty simple event, but on the other, with its open-to-public viewing policy, hearty cheering and the lowering of flags in perfect tandem, there is something intensely patriotic about the whole experience.

I made a quick stop at Attari on the way back – its just a couple of kilometers away from the border. Having grown up on a diet of Hindi movies, I wanted to see where one of Bollywood’s latest blockbusters, Yash Chopra’s Veer-Zaara (and I haven’t even watched the complete movie) was shot. Attari is a small station through which the train from India to Pakistan passes. The station was dark and sleepy, apart from a few porters and watchmen hanging around. It was quite a change from the hustle-bustle of other Indian stations. I must have looked quite silly, taking pictures on the overbridge on which Preity Zinta and Shah Rukh Khan stood in a particular scene (not that I think they are luminaries of Indian cinema or anything!), and the porters were looking at me quite amused. A typical crazy Anjali-type thing to do, but it's my life after all, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience!

Thoughts on corruption

I was watching the news and there was a piece of what I call investigative journalism being profiled. You can read some more about it here. A reporter from a TV news channel had masqueraded as a member of the public and went to the Sales Tax office in Delhi to get some information. No less than 82 government officials were caught accepting bribes by a hidden camera somewhere on the reporter’s person. The Sales Tax office is bang next to the headquarters of – get this – the Delhi Police. Whether by chance or not, the names of the only two officers that blinked across the TV screen were of female officials. I don’t attach much significance to it but it certainly does away with any small idea I had that women are less corruptible (is there a word like that?) than men. Ironically, March 8th was International Women’s Day. A day to celebrate women and their achievements, a day to celebrate women achievers across the world and across work categories. Don’t get me wrong here. While a lot of people in the past have actually called me feminist in the past, I’m not, really. (I am reminded suddenly of Vivek Oberoi who I noticed on TV on March 8th, saying very poignantly that he does not believe men and women are equal, because women are simply much superior, and that’s why when God had to give the job of child-bearing to man or woman, he chose the woman, because she’s stronger. Go Vivek!) Anyway, so a) as a woman, b) as a conscientious resident of India, I was, to put in succinctly, flabbergasted at that piece of news. I shouldn’t have been – I mean – Tehelka is not really all that old yet, but something about the news made me feel very disheartened. I mean, these are educated people (forget the gender now), working for the government, the provider of facilities to the general public like you and me, and these people don’t think twice before accepting bribes. I think it was the manner in which they did it that got me down: Reporter: How much do I have to pay? Official: You know about these things, give me as much as you give others Reporter: I can give you Rs.2000 Official: 2000 is not enough, at least give me 3000 Reporter: But I had to pay someone else to get some other papers, this is all I can give now. (Official quietly takes the money) In the night, I was calculating how much these officials must have made over the years. Let’s say, at a conservative estimate, that they deal with 20 people in one day. If they take an average of Rs.5000 from each (I’m sure bigger concerns must be paying way more to bypass government tax rules, and there is a lot of money in sales), that’s Rs. 1,00,000 a day. For a 5-day working week, that’s Rs. 5 lakhs a week, which is Rs.20 lakhs a month. So we’re talking Rs.20 lakhs per person per month in BRIBES. Money hidden under the carpet. Don’t forget as government ‘servants’, these people get a regular salary also. Most of the 82 people who were caught have been suspended. But with some ridiculous sum of money stashed away in a multiple number of bank accounts, I don’t think they will need a job for the rest of their lives. Perhaps its not so untrue (though I keep trying to be optimistic because of some of my friends who call me a ‘foreigner’ living in India, when I comment on corruption in this country) that along with the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia, India, projected as a global super-power by 2020, is one of the most corrupt nations in the world.

Excerpts from 'Eleven Minutes'

I can choose to be a victim of the world or an adventurer in search of treasure. It’s all a question of how I view my life. _______ All my life, I thought of love as some kind of voluntary enslavement. Well, that’s a lie: freedom only exists when love is present. The person who gives him or herself wholly, the person who feels freest, is the person who loves most wholeheartedly. And the person who loves wholeheartedly feels free. ….in love, no one can harm anyone else; we are each of us responsible for our own feelings and cannot blame someone else for what we feel. - Eleven Minutes, Paulo Coelho

Life

The myriad colours of reflected light bouncing off a shining diamond.

