“Friends" of the People

Disclaimer: This post has NO fictitious elements.

I had lost the mobile phone a couple of weeks back. It was a good phone. I was at CCD; I had left it unattended for a few minutes and suddenly, it had disappeared. People had seen this crowd of drunken boys take it and leave (and nobody raised their voices then) and told me all about it when I came back seconds after they left. Too late.

So I did what we all do when we lose a phone. Called Airtel and got them to block the number. Then I went to the local police station to lodge a complaint. I reside at Nungambakkam, so I went to the Nungambakkam Police station. I had never been inside a police station, ever. My head was swarming with stories I had heard about evil police men with nasty intents, so I took my bro along. And he got his friend. So the three of us enter, and meet a cordial police chap. He listened to our story and told us to go to the Vepery Police station because I lost my phone in Puraswalkam (which is closer to Vepery.)

So we drove to Vepery. We were directed upstairs. Apparently the crime branch men (whom we were supposed to report the theft to) were patrolling the city. Two other men were available to hear us out. So I started on the story again. Where I was, at what time it occurred, who were with me and so on. It was all okay till this point. Now started the cross questioning.

What followed were 30 minutes of harassment, for having lost something that belonged to ME, for mere carelessness on MY part. I came off in one piece, thankfully. Here is how it went:

Interrogator 1 starts thus.
So you lost your phone? What was its value? Rs 6500.

How old was it? Close to 11 months.

That’s all? We wouldn’t take that much an effort for a phone that costs so little, plus the depreciation value. Better you forget the phone. Sir it has a lot of pictures- The memory card was full of photos of me and a lot of girl friends.

Photos eh? That sort of photos eh? You people do all crazy things, then take pictures of the same, then lose the phone, then come to us! Bah! It’s not possible, lady. Even if we give authorization to lock the phone, the memory card can be used by anybody. Closed case.

By now, I'm shaking with anger. But no, it is not over yet!

Then interrogator 2 chips in.

So, where did you say you lost the phone? CCD sir.

Ah Coffee Day! You think we don’t know what crap goes around in that place? One day you just watch, we are going to seal that place up!

(Despite the seething anger, I wondered if these people had even been inside a CCD outlet.)
Interrogator 1:

So how many of you people went there? Four.
All girls huh? No. Two girls and two boys.

Turns to Interrogator 2.
There you go! TWO boys it seems. These people go with their boyfriends and get busy with them and miss the phone, and then they come here!

(I'm almost a wreck by now. Wtf man!)

So, does this place have a cctv? Camera tv? No, it does not.
Ofcourse! You people would not enter places that have camera tvs, would you?

(How gross! Are all police men this cheap?)

So where do these friends of yours stay? I stay at Nungambakkam, one stays at T Nagar, one stays at Puraswalkam and another at Sowcarpet.
(To interrogator 2)

Look at the connection sir! Everybody stays in different parts of the city, and they meet at some other part of the city! So that they can safely meet without bumping into anybody they know!
(What bullshit? But again, what could we do? We came voluntarily; we had to take all this crap. It was humiliating. Nobody had ever spoken to me this cheap all my life! Then the buggers ask about the family.)

What is your dad? Ah, bank manager? Very good. And mother? Teacher? Brilliant! So it is not a big loss, eh? This mobile phone? Your dad will buy you another even before you know it! So what do you do? MBA? Searching for a job? Ah, got one already? L&T? Wow..What is your pay package? 6 lakhs p.a? (I was bullshitting there)Very good!

(Then they started ‘madam’ing me. The transformation itself was disgusting. )

We will try madam. See, even we can buy a Rs 10,000 phone, but we don’t! Because even our phones get stolen! (Laughter) It is very natural; just make sure you get it insured next time, yes? Please write a complaint, yes here, and we will do what we can.
******
The complaint was written and handed over. Smiles and promises exchanged. Then we left, and never heard from them again.
I promised myself that I would never ever set foot in another police station again. Losing valuables is one thing, but to top that tension listening to downright bullshit from such characters is an entirely different issue. What are they trying to prove? That they are invincible, and we need to turn to them for aid at some point of time or another? These people need some lessons in psychology. If this is how they treat someone who has lost something as common as a mobile phone, I shudder to think of the plight of rape victims. No wonder there is a lot of crime around that goes un-reported. And characters like these bend to only two things- power and money. You have either, they take you seriously. If you have neither, you may as well forget your lost property. And the big guns sure need to do something about it! All said, that was one experience I look at with disgust- Friends of the people? Bah!

the thingy called love...

