Free! Free! Free!

Yesterday I watched a short film… It was a very cute film where the dad, who is a barber in a village, wishes to make his son study in an english medium school… The challenges faced and whether he enrolled his son in that school is the climax. There were many scenes in the movie that made me smile… When asked for the reason for not choosing free education that the government offers, the dad says “Free education… So teachers won’t teach properly.” The attendant sarcastically snubs him that when anything else is given for free, everybody takes it…. But when its education everybody has a problem 

That dialogue is so true… Whatever is given for free, we feel an urge to get..Regardless of whether we need it or not 

Last week my neighbour got a biscuit packet which promised a free gold coin inside if you are lucky. Going by the daily astrology predictions of being lucky that day, she got this biscuit packet. I casually went inside her house and to my surprise found that aunty to have kept the biscuit packet in the pooja room. She was mumbling constant prayers and opened the wrapper as if diffusing a bomb… I couldn’t hold back my giggles  Her daughter and me were waiting for her to offer us the biscuits… she was all the more occupied in searching for the gold coin. When it wasn’t found at the top, she immediately justified that it might be in the middle of the pack cos in the ad, the boy eats the biscuit and then finds the gold… so logically it should be somewhere in the middle 

I nodded and got the biscuits at the top… Her daughter and me started eating one biscuit after another from the top, giving new tinge of hope after every biscuit till we reached the last  Well, there was no gold in it… But aunty was one among that ‘try try till you succeed category’… She went on to buy another packet 

We got groceries from supermarket… I was repeatedly instructed by my mom that we are going to buy only the most necessary items and there is no room for anything else. When billed, it summed upto Rs 850… The lady at the cash counter told me that we have free gifts for Rs 500, Rs 1000 etc… So now you’ll be falling under Rs 500 category… My mom and me exchanged a look and immediately my mom asked me, “You wanted some lotions and creams right… Go get it and come” . The bill now summed up to 1050… The lotions were clearly uncalled for here but we felt it bad to let go of the better free gift… the free gift was nothing but a shampoo sachet, diary milk, pen and a salt packet 

When I was a kid, I was getting into this perfect Indian Jantha mindset… I used to buy a bubble gum to get free tattoo… The tattoo stays inside the bubble gum wrapper (marketing tricks you see)… The bubble gum company owners would have earned loads cos of my friends and me  We kept buying that Re1 bubble gum continuously, just for the sake of that tattoo collection :P

Similarly, I saw a scene where a guy goes on to introduce cell phones to villagers. He advertises saying you get free talktime if you buy this phone.Seeing this ad, one of the villagers asks the other, what does talktime mean? The other guy replied that ‘Who cares… They are giving it for free na.. We’ll get it’ 

No wonder everybody is cashing in on our ‘freebie’ syndrome 

P.S. People who expected something to be got for free seeing the title… Oops! Don’t be disappointed… You read the post for free 

Earth Version 1.1

I was surrounded by smoke… Rather smog… I never knew chennai could have such a dense fog… Or have smokers in chennai gone into a smoking spree? I thought to myself looking around at the suddenly different chennai where my visibility was zero… I found a person walking towards my direction… It was a guy… errr… a handsome guy  Tall… definitely 6’3…well sculpted physique.. White tee shirt, blue jeans , a black leather jacket that hung casually around his shoulder…He was simple but majestic  I spoke to myself (but pretty loudly) “Am I in some Bollywood movie set?”… The dashing guy flashed his dimples with a smile and said “No dear… You are in heaven…  And am God”. I was dumbstruck…Is anybody fooling me? Is it really heaven? If so, am I dead? But how? Definitely its not God… I have seen God in photos and movies… This guy looks like a super model…So many such thoughts ran through my mind. The guy who claimed to be God replied… “Whoa! Hold on Hold on… Don’t think so fast… Am finding it difficult to read your mind… I am God… The people who were created by me can be fashion conscious but not the creator is it? Unfair yaar  Secondly, you are not dead.. I have just brought you here with a visiting visa… My secret agents told me that you bug people around with silly and crazy thoughts… I found that you are the perfect person to assist me in this task… As you know we are reaching the expiry date of Earth, 12/21/2012…so am planning to redesign all the default settings… The new design should be funky and cool… What say… Are you in?” I nodded still perplexed about what’s happening around me..

