Look Beyond Actions

Anybody who has a husband or a boyfriend or some other form of commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner, knows that anything he does to whatever you say has no distant connection with emotions and/or feelings. Every woman is born with a natural ability see through his actions but chooses to be patient and forgiving for the sake of peace and sanity. Here are some examples.

Men Psychology and their general understanding of "Women": They think that anything a woman utters has a "hidden" meaning which the male species has not evolved with enough sensory perceptions to understand (the latter part is ofcourse, true).

No matter what you say, your counter part (yes, that commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner) will not go by your face value, but rather try to find the "hidden" motive and act such stupidly that he will screw your happiness as well as his, in the process. Some such common scenarios are

When you say: How was your day honey?
What he thinks you mean: You want *him* to ask *you* how your day was?
How he handles it: Assuming, he is one of the 99% of men who neither wants to talk about his day nor wants to listen about his wife’s day, he switches to “rant mode”. The moment you ask the question, he starts off “It was the most godawful day anybody can ever have. I mean, I was trying to tweak the CPU frequency but the audio keeps crapping out”.

If you are one of 99% of normal human beings, you would have slept half way through.

When you say: Hey, you want to watch a movie tonight? Something light?
What he thinks you mean: You want to watch some tear-jerker chickflick
How he handles it: According to him, everything you say or do, is a "test". He uses his "brain" and thinks, if he whines about the movie, it will be paid back in kind when he wants to watch “Star Wars :The Clone Wars.” So he decides that the best way to handle it is to agree cheerfully to watch any movie you want. In fact, he offers to drive to the nearest DVD shop to get the movie. And on the way back, he sticks a scotch tape to the underside of the DVD and then he would get a chance to feign regret for a damaged DVD. (and you actually believe him and end up watching "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" together.

When you say: What should I wear for tonight’s party? The blue dress I wore last Sunday or the red dress the Sunday before?
What he thinks you mean: Nothing, now he is screwed. He thinks he is in a minefield. First of all he has no clue if you really have those dresses. And his corrupt mind thinks may be you are just "testing" his memory. Moreover, he has no clue what you wore last Sunday or the Sunday before. He thinks, if he makes one mistake then you are going to screw his evening with a "Do you even notice me any more” discussion.
How he handles it: The best way to handle it is by concentrating and remembering at least one dress you own. If he can think of one,he will just say, “Why not that long yellow number?” Adding “You look really good in that” will seal the deal for him. But what if he can’t absolutely remember at least one of the dresses you have? Then, he will simply excuse himself and run to your closet and find out!

When you say: Hey, I am going to the mall. Do you want me to you get you a shirt or something?
What he thinks you mean: He thinks he got a tough problem in his hands. If he said "yes" then obviously he is not going to like what you bought (wonder why we ever try). He can neither wear it nor return it (and stay married). At the same time he cant say "no" because he thinks then you will follow it up with a “What, you don’t like my taste?” discussion.
How he handles it: The best way to handle it is by saying, “Sure. The plain blue shirt I wear to work is pretty ruined anyway. Can you get me the exact same shirt?”

When you say: Oh, I LOVE these shoes! But they are just above our price range. *sigh*
What he thinks you mean: You want him to say, “Oh, you deserve them honey”
How he handles it: He can’t just give away an expensive pair of shoes without a good business proposition. So the way to counter it is by saying, “Oh, it’s not that expensive honey. That’s how much the Prince of Persia IV for PS3 costs!”

Look beyond the Words

Anybody who has a husband or a boyfriend or some other form of commitment-phobic, responsibility-fearing human partner, knows that anything he says has an ulterior motive. Every women is born with a natural ability see through the intentions but chooses to be patient and forgiving for the sake of peace and sanity . Just in case of doubt, here are some common scenarios and how to handle them.

When he says: Hey we should cook more balanced meals, with more vegetables and Omega3s
What it means: In a rare fit of inquisitiveness, he read a health article on CNN
How to handle it: Just ignore. It will pass in a few days.

When he says: I think the leaky faucet points to a deep rooted problem with how our plumbing is laid out and the net pressure of the water in the pipes.
What it means: He has no idea how to replace the faucet and is too proud to admit it.
How to handle it: Call a plumber and get it fixed. Search on Amazon for books with topic, “How not to turn every small thing in life into a macho pride thing”.

When he says: The engine is making rattling noises, let me see what’s going on under the hood
What it means: He wants you to believe that he knows what the hell is under the hood, even though the only thing he can name there is the dipstick.
How to handle it: Have pity and pretend to believe him. Just gently request him not to actually try to repair anything in there.

When he says: I prefer to watch unrated versions of movies because they show the true vision of the director
What it means: He knows unrated versions have more nudity
How to deal with it: Because he is not particularly interested in the nudity anyway, use the nude scenes as an opportunity to discuss the true vision of the director in the movie.

When he says: How does my shirt look?
What it means: Shirt is just a decoy to take your attention off the fact that he is wearing a jeans that has not been washed for two weeks!
How to handle it: Tell him he looks completely out of shape in what he is wearing. He will change the whole wardrobe immediately. In fact, he will do anything to look toned other than exercising.

When he says: This year, for anniversary gifts, let’s give each other something we both can use
What it means: He wants to give *you* the Play Station Personal *he* always wanted to buy
How to handle it: In the same spirit, gift him a nice pair of Gili Earrings

When he says: OH MY GOD! I can’t find anything in the house. My life is ruined. Why me? Why now?
What it means: He can’t find his towel
How to handle it: Remind him it’s exactly where he left it. On the carpet, next to his closet. Ask him if he knows what “Drama Queen” means.

When he says: Honey, I created a directory called, “Work Files” on the computer. Please don’t touch it. It has important information.
What it means: “C:\Work Files\January 2006\Sources\Examples\Documents\Junk” is where he stores the porn
How to deal with it: Being the software chick yourself, it’s not hard to write a program that replaces the contents of the directory with pictures of naked dudes every night. And if you dont wanna do that, replace it with pictures of anything you husband would loathe looking at.

Dont Waste Paper

This is what I keep telling my daughter. Don't Waste Paper. After all if we dont teach the next generation, then who will? But I was wrong... I was so wrong. Yesterday my daughter taught me, and not only me, her message should go everywhere - across the nation, across the world. And what better way than to BLOG about it?

Being a Sunday yesterday, we woke up late - well late by our standards, and pretty late by our elders' standards. Yes, we woke up at around 10 in the morning, and immediately we started fighting with the morning newspaper. We all had our agenda - my husband wanted to know about the nation and the owrld at large, my daughter has a "current affair" exam on Tuesday for which she had to keep her updated with the currents news, and I, well, err... actually, nothing specific - just the usual bollywoood gossip, fortune and the supplementary stuffs. But whatever, we started our fights and as is expected, my daughter won. So newspaper must go to her first. And the moment she took it in her hand, she came and told me, "Mumma, you keep telling me not to waster papre, but look here, Tropicana Juice has put an advertisement and wasted one and a half page of this newspaper"

Yes, she was right and I was shocked. Tropicana wasted one and a half page of The Sunday Times, 21st Dec'08 trying to stress the importance of having 100% of... whatever, thats not important. What is important is that the CORPORATE citizens of this nation and the owrld should realse the importance. Our kids learn from the elders - from the media and from everything around them, and if this is what they see, what will they learn (tried to find the image on line, but couldn't, but am sure many of you must have seen it).

So, M/s Tropicana, we know you guys provide us 100% juice and we are quite fond of you. Your advertisement of hald a page could not have demeaned you or your product by any amount. If you have lot of year-end budget for advertisement still unused, why dont you guys use them in some more meaningful ways than this?

Rules of Road Rage

Now this is what I experienced today while coming down to office - am one of those few fortunate people on Bangalore Road, who dont have to drive while commuting to office - so I have the privilege of observing the drivers on drive on the road. And based on my 3 and a 1/2 months thesis, I have formulated this Rule Book of Road Rage. Enjoy, and feel free to add anything I might have missed out (those this has been developed on the basis of Bangalore roads, am sure, every city in India will get benefitted by this - as we believe in Unity in Diversity)

1. Weave through the traffic like an accomplished bra-tailor and shout obscenities at everyone else in the morning. It gets your system all fired up, adrenaline and testosterone flowing out through your nostrils along with all the phlegm thanks to the pollution. Remember , expressing and venting your anger out on strangers on the road is great. It will help you be more calm with the people you know at work and home.

2.Try not to break the rules on the road. But don’t ever EVER spare the ones who do. Remind them of the rules as you drive by, cutting on the other side of the road. Show them the 2 handed birdie, the middle finger as you past them, with both your hands off the wheel. Don’t worry about the safety of others. They should know how to get out of your way. After all, you’re just reprimanding an evil-doer.

3. Pull alongside the offenders and start laughing hysterically at them. Ask them if they must be really proud of themselves for breaking the rule. Remember, laughter is good, especially when you’re laughing at someone else’s face. Start farting at will and follow them up with loud sounds and sighs of relief. Tell them how happy you feel to have shared that rather private moment with someone as incredible as him. However, if the driver has a chick next to him, look horrified and tell him how senseless and utterly disgusting he is. If the chick is hot and remotely sensible, she will not want to be with farty-two-shoes and she might get into your vehicle. Keep your options open.

4. If the driver is a guy and he has his wife/ gf with him, you’ve got him at a perfect time. Tell him how terrible he is at driving and that he learns the rules and how to drive first. Tell him it makes him look really dumb and silly. Guy would get so friggin embarrassed in front of his chick that he’d never do it again. If she’s hot and remotely sensible, there’s even a slight chance that she might walk out of his car and get into yours. Keep your options open.

