Demo - crazy?

So, the AIADMK has won a clear majority in the TN Assembly elections. As an ex-newsreader at Jaya TV, I must admit I am pleased. No more speeches about the 'minority DMK government' and its monstrosities that go on for pages and pages on the teleprompter, that has made even the most loyal party man/woman groan in boredom.

But more importantly, I am pleased because the big family has been doing some major levels of damage all over, sucking the country dry of currency. 2G being just one atrocity in a huge bale of hay. I mean, see the obvious, most visible industry of all. The three movie production houses, two of which were not even formed five years ago, raking in crores, because distributors were scared shit less to say no to the prices demanded, and when they did out of self preservation, then another arm of the family itself started distributing the substandard entertainment they were putting out, transferring the burden of debt and suicidal thoughts one step down the ladder, to theatre owners.

Threatening a rich a-list actor who stubbornly keeps away from award functions and making him attend one to prove political might? Seriously? What were they thinking? When the actor proved that he had a spine and spoke about it to a live audience, immediately, using plausible deniability, they were saying 'we had no clue that people were using our names to make you come here', and 'We will look into this disaster, accept our apologies' to save face.

Highways are nasty all over the state. Emergency response for accidents are a joke here. Public schools have no standards to measurement, and the teachers there are apathetic to their students' needs, the list is endless in all spheres under governance. But, one hears things about how big the house of a certain Chennai based MP is. He has gates from his property directly opening into four important lanes in the Adyar boat club area. His house takes up an entire block in other words. Phone lines- BSNL phone lines routed, numerous lines, to his house, and were used for the office purposes of the family's television channel.

Everyone wonders why a minister, unconnected to the family was allowed to make off with lakhs of crores? Think again. The said minister and one female family member were supposed to have been lovers. Whether that rumour is true or not (It is big secret- which is that everyone in TN suspects it- no publication will say anything other than hint around it), it begs several question - why would a non-family member be allowed to take a huge chunk of the spoils? What do they have on him that they know he will not betray them? and If there was such a big loss to the government - how can it ever be recovered? And what kind of internal family politics has led to the female being made the 'fall woman" when clearly if there were to have been benefits from the scam, it would all have been shared in proportion?

So, coming back to Amma, clearly, no matter what AIADMK says, it was a case of voting out the DMK than the need to bring any one specific party in. But,if people had voted randomly to promising independents or small parties with clearer agendas, they know what will happen. If the opposition party had not been voted in with a majority, the DMK would have found ways to bring in all the victorious independents, and the small small parties to its side, with money or threats (Just thinking of the Madurai arm of the party makes people quake int heir boots), and formed the government again. So, the need to elect AIADMK with a clear idea to kick out the reigning party.

What will happen in the next five years, I wonder. Clearly, there will be corruption. But how much and how obvious will it be? Bad enough to vote the DMK back in? Or will Amma keep a lid on how much her ministers and MLAs are looting? Will fulfilling all their election promises within a year and a half- as she has promised be enough to keep the people in line for the remaining three and a half years? ( Many people, on hearing this 1.5 year promise hoot with laughter. Because the state treasury is supposed to be empty. Since it was emptied by the DMK for unnecessary park building, new assembly building constructions- with expensive fake and real roofs, while the old one is perfectly functional and a historical landmark to boot,  lining the pockets, building fancy libraries, instead of reinforcing infrastructure of existing libraries. Anyway, since the treasury is very low on resources -Amma will be going to visit Mr. Pranab shortly is what I predict. Just watch.)

Anyway - If the public remembers- they usually don't - in 2016- will the vote be in DMK's favour? Or will they vote in the DMDK - Vijaykanth's party- because the AIADMK is going to do exactly what the DMK did and earn ill-will in the next five years? Will Vijaykanth, with all his newbie-ness in politics, be seduced by the crores of public money he can take for himself, or try to be true to his hero image - of goodness, moral uprightness and all things incorruptible? Time will tell. It is going to be interesting to watch in any case what the next five years will bring.

But - Does any one politician care for the welfare of the state? Will there ever be a person with nothing but development of the state in mind? Someone who started like Chandrababu Naidu in Hyderabad, but also maintained steam till the end and distributed his/her efforts all over the state instead of just the cities? I wonder, I wonder.

Accepting what is...

People just don't want to think logically. And people don't want a peaceful existence. Seriously, all I have seen is that people love drama. Okay, this is not true of all people. Mostly, I am talking about young people. And, yeah, they are into pity-parties big time as well.

