'Thanda Bajao' .. aur thode thande ho jao

In case the title was not clear, I was referring to the latest uproar against the new video released by the British band ‘Coldplay’ who is accused of cultural appropriation. When I first heard that phrase, I was not even sure what that meant. Wiki told me that 'Cultural appropriation' is the adoption or use of elements of one culture by members of a different culture. Cultural appropriation is seen by some as controversial especially when elements of a minority culture are used by members of the cultural majority. 

Now we Indians shouldn't let any chance for any controversy pass away, should we? So I did what anyone in my place would do. I watched the 4.20 second video to see why India was upset. And really people I can’t believe that this depiction of India has upset you?

Shot in India, the video features the British band performing in Mumbai during Holi err… or Diwali (I couldn't really make up my mind),  Chris Martin going around in a colorful taxi (which I absolutely loved) and watching a Bollywood movie starring Beyonce (not so sure on that, Priyanka Chopra would have been a better choice and she can sing too). Ok fine, the video has a lot of stereotypical elements about India.

The video starts with a peacock and then follow the levitating sadhus and the slum boys running around playing holi and doing hip-hop (don’t know when they upgraded from the Ganpati dance to hip-hop). Then there is a small boy with shiva costume (probably going to fancy dress competition waiting for the school bus), temples with saffron flags (ugh ugh.. Congress can now accuse Coldplay as not being secular and promoting only Hinduism), children watching videos through the kaleidoscope, Rajasthani man performing a puppet show, classical dances and beautiful costumes and now 3 and half minutes have passed away and I start wondering where the hell is Sonam Kapoor. Then she comes running (probably straight from the sets of Prem Ratan Dhan Paayo but the clothes looked poorer) and throws some flowers and then disappears never to be seen again. Even the slum kids have more screen time than her but anyways I am not complaining about her non existence in the video. It ends with Beyonce doing a 'namaste'..such a sanskari girl I have to admit.

All in all a very happy happy video. Now I am really confused as to why India is really angry about this. Perhaps because this is not the reality. We would be probably be happy if the video showed an open drainage, potholed roads, farmers committing suicides , roadside beggars , traffic jams, riots etc. Or perhaps we would be happy if the video showed only polished people wearing BlackBerry suits going to office in a BMW into BKC complex (except it would be really boring to see this scene for 4.2 minutes and also all the Blackberry suits would then be stuck in traffic jams which we wouldn't like to see in the video). Anyways the point I am trying to make is I am confused as to what would make everyone in India happy (probably India beating Pakistan in T20 finals). Also, this is the world of internet. No one in my office has ever asked me if I went to school on an elephant and people know that 'land of snake charmers' is a thing of the past. No one and I mean no one (except India offcourse) makes a judgement about India based on a Coldplay video. So lets take a chill pill.

But Ok fine, I do agree that I too, like everyone, have some complaints against the video. First of all after watching the video several times I have still not been able to understand why this was filmed in India but my brain is pea size so I am going to let that pass. However, I believe Chris Martin was in India from Holi to Diwali. Now there are several festivals in that time no? There is Ganpati which could have blended well with the slum kids throwing gulal and dancing on the roads. Then there is Gopal Kala and boy you could have shown out local athletes climbing on top of each other for a pot of butter. More importantly you missed the opportunity to show nag panchami and how we worship our snakes (ugh ugh). Anyways, the point being there are festivals other than Holi and Diwali that India celebrates just so you know. 

Also I know that you guys are very fond of Anil Kapoor but that doesn't mean you take anyone with the surname 'Kapoor' who is half as talented and twice as arrogant in your video just to have an Indian celebrity dancing and running around with flowers. Again Priyanka Chopra would have been a better choice. 

Lastly, don't be lazy while doing namaste. You have to bend and touch the feet of elders (or atleast pretend to touch before they say 'rehne do beta') and then you have captured the essence of India.

But again this is free advice, take it or leave it no one really cares, just like the video.

Google and I

I use Google extensively, or vice versa, am not so sure on who benefits from whom more but Google has been trying to be extra smart for last few days.

All night long the phone lies still on the bed side table. As soon as I get up and start walking towards the bathroom I get a pop-up on what my travel time would be to reach the office.

