Shoe-Shoe...

Last Saturday, an uneventful event led to germination of a queer question in my head. "What is the difference/similarity between a stupid person and a moron? 

It was a girl's day out, if I may take the liberty to call my much married sister-in-law and ourselves, the two sisters, who are all on the wrong side of 25, girls. So now, Us, the trio, were loitering aim-fully in Karol Bagh

 market, trying to add some dazzling sarees and fancy and uber girly stuff to our wardrobes. This is one of those "Sale" time in Delhi, where the windows, doors, roofs and even the roads leading to the shops shriek "--% sale". (Note - NRDs - Non-resident Delhiites, this is THE season to visit Delhi, forget the much romanticised Winters. You can just engage in some soul-liberating shoppo-hogging and appease your materialistic cravings!!)


Done with most of the planned and almost all of the unscheduled shopping, we decided to casually sauntered into a shoe shop. The board read "WINGS". Well, then may as well call themselves "FANGS". Why? I shall soon get to that.


Succumbing to our conditioned feminine ways (oh please do not label me a sexist here), we started trying out shoes, slippers etc. The peep-toes, the Osho slippers, the Kolhapuris, the wedges and also the 'Star-war' sandals (not inspired by the Star War series, but the ones which have crystals and gems loaded on them which give them the look of star-filled galaxies), we tried to evaluate most of them on our feet, dishing out some valuable critique as we carried on our pursuit of the trivial. To add to my serpentine description of our activities inside the shop, let me say we moaned and groaned heavily. No girls, there are no hunks in there, so save your excitement for some other time. But yeah, the prices even in this "Sale" season were very very steep.


And then it happened. As i was fancying a pretty pair of sandals, I asked someone to help me find the right size. All of a sudden, I sensed someone was trying to put a sandal beneath my foot. I look down. Its was a miserable sight. No no, I am not a good model for the heel repair cream ads and my heels are in good shape.


There kneeling before me was a scrawny boy, maybe 10 or 11. He was struggling with my foot and the sandal.


I leapt back. Not really leapt like a kangaroo, but yeah I moved back, shocked and horrified. "Arrey bhaiyya paid chhodo, paid chhodo mera", I was shrieking in the most civil manner possible. The kid looked confused, my sister sensing what I was trying to say, joined in; my sister-in-law who was somewhere else, came running trying to decipher what made me yell.


The three of us fixed our gaze on the little boy who was staring back at us. We said aloud in unison "You are so young. Don'fine jitna manage kar sakti hoon t you have a grown up salesman in the shop? Why the heck are you working here and like this?" "Nahin, nahin, kisi badey ko bulao. Yeh chota bachcha humarey feet nahin chuyega."


Now emerged the duffer or the MORON. A thickly built, man, who was till then busy chattering up his colleague (of the same genre). He looked visibly annoyed, because we had disturbed their abuse-laced afternoon banter. He stood there, paunch out, back slacking behind (you may add the act of scratching his scrotum to ignite your dislike quotient for the guy), his eyes trying to size us up and make sense of our demand for a grown up to assist us. The little bits I could catch of his simultaneous conversation with his mate was like "Women, I tell you. They fuss around so much. And whats with not letting the little @*$&#%@ assist them and forcing me to work? beep, beep, beeeeeppppp". So you see why I renamed the shop FANGS.


There are certain times when a direct, verbal assault or lecturing people on the illegality of child labour has no effect or desired result. Once we turn our backs, the kids are pulled back in service or slavery whatever we may call it. But we were fuming, angered by the nonchalance of the guys in the shop. Forget a tad bit of embarrassment, those men behaved as if we were the incredulous ones.


Something must have clicked within all of us that same moment. Why else would we launch a scathing,sarcasm-stuffed, loud and very animated shoo-shooing of all the shoes in the shop, the price range, the designs, the employees and all that came in the range of our sight?


