'JADE' - but not jaded!!

Blogdosts, this appears in the current issue of 'Jade' , which has taken over this particular market segment ( 'Femina' terrain) in South India.

Right now , I'm on an absolute high after completing the 7km Dream Run at the Mumbai Marathon. Arundhati finished hers in record time ( by her own standards). My own sentiments are different : it's not about competing, racing or winning medals. I run because I want to draw attention to a charity of my choice - I ran with my bachchas from 'Childline' and had a great time, even though the sun was cruel and harsh on the flyover, and I was feeling faint.... dehydrated.

Back in the VIP Marquee, post-Marathon, I attacked the superb breakfast spread, concentrating on the paper thin dosas with onion chutney. Young Siddhatha Mallya was the out and out star of this Marathon, mobbed by fans clamouring for his autograph.... and he's not even a movie star!! Perhaps his movie star girl friend will get a bit of a complex since Sid totally overshadows her when they step out together. Shall we call it a reversal of roles???

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P.M.ji, Zara Lift Kara de...!

Why are we frothing at the mouth over Ganguly's exclusion from an entertainment event ( can't really call the IPL a sporting event!). If it's only about the money.... honey, he's got tons of it. If it's about performance, well.... his track record speaks for itself. Even so, Ganguly's 'Dadagiri' days aren't over.... so his fans can dry their tears and let the IPL tamasha begin.
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This appeared on sunday. Ironically, the very next day there was a horrific elevator crash at a building site in Mumbai - an avoidable accident in which six people were killed when the makeshift lift plunged 21 floors. Ketan Shah, a director of 'Success Builders' ( irony!) was arrested. There are thousands of lifts that are not safe in this city. And only 16 government appointed lift supervisors to inspect them. What do you expect??

Manmohanji…. Zara Lift Kara De…?

I was stuck in an elevator last week. Believe me, it wasn’t the best way to bring in the new year or start a brand new decade. While I was fuming away in the gleaming aluminium box, an untrained, uneducated elevator attendant struggled with the emergency panel and shouted into a phone. Clearly, nobody had a clue as to what to do next. I was beginning to panic as the attendant started punching buttons and switches at random in a crazy hit-and-miss game. He even tried to pry open the heavy doors manually , ignoring my protests. There was one other person in the elevator who seemed calm and collected as he offered his own suggestions. I demanded a bit too aggressively, “ Are you an engineer?” The guy had a musical instrument with him, so it was a loaded question. Nope, he admitted, as he shook his head and smiled reassuringly. That smile was a good move - I found myself smiling , too. By now the elevator man had finished punching all the buttons and turning various switches on and off. He’d also attempted a few kicks and shoves to browbeat the obstinate door into opening. Nada! We were still stuck! Then, as if by magic the elevator started to move… but the panel didn’t indicate a thing. Were we headed up or down? Top most floor or the basement? Zilch. My co-trapee ( Ha! I like that word), remained impassive even as I started to hyper ventilate. Perhaps music would help? I half- expected him to remove the guitar from its case and start strumming. Abruptly,the elevator stopped by itself. We could have reached heaven, for all I knew. The doors were still shut. And the attendant was muttering it wasn’t his fault – the elevator was old and badly maintained. It had been acting up…. but did anybody listen to him? A few minutes later the doors were forced open by an irate