The trains roll in reluctantly the next morning, clacking despondently on tracks that sag under their unbearable weight. That noble race of commuters rushes to catch them once again. Briefcases are as mighty a weapon as any in man’s eternal battle: for space, for land, for a window seat in the direction of travel. But today, the previous night’s events seem etched upon the warriors’ faces. These hunched penguins waddle towards the dirty dark green of the seats and sit down with a heave. Darkness is set heavy upon their baggy eyes; but one wonders if this is the result of terrorism or arduous daily routines. In times of crisis though, routines become a sought-after luxury; work more so.
The troops are off; they will lay siege to office complexes in the Island City in precisely forty-three minutes. The train ambles by three eunuchs sitting on the adjacent tracks, legs spread apart, with beedis in their hands, and people inside can eavesdrop on their discussion on the Taj. In a city of 19 million, your existence already counts for so little, that sitting on tracks is as casual as sitting in the trains that ply them. The faces around wear a blank look, as they always do. Beyond the metal wall lies the ladies’ compartment, ineffable bastion of femininity, blue-and-beige striped, where obese aunties with giant breasts sit alongside svelte but anaemic twentysomethings in frilly kurtis that clash spectacularly with their flared denims. On a busy day, accidentally glimpsing a beautiful woman is an objective pursued by many. Today though, the compartment is almost empty.
A man’s motives sit concealed just behind his eyes; their intensity or lack of it are a corollary to the man’s identity. Among the inert and blank faces sits one man; he is young enough to be Kasab’s classmate. He too carries with him a haversack, but is unarmed. Beyond the metal wall separating the two compartments, an argument escalates. One voice belongs to a woman, the other a man. The blue-beige fort has been infiltrated by a member of the red-beige army. The blanks look up; they are aware of the voice. Words such as bhenchod and randi boast of a ubiquitous presence in the minds of this city’s men. They are used for camaraderie more often than they are used to hurt. The apparent subversion of these friendly words to their more malicious but original usage is sufficient to get a rise out of any Mumbai man. Today, the men are full of thoughts, but empty on actions.
Their eyes stare straight ahead, they are too afraid to investigate, but too fearful to move. It is too much, too soon after the previous night. Their eyes begin to move. They follow the innocuous man with the haversack, the only one whose eyes have motive, as he gets up, afraid to the core of his being. The next station approaches. It is a determined gait, and the man slows only when the train lurches, balancing himself and then continuing. Beyond the little window and wire mesh separation, he peers over to the other side of the fort. A scabby, one-legged beggar continues to defiantly hurl curses at one of the women, and she responds in equal measure. The train has now stopped, new travelers pile in. The young man’s window seat, like everything else in this city, is quickly usurped. He bores into the blank eyes of the others, and sits down elsewhere in disgust.
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Monday, October 6, 2008
The Diksha’s Advocate
In February 1556, a 13-year-old Akbar was proclaimed Shahenshah, the king of kings, and went on to preside over what came to be known as the Golden Era of the Mughal Empire. In 1950, Tenzin Gyatso became the 14th Dalai Lama at the age of 6. In many ancient cultures across the world, major positions of power, social, political and religious, are granted to what contemporary jurisprudence has given the term ‘minor’.
The attention brought to the case of Priyal, an 8-year-old girl child who has chosen to undertake the practice of Diksha or worldly renunciation, is a typical example of the media’s version of competitive populism; seizing a story simply because it is interesting, while ignoring larger ‘done-to-death’ issues. Nevertheless, the case has left several worrying questions unanswered. Of course, the terrain of contemporary India is nothing like the Tibet of 50 years ago, let alone ancient Egypt. But although the girl in question may not have been compelled to take Diksha by the kind of religious or political circumstances that the examples mentioned above had to undoubtedly face, the questions raised are similar. Is society failing its moral obligation in allowing young children to take decisions whose impact they can scarcely fathom? And are we in any way interfering with what could be a potentially normal, albeit extremely unconventional childhood?
“I have decided on this life. I do not say the life of other children is bad, but I feel that ultimate truth is salvation and I am happy that at such a young age, I am taking that path. This is my truth and it is not forced on me…” asserted Priyal in a recent interview. The Child Welfare Committee bemoans the loss of a minor’s childhood and the sub-human conditions she lives in, but does not appear to even consider that the child may in fact genuinely be happy, despite allegedly being brainwashed into undertaking Diksha.
