Fast Track Novels to Ghajini

There is an article in a newspaper about writers churning out novels in a month. And they going on to become best sellers. I mean, what am I. Verbally challenged? Or brain dead. I cant even think of a decent story-line for a short story!!! When I start writing, I usually make it to 500 odd words. And then I get bored, or hit a wall, or both. I need inspiration, people. Lend me some inspiration.

Like, you know, Ghajini or something. Amir Khan went on record saying that Ghajini is not a remake of Memento. Its a true inspired piece, as the director heard about the concept of Memento and then wrote the whole story without watching the film. Then after finishing the story he watched the original and saw it was quite different. Whatever, who cares. How many of us have watched Memento anyway. And of those who have watched, how many have understood. And those who have, how many would like to believe it could be remade in Hindi, or any other language, unless its a frame by frame copy.

But hey, does the most low profile Khan look hot in the movie. HELL, YEAH! The first few seconds of the promo, I mistook him for the other Khan, no, not Shahrukh-much-ado-about-sixpack-Khan, but Salman-o-o-jaane-jaana-shirtless-Khan. Watch it to believe it.

Smile Beloved City

Everytime I am glad to leave Kolkata, but every single time, boy! am I gladder to get back.
The trip to Chennai was good, in retrospect. It left me alone to take care of a one year old, the housework, the office work... I would challenge anyone to do all three together (without any help whatsoever) with any amount of success. The weekend was good, the trip to Mahabalipuram was relaxed in the resort, two days of bliss and indulgence. It rained continuously for ten days, in Chennai... yes, you heard me right. But the flat is almost on the beach and that and the cheese chilli chips with cold coffee at the shack made up for much of it. No mall culture in Chennai, I wonder what they do on weekends, all head to the beach? I missed Nalli's, maybe next time.
Power was off at least two hours each day, I almost missed my flight home because of the traffic, caught it only because it was 3 hours late!!!
All in all, Im glad to be back to my city, however hot, crowded and dirty.

Pujo 2008

My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But oh my friends and ah my foes
It gives an amazing light.

Driving down the streets of Kolkata, my city, during Durga Puja is an Experience.

The only time I felt anything close to it was when I visited Goa during Christmas. But its not comparable. For one, there are no pandals at every street corner, microphones, muted now, below 65 decibels... the lights seem brighter, the roads cleaner, the people truly truly happy. Smiles everywhere... not quite HO HO HO but no one shouts at you if your car stalls at a green signal, or you make a wrong turn on the road!!! Thats saying something about Kolkata.

Today Im turning nostalgic. This is a Puja, after years and years, when I am all alone, in office, writing this. I should be working, but really, seeing the people outside, listening to the Saptami anjali over the misrophone... you would not want to work either.

School days. Those were the days when Pujo meant something, or Something. Freedom, maybe, or just the chance to show off yourself outside of your school uniform to your pals. Waiting at Anandamela at Gariahat and meeting your group/s, one for each day. Morning... never evening. I wasnt allowed out in the evenings. So much for freedom. Ive never been too much a fan of pandal hopping, dislike it actually, I get claustrophobic in crowds, not the cliche, the medical condition. But in your 10th standard, when you know its yuor last year sitting in class with your 'group' you want to hold on to your childhood even in your rush to grow up. And then, when you see someone has not turned up, the disappointment... whats the buggering use!!! Forced smiles, not even trying to enjoy. No wonder I wasnt called to that group the next year!!!
College days I do not remember, my friends were too far scattered. Maybe I met them, maybe I didnt. Its a blur.

Then going away. Manipal, TAPMI, trying hard to live up to parents expectations and get an MBA. And like a punishment, my accident, on Shashti day. 4th October. 2001. On Ashtami I attended the college Puja, sans teeth, sans smile, sans feeling. But in a Sari! Had to keep up the pretence. I hadnt lost faith in the Mother. Still havent. In fact, probably its strengthened with time. It didnt need to, just did.

