This ain't no poetic license

I haven't seen the movie Gulaal yet and I am glad I haven't. If the mindless lyrics of the songs is any indication, the makers of the movie need a course in sensitivity. There is a song that is quite popular with the local DJ's. It is titled "Rana ji more". It uses a tpical Rajasthani flavor in terms of language and even the music style to spell out the agony of a woman whose lover is being unreasonable and furious.

Now most folk songs have a palyful tone and a lot gets said which would not otherwise be said in our uptight urbane settings. But my objection with the song is not that. It is this line that shocked me "jaise dur desh ke tower mein ghus jaaye aeroplane". A clear and obvious reference to the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trace Centre. But more than just the lyrics what surprised me was the context in which this line is being used. The lover's unreasonable anger and his tantrums are compared to the mayhem caused by a plane smashing into a large tower. This is clearly an insult to the memory of all those innocent people who lost their lives in this mindless act of brutality and also shows complete lack of sensitivity to what that act means in our modern history.

For a nation that has people always ready to object to any small thing- I am outraged that all the RJ's who are playing this song are not boycotting it for it's insulting lyrics. We had a pink panty brigade for those who objected to women drinking in public but we will blare a song that celebrates an act of terrorism just to make our home bound commute a little easier!

The lyrics are written by none other than the celebrated theatre director, actor and lyricist Piyush Mishra who has given us beautiful songs such as "Aye ajnabi" in Dil se. Surely a person of his artistic back ground and achievement should have more sense than to perpetrate such a lack of sensitivity to his fellow beings.

Mr. Mishra I intend to find a way to reach out to you and make you realise that as someone who was there in the US when this happened and who lived through the after math of this- it can not be allowed to be belittled in the name of poetic license and political frankness.

Finding our due place under the Sun

It has been more than 6 months now that all hell broke loose. I am talking of course about the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the chain reaction that followed. The collapse of several more banks on Wall Street, crashing of the stock markets around the World and the complete loss of confidence in the financial systems of the World. It is safe to say that every newspaper worth its salt carries an article on the issue every day- in essence this stuff has received a lot of ink and rightly so. But how much ink has been devoted to the situation in India? I do see an occasional note on it on Yahoo financial news but no one has really taken the time to write about what we did right.

We are one of the few countries in the world that will actually grow this year. All of Europe, USA, Japan and Australia will actually have negative growth. There are plenty of examples of what India has done right. Jobs in PSU banks are growing- because they are the ones who played the game right. Advertising spending in India is going to go up as a result of the General Elections- and that did not happen in USA – where it actually fell despite the hotly contested Presidential election in 2008. And in India there is still a huge latent demand for affordable housing just waiting to be fulfilled once the liquidity issues are resolved.

A large part of the country’s population lives in the rural areas. Un-touched by the fancy synthetic derivatives that dug the graves of our so-called more “developed economic counterparts”, rural India is spending like never before. Yes the CPI is rising and yes Wheat prices in India are rising, but that is money that is being put back into the hands of a consumer that is learning how to spend- the Indian farmer. These are not free bonuses that are being handed out to failed executives at Multinational Insurance companies. This is money being given to hard working people so that they can keep the wheels of the economy turning.

Today’s Mint carries an article about the possibility of creating a new Global currency-something to replace the US Dollar. I think that is clearly reflective of the inevitable change that we will see in the next decade. Where the US, fueled by years of political isolation will not just be a financial leader by default. Where It’s companies will have to compete with Asia and win a fair war. Where purchases such as that of IBM’s laptop business by a Chinese company will no longer shock the world. Where the Indian Software industries’ cost advantages will no longer be viewed as “cheap” but as examples of operational efficiency.

For most US car manufacturers Asia (India and China primarily) are the only beacons of hope even if it means they have to adapt to local appetites and market demands. Destinations where they can still sell cars. India is one of the few countries with a large enough population under 35 to be an attractive destination to all major marketers in the World. Now only if we knew how to wear that badge proudly and also get just a little bit more of civic sense. But more on that later. For now I think we just need to fight for our rightful place under the Sun.

We must live a lie

I didn’t know actress Natasha Richardson. I could not even put a face to the name when I first read the news of her death. But still her death in a freak ski accident made me sad and for a few seconds left me speechless. It made me think- if she can die then who is safe? After all these Hollywood types lead a charmed life- don’t they? They have the best medical care, safest homes and as an actress who does mostly character roles she never really did any dangerous stunts. How could she die just skiing with her family? It was the same basket of emotions that had been stirred up by the death of Princess Diana, Heath Ledger and even Rajeev Gandhi.