5. If the driver is a girl/woman and has her bf sitting with her, express surprise at her bf’s ineptitude at not being able to teach her. Sympathize with her situation and tell her its really not her fault , and it’s that cave-dweller’s fault that she’s so fucked up. If she’s hot and remotely sensible, she might kick the guy out of the car and follow you. Keep your options open.

6. Night-time offense- To annoy the driver behind you, start pressing and releasing your brakes to the beat of a timbaland song blaring loud from your system. The brake lights will provide a psychedelic effect like a 70s abba song on the sorry-assed driver’s face behind you. There is a possibility that there might be a hot chick in that car. If she’s hot and remotely sensible, she will actually realize that you are uber-cool and walk out that car and get into yours. Keep your options open.

7. Those Cell-crazy bikers : These guys appear so because of their tendency to drive and magically fit the cellphone between their shoulder and ear as they drive by. They think they have supreme control of their two-wheelers,where as they are actually scaring the shit out with their curvacious projectile on the road. Don’t they just PISS YOU OFF?!?! Pretend that you are Count Dracula himself and stick your head out as you drive along side him and try to take a bite from your his exposed neck. There could be a chick who’s sitting behind him. If she’s hot and remotely sensible, she might feel simultaneously charmed, mystified, scared and shocked by your act- most of which is enough to get drive them crazy. She may get out of the cell-obsessed jerk’s bike and ride with you. Keep your options open.

Hope my husband doesnt get any idea from all this and starts keeping his options open every time he is driving on the road!!!

Blind Love

I can hear what you say
I sense we’re in a bind
I can touch what you say
So what if I’m blind?

I understand you
Better than most others
Engulfed in your hair
Smelling the flowers

The perfume of your hair
Lifts me out of despair
The darkness everywhere
Asks me, do I dare?

Am I fit to be your lover?
Blind, willing to bend lower
This is what tears me apart
Our love, will it have a start?

In pursuit of a dream
Hoping you will understand
About to spill over the brim
My shaky conscience; it can’t stand

Alvi - DADA

When Dada announced his retirement under obvious pressure from the selectors, my first reaction, as a long-time fan, was a sense of disappointment. Once again in his life, Sourav Ganguly was being given a raw deal more so as he has been playing some of his best cricket over the last few years and so should not have been the first in the firing line. Once the inevitability of the retirement sunk in, there were a wistful reminiscence about the defining moments of his career and a grudging acceptance of what was to happen. His retirement was only a matter of time, if not this series then the one down the road. Given that reality, he deserved the chance to leave with his head held high and if indeed his neck was forever going to be on the chopping block, no matter what he scored, then at his age there was no need to let himself be subject to humiliation.

“There is no reason to get overtly sentimental”, I told myself. This attachment to our old heroes is like our attachment to the first love letter or an old greetings card and once we realize that their time is up, it should be logical to let them go. (Though I cannot do that myself in my life, and hence suffer more than is required to, at times)

And so why should we feel bad at Ganguly’s retirement? Sourav as a person had made millions from the game and is sure to have a very fulfilling post-cricket life whether it be as a businessman, or as a cricket administrator or a media personality or as is speculated the CPM candidate against Didi. Dada vs Didi—now that is one contest I would love to see and readers on this blog would know which side I will be rooting for. And it’s not as if I would never see him again, he would be in the black-and-gold uniform in the three-ring-circus of IPL very soon even though I knew that for Dada IPL would be like “exchanging a walk-on part in the war for a lead role in a cage”.

Most importantly, at the age of 32....(ok, ok, 33), mature people should live by the wisdom of Govinda’s immortal words “Control yaar” when dealing with non-critical life issues like a favorite sportsman retiring. Only 22 year olds, who empathize with filmstars and cricketers as if they were their own flesh and blood, ought to lose sleep over such trivialities. Right?

For all these reasons , my sadness at Sourav’s retirement was muted to a large extent. Instead there was a prayer than his last series does not overwhelm him, that his performances do not dip alarmingly and that another opportunity is not presented to his haters (and there are many of them) to give him a kick in his teeth with a “We told you. He has been finished a long time ago”.

But that did not happen. Sourav had his best series ever against Australia, showing solidity in the middle order never letting his impending retirement cast a shadow over his performances, which was crowned with a century at Mohali and a throwing-back-the-years partnership with partner-in-crime Sachin Tendulkar.

Till we came to Nagpur. The end of the road. The place where his legacy was sought to be finished by lesser mortals many years ago.Would he emulate Guru Greg by scoring a century in his last and first match? Alas that was not to be as h fell for 85 in the first innings. No matter I thought; the six off Jason Krejza in his style of old was compensation enough for staying awake late at night. I smiled to myself when I heard people from Ganguly’s locality, Behala tell a Bengali channel that they would appeal to ICC to credit Ganguly with a century if he scored fifteen runs in the second innings. Really !

Not that Sourav gave his fans that chance. As the Australian fielders ran toward Jason Krejza as he came up with a caught and bowled, there was a fleeting moment of disbelief—surely this is not the way we thought it would end. That feeling was gone however as reality sunk in and as Sourav looked longingly at the sky for a brief second as a sign of thanksgiving or heavenly reproach and then walked off, rapidly, without any show of emotion and with not even a bat raised to the sky, still visibly cross with himself, all I thought was “Oh no India is going to lose this one”.

The next day of course my fears were proven to be unfounded. The series was wrapped up. Ganguly was raised onto the shoulders. He was mercifully not asked to speak (at least I did not catch it) and was “left alone with his glory”. The best moment of the night for me was to see the Fab Four together, side by side, wreathed in smiles, all together in the team for one last time, —-like all great bands, they had their moments of discord but what music had they given us, what memories !

Of course the last most poignant moment was Ganguly, trying desperately to remain stoic, coming out to acknowledge his cheering fans and then on public request, in the manner of an old conjurer performing his favorite act at the curtain call, repeating his iconic gesture at Lords of taking his shirt off. There was no anger now. No rage. Or even if there was, he did not show it.

There was a wave to the crowd. And then he was gone. For ever.

And at that moment, I felt happy. Really happy for Ganguly, for all that he had achieved and how he was leaving, not with a whimper but with all his guns blazing, a privilege he sorely deserved.

Emotions

I have always been accused of being "extremely emotional" by different kinds of people, starting from my friends, wellwishers, my manager, to even the closest ones. In college, my friends used to call me an "emotional fool" - but for me it was always a compliment. I knew i could emote more than any of my friends at any given point of time, and that made me feel good about myself, regardless of what others said. I mean, you change yourself only if you think a particular trait of yours is not good or can be replaced by a better alternative. But for me, being emotional always was, and still is, the best attribute of mine. Emotions come with a parcel of so many attributes - kindness, empathy, understanding, passion, love , i mean, you just name it! So I never thought of letting go of this trait ever.

I give more importance to relationships than anything else in life. I value human bonds more than anything else in life. If am a fool to think that way, so be it. Sentimental movies bring tears to my eyes, even if I am watching it for the 100th time! If am a fool to do so, then be it. Children bring smile on my face, even if they are strangers to me. If I am fool because of this, so be it. Unknowingly, I bless every couple I see on roads. Romantic cards, mushy romantic songs boost my spirits up. I believe in fairy tales, I beilieve in angels, I believe in wishes. I believe people who live us for the greater journey beyond life, become stars and watch us from the sky above. I believe Santa is there (my daughter doesnt). I remember, in my college, when I would passionately discuss "love" and ideals of love, my friends would laugh at me. That never stopped me from beilieving in my dreams.

Why am I even talking about all these? Because, when friends called me "emotional fools" I took it by my stride and paid not much attention to it. When my manager, once told me to overcome my emotions in corporate world, I didnt pay much heed to his advise. But when, that one special person accused me of being emotional and one who hypes on "Self pity" to get others' attention, I just coudnot take it... at times you are so deeply hurt, that you forget to cry... you forget to complain... u just accept it and take that lump inside you. Its like a tumor, which gives you pain, but you hide it from everybody, because you are afraid of the diagnosis.

Am living with that lump, a lump thats growing bigger every moment. I will live with this permanent lump forever, and probably not even talk about it, because the moment I share this lump with my friends, they will laugh at me and call me an "emotional fool". Since this is personal, I will not discuss this with my manager for sure, and if with all my heart I go to that special person and tell him how am feeling, I will be diagnosed once again as one who has this "accuse syndrome of creating self pity to attract attention" - dont know much about the disease, but the diagnosis itself is too much to bear.

Will leave you all with a quote that I once came across

"Don't cry in any relationship, cos the person who loves you will never let you cry, and the person who you cry for, is not worth your love"

I understand this - but my tears dont... they are more emotional than I am.

Happy Birthday

A man, in fact an average man, turns 68 today. The man who taught me how to walk, the man who took me to the zoo and got me introduced to the animals from my coloring books! The man who would sit with me in the balcony and show me the stars... the man who later on helped me with my sums, the man who always criticised me for my handwriting, even though his is worse than mine, the man who always stood by my side, and still does... its his 68th birthday today.

My father strongest! was a tag line for one of the recent ads on air. Today if I look back, I know my father is not the strongest, neither he is the most successful, the richest man in the world. But even then, he is the best father for me, and will always remain that way. Unlike other father-daughter relationships, ours is not a very close one. I mean, I dont remember my father hugging me ever. I dont remember me discussing my problems with him ever. Infact my husband still laughs at the fact that when we were getting married, my father was sleeping (yes, it was pretty late at night, and my father cannot stay up awake so late). My father cant have intellectual discussions with you. He is not thay type.

He is reserved, he is an introvert - a music lover, who can play any kind of musical instrument without getting any formal training - nowadays, rich kids of rich parents go for Piano classes, but I think he is the best piano player i have seen, though he never got any formal training - talking about inborn talent.

