Swings & Roundabouts

Some time back, I volunteered for a couple of hours at P’s school. Being a typical under-funded organization, the school normally asks the parents for any sort of help they can give to assist in the smooth running of it. Parents are regularly urged to devote some of their free time in counting vouchers or peeling carrots or do any one of its zillion jobs. Feeling quite self-righteous, I rolled up the driveway earlier that morning and presented myself for an hour and half worth of odd jobs. I was promptly given a form that will help me undergo CRB clearance – the UK’s standard check for anyone working with children or confidential data. Not only were they looking at a gift horse in the mouth, they were making sure the vet got a good look at it before they let it in!

Quite right, too.

As always, things of this sort make me wonder about the state of affairs at the homeland. Earlier this summer, whilst enjoying the parents’ hospitality in the maternal home, I was shocked to hear about the girl who got assaulted at school. This grim incident happened at the Kendriya Vidyalaya school, Ashok Nagar, Chennai. Apparently, a seven-year old girl had been sexually assaulted in the school premises by one of the school’s laboratory technicians. What’s more, it was alleged that one of the teachers played a role in luring this child to her molester. As if this wasn’t enough, it was rumoured that the parents of this child were cautioned not to approach the police in this regard or else. When other parents came to know of this, they apparently blew the whilstle on the matter and called in the cops.

Of course the school denied every single thing and the investigation was still going on when I returned from my trip. But everyone I spoke to on this subject stated that the rapist will get away with a minor sentence and will shrug it off soon enough. What a disgrace if that happened! If that is the maximum punishment for a heinous crime such as this, then it is no wonder it is not enough of a deterrant to others thinking of doing the same thing!

A child of seven, I ask you! My son is five and I can only recoil in horror at the implications of this. We trust our children to be safe and sound when we send them to schools and as such, have every right to believe the school would make sure our children can come to know harm. So why is it that news of this incident doesn’t seem to surprise most parents? Isn’t it a truly dreadful state of affairs when nothing shocks us anymore?

So what is to be done to ensure the safety of our children? And more importantly, why is it that they don’t merit more stringent measures to keep them safe? Don’t our young don’t warrant any serious protection? Or is it a case of ‘there’s plenty more of them so let’s not fret too much’?

As published in Desicritics.org

First there was Blue Peter; then there was the GMTV fiasco; now there are rumours of X-Factor going down the same ‘match fixing’ route. All of this is making me wonder: is this the beginning of the end of Reality TV?

Earlier this year, the presenters of popular children’s programme Blue Peter went on air and shattered a few thousand kiddie hearts when they said they had “faked the winner of a phone-in competition.” Apparently, a technical glitch came up after a phone-in competition was announced and one of the production crew decided to save the day by having one of the girls who was visiting the BBC studios that day to ‘ring’ the programme. This girl pretended to be a caller from London and was then declared the winner.

When the whistle was blown on this operation, everyone right from BBC Children’s Controller to the presenters, apologised for this mess. But the deed was done.

But this was baby stuff compared to what happened over at ITV’s popular morning show, GMTV. From 2003 right until the time the deception came to light in 2007, the show had raked in £20 million or thereabouts, thanks to some fake phone-in contests.

A contestant for these phone-ins has to pay the premium rate, which could be around £1 per minute, with calls lasting upto 3 minutes or so. According to reports, around 62 million good people phoned in on the premium numbers, hoping to win some easy money. Add the figures and you get a rather neat sum. Of course, when the news broke, the presenters greeted the outraged Brit public with suitably apologetic faces and GMTV was fined a paltry £2 mil.

Now rumours have started circling that top dog of reality tv programmes, X-factor. The latest instalment is supposedly rigged. Or so ‘they’ say. Fans of the programme would remember that last year, contestant Ben Miller walked off in a huff (only to return a few winks later) amidst allegations of ‘fixing’. So what is different about this latest season’s offering? Apparently the rigging is being carried out on a much larger scale than ever. When some of the groups turned up for their audition wearing identical gold dresses, it raised more than a few eyebrows. Attendees of the boot camp are crying foul to the media that the finalists have been ear-marked already and it is all a giant charade. Sour grapes? Or the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Even Nigella seems to be faking it. Cognescenti has it that her show is a giant charade: the buses she takes for her shopping jaunts around London are all specially hired for the show, with the ‘passengers’ thrown in. The kitchen where she dishes her new recipes is not her ‘real’ kitchen, but a studio one, situated on an industrial estate in Battersea. Even the ‘friends’ for whom she cooks for are not her ‘real’ friends but ‘invited guests’, most of whom have never clapped their eyes on the culinary queen.

