grim reality

I was on my routine trips to news websites to check the latest in the country and was also keenly following the arrival of the 12 detainees to Mumbai. On a news channel's site that allows people to leave comments, I was reading the story of their homecoming, their reactions to the ordeal when the comments section caught my eye. Readers/viewers had left comments like "they should know how to behave" and "they have no choice but to forgive Dutch authorities as their behaviour was suspicious" and about ten more comments in a similar vein.
I was first surprised and then saddened by the kind of reactions the incident had evoked. I had thought or had perhaps taken for granted that the entire nation would be up in arms against the Dutch authorities for targetting Indians. Sadly, that was not the case.
I am no Congresswala, but this was one incident, I thought, that clearly showed the fear Muslim minorities have to deal with now every single day of their lives for the fault of some members of their community. It was depressing to see their own countrymen find faults with their behaviour and not with the Dutch authorities. Did they not once think that they would have not behaved in the same way with a bunch of clean shaven goras exchanging seats and fidgeting with their mobile phones? And when the incident should best be viewed as a slap on Asians, some of our very own countrymen view it as a "minority not behaving themselves" issue.
I, for once, stand corrected. All along I have debated with my friends that the minorities in India are not as victimised as some political party would want us to believe. That all Indians feel for each other, irrespective of caste, creed and religion. After reading the comments on that news site, I have to sadly admit that is perhaps no longer entirely true. Religion not reason colours judgment today.

KANK - Kabhi Acting Na Karna

Three and a half hours is a long time. Perhaps a lifetime for filmmakers to tell their stories convincingly, to explain their characters and help the viewers explore their characters’ black, white and grey shades. Three and a half hours is a luxury for storytellers vying for five minutes of reader attention. Having an entire nation (almost) concentrate on what you have written is a dream that rarely comes true. Well, storytellers whose stories get converted into films enjoy this privilege.
Then, why, may I ask, was Kabhi Alvida Na Keha, such a badly written and badly told story?
Was three and a half hours not enough for a director (who rather bizarrely claimed to have matured during its making!!!) to flesh out his characters, to make the audience believe that his point was (I suppose) not infidelity but true love found late, rather late? Was the story writer sleeping while penning down a romance that didn’t strike a chord.. that didn’t tug at any heart strings? It didn’t even evoke a sigh among the viewers.. for a love affair that was supposedly so passionate that it ended two marriages?
I, for one, did not see the lead pair fall in love, at all. I didn’t see the compelling factors that drew them to each other. You don’t need men and women dressed in blue and red and lilting music to convey that. The actors failed even the soulful Mitwa, their drab emoting a sad contrast to the brilliant score.
Mr Johar should know. He had Kajol crying in the rain in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and the theatre sobbed with her. In KANK, nobody cries. They are too busy looking at the watch, waiting for the movie to get over.
I would not blame the cold treatment to a supposed hot romantic true love found late story, on bad acting alone. The storyteller, I think, simply forgot to write scenes that showed how a much married man fell in love with another married woman. Remember SRK from the rather low-budget Kabhi Haan Kabhi Na coaxing you to fall in love with the girl he had a crush on.. his climbing a pole to get her scarf.. among many other stunts.
Yes, I know the film (KANK) was dealing with ``matured’’ people, but, for god’s sake, for all the jazz on maturity the only way the ``committed’’ man and woman think of working on their marriages is by pepping up their bedroom lives? I read somewhere the subject was sensitively handled. Yeah, sure.
Another unexplored angle, which could have perhaps added so much to the poorly etched characters, was how the married man (who was happiest at the birth of his child, we are told) had no lines on the dilemma he was facing choosing between true love and his child? And, a foul-tempered father hollering at his child was the supposed comic element in the film? What were you thinking, Mr Johar?
I am sure that the movie has already made enough profit for Mr Johar to plan his next venture. But, I for one, will stay out of SRK-K Johar films.
SRK has lost a fan of 20 years and Johar a viewer for his subsequent ventures. Goodbye.