Then working in an alien city, 2003, which would become home for many years. In Bangalore, at that time, Durga Puja passed almost unnoticed. There were two Pujas and the one closer home was at Ulsoor. Cookme and La Zeez posters all around, women in red bordered sari, men in crisp dhotis. But the joy was not fake, the dhakis made your heart beat in rhythm just like home. Like a tiny island of Koklata in the heart of Bangalore. Not quite like the US/UK puja-s where its mostly a show of muslin and diamonds. And the company, my not-yet-husband-cum-roomie, its still fun with him, but at that time, the fear would not be there. It used to be happiness without any hangups. Not the only kind, mind you, but the best kind.

And then coming back to my city. 2006. Pujo meant friends again, and the disillusionment. Its not like school anymore. They want to go to China Town and drink. They want to go to Byepass and get stoned. They want anything but to stand at Gariahat and walk past Lake. There were tears again, I remember, at home. And screams that this is the worst Pujo of my life. But it wasnt all that bad on Shoshti. I lost some, I gained some. Like life.

Next pujo my daughter was 3 months old. A late night visit to Maddox square meant she caught a cold which lasted 2 weeks. The heartache. That year my little one was all that mattered. Even with some more tears, and the tiredness, and the torn magazines... she was all that meant anything anymore. That is why the faith never leaves, because like a guardian angel looking over me, Ma never completely left me out in the open.

And now, 2008... Ive never been happier. My child went with me to the pandal yesterday. She wanted to touch the idol. She said "HAUUM" to the lion, and "AATI" to the Elephant God. She danced to the dhaki-s beats. She made me forget there can be anything else in life worth living for.

Fear is not gone. But Im not letting it win today. Tomorrow is another day.

Booker coming to India this year again?

The two shortlisted Indian authors, Amitava Ghosh for Sea of Poppies and Aravind Adiga for The White Tiger. I have not yet read the other three shortlisted novels but among the two I would place my bet fair and square on Adiga.
Sea of Poppies is an epic, its huge. But as works of that size go, it rambles on and on at times, there are whole pages of seemingly useless descriptions. If I skip one or two pages in between I dont feel I have missed a lot, the thread remains quite unbroken. There are too many characters which is always dangerous, but for a writer like Ghosh it is hardly so. He weaves their story together with mastery, bringing them from all parts of East India, USA, and England, in the first part (Land), as they converge slowly but surely by the time they reach 'Sea'. Given the topicality of the novel, the language is sometimes difficult even for an Indian to decipher, for a person not used to Hindi it would be tough.
In contrast The White Tiger is taut. It jumps from page to page, very easy to read, and yet you know that the language is so simple because Adiga wanted it to be simple. The narrator-protagonist is after all a semi literate writing in English to the Chinese Premier. Dark humour at its best, this novel works most because it shows the seedy underbelly of India. The villages are not verdant greens, the cities do not say India Shining. Men die of tuberculosis in unmanned hospitals, politicians are corrupt to the core, land owners are sharks, rickshaw pullers and tea shop workers are skeletons, society is rotten. Bangalore is a city of opportunity but only for the very very sly. A business blossoms only if you keep the police palms oiled. One could go on and on. The effect of this book stayed with me for days. Never read anything like this before.
I recommend this to everyone.

Back home

After a long hiatus Im back. After months of madness Im back. A lazy afternoon after days and days... and how good it is to get back to my old friend the blog. Ive been missing all those whose blogs I visit, all those who prove that good writing is not just limited to the lucky few in print. And Ive been missing them reading what I have to say... which always surprises me!!! So hey, lets get it rolling again.
With a little poem...
Tomorrow is a new dawn, you say
That the sun shines every day
But when you come to me you bring the light
And my sun shines brightly through the night.

Not a compulsive confessor

So is this my diary? No it aint. And am I a compulsive confessor? Nope. So I cant write about a lot of things here. So I cant write those things which might get me eye balls. Or for that matter a book deal. I started writing because my journal seemed too crowded with my poems. I started writing because I wanted some people to read my thoughts. But they dont, and well, what else is there to do but just to ramble on. *sigh* Hoping that someday... someday...

