The Idea of India!

Disclaimer:

The views expressed in this blog are purely apolitical and I am not a Lutyens Liberal but a person who believes that a blend of left, right and center give a better dimension and image to this country called India.

Whenever I meet my colleagues & friends from different parts of the world and when they ask me about India, I keep telling them India is the most complex country in the world. Some of them still believe it’s a land of snake charmers, I simply laugh it off and say they have now moved on to the Silicon Valley and have set up companies like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube, just that the snakes have been replaced by humans. They perceive this country as the mystical, magical land of Sadhus and Yogis, the land of the mantras and sutras. They associate us with anything to do with poverty and we are often the poster boys for poor sanitation practices and infrastructure. But in the same vein they also ask about our big fat Bollywood weddings, about the Millionaires, both the soon-to-default-ones and the defaulted ones now languishing in the mansions of the erstwhile sahibs with whom their ancestors hunted Tigers. For the British in their heydays of Colonialism it was the most prized possession of their Empire.

My analogy always was, imagine Europe as a single country, with a Prime Minister from Germany, the President from France, the Defense Minister from  Russia and the Home Minister from UK…(Oops are they in or out) and finally the Finance Minister from Greece! At this they stop me and order the next drink.

That’s how complex we are, our language, food, dress and culture changes as we move approximately 200Km from where we stand anywhere in India; East, West, North or South. One size does not and will not fit all in this country. So one might ask how are you bound to the idea of India, we simply say we are  a bunch of Patriotic Indians not necessarily Nationalistic Indians. Sadly in recent times these two terms have been abused and misused badly. There is no better quote to sum it up as the one below.

“The difference between patriotism and nationalism is that the patriot is proud of his country for what it does, and the nationalist is proud of his country no matter what it does; the first attitude creates a feeling of responsibility while the second a feeling of blind arrogance that leads to a war.” – Sydney J Harris

Let us become a billion plus of Patriotic citizens who can force a sense of responsibility in our leaders and also be personally accountable for what the country does and stands for rather than a Nationalistic bunch of citizens who will only blindly lead the country and its leaders to arrogance and from there to ultimate doom!

Of Designer wears, Limousines, and after parties!!!

It’s that time of the year when the Oscars are due in another 8 Weeks and it is but natural for you to be misled by the title and think this is a blog on the red carpet antics of celebrities who grace the biggest entertainment event. Well, you are mistaken; this is all about a bunch of 17 years olds planning to celebrate the end of their 12 years of rigorous intellectual pursuit. The ‘end’ I mean, not the achievement of the same.

The whole concept of farewell parties in schools is taking a leaf out of the Prom nights in the US; after all they need to be indebted to the people who gave them the Instagram, Google and Snapchat. Guess, you guys must have got a clue that this is a rant by a 17 year old’s father coming to terms with the build up to a farewell party looming large in the horizon along with the Oscars.

These days I try very hard to avoid beginning a sentence with ‘When I was your age…..’ but unfortunately get drawn into that time and again. Well this was one of those times. I sat back and reminisced on my farewell parties. I had 2, one in my year 10 since the school at that time had classes only till year 10 and the other in Class 12.

I remember the Class 10 farewell quiet distinctly for the fact that we were the first batch to arrange for the video recording of the proceedings on a VHS tape. A disruption of sorts, some trendsetters, we were in those days. The irony is that after 3 decades I am still trying to trace that tape which none of us have seen. Apparently there was one copy and it had to stay put in the Head Master’s room.  My class 12 graduation afternoon (no nights then) consisted of a piece of cake/Pastry (Colonial appeasement), a Vada (to bring in the local flavor) and a samosa (to please the public hailing from north of the vindhyas) followed by thirst quenchers on a hot Madras afternoon….a diluted glass of Rasna, from the colour of which, we could actually calculate the concentration of the drink. So this kind of acted as mock Chemistry practicals too.

