Indian as a ‘color’ took a seat on an American bus about the same time outsourcing empowered us with enough funds to buy a ticket to ride. It’s when skinhead attacks begin to emerge from the so-far friendly Russian snows, that one must begin to wonder if we are not doing enough to package our third world accounts in first world banks, better.
American outbursts were hardly unexpected, given the history of prejudice and serial attempts at keeping out Asians through bills in the early half of the 20th century. Aftershocks of the anti-Japanese sentiment of the 80s and 90s, directed towards Japanese workers ‘stealing’ Detroit’s auto industry, is still not all gone. Toyota’s April meet with a declining General Motors saw the Japanese giant express fears that their rise against GMs wane would spark a racial backlash. Unwilling to revisit the difficult decades, Toyota urged workers to put their heads down and do their best to not be caught out on any count. It is ignorance to ignore history, and folly to discount chances of its repetition.
Indian BPO workers who started the boom have clogged portals with individual instances of racism—ranging from tones of voice, and snide comments to more direct rebukes of work and person for no apparent reason. BPOs have worked hard at training employees to be culturally, grammatically, and politically correct when dealing with foreign clients, and in the method of dealing with potential racists without cost to company profit. These efforts have been backed by concerted efforts at the level of the ministry of IT and NASSCOM, who have played cultural ambassadors as much as strategic economists.
The fact of the ‘I was Bangalored’ T-shirt one-liner has become a symbol not merely of the angst, but the undercurrent of humour that the effort has managed to generate. That and the IITian Asok of Dilbert fame, tangentially pinpoint the stray streams of goodwill India still holds, as opposed to outright resentment. So much for the countries we outsource to.
The new frontier that public diplomacy needs to tackle must go beyond these countries where the gold mines lie. India’s cultural diplomats now need to address the growing concerns of countries like China and Russia that rival and seek to emulate India’s success at outsourcing. Recognising and if possible aligning with parallel streams of equally cheap labour and streamlined talent could be a start. Symptoms of the feverish sentiment need to be treated with a healthy dose of diplomacy, stylish propaganda, and a slap-on-the-back reminder that former friends can be the best allies in the war against racism.
Thursday, March 02, 2006
Stem cell research
The ethics of stem cell research has reached a level of final mutation. The questionable work ethic of Korean scientist Hwang Woo-suk in cloning Snuppy has, contrary to sceptical opinion, served to unify the cacophony of global researchers into two practically divergent groups—those opposed to the ethics of using embryonic cells who want it stopped, and those in favour of research who agree it requires an ethical way in which to proceed. Devotees of the pragmatism will agree that that leaves us with only one way forward—find that elusive ethical path.
The reason for urging this clarity is simple—putting an end to the possibilities of a solution that may emerge from stem cell research contradicts scientific temperament. Given advancements in medical science, and the hope of many suffering from degenerative terminal diseases, suggesting ceasing research is akin to shutting the door on the unseen cure. While scientists are made to grope with justifying the ends, it is the means that are the dubious area that recent controversy has served to highlight.
Science magazine, like other luminary counterparts in the world of published research, used tried and tested means of testing—including peer reviews and rigorous data analysis. The one loophole it failed in is questioning the source or authenticity of collected and presented data. The simplest solution—to examine the individual researcher’s credentials and ethic—is not the ideal solution. It is primarily the system that makes published research a high stakes game, involving billions of dollars worth of funding and patents annually, leave alone credit and kudo rewards that is the culprit here.
In the high stakes game of stem cell research, India is categorised as a ‘permissive’ nation ie one where almost no policies are in place for the research. The LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad is one of the earliest to have used stem cell research in treatment. Ajit Jogi kicked up a global research uproar when he revealed his paralysis was improving when treated with stem cell medical advancements conducted by Delhi-based doctor Geeta Shroff. That the UK is also classified ‘permissive’ does not however absolve us of accountability for the classification but holds our checks and balances up to formidable comparison. While the lack of religious fundamentalists objecting to continuing scientific research has proven a boon to the progress of the stream in India, we must guard against the lack of its inherent checks and balances. India needs a stringent policy against the quack-shop or fly-by-night research station.
Given the current lack of guidelines, the role of the media in touting the success of Snuppy especially needs to be discretionary. As research advances, rushing to get the scoop on petrol from water is one thing, but offering up hope to thousands of terminally ill across the globe is quite another. Indian research journals need to work overtime not only to authenticate information before waking up to the hungry hack, but, to ensure the death of the spurious cell, let the media know who’s word is law in the gene pool.
The reason for urging this clarity is simple—putting an end to the possibilities of a solution that may emerge from stem cell research contradicts scientific temperament. Given advancements in medical science, and the hope of many suffering from degenerative terminal diseases, suggesting ceasing research is akin to shutting the door on the unseen cure. While scientists are made to grope with justifying the ends, it is the means that are the dubious area that recent controversy has served to highlight.
Science magazine, like other luminary counterparts in the world of published research, used tried and tested means of testing—including peer reviews and rigorous data analysis. The one loophole it failed in is questioning the source or authenticity of collected and presented data. The simplest solution—to examine the individual researcher’s credentials and ethic—is not the ideal solution. It is primarily the system that makes published research a high stakes game, involving billions of dollars worth of funding and patents annually, leave alone credit and kudo rewards that is the culprit here.
In the high stakes game of stem cell research, India is categorised as a ‘permissive’ nation ie one where almost no policies are in place for the research. The LV Prasad Eye Institute in Hyderabad is one of the earliest to have used stem cell research in treatment. Ajit Jogi kicked up a global research uproar when he revealed his paralysis was improving when treated with stem cell medical advancements conducted by Delhi-based doctor Geeta Shroff. That the UK is also classified ‘permissive’ does not however absolve us of accountability for the classification but holds our checks and balances up to formidable comparison. While the lack of religious fundamentalists objecting to continuing scientific research has proven a boon to the progress of the stream in India, we must guard against the lack of its inherent checks and balances. India needs a stringent policy against the quack-shop or fly-by-night research station.
Given the current lack of guidelines, the role of the media in touting the success of Snuppy especially needs to be discretionary. As research advances, rushing to get the scoop on petrol from water is one thing, but offering up hope to thousands of terminally ill across the globe is quite another. Indian research journals need to work overtime not only to authenticate information before waking up to the hungry hack, but, to ensure the death of the spurious cell, let the media know who’s word is law in the gene pool.
Wake up to the born-agains
By yearend 2005, no Marriott hotel anywhere in the world will own a floral bedsheet. Minimalist white duvets or triple sheeting are the new step up. The homely neighbourhood bank BOB’s no longer your uncle, now offering incisive expert advice to an investment-eager Rahul Dravid. And it’s a vividly attention-seeking ‘Indian’ sun that will be blazing off an intensely crowded tarmac.
In a move akin to stepping out of the sandals and into stilettos, makeover mania is taking corporate vision from reliable and sturdy to the realm of the hip. Problem is, in the meanwhile brand consulting has moved from making over a company, to making over merely the perception of it. When Indonesia’s Airline Awair changed tracks to Indonesia Airasia, the reason cited was to increase service quality. Anil Khandelwal Bank of Baroda’s chairman has described how the new brand image has forced the bank to up the ante. When Phillips worldwide famously stagnated with its ‘Making things better’ slogan, in 2002 company chief executive, Gerard Kleisterlee, acknowledged, that what the company needed was not just a new advertising campaign and a rebranding exercise, but a transformation.
