Cheerleaders and Men

India is bitten ( or is it bit) by the IPL fever. From office to cocktail discussions are all about how Shane Warne is captaining to when Rahul will get sacked. I was initially resistant to the lure of the T20 version of cricket but over the month have started following some of the matches. It might also be a by product of me being a sports freak and The Gunners will not win any silverware this year ( so nothing else to watch on TV except maybe what Khali eats and how he walks )
Alas one of the reasons I wanted to watch IPL vanished due to the need to safeguard Indian men from foreign assaults on our morality. My friends had spoken about the extraordinary ability and assets of the Washington Redskin Cheerleaders and the sundry blondes from Belarus and Ukraine but when I started watching for some reason they had donned new avatars and were covered top to bottom. I was away for some time this year and so unfortunately ( or fortunately ) did not follow the fracas and time this issue generated.
On the Reuters India site a blog had been posted on the issue and the gist was that more than the cheerleaders it was important to question our attitude towards women and how we see them. In itself the blog is innocuous and is not the subject of this post, the subject being a comment posted by someone I know which said that if women walk out at 2 they are asking to be molested.
This guy is normal eduacated & likeable. Not the typical boor from Jatland who burn their daughter because of izzat issues. He has been raised in Delhi, did his schooling here and is also a new generation MCA so one cant put him under the classification of ' the poor guy is not educated and so education is the key'. When I confronted him on his post he was quite convinced that what happens to women is bad but is brought to them by their own acts whether what they are wearing or where they are going.
This brought out in stark the issues that women face in Delhi or any Indian City ( Mumbaikars your city is just as bad so dont get sanctimonious ) . It is how the vast majority sees the fairer sex that there is a view that their place is ordained by men and it is the men who will decide what is right or wrong for women.
I dont have a solution but I dont know whether education alone can solve the issue. Till the time we as parents dont communicate these values to our kids this thing will move from one generation to the other. Maybe more and more working women is the answer as proximity might bring in more tolerance and the right value.
This friend asked me ' Tell me, will you allow your sister or wife to go out at 2??' My response was that I dont know whether I have the right to allow but I would definitely advise them against it. Not because Good girls dont go out at 2 but because there are men like you who think that anyone out at 2 is easy meat and available.
May our country get better sense and soon!

Qutub Ki Laat

This weekend started very badly. My fourball called to cancel the games on sat and sunday when I had slogged through Friday to be on the good books of the wife to ensure that I will not be castigated for being out of her hair for two whole days. Women never know what is good and what is bad.
To get more brownie points which I can encash later I agreed to not follow Jeev in Jeju and take everyone to see the Qutub Minar. Everyone means friend, friends daughter, both my sons, wife and your truly ( the driver ). March in Delhi is one of the best times, though this year is slightly hotter than usual but still it is nice and ideal for a trip to a historical monument.
This last year has got me to more Delhi monuments than the last 20 years of my life thanks mainly to people coming and me showing them the sights and sounds of my city. Qutub holds the pride of place. Somehow I find Qutub to be more awe inspiring than even Taj. Taj is for me something like a picture postcard not enough emtion slightly cold, whereas Qutub is raw and the age of the place is palpably felt at the monumnet.
Thanks to the ASI the area is lush, there are less empty Lays packs around the lawns and surprise of surpriseloos are reasonably ok. The only discordant note was the eunuchs troubling young couples. The ASI should do something about this.
Once a month this kind of a trip is also great to get the bonding going again and I for one was quite happy.
Now if only the Golf could have been played post lunch!!!!!

भैया कि भाषा में ब्लाग

Golf, Ernie and Indian Masters

I try to play Golf. Before anyone thinks I am being my modest self let me announce that I AM NOT BEING MODEST!!
Golf is the most capricious game that I have ever played or attempted to play. There are so many variables that I am forever unsure of what I did wrong. And the rare times that I am able to send the ball where I wanted it to go I am unable to replicate that. All this above, is when the conditions are perfect, there is hardly any wind or if there is any it is always the one with a tail. On windy days it is a game of chance and you would not be blamed if you think this is as close to Vegas as you will get in your lifetime.
Anyways last week was the Indian Masters in Delhi and thanks to my friend 'Wanshu I got a chance to watch Ernie Els, Thomas Bjorn, Shiv Kapur, Arjun Atwal, Jeev, Jyoti and Digvijay Singh in action live. The funniest part was that none of us followed the eventual winner SSP Chowrasia ( one more example of the capriciosness of this game ).
Like all other star stuck fans we followed Ernie on his walk around DGC post a sumptous lunch thanks again to the fact that 'Wanshu is cute yaa ( pronounced with a d instead of t) and women just love him naturally. The 5 odd holes that we followed Ernie was a lesson on hope and the fact that no one can claim to have mastered this game. We saw Jeev going OB, Ernie going to the Bunker more than once, Atwal missing a three feet putt which in Lado we would have said 'given' and Kjeldsen doing a three putt after a glorious second shot. In between we also saw Jeev nearly doing a hole in one and two near perfect lobs from a sand and grass dunker by Ernie which was as beautiful a shot as you could possibly see.
A perfect day of Golf and the hope that if these greats can go OB or miss putts I should put my ideas and thought of how much my set s worth at bay.

