My Affair With South Bombay

No country for women

They say women are extremely resilient and can cope with the worst possible scenarios  effectively. I happened to meet 27 year old  Sonali Mukherjee yesterday. Her story touched me.

Seldom have I come across anyone as strong as her. She is an acid attack victim, an attack so brutal that not only did it melt the flesh of her face and left it disfigured, but it caused her to lose sight as well. And why did this happen? Because nine years back, unlike most Indian girls who are subjected to sexual harassment she decided to confront her assailants. The spurned men in a fit of rage decided to take revenge on this beautiful girl of 17 by breaking into her house in Dhanbad, Jharkhand and pouring concentrated acid on her face while she was asleep. The life of a beautiful, bright, young girl with a promising future came to an abrupt halt just like that. Just because she decided to speak up against what was wrong. Her attackers, in the meanwhile were let off on bail and are roaming about freely in the society. 

A few months back I watched the Academy award winning documentary, Saving Face which highlighted the plight of women in Pakistan who were subject to acid attacks by not only outsiders but their own kin! I was aghast when I contemplated as to how inspite of living in the so called civilized 21st century society, we are still not able to eliminate barbarianism from the minds of people. How is it so easy to procure a bottle of acid from the shop round the corner for merely Rs 35 and use it to commit such heinous acts? How perverted must be the mind that devises such an act of revenge? To leave somebody scarred for life, to make somebody's life a living hell.

A little research threw light on how there are hardly any provisions in our law to protect acid attack victims and prevent such attacks. Presently, only sections 320 (causing emasculation and disfigurement), 322 and 325 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and 326 (causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) can be employed to prosecute the culprits. This is not enough. The legislature has proposed to add two sections to the IPC to deal with acid attacks and propose to make these offences non-bailable. I believe this is a welcome move, when implemented but not enough.

There need to be stringent guidelines pertaining to procurement and hoarding of acid just the way they exist for arms and ammunition. Over the counter sale of acid must be banned and the victim should be given adequate compensation and rehabilitation. Police apathy is another issue that needs to be dealt with. Several victims do not file FIRs for the fear of the perpetrators seeking further revenge on them and their families because there isn't any police protection accorded to the victim and her family.

A Thomson Reuters survey says that India is the fourth most dangerous place in the world for women to live in after Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan. How despicable is the fact that gender targeted crimes such as and not limited to female foeticide, FGM, rape, acid attack, harassment, eve teasing make it to our newspapers every day and that we've learned to live with such incidents happening in our neighbourhoods every day.

What a sorry state of affairs for a country that refer to as our Motherland.

For the love of Instagram

"'Beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder"

I write this post as I sit staring at this army of ants attacking the morsel of food that fell on the floor after dinner wondering which filter would do justice to the little devils.

My affair with Instagram began almost ten months back at a time it was meant only for only for Apple loyalists. Frankly, I thought it was no good considering it would need images to be cropped to fit in a square and the filters were fairly limited. The effects on Picasa and Photoshop seemed far superior. The first photo I ever 'Instagramed' was a jar of Nutella. I gave up on Instagram for months after that. Little did I know it would go back to it..with so much love.

In April, 2012 Instagram made the app available to Android users as well. In short, Instagram was available to the masses for use and abuse. In June, 2012 my Nokia phone crashed beyond repair compelling me to switch to an Android phone. One of the first apps I downloaded was Instagram. Little did I know that with an uninterrupted internet connection, Instagram would single-handedly cause productivity to go down the drain. Armed with a 5 MP camera, I happened to click almost everything on the streets of the city ranging from vintage cars to fire hydrants, from animals to street lights. Interesting how things we tend to overlook in our everyday life have so much Instagram potential!

Last month I discovered the potential of hashtags on Instagram. One can use upto 30 tags to share your 1:1 aspect ratio picture with the world. The world then likes and comments on your pictures of random buildings, the sky ( often captioned with Pink Floyd songs and hashtagged : #skyporn, #cloudporn), animals and food etc. Now the problem with recognition and appreciation is that it is addictive. So you want to put up a picture everyday hoping to join that enviable club of people who get thousands of 'likes' on their photos and make it to the popular page. It's a distant dream though.

Believe it or not, I've actually started seeing the world in Hefe, Sutro, Valencia and X-pro. I think I'm in love...with Instagram. I digress.

Now where's the darned camera phone again?

There's something about Mary

From 'Mary kaun?' to Mary Kom, India has come a long way.