I am around a lot of kids in their early twenties from non-tier-I cities. These are just out of the clutches of their family-social-settings. And ideally should be beginning to think before they leap. Think before falling in 'lurveeee'. Or just think. Period.

Guys and girls fall in love. This is natural, or so I have been told. Sometimes it so happens, that the person you love doesn't love you back, or doesn't love you back enough. If it is the latter, then please go and see He's just not that into you. If you are a guy, that doesn't matter, the point still applies. A girl might be into you, just not enough.  (Guy or girl, kindly ignore the filmy ending. The film defeats its purpose by doing an about turn at the end. Just like Love Aaj Kal. )

If it is the former, where you are majorly into someone, and they are not, then I have news for you. It is not their fault. Stop abusing them, their fathers, mothers and their ancestors. Not their faults either. Put yourself in their shoes. If someone is majorly into you, and you just don't fancy them, is it your fault that you cannot reciprocate their feelings? Then why is it his/her fault when He/She doesn't like you? It just means that He/She cannot see you the way you would like them to see you. What you perceive as chemistry, might not be, in their eyes. You think you have a lot of common interests but, may be they are looking for something else. You think you are awesome, they don't. As simple as that.

That is how things are. Accepting how things are is a big step in growing up. ( I think I saw a self help book somewhere with the title, Accepting what is. That is what spurred this rant in the first place. Plus I have a younger friend who is deeply in depression about a girl who is not interested).
I have been there, all angst-y, and cursing and being childish in my early twenties, when my ardour was not returned, and put it in devdas terms, ' I had a couple of lurvveee failures' and moped about for weeks, even months.

 Then I started thinking, when my moping lessened, I actually started thinking. Back to the time when boys 'proposed' to girls in school yards with roses and greeting cards on valentine's day. I have returned roses and cards, when accepting a card meant returning/or accepting the 'lurrveee'. I just didn't see myself with those guys. I grew up a little. The scenario changed. It was college campus, and it was a little different. I have turned down 'lets have a coffee' if I knew the guy wanted more than casual friendship and I did not.

And over the years, after dating a few guys, it was turning down invitations to dinner. With some guys, it was turning down one-night-stands. With some it was visiting their mother. (That was downright scary!)

After being the rejected one, and some realisations about the equations between people, I was much nicer about refusing/rather, saying, Thanks, but no  thanks, instead of being harsh/curt.

The realisation that people who reject us are not all that bad took time in coming. I would like to spread this wisdom :-), but have no forum. See, because young people do not want to hear all this wise crap. I certainly did not when people a few years older and wiser told me to take any rejection with a pinch of salt and not give it undue importance.

All I want to ask the kids of these days is :  How is it that when we are the reject-er we are fault free, but when we are rejected the opposite party is a villain?

An idea is like a virus

I saw Inception again. What mastery over the media form could Chris Nolan have needed to spin such a twisted tale! A movie that keeps the action going non-stop while making you think with every line of dialogue spoken. There are action movies, wham-bham every frame, but the premise is kept simple (Think Jason Statham, Bruce Willis, Dwayne Johnson etc etc) so the audience can focus on the movement on the screen and enjoy it. And there are movies that make you think, take on a philosophical analysis after the last frame has flashed past. (Think really crazy film maker - who's name you never bothered finding out, but that strange movie that you came across accidentally, but was so evocative and is the first movie you think of when someone asks which was your all time favourite movie.)

 But this movie combines both with such expertise, that from the very moment you begin to grasp what is happening, when the chinese guy's house starts collapsing and they show a sleeping Arthur while he is actually standing right next to Sato, the idea that this movie is about dreams, and manipulating people while they were sleeping, and stealing within dreams, and epsionage and has twist within twist takes root, and you willingly begin to suspend disbelief and sit up. And when the last frame is still running, and you are waiting with bated breath to see if the totem will topple, hoping that it will topple, and that the reality that Cobb thinks is reality is indeed reality as we know it, or perceive it, is so strong, that you want the director to give the principal character the ending that you would want for yourself, you actually want to find Chris Nolan and throttle him for leaving the movie the way he did it.

Then a few days later, or a few minutes later (depending on how fast your brain processes rational thought and emotions, your own and others',  of course), you realise that of course that was the point that Nolan was trying to make. What if this world we live in is real, or what if it isnt? Are we real? The world and us, living things here and everything we have made, are real only as far as we perceive it to be. It doesn't matter one way or the other in the larger scheme of things. Assuming that there is a larger scheme, that is, and we can perceive it, but then, that doesn't matter too.