Are there days like this, when there is an equal amount of joy and sadness in you? When you know that you are just a dreams breadth away from your perfect future. The ingredients are all there, but you just messed up the timings so bad, that its better not to cook at all? You just need to hold out your hand and ask... but you know that asking will cost a lot from a lot of people. So you dont. You just smile at the game fate has played on you.

But Ive been lucky in so many ways. Ive had so much love. Im a bitch and still people love me. Its amazing when I think of it sometimes. I keep fearing everyone will leave and go one fine day when they realise how unbearably selfish and snobbish I am. But more and more, I see friends coming back to me. Depending on me. And surprise of surprises, saying nice things about me... even behind my back!!!

Yes Ive been lucky. Im lucky to be alive. 8 years back, a different seat in a bus would have smashed me to smithereens. The bus crashed... my family and I were on the last row. Thing is, I was not at the back at first. I was just beside the driver. My dad called me from there to sit with them. When it was over, and we were standing on the road, bleeding, dazed... we realised that the seat was not there at all. It had been crushed to a pulp. There was a man sitting there after I had left the seat. Was.

I survived though. Sans a few teeth, and a crushed lower lip, which had to be surgically set right again. But I had use of my limbs and brain. I could not eat for months and my facial reconstruction took almost a year to get back to almost normal, but I have only a scar and the dentures to show for it. It was harrowing seeing my family suffer. My dad, bleeding profusely from surface wounds, yet, calmly, coolly getting our luggage down, arranging for alternative transport to the nearest hospital. My sister, with a gaping wound just below her eye. "Can you see, can you see" my mother kept asking her. And my mother, who wasnt hurt physically, but who had to see all three of her closest people in that state. My mother, who suggested we go to KMC and not to Suratkhal hospital, as we would get better treatment there. She may well have saved my face that day.

At the time when I was visiting my plastic surgeon every monday, he used to be based in the burns yard of KMC (Kasturba Medical College Hospital, I was studying in TAPMI,Manipal). The sights I encountered there made me forget my plight. In fact mine seemed no plight at all.

Here is something I wrote in the hospital itself.

I know what pain is

For I have seen them suffer-

Little girls, their tiny hands bound in white.

Boys half my size, in stretchers, covered to the neck.

Ive heard them scream

Ive heard them wail

Ive heard their cries.

I know what pain is

Not because I have felt it,

But because I have seen them suffer.

(October 2000)

to be continued...

State of health care in India

Indian health care features in the latest issue of TIME magazine. Its tough to read through it without being angry and frustrated.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1736516,00.html

I live in Kolkata and my sister is a doctor. I keep hearing horror stories from her about our state hospitals. Power cuts are common in the state hospitals rendernig whatever equipment is available, useless. Cleanliness is difficult, true, given the huge rush of patients, but dogs and cats under beds???!!! Whenever something happens to a patient there are doctors being beaten up and blamed. What most dont realise that in the "system" the doctors are also victims.

And we compare ourselves with China? The next global superpower? With a population that cant afford basic healthcare, wont we be too sick to work our way up the ladder to that dream?

Added to that is the mentality of our population. Women are still denied basic care, here, in the heart of the city. Our house cleaners daughter is approx 5 months pregnant (at 16, so much for our govt policies, she married last year on her own). Her inlaws are yet to get an ultra sound done. They were reluctant to take her to the hospital at all, was forced by people like us. My baby's ayah is 24. Her sons are 7 and 6 yrs old. Recently her brother got married. Age of the bride- 15 yrs. This is Kolkata, not some out of the way village. In anything, any situation, women are always the first and the most to suffer.

Kolkata loves a good bandh

For all those who braved the heat to go to Eden Gardens to cheer the Knights, Mondays bandh would have sounded like music! It did to me. Sunday afternoon, I sweated and sat through a quite boring match in an extraordinary stadium with 75 thousand people. Monday I slept off the utter tiredness!
So did most of the city, it seems.

