Thursday, May 28, 2009
Attacks in australia on indian students
As per news reports, four students have been attacked and one is battling for his life. But I am aghast at the response of Indians there who, if asked to protest against the attacks, may come up with excuses like “We are here to study”, “You can’t help it, this is part and parcel of life here” and “We must avoid getting into confrontation”. If Mahatma Gandhi had thought along similar lines, he would not have been the Father of the Nation. These Indian students did not go there uninvited. The Australian government invited them. But now they are bearing the brunt of being brown in the white man’s land. I am not saying these students should start fighting. But they must protest. Can you imagine how it must feel to be insecure in a foreign land, thousands of miles away from home? Hope some of them muster the courage to protest and that this ordeal ends as soon as possible.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Licentious Proposal
Let me familiarise you with this species of my community. The Sindhi Aunty lurks in weddings, temple meetings and third cousin gatherings, sniffing for fresh, young and unmarried Sindhi blood. She picks her prey after a regimented interrogation of the victim’s relatives. She extracts their age with the subtle “my god, she has grown so much…she was only a baby when I last saw her”, their occupation with the clever “I heard she’s doing very well for herself”, and their marital status with the blatant “So, have you started looking for boys yet?”
Once The Aunty gets all the vital statistics, she uses the most important weapon in her arsenal – the telephone. She constantly networks with her ‘clients’ - desperate mummies with single sons and daughters – and appeases them with oral resumes of newfound prey. She then follows up with all concerned parties, pushing her propaganda of “once they get older, they won’t get such a good proposal.” (According to The Aunty, girls beyond the age of 25 turn into old hags unworthy of suitable boys.) F.Y.I, in the Sindhi world, a suitable boy always possesses three essential qualities – good looking (which is often open to interpretation), well settled in the US (generally having an unimaginably boring job such as a data analyst) and from a very good family (whose surname will undoubtedly have a ‘wala’ suffixed to a product/place/trade).
At the ripe marriageable age of 24, I have duly suffered at the hands of The Aunty. Fortunately though, I have incredible parents. My dad doesn’t broach the topic of marriage at all, perhaps because he still thinks of me as ‘nano’ (‘small’ in Gujarati). My mother, having succumbed to persistent Aunties on occasion, approaches the subject rather warily but stops as soon as I give her my prized “don’t-even-think-about-it-look.” As you can tell, I am not a big fan of The Sindhi Aunty and her sneaky agenda.
Recently however, I came across someone who makes The Aunty seem like Santa Claus. A few days ago, I was at the temple to accept condolences for the passing away of a very close relative. At the end of the assembly line of suitably subdued visitors, a lady introduced herself as my mother’s long lost acquaintance. She said the appropriate words of comfort, albeit with a disturbingly beaming smile. I nodded and waited for her to pass by. However, I don’t think she was familiar with the workings of a condolence service, i.e. to say sorry and move on.
She proceeded to enquire about my job and after I told her I work with a ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar and Web Service Provider, she went on to enlighten me with tales about her website routines. She then spoke at great length about her own business, and even handed me her visiting card. I stood there, puffy-eyed and disconsolate; inserting perfunctory aah’s and oh’s while waiting for her to vanish. When I had had just about enough, she played her trump card. “I was wondering whether so and so* has told you about my son. He is a so and so* with so working with so and so* firm. But he’s 30…” she trailed off, looking at me with unbridled hope.
Shell shocked at the woman’s audacity, I managed an incredulous “errrr”. Sensing my discomfort, she hurriedly muttered, “Of course, you must be only 25.” “Actually, I’m 21,” I firmly corrected and looked away. She got the hint and at long last she disappeared. To be honest with you, I pitied her to an extent. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. But to proffer her offspring’s hand in marriage to my face, at a funeral service for heaven’s sake, is unforgivable. The Aunty maybe pesky, but at least she’s got tact. What say?
