Tina Ambani's 'must haves'

I must have so acted ... I am unable to recall the role played by … It must have been transacted … He (Anil) must have attended the meeting, I do not recall as the meeting took place long back in 2006.

- said Tina Ambani 

To most questions of the interrogators to do with the allegations that the company Swan was the front runner for her husband’s Reliance Telecom in the 2G spectrum allocation, Tina Ambani had the above to say. Now, if I understood business well enough, I would be sitting on CNBC showering my biz acumen around or getting it printed in peach-coloured news papers. While that I cannot dream of doing any time soon, here is what I can do – think and think back!

I wonder if you see what I see - the epic usage of 'must haves'. 

To read more, please click here.

Time(is)Now to see what Arnab Goswami needs

No, not a microphone!

Arnab Goswami is gifted. You see, he is that species of human kind which develops voice/sound amplifiers on its vocal chords resulting in thundery claps slaps, triggered especially on smelling a rat (smelling, since hearing one squeak is near impossible at his volumes). Goswami’s pharyx, larynx, sharynx combined can hold court sitting atop Qutub Minar, talking down to we the people somewhere on the ground where we belong (especially if we bribed our modem wala Rs. 100 to speed things up, etc). Of course, along with all-just-all politicians, bureaucrats, ministers and their families who he would gladly banish from the Republic of India just like Plato wished the poets away. Why do you look at me in pure disbelief? As if you do not know what's breaking the news these days! So, coming back to my point - Arnab Goswami does not need a microphone. Because Arnab Goswami is gifted.

What Arnab Goswami (AG) needs?

1. AG needs to meet Charlie Sheen. Just generally, and not because their favourite shared activity includes threatening-thrashing like teething toddlers! And then, who knows, ‘Anger Management 2’ might find a new hero, especially since Charlie has his real time anger to manage, while AG is usually flaunting his on his courageous panelists – suited booted and on prime time!

2. AG needs to stop using the words ‘scam’, ‘shame’ and ‘suspend’ in the same sentence, more than twice at least. Research shows the three appear, in exactly this order, at least 60 times every hour of Views Hour. English language is full of alternatives, especially when it comes to the letter ‘S’ (some done right are apparently even therapeutic). Fear predictability, AG. Dig those lexicons in the next commercial break and see the difference in your speech, if not your tone. And if Fortune wills it, it might better your waning TRP.

3. AG needs to do some volunteer work, in his free time that is. AG needs to teach Moral Science to the responsible, corruption-free citizens of tomorrow – in the neighbourhood Shishu Mandir. Why? Oh Lord, who better than Me Lord of Papers and Sources who knows what’s wrong with the world and right with himself, who can spell self-righteous in 56 different ways, point his finger in 65 different directions – all without ruffling even a hair on his head. Plus, he’ll be a great hit with the kids. All he’ll need to do is remove his suit and walk into class in his Superman outfit which he never removes from underneath. Isn’t that great?

Google image

4. AG needs to take on some endorsements, especially since the usual guys are in-and-out of jails and the advertising industry is suffering. While hair gel (please ignore the picture above) and neck ties have been offered to him already, access to a secret contract that I have a copy of right here tells me that a new brand of Chyawanprash is going to be launched – named ‘AG EnerG’. One spoon a day only can sky rocket your dreams of becoming the human microphone, or next-loudest-thing on TV - hands flying feet stomping, complete.

5. AG needs 3 things, combined, just before his show goes ‘on air’. A glass of lemonade (with real lemons please), a champi with Navratna Tel (thanda thanda cool cool!) and a sprinkle of Nycil, to prevent those bouts of sudden itch springing up in nooks and corners, making him sit as if suspended an inch above his seat and needlessly scratch all those papers in front of him. Only a suggestion, AG, and only because of so much heat!

6. AG needs to eat what Dilli loves to feed – no not butter chicken with butter naan and sirka pyaz. Dilli wants to send him a year’s supply of the "Chill Pill" yaar, absolutely free. Their only condition? That next time he sits on his throne, once, just once he should look at the camera and talk to them. He looks here and then he swivels around to look there and forgets to see the seer in the whole process – the India that is actually sitting at home, waiting to know who is being broken on the news!

