Hi all ye’twitterers and bloggers
You people have just knocked out these mainstream media people who did a pretty late job of reporting on the Radia and Sanghvi episode. But, when they did, customarily they bought in old sods, who did nothing but hammed on television.
But did you ever wonder that you people are giving Sanghvi, who you loathe tremendously, more air time and spaces in your columns by discussing him?
Oh sorry, you never discussed him; instead you discussed - did Barkha Dutt sleep with Vir Sanghvi, Is Vir Sanghvi Congress chamcha or agent, his foxy and yellow journalism and this one’s takes the cake – ban mainstream media, they all are liars, boycott NDTV and HT, this issue should not die down etc…etc…
Of course, you had victory!
You had Vir Sanghvi pulled out his most most read Counterpoint column from the newspaper, you proclaimed to the world that WE set media ethics and you made Vir Sanghvi apologise to his readers, if he let them down.
But on a larger note, the recent developments taking place, buys me an entire new story. A story where news people become news.
N. Ram, the editor-in-chief of The Hindu was on Headlines Today channel and was not convinced with Vir’s apologies or his pulling out his column from HT and therefore he hopped from one TV Station to another, showcasing his disbelief as to such things happening and he wasn’t aware of it. He believes we journalists must raise the bar. If this happened with New York Times (NYT) or Financial Times (FT), they would have thrown the journalists out, but look at here with the HT. He believed after all that, HT should throw Vir out, of course, so people can actually switch to The Hindu. The Hindu doesn’t tolerate such kind of things. And you tweeters, if you ever accuse me any time that I am China’s chamcha or agent, I will not sack myself, I will just raise the bar of reportage in my newspaper.
Shoba Narayan, a Mint columnist, if at all you have heard about her, wrote in the newspaper that she had some reservations about Sanghvi because he led a great lifestyle and she didn’t. She didn’t get a chance to refuse such over-the-top hospitality that is offered to Vir because, well, admittedly she didn’t get it at the very first place. What if she would have got such freebies etc. that she accuses Vir of getting it without any shred of evidence? Of course, she would grab it with both hands; after all she writes about, The Good Life column in Mint’s Lounge magazine but gee, doesn’t get to live the good life which Vir has.
Samar Harlankar, an HT insider, finally sat down to write a lengthy piece on dangerous liaisons. I thought he would be candid about Vir Sanghvi, defending Vir’s positions etc. Yet the entire column was about media, politics and corporate nexus as if we don’t know anything about this. His position on keeping a distance from politicians, corporate is flawed. A corporate journalist would know or believe to know a great deal about a honcho and same with a political journalist. You keep a distance from them sounds morally good, but who would not want his first big story, who would not want to interact with their camps and who would like to be still reporters fielding questions from the ground distantly and not be a columnist and where would you draw the line of distance, tell me?
Karan Thapar, who discussed at length in CNN IBN about Vir Sanghvi’s conduct and sermon us in his HT column on Media’s the Message forgot very conveniently that a) Advani used to call him intermediary (somebody please explain me the meaning and context of all these words – lobbyist, go-betweens, intermediary etc) and b) he didn’t think of reporting a story of 2001 Agra Summit and twenty clandestine meeting which he had set up between Ashraf Qazi, Pakistan’s High Commissioner and LK Advani. Instead he reported it in 2008 under his self-indulgent column, The Untold Advani Story (and it was really crap I tell you). How easily then he points fingers on others that cabinet formation development by lobbyist was a good story and Vir and others should report it or that journalists should not be intermediaries or go-betweens.
Well, everybody loves a media circus.
And everybody wants to tame the tiger, when prominent journalist like Vir Sanghvi is involved who can brazenly attack the homosexual sod Sathya Sai Baba, call Modi a mass murderer, satire Jayalalitha as a sleaze ball and name Bal Thankre as the old boy and get away with all this yet sees an ever increasing readership to his columns either by his criticizers or by his avid followers. Which journalist does not want to fit in Vir Sanghvi’s shoes, ever?
Vir Sanghvi has defended well too much in his columns and in television so without going into the rights and wrongs of his doings, let me just jump down to few questions which the bloggers / twitters forgot to raise.
