Saturday, October 27, 2007

Nerves!!

Well i m a bundle of nerves right now... all i can look forward to is submission followed by job hunting. The word job-hunting is so scary!!!
So much of uncertainity and with so less information as to what will happen, the job of job we end up getting, it is so difficult to not think about it at all!

The transition from the student life to working life is so stressful. Initially it starts off as the uncertainity that bugs us.. typically it is the kind of job that we end, the pay package, if the pay package is better than the one our friends and peers get....and once the job is in hand, the next thought is the question of confidence...if we can do it, The job profile sounds so stressful, will i be able to manage my stress levels? how will i solve these problems? what will i do in case something goes wrong...
Then the actual tension, geting up every day to rush and go to office, work till the back is on the verge of breaking down...then get back and sleep like a log....When we have some spare time, we end up brooding on how good and carefree student life was and how we failed to maximise our golden days!!!so mane a things could have been done and i did so less!
One big thing that we need to keep in mind is that as we grow older it only gets more burdensome, it cant reduce for anything....not even if girls end up housewives or boys end up home engineers!
It is a strange road uphill.. and it is strange because there is no down hill at all! it is just one way and thats UP. as we climb, it gets tougher and tougher!

So lets enjoy the tough journey for there is no other option!! no other escape route!

Friday, October 26, 2007

The departure of people we know...

Close encounter with death is pretty occassional for all of us. We do read about accidents, deaths in news papers, books, of course watch it on TV, but it does not affect us much. The news paper reports are a part of our routine, its like coffee and tea the first thing in the morning. Thats fine with us we are not affected. The effect of TV is a little more palpable, because visual medium is more effective than the print medium. Gory images might linger around for a few more minutes in our mind. But what about those whom we see , we know and we interact with die? They might not be our buddies, not even part of family, may be some one whom we just happen to know. A person who lives in the same neighbourhood, or a neighbor who has long moved out of our area, but still in touch. The milk man, the first face we see every mornings, or the postman who is so familiar in his khaki; may be a person who used to teach us in school...
When people like this around us die, there is something gloomy about it, it sort of pinches, images of the person speaking to us, smiling at us keeps linkgering around for a while. some where in the corner of the mind we feel something lurking, some strange feeling, a fear...of some ticking clock and the futility of all it. What is it that drives us all the time, thats so fragile that our body stops working abruptly? its so scary, at the same time so very wierd!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Save Yamuna

Yamuna is an important river in the northen plains of India. Historically it remains one of the earliest of settlements in the northern plains. Though the river changed it course over a period of time, its importance to the people in and around remained unchanged. In fact starting the period of Mahabharata when Pandavas were ruling over Indraprasta, Yamuna fed them. Continuous habitation is found in the Purana Quila region for more than 2000-3000 years. The river was then flowing very close to the Purana Quila fort. In facts the moat of the fort was connected to river Yamuna. Settlements unearthed in the excavation in the surrounding areas include Mauryan, Khushan, Gupta, Sultanate and the Mughuls. This has been the importance of Yamuna. Now Jamuna is pathetic. It is not less than any big industrial sewer, filthy and dying. Hope was still there because during good monsoon, the river would still become full bodied and brings in a lot of alluvium from the Himalayan heights. Therefore cultivation in the flood plains of Yamuna has been a rewarding activity for farmers in the region.
Despite knowing the significance of the river and its flood plains, the government has decided to build stadiums and spots complex in the flood plains of Jamuna. It is sad that for the prestige of hosting Commonwealth sports, the government is rushing into something as brainless as this. Once the flood plains are occupied by concrete structures, there will be no more cultivation and the precious alluvium is wasted. Besides, given the flow of alluvium, there is going to be regular flooding and silting in the region. Then the situation will be akin to that of Mumbai and Bangalore where encroachments and mindless filling up of water bodies has led to the annual flooding during monsoons.
Apart from this the flood plains also help in recharging the ground water table. Being sandy and porous, these plains play a crucial role in recharging ground water table. Once concrete structures are up in the place of sandy plains, there will be no recharging and the already diminishing water table will dry up in no time.
There have been continuous protests against this project since its inception. Fasting, sit ins and demonstrations have been organised by different parties, but the government is still sleeping over it. Surprisingly even in a democratic country like India, there is hardly any response from the government, except intimidating the protestors. The protestors are being threatened, intimidated but by and large they concerns are not being addressed by the government.
If only the state could understand the gravity of the situation and construction could be stopped.

Friday, October 12, 2007

GO GREEN

Looking back i realise that i am one person who is not very passionate...more so in the context of being a student of JNU and the kind of politically charged campus it is, i find myself disengaged from all sort of political activities. I have never gone for rallies, nor general body meetings.. I have not been a part of any politically coloured activities even though i study in a centre where politics is everybody's second name!!!! Initially i kept out of all political activities when i was a fresher in the campus despite my peer's attempt to convert me to their colour ( there are several colours in JNU.. Red is the dominating one followed by the saffron and the tricolour, of late so many parties have sprung up which bears no colour too) ..My initial resistance was one way of keeping myself clear of any affiliations so that i can still remain independent and free to think on my own lines and support issues that i feel from heart. I did not like the idea of going to rallies, screaming at the top of our lungs and still have an iota of discontent against the party opinion. Since i am not an atheist red did not suit me, no other options were attractive enough. So i let it all be just there.

But there is one issue that my heart takes very seriously....the Environment.. I am not with green peace either. I see green peace posters once a while these days in the campus..(thats a welcome development, after all it took all a green supporter these years to reach out to JNU)
How my blood boils to see practices that can be easily avoided to save earth!
One basic thing is Plastics.. of course one welcome development in the campus is that plastic is banned. we are supposed to use only paper covers not plastic. However, my shopkeepers do ignore the rule at times. Despite the flouting, it is still welcome. many of us do carry cloth bags.. In fact as a kid i remember carrying a cloth bag when ever we went to market. Only the last ten years have been unkind in terms of excessive plastic. Even if i buy Rs 2 worth peanuts, the shop keeper will give it to me in a plastic bag. We are using plastic bags for no apparent reason.
We should refrain from using too many bags and that should be an action of collective conscience. I take pains to explain people.. my own friends and family that plastic bags can be avoided and should be avoided, they laugh. No one seems to under stand the gravity of the problem. At times i wonder how even educated individuals can just ignore serious issues like these.

My second discontent is against the glass and steel buildings. In India more so in south India, the weather is so beautiful through out the year. Even in north, though summers are hot, the weather is not treacherous like in Europe and north America. We still can manage with out air conditioning systems. In winters except for a few weeks in late December and early jan, its mild and plesent. Despite this, i wonder why architects in India are so fond of aping the west blindly and are constructing steel and glass buildings!! Not only are these glass and steel buildings energy inefficient, they need artificial environment, artificial lighting, artificial temperature control when simple steps like opening the window can do it. Look at the buildings in JNU, we never find it extremely hot in class rooms, not even at the heights of Delhi summers when the mercury sores to well above 40 degree C. Why do we do it when we dont need it? Why do we need air conditioners when the out side temperature is between 25-30 degree C. Is it not stupidity? This is the case even in cities like Bangalore where air conditioners are absolutely conspicuous consumption. There is no reason under sun that glass and steel buildings with artificial atmosphere should be built in Bangalore. After all it is called the air conditioned city (may not be now given the traffic) I remember on the the TERI buildings in Bangalore were build on the principle of eco-friendly. They also made it low cost and low maintenance cost. Cant all corporates follow a similar principle? They would be doing a lot to save earth in that case.
Hope we all wake up as soon as possible.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Subramanian Swamy Ver 2.0