7. Most importantly,

AG needs to ignore this post, 

It’s just a vent for hurt, no more. 

Last time I was on my flat's Level 3,  

I heard his voice booming out the TV, on Level G. 

I ran down screaming, please hold on for me, 

 But my decibels no match for my dear AG’s,
And on-and-on he went, orating without me. 

Sigh! Now that it’s off my chest, do tell me, 

Have you forgiven me this post, dear AG? 

Oh! It's not just me who wants to know, you see,

It's what ‘India wants to know', and right now, really!

I want to meet you, Rajiv Goswami

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past – Thomas Jefferson

And that is why I want to meet you, Rajiv Goswami. It is you who I would resurrect from the pages of History because with you I want to dream of a better future, rather than think of a historical past that consumed you. A past that refuses to go away shows its face in the present and will in the future too.

Why you?

Not just because you stood up for the idea of equal opportunity and fairness for millions of us others, no, not for that reason alone. I chose to speak to you and no other because the relevance of your ideas and your cause continues pertinent even today. I want to understand the courage behind the anger and the anger within the courage that made you immolate yourself while protesting against that 49.5%. 

It wasn’t just a figure for you, was it? The Commission recommended certain castes needed to be uplifted for poverty to go. Social and educational backwardness were to be removed – both caste-based handicaps, they wrote. Seats were to be reserved and quotas gifted to redress discrimination (gifted to redress discrimination?), based on 11 indicators (just another figure?) to determine backwardness!

I wonder.

At the magnitude of anger burning within you, when Meritorious Right was a like a dead man walking. Or what was on your mind the second you lit that match and set yourself ablaze. You must have seen it coming. All of it, in a flash. Seen how much more every job application will ask of you, now more than ever. How, perhaps, your queue at opportunity’s door will always move slower and grow longer, just like the unpaid bills at home. For you and for your kind! Did you know the deeper problems of the Report? We who came to our senses later read about politically compromised census data and lack of empirical basis to the estimation logic. And to think for a Report based on mere ‘estimation’ you set fuel to fire!

You were a leader, a formidable one. Of a formidable movement called the Anti-Reservation Movement! And your painful act of setting yourself on fire was emulated across the country. How powerful the belief in the cause of fairness must have been, and how strong the allegiance to you and to what should rightfully be one’s own – of complete strangers, with nothing in common except the very ‘General’.  And then you died. Just 3 decades of existence marred by deprivation, anger and fire.

But you live on.

Today, percentages are still being passed and debates raging after every vote. We stand further unequally divided – in opinion, in slices of opportunity and in shadow lines of caste, class and creed. A lot is being asked of us, we who were born into better socio-economic conditions, according to those ‘estimations’. Caste-based quotas are being used to do away with discrimination. I know you smile at the irony too, just like I do. Look close, the economically sound from lower sections are sitting in the reserved places, and economically unsound from the upper castes staring at closed windows and ‘no seats’. We learn about reserved seats lying vacant and we get angry. And then, of those chairs that got filled defying merit failing to deliver quality, and that adds to the anger. That word ‘Merit-based quota’ is stuff that dreams are made of – yours and mine and whoever we call ours! The real is all Anger.   

If you were around, you would have seen your fire burning within us right this minute. A little bit of you in so many of us. A frustration! Perhaps you are in a better place, where equality and freedom of opportunity mean just that - equality and freedom of opportunity. And what else is needed to feel, to do, to believe and to be? What else to remind us every day that we Are? 

And before you go, tell us if you know – for how long will the Future have to pay for the Past?

[This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda] 

From Behen ji to Beta ji - A Letter

Dear Beta,

I will call you beta, not because I am your mother’s age, but because the world calls me behen ji and I have no room for any more bhaiyas. Once upon a time, the usual UPpity politics and dreams of PM-ship, scams and shoes, mammoth memorials and money kept me so busy. Sometimes it was like making a row of 50 elephants with imported soil with my two bare hands. That busy I felt! Today, I am not so busy, but neither am I free. Because today I realize that every move of your government seems to be politically motivated to undermine me, and my party’s hard work. So much political motivation this state has never been seen before.    