He took my hand and led me through the smogy clouds…Now we reached a place which looked more like the space lab in MIB movie… As soon as we entered, He tapped the floor with his shoe and a door opened… Seeing the amazement in my face, he answered “Its nothing much , its a frequency lock… The noise produced by tap of the shoe is recorded and the lock opens only if the frequency matches… Come, I’ll take you to the control room.” I just followed Him like a remote controlled car and we reached an open space…It was the best view of entire space…“You have always wanted to visit space right? Once we are done with our work, I’ll take you around personally…My word”  My joy knew no bounds, I was now slightly out of the initial shock and went on to say “Then lets start the design immediately na” He gave a charming laugh again and drew some pattern with his finger which got a huge screen in front of us with the image of earth… He pressed ctrl+c & ctrl+v and touched the ‘redesign’ button.. We were now having a duplicate copy of earth in front of us. He cleared his throat to get my attention and asked “So where do we start?”

“Hey first lets not have that 3/4th water and 1/4th land concept yaar… The 3/4 th water is mostly of no use… we’ll have 1/4th land, 1/2 portable drinking water and 1/4 th ocean water…. This half of portable water includes glaciers, rivers and rain water.” He interrupted me saying, “Marine life will be heavily affected if I change proportion !” “Hey chill, include some special features for the marine animals that can make it survive anywhere and everywhere.” I saw Him title the new Earth as Earth v1.1 (upgraded) and his fingers made the proportions that I told and with his index finger and thumb, He zoomed the 1/4th land portion…I now became confident and started adding “Lets make it very colourful… The trees shouldn’t be only shades of green… It could be purple, red, blue, pink and of all possible shades… Colourless water… No… Change it to blue. Sky is fine but I need 2 more moons… All the other planets have more moons… We have only one… This is cheating” He smiled and handed me a bar of cadbury’s silk “Btw…Can we have a tree called chocolate tree… Please Please Please” He grinned, “I expected it..Okay.. we will but its gonna be few… so you should protect it…Now tell me about the living creatures” I was now more than happy “All creatures should be small… It should never grow up… lion cubs, small monkeys, small cute dinos and all existing creatures but smaller version… This time make the humans mute and let other creatures speak.” “Hey you are a human too… why do you want it like that?” “We have spoken a lot and now whatever we talk puts us in unnecessary trouble… we have shouted slogans, given long speeches, made false promises… words which led to setting up of industries that caused pollution, words that made countries bomb against each other… Enough yaar… Lets not talk this time.” I could see he was happy with my explanation… I added “Lets have some instrumental song playing in the air continuously throughout the world… It would try making the atmosphere peaceful”. He jotted down all the points and said “You were indeed very helpful… Now letme drop you before your visa expires”.

I got up the next morning, saw the date… 20th Dec.. Wow what a nice dream… I took my mobile and found 2 new messages from 1 contact in wassup…

“Hope you reached safely… Thanks for your inputs and valuable time… It was fun designing with you… Awaiting the launch of our Earth v1.1 on 22nd Dec 2012.”

Next message:

You are invited to attend the launching ceremony of E v1.1 and a space tour with ME. Please treat this as my personal invitation and make your presence felt. Awaiting your confirmation.

Lots of love,

God

P.S. That’s my personal number… Make a note 

‘Social’ networks Vs ‘Unsocial’ humans

I was on leave this friday , thanks to the wonderful virus for showering its love over me by making my body temperature go high. One of my friends called me up on Sat and asked“Heard you are not well? Really?” I was completely dumbstruck with this question as I expected a ‘how are you?’ instead… After the initial shock I went on to reply sarcastically“Guess somebody needs a medical certificate there”  She didn’t know how to react, she gave a sheepish reply “You never updated it in FB yaar… So thought it must be a rumour.”

I was completely bowled out… When am not well, how will I be expected to post a status saying “Down with fever    “ (The number of gloomies that follow your status decides how serious you are) . The number of ‘get well soon’ comments / messages decide the number of people who ‘care’ for you.

Last week one of my aunts called my mom and while talking, has casually asked my mom whether she wished somebody’s someone’s daughter on her b’day… My mom immediately answered without any second thought “Aishu would have wished her in FB” I giggled and mumbled “Aishu  knows and wishes every Tom Dick and Harry in FB…  So much so that, even Obama was waiting for her FB wish upon winning the elections.”  When I was in my schooling, till my fifth class, I used to get very excited a week before my b’day. I used to get greeting cards and gifts in courier from my relatives living all over the country as well as outside too. I used to be thrilled to open each packet. I still have that collection of greeting cards very safe and it still brings a smile. But after wishes have become just wall posts, I really don’t remember going back in my timeline to re read the wishes that I got last year or the year before that 

My dad as well as mom, though both are not FB users promptly ask me to show the pics of their cousins who are my ‘friends’. The best part is even a fifty year old aunty becomes your ‘friend’ here  One aunty next door was showing me the pics of her grand daughter posted in FB by her daughter. She was passing comments like ‘Look how big she has become’ and stuffs… After seeing all the pics , I asked “Aunty, where is your daughter staying?” I expected her to say some foreign country, on the contrary, she replied ‘She stays at Besant Nagar’… I thought I misheard Banglore/Bankok and asked her again… Now she explained the address along with even the street address 

I am not against these social networking sites, as they say ‘we bring dear ones who are far, near’. Very true, no denial to it. It pulls away the people who are near, make them go far and then connects them virtually… Of course, getting them near.

