Yes, the World.

same pinch – losing our stories

Many years ago I heard Nelly Furtado‘s song ‘Powerless‘ and the following words struck me

 
She talks of a notion of beauty that she must comply with while being a star. And no, she doesn’t complain about having to paint her toes, but instead about having to do away with a part of her identity.

My sister and I were watching the 1994 beauty pageant where Aishwarya and Sushmita went head to head and I couldn’t help but notice the striking Jesse Randhawa, who was ‘Jasmeet’ then and decidedly punjabi in her ways.

 
I don’t know Jasmeet/Jesse and can’t comment on her and how things changed for her over time, but it did strike me then that all these lovely ladies at the time had a look that was quite unlike the other. I don’t know if it was the way they wore their hair, their accents or their skin tone. But there was a je ne sais quoi that set them apart from each other and gave them a story of their own.

A story, either of their roots or of the struggle or simply of the kind of exposure they’d had in life. The sway of Aishwarya’s hips talked of her already successful modeling career.

There was something that made them them.

A recent 90s-pop-love moment got me watching videos of Shweta Shetty , Suneeta Rao, Anaida, Mehnaz. Not one was like the other. I don’t know them personally, but they did have a look that certainly didn’t make them seem like they came off an assembly line.

I don’t mean for this to be a comment on the state of beauty today and how we’re all chasing the same ideal. (which we are by the way)

Instead, I wonder how much we’ve lost in terms of our ethnicity and our stories by straightening our hair and wearing it French. Or shaping our noses and losing our Kashmiriness? I don’t know.

Consider the young girls that Tehelka wrote about, who’re erasing their skin of marks and scars, almost erasing their stories too.

True, celebrating our differences is easier said than done.

The world’s a global village with startlingly low patience for differences. And we may not want to cling to our roots all the time, but there’s something sad about having them wiped out altogether for the sake of beauty and the subsequent likeability .

For all our talk about individuality, sadly we’re more alike now than we ever were.

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this explains a lot of the melodrama that is my life

Sartre’s beliefs explained in ‘Introducing Sartre – a graphic guide’

Why MBAs buy SLRs

Every MBA I know owns a digital SLR camera. And here is my theory that probably explains why.

So this is the story…

MBAs are a privileged lot. Even before you make it to an MBA college, you’re priveleged because you obviously got to study in good schools, got admitted into decent graduation colleges. In a country where most children don’t even make it to class 10, this is an extreme privilege. Getting into an MBA course was neither about the hard work you did during college nor was it about the awesome team player you were in that college festival you organized that nobody outside of nagpur cares about. Your being an MBA had to do with the hard work, the painful savings and the big sacrifices that your parents made. To a cut a long story short, you didn’t do anything great. But yes you’re an MBA and that means you’ve had a life far more privileged than others.

Unlike our parents, we MBAs didn’t get into professions where we had a specialization or a specific line of work.

In a country where the most privileged middle class workers aren’t really working on anything specific, or have no special nation/business building skills, it’s worrisome. And the MBAs are acutely aware of the sham that their jobs are and the uselessness of their existence in the system.

Where our parents were engineers who built things, we are an educated generation of engineers who decided to not build. Psychology grads who decided to sell soap.

Our generation’s desire to create, to express, to build isn’t dead. But the 60 hours that we work a week does not allow us to build and create. We only ‘manage’ what others create. And if a majority of the educated, well-fed, well-shod, articulate workforce can only be managers, who will build our nation? The millions who are being taught in dingy school classrooms with under-qualified teachers. Our creators are there. We are just managers. What a waste of an entire generation of possible creators.

So this is my theory… since our MBA education has not allowed us to be good at doing anything specific really, we have become a generation of people looking to be good at *something* at least. And this is when we pick our hobbies and ‘passions’. We want to write. We want to be photographers. Columnists. Editors. Directors. Actors. We want to be something.

Our DSLRs are not symbolic of the over-achievers that we are, as we’d have you believe.

Our DSLRs are a symbol of our crisis that we are not anything. That we don’t create. That we don’t do. And the worthlessness of our existence terrifies us. That’s why we buy our SLRs.

