Showing posts with label india. Show all posts
Showing posts with label india. Show all posts

Sarcasm, by definition, is an cutting often ironic statement intended to wound or humour. Definitely not something to use when you are at the barber's. Why you may want to ask? Because of the following events:


1. A bright,sunny Sunday it was and God only knows why everyone in this part of the country finds Sunday the unwritten day to get your haircut. The practical reason behind this trend is obviously Sunday being a holiday and you need not worry about going to work but can worry about your looks. So there was this really long queue at the barber's.

After having read the newspaper twice and heard to all the vernacular hits from the stereo and forty-five minutes the guy just ahead of me his turn came. He was still scooping the newspaper and had also waited 45 minutes. The barber guy asked him,"Sir,have you come to have your hair cut?"

"No I have come to read the newspaper." The man said with heavy sarcasm and returned to his news. So I went ahead and got seated.

Fifteen minutes later as I was leaving our sarcasm man was bickering why his turn had not come and the barber guy replied, "Sir you only said yourself you just came to read the newspaper. Believe me sir some people come here to do that."

But 'sir' was not in the mood for sarcasm.

2.I had gone for a haircut and this barber guy asks me "Do you want to have a shave also?"
This time I reply sarcastically "Yeah definitely. Shave also. That will also test how well you can shave others." I told this cause I had shaved myself just the day before.

But seriously this guy had no sense of sarcasm and had prepared his foam and was about to apply when I stopped him.

Seriously , barbers might be good at talking about a lot of topics while doing their job but sarcasm does not go well with them.

I was at the railway station today booking tickets for a trip and they were more than one person. there who were not in their best moods.


"And 100% tax exemption for political funding. You have hundreds of crores for political campaigns and they go tax free now..." Mr. A was shouting.

"Now that it is raining,I am hating it. The road in front of my house has disappeared. Can you believe that there are people who enjoy all this rain. My landlady's children were bathing yesterday in this rain with soap and scrubber at night 9 . Can you believe that?" Told Mr.X to someone.

"See the guy in front of you has made his ticket but has not paid.So you have to wait for him to come or pay his money and take your ticket," said the clerk. After listening to this a Mr. D forgot he was at a public place and shouted at the top of his voice at the clerk. This was reasonable though I thought.

I don't know why but today was not a normal day there.But the most amazing (why am I calling someone's spontaneous overflow of emotions 'amazing'?) and entertaining(Why entertaining?) is the one that follows.

There was this homely, beautiful girl standing with her father in the ladies and physically handicapped line. As soon as her turn came the father sidelined his daughter and started talking with the woman in charge of that ticket-counter.

"You are neither physically disabled nor a woman. So how come you are standing in this line?" she demanded.

"Well, my daughter was standing in the line..," the father defended himself.

"Just use your daughter. Keep her in a corner of the house and don't let her out to learn things herself. You know , mister, that you are the reason why women in this country can't progress and become independent. Because of people like you the purpose of a girl's life here is only to change a surname and stand in a ladies' line.See I don't want to make an issue."

"Make an issue? You already have, ma'm. Why don't yo just make the tickets and give us? I know you have a monotonous job and you are taking out your frustration like this?"

"Enough sir. If I did not do this monotonous job you can't go on your little trip to..." Looking a the form she said, " Bangalore. If I wanted..."

"Look,ma'm I have had enough of this.I will complain to..."

The 'homely' girl now had also had enough and went to the counter.Setting her father aside she said,"Ma'm please make the tickets." And finally this woman made.

Seriously something was wrong today. May be this woman let loose her feelings because there was no one else in the line. May be...

Seriously when we all shout(this includes me also guys.. notice I used 'we') that people making advertisements are stupid we must realise that their target audience must be expected to be as much stupid if not more. Why do these people under-estimate us so much? A few case-studies...I am not using any names. You know just in case...


1.An AD for a Soap That is Supposed to Make us Fairer
A girl uses this soap(let's call it 'good') on one cheek and another 'ordinary' soap on the other cheek and WOW! The one with the ordinary soap is darker than the one that was done with the soap in question. Friends I don't know about the Photoshop effects used and make up used to prove one cheek darker(Come on that had to be false a girl that pretty would never agree to such attrocities.) but look at this... The lighting of her face is done from the 'good soap' side so that the shadow of the nose naturally darkens the 'ordinary soap' side. I hope you are getting what I am implying.

2.An AD for Chips
A girl and a guy are making a dish where the ingredients are this, that and the chips obviously. They make some idiotic dish with everything else but the chips and they finally throw away the dish in the dustbin(It was really idiotic!!) and eat the chips. WOW! How does this highlight the good features of the chips? Yes it did highlight their slogan but that is equally idiotic guys...