BS (Before social network) : A mom, dad and son assemble for dinner where the son would have come to the table after playing out and would be scolded by the dad to wash his hands before he eats.

Now A.S. (After Social networks): The same family, dad, mom and son. Mom in kitchen, son in one room and dad in another… Mom invites for a group chat “@hubby & @son: Dinner ready”. Son updates his status as ‘off to dinner’ and dad changes his status from‘available’ to ‘busy’. Each reach dining room, nobody talks a word, dad keeps checking his blackberry, son with his Tab and mom seeing both of them. After dinner son updates status ‘Phew! Heavy dinner… Thanks mom’ Mom likes the post and dad comments ‘The rotis could have been better’ followed by a LOL

This could completely be an exaggeration but this is what we are heading to. There was a period when these social networking sites were used to connect the parents to their son in abroad. I remember that ad, where the son shows his new born through the web cam to his mom and dad. In turn, the old parents bless their grandson and the grandma is seen wiping her eyes with the pallu. It was so touching, but now the same scenario happening with son and parents who just stay 4 streets away is not really touching. The real socializing have become near zero with the entry of ‘social’ networks.

The news that a man was arrested when he was clicking pics at our Union minister, Chidambaram made me raise an eyebrow and when read more, it was found that he has this passion… you call it passion… errr… I don’t know… passion for taking pics with celebrities and updating the same as his profile pic just because he was ‘encouraged’ by the likes and comments he got when he did it for the first time. Another news that a lady divorced her husband as he refused to change his status from ‘single’ to ‘married’ brought more giggles from me but at the same time made me ponder too.

My cousin who is doing her 3rd year was online for long… when asked, she told me that she was waiting for her semester timetable to be put up. I was  She went on to explain, her professors will update the timetable and syllabus in a community in FB. In fact, while studying if she has doubts, she’ll update the question in the group . Either the professors or classmates will answer her query immediately. I could just reply ‘What an idea Sirji! India has developed so much’ 

Everything remains good till we overdo it. Same is the case with social networking sites. Saturation point has been reached. So, its upto us now to ensure that we are treating social networks as a part of ‘virtual’ world and that we are not making them an integral part of‘real world’ and our ‘real lives’.

PS: No social network was harmed or injured in the process of writing this post 

I walk alone... I walk alone

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known

Don’t know where it goes

But it’s home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
When the city sleeps
And I’m the only one and I walk alone

These were the lines from Green day (one of my favourite number  ) that were ringing in my mind when I decided to take a stroll on a lazy Sunday evening… errr… no… noon… I don’t know to categorize (it was 3 pm  ) Yes, I felt the entire city was busy in the afternoon nap after a heavy Sunday meal  The noise and the honking was pretty less  I somehow wanted to go for a walk (may be cos of the unusually pleasant weather  ) alone that noon (evening)… There were many scenes that caught my attention and made me to capture it in my blog…

Caution: This is gonna be a long post… I tried my best to reduce it but this was the max, I could do 

Here goes my walk to remember

I left my house and as soon as I stepped out of my street, my ‘walk alone’ concept was challenged by a black dog… It started following me, wagging its tail, its eyes pleading to make it part of my walking chronicles… As you all know my dog-phobia… I tried my best to follow my friends’ and parents’ suggestions (Ignore a dog… Don’t give your attention… Only when you keep noticing it, it will follow )… Trust me, inspite of my heart beat which beat with a huge decibel (am sure it would have been heard out  ), I tried walking without turning back but I knew it was close behind my legs  I kept walking till the end of the street and finally when I made up my mind to turn back, I found that my black friend had got distracted with the food packet, a few paces behind… I smiled to myself, thanked the owner of the food packet and his immense road sense for throwing it near the dust bin (not in the dustbin ) and quickly turned to continue my walk alone…