These were people who filled our newspapers and television sets. These are the kind of people about who you make conversation over “Chai Tea”. They have ideas for the future, they win awards and fight for causes. So how can fate just whiz them suddenly, violently? If it can happen to them then what is to insulate the rest of us who lead just ordinary inconsequential lives?

But then death is the ultimate equalizer. She shows no partiality for the rich and the famous and as most religions around the world say- if your time is up, your time is up. You gotta go if it is time to go. How, when, where- no one can know that.

So what does that leave us mere mortals with? Are we born only to live each moment with the knowledge that as life progresses it is only to bring us one step closer to death? Maybe the answer is in the focus. We have the choice to live each day and each moment to the fullest. To not focus on the trivial things in life and just let by gones be by gones and live each day as if it is our last because all said and done it could be.

Somewhere deep down all of us know that truth about death. And yet, that is the one thing that none of us want to acknowledge. And there in lies the biggest paradox of human happiness. As human beings we must learn to ignore the biggest truth of our lives if we are to truly live the life that we have. Otherwise we will all have lived a life but just waiting for death.

Honoring those we love

Today’s post is unabashedly dedicated to the one hero in my life who I do not recognize enough. My husband. And I say this not because I love him to death but because through the years I have seen him to show the kind of moral courage that many of us do not have.

Sure he has all his guy things- will not remember to reply to e-mails and will not “learn to love my parents” like I love his, but what he has is far more precious than any of this. It is in the small and some of the big things he does in his life.

When we were getting engaged the one thing that absolutely won my grand-ma over this NRI was that he did not “drink or eat non-veg”. Not that she considered any of this an evil. But to her this symbolized the courage of someone to stand up to his convictions under what must have been tremendous amount of peer pressure.

Similarly at work I have always seen him stand up for stuff he really believes in. And this includes talking to bosses and colleagues openly about their attitudes or actions. And I know that this is the reason that people at work take to him quickly and give him their trust so easily.

But one incident will always stay in my mind as the one act of bravery which may be I let pass to easily. One night on our way to Hard Rock café in Parel for a dinner, we saw a guy in a cab being beaten up by a bunch of goons. And Manish decided to do what very few would do. He decided to go challenge all these guys alone. And I did what I should not have done. I screamed and cried and refused to let him go. I admit I was scared like I had never bee scared in my life. And fear makes us selfish. I did not want to lose him and be left alone. Why for a stranger, I asked him? And told him that I didn’t care if he thought that I had no guts. I just wanted my husband to be safe. I wanted my world to be unharmed. But Manish was neither selfish nor scared. He knew that he believed in standing up for someone who was helpless and he did so.

So today when there is a call for nominations for bravery awards by Godfrey Phillips company on TV, I would like to tell him in the most honest way that I can- that I will always be proud of his courage, his conviction and compassion for strangers. I don’t know if I will ever be brave enough to do what you did, and I don’t if I won’t panic, but then you must stand up to that pressure as well. Love you.

This "Mint" leaves a bad taste in your mouth

Whether you are writing a small column in a daily tabloid or you are the host of a much watched financial advise channel- as a journalist you have a responsibility to be unbiased and objective. I am not saying that everything printed or broadcast has to be so, but then it should be labeled as advertising, infomercial, non-editorial.

So when I see a newspaper like "Mint" blatantly use headlines to promote one political party over another, it makes me wonder if there is really any objective journalism left. The newspaper has been running a series of reports about the success and failures of the UPA government in the past five years. Of course this is a much needed exercises leading up to the General Elections next month. And when an article in this morning's edition stares back at me with the title "Verdict: the voter is worse of after 5 years"- I sit back and take notice. But a look between the lines reveals a story that is quite different. The very first piece of statistic says that 38% people feel that they are better off after 5 years of UPA rule, 18% feel they are worse off and 44% feel they are at the same level. What is more, even if we look at more pie-charts the highest number of people who feel they are worse off after 5 years is 20% in constituencies held by the Congress. But if you look at the UPA ruled states almost 50% of the people feel that they are better off. So why this incongruency between the content and the label on the package? So how, I ask, is the headline justifying the content?

I am not denying that with so much noise, a newspaper too must compete for the attention of its readers. But this kind of a headline is not clever it is just inaccurate and leaves the fleeting reader with a completely incorrect picture. It is designed to create a bias.

