Global Comment

Something I wrote is now on Global Comment courtsey the very lovely Natalia Antonova.

Sharp!

Updated:

The answer to the $700 bn question is - No.
See, now my tear ducts will go into overdrive.

Can you imagine what those poor banker type people will have to weather?
No more the measly benefits of millon dollar bonuses or swanky soccer stadium sized limos?
My heart breaks. Crack.

Just when the gringos were inching towards calling Paulson, ”Baron Von Moneypants”.

Because we bring the gay

There was some ensuing noise somewhere about the wonderful possibility of eradicating the institution of marriage . I forget where since I am in a ginger tea induced stupor. Yes, I am a pekoe drunk belle far niente. Deal with it later.

On the topic of making redundant marriage(or making marriage redundant?), I have precious little to offer. I am not married, I don’t know if I ever will. I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating it. Food and travel rate significantly higher on my list of things to obsess about. Closely followed by feminism, technology and behavioral sciences. All those combined is why I will never marry, I guess.

I do muse, wondrously, how is that it’s usually the happily married-we-got-our-mugs-on-our-mugs-and-have-matching-curtains-and-crockery-that-would-shame-most-BnBs-in-the-state-of-Virginia type of people who usually feel the need to extrapolate about the impotence of this “social construct/necessary evil”. To them I’d say – Yes and you forgot Poland. Ruminate.

Book buying frenzy shows no signs of immediate arrest. I picked Gunter Grass, Banana Yoshimoto, Luigi Barzini and Nadine Gordimer. And a dozen others. Also, I am really looking forward to picking up the The Jewel of Medina, if it ever makes to a bookstore near me. I know for sure that no Barnes and Nobles across United States of Dementia is stocking it, so I can’t possibly bribe an upstart up north to get it for me. Gah!

In the middle of all that bibliophilic glow that usually makes my face appear softer and more tolerable than it normally is, I saw something priceless. A copy of People, the Indian version.

Lo! and behold, homo-erotic front-pages have never looked better or, well, so homo-erotic. Our gilded Olympians, the erstwhile boxer and the wrestler, are in some sort of a WWE meets Playgirl grip that will bring early Christmas joy to many a gay heart. Men, of course.

Unfortunately, I have searched all the lands in all the internets to procure an online rendition, but to no avail. Much sobbing.

The inside of the magazine is splattered with more bare-bodied hugging and some serious m/m love. I am delighted. I really am. In a country that’s still debating, the repealing of Section 377, this is a harbinger of good times. Finally, I can say this with much affection – Congratulations to Indian Publishing!

We bring the gay.

Counter-point

Actually. No, we don’t.
The central government is yet not consumed by the yuletide/diwali/ramadan spirit and still holds reservations(hold it: a pun!) against the homosexuals.

“Homosexuality is a social vice and the state has the power to contain it,” … “It (decriminalizing homosexuality) may create breach of peace. If it is allowed then evils of AIDS and HIV would further spread and harm the people. It would lead to big health hazard. It would degrade moral values of the society,”

- Additional Solicitor General P. P. Malhotra.

Pee Pee is bang on the money. And if you wanton wench type people don’t see it then you are bigger pisspots than he is. Not that I would ever call him a pisspot, even if I thought he was. And I don’t think he was or is. Or something.
So, there.

Tough.

Forget what those pesky epidemiologists say about AIDS, this by far is the best way to put the brakes on it.
As a nation we must support this ideology. Else, soon we will be overtaken by a platoon of well coiffeured and nice smelling homosexual men, armed with strawberry lip-glosses and copies of Elle Decor, clad in a charcoal gray Armani jackets or alternatively a nice pinstripe suits trying to force good taste and an appreciation for opera into our simple ways. Blasphemy.

And what about those gay women?
I heard they pray at the altar of Pottery Barn. Pagan furniture worshippers!

*Shriek*

How do they even do it? (asked by a B.Tech, much grimace distorting his face)

Sexual perversity in Mumbai?
We can’t. We mustn’t.
Let’s restrict it to natural carnal acts.

I extended this post after I got this nagging little email from a *gay* person I know of. (If the government is reading this, then I absolutely DO NOT condone of such *sickly* practice.)
The gays and their whining, oh! we aren’t treated like people. We are normal people, blah, blah, blah. What’s normalcy in regular hetero eyes anyway? It’s not till you’ve fudged a couple of marriages and abandoned a few dysfunctional kids that you have even gained acquaintance with normalcy. So, homos of the sapiens, YOU aren’t normal. Sock it, really!

Anyway, this nagging *gay* person was disgruntled about the way this whole situation has shaped up(down?).

“I am a criminal for wanting to be with someone who just so happens to be a boy. All because, I too, am a boy. So, I can’t/shouldn’t love him?”

Of course not. Young laddie, that’s a serious crime. Loving people. Why! All you amorous *gay* persons must be banished from the kingdom for your illicit “love”, with necks tied to the shins, no less. Red torture style.
Also, what is this schmaltzy crap of wanting to be with someone?
Take a leaf out of the books of those thousands of unfaithful heterosexual couples incrementing like beggars outside a mosque.
Find yourself a girl you can cheat on. Forget this *perverted* line of thought.
Being with a boy! Hah!

For all of you *lesbian* persons. (I can’t even say that out loud without wanting to soap my own mouth with Margo, which btw has neem extracts to keep your skin oil free, the gays told me this too.)
You disgust me.
Vile. Vile. Vile.
I saw Fire, and though I got really excited at one point in time (but they didn’t do anything and that totally killed my mojo*), I absolutely abhor the concept of *lesbian* persons. Such persons are the plague of the society. How dare they not desire copulation with hirsute, virile, Indian men with efficient sperm count?
Isn’t it God’s will that we engage in locking lips, organs et al to reproduce?
Will God ever forgive us for actually making love for, say, pleasure?
Self expression and freedom are hardly what Nature intended for the most evolved being of the species.
Unnatural transactions, I say. There is a reason we have dicks running amok. You *lesbian* persons just don’t appreciate the abundance of dicks in the Indian society.
Bad.