Yesterdays Bandh, like all Bandhs was mostly a success. One can give any number of reasons to stay indoors. I work in Salt Lake and travel 25 kms one way to get there. No, not the IT sector. I pass through Park Circus, the hot bed of most agitations in the city. So thats my excuse... well, officially. Oh I luurve to spend the monday lolling around, watching the odd movie, catching up on my reading as the nanny looks after my little girl. Monday holidays are more special. Delicious.
Mamata Didi, god bless her, knows that!

Not to say I dont curse the Bandh. Kolkata's image and all that s***t, you know. Just when the world is waking up to the infinite possibilities the state can offer... (eg- umm, uhh, Nandigram, Singur)... I spend hours trying to talk my colleagues and clients out of Kolkata-bashing... their favorite past time nowadays, especially the non resident Bangalis, I convince them finally that work culture has changed, (meaning Kolkatans are now working)... and WHAM, another bandh gets called next Monday. YUMM!

Think about it. The world is over populated and over polluted. The streets around all cities in the globe are difficult to drive through and impossible to breathe in. But go out on a bandh day in this city of joy for a sanguine walk on yon meado...um...patch of grass around the street corner. Breathe in fresh smoke-free air for a change.
Wait... you can even hear some birds chirruping. How? The autos have a holiday, so no ear splitting ratatata-s.
And what about some mutton curry for lunch, guilt free that you are not wasting a Sunday, rotting in the kitchen when you can watch reruns of F.R.I.E.N.D.S on Zee Cafe!
And the luxury of a stroll to get an ice cream just when the parlor is opening up at 6 pm.

Oh man! How Kolkata hates Bandh callers... and how Kolkata loves a Bandh!

The world we are living in...

She walked off this morning.

Yesterday, when I found her at about 8 am, she looked as if she was almost gone... trying to drink water from the open nullah that she could not reach. I had heard her crying, the low rhythmic half 'meaow', thats probably all she could let out, after 24 hours of no food and water.

This is how I found her. Hearing what seemed like a childs groan, continuous, every few seconds, I stepped out to the verandah. The 'meshomoshai' from accross the street was asking a young sweeper to "get a rope and drag it somewhere else", and the sweeper wouldnt... he was too afraid it would bite. "It" turned out to be a full grown cat, a known thief from careless open kitchens in the area.

I could just see her sitting next to our apartment garage gate. As I tried to understand what was happening 'mashima' informed me that someone, or maybe a car, had hit her on the hind legs. Now she cant move much, only drag herself a few inches. "She had dragged herself inside your apartment complex yesterday afternoon to get some shade... now she is trying to drink from the nullah"

All they could talk about was what the stink would be like when she died... "the carcass rots real fast in the heat"... yeah, the heat, which made her so thristy that she dragged herself out to drink from a nullah she could not reach... crying for water. They just waited for her to die, thats ok, but what does it take to give a dying animal some water? A dish? Some stairs to climb?

One whole day they all saw her, they heard her cry. One whole scalding boiling searing hot day. And they did not give her a dish of water.

There are lots of children in the area. Tomorrows leaders. Torch bearers of humanity. My only thought was, how do I protect her from them. All the veterenary services were off for the day, it being a Sunday. I had to wait till Monday morning.

With a little milk and some rice, she could already sit up straight. With a Dettol wash- which she took silently, her pleading eyes on my face- she lost the smell which came from sitting on ones own excrement for a day. By evening she had moved to a corner in the wall, almost hiding from the world, and I was hopeful.

This morning I could not find her.

Desperate, heart in my mouth, I skirted the building... and there she was, hidden in the undergrowth of some small trees inside the complex itself. The baby food I was carrying worked, she raised herself and moved towards me. I say 'moved' because she could not walk, nor limp even. She was still dragging her hind legs, but wonder of wonders, she was trying to place them on the ground... she succeeded with one, the other was still too painful.

