'No Boring Babu'; Outlook's Irresponsible Journalism

Exactly a day after the world witnessed the humongous response to #SelfieWithDaughter, seemingly joining hands to support daughters in particular and promote gender equality in general, I read this piece in Outlook India’s Deep Throat Column, by a female journalist. Read:

“No Boring Babu

The portfolio of a junior bureaucrat, who is posted in the Telan­gana CM’s office, is a mystery. She used to be posted in a district earlier. But things changed all of a sudden after the elections. The lady is present at every meeting and seen in almost every official photograph sent out by the CMO. But what she does exa­ctly is a puzzle. She makes a fas­h­ion sta­tement with her lovely saris and serves as “eye candy” at meetings, admit leading party politicians. In fact, it’s this burea­ucrat who calls up other officials in the CMO and asks them to come for meetings. She knows exactly what time the CM will arrive and leave the office. The lovely lady, known for her ethnic style, recen­tly stunned all by appearing in a trendy trouser and frilly top at a fashion show. And for once, she wasn’t sitting in an official meeting. But this appearance too made for a great photo op.”

It also carried a cartoon, which was later removed.

Do you too think this is troubling, sexist and full of insinuations? Made more shocking by the fact that it is Outlook India printing this? (Alas! Like fools we cling to the hope that some reputed media houses are free from the scum of sensationalism.) 

The young IAS officer under question, Smita Sabharwal, had qualified in the UPSC exams with an AIR 4 back in 2001. (Yes, that means she’s been in service for 14 long years, something that the journalist would not have called ‘junior’ if it was her own profession being talked about.) Presently she is Additional Secretary to the CM of Telangana, Hyderabad. Over 2.5 years the district she was collector of, before coming to the CMO’s office, saw visible changes for the better. Residents of Medak and Karimnagar swear by her honesty, her dedication and her work. They responded to this piece of irresponsible journalism by talking about programs and processes she initiated and executed. 

Thank god for that. Else, I may have lapped up Deep Throat’s journalistic innuendos verbatim over dinner tonight, creating my very own version of this soap-y "truth"!

Which, actually, is a habit we as people are coming to enjoy; that of swallowing-without-chewing news which at best is half-concocted and at its worst fully false and even defamatory. Three humour pieces, 30 status updates and 300 tweets on any issue of socio-political import are created and shared only by looking at the breaking headlines. Who has time to wait for the real news to come in, which, when it does after a few days of replayed tamasha on TV, is something no one is interested in? Of course we need the press. But it’s time we asked ourselves - Are we giving the media too much importance? Are we laying at their feet the thinking caps we were all born with? And, are we killing with it our ability to critically examine, argue and really draw out a thought-process instead of hammering on tables because apparently the ‘nation wants to know’ and it’s always comfortable to take a #tag’s side? 

The nation does want to know. It should. But from whom? Now that is a question. 

What is the nation if not the people who inhabit it? That’s another question. Look at the language contained in the few lines of this article. By a woman, for a woman, sans proof, sans responsibility but with an over-dose of sly insinuations. (If the journalist was playing Taboo and was not to use the word ‘slut’, she’d had won with flying colours!) It isn’t Smita making for a ‘great photo-op’. It’s the ignoble parade of most media houses which slut-shame even as they try to be pillars for exposing unfairness and injustice. It disturbs me that educated professionals from a sex we’re trying to uplift have no qualms deconstructing clothes and provoking lines of thought based on invented reasons. Would this have occupied news space if this Additional Secretary was a man? The journalist didn’t feel the need to do her ground work before talking about another woman. All she needed to do was ask politicians about this ‘not boring’ “eye candy” and create mystery around a woman who ‘knows exactly what time the CM will arrive and leave office’. And it gets published! 

What role is journalism playing here, really?

I do wonder why this surprises me and angers me still - this gall, this utter lack of respect towards public servants, for instance, and a fellow human being at large. If it isn’t already fashionable to misread, mock and malign them with each passing prime time, it will be. Just like it is already in vogue to find the easiest scapegoat, the government, to disown our responsibilities as citizens . Please tell me how we as a collective seeking services motivate the ones who are working up good in the yellow corridors? By playing with their dignity, with as much liberty as we use to make police uniforms dance to item numbers in movies? Does few-and-far-between mean naught when it comes to good officers? 

And if it’s their job to serve you, pray, what is yours?   

I don't know Smita and know not how this story will unfold, but at a larger level I do know that no matter how many like her, #DespiteBeingAWoman, work their years away in public service, popular journalism will read and look like exactly this above. Because as a nation what we don’t want to know is where we as people are responsible, or even where we are being irresponsibly spoon-fed tasteless food 24X7. 

Our taste-buds have been that dumbed down, and our antennae for Trending News always on alert. Not a good combination, don't you think? 

Member-ship Issues

Let me tell you a little story first. Please don’t laugh.

Somewhere in the Sunderbans is a Netidhopani Tiger Reserve which has a tower. A very big one! It stands erect at all times, imagine, and such length it enjoys you can’t even see the spot where it ends. (Perhaps it goes up to the cloud Freud occupies, to tease his conflicts still not resting in peace) This tower in the wild is for spotting tigers if you’re lucky, and birds and bees and boars at all other times. Below the tower is a board painted in red and green, the sarkari colours for all things wild. And on the board is a very serious piece of advisory. Very serious! Hence, please don’t laugh at all.

I laughed when I read it though. And then I read it aloud and laughed out louder, loud enough to make a tiger respond with “who dares disturb my peace?” roar. Only one other out of the 20 in the group understood the word play, giggled, but gave his wife no company in her unabashed laughter. The rest 18 read the advisory like good boys, of course, and understood it well enough to have repeated the message by rote if they were told it’s good for getting plum postings. Thus, they simply stared at Mrs. 2006, thinking her mad. 

 Now, I wonder which is a bigger tragedy – only 2 on 20 understanding the unintended humour or the author of this painted master-piece not understanding it at all in the first place? But about that, later. A digression now.

Some words are born to be abused. ‘Member’ as a word is really abused. As a word. Only.

There are Members of all kinds – members sitting in committees, clubs and corporations. Powerful members sitting in the Parliament, respected members of the staff and quieter obedient ones in PTAs. Some members call themselves ‘Lions’ others ‘Masons’, some ‘Gurus’ others ‘Students’. Some members rise much higher than the others, say as Presidents or Chief Ministers, while others simply enjoy feeling bigger than they are in smaller circumstances, albeit under a little delusion. Social service members causing big causes to become bigger exist side-by-side with their lazier counterparts – those who just like to keep low, and hang in a state of sleepy wakefulness, getting up for this-and-that but never stirring beyond the garden fence. And then, every family has some members. Has to have! A single member cannot be called a family, even though may produce a family. Family members and members in the family. Same thing? Phew! I hate English language. 