I had an opportunity to hear Mr. Subramanian Swamy speak on Ram Sethu last night at one of the characteristic post-dinner lectures organised by the student political organisations. Mr Swamy turned out to be much more handsome than i expected. Of course he is a scholar beyond doubt, its not easy for someone who fought against his own professors to get into a premier institution like Harvard, or to fight one's own case in various courts!! For the number of cases he fought in the courts, he must be visiting the court practically every other day.
His intellectual abilities apart, i was just curious to know why he had turned himself saffron... Of course i did not know that he had been writing in Organiser, much less his position on contentious issues like conversions and uniform civil code. All I remember was his tea party where the two madam- one madam S and the other Amma met to destabilise the then Vajapee government. The impression that had formed then was that Mr.Swamy was essentially anti-saffron and a part of dichotomy of the political scene...where either you are strongly saffron or else you are not, you cant be in between (if you are you will have to be like Muqtar Abbas Naqvi, Syed Shahnawaz Hussains, fighting to prove dual loyalties!!)... Therefore common wisdom prodded me to brand Mr.Swamy an anti-saffron.. But lo behold!! He is a passionate campaigner of saffron issues. He is fighting for the protection of Ram Sethu. Of course i m also for the protection of Ram Sethu not only because it a structure respected by millions of people but also because of the ecological impact of such a foolish project. How can our politicians be so insensitive to our natural wealth? The encroach upon forest lands, tank beds and now even the sea! There is a minimum degree of conscience that even the basest of beings have, looks like our politicians do not have even that. They are used to gobble money and will continue to do so. i will not be surprised when the state kitty is empty and our politicians are selling the last remaining asses ts ..our huge population! They will sell the Hindus first because they are the weakest in terms of resistance .. and the country will be left with only the so called minorities. One fine day they will realise that politicians are a creed who cannot be loyal to any one particular party, ideology...
Coming back to Mr. Swamy and the Ram Sethu. For all his academic brilliance, he has done his home work perfectly. He has all his papers right. As long as he is fighting the case, i can be sure that hundreds of Dugongs are saved from greedy men!

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Autumn is here......

This evening i smelt autumn in the air! After a scorching summer, autumn is always welcome, even though it brings with it bald trees and lifeless lawns with it. This particular summer was not very harsh in Delhi. Last year was much worse. The bounteous monsoons too played their part i guess... if i can dare to compare, the monsoon this year was second after the year 2003... Early sunset is the first sign of approaching winters. Now i have started to go for my evening walk a bit early because the sun sets by 6.30 Pm and i don't like to go for a walk on dark road! I m scared of men as well as curs.
I also smelt the first parijathas of the season this evening. The fragrance was Delicious, no wonder Sathyabhama was enamoured of the Parijatha tree.. The delicacy of the flower, makes it so precious, so adorable and something that perfectly compliments femininity.
The timing is so perfect, that's its like someone with a master clock controlling every process with perfection.
The seasons are more organised than my own wardrobe! heheheheh I wish i could learn a little bit from these clueless clues!

Sunday, September 30, 2007

Amma Mane!!!

Well Amma Mane in Kannada is a very sweet sounding word. Literally it means one's mother's home, it has a wider connotation to represent the parent's home for a married daughter. A place the much married daughter cannot frequently go to, but is a luxury when she can afford to go. For women who stay close to their parents the word might not sound significant, but for those who stay far, it means so much. The chances of living with the parents is almost over once the daughter is married off. There are of course exceptions. but they stay exception. In these days of global carrier, one hardly gets to visit parents and live the childhood all over again. I realised the luxury of Amma Mane very late. Recently i managed to stay with my parents for two weeks. I had not done it for the past two years. The day i went with the plan of staying for two weeks, two weeks looked so distant.There were moments when i thought 'my god, this is no longer my home, how am i gonna stay here for so long?' the apprehension disappeared in two days. By the end of my stay i was all tears. I did not want to leave. If only i could stay for a little long.
It is curious that once we get used to our indenpendent life, sharing space with parents appear daunting. for a second i forgot that my parents were my everything before i grew up to be an adult. So much their part, but still so apart!
I lived every moment of my stay with my parents. It was a slow crawling towards my bygone childhood. Sharing personal trivias with parents, my father recollecting how i used to cry each time i fell as a kid, my mother narrating the way i used to drink my big glass of milk right in one go. The idiosyncrasies associated with me as a kid as well as with my sister.It makes very nice fodder to chew on. ...Ans chewing the cud was never more beautiful than this. We grow up faster than we realise. Many a times, we find it difficult to share space with our siblings as well as parents. May be living with parents is not feasible after a particular point of time. But spending some time with them is definitely great. no doubts about it at all.

Parents are assoicated with comfort, like chicken soup for the soul, parents are harbingers of comfortable times, the warmth, the way they make us feel special is something very very precious. And i noticed that i was able to sleep till 7.30 AM at my parents place, which i cannot do anywhere else, more so not in my house establishment!Its all about comfort i guess...

Next comes the food. I guess everyone feels that their mothers are the best cooks in the world. I m no exception. just that i feel my mother is the second best after the grand mother. granny- my mother's mother was the best ever cook i have known. But now she is far too old and she has long rennounced her laddle! If only she could cook. I have noted down her recipies but i cant reproduce the taste. My mother is also a great cook. For my comfort food means the food that comes out of my mother's kitchen. This is one case where familiarity breeds affection not contempt. a familar taste is so very comforting and something i long to go back to. even as i write thinking of the aromas of my mother's kitchen make my mouth watery!
Everyones needs to take sometime off to live with parents, even if it means cumbursome adjustments, it is worth all the adjustments. Fortunately for me, i did not have to make any adjustment, i just had to slip into my own childhood. Once that was done, it was my own parents pampering their neo-nine year old kid!

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Dasara Elephants

Dasara festival ws one festival that i really used to wait for as a kid... in the southern part of karnataka, dasara is celebrated with so much grandure! and the city of mysore is invariably associated with the vijayadashami festival.. the caprisioned elephants and the golden howda and the maharaja and the palace and the jamboo savari!!!i was born in the city and we lived very close to the palace.. just two streets off the palace actually the area is called shankarmutta..for us dasara was all about elephants..a month before the jamboo savari elephants from nagarahole and bandipoor was brought to mysore..and they were all stationed at the mysorepalace. but they had to be washed daily and for that the elephants were to be taken to karangikere.. a lake closedby..the elephants were walked on the tankbud 'yeri' as we used to call it to the lake... and this was a morning ritual...our schools used to be closed for the dasara holidays one full month unlike a 10 day break these days. and every morning we (me and my friends a considerable gang) we user to wait at the edge of the yeri.. at times we used to pilfer a banana or a piece of jaggery to feed the elephants... and lo behold the elephants used to walk rythemically with the bells around their necks.. it generally used to be in the decending order... the huge drona the first the remaining female follwing drona or may be it was balarama.. who was then a kid.. there were others too shoba bahadur arjuna and shanti.. guess i dont get the names of the others...and calves were the last of them... they were soo playfull.. the mahavuts had a greast time with the claves.. they were so much like babies... too curious and at times venturing out to the very peripheri of the yeri... and what an excitement!! what great fun we used to have looking at these gentle gaints... i wonder if they have the same practicfe these days toothings have changed.. i did be really surprised if i get to knw that karangikere is still a functioning lake.. and has been spared by land sharks... and the yeri must be soo busy these days that elephants might not be able to even tread let alone leisurly pace through...and the mighty Drona is so more there.. he was electricuted in 1998...oh! it has been so many years since we last saw him with the howda... i miss him every time i see the jamboo savari....balarama the current bearer or the howda is fine but i feel he is shorter than Drona.. and he is supposed to be a little short tempered and unruly at times too... Drona was so docile and he ws soo used to crowd that he seemed to be at ease both in the rainforests and the mysore city jamboo savari...and mind u... not all elephants are eligible to carry the howda.. it is an elephantine task in itself.... the caparisioned elephant will have to carry the 750 kilo howda for a stretch of 4 kilometers from palace to bannimantap.... so the choosen elephant will have to be sturdy and it has to have a certain body figure too.. a broad back .i miss dear drona ... after him there was this unlucky elephant called arjuna... through he was as good as drona, he was rendered ineligible for the jamboo savari after he accidentally killed his mahavut. i pity him.. he is now confined to the forests.. but then it is good for him right .. far away from the madding crowd .. leading the life of a recluse... how i wish to go back to the dasara elephants....to drona balarama and bahadoor... to shanti and all of them...i with them all a long life... unfortunately i cant wish drona a long life but definitely peace to his soul.. i m sure he is listening

Boredom!

