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!