All of which boils down to, surprise surprise, is that reality tv ain’t no ‘real’ after all. Programmes that are supposedly shot ‘live’ turn out to be recorded ones (like BBC’s Saturday Kitchen) or have fake winners or worse. With all the rigging that seems to be going round, why are the public still falling for the whole charade? Personally, I’d rather watch a good pot-boiler or a gripping drama anyday, than a bunch of losers in a glass house, fart, burp, bitch and air their vacuous thoughts dall day long. So I say, it is time to get off the so-called reality television and get on with real lives.

Failing that, you could always live vicariously through Heroes.

As published in Desicritics.org

I came across this website entirely by accident and decided to blog about it straightaway. What a fantastic concept! Enough has been written about the state of the Chennai roads that it needs no clarification. Anyone who has experienced the bouncy, roller-coaster aspect of it has cribbed, complained and of course, blogged about it in great detail.

Anyone who has been to these areas know that they are a delight to any conoisseur of pot holes and crossing it is an unforgettable memory. For an encore, they took on the Tiruvanmiyur area and what is impressive about this outing is, their band of merry men and women swelled from 18 for the first campaign to an impressive 43!

They are now gearing up for their hat-trick performance, to be held in October.

It is the little things that make a difference and these three are proving it every month. Every Chennaivasi worth his/her salt has complained about the crappy state of the roads and the profusion of pot holes. Not one of them – local government included – has done anything about it. Now, these three are making a difference and what’s more, are giving the armchair moaner a tailormade oppurtunity to make one too. You can be a doer and join them in fixing the roads; or let them know of the geographical location of a pothole near you; you can even form a parallel group like theirs, with their help or if you are a lazy sod like me, you can donate to their cause. Easy peasy!

So, what are you doing this October 14th? Give them a shout if you are keen to make a difference. 

Now, how can I resist this?

One of the biggest things I miss here in firang-land are the desi flowers – y’know, jasmine and its sisters that are strung up on a piece of string to adorn your lovely tresses. I absolutely love having flowers in my hair and long for it whenever I wear saree (once in a blue moon event!) here. And I kick myself for all the times my gran used to ask me “shall I get you some flowers?” and I had replied in the negative because I was wearing jeans. (Jeans means no bindi, no flowers – Ethiraj College rule)

So this time when I was in Madras, I never said “no” when my gran asked her favourite question. What’s more, I even took a pic of a flower stall to remind me of what I am missing!

What do they call people like me? Oh yeah, glutton for punishment!

I had done a post a while back about the art of gifting. After reading a series of posts on good gifts and bad ones, I am tempted to write once more on this subject. Like the writer of one of the posts I read states, giving a bad gift is as good as insulting them. Why bother getting something crappy and foisting it on some poor unsuspecting folk when you don’t really give a shit?

Last year, P got gifted this rather beautiful richly worked pyjama-kurta for his birthday by couple of S’s cousins. I was real pleased cos 1. I really like to deck P in such traditional stuff 2. it also told me they were thinking of him when they were in the motherland. But the pleasure lasted all of 10 seconds – about the time it took me to take the outfit out of the packet and shake it loose. It was a good two sizes too small for P. The pyjama came barely upto his knees! While getting the wrong size is a fairly normal mistake to make, the reason it irked me was the cousin’s child was the same age and almost the same height as P. Couldn’t they have just held it against their own child to make sure it was the correct size before buying it? I put it away the next minute, to give to my cousin who, being two years younger than P, would be able to wear the outfit easily.

Whilst in India, I noticed that the concept of ‘gifting’ has got worse. This is much more in force in S’s side of the family, what with regular visits being taken as occasions of gifting. These are not regular run-of-the-mill stuff – they are normally the latest dustcatcher to hit the Parrys market, be it a kitchen tidy or a showcase item. First thing that is generally bandied upon is the cost of the said gift. Now that is a big turn-off for me – asking / stating the price of a ‘gift’ as you pass it on. Why would you want to do that? Gifts are priceless, in my opinion, for they carry the special thoughts and feelings the ‘gifter’ has for the ‘giftee’. The minute you put a price tag on it, then the only thing on the mind of the giftee and anyone else in the vicinity would be if the item was worth that amount and where one can get it cheaper, thus destroying the whole beauty of the process.

This is why I like the idea of gifting experiences, courtesy sites like Buyagift.co.uk. Knowing the personality of the ‘giftee’, one can get a voucher for bungee jumping or white water rafting or super car driving. The resulting experience would be remembered for a long, long time, making it a most wonderful gift. I have got S many such vouchers – 30 mins flying lesson, go-karting and the latest, 3 laps in his favourite car in a race course of his choice and every time, he has come back with an adrenaline rush rivalling that of a championsip winner!

