Too much of a good thing ?

Is regular exercise really good for your long-term health and happiness ?

Consider the evidence :

1

•     Specimen A : A friend that runs up and down a hill near his house every evening (note to Mumbaiites – a proper hill, not Pali hill or Mount Mary or Malabar Hill). One evening he was on his run as usual and concentrating on increasing his speed, so focussed that he didn’t notice something lying across the path, took a tumble, broke his wrist in multiple places and had to get steel pins inserted in the wrist. Need I mention he was housebound for about 6 weeks ! Yes, running can be injurious to health.
•        Specimen B : A friend who swims regularly, and does other exercise too; not only does she watch her weight, she even likes giving friends that drop in a healthy snack – say a home-made soup or salad, or dry fruits. Though her conscience is clear and her halo glows bright on such days, her popularity wanes, until she makes up it by calling people over for indulging in copious quantities of vindaloo and biriyani.
•        Specimen C : A friend that has a bench and weights at home and lifts weights everyday, even though one of his wife’s favourite party tricks is to ask the little son to imitate daddy huffing and puffing while exercising.
•        Specimen D : A friend and her husband are very careful about extra calories and think that the best way to not-give-in to temptation is to ensure that no fatty stuff stays in the house; so after every birthday party / anniversary / religious festival, they either give leftover desserts / mithai to the servants or throw them in the dustbin (yes, I feel it’s sacrilege too, they could give it to me; I’m even willing to wear a tux and serve the guests).
•        Specimen E: She gyms regularly and is proud of her flat abs and well-toned arms, so proud that she often mentions her arms in casual conversation !

Need I say more ? Whether you’re measuring health, sanity or popularity, intense exercise is not good for you.

Me, I stick to sedate walks, strolls actually – I value long-term physical and mental health, holistic wellness I call it .

;-)      (a well-rounded personality would be another way to describe it)

Zen 

Yoga, but not Yogi

I started yoga almost two years ago. A teacher would come home twice a week for an hour-long lesson. And that was the beginning of my journey. I started with hatha yoga – which is basically using one’s body and doing simple exercises or asanas. My teacher though, was catering to the modern power yoga students that Mumbai is brimming with, rather than focusing on traditional asanas. “Power yoga helps lose weight you know”. I was not in particularly good physical shape, exercise for me had been an evening walk couple of times a week, so she had me tired. She had a predilection for repetitions and insisted on counting – so I was programmed to do 8 counts of this, 16 counts of that, and I would be huffing and puffing away. Simply put, I was a lazy lump of lard.

Yes, having the teacher forced me to do my classes as she would show up at home at the preset times. But, my teacher was an illustrious Gujarati businesswoman as well, running businesses from India and abroad and this kept her away at points of time from taking my classes. I too, had some travelling to do or at times running late at work (yes one class day was an evening class on a weekday!) and this kept us away at times from each other and our biweekly classes.

Working within these constraints, the guru-shisya team did make some progress and I proudly reported to those who cared to listen that I had succeeded to do the Utthita Padmasana. A posture that involves sitting in Padmasana, and then elevating yourself off the floor with the support of your two palms. It made me feel surreal, as though I had transcended into another world, I had crossed some standard of yogic practice.
My teacher – I told you she was into power, pop stuff- asked me to moon walk one morning. Moon walk – why, I asked myself, that’s what MJ made famous and me no aspiring MJ. I soon realized it was a simple knee and ankle bending exercise, nothing as glamorous as it sounded. And so the classes carried on and I crossed some new milestones like learning the Surya Namaskar in the midst of other frantic ‘post modern yoga’ (term patented by me) practice.

Then, at some point a few months ago, I discovered the Yoga Studio whilst browsing the Sunday Midday. Set in chimbai village in bandra, I went to take the one odd class there, hoping to discover something more. The studio is hip – wooden floors, healthy salads served in kansha bowls and the ambience nice to lounge around. The teachers are ‘very bandra’ – wearing harem pants and with well-chiseled model like bodies. What I learned in these one off classes – was how to add grace to the yoga asana. “Like dance, enjoy the pose, move your arm with grace almost like you are performing, though for yourself…and listen to what your body says. If it feels like doing something today, do it, if not perhaps it will oblige you another day.” Grace and enjoying the beauty of the pose – was the aha I got from this yoga class.
To my delight, pretty soon I figured I was actually beyond basic in yoga – so apart from being ‘bandra- priced’, these classes weren’t stretching me enough either. It could also do with the fact, that now I was doing yoga a little more seriously than before.

A month later, inspired, I gate crashed into the Iyengar Yoga institute, the mecca of yoga. I had been trying to get admission here for more than two years. Every time I went I was made greeted by an elderly semi-toothless man who asked me to record my contact details in a book, (much like those we used in school) that ran into pages – with names of wait listed students. Finally, mind made up that I had to join; I arrived during the evening class hours, with yoga clothes packed into my jhola and requested to speak to the teacher.

She was considerate and flattered too I think, that I had been visiting the place for 2 years now, and allowed me to join the class from that very evening.
I was looking for advanced, boy, I got advanced. Or super advanced. Iyengar yoga as a philosophy is hatha yoga but with the aid of props, teaching one how to hold a pose to perfection. ’Hold’ and ‘perfection’ being the key operative words. So the teacher screams instructions like – “expand your shoulders, open up your thoracic area, put your arms by the rib cage, turn your buttocks in and your pelvic region outward to face the ceiling” … and as you try following one instruction, the earlier one inevitably slips and you try to balance it all furiously recalling your bio classes from school, only to hear her thundering “ and why are YOU,YOU,holding your breath, continue to breathe normally…” Give me a break I want to say, but I am so immersed in holding in my buttock and out my pelvic region, that speaking is totally out of question.

And when I think the worst is over, and it is time for Savasana – ah, the relaxation posture where you lie on your back and relax all your muscles; she bellows “ all of you, now hold the two ropes and walk up the wall and then invert yourselves into sheerasana…” and at this point I am sitting with my mouth open (it is my third class so I am excused from this attempt), as 30 adults hold the ropes and really start walking up the wall only to invert themselves and stay like that for close to ten minutes. Wow!

It will take me this lifetime to inch toward becoming a yogini, but as you can see, it has been an interesting journey thus far, from moon walking not quite MJ style, sprinkled with the grace of dancing, to walking up the walls super hero style…
As for you, next time you’re headed to PVR, ditch the superhero flick, hop over to the Iyengar class instead and watch the real superheroes in action; and who knows, you may start the journey of a superhero yogi yourself!