Boredom! It is a common phrase that is to be heard everywhere! Friends, colleagues, neighbors... I wonder what it to be bored all the time is! looks like people these days have a lot of time... time enough to be bored... my friend does not know what to do on week ends! He is bored the two days he is off work!! And on Mondays it is the 'Monday blues'... it is so boring to go to work on Monday! Working is boring and days away from work too are boring! I wonder what else it is to be living life...
I have never seem my father say he is bored... and i have never seen my grandfather say he is bored... in fact my grandfather is a person who has lived long enough to see major changes in life right from electricity to the computers.. He and people of his generation lived in a different world... they had no television to watch, they had no Internet... chips for them meant some thing that they could eat...web was something the spider spun in the corners, site was a place where they intended to build houses!! Now meanings and definition have changed...lifestyles have changed. My grandfather and his friends spent time doing a lot of things... lot of activities... crosswords, puzzles, reading news papers and books...they also played a lot when they were young.. Football, cricket tennis and what not... chinni dandu etc in fact my grandfather who is retired from work for almost two decades is never bored... and of course now his new addiction is the TV soaps along with his puzzles, crosswords and news papers...
My father is from a far younger generation vis a vis my grandpa (which is obvious) he is still into his work... he works for one of these public sector banks and makes money enough to fend for his family.. He has not seen the big bucks software engineers and MBAs these days see... and he is so very contented with his work, with his earnings and his way of life. I have never seen him crib on Monday mornings. He has not even heard of the word Monday blues.
But now I see people of my generation suffering for assorted diseases... monday blues, perpetual boredom, burnout and what not.. These are syndromes people of older generation never knew of. I am just wondering if these are the creation of modern industry, way of work and marginalization of human effort the and marginalization of human role. Earlier people really worked .they used their brains and muscles... now most of the time we see the physical exercise part is almost nil...and computers do most of the work for us.. All that is to be done is follow a chat of programme... thats it... i wonder what is the factor that is leading to such a drastic change in the mind set of our workforce. no one appears to be contented with what they have. Frequent job changes mostly guided by pay packages, the herd mentality of choosing something that has been proved a safe choice by others. What are we doing? And where is it leading us to? What will be life and working is down the lane... say in the next 20 years!! It is very difficult to even guess

Monday, September 3, 2007

Why is my blog titled "laughter is the best medicine"

Well...my record of humor is pretty bad.. at one point of time i had to tell my gang that the joke i was narrating was over and that they NEED to LAUGH!! They used to tell me that the joke i narrated was not funny..but some of them used to find me funny..they used find the fact that i was able to enjoy such jokes funny!!! well well.. they were all Reader's Digest jokes.. may be i was never good enough to narrate the jokes well enough. After all what matters in humor is the way things are put across.. I realised narrating and stand up comedy was never gonna be my forte..then i thought why not write. Thats how i started perhaps. But my humor is very sensitive to the summer heat ... you cant expect it to spring out !!! Its far too hot outside for my humor to come out. So its staying cozily in the coll confines of my grey matter! (if i happen to have some) So the tittle is gonna be here but not the laughter.. lets see if it is willing to come out in winter..

Nevertheless... i had a huge collection of RD in my library.. (i happen to have a small collection of books.. all good ones) I had some real one ones too.. I had went through it so many a times but still found it readable. Then i started running out of space. So my mother started to sell me the idea of selling a few old ones to the Kabadi! and poor me i gave in and sold most of my collection.. but i did manage to cut the 'laughter is the best medicine' 'life is like that' 'humor in uniform' and 'all in the day's work' and complied them into separate but cute collections! that was it .. i had stopped my subscription..well my father's i should say. i still live off him! Then it was all text books... all the way. some where down the lane i lost my affinity to RD. Last month i had a chance to pick up one of the latest issues. Hey RD has changed.. they have introduced a lot many sections including something called virtual reality, something with teens in it and many more.. i luved it.
RD has a magic about it. I grew up munching RD all the way. Now i realise i m old enough to say that RD has changed since i read it last hehehehe.. I still love it . And would not mind going through Drama in real life...Heros....and of course all the other regular columns.
I feel i have accomplished something in life the day some one leaves a comment on my blog saying the my blog reminds them of RD!!!

Saturday, September 1, 2007

Romance....

Why is that Yash Chopra always managed to hit the bull's eye in Bollywood most of the time?? Because he sold good romance...More so...loving the idea of being in love.. My god! what a great feeling it was .. to be in love with love... the idea of a prince charming/princess, and a fairy tale followed by a happily ever after...i do not know much about the way men feel about the idea of being in love... but girls.. i know there is hardly anyone in my circle who at least at one point in time were bowled over by the idea!!! Yash Chopra brand of movies are popular with girls.. all time all ages..Though i am well past the age of falling in love with the ideas of being in love, i still like Yash Chopra brand of movies..just for the nostalgic value..it reminds me of days when i was younger and had so much to look forward to in life.
Well only after i was old enough that i realised the magic and importance of Yash Chopra movies.. ..Falling in love is a package deal.. not at all a rose garden but a bumpy mud road.. i could be smooth road, but could be really bumpy at times. However we would not realise till we get into a relationship and then when are about to say "oh! god what the hell did i do" it would be far too late .. reached a point of no return.. ..u simply cannot get back the innocence...the state when you never knew what it actually it is to fall in love and try to be in love ...Man that's the most difficult thing in the world.. wonder how people manage to be in love for ages..i wonder if there are such people after all. Whats beautiful is the idea of being in love.. as in YC's movies....the heroine is sitting on the window sill and there is a gentle breeze that blows through her hair and the silky hair descends right on her face partially covering her..her delicate fingers try to move the silky hair across...right then the hero catches a glimpse of her.. and that's it..Shakespeare says, "who ever loved that loved not at first sight" ...the hero falls in love with the girl...is it not a beautiful dream to sell..When i was a teenager.. my eyes were full of these dreams.. that one day some one will catch my glimpse ...and the with out my knowledge there will be someone who is pining away for me... The idea that i m special to some one made me feel better, special and .......... beautiful..even though the mirror said otherwise..
Then the wait for the special person.....could this be him.. him?? or may be him! the wait for the person was sooo good.. i gave me reasons to look at the beautiful night sky and the moon behind the thing veil of passing clouds...it gave me reasons to look into the silver raindrops on a day when rainbow lit up the sky....and each time my heart skipped a beat...The magic of being in love with love....So beautiful.. It also kept me writing poems after poems ...till i ran out of thoughts and stopped writing poetry...
Romance inspired so many artists that i bet if not for romance we would not have had half as many poems, novels, paintings, art in any form for that matter....

But then all good things come to an end.. and romance ends after the 3 hours ..soon after the theatre lights lit up! we realise oh! god did i forget to switch off the geyser?

Musings on a winter morning

There are days when i wake up on a crisp winter morning to find the sun extremely bright and i can feel the happiness in the air, i can small spring flowers and then hear something thats calls me for a party...then there are days when i wake up the sun seem to be unnecessarily hot or too cold and sad.. nothing seems to be ok, nothing looks ok.. the fruit on the table looks sad and droopy, the breakfast looks sad... the tap in the bathroom seems to be running low.....on those days.. i miss my bus by half a minute, i end up searching for a silly book in the library the whole day, then i come to a late cold lunch only to find an unidentified vegetable in the subzee!!
Things could be that way or this... sometimes i feel i m the most beautiful person in the world.. then i feel i m the ugliest! On days i feel i m loved by everyone around me.. i feel the y need me and they are happy when i am around.. Then there are days when i see that there is no one for me, i remain unloved and uncared for. No one wants to be with me.. and its a pain i cant explain..

