A teenager is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma sprayed with a noxious cloud of Axe deodorant.
Maybe I should just say “deo,” because that is how these companies choose to describe their products, no doubt armed with market data that many of their targeted customers lack the attention span or reading skills to grasp the full word.
Since the time Churchill remarked on the weirdness of Russia, it morphed into the Soviet Union and subsequently disintegrated with barely a whimper. The enigma of teenagers remains uncipherable.
I’m sure all of us parents of adolescent and teenage boys have data that could well join us together as subjects of a significant national study that attempts to shed light on a matter that perplexes us:
How is it that the bars of soap and tubes of toothpaste in our sons’ bathrooms don’t seem to diminish despite their purported use? But the Axe deodorant is drained in less than a month.
How is it that a bottle of shampoo that has been standing on the counter for almost a year still feels full, but tubes and jars of hair gel have flown off the same counter and replaced many times?
I have to admit those Axe ads are masterfully manipulative. They have boys aspiring to puberty, and boys who never got over it, spraying themselves. And not just a modest squirt. No-o. They have to mist it up and down and around their bodies so they can walk around like stinkbombs that have women gagging instead of reaching to rip their bodices.
How is it that boys who can crack trigonometry and pooh-pooh their little sisters' worship of Cinderella have trouble disbelieving an ad that tells them that fumigating themselves with cheap perfume masquerading as pheromones will make every female who catches a whiff become a panting slave? Okay, I'm willing to admit that even if they do disbelieve the propaganda, they're still taking no chances.
When I was a teenager, you couldn’t really buy deodorant, at least not any that was made in India. You showered twice a day in the summer and coated yourself with talcum powder to absorb the sweaty sheen on your body. Soap and water were the best beauty products you could count on, we were told. And that made sense: we didn’t have much more than soap and water. Even shampoo was a luxury product until the late 1970s.
Now that soap is cheaper than ever and available in so many brands that you can fill an entire aisle in a store, it suddenly isn’t so cool any more. Even friends who grew up with Rexona think nothing of spending ridiculous amounts of money buying soap from specialty boutiques in malls, where the soap is displayed and weighed (and priced) like premium confectionery.
Nowadays you can wash hands with a drop of alcohol gel and no water (yup! it is supposedly more potent against the H1N1 virus than soap and water). You can stroll like the Pied Piper and be trailed by an army of sexually ravenous females because they’ve just breathed a whiff of your irresistible deo spray. So hey, what moron needs soap?
I demand that soap -- sensible, old-fashioned soap -- gets its due. Hey, teenagers: soap is an underdog. Stand up for it. Don't fall for the propaganda of greedy corporations who are just selling you canned air and depleting the ozone layer faster than you want to deplete girls. And have mercy on your gagging parents.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Fastforwarded Into Fogeyhood
My daughter once pronounced twenty as the cutoff age for someone who is old.
By this count, I've been old for most of my life. Yet I brazenly pass birthday after birthday feeling not a bit older, let alone old. Sprightly as I may feel, when I talk to my children about my childhood, I come across as being positively ancient.
I thought you became an old fogey after you face looks like scratchpaper scribbled with all the wrinkles life throws your way. You walk slowly. You know you’re not far from the end of your journey, and you’re in no hurry to get their fast, so it’s just as well your knees force you to go slow. You wear clothes that belong to a different decade. And when you describe your life, people chuckle as though what you said could hardly be true.
Well, the last of the three hallmarks of fogeyhood holds true for me, so I guess I've entered fogeydom in my forties.
Ancient is what my grandmother seemed to me when she talked about the way things were when she was little. She was probably in her 50s then, and yet everything she said sounded so faraway, practically historical.
Back when I was in primary school, about my daughter's age, 10 paise could buy a few mouthfuls of of paani puri on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, or a puri with a little piece of potato tucked in at our school tuck shop. Getting 25 paise back then made me feel positively rich. If my grandmother saw us trying to haggle up the ten paise to something more generous, she would shake her head and tell us how worthless money had become. Why, when she was young, she could buy a princely amount of practically for that 10 paise.
The denomination she mostly got by with when she was young, the pai, was a museum coin for us. Now, I feel ancient when I give spending money to my children. A rupee buys just a little piece of candy. Ten rupees seems barely adequate but will buy a bag of junk food. I usually end up shelling out much, much more. When I tell my children how getting a rupee was rare treat, their faces flicker with pity and disbelief. (And hey, where’s the reverence?)
"Back when I was little" was just three or four decades away, and does indeed seem far away. It's not just the money. It's describing how I lived.
It's hard for my children to imagine I had no television until middle school, and it was black and white. That when we watched televised cricket test matches, we would crank up the cricket commentary on the radio and mute the television because television was so amateurishly awkward.
It is hard for them to believe that one of my errands constituted knocking on a neighbor's door to ask if she could please chill in her fridge for a few hours the bowl of vanilla custard my mother had sent me with.
Or that we could get power outages that could go on for half a day, and that I would do my homework by the light of a kerosene lantern that was replaced by a car-battery powered tubelight when I was in high school.
That I preferred to use a kitchen knife to sharpen pencils because domestically made sharpeners were so useless and imported ones too expensive. That the first time I finished a whole candy bar by myself was after I went to college in the United States. I'd always shared them with family or friends in India. Or that I once fell off the back of a scooter as it sped down a main road in Jamshedpur, but still didn't get run over because there were hardly any other cars on the road back then.
My children find it quaint that my family used a rotary telephone, which my father still owns. Once, I tried to describe to them what a cross-connection was, and how hilarious these muddled conversations, with strangers shouting faintly in the background, could be. I felt like a time traveller, waving my arms, over-explaining everything, and still getting nowhere: Why my siblings and I used to find these so amusing that we would shout out and call everyone over to cup their hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and listen, how we’d grab the receiver in turns and laugh at what was cutting-edge eavesdropping in my time. How strange it is for them to imagine that we used to book long distance calls ahead, and that telegrams were considered speedy because they arrived in a day.
Then I was thinking today that when I was little, our father and uncles wore trousers most of the time, but most of my older male relatives wore dhotis. I remember my grandfather pleating his crisp, white dhoti and patting the folds down as he sang hymns. There was a whole array of clothes that generation of middle-class shopkeepers and traders wore daily that their children, my father's generation - the westernized young - discontinued wearing. Hand-made slippers. Tailored undershirts in super-thin cotton, with a secret pocket over abdomen or chest to carry cash from the shop. I remember thinking how stylish those garments were, even though they looked dated to us children. Now, they're practically historical for urban Indians.
We live in times when everything gets improved, updated, upgraded moments after it is created. Messages to loved ones reach a split second of being sent. Our children write with dancing thumbs, a digit that clearly was a silent valet to the forefinger in our days.
Amazing as all this seems to us, it’s all going to seem clunky and ancient to our children’s children.
So I suppose it is a just reward, for living in such fast times, that we get to become fogeys before we’ve even wriggled out of middle age.
I felt really grown-up, with the burden of the world on my shoulders, when I turned 20. I've had more birthdays since and have enjoyed each without feeling old. Along the way, I've collected crowns on my teeth and reading glasses, but I've never ever felt that I've become old. The only time I feel old as a stagecoach standing next to a convertible is when I see my children's faces when I tell them about my childhood.
By this count, I've been old for most of my life. Yet I brazenly pass birthday after birthday feeling not a bit older, let alone old. Sprightly as I may feel, when I talk to my children about my childhood, I come across as being positively ancient.
I thought you became an old fogey after you face looks like scratchpaper scribbled with all the wrinkles life throws your way. You walk slowly. You know you’re not far from the end of your journey, and you’re in no hurry to get their fast, so it’s just as well your knees force you to go slow. You wear clothes that belong to a different decade. And when you describe your life, people chuckle as though what you said could hardly be true.
Well, the last of the three hallmarks of fogeyhood holds true for me, so I guess I've entered fogeydom in my forties.
Ancient is what my grandmother seemed to me when she talked about the way things were when she was little. She was probably in her 50s then, and yet everything she said sounded so faraway, practically historical.
Back when I was in primary school, about my daughter's age, 10 paise could buy a few mouthfuls of of paani puri on the sidewalk in my neighborhood, or a puri with a little piece of potato tucked in at our school tuck shop. Getting 25 paise back then made me feel positively rich. If my grandmother saw us trying to haggle up the ten paise to something more generous, she would shake her head and tell us how worthless money had become. Why, when she was young, she could buy a princely amount of practically for that 10 paise.
The denomination she mostly got by with when she was young, the pai, was a museum coin for us. Now, I feel ancient when I give spending money to my children. A rupee buys just a little piece of candy. Ten rupees seems barely adequate but will buy a bag of junk food. I usually end up shelling out much, much more. When I tell my children how getting a rupee was rare treat, their faces flicker with pity and disbelief. (And hey, where’s the reverence?)
"Back when I was little" was just three or four decades away, and does indeed seem far away. It's not just the money. It's describing how I lived.
It's hard for my children to imagine I had no television until middle school, and it was black and white. That when we watched televised cricket test matches, we would crank up the cricket commentary on the radio and mute the television because television was so amateurishly awkward.
It is hard for them to believe that one of my errands constituted knocking on a neighbor's door to ask if she could please chill in her fridge for a few hours the bowl of vanilla custard my mother had sent me with.
Or that we could get power outages that could go on for half a day, and that I would do my homework by the light of a kerosene lantern that was replaced by a car-battery powered tubelight when I was in high school.
That I preferred to use a kitchen knife to sharpen pencils because domestically made sharpeners were so useless and imported ones too expensive. That the first time I finished a whole candy bar by myself was after I went to college in the United States. I'd always shared them with family or friends in India. Or that I once fell off the back of a scooter as it sped down a main road in Jamshedpur, but still didn't get run over because there were hardly any other cars on the road back then.
My children find it quaint that my family used a rotary telephone, which my father still owns. Once, I tried to describe to them what a cross-connection was, and how hilarious these muddled conversations, with strangers shouting faintly in the background, could be. I felt like a time traveller, waving my arms, over-explaining everything, and still getting nowhere: Why my siblings and I used to find these so amusing that we would shout out and call everyone over to cup their hand over the mouthpiece of the phone and listen, how we’d grab the receiver in turns and laugh at what was cutting-edge eavesdropping in my time. How strange it is for them to imagine that we used to book long distance calls ahead, and that telegrams were considered speedy because they arrived in a day.
Then I was thinking today that when I was little, our father and uncles wore trousers most of the time, but most of my older male relatives wore dhotis. I remember my grandfather pleating his crisp, white dhoti and patting the folds down as he sang hymns. There was a whole array of clothes that generation of middle-class shopkeepers and traders wore daily that their children, my father's generation - the westernized young - discontinued wearing. Hand-made slippers. Tailored undershirts in super-thin cotton, with a secret pocket over abdomen or chest to carry cash from the shop. I remember thinking how stylish those garments were, even though they looked dated to us children. Now, they're practically historical for urban Indians.
We live in times when everything gets improved, updated, upgraded moments after it is created. Messages to loved ones reach a split second of being sent. Our children write with dancing thumbs, a digit that clearly was a silent valet to the forefinger in our days.
Amazing as all this seems to us, it’s all going to seem clunky and ancient to our children’s children.
So I suppose it is a just reward, for living in such fast times, that we get to become fogeys before we’ve even wriggled out of middle age.