3.An AD for A Computer Training Programme
A girl comes in for an interview and drops her certificates(by mistake or by design I really don't know) and on one of these certificates the name of this programme was written. Somehow all the other entrants see this certificate and of their own accord leave leaving this girl to collect the certificate after ample time, give a million-dollar smile for the camera before going for the interview. Now where in the world do we find such under-confident people for an interview? Plus by this the ad is trying to give us the message by telling "WE ARE GOOD". Who doesn't? Who won't say they are good? Come on show us something about your institute or your programme details. Anything but this.

4.An AD for A Cellphone Network Providing Company
Showcasing the captain of our Indian cricket team advertising the fact that he can stay connected to his friends by a particular site which can be run by a particular service that this network provides. Once this happened. Our respected captain had got out and then this AD was aired. I was buying something at this hotel. Captain tells in ad "I love to be connected to my friends" and a guy at the hotel says "I think that was why you got out so early this time? Now remain connected till the next innings..."Sorry Captain don't take it in the wrong sense.

5.An AD for a Bike
A man finds a genie. He gives him everything "hi-fi"but this guy wanted "normal" stuff - be it a house, a wife or a bike.So he rejects the "good" bike the one being advertised for and takes a normal one. So the bottom-line is that the bike was good or rather hi-fi. But how and why?

Come on advertisers you have enough creativity to come up with such peculiar ideas just do something with substance. I know you all work under a lot of time pressure but make your ads worth their air-rate(if that is the term)...





I must admit to be a teacher is one of the most difficult jobs in this age especially in the primary level when apart from imparting education you also need to inculcate moral values.


But in the secondary level I have seen, have heard about and have been taught also by some queer teachers. And what I have noticed is that these guys have their own pre-planned escape routes if their present knowledge is not good enough to answer a doubt.

Q:Sir, I have a doubt in Q3.

Here are some unique situations:

1.The teacher stares hard at the question and finally is enlightened to the fact that he is not enlightened enough to enlighten the student and lightens himself of the book.

And looks around the class and starts a lecture like this :

"You students will study.... Before asking such questions you all must realise whether you deserve to know the answer, whether you are capable to know the answer. Just ask yourselves that... The answer will obviously be NO. It is all the fault of ..."

The student was thinking that it must be the fault of sir himself as it is he who taught. But it is the fault of..

"..Co-education. Make pairs and sit in classroom. How can you all concentrate in such a situation. End up in cyber-cafes God knows doing what. Sit in front of TV..."

And the lecture ends with the bell and the doubt still remains.

2."Ram will answer the question. He is my favourite student and I know I have given him enough training to be able to answer the question.So Ram.."

Two cases:

(1) If Ram is present he solves the question most of the time and if he is not able to he is at the receiving end and poor chap he is also thrown out of the class.

(2)If Ram is absent then sir expresses his sadness and tells that he is really sad that the only kid who makes his teaching an enjoyable experience is absent and in that ocean of despondency the doubt is drowned.

3. "Stupid very stupid. I must say last year's teachers were so lineant upon you. Do this one first and show me."

And he starts off with elementary examples that are easy to solve.

4."See...my friends Newton had a similar story..." Saying so hhe narrates a story which I think he must have mugged up from 101 Great Lives and ensures the expansion of the story is long enough and interesting enough for the doubt to be cleared off the kiddo's mind.

5.(And the most-cliched trick teachers all around India use and this had happened with me in school.)

"It is not in the syllabus"

"Ma'm, but you only had told to underline and I have a doubt nevertheless..."

"I can explain it to you but I don't think the class will understand."

I was expecting others in the class to retaliate this thinly-veiled insult but no one did.

I insisted,"OK Ma'm I will come to the staff-room in the break to understand."

And next we have an absconding teacher who when caught gives you a book from a senior class to be read that has no relevance with the topic in hand.

That is the way things work around here.

ORIGIN: KOTA

DESTINATION: NEW DELHI
TRAIN: SARVODAYA EXPRESS
TIME: SEVEN HOURS

After the delay of an hour we got on the train. Our seats were occupied by some others as is the norm in such trains. But to see 19 people apart from us three in a compartment was some sort of a shock. People were sitting on the space between the two sleeper berths and on the aisle also.

We requested the 'uncle' to get up and as it turned out his entire family was occupying the seats.

"See, we are respectable people. We don't cause problems to others. And if you want us to get up we will."Having said this the 'uncle' kept sitting. Again we asked him to get up. But he told something to same effect and kept sitting.

