Jai Ho!!

I read this article the first time without any association…the second time I read I thot c’mon don’t be a snob …and the third time I read it..I was like..yeah if not all perhaps I too agree to most of it..

Its true that how much ever we claim to be patriotic and feel for our country we do feel impatient and irritated when we are asked forcibly to stand for the national anthem before every movie that we go to see…so much so that I have seen people and I for that matter have felt relieved umpteen no. of times when we reach for a movie late and discover that all that singing and standing drama is over..

Me and my husband happened to go to a restaurant yesterday to celebrate our second wedding anniversary…no sooner had we finished our soup and starters that a huge group entered the restaurant celebrating the birthday of an aged person…and the birthday celebration instead of being in honor of the person in question was a kind of promotion for some trust …speeches about life, religion, country, blessings of God on the trust and so on….our perfect dinner didn’t seem any more perfect now…instead of enjoying the food we wanted to just gulp down something and escape from all those speeches…And to come to think of it had we stood up and opposed to the noise we would have been beaten up black and blue not only by the people from the trust but may be even by the public for interfering with a sacred function like that in praise for our country, religion and what not…..

But it makes me ponder…if people have so much time and patience to attend such gathering or sit through such speeches and promotions in the corner of a restaurant and not oppose for being disturbed how come all this patience disappears when they are driving on the roads or boarding local trains for that matter. If you choose to drive by the highway from Navi Mumbai to Mumbai Suburbs in the night…definition of night starting from say 9 P.M or so…you definitely skip one or two heart beats hoping to reach home in one piece…the vehicles just zoom past in zig zag ways with no signal whatsoever…nobody even casts so much as a glance at the traffic signal forget about following it…and the worst being that even if you intend to follow the traffic signal you are forced to move ahead due to blaring honks at you for not moving on…Sometimes you even wonder if by any chance you are invisible to other people driving past you conveniently without taking any notice…totally oblivious…I understand if someone tells me that they are selfish..they don’t care for others…but I fail to understand…the least one can and should do is care for his/her own life…and how is that not happening..

Service rules…I thot of writing an entire post on it someday..I don’t understand when an Airtel/Vodafone sales executive asks me with utmost surprise “How is it possible ma’am…someone should be at your house on a working day…How can no one be at home”…And with even more surprise “How can you not have a middle name”…I don’t understand how the same stringent rules keep sending you bills and don’t disconnect your connection if your address verification has failed…and how do people who just give their friends addresses or are kept in their company hotels get their residence address and everything verified and get away with things so easily….And I better not get into the way passports and driving licenses are made….The worst was when my mother had to make her passport…she is a housewife and in those days marriages were not followed by marriage certificates and no she didn’t have a driving license or a ration card in her name….so all rules imply that she can’t have a passport…unless some bribery is paid to avoid all these questions which lead to one another without having any solution..

And there is more….the eve-teasing, the rude way in which people behave, the bloated egos everywhere…..can we blame it all on education…even if we do…then how come education in India is not anywhere near any kind of development except for the quota issues and issues and debates on building more IITs and IIMs….but the question remains…we may build more institutions…we may have more reservations for every caste, creed, gender….but what will it all come to when the sole imparters of education are frustrated beings targeting their frustration at the students ….all those who have gone for higher education in India will definitely agree that those two/one year of PG had been a torture and nothing else…..and all those who had been preys to the various universities for their graduation not being able to get some good pvt institutions or the IITs and escape the torture…especially those who didn’t want to do engg and MBA and follow the Bandwagon and had different career interests…my salute to them…(more here , a blog post by someone who was a prey) …In most of Indian institutions more than half the professors are uninterested souls who could do nothing better and landed up in the field of education for a steady income…the rest are those who consider being in the profession of education as a fixed income source and all their attention is how to bag bigger bucks through consultancies…..just a handful of them are those who are wholly and solely dedicated to the field and the entire country is thriving on that handful……It could be because education is a field claimed to be the most important and at the same time the least paid…..hence the least sought for Job in our country…..

