Hobby

A secret? Okay, okay. If you insist.

So I was flying back to Bombay from London, a good long nine-hour flight. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows had just come out. I'd bought the book the day before and painstakingly managed to resist opening it until I got onto the plane. I gazed at the cover art for sereval minutes, running my fingers over the hard spine, and finally opened the tome as the flight took off.
Three chapters into it, the man on my right spoke.
"So, flying to Bombay, eh?"
Aha. An annoying Indian uncle trying to make new friends.
"Yes." I mutter, nose deep in my book.
"Came to visit boyfriend in London? Heh-heh."
"No." A page turns.
And so it went on, my nerves shredding finer with every word he spoke. He was even chattier after the air hostess brought him his drink. ("Oh you don't know what a patiala peg is? Arrey you've obviously never been to Delhi then. Let me pour you one?)
                                                                      *****
The plane was dark. Everyone slept. Everyone except me. My reading light was the only one on, my mind was in the Ministry of Magic...
"So, you like to read?"
...and I'm snapped out of it, back in a too-small seat with no legroom.
"Obviously." Irritated fingers tap the spine of the book.
"It's a good hobby," he said, settling back into his seat.

My head snapped right to look at him for the first time, hatred in my eyes.
                                                                   *****
The rest of the night went quite peacefully. I even managed to finish the book.
"He's asleep," I told an air-hostess while exiting the plane. I pointed at the uncle-ji, his head slumped down, shawl-covered. "Do wake him. I didn't have the heart to."
As I stepped out into the humid Bombay air, I inspected my book.
I'm just glad I didn't get any of his blood on it.
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Fiction. But I do loathe the word 'hobby'. Reading is not a 'hobby'. No.

Girls.

Young, old, and whatever lies in between. 

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Side note: Technology has begun to irritate me. My Sandman files (yes, I only just started reading it) won't open in Comical for some reason. I am going to retreat into paper and printed word and new-book smell. Or old-book smell. And the feel of rough paper and the sound a page makes when it turns. 

Retreat into film and photos I can smooth my fingers over, and clear crisp monochrome without the confusion of colour.

Retreat. Regress. 

For those who haven't already read it

An article titled Worse than a daughter's death, about the Aarushi Talwar murder case. In the five or so minutes it took me to peruse this, I went from anger to outrage to a deep disgust of the Indian judiciary system. Maybe not the system, per se, but the administration of it, definitely. The rampant corruption. The absolute fucking inability to think. People who just WILL not think.

Please do read and opine. 

A story about ethics, or something like that.

The characters: Tiger, Failboat, Spinach, Nikon. And, to some extent, the Man. You know, the proverbial Man who puts us all down? Also known as the System. The actual Man is an Assistant Vice Principal.

The setting: A fictional high school in a fictional multiverse. Note: Tiger is Head Boy of this school.

The background: Last October, after a party to which absolutely everyone was invited, these four split. After a bit of a discussion, they decide to not go home at all, and just...go where the fates and the winds and the cabs take them. So off they went, to normally crowded spots on the beach that were now so quiet, and then, bored and hungry, they went to the airport, post midnight. Everything else was closed. They ate, they chilled, and then they came back to the beach to watch the sunrise. All very cool, and if I belonged to that multiverse, I'd have been jealous.
Now here's the cinch. Still way back in October, one of them published a note about it. On Facebook. Referred to as Nomadic Night.
That was in October 2009. Since then, Nikon has left the school.

The Story:
It's happened a couple of times, the principal telling Tiger that he's received 'disturbing reports', and alluding to Facebook. I did wonder about the jurisdiction of a school over our cyber-lives. I mean, everyone's heard that with times and tech changing, we must too. Everyone's heard that applicants for prestigious jobs are thoroughly googled. I even read an article where college applicants changed their Facebook names so that they couldn't be found. But this isn't a job. This isn't a college application, this is school. And this...is somewhat out of the blue.
So, one fine day in April 2010, the vice principal called Tiger into his office to tell him that someone had seen the note about Nomadic Night, and lodged a complaint. I may need to add here, that there were photos in the note. And the first of those photos was taken at a home bar, with one of them holding up a bottle. Tiger told the Vice Principal that no one drank that night, and that even though they did stay out all night, the bar and the bottle was just a gag.
The Man was not happy about this note, as it gave a 'bad impression' or something like that.
On a bright and early Saturday in April, Tiger was called to the Vice Principal's office in the presence of all the AVPs, and was told that the School Committee had decided to ask him to resign his post as Head Boy. After Tiger's parents met all the authorities concerned, and Tiger submitted an apology letter, the decision was reconsidered at a meeting of the committee. Tiger submitted a resignation yesterday.

