Clueless About Time

The concept of time with some people leaves me perplexed. Consider the scenario :  a meeting is fixed at 10 am or pm whatever....no one usually turns up before 10.30. You schedule your party for 9 in the evening, the guests start trickling in by 9.30. By the time everyone makes it, it will be 10 or 10.30. But Beware!! Don't try to be smart and schedule the party for 10.30 the next time. Because in that case it will start at 11.30.

If you are one of the rare punctual species, then you must have innumerable times faced scenarios like :

You have reached the meeting point and the other person hasn't reached. After you have been waiting for 15 minutes, you get a call or message saying, "Stuck in a bad traffic jam will be there in 15 minutes." What the person is not telling you is that he has stepped out of the home at the scheduled meeting time. After 15 minutes you call up to know the progress of the traffic jam. Your call certainly goes unanswered. After 5 minutes the message tone beeps and you are mocked at by the message, "Will be there in a minute." You will still be waiting for 20 minutes. But this time the call comes from the other end, and you get to hear, "I am just round the corner." As you put the phone down you realise that the person didn't specify whether its your corner or his corner.

God save you from statements like, "I'll be right there, I am just parking the car." You can be standing at the parking lot with no car in sight. 

You are waiting in your office for the person to turn up. Frustrated you call him up to find his whereabouts. "I have reached the gate and will be there in a second," is the answer you get, while in the background you can hear the trains rattling by and you very well know the station is good half an hour from the office. 

Every time I face a situation like this, I make a resolution that the next time I will call up the person I am supposed to meet, before leaving my house and will leave only after I make sure that he/she has left. But sadly, I remember my resolution only when I am fuming at the meeting point. GOD! WHY AM I SO CLUELESS ABOUT TIME?

Many More Years to Go...

The fact that even the jawans and officers of army can loose their cool, forces me to take back all the nitpicking I have directed towards my fellow citizens. The most astonishing part is that it happens in a place as cool as Nyoma in Ladakh. Those who don't have any clue to what I am talking about can check out the news on the link : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Army-officers-jawans-battle-it-out-in-Ladakh/articleshow/13102508.cms

This incident forces me to come to the conclusion that there is certainly something wrong in the air. Maybe the predictions that there will be an apocalypse on 22nd Dec has made us all jittery. And that has charged the environment into an aggressive mode. I basically think this whole thing about the Apocalypse will fall flat on its face. I tell my sons that we talk so much about the new age belief that we get back from the universe what we give to it.  So, keeping that in mind, if at all, mind it, if at all the end of the world happens it will happen only because of so many Hollywood movies we keep on making and giving ideas to the universe. So much of water rushing on to the streets, dinosaurs coming back into the world, aliens of various kinds and forms coming down on earth, zombies taking charge of cities and what all and what not . It's a different scenario altogether that I am the first one to watch them when they are released.

This time people are a little cautious and its not like it was in 2000. Does anyone remember that in 2000 there was all that hoopla about Y2K crisis? I was on a trip to Nagarhole National Park and my travel agent  made me stay in Bangalore just because she did not want me, with my kids and ageing mother stuck at the airport, when supposedly all the computers could go bust. The computer bug, I suppose  chickened out and NOTHING HAPPENED.  This time around too it will be the same.  Our past experiences have taught us and that is why with about six months to go for the apocalypse to happen already alternate theories have started pouring out.  A look at this video by National Geographic will certainly pacify your nerves.  It tells us that the Mayan Calendar in no way suggests the end of the World.

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/history-archaeology-news/maya-art-calendar-vin/

While you go check out this video, I look forward to 22nd December, when exactly about 7months and 10 days from today, on a cooler Saturday evening I will be updating my blog.

Our Snubbed Conscience

Its absolutely a miracle that we are progressing in spite of the mumbo jumbo state of our country. I don't know about others but I personally don't  understand the attitude of my fellow countrymen. Let me share two of my experiences :

Yesterday afternoon, I was waiting in my car, for the signal to turn green.  A lady wanted to cross the road. But a hoard of vehicles : autos, cars, bikes... decided they didn't have time to wait. This lady who actually had the right to cross the road could not. She kept on stepping ahead and back. I just looked on helplessly. I was also being honked at to jump the signal. Then as the signal turned green I found support in the driver of the car next to me. We both waited till she crossed and then we moved on.

Papers and files go missing from the courts or police station. Some papers pertaining to an application moved in the Magistrate's Court by me are untraceable. Hard to believe but true.