So, does the blame shift to politicians then….or the bureaucrats ….aren’t they just people like us…from our community…they are bestowed with some power which they misuse and so do we…How can we blame only them when starting from a pan wala… reducing the content of the packets and selling things in loose as well as selling the original packet at the same price, to big business tycoons…. playing around with their financials cheating on the shareholders,to students in colleges…. copying in exams , plagiarism and buying degrees, to employees who stealthily make use of company resources to make free STD/ISD calls all misuse their power to the extent they can…and everybody thumps their chest and raise their hands when songs like “Jai Ho” play…and also go to the extent of creating a hue and row over as to why did the movie Slumdog Millionaire show India in such a degraded form ….

So no use blaming…no use complaining about people spitting, passing urine and littering the place because even you have thrown wrappers and papers umpteen no. of times outside on to the roads from your window because you didn’t want to litter the car…No use blaming the person standing next to you for disturbing you talking loudly about his her pvt life on the mobile phone because even you too do the same may be without even realizing whom you are disturbing..

No wonder…the few individuals who cudn’t take it any more decided to leave to other countries and ofcourse there are those who escaped the torture to pursue their career in other countries and started calling themselves foreigners referring to Indians as “you Indians” instead of “we” and bloating their egos further for earning in foreign currency…upholding India…upholding that very rotten attitude because of which we are in this state….the self pride and false ego… which all of us are probably moulded to develop here taking us and our country only to its peril…Yes, all of us have bloated egos…each one to a varying extent…that’s why we see scenes like some customer shouting on the top of their voices…ill-treating… infront of everyone at the waiters, servants, airhostesses, receptionists, subordinates …anybody and everybody who come below them in the economic hierarchy with or without there being a fault in the first place….that feeling of power kind of gives us an empowerment which we need from time to time to feed our ego so as to be able to take the blow from our superiors…and the irony is everyone keeps complaining “Nothing can happen in India without yelling”!!

All this only implies…we need a change…a huge change…change in the attitude of people…because although the economy of our country might be in the developing state we the people are still in the under developed state….And for the country to get into a developed state the people first have to go to that stage……and that will take ages …may be a lot more generations to come ….to see India develop in the true sense someday when people really and truly are happy standing for their patriotic national anthem playing before them…otherwise India will reduce to the state of villages…just like people had migrated from villages to cities in search of a better life everybody will migrate outside the country to live a better life and give an easier life to their children…

The Sea....

It being just the start of the week…and work coming to a drag…me being trapped in the four walls of a huge hall with a miniscule cubicle for myself on the 18^th floor of a brick and mortar cement sky scrapper….I cast a melancholy glance at the sea giving up on it being another overloaded work day…. As I look at the endless sea stretching to an unknown boundless end to infinity…as far as my eyes carry me…when I look out of the window of my office cubicle…I see…

A 15 yrs old boy with a boat in one hand and a fishing net in other…walking towards the sea in the heavy rain….He looks at the sea and waits for a second to catch his breath and then looks towards the sky…his eyes wistful…looking at the vast black threatening clouds looking down towards him challenging him on his expedition with his life on bet…He raises his hand as if to signal to the clouds that he accepts the challenge or may be calling on to the mercy of the Gods for the day….and thrusts his boat into the water….

The sea seems to imbibe in him a new sense of hope…… and happiness to be engulfed by that very sense of hope which seem to flow towards him just like the ripples coming in the form of waves…flowing towards the shore….He steps into the boat with the net in one hand and starts rowing into the sea…..a heavy ghust of wind with full fury sweeps his fishing net past the boat…but he still clings on to the net as if he is clinging on to the only morsel of food of the day….The gigantic waves of the sea rock his boat dangerously…yet he continues his fishing unperturbed ….his face holding a grave expression just like the sea…his body wet with the garrulous rain…yet he seems to be determined and very casual as if it was just another day…Hrs go by and every time my gaze goes towards the sea I cast my eyes on his thin body laboriously fighting against the tides….. As the day progresses I see many more young boys of his age occupied with the same task as different points in the sea…and of all them seem to be chatting gleefully waving towards each other…blissfully oblivious of the heavy downpour...or the high tides…

As dusk sets in and I cast another look at the sea sipping coffee I find them all heading towards the shore…maneuvering their boats towards the shore…helping each other…smiling…tired but happy wither their bounty for the day…and my eyes search for the 15yr old boy…his body again running past up and down the rocky bank of the sea pulling each and every boat onto the bank…after ushering everyone to the rocks on the bank and anchoring the boats I see all of them gather by a huge rock…and the boys collecting something from the unmistakable 15 yr old boy…which seems like they distributing the bounty among themselves so that each one gets his morsel for the day…..

