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Notes on America

America- The Great Polluter


Everybody casually says that all Americans drive cars, and statistically, they're almost vindicated. There are more than 270 million cars on the roads, and the population is just 300 million. The only reason the cities are not as polluted as Indian cities is that the former are a lot less dense than the latter. And the US being a huge country, driving distances are large, which means an insane amount of gasoline is burnt every day. To compound the problem, the absence of public transport in most cities means you have twenty cars plying instead of one bus. What is also stunning is the careless use of plastic bags. Unlike in India, where the supermarket wallah will stuff all your saamaan into two or three big plastic bags, the counter waalis here put only 1 or 2 items in a bag, and on average, you come home with 8-10 plastic bags. I've already accumulated more plastic bags in 3 months than mom has in 27 years!


Why do people shop like there's no tomorrow?


For the simple reason that there is no tomorrow. If you finish your gallon of water on Wednesday, it means you have to go to Walmart, park your car, walk all the way to the relevant aisle, and stand in line for anything between 10 minutes and an hour- all for a gallon of water! So people take a deep breath on weekends, and ransack the racks, pick up more than their immediate needs warrant; just to escape the ordeal of shopping on weekdays. I'm not attempting to generalize here- it's just something I've been observing. I'm sorely missing kirana stores.


Why Indians don't have lane discipline


You have to hand it to the Americans. The road network and quality is excellent. You can drive at 120 kmph without being on steroids. The signals on the roads are very helpful, and people new to the city can also navigate fairly easily. The facilities for interstate travel are excellent- there are small exits from the main interstate roads, that have gas stations, supermarkets, and food outlets. But even if India manages to build good quality, wide roads, it's impossible to inculcate lane discipline along the lines of the US or Europe. The only reason is the number of 2-wheelers on Indian roads. Out of a 90-page driving rule book here, there were only 2 pages devoted to motorcycles- and reading it made me realize that if the roads here had half as many motorcycles as India does, all hell would break loose. The lack of lane discipline in India has less to do with Indians' 'driving sense' and more to do with the nature of roads and kind of vehicles driven.


Dignity of labour


One of the favourite tea-time discussions in urban India is how people in the US work as waiters or taxi drivers without any stigma, and how it would be unthinkable to have your son work part time in the neighbourhood dhaba in India (though, thanks to CCD, the idea is catching on). This difference is not because of the famous 'dignity of labour' argument. It's a more blatant and in-your-face reason. The US is a consumption-driven economy and private saving is very less, unlike India which has a much higher savings rate. Parents are understandably keen to see their children fend for themselves when they are old enough. Also, parents can't spend on their kids' indulgences beyond a certain point, which is why you see teenagers working in restaurants. And they are paid well, and tipped very well (15% of the bill). They use the money they earn either to support or to indulge themselves, unlike in India where parents take care of you till you actually start taking care of yourself, and not just till you're physically capable of doing so. Once the trend catches on in India, I'm sure parents won't mind their children earning that extra buck.


Why American parents are reluctant to spend on their kids' college education


Another famous Indians-are-better discussion revolves around American parents not sponsoring their kids' college education. There is a very valid reason for this. College education is offensively expensive here. It generally exceeds the annual income of the family. It's very much like the MBA colleges in India, whose fees too generally exceeds the average middle class annual income. Just like Indian students take loans and pay them off after their MBA, students here do it after high school. It's a combination of unaffordable fees, low savings, and a general encouragement to earn your own living as early as possible.

A word on college education. The fact that many high school students in the US do not go to college might surprise many Indians. In India, the concept of 'at least a degree' is so deeply entrenched that it may seem unthinkable that you can lead a comfortable and fulfilling life without a degree, unless you're the heir to a business or you're Sachin Tendulkar. This notion leads many parents to force a B.Tech down their kids' throats. In the US, vocational courses and diplomas (stuff you find printed on dirty yellow paper and stuck inside RTC buses) are pretty popular, which means you can focus your energies on acquiring a particular skill, and live off that skill for the rest of your life. If you want to build on that skill or move on from it, you can always join college at the age of 30; which brings me to another must-reform area for India. The idea of finishing all your education in one go and then settling down into grihasta, vanaprastha, and sanyasa sounds perfect, but makes our education system extremely inflexible. My mentor in office started his career by building swimming pools, then became a welder, and when he got more curious about welding, joined college at the age of 28 to learn metallurgy. He's now a very successful materials engineer. This is when I resent the decision of the IITs to admit students till only one year after their Class 12. College education is not the norm here, and the citizens are better off for it. By opening up colleges to students of all ages, and encouraging vocational education, we can not only give our adults the opportunity to enhance their learning, but also give a cushion of comfort to 17 year-olds who can't afford / are not interested in college. There are constraints like the limited number of college seats, but it's not a problem that cannot be tackled.


Why don't American households have maid servants?


