Getting it off my chest...

At the risk of sounding excessively insensitive and politically incorrect, there are some things I need to say.
I am sick and tired of these videos and plays with supposedly strong messages. I may have said this before, but I can't stress this enough.
I can't help but be sceptical when I see people writing/directing plays, movies, TV shows "inspired" by the Delhi/Mumbai gang rape cases or the terrorist attacks in Mumbai on 26th November or even the Mumbai floods back in 2006 (yes, there is a movie about that too) to "spread awareness", as they say. Call me cynical, but I don't think there is anything brilliant about making money and getting recognition out of the horrors someone else had to suffer. I personally think it is disgusting when people capitalise on the terrible, sad things happening around us.
The newest trend is short movies or videos that go viral on social media. I don't think that the biggest problem of a little girl who is severely dehydrated would be that she can't cry...I think her biggest problem would be that, because she is dehydrated, she doesn't have the energy to run around like they've shown in the video.
I have seen videos about little girls wearing kitten heels, trying to cross the road, in order to get into the car of her "customer" while other people in the street look on but don't say anything. Does that really happen? Are people really that heartless???
And forgive me for being naive and ignorant and cocooned in my own personal shell, but I don't think friends would slash their friends' throats after witnessing a supposed communal clash. Personally, I think shutters would be closed, police called and a hiding place found, but I'm not even going to go there.
I am not saying that awareness shouldn't be created. I am not saying that we can't do our bit. But must everything have such an aura of negativity? Must everything be done only when there is a massive incident that sparks public outrage that warrants candle light vigils (and don't even get me started on candle light vigils now).
Recently I saw a video of transgenders dressed as flight attendants, announcing the acute need of people to use seat belts and reduce reckless driving. It was cute, it was funny, and it conveyed the message without being dark and broody. The only thing I like dark and broody are the men in my life :p ;)
And I'm not saying that the miseries in the world shouldn't be highlighted. Starvation and poverty are some things I would really like to see highlighted. But when people remember to highlight issues only to cater to public sentiment at the time, and that too in the darkest, most morbid way possible, that gets to me!
So I guess, all I'm saying is that
1) I think it is terrible when people capitalise on the pain someone suffered under the guise of awareness
2) Dark subject matter need not always mean sad public awareness campaigns. Things can be said in a lighthearted manner...all you need for that is a little bit of imagination, and plain, selfless, good intentions!

Bye Bye S3

I have always believed that the Mumbai police is really helpful. Probably because the only times I've interacted with the police is when they come home for verification of address for passport renewals! I also always believed that the police department has been given a bad reputation because of a bad cops (kinda similar to how people think that us finance guys are the devil's minions, just because of a few people on wall street!)
But yesterday, I was in for a rude shock. Kinda...I wasn't directly affected, but my sister was, and she's important to me!
At around 9 in the night yesterday, my sister, Mamta was returning home from work. She sat in the ladies first class compartment with her friend in the 8:52 Borivali slow train. The train was reasonably full, bust she got place to sit on the window seat with her back towards the door and no one else next to her.
She took her phone (a beautiful Samsung Galaxy S3) from her bag to text someone, just as the train started, and before she knew what hit her, a man (in his early 20s) entered the train, grabbed the phone out of her hand and ran out. All the women in the compartment saw what happened, and all of them pulled the 4 different emergency brake chains in the compartment. But the train did not stop.
At Marine line station, a cop entered the train and my sister told him what happened. He asked her to go back to Churchgate station and register a complaint at the railway police station there.
Now, there are a bunch of things that are so wrong with the entire episode, loss of the phone being the least of all our worries.