supervisor. We were indeed on the top floor and the supervisor was very cross. Why? Just! He yelled at the cowering attendant, while the musician continued to watch the hysterical proceedings stoically. By this point I was agitatedly asking stupid questions like, “ What if the elevator had crashed all the way to the pit from the 25th floor?” The musician patiently explained that was an unlikely scenario since modern elevators came equipped with breaks on every floor, plus several checks and balances in order to prevent such mishaps. In my head I was saying nastily, “ Yeah. Right. You aren’t even an engineer … you should know!” Wicked of me. Very wicked.
Later, once I had recovered sufficiently, ‘The Stalled Elevator’ somehow made me think of India.It became an appropriate symbol, an apt metaphor.India is a stalled elevator at the moment – stuck in a tight spot. Stuck between floors. No immediate solutions in sight. No emergency services to pull it out of the mess and get it going efficiently. Too many ‘experts’ offering uninformed advice. Too many hitches and glitches preventing the country from making it to the top floor smoothly. Too many inefficient ‘supervisors’ goofing up and blaming poor attendants. Nobody willing to take the rap, own up, assume responsibility. The India Elevator can come crashing down if we don’t wake up and take charge. Too many of us are like the mild mannered, well meaning musician who patiently waited for a ‘solution’. The rest of us remain fatalistic, hoping for a miracle that is not happening. If the building society in which the elevator malfunctioned, had had a better leader, perhaps this unfortunate incident would not have taken place. The lifts would have operated safely and been regularly serviced. There would have been a tabled report to that effect shared transparently with society members ( who, after all, are the real stake holders). Residents would have shown more confidence during emergencies knowing that procedures were being scrupulously followed. With more accountability in place, charges of negligence or corruption would not have surfaced periodically. Had those elevator attendants been paid better, trained better and treated better, the quality of service would have been better . Had the supervisors been thoroughly screened and appointed on the basis of the right qualifications and not for being second cousins of the contractor’s uncle, the approach to issues concerning building maintenence would have been more rigorous. And had residents themselves been more pro-active , the quality of life in this complex would have been significantly superior. By sacking the elevator attendant, cutting his meager salary, punishing or penalizing the supervisor, nothing will be achieved. The real culprits reside elsewhere. The onus of running the place honestly and competently rests with them. So long as they sleep easy in their ivory towers, untouched by the frustrated lives of those who have elected them in the first place, nothing will change. The elevator will keep getting stuck between floors. And someday, a few lives may be lost on account of its dilapidated condition. Till such a tipping point is reached, we will continue to grit our teeth, grin and bear it.
As I write this, there are helicopters buzzing over Mumbai. The prime minister is visiting. The city is on high alert ( there are hardly any days when it isn’t). Manmohan Singh will get the usual air- brushed view of Mumbai and fly off believing ‘aaal eeez well.’ Guess what, Prime minister? I have news for you. This ‘elevator’ we call India, needs to be junked and replaced. We’ve run out of both - resources and excuses. What we desperately need is not just a brand new elevator but a brand new leader to run the show.
To quote Led Zeppelin : They talk of days for which they sit and wait… when all will be revealed.”
Will it????