A friend had advised human pain killers in very small doses. I had not given her any yesterday night, but this morning I mixed it in the baby formula. Probably she would try to get her own food till I got back in the night.

Yesterday they waited for her to die.

She walked off this morning.

Slaves to love

Are we such slaves to our need for love? All of us? Why do I see such strong intelligent women around me fall prey to this disease. All around me. They stay in abusive relationships, they take all kinds of rubbish, they go to such extents just to please someone, just to hear the words, I love you, or not even that. To feel needed.

Why is it so? Today we have all the necessities to build and to live a life self sufficient. And yet we need depend and be depended upon. Its not a financial need, its not security any more. Is it our motherhood instincts that prompt us into these things. Poor guy, he needs me, he needs my help, he can change only if I am with him... and so starts the spiral down to hell.

They use us, dont they. When they have the need for us, physical, psychological, spiritual, support or just friendship, they use us. Then they are there to wipe our tears, not a drop is shed, when they are all over us. They are there to hold us and to make us feel needed. But when they have gotten over that phase, then starts the mental break down. Cry them a river, they wont turn to you. They wont ask you even when you say you are down. They will cover the guilt by taking you out once in a while and buying you stuff, and there are good phases when you think nothing can be better than this. You go back to where you started, before you built all the defenses around you. And then the cut comes again. Isnt it familiar? Are they all like that?

I have seen women become progressively depressed with the situation. Sometimes they break the relationship. They walk off, after giving chance after chance for him to change. They are the wise ones, they are the lucky ones. The ones who cling on, they are in for trouble. What do they do, when they know they can get out of it, and yet things are out of hand. They try to send messages. Usually starting with harmless ones, tears, screams, bouts of madness... just to get the word across. Then it becomes a dangerous game. Throwing the glass at the wall to using the glass against her self. "I will hurt myself if you dont listen to me... I will do something to myself if you keep acting like an ass". All a game, a very very cruel dangerous game... a mind numbing painful game. They get used to that too.

I have read somewhere that a woman takes shit till she can take. Which means that we all have our threshholds.
One of my friends had to end up in hospital before she started divorce proceedings.
Another friend broke her engagement because he had already started abusing her and her family on the phone after drinking bouts.
Another acquaintance just left because of the loneliness, with children and a never-present husband. She did it with the support of another man... who she is in love with, but wait till they clock some time together.
Yet another took a bottle full of sleeping pills... and survived. She went back to him.
Another hanged herself with her husband and son in the adjacent room.
None an exaggeration. All true.

Have you heard of the woman who tried the way of suicide multiple times, always surviving? Pills one time, slashed wrists one time, jumping off stairs another... never good enough to kill her, all messages, all calls for help, for attention in a world that did not care. She was Diana... a princess, a beauty, an icon. And yet...

That is not to say men dont go through anything. To be fair to them, I have heard of many a man being hounded by women with issues. It starts with small jealousies... but men can get out of it easier. They dont have esteem issues like women have. They are not needy or clingy like us. Some amount of guilt may make them stick around for some time, but they flee soon enough. Most do, at least. For those who cant, welcome to the club.

Is it any use saying we need to change. Our basic natures wont change. We will not learn. We make the same mistakes again and again. Our needs wont change. Our desire to be desired wont change. We have to be mothers to the poor men in our lives. We have to stay around no matter what they say, no matter what they do. When they run away, we wait, patiently, silently... for the time when they will need us once more and come running back, tongues out, tails wagging.

Sorry is the hardest word?

Australia has apologized to all indigenous Australians some days back. For the atrocities they faced, for their land that was grabbed and subsequently their livelihood, et al.

Is an apology enough to heal a race? Maybe it is, because the wronged can start to forgive, and start to live once again. Its not about what is lost, but what can be saved by the power of the human mind.

Recently a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi was forced to resign from a peace institute of the University of Rochester (a department he himself co-founded), for his comments on the Jews and the holocaust. Apart from saying that the Jews can overplay the holocaust for sympathy he also put this question forward- how long can the whole world feel sorry for what happened to the Jews.