While Indian’s move to acquire new A319s and lease A320s next year will increase its fleet capacity, and prides itself on its in-flight food, the born-again airline will do well to remember that passengers are more likely to be skeptical about the quality of service and so far marginalised features such as timeliness.
Even as IDBI strives to picture itself in a think big bubble, companies around the country are pushing the perception envelope in an economy that is boosting expectations all around. A spanking new image is fine way to break from the past and discover a new energy for functioning as long as it does not come as merely an empty shell to a disappointingly unchangeable inside. Insurance companies that drew strength from a monotheistic closed market and that opened to FDI are still largely bound by original practices and principals. Banks that move to compete in image with successful financial institutions should contrast the colours, logo, hoardings and flashy ATM/credit cards and related telemarketing campaigns to the stringent standards and security measures that the institutions are based upon.
Loopholes and lapses occur primarily in security measures, adherence to codes of conduct, ethical standards, assessment protocol, and employee satisfaction. Companies that focus on reducing employee attrition rates, and improve focus on all-around staff training have a better chance at holding down for the long run than the feel-good power boosters. Bigger brands, younger images, and higher recall values are great, but as they say, there’s nothing anything as good as word of mouth publicity. A delayed flight and tea come cold no matter how vibrant remains just that—disappointingly delayed. It’s not an aftertaste worth spending big branding bucks for.
In a move akin to stepping out of the sandals and into stilettos, makeover mania is taking corporate vision from reliable and sturdy to the realm of the hip. Problem is, in the meanwhile brand consulting has moved from making over a company, to making over merely the perception of it. When Indonesia’s Airline Awair changed tracks to Indonesia Airasia, the reason cited was to increase service quality. Anil Khandelwal Bank of Baroda’s chairman has described how the new brand image has forced the bank to up the ante. When Phillips worldwide famously stagnated with its ‘Making things better’ slogan, in 2002 company chief executive, Gerard Kleisterlee, acknowledged, that what the company needed was not just a new advertising campaign and a rebranding exercise, but a transformation.
While Indian’s move to acquire new A319s and lease A320s next year will increase its fleet capacity, and prides itself on its in-flight food, the born-again airline will do well to remember that passengers are more likely to be skeptical about the quality of service and so far marginalised features such as timeliness.
Even as IDBI strives to picture itself in a think big bubble, companies around the country are pushing the perception envelope in an economy that is boosting expectations all around. A spanking new image is fine way to break from the past and discover a new energy for functioning as long as it does not come as merely an empty shell to a disappointingly unchangeable inside. Insurance companies that drew strength from a monotheistic closed market and that opened to FDI are still largely bound by original practices and principals. Banks that move to compete in image with successful financial institutions should contrast the colours, logo, hoardings and flashy ATM/credit cards and related telemarketing campaigns to the stringent standards and security measures that the institutions are based upon.
Loopholes and lapses occur primarily in security measures, adherence to codes of conduct, ethical standards, assessment protocol, and employee satisfaction. Companies that focus on reducing employee attrition rates, and improve focus on all-around staff training have a better chance at holding down for the long run than the feel-good power boosters. Bigger brands, younger images, and higher recall values are great, but as they say, there’s nothing anything as good as word of mouth publicity. A delayed flight and tea come cold no matter how vibrant remains just that—disappointingly delayed. It’s not an aftertaste worth spending big branding bucks for.
When the Shy Guy inherits the Earth
The meek shall inherit the earth. Some day. One supposes. When all that can have been said has been said. When all cocktail parties shall have long lapsed into the awkward silence that is the domain of the tongue tied. When the reign of the People Persons shall have ended. Until such a day, the only-too eager conversation of the glib talker will continue to seal over the pause that might have been the shy guy’s only chance to make that degree, clinch that deal, get his girl, and generally alter the course of his life.
Right from the bespectacled teacher shrewdly observing pre-primary interviewees for signs of garrulousness, for ‘eye-contact’, and ‘ability to communicate with peers’, ‘ability to communicate with adults’ etc, etc; to the esteemed panelist on the IIM–A GD selection committee, the individual’s future is decided by his ability to pointedly not be shy, in fact, to how well he opens mouth and interrupts with flawlessly worded and well-twanged witticisms. Your image could well lie in one impeccably-worded quote, suitable for repetition at future soirees.
The in-the-shadows status of the reticent has never before been so violently challenged. People Persons began to fill the world out of the nozzle of a garden hose pipe began with a bang in 1937, when the first edition of How to win Friends and Influence People pushed the shy guy over the edge by offering him a once in a lifetime chance to redeem himself and build what he never new he could acquire before: people skills. The phenomenon also built the foundation for that dreaded dilbertian human resources, and armed it with a fresh new tool with which to surely and definitely edge the shy guy sideways out of job opportunities, plum project presentations, and the best of future education. Where the shy guy persisted, training was used. ‘You can change’ it screamed at him, naturally and so perfunctorily assuming that the shy guy of course, would want to, in time leading him to believe in it himself. The beginnings of sitcoms, the superstardom of the laugh-a-minute scriptwriter, and television talk show hosts of the 80s and 90s piled on the pressure. A measure of this lies in the success of the king of talk show hosts himself; Jimmy Carson, self admittedly reticent, and nervously shy.
Unlike Carson, most shy people under such duress, more often than not, put their feet in it. An alumnus of Rishi Valley school, then in the 7th standard, described the newly admitted Rahul Gandhi, who had just joined the school after his father’s assassination, as painfully introverted, reclusive and sometimes, even a little lost. Rahul Gandhi’s by-now infamous remark on being PM has by now probably taken its toll. The well oiled party public relations machinery will have ensured that the little heir to the throne of India makes no such faux pas, and probably with a much updated version of a Carnegie-like precision, will ensure that the shy guy’s next public appearance is a well orchestrated stringing together of impeccable quotes. Rahul Gandhi on his way to being a People Person.
Where once the media obsessed over beauty alone, today beauty queens practice and are trained in the art of letting quotes slip. Looking good is now rarely enough. Sounding good and looking like you enjoy it all, is everything. Thus the co worker who mingles is seen as manager material as opposed to the diligent introvert.
The Philosophy of the People Persons has permeated neighbourhood focus groups, television serials, films, music, schools, colleges and work places. Children are prompted to sing, dance and think their way out of shyness. It is always cool to be part of the crowd, and to be the center of it is better. Where you have failed to achieve this are classes, seminars, workshops, to make you more confident, more vocal, more outgoing, and more gregarious. Soon, your life too, they promise, will be part of the glossy advertisement on the hoarding.
That’s not to say there is anything wrong with naturally being a People Person. The People Person per se is a fine phenomenon as long as he does not become hysterically infectious and a mandatory standard of judgement in place of talent, merit and thought.
There is probably a good reason why the top rung of Indian industry, from the famously reticent Ratan Tata whom skeptics vowed was not aggressive enough to lead the empire he inherited, to the world’s richest Indian Azim Premji, Infosys’ Narayan Murthy, who got his gal, and the billionaire Nandan Nilekani, are all inexplicably shy men. You just think the meek have still not inherited the earth. The shy guys prefer it that way.
