People II

My first write up on People was a humorous one, where I met only one kind of people coming with only one agenda in mind: getting their children admitted to Sir’s tuition and yet there I saw so many different reactions. I have been spending a lot of time with Sir over a period of six months, and among other good things I have got the chance to see and observe the human kind as a whole. I have come across many parents and students and observed and analyzed them at close quarters and just reached one conclusion: people love to think that they are different and unique; but they are incredibly similar to each other.

As Sir often thinks and talks about how so many people come so close to him and then go away suddenly, I tried talking to a few of them to find out a reason for their sudden disappearance. So a certain X who had spent a considerable amount of time with Sir, spoke to him almost twenty four hours seven days a week over chat for almost a year, had suddenly run out of things to say to Sir. The reason as pointed out by her is that, Sir being a very “serious” man, she can’t think of anything else to tell Sir. And also told me that “Sir is angry” and she doesn't really know why. However she keeps sending chats to Sir asking him, why he is not talking with her or responding to her chats.  Talking to this particular person makes me wonder, if she actually knows what she wants! And if she does know, why does she need to pretend? There can be just two possible things happening: One, that she was never really interested in Sir and pretending the whole time. And Second, she suddenly realized that any kind of relationship with Sir calls for a serious commitment and that scared her.

Another Y, had dropped out of Sir’s life, some six years ago. I tried talking to him too and asking him to come back. Much to my surprise, he promptly replied to my email and told me how much he had missed Sir for all these years, but did not get back to him because he was asked not to. He tried to make me understand that he was all in for a reunion with Sir but he couldn't because “Sir was angry” and he “did not know why.” He however called up Sir to say that he has got “nothing much to say” to him and then told me that it was all “Sir’s fault” that he couldn't talk. But then he kept bothering me about how he missed Sir and how he was important to him and how it is all Sir’s fault that he had to cut him off. Again I ask, why the pretense?

A certain Z, wanted to come back to Sir, and wrote to him telling him how she wants one more chance and won’t disappoint Sir. The day after was spent by her chatting with me and telling me how she missed him and how she wants to come back. How eager she is and all the other things which made me believe that she was really interested. Just twelve hours later she shot an email telling us that she should be left alone and that she is not really interested and again pointed out how it was all Sir’s fault.  I again wonder, why did she have to pretend that she was interested in him?

These are just a few of the many who behave exactly the same way. You might have noticed what I am trying to point out. Without being judgmental, I am just surprised at the incredible similarity between these individuals. Irrespective of age and gender, they all think the same way, behave the same way and even talk the same way. Their way of dealing with certain things is also very similar.

I came across a number of parents as well, and one thing very common in them is that, they tend to think, that since they have given birth to a child, they can treat him the way they want to. They can behave like dictators and treat them like slaves, abuse them unnecessarily, both physically and mentally, and when the child can’t take it anymore and stands up for his rights, the child becomes a “bad boy”, who doesn’t know how to behave. So many people come over to Sir to complain against their sons and daughters, speaking in a way, completely forgetting how they are at fault as well. This makes me wonder about how these parents were brought up! Certainly parents have been the same way generation after generation and like every generation of parents they claim that they are better parents.

I have been teaching for some time and that has helped me meet some more people. Students and parents alike.  Sir often tells about children of 15 being more grown up than the parents who are 50 years old. I realize how true it is. A certain W, had a bad childhood and was sexually abused by her maternal uncle, and is still traumatized because of that. She came to me asking for help. She just wanted to talk to me and eventually to Sir because she hated her counselor. Just few days later, I get a phone call from her mother asking me to stay in my “limits” and not “provoke” her daughter against the woman’s brother.  I wonder did she really think before saying what she did? Her daughter has been sexually abused and all she cares about his her brother. That person, who hurt her daughter, became more important.  I laugh when these mothers come to me and tell me that they love their daughters and are “worried” for them.

