Growing up

I was slipping slowly into sleep, when my mobile announces an sms and pulls me back fromt he world of peace & tranquillity. I jump up from the bed to grab it not because I was expecting anything important. I’m a vain man who waits for some unknown girl to text a raunchy sms at night. I was half disappointed to see the sms was from my good friend Vattolli? But why at this time of night? If it’s some stupid forward I might as well kill him. May be he’s announcing some big Arsenal victory. Still it was neither of the above.  I was pleasantly surprised to know that he was getting married. Although a whiff of marriage was in air, it was supposed to happen further down the year. He was a happy go lucky guy who went soft on responsibilities. Seeing him as a married man down the years would be very strange.

The second invitation didn’t take much long to come. This time it was the freak guy of the batch- manga loving , unkempt , crazy behind wheels. But he was very sweet spoken & loved by all. Now he announces his marriage & I’m all the more surprised. We wouldn’t have imagined Kalaam spending a lifetime with a girl. I still remember those days when he fought some online game late into night and caught a nap every two hours. His antics were a source of evergreen jokes among us. When most of us wound up our Engineering course, he was left with quite a few papers to scrape through. He fooled around with some computer courses got into an IT firm. From then it didn’t take much for him to rise through & earn a good wife.

I started to make plans. Kalaam is going to be the first one among the two. It was Jan25th- The day prior to the republic day. Excuses for a leave is expertly tailored up & here I’m with my friends again. Kalaam is in the traditional attire spotting a pencil thin moustache. I wonder where he got that idea from. As he’s busy getting married we guys hang around making phaltu jokes and gaping at the sleeveless beauties. We wonder on how to spend the evening & Antony comes up with a great idea- Celebrate Vattoli’s bachelors’ party (ala get drunk).

The problem with hitting a pub in hometown is you’ll have to return home sober, early & in one piece. Besides you may have to steadily avoid running into any guy known to your father. But the of caution slowly dissipates along with your first peg. There are lots of laughter and phaltu jokes. But slowly the the decibel levels of laughter goes down and you start bitching about your life, your boss, your girlfriends and your friends. I probably slip into some far off no-man’s land. The three of us decided to shoulder the heavy burden of advising Vattolli about life. The talks got humorously serious. I decided to spend the night out with these guys knowing very well that Dad would go hysterical. I have to somehow hold the fort at home tomorrow. But the head is too bored to think about holding forts now.

Downing our fourth peg we get up, satisfied that we saw to it that our friend started his journey on the right path. All the advices got rewinded and repeated in the car and we didn’t happen to see the policeman waving at us. With amazing athleticism for a mid aged cop he snatch the car keys and roars at us. Soon we find ourselves in police station for drunked driving. Within those few minutes, I found out to my amazement that all what we drank simply dissipated off. I stood there silent for the most of the time as my friends eased us out off the mess and took us home.

But that night I made peace with myself. I no longer wanted my bachelorhood to be a liability. I realized I’m growing old and soon the mid life would loom. I’m hating getting drunk & bitching the whole world off. It’s time you find some girl for yourself..... even knowing very well that you may not like the choice down the road.

(the story hasn’t ended yet.....)

#DelhiGangRape Part2

The good part about the social networking via internet is , people have a forum to come together and ‘talk’ as soon as a rape happens. The ideas can be creative or destructive to the point of being silly. Sadly the notion that technology can be the greatest social leveller has been proved wrong. Either you’ll have to move in the ‘popular people’ camp or you will have to be heard for the wrong reasons. The ‘different’ voices fail to be noticed.

When we say the ‘rapists’ have to be taught a lesson through the lumbering giant of Indian  criminal laws, then we may have to tread the much uncomfortable waters of defining the act of ‘rape’. Now it may not be as easy as what we see in the films- the middle aged balding guy pouncing on the young girl braving her kicks and bites. It can be forced or voluntary; painful or pleasurable; hetero or homo. Thus the definition of rape might spill into a much wider spectrum. Hence we might not be able to generalize the punishment too.

Unlike murder or robbery, rape is not needed for the sustenance of life. Rape is also not done for any material benefit nor it’s done for any ideological purpose. I believe we can safely say that it’s a very unnatural & deviant act and has to be treated that way. The belief that strict laws can deter a rapist is very childish conclusion of a snobbish community. Laws only act as deterrence to the minimum level. Laws aren’t for moral science lessons. Moral science has to come from somewhere else.