There is another dimension that has not been thoroughly explored: Economic factors could also have contributed to the sequence of events that led Priyal down her chosen path. Perhaps it is far more bearable to see her become an ascetic whose basic needs, at least, will be met, than to bear her financial burden. Some may even go to the extent of declaring Priyal’s Diksha as a convenient and socially acceptable method of getting rid of a girl child. But the fact remains that the girl’s parents are reasonably well-to-do; residing in a flat in Indore, and for all practical purposes appear to be thoroughly normal. Why then, would they consent to allow their daughter to undertake what any average parent might find abhorrent?
“The stark details of their lives – their fantastic privations – terrify city people… there is absolutely no room for compromise. Its purity, its singleness, is incomprehensible to people in the city of a thousand distractions…” Four years have passed since Suketu Mehta wrote these words as a part of a chapter on Diksha in his acclaimed Bombay biopic, Maximum City. Perhaps it is time for us to start comprehending:
If a minor is incapable of making his or her own informed decision, it follows that the same rule of thumb should apply to all minors, and therefore no one under the age of 18 should be instructed in religious matters by the parents who profess a deep interest in that faith. To quote noted biologist and author Richard Dawkins in his seminal book ‘The God Delusion’: “I want everybody to flinch whenever we hear a phrase such as ‘Catholic child’ or ‘Muslim Child’. Speak of a ‘child of Catholic parents’ if you like; but if you hear anybody speak of a ‘Catholic Child’, stop them and politely point out that children are too young to know where they stand on such issues...”
The attention brought to the case of Priyal, an 8-year-old girl child who has chosen to undertake the practice of Diksha or worldly renunciation, is a typical example of the media’s version of competitive populism; seizing a story simply because it is interesting, while ignoring larger ‘done-to-death’ issues. Nevertheless, the case has left several worrying questions unanswered. Of course, the terrain of contemporary India is nothing like the Tibet of 50 years ago, let alone ancient Egypt. But although the girl in question may not have been compelled to take Diksha by the kind of religious or political circumstances that the examples mentioned above had to undoubtedly face, the questions raised are similar. Is society failing its moral obligation in allowing young children to take decisions whose impact they can scarcely fathom? And are we in any way interfering with what could be a potentially normal, albeit extremely unconventional childhood?
“I have decided on this life. I do not say the life of other children is bad, but I feel that ultimate truth is salvation and I am happy that at such a young age, I am taking that path. This is my truth and it is not forced on me…” asserted Priyal in a recent interview. The Child Welfare Committee bemoans the loss of a minor’s childhood and the sub-human conditions she lives in, but does not appear to even consider that the child may in fact genuinely be happy, despite allegedly being brainwashed into undertaking Diksha.
There is another dimension that has not been thoroughly explored: Economic factors could also have contributed to the sequence of events that led Priyal down her chosen path. Perhaps it is far more bearable to see her become an ascetic whose basic needs, at least, will be met, than to bear her financial burden. Some may even go to the extent of declaring Priyal’s Diksha as a convenient and socially acceptable method of getting rid of a girl child. But the fact remains that the girl’s parents are reasonably well-to-do; residing in a flat in Indore, and for all practical purposes appear to be thoroughly normal. Why then, would they consent to allow their daughter to undertake what any average parent might find abhorrent?
“The stark details of their lives – their fantastic privations – terrify city people… there is absolutely no room for compromise. Its purity, its singleness, is incomprehensible to people in the city of a thousand distractions…” Four years have passed since Suketu Mehta wrote these words as a part of a chapter on Diksha in his acclaimed Bombay biopic, Maximum City. Perhaps it is time for us to start comprehending:
If a minor is incapable of making his or her own informed decision, it follows that the same rule of thumb should apply to all minors, and therefore no one under the age of 18 should be instructed in religious matters by the parents who profess a deep interest in that faith. To quote noted biologist and author Richard Dawkins in his seminal book ‘The God Delusion’: “I want everybody to flinch whenever we hear a phrase such as ‘Catholic child’ or ‘Muslim Child’. Speak of a ‘child of Catholic parents’ if you like; but if you hear anybody speak of a ‘Catholic Child’, stop them and politely point out that children are too young to know where they stand on such issues...”
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Un-Clarivoyant
Brow furrowed, the portly man of about 52 looks up at the sky, in intense concentration. Looking down again, he chants something inaudible to anyone around but himself. Surveying me grimly, he discreetly adjusts his buttocks in a characteristic motion that I know from experience to be associated with farting. Readjusting his saffron robes, the man clears his throat and speaks to me, in broken English:
“You are gentleman. In some tomorrows you become greater man in professional!”
