Reflections through my lens

The headline caught your attention didn’t it? Well, that is  why the male protagonist in a popular Indian TV soap was screaming these words at the top of his lungs at the female protagonist. I do follow TV soaps occasionally to keep myself abreast as they are great social conversation starters when I find myself out of words  in specific settings and I continue to be awed by how much they impact the way people think.   Disclaimers – if you have never watched an Indian Balaji telefilms soap or if you do not think that television soaps impact and reflect the social mindset, this may not be for you. When Indian television launched daily soaps, Ekta Kapoor revolutionized it by giving us the typical Indian Bahu who wore the mangal sutra like a medallion around her neck and retired to bed every night in all her finery. An excessively regressive portrayal of an Indian household where under the garb of sanskaars – everyone was adulterous, jealo...

“Who Stole Delhi’s Winter?” Saw this snippet in the newspaper this morning and couldn’t help smiling at it. Exactly what's been going on in my mind.  Winter is my favorite part of living in Delhi and the deprivation of some of the much awaited experiences is definitely being felt  . So you are wondering what the big deal is. What do winters in Delhi mean?    To start with, it is our favorite fashion season. Big or small, dark or fair, tall or short, with the fancy jackets, turtlenecks, scarves, tweeds, the chillier it gets, the more we layer up in style. The only appreciative statement that I have heard from a Mumbaikar for Delhi is- “everyone in Delhi dresses up so well in winters.” While most people will relate to their mom’s staple question in this season – “beta sweater pehna hai ki nahin” it’s not just the ‘sweater’ - we have a full winter wardrobe. And if you have been to college in Delhi, you will surely have a knitted cap a...

“100% success – download kundali matching app now” says an sms that I received this morning. It’s the marriage season again and even though we are in the twenty first century, the kundali matching business continues to flourish in this season. It has definitely become more technical with computerized kundalis made in seconds and reports being available online. There are mobile apps for this as well.   As per a UNICEF study 2 years back, 90% of marriages in India are arranged. Most of the hindu arranged marriages begin with the kundali matching as the first step as this system is considered the perfect way to predict a successful marriage. We can accordingly imagine the magnitude of the kundali matching industry. The kundali matching often leads to discovery a lot of doshas (ill effects of star placement) and pandits make a lot of money helping people going through ceremonies to get rid of these doshas.    For the uninitiated, please refer to the description of gun m...

The cleaning lady wanted me to fill some forms for her so that she could get an identity card for working in the apartment. She gave me her voter’s card and asked me to copy details from it. Slightly bewildered, I looked at the card twice. Her name on it said R….a Bewa. “Bewa” means widow in Urdu and I found it odd  for someone to have a family name like that. When I asked her she told me that her husband passed away a few years back and since then in all the official documents her surname is written as Bewa. When he was alive she used to write her name as R…a Bibi. I was stunned. It was a tragic reflection of marital status overshadowing a woman’s identity. After the initial shock, I brushed it off as something that perhaps still resides in a certain economic strata. After all, the women around me have moved on from the evident stamps of wearing a chooda, sindoor and bichuwa to declare their marital status to the world. They don’t even change their surnames after marriage...

Last week I went to watch a movie with my mum and while coming out she needed some help to walk down the slope. A young man standing next to her noticed her extending her hand to seek support and kindly held her hand and helped her get down the slope amongst the jostling crowd.   A friend recently posted on FB that she was proud of her husband helping someone who had a heart attack in a restaurant where they were dining. Few years back, we were in a multi - storey building when an earthquake struck and as we rushed down, we were surprised to be one of the only two families who had brought our pet dog down along with us. The rest had left their pets behind. What’s so special about these incidents that make them worth mentioning?   These are simple acts of compassion that are waning away from our lives. Stand in front of the elevator of a mall on a busy weekend and you will see people pushing each other without even considering if there is an elderly person, a wom...