Never was Vir Sanghvi’s and others right to privacy questioned or discussed? We all acted as voyeurs getting a pleasure at this sudden revelation listening to how things worked out in real.
Tapping the telephone lines makes a grass-root journalists work pretty easy and confortable and after that everybody participates in bashing. We the tweeples said, don’t ever challenge national interest over right to privacy? It’s the national interest which is at stake when corporates lobbies for a minister, journalists help etc. So tomorrow we can tape bankers, next lawyers, doctors and we will have new moralistic codes for every service industries. Never mind, we will have several law suits in our overburdened courts on right to privacy and we will always be under surveillance just to protect our great national interest. We gonna broom and cleanse the system!
Vir Sanghvi was accused that he told Nira Radia that he would do a scripted interview with Mukesh. There was no interview with Mukesh as such and what I dig out was a column on his interviewing style which he himself wrote under the byline Sonia in camera, appeared on the rediff site, where he wrote, "The second surprise was the manner in which she behaved during the interview. She was clearly nervous in front of the camera and so I suggested that we do a dummy take. That is, the cameras would not roll but I would pretend that we were on the air, do my piece to camera, turn to her and ask a question. Her job was to answer this dummy question just so that she could get a feel of what the interview would be like". Of course you would point out, this is dummy interview and not a scripted interview and Vir Sanghvi told Nira Radia about a scripted interview. But the question is - where is the scripted interview or any interview with Mukesh Ambani?
Coming to tapes, Vir contends that these are selective tapes doctored and leaked, you may find several others unleaked which bears testimony to the fact that I am not guilty or which bears testimony that I asked the Tatas, the Ambanis and A Raja, to deposit in my Swiss account wads of cash(okie, I am just kidding).
But unfortunately, we don’t have other tapes and we don’t know the complicity of other media people involved into this.
But hey, tweeters! You handily forgot about all this and targetted the most popular ones in this media circus. After all, Raja was promoted through Sanghvi. Radia thanked many people in media but it was Sanghvi who whispered in Sonia’s ears. And how did you know this, you just guessed it and disregarded his defences that he never had a word with anybody in the Congress party and he just stringed along the source.
Now onto his Counterpoint columns, which Nira Radia earnestly dictated him on Mukesh Ambani. Hell, Nira must have gone bonkers to see the next day that the entire column was not as promised, it was about some fat oligarchs etc and only a breezing reference was to Mukesh Ambani. It was fair and not slanted towards Mukesh’s side also. Few days later, Vir again wrote a second column on the brothers, readers liked that column so much that it was the “most read column” on his website at that time. Now it turns out that both were not objectively written and they were dictated.
Couldn’t there be a chance that the first column was not objectively written and it was dictated and the second one was objectively written to rectify his prior mistakes and therefore he mentions he met Nira Radia from Mukesh’s side and he met some Tony from Anil’s side to get a perspective on his piece. But tweeters and you’ll bloggers dont get convince easily. But also, you dont ask yourself anything about Tony whom he also met and what transpired between them or about his second column where he just knocked down the Ambani brothers from both ends.
I will tell you something, this column writing thing whether objectively written or not is pretty subjective stuff so let’s not presume things up and ambush it. Lets read the column and decide for ourselves.
Last, were Open and Outlook magazines correct in pulling out these tapes and printing it thereby increasing their circulation?
Of course you are a fool if you believed that they wanted to send a larger message, such as media ethics or corruption in media or power nexus etc. But if you are completely in favour of free speech just as I am then tapping the phones and reporting the news to readers holds correct.
However, as it turns out in this case, sending a wrong signal and making Vir Sanghvi discontinue his columns which was widely read and making him a joke in front of TV where lunatics discuss self-righteously over moral and journalistic code of conduct, does not do fairness to people who believe in him and hold him in high regard. Your reporting in the magazine, without a clear conclusion, just left the readers, bloggers, tweeters with a question - who should we trust upon - Vir Sanghvi or you?
Regards
your fella
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
Review – Shutter Island
Shutter Island by Martin Scorsese (director of The Departed, Raging Bull etc) is a thriller based on Dennis Lehane’s novel. The movie was recently released in Bombay and I had few friends recommending me, but, by the time I had the time to watch it, it disappeared from the theatres.