The biggest dread for any bachelor / single girl moving to the US is the prospect of having to cook, clean, and dispose trash themselves without having recourse to a servant. The main reason for this is, whether a person works as a servant or a CEO, they need a car (how else will your servant commute?) and they have to pay insurance premiums for their car, their home, their health, their life, and everything else imaginable. Can you, or four people together, afford to pay for these 'basic necessities'? The minimum amount you need to earn to live comfortably is so high that it rules out odd jobs like istriwala, naukrani, or kachrawala. The absence of cheap public transport is a handicap the American government must take more seriously than it is. If there was no public transport in India, can you imagine your maid driving a Maruti 800 to your house every day?


Sue, sue, everywhere


I mentioned insurance in the previous paragraph. One reason people are able to save so little here is insurance. Apart from insuring their homes, vehicles, and self, people insure their property like laptops, appliances, etc. People have to get health insurance because healthcare is insanely expensive (a routine consultation can cost more than $100). Healthcare costs are high because doctors have to insure themselves against their patients' wrath. I heard doctors can end up paying $100,000 per year towards malpractice insurance (an insurance that covers the doctor's damages if a patient decides to sue them). Obviously, they have to charge obnoxious consultation fees to recover this. Apart from this, America is, in general, a very sue-happy country- and this is not my observation, it's what almost all my colleagues told me. A woman, who in a moment of extreme negligence spilled coffee on herself thereby burning her skin, sued McDonald's for not informing her that the coffee was hot. In another case, Heinz was sued for $180,000 for not filling a ketchup bottle completely. The long and short of it is, people and corporations spend thousands and millions of dollars respectively in insuring against possible damages. As a result, the real winners in this tamasha are lawyers and insurance companies.


Scarcity of diversity


You can get an idea about how diverse the country is when the people of the North and South differentiate themselves by the way they pronounce the word 'ask'. When everybody in your country speaks the same language, celebrates the same festivals, and eats more or less the same food (though some diversity exists), you are missing the diversity only a country like India has. There's another trivial point I'd nonetheless like to mention. Throughout the country, addresses have the same format: Building no., Street name, Apartment no., City, State- Zip Code. Though there's not much scope for diversity here, addresses in India are a lot more romantic because you'll have a Near Indira Park, or Opposite Gandhi Statue, or Behind Purana Masjid in some addresses. Then you have the Nagars, Baghs, Galis, Vihars, Estates, Bazaars, Puris, and other pointers to the locality you live in. You might live in Sector C, or Pocket A, or Plot no.27, depending on the whims of the developer. When all addresses are in the format 1234, XYZ Street, Apt. 123, New Orleans, LA- 12345, it can get boring.


Being a politician


I might be jumping the gun, sidestepping various issues, and being naive when I say that being a politician in the US is a lot easier than being one in India, but I can't help feeling that way. It's so much easier to reach out to the public here and keep a tab on their pulse. 99% of the American households watch television. Therefore, publicity campaigns, presidential debates, smear campaigns, etc. have such tremendous penetration that you can address the entire electorate in an 8 p.m. show. Also, most of the people here speak the same language, i.e. the President can crack a joke about, say, football, and 300 million people will laugh; he can praise Jesus and not raise eyebrows. This is a huge advantage, because it eliminates the effects of his place of birth and his upbringing. Contrast this to India where you have to travel by foot to address lakhs of people, communicate in a language that a majority can understand but you might not be comfortable with, and know what's music and what's Greek to the public's ears.

The breadth of issues to be tackled by politicians here is minuscule in comparison to what our netas have to handle. Here, there a few very broad issues, and very few local ones, which is the exact opposite of what we see in India. The President here has to mainly tackle public healthcare, defence, external affairs, national debt, education, and the environment- and each citizen understands the implication of each. In contrast, our Prime Minister has to deal with all this, and in addition, tackle coalition politics, communalism, agriculture, casteism, poverty, malnutrition, cross-border tension, infrastructure woes, cottage industries, unemployment, 'inclusive growth', and a lot lot more. If you step back and think about the variety and depth of issues in India, you'll realize how difficult it is to be a good politician. When the economy is doing fine, they have to deal with farmer suicides; when agriculture is doing ok, they have to worry about shortage of power; when industries are flourishing, they have to worry about giving schedule castes their due; when everything is ok, they have NGOs clamouring for the protection of tigers; when they too are quiet, homosexual groups are out on the streets. Hats off to the PM for having the sheer courage to face up to all this! When Manmohan Singh talks about the credit crisis, less than 1/10th of the population knows what he's talking about; when he discusses tax cuts, only half the country understands; when he talks about nuclear power, less than 5% can figure out what he's saying; in other words, the number of issues he has to address in order to ensure there's something for everyone, is much much more than what his American counterpart does.


In Conclusion


I do not intend to compare India and the US per se, but these being the only two countries I've stayed in for reasonable lengths of time, comparisons are inevitable. I've made these observations and assertions from an eye that is only 3 months old in the US, so I may be inaccurate or blatantly wrong in many places. I invite my readers to contest / correct any of my points in the comments' section.