And what is more I am beginning to feel that this manipulation of statistics and headlines is not just tied to sensationalism and is not a one time thing. It has to do with the fact that the "Mint", in this race up to the elections, has picked the side it is on- the BJP. In the past one month alone the newspaper has extensively covered the BJP's online advertising campaign. But surprisingly enough, in all this coverage there is no comparison to what other political parties are doing or what the international trends on the same subject are. Something that would make these articles much more relevant. You can get a glimpse of their agenda to push the BJP in another article in today's paper. The online advertising story in today's campaign section, a piece about how the online media houses are growing, starts with a mention (yet again) about the BJP's online campaign.

My anger is the same as that of John Stewart of the "Daily Show". He is daring to point out that if Jim Cramer was recommending Bear Sterns stock just 7 weeks before the complete collapse of the bank, he can not be allowed to continue as a financial expert in the public space. He can continue to be so in his private sphere, but if he chooses to enjoy high ratings and all the adoration and wealth that comes as a result of his perceived expertise, he must also admit that he made a horrendous mistake and is not all as good as he made himself out to be.

Let's admit it- it's just good old greed

Like most of the sane people in this world, even I am outraged at the US$167 million being used as bonus payout at AIG. Almost as if it wasn't enough that the company had single-handedly kick started one of the worst financial crisis ever, it now has the audacity to use the bail out money it received to make bonus payouts to its employees.

I do not even want to get into the debate over whether AIG was under an "iron-clad" contract to pay these out or no, all I know is that bonus is ALWAYS performance based and is always conditional to certain goals being achieved. So no person who is working at the finance division of the company, could have met goals, unless the goal was to take the company bust. And what about following the law not just in letter but also in spirit? Which employee of the division can look the average man in the eye and say "I am sorry but I am going to take that 100K and go for a vacation to Bermuda while you wonder whether you can afford a baby-sitter for your child!"

I decided to check out the AIG website to see if there were any comments from them about the payout and any press release to counter all the news in the media. But there was NOTHING. They think it is business as usual. But what I did find was a list of counter parties - people who were getting the promised payouts that AIG was obligated to under the CDS (credit default swaps) that it had created. Now this payout I can understand is a contractual obligation that HAS to be met. After all a CDS is an insurance policy disguised as a financial instrument. AIG had simply agreed to pay a certain amount to a lender if the borrower defaulted. So now if banks like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley were asking them to pony up- AIG has to meet those obligations. And it was to meet those very obligations that the bail out was being done.

So why are so angry at this list? The outrage I feel is more because suddenly it all seems like a big nexus. The SAME banks that owed money to lenders and were being bailed out, were getting paid out by AIG. So we as ordinary people are baffled at how closely knit the whole nexus is and it seems that all of these financial institutions simply made a host of loans to each other and now were simply passing out the bail out bucks to each other and rewarding themselves in the process. The 401Ks of millions of ordinary people was mindlessly used as collateral in this huge experiment of financial hybrids, and there is nothing any of us can do, because we had signed off on a paper that said we could not hold them responsible for losses due to market conditions. Their's was merely advice. The action was ours.

So then do we say that the failure is not of the financial institution, but of the regulatory system? Did it fail to put in place basic checks that would prevent such incestuous deals and allowed such risky business? But then again what is regulation? Is it an independent entity that just lives on its own? No, it is born of the collective minds of people who are empowered to take such policy decisions. And unfortunately for almost five years America had no short-fall of people who believed that "leverage" is good and if you were not borrowing against your assets to earn money somewhere else, you were just a financial dud.

My husband went to an Ivy League college for his MBA degree. The institution shall go un-named, but I remember him coming home every weekend from the class with ideas that we should atleast borrow 2-3 times of our annual income. We, like most Americans believed that the low interest rates would always exist and that there would always be opportunities to use borrowed money and multiply it quickly. if all those financial whizes were teaching this to the most brilliant minds in America how could it be wrong?

So to me this failure, this brash misuse of funds, is not a regulatory failure, it is a failure of our common sense from prevailing and of the take-over by plain old greed.

When is a religious conversion a religious conversion?

I am not very religious. I would not even term myself as very spiritual, so whether or not the Hindu faith (the faith into which I was born) is being supported adequately or not, has never been my top priority. But a whole flurry of talk around the plight of the Dalit Christians has got me thinking about what religious faith means in our lives and when we deliberately choose a faith don’t we have to live with all aspects of it?

