OF THE DIVINE AND HUMAN ENTERPRISE

The media has been pessimistically predicting a lack-lustre Ganeshotsav this year because of the swine-flu scare. My mother-in-law (who keenly follows each and every TV news report directly or remotely connected to Mumbai, or Maharashtra, or Western India, ever since we shifted here) has been frantically calling us up almost daily with swine-flu updates, trying to persuade us not to venture out among the vast crowds teeming with germs, because we might all catch the dreaded disease. Or, of course, in case somehow the germs miss us, there are terrorists lurking in nooks and corners, hoping for some target-practice. Mind it!

My M-I-L is single-handedly responsible for pushing up the TRPs of all news programmes which showcase Mumbai-related “sansani tazaa khabar” (breaking news).

But although many seemed scared of venturing out, there are other people who are welcoming the elephant-headed God of enterprise through their own, surprisingly original ventures.

There is a fairly newly-opened soda pub near our home, you know the kind that sells 50 or so flavours of soda for ten rupees each. Since I never soar beyond the SOUR-5 (imli/kokum/kachchi kairi/kala-khatta/jeera-masala), I cannot vouch for all the flavours, but there is often quite a crowd in front of the shop.

That day, in honour of the festive season, my mother and I took our daughters for a soda-treat (I can almost see my M-I-L becoming all pale and panicky about their health, so please do not tell her this, she is a sweet soul actually). As we were sipping our cold, coloured and contraband sodas (Me-imli, Maa-kokum, Lil cat-orange, Copy kitten- lime-n-lemon), the smiling man serving us said,

“Madam, naya flavour aanewala hai kal, Ganpati ke liye.” (Madam, a new flavour will be introduced tomorrow, in honour of Ganpati).

In answer to our obvious curiosity, he said with a flourish and a proud smile, “Swine-flu flavour.”

My first horrified and sick-making thought was that it would taste of blocked noses and phlegm. But Maa made a better, and closer, guess. “Maybe they will put tulsi (basil) and haldi (turmeric) and other such natural remedies for coughs and colds.”

A panacea for swine-flu-panic at ten rupees? Should sell like hot cakes, or at least like the masks dotting/clotting the cityscape.

Remember the much-publicised 1995 miracle when the Ganesha drank up gallons of milk in front of millions of astonished devotees all over the world? Maybe we need another miracle. Will the Divine Trunk sip a swine-flu soda this time around?

P.S: What with the Vighna-vinashak (God who destroys all obstacles) teaming up with indefatigable human innovativeness, looks like we can beat the H1N1-demon. Till then, enjoy the drumbeats. Have a happy and safe festive season.

MOONWALKING AMONG THE STARS

In the hit Hindi film, Chaalbaaz, there’s a scene where the heroine, Sridevi, does a few smooth, rubber-necked dance steps. And the hero, Rajnikanth, who plays a taxi-driver, comments, “Arrey, Michaeli Jacksoni lagti hai (You look like a female Michael Jackson)”.

That was the magic of MJ. Millions of people, across genders, across nations, across class or colour or creed, many who had never before or since shown any inclination for ‘English muzik’ knew him, knew his dance moves, knew his status as the ‘King of Pop’. Like my ‘bai’ (the lady who looks after my children and home). She has never heard of Madonna, or the Beatles, or Presley. She does not know English. But she has heard about MJ.

When we were schoolgirls, in the long ago 1980s, whenever we wore jeans in our Bengali backwater-suburb of Barrackpore, we risked being eve-teased by the local parar dadas (neighbourhood rowdies), who would catcall, “Oi jachchhe Michael Jackson sheje (There she goes, dressed as Michael Jackson)”. Jackson’s post-plastic-surgery androgynous looks and high-pitched signature ‘Aooww’ shriek had them confused about his gender. But they identified him with all that was posh and westernized. He was their reference point for American popular culture.

