am very very ill...down with a viral infection...but feverishly working away...

head is filled with too much of data on Bt cotton to write anything of significance right now...

struck up a conversation with the Big B...my day has been made!!

hello from the Computer Centre at IGIDR...

never felt better about working overtime!! (am required to work only monday to friday..today is a saturday.)

:)

all kinds of people have been walking in and introducing themselves to me...some even offered me chocolate!!

not bad eh?? not bad at all i say...

was bobbing up like an apple in a bowl of water all day long...which implies i am quite enjoying my new 'job'...so much so that Prof. Eye Candy (whom i report to for this project) had to remind me about lunch...

they even had a tea party for us!! it can't get grander than this can it??

planned a week long trip to Nagpur which got cancelled though coz we are being sent all the data from there...i guess the media guys there are getting all enthu about this project as well...we asked for one year's data..they are ready to send us five years' data!! via CD!!

am getting used to being called Bibha (beginning to love that bong-oriya accent now...the comps dude yelled it out from the other end of the room today!!)...bumping into all kinds of academicians...so there's Prof Big B... coz i was passing through his room...and the door was open...and he was sitting there on his chair in great style and grandeur...his legs stretched out on the table...reading a paper...and the only thing i could imagine him saying was, "Rishtey mein hum tumhare baap lagte hain!!"

then there's prof. Wannabe Creepy!! who just stares as if to intimidate...after bumping into him several times today..i finally gave up and stared back...have been warned by good souls around not to smile in case that leads to a conversation...

Achievement of the Day!!
vibha@igidr.ac.in

...what?? you think i can type anything after that??

ok..here's an old recollection..that was quite funny even when it happened...

it happened to be my first or second day at xavier's...generally..was just geting used to economics and jargon thrown at me in class...was just out of Class 12...all fresh and eager to absorb everything that the prof chooses to speak about...

so the prof was talking about different theorists...and of course Adam Smith was mentioned...being 'baap' of economics and all that...so obviously we were talking about laissez faire economics (free market theory) and the prof mentioned the phenomenon of the 'invisible hand'..now i happened to be sitting somewhere in the middle row...and the prof had a strange goan twang to his accent...and was pretty inaudible as well...

nothing much...i was one of those kids who wanted to read up more...and the prof's goan twang made sure i spent a couple of days trying to look up the term 'invisible hen'!!

some light years ago when i was upset about something (big then...pretty silly now) i was told to get myself a job...coz apparently there is this survey (one of those insignificant things that the US specialises in and exports to the rest of the world) which found out that getting a job could prevent people from being /staying upset...you know..it's like..if you get upset about something in your life...just go ahead and get yourself a job...it pretty much eases out things...i guess it helps you get distracted and stuff...

anyways not that i was really upset about anything now...was just waiting for my well laid out plans to unfold themselves...when out of nowhere comes an opportunity...a 'job' ? (nah..it's several times worthier)...just like that...just so that i don't even come close to getting upset ever...

so yours truly is now working as an investigator on a research project with the Maharahstra govt. on farmers' suicides in the state...so all my marathi skills will be put to test as i do a content analysis of media coverage of the suicides...will remain chained to the computer centre at IGIDR (Indira Gandhi Institute of Devpt. Research) for the next one month...

obviously something like suicides is pretty upsetting in itself...isn't it ironic? get yourself a job so that you don't get upset..and end up doing a case study on people who were driven to desperation and ended their lives...

there are more ironies waiting to be discovered...like most of the farmers ended their lives by consuming pesticide...ironically called 'dava' (medicine) by the locals...

like Alanis would sing...isn't it ironic..don't you think?

back after the big day...first amongst my group of friends getting married and all..so it's bound to be a little dramatic...

so there we were...manasi and i...at 10:45 a.m well in time before the bride and groom arrived...well i told you we didn't want to miss a thing...and you have to trust me when i say we tried very hard to be inconspicuous...of course manasi's mercedes and my haircut didn't help..but we tried our best....

so there we were...in the hall...amidst scores of relatives who were trying to get everything in order before the couple arrived...and the mandatory video camera guy was hovering around..went completely berserk when he saw us...and refused to stop focussing on us...we guessed he was collecting evidence of gatecrashers...all this as we tried to blend with the wallpaper...