To remain unloved and uncared for is probably the worst thing to happen..and to feel that way is a pity. I only wish we all could feel better ..all the time.. even if we did not know what it was to be gloomy.. if we all felt loved for and cared for and if we all loved each others well enough, things would have been much much better..there would have been no bombs and no killers..It would have just been a beautiful world..

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Machines Vs Labour

When i was a child, say some 10-15 years ago, metaling the road was a big time affairs.. there used to be some 20-30 labours on even a small stretch of road. Growing up in a royal city like Mysore, more so right across the palace, i always saw roads in good condition. Metaling the roads were a routine affair.. i used to scared of those big bull-dozers and of course the steaming tar boiler.
I remember mostly women used to carry the real hot tar and crushed stone mixture from the tar boiler to the stretch where the work would be on, in small metal pans. They used to wear rubber glove, rubber boot kind of a thing thing. of course it was really dangerous to be doing something like that, but there used to be plenty of women and a few men around the place. Then of course on person would be flattening hot tar mixture using a heavy block of wood/metal..followed by the bull dozer. An activity like this would have provided work for a large number of people. Technically speaking it was a labour intensive activity and for every rupee spent by the government on such activity generated a hundreds of man-day work. Needless to say, a large number of people used to get their bread and butter from such activities. They were basically unskilled labours coming from far off places mostly villages.

Now in my university, they are metaling the roads. And all i see are huge machines, a tar boiler which runs on gas rather than on coal unlike earlier days (that's a welcome change, gas is Eco-friendly than coal, any day, any time) Then there is a huge machine, i know not what they call it. But it was there. It actually lays the road, i.e. collects the tar mixture, deposits it on the road and spreads it in minutes. Followed by the usual bull dozer. There were a handful of people around these machines. This is basically a capital intensive activity. It will not create large man-days of work because the machine will probably do ten times as faster than the labour intensive technique would. Fine.. the roads are blocked for fewer days, the work is faster, and of course must be cheaper too.. But where did all the labours disappear? where are they? what is feeding them these days? Did their live style improve so much that they no longer have to do meddle with the hazardously hot tar mixture? The same is the case of digging.. there is a machine to dig earth too..Did they all manage to find better jobs that they don't have to scorch themselves in summer sun and the molten bitumen? Good India has developed so much that these kind of jobs no longer has takers!! this is the typical conclusion of "times of India" and "economic times". The opposite is true with "the Hindu".
I don't know where they all disappeared. But i would believe if i m told that such jobs has no takers. Even with just 26% under the poverty line, there are more than 200 million poverty stricken people in India.. during bad times like drought and floods they are ready to do any thing..even the most hazardous of labour. and why would not they? after it is a question of survival.
If Keynes were to see this kind of extravagance.. he would have hanged himself to death. He said in times of depression, governments should make sure every one has a job even if it means just digging pits and filling it up. And in a country like India, we have so many things to do... build tanks, conserve watersheds, constructing roads, drainage, digging community wells and underground water recharge structures, planting trees, conservation of trees, forests ....the list goes on and on... and employing labour intensive techniques will provide so many people the barest minimum to keep themselves alive. But what the hell are we doing? how many people are we employing for every unit of capital spent? for a person who believes that neo-liberal policies are farce, this development seems so absurd....and it is. How can a developing country like ours forget Keynes so easily?with a massive population of poor people, the definition of which will not even keep a pet dog alive these day..(An annual income of Rs 5000 per head per person is defined as the poverty line in rural areas, I m sure annual supply of pet foods will exceed Rs 5000) Where are we heading? is anyone even listening? our ministers are always thinking about software exports, complete convertibility, stock markets and foreign investment...none of which is going to affect me and you immediately.. nor the man on the street. It is gonna affect those who call themselves upper-middle class but are actually the rich class....why don't they give a thought towards the less privileged? It is so disgraceful that our government chooses to ignore its own under privileged just because some fool thought that markets worked better without government intervention. Surprisingly even after a strong stream of thought supporting the role of government by eminent economists like Amarthya Sen, J.E.Stiglitz, and empirical evidence by tons and tons of authors.. (including me) there has been no significant change in the direction of government policy. A change in the government too did not affect the policy. There is hardly any difference between the left-centre coalition and the right-confused coalition. It just goes on to prove that in politics every thing else becomes secondary, hanging to power being primary.
Shame on us...Shame on all of us.

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Over Indulgence

How often have we heard of a big boom in Indian economy? That India is Shinning, and that India is gonna be a super power in 2010, 2020 etc? Dont we know that Infosys is hiring so many fresh graduates from engineering colleges around the country? dont we know its raining big salary packages all over? IIM graduates can expect a hefty package even before they leave the campus? Reading Times of India and Economic Times gives me a feeling that i m in this golden age where people know no deprivations. We are all prospered, we all draw a five figured, at times 6 figured salaries, we go to PVR spend 250 on movie tickets, 100 on popcorn, come back by auto thats a cool Rs 500 per person, and we go out and have dinner at a 'decent' restaurant an we run a bill of Rs 3000 per couple and tip the waiter @ 15% of the bill..nice cool we are contemporary Indians we are having a great time, booming markets, great jobs, great money, we wear branded outfits, look down up on indian unbranded stuff as cheap, sasta...and we ape the western consumerism.. we no longer care about 10 20 rupees that get washed in the pocket of our jeans while we care less of a 500 rs bill (note in indian english) pronounce schedule as skedule.. an attribute earlier common among NRIs... we also say "o" for "zero" the TV jingles say "O", "zee" for zero and zed! So what are we trying to do. Of course we pay our domestic servants high as well.. 3000 for a cook cum maid servant, housekeeper gets a similar pay.. what not. We are in boom time so lets enjoy...