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Jessica Lives.....!

Who said Sunday is a day of rest??? Liar!! I've had the most hectic time yesterday, but am not complaining. It was like a home- coming at Chor Bazar... my first visit after the 26\11 Terror Attacks.What was once my regular and favourite haunt is now a transformed place, virtually deserted except for a few weekend shoppers looking for bargains. The tourists have gone and the wares are being sold at throwaway prices by desolate shop keepers waiting around listlessly for 'dhanda'. Most of my old friends - Ahemedali, Iqbal, Raisullah, are still around... they talked about business being down,down,down since that awful day... and there's no recovery in sight. But the good news is that Ahemedali's two daughters are doing brilliantly ( I have known them since they were little girls), and one of them is now a professor at Wilson College.
So.... what did I buy? Glass jars!!! Gorgeous shapes and sizes ( I have an absolute weakness for glass). I also spotted two wonderful Boondi heads in solid wood ( weighing a ton!), and an old camphor trunk covered in leather with brass rivets. But where do I store my treasures??? Lust and leave - my mantra for 2011!
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This appeared in Bombay Times today....

Jessica lives…!

It’s really a sign of our times that public memory has become so alarmingly short, and reference points virtually non-existent. I watched ‘Jessica’ on a Saturday night and was happy to observe a nearly packed hall in a popular multiplex. But ….I didn’t see too many youngsters. Yes, I guess they have far better things to do on a Saturday night than watch a non-masala film about a cause celebre they know nothing about. The two young girls with me were curious up to a point, but from their frequent questions and occasional BBMs, it was obvious they weren’t clued in, nor were they particularly interested. They were there to watch a good film … period. During the interval, I asked them what they thought of the movie and they asked innocently, “But who is Jessica…?” I could forgive them easily for the faux pas when I reminded myself that the Jessica story is over ten years old. These girls were around ten themselves at the time – how would they know …and why should they care? The more important issue is simply this: did the movie work as powerful cinema, devoid of recall or emotional baggage? The answer is a disappointing ‘no’. The script is weak and patchy, with the first half crawling along painfully, establishing nothing more than Vidya Balan’s morose mood. Vidya , who plays Jessica’s sister Sabrina, is projected as a gloomy , angry, bitter woman mourning her sister’s callous murder, while moping around a home that is dark and depressing itself, dressed like a dish rag. Paradoxically, the popular perception of the real life Sabrina is that of an attractive, feisty fighter without whose spirited intervention, the Jessica murder would have been like Aarushi’s – perfect.No suspects, no motives, no arrests.
The weakest link in the film is the role of Manu Sharma, the convicted murderer of Jessica – had the film maker (Ram Kumar Gupta) spent more time giving the audience a slightly more complete backgrounder to the scoundrel, people may have connected better with the story. Instead, what we get is a Babe Film – one ( Rani), a foul mouthed, promiscuous , self styled bitch who takes pride in spewing cuss words liberally and wears her official ‘bitch status’ as a badge of honour ( her maid calls her a ‘kutti’ – and the audience cheers!). The other ( Vidya), a droopy, expressionless , sexless crusader who goes about her commitment glumly and mechanically. There is no passion in her mission, nothing fierce about her desire to vindicate her sister’s murder. The others are mere caricatures… almost childishly etched – from President Kalam and Manmohan Singh to Bina Ramani and Sheila Dixit. The only well written roles belong to the actor playing Shyan Munshi, and the investigating cop. To come to the babes – what can they do if the director sees their characters in a particular way . Rani and Vidya are both seasoned professionals and do the best they can with the material. Rani puts in the more flamboyant performance as a Barkha Dutt clone ( poor Prannoy Roy must have squirmed at his own cameo). Rani’s ‘sheershasan’ scene and the one in which she jumps on to the bonnet of her chief editor’s car, are terrific moments that lift this rather lack luster film from sinking into a tiresome, preachy, verbose docu- drama ( agonizingly turgid court scenes). Given the powerful subject, a more authoritative director could have made a deeply disturbing film chronicling contemporary history in a more engaging way. I came away savouring the few and far between flashes of a newbie called Myra , who plays Jessica with verve and freshness. Had there been more of Myra in the movie, it might have kept more people in the audience absorbed and awake.
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The best news on the cultural front is the much awaited revival of that stupendous 1972 classic – Vijay Tendulkar’s “Ghashiram Kotwal’ ( brilliantly directed by Jabbar Patel). I have seen the original production several times… and was hoping Mohan Agashe would once again demonstrate his magnetic stage presence as Nana Phadnavis. Let’s wait and see what Madhav Abhyankar does with the material. This is perhaps the first Facebook generated Marathi play ( actors responded to an appeal posted by Abhyankar ). Nana would have approved of this 21st century strategy!

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Fashion Follies and Faux Pas...