I was riding the bikey on the wrong side of the road today, and almost rammed it into this guy. He was kind of cute, by the way. And instead of swearing at me like all normal people, or even glaring at me, he grinned at me! That reaction confused me big time. I think my face contorted itself into an ‘Erm, are you sane?’ smile. But truthfully, it sort of made my day!

I got back home and told my brother the story. The conversation moved from what my definition of a ‘cute guy’ was to love and relationships.

I would say this entire Love thingy is such an enigma. It is wonderful, if you are with the right person. If it is directed against someone who is worthy of it, it sure is bliss. It feels beautiful when you are so full of it; like your heart might just burst with all of it in excess!

And it does not necessarily have to be the boy-girl love, either! Love is when my mum manfully swallows my chat masala flavoured first attempt-bhaji and says it is yummy, when I know it is not even fit for the rats in the sewers. Love is when my brother drives out at 11.00 pm to buy me ice cream because I went, ‘Please, please? I just FEEL like it, please?’ Love is when my friend Hari tells me,’ I so wanted to call you to talk last night, but it would have been 6.30 am IST, and I knew the donkey would be sleeping.’ Love is when Ravi anna, who left for his native for three days calls me after he returns back to Chennai and says he missed me. Love is when Sandy tells me, ‘Macha, I think you did right’ with an explanation she concocts out of thin air, even though I would have done something very stupid and embarrassing. Love is when one text message in my inbox-‘yeah baby, dunn worry’ will keep me going for as long as I want.

Love comes in so many different packages, yet most of us ignore these, choosing to hatch on the bitterest package that was handled by us ever. May be if we realise that, come what may, this folder would be one that can never be deleted away, it would be easier to accept its presence, than to try so hard to ignore it.

But as always, some things are harder to accept than the rest- some things that leave a stain on you, like ooze from the afore mentioned package. And after talking to so many people, I can safely conclude that we have company! Nine out of ten people have ooze stains in varying shades. It took me months before I dulled mine, too! Months before I could wear a skirt that was above my knee, months before I could strike a conversation with someone I never knew, months before I patched up with everybody who, I was told, were ‘not a great idea’.

And all this would never have been possible if not for the abundance of love that poured in from all directions that made up for my own self’s inability to love even myself. Got me on my feet and walking. Helped me forgive myself, and yeah, why is this becoming a self-pity post now? Long story short- What would I do without you guys?!! *Big Hug* Love you all loads!

This post is for one friend of mine, who is feeling pretty much the same way. Only that his stains are fresh and new. I promised him this, saying I was in the mood to thrash the whole concept of love. And I started writing... and realised this other friend of mine –Siva, was right after all: You can never abhor it. Because it sure is one thing that makes life worth living!

My eye-pee-yell !!

For some strange reason, I have never been able to stand cricket. Maybe it is because I have never played it. Even now, I can multi task (close my eyes and text message, sleep while having a two-way conversation, eat-read-watch the television while tuning my mum’s yells out for doing the same, etc) speak six languages, stand on my head, dress up in under 2 minutes (it made my friend Anhait wonder if I was really from Venus) and finish shopping for a new wardrobe in half a day; BUT I simply cannot bowl. I tried once, and the boys in my flat wouldn’t stop laughing about for an entire week. So I gave up.

I was very active in sports through school and college. Athletics, volley ball, basket ball, kho-kho, even kabbadi for that matter- been there, played them all; in absolute pro level that too. Even girls foot ball! Yeah, it exists in India too. I played that at the zonal level in college. I like to blow my own trumpet once in a while. It feels good.

So I have forever been comfortable with, erm, the games that involve balls with greater diameters. Like foot ball, volley ball, hand ball and basket ball. As they get smaller, I lose interest in them. So that explains why I steer clear from tennis, TT, squash- and cricket. But of late, cricket seems interesting. Is it because of the cricketer? :P (wink*)

The IPL fever was soaring, and I had no idea about even the number of teams that played in it. I was cheerfully hatching away at home- the blissful pre-job days. Last week, my bro got his hands on a couple of tickets, and very strangely, he insisted on me coming along. It was a Mumbai Indians Vs Chennai Super Kings match. I said ok, only because:

1.       I was assuming Mumbai Indians was owned by Shah Rukh and was all for it. I agreed to accompany my brother ONLY to catch a glimpse of SRK.