The colour of her eyes

Writing is panacea for the soul. It is therapeutic – this is what I’ve always believed. It’s just that in this day and age, with SMS and e-mail making things so much more convenient – not to mention quick – writing often takes a backseat. Sitting in a train on the way from Calcutta to Kanpur, however, I took out my stationery and began to write. Its something I planned to do, and the absence of any irritating co-passengers helped. The continuous rocking motion of the train didn’t, but that’s another matter! _______ The colour of her eyes. Dark chocolate-brown. She looked unblinkingly at the two children begging opposite, a short distance away, as she waited for the bus. The younger boy was looking to the older girl for a signal on whether to touch the man’s feet for money or not. The girl, dirty and clad in a short polka-dotted dress, was standing passively, her hips thrust out in an almost disturbingly evocative manner for a child her age. She’d seen similar enough scenes enough times in the past, when she used to travel by train to go home from college. She’d wanted to work for the underprivileged then. But that was before she got accustomed to the coke at the parties. Her life spiralled out of control and she was on the verge of dying when she was pushed to the AA meetings by Varun, who finally discovered her ugly secret. He was so proud of her for coming back to his life the way he’d known her before it all happened. And she was going to marry him in a few months. She didn’t want to do social work anymore though. She believed there were people who could do that better than her. ‘Know your strengths’, someone had once told her. She wanted to be an author now. She went quietly back to reading her book. _______ The colour of her eyes. Soot black. She was tired of this rigmarole day after day. She longed to run and play in the fields she knew when she was younger in rural Bihar. She longed to study in school again and learn about planets and the moon and the pretty shiny lights in the sky. Moving to the city had made her life awful. Her family didn’t even earn enough money to have food three times a day, forget becoming rich like they said would happen. Papa hadn’t been able to get a good job as easily as they thought. The lady who lived next door to them in the slum had told her mother to instruct her to stand like that, jutting her hips out, so that they could get some money to ‘help the family expenses’. She hated it. She looked at the fair girl in the pants and long T-shirt reading a book nearby. She wanted to be like her. She decided with renewed determination that she would study. She would study at night and pay for it by doing something else during the day – not this horrible work. A bright smile played on her face as she had the idea. She shook her head to say ‘No’ to her little brother, who was looking for the signal.

The colour of my life

Silver blue Rippling through? Blood red Cursing through my head? Sunflower yellow Cheery bedfellow? Ornate pink A princess in mink? Awesome orange Unblinking courage? Lime green Shimmer and sheen? Pure white - Snow.....bright.

Designers and designer prices

There is no doubt about the class and superiority of Indian couture in the Western fashion industry today. Fashion houses like Armani get a lot of their embroidery and stitching done here, and cheap labour is not the only reason. The intricacy of the work on pieces by Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Ritu Beri, Tarun Tahiliani or Rohit Bal is faultless and extremely applealing, and the fall and feel of the material is classy and elegant. I have this to say about Indian haute couture - it is much more attractive than Western lines. We have our culture and rich textile heritage to thank for that. Ikat, zardozi, kantha, even basic tie-and-dye bandhni are all textile secrets that only Indians can draw on. Of course (how can one not talk about this), the price is another story altogether. Ranging from the thousands to even lakhs of rupees, a middle-class Indian would have to think twice before buying designer wear. I suppose that also, by default, is what makes it exclusive. I went to Ensemble, Kimaya and Carma today. Ran into Sabyasachi at one of them. Ah, the life of a Delhiite! A few more visits and I'd be on Page 3 automatically :-) In my old jeans and Nike jacket and backpack, I stood out like a sore thumb though! And yes, I did buy a couple of designer wear clothes. On discount :-)

Delhi Metro

To those of you who don't have much faith in the ability of the Indian government to deliver public services that are a) clean and well-maintained and b) of international standards, I would recommend that you take a trip on the Delhi Metro. Even I, a self-proclaimed skeptic as far as the performance of the government is concerned, was reasonably impressed. The Delhi Metro is both the above qualities, and it also exceeds expectations. I have been on the Metro in London and Brussels, and let me tell you, Delhi's metro system is no poor cousin. For a country that has a pretty abysmal record in delivering public utilities like healthcare and education, this is a saving grace.