They should ban this word ‘member’ from the face of the earth!

And then there is this very serious board you see, as mentioned above:

And I have nothing more to say. For I have seen enough and said enough. No more. 

You see, my dismemberment from civil society is not something I want to risk, since my dismemberment I cannot, not in this life. What you do deserve to know is that when I reached the top of this tower I instantly rushed back down. Why? Well, when I reached that high there were more than 40 excited members who had arisen atop the tower, all at the same time.

What a shame. No one reads the instructions!

But then we need to thank our dear Gods that not many understand them either!

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - No, thank you - If you could permanently ban a word from general usage, which one would it be? Why?]

Being VIP Madams

They say Seriousness is a very serious disease. I say, ditto! I also add that it is the only disease on the Planet of the Apes which you can guiltlessly laugh at. 

You know, like one-hand-on-the-stomach-the-other-on-the-mouth, moving forwards and backwards, going Ha Ha in gay abandon. No thorns of conscience pricking in your bosom. Between those guffaws, saying ‘Oh God! How they suffer, and make suffer. Have some pity, on them and our aching tummies too, Prabhu!’ Yes, quite like a symbiotic relationship. Quite like – ‘You give me your Seriousness, I give you my Laughter’. And laughter as we know is the best medicine, after a gooey yummy bar of chocolate that is.

But I should furnish specimens examples of those who I think suffer from this Condition of Seriousness. Let’s say we talk of … of certain governmental wives. Just a handful, I promise you, but there very much so.   

Now, if you were to attend a party of such VIP madam log who happen to be married to men who happened to have cleared their UPSC examination at some point of time in the past, you will know what I mean (although, I wish you no such ill luck!) 

In such a gathering, every breath you take, every move you make is according to the year your husband became an afsar. Which means, when I get up to introduce myself to the gathering of silk and skin, I say – ‘Hello respected honorable madams, pairee pna, I am Sakshi Nanda Mrs. 2006’. No more is needed. This is the most important identity that you have. In fact, the only one relevant, in all Seriousness. And just like our age (hiding cushy under the wired push-ups), the lower the number of the year the closer you are to VIP Godliness, of course. 

So, Mrs. 1980 may have lost all her teeth but not the bite, for her husband is still the Chiefest of Chiefs you can find. She will arrive late, solemn expression on her face as if this is a funeral of all things sensible and not a Diwali get together, occupy the highest chair around, swivel ever so nonchalantly towards all reverentially staring faces and stop at an angle which suits her best. One smile, barely there. Rings on all fingers, there! The rest of the Mrs will adjust their sofas, chairs, stools, cartons, door mats accordingly. For the best view of her feet which they may want to touch any time. After all, she is the chief guest welcomed with an orchid bouquet. And this is Serious.  

Mrs. 1990 will fuss over her, but will make sure she is fussed over amply in return too by the lower in order. While she will deliver the welcome note, a Mrs. 2000 will dust her chair with her dupatta for her. Mrs. 2004 will stand around ready to catch the command of the duster. A mutual co-existence as if giving a purpose to your life on Earth. Food chain - with primary consumers, secondary consumers and grass, or prey! And all this while, Mr. 2004 sits on his white-towelled office chair, oblivious to what clearing his UPSC so late in the century means for his wife's VIP social life. 

Once the royal behinds find their deserved-n-designated destinations, introductions will begin. Numbers of years will flow around. ‘Myself 2001’, ‘Hello everyone, I am Mrs. 420 1 triple 9’, and so on. Some whispered some said with full gusto. So many numbers you wish you had never failed your Maths exams, or could tattoo them on their foreheads as reference numbers. Seriously!  

And then there is chai to be had, with chips, salted kaju and burfi, to down all the pyramids of hierarchy floating around. It comes in gold-rimmed bone china, but sans any respite. The first ‘sssslup’ has to come from the high command, like a signal. The cup touches the saucer thereafter, and the other ‘sssslups’ will follow suit. Age no bar, rank bar bar. Cashews will be served in descending order of men’s seniority, no matter that by the time the tray reaches the lower rungs, you are still in queue for your first ‘sssslup’. 

Everything is orderly, don’t mistake me. Disciplined and orderly, and so Serious you will forget what your father looked like when the share market dropped. Who laughs first, who sits first, who stands first, who picks a plate first, who burps first. Yes, Mrs 2006 has to hold hers in till the biggest one burps! Sometimes, it dies a natural death inside, trying its best to come out the other way. But then, you don’t know if the senior most fart saw the light of the day in the celebration today. So Serious the scheme of things, so serious the Condition. 

And finally, when it is time to leave, Mrs. 1980 gets up with her stiff upper lip and back, while the rest of the room bows at angles according to, you guessed it, their husbands’ ranks, before shuffling out of the room to where the cars are parked. The valets understand the Seriousness of the years, and get the official cars in line with that order. Waving hands and a dozen kissing hands ‘honoured to meet you’ later, Mrs 2006 hails her auto and goes home, promising to avenge her sore bum and aching back. After all, she had to bend a full 180 degrees of good bye, no less!

I know you cannot truly understand. After all, I suffer from a serious case of hyperbole myself. I exaggerate, a little, maybe. So I took a picture to illustrate my point about this encounter of the strangest kind.

If there was a single bar of chocolate to be had between the VIP Madams, the scene around the plate would look something like this. No points for guessing who gets to have it. Actually, the one who rightfully rank-fully gets it needs it the most too. Like I said, this gooey yummy chocolate is the best medicine for the Condition of Seriousness that I speak about.

Don't you think so?

Disclaimer, from under the table - No hard fillings for anyone, seriously!

Beating the Written Word to Pulp

When I was a child, I would see my mother giving Mills and Boon to my older cousins. They would banter about the ‘stories’ and I would look at the cover, and blush. A man and a woman in a semi-hug, eyes half closed and expressions of physical love. ‘Why were they reading this?’ I would wonder. In school, surrounded by Patrician Brothers and all things disciplined, the library was a “holy” place. And Blyton to Drew to Wodehouse to maybe Robin Cook to Quiz books to perhaps Jeffrey Archer to definitely Limca Book of Records a traditionally set way. Sidney Sheldon exchanged hands between friends and Harold Robbins only in the inner circle. Blush and hush remained, somewhat. I read the classics, felt safe and sane. And a prudish Miss Muffet too.  