Here I was, sitting on my humble stage and reading the copy of a newspaper reserved for me. Sitting and noting that “dirty politics” was being played over Sarabjit Singh’s death. That allegations and counter allegations are “unfortunate” and that we need to rise above politics and “unite as one party”. And there, in another corner nearby, dirty politics was being planned over my image itself. Even when I was openly and so bravely warning China against Ladakh incursions, asking them to take a few steps back “otherwise the result will not be good”, little did I realize that my own report card was being given grades ranging from D and F and worst of all C (is that the correct grading order?) by your party. I hereby rubbish all reports about certain Rs. 1400 crore being irregularly consumed during my regime, for memorials, parks and a few things here-and-there which not many know about. If you are someone's beta, I am a beti too, and as a beti of the soil, I dare anyone to dare me and prove me wrong. 

But damage had been done, and what was expected happened. One of my most favourite statues got damaged by miscreants, such boot polish you have put over minds that worshipped me once as their queen. As their very own jagat behenji! Those very brother log beheaded me, my statue of marble or something like that. What shame, the way you are promoting vandalism in the youth rather than starting some university with technical and vocational training for the unemployed. You went to Sydney to study environmental engineering and should know the value of good education. I am sure UPpity could do with another university giving out foreign degrees. But coming back to the point, I hope that one day the accused are brought to task and made to pay for 4 identical statues of mine, looking in 4 different directions, to be put in place of this one. And no, I don’t want my head stuck back on it. I want a new one, altogether. I demand all lost respect to be given back to me – new stone, new sculptor and perhaps I may even give him a new pose.  

Talking of respect, it seems that power has made you blind. Your party “goons” are openly disrespecting not just the opposition and the supremo that’s still me, but also Ambedkar ji. To celebrate his 122nd birthday I got hoardings installed in his park so that lakhs of people could come and pay their tribute to him. And here you dared to remove all the hoardings to serve your own political vendetta after so much night “drama”, despite my party workers having taken due permission (even though, when it comes to Ambedkar ji, and myself, I need no permission from anyone for anything) to install them. I am telling you, beta, you are “being watched and will be taken to task when my government comes back to power” one day. And tell your minister to not try teaching me about good language, haan! What does he mean by “restraint” over my language? Doesn’t he know where I come from restraints have to be broken to fly freely and equally?

And flying reminds me, yeh jo flyover you are building at Mall Avenue better not get built – not in 15 months, 15 years or ever. I am a self-made woman who rose from the lowly ashes and my house and party office cannot be subject to such ignominy without enraging my very insides. Do you know how much I spent on building my abode? And a puny Rs. 40 crore flyover is to pass near it and mar its magnificence? I heard you, beta, I heard you say nothing will come in the way of development and easing of traffic problems. But I can assure you that nothing will come in my party’s way either when one day this very flyover will be shifted to Vikramaditya Marg – every inch of its 650 meters – when I am back in power! And not just that! I will even broaden it to 25m from 15m. Dekhna tum log! 

And see, how I got busy with all things political and motivated and forgot the real reason why I write to you this day. Such is politics, so misleading. OK. Forget all that I just said! Suno, you are planning to open the doors of parks and memorials that I built to hold weddings for the poor, free of cost. Ok. I agree it’s a lot of prime land and not enough to build hospitals as you gathered, but what about the insult it will cause to the icons in whose name the memorials have been constructed? Not just an insult but a maha insult. Free of cost? What are you thinking? But you are a reasonable and well-educated young boy. So, at the cost of forgetting all the hurt I mentioned just now, I will request you to let me guide you how best to use the animals and Ashtdhatu trees installed in the park, about which you seem confused. My 60th birthday is a few years away, and I would like to hold my birthday party in the grandest of memorials and as usual in the grandest of ways. Arrey, ek minute, that will not be an insult to the memorials. See, I am a daughter of the same soil everyone knows that, and then I built them with so much cost and care. On top of that, I am ready to promise that after the party’s over, I will make sure I don’t leave them without added ornamentation or some sangmarmar statues of the national animal of India, Jumbo. Some newly discovered marble is coming in from Italy, which is bird-dropping-and-damage-resistant. Since some memorials look too bare and vast we can do with a few more statues. Perhaps, one of yours too, beta? Or would you share the note-d garland with me, please, on my day? Imagine what message it will send to Madam. I request you to let the memorials be shut till a certain distant January, and after that we’ll see what’s best for both you and me.       