The disgust, anguish, anger, desperation and guilt we felt rising in our throat that moment had to come out. In that moment, our expression of protest and resentment against the gory act of child labour was our verbal tirade accompanied by dirty glances at the owner who sat smugly on one of those black, ugly swivel chairs.


Our last words as we closed the shop door behind us were "bad shoes, bad men, bad attitude, pathetic deed." But was that enough?


Its been a couple of days now that the incident took place and yet the boy haunts me. So many more like him haunt me. Will the vice of child labour devour the happy years of children from the non-moneyed section? Can the law enforcement agencies, the NGOs, the government ever win their battle against the menace? Can, WE THE PEOPLE of this NATION, get a change of mind, heart, intent and action? Or are we doomed to go from being just STUPID to being MORONS? In the answer to my initial question, I found a greater, more grim truth.


We felt helpless that afternoon. We were seething with anger. The happiness shopping usually generated evaporated. The bags felt heavy. Our feet were sluggish as we walked towards the car, burdened with our realisation that we, as a combined polity is to be blamed for the plight of our children. It was twilight but gloom had long descended on our hearts.


"WINGS" had clipped the wings of that little boy we met. His dreams lay trampled under those shoes.


P.S - I know my small gesture will never be enough to put an end to the evil. Yet, I know may be some of us will refuse to drink that one cup of tea brought to us by little Guddu, or refuse to accept the home delivery services offered by the neighborhood shop through young Monu. Or else, even after a century, one of my own would yell and leap at the horrific sight of a pair of little hands trying to fix her a shoe.

Short Women have it easy. Really?

A tall friend complained, rather accused me or my kind of short women in the following words - "You, Snow White's dwarf, you always manage to capture the TALL guys and leave me stick out like a sore finger among shorties."

Till then I never ventured to ideate on this earth shattering, equation altering threat my kinds posed to the romantic and procreation lives of my taller friends. But, really 

I want to assure the proud possessors of those unending legs, height or lack of it has nothing to do with who is entrapped in our charms. Nor is the height of the suitor inversely proportional to ours. In the matters of the heart, it is the width of the heart and depth of emotions that matter. Okay, maybe at times the monetary beauty of an individual may draw some attention. But thats about it.

However, it also got me thinking. Does my friend have a genuine grievance? Does height and physical appearance of a person contribute to making a lasting, successful relationship? Do men feel secure in a masculine manner when they are going around with pint-sized women? Does it push their protective instincts? Or does the woman who has to almost leap to kiss her mate, hang on to a tall man just because she sees her short height as an handicap and desires it to be equalised by the man she is with? What is it that women and men want respectively?

I was myself plagued by a superstition or whatever you may call it to be for a long time. I generalised like an utter numb nut that all my best buddies were so because we fell in the same height bracket. Our vertical hurdle is something thats common and binds us. It was a sure sign to me then that all tall people, seldom gel with me. To add to my theory I also made a mental image that since there was an obvious distance between the invisible wave lengths emanating from me and any person who is more than half a foot taller, a lag, an incommunicable gap was bound to be present and that shall stop me from being friends with the Palm Tree.

As I grew in age, maturity and girth (sigh!) I kicked myself, not literally as it is not physically possible, for being so lame. And now when I look back and around and ahead and above, I see so many beautiful people of all shapes, sizes and some even deconstructing the definition of size, who are my friends, who have been so real that life without them would be like some thriller movie without the adrenaline rush, the oohs and ouch, the swears and popping out eyes and the silent anxiety within because you know you may lose the bet as to who is the baddie.

The tall and short of this whole yapping is to assure my TALL PRETTY Friend that "buddy if you and I can be friends, so can you fetch yourself a tall, awesome dude. One look at your beautiful, almond shaped eyes and a guy shall be yours, lock stock and barrel. So, worry not. Stand tall and enjoy the emphatic entry you make in parties. So many would kill for that kind of height and legs. MUAH!