I finish my coffee and look ashamed at my reflection on my computer’s screen and rebuke myself for being so thankless and taking things that have been gifted by luck and fate to me for granted…

Just like the gleaming eyes of the boy who is now standing near the shore probably wishing hard that the next wave is big enough to flow over the rocks and come till the point where he is standing waiting for the waves to touch him…and his excitement and longing growing with every wave that touches him…I perceive life which we all anticipate would fulfill our yearnings with growing needs and expectations each time the waves of life touch us…..

And just like the boy who is not dismayed and doesn’t give up when a wave narrowly misses to hit the rocks and wash his feet….and is still looking towards the sea with full of optimism and hope…..I feel that we all can still strive to be happy…....boundlessly…just like the sea which seems to know no bounds…unperturbed by the innumerous ripples that keep rising and falling ..one after the other…repeatedly…As the boy still stands calmly…undisturbed..and still serene …the ripples only magnifying his inner strength ….

And That Makes Your Day :)....

A call right in the morning from home from your father just to hear to your voice before the start of the day...

A mail in your inbox from your best friend saying “Grrrrrrrrrrrrr....MAILLLLLL”

A nice cup of hot creamy coffee served by the office boy with a smile telling “Ma’am aapke liye aaj special coffee”

A small little unexpected hug by a cute little girl rushing to her school colliding into your legs all of a sudden

An elderly aunty whom you have offered place to sit asking you in the local train “Beta aapka naam kya hai...aap bilkul meri poti (granddaughter) ki tarah dikhti ho”

A taxi driver in the morning assuring you by telling “arey madam bilkul mat pareshaan hoyiye...hum aapko 9 ‘0 clock local aane se pehle traffic se nikal lenge”

Just in time to glance at the morning arati while heading towards the gate to catch the taxi...

A toothless smile from a baby while you are stuck in the traffic

And a mail from Blogbharati stating that “we would love to accept your application and welcome you as our new contributor in our team” :) :)

Did we hear India is going to be a superpower soon….

You are hurrying in the morning to catch the taxi parked infront of your building to the station when someone decides to give you an instant shower with leftover water in their mugs being used to water the plants in their balcony ….which they ofcourse found was convenient enough to be thrown out of the balcony than take the pain of walking down till the sink in their kitchens and disposing it off…

You barely make it to the station and are scurrying for the local when a lady decides to conveniently spit on you instead of the spit bin just about few steps away from her…

You reach the platform and clean urself with the little water that you carried for yourself to drink in the 1 hr long journey in the humidity of Mumbai to your office and wait for the train trying to get over your disgust when you see a man relieving himself standing in the public platform…infront of the entire world of people there…right onto the railway tracks…inspite of the public bathrooms put up on every platform of the station..

You finally see the train arrive …and to ur utter disbelief you see that the ladies compartment has a lot of sitting space available with just five ladies standing…without stopping to think as to why these ladies have opted to stand inspite of so much room available..you barge into the compartment only to realize some sacred soul had considered of all places on earth the ladies compartment auspicious enough to bless it with his holy shit…

So, finally it dawns upon you as to why those ladies preferred to stand instead and choose a safe place for urself far enough to block the sight of the sacred blessing….and just when you are trying to distract urself …suddenly a heap of thrash is thrown in from nowhere into the compartment ..which is because someone living in the slums situated directly over the hollow bridge through which the local train passes is letting out his frustration of having to accommodated a screeching train every half an hr right through his home…and decides to avenge by atleast throwing garbage at it daily when it passes by…and so the rest of the journey passes by by hearing to a tragedy queen's tragic life as background music .....non-stop right into ur ear....but ofcourse on her very personal mobile ph.....

