Why I don't wear a sari on International Women's Day

When all my female colleagues were mutually planning to wear saris to office the day before International Women's Day, I politely refused to participate. The first time I did this - refused to drape a sari on Women's Day, 5 years ago - I drew some flak from my then colleagues, notably my best friend who alleged that I just loved being different for the heck of it. Any other time of the year, she pointed out, I don't mind turning up for work draped in the national garment, so why not today? I'm sure my present colleagues and new friends have the same question - so here are some of my reasons. (Note: some bits of it are not very pleasant. Do not click if you are easily offended.)

Ring out the old: some ads I never want to see again

1. Zomato.com
What's with all those thappads? Wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. Thankfully, the ads are about the New Year's Eve, and the happy bells of 2012 will indeed ring them out. Sadly, that cannot be said about some of the other ads that are robbing me of my happiness.

2. goibibo.com
Again some thappads? Really guys, is the entire Indian advertising industry so totally out of ideas?

3. Snapdeal
I don't know if I'm offended by the sheer racism of depicting Yamraj as a South Indian villain or simply by how dumb and unfunny the ad is. Maybe both. Notice how all the most annoying ads are about websites? Speaking of which...

4. bestylish.com
"There is a thin line between sexy and sleazy," says Vidya Balan, who can incidentally use that line as a skipping rope. The 'sexy footwear' ad on the other hand, is far, far away from that line - and you know on which side it is.

5. 'December! December!'
Some car, I don't even remember which. Apparently they have some good deals going on in December. Thankfully, only 3 more days of watching that little kid jumping about with joy.

6. Tata Sky - Muffin!
Pregnant women are NOT dumb, annoying, unreasonable, selfish, obsessive fiends. Anyone who thinks otherwise, meet me outside my office unarmed and alone and we'll settle this like gentlemen.

And this is all the trash I'm exposed to without watching a single Hindi entertainment, movie or music channel. My mom was right. Television is bad for your brain. Man, do I miss Lalitaji!

Tu Tithe Mee - old people are not all tragic characters

Warning: This is going to be a rambling post, and incidentally it is not about Baghban. So you may skip directly to the fourth paragraph and lose out on nothing.

Whenever I hear someone talk about what a sweet, sad and touching film Baghban is, and how it makes parents reflect on their sad, imminent future, it makes me realise how little we Indians demand of our movies. Give us a kind old couple with golden hearts, a bunch of selfish kids who relentlessly mistreat them, a motley bunch of friends who help the old couple pull things together, and watch us wet our hankies. Like in many things, my dislike for Baghban stems not so much from the film itself - I think Hema Malini was looking gorgeous, and the improbability of having a teenaged granddaughter within 40 years of marriage (hastily explained in the opening scenes as a result of both Amitabh and his oldest son having married very early - what the heck?) or a man claiming to have worked 40 years in a bank which was established less than ten years before the film was made - these are all goofs that we have long forgiven Hindi cinema for.

My bias against the film comes from the fact that the story is so time-worn - I’ve seen half-a-dozen films in the Doordarshan days with similar sad tales of old people - two of them had a 40-something Rajesh Khanna play much older characters. Now there is nothing wrong in re-adapting an old plot with a new look. The thing is, Baghban adds nothing to the story by way of interpretation. The sons and daughters are all like one big, insensitive monolith. The two happy-family songs in the family at the beginning and the sudden turn-around in all the characters as soon as they learn that their old father is broke after retirement, has all the depth of a Madhur Bhandarkar film. In real life, when old parents move in with their sons and bahus after many years of both couples living independently, there always are domestic problems, conflicting lifestyles and a difficult phase of adjustment. This does not happen because either the parents or the children are bad people, but because they are different. But again, Baghban is not a psychological study, it is a Hindi film with an emotional story. And there comes the main source of my prejudice - just a few years before Baghban, there came a Marathi film called Tu Tithe Mee, whose traces are all too evident in the later Hindi film. And Tu Tithe Mee is such a gem.

Yun hota to kya hota: An alternate history - Part I

Before 10^th Century CE: Indian sub-continent is in the grip of Dark Ages, with the influencial Brahmin class holding sway over the ruling Kshatriyas and exploiting the working class people. Ancient mythological texts like Vedas, Puranas, and the epics Ramayana and Mahabharata are accessible only to Sanskrit reading Brahmins, and the common man relies solely on their interpretation for all religious and spiritual guidance, as well as more practical decisions in private and public life.

Trade relations with Europe in the West, China in the North, and the Aztec and Mayan traders from the Far East keep the economy healthy, but the poor peasants living at the bottom of social hierarchy have no share in the general prosperity.