When I quit my job couple of months back, my team got together and gave me a number of gifts – Amazon vouchers (which are extremely useful as I am going to be a student and as such need all the monetary help I can get!), High Street vouchers (again, useful for a student to top up on clothes etc), my favourite chocolates, some glittery girly stuff from an exclusive jewels store nearby, a bunch of gorgeous looking flowers and my personal favourite, two framed photos. One was a pic of P and me, taken for a work photo shoot, of which I did not have a copy and as such love it; the other one was a pic of my whole team. This was the best gift of the lot as every single one of them HATES having their picture taken and every time I had tried to in the past, I had met with a near-hijab clad lot. To see them all voluntarily posing for a photo, in my book, is the bestest gift they could have ever given me! (Moral of the story – the satisfaction one gets from a gift is directly proportional to the thought and effort that has gone into it.)

In the case of children, Premalatha asks a parent’s dilemma: should one organise a gift-free party and deny them the joy of receiving gifts or indulge in the gluttony of it. Birthdays are special and presents occupy a special place in a child’s heart so why take that away from them? I say let’s take the middle path – rather than each child arriving with a present costing £10, it will be better if all the parents pool their resources together and get vouchers from ToysRUs or get a bicycle or something big the birthday child has got his/her heart set on. Of course, this will mean someone has to take the initiative and organise the whole thing but the result would be well worth it.

So, next time you are taken by the urge to get a For The Sake of Gifting gift, either drop the idea or make them, like this blogger did, something delicious you yourself made. Do not get pulled into dumping your free samples on them.

8:00 AM – lazy shuffle to the kitchen, grab a cup of coffee. Sip.

8.05 AM – snatch the morning papers from whoever’s got it. Open eyes.

“Blasts rock Hyderabad” – good morning India.

Why? Wha..? How? To what purpose?

All useless questions.

One humble request to the police and the stellar press photographers, like The Hindu’s Gopal: next time you click your front-page pix of these blast scenes, please think of the term ‘dignity in death’ and cover the dead before you start popping your flash bulbs. I am sure the hearts of the mums who opened Sunday papers to see the fruits of their loins spattered across the Lumbini Park grounds broke afresh on seeing it.

Varalakshmi Vrata is one of the biggest festivals that are celebrated during the Tamil month of Aavani (August – September). This is celebrated mainly by Tamil Iyers as well as Telugu and Kannada speaking folk. Every year, this auspicious day falls on the friday before full moon.

Coming from a hybrid family like I do, I did not have any such festivals to deal with while growing up. But as S is from the Telugu Vysya community that celebrates this vrata regularly, I end up being a part of the celeb whenever I go home to Chennai in August. This year too was no exception. This being my third year of doing it (albeit playing a very minor role), I think I have grasped the nous of this deal.

So here’s how it goes: well before D-day, the pooja vessels are given a rigourous spit and polish so they sit gleaming by the umachi side. On D-1 day, a perfectly oval coconut is given a shave so its sides are smooth like a baby’s bottom. Then the said coconut is given a thorough rub-down with turmeric paste. This forms the main part of the kalasa. The main pooja sombu (pot) is filled with water and this coconut sits on top of it. On a bed of new rice, this kalasa is fixed. Next, an imprint of the Goddess (made of silver) is tied on to the front of the kalasa and this becomes the moorti of the Goddess. Then it is time for one’s creativity to break out – you can deck the kalasa in grand silk skirts, decorate it and the pooja area with flowers and put gold jewellery around the neck of the kalasa.

The next morn, poojas are done to Lord Ganesha and Goddess Lakshmi by the women of the household. Offerings of sweet pongal, kheer, vada and a panchamirdam (roughly, fruit salad) made of nine fruits are given to Lakshmi. Pooja and aarati are done in the evening as well as the morning and evening of the following day, before the whole show is packed up till the following year. The water from the kalasa is poured into the nearby well; the rice is cleaned and used in the day’s cooking and the coconut is cleaned off its turmeric and made into any delicious item that doesn’t involve cooking.

One of the main part of the Varalakshmi vrata pooja is the telling of how the vrata came to be celebrated. Of course, with the whole proceedings generally being conducted in Telugu, much of it is OHT. So this year, I decided to read up on this so I knew what the deal was. And the story*, as I found out, is thus:

Long, long ago, there lived a devotee of Lord Vishnu called King Bathrasiravas, who lived with his Queen Surachandrika and daughter Shyamabala. One day, long after she was married and living in her sasural, Shyamabala landed on her parents’ doorstep to spend some quality time with them.

Then, the good Goddess Mahalakshmi, the giver of wealth, took the form of a poor, bedraggled old lady and entered the Queen’s palace. The old lady told the Queen, who was by herself, to perform the Varalaksmi vrata pooja. But the Queen flew into a rage for having been approached thus by a beggar, slapped the lady and threw her out.

Her daughter saw this and followed the old woman and inquired about the pooja. Then, she performed the pooja with due pomp and ceremony. Thanks to the power of this vrata, more and more gold and money was showered on her. But what of her unfortunate parent, who had chased the Goddess of Wealth away? Just as she threw the old lady away, the Goddess too took leave of Queen Surachandrika and the King and Queen were reduced to being penniless paupers.

