The Third World War broke out in my living room today. Apparently the cause of all the world's miseries, wars, conflict situations, oppressive and totalitarian regimes, inequalities can be attributed to the condition of my hair. Yes, Ladies and Germs, my devil-may-care, unbrushed (although frequently shampooed) hairstyle has been a major pillar of support for Saddam Hussain, George Bush, Halliburton and all other evil (or vaguely evil) regimes.
At least this is what my parents claim. My father insinuated that my hair was the main reason why I left my last job. When I tried to suggest that there were other, far more pertinent reasons; he seemed to imply that my hair was the root of all the world's evils. Outraged, I flung a book at him (Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion - not the most compelling read). My wrath threatened to exceed the epic proportions of even the Illustrious Achilles (recorded dutifully by Homer in the Illiad - "Sing Goddess of the Accursed Wrath of Achilles), and prompt yet another Trojan War (fortunately there are no more Trojans nor any Helens, there are only Turks today). I stampeded out the room into my father's study, where I promptly hurled more books and performed unimaginable, deranged acts of violence on a poor, innocent ashtray.
O poor Ashtray, victim of my rage! O poor innocent hair, unjustly blamed for the world's many problems!
My hair is blameless. My rational analysis of this situation suggests that this a conflict not about hair, but about value systems. My parents secretly want me to be a smart, well-groomed hi-flying corporate executive type, donned in murderously expensive Gucci clothes, driving an hideously pricey car (preferably a porshe). Unfortunately, I have other aims in life that include renouncing the world, becoming a cynic-like Ascetic, wandering in the wilderness.
Alack! Alas!
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Thursday, September 27, 2007
OJ Simpson and Alan Greenspan
Here is a hilarious conversation between OJ Simpson and Alan Greenspan, on the art of writing, published in the New Yorker
Monday, September 24, 2007
Coming Home
The sky is the color of ash, a shade reflected in the muted, dull face of the daily wage worker sitting next to me. His head lies against the windowsill, half-asleep. I'm perched precariously on the other end of the bus seat, scared to soil my new, expensive ADIDAS tracksuit against the grimy, paint-besplattered clothes of my neighbor. It's 6 am in the morning. He, presumably, is on his way to work; I'm on my way to the gym. As he flickers in and out of sleep, he mutters incoherently. Is he drunk? No, he's merely dreaming.
The bus driver turns on the radio, full volume. Gwen Stefani screeches lustily about being a rich girl. The half-asleep passengers on the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) bus mutter grouchily. I laugh a little - Gwen Stefani is out of place in the kitschy, colourful bus, something I wouldn't have expected the bearded, slack-jawed bus driver to like. It's a scene out of a Tenessee Williams play.
But this is India, not Broadway, and this is really happening. I'm here in it. And even as I realize this, it strikes me that Stefani's song has taken on a metaphorical meaning - I'm a rich girl, on my way to walk a mile on a newfangled treadmill for an exorbitant amount, in a bus full of construction workers.
Am I rich, or am I middle-class, as I like to believe? What is India? What does it mean to be Indian? Is there such a thing as India and being Indian - in a country of so many stark contrasts; of fluid, moving chaos?
Flashback.
A ten year old girl is shrieking and writhing in my lap. Two lab attendants hold her down forcibly, and a third advances, masked and gloved, holding out a syringe with a long, menacing needle. Mehnaz, struggling in my arms, is crying - the heavy, gasping weeping born of shock. I hold her head against my shoulder, stroke her hair and murmur gently to quieten her. As the needle penetrates, Mehnaz silently shudders, suddenly submissive.
My heart is breaking. I know Mehnaz because I am working on a documentary about her elder sister. But it's Mehnaz who has stolen my heart. Sometimes she is bright and gay, clamoring for attention. But other times I find her dull and listless; some unknown malaise seems to affect her. And that's why she and I are here at a Lab Test center, getting a liver function test done.