100 days

As I complete 100 days in this country, I sit and reflect on the number of times I've sat and reflected in the last 3-and-a-half months. Most of my sit-and-reflect sessions ended in two-line posts that never saw the light of day. There were so many things I wanted to write about, that I ended up writing nothing. A couple of posts did go beyond two lines -they actually grossed more than 1000 words each- but were directionless and seemed to never end. It's very likely this post will meet the same fate. If we were still in the 70s or the Bollywood of the Barjatyas, I'd have a thousand dustbins filled with crumpled pages. It's in times like these that I stand up and applaud all authors and film-makers; all of them- including Bazmee and TLV Prasad, for their sheer determination and will to take their ideas to completion. Both writing and film-making are notoriously difficult tasks, and successfully completing them are victories in themselves.

There's so much happening in the world these days that it's impossible to not have an opinion about at least some of the issues, and the fact that I seem to have an opinion about all of them is more a pain-in-the-brain than yay-I'm-up-to-date. My day isn't complete without visiting 3 websites- www.ndtv.com, www.ibnlive.com, and www.cricinfo.com. While Cricinfo is a joyous read -some of the best, most unadulterated, most unbiased cricket reports- NDTV and IBN are continuing to paint the world in whichever colour they want to. When I thus lay my brain open to the manipulative forces of NDTV and IBN, they spice, dice, dress, caress, drape, rape, arrest and molest it at will. So while my brain is bursting at its seams (damn! that's a tongue twister) with honest and unwanted opinions on everything from Lehman Brothers to Hindu fundamentalism to Anil Kumble, I'd rather not jump onto the bandwagon of second-hand reporters.

What news channels around the world will not tell you, and what you need to know if you ever plan to dine in my kitchen, is that a middle-aged cockroach was not-so-stealthily climbing up the kitchen cabinet and heading straight for whatever was putrefying on the counter. This is only the 2nd time I've been alone with a cockroach, with no physical support in the form of broom-wielding-grandma, slipper-wielding-mom, or HIT-wielding-dad, or moral support in the form of similarly paranoid hostelmates. The first time was also in this house, where 1 hour into a movie I realised I had company. But the need to exterminate this 2nd crawler was more urgent as failure to do so would lead to contamination of food, leading to the need to visit an American doctor, which implies going in with a bad stomach and coming out with a bad debt. I thought quickly and sentenced the creep to a violent death.

But before this incident, and since it, my kitchen has been a sporting witness to my deeds with the dishes (or kartoots with the kadhaais for the maligned North Indian community). From the highs of semiya payasam to the lows of pulikaachal; from the serendipitous pulao to the wrecked moong daal halwa; from the aroma of simmering spices to the stench of the capsicum that I forgot to put in the fridge; and from the ecstasy of making bhindi raita to the oh-shit of melting a plastic container in the process, my kitchen has experienced a gamut of emotions it could write a novel about if it wasn't just a lifeless kitchen. Technology has infiltrated my kitchen in a big way- apart from the regular stuff like a microwave, and a food processor, it is home to online cooking lessons by Ketaki, the latest being rotis and aloo parathas.

When co-expatriate Rajat told me in no uncertain terms that my passion for cooking would wane with time, I laughed it off like I was a dedicated homemaker for whom cooking was as much a routine as watching Bigg Boss is. But with time, the stock of vegetables in my fridge has reduced, and the stock of ready-to-eat parathas, tamarind rice, roti wraps, pizzas, and curries in the freezer has shot up. While in my first two months I emulated my mother by carefully picking tomatoes and bhindi, I've since been emulating the cult of the lazy bachelor whose world starts at the freezer and ends at the microwave. I still cook, but with less frequency and more passion than before. I can dedicate a whole post to my recipes, but I suggest you read it with a full stomach lest you be tempted to try some of them.

When I'm not busy cooking or eating the outcome of the activity, I play tennis and watch some of my favourite movies and Hindi sitcoms. We stopped playing tennis sometime back with a collective decision to grow fat. Let me preempt amma's enna-da-Akshay by saying that we've decided to take the court again. I spent my first 2 months in realising the American dream of living in a nice house and driving a nice car; it's now time to realise the American nightmare of a continuously bulging waistline- and it's all-round growth, so if you care to overlap snapshots of my waistline over time, you'll actually get concentric ovals. It's not as tough to gain weight here as it is in India; you just need to follow the following strict weekend regimen- sit all day in bed with a laptop on the lap, a bag of chips on the left, and a gallon of orange juice on the right. The size of the packet of chips and the gallon of juice (3.8 litres) will ensure you never need to budge from your place- not even for a refill. And given that there are no mosquitoes around in my house, I'm deprived of even the basic exercise I had in India.


It's not tough to find obese people in this part of the world. In fact you don't have to look very far. You look in any direction around you in your nearest Walmart (that's the only place you realise humans don't end at the chest), and you'll find a gigantic auntie or a humungous uncle moving their overflowing cart with enviable ease. And when I say obese, I don't mean Indian style obese people behind whom you can crouch and win hide-and-seek; I mean OBESE people who can substitute lead in nuclear reactors, who tie their shoe laces by trial-and-error. But the good thing is, they can walk around normally without having people stare at them (apart from the odd shameless ones like me), unlike in India where they would be potential Aaj Tak fodder.