By,
Soma Ghosh

Birder Bladder and other tidbits

Being one of those that have a few birding – fanatic friends, I am able to relate how this species is physiologically and attitudinally different from the regular couch potato homo sapiens. Note : the following changes have been observed only in fanatic birders, not in the armchair or amateur variety.

1. Birder bladder : XXL size, can continue for long intervals of time without needing to use the amenities

2. Birder vision (a) : can visit forests, deserts, mangroves, rivers etc and notice only the birds, nothing else. Not a beautiful sunrise or sunset, not a picturesque boat-ride through the backwaters, only the birds.
Birders can even venture enthusiastically into grassy areas where bunches of men are going for their morning job, and unabashedly focus binocs and cameras wherever a bird flutters. I was on one such trip recently, and while I was a bit embarrassed, neither the birders not the men were; the presence of a bunch of women did not even deter a guy who was in the middle of an open field !

Birder vision (b) : Crop everything out of photos except the bird - leaves, flowers, trees, all extraneous.

3. Lifer over Life :
(Lifer : A first-ever sighting of a bird species by an observer – courtesy Wikipedia)

Only one idea at birding time – have camera, will click. Even when it goes against basic survival instincts !

While on a bird-watching walk inside a sanctuary in East India, we saw a tribe of wild elephants grazing not far from us. Our guide requested us to walk in single-file in absolute silence; the forest guards were visibly frightened, one of them tried to load his antique gun but could not, adding to our fear. So there we were, walking quietly, not even taking deep breaths; when the trigger-happy camera-club could take it no more and nonchalantly focused their weapons and…..Whirrrr clickkk clickety-click whirrrrr. And continued even as one massive elephant swiveled his head, fixed his beady eyes on us and started moving forward !!

4. Aversion to bright colours – only black, grey, brown and dull green allowed while bird-watching. Large part of my time preparing for each birding trip is spent in finding clothes of the aforementioned colours in my wardrobe; my argument that birds sit on trees with bright flowers and therefore will be attracted to bright colours falls on deaf ears.

5. Birder G.K. – whether the Grimett is better than the Salim Ali and why

6. Birder GK useful to non-birders - Hanging out with birders helps you win in games like name-place-animal-thing. Who else would think of a ‘zitting cisticola’, 'yuhina', ‘temminck's tragopan’ etc ?

By,
Zen

Stay for the Jokes !

It is the monsoon and through some momentary impetuousness I have made the brave decision to get out to break the Sunday fast. Not having the courage to drive myself in the deluge that is Bombay during these months, I decide to cab it. The daughter and I bundle ourselves and our dripping umbrellas into a rickety black-and-yellow, much past its youth, and I wonder whether it has learned how to swim. The cabbie is incongruously cheerful and the prattle pours out from him quite in tune with the pattering on his roof. He rolls the passenger window down to turn the meter to 'start' and puts pedal to the floor. Not that the effect can be perceived, mind you - back when this car was built, Rajesh Khanna was the new kid on the Bollywood block, and 30 kmph made you dizzy. So let's just say that we are away at speeds moderately higher than a brisk walk. We are about to venture climbing up the flyover that will take us to Matunga and delicious vada sambhar when an SUV, horn blazing, flies past us. I hear the full Doppler effect as the monster car comes from afar, catches up, and soon goes past. Right at the point of going past though, it steps right into a large puddle of rainwater. Before I could scream in surprise at the effect, the water is being sprayed - through the still open passenger side window, and all over my 'casual but chic' sunday clothes. I am drenched in stinking rain water from a puddle. And as I start yelling at the SUV, I realize it is a government vehicle, as I read the inscription on its back - Jan Kalyan Vahini - Namaste. (Public Good Vehicle - greetings!).

You are never too far from a good laugh here in India. Most of it is at the expense of unintentional comedians roaming our streets every day.

Just this other day, I am at an airport with a senior banker who has kindly offered to take me to the lounge based on his gold card, or some such. I am happy for the partial quiet and peace the lounge offers, so take him up on it pronto. My benefactor, after making sure I am comfortably 'lounging' away, makes a beeline to the coffee machine. He looks bemused at the many options on the machine and finally, decisively presses 'cappuccino'. The machine sputters for a few moments, pours out the drink and is done. My benefactor looks at his cup, grunts, and starts scanning around for an attendant. "What is this" he scolds the confused employee - "is this all you give in the name of a coffee? Why don't you guys get your machine fixed?" - And promptly sends the man looking for 'some real coffee'.

My favorite laughs are on signboards. Take the library I went to the other day, for instance. This is one of those places that rents out books 'two at a time for two weeks'. The books look like they were printed the weekend after Gutenberg got done with his thing. A musty smell is everywhere, and the odd yellowing page is fluttering away in the dead breeze of the fan. A borrower, probably not a regular, is looking at the section on 'English literature and poetry'. He doesn't look the type, so the snob in me is instantly on guard. Aha, I tell myself, unintentional comedy alert! Our friend looks at Tolstoy, Dickens and Faulkner, and finally decides on a James Hadley Chase. Funny enough, but the setup has more potential. So wait for it, I tell myself. 'Bhai sahab ...' he begins loudly as he addresses the librarian. 'Yeh kitaab kitne ...'. 'Shhhh!' goes the librarian, rolling his eyes at the uncouth customers he has to deal with. 'Shhhhh!', and points to a board hanging on one of the bookshelves. 'PLEASE MAKE SILENCE'. Ka-Chinnnnggggg!

Then there are signs that truly intend to be funny. But somehow their writers seem to have gone just a little offbeat with their message. Take this one for instance. Driving down Bandra, my favorite Bombay suburb, the other day, I notice a firm that is engaged in the unfortunate but quite necessary services of post mortem arrangements. 'XYZ', the board proudly proclaims, and for those who were fortunate enough not to have had a past acquaintance with them, it boldly states what it offers - 'FUNEREAL SERVICES!' (Yes, no typo there. And the exclamation mark is decidedly not mine.) Now, the owner probably bought too large a board, and saw that there was still a lot of space that he could fill out. Why waste good real estate, I say. Let us just convert these into advertisement billboards for our funny slogans. But how can you write a funny slogan to attract people to a 'funereal' services company, you ask. See, that is why you weren't hired for this job. Here is how - "GRAVE PROBLEMS - NOW RESURRECTED!"