The first time I saw that I was completely taken aback but then I put a deep thought into this. I use a google android phone with numerous google applications installed on my phone having unrestricted access to all my data. Clearly in an advanced state of inebriation I have also told google the exact location of my work and where I live which google maps pin points every time I open it. Obviously the first thing I do in the morning is grab my phone as I walk towards the kitchen to drink some water so as not to miss any of the gossip going on the numerous whatsapp groups that I have subscribed to. Clearly as my phone moves, google thinks that it's time to leave for work and starts dictating which buses to take. Google o Google, I have learnt your trick but just fyi - I do not need to take a bus to reach office, I walk !

Then the other day I ordered a new coat from Zara. Two days later it suddenly started prompting me to drop all my work at that very moment and go and pick my parcel. Now google, you may be having all the those minion spiders to do the web crawling for you but in my case, I don't. I am more excited to try my new winter coat but I have a job you know. Also stop reading my emails without my permission, bad manners!

My Google Photos has auto backup enabled. So any photo I take is instantly at Google's disposal to enhance and create unnecessary videos and stories. Dear google, thanks for the help but I am techie enough to know how to enhance my photos to have 200 likes on Facebook. Also when you create a video for me to capture my 2015 highlights of the year at least try to include one of my solo photos as a courtesy for abusing my personal data.

Today as I was trying to wrap up my work early in order to catch the flight, it absolutely threatened me that I had to leave the office at 500 pm else I could kiss goodbye to my vacation.It also told me which tube to take, where to change and where to get off. Just to let you know Google, the husband was smarter than you. He asked me to chill till 530 and btw I still reached on time.

Now ever since I have stepped into Heathrow, it has been constantly showing me Heathrow airport maps and other useless information on how to connect to free WiFi at Heathrow. Google, its free WiFi. You don't need to do anything to connect to free WiFi ...it automatically connects..oh wait ...except if it's something to do with 'Free Basics'. Anyways, I digress.

Anyways you have tried to be oversmart here in London but I am going to India. Let's see who is good at finding roads and who finds the fastest path to the destination. War is on Google...war is on ...

Ice skating ....Zoooooooom....

I have always wanted to go to the ice skating rink that crops up every December near our house for last three years but we kept procrastinating. The husband was obviously not very keen on breaking his bones over the holiday season which explains the three year delay in reaching the venue but I tried to explain that it would be so much fun ..'it would be like walking but actually faster, it would be like surfing but on ice, it would be like sliding through the mud' ..oops yeah I did say that but by that time like most men, who have extremely low attention span, he had stopped listening to me and he agreed to book the tickets to the skating rink. We also managed to convince another friend to go along - more the merrier but mostly to take us to hospital if needed.

The ordeal started as soon as we entered the place - a gust of cold wind blew on my face sending a chill down my spine. I almost immediately wanted to turn my back and take the exit but I noticed the husband smirking from the corner of my eye waiting to say 'this was your idea' so I put up a brave face and stood in line for my turn.

The next challenge was to put on the skates. The man on the counter handed us the skates, big blue ones and it felt that even after any possible twisting and turning of the foot it was absolutely impossible to somehow get the foot inside that skate without breaking the ankle bone into two pieces. This struggle went on for a fair amount of time when a small kid sitting next to me could no longer tolerate our ignorance and also the destruction of the skates and pointed out that there was a small buckle on the side that we needed to unlock to put an end to this stupidity. We followed his instructions though in my defence I have to say that the  husband who otherwise has proven higher IQ did not notice the buckle either.

The skating shoe was horribly primitively designed. The bottom part wrapped around the foot and was a tight fit. It was fine till that point. However the top part that wrapped around the ankle up to the lower calf muscles was tight too and more importantly the designers of this skate had clearly forgotten that humans have something called as ankle bones that protrude outwards. Also the material used for the skate was leather. This might be a wonderful material in some ways but on those ice skates it was used in one thickness only - ‘rock hard’. While we all might have different definitions of ‘rock hard’ depending on our varied skills to make 'chapatis' for the husband, it was still all rock hard. While I was explaining all this to the husband, the kid shrewdly told me that the skate was hard because it was meant to prevent the ankle from twisting and hurting. Now first off all I don't like this eavesdropping business. Also I wanted to point out that unless one has the ankle bones of a horse it’s impossible to tie the rigid leather tightly enough to the ankle to give support and allow flexibility at the same time but he did not wait or me to clarify and ran away, so I shut up. 

