Multicultural Khichdi and World Peace

Janpath, New Delhi, has been taken hostage by Palazzo pants. Every visible hanger there is selling a pair. And every boy in every shop is begging to remind you these are the latest and only they have the best export quality maal. The flea-market air is rented with calls of Palazzos! Palazzos! Pure crepe. Please one pealazza pent, madam. Free size. Alter waist. Pilazzo, Pilazzo! It was difficult to get away but easy to resist when a caller said ‘Pizza lo!’ because his slip of native tongue meant I slipped away to a pizza place across the road to dig in. 

While I bit into this hut’s Shahi Paneer pizza with extra topping of olives (promising myself never ever to laugh at my dad’s proclivity to mix-n-match countries in his dessert plate) I got all theoretically scholarly... 

How amazing it is to see what is proverbially called the melting pot of cultures is now cooking such a mush of khichdi at high flame that it is difficult to tell which zero was birthed in India and which came rolling in from Bangladesh. Jumping a few customs depots on the way. 

At any given point of time, we’re a walkie-talkie doll of the last Miss Universe’s idea of World Peace. We’re wearing, eating, breathing, singing, scooting, ogling, reading, writing, coveting, pooping  countries and cultures and chop sticks and cowl necks we have embraced with One Direction in mind – to add “quality” to our lives. 

Forget what literary theory says for multiculturalism. It is the ‘Made in Thailand’ on your chaddi ka tag that is its best example!

Look at this handsome banquet hall next door. I say enlarge it all and then look again.

With just one loin cloth separating these Greek Roman Globally Hot Citizens from Michelangelo’s David, this palatial building comes alive in the colours of 196 countries’ flags in season time. Why? Arrey for wedding functions, why else! Roadside rumour has it that the Dubai-based owner has filed for a GI for this design. With equal seriousness he has also managed a “setting” with our mashoor Chawla Band for parties; those where we walk in in saris looking like gowns from Bangkok and XXLs in slim-fitting Italian suits. (Perhaps, an imported mare too?) As for why make wide-chested hunks the façade for a hall for Punjabi weddings, where apart from women’s backs nothing is real skin … well, It's time to show the world how 'forward-thinking-multiculturals' we are!

At the risk of revealing to you, dear reader, what inexpensive beauty products I survive through, please find attached right below a picture of my latest nail file.

If you find a better representation of Hindi-Cheeni bhai-bhai, I will change this nail file’s name. But for now, Brother Stainless of mine it will be. Happy Sibling Day, manicure scissor best! What would I do without your ear-pick? Every time my half-bitten nails cry to be shaped, I seek its support. And every time I do phoo to the shaped wonders, with tears in my eyes I realize someone in China is doing this phoo to their nails too. It's a small world brought closer by the internet, Comedy Central and smuggling. Such love as this file carries cannot be lost in translation, even if all sense may drain. Human to human is the bond. Nail to nail Nain to Nain too.

In the most unexpected of ways and instances the ring of multiculturalism makes its presence felt – sometimes volubly, other times like a secret admiring friend. Love All! is something God said Himself (especially to my neighbour who has it as her Whatsapp status since our last fight). And I am doing my best teaching it further too. I say to my laal, 'embrace all cultures, beta, whether around the wrist or waist, scalp or socks. It spells Oneness, Love and Tolerance.' And you know what, the khichdi is cooking in his head too.

Let me tell you how. 

Once upon a time, the situation in my house was quite grave. Such xenophobia for all things foreign existed as would make your blood curdle with fear. We didn’t shake hands. We chewed them! And the farther the visitor came from, the more he was gnarled-gnawed at. This intolerance made the mother in me cry. I would stand in the balcony in my African kaftan, sipping Ginseng and praying for some World Peace within my walls. Praying for my child to eat his food, in stead. 

But today, after just a handful of visits to the Rajouri malls, Indian metros and two foreign shores we have successfully inculcated the value of the essence of this Khichdi. We are beginning to understand brotherhood. With khushi key aasnoon I witnessed this sight this morning. American superheroes came riding into West Delhi on Jordanian camels, bearing an Italian car as a gift for the once half-chewed North Pole teddy. He told me in his own words. 

So you see, there are signs that we’re learning Peace and all that kind of big stuff the multicultural way. Such positive, in-the-face signs. That we're becoming responsibly modern global citizens. Opening the windows of our minds. And we're doing it in a seemingly mature, surely happy and definitely pleasing-to-the-eye way. 

(Just don't dare drag my God into all this talk of tolerance-sholerence. Buss!) 

Ciao!

Member-ship Issues

Let me tell you a little story first. Please don’t laugh.

Somewhere in the Sunderbans is a Netidhopani Tiger Reserve which has a tower. A very big one! It stands erect at all times, imagine, and such length it enjoys you can’t even see the spot where it ends. (Perhaps it goes up to the cloud Freud occupies, to tease his conflicts still not resting in peace) This tower in the wild is for spotting tigers if you’re lucky, and birds and bees and boars at all other times. Below the tower is a board painted in red and green, the sarkari colours for all things wild. And on the board is a very serious piece of advisory. Very serious! Hence, please don’t laugh at all.

I laughed when I read it though. And then I read it aloud and laughed out louder, loud enough to make a tiger respond with “who dares disturb my peace?” roar. Only one other out of the 20 in the group understood the word play, giggled, but gave his wife no company in her unabashed laughter. The rest 18 read the advisory like good boys, of course, and understood it well enough to have repeated the message by rote if they were told it’s good for getting plum postings. Thus, they simply stared at Mrs. 2006, thinking her mad. 

 Now, I wonder which is a bigger tragedy – only 2 on 20 understanding the unintended humour or the author of this painted master-piece not understanding it at all in the first place? But about that, later. A digression now.

Some words are born to be abused. ‘Member’ as a word is really abused. As a word. Only.

There are Members of all kinds – members sitting in committees, clubs and corporations. Powerful members sitting in the Parliament, respected members of the staff and quieter obedient ones in PTAs. Some members call themselves ‘Lions’ others ‘Masons’, some ‘Gurus’ others ‘Students’. Some members rise much higher than the others, say as Presidents or Chief Ministers, while others simply enjoy feeling bigger than they are in smaller circumstances, albeit under a little delusion. Social service members causing big causes to become bigger exist side-by-side with their lazier counterparts – those who just like to keep low, and hang in a state of sleepy wakefulness, getting up for this-and-that but never stirring beyond the garden fence. And then, every family has some members. Has to have! A single member cannot be called a family, even though may produce a family. Family members and members in the family. Same thing? Phew! I hate English language. 

They should ban this word ‘member’ from the face of the earth!

And then there is this very serious board you see, as mentioned above:

And I have nothing more to say. For I have seen enough and said enough. No more. 

You see, my dismemberment from civil society is not something I want to risk, since my dismemberment I cannot, not in this life. What you do deserve to know is that when I reached the top of this tower I instantly rushed back down. Why? Well, when I reached that high there were more than 40 excited members who had arisen atop the tower, all at the same time.

What a shame. No one reads the instructions!

But then we need to thank our dear Gods that not many understand them either!

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - No, thank you - If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?]