The first jolt to the status quo came with the conquest of Arabia by African tribes around 8^th Century CE. The hostile new regime practically blocked the trade of precious fur, leather and Mediterranian herbs that had been thriving through the land route between Europe and Asia. Winters in the Rajputana deserts and Gangetic plains were unbearable without European fur.

It was however the conquest of Kabul towards the end of 9th Century that marked a new epoch in the Indian history.

Kabul had been the seat of ancient Buddhist learning since many centuries now. Scholars and monks well-versed in the original Indian Vedic texts, history, philosophy of the ancient saints as well as the teachings of Gautam Buddha, had thrived and prospered in this cultural hub. They ran schools and universities which through the centuries had nurtured Chinese scholars, Muslim poets and philosophers, and Indian princes. The reputation of these universities and the cosmopolitan mix of students they attracted, had given Kabul its unique identity as a cultural melting pot and a very prosperous international city.

Now, with Kabul under the grip of the hedonistic African tribes, the rich foreign students stopped pouring into the city. Consequently, the universities started crumbling and the Buddhist scholars began considering the lavish offers from Indian royal families that had long been trying to lull these masters to tutor their clans.

The return of the Buddhist scholars brought about an intellectual and cultural revolution in the decadent Indian society. These masters, rejecting the existing social hierarchy, set up educational Gurukuls in the midst of the most populous cities. These Gurukuls were open to anyone who wished to learn and was able to either pay or serve the school. Education became gradually more accessible to the masses. Sons of peasants began questioning the hitherto uncontested authority of temple Brahmins.

The Indian Renaissance had begun.

Bijender Singh

I'm posting another short story I wrote some three years ago. Sweet, innocent times those were.

Bijender Singh was following me. I hadn't noticed.

It was my first time exploring Kolkata on my own. Without much of an agenda, I took the Metro to Park Street and wandered around the periphery of the vast Maidan, following the dead tracks of trams that once wheeled around the place. I did not see where I was going, or notice the man who asked me the time. I went on, following the tracks that got lost under a bridge.

I started walking along the edge of the bridge. I was thinking of how I had got here, in Kolkata, of all places, of all the places I had been in before – Vallabh Vidyanagar, Vadodara, Pune, Bengaluru. Switching from one course to another, one job to another, I had given everyone the excuse that the job I had taken up in Kolkata would give a boost to my career.

It was nothing of the sort. I just had to move out somewhere. And here I was, tracing the dead tracks of an outdated mode of transport in a new city.

Someone called out from behind me.

It was the man who had asked me the time. He was warning me that the bridge was not meant for pedestrians. I smiled and turned back. He told me his name was Bijender Singh, a guide who worked sometimes in Kolkata, and during summers in Dalhousie. I smiled again, and told him about my camping trip in Dalhousie; about how I loved the flower-laden valleys and the view of the town from our distant campsite. I was surprised at the ease with which I could talk to this stranger. My well-wishers would have killed me for trying so hard to get abducted, looted, raped, murdered, or all of above.

Now I’m not much of a museum person. But when someone, who’s just saved you from getting run over by speeding cars on a dangerous no-pedestrian bridge, offers to show you around a few boring places, you kinda say yes. We walked across the Maidan, had soft drinks at a stall. Bijender insisted on paying. He tried showing me around the garden surrounding the Victoria House, and blushed to see it infested with love birds of every feather. His stream of conversation dried up inside the Museum, where I busied myself for a while looking at colonial paintings and reading historical accounts, trying to trace the exact point in history where a glorious old city called Kolkata was degraded to Calcutta by ignorant colonizers.

Surprisingly, the little man didn’t ask for much of a tip, but in true Bollywood style, he wanted a souvenir to remember me by. I gave him my pen. He escorted me right up to the entrance gate of the Metro Rail, regretting perhaps, that he could not come right on to the platform and see me seated in the next train, just to make sure I was really going back home, and not just looking for an excuse to get rid of him. He also took my number. Of course, I gave my number to my new Bihari friend—with one digit altered. You see, I am not that trusting, nor very romantic.

But I do wonder at times, if Bijender Singh tried calling me that evening, and in the days that followed. Did it hurt him to realise that I had really just got rid of him? I shall never find out. Outside of the few hours that we spent talking on a day stolen from my routine, our worlds are completely different. Yes, we all grow up with those cute little stories of how two people from different worlds form these sweet little bonds of friendship that go beyond social perceptions. Whether such things happen in real life, and then how often, is one of those questions you don’t want to bother with. What is beyond doubt, however, is that you always take back something out of these little interactions. And so Bijender the Guide went back home with a pen. And I came back with a little story.

Its official. Indian women kick ass!