I was at a furniture shop yesterday. We looked at some piece, the guy gave us a price, we ignored him, gave him a completely made-up price from the top of our head, and told him about three other competitors who were ready to give us the product for said made-up price. He is more than happy to jump into the conversation, and gives us five reasons why this product is just not comparable to anything else on the market. "That teak is only for termites sir! This here is top quality material. I made it myself, with my own hands." We go good-naturedly back and forth for a half hour before it is time for us to leave. "I will let you know" says my wife to him, as she gathers her stuff. We are on our way out when I notice this gem right behind the"own hands" guy - "Customer is a KING" the sign grandly, if somewhat ungrammatically, states. "And a KING never bargains!"

Incredible !ndia - Come for the casket, stay for the jokes.

By,
J
(J blogs at http://brickandrope.blogspot.com)

The Taxman Cometh !

Read this in Bill Bryson's 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid' recently :

In Washington, DC, gunman John A. Kendrick testified that he was offered $ 2,500 to murder Michael Lee, but declined the job because 'when I got done paying taxes out of that, what would I have left?'
- Time Magazine, 7 January 1953

parappapaaraa I'm Lovin' it !
- Zen

Lost in Translation - II

More gems from the wonderful book we dipped into two weeks ago . This time, in order to provide some variation, will first give the translated version and then the original English – in future, spare some sympathy for hapless foreigners interacting with Indians using guides such as this one.

Easy stuff first – words and short phrases :

“Bunny-aan”
A banian or a vest, not a request concerning a playmate.
“Iddar deck-o” (Did I hear someone say, “Aye Aye Cap’n” ? )
“Idhar dekho” or “Look here”
“Chore doe”
“Leave it”
“Doe-pahar kay kah-nay kay pie-lay aow.”
Come before lunch.

Somehow, the placid ‘ao’ is always transformed into an anguished ‘aow’ in this book.
“Challay Jaow”
Go away.
“Idder aow.”
“Come here.”
“Mutt jaow.”
“Don’t go.”
“Ya chahn-dee chum-kaow.”
“Polish this silver”
“Sum-jaow.”
“Explain”
“Wakt per aow.” (my favourite, implies regular disciplining. Maybe for unsatisfactory explanations.)
“Come in time”
“Gun-tea budge-aow” (!!)
“Ring the bell”

And what might be the explanation for the poor translations :
“Maiyn bill-cool teak na-heehn hoohn.”
“I am not too well.

Amen.

Complied and laboriously typed out by,
Zen.
p.s. Venky, thanks a ton for lending me the book.

Lost in Translation

Ever wondered why the foreigners in Hindi films mangle the few Hindi words that they utter ? It’s because that’s how they are taught to utter them. Consider the gems below from a guidebook titled ‘Hindustani for the tourist – A Phonetic Phrase Book for Everyday Use’. Read the phonetic translations out loud to get the full flavour, do not miss the hyphens ‘which show the division of syllables in a word, where you should have a slight pause in your pronounciation’.

‘Kartik’ becomes ‘Car-tick’ ; ‘Kitne’ becomes ‘Kit-nay’.
‘Sawan’ becomes ‘Sah-won’, almost Japanese !
In a throwback to more polite times, “please” is translated as “meherbani karke” (what happened to ‘kripya’?), phonetically as “mayher-baanee kar-kay”.

In the ‘All About Yourself’ section, amongst sentences to befriend the locals are these two, “I am a bachelor” and “I weigh 82 kilos”, important if you are meeting a lot of good-looking young Indian women. Though they might be a bit confused after you utter these sentences, “ Maiyn Coohn-ara hoohn” and “May-rah wazan bay-ah-see kilo high”.

Consider a few sentences to be exchanged with the Dhobi (‘Doe-Bee’).
“Have these cleaned and pressed.” As we would say in Hindi, “Ye dho kar istri karo”. But this is phonetically translated as, “Ye doe kar isstree karo”.
“This is not clean.”
“Yah saaf nahin hai.”
“Ya saaf na-heenh high.”
“Press these correctly.”
“Ye theek tarah se istri karo.”
“Ye teak tarah se isstree karo,”
Really, ‘teak’ ?!

And which foreigner could survive in India without knowing how to speak to a shoemaker ? Hence the following :
“Can you make a pair of shoes for me ?”
“Tum mere liye joote banaa sakte ho?”
“Toom may-ray lee-eh jootay bun-nah suck-tay ho ?”

Sample the howlers below which translate words correctly but get the meaning in this context absolutely wrong :
“Can you make a pair of heels ?”
“Tum eriyan bana sakte ho?”
“Toom ehri-yahn bun-nah suck-tay ho ?”
Some confusion between a shoemaker and a surgeon here !
“Have you got patent leather?”
“Tumhare paas koi achchha chamra hai?”
“Toom-ha-ray pass ko-ee atch-chah chum-rah high ?”
Only if the shoe-maker moonlights as a pimp !

From questions included in the list of critical inquiries to be made before checking in at a hotel, one knows what the author of this book thinks of foreigners and their habits :
“Can I dine in shorts at lunch?”
“Main nekar pahan kar dopahar ka khana kha sakta hoon”
“Maiyn nicker pahan-ker doe-pahar kah kah-nah kah suck-tah hoon?”
“Where is the bar?”
“Bar kidhar hai?”
“Bar kidder high ?”
“Is there a cabaret?”
“Idhar ‘cabaret’ hai ?”
“Iddar ‘cabaret’ high ?”
“Can I bring ladies to my room?”
“Auraton ko apne kamre mein la sakta hun ?”
“Ow-rut-ohn ko up-nay come-ray mayn lah suck-tah hoohn?”
I know some people describe women as a pain-in-the-ass, but ‘Ow-rut’ !

More of these next week, folks.
Zen.

Grocery Shopping Abroad

When I travel to a new place on holiday, I often like to fancy that I’m staying there as opposed to just travelling through. The thing that helps me to get into living-there fantasy is to walk down to a grocery shop near where I stay and buy groceries. Behind the wheels of a shopping cart, I can pretend I’m a local, i.e. anyone from here, i.e. anyone in the know to buy sensibly and not get fleeced like the ignorant tourists.

The important thing is that the buying must be for something I will need to use immediately and not just shopping-for-back-home. Usually it’s for things that go into or along with a sandwich – bread, cheese, maybe a bit of meat or some local fruit. Of course, there is nothing like buying cleaning material – nothing that quite as well cements the fact that you are putting down some roots, however small. But, well, if I’m staying at a hotel it’s quite unlikely that I will need to get those.

It isn’t that I don’t like to eat at restaurants, not at all. I usually plan my holidays around where and what we will eat. It’s this fact that dictates that I often need to eat one meal light for the sake of my stomach and also my pocket. So having my own stash of groceries in the car or hotel fridge makes helps me feel more settled.