I felt really grown-up, with the burden of the world on my shoulders, when I turned 20. I've had more birthdays since and have enjoyed each without feeling old. Along the way, I've collected crowns on my teeth and reading glasses, but I've never ever felt that I've become old. The only time I feel old as a stagecoach standing next to a convertible is when I see my children's faces when I tell them about my childhood.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Eclipse
A long solar eclipse was visible in Bangalore on Friday, January 15. Since the eclipse was to start at 11 a.m. and go on till 3 p.m., the children's school, like many others, decided to declare a holiday. I can see why. I wouldn’t want to have the responsibility of making sure any of the hundreds of children under my watch did not run out during lunch break or glance out of a window to look at the sun.
We didn’t watch the eclipse. I tried to find out about safe ways of doing so. But where to get the special lenses needed to view this extraordinary phenomenon? I read in the papers that glasses were on sale at Gangaram’s and Sapna Book House for not much money. But I decided not to get them. You can hardly buy pure sweets uncontaminated by food coloring, even in premium sweet shops. Polyester fabrics are passed of as silk in this, the heartland of Mysore silk sarees. Should I trust my children’s eyesight to the promises of a book store that these plastic lenses would definitely shield young eyes from damaging sun rays? I decided to brave the empty chatter of ignorant TV reporters to get our visuals of the eclipse.
My quiet neighborhood was eerily quieter. The silly chipmunks hid somewhere and stopped their endless squealing. The warblers fell silent. And the crows broke into an angry chorus, not unlike the TV pundits on Face the Nation, around the time of the eclipse’s start. Then, they too disappeared.
After the eclipse, my daughter and I played badminton outside. The yellow shuttlecock pinged off our rackets like Tweety to our Sylvester. No real birds braved the last couple of hours of daylight that day.
I remember a really long eclipse years ago in Calcutta. My parents shuttered the windows and sealed shut the curtains with safety pins so that not a chink of harmful sun rays penetrated our home. You were supposed to take a shower after, and throw out all the drinking water at home and fill the containers afresh.
Those were pre-television days, so my brother, sister and I occupied ourselves with board games and went through sheets of playing Hangman. We knew the eclipse was over when we heard boys from a nearby slum bang doors and shout from the streets, "Grahan daan, grahan daan," as they waved baskets over their heads. In Hindu mythology, eclipses are caused when the demons Rahu and Ketu try to swallow and consume ("grahan karna") the sun and the moon, but are foiled by the gods. The alms these street boys tried to cadge off us was some kind of ransom money. I miss the fanfare and mystery that went with eclipses. Now, they're scheduled to the exact second and reported like a cricket match.
We didn’t watch the eclipse. I tried to find out about safe ways of doing so. But where to get the special lenses needed to view this extraordinary phenomenon? I read in the papers that glasses were on sale at Gangaram’s and Sapna Book House for not much money. But I decided not to get them. You can hardly buy pure sweets uncontaminated by food coloring, even in premium sweet shops. Polyester fabrics are passed of as silk in this, the heartland of Mysore silk sarees. Should I trust my children’s eyesight to the promises of a book store that these plastic lenses would definitely shield young eyes from damaging sun rays? I decided to brave the empty chatter of ignorant TV reporters to get our visuals of the eclipse.
My quiet neighborhood was eerily quieter. The silly chipmunks hid somewhere and stopped their endless squealing. The warblers fell silent. And the crows broke into an angry chorus, not unlike the TV pundits on Face the Nation, around the time of the eclipse’s start. Then, they too disappeared.
After the eclipse, my daughter and I played badminton outside. The yellow shuttlecock pinged off our rackets like Tweety to our Sylvester. No real birds braved the last couple of hours of daylight that day.
I remember a really long eclipse years ago in Calcutta. My parents shuttered the windows and sealed shut the curtains with safety pins so that not a chink of harmful sun rays penetrated our home. You were supposed to take a shower after, and throw out all the drinking water at home and fill the containers afresh.
Those were pre-television days, so my brother, sister and I occupied ourselves with board games and went through sheets of playing Hangman. We knew the eclipse was over when we heard boys from a nearby slum bang doors and shout from the streets, "Grahan daan, grahan daan," as they waved baskets over their heads. In Hindu mythology, eclipses are caused when the demons Rahu and Ketu try to swallow and consume ("grahan karna") the sun and the moon, but are foiled by the gods. The alms these street boys tried to cadge off us was some kind of ransom money. I miss the fanfare and mystery that went with eclipses. Now, they're scheduled to the exact second and reported like a cricket match.
Friday, January 15, 2010
On Learning the Language of the Gods
I have had few words to write of late. I have been learning to speak Sanskrit, a language so magnificently rich and dense with meaning that anything I write looks impoverished and has me leaning on the Delete button constantly.
An extraordinarily patient neighbor recently began teaching a 10-day spoken Sanskrit class to a dozen students. Her class is part of a city-wide blitz by Sanskritam Bharati to popularize the language and blast the myth that it is boring and outdated. Apparently, 108 (an auspicious number, indeed) similar workshops are being hosted around Bangalore.
A lot of Western-educated Indians pooh-pooh Sanskrit as being too fuddy-duddy. Given that many Indians have a natural predilection for snobbery and being holier-than-thou, I thought Sanskrit would have great snob appeal. But it is not the Louis Vuitton of languages one would expect it to be.
Sanskrit and Hindi have a reputation for being difficult to get high exam scores in. Hence a lot of returning NRIs who give their children names such as Aishvarya and Agastya come back to steep their children in Indian culture but opt for French as Ash and Gus's second language in schools.
Hindi and Sanskrit at least open windows to Indian culture. But French…? It’s a language only important to ze French. I hate to think of legions of Indians shutting themselves off from the wealth of their linguistic heritage and laboring through years of French at school only so they can finally order butter-soaked food in Paris in an accent that still won’t get them the attention and respect of insufferable French waiters. As some of my French friends themselves would say with hands tossed to the heavens, “Pfffffffffffff!”
I’ve always been curious about Sanskrit. I love the sonorous rhythms of its shlokas, and the compound words that are composed of lots of words coalescing together. Each Sanskrit word is like a gem with many glinting facets of imagery. Like other Indo-European languages such as Latin, Sanskrit has root words through which other words are created when certain affixes are attached to them. Learn these endings and prefixes, and you’re a wordsmith! And Sanskrit isn’t finicky about word order in a sentence, so you can say “She writes a blog” and “Blog she writes” and be perfectly correct.
Having sipped a bit of the language of the gods, I can understand a teeny bit of the powerful poetry of its shlokas. Let me share an amazing shloka that hit me in the face this week:
Samudravasane devi, parvata-stana-mandale.
Vishnupatni namastubhyam,
Paada-sparsham kshamasva-me.
My translation:
O goddess, draped with oceans, and with mountains for breasts,
I bow to you, O wife of Vishnu. And pardon me for touching you with my feet.
This is a prayer to be said to the earth goddess as you wake up in the morning, before you set your petty feet on her glorious body.
An extraordinarily patient neighbor recently began teaching a 10-day spoken Sanskrit class to a dozen students. Her class is part of a city-wide blitz by Sanskritam Bharati to popularize the language and blast the myth that it is boring and outdated. Apparently, 108 (an auspicious number, indeed) similar workshops are being hosted around Bangalore.
A lot of Western-educated Indians pooh-pooh Sanskrit as being too fuddy-duddy. Given that many Indians have a natural predilection for snobbery and being holier-than-thou, I thought Sanskrit would have great snob appeal. But it is not the Louis Vuitton of languages one would expect it to be.
Sanskrit and Hindi have a reputation for being difficult to get high exam scores in. Hence a lot of returning NRIs who give their children names such as Aishvarya and Agastya come back to steep their children in Indian culture but opt for French as Ash and Gus's second language in schools.
Hindi and Sanskrit at least open windows to Indian culture. But French…? It’s a language only important to ze French. I hate to think of legions of Indians shutting themselves off from the wealth of their linguistic heritage and laboring through years of French at school only so they can finally order butter-soaked food in Paris in an accent that still won’t get them the attention and respect of insufferable French waiters. As some of my French friends themselves would say with hands tossed to the heavens, “Pfffffffffffff!”
I’ve always been curious about Sanskrit. I love the sonorous rhythms of its shlokas, and the compound words that are composed of lots of words coalescing together. Each Sanskrit word is like a gem with many glinting facets of imagery. Like other Indo-European languages such as Latin, Sanskrit has root words through which other words are created when certain affixes are attached to them. Learn these endings and prefixes, and you’re a wordsmith! And Sanskrit isn’t finicky about word order in a sentence, so you can say “She writes a blog” and “Blog she writes” and be perfectly correct.
Having sipped a bit of the language of the gods, I can understand a teeny bit of the powerful poetry of its shlokas. Let me share an amazing shloka that hit me in the face this week:
Samudravasane devi, parvata-stana-mandale.
Vishnupatni namastubhyam,
Paada-sparsham kshamasva-me.
My translation:
O goddess, draped with oceans, and with mountains for breasts,
I bow to you, O wife of Vishnu. And pardon me for touching you with my feet.
This is a prayer to be said to the earth goddess as you wake up in the morning, before you set your petty feet on her glorious body.
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Reason #9: It's Not the Cosmopolitan City Everyone TellsYou It Is
The most remarkable places to eat at and hang out in Bangalore are still the unremarkable-looking places with a distinctly small-town flavor, places that have earned their fame by doing what they do exceedingly well.
I’m thinking of Koshy’s, Brahmin’s Café, Coffee House ... where you get served a quick masala dosa and an honest cup of coffee by waiters in crested turbans and cummerbunds. (I haven’t forgotten MTR. I’m trying to. Yes, I’m not embarrassed to admit I don’t care for MTR. See my September 2009 post to know why.)
Or Gangaram’s and Blossom Book Shop, where a guy who’s dusting books can walk over to any part of the store and pull out the exact book you want … something the more polished-looking staff at Crossword and Landmark are at a loss to do, even after eyeballing a computer listing of their inventory.
These are the modest places that make Bangalore feel like the gracious descendant of a cantonment town it was before information technology companies sprang up like warts.
Ultimately, it’s all these little signature places that make the city distinctive, and are in danger of becoming extinct as nouveau Bangaloreans buy into their self-generated fantasy that they’re Silicon Valley (instead of Silicon Halli) and need the upmarket shops and international franchises they’ve seen in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur to make them feel they live in a swinging place.
You can find cookie-cutter franchises like Gloria Jeans Coffee and Hard Rock Cafe in any city in the world. But if you had one day to spend in Bangalore, you’d want to spend it wandering in Malleswaram, not UB City.
A huddle of IT workers drinking Australian beer at a pub does not make a city cosmopolitan. Neither does the trickle of expats from a dozen countries forced to follow their jobs to India and lamenting that this city’s hyped resemblance to Silicon Valley begins and ends at their swanky office campuses.
Bangalore is a reticent town forced to rip off the jasmine in her hair, push out cleavage and throw on some brazen lipstick because out of town people have come courting. I hope the old Bangalore has the courage to re-assert itself.
I’m thinking of Koshy’s, Brahmin’s Café, Coffee House ... where you get served a quick masala dosa and an honest cup of coffee by waiters in crested turbans and cummerbunds. (I haven’t forgotten MTR. I’m trying to. Yes, I’m not embarrassed to admit I don’t care for MTR. See my September 2009 post to know why.)
Or Gangaram’s and Blossom Book Shop, where a guy who’s dusting books can walk over to any part of the store and pull out the exact book you want … something the more polished-looking staff at Crossword and Landmark are at a loss to do, even after eyeballing a computer listing of their inventory.
These are the modest places that make Bangalore feel like the gracious descendant of a cantonment town it was before information technology companies sprang up like warts.