• Now, as per the government railway police instructions, there has to be at least one armed officer in the ladies compartments in all the trains between 8:30 pm to 6:30 am to specifically prevent such cases. There was no such police officer in the train between Churchgate to Marine Lines. And when one entered at Marine Lines, he simply shrugged off my sister's panic and asked her to go back to Churchgate and report the theft there.
• When the women in the compartment tried to pull the chain to activate the emergency brakes, it did not work! The train did not stop! It just picked up speed.
• When my sister and her friend went to the police station, they refused to file an FIR on the grounds that my sister did not have the bill of the phone! I mean, I don't even know where to start on this one. Why would anyone go around carrying the bill of their phone just to lodge an FIR in case of theft of phone! She had the IMEI number and that was all that was needed! But no...no FIR till the bill is checked! And the hard copy that too!
• Eventually, we made a few calls and managed to get through to a senior police officer, who made a call to the police station. The officer who was refusing to file the FIR told this guy on the phone that they may have caught the image of the guy in CCTV cameras. That's when my sister put her foot down and refused to leave till she was shown the CCTV footage to identify the criminal. Must be noted that the cops made no mention of the CCTV footage the entire time when she was trying to file the complaint. And even when she asked to watch it, the cops were reluctant.
• Eventually, my sister and her friend made it to the room where the CCTV footage is stored. By that time, they were joined by their boss. Now, here's the next shocker. In an attempt to convince my sister not to go through the tapes, the police officer on duty told her that there were only 3 cameras in the entire station and so chanced of finding the of camera were slim to none. We found out later that there are actually 32 cameras installed throughout the station.
• Despite all this, the footage wasn't shown to my sister. The were made to wait outside the CCTV room for at least an hour, because the room was occupied by someone else. Now, I can't really blame the police here, because turns out that the room was occupied by a man who had lost his very old father on the station and was trying to find him on the footage. But then again, I don't see why two people can't see the footage simultaneously. There must be multiple monitors, no?
• So feeling all defeated and all, my sister decided to return home, telling the policemen on duty that she would return the next morning with the bill and everything to file an official FIR. By that time, we had managed to pull a few strings. My uncle, who is also a journalist had called the inspector in charge, as had a doctor from the railway hospital. So that's when the inspector assured my sister that he would ensure that the officer in charge in the morning would definitely make an FIR. All this after at least 5 people had made calls to him. Which makes me wonder, what of those people who can't pull any strings?
• So this morning, my daddy and my sister went to the police station again. The officer in charge was evidently briefed about her (and the number of people interested in the case). But that didn't deter him to try and convince my dad to file a lost FIR and not a theft FIR, implying my sister had lost the phone and it hadn't been stolen. He tried to scare them off by saying that a theft complain would cause them to keep making rounds of the court. He also tried to convince my dad to not mention the fact that there was no police officer in the train in the FIR.
• They also saw the CCTV footage which clearly shows a dark man around 25 years of age, wearing a torn yellow shirt with "I love karate" written on the back get into the train and jump out, and run into the Subway where he switches off the phone. 
• Eventually, my dad had his way and he filed a proper theft FIR. The junior officer who actually wrote down the FIR told him that there is a high probability of the phone being retrieved now that the IMEI number is given. But we are skeptical.

So here's the long and short of it. You can't get your work done by the Mumbai police unless you have some contacts who hold high positions in any police department. You have to pull strings, even to lodge a simple FIR. Also, the police force is filled with these lethargic people who do not want to do a lot of work. In retrospect, maybe I should start listening to the majority of people who curse Mumbai police and stop being all Dumbledore-y, trying to see the good in everyone and giving everyone the benefit of the doubt! And now my sister is smartphone-less for a while. I'm hoping the police will retrieve the phone back and not give her too much trouble now. I mean, she doesn't really deserve this!

Facebook, anyone?

So I was recently talking to a friend of mine, and he sent me the link of his blog, and he had written  about how, out of the 344 friends he had on Facebook, if he met them on the road, he'd just stop and talk to some 44 of them. This sort of analysis kinda stunned me. And I tried to figure out why the guy, who had become real good friends with not only me, but my mommy also, had become so anti social all of a sudden! Turns out, he hadn't! He just had done some research, and realized Facebook was a massive waste of time!
He spoke about how he limited his profile so not many people could see it. Yes, I've limited my profile too...but can you really blame me for not wanting to let people from work know about what I do outside work. It's just weird when they would come up to me and say "so, who's that guy you are with in that picture?" More often than not, it's my brother! And I am so tired of clarifying that, and they normally just give me that "yeah, right!" look.
He also spoke about how people now click pictures, only because of the excitement of being able to upload them on Facebook, tagging various people, receiving comments/likes and all that jazz. Well, I've always maintained that clicking pictures for Facebook is a dumb thing to do! But then again, I also realized that the pictures are a great way of keeping in touch! Like recently, I uploaded a picture of me in a sari. My friend called me up and told me about how I had changed in the last 10 years. And so, a conversation that started off because of that one lame picture, went on for hours...and that is something, considering the fact that I hadn't spoken to her in almost 5 years! I don't know what's more surprising though...the fact that I spoke to her after so many years, or the fact that I hadn't spoken to her in so many years to begin with, despite the fact that she was my closest friend in school!
Apparently, he did some fancy schmancy research about what kind of people use Facebook. The results showed that people of a higher income level or with a masters degree choose a different social media (if at all they do). I agree! But it doesn't change the fact that the lower income groups still choose Facebook! And not all your friends have to be hot shot hedge fund managers with a fancy master's degree from an Ivy league college! You may have friends, who are, well, normal mid level execs, for example! Won't you wanna stay in touch with them? This may be a good time to point out that, as per 2010 data, if Facebook was a physical nation, it would be the third most populous country in the world! Also, it is projected that by August this year, Facebook would have captured 14% of the world's population. That may not seem much, but let me point out that China houses about 19% of the population of the world, India 17% and USA just 4%!!
I maintain still, that Facebook has helped me catch up with some old friends. And recently, I also managed to catch up with an old teacher of mine, the person responsible for me being so good in maths! So, yeah, I guess everyone is entitled to have a different opinion!
I really don't know the point of this. But then again, there is seldom any point to my ranting. Also, just to clarify, I'm not writing this just to say the opposite of what my friend said! I just figured it would be nice to have another stance too! In retrospect, it was his statement about having only 44 real friends out of 344 on Facebook that really snowballed into this monologue! I eventually decided to see whether this was true in my case also. So, out of the 332 Facebook friends I have, I tried to calculate how many I would actually stop and talk to, in the event of me bumping into them on the streets! I got tired after looking at the first 100...out of those, I knew I would speak to at least 95 in "the real world". Much better statistics, don't you think? Well, turns out I'm more social!
Of course, if you you want some intelligent reading, do check out the actual statistics:
http://www.thinketc.com/internet/reasons-i-quit-facebook/