So while the nation was busy lamenting the state of Delhi stadiums and forwarding nasty Sania Mirza jokes, look who just went ahead and bagged a world championship for the fifth time in a row, and that in a totally different sport... but first, a few basics:

1 Indians are aware of the existence of a sport called boxing.
2 Women box too.
3 Manipur is a part of India. See, its there, in that part of the Indian map that politically correct people call North East. If any guys from my college are reading this, Manipuris are NOT Chinese!

So now for the news: yes, it is that 48kg Manipuri gal, M C Mary Kom! And while I know nuts about boxing or any sport for that matter, this piece of news makes my heart swell. Not just because this gives me a vague sense of national pride or anything, but... you see... the girl's a boxer! That's the dream, folks, that's every girl's dream come true. I mean, how many times in life does a girl feel like really punching the shit out of someone... really, really letting off all that emotional angst in pure physical form? So do you know what Mary Kom's victory means for all of us?

Soon enough, we'll have a new face selling Taaza Chai and Amrutanjan Balm on TV, or telling us now Tiger Biscuits can make a champ out of a North Eastern girl. In a couple of years we might even see her pitted against the top notch forgotten celebrities of all times in a dance reality show, or trapped in a jungle and eating roaches to feed hungry campers. We might even have a TV serial of a girl from a small town (which will look suspiciously like the Sanjay Gandhi National Park) aspiring to enter the Olympics to represent the country in the Women's Boxing matches, and how she manages to win plenty gold medals despite all the evil plans of her scheming sister-in-law. Soon, Mary Kom will rub shoulders with Saina Nehwal and the Late Kalpana Chawla. And before you know it, your one-year-old niece will start speaking in coherent sentences to tell you she wants to grow up and become Mary Kom....

... and thus, becoming a woman boxer will become a legitimate inspiration for a whole generation of growing up girls. Yay! If my niece is one of them, let it be known she has my blessings to practice her punches on any guy she wants to. In fact, I'll give her my own list of the most excellent punching male-bags. Anything to make my country proud.

Update:
This post was written over two years ago - Magnificent Mary has since participated and won a bronze medal at the 2012 Summer Olympics, so yay her. Also instead of a TV serial, we're going to have a movie based on her life, with the character of Mary played by... drum-roll... Priyanka Chopra! See, I'm not the only one who loves to see a girl throw a punch.

Enough with the retro look already!

Once upon a time in Mumbai, no self-respecting woman left home without the dramatic sweep of eyeliner in place. Or so our recent movies want us to believe. So to all you retro lovers, here's my special treat:

Don't you just love the 70s look?

Inspired?

Now for a small detail: the picture above is from a 1966 film. The one below is from a 2007 film pretending to be set in the late 70s, given that the opening shot finds our hero on the sets of a film that released in 1980.

Now, I am not underestimating our talented art directors and costume designers, seeing that a period film requires a lot of research before rounding up on the right costumes and hairstyles.


A lot of research indeed, which can be busted with a few minutes of Wikipedia and Google Images. FYI, few of the prominent films of the 70s (prominent, more so because of the way they redefined style for that decade):


Bobby: 1971

Notice: no eyeliner, no colorful headband, just the sizzling mix of wide-eyed teen innocence and understated sexuality.


Yaadon ki Baarat: 1973

Notice the hair simply let lose, no jeweled pins holding up an elaborate bun. Fashion and class personified.


Khel Khel Mein: 1975

Notice the bubbly girl next door look and total lack of the now obsolete filmi glamour.


In fact, another, completely contrasting celluloid image from the same year...
Choti si Baat - 1975:

Well OK, there's the eyeliner again, but this is Vidya Sinha. When eyes are the only thing you really dress up, you have to make the most of it.


But THIS style of draping a sari (dunno what its called): 

died with the 60s. Yes, Mumtaz looked sexy when she did this. But she looked sexy in 1968. In the 70s, Mumtaz made it a point to demurely cover up her ever expanding midriff.


The point being, the dramatic eyeliner, the tightly draped saree, the bejeweled hairdo, the body hugging hip-length kurti with churidar was as fashionable in mid-70s as a loose long kurta with "parellel" salwar aka Madhuri in Dil to Pagal Hai would be in 2010. The period look is fine, but please don't go overboard. And an eye-linered face in every single frame of the movie is definitely not done. Heck, there was a girl with the 'look' completely with thick headband in a scene where this politician is making a speech in a volatile all-Muslim locality! Because you know, that's what lower middle class Muslim women in Mumbai dress up like.


So all of you appreciating Om Shanti Om and Once Upon A Time In Mumbai for the 'authentic' 70s look, have fun watching Action Replay, the upcoming assault on the senses. I'm done with the retro look. In fact, I'm going to hibernate in my room and bury my head under a pillow till the retro winds have blown over. Wake me up after every period film with the fake 70s look is gone from public memory forever.

By the way, this scene was created out of
footage from the 1966 film Amrapali. 70s indeed.