Ultimately, it’s all these little signature places that make the city distinctive, and are in danger of becoming extinct as nouveau Bangaloreans buy into their self-generated fantasy that they’re Silicon Valley (instead of Silicon Halli) and need the upmarket shops and international franchises they’ve seen in Dubai and Kuala Lumpur to make them feel they live in a swinging place.
You can find cookie-cutter franchises like Gloria Jeans Coffee and Hard Rock Cafe in any city in the world. But if you had one day to spend in Bangalore, you’d want to spend it wandering in Malleswaram, not UB City.
A huddle of IT workers drinking Australian beer at a pub does not make a city cosmopolitan. Neither does the trickle of expats from a dozen countries forced to follow their jobs to India and lamenting that this city’s hyped resemblance to Silicon Valley begins and ends at their swanky office campuses.
Bangalore is a reticent town forced to rip off the jasmine in her hair, push out cleavage and throw on some brazen lipstick because out of town people have come courting. I hope the old Bangalore has the courage to re-assert itself.
A New Year - Already?
I apologize for my absence and promise to write more regularly. Yes, that's me writing lines on the board a la Bart Simpson.
The end of a year and the beginning of the new one are intimidating. You're expected to evaluate your milestones and make a pious list of promises for the new year. I wasn't ready to end 2009, and I wasn't ready for 2010.
I didn't get to sit with my computer and myself for several weeks, and then I felt I had to start the new year with a bang that just wasn't exploding with the right degree of gloriousness in my head. Yes, it's easy to postpone writing and then miss it intensely like the phone call you didn't make to your darling.
Truth be told, I have been without a wife (ie., no household help, since our housekeeper went on annual leave.) I steeped myself in Christmas -- sang dozens of off-key carols, decorated a beautiful 7-foot tree that brings a smile to my face every time I walk into that room, baked more than 200 chocolate chip cookies with the help of my lovely daughter (and proud to report that most of them have been gorged), hosted visitors, said my goodbyes to friends moving overseas, got a car fixed up (got carried away and threw in a coat of paint). I guess I am ready to start a new year, even if it got here sooner than I expected.
Since I was still laboring through my gripe list about my lovely Bangalore at the end of the year, I shall finish it. So, here goes. And oh, Happy New Year.
The end of a year and the beginning of the new one are intimidating. You're expected to evaluate your milestones and make a pious list of promises for the new year. I wasn't ready to end 2009, and I wasn't ready for 2010.
I didn't get to sit with my computer and myself for several weeks, and then I felt I had to start the new year with a bang that just wasn't exploding with the right degree of gloriousness in my head. Yes, it's easy to postpone writing and then miss it intensely like the phone call you didn't make to your darling.
Truth be told, I have been without a wife (ie., no household help, since our housekeeper went on annual leave.) I steeped myself in Christmas -- sang dozens of off-key carols, decorated a beautiful 7-foot tree that brings a smile to my face every time I walk into that room, baked more than 200 chocolate chip cookies with the help of my lovely daughter (and proud to report that most of them have been gorged), hosted visitors, said my goodbyes to friends moving overseas, got a car fixed up (got carried away and threw in a coat of paint). I guess I am ready to start a new year, even if it got here sooner than I expected.
Since I was still laboring through my gripe list about my lovely Bangalore at the end of the year, I shall finish it. So, here goes. And oh, Happy New Year.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Smells Like A Scam To Me
A perfume company that claims it makes unique perfumes out of people’s individual DNA now says it has created a fragrance from DNA extracted from Michael Jackson’s hair.
Really?
Not that I’m the slightest bit interested in smelling Michael or finding out what his signature scent could be like.
But I’m curious to know: Was that hair from somewhere other than Michael’s head?
Also: How did they get an authentic sample of Michael’s hair? Did a barber’s assistant secret away a fistful as she swept the curls scattered on the floor after a trim? Did a girlfriend or boyfriend snip a lock or maybe yank a hair out as Michael slept?
Now I also remember reading that a leaked copy of Michael’s autopsy report said he was completely bald, so this so-called hair from which this fragrance was concocted could be from a wig that most likely originated from hair shaved off the head of a pilgrim in Tirupati.
Turns out this company even has an official source for all the authentic hair it derives its celebrity fragrances from, including Elvis's. A man called John Reznikoff has the largest collection of genuine celebrity hair. I never was into collecting coins when I was little, and I collected stamps half-heartedly, perking up when I came across stamps issued by places that had nothing to write home about, like Lesotho and Papua-New Guinea. Why didn’t I think of amassing a collection of human hair? It’s portable and its DNA doesn’t degrade even after a person is dead.
I checked out the website of DNAfragrances.com to see if it was an actual company. They’ve got fancy pictures of mysterious-looking women draped in yards of billowing silk and velvet, and suitably flattering copy.
“As a woman this fragrance says I am. This is me. I no longer wear hand me downs. My genetic code is created from my heritage. I am connected to kings and queens. I dictate what is good for me. It is the history of my soul that announces who I am through My DNA Fragrance. I am exclusive.”
And then, instructions on how to send your DNA so you can have your own perfume: “You simply take a special sized Q-tip swab and rub it on the inside of your check” – yes, a true Freudian slip.
I’m jealous. How come I never thought of such a cool business idea. This sounds like a business I could run capably and collect some cool cash, all in the time it takes me to sing The Little Drummer Boy with every Ra-pa-pum-pum as I lick envelopes shut at the dining table. Just get people to Fedex a check for $99.99, to receive Brad Pitt’s DNA fragrance. Then, get a vial and fill it a little bit of cheap drug-store perfume, dilute it with tap water and send it on in a special box.
For those who are not into celebrities because they want to celebrate themselves, I’d have them Fedex a strand of their hair, an unwashed sock, a soiled tissue or some nail clippings – just about anything, even a half-sucked lozenge they’ve spat out, and send it with a cheque for $99.99 (limited special offer). Then, I’d get a vial and fill it with a little bit of cheap drug-store perfume (something with a desperate name, like Voluptuous -- which is cheap-perfume-code for Fat Loser), dilute it with tap water and send it on in a special box. Anyone who’s into this kind of self-worship is too dumb to smell a scam.
And I’ll actually be doing them a favor. They could be wiring their entire savings account to some Nigerian cheat who’s emailed them to inform them they’ve just inherited a few million dollars from a Liberian warlord and just need to quietly send their bank information to the widow.
Instead, I'll have given them a two-for-one deal in which they learn an essential lesson in financial prudence, and discover the god/goddess sleeping in their armpits.
Really?
Not that I’m the slightest bit interested in smelling Michael or finding out what his signature scent could be like.
But I’m curious to know: Was that hair from somewhere other than Michael’s head?
Also: How did they get an authentic sample of Michael’s hair? Did a barber’s assistant secret away a fistful as she swept the curls scattered on the floor after a trim? Did a girlfriend or boyfriend snip a lock or maybe yank a hair out as Michael slept?
Now I also remember reading that a leaked copy of Michael’s autopsy report said he was completely bald, so this so-called hair from which this fragrance was concocted could be from a wig that most likely originated from hair shaved off the head of a pilgrim in Tirupati.
Turns out this company even has an official source for all the authentic hair it derives its celebrity fragrances from, including Elvis's. A man called John Reznikoff has the largest collection of genuine celebrity hair. I never was into collecting coins when I was little, and I collected stamps half-heartedly, perking up when I came across stamps issued by places that had nothing to write home about, like Lesotho and Papua-New Guinea. Why didn’t I think of amassing a collection of human hair? It’s portable and its DNA doesn’t degrade even after a person is dead.
I checked out the website of DNAfragrances.com to see if it was an actual company. They’ve got fancy pictures of mysterious-looking women draped in yards of billowing silk and velvet, and suitably flattering copy.
“As a woman this fragrance says I am. This is me. I no longer wear hand me downs. My genetic code is created from my heritage. I am connected to kings and queens. I dictate what is good for me. It is the history of my soul that announces who I am through My DNA Fragrance. I am exclusive.”
And then, instructions on how to send your DNA so you can have your own perfume: “You simply take a special sized Q-tip swab and rub it on the inside of your check” – yes, a true Freudian slip.
I’m jealous. How come I never thought of such a cool business idea. This sounds like a business I could run capably and collect some cool cash, all in the time it takes me to sing The Little Drummer Boy with every Ra-pa-pum-pum as I lick envelopes shut at the dining table. Just get people to Fedex a check for $99.99, to receive Brad Pitt’s DNA fragrance. Then, get a vial and fill it a little bit of cheap drug-store perfume, dilute it with tap water and send it on in a special box.
For those who are not into celebrities because they want to celebrate themselves, I’d have them Fedex a strand of their hair, an unwashed sock, a soiled tissue or some nail clippings – just about anything, even a half-sucked lozenge they’ve spat out, and send it with a cheque for $99.99 (limited special offer). Then, I’d get a vial and fill it with a little bit of cheap drug-store perfume (something with a desperate name, like Voluptuous -- which is cheap-perfume-code for Fat Loser), dilute it with tap water and send it on in a special box. Anyone who’s into this kind of self-worship is too dumb to smell a scam.
And I’ll actually be doing them a favor. They could be wiring their entire savings account to some Nigerian cheat who’s emailed them to inform them they’ve just inherited a few million dollars from a Liberian warlord and just need to quietly send their bank information to the widow.
Instead, I'll have given them a two-for-one deal in which they learn an essential lesson in financial prudence, and discover the god/goddess sleeping in their armpits.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Reason #8: You're Not Returning to Eden
Think you’re restoring your children to your Malgudi Days childhood? Think again.
If you’re relocating from overseas because you think you’re giving your children a chance to discover their true identity as Indians, think again.
I speak of Bangalore because I moved here, but this applies to all overseas Indians moving back to India.
Your children are American/British/whatever nationality they have been born into and raised in. Like it or not, accept it or not, that is their new identity. You pushed them into living in your time warp while you were abroad building your cushion of hard currency. But why push your children into duplicating your life and chasing your unachieved dreams?
Yet thus so many children of NRIs live, in a world of parent-approved schizophrenia, where they preserve two conflicting identities: one of compliant over-achievers yearning for the approval of their parents, and the other to be the sum of their hidden desires and find a place in the bigger world outside that they desperately want to belong to but their parents insist they should insulate themselves from.
So many returning Indians think they’ve left their families’ inner Indianness intact and unsullied by all the decay in the West they’ve fearfully cocooned themselves from. They keep their families protected in a cultural capsule, sparing no effort to carefully bring this precious little egg sac of their genes and all their savings back safer and richer to India.
Welcome home and find the same decay here. If you’re returning to a place like Bangalore that prides itself in being globalized, be prepared to run into some of the same problems you might be running from: families caught in the rat race and hard-pressed for time for each other; children getting obese on junk food; narcotic drugs (oh yes, available every where, unregulated and far more cheaper than they were abroad).
Bangalore has among the highest crime and suicide rates in India. With rapid, uncontrolled growth has come a breakdown of old ways across India, and more so in urban India. Bangalore is where old people gather at park benches and talk about all the places in the world their children and grandchildren are scattered.
You do get more time to spend with your family because you can afford to outsource domestic drudgery. But you also spend a lot of time keeping this house of cards from collapsing: supervising staff, picking up the slack when they don’t show up, and just doing many of these chores on your own because you don't want fo let your sense of independence lapse.
