Mambo Number Fifty

"What a stupid idea!" I hear my voice resonate in my head as I knocked the idea of having a weblog. "Me? Blog?? Forget about it.. What a stupid word 'blog' is!" The idea that other people could have access to my thoughts on issues — issues that make me happy, those that make me angry, those that leave me apathetic and others that make me go "whoa!" — was a little scary.

I wasn't an exhibitionist after all.

I had no desire to make a scene and a hue and a cry of my views. Or did I?

It's now been around two years that I've had this blog knocking around — not particularly long, one may argue. But damn!! This inanimate little excuse for a journal has seen a shitload in its time.

Around four facelifts

Tributes to cricket/cinema/music/Will Smith

Sarcastic and sneering attacks at a whole variety of targets

Peanut butter Jelly time! Peanut butter Jelly time!

Pure unadulterated "can't eat, can't sleep, World Series sorta thing" elation

Bitter crushing heartbreak

A variety of cyber pets (two to be precise, but what the hell)

And as of today, 50 posts...

Not much, I know. But each one of those 50 was churned out with a chunk of me torn out from within and deposited in the words. I have never felt the need to blog for blogging's sake. It's always been about scratching an itch. If something itches me, I'll metaphorically scratch the living bejeezus out of it on The View. That's how it's always been. That's how it will always be.

Well done for surviving 50.

The facts don’t add up

Another incident that wonderfully embellishes the slogan India Shining took place between last Saturday and Sunday, where an American exchange student was ‘gangraped’ by six guys at one of their homes. I will not cast aspersions on the character of either of the seven people or the kind of people they were etc. etc. But, there are a number of things about this story that baffle me.

But first, a summary of events as reported by the media:

* Girl goes with friend (“Annie”, say the papers) and some guys to a bar
* She had met some of them earlier (allegedly)
* Succumbs to their pressure to drink until she is pretty hammered
* Is supposed to meet another friend but instead decides to go to the home of one of these people she’s just met
* Locks herself in bathroom when they try their moves on her
* Meanwhile, Annie has gone
* Girl leaves bathroom and collapses on mattress and is raped
* Next morning, she leaves with two of the accused and goes to a chemist and takes a contraceptive pill
* Three days later launches police complaint
* A week later, 5 are arrested; one still absconding (as of this time)

A large chunk of this is from the girl’s own statement given to the police, which was handed over to journalists, which one highly ‘responsible’ newspaper decides to print in full, complete with near-textual pornography. Said publication had 70 women protestors yelling and screaming outside the day after it was in print. I have just learnt that another publication has gone ahead and published the statement too. (Upon re-checking, I learnt that the publication had removed the page from its site)

One of the accused’s phoney-baloney excuses after being apprehended was, “We didn’t know she would cry rape”. And why was that? Because she behaved “so normally after the incident that we didn’t think she’d file a complaint”. Interesting theory. Considering a number of them had just met her the night before, how could they have any way of knowing what she was like when she was behaving “normally”? Or was it just the ‘well-known fact’ that “firangi (foreign) chicks are easy” that made them think it was normal?

That being said, the girl was probably scared that the accused would kill her upon discovering that she was going to file a police complaint and so, decided to keep mum. It’s also plausible that she was paralysed with fear at the realisation that she’d been raped and so, was in no position to scream and shout. Even when visiting the chemist, there’s a chance that she was still in no state of mind to yell for help.

That part of the story is plausible. But, it’s the section before they got to the flat that baffles me.

First off, they go to a bar and she’s forced to drink before being spiked. Completely possible. She was supposed to go and meet some friend afterwards and yet, decided to go off with these people. A little dodgy. Her friend Annie doesn’t see fit to take care her drunken out-of-towner friend. Pushing it a little. Annie abandons her with these six characters, half of whom she’s (the US national) has never met before and sets off for trip to Darjeeling? Completely ridiculous.

And now, Annie’s in Darjeeling and has reportedly assured the cops that she’ll come back soon enough and testify. Whether she was truly so oblivious that she couldn’t see a downside to leaving a friend alone with some strangers or was hand-in-glove with the six (maybe even acting as a pimp for them) is something for hot topic activists to debate and discuss. I’m just saying it doesn’t all add up.

The boys’ Orkut profiles are flooded with hateful messages (or scraps as they’re called, apparently) from all sorts of people, wishing upon the sextet some of the nastiest things that have been heard of (this side of Abu-Ghraib anyway). Regardless, their lives and those of their families are well and truly damaged, regardless of whether or not they are proven guilty.

Which opens up another can of worms. Trial by Media. Is it fair for the media to be charging people guilty or innocent and screaming it out to the world? That being said, isn’t public dissent the best form of justice in a scenario where they judiciary takes years and years to punish criminals? That’s a topic for another time.

Scratching on from day-to-day

As regular as clockwork, a number of songs dart around in my head everyday at around 5 pm. Why 5 pm? Because that's usually when I'm travelling and I like to travel by myself. Some of the songs do the darting thing because of a catchy hook or a particularly pounding drum-part, others, for the lyrics maybe and still others, for their vibe. They dart around like demented homing missiles that for some reason, are just lost and have nothing to home in on.