So, did we hear India was soon to be a superpower….well, I want to know who is that super optimistic soul who thinks so…and want to bow before him and salute his optimism…

On Humanity Grounds……

The other day a very interesting incident occurred which left me with a smile when I was boarding the 6:15 P.M local on the way to my house. I have been smiling at the thought of that incident ever since it has occurred so I thought I might as well post about it…

It was the usual rush at CST…the regular hustle bustle and the regular feeling of asking the question to yourself “By any chance does the whole of the population of India reside on this platform”…anyway, after the usual pulling, pushing and tugging I reached the platform for the harbor line train…..Now, after a lot many life threatening incidents that I have happened to experience previously I have made a policy to stand as much away from the platform rail line on which the train is announced to arrive shortly rather than do the opposite as per the usual junta’s policy…so like every day I stood as much away as I could so as to not fall prey to the rushing of people for the other train due to arrive on the adjacent platform…And as usual the train arrived and before it could halt there was the usual scurrying of the ladies and girls and the usual pushing, pulling, screaming , wrestling etc for the ladies compartment…

Now on that day it so happened that in the usual struggle to get into the train first so as to occupy a seat a young girl who seemed like a college going girl in her early twenties happened to be fast enough to push through the crowd and hold the railing of the moving train just before it halted…trying to board it…in that very moment a lady who seemed to be in her early fifties happened to grab this young girl by the collar of her t-shirt and pulled her back to the station platform and tried to get past her….now by the time anyone of them could succeed the rest of the ladies crowd happened to get near the train and in the maze it so happened that that young girl although a little taken aback managed to get through the crowd and got a seat for herself whereas the lady although ahead was a little too slow to defeat the crowd…

Once everybody settled comfortably in the train…some having accomplished their desire of attaining a place and some having failed miserably with a frown on their faces…a few other give ups like me walked into the train and leisurely stood at a chosen comfortable place…now , it was the young girl’s turn to take her revenge and satisfy her ego so she addressed the lady who had pulled her back by her collar who was standing rt beside her clutching to a handle…and the conversation was as follows :

Girl : Hey you

Lady : Yes?

Girl : Aapne mujhe dhakka kyun diya

Lady : For the same reason why you pushed everyone and were standing ahead of the crowd

Girl : Sorry!!??....For what reason?

Lady : Simple, because even I needed a seat in the train

Girl : Oh, is it so?! So, u thot u could push me past without caring if I would fall off the platform onto the track…what if I were your daughter would u have still done the same?…Even on humanity grounds?

Lady : No, I wouldn’t have…because if you were my daughter you wouldn’t have kept sitting while you see your mother who is double ur age stand for 1 hr for the whole way…on humanity grounds…

Girl : Neither would my mother have pushed me off the platform and left me to die under the rail tracks…valuing her comfort more than anyone’s life..

And the conversation ended there. …The girl continued to sit though and the lady stood all the way…with a safe conclusion that Humanity word has ceased to exist…..and it looks like everyone is aware of its non-existence as well…

Not an Idealist….But The Very Imperfect Her…

These days when I come back from office and reach home after an hr of hectic (or do I call it adventurous just to motivate myself) travelling and open the door to an empty flat with a sofa set and a dining table in the hall to greet me…I have this urge for some/any human voice to be heard in the empty flat…and so after freshening up myself I invariably switch on the TV but only to my dismay….and I am really amused I must say by these serials which keep coming on every channel now a days…

I mean you switch on the TV and you start browsing for something worthy to watch…and in that little amount of time you spend in browsing or waiting for the advertisements to get over so as to discover which movie is being screened in that particular channel you end up knowing what is happening in which “saans bahu “ serial…..First of all I wonder whom are these serials being screened for…does anyone actually have the time and patience to watch them…even the housewives I don’t think should be watching them out of interest…may be out of sheer frustration as nothing apart from the serials seem to be screened on any of the channels…..and the most atrocious thing being that even news channels have started with giving updates on these serials…as if the trailers being screened 24/7 on every channel were not enough to feed us with enough unwanted updates……

Now the other thing that amuses me is…even if you give up in frustration and as I said just for some human voice to be heard in the house which is not speaking of bomb blasts and train derailments or cricket debacles even if u decide to put up with some nonsensical serial…what you end up watching is an adarsh sanskari bahu….respecting elders…respecting values and culture…who knows in and out of Bhagwadgita and can recite the same at the drop of the hat….who is next only to nightingale in singing bhajans..who by the way knows singing….and cooks finger licking food to everyone’s liking…remembering everyones tastes …who plans for b’days and weddings and all kinds of functions beforehand with a Giga Byte sized memory card fit in her head to remember all the dates…who is the favorite of the entire khandan kaka, mama, dada,dadi,fufa etc etc……who knows what sasu ma’s behen ki nanad ki bhanje ki beti likes and gifts it to her on the appropriate occasion…..whose only aim and ambition in life is everyone in the family adores her and stays tied up she being the glue attaching the family threads together….who is ready to hear and empathize with anyone in trouble in the family and give them moral support as and when needed…who is the perfect ardhangini to her husband whatever comes by……and a never ending list of virtues goes on which would define and re-define her as a complete devi…..