Yesterday, a friend’s facebook status talked about her turning into a paranoid parent who is afraid to trust anyone. This was a reaction to the news of a 4 year old being raped by her school bus conductor. I could not agree with her more. Every morning, the plethora of murders, rapes and robberies reported only adds to the fear. There is a lot of discussion in the last month on why do people not stop on the road to help victims. Is it just because of the fear of going to the police? Or is it a much deeper rooted fear of our own safety when we see someone trying to stop the car on the road as a result of the repeated stories we have heard of people being stopped on the road on the pretext of an accident or a person in need of help and then being robbed or killed. “Keep the car door locked, do not open the window even if someone knocks”, most of us would have received and given this advice to our near and dear ones.   Around 3 years ago, while driving my cousin to her exam c...

Film buffs are ditching long queues at the cinema to watch movies online. This continues to be debated in India due to internet bandwidth issues and online piracy. But is it just that which still makes 28% of Indian adults go to the cinema halls*? Beyond the Dolby digital effects, there is more to the experience of going to watch movies in theatres. “Which is the latest movie that you have seen?” From status updates on social networking sites to the opening  conversation when boy meets girl for the first time, movies continue to bridge the gap of lack of information to build a connection. Other than posting pictures of holidays, the next active thing that most dormant FB users do is post their views on the latest movies they have seen. And of course this comes with the assumption that they watched this movie in the theatre. Who cares about what people have been watching on Tata Sky showcase or have been downloading from the net? Be it...

News headlines and ad campaigns like “Prolonged use of social networking sites makes people unhealthy”, “Hamaare zamaane mein log facebook pe nahin, face to face baatein karte they”, or closer to home, my aunt complaining “nowadays I get to know about you only from my daughter through your facebook updates” are just examples of the widespread notion that social networking sites are making people unhealthy and unsocial. I belong to the so called “facebook” generation (disclaimer – I may use the term facebook here as a general reference to social networking) and I just don’t seem to be getting tired of it. While there is a lot of research published on the advantages/disadvantages of social networking, as a user, what is it that I love so much about it to make me login every day? I recently read in the newspaper that people get a sense of depression and lesser happiness in their own life as they see smiling faces of their friends on social networking sites. Isn’t jealousy inh...

“How long have you been here?” This is a common introductory question that people ask. My response has typically been “a few years” which leads to a surprised “you seem to be pretty settled” comment often followed by an advice or a question like “X is a wonderful place to stay, my cousin loves it” or “My friend had a big problem in Y city, didn’t you face this issue?” The conversation typically ends with “do you plan to settle here forever?” Is there a place to settle forever? Is there one place that addresses our changing priorities over time? Why do people from the same background experience the same place differently? As a small kid when my parents decided to move from a big city in eastern India to a smaller one in the northern part of the country, I was excited. What made a difference to me then was that there would be a lot of cousins and we would all go the same school. For those teenage years there couldn’t have been a better place to settle in. We had relatives around, ...

She came into our lives just when I was about to start college. I came to know right before boarding the train to Delhi for a college entrance exam. I was ecstatic. She would probably be like a younger sibling. It was just that I was going away for studies and would not get to spend time with her. That was the catch. Since she was the only one at home with my parents, she soon assumed that they were exclusively for her. Everyone else was just a guest in her scheme of things till my brother moved back in. That was perhaps her first insight into having to share with someone. I was still away and for the first few years she at times gave me signals that she didn’t like me around my parents too much! The memory of those expressions still makes me smile. Its only when she moved to Delhi with them that she began to accept me as a part of “her“family. She was extremely intelligent, sophisticated and quite amusing. 10 p.m was bed time for her though like a responsible fam...

“I wonder what do you do on weekends?” This is probably the most common question I have faced after “Which movies did you see recently?” Others that follow are: “Don’t you get bored living on your own; do you have a big gang of friends to hang around with?” Of course the assumption here is that single people living on their own really have all the time in the world and therefore the question around how can we possibly find something meaningful to do with ourselves. It’s not just about asking these questions, single people can also be taken for granted in line with the same assumption. Last moment invitations like -“We are having a get together tomorrow- you have to come, anyways what would you be doing?” Of course I could, just that it is a Wednesday, right in the middle of a hectic week and I need some heads up to plan my evening calls so that I can make it to your place. And then there are last minute cancellations- “hey, we had planned to meet since last week, but something else...