There was a pretty deserted bus stand and a ‘cobbler’ couple were sitting… They were very old… Definitely 80′s something… They took a break from the work (I observed a needle with a thread near a half torn shoe… so decided the ‘work in progress’ board was applicable here ) and having one of the best moments of their life… The old man opened a small tray, that had a scoop of strawberry ice cream… He took two plastic spoons from a jute bag near him and placed it in the tray… Both were all smiles and started enjoying the ice cream… The vehicles, the shoes near them, the dust… nothing mattered to them… They enjoyed every little moment and the teethless mouth was beaming, time and again, making it more cuter…. seeing that scene, my lips curved a smile involuntarily 

I moved on cautiously , not to disturb their moment of togetherness… There were many shops on to my right… A tea shop was one among them… I found 4 people reading tamil newspapers as they show in movies, 90′s song in the background , the tea-master busy with his well practiced tea-stunts and a boy waiting with tea-glasses… While I was giggling seeing this, a white indica was blaring at me… I moved to my left giving it more way… but still he continued to honk urging me to turn and give him a cold stare… I hopped on to the broken platform, making up my mind not to  get irritated… I continued my stroll, with hopping and jumping through the broken tiles in the platform… Actually, I had fun doing it 

The silence was suddenly overshadowed by the hustle and bustle… I took a turn and entered into that road… Market road…The colorful painted dolls, people with bags, loud bargains gave me a clear signal… Dussehra has begun  So many different colors, the paintings in each of the doll exhibited the intricate art work…A guy was giving a final touch to a ‘Mahatma Gandhi’ doll… The paint was glistening under the mild sunlight (it was a cloudy)… His concentration and passion exhibited was immense… Our ‘Mahatma’ soon joined his companions ‘happy man’, ‘a set of cricketers’ and ‘charlie chaplin’.

This street was crowded and I apologized thrice for dashing the ladies who were busy bargaining and who didn’t even bother to give way to me… I squeezed my way past them… There was a reunion that happened on the other side of the road… A few relatives who had come shopping waved and got near eachother… There were two kids who were the most affected ones by this reunion… Already the two of them were irritated about getting them to shop in their play time… One of the women from the gang pinched the elder kid’s cheek and am sure would have given the usual comments “How big you have become… Do you remember me?” The kid didn’t respond while his parents were continuously giving clues about the ‘new’ aunty… The kid continued to display the language of our Prime minister… muteness  Like the Indian Janata, after repeated attempts, the elders moved on to other topics… Am sure the kid now would have made up his mind to practice the art of muteness as it was useful in times of need  The next attack was on the younger kid… Girls are always a bit more expressive than boys , so was this kid unlike her brother… She smiled… It was the gravest mistake… She had a cadburys diary milk unwrapped in her hand, when she was about to take the first bite, this over affectionate ‘relative’ lifted her in the arms so fiercely that  the kid missed her control over her precious chocolate.. It fell right on the ground… Tears swelled up in her eyes… The crowd had a tough time to minify her tears… While the entire attention was on this girl child, the elder one slowly moved away from the crowd, opened his dairy milk carefully and started relishing it… Muteness zindabad 

At that time I got a call to my mobile…. The display read “Aish calling”… I wondered ‘how can I call to my own mobile’… Stills of Madhavan’s 13B passed through my mind… I attended the call expecting something unusual… “Where are you? Come home soon… Your aunt and uncle are coming home”  My mom’s voice… Ufff ! I had stored the landline number as Aish… I decided to rename it to ‘Home’ to avoid any nervous breakdown in the future and made my walk back to my home 

PS: A picture is worth a 1000 words… Since I didn’t click a pic, I used 1000 words to recapture the picture 

Beauty…Ugly… I am what I am

Lizzie Velasquez… I don’t know how many would have heard the name… She was termed as ‘The world’s ugliest woman’… She was in news few days before, for her book “Be Beautiful, Be you”…The world which once termed her as ‘ugly’ is now all praises for her ‘motivation’, ‘determination’, what not…( We are born politicians you see).

Am not gonna talk about how she became a successful writer, how she battled criticism… media is doing a good job about it… so I’ll leave it to them… My point is how can we term somebody as ‘ugly’.  Doesn’t it show how heartless we are? Her video clip in youtube few years back, received thousands of hits and there were comments like ‘how disgusting she is’ and many more… Nobody among those thousands bothered to pause a second to think how would she feel when she sees this…

If somebody comes and tells me… leave alone looks… even at my dress that it doesn’t look good on you… My immediate reaction would be “If you don’t like, you don’t see… Simple”… But trust me, that day I would atleast look into the mirror a 100 times analyzing whether its really that bad… I would have that comment ringing in my head (though I try to ignore) throughout the day… I guess this would be the case almost with all of us (hope am not abnormal  ) This is the scenario with one person … When the entire world terms you ‘ugly’… OMG!

