Anjali - Art of Gratitude

Once again a knock on the head. Ever since my barber for the last three decades passed away last year, I have been on the quest to find a suitable and convenient replacement. Not having found one who fit my exacting requirements (i.e. my old barber), I have been complaining, cribbing since then. The saloon near my home does a fair job but unfortunately they get the most of my cribbing.

But I went there again last week and got my hair cut. On my return I showed the new development to Anjali and asked her how she liked it. She is never one not to like anything (except vegetables) so she enthusiastically said "It's very nice nanna. It's looking good." I nodded, skeptically.

Sensing the despondent mood and my persistent unhappiness perhaps, she shot off the next question. "Did you thank the barber?" That got me started. Frankly, that was the last thing on my mind. Though he had done a good job, I must admit grudgingly, I was still caught up in my drama of not finding the right barber.

She was not done.
"You could not have got your hair cut without him na? You should thank him," came the whack on the head.

How many times do we ignore these things in our lives? Taking the small things for granted and not expressing our gratitude for that. I silently sent my thanks to the barber who had done a good job. And a not-so-silent thanks to Anjali who was already busy doing something else.

Story Idea - The Three Men Who Forget

Hook:
Three death row criminals are given a choice of three states of mind in a scientific experiment that knocks out that part. One chooses not to think of the past, one about the future and the third about the present.

Story:
Three criminals on the death row. One way to get out (ala Clockwork Orange) is to participate in the scientific experiment. What happens when they lose memory of the past, the  capacity to think of the future and the inability to live in the present. The story goes around what the three men undergo when they choose not to think about their past, future and the present. It should be an interesting bunch of events that occur.

Ah, delicious plot.

Thought For The Day - Moult The Past Away Like A Snake

What if we could get up each day without the baggage of yesterday? What if we can suddenly start afresh, slate clean, smiles in place, people not judged? What if we could shed it all like snakes do and move on?

Nice inviting road

Sounds heavenly. Life anew.

Is India A Safe Place For Women?

I keep seeing these polls on websites and tv channels? Is India safe? What do you think?

I don't know how the poll is supposed to change anything but I suppose the answer is quite obvious in view of the latest happenings. It's not.

I recently saw a CNN report based on an American student's report of her three month stay in India and the report was quite shattering and hard hitting. It points at all the things we take for granted with our so called 'freedom' - leching at women openly, making passes at them passing lewd comments, taking pictures and videos on mobiles without their permission and a great deal of physical abuse that is condoned openly in some parts of our societies. I have seen it all happen and life went on normally - it's all normal.

Now it has gone to the next level of abuse against women. There are increasing cases of gang rape, of harassment of a high order both sexually, mentally and physically (and this includes people at the highest levels). What is worse is the increasing number of rapes against infants, children as young as two years, school children molested or impregnated by those who are supposed to teach them or guard and protect them. Anything is fair game now and somehow there are parts of the society which feel they can get away with anything. The police, the political connections, they are all there or can be bought.

The Delhi rape case shook everyone but not enough. Now the Mumbai rape case comes to fore. What is it that we can do? We can all collectively hang our heads in shame. To start with, the ones in the highest office, for not being able to provide protection to its citizens, to its infants, by not enforcing stricter governance. You can pass all the bills you want but if you cannot get the government machinery working you have no business sitting there. We can all kick ourselves as well for having brought things to this, for failing to see signs of moral decay and for putting up with the small abuse in our households, in our neighbourhoods. If society had acted in time and enforced its moral code on how our women should be treated, no juvenile, no man would have harboured such thoughts. But we, the hypocrites that we are, get upset at pictures of goddesses drawn by artists, do dharnas at how women are being shown in bad light on film posters or in books that no one reads, but allow all sorts of abuse to go on in and around us. We love the way women are gently abused in our films by the leading men, the way they are gradually degraded. Oh, you should see some of our blockbuster Telugu movies to see how much we respect our women.

It's time that we realised that women in India cannot rely on men to protect them or respect them. Which is why India is not a safe place anymore. Because the men have ceased being men in the true sense of the word. Get a few men together and one can be assured about the kind of talk goes on - it is not about respecting women for sure. The mobiles are whipped out, the sniggers some on. In an age where we have seen MLAs watching porn in the assembly, we need not be shocked at what kind of stuff must be going on in the minds of kids - be it from a slum or the high rise. Despite all that we claim about how much we respect women, the truth is that we do not. We do not respect anything, anyone really

It is not funny anymore. It makes sense I suppose for women to take care of themselves. Pepper sprays, body guards, martial arts, licensed guns - whatever. If some man does step up to help - be thankful. There may be exceptions to the rule yet. That's as far as society goes. It's beyond redemption..

The other part is our leaders, who unfortunately reflect us. Governance has certainly fallen to its lowest. Almost everywhere we see open an collusion between criminals and politicians and police. Hardly do we hear a responsible leader speaking up on such occasions. We need thought leadership on these issues. We need something done quickly that screams out loud and says - man, this is horrible, whatever you are thinking and doing. We cannot condone this and you will suffer for doing this to a woman, a girl.

But instead we hear everyone say on tv - but they should wear these kind of clothes, they should address the rapists as brothers and find a way to dampen their lust, they should not go out at night, they should not drink, they should not have boy friends...

