Happy Valentine's Day!

                   

I was sitting at one end of the bench in front of the stereo deck, he on the other end. A balmy evening in early spring. As heavens would have conspired for it, the tube light was not working. Dimly lit by only a lamp in one corner of the room. "Dil hai chhota sa" from the movie Roja, playing in the background. It was just perfect. I could see his face from the side. He was really enjoying the music and perhaps, my company too. My heart skipped a beat. He was my first crush.


He said, "..so you got first in class in the finals, huh?" I blushed and said, "Hmm". He seemed really impressed. I had just got the results of my 3rd standard exams and he had already dropped a year after his 12th board exams. He, of the ruffled hair, black leather jacket and vrooming Rajdoot bike, was so out of my reach. It was as if my heart's strings were plucked on by the roaring of the 350cc engine, which announced his arrrival every evening. Sigh! 

It was pure adoration, unadulterated. I so want to call it love, but with no Valentine's day fuss or expectations of any sort. Simple, innocent love. A very short story which got lost in the deluge of growing up, it was just a beginning of an ever continuing romance with life and men. 


Here's to all my crushes, ex'es, dear friends and loved ones, 
Happy Everyday. Stay loved.

Why this Kolavari di?

 

Yesterday morning, the first thing I noticed on the front page of the newspaper was the Karnataka assembly ministerial blooper. A minister was caught on camera watching porn when the session was in progress. And he is a member of the BJP; trust me it makes a lot of difference. I couldn't prevent a laugh from escaping my mouth. My first reaction was, "Poor thing!" And sure enough the criticism came, followed by demands for resignation. The minister in question drowned with him two other ministers who happened to peep into his cell phone and take part in his mirth.

The moral policing has begun. A senior RSS leader, said: “It is disgusting and shameless.” And the result: the three ministers have tendered resignation. What's disgusting and shameless: catering to one's sexual needs? No, it's not, but being a minister and not doing his duties, definitely is. If the latter is the offence they called shameful, then they should  include taking a nap or reading a novel (a former speaker of the Lok sabha once admitted in an interview reading photocopied chapters of a novel in the house) during the session as punishable offences too. Why should these acts be excused? Practically, the result is the same- duty not being done and time wasted in the house run on public money. Watching porn in the assembly is improper, so is screaming, throwing slippers, hurling chairs and abuses or punching one another. 

Another important thing here is to do away with the hypocrisy. It was in Karnataka where bar girls were proposed to follow a "decent" dress-code. One of the three ministers caught enjoying porn was earlier quoted as saying that 'women ought to know how much skin they should cover when they leave for work' - referring to women who work in the night shift in IT companies and call centres. Its time for BJP and its side-kick RSS to learn a lesson and stop acting as the self-appointed moral guardians of Indian culture. Dear BJP leaders, ruffling religious sentiments and self-righteous moral policing are not going to help you win every election.

You may be wondering why I have not mentioned the names of the ministers. The reason is simply that I didn't want the degenerate ministers to steal away attention from the real problem- the prevalent attitude. It might not even be the general attitude of the public but it has been made out to be so by these hypocritical ministers and self-ordained leaders. For the record, not everyone subscribes to their opinion of what consists our culture. Whatever they keep ranting about to gain favour from their similarly degenerate audience, a people's culture is a living and evolving phenomenon and it will remain so. They may as well cure their selectively myopic view towards which kind of conduct is proper in the House of the government and focus on dispensing their duties, to perform which, the people had elected them.

The fear of an impending loss is overwhelming. Wouldn’t one rather prefer to be surprised unpleasantly, than look forward to something with dread? It’s like dying every moment instead of dying just once. Isn’t everyone entitled to ignore an unwanted truth just as one is expected to tolerate it? But even deciding to ignore it is another pain of enormous proportion in itself. So, I wonder if one should rather always be caught off-guard with grave sorrow than know it is coming. Because then, as I see it, one wouldn’t be plagued by the oncoming stab of pain and one would not have any other way but through. Thus, one wouldn’t also be tormented by the guilt of an unwanted choice of ignoring it being made.

And this pain that I talk about is compounded when it involves people who are dear to one. That’s when one would say something like, “I wish I were the one to die instead of him.” Such show of love! With all due respect to anyone who ever felt thus, have you tried scratching the surface of that emotion? I did. And what did I find? Ah! Just as I suspected, it’s my own fear-the fear of having to deal with the loss and the pain. This is not to belittle human emotions of compassion and empathy. Of course, they are, but very real feelings. But the trigger almost always, seems to be something more selfish than one might ever comfortably be willing to except.