Same is the case when we raise hue and cry over hanging the juvenile. I ask a question in return if you mind jailing a kid for stealing a piece of rubber. When we say law has to be same for all, first try to picture how would it sound when it’s your family at the other end. Law isn’t solution for everything and it can turn a monster when you build a behemoth out of it.

The law should be to punish someone who hinders the positive growth and sustenance of the society by his own free will. But how free are we in making our choices? We are too influenced by the elements around us and most often regret the decisions we make. When I take a page out of the college life, there were a bunch of kids who fought each other for some political ideology. Many skulls were smashed and much blood was shed. But today I wonder, given a choice if they will make those choices again.

Meanwhile someone raked up another issue on the parallel lines. This time it was about  an old ruling by the social crusader Justice Katju. In the case a village woman was raped by an influential guy in the village. He was punished and jailed. Later the woman withdrew her complaint. The reason being the rapist offered to settle the issue in lieu of some money. She told the court, ‘ I’m in need of money’. The rapist was let out. Now who’s the bad guy in the story- The rapist? the woman? Or is it our justice system?

Some decades ago our society was very protective of its women. But today they have to work like men, sit late at office, use the same facilities and compete on the same lines. As a society we have become more competitive and aggressive. The aggression has spilt into every walk of life and even to our sexuality. Today we dress ‘comfortably’ in lieu of attracting the people around you . Earlier when the kids were supposed to dress angelic, they are no longer so. The ‘comfortable’ outfit starts quite early in life. I doubt if the ‘comfort’ isn’t good enough to raise a primal aggression.

So here we have a whole load of people pushed daily to the fringes unable to reach out to the benchmarks they set in life. They don’t have race, creed, class or caste. They may be educated or otherwise. Rape happens when these people reach out to what is been denied to them- sexually, financially or socially.

#DelhiGangRape Part1

By the time i put this down, the embers of the rape would’ve died down. The subject would no longer provoke the sensibilities of the ‘outspoken’ Indian youth. Twitter is turning out to be a forum for the silent cacophony of voices. The loudest noise wins and starts trending. The rest just fades away or gets branded as Trolls.

So when you shout out about the #DelhiGangRape, you will have to

   1)      Put all the blame on SheilaD and SoniaG. They will have to step down as soon as you finish your tweet.

   2)      Castrate all politicians

   3)      When a 1000 people watc, multiply it by 1000 and claim that India is on the verge of revolution.

   4)      Police must be provoked to perform atrocity. In the end when some innocent guy dies, scamper around.

 

All this you can do in the comfort you room.  This phenomenon is called ‘talking’ about rape. 

I go out on regular walk with my friends, preferably on weekends. We talk a lot- mostly bitching about our respective jobs. One evening we picked up the topic of Delhi rape. Seeing that I was not very much touched by the incident he started describing the intricate details of every gory details complete with facial expressions. I was more horrified by the ‘navarasas’ blooming on his face than the violence. Anyways, seeing that I was suitably horrified, he dropped off the subject.

My college sweetheart decided she was going to do a march on the state capital for ‘justice’. She calls me in hoping I would be, as usual, available for her charms. I ask her, ‘Why you doing this?’. ‘Justice. We want them hanged.’ ‘So hanging them going to solve the rape problem?’ ....No answer... The end result I lost my sweetheart and was labelled as a moron.

We have a pretty cute actress, who has been trying to project herself as ‘Champion of Causes’- Rima Kallingal. Now she acted in a Malayalam movie where she was cheated and raped by her boyfriend. So she avenges by castrating him. She posts a photo which says the perpetrators ought to be castrated. Now I’m in a mood to pick up the fight. I tweet something back. To my surprise the Champion responds to the tweet of an ordinary human being. She picks up the challenge and we do the mutual mud throwing late into night. As a response, I’m reported as a potential danger to society and gets a temporary ban out of Twitter.

Now I stop it here. I’ve decided to put rest ...in a new post... Watch out darlings!

Bengali Mallus

It was almost 10 at night. I was out for a walk as I had nothing better to do. Then came a cacophony of voices. I turned around to see a bunch of queer looking guys talking loudly, with some sort of electronic music playing from the player (may be it’s the mobile). The mouths were loaded with some kind of tobacco/ paan and inspite of that they were making the cacophony in clear eligible sounds.