Pedophilia, rape and human trafficking can wait for the time being. So can illiteracy and unemployment because we must first gut the sodomites. This is a far more serious issue orbiting our national conscience.
And what a clear conscience it is.

*- My Fire was cut. I didn’t even get to the good stuff. Edited DVD it seems. I should’ve sought a refund.

You think of a caption

Pic via 1x

 

Updated: 

Skinny Latte: “I just went to a fortune teller!
She said i’m very charmed (and that means?), life is full of exotic travel… but to avoid China..”

Nihilist Waffles: “This (showing her the picture above) is why you shouldn’t travel to China.”

I had a Zen moment after seeing this photograph and I somehow better comprehend the occupation of Tibet. And why no western nation dare meddle.

This girl alone can kick an army to the curb. I’d be afraid to tread. Very afraid.

Garnish it with a hint of child abuse…and your religious farrago is ready to be served

I am a rude atheist and that saves me from the obligatory hedging that may otherwise be necessary for a post like this.
As someone who is unabashedly referred to as a militant feminist, with or without a premise, a plentitude of things piss me off on a daily basis. But none more than this utterly befuddling enterprise.
Who allows for such obvious abuse to occur without batting an eyelid?

I’ll be the first to admit that religious banalities do not make sense to me, possibly because I wouldn’t venture so far as to actually waste time with them. It doesn’t interest me. Children’s rights do. I have a 13 year old sister, the same age as this newly minted “sadhvi”, who is  the devil’s incarnate most of the times and I seriously wanted to set her up for an adoption when she was 2 and I was 12. I even made enquires at the TOI classifieds hotline if children were allowed in the commodities section.
Of course, that failed and she continues to jump on me every morning without fail. Her own sweet way of waking me up.
So given all of that, I can’t help the juxtaposition.

As a hyperactive kid, her daily routine encompasses activities as varied as basketball and art classes and the usual hour and a half of daily cribbing about how “no one loves her” when we refuse to give into her whims. Which is rarely ever.

This other 13 years old who has renounced the world, is not allowed take baths, has to walk barefoot(occasional cloth sandals be damned, it’s as good as bare), doesn’t even have the basic amenities in place and has to pee in a basin. As a semi-parent and more importantly as a woman, this bothers me immensely.

I am no pundit when it comes to the nitty gritty of Jain diksha. I have done some reading on transtheism to know and appreciate parts of the epistemology that serves as the kernel of this particular sect.  I’ll also readily admit that some of it is mind-bogglingly awry.
I’ll also confess to being fairly interested in exploring this brand of metaphysical platitude before I discovered kickboxing. All of that unrequited spiritual questing reached an effective fruition with the punching bag in close proximity.
Sacred threads of the conversation aside, I do find it repugnant to indoctrinate young kids and forcefully (psychological pressure can’t not be accounted for) convert them into ascetics. And that’s exactly what this bloody mess tantamounts to. I really don’t much care about the whole “it was her choice” argument either.
If she chose to shoot up crack, would they be as obliging?

It would be a matter of choice, after all. That’s what they’ve proclaimed.

Though, what choice is it?

“When child has no rights to vote or to make any legal decision on its own till 18 and needs parental consent, how can the child make this decision to renounce the world. Does a child of 8, even understand what lies ahead?” – Nishit Kumar(Activist, Childline)

Godbags of yore and the steeped-in-orthodoxy gurus of the iPhone age have aligned themselves with the “devout” followers of Jainism to protect their religious interests. Pot bellied gents from near and far are congregating in ritual halls to disseminate half baked wisdom (self concocted, of course) on this usually gentle faith. People are traversing through geographical boundaries to gather in my city so that they can advocate this acutely barbaric practice.
The larger Jain community, for most part, supports this. And that’s enough to send a tsunami of shivers down anyone’s spine.
Religious abrasions on the skin of humankind can’t be disguised in a hurry. This, too, is consistent with good religious behavior in some parts of the world. That doesn’t make the practice any less gory.

Disturbing Moral of the story: Support convoluted religious zeal. In the meantime, kids can go to hell. Or attain moksha. Or whatever.

The violent details of this intricate diksha-grahan are hard to digest. This kid had her hair plucked out, one strand at a time. She claims that didn’t hurt. But, of course. And all you shameless hussies scream bloody murder while threading. Then again, this child has been adequately tutored to hand over any personal ideas of freedom or liberation she might have originally gathered through her own experiences in life. She has lived with adult gurus since she was 6. No exposure to what it actually means to be 6 or 8 or 13. She doesn’t mention her mother or her younger siblings in conversations with the lawyers of children’s welfare committee’s rep.

What if this was a good way for the parents to barter their girl child for some serious religious props?

I am trying very hard to maintain a rational viewpoint and not cast aspersions but mostly in vain.

If she really knew what it means to be a child, would she still opt for this predicament?
And that’s exactly what it is. A socio-religious quandary.

This I knew prior to reading about it since my mum is actually some sort of an authority on Jain traditions and religious practice. Her frequent trips to Pawapuri to attain more knowledge on Jain way of worshipping, have aided me a little while analyzing this placebo.
Yet, I really don’t grasp the significance of making someone suffer terribly in their present life just so they can achieve enlightenment after they are done living.

My limited acquaintance with austere Jainism notwithstanding, a peculiarly bizarre incident springs forth from the caverns of memory. I was on my way to some odd spur-of-the-moment trekking jaunt and right before I could haul the backpack and myself into the already speeding bus in front of me, I had an errant hand pull me back. Before I could wrap my head around the hullabaloo ensuing around, I saw naked jain “sadhus”(read:young men with facial hair) passing through the street. I was asked by the owner of that very ugly hand to step back and so that they couldn’t see. I was enraged and piqued, so I called my Jain liasion to do a little QnA and she informed me that a woman is not supposed to cross the hermit’s path because that could lead to arousal or some such.
Ahem. In other words, you can’t control your stick but you want me to duck and hide so that dirty thoughts don’t set home in your head.

What can I say?

The philosophy abandons me completely.

