Where Reuters got it wrong!

Read this article on Hindu by the Reuters dated 3 July. '06 where it says that advertisers overlook women soccer fans.
According to the article there are 39% women audience for World cup but bulk of the advertisements are centred on male consumers goods like beer, cars, electronics, bawdy humour, men playing soccer and bikini-clad women.
These goods should not be defined as male consumer goods in the first place. I love beer, so does my aunt and many of my female friends. Most of us love football too. Infact i think its the beer drinking women who are watching football in the first place. I love electronics, cars and many women feel the same.
And as for playing the game, yes there are very less women (growing in number though) who play. I guess the reasons are same as why men cannot play "gaddi" ( gaddi = 4/5 stones thrown in air and picking them again in twos and threes). So its ok if they are showing bikini-clad women.
At this time and age, men wear thick gold chains, nail polish, and have become more audience friendly looking, we should not be defining anything as male consure goods and female consumer goods. Simply because it does not make any sense.

No book can teach you this

The only daughter of not too ill-to-do parents, I have always lived with some kind of sense of kingdom. I always had a room of my own with its very own bathroom. I always had a life-time privilege card, which entitled me to get almost whatever I wanted, maybe not whenever I wanted it, but I got it eventually. I never thought twice where everyday things were concerned. It just felt like they were always there. Things like washing machine, cars, toothpaste and all.

Imagine my plight when I had to live with other people in a paying guest accommodation while in college. My mom with good intentions left me with a family where I was given a separate room with my own bathroom and everything. I stayed there for over a year and then decided to stay at a place closer to my college. That’s when I came, inevitably, face-to-face, with life!

Proud that I was all by myself now, first thing I ventured into was to go shopping for the everyday ordinary things. I didn't have to use the home-prescribed soaps and paraphernalia any more. I was to lead my life in my own terms, and I was going to do anything not to follow the ordinary. My own terms sure, but I was to use their money.

I bought Crest, it cost me maybe 10 times more than Colgate but, I wanted to use it. My soap was either Neutrogena or Bodyshop. My loofah was hand-made, one of the best by Clinique. Everything I bought that day were products straight out of either Vogue or Elle. Boy, I still remember, it was raining that day, but it was sunshine inside me. With my newly attained wealth and a lot of damage to my parents’ account, I went to my room, which I was sharing with two other girls and started arranging.

I needed to brush my teeth at night and just then I realised, I forgot to buy a toothbrush. I never had to so it never crossed my mind. Then there was no mug and no bucket to take bath with. There was no shower in the bathroom and damn, I never thought that washing soap was of any use at all. I was sure everyone was facing this problem, being an optimist. So I went t to buy some more provisions. The best bucket, the best mug, the best towels and RIN (By best I mean what I thought was best among my choices).

When I came back, one of the girls wanted to know if she could use my shampoo. My Wella shampoo!! None had ever used my shampoo. Would it be too shallow to think like that? What my parents had taught about sharing, had it gone for waste? That thought made me give in and someone used my shampoo for the first time. Shampoo I would not lend my mom!

Then as days progressed, each time my roomie looked at me, forget look, so much as glanced at me, I used to cringe, what does she want now. She was placed very strategically by God to teach me how to give. Because in life, give you must! But give to the needy, the poor, and the underprivileged. Giving it to some slug who was too lazy and too stingy to go and buy stuffs for herself.. It was unfair! And suddenly, life was not all fair! That’s why we had the needy and the poor in the first place.

Life went on, till then I had never much thought of life. It was a smooth sail, but I was struggling now and realizing that such is life after all. Give, give and give. Then I started introspecting because as a child I had heard someone say that life is about giving and taking. But I wasn't taking anything. But as I thought, I realised that I was taking but not from the same girl that I was giving so many things to. I was taking from my parents. Uncomfortable thought. So I decided not to think at all.
My mom told me, when I called her to complain about life that every morsel had a name on it. And my shampoo was not mine anymore. Like everything else, it had a name on it. And the name was not mine.

One new girl joined three months later and she forgot to get a bed sheet along. The Bombay Dyeing, which I had saved for summer had her name on it. So I gave. Except money, I never borrowed anything from anyone but I made good friends with good people, lazy people, tardy people, dirty people and great people. All these lending a certain colour to life and teaching me things I would never have learnt otherwise.

Living with others teaches you so many things, tolerance being the best thing you will ever learn.

It’s been 8 years since then, I work now, use my own money now, have the knowledge that tooth paste and brush go hand in hand, to keep socks in place one had to be put into another and broke does not mean poor! I have a roomie from Hyderabad, just out of the clutches of her home, quietly and slowly learning things which I have already mastered.

For me life is like Candid Camera, just when you are all angry and frustrated, they ask you to look straight ahead and smile!

Two left feet, but what spirit!

There are two kinds of people in this World - those who can dance and those who, no matter what, cannot.

I saw one of the second variety recently and was beyond amused, all my good manners went for a quick toss when I burst out laughing unable to control. This guy was like "bendy". He could bend all the angles.. which is good.. but this one did that all at once. All the bends, bending all at once. Is that even normal!

He was facing the Dj so i look up to see DJ's reaction. When I did, the DJ was, with his eyes closed, deep in his own world. Just then he opens his eyes and for a second or two I feel that his mix went off-beat! He was blown over. Kept his face down, pursed his lips and laughed in that position!