I've come across two kinds of Indian strangers here. One kind consciously ignores you- It's almost like they're scared you're going to ask them for food, lodging, and a mug. The other kind starts chatting up immediately and makes you wonder about your father's trip to Kumbh Mela in 1987. But the most memorable Indian I've met thus far is a Gujju auntie in a subway outlet. While she goes about her business of fixing sandwiches with the enthusiasm of a corpse, she sports a wide grin from "What kind of cheej?" to "Salt and paper?" when she's fixing mine. Right from my first visit there she's been offering me free chips, free cookies, and free drinks, prompting me to rethink the now canonical adage about no free lunches. Just last week, I went in at 2 p.m. and saw nobody else at the counter. She took the opportunity for a casual chat, talking about her apartmaint, her husband's bijnes, her kajin's subway, how she manages to stay vegetarian while handling meat, her children in India, how she's yearning to go back to India, and finally asked if I was interested in a job in subway. Now where did that come from! When I politely turned down the offer, she offered me a job at a liquor store in California.

All said and done, I'm growing to like this place. The people are nice and it's fun to drive fast on good roads. My interactions, strictly non-technical, with my colleagues, and my general bad habit of thinking have given me an insight into the American mind, but I'll stack up my observations in my next post. Just one thing though- while we curse the Americans for writing dates as mm/dd/yyyy, it's not altogether crazy. Like us, they too write the date the way they say it. We use dd/mm/yyyy because we're accustomed to saying 5th October, 2008, where as the Americans say October 5th, 2008. It's as simple as that; nothing non-conformist about it.

I'll sign off now then. This is actually not the end of the post; I've written a lot more, but it makes the post too long for even me to read. I'll post the next instalment soon.

We, the People; and They, the Media

The aftermath of a blast is a goldmine for the media- "PM condemns blast", "UPA soft on Terror: BJP", "We will not spare the culprits: Patil", are near givens each time an attack of this nature is perpetrated. Add to that the channels' websites' gems: "Were you there? Write in.", "Today's poll: Should we bring POTA back?" and a host of other features and applications that cash in on the junta's interest (including the interest of people like me who live abroad and rely on NDTV and CNN-IBN's websites for news).

There is no denying that the media plays a big role in times like these. They get the license to grill politicians, expose the government, criticize Intelligence, and in general make a lot of noise on behalf of the angry public. All of us want to express our anger and you-bastards but it's the scribes with mikes, cameras, and IDs that get to do it. To inform is their right & duty; to influence is their privilege, and a sacrosanct one at that. While providing incorrect information is wrong; misguiding the public, shifting their focus from the core to the periphery, and seasoning stories with TRP tadka is an abuse of the privilege society hands them.

There are innumerable examples from English and vernaucalar media to support this. The most recent - and the second most nauseating - case was the media talking about Shivraj Patil changing his clothes thrice in the evening after the Delhi serial blasts. All of them - NDTV, CNN-IBN, TOI, and tragically, even The Hindu mentioned this in their reports just hours after the blast. It was okay to report this to the extent of expressing the general public mood. But none of these reports took that extra step of disowning these sentiments (some of them actually endorsed the view); because I can't believe any serious media house with a brain of the size of a hydrogen atom really considers Patil's attire to be an issue. That the man has been frighteningly incompetent is a substantiable allegation, that he doesn't have the balls to talk tough and with conviction is a proven fact, that he hasn't an ounce of self esteem has been demonstrated by this- when we have these very valid reasons to be mad at the man, why divert our attention and dissipate our anger by appealing to the idiot in us? Would we be less angry with him if had appeared thrice in the same clothes? Is his habit of wearing fresh clothes before each public appearance antagonistic to his duties as Home Minister? We, as a society, have the habit of thrashing a guilty public figure for everything that's out of public jurisdiction (I am guilty of this too); for example, criticizing Yuvraj Singh for partying too much and Sarah Palin for her pregnant daughter. The comments on Patil's frequent dress change can be a topic four friends joke about over a cup of tea, but to wax eloquent on it in prime time takes the sucker punch out of the real issue and shows how puerile the media can get. Thankfully, politicians of all hues wasted no time in rubbishing the issue.

The most nauseating case of journalistic perjury in recent times has been the coverage, I heard, Hindi news channels gave to the LHC experiment by CERN. It is a momentous experiment in more ways than one- it will answer not only scientific conundrums, but might also be that push fence-sitting agnosts like me need towards atheism. It is an experiment that has been on the drawing board for years now, and scientists the world over swear by its safety. Yet, some harebrianed teams at Aaj Tak, Star News, and the like have been fuelling already quelled rumours about the experiment imperiling the existence of the earth. And given the exclusive viewership Hindi news channels command, millions of Indians are misled into believing a scientific impossibility. For many people sitting in villages, watching Aaj Tak on a 14" TV set while milking their cows, a headline like "SEPTEMBER 10 KO DUNIYA KHATAM" can be a real shock- especially when they have no resources but other crappy Hindi channels to verify this. Star News claimed "Star News ne kiya tha vaada ki duniya nahi hogi khatam, aur aisa hi hua." I felt like firing that reporter along with the proton in the LHC. Hindi news channels, per se, are not synonymous with stupidity, but their assumption that anything that must appeal to rural junta must be gossipable, feather-rufflable and font 30, is what makes all of them cheap without exception. When India TV talks about the love triangle of tigers, we accuse them of wasting airtime, but excuse them because they're not trivializing anything- they're just passing off bullshit as bullshit. But irresponsible and untruthful reporting, intentional or unintentional, like in the CERN case, should be punishable by law.