Homing missiles without a target...

Re-read that previous line and let the amazingly pointless existence of those missiles sink in.

Sunken in? Good, let's proceed. It's that theme of leading a pointless existence that very neatly ties in to my original point about the songs darting around my head, because of late, a song I've been a huge fan of for a while, has been doing the rounds in my head. Not for any particularly specific reason. More because of an amalgamation of things that are going on at the moment — the general elections, the rat-race that is formal employment and watching people scurrying all over the place for jobs, university courses, something to do, something to be, some way to get out... But out of what?

All we want is a head rush
All we want is to get out of our skin for a while
We have nothing to lose because we don't have anything
Anything we want anyway...
We used to hate people
Now we just make fun of them
It's more effective that way
We don't live
We just scratch on day-to-day
With nothing but matchbooks and
Sarcasm in our pockets
And all we are waiting for
Is for something worth waiting for
Let's admit America gets the celebrities we deserve
Let's stop saying "Don't quote me"
Because if no one quotes you
You probably haven't said a thing worth saying

We need something to kill the pain
Of all that nothing inside
We all just want to die a little bit
We fear that pop-culture
Is the only culture we're ever going to have
We want to stop reading magazines
Stop watching TV
Stop caring about Hollywood
But we're addicted to the things we hate
We don't run Washington and no one really does
Ask not what you can do for your country
Ask what your country did to you

The only reason you're still alive is because someone
Has decided to let you live
We owe so much money we're not broke we're broken
We're so poor we can't even pay attention
So what do you want
You want to be famous and rich and happy
But you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world
Nothing to say and no way to say it
But you can say it in three languages
You are more than the sum of what you consume
Desire is not an occupation
You are alternately thrilled and desperate
Sky-high and fucked
Let's stop praying for someone
To save us and start saving ourselves
Let's stop this and start over
Let's go out - Let's keep going

This is your life — This is your fucking life
We need something to kill
The pain of all that nothing inside
Quit whining you haven't done
Anything wrong because frankly
You haven't done much of anything
Someone's writing down your mistakes
Someone's documenting your downfall

— Dogma by KMFDM

What's in it for me, me, me?

We've all heard of NGOs or Non-Government Organisations. I'm fairly certain most of us have heard of NPOs or Non-Profit Organisations as well... But as I look around, I find increasingly that the much-desired concept of NCOs or Non-Credit Organisations is yet to sink into the public conscious.

This latest rant stems from a run-in I had very recently with someone who shall hereafter be referred to as Gollum, stemming from said person's tiny stature and immense propensity to irritate. It was all going fine until I get an angry call from Gollum, who was pissed that an article I'd done hadn't showered Gollum with credit for work done by a whole heap of groups. Additionally, there were allegations of manipulating Gollum's squawking and worse yet, of being "untasteful". And there's more — Gollum's wrath also stemmed from the fact that no other paper had done the story that way.

Of course...

It must have been a lapse of my incredibly tiny memory to forget that inviolable rule of journalism — All stories must be exactly the same as everyone else's. As for manipulation, if I recall correctly (damn you Gollum, AGAIN testing my memory), putting someone's quotes in the same context that they gave them to you, wasn't exactly manipulation.

Manipulation to me, would be more like say, a person who informed the organiser of an event that he would be late by around 100 minutes and yet, the organiser didn't consider it necessary to inform people in attendance that said person would be late. Ring a bell*, Gollum?

Finally and most pertinently, I know what public relations is. If I wanted to be a publicist and write press releases for people like you, Gollum, I would have entered that particular field and not journalism. Right? Journalism, at least by definition, is about telling it like it is and not about telling it like people want you to tell it. So it occurs to me that you crying because you didn't get all the kudos you feel is owed to you by the world, is none of my fucking concern!

I seriously doubt you'll read this, because knowing you, Gollum, you can't think beyond Google-searching your own name. If however, you stumble across this particular post, then heed me words carefully. Do not ever call my phone again and threaten me or my organisation again. Ever again.

UPDATE: * I figured it may not ring a bell, so allow me to elaborate. When there was a packed audience with people losing their tempers and targetting their anger at the person who came late, did you not think it your responsibility to tell them that he had already called to say he would be late? Instead, you just let the people get angrier, thereby manipulating their mood.

"No mummy, no papa"

The junction at Mahalakshmi temple is one that has no less than three or four roads leading in and out of it and is one of the busier junctions in the city of Mumbai.

Now that the random trivia is out of the way, here comes the point. It's also a junction frequented by a variety of beggars and mobile hawkers. I've already dealt with beggars and the various tactics they employ, so I'll get straight into mobile hawkers. Contrary to the name, they don't actually sell mobile phones (well maybe, toy mobiles but, I digress) but they in themselves are mobile.

Traipsing as they do from vehicle to vehicle that's at a traffic signal, trying to peddle their wares. Bootleg books are one of the things one regularly encounters people — most often little kids — trying to sell. So there I was at the aforementioned junction a couple of days ago, when I see a little girl clutching a stack of books walking from car-to-car until she notices a CR-V, inhabited by two obvious out-of-towners. The Caucasian features are a dead giveaway.