I-m-modest

I’m sure I’m no ascetic; I’m as pleasant as can be;
You’ll always find me ready with a crushing repartee,
I’ve an irritating chuckle, I’ve a celebrated sneer,
I’ve an entertaining snigger, I’ve a fascinating leer.
To everybody’s prejudice I know a thing or two;
I can tell a woman’s age in half a minute—and I do.
But although I try to make myself as pleasant as I can,
Yet everybody says I’m such a disagreeable (wo)man!
And I can’t think why . . .

Enter Gulag

I commenced reading The Gulag Archipelago. Finally. It’s fairly ambitious of me to want to finish this 3 volume giant in record time. Despite a little bit of research that goes into every book that I pick up, this is far more brilliant than I’d have thought. Also, I have registered that I am showing a very strong inclination for books pertaining to wars, prisons and assorted crimes, these days. Vonnegutian fever returns? Perhaps. If I actually believed in psycho-analysis then I’d concur with those around me that it’s choices as mutant as these that lead to my infinite singledom.
Well, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn is far better company than half the men I meet in this city, so no apparent harm.

The literary genius of certain writers sometimes acts an impediment for normal, non-lit grad bookends whilst actually reading them. More so in the case of a reclusive Russian, I reckon. Someone pointed out that the book is a study in “angry prose”. I have yet to draw conclusions. I confess that I am a compulsive book hoarder and possibly could go a step further to insert that much maligned self description – I am an avid reader. Biblophile or not though, sometimes, the serious emotional strain that a book can put on you is positively threatening and chimerical and hence exceedingly enticing. It’s almost a personal triumph to get through something like that. An honest account of a colossal, mass tragedy stirs something within you that can’t be countered easily by closing the chapters and putting the tome away. (James Frey, art thou listening?)

The KGB seized one of only three extant copies of the text still on Soviet soil – this was achieved by torturing a dissident Elizaveta Voronyanskaya, Solzhenitsyn’s typist who knew where the typed copy was hidden; within days after she was released by the KGB, she hung herself on 3 August 1973. (Linkage)

Meanwhile, cutting down on some of the acerbic commentary here, probably because when you are writing for human rights journals that chronicle disease, death and drugs you can’t afford the sardonic tone that usually colors everything that comes out of your being.
Tragedy, I tell you.

Also, this whole Sarah Palin brouhaha is endlessly frustrating and slap-worthy. Yet, the fun part of this exercise is that now I can backtrack it to Smile When You Are Lying which contains a rather wicked and succint observation of why Alaska has almost never managed to send a liberal to the Senate. By the eternally outrageous Chuck Thompson, of course.

Updated: Hereshe

Micro-Blogging Address

Hereshe
Emotion fueled by reason. Link Love while on the go and not sitting upfront.

Your Body is a Wonderland

For my darling D. And the issues weighing on my mind.

In two parts.

Part Une: Model Behavior
I recently managed to excavate some really old pictures of mine from a relinquished photo album in my mother’s cupboard. I have quiescent archaeological tendencies and discoveries like these bring me unparalleled joy. The sort that allows me to detach from my inner Kafka for a good 20 minutes. (Dare not smirk, you!)
So, anyway, the pictures chronicle my life from the ages 5 to 16 except for two odd shots, one with my younger sister and another from an old portfolio that was shot when I was hovering 19. It’s the later photograph that got me thinking off tangent(again). That, coupled with a recent shopping excursion.
Let’s start from the beginning, then.
At 19, I was waifish, a twiggy replica albeit more chocolate than vanilla. I am not tremendously tall by Gucci standards; I stand 172 cms in ballerina flats. My height coupled with my weight(lessness?) gave me the undesirable aura of what Lagerfeld was trying so unimaginably hard to re-invent – Heroin Chic. To add insult to injury, I used to be – what some may occasionally refer to as – a “model”.
My modelling stint was short-lived since I have perpetually suffered from ADD and that coupled with my personal conflicts while negoatiating gravity and Newtonian mechanics often led me astray from the catwalk and frequently into the arms/lap of some unsuspecting corporate head honcho who probably was half way to a coronary already after the second bikini clad supernova zoomed by.

The seemingly incongruous point is that I was a reed thin model in the pre historic era of my life and there arose a conflict that has stayed with me till this day. Thinnity doesn’t please members of my family much. As a heady cocktail of part Indian and part latino being skinny is something that either side of my family just doesn’t comprehend or appreciate.
“You got to have the shape, no?” – was my paternal aunt’s frequent bleating over the phone during my teen years. No asking after my well being, just the usual apprehension about my body fat percentage. More is merrier in this club muchachas!
That’s a different kind of latin exchange that even South Central can’t front on.
You dig?
Now, I wasn’t raised on a staple diet of Vogues and Elles and till I was approached by the agency, I was led to believe that Elite was either a prep school for over-privileged nutters or a company that manufactured electrical appliances.
The dichotomous existence I started to lead before the sophomore modelling year was out was most apparent when I’d scamper from one audition to another whilst throngs of skeletal girls were being instructed to “lose the extra inches”(where from? the skin of their teeth?) and then I would come home to a large family(in ways more than one) and their constant shrieks of “You look emaciated” followed by incessant stuffing of my face with everything that’s fried, baked, grilled and sauted on God’s green earth. True love is calorie-blind.
Fortunately I didn’t suffer from any fashionable eating disorders even though I did, with immense sadness, watch a healthy amount of girls succumb to the pressures of fitting into a pair of Chanel’s cigarette pants. Nip, tuck and good luck. That was the mantra. Surgical Santa didn’t climb down my chimney but quite a few of my acquaintances did gift themselves a little uplifting of the spirit and more during many a christmas eve. Sometimes I’d almost feel guilty coz I was naturally thin. Metabolism has been a friend of mine though I wouldn’t have felt abandoned even if it wasn’t the case. The fashion industry can be terribly insular and claustrophobic. Despite the public hossanas in the celebration of unique and diverse looks, everyone ultimately ends up looking like everyone else and if you don’t then you are ostracized. Immediately. Barely out of their cradles, some of the 13 year olds already had furrows entrenched on their pretty little foreheads with the constant measuring of waists and busts.
For me, harmonizing the outside with the inside amounted to tight-rope walking,with the entire Brown Brady Bunch balanced on my shoulders, while they played YMCA in the background. The constant refrain at home was – “ You are thin. Eat something.” As a precarious adolescent you feel suitably schizophrenic trying to comprehend how is that one set of people think of you as scrawny even as another set makes you feel as though you are the cocoa colored, female Chris Farley.
Thankfully, none of it managed to break my sway. Thin or heavy, I was happy either way. I am thankful for la familia because I never felt the need to barf an expensive Italian meal just so I could manage perfectly for the fitting next day.
An ambition to equal Tyra’s tanginess or Naomi’s notoriety came to a screeching halt when in an unfortunate accident, a cup of black coffee ended on a particularly insolent stylist’s head. It was an accident, mind you.
Stepping into the twenties led to two important discoveries.
1) The Second Sex should be read once again and in a different light
2) I have a butt
Thinnity was replaced by femininity. My aunt’s countless prayers to all the patron saints of Womanly Body Parts to bless me with “real breasts” yielded results. Today, I am happily “curvaceous”. Loud yikes to that! The world I inhabit now is slightly more erudite than the one I discarded a while ago so my shape isn’t a chief determinant of my success. My self worth is not directly proportional to the size of my waist. Or so I thought.
After an important and successful client presentation, I made my way to the restroom. The time was 12 am and suddenly I heard muffled sounds of someone heaving. I am usually clueless about bathroom etiquette and so I mumbled my offer of assistance from outside the door to the person in the closed booth. No response. I stepped out to seek the cloakroom attendant but when I came back, the nauseous girl was missing.
A couple of hours later a colleague walked up to me and slyly confessed to the act asking me to stay mum.