finally the couple arrive and so does the rest of the ACJ gang...and then of course all hell breaks loose...coz Patnaik was there...

to begin with she is overcome with emotion and rushes onto the stage to congratulate paro...nothing wrong with that except that there were people who were already congratulating the couple...and obviously didn't want patnaik in their photograph with the bride and the groom...so we had to pull patnaik back..and keep her restrained for the rest of the event...as if this wasn't enough...a little bespectacled kid comes rushing by and pulls patnaik's sari mistaking her for his mom(that explains the tyke's spectacles)...of course patnaik's perplexed scream was enough to scare him away into silence for the rest of the day...

we carefully strategised our lunch hour...we first hogged the chairs and sat in them long enough to mark our territories...and then..when everyone else who had eaten were fed up of waiting for chairs and left...(not to mention the hajaar rude looks we got)...we decided to pay heed to our rumbling stomachs...

all this while the camera and video guys had broken loose on the couple with a vengeance...making sure that the bride and groom looked most uncomfortable in the poses recommended for better clarity and postcard perfect pictures...surely the photographer has plotted to superimpose the bride's profile amidst the Alps for the final wedding album...and will expect to be patted on the back for his techological prowess and creative insights...

at the same time the assistant video guy made sure he caught people stuffing their faces as well...it's all part of the evidence gathering strategy you see...

and finally after a long conversation over lunch and the necessary goodbyes...we headed back home...as inconspicuously as we had entered in the merc!!

(am sure I'm going to earn the rep of a hypocrite after this blog..but being honest has it's own price to pay...sigh!!)

am back to my GI Jane look after a hopeless attempt at trying to brave the heat and resisting all temptations to cut off my hair...

generally patnaik (of ACJ fame is here)...so all hell is expected to break lose tomorrow on paro's big day (her wedding and all...)

patnaik has already plotted to play pranks on me at the rate of one per hour...(generally..she belongs to the category that says... i maybe 25 but vow to be 12 forever!!)

just heard off the grapevine...that TOI is hiring big time just to create a shortage of skill for HT and DNA...they plan to lay off all the excess staff they hire within a few months after their launch...oh the dirty schemers that they are...have i told you that their HR chick behaves as though they are doing you a favour by employing you at the TOI...

i miss the times spent in a godown disguised as an office..(my previous workplace) discussing with senior reporters the need for a union...

went for paro's party...(please to be noting this was my first visit to the Press Club...quite shameful for a supposed journo...) realised i am so out of the circuit...haven't been in the journo circle for about seven months now...there i was like a 'fifteen year old' (that was the closest someone came to my age...when will people realise that height is not indicative of age)...with a glass of lime juice in my hand...making quiet observations so that i could caricature people for joyie later on...(to make her laugh of course...)

as legend has it... all journos love a good drink...the party made sure that the legend is carried forth in good stead...the bar counter was the most crowded...with conversations on the latest takeovers and the stakes involved..(almost all of them were from the business newspapers)...

a roomfull of people...and here i am...without a minute's worth conversation that i can remember well enough to blog about...

of course friends made sure i wasn't too out of place...trying to introduce me around...so that i could start up a conversation...and in the process i discovered that i was famous!! found people who had heard about me all the way from my college years...

so here's to my new found fame!! (or rather infamy considering that the people who made me famous were more of of the infamous types...)

Jackie Chan is the best thing to have happened to movies!!

and whatever happened to children's film's in India..just watched Makdee...and i thought it was so well made...simple narrative..some great acting too..the film reached out to it's target audience by keeping in mind the social dynamics of the village setting...good attempt at showing gender equality (the protagonist is a littl girl) and the film's message which was to encourage kids to develop a rationalistic mind was sent out quite clearly!!

quite obviously only someone as fine as Vishal Bharadwaj (maqbool fame) could have made a film like this...i wish there were more such films for school kids...they wouldn't have to feed on the regular bollywood crap then for entertainment!!