Right from the bespectacled teacher shrewdly observing pre-primary interviewees for signs of garrulousness, for ‘eye-contact’, and ‘ability to communicate with peers’, ‘ability to communicate with adults’ etc, etc; to the esteemed panelist on the IIM–A GD selection committee, the individual’s future is decided by his ability to pointedly not be shy, in fact, to how well he opens mouth and interrupts with flawlessly worded and well-twanged witticisms. Your image could well lie in one impeccably-worded quote, suitable for repetition at future soirees.
The in-the-shadows status of the reticent has never before been so violently challenged. People Persons began to fill the world out of the nozzle of a garden hose pipe began with a bang in 1937, when the first edition of How to win Friends and Influence People pushed the shy guy over the edge by offering him a once in a lifetime chance to redeem himself and build what he never new he could acquire before: people skills. The phenomenon also built the foundation for that dreaded dilbertian human resources, and armed it with a fresh new tool with which to surely and definitely edge the shy guy sideways out of job opportunities, plum project presentations, and the best of future education. Where the shy guy persisted, training was used. ‘You can change’ it screamed at him, naturally and so perfunctorily assuming that the shy guy of course, would want to, in time leading him to believe in it himself. The beginnings of sitcoms, the superstardom of the laugh-a-minute scriptwriter, and television talk show hosts of the 80s and 90s piled on the pressure. A measure of this lies in the success of the king of talk show hosts himself; Jimmy Carson, self admittedly reticent, and nervously shy.
Unlike Carson, most shy people under such duress, more often than not, put their feet in it. An alumnus of Rishi Valley school, then in the 7th standard, described the newly admitted Rahul Gandhi, who had just joined the school after his father’s assassination, as painfully introverted, reclusive and sometimes, even a little lost. Rahul Gandhi’s by-now infamous remark on being PM has by now probably taken its toll. The well oiled party public relations machinery will have ensured that the little heir to the throne of India makes no such faux pas, and probably with a much updated version of a Carnegie-like precision, will ensure that the shy guy’s next public appearance is a well orchestrated stringing together of impeccable quotes. Rahul Gandhi on his way to being a People Person.
Where once the media obsessed over beauty alone, today beauty queens practice and are trained in the art of letting quotes slip. Looking good is now rarely enough. Sounding good and looking like you enjoy it all, is everything. Thus the co worker who mingles is seen as manager material as opposed to the diligent introvert.
The Philosophy of the People Persons has permeated neighbourhood focus groups, television serials, films, music, schools, colleges and work places. Children are prompted to sing, dance and think their way out of shyness. It is always cool to be part of the crowd, and to be the center of it is better. Where you have failed to achieve this are classes, seminars, workshops, to make you more confident, more vocal, more outgoing, and more gregarious. Soon, your life too, they promise, will be part of the glossy advertisement on the hoarding.
That’s not to say there is anything wrong with naturally being a People Person. The People Person per se is a fine phenomenon as long as he does not become hysterically infectious and a mandatory standard of judgement in place of talent, merit and thought.
There is probably a good reason why the top rung of Indian industry, from the famously reticent Ratan Tata whom skeptics vowed was not aggressive enough to lead the empire he inherited, to the world’s richest Indian Azim Premji, Infosys’ Narayan Murthy, who got his gal, and the billionaire Nandan Nilekani, are all inexplicably shy men. You just think the meek have still not inherited the earth. The shy guys prefer it that way.
The Indian Christmas metaphor
When the Grinch stole Christmas, he put it in to the stockings of those to whom it does not belong. It hovers in an unlikely air in unlikely lands, seeping into spirits like rum into plum cake, in the Santa caps on beggars at traffic lights, in lopsided synthetic trees at copy-cat malls, incessant elevator music, and FM radio channels with regional commentary. In the hill-stations, it roams the British clubs with mock-up colonial balls inducing hangovers centuries old. On the plains, it lurks in five star brunch menus and Gujarati eggless-plum-cake-only bakeries, in fast selling bottles of sweet white wine, and gaily decorated baskets of chocolates. On the coasts and by the palm-fringed beaches, it sweetens binging by the sea and tripping to bhangra pop. What with kandils and ‘Merry New Year’ Apna Bazaar wishes, stockings stuffed with bangles and mithai, you can excuse Santa for parking on the wrong roof and wondering why he got towed. And yet, the Indian Christmas is a year-end metaphor that brings together the hotch-potch of the naughty and nice of the year past, and the fact that we launch ourselves into a new year with an 8 per cent GDP in our stockings is proof enough that we were just so darned good.
The sub-continental Christmas is not merely an excuse to start the party a week ahead of time. The spirit of it borrows heavily—much in the Indian tradition of borrowing a cup of milk from a neighbour, or a tenner from a dinner guest—from the themes of bonhomie, camaraderie, hope, joy, sacrifice and its due reward. It justifies the globalised economy—it is the homecoming of making merry, slapping backs, kissing air, dancing dirty, shopping plenty, wearing little, and eating lots. It blends into the Indian psyche by being the one western thought we as a celebratory nation understand at the grass-roots, though if they’d let us have the copyright, we’d up the global noise quotient a bit with a band or cracker or two.
And who needs religion to own its metaphors? Many children here are born into little more than piles of hay or straw, or even mud. Where there were horses, or donkeys, there may, even now, be cows, or goat, or pigs. Often, there is little privacy, and much noise. Unsanitary conditions, and only the help of a kindly mid wife at hand. Often, for the few outside pristine white hospital walls, there are few visitors but much kindness, and still, much elation at the birth of a child, any child at all. The cry at birth is an event, that in India, despite all population concerns the UN consistently reports each year, is heralded by the joy of a community that knowingly nods its collective head. ‘Ah, they had a son, those Ibrahims/Patels/Iyers/Shenoys/Singhs” one might say, and absently go about one’s business. There is something about a virgin mother, a census and a birth that just fits right in to the subcontinent. Irrespective of conversions, missionaries and Christianity, India would have still joined the party when Christ was born.
India is always game for a miracle. And even though parliament has banned the propagation of superstition, you will still find eager parents looking for ‘good signs’ that herald and dot the arrival of their newborn—the full moon, the day of the month, the position of the stars, the time of the night, the behaviour of animals and sightings of birds, music, even untimely sneezes, let alone flashes of light. And voices from above are highly believable to a nation that still watches a baby monkey lift a mountain to box office success. Indira on a flying chariot from the sun doesn’t raise eyebrows, so why should santa on a sleigh from the North Pole?
And probably where the blend is perfected, Christmas is where the true crossover takes place—where Bollywood meets Hollywood in the true tradition of Yash Raj/Karan Johar films. We more than understand the decades-old Hollywood beamed excuse of ‘It’s Christmas’ for everything from dysfunctional families reunited with lessons learned, misunderstandings healed, old friends hugging, and that all-encompassing and serendipitous stringing together of lovers who’ve conquered all. A ‘The End’ to the year begins under a twinkling star that seals our perfect ending with a sigh that we share with the rest of the globe.
The sub-continental Christmas is not merely an excuse to start the party a week ahead of time. The spirit of it borrows heavily—much in the Indian tradition of borrowing a cup of milk from a neighbour, or a tenner from a dinner guest—from the themes of bonhomie, camaraderie, hope, joy, sacrifice and its due reward. It justifies the globalised economy—it is the homecoming of making merry, slapping backs, kissing air, dancing dirty, shopping plenty, wearing little, and eating lots. It blends into the Indian psyche by being the one western thought we as a celebratory nation understand at the grass-roots, though if they’d let us have the copyright, we’d up the global noise quotient a bit with a band or cracker or two.