This post is not a literary masterpiece. This is just my emotions about my father. The first man I have interacted with, and grown up seeing. My father - a middleclass, average human being with a heart of gold. A true family man. A fantastic husband, a great father, and now, an adorable grandpa.

Each and every role he played in life, he played it with utmost sincerity - thats what makes him special, amidst all his so called faults. Faults reminds me, his temper is something i was always very scared of - no! he never hit me, he just didnt require to - one cold look from his side would ensure am back to track incase had deviated.

Maa says, I am exactly like my father - that makes me so happy. I want to be like him. I have never seen a more peace loving person than him. Both of us are very laid back and relaxed! Miles away from crowd, we prefer silence over everything else. And we love to eat!!! And the most remarkable similarity is our spendthrift nature! Maa always criticises us for that, but who cares!

Baba, on your birthday, I cannot give you what all you gave me on my birthdays, but I take this opportunity to thank you for everything I got from you - yeah, those cold looks as well.

A very happy birthday to you, and many happy returns of the day!

With Tears...

If I were a tear in your eyes
I would lie on your cheeks and die on your lips
But if you were a tear in my eyes
I would never cry in fear of losing you

Free India

If you think that India is a nice peaceful safe place to live in then you are unbelievably dumb and misinformed. From terrorism to inflation, we have pretty much every single problem known to mankind. Most of the population is either stupid or doesn’t really care. I don’t mind these people, I have nothing against the mentally challenged or the apathetic. The people I really hate are the ones who know about these problems but still delude themselves and others into thinking that this dump is a great place to live in... I remember the pledge that we were to utter everyday in our school assembly... India is my country...all Indians are my brothers and sisters...I love my country and am proud of it's rich and varied heritage...

As kids, we were fooled...

You may argue that other countries have such problems too. The difference is, in India none of these problems are recognised, discussed or worked upon. Only a few major scandals even make it into the limelight and then the media covers it for days until the next celebrity comes along to be interviewed. However things that happen in daily life are ignored or accepted as part of life.

Ordinary citizens cannot highlight problems either. No one wants a visit from the thugs of a local politician. That’s what happens if you complain. Call the cops? What a joke. We all know the cops are corrupt scum who are only interested in how much money they can get out you.

You think we have freedom?

Welcome to India.

Only the other day the Indian Mujra-hideen sent a terror email from an insecure wireless network, an act the press respectfully informed us ” as hacking into a wireless account”. Bombs went off. People died. Which city was it that day?

Jaipur, Varanasi, Bangalore, Surat, Delhi, Mumbai or somewhere else ?

Does it matter to you or me as long as our loved ones are safe (for the time being)?

Does the significance of the fact that terrorists need only a few months to organize another high-profile attack, even after a few of them get arrested, sink into the national psyche?

Do we, as a nation, understand that the whole “spirit of the city” feel-good is nothing but an euphemism for people becoming so inured to flying ball-bearings and bloody corpses that they accept terrorist violence as a fact of life, like traffic jams and power cuts ?

Do people realize that when Shivraj Patil warns of “stringent punishment” to the perpetrators of the blast that he isn’t just re-reading the statement he prepared a few months ago for the last blast? Do the citizens know that once he has done with his “I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee” message of future retribution , that he vanishes into a dark corner, away from the national eye, where he puts on a Batman costume and personally hunts down the terrified evil doe-rs while riding his Bat bicycle?

Do I realise, that after every bomb blast or terrorist attack, I criticse my country and its honorable leaders more or less the same way, because I, like the nation, have nothing new to say or do?

Welcome to India. Welcome to our world.

Let me fly...

Round and round
Mentally unsound
On shaky ground
Insecurity profound...

The mind whirls
Emotion swirls
Dreams unwind
Destiny unkind...

One hopes
That he elopes
But one is bound
To one's ground...

To escape this cage
Needs an adage
No need to cry
One is born to fly...

I Am

I am
Therefore I live;
I am
Therefore I breathe.

To live or not,
... is the question
To breathe or not,
... is the dilemma.

Moments of panic
That are tragic
I am lethargic
Need some magic.

Uncomfortable...
Unstable...
Unable
To be stable

I am hurt
But I wont be curt
This situation does hurt
Who'll clean up the dirt?

I will try
Not to cry
It's about time
For me to fly

The Dark (yawwwwwwwwn) Knight

Nobody asked me to review the movie Dark Knight. So I am doing it.

p.s. : Infact A told me not to write it - So I am doing it all the more.

The Dark Knight is a deliciously wonderful movie for anybody who grew up reading Batman comics. I didn’t grow up reading Batman comics.

In fact, I don’t even understand Batman. What does Batman have in common with a bat other than the fact that they both are classified as mammals? He can’t fly. Nor can he generate ultrasonics. I was waiting throughout the movie for the Batman to hang upside down on a tree, he didn’t do that either. I was this close to demanding my money back (ok, thats an exaggeration, I didnt wantch it in theatre - i watched it on a pirated DVD available for 30 bucks in Gariahat - I was actually close to returning that DVD and exchanging it for a Himesh reshammiya soundtrack) . Also, have you ever seen a bat fight bad guys? You never did. You know why? Because they don’t. All they do is hang in some dark corner; and when you get up on a building, lean on the wall and throw a stone, they fly up and scratch your face. Hypothetically, I mean.

Ok, now that I have given you a lecture on bat and batman, let’s talk about the cast. First of all, Christian Bale doesn’t look like a bat. He looks more like a vulture. He did his best to act and in a couple of scenes he actually showed some expressions. I wish they didn’t make his mask so tight though. Every time he wore it, it pinched his throat and his voice became very hoarse. It’s got to be pretty darn annoying fighting bad guys while gasping for air.

There was this Joker too. He was amazing. Rest in peace, Mr. Ledger.

Most people don’t notice, but there is a heroine in the movie. I saw cadavers livelier than her and blank whiteboards more interesting than her face. She is like a decorative African art on a table - nobody knows why it is there and you won’t even notice it until it catches on fire. That is precisely what happens in the movie. She moves the story along only after she is dead.

I guess my biggest gripe with this movie is that batman is not even like a hero in the movie, forget superhero. Batman gets beat up, hit by a car, bitten by dogs, shot at and slammed into a wall - in the first five minutes. It gets worse after that. What is missing in the movie is Batman’s mother so he could run whimpering to his mommy every time Joker outwits him. And in a crowing moment of glory, batman ends the movie running away being chased by street dogs.

But whatever it is, i hope by now you have understood that what I am saying here is, overall, its a great movie...

The Mistress

Yesterday I read and article called "The other Side Of Women" in The Sunday Times. Quite an interesting article on the so called "other women" or the "mistresses". Quite an interesting article for me, more so because this one echoed my viewpoints.

I have always wondered why the "other woman" is always looked down upon by our society. They are always made the villain of the piece - the home breaker and what not! As if the man had been either forcefully dragged into the reltationship (people call it extra marital affair/infidelity and what not!) or hypnotised into it. I mean, please grow up! How long will our society behave in such an immatured way? No man is a kid. And I believe (at the cost of generalising the whole thing) that an extra marital affair is an effect of a broken home and not the other way round. So, first of all, we should stop blaming the "other woman". Secondly, I think it takes a lot of courage to live your life as the "other woman" in a relationship where there is no commitment, no security, and to top it all, no social acceptance!

Love is a strange thing, which, when happens changes your whole outlook. It does not fathom to any logic, any calculated move towards profit or loss. It just happens. And when it happens it gives you an entirely new meaning to your life. You see beauty in everything, you yourself become beautiful. Love brings in magic to your life... this is ofcourse one aspect of it. One that you find in M&Bs. But real life is quite different. The other women go through a lot. They love a married man with all their heart. They know their relationship has no social acceptance, no future, no security... so they live in the very moment. May be thats why they can give their man, and that he wants and even more. They value each and every moment they spend with their man, probably without being demanding, without expecting much.

Men on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They get the best of the both worlds. They have security in the form of their family, and they have the mistress who can give them much more their wives can - whats more, mistress wont demand as much as the wife; with mistress their is no responsibility attached, there is no commitment to keep...

So, next time we comment on the other women, we should think twice. After all its not an easy thing to do - to love someone unconditionally without expecting a future out of it... dont know why, but i always feel for the "other woman"...

Jodha Akbar - A Plead to Mr. Ashutosh Gowariker

I was procastinating on this for a long time now, unless I had to go through the pain of watching Jodha Akbar for the second time...

I had an eventful weekend. I saw Jodha Akbar for the second time last Friday and then went on a short 2 day trip to Kolkata, my home.

The trip seemed shorter. Talking of relativity...

So the moment I got back to my workstation in Bangalore (yeah, it got shifted about 3 weeks back), I decided to, in the interest of public service, to shoot an email to Ashutosh Gowariker asking him to shorten the movie to something less than the time it takes a medium sized star to turn into a white dwarf. Incase you are wondering as to why I do public service from my work station - well, thats how I am...

But I didn’t do the shooting, for 2 reasons

• I did not have Ashutosh Gowariker’s email ID
• I did not have Ashutosh Gowariker’s email ID

But since this is a blog with a fairly tenuous connection to the restricting limitations of real life, let us imagine that I actually did send this email to Mr. Gowariker.

Dear Ashutosh,

Your movie is too long. Infact, at the end of the movie, I got an SMS from the LIC agent that my Jeevan Bima Policy had matured. So while I was clearly elated, the part of the audience that didnt invest in LIC was clearly peeved.

So, in the interest of the public, I have taken the liberty to conduct a contest to elicit ideas to make Jodha Akbar shorter and sweeter. Several responded and am attaching here for your perusal and reference, the very best of those.