To elaborate on this, in recent months the Dalit Christian movement, demanding reservations for certain Christians, has seen an increased momentum. Dalit Christians are (in layman’s terms) those people who were Dalits under the original Hindu caste system but to break away from the social stigma and all the hardships that came with it, they moved to Christianity. Christianity being a religion that does not have a social caste system like Hinduism.

These conversions are nothing new. Many of the “modern” religions including Sikhism, Jainism and more recently the large scale Buddhist conversions by Ambedkar were all in retaliation to the excesses of the Hindu Caste system that denied people basic human dignity. We all read about this in our Class X History text books and dutifully noted it down as one of the causes of the wave of new faiths is the 16th century A.D.

So if these people moved out of the Hindu faith and accepted a new faith, how do they continue to be Dalits? Here I would like to clarify that I do not doubt that while conversion may have given them a sense of social dignity, it need not necessarily have elevated their financial status. But the fact is that “Dalit” is not defined in “financial” terms. It is a religious term, complete with a history of the various Gods and deities that the Dalits worshipped and how their line evolved. Therefore when our Constitution states that no one other than a Hindu can be termed as Dalit, it is not entirely incorrect. So if a converted Christian or a Sikh asks for Dalit reservations our courts are not wrong in questioning it.

It also makes us ponder whether the religious leaders who converted these people explained the whole truth to them. Did they work to help them unlearn their existing beliefs about caste systems etc.? Did they live up to their promises of providing education, food and social dignity through a new faith? I am NOT against conversion or change of faith. Faith is a deeply personal matter and when the religion we are born into does not touch us or guide us, every human being should be allowed to convert- a Hindu to another religion and vice versa. After all we see the power of faith in the ISCKON movement everyday.

But what makes me ponder is conversion done merely out of a need to change a social status, have access to charities and associations. Is that truly a conversion in faith? Would those people then have truly accepted the new God they worship? So when a converted Christian asks for ‘Dalit” reservations, I have to wonder how far has he really converted.

I will even go so far as to say that any conversion or re-conversions done by promising anything other than a deep new awareness of a faith, is not a conversion. It is merely a number game to fulfill the ego of the so-called religious leaders.

But in all of this we must not forget the plight of the “Dalits”- whether Hindus or non-hindus. You can not ask a hungry man his religion. So instead of wasting time and money debating whether Christians can be classified as Dalit, the Government should concentrate on providing basic amenities to all irrespective of faith and that should be the criterion for providing aid and support, rather than religion.

We must choose not to be like Kasab

The question is "Should Ajmal Kasab (or whatever his name is) be provided a copy of the charge sheet filed against him in Urdu". I ask why should this be such a big question? The newspaper today was filled with comments and reactions from people who felt that this would be a gross waste of time as the charge sheet was an 11000 page document and translating all of that will waste precious time.

I say that with today's technology translation should be a breeze and why did no one think of preparing a copy in Urdu in the first place? After all if the guy is supposed to be Pakistani who did not attend a swanky public school how was he to read something in English or Hindi or Marathi?

By making the accused aware of what he is accused of you do not take away from the weight of his crime and neither do you absolve him to any degree of the crime he has committed. And do we not have eve the smallest responsibility to be different from Kasab himself? Did he not go beyond the law or common sense and just kill people? Did he not choose to violate human dignity in the most heinous way? And will we not partake of the same disregard for all the laws of a civil society if we do not offer him the right to know what he is accused of?

Let us not make him a scapegoat for our failure to save our cities, coast and people. His hanging alone will not end terrorism and by denying him basic rights we are not making an example of our sternness but rather will give opportunity to all those who back him that this is a nation of Muslim haters.

I would however like to conclude with some other thoughts. Today's newspaper also carried statements made by the prime accused of the 9/11 tragedy and held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay. Clearly there was no remorse in what they said or felt. Instead there was a celebration of the horror they had perpetrated and a belief that it was a duty to their God. Of course that makes us angry and hateful. We want to take all that anger out on whoever we can clearly identify as belonging to this group of people who are filled with religious fanaticism. So the anger against all this "fuss" about the charge sheet, and a trial is not all that difficult to understand and share. Why should we offer a fair chance to someone who did not offer the same to the innocent people who died?

The answer must be that somewhere we have to differentiate ourselves and somewhere we must end the vicious circle of hate. If we are all not to become a nation of Kasab's we must show him that we are not like him.

"Balika Vadhu"- an urban movement in the making?