The news covered in ET and TOI, paints everything rosy..ok lets accept for a while that india is booming.. so what percent of population are we talking about? 80%? no cos we are talking mostly of the urban prosperous population, and 60% of our population still lives in villages. Ok so we are a talking about the 40% population. But then not all urban dwellers earn over five figured salaries. There is a huge segment thats unorganised... the man in suit wearing a tie who sells u vaccum cleaner is not being paid a six figured salary, nor is the receptionist in one of the fancy hotels..Only 8% of them actually belong to the organised workforce... the rest are unorganised.. including your electrician, ur mason, painter, vegetable vendor, kabadi wala, man servant who does errands for you.. all our assorted maid servants, waiters at the hotel, and the much less know agricultural and non agricultural labour...Ever wondered about them? What is shining for them?
Lets see...
We read in the new papers that poverty has decreased in India by 10% ..from 36% to 26% during the last decade.. what not.. How do they even come to this figure? It is defined on the basis of per capita consumption expenditure to acquire food that gives a calorie count of 2400 and 2100 in rural and urban areas respectively. So they also come to a conclusion of Rs 5007 per annum per person based on this benchmark. SO anyone who is earning more than Rs 5007 is not supposed to be poor.. Imagine there are still 26% of our population still unable to make Rs 5007 per anum. And in absolute numbers it translates into not 1 or 2 persons but millions, more than 200 million, that is 20 crore people are barley managing to keep themselves alive. And we are thinking of the Lamborghini show room in one of the five star hotels in the heart of our capital. We are celebrating the success of a minuscule minority.. should not we feel ashamed.
All the figures show that, there in a rising indebtedness amongst our farmers, There are so many documented farmer's suicide, and more undocumented, there is many villages where basic potable water is absent, women walk miles and miles to get a pot of water. Just travel once from Kerala to new delhi and beyond on a train by second class, and we will be forced to change our point of view! goodness me! There are so many villages without which we will die.. water, electricity, health care,, and of course schools. and what are doing? we are creating SEZs by robbing our poor farmers to make some established corporate house even richer. Mind you all the protests that you hear associated with SEZs are the voices of the relatively better of farmers.. the interest group thats strong enough to Voice its opposition, where as the genuine voices, die down with a whimper.. how true was Elliot he had said "this way the wold ends, not with a bang but with a whimper" yes the world ended for those who lost their lands and livelihood long time back and their whimper remained unheard. We see a vegetable vendor sporting a mobile phone, but come on, he is no poor, he belongs to the urban middle class by definition. Where are the poor..Have they become invisible? Not quite.. Travel any distance out of you city, for say as far as 100 kms on a road thats least taken.. i m sure you will notice the kind of privilege we are all enjoying.. the laptop i m typing with, the electricity the Internet connection all becomes a farce.. What matters is food, you dont eat your laptop, your latest model cell phone! basic clothing, health care, primary school! do we have these .. a big no..
There are just 0.6 doctors for every 1000 population. and how many of these doctors are ready to serve in areas where they are badly needed? every one of them dreams of opening a super speciality hospital... according to figures there is over 100% enrollment in primary schools! my goodness that means no child is out of school these days.. but we all know thats a big big joke.. we see young boys cleaning tables at hotels, dhabas, working as shop assistants in the numerous shops all around us... we will be employing children to do our own domestic work. so how is that these children vanished from statistics.. Hm another big joke is statistics..as if we could capture the quantity a person gets to eat everyday and conclude if the person is poor or not, and say "India is Shining"
After having written all this i should confess i m not leftist, Definitely not. I dont know a thing about Marx, and lenin, and i dont give a damn to them, there is past, there is no solution reading century old theories. i dont belong to the old fashioned chappal-kurta clad idealist. I m not a pseudo either.. i dont belong to any where... and i m is a observer.. just like R.K.Laxman's "common man" I cant do anything, but i cant stop observing and i cant stop pondering on it either..What is simply absurd is the way we take our life, our indulgences for granted. When do we learn to appreciate our privilege better! just little things go a long way.. like switching off lights before leaving room, office, home.. make sure that taps are closed tight even when they are dry so that water is not wasted, use everything in moderation, and dont ever employing children to work for us... little things but the impact will be huge..

Friday, August 24, 2007

Stock markets

Looks like i have become a bit more regular with my blogs.. Looks like i am enjoying my own space and my time at my own disposal... enjoy the small interval of time and space you little bird...

All of a sudden i have started sleeping light.. i wake up many times at night, and its taking me so hard to fall asleep.. what is this! is age catching up with me! Lol.. never mind..it good for me.. it stretches my day by a great extent!

Hmmm
i don't understand these stock markets... for all my close to a decade training in economics... is am still perplexed at the way stock exchange reacts.. or more so how people with their money react. even when everything appears sound, some aberration in some part of the world triggers a fall.. and of course with my little investment here and there i loose money if i m to sell my shares..not that i did lose a great deal just that i dont want to loose even that. why should i? it my hard earned money ya!
Its sort of strange.. say you are travelling by and you are a doctor by profession, you try to strike up a conversation with you fellow passenger.. The moment they come to know that you area doctor, they start complaining about their back pain, nasal infection, falling hair, daughter's pimple, son's height..everything.. just in case you give them a free prescription.. same thing happens to me as well.. the moment i say i m studying economics.. the next thing i knw is being interviewed about stock markets. free advice and a potential windfall...sounds a profitable proposition right .. right.
I keep laughing to myself when i encounter such people.. me myself i m trying to figure our why t hings are like this in the stock market. It never goes by any theory in economics... It is just like dirt track.. you never know whats coming up. all you know is its not gonna be a smooth ride. And to be on the safer side i suggest people to invest in post office savings..national saving certificates... No one wants to go for it.. they just seem to laugh at it.. saying there no charm in those things anymore.. Hey give me a break if you want you money to get doubled in the a month, you should also be ready to loos you money in a day... that is the law of the world of risk..is not it?
Well that's what is happening... when there is rough times people panic, and in good times they binge! no rationality at all... an assumption in theory that we so often take for granted!

after all this i still hope the market improves! i dont want to loose money boooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

JNU Politics, an insider's view..

JNU is recognised as the last of leftist bastions amongst Indian Universities.. In fact at one point of time, it looks like the leftist had lost it.. but they came back with a bang!
I have heard a lot of comments on politics in JNU ..even in unlikely places.. from people who would not even know what J stands for in JNU! Many people with even small connections to education in delhi would have heard about JNU.. the rest i m not sure. When i got into JNU after all the toil and tests, my of my relatives and acquaintances asked me if Bangalore University did not offer the course that i had opted in JNU! I felt so sick answering them. Man look up at the sky it is so wide.. why don't you ever compare Bangalore University to JNU. Later i grew to realise that this set of people could never come to know what it means to get into JNU.. May be if Ekta Kapoor gets this idea of a hero in some serial doing a course or having completed a course in JNU, this particular set of people might even get to know what JNU could be.. This set of people is endemic to South India where BA and BScs are looked down upon.. cos if you cant get a seat in the pathetic of engineering colleges and you are the dumbest in whole generations to come only then you go to BAs and BScs...
Never mind.. let me not dwell to much on this its got enough content for an entire blog. So let me concentrate on the JNU politics..
Then there is another class of people with a stereo typical perception of JNU.. mostly in the Hindi heartland.. who regard JNU as the stepping stone to civil service.. When ever i meet this sort of people they did just be interested to know how many times i managed to clear the prelims! and mains and of course any chance of making it to the interview and subsequently to mussorie..Yes there have been a lot of civil servants from JNU.. i myself have seen tens of them.. but not all of us are potential civil servants.. and JNU is not a tutorial centre for IAS aspirants..

Apart from these two classes is the one that has seen JNU a bit more closely than the other two classes..Mostly delhities.. how have lived here for long enough to know JNU's existence, and of course people who studied in Delhi.. would obviously exposed to JNU and its culture.. Many of them in fact take JNU to be the most happening place after dark.. and there were cases where youngsters came to JNU to 'have fun' of course they can no longer take the security of our campus for granted and indulge in activities like ewe teasing! its not acceptable in JNU.. prompt action and they will be in trouble.. In fact FIR was filed against a few men who passed lewd comments against a women last week or so.. so got to be a law abiding citizen in JNU.. even if not else where in India.

So the last mention class of people know quite a lot about JNU.. i have heard them say how bad politics in JNU is.. It is dirty.. so on..
But hey look.. no where in India is an election centred around a debate? For rest of the indians "presidential Debate" is an alien terms. something that happens in american elections...But for us its a reality. we participate in it. We listen to what the contestants have to say. Raise questions! corner them too. We then vote according to our choice... And unlike Delhi University elections we have no DJs, we have no dance parties, we have no vehicles for campaigning, no glossy posters of candidates.. many a times i have voted for just names.. i would not have even their faces! All we have is hand written posters, and of course pamphlets...

Of course JNU politics assumes the nasty shape when it comes to party bickering's.. can there ever be multiple parties in bonhomie? i doubt! These party bickering can get very dirty at times.. populism, accusation, everything that's common to politics prevails in the campus.. but then it is politics.. the last game of a scoundrel. At least we do in an intelligent fashion. There is active pamphletering .. we as students get our messages across.. we are not kept in dark about any development. Its again a game in politics, nevertheless it is beneficial to us.. This feature connects our campus politics to the national politics.. probably and thankfully the only feature that's common. I noticed today that one of the parties have a blog space to further their activities in the campus. .that's a nice development for the party who apparently fought for the rights of farmers and downtrodden? pretty impressive.. the party of the have nots too has gone digital.
Then there is the left is right and right is not syndrome. Pity the right! After Sandeep Mahapatra there was virtually no one who could stand up on his own in the presidential debate. The centrists are the worst of them all. they do not even provide the comic relief that some candidates of smaller parties.. Wonder how they manage to put such candidates. Poor thing the centrists do not even have a colour of their own! the leftists have their RED, the right its SAFFRON.. the centrists are left without any colours or brains.. all they do is host a real big iftar party during Ramzan festival.. I remembering going to one such party .. just to eat and enjoy and i happened to sit right in front of Shiela Dixit... never knew she would have come.. i smelt vote bank politics.. Well they do organise such a big festival for diwali!! why iftar! ours is a supposedly secular campus. Anyways.. i really enjoyed the food.. looks like they are money bags right now.. let them spend who ever cared.. the pakodas were tasty, so was the jalebi, samosa.. and the fruit chat.. its been a long time so i don't remember the entire list...Free food we will all be there.. one more feature of JNU.. In seminars where food is served, the attendance is higher... you will definitely find me as well!