2008 and Nursery Admissions

The New Year has come in and it is already 15 days old and life is back to its usual humdrum existence of work, family and a little bit golf. The only new part of this year is the Nursery Admission process in Delhi. This year we are also amongst the many who are trying and praying that their progeny get into a 'good' school.

We are trying in most of the south Delhi school and with the confusion created by Mr Ganguly still not clear it is a recipe made in hell.

All schools have their own method of doing their Eenie, Meenie, Myna, Mo and we have gone through three of them. They range from interaction ( interview ) with parents to group discussions. Internet has created new groups where people suffering from post Ganguly depression and confusion can get succor by reading the travails of fellow sufferers.

Taare Zameen par was the ideal movie in these times as all parents have suddenly decided that what they want to do is allow the child to flower without putting undue pressure etc etc. Suddenly 'Pressure' is a bad word not to be used in front of kids.

Speaking of movies I promised to thank the Bijlis for single handedly changing the bollywood movie scene. From the days of one screen halls to multiplexes the movies today have changed from One size fits all to different movies for different audiences. Can you imagine movies like KKG, Bheja Fry, Life in a Metro, Cheeni Kum, TZP coming 10 years back and getting commercial release. Ten years back Dharmedra was still doing his Dog vampire bit. Now at least we have movies which target the ricksaw walah to the mercedes guy.
And Amen to that.

P.S. : My sons learning from TZP - Hostels are not good and if you sent me there ergo you dont love me

A day at the Circus

'The Royal Circus is in your town till Dec 3rd only, so please tell all your friends and relatives to come and visit'. This was an attempt at Viral marketing by the Royal circus marketing department. Since I am not sure how the traditional virus is working so I am using this blog shamelessly as a marketing tool for Royal Circus.

Yesterday I took my kids and some friends of theirs with the mothers to see this circus. It was happening in East Delhi which to all South Delhi people is back of beyond and then some distance. The idea was that kids see the circus and attempt to understand what outdoor live entertainment was for their parents.

The first thing that my son was kicked about was the Elephants munching their food in their enclosures and the camels and horses tied nearby.

The show had trapeze, cycling, Dog and elephant tricks and some russian women doing gymnastics with props. I am sure some of them would have been ex Olympic gymnasts the way their bodies contorted and did impossible tricks.

It was a 3 hour show which I thought was long by 1.5 hrs. I think Circus as an art/entertainment form is slowly dying and in this fast paced and multi entertainment world of ours they face a losing battle to appeal to the minds and senses of the children.

If I ask my kids where would they like to go for a movie or circus they might still say circus but the attached parapheranalia of popcorns, burgers and other stuff was not available in the dusty circus tent. Smarter marketing would also need more color and more show, whether the quality of the audio or the fact that the seating ensured that everyone was not able to view the show , all these need to be checked and acted on.

But my children enjoyed for 2 hrs plus and I would seriously encourage every person to take their kds and show these artistes wh do all these deth defying stunts which we will not be able to do on flat earth.

So folks reading it, the show is on till Dec 3rd only and so go and show your kids what it was to live in the seventies and eighties, OSO be damned.

Festivities never end

If you are an Indian in India you would have noticed how every month has some holiday or other due to our being a secular state. So in addition to the Diwalis, Ids and Christmas we have our Valmiki Diwas also. The only major religion whose festivals are not holidays is Judaism. Why I have no clue! If I was a jew it might make a good case of calling up some TV News channels, gather some goons and proceed to burn some buses. For good measure call this an exercise in Secularism and presto you will give us another holiday on Hanukkah perhaps.
But Come September the Holiday mood grips this vast country of ours as from all corners of India there is something or the other. I am counting Onam also in Sept as the lovely Mallus keep shifting the dates from Sept to August. Then the gujjus do Navratris when the best place in the world to be is in Ahmedabad ( this is true for condom makers and pvt investigators too ). Navratri is followed by Durga Pujo where all Bengalis, the resident and non resident, all go out to buy their annual quota of new clothes and come out wearing the same without ironing them. Ironing means the creases go and then how will people know that the clothes are new. Ak-dom un intelligent - I tell you.
Diwali follows soon after and that signifies the binging on sweets and getting upset stomach to breathing foul polluted air with more NO2 then O2 and becoming unwell.
In Delhi, the city I live, Diwali also means card parties. Till a decade or two back these were friendly events where a group of friends got together and played a bit of card to usher in the goddess of wealth. Now these are bonafide events which have budget of several thousand dollars and where the winner can take home some serious money. There are urban legends where people bet their cars and houses. Draupadi is just waiting in the wing to happen.
I unfortunately dont play card and also dont hknow enough whos who to get invited to such parties but the scale and size baffles me and also brings introspection.