How long does the whole world have to be sorry? Forever, is my guess. Its not a question of how many millions died or suffered ... its a question of every individual who lived through it or died in it.
Its about every single child who went to the gas chamber because she/he was too little to work.
Its about every toddler swung against the wall with their feet, or hunted down from basements to be shot.
Its about every mother who had to see their little ones die of starvation or take them to their death in their own arms.
Its about every grandfather who was taken away never to be seen again.
Its about every father who had to live, and work at a crematorium knowing he is burning the bodies of his wife and children.

How long do we have to be sorry??? Is that even a question?

Some groups in India wanted England to apologize for their centuries of rule on this land. If England has to start apologizing for their colonial past, heaven help them. And while we are at it, why not ask the Central Asians (Babur was a Turk from near Iran) to apologize their role in ruling the land, or well, the Aryans who were the first to come and depose the original Indians, the Indian aborigins... who we knew in the last century as the caste-less... or at best the lowest caste, and who we protest against nowadays because they are taking away our medical seats and government jobs (due to the Indian system of seat reservation for the downtrodden and economically deprived). Wait, that might mean, I would have to apologize too.

Speaking of India, we find apologizing below our stature. The Gujarat riots in 2002- nope. The anti sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination- it was even played down by the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who is reported to have commented- "When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake". The apology for the carnage did come through in 1998 (the riots took place in 1984), by his wife, Sonia Gandhi.

Going global again, what about the indegenous Americans- the (un-original) Indians. You dont even have to read anything to know what happened. Watch a couple of westerns, or read about Hiawatha and Pocahontas, and you get the drift. Any apology? None officially.

Africa called for slavery apology in 2001 from Europe and America... nope. White trash dont say sorry. They sometimes "express regret" for the atrocities they unleashed on most of the African and some of the Asian countries, they wont take the leap from regret to apology.

If we start asking for apologies, I wonder where it will end. From my friend who forgot to ask me why I wasnt well yesterday, to Kenya's women, from Bhopal tragedy victims to Vietnam, from the Rangoon monks to the to the Tutsi-s in Rwanda, from Jade Goody's racial slur at Shilpa Shetty, to Darfur's millions of refugees, from a kiss in India, to a race almost wiped out by a madman in Cambodia.

The human race is capable of great good and great evil. And the evil does not drive us completely mad only because of the good which still exists in us... in all of us. May the good always find a way to win. Amen.

On the turn of the year

So much is happening in 2008... my daughter had her annaprashan ceremony (rice ceremony) last week. Just a family get together, a 20 person affair... it went off well. We did not have a big ceremony. My family, who were largely left out are not done complaining yet. They have this to say- it seems my annaprashan was a gala affair. Another one of those things. When you were a child, so and so happened! Did anyone tell our parents that?

It still takes a lot to accept that I am not a little girl any more. I have a little girl of my own. It seems just like yesterday when my cheeks would get pulled by everyone... now its my daughters turn. Seems just like yesterday that I changed school and came to the place which shaped much of my adult life. Gave me friends for a lifetime... "jibono moroner shimana charaye" - beyond boundaries of life and death... and soon, too soon my baby will be going to school, making friends of her own.

It is good that I remember much of what I went through at every juncture of life. I will know what to expect when she cries on her first day in school, or throws a tantrum when, some years later, I tell her, no, she cant go to the sleep over at her friends place.

I want to be a good mother. A good mother is a combination of disciplinarian and friend. I hope I will be able to keep the balance. I hope I will be able to instill in her the respect and compassion my parents did. And whatever happens, I make a promise that she will never feel lonely as long as I am alive... she will never feel so lost that there is no way out.