Why the slutwalk is the worst thing to happen to the cause

I recently came across this post by @mysti and having read a lot on the issue and having debated the slutwalk to death, I have just 3 arguments against it.

1. It alienates current victims

The slutwalk isn’t going to make any difference in India. There. I put it in writing. Men will not stop staring or touching, unasked. Women will not start fighting for their rights.

The women who will participate in the slutwalk are already the ones that speak up and fight. In order to further the cause, other women need to be encouraged. And they won’t be if you’re asking them to shed their clothes. A cause must be in sync with its victims. This one is more of a spectacle, giddily forgetting the hapless women who have a hard time even glaring back at the offender, much less shed their t-shirts in protest.

2. It will be seen as just a silly tantrum

A cause that is both serious and a social stigma, needs sensitivity and a powerful argument. The slutwalk is a tantrum. And like most tantrums, it will be either ignored or seen as a nuisance.

Is that what we want to do to a cause that traumatizes millions of women?

Is that what we want to do to women’s right to be respected?

I believe that this overzealous endeavour will harm more than it will benefit the cause. It alienates the cause, the shame, the unease, the ruthlessness of inequality. It makes it so easy to dismiss a serious cause. It makes it okay for a man to wave his hand and say ‘pagal ho gayin hain’. That is the danger. Sexual harassment is traumatic. Shedding our clothes and making a point against it sounds too much like a marketing tactic with complete disregard for the objective.

3. It takes too long a stretch to make the connection

In a world where it’s hard for a man to make the connection between ‘no’ and ‘need to stop touching her’, I think it’s laughable to expect him to think: Scantily clad women > slutwalk > to make it okay to wear what they want > to not touch or ogle > to be a nicer man

And with that I rest my case. Any debates are welcome.

i will yell.

I yelled at a man today. In a crowded first class compartment, I was the only woman at 11:30pm. And I yelled at him. For staring. For making me uncomfortable. For not having the courtesy to at least disguise his curiosity.

He didn’t care.

He stared. He knew I was uncomfortable, yet he stared. He knew it made me uneasy, he stared all the more. Relishing my discomfort.

I wanted to let it be. Didn’t my mom always tell me to ‘just ignore’. But I just know I can’t. Can’t ignore. So I yelled.

He pretended to not hear me. As I stood there wondering what would possess a middle aged man to stare at a woman that way. He pretended innocence. He didn’t plead it. He pretended.

His casual jerk of the wrist said he was looking outside and not at me. His nonchalance angered me. Really? Was it that easy to pretend it never happened?

Discomfort. Anger. Disgust. Shame. It always works in that order.

Shame. For allowing a man to make me uncomfortable. For giving him the power to make me feel vulnerable.

Power. What a political word. what a political relationship. Between a man and a woman.

I’ve been told that my yelling at these lecherous men will help. I doubt it. Really. But I wish someday I won’t be made uncomfortable. Not because men will start to respect the female body. But because I will not allow them the power.

Until then, I will yell.

the blog needs you :)

Hi

This blog’s been nominated under the Best Business Blog category for the

Indibloggies 2008 awards.

It’s up against some very famous older blogs and your vote will really count

It in category number 13. Vote here http://multivote.sparklit.com/web_poll.spark/21900

Thank you!

Here are the other nominees in the category:

Bhatnaturally

Gauravonomics

Ideasmarkit

India Business Blog

India PR Blog

Plugged.in

The India Street

The Money Maniac

The Ribbon Farm

How do you go back?

How do you prevent all that’s happening at Mumbai right now? I for one have no answer. Not yet anyway. For now I just feel numb.

After over a hundred people have died, security officers killed and India held at gunpoint…

How does one go back to work to sell soaps or deodorants that make such little difference to the nation and our collective future?

CC: The Best CYA trick of all time

CYA is an in-built program that runs in every professional’s lazy-ass body.

It’s short for ‘Cover Your Ass’ and it’s just the thing to employ if you’re too scared of getting into trouble. (which by the way makes you a wuss according to me)

CC is great when you want to say something to someone but think it’d be a good idea for others to overhear just so that everyone’s on the same page.