Needless to say, ice skating is far difficult than it appears to be. However after the first round, I had gathered enough confidence to leave the side railings and start 'skating' in real sense. To be honest, the credit for this goes to my parents who had gifted me roller skates when I was a kid and I went crazy learning how to skate down the slope in my society. Moving to smooth ice rink from the potholed concrete slope was fairly easy. Sometimes I suspect that my parents sent me out to play as a kid so that I could exhaust all my extra energy and not turn the house upside down. So as a kid I was packed off to either a gymnastics class, or table tennis or badminton or dance class or taken for weekend trekking somewhere nearby and when all options were exhausted I was given the roller skates but I digress.

Generally the husband and I are in serious competition with one another. For e.g. one time he asked me if I knew how it would affect the operating cash flow of an airline if they capitalise their leases instead of treating them as operating leases to which my response was can you prove that the integral of the fraction where the numerator is the derivative of a function and denominator is the function is equal to the natural logarithm of the function. I honestly don't know how and where that came up from but he left the room saying 'tell me one day in your life when you used this integral' to which my response was '12th board exam' and we were even. (Point to be noted mi lord)

Today was however different. Today I had this golden opportunity to give him some 'lessons'. I showed him how to bend in the knees and take small steps outwards to begin skating. 'Become a penguin' I said. On a normal day, any such advice from me would have been taken with absolute cynicism but there was no sign of refute from him at that point. Taking advantage of this opportunity I also passed a comment that there are other ways to come to a halt apart from banging on the side railings and I could demonstrate that to him. Husband was however too focused on maintaining the balance at that point so we continued our trip around the ice rink.

We were almost at the end of one hour and I took a break to look around before I took the last round in the skating rink. I noticed that all the kids were zooming around at break neck speed making their way through narrow gaps formed by adults who were holding on to the railings on both sides too afraid to let go. The kids were falling over again and again but each time, they got up, laughed and carried on as if falling over was equally enjoyable. There was something to learn from these kids - why couldn't we all be like that, why couldn't we let go the fear of falling and failing and just for once thrust ourselves into completely enjoying what we are doing. This was the time.

I took a deep breath and slowly and steadily I increased my speed. I saw kids zoom past me and I suddenly felt like a kid again. It was time to give them some competition. One push at a time I increase my speed and soon I was gliding with the kids. I was smiling from ear to ear with my achievement when I saw the same kid from before charge towards me. I carefully made the turn and brought myself to a quick halt and patted myself for being able to avoid this accident only to realise that the kid, being the kid, didn't think it was necessary to stop so bang - both of us were on the floor. 

Before I could even realise what happened, the kid got up and skated away. Kids these days - first they eavesdrop my conversation, then they push me and and now they don't even apologise? I wanted to turn around and give him a good thrashing but I realised that I was in UK and hitting children is totally illegal here. While I was tried to get up, bang - I fell again and this happened two more times. By this time my posterior was completely wet. The personnel around soon noticed my inability to get up on my own and that I was not performing yoga in the middle of the skating rink so they quickly came to my rescue. Thankfully the husband did not notice any of this as he had already made his exit. I heaved a sigh of relief.

Well all is well that ends well - we came out without any broken bones and happy faces. 

Late to the party..

Its good to be late to a party is what my friend used to say. I wasn't much of a party goer anyway but you can make a bold statement she said and I played along then. What she didn't tell me however was how late was okay. Turns out that when I tried it today I ended up reaching after the party was over. 

But since I am here now, let me nibble over the left overs and dance to the music that has been left playing on loop.

So, looks like the war over tolerance and intolerance has ended and I never got a chance to add to numerous articles, blogs, posts, tweets that were written, shared, reposted, re-tweeted during the war times. However I made sure I read every single one that was shared with me and I have to admit that after reading all of those, one thing was clear - I am  not the smartest person around.

