Clipping their wings

A week back I walked into this electronics showroom and spotted a familiar face behind the counter that displayed laptops and computers. After racking my brain wondering where I had seen this girl, it struck me. She was my classmate in school!! I never saw her after board exams and later we heard that she had got married and quit studies after her 12th. I was accompanying a friend who is purchasing her first computer and since I know a little about the same, she asked me come along with her.

My classmate let call her FM, recognized me instantly and shook my hands warmly. Then she attended to us and I was amazed at her knowledge of computers, configurations and other things I didn’t even know existed. Pretty soon she had got us what we wanted and we parted ways, after giving each other our contact numbers.

I have come across many such girls. They belong to a minority community that does not allow girls to study too much as parents want to marry them off quickly as per tradition and also because they feel that they will not get grooms if they were too educated. The girls get married and soon the couple realizes that one income is not enough and the girl is allowed to look for a job. Because of their low qualifications, they end up being sales girls or cashiers. They do not complete their studies after marriage due to kids and other domestic hassles. But most of them were good students, and if allowed to complete their studies, would have been in better positions professionally.

The injustice and irony of this situation is just too frustrating. This is like deliberately maiming a healthy individual to a handicapped life. Wish the parents have the vision to see that their daughters would have to work to support the family like others girls in their community and educate these girls and I wish their prospective grooms realize the potential of an educated wife and do not hesitate to marry educated girls due to ego or inferiority complexes.

Thousands of girls like FM are working as lowly paid workers, all because their parents did not allow them to complete their studies, not knowing that they will invariably have to go to work after marriage due to financial compulsions. This is so unjust that just writing this post has put me in a bad mood!!

State victims

Yesterday night while we were returning from a party, we saw a remarkable thing. Two cops were kicking and beating up a teenager. He seemed to be from a good family and kept fending them off by saying “Sorry Sir”. He cops kept hitting and kicking and punching him. So what was remarkable about this sight? They were traffic cops!

Since the State government has banned random checking of licenses,(which was rigorously implemented due to the wads of cash it yielded),it has become impossible for these guys to make money. Since only traffic violators can be pulled up, they now milk them for all they are worth. A colleague’s son was caught when he had just cleared a signal before it turned red and accused of being drunk. He was asked to shell out 1K or face a formal fine of 3K. He refused as he was not drunk. When intimidation did not work, they subjected him to an alcohol test and released him after cursing him. Such instances are on the rise now as the men in uniform, find fewer ways to extort money from drivers.

What has State machinery like traffic policing become? A mere tool to extort money! Disturbing isn’t it that most State machineries in this country are devices to extort money from citizens! What do you call this? New age mafia? Democracy be damned. Every State machinery in this State is a money making machine for the politicians. Even the huge sums collected for flood relief, went for Ministerial relief.

The final nail in the coffin was, colleagues advising me not to donate money for flood relief. Give food, clothes but never money they advised. Else it will go to politician’s bank accounts. When I put the packet of clothes in the box provided for flood relief work, I couldn’t help pitying the victims of not only floods, but all of us, who are victims of State sponsored extortion.

And we take it without a whimper!

Time to introspect

The offices of a prominent News Channel was attacked and vandalized this week. Doesn't it make you think Mr. Managing Director of the Channel, that in your greed for TRP ratings, you made a molehill of a man into a mountain? So why are you surprised that the illusionary mountain dared to take on you now?

Hope this is a lesson to you and your kinsmen in the media, that for your good health exercising a lot of discretion while covering certain elements would be a good idea.

The Tiffin People

Sorry friends if I am writing a bit too much about office these days. But it looks like ‘tis the season to be annoying' for some people. My team in office is pretty close and we sit together for lunch and go for coffee breaks together. We even go for movies together during weekends! Lunch at office is a simple affair; everyone tastes a little bit from everyone’s tiffin and then gets back to demolishing their own tiffins.

We are also a friendly and jovial lot and so we have a lot of people from other teams befriending us. Sometimes these people come and sit with us for lunch, for the sheer joy of sitting with a bubbly group of people. Over a period of time we noticed that there is a particular guy and girl who are almost always sitting with us for lunch.

Yesterday someone remarked that he was hungry. I joined in saying that I was too. So did the others. It was 4 p.m. and we went to this Sagar to grab some bites. That is when we realized that we were pretty hungry these days. One guy remarked absentmindedly that we would not be so hungry if we got to eat our tiffins. Suddenly it dawned on all of us that we were indeed getting very little to eat at lunch. The reason was embarrassingly obvious. The new joinees at our table were helping themselves to our food even after the sampling session was over. And we, i.e. the tiffin people were left with not much to eat.