Has anyone noticed how the girl-child is suddenly the favorite subject of the Indian cable television? To name a few, Colors has "Balika Vadhu" and "Lado", Star Plus and Zee TV each have "Ladli" and "Agle Janam Mohe Bitiya hi Kijo" and there is one more about a family that is yearning for the birth of a daughter called "Mere Ghar Aayi Ek Nanhi Pari".

What makes this phenomenon even more interesting is that each show has a completely different take on the status of the girl child in our society- sometimes even diametrically opposing views. While "Lado" and "Balika Vadhu" show the brute reality of what women have to face in rural India, promos of shows like "Ladli" and "...Nanhi Pari" promise to be shows where the girl is the darling of the house. In "Lado" a dictatorial matriarch in interior Rajasthan has no qualms about drowning a new born baby girl in a cauldron of milk because she is considered a burden and a curse. But in "Mere ghar..." Kulbhushan Kharbanda as the patriarch of the family is yearning for a daughter so that he can add "....& daughter" in the sign board outside his shop.

So which of these is the reality of modern day India? Do we love our little girls or do we still kill them at birth? The answer maybe that each reflects the truth. As much as we would like to deny it, child marriage and female infanticide are a reality of India. Girls are married young so as to ensure their subjugation and complete dominance over them right from childhood. They are killed because they are considered inferior and bring with them the burden of a dowry. So the shows that bring these issues to the front are portraying a hair-raising reality that we would all like to ignore.

But when we see families such as those in "Ladli" and "..Nanhi Pari" what we are seeing are individual households. Little islands of sanity amongst a dark sea of ignorance. But what we must notice is that these families are very much urban. Maybe not set in the metros but certainly not in villages. This same acceptance of the growing power of the girl child continues into a lot of the advertising on TV- be it the HDFC Standard Life TV spots that show a young girl supporting her father, or being the darling of a father who has dreams for her beyond marriage- to be an astronaut. Again primarily an urban message and setting.

So maybe we can conclude that urban India is waking up to the status of the girl child. It is using TV to give voice to what it realises the present is and what it wishes the future would be like. So while it makes us rage at the matriarchs of "Lado" and "Balika Vadhu" it also shows us families that love daughters. Let us hope that however small this step maybe (cable TV reaches no more than 20% of Indians) it is an indication of a larger wave to come.

Mango season arrives

It is a uniquely Asian passion- the Mango- Also known as the "King of fruits". I bought the first ones for the season today and immediately there was excitement at home. Are they ready to eat yet? Do they need to be wrapped in newspaper and allowed to ripen? Everyone needed to inspect and pass a difinitive opinion. Finally we decided ours needed a day more of nurturing and are lying ensconced in yesterday's paper, ready to be devoured tomorrow.

Mangoes mean much more than just the fruit. They herald in a whole host of treats and traditions. Families all over the sub Continent will spend long summer mornings, chopping, pealing, drying and pickling these little green and yellow delights. Many will squeeze the juice to make "Aam-ras"- a natural cooler to beat the famed Indian summer. These delicacies will then be sent in warm care packages to sons and daughters who live away from home, sometimes even over-seas.

Now the US allows import of the Alphonso and even branded pickle is easily available. But my husband tells me stories of long days spent preparing for his PhD. exams with just home made pickle and dry cookies, and I myself spent long summers in California eating South American and South East Asian varieties, longing all the while for the true taste of the Indian fruit.

Many things have changed in urban India and we can get anything from "bhindi" to "kashmiri aaloo" out of a tetra pack, ready to eat. But there is still no taste like that of home made pickle or aam-ras. And mind you, no two households have the same formula. In fact the charm is in the variety and the so-called "secret" ingredients that have been passed along for generations.

No Indian meal in the summer is complete without the mango feast at the end. When I was growing up we had a huge family. A twenty member household, so the fruit had to be rationed. But the sweet taste of the fruit would make us forget everything when we got our hands on it. So as one more season of mangoes dawns on the sub-Continent, here is a toast to this "Raja" of the fruit world, and to many stained white kurtas proudly bearing the mark of souls lost in its sheer delight.

Being selective is back and with all due respect to Hrithik Roshan…

An article in the newspaper recently gave out a statistic that just amazed me- 6 out of every 10 people in this world have access to a cell-phone. Surely that has got to be more than the number of people who have access to affordable medical care.