“I told myself I wouldn’t eat but I was so nervous bout this client pitch, I overdosed on muffins/donuts/ whatyouhaves. I had to get it out of my system. I feel so large. The other girls looked so nice and slender in their suits.”
She is, by no stretch of my imagination (and I have a fairly elastic mind), large. She has a lovely, girly sorta figure.

I sat down with an undisguised smirk on my face even as I muttered something akin to – “Take care of yourself, its unhealthy..”.
This unsettled me. Enormously. An overt, almost rancorous version of me took over my psyche for a minute or maybe more.
Here I was, a whole 5 years down the line, in the posh environs of a well-heeled corporate establishment working with a team that prides itself as the brain-station for the intellectually sentient and one of the brightest stars on this horizon is essentially a 13 year old anorexic girl from my yesteryears.

It causes serious grief to be informed by every magazine on the stall that I need to “Say no to carbs”. I wonder if they asked for Mz Reagan’s permission before putting their own spin on her 80s campaign catch-phrase. You can’t and shouldn’t eat wheat, rice, pulses, egg white, citrus fruits, egg yolk, zucchini, tomatoes, potato, onions, red food, white food, brown food. To make this a lot simpler just staple your mouth and go live under a rock. You ain’t hot till your ribcage threatens to pierce through your epidermis and you essentially need a license for your pelvic bones, jutting out perilously, coz they are sharp enough for you to declare them at the customs while travelling out of the country. 6 feet Russian runway queens with sunken eyes and pasty skin(and hidden drug pocks) promoted so eagerly by Wintour and co don’t help the trend either. Then again, they are the fashion trailbazers and “regular” was never chic.
Fashion pundits allege that they promote a certain body image because women like watching and men like fantasizing about these stick insects on display and they are in the business of selling so they have to employ tactics to ensure sales.
Partriarchy is a solid enough reason to comply with, isn’t it?
I see women of all shapes and sizes, sometimes even the ridiculously elvin craving for, yes, a still thinner body.
In the Apple age of re-invention, you can never be thin enough. iFat is what haunts every woman despite whatever her weight may be. Its as though body dysmorphia is no more a tormenting psychiatric disorder but an indication of the hip quotient(pun intended)and hot water(and nothing else) has replaced Vietnamese food(or whatever else were we chewing on last time) as the latest culinary trend.
Malfunctions galore.

Part Deux: Because every me is every you

And now about that retail adventure I mentioned earlier.
I walked into a store. A fairly upmarket joint, the kind that caters to cretins with designer-collared Chihuahuas and reeks of offensive smelling incense to make believable the New Age Buddha Bar decor. Upon my arrival, the raucous salesgirl, with the entire supply of Riplon circa 1997 caking her visage, caustically remarks that the sections in front don’t stock anything in my size.
Incidentally I wasn’t even browsing for myself but for a friend obsessed with such grossly overpriced bibs. Usually I don’t relent but she was leaving the country for a while and it was her wedding present and other such soppiness.

But hold on. My size ‘eh? Whats that? Regular?

Everything on that rack would only fit a particularly malnutritioned gamin.

“Do you think am fat or stupid? And you can only pick one?” – I pose my question while thumbing their garish brouchure.
“Err…no ..madam.” She brays.
“Quickly, Betty. Which one is it going to be?” I wink.
“ Sorry ..madam” Words can barely make their way out of her mouth.
“Don’t be. You and I walk the same path in our size 4 chinos.” I smile.

I am 5’8’’ and I weigh 56 Kgs as of now. I was 66 kgs till about two months ago and I have also been 43 kgs at one point in time. No, I’ve never had to establish kinship with nausea to feel better about my body. I like myself just fine. I kickbox everyday and I practice pilates twice a week. I don’t do these things to make or keep myself hideously wiry. I do these things to keep myself fit and also to be ready for any street side scuffles I might get into thanks to my nonstop activism sprees or alternatively just coz I enjoy streetside scuffles. I also binge on curly fries every fortnight and though none of my parts are yet wobbly, however, if there were to be, I’d love them all the same. And I am now reaching for a bowl of toffee pudding ice cream. You should too, once in a while.

On why I heart Mumbai Mirror

Exhibit A.