Once The Aunty gets all the vital statistics, she uses the most important weapon in her arsenal – the telephone. She constantly networks with her ‘clients’ - desperate mummies with single sons and daughters – and appeases them with oral resumes of newfound prey. She then follows up with all concerned parties, pushing her propaganda of “once they get older, they won’t get such a good proposal.” (According to The Aunty, girls beyond the age of 25 turn into old hags unworthy of suitable boys.) F.Y.I, in the Sindhi world, a suitable boy always possesses three essential qualities – good looking (which is often open to interpretation), well settled in the US (generally having an unimaginably boring job such as a data analyst) and from a very good family (whose surname will undoubtedly have a ‘wala’ suffixed to a product/place/trade).
At the ripe marriageable age of 24, I have duly suffered at the hands of The Aunty. Fortunately though, I have incredible parents. My dad doesn’t broach the topic of marriage at all, perhaps because he still thinks of me as ‘nano’ (‘small’ in Gujarati). My mother, having succumbed to persistent Aunties on occasion, approaches the subject rather warily but stops as soon as I give her my prized “don’t-even-think-about-it-look.” As you can tell, I am not a big fan of The Sindhi Aunty and her sneaky agenda.
Recently however, I came across someone who makes The Aunty seem like Santa Claus. A few days ago, I was at the temple to accept condolences for the passing away of a very close relative. At the end of the assembly line of suitably subdued visitors, a lady introduced herself as my mother’s long lost acquaintance. She said the appropriate words of comfort, albeit with a disturbingly beaming smile. I nodded and waited for her to pass by. However, I don’t think she was familiar with the workings of a condolence service, i.e. to say sorry and move on.
She proceeded to enquire about my job and after I told her I work with a ICANN Accredited Domain Registrar and Web Service Provider, she went on to enlighten me with tales about her website routines. She then spoke at great length about her own business, and even handed me her visiting card. I stood there, puffy-eyed and disconsolate; inserting perfunctory aah’s and oh’s while waiting for her to vanish. When I had had just about enough, she played her trump card. “I was wondering whether so and so* has told you about my son. He is a so and so* with so working with so and so* firm. But he’s 30…” she trailed off, looking at me with unbridled hope.
Shell shocked at the woman’s audacity, I managed an incredulous “errrr”. Sensing my discomfort, she hurriedly muttered, “Of course, you must be only 25.” “Actually, I’m 21,” I firmly corrected and looked away. She got the hint and at long last she disappeared. To be honest with you, I pitied her to an extent. Desperate times call for desperate measures and all that. But to proffer her offspring’s hand in marriage to my face, at a funeral service for heaven’s sake, is unforgivable. The Aunty maybe pesky, but at least she’s got tact. What say?
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Could your office make a good book?
A recent post on the Guardian’s books blog asked why, given that we spent so many of our waking hours in the workplace, there aren’t more books set in the office. Of reasonably recent titles, it rightly mentioned Allegra Goodman’s Intuition. And, of course, Joshua Ferris’s acerbic, moving and dazzling debut, Then We Came to the End.Perhaps because it was dealing merely with novels, it didn’t mention The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, the just-published book of narrative non-fiction from Alain de Botton, the man the Observer calls “Britain’s most popular philosopher”.
Botton’s seems to be a remarkable work, and this interview gives you an idea of the sort of research he did for it – and the sort of writer he is. Here is an essay Botton wrote for the New Statesman last week on the new book.
The workplace is a fascinating subject (as anyone who has seen The Office will know), and its something most people can identify with. I wonder why it isn’t at the heart of more contemporary novels.
Is it because a) some full-time writers don’t work in an office; and/or b) the ones who do would rather not and want to only write – presumably about subjects other than the office?
It hasn’t – as the comments on the Guardian blog were very quick to point out – always been like that. There is a sterling roll call of writers, from Charles Dickens to Evelyn Waugh, who have books (at least sort of) based on the workplace.
Why do you think we don’t have as many office novels nowadays? Which ones can you think of that you enjoyed?
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (4 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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Posted by Soumya Bhattacharya on Monday, April 6, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Filed under Books · Tagged Alain de Botton, Allegra Goodman’s Intuition, Joshua Ferris’s acerbic, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Then We Came to the End
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Botton’s seems to be a remarkable work, and this interview gives you an idea of the sort of research he did for it – and the sort of writer he is. Here is an essay Botton wrote for the New Statesman last week on the new book.
The workplace is a fascinating subject (as anyone who has seen The Office will know), and its something most people can identify with. I wonder why it isn’t at the heart of more contemporary novels.