My point here is this. The person who put up the note has pretty tight privacy settings. How then, did anyone find it? And also, my main issue here. This is school. The characters in my story are barely 17. On Nomadic Night, no one was near the school, no one FROM the school was hurt, they did nothing related to the school in any manner.
Why then, is the school looking into something so unrelated? It's all...a not-so-thin line about privacy, and how much of ourselves we put online. A party isn't a party till it's on facebook, haven't I heard that before? Facebook is...the public's Page 3. Or something like that. I think I'm losing my point.

Opinions about the incident appreciated.

Another reason for me not to like politics.

Baba Ramdev.

"We clean up our bodies, then we clean up democracy!"

He announced last month that he would found a political party that would field candidates for each of the 543 parliamentary seats in India’s next general election in 2014.

Here is the link to the NYTimes Article.

The man infuriates me. Because in an age of globalisation, where the world is shrinking, he's just going backwards. I shudder to think of what would happen if he was in power.

I shudder.

Pub problems? drink em away!

Need I even be enraged about the whole mangalore pub thing? will it make a difference?
It definitely did not make my day, seeing Pramod Muthalik's constipated face staring at me from yesterdays BT, neither did reading the article improve my mood.
Sigh. Politicians, hear me. you are no one to dictate what we eat, what we drink, what we do in rickshaws, who we hold hands with, who we hug, where we go, and what we do in our bedrooms.
Trying to be all 'traditional' and all isn't gonna help your party-image.
If all this pisses you off..........go get a drink, man, who knows, you might like it....

Birthday Blues.

Happy 17th, baby.
At least I'm here and I can somewhat enjoy it. What if I was in Mumbai today?
What if?
I mean it just makes me very angry. Screwed up mentality terrorist. Stupid un-enforced armaments laws.













(the reason I can't completely enjoy it is becxause of my math exam on 29th. In case you wonder what i got for the budday, my parents gave me a box of Godiva. yummy.)

Sneh messaged, she was pissed after watching the news, about "this guy who murdered his daughter. It'll be the hot topic of discussion tomorrow anyway, so I'll tell you then..."
Not satisfied, I went to hunt TOI archives for what turnes out to be a week-long series of articles about the murder of Arushi Talwar.
One really starts to wonder where the country, in fact the world is going.
Girl found murdered, Domestic help suspected for many reasons. But prime suspect not to be found. At least three days later, a retired officer steps into the case and finds corpse of prime suspect on terrace.
How'd he get there? Prominent bloodstains on the stairs, near the cooler, everywhere. One wonders how the police managed to overlook this, and now I'm wondering the same thing that the TOI is, why wasn't a dog squad brought in??
Oh dear, police transfered here, there, everywhere, out of Noida. Is this a police force or a bunch of......My god, What's happening to us??
I'm in shock, I'm horrorstruck.

Quote TOI, May 19th.

"Many questions remain unanswered in the Arushi murder case: Who put Arushi’s mattress on the terrace, even as the police could not find the key to it? Who had the keys to the terrace door, which had to be forced open by the police? Where is Arushi’s mobile phone, which is reportedly in use even after her death? If she did die a day before her body was discovered, who called her friend from her mobile? Why was the flat, in which the murders took place, not sealed and the forensic team not called in immediately? Arushi’s post-mortem report mentions a ‘‘whitish discharge’’ on her body. But the forensic team has not preserved a sample of it. With every senior Noida police officer having visited Arushi’s home after her body was found, why was only station officer A Nanoria found negligent and shifted to the police lines? "

Why, indeed.