Ah!!! Enough of the boring 80’s, let’s move over to the more happening millennials and their celebrations. If the first 4 paragraphs sounded like the script out of a Satyajit Ray / Adoor Gopala Krishnan movie you ended up watching on Sunday afternoons on Doordarshan the next few will sound more like a Rohit Shetty film.

Haute Couture was a term that was normally heard in Milan but the last few days it is doing rounds within the four walls of my household. The farewell suddenly became the doomsday looking down upon us, being the proactive family we are we were equipped with the wear for the farewell the last time we visited India and we made a Tarun Tahiliani out of our poor Shankar, the neighborhood tailor. Alas! little did we know the colours or trends of last vacation were no longer ‘in’ and they were in the end of season list six months down the line.  Move aside the Taruns and Sabyasachis, it’s the after party time, and we need the Donna Karens and the Pradas in the shades that are in now. And so the hunt continues.

Kids booked Limousines from the stables of top European brands to reach school on their day, forgetting that it was M/s Ashok Leyland that safely brought them to school all these 12 years. Well they all learn from a leader who loves to sell the make in India concept while secured in bullet proof German car!

The world has come a full circle, and this is definitely not a rant, but introspection on the evolution of the nature of celebrations. If we were trend setters arranging a VHS recording of our farewell 3 decades back, applying the same logic of inflation that is applied to finances, we need to apply an inflation factor on the aspirations and accept that these kids have not gone overboard with their celebrations.

As they celebrate like there is no tomorrow, I wish to remind them that the memories of a farewell are even sweeter when they ‘fare well’ in their lives ahead!

Blending, Branding & Bollywood!

We come across branded celebrity nuptials more often these days. The branding starts with a hashtaged  name blending of the couple. The first time I came across this trend was when Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie decided to live happily ever after and the world called them Brangelina!!! Though now the brand is hyphenated. Then came our Bollywood friends aping their Hollywood cousins and the first on the list was Virushka which was an amalgamation of the names of celebrities from two religions in India Bollywood and Cricket!

Initially I was impressed at their creativity only to realise later that there were online tools like couple name generator like an anagram generator that could churn out combined names of couples in various permutations and combinations.

Later on I learnt from my daughter that there was a term for this in the millennial lingo and was called ‘shipping’ or ‘ship’.  You could ship two romantically linked couple by co-joining their first or last names and flaunt it as brand. The convenience of publicizing their union was also simple. All they needed to do was to prefix a hashtag to their ‘shipped’ names to set sail on the sea of eternal bliss. Some though turned a Titanic half way through.  I’m sure the Sailing fraternity, which is an otherwise boring male dominated profession were more than happy to be romantically linked to the union of celebrity souls in love. The ‘shipped’ hashtags started trending on the social media sites and the numbers that followed them eclipsed the numbers that attended their wedding.

That is when the Malayalee in me woke up? This was an art we conceptualized generations back, We were the pioneers at combining names and our ancestors were the ones who started this trend of naming not themselves as a couple, but their offsprings with some lovely combination of their own names. Once they took this a tad seriously we had some interesting names doing the rounds, the best of which was Shitty, named after Shoshama & Ittycheria. Had the tools like the name generator been available then, we would have had an entire generation of Malayalees with esoteric names. Baby naming was so easy back then, a child born to an Aleyama and Varghese could be named Arghese…Close to Nargis!. Being born to Thomas and Gracy, had they followed the trend I could have been named Thoracy which sounded more like an acute throat infection.

Today almost every other Bollywood celebrity couple release their hashtaged ‘shipped’ names months before their big fat Indian weddings, that does not happen in India any longer. But picking the right one can be tricky, Virushka had Virat taking on a partial Anushka as the second half of the name and sent a message to the sorority that the husbands can take their wife’s names as surnames, then came Deepveer, now we can also argue that Ranveer let Deepika take the lead…the latest couple on the block is Nickiyanka which was a Transcontinental shipping liner altogether. The American with a small name managed to fit in his entire name into the equation though it sounds like the name of a Russian Gymnast.