And who needs religion to own its metaphors? Many children here are born into little more than piles of hay or straw, or even mud. Where there were horses, or donkeys, there may, even now, be cows, or goat, or pigs. Often, there is little privacy, and much noise. Unsanitary conditions, and only the help of a kindly mid wife at hand. Often, for the few outside pristine white hospital walls, there are few visitors but much kindness, and still, much elation at the birth of a child, any child at all. The cry at birth is an event, that in India, despite all population concerns the UN consistently reports each year, is heralded by the joy of a community that knowingly nods its collective head. ‘Ah, they had a son, those Ibrahims/Patels/Iyers/Shenoys/Singhs” one might say, and absently go about one’s business. There is something about a virgin mother, a census and a birth that just fits right in to the subcontinent. Irrespective of conversions, missionaries and Christianity, India would have still joined the party when Christ was born.
India is always game for a miracle. And even though parliament has banned the propagation of superstition, you will still find eager parents looking for ‘good signs’ that herald and dot the arrival of their newborn—the full moon, the day of the month, the position of the stars, the time of the night, the behaviour of animals and sightings of birds, music, even untimely sneezes, let alone flashes of light. And voices from above are highly believable to a nation that still watches a baby monkey lift a mountain to box office success. Indira on a flying chariot from the sun doesn’t raise eyebrows, so why should santa on a sleigh from the North Pole?
And probably where the blend is perfected, Christmas is where the true crossover takes place—where Bollywood meets Hollywood in the true tradition of Yash Raj/Karan Johar films. We more than understand the decades-old Hollywood beamed excuse of ‘It’s Christmas’ for everything from dysfunctional families reunited with lessons learned, misunderstandings healed, old friends hugging, and that all-encompassing and serendipitous stringing together of lovers who’ve conquered all. A ‘The End’ to the year begins under a twinkling star that seals our perfect ending with a sigh that we share with the rest of the globe.
The Other Woman
(Before you'll get all het up over this one - this was a failed and much attempted work of fiction a column for a friend - by attempting to get into the mind of 'the other woman' - i was writing a series for a local paper on Germaine Greer, Women in Mumbai and Sex in The city was a rage. This is the failed outcome)
No, I own no manolos, unless you’re counting that gorgeous blond I met on Lake Garda two summers ago, but he just drove my bus, and nope, that’s not figurative, just wishful reality. But as the other woman of long standing, as Greer would have put it, and the appearance of one far too dumpy and dull—(I take the BEST to work every morning wondering if the women I jostle against can tell I spent last night discovering he on page 3 just doesn’t have the right moves)—to lead the exciting double life I do. I who own no Channels, Pradas or Guccis, no tell tale multiple rings on multiple fingers, and who for effect, wear sneakers with silk skirts. I, who have, not been anywhere abroad on vacation for over four years now for pete’s sake, yes I hold secrets and the living hope that I won’t get bumped off for them. Single mom, stunning divorcee (yes, I got attitude, you got a problem with that?), trudging employee, wishful and wistful wannabe by day, by night I move from popping TV dinners in microwaves and wiping my child’s burp off my only Laura Ashleys discount as they may be, counting my pennies on to a fishnet stockings and gauloises, a gift from my previous French lover at the millionaires club by the South Bombay seas.
I stalk the lives and dreams of millionaire men by tapping, or so I have been told, their nurturing instinct. I am their Lolita, their darkest secret, the woman with socks around her ankles to whom they regress from their overtly spotlight ridden and cleavage-besieged lives. I do not have time for their stabilities, and I scorn who they have become, so they stop and wonder what it is that can allure me at all, if all they have, is never enough. The allure is that they can catch me not. That and the comfort of offering me their lives and bank balances, secure that a withdrawal, emotional or otherwise, will never be made.
The next time you step on my foot in a crowded bus, look at me. I look like you. And yet, I am the woman who cringes when Oprah stares at the line-up of cheating husbands, recognising the lack of understanding of the phenomenon in her eyes. It’s one thing the woman doesn’t get. I am also the one looking at the straying husbands’ self flagellation made palid on screen, thinking men are dogs—spineless for a meal. If only their wives knew what they became when they were with me. The purity of pride, the love, the emotion- have you seen a man believe in himself? Never, I bet you, as when he does in his secret world. The mistress sees what a wife never does—that spark that makes the dream of a man, even for a moment in time, his reality.
Maybe it’s the famed je ne sais quoi that gets them to me. Like the millionaire and the hooker story, maybe it’s the hope that I will never be in a position to reveal all. The commitment phobia that I might be responsible for the success and security of my own domestic turf is a responsibility I can do without comes through all too clear. I like them coming to me ready starched and fed. I smell the washing powder on their socks as I make love to their feet. Do wives not know? Do they not sense the otherness in their man’s eyes? I walk into PTA meets and wonder, as one boyfriend once told me, do so-upright teachers and work-worried ‘other’ women smell the smug satisfaction of satiating sex on me? It’s the scent I wear.
No, I own no manolos, unless you’re counting that gorgeous blond I met on Lake Garda two summers ago, but he just drove my bus, and nope, that’s not figurative, just wishful reality. But as the other woman of long standing, as Greer would have put it, and the appearance of one far too dumpy and dull—(I take the BEST to work every morning wondering if the women I jostle against can tell I spent last night discovering he on page 3 just doesn’t have the right moves)—to lead the exciting double life I do. I who own no Channels, Pradas or Guccis, no tell tale multiple rings on multiple fingers, and who for effect, wear sneakers with silk skirts. I, who have, not been anywhere abroad on vacation for over four years now for pete’s sake, yes I hold secrets and the living hope that I won’t get bumped off for them. Single mom, stunning divorcee (yes, I got attitude, you got a problem with that?), trudging employee, wishful and wistful wannabe by day, by night I move from popping TV dinners in microwaves and wiping my child’s burp off my only Laura Ashleys discount as they may be, counting my pennies on to a fishnet stockings and gauloises, a gift from my previous French lover at the millionaires club by the South Bombay seas.
I stalk the lives and dreams of millionaire men by tapping, or so I have been told, their nurturing instinct. I am their Lolita, their darkest secret, the woman with socks around her ankles to whom they regress from their overtly spotlight ridden and cleavage-besieged lives. I do not have time for their stabilities, and I scorn who they have become, so they stop and wonder what it is that can allure me at all, if all they have, is never enough. The allure is that they can catch me not. That and the comfort of offering me their lives and bank balances, secure that a withdrawal, emotional or otherwise, will never be made.
The next time you step on my foot in a crowded bus, look at me. I look like you. And yet, I am the woman who cringes when Oprah stares at the line-up of cheating husbands, recognising the lack of understanding of the phenomenon in her eyes. It’s one thing the woman doesn’t get. I am also the one looking at the straying husbands’ self flagellation made palid on screen, thinking men are dogs—spineless for a meal. If only their wives knew what they became when they were with me. The purity of pride, the love, the emotion- have you seen a man believe in himself? Never, I bet you, as when he does in his secret world. The mistress sees what a wife never does—that spark that makes the dream of a man, even for a moment in time, his reality.