I will tell you, she is not a very strange case. She is just one of the many mothers who behave in this way. My mother is no different. They somehow revel in being tyrannical and think that physical and mental abuse is the easiest way to keep their children under “control”. That is how they can gain respect from them and that is how the child is going to “love” them.

The purpose of writing about all these people is not merely to judge them or improve them. It is just a way of expressing my sense of wonder and amazement to the fact that human beings are so similar to each other, in the way they behave. You can actually group them in certain categories. When observed closely, you can notice how desperately people try to fit themselves in that category. Females, irrespective of their age, try very hard to look pretty, have an obsession for shoes, cry for every small things possible, have a strong liking for tall handsome hunks, have to wear dresses that “accentuates” their body (and then shout if men lech at them!), talk about fashion and dresses and make ups, consider reading to be boring (I am talking of the majority of women here, and not about the smaller group who thinks differently.).

Males on the other hand like to pretend to be the “cool strong handsome hunk” types, who don’t have a heart and can’t feel anything. They don’t have emotions and can talk only about cars and bikes and read Playboy and other sports’ magazine.

Parents are supposed to be strict, tyrannical, inhuman beings who can only shout at their children and force them to live their life the way the parents want them to. They expect to be respected and consider their duties towards their children as favors and keep talking about it all the time. If the children stand up for themselves, they are considered to be ill mannered. 

What is funny is that in spite of people being exact mirror images of each other; they claim to be “individuals”. Little do they realize that they are no better than herds of animals who come and go in groups making no significant difference in anybody’s life. I wonder can’t they see each other? Or is it that they like being one of the herd?  

Pretense: An Easy Way Out

When I was a little girl, just in to school, I was taught not to tell people things that can hurt them. For example, a fat girl shouldn't be called fat. A stupid girl shouldn't be called stupid and some other things. But being the girl I am, I had a hard time pretending, or not telling people what they really are.

I hated pretense as a child and I hate pretense now. But what surprises me is the innumerable bunch of people who love to pretend. They somehow love holding on to it and I don't know what they get out of it?Doesn't it feel like living with a lie? That is not a good feeling I know. So how do they continue doing it for years at a stretch? Or may be even a life time?

It is not only about pretending to call an ugly girl, pretty or pretending to like someone's cooking or dresses or shoes. It is also about pretending to love someone. Pretending about the fact that a certain person is very important, or pretending to be grateful even! 

Small things, small stories tell me how people love to pretend, till their work gets done. I lived very close to the school, and for fourteen years my house was like a telephone booth, a first aid center, a lost and found box and even a "My daughter needs that thing right now" place. Besides giving my classmates a place to wait if they missed their transport back home, my mother provided tiffin to so many girls in my school that it is not even funny. And she did it gladly. A phone call from some tensed parent and she would calm them down and assure them that she would take care of everything. My father even went out of his way to go and drop a few classmates of mine, home, because they missed their transport, and their daddies were too "busy" to come and pick up their own daughters! 

Mothers used (yes USED it is) my house to wait for their daughters to come back from tuition classes, without even thinking that we might have some work to do, and need to go out. They did  not even have the courtesy to ask! 

My father being a gazetted officer, could attested mark sheets and other official documents. He would gladly do it, without much fuss. Naturally, he was taken advantage of. People came with 10-20 copies of their mark sheets and expected my father to sit and sign them all. And being the person he is, my dad did it, till he grew sick and tired of it and stopped bringing his office stamp home. 

We helped everyone gladly, firstly because helping is something good and we should always do things which make us and others feel good. But then is it too much to expect that these people would have a minimum courtesy to feel grateful? Express their gratefulness by at least staying in touch? No sooner did school get over than I lost touch with every one. Now true that I am not a very social person, but then I at least smile at the people I know when I see them here and there! I wonder what are people made of? Is this natural to behave this way? to forget once the work gets done? Doesn't it hurt them somewhere deep down? Don't they have something called the heart? Or at least a conscience? 