I nod sincerely. Govinda Kunalbhai Shroff, ‘Pamist, Asterologist and Oculist’ as the signboard above his chair proudly announces, then pulls out 3 charts, one of which has two large hands painted on it, while the others have a bewildering array of symbols and numbers written on them. They seem to be astrological charts, but they could well be anything else. Pointing vaguely at one of the charts, he continues,
“All is givan here. You meet sweetie soon! Are you writing-writing saab? I give full story of tomorrow in Rs. 125 since you’re friend.”
I gently turn him down, and gaze at one of about half a dozen pictures hanging on the tree trunk behind him. They are faded to bluish hues by sunlight, but on at least one, you can still make out Govinda’s wide grinning face, hands joined in greeting another, more familiar, turbaned figure. The picture seems morphed, although if so, it is clearly a professional job. Catching my line of sight, Govinda tells me very earnestly that he had been on good terms with the man in the picture since around 1973. “My first and bestest customer,” he adds.
I promise to pay him his quoted amount if he tells me how he came to be in such a powerful profession. I was surprised to learn that Govinda was a son of the soil, born and raised in Mumbai, with a cabbie father and a mother who died when he was quite young. At about 11, he began to suffer convulsions, and his father took him to a local baba who proclaimed that the boy had ‘gifted sight’. There used to be a long queue of visitors for the seer every morning, and he did his best to help those who came; mostly impoverished women suffering at the hands of alcoholic husbands.
Unfortunately Govinda’s father died of tuberculosis two years later, and the happy profits garnered by his gift eventually dried up. The seer’s eyes well up as he tells me this; he laments not having been able to foresee the epidemic before it took away his father. As I am about to leave, I hear sirens approaching. 6 Qualises pull up; the nearby magazine, samosa and DVD vendors begin hurriedly packing up, and Govinda does the same.
One of the havaldars walks briskly towards the seer and orders him to leave immediately; something about the PM’s cavalcade passing by. I hear the two arguing louder and louder, their conversation peppered with the choicest gaalis that would make even a firang feel desi. Glancing at the tree by chance, I suddenly realize who the faded picture is of.
“You are gentleman. In some tomorrows you become greater man in professional!”
I nod sincerely. Govinda Kunalbhai Shroff, ‘Pamist, Asterologist and Oculist’ as the signboard above his chair proudly announces, then pulls out 3 charts, one of which has two large hands painted on it, while the others have a bewildering array of symbols and numbers written on them. They seem to be astrological charts, but they could well be anything else. Pointing vaguely at one of the charts, he continues,
“All is givan here. You meet sweetie soon! Are you writing-writing saab? I give full story of tomorrow in Rs. 125 since you’re friend.”
I gently turn him down, and gaze at one of about half a dozen pictures hanging on the tree trunk behind him. They are faded to bluish hues by sunlight, but on at least one, you can still make out Govinda’s wide grinning face, hands joined in greeting another, more familiar, turbaned figure. The picture seems morphed, although if so, it is clearly a professional job. Catching my line of sight, Govinda tells me very earnestly that he had been on good terms with the man in the picture since around 1973. “My first and bestest customer,” he adds.
I promise to pay him his quoted amount if he tells me how he came to be in such a powerful profession. I was surprised to learn that Govinda was a son of the soil, born and raised in Mumbai, with a cabbie father and a mother who died when he was quite young. At about 11, he began to suffer convulsions, and his father took him to a local baba who proclaimed that the boy had ‘gifted sight’. There used to be a long queue of visitors for the seer every morning, and he did his best to help those who came; mostly impoverished women suffering at the hands of alcoholic husbands.
Unfortunately Govinda’s father died of tuberculosis two years later, and the happy profits garnered by his gift eventually dried up. The seer’s eyes well up as he tells me this; he laments not having been able to foresee the epidemic before it took away his father. As I am about to leave, I hear sirens approaching. 6 Qualises pull up; the nearby magazine, samosa and DVD vendors begin hurriedly packing up, and Govinda does the same.
One of the havaldars walks briskly towards the seer and orders him to leave immediately; something about the PM’s cavalcade passing by. I hear the two arguing louder and louder, their conversation peppered with the choicest gaalis that would make even a firang feel desi. Glancing at the tree by chance, I suddenly realize who the faded picture is of.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
"The sewers belch me up, the heavens spit me out, from ethers tragic I am born again!"