Maybe it’s the famed je ne sais quoi that gets them to me. Like the millionaire and the hooker story, maybe it’s the hope that I will never be in a position to reveal all. The commitment phobia that I might be responsible for the success and security of my own domestic turf is a responsibility I can do without comes through all too clear. I like them coming to me ready starched and fed. I smell the washing powder on their socks as I make love to their feet. Do wives not know? Do they not sense the otherness in their man’s eyes? I walk into PTA meets and wonder, as one boyfriend once told me, do so-upright teachers and work-worried ‘other’ women smell the smug satisfaction of satiating sex on me? It’s the scent I wear.
Blowing a booze fuse
Senior bank executives, bad-boy actors, and yuppie sons of wealthy industrialists come second only to a whopping 65 per cent of economically empowered 35-year-olds on two-wheelers at night. This cross section of society is a steadily increasing statistic of drunken drivers.
Key effects of a booming economy making themselves manifest in India currently are a seemingly unrelated twofold: A marked change in alcohol consumption patterns and an increase in the road accident rate. A January study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences showed an alarming demographic change—of 2300 students surveyed, 15 per cent consume alcohol, with ages of initiation as low as eight.
The upswing in the economy means lifestyles are changing. The liquor industry experienced an increase of 15 per cent last year alone. Brands are surreptitiously advertised, but the effects of liquor are not. For instance, it is a wide misconception that alcohol is a stimulant, whereas in medical terms it is but a ‘primary and continuous depressant’. Its effect on the central nervous system is that of a general anaesthetic. The ‘coolness’ of drink is not balanced with an awareness of ‘how to’ be drunk or tell you how many pegs will get you to the legal limit. And the blanket ban on liquor advertising does nothing to help the cause, rather it propagates the myth.
According to the World Health Organisation, countries with booming economies see an increase in road accident rates thanks to factors such as drunken driving and increased purchasing power. Rates typically ease only when the economy becomes rich enough to put in costly measures to moderate the slaughter. According to a 2002 World Bank study, given a steady rate of economic growth, the country won’t hit the critical point at which road death rates begin to improve until 2049. The math is horrific when you consider the 80,000 fatalities the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, says occur annually.
There are two areas that currently fail to hem in the upsurge—the first is a concerted effort to advertise the effects of alcohol. The second of course are laws that penalise the incidence of drunken driving. While the Motor Vehicle Act stipulates a stringent 0.3 per cent of Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) as opposed to USA’s 0.8 per cent, as illegal, and upto six months in prison for an offender or a fine of Rs 2000, the price of a few offending pegs, the law fails to be implemented in spirit. Oft cited excuses range from the lack of testing equipment to a diminished nocturnal khakhi presence. With alcohol revenues forming upto 10 per cent of most state’s tax revenues, and given the growth of the industry, banning advertising and these excuses are akin to burying one’s head in the sand. Awareness, equipment, and control, on both sides of the law, are what the doctor orders.
Key effects of a booming economy making themselves manifest in India currently are a seemingly unrelated twofold: A marked change in alcohol consumption patterns and an increase in the road accident rate. A January study by the All India Institute of Medical Sciences showed an alarming demographic change—of 2300 students surveyed, 15 per cent consume alcohol, with ages of initiation as low as eight.
The upswing in the economy means lifestyles are changing. The liquor industry experienced an increase of 15 per cent last year alone. Brands are surreptitiously advertised, but the effects of liquor are not. For instance, it is a wide misconception that alcohol is a stimulant, whereas in medical terms it is but a ‘primary and continuous depressant’. Its effect on the central nervous system is that of a general anaesthetic. The ‘coolness’ of drink is not balanced with an awareness of ‘how to’ be drunk or tell you how many pegs will get you to the legal limit. And the blanket ban on liquor advertising does nothing to help the cause, rather it propagates the myth.
According to the World Health Organisation, countries with booming economies see an increase in road accident rates thanks to factors such as drunken driving and increased purchasing power. Rates typically ease only when the economy becomes rich enough to put in costly measures to moderate the slaughter. According to a 2002 World Bank study, given a steady rate of economic growth, the country won’t hit the critical point at which road death rates begin to improve until 2049. The math is horrific when you consider the 80,000 fatalities the Central Road Research Institute, New Delhi, says occur annually.
There are two areas that currently fail to hem in the upsurge—the first is a concerted effort to advertise the effects of alcohol. The second of course are laws that penalise the incidence of drunken driving. While the Motor Vehicle Act stipulates a stringent 0.3 per cent of Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) as opposed to USA’s 0.8 per cent, as illegal, and upto six months in prison for an offender or a fine of Rs 2000, the price of a few offending pegs, the law fails to be implemented in spirit. Oft cited excuses range from the lack of testing equipment to a diminished nocturnal khakhi presence. With alcohol revenues forming upto 10 per cent of most state’s tax revenues, and given the growth of the industry, banning advertising and these excuses are akin to burying one’s head in the sand. Awareness, equipment, and control, on both sides of the law, are what the doctor orders.
Stepmoms and other fairytales
What would Bollywood be without villains and fairy tales without step mothers? Society needs a flagellation post to lock up the bevy of beauties, separate the happy couples, and shower nastiness on good little children. If good must triumph over evil, then evil must be suitably built up and cloaked to boot, preferably with beauty, brains, and a good deal of hidden hissing. But then, the divorce rate went up worldwide, and children all over needed moms, step or otherwise. Hollywood, often leading by example, decided to drop the fairytales. With the anti-hero came the anti-villain, and Julia Roberts floated Involved Stepmoms Inc in the late nineties.
The ministry of plotting and planning faced a temporary shut down till Voldemort made an appearance, and reinforced the fact that foster and family, just do not go together. That, like it or not, the stories we tell and that ultimately sell, in order to be touching and true are drawn from real life. And for every woman who nurtured her step children as her own, and for every husband who bade them treat her like their own mother, there were an equal number who slipped between cup and the lip. Born into families where it is not just plots that are built of machinations, but the lives of real little boys and girls, cowering in fear and hoping for a fairy god mother come rescue them. The deal with Dhruta, unlike most little children caught in the plots adults weave for them in place of emotional blankets, is that a fairy god father did make an appearance, and saved the day.
Could the culprit be closer home? The image of mother to a child is, thanks to folklore, social conditioning, psychology and mass media, the ultimate pinnacle of a social relationship. The mother is supreme, and while that pressures a woman to be the perfect ideal of shaping and moulding the child—a load for the feminist brigade to lighten—it also plays both ways; the wicked woman starring ‘Mom’ in neon lights, but who wilts childhood is inconceivable to most.
While a neighbourhood will with much hesitation interfere when a husband whacks his wife, Harry Potter under the staircase with little nutritive food, and no magic to save him, must of course have a darn good reason—mother knows best—to be there. Woe betide the society that begins to question its mothers. The downfall of Indian culture, dear vultures, lies not in the breaking down of the stereotypes that build from myth to legend, but in the identification of the one ideal, the anti-thesis of the Hindu pantheon, that fits all. And thus if Yashoda is revered more than Devaki, it is because the role was identified not by the woman to the man, but to the child. Mothering, holy books and folklore had it, was in karma and dharma, never in god-given inherited social roles.