Luckily after 5 minutes or so the TTE came along and we atleast got a place to sit-although I was isolated and sharing seats with someone else. Actually the others were waitlisted passengers which did not make it to RAC or confirm list. Still they sat. This is India. Still as was evident all these people had really urgent things to attend to and thats why the TTE I guess was lineant. I am enlisting some unique cases:

1.The 'uncle' and his family were going to arrange I guess their daughter's marriage. But tell me why their entire family was accommodating them?

2.There were two boys around the age of 2o years. They occupied the aisle. They had kept the lights on throughout the night as they were studying for their POLICE FORCE Examination (I am forgetting the exact name.) Hats off to them for even attempting to concentrate.

3. There was this farmer with his goat. He seemed to be accompanying a blind beggar. He was the most annoying person. He did not get down on the platform just before his village but pulled the chain moments later and got down in front of his hut. Lazy people....

It was one of those train journeys I would rather forget. We were up the whole night and bored to the core. Still...

(I have been travelling so there was this delay in my posting.)

My cousin had recently paid me a visit. He lives in a town and his trip to Bhubaneswar (ultimately) served a dual purpose.

Firstly his parents went to a local temple and carried out a puja for him. He had this odd problem. At night he would start shouting out things in odd languages kicking and smacking whoever slept beside him. The priest who was performing the puja blammed this behaviour on the misalignment of planets.(Sometimes I wonder if these planets would not be there who would be there to blame.India!!!)


That night he had slept with me. He starts shouting in his sleep. "Pikachu try electric shock. Shin Shan look out there's mom.Doraemon,Pokemon,Digimon....Tom evade attack. Goku and Picollo save Gohan..." Someone save me. This guy was kicking and smacking me. I woke him up and asked him what he was dreaming about. He drank water and slept again. I did not try to sleep again on the bed - the sofa is much better.

Next day things became clearer. I stayed with my cousin the whole day and all he did was watch television and all he watched on television was cartoons. So that's it...He appeared to be a complete addict actually and got on a high as if he is on drugs.




He was watching Tom and Jerry (Who does not love this?) and as there are no dialogues in the cartoon he was giving commentary describing the scenes and characters and descriptions and their associated dialogues - all given in all the three languages he knew. Hey that's good na!His eloquence and extempore was superb.

But as soon as I told this to my aunt and uncle, they were hell bent that this kid needs to be shown to a psychatrist. And they did go...



THE PRESCRIPTION
All cartoon channels be blocked from this child. He suffers from Cartoon-mania.

Before I went to on this bus to a town called Balasore I had just alighted from a flight and it starts from there.

GAMES TO PLAY IN AN AIRPORT

This photo speaks for itself(and the sub-heading). It is quite blurred because these kids were moving on this trollley at dangerous speeds and my phone's camera is not all that great. Plus there is a third kid who had to do all the pushing.
I wish I had made a video because then you could have seen how this vehicle was avoiding humans, luggages , pillars, beautiful air-hostesses and other trolleys as well.


SWEAT AND AN ODE TO SNAKE-CHARMERS IN INDIAN FILMS
The bus in which I was making this trip had a driver who was a man of his principles. Actually his only principle that I came to know was that the TV in the bus would only be on if the AC was off. So for half the journey all the passengers had to cope up with a video on the TV that showed songs from Indian movies with snake-charmers as heroes and usually another snake -charmer as the villain. And the snake would always be the heroine. No points for guessing why?


It was a quite aboring show though almost all the villagers travelling in the village were catured by pure cinematic joy. I mean how can people enjoy this. Here's a scene.


Aamir Khan(I did not know he had ever played a snake-charmer) and Juhi Chawla were dancing away. Then night fell and they lit a fire. Aamir was warming himself near the fire. Then Juhi appeared on the scene and bit her lip which was a sort of a symbol for Aamir. He then leaves the fire having found another source of heat and joins Juhi and ....
All this was done to the tune of a been or pungi(an instrument played by snake-charmers). OMG.

AC AND A GIRL
Finally half the trip was finished and the AC was on. And this beautiful girl gets on the bus and guess what?. Occupies the seat next to me. Okay. I had at least two hours. So I could talk with her, impress her, modernise her (if she is a small-town girl), exchange phone numbers.... Actions speak louder than words dude. So just as I was mustering up all my courage to break the ice, she starts crying. I have not spoken as yet girl why are you crying? Is there a problem with my aura itself?