This leads me to the conclusion that we need strong CCTV surveillance. The move of the common man, the public servant and the caretakers running the country, everything needs to be constantly monitored. Somewhere we have let so much of greed overpower us that we are not God fearing any more. I remember as a child our mothers would tell us that  God above doesn't approve of lies and misconduct. We grew up with the belief that he is always watching us. Today in the busy schedule of our lives God figures only when we need something. When we conduct a misdeed, we forget that someone above there might be taking a note of our misdeeds. What is God for someone can be conscience for others. But that conscience has absolutely been snubbed. That calls for the need that with the help of modern day technology we position a watch guard through CCTV cameras so that we learn to conduct ourselves.

Nobody in this rushed up city waits behind the zebra crossing. Walkers cross the roads when the signal is green and leisurely keep walking across the road challenging the speeding cars to slow down. Why? Why are we testing each others patience........

Harsh Realities

In my past few blogs, I have been deliberately keeping myself away from issues which have been stirring my soul. Basically because I didn't want you all to think that this middle aged lady has lost it (trying to imbibe the lingo used by today's youth). But today morning,  when I watched  Amir Khan's TV show "Satyamev Jayate" I realised I am not the only one to be concerned. So many times even I mull over the thought  that is this the country our freedom fighters had laid their lives for? Is this the kind of future they had envisaged for us? When I talk about the daily irritating incidents happening to me or around me, it is because of the fact that somewhere I question myself again and again, that has education made us more civilised or uncivil, or maybe it would be right to say civilised brutes.

I have not and will not talk about female infanticide because I have boiled my blood immensely over it in my youth. I belong to the generation in which waves of feminism were strong. Many of us had the guts to take a stand against many issues which we felt were strong at that time. But have any of these been resolved? On the contrary they have increased and in a more civilised and sophisticated way. Female Infanticide, Dowry deaths, Polygamy, Rapes, Child Marriage, Eve teasing......and many more. They all are still prevalent. and in a more heinous way.

Female infanticide has taken the form of a highly organised money making sector. Polygamy has given way to adjustments by both the husband and wife to live lives their own way or more so to wife swapping. Rapes have been replaced by gang rapes or cases of incest.  Child Marriage has television shows on it in the prime time slot. Eve teasing has  become a man's prerogative. If the girl doesn't give into his advancements she has to face an acid attack or rape. Dowries have subtly become the gifts to be given to the young couple to start their life on a good note.

Though, I do see a remarkable difference in the woman of today. She has become more enduring. Thanks to the support of the parents, who have taken care to provide education to their daughters. Credit to those who have taught their daughters to treat themselves as human beings ....the woman of today has become more self dependent. She is strong enough to accept her fate, collect her belongings if she is given the chance to and move on. It can be her children, a pair of clothes thrown at her when she is kicked out of her house, or for that matter only her self esteem too, which she holds close to her bosom and settles down courageously to start life afresh. She moves on making a free way for the man who otherwise should have taken care of her, to let him enjoy his life unblemished.  Her place in his life is unquestionably taken by another woman. And the so called society gets one more topic to gossip about in its next party.......

Summer Love : Alphonsoes

Mangoes ......My earliest memories about them is that as a child my text books taught me about it being the King of Fruits. Little did I know that one day I will settle in the city of dreams, and relish the oh so devine Alphonso. At that age I just did not know what the fuss is all about. In a place like Chandigarh, there were varieties of mangoes available. And of them I was very fond of my dussehri, which could be bought in kilos. They were dropped into a dish filled with cold water the moment they were brought home. "This way one ensures that they cool down and don't heat up our body." my mother always told me.  After lunch we would all sit down. Pull out one mango after the other from the cold water and eat them. A dussehri  is not supposed to be sliced but is just sucked upon. ummmmm.... heavenly...... and one could have as many as one wanted. It's a different thing altogether, that a bout of loose motions after that, was explained to be good because it was cleansing the body. A few days later when I would have a big boil on my shin or calf, unfortunately my feast would get over.  I used to wonder then, as to why are mangoes not cultivated in the winters if they are so heaty and am still wondering about it, when year after year the moment the summer sets in, I see the alphonsoes flooding markets all over Mumbai.

It took me sometime to get used to the taste of Alphonso. I was also not ready to kill my ego and accept the fact that alphonsoes are  actually delish. After creating a lot of fuss  and failed unlimited hunts for the dussehri's in the lanes and bylanes of the city....I did settle down to eat alphonso. But somewhere I craved for the dussehri's. Ages later it took me a trip back to Delhi,  and an excited bite into the dussehri, to realise that I had become an addict of the king of kings. Just like the city, the fruit too had silently entrapped me into giving in to its goodness.