Arrey haan, one more thing! Tell that minister of yours not to misguide young girls who recently got laptops from you. What does he mean by saying “become anything but don’t become aheM”? Shame! I’m the only woman of such substances around and such inspiration that one day I swear on this very soil I arose from … but let that be. Just keep the memorial gates locked, and in the mean time send a spare laptop my way, will you, beta?  

For always,

Behen ji. 

Thank you, Madam CM, for "Power-Plug Unplugged"

I know I know. It’s not like you pulled the plug, madam CM, on my restful sleep last night. It’s not you per se who pitched my humble MIG colony into darkness for 3 hours straight – 12 am to 3 am, to be precise. It’s not you, I know so! But then who’s to be thanked, I know not. So in typical Indian fashion I have found someone famous to write this letter of gratitude to on this very sleep-deprived morning. Yes, I thank you for the power-failure aka power-cut aka load-shedding-for-other-states aka result-of-irresponsible-citizens. I thank you, very much! Here’s why:

I saved electricity for 3 straight air-conditioned hours. Such fan I am of your impeccable English and even better cotton sari collection that soon as you had suggested coolers in place of ACs for those of us who can’t afford either (now that bijli competes with the cost of gold), I went ahead and bought a desert cooler. And a whole desert it could have cooled, if it wasn’t for this accommodation-for-the-government-by-the-government that I stay in. You see, I have foot-ball sized windows in my rooms, the kinds you see at the teller’s in government banks, only square. Fitting the cooler was impossible, and breaking the wall to increase the size against the law of the CPWD land! So AC it is, but what good fortune, I must have saved a month’s salary not having it running most of last night.

Which also made me realize, and appreciate, my inverter's capacity to work over-time! Here I was sitting and grumbling that my sarkari babu husband just went and bought a road-bike (austerity drive?) when we could have bought an inverter battery and pumped it up for the heated summers to follow, and there was this hand of providence cutting my electricity supply as if to tell me – “Child, worry not! Your inverter is fit-and-strong. In his hobby of morning cycling, let your husband go on.” So worried I am not, but thankful I am for this collateral revelation. Next time, I hope I can see if it runs a marathon 4 hours, in place of 3!

The failure of power may just have made a pop singer success of me. As I lay on bed, clutching candle in one hand matchbox in the other (picture of both you may find above), ready for a dead inverter and pitch darkness, I composed an original score harmonizing my son’s baby-snores with my husband’s scarier ones. Then suddenly, I found music in the 50 year old fan, the leak in the CPWD water pipe outside the window and pigeons in the unoccupied flat above mine. And I think I did a good job! With your blessings (since you had a hand in it all), I am sending the score to Anu Malik ji - to revive his lost legacy, and write my own. I plan to call it – ‘Power-Plug Unplugged’.

Three hours is not a short time! While creativity had its own place, observation followed close behind. A little thesis is ready on my table this morning on positions humans take while asleep. No, please don’t get me wrong. It a ‘U’ rated copy with inferences on how body-positions change with changing temperatures in the room. Nothing that Doordarshan needs to ban or Censor Board clip off. My study simply affirms the well-known fact that while toddler bodies are very flexible and sensitive to heat, husbands continue sleeping stubborn even in the heat!