If it shocks your socks off that women may not make the perfect mothers, look to courts worldwide that have begun to listen to the father’s side, though in miniscule fashion, in custody battles. While women’s groups may take umbrage with the notion of child psychologically needing the mother, and point out very correctly that in this particular case, it was in fact the father to be blamed (shameful cad I might add) for permitting his own flesh and blood to be rendered from him, fact is, society fails in its bid to civilise itself when it has failed to provide the child, any child, with a nurturing atmosphere, irrespective of ‘whose side’ the law is on. It is the role of parent as nourisher, defender, provider that is on trial here, and the law is and must be on the side of the winner, irrespective of gender.
Even as Blair publicly debates how much spanking is too much, and in the US watchdogs prowl for children left alone at home with no supervision, what is key is that civilised societies hold society at large responsible for abuse to a child. The law must be built to protect the weakest of the weak, and there is no more vulnerable element than the child of man. Medical practitioners, teachers, neighbours and extended family are to be held equally culpable of crimes against children, irrespective of whom the perpetrator is. The judicial system, religion, morality, social mores, and economic stability are all magnified failures of Ozymandius’ empire, when children whether on streets or in seemingly secure homes grapple with their tiny ill-formed wills battle everything from physical to emotional abuse. And until you hear the voices of the children singing in the dome, this land will remain a wasteland.
The ministry of plotting and planning faced a temporary shut down till Voldemort made an appearance, and reinforced the fact that foster and family, just do not go together. That, like it or not, the stories we tell and that ultimately sell, in order to be touching and true are drawn from real life. And for every woman who nurtured her step children as her own, and for every husband who bade them treat her like their own mother, there were an equal number who slipped between cup and the lip. Born into families where it is not just plots that are built of machinations, but the lives of real little boys and girls, cowering in fear and hoping for a fairy god mother come rescue them. The deal with Dhruta, unlike most little children caught in the plots adults weave for them in place of emotional blankets, is that a fairy god father did make an appearance, and saved the day.
Could the culprit be closer home? The image of mother to a child is, thanks to folklore, social conditioning, psychology and mass media, the ultimate pinnacle of a social relationship. The mother is supreme, and while that pressures a woman to be the perfect ideal of shaping and moulding the child—a load for the feminist brigade to lighten—it also plays both ways; the wicked woman starring ‘Mom’ in neon lights, but who wilts childhood is inconceivable to most.
While a neighbourhood will with much hesitation interfere when a husband whacks his wife, Harry Potter under the staircase with little nutritive food, and no magic to save him, must of course have a darn good reason—mother knows best—to be there. Woe betide the society that begins to question its mothers. The downfall of Indian culture, dear vultures, lies not in the breaking down of the stereotypes that build from myth to legend, but in the identification of the one ideal, the anti-thesis of the Hindu pantheon, that fits all. And thus if Yashoda is revered more than Devaki, it is because the role was identified not by the woman to the man, but to the child. Mothering, holy books and folklore had it, was in karma and dharma, never in god-given inherited social roles.
If it shocks your socks off that women may not make the perfect mothers, look to courts worldwide that have begun to listen to the father’s side, though in miniscule fashion, in custody battles. While women’s groups may take umbrage with the notion of child psychologically needing the mother, and point out very correctly that in this particular case, it was in fact the father to be blamed (shameful cad I might add) for permitting his own flesh and blood to be rendered from him, fact is, society fails in its bid to civilise itself when it has failed to provide the child, any child, with a nurturing atmosphere, irrespective of ‘whose side’ the law is on. It is the role of parent as nourisher, defender, provider that is on trial here, and the law is and must be on the side of the winner, irrespective of gender.
Even as Blair publicly debates how much spanking is too much, and in the US watchdogs prowl for children left alone at home with no supervision, what is key is that civilised societies hold society at large responsible for abuse to a child. The law must be built to protect the weakest of the weak, and there is no more vulnerable element than the child of man. Medical practitioners, teachers, neighbours and extended family are to be held equally culpable of crimes against children, irrespective of whom the perpetrator is. The judicial system, religion, morality, social mores, and economic stability are all magnified failures of Ozymandius’ empire, when children whether on streets or in seemingly secure homes grapple with their tiny ill-formed wills battle everything from physical to emotional abuse. And until you hear the voices of the children singing in the dome, this land will remain a wasteland.
Gudiya: Just a doll on our shelf?
I am Gudiya. The doll. Not quite the Barbie girl, but still there’s a common theme there—you can make me walk, make me talk, do whatever you please. But believe me, life in plastic, it’s not that fantastic. I come in various pardahs, chaddars, or even burqahs. But all versions have my head bowed. You would think that sells like hot cakes in the rural markets—cute an’ covered up, but you’d be surprised, with a slight change of clothing, the same expression works countrywide.
The toy company was delighted—one version suits all. A market survey polled submissiveness as the key quality cross country. Now, families of production lines are at work creating the various versions that sell my various roles—mother, wife, daughter, second wife, village pawn, television celebrity, poll manager, martyr. This is backed by a large media campaign—television shows, women’s magazines, multi-crore advertising and beauty pageants all work in close connect to build me up to what I am. I come with two Kens—Arif and Taufeeq, and a baby boy–Manin–too. Depending on which version you buy, or which role of mine you have polled for, you receive the complements that match. You see, I aim to please, and to fit into my buyer’s concept of morality. Each customer is valuable, and customisation of merchandise is the key to the business. Some buyers/viewers/readers have complained that my eyes appear too vacuous, too vacant. I know what they mean. I have seen deer in the forest near my village look like that in the beam of a car headlight—glazed over and paralysed by the moment. To counter that, one version has downcast eyes, so the expression stays hidden. But let that not fool you, for within that I live, I breathe, I feel, I think.
For some days the toy company debated giving me a voice. Imagine—a doll that could say all it could think! It was the design of a whimsical, some even called him, a mad, creator. It looked good, it was innovative, it would pique interest, but what then? No, the toy company decided. People would watch for a while and go away. The survey was right. It was a matter of profits. Giving me a voice would just be too big a risk. What if I said something people didn’t like? What if, just for once, I chose not to play along? What if I’d dropped Arif, dropped Taufeeq, told the elders what I thought of them, told the activists they knew nothing of my reality, told the journalists where they could shove their cameras, and walked off into the sunset with Manin? It would involve creating a whole new life for me—where would I stay, work, earn? Who would feed me, clothe me, protect me? What if, horrors, even if there was a chance I summoned the courage to stand up to the world beaming into my face, I didn’t need protection? If I survived and proved myself right, and all that they lived by and stood for wrong and worse, dispensable? What if society as we know it crumbled and women had no more excuses for continuing to live their sordid, dishpan lives? What if men could no longer look their wives in the eye, secure in the knowledge that that was not what was happening in their homes—daughters with no options, wives with no lives? The voice was way too risky.
In the end, the poll results were voluminous enough for my range to fit into its results. You may not know it now, but I am an iconic doll. Others are westernised and imported. I am made of the clay of this earth, and am shaped in the tradition of the all male creator of my image. I am symbolic of every woman in every home in every town and village, who watched me or didn’t, who polled in or didn’t. Or worse, who watched silently, as her husband did, and said nothing. I suggest that every mother who dresses up her doll child, and grows her up to be a doll woman, picks me up, and plays with me once—dresses me up, marries me off, tells me what to name my child, where to live, whom to love, then cracks me into the clay of the earth on which they themselves stand. And then, for all the thousands of questions you asked me through your reporters and channels, answer me this one—did you really want me to speak at all?