It was on the very first day of pledging 5 whole academic years to studying Literature that I was made to grow up. A professor distributed ‘Lady Chatterley’s Lover’, aghast that we had not read it. Suddenly, the sword meant the male organ in ‘Antony and Cleopatra’ and all references to ‘pen’ and ‘orbs’ in ‘MacFlecknoe’ were exactly those too. ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ was a political satire and George Eliot was actually a woman, writing under a male pseudonym. So many wrote hidden in attics away from all eyes, and an equal number put sex and their sexuality out there just as they deemed fit. I was amazed.

I read Literatures from all continents, and I gradually grew. Not just away from the blush but into a woman who now realized the importance of that Voice – behind the printed word, and in between the written lines. The politics of Silencing too! Reality unfolded, and not just the art of expression but the Right to Express took on a new meaning. And the right to be Read. Just like raising your hand and getting a chance to answer was important to a child’s evolving mind, so was picking up that pen and letting it write for you what the mind held inside. For so many, that moment between the pen and the paper meant reclaiming a sense of Self, true bits of it that social norms and graces often stole away.

And I was introduced to the idea of a ‘Banned Book’, much like the letter ‘A’ in scarlet an adulteress was supposed to wear on her lapel once...

[To read further, please click here.]

When my house burned down

Yesterday my house burned down. So sad. 

Nothing was left of the peanut shells spent to prop it up. Just a few half-baked chairs, 3 toasted blades of a ceiling fan, one metre copper wire and an iron pipe. Everything else got reduced to ashes. Thankfully, the property deed of the paan shop I own in Chor Bazaar was in the bank locker. Along with my matriculation certificates and matrimonially certified nose ring. Rest all, gone!

On one of the half-baked chairs I have carefully perched myself, under a tree across the road from my house, or rather, its remains. One kindly young inspector stands by my side, asking me to list out things which may help me claim insurance. I look up his tight stomach to his cut jawline, to clear my mind. Smoking, my head seems to be. Unable to think and clouded with the memory of yesterday, is what I mean. The kindly dimple on his cheek gentleman is like my guiding star, especially since Fluffy my stuffed toy is no more to be the voice in my head. I almost feel no reason to be alive. But life must go on. 

But only now I realize how much has gone forever. The list, may insurance be kind, is as follows:

1. CD: Two days back my Bangkok-return LED (God rest his soul in peace) screamed at me on prime time. Or was it Goswami? I ran to check and frankly speaking, was quite shocked to see heir-apparent sitting next to him. Took me a while to get over the golden hair and cherubic smile. When I did, I realized Goswami seemed to have no ants in his pants today. I watched. One spoke littler than usual and the other I wished had not spoken at all. But what of that! My love for baba crosses all borders of political in-correctness. His finger-on-his-lips is so appealing ... but I digress. What I lost? A CD of this interview that was sent to me, since I was the only one ‘favourite-ing’ baba’s replies on Twitter, which mummy ji was typing even as she prompted him from behind the curtains. That very CD got burned, all those ‘women empowerments’ that we heard for any and every question – burned to bits of electronic waste. The gossipy neighbours told me it self-immolated. However, I refuse to write this off as suicide. Why would a CD with that interview want to kill itself?

2. License: Justin I like, not the Timberlake one but this one, the one who is my height. Arrested while DUI his rented yellow Lamborghini, poor boy was put behind bars for something that we the people of Delhi are ‘proudy’ to do on good days, especially when our pappas hand the keys to us – of the locker and the car both. I could not let my music taste drive away like this. All the way I flew across seven seas to stage my own Prison Break, but thought better. Whacked away the expired license this tender-aged one was driving with. While all other charges were falling silently to everyone’s surprise, no longer could he be sued for driving with a fake voice license either. Why else do you think he smiles in his mug-shot? As I was running out my house to save my life, I knew the burning license sang ‘Baby Baby’ one last time, and just for me – so what if it had expired only to die another death. Love is love. Loss is loss. 

3. Elephant:  Once upon a time I took liberty and wrote a letter From Behenji to Betaji. I assume her speech writer, a grand graduate from Vatikan English Speaking University cum Resorts, read it on her behalf and understood it on her behalf too. Because in return for that gesture I was gifted, no not a shoe, but a tiny pahoo-pahoo. Now let me be honest here. I do not think I deserved it. Especially so since I enjoy that flyover next to her house more than any in Delhi, made with ample nooks to act as loos or spittoons. However, a gift is to be received graciously and that is exactly what I did. Tipped the post man and put the elephant right in the middle of the other show pieces. I am told Rajasthan’s Italy’s sangmarmar is as fine in quality as their lovely features are. What’s a little house burning around it? Soon as I finish my list, I will be hunting down the pahoo in the debris. If I find it, I will be lucky. If I don’t, a little memorial in its memory will come up under this very tree. Inaugurated, of course, by this inspector beside me.

4. Plaque: I had bought myself Bhagat’s motivational plaque. It carried a few words of wisdom, deep as a well with frogs and echoing with gravitas similarly. He had said – ‘Shakespeare was the Ekta Kapoor of his times’ and I had bought it instantly. Why? Well, to motivate myself to direct my writing in the light direction. The over side carried all the 3 book stores best at selling his novels and the under-side his phone number, in case I wanted to volunteer as his writer. I have lost a lot of contact material on that one. And maybe a life time’s opportunity to become a guru on youth affairs, politics, sports, vegetarianism, parenting, caste, love, sex, dhoka, everything. Sigh! I will continue unemployed! 

5. Topi: The President’s At Home saw Mr Aap with a nice grey muffler around his neck and a nice white muffler around the neck of the grey muffler. Since he is called the ‘muffler man’ I would change my name before I request him for one of those. It’s cold, plus, I have a grey one already. However, I did lose an autographed copy of the first ever Gandhi topi that he wore. Says ‘I am Anna’, with ‘beyond’ scratched right before and slightly above ‘Anna’. And a hand gesture to illustrate the point, which I cannot reveal. I have a feeling Anna ji knows not about this. Last I checked he was eating his 3 temple meals properly so he must be happy. I am happy he does not. But I am sad that I lost that collector’s item. No one, just no one, will believe that I had it once. That Mr Aap indeed signed it thus for me, and for himself too. 

Swear on Fluffy. I did possess all items 1-5 once upon a time. 

But that was before my house burned down. Yesterday! 

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was: Remember yesterday, when your home was on fire and you got to save five items? That means you left a lot of stuff behind. What are the things you wish you could have taken, but had to leave behind?]

Guest Post: The Indian Constitution; A Picture Story

This guest post is by my husband, Aseem. 