Last night I saw the movie at my place, and slept the entire night thinking about different kind of delusions.
Now, the movie is not that you may understand fully in a first watch and apparently you may also have many questions. But, without revealing the plot, I would rather suggest you see the movie and then confirm your doubts, if you have any.
The movie begins slow pace and then builds up several characters, plots, twists and turns. It goes with Scorsese’s characteristic style of a fast paced thriller with fair amount of brutal scenes especially where dead bodies of children are lying cold or when the children are afloat dead on the river-bed.
Special mention of few scenes which will make you jump from your seat – When the actor sees several rats coming from a cave and does the least expected thing of all, or when he calls his friend from the edge of a cliff and you may wonder whether somebody will push him from behind, or when the paranoid patients run and scurry around in the mental hospital, at the same time the movie becomes really dark and gory.
Finally, here’s the catch for you – The whole story after you see it will make you wonder about the Wow factor and how in the world did Scorsese pull out and weave such a convoluted plot with so many turns and different characters.
Watch it; you would sleep with some hallucinations, in the end.
Last night I saw the movie at my place, and slept the entire night thinking about different kind of delusions.
Now, the movie is not that you may understand fully in a first watch and apparently you may also have many questions. But, without revealing the plot, I would rather suggest you see the movie and then confirm your doubts, if you have any.
The movie begins slow pace and then builds up several characters, plots, twists and turns. It goes with Scorsese’s characteristic style of a fast paced thriller with fair amount of brutal scenes especially where dead bodies of children are lying cold or when the children are afloat dead on the river-bed.
Special mention of few scenes which will make you jump from your seat – When the actor sees several rats coming from a cave and does the least expected thing of all, or when he calls his friend from the edge of a cliff and you may wonder whether somebody will push him from behind, or when the paranoid patients run and scurry around in the mental hospital, at the same time the movie becomes really dark and gory.
Finally, here’s the catch for you – The whole story after you see it will make you wonder about the Wow factor and how in the world did Scorsese pull out and weave such a convoluted plot with so many turns and different characters.
Watch it; you would sleep with some hallucinations, in the end.
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
How to unwind yourself – Go for A Trip
It’s been a hectic day and I want a break! I’m so tired of this life, I want to be packed inside a box and thrown away in some river!
You might have thought about all this at some point of your life. Then, let me ask you a question.
Why do we want to detach ourselves so much from what we are presently doing, for example - from work, studies, marriage or kids?
My answer to this is - we wish to see beyond the routineness – beyond the sameness where we everyday - struggle in a 9 o’ clock fast local, haggle with the rickshaw guy, quarrel with our boss to secure our gtalk/facebook, elusively wait for a home cooked food or wait for our phone to get disconnected in the middle of a fight with the girl-friend when it’s our turn to say the mistake-acceptance speech.
Now all this, my friend, is called life if you’re still wondering. Life with all its vagaries and it can be inescapable unless you read below, how I managed to escape it.
A sunny day came, where I along with my few like-minded fed-up-of-this-world buddies assembled to give ourselves a long awaited break in the midst of mountainous Himalayas, deep gorging valleys, tall apple orchards and gushing stream of waterfalls.
I and my bunch of loonies decided to travel the State of Himachal Pradesh.
Initially, our plans were travelling Ladakh, but it was shelved because of the recent catastrophe of cloud-bursting. We had everything ready - the air-tickets, the cars on hire, the places to be visited, and most of all a prepared mind to go so far and at such an altitude. But, alas, it seems in hindsight that such a trip was never meant to be! Today, I earnestly hope that none of us lose that drive and momentum to visit Ladakh in future, because, after coming from Himachal, it seem to me like a step-son to what Ladakh would be.
We started our journey from Jammu after receiving few friends from Delhi. The flight was not at all comfortable, knowing that we were flying in a low-cost-budget airline; I am pre-empted not to complaint anything about the flight. We had hired a car and an experienced driver through a Bombay travel agency. The driver, Vijay was from Manali and he was awaiting us at the Jammu airport.