She's still crying a half hour later. I take her home, back to the broken-down haveli in Old Delhi, where she, her five siblings and parents live in one room, the size of my bedroom at home. Her mother frowns, worried, as Mehnaz tumbles into her arms.
I feel guilty. There were moments, as she struggled, that the experience took an unbearable, horrifying parallel to rape. I try not to think about it as I wind my way past the warren-like streets of Old Delhi, past the prostitutes standing in doorways between shops selling ballbearings and motors on GB Road, past the goats (wearing sweaters) and the little boys playing at Ajmeri Gate.
Later that evening, I accompany a photographer friend to a shoot at a nightclub in Noida. The nightclub is filled to bursting; because it's in Noida, technically in Uttar Pradesh, it's allowed to serve alcohol past the 12:30 pm curfew that governs Delhi's clubs and bars. Rich Delhites in skimpy black clothes recline on plush, stylish sofas. There's an insipid look on many faces. My friend and I feel out of place. There's something jarring in this extravagance. It almost seems like cultivated boredom. There's a deep desire, I sense in the vacant stares about me, for a new, thrilling, 'enlivening' experience. We don't belong here, this isn't our world - even though we can identify with the people here - they are the kind of people I knew at school. And as I guzzle down alcohol, watching thin, pretty girls sway self-consciously to dance music, I can't get Mehnaz's screams out of my mind, can't forget the feeling of her tiny body shaking.
It's schizophrenic. I'm losing my mind.
India is poised. India is shining. So our newspapers claim. I know that there is something happening that hasn't happened before. We hear of increasing foreign investment, of new companies and industries springing up every day. But I think, at times, that it may be brief, or false - a tantalizing vision that will elude grasp.
Should this happen? Is is ephemeral or will it last? Is this movement a good thing? But what do we lose when we modernize? What is the cost? Who does this benefit - you, me, Delhi Socialites or Mehnaz? How?
I dragged Mehnaz for a blood test that she did not want, but I thought she needed. It turned out that she was fine, the cause of her malaise lies elsewhere. But her visit to the lab test center was traumatized not just her body, but her spirit. Did I do the right thing?
The changes that sweep this country threaten to divide it further, perpetuate the schizophrenic contrasts that promise inevitable catastrophe. We need to ask ourselves - are we doing the right thing?
My high-heeled, shiny, black pumps get caught in the sticky, gooey mess that the rains have left behind. My cellphone rings - it's my roommate - she's spotted me. I hobble across, sweltering in the humid heat, and get into her air-conditioned car. As we navigate the treacherous traffic, past urchins plying magazines and beggars tricking for money, we exchange notes on the last couple of days. My roommate is back from a work trip to Bihar. She speaks of watching a woman give birth alone, amid piles of concrete and rubble in a half-constructed health center, because the doctor on duty can't be bothered to come, and there is no ambulance available to transport her to a working medical facility. I'm horrified. Yet we speak of this, while driving in her chauffeur-driven car, speeding towards some other upmarket nightclub.
Hypocrisy, in myself.
I'm drowning. I don't know where I belong, and I am forced to admit to my own callous nature. I want to think that my honesty releases me - that it absolves me off my insensitivity and hypocrisy. And yet I find this same callousness, contradiction, paradox and hypocrisy in the world outside, reflected in the silver-tinted car window, smeared by the touch of a thousand sweaty palms.
I look in the mirror, making sure that my eyeliner isn't smeared, wipe off the extra lipstick. I snap my compact shut, and look up. My date's here. I met him whilst wading through enormous puddles, on my way from the gym. He offered me a ride home, chivalrous in the style of a Bollywood Romance. I, admittedly ill-advisedly, accepted. And now we're meeting at one of the thousands of coffee shops that have sprung up in Delhi in recent years.