2.       I wanted to see for myself what all this fuss about Murali Vijay was. The Miss Universe ’09 (or was it the Miss World ’09?) considers him ‘very hot’, apparently.

3.        I wanted to look at the cheer leaders!!! I am straight.

So last Tuesday, we drive up to Chepauk Stadium. The match was to start at 8.00 pm. We reached there by 8.00 only to see this long long long queue. It was 8.40 when we actually entered. Murali was out by then. Then I crane my neck out searching for SRK. No sight. Then I ask my bro, ‘Shah Rukh is not here?’  

Blank stare.

 ‘Why should he be here?’

‘Isn’t this his team?’

He advised me to keep my mouth shut before people bodily threw me out for being so supremely knowledgeable and reverential about the game.

Atleast I got to watch the cheer leaders. All the boys I knew were cooing about them all the time. It was fun. Especially watching them dance to manmada rasa, pokkiri pongal and other Vijay beats.

I was not sure who to cheer for, because Mumbai is where i was born, and would mostly be where I would start on my first job; but Chennai is like, MY city!! Like Sandya says- Mumbai gave me life, but Chennai is my life. She actually came up with something very jin-chak, I just can’t remember it now.   So I decided to cheer for who ever looked like winning. I wouldn’t feel sad later, that way, you see.

It was CSK from the start. And the crowd looked like they would rip anybody who cheered for Mumbai, anyway. And I ended up having so much FUN! It was like unleashing myself of everything diplomatic. My brother was pretty cool with me yelling alongside him, and we were shouting and moving to the beats, jumping and thumping, shamelessly - all decency forgotten, for a few hours. We just needed a reason to yell. And it felt good!

So we would yell when somebody caught the ball, we would yell when another gave a wide, another yell when the fielders trapped the ball before it rolled toward the boundary- madness you might say. But it was fun :- )

I think every Indian ought to go watch a match at least once in his lifetime. Watch it with people who wouldn’t mind putting up with that hidden crazed- alter ego of yours. I was so sure it would be such a bore, but I loved every second of it.  

And I spotted Simbu :D I love the guy, after VTV. Blush*

'National Integration' ???

Last evening, Swaroopa and I were getting back home, from Besant Nagar, via an MTC bus. At peak hours, these buses are bound to be crowded. People yell and pull from all sides, and irritation levels are on the high.

This gang of boys tumbles in. They are typical examples of what we colloquially call ‘local boys’. The road side romeos. When you see these characters alone, they are harmless. Say there was a pretty girl walking by; and one of these is on his own, he would hang his head and sneak-peek at her from the corner of his eye. But when he is with his jing-bang gang, the girl is in trouble. They would hoot whistle at her, follow her wherever she is headed to and make her wish she was never born a woman.

   So Swaroopa and I are sitting in the last row of the bus, and there this nice lady is sitting in front of us. She did not appear Tamil; we assumed she was from somewhere North or West of the country. The bus started to fill, and yes, our romeos were in quite a mood, too. Every time the bus halted at a stop, they would get off. When it started to move, they would give it a head start of five seconds, and scramble into the running bus. So this nice lady had her arm resting on the window, and in the rush to get in, one of the boys accidentally clung on to her arm, thinking it was one of the window’s bars. She pulled her arm in, and started yelling at the entire gang, in the only language that India understands as a country- English. Like I said, had the accused been alone, he would have slunk away. But no- he had four more boys backing him. So he yelled back, ‘What is your problem?’. His knowledge of the language ended there. After that exchange, whatever the lady yelled at them, the gang mimicked it back at her, amidst loud guffaws. Trust me, it was humiliating to watch. What was more humiliating was that nobody raised a voice against the abusers. I did not too, I am ashamed to admit. They certainly looked scary. If that is excuse enough. But were so many men around too, and they were all sniggering at the scene. It was painful to watch. The lady got off the bus at the next stop. I’m certain this episode would torment her for as long as she lived.

