When The Muse Strikes

If you're a Holi lover, you're going to think I'm crazy. But the truth of the matter is that I do not really enjoy Holi.

Way back when I was child living in Kolkata I suppose I must have liked it. I remember preparing the night before - filling tubs with water balloons to chuck at hapless strangers from the safety of the terrace-and always missing! I remember trying to pitch a bucket of water at a 'dada' (generic name of any young-older guy) in the colony, him side stepping adroitly and somehow me getting drenched in the process.

Cut to a few years later, Hyderabad - me studying for my 8th std final exams. I had read somewhere that during exams you should do things to make you happy. So I wanted to wear the new cheese cotton (it was a type of fabric) top my mother had bought for me. It was so pretty, all white with colourful polka dots. I was sure my mood would be very good if I wore it. My mother warned me that it is Holi and wearing white clothes, especially new ones, is not advisable. I told her I wouldn't be stepping out of the house since I would be too busy studying. So there was nothing to worry about. I would regret those words.

About an hour later, the doorbell rang. I peered through the peep hole and saw a bunch of multi coloured colony kids standing outside.

"I've seen you! I'm not coming out". I yelled through the door.

"Please come out didi. We only want to rub some gulal (coloured powder)on your face. We promise - nothing more than that"

Naturally, they didn't mean a word of it. But I, poor sucker, believed them and stepped out. Only for a bucket full of black water to be upended over my head. The cheese cotton top never looked the same again.

A few years on, in college, it was even worse. A total free for all. The boys took full advantage of the opportunity, grabbing the girls and even going so far as to throw them into a mud pit that was created specially for Holi. I was horrified when I heard this. So when a guy friend came around to my hostel asking me to come out and play Holi, I told him off roundly.

As time went on, I became more and more convinced that Holi was really not my festival of choice. Quite the opposite actually. I read stories of how young women in Delhi were harassed in the name of festivities. I even saw a news feature where the female presenter covering Holi became the target of some water balloons.

So Happy Holi everyone. Its not such a big festival where I live these days. Even so, I think I'll just stay put at home and be smart about not answering the doorbell this time.

There is intellectual bankruptcy, moral bankruptcy, spiritual bankruptcy. I thought I would use my 70th post to rant about creative bankruptcy.

Way back when we had only Doordarshan by way of television entertainment, we eagerly waited for the commercials as much as the 'sponsored network programmes'. Some of the ads were so well crafted that I still remember their tag lines. Remember 'Neighbours' Envy, Owners' Pride' and the devil in Onida? Or 'If you have the inclination, we have the time' from HMT? My favourite was the Tata Steel ad with the tag line ' Ispat bhi hum banate hain' (we also make steel). The English versions had these sub tags like 'We make champions....we also make steel' and 'We make the nation's dreams come true....we also make steel'. Made me swell with pride for sure! I found the hindi version on youtube. Take a look:



Some of the commercials were not that great. But the jingles were very catchy. Here's the well known tune from Lifebouy:



What I'm getting at is that the product and the commercial were distinct. There was either a tag line or a jingle which you could immediately associate with the product. And it was total recall after that. Look at me, its been nearly 2 decades, and I still remember the ads with fondness.

These days, we have only sad excuses for commercials. It seems that creative juices among ad agencies have totally dried up. To the extent that the best they can come up with are stylised remixes of old Bollywood numbers. The worst offender is of course Coca Cola. The last 3 commercials they ran, all had rehashed, remixed Hindi songs. Here they are in no particular order:

The Diwali ad - song ripped off: Jaata Kahan Hai Diwane (Movie: CID)


The Invisible Bottle - song ripped off: Tum Jo Mil Gaye Ho (Movie: Hanste Zakham)



The Shadow ad - song ripped off: Aaj Ki Raat (Movie: Anamika)



The Brrr Commercial - song ripped off: Yeh Ladka Zara Sa (Movie: Love Story)



Not to put Coca Cola too much in the dock, here's another, from Moods Condoms. This one is really dreadful. The original from the movie Amar Prem is a Kishore Kumar classic. Rajesh Khanna brings out rueful disillusionment and acceptance of heartbreak so beautifully. And to use it in a condom ad?! Is there a correlation there?



Seriously! Is creativity dead? Back in my day - the pre mobile, pre internet and pre satellite tv days - we could put together better commercials in an event called 'Ad Zap' at college festivals! And we weren't even studying advertising.

Viewer / customer tastes have changed no doubt. And people's attention spans have shrunk. Maybe it is just that ad agencies think viewers' tastes have sunk so low that only some Bollywood connection can revive it. What a tragedy. Think of the joy of the Hamara Bajaj commercial and compare it to the hermaphrodite type model of the Aaj Ki Raat Coke commercial. Sigh! What a fall there has been my countrymen.

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, I've been reminiscing about love and relationships. Not to say that I've had much of a chequered past. I was your basic wall flower with friends who were streets ahead of me in the 'attracting-the-opposite-sex' department. I did give away my heart on a modest scale though.


The very first time it happened,I must have been around 10 years old, when I first set eyes on Rahul Gandhi. It was at Indira Gandhi's funeral - no I wasn't present in person, I saw it on TV and promptly lost my heart! He was C-U-T-E! And having grown to manhood now, he has totally fulfilled the promise of beauty seen in childhood. I was pretty sure I would grow up and marry him one day. Fate would surely find a way to throw us in each other's paths. But then I got busy with school, studies, friends and extra curricular activities and poor Rahul was put on the back burner.