Or perhaps you thought, thousands of Indian women live like this everyday. They said I died of ?itis. Call it what you will, you polled me my life options and switched off your TV, and tuned me out. You left me in the idiot box with options A, B or C. Except, that given the statistics I had, was there really a choice? You’ve seen what happens to participants when the audience polls the correct answer on KBC. Public opinion counts. It can change lives.
You were doing one of two things to me—offering me submission, which meant first husband, no child and social approval; or a fight for my family unit against not just the village in which I lived the only life I ever knew, and the only means of our livelihood, its elders the only family we had known, but now the world beyond, calling, writing, texting their opinion. You gave me a pause in which to make my life decision. My whole being lay suspended in horror and disbelief at that moment. Tell me, what did you expect me to say? What in my past made you think I could summon the courage to stand against the whole media savvy world.
I was a child when I married Arif. I was 17. I know now there are laws that prevent child marriage in India. But nobody implements them until the marriages are sensational enough. Mine wasn’t. I was marrying a simple soldier and I was proud to. More importantly, I was told to. I did not know law. I did not know I had a choice. You, the media who screamed and beamed my faces to the cities when I was hunted and then too trapped to think, did not tell me I had a choice when I might have exercised it. Because rural stories don’t sell newsprint I suppose. A month later he went away and didn’t return for four years. Progress in the villages today, thanks to activism, means I do not have to commit sati. I just have to marry the next guy they ask me to. I was thankful for that. Or else, I might have been sent to Vrindavan as a widow and my fate would have been worse. But then, the censor board would never let you accept that, so you don’t know. So I married Taufeeq, just a month wed and many years unwed.
For the first time, I was a woman. I fell in love. Taufeeq was my, and every Indian girl’s, dream come true. He provided for me, he looked after me, didn’t hit me, and didn’t drink like some of the other men in the village. He would buy me flowers and take me to the nearest town to watch a film whenever he could spare the time and the money. We were poor, but happy. I was the envy of all—first an honourable war widow and now this happy marriage. Better still, I was pregnant, and the village midwife said that by my cravings and the excessive heartburn, it would surely be a son. I made peace with my mother-in-law by and by.
When your cameras beamed me into your channel surfing lives, you didn’t hear me speak. You didn’t hear me think. You didn’t hear me feel. When you polled my life you didn’t hear me relive our whispered dreams, our newly wed cuddles, our plans for our unborn child. You
For all the noise, the sound, the elders, the activists, the TV cameras and journalists, readers, audiences and observers in my face, in my house, in my life, none of you truly spoke to me. Or asked. Or listened, for that matter.
The toy company was delighted—one version suits all. A market survey polled submissiveness as the key quality cross country. Now, families of production lines are at work creating the various versions that sell my various roles—mother, wife, daughter, second wife, village pawn, television celebrity, poll manager, martyr. This is backed by a large media campaign—television shows, women’s magazines, multi-crore advertising and beauty pageants all work in close connect to build me up to what I am. I come with two Kens—Arif and Taufeeq, and a baby boy–Manin–too. Depending on which version you buy, or which role of mine you have polled for, you receive the complements that match. You see, I aim to please, and to fit into my buyer’s concept of morality. Each customer is valuable, and customisation of merchandise is the key to the business. Some buyers/viewers/readers have complained that my eyes appear too vacuous, too vacant. I know what they mean. I have seen deer in the forest near my village look like that in the beam of a car headlight—glazed over and paralysed by the moment. To counter that, one version has downcast eyes, so the expression stays hidden. But let that not fool you, for within that I live, I breathe, I feel, I think.
For some days the toy company debated giving me a voice. Imagine—a doll that could say all it could think! It was the design of a whimsical, some even called him, a mad, creator. It looked good, it was innovative, it would pique interest, but what then? No, the toy company decided. People would watch for a while and go away. The survey was right. It was a matter of profits. Giving me a voice would just be too big a risk. What if I said something people didn’t like? What if, just for once, I chose not to play along? What if I’d dropped Arif, dropped Taufeeq, told the elders what I thought of them, told the activists they knew nothing of my reality, told the journalists where they could shove their cameras, and walked off into the sunset with Manin? It would involve creating a whole new life for me—where would I stay, work, earn? Who would feed me, clothe me, protect me? What if, horrors, even if there was a chance I summoned the courage to stand up to the world beaming into my face, I didn’t need protection? If I survived and proved myself right, and all that they lived by and stood for wrong and worse, dispensable? What if society as we know it crumbled and women had no more excuses for continuing to live their sordid, dishpan lives? What if men could no longer look their wives in the eye, secure in the knowledge that that was not what was happening in their homes—daughters with no options, wives with no lives? The voice was way too risky.
In the end, the poll results were voluminous enough for my range to fit into its results. You may not know it now, but I am an iconic doll. Others are westernised and imported. I am made of the clay of this earth, and am shaped in the tradition of the all male creator of my image. I am symbolic of every woman in every home in every town and village, who watched me or didn’t, who polled in or didn’t. Or worse, who watched silently, as her husband did, and said nothing. I suggest that every mother who dresses up her doll child, and grows her up to be a doll woman, picks me up, and plays with me once—dresses me up, marries me off, tells me what to name my child, where to live, whom to love, then cracks me into the clay of the earth on which they themselves stand. And then, for all the thousands of questions you asked me through your reporters and channels, answer me this one—did you really want me to speak at all?
Or perhaps you thought, thousands of Indian women live like this everyday. They said I died of ?itis. Call it what you will, you polled me my life options and switched off your TV, and tuned me out. You left me in the idiot box with options A, B or C. Except, that given the statistics I had, was there really a choice? You’ve seen what happens to participants when the audience polls the correct answer on KBC. Public opinion counts. It can change lives.
You were doing one of two things to me—offering me submission, which meant first husband, no child and social approval; or a fight for my family unit against not just the village in which I lived the only life I ever knew, and the only means of our livelihood, its elders the only family we had known, but now the world beyond, calling, writing, texting their opinion. You gave me a pause in which to make my life decision. My whole being lay suspended in horror and disbelief at that moment. Tell me, what did you expect me to say? What in my past made you think I could summon the courage to stand against the whole media savvy world.
I was a child when I married Arif. I was 17. I know now there are laws that prevent child marriage in India. But nobody implements them until the marriages are sensational enough. Mine wasn’t. I was marrying a simple soldier and I was proud to. More importantly, I was told to. I did not know law. I did not know I had a choice. You, the media who screamed and beamed my faces to the cities when I was hunted and then too trapped to think, did not tell me I had a choice when I might have exercised it. Because rural stories don’t sell newsprint I suppose. A month later he went away and didn’t return for four years. Progress in the villages today, thanks to activism, means I do not have to commit sati. I just have to marry the next guy they ask me to. I was thankful for that. Or else, I might have been sent to Vrindavan as a widow and my fate would have been worse. But then, the censor board would never let you accept that, so you don’t know. So I married Taufeeq, just a month wed and many years unwed.
For the first time, I was a woman. I fell in love. Taufeeq was my, and every Indian girl’s, dream come true. He provided for me, he looked after me, didn’t hit me, and didn’t drink like some of the other men in the village. He would buy me flowers and take me to the nearest town to watch a film whenever he could spare the time and the money. We were poor, but happy. I was the envy of all—first an honourable war widow and now this happy marriage. Better still, I was pregnant, and the village midwife said that by my cravings and the excessive heartburn, it would surely be a son. I made peace with my mother-in-law by and by.