I don't deny the media's right and need to generate revenues. I also understand the pressure on TRPs as more and more channels share viewership and hence advertising revenues. Even to maintain, if not improve, their ad revenues, news channels must constantly ensure that they not only provide news but also entertain viewers enough to keep them from the remote. This can be done either by enlightening viewers with diverse programmes like Auto shows, debates, travelogues, interviews, and programmes like Jai Jawaan (on NDTV),or by pandering to their non-serious interests like Saif's tattoo or Dhoni's bike. Since the battle for ad revenues is not just among news channels, you find Aaj Tak & NDTV pitted against Sony and Zoom. But entertainment can make sense, and their belief in the opposite lumps many news channels with the David Dhawans and Anees Bazmees of the world. I am also against the notion (which I too held one time) that journalists must present facts and leave their interpretation to the public. Journalists must have the right to interpret the facts they gather as long as they don't create propaganda or perpetrate falsehood. The media played a laudatory role in cracking the Jessica Lall case and the BMW 1 case, made all the right noises about the murders of Manjunath Shanmugam and Satyendra Dubey, and brought to light the horrific Nithari killings. But that does not act as an antidote for their excesses in the Aarushi case (which, by the way, should rank above CERN in nauseating reporting) and the other liberties they take under the banner of Free Press. They might have the legal right to present anything they desire, but do they have the moral right to treat us as just stepping stones up the TRP hill?

Maya Memsaab

I am scared, extremely scared, and I'm not saying this in James Bond's style. Read on to find out why.


The Background

Since mid-January this year, India has been in a turmoil of sorts. It started with the markets crashing, fuel price soaring, dollar weakening, IT slowing, manufacturing stalling, GDP growth declining, and inflation touching double digits.

The budget brought euphoria to the working class as taxes were reduced. It brought relief to farmers as loans to the tune of Rs.71,000 crores were waived. The Pay Commission recommended a 40% hike in government employees' wages. But all these were fast forgotten in the face of soaring prices and high fuel costs.

The turmoil has not just been economic. With India's proposed growth in infrastructure, a secure energy supply is imperative. The UPA government, nay, the Congress, nay, Manmohan Singh rightly pressed ahead with the Nuclear deal but met with bitter opposition from not only the opposition (whose job it is to oppose) but also from the Left. The trust vote was thankfully in Manmohan's favour, and a major political crisis was averted. In his final speech to the Parliament before the trust vote (which was never delivered thanks to the cash-for-votes hungama), Manmohan Singh rebuked Advani for calling him a weak PM. In particular, he stressed on Advani's incompetence in dealing with terrorist attacks. By a cruel twist of fate, 24 bombs exploded days after those measured words, seriously hampering the image of the UPA.

What this politico-economic instability has done is give other political parties ample room for rhetoric. We saw the old guard, Advani, almost ready to take oath as the next PM. We saw Karat and gang hurling innuendo after unwarranted innuendo at the Congress. We saw small state parties like SP and BSP in a position to make or break the Government. Of all these arrows flying and nullifying each other in Mahabharatha style, one arrow steered clear and now threatens to rip the Indian political fabric to shreds.

The Darr

I don't remember the first time Mayawati made her desire to become Prime Minister public. But I remember seeing a mammoth cut-out of a waving, 32-teeth baring Maya not in Banaras (which is my second hometown), but in Bangalore sometime last year. That's when I first heard about her Prime Ministerial ambitions, and I laughed it off carelessly (in the classic Pan Pasand style- Mayawati aur Pradhaanmantri? Hmph! Kabhi Nahi). She has since been on a relentless nationwide campaign, fraternizing with leaders of various states. With her BSP, the Left, and the UNPA joining hands just days before the trust vote, the third front looks a lot more menacing. There was never reason to believe that we would have a non-Congress, non-BJP government at the centre in the forthcoming general elections. We knew BSP, SP, AIADMK, DMK, CPI(M) would just be the little shoves on the ass the Congress or BJP woluld need to scale the wall. Even the formation of the UNPA (an ideologyless medley of state parties aiming to use their respective regional clouts to conquer Delhi) was taken seriously by only the UNPA. It's not a bad idea, in principle, to have a strong third front. In practice, however, the present third front aims only to overthrow the present government. The UNPA-BSP-Left third front is a highly opportunistic alliance of ideologically incompatible political outfits with supremely egotistic leaders that believes it can provide a stable government at the centre. How is it possible to have a Chandrababu Naidu -who refused to allow reservations to creep into ISB admissions- and a Mayawati -who would reserve seats in a restaurant if she had a chance- in the same government? How is it possible to make any kind of lasting alliance with someone like Jayalalithaa? The very fact that they have made public their sole motive as being the overthrow of UPA shows very poorly on their general intellect and their perception of the electorate.It reeks of acute politiciosis.