I don't know whether I should be grateful for not being like all those I have mentioned above. I mean it must be much easier not to feel anything at all. Not to bear the burden of being ungrateful. Not to have any emotions or memories to make them sad. I am sure it must have been easier... Unfortunately I was born with a heart!

About Books and Reading Again

I happened to come across this. Generally I ignore such buzzfeed lists, but then this one was about the stages of a “book addict”, so I decided to glance through it.

Yes reading is an addiction, true and as I go through this list I realise I have gone through most of these stages. I have bought a book on a whim either because everyone was talking about it or because no one was talking about it. And I swear most of the times, I liked those books which few people talked about, or cared to read. But then may be people around me hardly read good books.

Then comes the next stage where either I am hooked on to the book and don’t want to put it down, or it is one of those books which you want to beat your head with because you bought it. I had also sometimes taken the responsibility of promoting the book I like among the people around me. I remember how I went around telling each and every one I knew to buy and read Shantaram.  Sadly very few people enjoyed it. I spent hours trying to figure out why they did not like this book, but then someone told me, “It is such a fat book…” After that I gave up thinking. I knew the reasons.

When I like a book, every idle minute seems like a minute wasted. I remember how I regretted not carrying The Little Prince to school, because there were free periods when I could have read pages.  But I agree the best reading happens may be after 11 PM. True, it is very annoying when so many people looks at you bewildered because you are reading a book while waiting for a bus or travelling in a metro.

Then when you are almost towards the end of the book, comes in the dilemma. I mean I know the book is so good that I am going to miss reading it once I am done with it, but then again, I want to know how it ends. This happened with me while I was reading A Palace of Illusions.

Drifting to the world of the book happens to me often, and then getting attached to the characters of that book. Feeling their pain, being sad for them, being happy in their happiness, Feeling their longing, their love. And then the change in opinion about a character as the story advances. Like I am almost done with Cuckold now, and I felt so many things for Maharaj Kumar and so many things for Kausalya (No I won’t go on about them over here. I don’t plan to write about the book in bits and parts in all my posts.).

I am sure some of you will be able to connect to this list and appreciate it may be. But what is sad is very few people read these days. And I will tell you what is sadder. People buy well known books, so that they can just flaunt it. Ask them to talk about it, and they would become very busy. And what hurts "book addicts" like us is the fact that we lend books happily, to encourage reading, but then people either don't return those books or return them after soiling them beyond recognition. For Heaven's sake, when would they understand that books are like a part of the heart we are giving out?!  I think they never will... Facebook-ing and texting and shopping and other trivialities are more important. When I ask my students to write about their favourite authors and books, they look at me blankly. My heart aches…

Being Naked is Being Liberated

A poster in one of the anti-rape marches organised in Delhi, after the Delhi gang-rape, said: “My body is my Property.” Another one said, “Just because I show my legs, doesn't mean I spread them.”  A third one said, “Don’t you dare tell me what to wear, tell him not to stare. My body is not public property.” The most interesting one was: “I can walk the street naked if I want, but you can’t rape me. I am a liberated, self–respecting woman.”

We are the liberated women of a liberated country. We understand freedom and rights and shout for them. We call ourselves “self-respecting women” but we can’t act like one. Why would a “self-respecting” woman want to, or even think of roaming the streets showing her legs? And if she thinks it is her ‘right’ to show her legs or whatever, why should she shout and protest when a man’s body reacts to a natural urge? Sure, a gentleman won’t lech at or try to rape a girl who is walking past him half naked. But the fact of being aroused by naked bodies unless they are entirely ugly is biological. It is nothing short of cruelty to condemn men for it.  It is like calling women dirty because they menstruate!

Why would a woman like to flaunt her near-naked body and call it ‘liberation’? Liberation from what, I wonder? One reason can be seeing women in the household being oppressed for years. May be they are tired of seeing mothers being beaten up. Not being allowed to do what they want. That suppressed anger might have come out this way. If they can’t stand up against their fathers and brothers, they choose to show their freedom by dressing how they want to.  And they call themselves liberated.