The Tansen Fan club of Teynampet
We are ok with the movie till the point where Jodha marries Akbar. After that we find, to quote Lord Vader, the lack of Tansen disturbing. Remember the scene where Akbar is in the Diwan-e-Aam (Sofa made from Mango tree) and this important event is interrupted by strains of Jodha singing “Man Mohanaa”? The emperor then declares the session closed and joins his lady love in singing some Krishna bhajans.

At this point, we believe Tansen should intervene and point out that Jodha is way off the original Raga in which the composition was set. He then goes on to demonstrate how it should be sung and Jodha is shamed and decides to go back to her Paattu maami to start over from Sarle Varise. Akbar then goes on to marry 700 more women and lives like every other Mughal emperor. Some harm and a lot of harem.

Length of Movie - 30 minutes.

The Gardening Club of Golf Greens

Akbar wins lots of wars. He then decides to marry Jodha. His army throws a bachelor party and invites Sufi singers to sing “Khwaja Jee”.

If you have sing the song, this is a plot by the Gardening Club of Panipat to assassinate the emperor for his reckless laying waste of gardens and nurseries in Panipat in 1556. This is exactly why the singers are symbolically wearing flower pots on their heads. Once the song finishes, Akbar joins in the Sufi trance and at that moment, one of the potheads releases a King cobra which goes on to kill the emperor with a deadly bite.

Of course, it’s not historically accurate, but hey, neither is your original movie.

Length of movie - 25 minutes

The Cookery Club of Calicut

We are OK with the movie till the point where Aishwarya Rai serves the emperor a lavish self-cooked Rajasthaani meal. Now, imagine a former Miss World cooking a palace meal. Now, we are not doubting that she could rustle up some Maggi noodles or perhaps microwave some MTR precooked meals, but hey, a full meal for the palace? Here is the shortening (not the culinary type, he he) that we recommend.

In the process of cooking Rajasthaani Kadhi, all the L’Oreal and Revlon cosmetics she is wearing mixes with the food. In addition, her diamond studded Longines watch falls into the mix.

So when she serves Akbar and Maha Maanga demands that it is customary for the chef to taste the meal in front of the emperor, she does, and ends up fainting as a result of a lack of a digestive enzyme for L’Oreal face wash. Maha Maanga says - “See I told you so”, and Jodha is banished from the kingdom and Akbar lives happily ever after eating Lamb Biriyani.

Length of movie - 45 minutes

The Murli Manohar Joshi School of Revisionist History - Mukut Manipur

This movie is not only unnecessarily lengthy, it is also a blatant distortion of history. Our problem with the movie is scene nr 1 - Akbar’s battle with Hemu. When Bairam Khan attempts to behead Hemu, his sword breaks into two and Hemu is unscathed. Bairam Khan is enraged and attempts to behead him again with another sword. That one also shatters. Hemu then reveals himself to be an avatar of Vishnu and everyone in the battlefield is humbled and the Mughals go back to their native Uzbekistan.

Length of movie - 5 minutes

The World Wide Fund for Nature

We are OK with the movie till Akbar’s attempt to tame the wild elephant. It is a complete insult to the elephant’s leg-eye-trunk coordination skills when you show it missing Akbar many times. Elephants are physically more agile than humans are. Here is what we propose. The elephant raises its foot to crush the emperor. It doesn’t miss.

Length of movie - 30 minutes.

p.s. : I must mention that one of the contest rules was to minimize the cost of editing process. So, as you can see, all these suggestions here focus on the critical turning points where the movie could have ended.

Regards...

Bollywood Women I love

Only a few days back, i was pondering about why in Hindi Film Industry we dont have many women-centric movies, and the ones we have show women mostly as prostitutes. One thought lead me to another and soon I had this array of thoughts about women in Hindi movies.

We can go on and on over the stereotypes of women in Indian cinema. Now that’s an easy thing to do, I thought why not try to work on something fresh. Women that don’t confine to socially set patterns; and surprisingly I found a huge array of films both parallel and commercial movies that have unusual heroines and these movies did enjoy commercial success. This ofcourse was initiated by Pakeezah, but nevertheless am glad that I thought about this.

Let me begin with what I see as stereotypes -

Women with strong sexual morals ,the wife, mother, sister and the good girlfriend.

Loose morals, very easy, think of Bindu, Helen you got it.The crafty women. This group is headed by the wicked mother in laws, sisters, bad friends etc. Lalita Pawar, Sashikala etc. lead this group.

Strong women. These women always fight against injustice, stand up for their rights but please note they normally do it for their husbands, brothers, fathers and are extremely virtuous in every respect. They may resort to violence and slaughter the villains but there is always the ‘Shakti’ theme behind it. It is disturbingly religious, I mean women behaving like that do need the religious back up. Think of movies like Phool Bane Angaray, Pratighaat, Mrityudand… see what I mean.

The sacrificing ones, there are plenty of movies that are about women of iron will. They go through all kinds of peril and emerge as a winner in the end. Personally these are the ones I genuinely dislike. I will not go in details but examples are Rajshri Brothers films, Saajan Bin Suhagan even Aradhana (no good can ever come out of sleeping with Rajesh Khanna) and so on.

What then do I mean by women who don’t confirm to patterns? My women are not unrealistically strong but are normal women who show genuine courage and strength. Not glorified symbols of virtue but a normal woman. Do Hindi films ever show women like that? Surprisingly the answer is yes, not many but quite a few. I am giving you my top choices to illustrate the point.

Arth, both the women are actually normal, in fact Smita has absolutely no qualms about sleeping with a married man and her eventual psychotic disorder is also excellently portrayed. Shabana is the strong one, and what she does to Kulbhushan in the end is exactly how any normal woman with some self respect will behave. Arth was a huge success. In case you haven’t watched it do so, it’s a great movie.

Aandhi, Suchitra Sen doesn’t go back even though she realizes that she loves her husband. It is an exceptional movie about a politician’s career and her failed marriage that can never be restored. But it’s Gulzar and he is simply incapable of disappointing.

Anahat, it’s in Marathi but I have to include it. It’s my topmost choice. Based on the ancient Indian system of niyoga, the theme is simple, extremely well made. I will always be thankful to Amol Palekar for making a movie like this.

Astitva, that’s why I simply love Tabu. The heroine Aditi (isn’t that wonderful!) is the most traditional wife who finally speaks her mind out and decides to make her life better.

Bandini, to most people it seemed like endless suffering of an innocent girl. But remember Nutan kills Ashok Kumar’s wife and goes to him in the end. True he was her lover and circumstances forced their relation to end, but how many heroines kill the wife?

Chandni Bar, Tabu is a bar dancer who can’t escape circumstances. But this is one very unusual strong woman and an excellent movie.

Damini, the maid’s rape was no business of Meenakshi, yet she fought for her and even went against her family and husband. It’s actually one of my favorite films. Damini inspires me. The heroine is truly strong and fights without being the goddess. It’s probably one of the best movies with a woman in the lead role.

Doosra Admi, Yash Chopra surprisingly brings some normal women in his abnormal movies. Actually let’s not be mean, he made few really bad films but some of them are very good. In this movie Rakhi wrecks a young couple’s life because she sees her dead lover’s image in the young man. Sashi plays her dead lover and Rishi is the young man.

Fire, for it has lesbian relationship in it. And it potrays accoss the silent revolution of two unwanted women. I may or may not approve the way they take, but this movie is special for me simply because they donot fathom to supression.

Guide, Dev Anand is a very special person. Of course because of his looks and for bringing in some most unconventional feminine as well as masculine images to Hindi cinema. We now know him as the biggest crazy guy in Bollywood but he brought in some major changes. I had read the book Guide and I have to admit the movie is better. Waheeda leaves her husband, not because he is abusive or evil, simply because she falls in love with the guide and wants a better life than stifling in her loveless marriage. She pursues her career and when she falls out of love again she makes it clear. Rosie (that’s Waheeda) is one of the best heroines we ever had. And the character is so real - not deviod of any faults, but strong since she has the guts to follow her heart.

Hu Tu Tu, Gulzar again. Tabu’s a spoilt brat who eventually becomes an activist. It’s not one of the best films of Gulzar, but the two women characters are remarkable. Suhashini Mulay plays Tabu’s mother and does something human and natural, sleeps with her mentor to rise to power. Tabu on the other hand gets pregnant by Sunil Shetty but never thinks of marrying him because she knows marriage as such is only a social stupidity and love is what counts.

Hum Tum, though definitely inspired by ‘When Harry met Sally’ the film had very little in common with the English one. It’s a rather refreshing movie. Rani does two great things, sleeps before marriage and is willing to plunge in a normal life after becoming a widow. These two most normal things are so no no in Hindi movies that a normal woman was a welcome change.

Insaf Ka Tarazu, Another favorite of mine. If you haven’t watched it, please do so. Zeenat Aman is a model who loses her rape case because a model is ‘loose’ anyway. Male chauvinism is at its peak in this movie.

Ijazat, Two very unusual women, Rekha leaves the husband who cheats on her, Anuradha Patel the woman who refuses to marry and prefers live in. Only and only Gulzar could make a movie so touching and honest. The best part of the movie is the clarity and honesty of every character.

Kya Kehna, pregnant Preity Zinta keeps her baby. An out and out hopeless movie but has something different, specially when she doesn’t marry the biological dad. The only tragedy here is she chooses Chandrachoor over Saif!

Lamhe, a very soapy romance, yet the heroine (Sridevi) marries someone who was in love with her mother. This is definitely not conventional.

Mirch Masala, Ketan Mehta made some outstanding movies but went nuts afterwards like Mahesh Bhatt. It’s painful to think a guy who made Bhav ni Bhavai, also made Oh Darling yeh hai India and Maya Memsaab. But this masterpiece is about few unusual women who find the most unique way to avenge the villain. Please see it if you haven’t it’s the best movie on women empowerment.

