The unceremonious exit of our visitor…

Self invited guests who barge unannounced at home on weekends are bad enough, and if they choose to stay longer than is absolutely necessary, hell tends to break loose. And this is precisely what happened at our place last evening.

This particular visitor slipped unnoticed into our house, presumably in the wee hours of the morning. As soon as my mother-in-law spotted it in the puja area, a high alert was sounded with orders for all bedroom doors to remain closed till further instructions; severe restrictions were imposed on movement between rooms, almost like a mini curfew.

An exordium to the visitant: A critter from the reptilian species, dry and scaly skin, clawed feet, long tail, and slimy and obnoxious, to put it very mildly.
If my feelings for this being are that of disgust and abhorrence, my hubby’s border on paranoia. While I do my regular shrieks and just curse the damn thing and pray that it goes away, Vish simply cannot tolerate the sight of a lizard. If he sees it, he needs to make it go away. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. And though I totally lack the spirit and passion required for this kind of an operation, Vish finds ample support in his mom. Thank God, I say. Keep me out of this.

Only if words could help me re-create those crazy 30 odd minutes! Nevertheless, I try.

Both mother and son braced themselves for an armed combat with Mr. L (L for ‘lizard’ and Mr. coz Vish insisted on referring to it as “him/he”). Amma equipped herself with a broom and Vish was loaded with Hit spray (used for cockroaches etc.). They both then entered the puja area with the deadliest of intentions, and I was like this curious amateur journalist sans any camera or notepad, reporting from Ground Zero. My peace-loving father-in-law refused to participate in the war without an ample cause and remained locked in his room.

Vish mercilessly sprayed the foul smelling Hit all around, behind the idols and pictures to bring the enemy out in the open, and Mr. L graced us with his scummy presence. What an unfair battle it was. Here was our six inches adversary unarmed and in a state of shock faced with two adult human beings girded with mortal weapons. Panic-stricken, Mr. L tried hiding, but all in vain. The mother-son duo was indefatigable and soon brought Mr. L on the ground with a big thud. The poor guy tried to find a foot-hold but only slithered. After almost half-an-hour of broom stick battering, unpleasant aerosols and loud war-like cries, our soldiers, with a never-before vengeance, threw Mr. L out of the house.

You should’ve seen the triumphant smiles of my MIL and hubby. They were on top of the world. As if the whole episode wasn’t funny enough, their victorious back slapping made me literally roll on the floor in a wild laughter.
Apparently, this has been the fate of all lizards that have been unfortunate enough to be seen by Vish, and to be fair, I’ll admit he is a little less fierce on the intolerable guests.

The latest flu in town - IPL

Not that I hold anything in particular against one of the most celebrated cultural legacies that we have bequeathed from the British imperials – Cricket; however, I fail to fathom the feverish popularity of this colonial game.

The game assumes epidemic proportions during the World Cups, Indian Premium League (IPL) series and, these days, any match that India is playing in.
Deserted streets, cold food waiting at the dining table, selective hearing disorder in especially the men folk, joyous applaud interspersed with sighs of disappointment, the rambunctious bursting of crackers, irrespective of the hour of night or day, at a win, and the fanatic violence at a loss – ohh how I hate it all, this obsession with a game of bat and ball. (Wow, that rhymes; I always knew the first step towards poetry is misery.)

Ok, let’s talk about the latest manifestation of this malady – IPL. ‘Cricket for cricket’s sake’, they say – balderdash! The who’s who of the bollywood fraternity, the liquor baron, the Ambani’s, the ‘whoever’ with that extra buck, bid for players as if they were horses or something.
The millions pumped in by the otherwise broke sponsors (and no, I don’t specifically mean Citi), the deluge of ads, the not-so-bad cheerleaders (alas, South Africa seems to be outside the ruthless control of the Ram Sena) who seem to cheer the crowds and not the players, the pathetic expression of SRK after every match, the irritating interviews of Priety Zinta where she shows her support for the “boys”, the Shetty sisters giggling in corner, the Kingfisher with the mermaid (Katrina), the boy-cut Mandira Bedi, the MTV VJ compering for Set Max – tell me what is not unbearable about this game.

Everywhere – at home, office, the local grocery store – people are speculating, betting, hoping, praying – Chennai Super Kings, Kolkata Knight Riders, Delhi Darevils, Royal Challengers Banagalore, Rajasthan Royals, Punjab Kings, Mumbai Indian, Deccan Challengers – how does it matter who wins? They do not really represent the state they are playing for. They are a part of the team cos they were bought for so many millions and they are raking even more because everybody is so emotionally involved in this game of moolah.