And yes, it is easier to prolong your children’s childhood in India, but you aren’t restoring them to the simple, bucolic era of your childhood. You cannot expel Kentucky Fried Chicken and Facebook from their lives. Drugs are cheaper than in New York, and easy to buy.Rapid urbanization has made city life more impersonal. Our elders kept up with their distant cousins despite a decrepit postal and phone system. Now, in the era of mobile phones and social networking, those elaborate family networks have shriveled because no one has time.
If you’re relocating from overseas because you think you’re giving your children a chance to discover their true identity as Indians, think again.
I speak of Bangalore because I moved here, but this applies to all overseas Indians moving back to India.
Your children are American/British/whatever nationality they have been born into and raised in. Like it or not, accept it or not, that is their new identity. You pushed them into living in your time warp while you were abroad building your cushion of hard currency. But why push your children into duplicating your life and chasing your unachieved dreams?
Yet thus so many children of NRIs live, in a world of parent-approved schizophrenia, where they preserve two conflicting identities: one of compliant over-achievers yearning for the approval of their parents, and the other to be the sum of their hidden desires and find a place in the bigger world outside that they desperately want to belong to but their parents insist they should insulate themselves from.
So many returning Indians think they’ve left their families’ inner Indianness intact and unsullied by all the decay in the West they’ve fearfully cocooned themselves from. They keep their families protected in a cultural capsule, sparing no effort to carefully bring this precious little egg sac of their genes and all their savings back safer and richer to India.
Welcome home and find the same decay here. If you’re returning to a place like Bangalore that prides itself in being globalized, be prepared to run into some of the same problems you might be running from: families caught in the rat race and hard-pressed for time for each other; children getting obese on junk food; narcotic drugs (oh yes, available every where, unregulated and far more cheaper than they were abroad).
Bangalore has among the highest crime and suicide rates in India. With rapid, uncontrolled growth has come a breakdown of old ways across India, and more so in urban India. Bangalore is where old people gather at park benches and talk about all the places in the world their children and grandchildren are scattered.
You do get more time to spend with your family because you can afford to outsource domestic drudgery. But you also spend a lot of time keeping this house of cards from collapsing: supervising staff, picking up the slack when they don’t show up, and just doing many of these chores on your own because you don't want fo let your sense of independence lapse.
And yes, it is easier to prolong your children’s childhood in India, but you aren’t restoring them to the simple, bucolic era of your childhood. You cannot expel Kentucky Fried Chicken and Facebook from their lives. Drugs are cheaper than in New York, and easy to buy.Rapid urbanization has made city life more impersonal. Our elders kept up with their distant cousins despite a decrepit postal and phone system. Now, in the era of mobile phones and social networking, those elaborate family networks have shriveled because no one has time.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Bowing to Ignorance
I didn’t know there were so many people in America, men and women, who wore veils or oppressively enforced the wearing of veils.
I’m being facetious, but there’s a point I want to make.
As an American who lives in India and has traveled extensively across Asia and Africa, I can tell you there are millions of women who live covered by purdahs and burqas, whose families would feel dishonored and beat them if any of these covered womenfolk dared to make eye contact with or shake the hand of a man who wasn’t their husband, father or brother, even if all they intended to say was ‘hello’ or ‘thank you.’
Even if all these women wanted to do was say, “Thank you for the smokeless stove so I don’t have to breathe in the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes every time I cook a meal.” They dare not say they were just returning a friendly greeting in the manner their kind host. Dare not say it because it’s no defense against being lynched by the guardians of their honor. And these guardians know a lot about honor and how to keep it from getting smirched. What would come of the world if these women got their heads filled with new ideas and (God forbid!) started greeting people in any but the clan’s prescribed way?
The fundamentalists in this part of the world who insist women wear veils and shouldn’t read or write are no different from the fundamentalists in America who believe there is only one way – their way – of being polite, even when they’re in someone else’s country.
The grouse du jour in the United States is that their president greeted the Emperor of Japan, a man 28 years older than him, on Japanese soil, in the manner most polite people would in that country. He bowed to him.
Immediately, this simple gesture was loaded with political color and dissected across the country as further damning evidence of the president’s un-American predilections. How much better if he had had a shoe hurled at him amidst secret congratulation, or had thrown up at a banquet. American leaders don’t bow before anybody in deference to local custom. They genuflect before dictators and prostrate themselves so they can get oil for their country’s gas guzzlers.
And it’s not as though the Japanese crowed that aha, finally they were able to drag the butt of an economically weakened America before their emperor for payback for Hiroshima. Yet many Americans were steamed at the idea that their president belittled his office by bowing.
These people just don’t get it. Everyone bows low to the emperor. It’s just local custom, just as everyone bows or curtseys before Queen Elizabeth without harboring seditious thoughts or plotting the subversion of the U.S. Constitution. It’s just the etiquette the cultures of these countries follow. Had Obama bowed low before the Japanese prime minister, the chief executive of that country, and not been reciprocated -- that would have been an insult.
It would never occur to the same kvetchers that shaking hands or making physical contact with a stranger is culturally offensive in many parts of the world. And yet thousands of people who are culturally programmed to feel disgusted or affronted by a proffered hand generously put aside their reservations because they recognize that no offense is intended by this presumption of familiarity by an earnest if ignorant outsider.
The sad thing about Americans is that they have become such a tired and divided people. A great many of them are so filled with intolerance towards each other, suspicion of their own government, and mistrust of the rest of the world that they snap and bicker at the slightest provocation.
Had Obama had occasion to open the door for Emperor Akihito, a man frailer and considerably older than him, would that gesture reduce him to a doorman? Could he just open a door for a woman out of politeness, without precipitating a national crisis? Will there be a national discussion on the state of the president’s masculinity if we see pictures of him wearing a skirt in Scotland?
Obama’s bow didn’t diminish his status as president of the United States. But the laughable trail of outrage back home has diminished America.
I’m being facetious, but there’s a point I want to make.
As an American who lives in India and has traveled extensively across Asia and Africa, I can tell you there are millions of women who live covered by purdahs and burqas, whose families would feel dishonored and beat them if any of these covered womenfolk dared to make eye contact with or shake the hand of a man who wasn’t their husband, father or brother, even if all they intended to say was ‘hello’ or ‘thank you.’
Even if all these women wanted to do was say, “Thank you for the smokeless stove so I don’t have to breathe in the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes every time I cook a meal.” They dare not say they were just returning a friendly greeting in the manner their kind host. Dare not say it because it’s no defense against being lynched by the guardians of their honor. And these guardians know a lot about honor and how to keep it from getting smirched. What would come of the world if these women got their heads filled with new ideas and (God forbid!) started greeting people in any but the clan’s prescribed way?
The fundamentalists in this part of the world who insist women wear veils and shouldn’t read or write are no different from the fundamentalists in America who believe there is only one way – their way – of being polite, even when they’re in someone else’s country.
The grouse du jour in the United States is that their president greeted the Emperor of Japan, a man 28 years older than him, on Japanese soil, in the manner most polite people would in that country. He bowed to him.
Immediately, this simple gesture was loaded with political color and dissected across the country as further damning evidence of the president’s un-American predilections. How much better if he had had a shoe hurled at him amidst secret congratulation, or had thrown up at a banquet. American leaders don’t bow before anybody in deference to local custom. They genuflect before dictators and prostrate themselves so they can get oil for their country’s gas guzzlers.
And it’s not as though the Japanese crowed that aha, finally they were able to drag the butt of an economically weakened America before their emperor for payback for Hiroshima. Yet many Americans were steamed at the idea that their president belittled his office by bowing.
These people just don’t get it. Everyone bows low to the emperor. It’s just local custom, just as everyone bows or curtseys before Queen Elizabeth without harboring seditious thoughts or plotting the subversion of the U.S. Constitution. It’s just the etiquette the cultures of these countries follow. Had Obama bowed low before the Japanese prime minister, the chief executive of that country, and not been reciprocated -- that would have been an insult.
It would never occur to the same kvetchers that shaking hands or making physical contact with a stranger is culturally offensive in many parts of the world. And yet thousands of people who are culturally programmed to feel disgusted or affronted by a proffered hand generously put aside their reservations because they recognize that no offense is intended by this presumption of familiarity by an earnest if ignorant outsider.
The sad thing about Americans is that they have become such a tired and divided people. A great many of them are so filled with intolerance towards each other, suspicion of their own government, and mistrust of the rest of the world that they snap and bicker at the slightest provocation.
Had Obama had occasion to open the door for Emperor Akihito, a man frailer and considerably older than him, would that gesture reduce him to a doorman? Could he just open a door for a woman out of politeness, without precipitating a national crisis? Will there be a national discussion on the state of the president’s masculinity if we see pictures of him wearing a skirt in Scotland?
Obama’s bow didn’t diminish his status as president of the United States. But the laughable trail of outrage back home has diminished America.
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Birds of the Indian City
Peacocks may be the national bird, but the signature bird of Indian cities has to be the crow.
Crows are everywhere, with their scruffy gray collars, rumpled feathers and glossy, Cherry-blossomed beaks, scouring neighborhoods so they do not miss any interesting leftovers, sights or prey. Throw out something, and they alight in a minute, cocking their heads and commenting loudly on their find.
Hawks are secretive about their catch. They will take it to a safe height and look regally pleased. Crows are not circumspect. They’ll be practically dancing, doing a little victory hop from side to side. “Ka. Ka. Ka,” boastful and insistent. One crow outside my window even did some secret political campaigning every day: “O-ba-ma, O-baa-ma.”
There is little pride or honor in the code of conduct of crows. They will hijack the catch of other birds. Although physically smaller, they tease the hawks and swipe at them until the hawks have to defend their dignity by tearing after their tormenters. The crows give chase, then quickly dip down below roofs. There, they flap and catch their breaths with mirthful taunts as the hawks are forced to suddenly brake their swooping arc and cursingly flap their wings to a safer height. Crows are the cheeky urchins who rule our rooftops.
In Singapore, the common Indian crow is deplored as an illegal immigrant. The government pays rifle owners who shoot down crows, and yet has not been able to thin down its crow population significantly.
When I read about these efforts during my family’s time there, I was moved to show my solidarity for the birds who had been my childhood neighbors in Kolkata. I would tear up slices of bread and strew them over the little picnic mat-sized yard attached to our Singapore condominium. It was my way of thumbing my nose at the rigid control the local government tried to impose on what their citizens did, saw, ate, thought and imagined.
The crows would show up the moment my food scraps hit the grass. They would hop over, bully away the mynahs and scoop up the goodies. They looked better fed and glossier than their cousins in India. Sometimes, I had an ethnic treat for them – day-old chapatis. There was no outpouring of sentimental gratitude from my guests. They ate with the cockiness of local thugs collecting hafta. Still, I invited them. My baby daughter sang with them. Tropical humidity, rain and crows immediately made me feel at home.
Sparrows seem to have disappeared from the city sky. I remember dozens would be perched on electric poles, fidgeting and cheeping anxiously. Now, the trees and electric poles are themselves vanishing. There are fewer places to perch. Buildings have airconditioners belching hot air and noise and floor upon floor of dusty, tinted glass.
Then there are mynahs, stepping quick and dainty in funky yellow lipstick, flying off in a latte-whipped flurry of cocoa and white. In my Bangalore suburb, I also see dozens of black and white tuxedoed magpies, shy olive sunbirds, chattering parrots, and the occasional kingfisher. There is even a crow pheasant, which looks like a crow on steroids with a brown, droopy tail and red eyes, and lives in a strand of ficus nearby. In a few years, most of these birds will probably disappear from my neighborhood as the city’s leafy canopy recedes and the march of concrete and glass-fronted towers invades us.