Now how do we tackle this delicate problem? It is not nice to not share food. But they had their tiffins too. Besides we felt that they were not realizing what they were doing. We tried everything to tackle our hunger problem. I bought extra food, but it was to no avail. One guy got up and went and sat at another table, but the guy and gal merely wandered to his table and helped themselves to the food. We went for lunch early, late, very late, but the duo was always onto us. It was an embarrassing situation and none of us knew what to do.

Finally, we decided to stop bringing lunch and eat at this Sagar. That helped but when we started brining our tiffin, the duo was back. Finally a senior colleague saw us playing musical chairs with the various cafeterias and put a stop to the game. He came and sat down with us for lunch and told the offending duo politely but firmly that sampling meant sampling and not gorging. They got the hint, but their crestfallen faces made us feel so bad for days. We felt like really horrible people who cannot even share a “little” food with their colleagues.

The senior colleague, who told them off, is amazed that we are so pathetic and that we cannot stand of ourselves when bullied and feel bad for the bully when they are told off. He feels that he hasn’t seen such a bunch of losers in his life.

Now we are all suffering from dual personalities. One that feels bad for what we did to the duo and another weaker personality that feels that what we did was right. :p

This has to be my most embarrassing post here.

The mysteries of the heart

Anita (not her real name) was in awe of Rajiv (not his real name). He was dashing, manly, rode a smart bike, wore smart contemporary clothes and was very much at ease with the girls. Girls he had in plenty, vying for his attention. His attention on the other hand was mostly focused on his bike, weekend treks and mountaineering. Rajiv worked with me while Anita worked in another company in the same campus. Both of us were doing our internships. She with a company that is a major name in web searches. Me with a company that is a major name in making Servers.

Rajiv worked in the same department as I. He was a nice guy, who knew how to treat a college going girl…like a big brother. Anita badgered me to introduce her to Rajiv. I was scared. I regarded him like I would an elder brother and did not think it was respectful to be doing such a thing. But Anita was persistent. One day while we were having coffee at the Foodcourt, she came and sat down next to me. I introduced her to everyone at the table including Rajiv. I let out a sigh of relief. I did not have to do the intro now. During the course of the evening, Anita talked only to Rajiv getting monosyllabic replies. But she was undaunted. Pretty soon she had added him to her Orkut account. But Anita was just another pesky fly for Rajiv. He rarely replied to her scraps. He rarely replied to anyone’s scraps. When he was not working he was battling rock faces.

Sometimes I felt bad when I saw her waiting at the exit to catch a glimpse of him or get to talk to him. She looked like an eager kid waiting to catch a glimpse of Santa at the mall. I could not advice her as this was way over my head. I could not dissuade her, as her feelings were genuine. I could not encourage her as I felt that Rajiv was definitely not the guy for her, besides being way too older than her.

One day Anita managed to tell him how she felt. Rajiv looked at her affectionately and told her to concentrate on her studies and think of passing exams instead of nursing her crush. She was a little put down, but vowed to him that she would make him like her one day. Rajiv smiled that indulgent smile, reserved for kid sisters.

It’s been a year since I have seen or talked to Anita. I saw her yesterday when she walked into my office. She was joining the External Communications Team. In the afternoon we had lunch together. She had been seeing Rajiv off and on for some time she told me. However she stopped some time back. By now Rajiv is 28 years old. Way too old for her. Besides she realized that it was no fun trying to get the attention of a man, whose main interests in life were trekking, mountaineering, traveling and other outdoorsy activities.

I did not tell her that Rajiv had possibly done the most gallant and gentlemanly thing…by not leading her down the garden path…by being himself. He might be a vagabond, but he definitely was not a cad.

Rajiv is married now. To a quite homely gal. Someone who is willing to be just a wife. It is a match made in heaven.

And that led me to think, what makes so many girls attracted to such guys?

Typesetting

I was walking by this Mall today and there was this guy walking on the other side of the road, doing what most guys do when they see a girl i.e. stare. He was so busy staring that he walked into a lamp post. Straightening he kept walking glancing back with his jaws on the ground. Routine stuff with us girls. That got me thinking. “Poor guy. Nature has pumped him with some hormones to make him behave like that when he sees a gal.”

Suppose there was a sudden dip or evaporation of his hormone levels, would he feel embarrassed at all that he had done pre dip in hormones?

"WTF, err I mean what on earth! Why was I ogling at gals?"