It was not the climate we were least expecting in Jammu, it was hot. In Jammu, there is not much to see, except if one wants to travel Amarnath Temple (Shiv temple) which is at few kilometres away from Jammu. After searching Vijay at the airport, we head longed for Dalhousie, our next destination, where we had to stay for two days in our 10 day long journey.
While in Jammu or some place between Jammu and Dalhousie, we stopped at a Dhaba to eat what our Delhi friends braggingly cooked and got for us along with the dhaba’s hot chai, hot aloo parantha and curd. The generous dhaba guy also got some of his trademark chutney to have it with aloo parantha. So we had a sumptuous meal and how lucky were we that we had our first lunch expense for a total of only Rs. 80. That is a cost of one man’s meal in any so-so kind of restaurants in Bombay.
We reached Delhousie in the evening and had to settle for a hotel. Since we had not pre-booked anything (not the least, a hotel), we had to search for a good hotel with a view especially.
We deliberately had not planned any bookings for the hotels.
A part of me believed that we should be back-packers (just pack a bag and jet along) and another part believed that pre-bookings would create a big hole in our pockets if we went with what all the tours and travel guys told us – the luxury/deluxe kind of hotels in the price range of 2500 – 3000 per night.
Therefore, as soon as we landed in Dalhousie, we just dispersed in different directions to seek a nice hotel amongst hordes of hotels we saw. We finally chose a hotel named Hill-View Hotel and in our 10 day Himachal journey, I can vouch for this hotel as the best one with an astounding view and a photographer’s delight.
About Delhousie and this hotel, to be continued….
You might have thought about all this at some point of your life. Then, let me ask you a question.
Why do we want to detach ourselves so much from what we are presently doing, for example - from work, studies, marriage or kids?
My answer to this is - we wish to see beyond the routineness – beyond the sameness where we everyday - struggle in a 9 o’ clock fast local, haggle with the rickshaw guy, quarrel with our boss to secure our gtalk/facebook, elusively wait for a home cooked food or wait for our phone to get disconnected in the middle of a fight with the girl-friend when it’s our turn to say the mistake-acceptance speech.
Now all this, my friend, is called life if you’re still wondering. Life with all its vagaries and it can be inescapable unless you read below, how I managed to escape it.
A sunny day came, where I along with my few like-minded fed-up-of-this-world buddies assembled to give ourselves a long awaited break in the midst of mountainous Himalayas, deep gorging valleys, tall apple orchards and gushing stream of waterfalls.
I and my bunch of loonies decided to travel the State of Himachal Pradesh.
Initially, our plans were travelling Ladakh, but it was shelved because of the recent catastrophe of cloud-bursting. We had everything ready - the air-tickets, the cars on hire, the places to be visited, and most of all a prepared mind to go so far and at such an altitude. But, alas, it seems in hindsight that such a trip was never meant to be! Today, I earnestly hope that none of us lose that drive and momentum to visit Ladakh in future, because, after coming from Himachal, it seem to me like a step-son to what Ladakh would be.
We started our journey from Jammu after receiving few friends from Delhi. The flight was not at all comfortable, knowing that we were flying in a low-cost-budget airline; I am pre-empted not to complaint anything about the flight. We had hired a car and an experienced driver through a Bombay travel agency. The driver, Vijay was from Manali and he was awaiting us at the Jammu airport.
It was not the climate we were least expecting in Jammu, it was hot. In Jammu, there is not much to see, except if one wants to travel Amarnath Temple (Shiv temple) which is at few kilometres away from Jammu. After searching Vijay at the airport, we head longed for Dalhousie, our next destination, where we had to stay for two days in our 10 day long journey.
While in Jammu or some place between Jammu and Dalhousie, we stopped at a Dhaba to eat what our Delhi friends braggingly cooked and got for us along with the dhaba’s hot chai, hot aloo parantha and curd. The generous dhaba guy also got some of his trademark chutney to have it with aloo parantha. So we had a sumptuous meal and how lucky were we that we had our first lunch expense for a total of only Rs. 80. That is a cost of one man’s meal in any so-so kind of restaurants in Bombay.
We reached Delhousie in the evening and had to settle for a hotel. Since we had not pre-booked anything (not the least, a hotel), we had to search for a good hotel with a view especially.
We deliberately had not planned any bookings for the hotels.