The politics of the country – the impending General Elections - have all been pushed to the periphery of our consciousness – relegated to the space of the media. We are not sure, and frankly, care a damn as to who the next prime minister will be. Mention IPL, and our brows knit together in deep concern - we sincerely deliberate – Chennai doesn’t seem to have a chance, close call between Deccan and Delhi, Punjab’s not far behind, Mumbai can still bounce back, is Kolkata still in the series?

Nothing unites us or divides us like Cricket does. And it is precisely this despotism that the sport enjoys that exasperates me thoroughly. Relish the game as you please, don’t revere it.

I need a break!

The last two three weeks have been frenetic. As if extended work hours (from eight hours to nine hours a day), thanks to my organization's paranoia over recession, was not enough to frazzle me, now work spills over to holidays and weekends!

Have been toiling away every holiday (Tamil New year, the impromptu bandh by the Tamil Nadu govt.) and weekend for the last three weeks. Add to that 3 hours of traveling everyday - the perfect recipe for an exasperated and weary being faintly resembling me.
Often my mind feels numb and it takes long to focus on something outside my long list of to-dos.

The only extended family, relatives and friends I am in touch with are those that are on Orkut and Facebook. For some small mercies, since I am always at the comp, I steal some time here and there to log on to these social networking sites. Gone are the days of those never-ending phone calls with endless banter and gossip and the aimless surfing of channels on the idiot box. I am totally out of touch!

Believe me, I am not a cribber at work and till a couple of months back, I have seldom had Monday morning blues. In the true earnestness of being a Monday's child (yes, was born on a Monday!), all through school, college and work, I have been that one-off cheerful kid, enthusiastically and meticulously engaged with preparation for the coming week every Sunday evening.

But this year has been so frenzied that all my patience and perseverance has been put to test. I swear to god I need a break to recuperate from the damage of having overworked and to rejuvenate my spirits so that I can atleast endeavor to think from a new perspective.

A Princess I Don’t Envy

Having grown up on an extravagant indulgence of fairytale romances with princesses in distress and knights in shining armor, I have always envied the lives of the royalty across geographies and cultures – the Victorian splendor, the Mughal opulence, the Arabic excesses.

I have read legendary tales of birds in gilded cages but I always felt that in any given period in history, I would rather be a wealthy queen with no freedom than a woman who has to struggle. My argument goes like this - a Victorian princess must have been much more blithe and contented than a woman from, say, the bourgeoisie. Going by that logic, till yesterday, I’d not mind being an Arabic heiress with plenitude and luxury at my beck and call. Ignorance is bliss, they say and I agree. On my mother-in-law’s recommendation, I decided to spend my weekend reading “Princess: A True Story of Life Behind the Veil in Saudi Arabia” by the American writer, Jean Sasson. The book has been classified as the top 500 books written on women.

The story is a non-fictional heart wrenching autobiography of a princess that takes its readers to the forbidden realms of the royal house in Saudi. The princess, unfortunately, has an indomitable spirit and great courage, both causes of grave threat to a patriarchal society that sees women as only objects of possession. The men in her life – her brother, her father, her husband rule her life and do everything possible to annihilate her chutzpah. Much as the tale is about the harassed weaker sex whose only sin is the missing male organ, it is also a tale of the decadence of the male community who continue to live in the barbarism of the dark ages.

The powerful indictment of Sultana, the pseudonym of the central character of the narrative, made me shudder in first, disbelief, then anger and frustration. The thought of a contemporary undergoing such an arduous and torturous life in this age – yes, Sultana is still living, if her existence can be passed off as that, is abominable. This is not a prehistoric saga but a 21st Century extraordinary account of the ordinary lives of women in a part of the same world that we inhabit. I am inevitably forced to compare our lives. Is my equal status to my husband something I should feel privileged about? Should I be grateful to my dad for having educated me? Am I honored that the society I live in considers polygyny a crime?

A profound sadness shrouds the book, leaving little room for hope even though the Princess tries every trick from open defiance to subtle manipulation. The story ends as it begins, the closest men in her life visiting the mosque, leaving her alone behind. There is this helplessness that is so intricately woven with the unfolding of events that no reader can escape the despair the reading of the book brings. I have little courage to read the other two books as part of the trilogy – Princess Sultana’s Daughters and Princess Sultana’s Circle.
Equality of men and women is debatable in any society, but this blatant denial of basic human rights to women, and relegating them to a status worse than that of animals and slaves, is very disturbing, to say the least.

This is Customer Support – May I help you?

Oh no…please don’t because you cannot!