I am waiting for her to start talking so I can tell her stories, fairy tales and where they are wrong about life (happily ever after??? really!!!??? - more on that later), fables with a moral and why they are important, stories from my head, of magical lands and mythical creatures. I am waiting for her to walk and run so I can take her to open fields and run on the green soft grass with her, holding her hand when she is tired and needs reassurance. I am waiting for her to start her lessons, studies, music and whatever else she wants to do. But most of all I am waiting for her to turn 15, when she will start discovering the world on her own... so that I can stand in the sidelines with my arms folded, and a smile, watching my baby as she finally learns to fly. I will be right here, when she wants to fly back to me to dry her tears and then tell her its ok, life is beautiful, life is as we see it... we can color it with our technicolor dreams in whatever shade we wish it to be.

Age and the Woman

A girlfriend recently celebrated her birthday. The usual dampener I give to everyone after some time is "so how old are you today". She stoically replied, one year less than last year. Now Ive started going backward!

Age. The biggest enemy of the modern woman. Here come the wrinkles and the grey hair. The sagging breasts and the blotchy skin. Where is the suppleness and the glow. The retinue of products, canned and bottled, that lie on my dressing and bedside tables increase every few months to help induce the just-out-of-bed translucent skin... as long as that works.

The old wisdom goes that a woman should always state an age 2 years less than the reality. I told my friend that. She wasnt not happy. "In that case Ill be 30 next year, no will do!!! Id rather be 28!!" What could one say to that logic? But Im happy with the 2 year less practice. With a little help from chemicals in jars, I might just pass off as 38 when Im 40, even if I cant move my eyebrows with my botox shots. Im 38, and I cant express how happy I am to tell you that! My muscles are frozen.

The Indian beauty industry is an estimated $3 billion. A large pie of this is dominated by, what else, fairness products. Every company has one at least... whatever the cream, just add the word "fair" to it... it will sell. Men can rest easy too, their "rougher and tougher" skins need not be left behind in the race to whiten up.

However in the past couple of years a new warrior has entered the beauty arena. The anti-ageing cream. In the west, this is the biggest grosser in the beauty market. Now Indians are also picking up. From general- 7-in-1 creams to higly specialised under-eye-anti-wrinkle... every post 30 woman is spoilt for choice. Finally hope on the horizon!!!

One thing that did not quite pick up here is the anti cellulite products- creams soaps et al. We Indians still love the love handles and the flab around our thighs. We cant be bothered to spend money for that, for godsakes. Maybe our daughters will think differently.

But as more and more companies enter the anti-wrinkle/ anti-age market I am convinced I can still get those second glances after the first glimpse for years and years to come. After all Ill be 28 in March. Or is it 26. Damned if I tell you. (wink wink).

Long live kaali mehendi!

The Great Indian Wedding

There is now an Indian "wedding industry" and not only is it alive and kicking but it is growing in leaps and bounds every season. Value of this industry- Rs 50,000 crores growing at 25% annually. In a country where more than 25% of its citizens are living under the poverty line still, the major newsmakers in the last few years have been weddings to die for- Liz Hurley to the PIO Nayar, Ms Mittal, and of course the dandy Master Chatwal to the oh-so-ethereal Priya Sachdev.

Look at the diamond advertisements on TV recently. Just 2 months back they targeted the upwardly mobile woman with "a mind of her own". Start November and they have all veered towards the wedding market, the bride-to-be, or her family. Even solitaires have their takers- to make your love shine brighter just buy a diamond for her.

The designers are cashing in. Its known that all designers in the world worth her/his needle will have a wedding range. Now they are going public about it, and how. Tie-ups between designers and jewelery houses are common. Bags, shoes, even watches have wedding collections. The tourism business is publicizing honeymoon packages in Malaysia, the Carribbean, or even in hippie heaven Goa. Furniture "wedding packages" are going at heavy discounts.

Magazines specialising in wedding and everything associated with it sell like hot cakes. No wonder every magazine carries a wedding special at this time. The latest buzz in India is the appointment of Wedding Planner. Supposedly everyone wants an "English Garden", or a "Beach" or a "Pink" wedding. Its providing for a lot of people- the flower arranger, the card maker, the cake maker, even the specialised gift packager.