We don't have much in common, and boredom threatens to suffocate me. We start talking about politics, the conversation then turns to development policies. We argue. I talk of the lack of social mobility, the dehumanized treatment that is meted out to the laborer classes.
My date guffaws. "Dehumanization?! It's the lower classes who dehumanize us, the upper classes." He proceeds to relate the story of a Bihari Landowner, whose son was killed in revenge by the laborers who worked the land. The Bihari landowner turns out to be a crony of his father, a MLA in a local government. I discover that my date, to put it in his own words, 'is a liaison' between his father's political connections and industrialists. He doesn't tell me the complete story - there's a lot that I like to think he's leaving out, about his job and about the Bihari Landowner. I hurriedly finish my coffee and leave.
He represents all the things I hate about myself and the class that I belong to - the unquestioning fashion in which we accept, and uphold, the rights and privileges we are born to, what we read, see and are told.
I've been back in India for a year. I find myself becoming immune and inured to the inequalities that surround me. My once-frequent questions are replaced by a dogged acceptance. I find this frightening in myself - I think it's my duty to question what I see happening in this country, and examine my own part in this process. I don't claim to have found any answers - perhaps there are no true answers, but I think the act of questioning is a responsibility that we, sadly, fail in.
What do you think?
The bus driver turns on the radio, full volume. Gwen Stefani screeches lustily about being a rich girl. The half-asleep passengers on the DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) bus mutter grouchily. I laugh a little - Gwen Stefani is out of place in the kitschy, colourful bus, something I wouldn't have expected the bearded, slack-jawed bus driver to like. It's a scene out of a Tenessee Williams play.
But this is India, not Broadway, and this is really happening. I'm here in it. And even as I realize this, it strikes me that Stefani's song has taken on a metaphorical meaning - I'm a rich girl, on my way to walk a mile on a newfangled treadmill for an exorbitant amount, in a bus full of construction workers.
Am I rich, or am I middle-class, as I like to believe? What is India? What does it mean to be Indian? Is there such a thing as India and being Indian - in a country of so many stark contrasts; of fluid, moving chaos?
Flashback.
A ten year old girl is shrieking and writhing in my lap. Two lab attendants hold her down forcibly, and a third advances, masked and gloved, holding out a syringe with a long, menacing needle. Mehnaz, struggling in my arms, is crying - the heavy, gasping weeping born of shock. I hold her head against my shoulder, stroke her hair and murmur gently to quieten her. As the needle penetrates, Mehnaz silently shudders, suddenly submissive.
My heart is breaking. I know Mehnaz because I am working on a documentary about her elder sister. But it's Mehnaz who has stolen my heart. Sometimes she is bright and gay, clamoring for attention. But other times I find her dull and listless; some unknown malaise seems to affect her. And that's why she and I are here at a Lab Test center, getting a liver function test done.
She's still crying a half hour later. I take her home, back to the broken-down haveli in Old Delhi, where she, her five siblings and parents live in one room, the size of my bedroom at home. Her mother frowns, worried, as Mehnaz tumbles into her arms.
I feel guilty. There were moments, as she struggled, that the experience took an unbearable, horrifying parallel to rape. I try not to think about it as I wind my way past the warren-like streets of Old Delhi, past the prostitutes standing in doorways between shops selling ballbearings and motors on GB Road, past the goats (wearing sweaters) and the little boys playing at Ajmeri Gate.
Later that evening, I accompany a photographer friend to a shoot at a nightclub in Noida. The nightclub is filled to bursting; because it's in Noida, technically in Uttar Pradesh, it's allowed to serve alcohol past the 12:30 pm curfew that governs Delhi's clubs and bars. Rich Delhites in skimpy black clothes recline on plush, stylish sofas. There's an insipid look on many faces. My friend and I feel out of place. There's something jarring in this extravagance. It almost seems like cultivated boredom. There's a deep desire, I sense in the vacant stares about me, for a new, thrilling, 'enlivening' experience. We don't belong here, this isn't our world - even though we can identify with the people here - they are the kind of people I knew at school. And as I guzzle down alcohol, watching thin, pretty girls sway self-consciously to dance music, I can't get Mehnaz's screams out of my mind, can't forget the feeling of her tiny body shaking.
