The Hole Truth

Sunday mornings are days when, usually, I wake up late. The wife tends to wake up even later, giving me a rare opportunity to enjoy, in peace and quiet, two of the most enjoyable things to start the day.... 

............ I get to make my own giant mug of filter coffee

....................and I get some "quality time" to read my favourite newspaper without too much interference

And so it was, yesterday too.... having read, on the net the previous day, about the sad death of the unnamed gang-rape victim I was feeling a mixture of grief, anger, rage, hope that things should change etc - and wanted to know what the Indian Express had to say. 

So, when I kept the water for boiling to get that perfect decoction of SIFC and opened my door to pick up the papers (IE and BS for self, Loksatta for the wife and fil) my heart slowly SANK.

I knew my day was shot.

Disappointment stared me in the face.

Not because the paper was not delivered. It was. There it lay, on the floor, staring up at me.

The story ought to have been there. It was, too. 

But not the whole story..... 

what I got, instead, was a wholly different thing, a story in which I could pick a hole - literally. I mean, take a look at THIS 

this was the condition of the newspaper delivered to my doorstep. The "depth" of this damage extended right through to the 9th page...

The Hole Truth!!

Sats

 

"Quotable Quotes..." - I

Having been "informed" at an early, impressionable age by no less an eminent authority than my highly regarded elder brother (yes, he IS reading this too!) that "People quote others when they have nothing to say for themselves" I've kind of avoided quoting others by and large..... I'm sure you've noticed that I tend to have lots of useless, nonsensical things to say for myself anyway...

So, having inhabited this little corner of the world for long enough, here are some "original" thoughts that have occurred to me from time to time....

Memory: All too often, memories are the fuel that drives our lives towards our dreams. 

Happiness: On reflection, I've come to realise that happiness is always a spontaneous state - it can never be pre-determined or pre-meditated.

Happiness - 2: There's more happiness within the innocent laughter of a gurgling child than all the accumulated sorrows in this dreary world..... 

Respect/Self-respect: Respect is the currency of an incorruptible person.

Shall keep boring you with more.....

Ring out the OLD

There's life left, yet, in this aged and ageing year.... 31st December seems so near and yet so far, so this "headline" - Ring out the Old - is deliberately deceptive... and has nothing at all, really, to do with the imminent roll over to 2013.

No, I'm talking about the small, unimportant detail that India - a nation of around 126 crore humans, a nation that is undisputedly "young" with more than 40% of the population less than 25 years of age - witnessed an anniversary yesterday.... 

The Indian National Congress Party celebrated its 127th anniversary (see the photo here: http://epaper.indianexpress.com/78471/Indian-Express-Mumbai/29-December-2012#page/10/1) - a young nation, with an average age hovering around 40, led by a party that is 127 years old, peopled by geriatrics (oh, how much I wish the creators of Asterix were here to give an image to this picture!! - would Manmohan be Geriatrix, Chidambaram the Fulliautomatix and Sonia be Letutia? I wonder?)

Where, on earth, are the "Young Turks" - where are Sachin (Pilot, not Tendulkar - and, irony of ironies, the latter named has become too "old" while the former is "too young"), Jyotiraditya, Deepender or, even, wonder of wonders, our very own crown prince THE Rahul (Gandhi, not Dravid)?

I say, fellas, before you put on those party hats and begin to usher in 2013... spend a moment to contemplate this drunken and/or sobering thought. Ring out the old..... ring in the young!

Outraged in and by Delhi

There's been a lot of "noise" across all channels/newspapers/discussion fora on the Delhi gang rape incident in particular, and crimes against women, in general. 

There was a ToI article by Shashi Deshpande - "A Human Rather Than A Woman's Issue" (See: http://toi.in/Cl4z1Z)

I'd like to disagree with the opening statement: "Rape is a CONSCIOUS PROCESS.... by which ALL men keep ALL women in a state of fear". It is an exaggeration that ought to have been abjured. This is the kind of sweeping generalizations that tend to irritate even the moderates, let alone being the equal of waving a red flag before a male chauvinist bull.

Let's begin, first, by trying to understand in a general sense, "What is rape?" - without resorting to legalese, I guess it would be safe to say rape is an act where one (or more) person(s) engages in sexual intercourse with another, without the consent of that other person. 