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Happiness

“Happy” is the word that we take for grated so often…. What is happiness? What does it means? Are we happy? We say so many times that I m so happy for you.. or we ask if someone is happy… do we realise what we say? Are we happy?
At all points of time we always feel an emptiness inside us.. Sometime we are not happy with out profession, we are dissatisfied with out co-workers, we are restless because some dullard classmate of ours ending up with something big.. a big job, a rich husband! A rich wife or a good looking one! We all do it.. I am no saint and I do it too..
Deep inside the folds of my brain, there is a bug that feeds on thoughts and release unwanted effluents, that makes me feel sick about myself..

I start cribbing, cribbing about practically everything, my studies, my job prospects, my husband, my relatives, the everyday cooking and cleaning.. everything gets to me. I start brooding over the past and start questioning my previous decisions. I start thinking about the road not taken.. would I be home by now had I taken the other road? Where am I .. am I lost in this place called no where?

Since negative thoughts are cyclical and have very strong influence over other around me…I end up creating a cosy hell for myself and my folks too particularly my husband!

After one such cycle.. we sat down me and my husband to think of this depression.. the unhappiness. We realised that happiness is not a bird that needs t o brought and secured in the cage.. But it is something that’s deep with in us. We can kill it or nurture it. It feeds on hope and contentment! If I m content with where I m I did be happy. We realised that if everyone could be happy just by realising how much life still has to give to us, would not there be a better world?
We have decided to bring in certain changes in ourselves.. For our good too. We have decided to always think of this beautiful world. If not we need to watch Antonio Benini’s “Life is Beautiful” Its actually a beautiful movie. An amazing story of a jew caught up in difficult times of the world war. He tries to shield his son from the reality by asking him to play this prolonged game of hide and seek the winner or which will get to ride a patton tank! Antonio Benini dies in the end.. He is shot dead by the Nazis.. but even as I watch the movie I remember waiting for Benini to just jump up and say.. here goes the bullet and I m still alive.. It is so full of hopes and positive energy. And we are not in a milieu, where we should think of surviving each day. We don’t have to fight to procure roti and rice for our family’s only meal in the day! Nor or we in the dark ages of oppressive regimes that we should be scared to voice our opinion. With all the complaints against our politicians, we still are lucky that we don’t have a kind of dumb media that the western developed countries have, or the press censorship of Pakistan, Iran and other middle eastern countries, We women in India we don’t have to wear the thick black medieval veil, we are not married off as third, fifth how-many-th wife of an old rich good-for-nothing- but-rich-bumpkin. I realise with so many privileges, I should never crib, and I better realise the meaning of happiness and Try to happy, after all happiness is not a bird to be caught and locked up in the cage but it is with us.. just go to find it!

Hope to be happy and try to keep others happy too

Friday, August 17, 2007

Finding Nemo!

For me the movie 'finding nemo' is a part of my life these days... My four year niece calls me Nemo.. and the adult members of the family too have caught up with her... My defacto name is now Nemo!

That was a cute movie with a Young mischievous fish called Nemo getting lost and his over cautious father's journey to save the son. It was cute.

Now i m carrying the burden of having watched that movie and looks like its gonna stay with me for a while!

Imagine my niece calling me 'come here nemo' from across the hall at a busy shopping centre! I had to go through it far too many times.. and i have to address her as Mr.Ray... It is pretty embarrassing to be calling a four year old girl Mr.Ray.. people around will think i m nuts.

In fact she has memorised all the dialogues from the movie and keeps repeating it at opportune moments! and poor me i have to remember the right reply as in the movie.. if i go wrong, she is more than glad to correct me! 'nemo you r wrong, you have to have to say "faster Mr.Ray Faster"
All the embarrassments apart, it is fun to play with her... At my age i can only act out the liberty i enjoyed as a child. I wish to be a child so many a times but it is simply not the law of nature! So i make the most of acting a child with her. We play.. we make imaginary snow balls (at the peak of summers) and throw at each others.. we also make snow men too.... Last time she punched my snow ball in his belly and my poor snow man crumbled into a puddle.. all imaginary of course..Since she is Mr.Ray, the driver of the school bus, She comes and picks me up from home to drop me to my school.... imaginary of course...I m supposed to say "Faster Mr.Ray.. faster... It is so much fun" and she also picks me from school to drop me back home. After dropping me home she becomes Nemo's father! She is my father.. she can spank me if she finds me silly.
Its fun to be a part of a make believe world... She calls my hubby "Shark" and yet another character in the movie... My mom-in-law is Dori.. also a character from the movie. And then my brother in law is "Cookie Monster" i think this character is from the movie Shrek! but she would not mind!
We are all supposed to play our parts well..we all play along. We have long stopped addressing ourselves by our actual names.. we all address by the name she has given us. Its fun. Its fun to be kids again, and its fun to be a part of a make believe world. This is probably the only way to go back to our childhood i guess.. And i did give anything to get back the liberty of childhood !

If only never land were true, if only peter pan were true.. As a kid i believed in the magic of peter pan, and of course Tinker bell... of course when i was young there was this movie called "The Hook" i realised that robin williams was peter pan and julia roberts was Tinker bell..they had nothing to do with being peter pan and tinker bell.. except that they would have made a lot of money...Who ever created Peter Pan, must have been a philosopher.. because i never realised the importance of Peter Pan till i was too old to go to never never land...I had written a poem on Peter pan too.. It was published in one of the university magazines .....I don't know if i have a copy of it any more..Like Elliot said, a true poet is one who continues to write after the age of 25... Now i know i m not... ceased to be one a long time ago.. i don't find enough works to write a poem.. even my thoughts run dry if i think of it..i think peter pan was the last poem to come out of my stable...my last steed.. which ran away never to come back. now my stable is empty...
The only joy is that so long my niece is Happy with me being Nemo, i can go keep going back to my childhood!

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Courtesy

Recent years have rained a bounty of riches on us .. the great Indian middle class! We have been able to make the best use of educational opportunities, the employment opportunities, technology, and generally it has been good times. Being post-liberalisation generation has had its advantage. But if somebody ask me what i miss most these days, i did answer in a second without blinking my eyes.. its courtesy... The simple courtesy of the old world has become too scarce a commodity these days.... I m no exception.. i have lot all the courteous gestures that were part of my upbringing...I get really irritated in traffic jam.. i shout, i hoot and i curse the man who rushed on to my road from absolutely no where, I hate that man who runs across to cross the road. I curse the young mother who's toddler infant ran towards me on the road and made me stop my vehicle. I hate everything that hinders my movement on the road.
I hate the queue at the coffee shop, i hate it when there is a huge crowd at the dhabha...the cheap teas stall.. I hate every one who is part it. In the hostel i hate girls who fail to close the taps when the taps are running dry, I almost scream at people who try to steal water from my bucket! I say 'steal' not 'use'. I consider it offensive.. I get cranky in the morning if i see other girls in our common bathroom complex! And man i remember my senior in the hostel.. the Miss.Snob... or even great who had asked me to close the tap in the sink i was using because her tap was running slow. She probably will be the nicest example for today's topic. There was one more snob in the hostel (thank god both of them have left the hostel.. and it is a much better place to live) Who had this message on the threshold of her room "keep your feet off". My god so intimidating.
We all do it.. don't we. We don't have the courtesy to get up and give our seat when there is a senior citizen around. Let alone that, we don't even wish people whom we meet in the morning.. Worse of all we don't even smile at people walking past us.What will we loose? after all.. it will not cost us anything.