Is it because a) some full-time writers don’t work in an office; and/or b) the ones who do would rather not and want to only write – presumably about subjects other than the office?
It hasn’t – as the comments on the Guardian blog were very quick to point out – always been like that. There is a sterling roll call of writers, from Charles Dickens to Evelyn Waugh, who have books (at least sort of) based on the workplace.
Why do you think we don’t have as many office novels nowadays? Which ones can you think of that you enjoyed?
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (4 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
Loading ... Loading ...
Posted by Soumya Bhattacharya on Monday, April 6, 2009 at 7:14 pm
Filed under Books · Tagged Alain de Botton, Allegra Goodman’s Intuition, Joshua Ferris’s acerbic, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Then We Came to the End
Bookmark
· Comment (RSS) · Trackback
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Who sets the agenda? Neta or the Janata?
When this election season started, To the Point said Lalu Prasad and Narendra Modi would be the best orators in the campaign.
At the end of the campaign I am revising my positions substantially.
Lalu Prasad, my all-time favourite as a campaigner, disappointed me completely. His magic was missing. Nitish Kumar turned out to be a shrewd campaigner raising the right issues in the right proportion at the right places in the caste-ridden terrain of Bihar. Outside Gujarat and off his trademark Hindutva, Modi didn’t sound as good. Jayalalitha kept an audience of not less than 50,000 spellbound for nearly an hour on a terribly hot afternoon in Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. Late into one evening last week, I listened to Congress leader P Chidambaram at his hometown Karaikkudi– he swayed the crowd with statistics on government spending in welfare and some rhetoric.
Politicians usually suggest that they take positions that please their voters. But I think good leadership is more about mobilizing public opinion in support of a sensible political line.
M K Azhagiri, son of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi is the DMK candidate in Madurai. At a public meeting, he attacked AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha. “She calls herself Miss. But is she one? She is not married, true. But then….,” he questioned, in some details, Jaya’s right to be addressed Miss and the crowd seemed enjoying and appreciating it all.
Just two hours later and 90 km apart, in Karaikkudi, Chidambaram – who is contesting with the support of DMK – told his gathering something that surprised me. “I have no caste, no religion. In my family there are all religions and castes,” he said and the crowd applauded him. I was surprised that a politician could afford to publicly denounce caste and religion. Even the Marxists in Kerala do not do that.
Listeners of Azhagiri and Chidambaram are roughly from the same socio-political milieu. They appreciated the views of both Chidambaram and Azhagiri.
Who is to blame? The neta or the janata?
At the end of the campaign I am revising my positions substantially.
Lalu Prasad, my all-time favourite as a campaigner, disappointed me completely. His magic was missing. Nitish Kumar turned out to be a shrewd campaigner raising the right issues in the right proportion at the right places in the caste-ridden terrain of Bihar. Outside Gujarat and off his trademark Hindutva, Modi didn’t sound as good. Jayalalitha kept an audience of not less than 50,000 spellbound for nearly an hour on a terribly hot afternoon in Villupuram in Tamil Nadu. Late into one evening last week, I listened to Congress leader P Chidambaram at his hometown Karaikkudi– he swayed the crowd with statistics on government spending in welfare and some rhetoric.
Politicians usually suggest that they take positions that please their voters. But I think good leadership is more about mobilizing public opinion in support of a sensible political line.
M K Azhagiri, son of Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi is the DMK candidate in Madurai. At a public meeting, he attacked AIADMK chief J Jayalalitha. “She calls herself Miss. But is she one? She is not married, true. But then….,” he questioned, in some details, Jaya’s right to be addressed Miss and the crowd seemed enjoying and appreciating it all.
Just two hours later and 90 km apart, in Karaikkudi, Chidambaram – who is contesting with the support of DMK – told his gathering something that surprised me. “I have no caste, no religion. In my family there are all religions and castes,” he said and the crowd applauded him. I was surprised that a politician could afford to publicly denounce caste and religion. Even the Marxists in Kerala do not do that.
Listeners of Azhagiri and Chidambaram are roughly from the same socio-political milieu. They appreciated the views of both Chidambaram and Azhagiri.
Who is to blame? The neta or the janata?
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