I am off to watch Jessica... dying to see Rani and Vidya together, even though I thought they overdid their entire 'we love and adore each other' nonsense during the multiple television promos, going as far as to fake a full on smooch ( Puhleeze, girls, leave that stunt to the likes of Madonna and Britney - it's terribly passe!). I have lots of oil in my hair ( I swear by it - HAIR VIT - manufactured by Millennium Herbal Care). My daughter Anandita is mad at me for going overboard with the oil ( she's my date for the movie ). But my hair had been whipped by the salt in the sea air last night as we sped through dark waters across the bay, to the waiting crew of a friend's gorgeous yacht. I could spot the Great Bear in the wonderfully clear sky.... and the iconic dome of the Taj Palace and Hotel was gleaming like burnished gold in the far distance. Our yacht was anchored 10 minutes from the shore.... the lights from Mandwa winked wickedly at us. It was one of the coolest ways to celebrate what turned out to be one of the most memorable birthdays, spent with family and a few close friends.
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This appears in the latest issue of Hi ! Blitz.... a fun piece for Shalini Sharma's 'Opinion' pages.
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Let’s take a better look at that lady in the front row. Yup, that one. The one wearing a most unfortunate outfit that screams , ‘tacky’. All that bling! All those murderous fashion faux pas. What was the poor thing thinking? It is easy to tell she has spent the past three days planning for this momentous occasion – her maiden appearance at a Fashion Week finale. She has had to work every known contact in her book to get the invite. Now… she is here. But nobody has noticed her. She looks around and spots a couple of familiar faces from her neighbourhood gym and waves vigourously. An usherette comes up to ask her to show her passes. Oh God! Did she get something wrong? Are these not her seats? She holds her breath. The lights dim. A crackling announcement informs invitees the show is about to begin. Pumping club music drowns out further conversation.
Saved! She sighs… sits back… and waits.
It’s show time, folks. Yet another tamasha is about to begin….
The presence of the dreadfully dressed front row newbie says it all. Desi Fashion Weeks have lost their premier positioning. Nobody of consequence attends them any more. And certainly nobody of consequence takes them seriously. What had started as an inspired idea once upon a time, has degenerated into a bit of a joke down the years. The reason for this decline is obvious. Indian fashion has simply not been able to move beyond its self- created cage of bridal wear. It began with elaborate, over priced lehengas, and there it has remained, with a few quirky, accidental hits in between. The same old designers who have ruled the roost for the past twenty years, continue to recycle the same old tired silhouettes year after year, and the law of diminishing returns has finally kicked in. Nobody is all that excited by those interchangeable and monotonous fashion weeks, outside the cosy coterie of boutique owners and their star clientele. Ever since Bollywood hijacked the fashion scene in India, and starlets replaced professional models, fashion itself lost its edge and identity, becoming nothing more than a poor cousin of the entertainment industry. Bollywood is the worst thing to have happened to desi fashion since the invention of the mermaid lehenga.
It’s a Catch-22. No Bollywood. No press. No attention. No sponsors. That’s the way it goes. Brave designers who resist the monumental temptation to hire the latest ‘It Girl’ from showbiz as the showstopper are snubbed by the paparazzi, who prefer even a fourth tier has- been star of yesteryears to a top notch model. Besides, the average hack wouldn’t be able to tell between a Monica Bedi and a Monica Bellucci ( believe me, Bedi would score over Bellucci, especially in Delhi). That leaves the designers in a bit of a bind. If they don’t play ball and rope in an actor or two ( for the ramp and the front row), he\she gets the royal ignore. Nobody but nobody is interested in the clothes on the catwalk… that’s the awful truth. If the side show and after party rocks, the designer gets top coverage. If the clothes rock – hell, who cares? But are the clothes rocking at all??? Have all those Fashion Weeks put together thrown up even a single name worth noting in the last ten years? I’d say not. The usual suspects continue to hog the limelight ( and those brides!) year after year. Once in a blue moon the press goes ga ga over a newcomer who is actually bold enough not to steal someone else’s designs and create a new look. But without the right support, these few and far between fashion talents drop off the radar as swiftly as they appear on it. Sadly, the one story nobody wants to acknowledge involves the business of fashion. Let’s face it squarely - there are hardly any foreign buyers out there – and very little business gets done. Frustrating but true. With this pathetically low generation of big money, it is indeed time to say the emperor wore no clothes!
But what the hell… fashion has inveigled itself into our lives and consciousness. We are silly in this respect – but we have become addicted to those infernal fashion weeks we crib about. Without our realizing it, we have joined the carnival. Each time a new category is announced or a new city added to the overload, we groan, but get into our fashionable gear and show up at the venue regardless. Fashion fatigue?? Who’s complaining?? Not those self conscious fashionistas hanging on to their Bottegas and smiling for the cameras. Not the bloated and conceited designers throwing tantrums and attitude while pushing the same old 50kg-10 lakh lehengas at gullible brides. Not the hangers- on who camp it up night after night, at all the riotous after parties, high on free booze and cheap substance. And certainly not the Page 3 reporters who hold their collective breaths waiting for a wardrobe malfunction that may or may not happen. It doesn’t get loonier than this. But hey – what’s wrong with looney???

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Pyar hi Pyar....!

This appeared in Bombay Times on monday....Mumbai experienced 'winter' for exactly three days and thirty-six minutes! Put your toosh away, Mumbaikars, and get ready for Mumbai's only 'real' season - muggy!

I am reading a delightful interview with me conducted by London- based literary journo Anita Sethi. It appeared as a full page piece in The National ( Arts & Life ) - the leading daily published in the UAE. Why delightful? Well .... my daughter Arundhati was holidaying in Dubai over New Year's and she came across the paper quite by chance! That was a lovely surprise. If you guys want to read it, I guess you'll have to log on to http://www.thenational.ae/ (monday, 3rd Jan). Good luck!


One World – One Life – Pyar hi Pyar!