Lastly, as I thought of this-and-that I caught myself praying to God and thanking Him for not making me that lizard crawling on the wall, or one of the 3 mosquitoes I killed. What a topsy-turvy life they live, and what  fragile ones. Such risk-to-life-by-falling the lizard lived with that night, thanks to the dim light, while all I had to do was be horizontal on bed and compose music. But the doer in me was awake too, when in those 3 hours I honed my skill at mosquito-killing. Where once I used to take 30 minutes for every mosquito, now my score is 27 minutes for 3. I am sure I’ll be even better with the next power-cut. Will mail you my results after due compilation and evaluation. I am sure it will make interesting read, when my power has failed me but your reading light shines without fail!   

I have come to value megawatts and kilowatts and what’s watt better, as they say, after having missed them (I understand if you don’t understand this). This morning, I woke-up to read that you are on war footing to regularize illegal colonies and perhaps do the neighbours a good-turn by selling off our power to them too.  I’m happy because I know that any further crunch in resource might mean longer power-failures, which means many more hours of lying around with the lizards, murdering the menacing mosquitoes and composing chart-cracking music. Just one humble request, madam! Do not hike the power bill any more. The sarkari salary coming home has gone from seeming like peanuts-n-no-butter to just peanut shells. And last I checked, they don’t come in enjoyable flavours!

Thanking you again, and wishing you a happy summer, just like mine!

Warm, nearly 46 degrees, of regards,

Music Composer - 'Power-Plug Unplugged'


(First on CNN-IBN Blogs)

Jolie's mastectomy and my aunt's arthoplasty

As I write this, my aunt undergoes a knee replacement surgery. Both her knees will be metal soon, for arthritis has eaten into what she was born with. As I write this, I also see a piece of front-page news about Angelina Jolie having underwent mastectomy, as prevention against the risk of cancer, which her mother died of. Two surgical stories in a day, totally unconnected, or are they?

Educated for her times, married soon as she was ripe, a devoted wife, a radical mother and a selfless grand-mother is my aunt; her only weakness being a complete intolerance for pain. A head-ache meant the sky has fallen, a tooth ache that the world is ending. And then one day the doctor announced she needs to undergo double knee replacement, sooner better than later. It meant a long hospital stay and nerve-wrecking pain, with painful exercises to follow for weeks. But, the voice on the other end of the phone line was excited like a little girl’s as she told me she had given her assent for the surgery and fixed a date even. The signature on the lease for painless living seemed to be working already.

And then today I read about Angelina Jolie, the woman who has success, talent, beauty, motherhood, charity stamped in every atom of her existence. Living her life queen-size - with her name and her fame and her family! How she, in order to defy her cancer causing gene, got both her breasts removed and replaced, to avoid the c-word from marring her body, her life and her very existence.

In their own circles of life these two totally different women “met” in my mind, as they overcame and brought to light two of the most basic fears which sit camping within us all.

The first fear that they shook off was that of medical science and surgeries, and all that’s known and unknown about them – the doctors, the risks, the bills, the hospitals and life after. We usually ignore the pain, trust our chemist’s suggestion will work, try homoeopathic or maybe yoga instead, pray a little extra, suffer a little more for a few years, and finally one day sign the dotted line with a heavy-hearted “I’m 80 and I’m ready to see my OT”. We delay, because we don’t trust tomorrow in the hands of those we don’t want to trust. And when they do take that pain away with a nip-tuck-stitch, we thank God for saving our lives and go home good-humouredly cursing the doctors’ apparently inflated bills and the nurse’s even more inflated attitude. Seeking delayed help may still be useful. But seeking when we need it can never be futile. These two women unknowingly awakened me to what I call my Medical Responsibility towards myself. An assurance I make to my body and not just an insurance I sign for my life. A stitch in time saves nine, if we understand the rhyme, we’ll all do fine.