Where is the hope in this kind of madness? This kind of hypocricy? None. And all the anger about castration, hanging, quick penalties. Yes, ten rapists will die, twenty, thirty or a hundred that way. How do you kill the mindset. How do you stop the minister from sodomising his servant, the old man leching at his daughter or grand daughter, the next door uncle raping the two year old, the teacher impregnating his student? How do you tell them that you have other ways to satisfy your lust? How do you get them to respect another human, another life? I have no clue really. Somewhere we have gone horribly wrong.

I will not be surprised if more and more women choose to wear something like the burkha in future to save themselves from the men. It may be their best protection yet. 

Story idea - Cancer Ward

Hook: How a bunch of terminally ill guys decide to take one last shot at redemption.

A couple

Story: Six guys in a cancer ward for terminally ill get talking. They all know they have not more than a month to live. While talking at night they think of the one big regret they had all their lives. If there was one way to set it right how would they do it? As they share their stories the six come up with different plans, different attitudes, to their last hurrah. In that one act lies their journey to leave peacefully - so they have to choose that act well.

I can get in a couple of others to add some masala and provide the action as well. Okay, okay story I feel but should not be too boring to watch. Certainly six different stories so I can get drama, humor, emotion and even action in. Hmmm.

Or
Story variant:
The six guys decide to throw all goodness out of the window and just indulge in what they want to. No good no bad, no social sanction anymore. So fill in the day with enough stuff that breaks all social rules but gives you a high. Cuts out all the hypocricy in the world.

Got inspired by another idea but that's another line. Another day then.

Our Big Problem - We Condone Easily

I agree with Ramaraju on this. While walking and discussing the other day as we normally do over weekends, Ram pointed out how we take our hypocricy to a new level. On one hand we all condemn and crib about all that is wrong and on the other hand we condone the same criminals and hobnob with them in our personal capacities. It is not about forgiving a crime - it is about giving social sanction to it and saying that this is okay. Fine by me. Hypocrite!

Pic. Prarthana Nargundkar

Once there is social sanction, whether it is by being seen in public functions, Page 3 parties, sports events, daises with important VIPs, the wrong doers are automatically elevated above normal. Not only is someone who ought to be in jail suddenly on par, he becomes above par. No wonder people try so hard to get some vague post and give themselves some credibility. After a while they start giving themselves titles, get into bigger circles and finally become our law makers. And then we not only condone, we fall at their feet. With the slightest amount of credibility or name, people will overlook everything and team up openly. Look at all the unholy alliances that are around - where silence reigns from all the big guns. Sitting as the Kaurava elders did in Mahabharatha when Drapadi was being disrobed.

The art of saying it like it is where it is deserved has gone. In the Mahabharatha one Kaurava prince Vikarna goes against his brothers and roundly denounces their atrocities against Draupadi. Such voices are gone. All we have is our hypocritical selves clapping at the Emperor's new clothes. Is anyone complaining now why we are where we are?

Best Kept Secret - Jeffrey Archer

It is a well kept secret till the end. This book follows a couple of books in this series called the Clifton Chronicles which made it difficult for me to figure out why certain events were being discussed as if the others had already seen the movie. But it did not matter because the book never rose above the kind of a bar that I would normally reserve for Mr. Archer. It looked like bored writing. A job had to be done and was done. Ho hum. Same here.

For one, the characters were all flat for me speaking like two dimensional caricatures. Maybe the boy Sebastian comes alive a bit and certainly Virginia showed promise but the rest are all super flat. The complex relationships shared by Emma and her brother Giles Barrington, and Harry Clifton, are too complex and best left not understood. They are brothers, half-brothers, half-sisters and so on and so forth. The old lady and her will, the son Sebastian and his aunt Jessica,  their birth and their relationships are all even more complex to be interesting. Come Virginia into Giles life and she adds some drama but Archer gets rid of his best villain rather early. She had promise. Alex Fisher is a hopeless loser and everyone knows he is going to lose. I knew at least. And then the ease with which these people win everything is just too boring. Mr. Martinez appears like a Bollywood villain and had "villain" written all over him. He comes up with the most harebrained schemes to get his money into England. How the seemingly smart Sebastian shows a propensity to get into all sorts of trouble for no reason and shows serious error in judging people like Martinez is rather bizarre. But he is the son of Harry Clifton who dresses like a pilot and goes across the globe to meet his son but does not tell him a word of the danger he is in, so that sort of fits in too. Generally it appears that there is little thinking going on all over. Even the end is too Bollywoody and badly thought of - why such a hammy end Mr. Martinez when you know that many possibilities exist? But obviously someone who devises that kind of a scheme can only think of this kind of a method to kill someone. A first time killer would have thought of a better idea surely. In the end, I figured someone dies - who? Its a well kept secret and I don't intend to find out. It does not matter really.

A couple of days went into reading this book and I consider it not well utilised. The most interesting part was that we get to know the mechanics of publishing and the royalty that Clifton gets. And the American book tour and its mechanics as opposed to the British book tour. There's some research that comes in about Hitler and stuff for some reason but why? Save that publishing bit, it seemed to me bored writing as I said and was not worth the time. I will now return to 'Kane and Abel' to get over this. I suppose every writer gets one like this once in a while. Let's hope the next one gets better.