Then we find that she had been killed a whole 18 hours or so before her body was discovered. Someone had carefully slit her jugular vien and her carotid artery. Someone had clearly thought this out.....

And finally...in a stroke of God knows what.....they finally arrest the father. And this is what shocks me, hurts me the most......makes me lose all hope in mankind.....How can a father kill his own child thus?
And why? Because she found out he was having an affair....because she told him she didn't like it......he just.......eliminates her?
What's happening, what's happening to this world.....with no emotion, no love, no....

Oh god.....It's horrible. Just horrible.
And what's even more horrible is the incompetence of the police....apparently they shot their mouths off, saying this could be solved in just a few hours, and then failed to see their most important clue.....

How, how is this happening??
Sneh's right, this world is bastardizing itself.
Aarushi Talwar, may your soul rest in peace....................I pray for you....

Reality Check: This is what the world is.

God, something's really hit me in the heart.Gulf News tabloid has this weekly thing where they publish posts from blogs written by Middle East nationals. Not for them those self-ranting blogs that we write, we who live in metropolitan cities and crib about exams and traffic woes and heartbreaks. No, some of these hit you and bring you back to reality like nothing else. Mostly they're about Dubai, rants, as I'd call them, but what I read yesterday really shook me.

Diary of a Palestinian Mother

The Gaza Genocide
We celebrated Yousuf's fourth birthday today. We ate cake. And we counted the bodies. We sang happy birthday. And my mother sobbed. We watched the fighter jets roar voraciously on our television screen, pounding street after street; then heard a train screech outside, and shuddered. Yousuf tore open his presents, and asked my mother to make a paper zanana, a drone, for him with origami; And we were torn open from the inside, engulfed by a feeling of impotence and helplessness; fear and anger and grief; despondence and confusion.

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And there's a photo there, of relatives of a Hamas Fighter, mourning at his funeral. And as happens to me a lot, the words I write fail to do justice to what I'm feeling.
These are the brave ones. These are the ones who have every right to complain about their misfortune. These live unpredictable lives, hanging by a thread, they are the ones who truly do not know if there will be a tomorrow. Their lives, their homes and their happiness can be wiped out in a matter of minutes, so effortlessly, by bombs dropped by people who probably don't care, people who're just following orders.
These are the ones who have every right and opportunity to break.
And yet they don't.

These have seen and experienced more hardship than we ever will. They are the strong ones, the ones we need to admire and the ones we need to learn from. People like us, we'll never truly understand what it is to be them, the ones who live in the midst of war.

From them we must learn
To be thankful for every new day that we're alive, thankful that we are sane, full and healthy.They can't take this for granted, for they never know when it will all be whisked away.To see the little joys in our lives for these matter more than the large sorrows.Butterflies, the laugh of a baby, purring cats, pictures in the cloudsWe must learn to shift our focus to the good in our lives.We know we're lucky. Somewhere at the back of our mind, we know. But things like this make it really hit you.

I'm sorry I'll never be able to understand what it's like to live among pain and still find happiness, to live, being grateful for each and every minute of your live, to smile for your child when your heart's breaking, to tell him you'll be safe when you yourself aren't sure.....
I bow my head to you.
I have much to learn from you, Mother From Gaza.

What is fucking wrong with Mumbai??

I don't generally read the news, because I claim it depresses me. I was actually gonna start again, but I don't think I'll bother.

Ok, First I link you to Rushi who's angrier about it than I am, and with good reason, he lives in Mumbai, he knows about the whole new year molestation thing......

Also linking you to Annie Zaidi's post dated 2 jan.

These Mumbai Molestations......I heard about it from a friend, she told me about these two ladies who'd been molested by some 80 men on their way back from a new year party.....and it still didn't hit me then. It's hit me now, when I heard the anger in Rushi's voice.

A lot of people (including me) live in a dream, in a beautiful bubble which says Mumbai's really safe, Mumbai's friendly......sometimes you have to live in your bubble if you don't want to be looking over your shoulder all the time.....