To me this technology, more than anything else, will be held responsible for the next wave of change in our societies. Consider the advertising for SMS rates by two rival companies in India. Both have culturally liberal references, clearly positioning the cell phone as a tool that empowers youngsters and allows them to break communication and self explanation barriers imposed by traditional societies. One shows a young girl talking about an earth-shattering kiss with her boy friend while having breakfast with her parents, and the other shows a pair of young lovers SMSing each other sweet nothings in a college locker room.

So the individual is back in fashion and she can talk whatever she wants to whoever she wants and ignore those she chooses to. Caller ID lets you select who you talk to and who you don’t. Far more empowering than the good old shared land line at home which would be answered by your mother who would then yell out that xyz was on the phone for you and you had to take the call.

Sending an SMS is considered a social act. You do not have to physically meet people to hang out with them. What is more, the cell phone companies even allow you to define what “groups” you belong to. So while by birth you may be a Punjabi speaking, North Indian, Vegetarian, you may choose to add anyone to your “friend circle” – even a meat eating, Bengali speaking, colleague from Kolkatta- so that you can get cheaper calling rates when you talk to them. Consider, today I am Sakshi Goel, that is how I introduce myself- tomorrow my kids may simply choose to share a 10 digit number with people they meet.

I am not denying that the “non-social” aspect of this is bothersome. Can an SMS ever be a real substitute for a good old hug, pat on the back or a tug-of-war with friends and siblings? Can total empowerment at a young age be completely okay? Like the guy in the new coke TV advertisement points out- no one wants to sit together and watch a game of cricket. They merely want to SMS to each other. So a bottle of Coke is needed to bring them together- physically and create friend circles.

To conclude- while the cell phone may or may not make us all self-centered loners who only have virtual contacts, one thing is for sure, the furious pace at which we use our thumbs to jab away those messages- soon kids will be born with two sets of those large digits. One to SMS and the other for all other tasks. Surely that makes Hrithik Roshan not just an unbelievable dancer but evolution’s early indication of things to come.

What is the deal with numbers?

First there was 9/11, 7/7, then our 26/11 and now what the newspapers are calling 3/3- the last one referring to the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore. The shame of the sports world has been cloaked in a bunch of numbers and along with the rest of the dates will slowly become a chapter in the history of global terrorism. One day Fox History and Entertainment will make a documentary on it and that will be it.

So what is this strange obsession we have with numbers? Does labeling such incomprehensible and senseless acts of terror with dates make it easier to get our arms around them? Is this bunch of numbers our way of giving some form to a beast that has no face and no definite shape? Maybe. But certainly it would seem that numbers are an obsession with a media looking to create catchy tag lines.

Similarly statisticians have also used or rather exploited numbers to tell us all sorts of “truths” and “discoveries”. “Indian firms spend a mere 3.4% of sales revenue to advertise”- says a headline from this morning’s edition of the “Mint”. It goes on to espouse how India is a nation which is under-branded with not enough advertising. This statement is based on some global benchmark of how typically European and US companies spend close to 6% of revenues on brand building But no one is questioning the relevance of this bench mark to India. Here most products and services still come from the unorganized sector . And word of mouth and the product’s performance are still the best way to ensure success. But don’t take my word for it. To prove this let us take an example of the icon of the western world- Google.

If anyone reading this can has com across an instance of where Google advertised that it is the “best” or the “fastest” or “most relevant” search engine, please share it with me. How much ever Yahoo, MSN may “advertise” most of the world will still use Google because it works. No ad-spend as percentage of revenue is needed to tell us that.

Will take Brad Pitt on a bike over a Kalashnikov yielding Taliban any day

I started the day by deciding that I was going to write a very dramatic piece about how we Indians were completely oblivious to the growing threat of the Taliban. I was going to send out a wake up call that this army of religious zealots was marching its way across our neighbours’ house and getting ready to arrive at our door-step. The issue had been irking me for a while but the attack on the Sri Lankan team really culminated things. Really all of this reminds me of the 1972 attack by the Nazis on the Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics. The same hate resonates through this, only thankfully the massacre wasn’t as heinous.

But then by the time the evening came, I had other things which I felt I should write about and muse about. Something that was perhaps more positive and hopeful and fun. Just came back from watching “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button”. Yes, yes I admit I went to see it because like a lot of people I have my list of Oscar movies that I have to check off- but have to say this one was worth it.