Soon to be released is Hashtag AliaRan! Could well be the ‘shipped’ term for Aliya & Ranbir. Not sure if it sounds right though!

Wishing all the ‘ships’ and those ‘shipped’ a wonderful voyage irrespective of the tides and the icebergs they may encounter and make sure the hyphen does not split their brand.

#metoo Vs #humbhi

#metoo vs #humbhi

This is definitely not going to be one of my more popular blogs. I am going to be accused of being judgmental, chauvinistic, an alpha male etc. In fact the very mention that such a blog was a work in progress drew the ire of the ladies at home.

Well, irrespective of all the brickbats I’m bound to receive, I intend expressing my perspective.  My apologies if I directly or indirectly hurt any sentiments in the following paragraphs. You may choose to leave the blog right away.

#metoo movement is opening up many a Pandora’s Box recently in elitist India namely in all the woods prefixed with Bolly, Kolly, Tolly and the likes in India, though it started off with Holly ironically one ‘l’ short of holy. This awakening in India is almost a year after it happened in the US. The time lag between a developed country and a developing one is understandable; since a social issue is no Apple IPhone to be launched simultaneously. There is a lot of difference between ROI (return of investment) of an American product and an ROI (return on interest by public around on a topic of social cause).

While I’m respectful to all the allegations brought forward in the #metoo movement in India, I need to warn future generations of aspiring celebrities to be wary of the world around you. Being a celebrity is much more difficult than climbing the corporate ladder from the lower rungs unless you have big family name towing you. Please do not be as naïve as the scion of one of the first families of Bollywood who claimed after years she was subjected to difficult situations in a place as public as an airport when all she needed to do, was to scream, since her father at that point of time would have used all influence possible to bring the perpetrators of the crime to book and ensure they are wiped of the face of the entertainment world. Now why she didn’t do that is not left to anybody’s imagination but hers?

There is another celebrity who often offers incentives to bare herself in skin and thoughts with the sole objective of encouraging the sports teams in India to perform better ends up accusing a co-star with dubious records in such matters. Well, I acknowledge that every profession new, old, or the oldest has its own dignity of labor. The fact is that, that dignity should never be exploited.

The question and the definition of consent needs to be discussed and understood by all and a teacher in California recently tried to decode the same trying to educate third graders all about consent so that they don’t end up suing people decades later.  This is certainly a step in the right direction, however what was taboo in in one generation is no longer in another.

 

That’s a quick guide to help our children learn about consent. Unfortunately this chart is being taught to third graders now. Today giving a hug is a form of greeting that is just as acceptable as a handshake was two decades back. I’m sure none of the kids these days ask for consent before they hug their friend irrespective of the gender. So apart from the third graders who are taught these consent rules everyone who has hugged without consent can technically sue the other for inappropriate behavior in the years to come, more so if he or she goes on to become a celebrity.

It’s time we turn our attention to the sizeable population of women who are going through hell every day in rural India and other parts of the world where internet and English are yet to penetrate. These women are oblivious to the #metoo campaign and the attention it is mustering miles away from them. They go through this at the hands of family members, friends and elders irrespective of their age every single day. They are always not fortunate to live to narrate a once in a lifetime incident decades later. The reason they hide this from the society is more a matter of survival than it is for the celebrities who are subjected to this. The ‘revenue’ model is different in both; the decision is between the ROI of just trying to live / survive while the ROI in the case of celebrities is to live better and longer. We need a campaign to bring these rural women out of their misery. #Humbhi / #Wetoo instead of #Metoo would be more appropriate.  Since metoo would be translated in Hindi as mehtho… which roughly means I am the way I am? That shouldn’t be the case!

Let’s pledge to bring up our sons to be respectful and daughters even braver!