A part of me believed that we should be back-packers (just pack a bag and jet along) and another part believed that pre-bookings would create a big hole in our pockets if we went with what all the tours and travel guys told us – the luxury/deluxe kind of hotels in the price range of 2500 – 3000 per night.
Therefore, as soon as we landed in Dalhousie, we just dispersed in different directions to seek a nice hotel amongst hordes of hotels we saw. We finally chose a hotel named Hill-View Hotel and in our 10 day Himachal journey, I can vouch for this hotel as the best one with an astounding view and a photographer’s delight.
About Delhousie and this hotel, to be continued….
Friday, August 20, 2010
Next time visit a prostitute, but only to fight their cause
Prostitution, does the word ring a bell for you? If it does, then wouldn’t you just stand up and say loudly, it’s a burning issue and we need to do something about it. And, I would laugh at you and say, here we go again.
The media loves the sensationalism in it. The scandals, the rackets and the child traffickers make a good story. The politicians often involve themselves for such good cause or rather good inter course. The activists have a running agenda and running cash-cow with such issues and its ‘ill’ effects on children, society and blah blah. What’s important, the terrorists also never target them at all. And, for people like you and I, we just do a sneak preview of the stories that runs in the newspapers with gushing erotic details and skip the issues (read: burning issues) surrounding it.
So to bore you now, let’s understand the issues. Ah! I so much love the word ‘issues’, who doesn’t now-a-days.
To begin with, when a call girl comes at your place, gives you a great massage and does stuffs (spare the details, it’s not an Adult blog) and in exchange, you pay her some money. That’s prostitution and it is legal. But consider this - You go to a brothel house and visit a beautiful prostitute, have a massage, do stuffs with her and pay her some money, that’s again prostitution but it is illegal.
So what is the real difference between the two? It is not because the prostitute did not give you a good massage than a call girl, so hell she is charged with criminal conduct. The difference in both is - in providing service; one comes at your place and the other services you from her place.
If one runs a brothel house and does sex trade along with several others then that by Indian laws is considered immoral. But if the same girl goes to a private place and establishes, that there is no sex trade taking place, just love blossoming between the two, then she is off the police records.
The laws are pretty ancient and dated. It never thought then, that prostitution would take place in hotel rooms, pent houses or private cabins. The laws just considered that prostitution is confined within a brothel house or a brothel street (eg. Khetwadi in Bombay or Sona Gachi in Calcutta) where flesh trade would take place.
So it’s actually the difference between a private place and a public place where law differentiates and possibly believes that prostitution should well be served underground or at yours and mine private farm-houses than displayed outside with a huge board ‘Sex, at your service, Sir’.
Moreover, the goof-up with the law is such, that your pretty call girl will never be put behind bars because as soon as she is confronted by the police, she will smartly say that the client and she were lovers etc. However, the prostitute would see herself behind bars because she would be running a brothel house which is not allowed under Indian laws.
So I think I have fought enough for the cause of our dearest prostitutes and their continuous discrimination at the hands of the call girls. But I have squarely spared both of their common ‘Clients’ who are off the hook always, if you note.
Well, because the burning issue here was Prostitution and not immoral society, dissatisfied husbands, sex starved boy friends or male empowerment even.
That calls for another write up, on male empowerment.
The media loves the sensationalism in it. The scandals, the rackets and the child traffickers make a good story. The politicians often involve themselves for such good cause or rather good inter course. The activists have a running agenda and running cash-cow with such issues and its ‘ill’ effects on children, society and blah blah. What’s important, the terrorists also never target them at all. And, for people like you and I, we just do a sneak preview of the stories that runs in the newspapers with gushing erotic details and skip the issues (read: burning issues) surrounding it.
So to bore you now, let’s understand the issues. Ah! I so much love the word ‘issues’, who doesn’t now-a-days.
To begin with, when a call girl comes at your place, gives you a great massage and does stuffs (spare the details, it’s not an Adult blog) and in exchange, you pay her some money. That’s prostitution and it is legal. But consider this - You go to a brothel house and visit a beautiful prostitute, have a massage, do stuffs with her and pay her some money, that’s again prostitution but it is illegal.