Mayawati doesn't want India to be a progressive and prosperous country. She doesn't want advances in science and technology. She does not want to beef up India's infrastructure. She does not want to rapidly industrialize the country. At least, she doesn't say all this. I might be wrong but she has said nothing to prove me wrong. All she has been saying is "Why can't I be PM", "UPA and NDA are conspiring against me", "They are scared a daughter of a Dalit will become a PM" etc. The only thing she has made clear is that more reservations are coming- for Dalit Muslims and Christians, and for all the XCs in the private sector. She's also handing out a bone to the poor in the upper castes. Does she say one thing about educating the lot of XCs so that they needn't depend on reduced cut-offs all their lives? She's misleading the Dalits into believing that their lot will be less discriminated against as a result of 'one of them', an 'untouchable' being elevated to the post of Prime Minister. That's as inane a conclusion to make as was made when Pratibha Patil's appointment as President was supposed to be a morale bosster for women. If people of generation X-2 hated dalits and considered them untouchable, are they going to kiss them on the forehead now that 'one of them' is the PM? It's as difficult for that generation to start loving dalits as it is for mine to hate them for their caste. Dr.Ambedkar suggested reservations for the downtrodden because that is exactly what they were. Indians, in a wave of nationalistic feeling, were willing to sacrifice a little to integrate their historically downtrodden brothers into free India. My generation is largely more tolerant, except when parents and grandparents inculcate those shitty use-chhoona-mat values in their kids (my parents and more importantly grandparents never did so). The only way you know someone is an SC or an ST is when they tick that tiny square in all their forms. I don't blame them for doing so- heck, if someone reserves 50% of the seats for Palakkad Iyers born in Barrackpore and living in Hyderabad I would jump with joy. The blame rests, obviously, on the parties that keep the caste system alive in their incendiary speeches. Party A panders to the lower castes, because if it doesn't, Party B or C will. There's no way we can get a broad political consensus of phasing out reservations instead of squeezing in more. The only option is having the Supreme Court somehow fitting it into the fundamental rights as a right against reverse discrimination or something. Nobody is against upliftment of the underprivileged- but disguising a political weapon as an olive branch; letting the 'underprivileged' sniff it and stuffing it down our throats; is the kind of politics India can do without but one it is most likely sinking into.


Here's a woman who is busy erecting statues of ahem, hmmm, let's see...herself. Here's a woman who's proud of being elected the Chief Minister of India's most populous state not one time but four. Anybody who can be proud of being Chief Minister just by virtue of being one, and that too of a state that is as underdeveloped now as it was at the start of the tenure, is probably going to make the rest of India like UP. That is what I'm scared about, and what hamaari junta should fear too. It's so irritating to hear her say "If i can be the Chief Minister of India's most populated state, why can't I be the PM of India?" Well Kumari Mayawati, the rest of India has one billion people, which is approximately 600% of the population of UP. You might have charisma and appeal, but we're not looking for a model. We want an erudite leader who can cleverly market India to the rest of the world.


I could go on and on. You just have to enter "Mayawati Prime Minister" in Google to see all these scarily amusing reports and interviews about Mayawati. We welcome a Dalit woman Prime Minister if she's worth the post; not a woman who gets a kick out of becoming Prime Minister because she's a Dalit. Mere desh ki junta, please don't vote for her. The ones at the top now might not be very good, but not-very-good is better than disastrous.

Mission Istanbullshit

I know this film's 2-3 weeks old, but read it- there's no harm reliving past horrors.


When a good director uses good actors for a good script, you generally get a good movie; when a good director gets a bad script, you get a disappointing movie; when a bad director gets good actors, you call it a Yashraj film; and when a bad director gets worse actors for an awful script you get Mission Istanbul. You can't help but think why Apoorva Lakhia made this movie. He seems to have taken a lot of pains to make a pathetic movie. Right till the end, you can't figure out whether it was a spoof on terrorism or an attempt to address it. Well, it turns out Lakhia didn't have the brains for either. When people like Priyadarshan and Anees Bazmee direct a movie, they say balls to the discerning audience and make empty-headed pot-boilers. The audience knows what to expect. But Lakhia picks up a subject of international concern and flogs it so badly that at the end you feel the film had nothing to do with terrorism. In many ways, it's like a Tandoori Paneer Pizza. It's an international concept Indianized to suit our taste buds. Lakhia does the same to this movie, making international terrorism look no more serious than roadside goondagardi.