We always preach and go around acting goody goody saying “We don’t believe in looks… A person who is good at heart is actually beautiful…” bla bla bla… But do we follow what we preach?

When we see somebody who is fat… we immediately term that person as a big “foodie” even if the person hardly eats… we crack silly jokes seeing their appearance and get away by saying ‘Be a sport… Why do you always take everything seriously’  Same applies to somebody with thick framed glass… We call the person ‘nerd’, ‘soda buddi’ (hey don’t ask me to translate it in english  ) irrespective of whether he/she has some medical problems… May be after moving with them for a while, we might turn into that ‘goody goody’ lot again but its not the case when we see them first…

‘Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder’… Oh yeah… Really? Then we must have people being taken to eye clinics for terming somebody ‘ugly’… It is the problem with their eyes and not with us…But its not the case… we immediately rush to beauty creams, 15 ways to to become beautiful in 15 days,… Uffff… what not! We struggle to ‘look beautiful’ rather than to ‘be beautiful’.

So ultimately what am I trying to convey through this post… Errrr… I don’t know… I felt so angry reading that article about Lizzie and immediately wanted to vent it out somehow and my blog came to my rescue as always 

‘Brand’-ucts- Our Desi Way

I had gone to my cousin’s place and when it was time for some evening snack, my aunt promptly came to us and asked “Do you like to have Maggi ?” We still had that usual ‘Indian Kid’ feel in us that makes us get excited at the mention of Maggi  So when finally we were called to eat it… The first few strands made me realise its actually not ‘Maggi‘… Its some other noodles (I guess Yippee or Top Ramen… Not sure  )

Certain brands that are first of their kind and been in market for long, have become the identity of products on their own… ‘Maggi’ has become a generic term… which is equivalent to noodles here. ‘Am making Maggi‘ refers to ‘Am making noodles’…

‘Cornflakes for breakfast’ doesn’t sound as good as ‘Kellog’s for breakfast’  Yes, kellog’s has by far been the famous Shhhtylishh desified breakfast 

I had gone to a hotel and a lady in the table next to me asked the waiter ‘Is it Bisleri?’ pointing towards the glass of water that he placed on the table… He mumbled an yes and left the place… The ‘Bisleri’ in this context refers to ‘Mineral water’ and not the brand ‘Bisleri’.

My mom still asks me to check whether the clothes are soaked in ‘surf’ water… ‘Surf’ is a synonym of ‘Soap powder’ regardless of whether you use the one that a lady in a stiff cotton white saree suggests to other ladies who would look like they have lost 5 kgs cos of brushing clothes or the one that puts a dhobi to shock with its extra white promise  Choice is yours… But all come under the generic term ‘Surf’ 

And we know only one medicine for fever from ages… Yes ‘Crocin’ … You tell you have fever to anybody… You will get an immediate reply “Put crocin and sleep”. Dare not ask back whether Will it not be ok if I have any other paracetamol… It will be misunderstood as passing a sarcastic comment at them  Yeah… I have tried it  We are a bunch of sensitive lot you see 

Baby soap is never only baby soap… Its ‘Johson’s baby soap’ always  And Jam is never only jam… Its Kissan jam 

If you go to a shop and say ‘I want petroleum jelly’… Am sure he’ll say ‘We don’t sell it in our shop’ and don’t be surprised if he asks you to find it out in the nearby petrol bunk   Instead if you ask ‘Can I have Vaseline‘… He’ll surely hand over it to you and will also suggest equivalent to ‘vaseline’ (not petroleum jelly) 

Few years (not few…many ) years back… ‘suzuki’ referred to bike and ‘maruthi‘ referred to car…Any japanese who visited India at that time would have remarked ‘Ureshiii !!! Waell daone muay buoy’ (Pronunce properly… ‘buoy’… I know it rings a bell…Yeah.. ZNMD  ) and bowed at us 

These brands have become products on their own which I term as ‘Brand’-ucts… I don’t know whether its cos they have been in the market for ages, or as they are very popular or cos they are the first of their kind…

These names are no longer proper nouns atleast for we Indians  This kind of substituting products with brand names are an unique attribute of our language . And if this is used with people outside India they give a    expression… But trust me after a month’s stay here, my cousin asks for ‘Maggi’ instead of noodles and ‘Kellog’s’ for cereals in Atlanta… Such is the influence 

May be this is also a part of our act of ‘desifying’  Though the brands may be foreign ones, the way we use it makes it a pakka Desi product 

I stop it right here… As the time has come for me to go to pantry and say “Anna… One maggi ” and he’ll promptly open a packet of Yippee noodles and say 2 minutes… It will be ready