I have to say SRK’s ‘new, improved’ loving mood in 2011 is highly infectious! I woke up on New Year’s Day to find his cheerful, upbeat interview (“Let there be love…”) on the front page of this very paper! I blinked… and blinked again. Wow! Something wonderful has happened to SRK…and he has reconnected with the child in him. Why not? His words and sentiments sounded sincere. He seems to mean what he is saying about love being the only true emotion in the world. He is in a giving, forgiving mood – and we are ready to receive! New beginnings are meant for just such positive feelings. Coincidentally enough, my mood was similar when I accepted Kia Scherr’s persuasive invitation to meet her for a cup of tea at the Trident where she has been staying for a while. Who is Kia? Let me put it this way : she is a grieving wife and mother, who is coming to terms with the loss of her daughter Naomi and husband Alan who died at one of the restaurants in the hotel during the 26\11 Terror Attacks in 2008. She herself was thousands of miles away in Florida at a reunion with other members of her family, when someone called her to say, ‘Switch on the television… Mumbai is under attack… the hotel Naomi and Alan are staying in has been taken over by terrorists.” Even as she watched the grim drama…. numbed by the horrific images , she was somehow convinced that her loved ones would be safe. It was a belief she clung on to during the entire period, till she received a call from the FBI to confirm that her beloved little girl and devoted husband were both dead. Sitting by the large bay windows of the lounge on the 28th floor, Kia recreated the aftermath of those dreadful days, and broke down several times, recovering swiftly and bravely to talk about why she is in the city. Kia has decided to convert her personal tragedy into a lifelong mission by launching ‘One Life Alliance’. When she speaks passionately about honouring the sacredness of life, it is easy to sense her total commitment to the cause. As a meditation teacher for over 30 years ( she started with Transcedental Meditation and later moved on to join Master Charles who is an ordained monk in the Vedic tradition).Today, all that experience is helping her to heal… and more importantly, to reach out to others. While in Mumbai she had the opportunity to meet both President Obama and President Sarkozy when they met the survivors and families of those who died during 26\11. This weekend, Kia is planning an important seminar at the hotel where she hopes to communicate her message of peace and forgiveness to a large audience. I told her bluntly that in order to get extensive media coverage, she would have to approach a big Bollywood star. She said she had watched ‘My Name is Khan’ in America and loved the film. I promptly suggested Shah Rukh Khan’s name. Kia looked a little hesitant as she confessed she had zero contacts with Bollywood, and the closest she’d come to a big star was when she briefly shook hands with Salman Khan before the tight security cordon around him made it impossible for her to actually talk to him. Not one to give up easily, she is determined to get through to one of the biggies and has managed to reach Aamir Khan! She asked me whether our Chief Minister would support her initiative and agree to take a pledge in public. I laughed…. sorry…. Couldn’t help it. I am sure our new Chief Minister is a great guy… but at the end of the day, he’s a politician. I honestly cannot see a single politician in India taking a pledge in public that he\she is willing to honour. And what good is an insincere pledge meant for television?
To the question – ‘How can I make a difference?’ Kia has an answer : “One person at a time. One community at a time.”
It is remarkable to see such fortitude . Kia maybe a long, long way from America But I get the feeling she has found her spiritual home right here in Mumbai…
Kia is no longer alone…

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I watched ‘The Tourist’ last week and loved it! That the performances of Johnny Depp and Anjelina Jolie are not exactly award worthy ( forget the Golden Globe nominations) is pretty obvious. But, my God! Aren’t they just the most glamourous couple alive???Which other duo on earth can come anywhere close to these two red hot superstars? The movie is entertaining in an unadulterated Bollywood way - so far fetched, so shallow. B -ut as pure eye candy, it’s hard to beat the lead pair . Throw in Venice at its sensuous best as the locale for all the mad action and you get a big, fat bonus! Aur kya chahiye, boss?

Here’s to a deliciously wicked 2011.

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......but who killed credibility???

Ma, Tujhe Salaam…. but….Who Killed Credibility….?