It's schizophrenic. I'm losing my mind.
India is poised. India is shining. So our newspapers claim. I know that there is something happening that hasn't happened before. We hear of increasing foreign investment, of new companies and industries springing up every day. But I think, at times, that it may be brief, or false - a tantalizing vision that will elude grasp.
Should this happen? Is is ephemeral or will it last? Is this movement a good thing? But what do we lose when we modernize? What is the cost? Who does this benefit - you, me, Delhi Socialites or Mehnaz? How?
I dragged Mehnaz for a blood test that she did not want, but I thought she needed. It turned out that she was fine, the cause of her malaise lies elsewhere. But her visit to the lab test center was traumatized not just her body, but her spirit. Did I do the right thing?
The changes that sweep this country threaten to divide it further, perpetuate the schizophrenic contrasts that promise inevitable catastrophe. We need to ask ourselves - are we doing the right thing?
My high-heeled, shiny, black pumps get caught in the sticky, gooey mess that the rains have left behind. My cellphone rings - it's my roommate - she's spotted me. I hobble across, sweltering in the humid heat, and get into her air-conditioned car. As we navigate the treacherous traffic, past urchins plying magazines and beggars tricking for money, we exchange notes on the last couple of days. My roommate is back from a work trip to Bihar. She speaks of watching a woman give birth alone, amid piles of concrete and rubble in a half-constructed health center, because the doctor on duty can't be bothered to come, and there is no ambulance available to transport her to a working medical facility. I'm horrified. Yet we speak of this, while driving in her chauffeur-driven car, speeding towards some other upmarket nightclub.
Hypocrisy, in myself.
I'm drowning. I don't know where I belong, and I am forced to admit to my own callous nature. I want to think that my honesty releases me - that it absolves me off my insensitivity and hypocrisy. And yet I find this same callousness, contradiction, paradox and hypocrisy in the world outside, reflected in the silver-tinted car window, smeared by the touch of a thousand sweaty palms.
I look in the mirror, making sure that my eyeliner isn't smeared, wipe off the extra lipstick. I snap my compact shut, and look up. My date's here. I met him whilst wading through enormous puddles, on my way from the gym. He offered me a ride home, chivalrous in the style of a Bollywood Romance. I, admittedly ill-advisedly, accepted. And now we're meeting at one of the thousands of coffee shops that have sprung up in Delhi in recent years.
We don't have much in common, and boredom threatens to suffocate me. We start talking about politics, the conversation then turns to development policies. We argue. I talk of the lack of social mobility, the dehumanized treatment that is meted out to the laborer classes.
My date guffaws. "Dehumanization?! It's the lower classes who dehumanize us, the upper classes." He proceeds to relate the story of a Bihari Landowner, whose son was killed in revenge by the laborers who worked the land. The Bihari landowner turns out to be a crony of his father, a MLA in a local government. I discover that my date, to put it in his own words, 'is a liaison' between his father's political connections and industrialists. He doesn't tell me the complete story - there's a lot that I like to think he's leaving out, about his job and about the Bihari Landowner. I hurriedly finish my coffee and leave.
He represents all the things I hate about myself and the class that I belong to - the unquestioning fashion in which we accept, and uphold, the rights and privileges we are born to, what we read, see and are told.
I've been back in India for a year. I find myself becoming immune and inured to the inequalities that surround me. My once-frequent questions are replaced by a dogged acceptance. I find this frightening in myself - I think it's my duty to question what I see happening in this country, and examine my own part in this process. I don't claim to have found any answers - perhaps there are no true answers, but I think the act of questioning is a responsibility that we, sadly, fail in.
What do you think?
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