And then there is the sheer joy of grocery shopping. Even under normal circumstances, I love scouting about the racks for my everyday at-home grocery getting. But when abroad, this takes on even more delicious intensity. I am an explorer amongst row after row of less familiar brand names, fruit and dairy products. Thrilling at every discovery of stuff I’ve only ever seen on TV or read about in books. Or even better, finding familiar brands that cost 10 times more back home. I spend wistful minutes in the exotic (but local for there, you see) spice aisle, while putting together earthy pot roasts, hearth warming stews and such in my head. They always turn out fragrantly delicious and my friends and family have tears in their eyes at my nourishing brilliance. Fortunately, I don’t have a kitchen right there or the time when I’m back home, to see these dreams come crashing down to earth. I blink and move on. Onward to the ready-to-eat sections where I can appease my gatherer instincts. Happy minutes at the yoghurt aisle, looking through the different flavours, ditto for the Crisps and Beverages and Instant Soup . Flavours I’ve never imagined, and they must all be tried!

Naturally, every so often, amidst the entire delightful discovery there is also the occasional revolting mistake. But that’s what hotel bins are made for. And then there are times like when we bought a piece of wrapped up durian and left it for over an hour in a parked car! a bad disaster like that could even call for buying cleaning material…and I’m back in my imagined paradise.

There is, of course, the ultimate reward to all my shenanigans at the grocery shop. Later, at some ancient fort miles in the country I can gloat silently at the persecuted tourists who are milling about the only (and expensive) food stall eating fried dangly bits of heaven knows while we dig in to all our lovely food. In truth, this hasn't happened yet, but sooner or later it will and when it does I will be prepared.

By,
Nafisa

Fatitude

I love to eat. Nowadays, I Eat like a horse
This is telling on my waistline of course.
My brain thinks I’m pregnant and it’s putting up a fight
Its sending signals all over, to boost my appetite.
It’s working on growing the little mite in my tum
That’s no baby, dolt brain, but a cream filled bun.
But the tum is growing I know that much
From all the dimsums, fried jalapenos, chocolate and such.
The shirts are a stretch, I see skin ‘tween the buttons
And the trousers are pretty close, they’re just about shuttin.
The gnawing pangs get worse with the frantic swimming
The universe conspires to keep me more brimming than slimming.

By,
Nafisa

King of the Road

I wrote this post some time ago, but was wary of exposing my unpseud yearnings - until I read this article by Shobha Narayan in the Mint Lounge yesterday. Now that she’s come out of the closet, I feel less embarrassed about admitting to my unusual automobile ambitions.

I have always felt that the sturdy ol’ Ambassador was the perfect car for me. I want to be able to drive without worrying about whether I am too close to the next car, the pavement, or the road divider; hence my car has perforce to be one that can take the force of impact and minimize injury to me. Another advantage of an Amby is that every once in a while, I could indulge my evil side by gently nudging aside a shiny new Merc or BMW without caring a whit about what happens to my car. While their owners would worry about the damage to the majestic visage of their car, I could whistle nonchalantly as I drove away - amongst a hundred scratches on an Amby, who minds adding one more ?

But then I read these articles a few months ago about the luxury buses being converted into election raths for political leaders and my humble Amby level aspirations were instantly upgraded. Now I want a converted luxury bus from the JCBL factory in Punjab. Their ability to all but drive over other cars puts even an Ambassador’s sturdiness in the shade. As the green goblin says in this poem by Harold Monro,”Give them me.” How much fun I could have with one of these !

At the wheel of one of the JCBL luxury buses, I would literally be the ‘King of the Road’. No more gently honking at people who don’t give way, now I could pick up the microphone, switch on the election –strength loudspeaker and holler in chaste Bambaiiya, ”abbe oye, tuzhaaa aaiichaaa……” ! I might even have an advance rider on a motorcycle with a siren so that lesser cars could whimper in fear and scurry down side-streets for safety leaving a nice empty road for me to drive down.

During rush hour, I might still get stuck in traffic which would be a tad frustrating, but not for more than a few minutes as I switched on music, picked up a book and lounged on the sofa with a chilled Thums Up from the fridge. Maybe I would even watch a movie on the TV or catch up on the soaps. Occasionally I’d be nice and use the sound system for playing music to the poor plebs outside. On days when I was in a more extroverted mood, I could crank up the hydraulic stage and address the captive audience stuck in assorted cars and cabs through the loudspeaker system – it would beat even a blog for ease of inflicting one’s views on an innocent and unsuspecting public. I’d probably keep a long cattle prod with me too, in case anyone said anything remotely uncomplimentary or honked rudely – bzzzzzt – and they’d be fried.

So Shobha, if you gift me an Ambassador or a JCBL luxury bus this Diwali, I promise to gift you a blue autorickshaw in return. Happy Diwali !

By,
Zenobia D. Driver

Evolution of a Facebook User

Sit out the Facebook revolution for several years.

Listen to friends indicate that you are a dinosaur and may be left off the ship earthlings will use to emigrate to the outer worlds when apocalypse hits.

One fine evening, sign up

Cautiously accept pending invites (and wonder how one can get invites even before one even has a Facebook account. This is so Big Brother)

Start responding to messages.

--------

Realise on one slow day that office gives you access to Facebook.

Start commenting on everyone’s pages.

Invite a few friends

---------

Notice number of friends all your friends have and realize you look like the class loser with a pathetically low score.

Get competitive

Start inviting half of your batch from college and B School

--------

Realise you are getting updates on Dinesh Daswani’s life frequently

Realise you have not exchanged more than two words with Dinesh in your entire 2 years at B-School

Realise you are not interested in Dinesh’s life at all.

Spend time contemplating between de-friending Dinesh, abandoning Facebook and turning to Yoga to remove competitive streak in self.

---------

Figure out tools for seeing updates only of ‘close friends’ and feel like an international diplomat bringing smooth solutions to conflict-torn areas.

Realise this is the kind of meaningless work you were worried Facebook would thrust on you.