   I have many friends from all parts of India, though they are all Chennaiites- Born and brought up in the city. Recently, I met someone who is working in Chennai, but is originally from Delhi, and we had this conversation on how the city treats anybody who cannot speak Tamil. After that, I have been extra receptive to such incidents, the fore said account being the most recent. If that lady had been my mother, she would have yelled at the boys with carefully chosen Tamil words. The other ladies would have joined in, and the conductor would have had to intervene. But no; she was, as my Punjabi bhaiya from Delhi says, a lonely person in an alien city, where it is madness to seek help from strangers- fellow countrymen, who would rush to help American ladies in distress, but oh, not others.

   I had never heard a non- South Indian’s views on the city prior to this. It made me sick. Auto men who charge Rs 600 from Central station to Loyola College when they hear your English with the Northie twang. Helplessness- you look around for help and nobody gives a shit about you, feigning lack of knowledge of English. Oh, but of course, if it was a Tourist asking for directions, the English would flow. When you tell your family that you are placed in Chennai, the news is welcomed with horror akin to being asked to live with crocodiles; ‘How will you survive there?’ From the way it looks, we are living in a mean, cold hearted city. Athithi dhevo bhava- to the dogs.

   Yes, the rest of the country gives us ‘Madrasis’ the same treatment, true. We look like a fairness fixated, oil-doused-haired, bunch of people who are out to get the top positions, everywhere. And we try to pull our clan up in all possible ways. And earn the wrath of the rest of the nation. Jeez, it really sounds cold! But somewhere, it needs to stop, right? Because you and I are educated, civilized, and beyond acting biased with people we meet based on where their home town is or what their mother tongue is. Where did all the patriotism and the ‘India is my country, all Indians are my brothers and sisters’ feeling evaporate?

   Whoa- That sounded like a pre-independence era unification speech, didn’t it? grin**

   One thing for certain, National Integration has no place inside the country. But it makes its presence felt outside the nation- in the US of A, UK and Australia. That will be my consolation, for now.

The Brand Rush

My friend was in his element the other day. No probing was needed; he was spilling his story out in no time, ‘You know what Gita, my friend and I had this bet on whom had more branded items...Guess what! I won!!Ha!! By one..! I had thirty one and he had just thirty! Wow isn’t it???’ Erm...wow? I was blank. I looked at my friend. I knew he was a brand freak, but only then did I fully appreciate how much- Casio watch, Fast track coolers, Levi’s jeans, Peter England shirt, Reebok shoes, Nike socks, an Adidas bag with a HP laptop, NokianN95, oh and throw in a Pierre Cardin pen...God knows what else made up the list! Actually, it was wow! I now looked at myself. Junk jewellery on my wrists and ears carefully picked off various vendors. One ethnic jute bag. Jute sandals from fountain plaza. My favourite mix-n-match salwar. Wow again!
I have never really liked the idea of shelling out a large chunk of my pocket money to buy something that I was most likely to be stuck with for a long time. Instead of one sandal from Metro, I prefer buying five from little shops that we have discovered through the years. Variety! I remember once my brother went without movies and outings for two whole months to save cash for a pair of Adidas trainers. Until I told him this. In the mid- 1990’s, in Bronx, a group of 13 year olds learned that the Nike trainers they bought for $180 actually cost $5 to make, and this led to a mass dumping of their old trainers outside New York’s Nike town.
What exactly is a brand? A brand is the reputation of the firm. It is a logo that acts as a short hand form of the company. It is a personality and a promise. And eventually it becomes a relationship between you and itself. It is something that you identify yourself with, and it becomes a part of you. Why do people blindly wash down gallons of Coke and Pepsi when they fully know that it is made up of potentially toxic substances? It is because the brand has grown on them.
But all this at what cost? In 1992, Nike paid Michael Jordan $20 million to endorse its trainers. This was more than what it paid its 30,000 strong workforce in Indonesia to make them. Women in Cavite, the largest trade free zone in Philippines, who sewed clothes for companies like GAP, have rules against talking and smiling. Toilets are kept padlocked except during two fifteen minute breaks a day. Seamstresses sewing clothes for high end western companies were forced to urinate in plastic bags they kept under their sewing machines. Guess, Mattel and Disney goods were exposed to be manufactured illegally by child labourers in Honduras. An Indonesian Nike worker is paid $2 a day to make trainers that sell for $120 in San Francisco Nike town. The CEO of Disney, Robert Iger is paid $9,783 an hour. Compare that to the salary of a Haitian worker who stitches Disney Merchandise, for 28 cents an hour!
These brands have strived hard to achieve this name for themselves. It is easier to retain their existing, faithful customer base than to create new customers. Faithful customers who either have enough cash to throw away on expensive merchandise, or others who scrape and save to buy themselves one, for the ‘cool’ look. Knowledge is a powerful tool! Deciding is something that is individualistic. But spreading the word is the least we can do! For the sake of all the labourers in Indonesia, China, Vietnam, Mexico, the Philippines and other corners of the earth. For the sake of women like Carmelita Alonzo who sewed clothes for GAP and Liz Claiborne, who died of pneumonia because she was denied time off from work. For the sake of humanity.