Now take for example the fact that Aamir Khan made a remark in one of his interview that one time his wife had a thought if they should move out of India. Now I have to say, a lot of people immediately had a brilliant suggestion of sending him to Pakistan. Now what I fail to understand is why someone who wants to leave India to go to a safer place should be sent to Pakistan. Just think about it - I mean moving is a big pain. Aamir will have to sell off old cots and mattresses on ebay, cancel the internet and Tata sky connection, negotiate with the moving company, ask for spare cardboard boxes from the grocery store next door etc. and then you make him do all of this and send him to Pakistan? Now that defeats the whole purpose of moving no? He wants to go to a safer place - do you understand 'safer'? But may be you do and I am just being stupid in asking this question because I am not the smartest person around.

The bits and pieces of the Aamir's interview were all over the news and everyone who is somebody and also everyone who is not somebody was onto news channels taking sides or writing columns on what Aamir actually said and meant. Now I may be over simplifying it but wouldn't it have been better if someone would have just called Aamir directly to clarify - I mean it would have saved everyone's time and energy. At least that's what I think, but like I said, I am not the smartest person around.

The interview was a part of award ceremony to felicitate 'excellence' in journalism. Now with audience full on best journalists in India, there was no question of misinterpretation, misrepresentation, misguiding and all other irrelevant 'mis'. But why did I feel that all ethics of journalism were broken to increase the TRPs and I could not see much 'excellence' in journalism floating around but again, like I said, I am not the smartest person around.

Anyway, looks like I am late to this party and this debate has died down now.

So lets get back sharing information of the food we are eating, the places we are visiting, the friends we are meeting, the movies that we are watching, the things that we are buying because honestly that what I am on the social network for. And even though I am not the smartest person around to comment on this debate,  I am definitely one of the sanest person around....

Polsden Lacey

As we enter March, the weather seems to be getting better which means that I can save some money by switching off the otherwise ever blowing heater in my drawing room and can exchange my over-sized woolen coat with a lighter spring jacket. Mind you, we are far away from colorful blossoms but even few sun rays that pierce through the dark grey skies and bounce off the streets of London can totally transform the picture. The streets are filled with runners burning their carbs in their shorts, families crowding the parks and other people trying to soak some Vitamin D.

On one such supposedly fine weather day, we decided to drive up to Polsden Lacy near Dorking. The drive, as we moved out of London, was very scenic. Living in London makes your eyes so used to the concrete and glass buildings that even small pastures of green surface are mechanically recorded as beautiful scenery in a normal human brain. The drive was just over an hour and we being typical Indians were as expected late to the party. The car park was full of people who probably would have reached there a good three hours before us while we were stuffing ourselves with poha and tea at home.

Polsden Lacey is an Edwardian house which belonged to Margaret Greville who was a well-known Edwardian hostess of her times and with her fine collection of paintings, furniture, porcelain and silver, the house was a party house for all the summer gatherings that she hosted for the elite including the royalty. So, nothing really historic about it apart from the fact that the Duke and Duchess of York spent two weeks of their honeymoon in that house and later was used to house officers during World War I. As all touristy places, they have tried to bring in some spicy stories of how Margaret was an illegitimate child of a millionaire and her rags to riches story terming her as modern day Cinderella.

I personally found the house quite average but the greenery and the views outside were beautiful. There are extensive grounds as the estate is totally 1400 acres and has beautiful walking paths in the estate. The formal garden tour that we took challenged our imaginations to the limits. “There in that corner stands the most beautiful peach rose shrub”, we turned around and saw a dry twig hanging from a withered bark. There were many more moments like this in our one hour walking tour as we passed through vegetable garden, rock garden, royal arch, walled garden and so on. I guess we were there at the wrong time of the year. The tour ended at burial ground of her 21 dogs, each named and curried with a special plate.