He is not a blogger. And if I have to call him a writer, he says I have to make sure government file notings qualify as creative art. Understand then that I had to use all my convincing powers to make him pen this for my blog. Also know, that his thoughts mean more to me than my own. (Alright, most of the time anyway!) Republic Day was yesterday, and today he gave me these words and these pictures. A 'Slice of History' for those who celebrate the 26th of January with as much fanfare as we do, and who, like us, are still enjoying a "patriotic" hang-over even though it is the next day.

Now, for a change, I let him speak uninterrupted.  

-----------------------

The Indian Constitution; A Picture Story

I gave in.

When she wanted me to write a few paragraphs for her blog, contrary, perhaps, to her expectations, I did not protest. My reason for agreeing was essentially just that she had chosen a great time to press her demands upon me. The timing was not to do with this being a month of birthdays or the New Year or anything as grand as that. It was just that it happened to be a holiday! A National Holiday, the Republic Day.

I wonder what that might mean to most of us. What the 26th of January means to me has changed over the years. As a child, I used to look at this day as a time when I would sing a few “patriotic” songs before an assembly of my father’s office colleagues and their families and would proudly collect applause. In later years, the ritual of attending the celebrations at his office was discontinued since we moved to a different town where such occasions were traditionally not family affairs. I do remember celebrations in school and college on a few occasions, but they were generally viewed as disturbances to an otherwise enjoyable holiday. 

But somewhere between then and now, I came to think of the Republic Day as special in an unobtrusive yet poignant way, somewhat like the birthday of someone dear from your past that you never forget to remember, but do nothing special to mark, perhaps because it would be superfluous after all. When my wife asked me to write a post for her today on the Constitution, I dithered at first at the thought of her readers turning away. But then, when your wife allows you a chance to be heard uninterrupted, one must just be grateful and grab the line.

One of the most valuable possessions of my family is a replica of the original hand-written Constitution of India, which was gifted by a very dear senior in service. Since this volume came into our home, we have often talked about the history that surrounds it, the way it has evolved over the years, its relevance in our workaday lives and, of course, its  sheer beauty.

The Republic Day is when the Constitution of India came into force in 1950. We have all known this from our Civics school books. But school did not give me a sense of what this book really meant then, and what difference it has made to our today. The vision the Constitution had was of an egalitarian and just society, promising freedom to one and all, laid down succinctly in its Preamble. I am undoubtedly enthused and inspired by the world held out as the promise of the Constitution. Though it seems like a miracle at times, and even untrue at others, by and large, it looks like we are closer to that goal today than we were in 1950.

The Republic Day to me is symbolic of that vision of society and we all have a part to play in getting there. The way is in seeing how our actions, little and big, impact all of us collectively and in being responsible for the choices we make. I wish us all this patriotism this Republic Day.

Here are some pictures of this book to stay with you. You may click on them to see an enlarged view.

A replica of the original hand-written Constitution of India

The Preamble

Fundamental Rights

Article 19. Right to Freedom

Each main border is unique in design 

Elections. Notice the art work.

Look at the salary of the President and Governor

Happy to see Dehra Dun.
Hathibarkala is the midway point between my wife's house and mine

Signatures - Rajendra Prasad, Jawaharlal Nehru lead the list

And then, passing on this 'Slice of History' to our Tomorrow. A looking back, in order to know how to proceed.

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was 'Sliced Bread - Most of us have heard the saying, “That’s the best thing since sliced bread!” What do you think is actually the best thing since sliced bread?' and I have answered with 'a Slice of History' - a looking back in order to know how to proceed.]

Season of Light - AAP and Us

‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way--in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.’

Who would have thought that Dickens’s opening line for ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ written during the French Revolution would reverberate with such topical relevance so many centuries later. Today, a revolution of sorts is brewing on our home turf, with its epicentre in Delhi but with ramifications far exceeding its geographical boundary, or any boundary. While it digs its heels firmly into the ground to prop itself up fully, there continues a coexistence of hope and despair, wisdom and foolishness, belief and incredulity. You read that right! Hope, belief and wisdom have made a comeback in the political sphere. And you know why.

‘Season of Light’

The Aam Aadmi Party stands for change – an ideological one that has been brought about already when voters gave them 28 seats, and more that is to follow as they proceed on their promises. After ages, democracy is being spoken about in a language that befits the idea. The electorate is looking for direct participation in the running of our country. This, combined with the anti-corruption platform AAP offers, is what brought the hope back in our political lives. AAP emerges as our mouth piece, voicing our age-old concerns and issues and promising to deliver in the real world, rather than the world that (mal)functions behind closed doors marked VIP or that which refuses to go beyond futile rhetoric of election speeches. 

As grand and often unrealistic as the ideas of AAP sound, we sit today wondering, almost hoping – is this the beginning of a new way of functioning of politics, in a larger context and for all times to come? Terms which adorned books on administration are now being mouthed generously – governance, accountability and most importantly, citizen politics. And urban India is sitting at the edge of its chair, with an excited mind and of course, hope for clean and citizen-friendly governance. All this, even as it cheers a party free from any caste or class based propaganda. One which promises a crackdown on corruption across party lines, a Lokayukta with teeth and the dream of ‘swaraj’ in its modern concoction and after years of it being used for the first time. 

Indeed, this is the Season of Light. 

How, what and ‘Winter of Despair’, still?

Incredulity breeds questions, and unanswered ones lead to cynicism. Cynicism equals the feeling that we have nothing before us. A feeling that the season of darkness is here to stay, and no amount of light can shine Hope’s way through. AAP and its ideologies continue to keep a school of thought a little distant from rejoicing just as yet.

AAP’s agenda remains blanketed in confusion. Many feel that even as AAP promises clean governance, it offers nothing very concrete by way of an agenda for governance. Transparency is a way of working, not the work itself, the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’. Then, is it an easy promise to keep, that of a spotlessly clean shop? More so since cut-in-stone party ideals may not match well with every party member’s personal list of principles? What next, except rubbernecking media and powerful opposition parties swooping down on them the moment they smell a scam. The very expectations of aam junta which sat AAP on a pedestal will withdraw its hands. And we know that is something we do not want to consider as a possibility.

Doubts also abound with another aspect of ‘how’ the party intends to function - AAP’s stress on consulting people to reach decisions and forward the idea of grass root democracy. The debate of Local level versus national level (Yes, the CM is a few days old and we are thinking of a bigger tomorrow already). While implementation of health and public order can be achieved at local levels, macro issues like inflation and national security cannot be handled at local levels. Sceptics say consulting people all the time hampers rather than facilitates governance. Referendum upon referendum may turn out to be a jog on the treadmill, good for keeping the democratic mood healthy, but sans any movement ahead. 