A cough like never before made me turn to my neighbour, the cougher. She apparently lighted a smoke and saw him, so she was laughing and coughing at the same time.

Then the dancer looks at me smiling and I am a bit scared coz he's really tall and lanky (we cant underestimate those varieties!). I laugh back. He wants to know if he can keep the water bottle on my table. I laugh "sure".

He stops then starts again, bending everything, all at once, all over again. Not a care in the world. After a while we were all enjoying it.

Reminded me of a time when I watched a Russian dance, pole dancing. The babe was so plastic that altho' she was a professional she was soooooo boring. Even the single guys were bored!

So here's to our dancer and his spirit!

One day, as it happens

In Mumbai:
I have been here before but this is the first time I am here alone. All alone. Am very sceptical about going out of the room. It's a big, huge city with lots of cars and lots and lots of people. It's kind of scary. But I am my mother's daughter so I put my thoughts along wit my clothes in the closet.

I had to chuck my previous plans of going to I-max (Manasi says it's very far) and to Prithvi (because it was houseful). With her promise that she will take me there tomorrow anyway, I decide to go to "World- Famous- in- Mumbai" - Linking Road.

I get ready after having a horrible veg-burger (thank God it's not called a hamburger still), on the chef's insistance that it will be instant and good. Not to mention, it was neither. Then I start to venture out. I come out of Lotus Suites and take an auto (although the hotel insists that I take a cab). I want to pull it off as a Mumbai-ite. It's important to me that I don't look like a tourist wherever I go. Think I can pull it off? We'll see. I pulled it off in Hyderabad. No one could make out I normally don't wear a saree because I carried it off like i wear it often. :). Little battle won.

The auto guy is very nice (such a surprise). He talks to me the whole while. He says he is doing this part time and is actually a driver in Aditya Birla Group. He credits that to the fact that its "maingai ka zamana" (an expensive age). Even more surprising was, he tells me he will wait for me if I take not more than 1 hour in Bandra. I had to refuse this gentleman on the grounds that I am a girl and I love looking around. He feels bad, but looks like I pulled it off, coz when we finally reach Bandra and as I pay up, he looks at me and says, "Aap Hindi badiya bol leti hain" (You speak immaculate Hindi). I equal his smile and respond "Sikni padi, Bombay me rehke" :) (Had to learn, staying in Mumbai :) )

Then, I am left alone in Bandra. 5 years back I was here. The entire population of Sikkim and more seemed to be here, doing what they do best - Shop!

I go with the flow, quite literally. I don't really have to walk, it's more like being carried on. I look at what they are looking, wonder at what they are wondering and flow where they are flowing. Then when I realised that I have learnt enough, I take a U-turn, where I can see a lot of coconut water boys, very busy doing their work. The city @ 32 degrees celsius with 75% humidity is bustling with energy! And as an elephant crosses the road, we all get stuck in the traffic.

As I take a sip at my "daab", the shop next to me calls out and tells me that one offer is open only for me. Only for me??? What a marketing gimmick! He continues that if I buy a pair of shoes then he will give me a bag free. The shoes are worth Rs. 100, imagine how the bag would look! 3 guys sitting with him are completely amused and I laugh with them as well. This boy had gone bonkers, with that thought I finish the 'daab' and move on.

I am fond of shoes, so I enter one shop, look around and walk out unimpressed. Then I go to another and this time as I walk out, the manager calls out and asks me why I didn't like anything. I had to tell him that I don't have money (coz I didn't want to be impolite), but he didn't buy that. So after a while I said I was just window shopping and left the shop and the man with a enthusiam-dimmed look on his face.

In the next shop, I saw a very smart pendant and decided to buy it for my friend. He quoted Rs. 100, I generally said "make that Rs 50", coz that's what Bombay does - divides by 2!! He agreed!! I was delighted that such a precious piece and costing nothing, then again I was skeptical beciase he agreed immediately. He says in Broken english, "Myself Feroz, this my shop, pls come a-gain, its my pleasure". I smile at him, my brains ticking inside, did he fool me or did I?

After 3 hours of being a watcher, talking to the frindly people of Mumbai, I decide to call it a day!

Before I take an auto I call my mom to wish her "mother's day" and she is petrified to know that I am in Mumbai, on the streets at 8PM!! So I hurriedly hang up, take an auto, praying that I reach. Back in the hotel I take a long shower, tidy-up and order for a spicy biryani (I didn't want to eat anything I wasn't familiar with, 'cause of the morning experience). As I sit and start to eat, I can't help but think about the boy in the next seat aboard the flight I was on.


The boy next to me in the aircraft

He must've been ten. Very sweet and very smart. His mom was seated in front of us and his dad behind. So I helped him throughout the journey, with his water bottle, his seat belts and his lunch. All the while we din't exchange one word! I was reading Shashi Tharoor and he was playing with a toy aeroplane, the steward had presented him with.

One and half hours later, as we landed, the lady announced the temperature outside in Hindi. I turned to him and ask " How much is bathees?"

He says "I have no idea". So I went back to the book and he to his toy.

Then the lady started the announcement in English and she finished it with, "The temperature outside is 32 degrees celsius".

So we turn to each other, at the exact same time, from what we were doing, pause and chorus "Thirty-two" and burst out laughing.

It was a moment to capture. It was a moment, so my words can't do justice.