When we talk.. there is absolutely no courtesy! In fact there is no such thing called courtesy even between husband and wife. It all about gathering brownie points and proving who is better.. The husband is at it and so is the wife... Obviously in this race called life we can as well do with out courtesy... right. We can do without many more things too... But would it not be nice for the husband to hold the door open for his lady? Would it not be good to be courteous when you talk? Would it not be? Would it not be a nice idea to be nice to people around? It makes such a big difference when we smile at our neighbours, have a word or two as we open lock of our house? Would it not be nice to not kill people just because you are disoriented in the chaotic traffic? Would it not be nice to let go a people who crawls into the space between our vehicles with a smile rather than a curse? I m sure all these are heart healthy too.. There will be more Blood Pressure tablets to be swallowed.. A little more patience and a little more good will.. should make the difference. We can have a better life.. not by having bigger roads, and bigger houses, but bigger hearts and frequent smiles.
I wish i could make a difference..I wish we could make a difference. I know it is going to hard even for me to smile at strangers..people might think i m crazy.. but then it did make me a better person.. I wish i had a little more of courtesy.I wish there were more people who knew the meaning of courtesy

Sunday, August 12, 2007

Marriage

As i sit here today on this humid and hot Delhi summer afternoon, all i think of is why are wives and girlfriends so demanding?? They crave for attention, they always need their men around them, they want their men to do what they say; Wives particularly try and compete with the mother-in-law trying to prove that she is no less a cook than the senior one, making an effort either prove that "mothers know best" is wrong or "wives too know the best" is right!!

What will the poor man go through? I really cant stop wondering!He must be in a real tight spot. After all what to do.. You cant dance to your wives tune always, you cant always be with her, what will your tennis friends think about you if you skip a match appointment just because your wife wanted to shop for grocery?What will your poker partners say if u skipped an appointment just because u were forced to take you wife to her friend's house?What an embarrassing situation it did be. And men act like fools.. They want to have a good married life, at the same time find sacrificing a few of their bachelorhood privileges. Its after all a well known fact the you cant have your pie and eat it too..After all post marriage is a different ball game altogether. You need to accommodate another person in your space! Why are men so unprepared about this when they think of getting married? I have seen so many men jubilant at the thought of getting married, and spending hours and hours over the telephone with their would be wife.. Till then it is good. Because they don't have to share their personal space then.. all they need to do is spend some money over the phone, with corporate connections, the telephone bills too are moderate these days. These men can afford it. Everything is rosy until after marriage.
Poor thing the girls will have very high expectations from her man, expecting the same kind of importance, the same intensity of longing, the same expression of love and affection even after marriage.. But things change.. When a man and woman has to live under the same roof.. the equation changes..that can be explained using game theory. Since it is a zero sum game there will be a lot of volatility till equilibrium is attained. The man will get familiar with the new wife!! and she grows to be an old wife...familiarity they say breeds contempt... The lone pimple which was earlier 'cute beauty spot' is now grotesque. The slight curl of the upperlip which was earlier like Angelina Jolie is now just a thick upperlip...suddenly the wife appears darker than earlier, more obese than earlier.....And suddenly they start missing their old pals, their booze buddies, the corner cigarette store smoke partners...

Obviously the wife resents this new development. No one would prefer a reduction of their importance..She starts brooding about how good it was earlier..Also how comfortable it was when living with parents, someone did the cooking, someone kept the house, someone managed to keep fresh towels in the bathroom everyday... And now she needs to manage everything, check on the maids, instruct the housekeepers, make sure everything in the household is fine and running, at the same time feel less rewarded for all the efforts. At the same time there is pressure from various other sources.. like in laws.. adjustment problem in the new setup.
Everything makes her feel that she had lost everything, lost the luxury of parents house and had gained unappreciating, stressful and demanding set of people around her for a lifetime.
She starts cribbing and starts expecting at least the husband to be with her, she resents the fact that if she cant go out and meet friends and lead a carefree life like before why should the husband have the privilege? After all its a zero sum game.. If she loose invariably he gains! Why should he have that unfair privilege anyways!
The husband feels he is giving away so much and the wife feels the same... Each one will feel that way and get themselves into a cozy hells!

Well i was intelligent enough to analyse till this point.. Given the limitation of my comprehension, i m not able to think of a solution for this stalemate! If i could my own life would have been so much better!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Mugaru male

I might be a late entrant to the Mungaru Male fan club.. nevertheless, i m bowled over by the music. Somehow being out of Bangalore on and off, i missed out on watching the movies. Surprisingly i also missed out on the music. Somehow i did listen to the music lately and i have become a big fan of the Mr.Mano Murthy's compositions... This morning alone i ended up listening to the album not less than a score of times! My ears started ringing with anisutide yako.. that i judged that i better stop the music and concentrate on my writing instead!
I had read about the controversy on Hindi singers singing Kannada songs. At one point of time i felt that they should not be entertained by the Kannada industry given the surfeit of talent Kannada industry boasts. After listening to Mungaru... i ate my thoughts. No one could have rendered the songs better those who have actually performed. My heart totally went out for Sonu and Udit of course Shreya. I am actually impressed that these singers though not native speakers of the language, they might not even understand even a word of what they are singing, but they have performed so well. The stress' the emotions of the lyrics are so well conveyed. They are true artists not bound by restrictions of language. In fact for that matter. These people have done a better job than Latha Mangeshkar. She had sung a Kannada song a long time back. It was from the movie "Kittur Rani Chennamma" the song was " Bellane Belagayitu". I have not come across a single soul who could understand the lyrics while listening to the song. It sounds more French and Latin than simple and close to heart Kannada. Rafi and Kishore have done much better. Rafi sung "Neenelli nadeve doora" and Kishore sung "Aadu ata adu". Also Salil Chaudhry composed a music for a few movies; of course composition has far lesser limitations created by language barrier.
coming back to Mungaru... I m eager to watch the movie. I only hope to find the movie in one of the theaters in Bangalore when i come home! If nothing i want to watch the visuals of the songs i have heard innumerable times this morning!

Monday, July 16, 2007

Lotus eaters

Wonder how lotus eaters managed to live by doing nothing..At least with the internet things are different.. you can still manage to do nothing but stay away from getting bored. but they did not have internet right! Homer fell short of conceiving something as radical as internet. Poor homer. If there were to be internet in Illiad and Oddessy wonder what would have been the scene.. Probably penelope would have received a mail from ulysses that he has survived the war and that he will be reaching home soon! poor thing she had to sit on the loom for so long till he was back...
And may be Paris would have just indulged in love-chat with Helen and pissed off at her stupidity, only to abandon the idea of eloping with her. After all she was far too stupid to waste an entire lifetime.. when it comes to beauty though 'no comments'.. beauty lies in the eyes of beholder. I did rather like Clytemnestra! She was a gutsy women and probably good looking too.... My heart also goes out to cassandra.. poor thing. But never to Helen.. Her stupidity puts me off strongly.
With the internet cltemnestra would probably assign the contract of killing her husband to some undisclosed 'supari' killer!
But cassandra could not have done much with the internet. she was far ahead of internet with her ability to look into future which the current internet falls short of!
So much for Homer to digest!
cheers to the revolution called internet