Think Etc

Maiden Escapades

Well, to understand this article, you will need to know a bit about me, and my family. I live in a nice big house, with a nice big family. A family obsessed with education and qualifications. To the point, that when I was a kid, my nanny’s daughter, who was probably 15 at that time, was forced to not stop her education after the tenth, but continue further. She’s a pretty successful nurse now, and has managed to stabilize her family, financially. Also, the head of my family, my grandmother, had to fight her entire family to get a decent education…and like they say, you come to value things more, if you’ve had to fight for it.
So, now, 22 years later, we’ve got a new maid, to handle the household. She’s a very sweet person, and really takes care of my grandmother well. She’s 17 and was forced to start working to support her family. Before the flame throwers begin, let me clarify that this isn’t child labor. Children over the age of 14 are allowed to work…yeah…we checked.
So yeah, 17 year old, working to support family and all that jazz...not something entirely out of the ordinary in India. Here’s the kicker…she wanted to study further! And I don’t know how, but my mother found out that she wanted to! And so we searched all over the place, to find a Marathi medium college that would accept her. She wanted to take up Arts and study psychology! We found one about ten minutes away, and after a lot of persuading and requesting, we managed to get her enrolled into that college.
Now, this girl barely knows her Hindi, let alone her English. I have to speak to her in Marathi…and let me tell you, I don’t exactly excel at it. I mix up Marathi with Gujarati and Hindi and eventually end up talking to her in sign language.
So getting such her girl to pass her HSC exam, where English in a 100 marks paper, did seem a little tough. And thus, we tried to use all the tricks that worked on us as kids when we were learning the language.
We gave her picture books and stuff, which would help her learn the language. And then, we encouraged her to start reading the newspapers and ask us if she didn’t understand anything.
Problem is, we didn’t fully think this bit over. You see, the newspaper that comes to our house has a supplement called Bombay Times. That supplement is a purely entertainment paper, where the front page is usually adorned by the perfectly made up face of some celebrity. And star struck as my maid is, it is the first thing she looks at.
So every single day, I will have the Bombay Times shoved under my nose, with a demand to explain the article of choice. Here are some of the craziest examples so far:

1. A few days back, there was a picture of Shahid Kapur with an actress on the cover. I think the actress was Priyanka Chopra, but I’m not too sure. She got the paper to me and asked me whether the article was trying to say that the two are getting married. It didn’t…the article was trying to say that they are appearing in a movie together.
2. There was an article about how Aishwarya Rai Bachan took her daughter to Dubai. This time, the question asked to me was whether they went by an airplane.
3. There’s a TV show called Balika Vadhu, whose actress had given an interview to the paper, listing out her favorite drink, shopping place and whatever. After I explained it to her, I was told that the woman was not a nice person, because she married Jagya, who was married to someone else earlier. And then she asked me whether the actress was married in real life.
4. This one takes the cake. It happened today. Her favorite TV show is Bade Ache Lagte Hai. The lead actress gave an interview to the newspaper saying how TV shows before this one also showed sequences which depicted sex, and so she didn’t see how her show was a big deal. My maid asked me what it meant. And this time, I really didn’t know what to say. So I randomly made up an interview…listing what I thought were the actress’ favorite drink and shopping destination. And then, I was asked another question. “Lagn Jhala aahe ticha?” (“Is she married?”)