Oh! Calcutta

‘Oh! Calcutta’, incidentally, is the name of the restaurant I went to in Calcutta that serves authentic Bengali cuisine in the ambience of a place which aims to recapture the glory of Calcutta as it was before it became the nationalistic ‘Kolkata’. Well-preserved old books by Jawaharlal Nehru and Tolstoy, among others, line wooden bookshelves, and a painting of devotees on the banks of the Hooghly near the famous Kali Mandir dominates a wall. What, after all, is a trip to Bengal without savouring its culinary delights? I sampled ‘Machcher Jhol’ – anyone who knows anything about Bengalis will know about their love for fish, and this is one of the best fish curries of the region. I must also mention ‘Aloo Jhinger Poshto’, a dish made of potato, capsicum and poppy seeds which could quite potentially make one an addict, just like the opium that the poppy seeds come from! As for dessert, well, ‘rossogollas’, anyone? That’s always been my favourite Indian sweet and the succulent sponginess of the ones in Calcutta are without comparison. If you ask me, the true spirit of urban India is in its bylanes. It was at one such corner stand that I tasted jhaal muri for the first time. It is very similar to Mumbai’s bhelpuri but a drier, spicier version. Smacking my lips, I grinned to myself as I watched Calcutta go by busily.

Page 3

Urban India as it is inhabited by the rich, beautiful and famous can be a shocking discovery for a middle-class person. Madhur Bhandarkar’s ‘Page 3’ is cinematic criticism of the murky world of any big city’s socialites at its best. I’d heard so much about the movie that I wanted to watch it, if for nothing else than its curiosity value. And like it or hate it, ‘Page 3’ will not fail to make you think. Think about today’s celebrities whose heights so many people aspire to reach. Think about the drive for success and the endless search for money and fame that even an average Indian indulges in.

‘Page 3’ is not what I would call a brilliant film. But it rings true somewhere and its characters, from the socialite’s driver to Konkona Sen Sharma’s middle-class journalist, make the film feel real. Fiction it may be, but it also holds up as a mirror of high society today.

Most people, in some way, want to be a part of Page 3. At the end of the day, for many these opulent parties may just be a way of letting go of stress, but for the majority, it is a chance to indulge in hidden fantasies, a chance to climb the ladder of success by being seen and by talking to the ‘right’ people. Drugs, sex, swapping partners - anything goes here, amidst the smoky haze and the loud music. At its most harmless, these parties are a gathering of people who make vacuous or scathingly hypocritical conversation.

Today, go to any glamorous party in any Indian metro and there’s a pretty good chance you will see some of the Page 3 phenomenon at work. Of course, not everyone thinks so. Lillette Dubey, Indian actor and theatre person, has commented in ‘Outlook’ magazine that the movie had the potential to ‘go for the jugular’ and shouldn’t have been so black-and-white. Well, any more jugular and the viewer would probably die!

So sociologically, what does this herald? An urban arena where money and fame are creating people with the minds and hearts of monsters, never mind their looks? Or one where the system makes people so cynical that they finally give up their long-held values for a more glamorous dream? Or worse, where that cynicism leads to apathy? I’ve grown up over the past few years and have come to believe that the sooner you come to terms with life as it exists and not as you think it should be, the better your life will be. That’s what Sharma’s character as the journalist who makes the transition from an idealistic young girl to a harder, stronger person eventually does. Also thought-provoking is Atul Kulkarni's character, who as a crime journalist in the film says, ‘To beat the system, you have to be in the system’.

Life, after all, isn’t all ha-ha-hee-hee.

Mussoorie - Truly lording it over the plains

Outlook Traveller's Weekend Breaks from Delhi has a caption below the word 'Mussoorie' - 'Lording it over the plains'. That it truly does. Home to Ruskin Bond, Mussoorie is one of the more picturesque hill-stations I have come across. I stopped at the locally revered Shiva temple on the winding road uphill from Dehradun, which has a steady stream of devotees. I'm sure there are those who go there for the free hot tea and sweets (given as 'prasad') and for the magnificent view as well. As you proceed towards Mussoorie, the change in the temperature is noticeable - a much cooler breeze hits your face as the road curves upwards. But I couldn't have asked for a better day - the contrast of lush green hills against an azure blue sky with cotton clouds floating above is really poetic and will inspire even the most barren heart. Snowfall the previous day had brought down temperatures and a proposed visit to the nearby Kempty Falls had to be shelved because at a certain point, there were a few well-intentioned men who took upon themselves the responsibility of warning approaching ignorants that if they proceeded any further by vehicle, they would slip and slide. So I got off and started walking, but after slipping and sliding considerably on the snow and ice-covered road, I beat a hasty retreat. Some brave people tried to overcome nature (2 groups in cars and 2 on motorcycles) but they met with an even worse experience. It was even amusing, the way these vehicles would stubbornly go the opposite direction the steering wheel was trying to get them to move in!