Look at the second question for our rather snippy sexpert.
And the response.

Are you male or female?
Leave your nipples alone.
They are fine!

This sort of balmy riposte inspires much heart in the conuselling abilities of that arcane community loosely referred to as “Indian Sex Therapists”. And of course the original deviants who find sufficient time and courage to go where no man/woman(male/female) may have ventured without a little bit of fear snaking up on his(I can the sniff the maleness of this one) gonads.
A Marshall and Tanners homage will follow.

This is precisely why you shouldn’t drink coffee while reading this blog. Now you need a new keyboard, dontcha?
Ha!

Also, in the papers.

I almost thought I was in a Middle Eastern dictatorship when I read something about termination of Dengue workers. Of course, then I saw this. And that totally sucked the fun out of news.

Winsome journalistic ardor. This is.

The Final Cut

After one gig in New Orleans, a thief stole all of Pink Floyd’s equipment in a tractor/trailer. Included was Richard Wright’s organ with stacks of effects boxes, a personal assembly. Instead of trying to find all the components again, Richard decided to use conventional components.

Trawling the web enough will get such gems to fore.
This is sad. Because before we all started our slump into indie kitsch and despite whatever alternative shoegazing misanthrope we are listening to right now, in the beginning there was Pink Floyd. Period.

Romeo Must Die

Because You ask for reasons.

Yes, I can’t make it work. Not with you. Maybe, not with anyone else. Maybe, I’m cut out of a different cloth. Maybe, I’m more leather than lace. Yes, I am speaking your language to make it sink. Maybe, I can resist the wear and tear. Maybe, I’m as cold as you have me picked. But, I’m not yours. There are no maybes about that. I never was.

No, I can’t look pretty for your neanderthal buddies to pat your back on your “achievement”. No, I won’t stop taking the 5am one-way flights to unknown islands, on my own. No, you can’t protect me from myself. I would recommend you don’t even try. I need my time, my place. Your lack of comprehension about this spatial truth is not a peril of my making. Deal with it on your own. Yes, I will always love my cameras a little more than you. Maybe, coz they help me capture life in a far more pronounced way than you ever could.

No, I won’t dress garish and loud for your sister’s farce of an engagement ceremony. No, I won’t dance with your drunk as skunk relatives to prove that am deserving of a rank in their midst. No, I won’t send you pictures of my earrings and ask you if you like em so I can decide whether or not to pick em for myself. I picked my own apartment at 16, I don’t need help picking trinkets at 24.

Yes, I will always be a little clinical and detached. That doesn’t make me less humane, just more real. If you guage the difference(which I doubt, you do). Yes, I would recommend you brush up a little bit on your Strenberg to assimiliate that love is infact a combination of intimacy, commitment and passion. No, I don’t set an IQ pre-requiste for guys I date but I prefer if their’s isn’t entirely a single digit one.

Yes, I am more evolved and liberated than you’d like. Yes, that the a priori to my acceptance of the fact that you are still steeped in sexism and partiarchy. Yes, I do marvel at my own lack of cognizance vis-a-vis you, sometimes. Yes, I have learnt a few home truths.

No, I can’t stay with you and make it work because its too difficult to break away and find someone new. No, I don’t fear the single status. No, I don’t have a rewind button. No, I don’t care about your neurosis right now. Mine is pretty declivitous in itself.

No, you don’t get to judge me. You weren’t around when I was getting tumors removed from my arm and writhing in pain when I was put on mind controlling meds. Yes, I am different. Yes, I am better.

No, I am not enthralled by your messianic susurration. No, I don’t find your Robert Jordan’s-I-am-reborn-to-rescue-the-cosmos bullshit inspiring. Not even entertaining. Not when you run with your tail between you legs everytime you are faced with a real problem. Such as, getting dumped. You are as regular as chums. Please stop convincing of your “higher purpose”. Intelligence bereft bimbettes massaging your ego and whatnot is no yardstick of your emotional intelligence.

Yes, I have more brainpower. No, you can’t compete. You are unarmed. As you always were.

Yes, I did stoop far too low to accomodate you. Yes, you should be thankful.

No, I don’t have a “type”. I ‘d like to think people aren’t bacteria to be classified that scientifically.

No, I don’t taper. I walk out when I feel its not right. No, you can’t persuade me to reconsider.

Yes, you were one night stand. Understand, process, accept. Get over it.

No, I don’t love you and am not apologetic. No, I don’t condone your consistent “bitch-assness”. in the words of one Mr Sean P Diddy Combs.

Yes, I was caught up once. Yes, I am acidic and contemptuous when pushed. Yes, I am capable of absolution and peace. No, you can’t decide when I pick and what.

No, I am not a man’s mind in a woman’s body. Yes, you are incredibly incompetent with your (non-existent) sense of humor.

No, the Universe doesn’t consider you its kernel of wisdom. No, you are not saving anyone, not even yourself. No, I am not a conformist, but that doesn’t make me cynical either.

Yes, I can live without you. No, you aren’t a member of the chemical periodic table with the atomic number 8 assigned to you. Much as you’d like to imagine. Full of hot air, yes, you are.

No, you can’t come back. No, I don’t care. Yes, I’d like my space.

This is release. Depart. Now. I want one of me and none of you.

Les Assassins des Fauteuils Roulants

That was one of the reasons I really wanted to study French. It sounded supercool and I was almost 13. You can’t blame me.

DFW  is phenomenal. A geographically separated friend, while discussing this tragic news, mentioned how a lot of people never really got around to reading him little earlier than now. Why must it always boil down to sudden death for a brilliant author to be catapulted into the public gaze?
Though. Better late than never.

Infinite Jest was one of my first prized possessions. It came to me through someone who annoyed me, with unparalleled consistency, by calling me Madame Psychosis. While running through the boarding school’s hidden wildberry garden with shrubs that peeled off your epidermal layer in seconds of establishing contact with it.
Fun times.

It dawned upon me a lot later. The real meaning of that *endearment*. Ahem.

Now, I am must find myself a new copy of Girl With Curious Hair for my sister. She will learn to read it with comprehension in 5 years or so.