So that’s it…I have officially shifted explanation responsibilities to my mother. Let her deal with this! I’ll be happily sipping on my orange juice while I watch mama trying to make up random explanations like this!

Two Pointy Things!

So yeah,
What do you get when you combine a rusted nail and a tetanus shot? A very grumpy me! And a day wasted due to the pain in my foot (blame the nail) and the pain in my arm (blame the injection). Throw in a sappy romantic movie and you'll have me crying in no time!
So this is how it goes...I have class early in the morning! 7am to 10 am! And it had to start all wrong! I reached   class at 7.45 am silently went and sat on the first bench. The teacher went on blabbering about derivative markets and theoretical pricing of futures. At the end of the lecture, which ended before time, I caught hold of one, very timid guy, snatched his book and copied down the part I had missed! I figured I could study it at home (unemployment does have its perquisites). Unfortunately, a friend of mine said she wanted to borrow my notebook to take a photo copy of some of the notes, and then conveniently decided that she would, quote, "find it easier to understand if she wrote it down herself" and promptly stuffed my notebook in her bag. I just stared blankly! I should have known that my bad luck had started and I needed to be careful! I wanted to eat a road side vada pav and that bullying friend (?) of mine ensured I didn't!!!
And so we merrily walked on...towards the station! Now, a special note for people living in Mumbai...be extra careful while walking at Andheri station...especially where the metro is being constructed. Here's why! There are nails strewn everywhere!! One of them went right through my (really thick soled) chappals!! My friend and I stopped and we realized that the nail had actually broken skin! The wound was bleeding like crazy! And at the same time, the rusted nail was lodged into my chappals so bad, we couldn't get it out! Fortunately, a guy we knew, who happened to be walking past us managed to remove the nail at least! Next stop...Mcdonalds (I was hungry!!! Remember how I couldn't eat the vada pav?) So we cleaned up the I wound with some water, and walked on. Me limping, with a dramatic flair.
And damn you Mcdonalds!!! They didn't open their takeaway counter till 11am!!! Yet another disappointment for me! Fortunately, we found a medical store and bought a band aid! We got into a train and I dressed my wound. My friend had a sandwich in her bag...and so we shared that, reducing my hunger, albeit, just a bit.
I reached home, hoping for something yummy made by my mother, but she wasn't home. I called her and told her about the rusted nail and she ordered me to get a tetanus shot. I called my aunt, who happens to be a doctor for a second opinion, and she said the same. So I went to the closest clinic for the dreaded tetanus shot.
And thus started the longest 2 hours of my life. The doctor was not there yet. So I had to wait...and wait...and wait some more. Normally, I never have to wait for doctors like this. Family full of doctors, proper appointments are just some of the reasons I've never had to wait. It was entertaining really...to see the other patients waiting for the doctor. You meet a lot of weird people like this!
The doctor arrived at 12, pompously! Looked around, saw me and said "Kya hua beta?." That's the benefit of going to a doctor who also happens to be your father's best friend. He took me in immediately, promptly ignoring the other patients. I told him about the damned nail, and he gave me a tetanus shot immediately.
That was the easy part! After going back home, my arm started hurting, along with my foot. Mama was home by then, and nicely, she said "tetanus injections do hurt for a few days! I should know...I got 3 when I had you!!"
To divert my mind from the pain, my sister decided to make me watch a movie. And brilliantly, she chose The Notebook! I was weeping like a baby towards the end, and mama was a little shocked, to say the least. And so she decided to make me laugh my trying to crack jokes like"Doesn't Lady Gaga look like Cruella De Vil?? And Roger Taylor looks like Vijay Mallaya."
This wasn't helping, and so I decided to call my best friend! and guess what she said?? "Oh yeah...I've had the tetanus shot recently. Hurts like a bitch for a couple of days." Yeah...I just love their methods of making me feel better!
So all in all, it has been a terrible day, all because of two pointy things!!! And now, all I wanted to do is pop in a pain killer, cuddle up to my large teddy bear (who's missing his nose) and go to sleep. I don't want to think about how I will write my notes tomorrow, considering my right arm is hurting like crazy and my notebook is with my friend!!!!