For the sake of keeping this clear and without muddling the issues. I will (for the moment, at least) not getting into issues of deemed consent. Let's keep this straight. 

Most rapists, in my uneducated, simplistic view, possibly commit the crime when they see an opportunity - I'm talking here of rapists who act alone and not the gang rape situations. 

An uncle, a father, a grand father, a friendly trusted neighbour - all these are examples of a criminal breach of trust of the worst kind. They choose a victim, someone who is innocent, unable to (a) understand what is happening, (b) persuaded to remain quiet and not say a word to anyone, (c) made to feel complicit. The victim need not be a child - the victim could be, in cases, even a fully grown adult woman - a young bahu, being compelled to service her sasurji, or dewar? Not unheard of, no?

In the absence of authentic statistics showing the demographic profile of the rapists, and excluding the incidents of child abuse/child rape committed by members of the family/immediate circle (incest IS rampant in India) I may be pardoned for assuming that most rapists are people who come from the poorer strata of society (not "people like us"!) - drivers, servants, slum dwellers etc. I look at a typical taxi driver in Mumbai - he's around 25 - 40 years old, is from Bihar/UP, stays away from his wife for long periods at a stretch, has no legitimate release for his sexual fantasies and is, yet, someone who:

• watches Hindi movies in which the heroine is a "sex package"...
• watches Hindi movies in which an "item number" is virtually mandatory (with lines such as "Main tandoori chicken hoon, mujhe alcohol se kaat ley")...?
• Spends time, while driving around Mumbai, watching the rear view mirror in which he sees the "couple" in the rear seat engaging in "action"
• Spends time, while driving around Mumbai, LISTENING to young women engaged in extremely flirtatious - and at times very suggestive/sexy - conversations with their boyfriends at the other end (or vice versa)
• is uneducated, impressionable and then tends to imagine that he too can get away with such behaviour..... aspirational needs?
• On getting an opportunity, sometimes - yes, sometimes - tries to grab the same? Especially when he's had a bit to drink? 

In today's age, it has become risible to say that "Women ought to dress conservatively, they should not be provocative!" - not just risible, it is considered even reactionary! So, by all means, let women/girls dress as provocatively as they wish. Then let young men and old lechers ogle all they want too! I draw the line there, ogling is fine, but passing lewd comments, or going beyond that to attempting to molest etc is reprehensible and criminal. 

Problem is, we now step into the area of mob mentality - a girl/lady dressed in revealing clothes. I am alone and I merely ogle. I am NOT alone, I am standing along with a group of friends/acquaintances. One of them passes a comment, lewd, dirty, whatever.. The rest snigger, and then the lewd comments fly thick and fast. How quickly this can spin out of control is anybody's guess. It will depend on a variety of factors - location, time of the day, presence/absence of other people etc. Where "eve teasing" (what a stupid word) stops, where "outraging the modesty" begins, where "molestation" happens and finally rape and/or murder....?

Gang rape is, usually, the outcome of competitive machismo arising from a drunken state of euphoria. A mob mentality, where even 2 people can become a mob. 

What I, personally, find "gruesome" is the incidents of a 6 month old child, or a 4 year old child getting raped? Where is the "provocative dressing" argument here? This is truly the gruesome work of a sick mentality. 

What I find gruesome, too, are those many, many incidents where a victim has been raped in public, in full view of people like you and me - and we stood by and watched, without a single person daring to step in and try and stop this. Such incidents have happened in local trains at 9 pm in Mumbai (certainly not a lonely hour), on top of a platform in Dadar railway station, etc. I'm sure we've got similar episodes from all over India. 

And in all this, I haven't even begun to talk of the rapes that happen during our several communal riots - whether it is a Hindu/Muslim riot or a Hindu/Dalit riot or whatever. When the rape is merely "collateral damage".

Nor have I spoken about marital rape. Nor have I spoken about sexual harassment at the work place. Or about the sexual exploitation of maid servants, washerwomen, etc in middle class Indian homes (urban, rural there really is no divide). 