This is something I wrote for my college paper, sometime last year. It earned a brilliant review then. I found it in my mailbox, and felt like a post :)

Oh no, that was not me *straight face*

I never liked filling in those annoying slam books, which were a habit during the ‘bye-bye’ days of school life. Apart from having to answer downright dumb questions like – My first crush, My happiest moment, and the like (which we used to answer with ‘The day I was born’, ‘The day I met you’, and so on, which of course, we never really meant!) One particular question which was constant was – Your most embarrassing moment. I mean, who want to make that public? Characters like me, maybe.

Everybody has moments when they wish they could just disappear. Something like that happened last week. My friend and I were having this only-girls chat, and the brother was in some other room. He is a nice kid; he doesn’t eavesdrop as much these days. Now my friend had read up something somewhere..about..erm, well what the heck, orgasms. So she was animatedly detailing the phenomenon and I knew this was no good. Embarrassing! So I kept going ‘shoo shoo’ and as a last desperate attempt, I nearly yell out, ‘Babe, chill! I KNOW WHAT AN O***** IS! (now it is a freak word) I know more than you think, so give it a break!’

 Pin drop silence.

Then an alien voice that is not supposed to be in the vicinity blurts out, ‘Oh? OH?’

Where did he spring out from? How do you reason something like this with your little brother? As both our lower jaws hit the floor, he gives me this oh-my-god-what-have-you-done look and stomps out.

Of late, I have suddenly developed this affinity quotient that gets me into trouble with, of everybody, the Railway police force.

We were birding near the Velachery Railway station. ‘We’ translates to three juniors and me; as a part of the MNS Bird Race. The Pallikarnai marsh is very close to the Velachery Railway station, so we walked to the marsh, feasted our eyes on the numerous water fowl, whooped and whooped watching a kingfisher dive again and again to, well, fish. Then we walk along the tracks to go back to the railway station when the RPF come running to us, whistles and rifles and all.

‘Terrorist a? Bomb vekka vandengala?? Who are you people??’

I was the oldest of the lot, and I lost my voice, because I felt like bursting into laughter. Yes, I’m shameless. Madhu, next to me, was munching on Chocos and almost offered the gun-man some. Gladys, the youngest, took charge then, and she was like, ‘Students, sir..’. That was it.

‘Suicide panna vandengala?’

Madhu tried, and lost. Loud snort. 

Final straw. They got us to the station, and questioned us again. And again. And again.

Then they realised we might be air headed, but innocent, after all, and let us away.

Thank heavens the place was empty.

Oh, and no bribes there. They are nice, duty conscious people, the RPF.

A couple of days back, a few of us went to the SRM University. It is in some God forsaken place out of the city, and we had to catch a train to reach there. When I was getting back, I had Raji for company. Our legs were killing us, and as the train chugged into the station, we notice the ladies compartment is full, with some passengers standing; but the one next to it is nearly empty. So we act smart and throw our noses into the air and make ourselves comfortable in the empty compartment. 

The train chugs into Tambaram. Suddenly, both of us feel like Pepsi, and we get out for some. Trains are frequent from Tambaram to home, so it was really no problem. There is the Ticket Checker. He had already caught one man who was travelling without a ticket, when he asked us for ours, we proudly flash our tickets to him.

We were good citizens.