Mandi, the fight of prostitutes against the moral police. This is Shaym Benegal, so you can’t go wrong.

Mammo, another Shaym Benegal movie about two sisters. Farida Jalal we all know is a great actress but this is her best, believe me. Also the way it explores Indo Pak relation is outstanding.

Paheli, the traditional village bride Rani chooses a ghost over her useless husband. It’s a fantastic, erudite movie. I love the folk flavor that’s in it. The puppets, the narrative style, the language and of course Shah Rukh’s in it.

Pinjar, what a beautiful movie. It’s that side of partition that was rarely shown. Urmila is great in it and I remember crying for weeks after watching it.

Satta, Raveena is forced into politics but once she is in it, she does it well. Not a great movie but yes an unusual woman there.

Samay, yes copied from seven, every bit but did you ever think Brad Pitt would be played by Sushmita Sen? Not only that she is a comfortable single mother.

Suraj ka Satvaan Ghoda, I have read the book too. A masterpiece, and each woman is so unique in their way particularly Jamuma, played by Rajeshwari.

Thoda sa Roomani ho Jaaye, I have innumerable reasons to love Amol Palekar. This movie questions the very masculine essence of feminity. I have watched it at least 50 times and can go on another 50 times. Anita Kanwar is in her 30’s unmarried and is naturally scorned by the so called ‘women’.

Zubeidaa, Benegal again and based on a true story. But I love stories about women who don’t confirm to patterns.

There are few more movies, I am not going into the details of but have unusual women.Razia Sultan, Pakheezah, Umrao Jaan, Lajja, Dayra, Sardari Begum and Saathiya.

On Fooding... and on Schooling

I agree I have been out of circulation for a while. Simple, I passed out of high school long back. In fact my school days can be actually described as ‘Once upon a time way back in the 80’s….’

But, school is one thing I am glad to get rid of. I can’t think of anything redeeming about my school. Insipid text books, brown paper covered stuff, plastic water bottles, oiled hair braided with ribbons (O God ! O God! And I am agnostic), black Bata shoes, songs in morning assembly. Ok, I will stop here but you get the point. I am not a huge fan of my school days and I don’t miss anything. The only time I see my school is in dreams and that I have very little control on. But ofcourse, this is only one aspect of it. Otherwise, school gave me my best of friends and teachers, and ofcourse some lovely memories, but thats different. Here, am only talking about the generation gap and what effect it has on schools.

The other day I had sometime to kill so I went to a superstore with my daughter and started looking at stationery and stuff children take at school. I have no clue why I had missed on all this but the range of pencil boxes, lunch boxes, school bags totally shocked me. My daughter loves to shop for stationeries and accessories. She is not that fond of dresses!(wonder if the hospital guys goofed up somewhere!) but she just loves to shop for pens, pencils, pencil boxes, pouches, etc. etc. And I was surprised to see such vast collections in the store.

It made me think of the material stuff I had in school. Every year there was a shabby green ‘Duckback’ brand schoolbag and almost everyone had the same thing. It was a strong steady bag that lasted for years. I deliberately damaged mine every year to get a new one; I was not a good kid. There were only two or three brands of pencil, the common one being ‘Camel’ with white base and pink flowers. The funny thing is all this mattered. If someone had a pencil with different design she would show it to the entire class and we would all take turns on holding it with some reverence. There was only one type of eraser a white square with a green tip and some picture on it. Everyone had steel lunch boxes; I don’t remember ever seeing fancy lunch boxes with attached spoons and stuff (I saw that very recently when my daughter started taking them to schools).

But what I remembered most and missed was the food that was clandestinely available near schools. Apart from the usual junk food there was a guy who came with an assortment of wonders. Phantom candy cigarettes, NP brand rose mint, red and black churan, ber (really small and tart ones with rock salt), raw imli, aamda and mouri logens (this is what we called in Bengali for sweet aniseed that came in attractive packets, the most common being a joker). He also had little cards with photographs of movie stars, whistles and few small toys. For 2Rs. you could buy loads of stuff, only most of us never got more than that as pocket money.

But the person I loved most was the cake wala. This guy had an aluminum trunk (could be tin, well metal) and shouted “Cake bolo cake”. He had multicolored collection of pastries and it enthralled me. My favorite was the gulab cake with overwhelming rose essence and dark pink frosting. Even today the very idea of rose cake fascinates me.

However, life is not about sweet recollections. It’s not about ‘O, what fun!’ My mother did everything in her power to amputate junk food from my system. I had to hide everything. Of course, she caught me from time to time but I was good at hiding this stuff. Life, you see was a continuous conflict and mothers always won (somehow, now when am a mother I see changes, now daughters win - people like me are born losers I guess). Anyways, I wonder if anyone remembers Cadbury’s Double Decker chocolate. For some reason it vanished from the market and it was my favorite chocolate back then.

Somehow for a long time I thought my mother was responsible for it. I vividly recall that particular time bracket! My mother was particularly cruel. She forced Complan, Horlicks or some of those punishment concoctions down my system everyday. She had replaced my favorite Sharbat-e-Azam with some fruit squash, she had even commented on my addiction to Pan candies. Naturally, I saw my mother behind all conspiracies. But that’s not my fault, anyone who grows up on Bollywood knows that you are either good or bad. The End. And for me, during my growing years, my mother was the Villain - typical Amrish Puri stuff. Ofcourse now, my views have changed completely.

P.S: Maa, no matter how much I fight with you, crib and complain, I know you are the best - whatever you did during my growing years, were for my good only, according to you! So your intentions were genuine, so what if the ways were horrible! And I love you for that.

Bending Gender Abuses

So why is it that so many downright awful swear words and abuses/gaalis have gendered undertones..and often overtones? Why is there a gender bias even in absolute unimportant issues like abuses? Say for example...

son of a bitch - You're abusing the son...but then, why you need to go through his mother? why? whats the point??

Mother and Sisterfucker. again..the latter f-person is being attacked..with his mother and sister being invoked in the bargain. hmm. I wonder why?

Is it because women are the symbolic capital of the stereotypical family and attacking them gets through to the whole clan? Or is it because women have always been considered as private property of men, and not any individual identity at all! If Yudhishthir can decide to put Draupadi on "daao" in his game, as as he did with his kingdom and other porperties... then probably it is only justified that we abuse the mother or the sister of the person we want to abuse!

Then again, there are various swear words that refer to male and female genitalia. Does reducing someone/referring to them by their sex organs go to the very core of who they are? I would hope not because surely there is more to us than procreation and sex...however important those may be...so whats the deal with dick/head and cunt and arsehole?

Hmm..points to ponder. Any thoughts?

Women centric movies in Indian Cinema

The other day when I was watching Pakheezah (did I spell it right?), I was thinking about women centric cinema. For that matter even women centric novels in our country - how many are they? Very few...

I was wondering why. Ofcourse I know the answer, it is because we have a patriarchal society at large. ITs ok, no big deal. But what actually struck me is that, even the few women centric movies that we have - almost 95% of them are about "Prostitutes". Be it Pakheezah, or Umrao Jaan, or even the modern day, Chameli - any woman oriented topic, as if by some Universal rule, has to be about prostitutes... Why?

I wonder why... does anyone have any answer to that?

A new India

This refers to my daughter and her friends - all of them around 8 years old. Three days back when we celebrated Independence Day, my daughter actually told me about what happened on 15th Aug'1948 - how people celebrated Independence day that day... she told me she had seen this in T.V. (next time I curse television, I should think twice). She went on telling me stories about Independence Day - its importance, its implications, and its relevance! And I was amazed at the amount of interest she displayed. Honestly, I remember when I was 8years old, I was not half as knowledgeable as my daughter then, and apart from what my class books taught me, I had absolutely no interest in anything else.

Then there was a get together - and there were 3 kids - all 8 years - and I was amazed to see them discuss Abhinav Bindra (last post of mine, I even misspelt his name), discuss Olympics statistics and even the guy amongst them (Mayank) gave out some typical terms of games (sorry dont ask me what they were, cos I absolutely have no clue) and tried to explain the ladies out there (Ranjana and Simar) as to why India lacks behind in Olympics. The same day I heard them discuss about Lunar Eclipse (there was one that day) and its implications...

This is the new age Indian generation - very knowledgeable (and mind you, I am not talking about bookish knowledge here), and more importantly, eager to know things - and rationally analyze them. You just cant tell them that you shoudnt have food during lunar eclipse - you have to give them reasons as to why you are making such a statement... and I must say - I am impressed with this lot - not as a mother, but as a citizen of this country - am proud to have this generation to pass over this country to... I am confident that they will take our nation to greater heights... and with that, Jai Hind...

P.S. : They know the difference between National Song and National Anthem, their respective authors, and the full songs...wow! There is so much to learn from them - Main paanchvi pass se tez nahin hoon (ok make that 3rd std)

Many a Slip

A flea and a fly in a flue
Were caught, so what could they do?
Said the fly, "Let us flee."
"Let us fly," said the flea.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

It is true, English is a strange language. The homonyms, homophones and homographs can be bewildering.

You pronounce words that are spelt differently in the same way; you spell the words the same way and pronounce them differently; as if it wasn't enough there are words that are spelt and pronounced the same way but mean different things depending on context. And then my daughter and my husband laugh at my pronounciations and make fun of my "bangali" accent!!! So not fair :-(

You think I am exaggerating? Just consider.

Aisle and isle are pronounced the same way but mean different things; ail and ale, blew and blue, cereal and serial. These are all homophones. Think of the fun confused people with limited knowledge of English have with 'sow', 'sew' and 'so', or with 'two', 'to' and 'too', or with 'do', 'due' and 'dew'; with 'doe' and 'dough' or 'deer' and 'dear'.