Kick yourself for succumbing to peer pressure to get a Facebook account and make a mental note that you don’t want to be on the emigration ship. Esp if it has Dinesh Daswani.
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By,
Anita B
(http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)

In One of My Moods

Ganpati Bappa Morya, Land ahead, its time to dock. And with flies in my stomach from last night's chicken at the office party, I descend on client land. Trooper (loud tone to general): No hostile reception, welcome with flowers while we are expecting brickbats, tujha aai chi. Courtmartialed am I, dare not, I am a Ghat and Raj will get back at you with a vengeance. Entering, I find people working, much like us, we in black suits and computer look like emaciated MIBs. I may not have the charm of Will Smith but by Dada Kondke's verve, when I spin, I turn Bhel Air's eye's too

Aside: Having learnt the art of building bridges, your truly sought to build one of out paper, Only while spinning the paper, my eyes chanced upon Urvashi, that lady of buxom breasts who spun on the floor as she spun them papers. I spun too and embroiled in paper, a sad state I was. Coy laugh, the bitch, what a setup. So anyways, abandoning all thought of spinning (on the ground or with paper) I continued to remain true to my roots. I am ghat and I am proud of it, WS can spin well so can we just like DK

So the enemy sighted, but what is this he comes in peace. Flummoxed, I hail on radio (damn these old machines always turn on at the right time). General, they come in peace. Courtmartialled am I, so you send another trooper in. Well so be, upon the word of Mata Hari, I shall betray thy fear like she betrayed lusting allies up in War. I tell you, these women, they always come good in my mind, Urvashi and now Mata Hari, what a wonderful day

So I come in peace too, O! erstwhile foe, what have you a marketing problem. You land these troops ala Normandy but you find the front unconquered. '43 it was I landed too, I shall tell you a thing or two of landing, marketing is like war I say and I am THE trooper. Have you heard of Raj of the Thackeray fame, well yours truly leads his Navnirman Sena

Aside: Pay commissions not forthcoming, Troopers turned to other means of income. While Generals lavished on themselves the spoils of war, troopers were left to decay. So why, why not like the IPL and By Yusuf, I am also Pathan ka baccha. Taken to the cause of Ghats (finding it profitable), I fight and rest my wounds on Zhunka Bhakar at eod ( a term originally connoting extinct or disappeared loyal troopers to the cause of the enemy, now meaning end of day!!)
We come in peace too Comrade. By MG (What you don’t know what that means, you sonova bicycle, recognise your father, he who spawned a billion). Strong sperm and what not, his brethren the enterprising Gujaratis

So I decide to be traitor and explain. My trooper comes and he comes with Powerpoint. My comrades from the dark suits sit in a room and Bang, they splash colours on a screen and then draw boxes and then by my smoking guns they come up with some names. By Ganpati, I have sworn, once in a Night Queen, sitting on a damsel's lap, I used to be light those days, I saw the general cooking up the colors, they came from the eye of the nautch girl. Ganpati bappa I said, to which I heard, "The answers in the girls' eyes. Let me draw her consumer portrait". Oh what debauchery. I learnt to enjoy it soon, my class of Ghats we are very corruptible

So there you go, that's Powerpoint in a nutshell, in a nautch girl's eyes it lies. Go my foe, before they release their weaponry, run and find that girl, Draw that portrait and get learn effective landing

And May you win

Ganpati Bappa, Court martialled. By Sivaji, we never were nor ever shall be courted be your pardon, court martialled

With due apologies to G V Desani for use of his Contraro style of writing

By jove apologies over
Anonymous

Ticking Away

1:00 Grant Road chalo, station ke peeche. Been raining since the morning and it just doesn’t stop. Bloody Jugnu Sheth, perched up with Leena in Hotel Diamond and wanting to see the papers there. Always mixing business with pleasure. At least I didn’t work when I went to Kennedy Bridge in the evening.

Traffic is slow. Raining and so many cars. Its 100% stock market only, Bloody even Harish bhai bought a Zen the other day. Saaala used to go in Chetak, now bloody AC Zen with Himesh Bhai for company. I don’t invest you see, I take the 8:17 in the morning but first class. Never late. Office by 8:43. Chai at 9:05 and I am set for the day. Safari gets a little crumpled, but Dhanno dhobi is below Eros and I am good to go. Wife bought me a white safari the other day, got blackened. They don’t clean the trains. Its not their fault. Sweeper says he gets 100 rupees a day. I wouldn’t clean my own ass for 100 rupees in a day

Bloody traffic. Money’s running easy and cars are running easier. Today Jugnu called me and I have to break the 15 rupees rule.

1:20 Abey kaat idhar se. Traffic is bad these days. B’bay was great. Grant Road also, even Kennedy was high-class.. Lisa would be there. Good days, milk and bang bang and milk again and then off to Damyanti cinema. I asked for milk and I was told inflation. Bloody fancy word for a pimp. Inflation, bull shit, its all the stock market

1:30 I have only twenty. Where the fuck is the ten, I thought I had. Sharma, bloody bastard, took the money in the morning. Sharma is the kind of fellow you don’t want to meet, ever. Institutional Accounts, Sharma. He fills a row a day. Only a row and not more, somedays when its Diwali or something he does two. Those day’s he’s tired and says he needs to cab it back home. Sharmaji. Fat poncho Sharma.

1:40 Fucking twenty bucks and its only Metro yet. Don’t even have an umbrella. Can’t carry an umbrella you see. Doesn’t suit me, cramps my style. Mornings you have to be careful. Xaviers College is close by and all these girls, they travel too. So many men with dabba and umbrella, bloody ghats, signing up their virility for their wives forever. I refrain. Take a breath, get wet a bit, but stroll with free arms. There’s nothing like watching a man strolling with arms swinging. Sign of perfect masculinity

1:50 I have only twenty bucks. So you’ll anyways be going down this one way drop me.

1:60 Bloody bastard. I’ve seen these types. Another day, another man, another mistake. Must have spent his money on some gambling. Stock market. These tall offices, sullen from outside and fittingly. Men go in and cash registers come out. Some ring, others ring hollow. Picked up this kid once, bright kid, two days later, he didn’t have cash for a bloody cab ride. Same as this fellow

2:00 Thirty fucking bucks, losing ten on this guy. Lost twenty already on that girl near Wilson. Thirty bucks in a day, 1000 in a month, my house rent. Its raining, hard to tell these people to get off in the cab. Potholed and puddled, Mumbai, dirty as if each person just vomited on the road and walked on. Everyone vomits and the streets take it all in and a little is left on top. Then it rains and the city regurgitates. All the vomit comes out. It stinks. Thirty bucks a day, rains are just poor business

2:10 Good cabbie, might have tipped him, luckily I am out of cash. Now for Jugnu and Leena. Maybe I’ll call that Tehelka reporter and do one tamasha. Breaking news tamasha.

Another day another thought,
Make some money but mostly lost
The city burns by day and night
Purse strings forever pulled tight

My money runs out evermore now
Rich yesterday but today poor as a cow
Many more to bid with me
And age leaves me fleetingly

Another day another thought
Make some money but mostly lost

By,
Anonymous

Annoy-o-meter

Regular readers of this blog will be aware of the special relationship I share with Aishwarya Rai. Namely, I can't stand her acting. I find her plasticky, annoying and the target of my prayers for being an early victim in any movie having any chance, however minuscule, of killings.