Years later, I was all ready to fall in love again. Considering Fate had taken Rahul Gandhi far out of my reach by then, I had no choice but to look closer to home. So I handed over my eager heart to the next handsome face. And what a handsome face it was! Only problem was the handsome face didn't really notice me. So I proceeded to do some really idiotic stuff - like writing a love letter - which I regretted writing immediately after I posted it (or did I send it by courier? I forget). I was relieved when there was total silence at the receiving end. But my friends would have none of this 'Silence' nonsense.

'You've got to ask him what his answer is!' Err....wasn't the silence speaking loud enough?

'No. No. Maybe he's feeling shy. Or waiting for you to make the move' I did make a move. I wrote a letter didn't I?!!

Dragging me kicking to the phone booth (those days mobiles were not so common) they forced me to make that call. And naturally, I got the expected answer - Sorry!

'Thank God!' I said to myself, but made a big production out of having having my heart broken.

'I shall never love again'!! Even my friends did not believe that one.

I never had the courage to speak of these things earlier. I guess it made me feel vulnerable. But I can do so now, and smile about it and share it with the world at large. And, as I have been assured by my well meaning friends, my tentative forays into the world of love, were tepid at best. Considering the heartbreak I have seen my friends go through, I must thank God for unanswered prayers. Because that has guided me to my true north!

I traveled this week to Bhubaneswar. At the end of a long day, I checked into this nice little hotel, looking forward to some quiet and rest. After filling out the register, I turn and accompanied the attendant who was carrying my luggage. As I neared the lift, another attendant, offered me a glass on a tray. I took it gratefully, eager to quench my thirst....and experienced an assault on my tongue! The clear liquid I had mistaken as water, was actually Sprite. The colleague who accompanied me burst out laughing and then explained that she had done the same thing a split second before me. By the time she turned to warn me, I had already drunk the liquid.

Well, next time, I will surely be more alert and careful about mistaking clear liquids to be water!!

******

Sometime back, I was on an Indigo flight to Kolkata. Usually I am engrossed in trying to deal with my fear of flying and do not pay much attention to those around me. But this flight was a smooth, turbulence free one. So I cast a look around and took in the co-passengers, the condition of the aircraft (pretty good. Good show Indigo!) and then finally rested on a pretty flight attendant. Short hair, framing her face in page boy haircut. Nice hair cut I thought. Won't suit everybody though. Then another flight attendant came upto this one and was talking to her. Then another walked by with the food cart.

That's when I realised with a start, that they all had the exact same hair style. Same short hair, page boy hair cut. And it looked terribly odd and artificial. Poor things, I thought. Forced to cut their hair for the job. Not fair.

Then I took a second look. The hair was not real. It was obviously a wig! Dreadful!

Thank god I wasn't in a profession that required me to cut my hair in a standard style and (worse), wear a wig!!

Have you seen the commercial for 'Community Matrimony' dot com thats being aired across the channels these days? Have a look:

It is wrong on so many levels!

Daughter is going around with a guy that sports long hair. And automatically that's the bad guy? Candidates for marriage - girl or boy - should adhere to certain stereotypes in order to make "good marriages". What about those that do not fit stereotypes? Do they have no chance at marriage without conforming?

Then the whole approach to marriage. The family shown in the commercial seems to be educated and upper middle class. And yet they depend upon the 'community temple' and 'community astrologer' to find a groom for their daughter. Six decades of independence and a decade into the 21st century and we still use mumbo jumbo to find life partners.

Then the most objectionable part of this commercial is the over emphasis on 'community'. It is just a euphemism for 'caste', the deep rooted malady we are yet to shake off. For the most part, people still do not marry across caste lines in India. Note the honour killings taking place in North India when couples dare to exercise their choice.

What does one do when the all knowing 'market' decides to turn a social evil into a business opportunity? Is regulation the answer? How does one address the social attitudes that have allowed space for such unbridled opportunism? We need to take a stand as a society or risk reversing the tiny steps we have taken towards progressive and liberal thinking.

Many years ago, a woman was born to a middle class family. Her parents believed in the power of education. And encouraged her to learn, expand her mind and reach for the skies. They gave her a liberal education, at a time when doing a simple graduation and getting married, was all that was expected of daughters in her community.So she grabbed the opportunities presented to her and chased after her dreams. Some proved elusive, others were within reach.

Then, as she stood at the threshold of thirty, the walls started closing in. The M word began to intrude into her otherwise orderly world. 'Why aren't you married?', 'Are you supporting your parents financially? Is that why they are not getting you married?' The questions infuriated her. At first she deflected them. With aggression, logic and later evasion. Then,under the covert, but relentless pressure, she began to shrink into herself.

And so it might have been till she met him. A good and decent man. So she crossed that milestone and got married. Love was in the air and everything seemed good.

Then the walls started closing in again - the expectation to conform. And the confusion and veiled reproach when she didn't.

"You don't know how to draw a kolam(rangoli)!" . She restrained herself from sharply retorting " No. But I do know how to stand on my own feet and be financially independent. Do you know how to do that?"

"When are you going to give us some good news?". She wanted to ask " what good news do you want? I just got a promotion. We bought a house. His cholesterol levels are under control. Take your pick"

"Still no kids? Have you consulted a doctor?" She couldn't stop her tears in the face of this blatant intrusion.

"My sister's dying wish was to have a grandchild." How was she to deal with such emotional blackmail? Her back, her spirit even, was likely to crumble under the weight of this expectation.

"Nobody asks you!" she ranted at him. "Am I expected to make a baby alone?". He did his best to shield her. But it was not always possible to prevent people from riding roughshod over her vulnerability, leaving her exposed.

What was she to do? In her mind she knew that one could not live one's life to please others. Hell, this was the advice she had handed out to many friends when they sought her counsel. But saying it and living it were different things.

Its true, there was price to be paid for wanting to live your life on your own terms.