What about the easy identification of women as "sex objects" - I did, briefly, mention about the influence of movies. Let's also look at one or two other issues - is there a general decline in societal morality as a whole? Easy accessibility to technology (camera phones), to pornography on the internet as well as on the pavements, visible "public displays of affection" on Marine Drive, Bandra Bandstand etc, loose behaviour in the back seats of taxis, in corners of cinema halls, in discotheques, etc. Does all this, in some direct/indirect way contribute to an atmosphere where women are commoditised? To what extent do women themselves share a portion of blame for this? 

Talking of easy accessibility to porn on the next - forget about the huge commercial pornography industry of the USA or Europe (decadent civilizations, let us sneer). I am constantly amazed and also shocked at the sheer numbers of Indian girls who willingly perform sex on camera, girls who seem to be from perfectly "normal", "middle class" families.  

Solutions: All those young men and women who gathered at India Gate and kept screaming for our ever obliging cameras... "WE WANT JUSTICE" till they went red in the face... I want to ask them, "What is the justice that you want?" 

Is justice a packet of Maggi Noodles or Nescafe Instant, to be delivered in two minutes by the Home Minister or the Chief Minister? Or by the ever so popular Inspector Chulbul Pandey in Dabangg Version 3? Or a dark and brooding Ajay Devgan from "Gangajaal"? 

Are we a blood thirsty nation seeking a vigilante justice delivery system? Is that our aspiration? To be able to summarily lynch an accused, or, as the Hurriyat hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani said should they be "stoned to death"? Is this what we want modern, moderate India to become? A stone's throw away from a barbaric or Sharia state?

Yes, I too will lend my voice to the "WE WANT JUSTICE" brigade. But when I say this, what I mean is:

1. The state/executive must provide better policing with all that it means - more police stations, better use of technology, better jails, a modern police force equipped with modern tools of policing including but not limited to soft skills, gender sensitivity, capable of avoiding racial/communal profiling etc.
2. An effective system of checks and balances to ensure minimal abuse of untramelled powers of the police.
3. A complete overhauling of laws that were inherited from a British Empire days - laws that reflect the fact that "We, The People" are supreme and the state is meant to serve US and not the other way around.
4. A complete overhauling of laws, with a crystal clear view that punishments should be commensurate with the crime (reflecting, too, a mature, modern, democratic society and not some prehistoric, barbaric throwback to pander to our atavistic craze_
5. An effective Justice system - more courts, better judges, better lawyers, accountable courts with timelines instead of the typical "Tareeq pe tareeq" syndrome. 
6. An incorruptible judiciary, accountable to the people (it is a miracle that despite the rampant corruption in the lower hierarchy, at least at the Supreme Court there seems to be a modicum of integrity) 

And, most importantly, I believe justice is to be sought in the courtrooms and not in your or my living room with a Zee TV or an NDTV holding court! 

Sats

The BEEB Tube? A Whodunit!!

I'm almost (but not entirely) ashamed to admit this, being a self confessed pseudo intellectual, among so many other pseudo states that I inhabit (pseudo secular, pseudo theist, pseudo philantropist, pseudo this that and the other....) - actually, there ARE times when of an evening, I do switch on the idiot box and bask in that blue haze of light that flickers....

 

 

I try to watch "serious stuff" - you know, those documentary shows on NatGeo, Discovery, History etc, especially when my pseudo misanthrope son of mine is watching the tube alongside me... thankfully he's not around here, these days, in fact he's about as far away as can be possible, on an entirely different continent (still in the same hemispehere, though!) so, I need no longer pretend to be interested in the mating habits of penguins or arachnids, in the secrets of quasars, quarks and stuff like that...

 

Which doesn't mean that I sit, all engrossed, teary eyed, mouth open ajar, watching some "poor" bahu or saas and their shenanigans.

 

What I love to watch, really, are those programmes that come on BBC Entertainment or Z Cafe etc. English programmes which I find myself more in sync with than those of American origins... stiff upper lip, what, eh?! "Sherlock", "Hustle", "Inspector George Gently", "Dalziel and Pascoe".... I've enjoyed these serials for a couple of years and, typically, look forward to a Saturday/Sunday night (when I can) with a glass of the right stuff (ably tended to by my now missing bartender son), those typical Brit jokes that merit a smile (never a guffaw) of quiet mirth....