‘Ma’am, this is a second class ticket. You have been travelling in a first class compartment. Please follow me.’

Shoot! No wonder it was empty. The train chugs out of the station, and Raji and I contemplate running into it. The man seemed to have heard our thoughts so he gives us this don’t- try-any-tricks look and ushers us into his cubby-hole office. He shows us the rule book and tells us that we have committed a crime that might land us in jail, and we better pay the penalty of around Rs 300 per head.

I cannot fathom why I find all these situations exceedingly funny. It was pointless because I did not have the cash, and even if I did, I wouldn’t pay. Because it was an honest mistake! So the guy shuffles around as we give him our family details, and then he pops the question.

‘Evlo kaasu vechirikenga?’

Now we are experts at this, aren’t we? And I was glad I was carrying a handbag. I dumped all the hundred rupees notes into the bag, and retain only the tens, and hand over the wallet. He counts the coins and notes, opens the portion that contains all my girl-stuff, and still pokes his finger inside and digs around, and finally counts a hundred bucks.

Of course, it is not enough. So he tries again. Leave the ID cards here, go home, get cash in the morning. Or (horror!) spend the night in our railway cell. Raji almost fell for it. She almost gave her ID card away when I kicked her foot. She thanked me for it later.

After some more pleading (Sorry sir, please sir, this is the first time we are coming by train sir) he allowed us to leave at last. ‘At great risk to my position and job’ were his words. Like duh!

What a waste of time and money. Sadness.

Of Swamijis and Media Scoops

Today’s news had more masala than we all could take. One of our very own, revered and respected swamijis had been caught red handed, on a video, doing it, in the ‘swamiji style’. With a once famous Tamil movie actress. She still looks pretty though. Matter of opinion, anyway.

The Nithyananda Swamigal is a well read guy, who spoke a lot of sense. My mum used to read him when she was in one of those ‘religious reading’ phases. I have never read his writings, or heard him talk, though. But he did have a lot of followers...all over the world. I don’t think you can have a lot of followers until you are really good, personally. The question is, really good at what? The point is that, he was a famous guy; now he is more famous than he can ever hope to be. And he has gone underground. Small ironies of life.

The thing is, I really don’t get what the big fuss is all about. Suddenly there is a lot of publicity, and believers who feel they have been fooled, go around his ashrams and thrash everything they can lay their hands on. I mean, come on! He is human, too, and well, he was just trying to get one of his basic physiological ‘wants’ fulfilled! He just looks less perfect now, less God-like. Why isn’t anybody looking at it that way? And that guy, he should be suing who ever placed the damn camera in his bed room for invasion of privacy, and not run into hiding.

Yeah, the previous paragraph is definitely a lot of madness. But hey, don’t we all have better things to do? Prime television time, and a news channel is broadcasting the entire video coverage for a full five minutes, into my living room! My mum is horrified/shocked, my brother roaring with laughter and is texting his gang: ‘Nityananda Swamigalin Thiruvilayadal-Watch Sun News, very interesting fore play tips’ . I was torn between disgust at having to witness near-porn with my mum and brother in the same room and appalled at the channel for having stooped so low to broadcast a catch. They even had an explanation: It is supposed to be a warning for the devotees to not fall into any more such ‘traps’.

Seriously, what crap, man!

I do understand that there is no business as lucrative as a ‘fake swamiji business’, and I also understand that whatever happens, our people, those who will themselves to be charmed by these characters, will always be charmed/harmed by them. There is nothing we can do about it. But that is not reason enough to broadcast porn (to those who have seen the footage, can I classify it as porn? I’m not very literate in that field, you see) into our homes. And yeah, it is a scoop. No doubt about that. (Infact, if an English news channel, one of those that thrive on string operations, had caught hold of this footage, they would have made enough stories out of it to last a week) But hey, let’s face it; haven’t such occurrences become common place now? If the guy was forcing people into it, yeah, he deserves the electric chair. But it was, erm, otherwise, in our man’s case.

What freaks me out is, if this is one famous man, what about you and me? Where is the entire ‘safe in the privacy of my room’ feeling? When I was a kid, and was told in school, ‘God is always watching you’, I did not like it at all. Now, I don’t know who else is watching me, because we are all just so vulnerable, and no, it is not a nice feeling at all.