And then, the perpetuation of the culture of subsidies, as free water and subsidized power tariff please the common man but burden the exchequer for short-term benefit, has generated mixed responses. Calling privatization ‘just a grand theft with official collusion’ has not helped either. 

Some have gone as far as to compare Kejriwal with Mamata Bannerjee, foreseeing a Bengal of Delhi, with leaders who are pro-poor, simple and connected with people but impulsive, aggressive and limited in their knowledge of how the field works. Where direct intervention for solving people’s problems is given priority over sitting and chalking our systems to be put in place for all times to come, the revolution seems to carry the tendency to burn itself out, or be forgotten in oblivion.            

Let it remain a ‘Spring of hope’ 

AAP with its 28 became a sea to reckon with, and if whispers and announcements are anything to go by, the bigger wave is yet to reach the shore of our political lives. Perhaps, to re-write that which has been documented in the colour of a dynastic quill, or one which stands clothed in saffron and not far behind. Blake said ‘without contraries there is no progress.’ Well, good to hope so, and certainly better to remember as we, on a daily basis, receive and perceive the changing face of Indian polity and assimilate our views in times where perceptions live as impulsively as they are born.

The last winter of despair need not be forgotten completely. Doubts may continue to remain, and raise newer heads each passing day. But we need to accept that things are a changing. Smell the change in this spring of hope instead. AAP has shocked us all, even as it took its own members by surprise, by sweeping to power with a unique model that challenges the traditional party system. Something that we collectively wished for has come about, thanks to you and me. Yes, thanks to us. We asked for it written all over placards and in candle marches. We found a role for ourselves in protest mode, and then as voters. 

And it does not end there. It should not! 

Even as Kejriwal and AAP continue to awaken our dormant social forces, we need to wake up to our responsibilities too. Meaningful ways to bring about social change need to be found and healthy dialogues that break accepted but obsolete norms need to be regularly held. Even as we mail the CM our complaints and lay on AAP’s shoulders the responsibility to deliver all that we desire as part of our idea of ‘change’, we need to start working on it at our own levels too. We voted the broom in, time to clean our own houses too. 

Then and only then can parties like AAP stand on their own feet – confident and inspired enough to promise and deliver, both.   

Willing-to-Work Idealism has an official address today. Let’s not fritter it away!


[The post was published on NewsYaps. It is originally written for the Project 365 aimed at posting at least once a day, based on the prompts provided. The prompt for today was "Call me Ismael - Take the first sentence from your favorite book and make it the first sentence of your post."]

Eligible, are you Bachelors?

Why I read adverts in newspapers is a mystery. Why I pay attention to sarkari advertisements is a bigger mystery. Here’s one I spotted in ‘The Hindu’ a few days back. (Yes, I read this paper. I already know Duggu’s pet name!) Read carefully, it’s important. What? You are busy looking at the picture? Oh well, I’ll quote it to you here in that case. 

It shows a Mrs. B(h)ennet in a gambhir mudra talking to herself, saying, 

“He wants to marry my daughter and doesn’t even own a house!”

The daughter in question, and this I am sure you must have noticed, is a pretty girl playing dandiya in all her finery. Then, as if out of nowhere, a voice from above, or rather one from GIC Housing Finance, goes on to shower some pearls of wisdom upon your manly coconuts. In typical governmental fashion of ‘simplewordedness’ and simplemindedness the advert talks to the future grooms ...

[To read further, please click here.] 

Dear Lord, the flowers don't kiss any more!

Dear Lord,

Next time, let me be born in another country.

After a long day of this-and-that, I tune into my home box office and all I see is Harry Potter doing something with his broom. As much as I like Chinese action flicks for gravity-defying deeds and long plaits on men, I fail to understand why I have to watch them 11pm after 11 pm every late night. I know Shrek’s dialogues by heart (all parts) by now. I assure you I can play the theme song of Madagascar on my flute despite being tone-deaf and not knowing how to hold a flute even. And I also think if I were to try, one of the magic spells from Potter’s movies will come true in my very house. Lord, how I wish the same spell could deliver me of all things childish and ‘G’ and make me feel like a grown up ‘A’ woman of 30 watching TV with a grown up man of 32, even as my toddler sleeps. Who, just who is wielding the scissors and chopping away to glory not just important parts of movies but whole movies from my heftily paid movie package? Once upon a time, flowers kissed. Now, even they have been banned from cuddling on screen. I go to bed disappointed with my idiot box. But, of course, with thoughts and Indianness as pure as the IB Ministry would like them to be! 

I wake up the next day and what do I see, my Lord?

Sir Ass-araam lounging on his seat, sharing spiritual gyan, floral head-gears and, was that a wink I just saw? 

[To read more, please click here]

Tina Ambani's 'must haves'

I must have so acted ... I am unable to recall the role played by … It must have been transacted … He (Anil) must have attended the meeting, I do not recall as the meeting took place long back in 2006.

- said Tina Ambani 

To most questions of the interrogators to do with the allegations that the company Swan was the front runner for her husband’s Reliance Telecom in the 2G spectrum allocation, Tina Ambani had the above to say. Now, if I understood business well enough, I would be sitting on CNBC showering my biz acumen around or getting it printed in peach-coloured news papers. While that I cannot dream of doing any time soon, here is what I can do – think and think back!

I wonder if you see what I see - the epic usage of 'must haves'. 

To read more, please click here.

An Open Letter to Educated Indians

Dear all,

The trigger for this letter is IAS Durga Nagpal’s controversial suspension from duty. The trigger is also everything that follows the UP government’s move – be it what I see in the mainstream media over heated debates and campaigns for justice, or discussions in our drawing rooms over glasses of whiskey and gin. 

And I write this letter from first-hand experience, since my husband is a bureaucrat himself. 

Through him, I have come to know and know of countless officers in the Indian bureaucracy. Some are what you read about in the black book. But many others, although not material for prime time news, are stuff that inspiration is made of. You probably do not know too many of those diligent ones. It’s understandable. One, because the “good” ones are perhaps too few and far between to garner attention or even a little column dedicated to the historic changes that they have wrought about. And two, it takes being a part of the government machinery to really know it and understand it from the inside, rather than how popular journalism portrays it. 

I know. Things are not just tardy in government offices they can be downright unfair and even illegal. I see it more often than you do. And do you know why? Not just because something is rotten in the state of our Indian bureaucratic “system”, but also because something is amiss within us as citizens seeking services.