I can go on cribbing about the city losing it's charm.....not being anymore what it was once.... but alphonsoes  is one thing that makes me look forward to the summers, no matter how killing the humidity is.  I love it sliced or in my mango shake....in the mango cheesecake or mango souffle.... there is so much I can do with the alphonsoes. Then when I send a box of them to my cousins in Kolkata....I feel so proud that there is one thing very Mumbaiyah that I can brag about and be proud of......

POTHOLED

Pothole????? Nay I will call them craters. You find them all over Mumbai. Their count increases during monsoon. Actually they are found in abundance all over Mumbai, but it's during the monsoon that they seriously start multiplying. Their life cycle is great. They have a birth date and beyond that they just keep living.  What dies is a part of you every time your car, cab, cycle, auto or your FOOT goes into it.  You want to scream out but can't because as a mumbaikar your never dying attitude will be questioned. You spot them from a distance....you slow down your car....then just at the last minute you realize it's bigger that the surface area covered by your front tyre.  You have almost failed the test of avoiding them. But you still are not ready to give up...the never give up Mumbaiyah attitude raises its head adamantly. You swerve your car and there,  you hit against the car overtaking you. If it's not the doctors bill from the backache you got by bumping in and out of potholes, that makes a dent in your pocket, the dent in the car you hit surely will do.

It's more of a mission to spot them during rains when they are filled to the brim with rain water.  They are actually placed to keep your alerts high while driving. A way administration has figured out to keep a check on your driving. You can be a little agressive and slap a Public Interest Litigation against the administeration. But that too falls on deaf ears. Loyalty runs in our blood that's why year after year after year the contracts are given to the same people who can do a better shoddy work each time. They too learn from experience.

So now, with the BMC unabashedly making true statements that they won't be able to fill all the pot holes before the monsoon, even with mud or tree branches, The Road Ahead Certainly Seems To Be Full OF Potholes.

To Moustache or Not To Moustache?

"Why are Indian men so much in love with their moustache?" I am sure you think that it is my teenage daughter speaking. Nope, that is my teenage son. Yesterday while we were driving down to the local store to buy my weekly provisions I don't know what made him blurt that out. But it immediately took me back to the times when I was a teenager and had taken fancy to men with moustache. My brother would laugh at me and I would wonder what the fuss is all about. Then as I kept growing, my liking for men with moustache kept growing in the opposite. My apologies to all my mous'tached friends, but the fact may be that I am not even aware of them supporting one. I won't say I started disliking men with moustache but just that when I looked at them I would think how can they support it without any problems on the upper lip right below the sensitive nose.....

One has to credit the fact that they have had an evolution of their own kind. They are in  all sorts of shapes and sizes too. Right from the huge ones that find a mention in the Guinness Book of Records to the tiniest ones. When I talk of the tiniest one, Hitler comes in mind. This moustache sits right there, in the cleft of the lip making a person look so Hitler like. To make it feel better let's say so Charlie Chaplin like. A search on google tells me that it's called the toothbrush moustache. Can you believe it, that there was  a moustache spoon for mous'tached people to drink soups during the Victorian England? That's what Wikepedia informs me. Here are two links one should visit. One brags about the goodness of the hairy fashion statement, and how to maintain and take care of them, http://www.nowthatsnifty.com/2009/05/great-moustaches-and-moustache-types.html#.T5ws1cT9NH8 while the other  http://www.cracked.com/blog/a-guide-to-the-modern-moustache/ talks about the ones which should be banned. My personal favorite is the second link. But then whatever.... I never wished to talk about the types of moustaches, I was just retrospecting as to how can people support such a thing in such a sensitive part below the nose. Specially the real bushy ones.

Observing the movement of a moustache while the person supporting them is eating or talking is a pass time on its own. Watching those with the thicker ones is more ticklish to one's heart. Then when the men supporting a huge burly moustache gulp down a glass full  of milk or butter milk and have it smeared all over their moustache.....the way it is licked clean eeeeeew....

Not to forget, that there are people like our own Hindi film stars like Anil Kapoor and Jackie Shroff, who look the best in their trademark moustache. (I abhor saying Bollywood because I find that name very downmarket). In fact these two people without their trademark moustaches come across as if they are going through an identity crisis. 

So can the verdict be that the problem is not the person supporting the moustache, but the shape of the moustache? That's why maybe I support the second link. Ban some keep some. Can't be more judgemental than this. My dad too supported the toothbrush and the pencil moustache, but that was long before I was born. I fortunately saw him clean shaven. Thank you daddy. Your sweet kisses otherwise would have been so prickly.....

"To Moustache or not to moustache that is the question."