So what is the real difference between the two? It is not because the prostitute did not give you a good massage than a call girl, so hell she is charged with criminal conduct. The difference in both is - in providing service; one comes at your place and the other services you from her place.
If one runs a brothel house and does sex trade along with several others then that by Indian laws is considered immoral. But if the same girl goes to a private place and establishes, that there is no sex trade taking place, just love blossoming between the two, then she is off the police records.
The laws are pretty ancient and dated. It never thought then, that prostitution would take place in hotel rooms, pent houses or private cabins. The laws just considered that prostitution is confined within a brothel house or a brothel street (eg. Khetwadi in Bombay or Sona Gachi in Calcutta) where flesh trade would take place.
So it’s actually the difference between a private place and a public place where law differentiates and possibly believes that prostitution should well be served underground or at yours and mine private farm-houses than displayed outside with a huge board ‘Sex, at your service, Sir’.
Moreover, the goof-up with the law is such, that your pretty call girl will never be put behind bars because as soon as she is confronted by the police, she will smartly say that the client and she were lovers etc. However, the prostitute would see herself behind bars because she would be running a brothel house which is not allowed under Indian laws.
So I think I have fought enough for the cause of our dearest prostitutes and their continuous discrimination at the hands of the call girls. But I have squarely spared both of their common ‘Clients’ who are off the hook always, if you note.
Well, because the burning issue here was Prostitution and not immoral society, dissatisfied husbands, sex starved boy friends or male empowerment even.
That calls for another write up, on male empowerment.
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Which came first, right Time or right Age?
Did you know that Adam had his first fruits of love with Eve when they were passing through the jungles and Eve suddenly whispered in his ears and said, “Adam, now is the right time to do it”. Did you even know that Romeo married Juliet at the age of 35 when he owned a plush office at a New York street, a pent house at his London home and a palace bought in India.
If you know all this, then you should also know that I am just kidding.
Nothing of that sort happened and well, if it did, then I am unaware of. What I actually know is this: the right time and the right age myth is a nonsense. Marriage should be when your heart says. Romeo married Juliet because his heart said so, or so I feel and Adam had it with Eve because well their hearts, libidos everything pounced when they saw each other.
It should not be when you grow 25 and all your friends, relatives or your girl-friend(s) get married so you need to marry. Also, it shouldn’t be when you consider it as the eternal right time – the time when you feel you are secured and in the need of marrying someone or when you are simply bored and need a companion etc.
Although most of the time we get married either due to some right/wrong time constraints or our age reflecting in the mirror.
I have heard all the arguments when our neighbours explain our girls, that as soon as you graduate, you should get married first. Our relatives, never left behind, also discuss with us about other relatives and their swish weddings. They in fact, also bring in the photographs of ‘their’ choicest groom, eligible for the unmarried girl in the family.And they say this with enormous conviction, “if the girl does not marry by 23 (ya 23, you read it right!) she will not find a better groom, she will remain unmarried her entire life and the choicest groom is best suited for her kind of girl”. That perhaps is an enforced decision by the relatives on the girl and the girl finally hovers under the pressure.
Take a guy’s example, a little less pressurized specie than a girl. A girl complains that most of the guys are commitment phobic, and the guy in general wants to be like Adam and is always on a lookout for several Eves but when it comes to marriage he hides in the cave of excuses. He believes that he needs to settle first and every guy will have his own definition of settling. Or he gives all kinds of excuses: that he needs to first live his bachelor life; a life without any responsibility or a life where his freedom will not be encroached upon or just plain brainless reasons to evade marriage.
But to not marry in the right time or age also do have its own disadvantages. There are scientific arguments to this. When you get married at the age of 35, there are biological problems and it becomes difficult to conceive a child. Also, psychological problems arise when the mature 35 years old parents believe in not wasting any time in conceiving any child and instead have a well-heeled life. The problem also surfaces when the kid grows and the parent’s age too fast creating a big generation gap.
Therefore, what would you do to get married? Would you wait for the right time to convince yourself about marriage or would you go by the pressure of the surroundings and marry at any age around 23 to 28. My choice, I would rather marry when my heart would beat for a girl.
If you know all this, then you should also know that I am just kidding.