Mumbai Marathon 2005

Over 25,000 people - elite and everyday runners from all over the world, and this included Bollywood stars, differently abled people and the man on the street - ran the Mumbai Marathon on the 16th of January. They had their pick of the 7 km 'Dream Run', the 21 k Half-Marathon or the 42 k Full Marathon. The Kenyan athletes took the lion's share of places in the Half and Full Marathons - I think its something in their blood. I ran the Dream Run and did pretty well, if I say so myself - came second out of 21 Nike India employees that participated. Of course it wasn't an easy task - so for those of you who scoff at the achievement, run it first and then come to me to talk :-) 16,000 people pushed, walked, jogged and ran their way through the route. I caught glimpses of Sachin and Anjali Tendulkar (eat your hearts out, cricket fans!), Kapil Dev, Vinod Khanna and Salman Khan prior to the race. I found myself running alongside Javed Jafri (who was also huffing and puffing like me) at certain points. The energy of the place was amazing, the weather however, scorching. In my opinion, a marathon is more a test of mental strength than physical fitness. If you train reasonably well, running will be second nature. But the mental get-up is upto you to pull off. An event I will always remember.

Carlos Moya in Chennai

Tennis champ Carlos Moya was in Chennai for the Chennai Open in the first week of January, and Nike India got him to hit a few balls with some young tennis enthusiasts. I got to shake hands with him :-) . He's quite an obliging person (though I found his manager's constant looming presence a bit disconcerting), pretty tall and very Spanish.

Jaipur - An Everlasting Memory of Times Bygone

I would recommend that everyone visit Jaipur at least once in their lifetime - the splendour of the past has been captured and packaged in a way that makes you cherish your experience forever. It helped that I stayed at the Bissau Palace, once home to nobility, now partly a heritage hotel, where 'comfort curls like a cat around your feet'. What the authors of a piece on Jaipur have to say sums up best the reason why Jaipur is so special - 'Apathy is a logocal impossibility in Sawai Jai Singh's capital'. Popularly known as India's Pink City, the story goes that in the 1970's, the ruling king had all the buildings painted pink in honour of a visit by the Prince of Wales. The Old City houses some specimens of architectural wonder, like the City Palace, the Jantar Mantar and Hawa Mahal. But the main reason anyone should visit Jaipur is to see the forts - the Amber Fort ('Amber' in English, 'Amer' in local language) and the Jaigarh and Nahargarh Forts. Regally constructed atop a hill, the Amber Fort was home to the kings and queens of Amber. It is huge, rambling, dark and mysterious in some parts, open and horticulturally happy in others. The Jaigarh Fort was built primarily as a defence structure, and houses the country's (can't remember if it is also the world's) largest cannon. The Nahargarh Fort was built by a king for his nine wives, and has nine identical sections. Both provide awe-inspiring views of the Aravallis and the surrounding countryside. Johori Bazar has streets lined with shops where you can get practically everything you would want to in Jaipur. I'd recommend the traditional Rajasthani 'bandhej' sarees. After one quick visit, I feel I could go back for more. The city is full of tourists, primarily from France, the UK, Belgium and America, who wander happily around, and I'm sure they feel the same way.

Dehradun

I can see the mountains in the far distance from my hotel window. On the train journey here, I saw a bubbling brook which brought an unbidden smile to my lips. Known for the Indian Military Academy and some of the country's most famous schools (The Doon School and Welham's), Dehradun is a hill-station that is slowly losing its calm due to the bane of the modern world - commercialisation. But 10 minutes away from the commercial artery of Rajpur Road, the true spirit of Dehradun can be felt. A Tibetan temple and monastery and a Sai Baba temple sit peacefully next to each other in Rajpur, and the verdant greenery lining the hills opposite provide a serenity that has to be experienced to be believed.