our man Lalu is in the news once again...he plans to ban the sale of colas on trains...well...as much as i am against colas...sadly enough i don't think his plan may work..not just coz it may face widespread protests by those who swear by colas but also coz the stakes are too high...politically...also the 'free' media will never support it..(they are already up with arguments in support of lactose intolerant passengers who cannot drink lassi or buttermilk that is supposed to replace colas on trains...after all a sizeable amount of media revenue is generated by cola ads)

also coz i think in a scenario where we are supposedly 'free' to make our choices...it takes more than a ban to convince people about 'responsible consumption'...it takes more than a ban to ask people to question their choices...it takes an empowered people like those of Plachimada in Kerala who forced the closure of Coke in their village after they discovered that their groundwater level had dropped drastically after the bottling plant was set up...what millions of us educated Indians could not fathom..a few hundred (non Harvard returned) villagers laid bare...that "water..a life giving resource of this land belongs to the people of this land...and no one can commercialise it for their private gains...no one..." it didn't take an official ban for them to protect their resource...

If one cares to research a little bit..one would find out that cola bottling plants exploit the country's groundwater resources indiscrimately..leaving millions in rural areas thirsting forever... somewhere in a village far away from the maddening heights of consumerism that has enveloped our cities..thousands of women and children are walking miles to fetch a pot of brackish water..so that we may not be deprived of our bottle of fizz!!

the case against colas is not about 'Swadeshi' versus 'Videshi'...it's about appropriate technology..the whole case about large scale versus small scale...i think Gandhian socialism has been left largely ignored in the current context...(if anyone has a copy of EF Schumacher's Small is Beautiful..i am looking for one..)

i don't think it hurts to fill up a bottle of water from home everytime we step out instead of heading for the stall selling mineral water...

as for Lalu's ban on colas...it may be recalled that the hallowed portals of power (the Parliament) banned the sale of colas only when they were found to have high pesticide content...yet another evidence of self preservation i guess...

(for more on this will upload an article by a prof of mine...have to ask for permission...)

yay!! yippee!! whee!! hoo!!

ok i am overdoing it...but when you have like stuck your nose to your books for over four months..arduously working your way through high school math and applying the same to economics and trying to hold your head high despite your inherent weakness with numbers...and finally get over and done with it...the feeling is unexplainable...

anyways moving on and forwards...

this whole idea of having plan A- Z is proving to be slightly tideous..now am tempted to take two more exams...(secretly i think it is my diffidence that is provoking me to do so..)

so 65 per cent of Indians have no post retirement plans...well...i am thinking...Obviously!! one-fourth of the population does not even have a plan for the next day..leave alone thinking about 30-40 years down their life...for all you know they are probably hoping they don't live that long...

It's here...i thought it would never come...but it sure has...48 hours to the 'baap' of all exams...and i am busy cracking all kinds of codes in order to remember several dozens of formulae...

more from me only after the exam!!

Hum honge kaamyaab...( have been watching Jaane bhi Do Yaaron!!)

remember good lookin' parvathy i told you about some days back..(i was most disappointed that she left the world of biz journalism)..the fresh dope is that she is getting HITCHED!!

yeah..has drowned hook, line and sinker for the institution of marriage...

well...i guess yet another one bites the dust!!

anyways..paro..all this is in good humour!! go for it gal!! all the best!!

(hopefully i have sufficiently made up with the latter bit of this blog to wangle an invitation for the feast that you will lay out on your big day!! hahaha)

Telemarketing guys have found their perfect customer in my newly retired pa!

just yesterday...this dude who was surveying computer users starts off on his politest ever...

so what started off with the usual questions such as, " what brand of PC do you own..do you have a printer..how often do you use the computer.".so on and so forth.. then got a little more detailed.." What would you look for if you had to invest in a new PC? Why would you choose a particular brand over others...?"

Nearly fifteen minutes into the survey..(please to be noting...at this point of time..mum and i are looking at each other completely confused..) pa gets another call on his cell...so he politely excuses himself from the marketing dude and takes that call...five minutes later the dude calls again..and the survey continues...(i could lay amillion bucks down to the fact that no one ever would actually ask a telemarketeer to call back) and now the questions have completely changed.." Sir do you own a car..a credit card...a cell phone..a club membership.." (At this point of time..i was sure we were being conned into disclosing our assets to some IT officer) and after a total of twenty five minutes...pa finally hangs up!!