But sample this….

ME is sonal
CHA is the man Covering His Ass and CC-ing 5 people who have absolutely nothing to do with the project.

—
MAIL1: 13:02pm
me: Please confirm that this is okay. (nobody CC-ed)

MAIL2: 13:10pm
CHA: Please add these images, they’re missing. Let me know if you need anything else. (CCs 5 ppl + CEO for no reason whatsoever. Did he expect the CEO to take my case for not adding those images?!)

MAIL3: 13:11pm
me: Thanks. I’ll be taking care of the final prints and submissions tomorrow. It’ll all be within deadline. Will send you a copy. (had to CC those 5 +CEO. sigh)

MAIL4: 13:13pm
CHA: Just to check, you’ll incorporate the images in the final prints right? The ones I just sent you! (5 ppl CC-ed + CEO)

—

I’m thinking GAWD! of course I will. I just replied to your mail!

By now I was pulling my hair out because there was no way I was going to CC 5 people to just say “yes”. So I just called him up and replied.

This is a typical exmaple of CYA where you feel safer about your ass knowing that the big fish know you did your bit and did it on time. You know… lest some scumbag try to pin the fault on you.

Tch. Tch.

Wuss!

I found myself a new job

If there’s one thing that really makes my blood boil, it’s people littering city as if the world’s a garbage dump.

On a recent train journey to Pune a lovely young (seemingly educated) couple threw a whole lot of stuff out the window into the ‘universal dustbin’ that is the world around us.

I thought to myself… (even though it was bloody hard to think with my temper rising by the second)

‘Maybe I should just stare at him and he’ll get the hint.’

So I gave him the stare. But he just looked confused

‘Maybe I should wait till he decides to chuck something else out and stop him then.’

So I sat and waited for him to start to chuck something out again. God! Those were the longest minutes of my life as he slowly munched his food on his soon-to-be-out-the-window-paper-plate.

Just as he reached out the window to chuck his plate I screamed

“WAIT-WAIT. DONT-THROW-IT-OUTSIDE!”

and I reached for his plate in an attempt to force it out of his hands and throw it in a dustbin. (totally filmy I tell you!)

So basically he apologized, and took it to the dustbin himself (I think!) and went on to tell another kid in our compartment to do the same and not chuck junk out the window.

He said to me

“Thanks for reminding me”

( which of course caused a big smug grin to surface on my face which I tried my best to hide with a book I was reading)

So I’ve decided that since I’m probably not going to be doing anything great for India, I might as well just take on the job of a cleaner.

Last evening I picked up two ticket stubs that this lady threw on the compartment floor. She noticed my clean-up-act but didn’t say anything. As for me, I was happy that 2 less ticket stubs littered mumbai last night.

an afternoon with shyam benegal

“tell him I hated Bose, but loved Making of the Mahatma”
“tell him I’m looking for a good role in the movies”
“he might just offer you a film”

Sorry people. I did not tell Shyam benegal any of the stuff you asked me to.
Actually for the most part I kept my mouth shut and my ears open.

He spoke about many things, from the distasteful reality shows on TV today to the reason why ‘ramdev ka sajjanpur’ became ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

I’ll begin with the latter.

In his own words, people want ‘evening entertainment’ and to them Shyam benegal can probably only provide ‘evening’s gyaan’

To escape the tag of being ‘serious’ and heavy, the marketing team at UTV decided to alter the title to the more frivolous and easy going ‘welcome to sajjanpur’.

For those who know Prof Mathew from MICA, would understand when I say that great minds think alike. The disappointment at the new generation’s lack of ‘world view’ is both depressing and very obvious in the sentiments Mr Benegal expressed.

He is so right when he says we have become information gatherers for reasons known best only to us. That we cannot ever be wise with our concept of education which does not push us to read more and understand more perspectives.

I’m not sure if I found the meeting with Shyam Benegal inspiring or depressing, knowing what my life and career is and how it’s heading in a direction as a meaningless as reality tv.
Maybe if my state of mind was more positive I’d be inspired. But right now I can’t be anything but thoroughly depressed.