The underlying proposition of a human being making a reverse journey in life is actually quite out there and even silly- can you imagine someone shrinking back to the size of a month old baby? What happens to the bones and the flesh you ask? But that is not what stays with you. The overwhelmingly beautiful love story makes you forget all that and go into a “willing suspension of disbelief”. Cate Blancheet and Bradd Pitt convince you that they are no less in love than Romeo and Juliet. The on screen chemistry is priceless. Also the movie may have won the Oscars for costumes and art design but to me the true visual treat was our boy Brad Pitt. I am a married woman who loves her husband, but boy he is just DELISCIOUS. Tanned and rugged and just so full of boyish charm.

Another surprise is the music. It is curiously middle- eastern. Lots of strings and Arabian Nights style sounds. So see it for the script, see if for the love story, see it for the amazing canvass across eighty years of world history- but ladies, above all see it for Brad Pitt and guys- you should see it for the lovely blue eyes and the red hair of Cate Blanchett.

So while my day began with the disappointment and anger for those who spread violence, I choose to end it with the pleasant thoughts of the other side of humanity- love, music, art and a will to live. Let those who want to end it all try as much as they want. I am convinced in the end man’s need to smile and live will prevail.

Honda's car music system design is inspired by the Da Vinci Code and Tata Sky keeps Martian timing - really!

They tell you to count till ten if you are angry and if that does not help then count 10 more. But maybe we need to stop doing that and be angry. I am sure all of you who read this will have your own horror stories of horrendous customer service given by so-called reputed firms, but please bear with me as I rant and rave. The companies in question are Honda Motors- specifically Arya Honda their authorized dealer in Mumbai, Tata Sky (DTH home service) and Eureka Forbes- the guys who made door to door sales a successful phenomenon in India.

Let us begin with the best one yet- The Arya Honda story. My driver managed to ruin our factory fitted stereo system by adding an extra CD into the system. Luckily it was still under warranty so the system was promptly replaced. (You are already thinking “so what is she complaining about?”- bear with me please). The rude shock came when I asked the service center for my CDs that were in the original player. And guess what I got instead of my stuff- the guy at Arya Honda gave me some bull shit about the design of the player being such that no one can open it without damaging all the CDs inside. Reminded me about that little cylinder in the Da Vinci Code where the paper inside would dissolve in vinegar if the letters were not aligned properly! Surely Honda should sell this design to the military for sealing secret documents. I have spoken to the dealer and even gotten the number of the zonal head and can only hope they have more credible explanations.

Now to move to my water woes. As a blessed part of the small group of people on this thirsty planet who are lucky enough to be able to afford clean drinking water, I have installed an Aquaguard in my house. It took me 8 phone calls and close to a month to get it installed from their “24 Hour” response centre and it is almost De Ja Vu when I am trying to get the mysterious disappearance of water flow checked out. I have made three phone calls and all I get is a tele-service executive with a horrendous accent and a script to verify my name, number and address and a canned line that “they are surprised as to why the service engineer is not picking up my request!”. Surely there has to be a way that unattended calls pop-up on the dashboard of a manager. Surely Eureka Forbes has a simple software that lets it monitor the efficiency of the people it has put in charge of after sales service. In this economic down turn when millions are losing their jobs and demand is drying up why are donkeys and asses being allowed to run organizations and keep their jobs?

And finally the people at Tata Sky who actually got a letter of commendation from me because dad felt their service was excellent. I get charged Rs.350 for a service engineer visit because I am a loyal customer who has had their service for over a year. And all he does is come home and tell me that the call centre guy did not walk me through the whole set up and that as a “precaution” he has switched the connections of my two receiver boxes. I am still waiting for the 24 hours to finish so that I can get my clarification. Surely they must have a Martian clock because the clocks on earth have already finished more than 72 hours.

"I left my heart in San Francisco.." goes the popular song and I quote it here because last evening nothing could have captured my mood better. Yes, I confess, my husband and I belong to the ever growing group of NRIs (Non Returning Indians as the leading lady of Swades would say) who have left the US to "come back" to India. Let this not be read as a patriotic statement (Swades style) where the desire to do something for our motherland drove us to come back. Primarily it was a realisation that a rapidly growing India was now able to offer the same comforts and professional recognition that a US educated Indian did not get here a decade ago.