At some point in our lives, we have all arraigned the services offered by the public and government sectors– Be it the BSNL line man who never turns up to fix your telephone connection (I am really grateful to my dad for being in the Telecom sector and therefore redeeming our lives from this single most infamous and far-flung phenomenon), the electricity bill that always shows the wrong units consumed, the cop and the postman who need to be bribed in order to get your passport on time, the data entry guy at the Income Tax office who never gets your details correct the first time on the PAN card (I remember my date o f birth printed as 1953 in my first PAN card – talk about instant waning!), or the clerk at the University Office who will never be able to trace your roll number should you need another copy of your college degree.

Well, “sarkari kaam hai, der to lagegi” (It’s a government service, therefore bound to be delayed), and so we sniveled, and we huffed and we puffed and we moved on.

Then, came the age of the Tata and Ambanis and numerous other bantam and burly private players who invaded the previously unexploited territories and challenged the monopoly of the so called public sector, offering services that were not only superior but also more customer-focused.
A key player that emerged was Airtel, the Mittal clan’s roseate cherub. Cellular services never seemed so facile; 24x7 customer support was an unheard of marvel.

And, so thwarting my dad’s top-notch attempt at convincing me to go in for a BSNL connection as according to him BSNL was equally competitive and more reliable (my dad was working for BSNL then) for my first mobile phone ever in 2003, I went in for an Airtel. It was cool and red and hip and happening, the unsurpassable medium to “Express Yourself”.

That was then, zooming in to the present – 2009.

I have been exasperated by Airtel customer service. First, it was the prepaid connection that was magnanimously disconnected by some bugger cos my identity and address proof documents had not reached Airtel. Obviously, the fact that I had bought the connection from an Airtel center and had provided the required documents to the Airtel representative, invoked little sympathy from the idiotic and uneducated call center executives. So, after lambasting a few such specimens, I resubmitted my documents only to be told a week later that my account could not be activated on account of non-availability of identity and address proof in the system.
Now, I must admit it’s not very difficult to invoke the wrath of this person called Yuvika Chaube; I am forever ready to axe the first head that blurts illogical hogwash, but this time around I thought I’d burst a vein in my umbrage. Finally, I had to take refuge with my dad who unleashed the TRAI authorities on Airtel (thank god for babudom :)) and I did have the last laugh – not only was my service restored in a couple of hours but somebody from Airtel came to my house to inquire and take whatever proofs!

My blood pressure was seemingly nearing back to normal after this fury that Airtel struck again! This time my DTH TV Cable connection was the prima facio. Now, don’t ask me why I am such a die-hard Airtel fan – I am not. All this happens to be the ill-play of providence. Okay, back to my ranting, so Fate decided one fine Wednesday evening that I do not deserve to watch any of the mainstream channels – Star Plus, Sony, Set Max, Pix etc. I gave Airtel two complete days to resolve the issue but I forget the exact phrase that crudely states the fact that a dog’s tail can never straighten (I am sorry, the flavor is lost in translation). So I metamorphosed into my Maa Kaali avatar, and gave hell (and I really mean it) to two customer care executives and their supervisors.
I used abuses, hurled accusations, threatened, and finally after four and a half days of having waged a bloody, ferocious battle, with inexorable support from my father in law, we were able to coax the much sought after “service engineer” to pay us a visit and fix the problem. For those interested, it was some minor problem with the reception of the dish and was fixed in less than an hour.

Alas, all differences between the private companies and the government sector seem to have been blurred with the passage of time. You can expect exemplary service once-in-a-while from both, but for the majority of the time, tighten your seat belts for the deadliest of rides and the most unpleasant of trysts that begin with the horrific words “Hello this is Customer Service, How may I help you?”, which actually means “You are a fool to have tried this number and immensely lucky that you were able to reach one of us. Now you can go ahead with the formality of telling us about your problem. In all probability we can do nothing so hopefully you believe in God, and that faith might see you through these troubled times.” Amen.

And the Best Debut for the year is...

...Obviously the People's Car - Nano, the latest nipper from Tata Motors.

As Ratan Tata unveils the world's cheapest car, I experience a motley of emotions.

I am excited at this yet another contrivance, unique in its own special way, unleashed onto the overwhelmed masses, that promises to revolutionize the transport scene in India. As Ratan Tata talks about his dream to create an affordable yet safe vehicle for the family, where "the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby", I am moved and impressed with his inimitable dexterity to combine his compassion for human life, the historic TATA values and his keen entrepreneurial acumen into this tactile product that not only makes a helluva business sense but that also ostentatiously interweaves with it the aspirations of millions.