Row might be spelt the same, but it means a line or to propel a boat when pronounced to rhyme with 'roe' (and there is another confusion); and to have an argument when pronounced to rhyme with 'how'. Bow when rhymed with 'how' means something altogether different from what it means when pronounced to rhyme with 'low'. These are homographs. The confusion they can cause is a great source of pain for people like us. Then there's confusion caused by changes due to tenses. Take 'lead' for instance.

Homonyms are something else. When a word has the same spelling and is pronounced the same way but has different meanings, like bill, fair, pulse or row… such words might soar the hearts of people like the crossword compilers, but again, I am in deep trouble.

Like I am always in trouble with this English Language. Like the other day, I was chatting with a friend and got baffled when he said that he is trying to screw up courage to propose to a young lady. I inquired if he wasn't too young, if he didn't need to be settled before he could propose marriage. Surely he'd have to declare his intentions to the young lady and see if she was favourably disposed, before popping the question?

That was first time I came across the usage. It seems the meaning of the word 'propose' has become wildly distorted while I wasn't looking. He meant 'propose' in the sense of professing interest, I think.

To propose means primarily to make a proposal, declare a plan or a course of action for something; to present for consideration; to intend; to put forward or nominate for appointment to an office; or to ask someone to marry you.

The synonyms for propose are to advise, aim, declare oneself, offer, pop the question, project, purport or to suggest.

If we consider it as a noun, proposal means something proposed such as a plan or a supposition, an offer of marriage and the act of making a proposal. Here the synonyms are mostly marriage related – a marriage offer, a marriage proposal, and then proposition.

Ah, proposition is an entirely different thing. As a noun, it means a statement that affirms or denies something and is either true or false; a proposal offered for acceptance or rejection; an offer for a private bargain, especially for sexual favours; and the act of making a proposal, and a task to be dealt with.

As a verb though, there is only one thing proposition means: suggest sex to, or as many of my young cousins primly put it, to make an indecent or an immoral proposal to.

Young people these days take language and stand it on its head, and it takes old-timers like me a while to figure out what exactly is meant. To me, to propose meant, given the context, offer of marriage. But to my young friend, it meant declaring himself to be enamoured.

Boy: I want to marry you. I want you to be the mother of my children
Girl: But how many do you have?

Twixt the intent and speech, there definitely seem to be many a slip these days. Humour me for being an old fogey and I grant you English is strange, but still: as to the confusion between to propose, proposal and proposition and to proposition, I may feel tolerant, but when it comes to mistaking prepositions and propositions… the mind boggles.

Kaahin Door Jab Din Dhal Jaaye

I leaned back in my cane chair and smiled. You smiled back. The cool aftermath of rain left the evening scented and becalmed. Too early for frogs. The balcony had some puddles left still, but our corner was dry, our chairs in the usual places, the table between.

I hadn’t bothered to turn the lights on against the arriving night. We sat savouring the evening. The scent of raat ki raani arose presently, and I smiled again. You smiled back. So many memories hinge on that shrub and its fragrant flowers, do they not?

As dusk deepened into night I went in and fetched something to drink. You raised yours in silent toast. We sat together, as always. On the balcony, among the scents of night blooming shrubs planted by some thoughtful gardener long ago, we sat together, as always.

The descending night brought its own haunting sounds. A flute sounded plaintively, poignantly. It was untutored, utterly without sophistication, but the melody tugged at the heart. Some workman from the nearby construction site, surely. We exchanged smiles, my question unasked and your reply unnecessary. What did it matter what raga it was?

A car sped by. I frowned. You must have sensed that frown even though we were sitting in the dark. I felt rebuked by your silent reproof. Well, I suppose people did have to get from place to place.

There was no need for conversation. I thought your thoughts, and you could read mine, always. A glance and a smile, a squeeze of fingers or a nudge spoke for us. That distant sound of drums and cacophony, we shrugged at another procession to immerse another idol; that mournful hoot of a goods train before its wheels beat a rhythm on the tracks that lingered a long while after the train passed, we sighed in unison. So many memories attached to the sound of trains.

I went to fetch some more drink, negotiating the furniture easily in the dark. I sighed as I sat down. You looked disapproving. I was sighing in contentment, mostly, in gratitude for all the perfect evenings that went before. One more evening... You nodded.

Something brought the fireflies out. I watched in surprise. I always liked fireflies and all that they evoked. Some flitted close enough to try and grab. I didn’t, of course. You wouldn’t have liked that.

It was getting late. A distant dog barked in impotent fury at some slight. I got up regretfully. I folded and put away the chairs, dragged the table to a safe corner so it wouldn’t get rained on. I murmured a good night to you. Another evening gone by.

I went to eat my solitary dinner.

Because I Love You

She loved and trusted her. Her every step watched over, guided and protected. Then she grew up. Her every step watched over, guided and protected still, she chafed. There was the whole wide world to explore and learn. But she was hemmed in, penned and bound by a litany of you mustn’t, you shouldn’t, you can’t, it is not done. Or whats worse, she was told that the time has not yet come. And all that she wanted to do, would be rejected with only one excuse, "tomar ja moner icche, bor er shonge puron koro" (whatever your heart wishes, fulfill them with your husband).

If she had ever voiced the question, crying, “why are you doing this,” she had been told in hurt and loving tones that were actually implacable, “because I love you.”

**************************************************************************

She loved and trusted him. Her every action watched, every move noted, her world small as ever; still hemmed in, penned and bound by you can’t, you shouldn’t, you mustn’t, and more. Or whats worse, she was told that the time has gone to explore her dreams; she was told its time she should mature, shoulder responsibility and be practical. And all that she wanted to do, would be rejected with only one excuse, "eishob korar shomoy periye geche; biyer aage koroni keno?" (the time has gone for you to chase your dreams, you should have fulfilled your desires before marriage!).

If she’d ever thought to ask “why are you doing this,” she would have been told “because I love you” with the same implacability.

***********************************************************************

She discovered bonsai. All her hemmed in, penned and bound realities shaped her trees. She became particular. She grew trees from seedlings, saw them as saplings and urged and nudged and pinched them into the shape of her vision. Then she used wires. If she thought her first seedling grown into sapling reaching out to experience more of the world ever asked her, “why are you doing this,” she’d have gone on twisting the wire around the branches to bend and hold them to the perfect front view and back that she envisaged for the young tree, and she’d have whispered “because I love you.”

Her collection of imprisoned trees, her miniature world grew as she aged. Unnaturally shaped to imitate nature, with hollows and lightning-struck scars and more detail, her trees grew. Her loving mother, who defined her boundaries when she was a child, who tainted her pubescent and teenaged perception of the world, was long dead now; her husband, who refined those boundaries and fences and limits, dead for a month.

She was old, herself. But not so old that she couldn’t dig a patch and find the perfect spot in the sprawling grounds her house was set in; it was the mansion and grounds that she was given in marriage to as much as her husband, by her mother. She was going to plant that tree, her first seedling sapling young tree that she stunted into submission; plant it in soil that would let it grow, now at forty years of age. At liberty to grow as it pleased at last.

“Are you crazy,” her sons screamed at her. “That tree will fetch thousands for its age alone. You are destroying it.” They took her potted world away from her to be cared for by a gardener. She was taken aback.

Bewildered, she whispered the words, “why are you doing this.” And she received an honest reply.

“Because these bonsai are money.”

Call me weird, but not a Lesbian

Dr. Kalyani Sutradhar (henceforth addressed ad KS), the psychiatrist, seated herself across from Shopno. After a quick hello, she came straight to the point. Looking at Shopno intensely, she asked, “Why are you here?”

“They think I am weird,” said Shopno, “and I want to find out…” She didn’t let her finish the sentence. “Who are they?” she interrupted.

“I should have chosen a male psychiatrist” Shopno muttered to herself.

“My blog readers, friends, and above all, my husband” said Shopno.

“You have a blog?! A real one with real readers?! Not imaginary?!” She inquired. KS seemed convinced that Shopno was off the rocker from the get go.

“It’s a real one! I am not that nuts yet. You can check it out at mitraditi.blogspot.com”

KS opened the blog. She asked..."Shopno? Why do you choose that name"

"Because I prefer that name"

“You prefer to call yourself Shopno?”

She scribbled in her pad, in plain view. “Likes to be identified as imaginery,” she wrote.

“It would help me understand you better if I saw your blog.” She opened the blog and she immediately was taken aback.

"Post on pregnant woman?! On gynaechological details?!"

“No, no. It is just a humorous article on how to have fun at a gynaecologists office”

She paid no attention and scrolled down quickly glancing through the articles. “Another article on pregnancy.. hmm... pregnancy pondering?! how many times did you write about pregnant woman in the recent past?”

"A couple of times", Shopno said meekly.

“Man having fun at gynaecologist. Dirty mental images of pregnant women. Sexual harassment in office...hmmm. Let me ask you, do women in the gynecologists room turn you on?”

“WHAT? What the …”

“Are pregnant woman your fetish?

Shopno sat upright, horrified. “NO!” she shouted, “how the hell did you make that inference?”

KS said nothing but scribbled on her pad again: “Pregnant women is an emotional subject for patient; patient bashes men at every instant; even talks about ways of wearing sarees!!!” Without lifting her eyes from the pad, she spoke sternly, “Please don’t read my notes.” She put a hand on the notes to hide them.

She continued the interview. “So your readers, and err... friends, do they have similar interests?” she asked, carefully selecting the word “interests”.

Irritated, Shopno lashed out, “Don’t insult my readers. Most of them are women with children.”

KS said nonchalantly, “Are you saying they were all pregnant at one time?”