I have come to realize that in India we exist in various levels of ‘Power-ty’. Everyone has power, over someone or the other, which they greatly enjoy. And they want more. The daroga over the havaldar, the permanent driver over the ad hoc one, the principal over the teachers, teachers over the students and senior students over the junior ones. RWA Presidents over the colony residents, Chairmen over board members of companies and parents over their own children, why not. It is like a food chain of power. And at each level, we do not sit satisfied. We are ambitious. We want to be more powerful than we already are, more successful than everyone else in the city, and better than the neighbour, certainly. And in order to have that comfortable upward mobility, we seek and patronize those apparently sitting cushy in the proverbial corridors of power. How? 

  

It is not power that corrupts, it is need for power that corrupts. And it corrupts not just the powerful but also the powerless. Ever since my husband assumed office, his phone has not stopped ringing. Calls asking for pulls and pushes to do with school admissions, request letters for special discounts from marriage pandal organizers, calls-upon-calls for settling property disputes and even demands for arranging boxes of liquor for someone’s parties. The list is endless, and often borders on the bizarre. And no, it is not just so-and-so’s helpless neighbour or Mr. X’s poor sister-in-law calling for lazy files to move in the right direction. It is even those friends and family members who sit lambasting the government and it’s functioning as a fashionable topic over parties or on Twitter's hallowed pages in better weather, but waste no time in picking up that phone when it comes to a little favour, even if of the extra-legal kind.

When a young officer assumes charge, two things can happen. One, he will go with the flow, become a spoke in the wheel, especially if that is why he wanted to leave all other lucrative career options behind and get a powerful post to enjoy in his sarkari naukri. Or two, he will reject becoming a part of what he does not agree with and try to bring to the system his mind, heart, sweat, career and ideas, all towards contributing to his/her sense of duty, responsibility towards a post and position and with a hope for a better tomorrow. The latter are so scarce, we can barely see them, as I mentioned above. 

But then I ask you - do we want to see them? 

What if one of the shareef ones cancels the license of our cement mill? Or Mr. Clean refuses your packet and asks you to pay your duty in its entirety for your imported car? Today, we shout slogans to reverse Durga’s suspension. Tomorrow, we will be visiting the service tax officer with a box of laddoos, and more, so that the interior designer under his jurisdiction waives off a few lakhs for designing our new condo, or finds you a house maid from a reputed agency. And the day after, we will again be spewing venom against the same system that we have helped prop up on our favour-seeking attitudes – not just in helpless situations, please note, but otherwise too. 

Ask yourself, honestly. What scares you more? A corrupt babu you know you will be able to work your way around for whatever you want, or a clean civil servant who will not sign on the dotted line and not pick up that phone to get your daughter admitted to her engineering college? 

When you have answered that, ask yourself now. Are you angry over the unfair suspension of dear Durga and what she stood for, or are you protesting because you have got another reason to protest for the sake of protesting against the favourite goat – the government? Did you bother to find out and be thankful to the many Durgas who are working in your cities right this minute to keep your roads free from lawlessness, or your trains running smoothly, your hospitals ticking or your terrorism-infested districts safe? As a people demanding services and your rights, what do you do to incentivize those who you know as honest, hard-working and fair, so that they continue as exactly that and not fall to the many temptations around? But then, I guess we do not even prefer to have that breed around any more. Because we too are part of a certain nexus, which has no room or use for those goodly kinds. 

I do not condone or deny the rot. God knows we get to see it every day. But as the wife of a bureaucrat husband, I do realize how much easier it is to generalize, to opine, to blame, to other, and then even to protest. And how very difficult to realize the parts that we, the so-called educated people, play in the perpetuation of wrong. The system will not change, because we do not want it to change. We are all very hungry. The corridors of power are present in every home, and we want to keep them gleaming with comfort and we want to keep ourselves, our rashly driving sons, our daughters caught in rave parties and our factories evading duty as safe as bribery can buy. 

We, as a people, are bureaucratic existing at various levels of ‘power-ty’. We create mai baaps because we ourselves dream of being a bigger one. And while we do that, the real aam junta which cannot read this post sits and suffers, hoping for change.

And ‘Change’? Just a 6-letter-word we paint on our posters but are simply not interested in working towards in our daily life. I wish some sign campaign would work towards changing that attitude too. Perhaps that day, my husband's phone will stop ringing so much!  

Regards,

Sakshi Nanda.

[First on CNN-IBN ]

No one gives money for free to anyone

I love the advertisements that the government prints in the newspapers, or makes posters out of. Not the life-size-so-unlike-life ones of smiling faces, glowing halos and hands joined. Those seem fake - the flawless skin, the supplicant’s pose and the halo, all. I like those textual ones which can double up as moral science teachers. Like how a baby needs mother’s milk till 2 years, or how life without paying income tax is like a painting without colour. Plain in design and simple in both thought and language, these adverts seem to come from mills which haven’t seen too much technology as yet. No big words, no fancy graphics just ‘Last Date for Filing’, ‘Remember’ and ‘Beware’ always printed in bold to catch your sleepy minds unaware. Something almost endearing about them, as they instantly take me back a few decades to the ‘rukavat key liye khed hai’ chart paper used on DD once upon a time, every time they went figuring out why on air is no longer on air. 

Here’s an advertisement I spotted in TOI a few days back. 

Isn’t it sweet? Much to my husband’s amazement and my son’s fascination, I stuck it to my fridge and wondered why this one really impressed me. Apart from the fact that I can draw that graphic with my right hand, answer all the questions it pops at me and not find a single grammatical error, what caught my attention was the moral at the end of the story – 

‘Remember … no one gives money for free to anyone’

Indeed! How insightful! Just who in the RBI thought of this excellent quote? Look how true it is:

If there is one shop where the registers (and bells) don’t stop ringing, it’s the Department of Worship. I have seen many notes-worthy temples all across the country, only to wonder still – is God material crazy or does man know of no other way to please Him? Jewellery, gold bricks, silver ornaments, wads of cash, sheets costing lakhs, metric tons of ghee and milk or a meal-for-10000 on the house, these are just some of the goodies in God’s coffers. When it comes to the Divine’s pleasure man is oozing generosity and no, he’s not doing it for nothing! A wish list here, a marriage proposal there, an entrance exam round the corner, a property deal a week later; man needs God and certainly more than God needs the Usha fan spinning on His head, donated by the kirana shop man with his name rightfully printed on its blade, in bold red. 

No one gives money for free to anyone. Not even to God!

Wedding season, and out comes the packet of glittery envelopes that carry what we call Shagun – blessings in green for those tying the knot or their parents, whoever came first! We put inside what we got ourselves, or expect to get when our own Lucky gets married. So slip in a pink grand, a one rupee coin, tie the golden thread and don’t forget to cello tape it. While ‘congratulations’ is small case, make the from Mrs & Mr. bold and clear. Once done drinking, start eating. Fruit tikki mini-dosa chaat (slow down, have to have dinner too!) continental Indian Chinese halwa pudding ice cream chocolate sauce paan and there, paid Rs. 1001, ate 3001 calories, burped twice in the process, farted only once and we will surely have a better caterer for our Sunny’s wedding, ji, such quality is not becoming of our class at all. Burp!   