What are these people trying to picturize….I mean why can’t they show a bahu who is more human like and less of the divine natured that they screen…..who doesn’t have time to keep her house spotlessly clean and can manage to clean to livable standards only in the weekends….who doesn’t know how to cook and manages and struggles to make something edible for the day following and writing down instructions dictated by her mother on the phone…..whose day starts with burning bread for her husband…thrusting it on his plate and forgetting to put jam and requesting him to do so himself and trying to get ready to catch the overcrowded public transport available and be on time to her office…whose day goes with solving client issues, issuing reports, analyzing, hearing unsatisfactory remarks from her boss and returns home trying hard to get some place to stand in the public transport again…..whose patience level has reduced to zero by the time she reaches home and she tries hard to remember what she had to buy for grocery…..who struggles to open the door with grocery in both the hands and drops half the things and spends the next half hr cleaning and cursing herself…..who returns to a half clean home which looks clean only on the surface as its middle of the week and still there are three more days to go for the grand cleaning ceremony to happen on the weekend…..who wonders if she has the energy to cook tonight or should she order something from the canteen…..who assigns the task of cutting vegetables to her husband and tries to cook something edible again….whose patience level reduces to –ve when she sees the tray with cut vegetables and the entire area dirty around it with vegetable skin…..who takes out her frustration aloud which fall on deaf ears while cleaning the place….who has no more energy left to respond nicely and sweetly to anyone’s call or remember anyone’s b’day or anniversary or wish anyone even when her mother/mother in law calls up to remind her of so and so’s special day…..she is a person who prefers not to answer to her parents/in-laws questions like “Do you take a bath everyday in the evening and do puja”…”Do u light agarbattis when you go out of home in the morning”…”Have you cleaned the bathroom wall tiles also while cleaning the floor”…”Why don’t u just boil milk daily and have a cup in the morning before you leave for office”…..”Its ok if you cannot cook non-veg during the week…just daal, roti and a simple aloo baingan curry should do…with an omlete to go with it”….”Are u both having enough fruits after food daily…u must get fruits and have”….”why are u having just chowmien for dinner today……u should have cooked something which is food and not snacks for dinner”…..”What? u are having bread everyday for breakfast….you can prepare parathas no…just make all the preparations in the night itself…it hardly takes anytime”…..”You must attend so and so’s function you know….family relations need to be maintained”…..”Iron the dresses as soon as they are washed and dried…it will be good for you”..”Do u face east and do puja or not”…..”why can’t u come early from office so that u can keep a maid to come and do the chores in the evenings”…etc etc…..she is a person who values her career as much she values her family and struggles to strike a balance to the bare minimum extent required…..She doesn’t mind at times giving some extra time to her career which she had dreamt of and struggled to build from childhood…she has no time or energy for values, traditions, culture, Bhagwadgitas , pujas, wishings, superstitions etc…..she is a person who does get frustrated and very well vents it out too……she does lose her patience and cannot empathize with others woes….She does voice her opinion when there is or isn’t any need……She is selfish enough and needs appreciation, looks for people to value her efforts, comfort her, support her and listen to her from time to time frequently ……..She has full right to be childish and intolerable with certain things…….

And this is the real everyday women I am talking of……who is an imperfect bahu, an imperfect wife, an imperfect employee, an imperfect daughter etc…. an imperfect her….as she is playing these roles in real in an imperfect life and not on reel…She is the one who is normal, human and very much larger than life unlike those maniacs which the TV serials keep casting day in and day out only to create a false image of the women as a devi in a very wrong way……which only causes people to believe that girls can be such idealists which their daughters and daughter in laws and wives and sisters are not……I think these mahila mandals if they want to do any good to the society the first thing they should do is ban these serials..