Wednesday, July 4, 2007

Cranky Aunts

Aunts can be a blessing in disguise but they can also be a deep pain in the butt... The one like mine.. In fact they come in assorted varieties is what make aunts really be-divined creatures. More over they wield all the power over my own personal mom!!! they can be nosey, they can be over zealous, but still be mom's closest friend. Thats what pisses me off. Here comes a strange lady and takes over my mom and my mom starts acting like crazy as if i had never known her.
Fathers i guess are better equipped to fight this phenomena called aunts. Never seen papa acting crazy when aunts are home.
There are superior breeds as are inferior breeds under the species called aunts. Those belonging to the superior breed confine themselves to minimal intervention into others affairs. Abolute non interference is something unheard of in their lexicon
I guess. Those inferior are absolutely into interference. That means superiority of species is inversely proportionate to interference.
Apart from the interference is the feigned innocence with which we are compared to cousins, neighbours, aunt's neighbours, someone who knows someone who is known to aunt and so on.
'Oh! your son is still in job band B.. i know somone who's someone is already in job band D' or say' my friends daughter made it to IIT, your daughter just made it to the local college' or what ever. Aunts will never run out of comparisions.
Another distinct feature of aunts is their ability to short the circuit. You would not even know if you were there and there will be stories on how you were seen with your male collegue at coffee day, Jayanagar, or say you would not even remeber about a particular episode and suddenly your mom is asking you what you said to someone on that particular day.. or that you have already said something you should not have. Ultimately everything falls on your shoulder and you have to pay for something that you never did. And moms are silly creatures they shed unrequited tears over some false stories circulated on purpose. Even when the whole world can smell a dead putrefying elephant, moms cant figure out the fishy aunt. I m generally bowled and out when my aunts create such situations. Unfortunately for me, they always end up winning. I feel like a puny puppy with tail between its hind legs.How can i survive these creatures. I wish i could. Where can i run when they are omnipotent and omni present? I wish my mom was not under their influence but under the influence of her own reason.
They are also hyper in what ever they do....hyper-love, hyper-control, hyper-complaints, hyper-interference of course hyper-emotions. and what not in the name of LOVE! I wonder if it were LOVE ever, all i can see is a 'god-mother' fairy in SHrek III like character personified. Oh! how i hate them. I wish there was a world where their influence was limited.
For now i need Hyper-energy to put my case in fornt of my mom in the latest round of confrontation between me and the -AUNT!
Wish me luck

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Hindi Serials!!

Got to know that Hindi marathon serial Kyu Ki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi is still on air! Was it not from the jurassic era and the dinosaurs are long gone but Mihirasurus and Tulasiasurus are still there so is Baasaurus! I remeber the initial few episodes. It almost started with Kaun Banega Crorepati probably in 1999-2000. The year i entered college and i had plenty of time to spare, the freedom after board exams!
I wonder how the story writers are stilling keeping the yarn growing and wonder what the TRP these days. It the TRP is still high i cant but pity those who have been watching this serial, it must be just a habit by now rather than for the sake of story or entertainment. Just like having dinner, reading the news paper, answering the natures call!!!Wonder how many episodes are due! afterall we did like to see someother programme on the weekday prime time slot. I remember Mihir was killed in some sort of accident but was recalled because of public demand. And Aman Upadhya was good looking of course. I would have probably coninued watch the show but for Aman Upadhya's mysterious disapperence.... But i m now thankful that Aman was after all gone and i m spared of the torture of watching the show all these years, anyway i m not too patient. However i m surprised that my folks still watch it. One of my elderly aunts is so interested in the serial that she treats Mihir like her own son and Karan is course her darling grandson. Yesterday she was so disappointed that Tulasi is no longer the same face. In fact she is so excited about the serial that i am required to listen to her comments and her point of view everyday. She would have been definitely better at spinning yarn for many more years. It saves me a great deal of time though. I m just required to listen to her once every six months to get to know how the serial is progressing and i m spared of the torture of having to sit in front of the TV and stand all the silly advertisements.
So three cheers to Ekta Kapoor and of course My aunt and all her fellow views.

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Roller Coaster

The other day me and my folks (my in-laws, my husband's cousin and his family) had been to an amusement park close to home. My husband's company had arranged a party there. The food was good, i got my face painted, me and my hubby dear got our caricature done... everything was hunky dory till i got into one of those small, harmless looking roller coaster! I had just finished the rope way- gandola ride across the park. The view was entertaining, i could see a lot of people down below.. and i could somehow forget that i was dangling midair in a small bright red cage! The ropeway did not scare me much, only when the cage started to scale higher did i feel the suspension and the sare! But it was sort OK till then and pumped my confidence, i would have probably agreed to go on an expedition to Mt.Everest basking in the glory of having completed my first amusement park ropeway ride!
Of all the rollercoaster i figured out the smallest one, my hubby, his brother, his cousin and the cousin's wife were already in a queue to enjoy the ride. I did not hesitate much in joining them. We stood there in the queue; I could see my husband was a bit nervous, he is also not the amusement park type! We stood there looking at others in the queue.. the women wearing a deep blouse that was expected to conceal less and expose more, the guy whoes hands were covered with Tattoo, the wierd looking teenager covered with jewellry of all sorts, the scary wizard looking oldish man... and little kids who were so puny i was half afraid that they would fall off the rollercoaster when it turned turtle.
Looking at all those in the queue i became more and more eager to get on the ride! well well well i had to wait, the queue was pretty long. My husband at the same time had estimated the time duration of the ride. It was less than 2 minutes. 'Thats fine' i said, two minutes will just be over in a flash..
After the long wait we were able to get into the roller coaster. The last word i heard was from the guy staffing ride "have a thrilling day ma'am"... thats was all i remembered .. the tram crept up the tracks and i saw my mother-in-law waving at us from down below and i could also see my husband's cousin waving at mother-in-law below.. .my husband sitting beside me was screeming at the top of his lungs.. well i should say, he was howling .. had never seen him do that before... then the roller coaster went spinning.. i could no longer keep my eyes open..the whole world was spinning and my head was banging against the safety cover and thats it. the less than two minutes looked like 2 long years... in bewteen the tram slowed downand we were again hoisted mid air at a right angle. a sudden crash followed by a backward tracing of the path we had taken. Thats it. all i remember was 'Krishna, govinda and his thousand names'
When the tram came to a grinding halt, i lept out of the car as if it was a monster. My head was still spinning, i was giddy, i felt nausea; poor things y folks had a tough time trying to calm me down....That was it once bitten i was ever shy that was my last ride in the park.. but loads of fun was in store for me.
My husband dared to go for one more ride, he and our gang went to this ride called ship wreck, it was boat crashing into water with water jets all around.. the fun part was we were able to control the jets.. so i did.. the minute the boat appeared i was standing there all smiles with the push button to get the water jet started!it was fun, my husband and his cousins were totaly drenched in water. heeheheh that was enough to make me feel better again....
That was my advanture at an amusement park...But then there were a few more rides...thats could twist my intestine into knots just by the looks of it.. There were these rides superman, batman and mind eraser...man wonder what makes people get into rides like that! i could not even look at those rides let alone ride them. They were not only long but they looked so much like a dead monster's decaying remains. Gosh! not only that there were huge queues to got to these rides... did not convince me...i felt chicken hearted, yet i was better off not having a 'thrilling ride' .....My husband was also disturbed...He too felt chicken hearted as well. Poor thing his masculine ego was hurt. He was cribbing that even women, senior citizens and kids were riding!after all the cribbing, we suddenly discovered that there were many games that promised soft toys..we decided to attack...My husband won the hammer banging game, he hit the right spot and i won a piglet!!! He also managed to get the right ballon with a dart. I got a sweety bird and a Scooby Doo.. the best part was the puppy.. we managed win a puppy in the dart game again. We also lost a lot of money in the game that had huge tigers and lions for prizes... It was all about rows of glass bottles and a small bangle which had to be thrown like a ring onto the bottle neck. We tried sixty attempts but did not succeed. I was disappointed, but i managed to spot a man sitting with the cute lion near the rest area. He was kind enough to oblige a picture of me with his lion. The best part of course was the cartoon characters...Tweety bird was sooo sweet, so was scooby doo,bugs bunny and daffy...
Apart from the roller coaster, it was a good outing. i might never go back to those rides, but the soft toys are definitely something that can lure me again!!!