`Stationary' schemes

Read a report this morning on the Andhra Pradesh state government deciding to give land to flood-affected farmers through a variety of schemes. I imagined a report a few months later that would quote a flood-hit farmer saying that he did not receive any land. I could be wrong, but with my (limited) experience with government schemes, I do know that most of them are rather well-intentioned, but they stay firmly on paper.
I was reminded of a scheme that is still quoted by successive state governments and mentioned in the central government health files on initiatives to improve institutional deliveries among rural women. Called the `Sukhibhava (stay happy if loosely translated)’ scheme, it was meant to encourage women from rural parts of the state (AP) to opt for deliveries in government hospitals or nursing homes. The incentive for them to chuck the mid wife and opt for trained nurses? A princely sum of Rs 300. The well-intentioned scheme wanted to check maternal mortality rate.
To the best of my knowledge, the scheme is still in place. On paper, it is not a bad idea to encourage pregnant women to opt for institutional care, to protect them from possibilities of infections and death. I had my doubts about the incentive amount as even in government hospitals one tends to spend on medicines etc. and wondered whether Rs 300 would be good enough.
A ruckus at a government maternity hospital early last year cleared my doubt. About 200 young women, cradling pink-cheeked infants in their arms, stood in the heat waiting for the promised Rs 300. All of them had opted for a government hospital or a nursing home to deliver their children and claimed that they had spent hundreds on their deliveries. They said the hospital had announced that it would give out the money on that day. The women made long trips from distant areas, spending a couple of hundreds in the process only to be told that the hospital cant give them the money.
I found the hospital superintendent and her staff sitting inside almost oblivious of the commotion across the wall. It was lunchtime, they told me. However, the superintendent said that the hospital had no money to give. The government had announced the date but had not disbursed the money to given to the women. The superintendent was helpless.
So were the women waiting outside. They had spent more than what the government had promised. When I left the hospital after a couple of hours to file my report, the women were still sitting there, their babies were still crying. When I headed home that evening, I wondered if those women, some of whom had exhausted their money on their trip to the hospital, had managed to go back home.

Sari state

The last I heard, Sari was still India’s national dress. But if the kind of reactions the dress evokes from people it almost appears that you are wearing a kimono.
Just how can you explain reactions ranging from “Hey, what’s up?” to “Aha! What is the occasion” and from “Kya baat hai” to an all-knowing office help smiling and saying “Happy birthday, madam”.
Well, I should be used to it by now, if not the sari, the reactions at least. After all, I started wearing sari to work about two-odd years ago not just to experiment with my rather drab wardrobe but also to start getting comfortable with an outfit I so admired. Also, I made it a point to wear it often enough for people to stop asking me why I was wearing it and whether I was celebrating birthday, anniversary, the rains.. the floods…anything.
But, despite this rather impressive (me thinks) frequency of me turning up in the five-yard wonder (at least once or twice in a month), people around me continue to react in the same manner. I am greeted with broad smiles and curious looks. And then starts the routine “Hey, what’s this” question sessions.
I almost feel that I am the only participant in a cancelled fancy dress who turned up in a strange outfit while the others are dressed sober.
Initially, I did not lose my cool. I would smile and explain that I liked wearing a sari once in a way. I told them I looked for opportunities to drape this awesome fabric around me.. given that there are no family functions that I attend. I told them I found sari the most elegant dress on planet earth, albeit a bit inconvenient when you have to jump around the city interviewing people, managing the pallu.
But, since am dressed in rags most of the time, predictably, the reactions of the curious ``what’s the occasion’’ people are not really off the mark. But, how do I explain that my worn out jeans would appear as my first love, but it’s the sari that I have lost my heart to.

Equality or discrimination?

I don’t get this. Women who harp on gender equality and gender sensitivity do not as much as bat an eyelid while demanding gender-based reservation. How different are these women from Arjun Singh who does not (at least seemingly) understand that giving reservation without improving basic education facilities/standards will be of no good.
The women’s reservation bill is shockingly being supported by the so-called educated thinking women. Are they oblivious to ground realities such as the high drop out rate of girl children from schools? Or, for that matter, the poor density of government-run secondary and high schools that enables `elimination’ of the girl child from school education as their parents are not too keen on their young daughters traveling a distance forcing them to drop out soon after they complete their primary education.
Why don’t these women fighting for reservation fight for better education facilities for girls? Why don’t they force the government to set up more schools for girl children? Why don’t they move around creating awareness among parents on the importance of education for the girl child.
But, why should they? As they have a quick-fix solution to the problem__ reservation for these girls. How many girls who would really benefit from a reservation would actually manage to reach that stage of seeking admission into a university or apply for a job, I wonder. How can a quota for girls bring about their elusive equality in society, when the section it is really meant for may remain alienated?
Then, who would benefit from the reservation for women? Those who have perhaps received the same education and have had the same privileged upbringing as boys? But, why should they get admission or a job over a more deserving candidate just because of their gender? Which self-respecting woman would interpret a placement or an admission that she has secured not because of her performance or grades but her gender?
The women fighting for the bill or supporting the bill have no faith in themselves. I, for one, feel the bill is discriminatory. It makes women (like me) feel that they may not work as hard or study as hard because they would still get admission and a job just because they belong to the privileged fairer sex.