Well, pop your bubble, ladies and gents....that up there, that's the ugly side of Amchi Mumbai. That is the exact reason why we're living in the bubble.

I've never been molested (thank-god-touchwood-may-it-never-ever-happen) but I have been touched (pinched, actually, on my butt) and I remember the look the guy gave me, as he walked off.....he was smiling, the hard cold smile you give when you know the other person is helpless.....

and damn was I helpless.....I still regret not hitting the guy then and there. It wasn't even in mumbai dammit, it was in Bhopal I think, at a stadium. And the guy was a student. A student! Hardly 18!

And it wasn't just him, it was a lot of these shifty guys, just looking, and something in their looks made us slowly shift our position and go warm up somehwere else. And this when we were covered from head to toe.

But here it is, this is the ugly side of Mumbai, and all men, believe me. According to Hindustan Times (I read it in Rushi's post) aome 60% of Indian men feel that if women wear provocative clothes they're practically asking for molestation.

Bings back memories of some child rape case I'd read about last year, This 10 year old girl in England was raped, I can't remember the sentence given to the rapist (it was peanuts) but I kinda remember what the judge said.....he said, the girl didn't look 10, she was wearing clothes too old for her age, she looked about 14......

Right.you call that an excuse? YOU CALL THAT A FUCKING EXCUSE??you're supposed to be THE LAW dammit, and if the lae's this bad, how bad are the people???

So, what, must we women always be looking behind us as we walk? Must we be always in fear of the men, those people who think they own us?

Me, I get the good end, it ain't that bad here, even though there are always taxis crowded below my building and I always get the "Ello 'ow are you"s and the looks from the Omani football guys when I do my beach run (But just maybe it is a point that a 16 year old running in shorts in a Muslim prevalent country is a slight oddity. But there isn't any law preventing shorts on the beach.)

Oh isn't this great! I'm on about six sites now, very pissed, looking for hindustan times Mumbai edition. I chance upon Delhi edition for today, what do i see on the front page?

"Woman Molested In Gurgaon Mall"

Brilliant. It's everywhere, It's frikkin everywhere.

What is it, this THING that makes men go crazy, that makes them stare at women, even the ones who're not pretty, even the ones with no figure (me.).....and not just stare. Follow. Catcall. Like my mom told me about. After the guys following her in Mumbai, even now, more than a decade later, she's still paranoid on the street if there's someone behind her.

Not just stare. More. touch. grope in crowds.

Why do you, you men, why do you feel that women are your.........things? Things, I tell you. All this women injustice thing is rushing into my head now.......

Of course, it's not all men, some of you are nice guys, some of you actually love women for what they are, some of you see women as equals.....not all of you though.

Not the student boys who say :

"Girls should not party or drink. The ones who do cannot be decent. Girls cannot be boys. They have to stay at home. After all, they have to get married."

I have no words to this. Just shock.

Not the other Mumbai student who says:

"Girls who wear tight revealing clothes, hang out with boys and like to party are inviting trouble.Our society allows boys freedom"

More shock.

Not the ones that put anonymous comments on blanknoise.com saying:

"Looking a crime!!! Well well well thats why India's a sexually repressed country. It my eyes...I deceide where to look. The blogger needs to see a psychologist."

No, looking's not a crime, but you see you don't know how much damamge that one lecherous look can do to us.

Not another MCP commenter on BlankNoise who says:

"Hi Folks, i am feeling sad on hearing this kind of time wasting time activity. I am very concerned about the dress sense of the gals.. there is lot of skin showing.. thats provokes guys to stare at them.. First gals u change ur so called attitude then think of other things ok. I hope u people have some maturity to think over it... Thx Goudse"

Not the judge who thinks it's okay to rape a 10 year old if she looks 14.

I'm ashamed to be a part of the same race that thinks this. really.

And we thought humans were advanced. Really, now?

What you don't see is the guilt that comes after you do all this. The mind doesn't let go of such things very easily. THe mind feels filthy.It wants to purge itself. The mind keeps replaying it, on and on, doesn't let you forget.....why was it you, dammit, why?

I can go on forever, honestly, I can.

But I'll stop. There's a lot to say.But............who's listening?