They call it ‘protest against gender bias’ too. If that is so, why are there so few protest marches against female infanticide and ‘arranged’ marriage and in favour of education for the girl child and better opportunities for women in business and politics? Is it that women are by and large incapable of talking about serious things or is it that liberation and equality for them is only about being able to dress how they want to? Why do women need to be vulgar to call themselves liberated (and if they are so keen on their own rights, why would they not accept that others, both male and female, have a right to call them vulgar if they want to?) What happened to claiming equal job opportunities? What happened to saying proudly that I stand equal to a man, because I am equally educated (why are there so few women mathematicians and writers around, even after at least three generations of ‘education’)? And what happened to general human sympathy – remembering that people suffer for reasons other than being women too, and speaking up for their rights sometimes?

As a kid I was always asked to study well, to read a lot of books. I was told, if I am not educated, it won’t be easy for me to get my due respect. Today when I see that “respect” can be gained and measured by the way I dress, or rather my freedom depends on the length of my dress, I wonder, did I waste my time reading all those books? May be I would have been respected much more if my parents had taught me to show my legs to random strangers on the street. Fact: I am still young, and not quite ugly myself!

It is ironical how women from a lower economic strata (e.g. the household helps), buy clothes which cover them decently, whereas women who have loads of money buy clothes that barely cover them. And I have been told, the shorter the dress, the costlier it is. So can I safely say that, decency and self-respect is inversely proportional to the economic strata we belong to? Also these women, from the lower income group have learnt to feed themselves and be independent from a very young age. Something the so called “decent, educated, independent” women can’t even imagine.

Being a woman, I am ashamed to say that I belong to a clan who call themselves civilised but don’t behave like one. When I see women claiming their ‘right’ to roam around near-naked, I wonder: are we going back to the Stone Age? Not wearing too many clothes was normal back then. Only they did not call it liberation or being smart.

Why does a woman need to go around showing her legs and other ‘assets’ on the street? If she doesn't enjoy the way the ‘pervert’ looks at her, she would take care to cover herself as much as she can, or is it that she enjoys that gaze, but cannot honestly say so, and cannot handle it when men ‘over-react’? Is it about the attention she is getting? Is it that she knows that she can’t get that attention in any other way? If so, why can’t she accept it? Why does she feel the need to cover it with a veil of protest? These same women usually cover themselves from head to toe when they stand in front of their fathers and brothers and husbands and teachers because ‘they don’t like it’. Do they forget that there are decent men out there who don’t like to see near-naked bodies of women being publicly flaunted? If women don’t care about what others feel, they shouldn’t shout and expect others to care about their feelings. Should they?

 The offended feminists would say that they are ‘intelligent women with personalities’. So they can do and wear what they want. Men should look at their personalities and not their bodies. I would say, women with personality don’t need to display their bodies. Mamata Banerjee doesn’t need to.  Damayanti Sen doesn't need to. They know they can attract any intelligent or even ordinary men by just their personality. They know if they talk, people will listen. When they walk, men won’t be raping them with their eyes. They will be looking up to them with respect and awe.

Yes I agree that this is a free democratic country, and women can dress the way they want to. But then it is wicked to arouse men and then curse them for it, and very stupid to then complain, “Men only think of us as bodies.” That is what we asked for. If the body is visible to such a great extent, what else can a man think us to be? That is what we wanted when we decided to come out on the street wearing that almost nothing. Why complain now?

Why don’t decent men feel this urge to go about naked except for a very small pair of shorts? Why don’t they call it a restriction on their “freedom”? Because, they don’t want to arouse women so commonly. And also because they consider it vulgar.