The first MJ-album that I saw was BAD, when Doordarshan aired the Grammy nominees for that particular year. I saw the THRILLER video long after 1982. The never-seen-before dance moves blew my mind, and I liked the foot-tapping music, although, not being too tuned to American accents, I could not make out much of the lyrics. It didn’t matter, actually. The dance, for me, made up for all that.

Over the years, as the newspapers and videos showcased the facial changes and the court cases and the weird lifestyle, I wondered. Why a man, who could make millions feel so happy just by performing his moves and music, would obviously be so unhappy about his self-image as to keep on attempting to obliterate and recreate his own face? Why a man who had the world at his feet since he was a kid, refuse resolutely to grow up? Why a man who sang ‘Heal the world’ continue to exhibit bizarre behaviour in public and private? Why a man who was so confident on stage, be so bewildered and confused off it?

In an interview with Martin Bashir, MJ had said, “All I know of people is the applause.” Just goes to reveal how completely lonely and cut off from reality he was. For him, the stage was the reality. And now, the show is over. The eulogies have been written, the net has crashed, fans have mourned, the songs are being re-played, the mystery of the debts and death is being discussed and debated. But the wide-eyed, lost-misunderstood, tragic-pathetic, vain-pained, talented-tormented Peter Pan has forever left his Neverland to go and moonwalk among the stars.

THE IRONY OF MONEY IN MUMBAI

Mumbai media has been all agog at the arrest (and, of course, subsequent bail and release) of Sheetal Mafatlal (of the multimillionaire-multiple-chinned-husband and looking-very-trashy-in-Versace/Valentino-togs fame) for attempting to breeze in through Customs without thinking it necessary to declare gold and diamond jewellery worth around Rs 50 lakh.

While we, in our strictly-suburban college staffroom, were poring, and ooh-ing and aah-ing (only the 'ladies'), over the list (and intricate details) of the ornaments allegedly smuggled in by her, the South Bombay socialites were making the most of the photo-op by giving incredibly inane soundbytes. One Haseena Jethmalani (wife of political-defeated-debutant and high-end-lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani) apparently said (and conveniently later denied) that Rs 50 lakh was too piddly an amount for the likes of Sheetal Mafatlal (and the rest of the So-Bo brunch-packers) to bother about, and that women frequenting a salon owned by her (the fair Haseena) regularly strolled in wearing jewellery worth more than 50 lakh.

Just a few questions: if Rs 50 lakh is a paltry sum to the likes of Mafatlal (as it obviously is), shouldn’t the Customs Duty (which would be a certain small percentage of this puny amount) be like small change to her (as it obviously is NOT)? So, why not declare and pay it upfront and straightforward, honey? Or is the small change too difficult to see (and the fine print too difficult to read) through those oversized Dior shades?

Just another point: Today I went to Bank of Maharashtra’s Malad (West) branch, where most of the customers were dealing in amounts ranging from Rs 300 to a few thousands. There were old and limping pensioners, peering shortsightedly at a fistful of currency. There were illiterate women, putting their thumb impressions on withdrawal slips for a thousand rupees. There were hardworking men, whose sweat-beaded brows remained knitted into frowns under the blast of the AC, and whose grimy hands clutched at worse-for-wear passbooks containing details of minuscule savings accounts.

To these people, residing in the vast and teeming suburbs of Mumbai, far far away from snooty-snobbery of So-Bo (that's South Bombay's snob-abbreviation), Rs 50 lakh would, perhaps, be a big amount, an amount to aspire to through honest blood-sweat-tears, not an amount that can be sneered at with a shrug of couture-clad shoulders. Or carried in casually (and illegally) in alligator-skin designer luggage.

TAINTED BY TERROR

And so, another ordeal has come to an end. The ten terrorists, monstrously rearing up from the sea, have been killed or captured. The freed hostages will pick up the pieces of their life as best as they can. The families of the dead will mourn. There will be body-counts and postmortems, investigations and blame-games, tales of heroism and horror.