Shopno found no words to respond. She buried her face in her hands and stared at KS vacantly.

She continued, “Are you attracted to your readers?”

Waving her hands frantically, Shopno shouted, “NO NO! Most of them are my childhood friends”

It was as if those words never reached Dr. Smith. She continued, “It seems their accusation of your being is weird may not be completely groundless. But I think there is something more to it”

She scribbled something in the pad. As she put the pen back, she dropped it on the floor. It presented a good opportunity for Shopno to read the notes when Dr. KS bent down to retrieve the pen. As she stood up to read the notes, Dr. KS suddenly looked up. Her face turned red. She clutched her blouse closer and shouted, “Are you checking out my maternity bra?”

Shopno dropped on her knees and begged. “Dr. KS, I don’t know how to convince you. My writing about pregnancy means nothing. It’s just an easy topic to write humorously. At least read rest of the blog. I agree I make fun of men, but all thats done with plain and simple humor, honestly no offense meant. Its just that I work in a reputed MNC where I hardly have anything to do, so to kill my time, I blog. Often I run out of topics, and then, just for the sake of fun i keep on writing funny things - even the labels read as Nonsense-Funny”

She seemed a little convinced. She let go of the paperweight she was holding and proceeded to read the rest of the blog. She read for a few minutes, her face very serious, which in itself was an insult for what was purported to be a humor blog. To add injury she asked, “Do you use any illegal drugs?”

“No,” answered Shopno.

“So you produced all this while you were completely conscious.”
“Yes”
“All those 10 ways of wearing saree, Indian-Spider man, Pregnancy advice, and rest of the, um.. humor, you wrote consciously and willingly?”
"yes"
"And you say you are working lady, but with no work - so you have written all this during your office time - in full consciousness?"
"Yes"

Dr. KS spoke with a surprised look on her face, “I have seen so many people in my career. But, you are the weirdest!”

Shopno sighed in relief. "Weird" is so much better than "Lesbian/pervert". She asked, “All I want to know is, if I will ever be normal”

She said, with a sympathy filled tone, “Mrs. Shopno. Looking at your work so far, I am sorry to say there is no hope for you. You will be weird for the rest of your life.”

Shopno beamed with delight. “Thank you! that’s all I wanted to know. Now I can blog forever.” She walked out a relieved person.

Happy Birthday to Me - a page from my Diary

Life is a story of losing as we move on, losing innocence, virginity, beauty, loved ones, hair...... that sort of things; well actually no, its also about gaining! After 30 there are two things that I continuously gain no matter what. Age and weight.

That’s exactly how I see another birthday; I am now officially older and fatter. Needless to say eating a cake with my name written on it is the only thing to look forward to on birthdays. All other milestones have been taken care of. I can drink (not that I prefer doing it though, but i can, if i want to), watch adult cinema (again, not very interested, but no one can stop me), make love, buy anti wrinkle cream. It’s all done.

Birthdays in my world are strictly for children, I mean for genuine juvenile minds. As a juvenile I loved birthdays because it was synonymous with presents and a remote possibility of getting a taste of colored (assorted) frostings.

My mother thought colored frostings were bad so got me dowdy cakes with whitish frostings and some useful fruit pieces on it. This is my mother for you, connecting morality with personal taste. Bright colored frosting is evil, cake decors are sin, buttercream is another word for devil. So what did I get? Some sponge with whipped cream and no goodies on top :-( But ofcourse, in the milestone years (like 5th or 10th birthday) my father compensated me with those delicious stuffs from the Flury's, but after a lot of opposition from my mother (now you know why I love my father so much?)

Anyways, my mother's opposition resulted in my fixation with colored frosting. I actually scrape off frosting from cakes eat the frosting and leave the cake behind, mind you only richly colored frosting. Talk about disturbed childhood.

Then came my inability to blow the candles and spitting all over the grumpy cake. My mother making inane comments like ‘parchish na keno!’ (Why can’t you do it?). As if blowing was something I should have been good at!!!!!

Anyway after all blows, song and cheer, I couldn’t cut the cake. Simple, I was bad at it. Keep in mind this is a kid we are talking about, it wasn’t natural for me to be good with knives. So every year my father helped me to cut the cake.

I loved the presents; I was a happy kid who liked anything that came in wrapped in a colorful paper. It didn’t matter what was inside, it took no effort to make me happy. I wasn’t old enough for real happiness then.

Birthdays also meant no studying, one evening when I was left alone with my toys, books or whatever booty I managed from the neighborhood. I didn’t have to study!

Talking of birthday presents my mother was always embarrassed when people got presents on my birthday. I have no clue why but people are always like that. Now as an adult I do that when someone gives me a present, ‘O you shouldn’t have, come on why did you?’ but I mean exactly the opposite, ‘Wow! A present do it more often. I love it. Give me anything. But keep giving’.
But my mother went a step ahead while inviting people she said, ‘Just come, don’t bring anything.’
This killed me.
A) I didn’t like most of the kids I invited.
B) I gave them presents on their birthdays. It's not fair.
Thankfully none of them listened to what my mother said.

Every birthday I sit and contemplate about bygone years and just one thought comes. It’s my birthday I don’t have to study today……I have moved on so much yet why, why can’t I just move on?

Love is...contd

Love is... uttering "its all over" every now and then :-(

Long live love...

Lalu's Magic

It is impossible not to be impressed by Lalu Prasad Yadav’s oratory skills. The Lok Sabha is stunned into silence, punctuated by roaring laughter. For all his corruption and obvious flaws, this man knows how to talk to a big bunch of politicians. Even Somnath Chatterjee is giggling. Especially as Lalu explains the nuances of the Hyde Act in his own inimitable way.

It’s also possible that the Opposition doesn’t have a grip on his accent, and doesn’t quite know how to react. I wish somebody was live blogging the Lok Sabha proceedings. This has to be one of the most engaging debates in recent years. While we are at it, take a look at Lalu's blog, and his opinions on the nuclear deal.

They claim the deal will mean we are forming a pact with the US. What pact?
Countries form pacts with each other. They forget that we have had pacts with
Russia and other countries. Power is must as we need it for infrastructure
development. Sloganeering will not help and roti (daily bread) will not tumble
from heaven.
If the US helps, we should take advantage and accept the help
and benefit from it. We have not pawned our independence or sovereignty. The
deal doesn’t mean becoming slaves of the US. If the US does not sell us, we can
buy uranium from Russia, France, Germany, Australia or any other country.

Not only does he blog, there’s also a podcast with each of the posts. I guess he basically talks into a recorder, and somebody sits down to translate it into a post. But still, an interesting effort.

Love is...

Love is... thinking its a routine, when you talk to your love everyday at a particular point of time :-(

Long live love...

The Weekend...

Am back to office after an extremely lazy and a wonderful weekend. Lazy because mostly i was home and watched 7 movies in the lst 2.25 days. And wonderful because I spent some good quality time with my daughter doing our favorite things (ok, mostly mine) together. Feeling nostalgic about the weekend, and not letting the memories go ever, I have decided to blog about it, so that, history is recorded and never forgotten :-)

We started off on friday evening by watching Qayamat Se Qayamat Tak followed by Bhoothnath.

Saturday first half was the best part, when I went to pick up my daughter from her activity class... and hold your breadth, I drove all alone! Now, now, I know you all already know that I am an excellent driver, but what you dont know probably is that my daughter studies in the South Point School and parking your car infront of their building is worse than a nightmare! Somehow I managed, as luck was in my favor. I picked her up, completed some unfinished work related to her school, and then... we went shopping... not Mall haunting, but ACTUAL shopping - in Gariahat. We bought loads of stuffs, ranging from pillow covers and cushion covers, to her school uniform and socks, to our favorite items - trinkets - bracelets, clips, rubber bands, and the works! It was a hot summer (infact monsoon which is even worse with intensed humidity) afternoon but our spirit was unstoppable. And then to reward ourselves we went to Mainland China for a wholesome Lunch - and I literally mean, WHOLESOME. And after all these activities we came back home and straightway headed for a sound afternoon (make that late afternoon) nap.

Saturday evenning we watched Om Shanti Om together, her favorite movie. Saturday latenight I made her watch Maine Pyar Kiya, my favorite movie. Strangely enough, she actually liked the movie and my expert comments on Bhagyasree, the leading lady of the movie.

Sunday morning started off pretty late with a heavy breakfast followed by some household chores for me and homework for my daughter. And then we watched Chak De! India on SET MAX. This is one of the few movies I dont mind watching again and again. Since i had decided not to sleep in the afternoon, I started watching Pakeezah about which I shall blog later, and then in the evening I watched Shaurya. Followed by lunch I went off to dream, i mean sleep and after a wholesome 8 hourse of sleep and all charged for the week commencing today!!!

The weekend gone will be a memorable one for quite sometime to come. And now, sitting in office, am missing my daughter who am sure is feeling something similar doing her class work in school right at the moment...

The Business of IPL T20

If anybody is wondering as to why I am writing a post on T20 after its over and almost forgotten, well here are my reasons

# I have nothing else to do
#I have run out of "topics"
# I came across this site, quite accidentally (http://www.petitiononline.com/savecric/petition.html)

In Hyderabad, there is a legendary restaurant called Paradise and they serve what is arguably one of the best Biriyanis in the whole world. Now what does that have to do with the Indian Premier League T20 tournament? Actually, nothing.