The highlight of the property was the enormous slope in front of the house. As we settled there to relax and enjoy the view, we saw lot of small children having a great time rolling down the slope. Apparently the team at Polsden have a Guinness World Records for the most number of people to roll down a hill in one hour. On the slope were big and small, old and young, all sorts of visitors and as expected none of them were Indians. We Indians hardly reach to such places as most of the touristy time is spent at Madame Tussauds wax museum taking photographs with Amitabh Bacchan. Anyways, coming back to the point, not only were we the only people with Indian passport, but also the only ones who were totally unprepared for a nice outing at Polsden. Everyone and I mean everyone was there with a large picnic basket, garden mats and books. We had none of this.

Overall, I have to say that we have to thank the Greville family for donating such a huge property to National Trust. Not sure if this true, but the story goes that the royal family was expecting this house to be given to them and were not happy when this went to the National Trust. However, all her precious jewellery and a very beautiful tiara were ‘gifted’ to the royal family as per her will. Well, all I can say is what a wonderful ‘gift’ to give, just like the koh-i-noor.

 

Polsden Lacey house

Garden tour

The Slope

EPL and me

During the past few months, especially since I started working, I have concluded that there are broadly two things that these Brits talk about – the weather and football. To be honest, I never understood what’s there to talk about the weather so much because it’s always (in bold capital letters if I may say) cold!! But then I was being too cynical, because soon I realised that it is sometimes cold and raining or sometimes even cold and snowing or sometimes cold and cloudy. So basically you get my point no? It sucks! I believe that the most difficult job on earth is that of the BBC weather reporter. How much effort must be put everyday into devising innovative ways to convey people that the weather is going to bad! But weather is not my only issue in life currently.

I have a serious problem with this EPL or whatever they call it. As if Mondays weren’t depressing enough by themselves, everyone in my project team had to discuss the weekend league matches with every miniscule detail while I sat there like Tarzan stranded in New York city not knowing what everyone is blabbering on about. But even then, I didn’t take much interest because there was a guy from Barcelona in my team who used to say only the Spanish league had some value for money and all this EPL is one big sham.

But my Mr. has to watch every single EPL game too! There are 150 odd teams (or so they seem to me) playing with one another. Thankfully, by Gods grace if I may say so, they don’t telecast all the matches here. Apparently the TV rights are split between BT Sports and SKY Sports. Now we being true Indians and with the exchange rate higher than 100, we have decided not to spend another 40 pounds on BT subscription every month. However, to make up for it, he has to watch each game analysis at the end of the day. So much time is wasted that I can see two full episodes of ‘Bani Ishq da Kalma’ with advertisements and would still have more time to watch one more episode of ‘Saraswatichandra’ in that. Bah!

So I thought, enough is enough, let me take keen interest from now on. Drawing parallels from the IPL, I concluded that the easiest way to get to know the teams was by their t-shirts colours. Correct logic no? Wrong! Turned out that half the teams had red colour t-shirts and the other half had blue!! To make things worse then, I found out that the teams are given only one set of team colour t-shirts which takes a while to get washed in the laundry since shops close at 12pm every Sunday. So next week when they play ‘away’ they use some other t-shirt of some random colour. Only if they would have also outsourced this laundry thing to India! (Dear Brits, can you please stop drinking wine and start working!) Bah! Bah!

Interestingly, I noticed everyone and anyone in India who was on my facebook supported some United team. Obviously, I thought that it must be a very good team to show some loyalty but to my shock, my London friends hated them. Turns out that their ex-coach was some ‘Don’ like personality who ‘fixed’ red cards, penalties and the extra-time awarded. Now I wonder why we, being Indians, should get so annoyed at this fixing. We fix our cricket matches, then we create our own private investigating agency and then we declare ourselves not guilty no? But I wanted to be alive in London and statistics revealed that these EPL teams change their coach more than they change their t-shirts so I chose not to argue on this coach issue further.

As a last resort to get interested in the game, I focussed my attention on the players. With many million pounds spent on them, they must be of great class I thought. Some names were catchy so they caught my attention, Suarez for example. Turned out that he goes about biting peoples ears in the middle of the game! Really? I mean, you can see the same drama -like players ‘slapping’ fellow players, then fellow players crying etc. at a much lesser cost back home no? Also, I think biting ears would look less like a football game and more like a scene out of porn video which you can watch for free anyways. Why waste so many million pounds over it. And Mr. David Cameron, ban this EPL and get your country to work!