In a short time these slim, short, squint eyed guys from north-east have occupied an inherent part of otherwise impenetrable Kerala population as manual labourers.



Kerala always faced a shortage in unskilled labour category. People migrate fast into the skilled domain. The social inequality in Kerala landscape is more or less flattened by education and NRI remittances. But even when there’s a labour shortage, there’s no shortage with opportunities. Hence we had to look out for the inevitable manpower to do the ‘menial tasks’.

I remember the thin scrawny guy and his wife who came to work in our fields- Lukose and Rahel. I remember calling him ‘Glucose’, taking a jibe at his scrawny frame. The response was the toothy smile. Years rolled on by. We sold off the fields and migrated to city. Then we learnt that ‘Glucose’ daughter did well in her academics to end up as a college professor. For an idealist its a glowing example for utopian society. But for a bourgeois it means shortage of natural labour.



Then came the villain of villains- recession. The malayalees who were out to set the markets on fire, realised it’s better to invest on materials that can seen & touched. Huge money started flowing into Gold & land. Real estate boom ensured that the human resources that were already in shortage, was sucked up. This opened up doors of opportunity for impoverished, illiterate , out of work young men from northern parts of India. Here they were ready to work for a pittance. Soon the laws of natural selection prevailed and the ‘cheap’ labour started dominating the labour landscape of Kerala.



They worked from morning to night, demanded little, ate little, never talked back and chewed a lot of paan. These illiterate men seemed to be eligible to don the mantle of saviours. Even with little education many were capable of making out letters in Malayalam. They would take off all of a sudden to their homeland for a couple of months. This would irk the ‘contractors’ who took them on sub-contract. It’s these ‘contractors’ who hit the gold mine by recruiting these ‘cheap labour’. In turn they rented them out for higher wages. Another interesting phenomenon was, Hindi language which were not at all in Kerala landscape started to be heard around Kerala.



The inherent tension when a foreign element tries to embed itself into your otherwise comfortable system came into fore. Soon rumors and subsequent media reports on terrorism and robbery by these migrant community started to surface. The neo-liberal saviours started to be looked on with tension and suspicion. The absence of any valid ID proofs became a hindrance for the police officers to track them down. The ‘cheapness’ in labour also started to reduce when they started organising and demanding more wages.



Even then, these illiterate group of people were very successful in embedding themselves in every walk of life. Today no hotels or construction firms can run without them. Recently a regional issue flared up which saw these people immigrating back to their homeland. Soon the alarm bells started ringing and the top ministers had to cajole them to stay back. Although the cleanliness level is very low and the food cooked is no where near palatable, the hotels have no choice but to employ them. When put to do something, they do it but perfection is not at all taught in their moral science classes.



Looking into the future, I see quite a few settling down here. They might get married to our women and produce the squint eyed version of Malayalees. We will see some Hindi & Bhojpuri hoardings coming up. Soon they will run for the elections and the ‘ethnic’ Mallus will fight it out.

May be the recession turned out to be a great demographic leveller after all,

Theevram and the question of Judas

The evolution of Malayalam cinema is very amusing. In the last couple of years, the change has been very startling and sudden. I wouldn’t say that the change was unwelcome. It’s been more than welcome with the commercial wing of Malayalam cinema slumping to drudgery with the ‘single-hero’ concept. There was a brief threat of sleaze cinema making a come back. But the advent of internet broadband  coupled with cheaper and faster download ensured that the porn starved youth were treated to ‘healthy’ western porn.

Malayalam film makers tried its best to hold onto the old world concepts for a long time. But nothing can beat the market economics. Mallu audiences were being increasingly exposed to Hindi and Tamil cinemas. It didn’t take long for the palate to get adjusted to the grandoise visuals. The good old Malayalam cinema had no option but to change.

The main factor that catalysed the change is technicians who came back after doing a stint at the fertile grounds of Bollywood. They brought with them a whiff of fresh air and was in a good mood to rebel against the set patterns. Besides editing was not a costly affair. The change was so startling and sudden that quite a few big names got washed off the face of Malayalam cinema.

When we keep apart the technical side and examine how the neo-Malayalam film deal with the social landscape of Kerala, more interesting facts start to emerge. Most of the movies are shot in and around Kochi, specifically- Fort Kochi. They may have better studios, and the location towards the central Kerala is an advantage. Besides there are visible evidences of urban degradation, which is not that visible in other parts of Kerala. The new generation directors prefer to base their movies on the travails of a metro crowd. Our generation has moved on from the green & good rural stories to more mean & menacing city ones. An after effect is we have lost the capability to film the diverse social set up across the country. We have some of exemplary work being done in angles, lighting, editing etc. But is there a serious creative back up or thought process to it?