When the director and producer pick actors of the calibre of Viveik Oberoi, Zayed Khan, and Suniel Shetty, you know they're not serious about making a film. I still can't figure out why people cast Suniel Shetty. As a solo hero, he can be a nightmare; in a multistarrer like Main Hoon Na or Border, he's generally the recipe for disaster; in multistarrers like Mission Istanbul where's he's the most experienced actor, he still manages to act worse than everybody else. Lakhia must've realised this, which is probably why he finished him off before he could do more damage.


Ok, here's the story, or whatever little there is of it. Zayed Khan is an 'IIT topper' with a Computer Engg degree who chooses to work for Aaj Tak (that's stretching creative freedom to its limit). He's India's best 'TV journo'. He is sent to Istanbul to work with Al Johara (psst psst, it's Al Jazeera; this is where I start thinking it's a spoof)- the channel wants to set up base in India. As events unfold, we find out that Al Johara is not what it seems- it acts as a mouthpiece for the terrorists who, in the name of Abu Nazir (an obvious attempt at recreating Osama, down to the last strand of the beard), orchestrate terrorist attacks all over the world. The head of this terrorist organization is an actor from Ekta Kapoor's glycerine factory, and couldn't look less menacing. You can make out he played an aadarshwadi beta or pati five minutes before every shot.


Anyway, Viveik Oberoi is some kind of crusader against terrorism and convinces Zayed that Abu Nazir is dead and Al Johara is keeping him alive using 'computer graphics'. Zayed also finds out that anybody who tries to leave Al Johara is bumped off, and that there's a mysterious 13th floor where all the phoney Abu Nazir messages are fabricated. Does this sound familiar? Those of you who've read, or watched the adaption of John Grisham's The Firm can't miss the connection- the idea of a reputed company acting as a cover for a notorious gang, the idea of the company killing employees who want to leave the company, the idea of having one floor dedicated to the underhand activities- yeah baby, it's all there. You can't blame Lakhia though; especially when you compare it to more shameless adaptations of the Abbas-Mustan variety.


The rest of the movie is about Zayed and Viveik trying to 'save the world'. They steal all of Al Johara's information on a pen drive and have the security guards hot on their heels. The highlight of the movie was Al Johara's security guards surrounding Zayed, Viveik, and a woman (it's not worth describing the woman's role in the movie), brandishing hockey sticks and clubs! This scene also features the most ill-timed and annoying product placement shot I've ever seen in cinema. It goes thus. Viveik and Zayed have a Mountain Dew each in hand. Viveik asks Zayed "Darr lag raha hai?" to which the latter replies "Nahi. Darr ke aage jeet hai." The plot and screenplay were so bad, that I'll actually recommend people to watch the film. For the climax, Lakhia seems to have roped in Salman to direct the shot- Zayed and the head of Al Johara shed their shirts and start beating each other up. Obviously, Zayed won.

The USP of this movie is that every scene is an eyesore and a brainsore. The movie was alternating between spoofy (the ludicrous George Bush sequence, the poor imitation of Osama) and silly (the rest of the film) with not one scene that gives you an idea of Lakhia's take on terrorism. All it says is, if only terrorists were as emasculated as the ones in this film, even hollow-headed brawnies like Zayed and Viveik can save the world. The movie was extremely poorly researched and shockingly insincere; it was almost insulting to the terrorists. The first thing a director must do after writing the story, is incorporate the local accent in the dialogues (Gangaajal, Omkara, Mr. & Mrs. Iyer). This is even more important when your actors are shown to be natives of that place. Lakhia was so way off the mark, it looked deliberate. Viveik and the head of the terrorist network speaking good Indian Hindi was a testament to both their command over our national language and Lakhia's general obtuseness. Viveik was particularly irritating as he's been carrying that suave, confident smirk which was pleasant when he entered the industry, but makes my bile boil now.

All said, Mission Istanbul is a remarkable achievement. Eliciting incompetent performances from all involved is no mean feat. You always have a but-that-chap-was-good actor whose spoils an otherwise delightfully bad film. Lakhia has transcended this and made a genuinely bad film that fails to deliver on all fronts- for this he deserves praise. But if you insist, I'll give you a silver lining- the movie did not have Tusshar Kapoor, which is a pleasant surprise considering who the producer is.

If Pritam had a son

The Amrikan Dream

So finally, after months of waiting, getting bored, biting nails, spitting them, sweeping them, learning to cook, forgetting to cook, relearning, telling people “I’ll be there in the next couple of months”, getting frustrated, cursing Bush, I’ve finally landed in the USA (I’m not sure if ‘the’ should be used. Ashok, where art thou?). Right from when I was this small, I’ve had this next-to-heaven-and-chocolate-icecream image of the US. Coming from Hyderabad, where I wouldn’t be surprised if kindergarten kids are taught G for Green Card, I’ve always been curious about this country- sometimes a starry-eyed curiosity and sometimes a so-what’s-the-big-deal curiosity. As I stepped onto the New Orleans airport with my light cabin baggage and a heavier emotional one, I began feeling wet. I wasn’t crying or peeing, it was just so humid. I’ve been one of the strongest anti-humidity advocates, and in response, I’ve been sent to such places as Varanasi, Kuala Lumpur, and now Louisiana. But not wanting to curse the place on my first day, I quietly mopped my forehead.