If you still suck at the romance game with tall men, well then too worry not. You have an entire brigade of not-so-tall fellows with the Tom Cruise syndrome who would love to hold you in their arms or be held by you rather. Let me just throw in a few names. What about Aamir? NO? Salman then? Why do you look shocked? Okay the wealthiest Khan then? Arrey, why do you believe it was his wax statue that features in movies these days? HUFFFF...Think Sachin then? No R.S M.Ps coz they seldom have real powers? Girl, its so difficult to match your tall demands.. Wait, wait, I still am not done with the list...wait girl!!!

"MET HAPPYNESS TODAY" :)

Was at the Doctor's today. Different people, various ailments waited patiently to be heard and cured respectively. As I waited with my mom in a serpentine 'seated' queue, I noticed a pair in a quiet corner. A mother (presumably married early and a young mother hence) and her child. A happy picture of love they sketched. Yet there was an unmistakable tension around her, a repressed anxiety in her body. My guess was some tummy ailment, some eating disorder of the restless baby.

As I tried to suppress a yawn and a debate as my mother lectured and literally bulldozed me with benefits of an early marriage (I have failed on that front per Maa) and motherhood, I deliberately fixed my gaze on that interesting corner and was transfixed for a good 10 minutes (yeah i suffer from short attention span affliction!! again as per my MOM).

She seemed focused and engrossed in the tiny spurts of infant antics. She was happy. She was busy. This time the child decided to turn his face. I was dumbfounded as I saw several remnants of numerous surgeries on that face, the limbs painfully twisted, the skull unusually large than that of any child his age.

The tension had an answer, the anxiety had a subject. She knew twenty odd pairs of eyes were staring at them, their inquisitive fervor burning bright and shameless. Yet she showed no signs of discomfort or agitation.

This time she looked in my direction and smiled. I smiled back. And again a mother left me speechless. This time my mother. "Yes Maa I caught you furtively wipe away those quick tears that appeared on the shores of your eyes."

The duo had excited me. I looked around for the husband, the father. Oh yeah, found him eventually. Sitting cold and aloof at another distant corner, he appeared ashamed and evasive, not even sparing a glance at his 'biological' son. "What was the shame, Mister?", my head yelled in silence (yeah i tend to revolt and question too much. An irritating habit at times).

Bored and agitated, I returned my attention to the happy corner but only intermittently trying not to disturb the togetherness of a mother and a child "a stand alone" pair who did not need any sympathy or miserable words or looks that resembled the former.

The names were called. She, he and the "tag along" "he" left their seats and proceeded to meet the doctor. As they crossed me the child turned to look at me and it was like WHAM. He smiled one of those toothless glorious smiles. The kinds which make women go weak in their knees and tongue and they erupt in profound gibberish baby lingo. The 5 seconds smile reached his eyes (oh those beautiful blue eyes) and went straight into the emotional ledger in my heart (Alas, I am a hopeless prey of emotions. Just no control I have over those crazy emotions).

My doctor is famously known as the "Magician" who has cured the incurable. I am sure several hearts in the clinic must have joined me in my prayers that this child be touched by his magic and join the long list of "miracles" he has performed.

Yet it was the other magician whose image I returned with. She had no fancy academic degree, no worldly wise visions, no massive mounds of money to take her to state of the art medical care centers. To top her rather mundane middle-class struggle was the man she was married to. The BORE - one who paid the bills and thought his work was done here.

She created magic with her quiet resolution, he confidence in her strength of love, her drive to hold onto her child and raise him in all good health and happiness.

They left the clinic. But my faith in strength of human endeavor and spirit was cemented back firmly. Hope hasn't left our kinds, I am sure again.

"Life, you are beautiful even in pain."

Break in between exam prep.

Lemme just scribble the thoughts which crowd my already semi-insane head.

Visitors next door left today afternoon..Quite a relief with no more of high pitch voices discussing the most mundane to the most prolific topics of the day. There were way too many people stuffed in a space adequate for two. (modern day standard of nuclear family is what I keep in mind.)