 

And so, there it was, a few days back, I switched on the damn TV, switched on the even more damned set top box (isko laga dala toh life..... jinga lala?) and Channel 205 was a complete BLUE BLANK!! I mean, what the blazes?!!

 

I am, among other things, a pseudo stoic as well. So, I grasped the remote more firmly in my palm, thumbed my way up and down the entire range of channels, up and down, and up and down again, in an increasing state of irritation and mounting apprehension.... they were all there, every single one of those unwanted channels.... Doordarshan, Zee TV, Sony TV, even damn you Fashion TV, CeeBees etc... I even stumbled across no less than 17 Tamil channels, 6 Malayalam channels, countless Telugu (thelledhu), Kannada (gotilla) etc... but the Beeb seemed to have vanished - pardon this poor pun - into thin air!

 

Wait, I thought for a moment! Is BBC News still on? (Not that I watch it, different story that) But yes, BBC News was still on air. But, BBC Entertainment? Like one of those magic shows where Criss Angel or Dynamo make the Taj Mahal vanish, some mysterious power had done the vanishing trick with all my shows!!!!

 

My whiskey vanished too, in a trice, as I knocked one back and howled in a silent cry of distress... and then I entered into a surreal world of conversation with Tata Sky Helpline.

 

 

You call, if you're in the Western Zone, to 020 (Pune) 66006633. And you get to speak to a computer (don't ever complain of India's humongous population!). Which tells you, in that disembodied voice, to dial 1 for Hindi mein jaankaari ke liye, dial 2 for English etc... so, the Brit in me ensured I dialled 2... that disembodied voice continued to spew information that was almost entirely useless till I did a little bit of cheating. I dialled the option for a new connection and managed to get to speak to a human being finally..... who (but naturally) spoke to me in chaste, shudhdh Hindi.... in a voice that was perhaps trained to set the listener's nerves on edge...

 

We sparred for a few minutes on the protocols... why don't you speak to me in English? I asked. Surely sir, I shall speak to you in English, he assured me, and said main aapse maafi chahata hoon for the inconvenience caused by speaking in Hindi. How can I help you, was his next question. So I ventured to tell him, ask him in fact, why am I not getting BBC Entertainment.

 

A simple question, I thought. All he needed was to give me a simple, straight forward answer...

 

He wanted to know what was my subscriber identity number. I did not know why that was relevant. So we went around the issue again, a few times, by which time he'd reached the end of his English and I'd reached the end of my patience.... my good friend, dear departed Dipankar, he of the immaculate wit, used to describe certain people as "Father of English", his back-handed way of describing someone who fu#@* up the language right royally!! The gentleman with whom I was sparring was one such Father of English so, I surrendered, sequentially, again and again... first we ended up speaking in Hindi..... then I gave up the battle of the subscriber identity number and went searching for the same and gave that to him...

 

and waited.... and waited... while he "put me on hold" - with my permission of course, while he tried to "help" me with my query. We're already 4 minutes into conversation now, mind you. And he comes back, finally, "unholds" me and says with that absolutely unerringly identifiable smugness in the voice... "Ji, mein aap ko yeh batana chahoonga ki Tata Sky mein BBC Entertainment Channel ab uplabdh nahin hai!"

 

I was sitting down and so I did not fall. In an extremely pseudo polite voice I asked him "Why not". And then we went around sparring again, in circles, round and round. Finally, in a rare admission of defeat he put me on hold again while summoning reinforcements. His supervisor came on, another clam when it came to sharing information, but definitely a clam made of better stuff. Some five minutes after Super Clam came on, and still none the wiser, I admitted a complete rout, surrendered abjectly and hung up in almost total disgust.... almost total disgust because, in those wonderful 10 odd minutes, I had developed a grudging admiration for my antagonists at the other end... If ever someone wants to develop a training module (Any HR guys out there, reading this?) on "How to drive a customer stark raving mad while keeping one's cool?" I suggest you call Tata Sky (Western Zone) on 020 - 66006633.

 

What can I say? Isko laga daala toh life...... pagal jhaala!!

 

PS: can someone tell me, which are the really good saas-bahu serials worth watching now? Eh, what? I'm sorry, Old Chap, but we're off for the nonce, toodle oo!

 

Waters of Life?