Where chilli powder aided gangrape counts as “molestation”

Loud silences really don’t convey much except a sense of defeat. This is more than apt in case of  Khairlanji verdict.

Giving its verdict in the 2006 Khairlanji case, the Sessions court has held eight people guilty of murder. It has, however, acquitted three.
Rape acquisition(sic) has not been proved. The court has said that the quantum of punishment will be pronounced on September 20.

Indian legal system makes for a perfect SNM submissive flogging partner, given the amount of beating it enjoys from barbaric scoundrels who repeatedly flaunt their entitled dicks in its face.

Let’s provide with some background as to why this decree smacks of serious B.S.

Here is what occured in a rural Maharastra hamlet.(Btw, Marathaman, Mr Raj-Who Better Than Maharashtrians-Thackrey is probably screwing a sheep right now.)

Surekha Bhotmange was running for her life but was dragged by a mob that stripped the Dalit woman and beat her mercilessly with wooden sticks and bicycle chains. Her head was then banged repeatedly against a wall to ensure her death, according to the CBI charge sheet in the Khairlanji killings that shocked the nation.

Surekha’s 17-year-old daughter Priyanka was dragged out of her hiding in a stable and done to death in a similar manner and so were her two young brothers Sudhir and Roshan – the latter partially blind. While thus killing the four members of the Bhotmange family, the frenzied group was hurling invectives referring to their caste.

( linkage)*

8 proven guilty. 3 left scot free. Charges pertaining to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act were thrown out of the court. Of course. Despite that I am not really inclinded towards politicising this whole painful situation, I can’t help feeling incredibly ill at the way this has been handled.

The worst part of the entire episode is that the rape charges against the men( who mercilessly butchered an entire family in public view) did not uphold in a court of law due to “lack of evidence”. It almost plays out like a mediocre Bollywood movie. Apparently, the horror inflicted on the Bhootmange women was merely considered  “molestation” . That’s legal for a little hanky-panky here and there, as this lawyer friend points out. It’s not a synonym for serious sexual assault. Not in the eyes of law, at least. Yes, just molestation. How is that for a particularly blood-curdling pun?
The mother-daughter pair was pinned down to the mud floor and chilli powder was thrown into their eyes to disorient them while they were raped.  Correct me if I am wrong but it’s not always about the quicksand justice meted out to such diabolical bastards(though a speedy judgement does help), it’s also about the real charges that should’ve been proven right in a court of law. Prosecution was sipping pinda coladas as opposed to working on the case?

 Rape is the one of the most toxic crimes and somehow people(read:men) can’t seem to fathom this.

Also, link this entire fiasco to the Dalit discontent that’s been bubbling in various parts of the state(and the country) for a while now. India claims to be constantly riled by what it so lovingly calls ”Naxalite nuisance”, yet it takes events like these to scratch the surface and enable us with the perspective to understand where does all this violence emerge from.
Keep passing such asinine verdicts and watch the surge rise.
Cheers!

 

*- This is an old news report from when this incident actually occured.

Cry, Beloved Country. Cry.

Bombed. Again.

I could start with a caveat but that will just dilute my wrath. And I’m in no mood for that.
I spent 30 minutes on the night of 13th Sept tracing friends in Delhi. One of them couldn’t be found. It was a Saturday evening and he is a nocturnal creature. The bombs had taken off in 3 of the more prominent public places in the capital. I just didn’t want things to add up..

My mother’s eyes are misty as she looks at the plasma screen beaming lifesize images of destruction. She lived in Greater Kailash and has fond memories of walking to Connaught Place with college buddies on a lazy weekend, if at all there is such a thing in Dilli. She refuses to pronounce it any other way. She reminisces about how scenic and unforgettable Delhi is in winters. Karol Bagh is where her best friend lived. She still might.

But she possibly can’t connect all of that to the surmounting frenzy and chaos building up on our TV screen.

Did this really happen? Again?