Nothing of that sort happened and well, if it did, then I am unaware of. What I actually know is this: the right time and the right age myth is a nonsense. Marriage should be when your heart says. Romeo married Juliet because his heart said so, or so I feel and Adam had it with Eve because well their hearts, libidos everything pounced when they saw each other.
It should not be when you grow 25 and all your friends, relatives or your girl-friend(s) get married so you need to marry. Also, it shouldn’t be when you consider it as the eternal right time – the time when you feel you are secured and in the need of marrying someone or when you are simply bored and need a companion etc.
Although most of the time we get married either due to some right/wrong time constraints or our age reflecting in the mirror.
I have heard all the arguments when our neighbours explain our girls, that as soon as you graduate, you should get married first. Our relatives, never left behind, also discuss with us about other relatives and their swish weddings. They in fact, also bring in the photographs of ‘their’ choicest groom, eligible for the unmarried girl in the family.And they say this with enormous conviction, “if the girl does not marry by 23 (ya 23, you read it right!) she will not find a better groom, she will remain unmarried her entire life and the choicest groom is best suited for her kind of girl”. That perhaps is an enforced decision by the relatives on the girl and the girl finally hovers under the pressure.
Take a guy’s example, a little less pressurized specie than a girl. A girl complains that most of the guys are commitment phobic, and the guy in general wants to be like Adam and is always on a lookout for several Eves but when it comes to marriage he hides in the cave of excuses. He believes that he needs to settle first and every guy will have his own definition of settling. Or he gives all kinds of excuses: that he needs to first live his bachelor life; a life without any responsibility or a life where his freedom will not be encroached upon or just plain brainless reasons to evade marriage.
But to not marry in the right time or age also do have its own disadvantages. There are scientific arguments to this. When you get married at the age of 35, there are biological problems and it becomes difficult to conceive a child. Also, psychological problems arise when the mature 35 years old parents believe in not wasting any time in conceiving any child and instead have a well-heeled life. The problem also surfaces when the kid grows and the parent’s age too fast creating a big generation gap.
Therefore, what would you do to get married? Would you wait for the right time to convince yourself about marriage or would you go by the pressure of the surroundings and marry at any age around 23 to 28. My choice, I would rather marry when my heart would beat for a girl.
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Manmohan Singh says, "Yes We Can"
15th August 2010: Today, as I start with my first blog, with Independence Day celebrations around, I realize how much has changed since 63 years of independence.
People of our father's generation will tell us the stories of what was the value of 10 paisa, 20 paisa and 25 paisa and how the value has changed over the years (infact the coins are no longer in use) and how everything is getting more costlier than ever without any corresponding incomes rising. The joint family is seen no where except in Ekta Kapoor serials. Children spend more time in playing on their Nintendo or playstations than playing outdoor sports and so on.
But, I wonder whether such changes with every decade passing by comes with a good, prosperous foretelling?
Well, for starters I welcome that in the New India I have the option of choosing Ajay Devgan's movie over Sharukh Khan's, choosing none of the reality shows that flounder in almost all the TV channels and instead watch, TV shows such as West Wing, Boston Legal or 24 and then there is the choice of choosing the best foreign chocolates available in the nearby grocery store than getting it as gifts from some NRI uncle or aunty bringing chocolates in bulk every time they visit India.
Imagine those times when there was only Doordarshan (minus reality shows however), the Bollywood run and ruled by the three Khans, and when calling the NRI aunty or uncle was like a really big big deal and it was only when a serious occasion demanded.
The 'change' has happened so swiftly that sometimes we just look behind and wonder about those wonderful years gone past us - when Doordarshan and later Zee had hits like Mahabharath and Ramayana or when we never missed any episodes of Hum Paanch, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Hip Hip Hurray, Campus, Banegi Apni Baat or for than matter Tara (that shows why I have spectacles), or when there was the thing about writing letters or receiving post cards, or when friends used to meet late night everyday and discuss their married lives, neighbor's wives or businesses trysts.
Not any longer. Emails have replaced post cards, the 'specially occasioned' Kodak camera is replaced by the handy and portable 3 mega pixels phone cameras, the news is replaced by tweets and blogs and goods friends with busy schedules or hectic lives.