However, all of a sudden I started to miss the din and confusion. The voices were my company as I read through dark pages of taxation law, labour law and the like. They pepped my spirits when they started fledgling. How? The juicy rounds of bitching and more appropriately "Poro neenda poro chorcha" (in Bangla) which the inmates of the house indulged in was a treat for my devil's workshop. Should I name it as the No Boss House? I might as well do that. Cause "they" were their own lords and more often than not voiced their opinions with gusto and full throats.

Do I miss them?

I presume yes. No I dont. "They" were too loud. But "they" kept me company in the boring long afternoons...I am not too sure..Yet they are interesting enough for the blog.

My classmates (except a few, rest I dont consider friends..as if they too care much about my alluring friendship) are all galloping ahead with their readings of the fat ugly law books. They must be studded with knowledge enough to rock any courtroom across the country. Has anyone wondered why we say rock the court room and not the court floor, just like we rock the dance floor? Strange thought this is. Examination has its side effects.

By the way, I am dangerously balanced between some study and a lot of other more important thoughts. And this keeps me somewhere very close to the starting line...my good friends, go ahead and score well. Write all that you know about the trade unions, house property, limitation period, arbitration agreement or emergency provisions. These topics never cross my mind. Or even if they do cross, it is seldom a great experience.

What do I think about? about the new cook and of what she cooks. I think how the dhobi must be washing clothes the whole day and ironing them with a monstrous state-of-the-art iron. Then about how the vegetable vendor haggles his way through in the "mandi". Then there is a set of fancy thoughts. The beauty parlour thoughts, the look of the season thoughts. The ones about dining out or tearing my boy friend's hair on issues which he considers no issues and which for me are more precious than my life.

Well, just now my friend has trooped in and she demands that I listen to her thoughts. Mine have been paused for a while. Well, people away from home and family seek another pair of ears to speak out their heart or anything else too..

Just like the preceding posts this one also is fated to end abruptly.

Laziness creeps in too fast into my system.

Just blogging.....Thought I wished to talk about MEN...

At the very outset, let me clarify that MEN doesn't mean the members from the not-so-fair sex. I use 'men' to speak about random people (like they did in epics and also the Holy Bible) irrespective of sex divides.

There is a constant tussle between two of the mankind. Be it in love or friendship or neighbourly relations or even within a family. The same underlying conflict is found in every aspect of our lives. No one (excuse the generality) is at peace today. Why? None of us really know. We all believe we have something yet to be achieved. That mystical something that has eluded us so long. Once we have laid our hands n that "something", ranging from the fancy piece of automobile to a new shirt to any god damned thing ever created by the complex human mind, we go on to the next level of the chase. There is a replacement already ready to be pursued with added vigour. This goes on. Today when I took an accidental break from my personal chase, I felt something like a wreckage inside the head. There was a tangle of myriads of images, thoughts, people. They floated around like they do in the space.

While typing the words right now, I want to talk about numerous things. But the clot in the head deviates me from one point to another and then to a third. In a matter of few seconds I apparently travel places and times and incidents. Some that happened today, some that are now in the past and yet correlate with the day's happening and some that just flash in and out. I am stuck in dual sensation. Rather say multi-sensations. Equally vibrant and emphatic.

The inter-looped relativity Me has with things around and the same things have with others and the chain that is formed this way is fathomless. And the different "men" I met in this relative force is stunning, which almost benumbs me.

After the last statement, I am totally numb and sitting before the computer, thinking whats the next fancy thing I should write so that people applaud my writing skills and leave words of praise. But the current state of mind does not seem to know what it wants to think about. There isn't anything coherent that is evolving. I cannot even pretend to be the aspiring writer who has bagful of 'nothingness' to describe through well-drawn similes and intelligent rephrased terms and words. The confusion wants an outlet and I presumed (too soon!!) that only penning them down would ease my tension. But it feels worse now because nothing suitable could be created. Neither did I feel like Gibran or Amitabh Ghosh or Marquez. Nor did I feel the existential angst of Samuel Beckett. Nor do I feel the anger like the angry young man from John Osborne's "Look Back in Anger". I better end this post soon. Its scaring me enough to make me drop my plans of a full-time writing career.