The price your pay for being the world’s largest democracy is a bloody balls-less government. Very soon headlines in most national dailies of this country will declare which cities weren’t torn apart by terrorists. Everybody and their political cousin are condemning the blasts that shook the capital and the rest of the country but clearly that is a whole lot of hot air. We’ve seen the charade far too many times now. It is just not good enough. Who the fuck wants you to“condemn”?
We want you to stop it.
The political system in this country is miles deep in pure shit for playing the kind of gutless and mute spectator it has to the terror perpetrated by an increasingly peccant bunch of fundamentalists. And worst of all, they are operating from within the country. I still remember, about 7 years ago, flaming SIMI posters pasted around my college bus-stop threatening to annihilate the “qafirs”. Open call for mass scale defiance. Unhinged display of superior moral fabric or some such. Nobody was in a bleeding rush to exterminate the vermin when it first made an appearance. This is what happens when you ignore the first cockroach pacing around in your kitchen cabinet. Before you know, the population soars beyond imagination. Secularism suddenly seems a whole lot of hogwash. Yes, I am incredibly bitter. I have every right to be so. This whole forgive-and-move-on mantra is hardly working for us. We are still being hunted like a bunch of blind animals.
Apparently it’s a consolation that only 22 people were killed. Ha! Be happy that the number did not shoot through the roof. Take refuge in the fact that a few were people killed. It a good use of the barter mentality that’s been prevalent for eons. Statistics is often more significant than life.
Indian media is equally spineless. Why are the TV channels unleashing the little errand-boy, who managed to catch a glimpse of the terror triumvirate, upon the rest of the world?
Just to gain a few extra TRP points.
Is that the most ethical or even the wisest thing to do? Hardly. But in your quest for more ad revenue, ethics are the first casualty.
The most irritable of it all is the ticker displaying the “compensation” proffered to the victims and their families. The law makers and keepers grope for clues in the pitch black while the politicos shake their heads like a well orchestrated group of eager to please choirboys. This is not a competition, glassheads!
Seriously, dudes, pull your ankles out of your butts. For a little kid who’s lost about half of her family, 50-fucking-thousand rupees do not make any sense. The most basic of laptops average around that much.
Who are we kidding?
The devastation, the constant shadow of fear and a niggling sense of helplessness, the worse of the lot, is what you are left with in the wake of such a tragedy. We know it. We live it. The Bombay bomb blasts, 7/11, all of it is still fresh in people’s minds. I remember talking to a friend in a communication skills session and suddenly this kid shows up in her class with a stunned expression. And completely wordless. The incident snatched his sense of hearing, forever, but he didn’t think of that as the ugliest part, it was the mental scourge of what had happened that damaged his life permanently.
You hug your kid a little more before leaving the house because of the unsurety that clouds your mind about your safe return from a day at work. You blacklist your neighbors who doubled as your extended family because a few people, who probably have nothing to do with any religion or faith except that smiliar sounding first and last names, have wrecked havoc. You don’t know who or what can and can’t be trusted. That’s the output of something so incredibly vile.
And we are still awaiting some form of justice after two years of what transpired in Bombay. Nada.
Instead we have a new and more heinous, not to mention highly cowardly, sort of violence.
We live in this state, constantly. The climate of Fear. The culture of denial and sweeping things under the carpet. This is our genetic code as Indian citizens. Meanwhile, pot-bellied ignoramuses dedicated to protecting us sit by the roadside hoarding cheap and free noodles from cardboard shindigs, grinning, playing cards or harrassing young couples; all in the name of law.
Most of North Africa is probably safer than any cosmopolitan city in India – a country that takes pride in calling itself the Next Superpower. High ambitions! No amount of nuclear deals can help you keep your head above water in the next elections, dear incompetent mutts. Take my word for it.
Also, run a survey of how many Indians would like the local police force neutered and caged. The percentage of those who agree will be astonishingly high. TOI should take notice for their future polls.
If it wasn’t so downright nausea inducing it would be laughable that the most important question now seems to be that of the Australian team’s safety for some impending cricket crapfest. Bravo! Cricket in time of terror, how entirely lyrical and of course a clear indicator of where our priorities lie as a people. Only in this fucking country does an antithesisreceive such unflinching attention.
I don’t give a damn about the pussyfooting around the issue, the Mumbai spirit – grin and bare it-should not be replicated elsewhere in this country. It reeks of passive and masochist desires to forever play the victim. Its twisted but I think we revel in this. Its not good enough, to simply carry on without so much a grimace or a serious axe to grind with those who are doing this and those who are letting them do it. The terrorists and the government. Hand in glove. Something has to be repaired somewhere because things are mighty awry in this part of the world.
We let go of militants who threaten to, and almost do, blow up our parliament. Though, on second thoughts, that almost seems like a blessing in disguise given the general uselessness of the political cadre. We hide behind banal “human rights” banners to protect utterly repugnant non-humans who are scheming and plotting to maim, kill and impair our children, our parents, our families and us. These are people who are delighted by our destruction. They celebrate it. These are people who are aiming their guns at our public parks, schools and our homes. And no, I didn’t intend for this to sound like a speech mouthed by some deep South Republican vying for American presidency but this is how I really feel right now.
There are serious questions that emerge in the aftermath of another terror strike that has left the country paralyzed.

What will You do about it?
What will I do about it?
What will We do about it?
Is this really the place where I’d want to raise my kids?
I don’t know anymore.
As a 24 year old Indian, I’m starting to lose faith in India.
And that just borders on incredible sadness.

G:MT

Now for something personal, penned and published a while ago.

I have become incommunicado, by choice. Exiled. Fenced. Disappeared. From their memories, from their lives. I’ve been cauterized by the overwhelming, exacting scoria disposed of this leftover life. To pen something evocative on a vacant page has suddenly morphed into this colossal task that I’ve purposely deviated from, choosing, instead, to tighten the lid on all that’s bubbling within. Cosmia rising. Ascending peaks of laconic silences. Whispering madness into the damaged pinnae.

Of what consequence is all this yearning? It will always be about finding, rewinding, regretting and finally, relinquishing. All love measures to this. All life unravels the same way. In different quarters.

There is an intense throbbing that everything is turning grayer than the skies outside, that the place of belonging doesn’t really exist but in some forsaken realm of a caduceus spirit. Its withering, this desire to stay and make good of whats given. What if this is not her life?

Body parts merge. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. Numbers fall from space. 12, in banal literary gambles that paid off. 30, up in the irreverent smoke that screams his arrival, again. 5, for the blind towns that played reluctant witness to this unfolding. 2, for both of them. 1, for my only me.

Commence the pain. Inner Exit to Eden. Blasphemy, they’d cry! Do not catechize for comprehension. Do not seek. Will not disappoint.

I am a willing victim. I am a capable executioner. I am the fusion experiment, you can’t deny. I am dying in your embrace. I am disintegrating, one metallic piece per second.

I have to find a real antecedent. A better reason. A bigger door.

Life is still breathing remorse in my ears. I think I still am inept at readjusting the “feelings” vector. I am escaping this coz I need to. Not solely coz I want to. To avoid becoming the empty city streets, they never sleep. Or the solitary dawn in my own coffee mug. I feel turned inside out. I can’t procrastinate my living anymore. I shouldn’t. Haggling with Time is no more an option. I can’t wait for the next life to be the real one. Meantime is the Quarantine.

Venture out. Somewhere. Anywhere. But not here. Porcupine Tree for the Inner Music Whore. My words aren’t stringed together, perfectly, yet. My camera is new and my technique raw. But I am ready. In spite of me, I am ready.

“You are not close enough for me to dislike you..”

Is that why you wait for 6 months just to release your venom because of something I wrote or something I said in a fit of anger?
Denial is a bloody consuming game.

And you will find out if this one Love’s caressing some other Lover..

Bare

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen(Anthem)

A slice of brilliance entwined with simplicity.

I’ll reserve my snarkiness for another day. Watch this for now.

Note from the director:
Two requests:

1. Ignore the subtitles, please. They’re not done by me. Maybe by the same person who put the video online? Which I’m quite pleased about because I don’t have the rights (to my own fucking film, but that’s a separate story). But yes, do make a conscious effort to ignore them.