I have not seen many pigeons around where I live, but along with crows, they are the infantry of the Indian metro. People love to throw broken wheat and grains to feed pigeons. When crows close in on the periphery of a mass pigeon feed, they shoo them away these uninvited guests. The cheek of these dark, uncouth intruders! The crows retreat nearby, protesting their banishment. They take safe little hops to be in the midst of these goodies. Until they’re shooed off again. The crows don’t stick around. They’ll happily zero in on an easy feed any time, but they’re not going to fake the servility of a pigeon or the cute hop of a mynah to get food out of humans. They’ve got standards.
I don’t see the charm of pigeons. They feed constantly, rest their double chins on their pillowy chests, crap and shed flaky feathers everywhere. I could ship them all to Trafalgar Square and let the old ladies sitting in their woolen coats feed them as much as they want to.
I like the raucous frankness, the unpretentiousness, the disarming ordinariness of crows. They know when to back off, but never quit. They keep coming back till they get what they want. They are determined to get the most of any situation. No wonder crows look so comfortable in our midst. They epitomize the spirit of all the migrants who flock to any Indian city.
Crows are everywhere, with their scruffy gray collars, rumpled feathers and glossy, Cherry-blossomed beaks, scouring neighborhoods so they do not miss any interesting leftovers, sights or prey. Throw out something, and they alight in a minute, cocking their heads and commenting loudly on their find.
Hawks are secretive about their catch. They will take it to a safe height and look regally pleased. Crows are not circumspect. They’ll be practically dancing, doing a little victory hop from side to side. “Ka. Ka. Ka,” boastful and insistent. One crow outside my window even did some secret political campaigning every day: “O-ba-ma, O-baa-ma.”
There is little pride or honor in the code of conduct of crows. They will hijack the catch of other birds. Although physically smaller, they tease the hawks and swipe at them until the hawks have to defend their dignity by tearing after their tormenters. The crows give chase, then quickly dip down below roofs. There, they flap and catch their breaths with mirthful taunts as the hawks are forced to suddenly brake their swooping arc and cursingly flap their wings to a safer height. Crows are the cheeky urchins who rule our rooftops.
In Singapore, the common Indian crow is deplored as an illegal immigrant. The government pays rifle owners who shoot down crows, and yet has not been able to thin down its crow population significantly.
When I read about these efforts during my family’s time there, I was moved to show my solidarity for the birds who had been my childhood neighbors in Kolkata. I would tear up slices of bread and strew them over the little picnic mat-sized yard attached to our Singapore condominium. It was my way of thumbing my nose at the rigid control the local government tried to impose on what their citizens did, saw, ate, thought and imagined.
The crows would show up the moment my food scraps hit the grass. They would hop over, bully away the mynahs and scoop up the goodies. They looked better fed and glossier than their cousins in India. Sometimes, I had an ethnic treat for them – day-old chapatis. There was no outpouring of sentimental gratitude from my guests. They ate with the cockiness of local thugs collecting hafta. Still, I invited them. My baby daughter sang with them. Tropical humidity, rain and crows immediately made me feel at home.
Sparrows seem to have disappeared from the city sky. I remember dozens would be perched on electric poles, fidgeting and cheeping anxiously. Now, the trees and electric poles are themselves vanishing. There are fewer places to perch. Buildings have airconditioners belching hot air and noise and floor upon floor of dusty, tinted glass.
Then there are mynahs, stepping quick and dainty in funky yellow lipstick, flying off in a latte-whipped flurry of cocoa and white. In my Bangalore suburb, I also see dozens of black and white tuxedoed magpies, shy olive sunbirds, chattering parrots, and the occasional kingfisher. There is even a crow pheasant, which looks like a crow on steroids with a brown, droopy tail and red eyes, and lives in a strand of ficus nearby. In a few years, most of these birds will probably disappear from my neighborhood as the city’s leafy canopy recedes and the march of concrete and glass-fronted towers invades us.
I have not seen many pigeons around where I live, but along with crows, they are the infantry of the Indian metro. People love to throw broken wheat and grains to feed pigeons. When crows close in on the periphery of a mass pigeon feed, they shoo them away these uninvited guests. The cheek of these dark, uncouth intruders! The crows retreat nearby, protesting their banishment. They take safe little hops to be in the midst of these goodies. Until they’re shooed off again. The crows don’t stick around. They’ll happily zero in on an easy feed any time, but they’re not going to fake the servility of a pigeon or the cute hop of a mynah to get food out of humans. They’ve got standards.
I don’t see the charm of pigeons. They feed constantly, rest their double chins on their pillowy chests, crap and shed flaky feathers everywhere. I could ship them all to Trafalgar Square and let the old ladies sitting in their woolen coats feed them as much as they want to.
I like the raucous frankness, the unpretentiousness, the disarming ordinariness of crows. They know when to back off, but never quit. They keep coming back till they get what they want. They are determined to get the most of any situation. No wonder crows look so comfortable in our midst. They epitomize the spirit of all the migrants who flock to any Indian city.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Reason #7: Neither Garden Nor City
This garden city doesn’t have many gardens and it’s not much of a city.
Bangalore does have more trees and parks than the average Indian metro. But an appallingly large number of these grand, elephantine trees have been sawn down.
And if you can actually cross the streets in an area to walk to the local park, these islands of green are usually filled with jittery lovebirds and evening-walking retirees glaring at them through their monkey caps. For children, there might be a steep concrete slide and some jagged edged play equipment that can cause serious head injuries and tetanus. Some parks have topiaries and lovely soft grass tended by gardeners who shout at people to stay off it.
What strikes you most about Bangalore is how unremittingly filthy and unswept it is. You can go through major streets and see piles of litter, smelly open drains, dug-up footpaths with slabs of concrete jutting unevenly, amputated trees with their remaining foliage brown with dust.
At night, vast stretches of street are routinely dark. Even the old Airport road along HAL, a major provider of military hardware and helicopters, is unlit. Roads outside swanky IT parks look like they were recently bombed.
Laid-back neighborhoods have their trees ripped out to accommodate vehicles and the Metro. And all these are overseen by a municipal corporation whose main function seems to be to preside over the planned degradation of the city.
Bangalore feels like a small town thrust and unwilling stuffed into the ill-fitting clothes of a large metro. You can sense the city’s discomfort and resentment towards this forced transformation everywhere. It is sad to see this sprightly small town reduced to such a resigned shuffle.
Bangalore does have more trees and parks than the average Indian metro. But an appallingly large number of these grand, elephantine trees have been sawn down.
And if you can actually cross the streets in an area to walk to the local park, these islands of green are usually filled with jittery lovebirds and evening-walking retirees glaring at them through their monkey caps. For children, there might be a steep concrete slide and some jagged edged play equipment that can cause serious head injuries and tetanus. Some parks have topiaries and lovely soft grass tended by gardeners who shout at people to stay off it.
What strikes you most about Bangalore is how unremittingly filthy and unswept it is. You can go through major streets and see piles of litter, smelly open drains, dug-up footpaths with slabs of concrete jutting unevenly, amputated trees with their remaining foliage brown with dust.
At night, vast stretches of street are routinely dark. Even the old Airport road along HAL, a major provider of military hardware and helicopters, is unlit. Roads outside swanky IT parks look like they were recently bombed.
Laid-back neighborhoods have their trees ripped out to accommodate vehicles and the Metro. And all these are overseen by a municipal corporation whose main function seems to be to preside over the planned degradation of the city.
Bangalore feels like a small town thrust and unwilling stuffed into the ill-fitting clothes of a large metro. You can sense the city’s discomfort and resentment towards this forced transformation everywhere. It is sad to see this sprightly small town reduced to such a resigned shuffle.
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Reason #6: There's Nothing to See or Do
Despite all the wealth and intellect that reside in Bangalore, there are no impressive museums or performing arts centers where one can properly appreciate the immensity of art, music and dance that India produces.
There are pockets of good theatre and performing arts in Malleswaram and Jayanagar, and a few small auditoria here and there, but no grand performing arts center one would expect of a place that fancies itself as a metropolis. Chowdiah Hall, the premier venue for performances, is a concrete violin-shaped building tucked inside a tiny lane in a residential area, with unimpressive acoustics (and a casino-themed washroom with lurid red décor). Getting to these halls in evening traffic is a major expedition.
Museums such as the Vishveshvaraya science museum or the HAL air museum are rinky-dink little collections where half the exhibits are outdated and the rest are broken.
The city’s parks are vanishing. Biking is an activity to be recommended if suicide also figures high on your list of hobbies.
The city has a good sprinkling of book stores, but it is depressing to see so many young people draped along the aisle of self-help books reading Who Moved My Cheese?
The greatest preoccupation in Bangalore is making money. The second greatest preoccupation is spending it, usually shopping or eating out. Malls and restaurants are the cultural hotspots of Bangalore.
There are pockets of good theatre and performing arts in Malleswaram and Jayanagar, and a few small auditoria here and there, but no grand performing arts center one would expect of a place that fancies itself as a metropolis. Chowdiah Hall, the premier venue for performances, is a concrete violin-shaped building tucked inside a tiny lane in a residential area, with unimpressive acoustics (and a casino-themed washroom with lurid red décor). Getting to these halls in evening traffic is a major expedition.
Museums such as the Vishveshvaraya science museum or the HAL air museum are rinky-dink little collections where half the exhibits are outdated and the rest are broken.
The city’s parks are vanishing. Biking is an activity to be recommended if suicide also figures high on your list of hobbies.
The city has a good sprinkling of book stores, but it is depressing to see so many young people draped along the aisle of self-help books reading Who Moved My Cheese?
The greatest preoccupation in Bangalore is making money. The second greatest preoccupation is spending it, usually shopping or eating out. Malls and restaurants are the cultural hotspots of Bangalore.
Friday, October 23, 2009
The Mommy Dictionary
Preity Zinta stroked her smooth, hairless limbs in the television ad.
“I want to get my hair removed, too,” announced one of my children.
I had a stock answer along the lines of: And so you shall. Some day, when you’re older.
Actually, I was grateful the depilatory cream caught her attention. There are dozens of explicit ads, some completely unfit for viewing at family time, that routinely get broadcast on Indian television.
Condoms. Contraceptives. Abortion pills. (“I didn't take any precautions last night ..." Magic product appears. "Now I have no chinta, only honey! Let’s bang away, tension-free!”)
Liquor and cigarettes ads are not permitted on TV, and for good reason. But if there’s anything concerning reproduction, body fluids and skin rashes that involve violent itching, hey, bring it on.
Now I’m up to discussing any of these subjects openly with my children. It’s just that I’d rather not be ambushed with them while we’re in the middle of watching Psych together, with dinner plates in front of us. That is not a time I want my family to be assaulted by graphic information on the consequences of not being protected from accidents and leaks involving the human body.
But I guess parents can never be prepared for the questions their kids choose to ask them, or when.
“What’s intercourse?” my younger child asked me, out of the blue, last week.
“Where did you come across that word?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent.
“These two teachers were talking and I was walking by and I heard one of them say “They had intercourse.”
Hmm, teachers! And it’s not like they were discussing the intercourse of art and science. They were clearly talking about people. I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t use the f- word on campus within earshot of children. But now there was something more Victorian and priestly to explain.
Intercourse, I explained, was the exchange or intermingling of things. Sometimes, people use it to mean having sex, I added. “Yuck,” she said, twisting her lips in disgust. And she was ready to talk about something else.
She could have looked up “intercourse” in the dictionary, too, except that the dictionary wouldn’t have interlaced hands like I did during my rambling, but mostly adequate explanation.