It is all going around in circles and now doesn't make sense to me either :D

Attention Uncles : Simple girls don't exist!

I am an expert on matrimonial ads. Seen a plenty of them to satisfy my folks into quietude. That I found fault with most of them is not the issue. The point is that I have scanned a lot, and I mean, a LOT of them. And I see in the space for 'partner preferences' or whatever there is always this phrase - 'simple girl' and this is an oxymoron. (Unless the girl is mentally challenged from birth, there is no way she is a simpleton.)

And I just don't understand this insistence on wanting a simple girl. Because no girl is simple. The wanna-be mother-in-law knows that. She wasn't simple. How does she expect her daughter-in-law to be? Maybe the idea is to let the impression stay with her husband, even after thirty years of marriage. I don't know.

We are born devious. If not, we learn to be devious. Every girl becomes a manipulator at some point. Do not let looks fool you. The cute ones, the ugly ones, ones that look like innocence personified, even the stupidest ones of my sex is wily in a way that men cannot imagine. (Well, a few, who have been blessed, learn to see through this. Even fewer are wily enough to predict and block these kind of manoeuvrings.) See, we are not physically strong and cannot get things done through force in a world where half the population is biologically designed to be stronger than us. We can deal straight with the men that can be dealt with straight. (By which I mean intelligent men.) This is plan B. This is our way of getting things done. Do not blame us. It is our solution to the blow that biology dealt us. If a woman chooses not be wily and manipulative, then there is usually a compelling reason. (Usually ideals like love and respect are tossed around. Or that they are investing in a long term relationship, and manipulating is something that always comes back to bite us later, and we know it.)

So, by the term "simple girl" people in my community mean a girl who does not do underhand things like sub-textual nudging, diverting thought flow in the other party, out and out manipulation etc etc. I asked a few people (extended aunties and uncles). Also uncles were more vociferous in defending their demanding a 'simple girl'. Probably they understand on some level that they are the puppets and their wives are the masters. One uncle actually said, "We don't want troubles that smart girls give. Making our sons get radical ideas, and sowing dissension in the larger family". I was laughing in my head.

I give you an example to show that 'Simple girls' do not exist. This incident happened a while ago. There is a twenty year old in my group, we shall call her KS. Fair, thin, demure, girly-pretty in a way that make guys drool and think of introducing the girl to their mommies. She has the requisite IQ points. Not book wise, but sharp enough in the general sense of the word. She looks like the epitome of a simpleton.

I like her well enough. But see, even within girls, seeing through the outer manifestation is a little hard. A bunch of us went to see a movie. Let me explain the existing scenario. There is a guy who fancied me (JS). And KS fancied him, which I did not know was specific fancy-ing. Sure, there had been discussions on who was good looking and all. Cannot avoid this. It is inevitable in any newly formed group.

So, we file into the theatre, it is dark already, and previews are running. Two guys were in front of me, and they entered the row first. KS was next and then me and JS had manoeuvred himself to enter the row of seats behind me, which had registered with both of us. So while I am thinking, 'Do I want to sit next to the dude and give him ideas?" KS has gone and seated herself leaving a seat between the first two fellows and herself, and tells me in a hyper voice, "Hey, I saved you a seat!" making it a logical for me to sit on one side of her, while JS sits on the other. Three more of our group filed in after him.

I, usually aware of what is going on , sub text and context wise- was taken aback. It was a simple enough move of making me sit away from the chap and letting her sit next to him in one shot. The fact was, it was so skillfully done. By KS, who looks like ice -cream wouldn't melt in her mouth, and glows with a kind of childish- naivety and joy, it is hard to credit her with underhand tactics.

I was pissed. Because I do not like having decisions taken out of my hand, even if I would have decided the same thing. She was and still is welcome to him. But, the incident only served to reinforce the idea. NO such thing as a simple girl. Women are not simpletons. While they might let people think so, because it suits their purposes, they know it under all those layers of self-delusion.