"Why are you crying?" I asked.
"No it is nothing." she said.
"Okay so you cry just like that. "

I don't know why but that made her smile. Girls, when they cry and smile at the same time, look really good.
After a while,
"Can you give me the window seat?See I always vomit everytime I travel by bus...,"she asked, still looking down.

As soon as I heard the word vomit, I had gotten up to exchange the seat.After this exhange I thought the ice was broken and I should talk further but just then...

"Can I use your phone? I have to talk with someone and I don't have balance."
Hey this girl was being too much now. God knows how long she will talk. Nevertheless I gave her the phone. All my fears were allayed when she typed a Vodafone number as Vodafone to Vodafone is free. Yipeee!!

"Please try to understand," she was talking on the phone and I could not stop myself from overhearing. "I was not in town that day. Yeah, I am coming there. No you don't go. We will talk first.We just can't end like this."
Was she talking with her boy-friend?
She said the three magic words just before returning the phone and simultaneosly clearing all my doubts once and for all.
Don't build castles or in this case relationships in air guys.

CATCHING A RUNNING BUS
I went down to a shop to have a cold drink when this bus had stopped for a break. I had not finished when this bus started moving. And I ran(I usually avoid running. I don't look good while running.)I had all my original certificates in my luggage which was now on the bus. Why was not the conductor stopping the bus seeing a stranded passenger running. He made a sign for me to catch the bus running. I ran with all I had and finally near the door I made this jump onto the doorstep. The feeling of going from thhe speed I was running to the speed of the bus in milliseconds is a feeling everyone should feel sometime.The acceleration was intoxicating. People in metros do it everyday though.


SPIDERMAN DID NOT DO THIS
The bus was overloaded by the time we reached Balasore. The conductor was hanging out of the bus literally gripping only to one of the handles on the bus. What a feeling must that be! The girl was sitting two windows away from the door. The conductor made a mini-trip then. He held onto the windows and came to the second window to make the transaction as he had not yet taken money from the girl- all this when the bus is in motion. Plus there was not a bit of fear in his face or eyes that he will ever lose grip and consequently his life. He also returned to the door safely.
And finally I reached Balasore.


LOOK OUT!
My mother and me had been to this temple today. As it was Monday there was this huge rush in the temple and there were about a hundred to two hundred people in the room where the Ling was there. The floor was slippery because of a large number of mashed bananas which were supposed to be for the God. Finally both of us managed to get near the God and my mom stood near the corner while I stood beside.

Just then the priest who was standing still till then turned around ....

"Look out, " I shouted.

But the priest had already smashed the coconut on the wall inches away from my mom's face. OMG. Beware guys.

BURNING SAREES & BOUNDLESS FAITH
The following image showcases seemingly innocuous objects called diyas/deeps but can be fatal at times.






These are called diyas or deeps.








A lady's saree's (for all the non-Indian readers its a clothing Indian women wear) end caught fire and slowly burnt its way up but the devoted lady was busy chanting prayers with eyes closed. Anyone would feel that the saree was on fire but this woman was so much into her prayers that she did not seem to notice at first. Finally she did notice when the priest threw a bucket of water at her. The woman obviously was too taken aback by the fire burning out that she fainted.

Amazingly till she was praying she seemed fine. As they say, ignorance is bliss.

FORGIVE & FORGET
People give their offerings to God on this huge round bronze plate. It is usually filled with lots and lots of coins and a few random notes usually those that are torn or crumpled if you notice closely. I was just looking around while my mother finished her prayers and my eyes fell on this lady. Her fingers (and consequently she) were upto no good. She was faking as if she was putting a coin on the plate but actually she was taking away coins. She did this for about two to three times. Quite a thief !

But then all of a sudden she took out those collected coins and kept them back on the plate and looked around for people noticing her great offering because people usually give one or two rupees. God for this lady will forgive and forget.



EDUCATION

I am back today after a two-day trip to my village. My first day there was mostly spent with a Mr. Mishra whose job is to set up free schools for tribal girls in that district. He is a very enterprising man just entering his forties and also very knowledgeable too. He was telling me about the new school he had set up in our village.

"Building a school and getting teachers and other functionaries is the easiest part of having a school here. It's getting students to study that's really difficult. I had to employ five men to go around neighbouring villages to gather students. We managed to get about thirty girls who agreed to attend school. But after the first day the attendance dropped to fifty percent."

"Why did that happen?"