The dictionary was the default source of information for me when I was young and curious. My mother was prudish, and my father left discussions of all matters related to human plumbing to my mother, so the subject never came up. When it did, occasionally, it got shushed away.
I remember once overhearing my mother and her friend talking about a movie character who became a “pros,” which I gathered was a bad person even though I had never heard the word before. It’s not as if I eavesdropped. They were having a conversation right in my presence, but assumed that I was invisible or heard nothing. Later, I asked my mother what a “pros” was. She looked at me as though I had just told her I wanted to become one. Her cold, disapproving voice informed me that such words were for “adults” to know, and that I should never mention such a bad word ever again.
I took her lesson to heart. I never asked her about such words again. I just looked them up quietly in the dictionary ... and found the meanings of lots of forbidden “adult” words that were thrilling and disgusting.
The day I looked up “pros,” I also learned the meanings of “proscenium,” prosthesis, and “prostitute.” And after the way my mother had ticked me off, I was so expecting to be shocked by the definition of “prostitute,” but it didn’t even make my eyes pop.
My dictionary was a good confidant and companion. It offered up anything I wanted to know, without judging me. I learned the meanings of words I was looking for, and those I ran into because they were just hanging around the neighborhood. I could even open it up in full view of my mother and look up filth with scholarly diligence.
I would have loved to have my mom talk to me about the words I secretly looked up, but she was too prim. In her world, kids were too pristine to know about certain things. They just figured them out when they became “adult.” She had been raised in a devout household where they didn’t even know such blasphemous words existed. I can understand her awkwardness now, though I certainly think that as a rational, free adult, she could have made a choice to at least resist such ignorance, even a little bit, instead of raising her kids behind the same veil of silence. I pieced together the facts of life from whatever I gleaned from secret whispers, dirty jokes and high school anatomy lessons.
We have lots of dictionaries in our home. But I’m glad my kids don’t feel inhibited about throwing any question at me. I’m surprised they know about things I hadn’t even heard about at their age, but I’m glad to give them a straight answer.
“I want to get my hair removed, too,” announced one of my children.
I had a stock answer along the lines of: And so you shall. Some day, when you’re older.
Actually, I was grateful the depilatory cream caught her attention. There are dozens of explicit ads, some completely unfit for viewing at family time, that routinely get broadcast on Indian television.
Condoms. Contraceptives. Abortion pills. (“I didn't take any precautions last night ..." Magic product appears. "Now I have no chinta, only honey! Let’s bang away, tension-free!”)
Liquor and cigarettes ads are not permitted on TV, and for good reason. But if there’s anything concerning reproduction, body fluids and skin rashes that involve violent itching, hey, bring it on.
Now I’m up to discussing any of these subjects openly with my children. It’s just that I’d rather not be ambushed with them while we’re in the middle of watching Psych together, with dinner plates in front of us. That is not a time I want my family to be assaulted by graphic information on the consequences of not being protected from accidents and leaks involving the human body.
But I guess parents can never be prepared for the questions their kids choose to ask them, or when.
“What’s intercourse?” my younger child asked me, out of the blue, last week.
“Where did you come across that word?” I asked, trying to sound indifferent.
“These two teachers were talking and I was walking by and I heard one of them say “They had intercourse.”
Hmm, teachers! And it’s not like they were discussing the intercourse of art and science. They were clearly talking about people. I suppose I should be grateful they didn’t use the f- word on campus within earshot of children. But now there was something more Victorian and priestly to explain.
Intercourse, I explained, was the exchange or intermingling of things. Sometimes, people use it to mean having sex, I added. “Yuck,” she said, twisting her lips in disgust. And she was ready to talk about something else.
She could have looked up “intercourse” in the dictionary, too, except that the dictionary wouldn’t have interlaced hands like I did during my rambling, but mostly adequate explanation.
The dictionary was the default source of information for me when I was young and curious. My mother was prudish, and my father left discussions of all matters related to human plumbing to my mother, so the subject never came up. When it did, occasionally, it got shushed away.
I remember once overhearing my mother and her friend talking about a movie character who became a “pros,” which I gathered was a bad person even though I had never heard the word before. It’s not as if I eavesdropped. They were having a conversation right in my presence, but assumed that I was invisible or heard nothing. Later, I asked my mother what a “pros” was. She looked at me as though I had just told her I wanted to become one. Her cold, disapproving voice informed me that such words were for “adults” to know, and that I should never mention such a bad word ever again.
I took her lesson to heart. I never asked her about such words again. I just looked them up quietly in the dictionary ... and found the meanings of lots of forbidden “adult” words that were thrilling and disgusting.
The day I looked up “pros,” I also learned the meanings of “proscenium,” prosthesis, and “prostitute.” And after the way my mother had ticked me off, I was so expecting to be shocked by the definition of “prostitute,” but it didn’t even make my eyes pop.
My dictionary was a good confidant and companion. It offered up anything I wanted to know, without judging me. I learned the meanings of words I was looking for, and those I ran into because they were just hanging around the neighborhood. I could even open it up in full view of my mother and look up filth with scholarly diligence.
I would have loved to have my mom talk to me about the words I secretly looked up, but she was too prim. In her world, kids were too pristine to know about certain things. They just figured them out when they became “adult.” She had been raised in a devout household where they didn’t even know such blasphemous words existed. I can understand her awkwardness now, though I certainly think that as a rational, free adult, she could have made a choice to at least resist such ignorance, even a little bit, instead of raising her kids behind the same veil of silence. I pieced together the facts of life from whatever I gleaned from secret whispers, dirty jokes and high school anatomy lessons.
We have lots of dictionaries in our home. But I’m glad my kids don’t feel inhibited about throwing any question at me. I’m surprised they know about things I hadn’t even heard about at their age, but I’m glad to give them a straight answer.
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Reason #5: The Nightlife is ... oh, there isn't any
Bangalore works as cybercoolie to most of the Western world. It is a city that doesn’t sleep because it is busy attending to the housekeeping problems of companies in London, New York and San Francisco.
When people do go out on their night off, there’s not much to party about. A Cinderella law ensures that no establishments serve alcohol after 11.30 p.m. – which is actually 30 minutes less than Cinderella had to party, but be grateful: it used to be 11 p.m. and was extended to 11.30.
Live music is not allowed because the government thinks that dancing to live music leads to prostitution. I’m opaque to this logic, but obviously, people with higher minds and the burden of public welfare on their shoulders have anticipated the dangerous possibility that women who oversee transactions worth thousands of dollars might have a change of heart about their professions as they dance to a live band, and instead consider the career option of hustling hair-oil reeking guys on the street, causing lakhs of rupees in tax losses to the state exchequer.
This regulation doesn’t just insult women. Men should feel insulted, too, because the government assumes they are too stupid or undersexed to be capable of such deviancy.
Bangalore is the city of pubs and of Kingfisher beer. Yes, you can go to any number of places and drink alcohol so you can forget that you're in a city being stubbed to death by its unexpected growth. If you’re a woman, even that simple trip to the pub can be downright dangerous because organizations like the Ram Sena will be sending thugs to beat you up, even if you’re having a beer and biryani with your girlfriends in the afternoon.
When people do go out on their night off, there’s not much to party about. A Cinderella law ensures that no establishments serve alcohol after 11.30 p.m. – which is actually 30 minutes less than Cinderella had to party, but be grateful: it used to be 11 p.m. and was extended to 11.30.
Live music is not allowed because the government thinks that dancing to live music leads to prostitution. I’m opaque to this logic, but obviously, people with higher minds and the burden of public welfare on their shoulders have anticipated the dangerous possibility that women who oversee transactions worth thousands of dollars might have a change of heart about their professions as they dance to a live band, and instead consider the career option of hustling hair-oil reeking guys on the street, causing lakhs of rupees in tax losses to the state exchequer.
This regulation doesn’t just insult women. Men should feel insulted, too, because the government assumes they are too stupid or undersexed to be capable of such deviancy.
Bangalore is the city of pubs and of Kingfisher beer. Yes, you can go to any number of places and drink alcohol so you can forget that you're in a city being stubbed to death by its unexpected growth. If you’re a woman, even that simple trip to the pub can be downright dangerous because organizations like the Ram Sena will be sending thugs to beat you up, even if you’re having a beer and biryani with your girlfriends in the afternoon.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
My DIY Diwali
Diwali is such an easy holiday to celebrate these days. One rangoli (solid cut-out, ready to assemble), a few dozen diyas (store bought), cards (from a store), a stack of gift boxes ordered from confectionery shops, and I’m ready for the festival. Back in the retail-challenged past, Diwali was mostly a do-it-yourself affair that kept us busy for weeks.
Houses got cleaned. Special foods got cooked. Metres of silk had to be shopped and dropped off to be stitched by the tailor, followed by days of begging and threatening so that new outfits could be picked up just before the festival. Platters of goodies draped over with a festive cloth had to be hand-delivered to the homes of friends and neighbors. People dropped by with their platters of goodies and sat and chatted over cups of tea. My sister, brother and I made Diwali cards, laboriously drawing diyas and paisleys and writing a personalized greeting from our family -- none of those e-cards and smses sent off with the click of a digit. We did all this even though we just got one day off from school for Diwali.
The annual cleaning did not just mean uncluttering the house. Cupboards and drawers were turned out and stacked neatly. Cobwebs that had been tolerated with a frown for months were finally demolished. Every corner of the apartment: the walls, the floors, and every door and window, were washed with soapy water and scrubbed.
During this annual ritual, a brown river crowned with suds would trickle down the stairs of our building. That was one of the tests of good neighborliness. Some families had their runaway tributaries mopped up. The bad neighbors just pushed their dirty water out.
At the risk of sounding ancient, I will share that in those days aluminium ladders weren’t available. Paranoid about the makeshift stools most households used, my father had a carpenter build a tall, topple-free four-legged stool with a platform wide enough for a bucket and a pair of legs to stand on. It was a great stool. Neighbors asked to borrow it for their house cleanings, and sent it back with a platter of homemade sweets.
The ultra-clean floor had another use. My siblings and I loved walnuts but the betelnut cracker at home would not open wide enough for a walnut. We designated the corner of our living room door-jamb our nutcracker. We’d wipe out the corner, stick a whole walnut in and close the door till we heard a crunch. We’d take the broken fragments and separate out the kernels.
Once the house was cleaned, the Diwali goodies were prepared. Each day, one or two items would be made. My nose got a smell telegram as soon as I got off the rickshaw with my schoolbag and entered our building. Sev. Murkha. Gaja. Nimki. Fafda. Or if it was that cloying smell of simmering ghee and sugar, I knew it would be Ghughra, Mohanthal, Adadiya. Our little kitchen became a sanctuary for deep-frying as kilos of hydrogenated fat and tins of ghee and oil were emptied.
Sometimes my aunts were all clustered outside the kitchen, sitting under the fan even though it did nothing to prevent the sweat circles around their armpits from getting bigger. They rolled scores of rounds of dough, chatting and moving their elbows in brisk little jerks. We helped a little and tasted a lot. But when sweets were made, a smiling Brahmin cook called Devji Maharaj took over the kitchen for a few afternoons.
Devji Maharaj was brown and round as a gulab jamun. He had large tufts of white ear, thick as a shaving brush, and the hairiest, bulging forearms that would smack, twist and flatten kilos of dough. He brought his own industrial size pots and woks, and utensils with handles as long as fishing rods. He was no wimp who needed to be near a churning fan. He leaned over the kitchen fires, deep-frying and stirring and kneading for hours until the vapors rising from the pots made him look wavy like a genie in a mirage.