No one gives money for free to anyone. Not even on their grandest occasions!

Not even Diwali bonus to the maid, no! Sari or suit or money with fruit, in decreasing order of desirability, is given with much fanfare just so she knows you are the best memsahib she can get and remembers it until next Happy Diwali. You better not gossip about me, suna? But just generally speaking, did Mrs Sharma actually get the whole of her legs waxed? Let it be, sannu kee! So you like the sari or not? Colour looks good on you. No one can give a better one. I went myself to Tilak Nagar and got it for you. Will you just water the plants before you go? I know you are getting late but you see the gardener has not come today. Aur haan, just a cup of tea for me, please, the market was so tiring you know! When do you wear the sari to show me? Oh! Just take the dry clothes off the line as you leave, will you? Come in time tomorrow, please! 

No one gives money for free to anyone. Not even on Happy Diwali!

From the coin to the beggar in the name of charity to the minimum Rs. 5001 to the eunuch for a son’s birth, nothing is given for free. One for feeling like a do-gooder and ensuring a place in Heaven (which may have been bought in the 1st paragraph itself) and the other sum for ensuring the son gets home a better sum than the neighbour when he gets married (in the glittery envelope or on 4-wheels). Even neta ji knows that support may come for free but the vote mostly needs a little greenery! 

No one gives money for free to anyone. 

Perhaps Pappu’s Pappa wished for something too, 
When he got Pappu a Pajayrow, and a trip to Singapur. 

I want to meet you, Rajiv Goswami

I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past – Thomas Jefferson

And that is why I want to meet you, Rajiv Goswami. It is you who I would resurrect from the pages of History because with you I want to dream of a better future, rather than think of a historical past that consumed you. A past that refuses to go away shows its face in the present and will in the future too.

Why you?

Not just because you stood up for the idea of equal opportunity and fairness for millions of us others, no, not for that reason alone. I chose to speak to you and no other because the relevance of your ideas and your cause continues pertinent even today. I want to understand the courage behind the anger and the anger within the courage that made you immolate yourself while protesting against that 49.5%. 

It wasn’t just a figure for you, was it? The Commission recommended certain castes needed to be uplifted for poverty to go. Social and educational backwardness were to be removed – both caste-based handicaps, they wrote. Seats were to be reserved and quotas gifted to redress discrimination (gifted to redress discrimination?), based on 11 indicators (just another figure?) to determine backwardness!

I wonder.

At the magnitude of anger burning within you, when Meritorious Right was a like a dead man walking. Or what was on your mind the second you lit that match and set yourself ablaze. You must have seen it coming. All of it, in a flash. Seen how much more every job application will ask of you, now more than ever. How, perhaps, your queue at opportunity’s door will always move slower and grow longer, just like the unpaid bills at home. For you and for your kind! Did you know the deeper problems of the Report? We who came to our senses later read about politically compromised census data and lack of empirical basis to the estimation logic. And to think for a Report based on mere ‘estimation’ you set fuel to fire!

You were a leader, a formidable one. Of a formidable movement called the Anti-Reservation Movement! And your painful act of setting yourself on fire was emulated across the country. How powerful the belief in the cause of fairness must have been, and how strong the allegiance to you and to what should rightfully be one’s own – of complete strangers, with nothing in common except the very ‘General’.  And then you died. Just 3 decades of existence marred by deprivation, anger and fire.

But you live on.

Today, percentages are still being passed and debates raging after every vote. We stand further unequally divided – in opinion, in slices of opportunity and in shadow lines of caste, class and creed. A lot is being asked of us, we who were born into better socio-economic conditions, according to those ‘estimations’. Caste-based quotas are being used to do away with discrimination. I know you smile at the irony too, just like I do. Look close, the economically sound from lower sections are sitting in the reserved places, and economically unsound from the upper castes staring at closed windows and ‘no seats’. We learn about reserved seats lying vacant and we get angry. And then, of those chairs that got filled defying merit failing to deliver quality, and that adds to the anger. That word ‘Merit-based quota’ is stuff that dreams are made of – yours and mine and whoever we call ours! The real is all Anger.   

If you were around, you would have seen your fire burning within us right this minute. A little bit of you in so many of us. A frustration! Perhaps you are in a better place, where equality and freedom of opportunity mean just that - equality and freedom of opportunity. And what else is needed to feel, to do, to believe and to be? What else to remind us every day that we Are? 

And before you go, tell us if you know – for how long will the Future have to pay for the Past?

[This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda] 

From Behen ji to Beta ji - A Letter

Dear Beta,

I will call you beta, not because I am your mother’s age, but because the world calls me behen ji and I have no room for any more bhaiyas. Once upon a time, the usual UPpity politics and dreams of PM-ship, scams and shoes, mammoth memorials and money kept me so busy. Sometimes it was like making a row of 50 elephants with imported soil with my two bare hands. That busy I felt! Today, I am not so busy, but neither am I free. Because today I realize that every move of your government seems to be politically motivated to undermine me, and my party’s hard work. So much political motivation this state has never been seen before.    

Here I was, sitting on my humble stage and reading the copy of a newspaper reserved for me. Sitting and noting that “dirty politics” was being played over Sarabjit Singh’s death. That allegations and counter allegations are “unfortunate” and that we need to rise above politics and “unite as one party”. And there, in another corner nearby, dirty politics was being planned over my image itself. Even when I was openly and so bravely warning China against Ladakh incursions, asking them to take a few steps back “otherwise the result will not be good”, little did I realize that my own report card was being given grades ranging from D and F and worst of all C (is that the correct grading order?) by your party. I hereby rubbish all reports about certain Rs. 1400 crore being irregularly consumed during my regime, for memorials, parks and a few things here-and-there which not many know about. If you are someone's beta, I am a beti too, and as a beti of the soil, I dare anyone to dare me and prove me wrong. 

But damage had been done, and what was expected happened. One of my most favourite statues got damaged by miscreants, such boot polish you have put over minds that worshipped me once as their queen. As their very own jagat behenji! Those very brother log beheaded me, my statue of marble or something like that. What shame, the way you are promoting vandalism in the youth rather than starting some university with technical and vocational training for the unemployed. You went to Sydney to study environmental engineering and should know the value of good education. I am sure UPpity could do with another university giving out foreign degrees. But coming back to the point, I hope that one day the accused are brought to task and made to pay for 4 identical statues of mine, looking in 4 different directions, to be put in place of this one. And no, I don’t want my head stuck back on it. I want a new one, altogether. I demand all lost respect to be given back to me – new stone, new sculptor and perhaps I may even give him a new pose.  