ma is nearly in splits at this point of time and says, " Whoever said tat retired people get talkative was talking out of experience!" pa of course wryly remarks, " What! poor guy..am sure of out ten people he calls..six must be cursing him before they hang up abruptly..i have all the time in the world now..."

so this is an open invitation to all telemarketeers ..pa is more than willing to oblige! but your luck may last for precisely about four days...

coz Pa's found a job...in GOA!! a shipping company and all that jazz...

of course my friends were most excited to hear about it...all of them without fail screamed, " wow!! GOA!! why don't we get jobs like that?"

now how am i supposed to explain to them that my pa is not some pot smoking, pub hopping, foot tapping junkie for whom Goa spells a lifelong party!! he is a regular old Tam Bram father who hates the smell of fish!!

-----------------------

so the Times of India is planning to lauch a newspaper called the Bombay Mirror...it will be for the 'serious' reader!!

does this mean that they finally accept the fact that the TOI is a joke?

Never before has the Left been more desperate to make itself irrelevant in the US, UK and India…

The Labour victory in UK (with the narrowest margin) only signifies the lack of an alternative the world over…the options left with the voter are only ‘bad’ and ‘worse’… for the first time in history… both sides (the conservatives and the Labour) are actually crying themselves hoarse over who could have ‘terrorized’ Iraq more effectively? This is what I call the end of ideology…where alternatives cease to exist…and there is only one side to a debate…the other side is gagged and thrown away… far from the realms of consciousness…so that it may never again bother the practitioners of real politik…

went completely berserk with Suhas' new camera phone...wasbehaving like a kid with a new toy...i guess gadgets tend to do that to tecchie retards...

as i discover now...suhas actually had an exciting college life...with prejudiced professors who had sworn to finish off the tribe of ICSE students...he went to a college that is considered the bastion of Maharashtrian culture and pride...where the professor enters class and says, " This college is marathi, the professors are marathi, the peons are marathi, so you also become marathi..." (this is the simplest solution yet to identity crisis) Welcome to D.G. Ruparel College...the college that takes only state and city toppers so that they can in turn produce more toppers...

the next day the professor enters and wreaks his vengeance against the ICSE students...there is already a demarcation in class...that seperates the wheat (SSC students) from the chaff (ICSE dudes). and then the prof drawls, " You ICSE students do A, B, C paper, (i.e, easy exams) enter good institoot and spoil name of institoot..."

and if you happen to be an ICSE student who may be the only one who knows an answer...and dares to open your mouth..heaven help you coz you will be subjected to the final assault when the prof asks, "Hav you knewd?"

full bollywood ishtyle drama is waiting to unfold in my dad's side of the family...

one of my cousins (dad's sister's son) has just revealed his choice of a life partner...and it happens to an American doctor!! not like an NRI doctor...but 100 percent american...and she insists on a full Tam Bram wedding...this is going to be the highlight of the year...

i can picturise my aunts sympathising (albeit secretly) with my aunt (the one whose son has made the revelation!!). one of my uncles i am sure is going to mourn and curse the loss of culture amongst the younger generation of our Tam Bram tribe

and of course..when my cousin does come with his fiancee ...everybody will welcome her and be on their best behaviour...and in their best of finery of course...and they will painstakingly explain the intricacies of a hundred mumbles mumbled by the pot bellied priest during the wedding...

i am telling you it's a hit!! Come December and i am headed for the dress circle...

Dear Mr. Chief Minister,

"Shanghai's is simply one of the best cities...there is this pub which is is like several feet about the ground..so it gives you this ethereal feeling when you are on top of the world getting high!!"

so on and so forth boasted a friend's pilot boyfriend about his 'Shanghai' experience...

am sure he could give a lesson or two to R.R Patil..our honourable home minister who is taking a breather from moral policing in the city and is off to Shanghai to learn how to transform 'aamchi mumbai' to 'sexy shanghai'...he is learning pretty fast...a sartorial makeover is already in place...