It has to be said : 2010 will be marked by historians as the year India sold out! And sold out in such shameless and brazen manner that the jaws that had dropped when the first few scandals hit the headlines, remain dropped till today. As we sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and bid another Rotten Year good bye, there is nothing much to cheer in the coming months. The Central Bureau of Ineptitude ( CBI ) has done it again! With the embarrassingly gauche handling of the Aarushi murder case, the spotlight is focused once more on a body that needs another body to replace it!Why bother to go into CBI’s lapses when ‘no evidence’ is the staple? Either we dismantle this thoroughly useless organization, which has been manipulated by politicians over the years and used as a torture instrument to browbeat and intimidate citizens, or we restructure it and get more transparency into its functioning. But will that ever happen? Na bhai, na.Too many mighty heads will roll .If one takes the Aarushi bungling as but a single example of how clumsily things are run in India, it can act as a case study for all the rest of the muck flying around freely – from Lalit Modi, Suresh Kalmadi, A.Raja and of course, Fearless Radia. Combine that with the entrenched belief that not a single well connected crook gets caught or is thrown into the clink, and that not a single state of India is free of monumental corruption at every level, and you get a pretty sordid picture of the country’s future. India’s Gallery of Rogues doesn’t begin or end with the Usual Suspects ( the ones named earlier). These are just a few high profile people who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. And pray, why or how did they get caught? Because those even higher up in the food chain wanted them to face the music, take the rap – either for deals that soured, or relationships that got corroded – and keep those big mouths sealed. To come back to the grisly murder of an innocent 14- year-old girl ( Aarushi ), whose case has been summarily closed by the CBI claiming a lack of evidence, one wonders at the felicity with which it was done. Does it mean Aarushi’s assailant committed the perfect murder? Or does it mean nobody wants the criminal behind this heinous act to be caught? The answer is obvious when one studies what is known – that files went missing, crucial evidence was destroyed, and all the suspects now walk free. Extraordinary? Nope. Expected . It’s time to pay attention to Ratan Tata’s Banana Republic reference . The Aarushi case is an apt symbol of all that is loathsome in our system. It’s now official : The powerful and the well-connected can and do get away with murder.
Never has the morale of most Indians been this low. While shock waves over the vile deeds of a Lalit Modi and Suresh Kalmadi were still rocking the nation, we shook our heads and made those ‘tch tch’ noises with our tongues to suggest ‘This is terrible… but badey log have always played such games…. And at least these two have been caught!” How sweetly we fooled ourselves! Caught? Sure. But who will dare to punish them? They know too much about too many Sacred Cows. And that’s really what’s eating India’s innards. In the old days, there were two or three Sacred Cows squeezing the country of all its resources. Now, the Sacred Cow population has doubled, trebled and gone through the roof ! There is a hierarchy even in this Cow Shed. And those in the know are aware of that order – nobody dares to take on ‘those people’ (in- laws and out laws) who are seen as dangerous …even more dangerous than the D-Gang. And to think we ‘trust’ these mighty netas. Not just to serve India’s interests on every level – defence , the economy, terrorism - but most importantly, to be the moral barometres for citizens. If the State fails us on all these levels, whom do we turn to? Aaha – this is where Binayak Sen and others come in. Why has Sen become a folk hero…. a martyr? Because we know, almost instinctively… intuitively… that he represents our interests in the long run. That we need a Sen to remind us of higher goals, of deeper truths. 2011 saw the Maoists emerging as the most visible force of dissent and rebellion.Or more accurately, the ‘Maoist Menace’ could no longer be ignored or wished away. Forced into acknowledging them, our Home Minister along with his colleagues decided to make them the Bogey Bears du jour. It suited everybody… the heat generated by other scams was getting too hot to handle – if the Maoists threat was not for real, we would have had to create it! But since the Maoists weren’t in the backyard of those sprawling kothis in Delhi, or at the imposing gates of corporate headquarters in Mumbai, the ‘ Maoist problem’ could be intellectually debated over television, hastily buried and resurrected at will.
However,nothing got India’s goat as much as the Fearless Radia tapes. Those revealing and damaging tapes established incontrovertibly that the State had ears and eyes everywhere… that nothing but nothing was ‘private’ in our so-called democracy. If that wasn’t scary enough, the tapes also established the new pecking order in which some old war horses were exposed as bleating goats, and several holier than thou personalities displayed less than noble characteristics. The most shocking outcome was the utter and total ‘beizzatti’ of venerated mediawallas. Perhaps, that was the last straw in the Credibility Stakes. When respected journalists sold out, when judges were deemed corrupt, when cops colluded with politicians to cover up big and small crimes, when netas became daakus, when murders and kidnappings became routine… and India itself was repeatedly raped by the very people who were meant to protect it…we, the people woke up… and wept. Well, it’s time to dry those tears and act. Kick a few butts for starters…
Can we… will we…? Or is it just far easier to sit back and allow India to sink even lower in 2011?
I am an incorrigible optimist. I’d like to end this tumultuous decade by saying , “The rot stops here.”
‘Jhanda Ooncha Rahey Hamara…..”