The tins of sweets and savories would be depleted over the next week. Most were sent off in platters to the homes of friends and relatives. The snacks we reached for over-eagerly lost their novelty in a few days. We groaned every time mother set them out on a plate or packed them for school snack. The festival started early and lingered in our blood streams. Years later, when I suffered my first hangover, I recognized a hint of that feeling of absolute overload.
My mother's DIY Diwalis have imprinted smells and memories that haven't faded. I won’t be scrubbing any walls, but I have cooked some snacks and sweets whose smells prompt little hands to go on clandestine missions to the kitchen. My family will do our own little Lakshmi puja and hand-deliver chocolate boxes to our friends' homes. We'll arrange diyas on our porch and light our modest stash of fireworks. Then we'll shut all the windows, cuddle up and watch the skies explode with the muffled pop of all the fireworks in our neighborhood.
Houses got cleaned. Special foods got cooked. Metres of silk had to be shopped and dropped off to be stitched by the tailor, followed by days of begging and threatening so that new outfits could be picked up just before the festival. Platters of goodies draped over with a festive cloth had to be hand-delivered to the homes of friends and neighbors. People dropped by with their platters of goodies and sat and chatted over cups of tea. My sister, brother and I made Diwali cards, laboriously drawing diyas and paisleys and writing a personalized greeting from our family -- none of those e-cards and smses sent off with the click of a digit. We did all this even though we just got one day off from school for Diwali.
The annual cleaning did not just mean uncluttering the house. Cupboards and drawers were turned out and stacked neatly. Cobwebs that had been tolerated with a frown for months were finally demolished. Every corner of the apartment: the walls, the floors, and every door and window, were washed with soapy water and scrubbed.
During this annual ritual, a brown river crowned with suds would trickle down the stairs of our building. That was one of the tests of good neighborliness. Some families had their runaway tributaries mopped up. The bad neighbors just pushed their dirty water out.
At the risk of sounding ancient, I will share that in those days aluminium ladders weren’t available. Paranoid about the makeshift stools most households used, my father had a carpenter build a tall, topple-free four-legged stool with a platform wide enough for a bucket and a pair of legs to stand on. It was a great stool. Neighbors asked to borrow it for their house cleanings, and sent it back with a platter of homemade sweets.
The ultra-clean floor had another use. My siblings and I loved walnuts but the betelnut cracker at home would not open wide enough for a walnut. We designated the corner of our living room door-jamb our nutcracker. We’d wipe out the corner, stick a whole walnut in and close the door till we heard a crunch. We’d take the broken fragments and separate out the kernels.
Once the house was cleaned, the Diwali goodies were prepared. Each day, one or two items would be made. My nose got a smell telegram as soon as I got off the rickshaw with my schoolbag and entered our building. Sev. Murkha. Gaja. Nimki. Fafda. Or if it was that cloying smell of simmering ghee and sugar, I knew it would be Ghughra, Mohanthal, Adadiya. Our little kitchen became a sanctuary for deep-frying as kilos of hydrogenated fat and tins of ghee and oil were emptied.
Sometimes my aunts were all clustered outside the kitchen, sitting under the fan even though it did nothing to prevent the sweat circles around their armpits from getting bigger. They rolled scores of rounds of dough, chatting and moving their elbows in brisk little jerks. We helped a little and tasted a lot. But when sweets were made, a smiling Brahmin cook called Devji Maharaj took over the kitchen for a few afternoons.
Devji Maharaj was brown and round as a gulab jamun. He had large tufts of white ear, thick as a shaving brush, and the hairiest, bulging forearms that would smack, twist and flatten kilos of dough. He brought his own industrial size pots and woks, and utensils with handles as long as fishing rods. He was no wimp who needed to be near a churning fan. He leaned over the kitchen fires, deep-frying and stirring and kneading for hours until the vapors rising from the pots made him look wavy like a genie in a mirage.
The tins of sweets and savories would be depleted over the next week. Most were sent off in platters to the homes of friends and relatives. The snacks we reached for over-eagerly lost their novelty in a few days. We groaned every time mother set them out on a plate or packed them for school snack. The festival started early and lingered in our blood streams. Years later, when I suffered my first hangover, I recognized a hint of that feeling of absolute overload.
My mother's DIY Diwalis have imprinted smells and memories that haven't faded. I won’t be scrubbing any walls, but I have cooked some snacks and sweets whose smells prompt little hands to go on clandestine missions to the kitchen. My family will do our own little Lakshmi puja and hand-deliver chocolate boxes to our friends' homes. We'll arrange diyas on our porch and light our modest stash of fireworks. Then we'll shut all the windows, cuddle up and watch the skies explode with the muffled pop of all the fireworks in our neighborhood.
Monday, October 12, 2009
Reason #4: The Worst of Both Worlds
You think you’re going to get the best of both worlds for your family, but could end up with the worst of both.
You’re familiar with this math: If I’m earning in dollars and spending in rupees, I couldn’t get any closer to winning a lottery. With servants to do my work, and saving pots of money because everything is dirt cheap, I’m going to live royally.
Isn’t that the ultimate heaven for a middle class Indian, or for anyone on an expat pay package?
It’s a better life than one could imagine when immigrating to London, New York or Sydney. But remember, too, that getting through your average day will sap every ounce of energy and patience you have and cost you dearly. You can’t always count on the government for power supply or water, so be prepared to arrange for your own power back-up, and patronize a water tanker that can drain the city’s depleted borewells even drier.
Getting someone to cook and clean for you and drive you around is wonderful. You could also end up with higher levels of stress because you’ve suddenly become parent, psychiatrist, moneylender and health care provider for your household help. Altering your life to this degree to just get someone to cook meals and dust your house for you? Suddenly this doesn’t seem very attractive.
Also consider that you will spend a great part of your day working with people who don’t deliver on what they’ve promised to, and chasing people who routinely don’t show up when they’re supposed to.
If you’re at a point in your life where you’ve achieved independence, self-sufficiency and equanimity, do you really want to sacrifice these?
You’re familiar with this math: If I’m earning in dollars and spending in rupees, I couldn’t get any closer to winning a lottery. With servants to do my work, and saving pots of money because everything is dirt cheap, I’m going to live royally.
Isn’t that the ultimate heaven for a middle class Indian, or for anyone on an expat pay package?
It’s a better life than one could imagine when immigrating to London, New York or Sydney. But remember, too, that getting through your average day will sap every ounce of energy and patience you have and cost you dearly. You can’t always count on the government for power supply or water, so be prepared to arrange for your own power back-up, and patronize a water tanker that can drain the city’s depleted borewells even drier.
Getting someone to cook and clean for you and drive you around is wonderful. You could also end up with higher levels of stress because you’ve suddenly become parent, psychiatrist, moneylender and health care provider for your household help. Altering your life to this degree to just get someone to cook meals and dust your house for you? Suddenly this doesn’t seem very attractive.
Also consider that you will spend a great part of your day working with people who don’t deliver on what they’ve promised to, and chasing people who routinely don’t show up when they’re supposed to.
If you’re at a point in your life where you’ve achieved independence, self-sufficiency and equanimity, do you really want to sacrifice these?
Friday, October 9, 2009
Reason #3: The Schools Are Disappointing
Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because major international companies have their offices in Bangalore, because vast numbers of college-educated specialists live in Bangalore, then its schools must also be great.
With a handful of exceptions, Bangalore schools range in quality from average to abysmal.
And the general quality of school teachers is among the worst I’ve seen or heard of. Not surprising, actually. Anyone who can walk upright and speak English can get a very well-paying job answering a telephone. With tea-boys at BPOs making as much as teachers and a high cost of living that does not make idealism economically viable, teaching is not the career choice of most smart people.
So the boom in Bangalore has ironically created a situation where there are so many better paying career options that there is actually a shortage of talented teachers at a time when the number of students has gone up due to massive migration and repatriation to the city.
There are 3 main types of schools available in Bangalore: the traditional schools, the international schools, and the new schools.
The Traditional Schools: These are the branded schools whose name everyone recognizes.
Indians moving back to India think: “I went to a no-frills traditional school, and they drilled me and helped me get those exam results I needed to study medicine/engineering/management. I managed to go to the U.S. and kick butt in college. Now I want my U.S.-citizen kids to go through the drill I couldn’t escape because, hey, it wasn’t too bad for me after all.
So what if there are 50-60 kids in a classroom? It’ll teach them to toughen up and appreciate the odds I had to overcome in life. They’ve become pampered softies abroad, thinking they can get hugs from teachers and ask them all the questions they want. Why, it’s good, old-fashioned cramming, mindless bowing to authority and leaping from exam to exam that got me where I am, and no better place to deliver that than a good, old-fashioned reputable school with a good track record.”
It is allegedly impossible to get admission to these schools because they have gargantuan waiting lists that parents signed with their blood before they even conceived their kids. However, offer a generous “donation”, drop a few names, and seats will miraculously become available.
The International Schools: For parents who don’t want to subject themselves and their children to the humiliation of seeking admission to a traditional school, and who have deep pockets, the so-called international schools are a lifesaver.
An international school should offer an international student body, an international teaching staff, an international curriculum and international-quality facilities. The existing international schools sometimes meet maybe one or two, and most often, none of these criteria. They do charge their parents astronomical dollar-equivalent fees comparable to elite private schools overseas, while paying their mostly Indian teachers slightly more than the local schools.
In terms of value, these schools are the ultimate rip-off. My advice: Save the money for college.
Gullible streams of NRIs and expatriates looking for continuity, and a more easygoing and familiar school environment for their children fall for the rolling campuses and soft-sell from these schools. What these parents don’t know, but find out gradually, is that the teachers who staff these schools have had most of their education and training in the traditional Indian system. A few weeks of token “training” or a week abroad does not change a mindset trained to impart knowledge through rote learning, exams and an authoritarian teaching style that is suited to a classroom where children are expected to be seen and not heard. These teachers are affronted when kids ask them questions ("How can I finish the syllabus if kids keep putting up their hands and interrupting me?").
The New Schools: These offer elements of both the international and the traditional schools. In general, they are less finicky about admissions than the traditional schools and have smaller class sizes. They tend to be located on the fringes of the city. Their fees tend to be higher than those of traditional schools, but much lower than those of international schools. They offer a range of sports and extra-curricular activities. They usually offer the traditional ICSE/CBSE curriculum, but without the numbing rigor. Some of these schools offer the Cambridge IGCSE as an option in high school.
With a handful of exceptions, Bangalore schools range in quality from average to abysmal.
And the general quality of school teachers is among the worst I’ve seen or heard of. Not surprising, actually. Anyone who can walk upright and speak English can get a very well-paying job answering a telephone. With tea-boys at BPOs making as much as teachers and a high cost of living that does not make idealism economically viable, teaching is not the career choice of most smart people.
So the boom in Bangalore has ironically created a situation where there are so many better paying career options that there is actually a shortage of talented teachers at a time when the number of students has gone up due to massive migration and repatriation to the city.
There are 3 main types of schools available in Bangalore: the traditional schools, the international schools, and the new schools.
The Traditional Schools: These are the branded schools whose name everyone recognizes.
Indians moving back to India think: “I went to a no-frills traditional school, and they drilled me and helped me get those exam results I needed to study medicine/engineering/management. I managed to go to the U.S. and kick butt in college. Now I want my U.S.-citizen kids to go through the drill I couldn’t escape because, hey, it wasn’t too bad for me after all.