“Maximum accidents happen due to jumping traffic signals”, “Road rage on the rise”. As the New Year celebrations approach, the newspapers will be full of such stats. Reading them makes one feel that people who drive cars are the biggest evil on the roads. Of all the millions of car drivers, not all are drunk and rowdy. What makes the prim and proper executive rash on the road? What incites the presumably over cautious moms, uncles, grandpas to become aggressive behind the wheel? Doesn’t take much to figure out. We have a rage inciting environment all round us. Poor road infrastructure : In most cities of India, the roads are not prepared to handle the traffic. Road repairs happen during peak traffic hours. Flyovers are constructed when the roads become a dense jungle of vehicles and the construction itself contributes to the traffic. 4 lane roads culminate into a single lane bridge. One vehicle breaks down and blocks the way due to which hundreds of people get stranded in the traffic...

Travel time again- pack your bags, check everything, lock the house. All the signs of travel anxiety begin to crop up as soon as I sit in the cab for the airport. The journey mostly turns out to be an impersonal experience. Am lucky if I manage to speak a few words to other people in the check-in queue, otherwise it’s the mundane routine 1 hour of waiting at the airport with a cup of cappuccino and my phone. As I started on another one of these mundane flights, it made me go back a few years when even the journey was an experience in itself. Flights were either a luxury or used if travelling in emergency. Low cost airlines had not flooded the market and the trains were the preferred mode of travel. We used to prepare ourselves for the journey with an extra bag comprising of air pillows, bed sheets, food for the way packed by mom (the ubiquitous poori sabji and pickle being the staple meal for most passengers). The railway station in itself was an experience. The “station wali chai”...

Had seen this movie a long time back where Rehaan Engineer played a hairdresser who could read people’s thoughts while cutting their hair. I had found it brilliant, especially since I do find a haircut to be my most stress relieving experience. When the scissors snip through those tresses, it feels that they are doing away with those unwanted, unnecessary baggage of thoughts. To most people I know, the salon is a place where women go and splurge hard earned money. Haven’t you heard someone comment “You spent 1000 bucks on a facial, what’s the difference?” While that is a really mean comment, I know a lot of women who have been subjected to it sometime or the other. Of course, these days gold facials are the ‘in thing’ at men’s salons too, but we’ll let them be for now. The point here is that the salon for women is much more than a beautifying experience. It gives us a sense of royalty, individuality, community and of course the most obvious, relaxation. The salon experience ...

A series of surgeries amongst family and friends and a recent self experience opened my eyes to the new face of medical facilities in India. Gone are the days of dreary hospital stays. Circa 2010, the multi-specialty private hospitals have transformed hospitalization into an uber-cool experience with their state of the art facilities. My earlier experience of hospital visits used to be to the big city hospitals such as AIIMS, Safdarjung, Manipal, BHU and so on. Entering into the huge facility teeming with people, figuring out the departments, the typical hospital smells and the sight of illness all around were enough to make one reel in exhaustion. But in the modern private hospitals, relationship managers usher you around the air-conditioned lobbies as counselors explain the various “packages” ranging from economy ( read general ward) to deluxe ( read private ward) to the suites. All kinds of luxuries are available based on the size of your pocket. The rooms are not only equipped wit...

I’ve often wondered that if there is life after death and if we do get to meet some of the folks from our lives even after we are gone, who are the ones that I would like to meet. Of course there is a long list of family and friends; there are 500+ people in my business and social online networks. When I ask others, for most people, the spouse would top the list. While this is not an excerpt from the famous work of Mitch Albom, asking this question to myself just helped me be cognizant of those relationships in life that deserve to be invested in forever yet have been lost in the layers of a busy lifestyle, distance or maybe just a “Can’t care so much” attitude. For the current discussion, I would skip the popular choices and focus on some other not so apparent relationships that make all the difference. The Parents: You must be thinking why I included Parents here because they should also be part of the popular list. I did it because they are the most taken for granted. The one r...