As a child, many million years ago, one of the nicest things that used to happen to me was attending PC Sorcar's Magic Show , an annual feature back then. Dad, Mom, brothers, some cousins, uncles etc we'd all go and get goggle eyed at the sheer magic.... Sorcar, ever the stage master, would leave us spell bound with that special trick "Waters of India"..

Not so many million years ago, in fact just around last month, during the Dussehra, I was in Varanasi - Benares, Kashi.... call it what youl will - a kind of a family gathering, siblings and mom (hopefully dear departed Dad looking on from up above with that rather silly looking smile that sometimes crossed his gruff face). And a trip to Benares is certainly incomplete without that mandatory dip in the Ganges, she being the holiest of our many sad rivers. And God knows, the promise of a cleansing away of accumulated sins (of which there have been far too many to ignore) ensured that we (brothers, sisters-in-law, et al) took the plunge.

Not once, but twice, even thrice, some ten or twelve times, each time coming up for a gasp of air before plunging in again, eyes shut firmly to the floating mass of flowers and bits of cloth (Dussehra, after all, does have its own visarjan frenzy up north).

No, it was not piety that solely guided our dipping .... blame it on the Keralite genes that flows though these collective veins and the sheer weight of nostalgia, we see a body of water, we take a dip. And so, we bathed in the Ganges...

First at Allahabad (at the Triveni Sangam)..... and then again at Sitamarhi..... and yet again in Varanasi...

..... because these are our holy rivers

Despite the pollution, despite the muck, despite it all, simply because the water was REFRESHINGLY COLD, had a surprising nip and chill, a surprisingly strong current despite a placid external appearance... and enjoyed it to the hilt. 

But, yes, honestly? We revere our rivers and pollute it too, at the same time, in a manner that defies logic, defies understanding, we treat our rivers (and our environment) in a manner that is beyond shabby, beyond description and yet, continue to revere, pray and worship..... 

See the picture here: http://epaper.indianexpress.com/71799/Indian-Express-Mumbai/30-November-2012#page/12/2

Holy? 

PS: At Sitamarhi, we'd just spent a blissful 30 minutes frolicking in the Ganga and were towelling ourselves dry and changing clothes on the river bank. A mere hundred metres away, a few people came and floated downriver the carcass of a white cow.... 

Holy river, holy cow!!

Zodiac Signs

The wife never allows me to forget the fact that she has a very strong faith in sun signs, moon signs, ascendants, descendants and all those assorted stuff. The fact that, by nature, I am a wee bit finicky in matters of hygiene, discipline, order etc is straight away ascribed to the Virgo sign under which I exist - it does not matter that any other person who is a Virgo but unmoved by chaos or disorder is, well, a Virgo. Without batting an eyelid (she's got two, rather large sized ones too) she'd exclaim "But, Satheesh, he has a Gemini ascendant!" as if, duh, can't you see?!!

 

I can't - really.

 

Anyway, that was not what I wanted to say....

 

A couple of days back, there I was, sitting with a client who's become a friend, over time, and we were generally chat-chitting. Suddenly he gives me a penetrating glance and remarks "Hmmm, nice shirt that. Zodiac!"

 

Not a question, that was a statement, confidently asserted. His confidence was not matched by me, the wearer of the shirt. I paused for a moment to try and recollect. Yes, light blue, full sleeves, but hey?! Where's the logo?

 

The pen in my pocket was a Cross - the logo said that. My wrist watch, that day, was a Titan Edge - the logo said that, too. My trouser pocket had the small, discreet Louis Phillippe emblem... but this shirt?

 

Nothing on the pocket.

 

Nothing on the sleeve (a la Arrow)

 

Short of pulling my collar around and/or turning my neck like "The Exorcist", there was no way I was gonna get a glance at the one place where the logo ought to, surely, be! 

 

Ashok smiled at me, knowingly, like the enlightened Buddha. The smile was warm, filled with harmless mirth. "Kya dekh rahe ho, mujhse poocho! Main batata hoon... aap ke shirt ke button ko zara goar se dekhiye. Only Zodiac shirts have buttons that have 3 holes! And they're made from mother of pearl!" 

 

 

Pearls of wisdom, that, in case you (like me) are among the mass of uninitiated.... to hell with Virgos or Sagittariuses.... here's the true sign of the Zodiac!

 

Sats