Given that Ash usually just has to make a physical presence in a movie to make her annoying, in Dhoom 2 she managed to take her "my-annoying-self" performance to sterling levels. Five minutes into her appearance, I was wanting to throw something at the screen. Ten minutes later, I was pulling my hair out in frustration. Fifteen minutes later, I hoped Hrithik or Abhishek or even random character on the road #3 would have the good sense to bump her off.

Of course no such thing happened. At the end of the movie, finding myself still sane, I felt like a survivor. I found a new appreciation for the tolerance levels of the entire crew of Dhoom-2. And though I woke up at night in cold sweat with echoes of "Funny guy" and "Sunehri like likes you" in my head for quite a few days afterwards, the frequency of these incidents gradually decreased.

The point I am trying to make is, after watching Ash in Dhoom-2 I thought the absolute zenith of an annoying performance in cinema had been reached. No matter how annoying any other actor was in any movie, beside Ash's spectacular Dhoom-2 performance, they were mere fireflies beside the sun. That Dhoom-2 performance would forever occupy the numero uno position in my Annoying Performances Hall of Fame.

Or so I thought. Then I watched Asin in Dasavatharam. Till she opened her mouth to talk, she looked very pretty. The words "En perumal-a kudu" were the harbinger of doom. High pitched, irritating, murder-inducing, annoying - Asin managed it all and more!

Why on earth could not the character Fletcher who seemed to kill everyone else at first glance not have killed Asin on a priority basis? I think it was his devious plan to try to drive Govindraj to suicide due to unbearable torture by giving him Asin's constant company. Seeing the sheer number of places where Asin could have been bumped off convincingly and yet was still left alive was like being denied candy after being taken all the way to the checkout counter again and again.

By the time the end of the movie rolled around, I was eagerly awaiting it. There did not seem to be any other way out of watching the torture called Asin.

To be fair to Asin, unlike Ash's role in Dhoom-2 which *might* have been saved by a better actress, *anyone* performing Asin's role in Dasavatharam would have been equally horribly annoying. Which is why I have decided to let Ash retain her title of most annoying performer ever. But let me tell you, it is a very very narrow victory.

By,
Archana (http://archana.blogspot.com)

Peeping Tom, not I

During a recent trip to Sikkim, I fell ill halfway through a trek and descended to a village called Tsokha with a friend while the rest of our group went on. My friend and I spent three days in Tsokha whilst waiting for the others to return. Tsokha is a village that exists only for the purpose of adventure tourism - located at a height of 9000-10,000 ft, it is one of the halts on the popular Dzongri – Goecha La treks. All Tsokha has is a few houses, a camp-site, three shacks that call themselves ‘cafes’ and sell trinkets and snacks to trekkers, a lot of itinerant trekkers – most of them firangs, and a small monastery.

In Tsokha, we rented a room from a villager; it was big enough for us to empty our backpacks and spread out our stuff untidily rather than do the daily drill of unpack sleeping bag – sleep – wake up – unpack new set of clothes – pack used clothes – pack sleeping bag. As I was unwell, one of our porters had descended with us and he ensured that we had a pampered existence. He would bring us tea at 7:30 a.m. and breakfast at 8:30 a.m. After breakfast, my friend would go off on a long hike while I lazily strolled around Tsokha – visiting the monastery, sitting at the chai shops and chatting endlessly with total strangers etc. My friend would return around one, and we would have lunch together and chat a bit. Each day, by 2 in the afternoon, a mist would roll in accompanied by a sharp, biting wind that encouraged all but the most adventurous to stay in – either in tents or in their rooms. By half past two, we would be huddled in our sleeping bags in the rooms. Once more, we would depend on our porter to brave the cold and bring us evening tea as well as dinner.

Unfortunately, this was one trip on which I had forgotten to bring a book to read and I found myself at a loss for things to do to keep myself occupied once we were cooped up in the room. Then, on the second such afternoon, I remembered the number of birds I had seen in the thicket near the common toilet, which was behind the block of rooms we were staying in. It was quite a pretty location for a loo – mountains all around, a valley below, and in the adjacent thicket there were rhododendron bushes, magnolia trees, some bamboo and lots of bushes; the richness of the flora accounting for both a large number of birds that twittered and chirped away the day and an interminable procession of bees/wasps that droned on in a threatening manner and encouraged one to hurry up with one’s business lest they decide to attack.

Luckily, one of the windows of my room faced the thicket and I settled down at the window that afternoon to see whatever birds I could before the mist became too thick. Aah, I thought, the luxury of seeing birds without being exposed to the cold mist and the wind. I saw a magpie or two, and some unidentified small birds. Mostly though, I saw crows flying to and fro in a most frazzled manner, as if searching for something they had lost. I could chart the approach of the mist by looking at the flowers on the magnolia tree nearby. As the first tendrils of the mist crept over the tree, they only served to highlight its vibrancy – bursting-with-life, voluptuous, bright white magnolia flowers contrasted against a background of dull, grayish-white, amorphous mist. Slowly the jealous mist called up reinforcements and grew thicker, fewer and fewer of the lively magnolia flowers were visible; until finally the curdled-with-jealousy thick mist hid them altogether.

At this point I turned away from the window to describe the change in scenery to my friend. I turned back to the window a minute later, only to view the not-so-appealing sight of the ample rear end of some man lowering his trousers. My initial response was irritation with the man for intruding on a scene of such beauty; for a moment I toyed with the idea of scaring him by tapping eerily on the window pane, or of embarrassing him by opening the window and asking him the time.

Then I realized that to any external observer I was the intruder, sitting with my nose pressed against the window-pane, at a window that overlooked the path to the loo - probably one of those weird kinky psychos, the type who get their thrills by trekking 10,000 ft high to secretly observe other people answering the call of nature. Given where I was sitting and what I seemed to be doing, I could hardly accuse the man with his pants down of being uncouth or boorish, so what if he preferred watering the trees to using a man-made facility !

I wondered then whether other people approaching the loo had been embarrassed / shocked into abandoning plan when they saw a face wearing an earnest, keenly observant expression in the window-pane. Did they scuttle back to their rooms to report in shocked tones the weird behaviour being exhibited by the lady (??) in room no. 3 ? In case they did, and you heard about it too, this is the true and accurate version of events – I’m not a despo Peeping Tom, it’s all a simple misunderstanding.