The dubitable joys of alcohol - A presentation

'The Joys of alcohol' is the tentative title that my group members have come up with, for a presentation in a communication process class. ( I am only concerned because there is chunk of marks alloted for this in our term final. This is the kind of thing ones does for twelfth class General studies paper. While my classmates are only 3 years past this kind of thing, imagine my weariness. It has been ten years since I have had to do such pointless exercises. I am not questioning the use of standing in front of a bunch of unwilling listeners and trying to get over your stage fear. But I've done it enough. The majority of the class can talk/communicate failry well in a public speaking/corporate presentation scenario. It is the slow ones that have still not managed to learn the skill and they are the lowest denominator and for whom this class is designed. But we know who sets the speed in the army right? It is not the cavalry. It is the infantry.)

 Forget the rise in onion price, the sad state of gender inequality, the naxal issue in the central and eastern states, oh no, we are doing a presentation on the questionable joys of alcohol. And I'm swamped with the intended editing/writing/readin and studying that I have to do, that I do not have the time to research any topic worth presenting to the class. The fact that practically no one wants to spend ATP in their grey cells to even consider a new subject that might be interesting could also be a reason.

Meanwhile, I have a maid who comes home and insists on conducting long conversations with me in Marathi and Hindi, while I nod diligently with differeing levels of incomprehension. She insists on bathing even vegetable dishes in fat, that everytime I see the food I imagine a blocked cardiac vessel in my future. Back to her chattering, each day she talks about what is bothering her the most. Sometimes it is her husband's cardiac troubles (Duh! Its the oil you are so liberal with. Didn't anyone tell you that cholesterol comes from that? I tried telling her to practise stinginess with oil at her place like we instruct her to cook here. She says the food tastes good only with lots of oil!), sometimes about how the kids in her area once past the age of fifteen, sixteen become loafers, imitating the youth in the neighbourhood, and stop going to school and roam aorund drinking, smoking -  both weed and tobacco, sniffing - whitener, turpentine, etc etc. At times it is about how her two co-sisters (women who had married brothers) talk about the other behind their backs to out maid and how it annoys her. There is a lot of gesturing and acting to get her meaning across, with me mumbling the few phrases I know in Hindi. So yes, I have become a quasi therapist listening to her woes. If only there was some money in it for me! 'sigh'.

One week Later : Since the group decided they did not want to look like they were promoting the drinking of alcohol, the topic was changed to "Alcohol - Not just a Drink", but it was preceisely the drinking the presentation mostly talked about. :D

 Of all the lame presentations that were done for the comm. process class, I am glad to report that ours wasn't the worst. Topics ranged from mundane ones like Financial Planning (which was very informative I should add, even if most students snoozed durign this one, because of the pedantic style it was presented in ), Cyber crime, Tata Steel Company (I mean what were they thinking? Take the ppt. straight out of the company's website? It was like a propaganda/cavassing talk to potential investors. Not that anyone bought it), Homosexuality and stigma( This wasnt actually bad, content wise. Except for a lot of twittering from the immature male section of the class, where the homophobes are the maximum, percentage-wise, and whom the presentaion was aimed at, in the first place and obviously didn't get through), addiction ( This was focussed on letting go of tobacco, because three members from that group are smokers. Did the research for the presentation actually help them? Or was the sincere asking of all addicts to seek help, a way of ridding themselves of guilt about their addiction? No one knows) The best was a presentation on Black holes and time travel. That was actually fun as it left the realm of boring facts and explored the imaginary in a fun way with videos and animation. Or maybe I'm just a geek.

Fair and?

It is hard being a girl in this day and age. I tell you, our mothers did not have this kind of pressure. At least in South India of the 70's and 80's when my mother was roaming about breaking young men's hearts (Not that I am, mind you. Am too old to do that, I like to tell myself, and stifle the vanity before it can assert itself and say that I could if i wanted to. In conclusion, I am not breaking any young guy's heart. At least, not intentionally.), she did not spend a fortune on moisturisers, or deodorants or conditioners. All she knew was red lipstick and perfume, and that too, only for important occasions. They did have one major expense, I must concede. Talcum powder, which was a big deal those days. Lily of the valley, I think was the fancy face powder they used, and kajal, for drawing out the length of their eyes (Hema malini and other actresses , of the 'tightly wrapped sari with short pallu' period, come to mind, when I see college pictures of my mother and her friends). But what is one cosmetic item compared to everything that a girl these days has to have on her dresser?


Hair must be straight and shiny( shampoo, conditioner, anti-fritzer, mousse, gel, you name it, and among the 5 girls in my apartment, we would have at least two variants of each product). Arms, legs and all exposed body parts tweezed, shaved, or femmed out. Face moisturised/sun screened/sun blocked, eyebrows neat, eyes highlighted. (In this day and age, you have to look good, or the big nasty happens. A prettier, younger model replaces you. It is funny really, when a seventeen year old uses more products than a twenty five year old.) When does this insecurity start? And how do you deal with it? Or worse, make sure your own daughter in the future does not fall prey to this ultimate self doubt of "Will I ever look good eneough?"