J.K. Rowling very rightly said, “Women… they pee in herds.” They literally do so. When I was in school, I used to see three of my classmates going to the wash room together. I wondered how can they all need to relieve themselves at the same time? But then somebody explained how it was necessary because they had the “best quality conversation” there. I used to think it was a teenage thing, but then I saw the same thing happening in college and also when I started working. It may still be acceptable in school, but when women in their mid-twenties and thirties do the same thing, I can’t help but considering it to be a sickness. A sickness to copy each other. Be exact mirror images. That is how wearing almost nothing is “so in”. That is why protest marches shouting for “liberty” and “freedom” is cool. And then they talk about individuality. It would do them some good if they cared to look up the meaning of the word first. No?

We live in a country where the girls, who were once daddy’s darlings, suddenly start becoming a liability, once they cross the age mark of 22. The parents dedicate all their time in searching for the perfect groom for their perfect daughters, and if the daughter is smart enough to find her ‘soul mate’, the parents are after the girl to get her married off. Surprisingly most girls succumb to that family pressure as well. They say they don’t want to get married, but a few tears from the mother and a fake pains in the heart from the dad, and the girl is ready to get married. Independence, freedom, liberation and all those strong words are packed in the suitcase and sent along with the girl to the house of the in laws, to be brought out again, when she will realise that marriage is actually a very serious issue which she can’t deal with. It is better to walk the protest marches rather…

I have recently heard that being able to talk about the vagina aloud now makes women “liberated”.  Poor-Box production is coming out with a play called “Vagina monologues” where five “wow women” talk about “discovering, celebrating and protecting their bodies.” Excuse me for saying this, but women don’t need to ‘discover’ their bodies. Girls do that. (If these women are mothers, I’d like to know what advice they give their own daughters).They don’t need to write a play and spend so much money to celebrate their bodies in public and if they can celebrate their bodies, they don’t need to shout about its protection. If we call ourselves women, we should try to act like one. Where did ideas of privacy, dignity and self-possession go? Is it all about how many ‘likes’ you get on Facebook, and whether you are mentioned on page three, whether you are 15 or 55?

Also, it is funny how we live in a society where women shout about being liberated, but talking about sex and about wanting it with men one loves is still a very big taboo. I have already at this age encountered far too many women who are hypocritical even with themselves: ‘Oh, I don’t think of him that way!’... and how offended they are when they are told their hypocrisy is showing! We can roam around half naked in order to be ‘admired’, but sex should be hushed up, kept under covers and giggled over only while reading Fifty Shades of Gray.  The problem with far too many so-called ‘liberated’ women even today, I think, is that they are far too nyakaa as they say in Bengali (‘coy’ comes close in English, but not quite) to deal with the world on really mature terms, regardless of their age, education and careers. I can’t help but agree with my mum when she sighs and says, “Dark ages are coming. The way some women are overdoing things, soon the government would make it compulsory that women should stay under the veil.” If the feminists are not listening, I would say, for the good! And it is more than strange that while in Iran women are fighting for the right not to wear the veil, in France Muslim women were recently fighting for the right to wear it. What do women want?

Benchnama

[On Sir’s insistence and encouragement, I managed to write my first translation. This piece was published by Anandabazar Patrika on 9^th  February, 2014.  I hope I did justice while translating the very well written piece. If not, pardon me. After all this is my first translation. I promise to improve my skills.]

I was a back-bencher in school and college. I work with an IT company now, but the Bench hasn't left me yet. I still sit on the bench. My Louis Philippe Shirt and the Blackberry trousers look at those cabins with yearning eyes. They wish to cross this “benched” mark and sit before those flat screened computers showing various codes. But alas!

It was five years ago that I got this job. The campus placement procedures in my College had started since four in the evening. It was 1:30 in the morning when I was called in. I thought I was tired, but when I was greeted with a yawn by the interviewers, I knew they were in a worse condition.

I was honestly, disheartened with my interview. I had gone in with the expectations that I would be asked about complicated computer programming languages. The panel members asked me to sing a song, and stopped me just after the first two lines and asked me to send in the next candidate. Yes that was my interview. I was sure that I would not get this job.