Talking of respect, it seems that power has made you blind. Your party “goons” are openly disrespecting not just the opposition and the supremo that’s still me, but also Ambedkar ji. To celebrate his 122nd birthday I got hoardings installed in his park so that lakhs of people could come and pay their tribute to him. And here you dared to remove all the hoardings to serve your own political vendetta after so much night “drama”, despite my party workers having taken due permission (even though, when it comes to Ambedkar ji, and myself, I need no permission from anyone for anything) to install them. I am telling you, beta, you are “being watched and will be taken to task when my government comes back to power” one day. And tell your minister to not try teaching me about good language, haan! What does he mean by “restraint” over my language? Doesn’t he know where I come from restraints have to be broken to fly freely and equally?

And flying reminds me, yeh jo flyover you are building at Mall Avenue better not get built – not in 15 months, 15 years or ever. I am a self-made woman who rose from the lowly ashes and my house and party office cannot be subject to such ignominy without enraging my very insides. Do you know how much I spent on building my abode? And a puny Rs. 40 crore flyover is to pass near it and mar its magnificence? I heard you, beta, I heard you say nothing will come in the way of development and easing of traffic problems. But I can assure you that nothing will come in my party’s way either when one day this very flyover will be shifted to Vikramaditya Marg – every inch of its 650 meters – when I am back in power! And not just that! I will even broaden it to 25m from 15m. Dekhna tum log! 

And see, how I got busy with all things political and motivated and forgot the real reason why I write to you this day. Such is politics, so misleading. OK. Forget all that I just said! Suno, you are planning to open the doors of parks and memorials that I built to hold weddings for the poor, free of cost. Ok. I agree it’s a lot of prime land and not enough to build hospitals as you gathered, but what about the insult it will cause to the icons in whose name the memorials have been constructed? Not just an insult but a maha insult. Free of cost? What are you thinking? But you are a reasonable and well-educated young boy. So, at the cost of forgetting all the hurt I mentioned just now, I will request you to let me guide you how best to use the animals and Ashtdhatu trees installed in the park, about which you seem confused. My 60th birthday is a few years away, and I would like to hold my birthday party in the grandest of memorials and as usual in the grandest of ways. Arrey, ek minute, that will not be an insult to the memorials. See, I am a daughter of the same soil everyone knows that, and then I built them with so much cost and care. On top of that, I am ready to promise that after the party’s over, I will make sure I don’t leave them without added ornamentation or some sangmarmar statues of the national animal of India, Jumbo. Some newly discovered marble is coming in from Italy, which is bird-dropping-and-damage-resistant. Since some memorials look too bare and vast we can do with a few more statues. Perhaps, one of yours too, beta? Or would you share the note-d garland with me, please, on my day? Imagine what message it will send to Madam. I request you to let the memorials be shut till a certain distant January, and after that we’ll see what’s best for both you and me.       

Arrey haan, one more thing! Tell that minister of yours not to misguide young girls who recently got laptops from you. What does he mean by saying “become anything but don’t become aheM”? Shame! I’m the only woman of such substances around and such inspiration that one day I swear on this very soil I arose from … but let that be. Just keep the memorial gates locked, and in the mean time send a spare laptop my way, will you, beta?  

For always,

Behen ji. 

I swear iPotty. Marry me!

Toilets are important. Ask that bladder’s belly in the post-beer queue or the one running hysterically to hug the nearest tree. You can also ask the lady who swooshed past you in the ladies line and hopefully reached the destination point well-in-time. One of the loudest truths of life is that we all need a place to PnBe when nature calls. Gone are the days of gay abandon when relieving oneself was about walking behind the cave (if at all) and reaching back well in time for the bonfire, dinner and cave painting. From no hole to hole dug to humble hole to ceramic-n-steel to automatic, toilets have evolved just as their users have. 

And loo and behold, our companions in stress/distress recently made news, and how!   

News Number 1 (shun the pun): 

In a certain district in MP, future grooms are posing with toilets at their homes. Rule book says it doesn’t matter whether they stand next to it, sit on it or just point towards it with one hand, make a victory sign with the other and say cheese. Point is the picture, as evidence, ensures them registration at the mass marriage ceremony organized by the government in the district. That’s only one step done. Second, the toilet in all its photogenic glory helps them woo their ladies and make them skip to my ‘loo’, my darling! How? Jairam Ramesh rightly told us a little while back how providing a toilet to the women in the country will ensure them security, self-respect and confidence -  for every single woman out of the 60 per cent who don’t have access to one. So, what do we have? We have men going the extra tile to woo their life partners into their hygienic lives, thanks to an exemplary scheme by the district government towards providing basic sanitation facilities for women. A single photo ID of a man and a giant leap for womankind! 

News Number 2 (shun the pun still):

iPotty. I mean the gadget. You haven’t heard? It’s a training toilet for toddlers with an iPad dock attached. A 360 degrees rotating case which let’s your toddler switch from horizontal to vertical viewing. Complete with a clear screen protector for the gadget, in case of misfires and with a cover which converts it into a regular seat. (Yes! I’m still talking about the iPotty and not NASA’s latest space ship to the Sun.) So well, the iPotty keeps your children entertained till the pressure far exceeds holding capacity and they finally “go”. All the while, learning and unlearning with technology what perhaps no one could teach them at home anyway. Now, rumour has it that men-of-notes are wooing their ladies with the idea of an iPotty. How? Well, if you can afford and iPad today you surely can get an iPotty tomorrow, and if you are thinking what I’m thinking, it’s another way to tell your lady – ‘Hey hun! Our kid will be in good hands, er, seats. So have some with me, please?’ And the same rumour mill tells us about a sudden spurt in registration of marriages in a certain section of apple-shaped humanity. There, like they say, iApple a day will get a woman your way, and even keep that tiny bum poo-pooing away!

The iPotty

And this morning, as I come out after “getting fresh” fully, a new light has dawned upon my clean insides. That poor cartoonist who went to jail for depicting the Parliament as a WC made a huge mistake. What did he mean by comparing the country’s foremost symbol of respectability to a yellowing ‘Cera Vitreous’ kind of outdated toilet? Preposterous and utter balderdash, and extreme ignorance of the latest in toilet tech. The bio-toilet is where it’s at, now, cartoonist ji. Commode to bio-tank with decomposing bacteria to chlorine to what do we have as an output – only a little water and just a lot of gas! But of course, I am not suggesting anything here.