Also, in Kolkata, there is a Chinese restaurant named Mainland China where you can choose vegetables of your choice from a bar and the chef will, in one quick burst of flame, burn your pickings into a homogeneous, gelatinous goo and with a beaming grin say “Have a nice day“, and serve it to you with a bowl of rice . And what does this have to do with T20 cricket? Actually, nothing either. But you see, the delicate taste of a Biriyani comes from slow cooking and a careful selection of spices, unlike Wok-fried Vegetable Goo of mainland China, which tastes exactly like Wok-Fried Vegetable Goo from Denver, or for that matter, any other place, because as the saying goes, “Contempt (for patient cooking) breeds Familiarity (of taste)”. It is very hard to achieve subtlety of taste in Chinese fast food. And what does that have to do with T20?

Nothing, actually.

You see, I find it hard to write authoritative, hard-hitting, thought-provoking essays on the fine game of cricket because of the minor matter of qualifications. So instead, I will write about the BUSINESS of cricket. Many years ago, it used to be the business of CRICKET, and Kerry Packer made it the BUSINESS of CRICKET, but with the IPL, cricket has simply lost its uppercase. Not that I don’t enjoy T20. I do like Wok-fried vegetable goo once in a while, actually make that Wok-fried chicken goo for me please.

Back to the subject at hand, there are 3 stages in sports-capitalism

1. Exponentia, where a sudden surge in popularity of a particular sport makes hay for a lot of people
2. After a while, the big boys take over and pull no stops to squeeze money out of everywhere, such as from unearthly ticket prices, pay-per-view TV channels, advertising and merchandizing. Robber Baronia.
3. Once, all the cash cows have been milked, there is no choice but to sedate the cow and milk harder. We then have IPL T20. Adbominalia

Since we are talking strictly about T20, we shall restrict our discussion to Adbominalia.

The Laws of Adbominalia

• Ads start once the 6th ball of an over (even if it is a no-ball) has been delivered.
• Ads finish only when the bowler has started his run up for the first ball of the subsequent over.
• Upwards of 50% of the screen is frequently taken over by animated ads. With sound. Louder than the commentators’ voices.
• There are animated, hyponosis-inducing ads on the boundary signboards.
• While there is a replay of a good shot, there will actually be an advertisement which will stop us from seeing the "replay" and it will say -"what a shot!" (Hello! thanks to your advertisement, I just missed the replay, so will accept what you have to say about the shot)
• Cricketers will soon resemble Formula One drivers in terms of being high-density real-estate for brand names .

But then hey, what gives me solace is the fact that I can still take refuge in the ad-less world of cricket commentary. I can still relax in the familiar cliches of Ravi Shastri, the soul-deadening boredom of Arun Lal or the sweet Carribean twang of Ian Bishop. Right? Right?

No.

Robin Jackman cannot say “Success” any more. It has to be “Citi Moment of success“

Ranjit Fernando cannot say “Six” any more. It is “DLF Super Six“.

Holy Arranged Matrimony! it’s now brand names embedded into commentary. So what else is possible now?

He gave it the Parryware Kitchen sink

He is an MDH Masala seasoned campaigner

India are Daewoo Motoring along now.

He has smashed that past LIC Extra Cover

Gilette Razor edged, and taken

That was a Sri Krishna sweetly timed shot.

But it does open up interesting possibilities. For one, I would like our commentators to start getting cheeky and say things like

Ganguly’s batting has been Citi sub-prime. Wink wink.

Rahul’s technique is completely bug free. Must be all the Pepsi. Wink wink.

Update: If you also are suppressing an irresistable desire to strangle me after reading this post, I sincerely suggest, you sign up for what actually prompted me to write this post and that is

http://www.petitiononline.com/savecric/petition.html

An Open Letter from a Male Project Manager to Women reportees in IT

This letter was originally intercepted by undercover agents employed by the Pointy Haired IT Manager Committee For The Maintenance Of Status Quo and destroyed before it could be made public. But they left a proverbial copy at the printer. And in this post, I present that to you.

The author of this letter is a long time IT project manager and is said to have been fired from his job for suddenly contracting a Jim-Carrey-in-Liar-Liar-type disease.

Hello IT Leddies,
I must first introduce myself. I have been in IT for 8 years now. Why, you ask?

Reason#1

In the "inverse-relationship" graph of Pay-n-Effort, IT employee comes to a close second position, the first one being occupied by "Idle person with inherited money".

Reason#2

In the "inverse-relationship" graph of Skills Required-n-Career Growth, IT employee gets the first position, even beating "Idle person with inherited money".

That's why!!!

Anyways, but this letter is about something else. This is a Thank-you letter. In gratitude to all of you. As a Project Manager, I owe a large part of my career growth to all of you. One might even say that it came at your cost. I am indebted to you for letting me get away with a very subtle, hard-to-detect and practically ineradicable form of male chauvinism despite working in an industry that pats itself on its back for being more women-friendly than any other industry.

On an average, IT firms in India tend to have between 30-40% women on their rolls. So cumulatively, you are a pretty large group. But if we just take a count of the number of women who are Vice-presidents and above, it’s a ridiculously small number. So even if I was not a visiting professor at the Maximegalion Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious (MISPWOSO), one of you could still look at these figures and say “Hey. C Here. Something is rotten in the state of Java”. But you don’t. He he. And I want to Thank-you for that.

Managing IT projects is hard enough, but not without these “guidelines” to “effectively” manage projects to make my life “easier”. These have been handed down to me by IT managers of previous generations.

• If you are a girl, you can be put in testing or quality assurance. Guys will generally decline or threaten to quit if offered these positions. So when you need to find 100 people (by the proverbial EOD) to do testing, QA, DB administration and configuration management (all considered by guys to be dead-end jobs), it is so easy to sweet talk you into “how strategically important this is for you (company)”, herd you in, and start the billing. So thank-you.
• If you are a girl over 25 years old and single, I can coolly consider you a risk from a resource planning perspective because you could get hitched any time, and marriage usually tends to involve one of

1. Resignation, because your in-laws don’t like working girls.
2. You are likely to decline abroad opportunities because hey, i know since 99.99% chances are that, your husband is not going to quit his job to join you.
3. You are likely to become pregnant any time and therefore a potential 3 month billing-loss candidate as far as I am concerned.If your would-be works in another city, chances are, you will demand a transfer, and HR departments in IT companies hate transfers because their promotions and bonuses depend entirely on preventing them.

So I thank you for letting me simplify planning by letting me apply the rule - “Girls over 25 and single, keep them offshore in non-critical positions, preferably in QA, testing, DB/Server admin and configuration management”. My brain works much better when I don’t have to consider too many parameters. And I have you to thank for that.

Promotions are difficult things to handle, but you make that easy for me as well.

• I hardly ever need to worry about offering you “Architect” or "Consultant in implementation" positions, because

1. My boys club mates tell me that drawing boxes in powerpoint slides and writing a bunch of lies in concise bullet points is not something girls can do well. Everybody in my peer Project Managers’ group tells me that men are better and more convincing liars and can coolly and calmly justify wrong decisions, something an architect or a consultant needs to do all the time.
2. In any case, you need to be about 28 or so before you become an architect, by which time, you are probably married and have kids and cannot make 1-month trips abroad or stay back in office till 1 am in the night, and therefore even if you are perfectly capable of being smart and productive in the 8 hours you work in a day, I don’t need to promote you. I thank you for letting me encourage a culture of “Work more, not work smart”. It’s simpler you know. Promote anybody who sends me emails at 1 am in the night.
3. Guys demand and fight for higher performance ratings and promotions like a pack of hyenas over a deer carcass. You generally do not. Therefore it saves me half the trouble. I take most of your promotions and hand them out to guys who couldn’t print “hello world” even with pencil and paper. I thank you for helping me meet my performance curve targets by allowing me to ignore most of you.
4. It is sooo easy to do performance appraisals for you girls ya. All I need to do is whip out my standard “You need to involve yourself in more value-adding activities outside of your project work” and give you a lesser rating than I would give the trained male chimps who code in my project. When I was young, I used to get psyched by all your crying and stuff. But with experience I have now learned that crying at performance review meetings is, in fact, a sign that you have accepted what has been conferred. So I thank for you for the clear and precise signal. Men are so tricky, you know. At performance review meetings, it’s hard for me to make out if they are planning to kill puppies post-meeting or strangle my neck, or both.
5. Your chances of becoming a project leader entirely hinge on how the men in your group will receive your promotion. If there are male peers in your group, you stand no chance, unless there are an equal number of opportunities. Promoting a girl when an (albeit less qualified) male peer is available could cause the guy to threaten to resign and therefore why risk that, eh? It keeps my HR manager happy when the men in my team are happy with their performance ratings and promotions. I thank you for letting me consider your promotion only when the men in your group are substantially younger to you.

Well. In short, I thank you for enabling the subtlety of this whole thing. Those of you who do grow in your careers, don’t think this is a problem, and the vast majority of you who don’t grow, also don’t have a problem, because you take the whole marriage-first-career-later thing in your stride. Good for you. And for me. He he. So in short, nobody will actually admit that there is a problem. It’s a perfect wedding between the established social system of male-centricity and professional project/career planning convenience, something that is likely to keep a lot of you out of Vice-president posts for years to come.

I am so lucky that none of you come and ask me why I make the resourcing and planning decisions I make. Because, you know, you can put me in a spot. You can refuse dead-end positions if you wish to. IT today has a serious manpower supply problem, and yet, you make it so easy by being all of the above and more. Every IT manager dreams about team members who are complete push overs. And most of you IT girls are like "our dreams come true" for us. You can’t get fired for being troublesome. Hell, you just can’t get fired nowadays. Companies are fighting hard to retain staff, and yet, you girls silently accept what you are given. Such a comfort for me ya.

The top companies in India have unholy profit margins. And you girls help in a big way. I can get away with taking most of your promotions and appraisal ratings and passing a part of them to the men. So the balance? That’s the grin you see on every shareholder’s face.

Thank You.

ps: Thank you very much.

pps: Thank you very very much.