Next day when the head of the placement cell, put up the list of the short-listed candidates, I was more amazed than surprised, when Nivedita from the electronics department congratulated me for getting the job. We were 250-300 would be B Tech students and all of us were placed in one month’s time.

That was back in 2007, when the companies needed us more than we needed them. There was a boom in the software industry, and apparently, except for the first 10-15 candidates no one had to go through the technical round. Yes it was that simple. As my friend, Sudipto said, “I went in the interview room chewing tobacco, and bagged the job.” I think I was in a better position. I was at least asked to sing.

We happily gave up studying in the final year. There was no point after all. At the end of the day we study to bag a job. When that was already done, what was the point in studying anymore?

It is funny, how nowadays; the seats in the engineering colleges are left vacant. Even after 2-3 counselling sessions, at least 10% seats are left vacant. The colleges literally beg students to fill in the seats. But why shouldn't it be that way? Look at me? More than an engineering degree, what have I achieved? I have a job, but I am benched.

For all those, who haven’t understood the meaning of “Bench”, rest assured, you are no better than I am. You don’t have a future to look forward to as well.  Keeping pace with the increasing number of malls and multiplexes, engineering colleges have raised their heads in thousands. Every year there are at least 12000 engineers. It’s just in the name that some are civil, some are mechanical  some IT and some electrical. After all like the rivers end up in the sea, the various streams of B tech ends up in the sea of Software. In this generation, I can bet you that you won’t find a house without an engineer. But I can assure you that, if you ask any of these engineers, “son, do you sit on the bench?” one out of five engineers would lower his head and smile.

It all depends on the pool. No not the water body, but the human resource pool. As in greater the human resource, more the chances of getting projects.  For instance, a client comes over to a certain IT solution company with a project or a problem.  Suppose they require around 500 people for the project. The company’s human resource is around 850. The impression on the client is that this is a company rich with talented people. Hence more the number of people the easier it is to get projects. My company however likes to deal with foreign clients. Hence the deals are made in crores.

My office in Rajarhat is a fifteen floors building. I work in the fourteenth floor. Sorry, I punch my card on the fourteenth floor. Honestly I don’t have anything to do. If I look back, when I joined this office, after college, I went through an eight months training programme. As soon as the training period was over, I got a project. Then another. In three years I worked in two projects. I dreamt of going overseas with my third project. But there was no third project.

Apparently, the technology is to be blamed. C++ , Mainframe are all obsolete. Hence I am benched.  A few more months on the bench, and God save me, I will be handed the pink slip. I would be asked to leave with an advanced salary of two or three months, and a letter saying, “Thank you for your valuable association.” The HR would smile and say, “downsizing.” In a lay man’s language: “a kick in the ass.”

Who cares about how I am living my life? My day begins with travelling with the thousand others to the Rajarhat-Newtown-Sector Five. We don’t have computers in our office. They are called workstation. I have one too. I swipe my card and after the finger print check has been done, my computer welcomes me with a message, “your company feels for you.”

Passing your time is not a problem for us benched. We can increase our technical knowledge in the library. We can Facebook, we can spend as much time as we want in the smoking zone. No one can tell us anything. We are the benchers. We are the company’s resource pool. It is just the hope of getting a project that keeps me going.

I am left with a blank look, when someone asks me about my work load. I deliberately look past the self- help books in the book stores. There are books like, “How to manage your work stress.” I wish I had some work to be stressed about. I am ashamed of the fact that I have a blue collared job. A fifteen floor office building, but no work. I spend my day sitting idle. Looking blankly at the computer screen.

Earlier I did not care much about the business papers. How do I care about how the cornflakes production would be affected by the rise in the oil prices in Qatar?  But now, that business page is the one that gives me hope. I hardly understand the world economic theory, but what excites me is when the value of rupee falls in comparison to the Dollar. With the depreciation of rupee, we become cheap labour. The cheaper we become, the more important we become for the foreign companies. My hope, that I will be called becomes stronger.