When your cameras beamed me into your channel surfing lives, you didn’t hear me speak. You didn’t hear me think. You didn’t hear me feel. When you polled my life you didn’t hear me relive our whispered dreams, our newly wed cuddles, our plans for our unborn child. You
For all the noise, the sound, the elders, the activists, the TV cameras and journalists, readers, audiences and observers in my face, in my house, in my life, none of you truly spoke to me. Or asked. Or listened, for that matter.
Can someone please shoot the sensitive man?
There is somewhere, we women hope, a secret pre-Oscar conclave being held even as we speak. The knights in shining armour, the superheroes, the undefeatables and indefatigables, the Marlon Brandos and muscle men who truly knew how to pack a punch, the impeccable gentleman who left his woman wanting just one more kiss, and oh-so-weak in the knees, the players-to-win and what’s-this-rubbish-about-the-spirit-that-counts men are gathered, to reunite and strategise an early conquest of their lost worlds. First on the agenda we insist is assigning a sharp shooter to target each scriptwriter.
Or should we just give it up sisters, is the battle lost? The stylists of the world have our men plucked, plundered and delivered dry and sober as the mirthless metrosexual world into which they have been born, and none save the image consultant is the merrier for it. They are politically correct, impeccably styled, finely fashioned, and well studied. If Jane Eyre or Charlotte Bronte, or Wodehouse for that matter, lived today where would the character who sighed and said, “Ah, note the glimmer in his eye and spring in his step, it must be love” be? How will a man be altered by a woman’s presence in his life, when he is altered beyond recognition from maleness before she meets him?
And you don’t need a Brokeback Mountain to storm a bastion that had crumbled to ruins when men forgot that ‘no’ never quite went out of fashion. And thus constantly eager to please George Clooney replaced a defiantly laughing at me Clark Gable, and Sean Connery fell to seductresses like a hooker to the highest bidder. The best they could do with Marlin Brando was label him icon and state such a one will never again be. How true. James Bond got bashed up. But incredibly the worst perpetration of the secretly sacrificing the world scriptwriter guild is this: could they not even spare us our superheroes? Chocolate boy Spiderman began to introspect! I’m not even going to comment on the revulsion at his face being seen. Batman begot moralistic origins, in a bid to prove what really drove him batty in the first place. The wonderful world of knights in shining armour was reduced to potbellied has-been animated Incredibles. I mean, Shrek is an icon for the love of an ogres heart. Do you blame Pran for not attending dos anymore? If the afraid-of-nothing Al Pacinos, the Harrison Fords, the Sean Penns have no place and fewer roles in 35mm today, is it because they are questioning which angle of real life to mirror. The macho male, nay, even the gentleman whose first date kiss brings tangible tension, has retired wounded.
Whatever happened to the man who wasn’t afraid of blood, to whom a parlour meant poker, and to whom a poker meant a good stiff fight outside an English pub? They made D’arcy a dunce, took our cowboy turf, and the playboy Nawab of Wherever had to go be responsible and find a job and care for and dutifully marry the woman he loves, never mind being an eager exponent of the virtues of tiger conservation. Forget Brando, give us a Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier for heaven’s sake—find us the muscle man, the carpenter, the sportsman, the rake. And for pete’s sake—enough with the men with identity crises.
And for all you scriptwriters who are wondering why your films flop, kindly note that D’arcy and the cowboy and the godfather were sexy because they were arrogant, self-indulgent, insensitive, albeit monied, and good looking men. Not in spite of it. They did not, thankfully, veer, careen or tilt even ever so slightly on the side of the (shudder) metrosexual. In fact, one suspects, that should one have suggested a facial, they would not merely arched an eyebrow, scattered disdain but grunted so loudly, impolitely and unabashedly that reprieve was out of the question. Tony Soprano visiting a shrink to sort his ‘issues’-sorry your political correctness is gasping a mite too loudly in my ear—would have been shot at close quarters. They played rugby, and played to win. They fought pig-headed arguments, stormed out of rooms, and more often than not did not change their socks. As for the great Indian huddle, as my father once put it, “When Kapil Dev led the team to the world cup, they did not hug him, they merely shook hands.”
Or should we just give it up sisters, is the battle lost? The stylists of the world have our men plucked, plundered and delivered dry and sober as the mirthless metrosexual world into which they have been born, and none save the image consultant is the merrier for it. They are politically correct, impeccably styled, finely fashioned, and well studied. If Jane Eyre or Charlotte Bronte, or Wodehouse for that matter, lived today where would the character who sighed and said, “Ah, note the glimmer in his eye and spring in his step, it must be love” be? How will a man be altered by a woman’s presence in his life, when he is altered beyond recognition from maleness before she meets him?
And you don’t need a Brokeback Mountain to storm a bastion that had crumbled to ruins when men forgot that ‘no’ never quite went out of fashion. And thus constantly eager to please George Clooney replaced a defiantly laughing at me Clark Gable, and Sean Connery fell to seductresses like a hooker to the highest bidder. The best they could do with Marlin Brando was label him icon and state such a one will never again be. How true. James Bond got bashed up. But incredibly the worst perpetration of the secretly sacrificing the world scriptwriter guild is this: could they not even spare us our superheroes? Chocolate boy Spiderman began to introspect! I’m not even going to comment on the revulsion at his face being seen. Batman begot moralistic origins, in a bid to prove what really drove him batty in the first place. The wonderful world of knights in shining armour was reduced to potbellied has-been animated Incredibles. I mean, Shrek is an icon for the love of an ogres heart. Do you blame Pran for not attending dos anymore? If the afraid-of-nothing Al Pacinos, the Harrison Fords, the Sean Penns have no place and fewer roles in 35mm today, is it because they are questioning which angle of real life to mirror. The macho male, nay, even the gentleman whose first date kiss brings tangible tension, has retired wounded.
Whatever happened to the man who wasn’t afraid of blood, to whom a parlour meant poker, and to whom a poker meant a good stiff fight outside an English pub? They made D’arcy a dunce, took our cowboy turf, and the playboy Nawab of Wherever had to go be responsible and find a job and care for and dutifully marry the woman he loves, never mind being an eager exponent of the virtues of tiger conservation. Forget Brando, give us a Leslie Caron and Maurice Chevalier for heaven’s sake—find us the muscle man, the carpenter, the sportsman, the rake. And for pete’s sake—enough with the men with identity crises.
And for all you scriptwriters who are wondering why your films flop, kindly note that D’arcy and the cowboy and the godfather were sexy because they were arrogant, self-indulgent, insensitive, albeit monied, and good looking men. Not in spite of it. They did not, thankfully, veer, careen or tilt even ever so slightly on the side of the (shudder) metrosexual. In fact, one suspects, that should one have suggested a facial, they would not merely arched an eyebrow, scattered disdain but grunted so loudly, impolitely and unabashedly that reprieve was out of the question. Tony Soprano visiting a shrink to sort his ‘issues’-sorry your political correctness is gasping a mite too loudly in my ear—would have been shot at close quarters. They played rugby, and played to win. They fought pig-headed arguments, stormed out of rooms, and more often than not did not change their socks. As for the great Indian huddle, as my father once put it, “When Kapil Dev led the team to the world cup, they did not hug him, they merely shook hands.”
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