Shanghai...will be built over the houses of just about 45,000 people (give or take a few from this approximate...it doesen't matter..we are just talking about nameless faceless people who live in the fringes of the city anyways..it's not like lke they make a difference...) it will be built over the spaces of (called 'homes' by) about 60 percent of the population which decided to make do with just about 18 percent of the available space in the city(this includes open drains..marshy lands, etc) ...'they' decided to wash our cars, clean our houses (both the insides and the outsides), walk the streets at night for us to keep us safe, and basically just be there at our every beck and call for a pittance so that 'we' have comfortable cushy lives...now that 'we' have become comfortable and our cars have gotten too big for our roads...'we' have decided that 'they' don't deserve to be here anymore coz our city is looking 'ugly'..(what with grimy pot bellied babies running across streets..and the tarpaulin sheets spoiling the 'beautiful' skyline replete with illuminated hoardings..) so now poverty is 'ugly'...but please to be noting...this is the land of 'beautiful' people...this is place where plane jane Jassi becomes Jessica...

all we need to do to get rid of the 'ugliness' of poverty is to get rid of the poor so that we can make space for more of our kinds...so that 'we'can walk freely, eat freely, and drive freely...it's that easy honey to get rid of 'ugliness', 'poverty' and 'guilt' all in one stroke!! (boy! have we have mastered the skill of killing three birds with one stone or what!!)

anyways that's what the state does everytime it begins to feel guilty about it's shortcomings...( in the Emergency it was "let's sterilise the poor coz we can't provide for all the people..so let's do away with the 'ugly poor')
(as for the dance bar ban..the state said, "We can't look at our women making an exhibition of themselves...of course we have failed to give them a better way of living...but what can we do now..oh yeah..we can just ban them..so that we don't have to live with the guilt of looking at their plight anymore...) and the Shobha Des of the city will hail us for doing so...so that they can continue to party without guilt and create a 'happier, prettier and safer city for all of us!' and when we drive back home we don't have to worry about running over those things called 'people' who sleep on the roads

after all nothing is comparable with the feeling of getting 'high 'several feet above ground level...

Yours sincerely

Post Script:
Shobha De (the supposed journalist who calls herself a 'social demographer' because she documents the 'stardustization' of India and is all for the Shanghaization of Mumbai) sarcastically remarked that maybe she should park herself in the governor's garden considering that everyone who was migrating to the city was comfortably settling down all over the place...I say, not a bad idea Ms. De...maybe a little time out in the sun spent gardening would do you some good!! maybe your flat that has been built over reclaimed land (hence over mangroves, which makes it liable for demolition if we were to implement Coastal Regulatory Zone norms in all earnesty) could be demolished and the land returned to the original inhabitants of the city...

so the nervous wreck in me is finally showing up...three days after an exam..i am still getting up in the middle of the night...thinking of all the silly mistakes i have made...

so back to my book after a day's break...can't think of anything to type right now..except that...i have just realised that one lifetime isn't enough to read all that i want to...meet all the people i want to...and change careers as much as i want to...

have been reading Sweezy on Theory of Capitalism...found the beginning a little difficult (please to be noting...am just getting intiated into the world of marx) but now it's getting easier...can't wait to finish it and discuss it...

finally watched 'Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi'...
once in way...in an industry dominated by bubblegum cinema...there comes a filmmaker who is grounded in reality...someone who uses films as an opinion...as a statement...as a tribute...

Sudhir Mishra captures the heady idealism of the late sixties and the early seventies well...the failed state...the rising student movement...the Naxalite movement...justification for violence..."Violence of the oppressors is wrong..but violence of the oppressed is right."..dreams of a few to create a new social order in a society that has been marred by too many in built contradictions...the fight for freedom in a 'free' country...disillusionment with a supposedly socialist state...disappointment with Nehru...hatred for Indira and everything she stood for...the contradictions in the idea of revolution...which i found akin to Amitav Ghosh's The Hungry Tide...

Mumbai needed a movie like this..i am sure...but..sadly we still remain too distanced from the core of everything..there is obviously something fundamentally wrong with the way we think...which is why when someone like Ashutosh Gowariker calls Hazaaron...the most important political epic of our times...you realise that he too is a product of a society that is largely dominated by the monority called 'aspirational India'...'petty bourgeosie' some call them...and that is precisely why the statement gains an added importance in the current context...it is reflective of a section that is totally unaware of another section's inhuman existence...

and some things will remain...i guess..fundamentally wrong...what else could explain one third of the audience walking out of the film after the interval...

nonetheless...i am feeling more guilty than ever about every choice i make...