Wednesday, December 30, 2009
All for Sushmita Sen
When somebody approaching forty, who in appearance is not "obese", joins a health club or goes on diet, the obvious question is "Why?" - after all we live in India, we are used to being on healthy side (that too scientifically proven). Besides with the approaching age, baldness and being obese is natural - why fight it?
In my case I tell everybody that the reason is Sushmita Sen - the bollywood actress. Well the rationale is very simple, she is single (yet), beautiful, strong, independent and mature women which I would have a remote chance of impressing upon. Otherwise all this charm and lean body would naturally go waste.
As I am approaching my forty, I realized that my opportunity window of impressing species of opposite sex is getting narrower. My wife of so many years, now naturally hates me, several of my old friends know me long enough to get impressed (if at all!). There are not that many single beautiful women out there in India that one would like to impress. The only choice by deduction is Sushmita Sen. Even in terms of probabilities, it is looking good. Using simple math with 1.06 males to female ratio in 15-64 age group in India, I can count my chances with at most 2 or 3 women. If I choose my sample carefully, one of those two eligible single women could be Sushmita Sen. It is quite possible that there are several other single women but probability of me meeting them to impress them is very low. With Sushmita, being a public figure, chances of meeting her are very high. All I have to do is to choose the right time and place.
I have now also enrolled for a personal training which will enable me to develop muscular body. After all the competition is fierce for impressing Sushmita. But then it is worth the effort - did I mention she loves Bengali food, just like me?
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Daily Heroes
The human society as we know it has created so many situations, knowingly or unknowingly, that really requires extraordinary effort to live in the moment. There are people who travel around the world to support their families, individuals go through tremendous personal challenges to make the day and yet maintain smiles on the face. Are these not the real heroes? The people who take their daughter to evening dance classes while after meeting grueling professional goals - day after day without fail, the people who sustain the losses and still start afresh on their pursuits everyday, the people who struggle to meet their daily expenses - all of them are heroes in our daily lives. One can argue that it is tough life, but that does not mean the heroics that we do everyday to make the day are any less significant than winning a war or fighting the social inequalities. People just don't write books about it - that's all.
It is of course less interesting to know how somebody made through the killing traffic to hospital to meet his father in time than an iconic hero fighting crime on silver screen. Daily stories of heroes might be small and to a great extent insignificant but they are are heroic nevertheless!
Monday, December 07, 2009
Choices We Make
Friday, November 06, 2009
Dealing with Death
The fact that life (yours or somebody else's) as you know would not be around tonight, tomorrow morning or perhaps forever is very unnerving thought. While it does provide a perspective on corporate deadlines, ".. I want this ready by tomorrow morning!!" (yeah right!), it does not really help in coming to the terms with death. But on the other hand brooding over it does not help either. Then the world would be very gloomy place, everybody constantly worrying about impending doom (and of course deadlines would have no meaning).
Either due to my naivety or "getting-used-to" syndrome, I have a tendency to ignore the pain. As a cancer patient I have been programmed to think positive. I can not keep long face for very long time. The flip side of this is, I can not identify with the agony others go through while coming to the terms with death, neither can I console others. It is difficult situation indeed, I know what it feels like, but can not really tell others what they should do. In many situations I ask them to remember the happy things in their lives. It sounds sappy and even offensive, but it has worked for me many times. Remembering happy things, the smiles, the joys in your life make life worth living and gives you energy to look beyond the obvious inevitability of death. I think the best way to deal with death is focusing more on life. I focus my energy on living everyday, possibly that helps me to stay put for so many years, beating some not-so-obvious medical predictions about my life!
I really don't know how to deal with death or it's after effects, but I guess I know how to deal with life.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
America Beacons
What draws people to America? Everybody in the world wants to go to America - the land of honey and gold. Paul Theroux in his The Great Railway Bazaar describes everybody's desire to go to America, from eastern Europe to distant Russian outposts in Siberia. Practically every educated Indian youth wants to go to America and settle there. Is it really the land of honey and gold? Is the dream of work hard and you will get rich (and potential harassment by IRS) so attractive? I remember my brothers and father telling me about attraction to America in 70's and 80's. I am puzzled by this attraction in modern times. The borders are opening and world is becoming more connected (as apparent by the Swine Flu epidemic spread we see now in the world - 168 countries in 2 months). Does America still hold the mass magnate characteristics with its super Walmart and drive-in McDonald?
Thank you, but No Thank You!
First reaction for another class reunion - more polite version of "No Thanks". This time it was with bunch of college classmates who claimed to be my friends. They were enthusiastic and polite. A set of people who knew me when I was young and incredulous trying to know me again. Now I am no longer young, just incredulous. Boys mainly spent time in learning about each others work and position in some fictitious hierarchy, girls meek and coy tried to establish a pseudo feminism of “me-too” in the world where their value was sagging. Meeting perfect strangers who knew only part of your life is always overwhelming experience for me. We have nothing in common, no hobbies, no relations, no references – the only thing common is that we spent considerable time together in a large building campus known as college. Most of that time was spent on ogling at girls and/or competing with each other for marks.
These people were supposed to vanish in your rear view mirror, but are, as unfortunate it is, still around and bumping on you. I did not mean they should vanish in literal sense but I always believed that the world was large enough for them not to be seen ever again. I had hoped that they all would have immigrated to some distant land and will never bother me again. That was not to be. They form the virtual communities and create mailing lists and invite you to programs where they introduce themselves again to you. It is a perfect nightmare. Eighteen years have passed since I graduated, lot of things have changed. Several class mates have become bald and/or fat. Several people did not recognize each other and some wanted to be introduced again. I wondered all the time why I was there in the first place. A place that was so unknown that it required me to realign my compass.
Thankfully, some of my life long friends were with me and we bid early good bye to the party and resorted to our own little get together. This helped in subsiding the pain or panic to a great extent. I apologized profoundly to my close friends about my requests to them about attending class reunion.
Reunions are good for people who want to be reunited with the past; I wanted to forget that past. A past spent as embarrassing youth with bunch of strangers, is not worth remembering. Very few life long friendships were formed, rest is better forgotten. People might travel all over the world to get to know each other and be reunited with the past, but for me a class reunion is a ghost from past which I would rather not visit.
My friend Abhi, was right about this after all (usually he is). Class reunion? Thank you, but no thank you!
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Identity Crisis
The registered identity is a funny concept to boot. In order to get one you have to have some government approved id first. Not sure how this works for the millions of people who have more survival problems than thinking about identity. For example my mother with few decades of life still does not has government "Approved" id. She never needed one. Apart from honorable mention on rationing card, she has no record with the government. Of course there are voter lists but they keep changing on the whims of issuing officer. Born in colonial days and having lived through struggle for freedom, she is perplexed about the concept. The idea that somebody would give her a number to prove her identity is foreign to her - and so to many like her. It has uncanny resemblance to the dark past in India's history.
On a lighter note this program would be last nail on abundant freedom my generation has grown up with. I had always teased my friends in western societies about their passive submission to state machinery tracking their every movement with a number, something that our government couldn't and would'nt do. Alas, that would be thing of past now.
Everybody will have a number to go by and can be identified. Think about it. You are engaged in some casual sex with a babe on a remote sea beach in India, while hauling ship load of illicit drugs and POW - in comes the police saying,"well well Mr 00784, what would your wife say if she knew about this girl, eh?"
How are you going to explain to them that they missed the last digit and are confusing you for somebody else? Talk about identity crisis in a country where proving your identity is such a difficult task.