So what if there are 50-60 kids in a classroom? It’ll teach them to toughen up and appreciate the odds I had to overcome in life. They’ve become pampered softies abroad, thinking they can get hugs from teachers and ask them all the questions they want. Why, it’s good, old-fashioned cramming, mindless bowing to authority and leaping from exam to exam that got me where I am, and no better place to deliver that than a good, old-fashioned reputable school with a good track record.”
It is allegedly impossible to get admission to these schools because they have gargantuan waiting lists that parents signed with their blood before they even conceived their kids. However, offer a generous “donation”, drop a few names, and seats will miraculously become available.
The International Schools: For parents who don’t want to subject themselves and their children to the humiliation of seeking admission to a traditional school, and who have deep pockets, the so-called international schools are a lifesaver.
An international school should offer an international student body, an international teaching staff, an international curriculum and international-quality facilities. The existing international schools sometimes meet maybe one or two, and most often, none of these criteria. They do charge their parents astronomical dollar-equivalent fees comparable to elite private schools overseas, while paying their mostly Indian teachers slightly more than the local schools.
In terms of value, these schools are the ultimate rip-off. My advice: Save the money for college.
Gullible streams of NRIs and expatriates looking for continuity, and a more easygoing and familiar school environment for their children fall for the rolling campuses and soft-sell from these schools. What these parents don’t know, but find out gradually, is that the teachers who staff these schools have had most of their education and training in the traditional Indian system. A few weeks of token “training” or a week abroad does not change a mindset trained to impart knowledge through rote learning, exams and an authoritarian teaching style that is suited to a classroom where children are expected to be seen and not heard. These teachers are affronted when kids ask them questions ("How can I finish the syllabus if kids keep putting up their hands and interrupting me?").
The New Schools: These offer elements of both the international and the traditional schools. In general, they are less finicky about admissions than the traditional schools and have smaller class sizes. They tend to be located on the fringes of the city. Their fees tend to be higher than those of traditional schools, but much lower than those of international schools. They offer a range of sports and extra-curricular activities. They usually offer the traditional ICSE/CBSE curriculum, but without the numbing rigor. Some of these schools offer the Cambridge IGCSE as an option in high school.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
I Want My Rahul Refund!
After having accomplished not much in life except overdose on drugs, have a failed marriage and show up on reality TV with equally untalented attention-seekers, Rahul Mahajan thinks he can hit the marriage jackpot and get wooed by a line-up of brides.
Rakhi Sawant, whose pseudo-swayamvar Rahul is trying to replicate, can at least dance. She has a spunky coarseness that’s real underneath all her network nakhras. She would make a lousy wife and mother, but she’s at least a wannabe with some talent, even though it’s had some help from a plastic surgeon.
What has Rahul got? He’s no arm candy. And even women with extremely poor judgement – the kind that would have them line up for someone like Rahul M -- would admit that in a moment of crisis, an airline vomit bag would be a more dependable source of comfort than him.
He’s out of shape and dissipated. With that soft chin, the shifty eyes and hands that haven’t done much work other than leave bruises on his former wife, he’s a sorry specimen to parade in the marriage market. Would anyone buy a used car from him, let alone marry him?
And yet there he is, the next candidate for an on-air pseudo-shaadi. Couldn’t he at least work on his abs or get a tummy tuck before bothering to be photographed in his groom’s sherwani looking like schlub who’s just ended a first trimester of boozing?
I can understand Rahul’s desperation. He may not get luckier than this in his search for a mate. What I can’t understand is that there might actually be a queue of women so lacking in self-esteem that they are willing to concede to the public shame of actually declaring they want to marry this loser.
Surely they would rather be at home plucking their nose hair, sorting their socks or getting an honestly detoxing enema, than kissing Rahul’s ass for all the world to see?
Here I am, a happily married woman, getting bent out of shape on behalf of all these debased single women whose 15 minutes of fame are likely to prove longer than the length of time the unluckiest of them is likely to be married (or engaged) to this schmuck. (Aah, have been wanting to use this word in print forever and finally got the chance. A schmuck is Yiddish slang for the discarded foreskin of a circumcised penis. Another first for me: using 2 Yiddish words in the same piece of writing.)
The women on that show should demand a Rahul refund. “We want Rahul Gandhi,” they should shout to the network. Okay, that Rahul’s hard to get, but he’s got the looks and the substance that would easily make him part of any smart woman’s fantasies. If not him, how about a Rahul Gandhi look-alike? Or just any achha-sa, reasonably intelligent guy who might be trolling through the trenches of shaadi.com, without the luck to be as well-connected as Rahul M?
There’s no justice on TV. Network new programs, those purveyors of truth and balance, routinely feature ugly, old male anchors with powder-caked receding hairlines paired with bright, chirpy young women. Because according to their wisdom, women always have to look pretty, while bald, ugly men exude a natural air of irresistible competence.
This is an ass-umption made by bald, ugly, male network executives … the same sort who also fancy Rahul Mahajan would be God’s gift to women. And not inappropriately, this network’s name happens to be NDTV Imagine.
Rakhi Sawant, whose pseudo-swayamvar Rahul is trying to replicate, can at least dance. She has a spunky coarseness that’s real underneath all her network nakhras. She would make a lousy wife and mother, but she’s at least a wannabe with some talent, even though it’s had some help from a plastic surgeon.
What has Rahul got? He’s no arm candy. And even women with extremely poor judgement – the kind that would have them line up for someone like Rahul M -- would admit that in a moment of crisis, an airline vomit bag would be a more dependable source of comfort than him.
He’s out of shape and dissipated. With that soft chin, the shifty eyes and hands that haven’t done much work other than leave bruises on his former wife, he’s a sorry specimen to parade in the marriage market. Would anyone buy a used car from him, let alone marry him?
And yet there he is, the next candidate for an on-air pseudo-shaadi. Couldn’t he at least work on his abs or get a tummy tuck before bothering to be photographed in his groom’s sherwani looking like schlub who’s just ended a first trimester of boozing?
I can understand Rahul’s desperation. He may not get luckier than this in his search for a mate. What I can’t understand is that there might actually be a queue of women so lacking in self-esteem that they are willing to concede to the public shame of actually declaring they want to marry this loser.
Surely they would rather be at home plucking their nose hair, sorting their socks or getting an honestly detoxing enema, than kissing Rahul’s ass for all the world to see?
Here I am, a happily married woman, getting bent out of shape on behalf of all these debased single women whose 15 minutes of fame are likely to prove longer than the length of time the unluckiest of them is likely to be married (or engaged) to this schmuck. (Aah, have been wanting to use this word in print forever and finally got the chance. A schmuck is Yiddish slang for the discarded foreskin of a circumcised penis. Another first for me: using 2 Yiddish words in the same piece of writing.)
The women on that show should demand a Rahul refund. “We want Rahul Gandhi,” they should shout to the network. Okay, that Rahul’s hard to get, but he’s got the looks and the substance that would easily make him part of any smart woman’s fantasies. If not him, how about a Rahul Gandhi look-alike? Or just any achha-sa, reasonably intelligent guy who might be trolling through the trenches of shaadi.com, without the luck to be as well-connected as Rahul M?
There’s no justice on TV. Network new programs, those purveyors of truth and balance, routinely feature ugly, old male anchors with powder-caked receding hairlines paired with bright, chirpy young women. Because according to their wisdom, women always have to look pretty, while bald, ugly men exude a natural air of irresistible competence.
This is an ass-umption made by bald, ugly, male network executives … the same sort who also fancy Rahul Mahajan would be God’s gift to women. And not inappropriately, this network’s name happens to be NDTV Imagine.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
A Shakedown on Gandhi's Birthday
On the Mahatma's birthday, the children had an important lesson on how our system of law and order functions. They saw Mom and Dad give in to a bully.
We were headed to Koshy's for lunch and took a left turn at a light just two blocks away from Gandhiji’s statue on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Our car was flagged down by a couple of policemen.
There were the usual hapless motorcyclists begging and bargaining for release. We pulled over and rolled down our windows. One of the cops sauntered to our car.
“You took a free left turn on the junction,” he said. “There is no free turn.”
We were certain the light had been green. In any case, there had been cars in front of us that had turned left on to the empty road, and so had we. We had done nothing as wrongful as blowing through a red light, which Bangaloreans routinely do whether the streets are empty or not.
All the cars in front of us and behind us were gone on the empty road. We were the only foolish ones to stop for a person in uniform.
We insisted we had not turned left on a red light. The cop demanded to see my husband’s licence. He looked disappointed that it was all legitimate. He looked at us: a family out for Saturday lunch. He looked at our kids, who had stopped reading their books and looked worried.
“You turned on red light,” the cop said. “If you go back, you will see.”
The shakedown was so pathetic and obvious. I would have laughed were I not seething. “But the lights have changed already, have they not …?” my husband said, incredulous and polite.
The cop looked deliberately at the licence again. He was reluctant to return it. “You have to pay something,” he insisted. Now he was getting to business. “Hundred rupees,” he said sticking his hand out. "For violation."
There was no question who was being violated, but we paid up. It was his word against ours so there was no winning this fight. And like any skilled extortionist, he gauged the amount was small enough for us to write off as an irritant not worth disrupting our day for.
He took the money and waved us on generously. There was no receipt for the “fine.”
"But we did nothing wrong ...!" the children protested. We told them this was an abuse of power that we could challenge successfully in a place where the government functions in a fair and transparent manner. Not in India.
On the Mahatma's birthday, my children witnessed for the first time something that happens every day millions of times across India. Currency notes embossed with Gandhi’s face and proclaiming "The truth always wins" are wrongfully extracted from the pockets of citizens by a breed of common bully called a government servant.
We were headed to Koshy's for lunch and took a left turn at a light just two blocks away from Gandhiji’s statue on Mahatma Gandhi Road. Our car was flagged down by a couple of policemen.
There were the usual hapless motorcyclists begging and bargaining for release. We pulled over and rolled down our windows. One of the cops sauntered to our car.
“You took a free left turn on the junction,” he said. “There is no free turn.”
We were certain the light had been green. In any case, there had been cars in front of us that had turned left on to the empty road, and so had we. We had done nothing as wrongful as blowing through a red light, which Bangaloreans routinely do whether the streets are empty or not.
All the cars in front of us and behind us were gone on the empty road. We were the only foolish ones to stop for a person in uniform.
We insisted we had not turned left on a red light. The cop demanded to see my husband’s licence. He looked disappointed that it was all legitimate. He looked at us: a family out for Saturday lunch. He looked at our kids, who had stopped reading their books and looked worried.
“You turned on red light,” the cop said. “If you go back, you will see.”
The shakedown was so pathetic and obvious. I would have laughed were I not seething. “But the lights have changed already, have they not …?” my husband said, incredulous and polite.
The cop looked deliberately at the licence again. He was reluctant to return it. “You have to pay something,” he insisted. Now he was getting to business. “Hundred rupees,” he said sticking his hand out. "For violation."
There was no question who was being violated, but we paid up. It was his word against ours so there was no winning this fight. And like any skilled extortionist, he gauged the amount was small enough for us to write off as an irritant not worth disrupting our day for.
He took the money and waved us on generously. There was no receipt for the “fine.”
"But we did nothing wrong ...!" the children protested. We told them this was an abuse of power that we could challenge successfully in a place where the government functions in a fair and transparent manner. Not in India.
On the Mahatma's birthday, my children witnessed for the first time something that happens every day millions of times across India. Currency notes embossed with Gandhi’s face and proclaiming "The truth always wins" are wrongfully extracted from the pockets of citizens by a breed of common bully called a government servant.
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