When will I be called? The flat 40% off on the apparels call me every morning. I look with yearning eyes at the attractive offers on the front page of the newspapers. My heart wrenches at the thought of a two nights three days holiday at Pataya. I dream about the luxury cruise and the moonlit nights.

I last remembered Goddess Kali (kali ma) during my campus placements. I now remember Obama. It’s all your whim and wish, your honour. Give me a project please!

Emotional Atyachar

I was scrolling through the channels last evening and stopped when I saw a graphic visual of a red heart breaking on screen and the words “Emotional Atyachar” coming out of the broken heart. I have heard of this reality show a number of times, but have never watched it.

Fifteen minutes through it and I was trying to figure out the point of this show. For those of you who haven’t watched it, this is a show where a heartbroken girl/boy comes over and tells her/his story. The cast and crew of Emotional Atyachar, enacts the story for the viewers’ benefit and through it tries to give a message:  Don’t trust men even though you “love” him. Don’t trust girls because they are likely to go ahead and get pregnant with your best friend’s child. Don’t trust your best friend because s/he will go ahead and fall in love with your lover.

I was so intrigued by the idea of this show, that I spent some time Youtubing some previous episodes of the same programme. In one of them, the girl was talking about how she found out that her boyfriend was “flirting” with her best friend, by checking his text messages.  I was left wondering how jobless can the girl be, that she spent “30 minutes” trying to look through his text messages and then taking a back-up of all these text messages on her laptop.  (Mind you. To spy over someone you need to be technologically advanced. It would have been a failed attempt if I would have tried it. I am seriously in awe of the girlfriend.) In another episode, the girlfriend was cheating the boyfriend. She had slept with his room-mate and the boyfriend found that out when she was pregnant and had told him that it was the boyfriend’s child she was carrying. The boyfriend knew it wasn't his, because as he proudly claimed on camera, “humlog eksath sote the, but mein ek pillow ko hug kiye bina so nahi sakta. Toh aap samajh sakte ho, k humare beech kabhi kuch ho hi nahi sakta.” (we used to sleep together but I cannot fall asleep if I can’t hug a pillow. So you know, nothing could have happened in between us.) I pity the girlfriend really! The poor thing might have tried to seduce the boyfriend, and when she failed, she went ahead and happily slept with the room-mate. Justified she was, I must say.

There were many other stupid problems. (I am telling you, it is highly addictive. Not because they talk about serious things, but because it gives you a good laugh.) I was amused and disgusted at the same time by two things. Firstly, the youths, the “future of our nation” are so helplessly jobless, that they would come on such shows (look at the name), and talk about their “personal problems.” Secondly, how trivial their problems are.

They are heartbroken and depressed because they “loved” someone, and that person cheated on them.  Mind you they are “depressed”. I wonder what would the child on the street who has got no shelter to sleep would have to say about it. What would the three year old, for whom, being loved means  two chapattis and some curry, has got to say about this “depression.”

The main problem lies in the fact that we are privileged. We are privileged to sit and claim that we “love” and we “care”.  And by love and care we mean holding hands and roaming about in shopping malls. We are privileged to refuse to look in to the depth of these words.  We are privileged to shed tears over stupid silly problems about not being “loved”. About not being “needed”.  About our “loved ones” cheating on us.

It is funny, how the thin, hungry, homeless 3 year old still smiles at the world, while the rich, fat 30 year old, sulks and cries all the time. I wonder, if being happy and content is inversely proportional to being rich and privileged. I am sure the less privileged would look at this show, smile and say, "Atyachar it is."

A thought on Hemingway

I have just started reading Hemingway's "To Have and Have Not". Hemingway has been my favourite since I was in Class 11 and He has never disappointed me. He is so lucid yet dramatic. The opening chapter of this book, made me wonder, that why haven't any of his novels been made into movies? You can almost imagine the scenes visually as you read through.

Or is it that there are movies made from his stories and I am not aware of it? please do let me know if there are any.