Mumbai, which collectively held its breath for three days, has sighed and moved on, grim and mourning, scarred and somber. The hate of a few cannot kill the hope of millions, and Mumbai, or any other city stunned and crippled by horror, will slowly go back to normal. The lust for death cannot defeat the instinct for life.

The fascinated horror with which we sat glued to the TV screens has been replaced by fatigue and a whole lot of confused thoughts and emotions.

Incomprehensibility - not how this happened (the security lapses are obvious enough), but why? WHY? Why go into open confrontation for so long, why take hostages, why plan carnage if there are no ideological messages, if no terror-group is gloating openly, if the jihadis made no bargains or demands? And, also, of course, the total incomprehensibility of how a human can metamorphose into a death-spewing terrorist?

Fear – Are there more? Who or where is next? When? Every day is a Friday the 13th. We may do a post-mortem on the terror-trail, but we can never really predict, or pre-empt, where it will flare up next.

Sadness – So so many lives lost. The Jewish rabbi and his wife, dying on their son’s birthday, the young NSG officer, the staff of the hotels dying to fulfil their duty, the wife and children of the GM of the Taj, the policemen and railway employees, the tourists, the people at the long-distance platforms dreaming of their homes….Not just the well-known and the well-heeled, but all of them.

Anger – No punishment is too much for the masterminds of terror. Not even death a million times over. If they are sheltering behind Islamic ideology, if they are indoctrinating impressionable minds with imagined slights and victim-complexes, if they are promising heavenly glory for the murderer-martyrs, they are actually doing irreparable damage not just to their so-called enemies but also to their own religion.

Paranoia – Can you trust any stranger anymore? Can you look at a person carrying a backpack without fear? Can you travel on trains, check in at hotels, walk into restaurants without looking over your shoulder time and again? Can you even look at the sea without suspicion? Terror has tainted us, our streets and buildings and even our sea, the seafront which is the Mumbaikar’s pride and joy.

What do you feel?

SINGUR SHAME – UGLY AUR PAGLI

The withdrawal of the Nano project from West Bengal is the most depressing and disappointing news I’ve read in a long, long time, more so because I, like so many other hard-working, right-thinking Bengalis, was hoping that the project would somehow be salvaged.

Not that the project was a pristine one. Questions can justifiably be raised as to the way in which some of the land was acquired, and maybe on other policy matters as well. Ms Mamata Banerjee could well have asked for a referendum to be held, or some such other legal and acceptable form of protest.

But then, legal and sane is not what Mamata is all about. She is famous for her histrionics, for rushing in where angels fear to tread and for her pro-people paglami (madness). She has to maintain her brand image, and the image of West Bengal can go take a dive for all she seems to care.

She is such a wrong sort of opposition leader in a state which desperately requires a strong and SENSIBLE opposition. It is simply not healthy for a democracy to have a ruling party, which by hook or crook, has remained in power for donkey’s years.

The CPI(M) is an ugly party, period. In its cynicism, behind its doublespeak, under its smooth manipulation of facts and factions, in its ruthless and systematic mowing down of any protest, in its seeping down and eroding basic services like health/education and basic values like work culture, in its three decades of anti-industry-stance and recent pro-industry ‘won’t you come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly’-attitude, it reeks of ugliness. A little deodorant in the form of a smiling Buddhadev Bhattacharjee is not really enough to hide the stench.

There is something rotten in the state of Denmark (as Hamlet said) and Ms Banerjee is not the person to stem the rot. Instead of offering viable alternatives, she is getting sucked into the very rot which she is supposedly exposing. And caught in the crossfire between UGLY and PAGLI, the Tatas have left Singur, breaking a million hopes.

I feel so, so sad when I hear people talking dismissively and derisively about West Bengal. It’s a place where people talk more and work less, where no business can thrive because people are only interested in politics, where it rains bandhs and strikes…that is what I hear all the time. The red party flag has become synonymous with STOP WORK.