By,
Zenobia D. Driver

Ganpati Bappa Less-ya

The fact that Ganesh pandals have sprung up here and there in Chennai is good evidence of a singular lack of imagination. As a primarily Maharastrian custom, it is not too popular here. Nevertheless the State units of the more ‘nationalistic’ political parties labour on every year in the hope of generating mass hysteria and cutting through to the vote base of the Dravidian parties. As most of their other laughable ideas, this has also not worked too well so far.

One of the Ganesha pandals I managed to pass by this year was an example of why these State units should seriously consider dropping the idea. The pandal owner had neatly come up with various avatars of Ganesha depending on what had caught his fancy. I noticed a ‘nut’ Ganesh, a ‘grass’ Ganesh, a fruity Ganesh, a coconut Ganesh and turmeric Ganesh. In case you are reaching out for your Penguin book of Hindu mythology, let me assure you that all these are definitely not sanctioned avatars of the elephant god. Clearly an overactive imagination had been at work. The only problem was that the level of competence had clearly not matched the level of enthusiasm. The turmeric Ganesha was alright, merely looking like he was suffering from an advanced case of Hepatitis B. The nuts and fruits Ganeshas were also reasonably fine. The grass Ganesha looked like a mutant child of a union between Ganesh and an Ent from Lord of the Rings. What really took the cake was the coconut Ganesha. The statue was embossed on all sides with empty coconut shells all covered in a fine layer of mud. The effect was of watching Ganesh suffering from some unspeakable disease, no doubt contracted by being promiscuous with the Apsaras. Just looking at it made me want to shut my eyes and sing songs to calm myself down.

I am not the one to quibble about Ganesh being given new forms. Infact, assimilation of new ideas is probably the cornerstone of a religion’s survival. As a child I had heartily applauded when I saw Ma Durga riding a dinosaur in a pandal in Kolkatha (Jurassic Park had just been released that year). However I do protest against my aesthetic senses being offended like this.

The irony was that despite the stark ugliness of the whole range of Ganeshas, devotees were still passing by them in a steady line, touching the feet of the statues. Boy, religion sure sells!

By,
Anita B (more by her on http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)

Old favourites - 1

Now that this blog is almost two years old, have decided to select favourite posts from the past and run them again. Today's is 'Fairy Tale Phobia' by Rohit Grover, which I have read again ang again and over again, and continue to enjoy.
Do mention your favourite posts - by commenting or emailing - and those will be run too.
Our blog is almost two years old. Yippeee !

Fairy Tale Phobia

Now that I am a father, who is regularly called upon to read stories to his daughter, I have developed a very healthy dislike for fairy tales. I am okay with bears that talk and discuss the matters of the day, such as how the porridge is so much hotter nowadays than when they were little bear cubs, thinking nary a thought but those of porridge at just the right temperature, not cold and congealed, not so hot that it would burn the roofs of their mouths, just right. I can imitate barnyard animals till the cows come home -- mooing and snorting and clucking come to me like fluorescent lamps to the energy conscious. Zoo animals -- oh yeah, bring those on.

But fairy tales I hate. I can't stand the message I'm sending to my kid. Everytime I read 'Sleeping Beauty' I think of how vacuous and shallow the whole thing is. The fairies give her gifts of beauty and a singsong voice and, presumably, more gifts of a similar nature (maybe an hourglass figure, two well-defined eyebrows, and the like). No one gives her gifts of intelligence, the ability to do math, solve quantum mechanical problems, solve analytical mechanics problems, to see beauty in biology, the ability to tell fact from fiction, science from religion, not to mention the ability to kick the freaking prince who will later come up and kiss her without so much as a how-do-you-do.

If my daughter is to marry a prince, or an heir to a vast fortune, so be it, but I hope she will at least google the guy, pay some agency to do a background check on him, and spend enough time with him to figure out if it's really worth the trouble.

All the stories about evil stepmothers? How about some stories about kind stepmothers? Let's balance things a little, shall we? My daughter might have to be a stepmother some day -- I don't want her to feel like a failure if she doesn't have a hooked nose with a wart on the end, a cackly laugh, and a propensity to do evil. So I just avoid those. Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White will have to wait. Other stories I find myself changing on the fly.

Fauna, Flora, and Merriweather give gifts of being good at math, feeling relaxed during examinations, and an independent streak, but not one that leads Sleeping Beauty (how about calling her Aurora, her given name, for chrissakes) to do drugs or tobacco. Aurora gets into an accident on her way home from the art academy (she was straying from the path of science). Because she wasn't wearing a seatbelt, she goes into a coma, but a very intelligent surgeon saves her, and when she finally wakes up, he mentors her and she becomes a neurosurgeon herself. Then they get married and have kids, because let's face it, I want to make sure that message is conveyed so that my genes should get passed on -- that's my evolutionary right.

The miller who had a beautiful daughter who couldn't really spin straw into gold? How come the king gets to decide if he wants to marry her -- doesn't the girl get any sat? There are many versions of that one. The simples? It was a foolish miller, who's daughter packed an AK-47, and when the evil ruler tried to make her do stuff she didn't want to, RATATATATATATATATAT. That story ends rather fast. Then there's the one where she does the spinning of straw, but turns him down and goes to law school and proves that the monarchy is not right and introduces democracy to the country and becomes the first president (She shoots Rumpelstiltskin when he tries to kidnap her first-born kid).

The three little pigs -- actually, I like that one. But after having read it out loud a few hundred times, complete with the song about the big bad wolf, you want to end it sooner, so sometimes the wolf wins and has ham sandwiches for breakfast the next few months.

You get the picture.

I also hate tabloids and celebrity news magazines. I hate Aishwarya Rai, Lindsay Lohan, Catherine Zeta-Jones, and Britney Spears. I want someone to publish a magazine with, say, glamor shots of Madame Curie's experimental apparatus (maybe Madame Curie also, but in opaque, sensible clothing). But that's another rant.

By,
Speck 42 ((speckfortytwo)(at)(gmail)(dot)(com))

Nine Reasons to be Glad that Pratibhatai is President

1. Been a long time since Giani Zail Singh. India needs another Presidency that can spawn a whole series of jokes.
2. India can occupy America's position on the world stage. Once George Bush' term is over, which world leader will give us quotable quotes to chuckle over ? Who will play the court jester ?
3. The term 'informal' banking sector would acquire a whole new meaning.
4. Overleveraged and the economy dips? Relax and default
5. 'It's all about loving your family'
6. One small decision from Pratibha Patil, a huge leap for family planning practises. Of course, 'stupid' and 'unethical' do not yet qualify as symptoms of a hereditary disease
7. Even the President has an 'inner voice', so what if it speaks through Dadiji ?
8. Little children being misled by ambiguous concepts such as meritocracy etc can be given solid proof that loyalty and tenure will eventually get you somewhere
9. History exams - on Mughals and everything else - are going to be so much easier to prepare for. Just go with popular beliefs

By,
Anita & Zenobia

Approaching Antiquity

In other words, getting older.