We Indians tend to stereotype ourselves. A person belonging to the Southern states is a Madrasi  and a person from the North eastern states is a 'chinki' which essentially is a slur for people of Chinese ethnicity. Basically, for all these years a majority of us have considered them to be 'not one of us'. Who would've thought a diminutive mother of two from Manipur would manifest a change in this thinking albeit temporarily, though I hope not.

Sport is a wonderful thing. It unites people like no other. When Mary Kom competed at the Olympics, she wasn't a Manipuri, she was an Indian- a thought that resonated in 1.2 billion hearts. She was given front page coverage on days when the Indian cricket team was actually winning a series against Sri Lanka. The web was abuzz with wishes for the first Indian woman pugilist who would win a medal at the Olympic games.

Her Olympic story didn't have the perfect ending. She had to be content with the third spot. But she sure did conquer our hearts. Hailing from an impoverished family in a remote part of the country with virtually no access to resources that make champions and eventually competing in a higher weight category at the games, Mary's story is no different from a day in the life of an average Indian woman, one who faces many challenges. What is remarkable is how she fought against the odds that didn't swing in her favour and brought glory to herself and the nation.

Post exit in the semi finals, the bronze winner apologised to the country for being unable to win a shinier medal. Mary Kom, never mind the colour of your medal, it is your nerves of steel and heart of gold that has earned you our respect. You are a source of inspiration. More power to you!

The Bombay Nightlife Terminator

I'm a self proclaimed Hindi cinema junkie. A quintessential Bollywood product will either have a good cop  who is generally the hero keeping the city safe or a bad cop which our hero will overpower within a span of two hours. Then there's a cop of the third kind- the angry young man who will enforce his righteous ways even if this means taking the law into his hands, and as cinema-goers we often empathise with him and even justify his ways. Then why is Mr. Vasant Dhoble being slammed as the anti-hero?

As a country, we love to crib. It's in our genes, we'll blame the politicians, the infrastructure, the lack of enforcement of laws, the corrupted system and even the weather. We'll dissect these at our dinner table and we'll watch social czars and czarinas put forth their points of view on prime time television and then we'll tweet about these burning issues.

So when one man wants to enforce the law, no matter how archaic it is and how it may defy any sane and logical albeit 'progressive' person's line of thought, why are we brandishing him?

Are we Mumbaikars perturbed by the fact that our night-life is slowly being taken away from us? A brand in itself, the 'Mumbai nightlife' isn't quite what it used to be a few years back. As if the 1:30 pm deadline for pubs wasn't enough of a killjoy, Mr. Dhoble's diktat to enforce The Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 in Mumbai which basically ensures that you might not be able to enjoy your favourite brand of whisky with friends after a hectic day or even make liquor chocolates in the privacy of your house ( excise raids)  unless you have a license to consume alcohol. The rather archaic act lays down that the license can be obtained only when prescribed for medicinal purposes. The jugaad attitude that is inherent in us prompts us to submit medical reasons to obtain the same. After all, how different is this from obtaining a medical certificate to stay at home to avoid appearing for an exam back in school? People argue that the law is outdated, hence there is a need to rebel, a cooler phrase for essentially what is circumventing the law.

I'm no sympathiser of Mr. Dhoble. Infact, I was rather shocked when I landed in the city after a vacation in Amsterdam where intoxicants are sold like candies and came across local newspapers which were splashed with stories of how people were arrested for consuming alcohol. Furthermore, his actions of barging in places with hockey sticks, arresting women on and branding them as prostitutes are downright crazy (for lack of a better word). While officers in the past have exercised discretion in the (non) enforcement of this law, one cannot really empower the authority and then question it when it exercises it. The need of the hour is to pressurise our legislature into repealing or amending the Act as it stands. In my opinion the anger is misdirected to a large extent.

Meanwhile, Big Brother Dhoble is watching you.

The Judgment of Sita

We are a bunch of hypocrites. We say that women must be given equal rights and equal opportunities in every sphere because after all females constitute 50% of the world population. And there are women in power in almost every sphere of society. The ancient texts refer to a wife being an ardhangini (better half). But does this discount the fact that we still are very much a male chauvinist society? 

I was appalled to read a statement made by learned judges of the Bombay High court wherein while hearing a divorce petition, the judge remarked that "A wife should be like goddess Sita who left everything and followed her husband Lord Ram to a forest and stayed there for 14 years,". While it is not unorthodox for judges to refer to religious texts and quote from them, it was rather surprising to see this coming from a judiciary that is considered to be one of the most progressive in the country. 