Don't know whether others feel the same way. But except wasting some more space and pronouncing the names of all the writers I read, i seem to be doing exactly "Nothing".

I feel like a "nothing".

They Who Broke News!

This post was originally penned as a response to an article by a beautiful and equally talented fellow journalist on the vicious Breaking News trend set by the news channel, specially the kind of propaganda that was raised regarding the experiment conducted by scientists of CERN. The Indian media had ludicrously termed it as the doomsday experiment….
(Please pardon me fellow journalists. But I know there are many like me who are from the same boat and heavily anguished to see it sink!!)

How much information is right information? This is one aspect which the so-called India’s better than the best news channels overlook at their own leisurely convenience. If this is what the Fourth Pillar of India’s democracy looks and acts like, then a doomsday of greater magnitude isn’t far behind. Media men excuse themselves (lamely though) with the repugnant statement “This is what viewers demand”. No Chayya (the teenager who committed suicide after repeatedly watching the day long broadcast of ‘The day before doomsday’ programmes run by the news channels) would have liked to see the world come to an end.

Thanks to my wise colleague, for describing the reality effectively. I am sure many like me agree that Indians are not over enthused to know the “Way to Yamlok (hell)” when the visuals are infact of the ruins of forts in Rajasthan or of the snow-clad mountains in the north. We are already surviving in hellish times. Nor are we inclined to lose our much needed hours of sleep to be hell-informed (oops!!) about the certain spirit of a nautch girl who brutally slaughters life as an act of vengeance. We have enough gory incidents in our daily lives to draw pleasure or excitement from such televised thrills. The likes of Ram Gopal Verma and his poorer cousins, the Ramsay brothers have entertained us enough with their spine chilling and at times, mind-chilling movies. The much assaulted and well battered senses of the common man (that includes even the Gucci and Prada wearing gentry!!) need a little respite and some actual news which is far removed from the hyped trend of gimmicky stories garbed as NEWS.

After witnessing the over-the-top, maniacal coverage of the Big Bang experiment, my friend, Arvind, much disturbed that he was, ruminated and made a statement, which apparently might seem simple, but on a second ponder reflected what media had come to become in the present times. “Gone are the days when we looked forward to ‘The World This Week’ every Friday on Doordarshan for news and information.” True Arvind, those days are gone and somehow ominously have dragged the true essence of news along. We are left amidst a heap of despicable, shoddy scribes and so-called 24/7 news channels which nonchalantly make a mockery of the profession and us, the viewers, who sadly provide them with another equally vile phenomenon, the TRP.

Also now it seems the print brethren have picked up the trend and customised it to suit their medium. Or how else could one explain the stories, severely lacking in details and facts about the same Bing-Bang doomsday that did the rounds in some of the leading dailies and their supplements.

Irony infact is that journalism, today, is vis-a-vis a Black Hole like phenomenon, with mindless reporting and factually lacking stories, irresponsible and mob journalism waiting with their mouth open to drown this much hailed profession into eternal darkness.

So the next time, dear friends who are reading this article, you want to switch on the TV, remember that there are entertainment channels too which serve what they claim. I say so because I somehow have taken pity on their sloppy TRPs, thanks to all the ‘masala’ and sleaze that is served by the news channels. Zoom sulks because its programme content was long televised by India TV and Star News!!

And as I decide to wind up for the day, truth seems to have dawned on me and I know now why the vernacular news channels behave like mad, rabid dogs biting at anything that looks even a tad-bit like news and ballooning them to gigantic proportions. Because;

“If you are on the idiot box, do as the idiots do.”

Quoted By Ogden Nash, Poet, (1901-1971)

Love is a word that is constantly heard,
Hate is a word that is not.
Love, I am told, is more precious than gold.
Love, I have read, is hot.
But Hate is the verb that to me is superb,
And Love but a drug on the mart.
Any kiddie in school can Love like a fool,
But Hating, my boy, is an Art...