The newspapers shouted each morning how the largest companies in the world were looking at India as their fastest growing market, how they were hiring here and how more and more board rooms and corner offices were being filled by people of Indian origin. And as we read all this we told ourselves that we would be foolish not to cash out on what was suddenly our biggest asset- our fundamental Indian-ness combined with a primarily western education and work ethic. We fancied that we would be the group that would help the floundering western companies find their way through the maze called India. We would understand e-mail etiquette, voice mail and Stock Grants while being able to handle the Mr. Patil and Sharma Ji who rides the local to Church Gate from Ghatkopar every day and expects that at 5 pm he should be allowed to shut shop and go home. We could eat "Burritos" while chewing paan.



So we packed up our neatly manicured homes, centrally cooled and heated lives , car-pool lanes and Sunday morning breakfasts at Hobees and moved to Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai.



The outcome has been a bag of surprises and shocks. First a realisation that our basic Indian-ness was limited to being able to read and write a local language, digest Indian food and sing Bollywood songs. In many ways America had crept into all of us and changed our measures of the good, the bad and the ugly. My parents laugh at us when we are shocked by a taxi guy who bangs our car at a traffic signal and then stands there looking injured with no insurance to cover him. We are still mistakenly awestruck by the so called "Spirit of Mumbai" when it is no more than the selfishness and helplessness of a people who trudge back to work despite, floods, terrorist attacks and atrocities, because they are unwilling and unable to raise a voice in protest. No one in the US and the rest of the Western World would have stood for such gross neglect and let it pass practically unnoticed.



As for the every day small things, I personally have come to realise that unless you are living in small town like Panchkula, India is as, if not more, expensive than the US. Real-Estate, Cars, fuel costs almost two times as much as the equivalent place in the US. Food costs as much- a single slice of Pizza from Sabarros at a food-court at a mall in Gurgaon is Rs. 87- that is almost a $1.50- exactly what it costs you in the US! The luxuries that we convince ourselves matter- such as a chauffeur, help at home- are a necessity in India where you have to clean your house every day and if you venture to shop or watch a movie, you need a chauffeur to find you that elusive spot for parking.



So the "home-coming" hasn't turned out to be all we thought it would. And yet there has been one unforeseen benefit. At least in our case we moved to India just a year before the current crisis struck the US and ended the four years of euphoria. Everyone who meets us calls us "lucky" because we managed to "get out in time". Who would have thought that India would rescue us from the possibility of joblessness, recession and possible economic crisis.



But then that is how life is. We begin a journey with a destination and a route in mind, but as time passes all of that can change. So while I am still debating if we have "come-back" to India or in a couple of years will "move-back" to the US, there is one thing I am certain of- my heart may still be in San Francisco and I may listen to "Sunday mornings Island of Sanity on KDFC.com, I thank God my husband's pay check comes from an Indian bank.

The Penless Writer- Inspiration and First Post

Why the name "Penless writer": Frankly the name doesn't have to do with anything specific. I wanted the more appropriate "This that and the other" but guess what- some writer in some other corner of the world had beaten me to it. At least it proves that my idea was clever albeit not original.



Why another Blog: Simply put, a thought provoking commentary by someone called Aseem Chhabra, time on my hands and a mild conviction that what I write may ultimately be readable. He ( Aseem Chhabra) wrote a piece in the Mumbai mirror today about the flat portrayal of Indian Americans in our mainstream cinema ( read full article here) and how it paled in comparison to the Gogol of the Namesake ( Visit official site here).



While there is no denying Aseem's observations that the Roshan of Delhi 6 or the Dev of Kabhi Alvida Na Kehna are just Indians dressed in American Designer labels with East Coast addresses, I think Aseem also takes their American Indian-ness a little too seriously. If Abhishek Bacchan plays himself throughout the movie it is because at no time in Delhi 6 is he required to be Indian- American- he is merely required to be an outsider to Delhi 6. The same with SRK in KANK- the Sheraton in New York where his illicit relationship with Rani Mukherjee reaches its culmination, could just as well be replaced by any high end hotel in an Indian metro. The American setting, the cross cultural nuances are merely there to add interest- at some level to give the characters a status that they are outsiders - and hence can do and say things that we "Indians" do not openly acknowledge having done.



The character of Gogol in "The Namesake", on the other hand, is born of a true cultural difference. That of the Kolkatta that lives in his parents' house and the America that he was born into. There could not be a Gogol without the American or foreign setting. You can not have the same degree of tension and difference between two generations who have essentially inherited the same country and land, merely at different points of time. So while Kal Penn's Gogol is American Indian because it is the essence of his character, SRK and Jr. Bacchan's characters are so simply because they will be more entertaining and popular that way. And since they are for viewers of popular cinema why hold that against them?