A distraught Shyamabala sent over a pot of gold coins to her parents; but the pot turned into ashes the moment they touched it. Upon hearing of this, Shyamabala advised her mother to perform the powerful Varalakshmi Vrata pooja. A humbled Queen Surachandrika did so and lo and behold! all her riches were returned to her and the King and Queen lived happily ever after.

And it is said that whoever performs this pooja with utmost devotion and piety will be blessed with all the wishes one could ask for. If that isn’t incentive enough, I don’t know what is!

* – this has been translated from Tamil, so pardon the mistakes!

Regular readers of my blog know of my desperate attempts to learn to swim. After two terms of learning how to the Brit way and shelling out a whopping £ 95, I still did not feel confident enough to let go of my woggle and the flat floats. Deciding that the Indian brute force approach is the key to jolt me out of my safety zone, I signed up for some swimming lessons locally. (This also had the advantage of providing me with an easy excuse to skive off visits to the Inlaws’ joint, pleading lessons on the morrow and/or fatigue!)

My first view of a swimming pool local to me, i.e, R.A.Puram was shocking, to say the very least. The pool, after my luxurious, 50 meters length leisure centre pool, was a tiddly nothing! Plus, it was a weird L-shaped one, with nary a space for two bodies to float without getting an elbow or a foot in the others’ face. To add to it all, the sight of a patron taking a ‘shower’ by filling a dinky plastic bucket to the brim and upending it made my mind up for me – I beat a hasty retreat before the ‘instructor’ could tell me to shell out the required dough.

A thorough search and several visits later, I found a pool that was just what it was – a swimming pool. Don’t laugh at my description and wonder what else can a pool be. Loads of apartment blocks nowadays boast of a proper pool and in an effort to make it a self-paying option, get hold of an instructor and invite strangers to take a dip in their pool and learn the art of swimming. But a prior experience of such a joint has put me off it for life – the said apartments will all be lined up in a perfect rectangle, around the pool and all the maamis and aunties of the household would just camp out in their balconies in the evenings, looking at the various folks in ill-fitted swimming wear and pass comments regarding the bellies and other assorted parts of the anatomy. As I had no desire to become the evening timepass for the ladies of the nearby buildings, I signed up with this slightly out of the way but ‘what it says on the tin’ swimming pool joint.

One of the first thing I learned when I went to sign up was that the woman’s monthly cycle is a well-known and debated topic. Catching sight of ‘Pool rule #2: LADIES WILL NOT GET INTO THE POOL DURING THEIR MENSTRUAL PERIOD’ shocked the shit out of me. WTF?! I was swiftly brought back to earth by mater hissing something about the non-tamponed desi junta and I politely zipped it, mentally thinking it is no one else’s biz when I bleed.

The next shocker was when I actually went in for my first lesson and caught sight of the bodies floating in the pool – they were all frocked and tight-ed so much so not a bit of their skin was to be seen! Flippin’ ‘eck! Instantly it made me, in my Debenhams swimming cozzie, feel like yesteryear glamour artiste Anuradha, her of the thunder thighs and sleeveless outfits fame. Though I did not relish the walk of shame, I did the same mind trick I do whenever I go in for the ignominious pap smear tests – I pretended I was on a sunny beach somewhere and scooted underwater as soon as humanly possible.

If I thought the gentleman sitting in the corner was the lifeguard, I was wrong – he turned out to be the instructor. He wasted no time in recruiting the girl doing a porpoise routine to show me 1. how to put on the flotation ring 2. how to do the arm movements for breast stroke. S’s fears of the swimming masters getting into the pool to grope the women are unfounded after all!

It was day 4 today – so far, all the women I’ve met in the pool are big; have massive weight problems; have signed onto at least one gym; are desperate to lose weight – whether they are married maamis or college girls. But every single of them gladdened my heart and became free lifetime members of my fan club by going ‘you have a five-year old son? unbelievable! I thought you are a college girl!’

Yeah baby!

[For a complete list of swimming coaching centers available in your local area, check out JustDial.com]

I just finished reading the latest and the last book of J K Rowling’s series. It is still too early to form any sensible opinion about the book but I can confess to feeling sort of anti-climatic. Not the way she has ended it though parts of it will not sink till I read it at a much slower pace next time. More about the fact that this is it – no more Harry, no more adventures, no more save the world capers.

Though I do not think I will need grievance counsellors like some kids around the world, like most of Muggle-dom, I do experience a sense of ‘whoa! It has ended!’ Am I surprised with the way the book ended? Not really. Am I shocked with some of the explanations? Hmmm, may be. Was I happy to part with 8.99 pounds? Hell yeah!

But am I the only one who feels that the title doesn’t really fit the bill?