The second, perhaps bigger, fear that was shed was the fear of societal gaze, and what it may see and say. Hospitals are not just impersonal but they impersonalize too. Strangers sponge you, dress you, empty your U-bag and hand-over that bed-pan. For a person like my aunt, agreeing to this would not have been short of agreeing to walk the ramp in a bikini. Too much courage was needed on her part to shed the cloak of self-consciousness and just become a patient patient. But while her suffering the “disrobing” is short-lived, Jolie agreed to challenge the societal gaze permanently. In times of breast implants and augmentation, mastectomy is popularly perceived as a loss of appeal, appearance and to some as their womanhood itself. Call them gender biased notions or those generated by the male gaze, the idea of what it constitutes to be a woman is most often related to what the women have or what the men lack. To be an Angelina Jolie and then to be brave enough to let go of these notions, in order to prevent what may never actually set-in is enough to shatter certain gender stereotypes and perhaps metamorphose the male gaze into something that looks beyond what appears and goes deeper than what meets the eye. And only a very brave heart can promise itself this post-operative happiness, an operation where the gaze is permanently removed from the mind and thrown for the winds of change to consume. 

And this being my two-pence on what’s trending today – at my home and in the world! People are setting examples and re-writing their stories, everyday. We only need to spot the right ones and read the message in the bottle in time. And for the rest of the hours, we need to wish ourselves and everyone a happy and healthy life. 

Oh Chetan Bhagat! Read what you write.

Don’t get me wrong. I do like you, Chetan Bhagat. Not just your peppered hair kept neatly trimmed, features that make your age seem a guessing game and all your book cover designs. I haven’t read any, though. I was going to when you spake thus in an interview: ‘Shakespeare was the Ekta Kapoor of his times.’ And then I did not pick my copy of your many best-sellers. I will, after I get that indigestible comparison out of my head, as well as what follows here.

I love Facebook, and I can see you do too. But your love affair with it is far more supreme than mine can ever be, for you, dear Chetan, are the Giver while me just a humble receiver. You write advice, in a scientific point-to-point format on topics galore, and then make posters of them to be liked and shared. And you give advice to women, mostly, which is nothing new in Indian society if you ask me. I collected enough evidence, and then enough courage to write this – a point-by-point critique of what you do in your hardly free time.

       

Ladies first!

Here’s a part of you trying to “attempt the unthinkable” in your own words, and advising us women, followed by what I think:

1. You once said: “Don’t get competitive with other women. Desire to judge other women needs to end. Why be so hard on each other? Can you let each other breathe?” And in another piece you wrote – “Don’t ever think you are without power. Give it back to that mother-in-law. She doesn’t like you? That’s her problem.” Your self-contradiction aside, while I agree with the first part, the second stems from a complete lack of experience of wearing a daughter-in-law’s shoes. Asking us to give it back to our mothers-in-law is asking us to not just judge rather harshly, but also reject after the judgement is sealed. Rather misleading advice for a society where every home lives in a context and by rules which just might be too complex to brush off with a guerilla out-fit and a rebel’s hat one fine day. This behaviour being more fuel for the fire of the “drama of relationships” you want our kind to exit, any further advice for those who may have got inspired?

2. Then, one day – “The faking needs to end. A common female trait is the relatively quick adaptation to feed male egos. What's the point of collectively harping on equality, when as individuals you are happy to lapse into being clueless eye flutterers, just to keep men happy?” My husband will envy you your female company. They seem to know how to keep you feeling happy. However, most women reading this advice are perhaps doing no such thing – no faking, no fluttering and certainly not without a clue. Don’t call it a ‘common’ trait (we’re not so easy to shoe-box!). Call it an assumption and what a man perhaps likes to believe? What’s next, that we wax our legs and pluck our eyebrows for you? Breaking news – we don’t! And to let you in on a secret, clueless I’m certainly not about my wish-list that’s to follow when I’ll flutter my eyes today as soon as my husband comes home from work. 

3. You say – “Do not ever feel stressed about having a dual responsibility of family and work. It is difficult but not impossible.” I agree! Especially since you have a solution for that stress too – “If your boss doesn’t value you, tell him that, or quit.” And “next time your husband tells you you are not a good enough wife, mother, daughter-in-law, you can tell him to take a hike.” There, stress busted. It’s a different matter that these are not resolutions to deeper problems inhabiting our social and professional mindsets but something we said and did when we were 14, or maybe 4.