Barack Obama, during his running for the Presidential elections, went on with slogans "Yes We Can" and "Change" to attract the young desperate America. He professed that America was hungry for change. And the mystified crowd cheered and repeated, Yes we can, Change. Wow... But, is the change so damn necessary?
Yes and No.
Yes, because I believe that the nation must grow, the incomes must rise, the bollywood must send some character artists instead of those punks who waste our multiplex tickets and our popcorn expenses, the numero uno life time achievement award winner Amitabh should retire, the reality TV stars must be thrown away in some unreal world (read: Mars), the nation should have a young leader and get rid of the old blokes and children must be restricted to one id and not multiple id's on facebook, orkut, yahoo, porn account etc.
And well no, because equally I believe that, there must be some preservation of our old relics too - the joint families dining together, the comeback of Dekh Bhai Dekh season 2, children playing out in the field, the blood stained love letters, the neighbor peeking into others lives, the lush and the green gardens and the odd traffic - free roads.
With independent India, the nation has seen much since 63 and it will see much more with every decade bringing upon itself a new change. What matters importantly is that, the New India must take along with her the Indians who are left behind the revolutionary change - that is - the poor and the underprivileged and connect with them.
Happy Independence Day.
People of our father's generation will tell us the stories of what was the value of 10 paisa, 20 paisa and 25 paisa and how the value has changed over the years (infact the coins are no longer in use) and how everything is getting more costlier than ever without any corresponding incomes rising. The joint family is seen no where except in Ekta Kapoor serials. Children spend more time in playing on their Nintendo or playstations than playing outdoor sports and so on.
But, I wonder whether such changes with every decade passing by comes with a good, prosperous foretelling?
Well, for starters I welcome that in the New India I have the option of choosing Ajay Devgan's movie over Sharukh Khan's, choosing none of the reality shows that flounder in almost all the TV channels and instead watch, TV shows such as West Wing, Boston Legal or 24 and then there is the choice of choosing the best foreign chocolates available in the nearby grocery store than getting it as gifts from some NRI uncle or aunty bringing chocolates in bulk every time they visit India.
Imagine those times when there was only Doordarshan (minus reality shows however), the Bollywood run and ruled by the three Khans, and when calling the NRI aunty or uncle was like a really big big deal and it was only when a serious occasion demanded.
The 'change' has happened so swiftly that sometimes we just look behind and wonder about those wonderful years gone past us - when Doordarshan and later Zee had hits like Mahabharath and Ramayana or when we never missed any episodes of Hum Paanch, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Hip Hip Hurray, Campus, Banegi Apni Baat or for than matter Tara (that shows why I have spectacles), or when there was the thing about writing letters or receiving post cards, or when friends used to meet late night everyday and discuss their married lives, neighbor's wives or businesses trysts.
Not any longer. Emails have replaced post cards, the 'specially occasioned' Kodak camera is replaced by the handy and portable 3 mega pixels phone cameras, the news is replaced by tweets and blogs and goods friends with busy schedules or hectic lives.
Barack Obama, during his running for the Presidential elections, went on with slogans "Yes We Can" and "Change" to attract the young desperate America. He professed that America was hungry for change. And the mystified crowd cheered and repeated, Yes we can, Change. Wow... But, is the change so damn necessary?
Yes and No.
Yes, because I believe that the nation must grow, the incomes must rise, the bollywood must send some character artists instead of those punks who waste our multiplex tickets and our popcorn expenses, the numero uno life time achievement award winner Amitabh should retire, the reality TV stars must be thrown away in some unreal world (read: Mars), the nation should have a young leader and get rid of the old blokes and children must be restricted to one id and not multiple id's on facebook, orkut, yahoo, porn account etc.
And well no, because equally I believe that, there must be some preservation of our old relics too - the joint families dining together, the comeback of Dekh Bhai Dekh season 2, children playing out in the field, the blood stained love letters, the neighbor peeking into others lives, the lush and the green gardens and the odd traffic - free roads.
With independent India, the nation has seen much since 63 and it will see much more with every decade bringing upon itself a new change. What matters importantly is that, the New India must take along with her the Indians who are left behind the revolutionary change - that is - the poor and the underprivileged and connect with them.
Happy Independence Day.
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