And now, for the last few years enter the specialised marriage fairs, where you get everything but the groom. Its such a huge hit that they are traveling offshore to places like Dubai or inland to a Lucknow or an Ahmedabad.

Wedding in India is big business. Now only if I had an idea how to cash in on it...

Let us never forget

My dad just returned from a business trip to Poland. When there he got the time to visit Auschwitz. I go out my old copy of 'Night' (Elie Wiesel) yesterday and re-read it.

It was June 1940 when this Nazi concentration camp started functioning with the first batch of Polish anti- Nazi political prisoners. 1942 saw the camp transform into a highly efficient killing field, with thousands upon thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, but also Poles, gypsies and Soviet war prisoners, perishing in gas chambers, shot down or just dropping down exhausted with crushing routines. More than a lakh victims, estimates from 1,10,000 to 1,50,00 died in 5 years. Just a days collection of shoes of victims formed veritable mountains...

Here are some of the sites which are keeping the Auschwitz memories alive so that the world does not see it happen again.
www.auschwitz.org.pl
www.remember.org
www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm
www.eliewieselfoundation.org
'Night'- by Elie Wiesel

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20160055_20160112,00.html

We poor things are competing with this???

Time to move on...

As a generation we are refusing to grow up. Yes many of us have married and some of us have kids already. But thats saying very little about the way we live or think. So many of us still depend on our parents for so much. We are the tail enders of Gen X, the cusp of generations- alienated from the larger group which just preceded us, or the next generation- the 80-s born... the 20- somethings.

We were the last to work in dead end jobs, the last to accept what our elders said as the bible-truth. The last to compromise. The Generation Y or Gen Next have grown up in a different world so to say. Technologically they have started off earlier, economically they have been born into an open market. They are just now entering the job scene with expectations which are sky high. Failure for them means different than what it did for us. They have more difficulty accepting authority figures. Research has shown they demand much more in the work place- money, time, technology, flexibilty in work, vacations, promotions etc. There was an instant in the US when a 24 year old was sacked for non-performance and the next day he turned up with his mother in tow, to demand an explanation.

Money is of primary importance. More than 50% say it is most important in their life to become rich. In a medical college a few interns were caught stealing mobile phones and selling them to make a quick buck. This, from a group waiting to make it big in a couple of years.

They are a different bag of marbles altogether. But we, the 28-32 years old... In everything we try to hold on to our lost childhood in whatever little way we can. We are a group who either have friends born in the 80-s and so believe ourselves to be part of them... or like me, look at them with a mixture of grudging envy and high handedness. They still have a long way to grow up.

But then, so do we.

Motherhood is the new black

Everyone I hear is either pregnant or has a baby. Look at Orkut. A year back I used to have faces in my friends list... now its them with their baby! Albums with "three of us", "my world"...

Pushing 30 means giving up something, I guess. Sacrifices which dont seem like sacrifices... yeah, I cant go out on Fridays and Saturdays... it takes hours of thought before I can go shopping. My mum needs to be free if we can catch dinner on a Sunday, a couple of hours of couple-dom outside of parent-hood. Ive forgotten what a long island ice tea tastes like. My staple is now orage juice, thank you. Even a coke raises eyebrows around me. And yet, they are all doing it.

Forget Hollywood moms... they have full time nanny-s to help while they do their thing. Its people like us who have to face the music, or lack of it. No time, you see. I can listen to music only if my baby likes it, thank god she does. Its the time of the new super-mom. Work, baby, home, shopping, entertainment... we do it all, many thanks to our super duper mummy-s. What would we do without them. And of course we have to get back into shape. I am not talking Maxim cover-girl shape (though I heard one of them gave birth the same month I did, and its her resolution to get back to her cover-girl shape by new year, god bless her) but ordinary pre pregnancy shape. One of my super hot friends who also had a baby in August lamented when she was 8 months pregnant that she was not gaining much weight. Oh! these model types!!! God is unfair.

I did gain normal amount of weight, and I still dont fit into my old pair of jeans, but my baby is a happy child, and I am a happy mom. May god bless her.