Sounds and lights have ruined us. People are not what we see and hear. They are whole, rounded, ambiguous, contradictory and any number of other adjectives that your average author could think of. They rarely possess the kind of stark dichotomy promoted by Batman or Friends, even if many of them try and consciously imitate it. In this city the people hit you with their break and make you feel like a child standing in the sea during a particularly stormy high tide. You fight their currents throughout your day. Their force tempts you into lying or maybe even falling back. But not as if you’re on a holiday on some pleasant beach, but like the contorted crow you saw, dead of electrocution on your whizz home in the train from your 9 to 5. But that’s Bombay. And you fight back against it, hurtling on.
Eventually you grow older, and you realize that you’ve been sucked into deeper water, and this time there is no one there to carry you back to shore in the comfort of their arms. Or maybe you’re just too big to be picked up anyway. You go deeper, and now the salt is in your mouth. You feel the adrenaline pump as you realize how perilously close it is to entering your nostrils and burning you away at the back of your head as it floods in. You think of all those lines about seamen who out of desperation and thirst drank seawater and went mad, and then the horrid thought hits you, just as the bottom of your head screams from the liquid rushing in: Madness is not in the drinking of seawater; madness is not in drowning yourself. True madness is the standing in the shallows as the tide wraps itself around your knees, pulling you in but pushing you over, and yet there you stay, firm in your naive resolve against the might of the water, the very same water that conquered Mumbai herself.
I have drowned now. But I am happiest in this alive.
With apologies to The Smashing Pumpkins,
Wittywanker
Eventually you grow older, and you realize that you’ve been sucked into deeper water, and this time there is no one there to carry you back to shore in the comfort of their arms. Or maybe you’re just too big to be picked up anyway. You go deeper, and now the salt is in your mouth. You feel the adrenaline pump as you realize how perilously close it is to entering your nostrils and burning you away at the back of your head as it floods in. You think of all those lines about seamen who out of desperation and thirst drank seawater and went mad, and then the horrid thought hits you, just as the bottom of your head screams from the liquid rushing in: Madness is not in the drinking of seawater; madness is not in drowning yourself. True madness is the standing in the shallows as the tide wraps itself around your knees, pulling you in but pushing you over, and yet there you stay, firm in your naive resolve against the might of the water, the very same water that conquered Mumbai herself.
I have drowned now. But I am happiest in this alive.
With apologies to The Smashing Pumpkins,
Wittywanker
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Why yes gentlemen, I AM lazy!
So my self-promise to update this damned thing at least once in three days has gone down the shithole. I suppose it doesn't matter now since I'm writing, but ah what the hell, better that I say it out loud and admit to it than just clam up and pretend like this is my 1396th post. In 5 days time I shall face the bane of all procrastinators such as myself, work. I have been an invalid since April, and much as I hate to admit it, I'm fucking bored. I never thought that it'd happen to me, but it has.
I must admit though, TSJ hasn't turned out to be what I had hoped. With all the tall promises made to us at the induction ceremony, I was at LEAST expecting them to start on time. Oh well, c'est la vie or whatever. Until next time,
Lazily yours,
Wittywanker
I must admit though, TSJ hasn't turned out to be what I had hoped. With all the tall promises made to us at the induction ceremony, I was at LEAST expecting them to start on time. Oh well, c'est la vie or whatever. Until next time,
Lazily yours,
Wittywanker
Friday, June 27, 2008
Funny, no?
It tickles me immensely when I hear people chastise those who amuse themselves by poking fun at things which the public at large deem as subjects that are off limits for humor. Why they would do that, I’m not quite sure. I have discovered that humor can in fact be a sort of wormhole to the hearts and minds of people. You could try to reason with a lay person but it’d only get you so far if the person’s beliefs (whatever they may be) are so deeply ingrained in him that he will be dogmatic enough to argue with you even if he is in the wrong (Religion being a case in point). But if you bend over backwards or underhandedly slip in a message through humor (or poetry or music), they’re more likely to remember it, so laughter in fact becomes an important carrier of social messages and values. The same goes for poetry and music, because we’re more likely to remember rhyme and verse than a long speech or dialogue.
I truly believe it has an important function when it comes to making people see the evils and wrongs of their ways. If you’re skilled enough to get someone to laugh at something like rape or mutilation you’re able to bypass the jadedness that a person may have acquired overtime about a particular subject from, say the influence of media and society. It wakes people up to the reality of things, gives them pause and makes them consider exactly what it is that they’re laughing at, so your effect has been twofold: Firstly you’ve made them that much happier by making them laugh and secondly you’ve passed on that social message I talked about earlier. That’s a dual benefit to that person, and every other person he or she re-narrates the joke or comic routine or whatever you want to call it to someone else later on. Consider the impact of something like this as opposed to conscious efforts at raising conscientiousness amongst the general public through a more proactive medium such as the press. It’s subtle enough to work very effectively, has mass appeal, and the bonus of getting people to agree with you simply because you’re an agreeable person whom they enjoy the company of.