The Singur project was supposed to change all that. It was supposed to herald a new era, a BENGAL SHINING instead of a BENGAL SHIRKING. That is not to be. And the schism between my West Bengal, muddled and riddled with self-destructing Ugly-s and Paglis, and the rest of India, marching ahead with new-found confidence, has widened all that much more.

TERROR OMNIPRESENT

Today we woke up to newspapers screaming that terror has struck again. In Jaipur, the beautiful Pink City in the dry Rajasthan deserts now reddened with blood and wet with tears. 7 blasts in 20 minutes – another planned-down-to-the-last-detail attack on the unarmed, unaware and innocent. The city, country, names may change, but the shock, grief, the horror are the same.

Beyond pity for the victims, beyond rage at the perpetrators, I feel a sense of bewilderment: WHY? What warped ideology, what shadowy idealism, what perverted religiosity, what greed for power and gore-tainted-glory can make a man train thousands to kill millions? When does that respect for another’s life go away? How does humanity end and terrorism begin?

The terrorist’s mind is as terrifying as his acts. It is an alien space, where the values and limits we hold so dear have no meaning. His actions are so well-planned by him, but are so unpredictable-to-us (who live for LIFE, not DEATH). And because we can’t understand his laws or his logic, we live in fear. Fearing for our selves, our family, for our children, for people-we-know, and people-we-don't-yet-know, for everybody living under the shadow of hate and death. Nothing, no place seems safe anymore. WHERE NEXT?

AND THE (CRABBY) HEADLINES ARE...

I must have got hold of the wrong end of the newspaper today. I feel really CRABBY, like Lucy Van Pelt. And since I don’t have the Peanuts gang to snap at, here’s my WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE WORLD TODAY cribsheet, comprising only peanutty, irrelevant, random news:

There’s this fairly inconsequential film-director, Anurag Basu, who has apparently said that the extremely consequential AMITABH BACHCHAN should retire from films. Of course, it’s none of his business. Of course, it’s just another stunt to steal some limelight off a bona fide celebrity. Of course, the media/public/public-as-perceived-by–the-media are busy debating and dissecting both AB and the ‘ab-wannabe’. My advice is, Anurag, Get a Life (‘in a Metro’, or wherever). Mr Bachchan may have feet of clay (very murky, Amar Singh-ed clay at that), but the rest of him is pure 24-carat gold.

Many Maharashtra legislators are up-in-arms against the introduction of sex-education in schools. Methinks that the right-wing is wrongly focusing on the SEX -taboo and forgetting about the EDUCATION bit. Granted that children learn about the birds and bees (and babes) from friends, films, F-TV, filth-on-the-Internet and maybe, if they are lucky, from their family, but, as a parent and a teacher, I support a structured syllabi which teaches (under sensible surveillance) the basics of what-to-do and how-to-do and why/why-not-to-do and what-happens-if-done, if only to take away the surreptitiousness from sex.

These same shouters are trying to ban the hotpants-clad cheerleaders from prancing (and panting) at the Indian Premier League Twenty-20 cricket matches. I feel that if Twenty20 cricket is like instant noodles, then the cheerleaders are the seasoning – from the spicy jalapeno-masala of the Bangalore babes to the more sedate, capsicum-covered Mumbai maidens. Are they “obscene”, or should they be seen – that is the question for India’s morality-Hamlets. There is definitely something rotten in the state of Indian cheer-lessness. The moral police should remember that brevity is the soul of cheer-leading. Anyway, if they (the cheery-squad, not the dreary morality-brigade) are banned (I hope not, even eyeballing their silly gamboling burns some calories), then Shah Rukh Khan can always exhibit his six-packs. And the rest is only cricket.

That brings me to a personal CRIB. Despite ardently gymming for the past few weeks, the fat-iceberg around my middle refuses to melt. No amount of global or local warming (-up exercises) is helping. Far from becoming a sexy yummy-mummy, I seem destined to remain an educated tummy-mummy. And also to remain, like Lucy, a regular fussbudget and a “very crabby person”.