A bare reading of the Hindu epics, i.e., the Ramayana and the Mahabharata suggests that a woman was to be treated as her husband's property. Infact, this was still the case till the 19th century in most parts of the world. Hindu women in India have very recently been given equal rights with respect to their father's property but a Hindu woman can still not be considered a coparcener with rights to inherit the coparcenary property.

The epics suggest that Ramayana should be considered to be the ideal way of life.  The protagonist, Ram is referred to as Maryada Purushottam (the ideal man). Does idealism suggest that a man should question his wife's virtue and subject her to agnipariksha to prove that she is 'pure'. Should a man who banishes his pregnant wife be considered an ideal husband? And a wife who accepts her husband inspite of such atrocities be a woman of virtue? I think not.

Similarly, the Mahabharata is rife with examples of subjugation of women. A woman gets married to one man but is 'shared' by his brothers. She is then commodified and placed as a bet in a game of dice. There are attempts made to strip her in an open court but there is nobody who comes to her rescue. The only one who saves her from this humiliation is Lord Krishna who himself has been described as a Casanova married to several women. Is this the kind of society we envisage? Rather, doesn't such a mentality already exist in the light of the numerous incidents that we read every other day? A virtuous wife is one who will blindfold herself for life just because her husband is blind. It is rather unfortunate that such notions are considered to be the ideal way of life.

In a nation that is plagued with crimes against women and where even the judiciary considers subjugation of women to be a way of life, female emancipation means little. So the next time a case of incest comes up, will the Honourable Court suggest that a wife should be like Draupadi?

How I Met Your Mother- The True Story

The Year 2012.

Kids, remember how seven years ago I had started telling you the story of How I Met Your Mother. Remember, how I started narrating the story with such enthusiasm. Remember how I told you about the escapades of my awesome group. Well, so the thing is I had no idea that there was a hidden camera in our living room and the footage was being siphoned away by CBS and being telecast on international television! So much for all the privacy brouhaha they create!

So anyway, this one day your Uncle Barney Stinson who happens to be 'awesome' happened to be on a business trip to India and realised that 15 year olds there have begun speaking like him. He happened to stop by an ice cream shop at Marine Drive and saw these young adults exclaiming how 'Legend-wait-for-it-and I hope you are not lactose intolerant-dary' the chilli ice cream was. Then he saw those shopowner bros freeze frame hi5-ing each other. And since we all know how AWESOME he is at sleuthing, he figured out the cause for rise of this phenomenon. There apparently exists this website called Piratebay which has all the latest torrents and it has apparently displeased those phoren DVD vendors outside all local train stations. Infact, highly places sources in our government have confirmed on the condition of anonymity that they are the ones who had infact petitioned for the SOPA/PIPA Act. Now Barney, being the shrewd businessman that he is struck a deal with the channel and well this is how I pay for your school since my career as an architect is really going nowhere.

In the meanwhile, your Aunt Lily and Uncle Marshall started getting jealous of our success. Your Uncle Marshall is as unsure as a dead duck as to whether he wants to be a corporate lawyer or an environment crusader. I heard from this law student in Mumbai, that she can relate to Marshall very well. It's almost as if it's the story of her life. Um, strictly the professional part, of course. So I decided to convolute the story a bit and present to the world as to how miserably you will fail as both a corp lawyer and an environment crusader and how eventually, you will have to live off your wife's salary which she makes as a kindergarten teacher. But as long as you have friends who will reserve a booth for you at your favourite watering hole and pay for your beers and stand by you no matter what, it's cool!

Then comes Aunt Robin. Now Aunt Robin is only a pseudo-friend you see. You already know who your mother is. Yes, the woman who screams at you every morning for you not cleaning your room, having your cereal et al. They brought her all the way from Canada just to bring a pretty face to the show, so that once those 15 year olds turn into 18 year and 22 year olds, they still continue to watch the show. And then they forced me to say things such as I proposed to her and this and that, which I vehemently deny but you see for TRPs you have to go the distance. And then when they saw that the TRPs were declining, they introduced a shrink of Indian origin. These Indians I tell you, all you need to do to keep them happy is flatter them via these home videos with subtitles. The CIA is doing their job alright.

And to think of it, they are a bunch of buffoons. I have told them repeatedly as to How I Met Your Mother. They already know about the yellow umbrella and how she was there in my class which was not mine. Are they waiting for a face? Like they say in Mumbai, so I've heard, itna paisa mein itnaich milenga!

psst: I also hear there's some woman called Ekta Kapoor who wants to remake the show and call it Kkkkaahaani Mummy Kii.