Happy New Year, readers!!

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Happy New Year!!

Dearest Blogdosts... I have begun the year in a reflective, contemplative mood.... feeling recharged, renewed and re-energised. It has been such a mellow and gentle start to what promises to be a very special year ( sssshhhh! more on that later!! ). New Year's Eve was spent in Alibag with the family. Well.... those members who were in town. Anandita and her four gal pals really livened up the cool and crisp evening, as they gathered under the gigantic X'Mas tree. We had planted this handsome specimen in the garden more than 20 years ago. It is now well over thirty feet tall! The five lovely and lively young girls danced their feet off ( I picked up a few new moves from them!) and the entire celebration was so very innocent and sweeeet. They had taken the trouble to dress up to the hilt.... forcing me to do the same! This morning over a late brunch, we talked about the year ahead.... their eyes were shining as they read their newspaper predictions for 2011.
Quite a different story from the little girl's that you are about to read.....
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Hello! Is anyone listening….?

Dear World,
Another year is about to end.And here I am…an anonymous girl child, shivering in the cold, hungry… exhausted…wondering what the new year will bring. More hunger? More fatigue? More despair?I can see my mother at the traffic light… she is tapping on the window panes of those fancy cars, hoping to attract a few coins… or if she annoys the owner enough, maybe a ten rupee note flung at her face to make her go away… leave the occupant to continue chatting on that small cell phone. My younger sister and brother are fast asleep on the pavement, near the old laundry. Our pet dog Moti has cuddled up close to them to keep warm. All of them are huddled on the corrugated sheets of cardboard we managed to steal from the packaging company close by. We are okay! We don’t know who our father is – we’ve never seen him. Our mother says she is twenty five years old and once worked in a rich person’s home as a housemaid. But from the time I was born, we have lived on this street and watched her beg. She has taught us to beg , too. When my brother was sick, I would tie him to my waist in a sling made out of rags, and carry him from car to car asking for alms. Some people took pity on us and gave me five hundred rupees. My mother felt really happy when she saw that note and told me to carry my brother around even after he became well. Then my sister had an accident while running across the road after the lights turned green and the cars roared past us in a hurry. It wasn’t the driver’s fault – she was so tiny, nobody saw her in the dark. But, that accident gave us a lot of money – over two thousand rupees. My mother was most happy that day… and even after my sister’s fractured arm healed, my mother told her to keep the plaster since people felt bad and kept giving more money.
These days my mother tells me to cover myself when I beg, since men stare at me and make dirty jokes. Ever since I started to bleed every month, my mother’s attitude has changed. She tells me I must not talk to any man or I’ll get into serious trouble. She also beats me a lot if she sees me chatting with customers who come to the laundry to pick up their clothes. It is dangerous, she says, and I don’t understand. These men are friendly and make me laugh. Some of them give me chocolates and ask me to get into their cars. But I can’t leave my brother and sister alone on the pavement, so I refuse. One day, when they are a little older and my mother isn’t looking, I am going to run away and make my own life. One ‘uncle’ has promised me! He said not to worry about anything. He will give me clothes, food, money… everything. He lives in a big house and he will keep me there… but he doesn’t want me to tell my mother anything. It is our secret, he keeps saying.
Maybe my life will change soon…I never cry and I haven’t lost hope. All I know is that I don’t want to spend my days begging on this road like my mother. She says her life is cursed because she was born female.She also says had she gone to school she would not be on the streets today. I would like to go to school and become someone someday. That ‘uncle’ told me he would arrange that once I leave my family and run away with him in his big car.Last week he gave me a brand new dress saying it is for the New Year. I have hidden it from my mother. He also gave me lipstick and powder saying I will look very pretty if I used both.I dare not try – my mother will kill me and ask too many questions. Never mind, in a few days from now, it will be another year… my mother has managed to get a few caps and whistles for me to sell at the next traffic junction where there are young people on motorcycles. She has taught me to clap, laugh and scream ‘Happy New Year’ each time a car stops. Let me practice now – ‘Happy New Year.”
I am sure someone, somewhere will hear my prayers… and wish me the same also. God is great!

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