Let’s take a cross section from a few new age Malayalam films that have been hitting the markets. All the characters have some strong, striking resemblance with each other- right from the job profile, the age, the wardrobe, the slang, the aspirations. A young doctor will be one sure shot character. The reason being, you’ve got doctors like plague in the streets. He will in a designer pad, driving a swanky car around with a hottie in it. The other acceptable professions are real eststae agent, software engineer or hotelier. The films which proclaim more power to women put them as Barbie dolls in call centres, private secretaries who wear tight skirts or pants. They have to show up the waxed legs to proclaim modernism and screw the boss for promotions.

Last day I went out with my friend. We had some last minute change of plans and we hit the movie halls. The movie was ‘Theevram’, which can be translated in English as Intense. The film starred the young son of erstwhile superstar. The superstar has been doing some really forgettable films while the son is faring marginally better. I loved the way he did the first two films and had some great hopes for the third.   

In Theevram the SoS (son of superstar) has gone a step ahead and played a grey shade. I learnt that the director once played the role of a child artiste long ago. As often seen in Malayalam cinema these days, the first ten minutes were dedicated to saying thanks. I wonder of this is being done seriously, or just as an offering to spare the movie!

The best part about the movie was the colour tone. From the vivid multi colour the directors are more comfortable to use mono tones to enhance the mood of the movie. Even the senior directors had to shed the apprehension and adapt to the fashion of the day. Here, in Theevram, more of grey shades were used to portray bad times and the vivid tones to show the better times. I loved that but I wouldn’t say it’s original because I have seen the same and even  better work in ‘Memento’.

Years ago when the fast paced Tamil & Hindi music crept into the Malayalam space, the music directors lamented the inability to make a fast Malayalam number. Malayalam had few ‘hard’ words in its vocabulary. In that circumstance, the ‘Malayalam Rock’ is quite a surprise. Kerala is a fertile soil of Rock music. The better reason being or never ending quench to be Americanized.  The movie has some violent beats in the tracks when the hero is out there to get his revenge.

Apart from all the good part, what surprises me is the way in which the film makers treat a serious social issue with such a casual approach. The bad guy rapes and kills the good girl. The bad guy is released years later from the jail on compassionate grounds. The hero skilfully plans and executes revenge. He leaves parts of body to mock the police system.

I am not in for serial killers or rapists. But as a society we wil have to do some serious thought process into the way in which we treat our sexual offenders.  The way in which the police office mocks the judicial system for pardoning a supposedly reformed criminal is alarming. When he learns of the criminal gruesomely murdered by the hero, the policeofficer exclaims:

‘It’s only Judas who was killed’

So bumping off the bad guys are the solution for a better society!!

Even the world’s greatest directors graphically portrayed  death, destruction- Clockwork Orange, Decalogue. But there was a sprout of creativity behind the art of destruction.

The symbol of manhood

Twitter, Facebook, Blogger, Wordpress- name it and you’ll find a big bunch of unhappy people. They are pissed off with the system, corruption, Shiv Sena, NaMo, SG, RG, Malala, etc etc. We have a awefully huge list of ‘ Things to get pissed off at’. On the other hand I have realized people no longer care about what I think. The finance Minister is not going to roll back because Mr Jon said so. So i have decided to sit back, relax and smile a bit. And I’m going to walk back in time to relearn the art of smiling.

Very recently a former foreign diplomat cum MP cum minister’s son gave out an interview to an Indian daily. He’s claimed to be one of the well known writer on international affairs on a well known international daily. As a parting shot, he gave a swipe at Indian men wearing moustache which is unusual as per international standards.

Down here in southern parts of India, moustache used to be the ‘symbol of manhood’. During  my boys’ school days we shared tips and tricks on how to ensure thick and lusty growth of moustache. Moustache was for boys, what tits were for girls.

My family had a rich tradition of thick moustaches. My dad, uncles etc were symbols of manliness (in terms of moustache). I admired their well kept and thick moustaches. Keeping up with the genes I had the first wisp of hairy growth among my peers. I was looked upon with awe and admiration. Someone suggested shaving can trigger a thicker growth. I went and asked Dad for a razor. I don’t know what prompted Dad to go beserk & i never asked again.