The journey to Louisiana was long, but not really tiring. There was a small scare in the Paris-Houston flight. It wasn’t terrorists or hijackers or any of the AL XYZs. It was a couple that wanted me to exchange my aisle seat for a middle seat a few rows behind so that they could sit together. I almost declined, when I saw the real reason they wanted to sit together. Their babies! Middle seats are the most beautiful seats ever made by man, especially when they’re far away from babies. I instantly agreed to swap seats. My new co-passenger was only marginally better. He was watching some sitcom on his screen and laughing loud enough to make me miss the babies.

My first impressions of the US (or at least of the place I live in)

The city

There’s loads of space everywhere. Malls have parking lots bigger than the malls themselves. Everybody has a car, and hardly anybody drives bikes. And those who do drive bikes, drive those monster 1000+ cc ones that sound like a jet engine. You won’t find people driving small scooters with a packet of milk or a loaf of bread hanging from the handle. People assume other drivers follow the rules here, so they drive really fast and leave you little margin for error. For guys like me who’ve driven Scootys and other cute chutku vehicles, and on roads where lane markings are just rangoli, where the hand is the indicator, and expletives are traffic signals, the discipline here is scary. There are no nukkad stores where you can buy a Rin soap for 4 bucks and get a Boomer as change. It’s all very mally and superstorey here. In Rajat’s words ‘chaddi se lekar car ki tyre tak sab ek hi mall mein milta hai’. And as Sunil Chittappa said, every road here has a name, and so you hardly get aage-se-left-phir-deadend-pe-right kind of instructions here.

The People

People here are either behind the steering wheel or on their way to or from one when on the road. You hardly find people taking a walk on the roads. If they walk, it’s generally on the special pavement provided in the colony for people to take their dogs for a stroll. So far, I’ve found people polite and courteous. Many people ask me where I learned to speak English. They unfortunately still think about India as this country of malnourished children and overfed cows. And how they struggle with my name! Ash kay, Ashki, Akshi, Aaakshi, Aaakshaay, and Aaashkaay are just some of the bastardized versions of my name. But this one takes the cake, the icing, the cherry, and the wafer: Akjhay Rajagotalan. Most people give up on my last name, they’d rather read Braille.

The Lingo

Louisianians speak English with a characteristic drawl. Natives also bathe their talk with double negatives like ain’t not and don’t need no. Thanks to Hollywood, the accent is not very difficult to decode. One chap had a particularly amazing accent- “If yall don’ get yall cords (cards) I’ll cancelem, and make em new for you. You can go aunlaine and do yall transactions. And of course yall can curm (come) anytaim to the beyyynk and withdraaaw yer money.”
Talking of banks, I must admit I don’t understand the funda of keeping 2 accounts- one savings and one checking. The savings account gives an interest of –start the drum roll- hold your breath- 0.25%. What the hell will people keep money there for? To earn 2.5 dollars at the end of the year from a 1000-dollar deposit? I might be presumptuous by criticizing the 2-account theory, but I’d love to have somebody explain it to me.

Housekeeping

Yes, I am cooking. Ankit and I cook, and we actually do a pretty good job. If you don’t believe me, just fly down on your expense; I’ll cook you a subsidised, insured meal. Ghar ka kaam sounds a lot more posh here- bartan maanjna, kapde dhona, and bazaar se saamaan khareedna become doing the dishes, doing the laundry, and shopping for groceries. I am still pathetic with my iron, and would much rather wear my shirts crumpled.

Television

TV here is BORING and funny. News channels are full of Obama, McCain, and celebrity divorces. The news reports are filled with rhetoric, and are plain bad. Some of the advertisements are really amusing. Companies aggresively market products like pet hair remover (to remove your dog’s hair from the sofa) and polythene bags! You don’t need pet hair removers- you just need to whack the kutta’s bums the next times it slimbs the sofa. Attorneys, drug marketing companies, and insurance firms too make some weirdly amusing ads. VH1 and MTv rarely play music, and the radio plays awful rap music. Anyway now that I have my laptop (yippee J), I don’t need the TV for entertainment. I have also tested my webcam and mike thanks to Ketaki and Chitti-Chittappa, so staying in touch is a lot easier. I watched Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na on the internet yesterday. It was a nice timepass movie. It was entertaining without being stupid- a complete antithesis of Priyadarshan’s funda. It’s a feel-good movie with a cliched plot, but it’s made well and I wouldn’t mind watching it again on the internet.

Yawn

Chalo bhai, time to sleep now. One week in Amrika has been quite eventful. I’ve been hunting for a house and a car, and have run into some very interesting people in the process. I can probably describe that later. Good night. Let me see the American Dream!

The Image Puzzle

Substitute each image with a word to get the correct answer. I think this one is a give-away towards the end, but well, that's all the dimaag I could use. Please don't write the answer as a comment. Send me an email at akshay.bhu@gmail.com. Of course, you can tell me how good or awful the game is in the comment window.

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