Here's a car that's the ultimate lower middle class family's fantasy - modestly priced at Rs. 1 Lac (approx 2000 USD), that's a little more than what a good two-wheeler would cost, any day safer than a bike or a scooter, high on fuel efficiency and low on emissions. For a change, we have a car launch sans the steamy skeletal models, a launch that talks about utility and not style and flamboyance, a launch that targets the guy on the road and not the rich brat who has never walked the streets of the city he was born in. I am glad a privileged Indian, though for a profitable advantage, did think of the not-so-privileged one!

For all these reasons, I am enticed to look away from the looming danger this car brings. Unfortunately, our roads in India are not (and will never be) ready for the enormous congestion that the success of this car may wreak. Imagine all the two-wheelers you see metamorphosed into four wheelers - I shudder at the thought!
But then, we Indians are seldom prepared well - things just happen to us and we learn to deal with it...hope this time this magic wand does not start ticking a distant bomb!

Bura na mano…holi hai!

Holi – The celebration of joy and colors has been one of my favorite festivals since childhood. I love the glow of gulal, the mess of the pakka rang, the splashing of pani ke gubbare, the water spouting from the pichkaris, the outrageously risqué lyrics of rang barse, the scrumptious taste of gujiyas, the fun and gossip around the presence and absence of bhang…

Till 2006, I do not remember having not painted the town red on a single instance of holi. As kids, the customary pichkari (my fav being a tank one that could be carried around as a rucksack – amazing storage capacity!) along with the usual dose of the good color (gulal etc), the real bad color (the chemical dyes etc that wouldn’t rub off for days together) and a huge stock of balloons was a must, irrespective of what the health conscious said about hazardous effects of colors and blah and blah!

A typical day would start with all the kids and cooperating adults filling balloons, followed by a reluctant breakfast of puri-aloo with kheer forced down by mom and a simultaneous word of caution from dad to remain “within limits” (that has been his trademark forewarning for anything and everything, since as long as I can remember, and that in itself could be a whole new blog, but I digress). After the almost ritualistic morning feast, we’d wear our old clothes, rub oil on our bodies and hair (to protect hair and skin from damage as much as possible), and then begin the mayhem. We always celebrate holi with the family first, so mom, dad, Priyank and I would mess each other up completely before proceeding with the neighborhood toli.

I most fondly recall my years in Noida as the best holi galas I have ever had. With a tinge of nostalgia, I remember the bonfire on the eve of holi, the craziness of dancing amidst the riot of colors and water to songs from all periods in Indian Cinema - the black and white numbers to the latest ones in technicolor, the feasting without fasting, and the endless laughter and merry making!

After the afternoon’s pandemonium, I used to spend hours scouring the color off using all the options available – mom’s indigenous preparation of ubtan to the latest scrubs and crèmes available in the cosmetic conglomerate – to make myself presentable for school/work the next day. Evenings were marked by the characteristic laziness and siesta of post-holi blues...

This is the third year that I am sorely missing not celebrating holi - 2007 holi was spent in Bangkok, 2008 in LA. This year, though closer to home (@ Chennai), I am ridden by the practical difficulties of Holi being on a week day, no holiday, inability to travel to Delhi cos of work commitments…I am hoping the next year or the one after that I am fortunate enough to relive or atleast recreate the proverbial ‘good old days’!

Till then, I console myself by listening to and humming my personal holi play list; given here just in case somebody is interested.

1. Rang Barse…bheege chunar waali…rang barse (this evergreen Amitabh-Rekha number from Silsila undoubtedly is my holi anthem)
2. Arre jaa re hat natkhat, na chhoo re mera ghoonghat , palat ke doongi aaj aisi gali re…(the rapturous melody by Rafi and Lata; Movie – Navrang)
3. Holi khele raghubeera awadh mein…holi khele raghubeera (the more recent Amitabh number from Baghban)
4. Aaj na chodenge bas humjoli… khelenge hum holi (The mischievous hit from Rajesh Khanna’s Kati Patang)
5. Ang se ang lagaana…sajan humein aise rang lagaana (a raunchy song from the Sunny Deol-SRK-Juhi Chawla starrer Darr)
6. Holi ke din dil khil jaate hain...rangon mein rang mil jaate hain (from Sholay…Big B has a lot of holi songs to his credit)
7. Holi re holi…aayi tere ghar pe maston ki toli (Movie – Paraaya Dhan)
8. More kaanhaa jo aaye palat ke…abke holi main khelungi dat ke (a semi classical number from Sardari Begum)
9. Holi aayee, holi aayee, dekho holi aayee re (thus Kishore Kumar sang in Mashaal)
10. And finally…Jai Jai Shiv Shankar (again a Rajesh Khanna number from Aap ki Kasam…strictly speaking not a holi specific number but nevertheless apt for the occasion)

Wishing everybody a very happy and colorful Holi!