I recently saw an advert for a soap manufactured by the big bad cancer conglomerate, where, in a medical college, a girl student suddenly discovers that she has a voice, because she started using the beauty soap. A medical student, of all things. Doesnt matter that she is going to be a doctor and save lives, but that she needs a soap to give her opinions about where the class goes for a vacation. "Azhagu namma kaila thaan irukku", goes the tag line. I felt nauseated. Every 'Fair and lovely' advert I had ever seen came to mind. Everything preying on young chicks' insecure psyches. I have an aunt, who has really dark skin, who has been using fair and lovely since I was five. I was five and I knew what it was. And, she looks exactly as she did twenty years ago. Not even a millionth fraction of a shade (That graded paper they give you so lovingly with some of those products to compare with your skin ????Urghhh!) different.

And all those chemicals are really bad for you. And if you are preggers, no, no.

Now, why did I start on this? Do I have a big solution? No, I don't. But I do know that every time I wear eye-liner on a work day, to boost my monday morning blues, or get that particular -stubbornly resisting my charms- guy to notice my eyes, I would stop for a second, and re-asses. I am not saying I would give up smelling nice and fresh, or my smooth hair for a frizzy, uncontrollable mess. But that extra time that goes to figuring out how to look different for the day, could definetly be used for a few more moments of sleep, or finishing up that adrenalin spiking car chase sequence on that Andy McDermot novel, or horror of horrors (as my really cool Theory of Communication professor, who makes for many interesting stories, would say) spent writing home assignments for my Management process teacher (Who probably was a pre-school teacher before she got the misfortune to land at our B-school. Yes, she gives us home-assignments, and checks if we have written them. Every class.)

So, after that rambling, I just want to say that - If you use a lot of chemicals on your face and body on a regular basis. Stop! Think! How much of it do you really need?

For all the experience in the world...

I have always prided myself on overcoming my (existential, among other things) anxiety and trying new things. Talking to a stranger for no purpose at all, except to just talk. So, some six- to seven years ago, I started doing that. It was first a chick waiting for someone outside Barista. Then, a guy browsing books in Landmark and so on.  I can give lessons on how to talk to stangers about  nothing at all, and yet not spook them off.  (Of course they are wondering if you are hitting on them, or going to ask them for donations, or are an unsubtle lesbian, or a con artist, etc etc, yet how to keep them responding for a reasonable length of time without running away, till you want to let them off.)

Recently we were given an assignement to do just that. My B-school's idea to make would-be-managers get comfortable with uncomfortable situations. See, I'd already been there done that. So, that got me thinking, What are the things that I am uncomfortable with, that are do-able and havent yet done? Many small things, I was sure.

Today, I offered to buy ciggies for a friend, coz I was going out and she wasnt. I'd been brought up in Chennai, where smoking is worse than drinking, so I'd never ever bought cigarettes before. The particular kind she wanted wasnt available in the first three shops I asked. Walking on FC Road, going from one potti kadai (small shop) to another, asking for cigarettes was weird. I was given very disapproving looks from several quarters. It was fun. And here I'd thought that buying condoms would be the weirdest, nope but that isnt half as fun as this.  I've made up my mind to go an ask for an i-pill one day, just to see how the chemist looks at me :D

In other news, exams for the first trimester just got over, and classrooms are wearing that deserted look they do when footfalls are absent. Except, we do have classes scheduled, but almost the whole class has gone off searching for their mommies and daddies to their home-towns.( Reason - they are all barely into their twenties, there is even a teen in the population.) As a result, it is a lot of free time to roam around Pune/shop on M.G Road/ while away time - with endless episodes of House M.D and Changeling-Psy books by Nalini Singh. (Yeah, yeah, it is part of the cringeworthy paranormal romance genre, and yes, the romance is cliche'd, I just skip the sex bits (they are the same in book after book, "they made sweet love", where both parties orgasm every time, and mulitple times to boot, seriously? seriously? who are they trying to kid? ) but the plot of the series is interesting for brain-strain-free reading).

On the fun side of things, I'm encouraging someone I shouldnt, not flirting with someone I want to, and pursuing someone who is not exactly right.

More later.