And now for the men, and how they should “revise their ideal woman criteria”:

(i)        “Having a traditional wife who cooks, cleans and is submissive might be nice. However, choosing a capable, independent and career-oriented woman can also bring enormous benefits.” You haven’t met a capable wife who is traditional, cooks, is independent, career-oriented, cleans and is not necessarily submissive just because she does cooking and cleaning? Come and meet me! Also, these are not antonyms. Why use them as two opposed types of personalities?

(ii)          The “benefits” of a working woman (you make this sound like a business deal!) vis-à-vis a housewife include “relating better to organizational issues”, “help afford a decent house” and help a man “discuss his own career with”. Very capitalist and incorrect. Also, the house is an organization the running of which not many can manage. Try it!

(iii)                “A working woman is better exposed to the world, and brings back information that can be useful to the family.” Watch some TV. Adverts on new holidays and good mutual funds to invest in are running as you read this. Staying at home doesn’t mean staying uninformed or naive. And “quality of life” is often independent of which mutual fund is least subject to market risks.

(iv)     “Children of working women learn to be more independent and will do better than mollycoddled children.” Any examples/research to support this, please? Mr. Google is proving to be of no help, at all. 

(v)              “Sure, there are drawbacks also in being with working woman. But the modern age we live in, the phulka-making bride may come at a cost of missing other qualities.” Drawbacks like? Also, a bride who likes cooking more than careering may not lack in any important qualities. Maybe looking up your ancestral family tree will help change your mind?

I do agree with you on one thing – “Yes, we men have to learn. However, the stubborn, fragile and pampered Indian male ego is a tough nut to crack. Collectively, we as Indian men, have a long way to go before our women can be proud of us.” You are absolutely right. And I wonder what makes me say so!

And now that we have ended on a note of agreement, may I be sent one of those Motivational Frames your team is selling? (Why do I feel your team is all men?) My mollycoddled son would love them! But that aside – I need motivation. You see, I’m the person you asked to quit her bad boss’s bad job since I’m one of the “talented hard-working people who are much in demand”. So, when do I report for work?


[Printed in Democratic World magazine] 

Sarabjits and Us

Have you heard of Tihar Haat? It’s a humble store running out of Tihar Jail and selling goods made by the inmates. Plants, rugs, namkeens and biscuits, durries, weaves and the tastiest ever muffins, for the price of nothing, come home with us every time we visit. What marvellous fortune to be staying next door to not just one of the most VIP areas of today, but also one churning out such wonders - neatly packed and nicely priced. However, not many share our excitement, or our muffins and namkeens for that matter. Made by prisoners? How can you buy this stuff? Are you sure about hygiene? Some of them have blood on their hands. Ram Ram! You really think this is a good idea, letting goods made by criminals enter your homes? While we continued to think it was, everyone we spoke to wrongly rejected the place as nothing but an off-shoot of evil minds, idle hands and sub-standard products.

Then one day a certain Sarabjit succumbed to his injuries - brutally beaten to death in jail after decades of being a prisoner across the border. And suddenly, we found tragedy. Swarms of protests, posters, rallies and ranting against our neighbour began. We felt for the grieving family on TV and screamed in one voice that those responsible for this murder should be brought to task. That this Sarabjit be provided the best medical treatment in our country. Justice, as it’s popularly called, was demanded, as is usually asked for.

And here I sit today, wondering without answers, as his name vanishes from everything that we see and read - What does all this mean?

Is it because he died in the prison of our arch “enemy-state” that we got so angry? Or is it that no other tragedy was doing its rounds at that time for prime time - that time we tell the time by?

Is life really so fickle that one day we other, and the next day we mourn? Or is it because for death there is sympathy but in life there is no time to think to know to even care?

Statistics and numbers of prisoners lodged in jails are floating around now. Numbers. Big numbers. This side that side and all over everywhere. Sarabjit was a nameless number for most of his life, and just a name and a number when he died. The person that he was was never alive to us, and so could not have died on us – and no amount of money or days of state mourning can make it seem otherwise.      

However, we found tragedy, the news channels found a topic, and two nations found more politics.

There’s nothing more there. If there was, dear Tihar Haat and it's muffin-making Sarabjit would not be dying of unnatural causes either.