Do we really Care?

Written on Dec. 3, 2008

There’s a vigil at the Gateway of India today. It’s a protest gathering as well as a showing of solidarity for those who passed away in the terror attacks on our beloved city recently. There’s a horde of people going – I see people chatting about it at the water-cooler and online as if it’s the Bombay Times anniversary bash that they just got invited to. Pardon the sarcasm, but I have been questioning over the last couple of days – do we really care?

Do we care about those who died or what happened? Do all those people crying foul and asking for resignations concerned about what happened or about their ratings? Many who are attending seem much like a 3-year old attending a relative’s funeral. He doesn’t know who died or why and thinks more about the crows circling the premises than the person on the pyre. Yet, he bows his head out of obligation, and well, cos everyone is doing it. What if, we are attending just to keep appearances? To not be labeled as selfish bastards who have enough troubles of our own to deal with and could care less about who died.

These terror attacks are not new. There have been similar happenings in Delhi, Malegoan, Ahemdabad, all over the country. There wasn’t a vigil then, why now? Have we finally found the time out of our busy lives to mourn the dead? Or has the fact that we could have been at CST or at Leo’s that fatal night chilled our bones and made this personal? The tragedy has struck too close for comfort and suddenly we are aware, that our surroundings are not safe anymore.

Is that why we are conducting a vigil? A little for those who died, and a lot for those who survived, to reassure ourselves that our collective voices are the harbingers of change. That tomorrow, it will not be you or me who dies the hands of a terrorist as we ride in a train going home or unwind with a drink after work. To overcome the guilt of being secretly glad that it wasn’t us.

I sure as heck hope not. But it will be just one of the questions on my mind as I stand at the Gateway, sharing that moment with a sea of Mumbaikars, who have shown up because they really care and not because they could get off work early on this pretext. Hopefully.

Where are the Good Men?

Forget the Futures & Options. With the stock market plummeting, my parents now have my Marriage Options on their mind. And the rest of the khandaan, finance oozing out of every pore in their bodies, has cast the newspapers aside, flicked off CNBC and actually discovered the web and its offerings such as Bharat Matrimony. and proceeded to educate my parents about it as well. I harbor the secret suspicion that my doting parents have created a profile of me on these sites – the thought is enough to make me break into a sweat.

But the question is not whether I want to marry (No is still the answer, aai). Rather the question that I find myself screaming is where are the good men gone? When I was in the US, I figured that I didn’t find a suitable boy because I lived in an oasis of Indians among a desert of Salt and Pepper. But now, even back home, its water water everywhere and not a drop to drink. Sure, there are lots of men, but I am yet to meet someone who has piqued my interest.

For starters, Indian men have loads of testosterone in them, man. This works in 2 ways – one, it makes them hairy enough to be mistaken for a grizzly, and two, the hormone manifests itself in a male chauvinist ego. An, anyone who knows me will vouch that I am not one to take the women should be at home, cook and take care of the kids crap. Hey, as far as I am concerned, he had a 50% share in creating those kids too, so its only fair he takes 50% responsibility for them. Heck, I even play pool better under the influence of anti-feminist comments (I just channel my anger to whack the shit outta them balls... figuratively speaking). As for hair trichosis, its best as the trademark of chubby cheeked politicians. I really don’t fancy hair sprouting like thin blades of grass all over my beau.

Also, I have bigger problems to worry about than Gold Diggers. I have discovered the Nasty Nose Diggers. These are men who spend their time exploring the recesses of their nasal passages, in plain and full view of members of the opposite sex. What a turn-off! I swear, I have seen a man’s finger disappear so far into his nostril, that I thought he was spooling his brain out from there – old school Egyptian style! Two words for these men – tissue and restroom. Take the first with you into the second, and conduct your explorations with the first wrapped on the finger, in there. It’s really not that hard!

Once in a while, I do meet a guy who’s well-groomed and pleasing to the eye. Unfortunately, he opens his mouth and I realize that he is all Brawn, No Brain. That one’s quite a no-brainer from that point on. In my quest to seek out a smart man, I even rather foolishly listened to my friend who introduced me to her friend via the web. We chatted online and after a refreshingly intelligent conversation, decided to meet. Sadly, he turned out to be a Virtual Reality – his e-persona being poles apart from his true self.

Oh, and let me not forget the Addicts – men obsessed with the next "conquest", or the latest gaming console, or the other vices like sex, drugs and violence. I love playing the Wii, but do I enthusiastically plan a night of Wii debauchery with beer and chips? Hmmmm, No. Also, worht mentioning are the Suck-Ups who think that it’s so cool that I am from the US (translation: I must be easy) and come tumbling over to kiss me on the cheek. Honey, I learnt how to politely brush cheeks at social dos in the US, not slobber over people. Besides, I’d do it only with a girl friend, not random men! Back off and pipe down in your seat.

I am just waiting for that knight who can yield a sword as well as he can spill poetry from his lips, who is chivalrous and not a chauvinist, whose words are kind and actions kinder. Till that time, I am going to remain single, thank you very much.

Thankfully, my parents haven't seen “Dostana” yet and fretting about whether I don’t like guys. Hopefully after reading this post, they will not start fretting about whether I don’t like guys.

Misadventures of the weekend

Why does it always happen that the worst laid plans tend to be the best ones? Okay, that’s an exaggeration (I work in the advertising business, can you blame me?). But honestly, the last 2 days have been a whirlwind of on the-spot plans and rushing around from one place to another. And, I have enjoyed every moment of it. Well, almost.