Happy Birthday to me !!

Hello everyone! Thank you all for your wishes and before anyone asks me, ‘Happy 25th birthday to me’!  Ok well, the last time I checked I was 25 and then after that I lost the count. So this is the most accurate I can tell as of today. Moreso, if Shahid Afridi can claim to be a teenager for a decade extra, I am not cheating much I say.

So today on my birthday (since everything I do is ok), I thought I will come up with a ‘Guide book’ for myself.

To dear Gauri (Age 5),

1. RELAX! Make the most of today, enjoy and have fun. You don’t know what will happen in the future, we live in a mad world you will see. Chances are that few years from now, North Korea would have already destroyed the world or China would have taken over. So take a deep breath and relax!
2. The same WORLD though also has good, kind, warm people. There will be people with tremendous achievements and yet are extremely humble, people who are simple, honest, hardworking, intelligent, knowledgeable, having unique perspectives and interesting lives. Enjoy their company as they will make your life worth living. Also if you don’t identify yourself with any of these qualities, you have gone terribly wrong. Try to be one of it, atleast.
3. It’s good to PRAY everyday. Be thankful to be blessed with numerous things that many around you are not. Moreso, if you want a Samsung Galaxy 3 from God, ask for it loudly and clearly because even if God turns a deaf ear to your request, your husband might overhear it. So you increase the probability that way.
4. DONT run after money even if you think it’s a good cardiovascular exercise. As long as you have enough money to buy a waffle with 2 scoops ice cream after your dinner, you are good.
5. EAT as much as you want and whatever you want! England is bitterly cold, so you won’t be able to show off your perfect figure under a terribly oversized woollen overcoat. And India will give you a sun burn and nasty glares if you walk out in a skimpy dress. So no point running after size 0, its useless anyways. But don’t ruin your health.  
6. LOOK at the brighter side when things go wrong. You will learn it the hard way, but in the end you will realise that it was not that bad after all. It’s easier said than done but I have realised that unless you are an owl, not much can be seen in the dark anyways.
7. Learn to DANCE. Try to keep it classy but also remember there is nothing so liberating as dancing in the Ganpati procession. I would be sad to know that you never experienced it in your life.
8. DO stupid things once in a while just because you want to. Sometimes, behave madly, throw tantrums and turn the house upside down. But don’t get jailed.
9. LAUGH. Like everyone, you are not perfect too! You will make mistakes, fall often, cry over silly things, face loneliness and even humiliation but eventually, be rest assured that you will survive this. Once you have come through, look back and laugh at yourself. If you find it hard to laugh at yourself, there would be many who will be happy to do it for you.
10. Make good FRIENDS; they will make your growing up immensely pleasurable. The stupid things that you will do together might seem embarrassing when you grow old, but they will still make you laugh till your stomach hurts.
11. REMEMBER what Mark Twain said - ‘When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years’. Ripleys believe it or not, your parents are the sanest people on the earth. The sooner you come to terms with this fact, the better it will be for you. In any case, you don’t have any option but to listen to them. So shut up and fall in line.
12. WAIT for the right guy to come in to your life and then never let him go! Waiting is a wonderful thing and has amazing outcomes you will see. That might mean you will have to tolerate the taunts from that annoying relative who will claim that you have well past your marriageable age and you will end up alone for the rest of your life. This might mean that you will have some days with nothing to do because other friends are caught up in their own life. But wait; and you will find a wonderful person. Once you find one, beg, cry or threaten him but don’t let him go!
13. ENJOY! Enjoy everything. Enjoy the annual day in your school, the scout and guide trek, the competitions, your results, crisply ironed uniform, a new haircut, your first salary, high heels shoes, getting drenched in the rain, a tasty dish, a new country, making a new friend, a cheese burst pizza, a crowded train, the festivals , a sizzling brownie, a good movie, enjoy till you get tired of enjoying and then enjoy more.

And Last but not the least, be true to yourself! You are about to begin a wonderful journey, tread carefully! Life is calling, where are you?

From Gauri

(Claiming to be 25)