For George Carlin. Written soon after listening to his amazing routines some time ago.
We will miss you.
Sincerely,
WittyWanker
I truly believe it has an important function when it comes to making people see the evils and wrongs of their ways. If you’re skilled enough to get someone to laugh at something like rape or mutilation you’re able to bypass the jadedness that a person may have acquired overtime about a particular subject from, say the influence of media and society. It wakes people up to the reality of things, gives them pause and makes them consider exactly what it is that they’re laughing at, so your effect has been twofold: Firstly you’ve made them that much happier by making them laugh and secondly you’ve passed on that social message I talked about earlier. That’s a dual benefit to that person, and every other person he or she re-narrates the joke or comic routine or whatever you want to call it to someone else later on. Consider the impact of something like this as opposed to conscious efforts at raising conscientiousness amongst the general public through a more proactive medium such as the press. It’s subtle enough to work very effectively, has mass appeal, and the bonus of getting people to agree with you simply because you’re an agreeable person whom they enjoy the company of.
For George Carlin. Written soon after listening to his amazing routines some time ago.
We will miss you.
Sincerely,
WittyWanker
Thursday, June 26, 2008
The Dynamics of the Nipple
Recently I’ve found myself immensely bewildered by our society’s turning of an innocuous and otherwise unassuming body part into a subject of international debate and spectacle. Most people tend to think that it started with Janet Jackson, but I like to think it started off with the Batman movie, yeah you know, the one where Clooney runs around in a suit with nipples sculpted onto them. But you know when I saw this I was actually surprised, no not because there’s something weird about there being nipples on a batsuit, but because, as far as I could tell, comic books had always been against displaying nipples. All these guys and girls running around in skin tight spandex suits and you expect me to believe there was never a single nipple revelation? Hell even the shirtless scenes seem to have a chronic case of nipple absenteeism. I mean come on. How stupid do you think we are?
And then came along Janet. Now if you were to ask me, I’d say it was planned. Not because she flashed a boob, no, but because, if you look carefully at the screen grab of the thing, you will notice the conspicuous ABSENCE of a nipple. There is instead, a star, some kind of a nipple ring over the thing. Now again, here I was surprised. No, not because I had a boob in front of me but because there was instead, a star. Why a star? Is it because she wanted to be seen as a star? Want her own star on the walk of fame? Or was it some kind of wish, to get marched off to the gas chamber?
And so that launched the trend. But the press has taken it too far you see, no… I honestly believe that many of these cases are genuine accidents. I mean, after all, the celebrity nipple is something like Haley’s comet, you see it once in your lifetime and never again. And why do I think they were accidents? No star! Not even the even more bewildering phenomenon known as nipple tape. Now, why would you ever want to do that to your nubs? And this raises another compelling thought: The fact that the fashion world regards the exposure of a nipple as one of the grossest things you can do on the ramp, those same people have no qualms about showing every other inch of the woman’s boob! (or for that matter, about 99% of the rest of her body!) Talk about tough love… why so mean with something as friendly-sounding as... ‘nipple’?
Ponderously yours,
WittyWanker
And then came along Janet. Now if you were to ask me, I’d say it was planned. Not because she flashed a boob, no, but because, if you look carefully at the screen grab of the thing, you will notice the conspicuous ABSENCE of a nipple. There is instead, a star, some kind of a nipple ring over the thing. Now again, here I was surprised. No, not because I had a boob in front of me but because there was instead, a star. Why a star? Is it because she wanted to be seen as a star? Want her own star on the walk of fame? Or was it some kind of wish, to get marched off to the gas chamber?
And so that launched the trend. But the press has taken it too far you see, no… I honestly believe that many of these cases are genuine accidents. I mean, after all, the celebrity nipple is something like Haley’s comet, you see it once in your lifetime and never again. And why do I think they were accidents? No star! Not even the even more bewildering phenomenon known as nipple tape. Now, why would you ever want to do that to your nubs? And this raises another compelling thought: The fact that the fashion world regards the exposure of a nipple as one of the grossest things you can do on the ramp, those same people have no qualms about showing every other inch of the woman’s boob! (or for that matter, about 99% of the rest of her body!) Talk about tough love… why so mean with something as friendly-sounding as... ‘nipple’?
Ponderously yours,
WittyWanker
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