Strip us off our hormones that makes us young males and females and what do we have? Some creatures that will look at each other and say,

"That human being with hair on his face is so weird no?

or

“That human being with no hair on the face is so annoying no?"

Look at the way Nature/God has created us. Each species is divided into Type A and Type B. Type A and Type B are equipped to produce more Type A and Type B so that all the species on Earth reproduce and keep the natural cycle going.

But in the case of humans, if a Type A goes with the Type B of another Type A it becomes adultery. Because he is supposed to stick with his Type B and vice versa.

In some cultures like ours, parent Type A and parent Type B decide which Type B should marry their Type A and vice versa. In some cultures, they allow Type A and Type B's to choose their types. In some cultures, Type B is kept under veils so that strange Type A's do not do what is programmed of them i.e. ogle at them and have natural thoughts.

In olden days, if a Type B even looked in the direction of a Type A not known to her, she would be labeled a charlatan for doing what Nature/God programmed her to do.

Then there are people who are aware of the Types inherent tendencies and make “literature” of things Type A’s and Type B’s naturally do in their bedrooms and make money or land in jail. On the other spectrum, we have "literature" like M&B’s that write about the excruciating emotional roller coasters and ego clashes some hunky Type’s and beautiful Type B’s ride, to finally say “Lets do the natural thing err I mean I love you”.

Then there are people, mostly Type A’s who want to do what is naturally expected of them with Type B’s and in absence of a Type B buy the services of a Type B who is looked upon by the society “types” for doing what is very natural.

The there are Type A's and Type B's who do not want just any other Type A or Type B. They want to be able to gel with them mentally too. This creates lots of problems as Nature/God did not take this into account. They i.e. Nature/God wanted to keep the species head count in a steady state thats all!!! But look what havoc the hormones are creating instead!!

The there is Type A's who like Type A's and vice versa. These people seem to be cocking a snook at Nature/God, but lets not go there now.

When you look at humans from this angle, so many things begin to look ridiculous no?

Sorry for neglecting this space folks. Life has become so hectic that I would outrun a Cheetah by a mile if the race was about the amount of work done per minute. But I am not complaining. The work is interesting!

Its reigning men!

I was watching this Malayalam movie the other day. It showed, Suresh Gopi barging into a women’s ashram and demanding to see an inmate. The heroine of the movie who is the caretaker or manager of the ashram refuses citing rules and regulations. A perfectly normal response. What happened next was disgusting. Suresh Gopi tells her to “Shut your bloody mouth” and walks away. I was shocked!!! Does the film maker realize that this is not a standard response of a gentleman in anger? Or as my friend pointed out, this was considered the smart response in Kerala to women who speak up!! How many people must have watched this movie? How many people would it have influenced and encouraged to behave in a similar fashion with ladies? I suspect many!

Another rerun I saw showed a father in law telling a son in law after he had slapped his wife, that only now he (Son-in-law) had become a man and worthy of respect. There are several movies that I have seen in which physical abuse against women is justified and considered necessary “to keep her in check.” Even the new movies follow the same trend. In a movie that was released some ago, Prithviraj slaps Roma and justifies it by saying that she will anyway be beaten after the wedding so she can deduct this slap from the ones she will get then. And he says it so affectionately. The message of all these movies is clear. Women are to be controlled. And a slap or beating is always shown as the chosen method of control.

Last week I was on the last flight out from Kochi to Bangalore. I was in the last row of this Indian Airlines (now Indian) flight. Two rows ahead of me was a Malayalee youth who looked like he was on the way to Bangalore for a holiday. After take off, he lit a cigarette. A stewardess in her thirties or so, asked him politely to stub out the cigarette. In front of my horrified eyes, he told her to eff off! The lady was taken aback. Clearly she had not been addressed this way before. White faced she went off to complain to the Pilot. The guy grinned and looked around smugly. The grin froze when he saw me. He looked away quickly. He was pulled up at Bangalore and mildly reprimanded, given a lecture in manners and let off!

I have not lived in Kerala. But I know the Malayalam language and hence when I see these movies, I spot these abnormalities quickly. What is surprising is that when I point this out to my friends from Kerala, they say that it is the norm and very much the mind set of the 100% literate State. And what’s worse, women lead the pack that espouses strict control over women. The method most often used to goad men who do not hit their wives or treat them with respect is to call them ‘henpecked”! Women are to be seen not heard is apparently the state motto, I am told. It is no wonder that Kerala has the fastest growing divorce rate in India today!

p.s before anyone asks me, by Kerala standards, my Dad is the most henpecked man from the State. Go figure! :p