She knocks on the window and holds up a bootleg of one of the countless books on Barack Obama doing their rounds. "Obama!!" she says in a voice loud enough to penetrate the rolled-up window (presumably to keep the cool air in and the... well, you get it). The man shakes his head. "Thousand splendid suns," she yells next clutching Khalid Hosseini's book and holding it up to the window. The man shakes his head again and rolls the window down a little and sticks out his hand with a ten rupee note in it.

Little girl refuses to accept any hand outs or alms... She's a businesswoman, after all. She walks around to the other side of the car, spotting a woman sitting next to the man. "Madam! Obama!" she shouts. Woman also shakes her head. Holding up a copy of Q & A which is now being sold under the name Slumdog Millionaire, she asks, "Slumdog?" The woman again shakes her head.

That's when the little girl pulls out a real gem and a gem of such shine and polish that it merited me writing a whole blog about it. "Madam, I have no mummy, no papa. I also slumdog," she says. Goddamn! Did I just hear that, I asked myself. Certainly did. "I (am) like this slumdog only," she says pointing at the book. The woman doesn't want the book but rolls down her window, this time offering the girl a 100 rupee note. The girl says no and walks off.

That's called taking pride in what you do.

Piqued by curiosity, I ventured back there yesterday and tried hunting her down and asking her some questions. None of which were ominous, I assure you. While on one hand, selling bootleg books is pretty illegal, she's gotta make a living. After much coaxing, she volunteered her name — Seema. A bar of chocolate and further questions brought out the fact that she was 9 and that she gets into a lot of trouble with her supplier, if she doesn't sell the books.

She also disclosed that people try to palm her off with alms, but that, apparently, is not her beat. "Main bhikari nahi hoon (I'm not a beggar)," she told me as she trotted off to sell some more books, clearly pissed off that I had wasted her time and had no inclination to buy a book.

P.S. - New layout, y'alls!

Get back or I'll knock you down

There's a hair-trigger explosion built into every single human being — I don't care who you are, it's there. It's that little No-Go Zone with a trip-wired bomb that goes Kaboom! if anyone strays into it.

For some, it might be rudeness that sets off their bomb.
For others, it could be people faking an accent.
For another set of others, it could be loud mobile phone ringtones.
Then of course, there's people eating their own boogers, people burping loudly etc. etc. etc.
The list is endless...

While those things can and do often annoy me, none of them are what makes my hair-trigger bomb go off. What does it for me is the lack of Entry-Exit Etiquette (which will hereafter be referred to as EEE or E3? I like E3). So, what is E3 (I like it a lot; rolls right off the tongue and into your heart)?

Put very simply, it's about the etiquette and manners one should really observe when alighting from or awaiting entry into a building, train, bus, elevator, tram etc. It is the awareness that people who are exiting are entitled to right of way and those trying to enter must yield. Bloody obvious fact, you'd think. After all, you can't keep filling a glass with water unless you take some of it out.

Clearly not obvious enough as evidenced by the fact that there are some train stations in Mumbai, its suburbs and outskirts, where it is physically impossible to get off the train, thanks to the barrage of people trying to squeeze their limbs inside. On an average day, you manage to get off the train, with no more than a smear of someone's sweaty armpit across you. On a bad day, you end up getting bruised, your spectacles get damaged and your portable music player might find itself bereft of any earphones.

On a terrible day, however, all of that happens and in addition, you are still stuck on the train, unable to alight and dreaming of one of the good days, when you avoid the train altogether. The story's the same in an elevator, with an army of people trying to run you down as you aim to achieve that oh-so-difficult task of stepping off onto your floor.

Things get really bizarre when you get to taxis though. Taxis aren't your usual form of public transport in that they're a private sort of public transport, if that makes any sense (unless of course, you look at the concept of shared taxis, which is a whole different ballgame). But you would expect that a taxi would pull up at your chosen destination and that you would get to pay the fare and step out of it, making way for the next customer.

Right? Well, not always. Take for instance, this recent experience I had of trying to vacate a taxi while a man clutching a computer monitor (those box-type ones, not LCD screens) tried to make himself at home... on my lap!

Taxi pulls up
Surly north Indian taxi driver quotes price
I says, "Bullshit, show me the card"
Fare is lowered to normal rate and I pay
I notice man with computer monitor outside
Feel the need to hurry up so man can sit down quickly
I get my change from driver and open door.

"Here, put this inside," says the PC monitor guy
I says ok
Takes the monitor and keeps it inside
As i try to leave taxi, monitor man is entering and about to sit on my lap
WTF? I asks him and gives him a gentle nudge
He doesn't budge
So, some increased momentum from my palms moving forward, is transferred to his body which finds itself falling out of the taxi and onto the road.

"What was your problem?" I asks him rhetorically as I leave the taxi.

I'm usually quite a non-violent person, but when the hair-trigger is pulled, I am given to the odd incidents like these or jumping out of trains at a station with my elbows raised to protect myself from and smack some of the people running inside. I get the same primal sense of joy from knocking these non-E3-inclined people down as I used to in a moshpit. So sue me.