A Nobel laureate and an auto-rickshaw driver

What's common to the two, you might be wondering. Well, nothing offhand. But I had a rather interesting experience with two of them today. I hailed an auto to get to my destination today and I don't really remember what I was thinking but I was smiling. So the auto driver goes, 'You look very happy that I put the meter on'. Actually, that WAS a good thing - not all auto drivers here have the decency to put it on and often talk to you like they are doing you a favour - but in response to his statement, I said that I was generally smiling to myself. So he responds, 'That's good. It's good to smile'. And thus started a rather interesting conversation, which started off with the weather. According to him, Delhi's winters are not as cold as they should be because of the growing population and cutting down of trees to make way for buildings. This progressed to a discussion on how most Indians today in a city like Delhi are not honest - they attract all sorts of vile people. And the government is not able to manage the growing number of people, a majority of whom are illiterate migrants from places like Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, because the people in government are themselves crooks. To add fuel to the fire, I remarked that even if an honest man wants to get into politics, he becomes corrupt in due course. That seemed to go down well with the driver, who affirmed this and said that the number of good people is outnumbered by the corrupt and they are forced to toe the line or else be put in jail on a false accusation, or 'bumped off'. Next on the agenda was the topic of AIDS. This guy seemed to be remarkably informed and as if he was reading my mind, he said that he watched the Discovery Channel in Hindi a lot. I was quite intrigued. Media certainly is making a difference to the lives of these poor people in India anyway. Apparently he had attended a talk by a lady who explained how AIDS is contracted. As a joke, he remarked that as AIDS has no cure yet, soon everyone in the world would be affected and we would cease to exist as a race! From AIDS he started his discourse on other diseases like diabetes and said that on the whole (a very astute statement, this) women were more unhealthy and prone to disease than men. I rose to the occasion as a woman and argued that this was because we have to bear children and take care of the house, trying to needle him again. He laughed and said that it was because they lacked exercise, and were content sitting in the house, especially in India, while men got much more exercise on a daily basis. I had to hand it to this guy! Next was India's position in the world today. In his opinion, one cannot say as the BJP does that this is a Hindu land, based on Hindutva. Simply because it is no longer only the land of Hindus. Muslims, Christians, Sikhs and a number of other religions have made India their home. He used the analogy of khichdi (which he told me, is used a lot by his fellow people), to say that just as you cannot separate the different kinds of dal easily once they are mixed - (moong, masoor, toor), you can't separate these different religions anymore. India's national language in itself, Hindi, can no longer be called the national language in a true sense because Hindi in Delhi and Hindi in Haryana and elsewhere sound so different. It is time to make way for English, the international language (!!!!). And then of course, the philosophy aspect. I was wondering when that would come. He spoke about how when the eyes see something, a bag of money for example, it communicates this message to the mind, which then starts thinking of things like taking some of it, for example. So the mind is very strong, and though the soul should be stronger, often there is a tussle between the two. I finally reached my destination, quite thankful that the auto driver had managed to keep his eyes on the road during his speech, and thanked him for an enjoyable ride. ------- The same afternoon, I attended a lecture by Professor Amartya Sen. His topic of discussion was 'India:Large and Small' and he traced India's history to its present-day politics, noting that the fact that India today has a Muslim President, Sikh Prime Minister and Christian leader of Opposition is testimony to its status as a melting pot of cultures. The party in power in 2002 during the Gujarat riots, the BJP, made a mistake when the state government failed to handle the issue adequately, and later on in December when it was re-elected to power, and this was seen in the massive victory that the Congress obtained in the 2004 Lok Sabha elections. I was struck at that moment by the fact that what a poor auto-driver had told me just that morning, about India's secular status today, was almost exactly the same as the point that the Nobel laureate was making. One, a globally renowned academic and the other, the man on the street. How different were their education and background. And yet, how different are their lives today. One a global citizen, and the other an Indian from the hinterland. Who would you say is more aware of the reality of life, and who is more educated?

It happens only in India

Delhi's traffic is legendary and I have experienced it quite a few times by now, but yesterday was one of the worst traffic jams I have seen. On the way to Gurgaon, the road had bumper-to-bumper traffic for miles and sitting in a car observing what was happening all around was quite amusing but at times downright exasperating. Obviously a few weddings were taking place at some of the farmhouses on that long stretch, because (and while I know for Delhi this is nothing spectacular) almost everyone sitting in the cars was dressed to kill, often bordering on the overdressed! After ten minutes, with traffic moving at snail's pace, I slowly turned my attention to the other side of the road to see if that side had better luck, and my jaw dropped as I noticed that cars were actually going in the OPPOSITE direction on that side of the road, to avoid the traffic jam. At first there were just a few, but deriving inspiration from the brave (or idiotic, whichever way you choose to look at it) drivers who were openly flaunting all traffic regulations in existence, soon I saw a file of cars following suit, with blinkers flashing as if that gave them the right to drive against the flow of traffic. As they say, it happens only in India! Scene number two: a chariot with a lone driver emerging from a dark side street, all done up in flowers, but with no groom or bride or party of followers. It looked quite forlorn actually, as if it was expecting to be the centre of attraction but had to settle for being a broom thrown in a corner carelessly. Scene number three: an elephant (rent of hiring it for a wedding: Rs.40,000 per evening approximately) outside a wedding venue, caparisoned and royal, as guests lined up behind it. I suppose this was nothing compared to last weekend, where it was widely reported that 14,000 weddings took place on one day!! God knows what happened then!