"The girls said they felt hungry and could not sit for such long hours at a stretch. So we decided to give them a couple of breaks of fifteen minutes. We also got our school registered in the Free Afternoon meal programme. But these girls never stopped complaining. They did not want dal and rice everyday. Let me tel you my friend these girls come from families where they only eat two times a day. Still I hung on with them and had them egg and chicken given on alternate days. I am ready to do anything my friend only if they agree to study. But these girls don't seem to be doing anything remotely associated with studying. After a month also, there were lots of them who could not start with the alphabet.I told them that they won't get good marks and one asks me "Sir what shall we do with marks? We can't eat them or live in them."Then these girls made a group and told that it hurt them to walk all the way to school and they were too tired to concentrate at night. So I arranged a vehicle who would collect all these girls to school and drop them later."

"That is so good of you Mr. Mishra. Now these girls must be studying and ..."

Mr . Mishra cut me short.

"These girls are nothing short of scoundrels. They came to me again in a group and told they can't study. It's not that they were not given opportunities. They just can't study. None of them wants to try even."

"Then, what did you do?"

"I called them for a last lesson last Tuesday. My friend who was in the local theater group agreed to help me out. He and two of his colleagues staged a play in which they showed an illiterate girl being exploited in the market: buying overpriced stuff, not being able to know and identify weights and so on. The girls realized then the purpose of education. Next day there was full attendance."

You just can't force things on people even if it is for their own good. Self-realization is very important if any such endeavour has to take a practical shape.

And education needs to be backed with purpose. Education without purpose is useless - similar to teaching a tribal girl The Theory of Relativity.


The Media

As I was zapping through the channels on my tv set the other day, I came across a weird piece of 'news' on a really obnoxious channel called Ind**TV. A very dramatic and excited voice narrated the following:

"Why?Exactly why do you think these two batsman Herschelle Gibbs and J P Duminy are playing well? People I plead you to think what might be the reason.Notice these two photos closely. I think you can tell why they are playing so well. Yes, my viewers its exactly what you think. They play so well because they are both... because they are both ........ bald."

Wow! Could never have figured that out myself. Then that guy who calls himself a journalist went on to tell about what ingredients might have been mixed in the 'prasad' given by Priety Zinta to the Kings XI and what might be the reason why Kevin Peterson was the only person from the opponents side to have eaten that prasad. That person went onto narrate various theories regarding it. I don't know about news but when it comes to expanding your imagination and widening your thought process about the weirdest possibilities this channel surely helps.

Among the other stuff broadcast by this channel are :
1.When is the world coming to an end?
2.Who is the left-handed magician that is bringing the world to his feet?(Answer: Barrack Obama)
3.Who brought the left-handed magician to his feet?(Answer: His helicopter when the US Prez got struck with the door of the helicopter)
4.Why is ******** Baba not leaving his house anymore?
and lots more...

From where does this channel get such audacity to show all this on national tv for hours and hours together? (Nowadays everyone is getting more and more daring. For instance, the question setters of maths in CBSE XII exam. I still now can't digest the fact that these guys asked us the HCF of two numbers directly. It felt like a slap on my face. Questioning a class XII student about class III stuff.)The crew at that channel are doing the obvious. Going by the fact that most of India is superstitious, ill-educated (still) and cannot take too much substance at one time, they are broadcasting such weird ideas. What they need is TRP so they target religion in India. Well who does not? From the politicians to the conservative parents everyone has religion that they can use as a weapon. That is somehow a really big weakness in our integrity. We attach so much passion with it that we forget how some people are taking advantage of it.(We here does not imply me or you its for the general people. I don't have that much a connection with religion. My friends obviously had other divine purposes why they visit temples regularly: to praise the 'divine' beauty.)

Everything needs to be dramatized in the Indian media to sell.(Well this is an accepted fact in India. Thats why Om Shanti Om,Heyy Baby,Singh is King got better box office results than Aamir,Mumbai Meri Jaan,Firaaq and even Slumdog Millionaire). Somehow the general public in India does not want substance. We would prefer a hero that beats up gangs of gangsters alone(Ghajini) rather than a realistic hero who dies due to a bomb attack. We must somehow ensure that no one takes advantage of the way we are.Thats not definitely what these news guys must be thinking. Everytime I zap through this channel I am reminded of a ill-directed theatrical performance. Why can't they just tell the news after all there are other channels on air that serve the purpose they are trying to?( Sometimes you can catch repeat telecasts of your favourite soaps right here in news channels.) I would prefer to watch a regional news channel than this national channel;at least I would get news.Barring a couple of channels that are still virgin to all these tactics and still give pure news ,all the others in some proportion or the other sell dramatised news. Guess its only when we change will these news channels change.

We have tried the iPod and the iPhone , for once lets try this new gadget: iChange.

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