2. Watch full screen even if the quality (already bad) is worse. It’s worth it, I’d say.

Go Medieval on their collective behinds…

Thus spaketh the Bumbling Bushster of DC. And his word was done. Pervy(of the Musharaf fame) must be sniggering with Rafi’s songs in tow.  Right about now.

“Those bloody Geneva nerds *must* succeed in their cosmos ending experiment coz I can’t take this anymore!”

In a your-ass-is-grass move, the big old cowboy has finally done something right and now its Pakistan government’s efforting to rearrange the deck chairs on the Hindenberg that takes the cake (firni, whatever other dessert you may fancy in the hinterland).(Thank you for that and many others Mr. Colbert)

This has a better viewership generating capacity than any last minute fuggetry by Raikkonen on every F1 track. I demand a reality show around this. Colors TV are you listening? And I almost never say this unless I cough-sypruped* an entire bottle of Absinthe the night before with the right kind of herbal mix for company.

“The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable,” …….“We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued.” – A senior army official(like Commander Shears?)

It’s now been proclaimed that Afghani(Pak-army-recruits-turned-Afghani-mujaheeds)militants take shelter in Pakistan. Really dumbkoff? And it took you so bloody long to get that straight.

On the side, its almost time for a Big Bang of a different sort from what Zardari and Co might be experiencing. Or not, in case they are in cahoots with the Big Dummy. The whole world ending experiment as reminded to us by the innumerable omnious incantations on the innumerable Hindi news channels has commenced on a rather bombastic note, don’t you think? And in any case since everybody and their blogging cousins have spluttered incoherently about it, it’s only fair that I – with my very special brand of private but intense astronautical joo joo – must show some timely link love.
Personally though, I still feel that McDee’s McMuffin was a bigger breakthrough and hence should be considered a standard for all scientific breakthroughs ever. Those Large Hardon Collider geeks would do well to oujja board some inspiration gathering from Herb Peterson. And they should do it frequently. Really.

* Bottle to mouth, single shot gulping as in the case of drinking Himalaya cough syrups. Only sick Indians can fully comprehend this. And I meant sick in a non Norman Bates sense.

Verti-Go

“I know why I couldn’t observe the fast yesterday, I have vertigo.”

“I will cure it for you. I can cure vertigo. It’s a guaranteed cure.”

“Who’s guarantee?”

“Mine. Of course.”

Silence.

“Do YOU have vertigo?”

“I could..”

Lesbians:1, Men:0 (The sum of all wisdom)

Kylie of the Minogue fame might go gay because there aren’t enough good men. Jack Nicholson might disagree but then who cares About Schmidt anymore.

Super!
My latent lesbianism seems to have suddenly received the kind of steroid boost that most Indian Olympians can only dream of.
However, in all her tiny silver spaceship styled leotard glory Mz Minogue has made a rather riddled with complexities sort of statement that could lead to some not-so-mild natured scuffling with a few not-so-mild natured militant lesbian feminists(including the one hijacking sprinkled yoghurt containers in my apartment right now!).

T(of  The Refrigerator Raiding Bandit fame) and I chatted after I rescued the items in my freezer from an early digestive death.

“She wants to go gay because there is a dearth of good men. So, essentially, my entire lifestyle choice has been negated with one swipe of oh-not-enough-cute-guys-to-boink-so-might-show-some-dyke-loving?”

“Stop saying dyke. Thats akin to saying macaca.“

“YOU can say macaca. I CAN say dyke. You are of the macacas, I am of the dykes.”

“Did you mother smoke hash all through her pregnancy or just the inceptive months?”

End of that conversation.

However, inspired by T’s doggedness, I decided to drop a line to kitty cat Kylie.

Dear Kylie,

We like ye, Kylie. We like your name more, so we shall use it frequently, Kylie. It sounds oh-so-”glauque” to me. But, point to be made – We like You. For all your teeny-meeny short shorts in tawrdy tones and ill at ease bleechers and corset combos you like to parade in at award shows and your incomparably shrill shenanigans (Public Health Warning: Not cutting English Grammar classes, kids, prevents Aliterationistis – a dreadful disease of relentless repetition.) and your valiant yet dignified battle with cancer(hurrah on that). But seriously, my little pipit, paucity of men is not exactly a priori for women turning to other women. It could be a teritiary reason yet not a very solid reason.  I recommend a serious sitdown and a heart-to-heart with one Mz. Melissa Etheridge. In the very least you will learn the concept of making- how do I put it delicately- “music” even if enlightenment on same sex relationships escapes you. All the best!

p.s.: You have a lovely bum and serious props on the Tallulah Bankhead reference in the times of LiLo and Ronson senility!

Much love,

Icon-o-Plastic

Put down your Pastrami..

…and slowly step away from it with your hands where Dr. Rajendra Pachauri can see it.

“Give up meat for one day (per week) initially, and decrease it from there…In terms of immediacy of action and the feasibility of bringing about reductions in a short period of time, it clearly is the most attractive opportunity.”

Less meat = Better global climate. Or something like that.

My favorite part is the commentbox of that article. Delicious.

On tangent the man makes sense, marginally. It can be one hell of a broccoli revolution provided the monstrosity that surrounds Austin, referred to as Texas on most uncontroversial maps, can control its beefy intake. Ahem.
And while you are at it also tick off any bologna, liverwurst and steak you might have contemplated on masticating. Given the dracula-esque ascencion in the vegetable prices, I wonder how feasible is this proposition on the streets of good ole Bombay. But I am an inherent treehugger and a non-red meat eater so I don’t have much sacrifice to make, plus my measly salary doesn’t really allow me the luxury of even the most basic of hatchbacks as far as cars go, so I am already contributing my share in the enviornmental facelift.

That and the fact that I stapled the next-cubicle neighbour’s nose to the whiteboard after he repeatedly left his PC in standby mode. I’m peaceful unless armed with free stationery. Go green or face the consequences!

Now, I go and make myself a karela juice.