It all started when we realized that we had a long weekend coming up – 4 days away from work sounded like an idea that begged to be exploited. And, boy were we ready to. We all wanted to take off somewhere. I, for one, had been craving to run out of this city for quite some time now. So, we started throwing ideas around – Goa, matheran, lonavla, nashik. As more people got involved, the options thrown out got proportionately bizarre and grandiose.

After much talk and no action, all our plans fell flat. As if the universe was laughing at us, none of us were able to get the Friday of that week (the only working day of the long weekend) off for various reasons. Undaunted, we decided that plan or not, we were going off somewhere, dammit.

On Friday, all the interested parties showed up with a backpack – location unknown. We didn’t even have a place to stay once we reached - wherever we were planning to reach. I am so aware, that this sounds like the most ridiculous idea ever. Hey, we were heady guys and gals – to many, even an excursion to my house was more or less like a trip because I lived so far away (that was our last last last resort in case we ended staying cooped in Mumbai – a weekend at my place). Thankfully, around lunch, I pulled names of some resorts/lodges in Murud Janjira and started calling just about each one on that list. An, what do you know? We got lucky and actually found a place – a decent one, with clean toilets that flushed promptly and check this out, beds – mattress, pillow and blanket ke saath!

So, there we were with a place but no way to get there. Enter Mumbai’s public transport system. Post work, we rushed to the closest bus station and got onto an Asiad to Murud. It isn’t the classiest thing ever – even a Greyhound ride is a limo in front of these ancient roaring things but we had to make do. Besides, we were so excited that we were finally making this trip that our excitement colored everything in beautiful, sun shiny colors.

Transport proved to be a logistical nightmare with 3 different groups on the trip – one that got on the bus, one that was to meet the bus on a transit stop en route and a third group that decided to ride on the motorbike from Bombay. Needless to say, we were on the phones constantly coordinating. The rains and lack of network weren’t much help at that end, one constantly lashing at us and the other constantly giving up on us. Grrr!

We landed at Murud after 7 long hours of painful journey – asses hurting, mentally exhausted and sleep deprived. The dark circles under my eyes were darker than the pitch black of the idyllic rural hamlet. But I can tell you, our faces lit up on seeing the care-taker of our lodge when he came to pick us up. Even though this trip could not have been more ill-planned, it was filled with joy, excitement, spontaneity and adrenaline that even the best laid out adventure could not have measured up to.

Damn, it feels good to be a maverick!

Anyone have any good news?

Take my newspaper. Just take it. And, I am going to throw my TV away too, in case anyone’s interested. For it seems that there is nothing other than bad news these days. No, make that shockingly awful news. Not just the boo-hoo types. But the ones that make you sit up and say, “Dude, wtf?!”

I mean what has happened to the standards of journalism here? News channels seem to have made it their “bidness” to create sensational stories from utter rubbish and spew it on the hypnotised public. Even worse, the newly educated, suddenly Benji-spending middle class of India is devouring the crap being dished out in equal fervor. Every night that I have sought to update myself on the news, I have been subjected to “Tabaahi ki roshni” or “Sai Baba ka adbhut chamatkar” or headlines of similar ilk which is nothing but hyperbole for a solar eclipse or a supposedly alive eye of Sai Baba(this reminds me of the similar hype that was created when it was found that Ganesha idols drank milk..remember the insane and insipid coverage of that, anyone?). I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry when I saw the story about the Oriental mummy who had been asleep for thousands of years and had now been disturbed from his hellish slumber. That was a PR plug for a movie – “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.” Lovely.

Did I miss the time machine that transported us back to the Jazz Journalism era or what? Why the need for all the hyperbole? Is the public psyche of India so retarded that we actually appreciate these banalities made into grandiose episodes like some Bollywood movie? Or do news channels have the false belief that by repeatedly telecasting their buffoonery they will hammer it into our heads? It’s a battle of repetition versus retardation and it seems that latter is taking a clear lead.

I certainly don’t buy that there is no worthwhile news to be covered that stations has to resort to this chicanery. There is plenty of sensational happenings everyday – stampedes, bomb blasts, famine, flood – take your pick. While scion of India shining, the Nano project is whacked around among political factions like a ping pong ball, and hundreds are trampled in narrow alleyways of a temple, stations are licking their nibs and scribbling down lines and plots that could send Ekta Kapoor’s writers scrambling for the hills. Shockingly, these are the very stations that are high in TRPs ratings and channels that still hold onto some fragment of journalistic integrity rank at the bottom of the ratings.

Don’t even get me started on the newspapers. Gossip is the new frontier that newspapers have boldly gone where they hadn’t gone before. As if all the aunties that have ever fed the grapevine have suddenly been wiped out in one fell swoop, tabloids in Bombay are crammed with one gossip story after another and faithfully taken over their role. A loves B, B was at a rave, X,Y and Z were there too, that’s when Z decided to make fun of C, an ex of A, A was rather upset, bla bla bla…I can feel my brain cells dying from lack of stimulation as I read the morning news. My intelligence screams in pain at this attack of insipid happenings about people who live so well-off that nothing can ever harm them, and whose lives would be no different if people like you or me who have to read about them popped off tomorrow.

The only thing I do look forward in the news is the Sunday editorial – thank you God for Bachi, Jug and the likes who still have a sane head on their shoulders and are not afraid to call a solar eclipse just that. A freaking eclipse.

P.S: I am not kidding about the good news part – please do share if you have any. I am all ears to hear something positive happening in someone’s life.