All the superstar actors in Malayalam wore their mundu and twirled their moustaches on seeing the villains. I dreamt of a day when I will chase away the bad guys after twirling the moustache and delivering a few fiery dialogues. Besides the Indian cricket stars too spotted moustaches. Even though they lagged at bottom of the table and never won anything outside the country, they did whip up enough passion on TV screen.

 The fall back of studying at a boys school was we never knew what girls thought on our symbol of manliness. We believed they would swoon over us the moment they see us. The belief was dashed to smithereens on reading a Sushmita Sen interview. She was the hot girl back then. Someone asked her on the link up with Nagarjuna. She laughed it off and replied ‘ I can’t kiss a man with moustache. It makes you tickle!!’ That was something i never thought of.

Soon the Saurav Ganguly era started in Indian cricket. His stylish footwork and majestic off drives were a beauty to watch. Unlike the seniors he whipped up passion on and off the pitch. He never wore the thick moustaches. He preferred the thin, soft one. Soon I became a fan of it. It gave you a look of adolescence. I decided not to shave my moustache so as to stunt the thick growth. Meanwhile I fell in love with Roberto Baggio’s thin one and tried it out. Then came Veeru Mandi from Kamal Hassan & i wore it for sometime. I was a source of amusement but I loved it.

Slowly the Hindi film industry brought out a new change in the way men looked. Hrithik Roshan swept off half the country off the feet and left the other half burning with envy. Soon men started waxing their chest , shaved off their facial hair, wore skin tight jeans & tank tops. They hit the gym and sculpted up the body.

South India was the last foothold for the moustache loving men. But it didn’t take long to give way to clean shaven men. New heroes appeared on screen without any moustache. We all tried to dub them as too effeminate and flash in the pan. But it couldn’t keep the box office coffers from ringing.

Meanwhile Mohd Azharuddin was unceremoniously thrown out of the team. Soon Ganguly took over. He decided to give the team a new spirit and passion to win. Apparently as part of an image makeover, everyone shaved off their moustache. Yea imagine, Kumble too. To make it worse india became a team to beat.

One fine morning i woke up and looked at the mirror. The college days were over. I was still single and no girl had fallen for my external symbol of manhood. I would be joining an MNC in a couple of weeks. Besides I felt it’s taking awful lot of time to groom the moustache. So complying with international standards I took a razor and shaved it off.

Soon I was flooded with love letters ( Well that is a figment of my imagination. Sigh)

Afternote: One day we noticed Dad running around with a funny expression. To our utter horror, he shaved off his moustache. Mom went hysterical. Me and Bro had a great kaugh. He realized it was a mistake and sat at home for a week, until it started coming back. But today he wears it thin more as a stubble!!

Extinction of Samosa

So I go to the juice shop next door early morning. It has been a practice for years. The sweet mango shake and spicy samosa- an odd combination with morning collection of newspapers. But today there seemed to be no samosa. I waited for sometime to see if it is going to arrive.

In the end I asked him, ‘Where’s the samosa , chetta?’

“ We can’t no longer afford it’. The same old story of cooking gas cylinder. My heart sank. Ever since the Indian government found out that the mango man is eating too much of cooked food local delicacies are disappearing from the shelves. No one can any longer afford them, it seems.

Still, we get to see all those junk stuff wrapped in attractive colours adorning the shelves. Not so long ago, say 12-13 years ago, we never considered biscuits as a snack.  It was an insult to serve the guests with biscuits. But today you get so many varieties of biscuits that are so attractive and delicious. Call it development? I don’t know. 

Similarly we have been taught to believe that bottled soda water is safer than wayside lemon juice shop. Over the years, they have disappeared of the shelves. At the height of thirst you’re forced to drink the colored soda water at horrible prices. 

Just the other day i was reading on how our food habits have changed dramatically. A food culture started off, glorifying local cuisines and posh hotels. Movies are made based on food. Cookery shows top the chart in TV shows. The result is we have more and more fancy , crowded eat-outs. The cooking habit totally disappeared. A few years ago it indicated serious dysfunctionality when you went out for a family dinner.

I remember grumbling about not having tasted ‘hamburger’. Over the years I did taste many hamburger, noodles, hot-dogs. But given a choice I would prefer a simple home cooked meal.