I have just one problem with this - the older I grow the more the percentage of younger people amongst those around me increases.

A few years ago, when I was working in a regional sales office, I failed to appreciate one of its biggest advantages – it was staffed (or stuffed) with lots of old people, whose average age was 45. Compared to them, I felt like a young, sprightly spring chicken - with time, youth, energy and enthusiasm all on my side. Now I work for a company where many of my colleagues are younger than 30 (younger than me, sigh !), and some are even as young as 22 - 23 !

Who let this gaggle of kids enter office ? They should all be in college practising advanced calculus, or microeconomics, or analysing W.H.Auden’s poetry through a Freudian lens, or whatever it is that they study - and practising tying their diapers symmetrically in their spare time. They should not be in office making respectably middle aged people like me feel like dinosaurs, so not-with-it, so behind-the-times.

Much as I like being around them, I have to admit that being in an environment made up of younger folks is not for the intolerant, impatient, under-confident or faint-hearted. Communication can sometimes be a challenge – especially if one is prone to giving analogies from an earlier era while speaking. I once cracked a joke about a stilted conversation between two people of the opposite gender sounding like it was part of the dialogue of a Saigalsaab film; the blank faces I saw totally killed my enthusiasm to illustrate my point by breaking into ‘main ban ki panchhi ban kar ban ban doloon re’. (Which might not be an entirely bad thing, we were seated in a lounge at the time, my rendition of ‘main ban ki panchhi’ might not have been received with the applause it deserves).

Another time, at a disco, I was thoroughly enjoying the music as it was retro night and I recognised all the songs – something which doesn’t happen very often. However, the kids cribbed because they recognised very few of the songs. (An aside : You know you are old when the songs they pay on ‘retro’ night in discs are the ones you used to enjoy in college; or when the videos on Channel V ‘Classics’ feature guys you mooned over in school / college – e.g. George Michael.)

And let me not forget my young friend who during a conversation authoritatively informed me that once people are about 35 years old, they lose all interest in sex because they are too old for it ! When I accused him of ageist discrimination, his only excuse was to explain that 35 was an age too old for him to comprehend !

Do you remember the comics you read as a kid ? Archies, Superman, Batman, Tinkle, Phantom etc. One time we were discussing the recent spate of super-hero movies when I mentioned that I really liked Phantom when I was a kid. Thankfully, this time I didn’t get the blank zombie-like stares as everyone recognised Phantom. However, some of them knew Phantom only from a videogame and had never read the comics !

Yegads ! Kids have stopped reading comics !!

The very nature of childhood has changed ! They don’t read comics, they don’t recognise ABBA numbers, they don’t know Saigal and Guru Dutt, they don’t like reading books, they are very tech savvy, they wear branded apparel and they know the exact difference between a bar, a pub, a lounge, a disco and a night-club.

I need a guidebook to be able to make interesting conversation with this generation.

By,
Zenobia D. Driver

Poster Boys and Girls

One area that seldom gets attention in Dravidian politics is the fine art of making posters. For some reasons, the minions of the party have long felt that the one way of displaying loyalty is to ensure that your constituency is choc-o-bloc with posters of all relevant leaders. Presumably when the party chief’s car whizzes by at 100 kmph on roads cleared by the traffic police, some special vision capability will make them note that T Nagar had only 149 posters as opposed to Adyar which had 152 posters. The Adyar MLA gets a pat on the back and looks forward to becoming a central minister some day.

The casual observer however immediately notices a flaw in this strategy that emphasizes volumes. The T Nagar guy takes a mere day to up his count to 160 and the Adyar guy obliterates all business signs, trees, people on the road with his increases. Sooner or later, both chaps run out of walls, the general public is complaining about the lack of space to spit without disfiguring your favourite leader and there is chaos all around. It was at this fine moment of despondence that some worthy invented the ‘Cutout’.

A Cutout is a huge, larger than life cardboard picture of your beloved leader that one can erect on wooden poles. If mere walls were a constraint earlier, then the Cutout solved the problem in one stroke. You did not need walls anymore. Footpaths did nicely. So what if the voter had to swerve his way around every Cutout and jump onto the road and back on to the footpath constantly. That is the kind of aerobic exercise that makes the average citizen fit and brings down health expenditure in the government budget.

Sadly the Cutouts began to disappear one day. My guess is a passing flight bumped into one of them and as they say 'what tangled webs we weave'.

So innovation became the name of the game. MBA style cunning was used to subtly differentiate poster A from poster B. What was hitherto a piece of cheap paper listing down details of the leader being praised, the ambitious sponsor of the poster and some general terms of sucking up (‘Our great leader’, ‘the greatest son of the soil’, ‘may we be humbly permitted to give a bath to your dog’ etc) became a work of art.

People decided to take their inspiration from the movies. Remember the good old days when the hero and heroine methodically changed clothes every twenty seconds in movie songs? Watching a series of posters on the Beach road gives you the feeling of watching such a song. First there is the poster with the leader’s head morphed onto western clothes, then onto Indian clothes and finally some colourful casuals. That the morphing has transformed the perpetually dhoti-clad man into a somewhat thinner, shapelier and nifty dresser is considered artistic license.

Not to mention, it is not just sartorial elegance that wins votes. Apparently during the last elections one of the reasons the incumbent was rumoured to have lost was because of the serious, unsmiling face in the posters. This election the posters were modified to show a benign smile that the electorate could apparently identify with. Sadly in the more remote villages where wall paintings are still cheaper than posters, the benign smile turned slightly constipated in the artist’s reinterpretation of the original work. It seemed to understand the common man’s urgent need to perform ablutions by the wall.

My latest fancy has been to gawk at a poster that depicts a smiling yesteryear leader now deceased. Emerging from the open heart of the deceased leader, like some grotesque mid way picture of a heart transplant is the smiling mug of a current leader. Still it is a whole lot better than the Congress posters. Devoid of any imagination and burdened by history, the congressmen feel obliged to make family snaps with pictures of various generations of the Gandhi-Nehru family appropriately sized to depict current levels of importance. Thus Nehru would be fluttering like a fly by Sonia Gandhi’s head. Entertaining but not in the same league as the open-heart surgery one.

Some day, I am sure Chennai citizens will be too advanced to vote going by the posters. But I do hope as an art form it finds its place in history.

By,
Anita B
(Read more of Anita's posts on http://royalvilla.blogspot.com)